Mirror Universe Warhammer 40000: Here Chaos is the Good-Er, Less-Bad-Guy!

[Leliel]

Log of the Calixis Compact: Anoitment of the Scintillan Infiltration's Leader

Baron Vetala (alias-real name Cor Llyod), Lord-Captain of Chaigidel's Caress: For the record, I am the organizer of this current quest for the glory of the daemon realm, may they walk free as we do. Are all Masters of the Fraternity of Unveiling in attendance?

Shang Daiji, Emissary of the Noble House of Cainin: Attending.

Magus Raziel Kablah, Unnamned of the Carnival of Revelations: I am here as much as I can be. So is the genii.

Dagran Birnasdottir, Sub-Champion of the Fenri Tribe of the Kergen: Was waitin' for all of you ta show up.

All: The Supernal are Everywhere and None.

Vetala: Right then, to business. While I am sorry for interrupting your business-

Daiji: You have no idea-

Vetala: Interrupting your important business, we have an auspicious turn of events that we may easily spin to not only our favor, but that of the Great Liberation as a whole.

Dagran: I sure as Warp hope so. My tribe's been howlin' about a new stele for months.

Raziel: The planet lasted that long?

Dagran: Watch your mouth, half-real.

Vetala: Please. Leave your belligerent romantic aspirations for outside the briefing room.

Raziel: You arrogant-

Daiji: Enough, you two.

Raziel and Dagran: Yes, your Grace.

Vetala: Good. Now, a little background for those of us lucky to be born outside Imperial space-is everyone familiar with the Arbites?

Dagran: Legally-protected psychopaths who view innocence in and of itself as a crime?

Vetala: The general gist of it, yes. Unlimited power plus the cancerous tumor of pages that is the Lex Imperialis is not a reputation for anything resembling a fair or effective police force, which is why they always have work. Scintilla, the planet whose system we are currently in stealth orbit around, is the headquarters for the Calixis precinct, and a more eerie world than most Daemon Worlds combined, no offense.

Daiji: None taken. The fear we mean to engender is more of looking alien and strange, not sterile to the point of apparent extinction. Intimidation is a backdrop to our rites, not a purpose.

Vetala: I have called you here because of an interesting series of events Mr. Kablah's Infernal Tarot revealed-

Dagran: Excuse me, what? We're here because of a fortune teller?

Raziel: While I am no Farseer, I am capable of perceiving the immaterial the same way the xenos do, and I am quite capable of interpreting the present-

Dagran: I'm not arguin' with the runes, I'm arguin' because of you.

Raziel: Oh, here we go. Wolf-born, the genii are not my masters, they are my allies in friends in my sorcery-

Dagran: So much so that you let them turn you into one of them in human skin-

Raziel: It was part of my Denaming, but at least I can say I was born fully human, unlike the abhumans your ancestors made you-

Dagran: Oh yeah, like mutation's a crime when we serve the source-

Raziel: Sacred mutation, not genetic engineering-

Daiji: ENOUGH! This is a briefing, not a pissing competition!

Dagran: All right! You don't have to drop human form for this! Supernal above, woman.

Raziel: I defer to the Holy Child's judgement in this.

Vetala: Besides throwing prejudices that belong in the schoolyard onto display, what Raziel's Tarot revealed was that one of the Judges is having visions of the Corpse-Throne.

Daiji: Wait. Are you saying that...?

Raziel: It seems probable we will have an Illuminated Heir of Calixis here soon enough, a fanatical corvid deluded into thinking it is a descendant of the corpse it feasts on.

Dagran: So, another wannabe lieutenant to the Throne? While watchin' them tear apart the Imperium they claim to love is hilarious, I ain't seein' where that involves us, apart from sellin' the rights to salvage when it blows up in his face.

Vetala: That's the error. He isn't quite convinced to claim the crown yet-he believes he requires independent verification of his claim.

Daiji: ...Go on.

Vetala: There are no Imperial diviners near Scintilla, but our Illuminated-to-be does not know that, and he is impatient. My ship happens to resemble a Rogue Trader's if painted correctly, and since one of us knows how to create false cataracts...

Dagran: I follow it. If one of us fakes bein' an Astropath, we can not only pull a string on him, we can shape him to our plans.

Daiji: And while all of the Heirs to the False are cruel, if he is cruel in such a public way it showcases to the sector of how imbalanced and ineffective the Lex is, we open a chink in the Armor of Ignorance. One our cults may slither through to whisper knowledge and wisdom into, and poison the Arbites in the process. I quite enjoy these thoughts, it reminds me of Warp politics.

Raziel: Of course, the Arbites see conspiracy and plots everywhere, even the ones that actually exist. We will need a complex plot to draw the eyes of the Watchers to distract them from our real one, preferably one as loud and destructive as possible.

Dagran: I call that one!

Vetala: Good. But we still need someone to coordinate the schemes, and that is probably our Anointed. Lady Shang, you hold the title of Knight of Distrust in your House, correct?

Daiji: That is true.

Vetala: Care to try your plots at more earthly politics?

Daiji: It will be an interesting challenge. Give me the vial...Thank you. I, Shang Daiji of the Noble House of Cainin, the Daemons of Liberation and Betrayal, declare myself Master and Scapegoat of the Compact of Calixis. While I am a child of the Supernal, I ask and expect no preferential treatment, and should I fail in Their eyes, I will accept punishment as both a false leader and a false heir.

*vial shatters, sound of daemonic whispering*

Daiji: Okay then. The first step in our schemes...

----------------------------------------------------

Well, if you've been paying attention to the RPG forum, you'll know I recently made a thread chronicling my attempts to find a replacement for psykers in 40K that would help flip the designated protagonists of the gameline, making the Forces of Chaos have the right of the matter when they point out that the Imperium is destroying itself better than they ever could, and more morally ambiguous about the whole thing (less "living bogeyman of the Other" and more "French Revolution mixed with Mystery Cultists, possibly with Terror included depending on which cell or splinter you're talking about"). The Imperium was transferred more or less as is, with certain caveats about how it actually is falling apart completely, and Chaos is happily exploiting it. More than that, the cosmology of the setting is utterly changed so that yes, fascism and willful ignorance is still not the answer, and only making things worse than they should be.

However, I'm interested in how you guys would run with it, so please post your own ideas.

[Leliel]

Know Your Enemy: The Guardsman's Guide to Magus Threat Propaganda About the Magus Threat Even The People Reading This Don't Believe (editor, Raziel Kablah)

In the Forces of Chaos, there is no more inhuman threat than Magi, Sorcerers who have abandoned all but the slimmest pretense to humanity in their search for unclean knowledge and the dark power that comes with it. This, at least, is true. The path of the sorcerer is not one to take if you value social acceptance or human sanity. Comfort is the enemy of understanding, as Lord Magnus says. They have sacrificed all their memories (Not true. That's a trait of the Carnival, not sorcerers in general, and even then we know why we became sorcerers and Magi in the first place) the become like the dark beings they serve free of all the distractions of grieving for our previous selves and now exist half in the world and half in the Immaterium. The body you see is naught but a false shade of their previous self (Actually, the human form and the Warp form exist simultaneously-think of it as a quantum state where, metaphorically speaking, the cat is both dead and alive), used only to [strike]deceive the righteous[/strike] interact with humans and as a stepping stone towards the Dark Apotheosis of Daemonhood. In battle, all pretense is shed, revealing their horrifying (Really? I tend to unnerve people given how my Warp form is a hooded, concealed man with an animate mask for a face, but I don't break squads simply by sneering at them) true forms (academic distinction) and, as befitting cowards, take to the back and rain wicked fire down from afar. If this is the Guard's definition of cowardice, no wonder we keep on winning against them.

In confronting the Magus, take heart in that their forms, constructed of nothing but dreams and dark matter culled from the Empyrean, is extremely fragile supple and easily wounded as unyielding as any manifest daemon's. They are, due to their perception of the horrifying Warp that overlays all, incapable of foresight (I think I'll let the idiocy of that statement when applied to diviners stand), tactics (See previous comment), or leadership (depends on the Magus). They do not understand brotherhood the Guard or Space Marines do (I'll say. You call a state of near-constant civil war brotherhood?), and will [strike]happily betray those who blindly trust them[/strike] only serve those who earn their respect, being masters of the craft and expecting to be treated as such. Make no mistake, they cannot stand the sign of the Aquila, the holy skull, the Emperor's name, or faith having their patience tested by having holy symbols thrown at them when taking prisoners, and their foul magics fail when their concentration is broken by heavy gunfire. Which is why we all learned how to imbue spells with genii to maintain them when we were still fully human.

Whatever you do, do not let them take you prisoner. You might actually learn something about how Chaos bothers with respecting the dignity of soldiers. And have recruiters pep-talk at you.

[Leliel]

Abaddon the Incorruptible, Warmaster of Chaos and Acting Head of the Council of Thermidor

Hero. Monster. Leader. Tyrant. Savior. Despoiler.

All these titles and more have been used to describe Ezekyle Abaddon, leader of the Ebon Legion (and giver of that name after Horus' untimely end), often multiple from the same individual (and generally both positive and negative if he is described by one of his forces). All, however, agree that Abaddon is a man of many virtues and vices-on one hand, a brilliant strategist and a loyal friend to Horus who has dedicated his life to seeing out his vision far into the future. On the other, he is a fanatical devotee of ideological purity who is often remarked (in hushed tones out of the earshot of his Purgatores) to fit in with the hated Imperium perfectly, and incapable of letting go of his grudge against Cadia for Creed's repeated humiliations of him (and loss of his original limbs) over thirteen Ebon Crusades. A few have whispered that Abaddon lost his touch a long time ago, that the old Space Marine was so maddened by the loss of his friend and commander that his entire career from thereon has been nothing but a long string of mistakes. This is partially true-Abaddon has admitted, albeit privately, that he was originally more of a majordomo than a full leader, extremely competent at leading in the field and implementing orders from above, but as an overall strategist, he lacked Horus' genius. He has learned quickly though, as shown by his crushing of Cadia in his latest, and the "preparatory Crusade" of the one previous. No one has ever doubted how he attained his common sobriquet of "the Incorruptible", either-you will not find a more stalwart and honorable man in all of the Space Marines, loyalist or rebel.

Originally the leader of one of the various gang-clans of Cthonia, the long-destroyed homeworld of the Legion, Abaddon was always a visionary. Disgusted with the lawlessness and cruelty of the various other gangs that had taken advantage of the subterranean society and its lack of ability to enforce law or basic decency, he set out to transform his own into a functioning government that the civilian citizens of the cave-mines could find some degree of safety in. To make a long story short, it worked, which is how he and his gang-clan came to the attention of the Luna Wolves and Horus. Many, including Abaddon himself, passed the stringent tests and were successfully implanted with the gene-seed. So many, in fact, that the refuge they had built was starved for leadership, and Horus himself was called there to restore order and transition the leadership. It was there that the Liberator and his future right-hand man first met, and they quite quickly formed a bond out of mutual recognition of similar qualities to their own.

This was also quite auspicious for the Incorruptable, as it was quickly shown he was a better politician than a soldier. After an embarrassing defeat in which he had to be literally dragged over to the Medicae by his Scout Sergeant, Abaddon quickly realized that the close-quarters melee combat he was used to in the tunnels of Cthonia, while not quite ineffective in a more advanced battlefield, were not quite suited for Ork dakka. Due to his connection with his Chapter Master, though, Abaddon was able to apply for training from the most elite artillerists of the time, and proved both a quick learner and a good investment for the Warmaster overall, quickly proving himself the equal of any mortal field commander and a quick and precise shot with a bolter. In the waning days of the Great Crusade, it was to no one's surprise when he became Captain of the Luna Wolves' First Company.

Unbeknownst to Horus, however, Abaddon was also a member of one of the Warrior Lodges, a secret society of totemists who were inspired by the abhuman tribes of Davin. Though technically a place to study the arts of war without the bondage of the chain of command, it also served as a place for the free exchange of ideas, in particular the ideas of personal liberty and free thought espoused by the Colchites who had evaded Lorgar's ideological purge of the Old Faith. Within, the Space Marines of the future Rebellious Chapters grew increasingly alarmed at the God-Emperor's xenophobia and willingness to crush all and any forms of resistance to his rule.

After the Purging of the Diasporex, the seed of doubt that had been slowly worming its way into Abaddon's mind blossomed, and he realized that the Emperor had simply gone too far. Not only was the destruction of a culture that had just wished to live in peace morally repugnant, experience on Cthonia also informed him that it was a phenomenally poor tactical decision overall-allies meant territory and relative power that one did not have to stretch his resources to maintain, and tactical advice from an outside perspective. This seed called to the genii, the Warp entities that often serve as messengers for the Supernal, and soon, Abaddon had become a rebel before his Chapter Master had. When Horus regretfully turned on his father, he was more than a little surprised when Abaddon's response to the news was "Pray tell, my friend and most honored Primarch, what took you so long?"

During the invasion of Terra, Abaddon led some of the most elite forces in the Horus Heresy, spreading both terror and awe to many worlds almost singlehandedly. But there was only a few of them, and despite their best efforts, they were not able to assist their Primarch during his duel against the God-Emperor, only arriving in time to bear witness to his corpse. Ashamed of his failure to save his Primarch, Abaddon destroyed several loyalist Captains in a vengeful fury, before taking his friend back to his own flagship, and from there to the Eye of Sorrow.

Recovering from his grief and guilt, Abaddon called a council on Thermidor, sometimes known the Daemon World of Summer Everlasting, a hot, humid world where the only night is induced by the clouds the monsoons that sweep the planet regularly. There, he outlined the pact that later historians would call the Forever Compact-thereforth, the Imperial Rebels and the Forces of Chaos would be one and the same, until the Astronomicon was put out and the God-Emperor's soul returned to the Immaterium. The Noble Houses of the Daemons almost universally agreed to his terms and sanctified it in the eyes of the Four Gods, the patronage of which was bitterly ironic to many of the deistic rebels of Istvhaan. Renaming the Luna Wolves the Ebon Legion both to mourn his leader and as a glum recognition of their new state as the Supernal's cat's-paws.

Afterwards, Abaddon returned to his roots as a bringer of stability among the anarchic and the lawless, forming a Council based out of Thermidor that would serve as a government in peace and war, with himself as Acting Head until the Long War's end (in his later biographies, he admits to not realizing just how long the war would last). His extremely blunt and straightforward politics, and his dedication to Horus' ideals of freedom and universal equality earning him his common sobriquet among the rebels (his Imperial nickname is the far less complimentary-and creative-"Destroyer of Order"). His initial idealism has long soured, however-while the nature of Chaos makes it unlikely that the Imperium will infiltrate the Forces of Chaos anytime soon (and if they do, the Rebels are likely winning the war of ideals), he is deathly terrified of a split that would destroy the already fractious heretical forces, and of xenos infiltration (especially the attempts of the Tau and Dark Eldar). He sees potential enemies everywhere, and is always ready to call the Purgatores to strong-arm any dissent that may interrupt into a rebellion against the rebels, or crush any puppets of the alien. He is not a fool, however-more than once, a lack of Purgatores is exactly what caused a violent fracture or an opening for all the horror of a Dark Eldar raid, and he is willing to give the benefit of the doubt first (which is why he has narrowly avoided being branded a paranoid for so long). His lack of strategic experience, especially when compared to the likes of Ursarkar E. Creed, and the Cadians was also shown very thoroughly in his First Ebon Crusade, such as by his lack of functional arms as he limped away from a vortex grenade. Thanks to the Genii Mechanicus' and their brilliant work in Empyreal bionics, they were quickly replaced by crystalline Warpglass and titanium (much to the fury of the Iron Hands when they first saw them), stronger than his original limbs ever were. This also illustrates a strong point of the Incorruptible-he learns, and very quickly becomes better than anyone who ever taught him humility.

A skill he desperately needs, for in the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium, the Imperium has infinitely more resources than he.

[Leliel]

Hm, first time I have had two lore posts in a row.

On the Nature of Daemons

Many scholars of the Imperium claim that daemons are utterly alien and evil embodiments of the darkest emotions of all life. Every one is different in some unique and horrible way, seeking only to enter real-space in full or in the bodies of those weak-willed enough to possess to spread Chaos and corruption.

As with much scholarship in the Imperium, this takes one thing that is technically true out of context, filters it through the lens of complete and unreasoning fear of everything not the Imperium, and then adds an utter lie to it for good measure.

Daemons were born, in a roundabout sense, from emotion-the Supernal were, and they molded the remnants of the Old Ones' psychic soldier races in their image, beings entirely of the Warp drawn to strong emotion. But as that phrase suggests, everything else is yet more lies for the Emperor-daemons are ultimately a sapient species in their own right, a xenos race like any other, with a society and a culture of their own. And like most sapient species, they have an understandably hard time shoving a body where a soul is; They can influence, but that is limited to summoning genii conducive to the concepts and emotions they study and admire into being, and given what genii are (self-sustaining thought patterns summoned from the depths of a real-space individual's subconscious), this doesn't really change the personality of their subject noticeably (it may change behavior as their inner thoughts and ideals develop the ability to argue in favor of acting on them, which is what makes it a good lie).

In reality, daemons have a very complex, some would say insane, society based around the embodiment and study of the emotions that created and compose the Four Gods that saved them from the Enslaver Plague (how much is left over from their previous selves and how much is the influence of aforementioned Four Gods is a matter of debate among them). This is one part devotion and one part fear-on the one hand, the Supernal did save their people from complete destruction and ensured their survival for the next few hundred millenna, but on the other hand, it is called the Forces of Chaos for a reason-the Four Gods are extremely capricious, and only by understanding their dominant emotions can one understand their desires and future actions.

Hence, the Noble Houses-each is dedicated to an emotion and a pair of actions based on it, one a positive expression, the other negative-and switching between the two as the mood takes them. Hence, the first reason why no one with an inkling of a brain fully trusts daemons-House Cainin, for example, may abolish all the slavery of a planet one day and then the next alert slavers to a juicy target the next, then defend the freemen with all their might...all are expressions of the desire for freedom and liberty, including from the bonds of being trusted.

The other is the daemonic conception of "honor", born from a reality in which certainty is a contradiction in terms-daemons are psychologically incapable of breaking their word in a pact, but unless it is a formal pact with consequences enforced, it is simple words-they may sound nice, but ultimately just a pretty sound which can be ignored. More than that, daemons view the letter of the pact as the spirit-if there is a loophole, it must have been left there for wiggle room. Or the daemon is a Cainin, and view cheating the spirit without breaking it as a function of their focus and a matter of personal ability.

The Five Great Noble Houses are, in no particular order:

House Cainin: The greatest of the Five, made up off fairly equal representatives of all Four Gods, due to their focus on Liberation and Betrayal. Daemons have long desired to return to Lower Space in toto, and Cainin has taken that up as their personal crusade. Authors of summoning rites and inventors of Warp portal technology, House Cainin is often the intermediaries between the Forces of Chaos as a whole and the powers of the Immaterium. This also serves to explain why so many ambassadors of the Rebels are lawyers-Cainin, as befitting the House of Betrayal, is well-known for abusing loopholes and oversight for their benefit, and being cheerfully open about that fact.

House Gath: The House of Bravery and Wrath, this primarily Khornate house is largely responsible for the popular conception of the Righteous One as a figure of wrath and hatred eternal-and anyone who has paid more attention to their internal politics knows that there is more to them than the screaming warriors encountered on the battlefield. Bravery, to them, is also about martial honor. As the Gath are fond of saying, there is no honor to be found in complete defeat, and finer tacticians and generals you will not find. But the screaming warriors have a place as well-the blood must flow, after all.

House Deliak: Primarily Slaaneshi, the House of Love and Manipulation is the most pacifistic Noble House, and many daemons from rivals mutter about them believing themselves to be the protagonists of the cheap romance usually found hidden in the cabinet of frustrated Imperial nobles. Their response to this criticism is that they are the protagonists of romantic literature-specifically the kind that involve high drama that changes worlds drastically simply because the power of affection is stronger than any who feel it, from the lowliest serf the the High Lords of Terra. The plans of Deliak are about the only that Daganod finds that rival their own schemes in potence, if not in complexity, due to their adept understanding of how affection works-and not only romance. The bond between brothers is strong indeed.

House Lazaren: The Nurglites of the House of Recovery and Pain are a bipolar lot-on the one hand, they are the masters of medicine and therapy, and largely responsible for the leaders of the Great Rebellion retaining their sanity and health over the Long War. On the other, they are masters of inflicting the injuries that need their benign attentions on their enemies, and as befitting followers of the Stalwart, honestly do not see what the big deal is-a bone becomes stronger by being broken and healing, so does a mind grow stronger by recovering from trauma. Lazaren is perhaps the most feared of the Houses, even if their healing arts are the most desired.

House Daganod: The Tzeentchian daemons of this House are perhaps most like their patron Supernal. Like the Utopian, the House of Dreams and Ambition are plotters and leaders both, which probably contributes to their reputation as the most disorganized-constant plots do not lead to a particularly strong chain of command. Still, they are masters of organizing, and few can match their raw force of personality. If nothing else, fewer can match their raw power of sorcery or their biologis-induced combat mutations.

(Also, again-you're free to pitch your own ideas or writings. Please do.)

[Leliel]

Here's something from the RPGnet version of this thread:

Once upon a time there were three great and powerful gods who willed only good for their people. They were Kaela Mensha Khaine the protector, the guardian of his people, Isha the Healer and Preserver, and Cegorach the Laughing God, the pressure valve. And they looked round at the almighty empire of their worshippers and saw that all was in order.

They were displeased at this; all being in order meant that their people weren't growing. They were merely existing. Science? There had been no new discoveries or developments since a rogue team of scientists had accidentally created the orks that now rendered Eaglesnest uninhabitable. And that was the only new creation for three hundred years. Art? There was plenty of art. The measure of an artist was how accurately they could reproduce one of the works of the Masters - all of whom had been dead for at least a millennium, and art was judged on conformance to type. Advancement? You advanced into the shoes of the master before you - and almost all the people lived their full natural lifespan. Kindness? You might want to ask what they called "the lesser races" (amongst other less polite terms) about their kindness. Or you might not.

They realised that as the Protector, the Preserver, and the Pressure Valve, something needed to be done and it could not be done while they were. So they came up with a desperate scheme that lead to their shattering, and what was left reforming into new patterns and new gods that stalked the sky. First they realised that there was an incredible hole in the values that there was no room for joy amidst their pantheon, and from there came Slaneesh, God of Art and Joy.

Kaela Mensha Khaine shattered and became Khorne, the God of Struggle and Challenge, leaving only a fraction of himself back to defend his people.

Isha the Preserver and Gardener became Nurgle the Nurturer. Nurgle who sees how much more beauty the teeming of a swamp is than the pure sterility of an ocean stream. Nurgle, whose new garden is overflowing with new plants, some nice, some nasty, but all new and interesting.

And The Laughing God? You don't expect a Laughing God to do everything the "right way". Or to be honest? The Laughing God is The Changer Of The Ways. Dancing between the Warp and the Webways, protecting the Harlequins as much as the Sorcerors

All four of them are trying to do what's best for the galaxy, and know they need to keep talking. Above all the Nurturer and the Lord of Challenge need each other, and the Lord of Art needs the Changer and the Changer needs to keep one eye towards Joy lest the Changer of the Ways becomes a tyrant.
The Eye of Terror itself was formed by the metaphorical equivalent of Asuryan trying to drop a nuke on Slaneesh - fortunately The Laughing God had predicted this and all four of them were ready, saving as many as they could. Which was nowhere near enough, and letting Asuryan blow his entire pantheon up.

And now? The blessings of the four are given to its willing supporters, although they are warned that there's only so much they can take. But unlike the regimented lives of the Eldar or the fascism of the Imperium of Man, the Chaos Gods let their worshippers decide what to ask for. Caveat Emptor. And they defend their own and try to liberate others, the Etherial Caste having been a play by Slaneesh and Nurgle to save a promising race from extinction and see how atheists would grow, although The God of Challenge has claimed O'Shovah for his own.

[Leliel]

(As a side note: Is Deliak creepy? Good guys should not be creepy, and I get nervous when writing anything relating to Slaanesh at all, given how he/she is the God/dess of Creepy and I hate coming off as creepy myself).

[Leliel]

Question:

I wrote that bit about the Illuminated Heirs in the initial post to invoke the Crisis of the Third Century in Rome, with various generals claiming to descent from the Emperor's family and attempting to seize it by force, causing a protracted period of civil war. I was thinking some people may or may not channel the God-Emperor through visions and attempt to take massive political power themselves, though they don't want to replace him. Being the Imperium, this touches off civil wars between those that believe the Heirs and those that don't-ergo invoking the fall of Rome.

Should I write more about that or throw it out?

[Leliel]

I will take radio silence as a yes.

Lord Vetala on Illuminated Heirs

Partial Transcript of Speech: On Heirs And Heresy: How The Imperium Suffers, But We Can Profit!

Fellows, brethren, heretics of all creeds-we have all been here before, correct? Standing at the prow of a vessel more shrine than space-worthy, with utterly superfluous areas meant for unnecessary crew, only forced to serve here because of the rabid fear the Corpse-worshipers have of inorganic intelligence of any stripe, to the point where there is those who are trapped so far below they become part of a confined, mutant ecology thanks to pollution seepage, as the Ghilliam in the crowd are no doubt aware. Even those of us blessed to not be born in the iron grip of the Imperium has learned all too well of the excuse for repairs the Mechanicus uses, having to carry an air supply with us when we board using a teleportarium keyed to crew quarters. I bring up this excuse for shipwrightery to illustrate the point that the Steel Fist is not nearly as united as it claims-were it just a little more organized with the Tech-priests, the first order of business would not be to escort a commandeered ship to a friendly Forge for refitting into something worthy of being called a ship. This is much the same for what we call the Illuminated Heirs, or the Illuminati-were the Imperium actually united in purpose, their existence would be a bane rather than a godsend, and would lead to Crusades rather than civil wars.

So, what is an Illuminatus, you may ask? An extremely complex one, but essentially they are the genii-touched of the God-Emperor. Already I can hear you laughing in disbelief. Lares of the Emperor? I cannot be serious. But I am-even in his living death, the Emperor remains and is a mighty psyker and sorcerer, and that creates genii. Most remain in the psychic vortex of his funeral dais, I mean Golden Throne, but a few are attracted by the ripples released by paragons of Imperial values. In other words, some combination of bloodthirsty, controlling, insane, paranoid, and willfully stupid attached to blind faith. He or she will begin to have visions of the Throne and hear the genii speaking in the Emperor's tone, offering advice. Those who retain sanity due to the fact that the Emperor apparently never learned how to moderate his psychic voice and the genii certainly aren't learning eventually learn that they have been blessed with a fragment of the God-Emperor's shattered mind and invariably decide to serve as prophets of his will.

Which, given how the genii are simply small reflections of the larger mind, and the size of Emperor's and his memories, almost never line up with other Illuminati. They line up even less with common Imperial policies, leading credence to the idea that the Corpse has become a monster even what is left of him is ashamed of. Naturally, this leads to censoring from the Inquisition and if not assassinated by them, civil war as the Ecclesiarchy attempts to quash all forms of deviance from the Imperial Creed, even in interpretation. This has one of two outcomes-either the Illuminatus is killed and wiped from the annals of all but the procribed histories of the Inquisitors, or they resist the attempts to give them a heretic's demise, and after a couple attempts, the Ministorum suddenly and suspiciously finds that the inevitable dissenting voices are correct and the Illuminatus is a prophet of the Emperor, immediately rising high in status and revered as a holy figure, perhaps someday a Living Saint. The Guardsmen and rarely Space Marines who died to anoint their new "savior" in blood are, of course, quickly forgotten.

Now, you may ask, how are we supposed to benefit from this. Why, what Chaos always does-we use the Order already there to feed our half of the balance, and lead a genii to a promising potential Illuminatus...

[druid91]

Question:

I wrote that bit about the Illuminated Heirs in the initial post to invoke the Crisis of the Third Century in Rome, with various generals claiming to descent from the Emperor's family and attempting to seize it by force, causing a protracted period of civil war. I was thinking some people may or may not channel the God-Emperor through visions and attempt to take massive political power themselves, though they don't want to replace him. Being the Imperium, this touches off civil wars between those that believe the Heirs and those that don't-ergo invoking the fall of Rome.

Should I write more about that or throw it out?

You're basically describing Thorian inquisitors there.

[Leliel]

You're basically describing Thorian inquisitors there.

So I am.

Hm. Maybe this project isn't as dead as I thought...