Warmasters' Triumvirate VIIII

Should have been a reply to this.

Except Yochin is a religious fanatic. He would be an incredibly powerful tool.

Let's role play. You're Je'Sha. How do you overcome your deficit man power? How do you tight the fanatics of Chaos and the Brotherhood that Gregoire has?
Yochin has endless cults of fanatical supporters...

I like it.

Proper food and rations that are actually edible could do a lot more for the average soldier's morale.
Fanatics don't make the best soldiers.

As was Lorgar.

Would Je'shan openly act against the emperors will? If so then he would be the traitor.

And as Anonymous said: food, logistics can boost soldiers moralr enough. You don't need fanstics. Those fanatics could even be counterproductove
What happens if some soldiers reject the belief of the fanatics? Fights and sinking morale in your ranks. Yay.....

Maybe? Gregoire already has the best guardsmen in the galaxy. And he has a manpower advantage.
The Imperium is going to go all Ecclesiarchy sooner or later, so I'm thinking it could serve a military purpose.

I'm thinking that fundamentally the only difference between the "imperialists" and "revs" is political ideology and location. I'm thinking they're both equally loyal.

The Mechanicus will now take the podium:

I see a problem.

We keep defining 'Loyalty' as if the Separatists are like Chaos and are actively working against the ideals of the Imperium and the Emperor.

However I think the reality is that the are Loyal to the Emperor's Ideology; It is the turn that things would potentially take post his wounds that would really push the members of the Sep/Rev faction to leave.

Again I envision that they have taken to making territories in what part of the Imperium they have, more akin to city-states that administer their territories but as a whole support one another against threats. They see that the Imperium is no longer an Imperium without an Emperor; and whoever takes the throne as unworthy as their father never named a successor.

>TL;DR Separatists are loyal to mankind but disagree with what the Imperium becomes.

>TL;DR Separatists are loyal to mankind but disagree with what the Imperium becomes.
Except Rokuten.

New AU? Nice. How often are these threads made?

Pretty much as soon as the Bump Limit is hit...so every day or so.

I'll be lurking, then. I'm interested to see where this one goes.

No worries, Been doing a lot of the Tech-Fluff/Unique stuff for the legions so help wherever you'd like

Symphonious Disciples user here, I've been gone for several days, can someone give me the quick rundown on what's happened so far?

Discussion about legions in specific, stuff about the causes of the brother-war. Currently the model is that the emperor is put into critical condition at the peak of the Ullanor. They finish the campaign, but things go sideways rather quickly.
There may be some censures issued for violations of Nikea (which we're moving up in the timeline), possibly with the Symphonious Disciples unleashed to purge.

We're also discussing Actually the Disciples are pretty relevant to that conversation. Any thoughts on when they set up their cult and all that jazz?

Saw there was some mention of the Steel Souls vis a vis Seperatism.

I've written the Steel Souls thus far as plausibly going with any of the three factions, since it seemed prudent to do so while those factions were getting sorted out. It just so happened that most Legions naturally sorted themselves into Imps/Traitors, and few seemed to converge on Separatists, so now it seems there's an actual *need* for the Steels to go Sep. I wonder why that might have been.

>stopping the pussyfooting around

I was one of the few, if not the only person who raised criticism of a "separatist" movement as a general concept. 40k as a system is not well structured for such a concept to flourish without changing the "core essence" of the setting. For some people that's an issue, for others it's not. I've learned from other projects not to press my views too hard however. Note that I've gone mostly silent these past several days.

So yes, me as a person/author might not be a good fit for Separatists, since I'm either going to have to grab that whole group by the balls and grill their ideas until they feel plausible to me (which they will hate), or I'll have to be silent and say nothing lest I get ensnared into fighting an unwinnable battle.

Either way I will not be welcome here in short order. I have seen this before, both with myself and watching other anons follow the same pattern.

> If we're just going keep dancing around it with him really being the only voice against it, then idk wtf to do.

If this is how you feel, RaJobs, then here's two options:

I can also have the Steel Souls be the Separatist's Separatists, where they basically disappear completely into the Fringe, rarely interacting with any faction, Imperial or otherwise.

Or I can have them be deleted after Nikea, perhaps the Emperor decides their psybernetics are inherently dangerous and Lost Legions them, and then bow out of the project as gracefully as I can.

I think Mot Hadad needs a reason to go with chaos and not with the revolutionaries. Maybe he started doing daemonic shit before they even started thinking about leaving?

Symphonious Disciples user here. Hmm, dose zoggin' greenskins got da upper hand on empy? Interesting, very interesting... And I suppose the Emperor's incapacitation led to a succession crisis, which led to the Seperatist movement?

I'm thinking that Yochin's cult was extremely small at first, scattered across a dozen or two worlds surrounding Yozhin, when the Emperor lived and advocated for rationalism, but that when the Emperor was critically wounded, Yochin believed his defeat at the hands of the Orks was a punishment on mankind caused by a lack of faith, and martyred him, causing the cult to spread like wildfire.

Without the Emperor able to disprove it, it soon became a major religion, leaving the Loyalist Imperium divided between rational human supremacists that followed the Emperor's ideals and fanatical zealots that believe the Emperor was some kind of messiah, causing friction between the more rational and more idealistic Primarchs and Legions, though both are loyal enough to the Imperium they stay united, it could cause some interesting drama, maybe even some light skirmishes.

Hell, maybe the onset of the cult was the straw that broke the Separatist's back and caused them to secede, or at least was one reason they did so. I think a split between a secular and religious Imperium could be quite interesting.

Bang his head on a wall while trying to salvage the Imperium.

The Ogre of O-Kan has usurped the thread!

Guys, maybe the separatists can exist as a global faction of ununited Legions. Some may end united, but others may even start their own states and empires, much like the state city concept. If Emil doesn't like how the separatists thing it's going, he may join them, just to secede from them.

You're gonna have to elaborate on why exactly you think the Seps don't fit 40k, because as it is they don't seem entirely out of character to me.

The separatists could instead be an alliance or coalition of states fleets and organizations on the eastern half of the galaxy rather then imperium 2.0

A confederacy, as opposed to an empire? That sounds reasonable.

Idea: He goes with the Separatists to start with but ends up getting doubts as it progresses, to the point where he ends up getting seduced by Chaos.

There's a lot of potential mobility for legions:
>A legion starts loyalist and remains loyalist.
>A legion starts separatist and remains separatist.
>A legion starts loyalist and goes separatist.
>A legion starts loyalist and goes Chaos.
>A legion starts separatist and goes Chaos.
>A legion starts separatist and goes loyalist.

>few seemed to converge on Separatists, so now it seems there's an actual *need* for the Steels to go Sep. I wonder why that might have been.

Themes seemed to establish themselves over time.
The loyalists seem to be generally good-natured altruists (or as close to that as Primarchs can be) with vaguely religious themes.
The traitors seem to have a rather primitive theme, with four of the chapters being based of Bronze Age civilizations and one of them being tribal-themed. This is by far the most solid theme.
Finally, the separatists seem to have a rather strong focus on technology and/or extreme measures.

Out of all of these, it just strikes me that the Steel Souls would fit in best among the Death's Heads, Iron Guard and Pale Hounds. I find that much easier to picture than pushing them into the loyalists, especially if the Emperor rules against legions messing with psykers during the Council of Nivaea.

>A legion starts loyalist and goes separatist.
The Ogre Legion does this.
Yeah, pretty much my thoughts on it.

As do the Pale Hounds

I have a feeling this isn't going to end well, but here goes.

Human worlds breaking away happens all the time in canon. Entire regiments of Guard as well. Or even chunks of Battlefleets. The Imperium crushes separatists almost 100% of the time in canon. Entire Legions breaking away is theoretically possible, but now we have several conundrums.

1: The Separatists are an existential threat just like Chaos is to the Imperium. Chaos is driven back to the Eye in canon. A similar purge against the Seps would essentially delete them or make them irrelevant.

2: If this *doesn't* happen, then the Imperium must be far, far weaker than it is in canon. Particularly since proportionately, it winds up with only 1/3rd of its Marines, rather than 1/2 as in canon. 33% is significantly less than 50%. Also, they won't have nearly the manpower to draw from if the Seps occupy any meaningful territory. Canon Imps survive because Chaos only truly owns a minuscule portion of inhabitable worlds.

I have a hard time believing such a weak Imperium would survive Chaos predation, let alone Eldar/Necrons/Tyranids/other secessionists emboldened by Legions successfully breaking away/Any form of Goge Vandire shenanigans. It would almost certainly just keep shattering until *nothing* remained.

3: Assuming the Seps survive in some fashion, how? I mentioned before that they lack both an Emperor or a God to provide them focus and protection, no central rallying cry. A confederation was proposed but this is 40k.

Confederations eventually splinter, they rot from within, chaos sabotages them from without, and Imperial assassins take care of the rest. If not yoked together, 40k Humanity *will* diverge and crumble. And if you've decided the greatest leader Humanity has ever produced wasn't good enough, and you've decided that *your* opinions matter more, are you *really* going to listen so someone lesser for very long? And Chaos will always be driving those wedges further apart.

Perhaps the Forge Lords start out with the separatists, but then are shunned more and more as they use warp shit in their technology until they are forced to retreat to the Maelstrom.

It has been suggested that this AU could end up with the Separatists getting crushed and ceasing to exist, if that satisfies you.

So with regard to 3, I'm thinking the data looms of Gregoire increasingly take over. In time, it's basically a weird robot run mechanicum state.

This is 30k.let's handle the romance of the three warmasters first before we enter the crumbling 40k. (What you say is true and willgive the imperium inthe future a lot oft headaches. But first and Foremost we should handle the heresy.not Losing focus.one step at a time.

Besides: I spied a bit on the brotherhood of the lost and they have also three factions and it seems AS it they had put alot ofthought Ingo the concept. Sorry for thewriting.my tablet is crazy.

By the way: it all Chaos are so primitive the gunslingers might seceede from them..wildlings....tzt...;)

>if that satisfies you

No, because then that makes me the bad guy who ruined everyone's fun forever. You don't get to pawn shit off like that, lol. I'm pointing out hurdles that seem extremely difficult to surmount in a plausible fashion, not barking orders to be followed.

If that's how you see it, then I'd rather leave and let you be you.

Not really, I would understand the reasoning behind it and so would everyone else. It's Warhammer, dark shit happens and millions of people die every day. Nothing out of character about a third of the legions being wiped out for attempting a non-Chaos secession from the Imperium.

>1: The Separatists are an existential threat just like Chaos is to the Imperium. Chaos is driven back to the Eye in canon. A similar purge against the Seps would essentially delete them or make them irrelevant.
Not if the seps push back, because they're, you know, seven legions versus the Imperium's... Seven. Especially considering the Imperium loses its eastern worlds to the seps.
>2: If this *doesn't* happen, then the Imperium must be far, far weaker than it is in canon. Particularly since proportionately, it winds up with only 1/3rd of its Marines, rather than 1/2 as in canon. 33% is significantly less than 50%. Also, they won't have nearly the manpower to draw from if the Seps occupy any meaningful territory. Canon Imps survive because Chaos only truly owns a minuscule portion of inhabitable worlds.
>I have a hard time believing such a weak Imperium would survive Chaos predation, let alone Eldar/Necrons/Tyranids/other secessionists emboldened by Legions successfully breaking away/Any form of Goge Vandire shenanigans. It would almost certainly just keep shattering until *nothing* remained.
On the contrary, the three-way split means only 33% of the legions turn to Chaos. Besides, the Imperium has never been able to bring to bear even 10% of its forces against any single threat since the end of the Horus Heresy until possibly the Tyrannic War (which will initially be the seps' problem and not the Imperium's, assuming identical attack patterns)

>3: Assuming the Seps survive in some fashion, how? I mentioned before that they lack both an Emperor or a God to provide them focus and protection, no central rallying cry. A confederation was proposed but this is 40k.
>Confederations eventually splinter, they rot from within, chaos sabotages them from without, and Imperial assassins take care of the rest.
Are we talking about the seps or the Imperium in this case? Because every part of that, even the Imperial assassins, describes the Imperium.

What edglord mccoldsteel over here said.
If this question really needs answering for post brotherwar, let's say the separatists fall apart, some rejoin the imperium for the good of mankind, some become renegades because they prefer self-governance, and maaaaayyyybe one or two join the chaoa warbands.

Hell, if that's the way you're thinking, maybe just do it like this.

Malcador decides his friend Big E maybe isn't such a cool guy after all. The Fabricator General too, since Mars and Terra have a rocky relationship anyway (at best).

Instead of wasting away on the Golden Throne, Malc and Fabbyman cook up a way by which to pull Mars itself through the Warp to somewhere else, to build a base of power. (Emil would 5000% be on board to help with that, because deep down he would want to do something similar to move his own homeworld back around a parent star and fix what was broken. If you want motivation for Emil to join the cause *that's the biggest possible carrot* right there)

And then they do, at the worst possible time, right when Chaos makes their move. Perhaps Chaos even *assists* with moving an entire planet through the Warp, knowing that it will cause the Emperor an unbelievable amount of problems/butthurt. [TROLLING INTENSIFIES] as Mars literally just fucks off.

Maybe Malc survives, maybe the Emperor beats Chaos' ass, comes after Malc, fights Malc, both get killed since Emps is already weakened from Chaos, maybe FabbyGen also dies, there's a zillion permutations.

But then you have the 3rd rallying point to draw on that's neither Chaos nor the Emperor, yet is almost as significant in the lore as either. Mars itself, and the steady rallying of Forgeworlds/their troops/people from across the Galaxy. Then you can plausibly have technological superiority, but not without some restraint.

At least, that's one of the ways *I* see of jumping the hurdle without jumping the shark, by using canon resources as opposed to inventing things from whole cloth.

1: Chaos is driven back to the eye because they fractured. If the Seps A- stayed united B- Actually coordinated with one another and C- fucked off to the eastern fringe while the imps were busy dealing with chaos they may be able to escape with a decent number of forces and have enough time to dig in so they can resist the inevitable imperial retaliation.
2: our Imperium might be far more fanatical than the OU imperium, causing actual successions to be far less common/successful as the common man is far less likely to support these acts of heresy
3:It was previously mentioned that the separatists might consider themselves the "true imperium". If that's the case I can see some 1984 shenanigans going on where the Loyallists take up the role of Goldstein and act as the scapegoat for all the bad shit what happens to them AND retaking their birth right could act as a pretty great unifying drive for the people of Separatist worlds. Also if shit gets really dangerous it's possible people would rather stay safe than try to jump ship and risk getting eaten by sharks

I'd be down with that.

>Numbers
They're actually probably decently close. OU has 8 legions loyal, two of which have no successors. Here we have 7.

They'd also have 14 legions fighting nids, Orks, and other stuff.

Totally viable, but as I understand it, the goal is to have a romance of the three Warmasters going on. Let's not make a setting, let's make a narrative. If the Revs end up splintering, that's totally cool. Can happen in a few centuries or over a few thousand years, but we can kind of rp that out. The current plot point is one where we have three Warmasters going at it in a war for the throne.

Something as simple as "(not Separatists)" tacked on to the end of that TBD would have prevented this discussion and prevented you from potentially being involved.
Deciding what faction suited the Steel Souls earlier on would have prevented this discussion, since the factions have mostly been solidified for about a week now.

You've been active enough but you haven't actually made a decision yet. If you want the Steel Souls to be loyalists, make them loyalists and just put an end to the speculation. Lotus Eater gets no say due to being absent for over a week and if they get slotted into the Separatists, so be it. We'll figure out a way to justify it somehow.

It's just that we're ready to continue on to the next stage now and the only thing really keeping us back is one person who has absent for over a week and one person who refuses to commit to one side or the other, despite obviously being predisposed to not wanting to join one of those sides.

So can we just say that the Steel Souls are loyalist and get on with it?

>two of which have no successors
That we know of?

>Lotus Eater gets no say due to being absent for over a week and if they get slotted into the Separatists, so be it. We'll figure out a way to justify it somehow.
We should cut the legion outright if he doesn't show up. I do not want the slack that's plagued AUs since Hektor Heresy.

I wholeheartedly support this motion, if Malcador didn't perish on the Golden Throne, I could easily see him joining a technologically advanced Separatist Confederation instead of the Imperium.

Or dying.

So having the Emperor's most trusted advisor that helped him forge the Imperium from the very start turn traitor and somehow teleport Mars across the galaxy to another location is more probable than previous suggestions?

>Malcador decides his friend Big E maybe isn't such a cool guy after all.
Why would he do that?

I was under the impression that Terra had the Emperor on the throne and a bunch of religious dudes in the Ecclesiarchy. Malcador says this isn't what homeboy wanted and buggers off to chill with the cool kids.
Malcador didn't betray the Imperium, the Imperium betrayed the Emperor.

It's not that out there, Malcador only supported the Emperor for his ideals, friendship, and sense of righteousness, if the Emperor was incapacitated Malcador would almost certainly stay loyal for some time, but once religious fanaticism and ignorance began to take hold, I could easily see him becoming disillusioned with the post-Emp Imperium and attempting to join the Separatists for the good of mankind.

Given that Malcador is a psyker, the most logical thing would be that something goes so heavily against psykers (probably events surrounding Nikea) that Malcador starts to question things. Also, people mentioned the Imperial Truth being a thing for the Seps. That seems like a plausible point of divergence for Malcador.

None of these things are particularly probable, but moving Mars provides a 3rd rail for the Seps to ride on. It's a big step, but with Mars' technology and Malcador's immense psychic power, it seems possible to me.

If you just need me to shut up, then fine. Steel Souls stay loyalist.

We do have many more psyker Primarchs than in canon. Maybe that could link to Malcador's actions somehow, since he might have a stronger feeling of involvement with the psyker Primarchs and what happens to them.

Creator of Gregoire and the Sons of Sovereignty here.

Due to work catching up with me and affecting the amount of time I have, I will not be able to contribute to this project any longer. I'm not interested in having my legion continue to exist as dead weight so I'll be removing them from the document. That way, you're able to have someone more active take the role of Separatist warmaster and a more suitable legion take the place of the Sons of Sovereignty in the Separatists.

I wish you guys the best of luck with the AU and I'm sorry for not being able to take part any longer.

I guess.
>Given that Malcador is a psyker, the most logical thing would be that something goes so heavily against psykers (probably events surrounding Nikea) that Malcador starts to question things.
The Emperor was also a psyker. Malcador was also one of the only people privy the Emperor's plans.

>None of these things are particularly probable, but moving Mars provides a 3rd rail for the Seps to ride on. It's a big step, but with Mars' technology and Malcador's immense psychic power, it seems possible to me.
It's not possible. Hiding a moon in the Warp is one thing, moving Mars to another part of the galaxy is Old Ones-tier stuff. Not even the Eldar have any examples close to that that I know of.

Mmk. Like I say, it was just a thought that seemed to offer a solution.

Steel Souls are Loyalists. I'll write more for them eventually.

Shame, I really liked your guys. I even warmed up to the idea of the primarch being uploaded into a computer. Oh well, shit happens.

NO THIS DOES NOT MEAN WE NEED ANOTHER LEGION. If somebody shows up, good. If they don't, it literally doesn't matter.

Holy shit no, they're critical. And I like them. But they're really important to the separatists.

Actually, let's take this a step further.

Malcador is the "Warmaster" of the Separatists and the source of the entire Separatist scheme after the Emperor ends up falling and a whole bunch of the loyalist legions end up worshiping him like zealots.

So now we're down to five separatist primarchs. Barring the introduction of new creators that want to be separatist, or legions switching to separatist, we need a boon for the separatists.

Double-strength legions sounds good.

I'm not writing for them, it's in everybody else's interest not to write for them, and if the creator does not wish for his legion to be in the AU then it's in our interest not to use them to avoid drama.

If the seps need a warmaster, I can rewrite the Ogre Legion.

Have a look at Separatists don't need a Warmaster, they're led by Malcador from the start.

That would solve that, but if he is the warmaster throughout the Crusade then he is not focusing on the secret side the Emperor needed him to focus on.

>Double-strength legions sounds good.
Also xenos auxiliaries, excess Mechanicum support, gaining the support of the people, or the Segmentum Ultima simply being a navigator's nightmare.

According to the Lexicanum, "According to Malcador himself, he is a surviving member of an ancient order known as The Sigillites which sought to gather and preserve the greatest and most powerful artifacts in Human history".

"Sigilites" aren't talked about or fluffed out very much in canon, I think. And their home base was beneath the Imperial Palace, where they stored all kinds of artifacts.

What if Malcador found he couldn't serve two masters? What if the Emperor felt the need to plunder their treasure trove? Might that be a reason for a schism between the two?

There's no need for him to focus on the secret project that is the Grey Knights if he decides to cede from the decaying, increasingly zealous Imperium instead.

This way we can have an enlightened, intelligent and logical Separatist faction that adheres to the Imperial Truth rather than the ridiculous dogma of the Ecclesiarchy.

I don't think there's any need for disagreement between the Emperor and Malcador. See

So, it's settled then. Malcador is the Separatist Warmaster.

>There's no need for him to focus on the secret project that is the Grey Knights if he decides to cede from the decaying, increasingly zealous Imperium instead.
Besides the whole Chaos thing? And the Imperium not becoming super-religious until centuries after the creation of the Grey Knights?

That's true. Equally possible is that Malcador forges the Grey Knights for the Separatists as their counter to Chaos, since the Seps won't have the Emperor's blessing upon them.

True Warrior-Scholars resisting Chaos with discipline and willpower, instead of the most Zealous of Zealots?

AU. In the absence of the Emperor after he becomes wounded, various legions become increasingly fanatical, religious and over-zealous. Several references to developing the Ecclesiarchy during the HH have already been made.

>In the absence of the Emperor after he becomes wounded, various legions become increasingly fanatical, religious and over-zealous.
And the Imperium becomes religious before the Civil War?

Yep.

Like, a majority of the Imperium? Within a few years of the Emperor's death? And all the loyalist legions are perpetrating this?

Well yeah, lots of them are super religious themed.

Sounds like that implies the Emperor begins to slide away from the Imperial Truth, which is interesting. Temptation is the first and oldest sin after all. One need not fall to Chaos to experience the lure of power. Perhaps it's even necessary to fight off a particularly strong blow dealt by the Chaos Gods?

Maybe before the Heresy the Gods attempt to strike the Emperor themselves, and the Emperor only narrowly survives? And then he asks himself "do I need more power"? Anyone can have a rude awakening, even the Master of Mankind.

Especially if some of his sons are fully behind him making that decision....

It'd certainly make this universe's Lorgar VERY happy, yeah? No Monarchia here!

Malcador is the seperatist leader. Him being the Warmaster is kind of pointless, especially since it detracts a little from the whole brothers war angle.

Also, this kinda sets up a 40k were the two sides of the galaxies are philosophically extreme opposites. The Seperatists will likely become 1984 level extreme inquisitorial technocracy, were any amount of religious activity among the population is cracked down upon and the people live under a literally iron fist. The Imperial Side becomes a hyper theological state where everyone is incredibly religious and anyone who doesn't come to mass is burned at the stake.

I think that leaves Chaos in an interesting position. As has been mentioned, they're a more primitive than the other two factions culturally, and it's also pretty much 14 on 7. So they end up being more raiders or destabilizing influences. They gnaw at the border world's and slowly eat away at both sides.

I'm not seeing it for any except the Silver Blades.

>Malcador is the seperatist leader. Him being the Warmaster is kind of pointless

This is correct. The "leader" need not be the "warboss". Marines are fighters, they do the fighting. Malcador would be the master of politics he is in canon.

I think the best way to handle this is through simple human greed. The warmasters want to attain the position of supreme leader, so they fight it out. One wins, but one takes half the Imperium with him and one turns to Chaos.

It also adds a sense of irony to it, as these "brothers" are squabbling among themselves and becoming bitter enemies in a "Brother" War.

The Loyalist Noise Marines seem pretty zealous too.

Oh right, those guys. Forgot about them.

Speaking of forgetting, who all is still in this thing? Roll call, sound off!

Aye.

I'm here.

'Sup

The OU has 9 loyal chapters. And 9 chaos chapters.

I'm here. Work, a social life and a girlfriend make my week pretty busy though

cri

Symphonious Disciples user here, still unwilling to compromise on my anti-namefagging stance.

Here.
And I can't count.

I'm here, posting from the hospital.

What I'm interested in is the relationships that develop during the great crusade and how they fall apart during the heresry

Dropped.
Dropped.
Dropped.
A social life?! FUCKING. DROPPED.
See pic
We don't need illiterates. Dropped!
Sorry, you've become a liability. I'm afraid we'll have to drop you.

Well that about takes care of that. Pack it in people, show's over. :P

Well in this case, what is each primarch's relationship with Malcador, since he's now one of the most important characters of this AU?