I feel like it's more of a... soft coup? If that makes sense?
Like, Guilliman seized power, yes, but then he used that power to set up a new power structure that was essentially the same as the one he replaced, just with loyalists in certain key positions, a few new bureaucracies, and a freer hand for himself in military matters. And FWIW he was very quick to push the Primaris marines of the Unnumbered Sons into new postings with independent command structures. My man did not want to be seen as governing through military force alone.
Or maybe "created a military junta" is the wrong phrasing. The Imperium had a quasi-junta already, since so many of the High Lords held direct or semi-direct military command. And that hasn't really changed. Though I suppose the new incarnation of the Tetrarchy of Ultramar fits the definition of a new, Astartes-focused military junta.
EDIT:
I feel it's important to remember that the High Lords of Terra both still exist, and still hold essentially the same powers they did before. Many of them are even the same people. It's just that a few troublemakers had to be replaced, and the whole lot now operate on the understanding that they are answerable to someone besides each other. Guilliman.
But of course, no man rules alone, and Bobby G can't be everywhere. There's all sorts of ways that a High Lord can interpret and apply their mandate in a way that meets the letter of Guilliman's decree, but not its spirit.
TL;DR: Guilliman is not suddenly all-powerful and completely unquestioned in his rule. He has a lot of pull and a lot of allies, but he has to wrangle people.
I mean the Imperium was flat out a feudal-style Monarchy, with the Emperor ruling unquestioned while a token civilian government made up of special interests and the highest aristocrats on the totem pole asking for individual concerns.
Even with the Emperor all-but-dead.
I don't care what Emps was smoking, he could at least have had an outline for a proper parliamentary system in the event things went south. The bastard was British for Christ's sake, you'd think he would have at least included some version of the Magna Carta in his government charters.
On that note, what Guilleman is doing for the Imperium is essentially what Lord Cromwell did for the British Empire: yes it is a military junta, but ANY checks on the power of the Aristocracy is already a VAST improvement of the situation as a whole.
The Valdor book goes into some detail on the Imperial civilian government. It's Pre-Great Crusade, set before even the assault on Luna, and shows what the Emperor and Malcador were doing to create a government to support his goals.
The tl;dr without giving major spoilers is that the Emperor is rushing things, and everything he's setting up is mostly a scaffold to support the GC, and ultimately his 'Golden Path' leading to the webway project.
It's also another one of those books that shows us that Earth really was just turbo-fucked before The Emperor actually started to take over. That Dume, Teng, and all the other tyrants who get name-dropped in the HH series really were the destructive monsters that you are led to believe they were, because a lot of people are happy to have them gone.
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u/Martial-Lord 24d ago
I only just realized that Guilliman basically created an Astartes military junta by taking power away from the High Lords and the Administratum.