LOC - The Suzerainty

[Doctor Perils]

I've been trying to consolidate the answers - atm, it looks like the triumvirate is definitely superior to any council there may be, but councils have been discussed - these however would most likely be augmented humans (ie astartes and potentially techpriests/selenar genecultists)

 

So potentially something *similar* to the high lords, but not in the same form

[ShadowSwordmaster]

I've been trying to consolidate the answers - atm, it looks like the triumvirate is definitely superior to any council there may be, but councils have been discussed - these however would most likely be augmented humans (ie astartes and potentially techpriests/selenar genecultists)

 

So potentially something *similar* to the high lords, but not in the same form

Going with the Triumvirate seems good to me.

[simison]

I've been trying to consolidate the answers - atm, it looks like the triumvirate is definitely superior to any council there may be, but councils have been discussed - these however would most likely be augmented humans (ie astartes and potentially techpriests/selenar genecultists)

 

So potentially something *similar* to the high lords, but not in the same form

 

Would the Council have several different layers, with the less human one is the higher one goes?

[ShadowSwordmaster]

It would fit into the transhuman feel in the Suzerainty. 

[Doctor Perils]

Would the Council have several different layers, with the less human one is the higher one goes?

I don't think the difference should be that immediate - I'd see Astartes as "more human" than techpriests (if such still exist in the Suzerainty), but they should be further up the social ladder

[Kelborn]

I can somehow see a triumvirate ruling over a "senate" of Astartes or mortal rulers being a thing.

 

Somehwat more democratic than what we got with the Imperium. The triumvirate being the chief of state, the last to decide, while the Senate represents the entirety of the Suzerainty, including Mechanicum, mortals, Astartes, etc. with each one being treated equally.

 

As it's our more "sophisticated" faction, I think a triumvirate would be an interim solution until they have established their realm.

[Doctor Perils]

Considering Strela and the Warbringers already have some form of Senate (the Sejm) that would definitely be a possibility

[simison]

I'm liking the irony that is developing. The Suzerainty on paper would look much more free than the Imperium. Yet, since transhumanism is enshrined as a critical aspect for any kind of political office, the average mortal citizen is actually at a greater disadvantage compare to the Imperium where they do better at maintaining the importance of simple humanity. 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

Agreed. 

[Doctor Perils]

WHO IS INVOLVED?

- The IX, XVII and XVIII Legions

- splinter forces (eg IV legion "Forge Masters", potentially a XX legion tribe and so ob)

 

- Some Forge Worlds (Lucius being the most prominent)

- some Knight Worlds, along with associated forces

are "convinced" to join up (whether through real conviction or force of arms would depend on the magoses and high kings in question)

 

- Some surviging elements of the Selenar Genecults may be saved there too

 

 

WHY

- The Suzerainty is founded shortly after the Blood Crusade

- The Suzerain Primarchs have now had the chance to meet Raktra as a Daemon Primarch and are outright horrified by Icarion's decision to fully enlist the powers of Chaos

- However, by this stage of the war, the Imperium have openly invited Xenos to join the Imperium, and there are undoubtedly signs of the new, proto-Imperial Creed overcoming the former Imperial Truth

- This is a dealbreaker for defecting back to the Imperium, and Kozja is the one who suggests creating their own empire, gambling that Icarion's cause is doomed but will be threatening enough to force some kind of deal from the Warmaster.

 

- They attempt to form an empire "by astartes, for astartes", as opposed to the (early) Imperium's "by astartes, for humanity". Just like the Imperium, this ideal should later form into a dystopia, but should have a different form (think elements of biopunk and cyberpunk)

 

 

ANTAGONISTS

- the Grave Stalkers would make for a good antagonist to the Suzerainty in their early years. On K'awil's death the Grave Stalkers effectively splinter, but pretty much all of them would have a strong hatred for the three Suzerainty Legions and given their proximity I suspect there would be a lot of anger being vented in that direction. Most of it would be smaller scale things, but constant harassing of supply lines and disappearances of important personages would likely drain resources that would otherwise go into stabilising the budding Suzerainty. At the other extreme, there would be some groups with access to large numbers of Reapers that can be used as suicide troops, throwing them at bigger things like critical dockyards or going after allied Fabricator Generals on their Forges (Perhaps some might even be sent after the Suzerainty Primarchs).

( At the moment I haven't got much planned for the 15th post K'awil's death, so I think having them go this route gives them something to do even if, from Icarion's point of view, they are no longer as useful and potentially not controllable anymore having broken up into smaller warbands. Later on (after the Insurrection) I intend for Ajaway to reforge them somewhat as he will have control of Hotna Kintz'am (The GS gloriana), which contains the remnants of the people of Kabyieb (and best hope for the future of the legion).)

 

 

- After taking out K'awil and crippling the Grave Stalkers they carve out a territory north of Strela, East of Saepio, and West of Jin. I believe a list of targets has already been suggested elsewhere. After this mad dash grab for territory, they are forced to defend against a very irate Icarion who unleashes Raktra and the Berserkers, in addition to more 'normal' Traitors.

 

 

- Another early threat to the integrity of the Suzerainty are Dark Mechanicum elements - in particular the Cognis Heretica.

The Steel Legion are going to be throwing the Cognis out of the Coronid Depths and Cyclops cluster during the initial break away. The Cognis launching a campaign specifically against Suzerainty Forge Worlds as revenge/opportunistic tech raids/ a display of power could cripple them enough to make them far more pliable when the Suzerainty Primarchs are trying to phase out the Cult of the Machine God, which otherwise may prove somewhat volatile to eradicate.

Aside from the Cognis, with techpriests feelig free to experiment to their hearts content, there could also be some calamities resulting from straying outside the sensible boundaries where tech is concerned - whether that would be Daemonic stuff or Abominable Intelligence is up for debate.

 

 

- I'd also like to see some kind of Imperial attack, perhaps from the Iron Bears?

 

 

- At this time, the Godslayers are corrupted and they are sent to break the Suzerainty in its infancy, but the alliance with the Imperium happens first.

 

ORGANISATION

- A consensus seems to have formed around a centralised government around the triumvirate of Primarchs, at least for the period of the Insurrection and the Scouring.

- Under them, there could be a kind of council of important figures, who are meant to execute the orders of the Primarchs - these would most likely be exclusively augmented humans (astartes, techpriests and potentially genecult matriarchs)

 

 

- I think some of the Fellowships could be formed by the Warbringers (and potentially the other legions, eg the "secret police" could be formed by the Steel Legion and the fortifications specialists could be formed by the Warriors of Peace) while they are still part of the insurrectionist forces - when the Suzerainty seceeds, these would then grow into inter-legion entities, maybe even separate organisations in and of themselves that any citizen of the Suzerainity can become a part of if they can match the demanding criteria.

 

 

DIFFERENCES WITH IMPERIUM

- Culturally, the Suzerainty cling to the Imperial Truth, and are not afraid of progress. However, they remain afraid of Abominable Intelligence.

 

- Technologically I seem to recall members having suggested much more experimentation, ie not sticking to STCs. I don't think however that all standardisation should be chucked out of the window entirely.

 

- I'm also not sure all technology the Imperium has access to should automatically find its way into the Suzerainty - Perhaps plasma? TBD

 

- It has become clear we should keep anti-grav technology open to the Suzerainty:

"it seems bizarre to me that the technologically-progressive Suzerainty would lack such tech while the backwards, stagnant Imperium could still produce it. Make no mistake, I'm not saying the Suzies are the only ones with it, I could easily see the IBs and Mechanicum still managing to produce such machines in limited numbers, whereas less-technically inclined groups like the WoL would only have a limited supply of such vehicles, like with the Dark Angels and Sammael's Jetbike Corvex, with each one being an immensely precious and nigh irreplaceable relic."

 

- Repeating from earlier, I picture the Suzerainty as the Soulless Technocracy compared to the Regressive Theocracy of the Imperium. The Suzerainty will certainly have the advantage of technology comapred to the Imperium (perhaps their base infantry weapon is the volkite?), but they suffer from a heavy emphasis on materialism which seems to be a gateway to (chaotic) corruption in the 40k universe. An absence of priests/chaplains may be replaced by discipline officers and a thought police.

 

In war, this means the Suzerainty has a leg-up on the Imperium when dealing with physical threats, but Chaos can and regularly does trounce them.

 

 

SUBFACTIONS

- in the same way as the Imperial Creed is forbidden, imo the Omnissian Creed should be forbidden - after all, in a more science based society, engineers won't retain belief in the machine spirit and by extension belief in a god of machines.

Considering how it sounds like Dark Mechanicum elements are going to play a prominent role in opposing the Suzerainty in its early existence, it looks like there would be ample justification for a crackdown on the Cult Mechanicum. Still, I could imagine the Suzies having to root out the occasional underground Omnissian Cult cropping up.

Alternatively :

Given the Steel Legion/Nomus' less than stellar opinion of the Mechanicum, I can see the Mechanicum slowly being bled out over time and are replaced to something much more palatable to the Suzerainty.

 

- I'm not sure if the Suzerainty is involved with the Nightguard or to what degree they are if so, although I could see the Suzies possibly producing some of the NG's more advanced anti-psyker/daemon equipment, perhaps as part of the Treaty between them and the Imperials.

 

- I would think that some groups from the Imperium might try and emigrate to the Suzerainty, but stuff like the Genecults will be put down. Need to think about this more.

 

 

COMMUNICATION AND TRAVEL

- Regarding the Collective, I think a small clarification is needed, the Collective is the SL's specific network, exclusive to their use and is the most advanced of it's kind. The general purpose networks that the SL create across Suzerain space after it's establishment are separate from it (although SL forces and Suzerain Techmarines/priests can access and make use of it), and can be accessed by personal with appropriate clearance.

- Back to your question, it's a bit of a yes and no, I imagine Astropaths are still required for communications between star systems, but in-system comms are handled by the local system Network and are faster, more reliable and generally better quality than astropathic messages in that regard thanks to the infrastructure set in place by the SL.

[Personal caveat: I think the "skynets" shouldn't be faster for intra-system communication, but should be far more *reliable* as long as the infrastructure is intact - in practice this doesn't change all that much in general, but could be at the root of an interesting situation if we want]

 

- I just don't see how the Suzerainty can exist without these two classes of psykers [Astropaths and Navigators]

Granted, the idea of the Suzerainty slowly creating their own gene-bred versions, freed from the traditionalism of the Imperium's, is an interesting idea.

 

 

 

WRT the Navigators and interstellar travel in the Suzerainty, we still have wildly divergent views:

 

A: a new class of inferior navigators is bred to replace the Navis Nobilite who have not joined the Suzerainty

[EDIT from Kelborn: I can imagine some bred in the gene labs, resulting in further augmentation/ mutations. Worst Case: Dune Navigators, best Case: a Navigator with an enganced third View to compensate their lesser heritage]

 

B: the Suzerainity are able to easily recruit a number of the insurrectionists' Navis, as well as taking their fleets' own with them.

(+ including the nu-navigators)

 

C: I would say that the Navigator Houses would try to step up a presence in the Suzerainty and would be one of the many factions that the they have to deal with given their connections to the Imperium.

 

D: The Genecults and the Navigators would be good internal threats that the Suzerainty would have to deal with.

 

E: an additional possibility bought up on Discord was fiddling with the Dark Glass station (personally am not in favour of this one as it's too close to the Imperial version and has too much potential of being counter-canon, as there is so little information on it atm)

[Uberlord Gendo]

Given we've got the China legion in the Suzerains, maybe a massive bureaucracy with merit based civil service exams, whose upper echelons are either equal to the senate or in the senate?

[simison]

Given we've got the China legion in the Suzerains, maybe a massive bureaucracy with merit based civil service exams, whose upper echelons are either equal to the senate or in the senate?

 

Hm. There's merit to this idea.

[Uberlord Gendo]

Looking over this, I've a few ideas:

I think the superior technology of the Suzerainty will be compensated for by their small size.  I think they stand to profit by keeping relations with the Imperium relatively friendly since the Imperium provides a nice speed bump to the various perils of the galaxy.  I also don't really see the Suzerains wanting to expand too much.  They seem like the "get it working on the small scale and then roll it out" kind of people and since the Imperium can be dealt with via subterfuge over the span of long centuries, there's no sense in rushing it and provoking them too much.  Every few centuries there's probably a crisis that gets diffused, once every thousand years an actual war, but if the Suzerains know they can't handle Chaos, there's no sense in taking out the group of people who somehow do manage to take out chaos.

Instead, I imagine they might work kind of like how the Tau do and entice Imperial worlds to join them or send them stuff by giving them a better deal than the Imperium.  The Imperium is usually too strained to notice and respond, but every so often it gets them into trouble.  At the same time, there are worlds lying ready to join the Suzerains when they call.  Someday...

 

I imagine the Genecult is definitely involved.  I imagine over time the Null gene and perhaps some emotional suppressants end up deadening the proletariat by M35.  Perhaps they feel that they can stifle the Warp and are waiting for that to be complete, but as we approach M41, the leadership is getting tired of it and wants to overthrow the Imperium.  The awakening of the Necrons can also be a major stimulus, perhaps with a debate ongoing as to whether to cooperate with some of these new metal men. (This happening at the same time as debates over stagnation, which probably start as early as M38)

[Doctor Perils]

Yeah, the idea of the Suzerainty remaining rather contained in a smal region would probably be their best bet - stabilise and improve the worlds they already have and do their best to not annoy the Imperial juggernaut. Worlds should probably not outright join the Suzerainty, but they could perhaps pay lipservice to the Imperium while in reality paying some service to the Suzerainty and getting better tech in return. Individuals would no doubt still defect though

 

The pariah gene should not be mastered, despite the General's genius - there may be some level of progress in using and improving it however