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Battle sisters are well trained elite army, but they are just a human.

They can't live near forever like space marines. They get old, and die by the aging.

Moreover, they can't local procurement their recurit. All of SOB members are trained in the Schola Progenium.

Not few planets of the Imperium cut the connection with other planets by the warpstorm or some other reasons.

And when I consider the above facter, I can't understand How they maintain the organization when they isolated.. Even when I assume they don't loss at all by combat, most member will die in 100 years.

jim300 wrote:
BAll of SOB members are trained in the Schola Progenium.

There are Schola Progenium all over the galaxy. Beside, if there is none, found one. Seems the most sound solution to me. And if that is not possible, well, this particular minor order dies off of old age and disappear, yes. Maybe to be founded again after the warp storm ends and their fate is discovered ?

Perhaps they do just die off once isolated.

If cut off, simply found a training establishment, use your veterans to teach and senior figures to guide it ads best possible.

It may not be perfect but a order could support itself, equipment may be harder but hive worlds often have manufacturing even if its not to forgewoeld levels.

Every world supports a PDF, so there will be some military infrastructure

I doubt an Order would simply die off. I can see the Sisters going out in a blaze of glory once they found they were cut off.

Oh, I thought entire sisters get trained from only San Leor and Ophelia IV.

I read that on this forum a few days ago, and I had question how the maintain their order.

Well, yes. Were an Order cut off for such an extended period, they would die off. Same as any other human force.

Also, it's debatable whether Marines live forever. Dante, for example, is noted to be very much being past his prime and very old.

jhe90 wrote:
If cut off, simply found a training establishment, use your veterans to teach and senior figures to guide it ads best possible.

I doubt that an Order would go for that. For one, they don't really have the resources to do what a Schola does. A key thing that they're missing is a drug which erases the memories of the youth who is to be trained (mentioned in the Scions codex). Also, there is a very established procedure for the creation of a Novice, involving things like a blessing by the Ecclesiarch himself and going to train at one of the two main SoB worlds. The Sisters can't provide these things, and probably wouldn't want to try. Finally, only very specific people are eligible, the orphans of important Imperials. Random people won't do.


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jim300 wrote:
Oh, I thought entire sisters get trained from only San Leor and Ophelia IV.

Terra and Ophelia VII, actually. They train there after they leave the Schola.

At least, I think that can train on either of those worlds whilst they are Novices. Will have to check later.

 Troike wrote:
Well, yes. Were an Order cut off for such an extended period, they would die off. Same as any other human force.

Also, it's debatable whether Marines live forever. Dante, for example, is noted to be very much being past his prime and very old.

jhe90 wrote:
If cut off, simply found a training establishment, use your veterans to teach and senior figures to guide it ads best possible.

I doubt that an Order would go for that. For one, they don't really have the resources to do what a Schola does. A key thing that they're missing is a drug which erases the memories of the youth who is to be trained (mentioned in the Scions codex). Also, there is a very established procedure for the creation of a Novice, involving things like a blessing by the Ecclesiarch himself and going to train at one of the two main SoB worlds. The Sisters can't provide these things, and probably wouldn't want to try. Finally, only very specific people are eligible, the orphans of important Imperials. Random people won't do.


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jim300 wrote:
Oh, I thought entire sisters get trained from only San Leor and Ophelia IV.

Terra and Ophelia VII, actually. They train there after they leave the Schola..

Oh, then they just accept the collapse when they can't connect with others? This make me confuse more...

jim300 wrote:
Battle sisters are well trained elite army, but they are just a human.

They can't live near forever like space marines.

Space Marines can't live forever either. and realy, the topic never comes up because Space Marines die within a couple hundred years most of the time anyway, because they're constantly fighting and thus constantly dying. Those who live more than a few hundred years are the exception, not the rule.

An exception that can also apply to Sisters. There are numerous humans in 40k that have lived hundreds of years.

jim300 wrote:
They get old, and die by the aging.

Most of the time, Battle Sisters (as opposed to the non-militant orders) die in combat, just like Space Marines or Imperial Guardsmen.

 Melissia wrote:

jim300 wrote:
Battle sisters are well trained elite army, but they are just a human.

They can't live near forever like space marines.

Space Marines can't live forever either. and realy, the topic never comes up because Space Marines die within a couple hundred years most of the time anyway, because they're constantly fighting and thus constantly dying. Those who live more than a few hundred years are the exception, not the rule.

An exception that can also apply to Sisters. There are numerous humans in 40k that have lived hundreds of years.

jim300 wrote:
They get old, and die by the aging.

Most of the time, Battle Sisters (as opposed to the non-militant orders) die in combat, just like Space Marines or Imperial Guardsmen.

Thanks about the answer. But I want to focus that how ease SOB order can be gone. They cannot maintain even there are no combat if they isolated.
SM can die. But they have a sufficient time to wait until the reconnection with others. Their lifespan will be 10 times at least, SOB doesn't. It will be much harder to keep themselves.

There are people who can live hundred years in the real world, but it doesn't mean they can do the same thing with the young guy. Aging took the energy and strength. Also they can't get the suppor of mechanicum's items when they are isolated.

SoB have the full support/funding of the Ecclesiarchy, the wealthiest organization in the Imperium and the only one with a consistent presence just about everywhere.

 Harriticus wrote:
SoB have the full support/funding of the Ecclesiarchy, the wealthiest organization in the Imperium and the only one with a consistent presence just about everywhere.

.....Yeah and I'm questioning about how they keep themselves when supporting and funding from Eccelsiarchy is cut.

jim300 wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
SoB have the full support/funding of the Ecclesiarchy, the wealthiest organization in the Imperium and the only one with a consistent presence just about everywhere.

.....Yeah and I'm questioning about how they keep themselves when supporting and funding from Eccelsiarchy is cut.

yeah except that doesn't happen. EVERY WORLD in the Imperium maintains churches to the god emperor. all of which are quite wealthy. remember the SOBs aren't apt to be located on small worthless worlds. their HQs are presumably going to be on shrine worlds.

jim300 wrote:
Thanks about the answer. But I want to focus that how ease SOB order can be gone.

It's an irrelevant, uninteresting topic to begin with. No organization in the Imperium can survive without other Imperial Organizations.

Not Space Marines. Space Marines will gradually die off without the support of the Mechanicus and the Imperium as a whole providing them resources and support-- and in fact this is the most common way for the Imperium to censure wayward Astartes chapters. Not the Adeptus Mechanicus, though they're the closest out of all of the organization. The AdMech cannot survive in the long term without the resources or protection of the greater Imperium. The Inquisition has authority because of the greater Imperium, not in spite of it. The Imperial Guard doesn't survive for generations without a supply line, nor does the Administratum survive without things to administer.

The Imperium is a complex series of constantly interacting organizations. It's a bit of a pointless question to ask what any organization might do when cut off, it's like asking what might happen to a Tyranid if you remove it from its food; it dies.

BrianDavion wrote:

jim300 wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
SoB have the full support/funding of the Ecclesiarchy, the wealthiest organization in the Imperium and the only one with a consistent presence just about everywhere.

.....Yeah and I'm questioning about how they keep themselves when supporting and funding from Eccelsiarchy is cut.

yeah except that doesn't happen. EVERY WORLD in the Imperium maintains churches to the god emperor. all of which are quite wealthy. remember the SOBs aren't apt to be located on small worthless worlds. their HQs are presumably going to be on shrine worlds.

I don't think the wealth will be the answer of my OP's questions. Wealth is just a small problem when you guys have no connection with the entire galaxy and you can't recurit noob in local.




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 Melissia wrote:

jim300 wrote:
Battle sisters are well trained elite army, but they are just a human.

They can't live near forever like space marines.

Space Marines can't live forever either. and realy, the topic never comes up because Space Marines die within a couple hundred years most of the time anyway, because they're constantly fighting and thus constantly dying. Those who live more than a few hundred years are the exception, not the rule.

An exception that can also apply to Sisters. There are numerous humans in 40k that have lived hundreds of years.

jim300 wrote:
They get old, and die by the aging.

Most of the time, Battle Sisters (as opposed to the non-militant orders) die in combat, just like Space Marines or Imperial Guardsmen.

OK. I think you're right. I'm sorry about that. I just felt a question how the keep themselves when they isolatedif there are only two training school in the whole universe and they can't recruit in local like the other guys.

They don't, I'm sure.

The sisters are devotional orders. They are not like the adeptus ministorum. The ministorum exists because there are lay people who have jobs or business and families and do not have lives devoted to the Imperial Creed, and the ministorum are there to proselytize to them and provide them facilities and liturgy for devotional exercises.

The sisters in the adepta sororitas are not oriented to services that way. They exist so that the sisters themselves can become better and more devout followers. I don't think they have the same kind of mandate to maintain their institutions. Obviously most organizations want to perpetuate themselves. However, the main reason that the sisters recruit - keep in mind these are non combat orders too - is for the benefit of the recruits themselves, unlike normal militaries that recruit because they exist primarily to service other constituencies or political/strategic goals.

If they are isolated and need to service goals like protecting assets or prosecuting campaigns despite attrition in their numbers, the battle sisters will support/reinforce local assets, be those formal militaries under the control of other organizations, or frateris militia that they improvise if there isn't a governor with PDF or lord general with guard.

If a planet was truly cut off, I would see no reason why one of the things done to maintain the imperial religion, control, and piety amongst the populous would be to draw candidates from the local populace. They should certainly have at least the basic ability to train and educate novice sisters, and can gild the whole thing, say that 'any candle can be lit to shed glorious illumination against this current dark.'

That these new initiates are not 'real' soritas can be part of the driving mantra, to maintain the order's institutions and carry on their traditions, until such a time that order is reestablished and they can 'properly' be made 'true' sisters (and of course, this being grimdark, what actually happens is cries of 'heresey!' and mindwipes for all).

It would simply seem ill-advised for keeping order and control to allow what is probably the premiere fighting and religious institution for that planet wither away.

If a planet was truly cut off, I would see no reason why one of the things done to maintain the imperial religion, control, and piety amongst the populous would be to draw candidates from the local populace. They should certainly have at least the basic ability to train and educate novice sisters, and can gild the whole thing, say that 'any candle can be lit to shed glorious illumination against this current dark.'

Because that is apostasy.

 Melissia wrote:
The Imperium is a complex series of constantly interacting organizations.

 Psienesis wrote:
Because that is apostasy.

These statements pretty much cover the main problem an Order would have if, hypothetically, it were cut off from the rest of the Imperium.

I assume that you are asking about a Militant Order and, based on the studio's background I estimate that there are roughly 40,000 Sisters of Battle. They are an incredibly elite force and operate within very strict parameters. They are not like Space Marine Chapters who are out in the wilderness more-or-less pursuing their own agendas, controlling their own world or worlds as they see fit and generally running themselves. The Sisters follow strict protocols and they are based where they are based for very specific reasons with all of their support they require to do so; guarding a shrine as an example.

Let us say, that in the course of guarding that shrine a warp storm or other calamity were to cut that world off from contact with the rest of the Imperium. In that eventuality the Order, or however many Sisters from the Order were present, after all, we could just be talking about one solitary Sister, will maintain their duty until they die or are given another duty; in fact that's how it would be irregardless of loss of contact with the wider Imperium, the Sister/s will simply do as they were ordered and if that means they all end up as wizened old ladies slowly dying one by one until no-one is left because a warp storm cut them off or somehow they were simply forgotten about then that is what they will do because that was their duty, faithful until death as the saying goes.

As for maintaining the order no matter the cost, a Sister would not do that, it is not her responsibility and it is not how the SoB work, so, if it is the Emperor's Will that they get isolated and eventually die then so be it.

 Psienesis wrote:

If a planet was truly cut off, I would see no reason why one of the things done to maintain the imperial religion, control, and piety amongst the populous would be to draw candidates from the local populace. They should certainly have at least the basic ability to train and educate novice sisters, and can gild the whole thing, say that 'any candle can be lit to shed glorious illumination against this current dark.'

Because that is apostasy.

I would not be so hard and fast about it. It's a big galaxy after all.

A few points regarding the OP.

- SoB minor orders being cut-off for more than 10 years at a time is probably a relatively rare occurrence as most ordesr will be garrisoned on Cardinal Worlds, High Population worlds and well connected 'Hub' worlds. Worlds that are important to the Ecclesiarchy are going to be high priority to re-connect with due to the huge pull of that organisation.

- Most Minor Orders cut off for extended periods are going to risk dying out. They may survive for a while, but adherence to doctrine will likely see their end if isolation lasts too long. (This leads to evocative images of a re-discovered monastery maintained by serfs for hundreds of years; the wargear of the long dead sisters lovingly maintained as statuary, and the order's deeds recorded in ancient texts preserved by devoted churchmen.)

- I think it is possible that in some rare, outlying cases that an order may resort to local recruitment to preserve their order during extended isolation. It's a big galaxy. But such orders would only do so under the most desperate of circumstances. Perhaps they view their duty to protect some relic or shrine as important enough to violate such strictures, perhaps a protracted conflict leads to 'probationary' sisters being trained and equipped to keep up the fight. In any case, such orders would face censure when returned to the Imperium, and at best would likely have their improperly trained sisters stripped of their status, and at worst the whole order expunged for heresy.

- Lastly; a SoB can live for an extended period of time, in the right circumstances. A sister who survives many conflicts and has been elevated to an important position may well be partially cyberised (the SoB have no stricture against cyborg limbs etc) and that can extend lifespans. Further, important sister likely will have access to 'Juvent Treatments', that have been known to extend life into hundreds of years.

There is certainly a lot of fertile ground with the idea of a SoB order that has been cut off.

- I think it is possible that in some rare, outlying cases that an order may resort to local recruitment to preserve their order during extended isolation. It's a big galaxy. But such orders would only do so under the most desperate of circumstances. Perhaps they view their duty to protect some relic or shrine as important enough to violate such strictures, perhaps a protracted conflict leads to 'probationary' sisters being trained and equipped to keep up the fight. In any case, such orders would face censure when returned to the Imperium, and at best would likely have their improperly trained sisters stripped of their status, and at worst the whole order expunged for heresy.

While this may be possible (and is, in fact, the truth behind a SOB faction in my "Fallout: Dark Heresy" RPG I've got going on), once that planet reconnects to the Imperium (Warp Storm ends, for example), all of the Sisters of this Order, from the Canoness all the way down to the newest Novitiate, are going to be sent to the Repentia for their transgressions against the doctrine of how the Sisterhood operates. The Sisterhood has only used 2 main training centers since the Age of Apostasy. That is the Will of the Emperor. Who are they to know better than the Emperor in how their teachings are going to be handed down? Such hubris is a grave sin.

- Lastly; a SoB can live for an extended period of time, in the right circumstances. A sister who survives many conflicts and has been elevated to an important position may well be partially cyberised (the SoB have no stricture against cyborg limbs etc) and that can extend lifespans. Further, important sister likely will have access to 'Juvent Treatments', that have been known to extend life into hundreds of years.

Under normal circumstances, yes... but probably not if the planet's been isolated from the Imperium and cannot receive shipments of supplies and the like. Juvenat drugs don't grow on trees, after all (unless this is a Paradise World, in which case, why the hell are the Sisters there?).

 Psienesis wrote:

- Lastly; a SoB can live for an extended period of time, in the right circumstances. A sister who survives many conflicts and has been elevated to an important position may well be partially cyberised (the SoB have no stricture against cyborg limbs etc) and that can extend lifespans. Further, important sister likely will have access to 'Juvent Treatments', that have been known to extend life into hundreds of years.

Under normal circumstances, yes... but probably not if the planet's been isolated from the Imperium and cannot receive shipments of supplies and the like. Juvenat drugs don't grow on trees, after all (unless this is a Paradise World, in which case, why the hell are the Sisters there?).

Exactly so- Juvenat drugs and treatments are a real luxury item, not likely to be found out in the fringes.

But regarding the age, I remember that the Canoness making an official complaint against the Flesh Tearers Chapter on Armageddon stated she's been leading Sisters in combat for over a century. (Chapter Master Gabriel Seth offered no tactical counsel - but the Canoness has grown used to it from space marines and knows how to compensate.) So I guess the Ecclesiarchy does throw money at preserving key personnel among the SoB too.

Makes sense. Spend enough time flying between worlds, and you'll pack on the years without aging a day, as you don't age while in the Warp. Your sidereal age will increase (as time passes between the day of your birth and the current date), but you won't actually age.

I'm not sure why there would be any problem, or concern, about an Order (presumably minor) "dying out" when isolated. It seems like it would be expected to happen if something unforseen befell them and they lost all contact with the greater Imperium for decades or centuries. They die off; that's it.

I mean, we know that entire worlds and systems may not get visited by the Imperium for hundreds, or thousands, of years. We know that technological worlds can and have regressed to feudal systems. We know that entire colonies have disappeared or died off between visits from Imperial representatives.

I'm not sure why there should be some other sort of plan or herculean effort made to prevent a minor order from suffering the same fate if something interrupted warp travel for an extensive period of time. I guess I'm asking why this question just specifies an SOB order? We know what happens to Imperial holdings when cut off from the Imperium (or what can happen). What is so special about SOB Orders? Sure, they can't easily replenish their ranks, but neither can the Stormtroopers (since they recruit from the Scholam too) or a small group of Adeptus Mechanicus (who might not have the 'equipment', or the interest).

Well, the question is pretty much focussed on the Order's point of view, so its probably just how the OP conceptualised the question rather than a slight on those other august institutions.

However, something I will say is that it's entirely possible that an isolated world may have its own Schola Progenium AND a small Sisters presence. In that case, it would make sense to recruit the Sisters-potentials from the Scholam directly into the order as novices. They can't be invested as full Sisters (Initiates?) until the storm lifts and they can be sent to Terra for their inauguration, but they can at least keep the vigil.

Depends on how long the planet is isolated, too. If there is a Schola Progenium present, then they can load up on their trainees (assuming that there are enough present who meet the minimum criteria).

But, again, if the world is cut off from the Imperium, then there are no new children arriving to the Schola to replace those who graduate.