Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion XVI: Where the Ordnance is Hand-Delivered!

[Mordokai]

Some combination of "BFGA II Combat Theme (1-4) Variant (1-4)". Steam workshop has the BFG soundtrack listed, unfortunately it's not very imaginatively titled beyond basic stubs. You may have to be prepared to search them out individually and compare by ear.

I can't believe I'm saying that, but you actually did it The Shadow Descends(Remix 3) seems to be on the spot.

May the Emperor always protect

[Misery Esquire]

There is other narratives than loops for time travels and loops seems the least coherent and least meaningful system for time travel: a loop is essentially just here saying "causality does not exists" which basically invalidates most ethics and a whole lot of other things like that.
Time travel with a meta time and new universe creation time travel(you create a new universe that is just like how your universe was in the past) are both a lot easier to write with and does not invalidates causality(Things have causes so you do not have things appearing because they appeared or time loops that exists only because they exists).
In fact time loops are so incoherent and so awful that sometimes the author tries to make a time loop(probably because they did read other stories with that and did not think of alternate forms of time travel) then they try to make it have a cause other than itself because when you remove causality any story might lose entirely any value(I mean you no longer need justification for anything to happen if there is no causes) so by intuition they can not stop themselves from trying to turn causal their acausal construct(while they could have simply picked a causal form of time travel)

So I think there should be more time travel stories that works in a causal way so that people that reads time travel stories then tries to make one are more likely to figure out that if they want causal stories(stories where things have a cause) with time travel they can have that and it does not makes more complex stories.(in fact it can make much simpler stories if you wish to)
Because intuitively humans works assuming stuff have causes and then they usually try to make stories where stuff have causes without even thinking about it because it is a very intuitive idea.

Multiverse time travel is a fair option for some stories; especially those that cover more movement between the two points.* If you never reference the previous timeframe again, then all you're doing is removing mandatory predeterminism- and making everyone in "original" timelines quite unfortunate.
But in terms of a limited loop it doesn't remove any cause - a single result is mandatory as you must move back to re-create the point before moving forward, but the rest of the universe still carries on.

…As long as you don't have unlimited time travel. With unlimited looped time travel you have a wholly determined universe; but that's only a real problem for real people. Fiction being deterministic only impacts whether people like the story, not the structure or rules of the internal universe.

Also did you play Archon?

This seems... Really familiar. I'm going to say that I haven't played it, but I do recognize it.

*Two should really be in quotes because of how complex that gets very quickly.

[noob]

Multiverse time travel is a fair option for some stories; especially those that cover more movement between the two points.* If you never reference the previous timeframe again, then all you're doing is removing mandatory predeterminism- and making everyone in "original" timelines quite unfortunate.
But in terms of a limited loop it doesn't remove any cause - a single result is mandatory as you must move back to re-create the point before moving forward, but the rest of the universe still carries on.

…As long as you don't have unlimited time travel. With unlimited looped time travel you have a wholly determined universe; but that's only a real problem for real people. Fiction being deterministic only impacts whether people like the story, not the structure or rules of the internal universe.



This seems... Really familiar. I'm going to say that I haven't played it, but I do recognize it.

*Two should really be in quotes because of how complex that gets very quickly.

Meta time based time travel does not have "original" timelines (thanks to the notion of meta time everything is coherent) there is a single meta time line.
essentially meta time travel is a form of time travel where as long as you are in a given instant of time only this time exists and when a "time travel machine is used back to the past" event is encountered the current time stops being watched or advancing and the new time is the destination of the machine(while the meta time keeps increasing).

And you can make universe creating time travel destroy the previous universe if you dislike leaving the original timeline here.(I did not say multiverse time travel I said universe creating time travel which is not the same thing because in the latter you create something by travelling)

Do you consider satisfying if you are told "this planet exists from 3pm to 4 pm today only because it time travelled from 4pm to 3pm and it could do so only because it did travel back in time which allowed it to be here at 3pm and thus to be here at 4pm in order to travel back in time"
No matter the true time loop story if it is a true time loop the loop itself can not have a cause other than itself so it means that things can be their own causes so no matter how nonsensical the story gets it does not makes any difference since the event was its own cause.
you could have a story about dave that suddenly appears then stabs their own arm for no reason a dozen of times then goes and build a cloning machine and creates dave and gives dave a sock then kills themselves while the new dave sent at the start without needing a time travel machine because there was a quantum event that would be infinitely unlikely out of a time loop.
It is not less likely than a time loop with a time travel machine: in both cases there is no cause you can not speak of odds for something without cause.
So while you might like a variant of "dave appears, stabs themselves then makes a new dave that suddenly appears where the first dave was at start" just like any other time loop story there is no sense of talking about verisimilitude or about likeliness since we are in both case in a story in a world where there is no causality and if there is no such things there is no notion of "probable" or of "likely" since any event can just be here because it was here.
Essentially time loops story are utterly alien and people ignore the fact that "dave stabs themselves" time loop is as much meaningful or "likely" or coherent as any other time loop story because without causation everything is entirely alien.

Pre-determinism is not removed by causal time travel.

Example: at MT1(meta time 1) vt3(visible time 3) alex decides that they have to go at vt1 and help people win the war they were losing.
after one unit of time we are at MT2 and vt2 and alex did successfully win the war
Then at MT3 and vt3 alex does not travel through time and it have no negative impact at all since time travel is a single event in the meta time: it does not needs a constant input output: it happens once.
So by seeing the meta time which was at 1 at the start and with all the information we could know that alex would travel to vt1 then that alex would win the war in one unit of time(better equipment/info) then that afterwards he would enjoy victory and not travel again.
you see everything is much simpler that way and with the initial variables it was possible to find the results of the entire story: it was predetermined but without the need of a loop.
By using meta time you can have all the advantages of regular time and have time travel.(but no travelling through meta time)

[Kris Strife]

How do the Chrono Trigger and the Back to the Future versions of time travel fit into this discussion?

[Cheesegear]

How do the Chrono Trigger and the Back to the Future versions of time travel fit into this discussion?

Fantastically?
BttF is exactly what I'm talking about, and what I don't like; McFly has to create the circumstances of his own self. However, we, the audience, also see him potentially blink out of existence a few times because McFly is written as a character with agency. He is aware of what he needs to do, and can fail. The future isn't fixed. Causal Loops aren't a thing because No Fate.

BttF 2 is even better; Altering the past, changes the future, and we, the audience, see it change on screen.

BttF 3; At the end McFly doesn't get into a street race and ruin his life. The future isn't fixed. Eastwood Valley and everything.

Compare this to the Terminator franchise; The future isn't fixed. But. We, the audience, never see the future change. We're only told. So while the story is good. As a franchise/setting, it fails, because 'Show, Don't Tell' is a real thing.


It was already mentioned. But you can't do interesting stories with time-travel in 40K, because 40K isn't a story, it's a setting. And properly telling a time travel story in a setting can fundamentally alter how the setting works. Which means that time travel that actually has impact, can only be used for an edition change, or a retcon.

[LCP]

Pro tip: all forms of interesting time travel are impossible and demanding that time travel is done 'properly' is pointless nitpicking that is incompatible with also demanding a good story. There is no law of physics that makes people shimmer out of existence due to paradoxes, that's science fantasy just as much as closed causal loops are.

[Saambell]

Which is why with Time Travel in fiction, the ONLY rule is "Make it Consistent". Because its impossible, a story can do anything with it, BUT if they are going to do it, make a set of rules and stick to them. You don't need to tell the viewer/reader the rules, sometimes the fun is watching people guess the rules, but having them is the most important thing. Having a set of rules of how Time Travel works is vital to avoid plot holes and immersion breaking. Its when a series has inconsistent rules, or breaks a previously established rule for the sake of drama or other plot reasons, is when people start complaining about time travel. In itself, its not bad, just a tool. But when people ruin it with poorly made time travel stories with no rules and just use it for whatever is when time travel gets a bad rep.

[Silverraptor]

Another Chaos question. Lets say all life was ceased in the material realm, would the warp actually begin to calm and the chaos gods truly disappear? What I'm asking is, would the stormy seas of the warp, if not fed the continuous thoughts of mortals, truly stabilize and calm itself?

[Destro_Yersul]

All psychic life, anyways. That was the old motive of the Necrons, killing everything sentient so the warp would stop and Chaos would die.

[Artanis]

For those who aren't aware yet, the Astartes YT channel was hacked, and is now gone

[Silverraptor]

For those who aren't aware yet, the Astartes YT channel was hacked, and is now gone

Yeah, it was deleted. No idea if it was from the hacker or youtube for the channel violating their terms of service, despite the creator of the channel constantly telling them it was his channel and it was hacked. That said, I don't think this is the end of the Astartes series. I'm sure he'll post it up again.

[Renegade Paladin]

Yeah, it was deleted. No idea if it was from the hacker or youtube for the channel violating their terms of service, despite the creator of the channel constantly telling them it was his channel and it was hacked. That said, I don't think this is the end of the Astartes series. I'm sure he'll post it up again.

It was the hacker. If you go to the video pages from the channel (part one) it says the uploader has closed the account, not that the account is suspended.

[Silverraptor]

It was the hacker. If you go to the video pages from the channel (part one) it says the uploader has closed the account, not that the account is suspended.

Well there we go. I'm sure the guy will try to work with youtube for a few weeks to see if he can get the channel reinstated for the subscribers and views. And if he can't, then he'll likely start a new channel and reupload the old episodes, which should get some traction, before continuing again from where he left off.

[Renegade Paladin]

Apparently thanks to the hacker's shenanigans he's been barred from creating a new account. I'm not sure what the hacker could have done that would prevent him making a new channel while not getting the existing one banned, but that's the word.

[Silverraptor]

Apparently thanks to the hacker's shenanigans he's been barred from creating a new account. I'm not sure what the hacker could have done that would prevent him making a new channel while not getting the existing one banned, but that's the word.

What word? That doesn't seem to be possible. Youtube literally has to be banning any new channel Astartes makes for this to have any validity, and why would they?

[Borgh]

What word? That doesn't seem to be possible. Youtube literally has to be banning any new channel Astartes makes for this to have any validity, and why would they?

Because 'Youtube' no longer involves humans on the viewer/uploader side, it is all just blindly flailing algorithms and automated workflows. So if the Algorithm decided that Hal should no longer open the pod bay doors you might as well put on a red robe, light a stick of incense and chanting in binary for all it matters.

Yes, the few human "customer relations managers" keep insisting that each ticket is hand-checked but I've long ago given up on them ever admitting the truth.

[Wraith]

What word? That doesn't seem to be possible. Youtube literally has to be banning any new channel Astartes makes for this to have any validity, and why would they?

When you become a Youtube partner, they take all of the details that could possibly be needed for a "business" transaction - your full (real) name, real address, bank details, 'phone number, etc.

Assuming that they're not just IP blocked - which would be solved with a VPN - chances are that whenever the original owner tries to open a new Youtube account their personal details are being screened and "they" are being recognised as the "hacker" - the only way around it would be to use all new details, including registering a new address and bank account. Far, far too much hassle for a normal troll to keep up with, but at the same time, it leaves few ways for you to prove your own identity in cases such as this.

You can see Youtube's side of the argument; that an account held by John Smith at 123 Fake Street with the bank account number 10001000 has been hacked, their ToS broken and it has to be closed, but their process for confirming who the real John Smith is and how to get him his account back, absolutely sucks.

[Artanis]

I'm sure the guy will try to work with youtube

He has been trying to work with YouTube. All it accomplished was changing his channel from "hacked" to "completely deleted".


Update: the channel is back!

[Silverraptor]

HAHA! The Astartes Channel is now back and reinstated! The Emperor Protects!

[Cikomyr]

I was wondering something.

Does *every* piss-poor ships in the Imperium has a Navigator on board? Maybe more than one? Even the lousy minimalist freighter?

[hamishspence]

Every ship capable of entering the Warp maybe - while early fluff suggested that very short jumps can be made without a Navigator, I wouldn't expect stars to be close enough in most places for this to be relied on.

Ships that are used purely for interplanetary travel won't need them though.

[Cheesegear]

Does *every* piss-poor ships in the Imperium has a Navigator on board?

Sort of. Mostly yes.
Every ship in the Imperium wants a Navigator, not everyone gets one. The ships that don't have a Navigator, can't go very far.

Maybe more than one?

No. If every ship in the Imperium needs a Navigator, what makes you think they afford to spare two for the same ship?

Even the lousy minimalist freighter?

Sort of. Mostly yes. If it wants to enter the Warp and go long interstellar distances, yes.
'Lousy Minimalist' freighters probably get the multi-generational-inbred Navigators that don't work so good. But they do still need one.

EDIT:
Navigators simply reduce your chance of dying in the Warp over long distances. You don't have to have one. But if you don't, chance of the entire ship getting obliterated and/or lost go up significantly.

[The Glyphstone]

I was wondering something.

Does *every* piss-poor ships in the Imperium has a Navigator on board? Maybe more than one? Even the lousy minimalist freighter?

Canonically, you can navigate exceptionally short, well-traveled and mapped warp routes by means of computer/cogitator. This is actually quite important because the Imperium doesn't have enough Navigators to guide every Chartist freighter and tramp hauler. But even the most stable warp currents are still dangerous if you're flying 'blind' by rote calculation, so the role of civilian freighter captain is a career with very high turnover rates. There is explicitly a Warp Engine printed in the Rogue Trader game that incorporates advanced cogitators to semi-replace a Navigator, though it's noted as a piece of tech the Nobiliate really, really hates because it makes them redundant.

You'll never see two Navigators on one ship though. Ever.

[Grim Portent]

I think one of the navigator-less ships Glyph mentioned shows up in the old Grey Knights novels. Dinky little clanker of a ship that carried freight between systems to scrape out a living. Think it was the book with Gargatuloth as the antagonist.

[Cikomyr]

The reason I asked if a ship would have two navigator is because.. Well, if a Navigator is *that* essential to a ship's ability to travel, and the navigator somehow dies, the ship is effectively stranded there until someone with a spare navigator happens to come along?

Also, could trade ships travel in convoys, with one "pathfinder" ship with a Navigator, the others merely following in its wake? Or every individual ships have to have their own navigators?

[Cheesegear]

Well, if a Navigator is *that* essential to a ship's ability to travel, and the navigator somehow dies, the ship is effectively stranded there until someone with a spare navigator happens to come along?

Affirmative.
That's what distress beacons are for.

If your Navigator and Astropath die. You're basically done.

Or every individual ships have to have their own navigators?

Every individual ship.

Navigators are exceptionally rare, and also everywhere in the Imperium.
Classic GW.

[Cikomyr]

Every individual ship.

Navigators are exceptionally rare, and also everywhere in the Imperium.
Classic GW.

That has been proven in canon? That even grouped together, all shops need their own navigators?

Also, navigators aren't on helm duty 24/7. So I'd think they are less about piloting, and more about merely plotting a course for the ship's helm to follow. Couldn't you have one navigator send instructions to other ship's helms?

[The Glyphstone]

Yeah, I think we're looking at classical GW internal contradictions here. I guess your answer is 'whichever one you like best', since both are 'canon' as far as the setting is concerned.

(RT has the Klenova Class M Warp Engine, if anyone was curious).

[Cheesegear]

That has been proven in canon? That even grouped together, all shops need their own navigators?

Several times.

Also, navigators aren't on helm duty 24/7. [...] Couldn't you have one navigator send instructions to other ship's helms?

Imagine sailing a fleet through a hurricane, but only one person in your entire fleet can see the wind currents in real time. And the Hurricane can change every minute, even between seconds.

As Glyph said, even the 'stable' Warp tunnels, are still unstable. Especially when one side of the Imperium is 'dark' and doesn't even work right.
There's a reason The Emperor wanted Humanity to stop using Warp-travel.

[Cikomyr]

Imagine sailing a fleet through a hurricane, but only one person in your entire fleet can see the wind currents in real time. And the Hurricane can change every minute, even between seconds.

I get that. I don't get how they can survive if the Navigator isn't at the helm 24/7 for months of journey, and the man has to sleep, eat, and defecate no?