Oh. Right... Forgot about that...
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That might actually make the Orks fight more as they start arguing about which team is better. Like others have said non-fatal is pretty easy to do as they can just take so much abuse. Just make them fight with relatively non-lethal equipment and watch the hilarity.
Creating monsters for them to track down and fight would be pretty fun for the Orks as well. Of course every once in a while the 'Warboss' would have to put down a challenger, and the showier the method the better.
Hey Jseah -- this is for future reference. One of the explanations of the reason that Dark Eldar are so dark and feast on the pain of others is that, if they don't, they will start slowly dying and condemning their soul and their essence to Slaanesh. IE, because Dark Eldar have been following the path they are following, if they DON'T continue to do the slave/pain thing, they will slowly die, and have their souls AND their bodies consumed by Slaanesh..
I don't know if there is any way to stop or reverse that degradation of their souls, even if their behavior changes. Does anyone else have any idea?
Is that even possible? I thought they wanted to mostly starve the entities in the warp?
Which might or might not also starve several of the benevolent entities that are there as well...
Lategame, is there anything The Culture can do that is in the 'actively fight in the warp, take the fight to these gods' sort of thing?? I don't exactly know if there is...
God, you guys are so defeatist.
Even in 40k, there are plots and schemes to unmake the gods of Chaos. The warp powers are not unassailable. Ork Waaaghs have raged into the heart of the eye and killed daemon gods. The Eldar Crone worlds were reconquered by the Phoenix Lords during the 13th Black Crusade and serve as an Eldar stronghold in the heart of the Eye. The 13th Company of Space Wolves hounded Chaos marines for ten millenium inside the warp. The Tau and their warp resistance... The Hrud and their enslaved warp god... the Orks and their psy field... And beyond that, there are schemed for ultimate victory. The Laughing god has a plan, possibly the same one as the Dead God plan. The warp severance plan of the Oldcrons. The Emperors glorious psychic dawn of the next phase of humanity, drowning the gods in the raw power of humanity. The Emperor as benevolent warp god.
Chaos has been beaten a hundred hundred times. The gods have been stymied and defeated by the relatively limited powers of the 40K verse. And they rage against each other, dealing heavy defeats. Ultimately, they are just psychic residue from a large past war. There should be a way to defeat them when you have all the tools of the Culture and all the tools of 40K at your disposal.
The thing is, from the Culture's perspective the Warp is probably an archetypical Outside Context Problem, which is the one thing they don't handle well.
I say probably because the technology of the Culture and the "technology" of the Warp are both somewhat vague, so it's entirely possible that it's something that they understand and can just wipe completely clean of all consciousnesses with one Metadimensional Phlebonium Bomb or whatever.
But if you don't assume some sort of overlap like that, then it's the kind of problem that the Culture would usually try to avoid.
- The Orks launched a Waagh straight into the Eye of Terror, and managed to kill a load of daemons, it's true. Except none of those daemons have remained 'dead', and the Orks themselves have all died several hundred times over only to be brought back so the daemons can kill them all over again.
- The Crone Worlds are still in the middle of the Eye of Terror. They are not safe, not even slightly. The Phoenix Lords may have retaken them, this does not mean that Chaos is giving them up. And the daemons have effectively infinite forces.
- The 13th Company are also all quite possibly mad. And they've slaughtered mortal followers of Chaos, but that really doesn't achieve anything.
- The Tau, the Hrud and the Orks are all resistant to Chaos Corruption. They are not immune, and nor do any of them have any better defenses against the non-corruptive dangers of the Warp.
- The Laughing God might have a plan, it's impossible to really tell, because he's not the most forthcoming fellow. The OldCron plan would have defeated the efforts of the Chaos Gods in the mortal realm at the small cost of the souls of everyone who ever lived.
- The Emperor lost. And even if he is a Warp God now (and I kinda believe he is, to be honest), that doesn't help much. Warp Gods are shaped by the beliefs of their followers, and the God-Emperor of the Imperial Creed is not exactly benevolent...
Chaos can be thwarted. It can be denied. It can be guarded against. But it cannot ever, by it's nature, be defeated or slain. The Chaos Gods are not distinct individuals sitting in their palaces plotting evil schemes. They are the dreams and emotions of every sentient being, the fundamental forces of the cosmos, the quasi-sentient embodiments of an entire universe of raw energy. The laws of physics and sanity do not apply to Chaos, and their armies are quite literally without number. Sure, it's possible to destroy a daemon (albeit absurdly difficult rather than merely banishing them), but every time a child has a nightmare, or a man covets his superior's wealth, or a young woman falls in love, another daemon is created.
They don't call it the Great Enemy for nothing...
So, uh, what's this Holocaust psychic power which annihilates Daemons? Eh? Eh?
*checks and asks a few friends* I hear it is from one of the Grey Knights Codex, and maybe goes back to 2nd edition Rogue Trader (the wargame, not the roleplaying game), and it basically is one of the main go-to ways to kill Daemons (there might be others, not sure!).
It's a 'set something on fire such that their soul and every part of their existence burns and is annihilated utterly' psyker power. Burn with fire that isn't fire, and all.
According to my sources, there are a few other ways. Another Daemon could eat the Daemon in question, and absorb it's essence. A particularly powerful force weapon of the correct type (generally custom designed to become the bane of a particular named target), backed up with enough psychic power, can sometimes annihilate a Daemon.
Also, there is a particular cursed sword, called the Anathame (which the Chaos primarch Fulgrim currently has, I believe, and which arguably caused Horus's fall to Chaos) which can do it.
The Anathame might be able to kill a god. Or a C'tan. Or anything else. No one knows where it came from. The Interex and the Kinebrach (as far back as the history of the weapon has been traced) almost certainly got it from somewhere else. It's probably from the Old Ones.
I think this would require you to, by force or trickery, get the Gods to concentrate and manifest themselves in their entirety at a single place. The only time that has happened that I know of was the climactic showdown of the Horus Heresy, at which point they abandoned Horus rather than risk destruction when the Emperor decided he'd had enough and cut loose to completely annihilate Horus (at least, if that's still the canonical way that happened.) This would require a huge degree of psychic power, Warp mastery, and/or Sorcery, so it's not something the Culture will likely be able to do on their own... if they can keep their tech out of the hands of Chaos long enough, tho, it might hypothetically be doable in concert with the Eldar or the Imperium if they ever figure out a way to establish friendly contact with them.
(That is, a choir of Farseers/powerful Librarians/Inquisitors/Gray Knights/etc acts to pin down one of the gods, and then the Culture destroys it with a purpose-built Warp-capable warship. Possibly a droneship with a Blank-bomb, if they're willing to accept human sacrifice as a means of ending the threat of Chaos. Rather an all-or-nothing gambit, as failing in this attempt will end up destroying some of the 40k universe's best means of attacking the Warp.)
So is there any plausible way other than 'suffering of sapient creatures' that could prevent the Dark Eldar from all wasting away?
And I think blank-bomb is just banishment rather than annihilation. Similar to it's inverse, a psych-bomb to create turbulence in the warp.
The Hydra plan might work. You WOULD have to do that (or something like it) if you want to stop similar but slightly different entities from reforming. Parts of it could be changed to be technological, but you would need the simultaneous unification of thought across all sapients in the galaxy to do the killing blow, though. And then a period of unified thought to make sure things stay dead.
Alternately, making pretty much every bio-sapient in the galaxy a dull soul or a blank might do something, along with those necron thingies set to 'calm the warp'. That might starve some types of things. You'd also have to do this to every non-sapient with more than a minor psychic presence (there are nonsapient psyker species).
Starving the things in the warp might not kill them. It might force them to consolidate their essences in the warp, and thus make them vulnerable. Then you could go into the warp and beat them up the old fashioned way... assuming you have something that CAN destroy these (now weakened) entities...
Putting every non blank, non-dull souled entity, sentient or not, in a dreamless sleep, and then into temporal stasis... might do something.
Some way to give EVERYONE that 'Pure Faith' of the Sororitas might do something, as well. I don't know if nonhuman races ever have that. Maybe. Maybe Orks have similar unity of thought and purpose. Maybe that's why they are resistant to Chaos corruption. But Ork thought DOES power warp entities...
The various Eldar and Human plans to make a god to fight the Chaos Gods, and to organize the warp, and make it all benign and such, might work. The problem is... you would have to make an ethical, benign, powerful god that doesn't become a huge problem...
Killing everything biological would give a big boost in short term power to warp entities, but it would likely pretty much starve the warp.
I think several types of races are incompatible with the current overall psychic resonance of the warp (which is human-centered as far as corruption is concerned). It might not ALWAYS be human-centered, though. Certainly there are LOTS of Orks everywhere, but they have unity of thought...
Making every sapient in the galaxy to be all benign and calm in ALL of their emotions... might do something as well... as long as you got the psyker-nonsapients too!
In another topic...
...there is a point when you learn a certain amount about the psychology and sociology of the upper echalons of forward-thinking, powerful races with lots of psyker capabilities (ie, humans and eldar), and you learn a certain amount about psyker capabilities and the warp itself, that it becomes patently obvious that there are at least some people in each group planning on making their own God to solve the Chaos problem. It is, given a certain set of data, a very very logical thing to do in order to solve the problem. I can expect Minds to eventually make this leap. I don't think they have near enough data to make this leap now, but they will eventually.
If they do, than figuring out exactly which groups in each civilization have such a plan, the particulars of it, and extrapolating from available data what sort of god it would make... would be quite important. Also historical data on how deities and deity-power entities in this galaxy acted, before they died, would be quite relevant. And then figuring out some way to interfere with any of the above plans to make a deity that is more agreeable to the Culture's views... or for The Culture to make this sort of Warp deity first, or to integrate this into long term planning...
Of the various plans I have considered, here's a breakdown of them.
Necron Pylons
Pros: known to work, technological capability already exists somewhere in the 'verse
Cons: have to rebuild most of the organic people from ground up (capability to make warp-independent biological sentients does not currently exist)
Requires large scale intervention
Ascension
Pros: immediate implementation possible
Cons: Ascension is suspicious and the Culture dislikes it
Tyranid Shadow / Ork Psychic field / Necron warp disruption field
Pros: Non-permanent warp disruption that greatly increases resistance if not confers outright immunity
Cons: Technological capability does not yet exist
Requires large scale intervention
Friendly Warp God
Pros: Best solution to calm the warp
Cons: Difficult, may not be possible,
Technological capability does not exist
Culture warp god may not be friendly; 'friendly' races' gods may not be friendly
Tau genetic resistance
Pros: Should be low impact intervention
Cons: Culture citizens applicable only
Applying it to other races require their accepting of mass genetic engineering and large scale intervention
Not a complete solution
As a man who fields a grey knight army, owns a repurposed Grey Knight Imperator Titan, owns every grey knight book ever printed, and thought that the Nemesis Dreadknight was the coolest thing to ever happen to the faction, I have to disagree here.
There is no way to "Annihilate" a daemon, even the Holocaust psychic power doesn't "destroy" them as much as it produces energy anathema to the warp, destroying their physical forms utterly with the equivalent strength of a lance barrage (Strength 10.), while it is far from a joking matter, stronger daemons have been shown to be able to resist it, and the daemons to which this happens always come back, even when the Holocaust in question is preformed by a Grey Knights Chapter Master like Kaldor Draigo. King of Badasses, Knight of Knights, has feats that put a lot of primarchs to shame Kaldor Draigo.
part 7.5 Orks
SpoilerThe trial is a smashing success. Although the imposition of a blood sport is generally frowned upon, the Orks appear to participate willingly and enthusiastically (in fact, there are far too many that elimination tournaments have to be held).
We have extended the organization of tournaments to the entire ork population.
Thus far, we have the following sports: (--- notes are from week 3)
- Dueling (the orks fight with agreed upon weapons; this usually results in the death of one of the orks despite the rule of no lethal weapons and the general ork toughness)
--- This is the only recognized form of sport to determine hierarchy of command; it has seemed to formalized and improved upon the original rather messy method of command change.
- A much simpler and rougher version of the team game called Rugby originating from a civilization in our original galaxy
--- This is currently used as a spectator sport to keep the orks busy. We note that informal matches have begun to appear.
- A sort of dragracing with custom built cars that have no rules apart from that the contestants must hit various checkpoints in order and no weapons are allowed. (this was designed to give an outlet for the ork's mechanical creativity)
--- It has been noted that we merely formalized an already present form of the competition.
--- The SC agent notes: "Despite the new rule of no weapons, the orks have developed a ramming racer model that may as well be a weapon on wheels. Actually, the wheels have climbing spikes on them and can be considered weapons as well. ... I think I might want to have a go in one of them just to see how badly I get chopped up. "
Week 3
We are studying the ork psychic field that appears to have warp effects. A weirdboy is being studied for his various effects. He is rather more willing to talk than other orks since he says that the SC agent is the only person in the ork hierarchy of command that doesn't threaten to make his head explode.
Divisions among the Culture have allowed us relatively little oversight in our study of the ork's culture. We are allowing these orks to built starships again and will attempt to use these orks to spread the ideas of organized sport, if violent sport.
We are contemplating a sort of army wargame that may serve to channel the more militaristic warbosses who have been asking when the SC agent will attack someone.
Some of the gretchins have begun to covertly ask if they will be allowed to stop being oppressed by the orks. We currently see no way to relieve this without collapsing the society but will plan a method when more information is available.
Why do I get the feeling that the Culture are running a carnival here... =/
This is something I believe there is conflicting canon on. The various role playing games, for example, say that it completely annihilates what it is used on. And I think several versions of the wargame say it does that.
Maybe a compromise, where it *can* do that, but only if you have achieved certain prerequisites? Perhaps if you have the Daemon manifest with most/all of it's essence, and you've already beat up on it and weakened it significantly -- or, ideally, if you have it bound behind wards, to prevent it from dispersing -- than it can do the job? So its sort of a finishing move, that you generally want to combine with a lot of other tools to get the Daemon in the right state, to have the highest chance of success?
A couple comments on this post. Orks would have accepted 'non-lethal' weapons with a wink and a nod. If they saw the weapons, and could tell that they were patently NOT non-lethal (which I believe is the case), they would've realized that it was more 'okay, we're going to make it a little more difficult to kill them, to make for better matches that go on longer'.
Also, the Weirdboy doesn't really know why he can do what he does. He might be able to try and explain things via Gork and Mork, but what happens is often a mystery to him, too. To note, copper poles can ground out ork psychic energy because they believe it can, but no other races can do that because that bit is a manifestation of the ork gestalt field, which the orks themselves don't consciously know about.
Also, in the wargame, Orks like fighting at several scales. These include:
-Personal Melee
-Personal Ranged
-Mounted animal (including huuuuge mounts)
-Vehicle (melee/ranged, from small vehicles to super-heavy vehicles, including SOME artillery)
-Walker/Gargant (from personal walkers all the way up to huge multi-story walkers, designed for both melee and ranged combat)
-Aeronautica
-Void Fighter
-Voidship (both long range and boarding)
-Noncombatants to rampage over
-Lots of ways to do collateral damage to buildings and things that look like they would be fun to smash
Presumably, they would be interested in Naval (ie, ocean) fights too. A wargame designed to be the perfect way for orks to fight would include enemies that the orks can meet and contact at every scale the orks like to fight in. It would also -- ideally -- offer fantastic looting opportunities of vehicles and equipment in any of the above types, as well as lots of teeth (of the right look, they would have to be similar to Orkish teeth!) for the Orks to get for currency. The loot especially would be the sorts of equipment that the Orks find very easy to loot and make their own, and there would be good opportunities for lootas and pirate types to do their thing, even away from the main fighting (gretchin especially like looting when they aren't getting shot at!). And the fighting would have to have lots of heads to put on sticks, and other such grisly trophies. The more of a 'really good fight' that includes all these types of things, the more Orks would be drawn to it, and the more sorts of weird things the Waaagh field can do, and the more outlandish their technology can get.
Again, the culture agent can ASK, 'what sort of enemy makes the best target for a WAAGH, and how does a "good an' proppa'" WAAGH look different than a badly done one?' The Orks would be quite willing to talk -and get into arguments/fights- about the right sort of waagh, and what the best enemy would be like. Of course, depending on the situation, showing that you don't know what the best Waagh would be like might be problematic... the agent would want to do this to isolated groups...
"Da boss ain't never seen a good and proppa WAAAAUGH? Well Boyz, dere's only one way ta fix dat problem..."
Oh! Another idea. Any 'built' Waagh place would have to have, scattered around, buildings that have large scale technological... items (energy projectors, robot arms, whatever), with more power going into them than they technically need, for Mekboys to use for harebrained schemes to build something.
Of course, The Culture would have to build up this entire... planet? group of planets?? at a technological level that is relatively low (maybe roughly Imperial scale, or the scale of various minor xenos races that have roughly similar levels of tech that they have no doubt encountered by now), in case any group OTHER than the Orks finds this thing...
A Waaagh theme park indeed...
The main issue here is that a perpetual WAAAAAAGH generating system (such as this theme-park) is just going to result in Looted Culture Ships screaming into space.
I mean, WAAAAGH of sufficient magnitude can turn chunks of rocks into moderately maneuverable ships so a sufficiently intense WAAAAGH is likely to result in Looted Culture Ships whether that should be able to happen or not.
Not that The Culture would have any idea that a WAAAAGH can warp reality that much until it is far, far too late :smallamused:
See also: Hilarity ensues.
The best part is that this can happen without torpedoing the entire narrative, since I presume Culture ships can beat other Culture ships, and the Culture will be able to gang up on the Kulture. Though it'd take a long time for enough WAAAAAUGH energy to build that high, sort of how it takes a series of small waves to create a tsunami wave.
Imagine Culture operatives noticing Ork-phenotype Culture citizens calling themselves "Speshul Cirkumstances" showing up on Imperial Worlds trying to figure out where the best Fightin' was to be found. Double hilarity because the Kulture SCs would be (vainly) trying to fit in, claiming that they were 'umies and pounding anyone who disagreed with them into mush.
...how is this not canon yet? :smallbiggrin: