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Hey guys,

So with your typical Space Marines, you obvious have the two relatively distinct types: (1) Those who have a Homeworld; and (2) Those that are Fleet-Based. Then you have a select few that effectively control and 'Empire' of sorts with the prime example being the Ultramarines being the prime example. Obviously no Chapter in existence would ever be granted the control of territory vast and/or powerful enough to rival the Ultramarines, is control over such vast swathes of the Galaxy commonplace (relatively speaking) among Space Marine Chapters?

I mean, I know that there are Chapters who have the duty of serving as guardians of great areas of galactic space, but are there many who actually control and rule over such vast spaces?

Cheers

The Badab War was basically over a Chapter taking such great power on itself and skimping Imperial tithes. There might be a few others with such power still (without being Ultramarines) but they're all being watched that much closer now.

I wonder if the main thing that brought war to Badab was cutting the tithe.

From what I gather, the two golden rules of the Imperium is 'don't fall to Chaos' and 'pay your tithe'.

Makes you wonder if there are more Space Marine chapters out there with their own little empires, in relative secret of course. I quite like the idea from a modelling and fluff-writing perspective

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I wonder if the main thing that brought war to Badab was cutting the tithe.

IIRC that was the thing that broke it, yes. It took a long time because the tithe went by a merchant alliance who had to explain themself first.

Disclaimer: No facts to back this up, just my thought processes.

It seems that it could work, sort of a hybrid between homeworld/fleet based chapters. With a few caveats. SM homeworlds are exempt from raising Guard regiments. So for every planet assigned to the marines, the IoM gets less guardsmen. Normally this is is offset by getting marines, but you don’t want to have more planets assigned to them then they need.

But out on the fringe, I could see a chapter being raised specifically to defend them, and given full ownership of a bunch of marginal planets. Where you basically have a sector with the population/production of a single healthy system. So the IoM is not loosing any real assets, get security, and the chapter has enough of a population base to support itself. Without being fleet based and prone to fly off to other places it might be needed.

I don't think there are any other Chapters that rule over an area as large as Ultramar. But it is definitely not uncommon for Space Marines to have small empires of multiple worlds or for them to control a sector they are assigned to defend. As long as they pay their tithes and don't get too big (that were the two mistakes Huron made, especially the not paying tithes part) everyone is going to be fine with it.

 Nevelon wrote:
Disclaimer: No facts to back this up, just my thought processes.

It seems that it could work, sort of a hybrid between homeworld/fleet based chapters. With a few caveats. SM homeworlds are exempt from raising Guard regiments. So for every planet assigned to the marines, the IoM gets less guardsmen. Normally this is is offset by getting marines, but you don’t want to have more planets assigned to them then they need.

But out on the fringe, I could see a chapter being raised specifically to defend them, and given full ownership of a bunch of marginal planets. Where you basically have a sector with the population/production of a single healthy system. So the IoM is not loosing any real assets, get security, and the chapter has enough of a population base to support itself. Without being fleet based and prone to fly off to other places it might be needed.

Only Space Marine homeworlds are exempt from tithes. They still got to pay tithes over any other world they control. The Badab war started because Huron refused this as he was of the opinion that as a Space Marine, he should never have to answer to any authority except the Emperor Himseld and therefore never pay any tithes whatsoever. The Administratum politely disagreed.

Technically, no.
He still drew the tithes, but as Lord Sector (whic he ended up as after the revolt), was"investing" them in the sectors defences.

The next sector over was going slightly bankrupt, and started an argument, but it was a political debate until Kathargo sector went behind everyones back and talked the Fire Hawks into trying to enforce collection of the tithes.

once the shooting started, the Imperium at large quickly sided agaibst him, though.


I beleive the black consuls have quite a few dependant worlds they control.

Also, remember with the Ultramarines, in addition to being a first founding chapter, every planet in Ultramar raises its own Imperial Guard Regiments, even though technically they are not required to do so as a tithe.

Also, to my knowledge, a lot of Space Marine Chapters have no interest in ruling a planet, let alone an empire - too much administration that would get in the way of their role as 'defenders of humanity.'

I suspect the closest you would most often get would be a fleet bound chapter that recruit from the same small number of worlds, and as such would likely have a chapter house of some description on each of the planets.

But as always, there are exceptions, so I'm sure there are a few chapters that have small empires

Spetulhu wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I wonder if the main thing that brought war to Badab was cutting the tithe.

IIRC that was the thing that broke it, yes. It took a long time because the tithe went by a merchant alliance who had to explain themself first.

From reading Forge World's accounting of the Badab War, I'm inclined to agree. Huron's "Empire" was all fine and dandy until he stopped paying his taxes.

However, if word of his "tinkering" with his and other chapters' gene seed had gotten out, he'd also be in big trouble, but that's immaterial to the discussion at hand I suppose.

Even the taxes weren't an issue: The reason the Kathargo Satrap called in the Fire Hawks was because the tax issue had languished in the Imperial Courts for a century because the Astral Claws did have the right to commandeer material for the intended purposes. The Kathargo government was itself purged after the war for the illegal actions they took against Badab/Huron.

The trade dispute was only a causal effect in the sense that it drew the Inquisition's gaze to the region. The subsequent war itself was solely down to the Astral Claws refusal to allow a routine Inquisition investigation of their affairs that would have discovered the tinkering.

Huron was not clearly in the right with the original incident. The other Imperial worlds had to pay their tithes and Huron was interdicting an area of space and preventing them from gathering the resources to do so. He was preventing other parts of the Imperium from fulfilling their obligations. Why the leaders of Karthago were punished after the war was because they did not have the authority to take matters into their own hands and start fighting. What Huron did however was equivalent to camping out on a public road and blocking it off.

Huron's fault was he felt he was above the other institutions of the Imperium. When told "no" by other institutions or when asked to cooperate, such as submitting geneseed for inspection, he refused and did his own thing regardless, even when this started impacting on others. His whole attitude was "You're not the boss of me" and the results of multiple actions taken with that attitude of ignoring rules and restrictions that others had to follow is what led to rebellion.

But wasn't clearly in the wrong either. As noted, as defacto lord sector, declaring a state of emergency and redirecting the tithe was within his authority if the situation justified it, and the threats from the maelstrom (which the administratum itself kept undercutting him against by redirecting his reinforcements whenever he scored a modicum of military success) were very real and would have been just as disruptive to the maelstrom zone's productivity if he didn't reinforce the region's local defences.

There's a reason the court case took a century without ruling....

This is not saying he wasn't arrogant, by the way, and not saying he wasn't ultimately wrong. But his mandate was to secure the maelstrom zone, which was just as binding as the material tithe, and he used legal means to do that. It's not so much blocking off a public highway as a concrete factory saying they're refusing to deliver until they've used their own product to fix dangerous and illegal structural weaknesses in the factory building.

locarno24 wrote:
But wasn't clearly in the wrong either. As noted, as defacto lord sector, declaring a state of emergency and redirecting the tithe was within his authority if the situation justified it, and the threats from the maelstrom (which the administratum itself kept undercutting him against by redirecting his reinforcements whenever he scored a modicum of military success) were very real and would have been just as disruptive to the maelstrom zone's productivity if he didn't reinforce the region's local defences.

There's a reason the court case took a century without ruling....

This is not saying he wasn't arrogant, by the way, and not saying he wasn't ultimately wrong. But his mandate was to secure the maelstrom zone, which was just as binding as the material tithe, and he used legal means to do that. It's not so much blocking off a public highway as a concrete factory saying they're refusing to deliver until they've used their own product to fix dangerous and illegal structural weaknesses in the factory building.

Huron claimed to rule the Badab Sector and arguably he had the right to cut off the tithe from Badab Prime. However that does not mean he had the right to prevent the Karthago Sector from fulfilling its tithe obligations, which is what his interdiction of space amounted to since it strangled the trade routes that enabled the Karthago Sector to be productive and to meet its obligations to the rest of the Imperium. His willingness to throw the rest of the Imperium under the bus if he didn't get his way was ultimately why the Imperium turned against him.

It is the equivalent of blocking off a public highway.

Moreover eventually the courts ruled in Karthago Sector's favor. That was where Karthago Sector jumped the gun and tried to do things on their own. However even if they hadn't, we see where Huron's attitude was leading him. He would have likely rebelled eventually anyway as he clearly viewed normal humans with contempt and whenever the other institutions of the Imperium did not give him what he wanted or ruled against him, he would just ignore them and do it anyway. Ultimately it could even be seen as a repeat of one of the original issues of the Heresy: The struggle for civilian control of the Imperium and humanity, fought between normal human administrators against Space Marines deciding they knew better and refusing to take orders let alone be denied their wishes.

The Chaos Space Marines in the Eye of Terror can be seen as an example of what might have happened if Huron had won: a Space Marine warlord ruling over a world or collection of worlds as a personal fiefdom, with other Space Marines forming a privileged military overlord class over the normal humans who are exploited as labor or cannon fodder.

I suspect most space marine empires are more a network of favors and agreements rather then any deciated government.

BrianDavion wrote:
I suspect most space marine empires are more a network of favors and agreements rather then any deciated government.

Again depends on the chapter. Ultramarine successors seem to like ruling, while other chapters don't.