Imperium of Man



"Well, it looks like the Imperium of Man is a place where you can worship some holy corpse guy that's always known as the Emperor of Mankind himself. That way, it's like North Korea. They're both necrocracies, and they both have harsh rules. Let's face it, it seems that we'll make the Imperium of Man a member of the Future Alliance."

--Su Ji-Hoon, Welcome to the Imperium

The Imperium of Man, also known as the Holy Human Imperium, is a galaxy-spanning interstellar human empire, the ultimate authority for the majority of the human race in the Milky Way Galaxy in the late 41st Millennium A.D. It is ruled by the living god who is known as the Emperor of Mankind. However, there are other humanoid species classified as Imperial citizens, mainly mutant offshoots of genetic baseline humans who are known as Abhumans and include such human sub-races as the Ogryns, Ratlings and Squats.

The founder and ruler of the Imperium is the god-like Emperor of Mankind, the most powerful human psyker ever born. The Emperor founded the Imperium over 10,000 Terran years ago in the late 30th Millennium during the Unification Wars on Old Earth following the terrible period in human history known as the Age of Strife. The Emperor continues, at least nominally, to rule the Imperium as both its political master and its primary religious figure. However, His badly-damaged body is interred within the cybernetic life support mechanisms of the arcane device known as the Golden Throne following His mortal wounding during the ancient interstellar civil war of the Horus Heresy. Because of this terrible fate, the Emperor is incapable of interacting with others on a day-to-day basis and has left the basic governance of His Imperium to the Senatorum Imperialis, an oligarchic ruling council of the most powerful noble lords and adepts in the galaxy. The Senatorum Imperialis is currently led by the Emperor's genetic son, the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, who chairs the council and directs Imperial policy as the Lord Commander of the Imperium.

The Imperium of Man is a wartorn stellar empire, teetering on the brink of collapse. For 10,000 Terran years it has been ruled by the deathless Emperor, a being of almost limitless psychic power, to whom thousands of souls are sacrificed daily. The peoples of the Imperium live in a place where daemons are real, mutation is frequent and death is a constant companion. To be alive in the late 41st Millennium is to know that the universe is a terrifying and hostile place. It is a place where you are but one amongst billions and, no matter how heroic your death, you will not be missed. A truly vast domain, the Imperium is spread amongst the many stars of the galaxy. Its territories encompass untold millions of stars and countless more human lives. In its name, terrible wars are fought and desperate sacrifices made, yet even this river of carnage and blood is a small price to pay, for the Imperium is the guardian of Mankind. Were it to pass into nothingness, so too would the human race, destroyed by enemies uncountable, to the braying laughter of the Dark Gods.

The Imperium is the largest and currently most powerful political entity in the galaxy, consisting of at least 1,000,000 human-settled worlds dispersed across most of the Milky Way Galaxy. Consequently, an Imperial planet might be separated from its closest neighbor by hundreds or even thousands of light years. As a stellar empire, the size of the Imperium cannot be measured in terms of contiguous territory, but only in the number of planetary systems under its control. However, most humans in the galaxy have little day-to-day contact with the government of the Imperium unless they serve in one of its Adepta or run afoul of its various protectors, such as the Inquisition or the Adeptus Arbites.

The Imperium is primarily an interstellar tribute empire, allowing its member worlds to largely govern themselves as long as they recognize the authority of the Emperor and His servants and support the state religion, the Imperial Cult, which holds the Emperor to be the one, true God of Mankind. Every world of the Imperium must also pay the Imperial taxes levied on them in the form of men and materiel that is known as the Imperial Tithe. These resources go to the service of the Astra Militarum and the Imperial Navy, the armed forces which keep the Imperium united and safe. The Imperial Tithe supports the overall economy of the Imperium by redistributing resources where needed, usually to shore up one region of the Imperium where conflict is raging by drawing resources from more peaceful sectors.

In general, the Imperium promotes the development of a neo-feudal political system, which the High Lords of Terra and the Inquisition have long believed to be the most stable form of human government. There are few human-settled worlds in the galaxy where any but the most wealthy nobles have any say in the government of their planet, and the Imperial establishment generally characterises any movements toward "democracy," self-rule or the overthrow of the neo-feudal system as outright heresy against the divine plan of the God-Emperor. This intense need for political stability and the growing military demands upon the Imperial system presented by the myriad and growing threats of the 41st Millennium have created a repressive and stagnant galactic government. In the present Imperium, science and human progress have essentially been halted in service to the need to simply maintain the crumbling status quo. It is not for nothing that many Imperial savants consider the current age the "Time of Ending" for Mankind.

Several alien species and dark forces -- Chaos, the Tyranids, the Aeldari, the Drukhari, the Orks, the T'au, and the undying Necrons -- now challenge the supremacy of the Imperium and humanity's predominant place in the galaxy. From within its own creaking and increasingly stagnant and repressive edifice, the Imperium is threatened more insidiously by rebellion, mutation, dangerous psykers and subversive Chaos Cults. However, despite its myriad problems, without the admittedly authoritarian and often harsh protection of the Imperium, Mankind as a whole would have fallen prey to the countless perils that threaten it. Without the Imperium of Man and Mankind's faith in the Emperor who guides it, the human race would have become extinct long ago.

In When the Cold Breeze Blows Away, the Imperium of Man is now a member state of the Grand Alliance, and it never got invaded by the Combine Empire, including any other member state of the Coalition of the Red Star, nor it ever also got invaded by the Global Liberation Union and any other neutral states throughout World War III ever since the Imperium's name always feared the hearts of all of all enemies, even when it was neutral and is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, just as it would be the "Switzerland in Space."

Despite its neutrality after the North African Crisis, it continued to participate as a member of the Grand Alliance, but only for financial aid for the rest of this war, starting in Operation Preschool Power.

Also, in the Last Day, none of the Imperium's territories are badly affected and is also able to weather all of the Last Day's short-term effects and long-term effects, and soon, it eventually becomes the first to help affected worlds recover any damage from a terrible destruction, and due to well-preparedness for a nuclear war, they dismantled all their nuclear weapons, banned the presence of nuclear weaponry and signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and eventually ratified months later by the United Nations and the Future Alliance in order to prevent a possible human extinction (and to a small degree, imminent destruction of the Milky Way) from happening, just because that according to UN officials, the Imperium of Man is the only hope for humanity, even after a global catastrophic risk.

Much earlier, while banning other weapons of mass destruction (biological weapons, chemical weapons and radiological weapons), including doomsday devices, the Imperium of Man is very responsible to be a leading major player on arms control, just as they would also begin a new treaty that bans sci-fi superweapons and doomsday devices, in which is to be known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Doomsday Devices.

During their transition from a warlike interstellar fascist empire into a peaceful, neutral interstellar democratic, federal, parliamentary and constitutional monarchy (plus less imperialist and feudalist, despite its name) similar to that of the United States (along with freedom of religion, of speech, from want and from fear), they also abolished virus bombs, cyclonic torpedoes and orbital bombardment completely in order to prepare for the Last Day, a worst-case scenario in which it will happen soon.

They are also famous on leading many other alien civilizations that are not affected by the Last Day on giving foreign aid to those who are affected in a horrible nuclear war and restoring many civilziations from the Grand Alliance, the Coalition of the Red Star, the Global Liberation Union and many others (except those that are too evil, like North Korea and the Engel Reich), including the United Nations.

After the Third World War, the Imperium of Man (now no longer a fascist state  and is now a secular, democratic, federal, parliamentary, constitutional and peaceful state, just after the bloodless, EDSA Revolution-esque Imperium of Man Civil Rights March) still exists at the end of the story (because without the Imperium, it would be the end of all humanity).

Post-Transition
Weeks after the North African Crisis, the treaty of Zurich declared the Imperium of Man, now transitioned into a democracy and a neutral state, its Space Marines then called off back home from battlefields, thus ending its participation in World War III.

Soon, it joined the Non-Aligned Movement and soon became neutral like Switzerland itself, and soon, it would become the "Switzerland in Space" for being neutral and would create a Geneva-based alliance of anti-war nations (along with the help of Costa Rica, Finland, Ghana, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Malta, Moldova, Panama, Switzerland, Turkmenistan, Yugoslavia, the Holy See and the United Nations) called the Multiversal Peace Alliance (MPA) with Roboute Guilliman as its chairman.

However, what's worse than the Imperium of Man before a peaceful transition is the Federation of Universal Sustenance (probably due to the Hero Sluggers, a Martial Arts Kids-like group of children and teenagers from fictional worlds that are looking more similar than and like Exeron fighters from the now-defunct Exeron Tournament (which was made by the Supreme Government) whose goal is to save the Sul'gan Universe to fight crime and evil that roam in and around that universe), or the FUS.

Government
After the Imperium of Man Civil Rights March (which happened weeks after the North African Crisis, it officially transitioned into a secular federal parliamentary constitutional socialist democratic state still ruled by the God Emperor, but now can have a president, a vice president and a prime minister, including a parliament, a presidential cabinet, a senate, a House of Speakers and a House of Representatives, in which all of them are mortals, unlike the God Emperor.

Religion
Afer the Imperium of Man Civil Rights March, the Imperium of Man has lost its status as a theocratic state, and religions outside the Imperial Cult became more persistent.

Thankfully for the God Emperor and His government however, other religions are only a minority, and the Imperial Cult remains itself as the most worshipping religion in the Imperium, but only as a state religion, just because religions outside the Imperial Cult are now legalized, even after World War III.