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Are Schola Progenium students being steered towards a specific career (commissar, battle sister, etc.), with specialized training and indoctrination? Or do they all receive the same education and are then assigned their careers upon graduation based on their skills and personal character?

Do they have any choice in the matter?

.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/05/19 14:30:50


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The Ciaphas Cain novels (I don't remember which one) implies that they start of together and then the branches kind of pick out their candidates according to potential. The students did not seem to have a say in it. I remember that it also implied that Stormtroopers are "what's left over". In the sense that progeniums that neither make the cut for Commissars, SoB, Priests etc. get indoctrinated to be Scions. Don't get me wrong, there was no doubt that a Scion gets excellent training, just that guys and girls not mentally fit enough to do the other jobs can still perform well in the militarum tempestus

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/05/19 14:42:37


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That makes sense as to why Scions are overwhelmingly depicted as male, compared to Guard being male and female. All the best women for combat would have all ready been hived off for the SoB and the best of everything else into their respective branches. So very few left by the time the 'rest' end up as Scions.

I was under the impression from the Gaunt books that Commissars where specifically orphans of great families, high up military officers, etc. Some sort of way of 'looking after' loyal and useful bloodlines.
   
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The Inquisition gets first dibs on trainees, then the Sisters, then the Commissars, then the Scions.
The Inquisition is a mystery in what it looks for, the Sisters look for the most faithful girls, the Commisars look for children that have strong constitutions and "morals", the scions still get the best of the rest who are still hard as nails.
There isn't any genealogy requirements for being any of the above btw. Why sift for "good bloodlines" when you have millions of orphans to indoctrinate? They either train well and get into one of the above organisations, or they train badly and just become schola staff, cleaners, instructors, kitchen staff, etc.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/05/19 16:29:26


 
   
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It doesn't stretch credulity to imagine that powerful people in the Imperium might try to influence some selections via back-channel communications. Like some Navy lord sending a memo saying, "I would be most pleased if the child of the late Admiral Horatio Bugleblower were selected for naval service."

It would also be quite believable if most such efforts were misplaced or ignored. It would also be very believable that someone like Ciaphas Cain might overestimate the degree of favoritism or nepotism in Schola selection.

The pool of Schola Progenium candidates is probably staggeringly large, so the number of individuals given "special consideration" would still be insignificant compared to the pool of trainees being processed through the system.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/05/19 16:42:47


 
   
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 Pyroalchi wrote:
The Ciaphas Cain novels (I don't remember which one) implies that they start of together and then the branches kind of pick out their candidates according to potential. The students did not seem to have a say in it. I remember that it also implied that Stormtroopers are "what's left over". In the sense that progeniums that neither make the cut for Commissars, SoB, Priests etc. get indoctrinated to be Scions. Don't get me wrong, there was no doubt that a Scion gets excellent training, just that guys and girls not mentally fit enough to do the other jobs can still perform well in the militarum tempestus


This.
   
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 Gert wrote:
The Inquisition gets first dibs on trainees, then the Sisters, then the Commissars, then the Scions.
The Inquisition is a mystery in what it looks for, the Sisters look for the most faithful girls, the Commisars look for children that have strong constitutions and "morals", the scions still get the best of the rest who are still hard as nails.
There isn't any genealogy requirements for being any of the above btw. Why sift for "good bloodlines" when you have millions of orphans to indoctrinate? They either train well and get into one of the above organisations, or they train badly and just become schola staff, cleaners, instructors, kitchen staff, etc.


The Inquisition seems to select for psychic potential, intelligence, and flexibility in thinking. Though obviously there are some Inquisitors that are more blunt or zealous than others, in general some degree of intelligence and open-mindedness/flexibility is necessary to get to the bottom of investigations and conspiracies.
   
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Tallonian4th wrote:
That makes sense as to why Scions are overwhelmingly depicted as male, compared to Guard being male and female. All the best women for combat would have all ready been hived off for the SoB and the best of everything else into their respective branches. So very few left by the time the 'rest' end up as Scions.

I was under the impression from the Gaunt books that Commissars where specifically orphans of great families, high up military officers, etc. Some sort of way of 'looking after' loyal and useful bloodlines.


There are multiple examples of female Storm Troopers, which always made me wonder, if you are good enough to be a female in the Scions, why aren't you in the Sororitas? I assume lack of faith, but still. Don't they all get mind scrubbed and implanted?
   
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Again only from memory from Cains novels it was kind of implied: Scions have to first and formost follow orders, show battlefield initiative and no hesitation in face of death. There are a bunch specifically mentioned to show little to none emotional reaction to loosing close squadmates and later on when they do loose their nerve due to some Necron shananigans this is described as something really outstanding. As far as I remember it was implied that this is achieved through intense indoctrination/mindscrubbing.

Now here comes were it might be my personal headcanon but I think the kind of faith that is paramount for SoBs is nothing you can achieve by mindscrubbing and indoctrinating an individual, at least not in the way it's done to Scions. This faith has to come from deeper and from a kind of pure spirit.
Same as you need very strong characters and mentalities with quite a lot of people skills to get a really good commissar, which is also something you can only "implant" to a certain degree.

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Sororitas aren't Astartes. They get the implants to be able to wear power armour but they are just well-trained, buff humans.
If a girl isn't chosen for the Sororitas then she just wasn't faithful enough.
   
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 Gert wrote:
Sororitas aren't Astartes. They get the implants to be able to wear power armour but they are just well-trained, buff humans.
If a girl isn't chosen for the Sororitas then she just wasn't faithful enough.


Yeah, if only regular buff humans could manifest miracles. See, I hate this binary plot. There are normal humans, who can't do anything but die, then there are normal humans who if they pray REALLY hard, they can affect the warp. But it's TOTALLY not Warpcraft, they are completely....normal...humans.
   
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FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Yeah, if only regular buff humans could manifest miracles. See, I hate this binary plot. There are normal humans, who can't do anything but die, then there are normal humans who if they pray REALLY hard, they can affect the warp. But it's TOTALLY not Warpcraft, they are completely....normal...humans.

It's not the Warp. The power the Sisters can manifest isn't based on Warp energy but something else entirely, possibly a purified version of it made possible through the worship of the Emperor. We don't know.
Also, what is and is not a miracle is down to personal interpretation. The Black Templars receive visions from the Emperor which they call miracles and Living Saints and various priests have performed miracles in 40k before. You can't take a game concept designed to give a specific army a unique play experience and then say it's dumb that Adeptus Mechanicus or Astra Militarum armies can't do miracles. In-universe they can but in game they can't because then the play experience wouldn't be unique.
And normal humans can do more than just die, the specific point of Psychic Awakening was that normal humans who hadn't been identified as Psykers suddenly began to manifest powers. Normal humans are still slowly evolving into a fully psychic race like the Aeldari, it has just been massively repressed by the Imperium due to the fear of Psykers.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/05/23 14:34:07


 
   
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All these problems were just caused by making sisters their own big huge thing. I would have loved it if Greg knights, deathwatch, sisters, and inquisition were all just one big mashed faction, it would solve the issue of sisters breaking lore to have their own weird game mechanic, and stop deathwatch from just being another marine faction.

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 Gert wrote:

It's not the Warp. The power the Sisters can manifest isn't based on Warp energy but something else entirely, possibly a purified version of it made possible through the worship of the Emperor. We don't know.

Wait. Do we know for sure that sisters' miracles aren't warp-based? My understanding was that it was left intentionally vague. My headcanon was that it was basically the same phenomenon you get with orks (red paint makes things faster because enough orks believe it does) but that the sororitas would be disgusted by the notion that their miracles were basically warp phenomena.

I'd put some eldar exarch powers in a similar category. "Subtle" psychic effects that manifest through a method other than the overt casting of powers. Like, a fire dragon with the (no longer current) burning fists exarch power probably doesn't cast a power in the same sense that a farseer does; I'd expect him to be utilizing seer runes if that were the case. But he's melting through ceramite with his punches, and non-fire dragon eldar don't seem to be able to learn the same trick. So to me, that suggests that spicy hands are a phenomenon brought about by the exarch's unusually intense/unrestrained obsession with combat filtered through the prism of his shrine's philosophies and metaphors. He spends so much time visualizing his blood lust as the dragon's flames that eventually the metaphor become something more literal.

So yeah. Seems to be psychic but not psychic.


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. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
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The miracles and acts of faith performed by the Sororitas weren't effected by the Pariah Nexus which specifically dampened regular Warp abilities. So its not regular Warp power at least.
   
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 Gert wrote:
The miracles and acts of faith performed by the Sororitas weren't effected by the Pariah Nexus which specifically dampened regular Warp abilities. So its not regular Warp power at least.

Ah. See, afaik, exarch powers weren't dampened by the nexus either. (Though maybe I'm wrong about that.) So I'm inclined to think that things like the pariah nexus and culexus assassins specifically impact the more proactive mechanism for casting powers but not the subtler ones. Do questionable pieces of ork tech and red paint still work in the nexus as far as we know?


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
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Not sure tbh.
   
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To be fair, the Emperor (The most powerful psyker in human history) was capable of fighting alongside sisters of Silence, so being near Warp nullifiers doesn't mean they aren't warp based powers. Also, fighting near is not committing miracles next to. And again, we intentionally have zero clue as to how or what that particular piece of xeno tech does. For all GW cares, it could be sentient, and capable of selectively nullifying specific targets. Or not working on the same frequency that the sisters use.

Point is, saying the sisters are not users of warp magic because we don't know what they are is a poor argument. All the lore points to the manifestation of miracles, or a cessation of the natural order, as requiring some form of warcraft. And we have only been shown one version of the way the Warp touches humanity.

Unless we are saying the sisters are another species, or have somehow harnessed an ability to channel non-tainted by chaos Warp energy, it's fairly clear their "miracles" are the manifestation of the Emperor's will.
   
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Are we sure they're manifestion's of the Emperor's will and not manifestation's of the individual sister's will or combined will of all the sisters present or something?

I'm not opposed to miracles coming from the Emperor himself, but it seems just as likely to me that the miracles are the result of the sisters' intense belief manifesting a "red ones go faster" type phenomenon.

It makes sense to me that one relatively unrestrained eldar mind (an exarch) could manifest the burning fists phenomena. A bunch of orks together can manifest a red paint phenomena. Some number of sisters (varying based on the intensity of their faith, latent psychic talent, etc.) can manifest miracle phenomena.

And then saints might be individuals who make particularly good psychic tuning forks with which to manifest phenomena OR they might be the result of snowballing faith. A random sister happens to be the one who manifests a miracle the first time around. Everyone's faith in the Emperor and in her swells because the miracle was witnessed. This swell of faith and focus on the individual means that said individual becomes the one to manifest the next miracle, and the cycle continues.

That kind of seems more likely than the Emperor picking out individuals to be special and only saving the day with miracles some of the time and then leaving his faithful to be screwed over at other times. Plus, it contextualizes miracles not as the personal attention of the Emperor as sisters believe it to be, but the manifestation of their own faith which in turn strengthens their faith in the cruel dogma to which they adhere. It's a tasty bit of extra grimdark.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/05/23 19:00:20



ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
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Again, nothing is 100% sure in this universe of 40k. That's the problem. The Sisters, who frankly know more about their miracles than anyone else, seem to have reason to believe its God, or the Emperor, because it only happens when they directly appeal to HIM. I don't know if a sister has ever prayed to a Sentinel and gotten a miracle. Maybe Abnett should write a book about that next.
   
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 Pyroalchi wrote:
The Ciaphas Cain novels (I don't remember which one) implies that they start of together and then the branches kind of pick out their candidates according to potential. The students did not seem to have a say in it. I remember that it also implied that Stormtroopers are "what's left over". In the sense that progeniums that neither make the cut for Commissars, SoB, Priests etc. get indoctrinated to be Scions. Don't get me wrong, there was no doubt that a Scion gets excellent training, just that guys and girls not mentally fit enough to do the other jobs can still perform well in the militarum tempestus


Gaunt's Ghosts book 15 makes the Scions sound completely different. The elite of the elite... but brainwashed and super strict

   
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I mean there are limited sources, and its a big old galaxy. Likely to be more than one way to brainwash the rookie

Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

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Is that the Gaunt book where he's on Perlia, and they get attacked by Nids? He references the "old schola" at least once per book. But no, the Scions are only whats left in the way that when you take all the top females for the Sororitas, the best leaders for the Commissars, and the Inquisition has their pick, the remainder are likely still worlds better than anyone else their age. Keep in mind anything said in a Cain book can be generally dismissed with a wave of the hand. He beats several space marines and an ork warboss with just his sword and a laspistol. It's not literal canon. Most of him is really an abject lie. It's why he's forced to write the memiors in the first place, to bolter morale.
   
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I assume they have a general education phase which is the same for everybody. An equivalent to middle school. During which time the students are assessed regarding their eventual specialties and eventually sent to specialized schools(college equivalent) to finish their chosen/recommended career.

I imagine how much choice a student has depends on how proficient they are. If you're the A grade student, you probably have lots of choices of where to go. If you're the guy who flunks through Schola, you've probably got the choice of menial adept sorting paperwork for eternity or Stormtooper.

My headcanon is its a massive grimdark school anime. The bully jocks become Stormtroopers. The bullied losers become menial adepts. The student council members become Commissars and Arbitrators. etc... Student council are allowed to use lethal force to enforce school rules.

Would 100% watch this anime.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/05/24 06:00:37


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Leftovers go to servitor school or Target practice?

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Interestingly Amber mentiones that Cains school records were middling at best, but his performance in combat drills excellent (which would imply a suitability for Scions in my opinion). And Cain mentiones that some of his teachers saw something in him, he did not see (at the time) when they selected him to be a Commissar. One could say his success speaks for itself.

My point is: it seems that Teachers have some freedom in choosing candidates, even when they - on paper - might not look like ideal specimens.

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Cain’s background is also entirely designed to enable Cain to exist so that stories can be written with all of the tongues firmly attatched to cheeks. Vaguely plausible handwavium can be deployed to serve many purposes. Personally I really like the Cain books, but they are Definately at the lighter end of the spectrum with the jolly tales of boarding school, rather than horrific tales of mutilation and abuse.

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 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Leftovers go to servitor school or Target practice?
Target practice - Commissar Severina Raine recalls killing a classmate who 'failed'.
   
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Worth noting Inquisitors can recruit just about anyone, and the individual Inquisitor appoints their apprentice or apprentices as they see fit.

So not every Inquisitor will have been from the Schola - though it will provide a baseline of supply of course.

Commissars need to show command skills, which is not something everyone has. It can be taught, but someone with a natural lean toward leadership/authority is still going to be your best bet.

   
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 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Leftovers go to servitor school or Target practice?
There are a fair number of postings left below the stormtroopers before they get to the target practice stage - intermediate priest positions, scribes and adepts and similar positions in the ecclesiarchy, administratum, and local governance, potentially areas within the militarium and navy such as logistics, and so on.

Progenium graduates are all fairly well educated by Imperial standards and even the least of them still represents years of indoctrination and soft power for the ecclesiarchy wherever they end up - it's would be those that fail the test of loyalty that are more likely to die than those who are simply inept. The Imperium has no shortage of work for a pious imbecile.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/05/24 09:03:20


 
   
 
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