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

[The Laurent]

Blah. To me, this feels like demanding a lot of paperwork from the QM that they don't want to write and we don't want to read. I'd rather make some assumptions and mistakes than turn this game from fun into work by always, constantly asking a billion questions and demanding every piece of information we should have. See here for more thoughts on the matter.

I mean, I appreciate the info and worldbuilding, and it definitely seems like we need that space grounding song sooner rather than later. They definitely went heavy into psy-tech here, and I don't like the mention of


But, surprise surprise they don't release any information about their counterespionage systems in a public forum. Who would have thought.

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I mean, if it actually is them for everything it's... a bit baffling, honestly? Because like we outright were like, "Does this seem like something the Alpha Legion, an actual meme of super stealthiness that goes beyond the impossible in a way only Space Marines can do, could do?" and it was like, "The Lamenters say that this is beyond even them."

E: To clarify here, I'm talking about the sabotage where all of our experts and Choirs have come away with, "This is beyond us" and the Lamenters have come away with, "This is beyond the Alpha Legion."

 

[The Laurent]

That said, I feel like as long as there's not surprises we could always just... space out the reports? Or maybe just provide information only when something new happens that we'd notice, @HeroCooky ?

Like if we're getting intelligence reports for all these people, then a surprise invasion, for instance, shouldn't be super likely. It's possible, since obviously counter-intelligence exists, but etc, etc.

Similarly, if there's a civil war or massive societal upheaval, we'd presumably just... be told about it?

 

[Neablis]

I mean, if it actually is them for everything it's... a bit baffling, honestly? Because like we outright were like, "Does this seem like something the Alpha Legion, an actual meme of super stealthiness that goes beyond the impossible in a way only Space Marines can do, could do?" and it was like, "The Lamenters say that this is beyond even them."

E: To clarify here, I'm talking about the sabotage where all of our experts and Choirs have come away with, "This is beyond us" and the Lamenters have come away with, "This is beyond the Alpha Legion."

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And given the above briefing, the answer is very likely to be "Psyker shit." The way we defend against that is with our own psykers.

 

[HeroCooky]

That said, I feel like as long as there's not surprises we could always just... space out the reports? Or maybe just provide information only when something new happens that we'd notice, @HeroCooky ?

Like if we're getting intelligence reports for all these people, then a surprise invasion, for instance, shouldn't be super likely. It's possible, since obviously counter-intelligence exists, but etc, etc.

Similarly, if there's a civil war or massive societal upheaval, we'd presumably just... be told about it?

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Yes, but I have a feeling that taking four days to lay out what you know and see of your neighbours will let me see what you think you should know and start correcting that.

Also, updated the Psykana - Songs.

And given the above briefing, the answer is very likely to be "Psyker shit." The way we defend against that is with our own psykers.

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Your Choirs have fundamentally ruled out any "Psyker Shit" due to not finding anything after weeks of investigation. This was done by mundane means, or by such high psykery it isn't even funny.

 

[The Laurent]

The factoid I'm most peeved by is this one, tbh?

"Very interestingly, Psykers feature heavily in these propaganda pict-reels as those burdened by the God-Emperor to be vessels for his will and power, to set out and destroy the enemies of humanity in his name at the risk of searing out their soul and letting the Warp devour it. They are mostly seen using their powers to turn entire Ork advances into ash or using pin-point fire of lightning to set Drukhari ablaze, but some have them depicted as "conduits" for machinery to eradicate ships with jets of fire and carve through them with beams of unreality. The end of those pict-reels states without fail that all children above 6 Standard Terran Years must be brought to an Examination Center to be scanned for psychic potential, and non-compliance is punishable by death."

Like, if this shows up in any Sermons at all it would be massively, incredibly divergent from everything we know about the baseline Imperium, including Neon.

And given the above briefing, the answer is very likely to be "Psyker shit." The way we defend against that is with our own psykers.

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Our own Psykers with all the time in the world to look still have no goddamn clue. I know we're not god-tier or anything, but it feels there'd at least be... vague impressions that something might have happened there relating to Psykana.

E: Ninja'd!

 

[HeroCooky]

The factoid I'm most peeved by is this one, tbh?

"Very interestingly, Psykers feature heavily in these propaganda pict-reels as those burdened by the God-Emperor to be vessels for his will and power, to set out and destroy the enemies of humanity in his name at the risk of searing out their soul and letting the Warp devour it. They are mostly seen using their powers to turn entire Ork advances into ash or using pin-point fire of lightning to set Drukhari ablaze, but some have them depicted as "conduits" for machinery to eradicate ships with jets of fire and carve through them with beams of unreality. The end of those pict-reels states without fail that all children above 6 Standard Terran Years must be brought to an Examination Center to be scanned for psychic potential, and non-compliance is punishable by death."

Like, if this shows up in any Sermons at all it would be massively, incredibly divergent from everything we know about the baseline Imperium, including Neon.

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Yes, it is very divergent, but "Psykers have been given their powers by the Emperor to use for Humanity" is a valid stance that occurs within the main 40k Canon Imperium, and with ~300-400 years of no valid Imperial Authority and ~800 years of no Astronomican and Imperial Contact, I feel that, if they started using and developing Psy-Tech, it would be a natural outgrowth and heresy to happen.

 

[The Laurent]

Yes, it is very divergent, but "Psykers have been given their powers by the Emperor to use for Humanity" is a valid stance that occurs within the main 40k Canon Imperium, and with ~300-400 years of no valid Imperial Authority and ~800 years of no Astronomican and Imperial Contact, I feel that, if they started using and developing Psy-Tech, it would be a natural outgrowth and heresy to happen.

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Oh, it happening is not my complaint! It's more that we had an entire turn where we sent Choirs specifically to recruit Psykers, like as an explicit thing it was their job to do, and... agh.

 

[One Autumn Leaf]

It's one of three issues.
1st is that their internal spy agencies are just good and we got caught.
2nd is that our spying hasn't been as subtle as expected and we got the numbers high enough to be an issue now
3rd is some other fucker fucking around via non psyker methods...


@HeroCooky what was the species that the Duchy went to war against? Do we know anything about them?

 

[HeroCooky]

Oh, it happening is not my complaint! It's more that we had an entire turn where we sent Choirs specifically to recruit Psykers, like as an explicit thing it was their job to do, and... agh.

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Ah, that...I forgot to think about. But, yeah, you do grab any psykers in the Underhive you can get pretty quick, 'cause they sure as shit ain't trusting the Upperhive fucks.

You have the equivalent of 40 Choirs on there, btw. Not as long-lived due to no/very little Juvenat getting shipped and taken up by the sent Choirs, but you have a psychic nuke ready to deploy.

@HeroCooky what was the species that the Duchy went to war against? Do we know anything about them?

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Nothing besides propaganda, and that boils down to "They eat souls, puppet bodies, and are hell-bent on killing us all! So we must kill them first!"

 

[zack omega24]

[] Black Ash Clan, Black Cat Company, and The Croaf Hegemony

 

[One Autumn Leaf]

Nothing besides propaganda, and that boils down to "They eat souls, puppet bodies, and are hell-bent on killing us all! So we must kill them first!"

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They...puppet bodies...I have a thought but hmm...what is this Illithid looking bullshit


Edit: We need a song that protects people from outside influences stat. I think it's could be non psyker based mind control

 

[Professor Vesca]

@HeroCooky Is it possible that there are underhivers who are betraying us to the state?

Like these are broad attacks, but they arent actually catastrophic. Just very tragic, and the only impact is they have stalled our growth. Is it possible there are cells of counter-revolutionaries in the underhive working for the Devil they know?

Also if we wanted to broaden the Revolution to the upper parts of the hive, what would be a good place to start?

We have a manufacturing base in the underhive, we have LOTS of underhivers at our beck and call, and we have a supply of psykers we are educating. Now is a good time to broaden our reach into the upper levels of the hives, and start recruiting people who could give our fifth column some real punch.

 

[PurposefulZephyr]

Glad to have this dossier. Fills in holes in understanding of this active warzone. Shows potential targets and informs later strategy.
Less eager for other dossiers- they are far less important than this massive Action sink that is this hive, this Duchy.

I feel like we really should lean on the bribery petty crime and spy aspects, and grow a serious intelligence agency in the hive. Turn our ignorance into wisdom.
Recruit our people as couriers.
Bribe business owners for copies of their reports.
Disappear especially vicious enforcers and substitute our own forces.
Get all the way into top of the hive, spreading like a goddamn virus.
Know who and where everyone of importance is.
Be the Alpha Legion we always wanted to be.

With 40(!!!) Choirs, with a Stealth Song soon to hit the hive block near you, we could use this intel for some serious sabotage.
Was nice to cleanse a whole hive without others noticing, huh?
How about we do that to them? Identify all the bottlenecks of food and material deliveries, the most important people responsible for responding to rebellions, most breakable bones of this hive... and we shatter them all at once.

Galas of nobles dropping dead as their air filtration system fails.
Generals not being there to respond to the revolution, because more than half of them are chunky salsa.
Food couriers bribed to deliver supplies to depots owned by us.
Psyker Lord manors overwhelmed with immense wrath of fire and faith.
Defense positions disabled by codes of a now-scrapped Magos.

We have people in the underhive, now it's time to get them everywhere. Good luck cleaning all of that, Super Alpha Plus Asshat!

 

[Neablis]

Also, updated the Psykana - Songs.

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Nice. That should help a lot.

You have the equivalent of 40 Choirs on there, btw. Not as long-lived due to no/very little Juvenat getting shipped and taken up by the sent Choirs, but you have a psychic nuke ready to deploy.

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...huh. that feels like a pretty powerful resource. Wow, we should give them a conversion song or something.

 

[Legion0047]

thanks for the reports. Let's keep this rolling to get the game back on track as soon as possible.

 

[10ebbor10]

[] (Write-In)

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- What is their current military doctrine? We've been in their system for decades now, surely we've seen every single formation and weapon by now. Unless the enemy has never done a training drill?

However, the attacks against the Underhives are seen by nearly everyone as only a breaking of deals if no warning was sent by the paid-off enforcers or those who had their backs scratched with delivered goods, people, or services. Those people either vanished of their own volition quickly found out that the cruelty of the Drukhari does not compare to that of Gangers seeking revenge.

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This seems to indicate that the current winning vote is actively going to raise suspicion. A normal ganger hive would not respond to a factory up-hive dousing them them with pollution with inaction and withdrawal, but with retaliation.

Currently, their propaganda has shifted to focus on the "White Void" "eating Sub-Sector Archwan" in response to their discovery of our existence. It primarily focuses on getting people to sign up for the Voxxian PDF and SDF, with a side note of justifying increased quotas. They have adopted a Siege Mentality stance against us, with justifications being laid down for mass conscriptions once conflict breaks out. Yes, once, for they are certain that the White Void will soon come to devour them, too.

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Going to be a bit miffed if this turns out to be caused by our "shoot scouts on sight" policy, because that's one you outright said we should take.

 

[aceraptor]

It's one of three issues.
1st is that their internal spy agencies are just good and we got caught.
2nd is that our spying hasn't been as subtle as expected and we got the numbers high enough to be an issue now
3rd is some other fucker fucking around via non psyker methods...


@HeroCooky what was the species that the Duchy went to war against? Do we know anything about them?

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I mean it could be all three combined. We didn't subvert the lower level monitoring elements that keep a finger on the pulse of the under Hive so when our group got too big and too organized we'd stick out. The Duchy is clearly no slouch at internal security and fixed some of the Imperium's flaws and diverged enough that our ideas on what to do against the Imperium won't work as well. Especially with psysurvival. Oh and there's also a third party messing with stuff regardless.

They've set up their own psykana and have been marinating in propaganda that are decidedly pro-Psykers or at least respectful of psykers- seeing them (at leaet their equivalent of sanctioned psykers) as brave warriors that risk their very souls to do the Emperor's will.

This is a really good reminder that all the Imperal successors that we'll face in the future, if they've survived long enough to come into conflict with us, will have diverged from the Imperium massively for the sake of survivial.

 

[HeroCooky]

Updated the Omake Bounty Board.

@HeroCooky Is it possible that there are underhivers who are betraying us to the state?

Like these are broad attacks, but they arent actually catastrophic. Just very tragic, and the only impact is they have stalled our growth. Is it possible there are cells of counter-revolutionaries in the underhive working for the Devil they know?

Also if we wanted to broaden the Revolution to the upper parts of the hive, what would be a good place to start?

We have a manufacturing base in the underhive, we have LOTS of underhivers at our beck and call, and we have a supply of psykers we are educating. Now is a good time to broaden our reach into the upper levels of the hives, and start recruiting people who could give our fifth column some real punch.

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Oh yes, absolutely. The effects of that are just way below your notice. Think someone ratting out a small affiliated gang for Heresy, or some wares being stolen, that kind of effect.

Certainly, but not enough to matter or powerful enough to not get squished once they start making trouble and you notice them.

Through the servants. Nobody notices the servants.

What is their current military doctrine? We've been in their system for decades now, surely we've seen every single formation and weapon by now. Unless the enemy has never done a training drill?

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Torp and Destroyer Spam, with a side of Heavy Snipers mixed in. They rush the Destroyers at you, release a metric-fuck-you-ton of torps, then blast what remains with their sniper ships in the back.

Going to be a bit miffed if this turns out to be caused by our "shoot scouts on sight" policy, because that's one you outright said we should take.

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They would have rammed their navy down Archwan if you hadn't. Now you are "Mysterious Danger That Ate A Sub-Sector" instead of "Fresh Meat For The Taking!"

 

[Professor Vesca]

- What is their current military doctrine? We've been in their system for decades now, surely we've seen every single formation and weapon by now. Unless the enemy has never done a training drill?



This seems to indicate that the current winning vote is actively going to raise suspicion. A normal ganger hive would not respond to a factory up-hive dousing them them with pollution with inaction and withdrawal, but with retaliation.


Going to be a bit miffed if this turns out to be caused by our "shoot scouts on sight" policy, because that's one you outright said we should take.

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So they never sent scouts to begin with. The scouting reports were entirely falsified. Then whatever was doing that stopped and an actual scout was sent.

Blowing up scouts was good. It isn't the source of us being uncovered.

Updated the Omake Bounty Board.
Oh yes, absolutely. The effects of that are just way below your notice. Think someone ratting out a small affiliated gang for Heresy, or some wares being stolen, that kind of effect.

Certainly, but not enough to matter or powerful enough to not get squished once they start making trouble and you notice them.

Through the servants. Nobody notices the servants.
Torp and Destroyer Spam, with a side of Heavy Snipers mixed in. They rush the Destroyers at you, release a metric-fuck-you-ton of torps, then blast what remains with their sniper ships in the back.
They would have rammed their navy down Archwan if you hadn't. Now you are "Mysterious Danger That Ate A Sub-Sector" instead of "Fresh Meat For The Taking!"

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Okay.

So my proposal to expand into the lower hive and hive proper is to begin infiltrating servants. We have a propaganda office so we should direct it at producing revolutionary propaganda tailored for the lower hives, specifically the servant class.

We should work at building class consciousness amongst the servants of the aristocracy and then once we have a foothold there branch out into the rest of the hive.

This is their recruiting world. They aren't going to glass it. If fighting breaks out they are going to fight us in hab to hab shootouts.

@HeroCooky can we take actions to raise the quality and capability of the underhivers? Can we set up schools to educate them and disseminate revolutionary propaganda?

We need to get more data on the lower hive to see if the hive/s are ripe to explode into revolutionary fervor.

Even though this isn't the Imperium this is going to be good practice for us going forward.

 

[Always Late]

Like, if this shows up in any Sermons at all it would be massively, incredibly divergent from everything we know about the baseline Imperium, including Neon.

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Our own Psykers with all the time in the world to look still have no goddamn clue. I know we're not god-tier or anything, but it feels there'd at least be... vague impressions that something might have happened there relating to Psykana.

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The real problem with the whole Psyker thing isn't religious doctrine or somehow getting spotted.

It's that lore-wise, this place shouldn't exist. Not without exploding into Bloodthirsters.

Every Psyker that isn't fed into the Throne is Soul-bound under the guidance of the Scholastica Psykana, the only way to make remotely stable Psykers. Technological implants are universally a debilitating measure of keeping their power manageable. And even beyond that, the ability to weaponize Psykers like we're seeing is a throwback to the Techno-Barbarian warlords of Terra's Age Of Strife. Such technology was so deadly, so unstable, Big E banned everyone but him from having it in the Ordo Sinister.* So put all that together and you have not just technology, but institutional knowledge that shouldn't be accessible to anyone outside the absolute highest levels of Imperial Government.

I said it before, and I think it bears repeating: Van Zandt must have Inquisitorial backing, either now or in the past. Probably through whatever that "Cogitation" ship is. There's no other organization that can touch Assasinorum, Psykana, and Psi-Titan technology all together, much less know how to use it.


*Technically, as of post-Heresy the Senatorum was nice enough to give the new Adeptus Mechanicus their Psi-Titans back, but Mars still basically never uses them because of that God-Emperor set precedent.

 

[The Laurent]

Idea, by the way. Now that we know the major ships that deliver the Ag Food, if we have people in the shipbuilding on Voxx Primus, and we're taking an action to infiltrate Voxx Secondus, we could (and should) get people onto/into that ship and the docks from both ends.

 

[Professor Vesca]

You know. If we are going to ferment revolution we need a symbol.

A white star rises over the hive. A specter haunts it's streets.

The specter of communism.

 

[The Laurent]

The real problem with the whole Psyker thing isn't religious doctrine or somehow getting spotted.

It's that lore-wise, this place shouldn't exist. Not without exploding into Bloodthirsters.

Every Psyker that isn't fed into the Throne is Soul-bound under the guidance of the Scholastica Psykana, the only way to make remotely stable Psykers. Technological implants are universally a debilitating measure of keeping their power manageable. And even beyond that, the ability to weaponize Psykers like we're seeing is a throwback to the Techno-Barbarian warlords of Terra's Age Of Strife. Such technology was so deadly, so unstable, Big E banned everyone but him from having it in the Ordo Sinister.* So put all that together and you have not just technology, but institutional knowledge that shouldn't be accessible to anyone outside the absolute highest levels of Imperial Government.

I said it before, and I think it bears repeating: Van Zandt must have Inquisitorial backing, either now or in the past. Probably through whatever that "Cogitation" ship is. There's no other organization that can touch Assasinorum, Psykana, and Psi-Titan technology all together, much less know how to use it.


*Technically, as of post-Heresy the Senatorum was nice enough to give the new Adeptus Mechanicus their Psi-Titans back, but Mars still basically never uses them because of that God-Emperor set precedent.

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I will note that we explicitly know this is not quite true. Is this what the Imperium believes? Yes.

 

[BigBadBob7070]

They...puppet bodies...I have a thought but hmm...what is this Illithid looking bullshit


Edit: We need a song that protects people from outside influences stat. I think it's could be non psyker based mind control

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Sounds a lot like these fuckers:

Enslavers

"Call them what you will—Krell, Psyrens or Enslavers. Just one witch, unsanctioned, caused the destruction of Hive Skorpios when one of those things used her brain as a gateway to this world. Within three days the entire hive’s population was reduced to drooling mindslaves. Within three weeks an...

warhammer40k.fandom.com

 

[IronBig21]

We got intel!

One polity I really want us to get an intelligence report on are the Eldar and the Ashanu, especially the latter because all we know is that they scream if they see us. Would like to see if we could find a way to eventually get them to open up (probably by screaming back louder).