The Imperium at its height?

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2007-10-21 01:02pm

When we do VS threds, unless given a distinct timeframe, we generally assume that the civilization is at it's height. But for the Imperium, when is that?

Before the Age of Strife? They had all the STC, but there was no central authority to muster them into action. We know little about this era, making it difficult to say anything about it.

Right before Horus turned? The Emperor still walked among mankind, they had more ships and space marines then are available now. But the tech was lower, there was little Terminator armor or other heavy weapons and vehicles like we know now, ignorance of the Warp put many at risk, and the Empire was still barely cohesive, not to mention lacking anumber of branches that make it work (eg Commisars)

The start of the 42st Millenia? The Empire is a functioning power with its industry fully tuned for war, its military highly experienced. But Chaos has launched its largest and most effective offensive yet, decimating Imperial defenses. The Nightbringer roams free, the Tau are expanding, and Hive Fleet Levithan has emerged from the Ork worlds victorious and ravenous.

When was the height of the Imperium?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2007-10-21 01:46pm

The Imperium of Man and pre-Age of Strife humanity are entirely different polities, cultures, and territories - there was not, during the Golden Age of Technology' a galactic state, but rather many federations and other states.

While the Great Crusade is a good candidate, we don't reallyk know whether the Imperium and the total scope of its armed forces (though the marines ahave as you say, decreased in numbers) has expanded or contracted overall from that time. New worlds are constantly re-discovered or colonised, even as old ones are removed. In some areas (specifically, armour design) technology has advanced over time. In others, it has been lost (especially in naval design terms)

The pre-Heresy era has one key advantage; The Emperor is able to affect things directly without having to combat chaos all the time. For example, using the original (pre-burn-a-hundred-psykers-a-day) astronomicon, he can acellerate certain ships or fleets to cross the galaxy in days or hours, rather than months or years.

[R_H] · Post by **[R_H]** » 2007-10-21 02:42pm

The Emperor is able to affect things directly without having to combat chaos all the time. For example, using the original (pre-burn-a-hundred-psykers-a-day) astronomicon, he can acellerate certain ships or fleets to cross the galaxy in days or hours, rather than months or years.

Holy shit, in days or hours. Why was he more powerful then without needing to eat all those delicious pyskers, was Chaos (I guess Chaos Undivided wasn't always trying to bust out of the EoT) less of a problem?

Bedlam · Post by **Bedlam** » 2007-10-21 02:47pm

Perhaps some point post Heresy pre 42nd millenium could be considered the Imperiums height?

A few hundred years post Heresy? Chaos forces have retreated to the Eye of Terror and there are still a few Primarchs around although there havn't been to many great inovations the worship of the emperor hasn't become that ingrained yet (Given imperium tech a few 'normal' people might still be alive that met the emperor) and not much knowledge has been lost.

Or perhaps a few thousand years later 34-36 millenium, technological advances have been made but the gradual loss of ships and specialist equipment (i.e. titans) isn't as important and the 'present'.

Lost Soal · Post by **Lost Soal** » 2007-10-21 02:53pm

I dont recall where I read it, possibly the art books, but I'm sure its been stated that the Imperium prior to the Heresy numbered 2 million worlds, as opposed to the current 1 million. When they say the Imperium was torn in half, they mean it quite literally. During this time they therefore have greater potential resources available to them, the Imperial Army functions well without the need for commissars, and they have the Emperor plus the Primarchs to spearhead their expansion.

I keep wondering what kind of boost the Emperor would get he'd decided to shut down the Astronomian for a few minutes and used his collected energies against an opposing force. While it wasn't burning him out, he was doing to job of thousands of regular psykers while thousands of light years away in the middle of battle, that has to be a significant drain on his powers.

Shortie · Post by **Shortie** » 2007-10-21 02:54pm

[R_H] wrote:
The Emperor is able to affect things directly without having to combat chaos all the time. For example, using the original (pre-burn-a-hundred-psykers-a-day) astronomicon, he can acellerate certain ships or fleets to cross the galaxy in days or hours, rather than months or years.
Holy shit, in days or hours. Why was he more powerful then without needing to eat all those delicious pyskers, was Chaos (I guess Chaos Undivided wasn't always trying to bust out of the EoT) less of a problem?

That, and he wasn't so dead then.

Just to be different I vote for today. I'm not sure there are fewer marines now, and the Guard is certainly better organised. I'll grant you that without the big E things are less centralised, but that also gives redundancy, and has prevented another Heresy for a few years.

I'm not convinced by the lost-tech thing, although modern Termi armour, Titans or Battleships might not be as shiny as the old ones they are still being built, but they still do the job, and the AdMech are (slowly) rebuilding their knowledge, which hopefully they won't lose this time (more redundancy, less centralisation on Mars).

Lost Soal · Post by **Lost Soal** » 2007-10-21 03:26pm

Shortie wrote:
Just to be different I vote for today. I'm not sure there are fewer marines now,

Half the legions fucked off to the Eye of Terror after numerous engagements which saw the legions torn to pieces. Their are most certainly fewer Marines around today.

the Guard is certainly better organised.

What exactly do you base this on? The Heresy novels do not portray them as more disorganised.

I'll grant you that without the big E things are less centralised, but that also gives redundancy, and has prevented another Heresy for a few years.

The current Imperium is a bureaucratic paper nightmare with no more real redundancy than originally. If Terra gets nuked, its over.

I'm not convinced by the lost-tech thing, although modern Termi armour, Titans or Battleships might not be as shiny as the old ones they are still being built, but they still do the job, and the AdMech are (slowly) rebuilding their knowledge, which hopefully they won't lose this time (more redundancy, less centralisation on Mars).

Navy ships are canonically worse off now that they were pre-heresy, technological decline is continuing because the forgeworlds, which existed pre-heresy, are so decentralised from Mars that they refuse to share information with each other. The literature is full of references which state that the ability to create certain technologies and tanks exist only on a few forgeworlds. Why? Because they don't share anything willingly. I don't know what the Ad-Mech was like pre-heresy but they cannot be worse than they are today.

Teleros · Post by **Teleros** » 2007-10-21 04:12pm

Half the legions fucked off to the Eye of Terror after numerous engagements which saw the legions torn to pieces. Their are most certainly fewer Marines around today.

That alone doesn't mean anything: after the Horus Heresy, the Ultramarines only had enough left to form 28 of the new chapters, and they at the time formed something like half the Space Marines in the Imperium. Now, we have ~1000 chapters - point is, they can found new ones and expand them.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2007-10-21 06:16pm

[R_H] wrote:Holy shit, in days or hours. Why was he more powerful then without needing to eat all those delicious pyskers, was Chaos (I guess Chaos Undivided wasn't always trying to bust out of the EoT) less of a problem?

During the Heresy, at Horus' behest, the chaos gods stirred the warp against him, in order to obscure communications and travel for Imperial Forces. Since then, the Astronomicon has required sacrifices plugged into it (it did not, originally, need such) to keep it visible.

This was only specific ships or fleets, and only with the Emperor's personal attention and effort, anyway.

Numbers for space marine legion are given in the art books. The minimum 'full' strength was 100,000 (Ultramarines, the biggest, were 250,000 at full strength) Eighteen by one hundred thousand equals one point eight million. The current Imperium has around one thousand times one thousand. There's a significant difference there.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2007-10-22 02:43am

NecronLord wrote:
[R_H] wrote:Holy shit, in days or hours. Why was he more powerful then without needing to eat all those delicious pyskers, was Chaos (I guess Chaos Undivided wasn't always trying to bust out of the EoT) less of a problem?
During the Heresy, at Horus' behest, the chaos gods stirred the warp against him, in order to obscure communications and travel for Imperial Forces. Since then, the Astronomicon has required sacrifices plugged into it (it did not, originally, need such) to keep it visible.

This was only specific ships or fleets, and only with the Emperor's personal attention and effort, anyway.

Numbers for space marine legion are given in the art books. The minimum 'full' strength was 100,000 (Ultramarines, the biggest, were 250,000 at full strength) Eighteen by one hundred thousand equals one point eight million. The current Imperium has around one thousand times one thousand. There's a significant difference there.

That meshes what I remember with Angels of Darkness. A coupel thousand Chapters existed at least prior ot the discovery of the Primarchs. (I'll have to get around to that novel....)

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2007-10-22 02:50am

Lost Soal wrote:Navy ships are canonically worse off now that they were pre-heresy, technological decline is continuing because the forgeworlds, which existed pre-heresy, are so decentralised from Mars that they refuse to share information with each other. The literature is full of references which state that the ability to create certain technologies and tanks exist only on a few forgeworlds. Why? Because they don't share anything willingly. I don't know what the Ad-Mech was like pre-heresy but they cannot be worse than they are today.

I'm not sure you can apply that across the board quite that way. What seems to be happening is that the knowledge for certain kinds of technologies or devices (specailized tech). Generally, its only the really advanced stuff they keep to themselves (ex: Vanquisher cannons, plasma tanks, etc.) certain forge worlds keep data from other forge worlds, but the AdMech as a whole keeps a fuckload to thesmelves from the Imperium as a whole. The Admech is properitery as hell when it comes to tech, both with themselves and with everyone else (which is a big part of the problem. The other part being, of course, they're insane dickheads.)

That said, alot of technology, even naval vessels are still fairly standardized so that I doubt they'd be lost even if all the specialized tech went away (After all, even a primitive world can build a Lunar class cruiser..) and as noted, the loss isn't restricted to just the Navy. I should also note the AdMech DOES do research of some kind when the situation is dire (or more probably releases stuff they already knew about), and some forgeworlds do manage to reproduce the "specialized" stuff in some fashion (again, the VAnquisher.)

That all said, you're right in that they ARE worse off than they were in the past.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2007-10-23 01:29pm

Doesn't the Adeptus Mechanicus' dogmatic view of Machine Spirits (and their Omnissiah) fundamentally disallow them from innovation? It would be an affront to the Spirit.

That is, if they are even able to innovate, seeing as how they follow ritualized procedures rather than actually understanding science and engineering..

Lancer · Post by **Lancer** » 2007-10-23 01:44pm

Cykeisme wrote:Doesn't the Adeptus Mechanicus' dogmatic view of Machine Spirits (and their Omnissiah) fundamentally disallow them from innovation? It would be an affront to the Spirit.

That is, if they are even able to innovate, seeing as how they follow ritualized procedures rather than actually understanding science and engineering..

Only if you're a bottom-rung Engineseer or temple lackey. Higher up, you start getting things like research quotas that you have to fulfil, or you get sent out to recover & reverse-engineer xeno/archeotech.

starfury · Post by **starfury** » 2007-10-23 02:22pm

Navy ships are canonically worse off now that they were pre-heresy, technological decline is continuing because the forgeworlds, which existed pre-heresy, are so decentralised from Mars that they refuse to share information with each other. The literature is full of references which state that the ability to create certain technologies and tanks exist only on a few forgeworlds. Why? Because they don't share anything willingly. I don't know what the Ad-Mech was like pre-heresy but they cannot be worse than they are today.
_________________

Indeed I tend to think of the Pre-Heresy Fleet as essantially the Chaos Fleets of the later 41st Millenium, but without all those demonic upgrades, The current Ships needed specialization such as massive emphasis on torpedos, Nova cannons to Match the More flexible Fleets of Chaos which emphasis speed and firepower. The Chaos fleets being far More threatening to the Eldar than a similar imperial fleet, who lacks their flexiblity, speed, and range. The Chaos Fleet being Built with Technology that is Lost to the current Imperium.

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2007-10-23 02:47pm

Matt Huang wrote:
Cykeisme wrote:Doesn't the Adeptus Mechanicus' dogmatic view of Machine Spirits (and their Omnissiah) fundamentally disallow them from innovation? It would be an affront to the Spirit.

That is, if they are even able to innovate, seeing as how they follow ritualized procedures rather than actually understanding science and engineering..
Only if you're a bottom-rung Engineseer or temple lackey. Higher up, you start getting things like research quotas that you have to fulfil, or you get sent out to recover & reverse-engineer xeno/archeotech.

Ah, okay.

But even at the top levels, they still worship the Machine God, don't they? Fortunately the quest for knowledge to bring themselves closer the all-knowing Omnissiah (or something) is actually useful, I suppose.

white_rabbit · Post by **white_rabbit** » 2007-10-23 03:25pm

starfury wrote:

Indeed I tend to think of the Pre-Heresy Fleet as essantially the Chaos Fleets of the later 41st Millenium, but without all those demonic upgrades, The current Ships needed specialization such as massive emphasis on torpedos, Nova cannons to Match the More flexible Fleets of Chaos which emphasis speed and firepower. The Chaos fleets being far More threatening to the Eldar than a similar imperial fleet, who lacks their flexiblity, speed, and range. The Chaos Fleet being Built with Technology that is Lost to the current Imperium.

If you look at the visions of the heresy books, it looks like a huge range of existing Imperial designs were still around and in service, plus the "chaos" fleets include a significant number of designs that are still in service, its not emphasised as much because they want to distinguish the two fleets I think.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2007-10-23 06:16pm

Cykeisme wrote:But even at the top levels, they still worship the Machine God, don't they? Fortunately the quest for knowledge to bring themselves closer the all-knowing Omnissiah (or something) is actually useful, I suppose.

Worshipping the Machine God doesn't make you a moron. Their funny methods are often played up for humour, but the Adeptus Mechanicus isn't fully incapable of going about things intelligently. They are known to follow the scientific method, for example. Really, it's only when you start messing with STC stuff that they get antsy, and even then they will modify the basic designs.