Understanding the Trust

## Military

### Avernite Military Reputation

Kent Cline spent some time looking into the reputation of the Avernite Military among the forces of the Imperial Trust. Given the size of the Trust, there is no consensus on this topic, but there are three main viewpoints. The first view is of the Avernite is basically Astartes-light, superhuman warriors a step above mere mortals who get the equipment to make use of that. This is an opinion mostly held by those worlds without a particularly strong martial tradition of their own. The next opinion is as military innovators, always working to improve things, no matter how much they need to change. How good a trait this is considered varies greatly but by now most are willing to admit that the Avernite military has triggered some major improvements with the New Model Army system. This is a viewpoint generally held by the more professional militaries of the Trust, including the Astartes. Finally, there are those few who view the Avernites as gloryhounds, who make use of their disgustingly expensive equipment, mostly funded by the Trust, to show up other forces. This is a point of view worryingly common among the grenadiers of the Trust.

### Imperial Trust Military Divisions

The Imperial Trust’s military forces are as a whole divided into three broad groups, the Federal Forces, the Militant Orders and the Planetary Forces. The Federal Forces are the Imperial Trust Guard and Navy, those armies and fleets under the direct control of the Minister of War who act as the front line combat forces for the Imperial Trust. They recruit from every world in the Trust in their own way and have a reputation as a professional force more than anything else. The Planetary forces are the armies and fleets controlled by member worlds and have a wider range in reputations. As a whole however they are mostly focused on defending their world and are considered to be the lowest quality forces of the Imperial Trust. The Militant Orders are the elite formations that answer to themselves over any particular world or the Minister of War. While many of them control worlds as a whole the worlds are more sources of recruits and supplies for the Militant Order rather than the Militant Order being controlled by the world. These forces include the various Astartes Chapters, the Knight-Houses of the Aesir, the Battle Psykers of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica and similar forces. Where the Avernite military falls in this is a subject of much debate, with opinions being divided between it being the best of the Planetary Forces or one of the Militant Orders.

### The Trust Navy and navy culture

To understand the culture of the Imperial Trust first you need to understand where it came from, and its history. The Imperial Trust navy was formed by a merger of two post-Imperial Navies, the old Imperial Trust Navy dominated by Vanaheim and the Dragon’s Nest Navy dominated by the Blood Dragons. In the centuries since the merger a more unified culture has formed, though there are still some significant differences between the Vanaheim navy of the Core Worlds and the Blood Dragons dominated Navy of Dragon’s Nest.

The Navy of the Imperial Trust holds itself apart from the rest of the Imperial Trust, viewing themselves as guardians of the Trust, but as different from the earthbound, as they often call those born of planets and moons. Their culture focuses on duty and working together more than most cultures of the Trust, and discourages selfish thoughts such as lust for wealth or glory. Any true navy man knows that glory is not something that can be claimed by a lone man, but something that only comes from the entire crew of a ship working together.

## Organisations

### State of the Trust Telepathica

While the Adeptus Astra Telepathica of the Imperial Trust is based on Avernus and the vast majority of its leadership and most powerful psykers call Avernus home, it has a presence on every world in the Imperial Trust and the majority of its psykers live elsewhere. In total less than seven percent of the Trust's five hundred and sixty million psykers are Avernite, while over three-quarters of the Trust’s hundred and twenty thousand Primaris Psykers are Avernite.

The psykers of Avernus are widely considered to be both the best trained and most powerful psykers in the Trust and therefore are greatly overrepresented in the leadership with all of the Grandmasters and most of the Masters being Avernite. This has caused surprisingly little issue due to the fact that Avernites have earned it, and pay the price having a life expectancy less than half that of the Trust average.

On every world in the Imperial Trust, there is an Adeptus Astra Telpeathica presence of some level, ranging from a sufficient number of Witch Finders to find most psykers and an early learning training facility to train psykers while waiting for a Black ship to entire Psyker cities and multiple psyker districts housing millions of psykers.

While there are exceptions such as the Core Worlds, in general, most Sub-Sectors will have a minor Teleapthica presence on most worlds and a major Telepathica training facility on a single world, most often the Sub-Sector Captial but not always. Where possible psykers who complete their training return to their world of birth, though some worlds are less accepting of psykers and encourage psykers born there to remain off-world and there are always some psykers who prefer not to go home for various reasons.

The Trust Telepathica as a whole is a highly regarded institution and considered to be quite possibly the best trained and equipped psychic organisation that humanity has ever seen.

### The Merchant Marine

The Merchant Marine is the network on which all of the Imperial Trust’s interstellar trade is based. While all ships are licensed and regulated by the Imperial Trust and can be pressed into service if needed, less than a third of the Merchant Marine is directly owned by the Imperial Trust.

The portion of the Merchant Marine owned by the Imperial Trust tends to draw on the same sources as the Imperial Trust Navy for recruits, though it tends to get either those who don't make the grade for the navy, those who want a more peaceful life while still serving the Trust and battered veterans no longer up for the stresses of combat. This has given the Trust Merchant Marine crews a rather poor reputation among the Imperial Trust Navy, one that is not entirely undeserved. However, when it comes down to it the Trust Merchant Marine is a trained and professional organisation that is mostly used to set up colonies and other high-danger runs.

The remainder of the Merchant Marine is owned by a mix of planetary governments, trade companies, navigator houses and owner captains. There are dozens of groups with a fleet of merchantmen within the Trust, among them the Government of Avernus, and even more with a single ship. The reputation of most of these groups is rather poor, though there are some sub-groups or even individual ships with better reputations.

The largest privately-owned merchant fleets within the Imperial Trust are those based out of Midgard and Muspelheim. Thanks to Midgard’s position as the capital of the Imperial Trust, most of the trade companies and owner-captains not strongly connected with another world have ended up basing themselves on Midgard, creating a varied merchant fleet with crews ranging from among the best, to among the worst.

Early in the history of the Imperial Trust Muspelhiem focused on building up its Merchant Marine rather than its navy as the other naval worlds did, creating a massive merchant marine owned entirely by the Council of Captains that runs Muspelheim. While this fleet does not utterly dominate interstellar trade as it once did, it is still considered to be the most reliable and best-trained portion of the Imperial Trust’s Merchant Marine, including those ships run directly by the Trust.

## Other

### What are the most common forms of planetary government in the Imperial Trust?

The most common form of planetary government in the Imperial Trust is that practised by worlds of Dragon’s Nest which are governed by Astartes Governors appointed by the Blood Dragons, who generally rule via leaders chosen from among the world population by its population. The next most common is a governor selected for a fifty-year term by a ruling council that has representatives from the major players on the planet and usually a few elected representatives of the general population. There are other worlds ruled by guilds, heredity nobility or by a military junta.

### Major Political Movements

While every world and sub-sector has its own political movements there are several that span the entire Imperial Trust. They tend to fall along two main axis, though there are exceptions.
The first axis is the Reformer-Conservative axis while the second is the Centrist-Federalist axis.
Reformers are those who believe in making major changes to how the Trust functions in order to make it function better, and tend to believe that if it will improve the system, no matter how little, any change is worth doing. There are various sub-groups of reformers focused on various aspects of the Trust, such as military, administration and government. Reformers tend to be most common on Avernus, Muspelheim, Jotunheim and the younger worlds. You are considered to be the leading figure among the Military Reformers but are not considered to be a reformer in the government or administration fields. In general, the Trust tend towards reformer.
Conservatives are those who believe that the Imperial Trust runs well as is and that major changes are major disruptions for little gain. They tend to believe that the status quo should be kept unless there are major benefits to changing it and that every change needs to be well justified. Like the Reformers, there are various sub-groups focused on different aspects of the Imperial Trust. Conservatives tend to be more common among the older and more powerful worlds, with Vanaheim, in particular, being known for its Conservative politics.
Centrists believe in a strong federal government with a powerful fleet and army and comparatively weak planetary governments. They claim that the greater organisation and more rational deployment of forces that this leads to is worth the loss of planetary autonomy. They can be found among all sorts of worlds, and you are considered to be a Centrist, though on the mild end of the spectrum.
Federalists believe in powerful planetary governments with weaker federal government. They claim that powerful central governments end up weighed down by bureaucracy and long decision loops, which independent patents can avoid.

### How the Trust deals with refugees

Multiple times in its history has the Imperial Trust has been forced to take on entire systems or even sectors worth of refugees in short order. This is both a major risk and opportunity for the Imperial Trust, as depending on how well they are integrated into the Trust the refugees and their descendants will either be a valuable boost to your economy, an economic drain if they end up living in giant refugee camps or a source of instability if exploited or disregarded. To begin with, as refugees are collected they are sorted into two main groupings, those who are willing to be integrated directly into the existing worlds and cultures of the Imperial Trust and those who seek to maintain their identity.

Those refugees that are willing to be integrated into the existing worlds and cultures of the Trust are given enough upskilling for their skillsets to be valuable in the ImperialTrust then are settled on existing worlds in relatively small groups. Care is taken to ensure that there are no major cultural clashes between the refugees and the dominant culture where they are settling and that they are welcomed by the current residents. This often leads to them being resettled on either the more welcoming colonies, who are willing to accept anyone willing to work beside them or the more cosmopolitan worlds, where the refugees will just be one of many cultures. After resettlement, they are given a period of additional support to ensure that they are integrating into the existing community well.

Those groups that seek to maintain more unity and cultural intensity tend to be settled in entire hives or even continents on the more lightly populated colonies, where they will live alongside the workers maintaining the hives and learn the skills needed to prosper in the Imperial Trust. Within these regions, the refugee's government is given most of the powers of a Trust colonial government. They can remain in these regions for decades or even generations until an opening is available for them to act as the main colonisers of a new Imperial Trust world.

### The present state of the Imperial Truth

The New Imperial Truth remains the dominant religion in the Imperial Trust, though not as overwhelming so as it once was. So far the religion has remained true to its roots, focusing more on small community churches with a local priest the on grand cathedrals with bishops whose words change the fate of worlds. While the New Imperial Truth has mutated slightly in the various worlds and cultures that it has members in, so far there have been no major intersect conflicts.

### Civilian Culture, particularly how it has changed since the Imperium

The Imperial Trust is a large and varied polity, that has members descended from dozens of different cultures that survived the first part of the Long Night. As such, there is no uniting culture that all of its citizens follow, though there are some points of commonality. First is the importance of Service, mostly military but in some cultures, more than just that, to protect the Imperial Trust from the dangers of the Long Night. While superficially similar to the Duty towards the Imperium, the main difference is that, unlike Duty, Service is expected to be reciprocated, and that the Imperial Trust is expected to care for those that serve them and their families if they should fall. Next is a strong sense of unity, that we are all in this together and shall live and die as one. This has led to the Imperial Trust being far more accepting of outsiders than the xenophobic Imperium, as long as said outsiders are not considered to be a threat.

### How are the Imperium, its history, and its surviving old guard viewed?

The Imperium is viewed in a strange manner by the people of the Imperial Trust, both as a time of greatness when humanity ruled the stars under the guiding light of the God-Emperor, and a time of horror when humanity inflicted on itself terrible tyranny of a level that most people in the Trust can’t really conceptualise. The history of the Imperium tends to be viewed as a tragedy,of a state built with unstable foundations that slowly became worse and worse over time, rotting from within even as it boasted of supreme might. The handful old enough to remember the Imperium tend to be respected for the deeds that allowed them to survive so long, but there are still some who either glorify them for seeing the Light of the Astronomicon or despite them for being citizens of the Imperium.

### Psyker Hunting on other worlds

Outside of Avernus it is rare for a psyker to awaken their powers and go on a rampage before they are found by the telepathica, or even turn themselves in. As such the sudden and sharp explosions that are so common on Avernus are rare, as is the type of psyker hunting that is needed on Avernus. Instead the dangerous psykers are those corrupted by Chaos who rather then being driven to attack immediately by the high chance of discovery inherent in being on Avernus, can spend years or even decades plotting before they are found. Some of these Chaos Psykers are corrupted by the whispers of the Warp as they awaken to their true powers, but just as many are found as latent psykers by established chaotic cults and awoken only after they become members of the cult. Given that even those corrupted directly by the Warp tend to found or join chaotic cults, this makes most of the rogue psykers found outside of Avernus more Sorcerors than the untrained but powerful rogues Jane’s security forces tend to deal with.

Given that most rogue psykers outside of Avernus tend to be part of Chaotic cults, it has fallen on the Inquisition, the primary cult hunters in the Imperial Trust to deal with them, a task that they tend to accomplish via a mix of calling in specialist psy-hunters trained in the Avernite tradition or deploying their own psykers to overwhelm the sorcerers and help root out the rest of the cult.

### View on the Council of Peoples

At first the Council of Peoples was viewed as just another Avernus Thing, and something that the rest of the Trust could safely ignore. That changed after their assistance fighting the Nexx, which demonstrated just how dangerous they are and their willingness to leave Helheim.

Since then they are viewed as powerful and little understood allies living in the core of the Imperial Trust, and therefore both a major asset and a great danger to the Trust that needs to be treated with respect.

Also viewed as terrifying, but you can’t blame them there.