Agares Tretiak

He was having a stroke.

Mmm. Socket 478.

Nah. Brother Praetorian would be fine. Despite my current steam name, I'm not very good at the game yet. I think a little tourney should be held to see who would hold the Lord Praefectus title for our little Ordo Chapter. ;__;

Brother-Thingy is the Codex Astartes ranking system. I'm not sure if the Ordo would classify as a Codex Astartes chapter or not. If we want to use that, though, there's a handful of ranks and roles in the Astartes. Standard Ranks _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Brother Blahblah Would be your rank and file soldier Brother-Sergeant Blahblah would be most of your officer corps. Special Ranks _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Brother-Apothecary Blahblah would be the equivalent of a medic in the game. (They wear almost all white armor, in a Codex Astartes unit) Brother-Chaplain Blahblah would be a spiritual and morale leader in a company. Something between a military chaplain and a comissar. Brother-Librarian Blahblah would be a Chapter sanctioned psyker and communications specialist. Oftentimes, Librarians serve as a sort of intelligence arm for the chapter in question, as they also collect large amounts of information. Techmarine - Handles the maintenance of a company's war materials (Armor, vehicles, weapons). Command ranks. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Brother-Captain Blahblah would be leading an entire chapter company (100 Space Marines). Brother-Reclusiarch Blahblah would be leader of the Chapter's Chaplains. Master of the Forge Blahblah would be the top Techmarine of the entire Chapter. Master of the Fleet Blahblah would be in command of the Chapter's fleet assets. Chief-Librarian would be the ranking Librarian of the entire Chapter. Chief-Apothecary would be the ranking Apothecary of the entire Chapter Chapter Master - Commands the whole chapter. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ My recommendation for the Ordo's Chapter ranking system is to use some of the traditional Roman rank titles. Naturally, that's if we want to formalize the ranks. For instance, rank and file would be Brother-Milites Blahblah. A squad would be a Cohor, each Company would be a Century led by a Lord Centurion. If we are Codex Astartes compliant, we'd have 10 Centuries/Companies, with the First Company being the elite, and the 1st Cohor of the First Company would be known as the Praetorian Guard and technically comprise of the chapter's terminators. The First Company commander would be the Lord Praefectus . The Tenth Century/Company would be the Training company. Call that what you will. Cohor Scholam, maybe. In addition, most Company formations would comprise of the 1st Cohor/Squad of the Company being Veterans (Company elite). In the case of the Ordo, I'd call them "Triarii" which were considered elite soldiers in the Roman military (prior to the Marian reforms). So you'd have Brother-Triarius Blahblah as your standard Veteran rank. All the command ranks would hold the prefix of Lord, to denote their station. So... Lord Reclusiarch would be the commander of the Chapter's chaplains, Lord of the Fleet would command the Fleet, Lord Apothecary, etc, etc. I guess Aryte would be like...the High Legate or Lord Legate, something of that nature, as he is undoubtedly our Chapter Master.

I made a new version of the color scheme I proposed. I moved the red to right arm edging, turned the helmet black, as well as the left shoulder pad. The rest has silver details, aside from the laurel wreath on the helmet, which is green. I used Coal black, rather than Chaos Black. I've got screenshots on my Steam page.

Hmm.

Oh dear god.

I'll need to play the MP and see what cool color scheme I can conjure with in the game's constraints.

If the crew is dead, the ship would likely be compromised beyond salvage. Mind you, most ships that have an AI, have -thousands- of personnel on board, not counting Navis Marines and any Astra, Terra, Curia, or Praetorians. An Ordo Crew would not let itself be taken prisoner. First off, most of the Ordo's enemies are vehemently anti-Imperium and would kill, torture, eat, or otherwise destroy the crew members. There's very little quarter given in a ship boarding action, either. If the shipw as imminent threat of being captured, the Ordo trains its captains to scuttle the vessel...or seal the compartments that have not been seized, then open the airlocks to vent the attackers. In the worst conditions, the vessel's power core would be set to overload and destroy the vessel completely. The Ordo and the Imperium rely heavily on technology, but it's very specific that those who wield the technology should always have a measure of control and determination over that of their tools. This relates to the strong stoic and deterministic culture that has developed in the Imperium over it's development, and it's often time pragmatic, but uncompromising measures of maintaining order and control. Make no mistake, the Imperium is not perfect. It is very often oppressive, overbearing, and does not coddle its citizens. But at the same time, it keeps it'[s citizens safe, prosperous, and strong. The only semblance of democracy is in its representative body, the Senate, which has mostly duties that relate to civilian matters and issues. Beyond the election of senators to regional and then the Imperial Senate, voting and the like is a rare thing. Most imperial planets are ruled by govenors, oligarchies, theocracies, or military govenors. Some have varying forms of this (such as some with councils of aristocratic Lower Houses or Senatorial Viceroys), and a very few are ruled by a democratic system where its leadership is selected by the citizens of the planet or system. But those would be the exception, rather than the rule. Slavery does exist in the Imperium, but it's not like the slavery most would think of. Slaves receive very specific protections under the law, and may bring grievances against their master if they are abused. Most slaves are contractual, to voluntarily pay off debts of honor or money, while a smaller portion are acquired via colonization or as prisoners of war. In all cases, all slaves are issued a contract when they are taken into possession and have a set term of servitude, before they are released as freemen with a pittance. There are also special conditions where a slave might acquire their freedom through legal procedures, and there are planets that ban or limit slavery. In most cases, slaves are not used for manual labor, but rather as servants, teachers, and administrators in a noble family's household. The Imperium's role, ultimately, is to collect taxes that maintain various government functions, provide a common basis of law to resolve various disputes (and crimes), provide for the defense and safety of its member states, and to expand its influence to spread it's particular concept of manifest destiny (essentially, they believe the Galaxy will be best ruled by the Imperium, and that it is their destiny and fate to do so). Worlds which have been long influenced by the Imperium tend to be staunch supporters of the Imperial system. They are safe, they are prosperous, they are influential. In turn for that, those systems provide the bulk of the Ordo Imperialis Milites manpower, funding, and war materials. Imperial culture emphasizes duty, familial honor, and service to the wider Imperium. To serve the Senate and the Imperator are considered the greatest honors a family can achieve. The most influential aristocratic families form the basis of the Great Houses of the Servant Nobility. All Great Houses are required to tithe a specific portion of their wealth and households to the service of the Senate and the Imperator, somewhere around 25% of their holdings. This is the price they pay for the prestige and privileges they receive, and a lot of consuls and military commanders come from a branch of a Great House. Think of a Great House and its holdings to be entire extended families, plus retainers, slaves, and (oftentimes) their private corporations. A portion of each must be promised to the Imperium's uses, to be considered a Great House. Lesser houses tend to be smaller, but specialize in specific duties and services, many of which center around various trades and industries. Much of the Imperium's trade and industry is thus controlled by trading houses and consortium made up of Great and Lesser houses, and further falls under the oversight and control of the Imperium and Senate (also note that the Imperium controls all legal interstellar transit throughout it's holdings).

Dee-wah Bwizzahd, pwease let mistur ruin pla ur beta luv, agares ps u guize r cool

Those would be more like the Lares, than the Pantheon. There's a very specific reason for that, but to reveal that right now would ruin my work on the Sentinel's storyline. >_> At anyrate, most Naval rated warships of the Navis have an AI onboard. It is bounded, and helps oversee and smooth over ship board operations, but lacks the ability to assume direct and full control of the vessel. For instance, it can help a gunner adjust his aim for gravitational effects, but the AI cannot fire the guns without someone pushing the "fire gun" button. The AI can fine tune a communications or sensor array, but it cannot send a ship to ship message in place of an actual communications officer.

Addendum to above: Each AI core has special defense AIs called Lares, which have limited awareness. Each Lar (singular form of Lares) plays an important part in also keeping the Pantheon bound. For reference, an unbound AI would be the horrific, dangerous entity of many science fiction novels and stories. All AIs maintained by the Imperium are bound, under a multi-tiered system called the "Turing Protocols of Bounded Artificial Intelligence". Unlike the Pantheon, Lares do not posses personalities, and thus seem somewhat dull and mechanical next to the more colorful Pantheon AIs. In reference to transport gates (anchor points), each one is also something of a work of art, with large, sculptural features of ornate detail depicting the dual-faced Roman deity Janus.

:(

Way ahead of you.

My comment is more related to the fact that Stalin brutally destroyed threats, real and imagined. I see no reason to try to even defend or define his political vision, but more in interest to his treatment of his military commanders.

To briefly touch on the transportation method of the Imperium: The Ordo Imperialis Milites and the Ordo Imperialis Civitas both use similar technology for travel. Essentially, they use space time folds to travel interstellar distances. Vast distances are best traveled using two anchor points, which then use method of folding space-time between the two points into a sort of tesseract. The ship then passes over the localized fold and arrives at its destination anchor point (to blatantly rip a concept from Mass Effect, each anchor point utilizes a quantum entangled pair). Anchor points are large, station sized installations located on the border of the heliopause of the given system. From there, a ship might use FTL to maneuver closer into the system. Note that all ships must drop from FTL within a certain radius of a given gravity well. For instance, if I was traveling in our solar system (Sol) we would be able to drop out of FTL travel closer to the Earth, than to Jupiter, but you'd need to drop out of FTL just past Venus, to approach Mercury due to Mercury's proximity to the Sun. All civilian transports must pay a fee to utilize an anchor point, though there's a few "freeway" routes that have reduced or no fees at all. All anchor points are heavily armed stations, usually with a small fleet to guard them, and they serve as relays for not only ships, but communications as well. As a result, they are rigged to self destruct, should it be deemed that a system has been seized by the enemy. it might also be shut down to prevent point to point travel to the system, essentially cutting off the system from the Imperium. This permits the center of the Imperium to control trade and transportation throughout its empire, despite the vast distances it covers. Each system has a single anchor point, which can manage up to 30 different anchor points. The sole exception is the throne world, which has a "super" anchor of 120 points. Needless to say, ships that utilize alternative methods of interstellar travel are heavily restricted. The Ordo Imperialis Milites utilizes vessels that are capable of circumventing the anchor point network. The utilize similar principles of folding space-time in a tesseract, but rather than having a preset anchor point, it has to calculate a theoretical point in relation to it's particular location. This results in a maximum "safe" distance to fold, which means a ship must fold multiple times to travel to a system that doesn't have an anchor point. The reason for a the maximum safe distance is that as the points grow further and further apart, proportionally more energy is required to fold the space between them, the accuracy drops, and the risks of becoming fractured in transit increase. Fracturing is what essentially happens if the tesseract doesn't unfold properly or folded more than the standard stable tessract method (for instance, folding into something more akin to a cantellated tesseract) and the ship gets ripped apart on a molecular level...or split into varying states of existence...or scattered across multiple dimensional planes, simultaneously. There's even a few recorded instances of test vessels infinitely folding on themselves and forming quantum singularities after a seemingly infinite number of the test vessel and its mass occupy the same space, simultaneously. Essentially,bad, bad things happen if the maximum jump distance is exceeded. Despite these risks, there are some advantages. First, there is no reliance on the anchor points to travel, allowing the Ordo to theoretically strike anywhere at anytime. Second, the ships can fold within a system (to a certain degree) and can allow the Ordo to move past outer-ring defenses for some systems. Third, in a bit of a paradox in space travel, the fleet is faster, the larger the ships it has. The reason for this is related to power generation and not to mass, which generally plays a back seat when it comes to traveling through a fold. A larger ship generally has excess energy,and thus generate a fold that is at a further point than most smaller ships can safely fold. Thus, a fleet with battleships will generally reach its destination sooner than a fleet without them. Also, only a single ship is required to fold space for the fleet to move. The limiting factor, however, is that only ships with a specific form of shielding can pass through folds (something many trans-atmospheric vessels lack, not to mention fighters, which are far too small to carry the shield systems) to protect against the unique and dangerous forms of radiation (Holtzman particles and Holtzman-Effect radiation) generated during the tesseract fold and the subsequent transfer. It must be noted, this radiation is easily picked up by most sensor systems and can blot out system wide sensors, if the ships enter within the heliopause of a system. The result is a sort of double-blind effect: The enemy is aware a fleet just arrived, but they will not be able to tell where it arrived, until (usually) it is too late to respond appropriately. Please note that not all species in the galaxy utilize this technology, and might use slower or faster, safer or more dangerous methods of interstellar transportation. Those with Imperial Warrants of Trade, however, are forced to utilize the Imperium's anchor points to transport within Ordo held territory, or be viewed as smugglers or worse and be subsequently hunted down and blasted into dust, making it the most ubiquitous form of transportation.

I'd love to take a look! :D Also, I've been giving thought to what Mercury is and how it might function. This is what I've come up with, so far: Mercury is the AI interface for a larger AI network called the Pantheon. The Pantheon is comprised of numerous AI cores that all function to process, sort, and sift through the vast amounts of data generated by the Ordo Imperialis. Each of the Pantheon AIs are given a Greco-Roman deity's name. For instance, Juno, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Pluto, Vulcan, and Mercury. Generally, each AI has a function that somehow relates to their status within the Pantheon. For instance, Mars is the AI that processes all military data and provides tactical and strategic projections (which are more like suggestions), Pluto commands information about the Imperial economy and more specifically, the treasury, and Juno watches the diverse political topography. Jupiter operates as a sort of managing AI that keeps the others on task. Each AI has a semi-autonomous personality that is used to keep the AIs from "breaking" free of their particular areas of responsibility, and thus makes them bound to their work. Mercury operates as the messenger, essentially the one that is the normal interface between your standard user on the network, and the Pantheon itself. It's rare for a particular AI to be contacted directly, besides Mercury. Rumors persist of the "Janus" AI, but there is no official evidence it exists. According to most (though not all) rumors, it controls the actual transportation gates and all intelligence the Imperium gathers.

You're a bloody Praetorian. You might as well be a Space Marine as it is!

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/smpbeta.php If you want to play around with paint schemes, this is useful for it.

Zhukov won, because if he didn't, Stalin would have had him shot. And once he started winning, he had to keep winning. The lesson here is that you never win with Stalin as your leader. :(

Is it bad I'm prepared for this thread? Click on it for a larger image.

I don't usually wear shoes at home, either...

...Ron. I'm going to punch your face.

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus - Beat the crap out of Hannibal, Roman General and politician during the Republic Marcus Ulpius Nerva Trajanus Augustus - Roman Emperor and military leader - Also known as Trajan Publius Aelius Trajanus Hadrianus Augustus - Roman Emperor and military leader - Also known as Hadrian Mikołaj Bołtuć - Polish General in World War II, was the only Polish commander to bring the fight to German held territory, and harried them for several days, before being forced to withdraw. Died with nearly all of his men (who refused to abandon him) and tried to also breakthrough the siege of Warsaw. If you want to study Russian Generals, there's two you must know: General Winter and General Zukhov. Winter is one of the greatest weapons the Russians have against invading armies. It kicked the shit out of Napolean and the German push for Moscow (right on the outskirts, no less). Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov - Led Russian forces during WW II and was their supreme commander. Was later stripped of his influence and post by Stalin, because Stalin was paranoid about how massively popular and well liked he was. He was also a brutal and uncompromising commander, but this made him very formidable against the Germans and was one of many reasons the Germans would much rather be captured by the Allies, than the Russians.