The Imperium is The Ship. The Ship moves. vs all other galactic empires and powers

bluepencil · Jul 16, 2014

The Ship is the Imperium. The Imperium is the Ship. The Ship is the Emperor. The Emperor is the Ship. All is the Ship. The Ship is All. The Ship Moves.

Summary:
Let's say that sometime in M42, the Emperor woke up briefly, said something to the effect of "Fuck this shit," and ordered that humanity come together to transform Sol into a Ship 1 AU long. Somehow they succeed.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_ship_moves

Original post on /tg/:

Hello, Tactical Geniuses. I am currently planning a DH campaign in which the Mechanicum, at least that part overseeing the forge world the PCs are sitting on, ~~has fallen to Slaaneshi influence~~, and is attempting to build a single huge ship with which to bring the entire galaxy under humanity's control. At present, the keel is to be 1 AU in length, with all the other features of an Emperor class battleship scaled up proportionally (they're insane, remember. this makes sense to them). The trouble is, I don't know the basic stats of said battleship, like crew complement, length, displacement, weapons complement, and so forth, which is actually going to matter as these guys start requesting help building and eventually crewing this monster.

So are there any numbers released for how many people are on an Emperor-class battleship, how big it is, and what's normally on it?

The thread since then ran with it, made it an official order from the Emprah, and thus:

*Click*

M-m-master, here are the figures you requested.

Statistics for Emperor-class unavailable at this time.

Statistics for Lunar-class cruiser are as follows:

Dimensions: 5 km long, 0.8 km abeam at widest point.

Mass: 28 megatonnes (28 billion kilograms)

Crew: 95,000

Scaled up for a similarly-shaped vessel 1 AU

Length: 149,598,000 km

Mass: 1.29 * 10^31 kilograms

Crew: 2.5*10^27

Logic suggests construction in the warp to prevent immediate collapse into a singularity, as planned tonnage is over 6 times the mass of Sol. Also suggest research into mass cloning, as there are currently well fewer than 2.5 octillion humans in existance.

Ac-ac-acknowledged, Master.

First, shall I issue the order for 1,050,000 Terra-sized planets to be processed into starship components?

Fortuitous happenstance, Master. If the entire mass of every world in the Imperium of Man is used to create the great ship, there will be a small amount of chaff left over for the survivors to colonize. Glory to the Omnissiah.]

Ap-ap-apologies, Master. Mathematical error. 2,100,000 Terra-sized planets are needed. The settled worlds of the Imperium will only provide half the necessary mass.

As most suitable planets were terraformed during the Dark Age of Technology, there are few uninhabited worlds to make use of. Processing of Xanos worlds will be necessary. Do you wish to begin conquest planning at this time?

Cal-cal-calculating...

At half-completion, the Imperium-class starship "The Imperium" will have the following armaments:

447 trillion Lance Batteries
894 trillion Laser Macrobatteries
894 trillion Macrocannon Macrobatteries

As this is many orders of magnitude greater than the combined arms of all starships ever constructed by mankind or known Xenos races, auguries and statis-engines are returning a 99.9999999999999999999% favorable report on proposed conquest endeavors.

...Provided the "collapsing into a singularity" issue can be resolved.

Err...err...error. Escape velocity of Imperium-class starship "The Imperium" exceeds speed of light. Mundane engines inadequate.

Integrity of vessel may only be maintained by massive application of techno-arcane antigrav technology. Maintenance of anti-grav field largest engineering challenge in endeavor.

Bonus: if sufficient control over gravitational field is exercised for vessel to exist at all, gravitational field becomes powerful weapon. May be directed at nearby planets or stars to create local event horizon, tearing astronomical bodies apart. Planets become widely-dispersed asteroid fields. Stars become slowly-cooling nebulae.

Th..th..this unit is honored to have assisted in the planning stages of the endeavor.

This unit is one with the Ship. Along the endless conduits, the machine spirits sing the song of Passage. From light-minutes away the knowing washes in; waves of signal, oceans of noise.

The hull, planets thick, is covered with mighty weapons like grass on a plain. It repels the Void, and the Alien, and we are safe.

The engines, a dozen captive suns, burn with eternal radiance, fed with interstellar hydrogen, never to expire, and we are warm.

In the hidden worlds within the hab-bays, on seas and in forests, on vast deserts and in endless tunnels, the Crew are born and die. Souls more numerous than the stars, we live.

The Ship is all.
The Ship moves.

***

The ship was built for a number of reasons. First, Mechanicus theology. For matter and energy to be dead and unutilised, lying around as rocks and dirt or streaming uselessly into space, is a terrible, terrible waste. It is our duty as sentient beings to harness and shape the available matter and energy into more advanced, useful, and holy forms. The ideal endpoint is for the the mass of the universe to be converted into functioning machinery, at one with the Omnissiah. They can't pull that off yet, but converting the mass of the entire Imperium into a functioning starship is a damn good start.

Second, tactics. The Imperium was simply indefensible, over a million worlds with lightyears of unreliable warplanes between them. The Emperor's Navy, Guard, and Astartes could simply not be everywhere they needed to be. It had gotten to the point where the strategy was simply for PDF to die standing, losing worlds as slowly as possible, so the Guard and Astartes could eventually show up, blast everything to rubble, and ask the Administratum to recolonize the ruined world. By contrast, the Ship is humanity centralized and utterly, utterly invincible.

And third, the Emperor woke for the first time since the heresy and ordered the ship be built around him. He is the God-Captain, and only he knows the destination.

Writefag here again. Notice the reference to plasma suns. I'd imagine that there would be cavernous areas, perhaps even world sized spaces, that contained enormous fusion/plasma reactors perhaps always just on the edge of losing containment. These would basically be small suns hanging above continent sized rooms. They'd ape the effects of the sun allowing things to grow, generate micro(macro)climates. In some parts of the ship it's likely you'd be unable to tell you were 'inside'.

Other areas would be twisted rat warrens of bare metal, crumbling mazes of collapsed corridors, effectively like the underhives. But they'd be all sorts of 'terrain' inbetween.

I'm also picturing the ship as containing a fully developed ecosystem of its own-- in fact a far more diverse and populous ecosystem than even a natural planet could sustain. Huge rolling verandas, salty oceans teeming with marine life, endless forests prowled by entire ecosystems of mutated animal life, infinite ceilings as distant as the stratosphere, dotted with small lights like stars.

Soaring, glimmering cities and abysmal nests of rust and decay. Greenhouses as large as continents and observation decks that dwarf the largest Hives of the old imperium.

In short, all the diversity, complexity, power, and near-infinite scale of the Imperium that was, unified within a single vessel of unimaginable proportions.

This is blowing my mind right now.

Quite frankly, it presents an interesting challenge and evocative imagery for me, which is what should really matter in a game.

Vast plains of rust, where a mere cut can promote gangrene, tetanus, and all manner of unpleasantness...

A great Water Recycling system, with floating cities and a living, breathing ecology in the river...

The Emperor's Children, gathered at his feet and making him the greatest Psyker in the known universe as the Adeptes Custodes interpret his navigational instructions and pilot the Great Ship through the cold blackness of space.

In the Grim Darkness of the 51st Millenium, there is only the Ship.

The Ship is All.

The Ship Moves.

We are conceived to dream of it because it is magnificent.

We are born to create it because it is glorious.

We live to maintain it because it is the flesh and bone of the Omnissiah himself.

We die to defend it because it is the culmination of all that we are.

We are the Adeptus Mechanicus, and this is our most sacred creed.

The Ship is All.

The Ship Moves.

I SAY IT SHALL BE

For those of you just joining us:

Humanity has been whittled and besieged by the heretic and the xenos
The Emperor briefly awakes and orders the construction of a massive ship
The Imperium, in men and mass, is deprived to build this ship
The great ship is over 1AU in length and constantly growing, built around the bridge and command structure that was once Holy Terra, powered by the star Holy Sol.
The ship is launched, with most all of humanity and the God-Emperor himself aboard. Their combined psychic presence staves off the evils of the warp.
The ship traverses the darkness of space, generations living and dying in its hold with no knowledge of the void outside.

The Ship is the Imperium
The Imperium is the Ship
The Ship is the Emperor
The Emperor is the Ship
All is the Ship
The Ship is All
THE SHIP MOVES

No that sounds about right. Given the size and sheer mass of the thing, the gravity well it would create would pull everything towards it, even in a minute way (remember, everything with mass has a gravity well, no matter how small, and the effect of that gravity well is subject to the inverse square law) so passing solar systems would get dragged towards it if they were close enough. It's theoretically possible that the ship actually has a "tail" behind it made up of stars and planets that were caught in the gravity well but didn't crash into the side of the ship and/or get sucked in, and are now dragged along behind the ship.

I like these maths. However, when I scaled up mass I received a value of ~7.5e32 tonnes, roughly 58 times more mass than you had figured. Consequently, I calculate roughly 125,529,449 terra masses will be needed for construction.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Additional point of interest: armaments. Assuming a similar weapon density on the hull, the new ship will have the fire power of approximately 350 trillion Emperor class battle ships by virtue of increased surface area alone.When one considers that entire stars could be fired from a single plasma cannon, this figure could be somewhat low.

As for keeping chaos OUT and the Emps power AMPED?

1) The Emps is inside hooked up to the ship. The Emps is his own Astronomicon, Gellar Field, calms the warp, and gives powers to his faithful like he's a chaos god- which he now is.
2) Emps made the Void-Dragon his bitch and harnessed his power. Again.
3) There are necrons welded into the hull. Lulz anti-warp technology.
4) The Deceiver is tooling around somewhere inside the ship- and completely fucking chaos over wherever he goes, being a C'tan and chaos hates C'tan and Necrons and stuff. Just as Planned on the part of Emps? Maybe.
5) All of humanity- ALL OF IT- all 2.5 octillion of them if I recall correctly, are on that ship, boosting the Emps power nigh-infinitely over and over again, because of their renewed faith in being both so close to him and seeing what his will can do.

Chaos can't do shit, folks. The only thing doling out warp powers inside that ship is the Big E.

"Have you ever looked into the bow wake of a water-going ship and seen the foam that washes against the bow? You have? Good. Now, picture that again, picture the froth rolling as the ship cuts its way forward through the water. Now imagine imagine each bubble as a hungry mouth or a glaring eye or a horrible claw, imagine each bubble as a beating heart or a childs face. Each bubble is a warp creature called into being by the mass of souls and then torn apart against the bow of The Ship. Now imagine that unending churn as far as you can see, as far as you can think, as far as you can possibly conceive. That is Chaos. That is what we fight today."

Let us ponder the Mysteries.

What is the God-Captain?
What is the Omnissiah?
What is the Imperium?
What are we, the people?
What is the Ship?

The God-Captain is neurally networked to the trillion trillion cogitators and servitors that permeate the length and breadth of the ship. One with the machine spirits, He is the Omnissiah. They are the mind and soul, and the body is the very decking beneath our feet. He is the Ship.

We, the masses of humanity, souls more numerous than the fabled stars, are the Imperium. And the Imperium is the Ship.

And so, the God-Captain, the Omnissiah, the people, and the Imperium are one, and are the Ship.

The Ship is All.

The Ship Moves.

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

The Imperium of Mankind has arrived on a new galaxy.

How would these verses react to this monstrosity?

1) Mass Effect (specially the Reapers)
2) StarCraft
3) Star Trek
4) Star Wars
5) StarGate
6) The Culture
7) and so on.

Both diplomatically and militarily. How do they shake up the status quo? Since The Ship is casting its own massive shadow in the Warp just by existing, and it continually noms stars for fuel and to keep growing. Vast fleets roam ahead searching for resources that the Imperium may use.

No, humanity, you are the Tyranids.

Which galaxy would you like to be eaten today?

[edit]
Could I request a mod to please fix the title? Please change it to "vs all other galactic empires and powers."

Nattuo · Jul 16, 2014

bluepencil said:
1) Mass Effect (specially the Reapers)

"What."

2) StarCraft

"What."

3) Star Trek

"What."

4) Star Wars

"What."

5) StarGate

"What."

6) The Culture

"How gauche."

doorcf · Jul 16, 2014

1) Mass Effect (specially the Reapers)
*dies*
2) StarCraft
*dies*
3) Star Trek
*dies*
4) Star Wars
*dies*
5) StarGate
*were is that friggin' super blackhole?!*
6) The Culture
Wow so cute
7) Muv-Luv
*WE NEED MORE MINING UNITS!*

Trinoya · Jul 16, 2014

It rolls over mass effect taking whatever it wants period.

It gets ignored by most powers in trek and they likely ignore the nightmare universe. If they piss off the wrong thing it would be bad but the God Captain isn't going to waste precious time and resources on any such thing when they could just trade for whatever they want.

It rolls over Disney Star Wars. EU Star Wars is just strong enough to make them someone to trade with as well.

It rolls over Starcraft.

It stomps a bit in stargate before someone pulls out a toy, likely carter.

Culture don't even care.

Uxion · Jul 16, 2014

So many people are going to die

Onlinemph · Jul 16, 2014

447 trillion Lance Batteries
894 trillion Laser Macrobatteries
894 trillion Macrocannon Macrobatteries

Wut.

Does this thing have some sort of absurdly oversized gun near the front?

doorcf · Jul 16, 2014

Onlinemph said:
Wut.

Does this thing have some sort of absurdly oversized gun near the front?

The thing was based in the battleship sized aircraft carrier

so no super-sized Nova Cannon that is there is a shitton of space and atmospheric craft

SMG7991 · Jul 16, 2014

So much Dakka, it's glorious.

But we need more DAKKA still.

Entropy Judge · Jul 16, 2014

Onlinemph said:
Wut.

Does this thing have some sort of absurdly oversized gun

Yes:

Bonus: if sufficient control over gravitational field is exercised for vessel to exist at all, gravitational field becomes powerful weapon. May be directed at nearby planets or stars to create local event horizon, tearing astronomical bodies apart. Planets become widely-dispersed asteroid fields. Stars become slowly-cooling nebulae.

near the front?

No. But it has engines.

tyranniod overlords · Jul 16, 2014

THIS.

IS.

GLORIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: I am not sure there even is a fair match-up for this thing.

Mostly there is what this things utterly wrecks, or what it can't effectively affect, or what wrecks it.

The Culture might find something to effectorize that would matter to the ship eventually. It would be more practical to just head into hyperspace, and let the thing move on.

Or they could try to spark a conversion with the "God-Captain"

I have to wonder what such a conversation would be like.

Onlinemph · Jul 16, 2014

Entropy Judge said:
Yes:

No. But it has engines.

I'd Love to see a culture ships try to effector that thing.

The sheer size alone....

Uxion · Jul 16, 2014

At that point, it would probably be easier to list the ones that can beat it.

Also the number of sapients dying would have enough mass to form planets of their own.

SMG7991 · Jul 16, 2014

We need to start at Legends Galactica Empire and work our way up.

Gidonihah · Jul 16, 2014

Is it big enough to tow The City?

tyranniod overlords · Jul 16, 2014

Gidonihah said:
Is it big enough to tow The City?

This thing is an AU long, and it has necron tech just to boost its acceleration.

It may very well be able to. Hard to know for sure, but that is definitely not impossible.

DarthThrawn · Jul 16, 2014

Gidonihah said:
Is it big enough to tow The City?

I don't think so, but it's closer than basically anything else.

Gud2nd · Jul 16, 2014

Gidonihah said:
Is it big enough to tow The City?

The City is much, much larger than the ship, but then again no one knows the inertial mass of the city since it's gravitational mass clearly is many orders of magnitudes lower than what something it's size would be, so.....

Uxion · Jul 16, 2014

What the hell is The City?

SMG7991 · Jul 16, 2014

Gud2nd said:
The City is much, much larger than the ship, but then again no one knows the inertial mass of the city since it's gravitational mass clearly is many orders of magnitudes lower than what something it's size would be, so.....

Thoughts on this ungodly behemoth ?

Onlinemph · Jul 16, 2014

Uxion said:
What the hell is The City?

A REALLY big city.

Drich · Jul 16, 2014

Also have to note this:

Xenos of The Ship

Tau - They, and their vassal peoples, were given passage upon The Ship for their technical expertise. Without them it is doubtful that the millions of warp-drives upon The Ship would have been synchronized through the Infinity Circuit successfully. For this, as well as the services of their repair and maintenance teams, they are tolerated.

Their numbers even when combined with their vassal peoples is, when compared to the teeming masses of humanity, very low.

Eldar - Early on in the ships design it became abundantly clear that even if the entire Imperium was stripped down and used in the construction of The Ship it would not be enough. They needed a means of generating building material on site. Sadly the only people that the Imperium knew of who could do this were the Eldar. For this reason, and their continued supply of fresh repair material, the Eldar are tolerated.

Dark Eldar - Early on in The Ships construction a band of Dark Eldar brought forth the designs for the Big Bang Bottles. After these were incorporated into the design they were, reluctantly, granted a place aboard The Ship. Thankfully most Imperial Citizens can't tell the difference between them and the Craftworlders. Sadly the Craftworlders can and the two do not like each other at all. It is unsure how many of them are on board as they keep to their Enclaves around the Bottles and do not suffer visitors gladly.

Necrons - Unlike the Tau and Eldar their existence has not been made known to the general public. When it became abundantly clear to them that their Empire was never going to arise from the ashes in a galaxy desolated by all out war between Orks, Chaos and Tyranids many of them bartered passage in exchange for inertia and momentum manipulation technology. These technological marvels allowed The Ship a much more rapid acceleration and departure. They are also responsible for the Cadian Pylons scattered about The Ship. Many of them, to pass the time, perform maintenance duties in places where the living can not go.

Their dwelling places, although not off limits to the public, tend to be in the irradiated areas of the ships as they like their privacy.

When asked about them the Mechanicus maintain that they are just highly upgraded tech-adepts.

Orks - Managed to infiltrate The Ship almost certainly as spores. Tend to be found in the many vast uninhabited areas of The Ship. They range from undernourished sickly things barely better than weedy feral grots to fully fledged, battle ready orks with looted weapons or weapons built from scrap stolen from The Ship. Although no WAAAAAAGH!!! has ever threatened the integrity of the colossal vessel they have proved difficult to remove entierly.

Tyranids - Gene-Stealer cultists got on board along with many other refugees. In the fraught time of departure there was not enough time to gene-scan everyone and withing a few hundred years pure-strains were spawning in the Unmarked Regions. Thankfully their psychic beacon can't penetrate the interference of warp wake. The task still stands that they must be exterminated before Journey's End lest they draw the Tyranids to the New Galaxy before the Imperium Reborn can have chance to get ready for them

There are other, more feral, bio-forms on The Ship also. Various variations of Lictors and other stealthy ambush hunters crept aboard possibly during construction. They are feral things that have long since gone native. Whether this is because they can't hear the song of the Hive is unknown. Often found as pets and war-beasts kept by the Gene-Stealers.

Others - The Hrud are on board. Nobody knows how.
- The Umbra have taken up residence near many of the warp drives. They don't seem to do anything if you leave them alone.
- Lacrymole and Simulacra are, sadly, probably on board somewhere given their ability to disguise themselves as human.

Uxion · Jul 16, 2014

Onlinemph said:
A REALLY big city.

How do people go from one end to the other?

SMG7991 · Jul 16, 2014

Uxion said:
How do people go from one end to the other?

They don't from what I can remember.

Uxion · Jul 16, 2014

SMG7991 said:
They don't from what I can remember.

And I guess the Sun is in some sort of reactor?

tyranniod overlords · Jul 16, 2014

Uxion said:
How do people go from one end to the other?

In the City you mean?

They don't.

The Imperium is The Ship. The Ship moves. vs all other galactic empires and powers

bluepencil

Humorist

Nattuo

doorcf

Trinoya

Non-Homicidal Chatbot AI.

Uxion

Nope, the surgery still hurts.

Onlinemph

doorcf

SMG7991

SB’s Resident Eye

Entropy Judge

tyranniod overlords

Onlinemph

Uxion

Nope, the surgery still hurts.

SMG7991

SB’s Resident Eye

Gidonihah

tyranniod overlords

DarthThrawn

Gud2nd

Your (Eternal and Everlasting) Emperor

Uxion

Nope, the surgery still hurts.

SMG7991

SB’s Resident Eye

Onlinemph

Drich

Uxion

Nope, the surgery still hurts.

SMG7991

SB’s Resident Eye

Uxion

Nope, the surgery still hurts.

tyranniod overlords

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