Midgard

Midgard is one of the founding members of the Imperial Trust and functioned as its capital until the merger with Dragon's Nest. It was on Midgard where the Imperial Trust was first formed, and between that, being the Imperial Trust's only Hive world and its position in the centre of the Core Worlds it became the heart of the Imperial Trust. This was greatly helped by its Governor-General at the time Governor-General Aelfric Abingdon, who earned the title 'The Old Man of the Imperial Trust' and who became one of the keystones keeping the Imperial Trust unified. This was aided by his efforts to remain neutral in the Progressive/Conservative debate which dominated the political landscape of the Imperial Trust at the time.

Midgard was classified as a Hive World/Recruiting World in the Old Imperium, a classification that it has kept since then. The disciplined ranks of the Midgardian Iron Guard have made up a major portion of the Imperial Trust's military from the start, and have become the standard military formation on which most new colonies model themselves. Important as this is it pales in comparison with the contribution that Midgard has made to the colonisation of the rest of the Core Sector, with Midgard's billions of colonists a year dwarfing the combined contribution from the rest of the Imperial Trust. As such Midgardian descendants dominate the demographics of Sub-Sectors Dannan, Cobalt and Gehenna, and of the Core Sector as a whole.

## Environment

Even in the era of the Imperium Midgard never became the blasted wasteland that most Hive Worlds become, with a combination of several ancient technologies and a care for its environment keeping the biosphere of Midgard intact. This has only been improved since the formation of the Imperial Trust and the discovery of many highly effective environmental and recycling technologies which have been used to keep the environment of Midgard stable despite its rapidly growing population. This allows Midgard to practice large scale agriculture, which when combined with the massive production of its hydroponics plants produce nearly enough food to feed iits massive population.

## People

The people of Midgard are the most cosmopolitanism population in the Imperial Trust, with people of almost every phenotype making up its population. This mixing also applies to its culture to an extent, with their being expat communities and cultural crossover from pretty much every world in the Imperial Trust within Midgard.

Culturally the Midgardians are defined by their duty, to Humanity, to the Emperor, to Midgard and to the Imperial Trust in that order. This is reinforced at every step of a Midgardians life, but it is most visible in its military. Midgard has the highest enlistment rate out of any world in the Imperial Trust, with almost a sixth of its population being within the military at any one time. While not legally required the social pressure to serve a tour of duty is high enough to ensure that the vast majority of the population will spend a decade in the military, resulting in its militia being one of the best in the Trust. The only worlds with more skilled militias being the weird trio of Avernus, Muspelheim and Niflheim.

The people of Midgard are considered to be humble, hardworking and loyal, a reputation that they are proud of and work hard to match.

## History and Government

Midgard is ruled by the senior military officer, which is currently General Aelfric of the 89th​ Midgardian Iron Guard Regiment.

While Midgard's records do not go back that far from what you can gather Midgard was one of the last of the Nine Worlds to be settled and was the hub of the Nine Worlds from its founding. This has continued as while Midgard has never been the strongest or most advanced of the Nine Worlds it is usually its support that determines whether Asgard or Vanaheim is the dominate power in the Sub-Sector.

Midgard consists of one hundred and seven Hives, once one hundred and ten, divided into seven different provinces. There are two separate pillars of governance that rule over Midgard of which the military is currently dominate, and has been for the last eight hundred years. How it is decided whether the Nobility or Military dominates Midgard is hard for an outsider to determine but it seems to be mostly based on the level of warfare Midgard is currently engaged with.

The first system of Government for Midgard is the military, with each Hive having a Marshal in command of the military assets, each province a General and a Lord-General commanding the entire military with the aid of the Military Council consisting of the, currently nine, Generals of Midgard. In periods in which the military is dominate each General has the authority to command the noble with whom he is paired while in periods when the nobility is dominate the reverse is true. In the periods where neither group dominates they are considered equals each with control over their own aspects of society.

The second system of Government is the Nobility, with each Hive being commanded by a Earl, or Baron if the Hive is weak, each province an Duke and the King having command of the entire civil half of Midgard. In times where the military is in control like now the Royal Court, consisting of the King and Dukes, commands the civilian portions of the planet under the authority of the Military Council. One interesting historical note is that Midgard's Nobility is descended from a branch of the Aesir who lost the ability to become Knights and migrated to Midgard over ten thousand years ago.

## Military

The disciplined ranks of the Midgardian Iron Guard have made up a major portion of the Imperial Trust's military from the start, and have become the standard military formation on which most new colonies model themselves. The Iron Guard are trained to be tactically flexible and are able to fight in almost any form of war effectively but specialise in a combination of mobile warfare and siege warfare made possible by pre-fabricated fortresses. The heavily mechanised Iron Guard is able to quickly move into good defensive positions and then rapidly fortify them, turning almost any battle into a siege. When overwhelmed the Iron Guard quickly pull their Chimers off their tasks as ammunition carriers and defensive installations and use them to redeploy the Iron Guard to the next line of fortifications, which will have already been set up.

### Chosen

The Chosen are the elite of the Midgardian armies, and are some of the best troops in the Imperial Trust. While it is possible for veteran members of the Iron Guard who repeatably distinguish themselves to be offered a place among the chosen the majority of the Chosen were raised for the job. Every year tens of millions of Midgardian infants are selected for the Chosen and taken into the Halls of Heroes. These infants come from a wide range of places, including children of existing Chosen, infants who score particularly well in certain testing and are volunteered by their families, military orphans and the like. For the next two decades they will endure a intensive training regime that will kill a full tenth of their number, and fail half of them. Those Chosen who graduate are split among the exiting regiments raised from their particular Hall of Heroes, where they will be mentored by the veterans within their regiment. While the Chosen lack the impossible skill of Avernites, the incredibly education of the Niflheim Elite or the sheer training of the Chapter Serfs of Byzentium or Dragon's Nest they are still soldiers to be feared and have one trait that none of the mentioned formations can bring to bear. Sheer numbers. Where most elite formations can be deployed in the tens of millions, hundreds of millions for the larger formations there are billions of Chosen.