How do!

So here’s a proper chin wag type thread, dealing with what-ifs.

As we know, Terra is the seat of The Imperium. It’s where The Emperor lives. It’s where the High Lords rule from. Not only is it the most heavily defended planet within The Imperium (and therefore likely, but not definitely) the most heavily defended planet in the known Galaxy.

It’s the lynchpin that if you want to defeat The Imperium, sooner or later you need to conquer Terra - and indeed the Sol System.

Horus of course came perilously close, with forces from the absolute apex of mankind’s might. Even outnumbering the defenders, Terra still managed to stand, albeit at horrific and permanent cost. But before anyone thinks “just bide your time and assemble a force of similar size”, keep in mind that the Heresy really didn’t last all that long in the grand scheme of things. And had things not gone a bit wrong for Horus, would’ve been even shorter. But since then? The Imperium has had 10,000 years to rebuild and reinforce.

So even if a directly comparable in terms of numbers force attacked, it wouldn’t be a simple repeat of the Siege of Terra.

There are also other factors which limit how much weight I think we can put on a direct Heresy vs Now comparison. Not least of which is Mars isn’t currently in Traitorous hands.

But let’s say someone tried it? Do you think anyone really has the resources and organisation to pull it off. If so, how? What are your counter arguments? Would it only ever be a pyrrhic victory?

All those questions and more can be explored……now.

It can only ever be a pyrrhic victory if whoever is attacking Terra kills the Emperor. Upon his death, the Golden Throne goes nuclear and a colossal Warp Rift opens in the Sol System with the centre being where Terra was. Any fleets and armies are stripped from existence, their souls the first morsels for the brand new God that emerges from the cataclysm.

Apart from that, I'm sure some faction could do it. It just hinges entirely on that faction being utterly united in the goal, which as we all know doesn't happen very much for very long.

Only if you’ve committed your entire force though?

One example against it that immediately springs to mind would be a Hive Fleet. Yes it would remove any remnant of said Hive Fleet from the board - but that wouldn’t mean others aren’t left lurking, meaning the victory wasn’t pyrrhic for the Hive Mind?

Yes of course - as witnessed by the numerous civil wars overt and covert amongst the high lords.

Winner gets to be new regent/high lords. Or do you mean alien race, or human faction that doesn't want to have the Emperor still in place?

Who actually wants to take Terra though?

Most of humanity's adversaries would be happy enough with either glassing it or making Sol go nova.

Orks would enjoy the fight, but it would need to be an awfully big waaaargh.

Nids might want the extensive snacky cakes enough to invade.

Fair point!

The latter.

No. It's a fortress world filled with the Imperium's most fanatical loyalists and it has no value other than those fanatics. A conquering enemy would get nothing of direct value. No resources, no infrastructure, no slave population, only a bunch of useless temples and city-sized office buildings that would probably be reduced to rubble anyway as every inhabitant fights to the death. Its sole value to the attacker would be denying it to the Imperium and that can be accomplished without conquering it. Destroy the planet from space, move on to the next target.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gert wrote:
It can only ever be a pyrrhic victory if whoever is attacking Terra kills the Emperor. Upon his death, the Golden Throne goes nuclear and a colossal Warp Rift opens in the Sol System with the centre being where Terra was. Any fleets and armies are stripped from existence, their souls the first morsels for the brand new God that emerges from the cataclysm.

Apart from that, I'm sure some faction could do it. It just hinges entirely on that faction being utterly united in the goal, which as we all know doesn't happen very much for very long.

Assuming that theory is correct.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Only if you’ve committed your entire force though?

One example against it that immediately springs to mind would be a Hive Fleet. Yes it would remove any remnant of said Hive Fleet from the board - but that wouldn’t mean others aren’t left lurking, meaning the victory wasn’t pyrrhic for the Hive Mind?

It depends I would say. The size of the Hive Fleet required to take the Sol System would be immense and the losses would be massive. The Hive Mind would likely destroy the Emperor, at which point all the Biomass that was in the Sol System gets destroyed when reality and unreality collide.
Other Hive Fleets would survive for sure but the lack of feeding and the resulting psychic backlash might do serious damage to other Hive Fleets elsewhere in the Galaxy. We also then have to look at the end result of such an invasion. The Emperor is "dead" for reals this time (barring ascension to actual godhood) and what happens then? Does humanity struggle on or go collectively insane and embark on one last galaxy-wide murder spree to get revenge? Do the Dark Gods massively increase in power at the death of billions of souls instantaneously alongside the death of their great enemy? The Great Rift would undoubtedly be effected in some way as well either expanding or shrinking away from Terra.
I think any way this gets cut it's a net loss for the Imperium and whoever/whatever it was that invaded Terra.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Assuming that theory is correct.

The device built into the Golden Throne isn't a theory though. The god stuff is theory sure but the massive psychic explosion? That's all fact.

I mean, you have 2-3 legions of Astartes, (Iron Fists, Minotaurs, and the Crimson Fists?) not to mention the entire 10k Custodes, Sisters of Silence, Sisters of Battle convents, several legions of Ad-Mech with Titans ranging from Imperators, to the super secret Psyker Titans, Oh, about a billion Guard and PDF, and entire three battle groups of Naval might, and the small number of GK living over on Titan, not to mention the stuff in and around Mars.

But yeah, any force capable of getting through all of that and then actually killing the Emperor would likely then be annihilated by the legions of demons pouring into real space, currently being held back by the Golden Throne. I mean, in the Custodes book, the Astronomicon goes dark for like a few days, and the entire planet is infested with Blood thirsters and Blood letters.

Yeah, didn't the last great WAAAH make it onto terra? Also, the Halequins made it into the throne room. Thats about as close as anyone has come in the last 10k years right?

There are actually only two proper "garrisons" of Astartes on Terra.
The first is the Imperial Fists aboard the Phalanx, nominally the 3rd Company known as the Sentinels of Terra. However, they aren't actually on permanent assignment as the Phalanx is still the flagship and Fortress Monastery of the Chapter.
The second is the honour guard of Space Wolves assigned to protect the scions of the Navigator House Belisarius.
Many Guard Regiments, half of the Legio Custodes, the Convent Prioris of the Sororitas, Knights from House Taranis, two Warhounds from the Legio Ignatum, and the various militant forces of Imperial offices of the Inquisition or Assasinorum are present, however.

The Orks made it to Terra because the Imperium had decided to stop being militant for a given time. Fleets were left to decay and resources weren't dedicated to mass expansions of the Guard, Navy, or Astartes. The Imperium suffered because the High Lords became more concerned with political ambitions and personal gain than expanding or even defending the Imperium in any major capacity. The bottom line was upheld and that was good enough for the High Lords.
As for the Troupe of Harlequins, they cheated and used magic portals.

 Gert wrote:

It depends I would say. The size of the Hive Fleet required to take the Sol System would be immense and the losses would be massive. The Hive Mind would likely destroy the Emperor, at which point all the Biomass that was in the Sol System gets destroyed when reality and unreality collide.

Not necessarily, we know sufficiently strong (Hive Fleet Kronos) shadow in the warp can beat the warp out of realspace, so a Hive Fleet large enough to take the Sol System can probably beat the resulting warp rift into submission too.

And that's assuming the Tyranids do not also drain the Emperor in the process like the Doom of Malant'ai did to an Eldar Infinity Circuit.

EDIT: [Nevermind, just a repeat of what has been said above. Should've read the whole thread.]

Yeah seems like both the Tyranids and the Necrons have ways of severely mitigating the event of a psychic blast. Though I don't know when the Golden Throne became a giant psyker bomb.

It's safe to say that even in a "huge warp blast" that both the Necrons and Tyranids would have tremendous amounts of remaining assets. Tyranids in particular are still arriving from outside the galaxy. Orks fall into a similar category of being so numerous and so quick-to-reproduce that they'd still be around in force.

 Tyran wrote:
Not necessarily, we know sufficiently strong (Hive Fleet Kronos) shadow in the warp can beat the warp out of realspace, so a Hive Fleet large enough to take the Sol System can probably beat the resulting warp rift into submission too.

And that's assuming the Tyranids do not also drain the Emperor in the process like the Doom of Malant'ai did to an Eldar Infinity Circuit.

The issue with this scenario is that power levels depend on what source you're looking at.
If we take the first issue of the Emperor, how powerful is he post-Heresy? At first, it just seemed that he could telepathically communicate with humans but at the end of the Plague Wars, he directly intervenes in reality by damaging Nurgles Cauldron and the Garden of Nurgle by empowering a Militant-Apostle and Guilliman. It is also that same Apostle's belief that the Great Rift is actually empowering the Emperor, just as it is causing the mass awakening of Psychic individuals across the galaxy. It opens up a lot more questions as to just how powerful the Emperor has become since he was interred into the Throne.
But what about the Tyranids? How strong is the Shadow in the Warp? Can the Hive Mind reproduce the Doom of Malant'ai or was it a one-off thing?
The only thing that is 100% a sure thing is that if the Emperor dies, Terra gets destroyed. The Talisman of Seven Hammers is a dead man's switch designed to deny the Throneworld to Horus if he succeeded during the Heresy. What would happen now after 10k years of Psychic buildup on the Emperor's part is guesswork but its unlikely to be very nice for anyone in the immediate vicinity i.e. Sol.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

It’s the lynchpin that if you want to defeat The Imperium, sooner or later you need to conquer Terra - and indeed the Sol System.

The real thing is that you don't need to defeat Terra by invading it. If you simply barricaded it off in proper siege-like fashion, it'd be in real trouble. To my knowledge Terra has to rely on outside supply for food, and it's got population in the hundreds of billions? Things will get dire soon.

But say they can solve the food problem (through some horrible means, most likely). What happens if the Black Ships can't continuously refresh the Golden Throne/Astronomicon with fresh psykers? The astronomicon fails? The Emperor dies of psychic starvation? It doesn't look good.

 Gert wrote:

The issue with this scenario is that power levels depend on what source you're looking at.
If we take the first issue of the Emperor, how powerful is he post-Heresy? At first, it just seemed that he could telepathically communicate with humans but at the end of the Plague Wars, he directly intervenes in reality by damaging Nurgles Cauldron and the Garden of Nurgle by empowering a Militant-Apostle and Guilliman. It is also that same Apostle's belief that the Great Rift is actually empowering the Emperor, just as it is causing the mass awakening of Psychic individuals across the galaxy. It opens up a lot more questions as to just how powerful the Emperor has become since he was interred into the Throne.

To quote Vegetta: power levels are bs.

As you noted they are inconsistent depending on the source, so you could justify whatever you want according to what narrative you want to sell.

But what about the Tyranids? How strong is the Shadow in the Warp? Can the Hive Mind reproduce the Doom of Malant'ai or was it a one-off thing?

The Shadow in the Warp is an engineered effect, so its strength depends on the resources and designs of the Hive Mind. A greater and denser synaptic web means a more powerful Shadow, moreover Tyranids are able to trade reach for potency by concentrating and focusing it, which has proven effective when fighting warp spawned entities like Daemons.

As for reproducing the Doom of Malant'ai, that's the whole point of the Neurothrope.

 Tyran wrote:

As for reproducing the Doom of Malant'ai, that's the whole point of the Neurothrope.

That was my feeling of the Neurothrope too, but how explicit is that? I'll have to fetch my book. . .

Doom of Malant’ai May still be out there though. After all, to determine what Nids were responsible you either need to survive, or find specific evidence like a dead Craftworld.

No point attacking terra, it would be a victory just to decimate the rest of the imperium and let humans retreat back into their fortress and eat themselves.

But for the question in hand, and assuming that there isn’t a deadman’s trigger the. I don’t see why not, if you can get close enough to terra surely some virus bombs would do the job. The outer defences in the solar system are to prevent anyone getting that close and the only ones that did were Horus’s lot and they wanted to take terra not destroy it.

But 40K has plenty of planet killer weapons that don’t require boots on the ground.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

It’s the lynchpin that if you want to defeat The Imperium, sooner or later you need to conquer Terra - and indeed the Sol System.

This is extremely not true. Terra has been so thoroughly depleted of natural resources that it is completely dependent upon the rest of the galaxy for resources. It was in fact Abaddon's plan after he expanded the rift in he galaxy and made Warp travel even more perilous to close down all the major places the Imperium could send ships to the wider Imperium so that he could then slowly starve Terra out and let it die a slow death. This is detailed in the first Watchers of the Throne novel, The Emperor's Legion.

Thing is…who has the resources to create an effective embargo? Sure the Rift will Be having an impact, but how do you stop the other half of The Imperium supplying Terra?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thing is…who has the resources to create an effective embargo? Sure the Rift will Be having an impact, but how do you stop the other half of The Imperium supplying Terra?

By killing the transports in local space. Wherever they're coming from the supplies eventually have to get to Terra and if there's a blockade force in orbit the transports are going to take horrific losses trying to get through. And yeah, with enough support you can break the blockade, but at what cost? How many other planets will have to be stripped of their defenses and sacrificed to keep those supply lines open?

It's probably not worth it though, except as deliberate bait to draw in those forces. Destroy the local defense fleet, send a sacrificial force to destroy the planet. Tau/Necrons/etc could even use a drone-operated planet killer so that no actual lives are lost when the self destruct activates.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thing is…who has the resources to create an effective embargo? Sure the Rift will Be having an impact, but how do you stop the other half of The Imperium supplying Terra?

Tyranids for sure, if they decided to make it a mission. Their fleets are huge, and the sort of territory they can cover at once is incredibly vast. Their warp shadow phenomena also aids in making their territorry harder to navigate in, partially by just driving atropaths and navigators insane.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thing is…who has the resources to create an effective embargo? Sure the Rift will Be having an impact, but how do you stop the other half of The Imperium supplying Terra?

By killing the transports in local space. Wherever they're coming from the supplies eventually have to get to Terra and if there's a blockade force in orbit the transports are going to take horrific losses trying to get through. And yeah, with enough support you can break the blockade, but at what cost? How many other planets will have to be stripped of their defenses and sacrificed to keep those supply lines open?

It's probably not worth it though, except as deliberate bait to draw in those forces. Destroy the local defense fleet, send a sacrificial force to destroy the planet. Tau/Necrons/etc could even use a drone-operated planet killer so that no actual lives are lost when the self destruct activates.

Well, the trouble there is how do you maintain your blockade (that’s the word I should’ve used, not embargo). The Madeville points are relatively set. And the Sol System is hardly short on ships. Whilst I don’t think we can be certain, I’d argue it would make sense they’re not exactly untested in battle.

Yes diverting further forces to relieve Terra would by a comital of finite forces - however vast they might be. But this is Terra. It’s still gonna take a lot of your own resources to get the blockade in place, so you yourself may be left unable to take advantage of reduced defences elsewhere.

Why would one want to conquer Terra? The implication is that if the Imperium's capital falls and the Emperor dies, something happens.

But what? All those humans don't just disappear.

The question also raises scores of other questions, like how did the assault force get there? Where did it come from? What happened to all the Imperial forces in the way?

The answers to those questions will determine the answer to the OP. If a power had risen that wiped out every Imperial battlefleet and battle barge, then Terra would be small beans.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And the Sol System is hardly short on ships. Whilst I don’t think we can be certain, I’d argue it would make sense they’re not exactly untested in battle.

The assumption in any scenario is that the invasion force is capable of destroying the defending fleet. If you can't even manage that you have zero chance of a successful attack.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Why would one want to conquer Terra? The implication is that if the Imperium's capital falls and the Emperor dies, something happens.

But what? All those humans don't just disappear.

All the humans don't dissapear, true. But interstellar navigation becomes a lot harder because the astronomicon is lost. Humans have a rough go of it in that case.

Honest curiosity question: If the Nids are this big terrible threat to all life and matter, why hasn't anyone but the Imperium actually been scared of them? The demon wave in Dev of Baal didn't seem particularly threatened or even annoyed by the hive fleet. Something the size of the Shadow in the Warp would surely have attracted the attention of one of the fallen primarchs, if not Abbadon directly. Also, the Orks, ever looking for a strong and worthy fight, seem bored by the Nids. Even the Necrons don't seem to care.

Are the hive fleets really as big and bad as the imperial fears let on? If the Necrons, who have the power to literally delete stars, aren't bothered by them, why is Humanity?

All of that is nonsense. The Orks literally had a temporary heaven where they went and fought Leviathan at Octarius. The Imperium has cancelled entire wars against other species because of the Tyranids. And most of all the Silent King returned to the galaxy to lead the Necrons because he found the Tyranids in deep space

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
If the Necrons, who have the power to literally delete stars, aren't bothered by them, why is Humanity?

Highlighted the important part. Tyranids are a huge threat if you're a faction with an average technology base somewhere around 1940 and sheer manpower as your only real asset. Tyranids are quite capable of handling primitive Imperial forces, especially the PDF garbage that is the only defense for most planets, and their ability to turn the fallen from both sides into more troops negates the Imperium's biggest advantage. For an advanced faction who cares if some angry animals are hungry. They have no ranged firepower, no armor against heavy weapons, and no real plan besides mass wave attacks. Put up some automated sentry guns, call in artillery strikes, and no more Tyranid problem.

Most orks aren't all that interested because there's nothing to loot and no victory to be won. Fight the Imperium and you get cool loot and you can laugh as they cry about all their losses. Fight Tyranids and even if you win you get nothing. It's like punching a brick wall, win or lose it's pointless and there's no fun in it. But even then some do fight Tyranids.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
If the Necrons, who have the power to literally delete stars, aren't bothered by them, why is Humanity?

Highlighted the important part. Tyranids are a huge threat if you're a faction with an average technology base somewhere around 1940 and sheer manpower as your only real asset. Tyranids are quite capable of handling primitive Imperial forces, especially the PDF garbage that is the only defense for most planets, and their ability to turn the fallen from both sides into more troops negates the Imperium's biggest advantage. For an advanced faction who cares if some angry animals are hungry. They have no ranged firepower, no armor against heavy weapons, and no real plan besides mass wave attacks. Put up some automated sentry guns, call in artillery strikes, and no more Tyranid problem.

Most orks aren't all that interested because there's nothing to loot and no victory to be won. Fight the Imperium and you get cool loot and you can laugh as they cry about all their losses. Fight Tyranids and even if you win you get nothing. It's like punching a brick wall, win or lose it's pointless and there's no fun in it. But even then some do fight Tyranids.

I don’t think you get Nids or Orks very well.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
For an advanced faction who cares if some angry animals are hungry.

Iyanden cared. Malan'tai cared . . .

Gryphonne IV and its Titan legion cared...

 Insectum7 wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Why would one want to conquer Terra? The implication is that if the Imperium's capital falls and the Emperor dies, something happens.

But what? All those humans don't just disappear.

All the humans don't dissapear, true. But interstellar navigation becomes a lot harder because the astronomicon is lost. Humans have a rough go of it in that case.

You lose cohesion and a chain of command that’s stood for 10,000 years.

Whilst humanity has ridden out that sort of thing before (hence the success of the Great Crusade) you go from fighting a single, might as well be unified foe, to lots of disparate human enclaves. Without a central command structure, and indeed the Administratum and Munitorum, Imperial logistics goes completely out the window.

Anarchy spreads. Who exactly do you impress upon for reinforcement and replenishment? If an Agri World decides it’s better off trading with say, Tau, what exactly can the Hive World(s) it used to ship to do about that?

Essentially so long as Terra and it’s centralised organisation and command stands, destroying the wider Imperium becomes problematic at best, impossible at worst.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
No. It's a fortress world filled with the Imperium's most fanatical loyalists and it has no value other than those fanatics. A conquering enemy would get nothing of direct value. No resources, no infrastructure, no slave population, only a bunch of useless temples and city-sized office buildings that would probably be reduced to rubble anyway as every inhabitant fights to the death. Its sole value to the attacker would be denying it to the Imperium and that can be accomplished without conquering it. Destroy the planet from space, move on to the next target.

Well. Destroying Imperium could be considered to be of value for some.

tneva82 wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:
No. It's a fortress world filled with the Imperium's most fanatical loyalists and it has no value other than those fanatics. A conquering enemy would get nothing of direct value. No resources, no infrastructure, no slave population, only a bunch of useless temples and city-sized office buildings that would probably be reduced to rubble anyway as every inhabitant fights to the death. Its sole value to the attacker would be denying it to the Imperium and that can be accomplished without conquering it. Destroy the planet from space, move on to the next target.

Well. Destroying Imperium could be considered to be of value for some.

Well yes, that's why I mentioned destroying the planet.

Easier said than done, as you’d still need to get whatever means of destroying the planet in range and lined up etc.

Given Terra and indeed the Sol System are, presumably, far from short on anti-ship capability? How do you go about that?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Easier said than done, as you’d still need to get whatever means of destroying the planet in range and lined up etc.

Given Terra and indeed the Sol System are, presumably, far from short on anti-ship capability? How do you go about that?

Like I said previously, the presumption of any invasion scenario is that the attacker is capable of destroying the defending fleet. And there's nothing particularly complicated about it. It's a very large fleet but otherwise it's all just stock Imperial stuff that can be dealt with by the conventional methods. And at that point you just bring in the planet killer and move on vs. launching a ground assault to attempt to conquer the planet.

The Necrons can do it without ever even entering real space, right? They have weapons like the death mark that can fire their guns from dimensions we can't even perceive, like the 4th and 5th dimensions.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
The Necrons can do it without ever even entering real space, right? They have weapons like the death mark that can fire their guns from dimensions we can't even perceive, like the 4th and 5th dimensions.

Deathmarks can skip between dimensions, but so far as I’m aware, their guns can’t shoot between them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now, in terms of the numbers required?

Orks definitely have enough to do the job. But as they don’t have records, let alone centralised records? Chances are they don’t know of Terra on the whole, let alone where to find it.

Of course with Ghaz still gaining in power that is subject to change. But for the most part, it holds true,

Unless an Orky fleet of sufficient size to survive the encounter and report back happens upon the Sol System? Any Orky fleet pouring out into Sol is going to be dealt with in relatively short order.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Essentially so long as Terra and it’s centralised organisation and command stands, destroying the wider Imperium becomes problematic at best, impossible at worst.

While being a lynchpin to the existence of the Imperium, Terra doesn't make it invincible while it stands. Remember that the Imperium is comprised of roughly a million worlds. Sounds like a lot! But in a galaxy of 200 billion stars, it's a pittance.

If, say, the Tyranids avoided the Imperium entirely and instead gathered resources from even just a large fraction of the other worlds out there, and then focussed their (it's?) efforts, the Imperium could likely be steamrolled.

True. But the issue there is you still have some kind of central organisation so long as Terra stands. And there are examples of wholesale population transplants in Imperial History. And it’s that resilience which means to defeat The Imperium, Terra has to be dealt with.

In theory? And only in theory? The Imperium could survive by parking up population fleets, in stasis, in deep space. Wait for the Nids to Scoff’n’Go, then start all over again.

Potentially bonus points there as other than the Necrons, there might be nothing and no one else left to contest each settlement in turn.

The IoM doesn't have the infrastructure to park their entire populations in deep space.

Maybe their 0.001%.

That’s all it would take, provided everyone and everything else got munched by Nids

And of course nothing went wrong 😂

Why wouldn't the Nids just eat the ships?
If everyone is in stasis, they'd be an easy snack. Barely any defenders.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why wouldn't the Nids just eat the ships?
If everyone is in stasis, they'd be an easy snack. Barely any defenders.

The idea would be to travel into deep space away of eveyrthing. Nid fleets may be big but space is so much bigger and emptier.

Still it is an all eggs in one basket and 40k being 40k means they all likely die because of their arrogance.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why wouldn't the Nids just eat the ships?
If everyone is in stasis, they'd be an easy snack. Barely any defenders.

What Tyran said. Plus, Nids seem to be attracted to planetary bodies. With everyone in stasis, it seems likely there’s just not enough whatever sort of senses the Hive Fleets use to attract their attention.

And even 0.0001% of the Imperium’s population is….a lot.

I did miss the deep space bit.

Seems incredibly risky, but so is staying, so... Fair enough.

Of course there’s every chance being already self-sufficient there are Craftworlds doing the same ever since The Fall. Just quietly minding their own business and keeping well out the way!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
True. But the issue there is you still have some kind of central organisation so long as Terra stands. And there are examples of wholesale population transplants in Imperial History. And it’s that resilience which means to defeat The Imperium, Terra has to be dealt with.

Terra could be untouched yet still cut off from the rest of the Imperium. And if the rest of the Imperium is falling, Terra would, after a time, be short work. This is the siege situation again.

The Imperium could be defeated by the quick and successful strike at Terra. But it could also be eaten away from the edges inward, slowly. The Imperium could be lost without ever touching Terra. If Terra still stood, but the rest of humanity had been subdued/eradicated, there's no Imperium any more. At that point Terra can be taken or ignored depending on the ultimate objectives of the aggressors.

In theory? And only in theory? The Imperium could survive by parking up population fleets, in stasis, in deep space. Wait for the Nids to Scoff’n’Go, then start all over again.

Potentially bonus points there as other than the Necrons, there might be nothing and no one else left to contest each settlement in turn.

Nids have gone after fleets and Craftworlds.

This raises a question in my mind:

Can the nids build new and unnatural forms, or do they need an "Stc" of sorts? A Blueprint? Why can't the hive come together, and make a giant ass planet eating worm that hops out of the warp and eats the planet? Or throws planets at other planets?

The hive mind is dumb as hell bro.

Because that’s a LOT of mass.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
This raises a question in my mind:

Can the nids build new and unnatural forms, or do they need an "Stc" of sorts? A Blueprint? Why can't the hive come together, and make a giant ass planet eating worm that hops out of the warp and eats the planet? Or throws planets at other planets?

The hive mind is dumb as hell bro.

I think the hive mind probably feels it's functioning alright as is.

It also reminds me of the stat that in terms of mass, ants out-compete humans on earth, and just like humans they're found everywhere. Sometimes a lot of little things working together can out-compete single, much larger organisms.

This is why I don't understand the Hive Mind's actions. Why spend the cost of taking Baal when instead, half that cost would net you all the surrounding planets in the system?

Because the big secret is they don't have the mass. If they did have the mass, are we really believing the Hive Mind would simply not just devour everything? The fact that they haven't yet is a clear indication that they can't. Yet. This means the "Rest of the swarm is still unseen" is bad writing. It just doesn't make any sense given the parameters of "known" information.

Often GW writers are poopy. I don't blame the Hive Mind, I blame bad writers.

A blockade would take out Terra in no time. Right after the fall of Cadia, Terra got cut off from the rest of the Imperium and was in utter chaos in days due to running out of food and water. Millions turned to Chaos worship and this led to a Khorne daemon invasion that marched straight on the palace. If an enemy could cut off Earth for any substantive period of time, the populous would tear itself apart. The Custodes and whatever other forces that were available would be overrun and the Emperor would die to a lack of access to souls.

Tyran wrote:

 Gert wrote:

It depends I would say. The size of the Hive Fleet required to take the Sol System would be immense and the losses would be massive. The Hive Mind would likely destroy the Emperor, at which point all the Biomass that was in the Sol System gets destroyed when reality and unreality collide.

Not necessarily, we know sufficiently strong (Hive Fleet Kronos) shadow in the warp can beat the warp out of realspace, so a Hive Fleet large enough to take the Sol System can probably beat the resulting warp rift into submission too.

And that's assuming the Tyranids do not also drain the Emperor in the process like the Doom of Malant'ai did to an Eldar Infinity Circuit.

There's a big difference between closing the small warp rifts that Tyranids come across and being able to close a new Eye of Terror that would result from the Emperor's death. The Tyranids might be able to absorb some of the energy but probably not all of it.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
This is why I don't understand the Hive Mind's actions. Why spend the cost of taking Baal when instead, half that cost would net you all the surrounding planets in the system?

Because Baal is a priority military target. The Tyranids are waging a war here, and no war has been won by ignoring your enemy's infrastructure.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thing is…who has the resources to create an effective embargo? Sure the Rift will Be having an impact, but how do you stop the other half of The Imperium supplying Terra?

You seem to have not picked up my meaning.

When I say "Abaddon plannned to" I mean he almost did and it was only through the efforts of a band of Custodes and Sisters of Silence stopping Abaddon from rendering the Warp around Vorlese unusable with a bomb that was made through reverse-engineered pylons from Cadia that kept this from occurring.

It is through this area that the Indomitus Crusade was able to be launched and the Imperium kept standing. But if this world were to fall and another faction or Chaos again did similar then Terra would once more be cut off and would slowly starve.

As far as Terra itself, it is hardly impregnable. A single Khornate army summoned by discontented heretics on Terra was able to actually penetrate the Lion Gate. And there would be a lot of really pissed off people on Terra that heretics could foment dissent and provoke more daemon summoning. Cut Terra off and it's not a matter of if it falls but when.

Ah, fair enough


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FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
This raises a question in my mind:

Can the nids build new and unnatural forms, or do they need an "Stc" of sorts? A Blueprint? Why can't the hive come together, and make a giant ass planet eating worm that hops out of the warp and eats the planet? Or throws planets at other planets?

The hive mind is dumb as hell bro.

Yes and no. The Hive Mind can seemingly only adapt DNA it encounters. That’s suggestive it has some analytical ability, and some level of innovation to put different genetic traits into different creatures. But it doesn’t seem it has the capability to simply invent DNA of its own accord. It can only use and adapt existing stuff.

That in my mind is similar to working with palettes and old furniture to make a new piece of furniture. The carpenter can do that because he understands his materials, but he still can’t simply make a new tree.

Yes my analogies are always crap.

 Tyran wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
This is why I don't understand the Hive Mind's actions. Why spend the cost of taking Baal when instead, half that cost would net you all the surrounding planets in the system?

Because Baal is a priority military target. The Tyranids are waging a war here, and no war has been won by ignoring your enemy's infrastructure.

US Civil War, Any war in Afghanistan in the last 50 years, US Revolutionary War.

It's called Isometric Warfare, and is extremely effective when your opponent greatly outmatches you.

...Asymmetric warfare, not isometric warfare.

Please do ten seconds of research before posting if you're going to try and tell people they're wrong.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
This is why I don't understand the Hive Mind's actions. Why spend the cost of taking Baal when instead, half that cost would net you all the surrounding planets in the system?

Because the big secret is they don't have the mass. If they did have the mass, are we really believing the Hive Mind would simply not just devour everything? The fact that they haven't yet is a clear indication that they can't. Yet. This means the "Rest of the swarm is still unseen" is bad writing. It just doesn't make any sense given the parameters of "known" information.

The Devastation of Baal was to show that the Hive Mind was capable of noticing specific threats that needed to be eliminated. The Red Scar is a region rich in resources despite the dangers caused by the intense radiation of its stars and resource-rich environments are what the Tyranids like best. The Blood Angels decided the best course of action was to utterly destroy the region and deprive Leviathan of the huge source of biomass. It didn't help things that the Chapter had given Leviathan a bloody nose previously.
The Hive Mind saw the threat of the Blood Angels, noticed their plan, and wanted revenge for being thwarted in the past. That's why Baal happened.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
This raises a question in my mind:

Can the nids build new and unnatural forms, or do they need an "Stc" of sorts? A Blueprint? Why can't the hive come together, and make a giant ass planet eating worm that hops out of the warp and eats the planet? Or throws planets at other planets?

The hive mind is dumb as hell bro.

Because making one giant thing is almost always less efficient and less flexible than multiple smaller things working together. How many resources did the Galactic Empire sink into the two Death Star battle stations? Was that really a better allocation of resources than just building the equivalent amount of Star Destroyers and Tie Fighters, even if the Death Star could kill a planet? How many T-34s could the Soviet Union produce for the cost of a single Tiger?


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 Dysartes wrote:
...Asymmetric warfare, not isometric warfare.

Please do ten seconds of research before posting if you're going to try and tell people they're wrong.

And it only works when your opponent is limited in their response. Even the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was restrained from, say, using nuclear weapons on suspected mountain strongholds of the Mujahideen. The Imperium, Tyranids, Necrons, Orks, Eldar, even Tau hold no such qualms. If they think you are using caves in a mountain to hide? They will level the entire range if it is deemed tactically or strategically necessary.

Also, a major part of asymmetrical warfare is attacking logistics and infrastructure. Sure, you aren't looking to line up against the enemy force but you do also need to inflict damage to your opponents ability to wage war, be it sabotaging their logistics, using terrorism to attack civilian war support and the morale of soldiers, ambushing smaller forces such as patrols etc.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Easier said than done, as you’d still need to get whatever means of destroying the planet in range and lined up etc.

Given Terra and indeed the Sol System are, presumably, far from short on anti-ship capability? How do you go about that?

I dont quite remember, was it 3 or 5 Necron ships. Managed to stroll into the sol system and hit Mars.
So yes, the Imperium is far short on anti-ship capability.

Oh, the Raider things? With advanced, never seen before stealth capabilities? From a species Millenia in advance of pretty much everyone else?

All they did was a mad dash to Mars. That’s a different kettle of fish from trying to assault Terra.

But it happened. You think they mad dashed. But Necons dont really seem to mad dash anywhere.
And a mad dash with a suicide vest, works more than not.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
This is why I don't understand the Hive Mind's actions. Why spend the cost of taking Baal when instead, half that cost would net you all the surrounding planets in the system?

Because Baal is a priority military target. The Tyranids are waging a war here, and no war has been won by ignoring your enemy's infrastructure.

US Civil War, Any war in Afghanistan in the last 50 years, US Revolutionary War.

It's called Isometric Warfare, and is extremely effective when your opponent greatly outmatches you.

Discounting the grammatical error, this is a bad example for several reasons.

#1: The tyranids are the over-matching element here, not the Imperium. Each time they're encountered they're only beaten at great cost and after inflicting extensive, irreparable damage.

#2: The Tyranids have no civilians, no moral, and their infrastructure (which is entirely war based) is bult into the middle of their armed forces. Asymmetrical warfare and guerilla campaigns are about applying pressure where the enemy is vulnerable and bleeding away their moral via a combination of time and casualties. A strategy which ultimate relies on the civilian population of the effected force - generally one which is far away, and these tactics are used against an overwhelming attacker - becoming upset at their family members dying "pointlessly" across the world, and forcing the superior force to retreat via the cost incurred or the threat of the civilian population rising up. Literally none of this is possible when the attacking force is Tyranids.

 morganfreeman wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
This is why I don't understand the Hive Mind's actions. Why spend the cost of taking Baal when instead, half that cost would net you all the surrounding planets in the system?

Because Baal is a priority military target. The Tyranids are waging a war here, and no war has been won by ignoring your enemy's infrastructure.

US Civil War, Any war in Afghanistan in the last 50 years, US Revolutionary War.

It's called Isometric Warfare, and is extremely effective when your opponent greatly outmatches you.

Discounting the grammatical error, this is a bad example for several reasons.

#1: The tyranids are the over-matching element here, not the Imperium. Each time they're encountered they're only beaten at great cost and after inflicting extensive, irreparable damage.

#2: The Tyranids have no civilians, no moral, and their infrastructure (which is entirely war based) is bult into the middle of their armed forces. Asymmetrical warfare and guerilla campaigns are about applying pressure where the enemy is vulnerable and bleeding away their moral via a combination of time and casualties. A strategy which ultimate relies on the civilian population of the effected force - generally one which is far away, and these tactics are used against an overwhelming attacker - becoming upset at their family members dying "pointlessly" across the world, and forcing the superior force to retreat via the cost incurred or the threat of the civilian population rising up. Literally none of this is possible when the attacking force is Tyranids.

Also neither American wars were asymmetric, and even in the actual asymmetric case of the Afghan wars, well the Taliban was still attacking and taking cities.

 morganfreeman wrote:
#2: The Tyranids have no civilians, no moral, and their infrastructure (which is entirely war based) is bult into the middle of their armed forces. Asymmetrical warfare and guerilla campaigns are about applying pressure where the enemy is vulnerable and bleeding away their moral via a combination of time and casualties. A strategy which ultimate relies on the civilian population of the effected force - generally one which is far away, and these tactics are used against an overwhelming attacker - becoming upset at their family members dying "pointlessly" across the world, and forcing the superior force to retreat via the cost incurred or the threat of the civilian population rising up. Literally none of this is possible when the attacking force is Tyranids.

The boarding actions against Tyranid vessels that the game Tyranid Attack is based on are specifically Space Marines going on raids within large Nid vessels that have not yet fully awoken from interstellar hibernation, attacking nid "infrastructure" when it is more vulnerable. Imperial (or other) fleets could do the same thing on a larger scale, engaging in hit-and-run raids on the Nid fleet and forcing it to expend energy in defense while traveling in between stars. I believe the Inquisitor Kryptman plan was thus, while at the same time going exterminatus on the planets in the path of the Tyranid fleets so that they could not replenish biomass and energy lost in these interstellar harassment conflicts.

Kryptmans plan was the galactic cordon of annihilated worlds and then the Octarius gamble. The former worked but got him exiled and the latter was a colossal mistake.
He did do a raid during the invasion of Tarsis Ultra and the Scythes of the Emperor did them mostly because they couldn't mount full engagements but generally it's an extremely risky plan for little gain.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do!

So here’s a proper chin wag type thread, dealing with what-ifs.

As we know, Terra is the seat of The Imperium. It’s where The Emperor lives. It’s where the High Lords rule from. Not only is it the most heavily defended planet within The Imperium (and therefore likely, but not definitely) the most heavily defended planet in the known Galaxy.

It’s the lynchpin that if you want to defeat The Imperium, sooner or later you need to conquer Terra - and indeed the Sol System.

Horus of course came perilously close, with forces from the absolute apex of mankind’s might. Even outnumbering the defenders, Terra still managed to stand, albeit at horrific and permanent cost. But before anyone thinks “just bide your time and assemble a force of similar size”, keep in mind that the Heresy really didn’t last all that long in the grand scheme of things. And had things not gone a bit wrong for Horus, would’ve been even shorter. But since then? The Imperium has had 10,000 years to rebuild and reinforce.

Without Rogal Dorn (In theory, I think he's an Is He Or Isn't He Primarch). But Chaos still (definitely) has Perturabo. The question is how much of a drop off is there from Rogal Dorn to Gregor Dessian. And how much difference more prominence would have made for Perturabo the first time as Perturabo was usually shunted to a secondary role.

So even if a directly comparable in terms of numbers force attacked, it wouldn’t be a simple repeat of the Siege of Terra.

There are also other factors which limit how much weight I think we can put on a direct Heresy vs Now comparison. Not least of which is Mars isn’t currently in Traitorous hands.

But let’s say someone tried it? Do you think anyone really has the resources and organisation to pull it off. If so, how? What are your counter arguments? Would it only ever be a pyrrhic victory?

All those questions and more can be explored……now.

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Of course the flip side as I just realized is there's also no Horus. Which means no Warmaster. The other Traitor Primarchs aren't going to listen to Abbadon, and they're not going to elevate one of their own. Perturabo was assigned to secondary theatres by Horus against his own wishes. This time there's nobody to command and control Perturabo, Angron, Mortarion, Magnus and the like to work together - how much will their individual animosities, egos and agendas interfere with a concerted invasion attempt.


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 Insectum7 wrote:
The Emperor dies of psychic starvation? It doesn't look good.

If the Emperor dies, does he get Perpetual Reborn as fully functioning Primarch Sized Human?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
This raises a question in my mind:

Can the nids build new and unnatural forms, or do they need an "Stc" of sorts? A Blueprint? Why can't the hive come together, and make a giant ass planet eating worm that hops out of the warp and eats the planet? Or throws planets at other planets?

The hive mind is dumb as hell bro.

Because making one giant thing is almost always less efficient and less flexible than multiple smaller things working together. How many resources did the Galactic Empire sink into the two Death Star battle stations? Was that really a better allocation of resources than just building the equivalent amount of Star Destroyers and Tie Fighters, even if the Death Star could kill a planet? How many T-34s could the Soviet Union produce for the cost of a single Tiger?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dysartes wrote:
...Asymmetric warfare, not isometric warfare.

Please do ten seconds of research before posting if you're going to try and tell people they're wrong.

And it only works when your opponent is limited in their response. Even the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was restrained from, say, using nuclear weapons on suspected mountain strongholds of the Mujahideen. The Imperium, Tyranids, Necrons, Orks, Eldar, even Tau hold no such qualms. If they think you are using caves in a mountain to hide? They will level the entire range if it is deemed tactically or strategically necessary.

Also, a major part of asymmetrical warfare is attacking logistics and infrastructure. Sure, you aren't looking to line up against the enemy force but you do also need to inflict damage to your opponents ability to wage war, be it sabotaging their logistics, using terrorism to attack civilian war support and the morale of soldiers, ambushing smaller forces such as patrols etc.

Guerilla warfare also benefits from having say a population to hide in that is also worth enough that the other guy doesn't just decide that no man means no problem. While today I doubt we have anyone that callous I doubt the Imperium would think twice about just slaughtering that entire guerilla movement's support network and just transplanting a new, sympathetic population in their place.

Also Insectum, I dont think anyone can match Tyranid speed in the Void between Stars save the Necrons since the Tyranids travel at superluminal speeds in Real Space which the IOM frankly cannot match. Its only within Stellar Systems do Tyranids lose that speed advantage.

Breton wrote:
If the Emperor dies, does he get Perpetual Reborn as fully functioning Primarch Sized Human?

If he was going to die and come back he wouldn't have needed a doomsday weapon. Maybe he was just immortal not perpetual. Or gave up that part of himself to make his primarchs.

 Gert wrote:
Kryptmans plan was the galactic cordon of annihilated worlds and then the Octarius gamble. The former worked but got him exiled and the latter was a colossal mistake.
He did do a raid during the invasion of Tarsis Ultra and the Scythes of the Emperor did them mostly because they couldn't mount full engagements but generally it's an extremely risky plan for little gain.

I was mistaken a bit on particulars, but the galactic cordon is still involves the action of exterminatus against worlds the Tyranids are about to consume. It's a logistically minded attack intended to maximise the expediture of Tyranid energy/mass while denying them the resources to rebuild.

panzerfront14 wrote:

Also Insectum, I dont think anyone can match Tyranid speed in the Void between Stars save the Necrons since the Tyranids travel at superluminal speeds in Real Space which the IOM frankly cannot match. Its only within Stellar Systems do Tyranids lose that speed advantage.

Ahh, sure. The raids must be happening on the outskirts of systems the Nids are approaching then.

Actually the quote I have is "while the alien creatures were still dormant after exiting the Warp." -Tyranid Codex, 4th edition. . . "gathering information and destroying thousands of creatures while they lay frozen in hibernation."

There's a point during travel when the Nids aren't fully awake yet, and it's prime time to gain an advantage. Space Marines themselves can board the ships and knock out vitals. Fleets could engage while the Tyranids are still sluggish and then get the heck out when they start to awaken.

It doesn't help that GW has been extremely inconsistent in the details of Tyranid FTL

 Tyran wrote:
It doesn't help that GW has been extremely inconsistent in the details of Tyranid FTL

Yahh. Although, has the "hibernation" thing changed at all? Regardless of FTL specifics, it makes sense that large portions of a fleet would go dormant to preserve energy during travel. Or at least do so nominally, while retaining the option of not doing so for the sake of different scenarios/plots.

panzerfront14 wrote:
Guerilla warfare also benefits from having say a population to hide in that is also worth enough that the other guy doesn't just decide that no man means no problem. While today I doubt we have anyone that callous I doubt the Imperium would think twice about just slaughtering that entire guerilla movement's support network and just transplanting a new, sympathetic population in their place.

That is the traditional Chinese method to crush a rebellion: kill everyone. Repopulate with colonists from neighboring provinces.

Also Insectum, I dont think anyone can match Tyranid speed in the Void between Stars save the Necrons since the Tyranids travel at superluminal speeds in Real Space which the IOM frankly cannot match. Its only within Stellar Systems do Tyranids lose that speed advantage.

Is that a function of Tyranid capability or GW's writers not understanding problems of scale?

Short answer, Tyranids.

Long answer, only one race in the 40k setting has the combined mass of several galaxies (background says countless galaxies) that is has consumed and turned into more of itself. The Milky Way galaxy is a deeply fractured galaxy that is unable to put up a united resistance to anything.

Even a very conservative guess and say that the Tyranids have only consumed say 2 galaxies, that is still far more than the inhabitants of this galaxy can deal with... especially as they are also attacking from under the galactic plane.

Tyranids are absolutely the end game of 40k. Which is why they are such a badly written foe. Because their victory is just too extreme, that they have to lose in order to keep the setting chugging along, hence they get beaten at every major point. So they end up becoming a joke... an insanely terrifying one.

Edit. To ram home the point, Tyranids could lose an entire galaxies worth of Tyranid biomass, and it wouldn't slow them down in the grand scheme of things. The level at which Tyranids wage war at, is on a scale that dwarfs everything in the 40k setting.

 stonehorse wrote:

Tyranids are absolutely the end game of 40k. Which is why they are such a badly written foe. Because their victory is just too extreme, that they have to lose in order to keep the setting chugging along, hence they get beaten at every major point. So they end up becoming a joke... an insanely terrifying one.

The clear counterpoint is that galaxies are big. Tyranids could take 100 worlds a year and it'd take them 10000 years to take the mere million worlds the Imperium has, out of a galaxy of 200-whatever billion stars with an appropriately astronomical number of worlds. With that perspective, Tyranids could win every major engagement and it could still take functionally forever for the Imperium to fall.

At a certain point we also have to allow that the only thing stopping anyone is plot armor.

Tyranids have the biomass of two galaxies plus potentially their own. Chaos has the entire immaterium to draw from. And so on down the line.

Part of the problem is that most of the time when GW has an Imperial (esp. Marines) vs Tyranids story it is usually ultimately the Marines triumphing by defeating the big nasty monster and the Tyranids falling apart once the Tyrant or Norn Queen is killed, then like a movie it all ends "happily" with Marines saving the day and the threat repulsed *roll credits*

The magnitude of the Tyranid threat I think might be more properly conveyed if the Marines do their thing....and nothing happens, because there is another Tyrant or Norn Queen already in position. The Hive Mind is now having more redundancy even at that level so the old decapitation strike no longer works, and what the Marines instead have to deal with is a fighting retreat in the face of overwhelming odds as the Imperial situation continues to collapse.

Or they barely squeak out a pyrrhic victory, think they have won, only to then be left defenseless as the next wave appears.

Iracundus wrote:
Part of the problem is that most of the time when GW has an Imperial (esp. Marines) vs Tyranids story it is usually ultimately the Marines triumphing by defeating the big nasty monster and the Tyranids falling apart once the Tyrant or Norn Queen is killed, then like a movie it all ends "happily" with Marines saving the day and the threat repulsed *roll credits*

The magnitude of the Tyranid threat I think might be more properly conveyed if the Marines do their thing....and nothing happens, because there is another Tyrant or Norn Queen already in position. The Hive Mind is now having more redundancy even at that level so the old decapitation strike no longer works, and what the Marines instead have to deal with is a fighting retreat in the face of overwhelming odds as the Imperial situation continues to collapse.

Or they barely squeak out a pyrrhic victory, think they have won, only to then be left defenseless as the next wave appears.

Not just the Nids. The purpose of the stories are one of two:

Selling the newest Whatchamacallit

Generating Tension and hype while maintaining the Status Quo.

What was the biggest story from the past couple years? The fall of Cadia. What's changed? Not much. A little fluff here and there to make the summer campaign books less forced. No more What? How did Chaos get here?!?! Same reason Hive Fleet Leviathan is attacking from Below The Galactic Plane, Necron Worlds are scattered and unknown, and I'm sure the Tau will get some sort of finger waggle soon too.

Iracundus wrote:
Part of the problem is that most of the time when GW has an Imperial (esp. Marines) vs Tyranids story it is usually ultimately the Marines triumphing by defeating the big nasty monster and the Tyranids falling apart once the Tyrant or Norn Queen is killed, then like a movie it all ends "happily" with Marines saving the day and the threat repulsed *roll credits*

The magnitude of the Tyranid threat I think might be more properly conveyed if the Marines do their thing....and nothing happens, because there is another Tyrant or Norn Queen already in position. The Hive Mind is now having more redundancy even at that level so the old decapitation strike no longer works, and what the Marines instead have to deal with is a fighting retreat in the face of overwhelming odds as the Imperial situation continues to collapse.

Or they barely squeak out a pyrrhic victory, think they have won, only to then be left defenseless as the next wave appears.

One of the best bits about Tyranids in 2nd edition was that it was assumed that you're not fighting this little 2k swarm, but that you've actually been on campaign for a while, "played out against the backdrop of a thousand other desperate fights against the invaders" . . . "enacted across the entire planet, very likely throughout the entire star system." And the fighting has taken its toll "The total war fought by the Tyranids places immense strain on the fighting forces trying to stop them . . . After a short time fighting Tyranids, units of warriors are exhausted and their spirit is broken." And you would roll for potential effects before the game began. Vehicles would be damaged, troops infected, or units would just not show up immediately because they're freaked out.

Iracundus wrote:
Part of the problem is that most of the time when GW has an Imperial (esp. Marines) vs Tyranids story it is usually ultimately the Marines triumphing by defeating the big nasty monster and the Tyranids falling apart once the Tyrant or Norn Queen is killed, then like a movie it all ends "happily" with Marines saving the day and the threat repulsed *roll credits*

The magnitude of the Tyranid threat I think might be more properly conveyed if the Marines do their thing....and nothing happens, because there is another Tyrant or Norn Queen already in position. The Hive Mind is now having more redundancy even at that level so the old decapitation strike no longer works, and what the Marines instead have to deal with is a fighting retreat in the face of overwhelming odds as the Imperial situation continues to collapse.

Or they barely squeak out a pyrrhic victory, think they have won, only to then be left defenseless as the next wave appears.

Kind of. For me the failing in how the background is portrayed in Novels is more or less just as above. Marines appear, bad guys go splat, tea and crumpets and lashings of Ginger Beer all round.

But, the background also explains that whilst Tyranids and Orks can be shattered as cohesive forces, actually eradicating them and making a planet truly safe can be the work of generations. On a well populated world, it only takes a single Genestealer to scuttle into hiding, and before long in galactic terms, you’ve got a GSC Uprising on your hands. Add in that Hormogaunts at least can lay eggs, and it’s really effing difficult to truly eradicate them. Orks of course present similar problems, that once you’ve got Orks on your world, you’ll kinda always have Orks on your world.

Chaos Raideds are similar. The Marines might handily deal with the Leader and his Cronies, but unless you’re very lucky, some elements will escape, and continue to bother the local system for decades.

That I think could be made into a decent book or short series. Start with Marines removing the head. Then move on to exploring now PDF, Arbites etc deal with stopping the body getting up and wandering around again. Because that’s a significant drain on Imperial Resources, and helps add to the doom and gloom.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
once you’ve got Orks on your world, you’ll kinda always have Orks on your world.

Orks, the interstellar herpes.

Quite so!

Hell, make it an Inquisition type thriller. Formerly peaceful, productive world or system. Falls prey to Nids or Orks. We come in at the victory, the back of the invasion broken, Marines responsible off to stem the bleeding elsewhere.

Inquisitor arrives, takes overall control of ongoing attempts to eradicate. The World/system is then never the same again. Perhaps the Inquisitor goes Serious Puritan and begins mass executions of those seen as impure by their contact with Xenos. Maybe they’re a Radical doing inadvisable things.

All sorts you can apply a narrative lens to.

Or have like a campaign book like the Forge World Taros campaign book except on a sector wide front. The Hive Fleet is fighting at a macro scale. The human characters and Marines may win their individual local conflicts but prove unable to make a difference at that kind of larger scale, to show the true scale of what they are up against.

That would also be cool!

Hell, pick a System, and give us campaigns crossing a few centuries of time.

Breton wrote:
Not just the Nids. The purpose of the stories are one of two:

Selling the newest Whatchamacallit

Generating Tension and hype while maintaining the Status Quo.

Yeah, the only thing stronger than the Hive Fleet is GW's plot armor against it.

I mean the notion that they've devoured two whole galaxies just shows GW doesn't understand scale. It's the usual "No, THIS is the worst thing ever!" hype.

"Oh yeah, but did those galaxies have the holy power of the Emperor?! I think not."

It's like the other thread - the Imperium is falling and always will be.

GW should go for what they seemed to previously been setting up: Tyranids vs Necrons

The whole idea is that GW has been setting up all these various threats that are all supposedly too much for the Imperium to overcome. So there is a story way out sort of like what Kryptman did. Pit the threats against each other and the Imperium survives by picking them off or lying low while the bigger threats fight each other.

Tyranids vs. Necrons would be a good match up. The Pariah Nexus and Necron supertechnology disrupts the hive fleets and causes huge losses. Meanwhile the sheer number of the Tyranids, their adaptability, and use of psychic power can still do immense damage to the Necrons. Virtually nothing in 40K is an absolute one side wins over the other. So just as the Pariah Nexus might disrupt hive fleet cohesion, the sheer scale of the fleets might still be enough to damage/destroy some of the Necron structures that generate the Pariah Nexus, shrinking it or reducing the intensity of its willpower sapping effects. The seemingly super ships of the Necrons devastate the lumbering but far more numerous swarms but each Necron ship lost is irreplaceable.

That way both of these hyped threats can still act threatening but to each other, and in the process get weakened to a more manageable level for the Imperium to fight.

Breton wrote:


Not just the Nids. The purpose of the stories are one of two:

Selling the newest Whatchamacallit

Generating Tension and hype while maintaining the Status Quo.

What was the biggest story from the past couple years? The fall of Cadia. What's changed? Not much. A little fluff here and there to make the summer campaign books less forced. No more What? How did Chaos get here?!?! Same reason Hive Fleet Leviathan is attacking from Below The Galactic Plane, Necron Worlds are scattered and unknown, and I'm sure the Tau will get some sort of finger waggle soon too.

There is also a problem of narrative focus.

I mean, remember Gryphonne IV? it is ridiculous no one has even written even a short story about its destruction by Hive Fleet Leviathan. It once used to be one of the biggest Forge Worlds around yet we have a handful of paragraphs at best about its destruction.

Kind of tempted to have another crack at this topic. Not sure I asked the question I was aiming for.

No shade to the contributors, who’ve all been solid. Shade on me because “who/how to conquer Terra” is a much more interesting premise.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for the Tarot?

The Fool Inversed could be the Ethereal Caste finally getting a grip on unreality. Accepting that powerful, near god like beings do exist, and that there’s genuine merit to like of Farsight.

 Tyran wrote:

Breton wrote:


Not just the Nids. The purpose of the stories are one of two:

Selling the newest Whatchamacallit

Generating Tension and hype while maintaining the Status Quo.

What was the biggest story from the past couple years? The fall of Cadia. What's changed? Not much. A little fluff here and there to make the summer campaign books less forced. No more What? How did Chaos get here?!?! Same reason Hive Fleet Leviathan is attacking from Below The Galactic Plane, Necron Worlds are scattered and unknown, and I'm sure the Tau will get some sort of finger waggle soon too.

There is also a problem of narrative focus.

I mean, remember Gryphonne IV? it is ridiculous no one has even written even a short story about its destruction by Hive Fleet Leviathan. It once used to be one of the biggest Forge Worlds around yet we have a handful of paragraphs at best about its destruction.

I have always though the fall of Gryphonne IV was ripe material for a book or campaign book. As one of the most heavily fortified worlds in the southern galaxy, with a famous Titan Legion and storied history going back to the Heresy and beyond, its loss should have had more written about it.

It could easily be a story of hubris. Legio Gryphonicus's Adeptus Titanicus trait of "Lust for Glory" if kept up in the years since 30K would have made them less suited against the Tyranids. In short, the trait was the Princeps wanting glory so they would pick a particular target and pledge themselves to bringing it down for their own personal glory and honor. This works for single combat duels but I could see them getting so focused on bringing down a big Tyranid Titan they neglect the smaller creatures and get swarmed under. In fact, if the Hive Mind is aware of this trait it might even have deliberately used such tactics against the Titan Legion: have big durable Bio-Titans to hold a War Griffon Titan's attention and lure them into a trap.

It would then actually be a test of personality and willpower for a Princeps to deliberately choose to retreat from the world after it became clear it was lost rather than try to keep going and die in a blaze of glory. Sounds like a good idea for a novel.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Breton wrote:
Not just the Nids. The purpose of the stories are one of two:

Selling the newest Whatchamacallit

Generating Tension and hype while maintaining the Status Quo.

Yeah, the only thing stronger than the Hive Fleet is GW's plot armor against it.

I mean the notion that they've devoured two whole galaxies just shows GW doesn't understand scale. It's the usual "No, THIS is the worst thing ever!" hype.

"Oh yeah, but did those galaxies have the holy power of the Emperor?! I think not."

It's like the other thread - the Imperium is falling and always will be.

I think you missed my first sentence and the last one. Its not just the Nids and While Maintaining the Status Quo. Cadia fell, what changed? Not much. The only big changes are to make the status quo standoff more immersive.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kind of tempted to have another crack at this topic. Not sure I asked the question I was aiming for.

What was the question you were aiming for? If you're looking for a Who/How each is different. Almost all factions have some sort of claim/plan/theme for it. Tau will gobble up Imperium Worlds until they can subvert Terra itself For The Greater Good. Dark Eldar will break through the Emperor's Webway Gate or whatever it was he was working on. GSC will start in the bowels of the world and work their way up, probably having the easiest start and the toughest finish. Orks have the most likely laziest path in The Biggest Zerg You've Ever Seen sacrificing entire space hulks just to get some through the landing. The Imperium Forces obviously don't have to, and don't have a plan. Aeldari are most likely uninterested but share the Webway. Not the biggest stretch to make Terra a Tomb World so the Necrons are already there and just haven't woken up Tutankenhamen The First King yet.

Breton wrote:
I think you missed my first sentence and the last one. Its not just the Nids and While Maintaining the Status Quo. Cadia fell, what changed? Not much. The only big changes are to make the status quo standoff more immersive.

No, I saw it but had no idea what happened because I'm not that up on the lore these days. Best not to quote something you know nothing about.

Which makes our point: if you completely ignore GW plot advancement it's fine because none of it has any practical effect.

That gets us back to the OP's question, and my counter of "why bother?" Barring some Mary Sue plot twist, there's a reason why Terra endures. Before talking about taking it, one has to set the conditions and then explain how these are different from all the other times the Imperium faltered and didn't fall.

I mean, I guess it's like Imperial Rome. According to Gibbon, it was "falling" from the get-go, except that it wasn't, and the eastern half lasted another 1,000 years.

Arguably the greatest factor in Terra's survival as that all its rivals hate each other as much if not more than Terra.

I will add that I personally wish GW would back off the Space Marines a bit and pump up some of the other lists. Marines are always going to see steady sales, so why not convince players to branch out into some of the other stuff? A Necron/Tyranid throwdown would be fun and you could have other factions get involved in supporting roles.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Breton wrote:
I think you missed my first sentence and the last one. Its not just the Nids and While Maintaining the Status Quo. Cadia fell, what changed? Not much. The only big changes are to make the status quo standoff more immersive.

No, I saw it but had no idea what happened because I'm not that up on the lore these days. Best not to quote something you know nothing about.

Biggest change so far? One Creed disappeared, and a new Creed took it's place. It was kind of like a Rocky franchise.

Arguably the greatest factor in Terra's survival as that all its rivals hate each other as much if not more than Terra.

Somewhat the point I made about Chaos having a tougher go, because even if you think there's a big drop from IF Primarch to IF Chapter Master, and Perturabo gets to lead the assault - his and others' egos will get in the way and there's no Horus figure to be the final word.

I will add that I personally wish GW would back off the Space Marines a bit and pump up some of the other lists. Marines are always going to see steady sales, so why not convince players to branch out into some of the other stuff? A Necron/Tyranid throwdown would be fun and you could have other factions get involved in supporting roles.

I'm all for mixing up other factions in the starter sets, but I'm realist enough to know one of the factions will be Imperium. Sales, Marketing, and Moms all point to needing some sort of anthropomorphic faction that little Timmy can identify with and Mom won't object to. Its a hard sell to say "These are giant deadly space bugs like you would have seen in the movie Alien, and they're fighting giant mechanical Egyptian Terminators". How many boxes would you like for your 12 year old son who can't see either of those movies in the theater? IG versus Nids as Starship Troopers is easier, because Mom knows the models can't take their uniforms off in a co-ed shower.

There's also the Terminus Decree to consider, a Grey Knights artifact that is most likely the secret to activating the Talisman of Seven Hammers. The later being a dead mans switch created and installed by Vulkan on the Golden Throne. Should the Talisman be activated, Terra would be consumed in a monstrous amount of the Emperor's stored psychic fire, destroying the planet, and sending a wave of his death energy into the Imperial Webway gate. Its said this would deal Chaos a severe blow.

I don't think the Emperor being killed would open another eye of terror, It would be awful due to the loss of the Astronomicon, but it would probably benefit the Imperium as well by weakening Chaos, assuming the whole Terminus Decree stuff is involved.

 Midnightdeathblade wrote:
There's also the Terminus Decree to consider, a Grey Knights artifact that is most likely the secret to activating the Talisman of Seven Hammers. The later being a dead mans switch created and installed by Vulkan on the Golden Throne. Should the Talisman be activated, Terra would be consumed in a monstrous amount of the Emperor's stored psychic fire, destroying the planet, and sending a wave of his death energy into the Imperial Webway gate. Its said this would deal Chaos a severe blow.

I don't think the Emperor being killed would open another eye of terror, It would be awful due to the loss of the Astronomicon, but it would probably benefit the Imperium as well by weakening Chaos, assuming the whole Terminus Decree stuff is involved.

That's the 40K AOS reboot GW has in their back pocket.

The Emperor Dies. The Emperor is a Perpetual. The Talisman of Seven Hammers goes off. Chaos is in full retreat, the Astronomicon is gone. The Emperor resurrects. Humanity regresses to the Second Age of Terra/Techology/Strife/Darkness, the Emperor creates new Primarchs, and on and on.

Perpetuals always come back, until they stop doing that, and stay dead. There is always some mcguffin. Ponteus or whatever, the guardsman who stood up to Horus, was a perpetual, until Horus stabbed him so hard he wasnt. The Primarch of the Salamanders was a perpetual until he fell into someting, and wasn't anymore.

Point is, the perpetual shield is the weakest armor the Emperor has.

The stuff about Ollanius Pius standing up to Horus might not even happen anymore. There's three different versions of the story with Pius, an Imperial Fist, and a Custodian all being said to have sacrificed themselves.
Oll Person (the individual that has been heavily implied will become Ollanius Pius) has shown up often but there is also the story of Ollanius Piers in Saturnine whose arc is intended to show the nature of myths and legends.

As for Vulkan, he hugged a huge psychic explosion on Ullanor during the War of the Beast and his body was never found. Considering he has been literally stripped to his component atoms before and come back to life, there's a slim chance he's actually dead.

If you could establish a blockade around Terra, even if only for a short time, couldn't you stop the Emperor getting his 1000 pyskers a day?

Although I guess its not known whether there's a few million or so there already waiting on ice.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
The Necrons can do it without ever even entering real space, right? They have weapons like the death mark that can fire their guns from dimensions we can't even perceive, like the 4th and 5th dimensions.

Deathmarks can skip between dimensions, but so far as I’m aware, their guns can’t shoot between them.

Assuming you don't care too much about keeping the ship, given the damage you can do, what's to stop them skipping a ship into range and then firing on Terra before being destroyed? You presumably don't need long for the barrage and unless you're really unlucky, you'd have a few moments before any response would happen.


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Tyel wrote:
If you could establish a blockade around Terra, even if only for a short time, couldn't you stop the Emperor getting his 1000 pyskers a day?

Although I guess its not known whether there's a few million or so there already waiting on ice.

Given the scale of everything, there's presumably a huge logistic operation with very little redundancy, so you may not need to destroy many incoming supply ships to cause problems.

Since Terra is a billion strong fortress with no resources of it's own, you'd probably only need to take out a comparatively small number of food supply ships to cause complete chaos as different factions vie to survive.

I have no idea what security is like since the set up is pretty much to prevent invasion, but presumably a few imperial traitors could slip in amongst the countless nameless and faceless troops and cause chaos with some well place sabotage. A pilot crashing a grain barge in orbit, a grain store getting flooded, power for a sector failing, a PDF troop catching a contagious virus and so on.


How is the kill switch on the throne set up? Does it just blow if the Emperor stops breathing, or could he be starved out?

Breton wrote:

 Midnightdeathblade wrote:
There's also the Terminus Decree to consider, a Grey Knights artifact that is most likely the secret to activating the Talisman of Seven Hammers. The later being a dead mans switch created and installed by Vulkan on the Golden Throne. Should the Talisman be activated, Terra would be consumed in a monstrous amount of the Emperor's stored psychic fire, destroying the planet, and sending a wave of his death energy into the Imperial Webway gate. Its said this would deal Chaos a severe blow.

I don't think the Emperor being killed would open another eye of terror, It would be awful due to the loss of the Astronomicon, but it would probably benefit the Imperium as well by weakening Chaos, assuming the whole Terminus Decree stuff is involved.

That's the 40K AOS reboot GW has in their back pocket.

The Emperor Dies. The Emperor is a Perpetual. The Talisman of Seven Hammers goes off. Chaos is in full retreat, the Astronomicon is gone. The Emperor resurrects. Humanity regresses to the Second Age of Terra/Techology/Strife/Darkness, the Emperor creates new Primarchs, and on and on.

I'd honestly be down for some of that. Chaos should take the backseat and Tyranids should be front and center big bads.


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 Gert wrote:

As for Vulkan, he hugged a huge psychic explosion on Ullanor during the War of the Beast and his body was never found. Considering he has been literally stripped to his component atoms before and come back to life, there's a slim chance he's actually dead.

Him getting atomized really sends the plot armor of perpetuals to the moon and back. Atomization was the argument on whether they can be truly killed by lots of nerds before.

Wolverine can do it!

And it seems to be more a spiritual thing in 40K. Provided the soul remains intact then, like Dark Eldar, the rest can be grown back. Though I think in the Heresy novels it’s a bit more instantaneous than that? Haven’t read them all, and those I have I’ve not read in yonks.

Given the scale of everything, there's presumably a huge logistic operation with very little redundancy, so you may not need to destroy many incoming supply ships to cause problems.

I disagree. Just-in-time delivery is not the norm. It was a fleeting thing caused during the atypical peace and prosperity of the 1990s.

Stockpiles are how things are actually done. At a 1,000 psykers a day, I wouldn't be surprised if there were millions sitting in camps. I mean they're not frozen food, they're living herds and may be put to other work whilst they wait their turn just like any other livestock.

Similarly, iron rations can be remarkably compact. Given the paranoia of the Imperium, I'd bet they have a century's worth of biscuits buried in salt caverns.

This is an empire that has lasted for 10,000 years. That's not the sort of thing that collapses simply because the boss' pizza is a day late.

Him getting atomized really sends the plot armor of perpetuals to the moon and back. Atomization was the argument on whether they can be truly killed by lots of nerds before.

Its the Wolvering Atomic Bomb thing. Probably where they got the idea for Perpetuals in the first place.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Given the scale of everything, there's presumably a huge logistic operation with very little redundancy, so you may not need to destroy many incoming supply ships to cause problems.

I disagree. Just-in-time delivery is not the norm. It was a fleeting thing caused during the atypical peace and prosperity of the 1990s.

Stockpiles are how things are actually done. At a 1,000 psykers a day, I wouldn't be surprised if there were millions sitting in camps. I mean they're not frozen food, they're living herds and may be put to other work whilst they wait their turn just like any other livestock.

Similarly, iron rations can be remarkably compact. Given the paranoia of the Imperium, I'd bet they have a century's worth of biscuits buried in salt caverns.

This is an empire that has lasted for 10,000 years. That's not the sort of thing that collapses simply because the boss' pizza is a day late.

The Vaults of Terra novel series shows there are no food stockpiles. The Inquisitor in the series institutes a temporary block on some transshipment from some orbital stations for plot reasons. He notes that any delays will result in people on Terra starving. This basically means Terra has no reserves and is always on the cusp of starvation. Now it would be the poor and destitute on Terra that would start starving because they would be the lowest priority to get any food. In any prolonged crisis, the upper classes would no doubt get any food first before any of the masses. So Terra wouldn't immediately fall from delays or cutting off of food shipments, but the poor would start off starving and there would be increasing levels of unrest until eventual full on revolt.

Stockpiles only work to an extent - if you have starving people and mountains of food you'd need to guard it too.

For a planet with no production facilities at all and a population of 1 billion, how long do you reckon it would normally be able to hold stores for?

A human eats about 4kg of food a day, so even if you assume a starvation died of half of that, that's still 2,000,000 tons of food a day. All delivered from off world.

I don't actually know how much food you can put in an Imperial cargo ship, but I'm assuming we're talking about many ships a day.

And that's just food. Does Terra produce water? Because that's the same again.

And any materials for anything else.

Iracundus wrote:
The Vaults of Terra novel series shows there are no food stockpiles. The Inquisitor in the series institutes a temporary block on some transshipment from some orbital stations for plot reasons. He notes that any delays will result in people on Terra starving. This basically means Terra has no reserves and is always on the cusp of starvation. Now it would be the poor and destitute on Terra that would start starving because they would be the lowest priority to get any food. In any prolonged crisis, the upper classes would no doubt get any food first before any of the masses. So Terra wouldn't immediately fall from delays or cutting off of food shipments, but the poor would start off starving and there would be increasing levels of unrest until eventual full on revolt.

First, Vault of Terra books tend to land on grimdumb side of plot. So, they aren't that good proof for that. Second, if there was a genuine siege/food crisis, the Terra PDF command wouldn't be sitting on their asses waiting for revolt but would actually start arresting most disposable stratas of society and start feeding them to corpse starch reactors to make sure there is enough food by increasing supply and decreasing demand. Hell, given how many supposedly surplus people in the form of pilgrims and such are on Terra it's probably the only world in the Imperium that can actually last a pretty long time operating on normal level even if the food supply is completely cut in an instant (and for that you'd need to not only cut Terran system from the rest of IoM, but also Terra from the other planets/space infrastructure in Sol system which would require even bigger force)...

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
It was a fleeting thing caused during the atypical peace and prosperity of the 1990s.

No. It's caused by greed and cutting corners. Warehouses are expensive, so we should get rid of them and start bullying weaker subcontractors to make sure they are the ones suffering costs and getting hit on the bottom line while we give billions in bonuses to execs. At least that's how JIT works in the west. Original JIT, the one invented in Japan, was about optimization. It's worth noting the Asian companies that introduced it not only had relationship of trust, not abuse, with their suppliers that often lasted decades by that point, but they also invested money saved on the warehouses into subcontractors to harden supply chains and ensure no disruption happens. They even often paid a lot to bail out said subcontractors from trouble, but the JIT copycats here failed to get that part so their screwed up JIT implementation generated endless issues and smeared the name of otherwise sound concept.

Does Terra have any edible wildlife, beyond humans?

Because I'd assume anywhere with humans will at least have rats.

Didn't one of the BRBs state that every square inch of Terra's surface had been used for something? I.E. there is no buildable surface left on Earth any longer. It's either streets, spires, factories, or oceans.

I fully admit I might be wrong, but I'll go back through my BRBs and check.

Breton wrote:
Not the biggest stretch to make Terra a Tomb World so the Necrons are already there and just haven't woken up Tutankenhamen The First King yet.

Couldn't they just time travel to take it over first?

On blockading Terra? Whilst possible, you still have the not inconsiderable task of not just containing but destroying the collective space borne defenders of the Sol System.

To the best of my knowledge, to blockade any system in 40K you deploy picket fleets to the Mandeville point.

Given Mandeville Points depend on things from gravity wells to maybe not ripping a hole in reality right next to my outside lavvy, thank you , they’re inherently mutable and the exact location/definition will vary system to system.

And, whilst I cannot provide particular citation? I’d wager the Sol System is well defended enough to not only picket/monitor it’s Mandeville points (at least to the point of detecting incoming craft), but with more than enough resources to simply blat opportunistic/accidental attempts.

So I feel we again have to come back to considering “just how many ships are based in the Sol System”.

The lazy answer is of course ‘finite’. So it is possible a wily attacker, with sufficient resources of their own, could launch waves of incursions across the Mandeville Point, drawing ever more defending ships to contain them.

Then, not giving a fig for sensible, deliver a strike fleet powerful enough to overwhelm Terra’s planetside defences. Which given its critical nature to The Imperium, and not worrying about any “tHeN tEh EmPrAh SeZ NaH” lazy Deus Ex, we have to assume is……far from an easy task.

Of the various forces out there, I’d wager only four might have the resources to do that. Namely, and in no particular order? Orks, Necrons, Chaos and Tyranids.

One has the particular desire - Chaos. But seems to lack the necessary unity to fulfil my criteria above. Because how do you arrange the sacrificial fleets - attacking Terra mark you - to allow your main fleet to drop in an have a proper go.

Orks most definitely, on a galactic scale, have the numbers. And if Da Emprah’s home address became Orky Knowledge, they could most likely get waaay more than enough numbers together. But they still, to the best of my knowledge, entirely lack reliable Warp Navigation. But Waaagh! being Waaagh! it could be done, even if it’s by degrees and sheer bloody minded attrition.

Nids seem the most likely candidate. So far as we know, The Astronomicon is the flame to their moth. It might take them a long, long time to work their way there, but they seem pretty inexorable in that task.

 Adeptekon wrote:
Couldn't they just time travel to take it over first?

Time manipulation is a skill that very few advanced Crypteks can attempt, such as Orikan the Diviner, but actual time travel isn't possible outside of random bad luck thanks to Warp travel AFAIK.
That being said if it was, it would be one of those things that the Necrons could do but don't because etiquette, like with the Celestial Orrery where the ruling Overlord could just destroy Sol and get a cheeky win but it's rude and unsportsmanlike to supernova a species home system.

 Gert wrote:

 Adeptekon wrote:
Couldn't they just time travel to take it over first?

Time manipulation is a skill that very few advanced Crypteks can attempt, such as Orikan the Diviner, but actual time travel isn't possible outside of random bad luck thanks to Warp travel AFAIK.
That being said if it was, it would be one of those things that the Necrons could do but don't because etiquette, like with the Celestial Orrery where the ruling Overlord could just destroy Sol and get a cheeky win but it's rude and unsportsmanlike to supernova a species home system.

There’s also the sheer tapestry of time and chaos theory.

As things stand? Whilst far from ideal, things aren’t that bad for the Necron race.

Whilst I suspect their chronotech could allow such a thing, preventing The Imperium could make things far worse in ways we cannot properly consider.

There's an actual Necron time machine which sends some genestealers back prior to biotransference in Devourer.

The Necrons just never used that technology for anything important because OH LOOK AT THAT OVER THERE...

The Necrons aren't generally idiots though. Well apart from that one time but building super weapons that break the fabric of time and space are sort of a hobby rather than a serious threat.
They act as a deterant to other Dynasties but their owners also know if they try any funny business they've got a boat load of enemies and even with fancy gizmos they can't stop them all. Plus the Triarch Praetorians tend to make sure these sorts of things don't happen with very real threats of "If you push your luck we will delete your System 32".

 Gert wrote:
It depends I would say. The size of the Hive Fleet required to take the Sol System would be immense and the losses would be massive.

Not necessarily. When a hive fleet is on approach they cause massive natural disasters on the planet and drive psykers crazy. Which could severely weaken Terra's defences. There's also the GSC already present on Terra, which would become even more active once the hive mind alerts them. I'm not saying it's going to make the battle easy, but it seems to be something not being considered.

Luna, Terra's orbital defences, and the Sol fleet are it's best defences.

 Irbis wrote:

First, Vault of Terra books tend to land on grimdumb side of plot. So, they aren't that good proof for that. Second, if there was a genuine siege/food crisis, the Terra PDF command wouldn't be sitting on their asses waiting for revolt but would actually start arresting most disposable stratas of society and start feeding them to corpse starch reactors to make sure there is enough food by increasing supply and decreasing demand. Hell, given how many supposedly surplus people in the form of pilgrims and such are on Terra it's probably the only world in the Imperium that can actually last a pretty long time operating on normal level even if the food supply is completely cut in an instant (and for that you'd need to not only cut Terran system from the rest of IoM, but also Terra from the other planets/space infrastructure in Sol system which would require even bigger force)...

One of the problems with GW fluff is that people are allowed to write authoritatively on things they know nothing about.

Given the totalitarian nature of the Imperium, I would expect everyone on Terra to have a very good reason to be on Terra or they would be deported on outbound Black Ships. Remember: no one likes empty ships. I suspect that's how the balance is maintained - bring in 100,000 psykers and take off 100,000 "useless mouths."

No. It's caused by greed and cutting corners.

What I meant is that it was only possible for that very narrow sliver of time when great power rivalries had disappeared and advances in transit, communication and computing allowed for it to be set up. Prior to that time, it wasn't an option even if you wanted it.

Given that Warp storms are a thing, Terra would have massive reserve stocks. It is the seat of the Emperor, and the sole source of navigation for all humanity. A planet like that would be maintained in permanent preparation for a siege.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

First, Vault of Terra books tend to land on grimdumb side of plot. So, they aren't that good proof for that. Second, if there was a genuine siege/food crisis, the Terra PDF command wouldn't be sitting on their asses waiting for revolt but would actually start arresting most disposable stratas of society and start feeding them to corpse starch reactors to make sure there is enough food by increasing supply and decreasing demand. Hell, given how many supposedly surplus people in the form of pilgrims and such are on Terra it's probably the only world in the Imperium that can actually last a pretty long time operating on normal level even if the food supply is completely cut in an instant (and for that you'd need to not only cut Terran system from the rest of IoM, but also Terra from the other planets/space infrastructure in Sol system which would require even bigger force)...

One of the problems with GW fluff is that people are allowed to write authoritatively on things they know nothing about.

Given the totalitarian nature of the Imperium, I would expect everyone on Terra to have a very good reason to be on Terra or they would be deported on outbound Black Ships. Remember: no one likes empty ships. I suspect that's how the balance is maintained - bring in 100,000 psykers and take off 100,000 "useless mouths."

You're forgetting the corruption and the snobbery. The unwashed masses are out of sight out of mind for the upper crust, the lower crust will use them and only ship off the ones that aren't protected by them or someone else.

Breton wrote:
You're forgetting the corruption and the snobbery. The unwashed masses are out of sight out of mind for the upper crust, the lower crust will use them and only ship off the ones that aren't protected by them or someone else.

I don't see any reason why elites would want useless mouths hanging around. That's a constant throughout history, by the way - the Optimates always want the Proles culled, whether we're in Athens, Rome, London or Moscow.

The Imperial system has to have some functionality to have survived that long. Empires require lots and lots of maintenance. The notion that the High Lords basically run the joint as a fortress perpetually preparing for siege and using outbound Black Ships to get rid of "surplus population" makes much more sense than it being terribly run and one month away from cannibalism and revolution.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Breton wrote:
You're forgetting the corruption and the snobbery. The unwashed masses are out of sight out of mind for the upper crust, the lower crust will use them and only ship off the ones that aren't protected by them or someone else.

I don't see any reason why elites would want useless mouths hanging around. That's a constant throughout history, by the way - the Optimates always want the Proles culled, whether we're in Athens, Rome, London or Moscow.

The Imperial system has to have some functionality to have survived that long. Empires require lots and lots of maintenance. The notion that the High Lords basically run the joint as a fortress perpetually preparing for siege and using outbound Black Ships to get rid of "surplus population" makes much more sense than it being terribly run and one month away from cannibalism and revolution.

Because they're not the elites. Or if they are, they're the lowest rung. The people who would be putting the "proles" on the ships would be the same ones who would want to use them for more personal power because they have so little.

I like the idea of this thread, so here's my $0.02.

I think the vast majority of races we play in the game would find it easier to destroy Terra than to conquer it. Hundreds of dedicated warships and potentially thousand of other armed vessels would be around to defend it, including the Imperial Navy, Mars, any Space Marines, Grey Knights, Inquisitorial and Ecclesiarchal forces.

So let's go down the list!

Space Marines - If all the Space Marines suddenly turned traitor and decided to attack Terra, could they conquer it? Depends on the writer and how much bs plot armor Space Marines are given, but I want to say no. The whole point of breaking up the Imperial Army was to prevent something like that from occurring. If the Imperial Navy at its strongest point couldn't blunt the Space Marines, it becomes a very poor narrative point. Probably would come the closest to conquering Terra (though, funnily enough, out of the Imperial factions wouldn't do the most damage). Between the massive space forces in the area, Luna itself being essentially a planetary weapons platform, and that there would be forces around that could actually put up a fight, I don't see Space Marines conquering Terra without major plot assistance.

Adepta Sororitas - If all Sisters of Battle turned traitor and decided to attack Terra, could they conquer it? No. Not enough numbers or space faring vessels to overcome space and orbital defenses. On the ground, the Sisters would be drowned in bodies, other power armored forces, heavy metal, and Titans.

Custodes - Again, a lack of numbers. They'd be able to kill the Emperor easily, of course, which would do tremendous amounts of damage to the Imperium as a whole, but wouldn't actually be conquering Terra. If the Navy were so inclined, they could simply start lancing areas where the Custodes are operating to reduce their numbers until Space Marines or other specialist forces could eventually root them out.

Mechanicus - This is a little more iffy. Mars is one of the major deterrents to fighting over Terra. AM have their own fleets, ground forces, war machines, planets, and even Titans. I feel like in Mars vs. Terra, Terra would win. However, all of AM vs. only Terra, I think AM could eventually grind away at Terra, Luna, and all the other Imperial strongholds.

Astra Militarum - Not enough space based forces to transport them to Terra. Though if a trillion guardsmen were to materialize on the planet, I'd argue that they could eventually take it.

Imperial Knights - No, not enough numbers.

Chaos Daemons - Going to say no on the basis that they haven't done it yet. Probably one of the more dangerous scenarios if daemon portals were to simply open on the planet and unable to be closed.

Chaos Space Marines - This is going to be awkward. Narratively, they *should* be able to conquer Terra. After all, that's kind of their whole point--to be the big, bad boogey man to the Imperium, the dagger that could go to the heart and end everything. But...they couldn't even eliminate Cadia without cheating, they hide in the Eye, and a lot of their victories are often plot armored nonsense. Out of all the human forces, they should be the ones with the best shot. Just that the fluff doesn't really reflect it. But it should.

Eldar of Craftworlds, Dark, Clown, Death Cult, and Dinosaur riding flavors - Not without their end game scenario firing off where they eliminate Slaanesh and reunite, *and* finding a couple of caches of lost War in Heaven super weapons. If Terra were to become a problem, this race would find it easier to blow it up or direct another faction to kill it.

Genestealer Cults - Probably have the best, most realistic shot of conquering Terra, given that they had already infiltrated it and would've continued to grow if not for sheer dumb luck. Funnily enough, a Terra conquered by the GSC might not actually look all that different from your regular Terra...at least at first. I imagine the cults would start a slower, almost imperceptible decline of the Imperium--relief forces arriving too early or too late, supplies redirected, forces ordered to abandon planets to the hive fleets, starting wars with everyone to deplete resources, etc.

Necrons - ...Maybe? Another race that would find it easier to blow up or trap in a time loop or something like that. Given that Trazyn does have a spot for the Emperor/Golden Throne in his collection, it's either not something that can be done easily or it just simply can't be done. But all, or a significant chunk, of the Necrons? Sure, probably. Maybe.

Orks - Yes. They've proven to be dangerous before. Their unique approach to planetary invasions means they don't necessarily have to pacify local space before ramming their roks into Terra's surface.

T'au - Hard to judge. If the Sol system fell into a wormhole and popped into existence next to the T'au system? Realistically, I'd have to say that it would take hundreds of year for the T'au to eventually conquer Terra, but that would be more than enough time for the greater Imperium to respond. But T'au have some bs plot armor.

Tyranids - In theory, Tyranids could conquer Terra. I think we can all agree that an endless wave of self sufficient alien horrors that cannot be demoralized or dissuaded could conquer pretty much anything. Narratively, though, the Tyranids exist to lose--any wins they get are easily glossed over and they inevitably lose, usually in the dumbest of ways to forces too small to realistically stop a Hive Fleet. If a Hive Fleet were to materialize near Terra, the most likely action would be that the Imperium fought bravely, suffered massive but ultimately meaningless casualties (that would grow less and less significant with each edition), and were defeated by the flavor of the month.

I’m not sure I agree Tyranids never win. They’re not exactly in it to win or lose. Their objective is survive and eat. They manage that pretty regularly, and when driven off it’s invariably at staggering cost to the defenders.

 Gert wrote:
The Necrons aren't generally idiots though. Well apart from that one time

👍

I think overall Chaos, as a unified thing as portrayed in the background, numbers wise, could do it.

But? Do they have the overall cohesion to pull it off, or are those with the most power too obsessed with their own ego to pull it together?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m not sure I agree Tyranids never win. They’re not exactly in it to win or lose. Their objective is survive and eat. They manage that pretty regularly, and when driven off it’s invariably at staggering cost to the defenders.

When written about, the Tyranids eat never before mentioned worlds or defeat never before named Chapters (though also rarely are these utterly wiped out). These are basically disposable losses. No major characters or factions have "recently" in the time line seemed to suffer meaningful setbacks to the Tyranids and they always seem to pull through at the last moment through some form of "kill the Norn Queen" or "saved by the warp" deus ex machina. I am not saying a faction needs to be wiped out but when was the last time a campaign or story ended with the Tyranids having the lasting victory over a previously named major character or faction?

The action on Octarius is kind of a victory with the Tyranids killing the unnamed Overfiend of Octarius but the story seemed to be setting up for the Ork tech crown disrupting the Tyranids' cohesion and probably a new Overfiend will rise up. The Tyranids defeating the Adeptus Mechanicus and consuming Gryphonne IV and the majority of their Titan Legion could be a good story, if it were ever written up in detail, as Gryphonne IV was supposedly one of the most heavily defended worlds in the southern galaxy.

Breton wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

First, Vault of Terra books tend to land on grimdumb side of plot. So, they aren't that good proof for that. Second, if there was a genuine siege/food crisis, the Terra PDF command wouldn't be sitting on their asses waiting for revolt but would actually start arresting most disposable stratas of society and start feeding them to corpse starch reactors to make sure there is enough food by increasing supply and decreasing demand. Hell, given how many supposedly surplus people in the form of pilgrims and such are on Terra it's probably the only world in the Imperium that can actually last a pretty long time operating on normal level even if the food supply is completely cut in an instant (and for that you'd need to not only cut Terran system from the rest of IoM, but also Terra from the other planets/space infrastructure in Sol system which would require even bigger force)...

One of the problems with GW fluff is that people are allowed to write authoritatively on things they know nothing about.

Given the totalitarian nature of the Imperium, I would expect everyone on Terra to have a very good reason to be on Terra or they would be deported on outbound Black Ships. Remember: no one likes empty ships. I suspect that's how the balance is maintained - bring in 100,000 psykers and take off 100,000 "useless mouths."

You're forgetting the corruption and the snobbery. The unwashed masses are out of sight out of mind for the upper crust, the lower crust will use them and only ship off the ones that aren't protected by them or someone else.

I think corruption is the key, and I suspect that the security systems on Terra are going to be as broken as everything else in the Imperium.

Someone playing the long game could easily infiltrate Terra with huge numbers of agents that could bring down more or less anything outside of the Mechanicum and Custodes, since we can assume they aren't as easy to bribe or corrupt.

As with any other Empire, the grunts are doing most of the actual work and yield a surprising amount of power.

Yeah, any attempt at portraying the Imperium as anything but an inefficient, bureaucratic hellhole is missing the entire point.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Yeah, any attempt at portraying the Imperium as anything but an inefficient, bureaucratic hellhole is missing the entire point.

I think there's two basic views on the question. The one I lean toward is that there has to be some residual level of competency in the Imperium for it to last as long as it has. Thus, there's a reason Terra hasn't fallen yet besides plot armor.

The other one is that it's a rotten apple waiting for the slightest breeze to knock it off the branch. Both positions are compatible with the fluff because the fluff is all over the place.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Yeah, any attempt at portraying the Imperium as anything but an inefficient, bureaucratic hellhole is missing the entire point.

There is a truly amazing line from an old film you may have heard of, called "Casablanca" with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

In one scene Claude Rains character is addressing a throwaway comment by Conrad Velt's character, (A nazi major) about how American's are just a bunch of blundering fools.

"My Dear Major, you mustn't underestimate American Blundering. I was with them when they Blundered into Berlin in 1914."

Same with imperial inefficiency. They're inefficiently controlling a large portion of the entire kwown Universe. And their patron deity is more powerful than most of the Chaos "Gods"

Iracundus wrote:
I am not saying a faction needs to be wiped out but when was the last time a campaign or story ended with the Tyranids having the lasting victory over a previously named major character or faction?

The action on Octarius is kind of a victory with the Tyranids killing the unnamed Overfiend of Octarius but the story seemed to be setting up for the Ork tech crown disrupting the Tyranids' cohesion and probably a new Overfiend will rise up. The Tyranids defeating the Adeptus Mechanicus and consuming Gryphonne IV and the majority of their Titan Legion could be a good story, if it were ever written up in detail, as Gryphonne IV was supposedly one of the most heavily defended worlds in the southern galaxy.

When was the last time ANY previously mentioned character or faction was destroyed?

Squats? Was a nightmare, and they're technically back now too.

Tycho? Still in the codex.

Creed? Missing, not destroyed.

Even the Primarchs are coming back.

GW is all about the status quo. Even the fall of Cadia didn't disrupt the status quo, it just made the once a summer event of Every Faction And Their Sister invading the same planet at once marginally more believable.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Yeah, any attempt at portraying the Imperium as anything but an inefficient, bureaucratic hellhole is missing the entire point.

There is a truly amazing line from an old film you may have heard of, called "Casablanca" with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

In one scene Claude Rains character is addressing a throwaway comment by Conrad Velt's character, (A nazi major) about how American's are just a bunch of blundering fools.

"My Dear Major, you mustn't underestimate American Blundering. I was with them when they Blundered into Berlin in 1914."

Same with imperial inefficiency. They're inefficiently controlling a large portion of the entire kwown Universe. And their patron deity is more powerful than most of the Chaos "Gods"

Except we’re specifically talking the defence of Terra.

Imperial inefficiency is largely down to its sheer size, it’s centralised beuracracy and depending on digging tunnels through Actual Hell to get from A to B.

Terra is the Throneworld. Terra is everything. Loose Terra, lose The Emperor and the Astronomicon.

The Sol System is such a vital, and tiny, part of the whole I’m not sure the grand scale inefficiencies would really be a factor when it comes to repulsing an attacker.

If anywhere has “Emperor Said No” Dark Age, Forbidden tech and weapons? It’s Terra. At least in concentration. If anywhere has a reliable in-system communication system, well maintained, with multiple redundancies? It’s Terra.

That’s not to argue “therefore always secret win button”. Just part of the fun of this topic is properly considering just what a hornets nest Terra could prove to be.

I’d need to check in-canon galactic charts etc, but the Sol System itself likely isn’t particularly isolated, so potentially significant reinforcements could be easily on hand.

Which all feeds into what’s going on in my head. Not that “loads of defences, therefore can’t be successfully attacked”. More that any successful strike would take truly vast forces. The closest anyone came was during The Heresy, which gives us some idea of what sort of forces might be required. Because sure, Terra has far fewer Marines to protect it*? But it’s had 10,000 years of relative peace in-system to sort its defences out.

*At least, so we’re told. Whilst I cannot prove so won’t produce as an argument, it wouldn’t at all surprise me if there are a load of Astartes nobody else knows about based on Terra. I mean, Cawl pulled off the Primaris Project in total secrecy, so someone taking tithed Gene Seed and creating secret Chapters, kept on ice doesn’t seem impossible. But that’s a flight of fancy rather than a strong argument.

Iracundus wrote:
The Tyranids defeating the Adeptus Mechanicus and consuming Gryphonne IV and the majority of their Titan Legion could be a good story, if it were ever written up in detail, as Gryphonne IV was supposedly one of the most heavily defended worlds in the southern galaxy.

I imagine the writers saw Matrix 3, and the walkers shooting at a hole filled with metal squid, and thought, we can do that!

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Yeah, any attempt at portraying the Imperium as anything but an inefficient, bureaucratic hellhole is missing the entire point.

I think there's two basic views on the question. The one I lean toward is that there has to be some residual level of competency in the Imperium for it to last as long as it has. Thus, there's a reason Terra hasn't fallen yet besides plot armor.

The other one is that it's a rotten apple waiting for the slightest breeze to knock it off the branch. Both positions are compatible with the fluff because the fluff is all over the place.

Given most real life organizations of any size are more akin to the rotten apple than residual competency, I can certainly see that applying after 10,000 years of decay. Then once you add in the tech that no-one understands and the reliance on methods no-one can remember the logic behind, it's not hard to imagine anyone being able to infiltrate most of Terra with some fake imperial seals and some dirty but pointless task to do. Would any governor deny access to an Imperial sewer surveying team? He probably wouldn't even want to meet them.

I think if anythings going to successfully bring down Terra, it'll be a fairly trivial plot like destroying the planets supply to toilet paper, or leaving all the doors locked, rather than a huge invasion force.

Herzlos wrote:
Given most real life organizations of any size are more akin to the rotten apple than residual competency, I can certainly see that applying after 10,000 years of decay. Then once you add in the tech that no-one understands and the reliance on methods no-one can remember the logic behind, it's not hard to imagine anyone being able to infiltrate most of Terra with some fake imperial seals and some dirty but pointless task to do. Would any governor deny access to an Imperial sewer surveying team? He probably wouldn't even want to meet them.

I think if anythings going to successfully bring down Terra, it'll be a fairly trivial plot like destroying the planets supply to toilet paper, or leaving all the doors locked, rather than a huge invasion force.

Most real-live organizations aren't designed to do anything other than make or spend money. You have to look at larger institutions and they both can last a long time and be very resilient. China's dynastic system lasted for 22 centuries and is arguably still in place after a brief flirtation with Marxism.

Japan's monarchy supposedly is 2,500 years old. All institutions have ups and downs, times of decline and times of renewal. Part of the issue is where in the cycle they are when you look at them.

Unlike all those other human institutions, the Imperium has the luxury of the same ruler - no risk of an inbred idiot son losing the kingdom.

I'm leaning towards the Doc's explanation - the greatest human intellect in history is likely paying attention to what goes on in his frontcourt.

Only beauty can tame the beast. The Johnson will be along shortly to handle his business.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:


Unlike all those other human institutions, the Imperium has the luxury of the same ruler - no risk of an inbred idiot son losing the kingdom.

No, the Imperium has the same figurehead. The Emperor is a lighthouse, the High Lords rule the Imperium, and they are human like everyone, and there is just as much chance of an inbred idiot fething it up as can be seen in the many times that idiots fethed it up.

Whilst it’s indisputable that The Imperium, as a whole, is a nightmare of bureaucracy? Not only does the whole of thing somehow work, but on the much smaller scale we can look to documented planets and systems which work out about as well as can be expected.

Necromunda is one. A super densely populated, but for all intents and purposes, dead world. Yet….it still churns stuff out, endlessly recycling, remaking and making do.

It imports what it needs, and in the staggering quantities it’s needed in. It exports arms and soldiers, alongside luxury goods. We as modern humans might look at it and balk at the awful conditions all but the tiniest fraction endure - but it works.

It also shines a light on the Greater Imperium. Basically as long as Planetary Governor meets their tithe? Nobody particularly cares what goes on for the most part. Its territories are too numerous and far too wide spread for anything more to be done than occasional inquisition checks etc.


That in itself can prove problematic for blockading Terra. Yes there were will be favoured warp routes, due to varying stability. But even blockading those would require a pretty vast fleet - let alone all the other potential realspace relocation points.

And if needed, that’s a lot of traffic you need to blockade against, whilst seeing off the ships actively defending the Sol System.

As ever, incredibly difficult doesn’t mean impossible. But I just don’t think a blockade is a feasible approach. It would likely require a fleet of staggering size to begin with - and a way to reinforce as the inevitable battles take their toll. Now, The Imperium has reinforcements aplenty, albeit far flung and usually quite busy elsewhere. But defending Terra and breaking your blockade would, I fancy, become Priority One.

And let’s not forget Terra is not without her own shipyards. So unless you completely destroy a ship, chances are it can get back to port for repairs and come back at you. So again sheer attrition most likely isn’t going to be in your favour.

I just don’t think anyone has either the resources or temperament for that.

A direct assault seems a bit more possible. Yes you need to overcome fleet and planetary defences, but if you can gather sufficient ships, and wield them cleverly I think you’d have some chance of overwhelming the defences and defenders?

Altima wrote:
Space Marines - If all the Space Marines suddenly turned traitor and decided to attack Terra, could they conquer it? Depends on the writer and how much bs plot armor Space Marines are given, but I want to say no.

And yet, in canon a combined force of like 4 chapters did (during the reign of Goge Vandire, even though such a tiny fleet shouldn't make it past Pluto, never mind sieging the Palace somehow). Go figure.

Ditto with Vangorich, like 4 SM companies managed to capture the Palace then Assassin temples and eliminate him too despite Vangorich being in total control of the whole Imperium...

Adepta Sororitas - If all Sisters of Battle turned traitor and decided to attack Terra, could they conquer it? No. Not enough numbers or space faring vessels to overcome space and orbital defenses. On the ground, the Sisters would be drowned in bodies, other power armored forces, heavy metal, and Titans.

Sisters actually have bigger numbers than SM and while their fleets are individually weaker, there are a lot more of them, too. Not to mention the biggest Convent being on Terra itself which kinda makes the whole travel issue moot. Also funnily enough Vandire's proto-sisters kicked the butt of both SM force sieging Palace from outside and Custode one trying to do the same from inside, to the point Custodes actually tried parlay (and offered hostages) for the first and only time in their existence, as far as we know at least.

Custodes - Again, a lack of numbers. They'd be able to kill the Emperor easily, of course, which would do tremendous amounts of damage to the Imperium as a whole, but wouldn't actually be conquering Terra. If the Navy were so inclined, they could simply start lancing areas where the Custodes are operating to reduce their numbers until Space Marines or other specialist forces could eventually root them out.

Eh, no. Just no. Not only Palace has massive shields and defence guns, but Custodes have bombs planted on every single ship and command bunker in the whole Sol system. If they wanted to rebel they would just decapitate leaders they wouldn't be able to sway and order the rest around. After all, they the Emperor's companions, when they order you, not listening is both insubordination and religious heresy. If there is a force that can coup the Imperium in an instant, it's the Companions.

Also, dunno about killing the Emperor bit, seeing He would be able to obliterate anyone in the Throne room with a thought. If Emperor wanted it for some reason, maybe, but otherwise, no.

If a Hive Fleet were to materialize near Terra, the most likely action would be that the Imperium fought bravely, suffered massive but ultimately meaningless casualties (that would grow less and less significant with each edition), and were defeated by the flavor of the month.

Unless it was Imperial Armour book, then Imperium would lose in laughably stupid way to a force that shouldn't be able to do anything

 Irbis wrote:
And yet, in canon a combined force of like 4 chapters did (during the reign of Goge Vandire, even though such a tiny fleet shouldn't make it past Pluto, never mind sieging the Palace somehow). Go figure.

Yeah, that's not accurate. Vandire didn't have control over the Sol System when the end of his reign came around as the majority of his forces had been destroyed in a Warp Storm (the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath) and he was left only with the ten thousand Brides of the Emperor. He controlled the Ecclesiarchal Palace and portions of the Imperial Palace. The Mechanicus, led by the Fabricator General, were joined by units from four Chapters who were also then aided in secret by the Custodes. There was very little actual combat as the Mechanicus bombarded the Palace while the Custodes put their plan into action. The Palace was never stormed because Vandire was assassinated by the head of his own bodyguard.

Ditto with Vangorich, like 4 SM companies managed to capture the Palace then Assassin temples and eliminate him too despite Vangorich being in total control of the whole Imperium...

Also inaccurate. By the time of the Beheading, Vangorich had lost all control barring the Assassin Temples. When six hundred Astartes landed on Terra to depose him not a single other Imperial institution raised arms against the Space Marines. Half their number were killed assaulting the Imperial Palace and the remainder, barring Maximus Thane, were killed assaulting the Eversor Temple at the North Pole.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Given the totalitarian nature of the Imperium, I would expect everyone on Terra to have a very good reason to be on Terra or they would be deported on outbound Black Ships. Remember: no one likes empty ships. I suspect that's how the balance is maintained - bring in 100,000 psykers and take off 100,000 "useless mouths."

Eh, it's literally the HOLY planet. People need no other reason to go there than pilgrimage. And your second point is actually what I meant - if Terra is cut off, the easiest solution to the problem of 'useless mouths' is to fed them to corpse starch factories instead of ships, and the High Lords are more than ruthless enough to order it...

Breton wrote:
When was the last time ANY previously mentioned character or faction was destroyed?

...

GW is all about the status quo. Even the fall of Cadia didn't disrupt the status quo, it just made the once a summer event of Every Faction And Their Sister invading the same planet at once marginally more believable.

Um, literally last two book campaigns had Belakor ruin big Forge World and obliterate major, named Knight house (both with subfaction rules)/Vashtorr crush major Imperial warp beacon with all the forces on massive Imperial fleet defending it (which should be at least dozens of chapters/Sister orders/IG regiments/etc, etc). Really now?

 Gert wrote:
Yeah, that's not accurate. Vandire didn't have control over the Sol System when the end of his reign came around as the majority of his forces had been destroyed in a Warp Storm (the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath) and he was left only with the ten thousand Brides of the Emperor. He controlled the Ecclesiarchal Palace and portions of the Imperial Palace. The Mechanicus, led by the Fabricator General, were joined by units from four Chapters who were also then aided in secret by the Custodes. There was very little actual combat as the Mechanicus bombarded the Palace while the Custodes put their plan into action. The Palace was never stormed because Vandire was assassinated by the head of his own bodyguard.

Um, wrong. The storm only destroyed one fleet out of hundreds he had. Yes, that was his most fanatic followers but that was specifically Church force, so the of remainder of the troops were untouched. Yes, a lot of remaining commanders started to disobey orders to attack SM and AM as it was suicide, but that didn't mean abandoning him completely and he needed to be dug out of Palace precisely because he still had control of most of the Imperium. If he really had nothing, there would be no need for the siege, they could just brick up the occupied part of Palace and wait for everyone inside to die of thirst.

And no combat? Seriously? Then who SM and Custodes repeatedly attacked to be thrown back again and again? Do you really think Custodes would beg for parley and give Brides hostages without a fight? They literally couldn't budge them so had to employ desperate gambit, drag Alicia before the Emperor at humiliating terms and hope He would convince her to eliminate Vandire. That doesn't sound to me like a tactic you'd employ against inferior force led by man who has nothing

Also inaccurate. By the time of the Beheading, Vangorich had lost all control barring the Assassin Temples. When six hundred Astartes landed on Terra to depose him not a single other Imperial institution raised arms against the Space Marines. Half their number were killed assaulting the Imperial Palace and the remainder, barring Maximus Thane, were killed assaulting the Eversor Temple at the North Pole.

Also wrong, population was scared to attack SM due to horrors of the Heresy being still remembered but Vangorich still remained the effective dictator of the Imperium and massive force of SM led by Ultramarines was needed even post his fall to purge his supporters and stabilize the government. This again doesn't sound like someone who has nothing, the fact local commander refused to obey suicidal orders does not mean the regime is out, doubly so if fight continues long after the leader is dead. If anything that's the mark of really strong, not weak institution.

 Irbis wrote:
Um, wrong. The storm only destroyed one fleet out of hundreds he had. Yes, that was his most fanatic followers but that was specifically Church force, so the of remainder of the troops were untouched. Yes, a lot of remaining commanders started to disobey orders to attack SM and AM as it was suicide, but that didn't mean abandoning him completely and he needed to be dug out of Palace precisely because he still had control of most of the Imperium. If he really had nothing, there would be no need for the siege, they could just brick up the occupied part of Palace and wait for everyone inside to die of thirst.

The troops that were disobeying his orders, defecting to Thor's side, or fighting against Thor's forces you mean? None of which were at Terra. Vandire had ten thousand Brides to defend him.

And no combat? Seriously? Then who SM and Custodes repeatedly attacked to be thrown back again and again? Do you really think Custodes would beg for parley and give Brides hostages without a fight? They literally couldn't budge them so had to employ desperate gambit, drag Alicia before the Emperor at humiliating terms and hope He would convince her to eliminate Vandire. That doesn't sound to me like a tactic you'd employ against inferior force led by man who has nothing

The Mechanicus and SM attacked the Palace and didn't breach the walls. The Custodes met with them and told the attackers to continue the siege while they solved the Vandire problem. They didn't beg with the Brides and the Captain-General left his men as hostages as a sign of good faith while he brought Alicia Dominica and her bodyguard to the Golden Throne.
It wasn't about the Custodes, Astartes, and Mechanicus struggling to win, it was about causing as little damage to the Palace as possible and ending the insanity of the Age of Apostasy, something the Custodes did at other points when things eventually went too far.

Also wrong, population was scared to attack SM due to horrors of the Heresy being still remembered but Vangorich still remained the effective dictator of the Imperium and massive force of SM led by Ultramarines was needed even post his fall to purge his supporters and stabilize the government. This again doesn't sound like someone who has nothing, the fact local commander refused to obey suicidal orders does not mean the regime is out, doubly so if fight continues long after the leader is dead. If anything that's the mark of really strong, not weak institution.

The regime was out. Vangorich had no allies left by the time of the Beheading and the only forces the Astartes fought were Assassins. The problem of a destabilised government came after Vangorich's reign of terror ended because when he ruled nobody moved against him. The beginning of his rule was effective but only because he removed every single problem he faced. He murdered all of the High Lords save one, had a puppet government loyal only to him, and in his later years began random purges and massacres.
If his government was so strong why did it fall apart immediately after he died? Why did it take a massive effort by the Astartes to stabilise the Senatorum if Vangorich's Senatorum was such a good one?
It's because it wasn't.