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Questions about the great crusade.


Koriel

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As for Unification, 1000 years to conquer a planet as one man. A powerful one, but still just one man. No resources, no armies, no nothing. And he faced not just a bunch of Mad Max-esqe raiders covering the planet, but hundreds of thousands of powerful nations, tek-tribes, war clans, psyker covens, many of them armed with their own Techno-barbarians similar to the Thunder Warriors themselves, and far more dangerous weapons and war machines besides.

 

1000 years is damn generous, to be honest, for a warlord-to-be-Emperor who started his war with only the shirt on his back.

The swiftest 'conquests' the Emperor really made were the Union of Mars and Terra, and it sounds like most of the Saturnine fleets bent their knee. Beyond that, the armies of Unification had to fight every step of the way.

 

Venus. Luna. Each of Jupiter's moons. The entire Asteroid Belt! Holy crap, can you imagine how long that took? 

 

The Emperor was more thorough with the Sol system than possibly any other warzone of the Great Crusade, for obvious reasons.

Think what's being glossed over as well is the men he had fighting for him. By M30, Terra is an irradiated wreck without oceans and whilst there are plenty of habitable areas, it's not like a comparable map of the world we know today. So, for initially the Thunder Warriors and the Legions that come after, there isn't a massive recruitment base available. The Thunder Warriors were rough and ready and even though they were the superior fighting force on Terra at that time, the Emperor didn't do a whirlwind tour of the globe killing every pretender to his Throne. He plotted, he made pacts and alliances and where necessary, crushed his rivals such as Narthan Dume.

 

As for the Legions, he had to think on his feet after the incident with the Primarchs and then push forward, he needed pre teen males don't forget, so it would take years for the original Astartes to be matured before even thinking about combat readiness. That's why there was originally the I Legion. It's not like he had the luxury of having millions of neophytes just waiting for their time to come around. 

 

In fact part of his brilliance during the Unification of Terra and the reconquest of Sol is not so much taking back territory he's going to need but to open recruiting pools for the Legions, much in the same way he allowed the warlords of Albia to live and have power in post unification Terra provided they offered up their sons to the III Legion

There's also a tidbit in Book 1 that mentions that during the Unification Wars, the Emperor began repairing the human genome of the Terrans, because of the tens of thousands of years of nuclear war.

 

Not exactly a small project, lol.

It would take only a few generations to fix the human genome. Because it's not likely to be touched up, the definition of failing will remain obscure. Failing in cognitive ability? That happens and can self correct in 60-70 years. Failing to adapt evolutionarily? Plausible, since incessant warfare only breeds survival and not fitness. Failing to maintain current evolved faculties like abstraction and communication? That would take a lot longer than 27,000 years given how long it took to develop it.

 

I think the most plausible explanation is that to be a space marine you need some genetic quirk humans haven't developed in our time and the Emperor had to stabilize that in order to proceed. Maybe this unknown trait is what keeps them from the tumors and nervous system failure or the Thunder Warriors.

A few generations can still be anywhere from 100 years to 500 years depending on your definition of a "few". After all, a generation is roughly 40years with anyone born in that period being apart of the same generation. That's why I get to be stuck with SWAGYOLO2014Beliebers. -_-

We're also talking about a universe that has real, no kidding, Total Recall-esqe mutants. 

 

"Repairing the human genome" takes on a whole new meaning, in that case.  :P

 

Plus, the Emps had to do all of this during a time of war, while nukes are still flying about the planet. Fun.

All this talk about the Dark Angels existing alone at first, does that mean that they were the ones to do the cleansing against the thunder warriors? Because that would be a hell of an exemplary battle page in their entry. And How much overlap is there between Thunder Warriors and the Legions?

All this talk about the Dark Angels existing alone at first, does that mean that they were the ones to do the cleansing against the thunder warriors? Because that would be a hell of an exemplary battle page in their entry. And How much overlap is there between Thunder Warriors and the Legions?

Very little overlap, from what I understand. 

 

And I Legion against the combined might of the entire Thunder Warrior contingent? Holy schnikes, that would be worthy of a FW book all on it's own!

 

... not to mention being a very nice theme for an army. I thank you both. It appears I'll be doing a classic legion before my mechanicum.  

 

The First Legion had arsenals containing devices unknown to all the other Legions. The Dark Angels had been the first created, and their history predated all other institutions of the Legiones Astartes. They were, in many regards, the prototype. It was said that during the latter years of the Unification War and the first years of the Great Crusade, before the other Legions had been constructed, the Dark Angels had known and done things that no other Legion was privy to. They had built their strengths and identity in that era, in isolation.

 

That identity had needed to be complete. When there was only one Legion, that Legion had been obliged to contain all specialisms. Guilliman knew that the six hosts or ‘wings’ of the Dark Angels represented specialisms of every school, at subtle variance to the standard order of the Principia Bellicosa.

 

Guilliman had also heard tell of secret orders and mysterious hierarchies within the ranks of the Dark Angels; hierarchies of knowledge, trust and authority invisible to outsiders. It explained some of their curious insignia, which sometimes bore no relation to rank or company structure.

 

-- Unremembered Empire, Dan Abnett

I'd forgotten about it too until Marshal2Crusaders and yourself reminded me of it.

 

I wound up lacking motivation with my "robot marines", hence the broken oath in my signature. I wanted to do Dark Angels but I let myself get put off by the lack of FW doing them right now.

 

Now, doing some in a "really-first" legion style is a great way to get started and I can incorporate them later on with FW goodies.

 

Thanks again.

One thing i've pondered at for a couple of months, what if all astartes are distant descendants of the emperor?

 

We know he had children, plus we got the Old sensei story.

 

What if When he tampered with the genome of the terrans he added more of him into the population, and When the explorator fleets carried colonists to different planets of the segmentums they multiplied the possibilities for further recruits in the future.

A few generations can still be anywhere from 100 years to 500 years depending on your definition of a "few". After all, a generation is roughly 40years with anyone born in that period being apart of the same generation. That's why I get to be stuck with SWAGYOLO2014Beliebers. -_-

Your generation was why we shot off thousands of years of nuclear war. :P

 

 

Very little overlap, from what I understand. 

 

And I Legion against the combined might of the entire Thunder Warrior contingent? Holy schnikes, that would be worthy of a FW book all on it's own!

*rubs hands together excitedly*

 

All this talk about the Dark Angels existing alone at first, does that mean that they were the ones to do the cleansing against the thunder warriors? Because that would be a hell of an exemplary battle page in their entry. And How much overlap is there between Thunder Warriors and the Legions?

*palms sweat furiously, rends cream colored robe with crazy eyes*

 

 

 

All this talk about the Dark Angels existing alone at first, does that mean that they were the ones to do the cleansing against the thunder warriors? Because that would be a hell of an exemplary battle page in their entry. And How much overlap is there between Thunder Warriors and the Legions?

 

Very little overlap, from what I understand. 

 

And I Legion against the combined might of the entire Thunder Warrior contingent? Holy schnikes, that would be worthy of a FW book all on it's own!

 

 

... not to mention being a very nice theme for an army. I thank you both. It appears I'll be doing a classic legion before my mechanicum.  

 

The First Legion had arsenals containing devices unknown to all the other Legions. The Dark Angels had been the first created, and their history predated all other institutions of the Legiones Astartes. They were, in many regards, the prototype. It was said that during the latter years of the Unification War and the first years of the Great Crusade, before the other Legions had been constructed, the Dark Angels had known and done things that no other Legion was privy to. They had built their strengths and identity in that era, in isolation.

 

That identity had needed to be complete. When there was only one Legion, that Legion had been obliged to contain all specialisms. Guilliman knew that the six hosts or ‘wings’ of the Dark Angels represented specialisms of every school, at subtle variance to the standard order of the Principia Bellicosa.

 

Guilliman had also heard tell of secret orders and mysterious hierarchies within the ranks of the Dark Angels; hierarchies of knowledge, trust and authority invisible to outsiders. It explained some of their curious insignia, which sometimes bore no relation to rank or company structure.

 

-- Unremembered Empire, Dan Abnett

 

 

 

Yeah I had made a thread a while back speculating that the Emps used the first legion to obliterate the Thunder Warriors into extinction which lead to their secretive and distancing behavior.

A few generations can still be anywhere from 100 years to 500 years depending on your definition of a "few". After all, a generation is roughly 40years with anyone born in that period being apart of the same generation. That's why I get to be stuck with SWAGYOLO2014Beliebers. -_-

I feels you brother,

Major bummer that the old man didn't do his job just a month earlier as I'd be gen X rather than this yolo crap.

 

 

On the subject of timeline my biggest pitfall is that the resources within the 31st millenium after conquering Sol is providing fleets materials and man power, I get each planet as it's taken has tithes to pay etc etc but the rate mankind takes resources it doesn't seem feesable that 200 years to take planet after planet (that's populated) is feesable I'd rather say 200 years for sol and 1000 for the GC

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