What can the Humble Commoner do in the 40K World to Obtain Power?

Don't forget the luck to avoid dying from anything that is living int he 41st Millennium.

That's what the younger generations are for. You just need to work on your 401k and social security while your kids go off to the Cadian Gate.

All of those other things can easily translate to political power. Especially banks.

It also probably depends on the world. Some are probably more open than others.

Join the Tau as a Gue'Vesa fighter, work your way up the promotions through valorous combat to earn a nice battle suit. Get a position leading a small army and try and conquer what you can for glory and the Greater Good. Tyrannically rule your newly conquered lands with a Greater Good approved iron fist.

Sure, you'll never be on Ethereal Level controlling whole fleets and be royalty, but at least promotions are based on skill and bravery and you can be a governor of what you conquer like a conquistador.

Most worlds are far away from all that shit. You send young people off in tithes to the Guard and you probably will never see traitors or Xenos or have them effect you in any way during your whole life.

That would mean the setting is not grimdark enough, there will be war in those planet soon :^)

I can't help but feel that a clique of hereditary noble merchants already own the banks....

>inb4 weeb

Maybe, who nose.

...

Become very good at one thing, anything, as long as it might be of use one day to someone. Whether you're the fastest auto mechanic, the most knowledgeable librarian, or the only guy in the PDF who can field strip a heavy stubber in fifteen seconds, someone will one day have need of you. That person - whether it's the local criminal underworld, the Arbites, or some mysterious guys who definitely aren't inquisition - is your ticket to bigger and better things.

Self-Styled Confessor best job.

The most effective way I can think of is joining the PDF of your planet, obtain as much training as possible then quit before you're shipped off to the Imperial Guard. Then start a Cult, preferably Khorne or Undivided, and pass on the knowledge you obtained to the converts. Start making friends with the local gangs and you'll have a decently trained, decently armed force that could theoretically take control of the Underhives.

If you are lucky, you might get the chance to raid the PDF's weapon storages and turn your little gang confederation into a competent fighting force, held together by the immortal word of Chaos. What happens from there on will be decided by how fast and how well you can coordinate the armed takeover of all major PDF headquarters and more importantly, how fast you can encircle and destroy any Arbites presence within the Hive. If you've done this correctly, all sources of organized resistance will be wiped out or broken. Any PDF personnel that is negotiated with should be only offered one choice: join or die. Those who choose to join your forces should be stripped of any weapons and enlightened in the Primordial Truth (or Eightfold Path if you chose Khorne) by a hand-picked team of trusted preachers. They will then be re-assigned to your most faithful squads, being careful not to put two new 'recruits' in the same squad.

If all of this is done correctly, word will spread of your 'mercy' and the remaining PDF that isn't fanatical or retarded will probably join your forces without much resistance. Without the Arbites to worry about, you will then be able to overtake the local government's institutions with relative ease, at which point the city will be pretty much yours.

If you managed to do all of this correctly without fucking up a key raid or gutted by some bored ganger, then congratulations! You know own a Hive City and can begin the massed conversion (or enslavement) of the population.

Chaos Cults might be overly risky, maybe do what you mentioned with joining the local PDF for just training and then be a Self-Proclaimed Confessor of the Imperial Cult. The Ecclesiarchy won't mind if you don't commit heresy.

You can already attempt to enslave the population this way by merely competing with the Ecclesiarchy non-violently for more people to join your Congregation. You can get some PDF troops potentially more loyal to you (their local Confessor) than the Planetary Governor who are usually shit anyway.

>Gue'Vesa
>Leading
>Using battle suits
Really unlikely. You'd be better off better off attempting to become a higher ranking officer in the guard if you were capable enough to be trusted with those. Odds aren't good you'd live near the tiny ass tau empire, and even if you were you'd likely not be trusted with a suit so you'd end up as being a sterile PDF-type peon with xeno-tech weapons and armor, and a mind full of utilitarian propaganda.

>Chaos Cults might be overly risky
Maybe, but they're a much more effective method for group cohesion and population control than the Imperial Faith. The reason for this is simple: First it's a new, foreign religion which gives better oportunities (brutal meritocracy) to any converts, and second that it's actually true, which makes public displays of favor an immesely powerful tool for mass conversion (with the obvious drawback of easily reaching the ears of the inquisition, which is why you should only use it to convert gangs). It also has the benefit of buffing you and your men trough gifts. This is why I believe Khorne or Undivided are the best choices since you can earn favor just by winning fights.

As for trying to compete with the Eccleasiarchy, the last time that happened was on Vraks and the guy who did it wad already a Cardinal.

Not defending the Taufag, but the bit about the forced-sterilization is non-canon. It's source is an again non-canon ending from Dawn of War: Dark Crusade stand-alone expansion. And even there it was called a rumor.

>First it's a new, foreign religion
The Imperial Cult is quite diverse as long as the basic tenets of the Cult regarding the nature of the God-Emperor is followed. You can make anything up regarding other stuff as long as you worship the God-Emperor of Mankind.

>gives better oportunities (brutal meritocracy) to any converts
The same can occur to your custom Imperial Cult's hierarchy with you as the Arch-Confessor.

>and second that it's actually true
Absolutely Heresy!!! Though the mere worship of the Emperor by Quadrillions of people might was well turn him into an Actual God in the Warp, in the 40K world if enough people believe it, then it becomes true.

I still think the risk with the Inquisition is too great, I prefer to play it safe with the Self-Styled Arch-Confessor with a new Non-heretical Imperial Cult Sect of your own.

Be bad ass kid become space marine.

Be bad ass adult get recruited by the inquisition become Inquisitor then become Inquisitor Lord and then become Inquisitorial Representative aka one of the High Lords of Terra.

>Be bad ass kid
>Start career in Imperial Guard
>Dies

You don't really start a career in the Guard. They draft you.

I wonder what the actual dying once you are drafted are. Surely you could go 5-10 years only involved with minor internal wars or small Xenos invasions fairly easily.

I thought the best of the PDF forces join the Imperial Guard.

Also being an enlisted member would not lead to a Commissioned Officer's rank unless you did some extraordinary things, I think most officers are from Noble families or Schola Progenium Orphans.

Also, the Tau never allow their military to rule. As soon as a warzone is clear of enemies, the military is either moved to the next warzone, or moved into their barracks. The Ehtereals then take over the government. So the military can never hold any political power.

Pretty much everything has a pretty good chance of getting you killed before your time, including nothing, or nothing but what you are told to do.

Really, the best thing to do is to really excel at what you are good at and be in a place where someone hopefully notices and rewards your talent or otherwise recruits you. This involves luck, although you do make some luck. If You are truly breathtakingly exceptional you will be scouted at a young age by SOMEONE on a lot of worlds, although everyone they accept as a candidate to be a Marine is exceptional, etc.

It's the same for many others, and if like, an Inquisitor likes the cut of your jib or the local Arbites say "hey asshole, you are good at breaking heads, wanna job? that might work. If you don't get killed. If you don't fuck up some how, etc.

The odds are that you will get killed, fucked over, or fuck up though.

It's rather the same for "Aspiring to be a Demon Prince" or even just "aspiring to be "not a Chaos Spawn". Most people who even start the road to power die messily and get their souls eaten, most people who get mutations eventually get turned into Spawn, and only very, very few people become Princes.

An incredibly small number. Astronomically so.

>The Imperial Cult is quite diverse as long as the basic tenets of the Cult regarding the nature of the God-Emperor is followed. You can make anything up regarding other stuff as long as you worship the God-Emperor of Mankind.
Still doesn't beat actually different Gods.

>The same can occur to your custom Imperial Cult's hierarchy with you as the Arch-Confessor.
I'm pretty sure the Imperial Cult doesn't give you superpowers.

>Though the mere worship of the Emperor by Quadrillions of people might was well turn him into an Actual God in the Warp, in the 40K world if enough people believe it, then it becomes true.
That's not how it works. Warp entities are made of souls and their respective emotions, and these emotions have to be strong and primal enough to gather enough souls in common to gain sentience. Belief is not an emotion. The only ones who can alter reality through belief are Orks.

Why do you think it's repeatedly stated that the Gods don't give a shit about your beliefs and that Chaos cannot be denied?

>I still think the risk with the Inquisition is too great
I think you just like the Imperium. The Inquisition doesn't care much about what happens in the Underhive, as long as it stays there. And with my method, it's only getting out when it's too late.

I also want to note that your method requires significantly more charisma. With the training obtained in the PDF, you can earn favor and rise through the gangs simultaneously via martial prowess alone, after which the modest blessings you'll have earned (specially if you worship Khorne) will be apparent enough to perform public displays of favor, which require little in the way of talking. I won't deny your method is less risky, but mine has much more potential and not risky enough to be impossible.

A Gue'vesa'O in the Damocles Anthology was using a suit and was leading Tau fire warriors. Eat dick.

>I think you just like the Imperium. The Inquisition doesn't care much about what happens in the Underhive, as long as it stays there.
Different user, but the entire point is to get out of the Underhive. You want political power. Being the leader of your local Bloods or Crips gang doesn't mean shit.

Everything that has the GW logo on it is canon. Even stuff that contradicts the other stuff and half-Eldar Ultramarine Astropath Librarians

>non-canon endings are canon

Please read both of my posts in which I explicitly described how you were getting out of the underhive with an army of fanatical, khorne-worshipping gangers.

It depends on the world that you are on. Some worlds draft their Guard regiments, others hold tournaments so that the best warriors of the world are given the honor of serving in the Guard, and some are all volunteer professional militaries that are raised from the PDF. There are a million million worlds and a million million ways that the Guard is recruited.

They are. GW has said it many times over that the stories that are in the codexes, books, and games are half-remembered and embellished recollections of things that are being written by some adapt on the other side of the galaxy whose primary source of information is a garbled astropathic transmission that may not have been sent yet.

How does a Necron noble get promoted in the ranks?

Born into it. Can't be changed by this point.

In that case being a Charismatic Self-Proclaimed Arch-Confessor would be the best way to catch the eye of those above and get your own private Frateris Militia.

It seems the best methods so far involve making your own cults, be it Chaos or Imperial.

Be an entertainer. Their are, no mater which world, rich people. And rich people need entertainment. Clowns, playwrights, actors, painters. All of that would get you a pretty quick in if you get lucky. Translating some of that to political power then isn't hard.

Then how did Imotekh raise up from being an overlord to being a phaeron?

Some just empty their prisons and slums
>"When the Imperium sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're cultists. And some, I assume, are good people."
Does that make Farsight 40k's Donald Trump?

By murdering the people in charge.

The old Faculty of History promotion.

*BLAM* Executed for thievery. Bootstraps not included with standard guardsman kit. Must have stolen it from an officer.

There's other references in FFG material concerning the Tau.

>Most worlds are far away from all that shit
It's hilarious to me that people are STILL saying this shit after Dark Imperium.

CADIA EXPLODED AND THE EYE HAS CUT THE GALAXY IN HALF

CHANCES ARE FUCKING EVERYONE IS PRETTY CLOSE TO A WARZONE BY NOW

>I'm pretty sure the Imperial Cult doesn't give you superpowers.

15 hours is the average.

It's canon now, deal with it.

He was an ex-inquisitor.

He was probably under actual Nagi mind control, as was implied and also speculated on by the Marine.

Well, it was 15 hours on average for the Vardians around Broucheroc. That's cannon.

Anywhere else for anyone else? Anyone's guess.

Nope.

Read recent GW publications. White Dwarf and the Regimental Standard said 15 hours was the average for the entirety of the Guard. Deal with it nerd.

P.S. it's really sad how people try to make the grim darkness of the far future seem nicer than its creators ever have. 10 years on average, lol.

>Citing Regimental Standard
>Literally obviously comically written as propaganda

By the Throne, I think I've found Private Jenkins...

...Yes, the propaganda is lying to make the Guardsmen think they have more of a chance of dying instantly. In the corrective footnotes. That's extremely logical. Are you retarded?

I'm not going to waste my time explaining the concept of the unreliable narrator to an autist on a Tuvan Throat-Singing forum.

I don't think you understand what "unreliable narrator" or "autist" means at all.

Especially given you think propaganda is going to tell soldiers that they're likely to die within a day, falsely, for no gain, rhyme, or reason. Because this would be an extremely uplifting fact to lie about (you yourself are implying without realizing it that the average is in fact lower than 15 hours).

You have to wear a helmet in your day to day life, don't you?

6th and 7th edition allowed Inquisitors to outfit their henchmen/acolytes with power armor

There is an entire army in the Imperium that has super faith powers.

>start a massive khornate cult
>attracts even some Khorne Berzerkers after you've taken over the planet
>barely manage to stay sane, but do you best as His chosen arrive
>You see the first of them walk out of the starship
>The crimson armour, the chainaxe dripping wet with blood, the helmet an icon to Khorne himself...
>suddenly you don't feel you body underneath your head
>"Good lord, it's been over 16 seconds since I last took someones skull...BLOOD FOR THE BLOODGOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULLTHRONE!"
>Your body turns into Chaos Spawn
>Khorne cares not

Go to the Underhive. Start a gang. Don't buy mung vases. Find an Archeotech horde.

>15 hours life span

this is fucking stupid and obviously a joke, exaggeration, or mistake a la moops like 15 hours isnt even long enough to put on a uniform and fly to a battlefield

even knowing its an average, it it was really that low you wouldnt even really have to have a food service for anything lower than officers since everyone would die in battle before they starved to death

again, beyond retarded. as expected from the master GW

You think that propaganda is only produced for the benefit of one's own soldiers?

Really, the most you could do is stand out and run into an Inquisitor, and from being an acolyte if you're lucky and smart enough eventually you might become an Inquisitor and answer to basically no one except the High Lords and the Emperor

>Joining the military would most likely lead to a death

ALL paths to power will most likely lead to death. Most people who want to be Hive-dominating crime lords die on their way up the ladder. Most people who want to be planet hopping super-Arbitrators die in service. Most people who want to be popular politicians get eaten alive by cutthroat politics. Most people who want to be demagogues get assassinated. Most people who want to be Ecclesiarchs die from intrigue or get sidelined until they die from boredom. Most techpriests who want to be Fabricator General end up pushed into dead end menial labor little better than servitorship. A Rogue Trader has to survive what is basically an arena of deadly competitors just to get rich enough to even be considered for a Letter of Marque.

And that's not counting the people from ALL those walks of life who will end up in battle one way or another and get blown to shit by a huge Ork gun.

Even being born as the noble scion of a powerful house doesn't mean some ship you're on won't get warpfucked. The chances of getting REAL power are low even for nobility, and for commoners, almost miniscule. Only the most powerful or the most blindly fortunate will make it to the top.

These models must have come out in my late adolescence when I had dropped the hobby, I am now extremely sad that I don't own them and astonished I've never seen them before.

>Top left guy
Papa Emiritus confirmed to exist within the 40K Universe.

>the imperium releases black propaganda for its own fucking military forces and makes it mandatory reading

The ones that empty their prisons and slums can get into trouble, though.
The Munitorium actually has a minimum acceptable standard of training for tithed regiments; if not met, the Governor is out.

An argument could start to be made if you said the 15 hours represented 'fifteen hours of active combat'.
It could also be pointed out that it's similar to 'average lifespans' in various points in the past; most people lived longer than those average lifespans, but the number gets brought down by severe infant mortality rates.
So, entirely possible it represents the fact that vast swathes of tithed regimental troops don't survive their first encounter.
Those that do, well, their odds improve.
Still, not worth sperging out about - on either side of the argument.

>So the guys at GW want me to do a cool space nun. Let's see...
>Huge gun: check
>Gothic battle armour: check
>Grotesque 80s Madonna bra: check

Never change Blanche, never change.

>craving personal power
top heretic

>An argument could start to be made if you said the 15 hours represented 'fifteen hours of active combat'.

"Recruits, you might have heard a disgraceful rumor that the average guardsman lives a life of constant war. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, the average guardsman sees only 15 hours of active duty in his career!"

It depends a lot on the planet. If you're born on mars, even as a commoner, show enough proficiency and enthusiasm over technology and you'll get recruited into the mechanicus. If you're on any world that recruits space marines you can go for those trials. Agri worlds have Imperial knight houses, and even if you're just a regular guardsman if you survive long enough you'll eventually get promoted to an office job, but the chances of that are slightly lower than tyranids ever winning anything.

Shit all, for the most part. You could probably raise to a moderate social standing by joining the Arbites if you felt like being a space cop. If you didn't mind the high chance of death, you could join a hiver gang and hope you rise to a position of power, then you might get picked up by a space marine chapter if you're still young enough. Other than that, you could join the guard and hope you don't die. Promotions seem pretty commonplace in the IG. If you show an aptitude for not dying and a valuable skill, you might even make it past NCO. Same goes for the Imperial Navy.

yeah, I guess people aren't really counting 41k as 40k anymore, it's
just gone full retard at points. The Imperium was silly before, but at least you had faith that it could somehow work, this new lore is just turning up the skub to 1000 and expects everyone to go "woooow epic!!!! A Million Titans face a million greater daemons on a planet that's being attacked by a Hive Fleet, Daemon Invasion and the greatest Ork Waagh of all timeeee!!!!" Inflation doesn't add quality

It's a new setting. 30K, 40K, 41K. Many franchises have different stories set in different eras.

The True question is, which path has the lowest probability of death compared to the other choices.

I still say your personal Imperial Cult or Admech would be the least perilous compared to the others.

Besides most of those positions to even be in to get power are from Schola Pregnium graduates, something the commoner can never be.

Every citizen of the Imperium can become a Inquisitor.

Becoming picked for an acolyte would mean the Inquisitor would have to judge you as some kind of exceptional and valuable individual. By definition most type of people are not like that.

Unless he is the kind of Inquisitor who prefers to conscript massive amounts of random citizens to be acolytes to act as his own private army.

Yeah. The chance to become a Inquisitor isn't high. But if you are one, you as powerful as you can possibly be Within the Imperium.

Found This: dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Civilian_Life_in_Warhammer_40,000_AD

The Poor and likely Middle Class of the Imperium are either in Cults (imperial) or Gangs. That or they are keeping to themselves working there jobs with no ambition.

Any higher position is near impossible to obtain.

LOL at those models
The T stands for Time-To-leave Richer!

I pretty sure Creed started off his career as a lowly cadian conscript... so, if you want power join the Imperial Guard and git gud