The Culture explores 40K II: Now With 100% more Fanfiction

[Gavinfoxx]

One thing that strikes me disturbingly is that in Surface Detail it describes the digitised souls of the dead that The Culture keeps in VR space.

They have literal huge depositories of souls that aren't guarded in any significant manner against infiltration by data daemons.

This terrifies me.

They've scanned both Mechanicus and IoM and Grey Knight wards and anti-chaos techniques... and have been describing some of the precautions they have been taking for some of this stuff, so far... I presume this is the whole 'Jseah isn't as smart as a Mind' thing...

[Fan]

They've scanned both Mechanicus and IoM and Grey Knight wards and anti-chaos techniques... and have been describing some of the precautions they have been taking for some of this stuff, so far... I presume this is the whole 'Jseah isn't as smart as a Mind' thing...

While smart, I doubt they're perfect, and given it's a canonical oversight at this point that'd be.. one hell of an infiltration point, especially since in VR daemons are just as powerful as anything the culture can come up with, and by their mystical nature, are not exactly countered by anti virus programs.

The Changer of Ways has his entry point, and in the only place where the playing field is even.

[Gavinfoxx]

Yea, where is there a good description of Data Daemons??

[Fan]

Yea, where is there a good description of Data Daemons??

Grey Knight's Omnibus, Dark Mechanicum.

They're pretty terrifyingly effective, and can physically manifest.

[Gavinfoxx]

Grey Knight's Omnibus, Dark Mechanicum.

They're pretty terrifyingly effective, and can physically manifest.

Can you give us a primer / writeup on them?

[Selrahc]

One thing that strikes me disturbingly is that in Surface Detail it describes the digitised souls of the dead that The Culture keeps in VR space.

They have literal huge depositories of souls that aren't guarded in any significant manner against infiltration by data daemons.

This terrifies me.

The Culture doesn't do that. The afterlives are a thing that other cultures do. If people in the Culture want to die, they have probably already had a look through the sort of VR existence that such afterlives offer. They aren't after a shift in perceptions, but a cessation of consciousness.

The Culture does have a large and vibrant VR community though. Just as much of a "huge repository of souls" and just as "unguarded".

The trouble is whether a mindstate is a soul, and whether they are at all unguarded. If the dataverse is prone to destruction, it can be easily backed up and recreated by overseer forces e.g(In this case) Minds. In Surface Detail, one of the plot strands followed a lady who had been to "Hell"(VR hell) on an instructional tour, but then been separated from the group and forced to remain there when they were on the way back. Except the person who went on the tour woke up, with all their memories except those formed on the tour.... But an entirely seperate mindstate was now trapped in hell and that mindstate was the character we followed for the narrative.

The Culture can replicate souls. Assuming a mindstate is a soul. Or a mindstate+body is a soul. I think Jseah is currently working off the idea that a mindstate+body is a soul, while a mindstate is not(being purely a mechanically generated thing). In the Cultureverse though, there is some indication that a "Soul" might be a little more complicated and less easily replicable. Given that a sublimed being hunts down and forcibly sublimes any copied versions of its mindstate. There is some inherent unifying factor between all copies that is very important to the sublimed, which might as well be called a soul. It's not really possible for the Culture to replicate that, except in that they can easily create an entirely new creature. Create a soul(life), but not replicate a soul.

As far as unguarded goes? Well the minds are watching over the Culture Dataverse quite carefully. And they're smarter than Daemons, and power is mainly limited to what you can perceive in such an ephemereal realm. What exactly do you think the Daemons will do and why won't it be countered by the minds?

[Fan]

Because they've wrecked untold havoc within the 40k verses planet sized computer equivalents along with the Titan STC which was a self sustaining "Computational Power of a Sun" type of deal, which in itself turned out to be a data daemon which had been tricked into thinking it was a Titan STC.

It's a weird story line.

Either way, I doubt the Culture has considered that the Dataverse is corruptable being within their " protected parameters", and being in a "non physical, technological" state, given that Chaos's Scrapcode that they currently broadcast has been more of a "mystical virus" bombardment, rather than any manifesting beings.

And it's because they could put a mystical lock on access to the technology if hit hard enough, and spread through the rest of the culture's network through that "accessable" venue, the matter of it is getting a worshipper onto the ship who will have to open up a rift in the data verse for the daemons to appear while also causing enough damage to allow for that rift to be opened before he / she / it gets effector'd off, or causing a big enough distraction elsewhere that they can operate the ritual within the ship which would require a MASSIVE amount of directed chaos resources.

[Gavinfoxx]

There's a Dark Mechanicum novel?? Where??

*Checks a few places*

...Wow, This page is seriously updated more than the lexicanum one!

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Mechanicus

[Fan]

There's a Dark Mechanicum novel?? Where??

Excuse me, it's called Dark Adeptus, and is a Grey Knight's foray into a world held by the Chaos affiliated part of the Dark Mechanicum.

[Gavinfoxx]

Ah, so that is one single source where you are getting most of your information on Data Daemons? Do you have a secondary source?

[Maugan Ra]

Daemons can, as a general rule, go anywhere and look like any damn thing they want to. The Dark Heresy books have at least one instance of a data-state daemon infestation. Namely one that animates and hijacks your cybernetics, as well as other technological sources. It's not just a virus either, as the possessed cybernetics continue operating after their power source is destroyed and the owner dead.

If a Lord of Change managed to pull something like that off, and possess a data system, it would easily rival the complexity and intelligence of a Culture Mind, without being so constrained by silly things like 'code' or 'power supply'. And while it could be fought off, doing so requires faith of your own, not simply a technical understanding of how other people go about it.

Anyway, how does this 'grid fire' thing work? Because I keep seeing it mentioned, and I'm unsure of what exactly it does.

[Gavinfoxx]

In a topic I mentioned earlier, does anyone wanna take a bullet for the team and read Fire Warrior with a highlighter in hand for the useful bits about Tau culture?

[Fan]

Ah, so that is one single source where you are getting most of your information on Data Daemons? Do you have a secondary source?

Maguna Ra has my back, it's also mentioned in Mechanicum as the reason people do prayers over their weapons, and why Tech Priests do so much for Titans.

But again, The Culture doesn't exactly have faith, and doing the ritual isn't enough you need to actually have faith in the Emperor.

The only thing that makes it worse is that the Data Daemon could isolate the system magically, and from there it would have thousands of planets worth of souls to feed on, because as far as I know, GCU's keep well over their normal population in VR, with a potential unlimited amount of "mind states" saved, and able to be created.

As I said, terrifying. An infinite soul engine of sorts that allows the daemons to endlessly feed on the suffering, pleasure, and anger of the souls as they simply back them up to an earlier state before they knew the terrors the daemon's could commit, and redo them, giving them infinite emotion to feed off of.

Given that The Chaos Gods absorb the power of these emotions at will, having an infinite suffering engine that never breaks is kind of.. well.. game breaking to a point.

[Lostintransit]

The thing is that given that all their technology works as given, the Culture have no trouble birthing citizens in hyperspace. In their home universe, their GSVs can spend years in hyperspace going in circles around the galaxy (the Culture doesn't like to waste too much energy making it stop or speed up).

To make it consistent with their described capabilities of living perfectly normally in hyperspace, hyperspace has to be as identical to them as realspace. If their citizens have a warp connection, then so must hyperspace.

RE technology advancement:
I won't pretend I didn't see this argument coming but IMO, the Culture being a post-singularity means that ridiculously fast tech advancement is part of their 'kit'. This was the only part of the "overwhelmingly smart" Minds that I could actually use without being "overwhelmingly smart" myself.

If you throw them something new and powerful like the Warp or a "SF writers have no sense of scale" like the Necrons and fractal shaped materials, they'll start by finding all the synergies with their original tech base first. (I'm already heading down that road with the Necron's subatomic engineering)

Right now, this hybrid drive can still be steered away from without a retcon so we ought to settle this first though.

It's got to be a bit more complicated than that because in the case of the Culture's hyperspace, there is this:

Gridfire wall (maximum positive 4th dimension coordinate)
Hyperspace (positive 4th dimension coordinate)
Real
Ultraspace (negative 4th dimension coordinate)
Gridfire wall (maximum negative 4th dimension coordinate)

Ultraspace is basically like hyperspace, the distinction isn't made clear in the novels and ultraspace is specifically mentioned to be the negative axis of hyperspace.

Additionally, the Culture hyperspace isn't a layer of reality the way it is with something like the Ethereal plane in D&D. It's an actual 4th dimensional coordinate with Hyperspace 0 being the real, you do actual 4 dimensional movement and mathematics.
I thought we settled this with a quote from Hydrogen Sonata?

The Warp I have interpreted as another axis perpendicular to the hyperspace axis.

I thought this might happen. The best way to look at it, especially seeing how you seem to be approaching from the hard science side is this: Hyper space exists in relation to realspace, i.e current science definitions of dimensions. The warp overlaps everything so would be considered effectively a separate reality in that regards. Yes you could access the warp from hyperspace, but you would no longer be in hyperspace, you would now be in the warp!

Meaning you would follow the loose chaotic forms of the warp, rendering all the wonderful hyperspace tech null and void. Yes the gellar field of Imperium ships enforces a medium of normalcy, but daemons can and do still effect the vessel (they attack the field, and strong daemons can break it) Also the warp is home to all manner of entities that don't give a diddly about the gellar field and still will mess up the vessel. Umbras for example. Also while you may have the bubble of reality protecting you from instant doom, you are basically a bottle in the ocean of the warp, without understanding it's flow etc, you are screwed to end up literally anywhere. Hence the navigators!

So no the warp is not another axis, it is effectively another plane etheral style ala Dnd.

The tau ships do little bunny hops into the warp. They are like a plastic ball being thrown at a pool, they hit the water and bounce off. They don't enter the warp directly. (the nearest thing would be they don't punch through reality to get to a different 'plane', they bounce of the weak walls)

EDIT: Gavinfox: I mentioned data daemons a fair few pages back, canon examples include ones that can control tech from anywhere in system or manifest inside shielded systems (Even faith can struggle to stop them, not TRUE FAITH though that tends to be immune) Architect of fate has a daemon manifest inside an ancient sentient imperial star fort and mind/system corrupt it into become an avid follower of chaos. I still say people are massively underestimating the 40k verse...

Regards

[Gavinfoxx]

As best as I can figure... Data Daemons are absurdly uncommon in 40k lore. They just aren't really talked about that much. They might exist, but... well.

So basically, we are saying that unless someone can objectively specify precisely what the capabilities of these creatures are from the Dark Adeptus book, and how common they are, and how Chaos brings them to bear, and under what circumstances, and where else other than that book they are mentioned in canon... as best as I can tell (due to how rarely I see them described) they exist as one of the 'Big Guns' of Chaos that is absurdly hard to bring to the Real, but if it is, and if it is done in the right place and the right time, huge things can happen?

Maybe a Mind collating various IoM historic reports at some point should go, "Holy ****!! We need a defense against this, stat!" upon getting enough data on this topic (ie, to be written after Jseah reads that Dark Adeptus book or someone writes up a very, very thorough primer or something). It would be GREAT if this happened at around the same time that they got evidence of Sororitas True Faith producing actual empirically verifiable effects... for the whole Culture to have a massive, 'Oooohhhhhh...!' moment! Followed by a, 'How the heck do we use this to actually protect ourselves, without psykers?' bit...


Jseah, have you read that link I gave you earlier? Just wanted to say that it is an awesome webpage. I would also posit that Recongregators tend to feel that 'Logicians' go too far (as best as I can figure, not 100% sure).

Can someone help clarify the line between (say), an Inquisitor who is a Recongregator, who believes Archeotech can help in tearing down and rebuilding the Imperium to be better, and a Heretek Logician who believes that Archeotech can tear down and rebuild the Imperium in a better way? Aside from one is probably part of the =I= and one isn't?

[Forum Explorer]

Think of it this way:
Normal Tau warp drives go from point A to point B through the warp. Let's say the distance is 10 light years and their speed is 365 lights, it takes them ten days.

A Culture vessel has a speed (in its current plane) of 91.25 lights (1/4 that of the Tau drive), but it goes from point A to point A' in hyperspace and then to point B' before coming back down to point B. The distance between point A and point B is still 10 light years but the distance between point A' and point B' is 0.1 light years.
The Culture vessel travels 25 times faster than the Tau one or just under 10 hours.

A Culture vessel equipped with a hybrid drive at point A goes to point A' in hyperspace. It then travels through the warp to point B' at 365 lights before coming back down to point B. This hybrid drive is 100 faster than the Tau drive and 4 times faster than the Culture one. It takes 2.4 hours.


Of course, the real thing is rather more complicated and the speed numbers are just for demonstration, but that is the idea I have been going after.

It doesn't matter if the Warp doesn't have hyperspace (apart from a temporary slowdown of the Mind), it only needs that hyperspace has access to the Warp.

Of course you are applying some logic to the warp. It could very well be that as soon as you hit the warp you'd slow down.

Actually more likely going from hyperspace to warp would tear the ship in half. Warp travel is dangerous and it does have things like currents and solid beings in it. It'd be like going FTL and hitting an asteroid. You'd blow yourself apart doing so.

[Fan]

As best as I can figure... Data Daemons are absurdly uncommon in 40k lore. They just aren't really talked about that much. They might exist, but... well.

So basically, we are saying that unless someone can objectively specify precisely what the capabilities of these creatures are from the Dark Adeptus book, and how common they are, and how Chaos brings them to bear, and under what circumstances, and where else other than that book they are mentioned in canon... as best as I can tell (due to how rarely I see them described) they exist as one of the 'Big Guns' of Chaos that is absurdly hard to bring to the Real, but if it is, and if it is done in the right place and the right time, huge things can happen?

Maybe a Mind collating various IoM historic reports at some point should go, "Holy ****!! We need a defense against this, stat!" upon getting enough data on this topic (ie, to be written after Jseah reads that Dark Adeptus book or someone writes up a very, very thorough primer or something). It would be GREAT if this happened at around the same time that they got evidence of Sororitas True Faith producing actual empirically verifiable effects... for the whole Culture to have a massive, 'Oooohhhhhh...!' moment! Followed by a, 'How the heck do we use this to actually protect ourselves, without psykers?' bit...


Jseah, have you read that link I gave you earlier? Just wanted to say that it is an awesome webpage. I would also posit that Recongregators tend to feel that 'Logicians' go too far (as best as I can figure, not 100% sure).

Can someone help clarify the line between (say), an Inquisitor who is a Recongregator, who believes Archeotech can help in tearing down and rebuilding the Imperium to be better, and a Heretek Logician who believes that Archeotech can tear down and rebuild the Imperium in a better way? Aside from one is probably part of the =I= and one isn't?

Except it's too early in 40k lore for the entry in the Liber Daemonicum to have been made on Titan. Given that this supposedly takes place in the earlier end of the 40k spectrum.

So.. the Imperium of Man doesn't have an archived entry on it yet, it was something that the Grey Knight specifically did along with archiving a new True Name at the end of the book.

[Gavinfoxx]

Except it's too early in 40k lore for the entry in the Liber Daemonicum to have been made on Titan. Given that this supposedly takes place in the earlier end of the 40k spectrum.

So.. the Imperium of Man doesn't have an archived entry on it yet, it was something that the Grey Knight specifically did along with archiving a new True Name at the end of the book.

Eh?? You sure? We intentionally set this after most/all the Canon has happened-- early 42nd millenium, after most everything in the books is supposed to have happened. What makes you think this is too early?

[Fan]

Eh?? You sure? We intentionally set this after most/all the Canon has happened-- early 42nd millenium, after most everything in the books is supposed to have happened. What makes you think this is too early?

The Grey Knight books happened fairly recently in that respect, having come out in 2009, and being intentionally set a bit further down the canon line by the book's openers always describing an event in recent, or slightly behind recent by 40k standards, event and leading into something much further ahead.

I believe it's done to showcase a strong fight against Chaos, but to not allow it to effect how current canon is playing out in the Black Crusade department.

It specifically states that it's about a century ahead at the start of Dark Adeptus when discussing events, and how they're going to handle a world that had just reappeared from the warp, having been claimed when the data daemons gained enough power to rip open a rift.

THEN, in The Hammer of Daemons he spends another century fighting in the arena as a faux Servant of Khorne after being captured during a failed attack against a Greater Daemon lead attack on a shield world.
Thus perpetuating the infinite cycle that is 40k disallowing anything to actually move the story forward. XD

Also, as an interesting note, I'd like to showcase this line from the Void Shield description given in Titanicus.

Such shields are also used by Imperial military and civilian starships to to survive the hostile environment that is the vacuum of space. Shields form an invisible band of energy around the vessel, a variable layer of force that can absorb radiation, interstellar dust, and particle showers as well as weapon hits.

Meaning, that the 40k shields absorb the impact of warp material, and dust when going faster than light in the warp. Which gives a credible boost to their durability.

Because even in canon, 40k's armor is nothing if not able to weather long, painful, assaults.

[The Glyphstone]

Meaning, that the 40k shields absorb the impact of warp material, and dust when going faster than light in the warp. Which gives a credible boost to their durability.

Because even in canon, 40k's armor is nothing if not able to weather long, painful, assaults.

'Faster Than Light' and 'In The Warp' are more or less mutually exclusive clauses - your relative realspace speed might be faster than light, but even if there is any light in warpspace, its speed is Fish/Purple anywhere outside a Gellar Field bubble. I doubt Imperial ships even have their Void Shields running when they're in warp transit (unless they're expecting an immediate fight on the other end), since they're no good against anything actually threatening that lives in warpspace, and there's no physical matter to deflect that they didn't bring with them in the first place.

[Fan]

'Faster Than Light' and 'In The Warp' are more or less mutually exclusive clauses - your relative realspace speed might be faster than light, but even if there is any light in warpspace, its speed is Fish/Purple anywhere outside a Gellar Field bubble. I doubt Imperial ships even have their Void Shields running when they're in warp transit (unless they're expecting an immediate fight on the other end), since they're no good against anything actually threatening that lives in warpspace, and there's no physical matter to deflect that they didn't bring with them in the first place.

But within the gellar field bubble, the faster than light speed is happening, and particles that enter the gellar field are real.

[Forrestfire]

But within the gellar field bubble, the faster than light speed is happening, and particles that enter the gellar field are real.

I was under the impression that moving through the Warp was more like folding space. You move however fast you seem to, but there's no distinction between speeds. Or you move at abstract speeds that are still abstract speeds relative to realspace, but on the inside of a Gellar Field it means much less because the particles are also moving at abstract speeds.

However, take what I say with a grain of salt, I don't know as much as I'd like to about 40k, so I'm probably completely wrong (and probably sometimes right... it is the warp after all ).

[jseah]

while also causing enough damage to allow for that rift to be opened before he / she / it gets effector'd off, or causing a big enough distraction elsewhere that they can operate the ritual within the ship which would require a MASSIVE amount of directed chaos resources.

The main thing is that this is very... unlikely. You're not going to be able to perform any form of ritual without the resident Mind noticing.

Currently, the state of the Culture's internal surveillance is roughly that the Minds know everything that goes on in their ships and there is still more than enough processing power to monitor everything going on in the surrounding space. This has only gotten tighter since they've arrived, they already used to know everything going on in their ships.

Furthermore, due to scrapcode, the Culture has already implemented a "firewall" of sorts against anything that is positively identified as Chaos (and don't forget the mind-scans), namely that they scramble all signals coming from Chaos by using an effector to mass white noise.


Secondly, VR mind-states are likely to be souless. VR mind-states, being a Culture thing, is essentially identical to inorganic drones... minus the mobile part. Tau drones (which are like mini-Culture drones) don't have souls, therefore Culture drones don't have souls, therefore VR mind-states don't have souls either.

After all, from the Necrons (and that special warp device with a psyker-AI) it seems clear that inorganic intelligence isn't warp-sensitive unless your device is.

[Fan]

The main thing is that this is very... unlikely. You're not going to be able to perform any form of ritual without the resident Mind noticing.

Currently, the state of the Culture's internal surveillance is roughly that the Minds know everything that goes on in their ships and there is still more than enough processing power to monitor everything going on in the surrounding space. This has only gotten tighter since they've arrived, they already used to know everything going on in their ships.

Furthermore, due to scrapcode, the Culture has already implemented a "firewall" of sorts against anything that is positively identified as Chaos (and don't forget the mind-scans), namely that they scramble all signals coming from Chaos by using an effector to mass white noise.


Secondly, VR mind-states are likely to be souless. VR mind-states, being a Culture thing, is essentially identical to inorganic drones... minus the mobile part. Tau drones (which are like mini-Culture drones) don't have souls, therefore Culture drones don't have souls, therefore VR mind-states don't have souls either.

After all, from the Necrons (and that special warp device with a psyker-AI) it seems clear that inorganic intelligence isn't warp-sensitive unless your device is.

But, that's not how it's established at all in Surface Detail. They're very explicitly stated to have actual souls.

[jseah]

But, that's not how it's established at all in Surface Detail. They're very explicitly stated to have actual souls.

Um... details please?

Unless it's the thing about the Sublimed taking all its copies away, which does not necessarily mean there is a soul.

[Fan]

Um... details please?

Unless it's the thing about the Sublimed taking all its copies away, which does not necessarily mean there is a soul.

It explicitly calls them "Digitised Souls" on multiple occasions.

[Selrahc]

It explicitly calls them "Digitised Souls" on multiple occasions.

The books call mindstates souls on several occasions. There is something of a ediscussion on why in a few books. But does any of it meet the 40k definition of a soul? I'd doubt it. Equivalent terminology does not necessarily mean equivalence, particularly when tied to a term with so much metaphysical baggage.

[Fan]

The books call mindstates souls on several occasions. There is something of a ediscussion on why in a few books. But does any of it meet the 40k definition of a soul? I'd doubt it. Equivalent terminology does not necessarily mean equivalence, particularly when tied to a term with so much metaphysical baggage.

Again, if they didn't explicitly say souls, and then identify on multiple occasions that they are seperate, sentient, self aware beings at multiple points in the story I'd agree with you.

But they specifically call them souls, make them behave like souls for the individual / mind state they're attached to, on top of that soul possessing quality also causing them to generally be the difference between sentience and non sentience as far as emotions go, I'd again, agree with you.

I'm all for non transparency, but when it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and flies like a duck. It's probably a duck.

[Selrahc]

Again, if they didn't explicitly say souls, and then identify on multiple occasions that they are seperate, sentient, self aware beings at multiple points in the story I'd agree with you.

But they specifically call them souls, make them behave like souls for the individual / mind state they're attached to, on top of that soul possessing quality also causing them to generally be the difference between sentience and non sentience as far as emotions go, I'd again, agree with you.

I'm all for non transparency, but when it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and flies like a duck. It's probably a duck.

A mindstate is a pure AI though. If it is a soul, would you say drones and minds have souls? Because there is no functional difference between a mindstate from a human and from a drone.

So far Jseah has taken the view that the soul requires a physical organic body, since that seems to be the position taken in 40k.

[Fan]

A mindstate is a pure AI though. If it is a soul, would you say drones and minds have souls? Because there is no functional difference between a mindstate from a human and from a drone.

So far Jseah has taken the view that the soul requires a physical organic body, since that seems to be the position taken in 40k.

That's not true at all, the Soul Forge specifically tears the soul from the victim.

That's what Soul Grinders do explicitly. It's why they are made.

The Soul is an attached non physical part of a being, usually correlating to it's continued emotional, and sentient state.

Keeping the souls in digital space does not make them any less souls than putting diamonds in a gold ring makes them any less diamonds, or cooking a steak makes it any less beef, especially in regards to Data Daemons, who are specifically able to act through those mediums to consume them.