So I finally friggin got to play some more Black Crusade (or well, playing ANYTHING at all made me happy in the extreme)… and what I got to play was a very fun Thousand Son sorcerer. Anyway, upon being asked what our next step should be (following being evac'd off a world that had a successful chaos revolution as the intro -- which was then promptly exterminatus'd), my char, after expressing disdain for leaving others to burn, proposed we journey to a new imperial planet, pose as the last survivors of a supposedly extinct loyalist chapter (the Silver Stars), and tell the planetary governor that allowing us to use their planet will allow them to be free of taxation forever, etc.

Ought to be entertaining to see all this work, but anyway, how hard should it be to commit planetary-scale astartes-grade tax fraud in the far future? I mentioned the expectation that we might have to con Ordo Hereticus, Sisters of Battle, loyalist Astartes (perhaps Apothecaries) and… probably an Arbites bastion. The only difficult part I expect, though, is geneseed samples… I wouldn't be remotely surprised if the reason the High Lords still maintain banks of traitor legion geneseed is just to make sure none of them CSM try this. So we may have to find some nice pure geneseed to donate.

The goal, naturally, being to build up forces, unmolested.

Has a story like this been done before?

Sounds interesting, getting the geneseed would be hard, don't know if there is a way around that to genetically engineer some, tricking all those loyalist extremists would be highly dangerous I'd imagine. Tricking a planetary governor wouldn't be as difficult, especially if you target one whose particularly stupid, greedy and heavily indebted to the Golden Throne in one way or another (behind on tithe payments etc). Perhaps convincing said Governor of this fraud would be a good way to bring down the planet? Getting them to stop paying their tithe altogether could be a sure way to bring about the ire of the Imperium who would bring down the sledgehammer of the Emperor on them, bug splatting large areas of the planet before common sense can prevail. As for creating a long term base where you can carry on with your evil plots unmolested that would be very tough. Sooner or later someone with authority enough to question an Astartes would turn up. And I bet 'lost' chapters reappearing would create some interest.

I'd say a better plan would be to trick the Governor with this ruse of yours to create problems for the Imperium, build a base under the assumption that the Imperial Navy is about drop the Emperors ban hammer on said planet, then when the fleet does turn up in 1 to 100 years time you disappear happy in the knowledge that you screwed up the war effort or Hive food chain resulting in millions of deaths somewhere in the Imperium. Mean while the Navy drops ordinance the size of skyscrapers on actually loyal citizens, killing millions more and maybe even creating a rebellion further down the line. Hey maybe you can even get some of those suspended tithes paid to you directly instead to fund your research/plans.

Posing as a Loyalist might be hard for a CSM but I'm sure the Alpha Legion do such things all the time so its not impossible. You'd have to block astropathic communications some way as well so that a simple 'phone call' from the tax man wouldn't clear things up.

DW

As a side note it might be useful to find out who, apart from the Governor, is responsible for the Imperial tithe on your chosen world as they may be more sceptical of this fabulous deal your offering their greedy boss. Satiating the important officials and liquidating the minor functionaries would likely be the first step in this con one way or the other. Unless your just cutting the tithe and diverting the rest to your 'Chapter'

DW

I have no idea how you expect to con all these people and get away with it with basically no plan. The local Admnistratum would require ungodly amounts of paperwork, the Inquisition might have better to do but would undoubtedly make genetic purity checks on supposedly dead marines, the arbites would investigate into the legality of the claim, astropathic messages would be sent, and within a few years (or at least much quicker than it would take to create new marines), an official envoy from the High Lords of Terra would be sure to arrive, and finding a planet whose planetary governor (and all his aides, and family, etc…) would be stupid enough to get conned into this without asking a few questions is a challenge in itself.

Not impossible, but requires way more preparation, resources and guile than just showing up and asking nicely.

Taking as a fact that there are untold numbers of backworld places and a big bunch of very secretive chapters that even Inquisitor have issues to track and question.

I would say it is possible. Many worlds may not even be aware they have a chapter using them as recruiting ground.

Some worlds have tithes that only have to be payed every other hundred years or have no tithes per say since there is nothign worth it or they are not even big enough to consider the effort yet may have a very aggressive population surviving of a death world type (pre tithe status).

Just depedns on where and what type of planet you are tryign to take… If it's a major aggri world, a big hive, a lonely colony never able to get to decent size or a Space Marine owned planet…

Do you have a human in your group?

- Erik

Its worth noting, I think, that if you did manage to pull this off, keep exploiting the Governor. When the proper authorities do show up to question him, you can probably easily sway him to turn to Chaos to make his Inquisitor problem disappear…. Once the Governor is converted, its a slow process to get at the rest of the planet, but it should eventually trickle down.

Hey, you might even be able to get an enterprising daemon to "invest" in your plan.

In a pinch, mass telepathic mind-**** should be a quick fix.

It's worth looking up the Raptor Chapter in Honor the Chapter or the Lexicanum. In a nut shell they seemed to die off and then came back much stronger than before. Are they a new Chapter refounded using old Chapter icons? Did they drop off the radar and come back? Or is it a Alpha Legion long con? Who knows. Also check out info on the Abyssal Crusade, a lot of lost Chapters in that. The "lost Chapters" are a pretty good cover. I think it would be doable, but much easier in a back water areas of the Calixis Sector or Koronus Expanse.

I wouldn't bother to offer him the tax thing. Offer instead to set up an independent base of operations with the offer that you will come to the planet's aid when needed. If your trying to lie low and build forces, that would get you better situated to not be bothered by the other factions. A geneseed check might still be done on you, but if played right you could likely avoid all the other problems mentioned.

After getting set up, you could then manufacture problems that you then deal with to put various groups in your debt and use them to continue avoiding detection, but also to establish supply lines. Then once your truely established, rather than cutting off the tax, you subtly corrupt it (whatever "it" is). If I was doing this, I would be looking for an agro world that supplied variuous imperial regiments. My corruption of the tithe would involve specially engineered crops that "enhance" the preformance of the units eating the rations made from them. I would use this to begin putting regiments into my pocket. If I could I would catch the arbites bastion and the sororitas groups in the area the same way.

All this time I would of course continue playing my role as the hero ready to defend humanity from all the scary monsters (who by now I would have deals with), and when I feel ready, inform the authorities that I have been called on to establish a new base in another location, and leave my holdings in some minion's capable hands to continue on with the work and of course take the blame for it if he gets to upity.

I wouldn't bother to offer him the tax thing. Offer instead to set up an independent base of operations with the offer that you will come to the planet's aid when needed. If your trying to lie low and build forces, that would get you better situated to not be bothered by the other factions. A geneseed check might still be done on you, but if played right you could likely avoid all the other problems mentioned.

After getting set up, you could then manufacture problems that you then deal with to put various groups in your debt and use them to continue avoiding detection, but also to establish supply lines. Then once your truely established, rather than cutting off the tax, you subtly corrupt it (whatever "it" is). If I was doing this, I would be looking for an agro world that supplied variuous imperial regiments. My corruption of the tithe would involve specially engineered crops that "enhance" the preformance of the units eating the rations made from them. I would use this to begin putting regiments into my pocket. If I could I would catch the arbites bastion and the sororitas groups in the area the same way.

All this time I would of course continue playing my role as the hero ready to defend humanity from all the scary monsters (who by now I would have deals with), and when I feel ready, inform the authorities that I have been called on to establish a new base in another location, and leave my holdings in some minion's capable hands to continue on with the work and of course take the blame for it if he gets to upity.

Have you considered a career in politics, 'cause that's brilliant.

Agreed with the suggestions; posing as a loyalist chapter is easily do-able provided you've got no massively overt mutations.

The issue is going to be one of paperwork, as noted - 'free of taxation' is easy to promise, but it's getting the administratum to stop coming and asking that's going to be key.

My best recommendation is that you find an inter-sector world - i.e. one that's off on its own and not part of a sub-sector or sector, but are nominally part of a segmentum directly. Such worlds only really see Imperial ships when tithe fleets or naval long patrols turn up anyway.

They're the sort of worlds authors talk about when they talk about the Imperium 'losing' entire worlds through a paperwork error - you couldn't 'lose' Iocanthos, for example, no matter how many scribes had a bad filing day, because everyone involved in the main trade routes of the Calixis sector bloody well knows it's there. But Arseendofnowhere IV isn't part of any sector, on any trade route, or part of any battlefront; it only gets visited twice in a generation - once by the Administratum to pick up a megatonne tithe of whatever the hell they grow or mine there, and once by the League Of Blackships to pick up whatever captured psykers are in the cells.

If you can delete reference to it in the files, then by the next time a visit would have rolled around, there's probably no-one left in living memory who knows it's there.

Which, of course, has the same effect as 'being relieved of the tithe'.

If you want the Governor to really play along, look for a world whose tithe is coming due in a few years; because the need to meet said tithe is going to be focusing his mind nicely.

Then feth up his ability to meet said tithe. Quietly mess up his harvests. Cause "accidental" sabotage - nothing that looks like cult activity, mind you. You don't want him paranoid that it's a conspiracy, just afraid of failing the administratum. Because he knows he's a dead man if he does. Critically, also kill his astropath(s). There won't be many - maybe even only a couple - and if you can kill them he has no way to 'call anyone' to double-check your story.

Then, once he's working his world to the bone and still going to fail, that's when you appear like the proverbial cavalry.

"We need a recruiting world." you say. "As an astartes domain, you'll be recognised as an 'Aptus Non' world - exempt from the tithe forever."

"Can you do this?" he asks, desperately.

"We have authority." you say, showing your splendidly official - but forged - warrant. "We'll speak to the Imperium on your behalf." knowing that the Imperium isn't coming because you already had the officio responsible for the tithe 'mislay' reference to the world's existence.

Of course, that's when an 'Administratum Qaestor-Praefect Senioris Of Tithe Assessment' turns up, reviews your splendidly official documentation, nods in agreement, and goes away again. The fact that said administratum goon looks a lot like your party's Apostate in a groucho marx-style false nose, mustache and glasses, is no trouble to a mind pre-disposed to accept what he says as the truth (because it's that or the chop for failing to meet the tithe). I'm sure you can lay your hands on a small pirate vessel which looks smart and shipshape enough to pass for one still in Imperial service.

Getting the Gene-seed samples - that's the easier part. After all, you can buy it (for suitable cost) from any renegade chapter or legion in return for....well, mercenary service is probably easiest - after all, if you can set up your 'homeworld' right, you can recruit and train personnel nice and quickly. As long as you are fairly ruthless with culling gross mutation, and you don't let the general populace anywhere near your 'chapter fortress' - you're astartes; declaring that approaching your fortress unbidden is death is not exactly out of character - they should never know that your 'last survivors of the silver stars' are, under the repainted armour, a motley selection of renegades and traitors.

I'd put your fortress off-world - it's easiest to control access - and if there's less probability of escape you can afford to be much more direct with your 'recruitment' method. Where a geneseed implant doesn't take, and for a loyalist chapter you're stuck with a chapter serf of limited value, you can instead have them possessed and use them as kamikaze shock troops...

NECROMANCY!!! if this wasn't a black crusade forum I would cry heresy!