Anyone feel the Great Crusade timeline should be retconned?

[b1soul]

My understanding is that by the end of the Great Crusade (starting with the conquest of Luna and ending on the eve of Isstvan III), the Imperium had already reached roughly a size of one million worlds...meaning it took only two centuries to conquer that very large number of worlds.

 

This comes down to an average of thirteen to fourteen worlds conquered per day over a two century period (along with recovering all twenty primarchs). I guess not totally impossible, but still a highly accelerated pace. In contrast, the Unification Wars just on Terra seem to have lasted roughly a millennium.

 

There is precedent for boosting key numbers to deepen the setting: the Astartes legions were retconned from (roughly) ten thousand to a hundred thousand warriors per legion. I think it's time the Great Crusade timeline was retconned, which would also expand the potential of the early Great Crusade to function as a separate and rather unique setting.

 

Nothing as extreme as multiplying by ten, but I think the Great Crusade timeline could be multiplied by roughly two, so that the Crusade lasted more than four centuries: let's say 450 years...and toward the end, you'd have some rather old "wintry" veterans, not anywhere near Dante level old, but old enough to be a true "long fang", as the VIth Legion calls them.

 

This also gives early Terran legions more time to develop and shine and there'd be more room for early campaigns, or even campaign series like Rangda, to breathe.

 

What say you?

Edited April 14, 2023 by b1soul

[MARK0SIAN]

I agree that it feels like 200 years seems like a very short time to fit in everything that supposedly happened during the Great Crusade. I think the timeline was set before so much of it was fleshed out by the novel series. If you think about the time warp transit and force mustering alone take then it doesn't seem like 200 hundred years would be anything like enough time for all of it to happen. The timeline for everything that happened in the Heresy itself is also extremely short.

 

It would be quite a big retcon to change it though, especially now it is so fleshed out by the novel series. I guess I'm on the fence, I wouldn't mind if it was changed but equally, I can live with it staying the same.

Edited April 14, 2023 by MARK0SIAN

[Xenith]

I think the timescales still work. One thing to remember is Black Library Bias in that we only ever really read about the worlds that resist compliance, and resist it heavily requiring a legion+support level response. Many worlds would have accepted Imperial rule without question. Sons of the Emperor has a short story where a group of ~50 legionnaires I think are sent to bring a world to compliance. When this doesn't go smoothly, other forces are brought in.

 

If we spitball an average Legion size of 120,000 marines, over 15 Legions, to account for smaller legions and those that were raised later etc., we get 1.8m marines. Assuming that 50 man compliance unit is standard, and totally ignoring any Militia contribution, that's 36,000 compliance parties that can be active simultaneously. 

 

1 million worlds in 200 years of crusade requires the compliance or conquering of 5000 worlds per year, and with a potential 36,000 compliance fleets active at once, I think this is extremely feasable. 

 

I think slow, grinding operations like the Rangdan Xenocides, and the IW v Hrud migrations would cancel out with the fast compliances, like when the crusade reached Ultramar, Guilliman bent the knee and the 500 worlds joined the Imperium at once. 

 

Edited April 14, 2023 by Xenith

[b1soul]

Another way they could fudge this is to say that a big chunk, say two thirds, of the 1m worlds were uninhabited or negligibly inhabited, and they were simply discovered and incorporated in bunches...like more than half a dozen per stellar system, and there could be stellar clusters. 

 

BUT I still think a longer period for the entire GC expands the potential for a lengthier and very unique early GC setting. If we go with, say, 450 years for the entire GC, the first third of that (150 years) could pretty much have minimal Primarch involvement with multiple mortal generations coming and going...with Primarchs only becoming more of the norm over the last 300 years.

 

And I know 200 years is mentioned in the literature quite a few times, but that number can simply be written over...and I don't think it would cause major contradictions in the existing fluff, since so much of the early Great Crusade is rather shrouded in the mists of time.

[Noserenda]

Yeah im pretty sure i recall thousands of expeditionary fleets existing, huge numbers of them without any space marines at all involved. The very fact that the Crusade expanded exponentially means there must be significant numbers of peaceful compliances to provide manpower and industrial capacity boosts, especially as they recover the lost forgeworlds, which tended to come on board easily and were significant assets.

I think the main problem is perception, with the fluff focus being tightly on the marines and specifically their wars it leaves that gap, like, if it was just the 20/18 legions running things, even spread thinly then yeah, they would need more time, but as always, its the common soldiers slogging away in the background getting the job done for zero credit :D 

Maybe one day we will get a full Imperial army release that covers them working independently in more detail but not holding my breath! 
 

[SlickSamos]

I've always thought that the expansion was quasi-exponential (as per 4X games, e.g. Civ and Humankind) hence unifying Terra took forever, the Sol system took a while longer (and would have taken even longer depending on the Mars and Saturnine responses), then it got faster and faster as the forces of mankind expanded and were able to work in parallel to each other rather than the (speculation warning!) initial single, Emperor-led, force which got the ball rolling at the very start of the unification wars.  

[sarabando]

remember when they took places like Ultramar and Inwit they inherited huge empires of space faring cultures. 

 

but as a habit GW time lines and deployment numbers are unrealistic and dumb. 

[Petitioner's City]

I do feel like Crusade did some good leg work to expand the timeline - I'd need to reread it, but it does feel like it stretched things. 

 

[b1soul]

4 minutes ago, Petitioner's City said:

I do feel like Crusade did some good leg work to expand the timeline - I'd need to reread it, but it does feel like it stretched things. 

 

Let me re-read as well

 

...and yeah, like I said above, within 200 years is possible if you incorporate, like in multiple bursts, dozens of friendly or barely inhabited planets...with multiple planets per star and multiple stars per cluster.

 

But still, my bias is toward stretching out the earlier GC to milk it as a separate unique setting...a 400+ year GC is still exponential acceleration relative to the millennium spent to unify just Terra alone.

[Petitioner's City]

1 minute ago, b1soul said:

 

Let me re-read as well

 

...and yeah, like I said above, within 200 years is possible if you incorporate, like in multiple bursts, dozens of friendly or barely inhabited planets...with multiple planets per star and multiple stars per cluster.

 

But still, my bias is toward stretching out the earlier GC to milk it as a separate unique setting...a 400+ year GC is still exponential acceleration relative to the millennium spent to unify just Terra alone.

 

Stretching the GC to a few more centuries also makes Prospero Burns work better - the novel feels like it covers a long time - at least a century and a half, I think, but it could be longer too, given Kasper's recalled early encounter with a XVth legionary in the tomb near the burning cathedral city. Similarly it provides greater distance to the world seen in Valdor, which again seems more realistic, given how "primitive" it is versus what we imagine a few years later.

[No Foes Remain]

I've been re-reading the Black Books and in Book 4 it mentions that the majority of human worlds accepted complaince whole-heartedly and those that didn't were mostly ruled by tyrants who didn't want to give up their power. Also when they say 'worlds' I have to wonder what they mean, if a system with 8 planets but only two human-habitable ones join the Imperium and the others (either gas giants or whatever) are used as either storage, refinery worlds or mining worlds does that could as 2 or 8?

 

1 hour ago, sarabando said:

remember when they took places like Ultramar and Inwit they inherited huge empires of space faring cultures. 

 

but as a habit GW time lines and deployment numbers are unrealistic and dumb. 

 

Coronid Deeps too, almost all allied with the Imperium after their Xeno enslavers/overlords were exterminated to the last.

[Marshal Mittens]

A lot of stuff should be retconned, timeline wise. With armor, for instance, we have MKII for like 80-90 years, then MKII and MKIII for another 50, then suddenly get MKIV and MKV and MKVI and MKVII all in like 15, at the same time?

 

It would be great to see a lot of the lore seriously looked at, and retconned to make more sense. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by Marshal Mittens

[Arkangilos]

I think there are a couple of things to remember:

1) The GC wasn’t completed.

2) The imperium continued to expand after the Heresy.

 

With that, I think the Post Macharius Crusade Imperium was bigger than the GC Imperium.

 

Plus, as other says, sometimes entire sectors would join together, and the Astartes were only needed when the enemy was a tough nut to crack.

 

Edited April 14, 2023 by Arkangilos

[SlickSamos]

2 hours ago, Marshal Mittens said:

With armor, for instance, we have MKII for like 80-90 years, then MKII and MKIII for another 50, then suddenly get MKIV and MKV and MKVI and MKVII all in like 15, at the same time?

I hadn't realised how rapid 3 to 6 was until I was doing some research into the development of Cataphractii into Tartaros into Indomitus.  Tartaros was developed alongside Mk. IV meaning it was really new at the outbreak of the HH, yet the Indomitus was already in use as well at the outbreak of the HH.  Which makes it tricky to pinpoint when Indomitus was invented as it was some how fitted in between Mk. IV & Tartaros being rolled out and Mk. VI being tested.  Especially as it's just nuts how rapid IV to VI to VIII was (V doesn't really count) compared to how basically no actual design work was done for the first 100 years of the Crusade (as the Mk. III was more of a sub-mark of Mk. II than a brand new design).  

 

One way they could fix this is rolling out more sub-marks of Mk. II.  For example variant helmets with night optics, extra sensors, or which could swivel (which I think the Sarum could) would show that they did iterate on the old design and expanding on why the Mk. II was such a good baseline in the lore would help.

 

But anyway I digress.  The lore doesn't make much sense but when has it ever made sense

[WrathOfTheLion]

9 hours ago, Marshal Mittens said:

A lot of stuff should be retconned, timeline wise. With armor, for instance, we have MKII for like 80-90 years, then MKII and MKIII for another 50, then suddenly get MKIV and MKV and MKVI and MKVII all in like 15, at the same time?

 

It would be great to see a lot of the lore seriously looked at, and retconned to make more sense. 

It's one of the reasons they're moving MK V/MK VI forward a bit in the Heresy. It makes way more sense for them to show up earlier in as they need mass production, then MK VII at the end. Whereas if you relegate MK VI to basically just the very end, what's the point of it when MK VII is already at the Siege?

[OttoVonAwesome]

2 hours ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

It's one of the reasons they're moving MK V/MK VI forward a bit in the Heresy. It makes way more sense for them to show up earlier in as they need mass production, then MK VII at the end. Whereas if you relegate MK VI to basically just the very end, what's the point of it when MK VII is already at the Siege?

Yeah the various armour marks were all in stages of experimental use starting in the crusade era along with various submarks (RTBO1 being an actual sub variant of standard mk6 for instance) with even examples of mk7 showing up in artificier armour and random helmet patterns. In truth there were likely dozens of power armour types and the ones we see most are just the most standard variants that went into mass production. The armour at least has already seen a soft retcon in the black books and again recently with the newer lore surrounding mk 5 wich is basically anything that wasn't fully mass produced. So really even mk7 could show up early on just not with the Aquila since that was basically a heraldic device used by the loyalists at the siege.

[MegaVolt87]

Its not just explorator fleets, its also the liberated systems themselves expanding organically. Wouldn't be uncommon for a 1-2 world human culture to have half a dozen or more worlds under their belt after being re-vitalized after joining the Imperium. Inter system expansions without any crussade/ expedition fleet input likely was a big factor as well. 

[b1soul]

Oh...and an extended timeline, say, four to five centuries of Great Crusading would also give BL more room to develop the fates/demises of the IInd and XIth

 

Touchy subject, yes...but should GW want to go there one day, there'd be be more time to play with

[Xenith]

Again, I think 200 years is more than enough time - Like, the entire heresy happened in 7 years, and that's got a whole lot going on in it. 

[sarabando]

1 hour ago, Xenith said:

Again, I think 200 years is more than enough time - Like, the entire heresy happened in 7 years, and that's got a whole lot going on in it. 

yeah i think the time is ok my issue is the same as with the heresy theres a lot of "he called the entire legion to him" that really limits the galaxy wide deployment of forces that open up a lot of room for writers to expand the setting. 

[Xenith]

I think you have to take the "Legion strength amassing" stuff with a pinch of salt - there would be forces in active warzones, in the warp and such that wouldn't be able to respond immediately, likewise with garrison forces that their initial orders supercede the new ones, or would have been omitted from the gatherings - hence why we see the IW's and such getting bitter that they're garrissoning - they don't get to take part in stuff. 

 

Legion strength masses are also quote rare events, like Calth, Signus Prime, Istvaan, that were several years in the planning. Even with Sigus, there's the Blood Angels Garrison we see in Vengeful Spirit that didn't go, and there were plenty of Thousand Sons ships that were out of system at the Burning. 

[SlickSamos]

One thing that fascinates me is that there were probably more RG alive as part of the Nomad Predation Fleets / Terra exiles (exiled following Gate 42) after Istvaan V than there were Salamanders (in total) or RG under Corax's command.  (IH are a lot trickier to judge as they also had contingents left elsewhere in the galaxy during the Istvaan massacre).  Despite this Corax never called on them nor did Dorn, the Emperor or the Sigilite and instead they sanction Corax to mess around with Geneseed (which is ironic considering Fabius Bile and Saul Tarvitz's interactions in the early books).  

 

Back on point, RE Legion massing, the WS took like 10 years to unit all their forces after finding the Khan.  It's a bit different than later massings as they were spread out over the whole of the Crusade.  However, whilst this supports the 'unlikely to be whole Legions' argument, I also think it supports the 'timelines are too short' argument.

[Pacific81]

I don't really mind about the sense of it (the suspension of belief boat sailed a long time ago!) but I generally just want the background writers to stay the hell away from it. At the moment both the GC and HH are like a port in the storm from the Tomix Toy-like newer ranges and the current penchant for long-established background being turned on its head.

I guess we will be safe as long as there are no additional new ranges of miniatures that the sales team think can be squeezed in, otherwise we'll find that the GC existed in a warp-rift that lasted ten thousand years, featuring marines with even bigger guns and both of the missing Prmiarchs ..!

[Marshal Rohr]

The Great Crusade timeline works at 200 years because most of the planets in that 1,00,000 were sparsely populated, part of larger nations, or uninhabited by humans. If the Expeditionary Fleet arrives on a planet of feral tribes, they dont stop just send down some boots and start building. If they come across a big empire of 20 systems and capture the capital in a day thats your fourteen a day, and if theres just aliens on a planet its always easier to spend a few hours cooking them from orbit and sending in new colonists. Its the only way to be sure. 

 

Edit: Also, Imperial space is segmented into pockets, which is the foundation of 'sectors', its not linear or contiguous territory. The Imperium is something like less than one percent of the estimated systems in the Milky Way. 

Edited April 27, 2023 by Marshal Rohr

[EverythingIsGreat]

I also think that the ~200 can work, considering there were thousands of expeditionary fleets, and increasing momentum as worlds came into the fold. The sticking point for me would be the logistics of supply lines, maintenance schedules, refitting, and establishing/maintaining communications networks. Obviously some of that could be opportunistically fulfilled by compliant worlds, however expedition commanders cannot rely on happenstance. Such support operations take time.

 

There is also the issue of both military and civilian intelligence. The collection, analysis and decision-making take time and may dictate unforeseen changes in plans or materiel outlays. Even with the Primarchs believing their own propaganda regarding invincibility, and wanting to impress the Emperor who was still at the helm of the Crusade, it doesn't sound likely they would want to go into a fight blind.

 

On a related note, there are intimations that the Alpha Legion was doing stuff before the GC started (don't remember the sources out of hand). And perhaps Alpharius was not "found" accidentally at all. Maybe the Dark Angels were the First Legion, but not the first Legion.

Edited April 27, 2023 by EverythingIsGreat
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