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A Song Of Peace: Imperial Regent Quest [40k]

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Lord Sia said:
By the opposite token, the craftworlds furthest from the Eye are the ones with the least ties to the old Aeldari Empire, and thus the most... Well, 'mellow' works. Alaitoc, and before their destruction and decimation by the Tyranids, Malan'tai and Iyanden, were perhaps not friendly with the Imperium, but certainly far more interested in live and let live.
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Eh... I wouldn't call Alaitoc mellow. Their puritanical adherence to the paths system results in more members falling out and becoming Outcasts, some of which become Rangers, who don't suck too much, and some become Corsairs, who are probably the worst assholes in the entire race. (Objectively, Drukhari raiders do worse things, but atleast they have a semblance of "we need to" as justification... Corsairs literally raid and pillage whatever's within reach (typically Imperial civillians, simply due to commonality and proximity) because it's fun.)

Technically, the raids that got followed back to Alaitoc and brought the hammer of the Imperium down on them were Drukhari trolls, but Alaitoc's far from innocent in all this.
 
So out of all the Inquisitors we have, one's an outright heretic, one is corrupt, the others are are varying degrees of unsuitable, and the only ones we can trust is our cultist and the other cultist. At least two is better than zero and my fears of the deva being spotted are proven wrong. Despite the Inquisition's relatively smaller size, it's probably going to be one the more difficult ones to reform.

And can someone please explain why Pandora was upset about the Inquisitior giving up on the Eldar? I'm honestly confused. They aren't exactly diplomatic to the Imperium, and I thought you had to be psychic to use the Imperium's force weapons. Not that it makes her crimes against humanity any less severe.
 
Going back to that whole thing about Imperial Commissars, apparently they have more in common with WW1 British morale officers, whose job was to make sure their troops got over the trenches and into the meatgrinder. Makes sense too, as the Guard takes the bulk of its inspiration from the various conscripted regiments of the ailing but still globe-spanning British Empire.

Soviet commissars, at least the military ones (civilian commissars were basically the equivalent of ministers in the early Soviet bureaucracy), started out as political officers who had dual command with more conventional officers, out of a fear that a Napoleon or a Tsarist coupist would arise in the Red Army. As WW2 began, poor combat results had said commissars demoted into non-command roles. In short, they had no business commanding troops.

Nowadays, commissars in the PLA are basically the equivalent of western HR personel.
 
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NeonLights said:
And can someone please explain why Pandora was upset about the Inquisitior giving up on the Eldar? I'm honestly confused. They aren't exactly diplomatic to the Imperium, and I thought you had to be psychic to use the Imperium's force weapons. Not that it makes her crimes against humanity any less severe.
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I think it was less giving up on the eldar, but instead being so desperate to find a better tool they turned to chaos. She is claiming she turned to using chaos after running out of other options, but pandora is calling her out on giving up one a much much less bad option after making only a half hearted attempt to use it.
 
RaptorusMaximus said:
I'd say our best bet would be to put a small detachment of Custodes (or another group we can properly trust) in charge of looking for and gathering up those in the inquisition who are both competent and good people and use them as a basis for some kind of counter-organization which we can unleash when the time comes to bring the Inquisition as a whole to heel.
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This sounds like a pretty good idea. I'd endorse this approach. It's actually a good template for reform in general IMO. Invest in sussing out the best elements of the current systems - the people who would want to Be Better if they were actually given both the tools and the opportunity to be - and then we've got a pre-identified cadre to build a reformed institution around.

Regarding the Inquisitor who got saved by an Angel and wound up becoming an actual well-intentioned Inquisitor whose actions actually match their good intentions: I'll note that when Panda was a Goddess, she still had her Divination spec. Chaos influencing somebody early in their life in such a way that they wind up somewhere powerful and influential to promote their agenda later is a play we see all the time in 40k. Why should it be so implausible that Panda and her Deva could pull it off once in a while too?
 
NeonLights said:
So out of all the Inquisitors we have, one's an outright heretic, one is corrupt, the others are are varying degrees of unsuitable, and the only ones we can trust is our cultist and the other cultist. At least two is better than zero and my fears of the deva being spotted are proven wrong. Despite the Inquisition's relatively smaller size, it's probably going to be one the more difficult ones to reform.

And can someone please explain why Pandora was upset about the Inquisitior giving up on the Eldar? I'm honestly confused. They aren't exactly diplomatic to the Imperium, and I thought you had to be psychic to use the Imperium's force weapons. Not that it makes her crimes against humanity any less severe.
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Pandora seemed more upset about the hyper-advanced Eldar tech the Inquisition had access to, but which they refused to use after they (non-Psykers) failed to use it, despite being so desperate they believed summoning and binding Daemons by feeding them innocent people's souls was justified. Seeing as the dialogue was preceded by a mental rant on how dangerous, uncontrollable and monstrous Psykers were, it is possible the true reason behind the decision was the prejudice against Psykers convincing the Inquisitor to avoid empowering the "beasts" by making them genuinely important to the Imperium, as users/researchers of Eldar tech. The Inquisitor herself seemed unaware of this, but given how obvious it was that a non-Psyker won't be able to use Psyker tech, it seems likely. That would have pissed Pandora off, especially given that she is a Psyker herself.

Moreover, Pandora herself told people that part of the reason why she can control and calm the Warp as well as she does is the way she uses Eldar Psychic techniques. So, shortly after the Grey Knights not-threatened Pandora for refusing to teach them her psychic techniques (which she did because Sanctic Daemonology can very easily become actual Daemonology, and she isn't sure she can trust people with it) she finds out about Inquisitors summoning Daemons and feeding them people, using the aforementioned Daemonology. Because they didn't want to research the Eldar tech they had free access to.

If it were me, I would have gone full Emperor and sent her, and others like her, into the Warp. After bashing my face on the nearest durable flat surface.
 
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Swordomatic said:
Of all the things you expected to find in the Inquisition, an adherent from your cult was at the bottom of the list. All things considered, it might be the best thing to happen to you all trip. But also the worst.
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Honestly, the Inquisition is such a fragmented and spread out organization that I'm not at all surprised that one of them is a believer in Pandora's cult.

It feels like you could make any random guess about a cabal that some member of the organization was apart of and that cabal would probably exist. It is like that scene with Dominic from TTS, where he is listing all of the different Ordos. Just instead of Ordos, he is listing different cabals.

Like, you could come up with any cabal idea and it would probably exist.

My bet is on a cabal that is actively fighting the Ordo Chronos because the cabal is trying to utilize the Warp to send themselves back in time to warn the Great Crusade Imperium of the Horus Heresy.
 
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Swordomatic said:
You clenched your jaw, arms and legs trembling as you tried to rein in your anger. All those lives lost, all the people you tried to save… How many of them died because of some trigger-happy Inquisitor or overly cautious Space Marine? And your father never bothered to teach them how to catch the warning signs.
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Is she not gonna add "how many died to over merciful marines"? I dunno, she's aware by now that others don't have her literally divine sight (and I can't help but groan every time the actually 40k years old Goddess moans and whinges about "not being special") so is she just not hearing anything? Does Chaos killing people not matter to her? Ugh, it's honestly kinda annoying to see her doing this. I dunno, feels like half of it is her just denying the reality of the situation and the other half is her holding everyone to her own standards while the galaxy's been burning down around them and they aren't Alpha plus gods and goddesses.
 
Well we're dealing with the Imperium- the incredibly messy mess that is the Imperium of Man has shot itself in the foot several times over and is filled with more corruption and assholes than you can shake a stick at. Text to Speech Emperor threw a actually warp storm fit when he heard about the inquisition, so her reaction is positively restrained. Pandora's gonna get a little frustrated dealing with the imperial shitfest.
 
Vulkanus said:
Well we're dealing with the Imperium- the incredibly messy mess that is the Imperium of Man has shot itself in the foot several times over and is filled with more corruption and assholes than you can shake a stick at. Text to Speech Emperor threw a actually warp storm fit when he heard about the inquisition, so her reaction is positively restrained. Pandora's gonna get a little frustrated dealing with the imperial shitfest.
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Yeah, but it just feels incredibly obnoxious to get angry about the fact that the literal whole rest of the galaxy isn't anywhere near as good as the thousands year old goddess at being able to spot chaos influence.
Like what are these people meant to do? Just let Chaos cults infiltrate all of their armies after every battle? This stuff would have actually HAPPENED before the mass sterilisation of chaos battlefields began taking place, and that's a lot less lives lost comparatively.
Even now, she's saying not to do that anymore... but the only thing she's offering is herself and her own personal demons to do the deed personally. This isn't something they COULD have ever done themselves, and it isn't something they can do across the whole of the Imperium either ever, it's not really a solution at all, just a temper tantrum against people who aren't as over-powered as herself needing make unsavoury decisions so they don't all die to chaos, and seeing her act so self righteous about it just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. She's a fucking goddess who can barely stomach walking around in an underhive giving a lecture about how they shouldn't be so careful when battle chaos. Despite being a goddess who has also apparently spent 40k years evading chaos herself???? It's all just so damn tone deaf, and self righteous, and obnoxious.
 
random_npc said:
I think it was less giving up on the eldar, but instead being so desperate to find a better tool they turned to chaos. She is claiming she turned to using chaos after running out of other options, but pandora is calling her out on giving up one a much much less bad option after making only a half hearted attempt to use it.
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Akasha said:
Pandora seemed more upset about the hyper-advanced Eldar tech the Inquisition had access to, but which they refused to use after they (non-Psykers) failed to use it, despite being so desperate they believed summoning and binding Daemons by feeding them innocent people's souls was justified. Seeing as the dialogue was preceded by a mental rant on how dangerous, uncontrollable and monstrous Psykers were, it is possible the true reason behind the decision was the prejudice against Psykers convincing the Inquisitor to avoid empowering the "beasts" by making them genuinely important to the Imperium, as users/researchers of Eldar tech. The Inquisitor herself seemed unaware of this, but given how obvious it was that a non-Psyker won't be able to use Psyker tech, it seems likely. That would have pissed Pandora off, especially given that she is a Psyker herself.

Moreover, Pandora herself told people that part of the reason why she can control and calm the Warp as well as she does is the way she uses Eldar Psychic techniques. So, shortly after the Grey Knights not-threatened Pandora for refusing to teach them her psychic techniques (which she did because Sanctic Daemonology can very easily become actual Daemonology, and she isn't sure she can trust people with it) she finds out about Inquisitors summoning Daemons and feeding them people, using the aforementioned Daemonology. Because they didn't want to research the Eldar tech they had free access to.

If it were me, I would have gone full Emperor and sent her, and others like her, into the Warp. After bashing my face on the nearest durable flat surface.
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Thanks you both for the explanation. Even when the Eldar wouldn't pay off it would still be legal and would not be feeding souls to Chaos. A shame she fell to desperation or temptation. At least there was no protest about helping stop her faction from doing the same.

And humans can actually use Eldar psychic weaponry? That's amazing news to me. There was one Inquisitor with the Eldar pistol, but that wasn't psychic. I figured if it was not keyed or designed to work for elves, then it would be beyond the Imperium's understanding to research or use. Mainly because wraithbone, but I figured there's likely other design choices that complicate it further.
 
AzureShogun said:
Yeah, but it just feels incredibly obnoxious to get angry about the fact that the literal whole rest of the galaxy isn't anywhere near as good as the thousands year old goddess at being able to spot chaos influence.
Like what are these people meant to do? Just let Chaos cults infiltrate all of their armies after every battle? This stuff would have actually HAPPENED before the mass sterilisation of chaos battlefields began taking place, and that's a lot less lives lost comparatively.
Even now, she's saying not to do that anymore... but the only thing she's offering is herself and her own personal demons to do the deed personally. This isn't something they COULD have ever done themselves, and it isn't something they can do across the whole of the Imperium either ever, it's not really a solution at all, just a temper tantrum against people who aren't as over-powered as herself needing make unsavoury decisions so they don't all die to chaos, and seeing her act so self righteous about it just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. She's a fucking goddess who can barely stomach walking around in an underhive giving a lecture about how they shouldn't be so careful when battle chaos. Despite being a goddess who has also apparently spent 40k years evading chaos herself???? It's all just so damn tone deaf, and self righteous, and obnoxious.
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The reason she can't stomachs walking through an underhive is that they're fucking terrible! The policies that create them, the enforcers that carry it out, the rulers that continue these patterns, the systems that create, shape, and prune them into this... all of them are complicit in some of the greatest sophont suffering to ever exist, and for nothing! Having the under hives makes the imperium less capable, even at its own goals, much less accomplishing good. The same goes for their treatment of chaos; the imperium's response to chaos is the policy equivalent of flailing angrily, and about as effective. Leaving aside that the means are pretty fucking terrible and would take one hell of a justification, you can't go "the ends justify the means" if you don't actually, you know, achieve the ends.

The word you're looking for is righteous, not self righteous.
 
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If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device and also his Eldest Daughter Returned - Special 1: No Cost Too Great (For Good Taste) - EternalStruggle
  • Apocrypha
    • If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device and also his Eldest Daughter Returned - Special 1: No Cost Too Great (For Good Taste)
    [How can you not like Sailor Moon? It's an absolute classic.] You roll your eyes dismissively, reaffirming that truly your dad has no idea what he's talking about.

    "Of course I like Sailor Moon, everyone likes Sailor Moon. I'm just saying, Madoka was genre-redefining just as much as Sailor Moon was genre-defining, and it had such impeccable pacing. Did everything it needed to do in a dozen episodes, no more and no less. Sure, it's not perfect, but nothing is, and the emotional core is so overwhelmingly beautiful that it overshadows any flaws." You are of course right and correct and everyone who disagrees with you is an uncultured barbarian. Except the poor Captain-General off to one side, who has absolutely no clue what you two are talking about due to a bad case of being a bit under twenty eight thousand years too late to the cultural reference. You'll explain to him later.

    [You have no idea what you are talking about my child. That show is overrated, because it merely spawned poor imitators that lacked any value. Meanwhile Sailor Moon redefined seinen as a genre for decades. It's simply on another level entirely, much like we are on another level from the rancid galactic tumors called the Chaos Gods.]

    Okay, no, this wasn't happening. "You're just making shit up at this point! It was forty thousand years ago basically, you probably don't even remember!"

    [Young lady it was just as long ago for you.]

    Alright, that does it. "If you're going to be so obviously wrong, you leave me no choice. Dad, I challenge you to a game of Paradox-Billiards-Vostroyan-Roulette-Fourth Dimensional-Hypercube-Chess-Strip Poker. Whoever wins has the correct take on Information Age Magical Girl anime."

    [Deal. I hope you are prepared for a schooling in the art of war.]

    "I hope you're prepared for a schooling in the art of this game. I already know you're over there with some stupid themed deck, but what you don't realize is that I play to win." You snap your fingers as you assume a suitably dramatic pose, and in a flash of brilliant rose gold light you are transformed from... yourself to also yourself but in a frilly dress and with a Duel Disk. Yeah, you don't really have a Magical Girl identity anymore, so the whole transformation sequence loses a bit of its luster. That's why you never bothered to bring it out until something of sufficient gravitas arrived, like your dad having shit taste. Well, more like okay taste, but you had expected better from him!

    [We'll see about that. You go first.]

    Standard five card draw, alright, let's see. Hmm, good, that was good. You didn't have the immediate Monster but you did have your deck search in hand, along with... yes, this would do nicely. "Alright! I use Reinforcement of the Army to summon Elemental Hero Stratos to my hand, whom I then play and summon another card from my deck to my hand-"

    [Wait a fucking minute.] You raise an eyebrow in the middle of your first turn. [I know this opening. You're divdecking me.] Div as in short for divination, which was all the rage in the modern Warp Meta for the game. You remember when it was called netdecking, the good old days.

    "I am and I'll do it again." You say confidently. "For victory of good taste, there is no cost too great."

    [I admit I was not expecting this from my little Pandypan. Is this- oh.] You raise your other eyebrow. [Is this because your mother and I got you into those card games back in the day, and then you disappeared before you could really explore them?]

    "No it's because some things are worth fighting for." You point out reasonably. Then you pause, and incline your head slightly. "...okay maybe also the fact I never got to play with you in life."

    To your surprise, after a moment's pause you're enveloped in a tingly sensation that you belatedly realize is dad's best psychic estimate of a hug using telekinesis. It's... surprisingly nice, actually.

    After a few seconds you do speak up. "You should probably stop causing yourself pain. Also we need to finish the game."

    [Alright. Well, you'll soon see that even divdecking won't save you from the Warp meta. Your old man isn't playing around.]

    "We'll see. As I was saying! With the Hero card from Stratos' ability searched from my deck into my hand, I then..."
    ________________

    "I think they're probably both misremembering, but at this point I'm too afraid to say so." Kitten muttered to Rogal Dorn in the corner.

    "Perhaps. Either way, I do not see what is fourth dimensional, chesslike, or strip poker-esque about their so-called duel. It seems instead as if they are playing a children's card game." The Primarch replied.

    "Well... yeah it kind of does, doesn't it?"
     
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    AzureShogun said:
    She's a fucking goddess who can barely stomach walking around in an underhive giving a lecture about how they shouldn't be so careful when battle chaos. Despite being a goddess who has also apparently spent 40k years evading chaos herself????
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    Yeah, that's why she's qualified to judge them for going way overboard on managing Chaos taint. Even in the quote you took Panda noted that there were warning signs that Emps had just apparently never bothered to teach anybody. There are absolutely methods and ways to investigate for chaos corruption that don't involve killing literally everybody that could have been exposed, especially when they end up killing the people who very well could grow to be veterans at fighting Chaos.

    Like Panda's said before, Chaos isn't as virulent as the Imperium seems to assume, and there are ways you can check for it. Killing everybody who could possibly have been exposed to Chaos for the sin of having not been taught what Chaos was is an insane overreaction, especially when it continues to leave the Guard oblivious to the actual signs of chaos corruption that create cults that regularly occur anyway, despite the apparently vital mass slaughters that the Imperium takes every time they notice a guardsman saw a corrupted crockpot.
     
    AzureShogun said:
    Is she not gonna add "how many died to over merciful marines"? I dunno, she's aware by now that others don't have her literally divine sight (and I can't help but groan every time the actually 40k years old Goddess moans and whinges about "not being special") so is she just not hearing anything? Does Chaos killing people not matter to her? Ugh, it's honestly kinda annoying to see her doing this. I dunno, feels like half of it is her just denying the reality of the situation and the other half is her holding everyone to her own standards while the galaxy's been burning down around them and they aren't Alpha plus gods and goddesses.
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    AzureShogun said:
    Yeah, but it just feels incredibly obnoxious to get angry about the fact that the literal whole rest of the galaxy isn't anywhere near as good as the thousands year old goddess at being able to spot chaos influence.
    Like what are these people meant to do? Just let Chaos cults infiltrate all of their armies after every battle? This stuff would have actually HAPPENED before the mass sterilisation of chaos battlefields began taking place, and that's a lot less lives lost comparatively.
    Even now, she's saying not to do that anymore... but the only thing she's offering is herself and her own personal demons to do the deed personally. This isn't something they COULD have ever done themselves, and it isn't something they can do across the whole of the Imperium either ever, it's not really a solution at all, just a temper tantrum against people who aren't as over-powered as herself needing make unsavoury decisions so they don't all die to chaos, and seeing her act so self righteous about it just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. She's a fucking goddess who can barely stomach walking around in an underhive giving a lecture about how they shouldn't be so careful when battle chaos. Despite being a goddess who has also apparently spent 40k years evading chaos herself???? It's all just so damn tone deaf, and self righteous, and obnoxious.
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    The point is that the Imperium could have been better than this, but because they've failed to be they find themselves in this endless cycle of 'doing horrible things in order to survive'

    Yeah in the line you quoted she's the only one with the knowledge to diagnose when someone's actually turned to Chaos and when someone's merely been exposed to bad stuff but is still salvageable, but that's because the Imperium has run off of "Kill them all and let the God Emperor sort them out" since inception
    Because Emps, who has all the knowledge, never bothered teaching them the difference
    Because he decided to go for complete information blackout, thereby denying them valuable information on how to fight Chaos and never trusted anyone enough to pass that knowledge onto anyone else

    You're quoting a specific line in isolation of the rest of the conversation and complaining that Panda's self righteous for being angry that they don't know better
    She's angry because they should know better

    Swordomatic said:
    The Grey Knights became silent, and you laughed bitterly. "What the hell has he been teaching any of you… He should know better than anyone that fear is not a weapon you can turn against Chaos! It is a weapon of Chaos! Fighting fire with fire just leaves you a bigger fire, and then everyone dies!"

    Now, one of the Prognosticars spoke. "Lady Pandora… Our understanding was not divine insight granted by the Emperor, but something we earned from our own study and trials."

    "...Are you fucking serious?"

    Together, the Prognosticars nodded. "And even with this heavy-handed approach, far too many rogue witches claim the lives of thousands every single day," the other said quietly. "The hand of Chaos is everywhere, Lady Pandora. And not all of us are blessed with your divine sight to know what is and isn't too much for a mortal soul to bear."

    "We would do better, if we could," the first Prognosticar reiterated. "But we cannot. So teach us."

    You clenched your jaw, arms and legs trembling as you tried to rein in your anger. All those lives lost, all the people you tried to save… How many of them died because of some trigger-happy Inquisitor or overly cautious Space Marine? And your father never bothered to teach them how to catch the warning signs.

    What the hell did he become?
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    EternalStruggle said:
    You snap your fingers as you assume a suitably dramatic pose, and in a flash of brilliant rose gold light you are transformed from... yourself to also yourself but in a frilly dress and with a Duel Disk. Yeah, you don't really have a Magical Girl identity anymore, so the whole transformation sequence loses a bit of its luster. That's why you never bothered to bring it out until something of sufficient gravitas arrived,
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    Hey, it wouldn't be a proper duel with children's trading cards without the effects and dramatics.
     
    Ya know after watching an adaptus rediculus episode on the schola program... and if thats were Inquistors/Commissars come from I'm surprised more haven't turned to Chaos.

    Honestly one of the punishments unleased for trying too escape on time feels like they are practically preping the place for a big Chaos ritual.
     
    Have neither of these heathens ever heard of the classic that is Revolutionary Girl Utena?!

    And speaking of, Tzeentch is totally an Utena stan :V
     
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