Adeptus Ridiculous - IMPERIAL NOBLES: SCREW THE RULES I HAVE MONEY | WARHAMMER 40K LORE

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousNoble Born, are the elite of Imperial worlds, the nobles, princes, and lords of cities, star systems, and planets ruling over boundless populations alongside other equally-privileged noble scions.To be born into such a setting is to have been given the best that the planet has to offer, raised apart from the struggling ranks of Mankind and destined to take on positions of great import and power. This might be the finest pelts and Grox meat of a Feudal World, or the most potent of narcotics and off-world delights on a mainstay Hive World. It is also to enter into a world of deadly politics and ancient feuds, where children grow up with terrible enemies and sleep knowing there are those that would cut their throats for a taste of their hereditary position.Support the show

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamanties, his name is Bricky. And 40K, am I right? But before we get into that, if you enjoyed today's episode, and you maybe want to support the podcast, heading over to patreon.com slash Adeptis Ridiculous, where you can get access to the Discord, blupers if they happen.

The $15 tier gets you access to all of our posters in crispy HD digital format. And yeah, it's a good time. Patreon.com. Adeptus, Ridiculous. Bricky, tell them about books and merch and whatever else you want to tell them about. Oh, all that good stuff. You know, you're going to read Lion's Son of the Forest

when you get the chance, but also check out Orchidate.com because it is still December, and that means you still have time to snag all of the fantastic posters of 2023 before they are gone. Not to mention the mat as well as all the new just a little blood stuff. You can check it all out at Orchidate.com. It's on the front page. You'll see all the

Christmas stuff. You'll see the last chance for the posters. Grab it while you can and enjoy 15% off your order if you spend over 100 bucks. Hell yeah. And that merch is good. As a connoisseur of our

merch and as a purchaser of our merch, guarantee. I must admit I still don't know why you buy it. I will literally just send it to you. I do not understand. Well, I didn't know that. I've told you this on multiple occasions.

I have maybe forgotten then, but whatever. D.K. is so tired of dealing with me for these episodes that he won't even message me off podcast in order to get free merch. What can I say? You know, you're really a no, no, I'm just kidding. I will maybe probably take advantage of that in the future then. Good. Anyway. So what are we doing today?

So this one is going to be another one of those episodes where we kind of just shoot the shit a little bit. It's a little bit more relaxed. It's not a particularly hardcore topic. We're not talking about like Lehman Rust or anything like that. It's not like a major Primark episode. But of course, I still still. need to hit you with a quote because it's funny. Oh, all right.

Fine. The elite who rule over the worlds of the Imperium, obsessed with power and the politics to maintain that power, they may rule from piles of fur on a barren plane or from the crystalline windows at the top of a hive spire,

but all know the precarious nature of power and the ever-present enemies ready to snatch it from them. Quoted by the Inquisition I mean, this just sounds like the nobility or the upper crust of a hive city. What kind of crust? Pizza time.

Stuffed crust. Stuffed with what? Mozilla and maybe a little garlic and some pepperoni. Okay, so we're having like a calzone. Yeah, but only in the crust. You know, like a stuffed crust. where you roll up the crust and stuff it with like, you know. So, so a crusted calzone pizza.

Yeah. Okay, can a calzone's crust also be stuffed? Sure, why not? So, so then, so then you have like a calzone that's filled with toppings, but then the crust of the calzone is also stuffed with toppings. Is rolled into a crust that also has toppings in it, yeah. At that point is that just not like a double-decker pizza? This is not getting cut out shy.

Hey, this is important 40K lore, I think. And do you know why it's important? Because who else would be so, like, garish, so glutinous to create a double-stuffed, stuffed, stuffed calzone pizza than the high-born nobility of Warhammer? You're correct, D.K., we're talking about nobles. Let's go! I did it! You did it. That sees, there's a segue now, so we have to keep it in. I have a break.

Oh, yes, right. It's a segue. She can't cut it. Let's go. Yeah. So, the highborns. So I was thinking,

okay, you know, we just did the little towel vehicles, kind of a fun one. You know, Kerioth, the whole thing.

Yeah, yeah. And I was thinking, okay, Rogue Trader just came out. And we've done a video on Rogue Trader already. So what to do instead?

And I was like, well, you know what? There's a large amount of discussion in the nobility, the highborns, the planetary governors, all those kinds of people in Rogue Trader. Okay. Not to mention it.

And we just talked about the Bad Ab war where that has a lot of corrupt planetary governors and stuff like that, sure. Also very true. And also to go along with that, you just had, you know, a large majority of Rogue Trader opens with you meeting someone, not talking to you in the proper decorum and being like, Abelard, crush his balls.

It's true. Yep. You have the choice for them to be like, oh, it's okay. You didn't know I was a rogue traitor or just like, I will shoot you in the leg now. Learn your place. Pretty much. And so, you know, naturally, it makes sense because you do speak with a lot of the highborn

in 40K in the game. As you go through the game, you will talk to more planetary governors and the like. And so it might be nice to talk about a position, which I would argue is one of the best jobs and one of the few plate times where you actually might want to live in the 41st millennium. Oh, yeah. Being a planetary governor, for sure. Because you have so much freedom to do whatever you want. That essentially, as long as you're sending in the ties that you're supposed to send in, and as long as you're not doing any.

too heretical, they basically just leave you alone, right? Yeah, for the most part. Yeah. Now, I mean, freedom is maybe a bit too large of a word. I'd argue the only truly free people in the Imperium are rogue traders themselves. That's true because, yeah, yeah. But even then, you know, because you're obviously, you're still, I guess it depends. Like, if you're the planetary governor of like an agro world, that's one thing. If you're the planetary governor of, I don't know, like, Nostromo from back when, like, that's not particularly great. No, that's true.

It does definitely depend on the planet. I guess being the planetary governor of a death world is probably not a whole lot of fun. I do truly wonder what the planetary governor of Katachin is like. Like, how does he do that? Probably doesn't exist. That is ruled by the people. Probably just like, I bet they have like orcological. It's just the biggest Australian there.

Yeah, the biggest dude with the biggest knife, yeah, and the highest kill count. So, anywho, there are a couple types of nobility. This isn't just planetary governors. This is the general high-born elite of Warhammer. And there's a couple types we can talk about. There are the noble houses. There are the imperial houses. The planetary governors themselves, the imperial commanders, which kind of go hand in hand.

And then just the high-born elite. as we know it. A lot of the pictures of the highborn elite are pretty hilarious. Not hilarious. They're like old school John Blanche. Oh, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like old school, I don't just want to say Victorian, like, paintings very, you know, with the big wigs and the big overblown clothing and everything. Yeah, like the John Blanche is a very particular art style.

The two one sandwich between the rogue trader image that Shai posted. are examples of that. Ah, yes, yes, yes, okay. I mean, it's basically the art style that made Warhammer. It's just been adjusted to becoming a lot more of a grudgy, dirty, grim, dark version of it now. Sure. But ironically, the two pictures that are posted there are probably pretty accurate to what they would look like with that level of just crap on them. Yeah, whenever I think of a planetary governor now, I think of that first one that

Chai posted where he's just got that big fur coat. He's very big himself. His clothing is just lavish and all over the place. That's like whenever someone says planetary governor, that's like the first picture that pops in my mind now. I think of like this kind of guy too, just this really big, opulent kind of character. Yeah, definitely. What was the name of, um, what was it in, uh, Oh, crap.

It was in Day of Ascension where one of the admec guys was... What? No, no. Why did I think you were talking about a game? The day before, that awful scam game that came out? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, no, the jeans did a cool book we read. Right, right, right, right, right. You know, they had the high-born fabricator general, I think, which was known as... It looked like a bell. Oh, that's right. He was shaped like a bell, and he walked on the little claw.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like that guy. That guy's shaped like a bell too. Yeah, he is. He is. Shaped like a pair. But, um, so, anywho, uh, high-born elite.

Well, I guess we'll start with planetary governor because it's basically the same thing. Mm-hmm. Um, a planetary governor is the governor of the planet. He is the ruler of the planet itself. And it's where a governor would govern a state over here in, uh, America. For example, he is the governor of the entire planet. Hence the name. He has the name.

Hence the name, planetary governor. They are also considered an imperial commander of military matters. The title itself is a little bit synonymous. For example, I imagine if we were on Katachin, this might be wrong because maybe Katachin is their own thing, but I would guess that they would refer to the planetary governor as the imperial commander instead of the planetary governor, despite both titles being the same.

Oh, okay. Mainly the reason for that is because much like the president of the United States He's also like the commander-in-chief of the military, I suppose Oh, okay. So kind of, yeah, right, right, gotcha. Yeah. Depending on the situation and whatever,

you might call them something different, sure. Right, so in this particular, like, a fortress world would maybe, someone would refer to them as the imperial commander, despite planetary governor also being the totally normal title. Right, right, gotcha. the sea and sea. The planetary governor itself may govern their world specifically,

but depending on how they've expanded, might also govern sectors or sub-sectors or even as things as far as solar systems. You might have, I don't know, Dick Buttecus Prime in the Dick Buttecis system, but he also might, in a sense, because he governs Dick Butteus Prime, there might be a planetary governor for Dick Putticus,

Dick Buddyus Secundus and Dick Buddyus Tertius. But in reality, he's kind of the head honcho of the Dick Buddius system, you know? Could you say Dick Buddius or Dick Burekis one more time? Like, are you sure you hit your quota of saying that? This is me. P.P. Pooh-Poo. Third generation of the Dick Buddicus system in the Segmentum Solar. Well done.

Hail the emperor. Hail the emperor. All praise him. All right. All right. Now, of course, a planetary governor is at the end of the day completely bound to Terra. Their job at the end of the day is, while they might see themselves as a independent ruler, and often don't really get bugged by people.

They're still servants of the Imperium. They are servants of the Imperium and more particularly servants of Adeptus Terra. Yeah. As far as things, and especially considering, how fickle and weird the warp is, it's pretty hard to communicate to terror for things like reinforcements. Yeah. So that's why you're

also the Imperial Commander because you need to maintain your own planetary defense force or PDF in case there are ever any issues. Because there's a good chance you might get a little Jukari raid, kind of searching for some folks or maybe the Voton kind

of wants some minerals. And it's good to have a few defenses. The chaos just pops up out of nowhere for no reason at all because it's chaos and it's the warp and who knows. And yeah, you're not always going to be able to contact hair. So you kind of got to be able to act a little bit individually and on your own. If the need arises, yeah. You also often have to put down sometimes chaos cults.

I mean, hell, that's a major point in the rogue trader game is often the lower decks will sometimes just have a chaos cult there. And you're like, well, crap, got to deal with them. Got to go deal with the chaos cult. And you are traveling through the warp, so it's going to happen. I'd say that the best description of this whole thing is this little mini paragraph on the Wikipedia, which is, as long as the planet's imperial taxes are paid, its mutant and psychopopulations kept under control, and the requisite tithes of cycoranist and astromitarm regiments are delivered to the Imperium, and the planet is governed completely.

The governor is free to run the planet however they choose. Yeah. That is about how I view the planetary governors. As long as you're sending in the ties that you need to, and as long as you're not letting anything crazy happen, do what you want. Yep. Do what you want. Rule as you want. Be as greedy and gluttonous as you feel like so long as you give them guard, keep some shit under wraps, you're good. As long as you pay your taxes. As so long as you don't piss off the feds, you are perfectly fine.

Yep, yep. Now, of course, a lot of the times planetary governors are, the weird thing about them is that despite the fact that they consider themselves to be all powerful, like planetary governors are assholes, 95% of the time. Yeah, I'm trying to think of when we've heard of a planetary governor that was like just and cared about their people and wasn't just kind of out to make. themselves as rich and opulent and just blowhardy as possible. Blow hard. It's such a boomer word, but I actually really love it, so thanks, buddy. It's such a great word. You're such a blow hard.

Blow hard. It's such a good word. For the most part, I mean, because obviously how you view the planetary governor is generally in the guise of how Warhammer is told as a satirical piece of fiction. in this case, a big portion of 40K is just how excessively large the Imperium has become

that it's just completely ungovernable. Become ungovernable. As soon as you said that, I saw a giant duck in the ocean. I got to post the duck. You have to. Shai, put it in the episode, too,

the ungovernable duck. It is a, it is. a requirement. It's unfortunate because I actually don't know how far back this image is. Oh my, you know what's ironic about this? As we're talking about this, I forgot that the sweatshirt that I'm currently wearing, it's of a Japanese wrestling group and their name is literally Los Ingobernables. Wait.

The Ingovernables. Wait, you said to Japanese wrestling group? Yeah. Well, they're kind of like Japanese and, like, Lucha wrestling. and the name of their group is Los Ingovernables de Japan. So the ungovernables. The Ingovernables of Japan, yeah. That's pretty funny, actually.

That's a great cultural combo. Until I'd seen the duck, I forgot that I was even wearing it. L.I.J. But yes, so it's obviously part of the satire is that it's so overly bloated and impossible to properly govern, combined with the difficulties with the, the warp combined with the excessive religious undertones and then mix that with a little bit of, oh, by the way, you're not allowed to have AI and Microsoft Excel doesn't exist. It just means it's such a, it's ridiculous in how it's governed.

But particularly the planetary governors are the, are pushing the highest reaches of being completely out of touch with regular people. Oh, of course. Like, to the next degree. As any higher up, like, governor's sort of nobility, they, yeah, they're completely out of touch with the common man, the common person, what they need, what they want, what they like, what they dislike. Yeah, that does not surprise me one little bit. I, shy says, I pick this guy as my character in rogue trader because it's canonically correct. That, that guy is a blowhard.

I, that guy, I love the wig and everything. It's really good. I picked the, I picked the young Astro Militarum guy that looks like he's Patrick Bateman. I, I pick the hooded cycer with both of the, the eye things. You know, I thought you were going to pick, this is not because of your ethnicity in case it sounded like I was going to say that. I thought you were going to pick the, the Asian road trader guy with the powdered wig. and the cane sword? Oh, yeah, no, I don't like the powdered wig.

Oh, okay, because I thought the cane sword and like... Otherwise, I might have. I might have, but yeah, I hate the old Victorian, like, powder wig thing. I just don't like it. This is, like, my second favorite portrait of this guy. I thought you would love the cane sword and, like, the long robes. I do. I do love the cane sword and the long room, but the wig just doesn't... I don't like...

I also don't like that one of the augments isn't, like, replacing the eye with, like, the red circle thing. Yeah, I'm kind of shocked that there's no red circle. It's in like half of the portraits. All of them have it, yeah. Yeah. And it's a little strange. Yeah, anyway. My personal favorite portrait is the lady

with all the servitor skulls around her and the horns. Oh, yeah, that one's really dope. That one's really good. Really sick, yeah. Anyway. Anyway. Planetary Governors. Yes, anyway, so, you know, obviously, Warhammer is a

British product. And Okay, hold on I'm Shush Continue my Baylor Abelard

Smack him Crush his balls Santa Phil is talking with Cole Oh But So there's I always remember a particular

clip of Who's the current king Of Britain With after the queen died King Charles Or whatever I don't know, whatever his name

It's some Richard, I think, I don't know It has this like clip of him signing a document And then like pushing the document away And then like pushing it harder And be like, like get this away from me You damn low low level people Because he's like King Charles the third Apparently, I was wrong, you were wrong

Leave it to America to not know British stuff It's fine I could care less we fought away to I 300 years ago My ancestors died to make sure I don't have to give a shit about the royal family. But it's like there's this level of like, okay, he's been in this nobility for so long. Generations upon generations that just the general issues of regular people are so far removed.

Except take that to like times 15. Some planetary governors have ruled over their system. like their family has ruled over their planet for like thousands of years. Actually, thousands of years. The Von Valencius line has ruled over this planet for actual millennia. Damn, that's crazy. That's a crazy lineage of just, it's been in the family for millennia. And shy makes a good point.

This also is a literal and figuratively. far removed thing. You live in a hive city. You genuinely live at the top of the spire. Because when you think about it, these families are hundreds and hundreds of people of nobilities and thousands of slaves and servitors. But hive cities are so big. It's like having 15 New York cities of highborns on just the top. Wow. And I imagine you would want to keep them as far. Well, if you're of the mindset of a usual planetary governor, you're probably like, I'm so far above them. I shouldn't have to live with the rabble and the filth down below. I should be up here where, you know, I am safe and protected from those who are jealous of my power.

It's a combination of the humorous satire that 40K loves and the also in your face obviousness of it where, like shy says, you are literally above the peasants. Like physically you are above them. Yeah, yeah. So it adds a lot a lot to it. And like, yeah, like you take a shit and it falls on the peasants genuinely. Aw, poor peasants. And then so, you know, you'll have the far top, the Imperial commander slash planetary governors spires, which are their homes. I mean, we've seen, we've seen the rogue traders quarters in the,

the game. It's like... Lavish. It's insane. Can you imagine a view from the top of that spire? Sheesh. I feel like if you... Oh, God, yeah. I mean, I wonder if you could...

Crazy enough. I wonder if you could even see the peasants and the rabble. Because you're so high up, the clouds probably cover them. You probably just look down. It's just clouds. All you see is white, fluffy clouds. Not a... Oh, everything is great.

I can't see any of it. Have you... Have you... done the side quest with Abilard figuring out what to do with the lower decks? I have not. I basically, I'm just as far as like I did the intro and I

went to that one planet that's being kind of, there's like a rebel incursion that they're trying to find off. Yeah, yeah. There's, without two spoilers for everyone, I love Abalard. He's like my favorite character. But he's

because he's got this small part where someone's like, Rogue Traitor, you got to help us with the lower decks the seneschal is being a problem and you're like Avalor what's up what's going on and it's like well the lower decks find a chaos cultus emulence and that's kind of weird so I like requisition

in a force or force to go down like kill all of them and it's like we got and I made sure you never had to know because it's my job to keep you focus on your duties and I handle the bad stuff what a Chad what a guy what a guy

and you know this is this is the seneschal of a rogue traitor, which is basically the seneschal of a planetary governor, but... Yeah. I honestly argue that this is a lighter version of what happens in the nobility. Because he's a nice guy that's trying to do right, whereas usually maybe the seneschal is what, like, kind of like a Jafar. Like, you, you don't speak to the low-level people, if you are one of lineage.

Like, you just don't interact with them. Okay. If you're a teacher, like, okay, you're a son of a noble. And to think about, like, the noble lineage, how far down it goes. Like, you know, there's not the planetary governor. You might not even be the planetary governor's seneschal's son. You might be the son of the aid of the seneschal of the planetary governor. Wow.

And your math teacher most likely comes from the fifth generation of prestigious. math teachers of the highest ranking class of your hive city so your math teacher is also in a sense a noble just not as noble as you are like all right yeah okay the only people

you ever interact with that are not of noble blood are the the heretics and prisoners that have been reprogramed in his servitors Oof Yeesh

Like you are You are so far removed You don't even see the people you govern You don't even look at them You give orders and that's it Okay I mean hey that is the life of a planetary governor That lives atop of a spire

So yeah I mean that that fits with the idea Of the hoity tooidy nobility That thinks they're better than you Because in this system Well they are They are better than you They are

And that actually does lead into what kind of happens to a lot of these kids because pretty often Yeah, it's right, shy, I was going to say that. Have you recruited the Navigator yet? I haven't. See, like, it's not really much of a spoiler. The Navist nobility house are not allowed to speak to the lady navigator because Navas nobility navigators are also nobles. Oh, yeah, yeah.

So they just cut the tongues out of all of her servants so they can never speak to her. Oh, oh, wow. All right. Okay. Yeah, sure. Sure. That's, eesh. That's a great part where she complains about, like, the ship being too loud.

It's like, how do you deal with this when everyone still has their tongues? And one of your answers is like, you know, I probably should cut the tongues out of everyone here on the ship. But it would take a lot of logistics. Yeah. I was going to say if one of the options was genuinely, oh, yeah, I will. go cut everyone's tongues out. I wouldn't put it past a 40K game to do that. It is one of the options. Like, there's, there's a small moment where like, I think she chastises a crewmate and he goes to his bunk and shoots his family and kills himself. Wow. And it's just like, and then your answer is like,

well, he should have been stronger then. It's like, good God, man. Well, I mean, hey, this is the grim dark of the 40th millennium, right? So. It's great. It's great. It's great. What a fun time we're having. Oh, boy. Tears beyond human imagination. So, interestingly enough, they have not lost the idea of younger folk being born into the highborn power and genuinely acting out because of it. You know, you think of like a dynasty, like a genuine current dynasty. The long-lined house in the UK or something. thing. I don't know. Yeah. Or, you know, whatever, like a Russian oligarch, for example.

Yeah, yeah. Um, et cetera, et cetera. They're often being born into that level of wealth means you're just going to be spending your life completely idle, covered in excess, like excess, expected to have, definitely Slanesh, um, expected to be constant in like, like insane, um, what's the word I'm looking for, uh, the the having like like expect expectations insane expectations put on you and ridiculous family infighting espionage and political uh debauchery ah so so just billionaire children in general basically

just billionaire children don't know the value of a dollar everything is expected of them yeah that will never interact with people lower than them so naturally this can become issue There, especially among, like, you know, because the, we all, people always ask, like, do people in Warhammer have, like, lots of sex because of just how much war there is and stuff? And I'm like, brother, that's the one thing that we are in, have no shortage of. When you live at the bottom of a hive city, the only thing you have are drugs and banging. It's like living in the inland empire. Oh, I went to school in the Inland Empire. And yeah, not too terribly far from the truth. It's, you have, the only two things you can do is meth and, and, and, and, and, and, and, so often, you know, especially when you're a highborn, who probably has multiple concubines and can do whatever you want, he, uh, you probably will have dozens of children, which means there are dozens of errors to power. Mm-hmm.

So between the infighting amongst your peers and all that kind of stuff and the relative idleness, what do you do? Some will just try to climb the social ladder. Some will go hard into politics. And some just totally reject their family. Some that just completely reject their family will join the guard. Oh, wow. Really? Just to get away.

Just to goddamn leave. Is that like kids that are kind of like, even though they've been like pampered and born into wealth, it's like they still have some sense of like rationale and they're like, no, this is all terrible. This is all wrong. I want to actually help people and I want to join the guard because my family's so corrupt and awful type of thing. Pretty much, if I'm not mistaken, in the Bloodlines book, there was the situation where the, the girl of the rich lady was out doing a bunch of drugs

and that's kind of how the story started. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right, that's true. Again, in Rogue Trader, your spy guy is like, I'm number 11 in line for ruling spot in my noble house and I don't want 20 people behind me to get through me as they climb on top so I bailed.

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. So, yeah, like, similarly, when people want to get away from a life of complete lavishness, they sometimes seek the entire opposite. They run to the military

where they can't be hounded anymore or they might run to the Navy, Navus Imperialis. And sometimes even worse, they might cut complete ties and become pirates, criminals. They might steal as much wealth from their families as they can

and then leave and go sailing the stars somewhere away from their family. Based? Based? Yeah, you know. Base life, pirate's life for me. After stealing from the corrupt, although that probably doesn't look great for the planetary governor's family if their child becomes a rogue pirate.

It looks extremely terrible, but it's also one of their maybe like 30 kids, so... That's true. Can't win them all. Can't win them all. Like, it's reached to such a level. And if you're born of high nobility, because the high nobility is to such a high, degree. We talked about people having their tongues pulled out already, but like, yeah, it's speak to me in the right decorum or I will kill you. And it's like, and my dad has a lawyer and you can't

do anything about it, you know? Yeah. The one thing I remember from rogue trader was like, I don't remember. It was like at the very beginning and like you go up to some guy and ask him for information and he's like, well, I don't know if I should tell you this information. And like, but I'm a rogue traitor. And he tells you the information. And then the next line, is like, now I'm going to shoot you for giving up the information too easily. And it's like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. I remember that. The guardsman, you could be like, like, this is what happens when you have loose tongues and you just kill him. You kill him. And it's like, Jesus, he helped us. Why would you do it? There's someone else. I think it was like in a prison planet.

Yeah, it was a prison planet. And then the three cultists tried to kill you. And then so three prisoners killed the cultists. And they were like, uh, hello your loyalty. Uh, we're not with those. those weirdos, we're prisoners, yeah, but we're not part of this whole thing. We just saved your life, can we go? And my first response was on the bottom.

It was dogmatic. It's like, consider your request, denied, die, and then you just kill all of them. You picked that, didn't you? I so did. You so did. It's, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, anyway. Anyway, it's very lovely to see that, like, that level of power is to the extreme. Yeah.

It becomes a pretty large amount of opulence, which does lead to problems. Between the political infighting, the fact that a lot of planetary governors got their position by killing someone above their rank and the never-ending assassination coup attempts, etc., that they have to deal with, there is also the feds. Ah, the Imperium. And the issue that comes with having such opulence is you can slowly, often over the course of hundreds and thousands. of years, slide into debauchery in many different ways. Yes, you can, especially in 40K. There are an infinite number of ways to just slide down that pole. And that's one of the things that ends up happening is you might go into wanting even

more money, so you might start doing what happened in the Eisenhorn book, start selling some Zenos artifacts, which for a rogue trader is, much of an issue, but for a planetary governor. That's a big no-no. That's a no-no. You might, for example, get a chaos cult that just can't be stomped out, and it takes you way too long in this really long war. And so then the Imperium is like, you are very obviously unfit for rule.

You are going to be executed, and someone new will take your place. There is... So when that happens, when they're like, oh hey, you've fallen too far from grace as planetary governor. We are going to execute you and someone who's going to take your place. Did they do that to the whole

family or do they just take the next person in the lineage? Depends on how rotten they think the family is. Oh, okay. Oh, so they look at the whole family, the whole hierarchy. So they might replace all of them. So very often

whatever the need for a planetary governor to be replaced happens, one, they always die. And two, the decision is often made by an inquisitor. And if the inquisition makes their particular decisions and statements, they're the ones who choose these things. And because they're the ones who choose, it depends on the type of inquisitor you're dealing with and how bad they screwed up.

Yeah, I was going to say it depends, depends on the Inquisitor, and it depends on the severity of the crime. Right. So that is a big question when it comes to that type of thing. And, of course, most often than not, I'd say a planetary governor falls under the throes of Sla Nesh more than any other chaos god. No kidding. Really? They would fall to the chaos god of excess? The planetary governors?

There is a planetary governor who does exactly that in rogue traitor. Oh. And you got to deal with it. Is it me? Oh. No, well, you're not a planetary governor. Oh, that's true. That's true.

I'm a rogue trader. Can I follow this, Linash? Yeah. I did pick me a few heretical options at the beginning of rogue traders, so. Oh, did you try to accept the power from the ghost? I sure, sure did. I ran through the fire and all of the people behind me

burned to a crisp. You don't like the human barbecue. That's good money. Shai says, I'm going to bet by most part inquisitors will prefer to kill everyone and pick another noble family that has ties to the Inquisitor to take over

because Inquisitors often come from noble families as well. Sometimes, yeah, sometimes. It depends, because Inquisitors are made from the Scola progenium. which is orphans of whatever, whether it's governors or guardsmen or imperial commanders. So, anywho, obviously, if you're not putting down your rights properly, if you're not making your tithes,

this is often an issue that a lot of governors fly into is that they become so opulent, so over the top, is that they spend all their money making their lives better, and then they do the Marianne Twinette strategy, and then where they spend all of their money on them and the people get nothing and they fail their tides or the people rise up and next thing you know oopsie there's a guillotine.

Yep, have your cake and eat it too. I mean, except the cake in this sense is like, God knows what. Yes, yes, yes, yes. We get it, we get it. Actually, interestingly enough, one of the more difficult things that happen for a planetary governor,

is when an inquisitor decides to show up. This is mainly because the planetary governor, as far as they know outside of the emperor and the feds on Terra, are the most important person ever? Oh, yeah. If you're a planetary governor and you know an inquisitor's coming, it's like, oh boy, all hands on deck.

Like, we need to whine and dine the inquisitor because, like, they are, you know, VIP. Yeah, they are number one. Yeah. And so whenever an inquisitor arrives, how they decide to deal with the governor might be kind of interesting. Because while the governor has to do everything you say, you're still on their planet. And like, it's not unheard of for a inquisitor to go searching for issues on a planetary governor's planet and then just not show up again. Most inquisitors are too good for that.

but sometimes they might just flat out be killed. Oh. Not often, but like, you know, maybe the Inquisitor is making some assumptions that they don't like or they are hiding something. Oh. And so they just disappear. I mean, commissars in Katachin often disappear. Which is always funny. They just, oh, where'd they go?

So, for example, an inquisitor arrive, you're a planetary governor, D.K. Oh, boy. I have power. An inquisitor takes notice of your planet. Whatever reason, you don't know why. Or maybe you do know why. Oh. But, you know, they take a notice.

Okay. They arrive on the planet and they come straight to you, like instantly to you. Okay. This is already unheard of because nobody just. come straight to you. Oh, okay. So, so I'm already on high alert because nobody would, without reason, nobody comes right to me tippy top. They always go like to one of the underlings first. They always go to someone lower on the chain. They'll deal with it. But if they're coming right to me, there is some serious going down. How, how dare anybody go straight to you?

Yeah, how dare they? How dare they? Even an inquis. How dare you, sir? So they arrive to talk to you. Now, they might go with your customs and decorum. You know, they might be like, I request an audience with the Imperial, the planetary governor. If we can schedule a time, sometime next week, we can meet and discuss a few matters of importance, says inquisitorial representative, whatever name. You know, Brick, Brick von Brick. and then and you might say like

brick was the best you could come up with I was going quick what's your what's your planetary governor name DK you get 10 seconds I did this one in 10 seconds

Dvon K obviously I knew it I knew you couldn't think of anything better you shit lord Shut up! Shut up! I wasn't expecting you to turn it back on me you son of a

All right So Planetary governor metal pipes. So, so, Brick von Brick request the audience. So, so you might either a couple of your things might happen. You might

treat me as like a peer and be like, oh, we'll discuss over wine. I would do that, actually. That's probably what I would do. Yeah, like a little wine and talk in your, in your office. You might be like, oh my God, it's Brick von Brick, the Inquisitor. I haven't done anything wrong. but why is an inquisitor want to talk to me? Right. Oh, no.

I would definitely go with the first one. And, well, unless I knew for sure that, like, you know, I was up to some shady dealings on my planet. Right. So if you were terrified, because being terrified of Inquisitor is just a good practice to have. True, true. But it depends, like, are you terrified of me because you're scared of the Inquisitor? Or are you terrified of me because you have something to hide? Exactly.

Yeah. that's the, ooh, the double, I guess that's not the double-sided sort, but yeah, I got you. So maybe instead, you throw, you throw a banquet. You take, like a table, like a 20-foot table and we sit on the, on the

two sides of it, and the feast of your best possible food, and you provide to me your most beautiful women and all these things for a night, you know, like, everything an awful, awful high lord person might do. Sure.

My concubine. Or I, Brick von Brick Inquisitor, want to kind of flex my power a little bit. And I arrived to the system and I'm like, I'm meeting with the planetary governor in an hour. Have him ready. Oh. And this might be a tactic to put you on edge because I think you have something to hide. So I'm going to make you nervous. Oh, okay.

But I'm not nervous. I got nothing to hide. Well, sure, sure. So instead you're pissed. Because you're the most important person of all times. How dare I speak to you like this? How dare you schedule my time? My important time.

How dare you, Brick von Brick? How dare you, Inquisitor, not go through the proper decorum and manners in order to speak to a planetary governor. We have procedures for this. How dare you, Brick von Brick? How dare you? I have been scorned. I have been besmatched by Brick von Brick. And so, you know, the governor's ego is like taller than his dad.

damn spire. So he might take this particularly be pissed off as it. But because of this, you know, it might end up having you get mad and maybe be a little revealing. Oh, okay. It's all just tactics to

see what cards are in my hand. Or I might approach you as an equal, a peer, appropriate ceremony, hold court, speak to you as a kind soul back and forth. We're working together. I've heard rumors of a problematic cult on your planet.

I'm not blaming you, Devon K. I'm just, but we need to work together to crush this. While simultaneously, I'm very much like, I'm going to find out who's fucking behind this. If it's you, I swear to God. I swear to God, I wonder how many Inquisitors do that, though? I feel like most Inquisitors would just try to immediately get the reaction by just like, you're going to meet me in an hour.

So it depends on the Inquisitor. Let's take the Eisenhorn book. Eisenhorn would go through the proper channels and decorum, right? Yeah, because Eisenhorn is James Bond. He's a suave guy, and despite the fact that he can never smile again, he's a... Literally, yeah. He's a smooth talking guy. You know, in the opening of the book, he spoke to that one planet generally kindly, despite how mad they were.

Whereas, who was the name of the other Inquisitor in that book, the older Grouchy Man? Oh, shoot. Didn't it start with like an M? Like a must I don't want to say musk But like Moll Inquisitor Musk He makes the worst social media site

Of all the time of the Inquisitor And then sends his car to space I don't know why But I was thinking of the smell like musky I wasn't thinking of the person You know If Elon Musk was in 40K He would be one of the least egregious

Imperial governors out there And he's still a total prick Yeah, you're probably right. But yeah, I remember who you're talking about, the other sort of... Right. So in the book, he specifically announced his arrival loudly. And so everyone, Inquisitor Musk has arrived. Yeah.

And because of that, everyone was like, oh, my God. And so it made everyone freak out. Yeah. And that was his tactic. Yeah. But he didn't get anything from that because they were kind of like ready for that. didn't really give him all the information, and he couldn't find all the information. He needed Eisenhorn. So that's not always the way to go. That was the general part of the book, is that

Eisenhorn had the better touch for the situation, despite both touches being fine, depending. Yeah. Yeah, and sometimes Inquisters look like that, too. Whoa, Inquisters have power armor? Oh, yeah. They have, they totally could have power armor. And like, that's frightening. Oh, my God. I did not realize inquisitors could just don power armor and be like, yes, I'm here to investigate you. It's like, would you like a glass of wine to that guy? Shy is also correct in saying this here, too. If it's an Ordo Hereticus inquisitor with a retinue of 20 adeptus sororitus with flamethrowers telling you you will meet in your office in 15 minutes, it's probably a good time to run away.

Yeah, time to get off world quick. It's time to flee. Yeah, time to go. Admec also of course have planetary governors but they're called the Fabricator Generals They're much more related to tithes

Because of course For forge worlds and the like Yeah But like For example Here's a fun one This is a planetary governor named Anesh

They were a planetary governor Of the world of ionis Who foolishly led a plan To have the world Seed from the Imperium An eversore assassin broke into the governor's palace To kill him

but instead found a bomb and was killed in the explosion. Secretly, a Nesh and his co-conspirators observed the explosion from orbit, gloating at the spoils, when immediately one of his co-conspirators transformed out of their callous assassin form and immediately murdered him. Wow. All right, then. If I'm not mistaken, the planetary governor of Armageddon,

Harmon von Strab, is like half the reason why Armageddon was such a total cluster. Damn. Is because of his complete ineptitude. Isn't that always the case in 40K? Everything's worse because someone's just dumb. Pretty much. Yeah. So, you know, then there were, like, these also extend to other worlds.

If you remember an assassin, Norm Kingmaker, the planetary governor was a high Lord Yovarnius cow of the strider row, you know, groups. Yeah. So because of that, he himself was, what's the word? Like, it's not necessarily a planetary governor, but it's their version, it's the night world's version of that. Yeah, yeah, night world version of the upper crust nobility, yeah, yeah. And so, for the most part, depending on how an inquisitor adjust with the time with the planetary governor, or how many other aspects of imperial authority might take.

take it over. For example, a contingent of space marines might be like, we are suspecting a Zenos attack. Prepare your PDF force immediately. We are taking command of this engagement. And then, of course, a lot of governors might be like, how dare, and then they die immediately because of the space marine shoots them in the face. How dare you speak back to a space marine, bro? Like, just do what they say? Like, what are you doing? What do you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? So, so yeah, I mean, that's really what I got for planetary governors and nobles.

It's, like I said, it was generally more of like a, just how does the upper crust live? Okay, very opulently, very hoity-toity, very up their own ass type of, you know, kind of what you expect from like a fictionalized nobility in a sci-fi world. just is very, you know, as far removed from the normal peasantry, normal civilians as you could possibly be. For the most part, yeah. And at that point, not to mention that they live for hundreds of years. Yeah. Because of...

Like you said, it's a millennia long rain. That's crazy. It can be insane how... high up they can become and how long they can keep their position. Many of the time, planetary governors, despite us talking about them either being murdered or having to deal with the chaos cult, they might just straight up like, just live an insanely lavish life and die of natural causes. Yeah.

Yeah. You thought seats of Congress were bad. But obviously, that's less fun to talk about. Yeah. Way less fun. So it's a lot more to fund. It's not interesting. We learn about the planetary governor that seceded from the Imperium, went straight to Slanesh,

and then was immediately blown open from the inside out by a keeper of secrets when they were fought by space marines. Yay. Yay. Yay. Fun. Yay. Yay. Yeah.

Slaneh. Ooh, that tall glass of Slenush. Oh, yes. Shai, is there anything you'd like to add before we wrap up this nice relatively chill episode This was a chill fun episode I enjoyed our time today

Sometimes Oh, oh you want to read this? Go ahead And all of this because of the heresy Before heresy Emperor planned to have central official government But because Imperium was so screwed up They've fallen back to self-governance of the world an old system of aristocracy as the most functional system.

Oh, so if there was no horace heresy, there would have been just a centralized government for all of the planets, and there would be no planetary government or governors? As much as we hate the emperor and as awful as he is as a person, his idea for the Imperium is still light years better than what we have. Yeah.

It's still genuinely insane. insane levels. That was one of the heresy issues. Emperor wanted to have civilian government where space marines had no power. Wow. Yeah. And then some of the space marines weren't stoked with that. Yeah.

That is not how it ended up. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. No. No.

No. No. So, anywho. Yeah. I mean, for the most part, that's the general nobility. It's nice to talk about things that people would ask about. Yeah. Like, for example, a lot of times people will ask like, well, what's it like serving in like the guard?

And you'll say, well, you know, you hear about, well, you hear about like the 40 million dead people in an engagement type stuff. But for the most part, it's not really like that. It's a lot more like regular military service. Normally you're putting down rebellions and things like that. But then sometimes you might deploy against the tyrannids. And then good luck. And then, oh boy, human soup. Human soup.

So this is how the highborns. This is how the, what, you know what? I was going to say this is how the highborns work, but you know what? Why are you buying clothes at the soup store?