The Culture v's 40kverse

[Fan]

I really disagree with the idea that Chaos can get real world footholds without somebody somewhere consciously choosing to serve them. The fall of the Eldar was due to them doing *ahem* dark things. Far darker and more depraved than the Culture. The actions might empower the gods in some nebulous sense, but a party won't open a warp rift. It won't cause mutation or mental illness. Even in 40k.

Any other route basically has the flaw that it's running up against Minds. Minds aren't dumb.

Also, the Culture aren't "Sues", a sue is an impossibly perfect self insert character, a concept that doesn't really apply to a civilization. The Culture is just a utopia.

The Culture is a well written civilization with a good set of core morals, and a post scarcity society that endeavors to be moral as a whole.

Calling them sues is a stretch of the term as a catch all for things more powerful than other things.

Power level is no reason not to enjoy something, different scales are used for different things, and they're all respectable for it.

Let not a story be judged by it's power, but instead, judge that same story by it's merit, it's writing quality, and the drama involved within.

[GloatingSwine]

I think your underestimating what the main gun of the SDF-1 and similar ships can do.

No, I'm really not. Because we see the results of equivalent weapons used on Earth in the final assault of the Grand Fleet, and they strike with roughly the force of a modern nuclear weapon (the danger of the Grand Fleet is that there are 5 million ships in it). We see this happen in the series. Hell, most of the weapons on Zentradi ships punch roughly metre diametre holes through ordinary modern buildings.

The SDF-1's main gun is fired along the surface of the planet and the blast proximity scores a trench under where it passes, if anything it dips into the ocean, but that's all.

I repeat as well, actual modern nuclear weapons are still a big deal during Space War 1. They are ship killers, most classes of Zentradi vessels can be destroyed with small numbers of modern fighter launched nuclear weapons.

(Also, being a minor diety really does help, see Macross 7 for details.)

Helpfully, we can also tell that the overall power of the 'verse hasn't much changed by 2052, because we see a Vajra ship helpfully blow up an asteroid, which means it's shooting at something we probably know what it's made of and what the energies involved is, and the shot works out to high single digit megatonnage, which is right in line with the reflex cannons seen in the first series.

(Also, RPG stats, please, the Palladium RPG is made by people who it's questionable whether they've even watched the show...)

[GloatingSwine]

Huh, doesn't seem like anyone brought up the "Chaos wins by internal rot" scenario. I've got two posts from the last thread which should sum it up.

That's because it wouldn't work. Even if every human in the Culture fell to Chaos, the Minds and Drones almost certainly wouldn't, and they're the ones that do the actual work around here.

To a Culture Mind, the Chaos gods would seem terribly primitive and simple.

Hell, in the case of a total loss of all pan-human elements of the Culture the Minds could, as a last resort, just do the job without them and restore them from backups.

[jseah]

I reintroduce this line of argument because it is an interesting and immensely plausible way for the Suetopia of The Culture to get taken down by someone well below their weight class. Amusingly, it works precisely because of the unique characteristics of The Culture and would not work in other noted "heavyweights" like the Lensman-verse.

Enjoy!

The problem with this one is not that it can't work. It strongly depends on the initial conditions of the mentioned expedition.

If it's a colonization expedition, the Culture might be caught off-guard.

If they're going about contact as if they were a more independent scouting unit (let's go see what's on the other side of the universe!), it would be considerably harder to get at them before they ran across an IoM world (and after that, they're forewarned).
Being that if they go looking, they WILL run over an IoM world or ship more or less instantly. Inside of a couple of months probably.


It really all depends on how cautious they are. Which varies alot on the mission parameters and the attitude of the leading Mind in charge of the expedition.
If we turned this into a strange sort of space 4X game, with the player in charge of the Culture vessels, playing rules-blind (to be IC) and playing for keeps, this gets applied in spades.

Note that the Culture know there are bigger fish out there, given the term Outside Context Problem.

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Note of course that if the Culture *does* get corrupted... welp, I guess the show's over. Chaos stomps the rest of 40K inside of twenty years.

[Fan]

That's because it wouldn't work. Even if every human in the Culture fell to Chaos, the Minds and Drones almost certainly wouldn't, and they're the ones that do the actual work around here.

To a Culture Mind, the Chaos gods would seem terribly primitive and simple.

Hell, in the case of a total loss of all pan-human elements of the Culture the Minds could, as a last resort, just do the job without them and restore them from backups.

Actually, Dark Adeptus. There's actually this thing called Data Daemons.

They can infest AI, entire story line is that they actually infested a world of sentient, living, machines. (Premise of Machine Spirits.) that were connected to a computer the size of a planet.

[GloatingSwine]

Actually, Dark Adeptus. There's actually this thing called Data Daemons.

They can infest AI, entire story line is that they actually infested a world of sentient, living, machines. (Premise of Machine Spirits.) that were connected to a computer the size of a planet.

On the other hand, the fact that they can corrupt equiv-tech AI probably isn't going to help them against beings that are closer to the C'tan than anything else.

[jseah]

Good plan, overall. But ; There's no SCIENCE! way of detecting psykers, unless you've done it before. How the hell they built the first Psyker-detectors is a mystery.

Edit -- Okay, you can technically detect the psyker via genetics, but there's no way to measure psyker-use aside from the walls dripping blood, or something going strange in general.

Well, the reaction of crew members and fear signals indicate something strange is going on. Furthermore the IoM ship's disappearance from space is related to the FTL drive and somehow this guy doing something unknown.

Additionally, any IoM guy on a spaceship will know about psykers, given that their FTL runs on it. Heck, the ship will have references to it. Mind runs across IoM ship, it knows everything the IoM ship knows.

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You really have to disclude every 4X SciFi game when having this sort of discussion. The only fluff they have is usually blurbs about what's going on, and what your race is like. And pretty much every one of them goes from shooting lasers/projectiles to throwing black holes, supernovas, instant teleporters and whatnot around.

Well, Distant Worlds doesn't. It stays firmly in beams & missiles territory.
I'll still say a mid to endgame DW empire can take on the IoM and win pretty easily.
The FTL anywhere to anywhere (and blazing fast FTL too) is game breakingly powerful. FTL to escape combat and recharge shields is a core tactic in the game. Not to mention that travelling to nearby star systems is a matter of a day or two and they can deep strike like nobodies' business.

Even so, throwing 'holes, nova-bombs, instant teleport... is exactly what we are discussing here? =D

[Luzahn]

I think that the reason people keep throwing 40k up against culture is a desire to get something that is actually capable of defeating it.

I can't express it well, but something about the Culture just seems horrific. It's like the Borg in a fluffy bunny suit. I'd like something able to fight it.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Actually, Dark Adeptus. There's actually this thing called Data Daemons.

They can infest AI, entire story line is that they actually infested a world of sentient, living, machines. (Premise of Machine Spirits.) that were connected to a computer the size of a planet.

Yup

Anyway, it was undiplomatic to call The Culture a Suetopia but I really have a hard time taking a "everyone does what they want and it's all perfect" society seriously.

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Aside from the question of how they got to the point where Perfect Watchmen ("The Minds") came into being and just so happened to decide that a maximally free culture was the correct outcome, it just seems odd that none of these books address the Defectors from Decadence outside of the Minds either giving them jobs or manipulating them into working for The Culture. The Culture is always right and the way it deals with those who disagree with them is also always right -- it's hard for me to accept that as a realistic society no matter how much technology is around.

That aside, the Grimdarkness of the WH40K-verse is that you don't have to do anything "wrong" to fall to Chaos. The pre-Fall Eldar didn't do anything darker than light recreations already permitted in The Culture -- I mean there was a Ship in one of the Culture books that perfected torture for fun and IIRC it was left alone so long as it didn't bother anyone the Minds care about. The reason the Eldar created a God out of this depravity is that they had more powerful "souls" than Humans but rest assured that Chaos Cults can infect and corrupt "innocent" Humans with ease.

The lynchpin is whether the Minds decide to permit Psyker-gene implantation in their meatpuppets. If they don't then The Culture won't get corrupted until Tzeentch manages to work his way into the Minds. As I said before the two of them think pretty much exactly alike except one is a God and the other is a bunch of immortal intelligences. If they do permit their meatpuppets to gain Psyker abilities then The Culture will be gone in however long it takes for the Demons to eat the brains of one of unschooled Alpha+ Psykers that The Culture allowed to be created.

That said, no physical force would stand a chance against The Culture save possibly the Necrons -- and even then, only if they use Time Travel effectively. Unfortunately for The Culture, the most dangerous threats in the WH40K-verse are not physical at all

[Fan]

On the other hand, the fact that they can corrupt equiv-tech AI probably isn't going to help them against beings that are closer to the C'tan than anything else.

The entire point of the hexagrammic wards, the sanctifications, and the purity wards on weapons aside from teaching Imperial Guardsmen is to keep demons from infesting the weapons.

They can do that, non thinking, no AI, weapons.

That, and the minds have no defense against psychic attacks, OR against Soul based attacks because as far as science is concerned those things don't exist.

[Aotrs Commander]

Except Chaos isn't an external threat. All that sex? Pays tribute to Slaanesh. All the anger and bloodlust from Dataverse battles? That's bringing Khorne into your mind. All that free exchange of knowledge? "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded."

So why does Khorne not rule the entire of 40K, then, if that is true? No, seriously, it's a genuine question. "...There is only war" is 40K's tag line, pretty much. So why is Khorne, powered by all the hatred and endless violence across the cosmic scale of 40K not in complete control and ruling unopposed? Because if that is true, if every act of violence, especially every exterminatus adds, to his power and opens the avenue for corruption, how are there Space Marines? Like, at all?

I have never been able reconcile the oft-espoused "chaos is the ultimate power, and nothing in the universe can stop it and it can do anything" with the facts that, well, it gets stopped on a fairly regular basis and it, in practise, does not do everything. You can't claim that chaos's power is unlimited, when it clearly does have well-defined limits that are sorta fundemental to the whole set-up...

I also find the thought that the best way to resist Chaos corruption would be to be a stupid, passionless, pacifist health-freak to be faintly amusing...

Yup

Anyway, it was undiplomatic to call The Culture a Suetopia but I really have a hard time taking a "everyone does what they want and it's all perfect" society seriously.

I think it's perhaps a tad off to call the Culture sues in relation to 40K, which is full of them itself - especially the Chaos gods themselves and the Space Marines...! (Especially given the fluff and factionalism mentality promoted by it) Pot, kettle, and all that...!

I find 40K's "everything everyone does serves chaos, and chaos will win in the end, misery and suffering is all life will be if you're lucky" to be difficult to take seriously, too...

[comicshorse]

That, and the minds have no defense against psychic attacks, OR against Soul based attacks because as far as science is concerned those things don't exist.

Didn't the Necrons develop tech. to seperate the Warp from reality and so lock chaos out ? Or has that been written out of existrence to ?

[Tavar]

So why does Khorne not rule the entire of 40K, then, if that is true? No, seriously, it's a genuine question. "...There is only war" is 40K's tag line, pretty much. So why is Khorne, powered by all the hatred and endless violence across the cosmic scale of 40K not in complete control and ruling unopposed? Because if that is true, if every act of violence, especially every exterminatus adds, to his power and opens the avenue for corruption, how are there Space Marines? Like, at all?

Because unless the act is specifically dedicated to him, or preformed by those with great psychic power and without the will to contain it, then the gain to the god in question is negligible, even over large numbers.

[GloatingSwine]

I find 40K's "everything everyone does serves chaos, and chaos will win in the end, misery and suffering is all life will be if you're lucky" to be difficult to take seriously, too...

You aren't supposed to take it seriously. 40k is supposed to be so over the top grimdark it tips over into self parody.

That's why everyone, including Chaos, is doomed in the end.

The Chaos Gods are actually nowhere near as powerful or relevant as they're made out to be in these vs. threads where they're supposed to be the trump card to stop an inevitable curbstomp. They simply can't corrupt anyone or anything at will, if they could they would have aeons ago.

[Aotrs Commander]

Because unless the act is specifically dedicated to him, or preformed by those with great psychic power and without the will to contain it, then the gain to the god in question is negligible, even over large numbers.

Which would mean that the Culture ought to be relatively safe from corruption by Chaos. (As some of you have, indeed, been saying, and who I'm inclined to agree with.)

[Water_Bear]

I think that the reason people keep throwing 40k up against culture is a desire to get something that is actually capable of defeating it.

I can't express it well, but something about the Culture just seems horrific. It's like the Borg in a fluffy bunny suit. I'd like something able to fight it.

Yeah, the idea of that kind of pointless hedonism without discipline just disgusts me on a level I can't really articulate. I get that pleasure is fun, but it's completely meaningless without a real goal. Even GrimDark is better, because infinite pain is at least more honest and believable.

So why does Khorne not rule the entire of 40K, then, if that is true? No, seriously, it's a genuine question.

Well the Imperium of Man has the Emprah, who is basically a Chaos God himself, and all of their most bloodthirsty soldiers are first and foremost zealots fervently worshiping him. So fanatical religious devotion trumping rage for most of the Imperium.

The Eldar don't really let themselves feel any emotion, precisely so as not to fall to Chaos. The Tau and Necrons are light on emotion and have practically no Warp presence. The Orks, well the Orks are just weird and Chaos doesn't really bother them.

Other than that all the factions are Chaos worshipers, so I guess that answers your question.

[Fan]

Which would mean that the Culture ought to be relatively safe from corruption by Chaos. (As some of you have, indeed, been saying, and who I'm inclined to agree with.)

Well again.

The Culture is a hedonistic society to the point that they kinda outshine even Pre-Fall Eldar.

Not to say that's a bad thing, I mean, endless pleasure has to feel alright, but eventually someone will offer them MORE pleasure in the form of magic enhanced designer drugs (Which are already a part of the culture), and it'll catch on.

From there, psykers in every tube.

Also just to clarify, this is the ONLY feasible situation where 40k has a chance, and even then it is 100% reliant on us not extrapolating the magic technology fusion necron tech as being emulated by the Culture sealing up significant warp rifts.

[Tiki Snakes]

So why does Khorne not rule the entire of 40K, then, if that is true? No, seriously, it's a genuine question. "...There is only war" is 40K's tag line, pretty much. So why is Khorne, powered by all the hatred and endless violence across the cosmic scale of 40K not in complete control and ruling unopposed? Because if that is true, if every act of violence, especially every exterminatus adds, to his power and opens the avenue for corruption, how are there Space Marines? Like, at all?

I have never been able reconcile the oft-espoused "chaos is the ultimate power, and nothing in the universe can stop it and it can do anything" with the facts that, well, it gets stopped on a fairly regular basis and it, in practise, does not do everything. You can't claim that chaos's power is unlimited, when it clearly does have well-defined limits that are sorta fundemental to the whole set-up...

I also find the thought that the best way to resist Chaos corruption would be to be a stupid, passionless, pacifist health-freak to be faintly amusing...





I think it's perhaps a tad off to call the Culture sues in relation to 40K, which is full of them itself - especially the Chaos gods themselves and the Space Marines...! (Especially given the fluff and factionalism mentality promoted by it) Pot, kettle, and all that...!

I find 40K's "everything everyone does serves chaos, and chaos will win in the end, misery and suffering is all life will be if you're lucky" to be difficult to take seriously, too...

Ah, the Khorne question; The obvious argument is simple enough. What more could Khorne want than what he already has? (See also the Orks, the almost-canonical current, future and eternal victors. Orks is made for Fightin an' Winnin' indeed).

More specifically, to paraphrase, "All according to plan!". Why hasn't Chaos roflstomped everything? There's a school of thought that Tzeentch specifically sabotages chaos's own chances when the balance is threatened, because unlike the Emperor's view of how the Imperium should be, the galaxy as it currently exists is a pretty compatible place for the Chaos Gods.

Which isn't necessarily the same as saying they've already won. Not having already won is almost a requirement for them, but it does mean that even in their semi-ideal circumstances, it could still all go wrong for them at any moment. (Hence, I've heard it said, the strength of their responce to the Emperor's original plan, it was in real danger of working).

I'm not sure that simply not dedicating your actions to a chaos god is any kind of real defence either. By definition the Eldar's actions couldn't have been dedicated to Slaanesh, because their decadence birthed Slaanesh. Well, I suppose there's Wibbly Wobbly Timey Whimey potential there, but that doesn't go any less for the Culture.

So, two points; Firstly there's no reason to think that the Culture, Minds or Otherwise, would be immune to the attentions and plots of Chaos, but there's also nothing to say the Culture couldn't necessarily tool up and assault the Chaos Gods more or less directly, either. I'm not sure I see any reason why they wouldn't be able to simply roll into the Eye of Terror and start kicking ass. Admittedly, that could go hilariously badly for the culture, but you never know until you try (And they wouldn't be the first to have a go).

[Urpriest]

Blank-ness isn't really an induceable thing, though, any more than psy talent is, since they are technically a very specialized form of psyker - it's purely random in nature. The Pariah gene was rectonned out of existence in 5th edition with the release of the Newcrons.

It is true that the AIs and Minds could just wipe out all the organics to avoid corruption themselves, but is that a win for the Culture or Chaos?

Blank-ness might not be induceable, but being a Tau likely is. The Tau's low Warp presence presumably has a physical basis. All the Culture would have to do is find some Tau (impossible just by looking around, but eventually via IoM records) and put their citizens into modified Tau bodies for the duration.

[Water_Bear]

Blank-ness might not be induceable, but being a Tau likely is. The Tau's low Warp presence presumably has a physical basis. All the Culture would have to do is find some Tau (impossible just by looking around, but eventually via IoM records) and put their citizens into modified Tau bodies for the duration.

Traditionally the soul is a function of the mind rather than the body; I see no reason why a (pan)Human mind in a Tau body wouldn't drag it's soul along after it.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, the idea of that kind of pointless hedonism without discipline just disgusts me on a level I can't really articulate. I get that pleasure is fun, but it's completely meaningless without a real goal. Even GrimDark is better, because infinite pain is at least more honest and believable.

So join Contact, spend your life making the galaxy a better place.

You appear to be dismissing the Culture without actually having read any of the books, The Culture is not, unlike SF you may be used to, a monoculture. Just about anything you can imagine, and probably a lot of things you can't imagine exist within it.

No-one in the Culture is going to make you have fun, but you are going to have to find your "real goal" for yourself. The Culture is not a prescriptive society, that's scary to some people.

Not to say that's a bad thing, I mean, endless pleasure has to feel alright, but eventually someone will offer them MORE pleasure in the form of magic enhanced designer drugs (Which are already a part of the culture), and it'll catch on.

You appear to be determined to believe that Slaanesh can offer citizens of the Culture experiences they can't already have. That has yet to be proven. Remember that the average Culture human has more or less complete control of their own biology, can internally produce whatever drugs they want, is basically immortal, and can change gender at will (over the course of a few weeks).

[Aotrs Commander]

I think that the reason people keep throwing 40k up against culture is a desire to get something that is actually capable of defeating it.

I can't express it well, but something about the Culture just seems horrific. It's like the Borg in a fluffy bunny suit. I'd like something able to fight it.

I tend to think the same thing, for similar reasons, about 40K, on a bad day...!

[Urpriest]

Traditionally the soul is a function of the mind rather than the body; I see no reason why a (pan)Human mind in a Tau body wouldn't drag it's soul along after it.

Aren't the Necrons soulless in part because of the transfer to robot bodies, though? Or am I missing something there?

[Fan]

Culture gets roflstomped by anything with Time Travel.

Celestials from Marvel.

The Immortals, from Marvel.

Asgardians, from Marvel.

Kyrptonians, from DC.

I think you see where this is heading.

In fact, I'll safely hazard that Marvel and DC are the single handedly most powerful universes in fiction.

They have time travel, megaverse busters, an entire army of will power powered beings, multidimensional travel, ridiculously powerful psychics.

The Abstracts on their own level compete with anything from any other verse, up to and including having a Messianic God.

[Water_Bear]

No-one in the Culture is going to make you have fun, but you are going to have to find your "real goal" for yourself. The Culture is not a prescriptive society, that's scary to some people.

If they're going around bringing other civilizations into themselves and destroying ones they don't like... then yes they are forcing people to have fun. They're just being really disingenuous about it.

My real problem is that it's a system that denies the human will. Since they cannot be defeated by human means and they can run perfectly fine without human help, there isn't anything you can do which will make any genuine difference. You can play in a simulation, or play in Contact, but ultimately can you ever stop playing and actually control the world around you?

You appear to be determined to believe that Slaanesh can offer citizens of the Culture experiences they can't already have. That has yet to be proven.

Slaanesh is a god of a realm without physics or time, a god created from and consisting of the pure desire for pleasure at any cost. The Culture has only experienced that subset of pleasurable experience possible in their universe, whereas Slaanesh can offer any pleasurable experience especially the ones which are impossible to simulate on a computer.

[comicshorse]

Slaanesh is a god of a realm without physics or time, a god created from and consisting of the pure desire for pleasure at any cost. The Culture has only experienced that subset of pleasurable experience possible in their universe, whereas Slaanesh can offer any pleasurable experience especially the ones which are impossible to simulate on a computer.

You're assuming there ARE pleasures the Culture can't simulate on their computers

[Fan]

You're assuming there ARE pleasures the Culture can't simulate on their computers

Of course, magic can simulate things beyond traditional limits of physics which includes the human senses.

You'll go insane, but damn, it'll feel great.

[Tiki Snakes]

Thing is, I'm not sure the Chaos Gods even HAVE to offer you something. They don't function on faustian pacts, far as I know. It's entirely possible to simply...catch their attention?

Say, a particularly charasmatically decadent Culture guy could one day realise that his prowess has become such that he can literally bestow crippling, mind shattering pleasure with a single touch. He's going to be quite a popular guy at the right kind of culture-parties, I imagine.
Next thing you know, tentacles everywhere and your spacetime is full of holes.

[jseah]

In some ways, alot of this depends on the definition of "emotion". >.>

Because it is perfectly possible to rewire all the meatspace humans in Culture to skirt around whatever specific emotion you want. The humans won't even notice... since you also warp their definition accordingly.

Analogy:
Translate a grid by +2 and it shifts. Everything on it stays the same shape, but they're all +2 to the right.
Similarly, rewire the humans to have something-not-quite-fun in their brains but to them is still "fun".


Essentially, Culture re-engineering people is transhumanism taken to its logical limits. Which, btw, assumes that people don't have souls which is why the Culture can just engineer intelligences willy-nilly.

If you think this implies all the Culture citizens don't have souls, well... I guess they're all warp-null then?

[comicshorse]

Of course, magic can simulate things beyond traditional limits of physics which includes the human senses.

You'll go insane, but damn, it'll feel great.

But can it, surely the limiting factor is human senses we can only feel so much and the Culture can engineer drugs and experiences that will occupy every last thing we can feel.
As allready pointed out if Chaos can just do anything because they have magic they'd have won already. There magic has limits, quite limiting limits as shown by the fact they're mightiest followers, Chaos space marines, generally prefer a good bolter to magic when it comes to defeating the enemies of chaos