- Location
- Lowton
Well*Narrows eyes* I'm telling Omni and you're going to jail for copyright infringement
at least we know that it will be delivered capably, just with some blood on it.
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The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up
- Thread starter Durin
- Start date
at least we know that it will be delivered capably, just with some blood on it.
- Location
- Berkeley
Personally I'd find it funnier if the Eldar weren't even needed to prevent it from escalating. For a while they were trying to push it into an actual permenant cease-fire, but ultimately gave it up as a bad job, as nothing they could figure out would stop them from restarting their little pissing match until the rise of the Destroyer.
The Eldar shrugged and decided it must just be a human thing until they discovered just how weirded out everyone else was.
Side note, we should take an action to scry the Tau as well providing Ridcully survives this. People mentioned that they might be a Deciver puppet, and this weird-ass war does seem at least in part its style...
- Location
- Berkeley
Our shipyard total is 2 huge, 3 large, and 8 small based on the data sheet. Breaking that down into small shipyard equivalents (which ignores the cost of the action to put them together) that's 84 small shipyards, compared to Muspelheim's 28. While we're certainly well smaller than Vanaheim, we're either the second or third largest shipyard in the Trust.
Midgard has 6 huge shipyards and 20 large shipyards. We are greatly under strength shipyard wise compared to Midgard let alone Vanaheim.
Edit but you are right we are third now in shipyard slip. But the big two have a lot more than Avernus.
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- Location
- Terror Australis
I think you are really underestimating the level of Tau aggression here. These are the same people who where picking fights with the Imperium over minor worlds even after they realized that the Humans had a galactic empire and could crush them at will if they shifted the resources and were only not doing so because they were a bit busy with other threats right now.
The Tau are essentially operating on Great Crusade ideology, except somehow more authoritarian and with "purge the xenos" replaced with "enslave the xenos". They are ideologically incapable of honestly holding to a peace treaty without massive external pressure.
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- Location
- madison
I'll buy that the imperial sucessor is the more aggresive of the pair when I get a word of GM. The tau leadership has always been characterized as pragmatic, naive, but pragmatic with their naive view. Not picking a fight with a peer power who is sane is the pragmatic move by a mile. Meanwhile the whole unnecessary war thing smacks of exactly the kind of honor driven irrationality and xenophobia that characterizes the old imperium.
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- Location
- Terror Australis
The Tau have always been aggressively expansionist, they have literally tried to dominate every single species they have ever encountered. Much of their interaction with the Old Imperium consisted of them encroaching on Imperial worlds even after they had some idea of just how powerful the Imperium was. Assuming that Secundus is the sole aggressor for their conflict is unfounded.
I will state it again the Tau seem to be the race most likely to be Deciever the thralls. They talk about doing good but take over everyone they meet through diplomacy or military might. They are Tau level. Blanks so no psyker powers to hurt c'tan. Also they have gone down the necron tech tree more than anyone else.
- Location
- The internet
That and they've been stupidly lucky from a strategic perspective for basically their entire history as an interstellar power. Someone is tilting the scales in their favor.
- Location
- Terror Australis
Don't forget that whenever they have some critical technological bottleneck they make absurdly unlikely discoveries that lead to a solution. Like when they found a crashed starship with an intact warp drive just when they where ready to start large scale space expansion.
I mean it is very very strongly implied in canon that they are someones pet project. Due to the bioengineering and all the explicitly suspicious beneficial incidents.
I mean it is very very strongly implied in canon that they are someones pet project. Due to the bioengineering and all the explicitly suspicious beneficial incidents.
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Cegorach's wondrous piles of plans contingencies and assets.*
- Location
- madison
Cegorach's wondrous piles of plans contingencies and assets.*
(*with helpful notations from Zahak!)
I'm going to figure out how your getting in here eventually.
Assets
(*with helpful notations from Zahak!)
I'm going to figure out how your getting in here eventually.
Assets
Asset: Zahak*, minor god, weird minor god.with no sense of boundaries**
Uses:*** general demonic incursion foiling, talking creatures into things they should know better, demonic garbage disposal, probably something freaky with whatever her domain is.
Risks: good at talking people into things they should know better, doing something freaky with her domains that makes her unpredictable. No idea what her actual goal and or deal is.**** possibly a foretold devorer who will swallow the warp entire.****
General notes: A spunky little thing who seems to have set out to be the exception that proves the rule to as many rules as she could get away with. Amusingly manic and prone to irrelevance when she's not trying to be serious, and quite skilled as coming across as non threatening for a god. Which is quite a feat given her primary pastime is viciously murdering and devouring fellow wapspawn. Is disturbingly good at digesting damn near anything she can fit in her mouth.****** but she's far more of a talker than a fighter. Foibles aside she's quite the team player, and hates chaos to an admirable degree. Probably a good deal more ruthless than she lets on, and has some concerning properties******* but it would be rude to talk about her like she couldn't hear me.
* hey that's me!
** that is patently untrue. I see them perfectly well, I just also don't always see the point.
*** you forgot adding footnotes.
**** i'll give you a hint, it involves not getting eaten as step one.
***** wait what?!
****** go back to the swallow the wrap thing.
******* is that the eat the warp thing? I feel like that's a thing worth talking about.
Uses:*** general demonic incursion foiling, talking creatures into things they should know better, demonic garbage disposal, probably something freaky with whatever her domain is.
Risks: good at talking people into things they should know better, doing something freaky with her domains that makes her unpredictable. No idea what her actual goal and or deal is.**** possibly a foretold devorer who will swallow the warp entire.****
General notes: A spunky little thing who seems to have set out to be the exception that proves the rule to as many rules as she could get away with. Amusingly manic and prone to irrelevance when she's not trying to be serious, and quite skilled as coming across as non threatening for a god. Which is quite a feat given her primary pastime is viciously murdering and devouring fellow wapspawn. Is disturbingly good at digesting damn near anything she can fit in her mouth.****** but she's far more of a talker than a fighter. Foibles aside she's quite the team player, and hates chaos to an admirable degree. Probably a good deal more ruthless than she lets on, and has some concerning properties******* but it would be rude to talk about her like she couldn't hear me.
* hey that's me!
** that is patently untrue. I see them perfectly well, I just also don't always see the point.
*** you forgot adding footnotes.
**** i'll give you a hint, it involves not getting eaten as step one.
***** wait what?!
****** go back to the swallow the wrap thing.
******* is that the eat the warp thing? I feel like that's a thing worth talking about.
Asset: Ridicully, nascent god of seers, needs a good push, impressively crotchety.*
Uses: propping up the trust, putting out fires, keeping the monkgi from blundering around too blindly, maybe a positive reference with his god if he lives that long.
Risks: general risks of apotheosis, has a worrying streak of xenophobia, typical dangers of sprouting spikes and starting to eat babies, walking infosec breach on a divine scale**
General notes: probably the best seer in the galaxy that can call themselves mortal with a straight face. Has an interesting set of specialties.Is a lot better at seeing the present and past than the future, and has a particular knack for dealing with the divine and piercing defenses. As a god who's mostly deals with tricks and treachery i'm not super sanguine about this guy existing.*** Amusingly his meteoric ascendance seems to have been an actual fluke, like actual random chance rather than the kind of weighted dice you usually find in cases like this. He's either going to spectacularly die or ascend in the near future at the rate he's going, and the monkeigh having a god like him in their corner opens up all sorts of possibilities down the road.****
*got grouched at, can confirm.
** and it's only going to get worse
*** preach it.
**** It's a lot easier to convince someone your on the level when they can actually chek.
Uses: propping up the trust, putting out fires, keeping the monkgi from blundering around too blindly, maybe a positive reference with his god if he lives that long.
Risks: general risks of apotheosis, has a worrying streak of xenophobia, typical dangers of sprouting spikes and starting to eat babies, walking infosec breach on a divine scale**
General notes: probably the best seer in the galaxy that can call themselves mortal with a straight face. Has an interesting set of specialties.Is a lot better at seeing the present and past than the future, and has a particular knack for dealing with the divine and piercing defenses. As a god who's mostly deals with tricks and treachery i'm not super sanguine about this guy existing.*** Amusingly his meteoric ascendance seems to have been an actual fluke, like actual random chance rather than the kind of weighted dice you usually find in cases like this. He's either going to spectacularly die or ascend in the near future at the rate he's going, and the monkeigh having a god like him in their corner opens up all sorts of possibilities down the road.****
*got grouched at, can confirm.
** and it's only going to get worse
*** preach it.
**** It's a lot easier to convince someone your on the level when they can actually chek.
Asset: unruly mob of lesser gods.
Uses: emergency rations,* sacrificial distractions, probably a few neat tricks, an extra set of technically divine hands.
Risks: treachery, domain induced bout of madness, possibly a ploy from Zahak to enable her to devour all that will ever be.**
General notes: a barely coordinated gang of minor gods Zahak knows well enough to manipulate. Not worth much individually, but collectively are still not worth all that much truth be told.*** That said, to survive as a minor god these days you need something going for you. Sure for most it's just an uninteresting domain**** but some of them have minor but useful domains, some weird useful quirk or something that can mostly pass for a high degree of rationality. I figure we'll lose maybe half of em***** or so whipping them into useful shape, but the survivors could be useful. The idea of essentially using them to broker power from other gods to let us shenanigans like we have a larger pantheon is promising, though there are of course trust issues with handing a starving up and comer a giant pile of power then asking for it back. Still, I've made more with less, and mutual survival is an excellent foundation for a relationship.
*HEY!
** your just going to keep dangling that in front of me aren't you?
*** harsh, true, but harsh.
**** the god irrelevance will be here long after everyone else is dead dust, not that it matters.
***** I have opinions about that Cegorach.
Uses: emergency rations,* sacrificial distractions, probably a few neat tricks, an extra set of technically divine hands.
Risks: treachery, domain induced bout of madness, possibly a ploy from Zahak to enable her to devour all that will ever be.**
General notes: a barely coordinated gang of minor gods Zahak knows well enough to manipulate. Not worth much individually, but collectively are still not worth all that much truth be told.*** That said, to survive as a minor god these days you need something going for you. Sure for most it's just an uninteresting domain**** but some of them have minor but useful domains, some weird useful quirk or something that can mostly pass for a high degree of rationality. I figure we'll lose maybe half of em***** or so whipping them into useful shape, but the survivors could be useful. The idea of essentially using them to broker power from other gods to let us shenanigans like we have a larger pantheon is promising, though there are of course trust issues with handing a starving up and comer a giant pile of power then asking for it back. Still, I've made more with less, and mutual survival is an excellent foundation for a relationship.
*HEY!
** your just going to keep dangling that in front of me aren't you?
*** harsh, true, but harsh.
**** the god irrelevance will be here long after everyone else is dead dust, not that it matters.
***** I have opinions about that Cegorach.
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Just remember, the Lion is by far one of the most...mentally unstable of the loyalists.
Luther's rebellion and the Emperor's death will not help this.
That was kind of his reaction in canon.
Surprisingly less authoritarian actually.
Even the current canon makes them significantly better than the Imperium in that regard.
In any case I'd say you're rather over stating both their way of going about things and their general play book.
They will absolutely hold to a peace treaty if given, they just switch to Star Trek tactics. As a rule they will not be the ones to break the peace first.
However, they also will not stop expanding, for similar reasons to the Imperium. For them it is to assert the Greater Good over the galaxy and for the Imperium it was to assert human dominance over the galaxy.
Eh...kinda.
The Tau's first reaction to a new species is always diplomacy, and even when there are options of dominating them if there's a less aggressive option they do take it like hiring them on as mercenaries (Kroot and Tarellians). However, they do have darker undertones such as with the Vespid where the provided head sets could be as simple as communication devices, or they could be some mass mind control device.
However, I look at your argument about them encroaching on the Imperium with confusion. By the time they are aware of the Imperium in full...well of course they're not going to stop encroaching, by that point they are very very well aware that the Imperium wishes to commit genocide not only on them, but everyone in their empire to the last woman and child and is so vast that it's distraction is the only thing keeping them alive.
Of course their immediate reaction is to go SHIT and start assimilating as many worlds as physically possible.
Now we get to the current day and I'll say this. By GM admission Ultramar is still incredibly xenophobic to a degree neither Imperium Quartius or Callamus are (the former due to the Eldar, the latter due to the close proximity of the Ophelians if I were to guess) and if they had a chance it absolutely would go for their jugular.
Given that Ultramar still sees itself as the "defenders" of humanity I can see them seeing the Tau occupying now defenceless human sectors as more than enough provocation to declare the Tau aggressors.
Ok this does grind my gears to an extent.
Why do they have to be someone's pet project?
Humanity came about naturally and we created the Emperor in 8000BC, we randomly have immense psycic potential on a scale no other natural born species can match, we have natural blanks again no other encountered species can create those naturally, we have perpetuals literal ****ing immortals who've been around since the dawn of our species ALL OF THIS, without any implication of being someone's personal science project.
So yeah why can't the Tau just be "lucky" compared to humanity they did not hit the jackpot.
Or they could just be like that...
I won't deny they're certainly the best candidate for patsy at the moment, but personally my way of looking at it is that if Humanity has the potential to evolve into Old Ones then the Tau are this cycles version of the Necrontyr.
One has immense psycic potential, the other is the master of the materium.
- Location
- Estonia
lion had issues with roboute mainly out of the loyalists as far i can remember and the location would limit how much the others can help him unless he moves the rock there .
Also i think he was mainly pissed about the horus being made warmaster just cause he was found first mainly and since he was the best battlefield commander he was arrogant as hell .
Preferably he takes over a remnant somewhere to help and thats it near a succesor chapter thats survived most likely, kinda like the ultramarines realm.
Also i think he was mainly pissed about the horus being made warmaster just cause he was found first mainly and since he was the best battlefield commander he was arrogant as hell .
Preferably he takes over a remnant somewhere to help and thats it near a succesor chapter thats survived most likely, kinda like the ultramarines realm.
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Hey @Durin, when you have the chance I think it might be interesting to talk about omakes in regards to certain discussions that have been brought up. Maybe add it to the FAQ page.
I'll see about getting some questions in mind if anyone else has something they want to bring up. Otherwise if you just want me to post whatever, I can do just that at some point.
In case anyone is wondering why I am bringing this up now, there has been some recent confusion in regards to the mechanical/narrative bonuses/benefits/allowances/etc that "canon" omakes provide. I'd like to try and get some ruling on the matter if possible, if nothing else for something to keep in mind for future omakes.
I'll see about getting some questions in mind if anyone else has something they want to bring up. Otherwise if you just want me to post whatever, I can do just that at some point.
In case anyone is wondering why I am bringing this up now, there has been some recent confusion in regards to the mechanical/narrative bonuses/benefits/allowances/etc that "canon" omakes provide. I'd like to try and get some ruling on the matter if possible, if nothing else for something to keep in mind for future omakes.
- Location
- Berkeley
Frankly, with Lion I'd want other Primarchs in charge of getting him therapy before anything else happens. Galaxy does not need a hardliner with a superiority complex right now.
That said, just due to Primarch-tier awesomeness, it'd be well worth it for them to spend some time getting him rehabilitated.
That said, just due to Primarch-tier awesomeness, it'd be well worth it for them to spend some time getting him rehabilitated.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Not issues with Robute directly...more that he felt his personal fuck up meant that he could literally launch orbital bombardments on Ultramar itself.
For more context Konrad Curze got to Ultramar by boarding the Invincible Reason (Lion's Glorianna) and then launching a protracted solo terror campaign across all of Ultramar.
As this was his fuck up and the Lion was declared Lord Protector he took it upon himself to arrest Kurze...by any means necessary against the express request of Roboute, ending with the aforementioned orbital bombardment and the deploying of the Dark Angels to the area to smoke out Curze from the ruins and killing an awful lot of people in the process.
Needless to say this ended poorly, with the Lion getting kicked out of the Imperium Secundus with his sword snapped.
But, yeah as a whole of all the loyalists I'd say the Lion is the most mentally unwell, he's certainly the most emotionally stunted.
The whole Lion and the Wolf thing for example, Russ didn't take that seriously at all to him it was just a way for two warriors to let out the yayas they had with each other, the Lion did 100% and when Russ explained his response was to literally suplex Russ through the floor, which is fair enough, Russ really should have explained that stuff.
What is not fair enough is (again literally) back handing the head off a Dark Angel who questioned his decision to reinstate the Librarians.
The thing that you have to remember is the core of the Lion's personality is loyalty, he sees it as its own reward. To him Luther's betrayal would likely only be a few minutes ago and he'd wake up to a galaxy in shambles, the father he owed his absolute loyalty to dead and his sons a bunch of infighting blow hards.
What I'm trying to say is be careful what you wish for with the Lion, martial skill wise he's great... everything else he's a fucking basket case.
And keep him well the fuck away from Russ.
Russ has matured with time and painful experience, the Lion almost certainly has not.
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- Location
- Terror Australis
No the Tau are more authoritarian. Their system is actually more tightly hierarchial, domineering and rigid than the Imperium's. They just have nicer propaganda.
At the highest level absolute power and total unquestioning obediance is given to the Ethereals. Below that you have rigidly defined hereditary castes with ironclad hierarchies controlling everything at the intersystem and major planetary level. Then you have non-Tau as serfs, with absolutely no significant influence on the higher levels of the hierarchy and serving at the whims of the Ethereals. This is combined with a tightly defined and completely unified ideology applied to all subjects.
The Imperium by contrast doesn't actually care that much about low level hiearchies. Has an incredibly diverse state religion and ideology. Further it has multiple different subgroups with alternate hierarchies, interests and in some cases ideology (Mechanicus, Administratum, Militarum, Merchants ect).
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- Location
- United states
Kind of brought up an idea which just involved training our entire militia and military in anti-psyker tactics. Word of Durin is that doing said project would give our people a bonus against psykers and for us it's actually extremely practical considering our psyker problems.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
You are really boosting the Tau's authoritarianism up, while forcing the Imperium's down...a lot.
The Tau's authoritarianism is true with the Tau themselves to a point. The Etherial cast is on top, but there is no one leader of the Etherials. Even the Supreme Etherial (Aun'Va in canon) is a first among equals, a spiritual leader, but technically has no more power than any other member of their high council.
Similarly at both their highest level and percolating down the Tau have massive amounts of difference at least in terms of ideology. This is not just the Etherials themselves arguing about how best to go about leading, the obvious example in the Fire caste is arguments about Mont'ka and Kauyon, which aren't just simply battle tactics, but ways of life within the greater good as well.
Unfortunately this is where we run into the problem of how Orwellian the Tau are, which has shifted drastically with each edition of WH, from the Etherials dictating breeding rights to just not giving a shit (which can be rationalised as each Etherial having their own preference for how orewellian they need to be to get the Greater Good across).
However, you are really being disingenuous about how they treat their auxiliaries. The Kroot at least get a very big say in the running of the Empire (unsurprisingly) and in canon they let humans under their rule continue worshipping emps, with a little editing to get rid of some of the more...burn and kill all the xenos bits.
By contrast, the Imperium gives a great deal of shits about the lower level hierarchies, the hierarchies have to be geared towards fulfilling the tithes in the quickest way possible, which usually means nobility of some kind. If you don't conform to that and your tithes suffer as a result...well prepare for getting screwed.
As for incredibly diverse...well kinda. The Mechanicus tend to just repeat the same ideas with slight regional variation, the Ecclisiarchy is analogous to (I'm most familiar with these) middle age christian missionaries. The Diversity you speak of goes away as soon as a world is fully within the Imperium, enough that the Ecclesiarchy can send a cardinal to ensure that proper doctrine is followed. They are always sent with a good supply of stakes. While they may worship saints unique to the area or celebrate festivals unique to the area...well the Tau do that stuff to. Its just they celebrate different things. I can go on, but I won't.
The thing that grinds my gear the most is that the idea that the Tau are more authoritarian because they have a unifying mandate...my dude the Imperium does as well, human dominance over the galaxy service to the GEoM. They're just far shiter at enforcing it without killing trillions due to filing errors.
- Location
- madison
- Location
- Terror Australis
It occurs to me that there is another possibility for the Tau's master, The Cabal, remember those I-can't-believe-they-aren't-Tzeentch-cultists. The Tau being some long term plan of theirs to dominate the galaxy (and maybe "weaken" chaos by feeding them to the Abomination) would be right up their alley.
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