I have been reading my horus heresy codex and it briefly talks about the transition from thunder warriors to space marines. The former being being a short term prototype and the latter being a more streamlined and permanent product. But then where do the custodes fit into all of this? The background makes it sound like they have been around since at least as long as the thunder warriors, but they seem to be made from a much more advanced methodology. Is this wrong and they were produced along side the space marine project? Are they themselves a prototype of the primarch projects? I just don't feel like they fit in with the other projects?
Well, it’s unclear when Custards were first crafted, but they definitely pre-date the Primarchs. However, whether they pre-date Thunder Warriors I’m not at all sure.
Custodes then Thunder Warriors. The Primarchs and Astartes were the final product designed to be the perfect warriors for the expansion and maintaining of humanity's domain.
Inferno hints that Custodes came first, then states they were 'unveiled' at the same time - 30 Custodes fighting at the head of the new-born Thunder Legion.
Gert wrote: Custodes then Thunder Warriors. The Primarchs and Astartes were the final product designed to be the perfect warriors for the expansion and maintaining of humanity's domain.
Astartes weren’t the final product. They were a “oh that’s buggered it” salvage job, post scattering of the Primarchs.
The ones they were left with yes but the original intention was 20 Legions with 20 Generals to lead them. They would secure the galaxy for the Emperor then act as its defenders and in some cases administrators. The end result may have been their annihilation to give humanity freedom from overlords including the Emperor but the Astartes were always planned.
Gert wrote:Custodes then Thunder Warriors. The Primarchs and Astartes were the final product designed to be the perfect warriors for the expansion and maintaining of humanity's domain.
beast_gts wrote:Inferno hints that Custodes came first, then states they were 'unveiled' at the same time - 30 Custodes fighting at the head of the new-born Thunder Legion.
But this makes things even more jarring. The superior specimen of genetic engineering came before the prototype thunder warriors and was still superior to final that was the space marines. That's a weird line of progression. The emperor got it right the first time and then proceeded to make worse products.
Very inconsistent. Someone needs to work on their lab journal...
Gert wrote:Custodes then Thunder Warriors. The Primarchs and Astartes were the final product designed to be the perfect warriors for the expansion and maintaining of humanity's domain.
beast_gts wrote:Inferno hints that Custodes came first, then states they were 'unveiled' at the same time - 30 Custodes fighting at the head of the new-born Thunder Legion.
But this makes things even more jarring. The superior specimen of genetic engineering came before the prototype thunder warriors and was still superior to final that was the space marines. That's a weird line of progression. The emperor got it right the first time and then proceeded to make worse products.
Very inconsistent. Someone needs to work on their lab journal...
The Custodes are basically custom jobs. Everything afterwards seems to have been an attempt to get the same results "on the cheap" at lower cost, or faster rate of production. The Emperor realized numbers were needed to accomplish the conquest of the galaxy and therefore a mass produced version was needed, even if it meant some sacrifice in other areas.
It has been argued that the Custodes may lack free will. As in they may be able to be advisors and intellectually disagree with the Emperor (such as thinking or advising that the Primarchs were a bad idea) or contemplate why someone would turn against the Emperor and the Imperium, but they would never be able to actually truly disagree with the Emperor once the Emperor makes a decision, and they would never be able to turn against the Emperor despite being able to intellectually understand why.
That is why in Gate of Bones, a Dark Apostle calls the Custodes the "least free of all the Emperor's slaves".
Now of course one could argue the Custodes are just making their own free willed decision that the Emperor is always right and it just so happens all of them have always decided the same. It's not really provable one way or another. However the fact the Custodes are so heavily altered on a genetic level to the point of having their psyker potential entirely absent and the Emperor's power flowing through them, to me suggests their minds, souls, and very being have been manipulated to align with the Emperor and thus reducing their freedom to actually choose.
I mean it would match what we know of the Emperor as a massive control freak. The Custodes may offer advice but at the end of the day, the Emperor may or may not heed that. Then the Custodes fall in line like yes-men. Even if they still individually harbor doubts, they CANNOT take their disagreement to a higher level.
It’s the difference between artisan creation and mass production.
Custodes were his Bodyguards. Designed and intended to be the best. To be able to overpower, out think, out strategise and out fight any line troop. Because you tend to want your bodyguards to be well above average.
Thunder Warriors were a tool. A savage creation not designed or intended to last long, just last long enough to Get The Job Done. One can also argue they were very much a Proof of Concept to show genhanced Warriors could be churned out in vast numbers.
The Astartes being a rush job, a salvage operation of the Primarch Project is why we now have Primaris. They were unfinished. Improvements could be made - in time. Time The Emperor didn’t really have. Had things gone differently, The Emperor had a clear penchant for further tinkering and improvement, so to believe Astartes wouldn’t have been tinkered with seems, I wanna say wrong? Perhaps a blinkered point of view? Not sure if those terms are too strong.
Custodes were his Bodyguards. Designed and intended to be the best. To be able to overpower, out think, out strategise and out fight any line troop. Because you tend to want your bodyguards to be well above average.
Thunder Warriors were a tool. A savage creation not designed or intended to last long, just last long enough to Get The Job Done. One can also argue they were very much a Proof of Concept to show genhanced Warriors could be churned out in vast numbers.
The Astartes being a rush job, a salvage operation of the Primarch Project is why we now have Primaris. They were unfinished. Improvements could be made - in time. Time The Emperor didn’t really have. Had things gone differently, The Emperor had a clear penchant for further tinkering and improvement, so to believe Astartes wouldn’t have been tinkered with seems, I wanna say wrong? Perhaps a blinkered point of view? Not sure if those terms are too strong.
Well, I think it's more the idea that the Emperor controlling everything *isn't* actually a good thing. The Astartes are great because they can grow beyond the Emperor, just like a child is great because they can grow beyond their parent. The Custodes will always be lesser than the Emperor.
Valdor: Birth of the Imperium goes into this. Custodes came first, then Thunder Warriors, then Space Marines.
Custodes were not used as the main crusading force because the process of creating them is so time consuming and their equipment can't be mass produced, so the imperium would basically not be able to produce anything else. It would go something like this:
"Your legions of golden demigods is finished my Emperor!"
"Excellent, deploy them on the ships. The great crusade begins!"
"Ships....?"
Thunder Warriors were used as a solution just to conquer Terra. Their creation process was unrefined and dangerous and all Thunder Warriors sooner or later died either in battle or because their bodies would literally break down. Their time was limited from the start. Space Marines represent the refined process of producing stable super soldiers which might not be as powerful individually as Custodes, but plenty powerful enough to conquer the galaxy with the increased numbers they could be produced in.
Gert wrote:Custodes then Thunder Warriors. The Primarchs and Astartes were the final product designed to be the perfect warriors for the expansion and maintaining of humanity's domain.
beast_gts wrote:Inferno hints that Custodes came first, then states they were 'unveiled' at the same time - 30 Custodes fighting at the head of the new-born Thunder Legion.
But this makes things even more jarring. The superior specimen of genetic engineering came before the prototype thunder warriors and was still superior to final that was the space marines. That's a weird line of progression. The emperor got it right the first time and then proceeded to make worse products.
Very inconsistent. Someone needs to work on their lab journal...
And this is the issue with these bloody HH novels, they try and answer every question and try to make everything boil down to “the emperor had it planned all along”. It strips away any nuance but opens up issues like this that didn’t matter when there were so many unknowns. It’s a real shame what they have done to this era.
How is it jarring?
The Custodes were to be the guardians and companions of the Emperor during his reunification of humanity. They were difficult to produce but filled many important roles in the Emperor's early conquests. They were designed to be the guardians of Terra's most important locations such as the Imperial Palace.
The Thunder Warriors were a brutal tool for a brutal age and served as the Emperor's first real attempt at a mass army of super soldiers. They were made when He was considered little more than the other Warlords of Terra and they provided the foundation upon which He would build the core of His domain on Terra.
The Astartes and the Primarchs were the last great push. 20 Legions with 20 Generals to lead humanity to the stars. The Primarchs got scattered however and the Emperor had to make do with what was left. As such the Legions that were deployed on Terra were much smaller than intended and only grew larger when Terra and the Solar System were conquered. Each Legion was to have a special design path to follow but without the guiding hand of the Emperor tutored Primarchs, this fell apart rather quickly and when each Primarch was rediscovered and the cultures of their homeworlds adopted, the Emperor's initial plan was discarded. He made do with what He had and we don't know for sure what His plans for the Legions were if/when the galaxy was conquered.
Why did the British Army in WWI go from the highly-trained elite British Expeditionary Force to relying on rapidly-trained conscripts with simplified gear? It is really jarring. Shouldn't they have stuck with the best?
Logistics wins wars, and often more replaceable bodies beats out limited numbers of slow-to-train elites.
There were also certain Legions that had extremely adaptable geneseed. The Iron Warriors, World Eaters, Ultramarines, and especially the Blood Angels all had geneseed with very high compatibility rates, with the Blood Angels being able to take recruits from the most radiated and mutated populations of Terra and turn them into semi-angelic beings.
Why spend all the time and effort on making the absolute pinnacle while draining all of your very limited resources when you have forces that can take literal monsters and turn them into Astartes?
Oh and Andykp, that stuff is from the FW series, not BL in case you were wondering.
Gert wrote: How is it jarring?
The Custodes were to be the guardians and companions of the Emperor during his reunification of humanity. They were difficult to produce but filled many important roles in the Emperor's early conquests. They were designed to be the guardians of Terra's most important locations such as the Imperial Palace.
The Thunder Warriors were a brutal tool for a brutal age and served as the Emperor's first real attempt at a mass army of super soldiers. They were made when He was considered little more than the other Warlords of Terra and they provided the foundation upon which He would build the core of His domain on Terra.
The Astartes and the Primarchs were the last great push. 20 Legions with 20 Generals to lead humanity to the stars. The Primarchs got scattered however and the Emperor had to make do with what was left. As such the Legions that were deployed on Terra were much smaller than intended and only grew larger when Terra and the Solar System were conquered. Each Legion was to have a special design path to follow but without the guiding hand of the Emperor tutored Primarchs, this fell apart rather quickly and when each Primarch was rediscovered and the cultures of their homeworlds adopted, the Emperor's initial plan was discarded. He made do with what He had and we don't know for sure what His plans for the Legions were if/when the galaxy was conquered.
This honestly doesn't jive with the later depictions of how powerful the Emperor was. He would have been able to conquer Earth on his lonesome. I guess it's an inconsistency in the fluff.
Gert wrote: There were also certain Legions that had extremely adaptable geneseed. The Iron Warriors, World Eaters, Ultramarines, and especially the Blood Angels all had geneseed with very high compatibility rates, with the Blood Angels being able to take recruits from the most radiated and mutated populations of Terra and turn them into semi-angelic beings.
Why spend all the time and effort on making the absolute pinnacle while draining all of your very limited resources when you have forces that can take literal monsters and turn them into Astartes?
Oh and Andykp, that stuff is from the FW series, not BL in case you were wondering.
The whole thing is a mess. They shouldn’t have expanded on it all, it worked so well as a time of myth. Now it’s just a shallow tale all about the empower and the horrible daddy issues they’ve written all over, be it the novels or the black books. Just my opinion but things like this make me more certain than ever.
Hecaton wrote: This honestly doesn't jive with the later depictions of how powerful the Emperor was. He would have been able to conquer Earth on his lonesome. I guess it's an inconsistency in the fluff.
Except the Plan wasn't just for Terra, it was for the galaxy and to do that He needed weapons. The Custodes and Astartes were to be the guardians of a psychically awakened humanity, a humanity the Emperor never intended to rule. He planned to get humanity to its "destiny" and starve the Dark Gods of power in the process leading to humanities domination of the galaxy and then leave the new humanity to its business.
The Emperor also knew of the horrors of the Old Night and what awaited humanity in the stars. There were threats out there that mortal soldiers were not equipped to deal with so in come the Astartes and Custodes.
The Emperor didn’t just conquer Terra. He utterly dominated it. He had to. Given the scale of his undertaking, he couldn’t risk any dissent remaining on the homeworld.
Thunder Warriors kicked everyone’s arse. Then came The Astartes, who were like that thing that just kicked everyone’s arse - but superior in many (not every) ways. And there were a lot of them.
Another part was improving life overall. Sadly not to a perfect utopia, but certainly better than most had before.
Gert wrote: There were also certain Legions that had extremely adaptable geneseed. The Iron Warriors, World Eaters, Ultramarines, and especially the Blood Angels all had geneseed with very high compatibility rates, with the Blood Angels being able to take recruits from the most radiated and mutated populations of Terra and turn them into semi-angelic beings.
Why spend all the time and effort on making the absolute pinnacle while draining all of your very limited resources when you have forces that can take literal monsters and turn them into Astartes?
Oh and Andykp, that stuff is from the FW series, not BL in case you were wondering.
The whole thing is a mess. They shouldn’t have expanded on it all, it worked so well as a time of myth. Now it’s just a shallow tale all about the empower and the horrible daddy issues they’ve written all over, be it the novels or the black books. Just my opinion but things like this make me more certain than ever.
things like what?
what makes you so certain? because this isn't a complex byzantian issue. it's a pretty clear progression. seriously of all the things to stand up and declare that the Horus Heresy "ruined" the orgins of the Astartes isn't one of them
Hecaton wrote: This honestly doesn't jive with the later depictions of how powerful the Emperor was. He would have been able to conquer Earth on his lonesome. I guess it's an inconsistency in the fluff.
Except the Plan wasn't just for Terra, it was for the galaxy and to do that He needed weapons. The Custodes and Astartes were to be the guardians of a psychically awakened humanity, a humanity the Emperor never intended to rule. He planned to get humanity to its "destiny" and starve the Dark Gods of power in the process leading to humanities domination of the galaxy and then leave the new humanity to its business.
The Emperor also knew of the horrors of the Old Night and what awaited humanity in the stars. There were threats out there that mortal soldiers were not equipped to deal with so in come the Astartes and Custodes.
Sure, but my point was that he didn't need Astartes, Custodes, *or* Thunder Warriors to conquer Terra. Afterwards, sure.
Hecaton wrote: This honestly doesn't jive with the later depictions of how powerful the Emperor was. He would have been able to conquer Earth on his lonesome. I guess it's an inconsistency in the fluff.
Except the Plan wasn't just for Terra, it was for the galaxy and to do that He needed weapons. The Custodes and Astartes were to be the guardians of a psychically awakened humanity, a humanity the Emperor never intended to rule. He planned to get humanity to its "destiny" and starve the Dark Gods of power in the process leading to humanities domination of the galaxy and then leave the new humanity to its business.
The Emperor also knew of the horrors of the Old Night and what awaited humanity in the stars. There were threats out there that mortal soldiers were not equipped to deal with so in come the Astartes and Custodes.
Sure, but my point was that he didn't need Astartes, Custodes, *or* Thunder Warriors to conquer Terra. Afterwards, sure.
If that was your point, then your point is stupid.
Anyone unifying Terra would have needed an army. And having an army of super soldiers is going to both make the process quicker, and get the jump on the other warlords who would have been also trying to develop their own super soldiers.
It would have taken longer without them. What's more useful, human soldiers who die easy with what is essentially bought loyalty or superhuman killing machines with absolute loyalty and much higher thresholds for pain?
If the Emperor's precognition allowed him to predict or be aware of the Fall of the Eldar and the dispersing of the warp storms that had isolated Terra, and the evidence suggests he was since he was so ready to take advantage of it, then the Emperor would have been working under a time limit. Time and cost was supposedly the reason the Emperor reached a treaty with the Mechanicum instead of conquering them and deprogramming them from their Machine Cult ways. One of the Emperor's Terran scientists, Ezekiel Sedayne, immediately post-Heresy, viewed not doing this as a big mistake due to the Machine Cult spreading. It wouldn't have been the first for the Emperor, in choosing to go for speed over thoroughness.
Sure the conquest of Terra might have been accomplished using normal humans or just Custodes, but it would have taken longer, and time was one thing that was in short supply.
If that was your point, then your point is stupid.
Anyone unifying Terra would have needed an army. And having an army of super soldiers is going to both make the process quicker, and get the jump on the other warlords who would have been also trying to develop their own super soldiers.
Is it? The Emperor could probably have single-handedly hacked enemy armies to death in the time it took him to cook up the Thunder Warriors and Custodes. At least, that would be consistent with his later portrayal.
And the Emperor can only be in one place at a time. So again what's easier, one man in one place winning one battle at a time or 20 armies in 20 places winning 18 battles?
Your logic is still hugely flawed.
If that was your point, then your point is stupid.
Anyone unifying Terra would have needed an army. And having an army of super soldiers is going to both make the process quicker, and get the jump on the other warlords who would have been also trying to develop their own super soldiers.
Is it? The Emperor could probably have single-handedly hacked enemy armies to death in the time it took him to cook up the Thunder Warriors and Custodes. At least, that would be consistent with his later portrayal.
Have we had a portrayal of the emperor in battle? The only one I can think of is when Horus saves him from an ork. Sure, it was a mega warboss juiced up on a planet's worth of waaugh energy, but still. Maybe the emperor isn't the melee power house everyone thinks he is. Just a little theory floating around in my mind. That would explain the super bodyguards he has.
No, He definitely has an insane level of psychic power and a big fiery sword. But as has been said like 3 times now but Hecaton just isn't getting it, one (albeit powerful) man can't take over Terra. The Unification Wars weren't a chill ride for the Emperor's forces and they often faced defeat against powerful states. The first attempt to subjugate the Ethnarcy led to 20,000 Astartes deaths as well as a million other casualties.
All Hecaton is proving is that they don't know jack.
Have we had a portrayal of the emperor in battle? The only one I can think of is when Horus saves him from an ork. Sure, it was a mega warboss juiced up on a planet's worth of waaugh energy, but still. Maybe the emperor isn't the melee power house everyone thinks he is. Just a little theory floating around in my mind. That would explain the super bodyguards he has.
Considering how the only thing that meant that Horus was a challenge for him was the Emperor's own desire to hold back, I disagree.
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Gert wrote: No, He definitely has an insane level of psychic power and a big fiery sword. But as has been said like 3 times now but Hecaton just isn't getting it, one (albeit powerful) man can't take over Terra. The Unification Wars weren't a chill ride for the Emperor's forces and they often faced defeat against powerful states. The first attempt to subjugate the Ethnarcy led to 20,000 Astartes deaths as well as a million other casualties.
All Hecaton is proving is that they don't know jack.
Sure, but the Emperor is like... infinitely tougher than an Astartes. Primarchs are nigh-unkillable via conventional means and the Emperor outmatched all of them.
Sure he'd have military support but it seems weird that he needed super-soldiers when he could just single-handedly kill whatever war machines and soldiers got thrown at him.
Gert wrote: There were also certain Legions that had extremely adaptable geneseed. The Iron Warriors, World Eaters, Ultramarines, and especially the Blood Angels all had geneseed with very high compatibility rates, with the Blood Angels being able to take recruits from the most radiated and mutated populations of Terra and turn them into semi-angelic beings.
Why spend all the time and effort on making the absolute pinnacle while draining all of your very limited resources when you have forces that can take literal monsters and turn them into Astartes?
Oh and Andykp, that stuff is from the FW series, not BL in case you were wondering.
The whole thing is a mess. They shouldn’t have expanded on it all, it worked so well as a time of myth. Now it’s just a shallow tale all about the empower and the horrible daddy issues they’ve written all over, be it the novels or the black books. Just my opinion but things like this make me more certain than ever.
things like what?
what makes you so certain? because this isn't a complex byzantian issue. it's a pretty clear progression. seriously of all the things to stand up and declare that the Horus Heresy "ruined" the orgins of the Astartes isn't one of them
Didn’t say it ruined the origins of marines. What expanding on the heresy has ruined us that whole era. But that’s just my opinion. Not saying all those that love the novels and books are wrong, I just don’t like it. Knowing so much about what happened then, with the creation of the marines and the conquest of terra makes those pieces of the old mythology worse, because there is no mythology left, just badly written melodrama about an all knowing all powerful emperor and his emo children. I liked when we knew as much as the people on the setting, where depending on who was telling the tale it was completely different, as a ten thousand year old history would be. Custodes were just weird guys with no clothes on and pointy helmets that were mentioned in a book.
So the Imperium, crusade etc, all of it is just the Emperor. It is one man deep. Lucky Guardsman get s a1 in a million shot. All over. Rival chaos god decides to tip the scales at the critical time. All over. Rival warlords born of thousands of years of conflict quite able to deal with powerful pyskers one way or another. All over.
Never mind how many cities can you hold as one man. You need police, administrators, etc. And if the populace fear only 1 man I would see revolt becoming common. Terra's population is in the 10s of billions. Can't be everywhere. Gotta have a system...
Why didn’t The Emperor just do it on his own? Why use genhanced Warriors?
Because the Unification Wars were essentially a blooding for the nascent legions. A trial run of sorts, where The Emperor could see his new toys in action and judge their worthiness.
There’s also significant shock and awe required not just to immediately pacify, but ably demonstrate any future resistance is pointless, as He just ROFLstomped the rest of the planet, whilst his foes were at their relative height of military power.
Whilst it’s not specifically mentioned, or even alluded to? It’s entirely possibly there were tweaks, modifications and changes made to the Astartes whilst Unification was under way. Either to the general design, the hypnoindoctrination, equipment etc.
You also have to remember the Warp Storms were still a-blowing during that period. So despite his power, one can easily argue he couldn’t do a Monarchia, because it was less safe to manifest that level of power. And when you’re planning what He was planning, you don’t take unnecessary risks.
Always remember none of His actions were taken rashly. Each had been thought out as part of a wider plan to pacify the entire Galaxy for mankind.
You want to conquer a Galaxy? You kind of have to start small. Get your proof of concept. Change and adjust what needs it. Get you and yours used to the sort of bloodshed and insane destruction necessary to do so.
Does the Machine Cult or the Mechanicus pre-date the Emperor's ascendance? I always thought they came after, like a radical splinter from the Imperial Church...
Hecaton wrote: Considering how the only thing that meant that Horus was a challenge for him was the Emperor's own desire to hold back, I disagree.
Well, that's just not true at all. It is indeed the case that the Emperor did not use His full power to fight Horus out of a desire to not kill His favoured son, but a God-empowered Horus was absolutely not a cakewalk for the Emperor. Even when He did use His psychic abilities to their peak, it didn't kill the empowered Horus outright rather it weakened him and then the Gods abandoned their pawn. It took another bolt of psychic energy to erase Horus from existence.
Sure, but the Emperor is like... infinitely tougher than an Astartes. Primarchs are nigh-unkillable via conventional means and the Emperor outmatched all of them.
Sure he'd have military support but it seems weird that he needed super-soldiers when he could just single-handedly kill whatever war machines and soldiers got thrown at him.
The Emperor is not strong enough to single-handedly beat a state that caused 20,000 Astartes deaths and 1 million other casualties. He was wounded by a Vortex Weapon on Proxima as well and He can be killed.
But of course, you just keep ignoring the single most important reason for the creation of the Custodes, Thunder Warriors, and Astartes which is time. Given 10,000 years the Emperor might have conquered a chunk of the galaxy but He didn't have that long and needed Terra done in time for the Fall of the Aeldari and the clearing of the Warp.
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FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Does the Machine Cult or the Mechanicus pre-date the Emperor's ascendance? I always thought they came after, like a radical splinter from the Imperial Church...
The Cult Mechanicus was founded in the Age of Strife and was the exception to the rule of secularism within the Emperor's Imperium because as MDG has said, the Emperor needed Mars and whatever colonies Mars founded to be on side to conquer the galaxy.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Does the Machine Cult or the Mechanicus pre-date the Emperor's ascendance? I always thought they came after, like a radical splinter from the Imperial Church...
Bear in mind that the Mechanicum worships the Machine God, not the Emperor.
The Emperor is seen as a prophesied figure called the Omnissiah, who's....basically space science Jesus but is not, precisely, the Machine God itself.
Well, that's just not true at all. It is indeed the case that the Emperor did not use His full power to fight Horus out of a desire to not kill His favoured son, but a God-empowered Horus was absolutely not a cakewalk for the Emperor. Even when He did use His psychic abilities to their peak, it didn't kill the empowered Horus outright rather it weakened him and then the Gods abandoned their pawn. It took another bolt of psychic energy to erase Horus from existence.
Dude why the heck are you capitalizing the emperor's personal pronoun? It makes it seem like you're an irl Imperial Cultist.
But nah, the power spank on the Primarchs and Emperor has gotten to the point where it calls into question the necessity of the Thunder Warriors.
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Gert wrote: The Emperor is not strong enough to single-handedly beat a state that caused 20,000 Astartes deaths and 1 million other casualties. He was wounded by a Vortex Weapon on Proxima as well and He can be killed.
I disagree, a lot of the fluff says he *is* that strong.
Hecaton wrote: Dude why the heck are you capitalizing the emperor's personal pronoun? It makes it seem like you're an irl Imperial Cultist.
Because there are a lot of pronouns used in these discussions and the capitalisation makes it clear exactly who I'm talking about.
But nah, the power spank on the Primarchs and Emperor has gotten to the point where it calls into question the necessity of the Thunder Warriors.
The Thunder Warriors came before the Primarchs you idiot. They were the test for massed produced super soldiers. Without the Thunder Warriors there are no Primarchs.
I disagree, a lot of the fluff says he *is* that strong.
OK, prove it. Give me examples where the Emperor single handedly conquered a whole planet in battle in a rapid time frame.
Are you a nigh-omnipotent being that holds bzck the darkness alone and can channel the power of a never ending parade of umpteen thousand psyker sacrifices? Who is also fictional?
The imperium is created, and so are the super soldiers that are used to expand and protect it.
Everything else is just window dressing by whatever author is cranking the handle today.
Well, that's just not true at all. It is indeed the case that the Emperor did not use His full power to fight Horus out of a desire to not kill His favoured son, but a God-empowered Horus was absolutely not a cakewalk for the Emperor. Even when He did use His psychic abilities to their peak, it didn't kill the empowered Horus outright rather it weakened him and then the Gods abandoned their pawn. It took another bolt of psychic energy to erase Horus from existence.
Plus there are events various which contribute to it: Russ wounding him in Wolfsbane, Sanguinius breaching his armour on the Vengeful Spirit, the implication that Ollianus may be arming Sanguinius with the Athame shard that originally nearly killed him.
The Thunder Warriors came before the Primarchs you idiot. They were the test for massed produced super soldiers. Without the Thunder Warriors there are no Primarchs.
Why not? The Emperor would have had more time to work on the Astartes if he hadn't fethed around with Thunder Warriors.
OK, prove it. Give me examples where the Emperor single handedly conquered a whole planet in battle in a rapid time frame.
They don't show that, but he is shown as being able to take down the kinds of things that you would normally need a *large* army for. He's more powerful than Magnus, and Magnus could destroy Titans.
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Vatsetis wrote: So the Emp is basically at the power level of Son Goku or Doctor Manhattan but prefers to build an State Apparatus and an army "for reasons".
Didnt thought that the HH novels were so dumb. :(
Yeah pretty much. It's what happens when his power was originally supposed to be more restrained and then it got blown out of wack by authors writing power fantasies (presumably at GW's direction).
Gert wrote: And the Emperor can only be in one place at a time. So again what's easier, one man in one place winning one battle at a time or 20 armies in 20 places winning 18 battles?
Your logic is still hugely flawed.
The Emperor is a psyker of such incredible power he could reasonably have subjugated the entire planet by himself from one place though.
Magnus the Red, the Emperor's canonical inferior, has planetary feats of psychic power by the bucketload. He destroyed the surface of Prospero while fighting Russ, and telekinetically destroyed starships in orbit from the planet he was fighting on.
Inferior psykers like the Cacodominus or whatever its name was could control entire star systems telepathically.
Greater Daemons being summoned typically cause planetary devastation with their presence. The Emperor treats most Greater Daemons like fodder.
You're thinking of the Emperor and other really powerful psykers as being basically like a Librarian blasting enemies on the battlefield. In reality, the power creep has basically made them comic book superheroes. They have feats of such incredible power that there really shouldn't be any way an army can threaten them and there's no reason the Emperor couldn't subjugate Terra on his own. This is ignored for a better narrative. It's a flaw in the writing, but one that is relatively tolerable, at least to me.
The Emperor is not strong enough to single-handedly beat a state that caused 20,000 Astartes deaths and 1 million other casualties.
I mean, the Emperor is canonically able to subjugate an entire Legion of 100,000 gathered into one place with a single exertion of will, lol. When he forced the entire Word Bearers Legion down to their knees.
He is, by himself, able to overpower a force that would be overkill for bringing an entire world into compliance.
Even the protests that he can't be anywhere at once while ignoring the sheer scale of his power ignore that a psyker of the Emperor's power should be able to easily teleport, lol. And given that he was able to somehow get a shard of the Void Dragon to Mars during the Medieval ages it seems probable that's exactly what he did.
The Thunder Warriors came before the Primarchs you idiot. They were the test for massed produced super soldiers. Without the Thunder Warriors there are no Primarchs.
Why not? The Emperor would have had more time to work on the Astartes if he hadn't fethed around with Thunder Warriors.
During the Age of Strife resources were initially scarce. Even Constantin Valdor states this in the book Valdor:Birth of the Imperium. The Custodes initially didn't have their signature golden armor, they had to fight with what they could get their hands on. So the Thunder Warriors were a stop gap solution until enough resources, scientists (like Amar Astarte) were amassed so the Astartes project could begin. It is also hinted that the enemies the early Imperium had to face on Terra were extremely dangerous even by 40k standards, using Dark Age of Technology weapons and genecraft. So even if the Emperor would have been able to roflstomp everyone directly in front of him, the main goal was to amass territory, resources and personnel to work towards the great crusade and BigE can't be everywhere at once.
OK, prove it. Give me examples where the Emperor single handedly conquered a whole planet in battle in a rapid time frame.
They don't show that, but he is shown as being able to take down the kinds of things that you would normally need a *large* army for. He's more powerful than Magnus, and Magnus could destroy Titans.
He likely is more powerful than Magnus, but like I said. He can't be everwhere at once.
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Vatsetis wrote: So the Emp is basically at the power level of Son Goku or Doctor Manhattan but prefers to build an State Apparatus and an army "for reasons".
Didnt thought that the HH novels were so dumb. :(
Yeah pretty much. It's what happens when his power was originally supposed to be more restrained and then it got blown out of wack by authors writing power fantasies (presumably at GW's direction).
Even if you're as powerful as the Emperor, you still need a working state apparatus to govern your empire. This was one of the reasons why Malcador was such an important character.
You are also completely missing the point in all of this. Even if the Emperor could have controlled the whole galaxy through his powers or just mind controlled everyone like the Cacodominus, that was never the end goal. The Emperor took it upon himself to drag humanity forward towards their evolution into a psychic race. Talk about colossal hubris, but in his mind this was the only way to protect humanity from the creeping influence of chaos, which was why the webway project was such a big deal. In most heresy books that go into the plans of the Emperor there is always a theme of extreme time pressure. The Emperor probabaly already was the most powerful psyker in the galaxy during the heresy, but he still needed a functional empire for his plans to work.
I mean, the Emperor is canonically able to subjugate an entire Legion of 100,000 gathered into one place with a single exertion of will, lol. When he forced the entire Word Bearers Legion down to their knees.
He is, by himself, able to overpower a force that would be overkill for bringing an entire world into compliance.
Even the protests that he can't be anywhere at once while ignoring the sheer scale of his power ignore that a psyker of the Emperor's power should be able to easily teleport, lol. And given that he was able to somehow get a shard of the Void Dragon to Mars during the Medieval ages it seems probable that's exactly what he did.
"Should be able to" doesn't mean he can in-lore. There is not one example of the Emperor just teleporting around a planet, let alone the whole galaxy. Again, he might be the most powerful "mortal" psyker in the galaxy, but the is not a god. He's not omnipotent.
Void__Dragon wrote: I mean, the Emperor is canonically able to subjugate an entire Legion of 100,000 gathered into one place with a single exertion of will, lol. When he forced the entire Word Bearers Legion down to their knees.
Wasn't that more their 'conditioning' then the Emperor's power?
Tiberias wrote: There is not one example of the Emperor just teleporting around a planet, let alone the whole galaxy. Again, he might be the most powerful "mortal" psyker in the galaxy, but the is not a god. He's not omnipotent.
Gert wrote: Custodes then Thunder Warriors. The Primarchs and Astartes were the final product designed to be the perfect warriors for the expansion and maintaining of humanity's domain.
Nah. They were tool to be discarded when their job was done. Same fate as thunder warriors was waiting for them. First have marines cripple each other, then have humans finish off.
HUMAN was the final product. They were going to be the ones ruling. Not super humans.
Hilarious the idea of the big E walking around Earth, stomping every army in record time. As far as I am aware, he cannot teleport without equipment, so he wins the battle and walks back, runs back even? It's all well and good using transports, but they can still be disabled with heavy weapons, it won't kill the big E but it would slow him down...
Now to the real crux of the conundrum of big E single handily dominating Earth... He could only do this by killing everyone, literally everyone... People are free thinkings, they rebel. One many 'may' be able to win a battle, a war even, but holding the ground afterwords? He'd just be on an endless cycle of putting out fires if he left anyone alive, and what is the point of taking over Terra or even the galaxy in the name of humanity if you have to wipe everyone out to accomplish it?
I hate using real life examples to justify 40k lore as it is apples and oranges in terms of circumstance, but anyway, there are plenty of real world scenarios where overwhelmingly more powerful forces are defeated because winning a battle and holding ground are entirely different things.
Gert wrote: Custodes then Thunder Warriors. The Primarchs and Astartes were the final product designed to be the perfect warriors for the expansion and maintaining of humanity's domain.
Nah. They were tool to be discarded when their job was done. Same fate as thunder warriors was waiting for them. First have marines cripple each other, then have humans finish off.
HUMAN was the final product. They were going to be the ones ruling. Not super humans.
This is deliberately left vague. That could have been the intention. However, the Astartes could have been intended to then act as peacekeepers and guards, or even to attack adjacent galaxies.
What we do know is that many legions appear to have had traits useful to civilian life too. Particularly, but not exclusively, the Salamanders. I think discarding that out of hand would have been a waste of carefully crafted resources.
Also, given the Emperor's divination abilities, I suspect he would've had an inkling of the future threats of Necrons and Tyranids. To be fair, could raise an entirely new army by then.
Isn't the idea of the Emperor's power level intentionally vague and "up to the reader"?
Like, he can puppet a primarch Gman from a galaxy away so that he can utterly curb stomp a demon primarch like Mephy, but he can't at the same time, speak to his leaders. He can create Saints and manifest miracles at will, but he can't stop Cadia from being destroyed.
It's like the whole Christian per-suppasitionalism. If God is onmnipotent, how does he allow bad things like cancer to happen to his most beloved followers. How does he allow his only son to be tortured and crucified to death? And the answer is always the same enigmatic BS: For reasons that are perfectly sufficient to God.
The Emp couldnt even see the heresy happening while he was sitting on the throne.
Never mind his absolutely dumb arse decision to, hello there warp, free ride to the centre of human existence. Drinkers Ah itil be fine. Everyone gaks themselves.
A tool made to be discarded, is only a thing that people who dont use tools say. Tools are to be used, not wasted.
Its something some authours have leaned into how ever, to give a gotcha moment.
Orks always need mowing. People will always think its not a fair deal and rise up.
Then theres every foreign threat he hasnt seen. Tyranids, Necrons,
tneva82 wrote: Nah. They were tool to be discarded when their job was done. Same fate as thunder warriors was waiting for them. First have marines cripple each other, then have humans finish off.
HUMAN was the final product. They were going to be the ones ruling. Not super humans.
I never said the Astartes or Custodes would rule humanity, they would be its guardians and would fill specific roles in society.
@Hecaton
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Hecaton wrote: Ok. Comes off a bit "I wish the Imperial Creed was real!"
I mean nobody else has ever said that and I do it often. Pretty sure you're just trying to find a way of dismissing my arguments without having any of your own.
Why not? The Emperor would have had more time to work on the Astartes if he hadn't fethed around with Thunder Warriors.
He couldn't have made the Primarchs without the Thunder Warriors. He needed a test project for a mass-produced army of super soldiers. You can't have iteration 3 without having iteration 2.
They don't show that, but he is shown as being able to take down the kinds of things that you would normally need a *large* army for. He's more powerful than Magnus, and Magnus could destroy Titans.
Destroying a Titan isn't the same as conquering a planet. Doing so also draws heavily on the powers of the Psyker in question and they wouldn't be able to do it often in a battle.
Magnus also lost his fight with Russ on Prospero my dude, and the Emperor got bodied by Horus.
@Void_Dragon
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Void__Dragon wrote: The Emperor is a psyker of such incredible power he could reasonably have subjugated the entire planet by himself from one place though.
People keep saying that but nobody has actually shown me a single instance of it happening.
Magnus the Red, the Emperor's canonical inferior, has planetary feats of psychic power by the bucketload. He destroyed the surface of Prospero while fighting Russ, and telekinetically destroyed starships in orbit from the planet he was fighting on.
No Magnus did not. The combined unrestricted power of the entire Thousand Sons Legion destabilised the boundaries between the Warp and Realspace, Magnus capped it off with a big teleport spell that destroyed much of central Tizca. Prospero is very much still around after the Wolves invade because the Khan and Mortarion have a fight there.
Inferior psykers like the Cacodominus or whatever its name was could control entire star systems telepathically.
Define "inferior". The Cacodominus was able to control over 1000 planetary systems by itself, how does that make it inferior to the Emperor?
Greater Daemons being summoned typically cause planetary devastation with their presence. The Emperor treats most Greater Daemons like fodder.
Not really as otherwise planets would never be able to recover from Daemonic invasion and they regularly do.
You're thinking of the Emperor and other really powerful psykers as being basically like a Librarian blasting enemies on the battlefield. In reality, the power creep has basically made them comic book superheroes. They have feats of such incredible power that there really shouldn't be any way an army can threaten them and there's no reason the Emperor couldn't subjugate Terra on his own. This is ignored for a better narrative. It's a flaw in the writing, but one that is relatively tolerable, at least to me.
I am very much not thinking that. I'm saying there is a limit to the power of the Emperor and what skills He manifests as a Psyker. If you can provide me a single example of the Emperor single-handedly subjugating an entire planet alone, I'll back off.
I mean, the Emperor is canonically able to subjugate an entire Legion of 100,000 gathered into one place with a single exertion of will, lol. When he forced the entire Word Bearers Legion down to their knees.
He is, by himself, able to overpower a force that would be overkill for bringing an entire world into compliance.
He made them kneel while they were standing at attention outside of combat and He was in close proximity to them. Not the same thing.
Even the protests that he can't be anywhere at once while ignoring the sheer scale of his power ignore that a psyker of the Emperor's power should be able to easily teleport, lol. And given that he was able to somehow get a shard of the Void Dragon to Mars during the Medieval ages it seems probable that's exactly what he did.
Never said He couldn't be anywhere, He just can't be everywhere and where He isn't can just rise up against Him as soon as they figure that out.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: Hilarious the idea of the big E walking around Earth, stomping every army in record time. As far as I am aware, he cannot teleport without equipment, so he wins the battle and walks back, runs back even? It's all well and good using transports, but they can still be disabled with heavy weapons, it won't kill the big E but it would slow him down...
Now to the real crux of the conundrum of big E single handily dominating Earth... He could only do this by killing everyone, literally everyone... People are free thinkings, they rebel. One many 'may' be able to win a battle, a war even, but holding the ground afterwords? He'd just be on an endless cycle of putting out fires if he left anyone alive, and what is the point of taking over Terra or even the galaxy in the name of humanity if you have to wipe everyone out to accomplish it?
I hate using real life examples to justify 40k lore as it is apples and oranges in terms of circumstance, but anyway, there are plenty of real world scenarios where overwhelmingly more powerful forces are defeated because winning a battle and holding ground are entirely different things.
In Watch Men, doctor Manhattam solves the Vietnam War in a few days (weeks perhaps) ... If the big E has indeed that level of power he could simply terrorize or subdue through a godlike desplay of power all pre crusade Terra in a few years.
Would any body really try to resist the power of a "true god" if it was make manifest in an unhinged manner??
endlesswaltz123 wrote: Hilarious the idea of the big E walking around Earth, stomping every army in record time. As far as I am aware, he cannot teleport without equipment, so he wins the battle and walks back, runs back even? It's all well and good using transports, but they can still be disabled with heavy weapons, it won't kill the big E but it would slow him down...
Now to the real crux of the conundrum of big E single handily dominating Earth... He could only do this by killing everyone, literally everyone... People are free thinkings, they rebel. One many 'may' be able to win a battle, a war even, but holding the ground afterwords? He'd just be on an endless cycle of putting out fires if he left anyone alive, and what is the point of taking over Terra or even the galaxy in the name of humanity if you have to wipe everyone out to accomplish it?
I hate using real life examples to justify 40k lore as it is apples and oranges in terms of circumstance, but anyway, there are plenty of real world scenarios where overwhelmingly more powerful forces are defeated because winning a battle and holding ground are entirely different things.
In Watch Men, doctor Manhattam solves the Vietnam War in a few days (weeks perhaps) ... If the big E has indeed that level of power he could simply terrorize or subdue through a godlike desplay of power all pre crusade Terra in a few years.
Would any body really try to resist the power of a "true god" if it was make manifest in an unhinged manner??
Unlike the Viet Cong vs Dr Manhattan, the 40k universe does have anti-psyker technologies that would reduce the power of the Emperor. We don't know a huge amount about the various pre-Unification polities, but we do know they were incredibly warlike and technologically advanced, and that they had survived the warp storms of the Age of Strife without the planet becoming a daemon world or falling to some other great psychic calamity. This latter point is in spite of being the seat of humanity and known to have extremely powerful psykers outside the Emperor.
It stands to reason that technology that counters or dampens psychic abilities were widespread, or the planet would have been unified under the other powerful psykers long before. For example, the overlord of the Empire of Ursh was a powerful sorceror and controlled conclaves of psykers, yet they had failed to unify the whole planet (although they did control the strongest pre-Unity Terran empire and represented the greatest challenge to the Emperor). This suggests other states were able to resist the psychic might of Ursh. These technologies probably formed the basis of some of the later Adeptus Astra Telepathica equipment and infrastructure.
It may even be the case that the Silent Sisterhood being present on Luna dampened the Emperor's ability with their massed nulls.
Whatever the reason, it is not especially difficult to find logically consistent reasons that the Emperor couldn't just mind control Terra's population and needed to create an army.
Vatsetis wrote: Excellent point... So the Emp had potential god like powers but this were hard countered in the pre unification Terra context, right?
Well no. The Emperor didn't conquer Terra by Himself just because there might have been powers out there that had counters to His Psyker abilities. He raised armies because as has been stated oh so many times it was far more efficient that way and was very much part of the plan to make Humanity stronger.
The Emperor was to be Mankind's shepherd into the future, helping it stumble back to the stars and reuniting its lost colonies. He was always going to leave Humanity to its own devices after it had become a fully Psychic race similar to the Aeldari prior to the Fall. He made the Custodes to be His companions, the Thunder Warriors to test the super soldier army concept, and then the Primarchs and Astartes when that process was more advanced. The Primarchs were, for all intents and purposes, to be extensions of the Emperor's own will. They would be tutored by Him and raised to be the perfect warriors and generals. What the plan was for the Primarchs after the galaxy was conquered is unknown.
Thats all very nice and informative. But if the Emp could have wipped 95% of Terra population with a couple of Psychyc Kamehamehas... Then mind control the survivors (mostly fertile young women) to quickly repopulate the planet ussing some reproductive techno magic... It would have been much more efficient that an actual military conquest.
Its absurd to pretend that a godlike creature with no hard counter on his powers is going to do things in a "humanly logic" manner.
So if the Emp really conquered Terra ussing mostly conventional human methods (like constructing an army and doing politics) probably he wasnt factually that powerfull.
The difference between a god an a very powerfull warlord is that the former dosent need human collaborators only worhispers... The HH Emp indeed need a host of human and post human help... Hence his powers are limited well below those of a godlike figure... Inspite bad writting, logic always wins.
No. The Emperor you are thinking about was an amalgamation of all the most powerful shamans on earth or whatever doing a sacrifice, to basically create him. The pre-emperor was just a man.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: No. The Emperor you are thinking about was an amalgamation of all the most powerful shamans on earth or whatever doing a sacrifice, to basically create him. The pre-emperor was just a man.
There was no pre-emperor. The sacrifice of all human shamans happened in like 8000 BC.
Vatsetis wrote: Thats all very nice and informative. But if the Emp could have wipped 95% of Terra population with a couple of Psychyc Kamehamehas... Then mind control the survivors (mostly fertile young women) to quickly repopulate the planet ussing some reproductive techno magic... It would have been much more efficient that an actual military conquest.
Its absurd to pretend that a godlike creature with no hard counter on his powers is going to do things in a "humanly logic" manner.
So if the Emp really conquered Terra ussing mostly conventional human methods (like constructing an army and doing politics) probably he wasnt factually that powerfull.
The difference between a god an a very powerfull warlord is that the former dosent need human collaborators only worhispers... The HH Emp indeed need a host of human and post human help... Hence his powers are limited well below those of a godlike figure... Inspite bad writting, logic always wins.
Okay... So, he does what you suggest above. What does he do about the Great Crusade then? He absolutely cannot do all of that by himself, and will need an army, what's he going to do, raise one and send them out to the stars with absolutely zero experience of actual combat whatsoever against the Rangdans and Megarachnids to name just a few?
Also, if the big E is genuinely that powerful, why does he need Custodes bodyguards?
Vatsetis wrote: Thats all very nice and informative. But if the Emp could have wipped 95% of Terra population with a couple of Psychyc Kamehamehas... Then mind control the survivors (mostly fertile young women) to quickly repopulate the planet ussing some reproductive techno magic... It would have been much more efficient that an actual military conquest.
Its absurd to pretend that a godlike creature with no hard counter on his powers is going to do things in a "humanly logic" manner.
So if the Emp really conquered Terra ussing mostly conventional human methods (like constructing an army and doing politics) probably he wasnt factually that powerfull.
The difference between a god an a very powerfull warlord is that the former dosent need human collaborators only worhispers... The HH Emp indeed need a host of human and post human help... Hence his powers are limited well below those of a godlike figure... Inspite bad writting, logic always wins.
Okay... So, he does what you suggest above. What does he do about the Great Crusade then? He absolutely cannot do all of that by himself, and will need an army, what's he going to do, raise one and send them out to the stars with absolutely zero experience of actual combat whatsoever against the Rangdans and Megarachnids to name just a few?
Also, if the big E is genuinely that powerful, why does he need Custodes bodyguards?
My point is precisely becouse EMP need custodes (amongst many others) he can have true effective godlike powers.
If he had them, but was limited to a single planet at a time to enforce his unhinged powers... Well, after cleansing the Earth he could have go with his supersoldier program and the combat experience be given through psico indoctrination... If it worked for Cawls Primaris it could have work for the godlike Emp.
The Emperor is not a god, at least not during the time of the unification, the great crusade and during the heresy. A case could be made that in 40k he has ascended to some sort of warp entitiy due to ten thousand years of worship and millions of psykers sacrificed to him. But even in 40k most of his power goes towards the Astronomican and keeping the Webway Gate beneath the Golden Throne shut.
So yeah, one man cannot hold territory, like Brian Davion said.
One man cannot hold territory, a god-like figure that cannot be resisted but only feared and worshipped dosent need to hold territory or other mundane things like politics or logistics... he can undo social reality with its will alone if he dosent have any hard counter.
If people are arguing that indeed the EMP has the level of power of Doctor Manhattan on the pre unified Terra era... well, Custodes, Astartes and TW are just pointless at least to unify the planet.
Please read Superman Red Son... here Clark becomes Stalins succesor and in 20/30 years unified the whole world under his governmnet with little effort, the USA only survive because they are lead by Lex Luthor (who is a hard counter to Superman) and the Soviet Superman is only "defeated" on moral/ethical basis not at raw power level.
If thats not the tale of the unification of Terra, the potential of EMP must be much, much limited, in spite bad writting due to BL fanboy authors.
I don't have the time to write an essay on just how wrong you are but just know that almost everything you've said is utter tripe and shows you have absolutely no knowledge of the 40k background.
Do everyone a favour and find another thread to troll.
Gert wrote: I don't have the time to write an essay on just how wrong you are but just know that almost everything you've said is utter tripe and shows you have absolutely no knowledge of the 40k background.
Do everyone a favour and find another thread to troll.
Well, remember BL did come up with various theories for who the Emperor was and Alan's favourite was he was a Dark Age of technology weapon...
They do occasionally touch on dark age gear, most notably when oli is jumping through time and space and encounter a world being fought over. The tech level seems to be Culture like towards the end of Ian M Banks series of novels. So matter annihilating weapons, casual destruction of planets, grid fire sort of stuff.
And yes - much of humanity had fallen under the sway of warp creatures like enslavers. Terra was ruled by techno barbarians - they likely had far higher tech levels than the Imperium. For a start they weren't worried by orbital bombardments from Luna or the plates. I would guess a lot of the strategy was to negate force multipliers to bring things down to an individual level where the enhanced humans would prove decisive. I imagine the Emp spent a lot of time ensuring things didn't result in rains of fusion bombs.
This. The old maxim is that a tank can take territory but infantry holds territory.
Unless you exterminatus everything to dust, you need boots on the ground to hold your gains and prevent recidivism. Even if you're powerful enough to do it alone, you may win the battle but either everyone is gone or you're going to have to constantly retread the same ground as new foes rise behind you.
That's why the IG/Administratum exist. Shock and awe SM to break the foe, IG to mop up resistance and retain gained ground, and administrators to reestablish rule under the new norms.
Sly Marbo can hold planets he's never even heard of. He actually held Cadia for two decades on a technicality, someone accidently drew a very good likeness of him with stray las fire, and that accounted for the first 3 failed black crusades.
He held the orks off Armageddon for two years with a rusty fishing hook, two Munitorum Primers, an old boot, and a discarded ration tin. This story is also mistakenly attributed to the efforts of a very minor Chaplain named Grimaldy or something.
Terra is actually on loan to the Emperor until Sly gets back.
This. The old maxim is that a tank can take territory but infantry holds territory.
Unless you exterminatus everything to dust, you need boots on the ground to hold your gains and prevent recidivism. Even if you're powerful enough to do it alone, you may win the battle but either everyone is gone or you're going to have to constantly retread the same ground as new foes rise behind you.
That's why the IG/Administratum exist. Shock and awe SM to break the foe, IG to mop up resistance and retain gained ground, and administrators to reestablish rule under the new norms.
This is very true for forces that work roughhly under mundane terms, if you are really a god with supernatural powers that cant be countered... Well you should work under different rules.
Gert wrote: I don't have the time to write an essay on just how wrong you are but just know that almost everything you've said is utter tripe and shows you have absolutely no knowledge of the 40k background.
Do everyone a favour and find another thread to troll.
Sounds like more of your insisting you won an argument when you can't really hold a candle to one.
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Emperors Grace wrote: This. The old maxim is that a tank can take territory but infantry holds territory.
Unless you exterminatus everything to dust, you need boots on the ground to hold your gains and prevent recidivism. Even if you're powerful enough to do it alone, you may win the battle but either everyone is gone or you're going to have to constantly retread the same ground as new foes rise behind you.
That's why the IG/Administratum exist. Shock and awe SM to break the foe, IG to mop up resistance and retain gained ground, and administrators to reestablish rule under the new norms.
Can't he just mind control key people with his psychic powers?
As misshapen as he goes about it, or shows it, the big E loves humanity, he wants humanity to thrive, and he also is going about this by enforcing a secular doctrine, e.g. he doesn't want to be perceived as a god and he loathes chaos in part due to the restricted will of its followers.
He may be all powerful, he may be able to do as you say and hold Terra just by himself, but he does not want to, because of his philosophy and (arguable) morals. He launches the great crusade to gift humanity the galaxy with theorised idea he would move back into the shadows of humanity, he's philosophy does not fall in line with your suggestions. So he uses an army.
So your argument is that out of "humanity" he creates an army of schock terror troops supersoldiers instead of ussing his argubly unlimited power to do the same in a shorter period and more efficiently by blasting a couple of hive cities and mind controlling key individuals... In such a sharp and brutal dispkay of power that 90% of Terran population will automatically worhisp him.
So the "hard counter" for Emp is just himself, just like in many superman storylines... Well its a possibility.
Well thats what I also thought... But some "lore masters" are hellbent that the EMP power is almost limitless, I was just trying to make sense out of that.
Vatsetis wrote: So your argument is that out of "humanity" he creates an army of schock terror troops supersoldiers instead of ussing his argubly unlimited power to do the same in a shorter period and more efficiently by blasting a couple of hive cities and mind controlling key individuals... In such a sharp and brutal dispkay of power that 90% of Terran population will automatically worhisp him.
So the "hard counter" for Emp is just himself, just like in many superman storylines... Well its a possibility.
He allows for diplomacy and compliance, Malcador is said to be one of those Terran warlords.
Mindcontrolling humanity is again not in line with his philosophy, he evidently doesn't want to do it if he is capable of doing it. I actually don't think he can btw, if he could do it, Malcador and other Alpha++ psykers could do this, and whilst they are rare, it would have happened. Chaos gods cannot enforce their will fully on daemon worlds in the Eye of Terror, they are the main players, but they do not automatically enslave any who touch down on such planets... So if they cannot, the big E cannot.
Anyway, the E needed to be on the great crusade to unite his primarchs, so as soon as he leaves Terra then what? All those souls he mind enslaved carry on following his orders? Terra rises up...
And finally he doesn't want to be worshipped as a god... He was so against the idea he inadvertently started the heresy!
I do hate a lot of modern lore and especially that the Horus Heresy removed so much mystery that I can now ask someone the name of the Sanguinor and probably get an answer, and the fact that the Primarchs are now definitely giant gods and not Space Marines with legends written about them.
However, the idea of the Emperor needing an army is the last thing to complain about, as even if he didn't need it to control Terra, he still needed it for the galaxy at large.
He could manifest Psychic powers in front of blanks. Not miracles. The Emperor at that time was very much still a man and not whatever He has become 10k years later.
The Chaos gods don't get to control the galaxy. If the Emperor wants to go all unity by himself, the setting has multiple ways of explaining why he can't. Otherwise its a very poor setting. So currently no mater how good he was, he couldn't see a way of getting his 100,000 year Reich without being the head of a system of a galactic conquering government.
For all we know the unification wars were about bumping off all the powers that could either individually or united destroy him. If he is a dark age weapon, that is the power level of hardware and software back then. He has clearly been learning from humans, maybe his own ability to innovate is rubbish and he recognised he needed scientists and innovators driving humanity forward in a way he couldn't do.
We aren't defining them as miracles because there wasn't a state-wide religion based around the Emperor when He was alive and kicking. We can also not define them as by their very nature they are only miracles to those who believe the Emperor is a god, which at this point in time is nobody.
And no the Emperor can't conquer and control a planet on his own regardless of his power .
He can't be everywhere at once and unless he where to kill everyone he would be dealing with multiple uprisings at the same time that he has to deal with
Personally i think the emperor was wrong to wipe out the thunder warriors once they served their purpose on Terra He should have wittled them down untill only the most stable survive and used the knowledge that he got from the creation of the Astartes to stabilize them and keep them as an extra tool/army deployed in the solar system
godking wrote: Personally i think the emperor was wrong to wipe out the thunder warriors once they served their purpose on Terra He should have wittled them down untill only the most stable survive and used the knowledge that he got from the creation of the Astartes to stabilize them and keep them as an extra tool/army deployed in the solar system
He couldn't control them as he wanted to - some had started rebelling against him during the Unification Wars.
Gert wrote: We aren't defining them as miracles because there wasn't a state-wide religion based around the Emperor when He was alive and kicking. We can also not define them as by their very nature they are only miracles to those who believe the Emperor is a god, which at this point in time is nobody.
Miracles are literally defined as a suspension of the natural order. Websters defines it as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. Him taking control of the body of a small female child, making her immune to demonic plague and influence, and by her touch, banishing a nurgle demon back to the warp, is a suspension of the natural order, and a divine intervention in human affairs. Him taking control of Bobby and beating up Mortarion is another example. The Astronomicon is a good third. Saying he's not a god, or that his acts are not miracles is willful head in sand at this point. Hell, even Bobby G has begun to believe in him. Even the Eldar farseer believes he is a god. How many more authorities need to declare him a god?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Miracles are literally defined as a suspension of the natural order. Websters defines it as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. Him taking control of the body of a small female child, making her immune to demonic plague and influence, and by her touch, banishing a nurgle demon back to the warp, is a suspension of the natural order, and a divine intervention in human affairs. Him taking control of Bobby and beating up Mortarion is another example. The Astronomicon is a good third. Saying he's not a god, or that his acts are not miracles is willful head in sand at this point. Hell, even Bobby G has begun to believe in him. Even the Eldar farseer believes he is a god. How many more authorities need to declare him a god?
Except we aren't talking about post-Throne Emperor Fezz. We are talking about the pre-Great Crusade Emperor.
Maybe you should pay attention to the conversation. All the Emperor was during the time where He wasn't on the Golden Throne was an exceptionally powerful Psyker and I'm not denying that. I am denying He had enough power to single-handedly conquer Terra in a way that would make it a good base to reunite Humanity under the Imperium's banner.
So Pre-Great Crusade then, he "created" the Custodes. Something no other human, even non-human such as Cawl or Eldar, have been able to do. I don't know why I'm arguing for him to be divine, but wasn't he also a perpetual? Ala unable to actually die? I mean, even pre-crusade, he was doing things that really push the boundries of "just a man". I guess that's my point, really.
The eldar say he wasn't a god until the Church began deifying him as one, but before that, he wasn't, according to their odd way of looking at it. So then could he have been a Demi-god?
Ala Hercules, or something "God-like"? I bow to people more well read on this, but it seems like the writers just one day suddenly went "poof! The Emperor is a god-esque thing" now. But his sons and the Custodes still say he's a man. But we're gonna give him God powers.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Something no other human, even non-human such as Cawl or Eldar, have been able to do.
Eldar can (and can create human perpetuals). There's also a short story about Horus encountering modified humans during the Great Crusade that were more powerful than him (IIRC - they also turned themselves into Dune/Tremors style giant worms).
Well, about that. The entire Crusade went spectacularly tits up, and they needed to keep the Astartes around way longer than they intended, while they wait for their magic pile of bones to tell them what to do next.
The Custodes believe certain things, things that make themselves look good. Whether these things are actually true or just self-deception (or lies actually told to them by the Emperor) is unknown. I think the Custodes believe for example that they were the real plan for a future humanity and that the Astartes like the Thunder Warriors were only a temporary measure, to be discarded and destroyed once their usefulness was at an end.
One needs to keep in mind the end goal of The Great Crusade. It’s wasn’t simply “everyone get the toys out, we’re going the full tickle to carve Daddy the biggest Empire we can”. Oh no. The end goal was the total and permanent pacification of The Galaxy, to the point where Mankind was just the dominant sentient species, but the only sentient species.
Now that is of course a bloody tall order. But still achievable given time and resources.
Ullanor is an expression of that. No, it didn’t wipe out the Orky menace, but it did shatter it for the time being. From what we can glean, anyone who was anyone in the Ork hierarchy got all ded and perished there. Anything that remained would in turn be a fragment. A danger still sure - but nothing the Astartes couldn’t handle.
Indeed, that’s how you at least contain Orks. Keep them fragmented. Keep them ground down as finely as you can. Do whatever it takes to stop any given Warboss the chance to gain momentum.
With the Orks more or less dealt with, it probably would’ve been the Eldar up next - and they were still reeling from The Fall. Tricky to find, not that tricky to deal with once a given Craftworld was found.
That done? Well you’ve got Commoragh to worry about, but again it’s be some time until Vect rose to power and the Dark Eldar became a particular threat.
And….that’s about it for Galactic Movers And Shakers in that time period.
But you’d still want Astartes around, because full and total compliance is a long, long job. And we know that other threats (Necron, Tyranid) would emerge in due course. And with some Tomb Worlds activating even back then? You may have seen a organised purge to identify and wreck before they woke up.
The fun thing about Astartes? If we really, really boils it down? They’re a technology. So you could get shot of the original Legions - and still have the capacity to replace them should the need present itself.
Now…the political side? If we once more look to Ultramar as “what could’ve been”?
A pacified, compliant Imperium would be perfectly capable of sustaining its vast population. Not exactly in a perfect Utopia, but certainly a decent “everyone fed, no-one in need” level of existence. Without the frenetic pace needed to maintain the modern day Imperium’s vast armies, production capacity would be less focussed on producing arms and materiel and fuelling the headcount and bellies of the billons, if not trillions, of Men Under Arms.
So….where would dedicated killers such as Astartes fit into that? Who knows.
Well, possibly? Perhaps not quite as en masse, but they would’ve remained out there, in the Outer Dark. I can see tendrils finding us anyway. But without Pharos? Perhaps not the entire species (or what seems to be) at once.
There is the possibility that an otherwise pacified Galaxy, United under the Imperium? Could have more than enough battleships to engage the Hive Fleets in said Outer Dark, striking whilst they remained largely asleep, and hungry.
The more damage you can do there, the less chance the Hive Fleets could replenish losses. And if they can’t replenish losses, their ability to adapt and evolve is likewise dramatically lessened.
Because the tasks a United Imperium would be capable of is….frankly staggering.
I’ll again irritate certain portions of the fan base by pointing out Cawl’s own Magnum Opus as an example of what can be achieved when you have the time to stockpile your toys, and not simply manufacture to maintain.
Hell, in those circumstances something akin to the Kyptmann Gambit might’ve completely worked.
Whilst the Fleets engage in space, whole worlds could be evacuated of human life, and each planet core effectively mined. Open a gap in the fleet’s overall net. Let some through too a planet, and soon as they start feeding, explode that planet. Horrendous losses inflicted, with little to no survivors.
Consider the damage the 18 Legions would inflict on a Hive Fleet at the height of their powers, and remember once the Galaxy was pacified you might’ve seen the Legions expanded further, perhaps the equivalent of a Chapter World per system, complete with its own fleet (the compartmentalisation of the armed forces of course being a result of the Heresy)
Basically imagine each and every system having some kind of Bastion World. Good luck invading with those military resources opposing you.
The other possibility is that the Emperor successfully completed his Webway Project, and moved all human worlds into it - making them safe from external threats.
The Webway was to be used for transport between worlds, not moving them from reality. The plan was to utterly remove humanity's reliance on the Warp for space travel, reducing the risk of possession and interference from the Dark Gods for a fully Psychic human race. At least that was the theory. In practical terms (at least as practical as you can get with non-corporeal entities from a dimension outside of space and time) the Gods don't work that way. The Gods exist and always have existed, even Slaanesh, who was created when the Aeldari empire fell just before the Great Crusade but was worshiped for hundreds if not thousands of years on worlds like Colchis and Laeran. The plan was flawed from the beginning but it still had a chance to weaken the Gods, rather than destroy them.
People keep saying that but nobody has actually shown me a single instance of it happening.
Maybe try paying attention?
No Magnus did not. The combined unrestricted power of the entire Thousand Sons Legion destabilised the boundaries between the Warp and Realspace,
I'd like to see a source for that that isn't your headcanon.
Magnus capped it off with a big teleport spell that destroyed much of central Tizca. Prospero is very much still around after the Wolves invade because the Khan and Mortarion have a fight there.
You might want to look up the definition of "surface".
Also good work on not responding to Magnus destroying starships in orbit from thousands of miles away telekinetically. Him being capable of it kind of crushes your position so your refusal to acknowledge it counts as a concession tbh.
Define "inferior".
Lesser.
The Cacodominus was able to control over 1000 planetary systems by itself, how does that make it inferior to the Emperor?
Because one of these psykers is a throwaway character that was killed by a single chapter of Space Marines and the other forced an entire Legion to heel with a single flex of will.
The Emperor per multiple sources is a threat to the Chaos Gods themselves in terms of psychic might. No psyker, not even the Cacodominus, has accolades like that. It also doesn't help that, while the death scream of the Cacodominus could distort the Astonomicon's signal which the Emperor projects it could not overpower it entirely.
Not really as otherwise planets would never be able to recover from Daemonic invasion and they regularly do.
And they often don't. Depends on the daemon, you have guys like Ka'jagga'nath being released and causing a tide of blood that drives a world insane and violent.
I am very much not thinking that. I'm saying there is a limit to the power of the Emperor and what skills He manifests as a Psyker.
Useless statement. At no point did I even imply the Emperor was omnipotent. But based on his feats and the feats of those he is superior to? He could absolutely have subjugated Terra by himself and done so easily.
If you can provide me a single example of the Emperor single-handedly subjugating an entire planet alone, I'll back off.
Learn to use a little bit of critical thinking my friend. Just because he hasn't done it in-universe doesn't mean he shouldn't be able to, and you seem to be struggling with the "shouldn't" part so I'll help you out a little:
The Emperor doesn't solo planets for narrative reasons despite the setting's psykers having been power crept so much it should be easily possible. No one is arguing that the Emperor has done so, only that he should be able to. With that said while some have implied the development of the Astartes should be unnecessary for him I don't really agree even with the power creep. A world is much smaller than a galaxy.
He made them kneel while they were standing at attention outside of combat and He was in close proximity to them. Not the same thing.
When they are in combat does their resistance to psychic power increase? Interesting, do you have a source to back that up?
"Close proximity" is relative, many were likely many hundreds or even thousands of meters away. I don't think 100,000 marines were mosh pitted around the Emperor.
Never said He couldn't be anywhere, He just can't be everywhere and where He isn't can just rise up against Him as soon as they figure that out.
On a galactic scale? Sure. On a planetary one where the Emperor can immediately show up and crush any rebellion as it is getting started? No. Also no not normally because bluntly most people find themselves slavishly devoted to the Emperor on contact, you know, because he is the most powerful psyker in history.
Which isn't to say that he won't ever need people to keep the peace on Terra. He would of course given he is busy on the Crusade itself. The only thing people are saying is that the Emperor is powerful enough given the strength of psykers in 40kj that he reasonably shouldn't have needed the Thunder Warriors to subjugate Terra and this is pretty demonstrably true.
Emps got a huge power up after the unification of Terra with the whole Moloch fun times. Also, every minute he spends pacifying enemies with his might is a minute not spent on any of the long, long list of other gak he needs to do. Using the Thunder Warriors to conquer Terra also allowed for a beta test, before the resulting Astartes were sent on the Crusade proper. Certainly for conquering multiple other worlds simultaneously he would need them. Better to give them a test drive somewhere where Emps can be around for the testing.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Emps got a huge power up after the unification of Terra with the whole Moloch fun times.
If this is true fair enough, what's the source on this one? Also unclear on the timeline regarding this tbh, do the Thunder Warriors predate the Primarchs? I genuinely don't remember.
Also, every minute he spends pacifying enemies with his might is a minute not spent on any of the long, long list of other gak he needs to do.
He was physically present for a lot (most? All?) of those battles though.
Using the Thunder Warriors to conquer Terra also allowed for a beta test, before the resulting Astartes were sent on the Crusade proper. Certainly for conquering multiple other worlds simultaneously he would need them. Better to give them a test drive somewhere where Emps can be around for the testing.
This is a fair point, if you look at the Thunder Warriors as a test drive.
If Melkor didnt have other vala as a counterpart I very much doubt that he would have use his time creating an army of orcs and trolls... He would have simply shown his true nature to elves and humans and waited for worship.
So from a basic logically POV either the power of the EMP was not undisputed in pre unification Terra or his powers had clear limits.
The self restrain Superman scenario makes very little sense, just like in the comic books... You can obviously fabricate a post facto logic to everything, but thats beyond the point.
Related: While it might be a hoax, the poster of this thread claims to have contacted Graham McNeill, who confirmed that the Emperor could have been killed at Ullanor (and therefor several other times).
beast_gts wrote: Related: While it might be a hoax, the poster of this thread claims to have contacted Graham McNeill, who confirmed that the Emperor could have been killed at Ullanor (and therefor several other times).
Grahams pretty open to talking with the fans, when he was over in my neck of the woods he happily went and took questions and signed books, spending an evening interacting with the fans..
His decision entirely. So I readily belive he's answered the question
Gert wrote:Custodes then Thunder Warriors. The Primarchs and Astartes were the final product designed to be the perfect warriors for the expansion and maintaining of humanity's domain.
beast_gts wrote:Inferno hints that Custodes came first, then states they were 'unveiled' at the same time - 30 Custodes fighting at the head of the new-born Thunder Legion.
But this makes things even more jarring. The superior specimen of genetic engineering came before the prototype thunder warriors and was still superior to final that was the space marines. That's a weird line of progression. The emperor got it right the first time and then proceeded to make worse products.
Very inconsistent. Someone needs to work on their lab journal...
Not really. The Emperor and Malcador had the former sigilite fortress as the imperial dungegons basically. Before they went off Plant plundering they acquired the smartest minds on bio-engineering and Alchemical horrors left on Terra. The Emperor steals kids, physically looks for them, then plunders them and remakes them as his personal bodyguards/friends/companions etc etc. He probley has tons of failures along the way until Valdor takes and becomes the first. Then he makes a few more Custodies while working on the mass produced inferior model ( the Thunder Warriors that he knows are just to take terra then be culled hence the gene mutations, they were stop gap warriors) He starts to produce Thunder Warriors enough to fulfill his aims while working on the generals. they get stolen so he uses whats left over to makes the Space Marines and field test them, work out the kinks during terra.
He takes Terra, culls the Thunder Warriors with the custodies and Space Marines. Needs to boost their numbers so he takes Luna and then starts pumping them out to take the Solar System. Lands on mars and pretends to be their god so they will work for him. Takes the Solar System and launches the Fleets out to take the local clusters....
But this makes things even more jarring. The superior specimen of genetic engineering came before the prototype thunder warriors and was still superior to final that was the space marines. That's a weird line of progression. The emperor got it right the first time and then proceeded to make worse products.
Very inconsistent. Someone needs to work on their lab journal...
Why are spears the most prevalent weapons in human history? Why was "pointy stick" omnipresent on the battlefield on a massive scale even when we had bows, crossbows, cannons, swords (of all types), axes, chain and platemail, and early firearms, all of which were much more dangerous / protective?
All you need to make spears is a tree and a rock, and if you're really desperate you can swap the tree for branches and lose the rock. The simplicity of creating these things, vs the specialized skillset required to create (and maintain) things like swords, bows, and various types of armor is massive. And this is before you get into the actual effectiveness of them. Spears are operable on the premise of "point at the bad dudes and thrust" with the thrust being optional. A group of nobodies can be almost instantly armed (or quickly arm themselves) with no specialized skillset among them, and can then reliably fight to a decent degree with no combat experience.
Custodes are the pinnacle of the art but they are, as has been said, difficult and time consuming to make. They must be crafted by hand with great care and over a long period of time. They're an arbalest or some other highly effective, very technical, and difficult to produce weapon. Meanwhile Thunder Warriors (and later Astartes) are spears. While not as effective as the more advanced weaponry they can be cranked out with ease, en mass, and still be quite effective. They're not as individually powerful as the high-tech counter part, but one professional soldier with an arbalest isn't going to win against fifty yokels with sharpened sticks.
In theory, it’s only time preventing The Legions/Chapters being comprised of Custodes.
Think of Astartes process as an off the peg suit. Something nice like Marks and Spencer’s. The Custodes are a custom made suit from Saville Row. Measured to perfection based on your bod.
Now in theory, it was kind of always possible that without The Heresy, The Emperor may have found improved ways to create Custodes. Perhaps some method to automate the process. At the very least, it seems imminently plausible the Primaris Project may have followed the Webway Project.
I say that as we know Cawl’s improvements stem from his access to The Emperor’s equipment, logs and notes. And we can look to the Thunder Warriors, Custodes, Primarch and Astartes projects as evidence The Emperor isn’t exactly a big believer in Just Stopping There.
Sure the Astartes absolutely got the job done. But you’d still improve them if given the ability and opportunity, because when it’s an improvement and stabilisation of the original process, which results in stronger and more resilient post-humans, it’s an absolute no-brainer.
So….Crusade, break the immediate Orky menace (really the only vaguely organised resistance on a Galactic Scale), hand over the reins, get The Webway going, work on improving the already pretty impressive given they were a bodge job Astartes, all using technology freshly recovered via The Great And Ongoing Crusade.
But this makes things even more jarring. The superior specimen of genetic engineering came before the prototype thunder warriors and was still superior to final that was the space marines. That's a weird line of progression. The emperor got it right the first time and then proceeded to make worse products.
Very inconsistent. Someone needs to work on their lab journal...
Why are spears the most prevalent weapons in human history? Why was "pointy stick" omnipresent on the battlefield on a massive scale even when we had bows, crossbows, cannons, swords (of all types), axes, chain and platemail, and early firearms, all of which were much more dangerous / protective?
All you need to make spears is a tree and a rock, and if you're really desperate you can swap the tree for branches and lose the rock. The simplicity of creating these things, vs the specialized skillset required to create (and maintain) things like swords, bows, and various types of armor is massive. And this is before you get into the actual effectiveness of them. Spears are operable on the premise of "point at the bad dudes and thrust" with the thrust being optional. A group of nobodies can be almost instantly armed (or quickly arm themselves) with no specialized skillset among them, and can then reliably fight to a decent degree with no combat experience.
Custodes are the pinnacle of the art but they are, as has been said, difficult and time consuming to make. They must be crafted by hand with great care and over a long period of time. They're an arbalest or some other highly effective, very technical, and difficult to produce weapon. Meanwhile Thunder Warriors (and later Astartes) are spears. While not as effective as the more advanced weaponry they can be cranked out with ease, en mass, and still be quite effective. They're not as individually powerful as the high-tech counter part, but one professional soldier with an arbalest isn't going to win against fifty yokels with sharpened sticks.
Well laid analogy.
Unfortunetly you are factually wrong on almost all details.
Also if Space Marines are "mass produced" why are they so few in the setting? ... In 40k we have the cannonical 1 million (which is riculously tiny on the IOM scale)... Even if the real number is 3 times higher its still less than a single sorotitas order... And probably there are more Knights than tactical/intercessor astartes.
Even if in 30k we have 10 times more marines in the legions we are talking of a negible number of troops.
90 or 99% of the astartes firepower is in their navies... The actual military significance of the supermen is irrelevant.
Every writer makes up new SM legions, like it's a thing. The Snakes of Ithaca? The Reclaimers? The Redeemers? Whatever the "deathwatch-esque" chapter was in Inquistor:Martyr. The Storm Watchers or something.
Anyway, there is literally zero limit on how many Space Marines exist, because I can create one out of thin air right now. The Fluff Stompers of Fartslovokia, a chapter that favors kicking their opponents to death. They primarily use jump packs, and do lui-kang kicks across entire battlefields. They are a decendent of their founders, the Knights of Fluff, which are decended through many successors, from the original Imperial Fists Legion. Like, 12th cousin, twice re-founded.
Point is, we can't make the logical statement: "Space Marines aren't mass-produced". All we know for 100% certain is there is a REALLY SPECIAL Old book, which HARDLY ANYONE GOES BY, that has rules. Rules with which the writer has since decided don't actually matter.
So who is to honestly state how many Space Marines exist? The only possible answer is: "As many as GW wants". Everything else is head cannon.
But this makes things even more jarring. The superior specimen of genetic engineering came before the prototype thunder warriors and was still superior to final that was the space marines. That's a weird line of progression. The emperor got it right the first time and then proceeded to make worse products.
Very inconsistent. Someone needs to work on their lab journal...
Why are spears the most prevalent weapons in human history? Why was "pointy stick" omnipresent on the battlefield on a massive scale even when we had bows, crossbows, cannons, swords (of all types), axes, chain and platemail, and early firearms, all of which were much more dangerous / protective?
All you need to make spears is a tree and a rock, and if you're really desperate you can swap the tree for branches and lose the rock. The simplicity of creating these things, vs the specialized skillset required to create (and maintain) things like swords, bows, and various types of armor is massive. And this is before you get into the actual effectiveness of them. Spears are operable on the premise of "point at the bad dudes and thrust" with the thrust being optional. A group of nobodies can be almost instantly armed (or quickly arm themselves) with no specialized skillset among them, and can then reliably fight to a decent degree with no combat experience.
Custodes are the pinnacle of the art but they are, as has been said, difficult and time consuming to make. They must be crafted by hand with great care and over a long period of time. They're an arbalest or some other highly effective, very technical, and difficult to produce weapon. Meanwhile Thunder Warriors (and later Astartes) are spears. While not as effective as the more advanced weaponry they can be cranked out with ease, en mass, and still be quite effective. They're not as individually powerful as the high-tech counter part, but one professional soldier with an arbalest isn't going to win against fifty yokels with sharpened sticks.
Well laid analogy.
Unfortunetly you are factually wrong on almost all details.
Also if Space Marines are "mass produced" why are they so few in the setting? ... In 40k we have the cannonical 1 million (which is riculously tiny on the IOM scale)... Even if the real number is 3 times higher its still less than a single sorotitas order... And probably there are more Knights than tactical/intercessor astartes.
Even if in 30k we have 10 times more marines in the legions we are talking of a negible number of troops.
90 or 99% of the astartes firepower is in their navies... The actual military significance of the supermen is irrelevant.
Well, he’s not wrong, at all.
Astartes are rare, because the necessary bits and bobs to make one (no, not equip one. Make one) are inherently finite. Chapters maintain their own stock of harvested Progenoid. Terra tithes Progenoid.
Each Chapter is restricted by the Codex Astartes to numbering around 1,000. Some will have more, some will have less. But even if you want to break from Codex, you’re constantly swimming upstream against combat attrition, and restricted by the amount of Progenoid available. Run out of that? No more Astartes for you until more mature and are ready for Harvesting.
Yes new Foundings can be done, but only by the High Lords of Terra. Cawl of course gets a pass on account he was acting on Guilliman’s direct orders, and his creations were desperately needed.
Now, in an ideal situation? Your total 1,000 Marines will all live long enough for both their Progenoid glands to be harvested outside of battlefield retrieval (it doesn’t require the death of the Astartes in question). That gives you 2,000 immediate sources of potential New Astartes. A percentage will be tithed to Terra, not only in case they fancy another Founding, but to make sure your Chapter can be reconstituted should something Bloody Awful Happen. But those ideal situations won’t always occur.
Every Scout killed in action. Every aspirant where the implantation and training process kills them eats into those reserves of viable Progenoid. And even in genetically stable Chapters (Ultramarines, Dark Angels), the Progenoid can go wrong, and not turn out viable. Every full Brother vapourised in combat is Progenoid lost, even where both glands are mature. Even conventional firepower has some chance of ripping through the Progenoid Gland. If a Strike Cruiser or Battle Barge is lost in combat? That’s….that’s a significant amount of Progenoid not about to be harvested any time soon, if ever.
This is why so much is held in reserve. This is partially why the tithe exists.
It’s also why Loyalist Astartes are incredibly fussy about who they elevate beyond Human. You see, whilst being fit and healthy certainly helps your chances, we can look to the Crusade era to show you don’t need to be a particularly impressive Clay for that transformation to work and produce a post-human Astartes. But, when you have strictly finite resources, and a cap on numbers? Being Fussy Makes Sense, because you can afford to be. It can also ensure they’re more psychologically suited to the inevitable hypno-indoctrination.
But this makes things even more jarring. The superior specimen of genetic engineering came before the prototype thunder warriors and was still superior to final that was the space marines. That's a weird line of progression. The emperor got it right the first time and then proceeded to make worse products.
Very inconsistent. Someone needs to work on their lab journal...
Why are spears the most prevalent weapons in human history? Why was "pointy stick" omnipresent on the battlefield on a massive scale even when we had bows, crossbows, cannons, swords (of all types), axes, chain and platemail, and early firearms, all of which were much more dangerous / protective?
All you need to make spears is a tree and a rock, and if you're really desperate you can swap the tree for branches and lose the rock. The simplicity of creating these things, vs the specialized skillset required to create (and maintain) things like swords, bows, and various types of armor is massive. And this is before you get into the actual effectiveness of them. Spears are operable on the premise of "point at the bad dudes and thrust" with the thrust being optional. A group of nobodies can be almost instantly armed (or quickly arm themselves) with no specialized skillset among them, and can then reliably fight to a decent degree with no combat experience.
Custodes are the pinnacle of the art but they are, as has been said, difficult and time consuming to make. They must be crafted by hand with great care and over a long period of time. They're an arbalest or some other highly effective, very technical, and difficult to produce weapon. Meanwhile Thunder Warriors (and later Astartes) are spears. While not as effective as the more advanced weaponry they can be cranked out with ease, en mass, and still be quite effective. They're not as individually powerful as the high-tech counter part, but one professional soldier with an arbalest isn't going to win against fifty yokels with sharpened sticks.
Well laid analogy.
Unfortunetly you are factually wrong on almost all details.
Also if Space Marines are "mass produced" why are they so few in the setting? ... In 40k we have the cannonical 1 million (which is riculously tiny on the IOM scale)... Even if the real number is 3 times higher its still less than a single sorotitas order... And probably there are more Knights than tactical/intercessor astartes.
Even if in 30k we have 10 times more marines in the legions we are talking of a negible number of troops.
90 or 99% of the astartes firepower is in their navies... The actual military significance of the supermen is irrelevant.
I'm factually right on every detail. You're just trying to move the goal posts.
I'm not here arguing the effectiveness of things.The Imperial Guard could wipe out every space marine chapter if they so chose and they could do it without weapons; just throw literally trillions of bodies at thousands of marines and very literally drown them in blood / crush them by weight of corpses. The guard are the stick to the space marines arbalest.
But we're not talking guards vs marines.
Marines are the stick to the custards arbalest. Quick and easy to make with easy-to source parts (marines grow the parts to make more marines). This is factually true. And it explains why the Thunder Warriors, and shortly after the Space Marines, were made despite the "perfect" custodes being on the table. Custodes are extremely difficult and slow to make, and due to that you only need a few of them for specialized tasks and specific pressure points; then you pump out a bunch of spears to let the easily armed chaff do the real leg work.
Whether or not super soldiers were required at all is an entirely different (and utterly pointless) argument. The Emperor thought they were so he made them. Now we've got marines and they're here to stay, the only reason to say they shouldn't be here is to get your jollies from Well Ackchyually-ing people on the interwebs.
Not only do you have limited idea as to what’s out there that’s gonna need it’s head kicked in, but you’re also looking to cow long lost Human Civilisations into Doing As They’re Bloody Well Told.
The Astartes and Primarchs were something new it would seem. A refinement of Thunder Warriors and their predecessor Genhanced Soldiery. And nobody really does Shock And Awe quite like an Astartes assault.
They don’t tend to go for camouflage because you want the enemy to see them coming. Not just coming, but essentially ignoring small arms fire, and even shrugging off heavier weapons.
Their basic equipment leans into this. Their own trinity of Power Armour (for Protectiness), Bolt and Chain weapons for the horrific mess even glancing hits make. Their use of Drop Pods and other rapid deployment is likewise about making their strikes as Brown Trousering as possible, with the idea that when seeking compliance a single demonstration may be enough to shatter the enemy’s resolve.
You can absolutely assert the necessary authority by simply having More Soldiers than the next civilisation. But to have More Soldiers which are also markedly superior Soldiers to anything a would-be troublemaker is likely to have access to? That is a strong statement of intent, especially if your initial overtures are a preference for Peaceful Compliance. A statement that if you choose The Hard Way, it’s gonna be far, far harder for you than it will be for me.
Consider if a Crusade era fleet arrived in Orbit tomorrow. We are at the current peak of military capability. We, for some reason I’ve never really understood have Nuclear arsenals far in excess of what would cause planet wide extinction…and to quote War of the Worlds? It’d still be bows and arrows against the lightning.
A single Astartes assault? And it’s pretty much done and dusted. Not only would the general population demand peace, but I think even the most loyal and fanatical members of the various armed forces would be thinking twice.
But this makes things even more jarring. The superior specimen of genetic engineering came before the prototype thunder warriors and was still superior to final that was the space marines. That's a weird line of progression. The emperor got it right the first time and then proceeded to make worse products.
Very inconsistent. Someone needs to work on their lab journal...
Why are spears the most prevalent weapons in human history? Why was "pointy stick" omnipresent on the battlefield on a massive scale even when we had bows, crossbows, cannons, swords (of all types), axes, chain and platemail, and early firearms, all of which were much more dangerous / protective?
All you need to make spears is a tree and a rock, and if you're really desperate you can swap the tree for branches and lose the rock. The simplicity of creating these things, vs the specialized skillset required to create (and maintain) things like swords, bows, and various types of armor is massive. And this is before you get into the actual effectiveness of them. Spears are operable on the premise of "point at the bad dudes and thrust" with the thrust being optional. A group of nobodies can be almost instantly armed (or quickly arm themselves) with no specialized skillset among them, and can then reliably fight to a decent degree with no combat experience.
Custodes are the pinnacle of the art but they are, as has been said, difficult and time consuming to make. They must be crafted by hand with great care and over a long period of time. They're an arbalest or some other highly effective, very technical, and difficult to produce weapon. Meanwhile Thunder Warriors (and later Astartes) are spears. While not as effective as the more advanced weaponry they can be cranked out with ease, en mass, and still be quite effective. They're not as individually powerful as the high-tech counter part, but one professional soldier with an arbalest isn't going to win against fifty yokels with sharpened sticks.
Well laid analogy.
Unfortunetly you are factually wrong on almost all details.
Also if Space Marines are "mass produced" why are they so few in the setting? ... In 40k we have the cannonical 1 million (which is riculously tiny on the IOM scale)... Even if the real number is 3 times higher its still less than a single sorotitas order... And probably there are more Knights than tactical/intercessor astartes.
Even if in 30k we have 10 times more marines in the legions we are talking of a negible number of troops.
90 or 99% of the astartes firepower is in their navies... The actual military significance of the supermen is irrelevant.
I'm factually right on every detail. You're just trying to move the goal posts.
I'm not here arguing the effectiveness of things.The Imperial Guard could wipe out every space marine chapter if they so chose and they could do it without weapons; just throw literally trillions of bodies at thousands of marines and very literally drown them in blood / crush them by weight of corpses. The guard are the stick to the space marines arbalest.
But we're not talking guards vs marines.
Marines are the stick to the custards arbalest. Quick and easy to make with easy-to source parts (marines grow the parts to make more marines). This is factually true. And it explains why the Thunder Warriors, and shortly after the Space Marines, were made despite the "perfect" custodes being on the table. Custodes are extremely difficult and slow to make, and due to that you only need a few of them for specialized tasks and specific pressure points; then you pump out a bunch of spears to let the easily armed chaff do the real leg work.
Whether or not super soldiers were required at all is an entirely different (and utterly pointless) argument. The Emperor thought they were so he made them. Now we've got marines and they're here to stay, the only reason to say they shouldn't be here is to get your jollies from Well Ackchyually-ing people on the interwebs.
You are "factually right" only if someone accepts the sophistic nature of your statement.
I dont.
Defining Spears as a Pointy stick is a complete fallacy.... And ussing spearmen effectively in a military setting needs proper training... Peasant militia spearmen were decimated during almost 500 years in western europe by heavy cavalry until proper infantry tactics and training were introduce during the late middle ages.
And since producing a single astartes requires many resources (100 candidates, old tech, etc) it is not a mass produce AK, its stil a boutique car/ weapon even if you have the extra rare golden version.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Every writer makes up new SM legions, like it's a thing. The Snakes of Ithaca? The Reclaimers? The Redeemers? Whatever the "deathwatch-esque" chapter was in Inquistor:Martyr. The Storm Watchers or something.
Anyway, there is literally zero limit on how many Space Marines exist, because I can create one out of thin air right now. The Fluff Stompers of Fartslovokia, a chapter that favors kicking their opponents to death. They primarily use jump packs, and do lui-kang kicks across entire battlefields. They are a decendent of their founders, the Knights of Fluff, which are decended through many successors, from the original Imperial Fists Legion. Like, 12th cousin, twice re-founded.
Point is, we can't make the logical statement: "Space Marines aren't mass-produced". All we know for 100% certain is there is a REALLY SPECIAL Old book, which HARDLY ANYONE GOES BY, that has rules. Rules with which the writer has since decided don't actually matter.
So who is to honestly state how many Space Marines exist? The only possible answer is: "As many as GW wants". Everything else is head cannon.
Well under your premise, numbers means nothing in the 30k/40k setting since any author or fan can create new legions, ork waaghs, craftworlds, etc
Therefore we must assume every race in 40k has achieve post scarcity luxury communism and they only fight each other for sport.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I think you are seriously under estimating the power oy the US Army Soldier's ability to kill/and or break things.
I don't care what space juice that 10' magic space nazi is hoped up on, his pecker don't work, and they die VERY easy to Orks and Bugs.
I’m….really not. In fact I took pains to suggest the sheer level of Marine inflicted ROFLstomping that would occur paints no military as incompetent. Just…hopelessly outclassed.
For a start, we have zero known counters to orbital bombardment, that thing Astartes fleets specialise in. We have no known effective counters to Drop Pod landings. As noted we do have Nukes….but no known effective way to get them up to orbit, or known way to prevent them being intercepted by point defences Imperial ships are known to have. Even if some get through, there’s no guarantee they’d be enough to get through Void Shields.
Marines don’t tend to seek out stand up fights. Their tactics are about instant command decapitation. Stuff like The Houses of Parliament, Whitehall, MI5, White House, Pentagon, Kremlin? All super easy to blat from orbit. See our satellites? We’ve no way to defend them, because we’ve no known fighter craft capable of near-space flight, let alone combat.
Even if it’s ground side combat? Appreciate just how utterly ridiculous Astartes are. Each is in essence a walking tank. The humble Legion Tactical Squad would be a terrifying encounter. Your firepower has seemingly no effect. They just keep coming. If heavier calibre fire drives one to the ground? His mates have the skills and tools to take out that weapon, and there’s a solid chance the one hit is just going to get back on his feet.
They don’t show any kind of restraint. If you stand in opposition, they’re going to kill you. And by intent of design, your death is going to be messy. And thanks to their understanding of war, it’s gonna be televised. Each and every Marine has the capability to at least record combat.
Oh your President/King/Prime Minister/Dear Leader has run off to a bunker? Not a problem. Once found, they can teleport Terminators in, and that’s them so done it’s not even funny.
Does Earth have powerful and capable militaries? Yes. Yes we do. But if The Imperium came a-knocking, the term asymmetric warfare just doesn’t even touch the sides. Not even close.
Look dude. I get it. You’re just here, for reasons best known to yourself, to argue. Not debate or discuss, and we’ve seen you on more than one occasion just invent stuff for the sake of that odd need to disagree and argue.
Remember the context of these recent exchanges. It’s not “just how special are Marines”. It’s “why did The Emperor decide post-human killing machines were necessary”.
Shock, awe, getting the job done as swiftly as possible. Ideally by displaying such ludicrous military strength that many worlds would capitulate, and even when they didn’t it wouldn’t be a protracted conflict, but one over and done with in a short space of time.
So I forgot to add the /S to my post. My "joke" was in reference to an old Vietnam movie, where a character talks about a soldier being worthless because he is unable to perform in the bedroom, or concieve children. It's part of that wonderful 80s machismo that infected so many war movies.
I think Ventura says something like it in Predator, "I wouldn't trust that on a broke dick dog" or something.
Point was, a bad joke about how a soldier is worthless if they are unable to make their anatomy function properly. Astartes are involuntary celibate. Either parts are removed, or parts no longer function. Point is, Space Marines cannot make baby space Marines.
We’ve never really heard of an Astartes having the urge/desire to hop on the good foot and do the bad thing. That in itself doesn’t make them incapable, or necessarily unwilling.
But…not do they need to reproduce. That’s not their purpose. And if could be that their Genhancements alone alter their DNA enough for speciation to have occurred, meaning even if they’re not firing blanks? They simply can’t get a homo sapien sapien pregnant, as the two gametes involved are no longer compatible.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: So I forgot to add the /S to my post. My "joke" was in reference to an old Vietnam movie, where a character talks about a soldier being worthless because he is unable to perform in the bedroom, or concieve children. It's part of that wonderful 80s machismo that infected so many war movies.
I think Ventura says something like it in Predator, "I wouldn't trust that on a broke dick dog" or something.
Point was, a bad joke about how a soldier is worthless if they are unable to make their anatomy function properly. Astartes are involuntary celibate. Either parts are removed, or parts no longer function. Point is, Space Marines cannot make baby space Marines.
Dont call astartes involutary celibates... They know perfectly what will happen to them when they are "recruited" with 9/10 years.
Even if they dont know how to read is cannon that they sign a 5000 pages medical document before hand
You are "factually right" only if someone accepts the sophistic nature of your statement.
I dont.
Defining Spears as a Pointy stick is a complete fallacy.... And ussing spearmen effectively in a military setting needs proper training... Peasant militia spearmen were decimated during almost 500 years in western europe by heavy cavalry until proper infantry tactics and training were introduce during the late middle ages.
And since producing a single astartes requires many resources (100 candidates, old tech, etc) it is not a mass produce AK, its stil a boutique car/ weapon even if you have the extra rare golden version.
You don't accept my statement, then you proceed to explain exactly why my statement is factually accurate.
Bravo mate.
Astartes are a luxury car / golden gun to a guardsmen, I said that. But they're the dirt-smeared peasant with a fresh-hewn spear to the professional heavy cavalry of the custodes. I'm not sure what's not getting through here, but you seem to be having trouble with analogies and relativity in general.
You are "factually right" only if someone accepts the sophistic nature of your statement.
I dont.
Defining Spears as a Pointy stick is a complete fallacy.... And ussing spearmen effectively in a military setting needs proper training... Peasant militia spearmen were decimated during almost 500 years in western europe by heavy cavalry until proper infantry tactics and training were introduce during the late middle ages.
And since producing a single astartes requires many resources (100 candidates, old tech, etc) it is not a mass produce AK, its stil a boutique car/ weapon even if you have the extra rare golden version.
You don't accept my statement, then you proceed to explain exactly why my statement is factually accurate.
Bravo mate.
Astartes are a luxury car / golden gun to a guardsmen, I said that. But they're the dirt-smeared peasant with a fresh-hewn spear to the professional heavy cavalry of the custodes. I'm not sure what's not getting through here, but you seem to be having trouble with analogies and relativity in general.
Heavy cavalry also didn't stop being relevant because infantry got better, they remained relevant and able to perform battle-winning manouevres well into the Early Modern period. Infantry quality actually dropped during the late 16th and 17th centuries, yet heavy cavalry continued to decline.
What killed heavy cavalry was socioeconomic changes making them unsustainable (same reason the infantry also got worse in the same period). By the Napoleonic wars, really only the French cuirassiers could be considered true heavy cavalry if you squint funny, and they were a rare prestige unit.
Obviously socioeconomic factors tend to disadvantage simple, cheap solutions like pointy sticks a lot less.
You are "factually right" only if someone accepts the sophistic nature of your statement.
I dont.
Defining Spears as a Pointy stick is a complete fallacy.... And ussing spearmen effectively in a military setting needs proper training... Peasant militia spearmen were decimated during almost 500 years in western europe by heavy cavalry until proper infantry tactics and training were introduce during the late middle ages.
And since producing a single astartes requires many resources (100 candidates, old tech, etc) it is not a mass produce AK, its stil a boutique car/ weapon even if you have the extra rare golden version.
You don't accept my statement, then you proceed to explain exactly why my statement is factually accurate.
Bravo mate.
Astartes are a luxury car / golden gun to a guardsmen, I said that. But they're the dirt-smeared peasant with a fresh-hewn spear to the professional heavy cavalry of the custodes. I'm not sure what's not getting through here, but you seem to be having trouble with analogies and relativity in general.
Perhaps my IQ is low, sorry... Yep you have enligtenment my with your analogy, its magnificent. Thanks mate.
You are "factually right" only if someone accepts the sophistic nature of your statement.
I dont.
Defining Spears as a Pointy stick is a complete fallacy.... And ussing spearmen effectively in a military setting needs proper training... Peasant militia spearmen were decimated during almost 500 years in western europe by heavy cavalry until proper infantry tactics and training were introduce during the late middle ages.
And since producing a single astartes requires many resources (100 candidates, old tech, etc) it is not a mass produce AK, its stil a boutique car/ weapon even if you have the extra rare golden version.
You don't accept my statement, then you proceed to explain exactly why my statement is factually accurate.
Bravo mate.
Astartes are a luxury car / golden gun to a guardsmen, I said that. But they're the dirt-smeared peasant with a fresh-hewn spear to the professional heavy cavalry of the custodes. I'm not sure what's not getting through here, but you seem to be having trouble with analogies and relativity in general.
Heavy cavalry also didn't stop being relevant because infantry got better, they remained relevant and able to perform battle-winning manouevres well into the Early Modern period. Infantry quality actually dropped during the late 16th and 17th centuries, yet heavy cavalry continued to decline.
What killed heavy cavalry was socioeconomic changes making them unsustainable (same reason the infantry also got worse in the same period). By the Napoleonic wars, really only the French cuirassiers could be considered true heavy cavalry if you squint funny, and they were a rare prestige unit.
Obviously socioeconomic factors tend to disadvantage simple, cheap solutions like pointy sticks a lot less.
Woa, what an insightfull post... Are you a Doctor in Military History???
Custodes are the adults to the relative infants that make up Space Marines. Each Custodes has lived in, fought in, and won a veritable lifetime's worth of a standard fully fledged Astartes. Even most captains, excluding Dante and the 1k+ crowd obviously. But by the age most Astartes are given the title of battle brother or SGT, they still have yet to fight in a likely 100th of the battles a Custodian has. Even the "younger" Custodes such as Ser Walken of Valarian, has by the by his scant few hundreds of years, earned deed names equal and beyond an Astartes Captain. Bjorn, Dante, and Gman, are among the few who can honestly say they've fought more than the Custodes.
Dante is basically old enough to be a Custodian at this point, Bjorn has been put into a dreadnaught, and Gman is a Primarch. Maybe Maloc? But that's a Chapter Master.
We can also look to the very intentional hierarchy of Imperial Armies.
At the lowest tier, you have the PDF. Numerous, but with not a lot of care given to their arms and training. Primarily, their role is one of deterrent. Enough to dissuade entirely opportunistic attacks and keep the civilian population in line. Theoretically able to hold the line long enough against most insistent foes until the next tier can mobilise. Which is of course…..
The Imperial Guard. The true backbone, staggering in their scale and the diversity of forces available. Can be deployed en masse to simply swamp enemies - provided their own command structure remains intact.
Somewhere between the two we have Adeptus Arbites, as a specific department. Their Fortress Precincts are entirely capable of resisting the PDF by design, and their warriors better armed, equipped and trained by the PDF again entirely by design. Why? If a Governor goes rogue, the Arbites can form a solid core of Imperial Control, even should the majority or even entirety of the PDF turn traitor. And once again ideally long enough for retribution forced to be dispatched and deployed.
Sisters of Battle are the next tier, and like Astartes sit somewhere outside the usual chain of command. A planet with a Convent again has a core of theoretically entirely incorruptible and therefore loyal troops to maintain order and defence should Something Awful Happen.
Astartes are of course the ultimate sanction. The force most able to get in and get the job done against elements internal and external. Stronger, faster, better armed and equipped, capable of self arranged interstellar travel.
The Imperial Navy is again something of an oddity. They’re separate from the Guard, to ensure rogue Guard regiments have no easy means of moving off-world, but don’t really have a standing infantry force of their own to go rogue themself, or resist a determined boarding assault to reclaim the ship.
The Inquisition sit outside of all of that, but have the absolute right and authority to commandeer PDF, Arbites, Guard and Navy assets. That organisation is of course self-policing to some extent.
But standing over all of those? You have the Custodes. The absolute best the Imperium has to offer. They’re the ones who can slaughter a rogue Chapter or butcher rogue Guard regiments etc.
It’s all part of the wider Imperial strategy to stop anything on the scale of the Heresy happening ever again.
And yes, I did leave out the Ad Mech, Knights and Titan Legions. That’s because Mechanicus assets are kind of an empire within an empire, with their own plans and agendas.
Custodes can't do gak. Ant enough of them they would easily loose to the guard.
Automatically Appended Next Post: You got this all wrong custodes are vertually worthless as a military force as they are so few the imperium real strength is the imperial navy and the imperial guard. Simple as these are the 2 strongest military in the imperium.
The Imperial Guard relies heavily on its command structure. With the usual notable maverick element, the line troopers are trained not to use their initiative.
Custodes annihilate their commanders, and that regiment is neutered.
Essentially, as you move up the tiers/hierarchy, each is well disposed to deal with those below them should the need arise,
Nonsense. The comand structure like any army is built with redundancies. Besides the guard outnumber custards 1 billion to one custards can not hope to compare.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Besides this sounds like goalposts moving in a fight imperial guard vs custodes. If all guard and all custodes are present then custards lose easily.
The Imperial Guard don’t really have command redundancies built in as you claim. Yes new Commanders will likely be selected from the Regiment’s surviving officers (senior or not, ref Valhallan 597th). But that still takes time.
Give it a good gutting, and the line troops (not generally noted for acting on initiative, again by design) are left bereft of orders. And given the Custodes won’t be there alone? The other forces arrayed will quickly quash the target regiment - or even just issue an order to stand down, depending on where the corruption actually lay.
And yes, Custodes can, will and have done that to Chapters of Marines. As they’re not fussy about such things.
Now. Are there going to be many situations where it’s a Custodes vs Guard Command? Probably not, no. That’s not really the Custodes jam or role.
Custodes also have their own fleet, and so would nearly effortlessly crush the entire Imperial Guard in some nonsensical 1v1 that Boosykes is proposing for that reason alone, being that the Imperial Guard are completely reliant upon the Navy for air transport, superiority, and logistics.
The Imperial Guard, while immense and the backbone of the Imperium, is completely planet-locked and rely extensively on the Imperial Navy for support. The Custodes (and Astartes) do not.
This is ignoring the fact that teleportation technology is so omnipresent among Custodians that they could pretty much decapitate the entire command apparatus of the Imperial Guard very quickly and efficiently.
And none of this detracts from the intentional hierarchy/tiering of the overall Imperial War Machine, where the next tier is inherently well placed to put down the previous tier should the need arise.
Perhaps not on a wholesale, galactic stage. But on a theatre to theatre scale? Absolutely.
Void__Dragon wrote: Custodes also have their own fleet, and so would nearly effortlessly crush the entire Imperial Guard in some nonsensical 1v1 that Boosykes is proposing for that reason alone, being that the Imperial Guard are completely reliant upon the Navy for air transport, superiority, and logistics.
The Imperial Guard, while immense and the backbone of the Imperium, is completely planet-locked and rely extensively on the Imperial Navy for support. The Custodes (and Astartes) do not.
This is ignoring the fact that teleportation technology is so omnipresent among Custodians that they could pretty much decapitate the entire command apparatus of the Imperial Guard very quickly and efficiently.
This is MP level of demagogy, are you member of some country government perhaps? , congrats.
All (many) of the Astartes and Custards fanboys always resort to "but our Navy"... Which is not manned by superhumans (mainly) so this argument actually underlines how irrelevant their forces are actually in the setting.
Obviously under your own selected arbitrary criteria Custards will not only win against the IG, but also Ctan, Old ones, Goku, The beattles, doctor Manhattan, etc
This is MP level of demagogy, are you member of some country government perhaps? , congrats.
All (many) of the Astartes and Custards fanboys always resort to "but our Navy"... Which is not manned by superhumans (mainly) so this argument actually underlines how irrelevant their forces are actually in the setting.
Obviously under your own selected arbitrary criteria Custards will not only win against the IG, but also Ctan, Old ones, Goku, The beattles, doctor Manhattan, etc
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: And none of this detracts from the intentional hierarchy/tiering of the overall Imperial War Machine, where the next tier is inherently well placed to put down the previous tier should the need arise.
Perhaps not on a wholesale, galactic stage. But on a theatre to theatre scale? Absolutely.
That's not intentional at all. That would imply that the Imperium was constructed in a sane manner, which it is not. It's an incredibly dysfunctional society.
Custodes could not defeat the Imperial Guard if it was each organization vs the other. The Imperial Guard could bury each Custodian in multiple Leman Russ tanks.
That's not intentional at all. That would imply that the Imperium was constructed in a sane manner, which it is not. It's an incredibly dysfunctional society.
Custodes could not defeat the Imperial Guard if it was each organization vs the other. The Imperial Guard could bury each Custodian in multiple Leman Russ tanks.
They'd kill the entire assembled Imperial Guard with a single bombardment actually, assuming they could fit on one planet.
One of these organizations is self-sufficient, which is to say it has its own fleet. The Imperial Guard is not that organization. It is a completely planet-locked force without the Imperial Navy to support it.
Just because you mention the same BS once and again it dosent make more sense. It just shows the weakness of your position.
Yes, Custard Navy will defeat AM non existing navy... Well, if you can defeat something that dosent exist like Santa.
Custards can also defeat Dinosaurs, mithological creatures, hopeless aliens without space tech, they are also the best in defeating nonnexistent plots agaist the throne, etc.
Custodes are reaching the level of power of the brother Bezzos star fleet.
Custodes, like Astartes, have their own fleets. Now, I’m not sure if their fleet capacity is limited/restricted in the way Astartes. But the point remains, if the Custodes, for whatever reason, wanted or needed to eradicate a Regiment? They can go for orbital bombardment, or presumably, even full on Exterminatus, rendering a ground war entirely moot. And not having their own fleet assets, there’s bugger all the Imperial Guard Regiment marked for destruction could do about it. Well. Except die. And horribly so.
Custodes, like Astartes, have their own fleets. Now, I’m not sure if their fleet capacity is limited/restricted in the way Astartes. But the point remains, if the Custodes, for whatever reason, wanted or needed to eradicate a Regiment? They can go for orbital bombardment, or presumably, even full on Exterminatus, rendering a ground war entirely moot. And not having their own fleet assets, there’s bugger all the Imperial Guard Regiment marked for destruction could do about it. Well. Except die. And horribly so.
Custodes, like Astartes, have their own fleets. Now, I’m not sure if their fleet capacity is limited/restricted in the way Astartes. But the point remains, if the Custodes, for whatever reason, wanted or needed to eradicate a Regiment? They can go for orbital bombardment, or presumably, even full on Exterminatus, rendering a ground war entirely moot. And not having their own fleet assets, there’s bugger all the Imperial Guard Regiment marked for destruction could do about it. Well. Except die. And horribly so.
The Imperium has bunkers that can survive orbital bombardments; there's a reason Abaddon had to yeet a blackstone fortress at Cadia.
In 40k orbital bombardments don't render ground wars entirely moot. Maybe that's not realistic, but it's how it is. The Custodes would have to go down there and deal with the IG eventually, and then they'd be drowned in bodies and tanks.
Cadia was a Fortress World, and a significant one. And Abaddon wanted it destroyed, in a way only a Blackstone Fortress, once corrupted, can achieve.
By no means do all worlds have that level of defences. And the Guard simply aren’t going to have a huge amount of stuff left post bombardment. And nearly sod all left post Exterminatus, because that’s what Exterminatus does.
Cadia was a Fortress World, and a significant one. And Abaddon wanted it destroyed, in a way only a Blackstone Fortress, once corrupted, can achieve.
By no means do all worlds have that level of defences. And the Guard simply aren’t going to have a huge amount of stuff left post bombardment. And nearly sod all left post Exterminatus, because that’s what Exterminatus does.
Uh huh. So how do Custodes deal with a Guard regiment on a Fortress World?
Cadia was a Fortress World, and a significant one. And Abaddon wanted it destroyed, in a way only a Blackstone Fortress, once corrupted, can achieve.
By no means do all worlds have that level of defences. And the Guard simply aren’t going to have a huge amount of stuff left post bombardment. And nearly sod all left post Exterminatus, because that’s what Exterminatus does.
Uh huh. So how do Custodes deal with a Guard regiment on a Fortress World?
Asking some Dakkanaut friend to write the outcome???
Cadia was a Fortress World, and a significant one. And Abaddon wanted it destroyed, in a way only a Blackstone Fortress, once corrupted, can achieve.
By no means do all worlds have that level of defences. And the Guard simply aren’t going to have a huge amount of stuff left post bombardment. And nearly sod all left post Exterminatus, because that’s what Exterminatus does.
Uh huh. So how do Custodes deal with a Guard regiment on a Fortress World?
See my comment about Exterminatus?
The answer is…..Exterminatus. Soon as all life is extinct, thats job jobbed. With no navel assets of their own, and nothing to stop a systematic eradication of all star ports? Whether any element hid away in bunkers is rendered moot, as there’s no way for them to replenish supplies.
Can anyone name me one Imperial Guard soldier, commander, or leader that wouldn't suck start their own pistol/rifle if ordered to by a Custodian? I mean, literally, the inverse is true as well. What Imperial Soldier free of any taint would willingly choose to fire a weapon at a Custodian? Any fear of the commisariat goes out the window, when you are afraid of pissing off the God you believe in.
But yeah, any imperial force that knowingly did battle with Custodes forces would surely face the unending wrath of all their imperial cohorts, right? I mean, even if one fired, the other 9 trillion would make sure that one didn't fire twice.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Can anyone name me one Imperial Guard soldier, commander, or leader that wouldn't suck start their own pistol/rifle if ordered to by a Custodian? I mean, literally, the inverse is true as well. What Imperial Soldier free of any taint would willingly choose to fire a weapon at a Custodian? Any fear of the commisariat goes out the window, when you are afraid of pissing off the God you believe in.
But yeah, any imperial force that knowingly did battle with Custodes forces would surely face the unending wrath of all their imperial cohorts, right? I mean, even if one fired, the other 9 trillion would make sure that one didn't fire twice.
I dont know any of the trillions of rogue/rebels/chaos "ex" guardsmen in the setting??
Is the pro Custard side in this debate for real or is only trolling?
Yes we get it, Golden Boys are high in the IOM ranks, they have shinny ships, they are Morrines+ 1000...
...astra militarum are just the extras in the setting, hopeless base humans against a galaxy of metamen and cosmic horror.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Can anyone name me one Imperial Guard soldier, commander, or leader that wouldn't suck start their own pistol/rifle if ordered to by a Custodian? I mean, literally, the inverse is true as well. What Imperial Soldier free of any taint would willingly choose to fire a weapon at a Custodian? Any fear of the commisariat goes out the window, when you are afraid of pissing off the God you believe in.
But yeah, any imperial force that knowingly did battle with Custodes forces would surely face the unending wrath of all their imperial cohorts, right? I mean, even if one fired, the other 9 trillion would make sure that one didn't fire twice.
Depends on the circumstances. Like if the Custodes were being a bunch of witches to the point that the SW or BA were like "hold on now", or were butting heads with the Inquisition, the Guard could have quite a lot of support.
At this point, you are the troll. Several well educated folks in the lore realm have explained to you the facts, and you just throw your poop on everything and scream NO! at it. You even accused one person of being a imperialist. Whatever that means.
Point being, Custodes are 99% made up fluff lore. There is very little actual facts to go off of, aside from the fact that 10,000 of them, with the Emperor, killed off all the Thunder Warriors in existence. And in case you forgot, Thunder Warriors were to astartes, what Primaris are to Old marines. They were bigger, stronger, faster, and had far more powerful weapons.
And they lost. To 10,000 individually hand crafted super warriors of the Emperor. That's who the Custodes are. They are the elite of the Elite.
Sorry whatever faction you play doesn't have suitably exciting lore for you, to keep you from just being an ultra chad on other factions lore.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: At this point, you are the troll. Several well educated folks in the lore realm have explained to you the facts, and you just throw your poop on everything and scream NO! at it. You even accused one person of being a imperialist. Whatever that means.
Point being, Custodes are 99% made up fluff lore. There is very little actual facts to go off of, aside from the fact that 10,000 of them, with the Emperor, killed off all the Thunder Warriors in existence. And in case you forgot, Thunder Warriors were to astartes, what Primaris are to Old marines. They were bigger, stronger, faster, and had far more powerful weapons.
And they lost. To 10,000 individually hand crafted super warriors of the Emperor. That's who the Custodes are. They are the elite of the Elite.
Sorry whatever faction you play doesn't have suitably exciting lore for you, to keep you from just being an ultra chad on other factions lore.
This post was ment to be answering my last post?
Im genuinely confused.
Its obvious Im a troll, as established repeteadtly by the authority of some lore masters, but I would like confirmation on this particular point.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: At this point, you are the troll. Several well educated folks in the lore realm have explained to you the facts, and you just throw your poop on everything and scream NO! at it. You even accused one person of being a imperialist. Whatever that means.
Point being, Custodes are 99% made up fluff lore. There is very little actual facts to go off of, aside from the fact that 10,000 of them, with the Emperor, killed off all the Thunder Warriors in existence. And in case you forgot, Thunder Warriors were to astartes, what Primaris are to Old marines. They were bigger, stronger, faster, and had far more powerful weapons.
And they lost. To 10,000 individually hand crafted super warriors of the Emperor. That's who the Custodes are. They are the elite of the Elite.
Sorry whatever faction you play doesn't have suitably exciting lore for you, to keep you from just being an ultra chad on other factions lore.
They also were betrayed suddenly and likely had their infrastructure support withdrawn, or sabotaged. It's not really a fair comparison. The Custodes trying to defeat Imperial Guard in a head-on conflict are likely going to do worse than that. The Imperial Guard has far more Leman Russ tanks than there are Custodes, by a few orders of magnitude.
The imperal guard has more baneblade then there are custodes. Head to head custards have no chance.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also somthing to remember the imperium can not stand withought the guard. While custodes hung out with big E and did nothi g for a long ass time.
How did we even get to that point in the discussion?
What's even the precise question here? Can the Custodes defeat THE imperial guard? As in the entire guard with all it's billions of soldiers? Yeah, no they can't, but it's a bit of a silly question tbh.
Can the Custodes (all 10000 of them, with all their toys?) take over a world that is being occupied by the imperial guard like Cadia? In all likelihood yes, but not without taking casualties, probably even quite heavy casualties.
People seem to forget that Custodes, while representing the pinnacle of gene craft the imperium is capable of, are still mortal and if a demolisher cannon hits a bananaboy point blank in the face, that custodian is still mush. Being the best individual warriors the imperium has (notice didn't say soldiers), doesn't make them invincible.
The imperium has been said to have a million, million world's. 1,000 million is a billion. There are know to be 20,000 custodes. And a million, million worlds. Let's say only 1% of of a million (which is 10,000) million worlds gives a guard regiment. That's 10 billion guard regements let's a regement is 100 men as I don't beleve 40k has a set size though I know they are generally dipicted as much larger. That 1,000 million men otherwise known as a trillion men.
That's before tanks or before giving them rapid fire wepons of any kind.
Let's say the average guard member is 150 pounds. That's 150 trillion pounds. They could lay on the custards and kill them all.
I know 40k messes with scale but there is no sinerio where one millitary out numbers another like that and looses.
Also do you think the imperium is only given one regement from 1% of it worlds?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also somthing to remember the imperium can not stand withought the guard. While custodes hung out with big E and did nothi g for a long ass time.
Fully agree that the imperium could not stand without the guard.
I hate that meme though that custodes just sat beside the Emperor until Guilliman told them to move their asses. Directly after the heresy there were almost no Custodes left, since they suffered staggering losses in the war of the webway, we're talking above 90% here. Considering how freaking long it takes to create a single Custodes, they had to spend a considerable amount of time to replenish their numbers.
They also moved behind the curtains and eliminated threats to Terra or the Sol system, just mostly in secret. Trajann Valoris, the current captain General, is in all likelihood at least thousand years old (no exact number in the codex lore) and is described as one of the most active captain generals ever.
Does that mean that they are perfect and do nothing wrong? No, they are imo quite the hypocrites because they lament the state of the current imperium while at the same time having done nothing to shape the imperium after the heresy or try to prevent it's subsequent fall into superstitious dogmatism. And they very much could have done something even with their drastically depleted numbers after the heresy, since even one Custodes carries tremendous weight when councelling a planetary governor.
The problem custodes have is that their lore wasn't fleshed out when the pillars of 40k lore had been written. This simply creates some discrepancies.
I agree and your right they where not entirely stagnant all I'm saying is if custodes where all killed then well the Emperor would be guarded by the imperial fists or somthing but if all the guard where killed then there would be no imperium.
Classically, the Imperium is said to have a million worlds, not a million millions. Do you have a source for the latter? The Imperium is a scattered archipelago connected by stable warp routes within the vast ocean of the galaxy, and there are entire xenos empires hidden between its worlds.
That said, in some weird proposterous vacuum scenario where the entire Imperial Guard alone fights the entire Custodes alone, the Custodes win due to their fleet- they can besiege them from space without ever actually coming into range of a battle cannon. Obviously, if they entered the field they would be overwhelmed by trillions of Guardsmen, but why would they do that? If the Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy were fighting together, then yes, the Custodes would be stuffed in every scenario. However, the Navy and Guard are deliberately separated exactly for that reason- to minimise the risk of effective rebellion.
That doesn't make the Guard useless, it means it has been crafted with failsafes against rebellion, that weaken it as a fighting force but improve the central power base.
It also doesn't negate the hierarchy that MDG mentioned, because each step has sufficient power to overwhelm the expected level of betrayal of the step below- it is rare for more than a single Guard regiment or Navy ship to turn traitor at once, it is rare for more than a single Chapter to turn traitor. Marines have the power to crush a single regiment or ship, and Custodes have the power to crush a single rogue Chapter (although generally most heretical forces are dealt with by equivalent forces, like the Volscani Cataphracts being destroyed by the Cadian 7th and 8th at the Battle of Tyrok Fields, or the Astral Claws being defeated by a coalition of loyalist Chapters in the Badab War).
I agree that the Imperium would be hurt more by losing the Guard than the Custodes- the Planetary Defense Forces, the Guard, and the Navy are the backbone of the Imperial armed forces, doing the bulk of the fighting. Other forces are supplementary tools adding capability to that.
Boosykes wrote: The imperium has been said to have a million, million world's. 1,000 million is a billion. There are know to be 20,000 custodes. And a million, million worlds. Let's say only 1% of of a million (which is 10,000) million worlds gives a guard regiment. That's 10 billion guard regements let's a regement is 100 men as I don't beleve 40k has a set size though I know they are generally dipicted as much larger. That 1,000 million men otherwise known as a trillion men.
That's before tanks or before giving them rapid fire wepons of any kind.
Let's say the average guard member is 150 pounds. That's 150 trillion pounds. They could lay on the custards and kill them all.
I know 40k messes with scale but there is no sinerio where one millitary out numbers another like that and looses.
Also do you think the imperium is only given one regement from 1% of it worlds?
This post is brilliant.
Unfortunetly... BANANA BOYZ have ships, and are DADDY Best Pals... So Custodes alwayz Win!!!!
Illustrating that within The Imperium Hierarchy of Deadliness exists doesn’t detract that the Imperial Guard remain the absolute backbone.
The untold billions of men and women under arms are the most likely to be fighting on any given front. Indeed, many fronts won’t see any other Imperial Forces, including the PDF as those only exist on Imperial Worlds.
And for the most part? That’s more than enough for many theatres. It has to be, otherwise The Imperium would’ve collapsed entirely Millenia ago.
No one here has disputed that. But it doesn’t change the simple fact that as well as ease of logistics, Regiments are easy prey for Space Marine Chapters by design.
Now, are there instance of PDF, Guard and Navy turning traitor in concert? Yes, absolutely. One example is Genestealer Cult infiltration and infestation. But even then? Wholesale rebellion in such cases remain relatively rare. Which in turn means the crews and combatants duking it out amongst themselves first.
Boosykes wrote: The imperal guard has more baneblade then there are custodes. Head to head custards have no chance.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also somthing to remember the imperium can not stand withought the guard. While custodes hung out with big E and did nothi g for a long ass time.
The Imperial Guard could outfit every single guardsman into a Baneblade and they would still be effortlessly put down by the Custodes I'm afraid. Because all the Baneblades in the galaxy don't amount to much when you don't have a single starship at your disposal and all those Baneblades will be helpless against being vaporized by continent-busting missile salvos. And that's if they bring the light weapons, since the Custodes could easily bring weaponry capable of destroying the planet outright.
Sorry Guard fans, but no matter how many of you there are you're pretty much completely helpless without the Imperial Navy to support you and as such the Custodes or even a single Space Marine chapter could take you out. Sad.
40k wiki: In the game universe, the Imperial Guard is a colossal military organisation consisting of roughly 500 trillion men and women supported by at least a few hundred billion Armoured vehicles each from thousands of different systems within the Imperium of Man
40k wiki: How many custodians are there 40k?
As a result of the inherent difficulty of their creation, the number of active Legio Custodes warriors has never, it is believed, exceeded 10,000.
So look I can't find the million million worlds qote I seem to remember. maybe becuse its impossible to have the kind of manpower and material as is reported in the imperium with just 1 million worlds.i just thought that made sense l. If it's based on milky way galaxy then there are at least 100 billion planets. If the imperium is only a million worlds then it makes uup . 01% wich is way to small so like I said 40k dosent handle numbers well.
Anyways from the wiki it looks like I was extramly conservative on number of guardsmen. And I doubled the custodian guards numbers. So ya. In a straight fight the custodians have no chance at all. Less than I originally thought.
But sure since you all like dus ex machina yes the imperial navy is the strongest faction.
But always remember you banana boys would get stoped if you got out of line. And likely it would be the guard who did the majority of the stomping.
Is there some sort of black hole in this thread that sucks the reading comprehension out of select people?
Nobody is disputing that, in a straight-up fight pitching every single Custode against the entirety of the Imperial Guard, the Custodes would lose. But that's not a remotely plausible scenario. As multiple people have pointed out, the entire point of the organisation of the Imperium's military units is to prevent individual elements becoming too powerful. That was the lesson of the Horus Heresy. So "the Imperial Guard" is a nonsensical way of viewing what the likely enemy would be in a fight between the Custodes and elements of the Imperial Guard. They'd be fighting a relatively small number of them (yes, they'd still be vastly outnumbered) but Space Marines and Custodes both have the advantage of coordinated fleet-based operation and would therefore have immediate strategic superiority over any rogue Imperial Guard regiment. I also wouldn't be surprised if vital intelligence regarding command structures and security details are accessible by the elements higher up the chain to facilitate dealing with potential rogue units.
Boosykes wrote: So look I can't find the million million worlds qote I seem to remember. maybe becuse its impossible to have the kind of manpower and material as is reported in the imperium with just 1 million worlds.i just thought that made sense l. If it's based on milky way galaxy then there are at least 100 billion planets. If the imperium is only a million worlds then it makes uup . 01% wich is way to small so like I said 40k dosent handle numbers well.
Considering Hive Worlds alone can reach into the high billions for population and there are often entire planets (and in some cases systems) dedicated to exclusively producing soldiers, not really. The general consensus is that the Imperium has at least one million worlds under its control but due to the nature of such a vast empire and the inadequacy of the Imperial bureaucracy, the real number is unknown and as such we could very well believe the Imperium could hold one billion worlds. That being said, what does and does not constitute a "world" is up in the air. Habitable planets sure but what about stations, moons, or asteroids? A solar system could have 100 colonised asteroids and stations but no actual planets.
But sure since you all like dus ex machina yes the imperial navy is the strongest faction.
It's not a Deus Ex Machina to say the Custodes as an organisation would beat the Imperial Guard purely because the Custodes have the ability to independently travel through space.
Also, the Imperial Navy isn't the strongest military arm within the Imperium because it has built-in redundancies to prevent it from being a huge deal if chunks of it turn rebel. Just like the Guard doesn't have ships, the Navy doesn't have the manpower to garrison bases and planets exclusively. They have security teams and breachers for potential ship-to-ship combat but they could not reliably hold a planet without outside assistance from local PDF or the Guard, which is entirely the point.
But always remember you banana boys would get stoped if you got out of line. And likely it would be the guard who did the majority of the stomping.
The Custodes are basically demi-Gods to Imperials. Whatever they say goes because they are the voice of the Emperor. If the Custodes marched out in force and declared all Space Marine Chapters to be heretics in need of purging, the Imperium would do it.
Slipspace wrote: Is there some sort of black hole in this thread that sucks the reading comprehension out of select people?
Nobody is disputing that, in a straight-up fight pitching every single Custode against the entirety of the Imperial Guard, the Custodes would lose. But that's not a remotely plausible scenario. As multiple people have pointed out, the entire point of the organisation of the Imperium's military units is to prevent individual elements becoming too powerful. That was the lesson of the Horus Heresy. So "the Imperial Guard" is a nonsensical way of viewing what the likely enemy would be in a fight between the Custodes and elements of the Imperial Guard. They'd be fighting a relatively small number of them (yes, they'd still be vastly outnumbered) but Space Marines and Custodes both have the advantage of coordinated fleet-based operation and would therefore have immediate strategic superiority over any rogue Imperial Guard regiment. I also wouldn't be surprised if vital intelligence regarding command structures and security details are accessible by the elements higher up the chain to facilitate dealing with potential rogue units.
Ok, then it's kind of a pointless discussion.
If the Lord Commander Militant and the head of the Custodes decided they had to throw down, with the weight of their organizational and political power behind them, I would still have my money on the LCM and not the head of the Custodes.
Boosykes wrote: 40k wiki: In the game universe, the Imperial Guard is a colossal military organisation consisting of roughly 500 trillion men and women supported by at least a few hundred billion Armoured vehicles each from thousands of different systems within the Imperium of Man
40k wiki: How many custodians are there 40k?
As a result of the inherent difficulty of their creation, the number of active Legio Custodes warriors has never, it is believed, exceeded 10,000.
So look I can't find the million million worlds qote I seem to remember. maybe becuse its impossible to have the kind of manpower and material as is reported in the imperium with just 1 million worlds.i just thought that made sense l. If it's based on milky way galaxy then there are at least 100 billion planets. If the imperium is only a million worlds then it makes uup . 01% wich is way to small so like I said 40k dosent handle numbers well.
Anyways from the wiki it looks like I was extramly conservative on number of guardsmen. And I doubled the custodian guards numbers. So ya. In a straight fight the custodians have no chance at all. Less than I originally thought.
But sure since you all like dus ex machina yes the imperial navy is the strongest faction.
But always remember you banana boys would get stoped if you got out of line. And likely it would be the guard who did the majority of the stomping.
A whole lot of words to sheepishly admit that the Custodes could easily defeat the entire Imperial Guard militarily because the latter are just a bunch of idiots sitting around in tanks waiting to be bombarded. I accept your concession.
If the Lord Commander Militant and the head of the Custodes decided they had to throw down, with the weight of their organizational and political power behind them, I would still have my money on the LCM and not the head of the Custodes.
In reality what would happen is the Lord Commander Militant would be assassinated and the plebeian rabble of the Guard would fall back into line (if not mutiny because to declare war with the Custodes is tantamount to declaring war on the Emperor himself, it would fracture the Imperial Guard between loyalists and traitors).
They wouldn't even need to crush them with the fleet that they actually have the the Guard don't. Though they could of course, the Guard as said being a bunch of guys sitting around in tanks waiting to be bombarded.
Gert wrote: The general consensus is that the Imperium has at least one million worlds under its control but due to the nature of such a vast empire and the inadequacy of the Imperial bureaucracy, the real number is unknown and as such we could very well believe the Imperium could hold one billion worlds.
Turning the given estimation of "a million worlds" into a three-orders-of-magnatude-more "billion" sure seems like a stretch.
The whole "Custards can take the ENTIRE guard" argument is one of the most asinine things I've ever seen.
Custards will steam-roll just about any standard formation, grouping, or planet of guard they're likely to see. This is 100% accurate. In any situation which is boils down to "Custards are putting down a rogue element of the guard" they win without issue.
But if we're talking some silliness of "the guard" as in the entire imperial guard.... Absolutely not.
In any sort of land-battle the custodes auto-lose. There are so many guardsmen that you could make a literal planet out of unequipped guardsmen (as in the planet is guardsmen, not just covered in them), plant all the custodes on it, and they'd eventually be crushed by the weight of guard corpses or drown in their blood. The custards could have a super-strong defensive position in which the entire imperial guard lays siege via running at them naked, and eventually the guardsmen will kill them with their bare hands; because it's 10,000 vs literally BILLIONS of dudes. You could plant the custards on a planet (not made of guardsmen) which is COVERED in guard and their kit, and the custards would instantly evaporate due to something like 500,000 basilisks, medusa, and death strikes opening fire on their starting position.
The fleet doesn't change this. Stepping away from the fact that the custards don't crew their own fleet, they have serfs / servators / ect to do that (putting it in very much a similar capacity to the Imperial Navy, meaning that the Guard should technically encompass the Navy, putting us in much the same situation as before)... There are so many guardsmen that they could be dumped into space, in kit or nude, and the custodes fleet would crash and burn due to the sheer mass of conglomerate corpses, or from the incalculable number of corpses clogging their engines causing the ships to be destroyed, or at least drift uselessly through space until everyone starves to death.
But stepping away from that.
Even if we take on the scenario of "Custards get their fleet and IG are jerking it planet side."... They will eventually run out of virus bombs, tac nukes, and various other elements required to glass planets. They will, eventually, run out of void-based weapons of sufficient capacity to cleanse planets. Thereby forcing them to eventually do it with boots on the grounds. In which case we simply run into the original scenarios again; where billions of screaming guardsmen gradually whittle away the pathetically small 10k custodes, even if it's across multiple theatres on multiple planets, and win.
And that's if we pretend that none of the planets in the entire imperium have any sort of planet-to-void defenses. In which case again, there are simply so many guardsmen crewing so many installations that the custards will, eventually, fall to attrition from taking small losses here and there as they roflstomp the guard.
And even that is if we ignore that 40k is a setting where it's established that ground-warefare is an essential part of taking / pacifying planets.
There is, again, a strength within numbers. Custodes are super strong and insanely powerful, but quantity does possess a quality all its own. And while there are many ways to mitigate that difference, nothing can be done when the orders of magnitude are so obscenely out of whack as 10k, vs hundreds of billions.
morganfreeman wrote: The whole "Custards can take the ENTIRE guard" argument is one of the most asinine things I've ever seen.
Custards will steam-roll just about any standard formation, grouping, or planet of guard they're likely to see. This is 100% accurate. In any situation which is boils down to "Custards are putting down a rogue element of the guard" they win without issue.
But if we're talking some silliness of "the guard" as in the entire imperial guard.... Absolutely not.
In any sort of land-battle the custodes auto-lose. There are so many guardsmen that you could make a literal planet out of unequipped guardsmen (as in the planet is guardsmen, not just covered in them), plant all the custodes on it, and they'd eventually be crushed by the weight of guard corpses or drown in their blood. The custards could have a super-strong defensive position in which the entire imperial guard lays siege via running at them naked, and eventually the guardsmen will kill them with their bare hands; because it's 10,000 vs literally BILLIONS of dudes. You could plant the custards on a planet (not made of guardsmen) which is COVERED in guard and their kit, and the custards would instantly evaporate due to something like 500,000 basilisks, medusa, and death strikes opening fire on their starting position.
The fleet doesn't change this. Stepping away from the fact that the custards don't crew their own fleet, they have serfs / servators / ect to do that (putting it in very much a similar capacity to the Imperial Navy, meaning that the Guard should technically encompass the Navy, putting us in much the same situation as before)... There are so many guardsmen that they could be dumped into space, in kit or nude, and the custodes fleet would crash and burn due to the sheer mass of conglomerate corpses, or from the incalculable number of corpses clogging their engines causing the ships to be destroyed, or at least drift uselessly through space until everyone starves to death.
But stepping away from that.
Even if we take on the scenario of "Custards get their fleet and IG are jerking it planet side."... They will eventually run out of virus bombs, tac nukes, and various other elements required to glass planets. They will, eventually, run out of void-based weapons of sufficient capacity to cleanse planets. Thereby forcing them to eventually do it with boots on the grounds. In which case we simply run into the original scenarios again; where billions of screaming guardsmen gradually whittle away the pathetically small 10k custodes, even if it's across multiple theatres on multiple planets, and win.
And that's if we pretend that none of the planets in the entire imperium have any sort of planet-to-void defenses. In which case again, there are simply so many guardsmen crewing so many installations that the custards will, eventually, fall to attrition from taking small losses here and there as they roflstomp the guard.
And even that is if we ignore that 40k is a setting where it's established that ground-warefare is an essential part of taking / pacifying planets.
There is, again, a strength within numbers. Custodes are super strong and insanely powerful, but quantity does possess a quality all its own. And while there are many ways to mitigate that difference, nothing can be done when the orders of magnitude are so obscenely out of whack as 10k, vs hundreds of billions.
Obviously the Custodes lose on the ground against the entire Guard, they would just never do that. This is some weird hypothetical where Guard is vs Custodes without outside factors. The Navy isn't a factor because they have an entirely separate command structure to the Guard, whereas the Custodes fleet is fully under their control and part of their organisation. Holding ground is also not really a consideration in such a stupid scenario, but if it was, the Guard win if the Custodes try.
Also, the idea you can throw corpses at an Imperial fleet to clog it up is laughable. There are a lot of Guardsmen, trillions probably, but space is enormous and that number would struggle to make a cloud between Earth and the moon, let alone something dense enough to affect kilometres-long ships around an entire planet. Orbital defenses do exist, but the planets with the strongest defenses are typically not self-sufficient in resources like food, so besieging them by blockading supply routes is an option.
Again, this scenario is very abstract- obviously there are tons of outside factors in the actual setting that would affect this, but the base scenario is outlandish to begin with.
The Guard are still more important than the Custodes to the integrity of the Imperium as a whole, they just rely on the Navy to do it (the Navy, in turn, relying on them).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Boosykes wrote: Exactly according to the wiki ther 450 trillion members of the guard. Same wiki says custodes have never broken 10k members.
Nuff said.
Any who this is looking off topic so I'm out after this.
Custodes eat your heart out.
Is this the Warhammer 40k wikia? I am not aware of any actual figures for the overall size of the Guard, although trillions is likely the correct ballpark. GW tends to be very imprecise with numbers to allow endless space for your own homebrew forces to slot in.
You’ll find nobody ever made such a claim, other than the self declared troll, desperate to conflate and confuse issues.
His bizarre ranting, done for reasons entirely known to himself, was in reaction to me illustrating the deliberate internal hierarchy of Imperial forces, where every step up the tier is intentionally able of putting down the tier below it, should it prove a rogue element in need of putting down.
And that includes how they’re organised as military forces. PDF are, without Inquisitorial recruitment, stuck on their planets, having no fleet of any description.
Imperial Guard enjoy better training and materiel than the PDF. Whilst some regiments may have dedicated Mass Conveyer transports to shift them from planet to planet, the Guard itself has no Naval forces as such, certainly none intended for combat.
The Navy is the opposite. Bondsman and Ratings for defence against boarding actions, but nothing you can really rely on planetside. Certainly no tanks or artillery.
Arbites are orders of magnitude better armed and equipped than the PDF, their role should the worst happen being to survive should they not be able to put down a rebellion or uprising, holding out in their Fortress Precincts. Buildings the PDF most deliberately lack the specialised equipment, training and knowledge to crack, outside of external support. So when other wings of the imperium arrive, there’s still a fixed Imperial Presence planetside.
SoB are of course very well equipped, and are something of a wildcard. Any planet with an Abbey etc has some pretty reliably loyal troops to again slap down renegade PDF and even renegade Guard.
Astartes are next up. No matter who or what went rogue? The Astartes can face it and defeat it. They’re particularly adept, tactics wise, at wrecking enemy command structure. Any sufficiently hierarchal organisation (such as….the Imperial Guard) are vulnerable to exactly that sort of headshot
Ad Mech, like SoB are another wildcad. Typically they’ve no particularly vested interest in non-Forgeworld planets, or Mechanicus aligned Knight Worlds. But their forces are such they can walk over PDF and IG assets. And like everyone from SoB level and up, have their own fleet assets. But, without the promise of some technological relic, unlikely to get involved in putting down rebellion on a random Imperial World.
Custodes are of course the pinnacle of this Pyramid. I’m not even sure the High Lords of Terra can order them to do anything. Ask, sure. But not outright order, because that’s not their duty. If memory serves, and I’m not confusing things, Guilliman only got them out and about because The Emperor told them to. And they’re the ones you might want should any renegade Astartes surface. They’re also pretty deft at taking out rogue elements of the IG, and even, arguably, SoBshould the need arise.
Nobody, except Trollboy, claimed anything to the contrary in terms of scale of conflict.
Who and what the High Lords command is very much an individual issue when it comes to certain organisations. Those with independence from the wider Imperial command structure (Custodes, Astartes and certain Knight Houses) can be commanded, requested or bartered with for aid in a given theatre.
Excluding the role of the Captain-General as a High Lord, the Custodes (prior to the opening of the Rift) weren't ever actually asked for anything. They did what they wanted, when they wanted. Even during the War of the Beast the High Lords were very hesitant to even request an audience, let alone aid in the conflict and it was only after the Beheading that the Lord Commander, Dragan Vangorich, asked the Captain-General to take a seat on the council.
For the Astartes, it depends on who is asking and which Chapter is being asked. A recently founded Chapter looking to attain glory would likely readily accept a command from the High Lords, whereas a Chapter of note such as the Howling Griffons or Iron Snakes might respond to a request for aid. Generally speaking, the High Lords don't really need to command the Astartes to do things anyway. The point of the Astartes is to go about smashing the enemies of mankind and they're rarely found to just stick to a single system or campaign. Most importantly, the High Lords have tested the independence of the Astartes before and it has bitten them many times when they've pushed too hard to get the Astartes more centralised.
For Knight Houses its all about honour, pacts and debts. A Knight House that swore an oath to Guilliman in the Heresy to defend the far reaches of Ultima Segmentum isn't going to break their oath to Crusade in Segmentum Obscurus, not unless they also had a debt to pay to the individual who contacted them and even then it could be judged that a single Knight is all that requires the debt to be paid.
Obviously the Custodes lose on the ground against the entire Guard, they would just never do that. This is some weird hypothetical where Guard is vs Custodes without outside factors. The Navy isn't a factor because they have an entirely separate command structure to the Guard, whereas the Custodes fleet is fully under their control and part of their organisation. Holding ground is also not really a consideration in such a stupid scenario, but if it was, the Guard win if the Custodes try.
Also, the idea you can throw corpses at an Imperial fleet to clog it up is laughable. There are a lot of Guardsmen, trillions probably, but space is enormous and that number would struggle to make a cloud between Earth and the moon, let alone something dense enough to affect kilometres-long ships around an entire planet. Orbital defenses do exist, but the planets with the strongest defenses are typically not self-sufficient in resources like food, so besieging them by blockading supply routes is an option.
Again, this scenario is very abstract- obviously there are tons of outside factors in the actual setting that would affect this, but the base scenario is outlandish to begin with.
The Guard are still more important than the Custodes to the integrity of the Imperium as a whole, they just rely on the Navy to do it (the Navy, in turn, relying on them).
The entire custards vs the entire guard (a frankly silly comparison, yet one people are making here) always results in the custards being genocided. There is no combat-scenario (of any type) where this goes well for the banana-boys. With singular exception of weird scenarios where the custards are still fully supported by "outside factors" but the entire imperial guard is, for whatever bizarre reason, not.
This basically boils down to the ship ammunition argument.
In the scenario of the custards being entirely on their own they eventually run out of exterminatus-class weaponry and have to turn their campaign into boots-on-the-ground. If they lose so much as 1 custard per planet (a pretty generous estimate for them tbh, considering each planet would easily have a million + guard), they're fully wiped out before they even make a dent in the IG numbers.
In the scenario of the custards being replenished and resupplied (which means that it's not guard vs custards; it's guard vs custards + mechanicus + navy) the custards still lose. Even the most sedentary agri planet has void defenses in the form of a handful of defense platforms and non-navy planet-bound ships in the same way that they all have PDF; they need to be able to defend themselves against minor threats / have a hope of holding out against larger ones. So the guard are again massacred in individual engagements, but the custards eventually lose to the pure attrition of minor losses before they've have a noticeable impact on the guard's numbers.
Custards don't even win if they sit back for a few thousand years to let old age and famine do the work for them. Guardsmen are unisex and drawn from all walks of life across a million worlds. While some planets would be entirely incapable of sustaining life without outside intervention there are hundreds of thousands which are not. Meaning that even a bunch of naked guardsmen dropped across bunches of planets will eventually colonize said planets, reach space-worthy levels of tech, and take the fight to custodes where they eventually win from attrition. There's an argument to be made for the IG getting wiped out over time via psykers being born and all that gak, but in that case it's not guard vs custards it's guard vs custards + demons.
Custards can win in situations like taking every guardsmen, packing them shoulder to shoulder on as few planets as possible, and then giving the custards a hack for unlimited exterminatus ammo. Or where the entire guard is stripped of any form of fighting capability other than bare fists, but the custards are allowed to take as long as they want and able to fully replenish any losses whilst the guardsmen are rooted in place and incapable of moving or acting until the custards enter orbit.
While the entire concept is silly and weird to begin with, the custards only beat the entirety of the guard in truly farcical situations.
Arbites are orders of magnitude better armed and equipped than the PDF, their role should the worst happen being to survive should they not be able to put down a rebellion or uprising, holding out in their Fortress Precincts. Buildings the PDF most deliberately lack the specialised equipment, training and knowledge to crack, outside of external support. So when other wings of the imperium arrive, there’s still a fixed Imperial Presence planetside.
Do you have a source for this? To my knowledge the PDF varies greatly depending on the world, but they're still often rolling out on IG-style equipment (possibly not the best of it, but still LOTS of tanks, artillery, etc.), not to mention they'd be the ones in charge of any planetary and orbital defenses. Although I can imagine the Arbites being well armed and armored, claiming that they're an "order of magnitude" more advanced seems incorrect, especially when it's noted that the PDF can vary so greatly from world to world. The lexicanum article on the PDF even mentions Stormtroopers and Carapace Armor as being available among the more advanced PDF forces. I'd wager that there are many worlds where the Arbites are far outgunned and outnumbered by the PDF, and that (should it choose), the PDF would roll over them.
In fact it probably happens a lot in cases where a PDF turns heretic/traitor, and the Arbites get stuck making last-stands in their citadels, under siege of PDF artillery and whatnot.
Ad Mech, like SoB are another wildcad. Typically they’ve no particularly vested interest in non-Forgeworld planets, or Mechanicus aligned Knight Worlds. But their forces are such they can walk over PDF and IG assets. And like everyone from SoB level and up, have their own fleet assets. But, without the promise of some technological relic, unlikely to get involved in putting down rebellion on a random Imperial World.
Custodes are of course the pinnacle of this Pyramid. . .
I would also imagine that the Custodes tread a little carefully around the Adeptus Mechanicus. They're Imperial in loyalty, sure, but they're sorta adjacent to it with their own religion, hierarchies, motivations etc. And they're very, very big, very, very powerful, and very, very critical to the Imperium in ways that many of the other "branches" are not. I believe that they're also completely independent of the other branches in terms of their military logistics as well. They don't need the Navy to get around, they don't need the Guard to fight ground battles, etc.
Compared to average PDF, who are basically somewhere between guard conscripts and chaos cultists in training and equipment, that's a fair comparison.
But yes, every governor is at liberty to equip their PDF and SDF to whatever standards they see fit and can afford providing it contains no warp capable vessels.
The cadian internal guard was indistinguishable from the cadian guard regiments.
The macragge defence auxiliaries are astartes-trained grenadiers organised at subsector not planetary level.
There will be PDF that look like stormtroopers and PDF that look like skitarii. There's no real rule.
I find it odd that someone suggested that Custodes would be called in IF another SM chapter were to "Go rogue". This is untrue.
First, that specific task would fall to the Minotaurs, who were literally designed with the purpose of engaging and destroying other chapters of Space Marines, if they were to go "rogue".
Otherwise, The officio Assasinorum would likely be tasked with executing the traitors. Which was the entire plot line of the Custodes recent book. The minotaurs are called to Terra because the high lords fear a rebellion by Guilliman's new crusade force. Thus is sown the first seeds of heretical/traitorous planning. By the time the Custodes FINALLY got involved, the Grandmaster of Assassins has already put Vindicaire and a few Culexus in place, to effectively kill the entire thing before it gets out of hand. Surprisingly, it's the church, AGAIN, creating traitors on Terra. And no one goes, "Hey, every time wot we got a rebellion 'ere, it's dem prayer boys. I says we go up there and kill the whole lot."
Dumbest ending to a book, ever. They should have done a massive purge of the entire church. But no.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I find it odd that someone suggested that Custodes would be called in IF another SM chapter were to "Go rogue". This is untrue.
First, that specific task would fall to the Minotaurs, who were literally designed with the purpose of engaging and destroying other chapters of Space Marines, if they were to go "rogue".
Otherwise, The officio Assasinorum would likely be tasked with executing the traitors. Which was the entire plot line of the Custodes recent book. The minotaurs are called to Terra because the high lords fear a rebellion by Guilliman's new crusade force. Thus is sown the first seeds of heretical/traitorous planning. By the time the Custodes FINALLY got involved, the Grandmaster of Assassins has already put Vindicaire and a few Culexus in place, to effectively kill the entire thing before it gets out of hand. Surprisingly, it's the church, AGAIN, creating traitors on Terra. And no one goes, "Hey, every time wot we got a rebellion 'ere, it's dem prayer boys. I says we go up there and kill the whole lot."
Dumbest ending to a book, ever. They should have done a massive purge of the entire church. But no.
Cmon Fezzik did you really read the book or just some excerpts on reddit? You need to properly read the book.
*SPOILER WARNING* Old man Trajann Valoris orchestrated that whole thing as a setup to root out the traitorous elements within the high lords. You make it sound like the custodes couldn't get of their asses when they actually planned the whole thing with Guilliman and the grandmaster of the assassins.
And why don't they just purge the ecclesiarchy? (which is not what regents shadow is about btw) Because it is a useful tool. This is even addressed by Colquan in the book gate of bones, who is probably the angriest Custodes character ever.
Another Custodes in the book is annoyed by the ecclesiarchy and their fanatical followers for reasons I won't spoil and Colquan tells him that he basically needs to understand that they are useful....for now.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I find it odd that someone suggested that Custodes would be called in IF another SM chapter were to "Go rogue". This is untrue.
Technically you are correct at this point. The High Lords often use other Chapters to purge renegade or traitor Chapters by framing them as a stain on the honour of all Chapters.
First, that specific task would fall to the Minotaurs, who were literally designed with the purpose of engaging and destroying other chapters of Space Marines, if they were to go "rogue".
That is not confirmed. They are the attack dogs of the High Lords but they are not explicitly "designed" to wipe out other Chapters, in fact, they've never actually done the deed. They came close with the Inceptors and Lamenters but they failed to destroy much of the Night Reapers. In fact the Pentarchy of Blood (Carcharadons, Charnel Guard, Death Eagles, Flesh Eaters and Red Talons) did destroy 11 Chapters during the War of the False Primarch so one could say the Carcharadons hold a better position of Chapter killers than the Minotaurs.
Otherwise, The officio Assasinorum would likely be tasked with executing the traitors. Which was the entire plot line of the Custodes recent book. The minotaurs are called to Terra because the high lords fear a rebellion by Guilliman's new crusade force. Thus is sown the first seeds of heretical/traitorous planning. By the time the Custodes FINALLY got involved, the Grandmaster of Assassins has already put Vindicaire and a few Culexus in place, to effectively kill the entire thing before it gets out of hand. Surprisingly, it's the church, AGAIN, creating traitors on Terra. And no one goes, "Hey, every time wot we got a rebellion 'ere, it's dem prayer boys. I says we go up there and kill the whole lot."
Dumbest ending to a book, ever. They should have done a massive purge of the entire church. But no.
Yeah, that's not what happens at all.
A group of High Lords helps destabilise Terra by secretly funding Cults and dissident groups. These Lords (known as the Hexarchy) intended to end Guilliman's reforms and ensure the "Static Tendency" (the idea that the Imperium was fine the way it was and would keep being fine without reform) would endure. Their leader was the deposed Master of the Administratum and he used his rank to command the Minotaurs to aid the Hexarchy. The Minotaurs saw the Hexarchy as High Lords, and as such took orders from them. When the Hexarchy were revealed as traitors and the new Master of the Administratum showed up, the Minotaurs left Terra because they had been ordered to do so by the High Lords.
As for the Custodes, they didn't need to intervene because the Grand Master of the Assassins and Valoris were in on the plan. Valerian wasn't and he (among others) found out about the conspiracy anyway. Either way those loyal to Guilliman, and therefore the Emperor, would come out on top.
The Ecclesiarchy on the other hand is a different matter. Guilliman hates it and can't get rid of it, and neither can the Custodes. Removing the ruling faction of the Ecclesiarchy just means another one takes its place and enacting a galaxy-wide purge is a laughable task. To fully eradicate religion in humanity, they'd have to wipe out humanity. As Life of Brian goes:
PDF are definitely very variable, although the suggestion from existing lore is that the majority of planets struggle to generate a PDF where the quality uniformly meets that of the Guard minimum standard- most planets tithe their best formations to the Guard, with substandard troop tithes treated as a punishable offence for planetary governors. This is certainly not universal and the PDF on some planets is far better equipped than standard Guard formations (these units would not necessarily make good Guard units, as resupply is likely to be very poor for exotic equipment). I suspect Necromunda is an example of the latter, and I am hoping this will be confirmed in the near future with models for the Spiders.
Arbites would therefore be better equipped than PDFs on most planets, but not all.
Obviously the Custodes lose on the ground against the entire Guard, they would just never do that. This is some weird hypothetical where Guard is vs Custodes without outside factors. The Navy isn't a factor because they have an entirely separate command structure to the Guard, whereas the Custodes fleet is fully under their control and part of their organisation. Holding ground is also not really a consideration in such a stupid scenario, but if it was, the Guard win if the Custodes try.
Also, the idea you can throw corpses at an Imperial fleet to clog it up is laughable. There are a lot of Guardsmen, trillions probably, but space is enormous and that number would struggle to make a cloud between Earth and the moon, let alone something dense enough to affect kilometres-long ships around an entire planet. Orbital defenses do exist, but the planets with the strongest defenses are typically not self-sufficient in resources like food, so besieging them by blockading supply routes is an option.
Again, this scenario is very abstract- obviously there are tons of outside factors in the actual setting that would affect this, but the base scenario is outlandish to begin with.
The Guard are still more important than the Custodes to the integrity of the Imperium as a whole, they just rely on the Navy to do it (the Navy, in turn, relying on them).
The entire custards vs the entire guard (a frankly silly comparison, yet one people are making here) always results in the custards being genocided. There is no combat-scenario (of any type) where this goes well for the banana-boys. With singular exception of weird scenarios where the custards are still fully supported by "outside factors" but the entire imperial guard is, for whatever bizarre reason, not.
This basically boils down to the ship ammunition argument.
In the scenario of the custards being entirely on their own they eventually run out of exterminatus-class weaponry and have to turn their campaign into boots-on-the-ground. If they lose so much as 1 custard per planet (a pretty generous estimate for them tbh, considering each planet would easily have a million + guard), they're fully wiped out before they even make a dent in the IG numbers.
In the scenario of the custards being replenished and resupplied (which means that it's not guard vs custards; it's guard vs custards + mechanicus + navy) the custards still lose. Even the most sedentary agri planet has void defenses in the form of a handful of defense platforms and non-navy planet-bound ships in the same way that they all have PDF; they need to be able to defend themselves against minor threats / have a hope of holding out against larger ones. So the guard are again massacred in individual engagements, but the custards eventually lose to the pure attrition of minor losses before they've have a noticeable impact on the guard's numbers.
Custards don't even win if they sit back for a few thousand years to let old age and famine do the work for them. Guardsmen are unisex and drawn from all walks of life across a million worlds. While some planets would be entirely incapable of sustaining life without outside intervention there are hundreds of thousands which are not. Meaning that even a bunch of naked guardsmen dropped across bunches of planets will eventually colonize said planets, reach space-worthy levels of tech, and take the fight to custodes where they eventually win from attrition. There's an argument to be made for the IG getting wiped out over time via psykers being born and all that gak, but in that case it's not guard vs custards it's guard vs custards + demons.
Custards can win in situations like taking every guardsmen, packing them shoulder to shoulder on as few planets as possible, and then giving the custards a hack for unlimited exterminatus ammo. Or where the entire guard is stripped of any form of fighting capability other than bare fists, but the custards are allowed to take as long as they want and able to fully replenish any losses whilst the guardsmen are rooted in place and incapable of moving or acting until the custards enter orbit.
While the entire concept is silly and weird to begin with, the custards only beat the entirety of the guard in truly farcical situations.
This is fair. Lack of ammunition would likely make for a stalemate after a number of planets.
Yeah the PDF is just whatever local military forces are present. Could be some peasant levy with halberds and crossbows or it could be Carapace armoured cyborgs with high powered lasers. Obviously the more culturally "advanced" (i.e. planets with an ability to manage space flight) are a lot more similar and have more professional formations that are similar to untested Guard Regiments. The Vervun Primary or North Col forces had Las weapons and vehicles like Chimeras, for example. A career in these organisations was also considered just as honourable as one in the Imperial Guard, even if certain officers had problems with actual Guard soldiers and officers when they showed up to defend Vervunhive.
And why don't they just purge the ecclesiarchy? (which is not what regents shadow is about btw) Because it is a useful tool. This is even addressed by Colquan in the book gate of bones, who is probably the angriest Custodes character ever.
Another Custodes in the book is annoyed by the ecclesiarchy and their fanatical followers for reasons I won't spoil and Colquan tells him that he basically needs to understand that they are useful....for now.
Faith in the Emperor as god has its uses and advantages. That was something shown in Gate of Bones by:
Spoiler:
The Custodes captain's deathblow against the Dark Apostle Kar-Gatharr (who is infused with Chaos and more like a Greater Possessed) is stopped by supernatural means/wards and the faithless Custodes is unable to drive his blade home. He is killed. Then 2 Sisters of Battle fire their bolters and they pierce the Dark Apostle's supernatural wards and kill him. There was no flashy special effects, just the bolts flying without being stopped. It is possible this is a miracle of the Emperor (or Act of Faith if you want to look at it in rules terms).
The powers of faith have objective greater efficacy against Chaos in the 40k universe. Whether it comes from latent unconscious psychic power or intervention by the Emperor as warp god, it is something that the Sisters of Battle and the Ecclesiarchy (as shown by the example of Militant-Apostolic Mathieu in Godblight) have access to, that the Custodes don't.
