I was actually pretty surprised to learn that the formation of knights as a social class is actually a development of the Crusades, I’d assumed it was far older than that and just a natural development of feudalism’s martial basis.
I’m sure it was mere coincidence that the Emperor created a new order of Knights Militant to fight his own Great Crusade.
There are Orders Militant of the Inquisition, which were only formalised post internment in the golden throne, otherwise Im not sure what you are referencing.
They’re kind of a minor facet of the Imperium and pretty rare so I can see how you might miss them:
Oh you mean the Legions, with structure, ranks and titles based on Roman legions?
Noob.
Rude.
The Emperor created Legions, not the chapters which was Guilliman, and they were very clearly inspired by Roman legions.
Specific chapters have knightly themes but only the First Legion had those themes from their inception.
It helps if you get your timeline right.
Chapters were a subgroup of a Legion, Mr. Timeline.
Legion-Chapter-Battalion-Company-Squad.
The space-knight motif was a part of their original design just as the Legion was. Hell, the Dark Angels, Legion I mind you, took the feudal world Caliban as their home and many of them were literally knights… Cypher.
It wasn’t as strong a motif, but guess what also developed as a tradition over the Crusade era?
created a new order of Knights Militant to fight his own Great Crusade.
The Emperor created Legions, that some of those Legions evolved into something culturally resembling Knights Militant is really irrelevant.
Especially given that most of this cultural shift occurred during the collapse of the Empire. The first legion is the exception that proves the rule.
They adopted Knight motifs after Caliban. Which again was not planned, as the Emperor had no choice in where the Primarchs were scattered.
Your claim is that the Emperor deliberately recreated orders of Knights Militant is demonstrably wrong. He made Roman-esque legions.
Please point out the Black Templars next. You know, the chapter that didn’t exist until post heresy where the Emperor had no say in the matter.
All this was a deliberate choice by the history buff nerds at GW because guess which order things happened IRL.
extreme version of Catholism
Is everyone in the imperium pedophiles or something?
I think we draw the line at the enslavement, brainwashing, and genocide of trillions in the Grimdarkness of the Grimdark Future.
Nah. The ruling class is pretty frequently described as predatory in that way. Lots of underaged sex objects and slaves and such of your Planetary Governor types.
Although now that it’s brought up, I don’t think the Ecclesiarchy is celibate so there isn’t a particular focus on that for them, it’s mostly a powerful vs powerless dynamic.
Servitors are always made of dead people’s bodies. You can bet your ass a significant number of higher ups ought to have some “custom made” after their favorite little “vile heretic that tried to seduce me”
Servitors are not made from corpses, they are lobotomized, modified humans who were “alive” when the procedure started.
Some absolutely wrecked humans (like soldiers who get partially blown apart) can be taken in for servitorization if an eager techpriest is closer than the hospital. It’s like a shittier version of how dreads are made. But more often it’s just prisoners and stuff.
I think there’s a line about this in one of the gaunts ghosts books, but it might have been someone punished