Hopebright

So, there was some conversation on the Discord which led to this shameless riff/parody/etc. of the Warhammer 40K intro quote to produce one for this setting:

It is the dawn of the Ninth Millennium. For nearly a hundred centuries the unbroken line of the Imperial Couple have sat upon the Dragon Throne. They are the executives of the Empire by the free contract of its three trillion citizen-shareholders, and sovereign over twelve score worlds by Their own will and merit. They are the chosen of their people’s self-created machine deities, haloed in the power of transcendent computation. They are the line of Alphas and Seledíë, those who first brought the galaxy order, progress, and liberty.

Yet even beyond the Empire, Their benevolence is felt. The matchless fleets of the Imperial Navy roam the ten-thousand stars of the Associated Worlds, their paths forged by stargates, the only swift route between distant stars. Vast populations live lives of peace and contentment on uncounted worlds beneath the Empire’s protective cloak. Even beyond these, their comrades – the bold scouts of the Imperial Exploratory Service – roam, forever seeking the knowledge of new worlds and the friendship of new peoples. But for all their striving, the galaxy is vast, and there is so much yet to know…

To be a sophont in such times is to be one among unimaginable diversity. It is to live in a world shaped by freedom, harmony, and vaulting ambition. These are the tales of those times. Revere the power of technology and science, for so much is known, and so much can be done. See the promise of progress and understanding fulfilled, for in this bright future there is only awesomeness. There is no more darkness lurking among the stars, only the promise of eternity, and the laughter of delighted gods.

7 thoughts on “Hopebright

  1. Just read this… and then the previous 40k entries. Nice bit of intro blurb, but WRT the other threads…. eh I don’t think the Empire can do it unless you nerf the Imperium a lot (eg Chaos is around to muck up the Warp etc). People forget that whilst 40k stuff is all grimdark etc, their tech is actually pretty good, and the numbers are ludicrously high. Even good old antimatter will struggle vs magitech void shields or metres-thick, gigaton-yields-resistant armour on ships, and planetary installations can & do have impressive shielding etc too. If the Empire can get to Holy Terra, they’ll find the place well protected against orbital bombardment etc. On the ground, you have to allow for kJ+ firepower from ye olde lasgun etc too, which is kind of scary from a hard sci-fi perspective.

    • Yeah, that sort of thing is why I generally eschew vs.-debates, because there’s too much tech inconsistency to handwave away in ways that will inevitably disappoint someone.

      But leaving aside for the moment Marcel Müller’s comment below (and noting in passing that having AI at all is a fairly dramatic advantage when compared to trying to do everything with meat), you may notice that what I identified as the Imperium’s weaknesses aren’t anything to do with their tech per se (which is indeed pretty good).

      One is tech-related; namely, that it may be nifty, but even the Adeptus Mechanicus only have a fairly poor understanding of how it works, innovation is heresy, and reverse-engineering xenotech is double heresy with sprinkles. This is not a good situation to be in when facing Team Mad Science for whom reverse-engineering any cool stuff they get their hands on and then building improved versions is, well, Tuesday.

      The second is cultural. No-one in the setting has really anything by way of a meme warfare department, (Orks do not intentionally infiltrate!) which is unfortunate, because a fanatic fascist theocracy riven through with factions and obsessed with the dangers of hidden mutants and traitors is the sort of playground that that stratarchy absolutely adores, especially when the gloves come off and it’s no longer doing “careful modification” but rather straight-up “take this society apart and we don’t care about the pieces”. If those guys can’t have the Imperium’s attack force bogged down in bloody infighting, civil strife, and loyalist worlds Exterminatus-ing each other in a matter of weeks, they’ll eat their tailored spinfoil hats.

      • Well, to be honest, without grimdorkness, there would be no war. With no war, there’d be no battles. With no battles, a certain company wouldn’t be able to sell overpriced plastic soldiers, paints that dry out before they run out, rules that change before you can learn them properly and self-contradicting background material.

        I’ll take the alternative, stories of the Star Empire.

  2. “There is no more darkness lurking among the stars”
    Well, except the occasional homogenising swarm. XD

  3. Yeah, that’s mostly why I like the Eldraeverse, far above and beyond the GrimDorkness of 40k.

    And I totally agree with driagledd about the only darkness remaining being those hegemonizing swarms like the Leviathan Consciousness.

  4. One of the big advantages of your universe, over 40K is this-

    Your universe is indifferent to what happens in it.

    The 40K universe wants everything in it to suffer for it’s amusement.

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