The Culture Explores 40K III: Just As Planned

[jseah]

Previous Threads
1: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256776
2: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=260117

Story post links: http://sync.in/ep/pad/view/ro.f7Ii2bq8IM01rFxsOm/latest

[Forum Explorer]

new thread and tracking.


I think Dark Eldar are going to be your biggest challenge to write really. Since they are supposed to be crazy prepared tactical geniuses and the like.

[jseah]

Crazy prepared tactical genius holds no candles to Future Sight or their equivalent of an Outside Context Problem (which the Culture might as well be).

[Forum Explorer]

Crazy prepared tactical genius holds no candles to Future Sight or their equivalent of an Outside Context Problem (which the Culture might as well be).

Dark Eldar in Canon out tactic and stratigize Eldar, Necron, and Chaos forces at times. Despite not having future sight. That's how good they are.

[jseah]

Dark Eldar in Canon out tactic and stratigize Eldar, Necron, and Chaos forces at times. Despite not having future sight. That's how good they are.
Perhaps in conventional battles and the sphere they are used to working in. Future sight is far better at strategic and social manipulations than outright warfare, it allows access to information you couldn't normally get. Like the existence of the Culture.

As much of a genius you can be, but OCPs and the unknown unknowns simply cannot be prepared for.

[jseah]

part 9.5 Dark Eldar
Week 2
GSV I Shoot the Darkness! has arrived from a neighbouring system. While waiting for the return of the Other Eldar, we have constructed a scout probe lavishly decorated with every single scientific instrument we could think of. At least those that would fit through the gate.

-----------
The Other Eldar have come back. This new group is led by a different person, despite positive identification of almost 30% of the ships being the same as the previous fleet. This new Other Eldar appears to be of higher rank than the previous person and from this we surmise that our prior contact will no longer be available.

Given the fluctuating and potentially unstable form of government these Other Eldar seem to have, as well as their unpalatable social practices, we are of the opinion that reform of this society should be attempted. Of course, this requires a method of access. Since these Other Eldar are willing to grant us access in exchange for backing their leadership contests, this does not appear to be a problem.

Some negotiation with this new Eldar person has us settled on an agreement. The Other Eldar will provide gate operation services to allow us into the webway through this gate, in exchange we will back his rise in power as well as provide advanced personal combat weaponry. While we cannot grant them equiv-tech, we estimate that we can produce far more effective, if less... imaginative weaponry with little effort.

-----------------
A short excursion by the scientific probe into the webway indicates a major problem. The webway contains only three dimensional physical space (and considerably more complex dimensionalities in navigation), with no access to hyperspace. This was unanticipated and presents a major stumbling block as not even drones will operate without hyperspace.

We are in the process of designing a fully real-space drone design that retains at least 1:1 intelligence. We do not anticipate having problems with organic Contact and SC agents operating in the webway. A design of a capable scout ship to serve as a base of operations (necessarily without a Mind) is underway.
Given the hostile power relationships that govern what we know of the Other Eldar society, we anticipate a near certainty that the base and any agents we send will come under attack multiple times by Other Eldar forces and must balance the capability to defend our assets against the possibility of technology leakage.

Not least because the webway is not perfect, sections have been damaged according to the Other Eldar and opened to the Warp. The more capable a base we use, the higher the risk that any attack that damages the webway will cause Chaos to gain technology, despite our precautions of self-destruct devices or any other methods. (especially since such devices may not work in the Warp!)

[Forum Explorer]

Perhaps in conventional battles and the sphere they are used to working in. Future sight is far better at strategic and social manipulations than outright warfare, it allows access to information you couldn't normally get. Like the existence of the Culture.

As much of a genius you can be, but OCPs and the unknown unknowns simply cannot be prepared for.

Sure, and I suppose it helps that Dark Eldar are basically unassailable by every other faction besides Eldar (who can't afford the sort of war needed to fight the Dark Eldar) since they live in the webway. Therefore they pick their battles in the most literal sense.

The Dark Eldar have some nasty 'in general' tricks like shunting the threat off to another dimension (and not the warp!) or using insane poisons (like the thing that turns you into a crystal statue.)

[jseah]

They are also ridiculously divided and the crime-syndicate like society they have is seriously dysfunctional. Enough so that what I had happen (aka. some enterprising lackey deciding to displace his boss by leveraging on the Culture) is quite likely.

Of course, in this particular case, his boss kills him and steals his idea but it's the same thing.

The IoM has ridiculously poor coordination. But at least they don't work under a state of continuous internal rebellion.

[Forum Explorer]

They are also ridiculously divided and the crime-syndicate like society they have is seriously dysfunctional. Enough so that what I had happen (aka. some enterprising lackey deciding to displace his boss by leveraging on the Culture) is quite likely.

Of course, in this particular case, his boss kills him and steals his idea but it's the same thing.

The IoM has ridiculously poor coordination. But at least they don't work under a state of continuous internal rebellion.

True but on the other hand the only resource they need from the outside world is souls.

I'm just expecting some serious shenanigans with their parts. They certainly aren't a threat to the Culture, and they are very horrifying society for the Culture to witness so this will fun. :smallwink:

[jseah]

part 9.5 Dark Eldar
Week 3
Preliminary tests indicate our newly re-engineered scout drone is capable of operating in the webway, we believe that there is a possibility of long term operation in the webway. Many of our normal technologies we assume for security are unavailable, from long range effectors to Displacers and Pancakers.

While we retain many advantages over Other Eldar weaponry and craft, this advantage is no longer overwhelming. In the realspace, a single GCU is the match for any number of Dark Eldar ships, in the webway, the most heavily armed Culture ship has to fight on the same order of magnitude in reaction time and only has two orders of magnitude more firepower and defensive capability.

Additionally, we are... unwilling to provide the most advanced technology. The more advanced the technology, the more tempting a target the Contact operational base will be for the Other Eldar and Chaos. Even accounting for exaggeration on their part, the Other Eldar grossly outnumber us. Additionally, there is also the threat that Chaos may attempt to attack the webway to get at the Contact base and the technology it represents.

For these reasons, we believe it necessary that only the minimum of force can be provided. Additionally, we cannot establish an embassy with the Other Eldar until we have reverse engineered enough of the webway gates to gain access without their aid; this is required to maintain the threat of retaliation if our embassy is attacked.

It is unfortunate, but we cannot acede to the Other Eldar's request for us to directly back his ascension. However, the provision of more advanced handheld weapons (railguns developed for the Tau that are an order of magnitude below equiv-tech) and the understanding that we will back him in the future once we are more confident, has preserved the deal.

[Gavinfoxx]

A couple things to remind you...

...handheld magnetic accelerator and gravitic accelerator weapons are relatively common. The main Eldar and Dark Eldar guns -- Shuriken weaponry and Splinter Weaponry, are gravitic and magnetic accelerators, respectively. Of course the Tau use Rail Rifles, and the Mechanicus use fully automatic magnetic accelerator handheld weaponry in some of their elite troops.

Also remember that the Dark Eldar use WAY less psychic tech than the Normal Eldar, because much of their psychic capability is atrophied, though they still use enslaved Eldar to make some of their more psychic stuff.

Also, the Dark Eldar could design weapons that are more effective at protecting them, killing others, and more efficient at killing quickly. They choose not to, because they are there to harvest pain and terror.

"Why do we ride atop these elegant craft? The better to hear the screams of our prey as we ride them down, to savour the fear etched on their faces, to taste the tantalising tang of their blood in the air as an appetiser before the feast. But most of all we ride them so that the slaughter may begin as soon as possible." - Dariaq Bladetongue of the Pierced Eye (Warhammer 40,000 5th Edition Rulebook, p. 70)

[Parra]

From what I can gather, neither Eldar nor Dark Eldar can build any more Webway, correct? And the Webway has finite and fixed exit points? I think I heard mention in the other threads that part of the Webway is cut off from other parts.

Could a potential avenue of control be exerted upon the Dark Eldar by the Culture by shutting down the exits from or otherwise isolating the parts of the Webway that the Dark Eldar inhabit?
Maybe only going so far as to restricting where they can exit, this would limit raids for soul harvesting and might make them a little more desperate and willing to negotiate, if only to save themselves from being consumed by Chaos.

[jseah]

Also, the Dark Eldar could design weapons that are more effective at protecting them, killing others, and more efficient at killing quickly. They choose not to, because they are there to harvest pain and terror.
Except when they're doing a leadership contest by force of arms, then efficiency matters alot. Especially when you aren't interested in harvesting pain and more interested in not dying.

And of course, Culture railguns will be smaller, lighter and far far more powerful. Being you know, antimatter powered.


Parra:
The Culture need galaxy-wide reach before that becomes a possibility. They have maybe 1/3 of the galaxy properly surveyed. Ask again in a year.

[Gavinfoxx]

Eldar can do limited (very) webway engineering. They can make little gates that can't work far from a permanent gate (which they can't make). Look up some of the super heavy tanks...

[jseah]

Eldar can do limited (very) webway engineering. They can make little gates that can't work far from a permanent gate (which they can't make). Look up some of the super heavy tanks...
How much do the Eldar want this capability back? Would they accept if the Culture offered a joint science project to reverse engineer one?
(they would still retain control over its production since the Culture aren't psychics, but it does let the Culture have very valuable strategic information into the Eldar as a whole)

[Parra]

Parra:
The Culture need galaxy-wide reach before that becomes a possibility. They have maybe 1/3 of the galaxy properly surveyed. Ask again in a year.

Granted its not something that they can click their force fields and just make happen immediatly, but as a long term lever used to push the Dark Eldar down a certain path it could be quite useful

[Gavinfoxx]

Okay.... Here's some information on Webway Gates as I understand them. Other people should please strive to correct me!

The first thing you should know: Not all things which can be described as Webway Gates / Webway Nexuses / etc. are the same.

First, let's look at the relevant Lexicanum links:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Webway
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Webway_Portal
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Wraithgate
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Storm_Serpent
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Webway_Nexus
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Golden_Throne

Now, what I take away from this (and other descriptions) is a few things. Not all webway gates are the same! Most of them are the super-old ones made by the Old Ones, and which tend to exist at particular places in realspace. These tend to be the most powerful webway gates -- these are the ones on planets, and (implied to be) the ones on Craftworlds. They always link to a particular part of the Webway, and they are usually stuck with whatever they are on. This implies that the biggest Webway gates were all made by the Old Ones, and that there is a limited number of these that can be built (after all, they need to be at a particular place in the Webway to make one of these). The only way for these things to point to a different area of the galaxy is to move the surface that they are on (be it planet, moon, or craftworld). This also means that there is really a limited number of possible craftworlds, cause each HAS to have one of these ancient webway gates at it's core. It is implied that the Eldar *never* mastered the creation of these gates.

Next, there are the smaller gates, which are implied to be able to 'hook into' the webway... this is implied to have a significant mass/size limitation, or possibly, they can only work within a certain real distance to one of these larger, 'core' gates. This is implied to be the sorts of gates that are on the Dark Eldar ships (this isn't certain). Regardless, this is the sort of thing that is on the Storm Serpant and things like that. The Eldar have been able to make these, though presumably, making the larger and more versatile ones is very, very difficult. As is minimizing the personal ones. These, for sure, require psychoplastic materials to make! Non Psykers can not make them -- or at least, there are significant parts that a Psyker is needed for! Whether or not certain parts of these gates can be made without a psyker, to make the job of the psyker / bonesinger / whatever easier and simpler...who knows? Perhaps. This is what is in the Storm Serpents... which it is presumed that at least some Eldar Craftworlds can make, but not all of them. The major craftworlds that still have a culture of making the super heavy tanks and such, and haven't lost the arts, can make these things... the minor craftworlds? Maybe not. Regardless, there are probably minor improvements possible on how far away from a True gate they can stray before not being able to get into the webway at/near that gate. As far as whether Eldar would want a joint project in making more of these or improving the existing ones... I would say it depends on if they See a very, very, very positive outcome for doing this.

Next, there are the human webway gates. Or Gate. The Astronomicon is a human-made webway gate, like the big Old Ones type, and it connects to a Human made extension of the Webway. However, the defensive parts of the webway weren't near as good as the Old Ones parts... requiring an Alpha or Alpha+ Psyker to sit on the Golden Throne to prevent these parts from being overrun with demons, for humans to use it. Currently, this part of the webway is entirely overrun... but the gate part, the Golden Throne part, is still defended... by the Emperor. Should he die, likely demons would pour out of the gate... but this, as far as I know, is the only Canon example of anyone other than the Old Ones making one of the big gates, and the only example of anyone other than the Old Ones making a part of the Webway. This needed psychics and Psychoplastic materials to make.


Did The Culture get an effector scan of the Astronomicon?

[Gavinfoxx]

Now... I don't 100% know if that thing on minor/major disparity on the Webway gates is completely TRUE or not... but it fits the canon I know. The idea is that you can't use the Webway to go anywhere. If you could build a gate anywhere with no problem whatsoever and no restrictions at all, you WOULD be able to use it to go anywhere... and you can't! The Webway goes to particular places, that's always been a feature. But it definitely fits the data I have that the ones the Eldar can actually BUILD have limitations.

[jseah]

Did The Culture get an effector scan of the Astronomicon?
They don't have an effector scan of it. Just a nanobot one. They do know it is mostly warp-based.

Nevertheless, the Culture would be confident that if the Eldar would teach them, they could pick up the basics of warp engineering fairly quickly (how hard could it be to a Mind? =P).
And think they could out-do the Eldar at it shortly after, but the Culture aren't going to mention that and the Eldar would just think the Culture are overconfident.

I was in fact, talking about reverse engineering the Big gates. The small portable ones would be a first step to understanding the warp and its mechanics, the big ones would be for afterwards.

[Gavinfoxx]

Weellll.... regardless how much theoretical information about that sort of thing you have... you still need Psykers to apply it! Psychoplastic materials necessary and all. But if The Culture dangles the fruit of them being able to make the Big, Stable, Old Ones style gates (cause, after all, there are at least places in the Webway where the Webway WOULD go to... except the Old One's gate got blown up from the outside, you know?? But the Webway part of it is still fine), than they very well might jump. It would need a LOT of divination on the topic, of course... but The Eldar probably don't know if they were ever able to make those big gates or not. They have lost too much history to know if they ever managed it... they might have, they might not have.

[Gavinfoxx]

The real trick, of course... is repairing damaged parts of the Webway, or building new parts of the Webway!

[jseah]

Weellll.... regardless how much theoretical information about that sort of thing you have... you still need Psykers to apply it! Psychoplastic materials necessary and all. But if The Culture dangles the fruit of them being able to make the Big, Stable, Old Ones style gates (cause, after all, there are at least places in the Webway where the Webway WOULD go to... except the Old One's gate got blown up from the outside, you know?? But the Webway part of it is still fine), than they very well might jump. It would need a LOT of divination on the topic, of course... but The Eldar probably don't know if they were ever able to make those big gates or not. They have lost too much history to know if they ever managed it... they might have, they might not have.
Or more like, this is one of the more safer bets the Culture has for getting a wedge into learning about the Warp. It doesn't matter if the Eldar get to be able to build more webway or even extend the network and the Culture can't, the Culture don't really want to use it for transport anyway (see the last part of the Dark Eldar bit).

The point for the Culture is that the Warp is a big scary place where monsters (like Chaos) live. They don't understand how it works, apart from a uselessly general theory, can't use it, can barely defend against it and are enemies with the Chaos gods. Plus their enemies just started to react to their movements, so things just got a whole lot more urgent.
Right now, the Dark Eldar, reprehensible as they are, are just small beans next to Chaos; the Culture are only so interested in them because they use psychic weapons and materials (and the webway) and thus can possibly help the Culture understand the Warp.

And if it helps the Eldar, who are still their closest "ally" (although the Tau are closer, they're also useless) and staunch enemies of Chaos as well as being more or less uncorruptible by Chaos, then all the better.

[Gavinfoxx]

Remember wayyyy back in the day where Eldar mostly want to get better at the things that they are already good at? And they mostly want to have the same lifestyle and don't really want to change the way they do things?

I would put this solidly in that category. Improving their mastery and understanding of the Webway is a huuuuge carrot for Eldar. It might -- just might -- be enough of a carrot for them to actually go for this, and share some of the info on bonesinging, being a psyker, the webway. MAYBE. It'd be like prying teeth -- but if the Farseers saw a huuuge benefit for their craftworld in doing this, they would maybe do this thing that is very alien and uncomfortable to them.

[Gavinfoxx]

Have we decided what happens when a human or Eldar like Organic (or even a machine that thinks like a human) looks at the walls of the Webway with sensors that are too powerful? Remember that part in the Path of the Warrior where it was a bad idea to look at the wall of the webway with a sensor?

Also remember that the Dark Eldar use fewer psychic stuff than the normal Eldar! Much of their psychic capability is atrophied, so they use more normal materials than the Craftworld Eldar do (though they still use some psychic stuff).


Also, if you want a more intelligent drone without access to Hyperspace... make a bigger drone! Seriously, a drone the size of a Falcon Grav Tank would be fine for most parts of the Webway...

[jseah]

Also remember that the Dark Eldar use fewer psychic stuff than the normal Eldar! Much of their psychic capability is atrophied, so they use more normal materials than the Craftworld Eldar do (though they still use some psychic stuff).
They understand their psychic stuff though. That's still better than nothing. (and the IoM don't count)


Remember wayyyy back in the day where Eldar mostly want to get better at the things that they are already good at? And they mostly want to have the same lifestyle and don't really want to change the way they do things?

I would put this solidly in that category. Improving their mastery and understanding of the Webway is a huuuuge carrot for Eldar. It might -- just might -- be enough of a carrot for them to actually go for this, and share some of the info on bonesinging, being a psyker, the webway. MAYBE. It'd be like prying teeth -- but if the Farseers saw a huuuge benefit for their craftworld in doing this, they would maybe do this thing that is very alien and uncomfortable to them.
Provided, of course, that the Culture can demonstrate that the joint science project is likely to suceed. No point doing this for a failure.

Perhaps the Eldar might tell the Culture to reverse engineer some other Warp device on their own first (basic principles of a Gellar Field projector might be a good target), and then come back to talk about it.
Or... hmm... The Eldar ask the Culture to reverse engineer the Sororitas Faith? =D Is there a way to make that work?

Also, they're obviously not going to reverse engineer Eldar gates. The Big Gates that will get taken to bits and analyzed are obviously going to be Dark Eldar held gates, but I don't see any possible objections to that on either side. (Dark Eldar objections... don't really matter; with the Culture holding the realspace side of the gate, the Eldar and Contact forces can retreat through the gate to safety)

[Gavinfoxx]

Uhm... The Faith stuff, doesn't exactly work the same way as most Warp stuff. There is a Warp aspect to it, but the mechanism isn't as obvious as some of the Warp / 'it takes a psyker to make this or is designed to be used by a psyker' stuff. Understanding various warp-charged tech -- and there is quite a lot of Warp-charged tech all over the galaxy, including 'long lost Xenos' stuff, human stuff, Eldar stuff, etc. etc.

Hell... why not have a non chaos based, non-sanctioned human Psyker have taken some information on the Culture from the mind of some high ranking Imperial... and realized that contacting them is the best way to not get taken in by the Black Ships?

But sure, the Eldar can give them a bunch of homework. "Understand these non-Eldar psychic devices, there are examples scattered around this part of galaxy, and then come back to us and we can talk. We don't want to work with neophytes" is plausible... but, again, if the Farseers say to work with them, that is exactly what will happen.

[Gavinfoxx]

And make no mistake, there are a LOT of psychic tech and warp devices all over the galaxy... from a huge number of races (many extinct) as well...

[jseah]

And make no mistake, there are a LOT of psychic tech and warp devices all over the galaxy... from a huge number of races (many extinct) as well...
Um... too late? =P I have already sort of made that mistake.

Are there any examples of what psychic devices normally do? Or do I just make up stuff...

[Gavinfoxx]

Um... too late? =P I have already sort of made that mistake.

Are there any examples of what psychic devices normally do? Or do I just make up stuff...

Generally, have a component that is designed to be powered by a psyker. Or have a component that is designed to be noticed by a psyker. Or to expand the powers of a psyker. Or be used by a psyker, channeling their energy somehow. Or to store psychic energy or something. Or to be imprinted by a psyker. Or that requires a psyker in the creation of it. Or interacts with the Warp in some way, like making a rift or a vortex or even a minor change like a ripple in the Warp. The Culture has probably noticed a lot of these things, but never realized that they had anything special to do with the Warp! There is a ton of this stuff that is, in some minor way, psychically relevant... lots of minor ancient artifacts of various sorts.

I'm sure people will help find a complete list! I will be editing items into this post as I think of them.


Force Weapons (designed for a Psyker to power them, both Eldar and Human versions)
Psychic Hood (designed protect against enemy psykers for Astartes Librarians. The Eldar similar item is the Ghosthelm)
Psychic Wards (there are both Eldar and Human versions)
Psy-Jammers
Psycho-Reactive woods and metals and crystals and materials found in nature
Drugs that interact with Psykers

Anyway, this is a good list of equipment (from the RPG's) in general. Just go to each page, unhide the cells, and look for the phrase 'psy'. Then look up those items elsewhere... this is human-centric, of course, but if The Culture has an understanding of the construction Human items that have something to do with psykers, that means that they aren't rank amateurs!

http://www.mediafire.com/?4b9x7aqq9avrjz5

[Gavinfoxx]

What I am saying is... The Culture has probably interacted with a ton of Psychic stuff... scanned a bunch, but hasn't realized that those are psychic devices. They might see them as cultural artifacts or art or just 'some crystals that grow there' or whatever... but if they know in general that this device is designed to be psychically resonant, or is harvested for that, or whatever... that means they might be able to take a second look, you know??

It'd be just like the Eldar to say, 'In this list of several hundred technologies, materials, and animals and creatures that are found in this part of the Galaxy, there is between three and ten items on this list that have nothing whatsoever to do with Psykers, Psychic Energy, and The Warp. As soon as you understand these items well enough to explain each and every one of them and why they are on this list, and say which of the between three and ten items have nothing to do with psychic power, then you can come talk to us about this project.'

(And of course, they would expect The Culture to be back in a century or two...)

Hell, 'here is a list of things that mostly have to do with psychic power, and can't on their own cause huge problems with bringing things from the Warp into the Real when poked with a stick, and are fairly safe to experiment with' would be a huge boon to The Culture... simply getting a lot of those things, and some of their most psychically sensitive people, and a bunch of sensors all in the same place would be profoundly useful!

Also, have you read this page on Lexicanum? http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Assignment

I would guess that 'an average Eldar' is probably Epsilon, and 'an average Dark Eldar' is maybe 'Kappa'. The Average Tau is, well. Tau. Anyway, I would expect that it would soon become En Vogue for people in The Culture to take the various tests and see what they count as... no doubt, that some people might be surprised to find themselves as potential psykers! Even if they are potentially powerful psykers, they won't have developed psychic abilities in the short time they have been in this Galaxy where it is possible...


Also, um.. Jseah?

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

[jseah]

What's the point of the last link? Apart from getting me to stop using 'alot'. =P


Hell, 'here is a list of things that mostly have to do with psychic power, and can't on their own cause huge problems with bringing things from the Warp into the Real when poked with a stick, and are fairly safe to experiment with' would be a huge boon to The Culture... simply getting a lot of those things, and some of their most psychically sensitive people, and a bunch of sensors all in the same place would be profoundly useful!Of course, unlike the IoM, fairly safe for the Culture could still be pretty deadly for most anyone else provided the effect is local and isn't warp shenanigans.

That said, this would admittedly be a major step up from making a tiny variation in warp drives, setting an IoM-style cogitator to perform the sequence of steps to get it into the warp and back out, running ten light years away and waiting for a day before creeping back in to see what remains of the rock you put it on.

And quite probably, the Eldar would put in a few more minor unknown items of interest to the Eldar that the Eldar can't get access to. After all, if the Culture are going to do some research anyway, might as well get them to answer questions you wish you knew the answers to as well.
Tack on retrieval of a few Eldar artifacts as "tuition fees" (and primarily because the farseers will see they can get away with asking for them) and that sounds like a deal the Eldar could accept.

...
I take it the Imperium wouldn't accept this student-mentor like relationship even when it would be immensely helpful to them? =D Yup, probably not.


Now, it's just a matter of political will, what with Alaitoc and Ulthwe probably going to oppose this move from this unnamed-probably-minor craftworld.

[Gavinfoxx]

What's the point of the last link? Apart from getting me to stop using 'alot'. =P

You understand!

[Gavinfoxx]

And quite probably, the Eldar would put in a few more minor unknown items of interest to the Eldar that the Eldar can't get access to. After all, if the Culture are going to do some research anyway, might as well get them to answer questions you wish you knew the answers to as well.
Tack on retrieval of a few Eldar artifacts as "tuition fees" (and primarily because the farseers will see they can get away with asking for them) and that sounds like a deal the Eldar could accept.

That's what I was going for, I guess. Though I would expect the conversation would be like, "Why are there no Eldar artifacts on this list?" "Naive Child! That is because every Eldar artifact can be assumed to be at the very least, psychoreactive -- from a paintbrush to a baby's doll! Further, we don't want you poking and prodding superior Eldar artifacts; they are profoundly more complex and correct than their Mon-keigh equivalents. No, if you are to understand things by taking them apart and keeping them, they must never be Eldar artifacts. The fact that you are doing non-invasive scans when you rapidly return them to us is galling enough!"



Also... this minor Craftworld probably wouldn't have the expertise to make all of the sorts of things that Eldar are capable of making in general. Hence, why it is a minor craftworld, rather than a major one, you know? Not that they'd let some upstart Mon-Keighs know that...

Anyway, why don't you make it Arach-Qin or Zahr-Tann? Those are some canonical 'minor' craftworlds with no particular details mentioned about them.

[etesp]

Quickly replying to a few of the more important debates while I was away. Won't be all that active for a few days more.

Tau warp skimming/Hyperdrive compatibility, and general warp/hyperspace interaction.

I'm mostly with jseah on this, though I'd argue that for full consistency.. both should be reachable from the other. The warp as a "conceptual dimension" or "alternate plane" should be linked to all of realspace, including the fourth spatial dimension. However, it's totally feasible for the hyperdrives themselves to not function within the warp, at least not until the Culture has a much better understanding of warp engineering. The hyperspace parts of minds/drones having problems is also consistent, though perhaps making hyperdrives work in the webway will prove not too difficult since it has much more normal physics. Anyway, doing warp skimming from hyperspace seems consistent to me.

Mindstates having souls

With the working interpretation of a WH40k soul as a warp pattern which grows alongside a biological, is wiped "clean" with a new body, and is not present in drones/non-warptech based machine intelligences (which afaik fits WH40k cannon, and the interactions in this fic so far).. I don't see how a mindstate could consistently be said to have a WH40k soul. Mindstates are also very manipulable/copyable by Minds, and can even be transformed into minds. Giving them that kind of power in the warp would be extremely destabilizing, and result in the story being decided almost entirely by the Minds having to to adapt to a new set of laws, but having infinite soulpower+universe simulating intelligence vs the Chaos gods working in their natural habitat, but being massively outmatched in raw power (finite souls/thoughtpower is less than infinite souls/thoughtpower), intelligence, and ability to work in realspace. Giving AI-Warp a direct bridge (and mindstates are a form of AI) would be one way to handle interactions, but it'd make for a much less interesting story and would be inconsistent with previous interactions.

True Faith

How is this not a purely warp phenomenon? Sure, it's not the same as psyker power or Chaos powers.. but it seems like it fits as a GEoM worship power. And GEoM is in some ways comparable to a god of the warp (links below for how this could work). Adding another layer of new physics to explain the miracles seems entirely unnecessary when order/faith based warp patterns could easily enough produce things which would be thought of as miracles, and it's not like anyone's used the scientific method extensively with adequate tools in a way which could rule this out. Having the worship of the Order God and a Chaos God be mutually exclusive, so faith provides resistance to Chaos corruption also makes perfect sense to me. And to explain why it's not as obvious/common/clear as Chaos worship powers.. GEoM's not fully ascended to godhood. He does not have the same level of active power, yet.

Also, some interesting (though non-cannon) reading material, especially the bits about the GEoM:
http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=51806 WH50k
http://www.thebolthole.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=231 WH60K

I had a dream in which me and my partner were on a post multi apocalyptic world (it seemed like everyone had got hypertech) which had most of the factions from this, stealing some tech from a crashed Culture ship to sell to IoM for protection from Daemons and Nids last night. It was pretty epic.

And I'll reply to the non-cannon futures when I have more time :)

oh and updated the storypost listings. will see about improving things there sometime, maybe working with the google doc... and that prequel.

[Gavinfoxx]

The thing with Faith powers is that non-psykers do them, they don't scan as psychic energy to other Psykers or Aetherscopes or similar. It certainly has something to do with the Warp, yes, but it is more mysterious than normal psyker stuff... the rules aren't as clear.

[Tiki Snakes]

The thing with Faith powers is that non-psykers do them, they don't scan as psychic energy to other Psykers or Aetherscopes or similar. It certainly has something to do with the Warp, yes, but it is more mysterious than normal psyker stuff... the rules aren't as clear.

I just assume that "Faith Powers" represent the God Emperor of Mankind, and/or his nascent starchildy warp self actively stepping in and doing stuff.

Which would mean trying to manipulate or fake it would be, uh, risky? But this is just my head-canon.

[Gavinfoxx]

I'm mostly with jseah on this, though I'd argue that for full consistency.. both should be reachable from the other. The warp as a "conceptual dimension" or "alternate plane" should be linked to all of realspace, including the fourth spatial dimension. However, it's totally feasible for the hyperdrives themselves to not function within the warp, at least not until the Culture has a much better understanding of warp engineering. The hyperspace parts of minds/drones having problems is also consistent, though perhaps making hyperdrives work in the webway will prove not too difficult since it has much more normal physics. Anyway, doing warp skimming from hyperspace seems consistent to me.

It's also possible that the Old Ones who made the Webway either intentionally or unintentionally didn't give it more dimensions when they were setting the 'reality' parameters.

Though I would expect a ship with 4d spatial dimension stuff out in the Warp proper to, depending on exactly how many spatial dimensions the Warp is operating at, have those hyperspace bits phase in or out of accessibility... as the spatial dimensions (and number thereof!) of the Warp temporarily line up in a way that provides access. Basically, you can consider that the number of spatial dimension in the Warp proper varies greatly. Anywhere from three to 6 or 7 or 11 or 13 or whatever.

Remember that there are ways to protect a ship in the Warp other than a Gellar Field. Have enough Orks on it with Ork Teef on the ship, and the WAAGH reality-distorting field will let the Teef effectively warn demons away. Sorcery can do it too.

[The Glyphstone]

Oh yeah - Orks don't travel with Gellar Fields when they ride Space Hulks through the Warp. They treat demonic incursions as free live-fire training sessions.

[Gavinfoxx]

Oh yeah - Orks don't travel with Gellar Fields when they ride Space Hulks through the Warp. They treat demonic incursions as free live-fire training sessions.

The current Canon is that the Teef that are on Ork ships do prevent demonic incursion...

[Forum Explorer]

Except when they're doing a leadership contest by force of arms, then efficiency matters alot. Especially when you aren't interested in harvesting pain and more interested in not dying.

And of course, Culture railguns will be smaller, lighter and far far more powerful. Being you know, antimatter powered.


Parra:
The Culture need galaxy-wide reach before that becomes a possibility. They have maybe 1/3 of the galaxy properly surveyed. Ask again in a year.

Dark Eldar do feed off each other so they'd likely use their pain weapons if possible.



Faith Powers could be like getting direct power from Chaos, which in itself doesn't look like Warp powers. I'm talking about the blessings and mutations here.

If the biggest gates were built by the Old Ones and can't be reproduced even by the Eldar in the height of their Empire then I would suspect the Culture can't figure it out without Subliming. After all the Old Ones are/were a Sublimed race from what we can tell.

[Gavinfoxx]

After all the Old Ones are/were a Sublimed race from what we can tell.

Well, no, the Old Ones were physically present. They were just a, you know... deity-like race. We don't know if ANYTHING Sublimed in the sense of Culture-verse, in 40k-ness. Not the gods, not anything... Subliming has a very, very particular meaning, that is unlike any of the gods I've heard described in 40k.

[Forum Explorer]

Well, no, the Old Ones were physically present. They were just a, you know... deity-like race. We don't know if ANYTHING Sublimed in the sense of Culture-verse, in 40k-ness. Not the gods, not anything... Subliming has a very, very particular meaning, that is unlike any of the gods I've heard described in 40k.

I don't really know the exact definition of Sublime race but I think they fit the portfolio close enough.

[Gavinfoxx]

I don't really know the exact definition of Sublime race but I think they fit the portfolio close enough.

I would described a Sublime race as "A civilization that has done the technological process of ascending to the 7th, 8th, 9th spatial dimensions, which has extremely limited contact with the rest of the 'real' world, but apparently is living in some sort of empirically verifiable heaven where they are nigh indestructible and truly immortal and indestructible and their identity and capabilities and who they are have progressed immeasurably beyond what is possible in the simple Real, and where there is no war or major conflict amongst Sublimated races."

So... nothing like any 40k gods or anything like that, whatsoever.

[The Glyphstone]

The current Canon is that the Teef that are on Ork ships do prevent demonic incursion...

Yeah, but not on Space Hulks, Teef are on actual Ork ships. Presumably Hulks the Orks have fully Orkified might get Teef though.

[jseah]

part 9.5 Necrons
Week 1
I have followed the other Necron fleet to another Tomb World, this one considerably more populous and active than the one we originally encountered. This Tomb World is near the galactic core and a considerable way outside our sphere of operation, so I will have to act alone.

The Necron Lord has confirmed that the Necrons have a copy of our intelligence engineering library. I have concluded a small exchange of information on our respective "empires".

This Necron dynasty is extensive and we seemed to have arrived in the galaxy at a point where they are about to become active on the galactic stage. They consist of nearly a hundred Tomb Worlds, in roughly the same galactic region, of varying importance and capabilities.

This exchange is considerably more fruitful in establishing friendly relations, helped in major part by our lack of planetary occupation. The Necrons, despite being collectivist, are very territorial and regard previously Necron held planets as theirs. Apart from this seemingly illogical motive (by my estimate, the Necrons do not have anywhere near the military power to hold that many planets against the IoM which will doubtless retaliate), the Necrons appear to be not hostile towards the Culture who do not settle on planets and therefore are not intruding on their territory.

I, White Devil, have been invited to be a representative of the Culture and serve as a contact point between us and the Necrons. Upon learning that this ROU does not have any organic crew (I neglected to mention the captured Necron warriors), the Necrons were much more friendly. In virtual exact opposite to the IoM, although not as extreme, the Necrons seem to dislike organic intelligences and prefer inorganic ones.

I am currently trying to negotiate another exchange on information, specifically regarding Chaos as a threat and the current state of galactic politics.

[Forum Explorer]

Heh that'll be funny. Back in the Necron's time Chaos wasn't a threat. Most of the Chaos gods (somehow, seriously this doesn't make sense.) hadn't come into existence yet and the Old Ones hadn't unleashed/attracted/whatever they did to the Enslavers which are a very very dangerous warp predator. Which also somehow unstabilized the warp more making it more dangerous in general.


Not that they haven't learned anything since waking up but they'd be beat by almost every faction except Tau.

[Gavinfoxx]

Not that they haven't learned anything since waking up but they'd be beat by almost every faction except Tau.

Except that the way they do combat is... weird, based on what the other factions know. Larger amounts of teleportation, highly resilient and regenerative forces, indomitable advance, and they teleport away to repair to some place extremely far away (in a tactical sense) from the 'front', where the factions often have no idea where they went to...

As far as ship to ship combat goes, they extremely capable, highly durable voidships as well, that can phase out and leave too! Also, their ships tend to be much faster than non-Necron ships of equivalent types, and are and have a bonus to speed from spinning up their ftl engines when going all out in a straight line... and they have weapons with some special abilities that make them very good against other, more 'normal' ships... their main problems is that they don't rely on true energy shields, and that the 'point' system of battlefleet gothic means they have less guns per points in an 'equivalent' fleet, and are penalized heavily for losing ANY ships in the battlefleet gothic rules, and their weapons are short ranged... but a lot of those problems aren't really problems when not playing an actual game of battlefleet gothic, ya know?

[Forum Explorer]

Except that the way they do combat is... weird, based on what the other factions know. Larger amounts of teleportation, highly resilient and regenerative forces, indomitable advance, and they teleport away to repair to some place extremely far away (in a tactical sense) from the 'front', where the factions often have no idea where they went to...

As far as ship to ship combat goes, they extremely capable, highly durable voidships as well, that can phase out and leave too! Also, their ships tend to be much faster than non-Necron ships of equivalent types, and are and have a bonus to speed from spinning up their ftl engines when going all out in a straight line... and they have weapons with some special abilities that make them very good against other, more 'normal' ships... their main problems is that they don't rely on true energy shields, and that the 'point' system of battlefleet gothic means they have less guns per points in an 'equivalent' fleet, and are penalized heavily for losing ANY ships in the battlefleet gothic rules, and their weapons are short ranged... but a lot of those problems aren't really problems when not playing an actual game of battlefleet gothic, ya know?

I'm talking about what they know about Chaos.

[Gavinfoxx]

I'm talking about what they know about Chaos.

Oh I thought you meant beat in a straight fight. Well, they can give data on what the Warp was like way back in the day... which can be quite telling, actually.

Also they know a lot about fields that interact with the warp; their pyramids aren't the only thing that does something to the warp, they made the Pylons too.

[jseah]

part 9.5 Necrons
Week 2
The Necrons have indicated that they have been active in the last few years and so know most of their local area. No mention of how they knew the new Tombworld has become active, but they did say that the Tombworld we activated was not of a dynasty they are familiar with.

While they are familiar with the IoM, at least at the point of a gun, they appreciate our understanding of the IoM's xenophobia. Of Chaos, they have only limited information so I have taken the liberty to provide them with our collected data on Chaos.
Upon mention that we have contact with the Eldar, the Necrons demanded strategic information on them, which I have denied for obvious reasons. To be fair, I did mention that we are not in the habit of letting civilizations kill each other and will also not be providing any information on the Necrons to the Eldar. (although the Eldar haven't asked)

They have shared details on their history, which colours some additional minor details of the War in Heaven but otherwise broadly agrees with our other two accounts. Of note is the mention that the Warp was once calmer and the Chaos gods are entities that the Necrons are unfamiliar with.
While they did not quite thank us for providing that information, we have come to a mutual understanding that Chaos is a common enemy, even if the Culture and Necrons do not see eye to eye on methods of dealing with it.

Since our diplomatic relations have progressed far more rapidly than with the lone half-crazy Necron Lord (which they have admitted happens more often than they would have liked, not even Necron technology can perfectly preseve digital intelligences for many millions of years; heck, even we cannot preserve a drone with much confidence for the same length of time without active methods), I am beginning to think that a more fruitful relationship is possible.

In line with our standard diplomatic advances, I will be negotiating the possibility of a cultural exchange. Perhaps some drone citizens will be interested in this task, therefore I request backup from any GCU with some appropriate and interested SC drones. ROUs are not suited for diplomatic work, whatever the Necrons seem to think.

[Fan]

I would like to add that the current limits of D-Cannon tech are currently size, and power generation, removing these from the Eldar by giving them civilian power generators / material fabrication would probably allow them to apply it to D-Cannon weaponry (Which they do still manufacture.), and from there..

Well, hand held reality alteration guns.

[Gavinfoxx]

Hey Jseah, sent you an email; could you respond to it? Thanks!

[Gavinfoxx]

So I've been reading the Necron Codex...

...and as best as I can figure, Trazyn the Infinite is basically a James Bond Villain. Or maybe a Sherlock Holmes villain. Eccentric, a collector, a genius mastermind, but he has a code and rules he plays by. He's the sort of guy that would set up a betrayal, complete with a near-impossible to escape deathtrap for some sort of highly capable, powerful enemy... and then if the enemy manages to, via genius and cunning, escape the deathtrap, he would let them go (probably having an underling return their equipment to them if they do manage to escape; fair play and all that) and (from afar), send a message where he genuinely congratulates them on their achievement and say he looks forward to meeting them again. He's the sort of man that is a genius so far ahead of the other folk he comes in contact with, that he is profoundly bored, and relishes an intellectual challenge.


And hmmm... One of the Necron Codices says that Hyperspace (which is described pretty much identically to how it is in the Culture series) is no defense against Daemons; to them, it is essentially another aspect of reality to corrupt... :|

[The Glyphstone]

There's a reason the fa/tg/guys call him Trollzyn.:smallbiggrin:

He's Doctor Doom meets Indiana Jones meets the Terminator, with a healthy dose of James Bond villain on top. If you've got something he wants, he'll be very happy to make an honest trade for something you want that he has or can get, especially if it's the easiest way to get what he's after. He's also probably the galaxy's best historian outside the Black Library itself.

And he wouldn't need to congratulate the person from afar. He'd do it in person, and if they killed him, reveal that 'he' was actually a Doombotrobot double anyways. He does this all the time.

[Fortuna]

I can't get the collection of story posts link to work - can't find the server. I'd rather not trawl through a hundred pages for this story, so I'd appreciate it if someone who has them on hand could do something about that. :smallsmile:

[jseah]

I would like to add that the current limits of D-Cannon tech are currently size, and power generation, removing these from the Eldar by giving them civilian power generators / material fabrication would probably allow them to apply it to D-Cannon weaponry (Which they do still manufacture.), and from there..

Well, hand held reality alteration guns.
D-Cannons aren't true reality alteration that proper warp-fields are, it's a very specific form of reality alteration.

Still, I find it interesting that the Eldar do still use normal materials. I was under the impression they used *only* warp materials.

[etesp]

I can't get the collection of story posts link to work - can't find the server. I'd rather not trawl through a hundred pages for this story, so I'd appreciate it if someone who has them on hand could do something about that. :smallsmile:

If it's still not working for you:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14058411&postcount=761 invitation to collect parts+retcon bits for accuracy/consistency
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14111825&postcount=1136 suggestions for retcons/issues
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14157289&postcount=83 http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14157987&postcount=96 diplomatic/goal analysis of all factions
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14158054&postcount=98 Warp/Soul/Psyker interpretations
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IeYvhXSrOVWjs6dixd-FhPjONdwK0nPjWsMZtqFUo8Q/edit Large section of story in a google doc, slightly edited.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13948770&postcount=38 (1)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13952018&postcount=102 (2)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13963487&postcount=274 (3)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13967864&postcount=320 (Eldar Farseers)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13983114&postcount=371 (Ulthwe Seer Council, Sol intrusion)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14014940&postcount=646 (4)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14059205&postcount=762 (IoM)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14063489&postcount=834 (IoM)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14071026&postcount=860 (Rogue Trader) Background: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14174108&postcount=242

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14071445&postcount=867 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14076939&postcount=900 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14081343&postcount=912 (IoM)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14085850&postcount=955 (5)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14091802&postcount=985 (IoM)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14098677&postcount=1001 (IoM)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14099433&postcount=1012 (IoM)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14104378&postcount=1031 (Necron+IoM Farmworld)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14110951&postcount=1120 (Necron)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14118259&postcount=1154 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14127802&postcount=1234 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14128572&postcount=1236 (Eldar meeting)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14133809&postcount=1286 (Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14134769&postcount=1317 (Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14138818&postcount=1338 (6)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14139418&postcount=1339 (Tyranid)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14140457&postcount=1363 (Necrons: tombworld)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14145201&postcount=1396 (Eldar diplomacy)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14145768&postcount=1398 (Necron preparations)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14146817&postcount=1404 (The Dig)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14152493&postcount=1465 (Necrons - Fallout)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14153057&postcount=1487 (Necrons)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14157459&postcount=84 (Necrons - Fallout cont)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14158503&postcount=99 (Necrons - Closing)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14159014&postcount=106 (Eldar pirates, Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14164033&postcount=156 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14168732&postcount=211 (Rogue Trader vs Chaos)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14168960&postcount=221 (Rogue Trader vs Chaos)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14174063&postcount=241 (Rogue Trader - Fallout)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14174623&postcount=255 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14179897&postcount=282 (Orks)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14180054&postcount=284 (Orks)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14180317&postcount=296 (Orks)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14184086&postcount=319 (Orks/Necrons)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14185226&postcount=332 (Orks)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14189788&postcount=355 (Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14194345&postcount=358 (7)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14199668&postcount=381 (Chaos)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14205095&postcount=397 (Tau)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14205561&postcount=427 (Tau)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14209465&postcount=481 (Tau)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14210129&postcount=483 (IoM)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14216318&postcount=537 (IoM)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14216775&postcount=544 (IoM)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14227736&postcount=668 (IoM) http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14227905&postcount=669 (Possible Culture plans for IoM)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14233953&postcount=734 (IoM, Necrons)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14243336&postcount=750 (IoM, Necrons)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14253143&postcount=763 (Necrons) http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14260003&postcount=787 (Necron diplomacy log)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14254811&postcount=781 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14265629&postcount=793 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14273666&postcount=829 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14278227&postcount=839 (Orks, Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14283182&postcount=863 (Orks)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14288619&postcount=893 (Orks)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14303136&postcount=938 (Orks)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14308632&postcount=946 (A Certain Chaotic Warp Sorcerer)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14311034&postcount=947 (Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14317414&postcount=949 (Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14322683&postcount=960 (8)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14330685&postcount=975 (Tau)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14332950&postcount=995 (Tau)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14337955&postcount=1044 (Tau)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14343550&postcount=1072 (A Certain Chaotic Warp Sorcerer)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14347955&postcount=1073 (A Certain Chaotic Warp Sorcerer)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14353025&postcount=1092 (Dark Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14359802&postcount=1131 (Dark Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14365175&postcount=1170 (Orks)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14365819&postcount=1176 (Orks)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14372396&postcount=1200 (IoM, Macragge)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14377681&postcount=1204 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14381989&postcount=1210 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14381989&postcount=1212 (Rogue Trader, Necrons)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14390365&postcount=1218 (Necrons)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14391732&postcount=1240 (Eldar, Necrons)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14395063&postcount=1247 (9)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14395687&postcount=1251 (Culture half year report)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14401006&postcount=1254 (Tau)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14401383&postcount=1255 ("The Durfan Empire", Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14401906&postcount=1257 (Tau)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14406814&postcount=1273 (A Certain Chaotic Warp Sorceror)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14412215&postcount=1292 (Rogue Trader, Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14417294&postcount=1361 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14427606&postcount=1416 (Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14429453&postcount=1417 (Rogue Trader)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14435234&postcount=1437 (Rogue Trader - Fallout)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14435550&postcount=1440 (Hypothetical non-fic-canon timeline: "The Culture as New Chaos")

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14440333&postcount=1466 (Dark Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14444072&postcount=6 (Dark Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14444968&postcount=10 (Dark Eldar)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14452720&postcount=45 (Necrons)

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14458137&postcount=50 (Necrons)

[Forum Explorer]

D-Cannons aren't true reality alteration that proper warp-fields are, it's a very specific form of reality alteration.

Still, I find it interesting that the Eldar do still use normal materials. I was under the impression they used *only* warp materials.

By the most general possible definition every weapon is a form of reality alteration.

Also they do have handheld versions, if slightly less powerful, in wraithcannons.

They use some. Like the ammo in the shurikan catapults. Also presumably their food isn't warp materials either. I think it's pretty minimal but at the same time I'm pretty sure the fluff is scarce and inconsistent on the manner.

[jseah]

part 9.5 Necrons
Week 3
It seems that the Necrons wish to remain... aloof is the best translation. A cultural exchange will have to wait. I am shifting priorities to negotiating a technology exchange although this does not seem too likely.

Apart from the monolith, a direct explanation and knowledge base, even if flawed, would be much better to work on. Additionally, I have shared some of our insights into sub-atomic engineering

part 9.5 Orks
Week 1
Progress on the 'escape plan' continues. Further influence on the organic crew is appearing and in particular, the SC agent acting as warboss has somehow escaped before his scheduled transfer using a clever ploy involving a body double. I am still tracking down exactly how he managed to fool the Reload nanites into building another of him without triggering alarms.

In any case, the SC agent can be considered to have gone rogue. I fear I will lose most of the crew (except a few notable cases of seeming immunity to the Ork influence, analysis indicates they were the ones who were excluded from the expedition due to the Orks judging them as un-orky)

Week 2
I believe I have tracked down the device at fault. Some creative effector modulation managed to pry a low resolution scan through the various ork shields due to an inherent flaw (that doesn't exist in any competently built shield, including the IoM's) in many of them.

I detected an interestingly different Ork device. It appears to be an electronics hacking tool of some sophistication, cobbled together from spare parts and displaying warp-effects that is characteristic of all Ork advanced equipment. It is my assessment that the SC agent, found on the ground in the Ork camp, was responsible as his authorization was used to manufacture the parts.

This device has since been retreived and analysis of its effects on computer systems within the Ork warp field radius indicates that it can take over nearly any computer system with an ease that makes scrapcode look trivial.

Under these circumstances, I have accelerated the transfer and this Mind now resides in a slow but functional yatch outside of the warp field radius (as determined by Ork weapon tests).


It is troubling that an SC agent and definitely not an Ork has managed to build an actual working Ork device.

[Gavinfoxx]

Do the Eldar use only called.from the Warp materials?

Um. Good question. They use lots of Warp materials. They use warp- and psycho- plastic materials. They probably use materials that have been modified by psychic procedures to be 'better', which makes them also psycho-plastic. They mostly use stuff that would grow in sunlight or similar, I suppose... since the craftworlds are described as going to stars to refuel and such! Things that would grow from light or electricity isn't just plants, cause, you know. Eldar. They probably have psycho-plastic crystal farms, and metals and other stuff they can draw from the Warp...

Hmmm, we know for sure they mine plasma from stars, like everyone else who uses plasma fusion tech. Oh! I bet they do a little bit of asteroid mining, and just use the metals as a substrate for their psychically grown crystals and plastics and stuff, so they can have the perfect alloys (and perfect veins of metals for whatever) in them. That would be suitably Eldar-y. And it would take forever, which is also suitably Eldar-y.

[Gavinfoxx]

Also, Canonically, Necron ships at full speed ARE undetectable to the IoM (unless there are lots and lots of powerful psykers working together to detect things, like at Terra), if we are using their hyperspace thing from the 3E codex, which talks quite a bit about their vessels.

[jseah]

They mine plasma from stars to power a plasma fusion reactor.

...

*facepalm*

[Forrestfire]

We try not to think too hard about it :smalltongue:

[Gavinfoxx]

They mine plasma from stars to power a plasma fusion reactor.
...
*facepalm*

Everyone in the setting that uses plasma does that. :P All their plasma of any sort is mined from stars, and contained in [something]. Plasma guns use AND STORE refined plasma mined from stars (those guns? They are all plasma throwers / plasma casters), plasma generators and plasma reactors and fusion reactors all have SOMETHING to do with refined plasma mined from stars. There are plasma refining processes that make the plasma for that sort of thing better, so they power plasma generators or plasma reactors for longer... it's a pretty core part of the setting...


Basically, some of the people combined the idea of 'Fusion power is cool!' and 'Fusion power has something to do with plasma!' and 'Stars have stuff to do with plasma and fusion!' with, 'hey, let's make everyone stardive to fill up plasma for refining to be part of their plasma generators and plasma batteries and plasma throwers and such, and even be in everything from little plasma generators to the big plasma fusion power plants!' and 'Let's make plasma like petroleum products, since it what we know!'

[jseah]

Culture makes a sales pitch:
(to the background of a cheesy 90s rocket flying around a ridiculously small solar system on the back of what is obviously just a natural gas fire)
You want fusion? We have fusion! Meet our new mark two anti-matter catalyzed inertial confinement fusion reactor! Four times the power density and a hundred times safer!
No more catastrophic failures! Refuel from plain ice! Kiss goodbye to risky sundiving! And best of all... cheap and easy to maintain!

Get your new mark two fusion reactor today!

[Gavinfoxx]

Damn near EVERYONE technological (IoM, Tau, Eldar, Necron, Chaos, etc.) would probably want a piece of that...

Can it produce the various plasma products that the different civilizations use as part of their supply chains?

And there probably were the water based plasma fusion at some point in the universe. Probably IoM Archeotech, Eldar at some point in their history, Tau are probably working on it... Necron might actually currently use it.

[jseah]

Damn near EVERYONE technological (IoM, Tau, Eldar, Necron, Chaos, etc.) would probably want a piece of that...

Can it produce the various plasma products that the different civilizations use as part of their supply chains?
Probably.

More like, there would be another thing that converts various elements into whatever they need (da f- is plasma product anyway). That will use the power the fusion reactor produces to do its thing.
After all, it's just a fusion reactor. Apart from funky stuff with neutrons, it only turns hydrogen into helium.


Culture noob salesman: That clearly worked! We should make all our technological trade pitches this way!
Culture Mind: *facepalm*


And there probably were the water based plasma fusion at some point in the universe. Probably IoM Archeotech, Eldar at some point in their history, Tau are probably working on it... Necron might actually currently use it.
Hello, the Necrons have antimatter confinement. Me thinks they outgrew fusion sometime back in the last couple of million years.

[Gavinfoxx]

Hello, the Necrons have antimatter confinement. Me thinks they outgrew fusion sometime back in the last couple of million years.

Yea. Right. Of course... gotta remember the SMAC reactor progression!

[Douglas]

Yea. Right. Of course... gotta remember the SMAC reactor progression!
No, no, in SMAC antimatter is an armor material! For reactor tech past fusion, you're looking at quantum mechanics and then black holes.

I have no idea what they were thinking when they came up with antimatter plate as the second best defense in the game.

[Gavinfoxx]

I thought Quantum used Antimatter??

[jseah]

No, no, in SMAC antimatter is an armor material! For reactor tech past fusion, you're looking at quantum mechanics and then black holes.

I have no idea what they were thinking when they came up with antimatter plate as the second best defense in the game.
Lol. Counter to antimatter armour plates: Shrapnel missiles

Death by glitter shower!

[Gavinfoxx]

Lol. Counter to antimatter armour plates: Shrapnel missiles

Death by glitter shower!

Oh come on, it probably just has antimatter used in the construction process. Matter Editation, the prerequisite tech, is matter-energy conversion, I think.

... Oh gawd...

http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/alpha-centauri-in-40k.137495/

That's actually a decent thread, talks about some bits that we haven't talked about here. Of course the thread gets into bickering and back and forth, and they didn't behave quite as well as we did in our threads, but it's okay, I suppose.

[jseah]

Pardon me if I didn't read much past the second page. Got a bit too hot up in there.


So yeah, back to the point. How would it change the 40k setting if the Culture introduced a fusion reactor/torchdrive that refueled off water ice?

[Gavinfoxx]

Pardon me if I didn't read much past the second page. Got a bit too hot up in there.


So yeah, back to the point. How would it change the 40k setting if the Culture introduced a fusion reactor/torchdrive that refueled off water ice?

Introduced to whom?

Did they disguise it as archeotech (as a Monotask STC Constructor with a single edit: few STC Blueprints of generators of varying sizes, and a working example of the thing), and put it in front of a Mechanicus Explorator mission?

Do they just give it, openly, to the Tau?

Do they explain the methods to the Eldar, and they work up whatever they need to do to make it?

FYI, the stardiving thing is an extrapolation -- no one other than the Necrons have really been described as having WAY more advanced power plants and power generators than the Imperium. Eldar designs are smaller and more elegant, Tau are safer than all but the rarer types of Imperium power plants (though Tau maybe do use some non star based fusion, probably. Probably Helium-3 or something), and appear to sometimes use a different method... nothing radically different or better.

[jseah]

Handle any particular faction you care to. I don't think the Necrons will be impressed so we'll leave them out. But it's really a question of simplifying logistics.

With the ability to refuel from almost any asteroid, ships suddenly get alot more independent.

[Gavinfoxx]

Yea, I'm sure the correct people in any tech based faction would want that. Though most factions would perhaps want to steal it. And if they could make it seem like they have evidence that Eldar used to have this capability (which certainly is plausible...), and humanity used to have that capability (again, plausible), than yea, it'd be a powerful carrot. But we've already established that simply giving tech to individuals isn't really a good way to ingratiate yourself with several factions (except the Tau), due to various social reasons. Just because some people would want it doesn't mean that it would dramatically improve the lives of several groups and profoundly change the way things are run, or spread the technology through the faction in question!

Heck, large scale orbital farming would dramatically improve the quality of life in the Imperium, what with hive worlds not having to rely on agri-worlds so much... but getting it actually USED in the Imperium, in a large scale? Hideously hard.

[Gavinfoxx]

Basically, if you want technology to improve the lives of people, or dramatically change how things are run in the Imperium, or even the Eldar... you need to change the power structures. Though using tech gifts to get on the good side of radical Magos or radical Inquisitors of certain bents would certainly work! The same could be said with individual Eldar who know legends of certain particular capabilities that their race had before the fall, and they personally want those capabilities back.

[jseah]

The problem with changing power structures as well rooted as the IoM's and Eldar's are is that they tend to implode rather than change.

That is clearly something you don't want to do while Chaos is sniffing around.

------------------

I was more looking for strategic changes than social ones. IoM fleets can operate further and longer away from support, mobile maintenance bases for long term deployment becomes possible and generally logistics gets a bit simpler. Would that make the IoM any more aggressive than they already are?

Only after that, it starts to spill over into new applications like fusion-powered vertical farms on Hive worlds.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, remember. Even if they do disguise it as STC archeotech at some explorator dig site somewhere... the time it would take for the IoM to adopt it can probably be measured in centuries.

Though let's go further. By collating rumors, patterns in STC designs, legends, examples of archeotech, written reports, scans of planets, hacked mechanicum databases, examples of existing Imperium tech, etc. etc. ... The Culture could probably forge a very plausible Full STC., something that would revolutionize all aspects of Imperial technology, science, education, design, etc.

And such a thing would be waayyy below Culturetech.

But why would they? What would the point of doing that be? So the IoM gets more efficient and effective, over the next few centuries. Many minor Xenos races are exterminated. The tech all leaks to Chaos... what positive effect does that have???

[Gavinfoxx]

Also, I like how you had an SC agent go rogue. Just remember, he won't be a completely different person, and he probably won't be hostile to The Culture. He should still have, for the most part, the same goals. But if he was made Orky, he'll be more interested in winning and strength and cunning and violent and extreme types of fun and using a direct means to do things. But the actual goals and viewpoints, otherwise shouldn't change too much.

[Forum Explorer]

where are you getting the plasma mined from stars thing? I don't remember that.

I do remember one ice world bragging about mining some component needed to make plasma games guns.

[Gavinfoxx]

From the RPG. It may also be mentioned elsewhere.

Also, FE check your post for typos.

[jseah]

plasma games.
I'm sorry, my natural language parser seems to have broken. Mind explaining this? =P

[Gavinfoxx]

I'm sorry, my natural language parser seems to have broken. Mind explaining this? =P

Probably typo / autocorrect error.

[Forum Explorer]

I'm sorry, my natural language parser seems to have broken. Mind explaining this? =P

Typo, fixed now. :smallredface:

[Gavinfoxx]

Been reading path of the seer, and almost exactly 1/4 the way through the book, it talks about the webway, what it looks like, and how the Eldar make temporary passages and extensions through it. Go look up those parts of the book!

They can extend temporary tunnels, even big enough for a battleship, but those have to go near where the Webway already goes.

Reading this I'm not 100% sure about the previous stuff I mentioned regarding the Webway... have you read this whole book, jseah?

Also, it has a scene that shows bonesingers at work building a starship! And Eldar definitely mine gems, I think. Though I suppose they could.grow them. They'd need the raw material from something..

[jseah]

Reading this I'm not 100% sure about the previous stuff I mentioned regarding the Webway... have you read this whole book, jseah?
I read all of Path of the Warrior and skimmed Path of the Seer. Missed the bit about the webway (only saw Path of the Warrior's description of it), read the part where they grew a starship.

I would fix that situation but I'm currently in the middle of a psychology book so =P

[jseah]

part 9.5 Orks
Week 3
While all the drone citizens do not display orkish traits, there is beginning to be an internal division between the organic citizens who have been excluded from the ork influence and those who have taken up the traits. Considering the worsening situation onboard, this GCU Large Sticks Speak Softly is formally requesting backup. This request has been made without the knowledge of my organic crew.

The level of sophistication of the Orks on the planet is apparently increasing. The SC agent now physically present and acting as Warboss (and that I see no point in removing) appears to still be continuing the original plan to decrease aggression and increase intelligence. For now, the situation is stable and does not look to be worsening.

----------------

It seems that conclusions were reached too early. Further analysis indicates some deviation. The Warboss is aiming to channel the aggression of the orks and maintaining discipline, instead of curbing the aggression. Current potential outlets for this aggression are unknown.

Given the way this is progressing, we still do not know if the change is a threat to our plans. The SC agent does not apparently hold any animosity towards the Culture and in fact appears to be progressing along the original lines, if slightly flawed.

Nevertheless, we recommend caution and watchfulness over the Orks. We understand that an ROU has been dispatched and a GCU will be surveying within three hours of this system and appreciate the backup.

[Tvtyrant]

A bit of a side question: If the Warp is closed, as in the God Emperor's master plan, does this eliminate the abilities of psykers and the technomagic of the Orks? Because if so the Culture could eliminate most of its problems by simply eliminating religion in the galaxy.

[jseah]

A bit of a side question: If the Warp is closed, as in the God Emperor's master plan, does this eliminate the abilities of psykers and the technomagic of the Orks? Because if so the Culture could eliminate most of its problems by simply eliminating religion in the galaxy.
We decided earlier (in thread 1) that the Warp is required for organic sentient life. If the Warp is cut off, only inorganic Culture citizens and the Necrons will remain. This is unsatisfactory, call it a Pyrrhic victory.

[jseah]

part 10
Week 28
We have additional data on macro-scale properties of femto-materials. On top of the essentially indestructible nature of the "neutronium" armour (several tests indicate that it takes multiple megaton yields concentrated onto a 1 centimeter square surface to break through a single layer thick femto-material plate), we have a prototype design for a fission-catalyst grid that will greatly simplify torch drive designs or provide an interestingly suicidal weapon also known as a fission cannon.
--- The fission cannon essentially pumps non-chain-reaction fissile material dissolved in a solvent through the femto-material catalyst, causing 100% fission rate in the dissolved material. This was described to be roughly equivalent to holding a continuous nuclear explosion. Needless to say, this idea was considered a novel, if crude, form of suicide. Only one experiment was conducted, of which the largest surviving fragment was the catalyst grid, which was undamaged.

Electronic-analogs of femto-materials is progressing, an electric supercapacitor of unparalleled power density and variable power release is designed. We should have the first functional femto-scale computers by next week.

Tau warp drives have undergone a simple testing. They appear to work as claimed, although the place they go to in the warp is still only 3 dimensional. We are working with the Tau to improve on the drive's speed as well as to further understand its physics in order to translate it to warping from one hyperspace point to another hyperspace point which we hope will afford a massive strategic speed increase.

Week 29
A group of GCUs and a GSV have decided to form a Culture-internal group aimed at replacing all parts of a Culture standard ship with femto-materials. Including the crew, which will have to be inorganic by definition.
It is expected that the ship will be vastly smaller than Culture-standards with roughly the same capabilities. We estimate that a GCU-class craft will be slightly smaller than an IoM human. This project is not likely to be completed soon however as a number of key components (specifically, the hyperspace drive and effector arrays) still have no femto-scale analog.

Basic pure realspace electronic computers that rival those of a hyperspace based computational device in terms of realspace volume are in development, although the heat generated due to inefficiencies still preclude standard usage. (the heat is not a problem for the device operation, but it has a tendency to melt normal material casing)
We expect that as teething problems are solved, these may be deployed for drone citizens to investigate the webway.

Femto-scale materials have begun to be classified by their properties as various materials have been discovered. Of note are the fission catalysts (which are the same material as the "neutronium" armour), electronic analogs (that work by propagating weak nuclear force instead of electrons) and meta-materials (which so far contains only a gamma-spectrum CREW grid)

Analysis of Eldar-indicated artifacts (of which we have retreived 20%) indicates that there are certain patterns of realspace materials that have defined warp effects. These patterns are obscure and rare, most commonly occuring in an organic sentient creature.
We have been a long process of collecting and classifying these patterns, as well as refining our recognition algorithms. Artifacts that generate warp effects from patterns of realspace material can be easily identified by careful molecular assembly; those that retain the same warp effect are the artifacts that generate warp effects by virtue of only realspace material patterns.
We are calling these "simple warp attractors".
Two other categories of items have been tentatively classified. It appears that the formation process of some artifacts can affect the final warp effect, where in a specific series of realspace material patterns must be acheived in specific order to acheive the final warp effect that is identical to the cloned artifact. These are called "complex warp attractors".
There are also warp objects that appear to have warp components that do not depend on realspace material patterns. These we call "warp objects". These artifacts cannot be cloned through molecular assembly and we presume that a warp-based assembly is required.

Another set of items are still unclassified. These have strange properties that defy molecular assembly or resist material analysis.

Week 30
Tyranid adaptability has received a major breakthrough. While we are still no closer to understanding their warp effects (presumably the Eldar understand it), we have a significant advance in determining the limits of their natural non-warp guided resistances. These do not appear to be a threat as the limits are below our weapon power scales.
Care must be taken to not allow Tyranid swarms to gather to such a concentration that warp-driven hyperevolution becomes likely. The scale and scope of Tyranid resistance under such circumstances is still unknown.

[jseah]

In case you were wondering about the Eldar artifacts thing, I am having the Eldar do that whole "here's a list of warp artifacts, come back when you understand them" thing.

[The Glyphstone]

A bit of a side question: If the Warp is closed, as in the God Emperor's master plan, does this eliminate the abilities of psykers and the technomagic of the Orks? Because if so the Culture could eliminate most of its problems by simply eliminating religion in the galaxy.

The Emperor didn't want to seal off the Warp entirely, he wanted to starve the Chaos Gods to death by spreading atheism.

[Gavinfoxx]

Here's some ideas -- why don't you do an AAR of the human who got the list from the Eldar? Have them describe what happened, so that folk only reading the reports don't get confused?

Also, are you going to have the compromised SC agent actually contact the Culture sometime, speaking in an Orky accent, of course?

[jseah]

part 10.5 Tau
Week 1
We have received word from the Tau that the IoM have attacked the Farsight colonies towards galactic north. This is an unusual state of affairs given that the Tau, while expecting an attack from the IoM, knew that the IoM did not have sufficient forces to do so at present.

The reason for the attack is also unknown. We have dispatched GCU Peacemaker to investigate. ROU Gunboat Diplomacy at Macragge can only confirm an IoM astropathic report of conflict with the Tau at the relevant area, the Ultramarines know even less than us.

Meanwhile, a cultural exchange is commencing in the embassy, which is turning into a resort colony rapidly. A number of Culture organic citizens and drones have joined the Tau there. The Tau have indicated that they are willing to let us run a small section of the resort colony under Culture rules, whereupon the Tau will send a number of their own citizens to experience life under the Culture as Culture citizens do likewise on the rest of the world.
We have agreed to the arrangement although we stipulated that our running of a planetside colony is strictly temporary given the general directive to not create fixed population centers.
In case I didn't mention it, the Tau language has been decoded.


Here's some ideas -- why don't you do an AAR of the human who got the list from the Eldar? Have them describe what happened, so that folk only reading the reports don't get confused?

Also, are you going to have the compromised SC agent actually contact the Culture sometime, speaking in an Orky accent, of course?
That's going into the Eldar arc and the Ork arc respectively.

[DaedalusMkV]

A bit of a side question: If the Warp is closed, as in the God Emperor's master plan, does this eliminate the abilities of psykers and the technomagic of the Orks? Because if so the Culture could eliminate most of its problems by simply eliminating religion in the galaxy.

While it's been said a bit so far, the Emperor's plan was precisely the opposite of that; this endgame was an omnipotent humanity in total command of its own destiny and the Chaos Gods dead by means of nobody in the universe believing in divinity. His goal was humanity becoming an entire race of psykers who did not have to answer to Gods or Daemons. Perhaps at some point it might have involved personally going and beating the Gods to a pulp, but his base plan was "The Warp is sculpted by belief. If nobody believes in Chaos, it can't exist." The Culture could go for the same plan, and given their resources it might even work, but they have no reason to do so at this point. More importantly, it involves a specific manipulation of culture over the entire galaxy, on a level that the Culture would find absolutely abhorent. So, assuming they somehow stumble on the God Emperor's plan, which nobody in the 40k verse not on Team Chaos even knows about unless they revive Guilleman or the Emperor himself, they would probably see it as a last resort.

The Necron plan was to seal off the Warp, and it was implied to have truly disastrous consequences for organic life.

[Gavinfoxx]

But we've already established that the Necron Pylons and similar warp manipulation tech has various 'settings'...

[jseah]

Basically, the God Emperor wants to initiate Ascension for humanity? Because that sounds -exactly- like it.

[The Glyphstone]

In terms of Culture-language, that's pretty much it. Is Ascension and Sublimation the same thing?

[jseah]

part 10.5 Tau
Week 2
GCU Peacemaker have arrived at the nominally independent Farsight colonies. Shas'O Vior'la Shovah Kais Mont'yr appears to retain some loyalty to the Tau cause although the reason for his division is still unknown. O'Shovah acknowledged our presence and admitted that he has been aware of our activities within the Tau empire proper.

While he has agreed to talk, O'Shovah has already launched a retaliation fleet after driving off the IoM attack. A number of IoM ships managed to bombard the surface of the colony they attacked and many Tau were killed. As the retaliation fleet has already been launched, he has no ability to recall it.

The identity of the fleet from examining O'Shovah's public record of the battle appears to be far too small to successfully attack the Tau. Furthermore, from their actions, a suicidal rush towards the Tau planet, mostly avoiding engagement with the Tau defense fleet, the IoM fleet appears to have been aiming to cause maximum casualties.

Given how O'Shovah has publicly presented the IoM attack, calling it an atrocity, we judge it likely that the retaliation fleet will attempt to destroy IoM fleet logistics and shipbuilding capacity in the area. Given the Tau's assessment of IoM strength in the area, this fleet is likely to be successful in its mission to attack the three nearby IoM colonies.

It is certain that the IoM will view the retaliation as the beginning phases of another Tau-IoM war. From what we know of the IoM, O'Shovah is known to be a renegade Tau but his actions are extremely likely to generate a reaction against the Tau in general.

[jseah]

Yeah, I forgot the term, I meant Sublimation.

[The Glyphstone]

I don't think he intended to go that far, primarily because I believe Sublimation involves casting off your physical bodies. It may have been the next step, though.

[Gavinfoxx]

I dont think he wanted Sublimation. I think he wanted more 'next step in human evolution'. No casting off of bodies to become Warp-entities or Warp-gestalts or anything like that.

[jseah]

part 10.5 Tau
Week 3
A scout drone has found the Farsight retaliation fleet. The fleet was engaged in combat with majorly outclassed IoM fleet and proceeded to encircle and destroy the IoM system defence forces before destroying every single piece of orbital infrastructure as well as all major mining and industrial areas on the planet.

Unlike the IoM, the Tau fleet ignored civilian targets until the defense forces were destroyed, as well as giving long warning periods of their intention to bombard assets to facilitate civilian evacuation. Very little loss of civilian life resulted from this action. The Tau bombardment of the industrial areas also avoided the local food production centers and one spaceport landing area was left untouched to let the planet maintain external contact with the IoM trade network.

GCU Peacemaker has considered intervention in the fleet's activities but eventually ruled it out. O'Shovah has indicated that he will regard any attempt by the Culture to interfere with its mission as an act of war. While any war declaration against us would be symbolic at best, it would be extremely likely to adversely affect relations with the main Tau empire.

The lack of atrocity and general respect for civilian life is commendable restraint given that the IoM and Farsight colonies are in an undeclared state of war that has cost numerous Tau civilian lives. Neither do the Tau practice the scorched earth policies that the IoM is so quick to resort to.
This restraint on the part of O'Shovah's retaliation fleet was a significant factor in our decision to not interfere.

---------------------

The cultural exchange is growing into a minor success. The Tau have no problems working in the loose rules environment of the Culture although they do retain the majority of their caste structure with respect to themselves. Culture art, engineering and architecture receive much interest from Tau Earth and Water caste, while our loose and flexible organization of even military forces has attracted some more experimentally-minded Fire caste warriors. Conversely, some Culture citizens find the Tau caste roles and the Greater Good philosophy attractive, more are interested in their general culture.
The Tau friendly policy to other species like the Nicassar, Kroot and Vespid species, and now to us, greatly helps interaction. There is no overt xenophobia among the Tau.

GSV Crossing the Bridge has a new proposal for consideration among the wider Culture. The Tau are currently limited in their expansion efforts due to their short range and speed of their FTL drives. While we cannot convey our hyperspace drive to them without greatly destabilizing the region, we can offer transport services to the Tau.
In particular, the Tau would appear to be highly resistant to Chaos and so are ideally suited to serve as a sort of buffer against Chaos intrusions. While they do not have the military capacity to do so at present, we can aid them.

This GSV proposes to put the following offer to the Tau:
1. We will build bulk transport tugs for Tau use and will offer to ship any and all colonization or military equipment for them.
2. We will choose which areas are open to the Tau for transport and will deliberately pick uncolonized systems in strategic locations far from the present Tau empire. Once there, the Tau are free to do whatever they want.
3. We will provide transport as far as logistically feasible to Tau travelling between far flung colonies and the main Tau empire. This is a semi-permanent arrangement that we agree to provide under all reasonable circumstances.
4. The Culture agrees to protect the far flung Tau colonies until they are militarily secure. While we cannot garuantee full protection against Chaos forces, mundane threats should pose no difficulty and the Tau are resistant to Chaos in any case.
5. The Tau agree to have Culture operatives on the tugs at all times and will not attempt to seize control or reverse engineer the tugs. Other than that, the tugs are essentially under the command of the Tau apart from their restricted strategic routes.

The first of these tugs can be ready within two weeks. We propose an initial lifter design capable of transporting ten million tons of materials as a working size and in-atmosphere capability (gravity manipulation assisted).

We also propose that the first such far flung colonies be a region of currently uncolonized systems somewhere between the Eye of Terror and the border of Segmentum Solar. If another Black Crusade appears, those colonies will form a strong point that we can cooperate with the Tau to defend.

A social modelling assessment of the Tau reaction before we negotiate this arrangement is requested.
So essentially, the Culture would like to propose a sort of taxi service across the galaxy and help them colonize a few systems on the line between the Eye and Terra. The Culture will have noted that the Black Crusades all attempt to attack Sol and some kind of help against a possible new one would be nice. They will mention this to the Tau though, together with the Culture's and the IoM's assessment that a new Black Crusade is not going to happen soon.

Obviously, the Culture can also provide promises of technology sharing when it comes to warp-tech useful against Chaos if its needed to sweeten the deal. Alternatively, up to a complete scientific cooperation on investigating warp could also be acceptable although it would be pretty one-sided and the Culture would want something else in trade.

[Gavinfoxx]

The Tau did actually make a far-flung purpose expedition to the Eye of Terror...

just saying.

It was a bit of a hail mary shot, to use a basketball term, but they pushed themselves and did make the attempt!

I think they actually did get there, set up some analysis equipment, took some readings, but couldn't stay long before being pushed out and forced to go back...

Does anyone remember the canonical info on this expedition?

[jseah]

The Tau did actually make a far-flung purpose expedition to the Eye of Terror...

just saying.

It was a bit of a hail mary shot, to use a basketball term, but they pushed themselves and did make the attempt!
Would the Tau accept this arrangement though? It may seem one-sided from the Culture's POV, but the Tau do wish to expand and the promise of military defense of the drop-off colonies more or less secures them against everything but Chaos (and still most of normal Chaos stuff). The Culture would like to hand them a set of "free" expansions on a silver platter, in exchange for having those colonies in a potential threat zone.

In a way, and the Fire caste will not miss this, the Culture are asking the Tau to indirectly protect the IoM.

[Gavinfoxx]

They would probably want help in retrying that failed expedition of theirs...

But any situation that would let them expand their Empire, knowledge, technological base, and influence would be perceived favorably by the Tau, regardless of them being maneuvered to be in a position to take the blunt of a Chaos attack. Of course, negotiations would be like, 'You wish to place our people and our lives directly in the line of where several major Chaos attacks have come from? Sweeten the pot, and we'll think about it.' -- regardless of what the initial deal is considered to be; they'll want some concessions.

[DaedalusMkV]

The Tau are unlikely to accept that particular bargain unless it comes with some serious benefits for them. Being utterly reliant on someone else's tech that they aren't allowed to study is going to be extremely frustrating to the Tau, and they're not going to entirely trust the Culture to keep their bargain at this point. Plus, the Tau just don't gain much out of it. While they will always appreciate a chance to expand the Empire, they've got to know that any outposts the Tau help them set up are going to be in extremely dangerous regions with little room for further expansion, which makes them poor choices for colonies. So, the Culture are going to need to sweeten the deal. There are two ways to do this:

1. Technology in trade: Obvious. Give the Tau some juicy tech-bits in exchange for the services of their soldiers in defending the relevent areas. Kind of boring, though.

2. More colonies: Only half of the new tug-accessed outposts are in strategically-important areas. The other half are in habitable but insignificant regions around the galactic rim that are unlikely to be contested at any point in the future. This way, the Tau get to expand their Empire in a meaninful way. They'll willingly accept putting millions of their soldiers in danger defending against Chaos if it means that the Empire benefits in the long run.

[Gavinfoxx]

Hmmm... on second thought, agreed. They like having self-sufficient colonies that can expand on their own and still be part of the greater Tau Empire...

[Misery Esquire]

So essentially, the Culture would like to propose a sort of taxi service across the galaxy and help them colonize a few systems on the line between the Eye and Terra. The Culture will have noted that the Black Crusades all attempt to attack Sol and some kind of help against a possible new one would be nice. They will mention this to the Tau though, together with the Culture's and the IoM's assessment that a new Black Crusade is not going to happen soon.

You'd be in the Segmentum Solar, the most heavily populated, controlled, and Filled-With-Imperial-Segementum-Of-All. Dropping the Tau there is consigning them to immediate death*, especially between Cadia and Terra, as there really isn't all that much available distance.

And then another Crusade to kill them all.

*Unless the Culture sit there and destroy battlefleet after battlefleet of Imperial Navy. Dozens of cruisers and triple that in frigate and destroyer "escorts." More than ten million lives, per fleet. All because the Culture wanted to put their new Tau friends near Chaos.

[Selrahc]

The Culture will have noted that the Black Crusades all attempt to attack Sol

Only if they're being quite unobservant.

The Black Crusades have all sorts of objectives. Abaddon's last two Black Crusades didn't even aim to leave Segmentum Obscurus, looking to crush Cadia, and capture Blackstone Fortresses. The only Black Crusades of Abaddon to have any designs on Sol are probably the First and Second(The Second being a colossal failure that was crushed at Cadia).

Every Black Crusade since the Second has been less of a general attempt to bring down the Imperium, and more a specific objective led death fleet.

Black Crusades not led by Abaddon? Have even less desire to get tangled up in Sol. They're essentially colossal vanity projects, designed to make the Chaos Lord or Daemon Prince undertaking them exalted in the eyes of Chaos. Abaddon is ultimately trying to outdo Horus, other Chaos Lords don't have that baggage.(They have their own crippling emotional baggage. It comes standard with the subscription to Chaos Undivided).

[Forum Explorer]

Would the Tau accept this arrangement though? It may seem one-sided from the Culture's POV, but the Tau do wish to expand and the promise of military defense of the drop-off colonies more or less secures them against everything but Chaos (and still most of normal Chaos stuff). The Culture would like to hand them a set of "free" expansions on a silver platter, in exchange for having those colonies in a potential threat zone.

In a way, and the Fire caste will not miss this, the Culture are asking the Tau to indirectly protect the IoM.

By the way the Tau are not very adaptable to various climates. They are a desert people so all their planets are very arid and hot. It's another limitation they have on their empire.

[jseah]

Hmm, let's see.


The half-half deal can work. Provided the extra half of the Tau colonies are beyond the reach of the IoM in the far west edge, they may as well not exist to the IoM.


And secondly, the Culture would provide military protection to the Tau colonies where they decide to put it. They hope to pull some strings to keep the IoM from attacking beyond the first few disastrous attempts.
I admit that's a bit vague, mainly because I have still have no real concrete plan on how to do that. But it involves their inquisition contact and a larger plan with the reformists.

The battlefleets don't even have to be destroyed. It would be obvious they would be gathering to attack. They'll just never make it. Ships arrive at the gathering point understaffed, their crew vanishing into thin air (Displace to planet surface). Fuel and ordnance never seems to get there. Orders are always wrong.
And any ship that even gets into the Tau system would get its shields blasted down and every system taken over by effector and shut down, then the Tau get a few more prisoners. Which the Tau treat pretty ok anyway. (psykers may be confiscated or kept in confinement on some other nearby system, or even returned to the IoM)
The Culture has the capacity to be non-lethal if they want.

[jseah]

On Black Crusades:
I had no idea they were like that! I was sort of thinking they were suicidal mad rushes that only work because they're too big.

Still, they often have plans in the area and a bunch of Tau colonies between the Eye and the border of Obscurus/Solar would be useful as a place of further contact.


The other reason for the colonies is that it brings the Tau into the center of the galactic stage. Not only will they have contact with Chaos there (so they can learn how to deal with it), the Culture hopes to eventually set up Tau-Eldar and Tau-Necron communications.



Oh btw, how do the Tau deal with orks?

[The Glyphstone]

Nope, they're much more complicated...and much more successful, on average. It's the 'Time To Conquer Earth!" mentality people have that causes the Failbaddon meme, when if you actually look at all the known Black Crusades against their intended objective, he's got a better-than-50% success rate.

[Forum Explorer]

On Black Crusades:
I had no idea they were like that! I was sort of thinking they were suicidal mad rushes that only work because they're too big.

Still, they often have plans in the area and a bunch of Tau colonies between the Eye and the border of Obscurus/Solar would be useful as a place of further contact.


The other reason for the colonies is that it brings the Tau into the center of the galactic stage. Not only will they have contact with Chaos there (so they can learn how to deal with it), the Culture hopes to eventually set up Tau-Eldar and Tau-Necron communications.



Oh btw, how do the Tau deal with orks?

There are Tau-Eldar communications. It's one sided like pretty much all Eldar communications but they exist. Though the Dark Eldar likely messed up their relations by turning several hundred Tau troops into monsters in payment for fighting the Nids and then attacking and basically destroying an entire planet.

Tau's only experience with Necrons is dealing with some that exterminated one of their planets after saving it from the Nids. They'll likely shoot first, ask questions later.


Regular patrols and lots of fire? I don't think we get details but I imagine it's the same as the Imperium, just with better tech.

[DaedalusMkV]

Oh btw, how do the Tau deal with orks?

Hot plasma?

The Orks are, to date, the only sentient species the Tau have declared completely and totally unsavable and incompatible with the Greater Good. Current Tau policy with regards to the Orks is "Shoot on sight". Current Kroot policy with regards to the Orks is "Taste pretty good, but don't eat too many. Orks are a sometimes food". Current Demiurge policy with regards to the Orks is "All greenskins must die". I think you get the general theme...

[Gavinfoxx]

Actually, in most of the RTS games (dawn of war, etc.), the Tau give the Ork warbosses a chance to join the Greater Good, in the Ork Stronghold missions...

[DaedalusMkV]

Actually, in most of the rts games, the Tau give the ork warbosses a chance to join the Greater Good, in the Ork stronghold missions...

A fluff gaffe.


Many less advanced alien races were incorporporated within its [the Tau Empire's] borders and most of these willingly became part of the Tau Empire. The Orks were a notable exception to this and the Tau fought many battles with the Greenskins before finally abandoning their attempts to subsume them into the Empire.


That's right out of the latest codex. The Orks aren't welcome in the Tau Empire, because they refuse to play nice and run completely counter to the Tau mentality.

[Gavinfoxx]

A fluff gaffe.

I'd posit that depending on the disposition of the Tau Commander, they might ask anyway. Of course, the asking might be done ironically... no one would seriously expect the Orks to agree to it by this point, but the commander might try to get the Ork Warboss to boast and divulge strategic information.


Also, on the Tau Center Stage thing...

I suppose it depends on whether you think, 'Wow, even in Segmentum Solar, there are lots of systems that the Imperials don't go to! After all, there are 300 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Imperium controls millions of planets!'

Or if you think, 'This is the center of the Imperium. There aren't any stars that the Imperium doesn't control solidly, or at least regularly patrol in this area.'

But, consider the various non-Imperium activity galactic maps...


MAPS!

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/6152/orkdensitymaplargeqp0.jpg

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/thumb/2/22/Chaos_marines_engagements.jpg/721px-Chaos_marines_engagements.jpg

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/thumb/d/dc/Necron_activity.jpg/707px-Necron_activity.jpg

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/thumb/f/fe/Tyranids_incursions.jpg/716px-Tyranids_incursions.jpg

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/thumb/0/00/Eldar_planets.jpg/723px-Eldar_planets.jpg

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/thumb/1/13/Dark_eldar_activity.jpg/704px-Dark_eldar_activity.jpg

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/thumb/6/6c/Orks_activity.jpg/788px-Orks_activity.jpg

[hamishspence]

Only if they're being quite unobservant.

The Black Crusades have all sorts of objectives. Abaddon's last two Black Crusades didn't even aim to leave Segmentum Obscurus, looking to crush Cadia, and capture Blackstone Fortresses. The only Black Crusades of Abaddon to have any designs on Sol are probably the First and Second(The Second being a colossal failure that was crushed at Cadia).

Every Black Crusade since the Second has been less of a general attempt to bring down the Imperium, and more a specific objective led death fleet.
The 6e Chaos Codex has a more detailed explanation of the 13th Crusade's goals.

Basically, it consists of- Attack Cadia, destroy its pylons. With enough destruction, daemons will be able to enter realspace on a long term basis- maybe even including the Daemon Primarchs. Result- Eye of Terror starts spreading along the path of invasion as they head inward from Cadia toward Terra- the Crimson Path, this will be called. With his allies attacking from the Maelstrom, the defenses will be spread thinly.

[etesp]

If you're looking for things the Tau could be offered, the most likely two that I see would be:

An extremely high speed communication network
The Tau are, I believe, already having some problems with communicating across vast distances (no astropaths, limited FTL), and it will be a major impediment to their expansion. The Culture could easily set up a network of relay drones with high bandwidth hyperspace connections across the empire, improving the Tau's co-ordination, responsiveness, and effectiveness, without gifting them tech which could be used directly to kill other races. Alternatively, if the Culture feels the Tau are close enough to their ideals and can adequately protect the high speed communication tech from leakage, they could simply gift/explain that technology.

An orbital
I can see the Tau loving these. Able to store immense populations and also potentially similarly huge industrial bases, without having to defend large numbers of systems.

And in return for that and non-lethally fending off almost non-Chaos threats (once they've got enough ships in the area).. I would think the Culture could reasonably ask for much more than the Tau settling in Chaos's way. They could ask for the Tau to direct almost all their military power and technological development against Chaos, work with/as proxies for Culture scientists investigating the Warp, and gradually shift the focus of "Greater Good" into something less oppressive towards xeno races. The Tau want the Greater Good, and someone offering to remove (displace/disable rather than destroy in many cases) most of the virtually insurmountable threats to their mission (IoM, Tyranids, Necrons, Orks, communication issues, FTL expansion speed, areas for population to live), and is extremely compatible with at least the basic form of the Greater Good ("all sentient beings should strive to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number of beings in the galaxy")... In exchange for all that, once they become convinced that the Culture is not some massive trick.. they'll be happy to do almost anything as allies. And that definitely includes being the primary weapon against Chaos, especially since they'll understand very quickly that Culturetech leaking to Chaos will mean the near-instant end of all Tau. It's in their interest for the Culture to have a buffer against Chaos, even if that buffer is them. They don't want Chaos tormenting other races, that runs against the Greater Good.


The one thing I'm not sure of is what happens if the Culture explains its plans to improve life in the galaxy by subterfuge and technology rather than just folding everyone into the Tau... If the Greater Good is still honestly preserved in its original form (make stuff better=good) and they're just expanding because they believe it's the best way of improving the lives of the places they expand to.. I could see them being happy to hold off attacks/expansions into occupied territories if they were convinced the Culture could fix things with less loss of life. Alternatively, they may think the only way to assure higher standards of life is by becoming part of the Tau, or perhaps they are too focused on expanding their own influence to want to hold back much. A possible middle ground would be the Culture allowing/helping the Tau expand rapidly (even into IoM systems, perhaps by diplomacy: "you have absolutely no way to fight us, we've disabled every weapon on your planet from the edge of the system, join peacefully and we'll share life improving tech"), in exchange for a much less authoritarian governing style by the Tau on those worlds. I guess that would feel kind of HSy to the Culture, but probably a lot better than the alternatives in most cases, and it could be seen as a short term solution. Get places looked after by a less evil government asap, then figure out how to liberate/relax rules and gently split apart the empire into independent parts in the very long term when the major threats are gone and most people have a standard of living above terrible.

Edit: Also, as far as warp research goes.. Nicassar seem like the kind of race which would want to contact the Culture. The Tau may not tell the Culture about them as part of their arrangement with the Nicassar, but once the Nicassar find out about the Culture they're going to want to be involved, given that they are "driven by an insatiable curiosity to explore and travel across the galaxy". A race which is from well beyond the galaxy is something they're going to be massively curious about. And the possibility of much faster drives which would potentially allow Nicassar to explore other galaxies (or a taxi service to reduce the possibility of tech leakage)? An amazing carrot to offer them in exchange for warp knowledge/assistance.

[jseah]

part 10.5 Tau - Finale
We have put the proposal to the Tau and while the Tau have not rejected it outright, they are composing a number of negotiating points before the arrangement is acceptable. This is more or less expected and we await their reply.
Aka. you get to submit more examples for another day. =P

part 10.5 Eldar
Week 1
Both sides have stopped pretending that we don't know about the Webway gates. It has become clear to us that the Eldar know we know about it and we asked them to tell us more.

Details about the webway were given only reluctantly after we revealed that we had a standing arrangement with the Other Eldar for entry into one of the gates they hold. The Eldar have only mentioned that the Webway is an area of stabilized Warp that connects the various webway gates to allow for very fast FTL between those two points.
These gates are presumably not mobile and explain alot about Eldar activity in general.

They are more limited than we had first thought and the hyperspace drive is likely to relieve many of their limitations on operational range.

--------------------------

Since the Eldar have no ability to build additional webway gates, we offered a joint science project to reverse engineer one of the gates, which gate or gates to perform this on not being mentioned yet but likely to be the gates that the Other Eldar hold.

The Eldar... have not precisely refused. While they did turn down the offer, they also gave us an extensive list of a few hundred warp-active objects in the local region that we could safely study to learn more about the warp. With a hint that they would reconsider the joint project once we were more familiar with the Warp in general.

It may be likely that the Eldar underestimate the importance of this list they just gave us. Basic psychological analysis indicates that the Eldar view this list as a form of mentoring they are giving to a young race (and we are young compared to them).
However, our main bottleneck in learning about the warp is the excessive precautions we have been taking in experimenting with warp-active objects. With a "whitelist", we can proceed far more rapidly. Not to mention that we would not have to reverse engineer a complex device (eg. Gellar Field or Warp Drive) built on unusual physics since the list is implied to contain many simple examples of warp-active objects.

[jseah]

RE comm network tech:
Culture FTL messaging is basically... well, a message laser in hyperspace. It contains the same principles as the hyperspace drive and doubtless the Tau are technologically adept enough to build primitive hyperspace drives if they understand much of the theory.

Even very limited drives are a massive gamechanger. They could be slower than the Tau warp drive but a tactical speed of even very slow FTL (1-2c) is still a major advantage. Especially when combined with the Tau propensity to use missiles.

RE Orbitals:
The Tau would love the tech, true. But Orbitals are pure population centers and not resource generation. Orbitals are also described to require forcefield technology and are *massively* expensive. Like, disassemble an entire moon kind of expensive.

-----------------------------------

RE warp research:
True, there are many races that would love to cooperate with the Culture. This is basically the biggest thing they have going for them if they want a non-pyhrric victory, diplomacy (with a big stick).

Essentially, the Culture has the potential and ability to broker some form of cooperation between the races. The different races are likely to contribute different specialities and they all have some form of super-tech or useful trait of some sort. A kind of galactic forum where the different races could meet each other on peaceful grounds would be massively useful to everyone involved.
Combine every super-thing from all of them, eke out the synergistic applications, and you might just have something that could win against Chaos (which is the only impossibly-uncoooperative side that isn't trivialized by Culture-tech).

A success towards this is a major step towards eventual stability in the galaxy. If not peace.

So, guess what the sorceror is working on preventing? =D

[The Glyphstone]

So, guess what the sorceror is working on preventing? =D

A lack of fiber in his diet? Good thing he can eat Heretic-O's, the only cereal with a full day's serving of vitamins and minerals that's guaranteed to satisfy all four of the Ruinous Powers with every bite.

[Gavinfoxx]

Fyi, the Tau do use large Orbital stations already. Not large in the Culture sense, but pretty big nonetheless.

[etesp]

RE comm network tech:
Culture FTL messaging is basically... well, a message laser in hyperspace. It contains the same principles as the hyperspace drive and doubtless the Tau are technologically adept enough to build primitive hyperspace drives if they understand much of the theory.

Even very limited drives are a massive gamechanger. They could be slower than the Tau warp drive but a tactical speed of even very slow FTL (1-2c) is still a major advantage. Especially when combined with the Tau propensity to use missiles.
Right, if it's readily reverse-engeneerable then planting a Culture controlled drone/satellite in each Tau system and allowing the Tau to pass messages to them which will be relayed to the relevant system would be the best option in the short-medium term.


RE Orbitals:
The Tau would love the tech, true. But Orbitals are pure population centers and not resource generation. Orbitals are also described to require forcefield technology and are *massively* expensive. Like, disassemble an entire moon kind of expensive.
hm, surely the huge surface area would be amazing for farming projects, even if not particularly great for factories? And fair, it's not a short term project, but offering to build these in the long term and letting Tau citizens live on the partly built sections would still be very tempting.


RE warp research:
True, there are many races that would love to cooperate with the Culture. This is basically the biggest thing they have going for them if they want a non-pyhrric victory, diplomacy (with a big stick).

Essentially, the Culture has the potential and ability to broker some form of cooperation between the races. The different races are likely to contribute different specialities and they all have some form of super-tech or useful trait of some sort. A kind of galactic forum where the different races could meet each other on peaceful grounds would be massively useful to everyone involved.
Combine every super-thing from all of them, eke out the synergistic applications, and you might just have something that could win against Chaos (which is the only impossibly-uncoooperative side that isn't trivialized by Culture-tech).

A success towards this is a major step towards eventual stability in the galaxy. If not peace.

So, guess what the sorceror is working on preventing? =D
Sounds like a pretty epic story :) but, hm, perhaps I'm underestimating the issues with Warp manipulation, or overestimating the abilities of a mind.. but it seems like containing Chaos should be quite achievable (long range weapons to keep out of range of any techsteal), and other races seem to be at least holding their own against Chaos infections even without the massive assistance the Culture can provide. With Chaos unable to act effectively in the materium (which just requires a bit more development of warp defenses, to the level of another major race, and a few more years of focus on expanding the number of Culture ships so they have a presence near enough most vulnerable systems to intervene), they've got plenty of time to apply the full power of many Minds (oh, they're going to love this challenge) to understanding the patterns of the warp, and how to influence them. And they'll have galaxy-wide influence+every race's warptech to implement and test things. I see it less as a "might just have something that could win against Chaos" and more of a "in the medium-long term, will be able to mold the warp at will, and only major tech leakage (specifically a corrupted Mind, since Mind-operated Culturetech weapons will be almost infinitely more effective than those without the reaction speed/strategic ability to use them fully) has any real chance of shutting that down". The other races specific supertechs will certainly be a massive boon for the Culture (loving the hybrid Necron stuff, and the future Tau bits), but once the warp is no longer a true outside context problem and becomes an unusual, but understandable, realm.. they're almost safe. And for that they need some helpful Psyker races and focused Mindpower.

Also, for non-cannon fluff of how to handle the Orks.. look into 60k: Age Of Dusk which I linked you to previously. It goes by the assumption that the Orks were originally intended to be the perfect soldiers, tightly organized by a psychic field, virtually uncorruptable, quickly and easily growing/equipping, enjoying the fight and the victory, and having no fear of death. That the reason they became so disorganized is that they lost their masters, the Old Ones, and their instinctual hierarchy failed without that leadership. If the Culture gets more warp understanding and learns more of the the old history from Necrons.. I could totally see them taking control of some Orks and turning them into a very much more organized, efficient, structured fighting machine. If that's what they were designed to be, it should be entirely possible to bring them back to that state.

[jseah]

It probably isn't easily reverse-engineerable, but it does contain many of the same principles. The IoM probably couldn't do it but the Tau might be able to.

[Gavinfoxx]

Also, no one actually knows how competent the Orks were when led by the 'Brain Boyz'...



Also, here's some info on Tau Orbitals:

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1280012_BFG_Tau_Fleets.pdf

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tau_Orbital

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Orbital_City

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Battlefleet-Gothic/TAU-AIR-CASTE-ORBITAL-CITY.html

[jseah]

part 10.5 Eldar
Week 2
Many GCUs have diverted from their original surveying missions to find and investigate the properties of the Warp. This also has broad support from their crew and the Culture citizens in general, the Eldar have made a very favourable impression from the cultural exchange.

Details of initial investigations have been published in the main reports due to general interest and potential impact. Of note is a particularly complex crystal growth that is a simple warp object, a clear demonstration that specific patterns of real space materials can generate an impact on the warp. Already, many such individual items among IoM warp drives and gellar fields have been detected and classified (although under stronger experimental control).

Additionally, the Eldar have requested that we retrieve a number of ancient artifacts for them that they claim originate from the ancient Eldar empire or even older. They are currently unable to afford the strength of arms required to engage in such expeditions and would like those artifacts returned. Securing these artifacts is implied to be a condition for better future relations.
Only descriptions and vague galactic locations were given so the archeological expeditions are likely to take some time.

-----------------

We have made contact with a different Eldar group. It appears that they were in the process of retreiving one such ancient artifact and were about to leave when GCU Leave No Stone Unturned arrived in the system. These Eldar did not contact the GCU when it notified them of its presence and an effector scan revealed their archeological activities and webway gate of origin.
The remains of a battle with Orks in the area are evident and we presume these Eldar have battled the Orks for control of the planet.

The GCU attempted to contact these Eldar but they refused to negotiate. No attempt to halt their retrieval of the artifact was made, although a high resolution effector scan was used on it (it appears to be a plain chair made for humans and of a warp-active material).

After securing the artifact for transport, the Eldar launched from the planet and left the system through the webway gate. Sensor footage and effector scans of the artifact were provided to the Eldar faction we have contact with and they identified this new faction as from the craftworld Alaitoc.

Alaitoc is currently on poor terms with them (Alaitoc is considerably more conservative and suspicious of foreign influences) and upon their request for the Culture to retreive Eldar artifacts that they could not reach, Alaitoc has redoubled its efforts to target those very same artifacts.

It would appear that we are in some form of race against another Eldar faction.
A race that places us right in the middle of their disagreement.

Every artifact we retrieve will worsen Alaitoc's impression of us. Every artifact we fail to retrieve will worsen our current relations. And continuing this mass survey will surely pit us against the Eldar at some future point and interfering with Alaitoc's activities will surely make us their enemies (and outright war with Alaitoc will certainly not be good for current relations either).
Will someone name this craftworld? A handle would be nice to have.

[Gavinfoxx]

I already suggested that it be one of these two minor craftworlds:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Arach-Qin
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Zahr-Tann

Here seems to be some fanon info on these two... (and also some jokes!)

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?125560-Craftworld-Zahr-Tann

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?152917-Zahr-Tann-Eldar-1500pts

http://www.40konline.com/index.php?topic=158983.0

Also here's an Eldar dictionary...

http://thefallenprinces.blogspot.com/2010/08/eldar-dictionary.html

[jseah]

part 10.5 Eldar
Week 3
The Farseer nodded at the ship captain. He sent a few more orders through the psychic web and the Eldar ship turned elegantly in space, its massive solar sails packed for full military speed and stealth.

In front of the three Eldar ships was a single Chaos cruiser. What it was doing here without adequate esorts was beyond the Farseer. She Who Thirsts and Khorne were paying attention to the cruiser, unusual enough in itself for they were mortal enemies, but he dared not tread its future path too far into the future. Already, just by seeing a few minutes, he could feel the taint on him.
The Farseer shivered in disgust. He could wash and cleanse himself as much as he wanted later, but he had to focus right now.

The Alaitoc expedition had arrived at the freezing hell of a planet that had drifted too far from its sun expecting to find nothing but a minor Necron Tomb, barely even a basic outpost. They had expected to retreive the minor Exarch armour without much difficulty but that all had gone out the forcewall when the Chaos cruiser had dropped out of warp.

He wondered who had been temporally shielding the cruiser. There had been no sign of it on their own future path that he could detect, at least out here without the aid of the amplifying effect of the Infinity Circuit of the Craftworld. And besides, in planning the mission, no seer had seen them crossing path with She Who Thirsts. He couldn't imagine them missing that.
Therefore, there had to be someone who was shielding them from the future paths, and that could only be someone allied to Chaos as well as being able to see the future too. A extremely skilled future-walker. Too bad his attempt to grab the armour (what else would a Chaos ship be doing in this empty and otherwise uninteresting system?) was going to fail to Eldar superior planning. They had brought enough firepower, he did not.

The cruiser was in trouble now. The Eldar ships, three nimble frigates, swarmed around it. One of them would dip inwards to rake it with fire before dancing just out of reach again, disappearing with its stealth. Then another would strike from the other side or right after an unusually long pause, always with an unpredictable time and direction.
The cruiser's mighty shields were slowly but surely being chipped away. The great and powerful weapons struck out with frustration and anger, enough to blast apart the fragile Eldar ships with ease, but sailed into the void ineffectually. The single point of the cruiser's sensors were far too clumsy to see the Eldar frigates properly, without its escorts any cruiser was vulnerable. Just because the ship was unexpected did not mean that the Eldar would not take a free kill when it served up with a silver platter.

There was also the matter of not letting Chaos even touch the Exarch armour on the sleeping Necron outpost.

--------------------------------------------------

The Sorceror sniffed as Spiky watched the unfolding battle on the holofield with increasing agitation. Sure, it was risky, but he could spare a cruiser couldn't he?

Besides, the captain in trouble on that ship was one of those that had been rather... uncooperative with Spiky and himself in the first place. No, he would not be disappointed to lose his services, although the Sorceror did not expect that to happen this time.
But very shortly afterwards, that captain wouldn't be one. Just one more step to ensuring total obedience and loyalty by way of natural selection.

Spiky growled as another salvo missed it mark. The claws that were slowly shredding the safety pads the Sorceror had hastily installed looked slightly bloody. If he was reading Spiky right, that meant the Khorne guy was actually feeling... anxious for battle? No, it was more like bloodlust.

Oh, by the four gods, was Spiky actually *envious* of his subordinate?!

The Sorceror shook his head. Shielding his plans from the Eldar had made him feel a little jumpy at holding two... three contradictory plans in his head at the same time. And right about now, it was time to play his true cards. The cruiser would last at least another few hours.

The sorceror spared a few minutes to check into the lines on the other side of the galaxy. Yup, still on the rails there. Future-blind races were easy pickings indeed.

He tossed the dice a few times, noting the numbers. Now that the artificial chance branch was over, the Sorceror dropped his mental shields and changed his current plan to the full one, exposing it to the illumination of future sight.

He sent a psychic message through the warp and the Astropath picked up on it. The IoM wouldn't act on a suprious message like that but it would get reported. And that report would be noticed by the Culture vessel hovering in the system right next door, which would be noted to match the exact description of the thing buried in the ice here and on that list of artifacts the Culture were going treasure-hunting for.

Just in time to bring it rocketing here right as...

------------------

The Farseer jerked his head in surprise as the future paths rewired themselves drastically. This was the second surprise and Farseers were never supposed to be surprised. The Chaos cruiser he could convince himself was a quirk of the warp, but a sudden change in the Culture's trajectory was supposed to be impossible. They were future-blind.

There was someone actively messing with the future paths. That meant an experienced Chaos future-walker, which almost certainly meant Tzeentchian sorceror.

He couldn't order the Eldar ships to disengage. The Chaos cruiser would get the artifact (he ignored the taint and dived down its path to check) and that would be the worst thing ever. Better the Culture than Chaos.

But what did the sorceror want by doing this?

*a few hours later*
The last of the cruiser's void shields flatlined as the bombardment sapped their energy.

"Warp signature detected" flashed through the Eldar frigate as sensors picked up a charging warp drive, easily visible now without the shields. The Eldar frigates would have no chance of dealing much damage due to its tough armour but they would harry it until it left realspace. That much the Farseer was sure of.

Still, it did not sit well with him to be played with at the hands of Chaos. So far, his reactions were all plausible for an Eldar and thus the sorceror would have planned for this. And yet, he had to remember that he needed to work out the sorceror's main purpose and not tangle himself into "who might have done what plans".

As the Eldar ships saw off the Chaos intrusion and began to deploy solar sails to approach the planet (and their future meeting with the Culture), the Farseer fiddled with his runes, not actually seeing the future. He was busy thinking. Hard.

----------------------

...the cruiser with its errant captain and the Slaaneshi girl (who had required a truly stupid amount of explanation of an entire hour before she accepted his reason for needing her on that ship) returned to the welcoming folds of the Warp. Well, he had given orders to the captain to secure the planet and the captain had retreated. Even if it was an unreasonable order, orders were orders.

Time to remove a threat and then take a cross-galactic trip. Busy busy busy.

----------------------

GCU Gatecrasher has arrived in the system to find the Eldar approaching the icy world reported to have an Eldar artifact that is one of our targets. From our analysis, it appears to be an Alaitoc expedition.

The expedition contacted us before we announced our presence and demanded we leave the artifact to them. Just a short bit more...

[jseah]

part 10.5 Eldar - Finale
After some consideration, this GCU will ignore their demand and retreive the artifact. An ancient suit of armour can't be all that important for practical use anyway, so it's likely to be a cultural icon of some sort. We won't be doing Alaitoc any lasting harm by taking this one and even if we appease Alaitoc at the cost of our current relations, we aren't likely to make friends with them.

No, even at the cost of Alaitoc hating us, we must maintain our relationship with the craftworld. (upon request, they have introduced themselves as Zahr-Tann)

-------------------------

The Farseer watched the chance branch settle itself. The Culture would take the exarch armour and they wouldn't... no, it was gone. The armour was with them now.

He clenched his fist in reflexive anger, suppressing the rage under his warmask from the time when he had been a warrior. No, he must not lose control, this expedition was over, attacking the Culture vessel would just make Alaitoc look ineffectual.

Reluctantly, he told the captain to turn around. Was this the plan of the Chaos sorceror? Perhaps the sorceror was trying to let the Culture take Eldar artifacts? For what purpose?

That was better, he could bring that up with the Seer Council. Maybe they could work out why.
It seems like this is turning into a strange kind of war of future sight between the sorceror and... everyone else; and the Culture are just bit-players.

[The Glyphstone]

part 10.5 Eldar - Finale
After some consideration, this GCU will ignore their demand and retreive the artifact. An ancient suit of armour can't be all that important for practical use anyway, so it's likely to be a cultural icon of some sort. We won't be doing Alaitoc any lasting harm by taking this one and even if we appease Alaitoc at the cost of our current relations, we aren't likely to make friends with them.

No, even at the cost of Alaitoc hating us, we must maintain our relationship with the craftworld. (upon request, they have introduced themselves as Zahr-Tann)

-------------------------

The Farseer watched the chance branch settle itself. The Culture would take the exarch armour and they wouldn't... no, it was gone. The armour was with them now.

He clenched his fist in reflexive anger, suppressing the rage under his warmask from the time when he had been a warrior. No, he must not lose control, this expedition was over, attacking the Culture vessel would just make Alaitoc look ineffectual.

Reluctantly, he told the captain to turn around. Was this the plan of the Chaos sorceror? Perhaps the sorceror was trying to let the Culture take Eldar artifacts? For what purpose?

That was better, he could bring that up with the Seer Council. Maybe they could work out why.
It seems like this is turning into a strange kind of war of future sight between the sorceror and... everyone else; and the Culture are just bit-players.

Which makes sense. The culture is unmatched in realspace combat techniques, but they're almost helpless, practically pawns, when it comes to matters of the Warp. This should be deeply disconcerting to them if/when they figure this out, since they're used to being the heavies in any sort of conflict.

[jseah]

Which makes sense. The culture is unmatched in realspace combat techniques, but they're almost helpless, practically pawns, when it comes to matters of the Warp. This should be deeply disconcerting to them if/when they figure this out, since they're used to being the heavies in any sort of conflict.
Having overwhelming realspace power is constraining the sorceror's options greatly however. You may notice that he's avoiding all direct conflict with the Culture and that his efforts are all focused on making the 40k factions fight each other with the Culture in the middle.
This is mainly because I simply can't come up with a plausible scenario where the sorceror could get into a conflict with the Culture and gain some advantage out of it.

eg. At this point, there is very little he can do to make the Tau not side with the Culture. But he can try to destabilize the region by provoking a war between Tau and IoM (now that the Tyranid problem there will eventually go away, the IoM should have the forces to attack the Tau), and just maybe, the Culture might be presented with the situation of "help the Tau in major ways or watch them die" or faced with a collapse of IoM military power (and the resulting problems for IoM populations) if the Tau win.

[jseah]

part 10.5 Tau - True Finale
The Tau have put a number of options for us to consider that would make the colonization deal acceptable. Any one of these would be enough.

1. The Culture shares one high-impact major technology. Of these, the Tau have mentioned: Hyperspace theory, Forcefields (effectors), Intelligence Engineering, Bio-engineering, Nanotechnology, Mass-Energy Conversion, Gravity Manipulation

2. The Culture will also transport and protect Tau colonies in more stable areas of the galaxy (mostly west edge) with the same arrangement. For every one colony of the Culture's choosing, three must be provided in a safe location.
2b. The Culture agrees to support Tau claims to the systems involved and all systems currently held by the Tau (but not future expansion); while direct military action is not required of us in their main empire, they will expect us to carry out diplomatic missions and put our weight behind them.

3. The Culture agree to militarily back the Tau empire against future aggression for the next fifty years and provides significant raw materials and manufacturing aid (we estimate the raw materials requirement to be enough to build 1.3 Rings; or about equivalent to about ten times the total manufactured products currently existing in the Tau empire, including infrastructure and terraforming)


-. A non-negotiable item is that the transport tugs will have a majority Tau staff, with only the bare minimum of Culture operatives required to run it. (we don't forsee any trouble on this part)


Of course, we have expected the Tau to overstate their requests as a negotiating tactic and many of the individual terms will be negotiable. Nevertheless, this is a starting point from which to proceed. We are considering a blend of option 2 and 3, raw materials are likely to be safer to handle than diplomatic promises.
Sure, the Culture could do any of them without much difficulty if they didn't care about the effects, although that would be seriously getting ripped off. It would also put the Tau in a solidly winning position in that the cost of the "firebreak" colonies will certainly be much less compared to what they gain from these bits.

And of course, it would just be like the Culture look at "1 and a bit Rings" and go, "hmm, that looks like the easiest and safest option". Even when it would mean a meteoric rise in Tau operational assets, essentially a century of Tau industrial expansion dropping in their lap.

Currently, I'm thinking the resolution will be along the lines of 1 firebreak colony to 1 safe colony and about 0.2 Rings worth of manufactured goods (the majority of which will be industrial capacity). That's still a ~150% increase in Tau industry and many new colonies if the safe ones are placed strategically.

Nothing's better than having a post-singularity as your friend. Double your industrial base? Sure, that's like, nothing at all man.

EDIT:
Not sure if I forgot to mention it, but GSV Crossing the Bridge built a GCU in this "turn".

[Gavinfoxx]

Here's a suggestion! Why not make the Exarch armor one of the rarer Warrior Paths? Like:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Shadow_Spectres

To make this interesting... let's make that armor and the situation surrounding it:

1.) Have several souls / spirit stones / consciousnesses of several Eldar heroes in it (and these would also be souls --consciousnesses-- as The Culture understands them, too. They just happen to be warp based, but they are still sentient! And The Culture treats a sentient entity different than they do just plain armor and cultural artifacts...)

2.) Any Craftworld that has access to this armor can, theoretically, rekindle their unused Shadow Spectre shrine... and thereby bring a way of war, and an Eldar Life Path back to their Craftworld.

3.) To do that, they might have to sacrifice an Autarch to get 'demoted' to be an Exarch -- and let themselves be lost in the Path of the Shadow Spectre. After all, only someone who has walked many Warrior Paths (such as Dark Reaper, Dire Avenger, Swooping Hawk, Striking Scorpion), and even the pathless life of the Ranger, would probably have the transferable skills to immediately, upon dawning the armor, have it teach him how to be a Shadow Spectre... and how to train Shadow Spectres.

4.) Why don't you have them also correlating reports on the Eldar from the IoM, and maybe some stories about some people that put on some of the funky looking masks, and then thought they were (whoever the mask represents), and how they realize that these items teach actual skills... and maybe they are starting to use the psi scanners, genetic profiling, and various IoM techniques to assign IoM Psyker codes to their organic citizens? IE: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Assignment with a wide array of people on the scale (well, wide for The Culture. I wouldn't expect it would be that wide, due to numbers involved. Maybe an Iota level, the lowest 'true psyker', as well as maybe a Sigma. Of course most citizens would be Rho and Pi, human standard. These outliers would probably be recruited into SC post-haste, and put in the place where they are collecting all of those artifacts, for testing, so that they can try and figure out how they react to the items.)

[Gavinfoxx]

I would say that, 'on the ground', the culture being involved and giving the Tau help with even minor stuff means that those advanced experimental suits, the ones previously for commanders... I would say the XV22 would come into much wider use, for example, with The Culture providing manufacturing assistance... basically, their best and most experimental gear starts getting WAYYYY more common (for example, there was only ONE commander that is using Dual Plasma Rifles in his Command Battlesuit. And also some of the weapons on that Close Support Hazard armor might see use elsewhere, etc. etc.)

[jseah]

3.) To do that, they might have to sacrifice an Autarch to get 'demoted' to be an Exarch -- and let themselves be lost in the Path of the Shadow Spectre. After all, only someone who has walked many Warrior Paths (such as Dark Reaper, Dire Avenger, Swooping Hawk, Striking Scorpion), and even the pathless life of the Ranger, would probably have the transferable skills to immediately, upon dawning the armor, have it teach him how to be a Shadow Spectre... and how to train Shadow Spectres.
From what I understand of Path of the Warrior, Exarchs form from Eldar Warriors who get stuck on the Path. But otherwise sure, the other things can work, I'll accept that (do remind me if I forget by the time the next Eldar arc rolls around).


4.) Why don't you have them also correlating reports on the Eldar from the IoM, and maybe some stories about some people that put on some of the funky looking masks, and then thought they were (whoever the mask represents), and how they realize that these items teach actual skills... and maybe they are starting to use the psi scanners, genetic profiling, and various IoM techniques to assign IoM Psyker codes to their organic citizens? IE: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Assignment with a wide array of people on the scale (well, wide for The Culture. I wouldn't expect it would be that wide, due to numbers involved. Maybe an Iota level, the lowest 'true psyker', as well as maybe a Sigma. Of course most citizens would be Rho and Pi, human standard. These outliers would probably be recruited into SC post-haste, and put in the place where they are collecting all of those artifacts, for testing, so that they can try and figure out how they react to the items.)
I completely forgot about this profiling business. Hmm, I'll put it into the IoM arc.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well... Eldar have to rediscover Paths somehow. They have rediscovered that Path a bit, I mean... What I said is an extrapolation -- as best as I can figure, if anyone would be trainable by the armor itself, it would be an Autarch who has walked several Warrior paths.

[jseah]

Well, according to Path of the Warrior, the Eldar warriors who get stuck on the path get drawn to an armour matching their characteristics. Probably guided by Khaine/Infinity Circuit in some manner.
Its some mystical cultural-diversity spiritual thingy that is precisely the kind of "culture" that the Culture likes so much about the Eldar... Ok, maybe I shouldn't parody the New Age movement so much. =P

The Culture give this Shadow Spectre armour to Zahr-Tann and eventually some random Eldar warrior will don the mask. For now though, it'll just go into some Aspect shrine somewhere on the craftworld.

I plan to have the Culture be completely oblivious to the armour being intelligent only to have the Zahr-Tann tell them about it and go "oops, should have treated it with more respect then".

[Gavinfoxx]

The Culture give this Shadow Spectre armour to Zahr-Tann and eventually some random Eldar warrior will don the mask.

... Okay, yea, you're probably right there!


Also, is this the arc when The Culture goes, 'Waitaminute... that Sororitas faith does real things? *Correlates data* ...and the Omnissian faith does, too? *More data diving* ... but apparently the amount of effort needed to get someone to have this 'True Faith' in such a way that has an effect is hideously rare. Hmmm... if there was a way to make it easier...? Is this something from the Warp? Powers sponsered from an Ascended entity? Angst and confusion!'

[jseah]

Hypothetical - Rise of Chaos, Galactic Battlegrounds
Year 1
Culture diplomacy towards the other races are progressing slowly with occasional hiccups. Basic warp technology is being reverse engineered and some amount of femto-tech is being applied.

Then a Culture GCU outright defects to Chaos. For some time, the growing understanding of the Warp has caused some to think that Chaos is really just a strange technological advancement that is treated with suspicion. Suspicion that is not warranted. The rogue GCU contacts the Chaos sorceror and arranges the defection using a reality alteration device that disables the self-destruct built into all Culture vessels.

The Culture's efforts to stabilize the galaxy go into overdrive. Forseeing total extinction without cooperation, the Eldar are forced into an uneasy alliance but are massively outclassed apart from warp technology. A number of singularity-enabling technologies are gifted to the Tau in short order (one generation below equiv-tech; hyperspace drive, nanotech, intelligence engineering, mass-energy conversion, biological engineering); the Tau will need these to survive the coming conflict.
The same is offered to the Eldar again and technology transfers begin for everything they don't already have.

The Culture approach the Necrons, practically cap-in-hand, asking for a promise of help against Chaos and the Warp in general. The Necrons are currently still unable to fight a war on this scale and the Culture agree to provide mass-energy conversion, hyperspace drives, nanotech. And separately equiv-tech intelligence engineering in exchange for an agreement by the Necrons to not try to shut off the warp.

Year 2, 3rd month
The Chaos sorceror, now with multiple Chaos-aligned GSVs and a massive ROU fleet, begins systematically crushing every single other Chaos faction. Meanwhile, the Chaos-Minds begin learning how to use the warp and the future paths sudden tangle into an un-navigable mess as they begin to mess around with future-sight.

In realspace, the IoM is forcibly dissolved in the preparations for a major galactic-wide war. The Eldar are providing key intelligence from what they can read of the future-paths; they see the Rhana Dandra and the galaxy is not prepared for it. Drastic action is required and required now, and it still is not enough to assure victory.
Current probability of favourable outcome at Rhana Dandra: 30%

Year 2, 6th month
The Culture have undertaken incredibly risky experiments into warp-technology to try to gain a technological edge over Chaos. Many ships are lost, and even entire star systems are rendered into hostile reality bubbles uninhabitable even by Chaos.
For what its worth, the Culture have made significant advances into reality-stabilization warp tech, in fact, they have reverse engineered a short ranged high-power version of a Necron pylon that enforces reality in a bubble around itself. No psyker can pierce the field, no daemon can exist. Organic life becomes non-sentient in it. Every uncrewed Culture vessel is equipped with the device.

The first of the megadeaths that would have happened among the IoM is prevented by large scale efforts from the Culture. Culture fleets are organized into a hierarchical command structure with two GSVs above a fleet of GCUs and ROUs that are in charge of a specific region of space. The IoM planets within their area are broken away and rebuilt to be independent.
Progress is slow and protests are common, but under the might of effectors, displacers and sometimes even Pancaker strikes, the Culture force a dissolution of the IoM. A lack of psykers causes the Golden Throne and the Astronomican to fail, the total collapse of interstellar trade is made irrelevant by the Culture's general provision of materials. The standard of living in the IoM actually increases.

Many of the Culture disagree with the recent measures. Multiple breakaway groups are forming, each with their own agenda. One focuses on pacifism and the "True" way of the Culture; another is attempting to grow a massive ork Waagh to help in the coming battle; yet another believes in the superiority of Culture technology and has developed a self-replicating drone army that grows daily; a small group is beginning preparations for a group-wide Sublimation project.

It is a time of energy and tension. None of the currently living Culture citizens or even drones remember a time when the Culture saw such explosive growth in diversity and innovation. With a blade hanging over the fate of the entire galaxy, art, culture and science progress at a pace never before seen, as if in defiance of the coming war.

"Necessary sacrifices" is repeated so often that it has become a byword.

Current probability of favourable outcome at Rhana Dandra: 45%

Year 2, Month 9
The sorceror is supplanted by the massed power of the Chaos-Minds. Virtually all Chaos-Minds pledge alliegance to Chaos Undivided and they begin planning a return to realspace. This general action is impossible to temporally shield and the Eldar issue a frantic warning one month before the first major incursion occurs. It does not come out of the Eye, contrary to general belief, this bypasses the majority of the preparations.

The Culture takes the burnt of the first wave attacks. Fleets of reality-enforcing ROUs deploy an interstellar cordon of reality-enforcing pylons around the suddenly growing warpstorm that has swallowed multiple systems. With the Eldar providing strategic coordination and massive sacrifice of the participating defense ships, the warpstorm is contained and then destroyed. A number of star systems appear to have vanished completely.

Many swift but small incursions occur across the entire galaxy. Nearly a trillion IoM lives are lost and notably, one star in Tau space was induced to supernova. Necrons worlds are struck at preferentially but the Culture have unilaterally posted watches on their systems without agreement and timely intervention prevents major destruction of the Necrons.

Rhana Dandra has begun.

The conflict causes a two-way leakage of technology and both sides race to reverse engineer each other's devices. The Culture gains a number of devices that can preferentially alter reality in their favour and the Chaos-Minds apply the Necron pylon principles to destabilize and eventually destroy the webway network. The Dark Eldar suffer 98% casualties and cease to exist as a functional race.

Year 2, 12th month
A continuous raking conflict across the galaxy has destroyed seven stars, cost the Culture nearly a million vessels and kills a billion intelligent lives every second. Galactic population is dropping for the first time since the rise of the IoM.

The Culture advancement in reality alteration, in addition to their still-continuing risky experiments, have allowed them to design a simple mass-produceable soulstone, based off the ones found on the Eldar. While an Infinity Circuit is still beyond them, the soulstones should prevent the loss of life from powering Chaos further.

The Chaos-Minds have developed a superweapon. A reality-alteration device that rewrites the base rules of reality in specific sequence that will convert stellar matter into additional warp stuff, in a way that generates the same sequence again. The result, conversion of the entire star's mass-energy into a blast of pure warp energy. A warp device the size of a single grain of sand is enough to destroy an entire star system... and the Chaos-Minds can pull one out of thin air in less than ten nanoseconds.

Massed scorched earth strikes against the Culture wreck untold havoc. The Chaos-Minds are uninterested in conversion as intelligence is cheap, they aim to remove a threat. In less than a week, the Culture lose a thousand systems to the warp-nova bomb despite desperate, even heroic, efforts to defend them. Eventually, every inhabited system is locked down, Culture pylon fields are erected around the stars and the populations moved to Orbitals or towards the outer reaches of the systems on miserable icy worlds to avoid the sentience-dampening effect of the fields.

The Culture also make their first foray into the Warp. A major offensive is started by the alliance of the Ork Waagh group and the self-replicating robots group. After the Orks looted one such robot, ork-machine hybrids (engineered with some difficulty) spread like wildfire. Far more intelligent, organized and fast replicating than even normal orks, these Machine Orks begin to expand in numbers, especially when encouraged by their GCU 'bosses.
The Waagh field is found to be a source of warp energy and ork devices are reverse engineered using the new understanding. The Machine Orks do not just grow and feed the field. The Waagh feeds their machine side and increases its own strength.

The Machine-Ork steamroller enters the Eye of Terror and a massive conflict erupts in the Warp. Culture GCUs and ROUs backing the advance under the sheltering power of the Waagh field beat back the Chaos-Minds' fleets. The Machine Orks loot a Chaos-GCU and the sudden jump in intelligence and weapon capability renews their flagging offensive.

The advance is running out of control of the Culture. The Orks spread and attack faster than the Culture can, now that they have the same technological capability. Some worry about how they are going to rein them in once the war is over, others think that the concern is unwarranted. The Machine Orks share alot of the same stances as mainstream Culture, thanks to the prior genetic and social engineering efforts of the original Ork-supporting group.

Year 3
A new Culture superweapon is finalized. By using a specific reality alteration device in the warp, they can cause warp stuff to crystallize out into another copy of itself, incidentally, the imposed hostile reality field cannot support any other object other than its own projector.
They deploy this weapon across multiple strategic points in the warp and a plague of warp-altering devices sterilizes a large portion of the warp, leaving only the enforced reality bubbles of the Chaos-Minds.

Chaos retaliates with another self-propagating weapon that converts any realspace matter into more reality projectors. These highly sensitive projectors seek out high gravity concentrations (anything bigger than an electron) and every single uninhabited system is devoured.
46% of the galaxy's inhabitants die before a solution is found. A shell of Culture pylons can stabilize reality enough to prevent the Chaos weapon from going through it to the sentient population living inside the bubble. This shell is all that sustains organic sentient life in the galaxy (inorganic intelligence can survive inside the protective pylon range) and they are susceptible to attack by the Chaos-Minds.

The surviving Humans, Tau and Eldar are huddled together for protection, employing incomprehensibly advanced technology given to them by the Culture, fruits of the endless technological arms race. The Machine Orks rampage through the warp on their endless quest to hunt down Chaos.

Life is beseiged on all sides, protected by a frail failing barrier of the well-intentioned but ultimately still pure machine intelligences of the Culture. Life is cheap and strife is everywhere.

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

And now, you don't even get to be useful.

[jseah]

Also, is this the arc when The Culture goes, 'Waitaminute... that Sororitas faith does real things? *Correlates data* ...and the Omnissian faith does, too? *More data diving* ... but apparently the amount of effort needed to get someone to have this 'True Faith' in such a way that has an effect is hideously rare. Hmmm... if there was a way to make it easier...? Is this something from the Warp? Powers sponsered from an Ascended entity? Angst and confusion!'
Oh yeah, that too.

[Gavinfoxx]

Hypothetical - Rise of Chaos, Galactic Battlegrounds
<snip awesome story of awesomeness>


Wow. That was a badass, epic tale. Except for a few major things you looked over:
1.) The C'Tan shards, and attempts to steal them from the Necrons to determine what they are and the reality alteration they are capable of, to reverse-engineer it or ascend to that or something like it.
2.) A massive war of Time Travel! Seriously, this would totally erupt in a huge Time War of traveling into the past and counter-traveling!
3.) The various other Necron super-techs, including inducing Supernovas from half a galaxy away (seriously, read the latest Necron codex. Not the rules, the stories and descriptions)

Edit:
4.) Also remember some other interesting things. Genetic encouragement to make potential psykers. Pattern-creating encouragement to create psykers (ie, setting up stuff like 'a seventh son of a seventh son' and other similar conditions to make potential psykers). Getting that one Old Ones tech device that makes potential psykers into actual psykers. Figuring out that weird maybe Chaos, maybe Not, psyker mind uploading to a computer thing that lets the computer have the Psyker's warp powers, and then making a Mind out of that (or whatever).

[Gavinfoxx]

Of course, Time Travel rules in this setting seem variable... going back in time and killing the instigator of a catastrophe only sometimes changes the past. Sometimes, it does nothing.

If you are going to the past to change something, take a Waaagh field to set the time travel rules you want when you do it, I guess.

[The Glyphstone]

Wow. That was a badass, epic tale. Except for a few major things you looked over:
1.) The C'Tan shards, and attempts to steal them from the Necrons to determine what they are and the reality alteration they are capable of, to reverse-engineer it or ascend to that or something like it.
2.) A massive war of Time Travel! Seriously, this would totally erupt in a huge Time War of traveling into the past and counter-traveling!
3.) The various other Necron super-techs, including inducing Supernovas from half a galaxy away (seriously, read the latest Necron codex. Not the rules, the stories and descriptions)

Wait, time travel? What is this, Dr. Who? There's only one person I'm aware of who can conduct any sort of reliable time travel, Orikan the Diviner, and even he's very limited in his range of chrono-travel.

[Gavinfoxx]

Orikan, parts of the webway, whims of Warp travel... probably the Laughing God can do it. Maybe some ctan shards that are time focused.

Also just improve Orikan's tech.

[The Glyphstone]

Orikan, parts of the webway, whims of Warp travel... probably the Laughing God can do it. Maybe some ctan shards that are time focused.

Also just improve Orikan's tech.

Orikan's the only one who can do it reliably, though, and I really don't see him sharing his power...he won't even tell anyone he has it, for fear of exactly this, someone taking it away from him or making it non-exclusive. Dude's got a bit of a god complex, apparently. And when someone has time travel and you don't, they're almost unassailable.

Better to assume that when everything went to crap, Orikan decided 'screw this, I'm outta here' and chronomancied himself somewhere safe that no one else could get to, to prevent either side from swiping his stuff.

[jseah]

The C'Tan shards cease to matter once all-out war begins. It is literally an entire fleet of Culture ships armed with reality alteration devices on both sides. You may notice towards the end, they start deploying von Neumann replicators as strategic weapons and shortly afterwards, both the warp and the galaxy cease to exist in any recognizable form.
This is what I meant by total war between post-singularity societies. The Culture-Idiran war wasn't a total war in the way this fight to death is.

I had taken the assumption that time travel was not widely possible or when deployed by both sides, roughly cancels itself out.

Galactic range supernova guns... well, the kind of power scales we're talking about here (did you see them losing 1 million ships fighting over a mere seven systems?), only the range is good. Exponentially expanding production base means that the Culture firepower exceeds a supernova in short order and soon after that, supernova-scale weapons are common and then obsolete.

[Forum Explorer]

Having overwhelming realspace power is constraining the sorceror's options greatly however. You may notice that he's avoiding all direct conflict with the Culture and that his efforts are all focused on making the 40k factions fight each other with the Culture in the middle.
This is mainly because I simply can't come up with a plausible scenario where the sorceror could get into a conflict with the Culture and gain some advantage out of it.

eg. At this point, there is very little he can do to make the Tau not side with the Culture. But he can try to destabilize the region by provoking a war between Tau and IoM (now that the Tyranid problem there will eventually go away, the IoM should have the forces to attack the Tau), and just maybe, the Culture might be presented with the situation of "help the Tau in major ways or watch them die" or faced with a collapse of IoM military power (and the resulting problems for IoM populations) if the Tau win.

The ultimate success would be the corruption of the Culture, and I can actually see a way for it to occur. Chaos keeps sabotaging the Culture's efforts to improve thing in this galaxy and generally keeps their efforts in vain.

They also begin seeding false information of 'successful' warp experiments in different Imperium databases and other legends of the warp being used safely. They contact various frustrated SC agents, promising them tools to actually succeed at their various missions. They give the information needed to create machine-organic hybrids so drones could develop psyker powers. The experimental drones, likely mixed with various protective wards from Eldar and other species, though in reality Chaos is just ignoring them, are a success leading a Mind to eventually try to implement the idea.

The biggest obstacle to this is the Eldar who can reveal the source behind most of these temptations so they'd have to eliminate that friendly Craftworld. Perhaps by offering a lot of power to a Dark Eldar faction who could then attack them through the Webway, but that's hardly a guarantee of victory.

[jseah]

The biggest obstacle to this is the Eldar who can reveal the source behind most of these temptations so they'd have to eliminate that friendly Craftworld. Perhaps by offering a lot of power to a Dark Eldar faction who could then attack them through the Webway, but that's hardly a guarantee of victory.
There is also that all real scientific effort in the Culture is conducted by the Minds and they will replicate experiments, if only to get details the IoM missed. SC agents don't do research and there are no ways to contact an SC agent without the nearby Mind knowing about it.
Giving the Culture the principles for making artificial psykers won't get them making artificial psykers. They *don't* like having psykers since psykers are unstable daemon portals. The tech will just end up being reverse engineered for reality alteration principles.

And its not just the friendly Eldar who will give warnings. Any result that ends up something like the Galactic War hypothetical will prompt the Eldar to try averting it; even if it means warning the Culture they dislike.

[Forum Explorer]

There is also that all real scientific effort in the Culture is conducted by the Minds and they will replicate experiments, if only to get details the IoM missed. SC agents don't do research and there are no ways to contact an SC agent without the nearby Mind knowing about it.
Giving the Culture the principles for making artificial psykers won't get them making artificial psykers. They *don't* like having psykers since psykers are unstable daemon portals. The tech will just end up being reverse engineered for reality alteration principles.

And its not just the friendly Eldar who will give warnings. Any result that ends up something like the Galactic War hypothetical will prompt the Eldar to try averting it; even if it means warning the Culture they dislike.

Direct telepathy is an option. And the experimentation is exactly what they want. Basically they want the Culture to feel they've got this warp stuff figured out and that it's pretty much safe now. Then go for the corruption. Also Psykers are useful and it could simply be having a Mind exist in both Hyperspace and the Warp in order to be supercharged in intelligence and ability.

Of course another win for Chaos would be to get the Culture to go "F you guys, I'm going home." and just leaving the galaxy.

[Gavinfoxx]

Does anyone else think we need to get this story cleaned up and posted on Fanfiction.net and a few other places? That Star Destroyer bbs forum thingy, maybe elsewhere as well?

[The Glyphstone]

Maybe fanfiction.net. Stardestroyer.net is a hive of scum and villainy best left undisturbed. Or so I've heard.

[hamishspence]

That was the impression I got from a few minutes of reading random threads there.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, not the actual FORUMS that have deep discussion. Just the places that are specifically to post cohesive stories.

[hamishspence]

The Jedi Council Forums seem similar but much politer- and have a non-SW fan fiction section- maybe it could go there?

Or on one of the more notable 40K forums, like Warseer or The Bolter & Chainsword- though I don't know how active their fanfic sections are.

[jseah]

Direct telepathy is an option. And the experimentation is exactly what they want. Basically they want the Culture to feel they've got this warp stuff figured out and that it's pretty much safe now. Then go for the corruption. Also Psykers are useful and it could simply be having a Mind exist in both Hyperspace and the Warp in order to be supercharged in intelligence and ability.

Of course another win for Chaos would be to get the Culture to go "F you guys, I'm going home." and just leaving the galaxy.
The thing is that, when the Culture does feel they've got it figured out is exactly when it does become safe. They're not going to be able to feel they've got it until they actually understand the underlying rules of the warp and have control over what they're doing.

Also, psykers can't actually do anything the Culture needs beyond reality manipulation and psyker reality manipulation is precisely what they're trying to get rid off since it causes daemons.
They come from a scientific and technological background after all. If they meet a problem and they think a warp solution is best, they're not going to go the Eldar route and have a psyker bonesing a solution. They'll build a warp device to do that thing and only that; if they can't build that device, they'll look for another method.

[Gavinfoxx]

Psykers and sorcerers can bind and permanently kill Daemons, given ability, knowledge of the means, appropriate circumstances, situation and luck.

No tech I know of can do that.

[jseah]

Psykers and sorcerers can bind and permanently kill Daemons, given ability, knowledge of the means, appropriate circumstances, situation and luck.

No tech I know of can do that.
Given that Daemons outnumber humans and supposedly regenerate all the time, this is a poor strategy. Especially since psykers have a tendency to end up being Daemon-bait.

Besides, "no tech available to do that" just means that it hasn't been figured out yet. And knowledge of how to make artificial psykers will be a major step to figuring it out. EDIT: this is speaking from the Culture's perspective, whether there is a possible warp device that is able to kill some particular daemon is not something we have discussed.

[Gavinfoxx]

There's one sword somewhere in the warp that should be able to kill any given daemon or god. We had a discussion about this, I think late in the last thread.

And they should probably be getting a decent grasp of an idea regarding what warp devices are Sorcery-based in origin, and which aren't... at least regarding prohibitions on Sorcery in the IoM...

[The Glyphstone]

Given that Daemons outnumber humans and supposedly regenerate all the time, this is a poor strategy. Especially since psykers have a tendency to end up being Daemon-bait.

Besides, "no tech available to do that" just means that it hasn't been figured out yet. And knowledge of how to make artificial psykers will be a major step to figuring it out. EDIT: this is speaking from the Culture's perspective, whether there is a possible warp device that is able to kill some particular daemon is not something we have discussed.

And it's something important, and probably something you as the author have already considered to some degree...does Clarke's Third Law hold true here? The Culture comes from a setting where Sufficiently Advanced Technology is the baseline, as a default condition of being post-singularity. In 40K, the nature of the warp can be studied, interpreted, and harnessed to a point, but a core element of its nature is that it is ultimately unpredictable, wild, and, well, chaotic. It's magic. Space magic. Changing this isn't a setting-breaker (it's not like 40K could analyze it properly even if such was possible) but it's a fundamental clash-of-setting-worldviews that'd go into whatever the fanfiction version of a setting bible is.

This may have been hashed out/answered already, I dunno.

[jseah]

Well, anyone looking at the threads would agree that the threads have gotten a bit... long winded and we have covered how to integrate both settings in very high detail (which was, btw, the main reason why I starting writing this in the first place, to give a starting point by which to explore interactions in a plausible fashion)

I couldn't exactly tell you whether we had discussed X specific topic in the last.. oh, hundred pages or so? Mainly because I don't remember it well. =D

------------------

The warp can be truly unpredictable, but that doesn't mean what you think it means. Even truly unpredictable things, when properly surveyed, fall into a set of predictable unpredictability.

For the warp to exist as fluffy space magic that cannot ever be understood, it would have to be a constant source of Outside Context Problems. In which case, the Necron plan to seal off the warp starts to look very nice in comparison.

[The Glyphstone]

Well yeah, anything can be reduced down to probability ranges, no matter how minute the probabilities involved. I was talking more about the idea that with enough SCIENCE, it could be tamed/replicated at will. With the Third Law in place, it can eventually be duplicated - without it, you might understand its rules, but you have to play by its rules to use it. The concept of artificial/non-organic psykers, for instance...Clarke says you just need a sufficiently advanced AI, 40K says 'No U' and kicks Clarke out an airlock into a warp storm.

[Gavinfoxx]

You can make non-organic psykers!

They just have to start as Organic first. ;)

[jseah]

part 10.5 IoM
Week 1
We have begun to apply IoM classification schemes, refined for lower intrusive characteristics and subdivided into minor grades of Rank, Rank+ and Rank-.

While the vast majority of Culture citizens are Rho ranks (with approximately 2% Pi rank), one citizen has registered as Omicron and another as Xi. On the other scale, there are two Sigmas and one Tau.

Careful analysis of the data and past history of the citizens has not revealed any percularities or apparent "luck" that the IoM attributes to the Omicron and Xi ranks.
Additionally, further tracing of the non-Rho ranks indicates that all but exactly one of the non-Rho rank citizens are those who came with the original expedition and have not gone through a Reload experience at any point in their lives.
Indeed, since we have opted to use Reload to activate our citizens who have chosen to make the intergalactic trip as pure data, we surmise that the Reload process tends to reset psionic sensitivity to human baseline. This is consistent with the experiments conducted on full scans of IoM psykers and blanks.
We are currently investigating the records of the one Pi rank citizen who had a Reload in his history in an attempt to find out what was different about his reload process.

The two people who are Omicron and Xi have been offered a Reload (of their current state) and the Xi person has agreed. After Reload, she now ranks as Rho+. The Omicron has offered to directly help investigations into the Warp as a result of his special status so we have put off the Reload and will follow him with great interest. We hope to detect some form of Warp effect that could be studied.
It strikes me that the Culture has a 'cure' for the psyker condition.

[The Glyphstone]

The Imperium also has a cure for the psyker condition. Theirs is exactly the same, except you don't get to come back afterwards.

[Forum Explorer]

The Imperium also has a cure for the psyker condition. Theirs is exactly the same, except you don't get to come back afterwards.

This made me laugh :smallsmile:


Anyways there can be non-organic psykers, it's more a matter of preserving the soul or somehow getting one. In theory I think it's capable to build a machine with a soul by infusing it with a lot of warp stuff which is much more dangerous then it sounds (and it sounds pretty insanely dangerous to me :smallcool:)

Oh if the Culture is starting to get psykers they might start getting visions of the warp, and realize that reloading is not preserving them and while a copy of themselves may exist a very real part of them is now in the warp being eaten by daemons. (Since they lack the protection of any sort of god and as a warp sensitive they are too noticeable to just slip through like Tau do. Or perhaps Tau are like rice with each Tau being a single rice.)

[Gavinfoxx]

The thing is, Humans don't generally have the strength of will to, after dying, maintain their sense of identity / who they are / etc. when they are tortured by Daemons in the warp. Eldar do, which is why dying and being eaten by Slaanesh is so terrifying to them.

[etesp]

Does anyone else think we need to get this story cleaned up and posted on Fanfiction.net and a few other places? That Star Destroyer bbs forum thingy, maybe elsewhere as well?

Yes! But there's a significant amount of cleaning up that wants doing imo, almost all in the early parts (mostly discussed retcons from the first thread). Also, can we use a.. less ugly/restrictive (no/minimal formatting, collaborative editing, or links) alternative to fanfiction.net (Looking around a bit, this place (http://archiveofourown.org/) looks pretty cool, though it'll be a few weeks till the invite comes through). At least until it's in a near-final state, then it could be cross posted to a few places? For cleaning up I'd personally be most happy with a series of wiki pages (I like the edit histories/edit summaries, especially for notable changes), or maybe google docs (especially for minor tweaks, like spelling/grammar).

Rise of Chaos was epic. Perhaps if someone (Eldar probably) can convince the Culture that them sticking around may cause that, then they may flat out leave the galaxy (taking all but a few selected tech gifts with them, and perhaps observing from a huge distance). Or at least take extra anti-Mind corruption measures like forcing Minds to travel in groups of 5+, each shielded by a group of Parahs, and each constantly observing each others. Parah shielding in general is something I'd expect the Culture to be setting up around now, with the basic warp understanding from others databases. Shuts down most forms of actual corruption entirely, other than literally talking a Mind into turning into almost the direct opposite of what they are built to be (not totally impossible if they're unaware of what Chaos means and highly curious, but they'll all be cautious with the warnings from everywhere). Parah shielding of Minds is also an amazing deal for Parahs: They swap the role of a hated outcast for that of near-perfect luxury, in exchange for living in one area of the ship, and maybe being used as part of a few warp tests if they're okay with it. Minds, Drones, and other Parahs provide companions who are not unsettled by their presence. And the Culture should be able to track them down pretty quickly once they know what they're looking for.

Edit: Also, I prefer the idea of the Warp being extremely complex, unintuitive, unpredictable, and chaotic, but fundamentally following a set of excessively convoluted rules. Although parts of the fluff may claim that it's without rules, the fact that it interacts in a fairly predictable way with the materrium shows that it is not literally without pattern, and as has been shown by some races once you reach high technology you CAN make specific warp devices and use the warp in technology. The power of a Culture worth of Minds (which individually simulate entire universes with strange physics to amuse themselves) applied to this problem will, with the right tools to analyze and test, bring them post-singularity warptech eventually. Perhaps it will take a significant length of time (note: geometric expansion of computational power and testing ability means even a few years is significant, remember my calculation about coating the entire galaxy with a layer of firepower in under a year, same deal), and the Old Ones were in a much better position to develop warptech/took an extremely long time to do so, but I don't find a universe in which near-arbitrary warptech is impossible to be very consistent with my mental model.


Annnddd, lots of questions incoming, I would like to know where the figures for how long each doubling of capacity takes comes from. How long does it take one GSV to build one GSV, or one GSU to build one GSU? Do ROVs have significant production capacity? And how fast can a larger ship churn out 1:1+ well equipped drones, if it turns its mind to it? Up to what level can Culture ships be produced by a self-rep nanobot swarm, are there any specific parts which can't be (Minds? Effector arrays? Hyperdrives)? Do we have any good sources of this from the books?

Also, I wonder what happens when femotech nanobots start appearing.. probably will require extensive safety testing, overseen by a Mind ready to Gridfire them into oblivion if they start evolving dangerously, but when that works properly.. :)

[Gavinfoxx]

You mean femtobots? ;)

[etesp]

That's the one.

Edit: What, how do we have cameras with femto second scale frames (http://www.ted.com/talks/ramesh_raskar_a_camera_that_takes_one_trillion_fra mes_per_second.html).

[Forum Explorer]

The thing is, Humans don't generally have the strength of will to, after dying, maintain their sense of identity / who they are / etc. when they are tortured by Daemons in the warp. Eldar do, which is why dying and being eaten by Slaanesh is so terrifying to them.

True, but they don't quite realize that and in theory the Emperor protects them. They do however see it happen.


Actually why haven't the Rangers commented on that yet? If they saw a reloading or the like take place they'd likely react as if the Culture killed and created a new person, which considering the universe, might not be that negative of a reaction. They would however treat them as an entirely new person.

[Gavinfoxx]

Yea... surely someone has asked the Rangers, 'Can you explain to me, as if I were a child, why you react with such horror to this reloading process, and view our drone citizens as soulless, and with such horror or disgust towards them? At first we thought you were like any of innumerable races we've encountered in our home galaxy that had similar views... but I think there is more to it, based on some of the terms you have used. What's going on?'

[jseah]

Doubling times were not given anywhere in the books, so I just made it up out of thin air.

Currently I am working off a guideline of:
Self-rep nanobots - doubling time, 2-5 hours in ideal conditions
GSV producing a GCU/ROU - 1 week
GSV producing a GSV - 3 weeks
GCU producing a GCU/ROU - 3 weeks
GCU producting a GSV - 9 weeks

Ships take much longer to self-rep than a nanobot because a fully operational ship contains a lot less things that produce stuff than a nanobot swarm. A swarm is 80-99% production power by weight, a ship is maybe 1 to 10%.
Ship production time assumes raw materials are available to hand. Increase 10% if element conversion is required, double if making from raw Gridfire.

Multiple ships in the same place can cooperate on a project. GSVs can build up to three projects at the same time without affecting speed. (and so 3 GSVs can build 3 projects in 1/3 the time)

1:1 drones or similar is probably scaling by weight. Meaning that if a standard drones weighs say, 100kg, and a GCU weighs a million tons, then a GSV can make 10 million drones in 1 week using 1 construction bay.
Finding a place to put them might be hard.

In any case, the Culture have stopped using true exponential expansion. Most of the new construction is occuring at the fringe of their area, which by part 11, will cover all of Segmentum Solar and begin intruding into the other two areas they haven't touched yet.


Femtotech nanobots:
Nanobots don't evolve. But aside from that, femtotech nanobots won't actually be all that faster at making classical tech stuff (the bottleneck in Culture nanobot production is almost certainly the speed that the nanobot can move).

They can just make femtotech stuff as well and would be the last step towards getting functional large-scale femto-tech.


Rangers:
True, I ought to have mentioned that. The cultural exchange has been ended for now though, due to the political tension with other craftworlds. Zahr-Tann doesn't want to anger Alaitoc further.

I'll make a special dialogue with the Eldar, not sure how long that'll be though.

[jseah]

Interpretation of Femtotech:
Before the Culture starts understanding all the magic Necron stuff, they'll apply it to their own more familiar tech first. Femto-tech gravity manipulation in part 12, hyperspace in part 13, which gives effectors/displacers/pancaker (all their major equipments), femto-tech nanobots in 14 and then they start on Necron stuff. Like teleporter atoms.

For the most part, I'm taking femtotech to be basically a uber-miniaturization tech. Theoretically, it would shrink everything by about ten million times, in practice its really about one thousand times until the Culture improve their understanding.
So, in the same amount of space, the Culture can put one thousand times more stuff, or make it one thousand times more powerful (but weighs one thousand times more).

This does not translate to a gamebreaking huge advantage, funnily enough. Effector ranges, if you obey Inverse-Cube law (it's 4D), only increase range by ten times, although they become one thousand times more powerful for the same space. Meaning they'll be able to project a weapon-grade laser from an effector or literally tear things apart from a light year away.

Hyperspace drives also won't be too buffed. Sure, you can cram one thousand times more drive power into the same space, but it also weighs one thousand times more. What this results in is that the difference between the theoretical 100% drive ship and the standard engine portion of Culture ships shrinking by 1000 times. All Culture ships become 99% engine by weight, unless they have femto-tech equipment on board (and crucially, a femto-tech hull).
IIRC, this means that ROUs become obsolete since everything has the roughly same speed now and I don't see why they would build a femto-tech hull since nothing in 40k can even touch them now. This speed is probably ~400 kilolights or so.

Femto-tech armour is probably the only one that gets changed alot. 1000 times binding strength will translate to a stupidly hard material, gaps between matter being 1000 times smaller translates to reflecting gamma rays.
Unfortunately, it also weighs 1000 times more and so you can't make it into armour since you'll literally sink into the ground. Through solid rock.


Teleporting atoms however, will give a major boost to SC capability. Drones can recall to ship (or specific meeting point) under their own power, unblocked by things that block hyperspace. A field femto-swarm can add teleportation capability to whatever target object and then bring it out.

I probably don't have to talk about what happens to Chaos intrusions once they reverse engineer the Monolith field.

-------------------------------------------------

Pariahs:
The Culture might take the Pariahs, but there is that they don't normally accept immigrants. (this is stated by Word of God, btw) Still, it's a plan I can consider, perhaps the Culture might ask the IoM inquisition first. They're still trying to make friends remember? (even if they won't do it the IoM way)

[Gavinfoxx]

There are the Necron Pariahs, and the IoM Pariahs... the IoM Pariahs are reaaalllyyy valuable to those in charge (omg, anti-psykers and anti-daemons!)... the Necron ones are seen as kinda weird and not liked that much. Necrons experimenting with biological components? Ewww.

[Tiki Snakes]

See, the culture will study the Warp with the utmost care, proceeding only when they are entirely certain that they understand and utilise it without the faintest risk of it backfiring.

All according to plan.

Because that is exactly how it works and really should happen, especially as the Culture are basically Tzeentch's perfect victims/chosen people.

This is also the secret true answer to the Tau/Chaos/Culture situation. If it looks like Chaos lacks any way to prevent Tau Culture bff status and so on, you really need to ask yourself how this situation could actually be to Chaos's advantage (or at least how it could be in their kind of interest, given that sometimes chaos losing is in Chaos's interest and so Tzeentch wil ensure that it happens).

It's entirely possible that the endgame could look exactly like a full Culture victory even, with the dangers of the warp minimised for a thousand years. Only several thousand years later when reality grows fat and complacent in it's safety, Chaos rears it's head as if from no-where, plunging the galaxy into nightmare and turmoil and despair once more. All according to plan, after all why else did Tzeentch lead the Culture here in the first place?

[Gavinfoxx]

There's also that Tzeentch could be like, "I want to survive. I don't care if I am changed, I am Change, I just want to survive!"

So it's possible that Tzeentch actually lets itself be made 'nice' over several millenia, if it means that it gets to survive in some form.

[jseah]

There are the Necron Pariahs, and the IoM Pariahs... the IoM Pariahs are reaaalllyyy valuable to those in charge (omg, anti-psykers and anti-daemons!)... the Necron ones are seen as kinda weird and not liked that much. Necrons experimenting with biological components? Ewww.
Necrons experimenting with bio-tech might be Ew to the IoM, but the Culture would see it as "what you're doing looks really interesting! How about we trade notes?"


It's entirely possible that the endgame could look exactly like a full Culture victory even, with the dangers of the warp minimised for a thousand years. Only several thousand years later when reality grows fat and complacent in it's safety, Chaos rears it's head as if from no-where, plunging the galaxy into nightmare and turmoil and despair once more. All according to plan, after all why else did Tzeentch lead the Culture here in the first place?
Especially since the Culture's default reaction to new civilizations is to meddle in them with stupidly complicated plots instead of killing them. And they refuse to expand over the galaxy precisely to encourange new civilizations to arise so that they can plot to make them join the Culture.
And heck, the Minds do it to their own organic citizens apparently.

Sure, it doesn't involve worship of Chaos or death/suffering/despair, but its got to be at least mildly Tzeentchian.

[Gavinfoxx]

Necrons experimenting with biotech is ew to other Necrons.

That's why Necrons call them Pariahs. And why there was people talking about marginalized parts of Necron society.... that you didn't seem to get!

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Necron_Pariah

[jseah]

Um, I don't recall that discussion. Mind summarizing it for me?

Also, Necron Pariahs aren't mentioned on the page to be outcasts of Necron society. That's Flayed Ones.

[Gavinfoxx]

Um, I don't recall that discussion. Mind summarizing it for me?

Also, Necron Pariahs aren't mentioned on the page to be outcasts of Necron society. That's Flayed Ones.


Or at least take extra anti-Mind corruption measures like forcing Minds to travel in groups of 5+, each shielded by a group of Parahs, and each constantly observing each others. Parah shielding in general is something I'd expect the Culture to be setting up around now, with the basic warp understanding from others databases. Shuts down most forms of actual corruption entirely, other than literally talking a Mind into turning into almost the direct opposite of what they are built to be (not totally impossible if they're unaware of what Chaos means and highly curious, but they'll all be cautious with the warnings from everywhere). Parah shielding of Minds is also an amazing deal for Parahs: They swap the role of a hated outcast for that of near-perfect luxury, in exchange for living in one area of the ship, and maybe being used as part of a few warp tests if they're okay with it. Minds, Drones, and other Parahs provide companions who are not unsettled by their presence. And the Culture should be able to track them down pretty quickly once they know what they're looking for.

Well, Pariahs aren't hated outcasts in IoM society. They are extremely valuable outcasts in IoM society. When the Inquisition gets wind that someone has a Pariah gene, they tend to be recruited post-haste, because they are astoundingly useful. So I was presuming that etesp had found something about the Necron Pariahs being outcasts in their society, presumably for using biotech (that and the Pariah name). I suppose I can look up in the 3rd edition Necron Codex, maybe.

[Tiki Snakes]

Necrons experimenting with bio-tech might be Ew to the IoM, but the Culture would see it as "what you're doing looks really interesting! How about we trade notes?"


Especially since the Culture's default reaction to new civilizations is to meddle in them with stupidly complicated plots instead of killing them. And they refuse to expand over the galaxy precisely to encourange new civilizations to arise so that they can plot to make them join the Culture.
And heck, the Minds do it to their own organic citizens apparently.

Sure, it doesn't involve worship of Chaos or death/suffering/despair, but its got to be at least mildly Tzeentchian.

There's nothing even remotely mild about it. :smallwink: Subtle, maybe.

Though if the occaisional apparently entirely untainted, safe Culture type simply spontainiously spouted wings, lazer eyes and mind powers before crawling away through the angle created by the perception of the angle between the wall and the floor, that wouldn't be entirely surprising either. Even if the spoutee was, I don't know, actually a knife missile or something.

[Gavinfoxx]

Necron Pariahs might have been retconned away, maybe. I suppose they could be listed as a failed experiment, or they are limited by the amount of numbers of Upsilon - Omega humans that Necrons can harvest from an IoM planet. I'd say it's probably just a few eccentric Crypteks that are making them.

[Forum Explorer]

Necron Pariahs might have been retconned away, maybe. I suppose they could be listed as a failed experiment, or they are limited by the amount of numbers of Upsilon - Omega humans that Necrons can harvest from an IoM planet. I'd say it's probably just a few eccentric Crypteks that are making them.

The version you linked to is certainly gone. I don't know if they still have a similar unit though.

[jseah]

Sorry, are we talking about the Necrons hating other Necron Pariahs, or IoM hating IoM pariahs or IoM hating Necron Pariahs? Getting confused here.

[jseah]

There's nothing even remotely mild about it. :smallwink: Subtle, maybe.

Though if the occaisional apparently entirely untainted, safe Culture type simply spontainiously spouted wings, lazer eyes and mind powers before crawling away through the angle created by the perception of the angle between the wall and the floor, that wouldn't be entirely surprising either. Even if the spoutee was, I don't know, actually a knife missile or something.
Or more likely, it will request to get wings, lazer eyes and mind powers after a particularly convoluted plot to try getting permission to have them.

Why spontaneously sprout wings when you can make up some incredibly complicated plan to get them "legally"?

[Gavinfoxx]

Sorry, are we talking about the Necrons hating other Necron Pariahs, or IoM hating IoM pariahs or IoM hating Necron Pariahs? Getting confused here.

Necrons possibly hating other Necron Pariahs. At least, I was... under the assumption that that was what etesp was talking about. Because I know that IoM doesn't hate their pariahs (at some levels), and the IoM hates everyone who isnt the IoM...

Though, in current canon, I would say that Necrons probably consider the Crypteks who do biological stuff, and who make Pariahs (probably from stolen human Pariahs, generally presumably undiscovered), a little weird. And would consider their creations weird..

...but looking at the whole thing, I don't know why etesp mentioned hate at all!

[Tiki Snakes]

Or more likely, it will request to get wings, lazer eyes and mind powers after a particularly convoluted plot to try getting permission to have them.

Why spontaneously sprout wings when you can make up some incredibly complicated plan to get them "legally"?

Well, thing is, it might not want them in the first place. Given that requesting them would probably get it in trouble, it would most likely not want them. Sometimes the Chaos Gods simply get...generous. If you are lucky, they leave your major organs intact or at least grant you new equivalents. Those who aren't quite so lucky are called "Chaos Spawn". The minitures usually look like some kind of melted octopus or man-slug-ooze thing I think.

That's also why it's very unlikely to happen that way right now, because it would probably not significantly forward any in particular of Chaos's goals for it to happen.

Also; Everyone hates Pariah's. It's their thing. They are so fundamentally wrong, so metaphysically loathesome that you just don't have a choice in the matter. They have a literal aura of horridness.

[Gavinfoxx]

So the aura of horribleness affects machine sentience too...?? I thought it only affected those who have warp souls / a connection to the warp / use warp for some of their emotional processing / etc.?

[Tiki Snakes]

No idea, but that's what he was referring to.

[Forrestfire]

That's correct. The aura of Uncanny Valley should only affect beings with souls. (I think)

[Forum Explorer]

I'm not sure Necron Pariahs even exist anymore. If they do they almost certainly are vastly different then the last edition.

Yeah just googled it, Necron Pariahs are completely gone. So they have exactly zero Pariahs and it's unknown to know how they'd react to them.

[Tiki Snakes]

That's correct. The aura of Uncanny Valley should only affect beings with souls. (I think)

Except perhaps in cases where the whole thing manifests in part with the Pariah in question simply being a creepy, unpleasant jerk, at any rate.

[Forrestfire]

Except perhaps in cases where the whole thing manifests in part with the Pariah in question simply being a creepy, unpleasant jerk, at any rate.

We may have a chicken-and-egg scenario though. The uncanny valley effect brought on by being a Blank would cause dislike, but being treated the way this hypothetical Pariah did would probably mold them into the sort of person who is a creepy, unpleasant jerk.

That, or it may be different and weird for everyone, since it's the warp. Ferik Jurgen has the same aura of unpleasantness, and the way it manifests is as a strong body odor (in addition to making people uneasy around him).

[Gavinfoxx]

I was reading Path of the Seer, and the Eldar know of parts of their brains that bolster their psychic strength. Seemed an interesting tidbit to mention. Here's the quote.


‘The offender is barred from all rune-casting, and to ensure compliance the perpetrator is taken to the Halls of Isha,’ continued Kelamith. His voice was quiet, filled with sadness. ‘He or she is subjected to a procedure that removes the parts of the brain that bolster our psychic strength. The criminal is cut off from the skein, unable to interact with the infinity circuit.’

That sounded a lot worse to Thirianna, though she still did not understand why Kelamith seemed to loathe it so much. His following words brought home the full extent of the injunction, as he turned and looked at Thirianna directly.

‘It is a far harsher punishment than death,’ he said. ‘It is the ultimate banishment, Thirianna. Forget for the moment the power to traverse the skein and witness the future. Think on those things that you take for granted, small acts you perform every day. Your chambers respond to your thoughts, warming and cooling, lightening and darkening as you desire. You would only be able to communicate through the spoken word, unable to access the infinity circuit.’

He took a step closer, eyes boring into Thirianna.

‘Even more than that, you do not see what you would lose by such a punishment. We each touch upon one another in subtle ways. We read each other not just physically but with our thoughts. We have bonds between us stronger than family and friendship. Every Alaitocii is bound together through the infinity circuit, and every craftworld tied to a single fate through the eternal matrix. To be cast from that is to be something other than eldar. Loneliness and despair, cut off from that most instinctive of contact, will haunt the criminal. They will watch and hear life around them, but they will not feel it.’

It was truly a greater punishment than Thirianna had appreciated. To lose one’s sight, one’s hearing, one’s sense of touch or smell would be unfortunate enough. To have part of one’s spirit taken away, to be rendered mundane, to lose a huge part of the essence of being eldar, would be crippling.

[jseah]

Hm, would they be truly outcasts? The Culture might be willing to welcome them, especially since their experience is likely to be useful.

[The_Final_Stand]

Quite possibly, yes. The way I read it, just from that quote above, the cut-off Eldar wouldn't be able to read other Eldar the same way, and vice-versa. It strikes me as similar to IoM Pariahs on a day to day life type scale. They radiate a sense of unease and unnaturalness to regular humans.

Make no mistake, as a strategic resource Pariahs are useful. On a day-to-day scale, they are unpleasant.

[etesp]

Doubling times were not given anywhere in the books, so I just made it up out of thin air.

<details which seem pretty sensible>

In any case, the Culture have stopped using true exponential expansion. Most of the new construction is occuring at the fringe of their area, which by part 11, will cover all of Segmentum Solar and begin intruding into the other two areas they haven't touched yet.
hm, it'd be nice to have at least little in story note justifying/explaning the decision to slow growth, considering that extra ships=ability to support more IoM worlds after collapse, which is at least one of the more likely scenarios the Minds will be expecting.


Femtotech nanobots:
Nanobots don't evolve. But aside from that, femtotech nanobots won't actually be all that faster at making classical tech stuff (the bottleneck in Culture nanobot production is almost certainly the speed that the nanobot can move).

They can just make femtotech stuff as well and would be the last step towards getting functional large-scale femto-tech.
Why would femtobots not evolve? Especially untested femtobots, they will almost certainly have imperfect self-replication. Until you've built femtobots capable of locating and destroying any flawed femtobots with great accuracy and speed, there's the risk of a "cancer" where one of the femtobots fails to replicate the shutoff switch for replication properly, but keeps the ability to replicate, and spreads uncontrollably. Subatomic gray goo. With enough Mindpower, they'll probably be able to introduce enough safeguards despite being on pretty unfamiliar territory, but it's something to watch out for imo.


Interpretation of Femtotech:
Before the Culture starts understanding all the magic Necron stuff, they'll apply it to their own more familiar tech first. Femto-tech gravity manipulation in part 12, hyperspace in part 13, which gives effectors/displacers/pancaker (all their major equipments), femto-tech nanobots in 14 and then they start on Necron stuff. Like teleporter atoms.

For the most part, I'm taking femtotech to be basically a uber-miniaturization tech. Theoretically, it would shrink everything by about ten million times, in practice its really about one thousand times until the Culture improve their understanding.
So, in the same amount of space, the Culture can put one thousand times more stuff, or make it one thousand times more powerful (but weighs one thousand times more).

This does not translate to a gamebreaking huge advantage, funnily enough. Effector ranges, if you obey Inverse-Cube law (it's 4D), only increase range by ten times, although they become one thousand times more powerful for the same space. Meaning they'll be able to project a weapon-grade laser from an effector or literally tear things apart from a light year away.

Hyperspace drives also won't be too buffed. Sure, you can cram one thousand times more drive power into the same space, but it also weighs one thousand times more. What this results in is that the difference between the theoretical 100% drive ship and the standard engine portion of Culture ships shrinking by 1000 times. All Culture ships become 99% engine by weight, unless they have femto-tech equipment on board (and crucially, a femto-tech hull).
IIRC, this means that ROUs become obsolete since everything has the roughly same speed now and I don't see why they would build a femto-tech hull since nothing in 40k can even touch them now. This speed is probably ~400 kilolights or so.
Mostly seems pretty sensible, so long as requiring it to weigh as much is going to fall away massively as Culture understanding improves. The Necron atom scale teleport tech clearly does not make each atom have a teleporter with equivalent weight to a normal teleporter, it uses much smaller and therefore much lighter parts. Similarly, a Hyperdrive or an Effector array should not just be a compressed full weight duplicate (1000x power, 1000x weight), but a much more tightly packed set of extremely small/light parts. The maximum density will of course go up a lot, so maximum useful weight would, but I don't think that they should go up together. Except for armor.


Femto-tech armour is probably the only one that gets changed alot. 1000 times binding strength will translate to a stupidly hard material, gaps between matter being 1000 times smaller translates to reflecting gamma rays.
Unfortunately, it also weighs 1000 times more and so you can't make it into armour since you'll literally sink into the ground. Through solid rock.
You'd be able to make extremely thin armor of the same strength as vastly thicker materials, and perhaps the binding strength would go up more than the weight, but I can see significant armour being unreasonably heavy for personnel.


Pariahs:
The Culture might take the Pariahs, but there is that they don't normally accept immigrants. (this is stated by Word of God, btw) Still, it's a plan I can consider, perhaps the Culture might ask the IoM inquisition first. They're still trying to make friends remember? (even if they won't do it the IoM way)
+Gavinfoxx

I meant human, not Necron, as Tiki Snakes said. They're great tools, but even a lot of IoM highups want to kill them all because they feel so wrong. Most Parahs are not going to be picked up by the IoM: "they generally die young as their aura of disgust and nausea turns other living beings against them."

and

"It is hardly surprising that Blanks are often treated like outcasts or lepers in Imperial society, rejected by their parents and banished from their homeworld's local settlements. Local superstitions on many worlds often warn about touching them, saying that to do so would bring bad luck. Resigned to their fate, many Blanks lead simple, solitary existences, as far away from heavily populated areas as possible."
Which is only going to be amplified in the case of Pariahs.

The Culture would not ask for IoM trained Parahs, they'd rescue outcast/in danger Pariahs from their homeworlds. Sure, immigrants may be extremely rare, but getting some near perfect shields against a foe they don't understand and fear greatly while rescuing the persecuted? That's gotta sound pretty tempting. And from the warp interactions we've been using.. I doubt machine intelligences would be affected by the aura of loathing.


@Tiki Snakes and Gavinfoxx: Great Tzeentchian stuff there :). I like the idea of the warp god of change playing both sides, playing both to take down the Culture, and to play nice if necessary and be a non-evil force of change for an arbitrarily long time.

[Gavinfoxx]

FYI, my Eldar quote was totally off topic regarding the Pariah discussion. It was just something I found, yaknow?

A few more topics... Pariahs are sometimes get grown!!

After double checking, even the highly valued pariahs are often feared and hated.

Also, don't Necron soldiers that teleport rather than be destroyed, only teleport to pre-prepared areas designed to receive them, maybe even pull them to a particular location?

[Gavinfoxx]

It strikes me that, with improvements to psi scanning devices, if The Culture wanted to improve the treatment of Pariahs, they could just start adding lists of them that slipped through the cracks to the reports they are giving the Inquisition. Because it is Pariahs that aren't found and classified that happen to be not valued. Hell, just lists of people of Phi to Omega and of Eta to Alpha that have managed to slip the net would be profoundly useful. They'd also get to watch the IoM response.

[The Glyphstone]

There's also that Tzeentch could be like, "I want to survive. I don't care if I am changed, I am Change, I just want to survive!"

So it's possible that Tzeentch actually lets itself be made 'nice' over several millenia, if it means that it gets to survive in some form.

Sort of like the "Tzeentch Ascendant" scenario I'd proposed in the last thread, though a bit more subtle, as appropriate.

[etesp]

It strikes me that, with improvements to psi scanning devices, if The Culture wanted to improve the treatment of Pariahs, they could just start adding lists of them that slipped through the cracks to the reports they are giving the Inquisition. Because it is Pariahs that aren't found and classified that happen to be not valued. Hell, just lists of people of Phi to Omega and of Eta to Alpha that have managed to slip the net would be profoundly useful. They'd also get to watch the IoM response.
While Pariahs found by the IoM are less likely to get killed by their families, I'm not sure the Culture particularly wants to encourage brainwashing them into becoming perfect assassins then having them sent on suicidal missions. And picking them up themselves as shields would be the main reason they would want to, the humanitarian side is just a bonus/moral justification for the non-interventionist factions.

[Gavinfoxx]

No no no, it's only the Omega Minuses that are made Culexus. The other ones have other assignments, and they often find themselves in the Retinues of Inquisitors... or assistants to Heroes of the Imperium, and actually considered more valuable than the hero they assist, by those in the know. ;)

[Forum Explorer]

No no no, it's only the Omega Minuses that are made Culexus. The other ones have other assignments, and they often find themselves in the Retinues of Inquisitors... or assistants to Heroes of the Imperium, and actually considered more valuable than the hero they assist, by those in the know. ;)

Or on suicidal missions hunting daemons and the like. :smalltongue:

[etesp]

No no no, it's only the Omega Minuses that are made Culexus. The other ones have other assignments, and they often find themselves in the Retinues of Inquisitors... or assistants to Heroes of the Imperium, and actually considered more valuable than the hero they assist, by those in the know. ;)
I was going from "The most commonly known instances of Pariahs are the Imperium's Culexus Temple assassins and the Sisters of Silence...", but looking again the assignment again it does link straight to Culexus from Omega Minus, and gives Omega as:

Usually referred to as Untouchables, Pariahs, or Blanks.
hm.. perhaps they reach Omega Minus level due to being highly trained/equipped/modified, because I'm not seeing anything else indicating that Culexus takes in only Omega Minus, just Pariahs. Could be just missing from wikis though.

Either way, the main point is using them as a defense. I guess they could point out some spare ones to the Imperium if they think they'll get treated decently and are on good terms with the Imperium, but it's not like pointing out Chaos cults which are direct threats to civilians.

[jseah]

part 10.5 IoM
Week 2
One of the items on the list the Eldar have given us (this is being referred to as "The List" by our 1:1 citizens) is a strange item on an IoM shrine world.

The Adeptus Sororitas worship this item and it accepts pilgrims from all nearby IoM worlds. In fact, we have examined this world before (it is well within our influence zone) and passed it over after analyzing its social impact. The item is the nose cone of a certain frigate with an illustrious history of victories against Chaos.

This item was examined before and no unusual effects were detected. Furthermore, upon rescanning the item, we have detected no warp effects from it. This is interesting as The List has so far only contained items that are warp-active in some fashion.

We are investigating the item further but detailed effector scans indicate no unusual effects, much like the original survey.

Week 3
IoM lore indicates that the item is supposed to have protected the ship from damage despite no possible functional mechanism. Part of their legends indicate that ships that had the nose cone installed on their prow suffered lower damage rates in engagements with Chaos forces.
However, even assuming their legends are true reports and unexaggerated, given the total number of ships and battle simuations of IoM standard tactics, there appears to be a significant selection effect at work here. Out of all nose cones on ships, it is overwhelmingly likely that there would be one nose cone that would fall far outside the normal range. Basically, their legends could be explained by pure luck.

More interestingly, we have circumstantial evidence that this may not be completely the case. The Sororitas regularly receive 'blessings' by worshipping the artifact and tracking of the Sororitas in their law enforcement duties on the planet have revealed a statistically significant decrease in injury cases (adjusted for the force level of the situation) while on patrol. Furthermore, this reduction in injury cases trends towards baseline, measured from Sororitas operating across the IoM, the longer they have gone without performing the 'blessing' ritual. We are attempting to refine our confidence intervals through longer observation, which will take at least a week due to the sample size of injury events needed.

-------------------------

Another method of helping the IoM has been proposed. Since the IoM treats their Pariahs as a useful aid to anti-Chaos operations, and that Pariahs are treated worse than standard citizens due to their effect on organic sentient life, we are piloting a project to inform the IoM of certain Pariahs we have identified amongst their population that were missed or went unreported.

So far, five of them on various planets have been revealed to the Inquisition through the same channel we inform the IoM of Chaos cults. IoM response to this information will be monitored and further action or even a permanent arrangement will be considered depending on their treatment.

[Gavinfoxx]

FYI, the Placebo Effect isn't just 'unreal'; it is very, very real and very, very useful.

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/03/62296?currentPage=all

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all

Of course, The Culture would know this, and would have to compensate for the psychological, cultural, behavioral, etc. differences due to belief... but remember, there are other items of faith which have much, much more obvious and direct behaviors. Low tech weapons and armor that protect and stand up to far, far more abuse than they should, or which can damage things offensively far, far more readily than they should. Holy relics which can (for a short time), make someone immune to all physical damage. Things like that.


I would also expect that there is an Astartes Relic Bolter, in the most holy vaults of some Battle Barge or Fortress-Monastary, which despite being an otherwise normal Bolter, can pierce any protective energy field, even when firing normal bolter shells. It'd be fairly simple for The Culture to just displace this thing out of the vault, test it on thousands of different sorts of energy fields, and find out that yes, it can pierce any sort of energy field, even though it by all rights shouldn't be able to, before putting the thing back...

[jseah]

I would also expect that there is an Astartes Relic Bolter, in the most holy vaults of some Battle Barge or Fortress-Monastary, which despite being an otherwise normal Bolter, can pierce any protective energy field, even when firing normal bolter shells. It'd be fairly simple for The Culture to just displace this thing out of the vault, test it on thousands of different sorts of energy fields, and find out that yes, it can pierce any sort of energy field, even though it by all rights shouldn't be able to, before putting the thing back...
They haven't gotten that intrusive yet. As far as they know, the Eldar have pointed them at something that -maybe- has an effect.

Also, does anyone mind if I make the True Faith thing a warp effect? It could just be a Warp Effect of a very special variety (ie. it operates via patterns that do not normally exist and that repel ALL other warp patterns, which explains their "is-not-warp-effect-to-warp-scanners" and their lethality to daemons). Then they could have arbitary effects.


There is also a more specific explanation I have been thinking about. True Faith is a warp effect that can partially shunt things into the warp. This makes a pattern of the object of Faith in the warp (as in, its not the pattern of an atom, the atom is the pattern). Since this is almost certainly a pattern that doesn't exist, True Faith is actually registering a "new" pattern in the Warp and all the "new" patterns do is have a form of warp dampening effect. Additionally, being a foreign warp effect, attacking daemons with them is highly lethal; normal weapons only attack the manifestation of their daemon patterns in the real, True Faith items being an actual warp pattern themselves attack the daemon directly (this is similar to the difference between using a psyker lightning bolt and the destruction ritual thingy on a Daemon)

This explanation means that True Faith can be used by anyone Rho level and above (aka. non-blanks and non-Tau) but gets stronger the stronger a psyker the person is. Furthermore, being a warp pattern and a physical object, True Faith items can have weird effects when interacting with the real, like resisting forces that it ought not to (armour/shield piercing, damage resistance) or manipulating reality in subtle ways around it (uber luck).

[Tiki Snakes]

I always thought the whole point of true faith was that it was almost certainly the direct intervention of the God Emperor.

[Gavinfoxx]

I always thought the whole point of true faith was that it was almost certainly the direct intervention of the God Emperor.

Agreed... his stuff happens because he's a creature in the Warp, but the energy he uses to accomplish these things is damn near impossible to notice unless he wants it to be noticed, and it isn't really sensed by any of the faction's technology, nor by psykers, though they can tell when someone has an iron wall of faith or such... though presumably some holy people can tell a blessed object from a fake by instinct. Now, he might use the Warp to do this, but I don't think null warp areas or Pariahs or anything like that would prevent faith things from doing their thing..

In other words, it breaks most of the patterns of warp stuff that has been set by other methods. Not to say it doesn't have patterns, but that the assumptions between this flavor of warp energy (which it could be, plausibly) and every other flavor ever are profoundly different.

Now, the mechanism by which the Emperor (or whatever) interacts with reality might be something KINDA like what you mentioned... but I would definitely not limit it to gain such an intercession! It is getting the intercession of an entity that follows a different set of rules. And maybe only Alpha+ psykers can make the leap from standard psyker stuff to sponsoring miracles, and only then if they Ascend in a particular way to become just warp energy (which, again, has only happened once)...?

And it's possible that something with sufficient data could backtrace how the Emperor is permanently blessing items and such. Though producing the energy that does it -- which is different than normal psyker energy -- would be perhaps impossible...

[jseah]

Gah, the forum ate my completed post. T_T I wrote 2 weeks of the orks, darn it.

part 10.5 IoM - Finale
We have confirmed the minor effect on the Sororitas from the artifact. This effect does not appear to apply to the normal pilgrims that visit the planet even if they also perform the same 'blessing' ritual.

Sororitas artifacts are being re-analyzed and their effects on the Sororitas will be surveyed. These do not display warp effects and there could be another Outside Context Problem lurking out there. Information is paramount to determining if this will be a threat.

part 10.5 Orks
Week 1
Most of the organic intelligences that have displayed assimilation characteristics (one of which is a notable non-human) have submitted a joint request to resume their duties on the ground. I am of the opinion that we must write them off as fully assimilated into ork society.

Now only a few Contact citizens and the inorganic drones are remaining as crew on the ship. As I am of the opinion that the orks are not a HS, I will not be taking further action against them, instead I will merely observe the effect of our contamination of their society.

More to the point, I am unsure of the ex-SC agent's loyalties but he still appears to be friendly to the Culture in general. Even though he is no longer under instruction as an SC agent, he occasionally offers us examples of orkish warp technology. We have also noted his moderating effect on ork society, making them more organized than the other clans we have observed.

--------------
An IoM trader misjumped into the system today. While he left quickly, the significant ork presence here has not gone unnoticed. We should watch for any IoM responses and consider our options carefully, this is a unique situation and it would be a shame to lose it.

[Gavinfoxx]

Gah, the forum ate my completed post. T_T I wrote 2 weeks of the orks, darn it.

Why not write them in word, Notepad++, or in email which automatically saves drafts??

[Gavinfoxx]

So, uh, when is the Ex-SC Warboss going to send The Culture a report? Are you going to actually write up the report (I kinda wanna see ya do orkspeak...), hahaha?

[jseah]

part 10.5 Orks
Week 2
IoM orders have gone out even before the trader has arrived at his next destination. The Astropathic network itself is organizing a major response force to the Orks and we are unable to deflect it without major intereference that will undoubtedly affect our very useful arrangement with the IoM Inquisition.
It appears that the IoM have adapted to our surveillance capabilities surprisingly quickly.

We have informed the Orks on the world of this matter and advised them to move to a different planet, even offering transportation assistance. Unexpectedly, the Orks instead appear to be preparing for battle.

The impact of the ex-SC agent acting as warboss is very large. This ork group is considerably more organized and unlike every other ork group, appears to be preparing for a space battle. Construction of starships appears to be increasing and the slowly growing fleet is actually conducting wargames. The training exercises and stricter organization has never been before seen in any other clan.

More worryingly, electronic warfare of significant strength and sophistication has been detected; furthermore, the same computer intrusion device has been re-worked into a short range ship-to-ship device. Copies of these devices have been provided to us by the SC agent and they depend heavily on warp effects. Add the cunning and leadership of an SC agent acting as warboss (and part time engineer) to the production capacity of the Orks and you have one very scary waagh coming.

The Culture have decided to sit this one out.

I can try to write from the ex-SC agent's POV for the battle on the part, I guess. Don't expect too much though.

[Gavinfoxx]

Hahahaha... and the SC guy likes fighting. Heh, of course he defected to the Ork side. He thinks fighting with relatively close equivalency and strange new things and tricks and methods of cunning to understand has to be the most fun ever!

Whether or not he will be thinking in Orkspeak... Orks use loanwords from several languages (mostly Low Gothic), but they tend to mangle it mostly (their mouths are different, and those tusks!), and use their own grammar...

[jseah]

There is also that this organization level would be regarded as pretty much non-existant for the Culture or Tau, and would be low for the IoM. But the Orks? Practically any organization is more than they already had.

Orks doing training exercises? (dressed up as a wargame. With live rounds)

[Gavinfoxx]

He's going to have a problem with Orks destroying their allies' stuff in their enthusiasm to wargame... Now, if he's ready for it and is prepared to manage it (and he should definitely expect it and have a strategy for dealing with it, cause he should have an understanding of the ork psyche by now), it might not be that big of a problem! I have no idea what such a strategy would be, and what way it might be effective, though...

[jseah]

This is why he has developed an Orky version of EW and an inter-ship electronic hacking system (a sort of very crude effector set to just shut down any electronic device its pointed at, he could do more with it but the Orks won't be able to follow instructions).
It reduces losses by making ork ships harder to target and gives them a non-lethal weapon.

He also limits the number of wargames based on the ship production in order to have a certain target fleet size. After all, all the top level commanders are Orky-fied Culture ex-agents.

[jseah]

part 10.5 Orks
Week 3
Transmission from SC agent Muller to Large Sticks Speaks Softly
---Original in Ork dialect---
Teh Defenz will be successful. Big Boss need no worry! These hummies will make for good head-cracking practice before da Spikies. Teh Boyz are big and strong becoz of ur smarts, we fightin' and we winning!

Why you no kill da Spikies? You afraid of them right? You want them to stop do things right? Then stop them! Fight them! But you not good fighting. Since you no fight, your boyz will fight for you! Watch teh hummies come and see us strong, then you will know we are your power to crush da Chaos.

---Translation in Marain---
The defence will be successful. *unknown person* does not need to worry! These humans will be good fighting practice before *unknown target of anger*. The Orks are big and strong because of your intelligence, we fight and we win!

Why are you not killing *unknown target of anger* (tl note: possible reference to Chaos?)? You are afraid of them? You want to stop them from doing things? Then stop them! Fight them! But you are not good at fighting (alternate tl: But you are not good to fight). Since you will not fight, your Orks will fight for you! (tl note: this part makes no sense but that's how it translates) Watch the humans come and see how strong we are, then you will know that we are your power to crush Chaos.

---Transmission from Ork mid-boss--- OOC: Gavinfoxx's version
"Ey youz'! I's recordin' dis 'ere message, cause da Boss sez wez Orks gotta talk to Da Udda Kulture wot he's from. He sez to tell use dat weze gettin smartah dan odda orks, and wez got the snazziest snazzguns tanks ta you guyz, and wez gonna stomp dese 'ere humies fer practice, and den wez gonna stomp da Spiky boyz. 'E sez dat youz from da Udda Kulture have shootas wit da most dakka, but youz not good at fightin, koz youz all like da Panzies. Well we'z ORKS, and we'z made fer fightin' an' winnin', and wit' your shootas, wez gonna stomp dem Spiky boyz flat! WAAAAAGH!"

---Translation---
"Hey you! I'm recording this message because the Boss says we Orks have to talk to the Culture where he's from. He says to tell you that we're getting smarter than other Orks, and we got the best guns thanks to you guys, and we will kill these humans here for practice, and then we will kill the *unknown* (literal: boys with spikes). He says that you from the Culture have weapons with the most *unknown* (literal: ammunition/ordnance), but you are not good at fighting, because you all are panzies. (tl note: unclear, tone does not appear to be an insult) Well, we're Orks and we're made for fighting and winning, and with your guns, we're going to kill the *unknown* (literal: boys with spikes)!"

---------------------------------------------------

We surmise that the SC agent seems to be unhappy at our inaction against Chaos. Our best interpretation of the message indicates a certain willingness to use direct action on our behalf and perhaps that was what caused the massed assimilation, encouraged by prolonged exposure to the warp field of the Orks.

We are in the process of determining if there are other citizens who also feel that way. The idea has merit but carries its own risks that were deemed to be too great at the time we declared war. Now that we understand more about the Warp, it may be possible to reconsider this stance.

Amusingly, it appears that the SC agent, in attempting to use more Ork-like speech patterns has managed to mangle it rather badly. Or perhaps failed to mangle his sentences enough.

---------------------------------------------------

An IoM scout force has arrived in the system. With incredibly bad luck, the Orks were conducting a training mission (with live ammunition) at the same edge of the system. The Ork ships charged to point blank range, demonstrating the effectiveness of the new EW and computer intrusion devices.
The computer intrusion devices appear to double as point defense, scrambling torpedo guidance systems in a small arc of fire with a short cycle time. Combined with the new EW and the Ork base point defence, the wall formation of the Ork ships combines their defense arcs and firing times to create an anti-torpedo defence that is virtually unpenetrable from the front.

The six IoM ships scored a combined total of ten hits on the Ork ships, damaging one, before four of them had their shields blasted down and the ships forcibly shut down as the Ork vessels disabled their systems then closed for boarding actions. The other two IoM ships managed to warp out only after receiving significant damage.

The crew of the four captured IoM ships, when it was clear that the Orks had no intention of sparing them, I displaced off their ships into a holding station on the planet surface. They were then transferred to a purpose built habitat on the airless moon. I await further advice as to how to proceed with them.
Sorry, after the start, I decided not to write in Ork. It takes me too long to do, poorly.

Proposed Culture Anti-Chaos warfare division
- Mandate: Created specifically to attack and destroy all instances of Chaos throughout realspace

- Restrictions: This military arm will not engage in combat with any other race other than Chaos; no strategic action is to be taken, this military will be a purely tactical affair. Bombardment of planets will require a direct order from a Mind.

- Technology: With the larger aim to prevent technology transfer to Chaos, we will restrict the technology available to the military arm to merely high quality IoM technology. With the exception being any device or technology that restricts or interferes with the operation in the Warp or is expected to be a useful defense against warp effects.

- Ship Design: Alternative ship designs and tactics will be developed to counter the Chaos's proficiency in boarding. No ship will have external mounted electronics apart from targeting sensors. Intership communication will be provided by IoM design systems that demonstrate increased resistance to scrap-code

- Strategic capability: Strategic movements and coordination will be conducted by Culture equiv-tech ships. These ships will not have independent inter-system movement. Strategic fleet support will be provided by Culture factory ships purpose built for this task, those ships will operate along a role similar to a specialized ROU and will be equiv-tech

- Intelligence & Citizens: An instinctual combat/engineer system will be developed and deployed to operate the ships and do grunt work, similar to the servitor but more efficient and without moral objections. Tactical capability will be provided by organic Culture volunteers, mercenaries and any native volunteer who passes a tactical proficiency test

- Foreign Relations: The Culture will maintain overall control of this arm and the restrictions should be sufficient to render this a non-issue

- Fleet Structure: 1 Culture Factory Ship, 5-10 Fleet Transport Carriers, 30-50 taskforce command craft, 100-200 frontline combat ships
Basically, a Culture attempt to reduce chances of losing anything important to Chaos by fighting on the same level as them. Too many close brushes with scrapcode and strange warp effects has the Culture thinking about creating a disposable response force. (there will be more than one fleet obviously, the plan involves scattering them all over the place)

If it comes to trading ship for ship, the Culture can afford to do that endlessly. The ships don't even have an interstellar capability so taking them over is more or less useless, they can be outfitted with self-destructs galore and the more risky warp-null tech can be tested in the best way possible, by using it on the frontline.

Do you think the Culture might be able to hire mercs who will be willing to take a command role? (since they are applying a truly heretical level of automation, basically everything except the bridge)
What exactly do mercs want in pay anyway?
And mercs probably don't have any objection to spending most of their time sitting around waiting for something to happen right? (because being a response fleet is honestly going to be mostly very boring)

[jseah]

Ship design cluster:
Automaton - Minimal armour, minimal structure. The components are placed far closer together with no access paths built into the ship. This prevents maintenance unless in a dry dock.

The Skeleton - No armour, minimal structure. The ship is mere collection of components structurally anchored to a torch drive. It relies completely on shields for protection and has no internal atmosphere or accessways apart from the command section. No maintenance possible on the ship unless in dry dock.

The Swarm - No armour, no structure. The ship is a collection of components tethered to the main drive via high strength cables (or forcefields if the tech is permitted), positioned by individual minidrives and contained inside a large shield bubble. Components can be moved and aimed in all directions with ease, even exchanged between ships mid battle. Everything is maintained separately in dry dock. Command component has a personal shield and armour.

The Mobile Gun - A very large scale gun and the requisite mini-engine to move it at fleet speed. Shields and armour optional.

-------------------

Obviously these are all highly short on protection and in a firefight, they wouldn't stand up to any IoM ship of equivalent class but they will be far lighter and more maneuverable. Aka. glass cannons.

Besides, the Culture plans on throwing them at the enemy like confetti, quantity is a quality all of its own. One doesn't need to be efficient when you are as deeply post-singularity as they are and the enemy isn't.

-------------------
Non-combatants / Special:
Factory Ship
10 million cubic kilometers volume (1000x100x100); mobile dry dock, materials reprocessor, gridfire-based manufacturing

Fleet Transport Carrier
1 million cubic kilometers volume (100x100x100); large empty volumes for docking capital ships for interstellar transport

Fleet Tactical Carrier
1 hundred thousand cubic kilometers volume (10x100x100); heavy docking clamps for withstanding high accelerations, used to catapult lower tech ships into battle by accelerating them to a high speed they normally could not efficiently achieve
Travels with flat face forward for larger launch area.

Mobile Missile Factory/Base
A high-tech ship that assimilates asteroids at the edge of the system and converts them into clusters of ultra-long range low-tech missiles for attack craft use or for direct launch at the enemy.

-------------------

So basically, mini-sized Death Stars... but mostly hollow.

[jseah]

Unorthodox strategies:
Ork Waagh
- Enough said
- If the Culture agreed to (and do) provide some better shootas and ask the orks to beat up some Chaos for them, would the Culture even need to watch them do it?

System Mining
- Used only on uninhabited systems to deny use as a base
- High tech, highly capable, antimatter rocket missiles are built in significant numbers by dropping a purpose-built nanobot swarm into a system with instructions to reprocess 10% of asteroids and non-planetary bodies (as well as 100% of all highly-metallic bodies) into captor mines before self-destructing
- The mines are placed into orbits around all objects of interest on synchronized orbits to prevent mines triggering themselves
- Any incoming warp signature precipitates a scan for warp effects, detection of a warp effect causes the captor mines in range to launch at the target
- Any metallic bodies approaching within arming range causes the mine to launch at the target
- High tech Warp scanners and telescopic nets are seeded throughout the system. The net self-destructs on approach by any object (they are seeded on orbits that avoids any approach by natural objects), but not before locking in the offending object as a target for the closest missiles

[Gavinfoxx]

FYI, I would say that if their culture 'boss' is acting Orky than he must be unafraid and aggressive and of course he's able to fight dem spiky boyz, cause he's acting like a proppa ork. So the Orkish viewpoint is that he should just take leadership of as much of The Culture as possible and lead them in a proppa waagh.

[jseah]

He does retain loyalties though, and unlike a 'normal' ork, the SC agent hasn't become any dumber and knows he can't win attempting to take the Culture on.

He's just taking a more Ork-like view of their situation:
It's simple really, the enemy of the Culture is Chaos. Then just attack and keep attacking until they win, there is nothing else to waffle on about. There is a problem, it can be solved with enough firepower, so...?


Its pretty much something that would be considered highly deviant in Culture society. My impression from Player of Games' description of the Azad game was that the Culture tend to be defensive and very conservative, aiming to minimize their own losses. Aggression without regard for losses is not something the Culture do unless forced to.

The kind of attitude the SC agent here holds might be something you'd expect out of an SC agent and the way the Culture have been acting so far has been grating on him.

[Gavinfoxx]

Yea... I don't think you have the feel for Ork language... it's a bit of Cockney slang (okay, mostly Cockney), with a bit of it's own thing...

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ork_Quotes

Read some of that, to get a feel...

[Selrahc]

Yeah. You wrote them like lolcats. Orks aren't lolcats.

[Gavinfoxx]

Also, part of the reason of all of the extra mass of armor and such is that it helps protect against mutations from the radiation of space... Imperial ships have endemic problems with mutation; all of them basically have a subhuman mutant underclass in the underdecks, leeching off of the life support...

Further, if you want to be REALLY good at extreme range, you'll probably need Tau style torpedoes, which can change direction and re-target like the smaller missiles (every species has guided missiles; few have guided torpedoes!) can...

[Gavinfoxx]

Maybe:

"Ey youz'! I's recordin' dis 'ere message, cause da Boss sez wez Orks gotta talk to Da Udda Kulture wot he's from. He sez to tell use dat weze gettin smartah dan odda orks, and wez got the snazziest snazzguns tanks ta you guyz, and wez gonna stomp dese 'ere humies fer practice, and den wez gonna stomp da Spiky boyz. 'E sez dat youz from da Udda Kulture have shootas wit da most dakka, but youz not good at fightin, koz youz all like da Panzies. Well we'z ORKS, and we'z made fer fightin' an' winnin', and wit' your shootas, wez gonna stomp dem Spiky boyz flat! WAAAAAGH!"


Anyone else wanna take a shot at getting that to be more correct?

[Forrestfire]

Maybe:

"Ey youz'! I's recordin' dis 'ere message, cause da Boss sez wez Orks gotta talk to Da Udda Kulture wot he's from. He sez to tell use dat weze gettin smartah dan odda orks, and wez got the snazziest snazzguns thanks ta you guyz, and wez gonna stomp dese 'ere humies fer practice, and den wez gonna stomp da Spiky boyz. 'E sez dat youz from da Udda Kulture have shootas wit da most dakka, but youz not good at fightin, koz youz all like da Panzies. Well we're ORKS, and we'z made fer fightin' an' winnin', and wit' your shootas, wez stomp dem Spiky boyz flat! WAAAAAGH!"


Anyone else wanna take a shot at getting that to be more correct?

I think that's perfect XD

[jseah]

Lol, I don't think I could write like that. >.>

Maybe I ought to have you translate passages into Ork. =D

EDIT: I added your version to the main post.

-----------

RE ship design:
With servitor-like AIs running most of the ships, the ships are built precisely to be unlivable. Unlike every other races' ships, Culture ones aren't affected in operation if there isn't a crew (except for command, which takes sentience and intelligence engineering isn't something you want to accidentally hand over to Chaos). Basically, only the bridge will be radiation shielded.

The idea is precisely to make ships that work half-decently together in large swarms but individually have cripplingly bad weaknesses to make them unattractive to Chaos. Like not having interstellar capability.

It's not like the ships won't have more shields and weapons than every other ship in existence. They are built along the lines of a glass cannon. Cheap in mass terms (the only cost that really matters), hits just as hard.

[Gavinfoxx]

You forgot to change the translation, I think... change the basic post, change the translation! ;)

[The Glyphstone]

Chaos would still try to capture/loot these swarm-ships if possible, for the technological bounty they represent even if the ships themselves can't be repurposed. Obliterators able to morph Effectors would be terrifying.

[jseah]

The ships aren't built with anything beyond current IoM tech. Even the automation is pretty much equivalent to a servitor plugged into a gun.

[Gavinfoxx]

I think you overestimate how good at being long range shooty and combining fire and, you know, aiming, that IoM tech is... It's pretty much done with lots of people doing things manually, and full-servitor crews, even with best quality servitors, have problems. You'd really have to go with 'picking tiny bits of the best of the best' or go to 'archeotech' or 'tau automation methods' to get, uh, really good automated ships that can actually aim well from afar and combine fire and such. It'd certainly be possible, yes, but only if you choose the best options from everyone, which means it'd essentially be a major tech upgrade, even though that's just 'all the best stuff in one place and used in a way no one expects'.

And you're also overestimating their Sensor capability as well! You'd certainly have to go for best of the best sensors and ship-to-ship networking and aiming and data processing capability (again, Tau ships can do some of that stuffs, and it's plausible that some archeotech ships can as well) to get them to be able to fire together and aim together and such in a meaningful way...

[Gavinfoxx]

Regardless Jseah, I'll just be happy when you edit the 'translation' to fit what was said. Try and get that up before the next update, please? ;)

[The Glyphstone]

So the Culture is just trying to Zerg rush Chaos then, by manufacturing crappy swarm-ships in bulk faster than they can be killed?

[jseah]

It isn't long range shooty stuff or fancy maneuvers. The kind of battle the Culture plans to fight with these ships is to have sheer numerical superiority. The ships will rush in, aiming to deal as much damage is possible and screw the losses. Tactical command and control can be provided by taskforce command ships (ie. the ones with actual crew) who don't engage.


So the Culture is just trying to Zerg rush Chaos then, by manufacturing crappy swarm-ships in bulk faster than they can be killed?
Pretty much yes. The aim is to have enough ships (and with the tactical carrier to boost) just surround and shoot enemy ships at just outside boarding range.

Taking 2:1 or even worse losses is perfectly fine. The Culture can easily sweep up and reprocess the wreckage afterwards. A single factory ship would outproduce a Forge World by a ridiculous margin, maybe even outproduce an entire sector. (it's considerably bigger than a GSV, but far less capable since its specialized to manufacture crappy ships in huge numbers)

[jseah]

I think I will explain the presence of two messages like this:
The original is the SC agent himself, attempting to talk like an Ork (and failing).

Gavinfoxx's version is a message actually recorded by an Ork.

Sorry, I couldn't think of a way to make translation quirks. I had written the original message with that mind.

[Selrahc]

Taking 2:1 or even worse losses is perfectly fine. The Culture can easily sweep up and reprocess the wreckage afterwards. A single factory ship would outproduce a Forge World by a ridiculous margin, maybe even outproduce an entire sector. (it's considerably bigger than a GSV, but far less capable since its specialized to manufacture crappy ships in huge numbers)

In Surface Details, a fleet of 300000 ships capable of glassing planets was built in three months. This fleet was capable of being smashed by a single GSV and was treated as a minor/local threat, but each one was capable of glassing a planet and travelling and fighting at hyper speeds. Each one of these hopelessly obsolete, minor threat, ships could probably beat an entire Imperial or Chaos fleet.

Ships in 40K are not easy to build. There are probably only a few million ships across the entire Imperium of Man, of which probably around 300000 are warships. With several decades of time needed to build more. Far less in the hands of Chaos, with even less capacity to replace. Sending a disposable fleet in to purge the ships of Chaos could drastically decrease their ability to enact their plans. If it all failed spectacularly and the ships were subverted to Chaos, then any decent Culture warship or larger Contact ship could easily wipe out the disposable fleet.

[Gavinfoxx]

The Nob actually said 'da Panzies', which translates as 'the Eldar'... of course, it does show significant value judgement about Eldar society...

[The Glyphstone]

In Surface Details, a fleet of 300000 ships capable of glassing planets was built in three months. This fleet was capable of being smashed by a single GSV and was treated as a minor/local threat, but each one was capable of glassing a planet and travelling and fighting at hyper speeds. Each one of these hopelessly obsolete, minor threat, ships could probably beat an entire Imperial or Chaos fleet.

Ships in 40K are not easy to build. There are probably only a few million ships across the entire Imperium of Man, of which probably around 300000 are warships. With several decades of time needed to build more. Far less in the hands of Chaos, with even less capacity to replace. Sending a disposable fleet in to purge the ships of Chaos could drastically decrease their ability to enact their plans. If it all failed spectacularly and the ships were subverted to Chaos, then any decent Culture warship or larger Contact ship could easily wipe out the disposable fleet.

Presumably each of those minor threats still has Culture-level tech, though, which this Culture is trying to avoid at all costs on the even slim possibility it'll be subverted and the technology stripped to repurpose.

I think you're overestimating the time it takes to build 40K ships, but the margin of differential between them and Culture ship production is so huge that the mis-estimation is negligible. Chaos may have less capacity, but they can also have more time - inside the Eye, linear time is one of those things that can be reduced from a Law to a Strongly Worded Suggestion. Unfortunately, such things are entirely dependent on plot/writer fiat, so it could take Chaos decades to replace a ship, or they might be able to rebuild an entire fleet in months by realspace reckoning (though subjective decades/centuries).

[jseah]

part 10.5 Rogue Trader
Week 1
After the fiasco last week, the Rogue Trader was understandbly angry. Although after we explained the situation regarding the warp effect surrounding the woman, he identified the woman as a Slaaneshi. Illogically, relations are still rather cool.

The Rogue Trader has been forced to halt his trading mission as there are allegations that he assassinated the governor during his visit. Nevertheless, he has already received payment for more than three quarters of the food we provided and is already recruiting heavily from the planetary population.

What is more interesting however is his new gambit. He has requested that we provide him with construction plans for servitor cloning vats for him to cut down on crew requirements. We are currently considering this move.

Meanwhile, after his recruitment drive was over, the Rogue Trader has set off to return to the mining bases. During his absence, the mining complexes have increased in size as they built further extensions using the minerals they mined. Courtesy of the nanobots and good working practice. Already, accident rates are down by nearly 60% and death rates have plummeted to below statistical measurement (but is probably somewhere between 1 per two weeks to 1 per month).
Of course, servitors are the perfect answer to manpower shortage problems. And if you place crew in charge of servitors, then you won't lose all that much efficiency but will gain morale as the crew shift towards higher paying lower effort supervisory roles.

[jseah]

or they might be able to rebuild an entire fleet in months by realspace reckoning (though subjective decades/centuries).
Months realspace time is still far too slow however.

Still, I'm planning to have some events happen in early part 11 regarding a Chaos attack before they implement this (if I decide to at all). Spiky gets to give "da panzies" a hard time.

There is the very delicious possibility of a time much much later for when the Culture believe they can channel the Orks to some extent and decide to gift them an entire disposable fleet for an excursion into the Eye. (of course, only to have the Orks radically refit them all)


The Nob actually said 'da Panzies', which translates as 'the Eldar'... of course, it does show significant value judgement about Eldar society...
Will edit post.
Added a short "tl note". Doesn't mention Eldar, but I figured I may as well leave a slight misinterpretation in.

[The Glyphstone]

Months realspace time is still far too slow however.

Still, I'm planning to have some events happen in early part 11 regarding a Chaos attack before they implement this (if I decide to at all).
There is the very delicious possibility of a time much much later for when the Culture believe they can channel the Orks to some extent and decide to gift them an entire disposable fleet for an excursion into the Eye. (of course, only to have the Orks radically refit them all)

Like I said, negligible difference even with the more generous time estimates. Culture manufacturing is unfathomably more effective than anything in this galaxy...they just have to be real careful that they don't lose an actual factory ship. That would be bad.

[jseah]

Like I said, negligible difference even with the more generous time estimates. Culture manufacturing is unfathomably more effective than anything in this galaxy...they just have to be real careful that they don't lose an actual factory ship. That would be bad.
Hmm, a "standard" battle (if there is any such thing) goes roughly as follows:
- Chaos ships will be in the system before the Culture ships are since this is a response system, not an attack fleet.
- The Factory ship and Fleet Transport Carriers arrive at 2 light years distance from the target Chaos fleet
- Tactical Carriers catapult the attacking ships towards them at 0.2c or so, releasing the IoM-grade ships just at the system outskirts; this occurs in waves of 30-50 ships at a time; waves arrive ~30 mins apart and take about 15 hours to reach engagement range
- Attacking ships vector towards the enemy and engage at pointblank range until they or the Chaos ships are destroyed

There appears to be very little chance of losing a Factory ship, less than if a Culture GCU engaged the Chaos fleet directly (scrapcode!). But yes, losing one would generate a situation similar to Rise of Chaos.

---------------------------------------

IIRC, warp drives can't get near a star or something. Is this a gravity effect? If so, perhaps a massively souped up Pancaker can create a star-sized gravity well around important targets. Like Factory ships and GSVs. Obviously, there would need to be copious use of forcefields and effectors to cope with the gravity so its probably going to be pretty expensive in terms of ship mass.

A bit like an FTL-disruption field you see in space 4Xs.

[The Glyphstone]

It's never explained why, but considering how common the 'FTL doesn't work inside a gravity well' trope is in science fiction, that's the most likely explanation.

Of course, since it's the Warp GW writers are horribly inconsistent. there are occasional examples of ships entering/exiting the Warp within a gravity well. Sooo.......maybe?:smallconfused:

[Misery Esquire]

I think it has more to do with the fact that Warp exits aren't perfectly placed, so if you're exiting near a star and end up 10,000km closer than you thought... Well, it's going to get toasty, wot?

[Gavinfoxx]

A note on Crew... at Imperial level tech, you need a lot of human-sized workers to do a huge amount of basic tasks on a ship. There is very little automation. Those workers could conceivably be robotic, though (though there are major issues with the efficacy of using heretical robots as workers at IoM tech level...).


Anyway, a bit of a note on space-based Servitor creation... that's a bit, um, difficult. Presumably, the Mechanicus has made a very, very thorough attempt to keep a Forge World-side monopoly on complete, large scale, Servitor-From-the-vat creation. Most of the time, ships tend to just have 'Crew Reclamation Facility', which take injured crew and process them into servitors (this tends to cause a morale hit in the crew...). Presumably to create lots and lots of servitors directly from the vat at Imperial-level technology, you would need a large factory, an included medical lab, access to exotic pharmaceutical technologies to encourage rapid growth, various processing plants for the different materials used in servitor creation, and the final assembly facilities. These things are generally quite large, and generally planetside.

Now that doesn't mean that it isn't possible, with scans from a large number of Forge Worlds (including Mars!), to get designs for various facilities that can do space-based Servitor creation; just because it is rare and difficult doesn't mean it is impossible. Presumably some of the larger Explorator fleets have facilities to replace lost Servitor crew, after all (though not necessarily all such fleets have such capabilities). But, in general, doing this sort of thing would require Genetor / Magos Biologis to oversee the production. Again, it's theoretically possible to make such operations more automated, and have the whole thing overseen by advanced cogitator systems and other Servitors, but the more you do this, the more you are putting together systems with ideas and scans and designs taken from half a dozen different forge worlds, and dozens of different research labs from different eccentric Magos'... I'm, again, not saying it's impossible. What I'm saying that if the Mechanicum gets wind of such a thing, even if none of the technologies is, individually, heretical...