Nobledark 40k part 49: Big Slapfight in Heaven edition

They told the Sisters and the PDF that they needed them to sound the evacuation order and work with the planet’s government to make preparations for the evacuation of the planet in the event of the worst case scenario. Meanwhile, the Grey Knights would enter the city and try and hunt down the cultists before they could activate the weapon. Preceptor Mariel wasn’t happy with the idea of being relegated to evacuation duty. She argued that it would make more sense for the PDF and Sisters to join the Grey Knights in hunting down the cult, and stop the disaster before it even began. Ordan responded it was either put out the call to evacuate and potentially only lose one city, or risk it and lose all the cities.

As the Grey Knights entered the outer districts of the city, they heard a horrific scream and were buffeted by what seemed like a wind of metallic dust. They were too late. The Bloodtide had been activated. The Grey Knights, being clad in fully sealed power armor were immune to the Bloodtide effects, but the people around them were not. The civilians did not die cleanly, screaming in agony and clawing at their bodies as blood oozed from every pore, bleeding far more blood than any human should be able to produce as their internal organs were turned to liquid by what amounted to synthetic ebola. As opposed to the omniphages, which were intended as a form of nanotech Exterminatus, an intentional “grey goo” scenario, the Bloodtide was meant to kill people in the most horrific way possible. It was a nanotech terror weapon.

It wasn’t until the Grey Knights had reached the inner parts of the city that Ordan had realized he had made a mistake. He had only expected to have to fight the warlord and his hangers on, thinking their activation of the Bloodtide and the subsequent carnage was meant to be an end in and of itself. However, he hadn’t expected the warlord to use that blood for something else. The warlord had offered the blood of the dead as a sacrifice to Khorne, and given that quite a lot of people had died in one of the most Khorne-pleasing manners possible the warlord had managed to summon a literal army of Khornate daemons, which could travel the planet much faster than the Bloodtide ever could. The timetable for the total devastation of the planet had just moved up.

The Bloodletters and Bloodthirsters arose from the blood as if crawling out of their own reflection. Normally most people would be cursing their decisions and their fate in this situation, but not Ordan and the members of the Brotherhood. They were Grey Knights. If they had to die, so be it, they would take as many of the daemons as they could with them. However, for all their bravery and defiance, they only numbered 150, and did not have the numbers to take on the Khornate daemons, who simply dogpiled them. Ordan believed he was to meet his end when he was pinned by a Bloodmaster, when a melta blast from behind Ordan hit the daemon and melted its face to slag.

Looking up, Ordan saw the form of Preceptor Mariel and her Sisters firing into the horde of Khornate daemons. Ordan demanded to know why the Preceptor was there, and why they weren’t helping sound the order to evacuate the planet. Mariel responded with a cheeky response about how they had already handled it. Regardless of their disregard to stay back, the Sisters provided exactly what the Grey Knights needed right now, which was numbers. The best way to fix the situation right now was to charge forward to the Bloodtide as fast as possible, which the Grey Knights did, the Sisters following close behind to provide supporting fire and even the Grey Knights’ odds against the daemons. As their melta guns ran out of power, they switched to their flamers, and then those ran out of fuel, their bolters.

However, the Sisters were not immune to the Bloodtide’s effects. As the Grey Knights and Sisters pushed forward towards the center of the destruction, increasing numbers of Sisters fell, blood bursting from their pores as the nanotech breached the seals of their less advanced power armor and entered their bodies. The Sisters were more resistant to the Bloodtide than any unaugmented human, with some of their enhancements having been designed by Isha herself, and still they fell. Mariel herself managed to hold on until the Grey Knights made it to the Bloodtide itself before she collapsed. When the Grey Knights reached the center they found the Bloodthirster Ka’jagga’nath, who had been pleased by the slaughter wreaked by the now-dead cultists, and sought dominion over the Bloodtide itself. The Grey Knights protested this decision with warp fire and power swords, and after great sacrifice managed to banish the Bloodthirster. The Bloodtide, which had been bound to Ka’jagga’nath’s will when it had been activated, was disrupted by its banishment and returned to an inert form, waiting for a new master.

After the remaining Khornate daemons were purged and the city placed in quarantine, Ordan met with the planetary governor to briefly inform him of a heavily redacted version of the situation. In essence, a Chaotic weapon had been detonated in the city, the city was quarantined, and no one should be allowed to go near it. An experienced Inquisition team should arrive shortly to take the weapon to Ganymede, but the city was probably corrupted to the core and should be razed. The governor congratulated Ordan on their victory, only to receive an unexpected reply.

“You call this victory?” Millions of Imperial citizens are dead. An entire Commandery of Securitas, some of the bravest and most selfless warriors I have ever had the privilege to fight alongside, are no longer with us. There are no victories in this universe, governor. Only scales of defeat.”

Thoughts?

Not bad. Certainly read worse.

As an addendum, these were the goals I had in writing this.

1) The first, which was what inspired this in the first place, was to muse on Khorne's strange fascination for nanotechnology. Though when doing the research it turns out those separate instances of nanotech refer to the same thing. The Bloodtide's history is weird According to Hunt for Voldorius it's basically a non-malicious Man of Iron that wants to be left the hell alone and wanted the Raven Guard and White Scars to mercy kill it so it couldn't be used to kill people by Voldorius. Wot. So needless to say I split the two up here.
2) Show what the Grey Knights are generally like in this universe (use Webway, people know they exist but don't know the details of what they do beyond fight the really nasty stuff that happens when shit gets real) and to a lesser degree the Securitas.
3) Detail how the infamous "paint" incident went down here (though I heard rumors that GW had retconned it to something that is kind of similar to this).
4) Point out a fact that is easy for readers of Nobledark to miss. Even when good people triumph, it usually comes at a cost of numerous lives and great sacrifice. Out of universe people might consider it a victory if no one named died, but those living in the universe wouldn't see it that way. So, nobledark then.

Minor quibble: an entire brotherhood of Grey Knights would be overkill for this scenario; in canon a whole brotherhood of just over 100 GKs can face Angron and a dozen Bloodthirsters and it sounds like there's only one Bloodthirster in this scenario, even if he has a horde. Also, the Grey Knights wouldn't send a brotherhood if they came in thinking the Bloodtide was still dormant and there would be no daemonic presence, a couple squads would be more than enough to handle any cultist activity.

I was going off of what we said in previous thread where a Brotherhood is 100-250 Grey Knights in an organization of 3000-7500. I couldn't find the canon term for what a 100-man kill team of Knights would otherwise be called. Hence why the Sisters being there was so important, it tripled their numbers even if the Sisters couldn't fight in melee as well as the Knights.

I was thinking Bloodletters and low-tier Bloodthirsters (apparently Bloodthirsters have a ranking system, but it doesn't seem to be discussed in canon), especially since Bloodletters have been known to kill Grey Knights. Nothing like Ka'Bandha or Ang'grath. The one who tried to claim the Bloodtide would be the only big name.

"A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one."

It's pretty well-done, certainly better than the grimderp mess that is the canon alternative involving the Grey Knights and SoBs, and the sober reminder that the Nobledark Imperium still has to bear horrific casualties despite its best efforts, was interesting. This is more personal nitpicking, but the fight between the GKs and Ka'jagga'nath felt rather anticlimactic, especially considering how many GKs and Adepta Securitas were involved with how little detail was put into it.

definitely answers the call for nobledark battles

Bamp for young thread.

Disclaimer: about to get kinda spergy about power levels, so feel free to disregard

No, you're right in that the nomenclature for 100+ GKs would be a brotherhood, but I was talking about logic of the actual number of GKs involved. In canon, the full brotherhood is deployed because the Bloodtide is fully active and they're responding to the ensuing daemonic incursion. Here, it seems they're chasing a highly dangerous group of cultists at the beginning, a task for which a whole brotherhood would be complete overkill. Given the myriad of daemonic shenanigans going on at any given moment, I think the GKs would only deploy a brotherhood a big incursion is confirmed because they simply don't have the manpower to respond to everything otherwise.

Also, 250 SoBs would be a solid but maybe not gamechanging bump for a full GK brotherhood. In The Emperor's Gift, it shows the GKs get exponentially stronger in groups because they can pool their psychic powers to the extent that 109 of them can AOE explode "thousands" of lesser daemons and severely damage greater ones. 250 SoBs is roughly equal to 80 SMs given our 3:1 scaling, so if we're saying 150 GKs are getting overrun then it's hard to see the SoBs managing to swing the tide.

You're right in that Bloodletters can take down GKs. One on one I would say the average GK wins handily, but 2-3 Bloodletters is probably enough to take down the GK 5/10 times, since Bloodletters are roughly 1:1 with average SMs in melee (ignoring the fact that SMs have guns).

I was reading through the notes on the Squat and I really don't get the motivation behind making them regular humans from high gravity worlds who are pettily defined as abhumans rather than bona fide abhumans who are treated more reasonably. It seems to be going in the wrong direction for Nobledark, y'know?

It was to show that the AdMech are petty cunts when they don't get their way.

Also there isn't the massive stigma in the wider galaxy attached to Abhumans. One (possibly 3 depending on how you define it) Primarchs were abhumans and one of the current High Council of the Imperium is an abhuman.

And It's nobledark. If everyone got along perfectly with no petty squabbling it would quickly turn into Noblebright and we already have Brighthammer for that.

That seems like two ideas from two different people that have been awkwardly melded together. If abhumans aren't stigmatised, how is putting the tag on squats a petty act? It would be like trying to avenge yourself on construction workers by categorizing them as administration.

Is good.

It also makes it so that the rather stupid Vanilla Knights doing blood rituals and sacrificing SoB never happened as I think this was that event.

It also gives another thing for the Ganymede Vaults which is good as those things need filling.

Although given that it is nanotech, and deamonically tainted nanotech at that, there is a distinct possibility that Ka’jagga’nath may still have made off with a fairly heft slice of it.

Given the implications of Grey Goo scenario it should have to be mentioned that it was non-replicating nanotech otherwise what you have is an infinite ammo one-shot planet killer weapon.

The thing was that given the nature of the DaoT the Bloodtide might originally have been classed as medical equipment in much the same way that the giant things on Medusa are classed as gardening equipment.

part of it is actually having the Imperium be nuanced enough in outlook to bother with a distinction between abhumans and physiologically divergent humans, and show how between the Man of Stone modifications from human galactic colonization and many millennia to get weird on isolated worlds the difference between human and abhuman is more gradient than dichotomy.

Seperate was the inclusion of Mars' slight to the Squats, which came later as part of discussions of Squats/Mechanicus relations because the former won't recognize the former's pretensions to monopoly, and the subsequent grief given by the toasters in red.

It's an insult by the AdMech.

Most of the rest of the galaxy might not see much of a problem with being classed as abhuman but the AdMech do because the AdMech are arseholes and probably intended it as a racist slur.

It's essentially Mars calling the Hubworlders a bunch of niggers.

Mars has its own outlook on galactic politics, and ultimately in both their outlook and that of the squats, calling someone something they aren't with intent to control how they are received by a third party is insulting in its own right.

OK. Follow-up on that: why the change to the Squat lore so that they aren't a human subspecies the breeds true (by whatever name you want to call it)? That doesn't seem to have anything to do with going from Grim- to Nobledark, especially as Ratlings & Ogryns didn't get the same treatment.

Because they aren't physically divergent enough in proportion to seem as such.

The thing that sets them apart is that they are short and broad. You would probably get this if a regular human grew up in high gravity. There is not real change beyond that.

Their space dorf thing is more of a shared culture than physical.

Maybe I didn't explain the question properly? In the 40k lore, they are physically divergent enough to be a separate sub-species. Aside from their short stature, they have a high degree of manual dexterity and are extremely long-lived without imperial life-extension technology. These traits breed true regardless of environment.

In NI, you've ditched all of that. Why?

Manual dexterity could be acquired via practice and the Vanilla Imperium is a lot more stringent in regards to what legally constitutes a real person based on notions of purity.

The only thing that has been dropped is the inherent longevity that is regained through their universal healthcare.

This universal healthcare is also what keep their numbers low (because dorfs are never the most populous people in a setting) and stops their numbers from recovering quickly (because dorfs are, whilst not always a dying people, certainly not fast breeders).

It keeps them healthy but not young.

It also allows for an additional reason for their poor diplomatic relations with Mars beyond that they won't kneel to the Olympus Mons Brotherhood. Due to not being able to field as many soldiers or recover lost numbers as quickly relative to the population they make use of many robots.

Mars claims this a violation of The First Commandment. Hubworlds claim that their creations aren't smart enough to count as Silica Animus. Mars points out that degrees of heresy is still heresy. Hubworlders tell them to try and do something about it. Mars autistically screeches.

>The only thing that has been dropped is the inherent longevity
You keep saying this, but it's not true. None of the traits mentioned now breed true, they're just environmental accidents. There doesn't seem to be anything saying that one of the Hubworlds can't be inhabited by unusually tall short-lived butter-fingered humans who are none the less "Squats".

Why was this done?

So how amoral were the Old Ones?

Saw the galaxy as their personal science lab/zoo to do whatever they wanted in. Probably weren't wrong, were the most powerful species the galaxy had ever seen by miles and kept things like the tyranids at bay.

Among their amorality, outside of the War in Heaven, you have their treatment of the Necrontyr. The Old Ones knew about the Necrontyr. From day one. They knew there was a C'tan inside the Necrontyr's sun and their response (like it was to anything that threatened them) was to go "neat".

The Old Ones were lonely and wanted companionship, and wanted a race that was near enough their level that they could talk to. They figured that between the Necrontyr's short generation time and the fact that the blazing radiation of their sun would give them sufficient impetus to get off the planet as fast as possible. After that they might fix any long-term radiation issues with genetic engineering and cybernetics (laughingMag'ladroth.holo).

Then the Necrontyr got out of their star system and found the Old Ones waiting for them. They didn't take it well. It was like trying to teach someone to swim by letting their descendants drown for 6000 years. Then the Necrontyr ask for help with immortality. Old Ones have the social acumen of a dumpster and say the Necrontyr society isn't ready for immortality (to be fair, they're kind of right).

Also there is the whole intentionally created Khorne thing during the War in Heaven. No, not accidentally, but intentionally, effectively cloning him from the metaphorical spiritual DNA of Khaine, Gork and Mork, and the other servant races war gods. And the fact that their "gods" were effectively supercomputers to them. The servant races weren't smarter but they made more mentally stable gods because they gave a shit.

First time posting. I want to congratulate all of you for this interesting setting. So let´s see if I a can help a little. My problem is whit the astrinomicon, in the Imperium psykers are not used to feed it. So there are a lot of these guys running around. So...
A) Is the magic of Hollywood. Pro: Is magic Con: Is magic
B) The people who are connected to the flashlight are professionals specially trained, conditioned and augmented for this work. The surplus is diverted to local sectors to be trained in other jobs. Pro: Without the corpse-emperor that is possible Con: There are a lot of minor psykers waiting to be corrupted
C) The astronomicon don´t feed in them, but drain their psionic potential. This is painful, life treating and maddening, but after some grueling month of torture, this guy can have a normal life. So there are always volunteers for this job. Pro: Take away the problem Con:???
So what do you think?

Astronomican does drain psykers IIRC. The Imperium just doesn't brutalize them and have holes drilled in their skull. They aren't burned as fuel but maintaining a psychic ball of energy big enough to be seen 50k light years away drains your life force. Not as fast as canon, but your lifespan is drastically shortened.

Black Ships still go around picking up psykers. Point is to take them to a Schola Rhetora station (preferrably on Old Earth) to get them to control their powers and hopefully be soulbound or sanctioned. While they are there the glory of powering the Astronomican is greatly played up, talking about how heroic a duty it is and whatnot. So you get quite a few minor psykers steered towarda that path.

So it is kinda similar to what you have.

yeah.. so A+B. Thanks, but what I want to convey is that there are a lot of psykers around. I feel that is too much. In Vanilla around 1000 guys are killed to feed the emperor. Here the tenure of a psyker is between 6 months and 30 years. Is not this a problem?

Completely, 100% agree on the fight with Ka’jagga’nath was an anti-climax. Got to that point and then completely blanked on what to do. Left it the way it was in case someone wants to expand on the Ka’jagga’nath fight (which they are completely free to do, by the way).

Fair enough. We can reduce the numbers. Wanted a small enough number that the GKs would get overwhelmed without backup but wasn’t sure how many people a Grey Knight kill team would compose of, especially since in this AU the appropriate number of Grey Knights to throw at a problem is “as many as is needed”.

From a tactical perspective, the idea is that the Grey Knights carved a path while the Sisters applied sufficient (but not enuff) dakka from behind to keep the daemons from overwhelming them. It would be the equivalent of a Space Marine squad charging forward with stormtroopers providing covering fire, though at higher power levels.

Made sure to mention the Bloodletter that pinned Ordan was one of the “elite” ones (Bloodmaster) to explain how he managed to get pinned seeing as a GK vs Bloodletter matchup is not always one-way.

The omniphages are the planet killers. Ollanius Pius in Horus Heresy described the Men of Iron as dumping them on a planet and watching them strip every living thing to the bone. The Bloodtide is a terror weapon. Meant to kill people in as gruesome a manner as possible to sow fear and panic. The idea that it was once medical equipment that was repurposed as a murder weapon is highly plausible.

If it was a medical tool that would explain why in canon it didn’t want to kill people.

I think 6 months is the average. 30 years are the really, really lucky suckers that manage to survive all the fluctuations that kill everyone else.

There was mention 2 or 3 threads ago that the elder helped refine the lighthouse and spent a long time tweaking it. Wraithbone surge protectors, big buffering jars, filters to scoop out the imps, lenses to shift the useless spectrum/flavours into the usable range and other little refinements.

Prospero sent a big, greatest quality, purpose made focusing crustal to replace the impure chunk of natural quartz they were using.

Average lifespan of a career choir member is now ~30 years rather than ~18 months it otherwise would be. ~40 is you factor out first week deaths of people who were clearly unsuitable.

Point is it's now a legitimate career rather than a death sentence.

We explained why

I think we may all be talking at cross-purposes here. It makes sense that psykers would live longer so it's not seen as an outright death sentence (in canon psykers last weeks and they are in horrible agony the whole time rather than just weakened and drained).

However, 30-40 years kind of eliminates the Nobledark nature of the sacrifice. Here you have people who are literally giving their lives so that civilization can function normally. Considering time of transit in Black Ships and the amount of training, they would be at least in their forties or fifties by the time they died. That's not all that big a difference when the average pleb can't afford rejuvenants and dies about the same age if not slightly later than modern day.

It sounds like it's a quibble over numbers (hello Commorragh).

>Why is being classified being abhuman a bad thing?
This would also have been early enough in the Great Crusade that there were still some tensions over abhumans. People were horrified by the Primeval Ogryn and Beastmen and there was a sizeable chunk of AdBio who suggested that they just wipe them out before the Steward stepped in. Also it’s a poke to the Hubworlders’ pride and an annoyance whenever they have to do official paperwork.

>Manual dexterity
It’s been pointed out that the Eldar’s agility is as much due to age and experience as it is to natural ability. It’s possible for humans to do the same (and humans sort of do IRL), but for most people (as in, no rejuvenants) their body deteriorates from age before they see significant returns, whereas Eldar of the same age are just hitting their prime. Grey Knights run on this principle, level grinding through several centuries of experience through the most brutal training regimens imaginable on top of their normal anti-Chaos stuff.

Hubworlders, who get old and wrinkly but don’t get muscle and bone degeneration and across the board live twice as long as skinnies, would have a similar effect going on, especially with manual dexterity since they do that every day.

Bonus is it means that the old fogies actually have a point when they say they can do delicate tasks better than any young whippersnapper.

>Longevity
It’s also possible that the longevity is just that the Imperium doesn’t understand how the heck the Hubworlders could live so long. The Imperium couldn’t even figure out how half of Hubworlder technology worked in canon anyway. The Hubworlders could create stable Warp Cores but when the AdMech tried it they contaminated a planet.

And if we want to really jump through loopholes it merely says a lifespan of 300 years is normal. It doesn’t say whether it is genetic or medicinal.

The Hubworld Navy are mostly normal looking.

Ok.. this is going to sound really stupid. But a made a typo, it was B+C.

It's also possible that they were cultivating other species for entering traits like less fucked up Qu fro All Tomorrows.

Now all we need is to know what the Deamonic steam train is doing

If it is in Ganymede now then it will at least have someone to talk to.

It doesn't know anything useful about tue DaoT beyond the name of it's parent mega-corp. It can't even into medical anymore as it had to be mutilated to become the Bloodtide.

But you can have a conversation with it.

When I wrote the Bloodtide thing I thought it would make more sense to make them separate things, especially since the portrayals of the two between Voldorius and the GK codex differ so dramatically.

This now raises the question of does the Silent King and his vassals keep mortals as subjects or is it strictly a Necrontyr only party?

IIRC the Silent King and his vassals are strongly against non-Necrons being in their territory, except for holding pens where they await biotransference experiments. If there are any that haven't been detected, the Necrons respond poorly when they do discover intruders.

Well it would also be an interesting story to see chaos cultists try to use a robot/AI equivalent to a DAoT cellphone that very much does not want any part in their shenanigans, and would prefer to keep the disproportionately strong anti-chaos buffers its master installed millenia ago (as eldar empire spam filters) that have kept it relatively safe all this time.

It would, but that's more impetus to have Voldorius and the GK's Bloodtide's separate. From a thematic perspective, it's difficult to juggle "DaoT Man of Iron that wants nothing to do with Chaos despite cult's best efforts" with "horrible weapon of mass destruction that was used to kill millions and was controlled by a Bloodthirster". Tonal whiplash.

Biotransference is yet another example of just how expendable Star Empire sees individuals. In the event that the Silent King activates the Cadian Pillars they die too, and yet that is a perfectly acceptable trade for everyone involved because it perfects the biotransference for everyone else when a sapient species arises after the War in Heaven.

As for the primitives? They were going to die anyway. Might as well make themselves useful before they die.

yeah, I'm in agreement with you

bampan

We also have a whole lot of talkative things in the Ganymede vaults. Legienstrasse, Apep, technically Jaq Draco. Reluctant neutral "fuck your Chaos" Man of Iron sounds like a great idea for a story, but it'd probably be good to have some things in there that are more inert or at least can't be negotiated with (yes, I just realized I said Apep can be negotiated with).

>the Silent King activates the Cadian Pillars
I don't like having a single, specific action like this as the Necron's win condition or indeed anyne's win condition. For starters, if the Cadian Pillars are capable of this, why didn't they use them during the War in Heaven?

No, if the Necrons want to kill everything, I think they should have to do it the old fashioned way: one planet at a time.

Could the Space Sharks, Mentor Legion, Thunderbolt warriors be 2nd legion?

Chaos' win condition is technically two individual actions: kill the Emperor and kidnap Isha back. Making sure the Star Empire and tyranids don't eat everything is secondary.

Without the Cadian Pillars the Necrons have no way to meaningfully threaten Chaos. If they have to kill all life one planet at a time, there is always going to be life out there to feed the Chaos gods. Life after the War in Heaven got to a pretty comparable point to what you would see if Necrons did things the old-fashioned way, Enslavers pouring out and killing everything, and yet enough life survived that Khorne, Malal, Tzeentch, and Nurgle made it through.

How long would it take for Necrons to even kill all life in the galaxy anyway? Even with Ludicrous Speed ships, would they have to turn around and have another go because new life has emerged in their wake? Of course, if the Necrons really wanted to kill everyone quick, they could just get everyone on the Oruscar Dynasty's homeworld and just slap the Stellar Orrery. Yes the Phareon of Oruscar will be pissed and the galaxy will be a mess to end all messes, but it'll be over.

Cadian Pillars just mean the Necrons get to be extra-thorough. Everyone with a soul dies. No exceptions. No hidden enclave of life outside their reach (like the pre-contact Kroot or Tau).

On the other hand, said goal is easier said than done. Going straight from the Necron Star Empire, you have to go through the Imperium, two Ork empires, then take the most heavily fortified planet in the galaxy, and then hold it. There's no guarantee the Necrons know how to work the Cadian Pillars since they were made by Mag'ladroth as a psychic dampener that happened to double as a device of galactic genocide, so it might take time to activate. So it might end up like the Vortex battle in Total Warhammer 2 where the Necrons have to take Cadia and hold it long enough to figure out how the pylons work while getting dogpiled by everyone else with the exception of tyranids.

Carcharodons are Night Lords.

Not sure what you mean by Thunderbolt warriors. Did you mean Thunder Warriors? Those predate the naming of the primarchs.

Speaking of Necrons, a thought based on the mention of terror tactics last thread...

"Your warriors, the ones your commoners call your, eh...Angels of Death. I assume they are called these things because they make use of fear and terror tactics?"

"I suppose. Inspiring fear isn't their primary purpose but it is something that they do rather well. An old general of mine once said that fear and terror are just another weapon."

"Hm. My warriors feel no such things. I do not permit them to."

- Dialogue between Oscar and the Silent King, circa M40

>Carcharodons are Night Lords.
This is the lazy answer and shrinks the universe as opposed to expanding it. They could also be Raven Guard BUT to give them proper honor would be to make them their own thing thus 2nd legion.

Back in RT Space Sharks, Rainbow warriors "now thunderbolt warriors" and Mentor legion where original Legions.

Here is my version:
After the Horus Heresy the 2nd Legion split itself into three chapters of equal power, each a temptest behind observative dead eyes.
The mentors, where the most wise, reserved and logical.
The Space Sharks whom they acted at the right time and moment in the most brutal way. Masters of the void.
The Thunderbolt warriors -rainbow warriors - perhaps the most human of them all, curageous beyond all.

Tought they may share similar geneseed, their culture and customs differ a lot. They all protect their home sector and have known to brought woe to the malestorm many times. They enforce the Imperial Law and are known to despise temptation.

My idea for necrons it's the following:

The mother fuckers where great scientists but their problem is that they where too fragile and didnt last too long. When they enslaved the C'tan, these fuckers told them how to become immortal:
Once you are old enough, transfer your mind to a body of metal, in that way you will be preserved forever!
So what happened here is that the Necron population exploded! The fuckers fucked like rabbits before turning themselves into metal. In this way they trully became a very powerful race in such a short time.

The hybernation was necessary for them because the C'tan started to kill themselves and they noticed that something was going wrong. They where beggining to loose their minds and become more monotone, loosing their personalities. So the Necrons decided to go into hibernation until the scarabs could find a solution to their problem.

So basically the Necron Lords or the higher the rank means that you conserved more personality and traits than the other plebs that couldnt. And besides being the leader of a Dynasty means that you literally where once the genefather of a legion of descendants that are now the CPU.s of necron warriors etc...

Not too shabby ehh?

Some Necron Lords have less personality than others and have reverted to more Alien behaviour.

Yeah, I'm in agreement, making the average service time of an Adeptus Astronomica 30-40 years seems a bit too benign, for lack of better word. Powering the Astronomicon is still a monumental task that requires sacrifice of the highest order, and my only question is whether or not service is voluntary or not. Psykers still get scooped up for mandatory training by the Black Ships (can't have citizens randomly exploding into daemons), but maybe after their training they can choose their vocation, perhaps even living their life out as an average citizen on Old Earth?

This could lead to situations where elderly psykers volunteer for Astronomicon duty during periods of heavy load like warp storms to spare the younger ones, like how in Japan retired nuclear engineers volunteered to go into Fukushima to spare young people the radiation exposure, knowing they had less lifespan remaining anyway (real life Nobledark at its finest).

"In a way, the Astronomicon IS the Imperium, young one. Without it, none of this would possible: this school, this planet of wonders, our very civilization and way of life. And the Adeptus Astronomica, they are the spirit of the Imperium made flesh. Arm in arm with their brothers, they give of their very souls to cast light into the darkest corners of the galaxy so that the Imperium and all who live under its aegis might be live on. They will not march to war to face our foes with armor and gun like you one day will, but they are no less noble for that. Remember that, boy."
- Senior Lecturer Bernar Skrayling, Calth Schola Progenium

>Horus Heresy
>Disputing the Carcharodons fluff that's been decided on for ages

Are you that one retard that barged in ranting about Luther and Lion despite clearly not having read our fluff?

>>Disputing the Carcharodons fluff that's been decided on for ages
>Being this fucking obtuse

Helding importance on Horus Heresy books over 40k it's the most autistic and retarded thing ever. Didnt those faggots try to erase the blood ravens and basically shift the blame of everything into something else? If they retconned something then it can be retconned again.
Besides it was never decided that they where NL or RG just that they shared way too many similarities which is pretty dumb.

No, you utter mong, it’s the fact you referred to the Horus Heresy in this AU when that never fucking happened in this timeline. I refuse believe someone could be so earnestly dense so I’m just going to assume this is bait.

>to the Horus Heresy in this AU when that never fucking happened in this timeline
Well then take away the HH part and just made that they split, to have more cultural clash.

Have you tried reading the fluff for this AU?

four talkative things on ganymede isn't too many, particularly if we balance it out with more inanimate things in the recesses of the Inquisition's moon, which has been a long standing place to fill out anyways.

>Helding importance on Horus Heresy
An event that never happened in this AU and is one of the big defining features of this AU.

>Tought they may share similar geneseed
Gene-seed in this AU does not work that way. M3MP Astartes Pattern gene-seed is the same for all chapters the use it. Any deviations are either from the recruitment stock or someone's been tampering with the product after delivery.

Is Ganymede where the Grey Knights keep the Tesseracts or do they still keep that shit on Titan?

Fair enough.

They keep the Tesseracts on Ganymede. The idea is if one goes ploin-shaped and the planet gets sucked into the Warp, Titan won't go with it. At the same time Ganymede is literally one planet over from Titan, so if shit goes down the Knights can hear about it and be on it in an instant.

I'd say service is voluntary. The image of older psykers on Old Earth volunteering in times of crisis where there's a huge surge and the Astronomican is in trouble so young people don't have to is a good one. Especially given that Earth has so many psykers.

I think we need more books. Legi and Draco recovered a copy of the Necroteuch which means that the Imperium has a copy and that it is still in circulation in this timeline.

Not listed on the Ganymede section but mentioned in other places is Ego-Video Liber Deorum Daemonium (Gods and Deamons: A Spotters Guide) by Red Magnus.

Anyone got any additional ideas for forbidden texts?

Are there other canon examples of heretical texts? Presumably there would be at least a few books written by renegades and sorcerers that detail summoning rituals.

There might be a copy of Lorgar's Black Manuscript around, but no one can seem to find it.

Worth pointing out that one reason Carcharodons were made Night Lords here as oppossed to Raven Guard like in canon is that the Night Lords otherwise have no daughter chapters, which is kind of odd given that geneseed isn't as big of a deal. War Hounds have Minotaurs, Salamanders have confirmed descendants in Black Dragons, Storm Giants, and the Dragon Lords, KSons have Grey Knights (technically), Exorcists, and Blood Ravens, Death Guard have Black Templars and their like, Iron Warriors have Silver Skulls, Void Wolves have Luna Wolves, Sons of Horus, and the Black Legion. Only legion that doesn't have descendants so far is Terra's Sons, but they at least have several reasons for being that way.

Marines Malevolent are probably descended from somebody but no one will ever admit to it.

I always had the Marines Malevolent as Night Lord successors as well, since they're almost certainly going to get the same permanent-penitent-crusade treatment as well cultivating the same reputation.

Did we save the names of the Mechanicus breakaway sects?

Yes, I believe we did. They're on Forces of Chaos on 1d4chan.

Have we touched on internal divides in the AdMech of the Imperium yet?

One could make arguments in favor of quite a few legions for the origins of the Marines Malevolent. In addition to the Night Lords, there is also...

Iron Warriors - Their "cold equations" style of combat that fits with the worst aspects of the IW.
Imperial Fists - Dorn's focus on internal strength. Also yellow.
Ultramarines - Given how variable Ultramarine successors can be
War Hounds - Brutality

About the only ones that couldn't claim to be the parent legion are the Iron Hands, Vlka Fenryka, and Thousand Sons, for obvious reasons.

If they were Warhounds then they would have to have been a descendant of a descendant founded after Kharn Oathsworn died. If they either of those two would have seen them drop artillery shells on a refugee camp they would have had a whole new understanding of the name Red Angel.

Dorn's followers were more about setting up a fortification and making them come to you, MMs are nomadic.

Iron Warriors, Night Lords and Ultramarines for just numbers are more likely.

Iron Warriors absolutely would drop artillery shells on a refugee camp if victory demanded it on the principle that it would save more lives in the long run.

not much besides their naming anyone that won't submit to Olympus Mons Heretek (Savlar Brotherhood, Hub Worlds, and various other Survivor civ forges as well as other sects of the Mechanicus that are automata non grata on Mars)

What would be a good name for a sect that puts the human will above rampant technophillia?

Don't do cerebral augmentation beyond the minimal necessary to interface with their cybernetics.

Forbid the use of servitors.

One of the factions that left Mars when it was unified because fuck kneeling before Olympus Mons and their creepy old robe-men. Have no forgeworlds of their own but doe have enclaves on many hive worlds.

Was going to call them Clock/Cogwork Orthodox but that's a thing from the SCP universe.

In terms of what? Are we talking Civ:BE Purity/Supremacy that is all about tech but forbids tampering with the human form, "man as tool user" incarnate?

How would they do anything if they don't have servitors, seeing as servitors and vat-grown brains are used in everything that has a computer system (except maybe in Hubworld/Interex/Tau space).

There's stuff on this scattered around the 14chan pages, but it is admittedly not very easy to find. We've established the main divide in the Mechanicus is between the orthodox faction who are the standard AdMech focused on machine supremacy and the Biologis who are more interested in tinkering around with genetics and biological enhancement. More detail on the Biologis is given on the Forces of the Imperium page, but essentially within the Biologis there are two sub-factions, one descended from the traditions of the Merikan bio-druids and one from the Duscht genesmiths and carrying their predecessors' rivalry.

The 1d4chan blurb on the Notes page also mentions a moderate faction: "reconstructionist/reformist (don't necessarily invent new things, but spend more time trying to reverse-engineer things based on old data)"

>tfw no War of Ancients where Squats take Eldar crowns

I think user meant more within the AdMech itself. We have the Legio Cybernetica, Stillness, and the like, but those tend to be outcasts (Hubworlders took Cybernetica in when Olympus Mons kicked them out, another reason the toasters hate the space dwarfs).

Whether Biologicus are within AdMech depends on who you ask. Officially they are by the Administratum, and after 10,000 years of cultural exchange the AdBio look a lot more like the AdMech. Some AdMech would say they are, others would say they are pretenders playing dressup as scientists because they don't think the flesh is weak.

Part of it is also that Old Earth around the Unification had its own much smaller bands of technological experts of all stripes, proto-Biologicus, Terrawatt technomancers, and the more useful Merikan, Urshian, and PPL experts among them, and instead of melding these orders into the Mechanicus the Imperium really just attached them on paper and kept a lot of them on Administratum or Militarum payroll whenever Mars is too limiting. The Throne/Imperial Court also seems to use a lot of the privileges extended to Survivor Civilizations to get around the strictures of the Mars Mechanicus to field vehicles, gear, and tech from foundries, shipyards, and workshops in places like Necromunda and Ultramar, as well as the Biologicus that was fashioned under the Throne's aiges and any heterodox sects like the Savlar Brotherhood and myriad other less famous orders the court wishes to employ and back with its considerable funds. There's also been stuff connecting the Terrawatt clan with the Hydra, and speculation that Malcador went to Cthonia with some measure of foreknowledge as to what he might find there, provided by his fellows in the Terrawatt clan.

Also am I just imagining that it was mentioned that the Hydra would sometimes use the a golden snake eating its tail as their seal, as well being associated with the more the many headed serpent of the Alpha Legion.

Bump.

>Also am I just imagining that it was mentioned that the Hydra would sometimes use the a golden snake eating its tail as their seal, as well being associated with the more the many headed serpent of the Alpha Legion.
yes, this is the first I've heard of that at least

Didn't Ultramar also seek out some of the other technical powers, since they were so far out in the boondocks they didn't feel the need to kowtow to the AdMech?

A lot of Imperial Worlds seem to be under AdMech control in part because the other big (and I use that term loosely since the AdMech controls like 85% of manufacturing) industrial powers weren't encountered until later. Interex were encountered right before the Raid. Ultramar was at the far end of the galaxy. If the early part of the Crusade was restricted to the Segmentum Solar, the Hubworlders wouldn't have been encountered until the Astronomican was online. Though the exact timing of that within the 300-500 years (did we ever nail it down? I think there was some discussion of how long Sol took and the Crusade took in an old thread, whereas Earth itself took a few decades at most) is uncertain. All we have as a hard date is the Raid took place in the latter half once the Imperium started being a power worth noticing.

I was thinking a bit on how the Marines Malevolent might act in this timeline without making them into one-dimensional villains while keeping their core characterization of being complete and total assholes. However, I think the idea ended up basically being how the MM are portrayed in canon.

The Marines Malevolent are extreme pragmatists. They feel like being a super soldier is a fundamentally dirty business that requires people to do horrible things, and thinking otherwise (or, heaven forbid, treating it like you're a hero) means you're lying to yourself or you're too cowardly to do what is necessary to keep the Imperium safe. This doesn't go over well with other chapters, who even though they've had their fair share of doing something distateful to stop something worse generally try to find another solution first. The Marines Malevolent would rather amputate a limb rather than try to cure the infection first, simply because it leaves no room for failure. The MM don't like any chapter. They see the others as deluded or cowards, and they don't even like themselves, who they see with a distinctly bitter taste of regret at all the "horrible yet necessary" (though many would debate that) things that they have had to do.

As a result, things tend to ends badly when the Marines Malevolent try to play with anyone else. What generally ends up happening is the MM do something horrible, they get put on penitent crusade, everyone forgets about what they did after a few decades (no one really notices what they do on penitent crusade unless they really screw up, since they are generally off on the fringes), and the MM are tentatively taken off the list. Only for the Marines Malevolent to do it all again.

(cont.)
Currently, the most recent event that the Marines Malevolent have gotten shit over happened during the Fourth War for Armageddon, when the MM steered part of an Ork WAAAGH! into a refugee camp. The Marines Malevolent expected the Orks to be slowed down as they stopped to loot and massacre the defenseless refugees, and then while the Orks were pinned simply bombarded the whole place with artillery. This uber-pragmatic attitude horrified most of the other chapters present, especially the Salamanders. The Marines Malevolent saw themselves as doing what needed to be done to win, and what the other chapters were too cowardly to do themselves, and said as much to Tu'Shan's face. Helbrecht might have even wanted a piece of that action if he was around.

To be honest this belief that they are doing what needs to be done and other chapters won’t actually paints them in a better light than canon.

Am same person who wrote . Meant to say this yesterday but didn't want to clog up the thread, though I think it's probably worth saying.

I agree that the Necron's win condition shouldn't be as easy as the Silent King walking into a hidden chamber on Cadia and instantly wins by pressing a button. But on the other hand having the Necrons have a distinct goal to accomplish their objectives is what makes them distinct from the tyranids. Otherwise you run into the same issue as 3rd Edition, the Necrons are basically just slightly smarter metal tyranids, just replace kill everything with eat everything.

Also, this is Szarekh we're talking about here. Not exactly the master of restraint. He's good at patience if it's the best way to get what he wants, but if the Necrons were to try and kill everything by hand at some point he'd go "alright, fuck this, there has to be a more efficient way to do this". To paraphrase Voltaire, if there wasn't already a method in place for the Necrons to kill off all life in the universe to stall Chaos, the Necrons would feel it necessary to invent one.

Which is why a wind up period for the Cadian pillars might work better. It still gives them a discrete goal but doesn't give them an insta-win, and still requires a lot of work.

That sounds mostly right, the only thing I would object to is the MMs getting out of border patrol/penitent crusade duty, since once you get that reputation it sticks forever. Just look at the NLs, they been around for 10,000 years and they still haven't been welcomed back into the mainstream, so at most the MMs got one chance to prove they were reformed and they blew it.

As for why they're around for on Armegeddon, it could be that they were raiding one of the Ork Empires around there, and the situation was sufficiently desperate enough that the Imperium called them into action, with the results as mentioned above. Though we should recall, SM Chapters answer to Segmentum Command in this AU so the MMs probably got censured and booted back out into xenos space again after this incident.

Keep in mind that whilst the MMs resent their reputation the NLs do not. NLs have worked hard to maintain a reputation black as night.

MMs want on some level acceptance. NLs revel in the fear they cause because it sometimes results in the enemy surrendering before the first shot is fired, resulting in a nice clean and bloodless victory for thr Imperium.

How far up the chain of command are super soldiers accountable?

Are Chapter Masters equivalent to general or colonel?

That actually works better. Armageddon was bad enough that everyone was called in, an effective second chance for the M&Ms to redeem themselves. Then artillery bombardment.

It should be a recurring theme with them.

They do something needlessly dickish.

They get sent to the edge of the map to think about what they have done.

They are either forgiven by time or need is great enough that they get invited back.

They do something dickish again.

It's been a repeated set of events since M34

I think Dornfag gave up or possibly died.

I remember Dornfag saying he gave up.