IA: Sons of Pyron v6.0

[Ace Debonair]

I personally find flying skulls and lobotomised, zombie children zipping about on implanted wings creepy, but they're ten a penny in 40k! :P

 

Darkchild

Hey! Some of my best friends are flying skulls! :lol:

 

:(

...Yeah, I see your point, actually. :lol:

[NightrawenII]

I personally find flying skulls and lobotomised, zombie children zipping about on implanted wings creepy, but they're ten a penny in 40k! :lol:

 

Darkchild

Hey! Some of my best friends are flying skulls! :whistling:

 

:D

...Yeah, I see your point, actually. :lol:

*cough* Planecape: Torment *cough* ;) :P

[Ecritter]

Got a few questions I need clarification on:

 

* How often do most chapters recruit?

* How many aspirants would a chapter having going through the process at one time?

* Would it be overly cruel to have the winners of the Games of Fire to "Join the Sons' Crusade" as part of their prize (really turned into servitors once the ships have left the planet)?

 

Just thoughts I'm working on at the moment.

[Arkangilos]

Some only recruit once a generation, some recruit once a year, some continuesly recruit.

They would probably have as many aspirants as they can get (but the selection process usually only allows no more than 150 at any time to survive the training regime). Also, depends on how you recruit. If it was blood games, I would say about 150 will eventually move on to become aspirants.

[Ecritter]

Well raising recruits from birth, I really don't see us having 1000 kids running around the fleet at any given time.

[Darkchild130]

Calculate roughly how many marines you will lose each year, factor in typical numbers for recruit death/wastage.

Factor in that your recruits are literally trained from birth (meaning you will have considerably more than other chapters that recruit 12 year olds).

you will need a certain amount of each age from 0-18 years to get your steady flow of reinforcements into the ranks, so it is quite feasible that you may have hundreds and hundreds of children running about at any one time.

 

Darkchild

[NightrawenII]

Got a few questions I need clarification on:

 

* How often do most chapters recruit?

* How many aspirants would a chapter having going through the process at one time?

* Would it be overly cruel to have the winners of the Games of Fire to "Join the Sons' Crusade" as part of their prize (really turned into servitors once the ships have left the planet)?

 

Just thoughts I'm working on at the moment.

The contests are held once every generation at Angel's Fall, the forbidding cliff where Sanguinius was first found, and are announced by 'great flying chariots' (the Thunderhawks of Veteran Blood Angels).

~

Once the fifty or so victors have been separated from the unsuccessful aspirants, they will be taken up in the Thunderhawks to fulfil the next stage of their trials.

~

The aspirants are taken to the Great Chapel of the Blood Angels, where they observe a vigil for three days and three nights without rest. Some fall asleep despite their best efforts, and are taken away; their fate is unrecorded.

~ Index Astartes, Blood Angels

 

The Stormseers of the White Scars venture down into the steppes every ten summers to observe the tribes and their battles, picking the best and bravest warriors and returning them to Quan Zhou to become Space Marines.

~ Index Astartes, White Scars

 

Each year, only a handful of young men get as far as this rite, and only one or two of these are likely to survive it, ensuring only the aspirants are accepted into the chapter.

~ Index Astartes, Crimson Fists

 

The Chapter Keeps recruit a few individual each year who may be suitable to become Space Marines. Those found acceptable by the Chapter Keeps are given the initial implants that will eventually change the Neophytes intoo fully-fledged Space Marines. When roughly two dozen recruits are ready for additional bio-engineering and the sort of their training, they are transported to one of the Crusade fleets.

~ Index Astartes, Black Templars

 

Well raising recruits from birth, I really don't see us having 1000 kids running around the fleet at any given time.

Considering the crew of these ships numbers in thousands, I don't think this is unplausible.

Edited March 24, 2011 by NightrawenII

[Ace Debonair]

*cough* Planecape: Torment *cough* ;) :P

Never heard of it. :huh:

 

I was referring to servo-skulls, although you probably know that already. :D

I'd include some lame joke about them being better than CCTV at watching for intruders to my secret caves, but that'd be a lame joke. :lol:

 

As far as recruiting goes, I'd think your chapter would have to leave it a few years at a time, just to avoid slowly bleeding the planet dry of people.

[Arkangilos]

Considering the crew of these ships numbers in thousands, I don't think this is unplausible.

 

If the SM strike cruiser is the size of an Imperial Cruiser (it's equivalent), then it can have over 50,000 crew members. If the Battlebarge is as big as a Battleship, it can have over 100,000 crew members. At least, this is the information that is given in the black library books about the Imperial Navy, as well as the Rogue Trader RPG

 

However, since they are only the "equivalent" of those, that may not hold true. All that it really says is that a strike cruiser can transport 1 full company of marines, and a battlebarge can drop 3 at a time. So they are obviously smaller.

[Ecritter]

I know a Battlebarge is 8+ miles long, and a Strike Cruiser somewhere around 4 or 5 miles long. Its not the size of the ship I was questioning.

 

And we're not really taking recruits from the planet (unless we turn the winners into Servitors), so there is no drain on the native populations.

Edited March 25, 2011 by Ecritter

[NightrawenII]

*cough* Planecape: Torment *cough* ;) :P

Never heard of it. :ph34r:

Shame upon thou, thine family and thine hamster.... ;)

 

If the SM strike cruiser is the size of an Imperial Cruiser (it's equivalent), then it can have over 50,000 crew members. If the Battlebarge is as big as a Battleship, it can have over 100,000 crew members. At least, this is the information that is given in the black library books about the Imperial Navy, as well as the Rogue Trader RPG

*sigh*

 

12k crew on 8k long spaceship of doom is more of skeletal crew.

Where you get 12k crew on 8km ship? :)

 

Imperial Cruisers are ~3km

Battleships ~5km

Light cruisers ~2000-2500metres

escorts 750-1200metres

 

Therefore Lunar is, according to BFG, 3km long at best with 16.000 crew.

 

My two pennyworth on crew sizes was around 1500-2000 per damage point for Imperial and Chaos capital ships (adjust down a bit for Eldar and up a bit for Orks), but only around 2-500 total for escorts. Space Marine ships, as had been mooted, I would imagine to benefit from a lot of automated systems and wired in servitors to reduce their crew requirements to a minimum and increase their state of readiness in comparison with Navy ships. I would imagine that most Imperial and Chaos capital ships could find transport capacity for troops equal to about 1/3 to 1/2 their crew compliment. Tanks, artillery, Titans etc would need specialist transports to carry in any significant numbers.

Unlike the vessels of the Imperial Navy, a Space Marine ship has a relatively small crew. A Space Marine is far too valuable to waste in manning a gun or watching a surveyor screen, and so only the officers aboard a vessel are likely to be Space Marines, as well as the few Techmarines who oversee the engines and perform other mechanical duties. Almost all the ship

Edited March 25, 2011 by NightrawenII

[Ecritter]

v4.4 up for review.

 

Included are most of the changes suggested by Ace, including a very .... very disturbing sidebar. I blame it all on him. ;)

 

Oh, and the Space Marines may not care if the girls are beautiful or not. I was just stating it as a side effect. Since the IA wasn't written by Space Marines :P

Edited March 25, 2011 by Ecritter

[platypuscorps]

Disturbing is an understatement ;) .

I personally like the Daughters idea, and on the (probably closed) topic of "Lay with the New Goddesses", Based on the comment, "Harvest their genetic material", it seems more like they cut the poor guys' balls out, take any availible semen, and artificially impregnate the daughters.

Yeah, I'm a sick person.

[Ecritter]

Disturbing is an understatement :) .

I personally like the Daughters idea, and on the (probably closed) topic of "Lay with the New Goddesses", Based on the comment, "Harvest their genetic material", it seems more like they cut the poor guys' balls out, take any availible semen, and artificially impregnate the daughters.

Yeah, I'm a sick person.

 

Genetic material can be taken from any cell :)

 

This has actually grown on me. I prefer it now, since the Daughters no longer have to be soiled by copulating with the inferior.

Edited March 28, 2011 by Ecritter

[platypuscorps]

something like that ;) . But Hey! I've influenced somebody! Hows THAT for a Middle Schooler!?!?

Anyways yeah, It is also probably more in line with the callous(or unfeeling, rather) nature of all Astartes.

[Ace Debonair]

Included are most of the changes suggested by Ace, including a very .... very disturbing sidebar. I blame it all on him. :cuss

See, the combat doctrine looks better already. :huh:

 

The sidebar, while good and certainly suitably grimdark, wasn't quite what I meant to suggest.

 

What I was thinking was more along the lines of Chaplain Henry musing over the last few batches of recruits, possibly pondering something to indicate that incidents like poor old Alken aren't isolated cases - that things of this nature have been occuring more and more, to the Sons' obvious distaste and perhaps even their concern. (Not that they'd let it show, naturally.) It's obvious that they simply haven't been pushing the recruits hard enough lately. That'll be it, sure enough. Everything will be perfect again soon.

 

You know, something hinting that maybe there is some unknown thing wrong with the process, and the Sons stubbornly refusing to accept that as even a possibility.

 

But then, I see a lot of parallels between these guys and my Red Lords, and that 'we can't be wrong EVER' attitude would only make them more similar, so maybe you should ignore that.

The sidebar you've got now is pretty good, in my estimation.

[Ecritter]

Why thank you. I feel it goes well with both cultures I'm working around ... well one more then the other.

 

I really can't see a Sons Chaplain, making light of the shortcomings of any of the recruits.

 

Just think, if we can easily kill our own young ... what are we gonna do to the Orks, Tau, etc?

 

EDIT:

 

Really sad the Red Lords are in the Galactic North as we are in the South. Would be nice to purge together from time to time.

Edited March 29, 2011 by Ecritter

[Ace Debonair]

Why thank you. I feel it goes well with both cultures I'm working around ... well one more then the other.

 

I really can't see a Sons Chaplain, making light of the shortcomings of any of the recruits.

 

Just think, if we can easily kill our own young ... what are we gonna do to the Orks, Tau, etc?

 

Well, take what I said, and subtract the comic vibe. :D

 

Not so much making light of the situation as refusing to even contemplate the idea that the SOP's recruitment plan is less than perfect. The only other explanation is that they've clearly not been pushing the recruits hard enough, or perhaps the dataslate is broken.

 

Really sad the Red Lords are in the Galactic North as we are in the South. Would be nice to purge together from time to time.

 

In the 41st millenium, Impurities are everywhere.

That gives the Red Lords free reign for long-distance crusades to better the Imperium in my book. :D

[platypuscorps]

And the Chaotic Nature of the warp means that it can crap you out just about anywhere.

I garuntee that many a strike cruiser has entered the warp, bound for a destination. Instead, they end up in another segmentum, time period, or even galaxy.

So yeah, :P it is very hectic.

[Ecritter]

Ace, after reviewing the Red Lords again ... I find them to be kindred spirits with the Sons. Seems great minds (or insane ones) think alike. :)

[Ecritter]

Got a few questions.

 

- Does the overall theme come through on the IA?

- Are there any glaring problems with the IA?

- Is anything missing from the IA?

 

Be honest, please.

[NightrawenII]

I still don't like the idea of the 5 companies.

 

The Belief section needs some tweaking - How they perceive the normal humans or what is their relationship with the rest of Imperium.

 

The Combat Doctrine section is moot. Try something more than "Sons like fire weapons and hate orks and that's it." - It looks like you don't know what to write here.

Picture the Sons in battle and describe it here.

 

+++++

To be honest Ecritter, you are struggling with the same problem like Matt Ward in his codexes. You are telling us what they do and how they do the things, but you can't be bothered to explain and justify these things.

 

For example the Eugenics program, okey Heronus had this novel idea, but the way you are telling it us is like he pulled the idea out of thin air and nothing else. IF he was Iron Hands gene-seed or from Chapter actually obsessed with genetic purity - which could also somewhat justify the use of Justicars and not some already estabilished UM successor - I could understand his intentions, but this way is the explanation too artificial.

 

The separation of companies, the cleansing fire and the new homeworlds are another examples.

[Ecritter]

Thanks for the reply. You've given me alot to think about.

 

As for the Companies, I feel I've set a good ground work for the reason for the split. I do plan on adding in a bit telling how each Company does still operate along Codex lines. Each Company is basically set up as a mini-Chapter. I'll be working to better describe them.

 

I'll get to work on an update sometime this week.

[NightrawenII]

As for the Companies, I feel I've set a good ground work for the reason for the split. I do plan on adding in a bit telling how each Company does still operate along Codex lines. Each Company is basically set up as a mini-Chapter. I'll be working to better describe them.

That's what I don't like.

Sea is composed of H2O molecules, but these molecules in themselves don't make a sea - so to speak.

[Arkangilos]

I love it.

 

I do have to say though, it does get a little repetitive with the "using flames to kill all taint" thing. I think it is said too often in the same section.

 

Good job! ;)