Collaborative Chapter Creation Project II

[Tubal]

Great summary Molotov. One thing that I think is rather special so far is that the citizens are fully aware of the marines, their importance and the importance of the world itself in the greater imperium. Most chapters seem to recruit from deathworld savages with no true understanding of the Imperium, or are fleetbased without a proper homeworld at all. Only the Ultramarines (and maybe the Salamanders?) recruit from the same civilized worlds regularly that I know.

Another thing I like is the Starship Troopers link (read the book :D ). Only those who complete military service become full citizens but, of course, everyone has to on our planet. Does this apply to women? In SST women are as accepted as men, though their differences make them more suitable (according to the book) for other things than infantry, like piloting.

 

About the colourscheme: there seems to be several different routes to take regarding sergeants. To fit in with the practical nature of the chapter I vote for something simple, but effective. Too many colours everywhere will just make things needlessly complicated.

My suggestion is that sergeants have either inverted helmet colours (ie black), or inverted shoulderpad fields and symbols. Veteran status could be marked with a Crux Terminatus painted on the leg/knee or as a pendant.

[Grimdarkness]

The stripe denotes company, according to Insignium Astartes, I think. I do not have the book though, could someone confirm this please

 

I can confrim the company color is denoted as the helmet strip Page 56 IgmA.

Edited July 27, 2006 by Grimdarkness

[Commissar Molotov]

Relating to or being the study of cause and effect in historical or political events with emphasis on the practical lessons to be learned from them.

 

One thing I considered is that rather than just studying their previous battles, they could study any available recordings of the battles and tactics of enemy races, in an attempt to devise strategies to be used against them. It's something to consider, certainly.

[Tubal]

Sounds like the librarium is pretty importand for them, although not necessarily psychic librarians. Or is that overused? ;) Edited July 27, 2006 by Tubal

[Zhivago]

I think most chapters study enemy tactics, it was mentioned in the dali rituals of marines in 3rd edition codex.

(There was even mention of battle languages)

[Keyoz Devastrius]

I haven

[Zhivago]

Names state/canton are not used in Slavic countries, I would suggest something like province/district or even something exotic like voivodeship

[Archangelus]

Names state/canton are not used in Slavic countries, I would suggest something like province/district or even something exotic like voivodeship

[Terminus Est]

I think every one is trained in cadia. Question is, what world does to thoose who are too sick/weak for military training ?

 

Why they put them to work in the marine's huge librarium of course!

[Keyoz Devastrius]

Yeap, something like Swiss culture with Slavic names. Using slavic names does not necessarily mean that we have to use the whole of slavic culture.

 

I know that. I’m not saying the whole of Slavic culture has to be used, only that Slavic names could be used not only for people but also for other things. Swiss culture with Slavic names, but not only peoples names.

 

And I think that word symbolism was the one that should be used there not symbology, but that’s way off topic.

Edited July 28, 2006 by Keyoz Devastrius

[Archangelus]

I think every one is trained in cadia. Question is, what world does to thoose who are too sick/weak for military training ?

 

Why they put them to work in the marine's huge librarium of course!

 

 

Of course! The only bad tool is the one that is not used. ;)

 

Keyoz Devastrius could you please give us some more slavic words for state, principality, sector etc? We can see which ones sound nice and take our pick:) Voivodeship sounds a bit weird... what's the Polish name for it?

[Tubal]

They see themselves as bearing the weight of war so that the ordinary citizenry of the Imperium doesn't have to do so.

Confusing. First you say that all citizen have to be trained to fight and then you say that WB fight so the citizen don’t have to. So why citizen are trained?

This is a good point :blink:

Perhaps they make every effort to destroy most of the enemy before the guard moves in, since they know that they themselves are built for war.

 

I think every one is trained in cadia. Question is, what world does to thoose who are too sick/weak for military training ?

Why they put them to work in the marine's huge librarium of course!

Great idea, better then simply offing them :ph34r: (grim dark future and all...). Of course, they'd probably servitorize them anyway :wink:

[AWOL]

Hmm. Yeah, we seem to have a bit of a contradictory point on the planet being militairized versus the Word Bearers wanting to fight wars for regular people. Hmm. Although, given the fact that most of the WBs troops serve their short stint in the PDF then go home, maybe the contradiction isn't as strong as it seems. Basically, the people have to be ready to fight at all times, should the War Bearers fail, although it seems strange to discuss an Astartes chapter preparing for their own failure.

 

Maybe in their early development the world wasn't military. I know we were toying with the idea of having some kind of failure somewhere in the chapter's history. What if the failure was that some sneaky Xenos (Dark Eldar Raiders, for instance) attacked their homeworld while they were deployed elsewhere? Up to that point the war bearers had insisted that they were there to defend their homeworld and bear the burden of war for humanity, so they didn't have much of a standing army of any kind, so the raiders ravaged the world before the WBs could get back to help them (or, worse, maybe the Ultramarines had to come do it for them.) This leads them to reshape some of their views to fall along the lines of "It's every man's duty to do his part to defend/improve the Imperium, and it is the Astartes' duty to bear the burden of war to those battles too horrible for mortals."

[Nine_Breaker]

Contradictions are the stuff of 40k, I say you keep the part about training civies to fight and have the WB trying to bear the wars for them.

[Archangelus]

lol! that's indeed a good idea. It will make our fluff look more "GW official" :)

[Keyoz Devastrius]

Archangelus:

Keyoz Devastrius could you please give us some more slavic words for state, principality, sector etc? We can see which ones sound nice and take our pick:) Voivodeship sounds a bit weird... what's the Polish name for it?

 

Latvia: district – rajon

Russia: province -oblast , territory- krai , district- okrug

Romania: county - judeţ

Poland: province - wojew

Edited July 28, 2006 by Keyoz Devastrius

[Big Woop]

The imperium isn't excactly humane, so if the chapter is, wouldn't it make sense if they're at least somewhat anti-authoritarian? The reasoning might be:"If the authorities don't lift a finger to help these people, then we'll have to do it ourselves".

 

Neither hungarian nor lithuanian is slavic of course, but perhaps the words "apskritis" and "megye" are slavic in origin?

[Commissar Molotov]

Keyoz - I did ask people not to approach this project with ideas held too closely to their chests. I don't think that anyone was dead-set on using Slavic culture - once the idea of Swiss culture was raised, I think it's our duty to look at both. If you're dead-set on a 100% faithful-to-Slavic-culture chapter, go and make one yourself. I don't feel that the War Bearers should be 'Space Slavs', Space Romanians, Space Hungarians, Space Polish, Space Lithuanians, Space Latvians, Space Russians, or Space Serbians, but rather Space Marines with subtle Slavic touches. The current suggestion that our marines have Eastern European names is a distinctive departure from other Space Marine chapters. If there's anything Slavic culture could lend the War Bearers that would be useful, I'd be glad to hear it. But if our influences are too blunt, blatant and obvious, we'll simply end up with a chapter that looks as though we've simply lifted 'A History of Eastern Europe' verbatim and placed it into the 41st Millennium.

 

Rather than rejecting 'state' or 'canton' because they're not Slavic words, we should actively consider merging and melding our influences in order to strengthen them and add a sense of uniqueness to our end work.

 

- With regards to Squad Markings, there is fluff suggesting Company Captains (and Chapter Masters) have authority to alter the markings of the men underneath them. Black does seem to fit better with their muted scheme (and black chapter symbol). So there's always the possibility to justify black or white tactical markings.

 

- With regards to the founding, I was hoping for a general consensus. With the lack of any strong feelings, we should probably go with seventeen for now, unless anyone raises objections to it.

 

- The idea of an election with regards to planetary governorship was something I had considered; I was considering that such a system would perhaps result in a change of power far too often to ensure stability. Think of Necromunda, where the Helmawrs have held governorship for millennia. I was considering that perhaps the most powerful family in economic terms might take the title. As such, the title is normally inherited from father to son, but from time to time it can transfer. If opens up the possibility of very byzantine (Imperial?) political structures where families ally and consort in an attempt to get political leverage.

 

- With regards to the female population of our planet, it depends what we want to do with them. I'd suggest that they're treated equally and inducted into the academies - if the planet was invaded, they'd want every able-bodied person capable of using a lasgun in the firing lines. We could consider that possibly there are collective nurseries, much like the Kibbutz, so that children are taken and raised by the state so that their mothers can work for the Houses on collective farms/factories, leading to a minimal drop in productivity.

 

- I'm fine with the one academy; you raise a decent point, but perhaps we're neglecting a decent opportunity here in not letting the seperate districts compete at least on some level.

 

Now, with regards to the big issue - the supposed hypocrisy or contradiction in terms. I think you need to look at it on a tiered level. The Imperial Guard fight with a prayer on their lips, because they're fighting for their loved ones. They slog on through the mud, with Tyranids to their front and Commissars to the back simply because they know that if they fail, the Orks will kill their families. Space Marines (generally) fight due to a love for their Emperor. Many of them only dimly remember their childhoods. It's a different perspective. The War Bearers fight, the bear the weight of war (metaphorically) so that the citizenry of the Imperium don't have to. You could consider that the Imperial Guard are not included in the 'citizenry of the Imperium' as they've chosen to bear arms and defend it. If you consider that most of the time Space Marines reinforce the Imperial Guard rather than the other way round, it's fallacious to talk of the Imperial Guard being there if the marines 'fail'. Anything that stomps marines will stomp Guard. So look at it the other way. The Space Marines are the ultimate defenders of the Imperium. They fight things that the Imperial Guard never could. They look into the abyss, and they have the fortitude to withstand the abyss staring back. They bear the weight of those actions so the ordinary human doesn't. Does that clear it up at all?

[Tubal]

Does that clear it up at all?

Sure does. It will have to be written pretty carefully into the IA though, so the meaning is clear. It's one of the central themes of the chapter after all.

 

We could say that warriors bear the weight of war for the citizens of the imperium. The Imperial Guard and the War Bearers share in the duty but the chapter takes on the most responsibility, what with being augemented by the Emperor and all. Guardsmen may fail, but the chapter may not.

This would also explain their close relationship with guard forces we discussed earlier: they are brothers of war, if not in the strict space marine sense.

We could also say that not everyone goes through military training, perhaps just every first-born son or something, the soldiers will need a civilian population to defend after all. This would make women more important in civilian affairs since they are more likely to be the eldest child and by weight of numbers. It could also lead to interesting social customs, where every man can/should take more than one wife but he isn't necessarily the strong partner. That may be outside the scope of the project, but if you look at house Escher from Necromunda you'll see that it isn't unheard of.

 

Also, I'd advice anyone participating to re-read the entire discussion (or at least from page 3 or so) because there are many great ideas that are easy to forget as the weeks start to pile up.

 

Well, there is only ever one Warmaster at a time, and sometimes there isn't even a warmaster - because some hate the title of Warmaster because Horus held it.

A little late for this, but here's a little piece of trivia: The title of Lord Solar is interchangeable with Warmaster, and was invented because of the bad name Horus gave the position.

 

- With regards to Squad Markings, there is fluff suggesting Company Captains (and Chapter Masters) have authority to alter the markings of the men underneath them. Black does seem to fit better with their muted scheme (and black chapter symbol). So there's always the possibility to justify black or white tactical markings.

We could say that the tactical markings are normally black, but during the XYZ campaign (Armageddon3? Medusa5?) the marking was switched to white for better visability in hives. Simple and canonical :huh: Edited July 30, 2006 by Tubal

[Darrell]

Yeah, we seem to have a bit of a contradictory point on the planet being militairized versus the Word Bearers wanting to fight wars for regular people.

The War Bearers can't be everywhere at once, in fact no Chapter can. The Imperial Guard are far more numerous and are capable of being deployed in far more places in far greater numbers than the Adeptus Astartes. While the War Bearers may want to keep innocent people out of the fight, I don't think they'd think so to the point they would try to be everywhere all the time to fight for people. The Imperial Guard are able to defend and fight while the Marines are carrying out more dangerous missions elsewhere.

 

I also doubt the War Bearers want to completely eliminate the idea of war and fighting from their homeworld; that destroys their recruits. They want the civilians to know about war, but not know about it first-hand. They want them to be able to fight, but they don't want them to ever have to. It's the planetary equivalent of "Pray for the best, prepare for the worst".

 

It could also lead to interesting social customs, where every man can/should take more than one wife...

 

Sparta had similar customs, although it was the idea that a woman should not restrict herself to one man; having multiple men available ensures many strong children are born. All women were free to share themselves with all men, and vice versa. Outside cultures condemned it all as adultery, but it was often said that "You could just as easily find a bull with a neck long enough to stand on a mountain and drink from a river as you could find an adulterer in Sparta". They didn't consider it adultery, they considered it good genetic breeding.

 

Just to show there is a basis for that kind of thing.

[Keyoz Devastrius]

Commissar Molotov:

Keyoz - I did ask people not to approach this project with ideas held too closely to their chests.

As I said before I

[Commissar Molotov]

Well, I'm not saying that they are Swiss. I don't want 'Space Swiss' any more than 'Space Slavs'. We want something unique and interesting, after all.

 

'District' or 'province' also work well for the different areas administered by the houses. In the end I think any of these words will likely be interchangeable.

 

With regards to your thoughts around the election, I was also considering that having such a democracy might not work particularly well. Here's something from Necromunda that might work as inspiration, or even provide us with a precedent:

 

The seven most important Houses are the Noble Houses whose domains extend through the Spire... The Noble Houses are the controllers of the hive's commerce... The Noble Houses compete against each other for wealth and political power, always seeking to further their own interests at the expense of their rivals. Intrigue and fear of assassination dominate the lives of their ruling families.

 

The most powerful Noble House is the Imperial - or ruling - House of Helmawr. Its domain is the very top part of the Spire, the most desirable territory in the whole hive. Lord Helmawr, the leader of the House, controls the entire planet. He represents the mighty Adeptus Terra of Earth, the governing body of the Imperium of Man.

 

To the greater universe Lord Helmawr is Necromunda and the planet is his to rule as he pleases. The patriarchs and merchant families of the Noble Houses vie for his attention, and are eager to perform whatever favours are necessary to secure landing and shipping rights, trade licences and tax concessions. Even whilst they curry Lord Helmawr's favour, the Noble Houses scheme behind his back, hoping that one day House Helmawr will be brought low and a new Imperial House will inherit its domain.

[Brother-Librarian Akritedes]

Hmm... kinda deserted here.

 

Anyways, we need to pick this back up and get ta work on it. Current "points of interest" seem to be markings, homeworld breakdown, and how/what cultural we want them to be. Opinions?

Edited August 3, 2006 by Brother-Librarian Akritedes

[Archangelus]

My suggestions:

 

Homeworld

8 continents and 3 oceans. A large part of the landmass is mountaineous covered with forests, mainly in the south hemisphere. Hills and plains form the terrain in the north, with an occasional mountain ridge.

 

The population is located in the mainland with a small number of huge sea-side cities. The level of development is "Civilised". The economy of the planet is mainly based on commercial trading and facilitation, as well as the exploitation of mineral wealth, forestry, and finelly crafted products.

 

The planet is divided into 21 districts/provinces of varying size and wealth. Each province is controlled by family-based Merchant Houses with the ruling house being elected by its peers every 50 years. The heads of the provinces elect the Planetary Governor, who is then officially appointed by the Administratum representative on the planet.

 

 

Markings:

Codex squad markings. Black for standard troops. White for Sergeants. Veteran Sergeant status is marked by a Crux on the left knee pad.

Squad Number is denoted on the right knee-pad.

 

What do you think?

Edited August 3, 2006 by Archangelus

[Heru]

Well according to the Index Astartes book the the Tactical markings were white on the right shoulder with the squad number on top of that in black roman numerals.

 

Now it is one of the things we know about the Warbearers from GW, changing it could be unwise, no?