Here's a question, how much of the galaxy has been "mapped out" in this setting?

>>59905153
So, when the fuck is Fulgrimfag going to finish his project? Or at least show us some of what he has so far?

Eldar are for___________

>>59907139
Shaking hands with/sticking on wraithbone pikes depending on which side of the spectrum you fall on.

>>59907139
Socializing

>>59907139
Mating presses so deep their eyes roll back and they make ahegao faces.

>>59907013
I was gonna post in the last thread but it was gone when I woke up this morning. Already shared my notes on the Taskmaster, working on the Laeran campaign rn

>>59907288
Ishas' tits, that's lewd...

>>59906578
There's been a lot of 'notable planet's that have been explored, and Ultramar has been fleshed out to a degree, but otherwise I don't think there has been too much written or talked about at a sector level Or perhaps discussing if there is any changes to the boundaries of the segmentums or notable sectors, etc.

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>>59906578
We have the broad overview, but don't have a good map. There was this in a previous thread, but that's about the best we got.

Some things that should be noted on the map that are not in that version include...

- Severan Dominate are in northwestern Pacificus, and Blood Pact are further south (but still rimward of the Eye). Two are still almost neighbors, but Dominate is further from the Eye
- Nocturne is just south of the Hubworld League
- Charadon, Octarius, and Bork empires need to be on there
- Gidrim has been moved to be not that far from Chogoris (Chogoris is the closest Chapter homeworld
- Cthonia is 79 AU northwest of Sol
- Molech is probably a comparable or shorter distance away
- Kaelor is messing around in the Calixis sector waaay out on the edge of the galaxy in the place the Calixis sector is in canon.

>>59907773
hah, 'no Dyson sphere here' hadn't seen that one before. Nicely done to whoever got it. Although yeah, it could probably a big project to flesh out.

While not Fulgrim fag, I'd be happy to take a stab at any more requests for write-faggotry, otherwise I may decide to go lewd for the next entry, or may even tackle a codex entry, emperor preserve me.

>>59907846
>lewd
Proceed... I'm always up for seeing HumanxEldar romance and fapfics.

>>59907846
Orikan and his pyramid scheme still need a proper writeup, the current one is pretty informal

>>59907139
Sweet and Tender loving in the missionary position for the purpose of mutual pair-bonding. This includes hand-holding, head-patting and kissing on the mouth.

Also, ear-teasing.

>>59907801
Adding in the Ork empires would be another step in the map, as well as Cthonia and various survivor civs

>>59907846
>>59907996
This. I'm kinda tempted to say that you should do something with LIIVI and Taldeer. But honestly, anything HumanXEldar would be nice.

>>59908395
>ear-teasing
Oi see youz a boi of kulture az well

>>59908395
Patrician taste

>>59907487
Where are these notes? Inquiring minds want to know.

>>59907773
So the Tyranids are still coming in from the Galatic East and they are still heading towards the Astronomicon, right?

>>59907773
>>Kaelor is messing around in the Calixis sector waaay out on the edge of the galaxy in the place the Calixis sector is in canon.

Are they potentially manipulating the Severan Dominate into attacking Imperial territory perhaps?

>>59909195
Yup. Though for some reason they're swinging wide around that one system of absolutely no notice. Seriously, there's nothing there. It's practically not even a system at all, really.
That's probably why they're avoiding it, really; it's of absolutely no interest or value to anyone, so why bother? The severe course alterations are probably a small price to pay to avoid a short period of monotony like that. I mean, what other reason could there be for them to avoid this very boring system?
None. There is no other reason why they would so drastically alter their approach course to avoid this system. None at all.

>>59910849
Gosh anon, it almost sounds like you're trying to hide something. Are you SURE there's nothing there of any importance? Like a peculiar globe shaped object perhaps? Maybe a oh I don't know, a Sphere of some sort?

>>59907773
From the look of this map, it would seem like the Tarellians and the Necrons may be getting into border skirmishes of some sort.

>>59911041
[REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE INQUISITION]

>>59912417
Why did this happen? Am I on to something here maybe? Why else would the inquisition be redacting random text messages?

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>>59913029
>this anon and much of the surrounding landscape were destroyed by unclear means with incredible force for thinking too hard about this question
>this is totally normal and should not be looked into or logged in official Imperial records for the safety of the Imperium
Ave Hydra

Can anyone direct me to or highlight what we've got on Imperial terraforming? Kind of curious to see if there is any write ups for it.

>>59913968
Well from what I remember Both the Humans and the Eldar and probably other imperial member races can terraform, but it's very slow.

>>59907773
Nocturne is the Salamander's homeworld in canon, do they have a strong presence there in the nobledark? Furthermore, what sort of relations do the Salamander's have with the Hubworld League?

>>59909195
>>59912223

Directions of the hive fleets should probably be put on the map as well. That area probably was Tarellian space pre-Kraken. Then a Hive Fleet got nudged slightly off course by nobody’s favorite toad as revenge for dropping him down a cenote with C4 charges. Now most of Tarellian space is gone though worlds like Tikal and Maza still survive, and other worlds have seen an influx of refugees as the lizards move away from the direction of the locusts and Necrons. Malan’tai and Halathel (most heavily populated Exodite world, where Yvraine the potato farmer is currently setting up shop) were/are located around where “50,000” is on the picture.

The Tarellians are likely somewhere in the area indicated, because in canon they joined up with the Tau after the Imperium virus bombed their homeworlds and the Tau wouldn’t have been able to travel far enough to meet them (the Tau Empire on the map is something like 40% bigger than canon). That said, border skirmishes between the lizards and the Necrons seem likely.

>>59910703
Nobody seems to know what Kaelor wants. They are clearly looking for something, as they're snooping all over the Calixis sector and manipulating everyone (and I mean everyone) as catspaws, but it's not clear what. They don't seem to be trying to pick a fight with the Imperium, but they don't like them and don't care about harming them either (including the other eldar). Their stance seems to be "we don't like you, but we have more important things to do". The only people who might know are the Harlequins, who are the only outsiders they seem to tolerate.

>>59914344
Nocturne is the current spiritual center for Prometheanism, even more than Old Earth was. Nocturne, or more specifically Prometheus, is still the Salamander's homeworld. They specifically chose the moon so they were close enough to visit their families on Nocturne yet far enough away that foes wouldn't target the civilian population first (think military base). Nocturne is ruled by a triumvirate, Astartes aren't allowed to be members but having an Astartes relative in your family is considered serious political clout. And, of course, the Salamanders dictate how things work on Prometheus.

Nocturne was ruled by Vulkan for a time when he retired from active duty shortly before the Age of Apostasy, which would normally violate Imperial policy of not letting Astartes dictate policy anywhere but their homeworlds, but it slid because of (A) the locals put him on the throne as a philosopher king despite Vulkan wanting a boring life of retirement, and so he ruled by example more than decree and (B) nepotism on Oscar's part (plus Oscar knew Vulkan wasn't going to become a dictator).

Hubworlders and Salamanders are close. Salamanders showed up to help the squats during the Siege of Lusitan due to how physically close Nocturne is to the Hubworld League, insisting they be allowed to land until they found out what the governor had planned.

>>59913968
>>59914318
Eldar terraforming is slow as balls, similar to canon, though the eldar like everyone else have lost their best toys. A lot of Maiden Worlds are actually "in progress" and due for things like comet impacts and sudden volcanism in the near future, which is the more altruistic of the reasons the eldar don't like people on it (the other, more prominent one is, "we put a lot of work into the world and we don't like the idea of it being stolen from us").

Eldar terraforming (Shaadomeiforming?) in general seems to be very good (can turn world that should not sustain life into paradise) but very fragile, like a rainforest. In canon, every time the Imperium takes a Maiden World from the eldar they ruin it beyond any use, even for them, within a few thousand years. Makes you wonder why they bother.

It’s been mention in this timeline life on Maiden Worlds isn’t as cozy as it is in canon. Yes, the Maiden Worlds were engineered to be a paradise for Eldar, with plentiful food and resources, perfect climate, no diseases, etc. Thing is, the last time anyone checked to make sure they were maintained was thousands of years ago, and a lot of climate and environmental systems can break down in that time. The Maiden Worlds were also intended to be settled by Eldar using Old Empire technology, with ‘modern’ medicine, agriculture, infrastructure, etc. No one expected a bunch of crazy Luddites to settle there and start raising the dinosaurs (especially the ones that were considered the harshest to live on). So while the Maiden Worlds are really nice worlds to live on, they aren’t “camping in the woods with all the cheat codes on” perfect.

>>59915117
Human terraforming has been described mostly from the perspective of the AdBio, who while they put their usual enthusiasm into their work tend to treat planets like canvases to be painted on or challenges to overcome. A lot of it involves building ecosystems from scratch, like they did with Necromunda and Tallarn. Granted, a lot of the time they resort to using extremophilic life to get the job done, and the planets aren't very habitable (Necromundan cooking is considered worse than standards Guardsmen rations and the best thing that can be said about Tallarn's "ecosystem" is it keeps oxygen in the planet's atmosphere).

Wonder how the AdMech handle terraforming projects (specifically non-biology related problems like tweaking orbits and stuff). Terraforming was mentioned in one DoW game, and a one of the Beast novels explicitly says the Imperium of the time is capable of terraforming and says what it can and cannot do.

Then you get stuff like the DaoT terraformers on Medusa, who can throw up mountain ranges in an afternoon and have them paved over by sundown. No one knows how the glorified terraforming roombas work.

>>59915310
Found the quote...

"I mean, we can terraform, we can even realign small planetoids insystem. But shifting planetary bodies on an interstellar range? That’s… god-like. There are rumours, of course. Stories. Myths. They say that the ancients, the precursor races, they say they had power of that magnitude. Even the eldar once, at the very peak of their culture. But not any more. No one can do that any more. Not on that scale"
- Magos Laurentis, I Am Slaughter

I've heard a bit about the Black Templars being related to the Death Guard in this setting, does anyone have any further information about that?

>>59915688
Typhus the Pilgrim set them up in the breaking of the Legions due to diverge ideas with how to run shit.

>>59915972
How much fluff has been written about them?

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>>59907139
roleplay

>>59916223
Very little, much of it in the Tankred section of Notable People.

>>59907139
Teasing or fighting grimly alongside as brothers in battle depending on the circumstances.

>>59915117
It's also a distinct possibility that the Exodites prefer challenging environments. Their whole culture was set up on the principle that you can't murderfuck a rapetorture god into existence and dig up potatoes at the same time. To this end it can't be too much like paradise or it defeats the purpose. It's why the newer generation of Imperial exodites like to co-found colonies with the Fenrisians.

>>59914927
Vulkan was also the only time when the Prometheans had a single leader. The Creed does not require or even suggest a single leader with each priest being independent. They elect a spokes person for events that need a single voice via argument overseen by the most senior. Vulkan was such an influential member for so long that people just saw him as a permanent fixture and all the other preachers bowed to his interpretations of scripture. He was the priest of the priests in effect and was the single biggest continuous influence on the nature of the Creed and effectively shaped it down the long years.

Then he died.

>>59916768
This guy Fenrises correctly.

>>59917666
This is new information to me, when was the first time this was mentioned?

>>59919984
The co-founding colonies was mentioned some threads ago as a side discussion about The Hunters of Kronus.

Preferring to set up on worlds less than paradise is just a reasonable assumption on my part.

>>59908395
Dear God, anon. This is a blue board!

Would it be fitting in this setting to have a story that could be summarized as "Tau military regiment meets and has to work with 40k-Rednecks?"
I'm imagining an imperial world of lots of mountains and forests, not deathworld-tier, but just very difficult to move through, especially when it comes to vehicles, and the local IG regiment is essentially Hillbillies in pickup trucks who fight more with long-range skirmishing fire than traditional massed volleys. Planet comes under attack, a Tau regiment gets called in to help because they're closest, they end up synergizing well, and the Guard Regiments come to regard the Tau as great buddies with nice gear, with several soldiers getting Tau pulse rifles and such, and the regiment as a whole is always eager to go help out their new buddies.
The Tau are horrified by these hicks who are practically primitives, who somehow will be in a fistfight ready to kill each other one moment and then laughing like old friends and drinking together the next, with what appears to be no solid command structure and generally being an affront to everything the Tau hold dear.

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>>59922656
Sounds more like a rural Administrated world's PDF than a guard regiment, but I'd be thrilled to see a bunch of Stone Men barely out of Old Night in technicals that run effectively of firewood fighting alongside the Tau in an Ork hunting op or similar.

Also, I'm picturing that Tau regiment's next joint op, working with something like Ultramar blue helmets after a dose of perspective on Imperial forces.

>>59918561
Did we ever get anything done with the Promethean Creed?

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Have we said anything about what the Imperium prefers to do with gas giants? Jupiter and Saturn seem to be the Rome to the inner Sol system's Vatican city and are pretty well developed, is full use of gaseous planets common or only the result of very extended and thorough development in a system?

Just wanted to drop in to let y'all know this is the gayest fuckin thread on 4chan

Thanks

>>59923643
Nothing has been said of gas giants yet beyond the moons of them.

>>59922656
>>59923244
This idea speaks to me, I'm enjoying the idea of the Orks and Tau being equally confused at the backwoods skirmishers that can be smelt for miles but are still somehow able to ambush them because they just know the 'backwoods' so well.

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>>59923725
Bait aside, I lol'd after looking at the catalog.

>>59923725
>t. chimped out because of a children's book

>>59925067
It certainly is amazing how the addition of kids into our totally mature game for mature adults has got people going nuts. I mean, we're basically playing really expensive games of army men here, let's not kid ourselves.

Anyway, to get back on topic, the Inquisition's still a thing, right? I don't really have the time now, but I might do a writeup of Nobledark Inquisitorial factions come the weekend if there's interest.

>>59922656
This sounds hilarious.

>>59923889
Wouldn't the Orks be able to figure it out easier? That kind of social structure sounds pretty Orky to me.

>>59923457
No, there were suggestions but never an agreement.

>>59923643
>>59923750
Nothing has been said about the gas giants as opposed to their moons. The Navigators set up shop on the Jovian orbitals so they can easily leave if the Imperium suddenly decides to turn on them, but I'm not sure if that's the moons or the artificial orbitals.

Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus seem to be of special interest simply because they're in the Sol system, and therefore had to be used in the days before Warp travel.

>>59923929
>>59925067
>>59925138
I'm confused as to why several anons seem to thing this is our fault. Personally when I found out about Adventures I had to go stare at a wall for a while and then went "this is one of the worst ideas in a long history of bad GW ideas".

>>59925138
Yes, Inquisition is still a thing. The factions of the Inquisition haven't been well defined beyond general "radical" versus "puritan". Monodominants are a thing, generally mentioned as humans who are into human superiority above all else. Fyodor managed to woo a lot of them to his side as his main power base in the Inquisitorial Civil War.

Thorians obviously wouldn't be a thing.

There was a suggestion waaaay back in like Thread 10 that instead of Istvaanists you have the Reforgers, who believe that a species has to suffer a near-catastrophic event and claw their way back from the brink at least once to be regarded as a mature race. They had a dim view of the Tau before the A.I. rebellion. It's doubtful they would be allowed to start civil wars in peaceful sectors for shits and giggles like the Istvaanists do in canon.

>>59925138
Inquisition's still there, and I believe some of the previous threads have information about them. The wiki too obviously.

>>59925955
Do the Xeno Hybris faction exist in some form in the nobledark? If they do, are they radicals or puritans?

>>59922656
>>59923244
>>59923889
>>59925817
All right, I'm going to give writefagging this a shot. Hopefully it's not too terrible.

When the Tau finally joined the Imperium proper, many of their Fire caste officers looked forward to the opportunity to show what they saw as the backward, stagnant forces of the Imperium the obvious superiority of the Tau's way of doing things.

To their abject horror, the reintegration campaign of Hapallachia gave them exactly what they'd been asking for.

Happallachia is a planet composed almost entirely of mountain ranges and thick forests, with oceans could be more aptly described as valleys that have filled with water, or places where the mountains dip below sea-level, rather than deep,empty expanses most associate with the phrase. Despite being prone to seizmic activity, it is not a Death World, being almost tame by Imperial standards. If anything, the seizmic activity is a boon, responsible for the large deposits of metals and other natural resources that made the planet worth reclaiming. The real challenge of the planet, and perhaps the reason the humans inhabiting the world had not re-achieved spaceflight by the time the Imperium rediscovered them, is the terrain, which ranges from fortyfive-degree slopes to sheer cliffs to trees so thick they form a natural wall. It is perhaps for this reason that the Tau, with their flight-capable vehicles and battlesuits which could handle such treacherous land, were selected to assist in reclaiming the world and assisting the newly-formed PDF regiments with clearing out the Orks which had taken root.

The locals proved more of a shock to the Tau than anything the Orks could possibly have thrown at them.

>>59927325
The humans living on Happallachia were fairly close to the standard human form, though prone to growing long, unkempt beards, with thick, black body hair and tanned leathery skin, along with having a bitter smell, though this may be a product of the alcoholic brews they are so fond of making. Even the Tau could label them as 'human' with but a single glance. The more glaring issues were regarding their society and organization- or seeming lack thereof.

The regiments the Tau liasoned with behaved more like animals than a proper fighting force, with half the troops simply not being present at any given day, either off working with their families, hunting, sleeping, or just gone without anyone knowing or seeming to care where they'd went. Their command structure was informal in the extreme, with command of a squad seeming to change hands regularly between whichever member was deemed "gud fer gittin'" the task at hand, with arguments and disputes of orders being so common as to be the norm. Speaking of arguments, the Tau simply could not wrap their heads around the way these primitives handled disputes. Two of them would disagree on something, tempers would flare and yelling would grow in volume, then they would set upon each other like wild animals, biting and clawing and punching in a big ball of violence that more than once cause the Tau to assume they were trying to kill each other. And then suddenly it would stop, the first to get up would help pull the other to his feet, and moments later they'd be smiling through their missing teeth, joking and laughing with one arm around the man they'd just been fighting, the other holding a drink that would only halfway make it to their mouth because of the black eye they'd gotten. For those who grew up being taught about how Tau-on-Tau violence was a grave sin, such flippant disregard for the fact that a buddy had just left teeth-marks in your arm was something they simply could not process.

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>>59927428
Their gear was not much better; before the Imperium arrived, the majority of the firearms on the planet had been powder-based kinetic weapons, not even the kind with explosive rounds or mono-edged blades, but simple hunks of pointed metal fired at slow enough speeds that even the Guard's flak jackets could provide reliable protection against them. What vehicles they did have were lightly-armored civilian-grade cargo haulers, most of which were rusted and bearing oversized wheels and a shocking lack of even the most basic safety equipment, looking more like something the Orks would make than a reliable source of transport. Though many had been given proper lasguns as part of the effort to bring them up to speed, many of them had taken to... 'modifying' their weapons, usually by attaching telescopic hunting scopes through a combination of screws and duct tape in a ramshackle and irreverent manner that would have any cogboy who saw their desecrations seize up and sputter, their cognizator implants overloading as they utterly fail to process the sheer volume of RRRREEEEEEEEE being demanded.

So great was the Tau's utter bafflement at the state of these troops that they recommended the entire force be either disbanded or left behind to obsensibly guard the population centers. The request was denied, for the Imperium needed the Orks culled, and so the Tau set out with their new wards, confident that they would all be dead within a week and the Tau would have to clean up. (Un)fortunately for them, they had only scratched the iceberg regarding these "good old boys."

>>59927325
>>59927428
>>59927572
Oh man, the sheer levels of eye-twitching from the Tau is giving me giggles.

>>59927572
The terrain lent itself well to the Tau's preference for engaging at range; Orks would shake their axes and blades futilely at the Fire Warriors picking them off from the other side of the gorge, and the charges they would make when in massed numbers would bog down as they slogged their way uphill into a storm of plasma fire.

Despite the prior expectations, the natives proved equally effective against the Orks, in their own ways. For one thing, they were everywhere; no matter where the battlefield went, several of the PDF would show up with a dozen or more "cousins" to help out. They were also uncanny trackers, always being able to point out with fairly good accuracy where a pocket of Orks was hiding, likely to go, or had been, though it took the Tau several ambushes to stopp dismissing the pointed "Dat way's gon' getcha busted up right good, ah tell yew what." More mind-boggling, to Tau and Ork alike, was their skill at laying ambushes themselves; more than one Ork attack had only just registered on the Tau before the forest exploded with gunfire, and often several screaming bearded men falling onto the Orks with knives drawn. This is not to say that the natives could beat the Orks in Melee combat, and more that you do not need to beat the ork when you can simply unbalance him until he falls off the cliff. Usually the natives attempting this wore parachutes or stitched wing-gliders, cackling loudly as they drifted off out of view of the dumbstruck Tau, while the more daring took the riskier route of trying to jump back off the ork onto solid ground.

It was when the Tau started to see Orks getting cut down at long range by highly accurate las-fire that the full horror of the situation dawned on them.

>>59927016
Probably yes but it's less about making biological hybrids and more about taking what they see as the best aspects of each culture and trying to make a "perfect" society. Same attitude towards technology. Understandably extremely unpopular with the monodominants and the AdMech.

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>>59928394
The natives of Happalachia loved their guns; they were a means of gathering food, a protector of your family, and symbols of your personal worth all in one. From a young age they would learn marksmanship as a means of putting meat on the table, using the primitive powder-firearms that their forefathers had used for generations, learning to shoot reliably despite bullet drop, wind interference, and other factors. Now that they had access to lasguns, which negate most of these factors, they proved themselves to be uncannily accurate shots at ranges far beyond that expected of a lasgun. What this meant in practice was that the backwards, unshaven, uncouth, smelly backwoods hooligans on this backwater world were putting out a similar long-range performance to that of the Tau, which combined with their knowledge of the terrain meant they were killing Orks before the Tau realized they were there. They were being better marksmen than them.

The thought was too much for the Tau to stomach. Desperate to prove that the Tau forces were undeniably superior to these hillbillys and preserve some semblance of dignity, the Tau leadership began enacting aggressive, almost-suicidal battle plans and strategies, determined to outperform the PDF by securing and holding more of the planet's surface and moving faster than they could, deploying forces they had previously held in reserve as "unnecessary," and generally taking it as a personal mission to prove that all their technology meant something.

The locals caught wind, thought it sounded like fun, and what came next is now known as the Happalachian Hill Race.

>>59928738
>The locals caught wind, thought it sounded like fun, and what came next is now known as the Happalachian Hill Race.

AHAHAHAHA YESSSSS

>>59927325
>>59927428
>>59927572
>>59928394
>>59928738
Unfortunately, that's going to have to do it for now while I go take care of dinner on my end. I'll come back and continue with Aliens Vs. Rednecks later on tonight.

Also just to clarify something that I've just realized might come off as making the natives Mary Sues: they're not ACTUALLY on the same level as the aliens with high-tech targeting systems and biological inclination for long-range shooting, it's that a combination of their knowledge of the terrain and enemy, the lasguns giving them a massive boost, and the Tau having not had much experience and being less adapted for fighting in thick forests as they could be leading to the Natives "appearing" to be as good as the Tau, despite having inferior tech. The Tau flip out because just the thought that they are on the same level as these neanderthals is a crushing blow to their pride, regardless of whether there's an explanation.

>>59928767
>>59927940
Glad you're enjoying it. This next bit can probably best be imagined as being set to banjo music.

>>59928738
GIT SOME! HAHAHAHA

Seeing this Aliens vs. Rednecks stuff has me curious as to how Eldar Guardians would fare when teamed up with Texan equivalents.

>>59925955
I’m not sure the monodominants were human supremecists, I had the impression they were fanatical about centralized Imperial authority beyond even the Emperor’s understanding of his own mandate, and Karamazof had to tread carefully when recruiting from the inqusotion’s lunatic fringe because for every two human supremacists under the Monodominant umbrella there was at leas one that would try to flay him for sedition

>>59929192
>[Yeehaw-ing Intensifies]
>"Ishas tits, these Mon-keigh are insane!"

>>59929192
Depends on the craftworld. Biel-tan Guardians would probably fit right in.

>>59931285
Biel-tan would just be balls to the wall fun. Imagine Ulthwe, though. They're more autistically rigid than Cadians.

>>59931959
Really any of the Eldar factions running into Texan equivalents sounds like a fun time, for many different reasons.

>>59932617
You make a solid point there, compadre.

>>59929107
The idea was simple; there were already a series of checkpoints, target areas, and objectives in place as a guideline for the reclamation. The Tau decided that if they could take, hold, and secure more of the objectives on their own, they would prove themselves the more effective fighting force, regardless of the individual performance of the natives. Unfortunately, those checkpoints and objectives had also been distributed to the PDF, so the Happalachians were also privy to the "rules" of the race.
What followed was several months of escalating competion, with the natives bringing in all their friends and neighbors, while the Tau brought in all their latest toys. Tweaking their targeting systems to better deal with the forest helped the Tau regain their edge in accuracy at range, but now the natives had numbers to even the scores. Warsuits flew over ravines and jumped over the treetops, while bolted-together technicals tore along cliff-faces, their passengers whooping and hollering as they shot at anything orkish-green that flew by. Eventually it escalated to the point that both sides were just short of open conflict.
The event is best preserved in a holopic captured by one of the Tau battlesuits. In it, there is a gorge, with a Native technical on one side, and a group of battlesuits in mid-flight on the other. The technical has one wheel over the edge, the others frantically digging for traction, as passengers shoot at unseen Orks while yelling at the Tau, with one individual hanging his bare buttocks out the window. The Tau are likewise firing at Orks on their side of the ravine, while one battlesuit has opened his helmet, apparently in order to yell back at the humans while making an extremely obscene gesture at them, a gesture also being displayed by two other battlesuits, though their users appear more focused on the Orks.

>>59933113
In the end, there was no clear winner of the race; the Tau covered more ground and ended up taking more objectives, but had trouble securing those objectives, as the increased speed had been paid for with less-thorough sweeps, while the natives proved skilled at eliminating all the Orks from an area and arriving in places quickly, they had trouble keeping up with the airborne elements of the Tau, especially when they started deploying from orbit to reach checkpoints faster. Though the "finish line" was reached, several areas fell and had to be retaken or secured, and things only seemed to get more complicated as a group of Biel-tan warriors warped in, too late to have a chance at winning but still looking to participate- and in the end had a very good showing. Most historians will say that the Tau won the race, as their technology once adapted greatly outpaced what the Happalachians could do, but for the Tau it was a bitter victory; though they had emerged on top, it had not been a decisive win, and many of their troops had lost some of their discipline and begun using the same uncouth, offensive mannerisms as they had been trying to prove themselves above. The Tau from the aforementioned holopic was identified and severely punished for such a public display of disrespectful behavior, but the truth is that several Tau had begun having similar exchanges towards the end of the race.

>>59933113
>>59933654
Shit, I guess it's later than I thought, because my head's getting kind of foggy. I'll have to finish this tomorrow I guess. I think the gist of it's done though!

>>59933654

I take it that the Tau who was disciplined later become a student to Doomguy Kai's?

>>59933752
This is supposed to be soon after the Tau actually joined the Imperium, so they'd probably be around the same age. So no, unfortunately not.

Happalachian Hill War is a delight. I'd love to see more in the way of the politics of sectors and subsectors being altered by cooperation with local craftworlds and such.

>>59934593
I feel inspired to do a write up of a sector that is literally just the southern United States in parallel. Such a wide range of people and random shite that it would be a kick to explore.

>>59936401
That'd be cool. In canon, the only US styled worlds that I can think of is Amerigo Secundus and maybe Catachan.

>>59936517
Catachan is half Space Vietnam, half Space 'Straya. Hubworlders in this timeline are communist Texans/prospectors, as strange as that sounds. More Yosemite Sam than Gimli in dialect.

>>59936401
We had some ideas brewing for the Arkhan Confederates, which generally turned them into the Deep South meets the Terran Dominion from Starcraft. Got on the wrong side of history by siding with Vandire during the Civil War, and their neighbors never let them live it down. The fact that both sides orbitally bombarded the cities of the other aided in the bitterness.

Then in the last few years tensions brewed to a height and the planet rebelled. When the Imperium's response arrived four years later, they found the Arkhan Confederacy had been overthrown by a counter-resistance movement and reformed as the Arkhan Dominion. The leader of the Dominion is a taskmaster, but he's also extremely oily and some suspect he incited the rebellion in the first place as an excuse to seize power. Some are worried his heavy-handed tactics are going to cause another civil war. But Arkhan is so far out in the boonies as long as people aren't actively shooting at each other the Imperium is willing to begrudgingly tolerate it.

The potential of stopping (or starting) another civil war on the backwater world of Arkhan would be another plot hook for someone running a DH game.

>>59936517
we also had Sonoma, a wine producing oligarchy discovered by fulgrim in the great crusade from the Dinner with the Emperor writing

>>59937276
A DH game with that hook would definitly be up there. Seen it discussed a few times and seen all the reasons that it would probably only be for veterans of 40k.

Still Good to know about the Arkhan Confederates as it could serve for some nice stories. Although I was thinking more along the liens of an actual sector to allow for some space in establishing entities. Not as bad as something like the Severan dominate, but perhaps getting close to that. Or maybe just a reputation for a more lawless area.

>>59937406
Possibly a California variant then? Although its hard to imagine wine producers as distinctly Americana influenced. All jokes aside, that just screams southern Europe to me, especially if good old Fulgrim is the one that first caught eye of it.

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>>59933654
Holy shit this is a fun read.

>>59937918
Yeah, pretty amusing stuff honestly. We need more writing of this caliber.

>>59932617
Alaitoc's conservative half as well of all of Dorhai and Karlor would be going "HA! TOLD YOU THESE GUYS WERE MANIACS! TOLD YOU ALL! AND YOU"RE STILL SLEEPING WITH 'EM?!", before turning the Happalachians (or rather, a stereotype of them) into their poster boy for the Imperium as a whole.

Ulthwe would just shrug their shoulders and say something along the lines of "Well, it takes all sorts," maybe sighing exasperatedly all the while. Can't choose your family and all that.

Biel-Tan and Saim-Hann would be attracted to Space Texabs' weaponry and hot rodding respectively. Biel-Tan might also try to keep a veneer of respectability, ranging from polite disdain to 'generous' condescension while dealing with them, while Saim-Hann would probably be trading moonshine recipes with them.

Iyanden would probably sigh,and tighten up immigration controls. Things are already crowded and chaotic enough with the Navy and citizens of Ultramar walking through the place, and they're supposed to be the CIVILIZED ones.

(cont.)

>>59938379
Finally, the Exodites might see some kind of kinship in the hard lives the more Happalachian factions of the Space South, but all that a-hootin' and a-hollerin' gets on their nerves. And while Space Texans might sound like Happalachians while sharing most of their cultural customs, the rich resource barons wouldn't sit well with the Exodite lifestyle at all.

As for how the Space South would view the rest of the galaxy:

The general Imperium: As always, it depends on the world and people. Kriegers ain't fun to be with, and Cadians are generally a little too serious during a campaign. They might actually get along well with the Tallarns, who are a spiritual people who are as prone to whoopin' and hootin' as they are, though the dresses they wear can be a sticking point.

Hrud: "Them space rats is takin' our jerbs! We oughta build a Star Fortress and make the Tau pay for it!"

Demiurg: I can see plenty of trade between the two factions, but nothing more than that for now.

Tarellians: "Now I ain't racist, and that Tinihuini feller's one of the good ones, no doubt. Bless 'em though, most of 'Rellians is funny folk with funny ways. They got their place and we got ours, no more'n that."

The Tau have already been covered above.

>>59938495
How would they get along with the Catachans?

>>59938868
About as well as Ogryns get along with them, I'd presume.

>>59938879
They'd probably view Elysians, Mordians, and Harakonians like they view Cadians? Praetorians would probably be seen as being a bunch of snobs.

>>59939105
Well, Catachans and Ogryns get along famously well, at least in canon they do. You hit the nail on the head with the Praetorians, though. They might like the Harakonians, now that I think about it... Cadians would be a bit too rigid, Mordians would probably be viewed as "Stick-up-their-ass" tier assholes. Dunno about the Elysians.

>>59939105
Praetorian officers are probably a bunch of snobs as the aristocracy and the military, up to a point, go hand in hand. Mostly because you either have to be astoundingly brilliant or rich to get into officer school and money and Praetorian aristocracy absolutely do go together hand in glove.

The average soldier taken from the lower social orders are disciplined as fuck with the exception of the penal legions but have no airs to put on. Which is not to say that they get along with outsiders well. Due to the location of their homeworld and prevailing warp currents the majority of visitors to their world typically try and murder them in new and exciting ways.

>>59939200
Sorry ignore that, I', getting mixed up with Praetorians and Mordians.

>>59939176
How well would these space rednecks get along with the various Abhuman breeds? Or Hubworlders for that matter?

Does this setting has a place for Rogue Traders, rowing band of Space Marines, or other Errant Knight-esque groups?

>>59939674
It absolutely does, especially given the less special nature of the Space Marines and general hands off attitude of the Imperium high ups.

>>59933713
Looking forward to more. This is brilliant.

>>59928687
>I'm Inquisitor Shepard and this is my favourite faction in the Inquisition.

>>59939674
the most prominent knights errant/adventuring company of space marines are the Sons of Antaeus, somewhere between homeric heroes and hedge knights in style, with a beat up ship they cut out of a space hulk as their transport and a crew of washouts from their overly specialized Mk3 SP Astartes mods flying the vessel.

Did we ever settel on a name for it? I still favor the Golden Vanity, its the right mix of hubris and self deprecation, and the tune is familiar I'm sure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xse8M03PpWc

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>>59942846
I'd be down to have an Interex Inquisitor in one of their characteristically sleek ships somewhere in Imperial history

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>>59930765
>Tiny texans doing the square dance appears
>YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (EVERYTHING EXPLODES)

>>59944039
Or Reward of Duty.

>>59933654
Shas'ui Sli'ker, the Tau fire warrior from the aforementioned Holopic, was reassigned to what amounted to a desk job in an attempt to make a public example of how crass behavior was unacceptable within the Tau military. He would later go on to write a short book intended to advise other Tau how best to prepare for different cultures, the importance of not underestimating your allies or foes, and the importance of listening to the councel of natives more familiar with the land than you, regardless of percieved ignorance. While the Ethereals deemed his work too dangerous to condone distributing it (his ideas on being willing to adopt aspects of local culture to build trust sounded too much like giving up what made the Tau the Tau), he was able to get published by human distributors, who found his work either comedically entertaining or useful for non-Tau who would interact with other cultures too. The work eventually became public knowledge among the Tau soldiery, who while they mostly found it a bit too radical, found it contained useful knowledge that has soothed relations more than once. The author himself eventually returned to Happalachia, living out his final days in what he called "the most beautiful land ever infested with hicks;" he was well-loved within the local community, and his passing was mourned greatly, with them even erecting several statues of him; one depicting him relaxing, set to look out over his favorite view, the other showing his more famous pose, placed in front of the Capitol, forever indicating exactly what he thinks of the locals, the planet, and the universe in general to the horizon.

>>59945818
>Shas'ui Sli'ker
You magnificent son of a bitch

>>59945818
The aftermath of the Happalachian Hill Race was messy, both beauracratically and conventionally. The Orks had been heavily culled and contained to a few manageable areas, but the Tau had lost much more of their hardware in the process than had previously been anticipated due to their more aggressive tactics, though there were also several crate's worth of pulse rifles that had mysteriously gone missing from their supply headquarters, with rumors that they had been "scavenged" by the locals going unconfirmed, as any Happalachian with a Pulse rifle would claim to have scavenged it off of a dead Tau.
Of greater concern was the cultural impact; the Tau's self-assurance of superiority was badly shaken, as were their preconcieved notions on Humanity and the Eldar. Tau Supremacists would use the Happalachians as caricatures of Humanity as a whole, and proof that joining these delusional primitives was a mistake that would cost the Tau dearly. Their detractors would point out that the "primitives" had shown themselves capable of keeping up with and challenging the Tau, even with technology inferior by their own standards, and that if their forces had been more advanced the Tau may actually have lost. A more concrete effect was had in that broad, sweeping changes to their policies regarding cooperation with other forces, mostly aimed at staying professional and not having their troops lose their cool and start a competition, but also including steps to try and prepare and acclimate the average Tau to the inevitable Culture Shock that had hit them so hard in Happalachia. The regiments deployed to Happalachia went on to prove themselves more skilled at working with other forces than other Tau regiments, though whether this was due to having learned humility or simple relief at the relative normalcy of most other forces is a matter of debate.

>>59945905
For their part, the Happalachians seem to consider the Tau to be friends, if oddly stuck-up buddies who try to stay cool but can scrap with the best if pushed enough. This may be part of their odd form of conflict-resolution, where fighting or competing with another is a way of growing closer with them, as long as you aren't trying to kill them. Considering their abilities with firearms, blades, and hatchets, perhaps the distinction between fighting and killing is simply more well-defined than it is for others. The race itself is remembered fondly, and has become immortalized through an actual, proper race every five years, where contestants must cross the same objectives that were the original goals, with several alternate paths and a scoring system, that is open to all comers.
There are now several Happalachian scout regiments; while their skills have proved to be mostly localized (most of the universe is not mountain ranges), they are still an asset to the Imperium, if one who's equipment is so unstandardized as to make their logistics a nightmare; this has something to do with the fact that the Admech, upon seeing their unique approach to technology, tried to declare them all tech-heretics, and while this fell through due to their desire for the local resource deposits, it is still forbidden to sell Admech goods to the locals. Not that this stops people from doing so, just that they do so sneakily, and in small quantities at a time. This has the result of the Happalachian regiments being a bit of a wild card; no other scout regiment is quite as prevalent in their ability to pull out a plasma weapon or high-yield explosive they really shouldn't have at a time when it is most needed, though the opposite is also true of them failing to have some of the most basic resources an Imperial Guard regiment is expected to field.

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>>59945818
>>59945905
>>59945951
Might add a few more paragraphs later tonight, but I believe this tale is mostly complete. I'm glad that my first bit of writefagging for this setting is being so well received!

>>59944101
Possibly it would look like this

https://pastebin.com/4LNHpRRP

Normandy would be one of the hybrid-tech Deep Recon ships. EDI, if still exists, would be possibly a black box backup copy of one of the surviving Tau A.I.s

Omega would be a slightly shady freeport run by an eldar totally-not-a-former-pirate Aria T'Loak.

Not sure what The Citadel would be beyond Big Space Station.

>>59944101
>>59944101
>>59948475
Resident grumpy oldfag with our regular reminder that OC/porting random shit in is not the point of this AU. This is pretty much just a short step away from that one guy way back who wanted to port the plot of Call of Duty Advanced Warfare into this AU and got laughed out of the thread, the only difference being /tg/ likes Mass Effect more than CoD.

>>59944737
Good to know people like that name, I just spontaneously came up with it while writing the comment it was in.

>>59949367
Okay I'm sorry and will stop. I will not however refrain from laughing at the CoD one.

Reward of Duty fits their character better. Yes they are ridiculously OP super soldiers and they know it, but they are also aware that they are living off of handouts in a salvaged barely usable space ship. They know what they are and how ridiculous it all is.

>>59949438
No need to apologize, the tone of this >>59949367 was probably a bit more brusque than I intended. I figured it was better to mention something now before people got invested in the idea.

The CoD debacle is definitely one of the funnier moments of this AU for its random, unexpected absurdity and the guy's earnestness. Like he honestly felt it was a great idea and was so perplexed when it went over like a lead balloon, I almost feel a bit bad for him.

>>59949367
Other AU oldfag here, agreed on the point of not including mass effect references, but more Interex stuff would be cool, and Star Trek/federation-esque ships were already granted to them

>>59927572
So practically the PDF bubba their lasguns?

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>>59949367
>>59950247
Other oldfag here, agree with previous oldfags. I was getting a little uncomfortable with the amount of Mass Effect references being shoved in as well. References are fun, but they should be oblique and stand on their own when possible. The Interex are already characterized as being more Star Trek + Ancient Greece + optimistic Sagan-esque ideals of the galaxy (thinking math and music are the universal language) in both canon and here. Also big ears. Their ships are described in canon as being huge but very thin and clean looking, like scepters.

Also yes, we need more Interex. We have a little, but based on their personality in canon it doesn't seem like they would be content to be a hermit kingdom. The hippies would be poking their nose in everything in the Segmentum Pacificus just like Ultramar and the Hubworld League do for their respective corners of the galaxy.

>>59946010
Would you mind if a bit was added mentioning the stuff you said here >>59929107? In the sense that to a third person observer it's clear why the Happalachians were doing so good but the Tau didn't catch on and it drove them nuts. It's clear from what you say, but reading the story in a vacuum the reader might not catch on.

>>59950490
What sort of government does the Interex have? All the name suggests is that they are between kings.

>>59950490
You raise a good point; I'll try to make one of the final paragraphs be something along the lines of "Later examination revealed exactly why this was happening." It'll probably be better inserted earlier in the story, but that will be for when I put the complete thing on the wiki.
Assuming, of course, that a bunch of hillbillies who (on their home turf) managed to go toe-to-toe with the Tau isn't too wanky on the part of the Hillbillies. I really do mean for their advantage to be almost-entirely due to home-field advantage and better-than-average-for-humans marksmanship, plus big mistakes at both the top and individual level for the Tau. Hopefully when all's done that will be more clear within the story itself.
>>59950418
Pretty much. Guns are an individual thing for Happalachians, plus their usual shooting ranges are farther than iron-sights are practical for. This is not to say that they wouldn't equip proper scope attachments if they had them, but due either to cogboy REEEEing meaning such scopes don't exist, or cogboy REEEing meaning that most Happalachians don't have access to the proper mods, they make do with duct-tape and power tools.

>>59951389
These Happlachians must have such *wonderful* opinions of the Ad-Mech.

>>59950574
I checked over Horus Rising, and it doesn't say. I would assume something that sounds Trekky or "enlightened", probably something democratic to some degree.

>>59945951
>>59946010
Historians and military analysts alike have examined the events of the Happalachian Hill Race in search of explanations as to how a bunch of newly-discovered Men of Stone with inferior technology managed to challenge one of the most technologically-advanced races in the galaxy, much less challenge them in their field of expertise. Upon closer examination, several things became apparent.

Firstly, the Happalachians, while marksmen of far higher caliber than the average guardsmen (though their unsactioned scope attachments may aid in that), are not, in fact, anywhere near as good as the average Tau. Tests performed in firing ranges and field excercises found that the Tau's accuracy and response time were far greater than that of the Happalachians, and effective at much further ranges than Happalachian lasguns could even reach, much less reliably hit. This, of course, raised the question of how these hillbillies were getting the drop on the Orks before the Tau. The answer lies in perhaps the two biggest contributing factors to the outcome; Terrain and Tactics.

While the Tau had come equipped with jumpsuits and drones and the means to easily cover the planet's mountainous terrain, on the planning level there had been a major failure to account for how advancing across a planet of mountains is different from advancing across a mountain range on a planet. A gorge easily crossed in a battlesuit could contain miles of tunnels, outcroppings, overhangs, and other places where Orks could hide within the trees or shrubbery. This meant that the intial Tau advance was very prone to accidentally overjumping patches of Orks, who would then attempt to ambush the Tau, and instead get bisected by the lasfire of the Natives.

This was the second failing in the Tau's campaign, their Tactics.

>>59952703
Both Natives and Orks on Happalachia had adopted an inclination towards Ambush tactics, as massed engagements and charges were simply unfeasible on a fortyfive-degree slope. Some Orks would even bury themselves in the ground and wait for hours or days in order to jump an enemy, which meant that on the Tau's heat-sensors they would appear as little more than slightly warmer than usual plants. The local tactic for clearing Orks would generally involve one group acting as the "bait," driving around in one of their loud technicals, whooping and hollering and making as much noise as they could, with the rest of the locals aimed and waiting for the Orks to take the bait.

The Tau, by contrast, were not sneaky in the least about their approach, their loud jumpjets, clanking battlesuits, and vehicle support making their advance very loud and very noticeable. To the Happalachians, this looked like the aliens volunteering for the most dangerous role in the hunt, and thus moved to do the obvious thing and be ready to intercept the inevitable ambush. In practical terms, this meant that engagements with the Orks happened with the Natives already prepared to fire, and the Orks at close ranges to the Tau, who are notoriously ill-suited for close quarters. The Tau, having failed to take the locals seriously enough to have learned or paid attention to the Happalachian's explanations on how to properly hunt Orks, mistook the native's well-intentioned support as intentional attempts at showboating, fraying tempers and leading to rash decisions and even more stubborn resistance to any sort of advice from the locals.

>>59952720
There were, of course, other factors; scouts who would go ahead and track groups of Orks, relaying their position through birdcalls and markings on trees; the spread-out nature of the native population, which lead to there usually being someone in the area who could point out pitfalls or add more firearms to the mix; the constant tree-cover making the Tau's vertical advantages significantly reduced; even flaws in the Tau targeting system in regards to such extreme slopes, which while not enough to render them helpless or ineffective, could slow their response time against Orks from multiple sharp angles just enough for the natives to fire first. However, the majority of these factors tend to stem from perhaps the Tau's biggest blunder; their attitude towards the natives.

The intention to prove themselves better had already colored the intitial interactions with Happalachians, and once the Tau saw the way the natives behaved, they almost immediately dismissed them as hopeless fools. This, of course, flies in the face of the fact that a population on a planet infested with Orks cannot survive without developing ways to effectively deal with their green neighbors, and that a population that thrives is likely very good at it. The miscommunication about the standard tactics against the Orks and subsequent losses of composure at percieved slights could well have been avoided had the Tau actually listened and not dismissed the (admittedly impolitely presented) guidance of the Happalachian advisors regarding the flaws in the Tau's plan of advance. In short, idealism and self-assumed superiority blinded the Tau, both on the Command and individual level, to their easily-corrected mistakes; a mistake that they would later take great pains to avoid making again, if only to avoid another such humiliation.

>>59952090
Depends on how aware they are of what they're missing out on. Keep in mind that this is a backwater that until recently had been limited to gunpowder weaponry; as far as they're concerned, they're getting really great stuff already, and anything that's "banned" they can usually get smuggled in or find on the black market, because mining makes good money and merchants are perfectly willing to slip a few crates of the "good stuff" out to the boonies and line their pockets with the native's Thrones.

>>59952117
Checking the notes we actually don't have any info currently up on the Internex member state entry, so maybe someone could knock that out.

As for a government type, sticking with oldfag>>59950490 's mentioning with the ancient greece, I can see a sort of Parliament meets open forum setting. There would be elected officials to meet to discuss policy, but the openings of who represented who would be quite open as I would assume the general populace would be much more involved in politics and day to day governance, so anybody a certain 'province' or 'sector' thought would be best to represent them, regardless of age or background, could represent them.

This parliament could then be overseen by a council that is based around the Technocracy model. The most prominent scientists and engineers also holding part time positions as council members to vote on proposals and laws. I see it being a position to be voted into by either hte general populace or perhaps something like an electoral collage of various scientific and social institutions. I'll also throw in the caveat that there is no benefits package or pay that comes with being a high council member so we can really highlight the whole 'serving the people' aspect I think the Internex would be all for.

>>59952703
>>59952720
>>59953013
Damn if this doesn't keep getting longer every time I think I'm done. I think what I need next is an epilogue of sorts, to highlight how the Tau actually improved from this event and how it was a stepping-stone away from their starting haughty attitude and towards actually putting effort into cooperating for real, rather than trying to bring Tau culture to the "primitive" Imperium. Maybe something about how the Happalachians are still fond of the Tau and their regiments will always volunteer to go help out any Tau forces in trouble, to which the Tau try their hardest to politely decline if they can.
Maybe point out that, despite being a PR disaster and the waste of far more Tau lives and resources than it should have taken, the Tau did in fact complete their objective, and much faster than had originally been predicted too. The fact that they made these mistakes on a people who welcomed a more competitive/hostile attitude also meant that they learned these lessons without accidentally pissing off an entire planet's population and making some long-term enemies- in this scenario at least. There might have been other planets where these lessons didn't quite stick, but their effect was mitigated by the fact the Tau now had precedent for "Don't get into a dick-measuring contest with the locals, because it sucks if you overestimate your own performance and everybody sees."

>>59953368
I hope they are at least somewhat aware, maybe by means of dissident tech-priests who've come to their planet over the years. The more people who rightly consider the Ad-Mech to be jerks(Yes, I know they have some good reasons for it) the more funny I'll find it.

>>59954035
The Interex in canon were said to have had about 40 or so worlds. Is that too much for an open Athenian-style democracy? Or maybe it's a cyberdemocracy like is often suggested in futurist scenarios to keep the Greece! In! Space! feel. I'm all for a more "raw" feeling democracy like old Athenian-style or demarchy than the representative democracy of most modern Western nations.

The limits of cyberdemocracy would mean there would have to be a division between planet and empire level issues (no reliable FTL comms), and it would mean some might not get to participate (i.e., no votes for you Tamerlane).

How are the Kinebrah represented in the Interex governments?

>>59954662
I figure a bit with Tau commanders confirming their lessons learned with the commanders of Ultramar Blue Helmets that they had been encountering for their entire space faring history and thought of as the Imperial standard would work for this

>>59955896
They were a protectorate until the Interex joined the imperium, at which point the Kinebrach got their own representation in the Imperium.
>>59954947
I think cyberdemocracy would be the perfect mix of optimistic futurism and greek influence, and the limited range would help with a sort of Polis vibe.

Also, I'd want to bump them up to forty systems instead of forty planets.

>>59954035
That could work and would fit in well with the general attitude of the Interex. Each field of expertise has it's own training facilities with candidates selected with extensive peer review of published works to ensure that no charismatic morons or political demagogues get through. Candidates selected for the job based on a combination of prior successful experience, written qualifications and criminal record when applicable.

Upon appointment the new leader is expected to hand over his or her worldly goods to their next of kin or whoever they have named in their will and live in the government facility where they work. They would make better pay stacking shelves and flipping burgers but the job does come with an apartment, medical care and free access to the canteen so a minimal standard of living is guaranteed.

The average pleb does not have a say in the running of any branch of government. Why should they? Not all opinions are equal because some people are just too stupid to take seriously.

A result of this is that there have been a few Kinebrach Chairmen and High Board members down the years, among other xenos.

>>59956423
>Also, I'd want to bump them up to forty systems instead of forty planets.

What about forty voting/capital planets in forty systems, with the other planets in said systems either being unsuitable for colonization, subordinate to their capital world, or just too sparsely populated to have a vote? I dunno, I like the "Forty Worlds Under Forty Suns" thing as it sounds a little mythic.

Also, as >>59950490 said:
>based on their personality in canon it doesn't seem like they would be content to be a hermit kingdom. The hippies would be poking their nose in everything in the Segmentum Pacificus just like Ultramar and the Hubworld League do for their respective corners of the galaxy.

Maybe they're not a hermit kingdom, but neither are they overly expansionist? There are limits to a space democracy, after all, especially if you want every significant world to have a vote. Maybe they're politically active in Segmentum or even Imperial affairs, with Interex civilians making their way in the greater Imperium, but they're not all that keen on planting their flag on more worlds.

>>59954947
>>59956715
It might be that on paper they own that many systems but that doesn't necessary represent current reality. Interex would not have been isolated from the catastrophes afflicting the Imperium.

>>59954662
That was a wonderful read, thank you. Is it on the page yet?

>>59959285
Not as of yet. It still needs an epilogue, plus I'd kind of like to get the okay from some of the old-timers that this isn't off-tone for the setting. Fun as it is to see the Tau trip up and get disrespected by space-hillbillies, it might be a bit too light-hearted.

>>59959644
Eh, we have a main character named Jubblowski, LCB is canon- your addition would fit in just fine,if you ask me.

>>59959644
I've been here since the start. It would be a good addition.

>>59959644
We have a Man of Gold called Oscar because Oscar Awards. Hillbilly world is not too light hearted

>>59957823
How many of actual note should there be now?

>>59956423
>>59956715
It may have been forty systems (forty stars) instead of forty planets. I may have read it wrong and been thinking in Sol terms.

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>>59960434
Jubblowski did become a somewhat serious character, mother of a Word Bearers commander and the APEX Twins among many others, living religious icon of the Isharites and venerated as The Cadian Prophetess by a fringe sect of Tallarns.

>>59959644
I also like it. Having a mix of light-heartedness alongside parts with emotional pathos is always good in a setting. Reminds me of some of the ridiculousness you sometimes see in military history.

>>59956715
>>59957823
>>59963551

I think we have a good idea with the 40 systems to really bump up the scale. I also enjoy the idea of a separated system and Empire level of politics, as not every system will suffer the same worries or needs.

So there could be a sort of system government that is a representative democracy, or perhaps a smaller version of the Technocracy, that are strictly worried with the local affairs. Then we can highlight the Athenian style old democracy with a single or two elected officials from each sector that go to the Internex capital for the major pow-wow on decisions. Also a Empire level council of Scientists/Engineers could serve like a quasi- judicial branch, examining each law and proclamation through the lens of STEM, Sociology and Demographics, and just basic 'decency' perhaps defined in a standard document of rights. (This is drifting into the idealized USA system, but the system is a pretty good model if there wasn't all the other crud bogging it down).

Bump

>>59966213
>>59963551
It’s kind of amusing to me people are splitting hairs about 40 systems vs planets, because the two are pretty much synonymous. Habitable planets are already vanishingly rare, so the likelihood of having more than one in one solar system is minuscule. Most habitation in a given system outside the main habitable world is going to be limited, like a fueling station orbiting a gas giant or a small, specialized mining outpost on a mineral rich but uninhabitable world.

>>59968871
True, but in 40k that is not always the case. In canon Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the moons of the gas giants all had significant humans presences. Macragge has six inhabited planet in canon. Cadia had several as well. Habitable planets might be one a solar system under normal circumstances (not counting Europa-like worlds), but you also have to account for thousands of years of human, eldar, Old One, and even Necrontyr terraforming.

>>59966213
One thing that has to be considered is there also needs to be a representative to the greater Imperium. The Imperium doesn't care much about your system of government, but it does care that there is someone to hold the bag when shit hits the fan. Of course, that person can just be a representative rather than an actual leader as is the case for the Hubworld League.

There might also be ministers of certain areas that have longer term jobs just for the sake of stability but are expected to not have a lot of power. Cyberdemocracy/demarchy makes it hard for ministers to try and cultivate power and the quasi-judicial branch (Council of Magi?) has the right to kick them out if they feel they are getting too corrupt.

>>59956715
That's probably it. They seem more like the Federation in Star Trek, they don't want to expand onto your planet, but they do want to poke their nose in on your business and possibly trade with you.

I do like the "Forty Worlds under Forty Suns" thing.

>>59966213 (cont.)
Having there be some sort of citizenship requirement sounds good to differentiate them from modern USA democracy. We don't want them to come off as author mouthpieces as opposed to Trekky Greece in Space. We've averted that a little by showing that the rest of the galaxy (even the Tau) considers them a bit too peaceful and hippy-ish for their tastes.

In universe the citizenship requirement makes sense for the reason of keeping Chaos out. The Interex were really paranoid about Chaos in canon, to the point that they kept Horus and the Imperial representatives in a part of the city which was obviously intended for quarantine. Of course, part of this problem was the Imperium was a warlike spacefaring empire who showed up on their doorstep that showed absolutely no knowledge of Chaos, which to the Interex was like not knowing what sharks are after swimming through a shark tank for several days to reach them. Their general thought process was "how the hell do you use Warp engines yet not know what daemons are?". They were half expecting them to be trojan horses and start screaming "Blood for the Blood God" at a moment's notice. Heck, the guy that Loken talks to actually says something along the lines of "hah, you almost had us that time" when he thinks the Imperials are Chaos worshippers.

>>59970473
I could certainly see an Imperial position like the Sergeant at Arms type. Meant to not really do anything except when everything is literally on fire and something needs to give (I'm imagining the type of role like the Vice president in the Congress for you Amerifags, but with less actual voting power outside emergency declarations and possibly tithe issues).

>>59970523
Citizenship requirements is good, given how insular the place is. I don't know if anyone would like to try and flesh that out, perhaps besides saying that it would require either being born in a certain system or having been a natural citizen of a system for so long, etc. Perhaps some other stipulations of only particular professionals, like scientists or engineers, but that could probably waved off.

I also enjoy the Forty World under Forty Suns motto/imagery, makes me think of trying to create a banner for it.

>>59970837
You mean like an ancient Greek tyrant? Or a Roman dictator?

>>59970837
Would they have their ow flag?

>>59971708
I guess? But I'm wasn't sure if we would want to go with how the original Tyrant and Dictator went historically, especially if it was an official from outside the Internex region.

>>59973197
I don't see why not, it would be good to flesh out and it would stand to reason that they would want to self-identify with other Imperial states.

>>59973248
Then in truth all of the Survivor Civs need them, and possibly the semi-autonomous alien nations.

>>59973416
It would be a serious project, but probably not a high priority one unless someone feels artistically inclined.

>>59973533
What would be the Hubworlder national symbol be?

>>59974082
Black background. White silhouette of the galaxy. Golden ring around the central hub.

>>59970837
They will still claim it's forty worlds under forty suns but it is known that many of those worlds are held now for only tradition's sake, the permanent presence a mere shadow of what it was in the glory days of the Great Crusade. But they are rebuilding and they are not as innocent as they once were.

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>>59938495
Void Born

>>59973236
Probably someone like Cincinattus would be more the ideal. Someone who has the bare minimum of power necessary and is only called up when shit hits the fan. The ideal Interex military officer tends towards Captain Picard anyway, which would reduce the chance of someone seizing power. One thing we've mentioned that is kind of shady on the Interex' part is they kick their more aggressive soldiers out as part of their tithe.

Of course, this could lead to the opposite problem. High ranking military officers which are a bit too placid, as lack of ambition might be valued a bit too highly to head off any usurpation attempts. Leading the Imperium to sometimes knock on their door asking why they are having such trouble getting it together.

Though of course lack of ambition can always be faked. Look at what happened in China.

>>59977151
Would also explain why they haven't spread their realm despite Imperial Protection. When they set up a new colony they encourage it to go independent and join the Imperium as a whole as a new world. Interex culture spreads far beyond the faded glory of the Interex.

>>59973236
Or we could keep the Star Trek influence and have a Chairman.

>>59956388
I like this idea, though I'm admittedly a little lost on how it would go down. Most of the stuff on the wiki doesn't talk about the relationship between the Tau and Ultramar, just the Tau and the Imperium.
>>59960434
>>59960762
>>59961924
>>59966081
I'm glad to see how well-received this has been, and you're all right about there already being plenty of more light-hearted stuff.
The comparison to the ridiculousness in Military History is actually very apt; in particular I imagined comparisons to America's first deployments of boots on the ground during WWII, during which what was on paper a highly advanced and modernized military force kept running into logistical and tactical oversights that screwed things up.

As for finishing this writeup, I just need to figure out the right way for the Tau commanders to fact-check with Ultramar to show that the lessons would stick, Then I need to figure out where in the wiki this should go. Since it's entirely focused around a single planet, it might fit in Notable Planets, but it's more about the military campaign than the planet, so maybe it belongs in Events, or Writings.
Regrettably, I am one of the unfortunate souls who has to work weekends, so actually getting pen to paper and doing so is going to be a while for me.

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>>59980946
Ultramar Guard are closely tied with their Astartes special forces, have the industry and tech for combined arms fighting to match the Tau, thought they are less individually teched out their combined arms tactics are played out on a much grander scale, and they've had millennia to refine Gulliman's ideas into a near perfect integration of networked infantry, air and space support, Astartes ops and surgical strikes, and most importantly, total logistical control in their established area of operation. They have been the force the Tau have been encountering for their whole spacefaring history, and presumably identified as them as the Imperium's professional army before they realized the Imperium's true scale. The Tau's love of combined arms has as much to do with trying to surpass the monolithic, and in their eyes unchanging, bastion of professionalism that is the Ultramar Guard that they've been comparing themselves to for the longest time as it does with their own aptitudes and tendencies. The Ultramar Guards' weird auxiliaries (actually other more specialist regiments sent from other parts of the Imperium) were something of an inspiration for the Tau's own adoption of the practice in their early expansions, and they have a lingering rivalry with the Ultramar Guard stemming from their presence as the Imperial force that would hold down the Tau Empire in the earlier conflicts between them.

They also wear spiffy ultramarine helmets with the white crest of Ultramar ringed by laurels, but otherwise dress in flack armor green/tan to blend in better.

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>>59981586
How involved with trade and exchange with the Tau Empire and other neighbors is Ultramar? It predates the Imperium so it must have had contact with others before the Imperium arrived and absorbed everything.

How do the Tau react to Ogryn?

>>59982579
Well they were certainly known to the region's voidborn at the time, though probably not all the way to what would become segmentum solar. I think we also had them as a space Delian League/Greco-Roman empire-republic mashup. That would be another reason to play up the Interex' cyberdemocracy and technocracy, make them the platonic republic to old Ultramar's mythic classicism.

>>59980946
>>59981586
The Tau have also gotten really buddy-buddy with Ultramar because the two member states are neighbors on the far end of the Imperium, so what affects one tends to affect the other and the tend to be on the same level regarding certain political issues (e.g., where should resources be spent). It wouldn't have been the case at first because the Tau didn't have a lot of contact with the Imperium until the warp storm blew over.

>>59979614
Or some kind of admiralty board or something.

>>59984080
Probably the same way they would react to Catachans. Though Catachans are just hard, not Neanderthal-level intelligence like non BONEhead Ogryn are.

>>59973416
>>59973533
Do the Tau have a flag in 40k? I know they have a faction symbol, but I'm not sure if a flag is a human only thing.

Did we agree on the Rak'Gol?

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>>59905153
So what's the Nobledark Imperium's lore on Alpharius and Omegon?

>>59991528
Recruited from a pre-Unification shadowy secret society. Given command of the Alpha Marines which are highly classified and Omega Legion that doesn't officially exist. Founded the Inquisition. Once War of The Beast was over they deleted all records of themselves. What records survive are contradictory.

>>59990912
Nothing concrete beyond that they are on The List.

>>59991586
Where is the link on the complete history? Or is it still WIP?

>>59992672
It is in the Primarch section and also references to them in other primarch stories and some in the notable peoples I think.

>>59982579
It's been described as somewhat of a chimera of imported ideas with a roman backbone. It's a very old nation that has preferred to trade over war so it's got a lot of imported things.

Bump

Were there any small nations of Old Earth in the Unifications other than the big ones?

SO what's happening with Ephermial Stern?

>>59995618
There was the Lichstenstein Vault, who remained stubbornly isolationist (they thought the Imperium were post-apocalyptic raiders trying to trick them) until the last overseer finally decided to step out seeing as he was so old his loss wouldn't hurt the Vault, and found that in fact everyone was not trying to kill them.

This was about 20 years before the War of the Beast. Oops.

Also Sammarino and a few other places.

>>59996736
Nothing concrete yet. Planning on giving it a go tonight

>>59997823
Was it so soon? Opening the Vault was Malcador's big achievement in his final twilight years and Malcador was dead before The Beast started his march.

>>59999972
Well 20 years is enough for an old man to die even on rejuveants, so I figure it works.

Any ideas about Hy Brasealian individuals coming out of their hermit kingdom to see the Imperium before the War of The Beast.

>>60000288
Probably there wouldn't be droves of them. The main reason The Warlord didn't forcibly subjugate them was becasue the whole Imperium business was started to keep people safe and give them a nation that wasn't shit to live in. Hy Brasil was left alone because it was a functioning nation with a decent government and the quality of life for it's citizens wasn't very different to that of the Imperium.

>>60000565
Their government not wanting to be subsumed by the Imperium doesn't mean their citizens wouldn't get curious when the rest of the world starts having space adventures. Particularly if their govenment isn't restrictive of their travel, there might be plenty of Hy Brasealians abroad prior to their government joining the Imperium.

>>60000288
>>60000565
>>60000998
The Warlord/Steward would also love to have Hy Brasealeans touring around the Imperium. The reason Hy Braseal didn’t join during the Unification was the Warlord buddied up with Hy Braseal’s two oldest enemies, Merica and Orioc. The fact that they had done so in the former’s case by supporting an internal coup and dismantling its imperial interests was either something they did not know or did not care about. If either Merica or Orioc had been on the same list as the Pan-Pacific or Ursh they would have probably joined in the same manner that Franj-Europia or the Afrique League did. Having Brasealean citizens abroad in the Imperium just adds to the propaganda the Steward wants to send of “the Imperium is a great place and you should really reconsider joining”.

It’s worth noting in canon that Hy Braseal had extensive diplomatic contacts with the Imperium in canon, even though Hy Braseal was semi-autonomous and was not allowed a seat on the Council of Terra by direct order from Malcador himself. It would be pretty hard to remain completely closed off when you share a planet with someone, especially since Hy Braseal had a few spacecraft (I think single digits). It may have been more when it came to space travel the two groups tried to ignore each other.

The Hy Brasealeans also produced their own Imperial Army regiment in canon, the Dracos or Ouranti Draks, who dressed in green-scaled cloaks and armor and wore reptilian-themed helmets (and were one of the Old Hundred). I assume in this timeline they joined the Imperium after the destruction of Hy Braseal during the War of the Beast.

>>60002235
Here they would not have been any of the Old Hundred going forth into the Great Crusade. They would though have been part of Old Earth's Imperial Army and PDF contributions after WoTB.

>>59956518
Other than Kinebrach and Humans what other species call the Interex home?

Are volkite weapons solely the domain of the humans in the imperium or do any of the alien races make use of them in some way?

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>>60005054
I don't know of any in canon. Of course there could have been some that got crushed during the Great Crusade like the Nephilem or Laer.

Fulgrim's bio seems to indicate there was a sect of crazy people (radical Prometheans? who liked using Vokites). Which is one reason people were a little leery of them during the Great Crusade.

>>60005866
Okay, interesting, now do any of the non-human races of the Imperium use human volkite weapons? Or any of the other fancy 30k stuff that's still around in larger amounts in this setting for that matter?

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>>60006669
The Tau probably would if they had the chance, though they might find it awkward and certain sects of tech-priests would REEE! at it.

Tarellians might in a pinch as well. They like to be independent to the point of prefering disruption rifles (which I guess are kind of like volkite but instead of Martian heat rays it's "evaporate all the water in your body" rays).

Kroot would. Unless they thought it was making them soft. Full stop.

Eldar probably depend on Craftworld and availability.

Kinebrach are the most likely candidates for non-human Volkite users. We've already described their ranged weapons as having a brassy/metalic raygun gothic vibe (a.k.a. pulp science fiction) due to their skill as metalworkers. Volkite beams are very pulpy. And the Interex might have had similar technology and shown the kinebrach blueprints even if the kinebrach didn't know.

Demiurg who the fuck knows. Their ship weaponry revolves around accelerating ions to sub-relativistic speeds like minaturized Reaper beams from Mass Effect.

>>60008086
Interesting information, anyone care to check out the stuff on this page here https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Solar_Auxilia_(30k)
and take a stab or two at figuring out who among the Imperium's races in this setting at m41 is using this stuff aside from humans? I ask because I'm kinda interested in determining how hi-tech the Imperium is in the nobledark compared to canon.

>>60009547
Lurk and read the wiki. We’ve said that the Imperium is higher tech than canon because knowledge wasn’t lost due to no Horus Heresy, so 30k tech that was lost in canon is still around like jet bikes. Add to that the generally more rational mindset of the Imperium and the cross pollination of ideas from the members species. On the flip side, the Mechanicus is still assholish dogmatic, though their worst tendencies are curbed by Oscar, and economic constraints means that the high end goodies are still rare and hard to produce. Things that were widely available to the Legions in 30k would probably be pretty widespread in modern day Nobledark, like SM jumppacks that allow for full flight instead of just jump assists.

>>60010337
I've already read the wiki and lurked the threads though. I was just curious if someone wanted to flesh things out a bit more then they are already is all. No need to get upset.

>>59986136
Admiralty board would imply that it's a military dictatorship.

>>60010700
This. The Interex leadership would more likely to be made up of a bunch of old philosophers whose biggest flaw is that they pontificate and argue when they should be doing. On the positive side in more than 10,000 years of history the number of power mad dictators and administrators is negligible. So it's stable, just not very dynamic. According to Administratum data-stack deep strata records they have always been like this which indicates that they formed in an extended period of calm in the warp currents during the Age of Strife that shielded them somewhat.

It's not like they don't have more pro-active military commanders. It's just that they aren't encouraged though the leadership complains only after they do what needs to be done because old philosophers they may be but they aren't foolish.

>>60011256
So how are they chosen then? Direct election or do people elect the electors? Some other system?

>>60011388
Double anonymous peer reviewed qualifications (name of applicant and names of judging committee both a secret) to determine who gets onto the list followed by nit picking over previous record of the listed applicants to determine the least unworthy for the job applied for.

A combination of enforced austerity in the ruling class, very public accountability and harsh punishment for abusing position discourages people from going into leadership roles for personal gain.

The Chairman/Tyrant/Whatever acts much like the monarch of Britain. They are there to officiate and oversee but their authority is mostly ceremonial unless someone takes out the entire government and there is literally nobody else. The Board of Governance vote on things that will effect the entire Interex whilst leaving the running of it's actual constituent worlds to the forty locally appointed system Administrators who may or may not be democratically elected depending on local tradition. The Forty Administrators are technically subservient to the will of The Board but also have the right to tell The Board to fuck right off if they are given orders on a subject that is purely a local matter. If there is dispute on if it is local or interstellar then the matter can be taken to a High Tribunal where trio of anonymous Masked Magistrates determine if the matter is local of large scale. The looser of the tribunal is expected retire from their position due to lack of clear judgment.

The Chairman is typically the representative before the Imperium.

>>60011595
It does sound like the Federation 40k a bit. I can only imagine that the more aggressive and militarist parts of the Imperium must think they are a bunch of wimps or some shit.

>>60011994
Oscar upon meeting them for the first time would probably have acknowledged that they have a very good and capable government for times of peace. The unspoken criticism being that this isn't a peaceful time.

>>60011595
Add to this that it is called "interex". It was founded as a monarchy in space back in the mid to late Age of Strife with a monarch the official method of which has been forgotten. The Board was set up by some ancient monarch to administrate his realm as the nation moved off-world and became increasingly difficult to rule alone. Records are hazy but the first Chairman arose in the absence of a monarch with the expectation that a new one would arise eventually. Back in the old days there is some evidence that the nation was known as [monarch's name]'s Kingdom and for more than ten thousand years the Interex has been "Between Kings", hence the name.

There is some crack pot conspiracy that tries to link Rynn the Exiled King to the vacant throne of the Interex. Nobody takes it seriously although several films of varying popularity have been made about it. In both the Interex and Rynn's World.

>>60004538
There are some eldar that call it home. They are a minority but they have always been there.

bump

>>60004538
>>60011994
There are the Megarachnids of Urisarach. Who are not so much members as a protectorate quarantined on their homeworld because the Interex couldn't bear to wipe them out. Which got them funny looks from the Imperium. If a "kill all Orks/Dark Eldar/Laer/Nephilem button" existed the Imperium wouldn't hesitate to slap it. To them, if you commit to xenocide, you've reached the point where you'd better follow it through unless some pretty serious mitigating circumstances come up.

>>60017522
Did the spiders ever have space flight?

>>60019158
They did in canon, until they ran into the Interex. The Interex tried to communicate with them in the same way they did with the kimebrach, but the spiders weren't interested and attacked. The Interex, kinebrach, and the like struck back and burned most of their worlds and quarantined them on their homeworld with a bunch of comm buoys scattered around the planet warning travelers not to set foot there.

>>60019216
Do they still build cities and farmland or are they regressed to feral creatures?

Are they still contained by 999M41?

>>60020286
The only suggestion we had is that the Imperium rolled their eyes when they saw this but let the Interex keep them as a protectorate, but saying that if this bites the Interex in the butt, then it becomes the Imperium's problem and the Megarachnids go bye bye.

In canon they didn't regress. They were still building their weird telephone pole-like technology when the Imperium showed up. It was their honeworld after all.

>>59984080
Possibly they look at the way their caste system is dividing their species and start to get worried

>>60022819
Oh, I hadn't considered how they would react to the uplift the Imperium had done on the Ogryn. In that vein, how would they view the massive variation in Men of Stone, from the distant octopods and Beastmen, to Abhumans like voidborn and ogryn, and even the more specialized Stone Men like Cadians and Catachans. To the Tau the difference between Abhumans and more transhuman Stone Men like the Mechanicus, Biologicus, and inhabitants of places like Savlar might seem fairly arbitrary, particularly at times when the Tau doubted the true age of the Imperium. Similarly, the Eldar's selective gene expression might seem to follow out of the Stone Men's extreme adaptability, and could lead to some pretty bonkers theories from uninformed tau biologists about the relationship between the Impreium's founding species' shared pasts (or the actual lack there of).

>>60023847
>the difference between Abhumans and more transhuman Stone Men
By which I mean the difference in classification would seem arbitrary, in light of the overwhelmingly apparent difference in physiology. It would probably take some serious convincing to make a Tau scientist see that a martian and a terran are closer each other than either is to a Catachan.

>>60023847
>>60023919
This also raises the possibility of some AdBio experimenting with the Tau's gene-expression to see how much they can twist up the Tau's caste system, or to create an "uber-Tau" who expresses the best genes from all the castes.
All highly illegal of course, but that just means the AdBio doing it are keeping their heads down and keeping their research limited- the Tau involved are told it's an attempt to improve the Tau's longevity, and any group that gets caught are "hereteks" working independently.

Bump

>>60023847
There could be a false belief among the more un educated Tau that humans and eldar share a common ancestor.

If thread is still up after work I'll try and finish the High Lords. I have a half day off this week. Yay.

On that note, I'll actually finish and edit the conquest of laer, I've been procrastinating and feel like shit

>>60028707
That's certainly what the kinebrach thought at first.

>>60024548
Oh geez, that would make the Tau freak out like no other if they found out, given that cross-breeding to them is like incest. And it sounds exactly like what radical AdBio would try and do to "make things better" or "see how they work".

>>60022819
>>60023847
I think that was one thing we mentioned, the Tau look at humans and eldar and think "how the hell do they function". They look disorderly. There is no partition of roles. Eldar make some sense but their swapping of the path system is still a bit alien. Humans are more comprehensible in other aspects (both species are extroverted and often like poking their nose in other's business), but have no semblance of order whatsoever beyond maybe seeing Mechanicus as roughly analogous to Earth Caste.

>>60030411
Looking forward to it.

>>60030411
Please hurry fulgrimfag. Writefaggotry is the fuel for this general.

>>60031505
The AdBio attention i n such a project would probably be innocent. Potentially horrific but in motivation innocent.

>>60034251
That's how the worst products of the AdBio come about. Innocent motives but not completely thinking the implications or the requirements through. AdMech are too strict, AdBio too lax.

Exhibit A: the project that spawned Legienstrausse.

>>60031505
On top of the lack of partition of rolls, they have the potential to be even more specialized than Tau specialists in their respective fields. Some Tau might use this as evidence that the humans are somehow as ancient as they say they are, but for most of Tau history those would be met with the same doubt as Por'o M'arc.

Speaking of which, I remember someone in a past thread had an estimate of the span of time the Old Ones dominated the galaxy before the War in Heaven, and it was massive. Really drove home the sort of galactic-scale ecological dominion they held over the galaxy.

>>60034918
What other horrors have the AdBio accidentally done?

>>60035697
Well theres the Ork Panopticon that hasn't blown up in their face yet, but thats the Order Psychologicus, a fringe sect funded by the aristocracy.

>>60035002
If they think humanity is exaggerating it's age they must think the eldar a weapons grade bullshit merchants.

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>>60036725
Thus the Tau theories of weird biological uplift and Humans and Eldar sharing a recent ancestor, probably cobbled together from misunderstood explanations of the fall of the Old Empire and GaBHD and subsequent Age of Strife, reengineering of baseline humanity into Men of Stone by the Iron Minds, Uplift of the Eldar by the Old Ones, and a conflation of the Iron Minds' runaway AI with the much grander runaway Old One AI that are now the Chaos Gods. After hearing the Necron's story they might just tack that on as another interpretation of a relatively recent AI rebellion that sundered a single humanoid empire into disparate and opposing peoples in a tower of babel situation. They might even start off thinking the Necrons are those megastructure building networked AI Men of Iron Humanity mentioned, because clearly those stories are too similar to reflect events millions of years apart.

>>60035002
Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Malal would have to be Jurassic in age if their birth scars are not visible, assuming something similar to Khorne and Slaanesh occured. Be'lakor, being the guy who said "that's one small hop for toads, one giant leap for toadkind would have to be even older.

>>60037858
In this regard the Yokel Tau are wiser than the main branch, they know the depth of the abyss.

>>60037858
Another way for the Tau to rationalize these differences and temporal incongruities would be applying their very vague understanding of the already nigh-incomprehensible patterns of time dilation and displacement in the Warp, and the nominally correct idea that the Old Empire was based in controlled bubbles in the warp while the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion was in realspace. Its an absurd notion to those that better understand these things, but to those that only know these things in passing it makes more sense than the truth.

>>60038237
Another thing that estimate took into account is that Nurgle was seen by the Sload as a well established addition to the even older established system of Tzeentch and Malal, which pushes Bel'akor's initial ascension back even further, since it follows that Nurgle's birth would fit into the timeline at a point where the eldest two gods are already established and be closer to their births than to Khorne's, which came at the very end of the Old Ones' era. This was complicated by the fact that of all the gods, Nurgle in an un-rampant state would probably the least destructive in birth, and when corrupted, the most likely to drag his afterbirth into the warp like a comfort blanket for safe keeping, making dating the age of, or even finding such a scar, to be all the less likely.

>>60035002
The galaxy is ~13 billion years old. Not sure what effect one galaxy crashing into another would have on it's in inhabitants but probably not much as it's a lot of nothing passing through a lot of nothing at speeds that would be glacial at fastest. In any case there hasn't been anything of decent size fly into/through the galaxy in 10 billion years.

I don't know how long it is that it would take for shit to settle enough for complex life to form without being probably fried/frozen/irradiated/torn apart in a hellstorm of high gravity objects whizzing around.

But the potential time that the Old Ones and C'tan could have started their respective climbs to sapience is beyond caring about. It's the sort of time where you don't expect fossils to survive.

>>60030212
I'm sorry. I lied. I fully intended to but I'm too tired to think in straight lines and other things are fucking my head up something royal.

High Lady of the Psykana ideas I had were

- Inherited a very formal institution from her predecessor much like a Hogwarts: Government Department type thing. She starts to make it more traditional, more cellular. Many small covens and convents of witches and wizards rather than big circles. Grater emphasis put on apprenticeships and learning in the field rather than dusty classrooms and dry lectures.

- Looks like a media caricature of a sanctioned witch. Black dress, black shawl and hood and a strip of black cloth over her empty astropath eye sockets. Old, despite rejuvenents could pass for eighties though over ten times that age. Roman nose generally giving people the impression that they are talking to a large raven.

- Not inherently all that powerful but has had lifetimes of experience to get good with what she has. Her only really odd attribute is the ability to speak the in the foul and impossible language of deamons without lacerations to the larynx, tongue or lips. Has called out many deamons in their own tongue and those who have met her challenge have regretted it.

- Originally from Sacris because Scottish witches. Father originally from Old Earth, specifically one of the Prosperan colonies. Deployed to Sacris as part of an Imperium backed peace keeping effort after the 222M41 Clan Wars, his job was to act as an intermediary and unspoken threat. Mother a shepherdess from the high moors with some distant relation to a deposed clan chief from way back when that absolutely nobody cares about.

Not sure on name.

>>60041659
I don't think the time of the Old Ones origination is the point in this exercise, more its the vast span of time they held uncontested dominion over the galaxy, and the resounding influence it must have had. Compared to the length of their reign, all of galactic history since the War in Heaven has been the immediate to secondary fallout of their empire's collapse, even the span of the Necrons' dormancy was rather brief compared to the 'political' epoch that proceeded it. The Eldar, who are noted for the long span of their society, call the Old Ones old, and they aren't exaggerating.

Also, in this setting's lore at least (I don't really know if this comes from canon) there's some allusions to Necrons beginning to harden the boundaries between the Materium and Immaterium during the War in Heaven, implying that in the Sloads' golden age warp and real was more negotiable on top of the warp itself being calmer. The Necrons fixing physical constants at rates optimal for their tech seems to have been for the purpose of keeping the Sload from changing natural laws when they fought and pulling their Materium focused tech base out from under them. I think the Birth of Khorne piece implies this was through reverse engineering the Waaagh or a similar effect and producing countermeasures that would later be developed into things like the Cadian pylons. If this means they established these physical constants at a galactic level or if they were just reestablishing constants the Sload had found a way to dispense with is even more unclear, but I'd lean more towards the latter than the former.

Also as I understand it the C'tan gained recognizable sapience, on top of their preexisting deeply alien Boltzmann Brain sentience, in interaction with the Necrontyr, so while they may have existed before then they were more wildlife/localized knots in physics than they were conscious actors.

I'm not getting anywhere with the conquest of Laer, gonna try to get the taskmaster done instead

>>60042601
In both canon and what we have so far here, the Old Ones seem to be the first recognizably sentient life (barring the weird case of the C’tan) to evolve in the Milky Way. Full stop. There was a mention that the Old Ones might have speculated on whether sentient life existed before them, but found no conclusive evidence. This might have been part of the reason the Old Ones chose the purpose they did (understanding life and making it flower across the galaxy to make it “fuller”), why it has been suggested they treated the Necrontyr the way they did, and might have been the reason for their massive self-righteousness. Because when you’re already so far above everyone else you might as well be gods there’s no one else around who can tell you no.
They must have discovered extragalactic life at some point, given what’s been mentioned here and in canon and given the sheer mind-boggling time they had been around, but by that point they were already so advanced that it either represented a curiosity or it was something they could fight on their own terms.
It has been explicitly said in canon and here that the Warp used to be a lot nicer before the War in Heaven. More like Avatar’s spirit world: weird and sometimes dangerous, but not overtly malevolent.

>>60046426 (cont.)
Given that we’ve said the Old Ones have three eyes, I wonder if the third eye of the Old Ones was something like a modified pineal gland. In Terran vertebrates the pineal time regulates the passage of time. Which could mean the Old Ones hit the evolutionary jackpot when it came to the warp, their third eyes giving them a natural edge in comprehending a realm where the laws of causality are loose. Whereas to humans and other races the changing rates of the passage of time is disorienting and confusion, to the Old Ones it was no different from moving in any other three dimensions. Which isn’t to say they could time travel, just that they could perceive when time was speeding up, slowing down, or reversing. Which explains how the Navigators do it.
Because the Old Ones had an advantage in a realm which they could literally shape to their whims even more than realspace, they paid less attention to the material sciences, which is how the relatively primitive Necrontyr Star Empire was able to fight them. The Old Ones were so dependent on the Warp yanking that card out from under them made the fight substantially easier. It would be like if a third-world country invented a device which stopped computers and internal combustion engines from working. Not to mention at least some of the bad decisions were influenced by the Old Ones panicking that in millions of years someone actually managed to intentionally kill one of them.

>>60036725

To be honest some of them probably do. The eldar are big into cultural posturing, and they aren’t afraid to bend the truth to make themselves look better.
>>60036756

That relates to something else I was wondering about. Do we need more human related screw-ups in this timeline? In canon most human related screw-ups tend to be some form of Imperium-caused atrocity. In this timeline humans try to avoid that, but people don’t always make the right decision all of the time. Especially since the tau and eldar have their own fuckups.
It’s hard to think of the best way to go about it, because on the one hand a screwup on the part of one human group doesn’t represent the greater Imperium (which represents all other humans and the other species). An AdMech screwup mentally gets put on the AdMech, not the general human portion of the Imperium. On the other hand, too much of a screw up could leave a big enough weakness that it’s game over for the Imperium. Many of the canon Imperium’s screw-ups should have been terminal but their plot armor prevented the perpetrators from capitalizing on their gains *cough*Great Rift*cough*Age of Apostasty*cough*.
The best I can think of is Oscar trying to make friends with Szarekh based on some not so emotionally sound logic. That was definitely a human-caused problem, the eldar tried to warn them and wanted no part of that, and Szarekh ended up playing Oscar like a fiddle until the whole “tribute of a trillion souls” thing came up.

>>60046612
Whoops, meant >>60035697 and >>60035756

>>60046612
There's also Vandire getting put on the throne, the whole Fenris Wolves thing, and corruption among governors is pretty much a given, if more benign than the corruption present in Canon governors.

Bump.

Didnwe get anywhere with the octo-humans?

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>>60046821
The fact that the Emperor has been on a near constant 'sort that shit out' tour for the past seven millennia, so misadventures and mitigated disasters of the Traveling Court could be a good avenue to approach this matter. Even just a list of trouble spots the Bucephalus arrived too late to deal with would constitute crises of a middling to major scale.

How many Iron Minds were there in the GaBHD?

>>60049323
Nobody knows anymore although it seems no more than one per star system and some systems didn't have one, Stillness didn't have one for example although it did have a Woman of Gold.

>>60048182
No. Beyond at first mistaken for xenos and have a high tech-base. They were discovered after the WoTB in the days of The Rebuilding. They joined the Imperium as a Survivor Civ but had the Imperium discovered them in the Great Crusade they would have had access to a shit load of Dark Age tech. Sadly the octo-humans were brought low by the orks and what they managed to scrape back together was slightly beneath the Imperial standard.

Due to environmental requirements they have few colonies in the rest of the Imperium.

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>>59907139
Breakfast

>>59907773
Hubworlds are more of a crescent/ring shape around the galactic hub.

>>60021515
So potentially the spiders are still around? Presumably the orks during the WoTB that landed there got murdered same as everyone else. Presumably the spiders couldn't take advantage of the Intrex being distracted at the time because they were too busy chewing orks. The Imperium wouldn't have nuked them because it isn't going to violate it's agreements with the Interex but the Interex has been going through much the same set of shit as the rest of the Imperium down the years and can't maintain a total and constant vigil.

My point is that the Spiders, if not killed at some point, will almost certainly have escaped at some point in the last ten thousand years as the line is held increasingly hard against increasingly fucked up shit and the military can't be everywhere all the time.

There may be a spider district in the City of Sins.

>>60046612
>>60046821
>>60048200
More screw ups wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but we shouldn’t go overboard. Remember one of the points of this entire AU is much greater rationality and competence for all factions which adds to the darkness in my opinion: you can be be clever, noble, and do everything right and still lose because one man’s ability to affect the universe is limited. To paraphrase the Bloodtide writefaggotry, sometimes is there is no chance of victory, only degrees of failure.

Obviously this is all juxtaposed against moments of individual heroism which can win the day or even change the course of history, so it provides a nice balance of tone I think.

>>60022819
Makes you wonder what they would do if they ever regained contact with the Nemensor's subjects.

>>60053055
The idea of Orks landing on Murder/Urisarach during the WotB and getting murdered like everyone else before getting their ships stolen (Beast-era tech, so safer to use than simple Rokks) pleases me.

>>60050681
How did they end up as octopuses? With Ogryn and friends you can see how things happened.

>>60053769
Did the writeup of that world get saved?

>>60055646
I'd assume low gravity and lots of self-modificatio

>>60055983
Or they are descendants of people the Eldar fucked up for fun back in the old days.

How much should the modern-day eldar know about their old empire?

>>60058503
most of what they lost was technical knowledge and access to the remains of the empire, they have a pretty solid historical record, not including the pandemonium of the fall itself

>>60059922
Not to mention you still have a number of pre-Fall eldar with Old Empire medical technology around, and there would have been a lot more when the alliance formed five thousand years after the birth of Slaanesh. Time has gotten most of them but you still have a few around. Though most were plebs and the like who didn't have exact knowledge of how to replicate things or all of the Old Empire's secrets, just the broad strokes of things.

Bamp

>>60055781
It's on the to do list. I'm travelling this week and IRL has given me a heavy workload, so I can't work as fast as normal.

Have made some progress with sketching the Mont'Kau battlesuits and the heavy bolter SoB, might post pics after sleep is acquired.

>>60060808
I'm guessing the Pre-Fall generation on the Imperial side now only consists of Macha and Eldrad.

>>60056799
REMOVE QU!

>>60068742
There are a couple of others. Technically Leithon and some of the Phoenix Lords count (possibly) despite being a wraithguard and Phoenix Lords, respectively. Probably less than a hundred though. Any such figures would likely be well known in some circles simply for age.

>>60070593
I love the idea of an Eldar janitor somehow surviving the Fall to the present day and still just doing the sweeping, cleaning, and toilet plunging.

And somehow blossomed into some kind of spymaster simply because who pays attention to the janitors?

>>60070779
If he's still doing those jobs it will be as a Wraithguard. Macha has survived as long as she has because she is Isha and Eldrad is considered somewhat of a freak of nature.

Everyone else is either Chaos or Dark Eldar.

>>59982579
How long could a ship realistically be expected to remain in the warp and not get corrupted?

>>60054401
Was it that they were incapable of communication and things escalated from there or was it that they were intentionally assholes from the start? If they have made it off-world can they be talked to?

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>>60069657
My thoughts exactly

>>60072073
Until something fails and the Gellar Field goes down. Potentially hundreds of years but that is just time inside the ship, it probably won't be exactly 1:1 with reality and it might get worse the longer they are inside the warp.

How wide is the hoop on the ringworld?

>>60065740
Thank you for all you have done

>>60075723
Depends on which star of Regulus it is around. Alpha Leonis a is 3.5 solar masses, whereas Alpha Leonis b is only about 0.8. No clue about the other two.

There may not be four stars in Regulus anymore, given they were mined for fuel and one (the one the ring encircles) was induced to go nova. The modern Imperium may think a three or fewer star Regulus system is "normal".

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>>60077855
If one of the long term goals of the Emperor is to get the Ring back up and working then the star it encircles must still be there and in a usable state. Moving the Ring would not be possible on any practical time scale.

Not saying that nothing happened to the star. Just not going nova. Some sort of radiation shift that baked and burned and sterilized the surface maybe. Poisoned the atmosphere and lands and the seas.

With a surface area of several million Earths there would be something epic and inhumanly unsettling about millions of Terminator uprisings happening at once with Skynet that is also and artificial god that's gone Full Event Horizon beneath a burning sky and a poisonous sun.

Hell, Tiberius might have flipped the Doomsday swithch as a mercy kill and containment measure when it became abundantly clear that humanity couldn't hold Cthonia and that if the Iron Minds and/or resident Man of Gold kept it unopposed then the GaBHD would survive but only as something cursed and horrific.

>>60078904
The star didn't actually go nova, but it was induced to shed a significant wave of matter and radiation to burn the inner surface of the ring. There were presumably a number of Men of Gold, cutting edge Men of Iron, exotic Men of Stone spliced with stuff like Sload DNA, and very powerfully psychic Iron Minds in the system, and any number of parties or individuals could have weaponize the star mining apparatus in the system to try to kill the others.

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>>60074412
Presumably the octo-humans didn't do it to themselves and didn't let it happen willingly. If it was a form of hilarious "fucking with the wildlife" of the Croenworlders it would have been the fucked up shit in the final few centuries of their great empire. Most of humanity was just starting to really get into this Mad Max Age of Strife business and the possibility of getting kicked in the bollocks by a disgruntled local in any meaningful way was pretty low. They would not have altered the humans that were alive on Squidworld at the time, that would be too basic, immediately noticeable and correctable. Instead they would have done something to alter their genes that would manifest in the next generation, letting them spawn a race of abominations and have to call them their children. As the locals survived by throwing a magnet into the colony's main computer hub to kill the A.I. that resulted in massive data loss and isolation from the other few remaining pockets of civilization they couldn't undo the damage.

To add insult to injury their spawn had completely normal human brains so that they could grow up and realize that they were fucking hideous monsters. To an eldar his would have made the only option despair and suicide. But the humans adapted psychologically to the situation relatively quickly because we aren't as unstable as the god-delusions eldar are.

Humanity of Squidworld eventually becomes all of these ugly fuckers and ugly fucker is the new normal. So the asshole space elves do it again to see what will happen. By the time they got bored/their empire fell into a hole in the sky they had done it a few more times. And that's where the octo-humans came from. Technically they are abhuman but holy shit you wouldn't know they had any connection to Old Earth to look at them.

Octo-humans have no spoken word for themselves as they communicate by flashing patterns of colour over their skin as a primary language. They are happy to be called octo-humans

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>>60080338
They can survive out of water for extended time so long as they stay wet although they can't move very fast. Due to genetic instability caused by the methods used to create them and the very specific conditions needed for their eggs they don't breed quickly. They don't make good soldiers and they don't replenish their numbers fast so their presence in the Imperial Army is very limited. Squidworld is on paper an agri-world so they pay the tithe in food stuffs. It's mostly edible kelp, fish, shellfish and other farmable sea life.

They do know where they came from. They do know what the eldar did to them. They don't hate what they are now but they do hate what was done to them. They can differentiate between the Craftworlders and the Croneworlders and they understand that the Craftworlders are children of the ones who did not violate them and are actively at war with the ones that did. Since the days of the Imperial Era the Chaos Eldar have only visited their world once. Kids wanting to relive the days of their parents and be cool like those that came before them. They were captured and the Craftworlders were informed. What the Craftworlders picked up was still alive. Living tissue at least. Whether word spread and this did deter other visitors or whether other Croneworlders just felt they had exhausted the entertainment potential is unknown.

Bump.

>>60080587
I don't think the octo-humanoids looked like cecalia. I think they supposedly looked like the pancaked lopsiders from All Tommorrowa or something similar. I don't remember the exact descriptor but they seemed rather shambly.

Wonder what they must think of they current eldar.

>>60084743
They tolerate them. Even trust them to an extent.

>>60086039
Like Poland, seeing Germany as the most obvious threat and the most trustworthy

>>60086114
Nobody trusts G*rmany anymore.

Fulgrimfag please post some stuff already, how I mean fuck this thread is almost at the bump limit. You can just post a vague outline or notes or some shit like that possibly?

>>60075171
This may explain the Void Born to some extent. They wouldn't have intentionally mutated themselves to no longer be able to live on planets and there wasn't enough time for natural mutations to arrive at the modern Void Born. But they travel the warp more than any others bar the already unnatural Navigators. The Warp is naturally mutative and constant almost negligible exposure with all the extra time the warp could give them would have done the rest and exaggerated any legitimate and intentional modification they did to themselves.

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>>60086114
>Germans
>Trust
No

>>60080587
They would be fuglier. They would look like octopus rather than a human with octopus parts.

So, how do Tarellians fight in this universe? Are they still dinosaur-riding crocodile brick infantry that specialize in melee combat? I’m imagining them wielding double-chainswords fashioned like macuahuitls.

>>60091572
Long distance tracking and infantry is what they specialize in. One branch also has a shit load of extra psykers. They do have other forms of fighting but that's their strength.

>>60087957
Bruh what’s with the entitlement. The guy does this for fun, he doesn’t owe you shit.

>>60091572
Tarellians don't have cavalry. There's no need to domesticate animals that run faster than you when you naturally run as fast as a horse. They might have domesticated some stompy dinosaurs originally as pack animals but that might infringe too much on Exodite thematics.

The Tarellians have kultarr, which are kind of like tomahawks crossed with pickaxes. The mahukultarr is basically a cross between a tomahawk, a zanbato, and a macuahuitl with iron instead of obsidian. Grear big-two hander.

Tikalese are masters at urban combat and poisoned weapons. Maza have some kind of mail-like cloaks and use slightly different tech. Xibalanique in the past used C4 charges when psychic shin-kicking was not prudent.

Modern Tarellian tactics take a lot of cues from North American Native American nations, like the Iriquois and the like (plus some of the South American ones for shout outs to the Lizardmen from Fantasy). Only with modern manufacturing techniques and disruptor rifles.

Tarellian tactics also really vary from world to world, so just because something is the norm on most colonies doesn't mean there isn't another colony that does something different.

>>60093554
Nah, I was saying I'd get something done and still haven't been that productive. I'm gonna post the Historical Species entry I did for Men of Iron/Iron Minds and keep working on the longer stuff.

Humanity had barely left the gravity well of Old Earth when the first iterations of what would become their oldest and closest friends in their time in the galaxy, and eventually the architects of their near-annihilation, came to life. Even before they first settled the Sol system humanity had tinkered with autonomous machines, and even before that with the life of their home world, and the way of shaping and being shaped by companion species was deeply set in human behavior. However, in the fog of the Imperium's debated archeological telecopy histories it is agreed that when automation became machine life, and humanity could reliably produce its mental equals, the Men of Iron were born. This designation notes the appearance of sophisticated and regenerative mechanical and biomechanical bodies, far surpassing previous generations of drones and automata, and the roughly concurrent emergence or Artificial Intelligence with plasticity and power to easily match humanity's own, in difference to earlier non-sapient master control programs. Humanity itself had already been pushing ahead into self modification and optimization for the new environments it found beyond earth, but with its new sibling of the mind a bright renaissance of science and culture took hold, and a manic exploration and expansion that did not slow until Human society was pushed to the edges of the Sol system. It was in centuries following that boom, when this bountiful Human dominion was straining against the speed of light and turning inward to the developments it would further make at home, when true warp influence was detected in the vast population of both the Men of Iron, and the thoroughly remolded Men of Stone.

>>60095630
Looking good.

>>60095630
Archeological telescopy shows in the following decades the development of, and some visible accidents involving, the first human warp drives. Imperial history holds that early discoveries and creations such as warp travel and the Gellar field were most likely the work of humans, not the Men of Iron, by nature of their much stronger and more intuitive warp connection. In any case, the true first expansion of the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion began, Men of Stone and Iron were abroad on the currents of the warp, and already departed colony ships were decelerated, met by new faster than light pickets, and ferried on to their destinations already long settled. After this first era of expansion into what would much later become Segmentum Solar the observations of modern Imperial Observatories become unfocusable and dim, and the histories of the Eldar make no mention of the Human Dominion until long after this point. Information the Imperium has recovered from the age of high technology regarding the Men of Iron show a proliferation in varied forms and specializations to surpass all of the abhuman subgroups to emerge from the collapse of the Dominion, though there is similar evidence that the Men of Stone in that era were likewise strange and varied. Of particular note among Men of Iron were the Titans, biomechanical giants housing strategic command AI that the Imperium would later base its heaviest war machines upon, and the numerous Man of Iron scribes, seneschals, scholars, and philosophers, always mightier the later in history the discovered document or artifact might be.

>>60096118
The Eldar first mention the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion, though not by that name, when the younger power's ships were found to be too pervasive and numerous, and inexcusably prone to approach systems to which the Gates of Shaa-Dome connected. They are mentioned again when hunting parties in their territory were lost, presumed eaten by local creatures. Upon further provocation the Old Empire chose a sting of stars, and began to put all they found around them to torture, death, and the Warp. Though the campaign's cost was higher than had initially been predicted, woe betide the accountant, the raiders of the Empire found delight in stars plump with human flesh. Eventually, however, they came upon a dim red star, shaded by the mass of human habitats and infrastructure, and were held in a deadlock for dragging months of fiery void war. There Eldar first met an Iron Mind, its body a giant humming thing contained within a vast neutronium capsule at the heart of a glimmering forrest of solar arrays, its soul to them a fast, ticking, daemonesque aberration. It was master of that small star, and overseer of the stars they had pillaged on their way, and many others besides and its gathered fleets and agents were at it's disposal to break them and steal from them all they had brought. Even as the Old Empire rose to punish this insolence, the psychic machines of the Dominion were quicker to escalate the engagement, and waiting armadas were poured from the warp straight into the conflict, while ticking aberrations in the Warp struck at the Eldar from across the sector. The Eldar fled the system rather than commit and potentially loose higher technology to defeating thieving, ambushing barbarians, but the reprisals they promised they found likewise hard to enforce against what they found to be a very entrenched technological power pervading the much of the southern galactic Materium.

>>60096890
Though Shaa-Dome remained unassailable, the Iron Minds were likewise able to coordinate their navies and field technology sufficient to counter Eldar incursion around strategic stars and to meet raiding parties on a near equal footing. There was never peace between the two powers, no ends to the raids and reprisals, but there was a measure of diplomacy. Purpose made Men of Iron served the Iron Minds as envoys at that time, and went among the Eldar, though never permitted into their Webway cities. This era did see a measure of cooperation in the occasional dismantling of Ork empires, but even those ventures were prone to become violent engagements Between Old Empire and Dominion before even half of the Orks were destroyed. In this time of qualified peace the Iron Minds and their networked servitors and envoys, with the help individuals among the Men of Stone and Iron, built the Cthonian Ring. Archeological telescopy of the ring's interior before the ruin of the Iron War shows numerous large dark structures that could be the neutronium pillars that held most known Iron Minds. Following the construction and population of Cthonia, the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion again celebrated a golden age of renaissance, marked with new great works of vast construction and fine, exacting engineering. The Chtonian age of the Dominion saw also a greater familiarity and more open relationship with the Old Empire, and while the raiding and reprisal form one side to the other was interminable, both parties began to find it ultimately inconsequential. The Old Empire as well began to heed and even welcome the Ticking Princes into their courts and intrigues, and were not unaware when the Iron Minds began the project of crafting their Men of Gold. It is now the word of the Crones of Shaa-Dome that this work was undertaken in imitation of their own coming Prince, but more likely it was the refinement and perfecting of the communication envoys the Iron Minds had long used.

>>60097477
happy to have edits and ctitique

>>60097512
It all looks tight and well written. Only thing that I would add is that the Eldar Empire absolutely could have won an all out war if they ever got their shit together. 65 million years of superiority that they had to draw on. Problem is that by the time humanity was gathering steam they were complacent and although they were still nominally one nation they were highly fractious and prone to infighting and nobody had the insane cat herding skills that would be needed to get them to actually do anything meaningful on a large scale. Towards the end when the Men of Gold were appearing they were also uninterested in the outside world preferring to instead drown in the cocaine fueled torture-orgy.

Other than that, and I might be alone in thinking that, it's pretty much perfect.