<![CDATA[Latest posts for the thread "A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?"]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/31.page JForum - http://www.jforum.net A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
Not really thought this one through, hence posing it as a question. Inspiration for the topic came from discussion about the Armageddon Ork Hunters, and how relatively few are Catachan, the whole task force (?, can’t think of a better phrase) being Veteran Remnants of otherwise fallen Regiments.

Here, we need to first acknowledge that whilst probably the most famous, Catachan isn’t the only Jungle Deathworld within The Imperium, and far from the only Deathworld to provide Regiments to the Imperial Guard.

We also see other Regiments from single-biome worlds that truly excel in their native environs. For instance, you’ll be hard pressed to find better Arctic Warriors than the Valhallans, or better Desert Warriors than Tallarns. And for less specialised, few worlds have anything like the discipline of Cadians or Mordians.

Yet, due to the staggering inefficiency and ineptitude of the Munitorum? Such famed Regiments and their ilk only comparatively rarely get to wage war in their preferred environment. And that means there’ll also be wars on Jungle/Ice/Desert worlds where none of the Regiments assigned have the training let alone instinct of the more famed specialised Regiments.

On one hand, with something as vast and varied as The Imperium, and reliant on unavoidably inconsistent and unpredictable Warp Travel, it’s always going to be of limited efficiency. There are too many fronts needing too many troops all at the same time to get it perfected.

But there is room for significant improvement. For instance. Break it down by sector/sub-sector. Understand the Imperium held worlds within that sector. If there are Ice/Desert/Jungle/Whatever worlds? Ensure that the standing presence or rallying points all have representation from Regiments known to excel in those environments. Draw Veterans from mauled examples of such Regiments in to train whatever local PDF’s there might be, so at the very least they know the logistical basics for waging war on such extreme worlds.

Sure, a bunch of Valhallan Veterans training the local PDFs in Ice World Warfare are never going to match their old Regiments in efficiency, no. But at least those who are selected to join the Imperial Guard will have some experience, and so experience fewer losses due to the more hostile environs.

Combined, you stand a better chance of driving any attackers off, and/or putting up enough of a fight their progress is held in check long enough for proper reinforcements to arrive and give them a real kicking.

That would be a strong Imperium. One using its constituent worlds to proper effect, each lending its strength to the other, all learning and improving from one another’s specialisation. An Imperium better able to at least pin down an enemy until it can bring its staggering armed forces to bear.

At least, that’s one hypothesis, what do you reckon, Dakka?]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827622.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827622.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
Probably the closest thing to an organised, efficient Imperium would be... the Tau Empire.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827629.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827629.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable? SM chapters, etc are there so no one source could turn traitor and have HH 2.0.

If they put more trust and ability in to the hands of those who could make it more efficent, the imperium might do a much better job fighting its foes, might might get ripped apart internally by rebelions.

(Which it might be better at putting down, or having cascade failures as more people turned)]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827635.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827635.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
The closest you'd maybe get would be a democracy with a lot of military assets like the United Earth Government in Halo or United Federation of Planets.

Anything fascist or authoritarian will inevitably eat itself alive because someone somewhere will be oppressed and eventually rebel against the ruling power.

The more militaristic a society, the less efficient at anything it is because it loses all of the benefits of civilian life.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827636.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827636.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
 Haighus wrote:
If the Imperium was well organised and efficient, it wouldn't be the Imperium. That is kinda the point of the satire. Even during the Great Crusade, the cracks were showing.

Probably the closest thing to an organised, efficient Imperium would be... the Tau Empire.


Pretty much. An efficient Imperium would be unrecognisable. We'd no longer be talking Warhammer at that point. We may as well be talking Star Trek or the Culture.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827637.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827637.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
If the Imperium only sheds its disorganisation, it would still have major hobbles on it

1) Technology - a big one for the Imperium. Even if they are organised they'd still not be allowed nor encouraged to develop new tech outside of sanctioned developments by the Mechanicus. This still holds the Imperium back in general from advancing their tech. They'd still be locked into this way of thinking.

2) Unity doesn't mean progress. IT depends entirely on the direction the new united Imperium takes. Progressive alliances with Xenos; Die hard Emperor worshippers purging non believers from within; hyper xenophobic and driving all resources into a massive crusade that burns out what stockpiles they have; united and non-expansionist; drawing hard defensive lines but also fortifying their position and not expanding into new territories.

3) Scale; keep in mind some of the "we forgot a world was there" also bleeds into the fact that the Imperium is so vast that losing a world or two here and there is basically "Clerical error" territory. So even if organised, some of those systems are not going to change; they are still one in a million (at least) of worlds.



Honestly we'd likely see the Imperium do well if united as it would have the potential to drive other factions from their boarders. Certainly the likes of the Tau would most certainly be crushed. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827639.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827639.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
To some degree I presume an organised Imperium would also resolve those problems, as it would be sort of necessary for the premise. The Imperium couldn't be properly well organised in the first place otherwise!]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827662.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827662.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
An organised Imperium just means that its no longer losing worlds in the administration system; that its no longer pulling itself in a million different directions; it can still be utterly insane. It all depends who ends up at the very top; what direction this united Imperium goes in.

It could go directions that make it organised, sane, sensible, pragmatic and logical.
Or it could go off the deep end and be organised but crazed; perhaps even more technophobic and archaic. Driven to the Divine Emperor and deciding that the best course of action is to close boarders; draw in their forces and seek purity within itself to draw the Emperor back to them.



Again just because you're organised doesn't mean you suddenly become sane by modern western cultural standards. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827663.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827663.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable? http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827665.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827665.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable? 40k works, the only efficient empire possible is one that uses the webway.

If the imperium is structurally the same as now, relying on warp travel, it will be impossible for them to be well organised. The best they could do is a sector strong fleet for each planet they have, but that still makes each one isolated.

The imperium just can't fundamentally operate in a close knit organised way unless it gets faster and more predictable travel and communication.

I actually think it's one of the good things about the 40k setting, there's like a universal empire collapsing constant based on the tyranny of distance. It allows call backs to Rome.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827678.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827678.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
 Overread wrote:
I disagree - you can be organised and still insane. The mechanicus are pretty well organised and yet they don't regard technology like we do.

An organised Imperium just means that its no longer losing worlds in the administration system; that its no longer pulling itself in a million different directions; it can still be utterly insane. It all depends who ends up at the very top; what direction this united Imperium goes in.

It could go directions that make it organised, sane, sensible, pragmatic and logical.
Or it could go off the deep end and be organised but crazed; perhaps even more technophobic and archaic. Driven to the Divine Emperor and deciding that the best course of action is to close boarders; draw in their forces and seek purity within itself to draw the Emperor back to them.



Again just because you're organised doesn't mean you suddenly become sane by modern western cultural standards.

I guess it kind of depends on what exactly you mean by "organized". As Ashiraya said, the "disorganization" is both a cause and symptom of the various traits that make the imperium the imperium. And what's more, you could make the case that the imperium *is* pretty organized on the whole given the sheer scale at which it operates.

So let's take the "forgot a planet existed" thing. First, let's assume the imperium did just suddenly become way more "organized" and never made clerical errors like losing track of planets again. If they're already successfully keeping track of 99.9% of the planets under their control, then does adding an extra 0.1% of the planets to their roster actually make a huge difference for them in the grand scheme of things? And now setting aside the hypothetical where the imperium is organized, the fact that planets do get lost in the shuffle is itself a symptom of the massive beuracracy and tangle of poorly-shared and poorly-maintained infrastructure that helps make the imperium what it is. There are definitely more efficient and organized ways of keeping track of your planets than hoping some Rogue Trader shares his intel with the right parties. There are better ways of keeping records than having a machine cult put them in a holy server farm and then prevent anyone short of an inquisitor from accessing the servers. But if you made the imperium reasonable and efficient, it wouldn't recognizably be the imperium any longer. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827692.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827692.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable? ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827694.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827694.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable? ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827695.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827695.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
Heck, even simply a moderate increase in their organization and efficiency would be very very bad news for any of their enemies who don't have anything supernatural tilting the scales in the balance. Basically Tyranids, Orks, rebels, and any other mortal enemies would be steamrolled.

Only Chaos, Necrons, and Dark Eldar would really have a chance at that point. Dark Eldar and Chaos have safe spaces to hide in and the Necrons are just that powerful. Everybody else would be mopped up over a few centuries.

The Imperium has endured for 10k years despite blinding incompetence and inefficiency and the losses are still glacial. Imagine if they were even 10% stronger.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827698.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827698.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
"What if all eldar could go back to using their War in Heaven level psychic powers?"

"What if the necrons' tech hadn't broken down while they were asleep?"

"What if the chaos gods actually tried?"

The answer to all of those is probably just, "Well, then they'd be too powerful for the setting to retain its stalemate, and then the setting wouldn't work."

And if an organized imperium *didn't* make them so powerful that they just broke the setting by winning, then they'd be a less flavorful/grimdark/satirical faction than they are now, and the setting would probably be worse for it. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827699.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827699.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
Within its existing forces, it has more than enough soldiery of varying flavours to ROFLstomp pretty much anyone.

But right now, its organisation is there, but it’s fragmentary and patchy at best. See my hypothesis of an Imperium better able to assign and from there hopefully successfully deploy its specialists to the areas where they’re of greatest strategic value. From there, it had a greater chance of putting out local fires quickly and efficiently, allowing its forces to redeploy to the next one with greater speed.

That wouldn’t be a huge change. Certainly I don’t think much would have to change at the top for it. Just a different approach with forethought applied.

If it could organise a proper crusade against the Tau, and use The Warp to strike at the homeworld itself, perhaps just to launch a quick Exterminatus, it could cause a collapse of morale, perhaps even deal a mortal blow.

With one foe down in that neck of the galactic woods? The armed forces located therein are freed up to focus on the Tyranids and Orks there. That doesn’t equate to “and therefore victory”. Just a better chance of therefore victory.

If it could organise a crusade against Craftworlds? Imagine a galaxy without Farseers fiddling with fate and arranging catastrophes for others. Yes you’d be removing a sometimes ally. But we the players know Eldar never, ever act out of altruism. There’s always a price, and it may not manifest immediately.

There would still be threats. Hive Fleets, Waaaghs!, Necrons, Dark Eldar and Chaos are all sods to defeat and for various reasons.

Orks there are perhaps the thorniest. We know they’re absolutely everywhere in the galaxy. And that will include systems The Imperium can’t get to or is entirely ignorant of the existence thereof. And their haphazard “punch a hole in reality and then hope you get to a really really good fight” approach to warp travel renders them entirely unpredictable. As indeed does the “don’t really care where we end up as long as we get to fight someone when we do, ideally with loads of stuff we can nick” culture kind of lacks any other goal.

Yes, Ghaz has a plan. And he’s a popular lad with a massive following. But there’s still huge fleets of Orks out there just doing what they do best with no real goal behind it. So you still can’t really predict their movements, or declare any system truly safe.

And this is worsened by any big fight being liable only to attract even more Orks. Especially if the initial lot aren’t getting the best of it.

But again, organisation and a little forethought. Planetary Governors have a shocking amount of leeway, provided the Tithe is met on time, every time, including any random and unheralded increases demanded. And that includes arming, equipping and training the local PDF. Yet, it’s still well within The Imperium’s power to dictate who is training that PDF. Even a squad, the last remnants of a veteran Regiment with a storied history of fighting Orks would make a fine basis for an Office Corp to train a PDF where Orks are a constant threat.

Yet…it doesn’t do that. Sure, some Governors will arrange that for themselves. But surely it makes sense to us at least for The Imperium to set a standard for the PDF?

Now, as ever I don’t want to unfairly bash the PDF. In the background, we typically only see them when things have got out of hand and the Guard show up. But that’s not necessarily a matter of incompetence. The PDF is a pretty much static force, so if their world/system hasn’t been attacked for centuries, we can’t fairly expect a top notch response when someone does come a-knocking. And they certainly can’t do anything about say, a Tomb World awakening, a Splinter Fleet arriving or a Space Hulk dropping by a disgorging any number of horrors upon their world.

So it can sometimes feel like the fire brigade sneering at someone who tried to put the fire out early, using sensible equipment but with no success. Because typically, when you can put the fire out yourself? The fire brigade (Guard here) just aren’t going to hear about it.

Sorry. Tangential Whimbriling has occurred. Yeah. That’s right, Whimbriling.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827705.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827705.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
Could it theoretically do things better? Objectively yes, but it doesn't because it cannot with its current structure. It would require fundamental reform.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827717.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827717.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
The Eldar would likely see such an effective Imperium as a greater threat and focus their efforts on it.

Tyranids would continue to be an overwhelmingly difficult problem for the Imperium to deal with.

And of course, an Imperium with such concentrated military might would be even more vulnerable to sections of it falling to the Enemy Within and rebelling.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827723.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827723.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
They can't go any faster and they can't communicate any more reliably. That puts a hard limit on how organised and coordinated they can be.

]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827749.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827749.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
Plus if they cut out a lot of the inter-departmental infighting that alone could save them a lot of resources. There's bound to be shipments and troops and more that go in circles as different power bodies move them this way and that way for political reasons and so forth .]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827751.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827751.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
 Hellebore wrote:
I haven't seen anything that sidesteps the tyranny of distance that the imperium has to grapple with.

They can't go any faster and they can't communicate any more reliably. That puts a hard limit on how organised and coordinated they can be.


I think the basic point is that the Tau manage this better... somehow (over a much smaller Empire, but still pretty vast), showing it is possible. Also, interstellar communication in the Imperium is unreliable, but it isn't that unreliable, at least until the Great Rift. Worlds survive that rely on warp-travel shipments of basic resources from other worlds for millennia.

To be honest, the tyranny of distance could be mitigated by better decentralisation and delegation. The Imperium cannot do this too much because much of their population lives in terrible conditions and is one missed mass-conveyor away from food riots and so on. But an empire that actually maintains a good quality of life and tangible benefits... more like the Tau, would have much less problems with loyalty and could actually delegate more power down to lower levels.

Ironically, the basic building blocks of a decentralised system are already there by necessity, with things like delegated Imperial Commanders (planetary governors), and subsector and sector military reserves that respond to local and regional crises. But corruption, abuse, and the resulting risk of rebellion are baked in to the system so there is only so much that can be done to improve this basic framework. Especially as the superplanetary commanders that might have the power to make changes are like-as-not incompetents who got the role through their family and political connections and are entirely content with a status quo that is benefiting them personally... at least until it is too late and a major threat roles in that they don't have the capacity to manage.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827755.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827755.page GMT Re:A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
The Forge Moon of Deimos (towed from Mars to Titan) has its own Knight House, House Steel, (who can't talk) and has a fully functioning STC that can make everything the rest of the Imperium can...

Except!

The Nemesis Weapons that the Grey Knights use are made on Titan. Why? They don't trust the Mechanicus.

I think inbuilt distrust of everyone that's not your particular tribe is the wedge that keeps the Imperium from truly becoming a true terror.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827830.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827830.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
(Incidentally yet another in the long list of goated quotes they chose for the Dawn of War Confessor to recite: "No one is above suspicion." Not as good as "The plea of innocence is guilty of wasting my time.", but still great.)

]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827849.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827849.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
That’s a doozie.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827873.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827873.page GMT Re:A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable? http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827874.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827874.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
Hellebore wrote:I haven't seen anything that sidesteps the tyranny of distance that the imperium has to grapple with.

They can't go any faster and they can't communicate any more reliably. That puts a hard limit on how organised and coordinated they can be.


Yeah. I think in practical terms, an imperium that makes fewer clerical errors probably translates to something like, "10% more forces get deployed to a given battlefield and are 50% less likely to end up starving from messed up supply lines when they get there."

Like I said earlier, a more organized imperium is kind of unappealing in a couple of ways. Either it doesn't make enough of a difference to matter, or it *does* matter and now we have to unite the eldar and the orks to reign the humans in or whatever. Which then robs the faction of the crumbling empire/somehow-kind-of-the-underdogs status that is part of their appeal.

Lathe Biosas wrote:Would a stable Imperium be any fun though?

In my opinion, it would be signficantly less fun. We're sorta kinda talking about the difference between the M41 imperium and the Great Crusade era imperium. The GC was entertaining in its own way, but a franchise where the humans are doing pretty great actually and regularly go around winning battles is a lot less juicy than a setting where humanity is surviving by the tips of its fingernails and constantly being subjected to nightmarish fates. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827880.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827880.page GMT Re:A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Would a stable Imperium be any fun though?


Absolutely not. The Imperium is only remotely cool because of how amazingly horrible it is, in several senses of the word.

As much as I think 40k has issues with some fans missing the point and unironically stanning the Imperium, and definitely is guilty of catering to such views sometimes, it's still ultimately not forgotten its roots.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827893.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827893.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
 Haighus wrote:
 Hellebore wrote:
I haven't seen anything that sidesteps the tyranny of distance that the imperium has to grapple with.

They can't go any faster and they can't communicate any more reliably. That puts a hard limit on how organised and coordinated they can be.


I think the basic point is that the Tau manage this better... somehow (over a much smaller Empire, but still pretty vast), showing it is possible. Also, interstellar communication in the Imperium is unreliable, but it isn't that unreliable, at least until the Great Rift. Worlds survive that rely on warp-travel shipments of basic resources from other worlds for millennia.

To be honest, the tyranny of distance could be mitigated by better decentralisation and delegation. The Imperium cannot do this too much because much of their population lives in terrible conditions and is one missed mass-conveyor away from food riots and so on. But an empire that actually maintains a good quality of life and tangible benefits... more like the Tau, would have much less problems with loyalty and could actually delegate more power down to lower levels.

Ironically, the basic building blocks of a decentralised system are already there by necessity, with things like delegated Imperial Commanders (planetary governors), and subsector and sector military reserves that respond to local and regional crises. But corruption, abuse, and the resulting risk of rebellion are baked in to the system so there is only so much that can be done to improve this basic framework. Especially as the superplanetary commanders that might have the power to make changes are like-as-not incompetents who got the role through their family and political connections and are entirely content with a status quo that is benefiting them personally... at least until it is too late and a major threat roles in that they don't have the capacity to manage.


Decentralisation puts a limit on how coordinated you can be. The imperium is currently at the worst end of the scale. But there is a limit.

Long distance communicationsntake almost as long as warp travel due to the use of astropathic choirs, warp shenanigans and the need for boosters. They have pass through relays. They get lost in the warp.

The imperiums decentralisation is a response to these hard limits.


I'm not saying the imperium can't be more organised than it currently is, I'm saying that the limits on how organised are baked into the metaphysics. 99% more organised isn't much when you are starting at 10% organised - sure you've doubled it but 19.9% organised is still not high.

The tau function differently with different needs, objectives and speeds. They send messages in couriers, which are even slower than astropaths.

The tau have taken out the infighting which reduces organisation, the superstition, the religious need to dominate, the number of worlds needed to organise etc.

Ultramar is probably almost as organised as the tau but it's almost entirely down to how close the world's are to each other.

Without real time comms and travel no one is going to be super organised no matter how efficient they are.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827943.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827943.page GMT Re:A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable? de facto regional or pocket empires, all paying nominal lip service to the idea of an Imperium but essentially doing their own thing and fighting their own conflicts, including against each other. That way it would easily explain away all the Imperial vs Imperial games. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827949.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827949.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
 Haighus wrote:
 Hellebore wrote:
I haven't seen anything that sidesteps the tyranny of distance that the imperium has to grapple with.

They can't go any faster and they can't communicate any more reliably. That puts a hard limit on how organised and coordinated they can be.


I think the basic point is that the Tau manage this better... somehow (over a much smaller Empire, but still pretty vast), showing it is possible.


T'au are still in a tiny little pocket of the galaxy. It's only vast to them. ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827973.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11827973.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
Was man’s original exodus to the stars planned in advance? Almost certainly. Identify the nearest habitable worlds, send a colony ship, rinse and repeat.

But The Great Crusade was trying to reunite what already existed. And that was necessarily somewhat haphazard. And in the aftermath of the Heresy, what then remained was even more scattered as rebel worlds got a right kicking at best, and destroyed at worst. And it’s never really consolidated things since then. Partly due to internal disorganisation, partly due to being under perpetual siege from multiple hostile parties.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828240.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828240.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
The Imperium does have forward planning; the issue is its mired in dogma, rhetoric, fear and internal power struggles. Which causes the plan to falter and shift all the time. It's also so massive that it will never have a single plan; it will always be layers of different levels of plans.

Such as how a group of Marines might plan to protect a world; but the Custodes will plan to destroy it to save Terra ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828290.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828290.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
They are in their 5th Sphere of Expansion, they had multiple wars against Chaos forces and learned how to hunt Chaos cults. They control a stable Warp gateway and several of their client and allied civilizations have their own psykers.

People overfocus on the Tau's initial reactions to stuff like Titans and Hive Worlds, but the Tau learned how to fight Titans and nowadays they have worlds that put most Hive Worlds to shame.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828315.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828315.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
But their expansions are still planned carefully.

And whilst you raise some interesting points about the Imperium’s internal nonsense? It doesn’t change that it’s scattered and fragmented territories aren’t a direct result of that. Rather, it’s a legacy of its creation. Sure, the latter has made the former far worse. But it’s not the original cause,]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828326.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828326.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
 Tyran wrote:
I'm not sure how true that is anymore.

They are in their 5th Sphere of Expansion, they had multiple wars against Chaos forces and learned how to hunt Chaos cults. They control a stable Warp gateway and several of their client and allied civilizations have their own psykers.

People overfocus on the Tau's initial reactions to stuff like Titans and Hive Worlds, but the Tau learned how to fight Titans and nowadays they have worlds that put most Hive Worlds to shame.

It thematically doesn't work IMO, but apparently some Tau worlds now have populations in the trillions.

Which, in terms of current timelines, means they went from being shocked at populations in the double digit billions to having trillions themselves in something like a decade.

Not a fan.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828328.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828328.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
Which is a bit like someone from my town expressing shock at how densely populated Tokyo or Beijing is. Yes to that person it’s a truly bizarre number of people, but not representative of the UK population’s experience as a whole.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828329.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828329.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
the tau have a cultural breeding program that provides governmental support for child rearing (creches) and have made reproducing for the greater good, they are going to produce populations that explode in size.

2.1 is replacement. So say they were producing 3.1 children per woman. A planet with 8 billion people, of which 50% are female and (at least in humans) 2 billion are capable of having children. 3.1 X 2 is 6.2 billion children. Half of which will also have 3.1 children which is another 9.61 billion children.

If you have continual population growth it picks up very quickly.

Now they also have population movement in a way humanity doesn't. They wouldn't breed to a trillion people in a decade, but they would get their if they were importing people for greater good reasons.

10 planets with 2 billion women all producing 3.1 children each is an additional 62 billion children. 31x3.1 is another 96 billion people. Collectively in less than 100 years those planets have created 158 billion more tau.

And tau live shorter lives so they would reproduce at younger ages to a human.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828333.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828333.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
 Hellebore wrote:
Yeah but we are very had at understanding near or exponential growth.

the tau have a cultural breeding program that provides governmental support for child rearing (creches) and have made reproducing for the greater good, they are going to produce populations that explode in size.

2.1 is replacement. So say they were producing 3.1 children per woman. A planet with 8 billion people, of which 50% are female and (at least in humans) 2 billion are capable of having children. 3.1 X 2 is 6.2 billion children. Half of which will also have 3.1 children which is another 9.61 billion children.

If you have continual population growth it picks up very quickly.

Now they also have population movement in a way humanity doesn't. They wouldn't breed to a trillion people in a decade, but they would get their if they were importing people for greater good reasons.

10 planets with 2 billion women all producing 3.1 children each is an additional 62 billion children. 31x3.1 is another 96 billion people. Collectively in less than 100 years those planets have created 158 billion more tau.

And tau live shorter lives so they would reproduce at younger ages to a human.

I don't have a problem with Tau reaching larger population sizes. My issue is with them having such a dramatic increase in such a short time, especially as the quality of life for citizens of the Tau empire is generally shown as being fairly high, which would be much harder to sustain with dramatic population expansions.

Whilst we don't know what Tau reproduction times are (extrapolating from Earth critters is always going to be problematic for aliens), the limiting step is not going to be the actual Tau, it will be the infrastructure that supports them.

When it comes down to it, Tau society was portrayed as being fairly low population, with exceptionally-high levels of automation making individual Tau very productive and the lives of Tau generally valued highly. Quality vs the quantity of the Imperium. Then it suddenly jumps up to very high population levels, which is possible to do with a reasonable quality of life (if the Earth was covered with a city similar in density and amenities to Tokyo, for example, it would approach 1 trillion in population), but not in such a short time frame. The logistics and engineering required are immense, and if the Tau can build ecumenopoli in a decade they have a level of industrial output that I don't think any of the other factions can hope to match short of the Tyranids and will conquer the galaxy in short order.

In practice I don't think whoever wrote that lore put much, if any thought into it, but here we are. It is particularly annoying, because logistics and handling annexing hyper-popopulous Imperial worlds was previously an interesting discussion point for the Tau Empire and their challenges in breaking out of their region of space. Now that has apparently been handwaved in short order.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, one Tau was shocked at that if memory serves?

Which is a bit like someone from my town expressing shock at how densely populated Tokyo or Beijing is. Yes to that person it’s a truly bizarre number of people, but not representative of the UK population’s experience as a whole.

There were a couple of sources, but the one I'm referencing was from a mid-level Tau diplomat and mid-ranking Tau commander who stated the Hive population of 12 billion was more than the population of the entire Sept they were currently in. So they had enough awareness to know what population their Sept had. This was a frontier Sept, but I don't see any particular reason to think they'd react in such a way if the Tau Sept or one of the other major Septs also routinely had single cities with populations in the billions.

IIRC, the other main source for Tau struggling with grasping Imperial population sizes was around the invasion of Agrellan, later renamed Mu'gulath Bay by the Tau. This was a hive world.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828339.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828339.page GMT A well organised Imperium. Undefeatable?
I mean, in the modern world we tend to see a depressing amount of Short Termism. Nothing seems to be arrange on a predictive or anticipatory model.

The Tau have a star empire, and all the resources that bring. And an entire caste dedicated to building and developing whatever it is they need.

Now, I want to make it clear, just in case, that I don’t think we can assume an equal percentage of population across each caste. So I can’t put any kind of number of how many Earth Caste their might be.

But from what we see, and with drone/AI support? They’re clearly and evidently up to the task. Not just for weapons and equipment for war, but all the necessary infrastructure of the wider society.

And best of all? From what we can see, absolute cooperation.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828344.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/819154/11828344.page GMT