As I am an Ork player I know that the Imperium is a brutal and fascist society but it has reasons to be that way. GW states the Imperium of man is a brutal society that treats its citizens extremely harshly but as far as I have seen they never actually told us what the Imperium does to its citizens. From what I have read most of the suffering of the people of the IOM come from their planetary governors and not the Imperium itself. So I thought that we as the posters of Dakka Dakka could post what acts of oppression and whatever the Imperium does we can gather from fluff and the reasons for them so that everyone can use this thread as a resource if they ever need it as well as find out which acts of oppression are caused by whom: Imperium or planetary governor .

Rules:

The acts are to be divided into categories- Imperium of man and Planetary Governor.

Anyway I am a bit busy right now so I won't be able to post my points but I hope that you guys will be interested in participating.

The Planetary Governor *is* the Imperium. He rules by the direct will of the High Lords of Terra and, so long as the planetary tithe is met, his Psykers reported to the Black Ships (or killed), and his people adhere to the Imperial Creed, he's pretty much free to do with them as he wills.

There is a world in the Calixis sector, I believe it is Acreage, where it is said "the king owns a lasgun. This makes him king." The planet is otherwise kept as a superstitious, medieval backwater, where people are burned at the stake for such heresies as owning a comm bead.

Sepheris Secundus has, several times, put down revolts from the populace through brutal repression and purges of the population, for the temerity of demanding safer working conditions in the mines that provide the planet's tithe.

The Inquisition can, at a word, condemn the population of an entire world to death, or imprisonment, or forced relocation, or worse.

The Mechanicus accepts, as tithe, living men and women... for use as servitor stock. Hopefully, the organs they take from you are fatal in their removal.

The Imperial Guard removes their tithe population and inducts them into the guard... generally for life. Rare is the Guardsman who will ever see his homeworld again.

There is no such thing as public, entertainment television. Such broadcasts are political or religious in nature.

The people of a Hive are given (often implanted with) an ID chit that defines who they are, where they work, what they can and cannot buy and, in some Hives, where they can and cannot travel. Loss of this cognomen is as good as a death sentence, as one cannot buy food, pay rent, use medical services, or do, well, anything in the Hive without it.

The imperium uses DEADLY force (from its own forces) to put down public unrest.

Rioters will often be shot (or worse).

The guard is pretty much a conscription army. With no pension plan. It is a death sentence with variable time limit.

Unrest isn't tolerated.

Xeno tech smuggling isn't tolerated.

Worship of anything but the emperor isn't tolerated.

not paying the Tith isn't tolerated


aside from those, you can do pretty much what you want. the actual living conditions vary greatly from horrible to pretty comfy.

-Genocide (if deemed necessary)
-Vicious rpression of non-sanctioned opinions/thoughts/speech/religions
-Forced population transfers (population from World A is loaded onto a ship and brought to World B)
-Torture
-Slavery

Of course it varies from World to world, but at the same time as long as a Governor pays his tithe, provides conscripts, doesn't engage in heresy, and keeps things stable on the planet he'll be tolerated no matter what crazy gak he does. Thus the Imperium has a hand of complicity in it all.

Psienesis wrote:The Planetary Governor *is* the Imperium. He rules by the direct will of the High Lords of Terra and, so long as the planetary tithe is met, his Psykers reported to the Black Ships (or killed), and his people adhere to the Imperial Creed, he's pretty much free to do with them as he wills.

There is a world in the Calixis sector, I believe it is Acreage, where it is said "the king owns a lasgun. This makes him king." The planet is otherwise kept as a superstitious, medieval backwater, where people are burned at the stake for such heresies as owning a comm bead.

Sepheris Secundus has, several times, put down revolts from the populace through brutal repression and purges of the population, for the temerity of demanding safer working conditions in the mines that provide the planet's tithe.

True, but the governer is given control of the planet. as long as he makes his tithes he can run the world as he sees fit. In fact Tanith was a democracy. The Governor was an elected official.

The Inquisition can, at a word, condemn the population of an entire world to death, or imprisonment, or forced relocation, or worse.

Needs of the many outweight the needs of the few. So if it helps the imperium as a whole they do it.

The Mechanicus accepts, as tithe, living men and women... for use as servitor stock. Hopefully, the organs they take from you are fatal in their removal.

Usually prisoners.

The Imperial Guard removes their tithe population and inducts them into the guard... generally for life. Rare is the Guardsman who will ever see his homeworld again.

Its a necessary evil

There is no such thing as public, entertainment television. Such broadcasts are political or religious in nature.

False. Caiphis Cain mention several dramas used purely for entertainment.

The people of a Hive are given (often implanted with) an ID chit that defines who they are, where they work, what they can and cannot buy and, in some Hives, where they can and cannot travel. Loss of this cognomen is as good as a death sentence, as one cannot buy food, pay rent, use medical services, or do, well, anything in the Hive without it.

Will vary form world to world. But in 4 differnent sources of fluff [Eisenhorn, Reavnor, Gaunts Ghosts, and Ciaphis Cain] make no mention of this. So i believe it will vary from planet to planet.

Psienesis wrote:
There is no such thing as public, entertainment television. Such broadcasts are political or religious in nature.

Not entirely true, some of the more civil worlds do broadcast entertainment to the people. not the kind we know of but still... however some of this might be political in nature.
a good example is the "circus" in the ravenor book..2 i believe. carnivora. heavily televised to most of the world in question.

Kage's homeworld in the Last Chancers did this. The only way to get one removed was join the Guardsmen as far as I remember.

No one seems to have mentioned the thousands sacrificed to the Emperor daily to keep him 'alive'.

The Grey Knights often kill any Space Marines or Guardsmen they work with so that word of their atrocities can't spread.

Torture and excecution of any 'heretics'- those with Xenos artifacts, non believers or those who displease an Inquisitor.

It's not that all GrimDark.
On a standard Imperial world is quiet, and you live like we live today ( anyway without TV, Internet and such... ).
If Governor is to ruthless Citizens can complain to the Administratinum who then investigate that...
On most Imperial worlds Governors are elected by the people, on others their sons are succeeding them...
It's best to live on medium populated world ( around several billions ), on Hive City it's difficult to distribute food and water - not to mention everything else...



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Psienesis wrote:
The people of a Hive are given (often implanted with) an ID chit that defines who they are, where they work, what they can and cannot buy and, in some Hives, where they can and cannot travel. Loss of this cognomen is as good as a death sentence, as one cannot buy food, pay rent, use medical services, or do, well, anything in the Hive without it.

And waht can you do today without ID card?

Brother Coa wrote:

And waht can you do today without ID card?

In America, unless you're doing something that requires you to have an license (operating a vehicle), you are not required to have an ID with you at all. If you are stopped by law enforcement, you are not required to produce ID.

Lonecoon wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

And waht can you do today without ID card?

In America, unless you're doing something that requires you to have an license (operating a vehicle), you are not required to have an ID with you at all. If you are stopped by law enforcement, you are not required to produce ID.

It's till a crime not having ID card, read the rules on the net...
I know guy that lives here and don't have ID at all...
He have 49 years...
And they barely let him go the last time he was asked for his ID...
Man is my hero, living completely free ( no bills, occasional job... ).

chromedog wrote:
The guard is pretty much a conscription army. With no pension plan. It is a death sentence with variable time limit.

Better then working in a mine or living in some cramped gak shack i suppose.

Compared to most things out there, Imperial Citizens should consider themselves lucky, lest they be slaves on a chaos owned world. I wonder how pissed the Emperor would be if he saw what happens on some of these words though.

If you want to know about the citizens of the imperioum just read some black libard books set in a hive cty.For instance there is a breff description in healsreach and a huge bit about a riout in the ultramarine onimbous the first book (can't reamber its name soz also it not the short story called chanins of comand).

Brother Coa wrote:It's not that all GrimDark.
On a standard Imperial world is quiet, and you live like we live today ( anyway without TV, Internet and such... ).
If Governor is to ruthless Citizens can complain to the Administratinum who then investigate that...
On most Imperial worlds Governors are elected by the people, on others their sons are succeeding them...
It's best to live on medium populated world ( around several billions ), on Hive City it's difficult to distribute food and water - not to mention everything else...

Do you really think "complaining to the Administratum" will get the average citizen anywhere? The Imperium has no political participation and there's no way for the average citizen to even complain. If they do complain the Governor will get whift of it, accuse him as a heretic, and he'll be taken off somewhere and shot.

Again the Administratum doesn't care what the Governor does as long as he pays his tithes, provides conscripts, and keeps things quiet. Saddam Hussein for instance would have been a perfectly fine Imperial Governor had he paid his tithes, provided some IG conscripts, and paid homage to the Imperial Cult.

Brother Coa wrote:

Lonecoon wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

And waht can you do today without ID card?

In America, unless you're doing something that requires you to have an license (operating a vehicle), you are not required to have an ID with you at all. If you are stopped by law enforcement, you are not required to produce ID.

It's till a crime not having ID card, read the rules on the net...
I know guy that lives here and don't have ID at all...
He have 49 years...
And they barely let him go the last time he was asked for his ID...
Man is my hero, living completely free ( no bills, occasional job... ).

No, you don't need ID on you all the time in America unless you're a legal immigrant, in which you need a card to prove you are a legally allowed to remain in America. You have to have you're address for verification, and ID for actually applying or going to places which actively require you to show ID. I guess many Americans carry some form of ID on them anyway, but you don't always have to carry some form just in case you need it. If you're stopped by the Police, name and address, if you're going somewhere like applying for a license of some sort, then anyone with any sense will take ID with them. Unless laws have changed recently of course.

As for ID in the Imperium, it would vary for the size of the population and the attitudes of the Governor and officials. A strict Governor on a big Hive world would likely have ID because distribution of various resources would be so difficult and law enforcement likely has to deal with many gangs and criminals. A small population with a lenient Governor would be the opposite in all likelihood.

iproxtaco wrote:
No, you don't need ID on you all the time in America unless you're a legal immigrant, in which you need a card to prove you are a legally allowed to remain in America. You have to have you're address for verification, and ID for actually applying or going to places which actively require you to show ID. I guess many Americans carry some form of ID on them anyway, but you don't always have to carry some form just in case you need it. If you're stopped by the Police, name and address, if you're going somewhere like applying for a license of some sort, then anyone with any sense will take ID with them. Unless laws have changed recently of course.

And who is talking about America? I live on Balkan, here if you don't carry ID and they ask you for it - you are spending one night in jail for sure. And that's for just walking on the street...

As for ID in the Imperium, it would vary for the size of the population and the attitudes of the Governor and officials. A strict Governor on a big Hive world would likely have ID because distribution of various resources would be so difficult and law enforcement likely has to deal with many gangs and criminals. A small population with a lenient Governor would be the opposite in all likelihood.

For Imperium it's necessary, especially when you have a planet with 32.000.000.000 people.

I think the point of clarifying it as "in America" illustrates the difference in experiences from country to country (which may also illustrate the difference in planet-to-planet in the Imperium).

In America, the police cannot stop you and ask for ID "just because". In the Imperium, this is probably not the case, though local Arbites and other police forces may not have cause to arrest you on the spot for failure to produce ID without some other "probable cause" (such as suspicion of involvement in a crime). Again, depending on the planet.

not all planets will require ID.

even the task of having a universal ID system would be a nightmare.


some places will require an ID, some won't.


the Imperium is soooo diverse that practically every possable system will be in use somewhere.

I think that is, ultimately, what it will come down to.

The Imperium, as an organization, requires very little from the planets under its control:

1) Pay your tithe
2) Report your Psykers
3) Shun the xeno and the heretic
4) Follow the Creed

... beyond that? It's up to the individual planet, or system of planets.

The Mechanicum has abducted the populations of entire worlds and worked them to death to meet quotas.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The Mechanicum has abducted the populations of entire worlds and worked them to death to meet quotas.

And what is this from?

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The Mechanicum has abducted the populations of entire worlds and worked them to death to meet quotas.

Yeah, never heard of that. Where did you read that?

One of those big rulebooks iirc.

Not a good enough source.

That being said, the Imperium is a big place. Some worlds are probably just lovely to live on, not that much different from our modern day Earth. Some worlds are grimdark hyper opressive hives, and some are peaceful bucolic agri worlds. It varies a lot.

The majority of Imperial citizens live on Hive Worlds I believe, and those are specifically described to be pretty rotten places for the majority of its inhabitants.

General tyranical acts i suppose...
That said... things could always get worse.

Harriticus wrote:The majority of Imperial citizens live on Hive Worlds I believe, and those are specifically described to be pretty rotten places for the majority of its inhabitants.

The majority of planets are civilized worlds..hive, and forge worlds are relatively rare planets overall. You're more likely to live on a civilized world with a population of mayb 10-20 billion than a hive world with its hundreds of billions of people.

Religion other than the worship of the Emperor is not tolerated is very true. But they don't care how you venerate the Emperor as long as you do. The way they spread the Imperial creed for most worlds is like the spreading of Christianity during ancient times. They observe a worlds culture and then decide who they can integrate emperor worship into it. So for some worlds the Emp lives in their sun as a sun god or he is a hunter that protects them from wild animals etc. Plus the fact of the matter is that in 40k almost all religions other than the one that praises the Emp are either fronts for chaos gods, daemons or aliens. So Religious intolerance is right in 40k.

What is done to psykers is unfortunate but a necessary act. Read up the fluff on the 'dark age of technology' and "age of strife", one of the major causes of the downfall was psykers going insane or getting possessed by daemons. Plus they are needed to fuel the astrominicon otherwise space travel grounds to a halt or more accurately becomes very difficult which leads to untold suffering for hundreds of worlds.

Hive cities are not the majority of worlds, Civilized worlds and agri-worlds are the norm.

ChrisWWII wrote:

Harriticus wrote:The majority of Imperial citizens live on Hive Worlds I believe, and those are specifically described to be pretty rotten places for the majority of its inhabitants.

The majority of planets are civilized worlds..hive, and forge worlds are relatively rare planets overall. You're more likely to live on a civilized world with a population of mayb 10-20 billion than a hive world with its hundreds of billions of people.

True, but their is hiveworlds out there like armigroddion (I think thats howyou spell it?).

Psienesis wrote:The Planetary Governor *is* the Imperium. He rules by the direct will of the High Lords of Terra and, so long as the planetary tithe is met, his Psykers reported to the Black Ships (or killed), and his people adhere to the Imperial Creed, he's pretty much free to do with them as he wills.

There is a world in the Calixis sector, I believe it is Acreage, where it is said "the king owns a lasgun. This makes him king." The planet is otherwise kept as a superstitious, medieval backwater, where people are burned at the stake for such heresies as owning a comm bead.

Sepheris Secundus has, several times, put down revolts from the populace through brutal repression and purges of the population, for the temerity of demanding safer working conditions in the mines that provide the planet's tithe.

Imperial governors are local officials who managed to seize power for themselves one way or another (including democratic elections with term limits, as the case may be), and met the "they're in power? they're not heretics? they're willing to pay some light taxes, and cooperate with Imperial officials should the need arise?" checklist.

The Inquisition can, at a word, condemn the population of an entire world to death, or imprisonment, or forced relocation, or worse.

Yes, when said world is so infested with daemons or genesteeler cults that the general approach of "land a few thousand troops and some tanks, who nine times out of ten will manage to take an entire planet held by millions of entrenched foes" fails to cleanse. Also known as "everyone is either already dead or else currently in the process of being eaten alive".

The Mechanicus accepts, as tithe, living men and women... for use as servitor stock. Hopefully, the organs they take from you are fatal in their removal.

Yes, criminals condemned to death, on their own worlds. Not really a tithe, though.

There is no such thing as public, entertainment television. Such broadcasts are political or religious in nature.

Except there is. The Cain novels reference a number of widely broadcast television series, as well as sporting events, and both the Cain novels and Abnett's Ravenor trilogy feature characters that spend most of their time reading or watching porn on their Space iPads. A number of books even reference cartoonish depictions of chaos worshippers in popular dramas, with the Inquisition not even bothering with idiots who decide to imitate them, since they have actual cultists to hunt down.

The people of a Hive are given (often implanted with) an ID chit that defines who they are, where they work, what they can and cannot buy and, in some Hives, where they can and cannot travel. Loss of this cognomen is as good as a death sentence, as one cannot buy food, pay rent, use medical services, or do, well, anything in the Hive without it.

Never seen that, anywhere. Every depiction of a hive has fallen somewhere between "run down version of a first world city" and "slightly better than a third world slum, only in a universe where toxic waste turns you into something out of the Star Wars cantina, instead of just giving you cancer (but solar radiation will give you super cancer that even the Inquisition doesn't have the resources to cure, in an ironic turnaround of the "super power-horrific death" hazardous material continuum generally present in Sci-fantasy)", without any mention of the average lower-class citizen even officially existing.

The Imperial Guard removes their tithe population and inducts them into the guard... generally for life. Rare is the Guardsman who will ever see his homeworld again.

chromedog wrote:The guard is pretty much a conscription army. With no pension plan. It is a death sentence with variable time limit.

Except by conscription you mean "volunteer", with only something like the top ten percent of applicants being accepted into the Guard proper, right? Because that's pretty much the norm: take around the top ten percent of the planet's defense force, with the numbers failing to reach .1% of the population even in the most dire of circumstances (Armageddon).

Durza wrote:No one seems to have mentioned the thousands sacrificed to the Emperor daily to keep him 'alive'.

Using the most extreme numbers for the golden throne (ten thousand a day), and the most conservative estimate of the Imperial population (somewhere around one quadrillion (one thousand trillion; the only hard number I've ever come across simply says "the teeming thousands of trillions of humans spread across the galaxy" (page 24 Chaos Daemons codex))), you get less than half of a millionth of a percent sacrificed annually, which puts the number at less than one percent of psykers (as I recall, the rate of psykers is something like one out of every million humans; otherwise it's one in a thousand, and blanks are one for every million psykers, I can't recall which) specifically the weakest and most unstable one percent, who would otherwise die in the far more horrific manner of "exploding with daemony goodness; also fire and death upon everything you've ever known or loved, because daemons just roll that way".

Yes, but working the numbers, the Emperor is one man out of trillions, Terra is one planet out of millions. Let the Webway rip Terra and the Emperor apart and be done with the sacrifice. Then those psykers could be used as attack forces or if they're really unstable, warp time bombs.

HAZZER wrote:
True, but their is hiveworlds out there like armigroddion (I think thats howyou spell it?).

Hiver worlds exist, but they're a minority of planets in the Imperium.

Hey I don't know about you but, why is the imperioum still fighting for the empmpror when he is dead the human race should just elect another empror like the roman emprors.And yes horous is the emprors son and if he dident join the chaos forces their would of been an 2nd empror no chaos space marines but other chaos things.If the empror haddedt made the space marines their woud not be anyy chaos marines.If the dark eldar haddent tried to expand into the universe salanesh wouldent be in realltey ect...

I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer....

And as for why the Imperium is still fighting for the EMperor is because to them he's not dead, he's alive on the Golden Throne, and he is not replacable. He is a living God. The Imperium is not a democracy, and they can't just appoint a new Emperor. For one thing if they took him off the Golden Throne the Astronomicon would shut down, and we all know how well that will turn out.

Durza wrote:Yes, but working the numbers, the Emperor is one man out of trillions, Terra is one planet out of millions. Let the Webway rip Terra and the Emperor apart and be done with the sacrifice. Then those psykers could be used as attack forces or if they're really unstable, warp time bombs.

He powers the astronomicon.
He essentially keeps te entire Imperium together and enables warp travel.

ChrisWWII wrote:I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer....

And as for why the Imperium is still fighting for the EMperor is because to them he's not dead, he's alive on the Golden Throne, and he is not replacable. He is a living God. The Imperium is not a democracy, and they can't just appoint a new Emperor. For one thing if they took him off the Golden Throne the Astronomicon would shut down, and we all know how well that will turn out.

True but he never ever fights, plus When ever he is mentioned it gives me the impreasson he is dead.Also there are the 4 high lords of tera that kinda do his job for him.Fimally I wil try tol take "I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer...." as a complement.

HAZZER wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer....

And as for why the Imperium is still fighting for the EMperor is because to them he's not dead, he's alive on the Golden Throne, and he is not replacable. He is a living God. The Imperium is not a democracy, and they can't just appoint a new Emperor. For one thing if they took him off the Golden Throne the Astronomicon would shut down, and we all know how well that will turn out.

True but he never ever fights, plus When ever he is mentioned it gives me the impreasson he is dead.Also there are the 4 high lords of tera that kinda do his job for him.Fimally I wil try tol take "I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer...." as a complement.

It isn't a compliment.
He spends all his time keeping the astronomicon going so fighting isn't really an issue for him since he already does more for humanity each day than anyone has ever done.
The Lords of Terra more or less do his job but whenever he wants something done (It has been known to happen) he tells them to do it.

HAZZER wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer....

And as for why the Imperium is still fighting for the EMperor is because to them he's not dead, he's alive on the Golden Throne, and he is not replacable. He is a living God. The Imperium is not a democracy, and they can't just appoint a new Emperor. For one thing if they took him off the Golden Throne the Astronomicon would shut down, and we all know how well that will turn out.

True but he never ever fights, plus When ever he is mentioned it gives me the impreasson he is dead.Also there are the 4 high lords of tera that kinda do his job for him.Fimally I wil try tol take "I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer...." as a complement.

the Emperor actually keeps Deamons from entering the material realm.

otherwise, deamons could walk right into reality whenever they wanted.


the Emperor makes that extreamly difficult. he is literally holding the fabric of reality together.


in addition, he sometimes directly takes part in the goings on of his empire. the Storm of the Emperor's wrath which swallowed up the Frateris Templar(the forces of the Traitor Vandire) during the Age of Apostaty.

the Emperor also answeres his prayers. sometimes with visions.


"The Emperor Protects" isn't a lighthearted statement. its a very real truth.

HAZZER wrote:
reals
True but he never ever fights, plus When ever he is mentioned it gives me the impreasson he is dead.Also there are the 4 high lords of tera that kinda do his job for him.Fimally I wil try tol take "I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer...." as a complement.

It is not a compliment in any sense of the word whatsoever. Your grammar and spelling continue to cause me physical pain whenever I have to read it.

So what? Is a person's entire worth based on whether or not they 'fight'? The High Lords of Terra (of which there are a dozen, not four) run the Imperium in the Emperor's name. They take care of the beuraucracy and war fighting, as well as making sure the Imperium does not completely colllapse. However, what the Emperor does is far more important than fighting, or what the High Lords do.

The Emperor runs the Astronomicon, binding the Imperium together. He soul-binds Astropaths so that the Imperium has some form of intersteller communicatoin, and he maintains the barrier between the Warp and rreal space so that daemons do not come pouring into real space and kill everything. He does things that are far more important than fighting. He also intervenes when necessary, either through the Emperor's Tarot, or more directly with the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath.

The Emperor is the one thing in the Imperium that is truly irreplaceable.

I'm sure a wealthy trader/artist/businessman could have their own personal palace on a world that is nothing but lush tropical islands. The descriptions of some of the nobility in some books is pretty close to this.

In the imperium, you can basically hope you are living on a world that isn't a hellhole, preferably in Ultramar, where they actually give a crap about human conditions!

It would seem to me that the Imperium is very militaristic (duh). If a planet is under direct danger of an enemy fleet or invasion force, all authority is handed over to the IG or astartes chain of command. Martial law, curfews, hoarding of rescources, etc.

Imperial Guard or Arbites, not Astartes. Astartes are not qualified for such duties

Grey Templar wrote:Unrest isn't tolerated.

That depends.

If the rebels succeed and prove after the fact that the ruling party wasn't doing its job to the Imperium (holding back tithes, secretly heretical, etc), then the Imperium doesn't care if you rebel. Just be sure to pay next year's taxes on time.

Durza wrote:Kage's homeworld in the Last Chancers did this. The only way to get one removed was join the Guardsmen as far as I remember.

No one seems to have mentioned the thousands sacrificed to the Emperor daily to keep him 'alive'.

The Grey Knights often kill any Space Marines or Guardsmen they work with so that word of their atrocities can't spread.

Torture and excecution of any 'heretics'- those with Xenos artifacts, non believers or those who displease an Inquisitor.

It has been stated before, previous codex and other sources, that Space Marines are too valuable to kill outright after serving alongside GK. In rare cases the GK will wipe the memories of some Space Marines who served with them and saw things they really should forget. Short of being tainted by Chaos the GK don't kill off SM just for the hell of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:One of those big rulebooks iirc.

I believe it was in the 4th ed book. Mine is packed away in the depths of my garage atm but it must be either the 4th or 3rd ed rule books, but I lean towards the 4th, anyone have their handy?!

Melissia wrote:Imperial Guard or Arbites, not Astartes. Astartes are not qualified for such duties

Grey Templar wrote:Unrest isn't tolerated.

That depends.

If the rebels succeed and prove after the fact that the ruling party wasn't doing its job to the Imperium (holding back tithes, secretly heretical, etc), then the Imperium doesn't care if you rebel. Just be sure to pay next year's taxes on time.

true, but that doesn't happen often.

most unrest is either petty or Heretical in origin.

purplefood wrote:

HAZZER wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer....

And as for why the Imperium is still fighting for the EMperor is because to them he's not dead, he's alive on the Golden Throne, and he is not replacable. He is a living God. The Imperium is not a democracy, and they can't just appoint a new Emperor. For one thing if they took him off the Golden Throne the Astronomicon would shut down, and we all know how well that will turn out.

True but he never ever fights, plus When ever he is mentioned it gives me the impreasson he is dead.Also there are the 4 high lords of tera that kinda do his job for him.Fimally I wil try tol take "I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer...." as a complement.

It isn't a compliment.
He spends all his time keeping the astronomicon going so fighting isn't really an issue for him since he already does more for humanity each day than anyone has ever done.
The Lords of Terra more or less do his job but whenever he wants something done (It has been known to happen) he tells them to do it.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

HAZZER wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer....

And as for why the Imperium is still fighting for the EMperor is because to them he's not dead, he's alive on the Golden Throne, and he is not replacable. He is a living God. The Imperium is not a democracy, and they can't just appoint a new Emperor. For one thing if they took him off the Golden Throne the Astronomicon would shut down, and we all know how well that will turn out.

True but he never ever fights, plus When ever he is mentioned it gives me the impreasson he is dead.Also there are the 4 high lords of tera that kinda do his job for him.Fimally I wil try tol take "I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer...." as a complement.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grey Templar wrote:

HAZZER wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer....

And as for why the Imperium is still fighting for the EMperor is because to them he's not dead, he's alive on the Golden Throne, and he is not replacable. He is a living God. The Imperium is not a democracy, and they can't just appoint a new Emperor. For one thing if they took him off the Golden Throne the Astronomicon would shut down, and we all know how well that will turn out.

True but he never ever fights, plus When ever he is mentioned it gives me the impreasson he is dead.Also there are the 4 high lords of tera that kinda do his job for him.Fimally I wil try tol take "I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer...." as a complement.

the Emperor actually keeps Deamons from entering the material realm.

otherwise, deamons could walk right into reality whenever they wanted.


the Emperor makes that extreamly difficult. he is literally holding the fabric of reality together.


in addition, he sometimes directly takes part in the goings on of his empire. the Storm of the Emperor's wrath which swallowed up the Frateris Templar(the forces of the Traitor Vandire) during the Age of Apostaty.

the Emperor also answeres his prayers. sometimes with visions.


"The Emperor Protects" isn't a lighthearted statement. its a very real truth.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

ChrisWWII wrote:

HAZZER wrote:
reals
True but he never ever fights, plus When ever he is mentioned it gives me the impreasson he is dead.Also there are the 4 high lords of tera that kinda do his job for him.Fimally I wil try tol take "I see your grammar and spelling have yet to improve, Hazzer...." as a complement.

It is not a compliment in any sense of the word whatsoever. Your grammar and spelling continue to cause me physical pain whenever I have to read it.

So what? Is a person's entire worth based on whether or not they 'fight'? The High Lords of Terra (of which there are a dozen, not four) run the Imperium in the Emperor's name. They take care of the beuraucracy and war fighting, as well as making sure the Imperium does not completely colllapse. However, what the Emperor does is far more important than fighting, or what the High Lords do.

The Emperor runs the Astronomicon, binding the Imperium together. He soul-binds Astropaths so that the Imperium has some form of intersteller communicatoin, and he maintains the barrier between the Warp and rreal space so that daemons do not come pouring into real space and kill everything. He does things that are far more important than fighting. He also intervenes when necessary, either through the Emperor's Tarot, or more directly with the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath.

The Emperor is the one thing in the Imperium that is truly irreplaceable.

To all that ive quoted What is the Astronomicon?!?!?!?!

Grey Templar wrote:Unrest isn't tolerated.
Xeno tech smuggling isn't tolerated.
Worship of anything but the emperor isn't tolerated.
not paying the Tith isn't tolerated
aside from those, you can do pretty much what you want. the actual living conditions vary greatly from horrible to pretty comfy.

I tottally agree with you. As long you do not break the law and be loyal to your Emperor life is good. People do have entertaiments like big shows, circuses, and others (Read the HH) it tells a bit an shows the side of a regular human. I also disagree with many people that as soon you become a guardsmen you are sentenced to death I call that bull
If you say that it sucks to be a guard beacuse you are gonna die then its safe for me to say it sucks to be Space Marine beacuse you only fight and fight till you die, there i said it.

Besides it also depends on the planet you are from, yes I agree Cadia, Valhalla, Aurelia, Tanith. Many of the soldiers dont return back home but those worlds are battlefields the people are use to it so they live war. Besides read Ghost Gaunts, the Tanith love fighting, so .....not so bad huh? They also fight till they die and enjoy every second of it like Space Marines.

I also notice how many of you guys say the Imperium does so many evil things to the people but for some reason more then half of you dont even have resources and a half of that say "I dont remmember where I got it from." at least be honest and say its a theory.

I agree the Imperium can be harsh still it isnt bad as so many people say it is. For you who say the Exterminatus is a bad thing.....It is better then just ditching the people on a planet and get slaughterd. The innocent people die to end their sufferings, and id rather get blown up with my enamy rather then be converted to chaos, eaten by tyranids, or get smashed by orks.

Grey Templar wrote:
the Emperor actually keeps Deamons from entering the material realm.

otherwise, deamons could walk right into reality whenever they wanted.

the Emperor makes that extreamly difficult. he is literally holding the fabric of reality together.

where did you get that notion? did daemons have free rule untill the emperor came along? come on... there is no fluff what so ever to support this...
as for the astronomican it does make the system or terra stable, and possibly the ones around it, but even that is unfounded in any fluff whatsoever....

@HAZZER

The Astronomicon is a psychic beacon that is effectively shot into the warp through the Emperor's brain. It allows the Imperial Navy, and human ships generally, to navigate the warp without getting lost for several thousand years, for example. The Golden Throne is, in essence, a machine that powers this process. The Throne itself is powered by the souls of millions of psykers. They do not survive the process.

HAZZER wrote:
To all that ive quoted What is the Astronomicon?!?!?!?!

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Astronomican

next time do your own homework

where did you get that notion? did daemons have free rule untill the emperor came along? come on... there is no fluff what so ever to support this...
as for the astronomican it does make the system or terra stable, and possibly the ones around it, but even that is unfounded in any fluff whatsoever.....

When the Emperor was alive he also kept them out of our world.

tarnish wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:
the Emperor actually keeps Deamons from entering the material realm.

otherwise, deamons could walk right into reality whenever they wanted.

the Emperor makes that extreamly difficult. he is literally holding the fabric of reality together.

where did you get that notion? did daemons have free rule untill the emperor came along? come on... there is no fluff what so ever to support this...
as for the astronomican it does make the system or terra stable, and possibly the ones around it, but even that is unfounded in any fluff whatsoever....

Like Bob said,

the Emperor has been keeping Deamons from, easily, entering the material realm since he was born(8000BC)

the Emperor did it while he walked amoung mankind and he does it now from the Golden Throne.


go and look at Lexicanum and learn the fluff yourself before you go and say people don't know what they are talking about

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Emperor

Eating the emperors burgers is forbidden...

Grey Templar wrote:
the Emperor has been keeping Deamons from, easily, entering the material realm since he was born(8000BC)

the Emperor did it while he walked amoung mankind and he does it now from the Golden Throne.

go and look at Lexicanum and learn the fluff yourself before you go and say people don't know what they are talking about

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Emperor

dont you think that the grey knights would be redundant if this was as perfect as you believe? while the man might make a difference in protecting his race the fact of the matter is that hes doing a less then amazing job at it. and i hold to my point....

As usual there are more sides to the truth of 40k... just like hive worlds are more then "baby factories" to support the imperial guard. Totalitarian truth is so lazy an assumption. its what corrupted the space marines and it will be the downfall of the Imperium of man.

Grey Templar wrote:

tarnish wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:
the Emperor actually keeps Deamons from entering the material realm.

otherwise, deamons could walk right into reality whenever they wanted.

the Emperor makes that extreamly difficult. he is literally holding the fabric of reality together.

where did you get that notion? did daemons have free rule untill the emperor came along? come on... there is no fluff what so ever to support this...
as for the astronomican it does make the system or terra stable, and possibly the ones around it, but even that is unfounded in any fluff whatsoever....

Like Bob said,

the Emperor has been keeping Deamons from, easily, entering the material realm since he was born(8000BC)

the Emperor did it while he walked amoung mankind and he does it now from the Golden Throne.


go and look at Lexicanum and learn the fluff yourself before you go and say people don't know what they are talking about

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Emperor

You're conflating what the Emperor does with the webway portal he built in the golden throne, and what the Septims in The Eldar Scrolls were retconned into doing in Oblivion...

Grey Templar wrote:

Melissia wrote:Imperial Guard or Arbites, not Astartes. Astartes are not qualified for such duties

Grey Templar wrote:Unrest isn't tolerated.

That depends.

If the rebels succeed and prove after the fact that the ruling party wasn't doing its job to the Imperium (holding back tithes, secretly heretical, etc), then the Imperium doesn't care if you rebel. Just be sure to pay next year's taxes on time.

true, but that doesn't happen often.

most unrest is either petty or Heretical in origin.

Or perhaps the heretics simply obfuscate such.

where did you get that notion? did daemons have free rule untill the emperor came along? come on... there is no fluff what so ever to support this...
as for the astronomican it does make the system or terra stable, and possibly the ones around it, but even that is unfounded in any fluff whatsoever.....

When the Emperor was alive he also kept them out of our world.

From what I saw in the Ciaphas Cain novel Duty Calls, it doesn't seem so bad. Just so long as you don't get eaten by 'nids.

The answer, as always, is "it depends". The imperium is massive place, there is no right way of knowing how the planetary governments treat their people, beyond the standard 'No Xenos, no Chaos, worship the Emperor or die".

dont you think that the grey knights would be redundant if this was as perfect as you believe? while the man might make a difference in protecting his race the fact of the matter is that hes doing a less then amazing job at it. and i hold to my point....

I want to see you do a better job then the Emperor....
Emperor: Go on then sit on the Golden thrown while ill be ungrateful and complain.
(All of a sudden the entire universe collapses)
The Emperor is up against 4 GODS and thousands of powerful deamons......He is doing the best he can, and usually as soon the lucky deamons appear from the warp they get smashed by the Imperium (not all ways in the end they will still be pushed back by the Eldars if not the Imperium)
The Emperor isn’t also as powerful as he been before since he is wounded and simply not strong enough.
Emperor: So you still think you can do a better job?

As usual there are more sides to the truth of 40k...

Ummmm NO! You just do not get the point there are no sides when it comes to this. The Emperor kept the deamons out of our world when he was alive. I do not want to repeat what Grey Templer said already. He gave you the link where you can get more info. Read it and except that you are wrong. These are one of those things that dont have sides...They are just facts

believe what you will...

Dead or alive, the Emperor provides humanity with its most powerful weapon, regardless of what foe they are facing: Faith.

Ecclesiarchs and Adeptes Sororitas (and the rare individual outside of their orders) actually channel miracles through their faith in the God-Emperor, without being psykers themselves.

Inquisitors and Astartes alike (depending on Chapter) may use the Emperor's Tarot, believed to be guided by the hand of the Emperor himself, to find information about their targets and guide their wrath towards the most deserving. This allows them to put an end to heretical acts or xeno aggression before it causes irreparable harm.

And, rarely, but sometimes, miracles evidence themselves before the common Guardsman or other common citizen, saving lives or turning the tides of battles in the Imperium's favor. Such events further reinforce the people's faith in the Emperor (and the Imperium) and the cycle is thus self-perpetuating.

What is it that you don't understand tarnish and Hazzer?

The Emperor is an irreplaceable being that fulfils the most important jobs in the Imperium. Firstly, he broadcasts the Astronomican, a Beacon in the Warp like a Lighthouse that all trained Imperial psykers can see and thus navigate from planet to planet, system to system. As well as this he is psychicly holding the barrier between the Imaterial and material realm and stopping the Warp and thus The Powers of Chaos from spilling over into the Imperium. He also provides protection through faith, in which many non-psykers can channel 'holy' powers during a crisis, and also takes a physical role in governing through his tarot, and sometimes creating events such as the Storm of the Emperors Wrath to actively protect the Imperium.

in conclusion the majority of votes agree that the Imperium is strict and if you disobey the Emperor you will be punished thus may lead to some punishments that sound cruel.
As long you serve the Imperium of man and the Holy Emperor you will live a normal life and the way you want to live it.
Many of you have points with no evidence or simply wrong facts and you should read about the Imperium a bit more before commenting on this.

^ And no hippies, the IoM does not tolerate hippies.

Part of the problem in defining whether or not the IoM is "grimdark" or not is the separation of game-facts from world-building, or the effects that the institutions of the IoM have on the people they rule over.

I am reminded of a paragraph from Abnett's Malleus where he describes the Inquisitorial Palace on Thracia Primaris, said to be "the size of a small city itself... with black staetite facings, darkened windows [and] protective spines of iron spikes." Abnett goes on to say (through the voice of Inquisitor Eisenhorn) "Critics of the Inquisition may regard its architecture as almost comically overdone, playing directly to the general public's worst fears about the nature of the Inquisition with its deliberate, black menace. That, I would say, is precisely the point. Fear keeps the populace in line, fear of an institution so terrible it will not hesitate to punish them for transgressions."

"Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station."

im simply saying: the emporer is not perfect and never was. he might be the best man for the job... but thats not enough.

2nd: dont put me in the same post as hazzer please.

He's not just the best man for the job, he's the ONLY man for the most important job in the Imperium.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

tarnish wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:
the Emperor actually keeps Deamons from entering the material realm.

otherwise, deamons could walk right into reality whenever they wanted.

the Emperor makes that extreamly difficult. he is literally holding the fabric of reality together.

where did you get that notion? did daemons have free rule untill the emperor came along? come on... there is no fluff what so ever to support this...
as for the astronomican it does make the system or terra stable, and possibly the ones around it, but even that is unfounded in any fluff whatsoever....

Like Bob said,

the Emperor has been keeping Deamons from, easily, entering the material realm since he was born(8000BC)

the Emperor did it while he walked amoung mankind and he does it now from the Golden Throne.


go and look at Lexicanum and learn the fluff yourself before you go and say people don't know what they are talking about

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Emperor

You're conflating what the Emperor does with the webway portal he built in the golden throne, and what the Septims in The Eldar Scrolls were retconned into doing in Oblivion...

did you even click on the link in my post?

it says the exact things i said.

tarnish wrote:im simply saying: the emporer is not perfect and never was. he might be the best man for the job... but thats not enough.

2nd: dont put me in the same post as hazzer please.

Its spelt HAZZER.If you are saying about my spelling and garamer but im sorry.Plus what have I done wornge?

tarnish wrote:im simply saying: the emporer is not perfect and never was. he might be the best man for the job... but thats not enough.

2nd: dont put me in the same post as hazzer please.

Well, wouldn't the best man for a job be enough? Not only is he the best man, he's the only man. No other being in the galaxy can do the job the Emperor does. Even the Sigilitte, the most powerful psyker except Magnus and The Emperor crumbled to dust trying to keep the Webway portal closed under the Golden Throne. I don't understand why you think The Emperor is inadequate. What more do you want him to do?

Torpedo Vegas wrote:The answer, as always, is "it depends". The imperium is massive place, there is no right way of knowing how the planetary governments treat their people, beyond the standard 'No Xenos, no Chaos, worship the Emperor or die".

^this, there are simply far to many worlds with trillions of people. The Imperium can in no way send troops to shut down every single coup or cult there is. If the problem persists then yes they will intervene to stop the influence of chaos from spreading to other planets.

iproxtaco wrote: Well, wouldn't the best man for a job be enough? Not only is he the best man, he's the only man. No other being in the galaxy can do the job the Emperor does. Even the Sigilitte, the most powerful psyker except Magnus and The Emperor crumbled to dust trying to keep the Webway portal closed under the Golden Throne. I don't understand why you think The Emperor is inadequate. What more do you want him to do?

Dont you see the delicious irony in that? that the Imperium hallowed creator basically was not up for the task? besides this is not his greatest failure by far, the worst one is that they actually worship him. the good emperor never wanted that to begin with.
This, is what makes 40k grimdark to me, not the wars or the endless strong-arm bullcrap, but the simple fact that the greatest human being ever known was as flawed as the people he led. His hubris has but prolonged mankinds extinction and the only thing that makes the wheels of the imperium turn is total ignorance to this fact.

as for your final point: i believe quite a few beings could do the job he does... just not to benefit the imperium.

ChrisWWII wrote:The majority of planets are civilized worlds..hive, and forge worlds are relatively rare planets overall. You're more likely to live on a civilized world with a population of mayb 10-20 billion than a hive world with its hundreds of billions of people.

While there may certainly be more civilized worlds than there are hive or forge worlds, I'm not sure that necessarily means you are more likely to live on one.

Let's take your estimated figures, for example. A hive world has hundreds of billions of people - we'll assume 200 billion, as that's the lowest figure in that range. Comparatively, we can use 20 billion for your civilized world estimation, which is the upper end of that range. If we compare these numbers, you would need 10 civilized worlds for every 1 hive world to have a 50/50 chance of growing up on either option.

In some ways, this mimics our earthly experience. If you don't mind me borrowing some statistics:

The Population Reference Bureau notes that "In 2008, for the first time, the world's population was evenly split between urban and rural areas. There were more than 400 cities over 1 million and 19 over 10 million.

According to The Earth Institute @ Columbia University, urban areas amount to approximately 3% of Earth's land surface, yet roughly half of the entire human population lives in urban areas.

This illustrates how, even though there is far more landmass classified as non-urban (97%), roughly half the population lives within that 3% of urban areas. If we can extend that to the IoM, then even a relatively small number of Hive Worlds could compose parity or majority populations.

There are, according to Lexicanum, 32,380 Hive Worlds. Four of the most notable ones have their populations listed, and these range from 25-500 billion.

Civilized Worlds, on the other hand, are listed as ranging from 15 million to 10 billion. While I find it odd to lump Forge Worlds in with Civilized Worlds, rather than Hive Worlds, the population figures for notable Forge Worlds are listed ranging from 80 million (Agripinaa) to 20 billion (Mars).

Using the same mathematical comparison above, this means at the upper end you'd need 25-50 Civilized/Forge Worlds for every Hive World, and at the low end, 312-1666 Civilized/Forge Worlds, to give an even chance of growing up on Civilized/Forge Worlds as Hive Worlds.

Of course, these calculations are flawed by not knowing the averages, or how many planets of each type there are, and also by not including all of the other types of planets in the IoM. Still, I think it's an interesting point to be made.

tavoittamaton wrote:
While there may certainly be more civilized worlds than there are hive or forge worlds, I'm not sure that necessarily means you are more likely to live on one.

This illustrates how, even though there is far more landmass classified as non-urban (97%), roughly half the population lives within that 3% of urban areas. If we can extend that to the IoM, then even a relatively small number of Hive Worlds could compose parity or majority populations.

Of course, these calculations are flawed by not knowing the averages, or how many planets of each type there are, and also by not including all of the other types of planets in the IoM. Still, I think it's an interesting point to be made.

Great reasoning there, but there are just so many factors that are impossible to predict:
even dead worlds might have hydrophonics and some hive Worlds will have some self-suffisance i certain areas. the tech is there after all and used in abundance in the rest of the imperium, so ofc. the hive Worlds depend on high end stuff to even hope to function.
standard of living untill grown will also affect the resourses needed ofc, and for the forgeworlds there are so many workers who are servitors that they would probably consume very little of anything. otherwise i think the standard imperial citizen dies young. at around 40...?

That idea that the Astronomicon is essential for Warp travel always puzzled me.

Think about it: for twenty thousand years before the Emperor revealed himself, humanity was discovering distant stars, colonizing them, and using Warp travel all the while. Meanwhile, the Tau manage to use the Warp just fine without an Astronomicon. The loss of it would be devastating, but not completely catastrophic. Humanity would adapt, and though Warp travel would be slower it would be possible. Heck, it would probably be safer, too, since the ships would only be skipping through the surface of the Warp.

The Emperor's real use is to bind the Imperium together.

While your analysis is valid tavoittamaton, I have to agree with tarnish. THere just are too many variables to make an accurate well educated answer to this question. I agree that I may have been wrong with saying you are more likely to grow up on a civilized world. I believe the more accurate statement is that the vast majority of planets are relatively self sustained civilized worlds, with hive worlds, forge worlds and agri worlds being relatively rare. Making the assumption that there are as many forge and agri worlds as there are hive worlds (which is an assumption with no factual backing whatsoever, it's just being made to illustrate a point), there are still over 900,000 planets that are relatively normal.

tarnish wrote:

iproxtaco wrote: Well, wouldn't the best man for a job be enough? Not only is he the best man, he's the only man. No other being in the galaxy can do the job the Emperor does. Even the Sigilitte, the most powerful psyker except Magnus and The Emperor crumbled to dust trying to keep the Webway portal closed under the Golden Throne. I don't understand why you think The Emperor is inadequate. What more do you want him to do?

Dont you see the delicious irony in that? that the Imperium hallowed creator basically was not up for the task? besides this is not his greatest failure by far, the worst one is that they actually worship him. the good emperor never wanted that to begin with.
This, is what makes 40k grimdark to me, not the wars or the endless strong-arm bullcrap, but the simple fact that the greatest human being ever known was as flawed as the people he led. His hubris has but prolonged mankinds extinction and the only thing that makes the wheels of the imperium turn is total ignorance to this fact.

as for your final point: i believe quite a few beings could do the job he does... just not to benefit the imperium.

There's no irony in that. He's the best man, he does a good job. He is up to the task, the last 10,000 years has shown that. He ultimately failed because he had outside forces working against him not because of a build-up of his own mistakes. Their is irony in the Imperium's religion however, I agree. If the Emperor was as flawed as any human, the basic point of the character would disappear. The whole point of the Emperor is that he is the perfect human. If he wasn't better than your average man then the Great Crusade would never have succeeded.

Who, just out of a matter of interest, do you think could do the same job as the Emperor?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hawkward wrote:That idea that the Astronomicon is essential for Warp travel always puzzled me.

Think about it: for twenty thousand years before the Emperor revealed himself, humanity was discovering distant stars, colonizing them, and using Warp travel all the while. Meanwhile, the Tau manage to use the Warp just fine without an Astronomicon. The loss of it would be devastating, but not completely catastrophic. Humanity would adapt, and though Warp travel would be slower it would be possible. Heck, it would probably be safer, too, since the ships would only be skipping through the surface of the Warp.

The Emperor's real use is to bind the Imperium together.

Sure they traveled the Warp, but it wasn't anywhere near a safe as it is today. It was slow, unreliable and a lot more dangerous and a lot less accurate. To travel across an empire as large as the Imperium, humanity needs relativley safe and easy travel. They couldn't do it back before the Emperor, it's one of the main reasons man's realm fractured.

Hah, you think the Tau can use the Warp. They can make dives towards it, which causes the vessel to jump towards their destination. It's extremely slow, and they can only travel very short distances, one of the main disadvantages of the Tau. They can't navigate it like human psykers can. They lock on and do a single jump to their destination, no deviation.

The Emperor's job is to protect humanity. He holds the barrier between the Warp and the material realm, he's the figure that all humans worship binding humanity under a single faith. He actively governs the Imperium through visions and his tarot, and he actively protects his people through divinations, Warp powers, and granting non-psykers the ability to use faith in times of crisis. He broadcasts the Asctonomican signal across the galaxy, allowing ships to travel the Imperium. Through the soul-binding, he creates more powerful psykers. He also keeps the Webway gate underneath the Golden Throne closed, stopping it from becoming a huge Warp portal they can't close, destroying Terra and allowing Chaos to have a permanent gate into the heart of the Imperium.

tarnish wrote:Great reasoning there, but there are just so many factors that are impossible to predict:
even dead worlds might have hydrophonics and some hive Worlds will have some self-suffisance i certain areas. the tech is there after all and used in abundance in the rest of the imperium, so ofc. the hive Worlds depend on high end stuff to even hope to function.
standard of living untill grown will also affect the resourses needed ofc, and for the forgeworlds there are so many workers who are servitors that they would probably consume very little of anything. otherwise i think the standard imperial citizen dies young. at around 40...?

I suppose I should have left the list of unknowns open-ended, because it's true. AFAIK, GW isn't giving us those kinds of metrics anytime soon. Still, I'm not sure how import-dependence or standard of living affect my rough estimates. Can you clarify?

ChrisWWII wrote:While your analysis is valid tavoittamaton, I have to agree with tarnish. THere just are too many variables to make an accurate well educated answer to this question. I agree that I may have been wrong with saying you are more likely to grow up on a civilized world. I believe the more accurate statement is that the vast majority of planets are relatively self sustained civilized worlds, with hive worlds, forge worlds and agri worlds being relatively rare. Making the assumption that there are as many forge and agri worlds as there are hive worlds (which is an assumption with no factual backing whatsoever, it's just being made to illustrate a point), there are still over 900,000 planets that are relatively normal.

Thanks

In all honesty, proving you wrong was not the goal of my post, and I hope it didn't come across that way. It was more me considering the intersection of some previous comments (life on a hive world is bad) with your comment (most of the worlds aren't hive worlds). I think both of those points are valid. Their intersection, which was the point of my post, was that the populations of hive worlds are so incredibly dense that they likely amount to at least a very sizable minority, if not parity/majority of the population of the Imperium.

If we were making a moral judgment on the IoM (which I wasn't), you could choose to quantify it by population or territory. Your point is that, on the vast majority of IoM worlds, things are really not that bad. On the other hand, if you were to look at the experiences of the population as a whole you might come to a different conclusion.

One number that I neglected in my previous post, but on second thought is worth mentioning, is another statistic about the Imperium itself:

The Imperium is the largest and most powerful political entity in the galaxy, consisting of at least a million worlds, which are dispersed across most of the Milky Way galaxy. [emphasis mine]

I mentioned before that there were approximately 32,380 hive worlds (again, according to Lexicanum), or 3.238% of the 1 million worlds in the IoM (base estimate). That would mean that, in order for there to be population parity between hive worlds and all the other worlds, hive worlds would need to comprise 29-30x the population of the rest of the vast number of planets in the IoM.

If we go back to the numbers I had before...

Tavoittamaton wrote:Using the same mathematical comparison above, this means at the upper end you'd need 25-50 Civilized/Forge Worlds for every Hive World, and at the low end, 312-1666 Civilized/Forge Worlds, to give an even chance of growing up on Civilized/Forge Worlds as Hive Worlds.

...then 29-30 definitely falls in the middle of the first range, and far short of the latter. This estimate assumes all of the other planets in the IoM are Civilized/Forge Worlds, which we know to be untrue, meaning that the numbers may be even more favorable than 29-30x.

I fully appreciate all of the factors not taken into account, and how that might make someone uncomfortable with me trying to prove something mathematically with all of the apparent holes in the data. But I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm just evaluating, using the figures available to us, whether it is reasonably likely that half or more of the population of the IoM grow up on hive worlds. I think it is, but if you disagree, then that's fine too

tavoittamaton wrote: I suppose I should have left the list of unknowns open-ended, because it's true. AFAIK, GW isn't giving us those kinds of metrics anytime soon. Still, I'm not sure how import-dependence or standard of living affect my rough estimates. Can you clarify?

well, the humanity is bound to have settled a lot of planets that need certain products added to them to make life there plausible. individual hiveworlds are not the exeption here i believe. but its all very vague and i cant possibly add anything solid.

Q: iproxtaco: Who, just out of a matter of interest, do you think could do the same job as the Emperor? /Q

The eldar would be adept enough to do that without the astronomican to begin with and would not have endangered the rest of the galaxy by drawing in the tyranids. the only real problem there is that the emporer was too ignorant to even attempt contact and more peacefull dealings with them, so we will never know
The C´tan dont need the warp at all to travel. So the technology was certainly there to seek other means of transportation....

Or even better, mabye their should never have left terra, but that story is a bit boring now is it not...?

As for the emporer being perfect..... i dont argue with religion, and you seem to have a lot if faith in this guy, so ill stand down and allow you your faith. he protects.

tarnish wrote:

tavoittamaton wrote: I suppose I should have left the list of unknowns open-ended, because it's true. AFAIK, GW isn't giving us those kinds of metrics anytime soon. Still, I'm not sure how import-dependence or standard of living affect my rough estimates. Can you clarify?

well, the humanity is bound to have settled a lot of planets that need certain products added to them to make life there plausible. individual hiveworlds are not the exeption here i believe. but its all very vague and i cant possibly add anything solid.

Q: iproxtaco: Who, just out of a matter of interest, do you think could do the same job as the Emperor? /Q

The eldar would be adept enough to do that without the astronomican to begin with and would not have endangered the rest of the galaxy by drawing in the tyranids. the only real problem there is that the emporer was too ignorant to even attempt contact and more peacefull dealings with them, so we will never know
The C´tan dont need the warp at all to travel. So the technology was certainly there to seek other means of transportation....

Or even better, mabye their should never have left terra, but that story is a bit boring now is it not...?

As for the emporer being perfect..... i dont argue with religion, and you seem to have a lot if faith in this guy, so ill stand down and allow you your faith. he protects.

@iproxtaco: You quoted all i said without any additions whatsoever? Did you agree or has your keyboard caught fire?

tarnish wrote:@iproxtaco: You quoted all i said without any additions whatsoever? Did you agree or has your keyboard caught fire?

Twice now it hasn't included what I posted so here it goes for a third time.

Give me one being who could sit on the Golden Throne, broadcast the Asronomican, whilst holding the barrier between realities together, that's what I asked, not examples of different races and their different methods of travel.
Why would the Eldar want to ally with the Imperium and vice versa? The Eldar serve their own motives first and foremost. The expansion of man is directly opposed to the Eldar's aspirations of bringing about the second rise of the Eldar Empire, whereas races like the Interex are happy to just slowly expand and incorporate other races into theirs, like the Tau. Saying the Emperor is ignorant betrays your own. The Eldar are just as likely to betray you as to befriend you, that's been made clear many times.
A human vessel is able to travel the Warp without the Astronomican. It is needed because the Imperium is so vast. It allows Warp travel to be faster, less dangerous, easier and more accurate. Without it, the Imperium would lose it's ability to communicate and travel, and thus would crumble.

You asked for a being that could do it. i give you every single farseer in the eldar race, with a lot less power or sacrifices needed and with less critical results to the galaxy. the golden throne is like a large american car: i pollutes as much as it gets the job done. im sure there would be less clumsy solutions, but thats not the topic it seems.

The concept of the golden throne anchors the entire concept of 40k, the dark ages in the future. its a technological marvel that even the emperor did not fully understand (read the thousand sons heresy book ) and was actually built for someone else (spoiler from the same book).

tarnish wrote:You asked for a being that could do it. i give you every single farseer in the eldar race, with a lot less power or sacrifices needed and with less critical results to the galaxy. the golden throne is like a large american car: i pollutes as much as it gets the job done. im sure there would be less clumsy solutions, but thats not the topic it seems.

The concept of the golden throne anchors the entire concept of 40k, the dark ages in the future. its a technological marvel that even the emperor did not fully understand (read the thousand sons heresy book ) and was actually built for someone else (spoiler from the same book).

Any farseer? They couldn't hold a candle to Malcador, Malcador couldn't hold a candle to The Emperor. They haven't got a chance of doing anything near what he does. There is no way they could hold the very fabric of reality together.
It doesn't work like that. You can't just stick any old psyker on it, they will fry. The Emperor does it because he is the only one who can. What is this pollution you are talking about?

the emperor did not build the throne. he improved it after he found it burried somewhere on terra. 20 times? read it again if you didnt get that right

the eldar psyker has control that no human could ever even grasp. they dont need great power to accomplish things, and they would not need the rusty chair to do big E´s job for him.
hold a candle? to them? are you human-supremist?

this concludes my response to the ludicrous arguement by the way, i will read your last reply but thats it.

I do not recall any fluff that says the Emperor 'found' the Golden THrone. GIve us a source and page citation on that if you want us to believe that. AFAIK the Emperor 'retired' from the Great Crusade to return to Terra to build the Golden Throne that was originally mean to give humanity access to the Webway.

The problem is that with the Golden Throne you don't NEED finesse, you need power. It doesn't matter how efficiently you distribute the power you have if you simply don't have enough. Maybe they could run the Astronomican better (since the power for that is supplied by the psykers) but that's about it. Everything else the big E does, needs raw power that no Eldar farseer has.

tarnish wrote:the emperor did not build the throne. he improved it after he found it burried somewhere on terra. 20 times? read it again if you didnt get that right

the eldar psyker has control that no human could ever even grasp. they dont need great power to accomplish things, and they would not need the rusty chair to do big E´s job for him.
hold a candle? to them? are you human-supremist?

this concludes my response to the ludicrous arguement by the way, i will read your last reply but thats it.

The Emperor was a god in a human body, not a psyker. He was created in a manner not unlike Slaanesh, through the coalescence of psyker souls in the warp (that it was a directed action, rather than psychic resonance reaching a critical mass and collapsing into one being, doesn't change that), and then incarnated in a human body.

tarnish wrote:the emperor did not build the throne. he improved it after he found it burried somewhere on terra. 20 times? read it again if you didnt get that right

the eldar psyker has control that no human could ever even grasp. they dont need great power to accomplish things, and they would not need the rusty chair to do big E´s job for him.
hold a candle? to them? are you human-supremist?

this concludes my response to the ludicrous arguement by the way, i will read your last reply but thats it.

In my 20 times of reading A Thousand Sons did I find anything about The Emperor 'finding' The Golden Throne. Give me the page and the quote or your point will have no meaning. It is essentially a life support machine now and a method of activating the Webway portal.

The Astronomican is made possible because of The Emperor. HE IS MORE POWERFUL THAN ANY OTHER BEING IN THE PHYSICAL GALAXY. Eldrad, arguably the most powerful and adept Eldar psyker known to us, is nothing compared to The Emperor. He doesn't have anything near the same power.
Am I a human supremist? No, It's just in this case, the human is supreme.

I should hope you've learnt a thing or two, after YOU made this argument ludicrous. I believe this is a win to me. Sanity prevails!

tarnish wrote:the emperor did not build the throne. he improved it after he found it burried somewhere on terra. 20 times? read it again if you didnt get that right

the eldar psyker has control that no human could ever even grasp. they dont need great power to accomplish things, and they would not need the rusty chair to do big E´s job for him.
hold a candle? to them? are you human-supremist?

this concludes my response to the ludicrous arguement by the way, i will read your last reply but thats it.

If you are going to critize other people then the others say the correct saying you could at least acknowledge it.

And please please put where you got this from because the sources are obviously wrong. The golden throne was originally thought up by the Emperor to be the only way into the webway however; this was scraped when Magnus the Red tried to warn the Emperor about Horus's betrayal. This action made holes in the Emperors psychic shield. Daemons then managed to pour though from the war into the human part webway killing thousands. The sisters of battle and other forces fought the daemons until the Emperor mended the psychic shield, hence closing it al apart from the Astronomican. Then when the Emperor boarded Horus's flagship Malcador the Sigillite took the ~Emperors place this ended up killing him and the mortally wounded Emperor used the rest of his power to keep the Astronomican going....

Source(This is what you need to do): http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Golden_Throne#The_Golden_Throne

tarnish wrote:the emperor did not build the throne. he improved it after he found it burried somewhere on terra. 20 times? read it again if you didnt get that right

the eldar psyker has control that no human could ever even grasp. they dont need great power to accomplish things, and they would not need the rusty chair to do big E´s job for him.
hold a candle? to them? are you human-supremist?

this concludes my response to the ludicrous arguement by the way, i will read your last reply but thats it.

Never heard of that before.....

ahem...

quote: a thousand sons, by Graham Mcneill: page 447, 3 sentence down:
"The Golden Throne was the key. Unearthed from forgotten ruins sunken beneath the driest desert, it was the lodestone that would have unlocked the secrets of the alien lattrice. Now it was in ruins, its impossibly complex dimensional inhibitors and warp buffers fused beyond salvage." /quote.

Please re-read the forum rules before posting again. - Lorek

tarnish wrote:ahem...

quote: a thousand sons, by Graham Mcneill: page 447, 3 sentence down:
"The Golden Throne was the key. Unearthed from forgotten ruins sunken beneath the driest desert, it was the lodestone that would have unlocked the secrets of the alien lattrice. Now it was in ruins, its impossibly complex dimensional inhibitors and warp buffers fused beyond salvage." /quote.

now im no expert in 40k fluff, but from my standpoint that looks a lot like you need to bend over and suck that one....

oh, and screw you hazzer.

Refrain from insulting people please, it does nothing but lower people opinions of you.

He DID build the Golden Throne. He did not find it buried beneath the sands, he found something similar to what Magnus discovered on the planet he was on at the start of the book. He used information gleaned from this to build the Golden Throne as a means to protect the human section of the Webway.
Clearly you aren't an expert, no where near one. No ones bending over to you, especially not to one who says 'screw you' to random strangers on an internet forum, especially not to someone who insults another person when said person had said NOTHING to insult you whatsoever. So much for not posting again by the way.

Hawkward wrote:That idea that the Astronomicon is essential for Warp travel always puzzled me.

Think about it: for twenty thousand years before the Emperor revealed himself, humanity was discovering distant stars, colonizing them, and using Warp travel all the while. Meanwhile, the Tau manage to use the Warp just fine without an Astronomicon. The loss of it would be devastating, but not completely catastrophic. Humanity would adapt, and though Warp travel would be slower it would be possible. Heck, it would probably be safer, too, since the ships would only be skipping through the surface of the Warp.

The Emperor's real use is to bind the Imperium together.

Humans did NOT use Warp Travel for along time.

Warp Travel only became possable after the emergence of Psykers.


prior to this, humanity used multi-generational colony ships which traveled at or near the speed of light, but still took hundreds or years to reach their destinations.

this was how mankind spread accross the stars.

it was towards the end of the Dark Age of Technology the Warp Drive was developed and the Navigator gene emerged. this gave rise to the much faster syustem they use today.

and, during the early years of the Great Crusade, the Warp was relativly calm as the Chaos Gods were still reeling from the birth of Slannesh and attention was diverted away from the physical universe.

I'm sorry to say this but Hawkward and Grey Templar. Both of your are wrong. Here is what you have to read to understand why I say your both wrong- http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Age_of_Technology and http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Age_of_Strife.

As for why the Imperium doesn't use a drive similar to the Tau its because of the size difference between the Imperium and the Tau empires. Here is a link showing the size of the Imperium in comparison to the Tau- http://www.joachim-adomeit.de/wh40k/spacemap/map.html

Feeling inadequate Tau players!

As for why the Astronomican is needed its because while the Fall of the Eldar empire blew away the warp storms the warp was immeasurably screwed up by the Eldars hedonism and the birth of Slaanesh.

your evidence doesn't exactly conflict with what i said.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warp_Drive

Warhammer40kwiki isn't always reliable for information.

Lexicanum does a better job of sourcing their information and keeping it up to date.



It isn't known exactly when the Warp Drive was developed, but it was during the Dark Age sometime.

call it what you will improxtaco, at this point your downright ignorant and hostile. ill say what i like when i like and thats not for you to regulate. you have it in writing and its clear as day. if thats not enough for you then your lost up your own backside, im sorry.

tarnish wrote:call it what you will improxtaco, at this point your downright ignorant and hostile. ill say what i like when i like and thats not for you to regulate. you have it in writing and its clear as day. if thats not enough for you then your lost up your own backside, im sorry.

I'M ignorant and hostile? Right, coming from the one who just had half a post censored due to a breach of rule one. I may not be able to tell you what to do, I don't pretend I can. The MODS of dakka can however and they have acted. I'll say again, refrain from insulting people, it does nout but lower peoples opinions of you, and mine has lowered after you seem not to be bothered about apologising to HAZZER.

You've given us a short sentence from a Black Library book. It's been stated many more times in various sources that he built The Golden Throne.
The majority states he built it, so that has to be taken as fact. If we're given more information on the matter then I may change what I believe, but it's GW so who can tell?

Like you're last sentence, see you haven't learnt anything yet.

He just cant admit that he is wrong......

tarnish wrote:ahem...

quote: a thousand sons, by Graham Mcneill: page 447, 3 sentence down:
"The Golden Throne was the key. Unearthed from forgotten ruins sunken beneath the driest desert, it was the lodestone that would have unlocked the secrets of the alien lattrice. Now it was in ruins, its impossibly complex dimensional inhibitors and warp buffers fused beyond salvage." /quote.

now im no expert in 40k fluff, but from my standpoint that looks a lot like you need to bend over and suck that one....

oh, and screw you hazzer

Please re-read the forum rules before posting again Lorek. - Lorek

What have I done to insult you? You on the other hand:
1.This is the 2nd time you have insulted my the first one was:"dont put me in the same post as hazzer please."
2. The second was: "oh, and screw you hazzer" and Would of not of know of that if it wasn’t for iproxtaco who quoted you before you had time to change it hitch was quite sully and imachore and this will be reported to a modorator.
2. You have a different quire to the rest of us that is grate because that a background discussion is about.
3. You are keeping to that query when everyone else is specially saying its wrong.
4. You currently have on evidence (Hyperlink, extract form a book ect).
5. Again here is the official information about the golden throne:
The golden throne was originally thought up by the Emperor to be the only way into the webway however; this was scraped when Magnus the Red tried to warn the Emperor about Horus's betrayal. This action made holes in the Emperors psychic shield. Daemons then managed to pour though from the war into the human part webway killing thousands. The sisters of battle and other forces fought the daemons until the Emperor mended the psychic shield, hence closing it al apart from the Astronomican. Then when the Emperor boarded Horus's flagship Malcador the Sigillite took the ~Emperors place this ended up killing him and the mortally wounded Emperor used the rest of his power to keep the Astronomican going....

Source(This is what you need to do): http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Golden_Throne#The_Golden_Throne

6.Please re-read the forum rules before posting again Lorek . - HAZZER

OverwatchCNC wrote:

Durza wrote:Kage's homeworld in the Last Chancers did this. The only way to get one removed was join the Guardsmen as far as I remember.

No one seems to have mentioned the thousands sacrificed to the Emperor daily to keep him 'alive'.

The Grey Knights often kill any Space Marines or Guardsmen they work with so that word of their atrocities can't spread.

Torture and excecution of any 'heretics'- those with Xenos artifacts, non believers or those who displease an Inquisitor.

It has been stated before, previous codex and other sources, that Space Marines are too valuable to kill outright after serving alongside GK. In rare cases the GK will wipe the memories of some Space Marines who served with them and saw things they really should forget. Short of being tainted by Chaos the GK don't kill off SM just for the hell of it.

It has been stated in the Inquisitors codex that the Grey Knights kill anyone that tries to report the extent they go to to 'cleanse' a world. Space Marines are no exception, valuable or not.


It does seem unlikely that the Emperor could build something to access the Webway by himself. Seems more likely he found the beginnings of the Golden Throne under some desert or something, then built what humanity knows as the Golden Throne around that. So it is possible both arguments are right to some extent.