Nobledark 40k part 43: WAAAGH! edition

I thought SangyGuardsman had a bit of one going, then he said he was going to change it and it never showed back up. Last I remember there was something about Alicia Dominica and the Brides of the Emperor being Vandire's personal goon squad, like canon, until Inqusitor Sebastian Thor, being Sebastian Thor, convinced them into becoming HIS bodyguards by bribing them/appealing to their better nature.

Or something.

He's not wrong. Indeed, that's part of the reason the Imperium and Tau mostly engaged in petty slap fights before integration. The Imperium didn't want to crush what they saw as one of the few islands of sanity in a galaxy gone mad and the Tau didn't want to awaken the sleeping giant with a disproportionate response. And both would agree that the other are much better neighbors to have than orks/Dark Eldar/thyrrus/rak-gol/whatever.

Of course, that raises the question of what Farsight's opinion of what the Tau Empire should have done with the Imperium was. The Tau had the resources and distance to make any war against them make the Badab War look like skipping through a field of flowers, but the Imperium would eventually drown them in bodies or get desperate and pull a doomsday weapon out of Ganymede, Mars, or Yme-Loc if things kept escalating (look at what happened to the Slaugth). Pre-Schism the Ethereals' view on the Imperium was to keep them at arms' length, be isolationist but not piss the Imperials off to the point where diplomacy or alliances of convenience were impossible.

The question is how long that could last. The Tau Empire was getting to the point where they were within spitting distance of Ultramar.

The Valkyries of Fenris I would have it as that they are using Securitas augmentations. The Imperium is unsure exactly how they are doing so given that the method of their creation is a very closely guarded secret.

Two leading explanations are that a renegade Bio-Druid sold them the knowlage. Other explanation is that it's a home grown variant that just looks like it.

The Valkyries themselves answer only to Ulrik the Slayer so they aren't saying, assuming they know.

Unbeknownst to any save the most skilled and qualified and above all trusted doctors of the Fang there is a vaulted hall somewhere deep in the foundations. Part chapel and part reliquary and part hospital bad.

There lies The Marble Angel. The sleeping princess. From her they are impossibly derived. Her origins are not known for sure nor is why her, and her alone, augmentations are communicable.

The Valkyries' enhancement is said to be in part due to the Canis Helix. Canis Helix enhancements are said to be gene-copyrighted much like Oscar's Man of Gold genome is, so even though it's possible for a Canis Helix soldier to have kids the super soldier genes have degraded into uselessness and the body just ignores them as junk DNA.

Securitas augmentations are close enough to patch the holes and get the body to make sense of a lot of the garbled genes. Not enough to turn them into Canis Helix soldiers (which should theoretically be possible, since the enhancements aren't chromosome dependent since they aren't reverse engineered from Oscar and Leman Russ was definitely making female Canis Helix soldiers based on the fact that Fenris Wolves were able to form a breeding population, but was said to have not happened because Oscar put his foot down and Leman was in no position to go against him because by that point what happens when the Canis Helix goes wrong was well known to both), but enough to make them to Space Wolves as Sisters are to Astartes.

The Valkyries claim descent from at least one of Russ' many daughters, hence why they sometimes call themselves the Daughters of Russ. It's probably true in a technical sense but how literal that is is somewhat debatable.

Finished a sketch of two Imperial infantrymen on break, on the left is an Eldar Guardian carrying standard Guardian gear. On the right is a Cadian tanker, shown by his use of a compact lascarbine, unarmored right shoulder, and the lack of baggage typical of a "foot-slogger".

If there's shading, it likely wasn't done on purpose (that would have taken even longer than this did), and the poses are a little stiff.

The Leman Russ Tank writeup is almost done, it will probably be going up on the currently one-story War For Heaven series on FF dot net. I'd rather not clog up this thread with something that's just had a few sentences modified.

IIRC, late-Age of Apostasy Eldar served as Vandire's bodyguards, who stepped out of the way after Sebastian Thor convinced them to stand down. If Sangy's still (around and) working with the Adepta Securitas I'm happy to wait, and I have the pic for the Sister Superior if it needs reuploading (and if anyone actually wants it).

they've long since passed the point of being self-aware enough to be satirical

You forgot the part where he threatened them with a bomb if they didn't stand down.

I had a bit of a paragraph written up to possible cannibalize if we ever do a more extensive write-up on the Imperial Civil War and Vandire, based on what we had so far.

"The sides of the Imperial Civil War were not merely a bone of contention amongst humans. Eldar, too, were divided by this issue. Eldar had been a part of Imperial Guard regiments who had committed atrocities in Vandire’s name. And several Craftworlds had sent Eldar warriors to Vandire to act as his bodyguards. The Craftworlds who did so claimed they had done this as a way to restrain Vandire, blunting the ravings of a madman and preventing much greater harm from being done. The other Craftworlds claimed they had done it as a pretense to manipulate Vandire and gain power at the expense of the other Craftworlds, which to the Eldar was a far greater offense than it was to humans."

Based on canon fluff (which we've incorporated almost unchanged here), gaining power at the expense of other members of your own kind is seen as a really heinous crime for Eldar. Tau too. Humans are used to this kind of behavior, individuals gaining power at the expense of the group is annoying but expected, as befits humanity's control freak nature. Maybe it's because we evolved from primates, whereas Tau are basically sapient bipedal gazelles by Earth standards and Eldar are our weird not-quite doppelgangers like wolves and thylacines.

Also does anyone know how to post images to 1d4chan? The Leman Russ fluff needs uploading and I'm not sure how to handle the images.

(cont.)
On a related note, who would send Eldar warriors to protect/manipulate Vandire? The obvious point for schism would be between the big five Craftworlds: Alaitoc, Biel-Tan, Iyanden, Ulthwe, and Saim-Hann.

To get the obvious out of the way, there's no way Saim-Hann would have participated. The Imperial Civil War was very much a struggle over whether it is better to be dutiful or moral (and to a lesser degree, placing faith in individuals versus government), and Saim-Hann trusts outside governments about as far as it can throw them. Individuals, yes, but not faceless entities (heck in 8th edition they're still trying to be neutral).

Ulthwe would be an obvious one, except that's the Craftworld with the closest direct ties to Isha and the Steward, mostly through Eldrad. Then again, it's been established that Eldrad is kind of a black sheep.

Iyanden has been well-established as wanting nothing to do with the Imperium politically at this point, wanting to keep to themselves.

Alaitoc would be another likely suspect, though it depends on how much they want to interact with humanity. If they think they can seize the reins and stop Vandire's madness from being directed at Eldar, they would. But generally they act like pre-Kraken Iyanden.

Biel-Tan is the perfect combination of ambitious enough to send guards, comfortable enough with humans to not care, and arrogant enough to try it. Space Noldor, am I right?

Absolutely true, but at least some of it is there in the Imperium's obviously religiously fanatic, oligarchic, stagnant, fascist oppressiveness, even if it's always MUH BRAVE MUHREENS in the spotlight. Warhammer is pretty much dead to me, if I'm gonna be honest. But I still reflexively dislike anything that shits on what was good about it.

(cont.)
Something that hasn't really been touched on is how deep the scars of the Imperial Civil War must have been. Relationships between planets and Craftworlds for years must have been soured by "so and so supported that nutjob Vandire" or "so and so were rebel scum". Resentment could really fester, especially depending on how punitive one side was to the other (not even official retribution, say a planet got bombed from orbit during the actual war. That's going to leave a lot of bitterness. Think Monarchia all over again).

Probably the best thing that could happen is Malys organizes a Black Crusade shortly after the Age of Apostasy. Can't speak for other countries, but the Spanish-American War has been said to be important in healing the rift formed by the American Civil War. There was even a case where a Southern military officer forgot who he was fighting and accidentally said to his (largely northern) troops "Let's go, boys! We've got the damn Yankees on the run again!"

And to be honest, it would be surprising if Chaos didn't try to take advantage of the Imperium suddenly trying to tear itself in half.

Bump

It could aleo have caused divisions within the craftworlds. Some would bave had pro and anti Vandire camps.

Good point. Especially with the biggest Craftworlds (the aforementioned five).

The same would have been true on many human worlds, leading to a number of nasty civil wars. I can see at least one planet retaining a lingering grudge against the Imperium when the planet got Exterminatused like Alderaan because it was too important to the rebels and too difficult to hold. The survivors, who would all be descended from those offworld at the time, would have a massive distrust of government.

Given the attrition of everyday life how many Chaos Eldar are there?

Have plans for a post-4th War Yarrick story.

If thread survives until afternoon will write it.