The Astartes Family's Notebook

Like I said before, feel free to criticize the author; after all, the author gets paid to write the book, so you can criticize them all you want.

But you're all book lovers who pay to read books, so please don't start fighting amongst yourselves.

Warhammer Musings (Part 7)

We've gathered enough topics to start chatting.

Firstly, the relationships between the Astartes Chapters are not harmonious.

On the one hand, the Milky Way is too vast and sparsely populated. Different companies in the same battle group might not meet again for hundreds of years. That's why there are many cases where company commanders join the bandits and their entire companies follow them to become outlaws.

After all, many new recruits never even saw the old bastard, the squad leader, from birth to death; the company commander was the man who could be their father.

Following this line of thought, things get even more complicated between factions. How do you prove you are who you are, right?

Therefore, a single large-scale loss of veterans can effectively destroy much of the honor and loyalty of a battle group that lacks a strong foundation.

Kaz's achievements were considerable, but what truly made him famous was his runner-up finish in the Omidas Black Cup during his recruit period.

This also answers everyone's question about why a Chaos War Gang would impersonate "Destroyer's Blade".

Similarly, the Warhammer universe is essentially based on a face-centric system, much like Chinese history before the Sui and Tang dynasties, where fame and fortune are inseparable. Fame is fortune, and fortune is fame. This was most prevalent during the Han dynasty. What were the methods of recommending candidates for official positions and recruiting officials? Powerful families would promote your fame, and you would be granted titles and ranks. Reputation was the same as rank.

As a religious armed association, Astartes actually had a strong sense of class distinctions.

Therefore, some readers say that White Scar's think tank doesn't actually need to be that complicated; one look is enough to know Ah Fa's background.

Yes, not right.

Because think tanks that excel at prediction can indeed do it. For example, Tigris even dared to make the prediction that Kaul and Queen Qagiriman would kill the regent once and then resurrect him. Top think tanks are indeed amazing.

However, the Storm Priest of White Scar is quite special. There is very little information available. All that is known is that Khan did leave a legacy in Chogoris, something like a time rift or another dimension. White Scar's think tank is somewhat similar to the Grey Knights, and they can only be considered to have emerged from seclusion after surviving an other dimension adventure.

This is why the author wrote that Saladin sought psionic support from the Ultramarines instead of White Scar, with whom he had a closer relationship.

This involves the most exclusive secrets of White Scar, which are neither revealed nor can they be revealed to outsiders.

In addition, given the small scale of the event, one can't expect a rune priest who doesn't even have a name to identify the truth at a glance.

Moreover, whether something can be done and whether it is possible to do it are two different things.

Even if Kars really takes down the Red Viper, whose loyalty is hard to discern, White Scar might turn a blind eye. However, Kars chose the most aggressive tactic to raid the nest, so before the purity review results are released, Afa's "loyalty" mask won't be removed, and some methods can't be used.

If any think tank can declare you guilty today, then tomorrow any think tank can deliver a final verdict.

That's not how it works.

This is why Katz insisted on sharing the profits with the Inquisitor to stand up for him, and why he insisted on bringing representatives from other chapters to observe the matter.

Work should be documented.

The second point of contention is whether the genetic seeds of Chaos Astartes can be taxed, and how they should be recycled and disposed of.

Well, GW has been vague about this, and I can only share some personal opinions based on the information I've gathered.

First of all, apart from the Ultramarines, Caul who wields the Primal Blood Stack, and the Space Wolf, no one else can use technical means to sequence and determine which Primal is the gene seed.

This is mainly inferred from the official novel of the Imperial Trial of Salperdon after the Soul Drinker Chapter's mutation.

This interrogation transcript wasn't written out of incompetence or conjecture. The Soul Drinkers Chapter experienced two large-scale civil wars, the emergence of Tzeentch, the Demon Prince, who promoted the Khorne cult, openly attacked the Astronautical Army, engaged in armed conflict with other Imperial factions, seized the Mechanicus fleet, and allied with the Dark Eldar to fight the Necromancers...

Even under these circumstances, the Imperial Fist still gave the Soul Drinkers a chance to defend themselves during the trial on the Mountain Array. Lysander also invited representatives from four or five Imperial sub-groups, as well as veteran sub-groups like the Crimson Angels, the Inquisitors, and the Mechanicus to observe the proceedings.

On one hand, the Soul Drinkers are veteran fighting groups that participated in the Beast Wars and are one of the flagship groups of the Ground Fist.

On the other hand, giving Salperdon dignity is also giving dignity to all of Astartes.

Only the more prestigious Astartes could judge Astartes.

Especially after the Moon of Shame incident, the court understood that it was fine to deal with Titanus in private, but if they tried to gain a voice in public, they would ruin the reputation of the Antarctic Hotel.

In the Warhammer universe, trust is extremely expensive. Kars himself didn't realize that he was actually a veteran. There aren't many Astartes in the Fissure Galaxy who can live to be three hundred years old.

Then, back to the Soul Drinkers, the Holy Blood Angels, having suffered from illness for so long, have become excellent doctors, and the Holy Blood Priests, who spend all their time researching Blood Thirst and Black Wrath, have become renowned gene masters in the Empire.

Therefore, after comparing the Soul Drinker's genetic seed, the Crimson Angel could only conclude that the Soul Drinker was not the offspring of Rogue Dorn, and as for whose offspring it was, they did not know.

Similarly, when the empire levies a gene tax, it investigates whether the gene seed has uncontrollable mutations or signs of chaotic corruption.

The Black Dragon Chapter has already grown horns on its head and has been under constant surveillance by the Inquisition. Others can use various means to find other chapters or even trade legitimate gene seeds on the black market to pay taxes, which makes the Inquisition grit its teeth but it has no way to convict them.

Therefore, it doesn't matter whose gene seed the Chaos War Gang confiscated belonged to; the most crucial question is whether it has been corrupted by Chaos.

The minimum tax rate for genetic seed tax is 5%, which means that each time the tax is paid, the temple must pay at least 50 seeds.

If the number of people is less than a thousand, and the losses are severe, do we still have to pay a thousand?

In principle, we can make an exception. You can submit your own report. We only have 100 people left. How about we submit 5 tokens?

Okay, but when the time comes, the supplies and benefits that the empire should provide will be based on the standard of one hundred people.

Unless things get really difficult, loyalist factions will grit their teeth and still pay 5%, not to save face, but because the gene seed tax is directly linked to the faction's benefits.

Aside from the newly formed battle groups who didn't understand the intricacies and believed the High Lord's lies, voluntarily paying more taxes during the newbie protection period, the other veteran factions that paid more taxes were all negotiating with the Star Region Government.

This seems to have been mentioned before in the main text.

Therefore, except for those from the Black Dragon Legion whose own gene seeds have undergone severe mutations, ordinary branches can openly use the gene seeds confiscated from the Chaos War Gang to pay taxes.

Of course, it's unrealistic to use all of it to pay taxes; there has to be a certain percentage, since the empire still needs to check your purity.

However, most temples do not actually have this kind of "trouble".

After all, even a proper loyalist chapter wouldn't produce a chapter leader like Kaz who made a name for himself in the Eye of Fear.

Katz is good at organizing warbands, mainly because he is experienced and good at reverse thinking. Most loyal Astartes don't have Samar's amazing resume, which includes being in a band for fifteen years before graduating from high school.

The Chaos War Gang isn't hard to fight, it's hard to find.

Many Chaos Astartes have undergone such severe mutations that many warbands within the Eye of Terror have had to resort to stealing gene seeds from Imperial loyalists.

This brings us to the Devourer of Worlds.

The current World Eaters have become so twisted that they recognize the Butcher's Nail but not bloodline.

It's hard to say which side the true masters of the World Eaters are on, whether the Empire or the Eye of Fear have more influence.

The most typical example is that a certain Ultra Warrior was captured, brainwashed, trained, and hammered with nails, and even gained Angron's approval.

It can only be said that Butcher's Sting is the true original form of the World Eater, while Angron is just an accessory.

This is the official setting; the British have a lot of malice towards Angron.

Let's talk about Saint Sabat. Everyone knows that her prototype is Joan of Arc.

Then the question arises: Did Joan of Arc know her name was Joan of Arc when she was alive?

The answer is obvious: I don't know.

Jeanne d'Arc, a magical French pronunciation, translates to "Jeanne d'Arc".

What's even more amazing is that the French themselves don't know whether that "D" is a misconception or something else entirely.

As for Jeanne, that's even more absurd; it's just that people are speechless when they can't even know the etymology of her name.

Duck is her father's surname, nothing special. Given the illiteracy rate in France during the Hundred Years' War, the name Jeanne was like that of a certain Hong or Yingzi in China; there were at least dozens of people with that name in a village.

The "Jean" in Jeanne means "the other side of the bridge," so it translates to "Jeanne on the other side of the bridge"...

Thanks to the information explosion of the internet age, the demystification of the old European Plain White Flag has been remarkable.

Joan of Arc's canonization was actually quite recent, occurring in the early 20th century. The French, after much searching, found that apart from Napoleon, they couldn't find a single iconic figure who represented their national identity. Thus, in 1920, Pope Benedict XV canonized Joan of Arc.

Apart from the annual city-wide parade in Orléans commemorating Joan of Arc, the Chinese respect Joan of Arc more than the French.

Stop saying that Incompetent is always a water-war machine and that the universe is a makeshift operation, because Incompetent can't hold back anymore; Earth is a completely different story.

By the way, let me tell you about the main theme of the official novel. For the next two hundred years, the Astartes were never at peace. From the twenty-fifth to the twenty-sixth founding of the army, the loyal Astartes spent more than seven hundred years turning themselves into an endangered species.

However, in the last two centuries of the forty-first millennium, before Guilliman awoke, the Astartes throughout the Empire were even more infuriated than before the twenty-sixth military buildup, and probably numbered less than three hundred thousand.

Even the Blood Raven Legion has less than three hundred members left.

To conceal their well-known thirst for blood and dark fury, the Holy Blood Angels generally do not act together with other factions. In other words, they are very independent. It is already outrageous that they were able to gather 30,000 blood descendants of Saint Gilles in the Battle of Baal. It was like the official cheat. Many of their sub-factions were simply fabricated out of thin air to fight in the Battle of Baal.

Even when the Ultramarines fought the Second Terran War, they only had about 50,000 Space Marines on the surface.

It can only be said that the Great Devourer is indeed a tactical master; it feinted and tricked even Calgar into getting caught in its trap.

More than two hundred years later, they made a comeback, which was during the Damocles Gulf Expedition.

That's all for now. I'll continue to say whatever comes to mind and write whatever comes to mind.

Chapter 1 First Visit to Your Precious Land

I may have been corrupted by chaos.

Otherwise, I can't explain how I managed to evade the Empire's three-year hydroponic training and five-year brainwashing testing methods.

What, which empire are you asking about?

Of course, it's the empire that everyone is loyal to, but never comes when asked.

That's all for now, time for breakfast. Today's pottery porridge is limited.

-------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------

Khaz is Carlos's new name after he became a Space Marine.

Because Astartes are demigods and monks, they must distance themselves from the secular world.

If Katz had known that being an Astartes would be so tough, he would never have participated in that year's selection ceremony.

Unfortunately, there are no "what ifs." The truth is that an outstanding human male embryo like Katz simply cannot escape genetic testing.

Frankis III, an Imperial Tier 1 tax-free planet, is a shared recruitment site for three Space Marine chapters.

The hardships that planetary governors and noble lords were meant to endure in their lifetimes had already been experienced by their great-great-grandfathers alongside Sun Lord Macarius.

So the lords only need to consider how to meet the Astartes' conscription needs, and just make things a little harder for the children.

Fun fact: unless it's a blood tax or an extermination, the Astartes Chapter rarely conducts global recruitment tests for its recruiting planets.

Although human genes changed drastically during the golden age, genetic degradation still exists.

Every boy who can pass the Astartes recruit selection is an exceptional individual; being selected from one in ten thousand is just the beginning, and being selected from one in a hundred thousand is commonplace.

With such excellent gene carriers being massively deployed to become cosmic monks, it would be utterly unreasonable if the overall genetic level of the planet didn't degenerate.

If serving one Space Marine chapter is already so difficult, imagine the immense fortune of serving three Astartes at the same time!

Hey, don't try to understand the demigods of emperors with the wisdom of mortals. If mortals can think of these things, do you think the noble Astartes monks can't?

The solution is actually quite simple: keep the seed, not the people.

As one of the spoils of Macarius’s expedition, the greatest value of the Frankish III has been taken by the Martian Mechanicus.

The tech enthusiasts scoured the entire Western European-themed galaxy, scouring it up countless treasures from the golden age that have survived to this day.

The only pity is that the planet Deutschestein V next to Frankis III was destroyed during the expedition. Otherwise, with an extra planet, we could have easily played the "two peaches kill three warriors" trick, and we wouldn't have ended up in the current situation of three warbands jointly managing the area.

Mars, Mechanicus, they can easily take down a Space Marine Chapter.

The problem is that controlling one battle group versus controlling three battle groups is not simply a matter of quantity.

This is a political issue, a major political issue.

But the Mechanicus can't possibly give up the Frankish III. What to do?

Just take good care of the Astartes, what else can you do?

The recruitment site shared by the three regiments and the cutthroat competition for new recruits were not the results the Astartes wanted. Letting the Cult of Mechanics handle it was a solution that everyone could accept.

Unlike other recruiting planets, the three hives of Frankis III do not each supply a Space Marine chapter. Instead, each hive has a recruiting office of a Space Marine chapter. Every twenty years, one chapter conducts a global open selection, while the other two chapters are only responsible for supervising the fairness of the selection.

As a condition for not establishing chapter monasteries, the basic work of breeding and training Astartes recruits was fully handled by the Martian Mechanicus.

When the time comes, the battle group can simply take their share of the recruit company along with the corresponding recruit equipment.

Nobody's a fool. The fact that the Martian Mechanicus is willing to do this on Frankish III means there are good things on the planet.

However, the planet is jointly owned by the three warbands. It's like having too many cooks spoiling the broth. The warband leader finds it even more unacceptable that his brother warband is taking advantage of the planet than his own warband leader. Let's leave it at that for now.

With the situation so tense on Holy Terra, they dare not wage civil war again.