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Part of the narrative conceit of 40K is that while people are out fighting, the politicians are bickering....

I'm trying to come through the Black Library novels and codexes to find circumstances when either the High Lords as a whole, or an Individual High Lord actually made a decisive contribution to the Imperium.

After knocking out the obvious candidates - roboute guilliman, sebastian thor, etc. i seem to be drawing a blank.

Thoughts?

The Imperium is like a great ship or plane on autopilot. The institutions of the Imperium have their mandates and most actively try to resist change and restore the status quo even without direct command from above. The decentralized nature of the Imperium and its myriad instituations along with their web of feudal obligations and infighting and politicking means the Imperium isn't a true nation state as understood by modern 20th century people. All the singular individuals with the power and force of personality to impose galactic scale changes (such as the Emperor or the Primarchs) are long gone, and the Imperium was restructured after the Heresy to deliberately prevent individuals from having such power in order to reduce the risk of rebellion. The down side of this is of course they also lack the power to enact beneficial sweeping reforms or take major decisions that actually alter the status quo.

The High Lords reign...they don't rule. Although they may issue sweeping decrees, like increasing mobilization to fight the Tyranids as depicted in the Tyranid Codex, these come off more as general ideological mission statements rather than concrete policy. The actual enforcement of these decrees can also be highly variable as these directives can be distorted, minimized, or perhaps even outright ignored as they propagate down the Imperium's organizations. There are numerous vested interests within the Imperium, and anyone threatening these interests may also provoke a backlash such as assassination. So my view is the High Lords of Terra are ineffective no matter who they are because of the very way the Imperium is structured.

The idea that NO ONE at all is truly in charge of the Imperium is an even scarier and more depressing state of affairs than the simple idea of the High Lords as evil corrupt power mongers deliberately twisting the Emperor's ideas: The Imperium as a system given a life of its own, as a blind unthinking beast, in which the uncounted quadrillions of humans in the galaxy are trapped with no hope of escape.

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperium is like a great ship or plane on autopilot. The institutions of the Imperium have their mandates and most actively try to resist change and restore the status quo even without direct command from above. The decentralized nature of the Imperium and its myriad instituations along with their web of feudal obligations and infighting and politicking means the Imperium isn't a true nation state as understood by modern 20th century people. All the singular individuals with the power and force of personality to impose galactic scale changes (such as the Emperor or the Primarchs) are long gone, and the Imperium was restructured after the Heresy to deliberately prevent individuals from having such power in order to reduce the risk of rebellion. The down side of this is of course they also lack the power to enact beneficial sweeping reforms or take major decisions that actually alter the status quo.

The High Lords reign...they don't rule. Although they may issue sweeping decrees, like increasing mobilization to fight the Tyranids as depicted in the Tyranid Codex, these come off more as general ideological mission statements rather than concrete policy. The actual enforcement of these decrees can also be highly variable as these directives can be distorted, minimized, or perhaps even outright ignored as they propagate down the Imperium's organizations. There are numerous vested interests within the Imperium, and anyone threatening these interests may also provoke a backlash such as assassination. So my view is the High Lords of Terra are ineffective no matter who they are because of the very way the Imperium is structured.

The idea that NO ONE at all is truly in charge of the Imperium is an even scarier and more depressing state of affairs than the simple idea of the High Lords as evil corrupt power mongers deliberately twisting the Emperor's ideas: The Imperium as a system given a life of its own, as a blind unthinking beast, in which the uncounted quadrillions of humans in the galaxy are trapped with no hope of escape.

I do get that all iracundus....

But the point of my question though is - what about those moments (throughout all of Post-Heresy history), when an individual sitting on the High Lords of Terra have been able to shake the Imperium, hopefully for the better.

Sebastian Thor is the clear example. Gore Vandire is the Example in reverse.

Lord High Admiral Lansung from the "War of the Beast" novels would have to be dropped in the Gore Vandire category (because he almost really screwed up the Imperium) if it wasn't for the actions of another High Lord, the Imperial Fists, etc. etc.

ie: This question is a solicitation for Examples of people who come close to the mark.

In the end though, did Sebastian Thor really change things that much? The sect of the Ecclesiarchy changed but ultimately the Imperium is still a bloated religiously intolerant xenophobic regime combining some of the worst elements of feudalism and fascism. Details like the names of people and institutions changed but I would argue things still continued more or less as before. The trajectory of decay was not halted.

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperium is like a great ship or plane on autopilot. The institutions of the Imperium have their mandates and most actively try to resist change and restore the status quo even without direct command from above. The decentralized nature of the Imperium and its myriad instituations along with their web of feudal obligations and infighting and politicking means the Imperium isn't a true nation state as understood by modern 20th century people. All the singular individuals with the power and force of personality to impose galactic scale changes (such as the Emperor or the Primarchs) are long gone, and the Imperium was restructured after the Heresy to deliberately prevent individuals from having such power in order to reduce the risk of rebellion. The down side of this is of course they also lack the power to enact beneficial sweeping reforms or take major decisions that actually alter the status quo.

The High Lords reign...they don't rule. Although they may issue sweeping decrees, like increasing mobilization to fight the Tyranids as depicted in the Tyranid Codex, these come off more as general ideological mission statements rather than concrete policy. The actual enforcement of these decrees can also be highly variable as these directives can be distorted, minimized, or perhaps even outright ignored as they propagate down the Imperium's organizations. There are numerous vested interests within the Imperium, and anyone threatening these interests may also provoke a backlash such as assassination. So my view is the High Lords of Terra are ineffective no matter who they are because of the very way the Imperium is structured.

The idea that NO ONE at all is truly in charge of the Imperium is an even scarier and more depressing state of affairs than the simple idea of the High Lords as evil corrupt power mongers deliberately twisting the Emperor's ideas: The Imperium as a system given a life of its own, as a blind unthinking beast, in which the uncounted quadrillions of humans in the galaxy are trapped with no hope of escape.

I've got a little word document where I save down brilliant explanations of concepts and ideas in the 40k universe for later use, such as the whole 'The Mechanicum does not have the technology' piece.

Just added one more

Perfect explanation.

Nearly one of the Grand Masters of Assassins.

During Vandire's reign, Vandire's political enemies had a bad habit of getting murdered. The Grand Master of the Assassinorum correctly suspects that Imperial Assassins are involved. However, the number of assassinations, and their variety - some by sniper rifle, some by poison, etc - makes him realise that the entire Officio has been compromised. It turns out that a group of Callidus assassins have infiltrated the various Temples, using these positions of power to authorise a large number of hits.

The Grand Master then cleans house. Messily.

He pretty much kicks of a large scale civil war within the Assassinorum. These "Wars of Vindication" end with the destruction of the renegades, but makes the Grand Master aware of how easily corruptable the organisation is. He exiles himself, handing the Inquisition the job of reorganising the place.

The moral of the story? High Lords can save the day... but the day would never have needed saving if he'd just done his job to begin with...

Wasn't Solar Macharius a high lord? He was able to reclaim a sector's worth of territory for the Imperium, that has to count for something.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Wasn't Solar Macharius a high lord? He was able to reclaim a sector's worth of territory for the Imperium, that has to count for something.

Unlikely.

Macharius was an active War Leader, a man of the Military, always pushing forward. A Position as a High Lord seems more representative, more politics oriented, less front-line...

While there might be some rogue examples, I'm not sure that the high-lords are actually supposed to be "effective". At least, not in the way that we would commonly think. More and more in the fluff, I get the feeling like what the Post-Heresy high-lords actually do is (just barely) keep the wheels of the Imperium turning, while at the same time keeping any one member of the high-lords from getting too powerful. You really start to see this in the Beast novels, but there's a bunch of examples of it. To me, it really feels like the high-lords sole purpose is to be the proverbial "hamster" on the Imperium's collective hamster wheel.

The Imperium is vast enough that no one ruling body could truly/effectively govern it, while also being sufficiently advanced enough that as long as a figure-head exists in the universe somewhere, the shipping routes run on-time and the various agro/production worlds keep producing, the high-lords don't actually have to be "effective" in the traditional sense.

Drakan Vangorich was very effective as a High Lord. Probably a bit too effective, with all the purges and such.

Contrary to popular belief, the Damocles Gulf Crusade was a success to the high Lords of Terra. With territorial gains it allowed them to reposition their combined strategic Drinks Cabinet 6 inches closer to the Eastern Fringe and 6 inches further away from the danger of the Eye of Terror. This not only made the Campaign Room more aesthetically pleasing but was also of benefit to the service staff for drink requests!

as I understand it thge Highlords are required to bless a Imperial crusade, so that's a "in theory" class of effectiveness

During the Horus Heresy the seeds of the High Lords of Terra met in secret in the imperial palace with Malcador. In the HH Novel Nemesis they order an assassination team to kill Horus.

It's the only thing I've ever seen directly written about in any novels where they decree something that "happens" It's not successful, but they meet, they make an order, and something tangible happens.

Or though I don't know of any specific examples, I would suspect that the Representative of the Inquisition could be effective if he was representing a coalition of inquisitors - but then the question is he effective because he is acting as a high lord, or is it the inquisition being effective.

Iracundus wrote:
In the end though, did Sebastian Thor really change things that much? The sect of the Ecclesiarchy changed but ultimately the Imperium is still a bloated religiously intolerant xenophobic regime combining some of the worst elements of feudalism and fascism. Details like the names of people and institutions changed but I would argue things still continued more or less as before. The trajectory of decay was not halted.

Seconded, and ultimately didn't the end of the Age of Apostasy effectively fragment the Imperium further, hardening it against the idea of centralisation and making it even less possible for a supremely gifted individual to make a difference?

wasn't Guilliman a high lord for a while? he made vast changes, having said that it seem strange that the other remaining primarchs wernt

Iracundus wrote:
In the end though, did Sebastian Thor really change things that much?

Yep. The Ecclesiarchy become massively less corrupt and murderous of its own people under Thor. Yes, it's still a grimdark organization. But it's not STUPIDLY so like it was under Vandire, who was basically setting it on a course to cause human extinction.

goundry wrote:
wasn't Guilliman a high lord for a while? he made vast changes, having said that it seem strange that the other remaining primarchs wernt

Yes he was one of the first high lords. I believe that is when he developed the Codex Astartes.

Maybe Gulliman was more diplomatic than some of the other primarchs and was able to get along better with the other imperial organizations. Or he was better at management and logistics.

As to the post about Sebastian Thor and changing the Ecclesiarchy, he made massive changes. He made it so that the organization could not raise huge armies anymore, they only had the Sisters of Battle becasuse they were not considered "men under arms". He also split the power of the Ecclesiarchy between Terra and Ophelia VII. This also made it so that others could not influence it as easily. Read the Sisters of Battle codex from the 2nd Edition, it talks about the changes that Thor made.

In other words, Thor caused further fragmentation of the power structure to further inhibit the ability of anyone to actually accomplish anything.

Because the consolidation of power by Vandire worked so well.

bbekins wrote:
Because the consolidation of power by Vandire worked so well.

He purged the gingers from many planets. Cut him some slack, will you?

Mallich wrote:
Nearly one of the Grand Masters of Assassins.

During Vandire's reign, Vandire's political enemies had a bad habit of getting murdered. The Grand Master of the Assassinorum correctly suspects that Imperial Assassins are involved. However, the number of assassinations, and their variety - some by sniper rifle, some by poison, etc - makes him realise that the entire Officio has been compromised. It turns out that a group of Callidus assassins have infiltrated the various Temples, using these positions of power to authorise a large number of hits.

The Grand Master then cleans house. Messily.

He pretty much kicks of a large scale civil war within the Assassinorum. These "Wars of Vindication" end with the destruction of the renegades, but makes the Grand Master aware of how easily corruptable the organisation is. He exiles himself, handing the Inquisition the job of reorganising the place.

The moral of the story? High Lords can save the day... but the day would never have needed saving if he'd just done his job to begin with...

WOuldn't have a name for this fellow would you?

So basically aside from the God-Emperor's Primarch Child who shall be returning to us shortly...

The Grand Master of the Assassinorum (this version under Vandire, and then Drakan from The War of the Beast) seem to be the only people who......effectively wield the reigns of power to try and save the Imperium....

So when the going gets tough and the IoM seems like its falling apart - we rely on essentially Fanatic Inquisitors or Assassins to set things right.....?

Ah well, i guess this is a moot point now that Roboute is returning.