Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion XV: You Must Be THIS Tall To Witness The Grimdark

[deuterio12]

Here is another thing. The Math cant be proven either way, so you cant really say that it wont work.
From our limited perception a lot of information travel is already instantaneous. And its not violating anything.

Indeed, because to violate it you would need to be going faster than the speed of light.

Also, no matter how fast something travel, then it will still arrive after the event took place. So i cant see where the idea of time travel comes from.
From my point of view its not more meeting your older self than looking in a mirror is.

Nowadays I expect to be paid in hard cold cash to write down proper physics explanations but I did link the other thread that has some quite nice talk on the subject and this one in particular shows a simple example of causality violation. Here, I'll directly post it and everything:

Light cones and those charts and graphs seem to me to be too abstract to get the point across to most people who aren't already familiar with the subject. Ignore light cones, graphs, lines, etc., and build up the causality violation directly from first principle:

The core principle of (special) relativity is that, no matter how fast you're traveling and in what direction, if you measure the speed of a light beam (in a vacuum) relative to yourself you will always get the same result. If this requires the physics of the universe to contort in weird ways in order to produce that result, then guess what? The universe does, in fact, contort in exactly those weird ways.

Now, take that as given and start imagining scenarios. Let's start with two spaceships a light year away from Earth, one stationary and the other traveling towards Earth at 50% the speed of light. They are at the same location, and they each notice a light beam at their location that is traveling towards Earth. The stationary one will, of course, calculate that this light beam will reach Earth one year from now. From the moving one's perspective, however, the Earth is moving towards him at 50% c (remember, all motion is relative). In his view, part of the distance will be covered by the Earth's movement, so the light beam will have less distance to travel, but the light is still traveling at the same speed as per relativity's core principle so it will take less than a year for the light beam to reach Earth.

So, these two aliens disagree about how much time will pass before the light beam reaches Earth, and this disagreement happens because one of them is moving differently from the other. And, importantly, this disagreement is a fundamental aspect of how the universe really works, not just a perceptual artifact.

Now, the aliens will obviously agree that the light beam passed each of them at the same moment because they were both there together (however briefly) when it happened. If they start calculating time as measured on Earth, they will also agree that the moment of the light beam reaching Earth happens at the same Earth time for each of them. Now consider what result each alien will get for the question "what time is it on Earth right now". The stationary alien will calculate that "now" on Earth is "one year before the light beam hits". The moving alien will calculate that "now" on Earth is "significantly less than one year before the light beam hits". Again, this result is a fundamental part of how the universe works, not merely a perceptual artifact.

Now imagine that both aliens and the Earth have infinite-speed communication devices. The stationary alien sends a message to Earth, which arrives immediately - as per the previous paragraph, it arrives one year before the light beam does. Earth forwards this message to the moving alien, and the message arrives immediately. The message was sent from Earth one year before the light beam hits, so it arrives one year before the light beam hits. But in the moving alien's frame, the light beam hitting Earth is less than a year away, which means "one year before the light beam hits Earth" is in the past! Earth's forwarded message arrives back at the observer location before it was sent!

Tada, the FTL communication device has now violated causality by sending a message into the past.

Infinite speed is an extreme case, used to make the illustration clearer, but any communication speed faster than light can be used to set up a similar scenario. As message travel speed decreases towards the speed of light, the required combination of observer speed and message distance to produce a causality violation increases, but it's always possible if the message travels at all faster than light.

[Cikomyr]

I will interrupt this beloved topic of discussion by stating that i like the Tau; they are an interesting addition to the Warhammer 40K universe.

Basically, they are literally the "newcomer race facing a massive genocidal empire, but can make alliance with other races to rally in a meaningful resistance."

Ya know, the underdog story of the protagonist race in *many* Sci-Fi stories. Like Star Control. Mass Effect. Berserker. Stargate SG-1. Stargate Atlantis. Edit: Babylon 5

I mean, its not a surprise that so many people end up rooting for the Tau; there is an entire genre of literature that is designed around rooting for the Tau equivalent.

People like seeing the underdog win. Especially when the odds of that happening are absurdly small. In any movie, seeing a normal Joe soldier defeating a squad of superpowered genetically-enhanced high tech soldiers is kind of the source of entertainment.

Absurdly impossible? Yhea.
Narratively enjoyable? Hell yhea.

[The Glyphstone]

Is it safe to say you don't like the hints/reinterpretations that greywash them into being more grimdark like everything else? I.e. mind-control helmets for Vespid, sterilizing conquered populations, that sort of nonsense? Cause I was originally on the same line as you - the Tau were fun largely because they stood out by being genuinely hopeful sorta-good guys and thus narratively doomed because of it.

[Cikomyr]

Is it safe to say you don't like the hints/reinterpretations that greywash them into being more grimdark like everything else? I.e. mind-control helmets for Vespid, sterilizing conquered populations, that sort of nonsense? Cause I was originally on the same line as you - the Tau were fun largely because they stood out by being genuinely hopeful sorta-good guys and thus narratively doomed because of it.

Its not a matter of morality, its a matter of power disparity. Regardless of who is right or wrong, we like seeing the underdog take on the big boys.

[Cheesegear]

Cause I was originally on the same line as you - the Tau were fun largely because they stood out by being genuinely hopeful sorta-good guys and thus narratively doomed because of it.

Commander Farsight is a good guy. The ruling Ethereal caste are confirmed to be a bunch of a*holes deliberately undermining their own philosophy for the sake of consolidation of power.
They knowingly break truces and deals based solely on the fact that they think they wont get caught (and then they get caught, and try and play the victim).
They blacklist and banhammer anyone who calls them out.
Their naivety about the Galaxy and the Horrors therein, got old...Then it turned into straight up stupidity.

...That said, I'm going to put it all down to GW not knowing how to write anything other than Imperium vs. Chaos, whilst handing anything remotely Aeldari over to Gav Thorpe.

Certainly, the T'au's 'Greater Good' philosophy took a hard nose-dive into Manifest Destiny, just like the Imperium. The only difference is that the Imperium goes for genocide, while the T'au go for subjugation and/or slavery...Except the Imperium also does that when the Xeno race in question doesn't actually pose a threat (e.g; Jokaero). So, are exactly what it says on the tin; An Empire. However, unlike the Imperium, they don't have an Emperor to guide them which means that they're doomed to fail...Farsight is actually content to carve out his own Enclave and go no further.

Regardless of who is right or wrong, we like seeing the underdog take on the big boys.

Only when it's earned.
There's a reason stories don't automatically cut to a 10 year-old boy beating the big bad. You have to go through a training montage and several adventures where you learn lessons before the protagonist can eventually face the big bad...Not to mention that three books into a trilogy, we're also emotionally invested in the underdog winning, because we like them. The protagonists earn the ability to beat the big bad.

[The Glyphstone]

Yeha, Farsight's a bro.

Has the origin of the Dawn Blade ever been explained, or exactly what the thing is doing to him?

[hamishspence]

As I recall, its blade is "made from chronophagic alloys which add a slain foe's remaining natural lifespan to that of its owners."


It looks kinda Necron. Perhaps it was created by them?

[Cikomyr]

Its not a matter of morality, its a matter of power disparity. Regardless of who is right or wrong, we like seeing the underdog take on the big boys.

Just so i make myself clear: i think i probably synthetized the idea while reading the Practical Guide to Evil. Just.. the narrative role of the "Young Civilization Emerging" is as a staple of the Sci-Fi genre as is the "Orphan Rising Up to Overthrow the Overlord" in the fantasy genre.

And in a way, Warhammer 40K is as good a study of the applied morality of these tropes and whether or not they actually matter when the trope is used as the Practical Guide.

In fact, the Tau being a practical form of evildoer that believe they are the Upcoming Dominant Power because of their status within the narrative is probably more interesting than if they were any genuine shade of good. Can you root for a bad guy because he opposes a bigger (but not necessarily eviler) bad guy?

Narrative-wise, they occupy a fun niche that was just absent from Warhammer 40k until they arrive. There was no promise of any sort of potential future; everyone was one the decline and stagnation. Nobody could imagine the Empire suddenly undergoing a Renaissance, Eldars making a comeback, Orks achieving anything, etc...

Even if it never actually happen in-story, the Tau are a sort of clue that there might be a story to be told in the far future, after the Imperium has fallen. Its not necessarily a story about good guys, but its a story nevertheless.

[Artanis]

Is it safe to say you don't like the hints/reinterpretations that greywash them into being more grimdark like everything else? I.e. mind-control helmets for Vespid, sterilizing conquered populations, that sort of nonsense? Cause I was originally on the same line as you - the Tau were fun largely because they stood out by being genuinely hopeful sorta-good guys and thus narratively doomed because of it.

I'm in that boat as well. The mere existence of optimism (no matter how naive, pointless, and ultimately futile) made for a nice counterpoint to the seemingly-endless deluge of "everything sucks, there's no point in trying, we're all going to die horribly anyways" that the other protagonist-aligned factions have going on.

[Cikomyr]

Only when it's earned.
There's a reason stories don't automatically cut to a 10 year-old boy beating the big bad. You have to go through a training montage and several adventures where you learn lessons before the protagonist can eventually face the big bad...Not to mention that three books into a trilogy, we're also emotionally invested in the underdog winning, because we like them. The protagonists earn the ability to beat the big bad.

But by definition and basic design of the setting, any victory against the Astartes, the Mary Sues of the setting, will never feel earned. Because they have been setup to be so darn awesome, they just can't possibly lose.

[Cheesegear]

Has the origin of the Dawn Blade ever been explained, or exactly what the thing is doing to him?

The Dawn Blade was found on Arthas Moloch.

He was fighting Orks and found a temple, which housed a huge sword and a bunch of hexagrammic talismans.
A Warp Portal opened and out came 'monsters with red skin and black horns', and the bigger ones had 'wings and great brass axes'.
Farsight was able to look directly into The Empryean and he blacked out for an unspecified amount of time.

When he woke up, his two Ethereals were both dead.
Farsight could see what was happening both with how the Daemons operated, and how they seemed to stay away from the Sword and Talismans.
Farsight orders all his Flamer-equipped dudes to burn all blood they can see, and they even get explicitly ordered not to spill anymore.
Farsight grabs the Sword and a bunch of the Talismans, cuts swathes through the Daemons - fighting thee Bloodthirsters or Daemon Princes at once, and winning - and closes the portal with the Sword and all the Amulets he could grab.

The Sword itself, is pretty clearly Necrontyr in design, and given that it's anathema to Warp-creatures...That's pretty telling. Since Farsight is easily over 300 years old at this point, not an Ethereal, nor been put in cryosleep, it's 100% certain that whatever happened on that planet, to him specifically, is what's causing his longevity.

I think the prevailing theory is that it has some sort of soul-drain effect. But since neither Necrons or T'au have souls, Farsight avoids the corrupting influence that such an artefact would normally have...Either that, or that's what the Amulets are for.

The mere existence of optimism (no matter how naive, pointless, and ultimately futile)...

T'au aren't optimists. That died in 6th (?) Ed., when the Ethereals were revealed to be as GrimDark as [real-world country].

But by definition and basic design of the setting, any victory against the Astartes, the Mary Sues of the setting, will never feel earned.

Astartes are beaten all the time. What isn't beaten, is The Imperium.
...Also, if any Faction is a Mary Sue, it's T'au. That's why nothing they do feels earned - because it isn't earned.

...And that's why only Farsight matters, because he's the only T'au character who actually shows growth and intelligence. Farsight earns the right to win. No other T'au does. Well, Sternshield also shows very clear evolution in thought, and he very much deserves everything...The meme this thread came up with, was that the reason he couldn't succeed is because his superior officer (Shadowsun) was jealous and working against him...Because none of her decisions ever made sense. Then again, she was being pretty much directly mind-controlled by Aun'Va the entire time...Until Farsight came along and said Aun'Va wasn't allowed to talk in his presence anymore.

That's why it was so frustrating for Kor'sarro to be denied his kill. He earned it. He put in the work - and Shadowsun was real dumb. Then a bunch of Assassins come out of nowhere and killsteal, cheating the entire narrative.

EDIT: ...Oh right, Darkstrider is cool, too.

[Cikomyr]

The Dawn Blade was found on Arthas Moloch.

He was fighting Orks and found a temple, which housed a huge sword and a bunch of hexagrammic talismans.
A Warp Portal opened and out came 'monsters with red skin and black horns', and the bigger ones had 'wings and great brass axes'.
Farsight was able to look directly into The Empryean and he blacked out for an unspecified amount of time.

When he woke up, his two Ethereals were both dead.
Farsight could see what was happening both with how the Daemons operated, and how they seemed to stay away from the Sword and Talismans.
Farsight orders all his Flamer-equipped dudes to burn all blood they can see, and they even get explicitly ordered not to spill anymore.
Farsight grabs the Sword and a bunch of the Talismans, cuts swathes through the Daemons - fighting thee Bloodthirsters or Daemon Princes at once, and winning - and closes the portal with the Sword and all the Amulets he could grab.

The Sword itself, is pretty clearly Necrontyr in design, and given that it's anathema to Warp-creatures...That's pretty telling. Since Farsight is easily over 300 years old at this point, not an Ethereal, nor been put in cryosleep, it's 100% certain that whatever happened on that planet, to him specifically, is what's causing his longevity.

I think the prevailing theory is that it has some sort of soul-drain effect. But since neither Necrons or T'au have souls, Farsight avoids the corrupting influence that such an artefact would normally have...Either that, or that's what the Amulets are for.

It eats souls... Like the C'Tan eat souls?

[Wraith]

There's a reason stories don't automatically cut to a 10 year-old boy beating the big bad. You have to go through a training montage and several adventures where you learn lessons before the protagonist can eventually face the big bad...Not to mention that three books into a trilogy, we're also emotionally invested in the underdog winning, because we like them. The protagonists earn the ability to beat the big bad.

*cough*cough*Descent of Angels*cough*

Sorry, something caught in my throat there. What I meant was, "this is exactly what happens in the first half of Descent of Angels and it's friggin' terrible".

It eats souls... Like the C'Tan eat souls?

Baring in mind that all of this is only heavily implied and not directly confirmed... yes. Also it's likely a reference to Necrons building Pariahs and giving them special anti-psyker/daemon weapons.

Or another school of thought is that the Dawn Blade is literally a C'Tan, possibly one called the Outsider, in the guise of/imprisoned in a sword. That's why it's able to do so many wacky and otherwise inexplicable things on a whim, why it was hidden and locked in a ruined temple, and why it scares the bejeezus out of even Bloodthirsters.

[Artanis]

T'au aren't optimists. That died in 6th (?) Ed., when the Ethereals were revealed to be as GrimDark as [real-world country].

"Are" vs. "were". They were originally pretty optimistic until, as you say, that optimism was dragged into an alley and shot.

[Drasius]

The Farsight book deals pretty heavily with his rise to fame, being effectively banished/sent on punishment crusade by the ethereals and how he gets his sword and why the Farsight enclaves became a thing.

The book itself isn't great, but there's some good background on Farsight and the circumstances around how he came to be one of the important characters.

[lord_khaine]

Nowadays I expect to be paid in hard cold cash to write down proper physics explanations but I did link the other thread that has some quite nice talk on the subject and this one in particular shows a simple example of causality violation. Here, I'll directly post it and everything:

It took me a bit to figure out what was wrong with that example, but i finally found out where its cheating.
When the alien is flying forward, and instead uses his ship as a fixed reference point, so that earth is moving towards him.
Then from that same reference point, light should only move at ½ speed in precisely the same direction as he does.
There, the beam will arrive in the same time for both, no violation happening.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It took me a bit to figure out what was wrong with that example, but i finally found out where its cheating.
When the alien is flying forward, and instead uses his ship as a fixed reference point, so that earth is moving towards him.
Then from that same reference point, light should only move at ½ speed in precisely the same direction as he does.
There, the beam will arrive in the same time for both, no violation happening.

Except that for all reference frames, light moves at c, regardless of your motion. That's the issue. For moving objects (note we speak of relative motion here--there is no preferred reference frame), the time observed for external events is slowed and lengths (in the direction of motion) are foreshortened. This is symmetric--relative to the alien, we're moving, and so our time runs slow/our lengths are shorter. For us, we say the same thing of the alien. And the time dilation/length contraction work together such that for any velocity v, the observed speed of light is c.

Seriously, you can't use ordinary Newtonian logic here. Relativity is weird.

[LCP]

You can just google 'experimental tests of special relativity', lordkhaine. It's not something that's up for debate, it's proven to pretty much the highest possible standard of scientific rigour. You're applying Galilean relativity to situations where the conclusive proof that it doesn't apply was figured out over 100 years ago.

[Cikomyr]

It took me a bit to figure out what was wrong with that example, but i finally found out where its cheating.
When the alien is flying forward, and instead uses his ship as a fixed reference point, so that earth is moving towards him.
Then from that same reference point, light should only move at ½ speed in precisely the same direction as he does.
There, the beam will arrive in the same time for both, no violation happening.

Heres the thing: speed of light breaks time and space. Speed of light is universal. Its the ultimate standard for the entire universe, no matter how fast you go; the speed of light will be constant for your own point of view.

If I am "immobile" on Earth and i shoot a laser at Mars, i will perceive the laser to move at the Speed of light; c, comparative to their "immobile" position.

If someone goes toward Mars at half the speed of light (0.5c) relative to the Earth, and they perceive the laser going from Earth to Mars; they will see the laser go.. at the speed of light; c, comparative to their "moving" position.

Perception of time and space twist when you reach the universal constant of Lightspeed. Thats the Lorentz Factor (i think). Hence why reaching the speed of light is, for all intent and purpose, impossible. You break the maths of reality when you get there.

[Silverraptor]

My god, this is just so amazing!

Spoiler

Show

[Platinius]

New Astartes video is up. Enjoy!

[Brookshw]

New Astartes video is up. Enjoy!

Wish the plasma projectiles in Space Marine (and Fallout for that matter) travelled nearly as fast as that shot did.

[Platinius]

Wish the plasma projectiles in Space Marine (and Fallout for that matter) travelled nearly as fast as that shot did.

In Space Marine, the standard shots were that fast if I remember correctly.

[Lord Torath]

Heres the thing: speed of light breaks time and space. Speed of light is universal. Its the ultimate standard for the entire universe, no matter how fast you go; the speed of light will be constant for your own point of view.

If I am "immobile" on Earth and i shoot a laser at Mars, i will perceive the laser to move at the Speed of light; c, comparative to their "immobile" position.

If someone goes toward Mars at half the speed of light (0.5c) relative to the Earth, and they perceive the laser going from Earth to Mars; they will see the laser go.. at the speed of light; c, comparative to their "moving" position.

Perception of time and space twist when you reach the universal constant of Lightspeed. Thats the Lorentz Factor (i think). Hence why reaching the speed of light is, for all intent and purpose, impossible. You break the maths of reality when you get there.

Here's a thought experiment I ran across a while back. Imagine you here on Earth, someone on, say, a planet orbiting Virgo (28 light years away), and someone on a spaceship doing 0.5 c moving at an oblique angle between the two (heading somewhere else) that is currently 20 LY from both Earth and Virgo. At time zero on Earth, it's say, 2019. We get a burst of light from Virgo b, saying it's 1375 by their calendar there (for fun, Virgo b has a year equal to ours), and adding the time it takes light to travel, we can say it's really 1403 'now'. At the same time, we receive a radio burst the ship's crew sent out saying it's year 4785 by their calendar (again, coincidentally using years the same length as ours), which we can then adjust by their distance to say it's 4805 on the ship now. So on Earth, we can say 2019 Earth = 1403 Virgo b = 4805 Ship in "instantaneous time". Simple, right?

Except that when it's 1403 on Virgo b, they're going to calculate a different "instantaneous now" for both Earth and the Ship, while using the very same method we used. They might calculate Earth's "instantaneous time" as 2018, and the ship's time as 4806. And when it's 4805 on the ship, they'll calculate Earth's time at, say, 2002, and Virgo b's as 1388.

Now I made up those "instantaneous time" dates, so I don't know that I got the relative directions of variance right, let alone the magnitudes. But the important point here is that the three reference frames cannot agree on what time it is in all the other reference frames "now". It's this disagreement of "now" that lets FTL allow time travel. By changing your reference frame (speed, acceleration, direction), you can put an event that was in your past into your future, and thus get there before it happened.

Edit: This is not to say that what Cikomyr said is wrong, but instead to give another way to visualize why you can only have two of the three: FTL, Relativity, Causality

New Astartes video is up. Enjoy!

Was that space marine shrugging off lascannon fire?!?!?

[Rizhail]

Was that space marine shrugging off lascannon fire?!?!?

A twin-linked multilaser. High power, low penetration. You can see the glowing damage spots on his armor when he backs around the corner, so he couldn't have stood in that for long.

[Voidhawk]

Was that space marine shrugging off lascannon fire?!?!?

Twinlinked Multi-laser. Strength 6, but AP 0. Basically just fires lasgun rounds very fast: perfect for mowing down light infantry, but power armour can hold off a direct hit for a few seconds with only mild damage. Which is exactly what happened.

Ships don't typically carry Lascannons as on-board armaments. They're hard to use in enclosed confines, and have a distressing tendency to punch holes straight into space.

[Forum Explorer]

Ships don't typically carry Lascannons as on-board armaments. They're hard to use in enclosed confines, and have a distressing tendency to punch holes straight into space.

This is a big reason why Space Marines have Space in their name. They make insanely good boarding parties because the high AP weapons just aren't being used due to risk of overpenetration.

[Lord Torath]

OK, I can see him possibly surviving a round of twin-linked multi-laser fire. But only if he's really lucky. How many times did he get shot? I count 17 hits (stepping through at 1/4 speed). S6 wounds T4 5 out of 6 times, and penetrates armor 1 out of 3? So each hit has a 5 in 18 chance of taking you out, which works out to 27.8%, or a 71.2% chance of surviving it. Take that to the 17^th power, and you've got a 0.4% chance of surviving that barrage. So, yeah, lucky. I mean, he'd be more likely to survive two hits from a lascannon (2.78%)! It gets worse in 2E 40k, as you've only got a 50% chance of power armor protecting you from a hit. And who knows, maybe he's using Deathwatch rules*?

Still, that's a pretty cool video.

* Probably not. Your average marine effectively has Damage Reduction 16/all and around 23 hp, and the average damage from a multi-laser hit is is 21 (2d10+10). 17 hits means around 85 points of damage get through. If the marine has DR18/all (not too hard to get a Toughness of 50+), that's still 51 points of energy damage. Also, I may be a math geek.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Nah, each roll to-hit doesn't represent a single shot, that's be at most a single volley from a single autocannon.

[Destro_Yersul]

Nah, each roll to-hit doesn't represent a single shot, that's be at most a single volley from a single autocannon.

Basically this. For the amount of time he was taking fire from that laser, the maximum total number of hits it can score under DW rules is 10. This one's twin linked, so that increases by 1. Hits that don't happen didn't necessarily miss, it's also possible they just glanced off armour or cover.