[Nash]

I recently got the idea for a faction that would try its best to ruin the plans of other Inquisitors while posing as allies... Here are the basic ideas I came up with. Before I develop this any further I'd like to get your opinions on the credibility of these ideas.


The Neo-Ozian Faction

• Radical faction named after Lyman Ozia (excommunicated in XXXM37)
• Lyman Ozia was known as "the Great Curator" because he spent most of his time as an Inquisitor collating information from various sources, travelling mostly only to acquire some rare tome.
• Ozia thought he had uncovered a pattern that proved that the Emperor had foreseen all the events that would unfold after the Great Crusade (the Heresy, His entombment on the Throne, the Imperium, etc...) but knew that it was the only way to ensure humanity's survival.
• He gained a handful of followers when exposing his theories. Over the following years his beliefs evolved to include a "survival of the fittest" element which would lead him to become a Radical.
• Convinced that the Emperor had deemed the works of Chaos a "necessary evil" that would ensure Humanity's survival (as proven by the "fact" that he purposefully kept everyone unaware of the threat during the Great Crusade), Ozia and his followers started to hinder the actions of the Ordo Malleus that they learned about. As time went by the hindering became more and more pro-active, often leading to the death of the Malleus Inquisitors involved.
• After the death of over 50 Inquisitors, the actions of the Ozians were discovered, Ozia was declared Excommunicate and, along with his followers, put to death. This was the end of the Ozians, but not of their beliefs...
• Very recently, with the awakening of the Necrons and the arrival of the Hive Fleets the Ozian beliefs re-appeared amongst members of the Ordo Xenos. It seems that the very alarmist conclusions of the Stark Report triggered a quite influencial Inquisitor to believe that the Emperor had foreseen the arrival of these "new threats" and that the "staged war against Chaos" described in Ozia's heretical writings was in fact the Emperor's plan to make sure humanity was ready to deal both with the Greater Hive-Fleet anticipated by the Strategic Collective and the newly awakened Necrons.
• Interpreting the information available about the fights against these new threats, the Neo-Ozians concluded that, against such numberless foes, quality of the opposition mattered more than mere numbers and thus set to make humanity stronger by, once again, hindering the actions of the Ordo Malleus.

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Trivia - For those who didn't see through my quite obvious pun, here's the source for the name of the faction and its founder:
The idea that the Emperor foresaw that there was only one way for Humanity to survive future threats is clearly in parralel with another God-Emperor's "Golden Path"... And when I first read Herbert's book I couldn't help but think about the "Yellow Brick Road" each time the Golden Path was mentionned, hence I named the faction after Oz. The first name of the founder is the (little known?) name hidden behind the "L" of L.Frank Baum...

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So what do you guys think about it?

[Shard]

I like what you've done with the faction, and can see it as an extreme form of the Istvaanian philosophy (making strife to further strengthen the Imperium). How did you come up with the idea?

[Nash]

How did you come up with the idea?

During a discussion about fluff where some people argued that the Emperor, "so-called greatest human psyker", had done a poor job of reading the future because he didn't stop the Horus Heresy before it unfolded... The only logical reason I could come up with was that He had to let it unfold this way, because keeping the Heresy from happening would have been far worse in the end...

Once I got the "Golden Path" argument I started to wonder what Inquisitors who ask themselves the "right questions" (i.e. the same that was asked in the discussion I had) would react once they find the logical answer to it...

[DapperAnarchist]

Very interesting... a sort of ultimate "anti-Amalathian" position - where the Puritan position is that the Imperium as it is must be so with the acceptance and planning of the Emperor, the Neo-Ozian position is that the Imperium's enemies must be as they are with the acceptance and planning of the Emperor...

[Nash]

the Neo-Ozian position is that the Imperium's enemies must be as they are with the acceptance and planning of the Emperor...

I'd rather say that some enemies must as they are in order for the ultimate plans of the Emperor, the defeat of the "real threats", to become true.

To the (almost exclusively Ordo Xenos) Neo-Ozians, Chaos never was the true threat, but rather the "sparring partner" necessary to make the Imperium ready to face the much more dangerous races which have been discovered in the late M41...
And they believe that the un-readiness shown by the Imperium in its first brushes with those threats is a proof that some of the actions of the Inquisition have been counter-productive, weakening the Imperium by keeping a lot of those "sparring partners" to get "on the ring" (by keeping daemons from being summoned, etc...).
Thus, unsure if it's not too late to get the Imperium "properly trained" by the time of the Necrons global awakening and/or the arrival of the Greater Hive Fleet, but convinced that the Imperium can't suffer from getting as much training as it can before those events, they actively hinder the actions of their Malleus (and Hereticus) colleagues.

Most of them probably also believe that once the true threats are dealt with, dealing with Chaos will be a much easier task in comparison...

[Nash]

Well, Not much in terms of actual C&C so far...

And I know there's only 2 possibilities when that happens: either most people find the idea uninteresting and thus don't even bother to comment, or it's good enough so that people don't have any criticism to make...

My question though is: which of these 2 possibilities is the right one?

[Adlan]

It's internally consistant, fun and fits into the rather bleak 40k world. I like it, and it's good.

[Vladimir]

"Are you saying that chaos is somehow good for us? Is that what you're trying to tell me? SISTER NICOLE, BRING YOUR FLAMER OVER HERE, THIS ONE'S A HERETIC TOO!"
I imagine this would be the responce of most inquisitors to that (nonetheless plausible) idea. In other words, it's awesome!

[Nash]

I got an idea for this faction on which I'd like your feedback...

I want to have a single source which spurred Ozia into his research-spree and led him into his heretical beliefs... I haven't come up with a title for that primary source yet, so I just call it "the Text" for now...

The idea would be that Ozia in the course of his normal researches, before he started to travelling through the entire galaxy collecting ancient and rare tomes, had stumbled upon the Text, an apocryphal journal supposedly penned by the Emperor himself and describing His visions of what could have come to be if he didn't take the lead of humanity and let the Heresy happen...

Here's a summary of what the Text would tell (and that's where I need your opinion, does it hold water?):

If the Emperor hadn't conquered Terra and started the Great Crusade, by the end of the Age of Stryfe the Mechanicum would have been the most powerful force in the galaxy and would have conquered first Terra (killing the Emperor in the process), then the whole galaxy, crushing any resistance in its path as its armies would have grown numberless (and after develloping whole armies of vat-grown Primarch-like warriors)... And, by the end of M33 at the most, the galaxy would have been in relative peace, Humanity thus starting to get weaker as years went by...
Then the psycker genes in the human DNA would have started to really express themselves and the spreading madness would further weaken Humanity by drastically reducing its numbers. By the time the Mechanicum would have found a solution, Humanity would be reduced to a pale shadow of its former self, only a small percentage still surviving in the ruins of the once great Mechanicum Empire. It's then that the True Threats would rise (Necrons and Tyranids) and no one would be able to stop them from consuming the whole galaxy. The End.
Thus, to keep the end of Humanity from happening, the Emperor spent many years meditating and looking into the ebbs and flows of the Future for the best possible path. And He came to the conclusion that creating the Primarchs and manipulating half of them into betraying him in order to create a perpetual enemy was the only way which would keep Humanity strong enough to survive the Rise of the True Threats.
The Text then describes how the Emperor manipulated Lorgar first, knowing that his need for something to worship would push him into the clutches on the Chaos Gods, then (in no particular order) Angron, knowing that by refusing to help him defeat the slavers of his Homeworld he'd be partly alienated and easily manipulated into joining the Traitors, Magnus, knowing what telling him not to meddle in witchcraft without any good explanation would result in, etc...

And that'd be what the (Neo)Ozian know of the the Emperor's big plan (if the Text isn't a forgery made simply to corrupt of course...)

But in the last pages of the Text, pages that Ozia never found and that the Neo-Ozians don't even have the slightest idea they may exist (and thus aren't even looking for), there's something which would probably make them reconsider their position: According to those last page, the Emperor was genuinely surprised when it was Horus, whom he had in fact groomed to be the leader of the Loyalists, who became the Arch-Betrayer... And He came to the realization that even Him couldn't manipulate the Future to get to that "best possible solution" He had foreseen.

There... So what do you guys think of it?

[Nash]

*bump*

I really need feedback on the proposed contents of "the Text"... The game (DH) in which I'm supposed to use it is getting closer and I'd like any weakness in my (pseudo)logic to be pointed out to me prior to that...

Please guys!

[DapperAnarchist]

Chaos seems lacking in this- which might be a good thing. After all, the turning of Horus could be a sign that the Emperor had been played from the start, conned by the Ruinous Powers. Also, if you write it up, I would say not use the words "Necron" or "Tyranid", but "Ancient Threat" and "Alien Threat" or something, so its vague, like he may not know exactly what is coming, but that there will inevitably be something.

[Kaled]

I think it'd be better if it were a lot more vague; I don't dislike the basic idea but it's just too specific for my taste.  Less detail and clarity would make it all the more ambiguous as to who'd written it and to whether it's true - therefore I'd replace all the detail with metaphors, vague allusions, half-truths and the odd bit that makes absolutely no sense.  Maybe have the odd bit of text missing, or perhaps annotate the text with your character's interpretation of what it all means.

[Nash]

Of course! What is written above was never intended as a write-up of the Text itself. It's just a summary of my ideas for its contents, the Text in itself would indeed be more vague than that...

If there's nothing bothering you guys with the "plot" described here, then I guess it'll be fine for my game

[Flinty]

Yup, gets my thumbs up - nice idea - and a suitably copied, annotated, mutilated and outright forged final version is something I'd like to see.

Also gives me some great ideas - I am so stealing the idea that an Ad Mech faction may resent thier failure to dominate at the end of the Age of Strife...

[Alyster Wick]

On "the Text": Really great idea.  Not sure if you were planning this already, but having "the Text" found piecemeal would be the best (I think) way to go.  Each time a new section is found then it will have to be verified and there's always the possibility of false bits being added in.

As to the overall idea of the Neo-Ozians:  I like it, but it seems as though there's kind of a leap in logic with the shift from Ozians to Neo-Ozians.  Chaos's role (IMO) should be a bit more defined, perhaps having some ruminations on it as being the darker side of man and how "we must learn to control it" but it is only through this struggle against Chaos (which is a metaphor for control of self) that we remain powerful.  We cannot truly banish it so we should use it.

I envision Ozians (while on a personal level being very far from Chaos) perhaps making alliances with Chaos forces or seeking to use them in the battle against these new threats.  While they may despise many of the ideas and philosophies of chaos it seems as though their beliefs could lead them to utilize them as allies against the "true threats" (plus look at how Neo-Ozians already treat their "allies" in the Inquisition).

Anyway, just my two cents.  I don't see anything wrong with it, I just feel like there could be some more explanation offered on a couple of these points.