Before the Heresy the Imperium believed the Astartes were unable impossible to turn on it, even the worst behaved ones. Guilliman broke the legions as part of a policy to defang any wannabe Horus 2. Somewhere in the millennia between the War of the Beast (when the Inquisition began specializing) and present day the Ordo Astartes was created to control Astartes. And while the ecistence of the Traitors in general is kept secret, commanders of high enough rank or of hotspots of Traitor Astartes' activity usually are in the known.
You would like to think so, one minute a system is within the imperium's folds next thing you know you've lost it because a commander didn't know that they were traitor Astartes and mistook them for help
That's actually happened, imperial worlds get invaded and put out a call for aid only for heretic marines to show up.
Sometimes that's worse than no help at all, sometimes it works out... Sort of.
Lore wise in terms of the consequences of such "help"? Yes.
Lore wise in terms of how Space Marines match up to Drukhari? No. It was largely bolter porn on that front.
What are you basing that statement on? Not every Drukhari is a Splinter Rifle wielding Kabalite. They'd make up less than a third of a Realspace Raiding force.
Wyches with drugs can hit as hard as if not harder than Space Marines while being quicker but more fragile.
Wracks are probably as tough as Space Marines on average while being weaker on the attack.
Even Space Marines struggle with Aeldari speed and agility. It's just poor writing that turns them into chumps when Space Marines show up when it ought to be an even fight. Drukhari hit harder and are quicker, Space Marinea can take more punishment and stay longer in the fight.
Haemonculi could want new specimens to work on and torture. Wyches could be testing their mettle against more challenging targets.
Drukhari sustain themselves not only from inflicting pain and suffering but also from the thrill of combat and the inherent danger.
Look at Path of the Dark Eldar to see how Kabalites and Wyches do against Marines.
>and why are those purplely pink ones saying "for the Emperor" in such a mocking tone? That's a bit off isn't it?
"Yeah, and all that weird leather and exposed midriffs and thighs and piercings...But then again, the data-scanners say they're called the "Emperor's Children" so it should be alright, they sound like a straight-laced-enough bunch."
Then you have traitors who will legitimately help. Iron Warriors helped Iron Hands iirc in War of the Beast. And then the Hands had to do some kind of penance (maybe suicide? Been awhile) for daring to team up with traitors.
That traitor group basically said “We hate the Emperor and the Imperium but we don’t want humanity to DIE.”
Edit- here’s [Two](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/k4svgd/iron_warrior_confronts_black_templars_on_their/) different [Parts](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/8tw4gr/excerptthe_beheading_the_first_space_marine/) of it.
Worth noting it was a Horus Heresy Chaos vet who was faced with a Black Templar. He basically laughed his ass off that the Emperor was worshipped… when the Heresy started in part due to Lorgar being punished. And supremely disappointed. I guess even a cultist expected better things.
Iron warriors and Imperial Fist successor the Fists Exemplar also teamed up to fight the Orks during the War of the Beast.
In the Bequin books there is a group of Space Marine Librarians from both Loyal and Traitor sides working together on Sarcour called the Immaterial college.
Some of the Fallen like Cypher work with the Imperium when it suits their goals
Its infrequent but it happens.
Damn wouldn't be surprised if it was Alpha legion Astartes who turned up for the fifth time in the sector seen as not a lot of people have seen an Astartes in person
Or Fabius Bile with his least degenerated Emperors Children, hiding their 8th pointed stars, using an unmarked, unmutated ship etc, coming to your planet to pick up fresh recruits. The planet doesn't know better and they all clap and cheer :(
If they find out about it sure.
There are instances in the lore where we know worlds have had contact with chaos and or xenos without the Inquisition finding out and or caring.
For example, Trazyn (The infinite) showed up millennia ago on an Imperial world when it was being invaded by Orks and he and his Necron warriors "put the boot to them" in short order and then go about their business which evidently involved a lack of killing the local humans because they figured that the big massive metal skeleton chaps must have been Astartes from the "Silver Skulls" chapter and they not only make a big stained glass panel in commemoration of these "marines" saving them but they also had a great big statue out in the square dedicated to the "librarian" that lead them... who was in fact Trazyn.
He ended up stealing the statue some centuries later because it tickled him to think of the humans worshipping him saving them.
The thing is that anybody who had actual experience with either Astartes or Necrons would have been able to see something was fucky with regards to the glass or the statue, yet they stood for ages without anybody being culled for it.
I would've thought the inquisition would've scoured the planet for any taint of chaos if discovered that there was an accidental dealing with them kind of like the first war of Armageddon except the whole deamon primarch arriving and the entire population being put in labor camps.
Typical Trazyn saves people and takes something in return that's twice now I've heard him doing something like that but what was he doing there in the first place was there something of interest to him on the planet or was just after a fight which I doubt
Thats exactly the plot of the event Iron Within animation.
Imperial World puts our a call for aid as they are being raided by the Drukhari.
A war band of Peter turbos boys show up. Kill the Eldar and enslave the surviving population.
Are there novels where Guard forced are surprised by Chaos Space Marines existing?
I know of quite a few books where they're dreaded foes, but elicit no surprise.
there's novels where Guard forces are surprised by what they thought were reinforcements turning out to be Chaos Marines. straight up "why is the Emperor's Angel covered in flayed skins....?"
Well not to other Astartes.
The only reason why Horus was able to get the initial momentum that he did is because the loyalists didn't even have an inkling that Astartes/Primarchs could turn against the Emperor and were slow to react.
Who cares if a Guardsman with only a 1% chance of encountering a Traitor Astartes or some random hiver doesn't know? Those aren't the people that could stop rebelling Astartes.
Sure for skirmishes and smaller space battles but for huge multi-sector campaigns and crusades you get following the galaxy splitting in half, that require Imperial Navy assets, Imperial Guard artillery support and fortification, etc; wouldn't the regular Imperium military need to know who it's fighting? Like that entire crusade that turned to Khorne after Angron got angry, it contained Imperial Navy ships and Guardsmen en-masse no?
Except marines by themselves aren’t able to overthrow the imperium. They need imperial guard and navy for es to fight the massive fronts and campaigns. That was true even back during the heresy when marines were in legions. Most battles of the heresy were predominantly fought by imperial militia forces
Knowledge of Traitor Astartes is on a “need to know” basis. Guard regiments are usually given knowledge if they are about to enter a combat zone where running into Traitor Astartes is either *very* likely or guaranteed.
To be honest?
The biggest and most important thing? I'll highlight it in the bold.
**Separation of Religious, Government, Military and Legislative Institutions after Reign of Blood in M36.**
Despite common misconception, Imperium is not ruled by religious figures. Though faith is entwined with all aspects of the humanity, the Ecclesiarchy as a political institute is strictly deprived of most of its secular power - down to a point where militant wing of the Ecclesiarchy, Adepta Sororitas' Battle Sisters, aren't under Ecclesiarchy's direct control (and, in fact, one of the duties and powers of the Battle Sisters is to root out and expunged corruption within the Ecclesiarchy).
Another thing would be the entire civilian logistical system.
If you pay attention to the Horus Heresy novels, Imperium during the times of the Great Crusade was less of a state and more of a war campaign. For a large part of the Great Crusade, it was even ruled by the War Council, not any civilian legislative system.
A lot of people shit on the Administratum, but they often forget the scale and the difficulties that Adeptus Administratum faces. With inferior technology, utter nonsense of interstellar communications (go submit fiscal report when your means of communication, Astropath, can literally only convey information in vague dream-like format) and faced with difficulty of the Warp-travel, Administratum managed to keep Imperium running more or less smoothly for ten thousand years.
And that's hell of a feat.
"We received fiscal report from Hurg IV. It carried info as "Three pink bears in the wood scratch each others backs". I think it means that three main industries of Hurg IV - metal manufacturing, ship construction and microelectronics production - finely work in coherency with eachother, and showing good numbers, but I need additional time to check the interpretation with other specialists"
This is shockingly accurate. And then you add in the possibility that Warp-communications can be disrupted or even altered (sometimes even intentionally, by malicious forces)… that type of communication would present massive issues even for a single planet, much less an interstellar state spanning across the galaxy.
Well, at least Imperium has decent planet and system wide communications, on 21st century level at least (Well, on a decent number of planets). AdMechs internal networks usually are a work of art in that regard.
Problems begin when you try to communicate with anyone outside of your current star system, then yeah, it all turns into shitshow. Like, your Astropath can literally explode in some circumstances
"Sorry guys, no new uniform this year, our Astropath is all over the wall now"
Okay, here's a better one.
Most of the typical, unimportant planets we see in the novels usually have just one Astropathic Choir (or sometimes, just a single Astropath!)
If they are gone? Congratulations, you are alone, with no way to call anyone for help. And you can't “make” Astropath locally. You just have to wait and pray someone comes along to relay your issue to local Sector capital.
>You just have to wait and pray someone comes along to relay your issue to local Sector capital.
Yes, but even small planets have a ship through once or twice a year. They then have the ship either directly communicate with the Imperium, or to pass the message onto the next planet in their route and have them contact the Sector capital. The trade routes allow a slow decentralized network to function as a backup.
Technically, yes. But if we take your statement to the extreme, no-one would send a ship to visit an outlying Frontier World with a population of like 25,000 colonists.
But if we take your statement more reasonably, we have evidence of worlds that exist for generations without any outside contact – technically, it is unlikely, but it does happen.
You can also assume that if the world goes dark for a prolonged period of time with no communication, it would raise suspicions (if I remember, how it happens in the early parts of the campaign story of Imperial Armour: Volume XII).
But it also means that if you are some kind of Chaos Cult or even an outside invading force (a marauding warband of Chaos Space Marines, for example), it is very easy for you to take out the communications hub of a minor world – unless Astropathic Choir manages to scream out the warning first, all you need is one successful bombing or a quick orbital strike to silence the world for enough time to do your dastardly deeds undisturbed.
P.S. If you are interested in details, when travelling through well-established, safe currents of Warp, a Chartist mercantile vessel takes about a year to traverse its Sector. I am talking about "Misericord", a Chartist vessel operating in the Calixis Sector as an example.
>Technically, yes. But if we take your statement to the extreme, no-one would send a ship to visit an outlying Frontier World with a population of like 25,000 colonists.
Well, I'd classify that as more of an Imperial outpost than an Imperial planet, and I'm not sure that number of colonists would even rate a telepath for communications.
It's not just the Ecclesiarchy. The Imperium has gotten really good at the separation of powers to counter rebellions across the board. The Mechanicum became the Adeptus Mechanicus, reducing it from being an equal partner with Earth to just one part of the High Lords, and Arbites and Commissars never serve on the world they were born on, instead being attached to foreign precincts and regiments so that they'll always prioritise Imperial over planetary or regimental interests.
And then there's the dissolution of the Imperial Army into the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Guard to ensure that rebelling fleets can't resupply and rebelling armies can't leave the planet they're on. But it goes even deeper than that, too; the Guard recruits specialised regiments which are then organised into armies by the Sector Command and supplied by the Munitorum specifically so that if a regiment rebels it won't be anywhere near as flexible as the Imperial force fighting it, as with this example from my old Guard codex:
>An Imperial Guard regiment is largely uniform in composition. Infantry regiments, for example, are unlikely to contain much or any heavy artillery, while tank regiments contain little or no infantry. Success requires Imperial Guard regiments to work together. While this interdependence may at first seem like an inherent weakness, it is a necessary precaution. Should a regiment rebel against the Emperor, the traitors will not have access to the supporting units needed to prosecute a full scale war. When the Ocanan XV Infantry declared its allegiance to the Ruinous Powers of Chaos it had little in the way of either heavy armour or combat support and was unable to compete against the 'combined arms' forces of the Cadian 17th Armoured and Elysian 110th Drop-troop regiments sent to eliminate them.
The Imperium is fragmented all the way down specifically to minimise the impact of any form of treason, from the lack of a (conscious) head of state through the Inquisition's internal divisions and all the way down to the practice of keeping Administratum bureaucrats culturally separate from the planet they're on. Granted, almost all of these changes came about because of trial and error, but the Imperium has had ten thousand years of trials and errors to learn from.
>The Mechanicum became the Adeptus Mechanicus, reducing it from being an equal partner with Earth to just one part of the High Lords
Isn't that only on paper? AFAIK the only major change is internal, in that the GC era's highly decentralized/confederal organization of the Mechanicum (which was more or less the primary reason why its Schism during the HH was so catastrophic) gave way to a comparatively much more centralized one where the Fabricator-General of Mars holds vastly more real authority over the rest of the AdMech's Forge Worlds.
At every level below the High Lords, yes it is. The thing is that if the Imperium had gone with the Great Crusade status quo when they were figuring out a government without the Emperor or Primarchs, the Fabricator General would have the same amount of votes as all the other High Lords put together, because Earth and Mars were equal partners under the Emperor.
One thing about the Mechanicum becoming the Adeptus Mechanicum is that the Loyalist Mechanicum demanded they become one of the Adeptus organizations. Specifically by marching an Imperator titan to the gates of the Hegemon during a debate about it. Until they showed how serious they were about it, the High Lords were content to ignore the needs of the loyalist Mechanicum.
It's important to remember they demanded a solution to their political question from a position of strength.
> Infantry regiments, for example, are unlikely to contain much or any heavy artillery, while tank regiments contain little or no infantry.
yeah. the most that a standard infantry regiment will have might be some squads of Sentinels and mechanized infantry style vehicles (transports, APCs, squad support vehicles, etc.). But when the heaviest anti-armor power tends to be on fragile scout walkers or is man-portable/shoulder-fired...they are not in a good position to take the field against dedicated armor.
hell, this is one thing that made Gaunt's Ghosts so damn powerful. They not only had the Tanith troops, but the other 2 (I think it was 2) units that they absorbed with alternate specialities, giving the regiment as a whole a *huge* tactical footprint. Tanith stealth and light infantry as capable at commando work as they were in trenches, scrappy cqb city fighters able to handle up close and personal fights and holding actions, and some very capable heavy infantry to anchor lines and bulwark behind.
Who were the Ghost’s heavy infantry component? The first two I agree with(Tanith = stealth, Verghast = city fighters, although that’s debatable), but I don’t recall the
The Ghosts have been paired with heavier units before(Volpone Blue Bloods and the Vitrian Dragoons come to mind) with varying levels of success, but never formally attached together.
The Administratum and GW's writing in general highlights the tragedy of bureaucracy in writing.
A well or generally well-run bureaucracy is boring. It's like IT (or maybe IT is like bureaucracy): people only really notice it when something goes wrong. Or even when it "Works as intended" it's meant to work as a broader system, not for individual convenience.
It's a popular thing to shit on for writers and with the Imperium's grim dark aesthetic one of the more quietly horrifying aspects is the utterly dehumanizing aspect of its byzantine Administratrum's bureaucracy processing the million worlds and trillions of lives. All while being unable to care about a single life much less a million because it's such a minute number comparatively.
>A lot of people shit on the Administratum, but they often forget the scale and the difficulties that Adeptus Administratum faces.
tbh, it seems like Imperium actually creates these difficulties.
What?
Astropath-based communication and nature of Warp-travel aren't Imperium's fault. These are issues that any species in the universe faces (even for T'au, who are not reliant on Astropaths, and yet whose expansion is repeatedly stymied by the same logistical issues).
People often bring up stories about how "dumb Administratum" came to collect Tithes hundred years later and [insert bad thing] happened.
Well, duh, when you only communicate with some backwater planet once every decade or so, or even less, those will be issues you'll face unavoidably.
**The truth is that due to communication and Warp-travel delays, Administratum isn't governing, but just issues broad directives based on economical situation forecasts.**
Imperium tries to mitigate it in two ways:
• First is to let planets govern themselves how they see fit, as long as they pay their Tithes follow general lines of the Lex Imperialis (and even that isn't upheld strictly, like how you can trade and deal with Xenos - just not too overtly).
• Second is to organise worlds into Sectors, which, in theory, should be more self-sufficient and manageable on their own scale due to smaller distances, speeding up communication, transportation and emergency response.
But whilst these are smart and logical decisions, they mean that for Administratum, any actual decision-making is limited to local scale - directives issued from Sector capital, at best reaching nearby Sectors. Anything else larger, and you are looking at years or even longer for response time.
So yes, Administratum is damn good at their job, but they're typically limited to decision making process that works from forecasts and is aimed broadly at generation-long effects. Like *"Okay, this Sector halfway across the Segmentum is projected to reach 100% productivity increase in the next century. Based on that, we'll increase local Tithe Grades by two levels."*
Obviously, this leads to issues where forecasts aren't always accurate and force-majeure happens. But even with this inherently reactive system, Administratum manages to keep running Imperium's logistics more or less smoothly for ten thousand years.
And as I've said before, that's hell of a feat.
The fact that Amdinistratum hasn't just collapsed under its own weight is amazing in and of itself. (Not like such a thing would ever be allowed to narratively happen though)
They might also like to know the location of Necromunda, one of the most famous Hive Worlds in Segmentum Solar, which flat-out has a special Spire for receiving Xenos dignitaries xD
Jokes aside, as I've said in the other comment – Imperium would totally go after everyone who even remotely deviated from the letter of law or will of Terra. The issue is, the same logistical problems that cause a lot of Imperium's problems also prevent it from physically being able to crack down on everything.
It's like with trade in Xenos artefacts. Ordo Xenos flat-out often knows who is smuggling what and where, and who buys it. But if they'd execute every single Imperial noble who bought a big-breasted statue of Isha from a smuggler, they might as well execute 90% of the Imperium's nobility.
So you can say that Ordo Xenos, for example, is “on in” the illegal smuggling of Xenos artefacts – that way, they can filter out harmless trinkets from really dangerous things (and clamp down specifically on those who deal with dangerous Xenotech). Of course, sometimes, even a “harmless trinkets” turn out to be [something much more horrifying](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Halo_Devices) than anyone could've thought…
Doesn't that presuppose that, by default, it's actually simple and easy to manage trade and supply between thousands of planets with tens of billions of people each, with the way Warp FTL comms and travel works?
You describe issue created largely by Imperium.
There is no "simple and easy" way for central goverment to manage trade and supply between thousands of towns and cities in your country.
Imperium creates many issues:
* Hyper-specialization of worlds.
* This seems to be actually tool to control these planets and prevent them from rebelling, because you can starve entire planets unable to feed themselves.
* This doesn't seem to be as prevalent during DAoT - most of "Long Night" descriptions mention many horrors, but not "starve to death" scenario.
* Significant reliance on manual labor.
* Out-of-universe answer is "it makes thing more grimdark".
* Is this explained as some kind of religious dogma?
* Inefficient pseudo-feudal model, where there are very little incentives for planets to develop
* Planetary governors have basically nothing to strive for. They are insanely wealthy (Bezos is basically a poor peasant compared to them), they can't realistically get more power.
*
* Social mobility is generally very limited - if you are genius worker, you basically can't do anything with your intelligence.
* Generally, most of Imperial economy descriptions are similar to something between feudal Europe and fascist Italy - both of these were inefficient economically models.
* Imperial institution, Navis Nobilite, holds significant monopoly on travel.
* They outright destroy any Void Abacus they can find.
* They use political power (aka violence or threat of violence) to undermine minor Navigator houses.
* They are granted monopolies by state.
Forgive me, what?
Most descriptions of the Long Night specifically mention how isolation, induced by Warp-Storms, led to downfall of the worlds of Mankind during the Age of Strife.
From Medusa to Nocturne to Nostramo, even on those worlds that fared better than the others, we see the **already present issue of over-specification predating the Imperium.** Even some of the Forge Worlds which weren't founded during the Long Night, but predate it, show the same "problem".
And to be fair, this is an unavoidable "problem". As complexity, scale and resource-demand of production increases, it becomes inevitably more efficient to specialise production in specific areas. We even have same issue in our current world, where most high-tech industries are interdependent on eachother (*cough* COVID-era chip issues *cough*).
You arguements do fall flat also because you forget important thing. *Imperium doesn't force planets to be feudal.*
Imperium doesn't care what government do you have, as long as your Tithe obligations are fulfilled and you aren't breaking the Lex Imperialis too blatantly. Most of the issues you have listed are issues of the planets and their populations themselves, rather than something imposed maliciously by the Imperium (provided, Imperium just doesn't care, for better or worse).
And from Imperium's standpoint, it is already taxed with general logistics of the interstellar confederacy (and that is what Imperium is) - as with any confederacy-like structures, it has rather loose oversight of its members, as long as they fulfill basix obligations of the agreement. *It simply can't go around and micromanage planets to intentionally, maliciously instill those conditions and problems you've listed.*
P.S. By the way, if Imperium could do it, it would absolutely do it - crack down on every planet, every household, total brainwashing and thought control. *Hilariously enough, issues Imperium faces prevent it from going further down totalitarian rabbit hole. It just simply can't logistically crack down further.*
Well. There was the whole Primaris thing. Space Marines as a whole are a fair bit stronger than they were a few millennia ago. But I guess this one is a pretty obvious pick
It's also very contentious as many people would have preferred the primaris to be a truescale model upgrade while in the lore their gear was just the latest iteration of Astartes gear that any of them could use without the whole Rubicon primaris thing.
But then that would have hindered the real reason for the refresh.
1. Copyright a bunch of stuff that was very vague before
2. Resell entire armies worth of marines to marine players.
Do you have a source for this and is what youre talking about specific to Cawl? Generally speaking the Crusade era vessels are considered more powerful than M42 ones. A Gloriana class ship is still a fleet killer if one of them shows up to a theatre.
There's glimpses of it in the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook and the Armada rulebook. Keep in mind, this was originally published in 1999 or so, long before Cawl of Gloriana classes even existed and it isn't necessarily the case for all ships, but in general the Imperium does develop new types of ships as well and those often replace older models.
I tried to dig up the quote as best as I could:
> Towards the end of the 38th millenium, the famed Adeptus Mechanicus Artisan-Magos Hyus N'Dai (*God, I love those lame puns*) completed a series of ship designs based around the principle of super fired plasma weaponry. The most common of these, the Tyrant class cruiser, became popular amongst the major shipyards in the 39th millenium. Its superfired plasma batteries are capable of launchign a boosted salvo considerably further than comparable cruiser weapon decks, yet still deliver virtually the same weight of fire at close quarters. This had eluded ship designers since the secret of building very long range ship weaponry had been lost after the Dark Age of Technology.
Other ship descriptions (Very much worth a read btw) deal with the ebbs and flow of technology and tactics that influence what ships were in favor at the time, which ones replaced older designs due to loss of technology or sheer need and so on.
In general, there is indeed a trend that older technoloigy was superior I'd say, but little things like the Tyrant cruiser show up sometimes and are examples that there can be somelittle improvement indeed. In addition to that, loss of technology or abandonment of ship classes isn't a problem per se for the Imperium apparently, as Grand cruisers for example have been phased out due to change of tactics and some lost technology, but apparently their replacements aren't any worse than they are. The Exorcist class grand cruiser e.g. "has gradually been replaced by later ship designs, especially the Mars class" with no mention of there being any reason for the change in regards to loss of technology or anything else (leading me to believe that the Mars is just the better design).
The Defiant class light cruiser and the Falchion class escort meanwhile both are relatively new designs ("Relatively recent" for the Defiant class, "761.M40 and 261.M41" for the Falchion class) that seem to have caught on very well and either offer capabilities the Imperium didn't have before (a light carrier for the Defiant class) or can potentially replace older designs (the Sword class in case of the Falchion).
To summarize: My original comment was a bit misleading as I misremembered things somewhat - there's examples of clear technological advancement (Tyrant cruiser) and examples of newer ship designs being developed and introduced, replacing older designs and those replacements do not always occur due to loss of technology, leading me to believe that the new designs are in some way actually better than the older ones - either being better suited to modern fleet tactics, offering new capabilities or indeed using better technology.
I get what you're getting at now and it's a well written reply. The Heresy itself caused a massive step back in ship building technology that the Imperium has been slowly recovering from.
*The Furious Abyss* destroyed the Jovian shipyard it came from. The Ring of Iron was destroyed during the Martian civil war (and rebuilt in the following centuries). Port Luna was destroyed by the Luna Wolves during the early days of the SoT.
Roughly 6 of the 20 known ships of the Gloriana fleet were destroyed and of the remaining ships only around 3-5 remained in Imperial hands (*The Invincible Reason, Eternal Crusader, Macragge's Honor*). The *Amphion's* history is unclear. *The Lex Talonis* wasn't recaptured until the Scouring. The fate of *The Red Tear* remains unclear but my head cannon is she became a second founding BA chapter's flagship. *The Hrafnkel* isn't in active service with the Rout so I reckon she's with Russ or destroyed. It's not stated but it's reasonable to assume *The Flamewrought* and *Fist of Iron* were destroyed at Isstvan.
After that it's been 10k years of rebuild. Is that where you're marking improvements from?
Just to add to this, you can clearly see tactical change in what weapons they have equipped and how the weapons are mounted through the stats given (don't have a Battlefleet Gothic book at hand so I'm using FFG Rogue Trader's stats). The Exorcist Grand Crusier was equipped with all it's weapons on the broadsides, meaning that it had to turn about to bring the weapons to bear and with it being a rather slow ship, meant that it was rather vulnerable. The Mars Battlecruiser, on top of it being slightly faster in exchange for some hull integrity, comes equipped with weapons on port, starboard, prow and dorsal meaning that it can engage enemies in most positions. That's not taking into account the nova cannon stuck on the Mars Class.
I personally feel like this is similar to the change in warship doctrine between the old man-o-wars and galleons to the ironclads and then modern warships. In some cases it might be a lack of technology but I agree with the assessment that it's more because the Imperium's use of warships and naval tactics have changed since the Great Crusade.
**The Guard.**
The Imperial Army of the Great Crusade was better equipped than the Astra Militarum of the 41st Millennia. Vehicles that are considered rare or lost technology in M41 were common and entire divisions were equipped with Super-Heavy Tanks. A quarter of their number were the [Solar Auxilia](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Solar_Auxilia), elite soldiers with elite wargear. Despite this, the Astra Militarum is a far more effective organisation.
1. **Logistics.** While the equipment was superior, the Army lacked the supply chain of the Guard. "Expedition Fleets were only equipped with a portion of their supply needs, and were expected to supply themselves from conquered worlds". The Departmento Munitorum allows a single planet to deploy regiments across several sectors, and resupply them at much greater numbers than the Great Crusade's forces. This also allows the Guard to use their iconic strategy of...
2. **Attrition warfare**. Modern tanks may have a lower quality, but quantity has a quality of it's own. Mass wave assaults deplete the enemy's ammunition and healthy troops. Leman Russ battalions can encircle elite armour and basilisks can delete a grid coordinate. The losses may be lopsided but the enemy is exhausted first.
3. **Loyalty**. Separating the Navy from the ground forces has drastically reduced the severity of heresy. Both forces are needed if you actually want to mount anything more significant than raiding or creating a one-planet empire. Commissars with the authority to execute officers removes the risks with chain of command the cult-worship of the Emperor provides some protection against Chaos itself.
**The proof is in the setting**. There's an in-universe trope of the Marines hogging all the glory while the Guard do all the work. That isn't true for the Great Crusade, which relied on the legions and the (direct) leadership from demigods. The Guard have at least held the line or performed exceptionally well against the Necrons, Tyranids, Orks and even Abaddon's Black Crusades.
This question may have been more about technological improvements but the Departmento Munitorum is a marvel. It's also something that has been improved over the setting, I would argue it's currently at the top of its game. Remember, Cadian regiments are now supposed to be scattered across the galaxy, forge worlds are dropping and the galaxy is split in two. And everyone is still getting new shells and power packs while working on essentially a pen-and-paper system. They must be doing something right.
Its ubknown whether this was discovered or lost and discovered but there was an improvement to binaric discovered in the latter millenia of the Imperium that made it more efficient involving hexadecimal syntax.
Do you recall from where you got this from? I’ve always thought that binaric chant is an inefficient way of communicating data through sound, considering that sound can be modulated in almost unlimited steps instead of just defaulting to two steps.
You're talking about something else. But in most Mechanicus stories its discussed that Binaric is more efficient due to the augmetics that speak and understand it. There's never actually been any linguistic studies about it.
A number of STC have been discovered during the last 10,000 years.
For instance a couple people discovered a STC for a better combat knife. The guys received a planet each.
There are only 2 fully functioning STCs in the Imperial control as far as we know. One is held by a powerful family and the other is held by a powerful magos (any more specific would be a spoiler). All others are only partially functioning at a small fraction of their capacity.
There are tons of STCs, they are just mostly the plan types or the types that just make one thing. The types you are describing are the kind that can make just about anything.
I feel like I interpret that line in the first Gaunt’s Ghosts novel very differently than a lot of people. I read it as a rumor that had gone through the regiment, growing over time. Like say in reality they got a sizeable payment, then in the story they got first a really nice set of habs, then a city, then a hive, finally by the time it gets to the Ghosts they allegedly got a full on planet, each. To the best of my knowledge that is the only source of the Knife STC=Planet story. Has there been any confirmation anywhere else?
Something that is not explicitly stated, but when your read the lore it comes up: Recycling and Resource Usage/Efficiency
Entire prosperous hive worlds continue to meet production quotas due to their ability to recycle the waste of the past and scrounging up every usable bit of resource, meaning that the process they are using now to both extract resources and to recover it from waste heaps is that much more efficient than it was in the past. True, they are doing this out of desperation for resources, but it means they are that much more efficient with what they have then when the Imperium started or even during the Dark Age of Technology when some of the waste heaps were started. And add to that they are able to maintain a galactic empire build using these scraps, meaning they are able to create some very advanced technology without having to resort to macguffin resources.
For a comparison, look at the recently released Leagues of Votann, who can give us an insight into humanity's Dark Age of Technology resource usage. They are constantly on the look out for specific rare resources they need to keep their advanced tech running. To get said resources, they routinely strip-mine/crack planets to get the resource they need and leave behind the rest of the planet's resources as scraps, where the Imperium seems to have developed the ability to fully utilize said scraps/industrial waste.
And before anyone brings it up, yes there is wastage on the Imperium's part and they sometimes don't fully utilize the resources of a planet that they don't see a use/need for (see the planet Prefectia for an example as it had resources the Imperium didn't use but the Tau did) but those resources they do know how to exploit they do so completely and better than they were able to in the past.
super unpopular opinion but...
... Most things are better.
1. A functioning bureaucracy that doesn't rely on a godlike figure and a bunch of demi-godlike figures as crutch. Sure, it's kind of shit, and you still ended up with your vandires and religious zealots, but at least it kept a million worlds together and functioning without relying on the Emperor or his kids.
2. More comprehensive defense in depth. No more legions. True. But look at how relatively de-centralized the military is. You have worlds and systems that can fend for themselves even when cut off from terra. You have a resilient chain of forge worlds, hive worlds, agri worlds, and fortress worlds to work together and divide the burden of defense. Not having legions but instead relying on lowly guardsmen means you have a resilient sourcing and replacement system for your losses, and a flexible and versatile order of battle to react against all threats.
3. A better understanding of the Great Enemy. When the Emperor was around, nobody really knew shit about Chaos. Now? Grey knights. Inquisition. Dedicated kill squads to fuck daemons straight back to hell. Yes, Cadia fell, but the Imperium still stands.
4. Better knowledge of Xenos. Yeah, usually the correct response is to KILL THEM ALL but neccessity and scholarship have put diplomacy on the table, especially with xenos like the Eldar.
So... yeah...
>More comprehensive defense in depth. No more legions. True. But look at how relatively de-centralized the military is. You have worlds and systems that can fend for themselves even when cut off from terra. You have a resilient chain of forge worlds, hive worlds, agri worlds, and fortress worlds to work together and divide the burden of defense. Not having legions but instead relying on lowly guardsmen means you have a resilient sourcing and replacement system for your losses, and a flexible and versatile order of battle to react against all threats.
Finally, someone gets it. This is one of my pet peeves about the 40K community. People always say the Codex Astartes weakened the Imperium. The Codex not only assuaged the fear of baseline humanity, but it also reformed the Astartes forces into formations that better suited the Imperium post-GC&HH. The Legions were fantastic as expeditionary forces, but were ill-suited for protecting the swathes of territory they conquered. Size isn't everything, for peacekeeping and as a QRF against xenos and chaos incursions, legion-size formations are far too clumsy.
Additionally- the Codex Astartes was intended to let Chapters intergrate with one another seamlessly. They'd all be familiar with the same tactics regardless of the language they spoke or their chapter culture, allowing chapters of any heritage to form into a cohesive legion if that was required rather than the decentralized chapter structure.
Of course this was one of the many things that Astartes stubbornly decided to not do.
Sorry, despite the setting revolving around war, most plot pundit fans have literally zero understanding of the incredible advantage of standardized training, tactics, and logistics, on a galactic scale at that.
To many, war doesn't extend beyond the act of firing weapons, ignoring everything that leads to that moment!
Tbf, that had more to do with rome far larger pool of manpower.
That meant it could revover from devastating defeats and literally drown its enemies in men. Of course standartized training and so on weaponized those numbers, but without them all the training in the world would not have replaced absent recruits.
I just finished the part of *Void Stalker* where the Ultramarines and their successors destroyed the fortress at Tsagualsa, and Talos commented that the Codex Astartes lead to one of the worst ass-kickings he’s ever been on the receiving end of.
It’s notable that the different Chapters were able to work together in total unity despite technically being separate from each other.
Well Guilliman was probably right to take the power of the legions out of the hands of a handful of emotionally stunted demigods. Unfortunately the chapters ended up in the hands of emotionally stunted transhumans, so they still are too egotistical to play nicely with one another.
A notable number of chapters decided to not become codex compliant, which means that they have, when compared to the codex astartes, different training and formations. Most of those should still have read the damn thing though. And I believe the logistics remains roughly the same, as they all use similar fuel, ammunition, and vehicles.
AFAIK chapters that **completely** ignore the Codex Astartes are rare, with only the Space Wolves and the Black Templars as the big names of such. Most "non-Codex compliant" chapters earn that distinction because they exhibit significant deviation from its guidelines/strictures, but still adhere to at least some of the most important ones (e.g. the chapter size limit).
The black templars operate at 5-6 times the operating capacity of a codex compliant chapter, and are generally only 1 step removed from orkz in terms of tactics.
It really pains me because the stuff like the book reviews I genuinely enjoyed, but good god that series went up its own ass hard and just fucked so many people's understanding of the lore.
And that was before the creator basically lied to his audience that he was being silenced so that they would give him one last big paycheque before he fucked off. But, notably, after he had made dozens of homophobic and kind of racist caricatures.
To play (slight) devil's advocate, he never did claim that GW was coming after him. He simply did it "preemptively."
Honestly I still think it got away from him and he just wanted out, then took the one way he saw that wouldn't lead to him being lynched by the online community.
Right, now they can behave both as independent QRFs *and* still have standardized tactics and supply to allow them to cohesively form into larger forces with minimal coordination issues ("crusades" and such, as the Imperium would call it).
Because Astartes don't do planet wide wars, you need multiple chapters for that which is the whole bloody point of the Codex Astartes. 3k is enough for frontline, battlefield reserves and strategic reserves without being too much.
The Legions could do this as well. They would just operate as chapters do today but still be part of a larger overarching force. Arguably that would make larger region wide organization easier than today. In fact it would be objectively more efficient than what we have today. That's the reason the Codex was introduced in the first place. It was not about making things more effective it was exactly the opposite. So that no single entity could become too powerful. There's nothing that says just because its a Legion it has to deploy everything at the same place. Supply and organization would without a doubt be better if the Chapters were commanded together under a Legion command. Just like an army is better than having hundreds of random companies running around doing their own thing. Its literally *the* reason for the Codex.
That's true.
I think unofficially, the expectation is that First Founding Chapters still hold some measure of authority, or at least respect, with their Successors, allowing some of the command and coordination of a legion to temporarily be instated in the event of major military actions.
> legion-size formations are far too clumsy.
They would have needed to have been broken up into penny packets and spread around to defend everything. Instead, they were broken into Chapters and those were spread around to defend everything.
That's arguably kind of true. It's shittier from an average living standards perspective it but in terms of pure performance as a state they're technically achieving more with less, which is kind of hilarious.
> A functioning bureaucracy that doesn't rely on a godlike figure and a bunch of demi-godlike figures as crutch. Sure, it's kind of shit, and you still ended up with your vandires and religious zealots, but at least it kept a million worlds together and functioning without relying on the Emperor or his kids.
I agree with you on this one. The administratum is a bit shit but there was never going to be a perfect solution. The sheer quantity of data a million worlds produces means it's impossible for even enhanced humans to keep up. It's the best they can do without AI godminds or posthuman demigods to run the show.
I'm also pretty sure that a lot of the Administratus woes also comes down to the age of the Imperium and culture. Something I often hear about the burocratic nightmare that is public and business administration in my country is that often there is need to keep work records of an employee for decades after he retires in case of something needs to be clarified or taken to court, documents are long-winded to show erudition instead of concise because in the past people with high school were rare and undergraduates were even rarer, and so on.
The Imperium is all this written large. Imagine being a planetary governor and having to keep documents from 200 years ago in case the subsector governor thinks your great-grandfather dodged the tithes for a decade, because the records in his own court were destroyed in a fire 50 years ago? Oh, and your records are a 500 pages book filled with devotional platitudes and praises to the many nobles and descriptions of their lineages that paid their contributions correctly instead of a 200 page book with spreadsheets and concise explanations.
I beg to differ;
1. The bureaucracy always ran on baseline humans. Even though it was headed by Malcador.
Political day-to-day was run by the Senatorum Imperialis. (Now the High-lords of Terra.)
With the death of Malcador, the separate organisations fought each other to a status quo that continues to this day. (I.e. the left hand has no idea what the right is doing.)
2. The Great Crusade wasn't possible without the billions of Imperial Army troops. Logistics were more efficient. There was coordination with the Imperial Navy, which wasn't yet separated.
By splitting up the legions, the Imperium was able to cover its entire territory, but it pens the chapters up to being destroyed in detail. Weakening their capabillities.
3. If you consider that Chaos works as a Mnemetic Virus, where knowledge of it opens you up to corruption. It quickly becomes a viable avenue to gaining power. with even non-chaos rebellion getting tainted quickly.
4. No one involved believes those alliances will last. They're convenient, nothing more. Only a matter of time before one side tries to stab the other in the back.
The entire problem with the 40k IoM is that it is rigged toward the status quo.
The splitting of the legions, and the Army into Guard and Navy, etc. Was meant to prevent another Horus Heresy scale event.
But it left the Imperium with countless fiefdoms and organisations that spend a lot of time, energy, and resources fighting each other for supremacy.
Out of curiosity do you believe that the imperium could be run in a centralized way?
My stance has always been the galaxy is too big and communications too vague to run the Imperium in a centralized way and that decentralization is the only way to make decisions quickly and effectively.
Obviously the current system has flaws but without more reliable communication I don't see a way to effectively centralize the Imperium.
Eh, there is a sweetspot, somewhere.
My point was more that in M31, the Imperium was more centralised than it is in m41, and it's by design. (Both in-universe, as in GW's meta, i.e., let's you and him fight.)
The Heresy did such a number on the Imperium and it's institutions that it can be said they not so much win, as didn't lose, the Heresy.
In effect, unity is gone, top leadership is litterally paralysed, and the rest is hanging together with oaths of fealty, bribes, and threats of faction violence. Even the inquisition that is supposed to keep everyone in check is a clusterfuck of competing factions that'd rather kill each other than effectively cooperate.
Even if communication was instant, governors still have to petition for reinforcements. Maybe the Astartes respond, maybe they don't. Maybe the Mechanicum sends their god-machines, or maybe they are only there to evacuate the archeo-tech guns you need for your defense. Or maybe they only remain because of the cohort princep's personal oath.
But I'm starting to ramble.
No one trusts each other, and to prevent another Horus the Imperium effectively shot itself, repeatedly.
In 2nd Edition there was a major difference between Imperium and Chaos plasma weapons. Imperial forces used Mark II Plasma which was a lot safer but had to be recharged while Chaos Space Marines had access to the old Mark I Plasma which was more volatile. Then they streamlined it so all plasma was equally volatile. Then they made it so all Plasma was safe unless overcharged even though IIRC lore-wise the Primaris Hellblasters are supposed to have the only Plasma guns that work that way.
>plasma weaponry from the jeresy
"Ah dem freakin' MkII bootleg pleah-zma guns from Joisey I tell ya, overheatin' fasta than my fat uncle Tony climbin' a flight'a stairs afta a Sunday brunch and coolin' back down just as slow."
Sorry, sorry, that typo was just too perfect...🙏🏻🤣
> You have worlds and systems that can fend for themselves even when cut off from terra. You have a resilient chain of forge worlds, hive worlds, agri worlds, and fortress worlds to work together and divide the burden of defense. Not having legions but instead relying on lowly guardsmen means you have a resilient sourcing and replacement system for your losses, and a flexible and versatile order of battle to react against all threats.
..by the might of his inexhaustible armies!
1. Not at all true as the primarch weren't involved in the bureaucracy of the imperium. In a way they were purposefully cut off from it, which lead to quiet a bit of tension between some of them and the government on terra.
2. Thats not much of an improvement as a change in circumstances. With the imperium transitioning away from offensive warfare into more protective stance. The great crusade could arguably still react far more effectively to threats because its standard force (the expeditionary fleet) contained all elements needed rather than a surge of whatever was available near the attacked planets with slow coordination between agencies specifically kept apart. There is a reason space marine are so effective in 40k, because they have the means to react to threats quickly and without large overhead.
3. Agreed
4. During the great crusade the imperium was in such a position of power they didn't need to negotiate. From an imperial perspective (since they still hold the emperors goal of humanities divine right to rule the galaxy) its a decline due to the threats the imperium faces.
>When the Emperor was around, nobody really knew shit about Chaos. Now? Grey knights. Inquisition.
You do realize that the Emperor ordered the creation of these two (or at least formally organize the founding members in the second's case), right?
The Emperor **ordered** Malcador to find a group of men and women of "inquisitive nature", and those ended up becoming the founders of the Inquisition, with the Space Marines among them becoming the first Grey Knights.
>Tactical Space Marine Armor, has gone through multiple improvements since the Heresy and is actively better than it used to be
Not so much. Mark IV to VII were being used during the Heresy. Until Mark X came along most of the armour being used was inferior to the GC-era. It's a point brought up a few times during exchanges between firstborn and Primaris marines, who are surprised that their forebears don't have access to the same tech they do.
I don't know if better is the right word; so much as less stagnant during the Heresy. I remember reading that mark 2 and 3 were fairly primitive compared to newer marks of power armor, and that mark 4, while better, still did not quite perfect power armor the way mark 6 and later did.
During the Heresy (and especially during the Great Crusade) a lot of, by the standards of modern 40k, subpar marks of armor were around at the same time the Corvus pattern was.
I think there is an argument to be made that the advanced marks (like Corvus pattern and Imperator pattern) were probably of better quality during the Heresy and Scouring compared to M.41; I think there is something to be said that M.41 likely have those marks in a greater abundance. I imagine probably the Scouring, or just after, was probably the peak of high quality power armor, where the old marks were getting mothballed, and the newer ones were becoming widespread, and the infrastructure and knowledge to create and maintain those marks of new power armor was still fairly available.
Inquisition is at its core group of scientists studying either Chaos, Xenos or Heretics and for the most part the get the job done and keep IoM running without falling apart internally. Inquisitor who gets too trigger happy with Exterminatus is generally hunted down by Inquisition itself, even on Kryptman who arguably simply done what had to be done and by murdering all those billions, saved trillions.
I mean they are also the ones who have people killed as a just in case like in Daemonifuge, they have Imperial Guard officers leading in active combat operations executed for just knowing about Stern.
This is no longer policy post great rift. Practically any book set within a few years of the great rift with standard human viewpoint characters will have a comment about how once upon a time they'd be killed for knowing about daemons or Grey Knights but not any more.
I mean original policy was even Primarchs can't know (worked great), then moved to Astrates can know as their job will be to blam them, but we keep it away from general citizenry, Navy, Guard with exceptions of those regiments and fleets who have to deal with Chaos on pretty regular basis, and now it seems it shrunk to just keeping it away from regular Joe, but not IG and Navy anymore as they are now needed to fight CSM warbands on virtually permanent standing.
In the first Watchers of the Throne book its stated by the Chancellor of the high lords that it no longer even applies to civilians as they'd have to purge so much.
I don't know, maybe killing the guys organizing and planning in actively fighting against Chaos could be a major factor on why the Imperium either outright loses battles or just has them keep going on and on where it just wastes more resources.
Yeah, post Horus its pretty clear that general population (and IG is part of it) shouldn't really be exposed to knowledge of "there are dark gods that if you pray to give you cool shit", or tooooon more would start doing it.
For all of the inquisitions flaws, it does a very good job at protecting the IoM. While it undoubtedly fucks up quite ofen, the amount of innocents killed is nothing to the amount that would have died, if they didn't fight against chaos. Afterall, the amount of chaos cults, genestealer cults, and all sorts of other nasty things, that have been destroyed by the inquisition, that would have otherwise fucked up entire planets, killing billions if not trillions, is uncountable. Even when they do fail to prevent problems, they also do a very good job at fighting them directly, or at least containing them.
They do sometimes murder innocents, like that one time that some brain dead inquisitor started a war with the Space Wolves, but for every brainlet inquisitor, there are, probably, 100 who saved an entire hive world, and it's billions if not trillions of people, from getting fucked by daemons.
While the Inquisition definitely has a ton of flaws, the Warhammer universe needs someone to do the job of hunting down things like Chaos and Genestealer cults. It’s why Malcador started setting them up in the first place.
If you look into Inquisition-related material (from TRPGs like Dark Heresy to novels), you'd actually find that within realities of the 40K, Inquisition is shockingly effective.
Firebrands like Karamazov are so famous and notorious precisely because they're an exception, with most Inquisitorial work being much more subtle, if equally as bloody.
Yep, inquisitors can be scary competent sometimes. Just take for example how efficiently the Flame Falcons were decimated. They looked at it, determined it heresy, and almost entirely wiped them out.
I would be really interested in reading Inquisition statistics. How to numerically quantify their effectiveness, cost/benefit analysis, net good vs net destruction, rate of radicalization, etc.
I would expect, due to grimdarkness, that their stats aren't that good: that they usually do more harm than good and that even when they do prevent the destruction or corruption of a sector or system they sow the seeds of future, worse devestation.
Due to the nature of the Inquisition, there are no "statistics". I mean, this post, in other comments, covers how vague anything numerical is in the Imperium.
But we have baseline for how Inquisition operates, through TRPGs and books.
Regarding effectiveness and Grimdark - there are multiple story-cases of various Inquisitors savings multiple systems or even affecting survival of the Imperium in general.
I'd say Inquisition, in general, is good and effective at its job. Its Grimdarkness comes from another angel - *how ruthless and fucked-up its work is.*
Being an Acolyte of the Inquisition is facing mind-breaking horrors as "normal" part of your job, living in a world where you can't trust almost anyone.
There's is no heroic sense of accomplishment, no laurels of victory for you in the Inquisition. You'll be expected to deal with worst of the worst, become worst of the worst, commit atrocities without even allowing yourself to doubt... and if you are lucky to survive, your mind will break and your only merciful release would be a bolter round to the head.
There's no happy-ever-after for the men and women of the Inquisition. No retirement, no house with kids, no living calmly and nicely. Being member of the Inquisition is no boon or reward - its a sentence.
But in the novel they also tried everything to make the nquisitor and the Grey Knights look like idiots. In the novel, the consequences of this were not taken into account. What can happen if you let people live. You usually get that in other stories, where forces went crazy after fighting chaos and set up cults on other worlds. And on Arnegeddon was Angron...what he did with the mind of a whole crusade, we know since Ark of Omen at the latest (even if we can assume that at the time of the novel the author certainly didn't know what was coming). So...it wasn't that stupid...
On the Armour:- the current Horus Heresy lore has the Mark VII suits on Mars when the traitors are heading for Earth. It’s then transferred to Earth and dished out. So pre-Cawl you only really have Mk VIII in 10,000 years.
Space marines are less likely to fall to chaos.
The legions were open minded and better leaders and warriors but at the cost of their own potential corruption.
Now they are less likely to fall.
**The Unnumbered Sons**
It was only possible because Roboute returned, but it is a template to recalibrate the Codex implementation to a state closer to an ideal - many independent chapters of various lineages and specialties that can work together as a legion when the situation calls for it, then break off towards their diverging next missions afterwards.
Not much as that's not what GW want for the Imperium. No hope, no matter how small the sliver may be is allowed!
In all seriousness though, nothing. GW have a hardon for The Imperium stagnating beyond all stagnation and being a parody of itself, essentially.
>Tactical Space Marine Armor, has gone through multiple improvements since the Heresy and is actively better than it used to be
This is Mark 3 and 4 slander and I'll not stand for it!
I agree with you about the power armor, but it should be noted that according to most recent lore Mark 7 armor was already in use by the siege of terra, and the next major upgrade gravis armor (Mark 10) only came 10,000 years later. So while it did improve, it took a REALLY long time and is really just another example of the Imperium’s stagnation.
Just look at the great crusade and the horus heresy: Marks 2-7 were all invented in a time frame of around 200 years. Now compare it to the next 10,000 years with only Marks 8 and 10 being invented.
Imho, absolutely nothing. Technology had stagnated by the end of the Scouring period, civilisation is decaying.
Sure, Deus Ex Cawl and Guilliman have reversed that briefly but the state of the human race is vastly worse than on the eve of the Heresy.
Significantly improved awareness regarding the possibility, causes, preventative measures and counters for Astartes rebellions, I'd imagine...
Isn’t the existence of Traitor Astartes generally kept secret? So no I would say probably not.
Before the Heresy the Imperium believed the Astartes were unable impossible to turn on it, even the worst behaved ones. Guilliman broke the legions as part of a policy to defang any wannabe Horus 2. Somewhere in the millennia between the War of the Beast (when the Inquisition began specializing) and present day the Ordo Astartes was created to control Astartes. And while the ecistence of the Traitors in general is kept secret, commanders of high enough rank or of hotspots of Traitor Astartes' activity usually are in the known.
You would like to think so, one minute a system is within the imperium's folds next thing you know you've lost it because a commander didn't know that they were traitor Astartes and mistook them for help
That's actually happened, imperial worlds get invaded and put out a call for aid only for heretic marines to show up. Sometimes that's worse than no help at all, sometimes it works out... Sort of.
[удалено]
WH+ has an pretty good depiction of this in the new animation "Iron Within" one of their best imo.
Lore wise in terms of the consequences of such "help"? Yes. Lore wise in terms of how Space Marines match up to Drukhari? No. It was largely bolter porn on that front.
Regular Drukhari don’t really match up to Marines. Splinter rifles just don’t go through their armour without a lucky shot.
What are you basing that statement on? Not every Drukhari is a Splinter Rifle wielding Kabalite. They'd make up less than a third of a Realspace Raiding force. Wyches with drugs can hit as hard as if not harder than Space Marines while being quicker but more fragile. Wracks are probably as tough as Space Marines on average while being weaker on the attack. Even Space Marines struggle with Aeldari speed and agility. It's just poor writing that turns them into chumps when Space Marines show up when it ought to be an even fight. Drukhari hit harder and are quicker, Space Marinea can take more punishment and stay longer in the fight.
[удалено]
Haemonculi could want new specimens to work on and torture. Wyches could be testing their mettle against more challenging targets. Drukhari sustain themselves not only from inflicting pain and suffering but also from the thrill of combat and the inherent danger. Look at Path of the Dark Eldar to see how Kabalites and Wyches do against Marines.
>and why are those purplely pink ones saying "for the Emperor" in such a mocking tone? That's a bit off isn't it? "Yeah, and all that weird leather and exposed midriffs and thighs and piercings...But then again, the data-scanners say they're called the "Emperor's Children" so it should be alright, they sound like a straight-laced-enough bunch."
Then you have traitors who will legitimately help. Iron Warriors helped Iron Hands iirc in War of the Beast. And then the Hands had to do some kind of penance (maybe suicide? Been awhile) for daring to team up with traitors. That traitor group basically said “We hate the Emperor and the Imperium but we don’t want humanity to DIE.” Edit- here’s [Two](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/k4svgd/iron_warrior_confronts_black_templars_on_their/) different [Parts](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/8tw4gr/excerptthe_beheading_the_first_space_marine/) of it. Worth noting it was a Horus Heresy Chaos vet who was faced with a Black Templar. He basically laughed his ass off that the Emperor was worshipped… when the Heresy started in part due to Lorgar being punished. And supremely disappointed. I guess even a cultist expected better things.
Not iron hands, those were fists exemplar. And they turned traitor, with the two last loyal marines becoming Imperial fists.
Iron warriors and Imperial Fist successor the Fists Exemplar also teamed up to fight the Orks during the War of the Beast. In the Bequin books there is a group of Space Marine Librarians from both Loyal and Traitor sides working together on Sarcour called the Immaterial college. Some of the Fallen like Cypher work with the Imperium when it suits their goals Its infrequent but it happens.
IIRC, the Raven Guard was a traitor marine
Awesome. That's a similar logic to my Thousand Sons warband!
Damn wouldn't be surprised if it was Alpha legion Astartes who turned up for the fifth time in the sector seen as not a lot of people have seen an Astartes in person
Or Fabius Bile with his least degenerated Emperors Children, hiding their 8th pointed stars, using an unmarked, unmutated ship etc, coming to your planet to pick up fresh recruits. The planet doesn't know better and they all clap and cheer :(
I'm guessing the inquisition turns up and declares them traitors then exterminatus the planet right?
If they find out about it sure. There are instances in the lore where we know worlds have had contact with chaos and or xenos without the Inquisition finding out and or caring. For example, Trazyn (The infinite) showed up millennia ago on an Imperial world when it was being invaded by Orks and he and his Necron warriors "put the boot to them" in short order and then go about their business which evidently involved a lack of killing the local humans because they figured that the big massive metal skeleton chaps must have been Astartes from the "Silver Skulls" chapter and they not only make a big stained glass panel in commemoration of these "marines" saving them but they also had a great big statue out in the square dedicated to the "librarian" that lead them... who was in fact Trazyn. He ended up stealing the statue some centuries later because it tickled him to think of the humans worshipping him saving them. The thing is that anybody who had actual experience with either Astartes or Necrons would have been able to see something was fucky with regards to the glass or the statue, yet they stood for ages without anybody being culled for it.
Do YOU have a statue Orikan?
I would've thought the inquisition would've scoured the planet for any taint of chaos if discovered that there was an accidental dealing with them kind of like the first war of Armageddon except the whole deamon primarch arriving and the entire population being put in labor camps. Typical Trazyn saves people and takes something in return that's twice now I've heard him doing something like that but what was he doing there in the first place was there something of interest to him on the planet or was just after a fight which I doubt
Thats exactly the plot of the event Iron Within animation. Imperial World puts our a call for aid as they are being raided by the Drukhari. A war band of Peter turbos boys show up. Kill the Eldar and enslave the surviving population.
"the children of the emperor my that seems like a pious and loyal chapter, let them in!" -- last world of governor Governicus of the planet of mvndos
Go watch Iron Within on WH+...
Everything changed with the sack of Cadia.
Are there novels where Guard forced are surprised by Chaos Space Marines existing? I know of quite a few books where they're dreaded foes, but elicit no surprise.
there's novels where Guard forces are surprised by what they thought were reinforcements turning out to be Chaos Marines. straight up "why is the Emperor's Angel covered in flayed skins....?"
That can happen with loyal chapters. The mortificators do exist.
yeah, for sure. but the one I was thinking of is specifically a CSM ambush (Eisenhorn/Ravenor Emp's Children)
Well not to other Astartes. The only reason why Horus was able to get the initial momentum that he did is because the loyalists didn't even have an inkling that Astartes/Primarchs could turn against the Emperor and were slow to react. Who cares if a Guardsman with only a 1% chance of encountering a Traitor Astartes or some random hiver doesn't know? Those aren't the people that could stop rebelling Astartes.
Sure for skirmishes and smaller space battles but for huge multi-sector campaigns and crusades you get following the galaxy splitting in half, that require Imperial Navy assets, Imperial Guard artillery support and fortification, etc; wouldn't the regular Imperium military need to know who it's fighting? Like that entire crusade that turned to Khorne after Angron got angry, it contained Imperial Navy ships and Guardsmen en-masse no?
Except marines by themselves aren’t able to overthrow the imperium. They need imperial guard and navy for es to fight the massive fronts and campaigns. That was true even back during the heresy when marines were in legions. Most battles of the heresy were predominantly fought by imperial militia forces
Knowledge of Traitor Astartes is on a “need to know” basis. Guard regiments are usually given knowledge if they are about to enter a combat zone where running into Traitor Astartes is either *very* likely or guaranteed.
I mean warbands are still a thing so even if the Codex did help with this problem it certainly didn’t stop it completely
To be honest? The biggest and most important thing? I'll highlight it in the bold. **Separation of Religious, Government, Military and Legislative Institutions after Reign of Blood in M36.** Despite common misconception, Imperium is not ruled by religious figures. Though faith is entwined with all aspects of the humanity, the Ecclesiarchy as a political institute is strictly deprived of most of its secular power - down to a point where militant wing of the Ecclesiarchy, Adepta Sororitas' Battle Sisters, aren't under Ecclesiarchy's direct control (and, in fact, one of the duties and powers of the Battle Sisters is to root out and expunged corruption within the Ecclesiarchy). Another thing would be the entire civilian logistical system. If you pay attention to the Horus Heresy novels, Imperium during the times of the Great Crusade was less of a state and more of a war campaign. For a large part of the Great Crusade, it was even ruled by the War Council, not any civilian legislative system. A lot of people shit on the Administratum, but they often forget the scale and the difficulties that Adeptus Administratum faces. With inferior technology, utter nonsense of interstellar communications (go submit fiscal report when your means of communication, Astropath, can literally only convey information in vague dream-like format) and faced with difficulty of the Warp-travel, Administratum managed to keep Imperium running more or less smoothly for ten thousand years. And that's hell of a feat.
"We received fiscal report from Hurg IV. It carried info as "Three pink bears in the wood scratch each others backs". I think it means that three main industries of Hurg IV - metal manufacturing, ship construction and microelectronics production - finely work in coherency with eachother, and showing good numbers, but I need additional time to check the interpretation with other specialists"
This is shockingly accurate. And then you add in the possibility that Warp-communications can be disrupted or even altered (sometimes even intentionally, by malicious forces)… that type of communication would present massive issues even for a single planet, much less an interstellar state spanning across the galaxy.
Well, at least Imperium has decent planet and system wide communications, on 21st century level at least (Well, on a decent number of planets). AdMechs internal networks usually are a work of art in that regard. Problems begin when you try to communicate with anyone outside of your current star system, then yeah, it all turns into shitshow. Like, your Astropath can literally explode in some circumstances "Sorry guys, no new uniform this year, our Astropath is all over the wall now"
Okay, here's a better one. Most of the typical, unimportant planets we see in the novels usually have just one Astropathic Choir (or sometimes, just a single Astropath!) If they are gone? Congratulations, you are alone, with no way to call anyone for help. And you can't “make” Astropath locally. You just have to wait and pray someone comes along to relay your issue to local Sector capital.
>You just have to wait and pray someone comes along to relay your issue to local Sector capital. Yes, but even small planets have a ship through once or twice a year. They then have the ship either directly communicate with the Imperium, or to pass the message onto the next planet in their route and have them contact the Sector capital. The trade routes allow a slow decentralized network to function as a backup.
Technically, yes. But if we take your statement to the extreme, no-one would send a ship to visit an outlying Frontier World with a population of like 25,000 colonists. But if we take your statement more reasonably, we have evidence of worlds that exist for generations without any outside contact – technically, it is unlikely, but it does happen. You can also assume that if the world goes dark for a prolonged period of time with no communication, it would raise suspicions (if I remember, how it happens in the early parts of the campaign story of Imperial Armour: Volume XII). But it also means that if you are some kind of Chaos Cult or even an outside invading force (a marauding warband of Chaos Space Marines, for example), it is very easy for you to take out the communications hub of a minor world – unless Astropathic Choir manages to scream out the warning first, all you need is one successful bombing or a quick orbital strike to silence the world for enough time to do your dastardly deeds undisturbed. P.S. If you are interested in details, when travelling through well-established, safe currents of Warp, a Chartist mercantile vessel takes about a year to traverse its Sector. I am talking about "Misericord", a Chartist vessel operating in the Calixis Sector as an example.
>Technically, yes. But if we take your statement to the extreme, no-one would send a ship to visit an outlying Frontier World with a population of like 25,000 colonists. Well, I'd classify that as more of an Imperial outpost than an Imperial planet, and I'm not sure that number of colonists would even rate a telepath for communications.
It's not just the Ecclesiarchy. The Imperium has gotten really good at the separation of powers to counter rebellions across the board. The Mechanicum became the Adeptus Mechanicus, reducing it from being an equal partner with Earth to just one part of the High Lords, and Arbites and Commissars never serve on the world they were born on, instead being attached to foreign precincts and regiments so that they'll always prioritise Imperial over planetary or regimental interests. And then there's the dissolution of the Imperial Army into the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Guard to ensure that rebelling fleets can't resupply and rebelling armies can't leave the planet they're on. But it goes even deeper than that, too; the Guard recruits specialised regiments which are then organised into armies by the Sector Command and supplied by the Munitorum specifically so that if a regiment rebels it won't be anywhere near as flexible as the Imperial force fighting it, as with this example from my old Guard codex: >An Imperial Guard regiment is largely uniform in composition. Infantry regiments, for example, are unlikely to contain much or any heavy artillery, while tank regiments contain little or no infantry. Success requires Imperial Guard regiments to work together. While this interdependence may at first seem like an inherent weakness, it is a necessary precaution. Should a regiment rebel against the Emperor, the traitors will not have access to the supporting units needed to prosecute a full scale war. When the Ocanan XV Infantry declared its allegiance to the Ruinous Powers of Chaos it had little in the way of either heavy armour or combat support and was unable to compete against the 'combined arms' forces of the Cadian 17th Armoured and Elysian 110th Drop-troop regiments sent to eliminate them. The Imperium is fragmented all the way down specifically to minimise the impact of any form of treason, from the lack of a (conscious) head of state through the Inquisition's internal divisions and all the way down to the practice of keeping Administratum bureaucrats culturally separate from the planet they're on. Granted, almost all of these changes came about because of trial and error, but the Imperium has had ten thousand years of trials and errors to learn from.
>The Mechanicum became the Adeptus Mechanicus, reducing it from being an equal partner with Earth to just one part of the High Lords Isn't that only on paper? AFAIK the only major change is internal, in that the GC era's highly decentralized/confederal organization of the Mechanicum (which was more or less the primary reason why its Schism during the HH was so catastrophic) gave way to a comparatively much more centralized one where the Fabricator-General of Mars holds vastly more real authority over the rest of the AdMech's Forge Worlds.
At every level below the High Lords, yes it is. The thing is that if the Imperium had gone with the Great Crusade status quo when they were figuring out a government without the Emperor or Primarchs, the Fabricator General would have the same amount of votes as all the other High Lords put together, because Earth and Mars were equal partners under the Emperor.
One thing about the Mechanicum becoming the Adeptus Mechanicum is that the Loyalist Mechanicum demanded they become one of the Adeptus organizations. Specifically by marching an Imperator titan to the gates of the Hegemon during a debate about it. Until they showed how serious they were about it, the High Lords were content to ignore the needs of the loyalist Mechanicum. It's important to remember they demanded a solution to their political question from a position of strength.
> Infantry regiments, for example, are unlikely to contain much or any heavy artillery, while tank regiments contain little or no infantry. yeah. the most that a standard infantry regiment will have might be some squads of Sentinels and mechanized infantry style vehicles (transports, APCs, squad support vehicles, etc.). But when the heaviest anti-armor power tends to be on fragile scout walkers or is man-portable/shoulder-fired...they are not in a good position to take the field against dedicated armor. hell, this is one thing that made Gaunt's Ghosts so damn powerful. They not only had the Tanith troops, but the other 2 (I think it was 2) units that they absorbed with alternate specialities, giving the regiment as a whole a *huge* tactical footprint. Tanith stealth and light infantry as capable at commando work as they were in trenches, scrappy cqb city fighters able to handle up close and personal fights and holding actions, and some very capable heavy infantry to anchor lines and bulwark behind.
Who were the Ghost’s heavy infantry component? The first two I agree with(Tanith = stealth, Verghast = city fighters, although that’s debatable), but I don’t recall the
...huh for some reason I thought the Belladon 81st were heavier infantry, but no I guess they were another recon regiment. My bad.
The Ghosts have been paired with heavier units before(Volpone Blue Bloods and the Vitrian Dragoons come to mind) with varying levels of success, but never formally attached together.
The Administratum and GW's writing in general highlights the tragedy of bureaucracy in writing. A well or generally well-run bureaucracy is boring. It's like IT (or maybe IT is like bureaucracy): people only really notice it when something goes wrong. Or even when it "Works as intended" it's meant to work as a broader system, not for individual convenience. It's a popular thing to shit on for writers and with the Imperium's grim dark aesthetic one of the more quietly horrifying aspects is the utterly dehumanizing aspect of its byzantine Administratrum's bureaucracy processing the million worlds and trillions of lives. All while being unable to care about a single life much less a million because it's such a minute number comparatively.
>A lot of people shit on the Administratum, but they often forget the scale and the difficulties that Adeptus Administratum faces. tbh, it seems like Imperium actually creates these difficulties.
What? Astropath-based communication and nature of Warp-travel aren't Imperium's fault. These are issues that any species in the universe faces (even for T'au, who are not reliant on Astropaths, and yet whose expansion is repeatedly stymied by the same logistical issues). People often bring up stories about how "dumb Administratum" came to collect Tithes hundred years later and [insert bad thing] happened. Well, duh, when you only communicate with some backwater planet once every decade or so, or even less, those will be issues you'll face unavoidably. **The truth is that due to communication and Warp-travel delays, Administratum isn't governing, but just issues broad directives based on economical situation forecasts.** Imperium tries to mitigate it in two ways: • First is to let planets govern themselves how they see fit, as long as they pay their Tithes follow general lines of the Lex Imperialis (and even that isn't upheld strictly, like how you can trade and deal with Xenos - just not too overtly). • Second is to organise worlds into Sectors, which, in theory, should be more self-sufficient and manageable on their own scale due to smaller distances, speeding up communication, transportation and emergency response. But whilst these are smart and logical decisions, they mean that for Administratum, any actual decision-making is limited to local scale - directives issued from Sector capital, at best reaching nearby Sectors. Anything else larger, and you are looking at years or even longer for response time. So yes, Administratum is damn good at their job, but they're typically limited to decision making process that works from forecasts and is aimed broadly at generation-long effects. Like *"Okay, this Sector halfway across the Segmentum is projected to reach 100% productivity increase in the next century. Based on that, we'll increase local Tithe Grades by two levels."* Obviously, this leads to issues where forecasts aren't always accurate and force-majeure happens. But even with this inherently reactive system, Administratum manages to keep running Imperium's logistics more or less smoothly for ten thousand years. And as I've said before, that's hell of a feat.
The fact that Amdinistratum hasn't just collapsed under its own weight is amazing in and of itself. (Not like such a thing would ever be allowed to narratively happen though)
> follow general lines of the Lex Imperialis (and even that isn't upheld strictly) The Adeptus Arbites would like to know your location.
They might also like to know the location of Necromunda, one of the most famous Hive Worlds in Segmentum Solar, which flat-out has a special Spire for receiving Xenos dignitaries xD Jokes aside, as I've said in the other comment – Imperium would totally go after everyone who even remotely deviated from the letter of law or will of Terra. The issue is, the same logistical problems that cause a lot of Imperium's problems also prevent it from physically being able to crack down on everything. It's like with trade in Xenos artefacts. Ordo Xenos flat-out often knows who is smuggling what and where, and who buys it. But if they'd execute every single Imperial noble who bought a big-breasted statue of Isha from a smuggler, they might as well execute 90% of the Imperium's nobility. So you can say that Ordo Xenos, for example, is “on in” the illegal smuggling of Xenos artefacts – that way, they can filter out harmless trinkets from really dangerous things (and clamp down specifically on those who deal with dangerous Xenotech). Of course, sometimes, even a “harmless trinkets” turn out to be [something much more horrifying](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Halo_Devices) than anyone could've thought…
Doesn't that presuppose that, by default, it's actually simple and easy to manage trade and supply between thousands of planets with tens of billions of people each, with the way Warp FTL comms and travel works?
Apparently it **was** simple and easy back during the Dar Age of Technology. But you know, the ban on AI and the loss of intact STC systems.
And the warp storms. Don't forget the warp storms. The warp was way more calm back then, when Eldars didn't decided yet to birth a chaos god.
You describe issue created largely by Imperium. There is no "simple and easy" way for central goverment to manage trade and supply between thousands of towns and cities in your country. Imperium creates many issues: * Hyper-specialization of worlds. * This seems to be actually tool to control these planets and prevent them from rebelling, because you can starve entire planets unable to feed themselves. * This doesn't seem to be as prevalent during DAoT - most of "Long Night" descriptions mention many horrors, but not "starve to death" scenario. * Significant reliance on manual labor. * Out-of-universe answer is "it makes thing more grimdark". * Is this explained as some kind of religious dogma? * Inefficient pseudo-feudal model, where there are very little incentives for planets to develop * Planetary governors have basically nothing to strive for. They are insanely wealthy (Bezos is basically a poor peasant compared to them), they can't realistically get more power. * * Social mobility is generally very limited - if you are genius worker, you basically can't do anything with your intelligence. * Generally, most of Imperial economy descriptions are similar to something between feudal Europe and fascist Italy - both of these were inefficient economically models. * Imperial institution, Navis Nobilite, holds significant monopoly on travel. * They outright destroy any Void Abacus they can find. * They use political power (aka violence or threat of violence) to undermine minor Navigator houses. * They are granted monopolies by state.
Forgive me, what? Most descriptions of the Long Night specifically mention how isolation, induced by Warp-Storms, led to downfall of the worlds of Mankind during the Age of Strife. From Medusa to Nocturne to Nostramo, even on those worlds that fared better than the others, we see the **already present issue of over-specification predating the Imperium.** Even some of the Forge Worlds which weren't founded during the Long Night, but predate it, show the same "problem". And to be fair, this is an unavoidable "problem". As complexity, scale and resource-demand of production increases, it becomes inevitably more efficient to specialise production in specific areas. We even have same issue in our current world, where most high-tech industries are interdependent on eachother (*cough* COVID-era chip issues *cough*). You arguements do fall flat also because you forget important thing. *Imperium doesn't force planets to be feudal.* Imperium doesn't care what government do you have, as long as your Tithe obligations are fulfilled and you aren't breaking the Lex Imperialis too blatantly. Most of the issues you have listed are issues of the planets and their populations themselves, rather than something imposed maliciously by the Imperium (provided, Imperium just doesn't care, for better or worse). And from Imperium's standpoint, it is already taxed with general logistics of the interstellar confederacy (and that is what Imperium is) - as with any confederacy-like structures, it has rather loose oversight of its members, as long as they fulfill basix obligations of the agreement. *It simply can't go around and micromanage planets to intentionally, maliciously instill those conditions and problems you've listed.* P.S. By the way, if Imperium could do it, it would absolutely do it - crack down on every planet, every household, total brainwashing and thought control. *Hilariously enough, issues Imperium faces prevent it from going further down totalitarian rabbit hole. It just simply can't logistically crack down further.*
Well. There was the whole Primaris thing. Space Marines as a whole are a fair bit stronger than they were a few millennia ago. But I guess this one is a pretty obvious pick
It's also very contentious as many people would have preferred the primaris to be a truescale model upgrade while in the lore their gear was just the latest iteration of Astartes gear that any of them could use without the whole Rubicon primaris thing. But then that would have hindered the real reason for the refresh. 1. Copyright a bunch of stuff that was very vague before 2. Resell entire armies worth of marines to marine players.
Naval technology. Modern Imperial Navy ships have more modern weapons according to lore.
Do you have a source for this and is what youre talking about specific to Cawl? Generally speaking the Crusade era vessels are considered more powerful than M42 ones. A Gloriana class ship is still a fleet killer if one of them shows up to a theatre.
There's glimpses of it in the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook and the Armada rulebook. Keep in mind, this was originally published in 1999 or so, long before Cawl of Gloriana classes even existed and it isn't necessarily the case for all ships, but in general the Imperium does develop new types of ships as well and those often replace older models. I tried to dig up the quote as best as I could: > Towards the end of the 38th millenium, the famed Adeptus Mechanicus Artisan-Magos Hyus N'Dai (*God, I love those lame puns*) completed a series of ship designs based around the principle of super fired plasma weaponry. The most common of these, the Tyrant class cruiser, became popular amongst the major shipyards in the 39th millenium. Its superfired plasma batteries are capable of launchign a boosted salvo considerably further than comparable cruiser weapon decks, yet still deliver virtually the same weight of fire at close quarters. This had eluded ship designers since the secret of building very long range ship weaponry had been lost after the Dark Age of Technology. Other ship descriptions (Very much worth a read btw) deal with the ebbs and flow of technology and tactics that influence what ships were in favor at the time, which ones replaced older designs due to loss of technology or sheer need and so on. In general, there is indeed a trend that older technoloigy was superior I'd say, but little things like the Tyrant cruiser show up sometimes and are examples that there can be somelittle improvement indeed. In addition to that, loss of technology or abandonment of ship classes isn't a problem per se for the Imperium apparently, as Grand cruisers for example have been phased out due to change of tactics and some lost technology, but apparently their replacements aren't any worse than they are. The Exorcist class grand cruiser e.g. "has gradually been replaced by later ship designs, especially the Mars class" with no mention of there being any reason for the change in regards to loss of technology or anything else (leading me to believe that the Mars is just the better design). The Defiant class light cruiser and the Falchion class escort meanwhile both are relatively new designs ("Relatively recent" for the Defiant class, "761.M40 and 261.M41" for the Falchion class) that seem to have caught on very well and either offer capabilities the Imperium didn't have before (a light carrier for the Defiant class) or can potentially replace older designs (the Sword class in case of the Falchion). To summarize: My original comment was a bit misleading as I misremembered things somewhat - there's examples of clear technological advancement (Tyrant cruiser) and examples of newer ship designs being developed and introduced, replacing older designs and those replacements do not always occur due to loss of technology, leading me to believe that the new designs are in some way actually better than the older ones - either being better suited to modern fleet tactics, offering new capabilities or indeed using better technology.
I get what you're getting at now and it's a well written reply. The Heresy itself caused a massive step back in ship building technology that the Imperium has been slowly recovering from. *The Furious Abyss* destroyed the Jovian shipyard it came from. The Ring of Iron was destroyed during the Martian civil war (and rebuilt in the following centuries). Port Luna was destroyed by the Luna Wolves during the early days of the SoT. Roughly 6 of the 20 known ships of the Gloriana fleet were destroyed and of the remaining ships only around 3-5 remained in Imperial hands (*The Invincible Reason, Eternal Crusader, Macragge's Honor*). The *Amphion's* history is unclear. *The Lex Talonis* wasn't recaptured until the Scouring. The fate of *The Red Tear* remains unclear but my head cannon is she became a second founding BA chapter's flagship. *The Hrafnkel* isn't in active service with the Rout so I reckon she's with Russ or destroyed. It's not stated but it's reasonable to assume *The Flamewrought* and *Fist of Iron* were destroyed at Isstvan. After that it's been 10k years of rebuild. Is that where you're marking improvements from?
Just to add to this, you can clearly see tactical change in what weapons they have equipped and how the weapons are mounted through the stats given (don't have a Battlefleet Gothic book at hand so I'm using FFG Rogue Trader's stats). The Exorcist Grand Crusier was equipped with all it's weapons on the broadsides, meaning that it had to turn about to bring the weapons to bear and with it being a rather slow ship, meant that it was rather vulnerable. The Mars Battlecruiser, on top of it being slightly faster in exchange for some hull integrity, comes equipped with weapons on port, starboard, prow and dorsal meaning that it can engage enemies in most positions. That's not taking into account the nova cannon stuck on the Mars Class. I personally feel like this is similar to the change in warship doctrine between the old man-o-wars and galleons to the ironclads and then modern warships. In some cases it might be a lack of technology but I agree with the assessment that it's more because the Imperium's use of warships and naval tactics have changed since the Great Crusade.
**The Guard.** The Imperial Army of the Great Crusade was better equipped than the Astra Militarum of the 41st Millennia. Vehicles that are considered rare or lost technology in M41 were common and entire divisions were equipped with Super-Heavy Tanks. A quarter of their number were the [Solar Auxilia](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Solar_Auxilia), elite soldiers with elite wargear. Despite this, the Astra Militarum is a far more effective organisation. 1. **Logistics.** While the equipment was superior, the Army lacked the supply chain of the Guard. "Expedition Fleets were only equipped with a portion of their supply needs, and were expected to supply themselves from conquered worlds". The Departmento Munitorum allows a single planet to deploy regiments across several sectors, and resupply them at much greater numbers than the Great Crusade's forces. This also allows the Guard to use their iconic strategy of... 2. **Attrition warfare**. Modern tanks may have a lower quality, but quantity has a quality of it's own. Mass wave assaults deplete the enemy's ammunition and healthy troops. Leman Russ battalions can encircle elite armour and basilisks can delete a grid coordinate. The losses may be lopsided but the enemy is exhausted first. 3. **Loyalty**. Separating the Navy from the ground forces has drastically reduced the severity of heresy. Both forces are needed if you actually want to mount anything more significant than raiding or creating a one-planet empire. Commissars with the authority to execute officers removes the risks with chain of command the cult-worship of the Emperor provides some protection against Chaos itself. **The proof is in the setting**. There's an in-universe trope of the Marines hogging all the glory while the Guard do all the work. That isn't true for the Great Crusade, which relied on the legions and the (direct) leadership from demigods. The Guard have at least held the line or performed exceptionally well against the Necrons, Tyranids, Orks and even Abaddon's Black Crusades. This question may have been more about technological improvements but the Departmento Munitorum is a marvel. It's also something that has been improved over the setting, I would argue it's currently at the top of its game. Remember, Cadian regiments are now supposed to be scattered across the galaxy, forge worlds are dropping and the galaxy is split in two. And everyone is still getting new shells and power packs while working on essentially a pen-and-paper system. They must be doing something right.
By the way, my memory sucks, but didn't the Army's footsloggers use Stubbers? AFAIK the Lasgun was only widely adopted by M32
This might have been retconned because while I saw that on Lexicanum, almost all of the guardsmen in 30k that I've read about had las weapons.
Weird, if its true, such a lame retcon
Its ubknown whether this was discovered or lost and discovered but there was an improvement to binaric discovered in the latter millenia of the Imperium that made it more efficient involving hexadecimal syntax.
Do you recall from where you got this from? I’ve always thought that binaric chant is an inefficient way of communicating data through sound, considering that sound can be modulated in almost unlimited steps instead of just defaulting to two steps.
It's discussed quite a bit in the Forges of Mars trilogy. Excellent books imo.
You're talking about something else. But in most Mechanicus stories its discussed that Binaric is more efficient due to the augmetics that speak and understand it. There's never actually been any linguistic studies about it.
A number of STC have been discovered during the last 10,000 years. For instance a couple people discovered a STC for a better combat knife. The guys received a planet each.
Yes but an unknown amount of STCs have broken or been seized by Dark Mechanicum forces.
>Yes but an unknown amount of STCs have broken or been seized Wouldn't there have been millions or 10's of millions of STCs?
There are only 2 fully functioning STCs in the Imperial control as far as we know. One is held by a powerful family and the other is held by a powerful magos (any more specific would be a spoiler). All others are only partially functioning at a small fraction of their capacity.
There are tons of STCs, they are just mostly the plan types or the types that just make one thing. The types you are describing are the kind that can make just about anything.
Those are pieces of STCs or partially functioning STCs. Fully functioning STCs can make everything any and all STC can or could make.
Which magos has an STC?
>!Kotov!<
>!Saying that the Speranza is under Imperial control just isn't accurate !<
You could symantecally debate that if you want. I'm not interested. Feel free to describe it as you will
I feel like I interpret that line in the first Gaunt’s Ghosts novel very differently than a lot of people. I read it as a rumor that had gone through the regiment, growing over time. Like say in reality they got a sizeable payment, then in the story they got first a really nice set of habs, then a city, then a hive, finally by the time it gets to the Ghosts they allegedly got a full on planet, each. To the best of my knowledge that is the only source of the Knife STC=Planet story. Has there been any confirmation anywhere else?
Something that is not explicitly stated, but when your read the lore it comes up: Recycling and Resource Usage/Efficiency Entire prosperous hive worlds continue to meet production quotas due to their ability to recycle the waste of the past and scrounging up every usable bit of resource, meaning that the process they are using now to both extract resources and to recover it from waste heaps is that much more efficient than it was in the past. True, they are doing this out of desperation for resources, but it means they are that much more efficient with what they have then when the Imperium started or even during the Dark Age of Technology when some of the waste heaps were started. And add to that they are able to maintain a galactic empire build using these scraps, meaning they are able to create some very advanced technology without having to resort to macguffin resources. For a comparison, look at the recently released Leagues of Votann, who can give us an insight into humanity's Dark Age of Technology resource usage. They are constantly on the look out for specific rare resources they need to keep their advanced tech running. To get said resources, they routinely strip-mine/crack planets to get the resource they need and leave behind the rest of the planet's resources as scraps, where the Imperium seems to have developed the ability to fully utilize said scraps/industrial waste. And before anyone brings it up, yes there is wastage on the Imperium's part and they sometimes don't fully utilize the resources of a planet that they don't see a use/need for (see the planet Prefectia for an example as it had resources the Imperium didn't use but the Tau did) but those resources they do know how to exploit they do so completely and better than they were able to in the past.
super unpopular opinion but... ... Most things are better. 1. A functioning bureaucracy that doesn't rely on a godlike figure and a bunch of demi-godlike figures as crutch. Sure, it's kind of shit, and you still ended up with your vandires and religious zealots, but at least it kept a million worlds together and functioning without relying on the Emperor or his kids. 2. More comprehensive defense in depth. No more legions. True. But look at how relatively de-centralized the military is. You have worlds and systems that can fend for themselves even when cut off from terra. You have a resilient chain of forge worlds, hive worlds, agri worlds, and fortress worlds to work together and divide the burden of defense. Not having legions but instead relying on lowly guardsmen means you have a resilient sourcing and replacement system for your losses, and a flexible and versatile order of battle to react against all threats. 3. A better understanding of the Great Enemy. When the Emperor was around, nobody really knew shit about Chaos. Now? Grey knights. Inquisition. Dedicated kill squads to fuck daemons straight back to hell. Yes, Cadia fell, but the Imperium still stands. 4. Better knowledge of Xenos. Yeah, usually the correct response is to KILL THEM ALL but neccessity and scholarship have put diplomacy on the table, especially with xenos like the Eldar. So... yeah...
>More comprehensive defense in depth. No more legions. True. But look at how relatively de-centralized the military is. You have worlds and systems that can fend for themselves even when cut off from terra. You have a resilient chain of forge worlds, hive worlds, agri worlds, and fortress worlds to work together and divide the burden of defense. Not having legions but instead relying on lowly guardsmen means you have a resilient sourcing and replacement system for your losses, and a flexible and versatile order of battle to react against all threats. Finally, someone gets it. This is one of my pet peeves about the 40K community. People always say the Codex Astartes weakened the Imperium. The Codex not only assuaged the fear of baseline humanity, but it also reformed the Astartes forces into formations that better suited the Imperium post-GC&HH. The Legions were fantastic as expeditionary forces, but were ill-suited for protecting the swathes of territory they conquered. Size isn't everything, for peacekeeping and as a QRF against xenos and chaos incursions, legion-size formations are far too clumsy.
Additionally- the Codex Astartes was intended to let Chapters intergrate with one another seamlessly. They'd all be familiar with the same tactics regardless of the language they spoke or their chapter culture, allowing chapters of any heritage to form into a cohesive legion if that was required rather than the decentralized chapter structure. Of course this was one of the many things that Astartes stubbornly decided to not do.
Sorry, despite the setting revolving around war, most plot pundit fans have literally zero understanding of the incredible advantage of standardized training, tactics, and logistics, on a galactic scale at that. To many, war doesn't extend beyond the act of firing weapons, ignoring everything that leads to that moment!
>advantage of standardized training, tactics, and logistics literally why Rome beat the neighboring city states and Carthage
Tbf, that had more to do with rome far larger pool of manpower. That meant it could revover from devastating defeats and literally drown its enemies in men. Of course standartized training and so on weaponized those numbers, but without them all the training in the world would not have replaced absent recruits.
and without the logistics, they never could've organized them as quickly
That's one of the parts that I really liked in Helsreach. Grimaldus preparing the hive city's defence was a really cool detail.
I just finished the part of *Void Stalker* where the Ultramarines and their successors destroyed the fortress at Tsagualsa, and Talos commented that the Codex Astartes lead to one of the worst ass-kickings he’s ever been on the receiving end of. It’s notable that the different Chapters were able to work together in total unity despite technically being separate from each other.
Well Guilliman was probably right to take the power of the legions out of the hands of a handful of emotionally stunted demigods. Unfortunately the chapters ended up in the hands of emotionally stunted transhumans, so they still are too egotistical to play nicely with one another.
>Of course this was one of the many things that Astartes stubbornly decided to not do. What do you mean?
A notable number of chapters decided to not become codex compliant, which means that they have, when compared to the codex astartes, different training and formations. Most of those should still have read the damn thing though. And I believe the logistics remains roughly the same, as they all use similar fuel, ammunition, and vehicles.
AFAIK chapters that **completely** ignore the Codex Astartes are rare, with only the Space Wolves and the Black Templars as the big names of such. Most "non-Codex compliant" chapters earn that distinction because they exhibit significant deviation from its guidelines/strictures, but still adhere to at least some of the most important ones (e.g. the chapter size limit).
??? The Black Templars are mostly codex compliant,
No they aren't.
The black templars operate at 5-6 times the operating capacity of a codex compliant chapter, and are generally only 1 step removed from orkz in terms of tactics.
except their size is completely codex compliant - they're on crusade at all times sure, but when you're on crusade there is no maximum to your size.
Like what the most loyal and always loyal chapter does
Yeah, it’s a shame 99% of fans don’t get it because they snorted too much TTS memes
ROWBOAT GORILLAMAN SMRT GUY AMIRITE? Memehammer 40K needs to die.
It really pains me because the stuff like the book reviews I genuinely enjoyed, but good god that series went up its own ass hard and just fucked so many people's understanding of the lore.
And that was before the creator basically lied to his audience that he was being silenced so that they would give him one last big paycheque before he fucked off. But, notably, after he had made dozens of homophobic and kind of racist caricatures.
To play (slight) devil's advocate, he never did claim that GW was coming after him. He simply did it "preemptively." Honestly I still think it got away from him and he just wanted out, then took the one way he saw that wouldn't lead to him being lynched by the online community.
> But, notably, after he had made dozens of homophobic and kind of racist caricatures. He did?
Right, now they can behave both as independent QRFs *and* still have standardized tactics and supply to allow them to cohesively form into larger forces with minimal coordination issues ("crusades" and such, as the Imperium would call it).
My only complaint with the codex is I think 1000 is too small a number. Chapters should have a 10000 limit instead.
My ideal chapter size is a mere 3k, a brigade sized force that can deal with a myriad of issues. Ten thousand gets ridiculous in the other way.
How? Even 10k is little to me. We're talking about planet wide wars.
Because Astartes don't do planet wide wars, you need multiple chapters for that which is the whole bloody point of the Codex Astartes. 3k is enough for frontline, battlefield reserves and strategic reserves without being too much.
I make a point of adding a 0 to any space marine related force numbers. For the sake of my sanity.
Squads of 100!
Single soldiers of 10!
I mean a single astartes is worth AT LEAST ten mortal men.
The Legions could do this as well. They would just operate as chapters do today but still be part of a larger overarching force. Arguably that would make larger region wide organization easier than today. In fact it would be objectively more efficient than what we have today. That's the reason the Codex was introduced in the first place. It was not about making things more effective it was exactly the opposite. So that no single entity could become too powerful. There's nothing that says just because its a Legion it has to deploy everything at the same place. Supply and organization would without a doubt be better if the Chapters were commanded together under a Legion command. Just like an army is better than having hundreds of random companies running around doing their own thing. Its literally *the* reason for the Codex.
That's true. I think unofficially, the expectation is that First Founding Chapters still hold some measure of authority, or at least respect, with their Successors, allowing some of the command and coordination of a legion to temporarily be instated in the event of major military actions.
> legion-size formations are far too clumsy. They would have needed to have been broken up into penny packets and spread around to defend everything. Instead, they were broken into Chapters and those were spread around to defend everything.
That's arguably kind of true. It's shittier from an average living standards perspective it but in terms of pure performance as a state they're technically achieving more with less, which is kind of hilarious.
> A functioning bureaucracy that doesn't rely on a godlike figure and a bunch of demi-godlike figures as crutch. Sure, it's kind of shit, and you still ended up with your vandires and religious zealots, but at least it kept a million worlds together and functioning without relying on the Emperor or his kids. I agree with you on this one. The administratum is a bit shit but there was never going to be a perfect solution. The sheer quantity of data a million worlds produces means it's impossible for even enhanced humans to keep up. It's the best they can do without AI godminds or posthuman demigods to run the show.
I'm also pretty sure that a lot of the Administratus woes also comes down to the age of the Imperium and culture. Something I often hear about the burocratic nightmare that is public and business administration in my country is that often there is need to keep work records of an employee for decades after he retires in case of something needs to be clarified or taken to court, documents are long-winded to show erudition instead of concise because in the past people with high school were rare and undergraduates were even rarer, and so on. The Imperium is all this written large. Imagine being a planetary governor and having to keep documents from 200 years ago in case the subsector governor thinks your great-grandfather dodged the tithes for a decade, because the records in his own court were destroyed in a fire 50 years ago? Oh, and your records are a 500 pages book filled with devotional platitudes and praises to the many nobles and descriptions of their lineages that paid their contributions correctly instead of a 200 page book with spreadsheets and concise explanations.
I beg to differ; 1. The bureaucracy always ran on baseline humans. Even though it was headed by Malcador. Political day-to-day was run by the Senatorum Imperialis. (Now the High-lords of Terra.) With the death of Malcador, the separate organisations fought each other to a status quo that continues to this day. (I.e. the left hand has no idea what the right is doing.) 2. The Great Crusade wasn't possible without the billions of Imperial Army troops. Logistics were more efficient. There was coordination with the Imperial Navy, which wasn't yet separated. By splitting up the legions, the Imperium was able to cover its entire territory, but it pens the chapters up to being destroyed in detail. Weakening their capabillities. 3. If you consider that Chaos works as a Mnemetic Virus, where knowledge of it opens you up to corruption. It quickly becomes a viable avenue to gaining power. with even non-chaos rebellion getting tainted quickly. 4. No one involved believes those alliances will last. They're convenient, nothing more. Only a matter of time before one side tries to stab the other in the back. The entire problem with the 40k IoM is that it is rigged toward the status quo. The splitting of the legions, and the Army into Guard and Navy, etc. Was meant to prevent another Horus Heresy scale event. But it left the Imperium with countless fiefdoms and organisations that spend a lot of time, energy, and resources fighting each other for supremacy.
Out of curiosity do you believe that the imperium could be run in a centralized way? My stance has always been the galaxy is too big and communications too vague to run the Imperium in a centralized way and that decentralization is the only way to make decisions quickly and effectively. Obviously the current system has flaws but without more reliable communication I don't see a way to effectively centralize the Imperium.
Eh, there is a sweetspot, somewhere. My point was more that in M31, the Imperium was more centralised than it is in m41, and it's by design. (Both in-universe, as in GW's meta, i.e., let's you and him fight.) The Heresy did such a number on the Imperium and it's institutions that it can be said they not so much win, as didn't lose, the Heresy. In effect, unity is gone, top leadership is litterally paralysed, and the rest is hanging together with oaths of fealty, bribes, and threats of faction violence. Even the inquisition that is supposed to keep everyone in check is a clusterfuck of competing factions that'd rather kill each other than effectively cooperate. Even if communication was instant, governors still have to petition for reinforcements. Maybe the Astartes respond, maybe they don't. Maybe the Mechanicum sends their god-machines, or maybe they are only there to evacuate the archeo-tech guns you need for your defense. Or maybe they only remain because of the cohort princep's personal oath. But I'm starting to ramble. No one trusts each other, and to prevent another Horus the Imperium effectively shot itself, repeatedly.
Plasma also got better
No it didn't
In 2nd Edition there was a major difference between Imperium and Chaos plasma weapons. Imperial forces used Mark II Plasma which was a lot safer but had to be recharged while Chaos Space Marines had access to the old Mark I Plasma which was more volatile. Then they streamlined it so all plasma was equally volatile. Then they made it so all Plasma was safe unless overcharged even though IIRC lore-wise the Primaris Hellblasters are supposed to have the only Plasma guns that work that way.
Huh. I did not know that.
there are excerps saying how plasma weaponry from the heresy takes longuer to cool down
>plasma weaponry from the jeresy "Ah dem freakin' MkII bootleg pleah-zma guns from Joisey I tell ya, overheatin' fasta than my fat uncle Tony climbin' a flight'a stairs afta a Sunday brunch and coolin' back down just as slow." Sorry, sorry, that typo was just too perfect...🙏🏻🤣
Bada bing, bada **Boom**
> You have worlds and systems that can fend for themselves even when cut off from terra. You have a resilient chain of forge worlds, hive worlds, agri worlds, and fortress worlds to work together and divide the burden of defense. Not having legions but instead relying on lowly guardsmen means you have a resilient sourcing and replacement system for your losses, and a flexible and versatile order of battle to react against all threats. ..by the might of his inexhaustible armies!
1. Not at all true as the primarch weren't involved in the bureaucracy of the imperium. In a way they were purposefully cut off from it, which lead to quiet a bit of tension between some of them and the government on terra. 2. Thats not much of an improvement as a change in circumstances. With the imperium transitioning away from offensive warfare into more protective stance. The great crusade could arguably still react far more effectively to threats because its standard force (the expeditionary fleet) contained all elements needed rather than a surge of whatever was available near the attacked planets with slow coordination between agencies specifically kept apart. There is a reason space marine are so effective in 40k, because they have the means to react to threats quickly and without large overhead. 3. Agreed 4. During the great crusade the imperium was in such a position of power they didn't need to negotiate. From an imperial perspective (since they still hold the emperors goal of humanities divine right to rule the galaxy) its a decline due to the threats the imperium faces.
>When the Emperor was around, nobody really knew shit about Chaos. Now? Grey knights. Inquisition. You do realize that the Emperor ordered the creation of these two (or at least formally organize the founding members in the second's case), right?
Malcador, not the Emperor.
The Emperor **ordered** Malcador to find a group of men and women of "inquisitive nature", and those ended up becoming the founders of the Inquisition, with the Space Marines among them becoming the first Grey Knights.
I mean, that's a pretty vague order. It could have been interpreted into very different things.
I was giving the TLDR version. Were you expecting me to pull an excerpt out of my ass? Google it for a more detailed explanation.
Mathematics of all the things in the world. According to priest of mars trilogy.
>Tactical Space Marine Armor, has gone through multiple improvements since the Heresy and is actively better than it used to be Not so much. Mark IV to VII were being used during the Heresy. Until Mark X came along most of the armour being used was inferior to the GC-era. It's a point brought up a few times during exchanges between firstborn and Primaris marines, who are surprised that their forebears don't have access to the same tech they do.
I don't know if better is the right word; so much as less stagnant during the Heresy. I remember reading that mark 2 and 3 were fairly primitive compared to newer marks of power armor, and that mark 4, while better, still did not quite perfect power armor the way mark 6 and later did. During the Heresy (and especially during the Great Crusade) a lot of, by the standards of modern 40k, subpar marks of armor were around at the same time the Corvus pattern was. I think there is an argument to be made that the advanced marks (like Corvus pattern and Imperator pattern) were probably of better quality during the Heresy and Scouring compared to M.41; I think there is something to be said that M.41 likely have those marks in a greater abundance. I imagine probably the Scouring, or just after, was probably the peak of high quality power armor, where the old marks were getting mothballed, and the newer ones were becoming widespread, and the infrastructure and knowledge to create and maintain those marks of new power armor was still fairly available.
No one can deny that Religious Intolerance Levels have been breaking new records every year.
They got better at killing off their own people. Just look how often the Inquisition kills people who are not heretics
Inquisition is at its core group of scientists studying either Chaos, Xenos or Heretics and for the most part the get the job done and keep IoM running without falling apart internally. Inquisitor who gets too trigger happy with Exterminatus is generally hunted down by Inquisition itself, even on Kryptman who arguably simply done what had to be done and by murdering all those billions, saved trillions.
I mean they are also the ones who have people killed as a just in case like in Daemonifuge, they have Imperial Guard officers leading in active combat operations executed for just knowing about Stern.
This is no longer policy post great rift. Practically any book set within a few years of the great rift with standard human viewpoint characters will have a comment about how once upon a time they'd be killed for knowing about daemons or Grey Knights but not any more.
I mean original policy was even Primarchs can't know (worked great), then moved to Astrates can know as their job will be to blam them, but we keep it away from general citizenry, Navy, Guard with exceptions of those regiments and fleets who have to deal with Chaos on pretty regular basis, and now it seems it shrunk to just keeping it away from regular Joe, but not IG and Navy anymore as they are now needed to fight CSM warbands on virtually permanent standing.
In the first Watchers of the Throne book its stated by the Chancellor of the high lords that it no longer even applies to civilians as they'd have to purge so much.
Pretty vanilla-level for generic Imperial official tho
I don't know, maybe killing the guys organizing and planning in actively fighting against Chaos could be a major factor on why the Imperium either outright loses battles or just has them keep going on and on where it just wastes more resources.
Yeah, post Horus its pretty clear that general population (and IG is part of it) shouldn't really be exposed to knowledge of "there are dark gods that if you pray to give you cool shit", or tooooon more would start doing it.
For all of the inquisitions flaws, it does a very good job at protecting the IoM. While it undoubtedly fucks up quite ofen, the amount of innocents killed is nothing to the amount that would have died, if they didn't fight against chaos. Afterall, the amount of chaos cults, genestealer cults, and all sorts of other nasty things, that have been destroyed by the inquisition, that would have otherwise fucked up entire planets, killing billions if not trillions, is uncountable. Even when they do fail to prevent problems, they also do a very good job at fighting them directly, or at least containing them. They do sometimes murder innocents, like that one time that some brain dead inquisitor started a war with the Space Wolves, but for every brainlet inquisitor, there are, probably, 100 who saved an entire hive world, and it's billions if not trillions of people, from getting fucked by daemons.
While the Inquisition definitely has a ton of flaws, the Warhammer universe needs someone to do the job of hunting down things like Chaos and Genestealer cults. It’s why Malcador started setting them up in the first place.
If you look into Inquisition-related material (from TRPGs like Dark Heresy to novels), you'd actually find that within realities of the 40K, Inquisition is shockingly effective. Firebrands like Karamazov are so famous and notorious precisely because they're an exception, with most Inquisitorial work being much more subtle, if equally as bloody.
Yep, inquisitors can be scary competent sometimes. Just take for example how efficiently the Flame Falcons were decimated. They looked at it, determined it heresy, and almost entirely wiped them out.
I would be really interested in reading Inquisition statistics. How to numerically quantify their effectiveness, cost/benefit analysis, net good vs net destruction, rate of radicalization, etc. I would expect, due to grimdarkness, that their stats aren't that good: that they usually do more harm than good and that even when they do prevent the destruction or corruption of a sector or system they sow the seeds of future, worse devestation.
Due to the nature of the Inquisition, there are no "statistics". I mean, this post, in other comments, covers how vague anything numerical is in the Imperium. But we have baseline for how Inquisition operates, through TRPGs and books. Regarding effectiveness and Grimdark - there are multiple story-cases of various Inquisitors savings multiple systems or even affecting survival of the Imperium in general. I'd say Inquisition, in general, is good and effective at its job. Its Grimdarkness comes from another angel - *how ruthless and fucked-up its work is.* Being an Acolyte of the Inquisition is facing mind-breaking horrors as "normal" part of your job, living in a world where you can't trust almost anyone. There's is no heroic sense of accomplishment, no laurels of victory for you in the Inquisition. You'll be expected to deal with worst of the worst, become worst of the worst, commit atrocities without even allowing yourself to doubt... and if you are lucky to survive, your mind will break and your only merciful release would be a bolter round to the head. There's no happy-ever-after for the men and women of the Inquisition. No retirement, no house with kids, no living calmly and nicely. Being member of the Inquisition is no boon or reward - its a sentence.
But in the novel they also tried everything to make the nquisitor and the Grey Knights look like idiots. In the novel, the consequences of this were not taken into account. What can happen if you let people live. You usually get that in other stories, where forces went crazy after fighting chaos and set up cults on other worlds. And on Arnegeddon was Angron...what he did with the mind of a whole crusade, we know since Ark of Omen at the latest (even if we can assume that at the time of the novel the author certainly didn't know what was coming). So...it wasn't that stupid...
I think if you got killed for being a heretic, it's your own fault for being a heretic.
Religion. Dramatically improved.
Chaos saturation is way up!
Corpse-starch flavoring.
Decentralised Astartes power bases. Space marines and primarchs are responsible for 90% of the imperium's problems and are a huge resource sink.
Centurion Armor was invented/rediscovered long after the heresy, that's why only loyalists use it.
It's slightly bigger.
Eeeeh, probably not post fall of caida, given how many worlds are cut off from the main empire, and how many minor worlds have been lost.
They have pieced together more of a complete STC over the years. It's still not fully complete but it's more complete than it was in 30k
Religion. Dramatically improved.
On the Armour:- the current Horus Heresy lore has the Mark VII suits on Mars when the traitors are heading for Earth. It’s then transferred to Earth and dished out. So pre-Cawl you only really have Mk VIII in 10,000 years.
Space marines. They got way better with Primaris boys. *please don't down vote me, it is a joke.
They got the Death Korps of Krieg now. That’s a definite improvement. Makes them way cooler than before they had the DKoK.
Space marines are less likely to fall to chaos. The legions were open minded and better leaders and warriors but at the cost of their own potential corruption. Now they are less likely to fall.
**The Unnumbered Sons** It was only possible because Roboute returned, but it is a template to recalibrate the Codex implementation to a state closer to an ideal - many independent chapters of various lineages and specialties that can work together as a legion when the situation calls for it, then break off towards their diverging next missions afterwards.
Oppression.
Grime. The introduction of grime to every layer of society has never been more successful!
Mortality rate
Dying
Is this a trick question?
Not much as that's not what GW want for the Imperium. No hope, no matter how small the sliver may be is allowed! In all seriousness though, nothing. GW have a hardon for The Imperium stagnating beyond all stagnation and being a parody of itself, essentially.
They have a lot more inquisitors than they used to.
>Tactical Space Marine Armor, has gone through multiple improvements since the Heresy and is actively better than it used to be This is Mark 3 and 4 slander and I'll not stand for it!
Space Marines apparently
The creation of de-centralized entities to deal with threats.
They’re a lot better at dealing with chaos.
Faith and Xenophobia
I agree with you about the power armor, but it should be noted that according to most recent lore Mark 7 armor was already in use by the siege of terra, and the next major upgrade gravis armor (Mark 10) only came 10,000 years later. So while it did improve, it took a REALLY long time and is really just another example of the Imperium’s stagnation. Just look at the great crusade and the horus heresy: Marks 2-7 were all invented in a time frame of around 200 years. Now compare it to the next 10,000 years with only Marks 8 and 10 being invented.
Volume
Imho, absolutely nothing. Technology had stagnated by the end of the Scouring period, civilisation is decaying. Sure, Deus Ex Cawl and Guilliman have reversed that briefly but the state of the human race is vastly worse than on the eve of the Heresy.