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Son of Death (30k Mortarion Quest)

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[X] War
- [X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
- [X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so.
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.
 
[X] War
-[X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
-[X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.
 
[X] War
- [X] Of Conquest. Galaspar has refused all possibility of peaceful unification, and so they will be brought into the fold by force.
 
[X] Peace
- [X] They are capable of throwing every single of those 50 billions into the grinder of war. Unsustainable attack vector if they are capable of quick war footing. But through peace we can destroy them. And quickly. We made them expand, we made them splatter their attention so wide, they would miss the gun if it was under their nose. And we can have time to prepare conditions for 50 billions to live as a free man.
 
[X] War
- [X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
- [X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so.
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.
 
If we are going for a war of liberation the enemy very much has a greater number of boots on the ground than we are likely to be able to counter through conventional combat. The public is so indoctrinated into unthinking reaction to orders and routine that they will likely be able to slide into meticulously crafted plans without hesitation or issue, acting far more on-the-ball than they actually are. Most civilian vehicles and other assets probably have some plan for wartime repurposement. Then, when combat is actually struck, men would be expended as ammunition or as an area denial weapon.

Its the sort of thing designed to give us ugly choices, every victory pyrrhic. For us to break out chemical, biological or radiological weapons that kill battlefields rather than soldiers... using the fact that there is only so fast that they can move their numbers against them... before striking at their logistics and governance. At which point untold billions die horribly while we watch due to drug withdrawal, our being able to help only a fraction. We end up stabbed in the heart strings while losing the better part of the prize we were fighting for, symptoms of a civilization that held itself hostage. The fact that we have the superior ability to concentrate force and a vastly superior orbital capacity be damned.

I'm hoping we can avoid that but it will mean being clever. Ideally we can seize and subvert to our own cause at least elements of their bureaucracy (if we are issuing orders through recognized channels our orders are as good as anyone's) and drug distribution network in the style of either Alpharius or Corax, since this is certainly not the place for attrition and morale effects are expected to be utterly useless. Perhaps the local bureaucracy is sane and responsive enough to forfeit if it realizes its checkmated rather than going down fighting. At least if we deliver decent terms that allow for their continued survival under new management.
 
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I don't think it's at all accidental that Daddy Emps sent Morty Boy up against a Dystopia for his first conquest target.

[X] War
- [X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
- [X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so.
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.
 
Undead Martyr said:
I don't think it's at all accidental that Daddy Emps sent Morty Boy up against a Dystopia for his first conquest target.

[X] War
- [X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
- [X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so.
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.
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Think he's going to do a boiling thing where the targets gradually get marginally less fucked just to see where his limit is?

(I think that's maybe too cynical, but it would be funny if he was scoring it to know exactly the ethical line Morty will consider too far.)
 
Modus_Tollens said:
If we are going for a war of liberation the enemy very much has a greater number of boots on the ground than we are likely to be able to counter through conventional combat. The public is so indoctrinated into unthinking reaction to orders and routine that they will likely be able to slide into meticulously crafted plans without hesitation or issue, acting far more on-the-ball than they actually are. Most civilian vehicles and other assets probably have some plan for wartime repurposement. Then, when combat is actually struck, men would be expended as ammunition or as an area denial weapon.

Its the sort of thing designed to give us ugly choices, every victory pyrrhic. For us to break out chemical, biological or radiological weapons that kill battlefields rather than soldiers... using the fact that there is only so fast that they can move their numbers against them... before striking at their logistics and governance. At which point untold billions die horribly while we watch due to drug withdrawal, our being able to help only a fraction. We end up stabbed in the heart strings while losing the better part of the prize we were fighting for, symptoms of a civilization that held itself hostage. The fact that we have the superior ability to concentrate force and a vastly superior orbital capacity be damned.

I'm hoping we can avoid that but it will mean being clever. Ideally we can seize and subvert to our own cause at least elements of their bureaucracy (if we are issuing orders through recognized channels our orders are as good as anyone's) and drug distribution network in the style of either Alpharius or Corax, since this is certainly not the place for attrition and morale effects are expected to be utterly useless. Perhaps the local bureaucracy is sane and responsive enough to forfeit if it realizes its checkmated rather than going down fighting. At least if we deliver decent terms that allow for their continued survival under new management.
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You might be overestimating them.

The workers are compliant, not remote-controlled.
Being on that kind of drug-regime does not make them useful as soldiers, not against transhumans that make routinely make regular soldiers freeze up by the terror of their approach.
Chances they are going to hold to the last corpse seem extremely low to me.

And switching over workers to the soldiers drug-regiment is probably not healthy even in the very short-term, nevermind long.

I think with the might of a Legio Astartes led by Mortarion himself we have a realistic chance to decapitate their leadership and start working on getting a compliant and unresisting majority of drugged-up workers off their meds with as little damage as possible.

The Crusade has conquered far worse adversaries and when the Primarchs themselves fought, it was more often than not in swift and efficient victories.
 
What is this, interstellar EQUILIBRIUM?

[X] War
- [X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
- [X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so.
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.

I think there'll be countercultures or dissidents in any society, they'll be the kind of people with means to escape the control mechanism, in this case the food source. Maybe they grow/synthesize their own food, have their own water purifier, or whatever; but these people are out there. So I think it's too early to say that there aren't people there to liberate. We just don't know who and where they are.

I don't think Morty is any good with the subterfuge necessary to find these dissidents and arm them prior to an invasion anyways, so I think an ultimatum is a good way to get these people to come to us. These will be the people we want in charge afterwards, and perpetuate the kind of change we want to see after we've left.

Let's go Morty! If Preston can topple Libria singlehandedly in a day so can you! 30 minutes Liberation, in and out!
 
The Laurent said:
Okay, something that's annoying me is... they didn't expand? Nor do they seem to have any interest in doing so. How exactly are we going to make them expand beyond their limits when they're perfectly cozy in this valley?
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NSMS said:
More to the point, assuming they're not idiots they'll recognise the implications and spend the time we give them building up their military.
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It's answered in the post itself:

Maugan Ra said:
"The Galaspar cluster lies within a natural depression in the immaterium," the robed man says in a sonorous voice, and after a moment you place the name as belonging to one of the Navigator Houses you were told of back on Terra. They were never of particular interest to you, but you learned their names and signs all the same, and Belisarius is noted as being one of the most prominent. "That aetheric propensity, combined with a set of exquisitely detailed navigational charts handed down since their founding, allows the cluster's shipping to rest on a handful of predictable, reliable routes. They reached the limits of these resources some five centuries ago and have not attempted to expand further."

The Navigator sounds dismissive of such limited ambitions, but you find you have some sympathy. Everything you have learned of the immaterium makes it sound as perilous as Barbaran highlands to traverse, a feat best not attempted without serious thought to risk and reward. If they had all they needed within their little valley, why should they attempt to expand further?
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We don't have them expand away from the Imperium, we have them expand into the Imperium on those routes the Imperium knows are predictable and reliable. We plow them with tales of disobedient ship captains looking for their next exciting high of a challenging route and the need the Imperium has for steady reliable captains with crews that run like clockwork.

Then we get them to overreach through social engineering until they are stretched thin while thinking they are operating at peak capacity by shielding them from more cutthroat Imperial politics and worming our own troops into their confidence. Then we coup them and start weaning the population off of the drugs.

This is literally the work of a decade or two to get 11 star systems compliant without slowing down, big no-no in the Emperor's book, and without the massive casualties we will create if we go to war with the sort of pliant population this system has.
 
[X] War
- [X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
- [X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so.
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.

Despite the obvious trap we're walking into by being goody two-shoes, at least we can make Horus as assmad as we will get, and that's all that really matters at the end of the day.
 
[X] Peace
- [X] They are capable of throwing every single of those 50 billions into the grinder of war. Unsustainable attack vector if they are capable of quick war footing. But through peace we can destroy them. And quickly. We made them expand, we made them splatter their attention so wide, they would miss the gun if it was under their nose. And we can have time to prepare conditions for 50 billions to live as a free man.
 
Dmol8 said:
It's answered in the post itself:



We don't have them expand away from the Imperium, we have them expand into the Imperium on those routes the Imperium knows are predictable and reliable. We plow them with tales of disobedient ship captains looking for their next exciting high of a challenging route and the need the Imperium has for steady reliable captains with crews that run like clockwork.

Then we get them to overreach through social engineering until they are stretched thin while thinking they are operating at peak capacity by shielding them from more cutthroat Imperial politics and worming our own troops into their confidence. Then we coup them and start weaning the population off of the drugs.

This is literally the work of a decade or two to get 11 star systems compliant without slowing down, big no-no in the Emperor's book, and without the massive casualties we will create if we go to war with the sort of pliant population this system has.
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I feel I should note that Mortarion is... ok not the worst Primarch to attempt that kind of long-term subtle gambit, there's stiff competition there, but it's pretty wildly outside his forte. It's a plan that requires societal engineering, politicking, infiltration and subversion, precisely none of which Mortarion has any experience with.
 
Maugan Ra said:
I feel I should note that Mortarion is... ok not the worst Primarch to attempt that kind of long-term subtle gambit, there's stiff competition there, but it's pretty wildly outside his forte. It's a plan that requires societal engineering, politicking, infiltration and subversion, precisely none of which Mortarion has any experience with.
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Right. Which is why I'm expecting it to take a decade or two.

Mortarion is still a Primarch and he will learn quickly, but he needs a chance and looking at how Horus has his court wrapped around his fingers he has a reason to think of something like this right here and right now.
 
The Peace vote that's being bandied about seems like a wildy unrealistic and overly complicated plan that Mortarian's character would have trouble even thinking about it, let alone choosing it, or executing on it. Mortarian is used to some pretty brutal realities on Barbarus. Having to kill a lot of drugged up people now, in order to stop the dystopian regime from continuing its policy, I see as a fairly easy choice for him. In his view I assume death is better than slavery. So killing people, while it should be avoided if possible, but if necessary is just a grisly reality that one has to accept if one wants to change things.

[X] War
- [X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
- [X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so.
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.
 
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[X] War
-[X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
-[X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.
 
We're certainly subtler than the last Primarch from a Maugan quest, but that was Angron, so…

[X] War
-[X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
-[X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.
 
[X] War
-[X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
-[X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.
 
[X] War
- [X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.

Edit: On second thought, I don't think ultimatum really adds much to this.
 
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If we aim primarily for the leaders, we can cut off the chain of command constantly that keeps them docile and leave the rest floundering.

Then once we got enough data, we can probably subvert them via fake communications and get them to surrender completely.

Not sure if the mechanicus that we have is able to do that though.
 
[X] War
- [X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.
- [X] Open with an ultimatum: if they end their system and work with the Imperium to reverse the damage it has caused, then they may enter its ranks peacefully. If they refuse, you will force them to do so.
- [X] Have scientists immediately, before the ultimatum is even given, researching what can be done to help the people, whether there's a way to slowly wean them from the drugs or find a replacement. Just as with the soil of your home, there must be a solution even if it is not perfect.
 
Modus_Tollens said:
If we are going for a war of liberation the enemy very much has a greater number of boots on the ground than we are likely to be able to counter through conventional combat.
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No they don't. This is Maugan's take on a canon conflict, one where Mortarion simply rolled over the orbital defenses, plowed his assault barques into the primary hive, stormed it with 11,000 Death Guard, disabled the surface-to-orbit defenses from there and slaughtered the Order's armies to the last with a combo of orbital supremacy and the overmatch of Astartes vs conscripts with stubbers.

It's our first campaign, it's not about whether we can win, it's about what sort of war we want to fight and what that says about who Mortarion will be.

Speaking of;

[X] War
- [X] Of Liberation. You object to how the Order treats its subjects, and you have the might and self-proclaimed right to intervene on their behalf.

Look, I'm sorry, but this whole ultimatum idea is crap. 'Uproot your entire society on my say-so because I object to it morally or I'll invade you" isn't an offer anybody would accept, which means it's not a peace offer, it's just the empty grandstanding of someone who wants the moral high ground of being 'reasonable' and 'restrained' even as they shoot first and compromise never. It's the, "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas," of manufacturing consent. It stinks. Don't offer somebody a deal you know they won't accept just so you can feel better about shooting them in the face for saying no, that shit is wretched.

Galaspar's system is horrible and should not be compromised with. That doesn't mean you have to go canon Mortarion, "what is 'surrender' and what calibre of ammunition does it take?" but have the courage of your convictions, at least.
 
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[X] War
- [X] Of Destruction. The Order offends you on a personal, moral level, and so it must be destroyed, torn out by the root so that no trace of it
 
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