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Also, remember, for every War World where a million people die in battle every day, there are 10 Hive Worlds where five million are born every day.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
And your incredibly thought out conclusion would provide the Adepta Sororitas with less than a thousand fresh recruits a year.

They would be struggling just to replace losses.

Yes, yes it would, and yes, yes they would. That's kinda my point. I can hand-wave that there are only ~50,000 Sisters in the entire Imperium because what I've done is provide a statistical model for how the Schola Progenium gets its students. There will, of course, be outliers to my model, as well as the possibility that there are more potential donators of children to the Schola than I am figuring for... but I've provided a baseline scenario that explains *why* the Stormtrooper Battalion is only 10,000 soldiers strong, why the Sororitas is only 50,000 total strong (note: They're not recruited all at the same time every year, there are young Sisters and there are old Sisters and there are Sisters in between), why not every regiment of the IG gets a Commissar, why the Administratum gets the bulk, etc.

The problem is that both of those numbers are so low as to render them useless in the actual setting and both organizations could easily be wiped out in very little time.

Well, blame GW for providing the numbers like they did.

*shrugs*

As a snapshot, however, it makes the Sisters even more bad-ass than the Space Marines, because the Sisters do a lot of the exact same jobs (including taking down Renegade Space Marine Chapters) without all the fancy bio-tech and with fewer numbers.

 Amaya wrote:

Matney X wrote:
Millenia of war, genetically modified super soldiers who can't reproduce (I'm probably wrong there), forced service to the IoM military... All that adds up to an unsustainable birth-to-death ratio.

As soon as you start trying to figure out how logistically feasible 40k is, you start running into problems. Just accept the silliness and move on.

Space Marines actively recruit new members, reproduction by the actual Marines is not necessary.

Humanity is capable of breeding very quickly. It's not entirely inconceivable that the population would remain static or grow slowly.

Over 87 million people were killed in WW1 and WW2 combined. 87 million just from those two wars alone...in less than 4 decades.

You might find this interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll

Touche, and thanks for the link.

Psienesis wrote:Only if you're including the 3 non-militant Orders of the Sororitas as well (the Dialogus, Famulous and Hospitaler). These aren't Battle-Sisters, though.

Yeah, not to mention the Pronatus and Sabine orders that everyone keeps forgetting about...

I put my homebrew (Dialogous) Order at about one thousand strong over-all - but they've shaped a planet to provide them with recruits and (in the spirit of, although independently from FFG's feral world fluff) get most of their inflow from them. They operate in small groups, combing the galaxy for lost books and knowledge (a Sacred Tome mission usually consists of between one and ten Sisters) The Ecclesiarchy as a whole barely knows they exist. They get tithes from them, and occasionally someone will say, "Wait, wasn't that Inquisitor accompanied by a Sister of the Sacred Tome?" or "Blue robes? Which Order has blue robes?! [checks archives] Oh, right...". But it's entirely possible that there are other orders that are in a similar position - too minor for the Ecclesiarchy's census data to record properly, but much stronger if gathered together than anyone realises.

But hey, none of this is substantiated and I made half of it up, it's just my opinion on how things might work to get a number higher than the suicidally tiny 42,000 Sisters Militant.

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:
But millions of Battle Sisters in the galaxy should be quite realistic number.

In a galaxy with quadrillions of guardsmen, they'd be rarer than a Hindu steak. Heck, 7000 sisters doesn't make sense for one planet, let alone a million.

And I thought Space Marines were ridiculously under represented...

Aren't Pronatus and Sabine Orders Minor though?

Famulous, Dialogus and Hospitaler are... well, calling them Orders is actually a mistake on my part. They're a classification of Sisters, and each encompass Orders of their type... so the Orders Dialogous, for example, might have three dozen (or more, or less) Orders under them, with anywhere from a handful to a few hundred or more Sisters in each of them.

The Orders Pronatus seem to be a sub-sect of the Orders Dialogous, while the Orders Sabine seem to be a sub-sect of the Orders Famulous.

There's so little fluff on the Sabines and the Pronatus that it's frustrating in the extreme. ><

They're just preachers in the wild and Tomb Raiders. That's really all you need to know to develop a character for either one.

Perhaps, but the tomb-raider aspect seems in-line with what the Orders Dialogous are for... finding ancient, possibly-heretical texts, reading them to find out if they are, and then either keeping them for record, or destroying them if necessary.

The Famulous being diplomats also seems to tie into the Orders Sabine, only being diplomats to the faithless and lost rather than high society.

They are going to be in the next gk codex....

Please, people have been saying that for over a decade now. And then it didn't happen when fifth edition's "codex" came around.

Maybe they'll pull something like they just did with Tau.

On Thursday, they'll say "you can no longer sell GW stuff online, period, or we'll sue you for unlawfully selling our product," followed by a huge release of Sisters stuff on Friday. That we'll have to buy directly from GW.

I think sfshilo was being a troll, there.

The difference between the Pronatus and the Dialogous is that the Dialogous deal with texts and translations, while the Pronatus are more familiar with general archaeology and non-written artefacts, I think.

Also, Dialogous literally deal with language in general-- decoding alien languages and enemy ciphers, for example.

The Inquisition has Dialogous teams working on decoding BInary, for example.

Right, which is why Pronatus seems more of a sub-group of Dialogous to me. Where the Dialogous, in general, are all about texts, there's gotta be a part of them that deals with the nitty-gritty of obtaining, preserving and transporting said xeno/heretical texts, which, at least in my mind, would extend to other relics and such.

I mean, I'm fine with them being a rarely-mentioned, mostly-forgotten order as well, but it just seems to me that if they are so small, it makes more sense to wrap them into one of the larger groups, that way you can establish a precedent for having "specialist" Sisters of the major divisions.

I don't disagree. I'm just expounding upon the Sisters as is my wont.

Melissia wrote:but the only other place that Sisters are known to recruit from is Feral Worlds, and that's only if you include FFG's supplements.
And that's probably just FFG being silly and trying to make Sisters more like Space Marines.

I think it was Feudal Worlds (you could even get feudal plate armour as starting gear for the Sister), and the Inquisitor's Handbook was still written by Black Industries.
And then there are some Black Library novels where we read about the Sisterhood just randomly recruiting people off the streets, like that noble daughter in the Shira Calpurnia omnibus.

I agree with it being silly, though. Especially when the original source material has always pointed out rather explicitly that it's only the Schola.

Psienesis wrote:So the Schola is getting... what? Let's be generous and say thirty thousand children a year, seeded into the Scholas scattered around the Imperium, though I think that is a *very* generous estimate.

Given the size of the Imperium ("a million worlds" ) and that the Schola does not only take kids from dead people but also of adepts who simply get posted to a different location, I could believe that the number of progena is higher.

However, y'all seem to forget that the Schola is responsible for supporting many more organisations than just the Sororitas, the Commissariat and the Storm Trooper regiment. In fact, these three groups receive only a minor part of graduates.

"By the time a progena reaches early adolescence they will have displayed skills in a certain direction, and their tutelage to the age of sixteen will focus on these talents and hone the pupil to a career in one of the Imperial organisations. Most of the progena will end up in the Adeptus Terra as scribes, clerks or overseers. However, a few will be assigned to higher positions. Male progena may become Commissars in the Imperial Guard, petty officers in the Imperial Navy, or enter the priesthood itself and become a Preacher or Dean (a subordinate to a Deacon). Female progena may well be entered into the Adepta Sororitas. Progena of both sexes may be recruited into the Inquisition or even the Officio Assassinorum."
- 2E C:SoB, The Schola Progenium

Fun fact: all Sororitas novices go to Terra to take their vows in the presence of the Ecclesiarch himself. I'd like to see how this is supposed to work with "millions" of Sisters ...

Amaya wrote:One hundred thousand total in the Adepta Sororitas is on the extremely low end.

That's about my personal estimate for the Sisters of Battle. 12.000-18.000 from the six Major Orders, and some tens of thousands more from the Minor ones.

Amaya wrote:And your incredibly thought out conclusion would provide the Adepta Sororitas with less than a thousand fresh recruits a year.
They would be struggling just to replace losses.

Maybe that's why the Major Orders have on average only about ~3.500 Sisters in M41? Maybe that's why the loss of Armageddon's Hive Tempestora and the companies of Sisters within caused an entire Major Order (Our Martyred Lady) to change the colour of their robes from black to blood red? This hasn't happened for several thousand years - the last time they did this was when their founder was killed.

"The size of an Order waxes and wanes irregularly, depending on the quality of recruits available and battle losses. On occasion an Order may number no more than a few hundred warriors, all fighting the enemies of the Emperor, while at other times it may reach a peak of six or seven thousand warriors with much of the Order fighting in distant wars but still leaving a reserve of several thousand Battle Sisters and Seraphim that can be despatched if needed."
- 2E C:SoB, Organisation of the Major Orders

It may also be of note that it took the Ecclesiarchy 2.500 years to scrape together enough Sisters to sponsor the formation of two new Major Orders (Bloody Rose and Sacred Rose) in addition to the four that existed by M37.

Amaya wrote:The problem is that both of those numbers are so low as to render them useless in the actual setting and both organizations could easily be wiped out in very little time.

Not at all. It renders them less important in the grand scale, but you could say the same about those one million Space Marines. Each of these organisations still leaves their mark where they do show up. They just aren't a common sight at most places.

Which becomes evident when we take a look at GW's force disposition charts for the various larger conflicts, and compare the number of Sisters to, say, the number of Astartes.



It gets much easier to understand and believe the provided numbers when we take a look at their purpose as explained by GW. The Sisters of Battle are not some sort of line troops to be thrown at random enemies like cannonfodder, regardless of how much certain authors like to portray them as such. Depending on the Order, they fulfill a wide range of specialised tasks:

The Major Orders are crusaders and a quick-reaction force, headquartered on Terra and Ophelia but sending out missions throughout the galaxy and maintaining temporary outposts to support their operations. These are the gals you keep hearing about most of the time, both due to their mobility enabling them to show up virtually anywhere, as well as their size allowing them to engage in larger military operations, such as liberating a bunch of worlds from Chaos cults, purging a renegade Marine Chapter, or invading a Tau colony.

The Minor Orders, on the other hand, are "daughter convents" occasionally spawned from the aforementioned temporary outposts, a sanctioned stay-behind force granted their own livery and tasked with a specific assignment that binds them to this one region. They can be the guardians of holy sites or protectors of pilgrim routes. They can act as bodyguards for the clergy and engage in purity control sweeps. Thanks to being found in most major systems (as opposed to the Major Orders' task forces that are sometimes here, sometimes there) they can also supply kill-teams for Inquisitorial operations whenever necessary, which is particularly important whenever some influential cleric of the Imperial Cult strays too far from approved dogma and becomes an Apostate.

Needless to say, there will be some overlap, but by commiting the Minor Orders to administrative duties the Major ones are freed up to go burn heretics all across space. And honestly, compared to certain popular Space Marine Chapters, the frequency of SoB involvement in high-profile military campaigns seems rare enough to be deemed "fitting", does it not?

BobtheInquisitor wrote:In a galaxy with quadrillions of guardsmen, they'd be rarer than a Hindu steak. Heck, 7000 sisters doesn't make sense for one planet, let alone a million.

Why? If the Ecclesiarchy goes to war, the bulk of its firepower comes from the Frateris Militia. The Sisters merely provide an elite core around which the mobs will gather.

"A single man with faith can triumph over a legion of the faithless. Untold billions of the faithful can never be opposed."
- Sermons of St. Sebastian Thor, Vol. XI chapter IV

And that's not even counting the Guard regiments and Navy fleets whose Confessors will "arrange" to show up just at the right place and at the right time to participate in a little holy war.

Psienesis wrote:As a snapshot, however, it makes the Sisters even more bad-ass than the Space Marines, because the Sisters do a lot of the exact same jobs (including taking down Renegade Space Marine Chapters) without all the fancy bio-tech and with fewer numbers.

My thoughts exactly.

Psienesis wrote:The Orders Pronatus seem to be a sub-sect of the Orders Dialogous, while the Orders Sabine seem to be a sub-sect of the Orders Famulous.

Nah, they're Orders in their own right. The Liber Sororitas offered some explanation on them, and the Pronatus in particular have a very different focus compared to the Dialogous. Whilst I suppose there is quite some overlap and co-operation between both (-> language and cyphers), the Pronatus focus on recovering, safeguarding, and sometimes analysing, replicating or destroying relics as well as technology. The latter tends to result in a neat little rivalry with the Mechanicus' Explorator Corps which doesn't like to see Archaeotech in the hands of "zealots". Ultimately, it's just another chip on the bargaining table that forms the basis for their relationship...
The Famulous on the other hand are able diplomats and teachers, whereas the Sisters Sabine are infiltrators.

What really gives the Sisterhood an edge is that it has some representation in all of these facets of Imperial life, and is quite able at networking its capabilities.

"With members in every aspect of society, the Sisterhood can maintain a close eye on the affairs of the Imperium. The Orders Famulous report on the activities of the Noble Houses, the Orders Dialogous can inform their seniors of the deals and agreements binding the Imperium together and the Orders Hospitaller witness many things unseen outside their wards. All of this makes the Adepta Sororitas a useful political as well as social tool, and with the armed might of the Orders Militant, the Sisterhood has the protection and power it needs to operate successfully."

Just as planned ...

 Lynata wrote:
Fun fact: all Sororitas novices go to Terra to take their vows in the presence of the Ecclesiarch himself. I'd like to see how this is supposed to work with "millions" of Sisters ...

It works with millions of psykers. The Ecclesiarchy is the richest organization in the Imperium, I'm fairly certain they have the ability to send a few dozen thousand novitiates to Earth every year as they graduate from their schola progenium programs. Keep in mind, it's not like we're suggesting a million novitiates EVERY YEAR, but rather, that it's a constant stream of novitiates which adds up to millions as the years go on.

Melissia wrote:It works with millions of psykers.

Good point.

Melissia wrote:Keep in mind, it's not like we're suggesting a million novitiates EVERY YEAR, but rather, that it's a constant stream of novitiates which adds up to millions as the years go on.

Well, what are people suggesting, per-annum?

It could well be "millions as the years go on" - at least the Major Orders just tend to have a high rate of attrition (similar to the Storm Trooper regiment) resulting in their numbers still remaining steady when we look at the bigger picture. Simply replacing combat casualties seems to consume almost all new recruits, making new foundings so rare (depending on how often we assume a convent splits away from its maternal Major Order to form a new Ordo Minoris).

Given the size of the Imperium ("a million worlds" ) and that the Schola does not only take kids from dead people but also of adepts who simply get posted to a different location, I could believe that the number of progena is higher.

Hrm, I've always read it/heard it as the Schola taking the orphans of Imperial heroes. I'm not quite so sure you get the "orphan" status without having your parents/caregivers be dead. I mean, it makes some sense, but I am not sure the writing is intended to be read that way.

"From the favoured sons of an Imperial Guard colonel to the children of a scribe posted to a distant world, the Schola Progenium cares for them all."
- 2E C:SoB

Granted, this is a part that isn't mentioned often when you read about the Schola - and given the usual inconsistencies between sources, I could well imagine licensed products evoking a contradicting image.
"Everything and nothing is true" :(

Personally, I think.... if we have a million worlds, and lets say a schola in every ten... each Schola sending two suitable Sororitas recruits to Terra a year, you're looking at what, two hundred thousand recruits a year?

That's probably high, since the majority of those worlds are going to be Feral or Feudal worlds whose main Ecclesiarchy oversight is a missionary or Sabine on a three year circuit, but you get my drift. So call it a hundred thousand initiates a year.

Divided up between twelve Major Orders, you're looking at eight thousand recruits a year per Order, plus four thousand for Sabine, Pronatus and the assorted minor orders (to make the rounding neat).

Even if we assume the Inquisition poaches ten percent of those suitable recruits, you're still looking at a significant influx of Sisters per Annum. If we assume a 70% casualty ratio for combat actions from a starting point of 3,500 Sisters per Order, you're still looking at a growing population.

The popular idea that the Schola only takes in the children of dead Imperial heroes actually comes from Gaunt's reflections in First and Only.

Hmmh. Well, you seem to assume that Sororitas recruits would be divided up equally amongst all the Orders, be them Militant or Non-Militant, which personally I could not agree with. Whilst all Sororitas would share a certain basic training when it comes to combat, I would expect the Orders Militant to have even more stringent requirements to the physical and mental capabilities of their recruits than the others. This is not to say that the Non-Militant Orders are somehow relegated to personnel of lesser quality, but simply going by biological standards - it may seem probable that it's easier to find a girl with skills suitable for the somewhat less demanding duties of a Sister Hospitaller or a Sister Dialogous, whereas the warriors of the Orders Militant really only take the creme de la creme.

Also, the Adepta Sororitas are actually made up of 18 Major Orders, not 12 - 6 Major Orders Militant, and 12 Major Non-Militant Orders with 4 of the Hospitaller, Famulous and Dialogous each. Not counted amongst this number are the Orders Minoris of each department.

Sidenote: Turns out that the Orders Pronatus and Sabine do not show up in the list of Major Orders at all - provided they were not just "forgotten" they have to belong into the Minor Orders section, which would indeed make them a spin-off from one of the Major Orders.

Unfortunately, we lack proper numbers for the Non-Militant Orders*, so it's impossible to say how large they are or how many recruits they might draw away from any pool open to the Militant ones. Just like we have zero knowledge about exactly how many Minor Orders are in existence. All I can do is point at the Sisterhood's seemingly slow expansion within the scope of over 5.000 years and their small presence in the force disposition charts of the Third Armageddon War or the 13th Black Crusade. I'm afraid it all boils down to a matter of interpretation, as usual.

*: although the Liber Sororitas does say this:
"Some orders, such as the Orders Dialogous and Famulous, are known to be as large as the Orders Militant, whereas others may be little more than a handful of Sisters pursueing their obscure specialisation."
Even limited to the Orders Dialogous and Famulous, this would already make their grand total larger than the six Major Orders Militant, as it'd be 8 vs 6. Of course, the Militant Orders will likely have a higher turnover due to more frequent casualties.

Personally, I also do not think that every single Schola graduates two Sororitas every year, though. From articles hosted on GW's website, it appears that a potential recruit needs to be submitted by the Head Abbot of the Schola, at which point the Orders Famulous (hey, yet another thing they seem to do!) will dispatch a senior Sister to evaluate the candidate and, if deemed suitable, ship her out on the next available vessel. Following this are five years of a harsh novitiate, during which I assume an applicant may still fail and be kicked out or at least reassigned to a lesser role. Only then, at the age of ~17, will the remaining novices proceed to a nightlong ceremony in the Ecclesiarchal Palace, which ends with each of the five hundred fledgling Sisters being "adopted" by one of five hundred Sisters Superior present, leading the girl away to don the armour of her new Order.

It just makes it sound as if a Schola managing to sponsor a true Sister of Battle would be an exception to be proud of rather than a yearly quota for each facility, regardless of how many there may be (which is yet another unknown quantity). Of course, there may be some who graduate Sororitas candidates with a certain regularity, just like there might be other facilities who only manage to do so every few decades, all depending on the quality of their progena as well as the Schola itself.
But yeah, that's just how I see it.

For what it's worth, I also do not assume such a high casualty rate for the Major Orders Militant - although of course there would be events that will punch down their numbers again and again, such as Armageddon for the Martyred Lady.

Another possible aspect that springs to mind just now could be that the military capabilities of the Sisterhood are intentionally capped so as to not stretch that little loophole in the Decree Passive too much.

Even ten million Adepta Sororitas would amount to, at most, a slight annoyance to the Imperium should they rebel. The Tau would remain a much bigger threat and they are the weakest of the xenos.

Amaya wrote:Even ten million Adepta Sororitas would amount to, at most, a slight annoyance to the Imperium should they rebel.

I suppose that depends entirely on where they strike.
You're talking about an army that is on occasion deployed to kill off Space Marine Chapters, and which is flaunted by GW to be their equals. How many Space Marines did it take to pull off the Horus Heresy?

Conveniently ignoring the fact the Imperial Army also splintered during the Heresy as did the Mechanicum...

Matney X wrote:
Maybe they'll pull something like they just did with Tau.

On Thursday, they'll say "you can no longer sell GW stuff online, period, or we'll sue you for unlawfully selling our product," followed by a huge release of Sisters stuff on Friday. That we'll have to buy directly from GW.

That they will only produce 500 kits for and it will sell out in 2 hrs.

This thread seems derailed beyond repair.

Assumptions were made because I hate maths rather than because I wanted to cleave closely to the fluff. ^^;

I agree that it seems likely that the recruits would probably be balanced differently than simply "eight thousand into Martyred Lady, eight thousand into...", but that would require guesswork and more assumptions.

Good catch on the number of Major Orders - I actually worked it out as "Six Militant plus three from each Non-militant" and forgot about the Hospitallers temporarily. ^^; Well, I'll put it down to being 01.38 AM when I posted.

Non-militant Orders will have lower casualty rates, therefore need fewer recruits to maintain their numbers - however, they will also have special criteria for recruits.

Militant: "We want the big, strong, disciplined ones."
Hospitaller: "We need the ones who care."
Famulous: "A good memory is the most important qualification."
Dialogous: "Give us someone who shows great fortitude and integrity."

Casualty rates were pulled from my battlefield experience - I usually lose the majority of my army even when I win, due to a preference for aggressive tactics.

Famulous run the Imperium. Seriously, without them the whole thing would fall apart. I'd missed the part about five years training - would this be done in the Sanctorum or Prioris, or could it be farmed out to any Convent, do you think? Where does the 500 figure come from?

The Ecclesiarchy seems more the type to push their loophole as far as they can get away with than to handicap themselves.

Amaya - You say that the Sororitas rebelling wouldn't have much of a chance since there's only ten million of them and discounting the Heresy because the Imperial Army split, but if the Sororitas go I expect so would a HUGE number of Priests, and the Imperial Guard rely on the Emperor's protection. You have to factor in the number of Guardsmen who will also switch sides because the Sororitas are - Sororitas are the closest thing most Guardsmen will ever see to a Space Marine, and they are the Church's holy representatives. If the Sororitas rebel, then there are going to be a lot of people who assume that it's the Emperor's will, because who ELSE is going to be telling them to do it?! Thus, you'll end up with maybe even more of the Guard turning on the Custodians and the Admech than did during the HEresy.