Paragraph on page 363 about how the Imperium outnumbers its enemies

By peterstepon, in Black Crusade

Posted at

There is an interesting paragraph on page 363 (opening paragraph about the agents of the imperium). It mentions that the Imperium is a behemoth of human achievement and that, due to it`s sheer size, the followers of chaos and xenos are "bordering extinction" in comparison.

I thought about how different the Imperium looks outside looking in. When you read the standard warhammer 40K fare, the opposite seems true, humanity is beset from all sides and is on the verge of extinction. Xenos races on all sides attack human planets and Chaos seems to be everywhere.

However, from the point of view of a chaos follower, things might seem very different. Full blown chaos cultists probably make up only a tiny fraction of the total population. Summoning demons is very difficult to do and dimensional instability makes them disappear quickly. I have read in many short stories that, as scary as Black crusades are, they are usually beaten back and really do not any real long lasting damage to the Imperium as a whole (losing a few dozen planets out of a million worlds). Many Chaos marines have lamented that they have been beaten back to the eye of terror and that the attacks that they mount are rather ineffectual in the grand scheme of things. If one is a chaos cultist, he is going to also feel very weak compared to an imperial guardsman, or adeptus arbite enforcer, much less a Space Marine or Inquisitor.

As for Xenos, besides orks and Tyrannids, most xenos races are probably nearly extinct compared to humanity. The Eldar are a dwindling race, the dark eldar only have one shadowy realm homeworld, the tau have barely over 100 worlds to call their own. Most of the other xenos races are on an even smaller scale and get swallowed up with imperial expansion rather quickly. Even when looking at the orks, as a whole there are many of them, but they are extremely disorganized and fight among themselves much of the time. The tyrannids have more purpose, but many hive fleets have been defeated due to the daring of Space Marine Chapters (notably the Ultramarines who have been responsible for many Tyrannid defeats).

So, I guess the point of this thread is... is the Imperium outnumbered and about to collapse due to the enemies trying to overwhelm it, or are the enemies of the Imperium fighing a losing battle against the crushing weight of the Imperium? Who has the advantage?

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peterstepon said:

So, I guess the point of this thread is... is the Imperium outnumbered and about to collapse due to the enemies trying to overwhelm it, or are the enemies of the Imperium fighing a losing battle against the crushing weight of the Imperium?

Both.

The Imperium, from the outside, is a monolithic entity of virtually unimaginable scale and power. The Imperium has achieved what few civilisations have been able to - the domination of a significant expanse of the galaxy and the long-term maintenance of a strong galaxy-wide civilisation. Really, only the Eldar, and the Necrontyr and Old Ones before them, have achieved anything like that, and only the Old Ones managed it on their own (the Necrontyr struggled before hijacking parts of the Old Ones' warp-gate network, and the Eldar too built their empire upon the foundations left by the Old Ones). The Imperium is so vast that even its destruction would take millennia, given how much of its structure is decentralised and how dominant tradition and orthodoxy are - through cultural inertia alone, the fragments of a hypothetical shattered Imperium would persist for generations.

The Imperium, from the inside, is beset on all sides by numerous enemies tearing at the foundations of an empire which requires perpetual human sacrifice on an unprecedented scale to maintain. The blood sweat and tears of every man, woman and child within the Imperium is necessary for humanity as a whole to survive. Worse still, it struggles with internal betrayals and corruption as individuals put themselves before the needs of the species.

On the one hand, no one enemy of the Imperium has the singular strength and power to annihilate it at present - though many have the theoretical potential to do so, should they become more unified, more active or more focussed in action. Any one of the Necrons, the forces of Chaos, the Orks or the Eldar could tear the heart from the Imperium if they were unified towards that singular cause, and the Tyranids represent an escalating threat that could eventually prove strong enough to extinguish all life in the galaxy... but no force in the galaxy can presently rival the Imperium for sheer scale and raw power, in part because of disunity and in part because none of them can focus on only one foe.

On the other hand, the Imperium is facing so many enemies all at once, from so many different directions, that its colossal resources are being stretched almost to breaking point. While no one enemy can oppose at present, the Imperium cannot direct its resources to the annihilation of any one foe, and thus is trapped in perpetual conflict against them all.

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N0-1_H3r3 said:

Both.

The Imperium, from the outside, is a monolithic entity of virtually unimaginable scale and power. The Imperium has achieved what few civilisations have been able to - the domination of a significant expanse of the galaxy and the long-term maintenance of a strong galaxy-wide civilisation. Really, only the Eldar, and the Necrontyr and Old Ones before them, have achieved anything like that, and only the Old Ones managed it on their own (the Necrontyr struggled before hijacking parts of the Old Ones' warp-gate network, and the Eldar too built their empire upon the foundations left by the Old Ones). The Imperium is so vast that even its destruction would take millennia, given how much of its structure is decentralised and how dominant tradition and orthodoxy are - through cultural inertia alone, the fragments of a hypothetical shattered Imperium would persist for generations.

The Imperium, from the inside, is beset on all sides by numerous enemies tearing at the foundations of an empire which requires perpetual human sacrifice on an unprecedented scale to maintain. The blood sweat and tears of every man, woman and child within the Imperium is necessary for humanity as a whole to survive. Worse still, it struggles with internal betrayals and corruption as individuals put themselves before the needs of the species.

On the one hand, no one enemy of the Imperium has the singular strength and power to annihilate it at present - though many have the theoretical potential to do so, should they become more unified, more active or more focussed in action. Any one of the Necrons, the forces of Chaos, the Orks or the Eldar could tear the heart from the Imperium if they were unified towards that singular cause, and the Tyranids represent an escalating threat that could eventually prove strong enough to extinguish all life in the galaxy... but no force in the galaxy can presently rival the Imperium for sheer scale and raw power, in part because of disunity and in part because none of them can focus on only one foe.

On the other hand, the Imperium is facing so many enemies all at once, from so many different directions, that its colossal resources are being stretched almost to breaking point. While no one enemy can oppose at present, the Imperium cannot direct its resources to the annihilation of any one foe, and thus is trapped in perpetual conflict against them all.

Well written N0-1_H3r3! You were able to capture the essence of it very well. I see that you have contributed a great deal to Warhammer 40K roleplay (as well as Soul Reaver which is a great book). The paragraph I was referring to got my mind working and my creative juices working. One thing that I was pondering was the idea that the masses of humanity were an obstacle to the chaos powers. I was under the impression that mankind was one of the greatest ways for the chaos powers to grow since humanity exhibits so many qualities that Chaos powers feed upon ( rage, desire, apathy, and need for change). However, I could also see that humanity could oppose the chaos powers through weight of numbers, synergy, and organization. Basically, when a bunch of humans put their mind towards fixing a problem, amazing things can be done, multiply that by the sheer size of the imperium and extraordinary deeds can be done on a daily basis in the galaxy.

What I was wondering about too was, how many humans really devote themselves to Chaos? Are they the 1% (to borrow a popular title these days), or the 0.001%? I guess everyone feeds a Chaos a bit when they get angry or passonate, but how many actually become full blown cultists? I am guessing that it is in a minority. Dark Heresy suggested a cult called the Pilgrims of Hayte that was quite large, but was crushed at one point and reduced in size, I am curious about what suggestions they have about membership.

Finally, it is interesting to compare the Screaming vortex to Calixis sector. The Screaming Vortex seems a collection of planets with no sense of unity. The warbands are fighting each other, and most of the planets seem poor and struggling to survive. The Calixis sector is united, with a strong industry, and the ability to raise massive armies under one banner. I am guessing any warband that puts together a fighting force is still going to be massively outnumbered. I am looking forward to Only War to tallk more about the Imperial war machine and what it can muster.

I am an avid student of geopolitics and economics. I read articles every day about politics, war, insurgencies and what is happening in the daily news so of course I am interested in this applies to the Warhammer 40K setting.

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N0-1_H3r3 said:

peterstepon said:

So, I guess the point of this thread is... is the Imperium outnumbered and about to collapse due to the enemies trying to overwhelm it, or are the enemies of the Imperium fighing a losing battle against the crushing weight of the Imperium?

Both.

The Imperium, from the outside, is a monolithic entity of virtually unimaginable scale and power. The Imperium has achieved what few civilisations have been able to - the domination of a significant expanse of the galaxy and the long-term maintenance of a strong galaxy-wide civilisation. Really, only the Eldar, and the Necrontyr and Old Ones before them, have achieved anything like that, and only the Old Ones managed it on their own (the Necrontyr struggled before hijacking parts of the Old Ones' warp-gate network, and the Eldar too built their empire upon the foundations left by the Old Ones). The Imperium is so vast that even its destruction would take millennia, given how much of its structure is decentralised and how dominant tradition and orthodoxy are - through cultural inertia alone, the fragments of a hypothetical shattered Imperium would persist for generations.

The Imperium, from the inside, is beset on all sides by numerous enemies tearing at the foundations of an empire which requires perpetual human sacrifice on an unprecedented scale to maintain. The blood sweat and tears of every man, woman and child within the Imperium is necessary for humanity as a whole to survive. Worse still, it struggles with internal betrayals and corruption as individuals put themselves before the needs of the species.

On the one hand, no one enemy of the Imperium has the singular strength and power to annihilate it at present - though many have the theoretical potential to do so, should they become more unified, more active or more focussed in action. Any one of the Necrons, the forces of Chaos, the Orks or the Eldar could tear the heart from the Imperium if they were unified towards that singular cause, and the Tyranids represent an escalating threat that could eventually prove strong enough to extinguish all life in the galaxy... but no force in the galaxy can presently rival the Imperium for sheer scale and raw power, in part because of disunity and in part because none of them can focus on only one foe.

On the other hand, the Imperium is facing so many enemies all at once, from so many different directions, that its colossal resources are being stretched almost to breaking point. While no one enemy can oppose at present, the Imperium cannot direct its resources to the annihilation of any one foe, and thus is trapped in perpetual conflict against them all.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Both.

The Imperium, from the outside, is a monolithic entity of virtually unimaginable scale and power. The Imperium has achieved what few civilisations have been able to - the domination of a significant expanse of the galaxy and the long-term maintenance of a strong galaxy-wide civilisation. Really, only the Eldar, and the Necrontyr and Old Ones before them, have achieved anything like that, and only the Old Ones managed it on their own (the Necrontyr struggled before hijacking parts of the Old Ones' warp-gate network, and the Eldar too built their empire upon the foundations left by the Old Ones). The Imperium is so vast that even its destruction would take millennia, given how much of its structure is decentralised and how dominant tradition and orthodoxy are - through cultural inertia alone, the fragments of a hypothetical shattered Imperium would persist for generations.

The Imperium, from the inside, is beset on all sides by numerous enemies tearing at the foundations of an empire which requires perpetual human sacrifice on an unprecedented scale to maintain. The blood sweat and tears of every man, woman and child within the Imperium is necessary for humanity as a whole to survive. Worse still, it struggles with internal betrayals and corruption as individuals put themselves before the needs of the species.

On the one hand, no one enemy of the Imperium has the singular strength and power to annihilate it at present - though many have the theoretical potential to do so, should they become more unified, more active or more focussed in action. Any one of the Necrons, the forces of Chaos, the Orks or the Eldar could tear the heart from the Imperium if they were unified towards that singular cause, and the Tyranids represent an escalating threat that could eventually prove strong enough to extinguish all life in the galaxy... but no force in the galaxy can presently rival the Imperium for sheer scale and raw power, in part because of disunity and in part because none of them can focus on only one foe.

On the other hand, the Imperium is facing so many enemies all at once, from so many different directions, that its colossal resources are being stretched almost to breaking point. While no one enemy can oppose at present, the Imperium cannot direct its resources to the annihilation of any one foe, and thus is trapped in perpetual conflict against them all.

Well written N0-1_H3r3! You were able to capture the essence of it very well. I see that you have contributed a great deal to Warhammer 40K roleplay (as well as Soul Reaver which is a great book). The paragraph I was referring to got my mind working and my creative juices working. One thing that I was pondering was the idea that the masses of humanity were an obstacle to the chaos powers. I was under the impression that mankind was one of the greatest ways for the chaos powers to grow since humanity exhibits so many qualities that Chaos powers feed upon ( rage, desire, apathy, and need for change). However, I could also see that humanity could oppose the chaos powers through weight of numbers, synergy, and organization. Basically, when a bunch of humans put their mind towards fixing a problem, amazing things can be done, multiply that by the sheer size of the imperium and extraordinary deeds can be done on a daily basis in the galaxy.

What I was wondering about too was, how many humans really devote themselves to Chaos? Are they the 1% (to borrow a popular title these days), or the 0.001%? I guess everyone feeds a Chaos a bit when they get angry or passonate, but how many actually become full blown cultists? I am guessing that it is in a minority. Dark Heresy suggested a cult called the Pilgrims of Hayte that was quite large, but was crushed at one point and reduced in size, I am curious about what suggestions they have about membership.

Finally, it is interesting to compare the Screaming vortex to Calixis sector. The Screaming Vortex seems a collection of planets with no sense of unity. The warbands are fighting each other, and most of the planets seem poor and struggling to survive. The Calixis sector is united, with a strong industry, and the ability to raise massive armies under one banner. I am guessing any warband that puts together a fighting force is still going to be massively outnumbered. I am looking forward to Only War to tallk more about the Imperial war machine and what it can muster.

I am an avid student of geopolitics and economics. I read articles every day about politics, war, insurgencies and what is happening in the daily news so of course I am interested in this applies to the Warhammer 40K setting.

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Oops! Double post

Posted at

N0-1_H3r3 said:

peterstepon said:

So, I guess the point of this thread is... is the Imperium outnumbered and about to collapse due to the enemies trying to overwhelm it, or are the enemies of the Imperium fighing a losing battle against the crushing weight of the Imperium?

Both.

The Imperium, from the outside, is a monolithic entity of virtually unimaginable scale and power. The Imperium has achieved what few civilisations have been able to - the domination of a significant expanse of the galaxy and the long-term maintenance of a strong galaxy-wide civilisation. Really, only the Eldar, and the Necrontyr and Old Ones before them, have achieved anything like that, and only the Old Ones managed it on their own (the Necrontyr struggled before hijacking parts of the Old Ones' warp-gate network, and the Eldar too built their empire upon the foundations left by the Old Ones). The Imperium is so vast that even its destruction would take millennia, given how much of its structure is decentralised and how dominant tradition and orthodoxy are - through cultural inertia alone, the fragments of a hypothetical shattered Imperium would persist for generations.

The Imperium, from the inside, is beset on all sides by numerous enemies tearing at the foundations of an empire which requires perpetual human sacrifice on an unprecedented scale to maintain. The blood sweat and tears of every man, woman and child within the Imperium is necessary for humanity as a whole to survive. Worse still, it struggles with internal betrayals and corruption as individuals put themselves before the needs of the species.

On the one hand, no one enemy of the Imperium has the singular strength and power to annihilate it at present - though many have the theoretical potential to do so, should they become more unified, more active or more focussed in action. Any one of the Necrons, the forces of Chaos, the Orks or the Eldar could tear the heart from the Imperium if they were unified towards that singular cause, and the Tyranids represent an escalating threat that could eventually prove strong enough to extinguish all life in the galaxy... but no force in the galaxy can presently rival the Imperium for sheer scale and raw power, in part because of disunity and in part because none of them can focus on only one foe.

On the other hand, the Imperium is facing so many enemies all at once, from so many different directions, that its colossal resources are being stretched almost to breaking point. While no one enemy can oppose at present, the Imperium cannot direct its resources to the annihilation of any one foe, and thus is trapped in perpetual conflict against them all.

You hit the nail right on the head! If you read the 'Horus heresy' series; Chaos essentially went out of it's way to corrupt Horus! The reason for this was that the Emperor's "Imperial truth" would have promoted Human harmony and unity as well as rationality. This would have discouraged superstition, greed and personal aggrandizement. In short, It would have greatly reduced the influence of Chaos over humanity and quite possibly reduced the power of the Chaos gods overall! Both Erebus and the Cabal comment on this (In their own ways) within the series. Any student of Geopolitics can tell you that much of a centralized power's effort is dedicated to maintaining or increasing that power! The powers of Chaos could little afford this little 'godling' (The Emperor) usurping their power!

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The Orks have the largest amount of 'sentient' bodies so to speak, but none of the large scale cohesion or organisation the Imperium has. Or at least thats how it used to be described in 2nd Ed

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Isn't it often said that if the Orks were ever organised under one leader, that nothing could stand in their path? It's a good thing that they like fighting one another so much then! gui%C3%B1o.gif

BYE

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H.B.M.C. said:

Isn't it often said that if the Orks were ever organised under one leader, that nothing could stand in their path? It's a good thing that they like fighting one another so much then! gui%C3%B1o.gif

BYE

It is, and it's the kind of thing that is ably demonstrated by the nigh-unstoppable might of forces like Waaagh Ghazgkhull - an invading force that has repeatedly required a colossal deployment of military force to slow down, and which has never truly been stopped for good.

It's the same with virtually every faction in 40k - it was said by Jervis Johnson during the development of the Swordwind armylist for Epic that if all the Craftworlds and Exodite worlds rallied together with the intent of bringing down mankind, they could strike at the heart of the Imperium and tear out its heart... but they don't have the sense of unity nor capacity to focus on a singular foe - like humanity, the Eldar fight for survival against threats from all directions.

The Necrons are similarly a threat on that sort of scale - they're disunified, emerging from a long and debilitating dormancy, and as inclined to war amongst themselves as against the others around them. As powerful as the Necrons are - and if they were united, they could easily scour the stars of humanity - they're far from the height of their power and they're a scattered force with countless agendas.

Of all the factions in 40k, only the Tyranids could arguably be said to have the singular purpose necessary to achieve the end of life in the galaxy... but the Tyranids represent a growing threat more than a present one - as dangerous as the Tyranids are, their peril is not in the moment, but rather in the potential for their threat to continue growing. Today, the Tyranids can be beaten, but at a terrible cost in lives and resources. But for every Tyranid slain today, a hundred more may arrive tomorrow...

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Unfortunately, the Necron codex rewrite has them being able to wipe out the Imperium at a whim. A sect of them has a star chart that allows them to destroy stars instantly. Luckily, they're something of an esoteric sect that sees themselves as 'gardeners' of the universe and they only 'prune' stars. However, lots of other Necron groups constantly attack their planet because they want that artifact.

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Waywardpaladin said:

Unfortunately, the Necron codex rewrite has them being able to wipe out the Imperium at a whim. A sect of them has a star chart that allows them to destroy stars instantly. Luckily, they're something of an esoteric sect that sees themselves as 'gardeners' of the universe and they only 'prune' stars. However, lots of other Necron groups constantly attack their planet because they want that artifact.

That doesn't actually change my point - the Necrons have the means to annihilate the Imperium, just as many factions do... but lack the unity, will or sense of purpose to actually do it. They're caught up in their own agendas first and foremost.

Plus, having a weapon that can destroy the universe and actually using it are two different things... and when you want to rule the stars, destroying them is counter-intuitive.

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N0-1_H3r3 said:

That doesn't actually change my point - the Necrons have the means to annihilate the Imperium, just as many factions do... but lack the unity, will or sense of purpose to actually do it. They're caught up in their own agendas first and foremost.

Plus, having a weapon that can destroy the universe and actually using it are two different things... and when you want to rule the stars, destroying them is counter-intuitive.

Weirdly enough, they don't seem to want to rule it either. It just seemed weird for the Codex writers to assign such power to a sect so inconsequential. It is like adding a blurb "Oh, by the way, there is a monastery of monks out there that could instantly destroy the Chaos gods and calm the Warp, but they just want to make beer so they never will. Thought you might like to know." in a codex somewhere.

The real problem with the Imperium seems to be their lack of organization and communication. Crusades get sent off against targets hundreds of years gone. Supply shipments are requested from planets whose stars have gone supernova. Everyone is just flailing in random directions. Luckily, aside from the Nids and Tau, everyone else is pretty much just flailing at this point (Now that the Necrons are all half-mad Lords on separate agendas and not some monolithic force commanded by the C'tan.) And as was said earlier, the Tau are just too small to have too large of an effect. (Though as the only force in the universe that is really *advancing* any, in another few thousand years who knows what they might invent. Not that it matters in WH40K's eternal sense of 'now')

Chaos' threat though is eternal. Due to the 'vagaries of the Warp' the same marine can come out of the eye of terror every 13 years and attack the same planet, no matter how many times you kill him. That at least was the justification given for why the Chaos Space Marines will always be around. Good ol' timey wimey stuff.

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Waywardpaladin said:

Chaos' threat though is eternal. Due to the 'vagaries of the Warp' the same marine can come out of the eye of terror every 13 years and attack the same planet, no matter how many times you kill him. That at least was the justification given for why the Chaos Space Marines will always be around. Good ol' timey wimey stuff.

Why did you have to write that? Now I'm thinking of how to insert a 40k equivilant of Mordrek the Damned in the form of a Chaos Space Marine. Could be fun if done right.

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I've got a planet where the same warband attacks like clockwork. By this point the planet is ready for them, and the place where they land is a carefully prepared killzone for them. It has essentially become a holiday on the planet too, they have competitions to who gets to pull the trigger on the poor saps, and then a party afterwards when they're gibbed on arrival. Was planning on having a scenario where a barely held off attack by another force has left the planet ill-prepared this year for the encroaching warband, and the players could either help the settlement (gaining looting rights over the soon to be dead warband's stuff) or warn the warband when they come out of the Warp and help them finally take down the settlement they set out to raid millenia ago.

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Waywardpaladin said:

I've got a planet where the same warband attacks like clockwork. By this point the planet is ready for them, and the place where they land is a carefully prepared killzone for them. It has essentially become a holiday on the planet too, they have competitions to who gets to pull the trigger on the poor saps, and then a party afterwards when they're gibbed on arrival. Was planning on having a scenario where a barely held off attack by another force has left the planet ill-prepared this year for the encroaching warband, and the players could either help the settlement (gaining looting rights over the soon to be dead warband's stuff) or warn the warband when they come out of the Warp and help them finally take down the settlement they set out to raid millenia ago.

Sounds like fun. For the sake of being a malicious Chaos follower I would probably tip off the warband. :D

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The 5th edition core rulebook had a planet that was attacked by Necrons on a predictable timetable…

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Here is a way I like to look at it. Look at Calixis sector. It is in some ways a microcosim of the Imperium. It has 200 planets which would make it about 1/5,000 of the Imperium, or about 0.02% of total planets. If the Imperium was the United States, Calixis would be a county of about 60,000 people.

Yet, look what this corner of the Imperium has done. In some ways Calixis is over represented in some ways. It has it`s very own space marine chapter. It has more inquisitors than it should, it has a titan legion from the forge worlds, and it also has Grey knights coming from time to time (having one, or even a squad, is worth mention). A person from Calixis probably has a higher probability of seeing an Eldar, Chaos follower, Tau, or Tyrannid than many other segments of the imperium because of the sectors unique position being near the Kronos expanse, screaming vortex, or the warp gate leading to the Jericho reach. Not only has Calixis sent vast legions of troops to the Jericho reach, it has also funded and financed many Rogue traders who are in effect pushing the boundries of the Imperium into the Halo stars.

To the enemies of the Imperium, many have probably fought Calixis troops, or Storm Wardens in the Jericho reach. The Jericho reach is consuming a full Hive Fleet of Tyrannids, a whole sept of Tau. Chaos marines are rare, probably rarer than Imperial Space marines. Any time they show up is a comittment. They are comitting troops to the Jericho reach and to the Screaming Vortex, both which put them squarely up against the resources of the Calixis sector. The Eldar have a craft world in the Kronos expanse which must sometimes deal with well armed Rogue traders in a cruiser manufactured in a Calixis shipyard. How many xenos or heretic armies have been crushed by a Titan created in a Calixis forgeworld? Hostile acquisitions does a great job of showing various imperial agents that can cause criminals grief in Calixis.

Again, going back to the math, Calixis is 200 worlds out of a million. When you widen the lens, the resources of the Imperium are HUGE.

There is more, in Deathwatch, the Storm Wardens have put 7 companies into the Jericho reach, making them the largest Astartes force in the Crusade. There are still 3 companies still in reserve which can be used to block more xenos invasions, defend against a Black Crusade, or project power into a region that is destined to become part of the Imperium. The sector seems still like a sleepy backwater, if it were to mobilize for total war the results could be impressive.