When I first decided to play 40k I immedaitely didn't like the human fluff. I wanted to play Imperial Guard none the less but with other alien species involved. More Mass Effect and less Starship Troopers if you would. So rather than just play a Tau nation myself and Willx decided to make it a bit more interesting and write our own fluff where humanity is a small fish in the galaxy. As we mostly only play with each other (not in that way) it doesn't matter too much if we bend the odd army list here and there.
Anyway Humans are there, but they aren't all powerful and have to work with other nations to stop themselves being crushed. Also they are all broken up into smaller factions so that they can fight each other as much as anyone else. Whilst i'm going to cheat and largely include GW races in various guises i've started working on a new set of fluff. (Orks will be neutral and smarter, Tyranids less psychic, dark elves/space marines not existing anymore)
Anyway, please do read my work here and give me some feedback. It's largely unfinished and i'm not really happy with the pacing on the actual author section rather than the commentator.
A New Beginning - The brief history of humanity part one.
By Doctor Heim Stenmelson.
Niece, please find attached an extract from this comphrensive book. At our last holiday get together you asked me a great many questions about the time of the fall. Whilst the festival of Ullis got in the way of our discussion I felt the need to feed you more knowledge. This should quench your thirst until next we meet I hope. Whilst the good doctor is not a true historian (largely he is actually a botonist as some of the lengthier sections on wild flowers in the colonisation section show) he does go to alot of effort to be vaguely accurate. Naturally if you are wanting a true academic account you are more than welcome to study any of the official documents - however they are quite difficult reading I assure you. Instead find closed my annotated notes of this mostly true and thankfully brief document.
I hope you can find to read these between your studies. I know psychology is a time consuming task at the academy but it allways pays to know where you've come from. - Lorne Stromstead. Your loving uncle.
I'm going to apologise for his prose, spelling and sense of the dramatic in advance.
The Advent of the Arks. - Survival.
The world as we knew it came to an end in 2324, the pretty struggles of the past century becoming irrelevant as a gigantic meteor crashed into the ocean. It's cataclismic impact ending billions of lives. But perhaps it is better to start before that, to look at the middle of the tale rather than the end. For whilst the world was destroyed, it did not signal the end of our history - rather it heralded a new beginning.
For as long as humans have existed there had been conflict. Different nations rose and fell destroying each other and occasionally themselves. It had forever been the norm. Towards the late 2290's the world was split into roughly seven conglomerates of nations.(1) Each possessed wealth and weapons enough to destroy one another many times over. The alliances tied to each other through neccessity rather than affection. Indeed the Fello Alliance were quite litterally half the world appart, they had no real ties than one of tactical viability. Of course it goes without saying that some of these new alliances were stronger than others but seven is a fair number.(2) Through their alliances the nations established a notion of peace with only a few sporadic border wars by proxy nations under their influence occuring.
This enforced peace continued uninterupted until 2312 when everything changed. The O'Halligan telescope (3) reported the existence of the meteor known as ME.304, or better known to us all as the Doomsday Stone. Now whilst it was obviously very far away it had immediate effects on the world stage. Even the most optimistic astrophysics professor predicted that the death toll would be massive and the after effects universal. A summit was called with every nation on the planet in attendance for the most emminant scientists to give their suggesions. (4). The long and the short of the event is that there was only one legitimate option - evacuation.
This led to the design of the Arks. (5) Massive ships of ludicrous size that would hold as many people as possible not to mention livestock, animals and botanical produce. - section deleted. Seven hundred words about the various trees being stored is not interesting. - Now space travel was still in its infancy at the point and whilst there had been perhaps thirty manned space missions to various moons there had been nothing on this scale. Some of the Arks were alot more successful than others yet all of these behemoths were designed with experimental technology on a limited time frame. For more information please see Van Halensteins thorough description of each of the different Arks in his work "Salvation and Prejudice. - The flight from home." (6)
Now there were as many as nine billion people on Jagarlen (7) and it was not a legitimate option to evacuate the entire planet. It was unfeasible to say the least and each nation went about it in a different way. Our own ADL declared that there would be a lottery amongst the population to decide who got to leave and who had to stay, but there were others who took rather more barabaric means to allot their spaces. The Murisians declared martial law and imprisioned half their nation, deciding to take only the military and their familes. Whilst the Mogterial Hierarchy (MT) took the ludicrous decision to fill their Arks full of men and women under 35 with a 30/70% ratio leaving their old to die inevitable brutal deaths. (8) Still each took their own path to salvation. Which leads me promptly to 2323. The year of our flight.
1. The doctor fails to highlight the reason for these alliances. The fourth intercontinental war resulted in the major nations of Hale and Stromgard effectively pulverising each other into poverty and taking their neighbours down with them. Peace was only made with the Nelson Pact - an agreement between the major nations to go to immediate war on the aggressor in any major conflict.
2. Some historians count as many as twelve, however the Doctor is refereing to those nations that would eventually escape the apocalypse. Many others would count the ill futured PWD as an eigth. This is an obvious benefit of hindsight, it's unlikely the PWD would be considered minor if not for their ultimate fire based doom.
3. A curious and incredibly expensive telescope made by the ADL in 2268. Officially it was made to observe a local star system. Realistically it was made to show everyone how filthy rich and advanced they were. It was also shaped like a phallus.
4. Most of which were from our ancestors in the MH thank you very much.
5. The name "Ark" is a reference to the popular myth about Hannis and his boat of many wonders. In which the sherpard Hannis built a large and suprisngly seaworthy ship and attempted to store one of every animal within its hull to save them from an incoming flood. Of course the tale is a fable to discourage heavy drinking and at the end of the tale there is obviously not going to be a flood. Rather Hannis has filled a boat full of sheep that his children have painted various colours to confuse their alcoholic father.
On a less whimsical note the Arks can hold between 100,000 and 1,000,000 people depending on design and nation of origin. Our own Arks can hold roughly 600,000 people and are less likely to plummet from the sky on re-entry unlike those of the Hales. They also smell better than the ADL's.
6. Don't bother, it's a book full of vague estimations based on no evidence. He does get the colours right though which is something.
7. The author is a member of the modern decendants of the ADL and this is their own name for our old home.
8. A widely popular and mathematically viable decision if a little lacking in morals. On the plus side it would prove to be our saving grace after the incident of the Veneria Massacre. Not that many outside of our culture know of this event. Of course it might only have been seen as popular by the young men selected to go..
