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How do!

Here’s a bit of a speculative thread. And it’s the old scenario of “we are not in fact Terra. Instead we’re a lost world from the Golden Age of Technology, and the Imperium just rocked up”. Rather than looking for people to simply discuss and debate things as I see them, I also want folk to provide their own hypotheticals.

Now, being baseline humans, and pretty much free of Chaotic taint, I’d see our world a prime candidate for Imperial Compliance. There’s a few billion of us, and natural resources waiting to be properly properly plundered. Indeed, flaws and polluted as our world is, it might even be considered something of a Paradise World compared to the wider Imperium.

Without any intent to insult our militaries, I just can’t see how we would be able to resist Compliance. Because we’re not talking a single Starship arriving. We’re talking a fleet (either Explorator or Rogue Trader actively seeking new worlds, or a Battlefleet dropping out the Warp far off course.

Yes. We do have weapons of mass destruction. And in numbers which, frankly, don’t make a lot of sense to me. But…that’s about it. I don’t know for sure if they’re capable of being targeted at something in high or low orbit. One suspects some can, some can’t? Let’s just say it’s not something I want to be Googling, because algorithms. But that Fleet? Yeah it’s got a wider range of weapons. And assuming it has some kind of fighter support, I think any Ground to Space/Space to Ground conflict would be embarrassingly one sided (the Fleet at least having some chance of intercepting incoming ICBMs etc).

And that’s even assuming any given country, pact or organisation thinks it’s even remotely worth trying to resist. I mean, let’s say Russia or the USA tries it. It’s….it’s them (assuming the Imperium bothered to suss out the geopolitical situation, which isn’t exactly a given) that’s going to get the orbital kicking. I feel like even a single such kicking would bring about peaceful compliance relatively quickly, because nobody wants to invite that sort of heat unless they’re really, really crazy.

Because no matter how upset Earth as we know it might be about this monolithic civilisation taking over? We’d be the scrawny kid being told “give us your dinner money” by the bizarrely huge kid in class that may or may not have started puberty around the age of 6. There’s just nothing we could realistically do to resist it.

Even if we could manage some kind of early stage global military resistance? The Imperium has time and resources we simply don’t. Think about the lives and matériels it spends in a given war zone, and realise we are frankly laughable. Doesn’t matter how passionate, righteous, well armed and well trained a given military is or isn’t? The Imperium could, and would, bleed us dry. Or, at absolute worst, just decide “well, it’s worth it for the resources, let’s just drop some Virus bombs and call it a day”.

But. Let’s go back to Crusade Era Compliance. Unless actively hostile from the off? Human held, ostensibly untainted worlds were invited to become Compliant. The fleets and forces potentially arrayed against them more than capable of providing really rather persuasive. And it doesn’t seem much has changed since those days, though the fleets may well be somewhat smaller. Negotiations were held, and the frankly inevitable did happen without much bloodshed.

Now of course, we cannot and will not bring specific politics nor religions into this. This is Dakka, and let’s not give the Moderati a headache, yeah?

Right, discuss and contribute as you may.

To long, did not read.

I suspect the slavery and indentured servitude would be a pretty huge culture shock for most of us.

Wonder what the odds of the Imperium arriving are, say, compared to Orks.

The Imperium seems to be trying to hold it's vast an expansive Empire. Orks seem to exist throughout the known Universe.

Repelling an invasion from either would be very hard. Power armor or endless hordes seem beyond our current capabilities.

Orks we’d be utterly stuffed!

 Niiai wrote:
To long, did not read.

Seems a bit unnecessary to say that to something that wasn't even that long of a post.

In any case, to answer MDG's hypothetical, finding out we're not the only humans in the galaxy would be a huge shock to people worldwide. To further discover that there is an interstellar spanning human empire would be even more shocking and witnessing star spanning technology would lead to potential mass unrest as people freak out over what is going to happen to our planet in the midst of such overwhelming force. I feel on a government level, there would be immediate competition and backchannels of countries like Russia and China trying to carve out deals with Imperial representatives to collaborate and curry favour so as to establish themselves as the pre-eminent political entity that the Imperium would want to work with as they incorporate Earth into the Imperium, effectively trying to gain governship of the entire planet. As the world's current superpower, I'm not entirely sure what the U.S. and their allies would do in the face of the Imperials. At face value, supplicating to the Imperium would be political suicide, but I feel like there may be attempts to have a public cover of "diplomacy" to make it seem like the West has some bargaining power of some of the terms of joining the Imperium, to save face. I agree that unless we have a particularly belligerent president by this point that outright war is incredibly unlikely.

I could see a fair bit of societal unrest from a more local level as people refuse to consider submitting to the Imperials, so various rebel cells might form in different parts of the world, but I feel like that would come more after we start learning more about what the heck the Imperium is about. I expect a lot of religious resistance from several major religions when the Adeptus Ministorum starts attempting to co-opt them. I expect scientists across the whole collectively nutting their pants at the possibilities of gaining access to the biological and technological capabilities of the Mechanicus, even if they are shrouded in religious dogma. The presence of psykers would also greatly change the approach of the scientific community to other fields like psionics and it raises questions if there are any existing psykers on our current planet.

The presence of servitors would definitely unnerve people as well as the type of tithes they would demand from our planet, because I think that's where a lot of the conflict will also arise because if it's food, ore, or any other kind of resource, you know the Imperium is going to strip-mine or do whatever they need to get what they need. The authoritarian aspect is really going to kick in there because any kind of public protest is going to be shut down immediately. The establishment of arbites and other overarching Imperial Institutions I think will be significantly negatively received.

On the Ministorum? They might be perfectly capable of demonstrating miracles, at least of science.

I’m not a person of faith myself, and I don’t really care to question why others are. So one can only speculate what the incredible pomp and ceremony of the Ministorum might bring to the religious table.

Certainly we can look back at our own global history and see how religions have supplanted and even absorbed other religions. No I won’t give specific examples, because no P&R, but also I just don’t think specific examples bring anything to this particular table beyond being potentially insulting and provocative regardless of intent.

Bring a whole new Religion, with the raw power of the Imperium behind it, and we might see fairly mass conversion?

For a long time, you'd see underground resistance movements, possibly forever. The difference between a lot of the Dark Age reclamations and modern Earth is that we haven't witnessed the horrors they did. There are no Daemons, Enslavers, Rouge Alpha level Pskyers, Men of Iron and god knows what else. We've had wars but not on the scale of 40k humanity. For a lot of those worlds it was a case of "eternal servitude under a genocidal dictator who might be a god, can't be much worse can it?". We've got something to aspire to and remember, most of them didn't.

Even the most collective of our cultures would be incredibly individualistic compare to any other culture from the imperium. I think that the more individualistic cultures would have a lot of problems with chaos cults as they desperately seek any means of preserving that.

I do wonder about our potential for any resistance.

Yes, some might be more tenacious than most. Our own history teaches us that. Again no specific examples, but the 20th Century alone has many examples of such resistances being hero or villain, depending on point of view.

But those are still framed in the enemy having ultimately finite resources and at least some code of ethics in most cases.

The Imperium? Kind of the opposite. Let’s consider what I’m afraid we must acknowledge as the most successful, and that’s Afghanistan. There, those resisting use the natural terrain, including cave networks to their advantage.

Trouble there, against The Imperium? If it saw fit, orbital strikes could simply flatten mountain ranges with relative precision. It’s even debatable than sensor auguries could spot where you are, and follow you from there in a way our tech just can’t.

Even if it’s “just send in the Guard and winkle them out”, the humble Lasgun is a major hurdle. Not being from a military family, I’m not sure how much ammo a given person can practically carry. But I’ll go out on what seems a robust, healthy limb and say it’s far less ammo than a Guardsman can carry, because Lasgun batteries are noted as being fairly lightweight, and depending on settings/mark of Lasgun, good for dozens of shots each, if not hundreds (depending on your source).

Now, add in that the Guard could quite happily commit thousands of infantry, and I just can’t see resistance lasting overly long.

If we’re talking “shock and awe” tactics? Titans. Don’t get much more shocking and awesome than a walking battleship you can barely scratch the paint of (seriously. What weapons do we have that can tickle a Titan?).

Again please note I am trying to keep us away from “Imperium vs specific force”, as that way lies politics.

And if any resistance movement proves evenly moderately successful? The heck are any of us gonna do against Astartes?

It depends greatly on what technology we’d manage to save from the golden age, if any STC had been retained and what level of scientific skill has been matured.

Are we more like Caliban where men armed with bolters ride horses or more like the technocracy that anathame sword was stolen from ( I forget the name). In the case of the latter the armies had power armour and power weapons and were able to hold of for a good amount of time against a legion led by a primarch supported by the ad mech and AM.

Well, we are we are right now in terms of technology.

How much effort would be thrown against us by the imperium now? I doubt they would deploy enough chapters to reach the numbers of the Luna wolves

Regarding titans, we have laser guided missiles that can be targeted at knee joints. Titans are not clever weapons

Trouble is, you need to batter down the Void Shields first….when you look at those, that’s quite the problem.

Yes, massed tank fire or missile barrage might start stripping them. But, I’m not convinced we have the oomph to fry the Void Shield Generator (dropping a shield is basically tripping the generator, and it’s fairly easy to reset it, and get that shield back up.

Plus, Mr Titan is unleashing weapons of unfathomable nature to us all the time…


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mrFickle wrote:
How much effort would be thrown against us by the imperium now? I doubt they would deploy enough chapters to reach the numbers of the Luna wolves

I don’t think they’d even need to resort to deploying Astartes. Total orbital superiority. They can strike airfields at will, so aerial dominance would soon follow. From there, or after, target places such as The Pentagon, Whitehall etc, and just start the systemic shattering of our military intelligence. Heck, they could simply blind us by taking out satellite networks. Yes there are a lot of satellites up there (way more than we might think), but they’re sitting ducks.

No satellites? No global intelligence really worth a damn. Difficulty communicating with troops in the field. No drones.

That done? Mass Conveyancers deploy untold thousands of Guardsmen and their accompanying materiel, and it’s Brown Trousers on the Blue Planet o’clock.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, we are we are right now in terms of technology.

Alright. Let's do some wargaming.

In terms of defenses, Earth (as a whole) brings a small set of tools to bring to bear in repelling an invasion arriving from space. There are ones we know about (nuclear weapons) along with ones that are rumored to exist (directed energy weapons / orbital rail guns / etc.) A variety of delivery platforms exist, mostly limited to rockets / missiles, but also including advanced aerospace engineering (things like the hypersonic drones rumored to exist in the Chinese arsenal.) The number of places for deploying delivery platforms worldwide is relatively small, maybe 20, and distributed across multiple continents. Beyond this, a number of disruptive platforms exist, mostly limited to signal / sensor jamming devices, some of which operate terrestrially. They tend to be single use devices (i.e. block that satellite) but let's assume they could be rapidly repurposed as a means of screwing with an opponent's comms.

The situation is brighter when it comes to ground forces. Most industrialized nations possess standing armies with modern armor, roughly equivalent to that of a Leman Russ. The size and composition of these armies vary, one estimate I've heard is that enough operative arms exist to kill every person on Earth 23 times over. There's also advances to consider when it comes to air forces, programs like Loyal Wingman offer countries like the US and China the ability to deploy fighter jets with swarms of offensive drones capable of attacking an opponent even if the main fighter goes down. This (along with autonomous drones) should be considered a force multiplier that could compensate for loss of pilots in any engagement, allowing air forces to remain effective longer than we might expect. They carry arms capable of destroying most armor, which are smarter than anything I know of in the Imperial arsenal.

Were an Imperial force to arrive seeking Compliance, there's a good chance the level of automation and AI embedded in our militaries would create a reaction of disgust and horror. This means Exterminatus could also be on the table, the Imperium could very well decide they have no right to allow Earth to continue building mechanical / digital abominations. So we must consider the possibility that a ship arrives, deploys a Cyclonic Torpedo, and mops up anything that's left once the atmosphere settles.

Provided that doesn't happen, the Imperium would have a long and bloody campaign on it's hands. I imagine the war would start with the arrival of Imperial forces and a period where governments are trying to figure out their intentions. Scientists and engineers would study this new thing in the stars, while adapting rockets for use against them. Hostilities would begin on the Imperial side, they would begin by taking out orbital weapons and satellites while broadcasting their own propaganda and messages to world leaders. A few DEWs might be repurposed to take potshots at the Imperial forces, but it's unlikely anything designed to attack ground targets would do much to something in space. You can imagine a rail gun firing off an i-beam at 10k mph and having it go wide because the math was off. Nuclear weapons would eventually take the stage, but they're relatively slow. A space ship would probably be able to detect and evade anything coming from the planet long before it gets there.

The Imperium would detect and identify any space ports and move to destroy them. Assuming whatever arrives is capable of an orbital bombardment, this campaign would last a few days (mostly to give time for energy cells to recharge.) The goal would be to establish an orbital beachhead from which to carry out the campaign.

From there, Earth governments would quickly realize it's in their interests to unite to fight the threat, they would organize quickly to address the threat. Within about 90 days, we would see the deployment of cheap aerospace fighters capable of delivering a missile. The Imperium would combine orbital bombardments with landing parties in undeveloped parts of the world to create a foothold from which to launch other attacks (I have a feeling it would be Africa.) Arms and materials would be transferred down while invasion forces perform lightning raids in other parts of the world that force governments to respond. Nuclear weapons would probably be used against Imperial forces, taking out limited parts of their armies at great cost to the defenders. A few nations would realize they can gain some advantage by Complying, and a large effort from Earth forces would be required to prevent them from becoming hostiles.

The Imperium doesn't have unlimited resources. Nor does Earth. Hard to see how it would actually end, but I don't think an initial engagement is an automatic Imperial victory. Provided they don't go the Exterminatus route, they might decide the cost is too high and they've done enough to keep Earth from ever becoming a threat. They would go to the undefended and more mineral rich Mars to repurpose it for Imperial needs. Earth would spend a few hundred years dealing with the devastation that was wrought. Provided the Imperium can establish adequate supply chains in this solar system, they would eventually return in force to wipe out what resistance is left and finish the effort.

That is, if the other horrors of the 40k universe don't get it first. Could easily see Word Bearers / Alpha Legion operatives gaining the upper hand and turning it into a Chaos world. Or Earth preparing for another Imperial invasion, only to confront a large Ork army that showed up at the gates.

I like this one! Here goes:

Assuming we don't get exterminatus-ed for tech heresy (ai), I think earth could be a relatively easy addition to the imperium. Afaik they use/prefer planetary governors (dictatorships) to other types of government. Given that, I see the commanding officer of a single light cruiser claiming earth with a few easy steps:

- Abduct a few random civilians to tell you who's who on the international stage. There are probably a few earthlings in some tin can in orbit that are easy pickings for this.

- Contact the most powerful nation led by a single leader to discuss making them planetary governor (so Russia or China). Tell the first pick that if they fail you'll kill them and make the other guy governor instead, thus ensuring they're properly motivated. This is also where you introduce the concept of planetary tithes.

- Officially announce your presence to the planet on all channels and explain that they're now part of the glorious empire of man under the rule of planetary governor x. Chances are earth's nations have spotted your ship before now, but who cares what these primitives think.

Now there's a chance this won't go over well, especially not with the global players looking to end up as the have-nots. This adds a few extra steps to the imperium's inevitable victory:

- Wait for earth's piddly strike to bounce off your void shields while you enjoy a glass of Amasec and laugh. What were they thinking, your shields can absorb far more powerful hits than anything these noobs could muster a millennium from now.

- Glass a few large cities with a lance strike and threaten exterminatus to show you're not playing around. You really aren't, you could just have a bunch of imperial citizens warped in from some hive world to resettle the planet if these guys prove too annoying.

- Kill off the offending nations' leadership in a public, gory fashion (not advocating for anything! This is 40k's imperium after all). Throw in some other nations' leaders as well to show you really don't care about who's who. That'll motivate them to turn on each other in the future for fear of their own lives.

At this point all coordinated resistance is over. Land troops all around the globe and set up some bases to display power, have some sort of glorious march celebrating earth joining the imperium. Praise the Emperor!

All that's left is to incentivize the new planetary governor to keep small-scale rebellion limited (the threat of death is a great incentive). They'll probably want to implement some sort of secret police or something, idk.

To add to the pot?

Do people feel a Great Crusade era Compliance would differ in your theoretical scenario.

Nah, it would still be the same.
Earth has no reason to join the Imperium willingly unless it could maintain some sort of autonomy within the Imperial bureaucracy. It's not suited to mass agricultural, mining or industrial output, and it would take a long time for it to be useful as a Militarum recruiting world or Astartes fiefdom.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To add to the pot?

Do people feel a Great Crusade era Compliance would differ in your theoretical scenario.

There's a few major changes if it was GC versus modern 40k. From a military standpoint, the compliance force for the GC would be more integrated with one another (i.e. you deal with a legion and its auxiliaries, versus an Imperial Battlegroup that is less cohesive in nature). The main difference on a non-military level would be the message of the Imperial Truth and Remembrancers taking the place of Adeptus Ministorum representatives. While the atheists in the world currently might be happy to receive that message, I'm not sure it would really change the general societal response towards the Imperium collectively taking over the planet. You'd certainly have a lot of resistance from all the major world religions and we would have them pushed underground rather than being co-opted by the Imperial Cult. Otherwise, I assume the process is largely the same.

The other major difference is what legion (if any) gets involved in bringing our world into compliance and if there's a Primarch leading them. This is because, unlike in 40k, where Chapters are largely more hands-off for anything that isn't their homeworld or assigned sector, the Legions heavily affected the way a world was brought into the Imperial Fold. The Night Lords would use fear and terror tactics to subjugate our population, the World Eaters (assuming they had the Butcher's Nails at this point) could potentially slaughter most of the populace, Iron Warriors/Imperial Fists would set up a garrison, Word Bearers would be incredibly thorough in establishing conformity to Imperial rule in the populace, and you'd have guys like the Alpha Legion destablizing the entire planet's political and economic infrastructure. Throw the inhuman charisma of a Primarch, or god Forbid, the Emperor himself and I think the process of us capitulating is that much faster.

shortymcnostrill wrote:
I like this one! Here goes:

Assuming we don't get exterminatus-ed for tech heresy (ai), I think earth could be a relatively easy addition to the imperium. Afaik they use/prefer planetary governors (dictatorships) to other types of government. Given that, I see the commanding officer of a single light cruiser claiming earth with a few easy steps:

- Abduct a few random civilians to tell you who's who on the international stage. There are probably a few earthlings in some tin can in orbit that are easy pickings for this.

- Contact the most powerful nation led by a single leader to discuss making them planetary governor (so Russia or China). Tell the first pick that if they fail you'll kill them and make the other guy governor instead, thus ensuring they're properly motivated. This is also where you introduce the concept of planetary tithes.

It may be possible to stop at this point and just appoint a governor who feeds governments stuff like tech or materials in exchange for the tithe - whatever it is the imperium wants off us - and the general populace never need know about the imperuim.
Good post though, good thread.

 Flinty wrote:
Regarding titans, we have laser guided missiles that can be targeted at knee joints. Titans are not clever weapons

That leads to two questions; can our weapons break through their void shields and even if they could would they be able to do any real damage, even at a knee joint, without destroying our own planet as well?

On the basis that many 40k weapons have direct modern equivalents that are of equal damage potential, I think that artillery or rocket or missile barrages would be able to drop void shields. Then You don’t need to destroy the knee joint. You just need to knacker it sufficiently that the Titan can’t move much and then work around it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yes, massed tank fire or missile barrage might start stripping them. But, I’m not convinced we have the oomph to fry the Void Shield Generator (dropping a shield is basically tripping the generator, and it’s fairly easy to reset it, and get that shield back up.

Plus, Mr Titan is unleashing weapons of unfathomable nature to us all the time…

You know the Pask dude (Leman Russ commander from IG book) has multiple titan kills? If IG tank can kill one, we sure as hell can. Yes, our tanks are worse but we have a lot more of them than even a whole IG army.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Orks we’d be utterly stuffed!

You mean orks would be stuffed?

A single modern artillery piece like M270 MLRS or BM-30 Smerch can turn an area the size of nine 40K tables into a fine mixture of ork bits and pulverized ground. In a single salvo. Think SM whirlwind, except firing all rockets at once and a lot more than a whirlwind can carry. It would need to be a lot of orks to be any threatening to us. Funnily enough, we actually even have an advantage, orks can loot Imperial weaponry but an M-16 would be next to useless for them

And yes, M-16 would be useless against an ork, too, but we have plenty of heavier anti-infantry weapons. Or minefields, again, something 40K doesn't do because weapons removing whole table worth of infantry at once aren't fun in a game.

 Gert wrote:
I suspect the slavery and indentured servitude would be a pretty huge culture shock for most of us.

You mean for people who don't read press?

Try reading this and telling me it again with a straight face: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_garment_factory_fire

Yup, 200 people burned because the supervisors locked them to work whole day in inhumane conditions and boarded exits so no one could leave. And it's not like it's isolated incident, bottom of the page has a whole list of similar disasters. Millions of people work in wage slavery conditions so the top of the Hive (read, first world countries) could consume cheap gak. Apple and its garbage PCs? Not only overpriced, but they exploit their workers in the same way, too, despite being richest company on the planet. When several Apple workers (I mean, they work for shell company to divert blame, but they spent decades in Apple factory so yes, they are Apple workers) jumped out of the windows and roof of the factory out of desperation caused by starvation pay, Apple generously blocked all windows and put a fence around factory roof instead of spending the money on more fair wages. Culture shock you say?

And before someone says 'it only happens in third world', this month in USA dozens of people died during a tornado, because ultra rich companies (especially Amazon) told them they would be fired and blacklisted if they leave, having to choose risking a tornado or starving to death - and the threat was serious enough lots of people stayed. How exactly it differs from the lot of slaves in the Imperium?

I mean, it differs because Imperium doesn't pretend "it will all trickle down" and similar lies, or tells the slaves High Lord needs a tax cut because it will somehow translate into better wages and totally not another gold plated toilet and sixtieth Ferrari for the CEO. Imperium is both less hypocritical and treats tax dodging and corruption like actual crime, not something to be praised, making comparison look bad for us in places.

If you want real culture shock, Imperium says women have equal rights ("what do you mean a woman can't be pope or even a bishop on this planet? why? are local cults really so backward?"), has no homo- or transphobia, doesn't care about skin color, has no concept of nationalism, etc, etc, and the screeching from the more insane parts of our population will be loud enough to drive any invasion fleet away

Heh. What's that Terry pratchett quote?
"Black and white live in perfect harmony and gang up on green" or some such.

But don't underestimate orks. Yes, orks and tyranids are basically reduced to a headlong Celtic charge into the teeth of modern firepower, which sounds like suicidal uselessness. But the thing is, the *numbers* involved make it a different tactical problem to anything modern militaries plan for, especially logistically.

I can wholeheartedly recommend the posleen saga as a good example of how an ork or tyranid invasion is likely to go. I mean; it sucks to be an ork in the first few dozen ranks, obviously. But mass-fragmentation volleys do not *reliably* kill orks the way they kill humans and they sure as hell don't 'suppress' them. And yes, the idea of a few hundred mlrs erasing a huge map region and all the orks in it is cool but there are only about 1300 in existence worldwide and even tens of thousands of kills disappears into a war of tens of millions.

 Irbis wrote:

If you want real culture shock, Imperium says women have equal rights ("what do you mean a woman can't be pope or even a bishop on this planet? why? are local cults really so backward?"), has no homo- or transphobia, doesn't care about skin color, has no concept of nationalism, etc, etc, and the screeching from the more insane parts of our population will be loud enough to drive any invasion fleet away

So are saying a fictional empire based on the worst parts of medieval europe, medeval catholic church, nazi germany, colonial history and every other evil government of the 20th century still somehow has none of those things?

Women have equal rights? basically true if by that you mean none at all outside the upper classes. Also if a planet had a rule about not letting women in the imperial creed clergy I do not think they would care even a bit as long as it does not interfere with the tithe.

No homo/transphobia? once again outside of the upper classes there is no way this is happening and, once again, the imperium doesn't care about internal politics that don't effect the tithe.

Doesn't care about skin color? Tell that to the people born with a skin color outside of the human norms.

No concept of nationalism? The imperium is pure nationalism on a galactic scale.

Imperium coming because they need something is more likely than Orks or Tyranids

as we are a human world, just because they did not show up for 2000 years does not mean that they have forgotten that were are here

take a read about the bronze age collapse, could as well be the last time that Imperial Forces came along in search of conscripts


What would happen, they come, go for conscripts, remove our heretical technology, cleanse the 1st world states, take some resources and vanish for the next 1-2000 years

do we have a chance?
not really, if we take the open fight, as modern military doctrine is not build around killing but attrition and breaking the moral of the opponent
while the Imperium does not care if we and all their soldiers that are thrown in are dead afterwards

the same way we won't have any chance against Orks or Tyranids, as wearing them down until the lose the spirit to go on won't work
(and specially the US Forces have no clue how to defeat someone who will never give up)

for a culture shock, well those that are now the privileged might have one finding themselves as not being important anymore and have to do the same basic work as others
for the working poor, well they basically just work for a different company afterwards

Let’s dial it back on real world political commentary, shall we? It is an interesting topic, but one better suited to ETC.

Now, back on the Great Crusade era.

Perhaps I’ve just not read the right books (I have read all the earlier Heresy novels though), but GC Imperium feels a very different beast to the modern Imperium.

Whilst they absolutely would take what they wanted by force, an untainted world like ours (no Xenos, no psykers, no concept of Chaos etc) would at least be given a chance to achieve Compliance peacefully. Indeed, even if one nation state did resist, it strikes me that they would be punished, but not everyone else?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Let’s dial it back on real world political commentary, shall we? It is an interesting topic, but one better suited to ETC.

Now, back on the Great Crusade era.

Perhaps I’ve just not read the right books (I have read all the earlier Heresy novels though), but GC Imperium feels a very different beast to the modern Imperium.

Whilst they absolutely would take what they wanted by force, an untainted world like ours (no Xenos, no psykers, no concept of Chaos etc) would at least be given a chance to achieve Compliance peacefully. Indeed, even if one nation state did resist, it strikes me that they would be punished, but not everyone else?

I think the main difference is that in the great crusade the main army was primarily space marines while in 40k it is the imperial guard. The space marines tend to be more precise then the modern guard. Though it would also depend on which legion was sent to pacify earth. If it was the Ultramarines we are golden, if say the world eaters or iron warriors less so.

I think the IoM in the 41st Millennium would still offer a chance at compliance without bloodshed to an untouched human world. Obviously if they turned out to be traitors who defected 10,000 yrs ago then out come the guns.

The IoM is quite happy to side with a loyalist faction against traitors resisting the Imperium on a given world- the civil war on Krieg is a good example. If one of Earth's factions professed sufficient loyalty to the IoM against the resisting nations, then I am pretty sure they will get Imperial support and likely become the ruling house once Earth is pacified.

It would be a bit sticky if several factions professed loyalty whilst being at war with each other, but the Imperium tolerates this so long as the tithes are paid on time.

To be honest, I think the IoM would even tolerate a democratically elected planetary governor, so long as they didn't change too frequently to stuff up stability and conformed to the other Imperial requirements- pay your tithes, hunt down and tithe psykers, don't tolerate mutants or aliens, and allow the requisite Imperial institutions to set up offices (Adeptus Administratum, Adeptus Arbites, Adeptus Ministorum etc).