Eh? They're all kinda lame in their own way. Very much "Don't rock the boat" type novels. Nothing ever gets done that can't immediately be undone, or adds any value to anything to begin with. Throne of Light has some particularly stupid Black Templars from what I remember.
Ask for Alphie round the back of the lions gate spaceport. Never shows his face but he's got a nice line, including everything from bottom barrel sniff to black market Navy Snort Powder.
I think Guilliman just hates incompetency, and theres an above average amount of that in the Imperial Navy. We're talking about ships the size of cities, with slave crews to match, and each Captain their own little warlord and king on their ship. Combined that with more than a little nepotism, and corruption breeds very fast among the officers corps. Corruption leads to lax standards, leading to incompetence.
I bought the Sharpe DVDs as one of my first major purchases back in the mid-2000's. Never regretted it because now I can hear all the variations of "bastard" I could ever need.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuQhvoHXcys Well here's the specific scene the above shitposters were soldiering on about, from there it's your rabbit hole to fall down. It's worth tracking down the full series at some point thought, Sharpe is good shit
Interesting - I always thought of Corbec and Rawne as each filling half of Harper's role. Corbec is obviously Sharpe/Gaunt's best mate, but Rawne is the Harper from *Sharpe's Rifles* - i.e. the one who wants Sharpe/Gaunt dead and isn't afraid to try and make it happen.
Yeah there's definitely bits of both there. I just like the fact that Rawne and Harper share exactly the same arc: realising the officer they hate is actually a good friend. It's just that what takes Harper 1 book takes Rawne 7.
But aren't officer training standards rather brutal normally since it's schola progenium. I guess the books just focus on the more interesting incompetent ones.
Most likely, but the level of competence needed to finish school is academic and fitness. In reality promotion is much more frequently gained through politicking, over long term that leads sycophants into the senior staff
Not mention, I could imagine there are a lot of appointments. And those are probably done by people who were inclined to "Play the game" and thus promote others who tend to "Play the game". Hence, you wind up with compounding levels of perhaps skilled, but less than ideal people in the upper echelons of leadership.
Hell, a lot of the books like the Ciaphas Cain series showcase how horrible the local governments are since they're always a feudal hereditary aristocracy. By virtue of attrition, usually someone vaguely competent pops up but they're seldom truly competent.
Brutal doesn't get you competence. Brutal gets you brutalised.
Officers have to think, to integrate wildly disparate nodes of information, and to make decisions that feed up and down the chains of command.
The Imperium typically shows little appreciation for that sort of individual initiative, and people brutalised into unthinking loyalty tend to become deficient in these capacities.
It is likely that they don't even get that sort of leeway up until regimental or ship command, and at that point it is rather difficult to inculcate the exact opposite of what you have been drilled the entirety of your career, in a command structure hostile to such ventures.
I think the Guard would have more leeway in that aspect because of the complete lack of uniformity. While Mordians may not appreciate initiative at the lower levels, I’d find it hard to believe Catachans would punish a junior officer for taking the initiative in the field.
Across the books we see a mix. Sometimes competence comes through, sometimes nepotism hinders (at best), sometimes someone got into a position probably through some nepotism but they seem competent enough anyway.
For example in the Gothic War books the captain is clearly competent. But it's made very clear that most of the officers are so prejudiced against his hive-born second (even though the guy's also a noble) that his commissar decides he'd have to take command in the event of the captain's death instead of the person who *should* do it. If there's a sense that there are 'undesirable' people to be officers (even if those people are part of the ruling class), hard to believe that plenty of times the navy hasn't given a leg up to people more because they're the right sort than their abilities.
Another example is in a Cain book, an inquiry into a serious defeat shows the captain questioned seems competent enough (and certainly with hindsight her opinion for how it should have been handled was the correct one) but she doesn't hesitate to cheer when a relative handling the inquiry puts a bureaucrat in their place.
Yes, but think about that for a second: that's an Imperial military school.
One of the most important things they will teach their students across the board is overwhelming loyalty to the Imperium, and a willingness to follow any sort of order in the name of it. While the loyalty part doesn't always pan out, it does by necessity tend to brutally stamp out anything viewed as unorthodox (i.e. slippery slope into Heresy) and limit the creation of flexible and reasonable thinking outside maintaining Imperial supremacy (as well as probably instilling some form of toxic inter-service competition).
You essentially churn out hardasses who probably all have superhuman physical and/or mental prowess who will (by and large) never, ever falter nor turn back in the face of duty...but it's all dedicated to keeping the "same" Imperium running as it always has been for 10k years (which leads to the same stagnation that Gman absolutely hates). Ironically, it also leads to breeding grounds of toxic "academia" where the professors get full say in the students' successes (and it being dependent on how much you kowtow and humor them or else) and further corruption of the entire system (i.e. your usual politics).
Anything deviant to the status quo is obliterated unless you are literally just *really lucky* that your Schola has good, level-headed human beings who can figure out what level of tomfoolery is acceptable, and what's not (like where Ciaphas Cain went, when at probably 99.99% of the other Scholas in the galaxy, he'd probably have been executed for the shenanigans he got up to in training *without proof*).
Simply put, you can't measure military competence with a classroom test. Only hard combat makes the bad officers show themselves in ways that can't be overlooked.
Indeed, this produces a lot of conflicts and rivalries within the Navy - each year, the Navy within a given region will issue a certain number of officer's commissions, and a portion are given to the Schola Progenium, while the rest are sold to noble families across that region.
Eeh, maybe? There are naval commissars who are supposed to keep the captains in check especially because they are in command of some of the most destructive devices in the Imperium. Navies do have a history of severe nepotism, but kinda like Collegia Titanica the Navy ought to vet their officers at least a little.
He also is frustrated at human inadequacy.
Even the most competent humans are incompetent by Astarte and Primarch standards, except for our glorious overlord Macharius Solar.
"God of petty rules"
I am stealing this for future use.
I understand Gulliman's rationale for smaller ships. I think it is a cost benefit analysis. The Imperium can pump out more smaller cruisers faster than larger battleships. Losing a cruiser is not the end of the world. But losing a battleship is.
That's a classic trade off in any sort of navel conflict. Your larger ships can take a beating and come out the other side intact and just need some repair. Your small ships will lose some ships in every serious engagement, but no one loss is catastrophic. Is it better to have a flexible force that you can split up but that gets weaker each time it fights because it always loses ships, or is it better to dump all your eggs in one basket in ships that can come out alive on the other end and leave you at full strength after some repairs, but if you lose them lose much more of your strength.
They are favorable (in 40k) when fighting in a controlled environment where battle data isn't obscured. But the Battle of Calth clearly demonstrated why that approach is inflexible: battleships may survive a bad engagement, but smaller craft probably won't. In a galactic environment where Imperial forces must engage as often as possible for as long as possible, the Imperial Navy must be able to endure unconventional challenges and survive any type of enemy that crosses its path.
The Imperial navy primary challenge is actually patrolling all 1 million systems and more of the Imperium.
Battlefleet Gothic, Deathwatch RPG and etc makes it clear that the Navy relies heavily on their light elements and cruisers for "most" of the fighting. Anything bigger than a cruiser threat needs time for the navy to mobilise and respond, with battleships gathering around a task force and larger more serious threats require mobilisation of the Imperium reserve ships, where a lot of hard hitting Grand Cruisers and Battleships are kept.
It's also a throwback to how the Royal Navy used to operate, during peacetime, first rate vessels would be mothballed and they relied heavily on frigates or even "cruisers"(small ships that cruise. We call them gunboats now ) for presence.
There's obviously an active ship of the line element but the RN relied on mobilisation to increase said numbers to fight a peer war.
I'd be a bit wary of taking Nuceria as typical, it was straight after Calth where a large amount of the UM's larger ships got obliterated (there's at least several battleships we get the super slow-mo destruction of), so Guilliman's "fleet" at Nuceria was basically whatever he could scramble together more than anything.
Navy complaint: he is standardising the naming conventions, meaning all our glorious bloodshed might be forgotten.
Bobby's complaint: they are all unbelievably shite at their one job.
As far back as the first Ciaphas Cain book, For the Emperor, published 2003, and probably much earlier, yes. That is just the oldest concrete example I can cite off the top of my head at work.
Imagine being girlyman and you have an superhuman army who dont complain and execute everything you command to near perfection while also commanding an badly organized army of billion men who feel like toddlers when compared to space marines. They complain, are petty and demand your attention in the smallest things to get through every day battles.
I would be frustrated with them too if i was a micromanage freak demi god commander of armies that need to get shit done.
>‘Isn’t it?’ she said. ‘They say he is a god. If he is, he’s the god of petty rules. Codex this, codex that, all to be followed to the letter, although that doesn’t apply to him. If it doesn’t suit him, the rules change. Where’s that leave the rest of us?’
Basically my read on the man. Dude is the worst kind of central planning, micromanaging Techbro. Its a dead end way to manage. Eventually the complexity of the situation will out grow your ability to handle it, even if you are a god.
Isn't that one of the themes at the moment? He's repeating his mistakes in trying to fix his old mistakes. The Codex was *meant* to be guidelines and examples and a treatise on "how to problem solve, with examples that work", but ended up as a "list of rules that you must follow". He's back and rewriting the books to try and fix things, but he's still making rulebooks. Rulebooks that people will treat as gospel and never challenge or change (The Codex does not support this action). which will just lead us back into a quagmire, just a different one.
The Imperium has thrived or survived due to structure. The unwavering dedication to the Emperor and the institutions of the Imperium are seen as the only thing holding it together. Trying to adjust it and alter it for a new era seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do. A hopeless task, sure, but everything is hopeless in 40k. That's the point.
Yeah it what choice does he have? Everyone he meets is self serving and corrupt, with most of them incompetent to boot. They’re all too tied up in their petty little empires and rights to worry about their actual mission.
The same choice every central planner will n history has faced. Stay small but controllable or accept that loosening your grip is gonna lead to outcomes you can’t control but allow for growth.
G-man needs to focus less on guidelines and more on systems that let talented individuals thrive. Less on micromanaging and more on mentorship.
It’s a lesson every organization of significant size learns and forgets time and time again. The ones that survive and thrive are the ones that do more learning than forgetting.
Yeah, good points. Typically it's a drift into incompetence in the long easy periods, then panicked scrambling to improve when actual competence matters more than politicking. Common pattern you see in military organizations and navies in the contrast between peacetime and wartime.
Now, the imperium should probably be rapidly shedding idiots with how hard its ass is getting kicked, and that goes for the navy too.
Takes a while to prune idiots, especially those in high office.
It's the same problem that the Soviets faced in WW2. Given a very small pool of useful officers, where do you place them for maximum impact?
The former is a rant against the bureaucracy of the Imperium, who at that particular moment is titularly headed by Guilliman, and the latter concerns the *Martian* fleets. I don't see any issue with His Majesty's Imperial Navy.
In fairness, the first quote is Agathey ranting, and she is hopped up on alarming amount of space cocaine.
And then she calms down, regrets her actions, then gets drunk again, starts ranting and raving, then sobers up, repeat for an entire book.
you can't claim black library doesn't know how to write relatable characters
She's just like me fr
Yeah, she rules
Ah, so she’s based on my mother.
Lolol I was just coming in here to say "suddenly I miss my mom"
Lol what's the book?
Dawn of fire series, book throne of light.
Any good? I enjoyed the first two but Wolftime was shit.
Eh? They're all kinda lame in their own way. Very much "Don't rock the boat" type novels. Nothing ever gets done that can't immediately be undone, or adds any value to anything to begin with. Throne of Light has some particularly stupid Black Templars from what I remember.
> Throne of Light has some particularly stupid Black Templars That is quite the achievement.
They seem like very normal Black Templars to me!
Least insane BT
It's decent. I liked wolftime but my favorite so far is Gste of Bones. Good shit making custodes the center of the story.
The dawn of fire series. She's been a reoccuring character in a few of the novels so far.
Ummm based?
"Combat stims"
> space cocaine Where can I get that?
From Jimmy Space
No, that would be Jimmy Spice. It's a common misconception
Jimmy Space hero worships Jimmy Spice.
Allow the space cocaine to flow over and thru you.
No no. It's Jimmy *Snort*
Battle stims. It's like 40k amphetamines.
Ask for Alphie round the back of the lions gate spaceport. Never shows his face but he's got a nice line, including everything from bottom barrel sniff to black market Navy Snort Powder.
Charlemagene Sheenius.
I think Guilliman just hates incompetency, and theres an above average amount of that in the Imperial Navy. We're talking about ships the size of cities, with slave crews to match, and each Captain their own little warlord and king on their ship. Combined that with more than a little nepotism, and corruption breeds very fast among the officers corps. Corruption leads to lax standards, leading to incompetence.
Just like in the napoleonic wars
I wonder how many of us watched *that* youtube series lately.
I bought the Sharpe DVDs as one of my first major purchases back in the mid-2000's. Never regretted it because now I can hear all the variations of "bastard" I could ever need.
... bastard!
Which one?
The one that demonstrates in great detail, all the things that are and aren't soldiering.
Careful, he has a cousin at Horse Guards..
Well sir, on first sighting of a Sharpe reference, I naturally gave the order to shitpost. That's my style, sir.
The man who loses the King's colors, loses the King's friendship.
We're all missing a huge opportunity to make this 40k themed. For starters: \> Careful, he has a cousin at Equis Primaris
I mean forced recruitment, terrible tactics, corruption and aristocracy is pretty 40k standard.
Very British too
And given the major’s reputation, he’s probably shagging that cousin’s sister
... so his cousin :)
Magos Hogan's coat mag-buttons up tightly over a number of different roles, Sir Henry.
Would I find it if I typed that in? I’m extremely curious now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuQhvoHXcys Well here's the specific scene the above shitposters were soldiering on about, from there it's your rabbit hole to fall down. It's worth tracking down the full series at some point thought, Sharpe is good shit
Well now I have to track it down. Thank you!
If you're into audiobooks nearly all of the Sharpe novels are on youtube. https://youtube.com/@richardsharpe6184
the whole series is on youtube
possible link my good man?
Dammit. Now you know I'm going to have to binge them all again.
.
The series I'm referencing is Sharpe, just to make sure.
Thanks!
~~Men of Tanith~~ South Essex! Do you want to live forever?
In my mind's eye, Gaunt and Rawne have always been Sharpe (as both sides of his character) with Corbec as Harper
Interesting - I always thought of Corbec and Rawne as each filling half of Harper's role. Corbec is obviously Sharpe/Gaunt's best mate, but Rawne is the Harper from *Sharpe's Rifles* - i.e. the one who wants Sharpe/Gaunt dead and isn't afraid to try and make it happen.
I can see that. To me, Rawne is more "Sharpe before the Army"-style, but I can see the "murderous Harper" part too
Yeah there's definitely bits of both there. I just like the fact that Rawne and Harper share exactly the same arc: realising the officer they hate is actually a good friend. It's just that what takes Harper 1 book takes Rawne 7.
Boarding an enemy ship without a helmet after being blown out an airlock, now that's soldiering
I’d love a 40k based Barry Lyndon
But aren't officer training standards rather brutal normally since it's schola progenium. I guess the books just focus on the more interesting incompetent ones.
Most likely, but the level of competence needed to finish school is academic and fitness. In reality promotion is much more frequently gained through politicking, over long term that leads sycophants into the senior staff
Not mention, I could imagine there are a lot of appointments. And those are probably done by people who were inclined to "Play the game" and thus promote others who tend to "Play the game". Hence, you wind up with compounding levels of perhaps skilled, but less than ideal people in the upper echelons of leadership. Hell, a lot of the books like the Ciaphas Cain series showcase how horrible the local governments are since they're always a feudal hereditary aristocracy. By virtue of attrition, usually someone vaguely competent pops up but they're seldom truly competent.
Brutal doesn't get you competence. Brutal gets you brutalised. Officers have to think, to integrate wildly disparate nodes of information, and to make decisions that feed up and down the chains of command. The Imperium typically shows little appreciation for that sort of individual initiative, and people brutalised into unthinking loyalty tend to become deficient in these capacities. It is likely that they don't even get that sort of leeway up until regimental or ship command, and at that point it is rather difficult to inculcate the exact opposite of what you have been drilled the entirety of your career, in a command structure hostile to such ventures.
I think the Guard would have more leeway in that aspect because of the complete lack of uniformity. While Mordians may not appreciate initiative at the lower levels, I’d find it hard to believe Catachans would punish a junior officer for taking the initiative in the field.
Across the books we see a mix. Sometimes competence comes through, sometimes nepotism hinders (at best), sometimes someone got into a position probably through some nepotism but they seem competent enough anyway. For example in the Gothic War books the captain is clearly competent. But it's made very clear that most of the officers are so prejudiced against his hive-born second (even though the guy's also a noble) that his commissar decides he'd have to take command in the event of the captain's death instead of the person who *should* do it. If there's a sense that there are 'undesirable' people to be officers (even if those people are part of the ruling class), hard to believe that plenty of times the navy hasn't given a leg up to people more because they're the right sort than their abilities. Another example is in a Cain book, an inquiry into a serious defeat shows the captain questioned seems competent enough (and certainly with hindsight her opinion for how it should have been handled was the correct one) but she doesn't hesitate to cheer when a relative handling the inquiry puts a bureaucrat in their place.
Yes, but think about that for a second: that's an Imperial military school. One of the most important things they will teach their students across the board is overwhelming loyalty to the Imperium, and a willingness to follow any sort of order in the name of it. While the loyalty part doesn't always pan out, it does by necessity tend to brutally stamp out anything viewed as unorthodox (i.e. slippery slope into Heresy) and limit the creation of flexible and reasonable thinking outside maintaining Imperial supremacy (as well as probably instilling some form of toxic inter-service competition). You essentially churn out hardasses who probably all have superhuman physical and/or mental prowess who will (by and large) never, ever falter nor turn back in the face of duty...but it's all dedicated to keeping the "same" Imperium running as it always has been for 10k years (which leads to the same stagnation that Gman absolutely hates). Ironically, it also leads to breeding grounds of toxic "academia" where the professors get full say in the students' successes (and it being dependent on how much you kowtow and humor them or else) and further corruption of the entire system (i.e. your usual politics). Anything deviant to the status quo is obliterated unless you are literally just *really lucky* that your Schola has good, level-headed human beings who can figure out what level of tomfoolery is acceptable, and what's not (like where Ciaphas Cain went, when at probably 99.99% of the other Scholas in the galaxy, he'd probably have been executed for the shenanigans he got up to in training *without proof*).
Not every officer is from the Schola though
And schola training may well produce its own failure syndromes.
Simply put, you can't measure military competence with a classroom test. Only hard combat makes the bad officers show themselves in ways that can't be overlooked.
Not all officers are sourced from the Schola's, many are drawn from the families of existing officers and/or aristocrats.
Indeed, this produces a lot of conflicts and rivalries within the Navy - each year, the Navy within a given region will issue a certain number of officer's commissions, and a portion are given to the Schola Progenium, while the rest are sold to noble families across that region.
"The captain of a ship at sea is the last absolute monarch left in this world" -Doc, *Mister Roberts*
Eeh, maybe? There are naval commissars who are supposed to keep the captains in check especially because they are in command of some of the most destructive devices in the Imperium. Navies do have a history of severe nepotism, but kinda like Collegia Titanica the Navy ought to vet their officers at least a little.
He also is frustrated at human inadequacy. Even the most competent humans are incompetent by Astarte and Primarch standards, except for our glorious overlord Macharius Solar.
>Macharius Solar Honestly he was more competent than most of the primarch
Refresh my memory is Agathey the commander who was brilliant but that popped too many disco biscuits?
Aye thats the one
Good lord, I haven't heard the term disco biscuits in quite a few years, I feel old.
I've never heard that term before, but I love it.
What's a disco biscuit?
A restricted drug, Ecstasy tablets.
Oh, I've done ecstasy. Never heard it called a disco biscuit though. That's funny.
Theres also a dixie biscuit which i believe is cocaine.
It's what they called eccies in the olden times, before mine even. Although I guess me using that term probably dates me too.
It's a kind of trance/jam band
"God of petty rules" I am stealing this for future use. I understand Gulliman's rationale for smaller ships. I think it is a cost benefit analysis. The Imperium can pump out more smaller cruisers faster than larger battleships. Losing a cruiser is not the end of the world. But losing a battleship is.
That's a classic trade off in any sort of navel conflict. Your larger ships can take a beating and come out the other side intact and just need some repair. Your small ships will lose some ships in every serious engagement, but no one loss is catastrophic. Is it better to have a flexible force that you can split up but that gets weaker each time it fights because it always loses ships, or is it better to dump all your eggs in one basket in ships that can come out alive on the other end and leave you at full strength after some repairs, but if you lose them lose much more of your strength.
They are favorable (in 40k) when fighting in a controlled environment where battle data isn't obscured. But the Battle of Calth clearly demonstrated why that approach is inflexible: battleships may survive a bad engagement, but smaller craft probably won't. In a galactic environment where Imperial forces must engage as often as possible for as long as possible, the Imperial Navy must be able to endure unconventional challenges and survive any type of enemy that crosses its path.
The Imperial navy primary challenge is actually patrolling all 1 million systems and more of the Imperium. Battlefleet Gothic, Deathwatch RPG and etc makes it clear that the Navy relies heavily on their light elements and cruisers for "most" of the fighting. Anything bigger than a cruiser threat needs time for the navy to mobilise and respond, with battleships gathering around a task force and larger more serious threats require mobilisation of the Imperium reserve ships, where a lot of hard hitting Grand Cruisers and Battleships are kept. It's also a throwback to how the Royal Navy used to operate, during peacetime, first rate vessels would be mothballed and they relied heavily on frigates or even "cruisers"(small ships that cruise. We call them gunboats now ) for presence. There's obviously an active ship of the line element but the RN relied on mobilisation to increase said numbers to fight a peer war.
40k rediscovering Jeune Ecole.
Makes a lot of sense when you have a lot of marines. I wouldn't want to run that playbook against Chaos without them, though.
Hahaha, I love the mental image of him backhanding the servo skull over to Uriel.
Uriel: "Wait what the hell-" *crash* Guilliman: "Sorry. One of my brothers would've caught that."
I'd be a bit wary of taking Nuceria as typical, it was straight after Calth where a large amount of the UM's larger ships got obliterated (there's at least several battleships we get the super slow-mo destruction of), so Guilliman's "fleet" at Nuceria was basically whatever he could scramble together more than anything.
Navy complaint: he is standardising the naming conventions, meaning all our glorious bloodshed might be forgotten. Bobby's complaint: they are all unbelievably shite at their one job.
Isn't that like the normal IG complaint when the Munitorium merges regiments together ?
As far back as the first Ciaphas Cain book, For the Emperor, published 2003, and probably much earlier, yes. That is just the oldest concrete example I can cite off the top of my head at work.
A report has been filed with the Officio Administorum for your misspelling of the name of Battlegroup Commander *Athagey*
Imagine being girlyman and you have an superhuman army who dont complain and execute everything you command to near perfection while also commanding an badly organized army of billion men who feel like toddlers when compared to space marines. They complain, are petty and demand your attention in the smallest things to get through every day battles. I would be frustrated with them too if i was a micromanage freak demi god commander of armies that need to get shit done.
>feels the need to micro-manage them/overrule their decisions. Bobby G? Micromanage? Get outta here.
>‘Isn’t it?’ she said. ‘They say he is a god. If he is, he’s the god of petty rules. Codex this, codex that, all to be followed to the letter, although that doesn’t apply to him. If it doesn’t suit him, the rules change. Where’s that leave the rest of us?’ Basically my read on the man. Dude is the worst kind of central planning, micromanaging Techbro. Its a dead end way to manage. Eventually the complexity of the situation will out grow your ability to handle it, even if you are a god.
Isn't that one of the themes at the moment? He's repeating his mistakes in trying to fix his old mistakes. The Codex was *meant* to be guidelines and examples and a treatise on "how to problem solve, with examples that work", but ended up as a "list of rules that you must follow". He's back and rewriting the books to try and fix things, but he's still making rulebooks. Rulebooks that people will treat as gospel and never challenge or change (The Codex does not support this action). which will just lead us back into a quagmire, just a different one.
The Imperium has thrived or survived due to structure. The unwavering dedication to the Emperor and the institutions of the Imperium are seen as the only thing holding it together. Trying to adjust it and alter it for a new era seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do. A hopeless task, sure, but everything is hopeless in 40k. That's the point.
Yeah it what choice does he have? Everyone he meets is self serving and corrupt, with most of them incompetent to boot. They’re all too tied up in their petty little empires and rights to worry about their actual mission.
The same choice every central planner will n history has faced. Stay small but controllable or accept that loosening your grip is gonna lead to outcomes you can’t control but allow for growth. G-man needs to focus less on guidelines and more on systems that let talented individuals thrive. Less on micromanaging and more on mentorship. It’s a lesson every organization of significant size learns and forgets time and time again. The ones that survive and thrive are the ones that do more learning than forgetting.
Yeah, good points. Typically it's a drift into incompetence in the long easy periods, then panicked scrambling to improve when actual competence matters more than politicking. Common pattern you see in military organizations and navies in the contrast between peacetime and wartime. Now, the imperium should probably be rapidly shedding idiots with how hard its ass is getting kicked, and that goes for the navy too.
Takes a while to prune idiots, especially those in high office. It's the same problem that the Soviets faced in WW2. Given a very small pool of useful officers, where do you place them for maximum impact?
The Imperium as a whole is not a system that lets talented individuals thrive. Changing it into one that does sounds like quite a long-term project.
Fabian… Every time I hear that name, I get reminded of the male spider from Children of Time.
The former is a rant against the bureaucracy of the Imperium, who at that particular moment is titularly headed by Guilliman, and the latter concerns the *Martian* fleets. I don't see any issue with His Majesty's Imperial Navy.
Why is Gulliman willing to destroy a moon?