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The Ways of Fate: A Primarch Quest

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This combined with our Mother and Eldar teacher might allow us to not immediately kill any nonhuman civilisation.
Yes, I want a relatively xenophile Primarch. The Emperor will erase us anyway, might as well make it count.

[x] The World of Diplomatic Power Plays
 
BOTcommander said:
The best you can get is Xenos protectorates. I am not in the mood for wholesome multi-species realms, sorry.
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Im giid
Adhoc vote count started by Ave Anathema on Nov 5, 2022 at 1:09 PM, finished with 67 posts and 58 votes.
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  • Voting
    • More than 24 hours, diplo is in the lead, winner is clear.
    Scheduled vote count started by BOTcommander on Nov 4, 2022 at 5:20 AM, finished with 68 posts and 58 votes.
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    • BOTcommander said:
    Solimin and Muneria
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    Are these the names of Imperial Battle Mages by any chance?
    BOTcommander said:
    but they were trained and motivated by the hatred of the Coalition, as an enemy and murderer of their kind, by the Empresses orders and the fear of their superiors should they fail. Alek could see the bonds of fellowship and camaraderie between them glowing as they worked in tandem to utilize their powers, not a chain where the weakest link would fail the whole, but a strong, well crafted rope, each strand supporting the others.

    They ranged in age from teenagers to up in their eighties, men and women, a mishmash of people and experiences bound together for this destructive purpose.
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    You know I was joking earlier when I said it
    but now I think there's a small chance
    we might actually be . . . the Baddies
    BOTcommander said:
    by the Empresses orders
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    So the empire is led by an empress . . .oh my
    by any chance when the soldiers were asking alek to draw some art for them did anyone ask for a drawing of the empress by any chance haha it would be kind of funny
     
    Anontheashenone4 said:
    Are these the names of Imperial Battle Mages by any chance?
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    It is the Empire of Solimin and the Kingdom of Muneria, they are nation/region names.
    Anontheashenone4 said:
    You know I was joking earlier when I said it
    but now I think there's a small chance
    we might actually be . . . the Baddies
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    Said battlemages did use a blood based spell to throw the defending royal soldiers into a frenzy so they would resist the Coalition forces better, I think there are defintetly a lot of shades of gray involved.
     
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    Aww i was late, also were now a Primarch that can write absurdly moving political speeches and with us being a Psyker that can read minds and see the future... we're fucking terrifying.
     
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    A New Kind of Battlefield
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    • []The World of Diplomatic Power Plays
    A New Kind of Battlefield

    The witch hunters were not happy to let him go, that much was evident as they freed Alekandros from his salty prison, this time without chains and shackles. There was hatred and disgust in their hearts, but also fear in their minds. Whoever Handler was, they obviously held a lot of sway in the Coalition, but the hunters at the salt mine did not know who exactly his benefactor was. There were vague connective thoughts to the Coalition Council Alek could gleam by browsing the surface of their minds, but no specific person or name.

    A hurricane was raging at the time, delaying his departure from the improvised psyker prison. His former wardens had no interest in his comfort, but allowed him a shower. Three months of living in an abandoned mine and spending the time learning to sculpt had left his skin and hair covered in dust and salt. Not the most comfortable experience he had the pleasure of experiencing in his short life so far, but it sure beat the dusts- and rock-storms Alek and his men had weathered in the open plains of the Moneran peninsula during the Escalation. He hoped they were well and that his revelation did not affect them negatively. Handler had not said anything about them, but the young primarch presumed they had been interrogated vigorously. Maybe Bor was already home, celebrated as a war hero and in the loving embrace of his family. He hoped so. Three years of bloody, brutal conflict and most of his men had died in the last battle of the fight. They had given their lives to ward off a greater catastrophe.

    The storm abated and his transport arrived, not one of the bulky, crude military transport, but a civilian one, slender and nonthreatening. It would not withstand an autocannon salvo, but it was not meant to. It was made for comfortable and fast travel in the rough weather of Tenus, which had its own worth. He made a note to read up on how to build a plane once he had time before he entered the plane and embarked onto the next phase of his life, which, much to his amusement, began with the aftereffects of his actions at the overhand pass.

    Peace negotiations to bring an end to the escalation were held in Strion, a small nation in one of Tenus most inhospitable mountain chains prouding themselves on their neutrality since forever. Apparently negotiations had stalled and his arrival was planned to get things moving again, either with his direct help or just his passive presence.

    The airfield they arrived at was a long, wide tunnel dug through a mountain. When Alek disembarked, watching the other transports at the airfield, he was already awaited.

    "You are late, Commander", he complained loudly, tightening his coat to ward off the icy winds as Alek walked out of the transport. His soul was ordinary, a small flame, but with a solid feeling, a man of willpower and character, but also one who thought very highly of himself, screaming his identity out into the wind: Sacharia Linds, Coalition diplomat and respected member of the Council.

    "I can't control the weather", Alek joked. It was a lie. With some time and a effort he could have dispelled the hurricane, but he had been surrounded by witch hunter and didn't want to give them any reason to do something stupid. Standing in the storm, eyes burning with warp fire and lightning arcing off his body would have accomplished just that. He did not bother trying to shake Linds' hand. The man would not have accepted.

    "The name is Linds, Sacharias Linds, or did you already pull that from my mind?"

    "I did not."

    Linds huffed. "Let's hope you are honest, Bourgh. I prefer to have my mind unviolated. I also prefer not to stand in this cold." He turned around, walking towards the edge of the landing tunnel where warmth and protection from wind waited for him. Two security guys quickly scanned the new arrival, before they flanked Linds to follow him, Alek in their wake.

    Alec smiled and gently put some psychic pressure in the form of honesty in his words when he responded. "And I prefer to leave others' minds unviolated."

    "And tomorrow galactic human civilisation establishes contact with us again." He laughed, pressure crashing against his will to no effect as they left the cold outside, where more security received them. One of his aides ran up, her mind nervous and fearful, gaze focused on Alek, a bag in hand, containing a suit his size if he interpreted her thoughts correctly. "Put this on." Linds ordered, the whole procession stopping at a public bathroom. "Instead of whatever it is you call clothing now."

    —

    "So listen Bourgh", Linds explained, making himself comfortable in his chair. Alek listened intently, but part of his attention was focused at the rooms provided to the Coalition delegation. The space was decorated with the Strionic style of art and architecture and he made a mental note to get a hold of a book about it. "Does Solimin have witches listening in right now?"

    Alek reached out with his mind, careful not to alert any soul he touched. Two of the nearby flames were burning brighter than the others, psykers, perceptive and experienced. It was questionable if they could listen in from so far away, but without probing further he could not eliminate them using some kind of assistance, a spell or runes to spy on the Ambassador. "Yes, two."

    "Heavens curse them and their children." Linds spat out. "Do your thing and shield us."

    "As you wish."

    Linds seemed to wait for something, watching Alek expectantly. "Well, are you gonna start anytime soon, Bourgh."

    "I am already shielding us, Ambassador, and that does not require whispered words of power, animal entrails, spilled blood and runic symbols of power carved into the floor." Alek recognized his thought process, answering a question he had not even managed to ask yet.

    "If you say so", He grunted and took a sip from a glass of water. "Anyway, Commander, now that we have privacy I should inform you of your role here. The primary purpose of this negotiation is getting the heavens-be-damned Empire missiles off Moten."

    "Isn't this a peace negotiation, what does Moten have to do with it?"

    Linds laughed. "Peace in some form is already fated to happen, the Empire doesn't want to risk escalating to full scale war and neither do we, but we may be able to cash in our gains for concessions on their part. This is what this is all about, Bourgh. Diplomacy is making the other party think you don't really want what you really want and figuring out what they really want. Dealing with Solimin is always a pain in the ass. They always have witches with them, trying to get ahead of us on the diplomatic battlefield, but thanks to you Bourgh, we have reached parity on the field of battle of interests."

    "So, you want me to shield you and your staff from their psykers and tell you what they really think."

    "Fast learner, heh, I like it." Linds chuckled. "If you can do both the better."

    "I can do it from here", Alek explained. "If you don't want to show me off."

    "Nah, you sit next to me. Sometimes it is important to show, but don't tell. And with you we can keep them guessing."

    Hours later, when the next round of negotiations were to begin, Linds walked past the Strion guards watching the metal door, opening them up as loud as he could. "Lord Ambassador Keerin", he walked into the large room, an iron wood table at the centre where the two delegations had already assembled. "You look great today."

    Alek scanned the people present, browsing the surface thoughts of the high ranking empire officials and their aides, two psykers. Not very powerful, but perceptive. They seemed to realise something was off, one of them leaned over to the Lord Ambassador and whispered something in his ear. They might have been able to pinpoint it was him, but the first thing Alek had been taught was how to control his presence. If he wanted to, he could appear ordinary to them.

    "As do you Linds." Keerin chuckled, his moustache vibrating up and down. "I hope you managed to take care of whatever business you needed to attend to."

    "We had some domestic things to work out." Linds sat down on the centre of the table, motioning Alek to sit down next to him. "This is Commander Alekandros Bourgh, getting a hold of him was the reason for the break."

    "A soldier, how interesting." Keerin leaned forward to shake Aleks hand. "And one so tall. Are you one of those fabled gene crafted super soldiers I have heard fables about? I am Lord Ambassador Edart Keerin, a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

    "The pleasure is mine." Alek said, mirroring the man's emotions on his face and shaking his hand: fake smile, going up to the corner of his eyes. Keerin thought him young and inexperienced, and did not yet know who he was. There were a lot of little things in his mind he could pull and push if he wanted, a lot compared to Ambassador Linds.

    "I hope you happen to prove more reasonable than my dear friend Linds. Three months of talking and not one step forward."

    "If I can help it, things will move faster now." Alek smiled.

    And faster move things did. With his psychic assistance and under Linds' experienced hand, the negotiations ended ideally or, how Linds described it, not satisfactorily for everyone. The missiles were moved off Moten, in return the Coalition returned all the occupied royal territory back to Merunia, including the Overhand Pass. Alek thought it cynical watching the progress he and his men had won with their sweat and blood be rendered none and void in a matter of days, the lines moving back to where they were before, but Linds reminded him that his men and their families would be safer without those missiles. The Ambassador proved to be an interesting person. It was not hard for Alek to make him trust him more, stoking down the fear and distrust with a little bit of time. If he was to serve as the Coalition's diplomatic superweapon, he needed to learn all he could about it and Linds was a very good source. Over multiple evenings at the venue's bar, the diplomat had quickly taught him the most important lessons and a little more. It was fun, hearing his stories about the behind-the-scenes of important events he had been a part of. Alek felt a desire to be good at his role, as good as he could, but his heart was not in it. His heart would need to wait until he was home again.

    Once he was he took care of a couple of things. First was having a conversation with Handler. They were satisfied with his performance and brought him up to speed on how things worked from now on, including where the letters for his Ma were to be deposited, Handler noting their agents would read and censor them if they deemed it necessary to do so. Second was finding a home in New Silue, where the Coalitions headquarters were located. It took him a couple of days, but having three years of an officer's pay saved up, a well paying government job and referral in his pocket and some nice, psychically supported words, finally got him a place. There were better things Alek could have imagined than moving out of his childhood home at just thirteen years old, but that was the price of being special and revealing himself he figured. Third, he wrote a letter to his mother, informing her of all that had happened. He briefly considered if he should try to experiment with adding psychic runes to make sure the content of his letters made it to her unchanged, but discarded the idea. There was no need to antagonise Handler and he would need to get better first. Fourth and finally, he bought some paints and created a satisfactory depiction of the beautiful northern lights and stars that had burned themselves into his memory, creating a considerable number of failed attempts in the process of experimenting and practising. Finding more joy in the act of creation itself than the finished work, he gifted the finished piece to Ambassador Linds the next time Alek saw him, to whom it proved popular enough to be put up in his office in viewing range of the ambassador's desk. The following three years proved to be very enlightening on that front as it gave him more time than the army ever could to pursue his passion. His skills on multiple fronts of creation and crafting expanded beyond what he had ever hoped for on multiple levels, adding sewing, pottery, smithing, painting and more to his catalogue, the first being especially useful as he found his self-made suits much better suited to his current task than the ones provided by Handler.

    Those three years were dominated by playing psychic support to important international and or domestic diplomatic affairs. The Coalition itself was about as divided politically between its members as the world stage was. The bonds and regulations holding them together were flimsy and rudimentary compared to what unity they could show when it came to the threat posed by the Empire of Solimin. Coalition internal politics proved to be just as harsh and unforgiving as external ones. But to truly understand politics, he had to go back and expand his understanding of Tenus history.

    The Empire of Solimin was the oldest and most powerful single nation state. It was in their capital city of Umeria, an ancient and pre-collapse dating fortress city and the only settlement to survive the madness and horror that followed in its wake, where the Empire was founded. Much of the pre-collapse knowledge had been lost and what little remained was maintained by the Order of the Archivists. Over centuries and millennia it expanded to fuel the ever growing hunger for the natural resources of Tenus of the Capital until it had become a world spanning realm of great power. The succession crisis of Emperor Glion the fifth had brought an end to that era, the Empire fracturing into countless city states. It took a century of warfare fought with swords and crossbows to reunite the continent of Solimin under the banner of the righteous ruler, but the damage had been done. The Empire was too weak to project its power beyond its borders at this time and thus unity became a dream held by Emperors and Empresses to this day.

    Before the great war, the Coalition itself was only a loose band of various different city and nationstates on the northern continent of Sargell united in one desire only, hatred and spite towards Solimin, who had in times of increased interconnectivity brought on by the rediscovery of air transports and leviathan ships began to assert it interests more aggressively. The balance of power shifted when the Empire suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Coalition troops during the great war and the Coalition suddenly found itself a fragmented superpower and, for a while, the undisputed one due to their nuclear supremacy. The Coalition used this period of absolute power to expand its political interests beyond Sargell by making a lot of allies, especially in the comparatively fertile equatorial regions of Tenus.

    Nuclear parity was quickly reached and Tenus dissolved into the current fragile balance of Unfought War, the Empire and Coalition trying to one up another in any realm but the battlefield, the nuclear spectre above them laughing as their arsenals and their methods to deploy them grew.

    This was the world Alek found himself in. A dou-polar world in which lines had been drawn and the battle raged over those not yet on either side, making offers or threats to get them to join your team. It was also a world of an unstable political situation at home, with the Coalition members oftentimes having irreconcilable views on issues, until the decision would even mildly annoy the Empire in any way. Politicians were like children sometimes, Alek found out, dangerous, intelligent and ruthless children wielding the political power of their governments behind them.

    Whether or not intended by Handler, Alek found himself a person of expansive influence on both stages over the next three years. While he could not act directly and never brought forth political resolutions or offers directly himself, the stigma against witches was simply too strong. He could place ideas into people's minds by simply talking to them about things, pushing and supporting them to bring these ideas into fruition was the second part. In this way Alek found he was mimicking Handler, who only seemed to assign him to cases and ideas that helped their own mysterious agenda.

    There was one especially important domestic and international diplomatic issue that was brought to completion thanks to Aleks subtle and less to subtle influence. What was it? (Vote for one per category)

    International:
    [][International] Arms Control Agreement
    The last years have seen an exponential increase in the size of Coalition and Empireal nuclear arsenals far beyond what either power should need. Reduction in size not only saves resources and cost, but also serves as an important step towards deescalation.

    []][International] Cooperative Space Program
    Everyone on Tenus knew that humans came to this world from the heavens and returning there had been a dream of many wanting to one day reunite with their lost brothers and sisters between the stars. Instead of starting competitive programs, Solimin and Sargell could set aside their differences and bundle their resources.

    []][International] Tenus Food Security Agency
    Food security remains a problematic issue on Tenus. With much of the planet being hostile to open-air agriculture, food has to be grown in expensive greenhouses or limited underground spaces. That is a fact that cannot be changed, but what the superpowers can do is make their technological and agricultural expertise and seeding material available without weaponizing them for the Unfought War brewing between them.

    [][International] Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement
    Atomic weapons are dangerous weapons that could set a dangerous precedent if ever used. Limiting the number of third-party actors with access to them reduces the chance one gets deployed.


    Domestic:
    [][Domestic] Coalition Expansion
    By now the Coalition has many allies all over the world, many of which would be tremendous assets by becoming members directly, but the process of which is held back by internal disagreements only someone with supernatural powers could overcome.

    [][Domestic] Atomic Energy Bill
    Nuclear power offers tremendous potential for civilian use, but the secrets to which are held by a small number of the most powerful member states, who are unwilling to give them up. The AEB would offer technical and monetary support to every member wanting to build reactors for civilian use themselves.

    [][Domestic] Reduction in Defence Expenditure
    Ever since the great war all Coalition members have spent an unthinkable amount of their resources on procurement, maintenance and development of weapons, defence and security, causing many other issues in need of funding to be neglected.

    [][Domestic] Council Reform
    The Coalition Council is in need of reform to make it more effective. Proposals take years to be passed, if they are at all. Restructuring it would require a serious domestic political endeavour to get all members to agree to the new structure proposed, but it would have never been easy.

    Thanks for participating. I reserve myself the right to disregard, interpret, change and add to WH40k and 30k lore as I see fit to support the narrative. Comments and feedback sustain my soul.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X]][International] Tenus Food Security Agency
    Food security remains a problematic issue on Tenus. With much of the planet being hostile to open-air agriculture, food has to be grown in expensive greenhouses or limited underground spaces. That is a fact that cannot be changed, but what the superpowers can do is make their technological and agricultural expertise and seeding material available without weaponizing them for the Unfought War brewing between them.

    [X][Domestic] Atomic Energy Bill
    Nuclear power offers tremendous potential for civilian use, but the secrets to which are held by a small number of the most powerful member states, who are unwilling to give them up. The AEB would offer technical and monetary support to every member wanting to build reactors for civilian use themselves.
     
    [X]][International] Tenus Food Security Agency
    Food security remains a problematic issue on Tenus. With much of the planet being hostile to open-air agriculture, food has to be grown in expensive greenhouses or limited underground spaces. That is a fact that cannot be changed, but what the superpowers can do is make their technological and agricultural expertise and seeding material available without weaponizing them for the Unfought War brewing between them.

    [X][Domestic] Atomic Energy Bill
    Nuclear power offers tremendous potential for civilian use, but the secrets to which are held by a small number of the most powerful member states, who are unwilling to give them up. The AEB would offer technical and monetary support to every member wanting to build reactors for civilian use themselves.
     
    [X]][International] Tenus Food Security Agency
    Food security remains a problematic issue on Tenus. With much of the planet being hostile to open-air agriculture, food has to be grown in expensive greenhouses or limited underground spaces. That is a fact that cannot be changed, but what the superpowers can do is make their technological and agricultural expertise and seeding material available without weaponizing them for the Unfought War brewing between them.
    [X][Domestic] Council Reform
    The Coalition Council is in need of reform to make it more effective. Proposals take years to be passed, if they are at all. Restructuring it would require a serious domestic political endeavour to get all members to agree to the new structure proposed, but it would have never been easy.
     
    [X][International] Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement
    [X][Domestic] Atomic Energy Bill

    Nobody wins if everybody starves. Also get nuclear science used for more benign purposes instead of just weapons.
     
    [X] [International] Tenus Food Security Agency
    [X] [Domestic] Council Reform
     
    [X][International] Tenus Food Security Agency

    [X][Domestic] Council Reform
     
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