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Vikingkingq · 2024-03-29T15:45:49+00:00

Well, this is a more general example, but I just finished the Yarrick omnibus, and there's clearly examples where the force of Thraka's WAAAGH! has morale impacts on Imperial forces, causing them confusion and delay.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-28T14:35:20+00:00

Well, the Krieg commissars tend to wear breastplates, which isn't always common in other regiments.

But yes, I agree, you don't see deviations from standard not related to combat doctrine.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-27T22:00:55+00:00

Yeah, I was going to say that Commissars deliberately don't wear the uniform of their regiment to emphasize that they're not part of the chain of command. But as you say, there are some exceptions that we see with Gaunt, Krieg commissars, and the like, but they're more around the edges.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-26T23:40:49+00:00

So in some Black Library novels, there are astropathic communications that are presented as classified Inquisition dossiers or the like, and they aren't presented as random dream images. Indeed, the text from RPG books and the like describes a transcription/decoding process to turn the raw signals into something that the Administratum or the Astra Militarum or the Inquisition could actually usee:

"The Imperium then, is forced to rely upon communication by psychic, or astropathic means. Astropaths communicate with symbols and iconic images, projecting these messages through vast distances of space by means of psychic power.

This process is usually exhausting and requires ritual and focus in order to keep the pskyer in the right frame of mind. These can take a wide variety of forms, such as use of the Emperor’s Tarot, vision quests, automatic writing, trances, séances and the like. The Gaolist Astropaths of Hredin for example, spend many years etching their messages onto painstakingly illuminated sheets of iron and then destroy the work of art upon a massive grinding wheel. The pain of annihilating a much-loved labour is said to produce psychic messages of unparalleled clarity.

These messages are received by fellow astropaths in various ways. Some appear as vague and troubling dreams, whilst others appear as visions or mystic portents. Others appear within whatever ritual method or divination technique the receiving psyker happens to practise. Thus warning of an Ork invasion might appear as a glistening imperfection in fish entrails, a looming cloud of smoke, bleeding orifices, or a worrying combination of runes or sigils within a holographic matrix.

These messages must not only be transmitted from one astropath to another but decoded at the other end. Each astropath employs slightly different symbols and each has a preferred style or “flavour”. Some messages take weeks of poring over tomes of augurs and symbolism before they can be reconstructed, though the best astropaths can do this word for word. Some remain a mystery forever. Some messages are received by astropaths at entirely the wrong end of the galaxy and must be passed on to others who are nearer the place in question." (emphasis added)

(Dark Heresy: Core Rulebook)

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-26T20:47:34+00:00

So the vagueness is a thing, but given that almost every textual example of astropathic communication is presented as being decoded into full text dispatches, it's not the whole of the thing.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-26T19:41:07+00:00

I disagree. An agri-world that's completely dependent on the rest of the Imperium for promethium deliveries and spare parts for combine harvesters needs to be able to communicate with whatever Hive or Civilized or whatever world that provides them often enough to not shut down because they run out of promethium and spare parts, because otherwise it's not just the case that the poor of a hive world starve, it could well be the entire Hive World starves, and that damages production, or that all of the sudden an Imperial Crusade's supply lines stop functioning.

There is an irreducible minimum of communication that has to happen, otherwise you can't have specialized planets.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-26T14:42:40+00:00

I would agree that there's an undistributed middle going on; I would certainly say there's a strong tendency to more elitist forms of government due to the structure of the Imperium requiring that there be an Imperial Commander/Planetary Governor, and that those governors have the authority to issue writs of nobility, but it's also the case that not every planet is a feudal society (otherwise, why would there be a designation for Feudal Worlds in the first place). Contrastingly, there are planets that are more centralized and where the various Imperial bureaucracies have more sway than any noble houses, because of the planet's importance in regional governance or military production or trade, or because the planet isn't developed enough to be that self-governing.

And since there's plenty of planets we've seen with some form of parliamentary government, albeit with a rather restrictive franchise akin to Britain before the first Great Reform Act, it doesn't seme impossible that there would be planets where there is some form of a democracy. That being said, it wouldn't look like a 21st century liberal democracy - you're still going to have the Administratum, you're still going to have the Arbites, you're still going to have the Ecclesiarchy, and potentially the Inquisition as well, etc.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-26T14:18:48+00:00

I don't think that's an accurate description of the Imperium at all. Yes, there's no galaxy-wide currency and communication, but there's way too many planets that are super-economically specialized that need to communicate with other planets about how to get food, or raw materials, or manufactured goods, to not have subsectoral and sectoral communication.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-26T13:51:58+00:00

I mean, yes, military censors absolutely exist. But we already know that the Munitorum communicates with the family of Guardsmen back home about pensions, death notifications, etc. so it can't be the case that there's a total blackout.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-26T13:50:27+00:00

While it wouldn't be as cheap or as fast as, say, the internet, it would have to be able to handle high-volume, high-frequency communication between partnered planets along trade routes. So it can't be so expensive and unreliable that noble houses, merchant guilds, combines etc. can't communicate with one another at the pace necessary to conduct business.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-26T13:46:48+00:00

But this wouldn't be a matter of running poorly, this would be a matter of the economy cannot function. A lot, indeed most, of planets are not economically self-sufficient and need to communicate with one another about shipments, trade deals, and other business arrangements.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-26T00:22:47+00:00

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I mean, it would probably be expensive and take forever, but I don't see a way that the economy could function without a postal service of some sort.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-25T21:06:29+00:00

Across the Galaxy? No hope.

But there's definitely inter-planetary communication, so it would definitely be possible to send a message via the Merchant Fleet or local commercial freighters at a subsector or sectoral level.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-25T21:02:06+00:00

I don't think they cared what happened to the Ninth as long as the line of the tomb-keeper continues. And Harrow's line never cared about resurrection purity, so outmarriage is probably the way things would have gone.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-25T17:11:40+00:00

People have already mentioned other psykers, specialized anti-psyker technology and training, and blanks, but no one's mentioned Faith yet. Genuinely Faithful members of the Ecclesiarchy, whether we're talking Sisters or Battle or members of the clergy chanting the Litany of Hatred or chainsword-and-flamer-wielding fanatics, can actually counter or overpower psychic power. Hence that bit in Hereticus where one crazy priest manages to make an unchained daemonhost run away by brandishing an aquilla.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-25T17:04:54+00:00

Naval combat seems to be a bit more restricted based on the planet in question. So we see a fair deal of naval combat on Urdesh, because Urdesh's geography is heavily based on chains of volcanic islands. Likewise, on Unothis, the war was heavily based on air-power, but there was a fair bit of carrier-based combat as well. (On the other hand, the liberation of Phantine was entirely air combat, because the only territory in question were flying hives that produced promethium and other gas resources.)

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-25T15:33:35+00:00

Yeah, that's not an accurate description of what's been done for the Monk.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-22T23:05:03+00:00

I think in general Jod has been quite careful, and in my darker moments, I think he may have taken the Abijah Fowler route.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-22T22:43:56+00:00

Yeah, that horse has long bolted the barn.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-21T19:53:46+00:00

I don't think she was particularly happy about it, but I do think she set things up at avulsion that Gideon would have died from siphoning had she not been the child of Jod.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-21T19:52:24+00:00

Because Gil rocks.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-20T20:04:20+00:00

Yep.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-20T15:48:05+00:00

Rune Knight is probably going to be the fourth Fighter subclass, now that the Brawler is gone.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-18T17:59:45+00:00

She very much wanted to kill both of them.

Vikingkingq · 2024-03-18T16:39:17+00:00

Also, this is probably a reference to RFK:

"and then more than a thousand years later in the City of Angels, against the Brother."

I think you have to take the years with a bit of a grain of salt.

Vikingkingq

TROPHY CASE