The Culture Explores 40K III: Just As Planned

[Demonic_Spoon]

And where that safe point is varies by source and author. Traditionally, it's a set radius around the star, nebulously excused as being related to the gravity well, but occasionally (usually Tyranid) ships appear within the gravity well.

As I recall this is because of their different means of ftl isn't it? Something about compressing spacetime in a corridor to the destination. Could be wrong though.

Remind me again why the Culture is giving the Tau this tech? It doesn't seem in character. While they do tend to like "helping" other species into more ethically pleasing configurations, they don't generally give all and sundry advanced pieces of technology for little reason if I recall correctly.

They'd do something like give the Affront space habitats in a attempt to curb their aggressive tendencies, but the Tau aren't in any imminent danger of getting destroyed by the imperium, so why give them tech to help take the fight to the imperium? It doesn't seem to serve a useful function. Beyond distracting the imperium for some reason? Wouldn't they want the imperium to focus on chaos?

[Gavinfoxx]

Actually, the Tau ARE in imminent danger of getting destroyed by the Imperium. As soon as the Imperium doesn't have to worry about things like rampaging Tyranids and don't have to worry about Orks and several groups that have to do with Chaos starts getting less of a big deal (of course others will gain power, but the cults in Imperial planets will be easier to deal with), and the worse pirate types start disappearing and the less bad pirate types stop targeting imperial ships for some reason... they'll squash the Tau like bugs. The reason they haven't is that they are being pulled in a thousand different directions.. and a lot of those directions are just being 'no longer a problem'.

Just saying.

[jseah]

I had imagined the point at which ships could warp would be
1. outside the warp limit, determined by the mass of the star
2. roughly in the correct direction of the target location

Given that ships must arrive outside the warp limit, they basically start inside the safe zone for leaving the way they came.

EDIT:
Tech-wise, the Culture only provided weapon improvements and the starting points for AI research. Nothing else.

They did help alot in other ways though. Like being a source of sensible ideas (eg. orbital kinetic strike as an army suppression tactic), or providing industrial assistance (see the exchange regarding putting Tau firebreak colonies between Sol and the Eye)

[Tychris1]

It's also important to note that this is Warp Travel, and is not the most reliable thing. Considering all the time loop shenanigans and the ravenous Daemon hordes lurking about every corner. It's why Eldar pirates are more coordinated and focused (Working kind of like the way you describe the Tau, except obviously on a smaller scale) as opposed to the more "Go into the warp, chill out, and pop out in a random place and loot it" style that Chaos/Pirates have.

[jseah]

Skipping ahead to unknown time. IoM vs Tau

Part X (19.5?) Tau Offensive - Cra System

Spoiler

Show

The laud speakers blared General Quarters as men scurried to their battlestations. Rear Admiral Quaker glared down at the angry red dots on the long distance plot.

Sensors were bad at this kind of range but the swarm was familiar enough from sensor records of past engagements. The Tau Fleet was here. It was big enough that even the myopic long range sensors could see it. One of his crewmen fancied that he could track the fleet with nothing more than a telescope.

It had been met with some surprise when the Tau changed doctrine all of a sudden. Instead of sitting on Praetonis V where the Imperial hammer had been planned to fall, the fleet had seemingly immediately moved onwards.
A minor Agriworld disappeared beneath the boots of the xeno. And then the fleet moved again.

By now, it seemed clear that the Tau were doing something different and when the direct line towards the Forge World Musk was clear from the Tau's third jump (which Admiral left his flanks so open?! but it seemed like the Tau didn't care if the IoM closed in behind them), the IoM had arrayed their fleet, ready to receive the Tau.

Quaker had been leading a contingent of ships towards Musk. Had been, because if the Tau were here, then they weren't going to Musk at all. It was now his holy duty to make sure the rest of the sector were aware the Tau had changed targets.

He frowned. Why change targets now? Musk was barely two systems away if the Tau had come from Az, as was likely from their trajectory. And Cra was also two systems away from Musk, and so definitely not on the line. Did the Tau somehow know that the Imperial Navy was waiting for them?

He looked at the star map again. If one extended a line from Az to Cra... hmm, far be it from Quaker to guess the mind of a xeno, but that lead to Ultramar itself, also two jumps away. The Tau could be daring if they wanted to, hm? Even if they had led the Imperial navy fleets on a merry chase over the last weeks.

"Detach a Nova for me. Send them our sensor logs and have it make haste to Musk. The Admiral there must know that the Tau have changed course. "

He gave the order almost without thinking. Keeping superiors informed was mostly habit now.

But what else could he do? Fight? He was grossly outnumbered and the Tau must certainly know that. From what they knew, the Tau sensors were already damnably good and had somehow gotten a bit better recently. They would at least know that no fleet concentration large enough to threaten them existed at Cra.

But Musk lay nearly in opposition to Cra at Az. Even with the Tau's slow speed, the Imperial navy could barely catch up with them by the time the Tau could reach Macragge. It would be a vey close run thing and if the Tau caught wind of the fleet movement, which was nearly impossible to hide from the traitorious pirate mercenaries on the Tau side, they could just turn around and head back to Musk after all.

Quaker felt that it was sort of unfair that the single Tau fleet was leading twice its number in Imperial ships around the entire sector, merrily destroying spaceports and factories, and blatantly refusing to fight anything resembling an honest battle. The pictrecording of the Tau fleet abruptly turning tail less than three hours after seeing Battle Fleet 103 heading for them from Epinomious inner system made for good propaganda, but it didn't solve the problem of the Tau fleet.

Well, his fleet in transit, if it joined up with the local system defence forces, would be the biggest fleet to ever engage the Tau. Not that the others were at all successful. In fact, there was frustratingly little sensor records of the important parts of the Tau battle tactics.
Quaker wondered what exactly happened in those battles. And why there didn't appear to be any escaping ships...

Quaker said a short litany to calm his fear.
"Citizens of the holy empire!" he said into the general vox-net of the fleet, "It is this day that our sacrifice is called for. The foul xeno that has so troubled us dares to show their face in front of us..."

He let the inspiring speech fall from his lips, still thinking rapidly about how to deal the most damage to the Tau fleet. If it be his duty to fall in service to Mankind, Quaker could see worse ways to end up facing the God-Emperor.

The Tau fleet had arranged into four sets of flat walls and were bearing down on him. Half of their fleet was heading straight for him, and the other half was attempting to envelop him. Classical.
Well, if a stand-up battle was what the Tau wanted, Quaker was happy to oblige. Imperial ships had a historically known advantage over the Tau, being larger, faster and more heavily armed and armoured. Even outnumbered as badly as they were here in Cra, Quaker was sure he could at least deal significant damage to the Tau fleet. Perhaps even slow it enough that it could be caught.

"Accelerate full fleet speed towards formation gamma, form standard offensive wall formation," he commanded, still looking at the holo-plot. Gamma was one of the side formations attempting to flank him. If the Tau were going to try to flank him, then he would take the offered chance to do battle with less of them.

Imperial ships had a maneuverability advantage. He could bring battle to one of their flanks and thus have to deal with less Tau ships at the same time.

"Acceleration change in enemy formations," Sensors reported.

Hmm, gamma was retreating from him. Well, that was to be expected. They would try to rotate their formation to keep him boxed into the center. But again, Imperial ships had a maneuverability advantage and he could still bring the Tau flanking formation to battle without the others.

"Hold your course and notify me of any changes. Alert level two for the next hour. "

The General Quarters sign disappeared. It would take nearly two hours to get into range and it wouldn't do to wear out his fleet's crew early.

~one hour later~
Rear Admiral Quaker sipped his cup of recaf, watching the holo-plot.

The Cra System Fleet, so he had designated it after hastily acquiring the meager local defence forces, was sailing past formation delta, the other arm of the Tau flanking forces. The plotter was good and the Imperial ships went past barely outside firing range.

Not that entering the range would have helped. With their differences in velocity, and the Imperial fleet still matching accelerations with Tau formation gamma to maintain their intercept, both fleets would have gotten at most a single salvo off at each other with horrendous accuracy.

No, they were safe from formation delta even though passing within spitting distance of the foul xenos made his hair curl.

Quaker sipped his cup of recaf. Yes, definitely safe.

~half hour later~
The General Quarters was back on. Formation gamma was fast approaching ahead as the Imperial fleet bore down on it.

"Change in enemy acceleration. "

Quaker consulted the plot again. Formation gamma was still retreating at full acceleration, but delta and beta were breaking from their positions in the Tau original flanking maneuver and heading directly for him.

Hmph, if they took that long to finally figure out what Quaker was doing, as simple as it was, the xenos commander must be really dense. That bode well.

Still, he would have to end the fight quickly or attempt to bull his way through formation gamma. A long protracted battle would see the enemy close in from his back and port flank and that would be the end of his fleet.

"Full military power, raise shields. Execute maneuver plan alpha. "

Plan Alpha put his own flagship, the only one with a nova cannon in the fleet, behind the actual wall of battle. Far from being cowardly, Quaker knew that the nova cannon was his fleet's ace card. The Tau had nothing that could match its range and firepower and he had to use it to destroy key enemy capital ships to ensure a quick battle over formation gamma.

The Imperial formation shifted subtly, ships moving into their positions in the wall, as the fleet much less subtly pounced forward at high acceleration. Once within range, the wall would turn as one to present broadsides and the contest of strength would begin in earnest. A completely unimaginative and classical formation that had existed since the early days of the Imperium.

But Quaker believed strongly in dishing out as much pain as he could before the Cra system fleet was finally destroyed. And no fancy maneuver, like the one the Tau attempted, could match the Wall in terms of maximum forward firepower. To whatever was unfortunate enough to be in front of the wall, there was no vulnerable flank to strike at, no point of failure to exploit. Just endless rows of macrocannon and lance batteries.
The strike craft could have the sides, there would be no space in the center where the concentrated fire from both sides would utterly shred everything in sight. Just a plain brawl of brute strength, one the Imperium had the advantage in.

Of course, not even a dead simple plan like this would survive unaltered once the chaos of battle began. But that was why Quaker sat in this chair.

The chaos of battle began quite alot earlier than he had planned.

"Missile launch! Energy weapon signatures! Formation gamma, beta, delta!"

The alarmed voices of his officers snapped Quaker's wandering gaze back to the plot.

That... the Tau were firing from three times the range of his nova cannon! How in the world did they expect to get any hits at that kind of range?! Even the 'dense' Wall formation of the Imperial fleet was still more empty space than ship.

He had the sinking feeling that they did expect to score hits. And looking at the geometry of the Tau formations, they were indeed set up to put him right in the center of their flanking maneuver... if they had four times more range than he expected.

He wondered why formation delta didn't fire when he passed them, since he was almost certainly inside their range. When the answer occurred to him, Quaker also figured out why there hadn't been any survivors to give close-range reports of the previous Tau battles.

[jseah]

People keep quoting warp travel as unreliable and messy.

Thing is, you can't run an empire with unreliable travel. There wouldn't be merchant vessels at all if warp travel was really unreliable.

Maybe a week or two variation in travel time, maybe +- 10% of hyperlimit size in arrival error. Those are tolerable, but at the same time doesn't do anything to prevent fleets from avoiding battle.

Most especially since a jump to and from interstellar space is implied to be possible.

[The Glyphstone]

It's not completely unpredictable, just not certain, and it heavily depends on the skill of your Navigator. That's the real crux of the issue, that Warp travel is ultimately something that isn't just bound to technology, math, and probability, but has an inescapable subjective and personal element to it. The crappy ship with the genius Navigator will arrive closer to their intended point than an awesome ship with a mediocre Navigator, and Navigators are notoriously quirky mutants.

There are variances, like you said, but it's like a bell curve. Most ships get there within the projected time, assuming their Navigators are competent. Almost all ships get there within a reasonable spread, though this can still end up as 'too late' for what they were trying to do. Once in a while ships arrive before they left, or a few centuries late, or never arrive period after being devoured by hell demons. Generally, the Imperium compensates for this with volume....if 1% of of all merchant vessels get lost en route, they just send 102% of the needed number of ships, and the ones who are unlucky to be in that 1%...sucks to be them.

[jseah]

It needs to be less than 1% from every factor combined (not just warp accidents). Inefficient as the Imperial economy is.

If it takes 100 trips for a merchant vessel to ship everything needed to build another merchant vessel (including fuel to move the ship, food for workers and luxury items for corrupt bureacrats to buy with bribes), then you can have 1% losses and just about break even... if you build absolutely nothing else.
Anything more than that, well, you can't even replace lost ships.

In any case, I somehow doubt it takes that little. Hive worlds have to be fed (with hundreds? of shiploads of food from agriworlds), and I don't recall them launching a dozen freighters every month. Not to mention the materials needed to get to Forgeworlds for parts, and parts to get to Hiveworlds and all sorts of logistical problems.
You'd expect a ship to last maybe half a century, break even maybe at 200-300 trips after classical imperial inefficiency, with an average ship making ~800 trips over its lifetime (average travel time = 3 weeks).

[Selrahc]

Trade happens on well mapped routes, with caution taken at every step. It seems to be reliable enough. These probably account for 90% of all warp travel, where the dangers are *relatively* mundane. Transit of Imperial Guard troops to war zones often happens on trade fleets, in non-urgent circumstances.

Going for speed is unreliable. Going on an alternate route is unreliable. Going into a warp disturbance is unreliable. Rogue Traders, Imperial Admirals and Settlers will often need to deal with any or all of those issues.

[jseah]

Gavinfoxx: Dat null rod is interesting. Power weapons in general are really hard to explain.

I think I'll make them a minor warp effect so I can have the Culture "discover" how to make it now and still have it make sense.

part 18.5 Tomis Regnea - Extra

Spoiler

Show

Week 3, Day 1
An interview with an ex-government official at Miltor
Tomis: Sit down please.
Gendar: Thank you.

Tomis: You might be familiar with this Inqusition badge. This conversation never took place, you were never here.
Gendar: I... I see. Uh, what can I do for you?

Tomis: I just need to ask a few questions. I understand you were the Administrator for Economic Development just a few weeks ago?
Gendar: Yes, that I was. Until this Seb Transstellar decided to muscle in and manipulate our political process.

Tomis: They manipulated the local politics? How?
Gendar: It really started with some unrest on the issue about unregulated farms. People were building their own farms practically in our own backyard without any sort of oversight or regards to local ecosystems. I tried to control it but that must have pissed off Seb Transstellar.
The next thing I knew, I had all my best people reassigned to other departments. Good old Harris, a long time friend of mine, was forcibly transferred against his expressed will. Could anyone blame me if my department then failed to meet efficiency requirements? Especially with an unplanned surprise audit to disrupt operations. But they used it as an excuse to get rid of me!

Tomis: Who is this 'they'?
Gendar: I'm not sure of the exact details, but I am certain from my own sources that this money definitely originated from Seb Transstellar's out-system office. I have a good idea of whose hands were greased with thrones. I... would prefer not to point fingers without sufficient evidence. After all, its a closed chapter of my life.

Tomis: What sources are these and how do you know that?
Gendar: Look, I can't go around revealing names like that, alot of people could get-

Tomis: *nudges the Inquisitor badge and coughs* Alot of people are already in trouble. You would best cooperate.
Gendar: I- okay, I give. I'll tell you. Would it be fine if I sent you a list of names? I don't know them all off the top of my head.

Tomis: *nods* All right, what can you tell me about how Seb Transstellar organizes its political connections?
Gendar: Seb Transstellar is alot like all the other Transstellars out there. Not something I would expect from a Rogue Trader. I give you that they're alot better at predicting economics that the others, but they're organized the same way. An out-system headquarters gives directives to local office by courier and sets targets for them to achieve, and the local office implements plans to do that. Every local office knows everyone relevant at each system, as a necessity of operation and to reduce regulatory bottlenecks.
Seb Transstellar has never given an outright bribe that I have seen or heard of though. Oh, I know people here and there accept the odd packet of thrones; it's not my policy but well, I understand if some have weaker minds and faith. Still, it is unusual to see a company of this size without having a few dealings. But as far as I know, Seb Transstellar's bribes are always circumspect, they're never in actual thrones. They give you something you want, you give them what they want. That's how they work. And they never make an illegal arrangement.

Tomis: How so?
Gendar: Change the law so its not illegal anymore. Or in my case, remove anyone who tries to stand in their way. It's quite a simple and direct approach. Not something that any company, no matter how powerful, could possibly do. But they somehow manage it, if what I hear from Rathi system is accurate.

Tomis: How could they change the law so fast? I thought your government does not work that quickly?
Gendar: It can work quickly, if everyone agrees. I think they were all trying to sell me out to Seb Transstellar. It didn't like my trying to check on the independent farmers, because they were the ones buying fertilizer from a subsidiary company set up by one of their techpriests who quit. I don't know what kind of backroom deals they had to cut to get rid of me, but I felt like I was put in a tank full of sharks.
There have been a few recent law changes that rammed through so fast I think they were responsible. They're de-fanging the government watchdogs so they have free reign to do whatever they want.

Tomis: I am aware they approached you to discuss something private. What was it?
Gendar: That was not a nice meeting. I... okay, okay, I'll talk. Look, I just went into a room and two businessmen from their company came to talk to me. They weren't outright rude you know, but I'm the Administrator for Economic Development! They just... are so full of themselves. Like I didn't even matter. And the scary part was, it turned out to be true. They had everything in place to get rid of me and just decided to come threaten me with it.
They told me to remove the checks I had put in place to safeguard everyone from rogue farmers. Not even a please or nicety about it. They demanded a government official bend regulations for them! They never said what would happen to me if I didn't, and at the time I thought they were crazy to threaten me like that, but it would appear that my assessment of them was wrong.
It's their attitude that's the problem. Seb Transstellar thinks the good Emperor's citizens are blind and immoral. Only they see the way forward and the rest of us don't matter at all. I don't know what they're doing or how I think this, but my gut feeling is that they're aiming for more than just profit. They're not earning as much thrones as they can. There's something larger they're looking at that we are nothing but inconvenient obstacles in their way. I mean, what Transstellar opens a school for the poor? That won't earn anything.

Tomis: Thank you very much, I believe I have heard enough. Please wait a moment while I talk to my assistant. Emerit?

A question. How well does the average netizen read between the lines?
I hope I haven't been too subtle with this one.

[Gavinfoxx]

Null rods aren't cure-alls, though. They have limited anti-warp effect, and can be overloaded. They are one of the better portable anti-psyker solutions, though.

Here's how I would do it: as they cross-reference The List and what the Eldar are teaching their one psyker with the list of psychic equipment that the Grey Knights have access to, they are slowly whitelisting various defensive equipment from the Grey Knight's arsenal, that they hadn't been using before. They were mostly just using Hexagrammic Wards and other passive engraved wards of various types, I believe -- but they are now going to weirder and weirder defenses, especially as they start understanding Eldar runes as well, yes?


I'm a below-average netizen at reading between the lines (asperger's). Can anyone tell me what's going on in a spoiler block?

[jseah]

Why don't you tell me what you think is going on and I'll see if I can clarify some things.

RE power weapons:
I wasn't quite talking about the Null Rods' anti-warp effect. While useful, it's not that good.
It was more Power Weapons in general having the ability to disintegrate matter. Right through power-armour with a bloody sword edge.

It would not be beyond the Culture's abilities to build and hurl a kinetic weapon sheathed in a powerfield for use in no-hyperspace zones (like troublesome warp artifacts).

Might also have knock-on effects, especially as a low-tech solution to gift to other factions. If the Culture can supply large quantities of power-field generators (which are presumably expensive), they can enable their use as ammunition. Very deadly kinetic ammunition that burn straight through armour.


Your point about warp defences like hexgrammic wards is good too though. I'll think about it.

[Gavinfoxx]

If you REALLY want to impress someone in 40k, come up with bolter ammo, grenade launcher ammo, rpg ammo, missile ammo, reaper launcher ammo, etc. etc. that uses a power field for armor piercing... and then causes a plasma explosion.

Also, I find it odd that the Culture WOULDN'T come into the game with something equivalent that they use for mining or whatever. After all, 'Power Fields' are just more powerful versions of shock fields, really, it's just charging a melee weapon with some sort of sci fi energy, and they don't disintegrate EVERYTHING. To do that, you need Necron or C'tan stuff, I think. Whatever the Necron use in their Warscythes, I suppose. That's better than Power Fields -- all technological, gets through demon armor too.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warscythe
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/C'tan_Phase_Weapon
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Necron_Wargear

Though some of the specific unique power weapons that exist might be better than whatever a warscythe uses.

[jseah]

If the Culture needs to extract local matter, they can just displace it out of the asteroid/planet and form it into what they need via effectors. The useless silicate rock can be transmuted too.


Also, what are these shock fields are you talking about?

[Gavinfoxx]

Shock weapon:

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

Some power weapons canonically have low power settings that function as shock weapons, I mean.

[jseah]

part 18.5 Tomis Regnea

Spoiler

Show

Week 3, Day 2
I wonder if Emerit can hold out. She understands how important this is. Still, the interviews are going one by one.

A woman by the name of Meru is next. I wonder why Emerit said she was key, but supposedly she is one of the major nodes that touch all that the company recruits here.

-------------------

The Interview
Emerit

She tried to avoid looking at the corner. Whatever that thing was.

The next woman came in, one that Emerit had previously said was crucial for the web of social relations. It was hard to remember exactly why that woman was important, not when Emerit had been struggling to avoid using the warp. And that warp sense of social relations informed her.

It made her mind feel small but she couldn't afford to use any more power than necessary. Not even the tiny amounts used for thinking in the warp.

All right, last one then. No matter what Tomis wanted, Emerit would have to stop after this woman or risk Very Bad Things. Tomis hadn't seen it yet, but Emerit could feel the... Things. Nibbling at the edge of reality.

She could still hold them back. For now. At least if she stopped soon.


The woman came in. She was so young! Barely more than a girl. The others higher up in the power structures were all older, except for one untimely heir of a noble family.

But it was immediately obvious to Emerit as she opened up her warp sense again. The woman's shining loyalty and... something more. Seb Transstellar was more than just a good employer or business partner to her.
Her connections to the other employees were strong and it was clear that alot of gossip and connections flowed through her. Emerit remembered why she was important now, a majority of the subtle manipulations would flow through this woman.

As Master launched into his prepared series of questions, Emerit fumbled around the woman's warp presence, seeking some way to remove the loyalty. It was going to be hard to do this without killing her.

Emerit signalled to Master with one of their pre-arranged almost unnoticeable signals. It would be a risk. As exhausted as Emerit was, trying to pry off Meru's deepseated loyalty without shattering her mind would be a tricky task. If Emerit made a mistake, the Things might be able to break through.

And it would still kill the woman anyway. Or worse.

Master thought for a moment. Then the return query came back. If Emerit simply destroyed the woman's mind, she would almost certainly not cause a warp catastrophe. The question was if killing the woman would have the desired effect on the social web, sometimes it was more effective to let the adjusted people remain to work against the fabric.

Emerit spent a measure of power to cast a minor divination and analysis. Her concentration slipped for a split second, and she gulped nervously as the hexagrammic wards around her collar flared. The Things chittered greedily but Emerit suppressed them. That was not a good sign, but at least there hadn't been any chance she would lose control.

The dreaded answer. Yes. It would be just as effective if Meru died. Emerit sighed, knowing that Master would know what that meant. She did not like killing and Master knew that too. Go ahead was the reply.

Emerit reached out across the warp and hesitated. The woman was innocent but despite the knowledge that sacrifice was laudable, Emerit still failed to do it. Was it really the right thing to do? When the company had done so much? After all, its only crime had been to be too efficient. Suspiciously efficient, but no evidence of xenos or any other problems had been uncovered.

Master repeated his "go" signal. Emerit gulped again and steeled herself. Master knew best. The woman's sacrifice worked for the greater good. Her soul would be with the Emperor.

She reached out and tugged. And nothing happened. Meru continued to chat, her warp signature continued to exist as it was. Emerit blinked. She tugged on the mental strings again, harder, making sure to break a few.
Again nothing happened. The strings snapped back into position, as if... no, they weren't even going back, they were reappearing.

Emerit looked around, nervously looking at the corners of the room. They were still brightly lit and blood wasn't oozing out from under the door. That was strange. She brushed a metaphorical blade through the woman's mind, shredding- the woman stumbled in her speech, looking confused- but the mind-strings bounced back as fast as they were destroyed.

How?! Master's signal taps went unheeded. The woman *must* have been killed. There was no way anyone could have survived that, not when she did not even feel any resistance, any defence.

She stood up suddenly, interrupting the interview. Emerit simply had to find out what was going on. Without any warning, she threw a blinding bolt of lightning at the woman... and the world vanished into pure inky blackness, the lightning bolt arcing into empty void.

"geh-" Emerit choked a little. Whatever this was, she still seemed to be thinking straight, and this would certainly qualify as a Bad Thing. She pulled out the blessed ritual dagger.

There was an instant of wondering how she still managed to see her hand even when everything else was pure black when the dagger vanished just before she was about to plunge it into her heart. Oh, that wasn't good.

The inky blackness was abruptly replaced by an even greyness of psychic dampening wood and Emerit's warp sense went dead, apart from the constant buffeting waves of interfering psychic power from a very familiar crystal formation.

When was it she last saw that? On the Black Ship that took her to Sol. Well, at least that was a sign she hadn't been possessed. She hoped anyway.

"Pardon for the interruption," a cool androgynous voice spoke from thin air. Emerit glanced around but didn't see anyone. The voice continued, "But I do believe we need to talk. "

[Gavinfoxx]

OOooohhh, that's great! I've been waiting for that! =D =D

Keep up the good work!

[linkhyrule5]

That was mildly amusing. I see the Culture has decided to step in.

But why, oh why, must you end on a cliffhanger? :p.

[Forrestfire]

The plot continues to thicken. jseah must have added cornstarch.

As always, great update, and I can't wait to see the next one.

[Rakaydos]

I dont know if this was covere in the last 3 threads, but what is the Culture's responce to the Aggressive Organic Hegemizing Swarms of the 40k galaxy? As I recall, the "typical" Cultire responce to that is to alter them into Evangelical Hegimizing Swarms. (so, Tyranid Jehova witnesses. "Would you like to become part of one of the greatest psychic presences in the galaxy? Yes? *munch*)

[The Glyphstone]

So far, the response has been to exterminate them like the vermin that they are.

[jseah]

The extermination response is for two reasons:
1. They have only contacted Tyranids while they were attacking IoM systems.
2. All efforts to communicate with them have been futile.

Extermination has been necessary to avoid them Hegemonizing IoM and other populations.

[Gavinfoxx]

They should know by now that the Tyranids communicate psychically... and they would need a very, very specialized type of psychic to communicate with them, right?

[Tychris1]

They should know by now that the Tyranids communicate psychically... and they would need a very, very specialized type of psychic to communicate with them, right?

They could always just hijack a Tyranid Synapse creature (Ranging from a Warrior to a Hive Tyrant, they all have varying levels of independence) and mess around with its brain in order to get that specialized psyker.

Considering how effortlessly they seem to eradicate them, taking one hostage seems easy enough (Especially when Inquisitor Kryptman did it with IoM technology, and even performed tests with them, such as the Jurassic Park joke of "They can only see you when you move" with Ravenors).

[The Glyphstone]

Personally, I like the Culture/Tyranid relationship the way they are, for how it characterizes the overall tone of the story. In 40K, the Tyranids are an unstoppable, apocalyptic threat slowly looming closer and closer - they can't be negotiated with, can't be wiped out, can only be delayed or driven back temporarily in the long run. In Cultureverse, their equivalents are a pest control problem, easily exterminated if they can't be talked with. Maybe the Culture could forge a chat link directly with the Hive Mind, but all it should find is either unrelenting hostility at any cost, and/or animalistic fear (my personal unsupported fanon is the Tyranids are fleeing en masse from something even scarier). And in the absence of the ability to negotiate, they can just wipe them clean from the galaxy like they have been, underscoring just how far advanced Culturetech is in that it can effortlessly solve an existential threat to the entire setting.

[Rakaydos]

Hmm... been reading through and am halfway through the second thread.

It seems like every time the emperor, sanguinius, or Guliman are mentioned, it's in terms of a full ressurection. But with Culture tech, that isnt actually necessary.

Say they crack Guliman's stasis, and upload his brain scan. Then they play his persona as a virtual construct. If he turns out to be too much of a ****, they dont bother giving him a body ever.

[Spamotron]

The idea of saving Guliman is to use him to stabilize the Imperium. In this fic when the Culture reloads a Psyker they aren't a Psyker anymore afterwards. Without his Primarch level Psyker abilities to prove to the Imperium that he is indeed the real Guliman and not some Chaos or Eldar trick no one will listen to him. So if the Culture breaks his stasis they need to cure his original body before he dies to the Warp Poison otherwise there's really no point to the exercise.

If the Culture masters stasis tech to the level of the Necrons (which they probably will eventually) they could try to breaks Guliman's stasis take a neural reading and then re-stasis him before the Warp Poison kills him. But that's mixing Guliman's own Psyker Nature, the Warp Poison and precision Temporal Manipulation in a very unpredictable fashion. That's a tall order especially since the Culture considers a literally one in a million chance of failure an unacceptable risk.

[Douglas]

It seems like every time the emperor, sanguinius, or Guliman are mentioned, it's in terms of a full ressurection. But with Culture tech, that isnt actually necessary.

Say they crack Guliman's stasis, and upload his brain scan. Then they play his persona as a virtual construct. If he turns out to be too much of a ****, they dont bother giving him a body ever.

It's been well established that, in this fic, Culture reloading tech resets psyker ability to average normal human. I'm fairly sure that all three of those individuals have a lot of psyker power, and that this fact is a major part of their importance. Thus, there would be no point to bringing any of them back via standard reload instead of curing the existing body's ills.

Duplicating their minds as virtual constructs could potentially be a way to decide whether attempting resurrection is worthwhile, but no more than that, and it would have to be done with no risk of making the eventual resurrection impossible, and might not even work fully because of their psyker bits being too big a part of them.

[Selrahc]

Say they crack Guliman's stasis, and upload his brain scan. Then they play his persona as a virtual construct. If he turns out to be too much of a ****, they dont bother giving him a body ever.

That's an interesting idea. What an intelligence source! Conduct a full debriefing of Guilliman in VR. Regardless of whether you ultimately revent him, a lot of stuff can be found out about the dawn of the Imperium, shorn of the hagiography of Imperium sources.

[Rakaydos]

If you want a figurehead, the personality would usually be counterproductive anyway. but as an inteligence source... people talk about "emperor filling out STCs by memory" as a joke, but... if the Emperor's personality is recanted in VR, will it bring his soul with it, given the state of his body? if it doesnt, then all the knowlege of the founder of the imperium, the man who cooked up the primarchs in a lab, is available, and without his galaxy-shattering warp powers.