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The recent replies motivated for me to try to grapple with something that I put together back in the day but never finished and, indeed, never get as much put down on paper as I seem to recall. That is, a take on the Adeptus Mechanicus. Before I try to do that in more fragmentary fashion than some of the other threads (if such a thing is truly possible), a little bit of history is needed on the discussion that centred around the Adeptus Mechanicus and how one could interpret them in the 40k setting. THE ADEPTUS "ME-CAN-ICUS" VS. THE ADEPTUS "ME-CAN'T-ICUS" This was the central historical debate around the Adeptus Mechanicus back in the day. Simply, did the Adeptus Mechanicus understand the technology that they used/created/perpetuated ("can-icus") or was everything blackboxed behind STC or, subsequently, the C'tan ("can't-icus"). As one might imagine, many thousands of words (tens of thousands!?) were posted on the fan forums of the time as to which was the most correct. I think that it's reasonable to suggest that on the "can" side, you had people focused on the tech from the original Rogue Trader* whereas others were more inspired by the "Cassocks in Space"** approach to the Imperium that was focused around the Adeptus Ministorum and "priesthood" via A Canticle for Leibowitz. * I still love the visual of having crystal control consoles rising on suspensors from the floor of a starship! ** This is obviously a prejudiced reference of the Imperium as what amounts to a medievalised version of the Catholic Church... in spaaacce. It's very much focused on the A Canticle for Leibowitz approach to the Adeptus Mechanicus and is what one might think of as the "standard" approach of GW to the orgnaisation. SO WHAT CAME OUT OF THAT? Discussion. Lots of it. Over at the Anargo Sector Project, I advocated for what I considered a "more balanced" approach to the Adeptus Mechanicus. There were other voices at the time that called for something markedly different, including the fun Philip Sibbering with his 40k Concepts (proof, if ever it was needed, that if you marry concepts to artwork you're on for a winner to start with). And for once a great deal of the inspirational materials came from GW in the form of Mechanicum (novel), Titanicus (novel), one by Matt Farrer (part of the Calpurnia novels but I forget which), and what Gav Thorpe had done with the Inquisition (mostly positive, but a mixed bag). Or rather, the inspiration came about after a lot of time was spent discussing the approach and subsequent GW/BL materials happened to fit a lot of that discussion. :) SO, THE FRAGMENTS... The central premise of this alternate (?) approach is that it tries to balance the "can" and "can't" elements of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The proposed answer to this was to focus on the premise of the Mystery Cult, or the notion that the lowest ranks of the Adeptus Mechanicus were very much on the "can't" side of the continuum. They didn't really know what they were doing. Everything was learned by rote, and prayers and ritualism were used to obfuscate the truth behind the actions. Herein, the "Machine Spirit" (and more broadly "Machine God") were divine premises and referring to animistic principles. As one went up the hierarchy of the Cult Mechanicus, however, you brought in more and more elements of the "can" side of the continuum. Finally, Magos and Archmagos (etc.) had access to the "hidden mysteries" of technical knowledge. So, the first base. An hierarchical approach to the Cult Mechanicus before one even gets into the difference between lay practitioners and those that are invested into the Cult Mechanicus. As an example of this, the Universal Laws of the Adeptus Mechanicus (both Mysteries and Admonitions) are part of the lower-echelons of the Cult Mechanicus and are firmly ensconced in the "can't" side of things---even if there might be some variation in rank access even at this lowest of levels. If one continues to rise through the ranks of the Cult Mechanicus, however, you are introduced to what I refer to as the Derivative Mysteries/Admonitions, and finally to the Prime or Root Mystery/Admonition. TTRPG Note: For those interested in this side of things, the basic gist of how this manifests is that different (Theological) Ranks of the Adeptus Mechanicus are restricted in their access to certain broad skill types. For example, the lowest echelons may only Operate and Repair technology. The next rank up are those that can Build technology. Finally, there are those that have Wildcard access to technical skills, which aggregate those skill into unrealistic combinations (hyper-competence) that also serve to break down Tech Level differences. THE PHILOSOPOHIES OF THE ADEPTUS MECHANICUS The "Philosophies" were originally meant to be mirrors to the factions within the Inquisition, at least insofar that they were spiced to how Tech Priests might approach technology. The obvious continuing example would be Philosophies that dabbled with Xenos or Malleus technologies, but a lot of the others seem to have been lost to time. THE BINARY DOGMA OF FACTIONALISM This deliberately-pretentious term was a stand-in for the obvious conservative/liberal divide in the Adeptus Mechanicus that was suggested from the discussions (back in the day! ;)) and subsequently showed up in novels like Mechanicum. The general gist of this is obvious: the orthodoxy is inherently conservative and leans towards the "can't" interpretation, while the more radical "liberal" approaches get up to shenanigans with technology (like research and exploration). THE PARADIGMS OF THE ADEPTUS MECHANICUS Given the importance of Forge Worlds, the "Paradigms" were invented to create a specific confluence of Faction and Philosophy that may become dominant and lead to broad trends (primarily orthodox as radical Forge Worlds would be more contentious). This was a specific part of the Anargo Sector Project, so re-tooling them outside of that is a little bit more challenging but possible. THE TECHNOLOGY OF THE ADEPTUS MECHANICUS The novels Mechanicum and Titanicus really started to get into the technological manifestations back in the day and, at least based upon current readings, this now seems to be the norm. The adoption of terms like "binaric cant" is a (sensible, for once) part of this by GW. I'm not sure where I would take this. At the moment my notes started and left with Haptic Interfaces and the Noosphere, but technology has come along since those days. I'm wondering about such things as distributed networks that don't use standard communications infrastructure etc. (You can interpret elements of these from some of the more recent novels). * * * And that's where I'm going to leave this one for the moment.

Partially motivated by @Karak Norn Clansman, here's me just putting some thoughts down on paper, as it were, about something that I did and something that I might get back into doing. All while getting back into the wargame and painting some minis, because why the heck not. The Prelude... Back in the day, there was a kid played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP), which was in 1e in those days. Then another kid, with some other kids, played some more and someone decided to introduce what was then a Spirit Warrior ("Tuisich Novasmair") into the fantasy game, and 40k and WFRP were crossed over. Or over-crossed. Something like that. The point is, that I wanted to use a TTRPG to play in the 40k universe from that point. And, a little bit later, the wish was to come true and a fellow called "Andrew" (Fawcett, IIRC) would create a version of this using WFRP on a site called "Critical Hit". It was a little funky because, well WFRP is a bit funky mechanically speaking, but it gave you the tools that you needed to do a TTRPG in the 40k universe. Advance some years and preferences change. "Critical Hit" disappeared (though I still have a copy of the site) and I was no longer a fan of the system anyway. After playing a TTRPG at a frenetic pace of at least a system a week (sometimes more), I got tired of learning a new system and turned to a generic system with a silly name: GURPS. The Days of Yon (Portent)... So, back in the Dark Ages there was a site called Portent that ended up being a hangout place for people that really liked the 40k setting. Some of those, like myself, really liked the premise of either using it for a TTRPG or, related to that, filling in the blanks of the setting because that was fun to chat about and also kind of necessary to make a functional RPG setting. There were a ton of fan theories generated out of this time. Things like Brusilov's "Emperor's Daemons", astrological affinities with Primarchs, and even grand (and abortive) fan projects that aimed to create a whole Imperial sector containing around 21,000 star systems in detail*. Crazy times. (* More so than you see in the Calixis and Askellon sectors in the Dark Heresy RPG.) During that time, and Portent's lesser descendant, Warseer, I put together some working documents for GURPS covering some interesting parts of the setting but mostly necessary ones (can you do 40k without Marines?). Which brings us to... Now... After a hiatus from 40k for the past all-but decade-and-a-half, I was just getting over the hump in another TTRPG project (the Earthdawn/Shadowrun/Equinox meta-setting, again in GURPS) and just happened to take a look at the old 40k stuff. This was after I had bought some 40k minis in an attempt to persuade my son (yeah, that happened between then and now) and gotten bit by the bug again. A 3d resin printer later, some 40k adjacent fantastic sculpts and... Yeah. My general approach was to take the oldest materials as "true" and then layer on the latter explanations so that they integrated and So, digging out the 'ole fan materials to get back to writing (and to rewrite with new ideas and new background materials): Powers of the Mind. Psykers are everywhere, thus a key part of developing other setting materials. The system that I had created was, instead of the "random explosions" approach of Dark Heresy, based on the ideas presented in Ian Watson's Inquisitor (now Draco) where each psyker had a "psyker light" that grew brighter the more powerful they were and the more they used their powers. This was the slippery road to the City at the End and to damnation. I'm still working on the details, in particular the differentiation between the different Psyker Grades of The Assignment. That and trying to work out the the details on the Left- and Right-Handed Paths of Sorcery, Enuncia, and, of course, Eldar magic-tech. The Inquisition. An inescapable part of dealing with the release of Dark Heresy. This is pretty easy, with the only major difference being the inclusion of an "hidden order" to replace the Ordo Malleus after it was outed by Gav Thorpe (to the weakness of the setting IMO). Trying to figure this out is still a little bit messy given the nature of the Ordo Malleus. Otherwise it's all fairly simple and drawing information from other products in the line (e.g., GURPS Action 2 that deals with the kind of stuff that Inquisitorial retinues and retainers get up to). The Adeptus Astartes. Another inescapable thing. Plenty of work done on this, though it needs to be updated because of the "new" introduction of the Primaris. And, of course, new fan theories (I was intrigued by the Primarch "Tarot" that I saw somewhere on the board). The Adeptus Mechanicus. A slightly more progressive, less Canticles of Leibowitz, approach to the Cult Mechanicus based primarily out of the original Rogue Trader and information from Mechanicum and Titanicus. There's lots of fun to be had here balancing what used to be called the "Adeptus Me-Can't-icus" (they didn't know what was going on with respect to tech) and the "Adeptus Me-Can-icus" (they did know). Plus, figuring out The Mysteries and the Admonitions as they are generally known, and then the more secretive Prime Mystery and Admonition and the First Order Derivatives. From there to the Binary Dogma of Factionalism, the Paradigms of the Cult, and the hierarchy of what is, at its heart, a mystery cult. The Craftworld Eldar. Or perhaps just the Eldar in general. My favourite. A little bit of a different take on what GW has produced. Drawing inspiration from trinities across the different aspects of society and mythology... Governance divided into Ancestor (Past), Clan (Present), and Seer (Future) Councils. Limited number of Paths, but innumerable Ways... Etc. The Warp (untitled). A description of traversing the warp and its nature. A shorter piece, but one that goes into detail on Imperial space travel across the various editions and bringing it together into a (fairly) cohesive whole while also bringing in older materials (e.g. natural Warp Gates and how these relate to Warp Zones etc.). I'll be posting bits 'n' bobs here and there, but ultimately asking for perspectives and ideas for those willing to contribute them. Things generally become better when there are more eyes on the product (as it were). :)

Figuring out (heh!) the warp and the nature of warp travel is another arrow to add to the quiver of a TTRPG in the 40k setting. Doing so has to of course balance the background materials on the subject (mostly from WD139/140), the various themes (mostly oceanic/sub-oceanic), the official 40k TTRPGs, and the common hyperbolic statements and descriptions that find their way into the novels. Quite a bit of these materials, or thoughts rather, have long-since bit the dust on sites such as Portent/Warseer, 40kOnline, and the Anargo Sector Project, so I thought that I would try and rekindle them here. :) Principle Sources: Realms of Chaos (Slaves to Darkness; Lost and the Damned), WD 139, WD 140, and Watson (Inquisitor). Others as they surface from the darkest recesses of my mind, or as suggested by anyone who drops in their few pennies. * * * SEEING THE WARP (aka "Warp Sensors") Ala Watson (Inquisitor) this is a thing from back in the day and integrated into the premise of the "calculated warp jump", or the notion that slow warp travel is relatively safe and was likely the norm back in the days of the Golden/Dark Age of Technology (G/DAoT). Vitali Googol, when piloting the ship Tormentum Malorum, is able to look onto a screen and see a data visualisation of the warp. This means that computers (cogitators, if you must) are able to process data from some form of sensor and produce an image of local warp conditions that are distinct from the vision of a Navigator. This seems to play merry heck with modern background, so my take on this is to make only the upper portions of the warp---the closest conjunction between the matterium and the immaterium---as resolvable by such sensors, thus the domain of the calculated warp jump. Now, just because such sensors can see the upper-most reaches of the warp doesn't mean that they can interpret all the data that they are processing (more on this later). Furthermore, to penetrate the Veil between the immaterium and matterium also means that doing this is going to take a fantastic amount of power---perhaps the same or close to the amount that they would use when transitioning into the warp. So, how does this play out? Well, our ship sitting at or beyond the "warp zone" (more on that later) has to use fantastic quantities of energy to open up a "window" into the warp so that they can observe it. The navigational computers then have to study the warp and plot a course to their destination, something that has to be done ahead of time because of the rapidity of changes and the difficulty (?) of making course corrections while in the warp. This would mean that the amount of time between the observation/measurement and the amount of time that it might take to "warm up" the Warp Engines are going to be significant---it would allow drift between the observations of the warp and the warp-as-is. Depending on how turbulent the warp is, this would make the plotted journey less reliable the greater the time difference between observation and journey. < Okay, that might need to be filed away for inclusion in things like "Navigation rolls" or situational modifiers that impact that roll. > A BRIEF FORAY INTO THE NATURE OF THE GELLER FIELD The nature of the Geller Field is something that I do, ah, parallel a little bit from the main background for sheer level of interest. As described overall, the Geller Field is a bio-psychic energy field that surrounds the ship providing, in essence, an "air bubble" of reality. When this is turned off or otherwise ruptured, the warp pours in and, of course, the daemons. Because, of course, they're allows everywhere in the warp. < rolleyes > This is fine by me, but my alterations are thus: Turning off the Geller Field in the upper-most reaches of the warp is not immediately disastrous. Crew do not go instantly blotto, the laws of physics do not break down, people are not melted through the deck or bulkheads---the basic nightmare of The Philadelphia Experiment merged with Escher and Lovecraft is not inherently a thing. This is for the same reason that warp sensors and cogitators can interpret the upper layers of the warp---it's mostly "real". Ish. Real-ish adjacent. The other reason that you don't want to turn off the Geller Field is that it is a cross between the aforementioned "reality bubble", but also the sails of the ship; the motive force. Add "etheric" in front of Age of Sail terminology and it will work. Etheric sails. Etheric rudder. Etheric middenmast, or whatever. Physical or field structures that make the ship go forwards and which are controlled by the computer (calculated warp jumps) or the Navigator (err, navigated warp jumps). So, turning off the Geller Field in the uppermost layers of the warp (henceforth, The Shallows) is not insta-death. It also means that you've lost the wind from your sails and are becalmed. You're no longer a moving target, now you're a stationary target. Oopsie. GETTING INTO THE WARP---The "Warp Zone" This is the "safe" distance at which the "warp density" reduces to make it possible to open up a gateway to the warp. This is a section that I'm going to have to come back to because I've forgotten the formulae that I used (oops). IIRC it was based upon a gravitational calculated derived from the TTRPG 2300AD: Man's Battle for the Stars (i.e. when the stutterwarp drive would activate) from the central star of a system and/or nearest astronomical body, but also modified by the population of an astronominal body (e.g. the more people, the closer to said body the "warp zone" was). The "Warp Zone" also serves at the point that natural warp gates may occur (as they did in the old background), which would potentially be a huge economic benefit even while simultaneously being a strategic nightmare (i.e. a point in-system that you can enter the warp and your potential enemies can exit it). More later. THE STRUCTURE OF THE WARP Just like the ocean is divided into different zones, so too is the warp. Here's some quick borrowed terminology from oceanography to help out: Coastal aka "The Shallows". The uppermost layers of the warp and/or those closer to the minimum distance 'warp zone' (stable/safe, but potentially dangerous to jump into the warp from). Pelagic aka "The Deeps". The point at which you stop wading in The Shallows and start going into the realm of the ocean proper (aka the Warp Threshold, as it were): Epipelagic [re-name]. The shallow areas of the warp further away from the Warp Threshold. Bathypelagic [re-name]. The realm of the Navigator. This is where you dive beneath the Shallows of relative reality into the increasing "pressure" of unreality. Abyssopelagic ["The Realms of Chaos"]. The Realms of Chaos and Unreality. Doh! Hadopelagic ["Hades"]. The specific Realm of a Chaos God!? I just wanted to dive back into those warp sensors and what they would "see", and represent on-screen, at the various points: The Shallows. A vibrant see of shifting colours representing the tides and eddies of the deeper warp. Occasionally you'll see areas of black---either fast moving shears shifting parallel to the Conjunction Manifold (the Veil), or subducting currents that drive "reality fragments" deeper into the warp (the coloured bits) and see riptides and upwellings of the deeper warp. For calculated warp jumps, and for relative safety, you want to avoid the black. (Insert warp-sailor terminology about "The Black" etc.). The Deeps. The deeper you go into the warp, the more useless the sensors will be in that they will just show... black with the occasional colour flashes representing "reality fragments" that have been driven or sucked down into the depths. This is the province of the Navigator's Eye. Turn off the Geller Field and its "Etheric Sails" here and your SouttaL. The warp will come pouring in. Unreality will break down reality and, with the inrush of the warp, come the entities of the warp---natural (warp flora and fauna) and the unnatural gribblies that are daemons. WHY NAVIGATED JUMPS? So why Navigated Jumps over Calculated Jumps? Here you're going to have to get your geometry head on and imagine the arcs of circles of different radii: Nothing new with the above, but the only "new" thing to consider would link to the terminology: A-B. A Calculated warp jump. The Shallows. A1-B1. Epipalagic. A2-B2. Bathypelagic. A3-B3. Abyssopelagic. A4-B4. Hadopelagic. Better names are required (as above), but if you want to get from point A to point B real fast, you might have to travel through the actual Realm of Khorne---not for the feint of hearted, but potentially something that Yvraine and others did in Gathering Storm. Heck, you may even be able to go back and forward in time, here, because the Ruinous Powers are thought to exist at all points in time at once. So, in real space you go from points A and B in interstellar place and it takes a godawful period of time (sans relativity of not). As you dive deeper into the warp (downward arrows), you travel between A1 --> B1, A2 --> B2, and so on. As you go deeper into the warp, the distance between A' and B' (and A'' and B'' etc.) gets commensurately smaller, so the spatio-temporal "distance" between the points gets smaller. In short, you go faster. Woot. The warp is probably red like hyperspace from Babylon 5 because, as we are all given to understand, "Red wunz go fasta!" This means that the higher the skill of the Navigator, the deeper they can go into the warp but the more dangerous it is. Of course, the danger ramps up increasingly as you go deeper into the warp---the "currents" of unreality that much stronger. So in any given trip you're going to be weighing the odds of the local conditions of the warp (calm or stormy) versus how fast you want to get there versus how likely it is that you're going to get there (to your destination). :) You can actually calculate this using the distance table from WD 139/140. I'm going to do that later because it's something else that I've lost and I seem to remember that it took a little bit of calculation! :D

So, I thought that I would give an insight into (the pretentiously labelled) "Kage-verse" when it comes down to the Craftworld Eldar. This will be the basis for my idiosyncratic Craftworld for my mini painting (hopefully that will go well), so not a waste either way, but when it comes to the setting this is my basis for the Eldar as a whole that you can tweak to fit the established, canonical Craftworlds. This is probably going to be more bulletpoints/thumbnails until I get to seriously write it up. (It seems that my little supplement was more fragmentary than I recalled!) Inspiration: Peter F. Hamilton. The Reality Dysfunction. Edenist habitats CRAFTWORLD SOCIETY/GOVERNMENT The society of the Craftworlds is a strange hybrid of a number of distinct cultures and sub-cultures forced together as a result of the The Fall. Three major parts of society/government: Ancestor [The Past]. Eldar that have suffered death of the physical form. They transfer into the Infinity Circuit with full consciousness and can act individually for as long as they have the will to do so. Clan [The Present]. These are elective organisations drawing Eldar with similar ideologies and goals. They can be kin-based, but this is the exception rather than the norm. Clan leadership is exclusively derived from those indiviuals who have returned from following the Path of the Outcast. Seer [The Future]. Formed from a combination of the esoteric disciplines. Farseers are separate/advisory, *not* the leaders? Others to include: The Court of Khaine. Kaela Mensha Khaine (Shard; Infinity Circuit) The Young King [Ancestor; ceremonial] The Blood King [Clan; "Autarch"] The Blood Sage [Seer] Other Courts? THE PATH (Ai'elethra) There are five (5) Paths to the Eldar Path: Seer. Development of estoric abilities. Warrior. Development of martial abilities. Steward. Servants to society. Seeker. Explorers of science, art, and the esoteric. Outcast [Eshairr]. Those that fight the constraints of the Path. This differs from canonical treatments where everything is described as a Path. The difference is the use of terminology for older materials, e.g. WD 127, which describes "Ways". Herein, "Ways" are subdivisions of each Path, e.g. the discipline expressed through the "Howling Banshee" is a Way on the Path of the Warrior. The significance here is that an individual can become trapped on a Way OR a Path, with the former being more common than the latter: * Way-sworn. Individuals that have become trapped on a single Way, e.g. Exarchs of a single Temple. * Path-sworn. Individuals that are trapped on a Path, but cycle between the Ways. The wonderful thing about this structure, based on the original background, is that you don't have to invent some nonsense "Path of Command". Autarchs are, for all intents and purposes, Path-sworn Exarchs. (The selected Autarch would likely carry the term "Blood King" or "Blood Queen" if the gendered route is taken.) Thinking More on Outcasts Outcasts must necessarily forgo the protections of the Path. What are those protections? Compartmentalisation of the mind so that the Eldar focuses on the development of a number of related skills/abilities (Primary Abilities). They may readily access Secondary Abilities, or supporting skills that are otherwise not developed on any given Path/Way (as therein defined). Other skills/abilities that are not relevant are locked behind the construct of the Path and are more difficult to access. Outcasts, on the other hand, allow the breakdown of these barriers. <-- Need some way of representing this. (C.f. corruption from GURPS Horror?) TECHNOLOGY Previously I had taken the route that the Eldar had mundane technology to which they added estoric technologies ("warpcraft"). I'm no longer sure about this and would love to discuss the possibilities with learned people of the 40k lore! For example, previously I had Wraithbone as a nanopolymer (based on the literal definition of "psychoplastic") but should I lean towards the "fantasy" interpretation, i.e. psychically malleable energy (or the equivalent of ectoplasm)? This then became a channel for esoteric energies. The long-run idea is to avoid the notion that the Eldar can create matter and are functionally a post-singularity culture that is devoid of resource requirements. Unless they are...? * * * There's a whole bunch of stuff not covered here. I thought that I would throw it out there in case something jarred inappropriately, or there were some possibly better (and newer) interpretations out there that would need to be synthesised into the broader whole etc. Looking forward to the (hopefully) discussion!

A common image conjured of the Imperium is that of the failing or inept bureaucracy that can lose worlds for centuries, resulting in the deaths of billions in an Imperium where human lives don't matter. And so on. You can probably drawn oodles of examples from the background materials that work with this type of imagery. Yet I say, "Au contraire". The Imperium of Man actually has a fantastic bureaucracy and, to have survived for over ten millennia, would have to. The details are, however, in the gaps and where one finds the information. * * * The premise is simple and not too stretch of the imagination from the established background materials on the structure of the Imperium. It was also something that was initially borne out of the consideration of something called the "Universal World Profile" (UWP) from a TTRPG called Traveller. These can be simple, but Googling around revealed a more complex version (that is tongue-in-cheek but includes the real version) that looks about perfect for something stored in the central archive of Terra: IMTU tc+ t5++(LBB#000016) tp ge-() 3i(+) jt a ls+ Eneri Dinshaa 0609 A588865-B S 323 If this looks like gibberish, you're spot on. And that's the point. The kind of thing that is archived on Terra is going to be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the kind of data footprint that, say, an industrial world could generate over a given period of time. Yet where would more detailed information be found? In that answer you have the structure of the Imperium, which is oft-noted as being feudal and, herein, inherently hierarchical when it comes to data: Terra / Mars. Segmentum Fortress World. < Units of astrographic measure not described> Sector Capital. Subsector Capital. Individual world. For the purposes of, say, Inquisitorial acolytes running around looking for information (ala Dark Heresy 2e---not 1e as that is a terrible system!), where do you go for information. For obvious reasons you're not going to hike your way to Holy Terra (or Mars) to get the high-order information for anything except the most abstract of data investigations looking at patterns over huge swathes of the Imperium on a periodicity of when data is sent back*. No, you're going to go further down the data chain. There are some wonderful implications to this that does a lot of heavy-lifting as to how the Imperium operates in the various background materials. The big decision-makers of the Imperium are dealing with the most abstract data archives that is always going to be outdated (though not due to incompetence) and will rely heavily on "field reports" transmitted over the Astropathic Network. Hmmn. Actually, I'm going to leave it at that as "food for thought". * For those that hark back to the times of Portent / Warseer, can you remember "The Imperial Pony Express"!? ;) * * * As always, DISCUSS.

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