Connor MacLeod wrote:The Empire has redundancy like that too (Example: the ISB, the Uqiqtorate/Imperial Intelligence, the Hands and the Secret Order of the Empire, COMPNOR, ,AND the Prophets of the Darkside all serve as intelligence gathering functions...).. Palpatine literally designed it so eveyone is watching/plotting against/in contention with others.. thats why things fall apartt without him... I don't see why it wouldn't work against Chaos as well.
And in the case of infestations.. the Empire's speed and lethality insures that it can sterilize the danger far more quickly than the Imperium can, I bet. More to the point, the threat of that sort of retribution has a protective effect all its own (both towards the Empire's own citizenry and the Chaos God's own minions and worlds... do you think they'd want to literally bring the Empire's military might down on their own territory?)
Okay, let's do a quick outline of what we're looking at here.
Initially- "HOLY FUCK! What the hell just happened? Where did a shitload of our worlds go, and where the hell did all these other worlds come from?"
That would be just after arrival.
Soon to follow- "Who the fuck are all these assholes that are trying to attack our worlds? Their ships suck."
Almost immediate attacks in a variety of areas by the orks and the tyranids, as well as a variety of lesser powers that the Imperium is mentioned as vying with, but are generally not quantified in hard numbers because they're relatively minor threats compared to the big menaces.
Likely they will also be tested by followers of the Chaos god Khorne, who has all the subtle grace of a sledgehammer. Imperial medical science will be challenged by various plagues produced by the Chaos god Nurgle, but will probably overcome them. The Imperium does reasonably well at this, and their med tech is waaaaaaay behind the GE's. However, at the same time the Chaos gods Tzeentch and Slaanesh will be nibbling around Imperial society, getting a feel for the lay of the land.
Moving right along- "Okay, why the hell are some of our citizens randomly mutating for no cause?"
While they're busy hammering their neighbors and assuring some semblance of orderly existance, random mutations will begin cropping up among humans, likely enough. The phenomenon of mutation is associated with the warp, but it is not necessarily a daemon-related affair. Having no hard evidence on it, my assumption is that it has to do with the fact that the average human has a soul that interacts with the warp, and occasionally that warp interaction creates mutations.
The point here being that mutation is not necessarily indicative of chaos infestation, but as they're getting used to the concept, the GE will probably take it as such. And the phenomenon is so pervasive that even the Imperium, which can and will wipe out whole worlds to eliminate threats, doesn't engage in full-fledged purges of mutants. They actually have slums dedicated to housing them. And this is in spite of the fact that it is stated that the three major enemies of the Imperium are the heretic, the alien, and the mutant.
So the GE will either go to wiping them out, which will lead to a hellacious dent in the population base, or they'll have to cordon them off a la the Imperium, but without having the same understanding of the phenomenon that the Imperium does.
(Side question, does anybody else have hard data on the rate of mutation and any possible contributing environmental factors?)
Finally- "Holy shit! What do you mean we lost half the fleet?"
We start seeing uprisings across Imperial worlds, because Tzeentch and Slaanesh started laying the groundwork early. Their targets would be the security mechanisms first, and radiating outward from there. Lacking a means by which to detect these incursions, and likely being utterly unaware of their existance for a good while after they arrive, there's a strong chance that serious penetrations could be made into Palps' security networks before anyone even knows there's a threat.
As for invading the Eye of Terror, that's a whole freaking can of worms in and of itself. It is described as a place where the laws of physics exist pretty much at the whims of the chaos gods, greater daemons, and other high powers of chaos. What would happen to an Imperial task force that enters there? Honestly, I couldn't say.
Vader maybe, but Palpy would probably kill him before that. Palpy isn't nearly so stupid (nor willing) enough to suborn himself to ANYONE.. its either he's at the top of the heap or noone is.
I'll agree that Palps would not subordinate himself to anyone. The risk of what could happen to him is that he might walk into something thinking he's the one calling the shots and manipulating affairs.
As for Vader, it's a matter of Palpatine being aware of the possible threat that a possessed or enhanced Vader represents. If Vader cut a deal with the followers of Tzeentch, he could remain fairly low key for years and even decades while orchestrating events in favor of Chaos. Remember that BDZing worlds and the like can be twisted to feed the powers of the Chaos gods.
It gets dicey to say that he would detect and oust Vader arbitrarily, because we can break into a No Limits fallacy with regards to just how paranoid Palps is and how foolproof his immediate network for detecting these kind of things. We know that Palps is well aware that Vader represents a threat to him and doesn't arbitrarily eliminate him in the regular storyline.
Palpy is used to and has engaged in long term plotting as well.. and he is virtually immortal (in his own fashion.)
Palps is a long-term plotter, but the game he's used to is Desjarik. In 40K, they play Regicide. It's a whole new playing field and rules. Can he get up to speed in time to really play with fellow immortal beings who have already mastered the game?
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