So I'm playing a game of rogue trader and we recently stumbled upon a feral world with a large station in orbit, queue taking the station and we decide it'd be a decent world to use as a base of operation(Free station for now, feral population to fill our crew holds, some good rescources.) but the tech-priests player brought up a point about messing with the tech-levels of other worlds, which our plan would probably encompass, is there any actual precedent for this kinda thing in the fluff and if so where? I'm interested on reading up more about it

Yes, the precedent being if a Feral World has tech far above their level it is their sacred duty to appropriate that tech for the Omnissiah, as they aren't worthy of these sorts of gifts.

This isn't Star Trek. The "correct" response as far as I know is what your players were proposing.

Well the tech-priest among us wants to plop down and educate them, the missionary wants to bring em into the creed, and our house operative wants to just toss em some las-weapons and use em to help fight off any other dangers on the planet. I was mostly just hoping there wasn't much more beyond the whole deal with feral worlds where in the imperium monitors the governors and workers to ensure they don't "go native". so to say. The tech-priest player specifically cited an apparent law of the administratum about us rogue traders not thrusting under developed worlds into the 41 millennium

As long as you do three things you can do whatever you want as a planetary governor inside the Imperium:

1) Deal with the psykers and put any you have in the black ships when they stop by.

2) Ensure an acceptable version of the Imperial Creed is observed.

3) Pay your tithe.

Note that in the Expanse the rules are different:

1) Don't get caught doing something so extreme the Imperium/Mechanicum decides to hunt you down and kill you

2) See 1

3) PROFIT

All your players can get what they want. The education needs to include proper religious indoctrination anyways. The weapons then allow them to serve the Emperor by helping his favored servant (The Rogue Trader) claim the world for the Emperor.

I'm moderately certain you also need to pay your Tithe for worlds that you own in the Expanse.

Well the tech-priest among us wants to plop down and educate them, the missionary wants to bring em into the creed, and our house operative wants to just toss em some las-weapons and use em to help fight off any other dangers on the planet. I was mostly just hoping there wasn't much more beyond the whole deal with feral worlds where in the imperium monitors the governors and workers to ensure they don't "go native". so to say. The tech-priest player specifically cited an apparent law of the administratum about us rogue traders not thrusting under developed worlds into the 41 millennium

What your group wants to do is entirely within the normal stuff the Imperium does when it finds feral planets. You force civilization on them, destroy their false gods, appropriate the cults for the Creed, give them lasguns and start tithing them.

Out in the Expanse, no-one will monitor you, and what you can do are allowed to do depends on your Warrant of Trade. At some point, once it's classified as a civilized world or similar, it will be 'brought into the fold', be lawfully sanctioned by the Administratum, and be issued a tithe and tithe-level. But that could be centuries in the future. The wheels of the Imperium grinds slowly.

Edit: Changed "can do" to "are allowed to do". It's the Expanse. You're a Rogue Trader. You can do whatever the hell you want. Is it legal? Pshaw, you're a Peer of the Imperium. It's legal because you say it is until it conflicts with someone that says it's not (which your Warrant may do, but pshaw).

Well the tech-priest among us wants to plop down and educate them, the missionary wants to bring em into the creed, and our house operative wants to just toss em some las-weapons and use em to help fight off any other dangers on the planet.

As far as I understand, the reason why the Imperium of Man doesn't systematically do this, is because it's considered too expensive and there are always wars to fight you know.

From what I know, what you're proposing is entirely within your remit as a Rogue Trader - some mighteven call it your duty, though technically that's only true if your Warrent declares it so.

A Tech-Priest wanting to educate a population is definitely a little outside of the pale. I suppose you could justify it with the whole "The Omnissiah clearly wants these people to have this sacred technology so I should teach them how best to venerate it", but that is almost certainly a fringe outlook in the Adeptus Mechanicus.

There is definitely no law about thrusting under-developed worlds into the 41st Millennium. The Administratum would never make such a law. You get humans worshipping the Emperor, or else Chaos can take root. You settle friendly planets or else the Eldar show up and start ranting about some prophecy that involves this world. You industrialize a rich, fertile world or else the Tyranids devour the whole thing and grow stronger.

It is your game, and you're the GM and I usually like collaborative storytelling with a player, but this really seems to contradict a lot of the 40K backstory. Does your Tech-Priest have an actual source he can cite for this rule? If not, the two of you can make it official, but be aware that it goes against a lot of the setting.

I completely missed the thing that the Tech-Priest said, about a law existing that prevents Rogue Traders from "thrusting" underdeveloped worlds into the 41st millennium. I think that sounds odd as hell and I would like to see a source on it.

The Imperium does that all the time. Mind you, the AdMech doesn't teach anyone the finer points of technology (partly because they tend to not know them), but as for industrializing feral worlds, appropriating their customs for the Creed, "enlightening" the world technologically and spiritually, arming them, etc - that's exactly what the Imperium do all the time .

To the Imperium, to not be part of the Imperium is to not be human. As a human, you either stand by the Imperium and humanity, or you are an apostate, a heretic, a would-be anti-human threat.

Well actually, I'm the rogue trader of this group, I just wanted to know from a fluff standpoint if there were actual rules the administratum enforced about this kinda thing. As far as the tech-priest goes she is more than a bit on the side of heretek, I just wanted to make sure from a fluff point of view we were good to proceed, since details on this sorta thing were more than a bit scant as far as I could see.

I'd see it as a great business opportunity. Here you have a world that due to their low tech level would make it easy for you to subjugate. You instantly have a the start up of a colony and you might even be able to argue that the colony start at size two (or more) due to the existing population on planet. Sure you still have to teach them the Creed and ship in hab blocks etc but you have the most important ingredient for a successful colony. Lots of lots of warm bodies. Most of which probably will even have pulses after you get done subjugating them.

Plus colonies are great for Profit Factor. My group only has 2 colonies but those two colonies make up 39 of our 90 PF. And one colony is only half done growing! We have a third habitable world in our system but the major stumbling block to colonization is bodies!

If there's a prime directive for the Imperium it will not resemble Star Trek's non-interference ideology. By the way, humans are considered to be part of a Warp-capable civilization already, in Star Trek, so do not have that rule applied to lost colonies and the like.

Think back to all of the Star Trek episodes where they encounter humans that have crashed on a planet, with little to no technology. Picard ain't leaving those people alone, or any other Feddie citizen.

Also, tithing. This is not an automatic thing. Just because you have a colony doesn't mean they're automatically required to tithe. First, no matter how faceless the Administratum is, they're still somewhat intelligent. They know crippling a colony with taxes isn't going to be good in the long term, and they're very long term thinkers.

When they request a tithe, they also have obligations to that colony. Be it an Imperial presence legitimizing your rule, an Imperial Navy station, a garrison, an Arbites station, something that benefits that colony as well as the rest of the Imperium. You may have a clause that you'll need to establish tithes right away, but that's a pretty poor thing to have.

A Feral World can be guided back to the Imperial fold over a few generations. Or they can be artificially kept in that state, to recruit warriors and allow you to keep order much more easily. Regarding tech, they'll need to be taught the proper reverence for it. But nothing else really. Most Imperials have no idea how technology works, only that it does. There's no need to force a Feral World to change abruptly.

Me, I'd be more worried about any pagan religions, mutations and psykers that no doubt infest the place without the proper Imperial fear of the different.

My dynasty has two void stations. One's a glorified dock with some seriously dangerous humans who don't fear technology, the other's orbiting a dead world in a pirate haven system.

Worlds in the Expanse do not have to pay tithe. They aren't part of the Imperium. If you look at Damaris it is unusual in the Expanse because it pays tithe. It is as close as you get in the Expanse to an Imperial world, and it isn't even one technically. They pay a tithe because they seem themselves as citizens of the Imperium. Even so, the Imperial Navy cuts them loose when the Orks attack their world. So players don't have to pay tithe, but also don't get the protection of being part of the Imperium.

Some sidenotes:

Also, tithing. This is not an automatic thing. Just because you have a colony doesn't mean they're automatically required to tithe. First, no matter how faceless the Administratum is, they're still somewhat intelligent. They know crippling a colony with taxes isn't going to be good in the long term, and they're very long term thinkers.

Personally, I'd say that it's an important part of the setting's "style" that the Imperium specifically does not always act somewhat intelligent - sometimes out of misguided ideals and tradition, sometimes just because the Imperium has grown too large to effectively manage (see the fate of the Roman Empire). The Administratum works with records that often are already outdated the moment they reach their desks, and set tithe grades to be enforced at a barrel even if it ruins the world in question, simply because they don't know any better, and the troops enforcing the tithe are just following orders. This is part of what brings the Grimdark into 40k!

That being said, at the same time this delay may work in one's favour, simply because it may take years or even decades until someone in the Administratum realises that you've laid claim on a world, and even longer until an envoy actually arrives on said world to assign it a tithe grade in the first place. The gears in the gigantic machine that is the Imperium of Man are grinding ever so careless for the fate of just a few million people, but they are also grinding sloooowwww.

This can actually have potential for a RT campaign when a Rogue Trader who has founded a new colony realises that he technically has no right for Imperial support yet, but uses his influence, guile and silver tongue to still get help against whatever threatens their little planet, be it by circumventing the bureaucracy by appealing to local bigwigs (Navy admirals, Ministorum cardinals, the noble governors of the nearest civilised worlds, etc), or by exploiting technicalities in the bureaucracy and essentially have the bureaucracy sabotage itself to get you what you want.

By the way, humans are considered to be part of a Warp-capable civilization already, in Star Trek, so do not have that rule applied to lost colonies and the like. Think back to all of the Star Trek episodes where they encounter humans that have crashed on a planet, with little to no technology. Picard ain't leaving those people alone, or any other Feddie citizen.

I think we'd have to differentiate between "species" and "civilisation" here - the Imperium in 40k would not make this distinction, but the Federation of Star Trek would. Of course the immediate victims of a crash would still be considered Federation citizens, but if these survivors were to be left alone over several generations and ultimately form a new civilisation with their own traditions and tech-level and history ... then I'd say the Prime Directive would apply to them, too, because this is effectively a new civilisation that has not yet achieved warp-capability.

Their origins do not matter, because the reason the Federation came up with this directive in the first place still applies: there's a high risk that the people in question simply could not handle being "uplifted".

The interesting thing is that in 40k, the Imperium seems to put the responsibility entirely in the hand of whoever gets to call the shots on that world, which then explains how you can have results as funny as Attilans still being nomad riders carrying lances - but they also have las pistols, their lances are tipped with explosives, and their horses are cyberised.

Because this is what happens if you let some local warlord cherrypick which aspects of "civilisation" he or she wants to adopt into their peoples' lifestyle.

Worlds in the Expanse do not have to pay tithe. They aren't part of the Imperium. If you look at Damaris it is unusual in the Expanse because it pays tithe. It is as close as you get in the Expanse to an Imperial world, and it isn't even one technically. They pay a tithe because they seem themselves as citizens of the Imperium. Even so, the Imperial Navy cuts them loose when the Orks attack their world. So players don't have to pay tithe, but also don't get the protection of being part of the Imperium.

Well, whaddaya know.

I thought the whole point of having rogue traders go out beyond the borders was so they could bring in more money, so you could hold their assets in Imperial space hostage to make sure they pay up. I find it a little baffling that the Imperium would put all those resources into something that'll only pay off on the off chance that an entire new sector is claimed. Then again, it *is* warhammer.

If you read up about the Crusade to take the Calaxis sector you will note that RTs acted as scouts and established forward bases to aid in expanding the Imperium. RTs are the conquistidors of the Imperium. They explore, identify threats and resources, conquer worlds, kill xenos, and generally act to exploit the areas outside the Imperium. Their actions pave the way for Imperial forces to expand the Imperium, as well as identify threats to humanity. Their Warrants give them the authority to do as they wish, so long as they don't slip too far over the line. You will note that the only real place they have to get advanced equipment and sell their goods is the Imperium. That means that they do bring resorces into the Imperium, in exchange for the support they need to continue their exploration and exploitation. It really isn't that different than the Conquistadors of old, just on a much grander scale. It is also a good way to get rid of ambitious people who can't just be killed off, as it is a 'promotion' that takes them out of the Imperium.