>>5885294well, of course yeah we'd essentially be ending our relations with the main mechanicus, but i think the benefits could necessarily be worth it since we see it as being full of nothing but hypocrites and liars/madmen.
firstly, as you mention, there are the possibilities of threats growing in the absence of imperial control, but that is exactly also why i mention to still eliminate threats as long as the imperial forces are obliterated/severely crippled as well. of course with the tyrranids that will likely make more opposition for us since it would be letting them partially eat the biosphere of imperial worlds, but if we've gotten to that point id likely think imperial forces themselves would likely just nuke their own worlds anyway, and make it unnecessary for us to really worry about the planetary side of things.
and secondly, on the whole enclave idea, you mention needing a second age of strife....but not really? genuinely, the imperium isn't one to really worry about one world, ten worlds, even a hundred worlds could potentially fall for all they knew and as long as it isn't a continuing threat to the sectors around those worlds, the imperium usually doesn't actually care. currently we've got a tyrranid and Ork invasion of the sector, if we were to simply have the worlds disappear from the enemy, and set up shop where they previously were the imperium is going to only care if it can enforce taxation on said planets.
unless someone is doing it for political reasons within high sector governance, the imperium do not really care about smaller human enclaves unless they are revolutionary in nature, which of course most are, but that's not this case.
Krieg is a good example. it was a good world with good industry and was a central point of weapons stockpiling for the imperium, but when it rebelled, there was so much defensive infrastructure in space and on the ground that imperial forces weren't ever sent to Krieg to retake it, because the imperium couldn't take the cost of doing such. it was only when Krieg contacted the imperium after the civil war that the imperium cared again.
we could likely take over like, maybe 30 solar systems over these culling's if we were to do it right, and probably cannibalize all of the imperial infrastructure on said worlds for an easy start on new societies. which i think would be alot easier for us to then wait to become good and big, instead of needing to infiltrate and redo thousands of years of societal fuckery on each and every given world.
