Nobledark 40k part 52: Prospero University Edition

My suggestion would be he didn't know Eldrad. Eldrad seems to have been a commoner and we can't have Eldrad connected to literally everyone in history, no matter what the conspiracy theorists say. Vect might have been encountered but would have been written off as a servant.

Don't know about the Crow. There was a suggestion that Eldrad knew who the Crow was prior to the Fall, though given the guise the Crow met him in it may have been his just killed one of Eldrad's friends and stole his face. It would be much more likely for Eldrad to know the Crow than any of the other three, given how much he was into psykery.

On the other hand, the Crow hanging around the royal family due to them being "major patrons of the psychic and sorcerous arts" valuable to his master would make sense. Also the crow's weird nature and status would actually predate the Fall of the Eldar, and he was probably a cult figure in the Old Eldar Empire as the emissary of Tzeentch. Iygonesh might have dropped in on a lecture given by the Crow in the palace gardens while a guest at some point before the Fall, but I agree that Eldrad should not be connected to everyone. I like the idea that the Crow was just impersonating Eldrad's friend instead of them having a friendly relationship, but when I first read that I pictured the Indigo Crow stealing the Eldar's face and impersonating him from the first meeting, which is both an odd misinterpretation of the meaning and very Tzeentchian.

Housekeeping question, did we decide to keep the World's Finest style thing where Eldrad and Oscar earned each others' respect, Eldrad when he set things up to make it seem like he was three steps ahead of everyone else when they first met, Oscar when he stepped into the Warp at the beginning of the Raid and the Warp actually took a step back.

Slaanesh also apparently impersonated Lileath to get the drop on the other eldar gods. Chaos seems to like taking people's faces.

I think that the amount of psychic ability of the old ruling elite would not have been the only deciding factor on rulership. Cunning would have been more important. Psychic isn't much help if your tea has arsenic in it.

I'd imagine the two went hand-in-hand a fair bit, especially in fields like divination.

If the Eldar Empire was an Empire then it probably had an emperor, though maybe a different title. Probably claims, maybe with some legitimacy, to be descended from Ulthenash (but so could many by that point).

Although it's distinctly possible that the other greater houses were pulling the strings with him just being a figurehead.

Prospero philosophy is all about taking notes and all about comparing them to other people's notes.

It was a planet of hybrid faiths when it came to religion, back in the good old days. All of the monotheistic religions existed, to them, on a spectrum of tradition rather than as absolutes. This made them very eager to listen to preachers but that those preachers typically had to come from outside. Few prosperans would become ordained priests as they wouldn't be able to totally exclude the traditions and beliefs of the faiths.

In a similar way polytheistic Prosperan groups pick and mix gods to the constant frustration of outside preachers.

Sometimes a monotheistic god would end up as the top god in a chimera pantheon and other such oddities. The Prosperans were a strange bunch, even by the lax standards of psykers. The knew of Chaos, how could they not? They knew it was a cancer in the warp that would infect the minds of the citizenry as surely as those extra-dimensional wasps. The only good defense was immunization via educating people about the danger and exposing the rot before them in all it's putrid wretchedness.

In addition to every serious text ever published about psykery they also collected theological texts and housed the greatest collection of holy scriptures in the known galaxy before the Rubric Event.

In effect it was a planet of theology nerds and wizards.

Would still possibly be a thing. Russ and Magnus managed to come to an understanding but they had stubborn underlings.

How close would Prospero's ties with the Eldar have been? I presume pretty close, but are there any specific craftworlds, factions, etc. they would have been especially friendly with?

>no dogs allowed
This is the grimmest darkness

Of the five major Craftworlds, Ulthwé seems the most likely. Ulthwé is all about the psykery, though they have more of a survivalist mindset. They might have gotten in with Saim-Hann if Russ set them up, Saim-Hann aren't scholars but they're relatively pro-human and have the quest for enlightenment as part of their culture (and their name).

The Eldar might have seen the Prosperans as a bunch of annoying fans. Yes, they were among the most cultured of the human groups they had encountered along with places like Colchis and Cadia, they actually engaged in the psychic arts than dismissed them as witchcraft to be feared and had come up with some pretty interesting workarounds for their human failings (e.g., Prosperine quartz), but they were also incredibly naive and eager to learn about everything. They would just not stop asking questions about the most mundane things.

Of course, it probably varied by individual. Some eldar would just love a group that let them culturally posture and was actually interested in how things worked beyond "space magic, got it". Others would just want to be left to their own business.

sounds like it will be a good read

>Probably claims, maybe with some legitimacy, to be descended from Ulthenash (but so could many by that point).
>Although it's distinctly possible that the other greater houses were pulling the strings with him just being a figurehead.

This sounds exactly like what the Eldar would do if they ever tried to form an empire. A nominal ruler, and then a bunch of noble houses who are the real power behind the throne constantly jockeying for power. Whether the Eldar Emperor was actually in control or merely a puppet to the great houses depended on how competent the given Emperor was.

This fits with what we've said of the psychology of Eldar. Eldar generally don't want to be in power, they want to be allowed to do their own thing. When they do take power, they typically do so out of duty or because they think the side benefits will allow them to further their personal interests. That's why so many Craftworlds or Exodite worlds are run by councils of elders, seers, or autarchs, it allows
for decision making with minimal burden of responsibility. Same reason why the eldar are fine being advisers but not leaders in the Administratum or on Colchis. It gives them influence without putting them in the position of having to personally make hard decisions.

The idea of taking power for the sake of having power is an unusual concept to them. That's not to say it never happens, the Crones and Dark Eldar show many examples of that, but it is atypical.

(cont.)
Indeed, the idea of wanting power for its own sake seems to be an extremely human concept among the sapient races of the galaxy. It may go back to our evolutionary history, primates (especially chimps) are infamous for being control freaks who seek to dominate each other.

As an example, just look at how the various races would react to a person in a position of authority telling them not to fall for Chaos’ typical trick of offering power because it’s not worth it. Most would look at you if you had just said the most obvious thing in the world. Eldar are typically more interested in personal benefits than abstract power. Kinebrach are kind of the same way, they want to be left to their own business, to the point that they would rather arm their allies with superior weaponry than fight wars themselves. The Tau would assume that the people in power have good reasons for saying such a thing, as that is typically their default reaction. Tarellians are kind of on the same wavelength as humans, but aren’t as power hungry. Orks would be bored by offers of abstract power because it doesn’t directly tie in with their ideas of fightin’ and winnin’ (indeed, they make fun of humies in canon for this).

Humans, on the other hand, are immediately suspicious of any authority (because they think they are trying to have power over them), and you have to really hammer it in that this kind of power is not worth the cost. Even then you have people who disregard the warnings and go seeking out Chaos anyway. Many of whom have good intentions for wanting power (as in “with this power I can make the world a better place”), and then get corrupted to hell and back because Chaos is, well, Chaos.

The race that comes closest to humans in this regard are the Necrons, and even then their psychology is slightly different, showing an extreme tendency towards stubbornness that goes beyond even humans.

That’s not to say there are not individuals in these species that aren’t power hungry (there are quite a few, ranging from pre-Tau’va Tau warlords to Asdrubael Vect), but it doesn’t seem to be a species wide fatal flaw like it is for humans (comparable to Eldar arrogance, perfectionism, and desire for sensation or Tau naivete). Even Oscar, who is one of the least control freaky humans out there (which is also part of the reason he is so successful as Emperor) falls into this trap. Remember his reaction to Horus’ proposal of a decentralized star confederacy? He doesn’t want to be in power, but he thinks everything has to be centralized under somebody (preferably not him) to survive.

That said, this trait, like the flaws of all species, have both good and bad aspects. E.g., the Necrons’ stubbornness gives them a bad habit of spite and led to most of the fuckups in the War in Heaven, but it also makes them extremely determined to go the distance when they put their mind to something. The Tau’s naivete means they have to second guess a lot of their actions, but it also means they have an easier time bringing out the best in people. The Eldar are arrogant and perfectionist, but that comes from them being good at what they do because they hold themselves to such high standards. Humanity’s control freak habits mean they have a tendency to be power-hungry, but it also means they jump at the chance to take charge and get things organized. The trick is tempering that so you end up with “super organizer” instead of “space Stalin”. And there is still a lot of overlap in psychology between the species.

tl;dr: bunch of philosophy about different species psychology and their fatal flaws. Move along, nothing to see here.

A figurehead Emperor of a powerful psychic line using the cult of Slaanesh and it’s psychic emanations as a tool to secure power from noble houses that had been running things for a time, but having the cult overtake him, subsume him, and then the whole empire seems like a cool way to go with things.

Also, Taskmaster Iygonesg seems like he would be pretty active in shaping and aware of Slaanesh’s warp presence, and as the one that arranges the provision of whores, blow, and loot for the Prince of Pleasure he is presumably closely stunned to its whims. His relationship with his god is an interesting one.

Isn't that the general concept behind the Taskmaster? The generally Slaaneshi populace of Shaa-Dome is so wrapped up in drugs, sex, and rock and roll that Slaanesh needs someone to whip them in order to get shit done, otherwise they'd never get organized. Makes sense they would be close to their god.

They also reconciled really late in life. I can definitely see some of the Ksons and Wolves not liking each other even though their primarchs reconciled.

Did we ever figure out how the Wolves view the Grey Knights? It was mentioned that they might be suspicious, but others pointed out the Wolves would probably view them more favorably since they were trained in the "Magnus tested, Russ approved" method. The Grey Knights and the Wolves were shown to respect each other by the...Fourth War of Armageddon? The one where Joros sacrificed himself. But that was millennia later.

The suggestion for the Battle of the Fang said invoking the Grey Knights and Magnus was the nuclear option, but that might just as well be due to swallowing their pride and asking for outside help from anyone as well as calling in the Grey Knights to do anything is the nuclear option short of Exterminatus. But I don't know if we accepted that or not, we mostly talked about if it was, it was probably Skyrar, and what he was like.

How do the Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors think of each other?

Perturabo and Dorn got along pretty well together, so I imagine the legions would as well.

We know that the Salamanders and the Marines Malevolent despise each other but are there any other rivalries?

Fulgrimfag seems to alude to one between the Blood Angels and the Terra's Children, because both legions liked a mix of deep striking, high skill combat and artful, discreet diplomacy, but had very different views on honor, subterfuge, and fashion. I think he also mentions some kind of rivalry between Fulgrim and Guilliman as infrastructure heavy generalists, but it seems more like that would just be in Fulgrim's mind.

It's possible that Fulgrim saw everything as competition. His drive was to be the best at everything and as such had to be constantly trying to be better than them.

Not as many as in Vanilla. The Space Marines are, with a few exceptions, extensions of their homeworld's military rather than powers in and of themselves. If they have a persistent rivalry it is because the culture from which they sprang does. Mordia and Praetoria for example and by extension the Guardians of the Covenant and The Dragon Lords respectively. Why do they dislike one another? Because they always have way out of living memory. Possibly it started over settlement claims over some planets in Wilderness Space back in the days of the rebuilding and Mordia got the best pick of the new homes and the Praetorians were salty as fuck over it and then Queen Eadið annexed those worlds in all but name centuries later and then the Mordians were all salty about that and centuries of other lesser and oft imagined slights.

They would never go to war about it but if regiments of either cultural group are posted near each other it invariably generates a work for the commissars. Ever seen a commissar try and separate brawling Space Marines? That's why they are allowed to carry shock mauls, it's about the only thing that get's their attention.

They seem to have a rivalry, but it's more of a friendly "anything you can do I can do better" one than anything else. Notably, the answer to the question of who won Dorn and Perty's regular strategy depends on if you ask the Iron Warriors or Imperial Fists.

There was some with Guilliman, for who the Ultramarines were the "average Joe" legion compared to the "overachieving Rennaissance men" of Terra's Children. But basically In addition to the ones mentioned above, I'd imagine the Dark Angels and Space Wolves hate each other, even more than in canon. Russ and Lion got along a lot worse here than in canon and never reconciled.

Prince Yriel also claims such ancestry as an excuse to introduce himself as Prince so it's possible that Yriel was related in some way to the old Eldar Emperor. Or he's taking the piss.

>Nobledark

What the fuck is this gay shit. 40k is supposed to be edgy and over the top. Go play star wars.

That pic is something similar to how I imagine the confrontation between The Warlord and Narthan Dume of the Panpacific Empire went down.

Dume trying to claim the moral high ground with rhetoric and then getting repeatedly kicked until he learned to stay down. Then dragged off to Khangba Marwu to await trail and execution. The removal of Narthan Dume saw his lieutenants sign on with Ursh and the two much reduced empires merge. Warlord also wanted to send the Despot of Ursh to that prison for the same reason, Law must be seen to prevail over even the worst tyrants. Lorgar deemed carting him across half a continent too dangerous and decapitated him.

fuck you leatherman

Did we ever decide on how many Sisters of Battle there would be in this AU?

About 100 million. Ten times the number of marines as a minimum.

I always saw the execution of the Despot as something the Warlord ordered. Old Earth was not a nice place to grow up and the idea of putting someone on trial before executing them would have been considered lenient in most parts of the world. Canon Emperor mostly kept Dume and the Despot around to pick their heads for knowledge. Dume might have had things worth keeping but anyone who knew the Despot knew he was a madman (and Chaos corrupted, but no one knew that at the time) and wasn't exactly the tech expert of Ursh.

Lorgar got picked because he was a generally pleasant guy who had no grudge against Ursh like Khan, Corax, Magnus, Vulkan, Curze, etc. So when he swung the sword there was no sense of pleasure in retribution or revenge. Just an unpleasant job getting done. Khan was said to have had to be talked down for this very reason. Khan he insisted he get revenge, Warlord said if he did that meant for all his rhetoric he would be no different than the Despot, Khan backed down because the Warlord hit a sore spot.

It was still, in the Warlord's eyes, the triumph of law over barbarism. The Despot hadn't been unceremoniously shot like an aninal. He had been put on trial, found guilty, and then sentenced to capital punishment. The system had its way and the people of Earth had found the Despot wanting. Which is more than could be said for his legions of victims.

Khangba Marwu would have to be somewhere other than Himalazia. In this AU nobody had been to that land and returned until Red Magnus fled there after setting fire to the previous Despot.

When Oscar visited after the Earth Unification but by then whatever had been there was gone and had been gone for a few years.

So are the Chilliad still alive by 999M41 or is it only speculation?

Seeing as the Sol system is well on its way to being so densely populated with wonderous things it would count as one big capital province of imperial splendor, its entirely possible that they're still somewhere in the vast and expanding arcologies of Old Earth.

meant for this

Would Dume have been kept around or would his crimes have outweighed his potential usefulness?

This reminds me of a suggestion I had for the other regiment of the Old Hundred that has any fluff, the Lucifer Blacks.

Humans in general have a tendency to survive in places where they aren’t intended to go. Such is the case of the Lucifer Blacks, one of the original regiments of the Old Hundred, the original one hundred regiments that were not disbanded at the end of the Unification Wars and would serve as the basis for the Imperial Army. The Lucifer Blacks were one of the last people on Old Earth to be discovered by the outside world, living deep underwater in pre-Strife underwater habitats at the bottom of Old Earth’s Great Ocean (also known as the Pacific) in a region controlled by the Pan-Pacific Empire. It is thought that these habitats were originally meant as simple habitats or research stations during the Dark Age of Technology. However, by the time of the Age of Strife the Lucifer Blacks were cut off from the rest of the world until their rediscovery by the horrendous contraptions of the Pan-Pacific Empire. This lifestyle in the inky darkness, surviving off of mesopelagic fish and geothermal power from hydrothermal vents, is what gave the regiment their name.

Living underwater in an environment where literally one wrong seal could mean the difference between life and death tended to foster an extremely calm and measured attitude in people. To the Lucifer Blacks, a crisis was the absolute worst time to panic, panic is what led to rash decisions and rash decisions are what got you killed. This led the regiment to be infamously known for their ability to be calm and think clearly under fire, as well as a very dark and (ironically) dry sense of humor. Additionally, living nearly 4000 meters below sea level in conditions where most light was artificial tended to make one very good at fighting in the dark. The Lucifer Blacks often used this to their advantage in battle, using smoke grenades and other implements to approximate the low-light conditions in which they had the advantage over their foes.

However, at the same time the Lucifer Blacks were not the most numerous people. When one lives in such a hostile, enclosed environment, the primary constraint on population size was not food or materials, but simply living space due to the number of habs present. When the Lucifer Blacks were first discovered and subjugated by Narthan Dume, Dume decided that one of the best ways to use the highly disciplined, but not very numerous Lucifer Blacks were as elite shock troops. The calm, detached nature of the Lucifer Blacks in high-stress combat situations made them especially hard to break. The fact that the Lucifer Blacks preferred to fight in the hermetically sealed all-black bodysuits they typically wore for extra-habitat activities only added to their intimidation factor.

When the Pan-Pacific Empire fell and the tyranny of Narthan Dume finally toppled, the Lucifer Blacks were one of the first regiments of the Pan-Pacific Empire to pledge their loyalty to the Warlord. The Warlord was somewhat suspicious of the Lucifer Blacks at first, but as with the Assassins of the Salt Wastes he wasn’t fool enough to deny himself potentially useful resources. And the Lucifer Blacks more than delivered on their promises of loyalty, even serving in a secondary role alongside the Night Lords during the Vhnori Resurgence as the two fought against the attempted resurgence of the Pan-Pacific Empire.

Eventually, in return for their exemplary service, the Warlord, now the Steward, granted the Lucifer Blacks settlement rights on extrasolar worlds. The Lucifer Blacks mostly chose to settle on Ocean Worlds that approximated their old home. Even today many people on Ocean Worlds have distant Lucifer Black Ancestry. As part of the Old Hundred, the Lucifer Blacks also still exist on Earth, living in the same oceanic trenches as their forefathers, though ten thousand years of gentrification and integration into Old Earth’s infrastructure mean that the modern Lucifer Blacks have lost a lot of their original culture and aren’t as incredibly stoic and tough-as-nails as their forefathers. Imperial nobles often like to have Lucifer Black bodyguards when they can’t get someone like a member of Terra’s Children, though in reality having a Lucifer Black bodyguard usually amounts to little more than a display of prestige.

Dume one could make the argument that the Warlord could have (begrudgingly) considered him useful enough to be kept around. He was considered "half-mad, half-genius", after all.

The whole Pan-Pacific Empire seems like it was run by Sparks with all the biotechnology, mad scientist tyrants, and the like.

Though right now we have almost no fluff on Dume's personality or history like we do the Despot. That would be a good thing to work on if anyone has ideas.

Hot fucking damn, that needs adding to the page.

Prokhor Zakharov sort of figure for Dume maybe?

Who's Dume again?

The half-mad, half-genius ruler of the Pan-Pacific Empire, the place that Curze came from in Nobledark, seemed to focus a lot on ghoulish biotechnology in both timelines, and only lost out on the "shittiest place to live on Old Earth" competition because it was up against Ursh.

Speaking of the days of the Unification Wars, looking up the Unification Wars on Lexicanum, it says that the Ethnarch of the Caucasus Wastes (which in canon was the last place the Imperium conquered, the place where the Thunder Warriors got "retired" at, and the one that had the A.I. under it the Salamanders took out) had what were basically cheap-knockoff Thunder Warriors called Ur-Khasis.

That might have made things interesting. If they lasted long enough to be the last place conquered (the question is how given the route of conquest), then they could have watched the Imperium long enough and taken enough notes to make their own knock-off Thunder Warriors like Fulgrim did with the Astartes. Thunder Warriors not being dependent on geneseed would have made it a lot easier to do so.

On the other hand in this timeline the Warlord probably had to get Vulkan to restrain Arik from doing something stupid and going to Mount Ararat after he found out the Ethnarchy stole his designs.

I figure he might have been pumped for all he was worth in the early days of the AdBio, and if he got very lucky found some way to leave earth in the solar unification. In all likelihood he died, and by the Imperium's order, before their influence was much beyond earth orbit.

Here the Thunder Warriors were retired when the Earth Unification was finished. They were given the option of either staying on with the new Legions for another tour, taking a training job to make the new Astartes suck less or try to have a normal as possible life with a pension and an apparent somewhere with a nice climate.

Last place in this AU conquered was Ursh up in North West Russia. After that there was just Hy Brasil just minding their own business and the Liechtenstein Vault refusing to open the door.

In Vanilla there was a Nordyc chieftain who fell to the Ruinous Powers with only the best intentions. He became a priest king of a great nation but shit started to get real twisted. In western Calbi there is a large swathe of uninhabitable land.

Possibly in this AU the chief was corrupted by a Chaos Influenced A.I. as thid would also explain where he got the high tech things from that he had in Vanilla.

In this AU the Merikan army encountered him and his nation when they were annexing Canada. Then they nuked the place. Refugees, most of the population were not Chaos, fleeing to Skand, swelling it's population and giving the Nordyc tribs access to a lot more soldiers that they loan to Franj in it's war with the Jermanics. And then a few years later the Skand / Franj war.

Priest-King of Maulland Sen of the Maulland Sen Confederacy?

That could work. According to the Lexicanim he was just someone trying to survive and do the best he could for his people and Chaos took advantage of that by imitating his gods and guiding him down darker paths.

In this AU he would have been on Warlord's shit list. After the merging of Uralia and Clan Terrawatt the unified Skand (and the Nord Afrik Conclaves) was the next to join what would become the Imperium. King Thengir the Cripple would have know what was on his western border at least to an extent and would have had no reason to withhold the information from Malcador.

Then Merika got there first and nuked the place. Oscar would only have found out about there having been a corrupted A.I. there after Merika joined the Imperium and he got access to the decades old records.

Maulland would have seen the A.I. as some sort of techno-oracle. Clearly a made thing but made in a time when humans were like demi-gods and an intermediary between his lowly self and his gods. Maulland's gods would have originally been the same gods as the ones worshiped by most of Skand (Thengir and Russ included) with only regular tribal differences separating them. He would have assumed that the gods the A.I. (Khamrians?) had found were his own. Eventually he would come to the ephiphany that there were only 4 main deities and a host of lesser subordinate deities. He would know that they were real because he performed miracles with their authority and after that shit would have snowballed quickly.

Out of all the wars Merika perpetrated this was one Oscar never had a problem with them for although he would have been happier if they had refrained from irradiating the place to a degree that won't see it inhabitable for centuries.

This raises the question; How did the other old nations view psykers?

A Geniocracy completely devoid of any morality or concerns of ethical conduct. The islands of Pacifica were used as a human farm for test subjects for example. They had monsters aplenty but didn't dabble in Warptastic fuckery until the desperation of the end and their union with the remnants of Ursh.

I really like the idea of a bunch of Thunder Warriors trying to adapt to civilian life.

I don't think that the Ultras were the "average Jo" Legion. They ad their flavour. It was dull but reliable, we have a contingency for that, unimaginative empire building procedure setters.

How based on old Nordyc pantheon is the Fenrisian beliefs?

By Fulgrim's standards they were (so take that with a huge grain of salt). Fulgrim wanted the best of the best of the best, and expected them to be erudite and cultured as well as good fighters. He had incredibly high standards and as a result there weren't a lot of Terra's Children, even before the Iron Cage. Guilliman, by contrast, took everyone (he recruited from all over Old Earth, unlike many primarchs who tended to recruit from their home country until the Imperium brought more worlds into the fold) and raised them to their individual potential rather than force them to fit some abstract ideal. He also made use of quite a few baseline auxillaries like the Raven Guard, Fulgrimfag described the Ultras looking like an Astartes UN peacekeeping force between the colors and the makeup of its forces.

Part of the reason the Ultramarines were as large as they were was a lot of Terra's Children aspirants who realized they couldn't measure up to Fulgrim's ridiculous standards and transferred to the less strenuous Ultras. Which probably didn't help any perception Fulgrim had of them being the "Joe average" legion. But again this is Fulgrim. He saw almost everyone as a rival.

Very. The Fenrisians basically just took Leman Russ' myths, gods, and heroes and bolted them onto their pantheon. They might have treated it like how the Norse treated the Aesir and Vanir. Leman, Bjorn, and the like would probably have shared the stories on their down time. Fenrisian culture has a lot of Nordyc influence, and probably preserves some of the closest you get to the comparable original Old Earth culture with the possible exception of the Pastoral Worlds. The original Fenrisians seemed to see Leman as this cool heroic figure who came from the stars and offered to make them stronger warriors. He never mentioned the side effects.

They probably also attribute him to bringing wolves to their world and love him for that. It's a high-speed bear that's also your friend and protector, Russ be blessed for bringing these wonderful creatures with him.

They never realized the connection.

Well apparently Fulgrim picked up the veneration of the holy human form that kept him from going too far into transhumanism from his upbringing in Merika, and they seem pretty technology focused and hated Ursh which was Chaos and psyker central, so they might have been pretty hostile to psykers, and assumed they were always like the horrible sorcerer priests of Ursh.

It would be somewhat ironic and interesting if the AI in Maulland claimed it was one of the golden oracles made for humanity to read the will of their god machines, seeing as Oscar was finally present on the planet.

Do we have anything on hoe Khan got his people to move planet?

It was mentioned with the whole thing with the Pastoral Worlds (trying to work on writing it up as a codex entry). Jaghatai saw that Old Earth was becoming urbanized and decided to spread the Khanate out via colony worlds if he wanted to have any hope of keeping his culture alive. This decision proved eerily prescient, though not in the way Jaghatai would have wanted.

He expected everything being paved over with apartment complexes, not some super-ork burning the planet to the ground and the Imperium having Perturabo rebuild the whole thing from scratch. There's still green space on Old Earth post-Perturabo but it's all pre-planned wilderness and farmland. It's about as wild and untamed as Central Park is to New York City. No way for the nomads to maintain their way of life.

Yeah, I think based on the order of consolidation there is little reason for the Caucasus Wastes to remain independent so late (especially since they were next to/in Achaemenidia). We mentioned the A.I. under the Caucasus was still around, the first pass through the area missed it due to it being deep underground and having little contact with humanity. The Salamanders ended up killing it like in canon, which was Vulkan's first big claim to fame. The reaction of the rest of the Imperium was "we had that time bomb sitting under our feet the whole time?"

Strayllya was also the dumping ground for most of the Pan-Pacific's experiments. Which again suggests biotech (or at least something you couldn't shut off). And the Vhnori resurgence was 100% biotech madness.

"What has Leman Russ ever done for us?"
"He gave us wolves"
"Wolves, oh right"
"And the troll population isn't as bad anymore"
"He brought technology. Space travel. Can you imagine going back to how our great-great grandfathers used to live? Banging rocks together and thinking iron was the be-all end of the world?"
"And public order. The tribes don't fight as much anymore"
"Alright, but aside from the wolves and the fewer trolls and the public order and the space travel, what has Leman Russ ever done for us?"
"Brought peace?"
"Peace? Oh shut up."

Yes I realize this joke was done before

Could have been that Jaghatai Khan encountered Chogoris in his early career as head of the Legions. The planet has one big super continent that is set up in a manner that ~80% of it is one big grassland. And it's uninhabited.

He hasn't been blind to the changing nature of Old Earth as he has been away and has been in regular contact with his folks back home via written letters and such. At some point in the Great Crusade he finds himself visiting home again for the first time in quite a few years and as the Khan of Khans he call a meeting of the people to discuss their future as a people. Before them are two paths, assimilation into the changing world or leaving this world and go to this new one that he's just discovered. He can use his authority as Primarch to get them first and exclusive rights on settlement if he can get the paper work through before anyone else, a fact made easier by only him and his crew knowing where the planet was for the moment.

The overwhelmingly vast majority decide that yes, the world he described does sound like a vast improvement on where things here are going.

And that was the "glorious" claiming of Chogoris by the Khanate. Periodically new Khanate colonies get set up and new chapters are raised up in the manner of Jaghatai's White Scars.

This sounds pretty much like what would have happened and a good addition to the bit on the Pastoral Worlds (mind if I borrow it?). Add to that the fact that most of these worlds would have been of little use for more than livestock farming. Chogoris has some nice mountains, canyons, and the like naturally in canon but it's still a lot more flat grassland than Earth ever had.

The only thing to add from the old blurb is that while Chogoris was uninhabited when Jaghatai found it, it wasn't always so. Because canon!Jaghatai never crashed on Chogoris, there was nothing to stop the Palatine from getting increasingly worse about Chaos worship until they went full Ursh. They got lucky in that the resulting Chaos incursion "only" depopulated the planet instead of ruining it forever. The Khanate knew someone was there before them but could find nothing but ruins.

Never visited these threads before.
How have y'all treated the Mechanicus?

They're actually pretty similar to the canon Mechanicus, with the main changes in their general character coming from the red priests of Mars needing to cut their deals with a version of the Imperium that isn't an irrational parody of itself. Thus they are only slightly more reasonable, and would claim eminent domain on your planet so they can set up a resource extraction operation there and employ your people as indentured labor there, instead of servitorizing the entire population and doing the same thing. Because the Imperium has a handful of other advanced civilizations under its umbrella, including Old Earth itself, Mars has a bit more pressure to innovate and roll out newly recovered designs at a semi-reasonable pace, and heterodoxy that gets you declared heretek in the mechanicus doesn't necessarily get you thrown out of the Imperium, and you might easily find an aristocratic patron.

There's also the Adeptus Biologicus, formed out of the various bioengineering assets used by the Warlord in the unification era to design his super soldiers and added onto the mechanicus years later much to their protestation.

There are also still a number of different sects within the Mechanicus, which is one of the ways in which the setting keeps the intra-faith conflicts of canon without it boiling over and saturating the entire setting. The different sects of tech-priests have their own customs but are all theoretically subservient to the Fabricator-General of the Olympus Mons Brotherhood, who is in effect the mecha-pope (as in canon) and decides what is and isn't tech-heresy, which sometimes causes conflicts. To outsiders this looks silly, because they're quibbling over details in how to worship the Omnissiah. And then you realize no, this is very serious, the Mechanicus make most of the things and the AdMech getting in a pissing match is a very bad thing.

Technical advancement is still very slow. The speed at which Mechanicus do things has been compared to the rate glaciers grow. Thing is the Mechanicus control ~90% of the manufacturing and are still the guys you go to for tech support so they make a lot of the rules.

The biggest difference I'd say is that they're "jerks with hearts of gold" instead of "pure asshole". The AdMech are still known as salty, easily pissed off assholes with an entitlement complex (though nice tech-priests do exist, like the Fab-General who signed the Treaty of Mars) and a brutal society who will still do anything to get their hands on STCs. However, they have good intentions (they want to be the unparalleled experts of knowledge in the universe so they can give back to the unenlightened little people [read: everyone else, patronizing and domineering but at least good in theory]), and the higher-ups who know how things work have a very logical reason for being terrified of inventing Void Dragon says hello.

Was trying to add some stuff from the old threads to the main page. Was going to add this to the Ciaphas Cain section but wanted to make sure it was okay first.

"Surprisingly, nearly everyone seems to be aware of the truth of Ciaphas Cain’s so-called cowardice except Cain himself. It is very hard for an outsider to keep a secret on a Craftworld full of psykers. Many of the youth of Biel-Tan who have had a glimpse into Cain’s mind are at first confused. The Imperium and the Craftworld elders described the Imperial diplomat was a great warrior, but this does not seem to be the mind of a great warrior. However, upon further reflection, many have had an epiphany over this apparent disconnect. Although Biel-Tan may be the most aggressive and warlike Craftworld, it’s unblooded youth are as afraid of death and war as anyone else. Yet here is this human, who despite accomplishing numerous heroic deeds and staring death in the face several times, is still just as terrified about the possibility of dying as the rest of them. Despite this when duty calls he still saddles up and heads out anyway. Cain is brave because of his fear, not in spite of it, and the fact that such a distinguished figure can still be afraid is a comforting thought to the untested youth of Biel-Tan. Some Biel-Tan youngbloods go so far as to say Ulthwé can go stuff all that rhetoric about the underhanded Creed being an autarch of humanity. It’s Cain, if anyone, who should be considered a human autarch."

Basically writing out what was said in the previous threads about how everyone who knows Cain personally (including Amberly Vail and the reader) seems to be in on the joke about Cain's cowardice except Cain, especially since Biel-Tan is full of psykers. The Biel-Tan youth act the same around him because they assume he's self-aware about the whole thing, rather than him constantly panicking about being a coward living a lie surrounding by very tall, very aggressive eldar.

(cont.)
Additionally, while it was previously suggested that Biel-Tan claims Cain is a human autarch the same way Ulthwe claims Creed is one, it makes sense that it would be the younger, more naive members of Biel-Tan who are claiming this rather than the older eldar who probably see Cain as decorated but not impressive. It also makes sense that the autarch council would use Cain's reputation and personality as an exercise in drumming some self-awareness into the heads of the overzealous youth, like they have in the past with letting Cain take the fall for trying to calm the populace of Biel-Tan down.

It also keeps up the theme of "life keeps throwing Ciaphas Cain out of the frying pan and into the fire" that is key to any good Cain story.

Seems to fit the overall theme, so long as Cain never finds out that they know and the rest of the human population remains in the dark.

How is the Fall of the Eldar handled in Nobledark? I get that they're written to be more diplomatic/less autistic in their dealings with the Imperium/Tau, but given that the Dark Eldar are still a significant force, it would seem that the Eldar fall occupies roughly the same place in Nobledark lore as in vanilla 40k.

The Fall itself is very much the same. Eldar murderfuck a god into existence their empire tumbles down a hole in the sky.

The Fall happened much the same as Vanilla with some hints that at least some of the eldar knew what would happen and welcomed it.

The Tau (except Farsight and his Enclave) and most Craftworld and Exodite eldar have signed on as semi-autonomous member states of the Imperium.

Dark Eldar were much the same. Vect ascended to power and united them early in imperial history, forging his meritocratic hell hole of a city with no gods or kings or morality.

Chaos Eldar were the ones who welcomed the new deity Slaanesh. They are the main driving force behind the Black Crusades and Chaos ever getting it's shit together. Recently Lady Malys, Deamon-Queen of all Chaos, and Vect have gotten married. This has somehow made the Dark Eldar worse.

Tau hate the Dark Eldar in general with a burning passion and Duke Traevelliath Sliscus in particular with the incandescent heat of a thousand suns. All through their history as an interstellar player any moment of weakness has been greeted with Dark Eldar raids. And always the instigator of these raids and their worst tormentor is Duke Sliscus. Modern Tau don't go in for bounty hunting as a rule, seeing it as barbaric and reprehensible behaviour practiced by the heathen Tau of ancient days. Aun'Va has put a price on Sliscus enough to buy your own inhabitable planet because fuck Sliscus.

It is good so long as the general human population are kept in the dark about his motives. He has to remain HERO OF THE IMPERIUM! after all.

So what would be the population of Old Earth at 999M41?

What would they have made of the ruins there?

They would see it, after investigation, as the eventual fate of Old Earth under Ursh. Self destructive fire that confuses itself.

It would be in the hundreds of billions, possibly even over a trillion as it is the early stages of a shell world.

Would there have been a repeat of the Skand wars when things get unified?

Also do the Space Wolves use suppressing tribal violence as a training exercise or is that beneath them? How much are the Space Wolves involved in the lives of their people?

If there'a any lingering issues, it may have played a part in the Mystery of the Missing Head of Doomrider if we decide to go down that route. Wiping out all sentient life on a planet is a good way to stop a Chaos invasion in its tracks, but there's always the potential ghosts of the past to be drawn on.

The whole “war for the sake of war to keep the bloodlines stronk” is strongly frowned on in this timeline, not least by Russ and Khan themselves. The reasoning goes that the galaxy is already enough of a shithole without people adding to it. Better to turn their energy to surviving their fucking awful planet or outwards at the rest of the universe. Galaxy is full of shit to kill and get killed by, no point in fighting each other. If you want strong, proven warriors, go fight some Orks. There are literally millions of Orks. The Imperium can’t see a future in which there are no longer Orks.

That said, this doesn’t mean everything is lollipops and daisies. Fenris is a very rough place to live and its people are very hot-blooded. Formalized dueling over grievances is common. The High King and High Priest/Fylkir have actually killed each other in the past in duels over disputes, though it hasn’t happened in centuries.

There’s also the fact that this all assumes people are following the rules. That’s one of the sources of darkness in this timeline. These descriptions of how nobledark!Imperial society works are all predicated on the assumption that people follow the rules. But consider real life. If we lived in a perfect world, there would be no murder, no theft, no crime, because everyone would follow the rules. But we don’t, because there is corruption (regular corruption, even without the effects of Chaos cults and the like) and crime and the fact that some people are just plain awful.

Nobledark doesn’t mean that the awful behavior you see in canon is gone. It just means that it’s harder to spot, and the lunatics have to worry about the banhammer coming down from above instead of acting overtly because they running the asylum. If people were perfect the Sororitas wouldn’t have a job.

The monsters in the dark are often much less worse than the monsters that live among us, because they don’t look like monsters.

(same)
As to how much the Space Wolves are involved in the lives of people, the answer is very. The Astartes (or in this case Canis Helix soldiers) aren’t seen as monastic demi-gods who occasionally swoop down from the sky to take people in this timeline. They’re part of the Imperial Army, and theoretically at some level they are under Administratum authority. But it’s a really high level. As an Amerifag, the best comparison on how much the Astartes and IG are linked I can think of would be like looking at the U.S. Army and the USMC. Both are ground troops, but they belong to different branches of the military and are linked only at the highest levels (and they have rivalries because of it, the Sororitas and the Astartes have a particularly nasty one).

Fenris has a technology base comparable to most Imperial Worlds, it’s just that Fenris is Fenris and even with higher living standards the planet still has extreme winters, extreme volcanism, and is infested with trolls and grizzly-sized “wolves” that look like they walked out of the prehistory of Old Earth. Asaheim is as much a city as it is a military base.

Space Marines (and similar variants) interact with baseline humans a lot more, to the point of having relationships and families. They’re generally seen as augmented humans rather than demigods due to the nature of the setting. Sanguinius, Vulkan, Russ, and Khan all had families and genetic children. Rynn’s World has a history of political marriage between the Chapter Master of the Crimson Fists and the ruler of the planet. Lukas the Trickster’s exploits with women, even post-augmentation, are legendary. The Salamanders visit their non-augmented relatives on their off-hours (they’re probably not the only ones, but they’re known for it).

(cont.)
Astartes generally aren’t allowed to have direct political control over any planet with the exception of their homeworld, which is treated more like a military base. The Chapter Master of the Crimson Fists doesn't rule Rynn's World but his wife does, Salamanders aren't allowed on the Nocturne Triumvirate (but having a Salamander relative helps in political prestige), the Fenrisian Worlds don't have to answer to the High King but they do answer to the non-augmented High Priest Ulfrik the Slayer, who the High King has the ear of. Ultramarines have almost no say over how the worlds of Ultramar are governed except Macragge itself (which is the nominal capital of Ultramar, and even there they don't have total say). You have to have some say over how your own home operates in order to properly set up it's defenses.

Lugft Huron disregarding this and going full Big Boss and turning the Badab Sector into Space Cambodia is what brought the wrath of the Emperor down on him. The Emperor is very concerned about the idea of an artificial creation of humanity like him, and therefore by extension the Astartes, lording it over the rest of humanity like transhuman demigods.

To clarify with the "artificial creation" statement, it's highly debatable as to whether Oscar is some kind of super A.I. or just an extremely augmented custom-made human. It's possible that both are true, the lines between man and machine were blurry to the point of nonexistence at the end of the Age of Strife (at the very least he has DNA). Yes, he wasn't born naturally, but so was Ferrus Manus, and Oscar never called him inhuman. The Emperor believes in the "not a real boy" side of the argument. Most of the Imperium calls bullshit, he's human enough in the only way that matters. Thor told him as much to his face at the end of the Imperial Civil War. Malcador even backtracked at the end of his life when he realized his parenting had given his adopted son crippling self-esteem issues.

bump

Ulfrik is unaugmented?

I think we had it where in this timeline where Ulfrik is the very tough but not augmented nominal head of Fenrisian paganism.

He was said to not a big fan of the Disciples of Kurnous. Not just because he doesn't like Eldar, but because when the Disciples show up they tend to do so unannounced and without even alerting Fenris' defense systems (usually getting in via one of the Wolves giving them the codes or just plain sneaking in for the challenge of it).

Hah! Finally got the Pastoral World section done!

After the Unification of Old Earth many nations across the Imperium found themselves having to rebuild their government from scratch after having thrown off the chains of their old oppressors. The people of the steppes had the additional difficulty in creating a centralized government in a land where there had been none since. Jaghatai had been elected Khan of all the nomad tribes east of the Kashgar Pass, but he did not command the allegiance of all the steppe nomads. As the Khanate extended its influence west into places that had once been known as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Khanate found itself in contact with nomad tribes which it had not heard from for decades. As the Imperium’s influence grew, these tribes gradually flocked to Jaghatai’s banner. They realized that out of all the high-ranking figures in the Imperium, the Khan spoke for them, and confederating with the Khanate was the best way to preserve their way of life.

One of these nomads from the western steppes was Temir Baltubekov, better known by his nickname of “the Iron Scribe”. Despite being a nomad Temir showed an aptitude for administration, and Jaghatai took advantage of his ability to organize things. Most people today think of the Iron Scribe as figure of steely resolve and indomitable will, able to do ten times the work of other men. The people who actually knew him remember him as an exasperated, overworked man who found himself having to do the day-to-day minutia and logistics of running a country that Jaghatai had no ability for. Jaghatai was a capable leader, but he was a doer who preferred to inspire people and lead from the front rather than sit around making commandments. Jaghatai’s idea of building infrastructure was to physically go and put a building together with his own two hands rather than sign the decrees to make it possible. As a result, the Iron Scribe was a key figure in turning the Khanate into an actual country, and when Jaghatai stepped down from control of the Khanate to avoid a conflict of interest he named the Iron Scribe his successor as ruler of the Khanate.

As the Great Crusade spread across the stars, the Khan came across numerous worlds that reminded him of his old homeland. At the same time, Jaghatai was not blind to all the changes happening on Old Earth, hearing of what was happening from his friends in the other legions and letters from his extended family. However, when he returned to Old Earth early in the Great Crusade to bury his wife Kasha, Jaghatai saw the writing on the wall. Old Earth was becoming hyper-urbanized, and soon there would be no room for his kind of people.
Seeing the future that lie before him, the Khan decided to call a kurultai of the Khanate to discuss their future as a nation and a people.

At the kurultai, Jaghatai told the assembled leaders of the Khanate that there were two paths that lie before them. One was assimilation, to completely lose their identity in the changing world that would have no place for their people. The other option was migration. The Khanate didn’t have to abandon their ancestral homelands, let them be the urbanized, administrative hub of the Khanate if need be, but it could spread out, establish colonies all across the galaxy so that something of their culture could survive. As primarch, Jaghatai could get them first and exclusive rights on settlement if he can get the paperwork through before anyone else, a fact made easier by only him and his crew knowing where the planet was for the moment. Hearing Jaghatai’s vision, the overwhelmingly vast majority of the Khanate decide that yes, the future he described does sound like a vast improvement over the way things here are going.

Having the approval of his people, the Khan (or rather, Jaghatai and Temir, given the Khan’s “talent” for paperwork) set into motion his plan to earmark a number of worlds for the expansion of the Khanate. It helped that many of these worlds were not useful for much other than livestock herding. Most of these planets were either uninhabited, or inhabited by feudal or feral worlders that easily assimilated into the Khanate's way of life, much like Skandian culture and the inhabitants of Fenris. These worlds would form the core of what would come to be known as the Pastoral Worlds. Not all Pastoral Worlds are former Khanate colonies (Solomon is a good example of one that is not), but many are, and even the ones that do not can relate to the other Pastoral Worlds through their shared history of livestock farming to the point that the Pastoral Worlds form a distinct socio-ethnic unit within the Imperium similar to the Fenrisian Colonies.

Among the planets claimed by the Khanate was Chogoris, the future home of the White Scars chapter. However, when Jaghatai and the White Scars first discovered at the planet, they found it was completely depopulated. The planet had obviously been inhabited in the past, as indicated by the abundance of abandoned ruins across its surface less than a few centuries old, but something must have happened since then to its original inhabitants. Some historians suspect Chogoris' original inhabitants had become involved with the Ruinous Powers, which ended up wiping out the planet's native population. Upon hearing these suspicions Jaghatai remarked that this was exactly why the Khanate was better off for having broken free of Ursh, and his only regret was that he hadn’t done it sooner. Ursh was a self-destructive fire that would have consumed itself. Nevertheless, Chogoris was perfect for the Khanate's needs, being virtually a large-scale version of the lands of the Khanate back on Old Earth. Chogoris became one of the most successful of the Pastoral Worlds, the closest thing they have to a cultural hub, and today is what most people think of when one thinks of Pastoral Worlds.

Jaghatai’s vision proved eerily prescient, though not in the way he had expected. He had expected the steppes and the mountains that he had once called home to be swallowed up by skyscrapers over the course of a millennium. He hadn’t expected them to be burned to their bedrock by the Warboss of Warbosses within a few hundred years after he called for his pilgrimage to the stars. Yes, Old Earth was rewilded after the War of the Beast, but it was tamed wilderness, in the manner of parks and farmland. Livestock were present, but they were raised in pens, not herded on the open range. It was no place for a steppe nomad. After the War of the Beast, and the Khanate being absorbed into the Imperium, the Iron Scribe found a position in the Administratum.

He was a minor figure, at best, in the organization’s history, but Pastoral Worlders love to bring him up when talking about their people’s achievements.

Today, the old Khanate is only distantly remembered by the people of the pastoral worlds, mostly in the sense of a semi-mythological lost homeland. People from pastoral worlds like to come to Old Earth to see the remnants of the old Khanate as a sort of cultural pilgrimage. One of the few things that remains of the Khanate on Old Earth is an obelisk inscribed with a message that the Iron Scribe had sent to Jaghatai during the Unification of Sol. In it, the Scribe requests that Jaghatai always remember who he was and where he came from, even as he sought to build a brighter future for his people in the stars. Jaghatai apparently found the words of the message so profound that he ordered it carved onto an obelisk for posterity. This obelisk was discovered amidst the rolling irradiated wastelands of the Old Khanate, a miraculous salvage from the horrors of the War of the Beast. Today, it sits in a quiet, open plaza in a park between two hives of Old Earth, the closest place one could get on the planet to its old home. This "Last Piece of the Khanate" is considered a relic of paramount historical importance to the people of the Pastoral Worlds, and is often the centerpiece of any pilgrimages Pastoral Worlders make to Old Earth.