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

[Fan]

Well yes, they can engineer "intelligence", but is it functionally a different soul?

This is a confusing question that even 40k doesn't answer as far as I'm aware, despite their own access to cloning.

[jseah]

Originally Posted by Fan

Well yes, they can engineer "intelligence", but is it functionally a different soul?

This is a confusing question that even 40k doesn't answer as far as I'm aware, despite their own access to cloning.

Well, the question is clearly a problem of 40k's definition. What is the soul and how does it tie into something material. Can a soul even be in two places at the same time? Three? A hundred?
How far do you have to change someone until the soul that body has isn't the same soul anymore?

What impact does the soul have and how does it affect the material and vice versa?


This, by the way, is a magic system question. >.>

EDIT: in some senses, it is also a philosphical one.
Namely, the problem with identity and the Ship of Theseus.

[Chen]

I think we run into the issue of there being "souls" in the 40K universe but they aren't really brought up in the Culture universe. I suspect Banks went the more "hard science" route where there is no soul and people are effectively just conscious machines.

Somehow creating a new soul after a backup seems exploitable in some way :P

[Tiki Snakes]

The simple (though entirely unfounded) answer is that obviously both culture and 40k universes have comparable souls. The reason why cloning is such an issue in 40k and not in the Cultureverse is that Souls have some kind of connection to the warp.

If the warp was ever made calm again, cloning might actually be possible without horrendous, 40k-genre-appropriate consequences.

The culture's own faith in it's own science and scientific superiority stills the warp selectively, just enough for their own science to function unaffected by this, at least when they use it in their own ships and so on.

(It'd be interesting to, say, have the RT try using the culture's cloning stuff only for it all to go horribly 40k style wrong due to this vital difference).

[Selrahc]

I have a feeling, that to the Minds, identity isn't even really a thing anymore. In Player of Games, Hub Subsection is a section of the Mind in charge of the Ringworld Gurgeh lived on. After talking with it a bit, he managed to pique its interest so much Hub Entire started to talk to him.
Both "Subsection" and "Entire" didn't seem any different and they clearly share the same memory. Dynamically changeable networks of intelligence!

Along the same lines: The Avatoids. The personality base of a ship mind downloaded into an autonomous drone. It isn't a mind, and is in some ways distinct from the ship. But since they are essentially personality doubles with the only difference being in capabilities, the Avatoid can act on behalf of the ship in situations that are "personal" in nature. There is also regular (basically, constant) sharing of information between the two, and the mind steps in to direct control if necessary. Being an avatoid must be a really tricky personal sense of identity.

Identity is a thing though. In some sense, it's almost a fundamental thing in the Cultureverse. When a creature sublimes, it comes back to fetch every single mind state, clone and other miscellaneous copy of itself into the sublime. It erases its identity from the physical universe. That is a pretty stark indicator that identity is in some manner, objective.

[Gavinfoxx]

Originally Posted by jseah

The Eldar
Goals:

To add:
-Free their captive god
-Not have their souls eaten by Slaanesh any more

Necrons
Goals:

To add:
-Some hard-to-define desire to regain what was lost (soul), with an odd tendency to seek out things which might work on that, be they biological uploads or fixing of the corruption of their digital uploads for their royalty (WARNING: Newcron weirdness; use at own risk)

Tau
Goals:

To Add:
-Bring more races into the fold of the Greater Good
-Improve their technology

So I added some things, as I saw them...!

[Gavinfoxx]

Originally Posted by jseah

EDIT: they clearly won't give it to the Culture, but say, if the Culture proposed a technology trade...? With some clearly valuable technology like good AI (basically, non-insane Necrons) and a more stable bio-transferance technology (Culture can convert humans to drones and back)

According to the Newcron codex... Necrons are very very interested in fixing the problems with their soul / corruption / sentience issues, and that includes having compatible biological bodies... so this is something that they might trade, depending on the Nobility in question...

Of course, this would have to be a noble necron who is capable of fathoming technological trade. And some of them probably actually can't do that. In a very basic way of who and what they are and how they are programmed; the need for Necrons to be superior is tied in at a very, very, very basic level.

[jseah]

Just as an FYI, the current interpretation I am going on is this:

Spoiler

The Warp
It follows strange physics, one that recognizes patterns. Instead of the rules operating on atoms or fundamental forces, the rules operate on patterns. Patterns are the building blocks of things in the Warp.

The soul is one such conglomerate of patterns. Patterns themselves are indivisible but they can be unraveled to release the energy contained. Aggregates of them, like a soul, are, obviously, separable into pieces. Patterns are made of Warp energy and can interact with the Warp to move or affect raw Warp energy or other patterns. Patterns can also appear from Warp energy or other patterns.

Patterns have a position in the Warp. Where a pattern is can distinguish between one pattern somewhere and another identical pattern elsewhere. These positions in the Warp correspond to positions in the Real.

The Warp is atemporal. The Warp is immutable and the passage of time in the real is not represented as changes in the Warp, but as the trajectory of patterns through it. Patterns in the future and in the past can affect the present, they are all there and it never really goes away.
Nevertheless, there are restrictions that the Warp follows with regards to time. I haven't worked this out yet, but it should line up roughly with the restrictions on time travel.

The Real
Warp phenomena happens when the Warp energy temporarily rewrites the rules of the universe. Patterns in the Warp have specific patterns of matter or energy in the Real and a very large number of them deal with organic brains. But things like lightning bolts (that aren't lightning) are generated by the Warp imposing a pattern on the Real.
Manifested Warp patterns in the Real are subject to what rules of the Real that still apply, but the more patterns that manifest, the less rules remain.

Too many Warp patterns, and bam, you have a Warp rift, a place where none of the Real's rules apply any more and the Warp enters the Real.

The Soul
Psykers and psychic sensitivity is how much of "you" is in the warp. Each person, a bunch of matter that processes other matter and energy in the real, attracts patterns in the warp as they form. By default, each arrangment of matter in the real will have a certain amount of Warp pattern associating with it, but by circumstance or deliberate control, more or less patterns can aggregate around the corresponding position of the real material.
This is highly sensitive to how the being develops and genetics, being the controlling developmental program, plays a very large part.

Organic beings have a pattern of material that affects the Warp in ways that attract patterns. Metals do not and a being made of metals does not affect the Warp. Intelligence, the ability to process information and representations of things (aka. concepts), attracts even more Warp patterns.
This conglomerate of Warp patterns is typically called the Soul.

A soul affects the body as much as the reverse. Kill the person in the real, and the patterns in the Warp will disperse. Kill the soul in the Warp, and the corresponding effects of the patterns will affect the real (usually killing the person).
In fact, in some cases, not all of a person's intellect resides in the Real, some of it is in the Warp. Souls interact with each other, usually to no major effect, but they can sense each other and communicate this to the brain in the Real.

Psychics
Psykers are organic people with a conglomerate of Warp patterns that can create other Warp patterns, including one that makes the Warp intrude into the real to impose a pattern. This may or may not be deliberately controlled, often not.

Races have inclinations (Eldars are more like to interact with the patterns corresponding to the future) based on biology that changes what patterns in the Warp are most likely to occur.

Blanks are the reverse of psykers, they have very few or no patterns associated with them in the Warp because they attracted a pattern that undoes other patterns.
Their ability to drive psychics crazy or make normals disgusted with them is because of the soul. They have none or very little to interact with in the Warp and consequently creep people out unconsciously due to the lack of that interaction.
Their invisibility to psykers, resistance or plain immunity to Chaos corruption, immunity to purely Warp effects, are all explained by this. But clearly, if you hit them with a lightning bolt, even a Warp lightning bolt, they still die.

Machines and devices that use the Warp are also possible. Those that manipulate the Warp by using arrangements of Real materials that attract Warp patterns can acheive Warp effects. (eg. Null Matrix generators, Gellar fields, D-Cannons) Copies these devices in the Real alone will work, since they manipulate the Warp for their effects.

Devices that partially exist in the Warp use both arrangements of the Real and patterns in the Warp together to acheive an effect. (eg. Eldar Wraithbone, Webway travel, Psychic weapons, Warp drives) These require both a Warp and Real construction method to make them, so it can get very complicated and often needs another Warp + Real device to do that.

You can consider it a basic framework of warp-material interaction.

This is highly based off the same solution I used to have "lifeforce" in my magic system.

I note with some satisfaction that it explains all the current interactions I have written in this fic or read about in 40k.

[jseah]

part 6.5 Necrons - Closing

Spoiler

So Much for Subtlety has left the area to move against the galactic rotation towards the Tyranids. Negotiations with the Necron Lord have been unfruitful and close attention has been paid towards his mobilization of starships around the world.
A number of remote drones were left with us by So Much for Subtlety in case we required them to track Necron movement. White Devil has been tasked with tracking him if any ships leave, Curiousity Saved the Cat will continue negotiations.

Judging from the lack of coherency in his reactions to our statements, we surmise that the Necron Lord has suffered some form of degradation to his logical circuits, specifically that of temporal segmentation. Support for this hypothesis is from an analysis of <...>

White Devil's attachment to the Necron warriors is rather unusual, it treats them almost like some sort of very silent pet, claiming that they are sentient and it is determined to make friends with them. Curiousity requested to scan White Devil's systems for Chaos corruption and found no anomalies.

[Gavinfoxx]

If the Rogue Trader is put in between a rock and a hard place as far as what he is allowed to do... I would suspect he would endeavor to do actions that increase the power of the Imperium in general. Winning Crusades, solving problems with Orks and Pirates and Dark Eldar and Tyranids and Rebels and such. Trying to get messages to the Imperium of the threat of The Culture. Trying to choose violent encounters that improve the status of The Imperium relatively more than they improve the status of The Culture.

He'd probably be worried about being personally smitten by The Emperor, due to the level of influence in the scope of the direction of the Imperium he is holding... and he would want to avoid that (ie, getting smitten) at all cost.

[Kinslayer]

Originally Posted by jseah

Just as an FYI, the current interpretation I am going on is this:

Spoiler

The Warp
It follows strange physics, one that recognizes patterns. Instead of the rules operating on atoms or fundamental forces, the rules operate on patterns. Patterns are the building blocks of things in the Warp.

Rule 1 of the Warp ; There Are No Rules.
Rule 2 of the Warp ; Disregard Rule 1.

The soul is one such conglomerate of patterns. Patterns themselves are indivisible but they can be unraveled to release the energy contained. Aggregates of them, like a soul, are, obviously, separable into pieces. Patterns are made of Warp energy and can interact with the Warp to move or affect raw Warp energy or other patterns. Patterns can also appear from Warp energy or other patterns.

But a Soul can be torn apart. Not sure what "Patterns" are supposed to indicate other than that, so far.

Patterns have a position in the Warp. Where a pattern is can distinguish between one pattern somewhere and another identical pattern elsewhere. These positions in the Warp correspond to positions in the Real.

Noone has identical souls in 40k, aside from the HorrorStory PsykerTwins in a sideblurb. But they're horrifying psyker twins, who disappeared from reality, taking a Blackship with them. This, if following your theory, is likely the cause of Clone Hate in 40k.

The Warp is atemporal. The Warp is immutable and the passage of time in the real is not represented as changes in the Warp, but as the trajectory of patterns through it. Patterns in the future and in the past can affect the present, they are all there and it never really goes away.
Nevertheless, there are restrictions that the Warp follows with regards to time. I haven't worked this out yet, but it should line up roughly with the restrictions on time travel.

But... You can have warp entities that retroactively exsisted for millions of years, causing thier own creation. Tzeentchian demons can create permanant real-world time loops of events, while things interact with them. It still goes back to the same loop. You can also arrive in time to kill your past self, before going to the past, and continue exsisting. On the other hand, you can also go back to the past, kill yourself and paradox out of exsistance.

The Real
Warp phenomena happens when the Warp energy temporarily rewrites the rules of the universe. Patterns in the Warp have specific patterns of matter or energy in the Real and a very large number of them deal with organic brains. But things like lightning bolts (that aren't lightning) are generated by the Warp imposing a pattern on the Real.
Manifested Warp patterns in the Real are subject to what rules of the Real that still apply, but the more patterns that manifest, the less rules remain.

Too many Warp patterns, and bam, you have a Warp rift, a place where none of the Real's rules apply any more and the Warp enters the Real.

Eh, sure. It follows your theory perfectly, but not nessecarily 40K's exsistance, in that the Astronomicon and Terra aren't the universe's largest puncture hole.

The Soul
Psykers and psychic sensitivity is how much of "you" is in the warp. Each person, a bunch of matter that processes other matter and energy in the real, attracts patterns in the warp as they form. By default, each arrangment of matter in the real will have a certain amount of Warp pattern associating with it, but by circumstance or deliberate control, more or less patterns can aggregate around the corresponding position of the real material.
This is highly sensitive to how the being develops and genetics, being the controlling developmental program, plays a very large part.

But Psykerism has never been a genetic thing, it's entirely decided by your soul, as far as can be told. Navigators are one of the few exceptions in that when breeding with each other they end up with Navigators, still. Psyker + Psyker can equal anything, human, psyker, or even possibly Blank, though Blanks have been shown to also move genetically.

Organic beings have a pattern of material that affects the Warp in ways that attract patterns. Metals do not and a being made of metals does not affect the Warp. Intelligence, the ability to process information and representations of things (aka. concepts), attracts even more Warp patterns.
This conglomerate of Warp patterns is typically called the Soul.

The soul continues exsisting without the mind, though. Inanimate objects can, and do, exsist in the Warp. They do not have any deciding power in how the Warp works

A soul affects the body as much as the reverse. Kill the person in the real, and the patterns in the Warp will disperse. Kill the soul in the Warp, and the corresponding effects of the patterns will affect the real (usually killing the person).

In fact, in some cases, not all of a person's intellect resides in the Real, some of it is in the Warp. Souls interact with each other, usually to no major effect, but they can sense each other and communicate this to the brain in the Real.

Eh. Souls can exsist without a living person, though. Thus the daemon's constant threats of eternally torturing your soul, and bringing you back to life, without needing a body.




Psychics
Psykers are organic people with a conglomerate of Warp patterns that can create other Warp patterns, including one that makes the Warp intrude into the real to impose a pattern. This may or may not be deliberately controlled, often not.

Continues following your theory, which if valid, works.

Races have inclinations (Eldars are more like to interact with the patterns corresponding to the future) based on biology that changes what patterns in the Warp are most likely to occur.

If it was simply Biology, the Imperium would be mass producing psykers as weaponry, pilots, etc. The Old Ones, and one Emperor-related gizmo, are the only things ever shown to be able to imbue Warp-presence. And the (maybe) Emperor-related one was ripping the soul out of an already-psyker to power it.

Blanks are the reverse of psykers, they have very few or no patterns associated with them in the Warp because they attracted a pattern that undoes other patterns.
Their ability to drive psychics crazy or make normals disgusted with them is because of the soul. They have none or very little to interact with in the Warp and consequently creep people out unconsciously due to the lack of that interaction.
Their invisibility to psykers, resistance or plain immunity to Chaos corruption, immunity to purely Warp effects, are all explained by this. But clearly, if you hit them with a lightning bolt, even a Warp lightning bolt, they still die.

Continues following theory. Having patterns in the warp aside from daemons that follow the Big 4 following the Big 4's MO are still nonexsistant.

Machines and devices that use the Warp are also possible. Those that manipulate the Warp by using arrangements of Real materials that attract Warp patterns can acheive Warp effects. (eg. Null Matrix generators, Gellar fields, D-Cannons) Copies these devices in the Real alone will work, since they manipulate the Warp for their effects.

Devices that partially exist in the Warp use both arrangements of the Real and patterns in the Warp together to acheive an effect. (eg. Eldar Wraithbone, Webway travel, Psychic weapons, Warp drives) These require both a Warp and Real construction method to make them, so it can get very complicated and often needs another Warp + Real device to do that.

The Webway exsists entirely in the Warp, as a solid in the Warp. The Gates only exsist as exits, as far as we know. Warp Drives also only exsist in the Real, D-Cannons only draw and focus psychic power from the Eldar, because all of the triggering and mechanics of it are psychic. It's more of a prism/generator than a gun. Wraithbone is also Real but has Warp applied to it by Singing, it just happens to be the most receptive material to this sort of tampering.

Replies in bold.

Originally Posted by jseah

Trapdoor protocol -> Transmission of disease fails
Disease incurable by standard methods -> Reload from backup

Reload from backup alone has the ability to eliminate any disease (including those that affect the soul, since we agreed you get a new one when you reload)

Plague of Unbelief spreads by lack of (TRUE!) Faith, while having "faith". (In the Emperor is the only thing we have shown). It has no vector aside from a Nurglite being anywhere near a planet, at some point, and the population not being actually faithful. It can have a delayed reaction time of... Unspecified time. It's almost entirely, or entirely, in the Warp. You can't stop Warp infection vectors with SCIENCE! (Or, not the SCIENCE! the Culture currently has.)

[Forum Explorer]

The perfect separation of the Warp from reality is presented as a very bad thing. It would basically reduce everyone to the level of Necrons and would likely entirely wipe out the Eldar race. (Oldcrons used to have zero free will and no personality. Newcrons don't actually want to separate the Warp from Reality.)


Nurgle plagues are literally insane and can infect pretty much anything. Yes, even machines. Nurgle is actually a big threat to the Culture in that he and Tzeentch are really the only ones who can directly target a Mind. He always has a cure though, but that cure may not make sense either.


Eldar have lots of personal freedom in that they can choose whatever Path they like. They are encouraged by society to make sure that they don't get stuck on any one Path but it still happens and those Eldar aren't punished beyond what their life has now become. (Exarchs; Eldar who have gotten trapped on the Path of War, become incapable of normal peaceful interaction with other Eldar. They've lost interest in normal things and only care about war.) If the Eldar in question rejects the idea he is free to take the Path of the Outcast, where he may travel wherever he wishes and act however he wishes (outside Eldar society.) However he lacks the protection given by the Eldar paths and is vulnerable to corruption and destruction by Slaanash.

Dark Eldar can't be considered an HS. They don't actually conquer, just various degrees of raids and enslavement. They also don't care what the slaves actually think or do. Can they be reformed? Perhaps. It's not unknown for a Dark Eldar to make their way to a Craftworld and join the Craftworld relatively peacefully. (They'd be mistrusted and watched.) It is however very rare.


Right now the Culture doesn't know about the Dark Eldar unless the Eldar have told them. The Imperium doesn't bother to tell the difference between the different groups of Eldar. Not in anything but obscure Xenos research anyways.

[Tavar]

Slight update to Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...MZtqFUo8Q/edit

[Eldan]

There are several aspects of Eldar society I would be quite interested in the culture's reaction to. Spirit stones and wraith guard, obviously, but also the use of exarchs and exarch /phoenix king armour, which is psychic and effectively overwrites a good part of the wearer's mind with a composite of former wearers of the armour.

[Fan]

The Phoenix King armor is HIGHLY revered though, to the point of it's use being considered an absolute last stand, it's also entirely voluntary.

[jseah]

Rule 1 of the Warp ; There Are No Rules.
Rule 2 of the Warp ; Disregard Rule 1.

I really have to make a stand on this one. I have stated before that I am interpreting the Warp as running on it's own rules. I find it impossible to write about something that isn't coherent even by its own measure. (level of detail I have gone into the Warp-as-patterns theory is what I would consider an absolute minimum level of detail; anything lower than that, I can't write)

I'm sorry but that's how I'm writing this fic, the Warp here has its own rules and is understandable, just not with a framework of what we commonly call physics.

Some of your other points are valid, I'll think about it and tweak as necessary.


part 6.5 - Misc. unrelated Eldar

Spoiler

Week 2
An IoM merchant ship from outside our surveyed area dropped out of Warp near an IoM minor fleet base with a report that a Chaos warband had been sighted in the near region. Despite the sketchy evidence and hearsay, an IoM recon in force of nearly two thirds the defending fleet warped out with a stated destination of a mining world we had not reached yet.

The GCU in the process of scanning the fleet base decided that observing the IoM's protocols in fighting Chaos was more important and headed to that system.

Week 3
GCU arrived a day before IoM fleet. System has an Eldar teleportation gate. No hostiles, only IoM merchant traffic spotted.

IoM fleet has arrived. They communicated with the mining world to confirm no reports of Chaos were there. They decided to stay for one day.

A band of Eldar emerged from the teleportation gate. Since they did not attempt to initiate the standard protocol for contact with us (tight beam laser aimed 30* off the ecliptic if angle is clear and free), we assumed that they did not expect us to be here or they were from a faction that was unaware of us.

Ships of the Eldar were slightly less well maintained than the standard. The Eldar fleet appeared to remain undetected but then proceeded to swing around the IoM fleet on a course for the mining world.

The IoM fleet managed to see the Eldar on their sensors when the Eldar were just about to pass them (we tapped their systems) and proceeded to maneuver onto an intercept course despite recognition among the command heirarchy that the Eldar were not the Chaos warband they were looking for.

The Eldar proceeded to attack the IoM fleet with hit and run attacks, utilizing their much superior ECM and stealth capabilities to inflict damage on the IoM fleet. Neither side inflicted any significant loss on each other.
Communications between the IoM and Eldar appeared to indicate that the Eldar were attempting to raid the IoM planet.

At this point, the GCU Peacemaker decided to intervene to prevent the loss of life on either side. Using its Displacers, minor plasma charges were used to overload key shields and then Effectors were employed to hack into the power grid and shut down the IoM shields and engines. IoM efforts to restore function were easily overridden.

The Eldar ships were contained from the IoM ships by forcefield walls projected by effector marked by visible light radiation. While the Eldar ships could potentially force their way through the fields as the GCU's effector arrays were overstretched, they only tested the boundaries warily before retreating.

That's an Eldar pirate fleet (not Dark Eldar).

I had an idea for Tzeentch where he arranges for an IoM fleet to conflict with Necrons or Eldar to damage the Culture's impression of one of the three races. Or force a Culture contact of the IoM.

And then I wrote it and realized that it just wasn't going to work, there is absolutely no reason why the Culture GCU would proceed with contact when it could just shut down the IoM fleet (coz those guys are uncontrollable) and present unfathomable phenomena to chase off the Eldar. So I guess not all of Tzeentch's plots work.

But in this case, the IoM has another data point of 'weird things' and the Eldar faction probably are going to be mildly annoyed at the Culture's willingness to defend the IoM against the Eldar. Even if it's a minor Eldar pirate faction. So I guess it wasn't a pure waste of effort.


part 6.5 - Rogue Trader

Spoiler

Week 1
GCU Golden Goose
Aisha Meiro's handling of the Techpriests has left the Rogue Trader slightly unhappy but his recruitment of mercenaries has left him well enough equipped. The Rogue Trader has only managed to acquire construction plans for non-critical and baseline-technology equipment. His request to purchase a Lunar was finally declined.

Nevertheless, his profit margin is at least two orders of magnitude over that of the Forge World. His continuous sale of various goods by both legal and covert means has attracted some attention from the Mechanicum in charge of the Forge World. We were unable to warn him of this threat as Aisha Meiro was never allowed off his ship and had no plausible reason to know about it.

A battlecruiser and escorts of the Ad Mech maneuvered into an intercept course with his ship when he returned from last delivering a sale and with a shuttle full of rare elements in critical shortage. The Rogue Trader evaded action and the mercenaries jumped out of system towards an agreed rendevous while he outran the Ad Mech by travelling sublight beyond the sensor range and going into hyperspace when no one could notice.
His escape was helped by our subtle interference with the Ad Mech sensors.

[Tavar]

Really, the Chaos is completely random is, in my opinion, overstated. Yes, it's very random, but only if you try and impose a viewpoint grounded in modern physics on it. Really, the pattern stuff seems very similar to what we find out when 'experts' on the Warp and Chaos(Navigators, Psykers, etc) talk about it.

[Gavinfoxx]

I think what is going on is that the sources say, all the time, that The Warp doesn't follow rules and is completely random, or whatever.

But when they actually show what it does, how it does it, what it can't do, who can do what with it, etc. etc. ...

It very obviously follows rules. Hence the disconnect.

[jseah]

RE: Nurgle plagues
While most of the plagues originate from the Warp via a negative emotion vector like you mentioned, apart from initial infections, they were all described to spread by close contact or described to have physical vectors (viruses, pus, etc.)

Also, I didn't come across one that affected machines.

So far, I've read the Vile Savants, Nurgle's Rot and Zombie plague. Judging by the pattern of names and descriptions, the rest of the examples in the Lexicanum that just had names didn't appear like they would affect machines.

[Gavinfoxx]

Also, I like the idea that it is biology influencing a (typically) years-long process. So it isn't JUST biology, but it is influenced by biology.

And the reason that the Imperium doesn't mass produce psykers is because outlaws research into psykers and genetics of psykers... why do they do that? Probably because they got burned a lot of times. It's a thing that Chaos does lots of, ending with people who research into this stuff falling to chaos or whatever, or that ends up with a lot of high power uncontrolled psykers and some megadeaths. So of course research into the genetics of psykers is overtly forbidden.

[The Glyphstone]

Personally, I like the Warp As Patterns concept. It might not entirely mesh with the 40K party-line that One Cannot Understand The Warp Without Being Driven Mad, but I mentioned numerous times in the first thread that one of the biggest problems that vs. threads tend to develop is when you take two settings with completely disparate underlying themes and run them together...something has to give unless you just want to go nowhere. Here, we have Cultureverse's SCIENCE!! against 40K's GRIMDARK and Unknowable Mysteries. It's entirely possible that the Warp does run on patterns, ways that are predictable yet unknowable to mortal men (hence why Tzeentch's plans are incomprehensible, because it understands the patterns we don't). Or, equally possible, the act of bringing the Culture to 40K has imposed a meta-order on the Warp, allowing the underlying truths of Cultureverse to be overlaid into the outward appearances of 40K with minimal disruption.

[Kinslayer]

Originally Posted by jseah

RE: Nurgle plagues
While most of the plagues originate from the Warp via a negative emotion vector like you mentioned, apart from initial infections, they were all described to spread by close contact or described to have physical vectors (viruses, pus, etc.)

Also, I didn't come across one that affected machines.

So far, I've read the Vile Savants, Nurgle's Rot and Zombie plague. Judging by the pattern of names and descriptions, the rest of the examples in the Lexicanum that just had names didn't appear like they would affect machines.

I believe Fan was going for the Obliterator Virus. It's a very specific one, and has more to do with merging machinery in an unholy mess than infecting people.

[The Glyphstone]

Originally Posted by Kinslayer

I believe Fan was going for the Obliterator Virus. It's a very specific one, and has more to do with merging machinery in an unholy mess than infecting people.

And I'm not sure it's strictly a Nurgle Virus. It's technically a Nurglish creation because he is the God of Disease, but you actually see more Obliterators and their unique techno-virus in non-affiliated legions like the Iron Warriors.


EDIT: Also, there is one small benefit to adopting those Two Rules on a case-by-base basis...some things in 40K related to the warp simply don't fit. Untouchables, for instance - effectively super-Blanks,like you described them but anathema to the Warp to such a degree that their touch burns Daemonflesh, and a 'Warp Lightning Bolt' would disappear out of existence if it got close to them. So have the Warp-As-Patterns theory, and stick to it when you can, but if you run into something irreconcilable, use it as-is and say 'the Warp makes its own exceptions'. It's basically a blank check, justified by canon, to break your own rules whenever you feel like it.

[Fan]

That'd still be interesting to see, an Obliterator who merges with a mind in a ship, that'd be about the only way to prevent a self destruct too.

Scary stuff.

[The Glyphstone]

Originally Posted by Fan

That'd still be interesting to see, an Obliterator who merges with a mind in a ship, that'd be about the only way to prevent a self destruct too.

Scary stuff.

It would require physical access to the Mind's material component, though, and I doubt they give that out to just anyone. So very scary, but almost indescribably difficult to pull off.

[Gavinfoxx]

Yea, your theory needs more room to describe the super-blanks, the most strong types of blanks...

[The Glyphstone]

And if he doesn't want/have time to make those elaborations, he can legitimately say 'Because Warp. Shut up."

[douglas]

If the Warp truly had no rules, no one would be able to use it for anything with any significant degree of reliability. Including psykers, navigators, the Eldar, and even Chaos. This is clearly not the case, so the Warp must have rules. Not necessarily simple rules, or rules that would seem at all reasonable to a modern physicist, but rules nonetheless.

[jseah]

An extension of the theory with regards to superblanks and Necron Null Matrix:
The Warp has a pattern that describes the Real. When manifested in the Real, nothing overt appears to happen as the rules it overwrites... it overwrites with the same rules that we are familiar with in the Real.
Superblanks do this by imposing the rules of the Real around them (the pattern is part of them). Necrons do it by building devices that by structure attract that pattern and impose it (which explains everything from Gellar fields to monolith Nodal Grids to Cadian pylons)

Aka. this is the Warp's equivalent of anti-magic field. A strong Daemon or psyker may be able to power through it, but they'll have to fight to impose their patterns' rules instead of the reality-enforcing pattern's.

Originally Posted by The Glyphstone

One Cannot Understand The Warp Without Being Driven Mad,

Now, my personal epileptic tree theory RE maddening knowledge. I am not using this for the fic, this is just a personal comment.

So far, this applies to the Warp and to Lovecraft's stuff. I haven't found any other fiction with "knowledge that drives you mad".

The theory here is that the it's not the knowledge that drives you mad. It's the definition of mad.

If you had someone walk down the street and told you the stars aligned and some outer god was going to eat all your souls and you can't feel it because you can't feel your soul... what do you think of him?

But what if he's right? To him, he's not mad, he's right and you are just unenlightened. He's seen the evidence and worked out the theory, which could be wrong. And if tearing down the street while wearing pyjamas, burning incense and playing the flute really DID avert the aligning of the stars (whatever that means), you'll never see the evidence for why he believes what he does.

You just call him crazy.

The joke's on you when you get eaten by giant space hamsters.

[Kinslayer]

Originally Posted by Gavinfoxx

And the reason that the Imperium doesn't mass produce psykers is because outlaws research into psykers and genetics of psykers... why do they do that? Probably because they got burned a lot of times. It's a thing that Chaos does lots of, ending with people who research into this stuff falling to chaos or whatever, or that ends up with a lot of high power uncontrolled psykers and some megadeaths. So of course research into the genetics of psykers is overtly forbidden.

But then people like Fabius Bile, on Team Chaos would be happily using Construct-Your-Own-Psykers, rather than looting humans from colonies. I would quote the Eldar as being able to do it if it were possible, as well, but they're all born psykers, if not nessecarily strong ones.

Originally Posted by jseah

The joke's on you when you get eaten by giant space hamsters.

But the joke is on him, in 40k. Because he'll probably start withdrawing into himself the further he learns, circular logic drawing him in, each secret pointing toward the next, until a daemon bursts from the back of his skull, or he decides that Enuncia is a great plan.*

*It's not.