Warhammer 40k Fluff Discussion XII - DIS FINGY GOT NO SQUIGZ IN IT!

[Wraith]

Why do we have a fluff thread and a tabletop thread? Well, because, to put it bluntly, arguments about fluff can take up a lot of space. And that makes it hard for people to get critiques on their list. So, if you need to find out what's a good color scheme for your custom Dark Angels Successor chapter, Argue the morality of the setting yet again (Oh, how we wish you wouldn't), or even share fluff you've written for your army, here's the place.

Just remember, in the Grim Darkness of the dark future, there is only pointless bickering!

Previous Threads
I: Warning: No Fanboys Allowed ()
II: Heresy Grown From Idleness
III: Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion III: You're Emprah? Well I didn't vote for you!
IV: Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion IV
V:Warhammer 40k Fluff Discussion V - WARNING: May Contain Heresy
VI:Warhammer 40k Fluff Discussion VI - They see me Ward'en, they haten
VII: Warhammer 40k Fluff Discussion VII - "There's A Codex Entry For That"
VIII: Warhammer 40k Fluff Discussion VIII - Khorne's Most Favourite Thread EVER
IX: Warhammer 40k Fluff Discussion IX - Post-Human Centipede
X: Yippe Ki-Yay, Heretic!
XI: Juggling Idiot Balls

Last time in the Fluff Thread:
Are Astartes an efficient use of resources? What do you think the Imperium needs more; one guy who gets plasma'd in the face and dies, or 1 guy who dies to a stiff breeze and then 2,999 of his friends obliterate the sky in revenge?

And, Ork jokes: Blackhawk748 has demanded lots of them, so feel free to regale us with your best.

[Forum Explorer]

The statistic actually changes meaning by a lot if the applicant number includes all of those who try, fail, and aren't selected at all. As an example from the fluff, a tribe of deathworlders were competing to be in the Dark Angels, and some 50 applicants went through trials. In the end only 3 or 4 were selected, but I think there were only two fatalities in that initial test. And there was no stigma to failing that initial test, so the remaining 45 tribesmen went back to their lives just fine.

[Blackhawk748]

Look at dis shiny new thread

[DataNinja]

Look at dis shiny new thread

Too shiny. We need to cover it in red paint. That makes the conversation go faster, right?

...except we need to make sure the text isn't red. That has the opposite effect.

[Blackhawk748]

But...but... Green is best. Also i need to test if putting red on bullets makes them better. For Science!!

[Bobby Baratheon]

Good thing no one can see this post . . . Now I may scheme in peace, hidden from these mindless brutes whilst I plot they're downfall! Muahahaha! Their doom approaches as we speak!!!

[LansXero]

1 thousand millions to make 1 million space marines... inst that close to 2k earth population? We are no hive world, so we're nowhere near to the overpopulated ones in the imperium, and it spans the entire galaxy. So thats pretty irrelevant

[bluntpencil]

1 thousand millions to make 1 million space marines... inst that close to 2k earth population? We are no hive world, so we're nowhere near to the overpopulated ones in the imperium, and it spans the entire galaxy. So thats pretty irrelevant

And that's assuming all failures or overlooked individuals die - they generally don't.

[LeSwordfish]

Another question I had - what did the non-istvaan legions do with their loyalists? We know that all the loyalists in the first four chapters were virus bombed - or, that was the plan- and the Thousand Sons didn't really turn at all, but what about those in the Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Alpha Legion, and Word Bearers? Did no loyalists from those legions escape with a warning whatsoever, or did 0% of those legions remain loyal?

[Wraith]

1 thousand millions to make 1 million space marines... inst that close to 2k earth population? We are no hive world, so we're nowhere near to the overpopulated ones in the imperium, and it spans the entire galaxy. So thats pretty irrelevant

One thousand million is 1 billion. And from the sources we have so far, it's a number actually closer to being between 2 billion (Imperial Fists) and 10billion (Grey Knights).

The low-ball estimate is more than half of all Earth's (which by 40k standards is a medium-sized Civilised World) male population. And I don't know about you, but I don't think that a quarter of all the people I have ever known are suitable Astartes candidates...

But anyway, that's besides the original point, maybe. The question was, could the Crusade have ever succeeded with Astartes, or were they flawed from the start. I think we've quite reasonably decided that no, the Crusade would have been far more successful if only humans had been involved (certainly by the point of the Heresy), BUT having said that Astartes are good value if you are using them properly and in the roles that they are actually suited for, not just lining them up against each other and waiting for them to all maim each other. Which only one or two of the Primarchs were doing sometimes.

[Grim Portent]

Another question I had - what did the non-istvaan legions do with their loyalists? We know that all the loyalists in the first four chapters were virus bombed - or, that was the plan- and the Thousand Sons didn't really turn at all, but what about those in the Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Alpha Legion, and Word Bearers? Did no loyalists from those legions escape with a warning whatsoever, or did 0% of those legions remain loyal?

The Word Bearers killed most of their loyalists over the course of several decades leading up to the Heresy itself, quietly murdering them where no one would notice anything amiss.

The Night Lords probably had barely any loyalists anyway, and would have just flat out butchered them after turning. Squad loyalty was never their strong point, so any loyalist was probably surrounded by people who would happily kill them for a kit-kat already.

Iron Warriors I think a few did break away and try to stay loyal. Haven't they got a HH character who's just a loyalist commander?

Alpha Legion, well who really knows? They were possibly the most disciplined and loyal to their primarch of all Legions considering the stuff they would do for him like being surgically altered and indoctrinated to infiltrate other legions at the expense of their own personalities, it's possible even the loyalists continued to serve Alpharius out of trust and loyalty to him over loyalty to the Emperor or Horus. Failing that I bet they would have just been quietly killed.

[Wraith]

The Word Bearers killed most of their loyalists over the course of several decades leading up to the Heresy itself, quietly murdering them where no one would notice anything amiss.

That was also the purpose of Calth. The weakest members of the Word Bearers - the Traitors who weren't very good at it and the potential Loyalists who might waver or fail if pushed too hard, even if by Lorgar - were intentionally selected so as to die in Ultramar.

Iron Warriors I think a few did break away and try to stay loyal. Haven't they got a HH character who's just a loyalist commander?

You are thinking of Warsmith Barabas Dantioch, I believe. He stayed loyal, and was the one responsible for the pyrrhic destruction of the Pharos machine.

Alpha Legion, well who really knows? They were possibly the most disciplined and loyal to their primarch of all Legions considering the stuff they would do for him like being surgically altered and indoctrinated to infiltrate other legions at the expense of their own personalities, it's possible even the loyalists continued to serve Alpharius out of trust and loyalty to him over loyalty to the Emperor or Horus. Failing that I bet they would have just been quietly killed.

The Alpha Legion is weird, in that Alpharius/Omegon might have been loyal all along and were just playing their part. To try and guess where the loyalties of any individual part of their Legion might have fallen at any given time is a labyrinthine exercise in second-guessing and perspective.

=====

I've just learned that a new novel is being published, and it's all about one of my favourite Chapters: The Carcarodons, aka, Space Sharks!

....Problem is, the front cover looks like this:

Spoiler

Show

I really want to read about Carcharodons and the Night Lords murdering each other to death.... but holy crap, the artwork on that book is hideous. Just LOOK at the anatomy of that guy!

His left arm is foreshortened into a tiny little stub. His right forearm is half as long as his bicep. His hips are facing forward but his shoulders are rotated to 90 degrees as though he has no spine. His torso is nearly 5 times longer than his head ("Vitruvian Man" by Leonardo Da Vinci shows that it should be 2.5-3 times) He has teeny, tiny little child-like hands that are supposed to be thick with armoured gauntlets. He clearly can't raise his arms above his head, which itself is so short and stunted that, were he wearing a helmet, his eyes wouldn't reach the eye-holes. And he clearly can't touch his own hands in front of his chest.

I'm no professional artist, I freely admit, and I know that Astartes are supposed to be exaggerated representations of human beings.... but Christ on a bike, that artwork is BAD.

[Grim Portent]

That Night Lord in the background doesn't look too good either.

His arms looks lopsided, his helmet looks distorted (it looks like it's supposed to be based off the Forgeworld Raptors helmet,) his pistol looks wafer thin, his legs look... weird is all I can think of to describe that.

I can't decide if the biggest problems here are proportions or perspective.

[Destro_Yersul]

Oh hey, I think this is the first time I've inadvertantly provided a thread name. I feel honoured.

Re: cover art: Yeah, wow, that looks kinda awful. The sideways torso reminds me of some of Rob Liefeld's stuff in particular.

[Blackhawk748]

Dat art. Not even once

[13_CBS]

You are thinking of Warsmith Barabas Dantioch, I believe. He stayed loyal, and was the one responsible for the pyrrhic destruction of the Pharos machine.

According to FW's HH books, they also had Kyr Vahlen (an Iron Warriors commander who was off somewhere else when the suppression of Olympia and Isstvan V happened) and...some other fellow whose name I forgot, who turned loyalist even after having participated in Isstvan V when, during an attack with the Alpha Legion, the Alpha Legion basically betrayed them.

[lord_khaine]

Compared to the rate humans breed? It's nothing.

Actually humans breed rather slowly, slower than just about any other mammal you can mention. And it does not matter to much. What matters is that genes are selectively being removed from the pool.

By your argument the space marines are actually beneficial then, because the alternative would be removing hundreds of thousands of the best people to use as guardsmen.

No, thats your argument. And its holding because A), those people are being removed anyway, B) only those that die are removed from the pool, C) Its not the best people used as guardsmen, its those that are spare.

[Hiro Protagonest]

One thousand million is 1 billion. And from the sources we have so far, it's a number actually closer to being between 2 billion (Imperial Fists) and 10billion (Grey Knights).

The low-ball estimate is more than half of all Earth's (which by 40k standards is a medium-sized Civilised World) male population. And I don't know about you, but I don't think that a quarter of all the people I have ever known are suitable Astartes candidates...

There aren't 1 million Imperial Fists. It's 1 million Space Marines for the Imperium's billion planets. Plus, that's assuming Civilized Planet. There are also hive worlds.

Actually humans breed rather slowly, slower than just about any other mammal you can mention. And it does not matter to much. What matters is that genes are selectively being removed from the pool.

2000 people every ten years is a tiny, tiny fraction of that. And I believe others have already tried to tell you that no, the genes aren't important. I haven't look into the scientific field enough to say. Even if they somehow are, again, tiny, tiny fraction.

No, thats your argument. And its holding because A), those people are being removed anyway, B) only those that die are removed from the pool, C) Its not the best people used as guardsmen, its those that are spare.

A) And if they're guardsmen, it's a hell of a lot more of them
B) The Imperial Guard specializes in attrition meatgrinders
C) Guardsmen tithes are selected from the best soldiers of a planet's defense force. Only planets like Cadia are allowed to send "spares"

[Brookshw]

Actually humans breed rather slowly,

This leaves me wondering, how quickly do Tau....breed? Copulate? Multiply? Show themselves as an emperor-less heathen mass expanding by the imperiums grace so that our noble citizenry may see their impure faces and know the righteous desire to cleanse with fire?

[Wraith]

There aren't 1 million Imperial Fists. It's 1 million Space Marines for the Imperium's billion planets. Plus, that's assuming Civilized Planet. There are also hive worlds.
2000 people every ten years is a tiny, tiny fraction of that. And I believe others have already tried to tell you that no, the genes aren't important. I haven't look into the scientific field enough to say. Even if they somehow are, again, tiny, tiny fraction.

I believe you misunderstand me. I meant that, to create 1 million Marines according to the Imperial Fist source that Cheesegear cited - 2000 candidates per Marine - not to create 1 million Imperial Fists. Similarly, that's just what is necessary to create the current existing Astartes - it does not also include the uncountable millions(?) who have died over the 10 millenia between 30 and 40k.

Also, could I please ask where you got the "every 10 years" from? Because different Chapters have different conscription rates than others, ranging from "constant" to "once every few grown generations", and that's a strange average to pick.

Thirdly, you're hugely underestimating the effect of cumulative genetic progress through the human species. Case in point; a 2003 study showed that 8% of men in what used to be the Mongol Empire share a common Y-chromosome, which has further spread to include approximately 0.5% of every person on the planet. It is believed that man was Ghengis Khan, who was known to have at least 40 recognised sons (not including daughters and bastards) who also went on to procreate in fantastic abundance.
An extreme example, yes. However, if it's true then it means that 1,000 years later, Ghengis Khan (or at least someone around his era) potentially has 35million living descendants with traceable DNA, discounting the pyramid of people who have since lived and died, possibly childless.

Now, assume that instead of one guy with strong genetics, it was 2billion strong, healthy, intelligent people donating their prime DNA back to the human race over ten times the timespan. It suggests a huge number of offspring over many, many generations with superior genetics contributing to that of the Imperium, and again add in the 'pyramid' of those who lived before and since doing the same thing - I don't think that's an insignificant number, and it's increasing the average of human genetic efficiency along the way.

[Cheesegear]

I believe you misunderstand me. I meant that, to create 1 million Marines according to the Imperial Fist source that Cheesegear cited - 2000 candidates per Marine - not to create 1 million Imperial Fists.

Correctly, it's 2000 10 year-olds, to create 3 Neophytes, 2 of whom died while Scouts. It's also really, really, really important to point out that the Imperial Fists didn't just murder 1997 children. They sent most of them back into the population.

Also, could I please ask where you got the "every 10 years" from? Because different Chapters have different conscription rates than others, ranging from "constant" to "once every few grown generations", and that's a strange average to pick.

Every 10 years actually does makes sense; You skim off the current 10-12 year-olds, you take a look at the 8-9 year-olds to see if there are any of those you should take for later. Now that you have the current 'crop', you don't have to come back for a while. Since your recruitment age is 10 years old, you can come back exactly ten years later and get the next crop. But, 'constant', means once every three years or so (9-12 year olds, come back three years later and get the next ones), or, 1-3 times per decade.

If you live on a planet like Fenris, where the population isn't actually that big, then the Wolves might come down every 20-30 years (once a generation) to grab some little kids.

What we do know, is that even though the Marines do this, and skim the best and brightest off any given planet, is that the Imperium hasn't backslid into something worse. The thing holding back the Imperium isn't Marine recruitment rates. What's holding back the Imperium is the Ecclesiarchy and Mars' stranglehold on technology; Thinking for yourself is bad.

[LansXero]

I really liked the 1d4chan approach of "technology sucks because the theoretical basis for it are gone, and people only preserva knowledge through rite and repetition." When you are handling world-destroying weapons, you dont wanna try to re-discover the basics through trial and error. Specially because the imperium is at all times under siege, with ever increasing demands for working vehicales, ships, weapons, titans, etc. What time is there for academic re-discovery? What progress can be done without a solid base of understanding, that isnt also incredibly reckless and potentially lethal?

[Cheesegear]

What time is there for academic re-discovery? What progress can be done without a solid base of understanding, that isnt also incredibly reckless and potentially lethal?

There's heaps of time. Except you have to do your academic research in secret where nobody can find you. When you eventually do invent something new, it must work 100%, every time, with minimal to no risk. Once you've got your idea up and running with no downsides, only then will Mars accept your new invention, and they can't ever find out about prototypes and failed projects, because Failure and Heresy are the same thing, and they can't officially condone alteration of an STC - because then everyone will do it.

Alternatively, give your ideas to a Space Marine Chapter. If Mars thinks a Techmarine came up with the weapon, they aren't going to say no.

[Closet_Skeleton]

one guy with strong genetics

prime DNA

superior genetics

Are we really having this discussion

More genes are lost in regular every day Meiosis than would be lost by skimming off a tiny fraction of a population.

Intelligence is part of the phenotype which is the result of a combination of hundreds of genes, all of which will be common in the general population. If you want to increase the chance of a exceptional individual popping up, you want as diverse a genepool as possible to give the most chances of every potential phenotype popping up.

Sure smart people tend to have smart kids, but they also tend to have kids with developmental disorders so culling smart people could actually increase the general effectiveness of the population, its really hard to know. You can look at basically any historical dynasty to see that intergenerational competence is incredibly variable. Just look at your own Gengis Khan example, exactly how many super conquering super warlords has this random bit of trivia led to exactly*?

If you want the phenotype of an individual to have an actual effect on the phenotypes of later generations, you have to do actual selective breeding. Which millenia of animal experiments shows to only create specialised breeds with a lot of health problems, not 'superior individuals' whatever that would even mean anyway.

They have cloning vats in 40k so they can just double every astartes candidate and throw the spare back in.



*you can probably argue 3 but none of those were literally Temujin mark 2

[Bobby Baratheon]

Is the amount of genes "lost" to Space Marine production any more "dangerous" to human genetic diversity than the amount lost through plagues, war, etc? In other words, if those one hundred (or one thousand or whatever) candidates had died to a plague instead of applying to be a space marine, would humanity (a galactic civilization with an unfathomably huge population) as a whole be any better or worse off? That's ignoring the fact that most applicants don't even die.

[LansXero]

The question was, could the Crusade have ever succeeded with Astartes, or were they flawed from the start. I think we've quite reasonably decided that no, the Crusade would have been far more successful if only humans had been involved (certainly by the point of the Heresy), BUT having said that Astartes are good value if you are using them properly and in the roles that they are actually suited for, not just lining them up against each other and waiting for them to all maim each other. Which only one or two of the Primarchs were doing sometimes.

I dont think there was every any way in which the crusade could've survived without the Astartes. You cant teleport / torpedo in guardsmen when the xeno navy has you beat and hope they'll do anything more than up the casualty count, given they are regular humans in tight spaces (so superior numbers mean nothing) vs space ninjas who live in bullet time / brutes who keep fighting even with their heads chopped off, etc.

Take one of the first fights in the HH books, the one with the spiders. Guardsmen would've been routed and trashed without so much as a chance. Or the interex. Or Ullanor.

You are probably thinking of the Imperial Guard 100 years after the start of the crusade, now able to recruit and draw resources from all the worlds the Legions have reconquered. The Imperium would've never gotten that far with just the Imperial Guard drawing manpower and resources from Terra alone.

[LCP]

Why are close-up boarding tactics necessary to win though? Couldn't you win by just having better ships, or more ships, or more, better ships?

Particularly when talking about an empire that refuses to utilise other species' technology, boarding is really not a great idea. You have to come to close quarters with an enemy spaceship that presumably has weapons with ranges that are best measured in hundreds of thousands of kilometres (if not far more - I think the fluff is inconsistent on weapon ranges in space, but for solid projectiles it can be effectively infinite if firing at a stationary or perpendicularly closing target). And the most benefit you're going to get out if it is scuttling the alien ship, since you refuse to use it - so you might as well have blown it up from range anyway.

Human ships are different of course - but then your human boarders only have to fight human crew.

[shadow_archmagi]

Didn't the spiders live on their own planet and have no technology, just really sharp hands? I feel like that's one of those scenarios where the guard would've fared better than Marines. Why not bring four weak guys without armor, as long as you're facing enemies that can kill the toughest, most heavily armored guy?

[Artanis]

I dont think there was every any way in which the crusade could've survived without the Astartes. You cant teleport / torpedo in guardsmen when the xeno navy has you beat and hope they'll do anything more than up the casualty count, given they are regular humans in tight spaces (so superior numbers mean nothing) vs space ninjas who live in bullet time / brutes who keep fighting even with their heads chopped off, etc.

Take one of the first fights in the HH books, the one with the spiders. Guardsmen would've been routed and trashed without so much as a chance. Or the interex. Or Ullanor.

You are probably thinking of the Imperial Guard 100 years after the start of the crusade, now able to recruit and draw resources from all the worlds the Legions have reconquered. The Imperium would've never gotten that far with just the Imperial Guard drawing manpower and resources from Terra alone.

IMO, the Crusade as it was operated would have had no chance without Space Marines. There are some fights that you simply cannot win without the concentration of force represented by Astartes. The oft-mentioned teleport attacks are one such example.

But that isn't the point.

The point is that without the Space Marines, the Great Crusade would not have been conducted that way, and instead, the humans presumably would've come up with some other way of doing things that would have worked out better in the end. Boarding action too difficult without super-soldiers? That's fine, just keep shooting giant guns at the target until everything aboard is dead, then let the salvage crews do the boarding. Hardened target that you can only teleport a small number of troops into? That's fine, you can just teleport in a nuke instead of super-soldiers that take years to train and equip. Enemy holes up in a mega-fortress that the Army can't breach? That's fine, because while rocks aren't free, they're sure as hell plentiful. And so forth.

[13_CBS]

Some thoughts on the necessity of Astartes to the Great Crusade:

1) It's possible that Astartes are ultimately more resource efficient than a given unit of normal humans with access to the same amount of resources:
Suppose that you have 100,000 Astartes who are as heavily and thoroughly equipped as, say, the Ultramarines Legion during the height of the Great Crusade. Suppose that the time, money, manpower, labor, and other material expenses necessary for making and maintaining such a Legion can be boiled down so that it all costs X "units" of resources.
Now suppose you have whatever number of normal humans who are well-equipped and well trained such that the time, money, manpower, labor, and other material expenses necessary for making and maintaining such a group of humans also equals X "units" of resources. This means both this mortal human regiment and our hypothetical Legion "cost" the same amount of resources.

Given how powerful Astartes are portrayed in the fluff, it's possible that there were enough scenarios over the course of the Great Crusade that a Legion fulfilling its objectives costs the Imperium only 1% of X units of resources, while the mortal human regiment would have to expend 5% of X units of resources to achieve the same goal. Yes, the mortal human regiment could throw more bodies or munitions at the objective (assuming there were no "capture this thing intact" scenarios), but after a certain point that becomes resource-inefficient. What if by time you can burn through that giant Xeno death-ship's hull you've melted all your ships' firing mechanisms for their lances, and there's so many mortal human bodies clogging up the death-ship's corridors that your troops can't meaningfully board it anymore? And so forth.

If the Imperium were wanting for resources, especially during the early-mid stages of the Crusade, it's possible that the Astartes were simply the most resource-efficient way of conquering the galaxy or even that the Imperium would have run out of men and materiel before they could finish the Great Crusade had they not had something like the Astartes.

2) Related to the above: I find it reasonable to think that, after a certain point, humans under the command of the Emperor would flat out refuse to keep sending their sons and daughters into horrifying meat grinders. Sure, maybe those Black Judges could be overcome if you keep throwing enough regiments of mortal humans at it...but after a certain point when entire populations of Imperial planets are sorely lacking in working adults due to conscription, people are gonna get pissed off.

Of course, the Imperium never was a democracy even in its golden years, but even tyrants can't piss off too many of their subjects lest they get mass rebellions. By creating a separate "warrior-race" who can tackle the really brutal battles of the Great Crusade, you can keep the populace somewhat more under control.

-

Of course, as Wraith points out the fact that half the Legions rebelled kinda ruined the entire Great Crusade anyway. Sorry Emps, but if you're going to entrust the single most powerful institution in the galaxy (the Legions) to 18 guys, you better make double extra sure that those 18 guys are 100% completely loyal to you, love you, and never ever rebel.