Astartes was the High Gothic translation for Space Marines.
In that world, human civilization had long since entered the age of interstellar colonization. But with a Warp storm sweeping across the entire galaxy, interstellar routes were severed, warlords carved up territory, and conflicts erupted everywhere.
At that time, the great Emperor could no longer sit idly by and watch humanity fall into corruption. He began his campaign to reunify mankind.
To unify Holy Terra, the Emperor used genetic technology to create the first batch of enhanced human warriors, the Thunder Warriors. They were the predecessors of the Space Marines.
To reclaim the colonies humanity had lost during the Age of Strife, the Emperor needed warriors more efficient than the Thunder Warriors. Thus, he created the Primarchs, used them as templates to create the Space Marines, and led them on the grand and magnificent Great Crusade.
After the Horus Heresy, Roboute Guilliman, then the Primarch of the Thirteenth Legion, the Ultramarines, wrote the classic military work known as the Codex Astartes.
This military codex contained tactical doctrines and strategic plans applicable to nearly every conceivable situation, such as the Iron Rain Tactic, which was exceedingly famous in that world.
The Codex Astartes had three central principles: guidance for tactics and strategy, military structure and organizational policy, and decentralization of power.
In Li Wei's eyes, Roboute Guilliman was a flawed genius—an unrivaled organizational theorist and military strategist, and obsessively meticulous to boot.
For beyond the structure of Chapters, this work also incorporated an all-encompassing body of management knowledge:
From supply stockpiles to food; from water allocation and weapon production, the organization of auxiliary forces, viral crises, training schedules, troop morale, and supply production, to distributing those supplies among ground and naval combat units; stockpiles of reserves and their projected consumption should production