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Or even the current departments that have a seat? (as some seats rotate)

They must rank as arguably the most powerful individuals in the galaxy, so it seems strange they are largely anonymous in the fluff. Have any of the current holders been given names or backstories?

The absence of any information on the current Master of the Adeptus Administratum is especially odd, being that he's arguably the most politically powerful person in the entire galaxy (the existence of the Adeptus Ministorum alone proves the Emperor's political power is vastly less than it was before)

Yep, because we all want to read about bureaucratic proceedings and trade agreements...oh wait, they already made that movie.

The high lords of Terra are incompetent, corrupt, or nihilistic. Hence the M41 being the end of times.

 heshman wrote:
Yep, because we all want to read about bureaucratic proceedings and trade agreements...oh wait, they already made that movie.

The high lords of Terra are incompetent, corrupt, or nihilistic. Hence the M41 being the end of times.

So you're telling me that the leader of a the most powerful empire in the galaxy, trillions strong, who happens to also be deeply corrupt and incompetent would make a boring character? Really?

The High Lords would also not spend their time on trade agreements and such. Even if they did, firstly they don't trade with Xenos. Secondly, they don't recognise non-Imperial human colonies, so there's no agreements to be made. Any other political body is an enemy to them. They get their tithes and that's it. No discussion, no agreements.

Only the current Ecclesiarch is known, Decius XXIII

The current Fabricator General is also named*, I think, in the old (first) necron codex - it's heavily hinted he's a Dragon Cultist.

* annoyingly I can't remember his name, though. I want to say Vilvoi?

Hierophant wrote:
The High Lords would also not spend their time on trade agreements and such.

Sure they would - with each other. Each has to provide the Empire with their services while trying to keep their own faction satisfied. If anything you won't find bigger deals being made anywhere else. Blackmail, threats, offers and counteroffers, impassioned speeches and cold logic. Always you provide what's needed in a timely manner and now you'd like this one little concession...

Ofc, seeing as most Black Library fiction is bolter porn it's probably too much to ask for a decent political thriller.

But... I like me some bolter porn!

All joking aside, it,would indeed be interesting to meet them, see their machinations and schemes and all that. But it would only appeal to a relatively small segment of the 40k fanbase. Cause bolter porn is where it's at.

My two cents.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But... I like me some bolter porn!

All joking aside, it,would indeed be interesting to meet them, see their machinations and schemes and all that. But it would only appeal to a relatively small segment of the 40k fanbase. Cause bolter porn is where it's at.

My two cents.

 heshman wrote:
Yep, because we all want to read about bureaucratic proceedings and trade agreements...oh wait, they already made that movie.

The high lords of Terra are incompetent, corrupt, or nihilistic. Hence the M41 being the end of times.

They are far from incompetent. Corrupt and nihilistic, perhaps. But not incompetent. An incompetent person would never become a High Lord in the first place.

M41 is the end times because everyone is boned. The situation is so gaky and has been for thousands of years. Nobody could fix it.

40k isn't a place of insanity where if only a reasonable logical person came along we could fix it. Its an all around horrible situation which nothing could possibly fix. Its full of sane people doing what they must because its the only choice.

 Grey Templar wrote:
They are far from incompetent. Corrupt and nihilistic, perhaps. But not incompetent. An incompetent person would never become a High Lord in the first place.

Disagree. The skills required to get to the top are very different from the skill required to do a good job at the top.

Imagine you're the master of the Administratum for example. You've lied, cheated, murdered and bribed your way to the top. Those are your skills. Now you're there, what exactly do you know about budgets? Or human resources? Or supply chains? More to the point, what do you care about those things? You didn't stain your soul in order to write purchase orders for staplers.

It's why most dictators govern so badly - because they are utterly incompetent at ruling. Look at Stalin and Russia's agricultural policy. Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe's economics. Fidel Castro and the time warp that is Cuba. They're fantastic at the process of gaining power, but not managing the responsibility that comes with it, because all they wanted was power. They never cared about the burden of responsiblity.

Most of The High Lords of Terra are likely utterly incompetent at doing their jobs but not at keeping them. They're experts there.

It's a problem they likely share with the Necrons, but other races are seemingly immune. Tyranids have no leaders, Tau and Eldar are more interested in communal good, and Orks, Dark Eldar and Chaos societies are so warlike and hostile that the skills needed to rise to the top in a corrupt way are pretty transferable to your actual duties when leading.

You have to know a lot about actual bookkeeping to cook the books and get away with it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You have to know a lot about actual bookkeeping to cook the books and get away with it.

No you don't.

Corrupt leaders don't just magically appear from nowhere, They rise up under already existing corrupt leadership structures. They return favours and aquire patronage from those above them who are already corrupt. You don't need skills to get the job, and you don't need them to rise. All of those things are aquired via deals. That's why countries under a dictatorship are always run so badly.

When the people who check the books are also corrupt, why do you need to be good at cooking them?

As long as you satisfy your patron (passing up profits, carrying out tasks they can deny) then there'll always be someone else lumbered with doing your actual job for you. Or it'll simply be done badly and nobody will have the power to complain. It happens in China constantly, where regional governors are essentially mini-Mafia dons who run their departments terribly, but it doesn't matter, because their real job is keeping money flowing and following the correct political dogma.

This article is a perfect example of this in action - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-33760030

Yes, you do.

Especially in a corrupt environment where everyone is going to use the slightest hint of weakness to get at you. You have to make the books appear legit so you don't get caught. Especially by all the other corrupt people who will turn you in to advance their position if they find out. You have to know how a legit book looks like before you can make a bad book look like it. A forger has to be intimately familiar with the original to make a copy.

You have to be good to rise to the top in the Imperium. Being good does entail a huge amount of backstabbing, cheating, and political intrigue, but you are still going to need to actually be decent at your job.

If the High Lords were incompetent the Imperium would have collapsed long ago.

Again, I disagree. The Imperium is on the verge of collapse, and it's precisely because it's so monolithic and slow and everyone is terrible and inefficient at their jobs. If the Imperium was run competently, it wouldn't have any threats at all.

The only thing keeping it going is the fact that in either case its military is either so large as to not need to be competent or efficient against threats (IG) or so uncorrupt and efficient as to not need to be centrally managed (SMs).

Everything else keeps ticking along through a mixture of colossal momentum, and the fact that the Imperium is a largely federal affair where as long as planets keep the tithes rolling in, they're left to their own devices - pretty much like a protection racket, really.

And like protection rackets, the protection often doesn't even bother turning up when required - only when the money stops flowing. The history of the Badab War largely follows this pattern. The Macharian Crusade shows the power of the Imperium under rare, competent leadership, and how the inherent corruption derailed it.

Hell, history in general has virtually no examples contrary to this in corrupt socieites, with only a strong military and a reduction of civil rights keeping the leadership in power and the country stable, which regresses in almost every other area due to mismanagement. The Imperium is no exception.

Hierophant wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
They are far from incompetent. Corrupt and nihilistic, perhaps. But not incompetent. An incompetent person would never become a High Lord in the first place.

Disagree. The skills required to get to the top are very different from the skill required to do a good job at the top.

Imagine you're the master of the Administratum for example. You've lied, cheated, murdered and bribed your way to the top. Those are your skills. Now you're there, what exactly do you know about budgets? Or human resources? Or supply chains? More to the point, what do you care about those things? You didn't stain your soul in order to write purchase orders for staplers.

It's why most dictators govern so badly - because they are utterly incompetent at ruling. Look at Stalin and Russia's agricultural policy. Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe's economics. Fidel Castro and the time warp that is Cuba. They're fantastic at the process of gaining power, but not managing the responsibility that comes with it, because all they wanted was power. They never cared about the burden of responsiblity.

Most of The High Lords of Terra are likely utterly incompetent at doing their jobs but not at keeping them. They're experts there.

It's a problem they likely share with the Necrons, but other races are seemingly immune. Tyranids have no leaders, Tau and Eldar are more interested in communal good, and Orks, Dark Eldar and Chaos societies are so warlike and hostile that the skills needed to rise to the top in a corrupt way are pretty transferable to your actual duties when leading.

There are counter examples to that such as Napoleon, Gengis Khan and Augustus Caeser.

You don't just get to become a Tech-priest, you gotta have the smarts to actually run at least a Forgeworld. As for everyone else, the word politician doesn't exist in 40k, you have to have feats backing your name to do anything on a planet that isn't a Paradise world. That means a record of some sort. I mean are you really expecting the INQUISITION representative to not have actually done anything?

It is interesting that the Ecclesiarch and the Sisters can have separate representatives, you would think they would be considered the same.

Besides Hierophant how would you know if they were corrupt? You were the one asking if we had information on them and admitting we had none.

I imagine some like Emperor Palpatine without force/psychic.

Poly Ranger wrote:
There are counter examples to that such as Napoleon, Gengis Khan and Augustus Caeser.

All three are leaders who used military power ro reshape the old order, not rising through the ranks in a society that's changed little in thousands of years. If we're talking about how corrupt people rise to power in already corrupt societies, then they are not accurate people to compare to as they simply seized power.

Napoleon came to power in a coup, as did Ceaser. Ghengis united tribes and created a new society. Tellingly though, Ceaser declaring himself dictator is widely seen as the start of Rome's corruption and nepotism, and he created the mechanism that corrupt and incompetent leaders used from then on. Napoleon and Ghengis' revolutions only lasted as long as they did, and the old order was restored soon after.

 Quickjager wrote:
You don't just get to become a Tech-priest, you gotta have the smarts to actually run at least a Forgeworld. As for everyone else, the word politician doesn't exist in 40k, you have to have feats backing your name to do anything on a planet that isn't a Paradise world. That means a record of some sort. I mean are you really expecting the INQUISITION representative to not have actually done anything?

It is interesting that the Ecclesiarch and the Sisters can have separate representatives, you would think they would be considered the same.

Besides Hierophant how would you know if they were corrupt? You were the one asking if we had information on them and admitting we had none.

I'm not talking about all of them, just some. Specifically the masters of the Administratum, the Ecclesiarchy, The Cardinal of the Holy Synod, and the Chancellor of the Estate Imperium. The religious and admin posts.

I didn't even say they were corrupt or less than competent, just that I would be surprised if they were not. Someone else stated they would be, and I agreed it was likely.

But even then, among the technical and military Lords, you won't have the best warrior or scientist - you'll have a competent one with a greater level of skill in politics, and a hunger for power over putting their talents to work in the field. Bear in mind, even the Inquisition is riddled with political maneuvering. Often fatal. The most competent Inquisitors would be out fighting Chaos or Heresy or Xenos, not jockeying for a position on power in a legislating body. To do that, you've already given up part of your passion for what your nominal title is.

This is just how human beings work, and I can't see why it's controversial to simply state that.

Who is being controversial? I'm just pointing out you're going off the point of your own thread.

And of course the religious posts are bunk look at how through most of the Imperium's existence it has screwed them over, hell the Emperor wanted them to not exist.

The Ecclesiarchy has inadvertently however managed to provide a benefit to the Imperium. They think the Big E is a god, so in the warp he IS one. Oh and if you don't worship the the Emperor you support Chaos and need to be purged.

Hierophant wrote:
Again, I disagree. The Imperium is on the verge of collapse, and it's precisely because it's so monolithic and slow and everyone is terrible and inefficient at their jobs. If the Imperium was run competently, it wouldn't have any threats at all.

The only thing keeping it going is the fact that in either case its military is either so large as to not need to be competent or efficient against threats (IG) or so uncorrupt and efficient as to not need to be centrally managed (SMs).

Everything else keeps ticking along through a mixture of colossal momentum, and the fact that the Imperium is a largely federal affair where as long as planets keep the tithes rolling in, they're left to their own devices - pretty much like a protection racket, really.

And like protection rackets, the protection often doesn't even bother turning up when required - only when the money stops flowing. The history of the Badab War largely follows this pattern. The Macharian Crusade shows the power of the Imperium under rare, competent leadership, and how the inherent corruption derailed it.

Hell, history in general has virtually no examples contrary to this in corrupt socieites, with only a strong military and a reduction of civil rights keeping the leadership in power and the country stable, which regresses in almost every other area due to mismanagement. The Imperium is no exception.

Read my signature.

Hierophant wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
They are far from incompetent. Corrupt and nihilistic, perhaps. But not incompetent. An incompetent person would never become a High Lord in the first place.

Disagree. The skills required to get to the top are very different from the skill required to do a good job at the top.

Imagine you're the master of the Administratum for example. You've lied, cheated, murdered and bribed your way to the top. Those are your skills. Now you're there, what exactly do you know about budgets? Or human resources? Or supply chains? More to the point, what do you care about those things? You didn't stain your soul in order to write purchase orders for staplers.

It's why most dictators govern so badly - because they are utterly incompetent at ruling. Look at Stalin and Russia's agricultural policy. Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe's economics. Fidel Castro and the time warp that is Cuba. They're fantastic at the process of gaining power, but not managing the responsibility that comes with it, because all they wanted was power. They never cared about the burden of responsiblity.

I'll give you Mugabe, but Stalin and Castro were actually extremely competent. Stalin turned a backwards agricultural country on the far edge of Europe into a major industrial superpower and world center. Castro runs the best organised country with the highest standards of living in the entire Caribbean. Many dictators throughout history have actually been very successful.

Similarly, if you want to murder and cheat your way to the top of the administration, you actually need decent knowledge of administration as well. Otherwise you'll never get into a position from where you can murder and cheat your way to the top in the first place.

Remember your Peter Principle kids, managers only ever rise to the level of their incompetence.

Stalin was competent? That's some major historical revisionism that nobody with any academic background would agree with you on. His agricultural policies were responsible for the deaths of untold millions, as were his military interferences in WW2. His direct incompetence killed more people accidentally than Hitler did on purpose. He's potentially the most deadly incompetent person who ever lived.

Russia was always a major power through history (in military and cultural terms). Calling them a backwards agricultural nation is laughably ignorant of history. If anything all he did was lower their standing in the world. The only reason they were classed as a superpower was due to military spending and belligerence, which any nation can do as long as they slash budgets everywhere else to afford it, and don't care about internation relations.

In every regard other than military might and science, they went backwards. Even then, their technology was largely stolen from others due to spying, and the military spending eventually bankrupted the country. Stalin was a disaster.

And Cuba has high standards of living? Give me a break! They have decent healthcare, and that's it. In every other regard, they're stuck in the 1950s, and have only survived until this point by being given aid from countries with ideologial sympathies such as the Soviet Union, Iran, and then Venezuela. The main reason they've had to come to an accord with the US is due to the collapse of Venezuela, their last backer, which also fell apart due to incompetent rule. People literally drown trying to swim away from there. That doesn't happen in say Bermuda, who apparently have a worse standard of living according to you.

Virtually no dictatorships have ever been run well, precisely because they aren't run for the benefit of the people, but the rulers.

It depends on your definition of competent.

Stalin did make Russia into a superpower. Millions died to do so of course, but that doesn't make him incompetent, it makes him horrible person. Not much different than the Imperium honestly.

Castro of course isn't a good example of success, but he isn't exactly a failure either.

 Grey Templar wrote:
It depends on your definition of competent.

Stalin did make Russia into a superpower. Millions died to do so of course, but that doesn't make him incompetent, it makes him horrible person. Not much different than the Imperium honestly.

Castro of course isn't a good example of success, but he isn't exactly a failure either.

The fact millions died DOES make him incompetent seeing as the US achieved the same thing without the need for any mass deaths of its own people. If you realise the only task of a competent leader is to improve the lives of his people, then he utterly failed. Superpower status means nothing in that regard, especially as they only had it because they were reckless and nuclear armed. They projected power like a madman with a gun does, something any sufficiently large state can do.

The difference between Russia and the Imperium is the Imperium is beset by enemies on all sides, and HAS to behave that way. Russia never had to. Sure, Hitler invaded, but Stalin was doing his thing well before and after, and a well run democracy that hadn't purged all its best generals would have defended the country much better.

And Castro is a failure. How can you say keeping your country stuck in the 50s and having to ban your people from travelling abroad so the entire population doesn't flee as 'not a failure' unless you have an absurdly high bar for that?

No, no it doesn't. You seem to be equating the death of millions with weather or not a person is competent.

Its only an immoral thing to do, from our point of view. It doesn't make him a bad leader.

In the Imperium, millions of people get sacrificed every day for a greater good of some kind. The Imperium will throw millions of guardsmen at enemy forces and achieve victory because the enemy ran out of ammo. That makes the Imperium's leaders highly competent as its them using their most abundant resource to full advantage(human lives). Its a horrible and terrible thing, from our point of view. But from their view its strictly necessary to achieve victory, good and bad don't enter into the equation.

You are mistaking good and bad for competent and incompetent.

Hierophant wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
It depends on your definition of competent.

Stalin did make Russia into a superpower. Millions died to do so of course, but that doesn't make him incompetent, it makes him horrible person. Not much different than the Imperium honestly.

Castro of course isn't a good example of success, but he isn't exactly a failure either.

The fact millions died DOES make him incompetent seeing as the US achieved the same thing without the need for any mass deaths of its own people. If you realise the only task of a competent leader is to improve the lives of his people, then he utterly failed. Superpower status means nothing in that regard, especially as they only had it because they were reckless and nuclear armed. They projected power like a madman with a gun does, something any sufficiently large state can do.

The difference between Russia and the Imperium is the Imperium is beset by enemies on all sides, and HAS to behave that way. Russia never had to. Sure, Hitler invaded, but Stalin was doing his thing well before and after, and a well run democracy that hadn't purged all its best generals would have defended the country much better.

And Castro is a failure. How can you say keeping your country stuck in the 50s and having to ban your people from travelling abroad so the entire population doesn't flee as 'not a failure' unless you have an absurdly high bar for that?

The US never achieved the same thing (the US had a massively different history).
Stalin greatly improved the life of his citizens, by improving their standards of living and protecting them from genocide at the hands of the Nazis.
Stalin was beset on all sides by foes, not just foreign enemies (nazis) but also enemies within (his political enemies, including those generals). Soviet politics were brutal. Had Stalin been any less brutal, he might have ended with a bullet in the back of his skull. Besides, Russia is and was always beset by enemies. There are few places in the world that have been invaded more often. That is one of the first basic things you need to learn about Russian history.
Saying that a well-run democracy would have been better at defending the country is hugely ignorant. A well-run democracy was impossible in the Soviet Union, and attempts at democracy would have collapsed the country into civil war instantly. The Soviet Union was not a stable country like they have in the West. When Gorbachov introduced some democracy, the whole thing came crashing down. Democracies don't always work, and are a horribly inefficient form of government at best and completely non-functional at worst in a divided country (see Ukraine for a good example on that)

Similarly, the Imperium can not be run in any different way from how it is done now, lest it collapse. The Imperium is too diverse and divided to be a democracy. Democracies only work with homogenous populations and are horribly inefficient when faced with crisis. The Imperium is in constant war and crisis, only a very strong, hard hand can keep it together. The High Lords are not incompetent, they rule an empire too large for human comprehension with all the associated diversity and divisions while having only very limited means to do so (communication over such distances is barely possible for example). Judging the immense difficulties the High Lords are faced with, I think it is fair to say that they are doing a good job as long as the Imperium survives.

And on Castro: Just compare Cuba to Haiti, Jamaica or the Domican Republic. Cuba has the highest standard of living by far, and a far more stable recent history too.

Hierophant wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
It depends on your definition of competent.

Stalin did make Russia into a superpower. Millions died to do so of course, but that doesn't make him incompetent, it makes him horrible person. Not much different than the Imperium honestly.

Castro of course isn't a good example of success, but he isn't exactly a failure either.

The fact millions died DOES make him incompetent seeing as the US achieved the same thing without the need for any mass deaths of its own people. If you realise the only task of a competent leader is to improve the lives of his people, then he utterly failed. Superpower status means nothing in that regard, especially as they only had it because they were reckless and nuclear armed. They projected power like a madman with a gun does, something any sufficiently large state can do.

The difference between Russia and the Imperium is the Imperium is beset by enemies on all sides, and HAS to behave that way. Russia never had to. Sure, Hitler invaded, but Stalin was doing his thing well before and after, and a well run democracy that hadn't purged all its best generals would have defended the country much better.

And Castro is a failure. How can you say keeping your country stuck in the 50s and having to ban your people from travelling abroad so the entire population doesn't flee as 'not a failure' unless you have an absurdly high bar for that?

YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT. Death =/= incompetence. It equals ruthlessness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, Stalin did not save his people from genocide at the hands of the Nazis. If anything, he committed a far worse genocide by slaughtering millions more of his own people than Hitler ever killed of his enemies.

You don't really know anything about Nazis or the Great Patriotic War, do you?
Ah well, guess it is getting off topic anyway.

In the begining of The Siege of Vraks pt. 3, IA 7, there is a fair bit about the political machinations on Terra. I don't recall when Vraks was supposed to occur or if the people mentioned there would still be in power, but it might be something to look into.

If the Nazis had won WW2, Stalin's genocide would been nothing in comparison.

Its only bigger because Hitler lost.