14 KiB
[RT, FF, lore] Reasonable Marines
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Author: u/None *
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URL:
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Score: 17
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Created: 2015-12-16T03:58:49
Post:
Comments:
u/rineSample [+5] (19 minutes later)
Besides this, how would you go about munchkining canon WH40k?
u/None [+23] (an hour later)
Canonically, you actually can't: the Grimdark Force will stop you.
That said, I consider canon WH40k to be kind of... incoherent, because nobody ever actually reinvents clear, rational thought in ten millennia of human existence across an entire galaxy. The Old Ones, the Eldar, the Necrons, and even the goddamn Interex (basically Culture/Federation expies) are all said to have had Sufficiently Advanced technology, and yet, none of the scientific theories behind such technologies are in any way recoverable via mere experimentation.
WH40k should be considered an example of what happens when you try to run a universe on souls and magic and it backfires massively, because it would ultimately have been simpler and more robust to your universe coherency (eg: the number of times direct paraphysical intervention becomes necessary just to keep Time running) just to use science.
Oh, and half the time, Chaos will fuck your shit up, and if you're human-aligned, you can't actually get rid of Chaos, because it's fueled by your SOOOOOUUUUL, without which you will literally turn into a p-zombie. No joke. The Necrons are basically, "this one species got cancer all the time, so they tried to upload themselves into robot bodies, AND IT WENT HORRIBLY WRONG BECAUSE STAR GODS ATE THEIR SOULS."
u/obviousdisposable [+8] (12 hours later)
The funny thing about 40k is that every race/faction has a different reason for lacking progress.
Eldar are just trying to survive long enough to create a god (Ynnead) that can kill the thing that eats their souls when they die. They seem to act fairly reasonably in this context, surprisingly.
The Mechanicus lost the vast majority of people that actually understood their tech back in the heresy, and their god (Omnimessiah/ probably the void dragon) seems to actively encourage recovery of old data over finding of new, so good luck with them. They also get severely angry when any other humans try to take away their tech monopoly.
The tau are too small to matter, and also are brainwashed by their ethereal caste. There's also weak evidence that they were created as a weapon against and/or attempt to redeem the necrons.
The orks had their intended intelligent caste/subspecies go extinct, and were designed as a weapon anyways. Despite this, they seem to often build new things, and even seem to have attempts at research. It's unclear whether their constant state of warfare keeps them from progressing.
Chaos is not really worth mentioning here, but I will note that Tzeentch (one of the big 4 gods of chaos and also the god of hope) explicitly schemes against himself and his followers because it's more fun that way.
The necrons are kind of weird here. They had a working society with no ftl and a multi star system empire that was advanced enough to have a chance against a ftl capable progenitor race, then made a deal with soul eating star gods for immortal bodies and a way of breaking into their enemy's ftl network. They somehow managed to get their average citizens to lose mental acuity and maybe sapience in this deal, allegedly due to said star gods doing something, which can be alternately blamed on poor computational substrate in new bodies or maybe their souls getting eaten. On the bright side, they did successfully murder the abusive precursor race they were fighting, and they also destroyed/captured the star gods that betrayed them. It really says something about the universe when these seem to be the most effective race...
u/None [+5] (13 hours later)
I think the really big question about the Necrontyr is: how could they have lost their SOOOOUUUUULS and become p-zombie Cybermen if they had no Warp presence in the first place?
u/obviousdisposable [+3] (13 hours later)
Good point. They canonically have souls, because the C'tan were bribed by using them as snacks.
Maybe them having minimal warp presence pre C'tan is no longer canon?
u/GaBeRockKing [+6] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (11 hours later)
AND IT WENT HORRIBLY WRONG BECAUSE STAR GODS ATE THEIR SOULS."
This is why I love 40k. Where even the good guys are semi-xenocidal, brainwashed, communist theocrats. (As opposed to all the other factions, who don't even bother with the "semi-" and skip straight to xenocidal or even omnicidal.)
u/Transfuturist [+6] Carthago delenda est. (16 hours later)
communist
Well, first of all, not all centrally-planned economies are communist (I would describe the Imperium as more of a military fascist theocracy), and second, is the Imperium centrally planned?
u/GaBeRockKing [+7] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (16 hours later)
I'm talking about the Tau.
u/Transfuturist [+2] Carthago delenda est. (16 hours later)
I thought the Imperium was the good guys. I'm not too familiar with 40K, I just picked some stuff up from sup/tg/.
u/GaBeRockKing [+7] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (16 hours later)
The imperium are the main characters, but they're also massive dickbags, mostly out of necessity. Tau are marginally less evil mainly because their policy for aliens is "brainwashing an assimilation" rather than "purging and xenocide."
u/redrach [+5] (a day later)
/tg/ tend to despise Tau, seeing them as 'weeaboo' (probably due to their mecha-inpsired aesthetic), so their view of them is pretty biased.
u/None [+8] (17 hours later)
The Imperium range between capitalist and feudalist, with a heavy dose of loosely-enforced but genocidal religious fundamentalism. That is, if you're an Imperial citizen, you've probably done something "worthy" of Exterminatus, but you'll only actually get Exterminatus if an Inquisitor actually shows up, which they mostly don't.
For context, basically every meme you've ever seen about xenos, HERESY, BLAM, and "HUMANITY FUCK YEAH" was, quite unfortunately in the last case, Warhammer 40k-related.
The Tau are called "weaboo space communists", and are considered "too good" for the setting because they're merely Totalitarian Utilitarians who're willing to use fucking diplomacy for once and accept other species as vassals rather than being outright xenocidal.
u/Transfuturist [+3] Carthago delenda est. (2 days later)
Actually, I read the Humanity Fuck Yeah threads and they're 40K-unrelated. It's more like humanity porn, where humans are the most X in a galaxy of not-very-X aliens. Humanity is the most militaristically psychotic. Humanity is the only species able to lie. Humanity is the most adaptable species. Humanity will fuck literally anything that moves and a lot of things that don't.
I find it quite enjoyable, despite its masturbatory nature.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
Humanity is the most militaristically psychotic.
How do you think that's unrelated to 40k?
Humanity will fuck literally anything that moves and a lot of things that don't.
Actually, among the natural world, that is an unusual feature of the human species. Really weirdly strong sex drive.
u/Nighzmarquls [+3] (2 days later)
Not precisely unique, checkout some of the skeevy stuff sea-otters and dolphins get up too. It might just be a result of what happens if you make mammals smarter.
u/None [+2] (20 hours later)
That said, I consider canon WH40k to be kind of... incoherent, because nobody ever actually reinvents clear, rational thought in ten millennia of human existence across an entire galaxy. The Old Ones, the Eldar, the Necrons, and even the goddamn Interex (basically Culture/Federation expies) are all said to have had Sufficiently Advanced technology, and yet, none of the scientific theories behind such technologies are in any way recoverable via mere experimentation.
One explanation is that its very difficult to maintain coherent infrastructure at scale in this universe. When it takes long time periods to travel between star systems and theres a real risk of any ship getting lost or delayed you need the insane imperial levels of forced cooperation to get anything done.
It may also just be a fact of this universe that technological progress becomes exponentially more difficult. Even pre dark age humanity doesn't seem to have invented anything ridiculously powerful, just better versions of the conventional tech the imperium uses, aided by weak AI. The few things the eldar have done above this are more reliant on warp powers
Its basically a universe where technological solutions can't really exist to the major problems, and the species are stuck in a hobbesian/malthusian death spiral
u/None [+4] (22 hours later)
Except that Dark Age!Humanity did, until they developed asshole psykers and all Mankind starts killing each-other for asshole reasons.
u/obviousdisposable [+3] (14 hours later)
Depends on the era. If it's early imperium, the emperor could probably have done a lot better with some small changes, like warning his primarchs about chaos.
Modern day? The space wolves have the right non-mechanicus tech base and connections to have a shot of improving things, but don't think that way. If you manipulate the void dragon's prison so it ?goes back? to encouraging finding new information, it might work. IIRC, ark Mechanicus ships have proper ai and full stc data but the Mechanicus don't know this, so that might work too
u/None [+5] (17 hours later)
IIRC, ark Mechanicus ships have proper ai and full stc data but the Mechanicus don't know this
Holy shit wat.
u/obviousdisposable [+5] (18 hours later)
Read priests of Mars. Spoilers, unfortunately.
EDIT: The bottom of this page has details.
u/None [+9] (21 hours later)
It moved the enemy ship back in time so they couldn't dodge while they were being bombarded with black holes that were perfectly targetted during a fucking Warp Storm.
Dark Age of Technology!Humanity were downright Tengen Toppa. Like, holy shit, truly, there is no kill like motherfucking overkill.
Pity the plot never moves forward.
u/None [+3] (20 hours later)
Theres a good but really ^^really ^^^really long Culture meets W40K crossover that handles this quite well
u/CapnQwerty [+2] (20 hours later)
Could you provide a link?
u/None [+3] (20 hours later)
http://archiveofourown.org/works/649448/chapters/1181375
Previous discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2l53l2/the_culture_explores_warhammer_40k/
u/None [+3] (a day later)
Holy shit, that thing follows my headcanon for how the Warp works.
u/None [+2] (21 hours later)
Its pretty good, does a good job of not making the culture too overpowered when they could easily have broken the thought experiment. And giving some rationalisations for how thigns work in the 40kverse.
negatives would be length and lack of engaging characters
u/narfanator [+4] (a day later)
40k, at it's base, does a pretty good job of giving a good explanation for why everything is terrible: Free thinking will literally eat your brain.
Actually, now that I write that, I just want you to go read the Laundry Files and then come back. The necessity of bureaucracy + cthulhuian horrors that come from your brain? Explains a lot.
THAT SAID, my other favorite "oh hey that makes it make sense" about 40K is that all their tech is basically true Singularity-left overs (although what happened to the AIs is unanswered), and that the "warp" part of their engines (when in real space) is the heat sink.
Edit: So it's not that the Mechanicus doesn't try to understand or is unaware that they're a cargo cult - it's that the rituals are literally basically the best understanding possible for a human for the sheer advancedeness of the tech.
u/Nighzmarquls [+1] (2 days later)
My biggest beef with warhammer 40k is that every race in the present era (minus the tau who are essentially cave men) is using their capabilities to such an abysmal degree that it's comparable to some one having a fully functional car and just using its headlights and windshield wipers.
It's not even a sensible kind of "minima" thing going on here.
Their ships are so weird.
And tyrannids... Oh don't even get me started on how dumb tyrannids are.
u/Riddle-Tom_Riddle [+1] (10 days later)
Interesting.
I... I don't really have anything to say about this(I'm largely unfamiliar with 40K), but here's a pasta I've always liked.
GREETINGS BATTLE BROTHERS I AM NEW. HOLDS UP BOLTER MY NAME IS SERGEANT ARGUS BUT YOU CAN CALL ME BATTLE BROTHER. AS YOU CAN SEE I AM VERY LOYAL TO THE EMPEROR. THAT IS WHY I HAVE COME HERE, TO MEET OTHER BATTLE BROTHERS WHO ARE LOYAL TO THE EMPEROR LIKE MYSELF. I AM 127 YEARS OF AGE ( PRAISE THE EMPEROR) I LIKE TO PURGE HERETICS AND XENO SCUM WITH MY BATTLE BROTHERS ( I LOVE MY BATTLE BROTHERS, IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THAT THE DEAL WITH IT) IT IS OUR FAVORITE ACTIVITY BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT LOYAL TO THE EMPEROR. ALL MY BATTLE BROTHERS ARE LOYAL TO THE EMPEROR TOO OF COURSE, BUT I WANT TO MEET MORE LOYAL SERVANTS OF THE EMPEROR. LIKE THE EMPEROR ONCE SAID, THE MORE THE MERRIER. I HOPE TO BOND WITH A LARGE AMOUNT OF LOYAL SERVANTS OF THE EMPEROR SO JOIN ME IN PRAISE OF THE EMPEROR. FAREWELL.
PRAISE THE EMPEROR
BATTLE BROTHER