This is not a versus. This is not a 'who would win'. This is intended to be as true and honest to both source materials, taking characters and exploring them as best as possible, enriching both worlds for the interplay of the two, and is expressly character and narrative driven. If you expect a versus style of fic - this is not it, but I encourage you to give it a shot anyway. If you enjoy character drama - and a great deal of it - as well as the classic EU heroes like Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade Skywalker, Anakin, Jacen and Jaina Solo, Wedge Antilles and so many more, they are the stars, as much as they were in the NJO. If you enjoy Warhammer, those like Roboute Guilliman, Aeonid Thiel, Marius Gage and more are here to explore this strange new galaxy far, far away.
Thank you for your time, and attention, and I hope you enjoy!
This is a day for Roboute Guilliman.
In the earliest hours of morning when night still makes argument of its supremacy, he receives petitioners. One could be forgiven for thinking that given the incredible circumstances, such matters of state and governance would be unnecessary or even presumptuous. Their ignorance need be corrected - however – as it was precisely because of these incredible circumstances that such mundanities were now more important than ever.
He receives petitioners from the Mechanicum: magi who genuflect and burr the politest of complaints about impossible demand and insufficient flesh resources to meet output. He receives petitioners from the Army: officers who stare fixedly at the ground and stutter through reports of insubordination, lethargy and restive confusion. He receives petitioners from the Navy: proud and battered, who bring him every day yet more requirements he can never meet. He even receives petitioners from the world they orbit: a population that for seven months now has labored under the rule of true civilization, of proper authority and Imperial mandate. These are the most varied of all and they come sometimes in forms not comfortably human.
He receives them all; he listens to their concerns and their plights, to the pleas and demands and then he sends them away. This fills an hour, exactly – sixty minutes by Terran reckoning and no more. He has far too much else to do. At the end of the hour his Invictarii shutter the doors to the reception hall and he retires to his own chambers. There, for a span of time until Macragge's Honour is illuminated by the local primary, he governs.
The petitions that he received were pointless. The petitioners wasted their breath and their time. He already knows. It is all here, laid out in endless, sputtering reports. The purpose of the audience is not to learn: it is to be seen. Now the Lord of Ultramar puts mind to solving these problems. The Mechanicum is cracking the planet beneath. They are hungry for – in truth – everything. The grand barque, Touch of the Motive Force, has disgorged a clamoring army of engines and vehicles that nestle and burrow into the flesh of the world below. Even diminished as their stores are, scarred by the losses of entire machine-cadre, the Mechanicum is never daunted. The exhaust of their industry stains the sky.
In classic, dour fashion, they were shaken not one iota about being forcibly ripped from the galaxy they understood, instead seeing a pristine, virginal world and a plethora of possibilities and tucking into them with relish. Though it is dishonest to demean it so, for the foundries that grow and the manufactories that sprout soon enough are providing for his own Legion.
That is what they come to demand, the Magi of Mars. They are hungry and they are excited and they, like the rest in this lost flotilla, are undermanned. Touch of the Motive Force lost her Magos Dominus in the slaughter over Calth along with many whole clades of tech-adepts. Great divisions of servitors and gene-bulked drafters were mashed and mangled by the hits the barque took. They want the Lord Primarch's dispensation to recruit from the local populace.
He can and will be free with allowance for many of their demands, but this is one he cannot grant. The situation on the surface is too fragile.
The petitioners from the locals, the indigenous population, bring fears. Rightly, this world is Imperial. Rightly, he has decried its compliance. Rightly, a Governorship has been established. Rightly, the diktats of the Imperium and Five Hundred Worlds now illuminate these locals. This is the truth of Terra, brought from far away. Eighty-four percent of the population is human, gene-normal. Minimal deviance. A true surprise. The rest are xenos of differing stripes and manner. He elected not to destroy the latter until he had a better grasp on the situation, and now, months later, he judges it too late. It is not to say that the alien taint could not have been removed – more that there is a greater benefit to munificence than there is for the exacting letter of Imperial Law.
The locals bring fears about their future. Though only a few millions, Roboute is loathe to simply sweep them aside. Already they have yielded an unimaginable array of information for his theoreticals. Now he knows of the scope of habitation, he knows of the major powers, the worlds that hold primacy.
And, as much as it pains him, his forces here are few.
They will need replacements.
No ship has a full complement: two are running on less than skeleton crews. Reorganizing the Army companies has yielded five full brigades, but of such mixed character and caliber that none could be yet considered battle-ready.
These are the issues he considers in this period. He devours the daily outputs of the foundries, he tracks the training of the newborn brigades, he examines the glacial repair of the warships. This is the time when Roboute Guilliman can lose himself in his work, when he can pretend for a moment that the Crusade is ongoing and he is managing the compliance of a new world. Which he is, by technicality, and that conceit is what keeps the rest at bay.
When the sunlight breaks over the limb of the world and spears through the armorglass to fill his chamber, he moves to the next span of the day.
He calls for Thiel. This is a flexible time, different each new day, as reactive as the Sergeant he has grown familiar with. His son enters his father's chambers smartly on time, the leather-bound grip of an electromagnetic longsword peeking over one shoulder. He is in full plate, just as ragged and battered as it had been seven months ago. Thiel has refused to have it restored. His son is wearing his scars on the outside.
Roboute is wearing them on the inside.
They speak for a time. Thiel is of an inventive and uncommon mind and has many theories.
They discuss Calth.