Imperium

Imperium of Man
Capital:	Terra
Official languages:	Low Gothic, High Gothic, Lingua-technis
Major Species:	Human
Head of state:	Emperor of Mankind
Governing body:	High Lords of Terra
State religious body:	Imperial Cult, mantained by Ecclesiarchy
Military forces Imperial Guard Imperial Navy Space Marines Collegia Titanica Adepta Sororitas

The Imperium of Man is the galactic empire under which the majority of humanity is united. The founder and ruler of the Imperium is the god-like Emperor, the most powerful human psychic to date. Founding the Imperium ten thousand years ago, he continues, at least nominally, to lead it.

The Imperium is the largest and most powerful political entity in the galaxy, consisting of at least a million worlds, which are dispersed across most of the Milky Way galaxy. Consequently, an Imperial planet might be separated from its closest neighbor by hundreds or thousands of light years. As a stellar empire, the size of the Imperium can not be measured in terms of continuous territory, but only in the number of planetary systems in its control.

Several aliens and forces (the forces of Chaos, Tyranids, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, Tau, Necrons) challenge the supremacy of the Imperium. From within, the Imperium is threatened more insidiously by rebellion, mutation, dangerous psykers, and subversive cults.

Without the protection of the Imperium, mankind would fall prey to the countless perils that threaten it.

History of the Imperium

The Imperium was founded by the Emperor, also called "The Immortal Emperor", "God-Emperor", and the "Master of Mankind", at the end of the Age of Strife - a very long period of anarchy, war, and destructive regression which brought humanity to the brink of destruction and reversed the technological progression made in the Dark Age of Technology.

As the Warp storms of the Age of Strife subsided, after having secured the scientific posts and spacedocks of Luna, along with the factories and scientists on Mars, the Emperor began to unite mankind under his rule. A vast navy was built, with which his armies undertook the Great Crusade, which lasted for about two centuries.

During this two hundred year long military campaign, the Emperor employed his most potent military units, the Space Marine Legions, lead by their born leaders, the Primarchs. These, combined with the might of the Imperial Army (which was later separated into the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy), brought thousands of human worlds together under the Imperium. The Great Crusade ended with the corruption and treachery of the Primarch Horus, the instigator of Horus Heresy rebellion.

The rebellion was fought across the galaxy. Horus seeking to achieving a swift and decisive victory, lead most of the traitor forces directly for Terra. In the final decisive battle between the Emperor and the Arch-Traitor Horus, Horus was slain, leading to the break up of the rebellion. However the Master of Mankind was himself mortally wounded. According to his instructions he was placed on the life-preserving Golden Throne, where, for nearly ten thousand years, he has remained. Though physically a carcass incapable of movement or communication, his will, omnipotent, extends across the million worlds of the Imperium, beams the psychic energy of the Astronomican, soul-binds psychic humans and struggles against the daemons of the Warp. He endures by his undying will, and by the sustenance that only the souls of sacrificial psykers can provide. By the numberless masses of humanity he is worshiped as a god.

Political Structure of the Imperium

The Imperium is still nominally ruled by the Emperor of Mankind. However, since his ascension to the Golden Throne, the duty of actually ruling the Imperium falls to the Senatorum Imperialis - the Imperial Senate, formed by the twelve High Lords of Terra. The identities and responsibilities of these High Lords may vary, as individuals inevitably die and their influence grows and wanes, but its members are always the leaders and representatives of the most powerful Imperial organizations.

Imperial Organizations

File:Imperium organisation.gif

Organization of the Imperial government.

Most of the organizations comprising the Imperium are divisions of the vast Adeptus Terra (the Priesthood of Earth). There are countless divisions, some are so secretive their existence is known only to a few. The most well-known of the "secret" organizations is the Officio Assassinorum. Other organizations are secret enough that nothing besides their mere existence is known, such as the Officio Sabatorum and the Templars Psykologis.

The most important and well-known Imperial organizations include:

• The Administratum - Responsible for administrative functions, it is the largest division, numbering countless scribes and petty officials. It administrates the Imperium at every level, assessing tithes and taxes, conducting population censuses, recording and planning. It consists of innumerable subdivisions, offices and and departments.
• Departmento Munitorum - A department of the Administration, responsible for administering and supplying the Imperial Guard.
• Adeptus Astra Telepathica - The Imperium's network of astropaths, responsible for transmitting faster-than-light messages through the Imperium.
• Adeptus Astronomica - Responsible for maintaining the Astronomican, which is used by the Navigators to navigate through the Warp.
• Navis Nobilite - Navigators who pilot Imperial vessels through the Warp.
• Adeptus Mechanicus - Technicians and scientists who build and maintain Imperial equipment, vessels, and weapons of war.
• Adeptus Custodes - Guardians of the Emperor's physical form.
• Adeptus Arbites - Galactic police force which enforces the "Lex Imperia" - the Imperial law.
• Officio Assassinorum - The most subvert of all the known Imperial divisions, the assassins are responsible for removing key leaders of an enemy.
• Inquisition - Troubleshooters and internal affairs organization; they are responsible for investigating any potential threat to mankind or the Imperium. Its agents hunt down heretics, traitors, alien infiltrators and even daemons. They necessarily exist beyond the Adeptus Terra, as part of the Inquisition's role involves rooting out corruption and gross incompetence from the Imperium itself. They answer only to the Emperor and to themselves.
• Adeptus Ministorum - The Imperial church which maintains the Imperial creed and faith.
• Imperial Fleet

The military forces of the Imperium include:

• Imperial Guard
• Space Marines (includes the Grey Knights and Deathwatch)
• Collegia Titanica
• Sisters of Battle

Imperial Domain

The disparate and widespread nature of Imperial territory means that a strongly centralized government would be infeasible. The Imperium divides the galaxy into five administrative zones called Segmentae Majoris:

• Segmentum Solar - Inner core and heart of the Imperium.
• Segmentum Pacificus
• Segmentum Obscurus - A heavily-fortified region due to the dangers posed by the Segmentum's most infamous element, the Eye of Terror.
• Segmentum Tempestus
• Ultima Segmentum - The largest province of all; its furthest extents are beyond the range of the Astronomican.

The Segmentae are the primary administrative division. Each is divided into sectors, which are areas of space. The sectors in turn consist of subsectors, each containing a number of star systems. These divisions and subdivisions are levels forming an administrative hierarchy.

Each Segmentum Commander oversees his Sector Commanders, who in turn oversees Subsector Commanders, who oversee the individual Planetary Governors. The higher ranks in this system are usually combined with a basic planetary governorship as well as interplanetary duties. This system is the means by which the Imperium maintains control of the separate planets that comprise it.

Planetary Administration

Because of the distances involved and the unstable nature of warp communication, Planetary Governors generally operate very autonomously. This allows quite a lot of variation in the regional governments. Most governorships are hereditary, but it is also possible for a planet to have an elected Planetary Governor, a tyrant Governor who rules by force of arms, or anything in between. So long as the Governor fulfills his duties to the Imperium, his rule will generally be accepted by the higher authorities.

A rare few Planetary Governors preside over feral or medieval worlds where the Imperium has not, for whatever reason, seen fit to introduce modern technology. These Governors are often isolated from their subjects, sometimes even living on orbital installations, only interfering to control mutation and psykers, as well as to collect the modest tithes these planets pay.

The Imperial duties of a Planetary Governor include paying the planetary tithe to the Administratum, controlling psykers, mutation and heresy among the population, defending the planet and putting down rebellions against the local government (and thus against the Imperium).

A serious responsibility is the maintenance of a adequate planetary defense force capable of defending the planet in the event of invasion. The Planetary Defense Forces (abbreviated to PDF) are expected to defeat attacks from minor foes, and in the case of major invasions to hold out until reinforcements arrive, which could take a period of months or even years.

A relatively small number of Imperial worlds are not ruled by a Governor, but are overseen by an alternate organization such as the Adeptus Terra, Ecclesiarchy, Imperial Guard or Space Marines. These include the Forge Worlds of the Adeptus Mechanicus, whose inhabitants toil without pause to manufacture the weapons of the Emperor's armies (including Mars, Gryphonne IV and Fortis Binary), the Cardinal worlds of the Ecclesiarchy, which are given entirely over to education and worship of the Emperor (Ignatius Cardinal, Ophelia VII), and the Space Marine Chapter planets (Fenris, Macragge, Baal, Medusa).

Rebellion

The Imperial creed maintains that all of humanity must be brought and kept within the Imperium. Several Imperial organizations are permanently occupied with suppressing any possibility of rebellion before they have a chance of developing. The common worship of the Emperor holds mankind together and instills loyalty towards the Imperium. Rebellions and uprisings on Imperial planets nonetheless remain a constant. The nature and causes of a rebellion can fall into several categories: the government of an Imperial world may decide to secede from the Imperium. A popular uprising may attempt to overthrow the local Imperial government. In the most insidious of cases the rebellion may be brought about by alien or Chaos influence. In the more prosaic cases however, a government established through rebellion is not necessarily opposed by the Imperium, so long as it accedes fully to Imperial authority.⁵

Besides outright war, there are many ways a rebellious world may be brought back into the Imperium. With its more secretive organizations, the Imperium is fully capable of carrying out subvert methods of restoring Imperial rule, including assassination, popular agitation, economic sabotage and terrorism. Sometimes a rebellion can be subdued by the removal of a single individual. Pro-Imperial groups or other anti-government forces can be infiltrated or supported.²

Imperial Languages

Low Gothic is the common tongue of the Imperium, spoken on most Imperial planets as a first or second language. Imperial worlds have inevitably developed their own dialects of Low Gothic over time. High Gothic (represented as Latinized English) dates from an age before the Imperium, and is used solely as a hieratic tongue by the divisions of the Adeptus Terra, the Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy.

Imperial Dating System

The Imperial dating system is based upon "Anno Domini", although expressed in rather different terms. A full dating code consists of a "check" number, "year fraction" number, "year" number, and the millennium.

The millennium is a suffix, represented by an "M" and the millennium number.

The three digits preceding the millennium is the year within the millennium, running from 001-000 (one thousand). For example 0150930/M32 is the year 930 of the thirty second millennium (31,930 A.D.).

Related articles

• Imperial Quotes - General Imperial quotes

Sources

• ¹:Codex Imperialis
• ²:Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader
• ³:Warhammer 40,000 5th Edition Rulebook
• ⁴:White Dwarf #139 and White Dwarf #140, "Interstellar Travel", Jervis Johnson, Andy Jones, Simon Forrest & Rick Priestley
• ⁵:Dark Heresy Rulebook, p. 259