Warhammer 40k fluff thread VI: They see me Ward'en, they haten

[Wraith]

I'd argue that case - it's a basic fact that by His Will, the Astronomicon is maintained, which is critical for all inter-system travel. Without the beacon, the Imperium would collapse thus its existence touches everybody to some degree.

I'm certainly not disagreeing with you (the Sun analogy is actually a much better one than I was using ) but I have always thought of it as a less enlightened interpretation.

By which I mean, what is the Sun doing, right now? How does it work? Is it doing it by choice? Can anyone actually approach the Sun and converse with it? Of course not - THAT is how I see the Imperium's relationship with the Emperor. It's a force of nature that very, very few people can begin to describe - to the populace at large, it's a magnificent and very mysterious thing always hanging over their heads.

In fairness, there's not enough fluff available to say for certain what the average opinion is, but given that even the oldest and most powerful Tech Priests barely know the outlines of how the Golden Throne works, what the Astronomicon actually is and how it is created might as well be fairy tales.

I do concede the rise of the cult of the Emperor and the deviations to it, but even prior to the Emperor's cult, was there any real questioning of his divinity by the normal populace, or even by the Astartes?

During the Great Crusade, the Emperor himself forbade the Imperium from worshipping him as a God. He insisted on an Age of reason and logic, and that he should be regarded as the peak of human evolution rather than something supernatural.

A thousand years after his 'death' - when the Primarchs were all but gone and ordinary humans were dozens of generations away from a first-hand account - cults began springing up in His honour regardless of his edict, and it took until M32 for all of these different viewpoints to be amalgamated or destroyed into a single Imperial Cult, so.... There probably was a time when the Emperor's insistence was adhered to, but it was quickly forgotten as time passed.

I haven't read 15 Hours yet, so will concede the point but I still think live fire exercises in a space ship are highly stupid, no matter how armoured the walls are.

Yeah, that's actually part of the 'joke' that makes 15 Hours the most grimdark book ever written; The troops in question were, among other things, forced to use imaginary buildings marked out by painted outlines on the floor in order to practice a House-to-House search procedure, and though having been drilled by a Veteran as to how to use their guns they would not have had chance to use them until they actually touched down in a warzone!

Having said that, Imperial ships are tens of kilometres long and several millenium old at the very least. I doubt that a mere lasgun could do them any harm, even from the inside of an empty cargo hold.

That said, would there be scope for the marines to launch a coup if the situation was serious enough, assuming that the governor wasn't declared a heretic or otherwise disloyal?

Not too sure about this one.... I fairly certain that a Space Marine Commander could have a Planetary Governer executed, during a military campaign and if he proved enough of a hinderance, but he would almost certainly be investigated by the Inquisition in order to justify himself. Chapter Masters could, without question, do it and it would be extremely difficult to hold them to account.
That said, they would not be allowed to do it for political reasons - the Marines would not be allowed to install themselves as the new Planetary Governors, for example, as going down they route ends with the Tyrant of Badad.

Which reminds me, who has right to authorise Exterminatus? I'm assuming the Inquisition and campaign warmasters, and that anybody else has to request it, but I'm not sure whether that's because only the former two groups have the clearance level, or they're the only ones with the means to do so.

• Inquisitors can do it, and are then called to justify their actions before a council of their peers.
• Space Marine Commanders - Captains and above, usually - can do so if the situation warrants it and they have their own means to do so. They're not allowed to order an Imperial Navy ship to do it for them, though again they can make a polite request.
• Imperial Guard Generals can request an Exterminatus, but I believe that it has to be authorised by a Lord General Militant (such as Zyvan, as you mentioned the Cain novels )
• By the same token, an Imperial Warmaster is above reproach in this regard.
• I'm fairly sure that Imperial Navy Admirals cannot enact an Exterminatus of their own accord, despite having the firepower to do so. They have absolutely no juresduction over ground compaigns.
• And finally, I believe that in extreme circumstances a Planetary Governor (or High Magus, on Forgeworlds) can order an Exterminatus of their own planet if it's completely overrun and no one is coming to their aid. It would take someone quite ballsy to do such a thing, but then what sort of life would they have if they fled and left their planet in the hands of an enemy?

The Marines Malevolent spring to mind, but are there any IG generals that would directly oppose a marine captain?

I can think of a couple by name -Generals Sturnn, Alexander Lukas and Vance Stubbs, all made famous by the add-on campaigns for Dawn of War.
All of them canonically defied a Blood Raven Captain-Commander (among others) and refused to leave their assignment, which ended in outright warfare between Guardsman and Marines in each of their respective campaigns.

Although I doubt that any Commissar-General would have no doubt in doing it, if they were convinced of a better course of action.

For that matter, I'm assuming that the Adeptus Mechanicus does pretty much whatever they like, since via the Titan Legions, they have the biggest guns.

Yes. Also because they have a representative among the High Lords of Terra, which makes them their own 'faction' just like Space Marines, the Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy being unable to directly order each other about.