Prelude to War

Truly urgent work was drowned beneath countless trivial details, and the detached Custodian-class could not criticize the Administratum's work too harshly.

They followed the rules, served The Emperor with all their hearts, and their waists could no longer straighten after years bent over desks. Their skin, deprived of sunlight for so long, bore the deathly pallor of corpses. They memorized the Administratum's statutes and revered them as revelations from The Emperor.

The Adeptus Custodes were quite capable of handling governmental affairs, but how could they ensure that every department actually carried out a policy once it had been issued?

No matter how well a policy was drafted, people still had to carry it out.

There were far, far too few true elites. Any disturbance cast upon the ocean of mortals could not raise even the slightest beneficial wave.

Why had supplies not been delivered to the Tamarik War Zone? Why had the order to assemble the sector fleet arrived over a hundred years late? Why had my forces received no reinforcements from any army?

Humans were complex creatures, and societies made of humans were even more complex. The myriad institutions of the Imperium of Man, their powers intertwined with one another, along with its wildly unevenly developed worlds, had turned the Imperium's political system into a chaotic machine that only Tzeentch could sort out.

On one side, every force obeyed the Departmento Munitorum's orders and received equipment and supplies shipped from forge worlds under a unified system.

On the other, every force prepared to supply itself. Recruitment and equipment depended entirely on the personal charisma and exchanges of interests of legion commanders.

Tzeentch had mastered this complexity. Even if the Imperium of Man had prepared the Cadian Gate in advance under Subjective One's warning, he could still leave the cities