I've been gone for ove a year now, so...hi there, again!
A while back I mentioned that I'd thought of doing what amounted to a crossover between a random spaceship-using empire and World of Warcraft. I was thinking of something involving universe-breaching portals. Well, the idea stuck around. To be honest, it mostly stuck around in the form of the world the players occupy -random adventurers travelling Azeroth -more than a clash between a Star-Trek-Mirrorverse-type Empire and the leaders of the Horde and Alliance. But it stuck, and rumbled around, and that area's where my interest lies anyway -so you get this.
The Imperium rules everything it sees.
Jonas knows that. He has always known it. The Imperium is mighty, unstoppable; its ground troops are well-trained, skilled, the most ruthless in any world and equipped by the most advanced tech base ever to develop. The Imperium ground every other race on every other occupied planet in its own galaxy to dust once it set its eyes on the stars. The Imperium has torn the stars themselves apart, to fuel its engines of war and to fling battle-fleets from one galaxy to the next. The Imperium has even torn a path between the universes.
Nothing can stop the Imperium. The lesser races tried, the weaker ones, they threw their pathetic efforts against its mighty walls and the Imperium laughed them off. No matter how much blood they spilled, they died. The Imperium has always been victorius, standing proud and glorious amid the dying ruins of its enemies The Imperium will rule all.
The Imperium is mighty, and it is the rightful lord of all it surveys.
Jonas knows that. He has always felt it, that knowledge that the Imperium is triumphant. He has felt that savage glee that is every citizen's birthright, as every enemy, every pathetic creature that tried to muster resistance fell to the hiss and roar of the Imperium's guns. The Imperium is glorious.
And yet.
Retha holds a sword. The creature opposite him holds a sword, for anything that is not of the Imperium is hardly worthy of the name; they are all weak peoples that will be sport for the knives eventually. This one, this green-skinned woman with more muscle than any human and tusks that curve up from her lower jaw -no matter what she is, she will be prey eventually. A sword is a primitive weapon, a sign of inferiority, useless against the guns and shriekers any foot-soldier carries.
But the sword in Retha's hand does not look primitive, and her easy grip on the cross-hilt does not look weak.
And the Imperium...
The weak are of no use to the Imperium. The weak of its own kind are not worthy to be its own kind. That is what makes the Imperium strong; it selects only he best from its own ranks, no matter what. The Imperium breeds for the best, and culls the failures ruthlessly; if they cannot slice through every trap and barrier and enemy presented, they deserve to be caught in the jaws. They fight up through the shadows of the Imperium's belly and they never stop fighting; the shadows are everywhere. The strongest know they are strong.
Beside the Imperium, this universe is burning. Its people raise their primitive weapons and charge against the marching squads even knowing that they will be cut down; its archers ride wyverns to chase down the sickle-planes. Jonas has seen them laughing as they fly into certain death, has seen them dragging ruined corpses from the battlefield. This universe blazes.
It is not the blaze of a funeral pyre.