Who is on top? High Lords or Roboute?

[jaxom]

 

 

 

 

Whoever controls the military will ultimately have the most power.

What military? The Astra Militarum? Without help from the fleet your guys are going nowhere. The Fleet? Without the AM your guys have noch chance to hold any ground. The Fleet and the AM? Your guys will probly starve to death without the Muntiorum. At this point you need to have at least 3 high lords working together to even have a chance to use your power. And that leaves the Mechanicum, the Astartes and the Ecclesiarchy as counters.

Pretty sure I said “The military”.

 

And who do you think they would be more likely to follow, someone they were indoctrinated to believe is the son of their god or a rogue High Lord?

I think the issue is that the military of the Imperium is not a monolithic force. It's more feudal in how the individual systems, sectors, and segmentums are organized and respond to threats and crises. The Astra Militarum in one sector may have oaths and contracts of reciprocation with the Imperial Navy's sector fleet going back generations and in another sector they may be at each other's throats.

 

The other issue is that while we can't prescriptively say how anyone may react we can descriptively acknowledge similar situations of the past. Imperial history is full of times when Astartes were on the receiving end of human armies controlled by other Imperium organizations. It didn't matter that they were the Emperor's Angels of Death or genetic pseudo-progeny of the Primarchs. Bucharis and Vandire are the biggest examples of this, but not the only ones.

No military in the world is a monolithic force, so that’s not an argument.

 

You bring up a good point in my favor for Vandire, though, because for a time he did control the military. It wasn’t until later that the military started flipping on him, and then he lost. His final death was when his own personal army turned on him.

 

Guilliman, at this moment, commands the military, because no matter where he goes the majority sees him as a divine son of the emperor. Most of the commanders and people that he will interact with will side with him.

If the HLoTs turn on him, the military personnel will be faced with two choices; turning against a god or siding with the god to fight the corrupt politicians that they know nothing about. That is an easy choice.

 

For all intents and purposes, Guilliman controls the military because the people in the military are trained from birth to worship the emperor and his sons.

 

By the way, “control the military” doesn’t always mean black and white “I’m your commander, do what I say”, it means who will be loyal to who, primarily. No matter where they fall on the feudal scale, he will always be the second they owe their highest loyalty to, the emperor being the first, which means they will pick his word over others.

 

 

Except Vandire didn't control the entire military which was why there was massive internecine conflict even before Thor came onto the scene. All he did was unify the various anti-Vandire factions into a coherent coalition with the strategic goal of taking Terra. The Daughters of the Emperor didn't listen to the Custodes to stand down, despite the Custodes being the Emperor's chosen messengers. It took a personal meeting with the Emperor to break them from Vandire.

 

I couldn't tell with the use of pronouns which "he" was which. Feudalism is representative. A local levy follows their manor-lord who is the incarnation of the feudal vows all the way up to the top. The problem with the system is that the incarnate authority can trump actual authority. It's the Roman Marian Reform problem; a single point of loyalty on incarnate authority creates a single point of failure. It's not about command, it's about time to build loyalty under adverse conditions. A Roman soldier's first loyalty should have been to the Republic, but almost universally it was the generals who actually held it. We see this a lot with the Horus Heresy during the time right before Istvaan. It was all about sussing out loyalty first and then issuing commands to the people (and this was on both sides). 

 

However, an even better example would be the Protestant Reformation and Thirty Years War as it's closer to the religious issues that the Emperor and the Primarch bring to the issue. However, this is also where I'm not comfortable using it as an example because of what it can touch upon with people's personal beliefs. 

[Arkangilos]

Pretty sure I didn’t say “control the entire military” either.

 

It’s not all or nothing.

 

Also, I don’t need to read one novel to understand. It’s been in the lore since forever that the primarchs are venerated. Does ***every single person*** venerate them? No. Did I ever make that claim? No.

 

***Generally speaking*** primarchs are near worshiped as sons of the emperor, and ***generally speaking*** mortals will follow them over their own commanders ***as we have numerous examples of***.

 

***Generally speaking*** Guilliman controls the military, and so has more authority.

 

“ I couldn't tell with the use of pronouns which "he" was which. Feudalism is representative. A local levy follows their manor-lord who is the incarnation of the feudal vows all the way up to the top. The problem with the system is that the incarnate authority can trump actual authority. It's the Roman Marian Reform problem; a single point of loyalty on incarnate authority creates a single point of failure. It's not about command, it's about time to build loyalty under adverse conditions. A Roman soldier's first loyalty should have been to the Republic, but almost universally it was the generals who actually held it.”

 

Yes, exactly. And who do you think will ultimately hold this loyalty? A primarch who has, from the beginning, been taught to be one of the greatest heroes of humanity, who has billions and billions of pilgrims visit him for 10,000 years, or a HLoT?

 

They will ***generally speaking*** always defer to the primarch. To think otherwise is to ignore the power of religion.

 

 

And no, you guys are flat wrong about it being more like the Protestants. If it were they wouldn’t have told us for the last two decades that the Guilliman had billions of pilgrims and the primarchs were the most revered people. You can ignore the fluff, but I will not.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

And no, you guys are flat wrong about it being more like the Protestants. If it were they wouldn’t have told us for the last two decades that the Guilliman had billions of pilgrims and the primarchs were the most revered people. You can ignore the fluff, but I will not.

 

But you're ignoring The Regent's Shadow, which IS part of the fluff. And very recent, pertinent fluff at that.

 

And even so, while "billions and billions" of pilgrims visiting Guilliman over the course of 10,000 years may sound like a lot, in the grand scheme of how many Imperial citizens are kicking around at the time of Guilliman's return, you're talking about one pilgrim out of every several million people. Not exactly a representative sampling there. And even at that, most of those pilgrims were long dead by the time he came back.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Lord Nord

[Arkangilos]

 

 

And no, you guys are flat wrong about it being more like the Protestants. If it were they wouldn’t have told us for the last two decades that the Guilliman had billions of pilgrims and the primarchs were the most revered people. You can ignore the fluff, but I will not.

But you're ignoring The Regent's Shadow, which IS part of the fluff. And very recent, pertinent fluff at that.

 

And even so, while "billions and billions" of pilgrims visiting Guilliman over the course of 10,000 years may sound like a lot, in the grand scheme of how many Imperial citizens are kicking around at the time of Guilliman's return, you're talking about one pilgrim out of every several million people. Not exactly a representative sampling there. And even at that, most of those pilgrims were long dead by the time he came back.

Please provide a quote from the book.

 

Until then I’m going to go with the universal fluff that the primarchs were revered.

 

As for the 1 pilgrim per so many, that’s because interstellar travel is a massive undertaking, not because 1 out of a thousand believe.

[Arkangilos]

I mean let’s not forget that the lore has been for two decades that Guilliman’s Shrine was one of the holiest places of the galaxy for 10,000 years.

 

You don’t get “holiest places of the galaxy” from “like Protestants” or “people didn’t venerate him as a son of their God”.

Edited December 25, 2020 by Arkangilos

[Arkangilos]

Also, even in feudal systems your first oath and loyalty is to God, then King, then Lord.

 

So even in a feudal system, unless someone proved their worth and gained unwavering loyalty (which is not the rule), then you would choose the king over the lord if the lord rebels.

[Azekai]

Also, even in feudal systems your first oath and loyalty is to God, then King, then Lord.

 

So even in a feudal system, unless someone proved their worth and gained unwavering loyalty (which is not the rule), then you would choose the king over the lord if the lord rebels.

Sounds like you seem to think lofty ideals mean something to simple indentured serfs and feudal (or neo-feudal) militia. If your god is invisible and you have never met your king, when the local lord says you are going to war in service of those distant entities, you don’t question it. Philosophy is for people with leisure. Edited December 27, 2020 by Azekai

[Claws and Effect]

A rebellion against Guilliman would only be effective until he took the field himself. 

 

It's well established that a Primarch can instill abject terror in normal humans just through force of personality alone. The awe they feel in a Primarch's presence is very real. They were designed that way because the Primarchs were meant to be generals, and there needed to be zero doubt about who was in charge when one of them showed up. I don't know if Guilliman can modify how much of that awe humans feel in his presence the way Corax could (only because I've never read an account of him doing so), but if he can then any uprising against him could be easily squashed just by him showing up and telling them to knock it off. 

 

The loyal Astartes in general will also side with Guilliman over the High Lords, even if they aren't his gene sons. The Wolves are the only Chapter there is any real question about, and they'd likely side with Guilliman just becuase they don't particularly like the High Lords in the first place. The Templars are another that might have reservations, but since they actually believe in the Emperor's divinity they'd side with his son unless they had some hard evidence that suggests they shouldn't. 

 

Imperial Guard commanders would not be willing to pit their forces against the entirety of the Astartes presenting a united front against them. Not when a single squad of Marines sent to a front can change the tide of a battle they were losing. That's a fight they won't win and they are very well aware of it. 

 

The Sororitas would side with the Emperor's son over the High Lords for the same reason the Black Templars would. He's a demigod to them and the closest thing to their god in the flesh that they have ever seen. They'd need a LOT of evidence suggesting that Guilliman had turned to Chaos before they'd even think about siding against him. 

 

Now, I'm not a fan of Guilliman. I think he's an arrogant jerkwad. But I freely admit he is the Primarch best suited to dealing with political intrigue and potential coup attempts. He has set things up so as to make it nearly impossible for any coup attempt by the High Lords or anyone else to gain enough traction to be more than a minor speedbump. 

 

The only thing that would change the situation he has set up is one of his brothers reappearing and deciding that he doesn't like how Guilliman is doing things. Then you have 2 demigods to choose from and it gets a lot murkier regarding where loyalties will fall. 

[Arkangilos]

 

Also, even in feudal systems your first oath and loyalty is to God, then King, then Lord.

 

So even in a feudal system, unless someone proved their worth and gained unwavering loyalty (which is not the rule), then you would choose the king over the lord if the lord rebels.

Sounds like you seem to think lofty ideals mean something to simple indentured serfs and feudal (or neo-feudal) militia. If your god is invisible and you have never met your king, when the local lord says you are going to war in service of those distant entities, you don’t question it. Philosophy is for people with leisure.

This is more akin to the second coming of Christ, and no devout peasant would have chosen Lord John over Christ.

 

This isn’t about philosophy, this is about oaths and loyalty, which were very much engrained into their minds.

 

Also, what do you think my argument is? It has nothing to do with lofty ideals.

 

My argument is which one would command the military, and that would be Guilliman. That means he would be on top. He commands it because he is practically worshiped, they are not.

Edited December 28, 2020 by Arkangilos