Sparks From the Edge (40K/BT)

[Grimnosh]

Hmm. Calling a lascannon equal to a large laser seems a bit much, but that's a combat estimate so it may be a bit unreliable and certainly it's the sort of weapon that would be more usually found on a tank not man-portable, so its not implausible.

Most of the damage seems to be the result of Devestators being devestatingly precise with their shots, which seems entirely reasonable. Once they get an idea of where the vitals are inside 'Mechs, they'll probably be even nastier.

Its been, well, at a minimum 27000 years of tech development, so its not that much of a streach that a lascannon has the minimum power of a large laser. It is one of the standard weapons on many Imperial and Chaos vehicles as well so it has both the pedigree of being good enough for mounting on vehicles ound AND aircraft as well as being used by infantry, and also is the best long range antivehicle weapon of 40K.

As for the Devistator's accuracy, you have to understand that aside from veteran sargents, commanders, and commander retinues/bodyguards, Devistators have the highest amount of experience among all of a chapter's troops. Accuracy should be close to second nature to them, and yes I agree, once they know a 'mech's vital areas they are going to be even nastier, with the only problems that might be there would be getting to the right position to shoot at those weak points as illistrated by how the Panther was destroyed by upward shots rather then shots from a flat forward plane.

Which chapter? Space Wolves and Blood Angels aside, codex marines place newly inducted Marines into Devastator squads, there to learn their stuff. Now granted, this probably doesn't apply to the battle companies strictly, but most Chapters appear to pass new grunts into those squads, with the more veteran of those marines manning the heavy weapons.

I was under the impression that newly inducted marines from codex compliant chapters first went into the 10th Company (scouts) and from there graduated to tactical squads. Once they achieve a certain amount of experience and show in which areas they seem to have the best skillsets they are shifted to other units such as devistator squads, assault squads and/or vehicle crew.

[Academia Nut]

According to the latest fluff, the codex progression of a Marine is:

Scout -> Devastator -> Assault -> Tactical -> Veteran

Although it is really more:

Scout -> Devastator -> Assault -> Tactical -> Battle Company -> Veteran

In that the Assault Marines and Devastators in the Battle Companies are not the newbies like those from the Reserve Companies, and they are assigned to their roles based on skillset rather than seniority.

[dragon]

awesome update. I like how he breaks them out of their mindset.

[Venator]

awesome update. I like how he breaks them out of their mindset.

And handily starts their indoctrination into the Imperial creed at the same time. Well played, indeed.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter Eight

Maximus stared out through the gilded trim of the grand windows of the "governor's palace" that looked out over the crescent bay that housed on its shores the "planetary capital". With the capture of their shuttle and the destruction of their war machines, the remaining militia scattered across the planet had almost unanimously declared the Survivors to be in charge, with the only holdouts being those in the capital, Alanya. The initial pacification by the Assault squads had been quick, although the plumes of black smoke rising into the sky showed that the secondary sweep by the serfs was encountering some resistance.

Running his gauntleted fingers over the gilding, Maximus noted how easily the gold leaf flaked away from the brittle wood beneath it. Even here in the palace of the planet's ruler everything was shoddily done and rotting away. The man who called himself King was lucky that he was out raiding his neighbours and thus still had a chance to die in battle when he returned, which was more than he deserved. If Maximus had his way the man would be tossed into an oubliette somewhere to rot.

Crumbling away the dust on his fingertips, Maximus noted that another presence had entered the room by the reflection in the glass and said, "I take it your survey of the settlement's industries is complete?"

"It did not take long," Senior Techmarine Galen reported, a hint of disgust in his mechanical voice. "There are precisely three facilities on this entire planet sufficiently advanced to require the oversight of the Omnissiah, and we are standing in one of them. A preliminary study of their general technology does however mean that I can grant an extension on the use of the captured enemy shuttle from that of battlefield capture to something that can serve as transport until we finish tunnelling out the Thunderhawks, at which point it will be brought under Mechanicus purview for study and a complete purification."

"Excellent. Now, as to the actual technology involved..." Maximus began, before the level stare from Galen's bionic eyes caused him to trail off.

"The principles behind it is all understood at a fundamental level, but the exact examples require thorough examination and the proper rituals must be overseen and..." the glare Maximus returned Galen caused him to trail off in turn before he said, "A year. That is the absolute minimum amount of ritual observance and consultation of records and debate of precedent before I can tell you anything more. I cannot change the laws of theology."

Sighing and deciding that that was as far as he could push on the issue - and honestly it had been significantly faster than he had actually originally wanted to argue down to - Maximus asked, "Can you tell me anything of battlefield importance? Records indicate that a force approximately three times the size of the garrison force are out raiding at the moment, but are expected to return anytime within the next month."

Considering this for a moment, Galen nodded and said, "One of the production facilities is a metallurgy facility, with the majority of its efforts going to the production of armour for their war machines. The majority of their output is poor by their own standards, but still sufficient to serve as protection against most small arms fire, as classified on this planet. Analysis of battlefield wreckage indicates that all of the units engaged were using the poor quality version."

"How much stronger is the proper quality armour?" Maximus asked, running calculations in his head.

Galen paused for a moment before he said, "That depends upon definition. The armour used by these people is... peculiar."

"Define peculiar," Maximus prompted.

"There is yield strength, tensile strength, compressive strength, shear strength, and a number of different ways of asking material properties. For armour what is most often most important is toughness, which is the amount of energy required to break it. There are of course different forms of toughness to distinguish between-" Galen said, clearly getting ready to launch into a theological discussion.

"Galen!" Maximus barked.

The Senior Techmarine looked slightly annoyed before he said, "Toughness serves as a general measure, and as an additional measure you have things like toughness-to-mass ratios. Even the poor quality armour in use exhibits a toughness-to-mass ratio in excess of many Imperial materials..."

Maximus felt his eyebrows abruptly rise and he exclaimed, "That's-"

"They have an absolutely terrible toughness-to-volume ratio though," Galen counter-interrupted. "The armour is a repeating micro-laminar composite of plasma-treated steel alloy with a ceramic backing and a quasi-fluid polymer back layer to provide limited re-bonding of layers during damaging events." Galen paused for a fraction of a second, observed the slightly glazed look on Maximus' eyes and decided the stunning effect had taken hold before pressing forward. "The steel and ceramic both have a very high yield strength but low toughness, but the armour takes advantage of that by repeating the structures thousands of times so that energy is expended on outer layers that in essence has already been destroyed, increasing the amount of energy that needs to be added to the system to destroy it enormously. This however is at a cost of volume and that any attack sufficient to exceed the local ultimate tensile strength will cause at least some damage."

Maximus blinked and tried to sort through all his decades of limited experience with the techno-theological before he managed to parse out, "So it breaks easily but you have to punch through a number of layers, and the already damaged ones continue to absorb damage?"

"In essence," Galen stated, and while his voice never changed, Maximus could tell that he was radiating smug.

"So on the battlefield, the implications are?" Maximus asked.

"Unlike standard Imperial paradigms of armoured combat, this armour needs to be completely destroyed on a particular section before damage to internals can begin. Solid core adamantine penetrators like in kraken bolter rounds may be able to cut through, and we have yet to examine the interactions with power fields. There is also the 'blessed las round' concept of an improbable shot finding a weak point in the armour and causing damage to a critical section, but this armour is far less susceptible to that than most of ours to that phenomenon, at least within the ranges of weapon energies considered for anti-armour work. We have yet to test fire on any samples, but I am confident in saying that bolters should be able to cause some ablation to the armour. There are however other considerations for our weapons. We are currently uncertain how our anti-armour missiles will interact, although I suspect they will have the advantage there since krak missiles are shaped charges and the laminar structure will likely cause issues. Of most particular note is that the ceramic layers have a most fascinating band-gap structure that causes a remarkably efficient photon-phonon coupling effect that..." Galen paused as Maximus slowly began to lose the glaze to his eyes and it transformed into a glare.

"Tell me how to best kill the machines of the enemy," Maximus demanded.

"The way our lasers are designed, most of the energy is converted into heat, so it is not as efficient as repeated small impacts or massive blasts," Galen simplified.

Maximus paused, opened his mouth to say something, paused again, furrowed his brow, and then said, "So there is no possibility these people have ever encountered orks?"

"We can see no explanation otherwise," Galen said with a nod.

"That is... interesting. Have we been able to isolate our location?" Maximus asked.

"We have done some initial astrographic surveys, but our equipment appears to have been damaged in the crash. We will have to re-sanctify everything. With everything else we need to do, it could take us years," Galen stated.

Maximus nodded thoughtfully and said, "Well at this point it is somewhat academic as to where exactly we are, but the lack of orks does suggest that we are extremely far from the Imperium, and that these people must have left Terra very early in its history."

"I agree. This does support what our psychics have been telling us," Galen stated.

"Yes, we... oh my," Maximus paused as someone wandered into view in the corridor outside the room the Survivors had taken as their meeting room in the palace.

Noticing the inhabitants of the room, the wanderer stepped inside and delivered a crisp salute despite appearing in a condition that suggested that he should really be somewhere else. Covered in molasses and smelling strongly of burnt sugar, Epiktetos said, "Hello sir, would you happen to know where I can find Chaplain Meridius?"

Returning the salute, Maximus said, "Meridius is overseeing the inspection of the local religious institutions. I take it that you are returning from a mission?"

"Yes sir. If the Chaplain is indisposed to such a degree then I shall need to see to the cleaning of my equipment before I compose a full debriefing for him," Epiktetos replied.

Maximus thought this over for a moment before he said, "Actually, what you are going to do is take a bath while an arming serf or two cleans your equipment. You look like you've been dragged through the Warp and back."

"Yes sir," Epiktetos replied, and he sort of sagged like he had just had a weight lifted off his shoulders.

"What, pray tell, happened?" Maximus asked, staring at the thoroughly coated commissarial-cadet.

"Chaplain Meridius assigned me to investigate early morale control methods and assigned a squad of combat rated serfs - who I think are all slated for eventual re-assignment to the Arbites - to do with as I saw fit within the city. From documentation and... shall we say prior experience, I determined that leaving a large supply of alcohol unsecured would be ill-advised and thus I went to secure the local rum factory," Epiktetos explained. After taking a breath, he continued, "Despite the fact that I was not going to seize the location, just ensure that it would not be released to the public and that it could be acquired easily for morale purposes later, the prior owners took exception."

"Your use of the past tense suggests that their resistance was ultimately futile," Maximus pointed out.

"In terms of stopping us, yes, but in terms of damaging property, no. A firefight broke out and early on one of the maturing warehouses caught fire. The fire damaged a molasses storage tank and it ruptured. Those who resisted were dispatched and while firefighting continues, rapid organization of local labour into a bucket brigade has kept the fire isolated from the remaining warehouses and the arrival of additional squads in response to the fire is keeping looting to a minimum, although I left instructions to release a limited number of bottles to those who have assisted us afterward so as to promote goodwill," Epiktetos explained.

Maximus considered this for a moment before he said, "Very well. The third door on the left was the main living quarters of the previous ruler, and a pair of my arming serfs are currently sweeping it for anything of use. Please leave your equipment and clothing with them for cleaning and take a bath in there."

"Your serfs sir? But..." Epiktetos began.

"That's an order. And no, I don't care if I moved you from out of my chain of command, that's still an order," Maximus stated sternly.

"Of course sir. Uh... how should I prove to your serfs that I am indeed to be assigned to their care?" Maximus asked.

Maximus gave Epiktetos a level stare and then asked rhetorically, "Who would be stupid enough to try to fake an order from a Captain of the Adeptus Astartes to his personal servants?"

"Someone bold enough to know that no one would be that stupid and thus it would go unquestioned," Epiktetos replied evenly.

This statement was considered for a moment before Maximus asked, "Personal experience?"

Despite the grime covering him, Maximus was fairly certain that Epiktetos blushed, and he replied, "Ah... peripherally, one could say."

"They won't question, although I suppose now that we will be having much greater contact with people outside the chapter it would be advisable to establish some protocols to avoid infiltration and exploitation of the menials. Now go," Maximus said with a dismissive wave.

"Yes sir," Epiktetos said and snapped off another parade perfect salute. As soon as Maximus returned it he marched out of the room in the direction Maximus had indicated.

Waiting until the young man was out of earshot, Galen asked, "Petr, if that is who I think it is, isn't that his third incident involving large containers of molasses?"

"Second, the first one was corn syrup," Maximus noted with a touch of dry humour.

"Ah yes, I remember hearing about that now," Galen noted. There was a pause, and then he said, "Might it be advisable to give him standing orders to avoid large containers of viscous fluids in the future?"

"Brother Tempestus of the Blood Angels suggested while my serfs were working the molasses out of his hair that we never do such a thing, lest the universe bring the syrup to him," Maximus noted.

Galen looked like he wanted to say something, but paused and then asked instead, "Was the Emperor's Tarot consulted?"

"Yes."

Since, as a Techmarine, Galen was an exceedingly intelligent and logical sort, he quickly put the pieces together and thus did not need further explanation.

The moment of absurd logic was interrupted by a frustrated scream of rage, followed shortly after by the sound of angry feet stomping down the hallway and ending with Inquisitor Kennard blowing into the room like thunderstorm and pointing at the Marines present. "You two! I've already given orders, but I want you to make sure that on the next trip with the captured shuttle my Hat and Comfy Chair are among the cargo!"

Maximus looked aside at Galen for a moment before he asked with slight confusion, "Is the 'Comfy Chair' some sort of euphemism?"

Inquisitor Kennard gave Maximus an annoyed looked before he shook his head, apparently realizing that he was projecting too much of his own irritation and instead said, "No, when you have a name as good as 'Excruciator' for torture gear, you don't want to sugar coat it. My Comfy Chair is just that, a very comfortable chair. All Inquisitors have one. You need it for when you are going to be sitting in judgement for an extended period of time. Actually, considering that it is a relic of a bygone era I should probably set up some sort of maintenance schedule since I can't take it to my allies in the Adeptus Mechanicus anymore."

"I take it then that a round of executions are in order," Maximus asked.

"Emperor yes," Kennard said as he flopped into a chair. From his casual demeanour it seemed that he was rather upset. "My savants will be going through records and the like for several days, but from the initial results, this is the worst run economy I have ever seen."

"Weren't you sorting out a world that had suffered an ork occupation shortly before we met?" Maximus asked incredulously.

"Yes," Kennard replied in obvious mental anguish at having to say that. "Orks are at least effective in their looting and do actually build things. As far as I can tell there has been no major construction on this world in the past two hundred years, not since some sort of civil war broke out in territories closer to their 'Terra' and trade and central administration completely broke down."

"That seems improbable-" Galen began before he was cut off.

"I know you have been reading the military records, but that doesn't capture what their literature and economic reports does. The rulers of this world consider the raiding of their neighbours to be the only worthwhile means of acquiring wealth and have an actively antagonistic relation with their own population. What little economy they have that isn't subsidence is either luxuries for internal consumption or used in one way or another for supplying the raiding of other worlds. As far as I can tell not a single raid in the past two centuries has turned a profit, outside of the heads of the ones doing the raiding, since they mostly steal things related to warfare or luxury goods," Kennard explained in pain and more than a little fury. "I've been on Imperial worlds that have become culturally too war centred for their own good, but this is ridiculous. Someone would have shot the leadership a century ago for a total inability to meet even the most basic tithing requirements."

"I take it you have a set of recommendations then?" Maximus asked.

"I spent the first forty years of my adult life in the Ferlix Worlds Crusade, working on reintegration of a splinter group of humanity who had been isolated from the Imperium since the Age of Apostasy. We're going to go with what my mentor called a Number Six: the ruling classes are incompetent and not worth saving and don't have the support of the lesser classes, so we will preside over a popular revolution," Kennard explained.

"That sounds rather radical," Maximus expressed in shock.

Kennard shrugged noncommittally and said, "On Imperial worlds yes, but on newly conquered ones it is considered an acceptable practice with thousands of years of tradition. You decapitate the local leadership and you're going to have mass unrest even if you are able to immediately step in and take their place, which we actually aren't equipped to do anyway. And we need to not just kill the local upper classes, we need to destroy their power structure. To that end I suggest that we outlaw slavery."

"Really? My own chapter's thoughts on the matter aside, that seems rather extreme," Maximus said, expressing his doubts on the idea.

"The slaves are owned pretty much exclusively by wealthy landowners as personal servants and farm labourers, with the highly atrophied middle class desiring slaves as status symbols. We can use mass liberation as a social weapon. Everyone who decides to pick a fight over the issue we were probably going to kill anyway, while those who have been freed will in general feel deeply indebted to us for it, which we can use," Kennard explained.

"What are the downsides?" Maximus asked.

"Along with our deposing of the ruling classes, we're going to see a short term spike in general anarchy. Crime will go up. There will be rioting and pogroms as people vent their frustrations on their neighbours. While most of the slaves in agriculture are associated with the production of textile crops and luxury consumables, the mass emancipation will likely trigger food shortages. I expect at least some starvation and likely an epidemic or two for the first few years," Kennard detailed out.

"Your savants can prepare a more thorough analysis?" Maximus asked while lightly rubbing his chin in contemplation.

"I will have one by the end of the week so we can discuss the pros and cons of all possible avenues of action. At this point our general lack of resources is working against us to a degree that I would rather deal with the death of thousands in riots, disease, and starvation than the sluggishness of economic reforms if we leave the current class structure as it is," Kennard replied.

Maximus thought for a moment before he said, "Do we have any data on food stockpiles?"

"Some. Why, thinking of rationing?" Kennard asked.

"No, I'm thinking of throwing a party," Maximus replied.

[Highlord Laan]

...Holy shit, does this take place just after the fall of the Star League and before the First Succession War?

[Academia Nut]

"Yes," Kennard replied in obvious mental anguish at having to say that. "Orks are at least effective in their looting and do actually build things. As far as I can tell there has been no major construction on this world in the past two hundred years, not since some sort of civil war broke out in territories closer to their 'Terra' and trade and central administration completely broke down."

[Diverball]

...Holy shit, does this take place just after the fall of the Star League and before the First Succession War?

If conditions on this world have been unchanged for two centuries, that would most likely put it shortly before the Fourth Succession War. Though TBH, if this is one of the bandit kingdoms of the Deep Periphery, especially "South" of Terra, then the story could conceivably be set in any time up to Mechwarrior Dark Age. The Reunification Wars were the first and last attempt to pacify the Periphery. I'm not aware that any of the Successor States or the Second Star League attempted it. An extremely isolated colony could have remained forgotten or ignored, even after the technical and political renaissance that followed the discovery of the Helm Memory Core.

[Diverball]

Out of interest, does anyone know if Battle Barges carry warp-capable subcraft? I'm assuming that even if it is theoretically possible to get Dirge of Heresy back into space, it would be too monumental an undertaking to bother with any time soon.

[PainRack]

...Holy shit, does this take place just after the fall of the Star League and before the First Succession War?

If conditions on this world have been unchanged for two centuries, that would most likely put it shortly before the Fourth Succession War. Though TBH, if this is one of the bandit kingdoms of the Deep Periphery, especially "South" of Terra, then the story could conceivably be set in any time up to Mechwarrior Dark Age. The Reunification Wars were the first and last attempt to pacify the Periphery. I'm not aware that any of the Successor States or the Second Star League attempted it. An extremely isolated colony could have remained forgotten or ignored, even after the technical and political renaissance that followed the discovery of the Helm Memory Core.

Yes and no...... The Periphery states do retain some links with the Inner Sphere, both diplomatic and trading, but they're states. Pirate states don't really, although we do know Comstar helped funded the pirate menace in the first place. Those are states. not planets. which are left to the mercy of any trader that do wander by. To finalise, yes, its possible, all the way up to Dark Age but no, the Inner Sphere had repeated contacts with the Periphery, including military contacts such as bases and etc. Afterall, the Lyran Periphery March had a significant number of planets conquered from the Rim Worlds Republic after the Amaris Usurption, which had to have solidified itself mostly after the 1st Succession War(I can't recall the timeline to remember whether the conquest happened before or after Kerensky Exodus)

There are some....... problems with the depiction of pirates in the story. Its not impossible to create a pirate economy that's workable, even in the Periphery. Pirates raiding other more prosperous planets for slaves/serfs, industrial equipment and etc work. Pirates raiding for water? Not so much. The story falters in the sense that its too realistic, as opposed to being true to Btech, because in Btech, pirates RAID for water and basic essentials and slaves. Or farm produce..... Look, don't ask.

[Diverball]

Yes and no...... The Periphery states do retain some links with the Inner Sphere, both diplomatic and trading, but they're states. Pirate states don't really, although we do know Comstar helped funded the pirate menace in the first place. Those are states. not planets. which are left to the mercy of any trader that do wander by. To finalise, yes, its possible, all the way up to Dark Age but no, the Inner Sphere had repeated contacts with the Periphery, including military contacts such as bases and etc. Afterall, the Lyran Periphery March had a significant number of planets conquered from the Rim Worlds Republic after the Amaris Usurption, which had to have solidified itself mostly after the 1st Succession War(I can't recall the timeline to remember whether the conquest happened before or after Kerensky Exodus)

Hence why I said Deep Periphery. I grant you that worlds bordering the Inner Sphere could not remain isolated, but it's never been clear just how far away from Terra settlement stretched before the collapse of the Star League. Colonies as far out as the Clan Worlds, but in the other direction, cannot be ruled out. It is unlikely though, so my money would be on the very early 3000's.

[Venator]

Out of interest, does anyone know if Battle Barges carry warp-capable subcraft? I'm assuming that even if it is theoretically possible to get Dirge of Heresy back into space, it would be too monumental an undertaking to bother with any time soon.

To my knowledge, no. Standard complement for most Imperial Navy ships would be the Furies and Starhawks (replaced by the Thunderhawks on Astares vessels), plus a range of lighters and shuttles (and in cases, Shark assault boats). I don't thing anything in that inventory is Warp-capable; the Tau Manta is about the smallest military craft with it's own drive, and they outmass Thunderhawks significantly.

"Might it be advisable to give him standing orders to avoid large containers of viscous fluids in the future?"

"Brother Tempestus of the Blood Angels suggested while my serfs were working the molasses out of his hair that we never do such a thing, lest the universe bring the syrup to him," Maximus noted.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Academia Nut]

There are some....... problems with the depiction of pirates in the story. Its not impossible to create a pirate economy that's workable, even in the Periphery. Pirates raiding other more prosperous planets for slaves/serfs, industrial equipment and etc work. Pirates raiding for water? Not so much. The story falters in the sense that its too realistic, as opposed to being true to Btech, because in Btech, pirates RAID for water and basic essentials and slaves. Or farm produce..... Look, don't ask.

Well, the economy of the world is still sort of functional after 200 years, the problem is that the pirates see it as there to serve their whims of getting drunk and blowing things up. They have the attitude that being a MechWarrior is the only thing worth doing, and the only economic activity worth paying any attention to is supporting being a MechWarrior, so they have taken the lions share of economic activity for their entertainment and the maintenance of their 'Mechs. Their overall lack of military forces has also been working against them, as they see their population as something to control and rule through brute force, which means that they actively cull their own population to keep the numbers from getting too high to control, which has progressively tanked their economy even more. The world should be prosperous and self-sufficient, but the pirates just don't see the benefits of increased populations and spending more on internal industries and consumer goods (as opposed to luxury goods). The decrease in population, constriction of knowledge, and concentration of economic power into the upper classes has choked off their ability to maintain what they have and decay has set in over the past two hundred years. The decline has been relatively slow and mostly fuelled on apathy, greed, and incompetence. The pirates have actually repeatedly downgraded their garrison to replace battlefield losses within the raiding group and then rounded up thousands for sale off world as slaves to try to cover some of their losses (and reduce the number of people they have to keep an eye on), which has led to all sorts of additional decay over the centuries.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter Nine

Divested of his grime covered garments and equipment, Epiktetos padded quietly into the steamy main bath of the former ruler of this world. The room was really more of a medium sized swimming pool that was heated to slightly above body temperature by the reactor under the palace that provided most of the rest of the city with electrical power. The room was covered in mosaics, frescos, and sculptures of rather unseemly natures, although the serfs had already smashed some of the more idolatrous seeming ones, just to be sure. The fact that Epiktetos was allowed here in at all indicated that they were safe and it was really more the principle of the thing.

Dipping a toe into the water to check its temperature, Epiktetos then dove right in. The sugary coating that had made peeling much of his clothing off only slightly loosened in the hot water, but there were soaps available for scrubbing. The whole affair was rather decadent, but he did have to admit that the heat felt good on his muscles after a firefight and fighting a fire, and full immersion would probably make getting the remarkably itchy gunk out of the crevices of the scars on his back.

Taking a few laps around the pool to loosen up the grime a bit, Epiktetos then emerged in a little shallow area where the actual care products were kept. From looking at the bottles, he got the distinct impression that they primarily were not meant for the owner of this place, but for whoever it was that attended to the owner. Making a sour face, he carefully examined a few before he settled on what he was fairly certain was just straight up soap. Pouring some of the liquid out into his hands, he began to lather up and scrape away at the mixture of molasses and soap that clung to him.

As he was working, he heard the door to the bath open. Jerking his head up in surprise, he immediately scrambled to his feet and saluted as Chaplain Meridius entered, although a second after he saluted Epiktetos felt an incredibly distinct and acute sensation of embarrassment as he realized that Meridius was completely naked.

Saluting back, Meridius said, "At ease, Cadet Zuza. I have things that I wish to talk to you about that I felt were better done in a casual atmosphere."

Eyeing the imposing physical figure of the Chaplain as he lowered himself into the water warily, Epiktetos noted, "Sir, I think I find you more casual when you are in full plate and swinging your crozius through massed ranks of the enemy."

Laughing heartily, Meridius replied, "Ah, I do believe that is true for most Marines! We are more at home on the battlefield than anywhere else. Still, I have my own reasons for joining you here, not all of them obvious. I heard about what happened today and have spoken with some of the troopers that accompanied you before I sought you out. You did well today."

Feeling a warmth on his cheeks that had nothing to do with the temperature of the water or the naked war god sitting across from him, Epiktetos said, "There were flaws in my performance."

Meridius glared at Epiktetos for a moment before he said, "No, you did better than expected. I gave you that assignment because I knew I would be busy and I wanted to see what you would do if I let you have some initiative. Your reasoning and instincts were superb, and your actions almost certainly prevented long term damage to our cause. You are not adding this to your collection."

Somewhat sullenly, Epiktetos replied, "Yes sir."

Meridius glared for a moment and looked like he was going to say something in chastisement, but then he shook his head and instead sank deeper into the water. Gazing up at the frolicking, nubile young women painted on the ceiling, he asked in a neutral tone, "What is your relationship with the Emperor?"

"What?" Epiktetos asked in shock, his heart suddenly in his throat and trying to strangle him.

"Calm down, it is not a test of loyalty or faith, it is a question of character of belief," Meridius stated.

Feeling his heart slow down a little, Epiktetos asked, "I am not quite certain what you mean, sir."

Running a hand through his dark hair, Meridius said, "There are many paths to the Emperor, many ways of seeing him. Some, mostly Marines, see him as a distant father-figure, an exemplar to stride towards. Others see him as a grand, cosmic deity mostly concerned with the general health of humanity to particularly bother with the day-to-day details of mortals. Still others regard the Emperor as a personal god, concerned with the birth of every babe and the fall of every elder. There are many ways to view the Emperor, many relationships one can have. What is yours?"

Epiktetos was silent for a long time, mulling this question, and Meridius made no move to hurry him along. Finally Epiktetos said, "I... I am unsure. Most of the time I feel that the Emperor has too many other concerns to bother with direct scrutiny, but at other times I feel like I have drawn His direct attention."

"I am guessing that those times are during what you see of as great failures," Meridius stated.

"Yes. I have a reputation for disaster," Epiktetos practically spat.

"No, you have a reputation for madness following you about... but that is unlikely to be your fault," Meridius stated.

"I am the common element in all of the 'grand incidents' though," Epiktetos pointed out, trying not to sound like he was pouting.

"Actually, technically the Chapter is the common element," Meridius pointed.

"I would never try to pin personal failing upon the Chapter!" Epiktetos practically roared in outrage, although the extreme size difference between him and Meridius made the fury essentially wasted.

"And I would never try to pin the peculiarities of the Chapter upon any single person," Meridius said with a sigh. "It is not common knowledge, but the Chapter's luck is... strange."

"Strange, sir?" Epiktetos asked.

"Our current predicament is a prototypical example. We call ourselves Survivors because the universe seems out to get us. We were founded on a world cut off by Warp Storms - which appear to have a cause beyond chance - and fought off orks for the better part of a millennium before we left threw ourselves upon the clemency of the High Lords for our actions. We endure and persevere, but there are many peculiarities to our survival. There have been many unusual incidents within our Chapter history since we returned to contact with the Imperium," Meridius explained.

"'Unusual', sir?" Epiktetos asked, curious.

"It is hard to describe properly, but there are many quirks of fate that some feel indicates divine intervention by the Emperor to achieve whatever goals He desires met. I and the other Chaplains do not mention them as a collective whole, lest some begin to grow arrogant, but there are patterns that cannot be dismissed. There have been several Chapters of Space Marines in the past infamously cursed with poor luck, but ours is not precisely ill, but neither is it good luck either. Things like a Brother stepping on a buried mine that others had just trod on a dozen times before and losing a foot, but the explosion triggers an enemy ambush early and allows two squads to escape the trap with no further casualties. Our serfs seem to get it the worst, actually," Meridius explained.

"Sir?" Epiktetos asked.

"In the past two hundred years, we have awarded seventeen Crux Vassalis Glorianus," Meridius said, naming the highest honour the Survivors could bestow upon their serfs for valour in combat. "I've checked, and among other Chapters that have a close relationship with their serfs in combat roles the frequency is a quarter of that. Not only that, but most such awards don't have the equivalent of our Crux Vassalis Glorianus Posthumous to differentiate based upon surviving their actions. Just to be sure, we compared accounts, and the awards are all equivalent for equivalent deeds. Most of our serfs who achieved such combat awards also weren't even supposed to be anywhere near combat, so it is not as if we are continually throwing them into battle," Meridius detailed out.

"Sir, if this is trying to make me feel better..." Epiktetos began, although politely.

"Your situation isn't unique. It is not a moral failing on your part that bad things happen to you, it is simply something that happens," Meridius stated.

"But how can I be sure that the Chapter-wide bad luck you posit is not attracted to me for my failings?" Epiktetos asked. "Why else would this be the third time I have been covered in syrup?"

"Because all three times you willingly dove in," Meridius stated, a little smile crossing over his near perfect face.

"I... yes... but... we both know it was my duty," Epiktetos spluttered.

Shaking his head, Meridius said, "You continually do yourself a disservice. There are a dozen times when you have been presented with the chance to fall back, and every time you have taken the path of courage and strode forward to do what was right but hard... and every time you have whipped yourself afterward for perceived moral failings."

The scars on his back itching with their mention, Epiktetos fidgeted for a moment before he said, "I never would have been in the position I was in during the Ymdros Foot Riots without a moral failing on my part."

"And if you hadn't been where you were, the world could have fallen into heresy and Chaos. The Chapter has already duly rewarded and punished you for your actions on Ymdros, and yet you cannot let go of it," Meridius pointed out.

Epiktetos went silent for a long time. Meridius let it stretch out before he said, "Things are moving faster than expected. You are still years off from being an independent commissar, but we are assigning you an assistant to help deal with the duties we will be heaping upon you."

"An assistant? Who?" Epiktetos asked.

"A truly remarkable woman who we literally just found as she has been trapped in a collapsed section of the Dirge since the crash. Her faith is inspiring in its purity, simplicity, and forthright earnestness. When I learned that the Emperor had chosen not to take her into His Light yet, I knew that she needed to be paired with you. I think her attitude will do wonders for how you see the world, and be quite effective at raising morale," Meridius explained.

Epiktetos absently began to scrub at the mass of congealed sugar that was fused with his hair and asked idly, "Where did she work before?"

"Security in the deep holds. Her family has actually been associated with the Dirge since before it was assigned to the Survivors and repurposed as a Battle Barge. Actually, now that I think about it the Voidborn have always had a peculiar relationship with luck and fate. Wasn't your maternal grandmother Voidborn?" Meridius asked.

Dunking his head under the hot water, Epiktetos scrubbed for a moment before he came back up and replied, "Yeah. She refuses to tell the full story and I refuse to talk to my relatives on that side of the family after what my great-uncle tried to do, but apparently there was some outsider involved and after she got pregnant she snuck off her ship to Yundr and had my mother. I suppose even before I was transferred to the Dirge I had a certain affinity for off-world travel, which was why I asked to join any branch that would accompany the Astartes rather than remaining at the Fortress Monastery."

"I should probably ask the Apothecaries what exactly the connection the Voidborn have with ill-fortune is, but in any case Yulee is the sort of person who refuses to allow the misfortunes that plague her affect her spirit. She will be able to teach you something," Meridius stated.

Dunking his head underneath the water once more in an attempt to get more of the molasses out, Epiktetos resurfaced with considerably more force than he originally intended when his mind put together the pieces. He cried out, "You're pairing me up with Fire Magnet Yulee?!"

[PainRack]

Nut, I'm not sure if you notice the disparity here, but even assuming lascannons to be large lasers and assuming twin linked= dual large lasers or dual PPC worth in damage, you're still leaving behind a good number of Space Marine vehicles vulnerable to Btech weaponery.

There aren't any Land Raiders here so far right? So Lascannons are an effective weapon against Predators and Rhinos as it is, one shudders to imagine what happens if they go up against a much larger mech force.


Similarly, Btech ground forces are routinely equipped with heavy equipment sufficient to damage mechs, to the extent that in simplistic game terms, an infantry platoon can carry sufficient firepower to deal almost the equivalent of a large laser damage to a mech. We can use more intelligent mechanics here, but an Inner Sphere force with access to more SRMs, heavier laser weaponery and anti mech weaponery like LAWs and etc can still pose a viable threat to Space Marines.(Using your scale of firepower)

[Academia Nut]

I'm not exactly sure how that came up since there hasn't been any 40k vehicle vs. BT vehicle combat yet, but yeah, I know that Rhino chassis vehicles are vulnerable to BT weapons, especially on the sides, and the Marines caught the first 'Mechs (which were poorly maintained and had the equivalent of primitive armour) in any ambush that the pilots were not trained to extricate themselves from. I'm not going to give the exact equivalencies (although you can probably work many of them out if you start off with equivalencies for easy stuff like bolters) because that leads to pointless argument, but even Land Raiders aren't immune to the heaviest of BT weaponry. The thing is that it is accepted in universe that BT armour ablates to things like machine gun fire, while armour ablation in 40k is typically a function of the weapon hitting the armour and shots that fail to penetrate the armour typically do nothing at all.

This extends to the Space Marines, who are tough enough and armoured enough that mid-sized autocannons aren't guaranteed to kill them. There will be more fighting and Space Marines will die in number, but I'm more interested in social aspects so I decided to have their early opposition get rolled over easily so the first part of the story wouldn't be a bunch of fight scenes.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter Ten

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'ALLOW IT'?" Overlord Raja King, or The King as he often preferred to be known, screamed at his subordinate advisor, Enrique Leopold.

Brushing a bit of spittle from his lapel, Enrique said quietly, "Francis is an infamous liar, so I highly doubt his initial story about there being some sort of mysterious force of infantry that fights like 'Mechs, but from his final transmissions I would definitely say that some force has control of the Leopard. If they do indeed have control of the DropShip, which they appear to, then attempting to regain Veasna now will only result in our being unable to hold it."

"But it is my planet," King stated emphatically, although as was usual Enrique's steadfast refusal to mirror his emotions caused the unstable pirate lord to cool down a bit.

"It of course is, but as the old saying goes 'A king is a king within every inch of his land, and when he is outside of his land, he is still a king'. Your being away from your world has never made you any less than King, has it?" Enrique asked in a pleasant tone.

"Well, no, but I can't very well brook rebellion..." King pointed out, his tone turning from fury to petulance.

"Of course not, and you aren't. You are merely being wise and strategic, my King. We need the Leopard and its 'Mechs to be able to project power on the planet. Without those the population is far too unruly to leave alone to go raiding. Do you want to be The King, mighty pirate lord and the ruler of Veasna, or just the ruler of Veasna?" Enrique prodded gently.

Narrowing his eyes in thought, King stated, "It sounds like you're asking me to choose one or the other, Enrique, not both."

"Ah, but if we leave now, we get both. Think about it. We can only maintain the garrison forces with a constant influx of supplies since the factories have been slowly breaking down. Since we're the only ones who actually know where the world is and it has no HPG station, there's no chance of anyone else swooping in and taking it away from us. All we have to do is wait a few years and the 'Mechs and Leopard will break down. Instead of having to destroy them and losing our garrison forces, we can sweep in without resistance, pick up the machines and repair them, and then level a few cities. The world clearly needs a pruning of the population anyway," Enrique explained.

"Couldn't we like... drop a rock on them or something?" King asked, scratching at his beard belligerently.

"And risk damaging your things? Besides, that is time and fuel that could be spent raiding instead of pushing an asteroid around, which I'm not even certain we can even actually do. I suppose we could work out the exact math..." Enrique began, knowing that bringing up math would get him away from such stupidity. It was easier than bringing up the Ares Conventions, which King didn't actually care about even if he didn't have the means to violate any of the important ones.

"Forget I said it then," King replied in annoyance. "I just want to make the bastards suffer."

"Of course you do, but any sort of distant bombardment won't give you the satisfaction of disposing of those that defy you at your leisure, slowly and painfully and personally. Give them not the dignity of battle but make them grovel hungry and cold at your feet, begging for the dignity they do not deserve," Enrique stated grandiosely, adjusting his wireframe glasses slightly at the end.

King leaned back in his chair and considered this proposal for a long time before he asked in a dark tone, "And you're sure this will work?"

"Of course. Think about it. Francis said that he has been keeping to the upper atmosphere with radio silence for the past ten days, hopping between a dwindling number of militia bases. If this was a group of outsiders coming in to take your territory then they would not have allowed an ASF to run like that, they would have hunted it down with their own airborne assets to make sure that you walked into a trap. If this were a planned coup then it would have happened shortly after we left so as to have everything in order to trap us when we got back. No, this is some sort of spontaneous uprising, sloppy and unplanned. Without outside support, it will burn itself out in a few years, and you can pick up your more or less intact gear instead of having to shoot it up and risk damage to the rest of your gear," Enrique detailed out.

"Yeah... yeah, you're right. Frankie wouldn't have been able to transmit like that if it were anything else. And yeah, the place hasn't really been worth it recently anyway. We can totally wander back towards Oberon. Grimm and his boys are always up for an extra company when they're pounding on the Dracs or Lyrans, so we'll always have plenty of work for the next few years," King replied, his mind already thinking of things to occupy his time that were more fun than administering a ruined world.

Enrique had a twinkle in his eye that suggested that he already had plans to increase their profit margins in ways than his considerably more aggressive and stupid boss had in mind.

Now convinced of his path, King nodded and bellowed out, "New plan boys! We're going to go enjoy the hospitality of other people's planets while the idiots kill ourselves on mine, then come back when they can't fight back! Turn us around and get us back to the JumpShip."

---

Less than a month ago the members of the Leopold family had walked down the prosperous streets of Alanya with a swagger in their steps as peasant scurried to bow and scrape before them, as cousin Enrique's mere existence had elevated them from country folk to rich urbanites. Oh, they still had the mansion out on the plantation, but once they had a personal advisor to The King in the family they had moved in closer to where all of the action was, where they could make contacts and forge business contracts. Good cousin Enrique had even given them the honour of managing his own estate and let them purchase slaves from the cull for both their plantations in bulk, which translated to serious savings. Why, two years ago he had even invited Baron Leopold, their mutual grandfather, out on a prim hunt with The King. Everything had been coming up Leopold for the past decade and a half.

Then the outsiders barged in and turned the welcoming boulevards of the capital into a shadowy, gloomy place where people dared not go out into the streets and the members of proper society stayed huddled in their homes lest the brutes molest their persons. Even then, over the past week hundreds, perhaps thousands, of grim faced barbarian soldiers had been shuttled in to the capital to take the place of the giants. The brutes went about the streets, dragging decent members of the community kicking and screaming from their homes.

Already there were rumours of a man who sat upon a throne of skulls that floated above the ground on dark magic and who wore the robes of some medieval judge and a flaming hat who made bombastic pronouncements of sentences of death upon those who were dragged away, but some of the more outlandish details made the stories hard to swallow in their entirety. Still, the disappearance of several Dukes and their entire families was hard to ignore.

For Ernesto Leopold, he knew that it was all a waiting game. Cousin Enrique would return with The King and they would crush these barbarian upstarts, whoever they were. All they had to do was keep their heads down without appearing to cooperate with the invaders and in a week or two everything would be more or less back to normal. Not even the blatantly transparent lies that The King had decided to abandon them all that they had announced yesterday could get him down, although he had to reassure some of the more panicky feminine members of his family that everything was alright.

Still, as part of the need to keep their heads down Ernesto had been elected, as the youngest adult male in the household, to attend the grand rally that the invaders had called for out in a field outside the city they had been working on for the past week. While not early so as to appear too eager, Ernesto made sure that he was not late either so as to be singled out. While a sensible strategy, it also meant that he found himself among the masses of hoi polloi, much to his disgust.

What he found in the field outside the city boggled his mind as thousands of soldiers were all on display in neatly ordered ranks to either side of the cleared area, with dozens of armoured giants in precise rows and columns in front of an enormous stage that had on it a dozen more giants and a dozen regular sized people in increasingly outlandish costumes that evoked the feel of something out of Medieval Terra. The military parade all gazed out at the accumulating people with stoic stares and blank faced helmets, until whatever metric they were using was reached and one of the giants on stage moved towards the centre.

Clad in black armour and some sort of long tunic with a mask shaped like a skull, he raised his hands to the assembled masses and began to chant something in a strange language that bordered on the edge of familiarity at several points and dove into the completely alien at others. Whatever was being said over the booming speakers, it sounded vaguely religious, so maybe it was Latin or something like that. Religious fanatics of some sort? But everyone knew that those who were really invested in religion were all poor idiots, so that didn't really make sense.

Eventually the skull masked giant stopped chanting and all of the foreign soldiers snapped off a strange sort of salute made by hooking their thumbs together, splaying their fingers out, and raising their hands to the sky. They also gave off a strange sort of ululating cry that sent shivers up Ernesto's spine. These people were all mad. Glancing about him, he noticed to his horror that some of the plebs seemed awed by the display.

The skull masked giant bowed to the assembled population and to the soldiery of the invaders before he stepped away, replaced on centre stage by another of the giants, dressed in the colours of those on the parade grounds. Unlike the others, he had his helmet off and the head underneath was proportioned in such a way as to suggest that the majority of his size did not come from his armour. Ernesto shuddered at the thought of what could make such a monster.

The giant looked out upon the crowds, opened his mouth and the conception of what it would be in Ernesto's mind was shattered. In strangely accented English, he said, "Welcome, brothers and sisters, to the Imperium of Man." The exact pronunciation was peculiar, but the words were clear and his demeanour suggested that he was skilled at rhetoric and oration, not the barbarian Ernesto had originally pegged them all as. "I know that those words and the words of our Chaplain must be confusing, nonsensical, and even frightening to many of you, but still, I welcome you."

Imperium of Man? That seemed rather bombastic for such a small group. One would think that any group with such a grandiose title would at least field a few 'Mechs. Then again their armour and their driving off of the garrison suggested that they had some power that did not make sense for a group of prims from out in the wilds to have. Also, he supposed that it was entirely possible that this was only a fraction of their true forces and they only brought just enough to overall the majority of the plebs without letting any spies from seeing their true forces. Ernesto did have to admit that the average person of Veasna was an uneducated brute that understood nothing of military matters. Yes, that had to be it, they were just hiding the true extent of their military power.

Unaware of Ernesto's thoughts, the giant continued, "I am Company Captain Petronius Maximus of the Survivors Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. By experience and seniority I command the warriors you see before you, and by force of their arms I am now the ruling military governor of this world."

That was troubling for two reasons: one, it suggested that these people really did believe that they had secured this world against its rightful rulers; two, because it also suggested that there were more of them out there. Ernesto suspected that things were about to get even more troublesome.

"Many of you are probably wondering what we have in store for you. You fear for your homes, your families, and your livelihoods," he said, pausing to scan over the crowd and read their silent acknowledgement of the truth of his words. "All I can say is that depends on you." He then reached down and pulled a gigantic pistol from his side, holding it loosely by the rear with its barrel pointed skyward, held up for all to see like some sort of idol. "This is a plasma pistol, a noble and ferocious weapon with a prickly, dangerous pride. It requires an enormous amount of care to safely maintain, however with that care it is a truly devastating weapon."

Switching his grip from one of display to one of deadly intent, he kept its barrel pointed skyward and released a single brilliant blue-white bolt high above the heads of the assembled crowds, causing many to cringe or call out in shock. Ernesto kept his own council though and narrowed his eyes in disgust. A single Star League cache did not make a man a king.

Returning his grip on the weapon to one of display, he waited a moment for the fearful eyes to return to him. "The spirit of this weapon is a mighty one indeed, but it has nothing in comparison to the pride and power of humanity. It was by human hands, and human minds, and human hearts that brought this weapon forth from base earth." His voice rose with the elemental passion of thunder, but remained clear and controlled. "Humanity is a proud lot destined to claim all the stars in the sky. But what is pride? What does it mean to be proud? In your language, it has two meanings: pride in oneself, in merely existing; and pride in work, in what one has truly achieved."

In a calculated display of disgust, the Captain turned to the side and spat. "On this world, the first meaning has stood upon the second for far too long." Ernesto carefully fit this in with the other details he had learned, and came to a conclusion. They had to be some sort of humanistic religious cult. There were tales of the wonders and horrors of the Star League and perhaps if some group of fanatics found a particularly potent cache they might have been able to sculpt flesh into the giants and arm them with the power of the Camerons of old, to trample upon the free people of the Periphery once more. He had heard that one of the giants had gone around to the various small temples in the city and had interrogated, sometimes fatally, the priests of every religion represented. What was their game there?

"There is an order to humanity! There is a structure, a hierarchy that organizes all things." The Captain now held the audience in rapt attention with nothing but the power of his voice. "The many are meant to lift the few up to lofty heights, for that is where they can do great things!" For the first time Ernesto nodded along. At least that made sense, and it suggested that they would be amenable to proper persuasion.

"But once lifted skyward, it is not the place of the few to press down upon the many! To press down is to look down, to turn away from the heavens!" Suddenly Ernesto's agreement turned to horror. "The many must not be forced to look down, they must look up at the few with pride and say 'We made that possible' and thus push even harder upward and onward. The glory of the few is the glory of the many, and when we all reach upward as one, we are all lifted ever higher! Thus do the stars become ours! That is the glory of Imperium! It is of Man and for Man!"

He paused to let his words settle in. "The Imperium needs you all. We need you to serve as our soldiers as we conquer across the sky. Look to your left. To your right. See your brothers and sisters, who will train you in our ways of war with open arms, and defend you with their lives against those who would tread upon you. We need no better reason than because you are human, as we.

"Soon we will begin recruiting and these shall be your teachers," the Captain proclaimed, smiling broadly at the crowd and at the soldiers hemming them in. "First they shall teach you to defend your homes, your families, and your strangers, but soon enough they shall teach you how to take the fight to your brothers and sisters among the stars, to teach you how to spread the warm aegis of the Imperium to those who need it most."

Ernesto could not understand this madness. Open recruiting of militia? Wars could not be trusted to the common man beyond the most tedious and basic of grunt work that could as well be accomplished by slaves! You needed trusted, politically reliable men to garrison a world, lest they try to seize that which belonged to their betters, as short sighted plebs were wont to do. Centuries of experience, from even before the Camerons, had shown that anything else was madness and folly!

"But wars cannot be fought by soldiers alone! No matter how mighty they may be, soldiers need weapons and tools! Thus our Adeptus Mechanicus shall begin the licensing of designs from our forges. You shall build with your very own hands glorious things that you shall be proud of, things that will advance the cause of all humanity! It is understood that until now a select group of guilds has maintained a monopoly over your factories and mines, to the exclusion of all others. Well, I am pleased to say that those who ran them have all been executed for gross corruption and incompetence. No longer shall they restrict your labour.

"To replace them, we ask that any who think themselves skilled with their hands or their minds and honest, earnest hearts to come forward. There will be risks involved of course, but that is true in any business venture. For those with even a sliver of cleverness and work ethic those risks shall be low and the profits immense," the Captain explained, triggering eager whispers from the crowd. Ernesto found his jaw hanging open in mute horror. They had killed the leaders of some of the most stable institutions on the planet and now they expected just anyone to fill in the gap? They expected common labourers to be entrusted with power and knowledge and wealth?

"Of course," the Captain said, pressing on over the whispered discussions, "your soldiers cannot proudly march to glorious battle and your factory workers cannot work with heads held high if there is no food in their bellies. As such, we are henceforth declaring the old way of running agriculture on this world over and done with! We may be in charge, but this is your planet, your world, your pride. No longer shall you toil away upon tiny plots of land you don't own, parcelled out to the friends and family of those formerly in charge. The land belongs to those that honourably tend to it.

"There are great tracts of land that have lain fallow for centuries, and even great expanses that have never felt the farmers plough. Well, no more! We are offering land to any who wish to till it," the Captain explained, and Ernesto found himself quaking with rage. How dare they? How dare they undo all the centuries hard work of the Leopold family to hold and maintain their land, taking their noble profession and opening it up to all?

Then the truth of the matter hit him. For so long the primary limiting factor on agriculture was not space or crops, but labour. There were never enough slaves as it was so where... no! NO! His mind rebelled against that final, inhuman madness. There was no way these invaders could be sick enough to deny his family the basic dignities of their property! There was no way these barbarians could possibly think such stupidity could work! There was no way they could be such rapacious thieves as to suggest...

"I am certain that many of you are wondering where all these soldiers and workers and farmers will come from. They will come from you," Captain Maximus said as he gestured to the assembled crowds before he beat his fist against his chest with a loud metallic bang. "The hearts of Man have within them the fire to re-order the stars to their will. The many might lift up the few, but the few cannot step on them. And the many and the few are all equals before the divine. As such, it is the declaration of the Imperium of Man that from this moment onward on this world no man shall be allowed to own another. All slaves are free." The last sentence was said with a finality that implied it brooked no argument, save the last argument of kings.

There were gasps and cries from within the crowd as the people tried to work out what to do, but at those words Ernesto stopped paying attention. He needed to get the family out of the city, back to their plantation where they would be safe from the madness of these thieving barbarians. The giant was talking more, something about a celebration - as if there was anything worth celebrating!- to commemorate this occasion, but Ernesto was busy pushing his way out of the crowd. There were others doing the same, other respectable men who were no doubt thinking the same as him.

He could feel eyes upon him, but he felt for the gun tucked away in his waistband. Let them try. Let them try.

[PainRack]

I'm not exactly sure how that came up since there hasn't been any 40k vehicle vs. BT vehicle combat yet, but yeah, I know that Rhino chassis vehicles are vulnerable to BT weapons, especially on the sides, and the Marines caught the first 'Mechs (which were poorly maintained and had the equivalent of primitive armour) in any ambush that the pilots were not trained to extricate themselves from. I'm not going to give the exact equivalencies (although you can probably work many of them out if you start off with equivalencies for easy stuff like bolters) because that leads to pointless argument, but even Land Raiders aren't immune to the heaviest of BT weaponry. The thing is that it is accepted in universe that BT armour ablates to things like machine gun fire, while armour ablation in 40k is typically a function of the weapon hitting the armour and shots that fail to penetrate the armour typically do nothing at all.

This extends to the Space Marines, who are tough enough and armoured enough that mid-sized autocannons aren't guaranteed to kill them. There will be more fighting and Space Marines will die in number, but I'm more interested in social aspects so I decided to have their early opposition get rolled over easily so the first part of the story wouldn't be a bunch of fight scenes.

Hang on, I hate the whole idea of vs mentality in fanfic. To clarify, I'm not takling about vs comparisons of firepower, just the consequences of what your desired settings will be.

Setting Lascannons as large lasers will mean that Space Marines are going to be vulnerable and heavily outgunned in many ways later on, when they go up against credible opposition. That will make it much harder to write a story later on, but I await your next chapter eagerly boss:D

[Academia Nut]

Oh, my apologies then. I thought you were being more antagonistic than you were. Just used to stupid arguments and overreacted.

As for lascannons, they're not the equivalent of large lasers, it is just that the Imperium is so good with laser technology that I decided that for technobabble reasons the wavelengths, focus, and pulse duration of the lasers that the Imperium use means that their laser weapons are less effective against Battletech armour than they could be, much to their frustration. I'm deliberately leaning on a few things for Battletech just to keep them competitive.

[Highlord Laan]

Does the Imperium, or more to the point, Space Msrines, have anything that will be able to answer the long range firepower of gauss rifles and particle beams when they run into more capable opposition?

[Academia Nut]

Does the Imperium, or more to the point, Space Marines, have anything that will be able to answer the long range firepower of gauss rifles and particle beams when they run into more capable opposition?

They will either build some of their crazier weapons for Imperial super heavy vehicles, strip point defences off their ship, or just loot/steal/buy from the IS if necessary.

[Darkevilme]

All hail Petronius Maximus All hail the imperium. That was a very nice chapter.

[moglwi]

well one thing the Imperium will fix in BT is the lack of proper naval focus. Thats the one of the majer things that annoyed me about BT if you want to stop 'mech stomping all over your planet intercept them on there dropships and deal with them where there mechs are not usable. I can see the formation of the Space PDF as a priority

[Darkevilme]

I think they're a world away from deploying a space PDF. Seen as the place has three high tech installations, ones an administrative center and the other makes cheap BTech ablative armour slabs. There's no possible way of making enough infrastructure to launch anything space worthy in the few years they have.

That being said I'm sure the battlebarge carries fighters that survived their translation and I think thunderhawks might be armed for space combat, they'll complete the tunnel to the surface in those few years.

[Highlord Laan]

Know what I'm really looking forward to? The "interactions" between the Imperial forces and the Word of Blake.