Nobledark 40k part 50: Big 5-0 edition

Plz no bulli... life is pain enough...

One of Inquisitor Hand's bad habits could be that he lives off the grid.

Most Inquisitors send a report at the end of every mission, usually alongside a request form for new personnel and stuff.

Inquisitor Hand operates on a different manner. He sends reports back every 10 years in one big heap alongside a request for a sack of Thrones and he'll buy his own shit thank you very much.

He doesn't have a ship and he typically has a very small retinue and they travel under different names even when they don't have to.

He could be dead. He really could. Or he could be off the grid and nobody will know for years at least.

Also it doesn't help tracking him that he pays no attention to ordo jurisdiction. He is Malleus officially, but he doesn't let that stop him goimg on Vampire hunts.

He was part of Sturn's "is this mad bitch Chaos?" investigation when she was returned to the Imperium by the Harlequins. His own association with the Harlequins starts and ends at "got drunk in the Dark Carnival and woke up on another planet in another sector hugging a traffic cone".

He has accompanied the Hunters on at least one occasion because Bjorn remembers him. Hand won't discuss the Wild Hunts.

Are the Marines Malevolent on Fyodor's Monodominant side?

I will give you pain my boy...

Her name is Alvea, and a eldar suitor will see pain in her movement, the scars in her soul. But you are blind and only can see that beautiful smile, those deep eyes and the grace of her dance. In other life she has a family, a farm, a sky full of potential. Now she has the Securitas, and a story that she won´t retale. You meet her in a dance, her sisters and she taking away regrets to make place to new ones. She is alone looking to distant stars, and you can only think in making her smile at least for this night. Tomorrow she will go, maybe you sill see her again, maybe you will go after her, anf maybe.., maybe in this Imperium full of noble ideals. Surrounded of dark. This fairy story will have a good end....

So you're saying there's a chance?

I am not that upstart and scared little boy know as Tzeentch. I am beyond that... But i can say this thing. I am a sucker for good endings... So what are you waiting to write the next chaper?

See this kind of shit right here is why Tarellian women are the best

On a more serious note, I would say no, just for several reasons.
1) Marines Malevolent participated in 4th War for Armageddon, which only happened less than a century ago. Fyodor's Coup happened at least more than one century ago based on the fact that the "young" Inquisitors Valeria and Darkhammer were a part of it.
2) It makes it too easy to paint the world in shades of black and white. The world doesn't always shake out so that the dickish people reveal "Ha! I was secretly evil all along!" Sometimes the assholes are on your own team.

#
>As in, yes technically a human could do that, but the average human would have to train their entire life to do it and more than likely only be able to do it once or twice in their prime like an Olympic athlete rather than regularly.
With regard to the bench press record thing, doing 250% of the world record as a normal rep is similar to doing 350+% of the world record for a single rep, because you don't do your 5 rep max as a daily lift.

And the record wasn't set by an Olympic athlete in peak condition, it was set by a dedicated lifter on every performance enhancer their system could handle.

So it's miles beyond what an unaugmented human can accomplish, which is fine, but in Deathwatch, a naked starting character, but still fully fledged, Marine can lift 1350 kg. If that's a dead lift, he's actually weaker than Cap (as a balanced lifter can generally dead lift around 60% more than they can bench) but if it's an overhead press, he's about 20% stronger than Cap because a balanced lifter can generally bench press about 40% more than he can overhead press.

So if you use Cap as a baseline for SOBs, you probably need to pick some of the weaker iterations of the character to keep from horning in on Marine territory.

Hey. If they are your type. Go on. You have my blessings. Make me feel proud of you for going to were no one has gone before. Long live and prosperity.

This is probably a good point if we want to keep them between normal human and Space Marine.

Once again Nobledark Imperium faces its greatest foe: Math.

>Tarellian Women
Please elaborate. I am but a humble Guardsman.

>Tarellian
lizard men apparently

Basically the lizarmen from fantasy

Mostly. The Tarellians in Nobledark aren't biological robots, reproduce normally (i.e., like lizards), have a bit more influence from North American Native American cultures (Commanche, Iroquois, Puebloan, Mound Builder) than Mesoamerican ones, except for some of the colonies like Tikal which are shoutouts to the Lizardmen from Fantasy.

Lizardmen with a subspecies of primitive matriarchal amazon warrior lizard-ladies.

That goes to the point I made last thread in that now the Iron Hands are really only Iron Hands in name. Given this description, they're fully a part of the AdMech forces whereas in canon they have some independence and do Space Marine things. If we want to keep some canon flavor we should at least preserve some of their independence, and it honestly would be more compelling. The Iron Hands and the successors had their Primarch for the longest by far (Ferrus only died in M40), and it'd be a good character arc for him to go from "don't show up to the Battle of Terra in favor of protecting forge worlds" level of zealous to being more open minded and willing to flip the Fabricator General the bird every so often by the end of his life ("I was crushing the horrors of the galaxy for millennia before you were even an Enginseer, whelp.")

This is why I wrote this post here. Long story short: the Cap comparison makes no sense since he fluctuates wildly in his depictions and because canon in comic books is an even bigger joke than Warhammer. The Spartan comparison is much more apt (Master Chief flips 3 ton warthog in armor, SM does it unarmored). Sororitas feats in this AU in power armor may be weaker than Spartans in armor since Mjolnir gives buffs but SoB power armor doesn't (no Black Carapace).

>it'd be a good character arc for him to go from "don't show up to the Battle of Terra in favor of protecting forge worlds" level of zealous to being more open minded and willing to flip the Fabricator General the bird every so often by the end of his life ("I was crushing the horrors of the galaxy for millennia before you were even an Enginseer, whelp.")
I think we agree on the character arc you sketch out, and the way the Gorgon's successors and the Legions' descendants carry on his legacy, but I would argue that he never reaches a point of prioritizing the people of the Imperium over the Mechanicus. Mechanicus assets are just fundamentally more important than less technological and more numerous resources of at the Imperium's disposal, and that would remain a core tenet of the Legion's outlook. The key thing that differentiates the Legion from common Skitarii is that they maintain the same fanaticism for the Mechanicus as an institution as Manus, but like him they also totally distain the Fabricator General's spiritual authority, and see the Olympus Mons brotherhood as an equal to their order in seniority and holyness. They recognize Mars because they have overall very similar interpretations of the Omnissiah, hailing from the same region in the galactic sense, but will do as they please with little regard for Olympus Mons, so Olympus Mons is lucky they get along.

As part of this I'd argue that while the Antarctic brotherhood is in almost perfect agreement with Mars, they still insist on the distinction, Mars has to go through Orioc to command the Iron Hands, and its the Chapter Master of the Chrome Centurions (or something) of Orioc that can convene the Legion, not a cleric of Mars. Some would say that its a distinction without a difference because the bulk of the Iron Hands is so closely aligned with Mars and tied into the Skitarii command structure they would never be at odds.

There was a suggestion that Manus tried to justifiy the fact that he and Fulgrim prioritized saving Forge Worlds and Holy Mars over other assets by saying he figured the other primarchs had that under control but no one was paying attention to poor Mars. If the Imperium won the war it was clear there was going to have to be a lot of rebuilding of infrastructure, and who was going to have to do the bulk of the work? Oh wait, that's right, Mars and the Mechanicum. If the Imperium was completely lost then the battle was clearly hopeless in the first place and if "just" Earth was burned then the most part of the Imperium (i.e., Mars) was preserved. To any outside observer it was clear there were more emotional reasons behind his decisions, but he'd never admit that.

Ferrus Manus sounds like the equivalent of a hardcore Catholic crusader king who loves God, respects the pope, but isn't going to just blindly do whatever the pope says.

It definitely makes sense that Ferrus would eventually reach the point where he wouldn't blindly follow AdMech orders, especially as he gets older and Fabricator-Generals keep getting replaced, and I like the character arc, but we definitely need to show that, not tell it. Right now all of Ferrus' fluff is him being the AdMech's lab dog, and virtually all of it is from the Great Crusade. The only part we don't have is him playing the superego to Vulkan's heartfelt id in the Imperial Court.

At the same time, I agree with that Ferrus isn't going to start being friends with everyone. Ferrus was definitely one of the jerkier primarchs, along with Mortarion and Curze. So far his only humanizing feature has been his friendship with Fulgrim.

Agree with logic behind Spartan comparison, more consistent with what has been suggested.

I get that the format is cancer but...

Scene: Three female Tarellian hunter-pack soldiers are resting against a wall, watching a group of Imperial Guard doing exercises. Translated from Hynerian (the common Tarellian trade language).

Tarellian 1: You know, I’ve been around humans for three months now, and I still don’t get it.

Tarellian 2: What?

Tarellian 1: How do the females find their males attractive? I mean, they all look the same. They don’t have any frills or dewlaps, and the males only have those two wattles. I mean, I get that personality is a factor, but I have a hard time believing that a species could exist for millions of years without any kind of sexual attraction. Same thing with the eldar.

*Other Tarellians are silent for a moment*

Tarellian 2: Oh…

Tarellian 3: *laughing lizard lady.gif*

Tarellian 1: What? What am I missing? Are they all clones or something?

Tarellian 2: I guess somebody never learned the secrets of life.

Tarellian 3: *continues laughing*

Tarellian 1: I don’t get it? Are their males not here? Because all I see is the two variants, the ones with the wattles and the ones without.

Tarellian 3 (still giggling): Don’t you get it? Those are the females you dope.

Tarellian 2: The humans don’t feed their young mashed-up grubs like we do. The females produce this nutrient-filled sweat that they feed to their infants. Same with the eldar.

Tarellian 1: You’re shitting me.

Tarellian 2: No lie. Check a biology codex or a medical book the next time you see one. *pauses for a moment* Why were you even thinking about human “males” anyway? Unless…you were checking them out.

Tarellian 1 (ruffles frill): I was not!

Tarellian 3: Aren’t you from Mazon? I guess it’s true what they say. Once a Mazon, always from Mazon.

Tarellian 1 (expands frills to full size): Okay that stereotype shit stops right here. You want to fight then let’s go.

Bump because personal incompetence at time management means no actual contribution.

>Swole Lizard Amazons who want to make Snu-snu with human men
... continue...

If the Antarctic Brotherhood swore loyalty to the Fabricator General at the time but not the institution then the moment they died the Antarctican would have seen themselves as independent again.

Under normal circumstances this wouldn't have made any difference as they would have been in for so long distinction would have dissolved. Except for the Gorgon.

As a Primarch and an ordained member of the Antarcticans he would have kept the traditions and cultural distinctiveness alive. He would also be leader by seniority.

I've been bouncing this around in my head for a few days, and I kind of what input.

What would you call a 40k setting where the Empire is slowly recovering from the End Times? As in every coming storm crashed upon humanity and the Imperium, but they pulled through and now are going through the process of rebuilding and reforming after coming inches from the brink?

Examples: The Tyranids have mostly starved to death aside from a few pockets, Slaanesh got murdered so hard by Ynnead that all of Chaos became somewhat manageable, the Orks have slowly been evicted from major galactic clusters, and the Emperor is once again conscious and able to give direct orders, though he still very much needs near-constant life support and almost never leaves Terra anymore.

Would that be Nobledark? Things are still shitty in this hypothetical setting, but there's a general sense of hope instead of this constant anxiety that humanity's going to either get eaten or gangraped forever in the Warp.

God..is not ending to the depravity?.

That depends...if the emperor is lobotimized,If Guilliman has grow as a good (hu)man. If he has consolidated his power. And if he really really is triying to form some class of gobernment for the people of the galaxy. To many If

...

One of the things that make me like this AU is that Oscar is not the Emprah. For all his inhuman intelligence and foresighn, the flashlight is not diferent from every petty tirant in our world. He thinks that he has a divine mandate to guide humanity and those who think otherwise are better in a tomb. He isn´t eve a succeful tirant. In nobledark he never(maibe) was born. And things turn better. Oscar maibe isn´t as powerful but he was (mostly)human doring his rise to power. People follow his example and try to be better. So one of the things that will change vanilla to nobledark is the emprah getting out of the problems of humanity.

The emperor is a monster not diferent of the chaos gods. So he walking again can turn vanilla to nobledark?. Maibe for humans in some thousands of years when everyone else is dead, and he have frer reign to prepare humanity 2.0.

Tarellians don't have anything that we want and we have nothing that they want. If any attraction was to happen it would be furries.

There are still two things that have to be addressed if there is to be any independence on Ferrus or Orioc's part.

First, when talking about how the various Crusade-era figures viewed Old Earth, Ferrus was said to see Orioc as no different than Mars and the Mechanicum and as Mars was already perfect and more importantly drowning in data he felt like he didn't have much to add.

Second, if Ferrus or Orioc step too far out of line the Fabricator General, especially if they are one of the more humorless and petty types, is going to declare them hereteks.

I could easily see Orioc reversing course and emphasizing their distinctness in later years, especially if they regret letting most of their distinct culture being eroded by Mars, but in a respectful manner and never in a way that could be construed as rejecting the Martian Creed.

Only if he is fighting someone they have a grudge against.

And only if they think nobody will notice.

Orioc and Mars are to the Gorgon no different in their relative venerability and holieness, and their matching need to carry the ‘Mechanicus’ burden’. They are no different in their responsibility and privledge over other forges, and their presiding orders no different in the eyes of the Omnissiah. He recognizes the holiness of the lands of Mars and the things that lie beneath them as surpassing that of Earth. He even reognizes the official primacy of the Martian Mechanicus, but having been witness to Olympus Mons’ seizing of power after his own ascension he sees that specific brotherhood as one of many that could have led, and all junior to Orioc.

In essence, the Fabricator General is the newly elected Pope, trying very hard to explain to a neigh-immortal crusader king why the Vatican itself is more important than the literal Christian empire the crudader king has built out from Jerusalem. Later on, towards the end of his life, high level clerics might have tried to reign him in, even usurp his freedom with claims that as the Gorgon’s natural brain decayed his augmentations did too much of his thinking for him. Attempts to excommunicate the Gorgon would have even odds of the Gorgon unilaterally excommunicating the Fabricator General right back, and getting the administration to back him up if he’s feeling really vindictive.

Also, going by the contest under Olympus Mons Ferrus Manus has a solid appreciation of the techniques and technologies preserved and advanced by orders outside the Mechanicus proper. Between the Astartes components he would incorporate into his troops’ biological parts after the augments’ worth was proven and his reaction to rudimentary Neutronium smithing that went into forgebreaker his amicability to new and unorthodox technology is apparent, and probably one of the bigger sticking points between the Iron Hands and mars at large.

Going back to his ultimatum to Savlar to try to force it into line with mars, he probably really did want them to join the fold, but his intonations that he would smash it if Mars couldn’t have it was all bluster. He wanted access to their Neutronium, preferably on his terms, but after the Imperium stepped in and decided the issue the Gorgon would likely have sent the same forces he had ready to conquer Savlar and the same captain he trusted to secure the Neutronium out with a mission to win the Savlar Brotherhoods’ favor and patronage as an independent chapter, with his blessing despite being labeled heretek.

Savlar would have been in the lifetime of the Crusade Era Fabricator General. If Gorgon believed he was a legitimate head of the Medhanicus then he sould have been obedient to him.

What would be good names for Mechanicus sects?

I can see Ferrus differing from the Fabricator-General (or at least some of them, the position has been occupied by at least three different people in the history of the Imperium, possibly more) in his opinions on biological components and the utility of certain technologies (Ferrus seems to have highly valued efficiency, especially since it was his job to do things as efficiently as possible rather than maintain orthodoxy like the Fab-General. Though it's likely he would have kept such opinions to himself or done things covertly because of the importance of Mars.

Actually throwing his weight around would have come later when he starts noticing the new Fabricator-Generals are often little better than unexperienced engineseers more focused on dogma than results.

>In essence, the Fabricator General is the newly elected Pope, trying very hard to explain to a nigh-immortal crusader king why the Vatican itself is more important than the literal Christian empire the crudader king has built out from Jerusalem.
This. Though in this case the Mecha-Pope has a little bit more leverage.

The description of the possible conflict right here is a good example of what the previous user said about having religious conflicts in this universe that don't spiral out of control and saturate everything else. Even though any argument is at its core an AdMech issue, it is very much everyone else's problem because the Imperium relies on the AdMech for most of its infrastructure.

One possible interpretation of Ferrus and the Iron Hands that might allow for more Space Marine stuff is "Yes, I have to listen when Mars says things. But that doesn't mean I have to wait around for them to micromanage me and tell me everything to do". Mars generally allows this because that's the whole point of the Iron Hands in their eyes, they are given autonomy because they are trusted enough to know what is best for the Mechanicus as a whole.

Nothing above is disobedient, Ferrus was all set to do the deed (with as little damage to the Neutronium foundry as possible) until forces above both him and the Fabricator General stepped in and changed the parameters of the situation. Ferrus’s subsequent aproval of the yet unnamed chapter’s course of action was something he could pass off as adapting to the state of affairs imposed by the Imperial government, or just as easily deny his involvement in, and in his mind it would lie somewhere between a purely pragmatic move devoid of politics, and something of a religious transgression against the Fabricator General partly canceled out by the obvious and incontrovertible holiness of Neutronium’s manufacture.

Also, I can see Ferrus viewing it as obvious that chapters of the Iron Hands still answer to him even if they’re considered heretek by Mars, and thinking that this in no way impunes his own orthodox. This is simply because being considered apostate by the faith doesn’t exempt them from the command structure, and even in tech-heresy they are his force to command and direct, by law of the Imperium (as he interprets it). This doesn’t work the other way though, and Manus and his chapter masters will always be quick to remind the Astra Militarum and Administratum that they view their orders as suggestions at best, second to the Mechanicus and their (long dead) primarch.

On the previous threads subject of Inquisitor Silas Hand. He was apprenticed to Lord Inquisitor Enoch.

Enoch was also and Interrogator-Chaplain of the Dark Angels.

As with the differing nature of The Fallen Interrogator-Chaplains aren't a thing anymore I'm putting it that Enoch was an Inquisitorial overseer to one of the Angels of Wrath chapter. A chapter that was at one point almost exterminated by Vandire.

Given the dates involved and the precedence of eldar in the Inquisition I put forth that Enoch was there during Vandire's purge of his chapter, he and his surviving space marines leapt into the arms of Thor and that Hand is an eldar Inquisitor who got some early seriously fucking intense on the job training as one of the people responsible for finding trouble makers in the ranks of Thor's rebellion.

No Hand is not his born name. It's just what he started calling himself once he started to hand around the humans because it was less painful than listening to them mangle the pronunciation of his actual name (Lossethtôr-Pe-lam-Mindondir). It would also be why he has been invited on the Hunt, humans don't typically. Also his "unorthodox" behavior is a result of thinking of his job in terms of The Hunt.

He is like 7000?? This is much even for and Eldar´. The average with rejuv is around 4000-5000.

Sorry.my bad.AoA was in 36. So yeah is posible

So...he is something like a cranky old man full of weird wisdom, the yoda/ben to Ster/Anakin?-luke?

Vandire's reign starts at some point in M36. He rules well for 200 years.

Then he rules bad for a few decades at least before shit hits boiling point before. That's when Old Enoch and his young Apprentice Hand join Thor's rebellion.

So lets say Hand was born in Early M36 and became an Inquisitor in mid M36 and stayed an Inquisitor for the entirety of that time.

That would put him in the "reaching the end of the road" territory as far as eldar lifespans go as of 999M41.

Now take into consideration time dilation due to warp travel. He isn't quite at the end of the road yet. Due to eldar not really aging until right before death he has maybe a few hundred years tops left baring major illness or injury.

Don't get me wrong. He's old, really old. Statistically speaking eldar usually have accidents by this point, especially in his line of work.

He could always be a pre-M41 figure. We don't have a lot of those. We have no clue how old Stern is and for all we know she's been around for a few centuries, especially since psykers live longer than average (even disregarding what the hell Stern is).

Didn't Stern escape into the Webway at some point in canon? That would add points to the "Eldar" explanation.

We do have the Chapter Watchers (or Chapter Watchmen, if we want to avoid confusion with the Watchers in the Dark). Kind of like normal Chaplains but whose job it is to be extra paranoid for treason.

The position could be named after how the Watchers saved the loyalists bacon during the War of the Beast. They might have closer ties to the Watchers than many chapter members, since the Watchers see a lot more than people think and they are typically capable of pointing out who the traitors are.

That can add another twist. After Stern is taken to Commorragh the Inquisiton cut loses and forget her.
Except Hand, he use his contacts whit the Pariah and Saint-Haim(Who go for fun and giggles) to organice a full raid, rescuing her and make the two more or less inseparable.
The rest of the Inquisition are not happy. They just lost one of the precious secret gates to the DE holdings for Stern. A being that nobody is sure what can do.
At the end the Imperium win a new weapon, but the damage is done and her position is now similar to Celestine.

This would probably have to be in the wake of the Dark Wedding, since that is how the Imperium got their ins into Commorragh in the first place. Commorragh is most certainly not easy to break into. If it was someone would have wiped out the Dark Eldar a long time ago.

One would think Vect would have some kind of contingency plan to cordon off the xenos quarters in Lower Commorragh though. A lot of raiders and pirates come through there and neither group is really known for their loyalty or ability to keep others' secrets.

Don't know what is meant by
>her position is now similar to Celestine.
though.

Stern with 1000y+ of experience. Fuck, that is scary. Hmm. maibe it was Cegorath? extorsioning for some future favors?

Like in canon some Inquisitors are not sure of the nature of Lady Celestine and probably will put and eye in her. It give a reason to have someone after her head.

Bump.

Added Bloodtide (with fewer Grey Knights and the anticlimax Bloodthirster, since the other version was said to be out of character), Sevatar (as a "this is just a draft" in Notes), Marines Malevolent (in notes), Tiberius (with changed names), bits to Celestine, and some of the other recent stuff in the threads to 1d4chan.

Didn't put any Sisters of Battle or Ephrael Stern up yet because I can't make heads or tails of it and figure out what's been agreed upon and what hasn't. Same to a lesser degree Othonos.

Also please feel free to mention things that should go on 14chan but have slipped through the cracks. While digging through the archives I found another codex entry that everyone seemed to like that never made it on 1d4chan (Njal Stormcaller). I can only keep up with so much and would hate to have things go missing.

Would not have been taking place in Commorragh due to Vect's no psykery law.

It has been mentioned that it's a bunch of young punks in the webway equivalent of a run down cabin in the woods.

You are the hero this project needs.

The Marines Malevolent should be a young chapter, founded maybe in M38 or M39, because the Imperium doesn't let you fuck up very many times before you get the hammer (which in this case means being punted out to the boonies for permanent Penitent Crusade). Their recalling to regular duty and subsequent civilian shelling incident during the 4th War for Armageddon should be either their first (or maybe second at most) and last shot at redemption, and as of M41.999 they're on permanent PC status a la Night Lords.

Also, it is rather amusing that the first chapter master of the MMs was enough of an edgelord to come up with that name. Or, since the MMs were formed from the problem children of the Iron Warriors and their successors, it could be that the future MM chapter master was called a "malevolent bastard" by his peers and he took the label as the chapter name as a "fuck you" to his critics, if we want a more serious spin on things.

Cachadrodons vs Marines Malevolents.

SPESS! Assholes vs. SPESS! Nazis. Sounds fun.

In the comic she dosn´t awake her powers after the scape of commorragh so it is posible.

They've been on Penitent Crusade almost since their founding it seems. Armageddon they might have been called in on as an impromptu third chance or so because things had officially gotten bad enough that the Imperium called in everyone, permanent Penitent Crusade chapters be damned, and subsequently regretted it.

I like some of the reasoning for why the chapter would call themselves "Marines Malevolent" with a straight face.

"Because sound Badass". Say the Space Marine. The menber of the administratum just take a bag of M&M and say "Ok..Hmm..Do you whant one?"...
Later they find the body of the adep with the throat full of M&Ms...
Nobody like smartasses.

I thought the Red Scorpions were the SPESS! Nazis. And in this timeline the Olamic Quietude.

How did she escape in canon? Because here it seems like the most likely way for her to escape is to put her fist through their face after she gets supercharged or whatever happened.

It also could have been the Crones on Altansar if we want to keep the Chaos angle. It depends on who we think works better or needs more screentime. Although with the DEldar there wouldn't be a kneejerk fear of corruption.

Truly they were the realest of Slim Shadys. [Spoiler]Would they please stand up[/spoiler]

"Commissar, look at what i just write"."Wtf?.Die. Degenerated scum".

Stern was looking to the comatose form of Calgar. During a brief moment, sadness overcome her stone-cold visage. Titus look at the legendary sister with great respect and talk. "He talk fondly of you ma'am. He told us that some of his greates achivements were with you". She look to the Captain, a litte smile in her lips. "And. What exactly tell you?". Titus think for a brief moment. "Hmm. Of the campaign against Droshak Muchkiller, the siege of Duranka or my favorite the duels in the temple of the Bloodmarked". Stern look at Calgar with a litte of..disappointment. and in a whisper say "tsk. He dons´t toll the better". Titus look at Mira and then asking like a little kid. "Better?". A weird look come to the eyes of the sister. Like a cat preparing to eat a mouse. "Oh. Yes. He.He.He..There was this time that we were gifted this shipment of Vlka Fenryka ale, and well, we beging to drink and say..i don´t remenber exactly what. And one thing lead to another, and another and.." Stern begin to count but soon she was without enough fingers. Titus look weirder out to Mira who has this distant and wishful look in her eyes. Then ask whit some regret "What others things?" The old woman look puzzled for a brief moment and looking to Mira say "He is serius. Isn`t he?". The guardswoman barely can supress a snort."ma'am?". Smilling she look to the Ultramrines Captain and say. "Okay, little one, your granny are going to tell you about the Birds and.."

Ok. I´m sorry i need to take this from my head. But now in a more constructive way. One thing about this AU is that neither the SM are asexual murder-machines nor the sisters are chaste sacred warriors. The upper history can pass in this setting. I know that it will be improper. But what i want to say is that we have the oportunity of tale histories beyond SM+Bolter+Orc.

A Harlequin help her scape.

Killing a bunch of DE in melee, whithout armor or powers. Okay the Harlequin help her. But pretty bad ass.

I imagine that they tried to duplicate her or at least her usefulness but never managed.

I think Cassius has been bugging Titus for warp-resistant foster grandchildren for years now.

Lukas the Trickster's exploits with women are legendary.

Several of the Astartes primarchs had children.

What happened to Graia in this timeline. I know Titus got a battlefield promotion there over Leandros but I don't know if we ever said what happening to the planet. If Mira and her troops needed a new home it implies the world got wrecked.

Rather than it being the Dark Carnival that find Sturn naked and half starved, wandering the depths of the webway it could be a band of The Hunters. Inquisitor Hand is participating in this hunt and that is how Sturn gets brought in for her initial testing by the Inquisition.

Also after a detour by he hunting party at Hand's request they do trace her steps back to the ruins of the torture lab in the minor webway intersection the fallen eldar were using. Were they Chaos or Dark? Who can say, it's not like anyone involved was having a civil conversation and the place caught fire when Sturn did so evidence to distinguish was not abundant.

At that time Sturn would not know what she was or what she was capable of. She would very much have been young, alone, afraid and had just seen and been victim to some seriously fucked shit. Hand would have been the eccentric old grandpa figure she would have clung to especially when she learned that she was being brought before the Inquisition for investigation, possibly Hand kept his status as a senior (though not highly placed) member of that institution from her at the time because he had seen what she could do when pushed and didn't want her to freak out. Especially not at himself, he hasn't lived as long as he has by needlessly lining himself up as a target or by volunteering information.

Inquisition's specialist warp prodders speculate that she's constantly burning "warp fumes" simply by existing in a manner Magnus was speculated to have done. How is she doing this? Fucked if they know, nobody figured out how Magnus was doing it either. It's not a natural state of being for a human or indeed anything else they have on record that's mortal.

After the investigation and sanctioning Hand takes her on as part of his retinue and trains her. He's an eldar, all eldar are slightly psychic. Her psykery is only capable of manifesting in physical buffs anyway and she can out punch everyone up to high end Grey Knights.

Also the Inquisition higher ups might have agreed to it on the basis that if she is going to get possessed there probably isn't much they can do about it at this point and if they were to want someone near when this happens then it should be Hand. Not because Hand would have much more chance of dealing with the situation, he's just really annoying and they wouldn't miss his loss very much.

Under his unorthodox care she did learn to deal with her new abilities but it soon became clear to both of them that she didn't have the temperament for being part of the Inquisition. She also stood out somewhat for being half-navigator and therefore uncommonly tall and pale. Also to anyone with even a very minor active psychic talent she shone out and appeared to have a shroud of witchfire all about her.

Hand and Sturn parted on good terms when Sturn returned to the Securitas, this time as a Sister Militant.

Since then she has taken part in battles across the galaxy, she had killed vampires, deamon princes, chaos eldar, dark eldar, orks of every flavour, Fallen and stranger things. She has been the tip of the spear made up of impassioned PDF solders and veteran Grey Knights and everything in between. The Imperium's only regret is that there is, despite the very best efforts of the Adeptus Biologicus, only one of her.

She is now far from that frightened girl that stumbled out of a burning den of the damned and forsaken. She stands tall and proud, fire burns in her eyes and her manner is forceful and uncompromising. Her life has been hard and she has become hard and although her motives are noble and pure she suffers no fools gladly.

As of 999M41 she travels to the Hadex Anomaly to cleanse the stars around it of the things that have started to crawl from that accursed pit.

It has been commented. That Mira&Co has been transferred to train Macragge? pdf&guard. But one of the real motives. Is the two of them get hooked, and produce warp-resistant children compatible with the Astartes augmentation. Something that Titus dosen´t seems to eager to do.

Titus is trying to hyper-militarize Ultramar because he has seen classified reports that show the sheer magnitude of the hammer about to drop on them. He is building a new Legion like the ones in the ancient histories, ships, human soldiery and all the rest of it in addition to the Super Soldier assets. Ultramar, or at least Macragge, PDF is not looking too good at the moment. Shit is antiquated, riddled with nepotism and out of shape and to combat this he has conscripted Mira and her Cadian 203rd (remnants) to act as training staff for the locals. Because Cadians are born to war, raised in war, it is the air they breathe and the water they drink like wine and have survived as a people 10,000 years camped out on Hell's doormat and as individuals the whole Graia incident start to finish.

That's the reason.

Definitely that and nothing more.

And he spends a lot of time with Mira as one old soldier to another. And because she is integral to his plans for expanded military reform. That's why. He isn't close to her or anything. He's too old for that sort of thing. He defiantly does not spend every other evening with her discussing recent events and such things because he likes her because that would be inappropriate. Very inappropriate and also his friends tend to die unhappy deaths. He can't have feelings for her because she is still alive. If he did she would die somehow and she isn't dead and he doesn't want her to die.

Cassius isn't helping matters when he comes out with "hilarious" comments like
>I'll perform the ceremony if you want but please just wed and bed her and have done with it
and other such delicate and tactful remarks.

I can´t stop to laught. I don´t exactly why. But it sound..I don´t know. So weird to say something like that in a WH40k setting

W hat should the Red Scorpions be like in this AU?

They're implied to be loyalist Emperor's Children in canon, right?

I think it was said as of 999.M41 the two have gotten to hand-holding. At this rate they'll get married eight years after the tyranids are predicted to hit the Eye of Terror and Ultramar is decades-old 'nid poop.

How are the Disciples of Kurnous viewed by the rest of the Eldar? On the one hand they are highly skilled warriors but on the other they are essentially everything the other Craftworlds hate about Saim-Hann but moreso. They're also a dying breed dedicated to a dead god, which some Eldar might see as being too shackled to the past.

Canon says that Mira and the Cadian 203rd were directed there from another war zone. I don't know if in this timeline the Cadian 203rd were stationed there as a permanent garrison or not, it sounds more likely given that Titus was able to bring them to Ultramar and the Administratum didn't throw a fit.

I hope people don't take this the wrong way, but I for one am very against the idea of Stern being a child abductee who got experimented on or whatever. I already expressed my views on deviating from canon last thread, but also the whole "tragic childhood turns you into special snowflake juggernaut" is already overdone in our AU. I think the canon backstory for Stern works fine: essentially a bog standard SoB (albeit a very badass one, since she was a Sister Superior) who had a normal childhood in the Schola Progenium, and had greatness and incredible power thrust unwillingly upon her in the most traumatic event of her life. It's honestly more relatable to me than another overdone trope about being a superpowered kid subjected to torture in order to inspire sympathy in the reader.

Also, what is this business about Magnus and "warp fumes"? Magnus can just be a freak outlier in terms of psychic power like the Apex Twins, not everything needs a convoluted explanation.

Not that user, but I agree there is no reason for Stern to be a child. It actually makes more sense for her to be kidnapped if she was an adult combatant because she would be on the battlefield in the first place. The big thing that needs addressing is why Stern ended up the way she did in this timeline, since faith doesn't work the same way as it does for the SoB in canon and Stern's canon power levels are the definition of wonky.

Though I'm not sure about how common "tragic childhood turns you into special snowflake juggernaut" is in this AU. There's a lot of traumatic backstories, but that's because it's Warhammer and traumatic backstories are handed out like candy. There's quite a few among the primarchs and Great Crusade figures, but that's mostly because they grew up on Unification-era Old Earth, which by anyone's standards was a third world hellhole. And even then, you have some like Guilliman, Dorn, and Fulgrim who had pretty good childhood, and Angron and Corax, who had a traumatic everything. The only other examples I can think of is Celestine, who's that way because she's a Joan of Arc expy. Szarekh, who's more just good at politics, and the APEX twins and Tigurius, who are probably the straightest examples.

This is one reason I didn't put anything on Stern up on 1d4chan yet. We can't seem to get anything concrete beyond "something happened, now powerful psyker".

On the subject of convoluted explanations, the more I think about it the more the Crones sound like a better choice for why things happened the way they did. Not just because of Vect's "no psychic shit" rule but because the Crones are big into atrocities for atrocity's sake as demented art projects.

Had this idea for a quote for Kronus if we ever get the planet written up.

Kronus is the Imperium in a microcosm. A complete clusterfuck with enough backlogged paperwork to give even a hardened bureaucrat nightmares, composed of several different cultures and even species that have radically different mindsets and worldviews from one another, which only functions because the people who live there believe in one another and truly want to make it work.
-- Long time bar patron of Kronus’ Dig the Fuck Inn, name unknown.

It summarizes Kronus (and by extension the Imperium) by pointing out how disorganized and heterogenous they are and how the bureaucracy only makes it worse (as in the canon Imperium, though without the "multiple species" bit), but then swings back into nobledark by stressing it doesn't descend into anarchy because people actually believe in each other and doing the right thing.

>Magnus and "warp fumes"
I think it's supposed to be they have no clue how the fuck she's doing it, they have no clue how Magnus worked either, and they're just pulling explanations out of their ass.

Alright what if we drop the in universe speculation on how her abilities work and up her age when they manifest?

I'd be okay with King Crimson-ing it. All they know is her powers work, they seem to work consistently, their effects can be defined, but no one knows exactly how they work.

It's like the Ansible Twins. The Imperium thinks it's some kind of bio-warp entanglement, but every time they try to replicate it it fails. As another user said "It's psykery. It's sticking your dick in the warp and hoping for the best. You can account for every variable, replicate every condition and still get a different result."

The only thing we need to make sure of is as people writing this out of universe we need to know how this happened and what she can do and what her limits are for the simple reason of keeping power levels consistent. It doesn't even have to be a detailed explanation, Magnus and the APEX twins don't really have one beyond "I don't know, psykers are weird and inconsistent" might be good enough.

One thing to point out if we do decide to go the route of Navigator parent that Navigator genes are all recessive. Stern would have been completely normal (a nice normal childhood minus the fact that mommy or daddy has three eyes) and no one would have thought it would have affected anything. Navigator + baseline results in baseline, you don't even get reliable psykers out of that mix. Or it could just be she's a latent that didn't get noticed and the Cage not only woke up that ability but supercharged it.

The big issue is how did she survive the cage and end up the way she did. Normal humans getting thrown into some horrible living cage made of your comrades do not turn into daemon-punching machines.

I was looking through the old fluff for some writing, and I noticed we had the Beheading happen in 546.M32, which in this timeline happened during the War of the Beast.

I was thinking this might finally nail down when the War of the Beast happens, since that's about the same year the Siege of Terra happens. However, we might want to move the date back a millenium. Mid-M32 is when the primarchs started dropping dead, and Lorgar would have died before the War of the Beast even happened. Mid-M31 sounds more reasonable, especially since that takes into account the longer Great Crusade (Horus Heresy starts about turn of the millenium M31) and the fact that the Beast is a Crusade-era Ork here. It also avoids important dates of interest happening on the turn of the millenium (12th Black Crusade did, but that was more Malys being dramatic because she knew the importance it had to the mon-keigh).

She survived the cage because the eldar doing it were idiots who didn't know what they were doing and she had navigator genes which are Old One relics and by chance the bizarre nature of the torture activated her almonds.

Did she? I wasn't sure if we were keeping that or not.

Bump for hopefully finishing Lion today.

Sweet.

I'm for keeping it. We need a reason for her to be weirdly powerful and we have precedent with Magnus.

Yeah..but..The galaxy of WH40K is a big place. Really we need the same history?

It's not the exact same. Magnus was Navigator + psyker and the subsequent offspring hitting the genetic lottery in terms of psyker potential. Magnus has never been duplicated, despite the fact that there must have been dozens of Navigator + psyker children on record. Closest anyone came was the APEX twins, which was Isha-blessed human + cultist.

Stern needs some reason for why the Screaming Cage turned her into what she was, especially since the Dark/Crone Eldar who did it were not expecting that and just did it for kicks, the...ahem components of the Screaming Cage couldn't augment her with faith like in canon and it's unlikely they were all psykers, and normal humans do not get supercharged when thrown into a screaming cage made of their still living peers.

Honestly it could be as simple as she's just a latent and the trauma activated her abilities. Manifesting as only physical buffs could be a subconsciously imposed mental block but mean she is more powerful in that one area because she is not the woman who practices ten thousand kicks, but one kick ten thousand times.

It has been commented. That we only need to flick faith to psyker. She is a latent and the cage is full of psykers.

Disciples of Kurnous are viewed with reverence, more so if they aren't present.

People approve of the existence of an unbroken order stretching back to the First Days in principle but don't often want to live it.

So is Titus Guilliman's grand, grand, grand something or what?

Personally, I say yes, mostly for the kicks of it and the REEEEEEEEE of (non-existant) Nepotism by Leandros. That and Titus having a grand hard(er) time to get people NOT to compare him to great-pa.

No. Guilliman seems to be a common name in Ultramar. He is related to the Ultramarines but i don`t remenber who.

I thought it was only a name on the Eastern Fringe because of Guilliman's grandson being sent there for the Imperium Secundus.

Ultramar is on the Eastern Fringe. Heck, along with the Tau and possibly the Tarellians, it is the Eastern Fringe.

On the other hand, it kind of treads hard on Celestine, who is having very similar problems in terms of being compared to their ancestor and getting people to listen to them over in the Segmentum Tempestus.

It's been mentioned what we really need to do is beef up the anti-Titus side of the conflict with more reasonable people. Titus has his own hate club in Leandros and his lot, but a lot of the criticisms his non-Leandros critics are making are mostly valid. The Primaris Initiative is likely to bankrupt Ultramar, people outside Ultramar who don't know how bad the tyranids are see it as a power grab, and even if it's not meant to be a power grab if you have a huge number of chapters filled with young turks who don't necessarily have tempered respect for authority and you can't afford to "pay" (in this case with gear and necessities) they may just decide to march on your own territories and loot them. Most people haven't seen the full might of the tyranids and don't realize it's a choice between two bad decisions.

On top of that, all of the well-known Ultramarines are so far pro-Titus. Cassius, Tigurius, and Ventris are all pro-Titus, and Calgar is in a coma. Sicarius is a possibility but it's been pointed out that's almost too easy and is basically picking on an annoying character from canon. Indeed it's been noted that Sicarius' personality is not one that likes to be in charge. In canon he likes to pick fights and beat on people who the people he likes. Chapter Masters don't get to do that, not without repercussions. He'd like the power but not the responsibility. Technically the fact that he's a captain at all is a deviation from the codex, as champions are not supposed to be captains for this very reason.

Agemman is about the only option left for a Anthony to Titus' Octavian.

(cont.)
Agemman actually could work. Titus technically has seniority over him because Agemman only became captain of the 1st company due to the rest of the 1st company being slain by the Swarmlord. The situation is more complicated than Titus jumping rank for the simple reason that with the death of the 1st company Titus is basically the unofficial successor to Calgar, but Leandros doesn't see it that way because Titus delendo est.

Agemman has also been said in canon to be a bit salty because he's been overshadowed by Sicarius and Cassius. This could kind of be redirected towards Titus, though in this case it's more he knows Titus is not infallible (the two would have probably been comparable and someone needs to put brakes on his crazy train.

So it sounds like we have consensus on the following: Stern was a child of a Navigator + psyker and had a pretty normal, decent childhood (in fact it was probably pretty cushy and privileged if she was considered part of the Navigator clan her parent hailed from). She's a latent psyker, and like canon she gets an education from the Schola and joins the SoB, rising to Sister Superior in record time because she's a badass. Same battle with the DE happens and she's taken to Cormorragh and thrown into the Screaming Cage which awakens her to her full psychic potential.

As for exactly how the Screaming Cage gives her buffs, we've mentioned it could be composed of psykers instead of Sisters, and we do have precedence for the transfer of psychic power from the canon backstory of Big E with the whole shaman ritual and whatnot. So that might have happened on a mini scale here. Also, extreme trauma and overcoming it seems to help in that regard as well, since Mephiston goes from normal BA to unholy rapetrain by getting stuck under rubble and having to overcome the Black Rage.

As for power levels, Mephiston might actually be a pretty good analogue. He's probably one of the deadliest Imperial characters outside the GKs and Custodes, and the fact that Stern is on his level despite much weaker augmentations means her psychic power is crazy high (though still not Magnus level or whatnot).

Titus might be looked down on not because he's a Guilliman but because he isn't anything. He's just Titus. In Ultramar having no last name usually means you are from the plebiest of pleb family. You have no name because your family would never have anything worth being called an inheritance.

Most of the rest of the Ultamarines being from at least minor somebodies or at least families worth having names. To some of the Ultramarine officers for someone like Titus to have come so far is mildly insulting.

cont.

Couple thoughts regarding Titus:

First, I thought we nixed the whole Guilliman lineage thing. It really doesn't add much and needlessly complicates things.

Secondly, what exactly was Titus' position before his current promotion? He can't be 2nd Company Captain since it seems implied that Sicarius has been there for a while and all the other captain positions are filled by canon characters. It's possible to take some inspiration from Dawn of War II and have Titus be "Captain of the Honor Guard" (which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist as a title anywhere else) a la Apollo Diomedes, but that seems too hoighty toighty a position (Titus is pretty down to earth) and it would be weird for others to be jealous of him because he already outranks them. Not sure what the answer is here.

Third, as the person who wrote the post pushing back against the Titus wanking and trying to give the opposition more legitimacy, I think Agemman would be a pretty decent voice for the opposition. I was also thinking Titus could be opposed by a highly respected Chapter Master of a successor chapter, since it would be pretty hard for them to stay neutral in all this. The Novamarines are Second Founding and mentioned to be highly respected and honorable in canon, so their Chapter Master might also be a leader in the opposition to Titus (and could probably be more effective at it then Agemman, who comes off as mostly annoying when he shows up in the Black Library books).