Children's Crusade (40k x-over)

[The Yosemite Bear]

The intial Ork invasion takes out central PDF/Guard command of the planet. The Imperium sends an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor who of course requests her friend Chipias Cain. When they arrive, they begin hearing reports that a group of Children lead by a teenager named "Ender" have taken over leadership of the Native PDF/Guard forces and construction faculties. Discuss.

[UCBooties]

Hmm, a couple of questions first.

1. Is Cain present as part of Inquisitor Vail’s retinue or in his capacity as regimental Commissar. i.e. Is this Amberly and friends on a field trip or did they bring an army along?

If they did bring an army than a group of children holding the line in the weeks/months between loss of command and the arrival of reinforcements will be interesting but we expect the guard to set up shop and take over in a very thorough manner. Then it devolves into a usual fight between the guard and da boyz and the question is simply whether or not the guard has enough boots on the ground to pull it off. This leads to a few interesting repercussions in the medium term assuming all parties involved survive. (It’s Cain, they’ll be fine.)

If it’s Amberly and company sans army then things turn a bit differently. Amberly will have to make use of Ender and his officer corps in the short term because barring the timely arrival of a company of Deathwatch, the wonderkids are all she’s got. Unfortunately for Ender and co, war in 40K tends to hinge a lot on numbers. Especially when dealing with Orks. Subtlety won’t get him very far and his skills as an empath are going to be of limited utility against da Boyz, unless it gives him direct tactical insight (which it might). Even so, it’s going to depend largely on the number and training of surviving PDF forces.

2. Here’s where things get interesting. Are Ender’s empathic abilities a manifestation of Psyker talent?

If they are he’s going to be a very tempting target for Daemonic incursions. Ender deals with mindreading on a huge scale over vast distances. If this uses the warp, he’s going to be making a lot of waves. If he’s a Psyker and Amberly catches wise to how he’s doing it early on, she may just order a bolt round through his head to avoid the chance of something breaking through. All thing considered she’s probably a lot more willing to face an Ork invasion minus one child prodigy than she is to face said Ork invasion while there’s a Daemonic incursion in her command center. If it doesn’t come out that he’s a Psyker until after the fact then we can expect to see a lot of Ender’s friends rolled into the various military academies (you just don’t waste talent on that level) but Ender himself can expect to be loaded onto the first Black Ship back to Terra. What exciting career awaits him? If he can be controlled and trained I doubt they’d waste him in the Choir Astropthica, so he’s much more likely to end up as a sanctioned Psyker in the Guard or Navy, or perhaps the Inquisition itself would have a place for him. An Empath of that level would not be out of place in the war band of Eisenhorn or Ravenor.

If his powers are not derived from the warp than he’s going to be regarded as a prodigy and assuming survival, he and all his friends can expect to be rolled into whatever training programs are handy to turn them into officers once the invasion is repelled or the planet is evacuated.

[Stormbringer]

The intial Ork invasion takes out central PDF/Guard command of the planet. The Imperium sends an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor who of course requests her friend Chipias Cain. When they arrive, they begin hearing reports that a group of Children lead by a teenager named "Ender" have taken over leadership of the Native PDF/Guard forces and construction faculties. Discuss.

"Ender" cracks up like a worthless little emo bitch after the first Ork attack or two and gets most of his people wiped out. Cain by sheer luck winds up saving the day. If Ender's lucky he gets sent the "Guard Medical Facility" Servitor Factory.

Morale of the story: Ender is a passable, though not stellar, tactician with virtually zero ability to actually be a real battlefield commander. He cracked like a peanut in the relatively sanitary war with the Bugger and actually gave up and was going to let xenocide happen during the awful sequels. The visceral horror of a 40k Ork attack? He's be a gibbering lunatic inside a few hours (if they survive that long).

[DrStrangelove]

yes i think shinji ikari could stand up to an ork attack better than ender. pushing buttons is no where near as easy as having to see your enemy face to face

[Bob the Gunslinger]

It's funny, but I think that short-story-only Ender would actually fare much better in this situation, though still not very well. Even still, I remember almost all of his "strategies" consisting of gimmicky misuses of available technology and then exploiting the parameters of his simulations to force the situation. In short, Ender is somewhere on the tactical genius scale between Geordi La Forge and that kid who always uses Protoss to dragoon-rush your drones so you can't gather enough minerals to prepare for his upcoming arbiter-reaver bomb rush.

The only reason he'll survive is because of Ciaphas Cain. And even then you can bet he'll end up torn in half by the genestealers that are the real threat.