Sterbelicht - One Sacrifice At A Time Against The Galaxy (40K)

What should your focus for the rest of the Quest be?

  • Mercy (Diplomacy and Expansion)

    Votes: 166 76.9%

  • Ruthlessness (Kick the Duchy in the Balls)

    Votes: 51 23.6%

  • Thule (Yeeni Handholding and Piscarian Cuddling)

    Votes: 84 38.9%
  • Total voters
    216
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The Five Angled Truth - [Canon TBD]
  • Sidestory
    • This then is the Five Angled Truth.

    I slept, and as I slept I dreamt, and in my dreams a golden man came to me and he said to me "Son of man, there are no gods. The galaxy, the universe, belongs to you". And as I dreamt the golden man passed away and I saw a universe aflame all around me. The cries of the innocent rang out from the stars, and the blackness of space grew red with the blood of the blameless.

    This then is the first truth.

    One month and one week passed, and I slept. As I slept I dreamt, and in my dreams a red man came to me and said "Son of man, the gods are what we create, for the divine is in the creation of man. The spirits dwell all around us, and in seeking the truth of the universe, we build the divine". And as I dreamt the red man passed away and I saw a universe in stasis, for if the divine is in our creations, then there will be a perfect creation and the universe will change no more.

    This then is the second truth.

    One month and one week passed, and I slept. As I slept I dreamt, and in my dreams a faceless man came to me and said "Son of man, the gods dwealt here once, but no more. Have they been slain? Have they fled? I know not. But they were here once and are no more". And as I dreamt the faceless man passed away and I saw a universe abandoned and it was a time of demons and monsters. A terrible war never ceased, and the people despaired and cried out for relief and leering daemons leaned in to give them what they desired.

    This then is the third truth.

    One month and one week passed, and I slept. As I slept I dreamt, and in my dreams four men came to me and said "Son of man, we are the gods. Bow down to us and we shall offer up to you great and terrible power. Do not bow down to us, and we shall inflict upon you great and terrible power anyway. The universe is our playground, and we care not for you. Do as you will" and the four men gathered around me and then passed away and I saw the universe a twisted and empty place, filled only with the laughter of thirsting gods.

    This then is the fourth truth.

    One month and one week passed, and I slept. As I slept I dreamt, and in my dreams a child in a wicker basket came to me and said "Son of man, four truths have been revealed to you" and I despaired and shook and trembled for my mind turned to what terrible revelation awaited me next. But the child was silent, and I said to the child "Spirit! God! Demon! What is it that you want?" and the spirit looked back at me with a serene face and said "I dont know. What would you like me to want?" and for the first time, the dream was silent, and the child did not pass away. I looked beyond the child in the wicker basket and saw only an endless field of stars, silent in the void of space.

    I asked "Are you a god?"

    And the spirit replied "Do you want me to be a god?" and the child passed away from me, and I knew only peace.

    This then is the five angled truth. With the five angled truth we shape the world to our will.

    An ecclesiarch of the Imperium of Man will tell you that the God Emperor is the only god, all others are lies. And he is right, for the Star Child does not exist, and the God Emperor does. But that is the power contained within life. We are the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape, for we believe in many things that arent true. For if you take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, can you show me one atom of justice? One molecule of mercy? And yet, we believe there is some rightness in the universe. Some order by which it may be judged.

    As parents we tell our children of monsters and dragons, and the heroes who slay them or right the wrongs visited upon the people. We tell of divine spirits who stretch out their wrothful hand and lay low doers of wrong. As practice we must start out believing little lies, so that when we grow from children to adult, we believe the big ones. Justice, duty, mercy.

    This is the five angled truth. We must believe in things that arent real, how else can they become?
     
  • Sidestory
    • I still have difficulty understanding the drawbacks of having the knights being part of the broader military in an integrated/combined training/arms sense. I understand some of the advantages of a nobility/isolated institutional structure like Chapter Houses. But I also see some important drawbacks in isolation and institutional power being granted to non-elected individuals unless totally necessary. What would the main drawbacks of a non-knight house system be? Would they be so much less effective? It feels like there are plenty of things (Cloning, better tech understanding, Special training academies, etc...) that would still be done as part of the military to close the gap such that the difference? such as it is, is not worth a higher chance of aristocracy forming/single person rule of planets. Especially hereditary rule.
     
    RaptorusMaximus said:
    That's what already happens with Knights by default. The Pilots control their machines via a Mind-Machine Interface, and after a lifetime of use that leaves an echo of each pilot's brain inside the central cogitator of the Knight Armor, possibly causing their soul to linger around it as well.

    There's a short story about a Knight Pilot fighting a tyranid swarm where the entire time his dead ancestors are backseat piloting him and cajoling him about getting married to continue the bloodline.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    If we establish the right culture, that could be useful.
    Imagine a new pilot entering a veteran Knight and getting actual expert advice from the previous lifelong users.
     
    so can someone give me a recap of the overall plan?

    i read something about 4 unit groups from each planet, a knight order instead of a single house per planet (assuming houses would fall under order, whith the order holding control over a single template/type of knight/titan)

    i skipped the civvie stuff, something about comms, bureaucracy (being too light handed vs threats?) and the name?
     
    Not sure about giving the Knights a world even a fortress world cause like I doubt we'll need that chokepoint as a fortress world in the long term as we deal with the Orks and move to a Sector scale so then what will that knight world do for us that just having knights trained anywhere else wouldn't?
     
    I think a Knight Academy/Order is the right track. It's just matter of what authorities/expectations they have.
    Do we want them to be like the Lementors? Operating on their own cognitive and building up on their own which we can help?
    Do we want to establish a squad that only maintains it's own numbers and quality like our military units do?
    I prefer them growing on their own as we'll never build them up just like we have the exact same amount of units we made at the beginning as we do now.
    I think we shouldn't have them get their own planet to rule anymore than we've allowed the Lementors to have any.
     
    So for the civilian part, how's this write-in?

    [][Civilian Government] Reform Write In
    -[] Emergency Response:     Establish the position of Diktat. A temporary emergency position that can be activated in times of planetary emergency by a majority vote of the planetary council declaring it to be a Planetary Emergency for applicable situations (massive Chaos cult uprising, invasion, etc) vested with the power to resolve the emergency with whatever means necessary- within the means acceptable by the Candle Keeper doctrine. In essence, a means to eliminate the red tape and get everyone moving. The pool of candidates will be carefully vetted and screened. Including up to and including being screened by the Celestial Choirs to screen out those who would abuse the position. The Diktat can be overwritten or removed before the emergency is over by the vote of the Federation Council.
    -[] Nation Name: Glimmering Federation
     
    I'm... a little skeptical. Also if we do fix up the communications, we could always run it past the Federation Council in a matter of days if we need to declare something of that nature?
     
    Right, so to get some more discussion and get some more options brought up, here's a compilation of the write-ins so far and the categories they are in. We really need some more discussions and opinions on this.

    [][Civilian Government] (Resolve the Issues listed or ignore them. Resolve other issues you foresee or don't. Write: [No Change] to change nothing.)
    @aceraptor write-in
    [][Civilian Government] Reform Write In
    -[] Emergency Response:     Establish the position of Diktat. A temporary emergency position that can be activated in times of planetary emergency by a majority vote of the planetary council declaring it to be a Planetary Emergency for applicable situations (massive Chaos cult uprising, invasion, etc) vested with the power to resolve the emergency with whatever means necessary- within the means acceptable by the Candle Keeper doctrine. In essence, a means to eliminate the red tape and get everyone moving. The pool of candidates will be carefully vetted and screened. Including up to and including being screened by the Celestial Choirs to screen out those who would abuse the position. The Diktat can be overwritten or removed before the emergency is over by the vote of the Federation Council.
    -[] Nation Name: Glimmering Federation

    ---------------------

    [][Militar Army Re-Organization] (Will there be a re-organization along the lines shown above? Will there be something else? Or nothing at all?)
    @Alectai write in
    [ ][Military Army Re-Organization] Yes, but...
    -[ ]     A Grand Army Group is a bit too unwieldy at our current size--and there is a good point that people should remain tied to their home, as a reminder of what we're all working for isn't to be dismissed. That being said, the idea of Army Groups does have merit, cutting them down to 4 compared to the more ambitious 8 before going for external deployment--the size of a single Taurus' troop compliment--with each formation intended to be broadly self-sufficient while also bringing their world's specialization to bear is something we can try experimenting with--we're looking at an era of relatively low conflict after the Luteus Prism Campaign is concluded, we can take this opportunity to wargame it out and see if there are any major barriers--and if there are scaling issues to be concerned with in the future.

    -----------------
    [][Knight House] (Will you create a Knight House (Centralized Knight Army) or not (Decentralized Knight Army)? If you do, expect a follow-up vote to decide the specifics, like coat of arms, motto, colors, culture, legal specifics, if you are calling it a House or something else, etc.)

    @Alectai write-in
    [][Knight House] Yes
    -[ ]     Knights are complicated machines, a legacy of old, and require both extensive training and exceptional character. Neither of these are necessarily something you can pluck out from an academy, or decide based on gene-lines. Of course, feudal nobility isn't quite the way to go there either, but awarding stewardship of key strategic worlds to those who have shown the right strength of character in the early days, in exchange for a charge to protect hearth and home? That's doable. The important thing is interaction, nobody should stand aloof from the people, or one may forget their roots.
     
    Votes like this are hard! Here's what I've got though

    [X] Plan: Constitutions are hard
    -[X][Civilian Government] Reform Write In
    --[X] Emergency Response:     Establish the position of Diktat. A temporary emergency position that can be activated in times of planetary emergency by a majority vote of the planetary council declaring it to be a Planetary Emergency for applicable situations (massive Chaos cult uprising, invasion, etc) vested with the power to resolve the emergency with whatever means necessary- within the means acceptable by the Candle Keeper doctrine. In essence, a means to eliminate the red tape and get everyone moving. The pool of candidates will be carefully vetted and screened. Including up to and including being screened by the Celestial Choirs to screen out those who would abuse the position. The Diktat can be overwritten or removed before the emergency is over by the vote of the Federation Council, and must step down after the crisis has passed--or relief forces have arrived to take charge of the situation.
    -[X] Nation Name: Glimmering Federation
    [X][Military Army Re-Organization] Yes, but...
    -[X]     A Grand Army Group is a bit too unwieldy at our current size--and there is a good point that people should remain tied to their home, as a reminder of what we're all working for isn't to be dismissed. That being said, the idea of Army Groups does have merit, cutting them down to 4 compared to the more ambitious 8 before going for external deployment--the size of a single Taurus' troop compliment--with each formation intended to be broadly self-sufficient while also bringing their world's specialization to bear is something we can try experimenting with--we're looking at an era of relatively low conflict after the Luteus Prism Campaign is concluded, we can take this opportunity to wargame it out and see if there are any major barriers--and if there are scaling issues to be concerned with in the future.
    -[X][Knight House] Yes, Kinda,
    --[X]     Knights are complicated machines, a legacy of old, and require both extensive training and exceptional character. Neither of these are necessarily something you can pluck out from an academy, or decide based on gene-lines. Of course, feudal nobility isn't quite the way to go there either, but a sanctioned Knightly Order, with perhaps major Chapterhouses in critical worlds where they can draw in prospective recruits and base themselves in? That possibility should be explored while we're getting our infrastructure for them set up.
     
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    [X] Plan: Constitutions are hard
    -[X][Civilian Government] Reform Write In
    --[X] Emergency Response:     Establish the position of Diktat. A temporary emergency position that can be activated in times of planetary emergency by a majority vote of the planetary council declaring it to be a Planetary Emergency for applicable situations (massive Chaos cult uprising, invasion, etc) vested with the power to resolve the emergency with whatever means necessary- within the means acceptable by the Candle Keeper doctrine. In essence, a means to eliminate the red tape and get everyone moving. The pool of candidates will be carefully vetted and screened. Including up to and including being screened by the Celestial Choirs to screen out those who would abuse the position. The Diktat can be overwritten or removed before the emergency is over by the vote of the Federation Council.
    -[X] Nation Name: Glimmering Federation
    [X][Military Army Re-Organization] Yes, but...
    -[X]     A Grand Army Group is a bit too unwieldy at our current size--and there is a good point that people should remain tied to their home, as a reminder of what we're all working for isn't to be dismissed. That being said, the idea of Army Groups does have merit, cutting them down to 4 compared to the more ambitious 8 before going for external deployment--the size of a single Taurus' troop compliment--with each formation intended to be broadly self-sufficient while also bringing their world's specialization to bear is something we can try experimenting with--we're looking at an era of relatively low conflict after the Luteus Prism Campaign is concluded, we can take this opportunity to wargame it out and see if there are any major barriers--and if there are scaling issues to be concerned with in the future.
    -[X][Knight House] Yes, Kinda,
    --[X]     Knights are complicated machines, a legacy of old, and require both extensive training and exceptional character. Neither of these are necessarily something you can pluck out from an academy, or decide based on gene-lines. Of course, feudal nobility isn't quite the way to go there either, but a sanctioned Knightly Order, with perhaps major Chapterhouses in critical worlds where they can draw in prospective recruits and base themselves in? That possibility should be explored while we're getting our infrastructure for them set up.

    For arminger I can't wait until someone ask the important question of "How many and how much firepower can we put on this?"
     
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    [X] Plan: Constitutions are hard
    -[X][Civilian Government] Reform Write In
    --[X] Emergency Response:     Establish the position of Diktat. A temporary emergency position that can be activated in times of planetary emergency by a majority vote of the planetary council declaring it to be a Planetary Emergency for applicable situations (massive Chaos cult uprising, invasion, etc) vested with the power to resolve the emergency with whatever means necessary- within the means acceptable by the Candle Keeper doctrine. In essence, a means to eliminate the red tape and get everyone moving. The pool of candidates will be carefully vetted and screened. Including up to and including being screened by the Celestial Choirs to screen out those who would abuse the position. The Diktat can be overwritten or removed before the emergency is over by the vote of the Federation Council.
    -[X] Nation Name: Glimmering Federation
    [X][Military Army Re-Organization] Yes, but...
    -[X]     A Grand Army Group is a bit too unwieldy at our current size--and there is a good point that people should remain tied to their home, as a reminder of what we're all working for isn't to be dismissed. That being said, the idea of Army Groups does have merit, cutting them down to 4 compared to the more ambitious 8 before going for external deployment--the size of a single Taurus' troop compliment--with each formation intended to be broadly self-sufficient while also bringing their world's specialization to bear is something we can try experimenting with--we're looking at an era of relatively low conflict after the Luteus Prism Campaign is concluded, we can take this opportunity to wargame it out and see if there are any major barriers--and if there are scaling issues to be concerned with in the future.
    -[X][Knight House] Yes, Kinda,
    --[X]     Knights are complicated machines, a legacy of old, and require both extensive training and exceptional character. Neither of these are necessarily something you can pluck out from an academy, or decide based on gene-lines. Of course, feudal nobility isn't quite the way to go there either, but a sanctioned Knightly Order, with perhaps major Chapterhouses in critical worlds where they can draw in prospective recruits and base themselves in? That possibility should be explored while we're getting our infrastructure for them set up.
     
    [X] Plan: Constitutions are hard, avoiding nobility
    -[X][Civilian Government] Reform Write In
    --[X] Emergency Response:     Establish the position of Diktat. A temporary emergency position that can be activated in times of planetary emergency by a majority vote of the planetary council declaring it to be a Planetary Emergency for applicable situations (massive Chaos cult uprising, invasion, etc) vested with the power to resolve the emergency with whatever means necessary- within the means acceptable by the Candle Keeper doctrine. In essence, a means to eliminate the red tape and get everyone moving. The pool of candidates will be carefully vetted and screened. Including up to and including being screened by the Celestial Choirs to screen out those who would abuse the position. The Diktat can be overwritten or removed before the emergency is over by the vote of the Federation Council.
    -[X] Nation Name: Glimmering Federation
    [X][Military Army Re-Organization] Yes, but...
    -[X]     A Grand Army Group is a bit too unwieldy at our current size--and there is a good point that people should remain tied to their home, as a reminder of what we're all working for isn't to be dismissed. That being said, the idea of Army Groups does have merit, cutting them down to 4 compared to the more ambitious 8 before going for external deployment--the size of a single Taurus' troop compliment--with each formation intended to be broadly self-sufficient while also bringing their world's specialization to bear is something we can try experimenting with--we're looking at an era of relatively low conflict after the Luteus Prism Campaign is concluded, we can take this opportunity to wargame it out and see if there are any major barriers--and if there are scaling issues to be concerned with in the future.
    -[X][Knight House] Yes, Kinda,
    --[X]     Knights are complicated machines, a legacy of old, and require both extensive training and exceptional character. So schools will be founded on our planets where all who wish to one day become Knight pilots start their study. In these schools the aspirants will be tested and the best graduates join the Knight Academy, while the rest are offered other positions based on their aptitude (like local military). The Academy is where aspirant pilots will have the chance to be accepted by a Knight. The Academy and local schools will have postings for Veteran Knight Pilots to aid the selection and raising of new pilots. Culturally a big focus will be put on the Knight pilots interacting and staying part of the general population.
     
    I really don't see how "Knightly Order" apparently means "Feudal Nobility" in your eyes here. It's basically a non-monastic Space Marine Chapter setup.
     
    I still think that the limits of the Diktat are really, really vague. For instance, there's no temporal element, just, "For the duration of the crisis" essentially, even though in truth most crises you can think about that don't end in immediate disaster become long-term problems where a single person trying to do everything is in fact the exact way things go WRONG.
     
    The Laurent said:
    I still think that the limits of the Diktat are really, really vague. For instance, there's no temporal element, just, "For the duration of the crisis" essentially, even though in truth most crises you can think about that don't end in immediate disaster become long-term problems where a single person trying to do everything is in fact the exact way things go WRONG.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    ... Let me put in a quick adjustment there real quick.

    EDIT: Broadly, it's a "You step down after the crisis is resolved, or when you are relieved from duty by the arrival of relief forces. This is a crisis approach, not a way to seize power for yourself by inventing a crisis that never ends"
     
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