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Shroud (Grey Goo game Shroud SI / Warhammer 40k)

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Talk about complicated situation, sheesh...

The way i see it, the MC will sadly, eventually have to face the Emperor, if the Compact, it's people that are currently bonded with the Shroud, and most importantly, him, are to live.

If that's the case, then the first thing he must do is make sure everyone is on board with whatever plan he has, that includes making sure everyone is loyal to him, not sure how Timaeus will feel about it, but i suppose you could try to persuade him by allowing him to speak with his Father, try and see if Diplomacy works. Have a feeling Timaeus will need to pull a straight 100 Speech Check: Persuasion + Education History/Culture + Biology (Chemistry and Psychology) all mastered to even keep up with the Emperor, and even then... be Ready to bail him out if things go south.

For the moment, the smart thing to do is:
1. Find an empty planet to settle your people that is to be marked as the capital of the Compact, maybe give it a quirky name like Avalon, that's meant to stand tall as a beacon of Light in an otherwise bleak Galaxy.

2. After settling in and strengthening it properly, draft a Constitution, a set of Core Common Laws that everyone can agree on that are supposed to act as the Foundation/Bedrock upon which the Compact is found on formally. Do also try to create a culture that promotes the support of the Compact, a culture that sees people of all races self-identifying as part of the Compact first and foremost, and secondly as a citizen of their own country/world/race. Emphasis on the Constitution/Shroud as the Core tenent upon which the culture is founded on.

3. Try to find the other planets populated by other people, be they human or xenos.
Take a look at their tech level - which depending on it will make things easier or harder if war is the only choice, culture/history - stance on other governmental entities and biology/psychology.

4. Once done, see if Diplomacy is possible.

I. If they're ORKS then PURGE or/and DEVOUR them.

II. If they were infected by CHAOS then PURGE or/and DEVOUR them.
If there are any packets of untainted people or those whose Souls can still be saved then try and rescue them, do make sure to have to have your Psykers subtly mind check them to see what kind of people they are, and if they're a threat to the Compact. After that, they should be grateful enough to want to join the Compact.

III. If they're just a normal world, then you need to pay attention to their race. If they're Xenos, then it's important to know if their biology/psychology is not too alien from that of a human, if it is, then you have two choices: assimilate through gene modding or exterminatus.

IV. If exterminated then take the planet for the Compact once done.
If assimilated, make sure their biologically/psychologically similar to humans. After that take a look at their culture/history and see their stance on forging an alliance with the Compact. If the current leaders/regime is too oppressive attempt to covertly remove them, and instead prop up new leaders/regimes that are more in tune to what the Compact wants. Then add them to the Compact as well.
In case if they've been genetically modified and they eventually find out then simply explain to them the reason for the gene uplifting has to do with being able to properly empathize with one another. Also make sure to show them the precise documents pertaining to what was changed and why in great detail. Make sure to pay attention to any would be ambitious people that might plan on causing a rift between the gene uplifted race and the Compact for their own selfish means, and excise said tumor before it grows out of control.

If done this way, then before long you should be able to rebuild the Alliance back to its former glory. Especially for when the Compact gets to finally meet the Imperium.

On a side note, you might want to give Timaeus his own Legion, albeit make sure they're all Astartes Primaris + with Apex Level Psykers instead of just normal Astartes as well as a WAAAGHHH/SHROUDED Primarch field. Should be possible by shortening the research time using the Shroud as a conduit to analyze his biological makeup to create a proper gene seed.

Other than that, maybe the MC should use their knowledge to get access to some Necron/Old One tech early on to combat the Imperium. Also get in contact with packets of the of the remainder of the Eldar Race that are still alive, maybe persuade them to join the Compact by having the Shroud clean some of the planets that haven't been pulled in the Warp Storm and/or find the secret to making those Soulstones and giving it to them.

And lastly, my reason for being wary of the Emperor is because of this:


Edit: Also considering that in this timeline the Emperor's kicking it up all the way to eleven because of the Shroud's Presence might make the Imperium stronger than it was in canon, possibly even DAOT level depending on how much of a threat he sees the MC's shadow.

As for the Heresy, it's more likely that it will be called the Timaeus Heresy, with potential rebels such as Guillman, Sanguinus, Angron, Magnus, Konrad Curze joining, with the Shroud capable of fixing Sanguinus's Red Thirst/Black Rage, fix Angron's Fried Brain, fix Magnus's Unstable Legion, remove Konrad's nightmares/fatebound curse etc. Now that'll be weird...
 
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If you just want to rebuild the Empire in its 40K glory, you could simply let Emps do his thing.
 
Mossconfig said:
explaining the political and economic circumstances
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so you want the circumstances as to why the imperuim is Xenophobic okay

1)the emperor was not xenophobic he was apathetic to aliens if they were not human than he simply didn't care what happened to them though there were exceptions to this if a xeno race was trying to fill the power vacuum left by the fall of the eldar empire and the long night then they were a threat to mankind's dominance over the galaxy like the Rangadan or the orks that were nearing becoming the korks again then they were marked for extermination , the only other exception the emperors apathy were the xeno who targeted humanity while it was down during the age of strife

2)the earliest members of the great crusade militarily and administrative command were xenophobic and would set the precedent that officers after them would follow . to explain early into the age of strife they likely had a judge them on a case by case system when dealing with xeno but as civilization continued to fall and Terra lost the ability to project power outwards into space various xeno raider and slaver groups would set up in the sol system in fact the earliest battles in the crusade were about driving them out of sol , these xeno groups would target ,raid and harass Terra for thousands of years during the long night with earth simply being incapable of organizing any form of counterattack or response the frustration at there own helplessness would become a hatred aimed towards those xeno raiders and slavers but as time passed and records and education further degraded these xeno would become the only reference the people of Terra had about aliens which would see xenophobia become an ingrained part of Terran culture these same Terrans who would be drafted into the great crusade becoming part of its foundation would see there xenophobic ways institutionalized into the crusade and latter imperuim .

while its easy to lay the blame for the xenophobic ways of the imperuim on the emperor alone people forget that the imperuim is a massive monolithic government with thousands of officers ,administrators and mangers making decisions that effects how policy is made in the imperuim
 
mmgaballah said:
Laying out the case for the "wise emperor misled by his generals" argument.
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That's one way of looking at it. The thing is, from my looking into it, the snake usually rots from the head. Discrimination is usually pushed by the elites. The "stabbed in the back" mythology following Germany's defeat in ww1 originated from right wing aristocrats that lost power following the Weimar coup. The original aim was the Weimar government, not the Jewish people. Xenophobia is something formented and nurtured by the elite so they can justify concentrating power.

mmgaballah said:
raid and harass Terra for thousands of years during the long night with earth simply being incapable of organizing any form of counterattack or response the frustration at there own helplessness would become a hatred aimed towards those xeno
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Except it's giant load of bullshit. The Tech-priesthood were FORCED to acknowledge the Big E as an incarnate of Machine God at gunpoint. This happened after they sent pretty much their entire fleet and army to Terra to prevent the Unification of meatbags, so they can continue to raid ancient Terran tombs and libraries once or twice a century. The Emperor's fleet fucked them so hard only one in ten returned to Mars to tell the tale, so the Fabricator-General was very cooperative when the Emprah's armada arrived in Mars' orbit
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Sure, Im willing to buy that your average Terran didn't like the raids at all.the thing is, your average Terran wouldnt bee all that interested the the differences between an xeno raid and a skittari raid. You're just as dead either way. The thing I'm claiming is that the elites focussed this rage on xenos after the treaty of Olympus mons. That focussing is a deliberate action that comes from the top. Records of allied races from history were dismissed and the more recent pirate raids were woven into a broader narritive of how those dastardly xenos were keeping humanity down.

We don't know what the emperor is like, so this is all conjecture. Hope to read more!
 
Leafy503 said:
Really the Navigators have done this to themselves. The gene is a recessive trait meaning they can only mate with each other, leading to all types of mutations/inbreeding.
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Which is duuuuuumb. A really bad part of canon.

Realistically, they should have as many kids as possible amongst as large a gene pool, then have those kids marry amongst eachother. If they never end up with more navigators, they've lost just about nothing. If one of those kids ends up becoming a much less mutated navigator (And statistically, they should) then you have profited immensely. Because recessive doesn't mean that their kids with others won't carry the trait, it just means that their grand kids have a chance at it, so long as the above steps are taken.

And something the imperium has no shortage of is people willing to get a steady income in exchange for having a few kids, given how bad hive cities can get.
It's not too moral, in a vacuum to make their kids marry from others who came from the program, but it's kinda light years away from the worst things the Imperium, even this early, would do for the sake of mankind.
 
Well considering that the xenos mankind has the most contact with are the works, who are orks, and a combo of craftworld and dark eldar who are stuck-up holier than thou jerks and SM torture-mongers respectively. Also the big E is at best apathetic and at worst see's xenos as current or future competition. At least that's my opinion on this is if the big E is just apathetic dritch will probably be alright, if he dislikes xenos then things will get interesting.
 
Alanek said:
Realistically, they should have as many kids as possible amongst as large a gene pool, then have those kids marry amongst eachother. If they never end up with more navigators, they've lost just about nothing. If one of those kids ends up becoming a much less mutated navigator (And statistically, they should) then you have profited immensely. Because recessive doesn't mean that their kids with others won't carry the trait, it just means that their grand kids have a chance at it, so long as the above steps are taken.
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And risk losing said gene? It's the only thing that made them valuable. Plus it would mean sharing power which is something they would not want to do.
 
Alanek said:
And something the imperium has no shortage of is people willing to get a steady income in exchange for having a few kids, given how bad hive cities can get.
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Mossconfig said:
Sperm production is not a problem in humans.the bottleneck would be finding potential incubators
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That's just the thing. If they mate with a normal human the gene is lost forever.
The unique psychic powers of the Navigators are passed down through each generation. The Navigator Gene, which is recessive, can only be preserved by intermarriage -- it is lost when a Navigator breeds with an ordinary human who does not possess the gene. This factor has led to the development of the closely-related Navigator families. Even when they attain the rank of full Navigator and leave the protection of their House to take up the task to which their nature calls them, their family ties remain strong and bind them tight, reminding them where their true duty lies.
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Plus the process is pretty much selective breeding.
This mutation has not endured through accident, but through careful cultivation. A Navigator is the result of focused selective breeding and rigorous genetic screening by their House at every stage of their development.
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Mossconfig said:
and in the imperium where life is cheap...
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And why would they want to mix their blood with the lower citizens?
It is into this position of power and privilege that a Navigator is born, gifted with unique and strange powers by the blood of their ancestors. Although they may be one among many within their brood, a Navigator knows that they stand head and shoulders above the common citizens of the Emperor's domain because of their unique and priceless ability.
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Leafy503 said:
Considering that this is mutant genes in the future, with warp shenanigans? Lines can get blurred.
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Not if you're using a real term. Maybe they're magic life-scribbles instead of recessive genes, but then they should have called them such. Lucky, that quote doesn't actually say that. It says the ability is lost... which it would be with recessive genes. Then it could reappear next generation so long as both parents possess the recessive gene.
 
Leafy503 said:
Sure, but would the Navigator House want a whole generation of not-navigators? They will lose a bunch of political capital and that is a death knell for a Navigator house.
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Not really? Like, at all. If you're willing to go through vat-generations, you could do it really fast, be even without you simply 'rotate' your generations so you're always producing a reasonable number of both navigators and breeding stock each generation. And after a few generation you'll have enough genetic diversity that it will be safe to have navigator/navigator couples.

Like, this is an epic own-goal.
 
TheLastOne said:
Not really? Like, at all. If you're willing to go through vat-generations, you could do it really fast, be even without you simply 'rotate' your generations so you're always producing a reasonable number of both navigators and breeding stock each generation. And after a few generation you'll have enough genetic diversity that it will be safe to have navigator/navigator couples.
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This is even assuming the child of a not-Navigator will produce a Navigator. It's a rather moot effort since the Navigator gene runs on Warhammer Science and the non-navigator descendents of Navigators can never have Navigator children.
 
Leafy503 said:
This is even assuming the child of a not-Navigator will produce a Navigator. It's a rather moot effort since the Navigator gene runs on Warhammer Science and the non-navigator descendents of Navigators can never have Navigator children.
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Again, not actually what they said in what you quoted.
 
Leafy503 said:
If you can find me a example of a navigator child being produced from a navigator/human lineage than I'd concede.
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We're told they simply never marry out, so I don't need to. Anyone who married outside their carefully controlled breeding program would be disowned, because the Navigator Houses are insane inbred mutants who flunked basic biology.
 
Derail? Anywho, l really hope to what the early mechanicus looks like. Maybe it's more splintered than later versions, and some can be converted to the side of the compact?
 
Mossconfig said:
Anywho, l really hope to what the early mechanicus looks like. Maybe it's more splintered than later versions, and some can be converted to the side of the compact?
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It's possible considering that there was a faction that believed in actual progress and science.
'The Martian Priesthood is an ancient organisation and is learned in the ways of technology, but our grasp of such things is limited by blind adherence to dogma, tradition and repetition. I believe that our future lies in the understanding of technology, that only by experimentation, invention and research will our progress be assured. This view is not widely held on Mars.'

'Why not? Seems perfectly sensible to me.'

Zeth made the crackling, static laugh again. 'That is why I sought you out, Dalia. You have a skill I believe will prove very valuable to me, but one that others will fear.'

'What skill's that?'

'You understand why machines work,' said Zeth. 'You know the principles by which they function and the science behind their operation. I accessed the schematics of what you did to your cogitator station and followed the methodology you employed upon the circuitry. It was quite brilliant.'

'I didn't really do anything special,' said Dalia modestly. 'I just saw how I could make it work faster and more efficiently. Anyone could have done it if they'd put their mind to it.'

'And that is why you are special,' replied Zeth. 'Few could have made the mental leaps to see the things you saw, and even fewer would dare. To many of the Martian Priesthood, you are a very dangerous individual indeed.'

'Dangerous? How?' asked Dalia, quite taken aback by the notion that she might be thought of as a danger to anyone, let alone the priests of the Mechanicum.
 
Gotta tell you, this chapter was mostly a miss for me. Narration heavy. No characters (again). Almost every single thing said present in earlier chapters. This feels kind of meaningless.
 
TheLastOne said:
We're told they simply never marry out, so I don't need to. Anyone who married outside their carefully controlled breeding program would be disowned, because the Navigator Houses are insane inbred mutants who flunked basic biology.
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You're overthinking it man, chill. Look, anyone who has studied biology knows the DNA is the blueprint of the body. What that means is that technically you could very well create a a custom made human DNA that erases itself upon coming in contact with the DNA of a normal human.

Or, one Gene Seed that holds two sets of DNA, the Navigator Gene that is normally dominant, and the Normie-Gene that is dormant, thus if the Navigator-gene ends up impregnating/being impregnated by Normal DNA then the Navigator Gene will detect it and switch the dormant gene into becoming the dominant gene, while at the same time erasing the Navigator Gene from the Gene Sequence, which just as stated, could very easily be done by creating a heavily customized version that barely is human.
 
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4.4
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    • 4.4

    +++

    "Alright. Everybody ready for their roles?"

    A chorus of agreements met her words.

    Lucy nodded, in response. "Stage Four begins now, then. Goodluck, everyone. Dismissed."

    The holograms winked out, and Lucy leaned back, smiling. The table in the center blinked, the representation of the Lightchaser fleet dividing into four.

    The plan was fairly simple, at this point. One big fleet wasn't efficient enough, so we were splitting it into four, two with eleven Lightchasers and two with twelve.

    It was a bit experimental, at this point. Time would see the fleets split or merged as we determined what was better for efficiency and effectivity. I doubted that the number Lightchasers to a fleet would go below five, though.

    Theoretically, we were all going our separate ways. Each fleet would be heading in its own direction, after all. In practice... not so much.

    Wormholes were great like that. Sure, you needed big ones to move ships, but you did not when you were only trying to send data. Take that thought, and that leads to our next strategy:

    We're going to build a networked web of wormholes.

    It was a surprisingly practical ideal, in terms of energy costs; a bunch of small wormholes in proximity didn't need that much energy to run. Even a small asteroid would keep one going for... quite a long time. Upkeep costs would increase with size, but not traffic or distance.

    So, take a Harbinger Probe, a few Stone Ships, grab a suitably large mass at a suitably safe place, and then open a small wormhole to another system. It doesn't have to be big, since size can be altered afterwards. Even a wormhole only a centimeter large, however, can transmit an amount of data that is basically arbitrarily large.

    Build a communications relay, stick one end through the wormhole, and just like that, you've got an effectively instantaneous interstellar communication device.

    Go to the other system, create another wormhole to a third system, repeat the process, and you've got a chain. Theoretically breakable, if the communicators or wormholes in the second system were lost, but that's why the Stone Ships are there; to defend the Harbinger Probe and the wormholes it is sustaining.

    But why stop there? Add more wormholes, such as four or five wormholes per system. What you create then is not a chain, it's a web. No breaking that. At most, you could isolate a single system- if you could get through both the Silence and the Stone Ships.

    Which was good.

    For both of us, to note. I was benefitting because it would keep my mind in one piece, rather than scattering fragments of myself across these stars. They were benefitting because it meant they could network their ships and fleets even across galactic distances with very little lag- an advantage that was so massive that it was impossible to overstate just how important it was.

    And a necessity, too, considering that our population was tiny compared to everything else in the galaxy. Coordination, and efficient use of resources, were the only way we were going to matter on the galactic scale.

    Hence the split. Though another reason for it was to not have all of our eggs in one basket.

    But enough about that. There were four task groups, at the moment. Lucy headed one, and as one might guess if they knew her personality, that one was going to be heading in the general direction of Earth.

    Not straight there, though. We were going to be taking a bit of a long way, passing to every star on the way there rather than just skipping vast swathes of space.

    I hoped that this would delay us for long enough to get us some... experience. Allies too, though I was less hopeful on that.

    Well... Nothing to do about that now, I suppose. We'll just have to see how things go.

    I nudged Lucy's mind, and she sat up straight a moment later. With a flick of her fingers, she summoned the star map again, still coloured from last time.

    A few more gestures had it zoom out, a grid scale appearing. She kept going, stars shrinking into little points of light, just about disappearing- right before an icon appeared at the edge of the map.

    "That's our target." Lucy said. "That's Sol." She pointed at it, and a line flashed into existence, a thin thread linking Sol and our current location.

    She paused for a moment. "MUM. What's the shortest path there if we limited ourselves to jumps of five light years at a time, targeting stars within a thirty degree cone of Sol?"

    The hologram flashed, before the line shifted, turning jagged and twisting instead of straight and perfect. Now, it linked stars, showing a path to Sol.

    It crossed an almost disturbing amount of red markers. A lot of blue, too, with a small amount of yellow.

    "Seven hundred and eighty nine jumps." MUM reported. "Average jump length of three point eight light years. Three hundred and thirty one confirmed Warp Storm Exposure or Containment Zones. Two hundred and sixty confirmed former colony sites. One hundred and eighteen resourcing systems. Seventy nine miscellaneous stars. I calculate that this path is not completely safe."

    "Then we'll just have to make it so." Lucy threaded her fingers together. "Save that course."

    "Confirmed, commander."

    That's her decision, then? Well, if that's what she wishes. I was pretty much back to full, now, in terms of energy, so why not...

    I made a point of memorizing the route. Matching the stars on the map with the stars that I could see. The first one was...

    There. Another red dwarf, not actually marked in any colour. Just an isolated star, lacking a major planetary system. The only worth it had was the bounty of energy in its star.

    How meager.

    And yet, under other circumstances, such a thing would be a great treasure to me. Peace and quiet with a meal like that... If I lacked the bond of Symbiosis, then the meaning changed completely. As it was, instead of a boring treasure, it was just boring.

    Ah well. No trouble in that. A bit of boredom between bouts of interest was just fine.

    Especially since the future is going to be very interesting indeed.
     
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