How many worlds in the Imperium are actually important to it? Any given forge world or hive world isn’t really that important and the Imperium doesn’t mind losing them, but there are a handful of worlds that the Imperium deeply cares about and will fight over fiercely. So what are all the “keystone worlds” that the Imperium can’t afford to lose? Terra is obviously one. It’s the center of power for the Imperium and the source of the Astronomicon, not to mention the throne of the Emperor.Mars is similarly important. It is to the Adeptus Mechanicus what Terra is to the rest of the Imperium.Armageddon is largely a ruined shithole of little industrial importance, but it is symbolically valuable, and it serves as a convenient decoy planet to attract Ork Waaghs and stop them before they can reach Terra, so it’s pretty important in that way.Cadia was very important before it fell, being the first line of defense against the Eye of Terror, and its loss seriously hurt the Imperium.Maccrage, despite its personal value to Guilliman, is not particularly important which is why it tends not to be contested much.
>>98382180Every single world touched by the blessed presence of humanity is important and must be cleansed of the xenos filth, silly heretic.
>>98382180>can’t afford to loseTerra. If it loses Terra for any length of time, it ceases to be the Imperium. Anywhere else and it remains.
>>98382180How did your last 40k game go?
>>9838218040k is in an odd spot where everything is supposed to be just about on the brink of collapse. a useless feudal world takes out an essential listening post or marine recruitment world. a useless commodity-focused forge world causes a hive to collapse if it stops delivering air and water filters. a useless agriworld takes out the forge world. a useless hive takes out the local navy anchorage. each one contributes barely enough to keep itself afloat, but without any single piece the whole system breaks down
>>98382336This, but also Roboute Girlyman is a genius at logistics and efficiency and infrastructure whenever the plot conveniently needs him to be. Only when the plot needs it though. The rest of the time everything is an inefficient mess that barely functions.
>>98382391To be fair to Gorillaman, the Imperium is a galaxy-spanning empire with the weight of ten millennia of inertia weighing it down. It's amazing it's lasted this long, if anything.
Vigilus, Sangua Terra, First Founding Chapter planets, Beta Garmon, the Segmentum Centre planets that house the imperial navy HQs
>>98382292The imperium already logistically should not exist if they cannot keep their single most important and sacred capital world from decrepitude
>>98382336The reality is though the Imperium doesn’t really care about most worlds, when you have a million worlds very few of them are actually all that important. Whether a xeno race is dangerous or not comes down almost entirely to whether or not they’re able to threaten one of the small handful of genuinely important worlds.Take the Tau for example. The Tau are usually considered weak, but why? They’ve conquered hive worlds, forge worlds, Space Marine chapter worlds, and they threaten Maccrage, surely these are important to the Imperium? Well, no, not really. The Imperium has hundreds of forge worlds, tens of thousands of hive worlds, and thousands of Chapter worlds. It won’t even notice the loss of a few hive or forge worlds.
>>98384162while the Imperium indeed very rarely cares about individual worlds, sectors and especially sub-sectors very much care about vital worlds within their domain. If a sub-sector has to suddenly get by withouut its breadbasket, thats a big deal. If a sector then has to deal with one of its most important subsectors in dire peril, dealing with that crisis brings its own rat-tail of problems elswhere and so on and so forth.
Approximately 20% of the entire imperium's military is just sitting in and around the solar system doing nothing. Thats how important Terra is compared to the rest.
