Nobledark 40k Part 24: Fyodor Flips His Shit edition

I don't think that characterization is of Assassins is quite right. Assassins are still pretty much human weapons utterly dedicated to their craft, like an Eversor will never be anything other than an insane walking blender. If anything, indoctrination should have increased since the beginning given the twin failings of the Beheading and the Age of Apostasy, new Assassins will have the idea of unfailing loyalty to the Emperor (not the Imperium, note) drilled into their skulls because at the end of the day they exist by the Emperor's mercy, and the moment they fail again like that they will all be liquidated by his hand. Could that indoctrination be subverted? Maybe, but it would be a tiny, rare exception with a narratively convincing reason though.

As for SMs, it was mentioned in an early thread that a standard Codex adherent chapters operates somewhat like modern day special forces, answering only to high/central command but wise enough to work closely with front line grunts.

The indoctrination could work both ways. If some nefarious cunt figured out how to manipulate one of them then he would have huge sway with them all because they all march to the same beat, so to speak. Also if they are utterly loyal to the Emperor to an unthinking robot degree and are taught to be hard and uncompromising bastards and then someone like Karamazov comes along then things could get a bit murky.

Karamazov, to their inhuman sensibilities, would make a batter Emperor.

Also child soldiers routinely abducted and turned into not-quite-people is a bit grimdark. Krieg gets away with it because it's not done on anything but the local level but the Assassins are part of an Imperium wide organization with Oscars own stamp of approval on them.

Is there room in this AU for a Strogg like race to be an affront to the Mechanicus and a menace to everyone?

Is there a Borg But Not Shit faction in Vanilla that could be used?

Literally one paragraph left on a write-up on them and then it's ready to be posted. Damn.

Strogg are big on cybernetics, right? Maybe the Rak'Gol?

Eh, the assassins got fucked up twice and paid for it. Having the same kind of shit happen AGAIN would go against the "noble" part of nobledark.

And they don't have to be child abductees. Could also be fanatic volunteers or transfers from lesser "special operations" organizations. Or was that written down somewhere?

For the whole "Inquisitorial coup", I think a better approach would be to have Fyodor send a fuckhuge mob of fanatics. People who had a part in Salem, willing or not quite, and realize they have no way back. Perhaps a few blanks mixed in - if Karamazov was big against witches then he might have gathered those. Similar to canon Eisenhorn.

Karamazov knows they will all be slaughtered, but he does not care. Their only purpose is to kill lesser functionaries and disrupt the Court long enough for him to secure his position and call up followers in the Inquisition.

Death cultists might be sent against the High Lords on Earth - those guys can be killed, maybe. This is where Eldrad can do his "trap card" thing.

The rushed nature of the whole thing also plays to the idea that no one, including Fyodor, planned it in advance. He was getting more extreme during the Back Crusade and seemed to be getting away with it. Salem is just one step higher, but Emps notices and shit gets real.

Indeed there is. There was some human society located northeast of the Maelstrom that I noticed in one of the 40k galactic maps that had a really creepy name and was a technocracy that sounded like even the Mechanicus would go "nope" at the sight of them.

I tried looking them up, but all I found were the Auretian Technocracy and the Olamic Quietude. It's possible they were the latter, but I remember them being called technarchs or tech-lords or something. They sounded like a society of uploaded human minds that was really creepy and inhuman by everyone else's standards.

From what it sounds like, in this timeline the Imperium might be in sort of a cold war with this technocracy. Whereas in vanilla the Imperium destroyed them after a long battle, here the technocracy has more advanced technology than the Imperium but lacks the manpower. The technocracy refuses to join the Imperium but at the same time doesn't have the numbers to actively control Imperial space. So the two just stare daggers at each other across the stars now.

>to the Emperor (not the Imperium, note)
Considering loyalty to Emperor over Imperium was the cause of their last downfall, I don't think that'd change any time soon - it's a valuable safeguard that, if anything, would've been beefed up since Vandire. That being said, it's there that you have an opportunity to explain away some of them defecting to Fyodor - they too might share his belief that Oscar is unquestionably a bad thing for the Imperium, and they would prioritise its safety over his rule.

Still, I agree with the others - we don't want the assmasters fucking up again, because they've already been milked a little.

Isn't the AdMech itself basically Strogg?
Directly controlled lesser troops are servitors and the unique boss creatures are magos. Mix of organic and cyber bits for everyone.

Or is the concept about playing up "Big Computer controlling everyone" ? That would get Mechanicus upset as they would see it as Iron Mind 2.0.

Mindshackle scarabs controlled by a Necron Tomb AI are close. Maybe the Tomb was damaged, there are no normal warriors or nobles, so the AI uses its manufacturing base to convert local lifeforms. Hard to make it an interplanetary threat though.

A relic Iron Mind or Obliterator variant are also possibilities but those are more Chaos than just Man-Machine.

I was going to bring this up last thread. Here’s a question that really needs to be asked. What plan, if any, does the Imperium have in the event that Oscar ever dies?

So much of the state of the Imperium in this timeline depends on Oscar being immortal. There are no succession crises or sudden changes in policy because Oscar is immortal. History cannot be skewed as easily because you have Oscar around who has actually lived through the events in question and can set everyone straight.

But what happens if Oscar dies? You run into the same problem every enlightened dictatorship has. Any dictatorship or monarchy, no matter how enlightened, only lasts as long as it has a strong ruler. And there is no guarantee that a good leader will always have good successors.

On a related note, I think I know what Erebus' end game is in this timeline, and why he stole the Anathame from the Kinebrach and Interex.

>On a related note, I think I know what Erebus' end game is in this timeline, and why he stole the Anathame from the Kinebrach and Interex.
You can't drop a line like that and then not expand on it, man.

If Emps dies then the Imperium's only hope of survival is even further reliance on the eldar and their webway making the partnership very lopsided in their favour.

The only thing that Emps could do that nobody else could was Astropaths. IF you want a civilization of galactic size to have any hop of remaining unified you need to get messages across it very quickly. Message boats aren't fast enough.

The only other people who can do this faster than the Navigators are eldar because of the webway of which they have a monopoly because no human besides Jaq Draco can navigate it. It's still not as fast as Astropaths so the peripheral regions will probably fall away.

Isha then uses the increased influence of her children to inherit the Throne. With any look she genuinely does love her adopted children as much as her real children and will be a just All-Mother. Hopefully there is enough of society and people are sensible enough and the Imperium can still hold out against the endless night.

What's more likely to happen is a succession crisis, civil war, Imperium fragments, nobody can hold out against the night and all the little empires get destroyed or worse one after another. Any humans and eldar that survive uncorrupted will be fearful little thing hiding away in the corners of the galaxy and sleeping on the Ark Ship.

This is why Emperor doesn't go into battle in person anymore. The risk of death is minimal but even that is too high. If he dies it's game fucking over one way or another.

Oh fuck so many typos.

I'm need snooze.

Have random click pic

It's worth noting that the assassins basically don't exist as a political organization. There are plenty of assassins trained, there are masters, there is an assassin 'culture' and distinct training techniques, but...There is no longer a grandmaster. After the Age of Apostasy, the Officio Assassinorum was dissolved, and the Officio Tacitum put in its place. And the Ordo Securitas (Or Ordo Sicarius? Or both? There was some naming confusion) keeps the assassins on a tight leash.

But that doesn't preclude the possibility of the watchmen abusing their office. The inquisitors of the Ordo Securitas have the final say over all assassin activities.

For well over 5000 years, this hasn't been a problem. But, problems crop up.

Assassin techniques have been proliferating out. The old assassins of the Salt Spire traditions kept their circles small so they could be sure that the masters were in control. With the Ordo Sicarius/Securitas/whatever, this has significantly changed. With 5000 years, leaks were inevitable. High talent agents are always in demand, and the Inquisition has begrudgingly answered that demand over time by expanding the Officio Tacitum. And on occasion, Inquisitors have sought to improve on the methods of the masters, or to cultivate their own personal stables of assassins. Cross departmental training has also further proliferated the methods of the assassins.

For those that kept to the old ways, this was sacrilegious. But they were sidelined and powerless in the face of the power of the inquisitors. The Grandmaster Assassin's seat on the High Lords of Terra was empty, and never again would any fear the assassins, or respect their power. When Karamazov hatched his scheme, he simply went to the Ordo Sicarius. The Sicarius had more flexible agents, those raised personally for Inquisitorial retinues, rather than the products of feeble Assassin temples. All the same gear and training, none of the cultural baggage.

Slight thing: the Ordo Securitas (née Sicarius) isn't so much flexible, nor were they raised personally for Inquisitorial retinues - the Securitas is an Ordo specifically dedicated to watching for abuses of power in the Inquisition (and sometimes elsewhere). And, since they were given unlimitedpower.bmp, they also had the Nobledark's equivalent of the Decree Passive slapped onto them; which the Sororitas then stepped in and filled the same loophole they did in Vanilla (since SMs aren't detached units anymore, SoBs make up most of the muscle in Inquisitorial retinues these days, Securitas or not). Since they're the Ordo dedicated to the Inquisition itself, the Civil War would only really happen if it was either it too was divided, or just simply swamped by Fyodor's rebels.

fwiw, I personally headcanon the Securitas as something like the SCP Foundation's Ethics Committee - they're not as overt as the other Ordos in their duties, and sometimes they even welcome the notion that they're little more than a laughing stock, because that way nobody really expects them.
>You will observe what is done, and ask the participants - and yourself - why it is being done. If at any point you feel that something is excessive or unnecessary or wrong, you inform us. We will summon the people involved, and ask them questions, in that meek ineffectual way that your coworkers have mocked.
>And then, word will filter down...through the many levels of our bureaucracy. And those who are unethical will be given reprimands which will be noted on their permanent record. Or their pay will be cut, or they will be demoted, or they will be transferred to another project.
>Or they will be shot, for crimes against humanity.

Problem is Fyodor have been using his position as a High Lord and his henchman the Master (don't know the word) of Ordo Sicarius/Securitas to ensure that his men gets away with as much as they could, etc.

Fyodor isn't a High Lord, though.

What do you think? He's going to try and stab Oscar with the murder sword. It's why he broke it into a bunch of smaller knives to increase the chance that someone he's entrusted a knife to will be able to shank Oscar before he riddles them with mind bullets.

Oscar's ridiculously powerful compared to a baseline human, but unlike the other ridiculously powerful entities in the universe (the Chaos Gods, the C'tan, the Eldar Gods, even the big-name daemons like Be'lakor or Ka'bandha), he's distinctly mortal. In a universe where there are no demigod-level primarchs, Oscar represents the best target for the Anathame. Murder knives will kill him just like anything else.

Question is, is "Oscar" or "Item 43" the right name to get the murder sword a-murderin'.

Adding to this, if Big E does die it really behooves the rest of the Imperium to find out where the other two thirds of the Tuchulcha are. Assuming they also weren't on Calban when it blew the pieces of the Tuchulcha have a rather...cut and loose relationship with causality and losing one piece doesn't necessarily mean the thing won't work.

It's like if you had an engine that was missing a major piece, but it still ran because that piece existed sixty years from now and runs in the future San Dimas Time style whenever it is run in the past.

Problem is the Tuchulcha is also alive, like a lot of the Old Ones' high-end creations. But the situation might be desperate enough to reverse engineer the Webway maker no matter what the cost.

Meanwhile the Tarellians are pointing at the rest of the Imperium and laughing.

The...literally what, now?

The reason Caliban has such a problem with Warp Creatures is the Old Ones left the equipment they used to make the Webway on Caliban, which caused a leakage of Warp energy into realspace.

In the Horus Heresy, it is revealed that the device was split into three chunks, one of which is on Caliban, and the other two which were out there in the galaxy. Bringing the three together caused reality to go cross-eyed and has something to do with Cypher and the Fallen showing up randomly throughout Imperial history in some sort of causality loop.

>Time-traveling Fallen Marines
fug :DDD

That was in vanilla. I don't think Nobledark has the same set of events that led to Quantum Fallen Space Marines.

how many points would fielding a spess marine chapter be?

not chapter, company

Dear lord, I know Black Library has produced some bad fluff but even this is a bit much for them.

Welcome to Nobledark Imperium: We dig up and sift through some of Black Library's more cringe-inducing fluff so you don't have to.

>SCP Foundation's Ethics Committee
That's a good way of describing it. The rest of the Inquisition needs to know if it can be done. They need to know if it is right.

So the assassins on Karamazov's payroll are assassins rather than Assassins bar a few freak occurrences. Trained killers taught unofficially by the approved of trained killers. One of the freak occurrences would have to be the idiot trying to jab Oscar in the head with a C'Tan phase blade because Pariah gene is very rare.

I think that they would have come to the attention of the Ordo Chronus. That might have, in fact, been what happened to them. They fight a shadow war across all of time and space, hunting each other sideways through no-linear space both pursued by the Hounds of Tindalos and stranger things who have their scent and come at them through strange angles.

So far only one of that strange breed of Inquisitor has been found since they all vanished in late M37. HE was discovered in the cargo holds of the ship Hoec's Grace captained by the in/famous Prince Yriel. He vanished into the crowd when they made port and the Prince will speak nothing of the mad, terrible things he was told.

Cybernetics warfare and nothing else.

No history, no culture beyond military, no industry or scientific interest beyond military application and no notions of morality at all. Their only interest is war and not even for any reason. It's not even like they enjoy it like orks do.

The most "need" they have is that they break down corpses into food or new soldiers to perpetuate the war.

So Fyodor coup basically like this, yes?

> Gathers followers in the more orthodox factions. Won over head of Ordo Securitas/ Sicarius.
>> Implants followers and henchmens all over the Travelling Court Fleet. The escorts and hanger-on ships got implanted with all kinds of explosives.

Lots of Blanks and assassins, some Assassins infiltrated the ship, creating a blank spot preventing Seers from predicting the coup. Most shrugs it off as the Royal Couple needing some... private time. (Eldrad included)

Now, they wait.

> Salem happens. The Emperor flips his shit, storms off to the Ordo Securitas representative (who is actually a follower of Fyodor). Decided to start the coup early.

Eldrad decided to visit, but suddenly receives a vision of what was to come resulting him havig the sprint of his life through the Webway to the Court. Pulls all favors he can spare to the quinns, Yreal, Ceggers, etc.

>> The coup happens the next day when they were unloading guests off the fleet. Simultaneously, hundreds of charges, detonators, cyclonic torpedoes and warp bomb detonated, instantly crippling if not outright vaporizing most of the ships in the fleet, resulting in countless casualties, -important ones- at that. The Court itself was crippled, dead in the air and on a collision course with the space station/ the planet itself.

The infiltrators and assassins within the Court struck at once, revealing themselves from the disguise as lowly janitors, scribe or guards themselves, massacring the surprised loyal Guards and even many Custodes. The Emperor almost got killed when he lost his footing during the explosions and the Ordo Securitas representative whipped out a 'murder-knife' and was just about to shiv him when Eldrad almost exploded out of the webway portal within the chamber and decked the assassin.

(cont)

No sooner than Empy and Macha/Isha realized what was happening did the adamantium bulkhead to the room exploded and assassins poured into the room.

> A massive battle ensues, with the Royal Couple and Eldrad (and Kitten who was just behind the two) resorting to their more conventional weapons and magics (but still, an effin flaming sword is still very awesome) due to the sheer amount of Blanks (and a very special Culexus) on board... as the Court is rapidly losing orbit, spiraling downward to the planet below meaning that they only now have 12 turns to get to the escape pods OR the bridge and defeat the Culexus in order to use their full power and stop the Court from performing exterminatus via orbital drop on the Hive World below.

That's about it.

It was not the resounding success that Fyodor wanted it to be.

When the assassins started pouring into the throne room to butcher the rest of the High Lords, attendants, assistants and other high ups the Emps and Isha were supposed to already be dead. There would still have been the most high up casualties had simultaneously in imperial history but not the total decapitation strike Karamazov was hoping for. It's hard to do your job when Gilgamesh and Asherah are going full RIP AND TEAR at you and your coworkers. More so when Merlin gets his angry wizard boots on.

Although it was a horrendously bad mistake on Oscars part to go to the head of Ordo Securitas it was also a terrible idea on the part of Fyodor Karamazov to reveal his hand so soon and commit what must have been all of his Blanks and Pariahs in one suicide attack.

Also the rebelling faction is not the orthodox sect in this AU. In this AU the orthodox sect is the live and let live sect. The monodominats and other super authoritarians are radicals because they are going against the traditional order of things.

The final part got a chuckle out of me.

And the first too. XD

On a tangential note, sometimes I wonder if the Emperor's big flaming sword is really a sword at all, as opposed to a force field projection of sword-shaped space that is constantly on fire due to friction burn due to displacement of the atmosphere. It would explain why it's on fire and why the Emperor seems to be able to whip it out at a moment's notice.

On the other hand, I don't think that's how forcefields work in 40k and the Emperor's blade seems to have persisted since his death.

Isn't the Securitas also in charge of the Sisters of Battle as its militant arm? How are Oscar and Isha going to react to the fact that the Securitas rebelled, given the whole "who watches the watchmen" kind of thing.

Surprise, at first until they realize that appointing someone ultra-authoritative as the head of the Securitas is a bad move, especially with Fyodor -was- being the High Lord Inquisitor...

Heh, this reminds me of the Assassinorum Execution Force, only with the 4 HEROES OF THE IMPERIUM versus the assassins and THE Culexus Assassin and 4 less turns.

The thing about Orders Militent is that they are made up of political and religious fanatics who are totally loyal to (secretly worships) the Imperial Couple. If the Grandmaster of Ordo Securitas pulls some shit like a coup, the Sisters would be the first ones to blow the Grandmaster's brains out with a bolter shell. When Fyodor's Coup happens, if the Sisters find out that some of Ordo Securitas was involved (which they will know), they would proudly go on a killing spree on purging the Sisters Orders and Ordo Securitas of any Fyodor loyalists. Although I suspect Orders Securitas already knowns about Fyodor's rise in power, the order might be fighting a Shadow War to prevent something like a coup from happening, maybe even fighting amongst themselves before the coup starts. But Orders Securitas failed to stop him as they didn't think Fyodor would act so soon. Orders Securitas is the STASI at that point and they would've known something was going to go down with that insane Inquisitor in the middle of it, they just aren't sure what is going to take place.

It really does fit.

Eldrad = Culexus
Kitten/ Ciaphas = Vindicare
Macha/ Isha = Callidus
Oscar = Eversor

Should Ciaphas Cain HERO OF THE IMPERIUM also be in the throne room during the coup and join the party partly due to his luck?

Probably not.

Cain is the Imperium's voice on Beil-tan not Beil-tan's voice in the Imperial Court.

>Lion

>Watchers of the Dark take care of him like usual.

The noble Knights respect the "Forest spirits" and teach him chivalry.

Make the Lion basically a Breton

I'm not sure where people are getting the idea of a "High Lord Inquisitor" or "Head of the Securitas" from. The canon sources emphasize that the Inquisition is a decentralized and collaborative organization with a hierarchy in the loosest sense, the sector/segmentum conclaves being the main source of authority and collective decision making for the inquisition. The closest thing to a High Lord is the Inquisitorial Representative on the council of the high lords, and I think it's been said that for some Inquisitor Lords it's actually a demotion since it gets them away from the conclaves and front lines. Karamazov could be an exceptionally nfluential Inquisitor Lord but there's no one person he could go to for help with his coup, it would have been a long process of persuading other inquisitors at extreme risk of discovery because if even one person outs him he could be done for. This makes the premature execution of the coup and even bigger blow, it was probably decades of work that ultimately came to nothing. I also have some quibbles about the power levels invoked in the coup, but I'll post that once I'm done with work on a real computer.

It's already established that Lion is a sworn knight of Franj, younger brother to Luther who was heir to the ancient and noble house of Jonson.

Watchers were the natives of Caliban who covertly joined the Imperium in it's early days days swearing servitude to the Dark Angels in exchange for getting off of their shit Chaos infected home planet.

They nuked their homeworld in War of the Beast to stop Crone Eldar getting hold of the Old One crap left behind there.

Lion is in a hospital bed on The Rock. He is in a coma. He has been in a coma for the majority of imperial history. They know exactly where he is and what he's doing because it's not a secret, as such, and somebody has to keep an eye on him.

He knows about chivalry because he was raised by his father to be a knight in service to the Franjic monarch under the command of his older brother. He isn't a social cripple because of childhood isolation this time around so much as he is on the shallow end of the autism spectrum.

As said, Lion is 99% done, we just need a write-up for what happened during the WotB with Luther's betrayal and the final battle between Lion and Luther, both of which we have the broad strokes of planned out but no detailed writeup because Lion-user couldn't come up with anything.

It could be that the head is a politician who was not from in-house.

I always wanted to organized what the governance levels exist in the Imperium. If anybody would back Fyodor, it would be a Viceroyal of the Gothic Sector because of the 12th BC and the witch hunts are taking place within that place anyway.
>Planetary Governorship
Runs anything smaller then a system, including but are not limited to planets.
>System Grand Barony
Runs a solar system.
>Sub-sectorial Dukedom
Runs a sub-sector.
>Sectorial Viceroyalty
Runs a sector.
>Segmentum Despot
Runs a Segmentum.

In canon there are rulers for:
Planet
(optional) sub sector
Sector

Above that level there is no single ruler. Instead you have Lords Militant (army), Grand Admirals (navy), Cardinal Astral (church), and so on

And even on the Planet and Sector levels, the Governor or Lord cannot order Arbites or Ecclesiarchy/Sororitas around. And has to negotiate with Mechanicus who are outside his hierarchy altogether.

Is this AU going away from that?

This reads like a wank.

> so this one single inquisitor totally tried to coup the entire Imperium by himself
> the head of Inquisition (not that such exists) was in his pocket secretly
> his agents got totally past Custodes and seers and everyone, nobody expected it
> he had his own imperial assassins too and they almost killed the Emperor
> he even blindsided Eldrad who had not been so surprised or desperate since the Beast
> the Emperor and the Goddess Incarnate were reduced to personal combat by his schemes
> and this inquisitor even got away and now does his own civil war, not that its mentioned anywhere else in setting
> it is like so epic you guys!

Its a very rough draft.

How would you do it?

Yeah I'm kinda inclined to agree with this, I like the idea of porting over Karamazov to show how insane a canon grimdark inquisitor would be in the nobledark AU, but the coup attempt needs some rework.

well for one, If any one prominent Inquisitor tries anything he had all the other prominent inquisitorial retinues to worry about. Even assuming this plan isn't absurd (it is) it disregards all the conspiracies that go above Fyodor's pay grade, like the Hydra, which seems to be the imperial couple's independent military ordo that operates with a governing body independent even to them, or the Omega legion, or the Illuminate, not to mention diplomatic accords with the Necron Star Empire or the Harlequins.

In short, Fyodor can't do shit, because the Inquisition is the ATF when compared to the Hydra or Harlequins' SCP

Fair point.

Should we keep the rebellion as an Inquisition civil war or dump it altogether?

I wouldn't go that far, that's underselling the Inquisition a fair bit and is replacing Inquisition wank with Alpha Legion wank, which I personally find more annoying because it's so ill defined. High level Inquisitor Lords are gonna be punching up there with the big sneaky players considering the vast resources at their disposal.

Fair enough, and I'd like to add that we've had the alpha legion, omega legion, and the Hydra as distinct organizations out of universe, only necessarily inscrutable in character. There was a lot of good development done on the resources available to the forces of the Hydra, and who they ultimately answer to. The fact that there is no single head is a feature, not a flaw.

I concur with the below user that I like the idea of Karamazov being essentially a vanilla Inquisitor ported to Nobledark, but the degree to which he tries to pull off his coup is a little ridiculous. If anything, he would be trying to enforce his own ideal of justice and causing a schism in the Inquisition while ducking Imperial retaliation. Trying to assassinate the big E would be suicide unless you had Vandire-level control of things.

However, I do not like the idea of the Inquisition being the "little leagues" compared to the Alpha Legion. That is literally the job the Inquisition was made for.

I'm now coming round to this opinion. I regret writing this

It does seem out of place now.

I'd have him demoted to head of a radical faction rather than outright arch-traitor and attempted Vandire.

The Inquisition is only in little leagues because it is an answerable government agency. whilst this does hamstring them in what they can do a little they also get better legitimate funding.

I would say the Inquisition is better funded and better equipped than the Alpha Legion and related groups. If there's an unknown threat (say a previously unknown Xenos Horrificus or a destructive Xenos or DaoT artifact of unknown origin) the Inquisition is better suited for it. The Alpha Legion is better with the "usual suspects" (i.e., Chaos).

Inquisition seems to be court intelligence, Hydra-alpha/omega legion seems much more like a modern/post-modern intelligence apparatus. The imperium's military/fleet intelligence could be presumed to do their respective fields.

No regrets friend, OC is always welcome and it spurred good discussion

You are wrong the Inquisition is peerless and has no one to answer to other than the Emperor of Mankind. They wield unlimited authority to carry out their judgement.

So they are answerable then.

And it's been stated that they are no unlimited in their authority.

Some writefaggotory last thread where they were capped at a retinue size of 100 (so no outright commandeering armies) and no ship larger than a frigate.

Not that this is ever going to be too much of a problem.

100 cream of the crop, the 0.01% best of the best of any word you visit and a frigate sized ship pimped out with the best the Tau + Eldar + Mechanicus + Hubworlder + Anything else you like the look of is a holy fucking shit levels of badass.

As small as the inquisitorial retinue is, the inquisitors can still request direct command over armadas and regiments. When asking about this request, the other branches of the Imperium can tell the Inquisition to fuck off or let them take command. In theory, an inquisitor can command a battlefleet or a corp, but that almost never happens because the current officer commanding over these groups won't even think about handing them over to the Inquisition.

>Enter Clearance
>Password: ******************************
>Verifying...
>Commencing biometric scan...
>Verified. Welcome, Inquisitor.

>Opening file...

OPERATION: BLACK BRASS PIG (Onyx Desert 22)
SOURCE: Ordo Malleus, Task Force MUSTARD-3
AUTHOR: Interrogator NACRE NETWORK
[Context: personal report from NACRE NETWORK to DIAMOND STAG, regarding cleanup efforts in the wake of the 8th Black Crusade]

Our worst fears have been realized. While physically relatively unscathed by their seven-month captivity at the hands of the Chaos Eldar, deep psychic trawls have revealed extensive mental tampering. Testing of 500 randomly-selected individuals out of the seven million survivors indicate at least half the population of Merriman's World are affected.

The exact purpose of the tampering is still unknown, and I must admit the technicalities are beyond me. Attached is a more detailed report by Primaris Xavier and Seer Iyonais. [Attached File: (Onyx Desert 20) Deep Probe Trawl Results] We do know there are two parts to the tampering. The first is a simple memory edit, evidently to replace any memories of the tampering itself with memories of the long-term confinement and neglect reported by the initial liberation teams. The second is a 'knot' of psychic energy hidden deep within the victim's mind, requiring deep probing to uncover. The exact function of this knot is unclear, but we can safely assume it to be a booby-trap of some variety.

This poses a dilemma. Releasing the survivors of Merriman's World into the Imperium before they have been screened is obviously impossible, when any one of them could be a ticking time-bomb. However, scanning all seven million of them would take resources that are simply not available, not with the counter-attack under way. The alternative, simply killing them all, is unpalatable. Perhaps you have an alternative, Lord?
>End file

A look into the aftermath of the Black Crusades. Thoughts?

>Chaos Eldar fucks with the Imperium in a creative way after the Black Crusade ends
>Black Crusades are about wasting time, men, and materials for the Imperium more then Chaos can lose
>Each of these wars slowly detroit all of civilization
>Necrons and Tyranids are just icing on the cake
I like it.

What did we end up with about the AL? I didn't know of anything other than the ominous stuff I put in the primarch chart (which by lucky coincidence fit really well with the column titles)

They're doing some shady shit somewhere.

>slowly detroit all of civilization
I mean, the Imperium's going the way of the city, so...

>it's there solely to get them to waste their time/pointlessly kill people, it doesn't actually do anything

Other methods of fucking with the Imperium include, but are not limited to:
-Deliberately saturating the planet with Ork spores
-Leaving caches of captured Guard weapons around for the use of said Orks once they mature
-Leaving behind bunches of genestealers in suspended animation
-Infecting the entire biosphere with Nurgle's plagues
-Keep enough Meltheads around to completely saturate the atmosphere with psychic nerve gas
-Turn the entire (former) population into undead mutant abominations using Meatweavers
-Massive nuclear bombardment with warheads tuned to maximize fallout
-Asteroid impact
-And the classis, sacrificing the population in blasphemous rituals to transform it into a daemon world.

>tfw you spend the majority of your life working and staying fit but all you just wana do is eat delicious junk food

Poor Queen Lily.

Page 9 nope

That would be pretty funny.

So would that sort of relationship be forbidden or just mildly naughty?

thats why vect got malys to do it

I'd say disapproved of as it might lead to unprofessional conduct but not outright forbidden by law because compared to all the other far worse shit an Inquisitor could potentially be doing fucking the retinue is pretty fucking petty.

>Strogg
>Rak'Gol

Hot damn those two go together well.

Strogg are obviously human, or at least close enough to legally pass for human in this Imperium, and the Rak'Gol are very not.

Rak'Gol and the humans are both semi-lobotomized and forcibly implanted with hardware and programed to war. Always and only war. The humans did not start out that way and so presumably neither did the Rak'Gol.

The cybernetics are the Strogg. Where did they originate and what started them? Nobody knows for sure. They inhabit a halo of systems around the Hadex Anomaly at the boundary. The effects of the anomaly at that range is enough to make living there unpleasant for everyone but not to the point of total uninhabitability.

The Rak'Gol are a species now totally subsumed into the Strogg and because that is not considered living the Rak'Gol are officially extinct. As are whatever abhuman strain once dwelt in that region of space.

The Hadex Anomaly is known to cause disruptions in time and it is unknown if the Strogg dwel near it because that is where it has been driven to or because that is where they are from. Some in the Inquisition an the Seer Councils are of the opinion that the Anomaly is going to be caused by humanity some time in the distant future and the hole will travel back. Therefore the unique stroggified abhuman strain is in fact a descendant branch of humanity rather than an ancient now extinct offshoot. This is not a popular view but it is very possible. If true then the Strogg are attempting to carve out their empire early to remove whoever drove them back through time.

The only good point of the Strogg is that they are as lethal to everyone else as they are to the Imperium, are immune to the temptations of Chaos, can't be infected by gene-stealer and have incorporated resilient enough nano-tech to counter Necron Grey Fog.

Take this with it
The Mechanicus recognize them, oh yes they do. They seem so very familiar. They are them, their mirror image. It is Machine with no spirit, soulless abominations made in mockery of the Omnissiah.

Is this them from some hideous future shat out by the Hadex?

The flesh was human once, the machine looks not unlike a wicked incarnation of man might make.

It is Abomination before the Omnissiah.

Bump

It could work but good God it needs refining. The inclusion of the Hadex Anomaly is good because that shit is odd even by 40K standards. I like that it seems to be more like the Borg rather than it being a race in it's own right.

I don't think bolting down their origins is a good idea if we are going to be basing them of the Strogg (are we really going with that name?). Big thing about the Strogg is that how they got so fucked up was a mystery.

As to the power and independence of the Inquisition, what I think would be right is:
- direct (combat) power is limited so they cannot take over other structures of the Imperium or start civil wars.
- as the best people at finding things out, only very special characters like Trazyn can evade or subvert the Inquisition, and not always
- conversely, someone with enough sympathizers among the Inquisition (like a rogue ex-inquisitor) can stay in hiding pretty much indefinitely. As covert aid is provided, investigations slow walked or sabotaged and so on.
- so limited power on strategic level, but high on a personal level

And for Karamazov, I think the "judge" aspect should be played up. Something like this:
Fyodor Karamazov was a capable and brilliant Malleus inquisitor
But unlike other inquisitors who battle demons in person, or infiltrate cults he was more focused on the aftermath of warp incursions: finding out what happened, who was at fault, punishing the guilty and negligent so it does not happen again.
Karamazov became famous for his impartiality and harsh yet fair judgments. Earned a lot of enemies and special attention from Chaos as he tended to mess up their longer term projects.
Then Black Crusade happens and shit is crazy with cults showing their hand on almost every world in Obscurus.
Karamazov goes into overdrive, starts to err on the side of burning. Secretly starts to enjoy the power of judging and punishing others.
At Salem he goes too far and local government/military drives him offworld while they petition Imperium to put a leash on the guy.
Karamazov declares Salem beyond redemption and does Exterminatus.
Oscar finds out and tells Inquisition to fix their shit. Isha may or may not call in an outside party to assist because she FELT billions of her (adopted) children die.
Karamazov goes underground but has enough covert support to stay out of reach while still showing up in random isolated places to burn "weaklings and traitors".

This is a considerable improvement.

Like holy fucking Jesus so much better.

Of the old story all I would keep is Isha going to the Space Sharks as it shows that she is, as a previous user put it, nature red in tooth and claw and has absolutely no problem with killing or arranging the killing of those she deems beyond redemption. Also given that she is sibling to Khine she would probably consider the Carcharodons, progeny of Curze as they are, perfectly normal.

Also to explain why the Space Sharks won't let go of the Nicor despite being a 2nd or more founding with no direct link to the damn thing.

Wait, are we seriously considering adding factions from other universes into this? Because that feels like it's crossing a line akin to "too obvious of a reference".

Well, presumably it would be re-named. But this is supposed to be a relatively light re-write; no reason not to leave the Rak'Gol as they are.

Out of all faction from other universes the Strogg are the most 40k but I see what you mean.

We could just have it where the Rak'Gol have been converting humans and built up a an empire around the Hadex on this stolen strength.

Rak'Gol are just as fucking awful in this AU as Vanilla it seems so lets run with it and make them the worst of the Strogg and the Borg rolled in there as well.

For extra points the Iron Hands could have been the Great Crusade Expeditionary force that found them first and at first assumed hey were humans uplifted by union with the Machine. Certainly they looked like half the people in Antarctica when the Gorgon was growing up.

Then they find out what is going on. The soulless horror of it all.

Since then there have been numerous wars between the Imperium and the Rak'Gol with casualties on both sides quite horrendous. But they aren't bothered by the dead like real people are.

I'm really, really against this desu - honestly, I don't know much about the Rak'Gol to start with, but I feel like we should give the big xenos players a little more love before moving onto every other race ever mentioned in the fluff.

>Threadly reminder that we are still primarily here to tweak or change Vanilla,
not outright rewrite or expand on it, and certainly not to make shitty crossover fanfiction.

Rak'Gol are the bastard child of a Xenomorph and a Centaur with a love of brutal looking but effective cybernetics.

4 arms, 4 legs, 1 tail with technology slightly behind the Imperium but not so much as to make them unable to compete. A pack mentality that borders on swarm behavior. Highly aggressive. Also seem to be extremely radiation resistant if their ships are anything to go by. As they age they become more mechanical, much like the AdMech.

I just thought that we need another "Bad Guy" faction to keep the Nobledark dark and be they outside antithesis of the AdMech.

Like this guy said, Inquisitors are the intelligence service meant for the Imperium's galactic court intrigues, and best suited for such, while the Alpha/Omega legion is better arranged for paramilitary conspiracies

meant to link to this

Sure. Why not some Men of Iron shenanigans?