Peak-Wormverse VS 40k?

[druid91]

So, in one corner, you have the Wormverse at it's peak with it's variety of caped superheros, supported by 50+ foot tall world ending Kaiju in a multi-dimensional refugee camp spanning a good dozen earths. On the other hand, the normal human population of earth-B has been for all purposes practically destroyed, humanity on the verge of extinction. With it heavily implied that all the other earths were getting the same treatment.

And then you have 40k. With it's power armoured space marines and side arms that fire armour peircing grenades and trillions of star-systems. Psykers pulling their ridiculous nonsense and Orks and Necrons and all the other scary things we're familiar with.

Now assuming Scion was not in the picture, and the two were put in the ring, who would win?

[Landis963]

I'd have to go with the Wormverse. I mean, you have real powerhouses like Valkyrie, like Legend, like Dragon (I'm assuming she's taken up full-time hero work again). Furthermore, the 40k verse is not one that rewards diversity and evolution, as far as I know, whereas "evolve or die" has been ramrodded into cape's heads (let alone the unpowered populace) since Behemoth. Speaking of which, the Simurgh sneers at anything the 40k population could possibly create.

[TeChameleon]

Two words.

Taylor. Hebert.

I don't care if 40k opens with Exterminatus on contact. I don't care if a WAAAAUGH! runs over Earth like a speedbump. I don't care if so many enemies attack Earth at the same time that you can't see a square inch of the sky.

After you've killed something that borders on a capital-G god, I'm not sure that trans-galactic empires seem that much of a challenge.

[Landis963]

Two words.

Taylor. Hebert.

I don't care if 40k opens with Exterminatus on contact. I don't care if a WAAAAUGH! runs over Earth like a speedbump. I don't care if so many enemies attack Earth at the same time that you can't see a square inch of the sky.

After you've killed something that borders on a capital-G god, I'm not sure that trans-galactic empires seem that much of a challenge.

Taylor's not dead. She convinced Khepri to let everyone go, and then Khepri's behavior convinced Contessa to depower her, and Khepri thought it was a mercy kill so she didn't resist. Taylor is recovering in Earth Aleph, and will remain there for the foreseeable future.

If you're talking about Scion, however, you do have a point. There are mitigating circumstances (including but not limited to the major role that Taylor played) but yeah.

[The Glyphstone]

Can someone explain what Wormverse is?

[Reverent-One]

Can someone explain what Wormverse is?

The setting of the Worm (http://parahumans.wordpress.com/) web-serial. It's a superhero story, one that over it's run gets to incredibly high-powered threats with similarly powerful counters.

Not really getting involved in this, though I will note that the Wormverse's lack of normal spaceflight is a significant issue, unless their dimensional travel can also be used for that purpose and simply wasn't over the course of the story.

[Tengu_temp]

And here I thought it's about the Worms video games, and imagines Space Marines getting bombarded with banana bombs. Oh well.

[The Glyphstone]

And here I thought it's about the Worms video games, and imagines Space Marines getting bombarded with banana bombs. Oh well.

I was picturing Earthworm Jim myself. He's just a weird Chaos mutant anyways.

[Prime32]

Not really getting involved in this, though I will note that the Wormverse's lack of normal spaceflight is a significant issue, unless their dimensional travel can also be used for that purpose and simply wasn't over the course of the story.They've got an army of guys whose superpower is to understand technology. Even assuming they couldn't build something themselves if they had to, they just need to get their hands on one ship and reverse-engineer it.

[Forum Explorer]

Two words.

Taylor. Hebert.

I don't care if 40k opens with Exterminatus on contact. I don't care if a WAAAAUGH! runs over Earth like a speedbump. I don't care if so many enemies attack Earth at the same time that you can't see a square inch of the sky.

After you've killed something that borders on a capital-G god, I'm not sure that trans-galactic empires seem that much of a challenge.

That's a very good point. Because going by the OP, well that's Worm under the control of Khepri. Who can control all humans in her multi-verse and has access to Contessa's power.

However there is a hard limit to that. Her sanity and own power breaks down fast. And her control isn't perfect, she doesn't control their thoughts (so psykers might still be able to use their powers) and some people were able to break free through varying methods.


I think I'm going to give this to 40K verse through sheer attrition. Khepri can do a lot of damage perhaps even a critical amount of damage, but in the end she'll burn out. And then there isn't anything in the Worm universe that 40K hasn't faced and beat before. And when they can field a billion troops for every hero that they face, then they'll win eventually.

[Douglas]

If the matchup includes Wormverse being susceptible to Chaos, the outcome is boring and quick - Wormverse falls to Chaos in very short order. So, let's assume that Wormverse is exempt from Chaos corruption.

As described in the OP, the surviving Endbringers are apparently teaming up with Wormverse humanity for this conflict. Most of them I think 40k could handle - it's just a matter of getting enough firepower in the right spot, and 40k has more raw firepower than Wormverse has ever imagined. The Simurgh is one hell of a trump card, though, with prescience and manipulation powers to make the most legendarily great Eldar Farseer of all time keel over dead from sheer despairing envy. 40k might have the firepower to kill her, but they'll never get it concentrated in the right spot at the right time with gunners willing and able to target her - I wouldn't be surprised to see a few fleets rip each other apart in unanticipated betrayals and mutinies right before the planned engagement, manipulated to such events by bizarre chains of cause and effect a score of Inquisitors take 20 years to trace back to her after the fact.

Beating her will take a seriously powerful psyker, specifically with precognition-based psyker abilities in addition to combat, and I don't know how many of those 40k has on the scale of power required and whether 40k would be able to deploy them effectively.

And then there's Contessa, with the power to see and follow the path to victory. period. Team her up with Valkyrie, who can call up full-power ghosts of Eidolon and Doormaker, and I have no trouble imagining the various sides of 40k being turned and tricked to civil war and mutual annihilation.

Imagine 40k if Tzeentch got his stuff together, stopped betraying his own plans, and honestly went for outright victory. Wormverse has superpowered individuals who can do a creditable imitation of that. Even Legend, Alexandria, and Eidolon, plus all the Endbringers together, can't match the sheer scale and military power of all of 40k, but they have trump cards that could potentially make that irrelevant.

Really, in the end, it comes down to how well 40k's psykers can counter Wormverse's top Thinker capes.

[turkishproverb]

40K loses. Contrary to popular belief, 40K usually loses because 1: absolutely nothing will stop the infighting, 2: The Imperium of man is a constantly shrinking incompetently run organization that doesn't even have the slightest idea how it's tech works, and 3: Chaos, contrary to popular belief, does not effect and influence everyone, as illustrated by the tau in general as well as a sub-set of humans immune to the influence to the point of being able to nullify psychers.

And that's just for starters.

[Landis963]

That's a very good point. Because going by the OP, well that's Worm under the control of Khepri. Who can control all humans in her multi-verse and has access to Contessa's power.

However there is a hard limit to that. Her sanity and own power breaks down fast. And her control isn't perfect, she doesn't control their thoughts (so psykers might still be able to use their powers) and some people were able to break free through varying methods.


I think I'm going to give this to 40K verse through sheer attrition. Khepri can do a lot of damage perhaps even a critical amount of damage, but in the end she'll burn out. And then there isn't anything in the Worm universe that 40K hasn't faced and beat before. And when they can field a billion troops for every hero that they face, then they'll win eventually.

I thought this was Worm after Khepri's disappearance. And even without that overwhelming yet perfectly-tuned force, Wormverse will win. You have the "tinkers" who are constantly getting reminded of technologies in a particular subset (and making them of course), you have the Simurgh who can copy any tinker or artifact within a set distance of her (Late in the story she copies an invention of a nano-tech based tinker, for instance), and you have a range of precogs and mental-based capes (and thus powers) that would make any psionic anything green with envy. And that's just the mental half. The physical would be far worse, and the in-between ones which can apply effects to the battlefield would be worse still. (For instance, there is a cape code-named "Labyrinth" who overlays dreamscapes onto reality, with speed, detail, and deadliness depending on how lucid she is at a given moment. She is the most powerful of this last, and she might just give Chaos a run for its money)

As for the infighting problem, I think it might not be as much of an issue for the 40k troops, if only because there's a lot of factionalism on both sides. But the Wormverse has the "S-class truce" and 40k doesn't.

EDIT: Oh wait, I forgot about Simurgh-bombs. Derrrrrrp. Nevermind.

[TeChameleon]

*chuckle*

Yeh, I was referring to Scion when I mentioned a 'borderline capital-G god'.

And if it actually is 40k vs. full-Khepri Wormverse? 40k is hosed in ways that even Chaos can't begin to imagine. Assuming psionic transparency, and assuming that this is all-out war, every armed being that's not a Blank will proceed to shoot/stab themselves in the head or nearest analogue.

Game over.

[Forum Explorer]

I thought this was Worm after Khepri's disappearance. And even without that overwhelming yet perfectly-tuned force, Wormverse will win. You have the "tinkers" who are constantly getting reminded of technologies in a particular subset (and making them of course), you have the Simurgh who can copy any tinker or artifact within a set distance of her (Late in the story she copies an invention of a nano-tech based tinker, for instance), and you have a range of precogs and mental-based capes (and thus powers) that would make any psionic anything green with envy. And that's just the mental half. The physical would be far worse, and the in-between ones which can apply effects to the battlefield would be worse still. (For instance, there is a cape code-named "Labyrinth" who overlays dreamscapes onto reality, with speed, detail, and deadliness depending on how lucid she is at a given moment. She is the most powerful of this last, and she might just give Chaos a run for its money)

As for the infighting problem, I think it might not be as much of an issue for the 40k troops, if only because there's a lot of factionalism on both sides. But the Wormverse has the "S-class truce" and 40k doesn't.

EDIT: Oh wait, I forgot about Simurgh-bombs. Derrrrrrp. Nevermind.

The OP will have to clarify, but I think the landscape is after the end, but the characters are at the peak.

Tinkers start off with a lower tech level. And nothing they've created is beyond what the Imperium of Man either has or has defeated in the past. Or at least survived.

The Simurgh is basically a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch. One of the stronger ones, but none of her abilities haven't been seen in one of them. Except for the Tinker one I guess because 40K doesn't really have Tinkers. Seriously though, slap a beak on the Simurgh and she even looks like a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch.

And the Imperium has mind reading and direct mental attacks. **** the Imperium has literal mind control. Sure their seers might be weaker then the pair Worm has, but they make up for it with sheer quantity. Not to mention their results are messed up by Thinkers.

The physical side? Again nothing the Imperium hasn't faced before. I mean Bonesaw could theoretically make a virus to wipe out life on a planet. The Imperium has those prepped and ready for launch already.

Also I'd say the infighting is much worse on the Worm side of things. They literally required someone to take control of everyone in the face of destruction in order to fight together instead of fighting each other.

[Grek]

In a dozen words: Tinkers discover the Webway. Panacea heals the Emperor. "Commence Second Great Crusade!"

[SanguisAevum]

40k Arrives.
Scion is already dust.
Kephri thinks, game ends.

[Mx.Silver]

While I know basically nothing about Worm, something a fair few people seem to be overlooking is that the thread is Worm versus 40k, not just the Imperium of Man. That means that in addition to worrying about the Imperium's capabilities you also need to consider what answers Worm-verse has to The Orks. Or the Eldar. Or Chaos. Or the Necrons. Or Tyranids.

Because a few of those races would seem to present some serious obstacles to the 'mind-control everyone' proposal. Some of them are also greatly widen the technological gap Wormverse has to deal with.

[Fan]

Full 40k at it's peak includes several hypothetical galaxy busters.

While Kephri seems to have decently strong multi verse range telepathy, as well as solid mimicry we aren't dealing with just the IoM (Though I maintain that unless they have a counter to time stop solar system wipes, they lose to just the IoM.)

Necrons however, at their theoretical peak devour stars, and can alter reality at a whim within said star system through the fully assembled C'Tan shards.

From there you have Tzeentch who counters Valkryies path to victory by being able to manuever around her path to victory with his path to victory with his library, Khorne is made ever stronger by the mounting battle, Nurgle could probably make a depowering virus if it came down to that or nothing, and The Eldar have their own host of gods. Khaela Mensha Khaine in his full glory was nearly a match for Tzeentch which (putting things at the hypothetical peaks.) means that they have a total of 9 entities capable of galaxy busting, and several entities capable of manipulating technology, emotion / psionics, heat / entropy, and time on a solar system level.

At hypothetical peaks.

If wormverse has an answer to their souls being ripped out at a solar system wide level during a time stop, then they can beat 40k based on what little I've read of it's peaks.

If they can't, then they lose.

[Landis963]

If wormverse has an answer to their souls being ripped out at a solar system wide level during a time stop, then they can beat 40k based on what little I've read of it's peaks.

If they can't, then they lose.

They don't have an answer to that far as I know, true. However, the Simurgh already knows she's going to run into the 40k verse and is already taking steps to prevent said galaxy-buster from going off (and said time-stop, and said soul-ripping...). She can and has groomed someone for an assassination taking place years after the initial encounter, without their knowledge. She can and has groomed someone who was not even present to become a destabilizing influence on a situation halfway around the world, a decade later. If it's a "fair" fight, then Wormverse could lose. However, there is no such thing as a fair fight, and that's why 40k will lose.

[The Glyphstone]

Necrons can also time travel. Well, one of them can, though admittedly he protects his secret very closely.

But that's enough, so this Simurgh's flawless precognition and plan-making has to account for his/her/it being retroactively murdered as a baby, at which point Paradox?

[Landis963]

Necrons can also time travel. Well, one of them can, though admittedly he protects his secret very closely.

But that's enough, so this Simurgh's flawless precognition and plan-making has to account for his/her/it being retroactively murdered as a baby, at which point Paradox?

Well... the baby thing is a bit harder to pin down for any would-be assassin, since as far as we know she sprang fully-formed into being at Lausanne, the site of her first appearance and attack. (BTW, this goes for all the "Endbringers", they came, they saw, and they started conquering) Second off, if any such assassin attempted it, he would be turned into terrorist cannon fodder which she would then use, as in Worm canon, to turn a member of the UN cleanup crew into an anti-parahuman misanthropic ****. Of course, any such assassin could try and kill her inadvertent creator as a baby, which would indeed result in paradox, but I'm not sure how he would know to try that, or how he would survive in a sane form to try the paradox again.

[The Glyphstone]

Time travel is weird like that? Besides, most Necrons aren't conventionally sane as we know it anyways - multi-million year old true AIs in living metal alloy shells, so attempting to drive him/it insane/brainwashed/whatever would be unlikely to work as expected.

[druid91]

Time travel is weird like that? Besides, most Necrons aren't conventionally sane as we know it anyways - multi-million year old true AIs in living metal alloy shells, so attempting to drive him/it insane/brainwashed/whatever would be unlikely to work as expected.

True, but there's also the TK and massive guns to worry about. Not just the mind-control.

[Landis963]

Time travel is weird like that? Besides, most Necrons aren't conventionally sane as we know it anyways - multi-million year old true AIs in living metal alloy shells, so attempting to drive him/it insane/brainwashed/whatever would be unlikely to work as expected.

He might be immune to the telepathy, but he would be noticed by the terrorist cannon fodder or the UN security force, not to mention the Endbringer herself. And once he's noticed, she looks to see if she recognizes him in her future or her past, and works around those times. And I don't think you answered my question of how he finds out who the Simurgh's creator is? Because in canon, he didn't find out until 5 seconds before his demise, and it's only because of a handy camera on the parahuman now called Valkyrie that anyone in canon knows that fact at all. And even then, Tattletale (can bat-deduct her way to an abnormally accurate conclusion), who was watching the video and extrapolating, only told it to a handful of people, very few of whom survived the end of the story and even fewer of whom who would be inclined to divulge something like this to the Terminator.

[druid91]

He might be immune to the telepathy, but he would be noticed by the terrorist cannon fodder or the UN security force, not to mention the Endbringer herself. And once he's noticed, she looks to see if she recognizes him in her future or her past, and works around those times. And I don't think you answered my question of how he finds out who the Simurgh's creator is? Because in canon, he didn't find out until 5 seconds before his demise, and it's only because of a handy camera on the parahuman now called Valkyrie that anyone in canon knows that fact at all. And even then, Tattletale (can bat-deduct her way to an abnormally accurate conclusion), who was watching the video and extrapolating, only told it to a handful of people, very few of whom survived the end of the story and even fewer of whom who would be inclined to divulge something like this to the Terminator.

I still find Faerie queen and Glaistig Uane cooler names than something as generic as Valkyrie.

[Forum Explorer]

I still find Faerie queen and Glaistig Uane cooler names than something as generic as Valkyrie.

Agreed.


And every faction is in this? Well Worm is quite ****ed then.

Really a single Hive fleet would be able to take out Worm. The viruses they unleash along with the trillions of Nids to fight with? They will win through sheer attrition. There isn't anything for the Tinkers to reverse engineer, The Simurgh might be able to avoid the Nids but she really can't do any damage. The best I can think of is that they manage to close off whatever planets the Nids got to using Contessa + a combination of Tinkers. Dragon might also be effective for a little while, but the Nids would eventually eat all of her computers.

Necrons would win simply because I don't think Worm has anything that can actually kill them. I guess Fairie Queen plus Grey Boy would kill some. But they've got their own time tech and can just flay everyone out of existence, one molecule at a time.

Dark Eldar wouldn't win because they would be having too much fun torturing people and turning them into a new Slaughterhouse 9.

Of course Chaos could wipe Worm out easily. Not by corruption though that would be a factor, but by completing a ritual to summon a deamonic invasion. (or it just happening randomly when the time is right).


As for the Simurgh. Like I said before she's basically a greater daemon of Tzeentch. The ability to see the future and manipulate it might be rare in Worm, but it's incredibly common in 40K.

[Fan]

So wait, none of these guys have FTL feats, and none of them can handle even planet wiping attacks from solar system range?

Then they don't have a prayer. They do seem like overall the better written series though. (I honestly think 40k is terribly written outside of a few select instances, most of which are contained in The Dark Angels, blood angles, and then The Horus Heresy series.)

Though this thread has prompted me to pick up worm more seriously. I'd read the first few chapters and it felt far too slow for me on the web blog it was posted on, (and I've read Infinite Jest.), but if it truly does get better I'll proceed.

[druid91]

So wait, none of these guys have FTL feats, and none of them can handle even planet wiping attacks from solar system range?

Then they don't have a prayer. They do seem like overall the better written series though. (I honestly think 40k is terribly written outside of a few select instances, most of which are contained in The Dark Angels, blood angles, and then The Horus Heresy series.)

Though this thread has prompted me to pick up worm more seriously. I'd read the first few chapters and it felt far too slow for me on the web blog it was posted on, (and I've read Infinite Jest.), but if it truly does get better I'll proceed.

They don't have FTL. They have "Completely ignores physics doors that open up between locations." And the ability to retreat to alternate dimension earths.

Orbital bombardment will be more of a hindrance to any faction of 40k than it will to the Wormverse itself, because it would cut off the static gateways to the alternate earths while still allowing cauldron doors for the wormverse to hit back.

Also, while playing fair String Theory would be dead by the point the Endbringers are brought into play as non-antagonists, They have Dealt with String Theory who was capable of hitting god hard enough to knock him for a loop, and was arrested for threatening to knock the moon out of orbit.

And Bakuda, who could build Atom bombs out of junk parts, or bombs that stop time permanently in a spot.

They've dealt with planet crackers, or potential planet destruction before.

As for Worm itself... Don't make the mistake I made. The interludes are important. Sometimes. Though there are times where I still feel like I'm missing something.

[Landis963]

@Forum explorer: Panacea could take out the Hive's plagues singlehandedly. All she needs is one victim, and she can bring them back to fighting shape and producing a counter-plague. They're already dead, you say? Bonesaw (Tinker- Frankensteinian monsters) and Glaistig Uaine can bring them back. Their body's gone? Nilbog can make them a new one. As for the physical army, Doormaker (produces interdimensional portals) and his partner the Clairvoyant (Can bestow present-cognition on anyone she touches, but temporarily blinds them on release of contact) would make mincemeat of them -of any army, really.

The Wormverse produced an effect that reduced an Endbringer (who are among other things dense enough to f**k with space and time near their nigh-invincible, power-shorting cores) to a skeleton covered in a veneer of meat. Without Scion. The Wormverse produced a cape who produces a literal sun she can toss around. I'm not seeing how an army of Terminators would last.

And can any one person in 40k actually counter a greater demon of Tzeentch?

[druid91]

And can any one person in 40k actually counter a greater demon of Tzeentch?


Yes.

Tzeentch.

[The Glyphstone]

Yes.

Tzeentch.

Or other Greater Demons of Tzeentch, of which there are a theoretically infinite number.


I'm hestitantly siding with Wormverse here, since it's a caped-superhero setting that seems on power with middle-to-upper-end Silver Age Superman. The Average Wormverse Joe is going to be utterly extinct by the end of this, but it sounds like the peaks of Wormverse beat the peaks of Post-Heresy 40K, barring direct manifestation by the Chaos Gods/similar-level warp entities.

[Fan]

They don't have FTL. They have "Completely ignores physics doors that open up between locations." And the ability to retreat to alternate dimension earths.

Orbital bombardment will be more of a hindrance to any faction of 40k than it will to the Wormverse itself, because it would cut off the static gateways to the alternate earths while still allowing cauldron doors for the wormverse to hit back.

Also, while playing fair String Theory would be dead by the point the Endbringers are brought into play as non-antagonists, They have Dealt with String Theory who was capable of hitting god hard enough to knock him for a loop, and was arrested for threatening to knock the moon out of orbit.

And Bakuda, who could build Atom bombs out of junk parts, or bombs that stop time permanently in a spot.

They've dealt with planet crackers, or potential planet destruction before.

As for Worm itself... Don't make the mistake I made. The interludes are important. Sometimes. Though there are times where I still feel like I'm missing something.

None of that matters if the person using the teleportation doors aren't FTL themselves.

It's the startrek beam me up problem, sure, they can have the ship beam them out of most any situation, but it possesses an operator flaw, any means of transportation no matter how swift can only be used as swiftly as the operator can move his / her hands across the controls.

Threatening to do things and knocking god for a loop are non quantifiable feats. They mean nothing. The stopping time in a place permanently is interesting, but ultimately meaningless given I can't imagine other time oriented people ever tried to fix it.

What I'm talking about is a psychic bomb from the other end of the galaxy that destroys the entire solar system and sends each and every soul in it screaming into a realm of eternal torture, this will happen fast enough that ships capable of moving a fraction of C aren't able to jump to FTL while out of dock and intending to do so. Other psychics with multi solar system range abilities weren't able to detect this coming.

If they have anyone on the level of PC Superman, Flash, etc then they have people capable of altering reality at whim, moving faster than infinity, and towing around galaxies of planets with one hand. If they do, they win.

But beating God, barring obvious demonstration of multiversal / universal omnipotents, means nothing. Persona comes to mind, as does Image verse where God has very little power off of his throne. There are a million and one things God with a Capital G can be interpreted as, does anyone have feats for said god?

[Somebloke]

Meh, 40k could take them.

[Forum Explorer]

@Forum explorer: Panacea could take out the Hive's plagues singlehandedly. All she needs is one victim, and she can bring them back to fighting shape and producing a counter-plague. They're already dead, you say? Bonesaw (Tinker- Frankensteinian monsters) and Glaistig Uaine can bring them back. Their body's gone? Nilbog can make them a new one. As for the physical army, Doormaker (produces interdimensional portals) and his partner the Clairvoyant (Can bestow present-cognition on anyone she touches, but temporarily blinds them on release of contact) would make mincemeat of them -of any army, really.

The Wormberse produced an effect that reduced an Endbringer (who are among other things dense enough to f**k with space and time near their nighinvincible, power-shorting cores) to a skeleton covered in a veneer of meat. Without Scion. The Wormverse produced a cape who produces a literal sun she can toss around. I'm not seeing how an army of Terminators would last.

And can any one person in 40k actually counter a greater demon of Tzeentch?

True Panacea can stop a plague, assuming she isn't infected herself. Of course the plagues used are constantly evolving and changing to better disable their opponents. Also the Nids are fully capable of identifying targets like Panacea for assassination.

Yeah the Wormverse managed to produce something that was roughly equivalent to a sustained bombardment of lance batteries.

Sundancer is very impressive. She's also very vulnerable to well pretty much everything except fire.

In fact you know what counter 90% of everything Worm has? Psykers. Worm has almost zero mental defenses and even medium strength psykers have the ability to do what Regent did, except instantly and at a distance.

There are a few. The Emperor could do it, certain Space Marine heroes (particularly some of the Grey Knight special characters) some Inquisitors, Eldrad, other Greater Daemons, a C'tan.

Of course if you mean permanently destroyed? Then pretty much The Emperor or a Chaos God. Everyone else at best can merely banish it back into the warp. But banishing it isn't too difficult. You just have to get close enough and then hit it with point blank annihilation. Of course there might not be much of the planet left afterwards.


Or other Greater Demons of Tzeentch, of which there are a theoretically infinite number.


I'm hestitantly siding with Wormverse here, since it's a caped-superhero setting that seems on power with middle-to-upper-end Silver Age Superman. The Average Wormverse Joe is going to be utterly extinct by the end of this, but it sounds like the peaks of Wormverse beat the peaks of Post-Heresy 40K, barring direct manifestation by the Chaos Gods/similar-level warp entities.


That impression is wrong. I'd say they are more low to middle end of current day Marvel. There are a few individuals who get to top end like the Endbringers, Scion, Dragon, and theoretically Panacea. But out of them only Scion really gets to planet smashing levels.

But besides those people? I wouldn't say there is anyone that I couldn't imagine Spiderman fighting.

[Fan]

With all of worm verse on one planet, and 40k allied against them, the entire planet is transplanted into the most lethal part of the warp and ripped apart instantly, with all the heroes too powerful for that to hurt put into the palace of slannesh where they will willingly destroy themselves.

[druid91]

None of that matters if the person using the teleportation doors aren't FTL themselves.

It's the startrek beam me up problem, sure, they can have the ship beam them out of most any situation, but it possesses an operator flaw, any means of transportation no matter how swift can only be used as swiftly as the operator can move his / her hands across the controls.

Threatening to do things and knocking god for a loop are non quantifiable feats. They mean nothing. The stopping time in a place permanently is interesting, but ultimately meaningless given I can't imagine other time oriented people ever tried to fix it.

What I'm talking about is a psychic bomb from the other end of the galaxy that destroys the entire solar system and sends each and every soul in it screaming into a realm of eternal torture, this will happen fast enough that ships capable of moving a fraction of C aren't able to jump to FTL while out of dock and intending to do so. Other psychics with multi solar system range abilities weren't able to detect this coming.

If they have anyone on the level of PC Superman, Flash, etc then they have people capable of altering reality at whim, moving faster than infinity, and towing around galaxies of planets with one hand. If they do, they win.

But beating God, barring obvious demonstration of multiversal / universal omnipotents, means nothing. Persona comes to mind, as does Image verse where God has very little power off of his throne. There are a million and one things God with a Capital G can be interpreted as, does anyone have feats for said god?

The doors are operated by someone who is essentially omnipresent. They don't need to be asked to open one.

The other time oriented super who might have been capable of it was a villain who turned his talents towards vaporizing one of the endbringers.

Scion AKA god basically has every power there is in the wormverse, and then some.
IIRC he passed out powers to the wormverse capes so that he could see what humans came up with to do with the powers.


With all of worm verse on one planet, and 40k allied against them, the entire planet is transplanted into the most lethal part of the warp and ripped apart instantly, with all the heroes too powerful for that to hurt put into the palace of slannesh where they will willingly destroy themselves.

Replace one planet with One planet spread across multiple timelines which they can access. They have full access to each branch of the trousers of time. Though Scion prevented most from forming so there's something like a few dozen alternate earths?

[Fan]

The doors are operated by someone who is essentially omnipresent. They don't need to be asked to open one.

The other time oriented super who might have been capable of it was a villain who turned his talents towards vaporizing one of the endbringers.

Scion AKA god basically has every power there is in the wormverse, and then some.
IIRC he passed out powers to the wormverse capes so that he could see what humans came up with to do with the powers.

Bestowing powers still doesn't seem like omnipotence, has he rendered entire universes moot with a gesture? Has he took on everyone at once without so much as sweating? Has he recreated universes for fun? Tossed stars around like they were juggling balls? Other such ridiculous feats are needed to be given even credence to possess solar system busting powers.

Good examples are like Hao Asakura with The Great Spirit (implied, and given credence through his creation of Black Holes, Super Novae, etc.), The One above All in marvel (not the celestial.), and The Source in DC / Vertigo comics.

And Omnipresence means nothing for reaction times, though it is certainly powerful, if it comes from a plane outside their perceptions, or too fast for them to react to (their other worldly senses seeing it, but their bodies unable to so much as fire a neuron.).

So I'll ask again, do any of them have FTL reaction feats?

[druid91]

Bestowing powers still doesn't seem like omnipotence, has he rendered entire universes moot with a gesture? Has he took on everyone at once without so much as sweating? Has he recreated universes for fun?

And Omnipresence means nothing for reaction times, though it is certainly powerful, if it comes from a plane outside their perceptions, or too fast for them to react to (their other worldly senses seeing it, but their bodies unable to so much as fire a neuron.).

So I'll ask again, do any of them have FTL reaction feats?

One early characters entire thing was that he could create an alternate universe at will and allow events to play out in both universes and then erase the one that he didn't like, giving him two chances at everything.

As for FTL Yes. Legend is explicitly capable of FTL travel, he doesn't use it because it's not needed and he can't control his flight well enough to avoid flying into outer space or something.

[Guancyto]

The problem with this vs. is... what does 'put into the ring' even mean? What's your endpoint or end goal? I would talk about shifting goalposts (you must have an omnipotent being to survive the Plot Bomb, Wormverse! checkmate, atheists!) but we don't even have any goalposts.

What is 'winning' in this context?

Does the Wormverse win by surviving? By conquering the entire galaxy? By wiping out all the other factions (insofar as that's actually possible for the likes of Chaos)?

Does 40k win by largely maintaining the status quo? By killing everyone in Earth-Bet? By killing everyone in all the Wormverse's alterate Earths? (Note that Scion didn't prevent the vast alt-Earth complex from forming because that's a thing that's always been there. He just kept people out.)


Meh, 40k could take them.

Nice.

[druid91]

The problem with this vs. is... what does 'put into the ring' even mean? What's your endpoint or end goal? I would talk about shifting goalposts (you must have an omnipotent being to survive the Plot Bomb, Wormverse! checkmate, atheists!) but we don't even have any goalposts.

What is 'winning' in this context?

Does the Wormverse win by surviving? By conquering the entire galaxy? By wiping out all the other factions?

Does 40k win by largely maintaining the status quo? By killing everyone in Earth-Bet? By killing everyone in all the Wormverse's alterate Earths? (Note that Scion didn't prevent the vast alt-Earth complex from forming, just kept people out.)



Nice.

Wormverse: Survival

40k: Attack.

[Guancyto]

Ah.

Wormverse, then, contingent on ghost-Doormaker and his alternate reality portals still being available.

Survival when you can piss off to somewhere your enemy can't follow is not difficult.

The faction that has the best chance of beating them is Chaos (Tzeench in particular, no surprise there), unless a Mekboy gets his hands on something akin to that artificial alt-verse portal generator. The Imperium stands no chance whatsoever at exterminating them; their tech is too stagnant and poorly-understood to cook up something to follow the Worm cast to their refuge.

I won't count the Wormverse having killed the local equivalent of a Chaos God because they used shenanigans to do it, but the Endbringers are pretty close to Greater Demons. The heroes of the Wormverse a) have been fighting those for decades to varying degrees of success, and b) in this matchup, have several of their own to play with. So I'm going to call their odds of surviving even against the legions of Chaos... quite good.

[Lamech]

Wormverse: Survival

40k: Attack.

There is nothing that 40k can hope to do. 40k cannot universe jump. They can only reach an miniscule portion of the Wormverse. They need Worm's help to even attack them. Worm will not screw up for they have Smurf, and Contessa. 40ks best bet is to hope that the humans of Wormverse implode and destroy themselves before they decide to expand through the galaxy.

[druid91]

There is nothing that 40k can hope to do. 40k cannot universe jump. They can only reach an miniscule portion of the Wormverse. They need Worm's help to even attack them. Worm will not screw up for they have Smurf, and Contessa. 40ks best bet is to hope that the humans of Wormverse implode and destroy themselves before they decide to expand through the galaxy.

There are the gateways on Earth Bet they could get through. Sort of like a Saruthi Tetrascape.

[Forum Explorer]

Wormverse: Survival

40k: Attack.

It'd be pretty easy for Worm to ally with the Imperium and use them as a sort of shield to survive with. With Contessa's power and the ability to reach the right sorts of people via Doormaker...yeah they could likely arrange for some missing records or a special treaty allowing for certain privileges.

[Lamech]

There are the gateways on Earth Bet they could get through. Sort of like a Saruthi Tetrascape.
But wormverse has the tech to seal them off. Contessa would see a threat like that before it happens. As would a good number of other thinkers.

[Landis963]

A lot of those thinkers do have the "you didn't ask" problem. The one who doesn't, that we know of? The Simurgh. She has nothing else to do at this point but look into the future and work around what she sees there. You bet your sweet hind end she'll see anything the 40k verse throws at them. And once that happens, she has all the time in the world to get together as many contingencies as she needs.

[Douglas]

Though this thread has prompted me to pick up worm more seriously. I'd read the first few chapters and it felt far too slow for me on the web blog it was posted on, (and I've read Infinite Jest.), but if it truly does get better I'll proceed.
The first few chapters are not very representative of the story as a whole. They're mostly high school drama, which is really a miniscule part of the overall plot and becomes little more than a side note maybe a quarter of the way through, if that. It's really about Taylor Hebert's career as a superpowered individual, the challenges she faces and development she goes through, leading up eventually to a world-threatening conflict.

And to echo druid91, don't skip the interludes. "Interlude" in Worm just means "not from Taylor Hebert's point of view", and there's a lot of important stuff in them.

[Starwulf]

So uhh, this Wormverse bit sounds interesting, where do you find reading material on it? I've never heard of it before. I tried to get into 40k back in the day, but there was a lot of stuff, I had no idea where to start, and the two random books I had found had me completely lost, and seemed overly complicated, so I said screw it.

[Landis963]

So uhh, this Wormverse bit sounds interesting, where do you find reading material on it? I've never heard of it before. I tried to get into 40k back in the day, but there was a lot of stuff, I had no idea where to start, and the two random books I had found had me completely lost, and seemed overly complicated, so I said screw it.

Right here. (parahumans.wordpress.com) Be sure to start from the beginning, and, um, bullying trigger warning. For starters.

[druid91]

The first few chapters are not very representative of the story as a whole. They're mostly high school drama, which is really a miniscule part of the overall plot and becomes little more than a side note maybe a quarter of the way through, if that. It's really about Taylor Hebert's career as a superpowered individual, the challenges she faces and development she goes through, leading up eventually to a world-threatening conflict.

And to echo druid91, don't skip the interludes. "Interlude" in Worm just means "not from Taylor Hebert's point of view", and there's a lot of important stuff in them.




The story shifts away from the hellish landscape that is contemporary high school towards the more uplifting setting of a bombed out city at the mercy of a roving band of psychopaths.

This is my favorite explanation of the tone shift in worm.

As for the "You didn't ask problem." That really only affects in small enough things. As I recall the only thing extraordinary about Dinah is that she predicts things years ahead with scary accuracy. And she's got the biggest problem with "You didn't ask." The others are more "Oh, it wasn't big enough, I didn't notice it." IIRC they were all freaking out when echidna appeared.

[Landis963]

True Panacea can stop a plague, assuming she isn't infected herself.

She's immune to disease. Required secondary power. As for a 'Nid invasion, I again point to the dimensional cheesewire trick, and the vast amount of "blaster" and "brute" capes.


In fact you know what counter 90% of everything Worm has? Psykers. Worm has almost zero mental defenses and even medium strength psykers have the ability to do what Regent did, except instantly and at a distance.

It's true. However, Citrine (change the laws of physics in a specific area) can probably work around that.


There are a few. The Emperor could do it, certain Space Marine heroes (particularly some of the Grey Knight special characters) some Inquisitors, Eldrad, other Greater Daemons, a C'tan.

Of course if you mean permanently destroyed? Then pretty much The Emperor or a Chaos God. Everyone else at best can merely banish it back into the warp. But banishing it isn't too difficult. You just have to get close enough and then hit it with point blank annihilation. Of course there might not be much of the planet left afterwards.

First off, I think my question was wrong. How are you defining "counter" in this instance, as applied to a Greater Demon of Tzeentch? Point blank annihilation did kill Behemoth, but Simurgh is harder to hit due to the aforementioned precognition. They've tried, and the deleterious effect she has on her victims usually takes priority eventually.

[druid91]

She's immune to disease. Required secondary power. As for a 'Nid invasion, I again point to the dimensional cheesewire trick, and the vast amount of "blaster" and "brute" capes.



It's true. However, Citrine (change the laws of physics in a specific area) can probably work around that.



First off, I think my question was wrong. How are you defining "counter" in this instance, as applied to a Greater Demon of Tzeentch? Point blank annihilation did kill Behemoth, but Simurgh is harder to hit due to the aforementioned precognition. They've tried, and the deleterious effect she has on her victims usually takes priority eventually.

Actually, Bonesaw could make people immune to mental influence, among the many other enhancements she could give people.

There was that whole thing where Cherish was trying to take over the group and Bonesaw made them immune to influence and mind reading so they could plot out the most fun response.

And not quite the same thing, but Panacea made bugs immune to Taylors psychic whatever, Not only immune but made them give a feedback loop that messed her power up. She might be able to do the same thing with psykers.

[Dinvan]

So wait a second, are people seriously trying to argue that the combined technologic prowess of the necrons, tau and eldar as well as the space magic of the psykers, c'tan and chao gods thrown in with the endless troops of the daemons, tyrands, orks, necrons, and imperium of man couldn't utterly wipe out wormverse?

Really?

Sorry, but unless I missed something in wormverse, chaos gods make all this entire thread moot.

Unfair from the start with the chaos gods. Take ALL gods and god like beings out of this fight(both sides) and its something to talk about.

[druid91]

So wait a second, are people seriously trying to argue that the combined technologic prowess of the necrons, tau and eldar as well as the space magic of the psykers, c'tan and chao gods thrown in with the endless troops of the daemons, tyrands, orks, necrons, and imperium of man couldn't utterly wipe out wormverse?

Really?

Sorry, but unless I missed something in wormverse, chaos gods make all this entire thread moot.

Unfair from the start with the chaos gods. Take ALL gods and god like beings out of this fight(both sides) and its something to talk about.

Well admittedly the chaos gods don't actually do much of anything for all their theoretically infinite power.

[Forum Explorer]

She's immune to disease. Required secondary power. As for a 'Nid invasion, I again point to the dimensional cheesewire trick, and the vast amount of "blaster" and "brute" capes.



It's true. However, Citrine (change the laws of physics in a specific area) can probably work around that.



First off, I think my question was wrong. How are you defining "counter" in this instance, as applied to a Greater Demon of Tzeentch? Point blank annihilation did kill Behemoth, but Simurgh is harder to hit due to the aforementioned precognition. They've tried, and the deleterious effect she has on her victims usually takes priority eventually.

Really? I don't remember that. I do know she's can't heal herself though which we saw when she tangled with Siberian (okay ran away from). As for the brutes and blaster capes. Yeah they exist. The few what? Hundred? Thousand of them? There would literally be trillions of Nids fighting them. And some of the bigger Nids make Crawler look like an ant. And that's before we get into Biotitans.

Whatever happened to Citrine anyways? Also I doubt it. Psykers don't really operate with physics or anything else in the Worm universe. Even if she could pull off canceling their powers out, well then they'd use the back up weapon of a pistol.


Stopping or defeating it/foiling it's plans. The Imperium could defeat the Simurgh (or a Tzeentch daemon) by stuff like this. It shows up in a city. Guardsmen/local forces are deployed as a delaying tactic. They more or less get slaughtered. Since the city won't really be important they'll likely just bombard it with lance shots.The next time it shows up they'll call for the Grey Knights to deal with it, who would likely have to do something risky like hit it with a vortex grenade in order to send it into the warp (though that's not the only way they can force it into the warp. Just one way). To get close they'll teleport in from orbit.

Though I wonder how a forcesword would effect an Endbringer? Forceswords are weapons that channel psychic energy and basically destroy the body and mind of the target they wound.

[The Glyphstone]

First off, I think my question was wrong. How are you defining "counter" in this instance, as applied to a Greater Demon of Tzeentch? Point blank annihilation did kill Behemoth, but Simurgh is harder to hit due to the aforementioned precognition. They've tried, and the deleterious effect she has on her victims usually takes priority eventually.

Through counter pre-cognition...playing her own game and being better at it. If her whole thing is seeing the future and planning ahead of time to manipulate it, they (the 40K precogs and Tzeentchian demon lords) can also do the same, so it becomes a giant infinite-sided mess of plans to counteract plans to counteract plans. And when it comes down to it, there is only one Simurgh, so she's quantitatively outmatched in addition to being qualitatively equaled. And when your gambits beat hers, you can eventually set up the one-in-a-million circumstances ensuring her demise.

If you want a fairly good depiction of what happens when two+ powerful precogs go at it in a war of future-planning, read the Sorcerer chapters from Jseah's Culture Meets 40k fanfiction/versus. Brainmelting may result.

[Guancyto]

Chaos Gods are powerless outside the Warp. C'Tan, meanwhile, are just stupid. :smalltongue:

Also, I think we are plopping the Worm-Earths in the middle of the 40k verse and seeing if they survive (they do) against types of baddies that vary based on where they get plopped, not if EVERYTHING IN 40K SUDDENLY DROPS EVERYTHING TO UNITE TO KILL THEM FOREVER.

If they do... well, Earth-Bet is screwed, but Worm's dimension-cheese is something that 40k beings are not effectively equipped to deal with because 40k is not a 'verse in which alternate universes are a thing. Except the Warp, and that's a very distinct and very different thing. You could say this of any property with parallel universes, except that in Worm people are eminently aware of these and abuse them with reckless abandon, instead of sliding between them to try and get home.

This is why I said that Chaos and Orks will be the most likely threats, because those two are creative and generative to the point where they might be able to come up with something that will let them fight the Worm heroes. The Imperium? The Necrons? lol.

[The Glyphstone]

Chaos Gods are powerless outside the Warp. C'Tan, meanwhile, are just stupid. :smalltongue:

Also, I think we plopping the Worm-Earths in the middle of the 40k verse and seeing if they survive (they do) against types of baddies bound to vary based on , not if EVERYTHING IN 40K SUDDENLY DROPS EVERYTHING TO UNITE TO KILL THEM FOREVER.

If they do... well, Earth-Bet is screwed, but Worm's dimension-cheese is something that 40k beings are not effectively equipped to deal with because 40k is not a 'verse in which alternate universes are a thing. Except the Warp, and that's a very distinct and very different thing.

This is why I said that Chaos and Orks will be the most likely threats, because those two are creative and generative to the point where they might be able to come up with something that will let them fight the Worm heroes. The Imperium? The Necrons? lol.

You must be thinking of Oldcrons. Newcrons are scary, having ridiculous levels of SCIENCE!!! as their new shtick. They build parallel pocket dimensional prisons and hand them out like candy to their field commanders for the express purpose of sucking in and trapping enemy commander (when they're not being used to store tame C'tan), they're probably the only 40K faction capable of matching the Wormverse in the alternate-universe field (not immediately, but they'd figure it out, or adapt their existing transdimensional tech). And the rest of their tech is similar levels of hax.

[Guancyto]

I am thinking of Oldcrons! I... kind of quit keeping up on 40k stuff because of them and how ridiculous they were, although there were other reasons. :smallredface:

Meet the Newcrons... surprisingly different from the Oldcrons.

Neat. Okay. Chaos, Orks, Necrons, then, would be their biggest problems.

Tyranids haven't got the brains, Imperium's too mired in tradition, Tau are more likely to want to talk, Eldar would have some funtimes precog wars that make Worm heroes popping out for a look very interesting, but ultimately can't reach.

[Landis963]

Really? I don't remember that.

She was immune to Bonesaw's miasma. That's why the Undersiders go to her in canon; she can't be hurt by it and she can fix it.


I do know she's can't heal herself though which we saw when she tangled with Siberian (okay ran away from). As for the brutes and blaster capes. Yeah they exist. The few what? Hundred? Thousand of them? There would literally be trillions of Nids fighting them. And some of the bigger Nids make Crawler look like an ant. And that's before we get into Biotitans.

And again I point to the dimensional cheesewire trick. Barring the use of Doormaker for whatever reason, Clockblocker can freeze something to make it completely immobile for a number of seconds. Piton dart, line small enough to be invisible, Clockblocker uses his power, first few waves get damaged and others will get tripped up on the wire.


Whatever happened to Citrine anyways? Also I doubt it. Psykers don't really operate with physics or anything else in the Worm universe. Even if she could pull off canceling their powers out, well then they'd use the back up weapon of a pistol.

I don't know, now that I think about it. And I guarantee Psykers have to follow the law of causality like everything else. The least she needs to do is slow that chain of cause and effect down, which can be done with a simple time slow. Or she can have a field which produces an effect that makes it hard to think, such as fever symptoms. Or any number of effects. And as for pistol fire, bulletproof armor is not exactly rare among combat-ready capes.


Stopping or defeating it/foiling it's plans. The Imperium could defeat the Simurgh (or a Tzeentch daemon) by stuff like this. It shows up in a city. Guardsmen/local forces are deployed as a delaying tactic. They more or less get slaughtered. Since the city won't really be important they'll likely just bombard it with lance shots.The next time it shows up they'll call for the Grey Knights to deal with it, who would likely have to do something risky like hit it with a vortex grenade in order to send it into the warp (though that's not the only way they can force it into the warp. Just one way). To get close they'll teleport in from orbit.

Funny, that's eerily similar to standard Endbringer fight protocol, right down to driving it off and not caring much about property damage. However, the capes are the lance barrage (especially with powerhouses such as the Triumvirate in play) and there's a bit less range involved. Also, there's no handy dandy Warp to toss it in (and alt-universe research is really, really frowned on because of political concerns). However, they've been forced to take on (slightly) different tactics with the Simurgh because any surviving guardsmen/local forces/civilians will come back and bite them in the a** later. (See also the tragic tales of William Manton and Alan Gramme, and the not-as-tragic-since-Krouse-is-a-douche tale of the Travelers)


Though I wonder how a forcesword would effect an Endbringer? Forceswords are weapons that channel psychic energy and basically destroy the body and mind of the target they wound.

An interesting thought experiment. From the glimpse of the Simurgh's mind we get in a final-act interlude, it sounds like the Simurgh is the only one that has a mind beyond the fights. (She mentioned that Behemoth can only see heat, and Leviathan can only see the water around him). At a guess, it'd cut through them (at least the outer layers) like a knife through a rare steak, and panic them enough to auto-retreat, but wouldn't do enough to actually kill them.


Through counter pre-cognition...playing her own game and being better at it. If her whole thing is seeing the future and planning ahead of time to manipulate it, they (the 40K precogs and Tzeentchian demon lords) can also do the same, so it becomes a giant infinite-sided mess of plans to counteract plans to counteract plans. And when it comes down to it, there is only one Simurgh, so she's quantitatively outmatched in addition to being qualitatively equaled. And if your gambits beat hers, you can eventually set up the one-in-a-million circumstances ensuring her demise.

If you want a fairly good depiction of what happens when two+ powerful precogs go at it in a war of future-planning, read the Sorcerer chapters from Jseah's Culture Meets 40k fanfiction/versus. Brainmelting may result.

True, with the caveat already inserted. However, the Simurgh can see you before you see her. Am I correct in assuming that 40k precogs need to specifically look for an event?

[The Glyphstone]

True, with the caveat already inserted. However, the Simurgh can see you before you see her. Am I correct in assuming that 40k precogs need to specifically look for an event?

Not consistently. Anyone with psychic talent can use the Emperor's Tarot, but that is vague and imprecise - only some psykers are trained diviners/precogs. The more powerful a diviner, the more far-reaching and passive their precognition is - the stronger human psykers spend what free time they have in warded isolation chambers just for a brief respite against being bombarded with every single possible and definite future simultaneously, since they can't turn it off. They tend to go crazy even with these breaks, but Eldar psykers are far better-trained at scrying the future(s), and Chaos sorcerers/demons are crazy to begin with.

So while they (the Eldar/Chaos psykers, Imperial psykers aren't good enough to engage in serious precog combat) might need to look for an event, all they really need is to plan, then look ahead to see if their plan works...when they see it fails, they can look to see why it fails and when, and adjust the plan they haven't made yet around it.

[Forum Explorer]

Tyranids haven't got the brains, Imperium's too mired in tradition, Tau are more likely to want to talk, Eldar would have some funtimes precog wars that make Worm heroes popping out for a look very interesting, but ultimately can't reach.

Tyranids are actually really really smart. They are only 'stupid' because they a) have the goal of devour everything and seriously don't care one whit about anything else b) are basically limited to biotech only c) the ground troops are basically bullets and have the self preservation of bullets.

I think you are neglecting Dark Eldar and Eldar as well. Well I think Eldar would basically leave things more or less alone like the Tau would, but Dark Eldar would have a field day in the whole multidimensional city they have going. They wouldn't really be trying to wipe out Worm though, more just pick off targets and torture them for fun and substance. Anyways Eldar (both species) are also very familiar with different dimensional technology.



She was immune to Bonesaw's miasma. That's why the Undersiders go to her in canon; she can't be hurt by it and she can fix it.



And again I point to the dimensional cheesewire trick. Barring the use of Doormaker for whatever reason, Clockblocker can freeze something to make it completely immobile for a number of seconds. Piton dart, line small enough to be invisible, Clockblocker uses his power, first few waves get damaged and others will get tripped up on the wire.



I don't know, now that I think about it. And I guarantee Psykers have to follow the law of causality like everything else. The least she needs to do is slow that chain of cause and effect down, which can be done with a simple time slow. Or she can have a field which produces an effect that makes it hard to think, such as fever symptoms. Or any number of effects. And as for pistol fire, bulletproof armor is not exactly rare among combat-ready capes.



Funny, that's eerily similar to standard Endbringer fight protocol, right down to driving it off and not caring much about property damage. However, the capes are the lance barrage (especially with powerhouses such as the Triumvirate in play) and there's a bit less range involved. Also, there's no handy dandy Warp to toss it in (and alt-universe research is really, really frowned on because of political concerns). However, they've been forced to take on (slightly) different tactics with the Simurgh because any surviving guardsmen/local forces/civilians will come back and bite them in the a** later. (See also the tragic tales of William Manton and Alan Gramme, and the not-as-tragic-since-Krouse-is-a-douche tale of the Travelers)



An interesting thought experiment. From the glimpse of the Simurgh's mind we get in a final-act interlude, it sounds like the Simurgh is the only one that has a mind beyond the fights. (She mentioned that Behemoth can only see heat, and Leviathan can only see the water around him). At a guess, it'd cut through them (at least the outer layers) like a knife through a rare steak, and panic them enough to auto-retreat, but wouldn't do enough to actually kill them.



True, with the caveat already inserted. However, the Simurgh can see you before you see her. Am I correct in assuming that 40k precogs need to specifically look for an event?


Right.

The Nids could literally run into the cheese wire trick for a full 10 minutes and not have a millionth of a percent of their forces damaged. And a single shot from a fleshborer would utterly ruin Clockblocker and there is only one Clockblocker. It's a neat trick, but it's not going to win any wars. Not to mention the countless Nids who would just go over or under the wires.

It's a bit of rocket tag since the Psyker likely has a hundred ways to shut Citrine down as well. Though when it comes to bulletproof armor, well even today bulletproof armor is basically worthless when it comes to heavier weapons like assault rifles and the like. I'm pretty sure a bolt pistol wouldn't have any trouble with anything short of power armor.

Similar on the surface, but in practice very different. Because they really don't care about the collateral damage. Like they would send 100 000 guardsmen in to fight the Simurgh and then afterward have them all executed 'just in case'. Though they might horrifically torture them to death through mind rape in order to learn more about the Simurgh's effects. Also the strength of the attacks they would be using are just on a higher level.

I can see it might not killing their bodies, but frying their minds to basically nothing. Which like you said, might not really effect the other Endbringers, but it'd basically ruin the Simurgh.

Nope. They can look for particular events, but some just meditate and basically look at the future. Sometimes they just flat out get dreams. Frig, one human psyker (untrained and relatively weak as psykers go) was getting perfectly accurate predictions of what was going to happen in their immediate future. Such as ambush ahead, inspection tomorrow, or the deployment orders they haven't received yet. And he was putting literally zero effort into it. Actually negative effort since he was trying to suppress it and was in denial.

[Landis963]

Last response before I go to bed since I have class tomorrow.



The Nids could literally run into the cheese wire trick for a full 10 minutes and not have a millionth of a percent of their forces damaged. And a single shot from a fleshborer would utterly ruin Clockblocker and there is only one Clockblocker. It's a neat trick, but it's not going to win any wars. Not to mention the countless Nids who would just go over or under the wires.

But I'm fairly certain Doormaker can keep it going for a lot longer than 10 minutes. Say he can do it for 12 hours straight before needing to recharge, what kind of damage would that do? (It may even be longer than that, as the portals only drain power from his shard when they're open). As for dead Clockblocker, with G.U. and Nilbog around there's a new one every battle, assuming of course he gets killed every episo- I mean battle. Agreed that a single razorwire isn't going to do much.


It's a bit of rocket tag since the Psyker likely has a hundred ways to shut Citrine down as well. Though when it comes to bulletproof armor, well even today bulletproof armor is basically worthless when it comes to heavier weapons like assault rifles and the like. I'm pretty sure a bolt pistol wouldn't have any trouble with anything short of power armor.

She can have a "deflector shield"-esque field in front of her with really strong gravity moving away from her center of mass, and can put it up with less effort and preparation than anything she would do to mess with an opposing cape's powers (She can, however, only remove the secondary powers, so a psyker would find the mental gymnastics necessary to do their tricks more difficult, possibly).


Similar on the surface, but in practice very different. Because they really don't care about the collateral damage. Like they would send 100 000 guardsmen in to fight the Simurgh and then afterward have them all executed 'just in case'. Though they might horrifically torture them to death through mind rape in order to learn more about the Simurgh's effects. Also the strength of the attacks they would be using are just on a higher level.

And the Simurgh sees that, and the Simurgh gives one guardsman the path to escape, and that one guardsman infiltrates the high command and puts the Emperor out of his misery 20 years hence. Such are the dangers of messing with the Simurgh cold.


I can see it might not killing their bodies, but frying their minds to basically nothing. Which like you said, might not really effect the other Endbringers, but it'd basically ruin the Simurgh.

I'm not sure about it hurting the Simurgh psychically, though. You know how I keep repeating the mantra of "perfect pre- and post-cognition" like it'll somehow defeat all your arguments (spoiler alert: it didn't, doesn't, and won't)? She has the one major blind spot in that whenever the present moment is, she is insensate as a stone. I'm simply not sure how that would react to an insanity blade like how you describe.


Nope. They can look for particular events, but some just meditate and basically look at the future. Sometimes they just flat out get dreams. Frig, one human psyker (untrained and relatively weak as psykers go) was getting perfectly accurate predictions of what was going to happen in their immediate future. Such as ambush ahead, inspection tomorrow, or the deployment orders they haven't received yet. And he was putting literally zero effort into it. Actually negative effort since he was trying to suppress it and was in denial.

Huh. You and Glyphstone kind of contradict each other here. He says it's "vague and imprecise" without the training and debilitating with the training, you cite one "untrained and relatively weak" psyker who was getting pertinent information from the immediate future, fairly clearly it sounds like. However, it sounds like in both cases, the visions are random and the psyker doesn't have any real control over it. Here's the Simurgh's words themselves on the issue:




Pretercognition. Spread out over several targets at once, it serves as her primary sense. Each target is conceptualized in the context of twelve to eighty years of history. More time, more feedback from the steady feed of information, and the images clarify. Discard the useless elements, maintain the pivotal ones.

Deciphering, searching for the fulcrum points.
...This was made easier by another sense. Another power extends in the other direction, and this is not one that can be sensed by most. Possibilities, as another jumble of images. These clarify as the others do, as eventualities are discarded, the targets around her coming into focus.

One target comes into full focus, and their existence is now visible, from the moment of their birth until the time they disappear from sight. Often, this is the point of their death. Other times, they disappear into darkness, obscured by another power.

This is why I believe the Simurgh will see a 40k incursion before any psykers see her. As soon as they start to interfere with a "target" (which can be anyone and everyone in her present vicinity), at any point in their future, she will see the interference and move to counter the thing making the interference.

[Selrahc]

I don't know, now that I think about it. And I guarantee Psykers have to follow the law of causality like everything else.

Well, they don't really. Slaaneesh was "born" in M31, upon the fall of the Eldar. It has always existed, and interacted with the other gods even long before it began its life. Time comes unmoored in the warp, and a number of psychic powers involve messing up causality in the real.

I would say though, I haven't seen intentional powers start to manifest before they have been invoked. So before the warp is called, causality has to be followed.

[Fjolnir]

The simurgh is also a "blank spot" to other wormverse precogs, in fact, all of the endbringers are along with certain other beings including the previously mentioned Scion (the dimensional protrusion of a single member of a race of super powered reality eaters) and eidolon (a cape with the power to access the powers of any living cape or tinker creations whose search for an opponent that was worthy created the endbringers) if this is actually true for 40k precognition as well, then there is trouble on the horizon. Also, CB is part of vallkyrie's stable now so expect cheats, hacks, and exploits as the Former Fairy Queen combos up some really nasty ghosts...

[Fjolnir]

Well, they don't really. Slaaneesh was "born" in M31, upon the fall of the Eldar. It has always existed, and interacted with the other gods even long before it began its life. Time comes unmoored in the warp, and a number of psychic powers involve messing up causality in the real.

I would say though, I haven't seen intentional powers start to manifest before they have been invoked. So before the warp is called, causality has to be followed.

That reminds me of the idea that once time travel is invented, it will automatically exist at every point in history at once because eventually someone will go back in time and lose the stupid thing...

[Forum Explorer]

Last response before I go to bed since I have class tomorrow.



But I'm fairly certain Doormaker can keep it going for a lot longer than 10 minutes. Say he can do it for 12 hours straight before needing to recharge, what kind of damage would that do? (It may even be longer than that, as the portals only drain power from his shard when they're open). As for dead Clockblocker, with G.U. and Nilbog around there's a new one every battle, assuming of course he gets killed every episo- I mean battle. Agreed that a single razorwire isn't going to do much.



She can have a "deflector shield"-esque field in front of her with really strong gravity moving away from her center of mass, and can put it up with less effort and preparation than anything she would do to mess with an opposing cape's powers (She can, however, only remove the secondary powers, so a psyker would find the mental gymnastics necessary to do their tricks more difficult, possibly).



And the Simurgh sees that, and the Simurgh gives one guardsman the path to escape, and that one guardsman infiltrates the high command and puts the Emperor out of his misery 20 years hence. Such are the dangers of messing with the Simurgh cold.



I'm not sure about it hurting the Simurgh psychically, though. You know how I keep repeating the mantra of "perfect pre- and post-cognition" like it'll somehow defeat all your arguments (spoiler alert: it didn't, doesn't, and won't)? She has the one major blind spot in that whenever the present moment is, she is insensate as a stone. I'm simply not sure how that would react to an insanity blade like how you describe.



Huh. You and Glyphstone kind of contradict each other here. He says it's "vague and imprecise" without the training and debilitating with the training, you cite one "untrained and relatively weak" psyker who was getting pertinent information from the immediate future, fairly clearly it sounds like. However, it sounds like in both cases, the visions are random and the psyker doesn't have any real control over it. Here's the Simurgh's words themselves on the issue:



This is why I believe the Simurgh will see a 40k incursion before any psykers see her. As soon as they start to interfere with a "target" (which can be anyone and everyone in her present vicinity), at any point in their future, she will see the interference and move to counter the thing making the interference.


I'm not sure why you're mentioning Doormaker. What does he have to do with the razor wire trick? Besides it being his portal that they'd put the wire across. Anyways people like G.U. and Nilbolg are strong (and no they don't have the ability to bring people back from the dead yet. Perhaps one day.) Though neither of them is invincible and will become priority targets for the Nid's to kill (along with Bonesaw, Panacea, Dragon, and Number Man. Contessa I'm assuming would survive the whole scenario by leaving the planet.) The Nid's are fully capable of designing a new creature for the sole purpose of killing one individual. And then making a bunch of them.


Gravity might stop some physical attacks like a bolt round. Wouldn't do anything mentally or certain other attacks like throwing lightning. Messing with the Psyker's control over his power? Likely to have horrific results for everyone involved. Best case scenario? Mutual Death. Worst case? Allowing a daemon to possess the psyker and fully enter the material plane.


I don't think it's physically possible for a single guardsmen to hurt the Emperor. Regardless of that, the Simurgh's planning isn't perfect and is going up against other seers and people who fight seers. And if we are assuming transparency of powers like you did up above with Citrine, well then her powers are going to lose a lot of potency against the anti-psyker defenses the Imperium has. As for messing with people's heads, yeah that happens a lot in 40K. Seriously that's like Chaos main shtick. If 40K factions didn't have defenses and contingencies in place for that already then they'd be losing a lot harder then they do.


I don't see how that would make a difference. The Warp exists past, present, and future. It's why traveling through the Warp can mean jumping back into the past or future. It also makes the Simurgh significantly weaker then Tzeentch Greater Daemons cause she can't see the present. Though it is impossible to tell how the blade would effect her, since it doesn't exist in Worm. Nothing close to it does.

Psykers vary alot. Particularly when they aren't trained. And there are a lot of them. So you get a huge variance and it's why both the Glyphstone and I are correct. I do know that the Eldar do deliberately see the future, it's kinda a specialty of theirs. They are called Farseers for a reason.


I can see her beating some factions to the punch like the Imperium. The Eldar, no. They don't take action until they look into the future first, well if they can help it. Sometimes the situation forces their hand.

[Dragonus45]

Bestowing powers still doesn't seem like omnipotence, has he rendered entire universes moot with a gesture? Yes, his races most basic power is the ability to step sideways into entire other possible universes making them moot.



Has he took on everyone at once without so much as sweating?

Yes, at one point every singe cape, not only the ones in the dimension of the story but every other possible parallel universe in which capes existed at the same time while under the control of of aforementioned hive mind, while tanking everything else the universe has been described as doing. He wasn't sweating, but he was smiling like a child pulling the wings off of toys. His actual mass was so large it physically could not fit into a singe universe.


Has he recreated universes for fun? That he has not done, a rather large plot point is the fact that his race is looking for a way to escape entropy.


Tossed stars around like they were juggling balls? Other such ridiculous feats are needed to be given even credence to possess solar system busting powers. [/quote] Yes, also that was the power of a minor cape earlier in the series.



And Omnipresence means nothing for reaction times, though it is certainly powerful, if it comes from a plane outside their perceptions, or too fast for them to react to (their other worldly senses seeing it, but their bodies unable to so much as fire a neuron.).

So I'll ask again, do any of them have FTL reaction feats?

To a degree yes, several of the powers people had, especially the Khepri combination of the final fight, were capable of reacting to attacks that moved at the speed of light. As someone who is very familiar with 40k i don't remember them having just a plethora of things that could move faster than light.

[Fan]

Yes, his races most basic power is the ability to step sideways into entire other possible universes making them moot.


Yes, at one point every singe cape, not only the ones in the dimension of the story but every other possible parallel universe in which capes existed at the same time while under the control of of aforementioned hive mind, while tanking everything else the universe has been described as doing. He wasn't sweating, but he was smiling like a child pulling the wings off of toys. His actual mass was so large it physically could not fit into a singe universe.

That he has not done, a rather large plot point is the fact that his race is looking for a way to escape entropy.
Other such ridiculous feats are needed to be given even credence to possess solar system busting powers. Yes, also that was the power of a minor cape earlier in the series.



To a degree yes, several of the powers people had, especially the Khepri combination of the final fight, were capable of reacting to attacks that moved at the speed of light. As someone who is very familiar with 40k i don't remember them having just a plethora of things that could move faster than light.[/QUOTE]


All of the Emperor's psychic attacks are Faster than Light by a multiple in the dozens.

As for the Scion, that his race couldn't escape entropy tells me that he's merely a godly entity rather than someone in possession of true omnipotence. Beating him by exploiting key weaknesses is now a non feat factor, because it's like The Saint of Killers killing God off his throne in Imageverse.

I'll require clarification on the stepping sideways thing though, is that an abuse of universal properties that stepping sideways into an universe renders it moot, or what?

Also does the universe guy create universes, or is it a choice thing like in quantum mechanics where he can see the results of two choices ahead of time (two alternate universes created by our choices.), and pick the best one from the pair?

Also details on the minor cape's powers would be needed as well. I'm talking full celestial bodies, not moving lights around in the sky because they can just be attributed to, well, making dot sized lights in the sky and moving them around, I can do this with a laser pointer.

[Landis963]

I'll require clarification on the stepping sideways thing though, is that an abuse of universal properties that stepping sideways into an universe renders it moot, or what?

It renders it moot at that moment because Scion is no longer there, or at least his puppet is no longer in that universe. He also used several alternate universes as energy for the shards, leaving behind a minimum of 8, IIRC, populated versions of Earth. There are also some versions that are barren, or have no self-aware life, but he "discarded" some of those through unclear means. Current fanon is that he used a variant on Coil's power (can make two choices at once, then collapse the universe where he made the wrong choice) to filter out the bad ones, whatever that means.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and whenever he and his counterpart have gotten everything they needed from a specific civilization, they blow up every version of that planet simultaneously and ride the blast to another, at which point the cycle repeats.


Also does the universe guy create universes, or is it a choice thing like in quantum mechanics where he can see the results of two choices ahead of time (two alternate universes created by our choices.), and pick the best one from the pair?

The latter. That's Coil.


Also details on the minor cape's powers would be needed as well. I'm talking full celestial bodies, not moving lights around in the sky because they can just be attributed to, well, making dot sized lights in the sky and moving them around, I can do this with a laser pointer.

IIRC, Sundancer can produce a fist-sized "sun" and move it around a battlefield telekinetically.

[Somebloke]

My joke aside, I would think that the Wormverse would be able to at least survive 40k- and, if they went all out, dramatically affect them. This is less an examination of powersets than it is an examination of themes.

One of the overarching themes in 40k is the sense of these overwhelmingly powerful entities who are held back by their very natures to become impotent and weakened. Pretty much every faction in 40k is hidebound by ancient tradition, insanely violent and addicted to infighting, mostly populated by brain-dead drones with no initiative, or the Tau. The central image of the series is the Emperor, with godlike powers and sweeping vision, rotting in a chair while his empire, like some powerful but clumsy beast, falls apart.

One of the overarching themes of the Wormverse is that even the most seemingly weak powers and people can, with intelligent use of powers and a creative spark, defeat seemingly impossible odds. This can be seen by Skitters initial fight with Lung- who would not be even remotely out of place in 40k, and capable of going toe-to-toe with an Endbringer- where she wins, and of course the later conflict with Scion, where clever use of powers and manipulation of the odds defeats a living god, who quite literally knows precisely how to win and can effect it with minimal effort.

In other words, the Wormverse is a place where impossible odds are often dealt with an beaten; it is an entire universe where evolution favours people who can metaphorically beat the Tomb of Horrors with a level 1 mage.

I can imagine Labrynth drawing the entire planet into another safe dimension, or Konsu drawing it into a time bubble to keep it safe, or Contessa leading Pancea to the golden throne to heal the Emperor.

Or maybe Taylor will come out of retirement, and then it's really time for 40k to worry.

The exact details aren't that important when you consider the overall traits of the worlds in question.

[The Glyphstone]

Which sort of makes the question 'whose themes trump'. The primary scenario is 40K invading the Wormverse, which is definitely pro-Wormverse. They're on their home ground both literally and thematically, outgunned and outnumbered, and their story is all about winning situations like that. But taking the offensive and counter-invading the 40Kverse sounds like it'd be a lot more dicey, since they are taking their themes of 'defeating impossible odds with intelligence and creativity' into a universe where the fundamental nature of narrative is dedicated to stomping all over such pathetic, naive idealism before feeding it the entrails of its loved ones.

[Somebloke]

I'm curious too. To be fair, Worm has had more than its share of grim dark- looking at you Glory Girl- - so they might be compatible on some level.

Also, I want to see a Hive Fleet Taylor in action.

[The Glyphstone]

Presumably that grimdark incident was overcome/defeated, though, since that is Wormverse's shtick - it's a caped hero setting, so the light has to return eventually however dark it gets beforehand (as Elan would say, that just makes the eventual victory of good more dramatic and uplifting).

40K, comparatively, is entirely founded on the idea that the best possible victory is one where you're left wondering if winning was worth the cost in the end. So the more optimistic and hopeful you are going in, the harder you're likely to get stomped down. It's why things like TTGL vs. 40K fail so spectacularly, because their core themes are so diametrically opposed that you can't pit them against each other without fundamentally betraying the spirit of one or the other.

[Fan]

It renders it moot at that moment because Scion is no longer there, or at least his puppet is no longer in that universe. He also used several alternate universes as energy for the shards, leaving behind a minimum of 8, IIRC, populated versions of Earth. There are also some versions that are barren, or have no self-aware life, but he "discarded" some of those through unclear means. Current fanon is that he used a variant on Coil's power (can make two choices at once, then collapse the universe where he made the wrong choice) to filter out the bad ones, whatever that means.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and whenever he and his counterpart have gotten everything they needed from a specific civilization, they blow up every version of that planet simultaneously and ride the blast to another, at which point the cycle repeats.



The latter. That's Coil.



IIRC, Sundancer can produce a fist-sized "sun" and move it around a battlefield telekinetically.

Yeah none of that is in any way comparable to the kind of feats I was talking about. He doesn't have the ability to totally create a new universe and kill everything in it, he has to get the energy from somewhere rather than produce it himself, and rendering it moot by not being there only seems to have it removed from his selected continuity. It's a technicality thing reliant on his universes mechanics (in the sense that it cannot exist without him.) that is being explicitly discarded for the purposes of this fight by his non presence. In the context of a versus argument, having the universe you created not exist only makes you as omnipotent as say, Sandman / Dream from the DC universe. Still incredible, but not true omnipotence. A true omnipotent could NOT be thrown for a loop.

While this means little in a story context, having to use other universes in this specific setting where they don't exist in the same fashion, if at all, is going to be difficult.

A fist sized sun is not a star sized sun. That's not juggling suns, that's fusion. Which, while FAR beyond anything we are capable of, is not exactly on the same level as annihilating a solar system in an instant measured in zeptoseconds.

[Landis963]

Presumably that grimdark incident was overcome/defeated, though, since that is Wormverse's shtick - it's a caped hero setting, so the light has to return eventually however dark it gets beforehand (as Elan would say, that just makes the eventual victory of good more dramatic and uplifting).


:smalleek: Let's just say that what happened was a best-case scenario, if irreversible.

At least she turned herself in before going full S-class.

[druid91]

Yeah none of that is in any way comparable to the kind of feats I was talking about. He doesn't have the ability to totally create a new universe and kill everything in it, he has to get the energy from somewhere rather than produce it himself, and rendering it moot by not being there only seems to have it removed from his selected continuity. It's a technicality thing reliant on his universes mechanics (in the sense that it cannot exist without him.) that is being explicitly discarded for the purposes of this fight by his non presence. In the context of a versus argument, having the universe you created not exist only makes you as omnipotent as say, Sandman / Dream from the DC universe. Still incredible, but not true omnipotence. A true omnipotent could NOT be thrown for a loop.

While this means little in a story context, having to use other universes in this specific setting where they don't exist in the same fashion, if at all, is going to be difficult.

A fist sized sun is not a star sized sun. That's not juggling suns, that's fusion. Which, while FAR beyond anything we are capable of, is not exactly on the same level as annihilating a solar system in an instant measured in zeptoseconds.

The girl with the fist sized sun could make it as large as she wanted. She's just a pacifist and hates hurting people.

[Fan]

The girl with the fist sized sun could make it as large as she wanted. She's just a pacifist and hates hurting people.

Has she ever made it bigger, or just said as much?

Assuming she can make it as large as she wants is a no limits fallacy without any sort of connotation that her words have meaning, (IE. Scion saying that she could, given his status as the creator of said power.)

[druid91]

Has she ever made it bigger, or just said as much?

Assuming she can make it as large as she wants is a no limits fallacy without any sort of connotation that her words have meaning, (IE. Scion saying that she could, given his status as the creator of said power.)

Yes. She's made it bigger on a few occasions.

[Fan]

Yes. She's made it bigger on a few occasions.

How much bigger? What's the biggest she's ever made it?

Has it become the size of a planet, bigger, did it require her to maintain stationary, or require a build up time of concentrated focus?

These things are important.

[druid91]

How much bigger? What's the biggest she's ever made it?

Has it become the size of a planet, bigger, did it require her to maintain stationary, or require a build up time of concentrated focus?

These things are important.

No, because there's never been need for anything that large. You're making the mistake that just because they never put it to use for a certain task, it can't be used for that task. Yes to concentration, no to staying stationary.

There are a lot of small-time powers that have limits like what you're looking for. The undersiders are some of these, but then you get into the ones that quite simply don't have limits. Lung, Vista(Sorta, she's limited by the manton effect but that's it.), Eidolon, The thing is that frequently when you talk about the more powerful capes, it's acknowledge that they simply haven't found an upper limit to their power.

[The Glyphstone]

No, because there's never been need for anything that large. You're making the mistake that just because they never put it to use for a certain task, it can't be used for that task. Yes to concentration, no to staying stationary.

There are a lot of small-time powers that have limits like what you're looking for. The undersiders are some of these, but then you get into the ones that quite simply don't have limits. Lung, Vista(Sorta, she's limited by the manton effect but that's it.), Eidolon, The thing is that frequently when you talk about the more powerful capes, it's acknowledge that they simply haven't found an upper limit to their power.

It matters to Fan, unfortunately. His method of versus challenges treats the most powerful/highest canonically observed expression of a power/technology as its literal upper limit, regardless of in-text/comic supposition that there is a limit they haven't reached yet (the 'No Limits Fallacy' he's referring to).

[Fan]

It matters to Fan, unfortunately. His method of versus challenges treats the most powerful/highest canonically observed expression of a power/technology as its literal upper limit, regardless of in-text/comic supposition that there is a limit they haven't reached yet (the 'No Limits Fallacy' he's referring to).

It's more that you're saying it can be infinitely large when she hasn't demonstrated anything within even a thousandth of the size that was claimed.

This isn't me being hyper specific, the claim was not only not even in the ballpark, but it wasn't even within several stellar masses.

This would be like me attributing pre crisis superman feats to animated superman. It's just not correct.

[Landis963]

How much bigger? What's the biggest she's ever made it?

Has it become the size of a planet, bigger, did it require her to maintain stationary, or require a build up time of concentrated focus?

These things are important.

I think she increased it to beach ball sized, without apparent effort, when mercy-killing a friend of hers (who had turned into a half-crazed gluttonous monster). Well, no effort in terms of power. There was a lot of mental anguish, I'm fairly certain. I think that's the biggest we've seen it in canon, unless Khepri induced her to make it larger and I'm forgetting. That fight wad a bit of a blur, to be honest.

EDIT: with regard to why I keep mentioning Doormaker: the trick I refer to as "dimensional cheesewire" is basically scissoring a portal (can be as large as a bay window, if not larger) open and closed until an invading force is so much mincemeat. I don't care how tough you are, a portal to the ceiling that closes while you're halfway through it will bisect you. Mainly for the fact that your legs are now falling from the ceiling.

[Fan]

I think she increased it to beach ball sized, without apparent effort, when mercy-killing a friend of hers (who had turned into a half-crazed gluttonous monster). Well, no effort in terms of power. There was a lot of mental anguish, I'm fairly certain. I think that's the biggest we've seen it in canon, unless Khepri induced her to make it larger and I'm forgetting. That fight wad a bit of a blur, to be honest.

EDIT: with regard to why I keep mentioning Doormaker: the trick I refer to as "dimensional cheesewire" is basically scissoring a portal (can be as large as a bay window, if not larger) open and closed until an invading force is so much mincemeat. I don't care how tough you are, a portal to the ceiling that closes while you're halfway through it will bisect you. Mainly for the fact that your legs are now falling from the ceiling.

Unless you have techniques that allow you to move between dimensions, or teleportation, or are just fast enough to dodge the dimensional cheesewire.

Great for Imperial guard, and for most of the grunts which were always going to be a non factor against the capes anyways, but nothing against the Chaos Gods, The GEoM, or The Necrons at all. Hell even terminator squads with teleporters will be fine.

[Landis963]

Unless you have techniques that allow you to move between dimensions, or teleportation, or are just fast enough to dodge the dimensional cheesewire.

Great for Imperial guard, and for most of the grunts which were always going to be a non factor against the capes anyways, but nothing against the Chaos Gods, The GEoM, or The Necrons at all. Hell even terminator squads with teleporters will be fine.

I was mainly thinking it would be an anti-Tyranid strategy, but for anyone else with enough ability and presence of mind to keep dodging it, it'd only work once.

And weren't we segregating Chaos from this discussion?

[The Glyphstone]

Unless you have techniques that allow you to move between dimensions, or teleportation, or are just fast enough to dodge the dimensional cheesewire.

Great for Imperial guard, and for most of the grunts which were always going to be a non factor against the capes anyways, but nothing against the Chaos Gods, The GEoM, or The Necrons at all. Hell even terminator squads with teleporters will be fine.

Let's be fair, Fan...unless this is happening pre-Heresy, the only one on that list who's going to be a player is the Necrons (and the Terminators). The Emperor has done nothing provably offensively since he ascended to the Throne (there are beneficial warp phenomena Imperial creed attributes to him, but they attribute everything beneficial to him). The Chaos Gods have never acted physically outside the Warp, even pre-Heresy they required a (semi)mortal host to embody their power.

[Fan]

Let's be fair, Fan...unless this is happening pre-Heresy, the only one on that list who's going to be a player is the Necrons (and the Terminators). The Emperor has done nothing provably offensively since he ascended to the Throne (there are beneficial warp phenomena Imperial creed attributes to him, but they attribute everything beneficial to him). The Chaos Gods have never acted physically outside the Warp, even pre-Heresy they required a (semi)mortal host to embody their power.

Chaos acts all the time outside the warp, a lot of warp powers are attributed to them, and warp storms / planets being absorbed into the warp are almost solely their domain.

I was also assuming peak 40k, if the Emperor and Primarchs are a part of this they win.

If it's post heresy and the people aren't taken from their best periods? They win, but then I feel you're not giving the 40k setting it's peak benefits.

[Murska]

I don't think anyone ever said peak 40k though.

Anyway, I feel that if we have the Chaos Gods and the Emperor join in, then we'll also have to have the entirety of Scion's species on Wormverse's side.

That's an unspecified but extremely large amount of creatures just as godlike as Scion is but smarter and without the mental anguish of having been separated from his partner.

[Madwand]

Well, Wormverse at it's peak power has Echidna.:smalltongue:

She was able to produce hundreds of clone-capes in few hours. Capes like Alexandria (female superman expy, but smarter).

Yeah. Instant, unblockable teleport and army of soldiers, which are capable to individually duel Primarchs.

I am going to say what clone army of tinkers could menage. Building atomic bombs from scraps is one thing. Special mention goes to Armsmaster for portable " psychic and empathic shielding" to block all psykers powers.

[Forum Explorer]

Well, Wormverse at it's peak power has Echidna.:smalltongue:

She was able to produce hundreds of clone-capes in few hours. Capes like Alexandria (female superman expy, but smarter).

Yeah. Instant, unblockable teleport and army of soldiers, which are capable to individually duel Primarchs.

I am going to say what clone army of tinkers could menage. Building atomic bombs from scraps is one thing. Special mention goes to Armsmaster for portable " psychic and empathic shielding" to block all psykers powers.

No they don't. This isn't every character in Worm is somehow alive but rather at the moment Worm is at it's strongest it's put into the 40K universe.

[Landis963]

No they don't. This isn't every character in Worm is somehow alive but rather at the moment Worm is at it's strongest it's put into the 40K universe.

When exactly is that? The height of the Scion War? During the march of the Slaughterhouse 9000? The glory days of the Protectorate? The problem with the "Peak" label is that you can call different times peak for different reasons. Also characters die, and they didn't have a prayer of coming back the same a la Marvel or DC until Glaistig Uaine figured out how to put her ghosts into Nilbog's bodies. Which is another candidate for "peak"ness: the aftermath of the story. The same problem pops up with 40k: when exactly from their perspective is this copy of Earth with humans with very specific powers popping up?

[Forum Explorer]

When exactly is that? The height of the Scion War? During the march of the Slaughterhouse 9000? The glory days of the Protectorate? The problem with the "Peak" label is that you can call different times peak for different reasons. Also characters die, and they didn't have a prayer of coming back the same a la Marvel or DC until Glaistig Uaine figured out how to put her ghosts into Nilbog's bodies. Which is another candidate for "peak"ness: the aftermath of the story. The same problem pops up with 40k: when exactly from their perspective is this copy of Earth with humans with very specific powers popping up?

Well it certainly wasn't when Enchinda was around. :smallwink:

I'd say when everyone was unified and controlled under Kherpi. Of course that only lasted a dozen hours. Or perhaps right before the first fight with Scion.

[Fan]

Well, Wormverse at it's peak power has Echidna.:smalltongue:

She was able to produce hundreds of clone-capes in few hours. Capes like Alexandria (female superman expy, but smarter).

Yeah. Instant, unblockable teleport and army of soldiers, which are capable to individually duel Primarchs.

I am going to say what clone army of tinkers could menage. Building atomic bombs from scraps is one thing. Special mention goes to Armsmaster for portable " psychic and empathic shielding" to block all psykers powers.

1. Unless Alexandria is also a super scientist with a genius IQ, and a technical mind that outdoes batman's when it comes to science and engineering. I'll have to disagree on the smarter angle. If it's a fights smarter type of thing, please read World of New Krypton where he demonstrates his knowledge of super speed pressure point combat.

2. Superman expy doesn't mean Superman level. I'll have to ask for feats.

3. Did Armsmaster actually create the shield, and did it ever break, and who is the strongest psychic it was designed to face?

[Landis963]

1. Unless Alexandria is also a super scientist with a genius IQ, and a technical mind that outdoes batman's when it comes to science and engineering. I'll have to disagree on the smarter angle. If it's a fights smarter type of thing, please read World of New Krypton where he demonstrates his knowledge of super speed pressure point combat.

Alexandria remembers everything she's ever learned, and her shard helps with the applications. I'd say she does outdo Batman. However, she does have a problem when working from incomplete information, a problem Batman never seems to run into.


2. Superman expy doesn't mean Superman level. I'll have to ask for feats.

She had Scion's body, but without the regeneration. She could fly, and do the strength-based powers, but no heat vision or stupid things like that. And I'd say she's more the Wonder Woman. Legend is more of a Superman expy, but only in terms of character.


3. Did Armsmaster actually create the shield, and did it ever break, and who is the strongest psychic it was designed to face?

He did, but we don't know its efficacy because the "strongest psychic" it was stated to have been designed to face was Tattletale, who does not in fact have telepathy (but likes to pretend such to freak out opponents).

EDIT: And the only available "capes" who could possibly test it are Tattletale (see above) and the Simurgh (the Greater Demon of Tzeentch by your calculation). Telepathy isn't exactly a common power in the Wormverse.

[Fan]

Alexandria remembers everything she's ever learned, and her shard helps with the applications. I'd say she does outdo Batman. However, she does have a problem when working from incomplete information, a problem Batman never seems to run into.



She had Scion's body, but without the regeneration. She could fly, and do the strength-based powers, but no heat vision or stupid things like that. And I'd say she's more the Wonder Woman. Legend is more of a Superman expy, but only in terms of character.



He did, but we don't know its efficacy because the "strongest psychic" it was stated to have been designed to face was Tattletale, who does not in fact have telepathy (but likes to pretend such to freak out opponents).

EDIT: And the only available "capes" who could possibly test it are Tattletale (see above) and the Simurgh (the Greater Demon of Tzeentch by your calculation). Telepathy isn't exactly a common power in the Wormverse.

Having a photographic memory and a computer to do the leg work for you doesn't make your smarter than a guy who also has a photographic memory and has designed super robots with true AI and individual identities, as well as several variations on gravity and time base weaponry, and who also knows enough about the universe to be able to repair holes in reality without tools, or heat vision.

Also, heat vision is amazing and is not stupid. There's so much that's been done with it that's great.


Also, how strong a psychic is tattletale? Is he able to crush mountains with his mind? Can he move stars with concentrated focus?

[Qwertystop]

EDIT: And the only available "capes" who could possibly test it are Tattletale (see above) and the Simurgh (the Greater Demon of Tzeentch by your calculation). Telepathy isn't exactly a common power in the Wormverse.

Possibly Khepri - can't remember if Armsmaster was still using the shield by the time she showed up.

So yeah, all we have to go on for its strength is that Armsmaster, whose power basically comes down to "super-genius inventor with a specialty" like all Tinkers (his specialty is irrelevant here, but it's miniaturization beyond what should be possible), felt it was strong enough.

[Fan]

Possibly Khepri - can't remember if Armsmaster was still using the shield by the time she showed up.

So yeah, all we have to go on for its strength is that Armsmaster, whose power basically comes down to "super-genius inventor with a specialty" like all Tinkers (his specialty is irrelevant here, but it's miniaturization beyond what should be possible), felt it was strong enough.

Felt it was strong enough doesn't mean anything when I haven't seen so much as a single stellar feat from any of the capes present here.

GEoM solos sans Scion unless someone can show me a solidly solar system level feat from one of the non scion capes.

[Landis963]

Having a photographic memory and a computer to do the leg work for you doesn't make your smarter than a guy who also has a photographic memory and has designed super robots with true AI and individual identities, as well as several variations on gravity and time base weaponry, and who also knows enough about the universe to be able to repair holes in reality without tools, or heat vision.

Wait, Batman can do all that? That's astounding.


Also, heat vision is amazing and is not stupid. There's so much that's been done with it that's great.

Conceded, but I was referring mainly to the various silver age early movie a**pull powers such as turning back time and that stupid tear-off S-shield thing.


Also, how strong a psychic is tattletale? Is he able to crush mountains with his mind? Can he move stars with concentrated focus?

She can read your body language and figure out your PIN number. She can figure out your secrets from how you react to her needling. She can't do much in terms of physical psychic power. Actually she can't do anything in terms of physical psychic power. (Which feels odd to type, but there you are) The telepathy thing is a bluff, a smokescreen for her real power.

Another cape on her team, Grue, does the same trick, putting "Darkness generation" on his Parahumans Online wiki page while failing to mention the fact that his darkness deadens all the senses and, after his second trigger, can copy powers of capes caught in it. But he's not important to the current discussion so we can leave him aside.

[Landis963]

GEoM solos sans Scion unless someone can show me a solidly solar system level feat from one of the non scion capes.

Since the cape who skeletonized Behemoth is dead by the time we're talking about, I think Wormverse doesn't have any of those. However, we are still assuming that the GEoM gets up out of his chair. Isn't he on life support or something?

[Fan]

Since the cape who skeletonized Behemoth is dead by the time we're talking about, I think Wormverse doesn't have any of those. However, we are still assuming that the GEoM gets up out of his chair. Isn't he on life support or something?

Peak 40k is Pre Horus Heresy. This is the entire setting allied, and that means the GEoM has access to Pancea from the Dark Eldar and is able to get up out of his chair even if it isn't Pre Heresy Era Imperium of Man.

It also means that Imperium's famously inadequate paper trail is cut short by everyone bowing knee to The God Emperor.

[Guancyto]

If we want to even touch the God-Emperor or the Chaos Gods in this discussion, peak Wormverse was when Scion was lost on what to do and busy fighting for the good guys. Scion is at minimum a godlike being with honest-to-Scion universe manipulation powers, almost complete mastery over the laws of physics (no solution to entropy just yet, but they're working on it) and among others the psychic ability to divine how to win any confrontation, ever, even over comparable precogs.

And then it just becomes a giant wanking contest of whose god's vague semi-omnipotence can outdick whose god's vague semi-omnipotence. So let's not do that.

[Fan]

If we want to even touch the God-Emperor or the Chaos Gods in this discussion, peak Wormverse was when Scion was lost on what to do and busy fighting for the good guys. Scion is at minimum a godlike being with honest-to-Scion universe manipulation powers, almost complete mastery over the laws of physics (no solution to entropy just yet) and among others the psychic ability to divine how to win any confrontation, ever, even over comparable precogs.

And then it just becomes a giant wanking contest of whose god can outdick whose god. So let's not do that.

Nah if Scion's involved he can just dust 40k. No contest.

However this thread is EXPLICITLY DENYING SCION in the opening post, so Worm verse gets solo'd before they're able to get through the dimension portal, or the portal is even able to be made.

[Guancyto]

Thank you for summarizing the two very least interesting iterations of the conflict.

Can we also rule out the other godlike beings for the same reason?

[Fan]

Thank you for summarizing the two very least interesting iterations of the conflict.

Can we also rule out the other godlike beings for the same reason?

It's also not interesting if the GEoM and Primarch's, Chaos Gods, and C'Tan aren't involved because then it becomes a contest of dimension hopping and then just winning by default because 40k can't do anything about it.

Also hilariously not interesting at all.

[Forum Explorer]

Since the cape who skeletonized Behemoth is dead by the time we're talking about, I think Wormverse doesn't have any of those. However, we are still assuming that the GEoM gets up out of his chair. Isn't he on life support or something?

The GEoM isn't involved in this, because yeah he's kinda sorta dead. Dead but not quite dead to quote the Princess Bride. Some art pieces actually show him to be a skeleton on the throne. So when someone calls him the Corpse God, they are being more then a little literal.

He does occasionally act, though it's rare and possibly deniable. The only way I could see him acting in this scenario is if one of his Saints ended up on the scene, or Worm was dumb enough to put a portal directly into his throne room.


Fan, you should likely just talk about what a normal Alpha plus psyker could do. That'd be more then sufficient for this fight.

[Fan]

The GEoM isn't involved in this, because yeah he's kinda sorta dead. Dead but not quite dead to quote the Princess Bride. Some art pieces actually show him to be a skeleton on the throne. So when someone calls him the Corpse God, they are being more then a little literal.

He does occasionally act, though it's rare and possibly deniable. The only way I could see him acting in this scenario is if one of his Saints ended up on the scene, or Worm was dumb enough to put a portal directly into his throne room.


Fan, you should likely just talk about what a normal Alpha plus psyker could do. That'd be more then sufficient for this fight.

Normal Alpha Plus Psykers are solar system level telepaths, with mountain level destruction feats, and the ability to summon daemon armies with also mountain level destruction feats individually.

If worm verse can beat those, which it sounds like they can, they win. Especially given their pre cog prevents the answer of Chaos shunting the planet into the warp, and it also prevents gauss bombardment from the true FTL no warp needed Necro warships, and allows them to dodge tyranid swarming them down.

I guess Chaos could gradually corrupt worm verse into servants provided Armsmaster doesn't just come in throwing middle fingers at all the daemonettes throwing shields out left and right like a guy tossing candy from a parade float, but otherwise 40k's peak before it's absolute top is pretty mundane by superhero standards.

[druid91]

Alexandria remembers everything she's ever learned, and her shard helps with the applications. I'd say she does outdo Batman. However, she does have a problem when working from incomplete information, a problem Batman never seems to run into.



She had Scion's body, but without the regeneration. She could fly, and do the strength-based powers, but no heat vision or stupid things like that. And I'd say she's more the Wonder Woman. Legend is more of a Superman expy, but only in terms of character.



He did, but we don't know its efficacy because the "strongest psychic" it was stated to have been designed to face was Tattletale, who does not in fact have telepathy (but likes to pretend such to freak out opponents).

EDIT: And the only available "capes" who could possibly test it are Tattletale (see above) and the Simurgh (the Greater Demon of Tzeentch by your calculation). Telepathy isn't exactly a common power in the Wormverse.

Also, Cherish, Regent, and the rest of the Heartbreaker clan.

[Dinvan]

It's also not interesting if the GEoM and Primarch's, Chaos Gods, and C'Tan aren't involved because then it becomes a contest of dimension hopping and then just winning by default because 40k can't do anything about it.

Also hilariously not interesting at all.

Not true, Eldar and Necrons (More necrons) are proficient with portal and dimension technology.

I mean, the Necrons store their C'tan in a pocket dimension.

[Lamech]

The only psychic the shielding ever faced was Regent. I do believe he was able to poke an Endbringer with his power. (Leviathan, and I doubt actually affected the core. And I might be totally misremembering.) If I did remember correctly, I would guess he's well below the more powerful psykers.

[Forum Explorer]

The only psychic the shielding ever faced was Regent. I do believe he was able to poke an Endbringer with his power. (Leviathan, and I doubt actually affected the core. And I might be totally misremembering.) If I did remember correctly, I would guess he's well below the more powerful psykers.

I don't think he did actually. He mentioned thinking that if he tried he'd likely just instantly burnout instead.

[Fan]

Not true, Eldar and Necrons (More necrons) are proficient with portal and dimension technology.

I mean, the Necrons store their C'tan in a pocket dimension.

Not nearly as proficient, and the labyrinth that the Necrons store them in is specifically a dimension that the c'tan specifically can't break out of.

Webway is something Eldar have lost the art of, unless we're using Pre Fall Eldar.

[Landis963]

It's also not interesting if the GEoM and Primarch's, Chaos Gods, and C'Tan aren't involved because then it becomes a contest of dimension hopping and then just winning by default because 40k can't do anything about it.

Also hilariously not interesting at all.

I'm sensing a double standard here. "If Wormverse's God-tier heavy hitter's around, then it's not interesting. If 40kverse's God-tier heavy hitters are around, it's very interesting."

[Axiomatic]

Step one: Put Skitter on the same continent as a Tyranid Synapse Creature.

Step two: Never, ever stop laughing ever again.

[Dinvan]

Not nearly as proficient, and the labyrinth that the Necrons store them in is specifically a dimension that the c'tan specifically can't break out of.

Webway is something Eldar have lost the art of, unless we're using Pre Fall Eldar.

I'll concede that point but I would argue that the Necrons could possibly create new technology to bridge the gap. They are after all supposed to be continually advancing their technology in the same way the Tyranids continually advance their genetic superiority.

Another point I would make in favour of the 40k universe is that if the hive fleet got their hands on the gentics for the comic book hero power level types from the worm verse they could well possibly become god like in their own right.

Of course, all hypothetical arguments on my part but I assume that we are all basing on arguments in part on hypotheticals based upon the the lore from the codex's/wormverse website.

Quoted from the Wiki
"Norn-Queens are gargantuan organisms that are essentially biomechanical wombs that give birth to all of the other known Tyranid life forms. They can biochemically and genetically manipulate biomass in infinite ways to create new organisms to serve any function the Tyranid race requires. The Norn Queens are housed in huge rooms aboard the Hive Ships. Each room is hundreds of metres high, filled with a single Norn Queen."

Theoretically, any threat the wormverse poses to the tyranids could very well be undone by the queen creating nids specifically counter said threat, including their super psychics and superman like (although I imagine not quite as powerful as superman) capes.

Seeing the future is one thing, being able to muster the forces necessary to counter them is another. If your enemy is near numberless and can create new creatures with the sole function of countering your biggest and best toys...well...you can see where I am going with this. Its the whole reason the nids are pretty much pushing every one back in the 40k universe bar Necrons (due to them having no biomass to consume).

Again, I understand how powerful wormverse is. It really does have comic book hero strength guys there who can inflict some serious carnage. But then again so does 40k who also have a vast technology advantage and far more numbers.

If wormverse wasn't in such a sorry state I am sure they could muster the forces needed to not only survive but actually push back any 40k invasion but as it stands sheer numbers alone would be enough I think.

There are also the god like and actual god beings (of course only seen as avatars outside the warp) in the 40k universe that make this Vs a bit one sided. The combined forces of the 40k universe are just staggering in number. Trillions upon trillions.

I am actually starting to think the wormverse could actually make a good army to fit into 40k though :D now that would be awesome. Capes as HQ choices :D Yes please.

[Somebloke]

Divan, not to nitpick (too much) but genetics aren't a factor for superpowers in the wormverse- the powers originate from extra-dimensional parasites/symbiotes that go after specific (human) hosts.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, there's a possible counter for every tyranid in existence- her name is Taylor, who is able to assume total control of any bug. With the right tweaks from Pancea (able to utterly alter a creature's physical and mental traits), she could theoretically overrule a hive mind and dominate an entire hive fleet.

Anyway.

I think this discussion has lead to the following conclusion- the Wormverse would be able to survive 40k, if not dominate it- they have several 'breaker' capes that are able to supersede the normal limits of the 40k world (one character, for example, can create ammunition specifically capable of killing gods; another can see everything and anything in the universe; a third can open a portal to anywhere the second one can see) and the ability to escape to alternate Earths, while 40k has the sheer quantity that would make any victory from the Wormverse meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

So the end result- a tie of sorts. Wormverse Earth endures, but so does the Imperium, barring intervention from Scion/the Emperor/the Chaos Gods (any one of which throws any bets out the window).

[The Glyphstone]

There isn't such thing as 'a' Hive mind....The Hive Mind is the single overriding intelligence of the entire Tyranid species. For that matter, they're not really 'bugs' to begin with, at least in the sense of having anything in common with insects, arachnids, or arthropods - so 'controls bugs' isn't going to help much.

If that is solved (by this Panacea...all she could really do is disruption - the Hive Mind itself is distributed across all Tyranids, so possessing/controlling one organism would give her a pet, but wouldn't let her control anything else. Controlling a synapse creature (subnode that relays the Hive Mind's commands) would send all the organisms under its control into their feral instinctive behavior, but nothing beyond that.

Your general assessment, though, is accurate. As long as Wormverse is on the defensive, they've got their capes and supers with unique powers, their super-precog can manage the limited future timelines enough to keep a handle on stuff, and they can always run away to other universes. They don't have the numbers or power to take on 40K offensively, though, so the best outcome is a stalemate.

[Qwertystop]

Divan, not to nitpick (too much) but genetics aren't a factor for superpowers in the wormverse- the powers originate from extra-dimensional parasites/symbiotes that go after specific (human) hosts.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, there's a possible counter for every tyranid in existence- her name is Taylor, who is able to assume total control of any bug. With the right tweaks from Pancea (able to utterly alter a creature's physical and mental traits), she could theoretically overrule a hive mind and dominate an entire hive fleet.

Anyway.

I think this discussion has lead to the following conclusion- the Wormverse would be able to survive 40k, if not dominate it- they have several 'breaker' capes that are able to supersede the normal limits of the 40k world (one character, for example, can create ammunition specifically capable of killing gods; another can see everything and anything in the universe; a third can open a portal to anywhere the second one can see) and the ability to escape to alternate Earths, while 40k has the sheer quantity that would make any victory from the Wormverse meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

So the end result- a tie of sorts. Wormverse Earth endures, but so does the Imperium, barring intervention from Scion/the Emperor/the Chaos Gods (any one of which throws any bets out the window).

Preemptive clarifications: the power that "creates ammunition" allows objects held (and then used as ammunition, generally) to temporarily break the laws of physics in specified ways. The way referred to as "capable of killing gods" is that it phases through things until the power wears off, then abruptly stops doing so, fusing to whatever it's touching and destroying what it overlaps. This was capable of severely hurting (theoretically killing if it had been stuck for longer) Scion in that his near-invulnerability comes from a massive amount of matter stored in several other dimensions, used to instantly replace anything lost to wounds (he's made of undifferentiated matter, no organs - a wound just takes a chunk out of him). Since the shot would remain lodged in him, it would continue destroying him as fast as he replaces it, and he can't turn the replacement off. It wouldn't be as lethal to most beings, since usually the net result would just be having a bit of metal that is permanently fused to the body - lethal if it overlapped a vital part, but if it didn't, it wouldn't cause continuing damage like that.

Another clarification: The portal-guy and the clairvoyant aren't specifically linked - the CV gives the same perception to anyone she's touching, so the two work well together.

Third clarification: Taylor controls insects, but is out of commission by the end of the story, so it depends on what we qualify as "peak," as mentioned by others. Panacea modifies physiology, including brains, but as far as modifying powers, all she's known to do is remove limiters (in this case, replace "insects" with "all actions of anything with a mind").

[Lamech]

the power that "creates ammunition" allows objects held (and then used as ammunition, generally) to temporarily break the laws of physics in specified ways. The way referred to as "capable of killing gods" is that it phases through things until the power wears off, then abruptly stops doing so, fusing to whatever it's touching and destroying what it overlaps. This was capable of severely hurting (theoretically killing if it had been stuck for longer) Scion in that his near-invulnerability comes from a massive amount of matter stored in several other dimensions, used to instantly replace anything lost to wounds (he's made of undifferentiated matter, no organs - a wound just takes a chunk out of him). Since the shot would remain lodged in him, it would continue destroying him as fast as he replaces it, and he can't turn the replacement off. It wouldn't be as lethal to most beings, since usually the net result would just be having a bit of metal that is permanently fused to the body - lethal if it overlapped a vital part, but if it didn't, it wouldn't cause continuing damage like that.

No. Foils power is far more than simply traveling through and fusing. Its actually a weapon against the Worms. Created waaayyyy back before they developed spaceflight. Its also capable of severing people from their agents. In Scions case he wasn't killed by his regeneration being screwed up, hell the Siberian could do that. Foil kept Scion from being contained. It opened up the real body to attack. Then he got blasted by a super tinker weapon, which finally killed him.

[Qwertystop]

No. Foils power is far more than simply traveling through and fusing. Its actually a weapon against the Worms. Created waaayyyy back before they developed spaceflight. Its also capable of severing people from their agents. In Scions case he wasn't killed by his regeneration being screwed up, hell the Siberian could do that. Foil kept Scion from being contained. It opened up the real body to attack. Then he got blasted by a super tinker weapon, which finally killed him.

Oh, right. Got that mixed up. Don't think it says anywhere that it was developed specifically as a weapon against the Worms, though, except insofar as all of the powers were. I don't remember anything about severing people from agents, either. Source? It just made the link for the weapon to shoot through.

[Forum Explorer]

Step one: Put Skitter on the same continent as a Tyranid Synapse Creature.

Step two: Never, ever stop laughing ever again.

That would do nothing except getting Skitter eaten. Tyranid's are not bugs in any meaningful sense, and it's not like she could control things like rats.

Even in Khepri form, her control was limited. She basically added humans to the list (and theoretically only humans with powers. We never see her attempt to take control of a normal human) and still had bugs. But that was all.

[Landis963]

That would do nothing except getting Skitter eaten. Tyranid's are not bugs in any meaningful sense, and it's not like she could control things like rats.

Even in Khepri form, her control was limited. She basically added humans to the list (and theoretically only humans with powers. We never see her attempt to take control of a normal human) and still had bugs. But that was all.

I'm fairly certain she grabbed a handful of non-capes during her assimilation of the Yangban, but frankly she wasn't interested in them. And something tells me the jailbroken admin shard could do a lot more than just control humans and bugs.

[Landis963]

Oh, right. Got that mixed up. Don't think it says anywhere that it was developed specifically as a weapon against the Worms, though, except insofar as all of the powers were. I don't remember anything about severing people from agents, either. Source? It just made the link for the weapon to shoot through.

Scion mentioned that Foil "severed the connection" between the Grey Boy clone and his shard, during his interlude. I just assumed that was a normal thing for the shard to do upon the host's death.

[Murska]

Skitter was never limited to bugs only. It was not exactly defined, but sufficiently simple creatures. I don't know if ordinary Tyranids might or might not qualify.

[oblivion6]

Skitter was never limited to bugs only. It was not exactly defined, but sufficiently simple creatures. I don't know if ordinary Tyranids might or might not qualify.

Correct. We see her control a crab early on - she herself thinks all it takes is a simple enough mind. I can't comment on Tyranids either.

[The Glyphstone]

Correct. We see her control a crab early on - she herself thinks all it takes is a simple enough mind. I can't comment on Tyranids either.

That might give her baseline combat organisms - Termagaunts, Hormagaunts, or Rippers. They are very simple-minded and animalistic in the absence of direct commands from a Synapse creature.

[Forum Explorer]

I'm fairly certain she grabbed a handful of non-capes during her assimilation of the Yangban, but frankly she wasn't interested in them. And something tells me the jailbroken admin shard could do a lot more than just control humans and bugs.

I don't think it says one way or the other. The reason I think it's powers only because it makes sense in her role as the Administrator Queen of powers.

Regardless I don't know why you'd think alien creatures would fall under her control when more normal ones didn't.

Anyways she only lasted a very short time in jailbroken mode. She couldn't do a significant amount of damage in that time, even assuming that her control would be greater then the Hive Mind's control.


Skitter was never limited to bugs only. It was not exactly defined, but sufficiently simple creatures. I don't know if ordinary Tyranids might or might not qualify.

Synapse Creatures are pretty intelligent, the others are much more animalistic, but more along the level of mammals like rats for instance.

[Dinvan]

I notice you said that the powers came from creatures of extra dimensional origin(which I think you imply cannot have their genetics stolen)? So what's to stop the hive queen from simply creating a new nid to counter them?

Also, are the capes invulnerable? Necron weapons and I once again quote the wiki (which comes from the codex's)
"A Gauss Flayer is a type of Necron Gauss Weapon that can strip a target down to nothing molecule by molecule, reducing it to its constituent atoms in a matter of seconds. Gauss Flayers are rifle-like weapons consisting of a stock, a transparent tube containing the unholy and unknown viridian energy the weapon fires, and sometimes an axe-like bayonet underneath the circular muzzle."

Thats the weapon of a standard Necron troop, as I am sure you could imagine, as we go up the ranks all the way to the "Special" characters the weapons become a littlr more broken than this, not to mention the monoliths and doomsday arks or ascended c'tan/c'tan shards.

Check out the Warscyth
"A Warscythe is an energy-bladed battle stave commonly found in the armouries of Necron royals. The Warscythe has served as a traditional weapon of the Necron nobility and their elite bodyguards for many thousands of Terran years. Warscythes are made from the same living metal as that which makes up all Necron bodies and vehicles -- Necrodermis. Warscythes are also fitted with a Phase Blades whose edge is out of phase with the normal space-time continuum and thus can slip effortlessly through even the heaviest forms of armour. Because of the partially incorporeal nature of these blades, a Warscythe is capable of passing through defensive energy shields, such as those emitted by an Iron Halo, that would normally deflect almost any other form of attack. The blade's power field also grows in strength and magnitude to match whatever force is brought to bear upon it, making the Warscythe, for all intents and purposes, indestructible."

These are usually equipped to elite guards and HQ choice characters (Necron lords ect)

My point being, unless capes are completely invulnerable to harm necron ranged and close combat weapons will tear through them.

So in my mind, we have necrons with over powered weapons (lore wise) and nids with the ability to not only steal any useful genetic information (I will count out them capturing a capes power) but also the ability to create creatures specifically designed to counter threats.

I've dropped the Chaos angle as I still believe the greater daemon/avatars could easily wipe out or subvert most of the worm verse thus allowing the rest of 40k to finish them off at their leisure.

Also this whole thing with wormverse running and being able to hide for enough time for the 40k to give up is a little...silly. If there is a time limit on this scenario I would agree but as it stands I fully believe the 40k universe are able to either create or capture technology that would eventually allow them to follow(Unless, as said, we are talking time limits).

The thing is about 40k, its had so many writers it suffers almost from what comic books do in that there are so many plot-kai's that there is very little that couldn't be pulled from a codex or from the books in the black library.

As I have already said, worm verse is indeed powerful but it would be only the equivalent of say one or two 40k armies and not the entire 40k universe.

Again, I have to side with 40k on this. Numbers (limitless almost) + technology (necron superiority) + Space magic(Pyskers, daemons, c'tan, ect).

And I haven't even started to touch on the Titans and their equivalents in various armies.

Just to clarify once again, I really do see how much power the wormverse has and it is vast and easily a match for any single 40k race (counting out the big 3) if not at least able to survive. But the entire 40k verse brings with it so many different aspects that it is simply far too powerful.


Its simply infighting that stops any one 40k race from defeating the rest, you get them all fighting a single enemy and all of a sudden you have an unstoppable force AND an immovable object.

EDIT: I didn't address the whole thing of nids being mind controlled because its all ready been covered above.

Second EDIT: Necron technology (including troops) phase out back for repair or disposal in the event of defeat, as such their advanced tech remains elusive from the other races.

[Grek]

Two important things to keep in mind are:

A] 40kverse factions do not team up unless it makes sense for them to do so. While Space Marines and Imperial Guard can team up just fine, you're honestly not going to get Nids and Necrons working on the same side.
B] In order for a 40kverse coalition to meaningfully attack the Wormverse, they need the Necron's dimensional tech (to get to the Wormverse's earths), Eldar or Tzeentch level Farseeing (to know that the Wormverse is a thing) and access to Terra, (to build a portal going from Earth 40k to Earth Beta).

That means, in order for 40k to successfully invade the Wormverse, you need for the Chaos-Hating Necrons to ally with the Chaos Lord Tzeentch (or for the Necron-Hating Eldar to ally with the Necrons), successfully invade Terra in a way that no other 40kverse faction has ever done, establish an dimensional portal to the correct version of Earth and then successfully fight whatever it is that the Wormverse has to offer. I really really don't see that happening.

[Fan]

Two important things to keep in mind are:

A] 40kverse factions do not team up unless it makes sense for them to do so. While Space Marines and Imperial Guard can team up just fine, you're honestly not going to get Nids and Necrons working on the same side.
B] In order for a 40kverse coalition to meaningfully attack the Wormverse, they need the Necron's dimensional tech (to get to the Wormverse's earths), Eldar or Tzeentch level Farseeing (to know that the Wormverse is a thing) and access to Terra, (to build a portal going from Earth 40k to Earth Beta).

That means, in order for 40k to successfully invade the Wormverse, you need for the Chaos-Hating Necrons to ally with the Chaos Lord Tzeentch (or for the Necron-Hating Eldar to ally with the Necrons), successfully invade Terra in a way that no other 40kverse faction has ever done, establish an dimensional portal to the correct version of Earth and then successfully fight whatever it is that the Wormverse has to offer. I really really don't see that happening.

Premise of the fight is that they're being made to act out of character to work together at their respective peaks to fight worm verse.

Because otherwise it's a pretty cut and dry boring fight.

[Douglas]

Premise of the fight is that they're being made to act out of character to work together at their respective peaks to fight worm verse.

Because otherwise it's a pretty cut and dry boring fight.
I emphatically disagree. 40k United is not specified at all in the OP, and would tear Wormverse apart in exceedingly short order. Only Wormverse is specified to be at its peak, because it needs it to put up any sort of fight against 40k.

However much thematic sense it might make, I think we should consider Earth Bet to be a separate planet in the same reality as Earth 40k rather than an alternate reality version of the same planet.

[Dinvan]

Two important things to keep in mind are:

A] 40kverse factions do not team up unless it makes sense for them to do so. While Space Marines and Imperial Guard can team up just fine, you're honestly not going to get Nids and Necrons working on the same side.
B] In order for a 40kverse coalition to meaningfully attack the Wormverse, they need the Necron's dimensional tech (to get to the Wormverse's earths), Eldar or Tzeentch level Farseeing (to know that the Wormverse is a thing) and access to Terra, (to build a portal going from Earth 40k to Earth Beta).

That means, in order for 40k to successfully invade the Wormverse, you need for the Chaos-Hating Necrons to ally with the Chaos Lord Tzeentch (or for the Necron-Hating Eldar to ally with the Necrons), successfully invade Terra in a way that no other 40kverse faction has ever done, establish an dimensional portal to the correct version of Earth and then successfully fight whatever it is that the Wormverse has to offer. I really really don't see that happening.


I respectfully disagree. In the face of common enemies, factions who have long even forgot why they hate each other have put aside differences to fight a common enemy. Space Marines and Chaos Maries teaming up to push back a tyranid invasion of a forge world for example or necrons (or at least one faction of) teaming up with eldar and space marines to fight back chaos ect ect.

This is the whole premise of the game, thats why multi-player games work on table top. Just recently my necrons were joined by orks, eldar and nids to face 4 space smurf armies (ultra marines). 8 players, 500 points each and a boat load of cookies later saw us come to pretty much a draw.

An enemy as powerful as the wormverse would easily unite any and all factions, even for a brief time and even if they plan to betray each other at a later date (which is probably the case). It easily fits the lore.

I understand peoples love for wormverse and wanting to see them come out of this on top, but it really isn't much of a fight in my eyes with the current rules set for this scenario.

Once again though, I'd like to say, wormverse would easily fit as a great army in 40k :D

EDIT: Also douglas, I took this from the original post to mean they would be working together as part of the scenario


And then you have 40k. With it's power armoured space marines and side arms that fire armour peircing grenades and trillions of star-systems. Psykers pulling their ridiculous nonsense and Orks and Necrons and all the other scary things we're familiar with.

[Murska]

The factions may make common cause against a great threat. But Earth Bet wouldn't really look like a threat. They don't expand, don't have much in the way of space tech. Sure they're powerful, but they don't actually look that powerful in the eyes of any 40k race without plenty of study.

In the long term, I feel Wormverse would benefit more from the developing new technologies thing than 40k, given Wormverse has Tinkers and True AI and are generally portrayed as very resourceful and good at overcoming challenges.

[Fan]

I emphatically disagree. 40k United is not specified at all in the OP, and would tear Wormverse apart in exceedingly short order. Only Wormverse is specified to be at its peak, because it needs it to put up any sort of fight against 40k.

However much thematic sense it might make, I think we should consider Earth Bet to be a separate planet in the same reality as Earth 40k rather than an alternate reality version of the same planet.

Yes it is specified.

*ollies outie*

[Fjolnir]

Foil's power is a slightly nerfed version of the entity's sting, any object thrown hits its target in every dimension it is protruding into, scion is essentially a golden jeebus finger puppet for an earthwide eldrich horror; if foil hits him it WILL slide through into the entity and rattle around for a decent amount of damage

[Murska]

Yes it is specified.

*ollies outie*

No, in fact it is not. It says 'peak-Wormverse' and 'then you have 40k'. There's no mention of 'peak-40k' and, even if there was, you can only pick one peak - you cannot make all the 40k races be at their peak simultaneously, as you can only choose one moment in time where the setting as a whole would be at its strongest. That is if you decide it means peak-40k which is in no way the only interpretation.

[The Glyphstone]

No, in fact it is not. It says 'peak-Wormverse' and 'then you have 40k'. There's no mention of 'peak-40k' and, even if there was, you can only pick one peak - you cannot make all the 40k races be at their peak simultaneously, as you can only choose one moment in time where the setting as a whole would be at its strongest. That is if you decide it means peak-40k which is in no way the only interpretation.


He didn't say (that time) that the OP mentions Peak 40k. He said that it mentions United 40K...which is abosolutely does, or at least heavily implies it.

[Murska]

He didn't say (that time) that the OP mentions Peak 40k. He said that it mentions United 40K...which is abosolutely does, or at least heavily implies it.

Ah. But that's also only implied, and not even that heavily. You could plausibly read the OP as 'Wormverse vs. the usual 40k' without any strange mental gymnastics.

[Grek]

It's how I read it certainly. If it was supposed to be Peak-Wormverse vs Peak-40k, it would have said that. And included some sort of description of where peak power in the 40k verse happened, like there was for the Wormverse.

[Qwertystop]

It's how I read it certainly. If it was supposed to be Peak-Wormverse vs Peak-40k, it would have said that. And included some sort of description of where peak power in the 40k verse happened, like there was for the Wormverse.

Same here.

[Lamech]

Oh, right. Got that mixed up. Don't think it says anywhere that it was developed specifically as a weapon against the Worms, though, except insofar as all of the powers were. I don't remember anything about severing people from agents, either. Source? It just made the link for the weapon to shoot through.
Both in Scion's interlude (http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/interlude-26/). It takes a bit of deduction because its all from Scion's mindset. But its clearly Foil.
Search this if you want to find the entry quickly.

Sting, the entity thought. Once it had been a weapon for his kind, against his kind, back in the beginning, when they had dwelt in oceans of gray sludge. the other relevant quote is


They were thrown, and they disrupted connections to two shards at once. The projection disappeared, only to reappear a distance away. The boy who had created the time distortions fell as well. The projection is the Siberian, the boy is Gray Boy, both essentially invincible otherwise.

[Forum Explorer]

Yes, I more viewed it as a question of Peak-Wormverse is dumped into 40K. Can it survive?

And I think that yes it can pull off survival. Not through force of arms, but through clever diplomacy fueled by Contessa to gather the support needed to survive the other factions.

The other implied question is which faction can kill Worm-verse? And I'd say pretty much any one faction can do it. Some likely wouldn't like Eldar or Tau. Some likely wouldn't for a completely different reason like Chaos or Dark Eldar. But they all have the capability to do so.

[Qwertystop]

Both in Scion's interlude (http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/interlude-26/). It takes a bit of deduction because its all from Scion's mindset. But its clearly Foil.
Search this if you want to find the entry quickly.
the other relevant quote is
The projection is the Siberian, the boy is Gray Boy, both essentially invincible otherwise.

Ah. But... for the first, every power was a weapon. Or at least, all the ones that aren't for the bits of utility required to get from planet to planet or dimensionhop. It's even noted by the characters who aren't in on it a few times - every power seems to have combat applications.

And for the second, I'd thought that severing the connections was just all Scion noted when they died - doesn't care about the people, just the powers, so the loss of active powers is how he sees it.

[Lamech]

Projection didn't die. It reappeared. Its not even a living thing. More importantly, lots of people have died and NOT lost their abilities. Alexandria for example was still a statue after she died. One of the power nullifiers still worked as a corpse.

[Qwertystop]

Projection didn't die. It reappeared. Its not even a living thing. More importantly, lots of people have died and NOT lost their abilities. Alexandria for example was still a statue after she died. One of the power nullifiers still worked as a corpse.

For Alexandria, pretty sure it's mentioned she's brain-dead but not vital-organs-stopped dead, due to the aforementioned invulnerability.

And good points.

[Grek]

Yes, I more viewed it as a question of Peak-Wormverse is dumped into 40K. Can it survive?

This premise doesn't make sense. Wormverse is a multidimensional society. If the necrons show up, they're just going to go "Man, this dimension has robot zombies? Forget this, dial somewhere else!" At best, the 40kverse can make it the 40k version of Worm!Planet not worth colonizing.

[Lamech]

This premise doesn't make sense. Wormverse is a multidimensional society. If the necrons show up, they're just going to go "Man, this dimension has robot zombies? Forget this, dial somewhere else!" At best, the 40kverse can make it the 40k version of Worm!Planet not worth colonizing.

Right. 40K has no chance. Wormverse can maybe strike at 40k worlds. But why? Because one universe of their nearly countless worlds is taken? And Warhammer can only hit one universe. They would just write it off like Sleeper's. They have... not infinite, but a lot of worlds. More worlds than there are particles in a world.

[Forum Explorer]

Right. 40K has no chance. Wormverse can maybe strike at 40k worlds. But why? Because one universe of their nearly countless worlds is taken? And Warhammer can only hit one universe. They would just write it off like Sleeper's. They have... not infinite, but a lot of worlds. More worlds than there are particles in a world.

The setting is post Scion though. So they've got the multiconnected worlds through permanent portals that can't be closed. Yeah they could abandon all of those worlds, but that would leave them in pretty bad shape.

I guess they could hide away, but I'd still count that as a loss.

[Lamech]

Once again they have demonstrated the ability to seal off worlds. This whole match up depends on Wormverse getting caught with their defenses down. They won't. Too many thinkers.

[Dinvan]

Seeing as every argument I've made in favour of 40k has been ignored (I guess because my argument means necrons could single handly wipe out wormverse), I'll bow out of this discussion.

It's really boiling down to fanboy/girl's interpretation of wormverse/40k.

One side argues can and other side argues cannot.

Circular arguments from both sides (I guess this includes me).

This was cut and dry for me from the start knowing the lore of 40k as I do and very little of wormverse (still currently reading it, and with no wiki to call upon for citation).

I'm satisfied wormverse couldn't survive, I'll leave every one else to their opinions.

I wish you all good day.

[SanguisAevum]

It's really boiling down to fanboy/girl's interpretation.

One side argues can and other side argues cannot.

Circular arguments from both sides

You just described every "vs" debate... Ever.

They are universally, a pointless excercise in futility for those involved.

But at the same time, they're entertaining for those of us that see them for what they are.

Personally, i love both settings on this particular thread... So carry on.

<continues eating popcorn while watching the show>

[Fan]

Once again they have demonstrated the ability to seal off worlds. This whole match up depends on Wormverse getting caught with their defenses down. They won't. Too many thinkers.

Again, only if we don't allow 40k their decisive first strike abilities given wormverse is (at least at first) unable to get through the portal fast enough to avoid having their world wiped.

By this I mean, shunting the world into the warp, wiping it with a warp storm, supernova eyebeams from space. Etc.

[PanNarrans]

Any first strike Exterminatus abilities seem like things that Contessa, the Simurgh, or Dinah Alcott would pick up on in advance, giving the Wormverse time to hop to an alternate Earth.

[Fan]

Any first strike Exterminatus abilities seem like things that Contessa, the Simurgh, or Dinah Alcott would pick up on in advance, giving the Wormverse time to hop to an alternate Earth.

This is pan solar system range with less than a zeptosecond of warning from another dimension across multiple dimensions. Unless she's monitoring the entire universe at once, across all dimensions including one that even tinkers aren't aware of, at all times and is in possession of movement speeds in excess of tens of thousands of times faster than light speed, which is something needed to save everyone.

She cannot save anyone but herself, hell, I doubt even that.

[Grek]

Simurgh/Alcott/Contessa spoilers:

The Simurgh, among its various powers, has perfect memory, future memory and future-seeing. It is able to remember anything that ever has or ever will come within several miles of it and has the ability to super-accurately extrapolate forward to figure out things it hasn't seen. If she sees something go through a portal and not come back, she knows something is up.

Alcott has the ability to give a numerical probability estimate over all possible futures of any event, with penalties based on the complexity of the question rather than the accuracy of her answer. Questions about "Will X die or be maimed if they do Y?" are easy, but "Is X a good idea?" are hard.

Contessa has the ability to "see the path to victory". That is, her super power is to know how any winnable conflict can be won for whatever definition of win she prefers. If there is any possible action which will result in her victory, she is informed what that action is as well as how to do it and (if she asks) why doing it that way is important. This is not restricted by her own knowledge.

I'm pretty sure that all three get consulted before new portals are opened to unknown worlds.


Furthermore, assuming they didn't see the attack coming: Sending the planet into the Warp or surrounding it with a Warp storm don't seem like they'd actually prevent an evacuation. The portal would still be there, it would just now be a portal to a planet in the Warp instead of a portal to a planet in 40k space. And the Wormverse has stuff that can deal with Chaos Demons. Can I get a cite on that Super Nova Beam thing? What book is that from?

[Landis963]

This is pan solar system range with less than a zeptosecond of warning from another dimension across multiple dimensions. Unless she's monitoring the entire universe at once, across all dimensions including one that even tinkers aren't aware of, at all times and is in possession of movement speeds in excess of tens of thousands of times faster than light speed, which is something needed to save everyone.

She cannot save anyone but herself, hell, I doubt even that.

She'd be alerted as soon as one of her target's fates ends in Exterminatus fire. Which, judging from your description will be everyone on the targeted version of Earth. This is again decades in advance. The timbre of her attacks in the meantime will take on a different tone, one which will eventually result in a personal shuttle at the very least and colony ships at the very most. (There is a tinker that specialized in contained systems, which combined with a rocket tinker and perhaps a vehicle tinker would be easily able to make shuttles of every description imaginable. The Simurgh turned the first into a serial killer, but I don't think she would if Wormverse was dropped into 40k at any point.)

The Simurgh always has all the time in the world to deal with everything. Contessa and Dinah don't have that luxury.

I mean really, she grabbed six people from Earth Aleph and molded their characters such that all got powers, one turned into a monster (Echidna), another sided with the monster against literally everyone else (Trickster) a third assassinated the tactics team of another Endbringer fight (Cody) and a fourth was able to drive Scion to catatonia (Oliver, in a twist no one saw coming)

[Fan]

Except these aren't decades she has access to the dimension, barring us giving her pan dimensional knowledge before the shift happens.

At which point it becomes a contest between that Pre cog and Tzeentch's pre cog, who has accomplished similar feats, has that setting ever dealt with anyone capable of shutting down pre cog?

[Landis963]

Except these aren't decades she has access to the dimension, barring us giving her pan dimensional knowledge before the shift happens.

At which point it becomes a contest between that Pre cog and Tzeentch's pre cog, who has accomplished similar feats, has that setting ever dealt with anyone capable of shutting down pre cog?

Well, the fact that the shift occurs means that at least one 40k denizen will become a target of the Simurgh. Once she sees that, she knows everything they will ever know. The point is that the Simurgh gets warning of the shift far earlier than Tzeentch's precog, unless I'm misunderstanding how 40k precognition works.

EDIT:Oh, and Scion fuzzes out Wormverse precogs (save the Simurgh), but that's a factor of "I don't want the crop of shards to kill me before harvest time." Given that 40k precogs get their powers from the Warp, I'd be willing to bet that wouldn't happen. But we're excluding Scion from this, so it's a moot point.

EDIT EDIT: Also I think the Simurgh is similarly immune to precogs, but her situation is similar to Scion's in a way that is a major spoiler.

Namely, the power that created her and her brethren was a major tool of "Eden", Scion's counterpart. She's dead by the time the story begins, and is being literally mined for powers at wormverse's "Peak."

[Fan]

Well, the fact that the shift occurs means that at least one 40k denizen will become a target of the Simurgh. Once she sees that, she knows everything they will ever know. The point is that the Simurgh gets warning of the shift far earlier than Tzeentch's precog, unless I'm misunderstanding how 40k precognition works.

Tzeentch has the infinite library himself, without people blocking his pre cog (as this is 40k united, this includes Chaos itself. Becoming Chaos Undivided, and having the daemons with his missing scrolls come back.)

His own pre cog goes thousands of years into the future and he has vision of all timelines, and has been able to shut out other powerful pre cogs (certain eldar, The God Emperor of Mankind, a galaxy level telepath and pre cog) from seeing the immediate future.

If scion was capable of fuzzing them out, then odds are Tzeentch would be capable of as much.

[Landis963]

First off, we seem to keep ignoring the fact that a) 40k isn't united in Wormverse's destruction and b) Scion and the Chaos gods are excluded because any of them would severely break the competition (and possibly everything else, too).

Second off, there's two different sources of precognition going on here. You have Scion's species' shards, which give error messages whenever they are asked anything about Scion and his ilk, and you have the warp, which presumably the Chaos gods can mold as they see fit. I see no reason that one would be able to fuzz the other.

[Fan]

First off, we seem to keep ignoring the fact that a) 40k isn't united in Wormverse's destruction and b) Scion and the Chaos gods are excluded because any of them would severely break the competition (and possibly everything else, too).

Second off, there's two different sources of precognition going on here. You have Scion's species' shards, which give error messages whenever they are asked anything about Scion and his ilk, and you have the warp, which presumably the Chaos gods can mold as they see fit. I see no reason that one would be able to fuzz the other.

It.. doesn't say that the chaos gods aren't present, and the first post at the very least strongly implies it's 40k as a whole against wormverse.

The reason one would be able to fuzz the other is because warp magic has very tangible effects on non warp based pre cog (namely in the Necrons, them having star based pre cog that they use to predict things, but this has been blocked by chaos on at least one occasion.)

Besides, even if Chaos isn't. Still have the C'tan, The Great Old Ones, and The God Emperor of Mankind to contend with.

[Landis963]

It.. doesn't say that the chaos gods aren't present, and the first post at the very least strongly implies it's 40k as a whole against wormverse.

The reason one would be able to fuzz the other is because warp magic has very tangible effects on non warp based pre cog (namely in the Necrons, them having star based pre cog that they use to predict things, but this has been blocked by chaos on at least one occasion.)

Besides, even if Chaos isn't. Still have the C'tan, The Great Old Ones, and The God Emperor of Mankind to contend with.

"star based"? Would you please explain how that works? Because the first thing that pops into my head is that it can be spoofed with a simple illusion. Which two separate capes have been able to produce on screen.

[Fan]

"star based"? Would you please explain how that works? Because the first thing that pops into my head is that it can be spoofed with a simple illusion. Which two separate capes have been able to produce on screen.

Star based in the sense that it's based on the alignment of stars in true lovecraftian style.

Though they'd have to spoof it on the necron homeworld, which in this case would be that of a singular united Necron Dynasty, and would have to contend with literally hundreds of people capable of time stop and soul ****ing on top of the person standing out like said star due to having body heat on a planet without a single living thing.

Unless they're capable of actually creating new stars to put into the sky, and know exactly what patterns the necron use. Across the galaxy.

[The Glyphstone]

Just going to point out that, in a slightly meta-fashion, Simurgh's precog only seems to work flawlessly (she knows exactly what is going to happen and what everyone is going to do/think, unerringly out to unlimited distance) because she is a character in a single-author story. Everything that is going to happen is already fixed and unchangeable - 'free will' is a very convincing illusion, she's just peeking ahead at the metaphorical author's notes. (Not implying she is breaking any fourth walls, just that the linear nature of her story makes her particular unerring future sight possible).

Forcing her to contend with interactions with a setting outside her own will throw that all to hell, because she's no longer dealing with a single guaranteed future; she has to contend with uncountable possible futures, based on the decisions made by people from the other setting at the point the decisions are made, people who aren't part of her narrative. Each of those possible futures produces more possible futures, and while she can still narrow down the possibilities by discounting the ones where actions of people in 'her' universe don't match up to what she knows will happen, that still leaves her juggling increasingly infinite potentials.

Comparatively, that's just how 40K precog works to start with. They're already used to branching futures and uncertainty, because nothing is ever set in unchangeable stone past the point at which it could change.

[Scow2]

*chuckle*

Yeh, I was referring to Scion when I mentioned a 'borderline capital-G god'.

And if it actually is 40k vs. full-Khepri Wormverse? 40k is hosed in ways that even Chaos can't begin to imagine. Assuming psionic transparency, and assuming that this is all-out war, every armed being that's not a Blank will proceed to shoot/stab themselves in the head or nearest analogue.

Game over.So, at least 3 complete armies (Tyrannids, Orks, and Necrons) can flat-out ignore the worst the Worms universe has to offer?

The Imperium doesn't even have to get involved to win. As for defeating/killing things that count as "Capital-G Gods" - WH 40k considers those "Speedbumps" at best. Caiaphas Cain alone could probably manage a similar feat over a weekend (While wanting to run away the entire time).

[Lamech]

First off, we seem to keep ignoring the fact that a) 40k isn't united in Wormverse's destruction and b) Scion and the Chaos gods are excluded because any of them would severely break the competition (and possibly everything else, too).

Second off, there's two different sources of precognition going on here. You have Scion's species' shards, which give error messages whenever they are asked anything about Scion and his ilk, and you have the warp, which presumably the Chaos gods can mold as they see fit. I see no reason that one would be able to fuzz the other.Right, Scion didn't so much as block precog as tell the shards "no".

[Murska]

So, at least 3 complete armies (Tyrannids, Orks, and Necrons) can flat-out ignore the worst the Worms universe has to offer?

The Imperium doesn't even have to get involved to win. As for defeating/killing things that count as "Capital-G Gods" - WH 40k considers those "Speedbumps" at best. Caiaphas Cain alone could probably manage a similar feat over a weekend (While wanting to run away the entire time).

You seem to not realize that instead of having those people shoot themselves, Khepri can take full control over them - basically everyone not a blank in the universe is under perfect control of the Wormverse.

Also, I don't think killing Gods is very common in WH40k. How often have any of the Chaos Gods been killed?

[The Glyphstone]

You seem to not realize that instead of having those people shoot themselves, Khepri can take full control over them - basically everyone not a blank in the universe is under perfect control of the Wormverse.

Also, I don't think killing Gods is very common in WH40k. How often have any of the Chaos Gods been killed?

Each of the C'tan were physical gods, as were the Old Ones. The Necrons killed/defeated both, wiping out the Old Ones then turning on the C'tan in a civil war and not simply defeating them, but enslaving them.

The Chaos Gods can't be 'killed' because unlike Wormverse 'gods', they are as much abstract concepts as they are incarnate beings. To kill a chaos god requires killing every possible expression of its embodying emotion and every sentient creature capable of expressing that emotion.

The Necrons are also AI-driven machines, so you can't control their minds, they've already mastered dimensional technology, and they're the next best thing to physically indestructible on a personal scale.

Tyranids are, psychically, one organism with a god-scale intelligence and psychic signature...no one is controlling the Hive Mind, only one person is ever known to have telepathically brushed against the Hive Mind without going insane.

Orks have their own gods to protect them - gods manifested out of the collective psychic belief/strength of the Ork race, and very protective of 'their' people. Plus, the Orks are coded on a sub-genetic level to be immune to corruption/outside control, and ostracize/kill anyone who falls anyways.

[Guancyto]

I'm So Meta, Even This Awesome

I honestly think an examination of themes is a more useful metric for this matchup, partly because it avoids the numbers wank that 40k is prone to, and vagueness of power interactions common to both. D:

Really, 40k isn't at all hostile to heroism; although in the grim darkness of the future there is only war and white people, individual heroes can and do stand up and stand out and make a difference (because statistics aren't interesting and because ICs are fun to play with). Ciaphas Cain and Ibraim Gaunt are proof enough of that.

It's just that the immense galactic scale tends to dwarf what contribution they make (becoming HERO OF THE IMPERIUM or CREEEEEEEEEEED notwithstanding). The BLAHD RAAAYVNS can turn aside a Hive Fleet, beat the tar out of a Greater Nurgle Daemon and stop a Khornate Librarian's ascension, but the difference it makes to the Imperium as a whole is pretty small. This doesn't mean they should FEHL THE EMPRAH.

Heck. The Imperium uses a lot of men and materiel that is literally irreplaceable (plasma weapons, lost tech, venerable dreadnaughts). They do so because fending off the existential threats is worth it. Khepri burned out quickly. Doormaker's powers had a limit. Every Endbringer fight or Slaughterhouse Nine confrontation offed a ton of heroes that were both unique and irreplaceable. They only have one Clockblocker.

Assuming Earth-Bet doesn't immediately have a hive fleet, a tomb world, an awakened god-emperor, a chaos god and the bleeding Benny Hill theme immediately making a beeline for them (because let us be honest here, that is dumb), I think they'd actually fit right in. The Wormverse loves their Pyhrric victories and their heroic sacrifices and things just getting worse and worse constantly before they get better (and despite having gotten better, there is always another battle on the horizon).

Assuming they're lucky enough to not get hard countered by Newcrons, I think that the sector they reside in would do incredibly well for 500ish years (apparently the limit in 40k on life extension technology for mundane humans?). After that they start losing their existing super-precogs to old age, and it's not clear what they'll be replaced with. Relying on Simmy afterward is pretty dicey because she is fundamentally alien.

That is one of the rules of 40k that the Wormverse doesn't mess with. You can always save the sector and bring about a golden age in it, if you're very lucky and very good and sacrifice a great deal and kill a whole ****ton of people.

But humanity is always doomed.

[The Glyphstone]

Meta-Analysis

Sounds good to me.

Analyzing competing themes is always more interesting than feat-measuring contests, since each universe is working on different scales.

Though I still insist on explosions/damage resistance being measured in kilokittens.

[Murska]

Each of the C'tan were physical gods, as were the Old Ones. The Necrons killed/defeated both, wiping out the Old Ones then turning on the C'tan in a civil war and not simply defeating them, but enslaving them.

The Chaos Gods can't be 'killed' because unlike Wormverse 'gods', they are as much abstract concepts as they are incarnate beings. To kill a chaos god requires killing every possible expression of its embodying emotion and every sentient creature capable of expressing that emotion.

The Necrons are also AI-driven machines, so you can't control their minds, they've already mastered dimensional technology, and they're the next best thing to physically indestructible on a personal scale.

Tyranids are, psychically, one organism with a god-scale intelligence and psychic signature...no one is controlling the Hive Mind, only one person is ever known to have telepathically brushed against the Hive Mind without going insane.

Orks have their own gods to protect them - gods manifested out of the collective psychic belief/strength of the Ork race, and very protective of 'their' people. Plus, the Orks are coded on a sub-genetic level to be immune to corruption/outside control, and ostracize/kill anyone who falls anyways.

Were the C'tan and Old Ones /actual Gods/ (as in omnipotent and omniscient) or just very powerful beings? For example, Scion could use Contessa's power. That means 'see the path to victory' - if there is any possible method at all of achieving the goal you ask that power, anywhere ever in all of reality, you'll be given the exact skills and knowledge to do it. At his peak, he could also see all of reality at once, had instantaneous transportation to anywhere in reality at any time and had a simply staggering variety of attack options including transdimensional ones. Plus massed more than a galaxy and was impossible to destroy without eliminating a large bunch of that mass. And there are an unknown but implied very large number of beings like Scion in Wormverse universe. Admittedly Scion is not part of this matchup, and assumedly neither are others of his kind, nor did Wormverse face Scion anywhere near his peak strength, but it is still reasonably impressive.

Yes, I'm relatively familiar with 40k and those three races were already pointed out as the exception. But literally /everyone else/ would be under Khepri's control, assuming we went with that admittedly rather dumb angle.

For reasons of both making the matchup make any sense and avoiding the unresolveable attempts to trump the other side's extremely-überpowerful superbeings, we should probably avoid stuff like gods.

Also ignoring whose precog trumps the other's, because that is exactly as unresolveable, I wonder if Wormverse would cut off their transdimensional network from 40k universe, it would assumedly take 40k a while, possibly a long while, to figure out a way to invade the network. Meanwhile, Wormverse could rather easily look into the 40k world via small portals, perhaps steal tech and so on - Tinkers would have a field day with that stuff. Wormverse has a much, much smaller population, but they do have the space and resources of basically infinite universes at their disposal, and more to the point, basically infinite Earths, damaged as though they may be.

[Forum Explorer]

Just going to point out that, in a slightly meta-fashion, Simurgh's precog only seems to work flawlessly (she knows exactly what is going to happen and what everyone is going to do/think, unerringly out to unlimited distance) because she is a character in a single-author story. Everything that is going to happen is already fixed and unchangeable - 'free will' is a very convincing illusion, she's just peeking ahead at the metaphorical author's notes. (Not implying she is breaking any fourth walls, just that the linear nature of her story makes her particular unerring future sight possible).

Forcing her to contend with interactions with a setting outside her own will throw that all to hell, because she's no longer dealing with a single guaranteed future; she has to contend with uncountable possible futures, based on the decisions made by people from the other setting at the point the decisions are made, people who aren't part of her narrative. Each of those possible futures produces more possible futures, and while she can still narrow down the possibilities by discounting the ones where actions of people in 'her' universe don't match up to what she knows will happen, that still leaves her juggling increasingly infinite potentials.

Comparatively, that's just how 40K precog works to start with. They're already used to branching futures and uncertainty, because nothing is ever set in unchangeable stone past the point at which it could change.

Actually you raise an interesting point. We don't know the Simurgh's success to failure rate for her plans. We saw one success, if you want to call Enchinda a success. But she was stopped, and stopped by the other people who were under the Simurgh's influence just as much.

Similarly Cody's intervention might have saved Chevalier's life. And without him the Slaughterhouse 9000 would have been much much worse, if they got stopped at all, simply because Weaver would have been stuck in prison instead of training Golem.

We do know that whatever plan she had with that gun was foiled and she did nothing to stop it.

Basically since she doesn't communicate and her effects are so vague, and we don't really know what her goal actually is with these different plans, then we can't really say how effective she actually is.


You seem to not realize that instead of having those people shoot themselves, Khepri can take full control over them - basically everyone not a blank in the universe is under perfect control of the Wormverse.

Also, I don't think killing Gods is very common in WH40k. How often have any of the Chaos Gods been killed?

She could barely control a few thousand capes. Doormaker burned out a little while after getting control of those few thousand capes. The strain of attempting to control every human in the galaxy would likely kill Doormaker a lot faster, and drive her completely insane in seconds.

Not to mention she didn't control her target's minds. That means a psyker, any psyker, would have all the opportunity they need to attack her with their powers. Basically she'd try and control them and they'd drive her even more crazy if they were weak (by forcing her to look into the warp) or they'd just turn her brain to mush directly if they had any strength.



Were the C'tan and Old Ones /actual Gods/ (as in omnipotent and omniscient) or just very powerful beings? For example, Scion could use Contessa's power. That means 'see the path to victory' - if there is any possible method at all of achieving the goal you ask that power, anywhere ever in all of reality, you'll be given the exact skills and knowledge to do it. At his peak, he could also see all of reality at once, had instantaneous transportation to anywhere in reality at any time and had a simply staggering variety of attack options including transdimensional ones. Plus massed more than a galaxy and was impossible to destroy without eliminating a large bunch of that mass. And there are an unknown but implied very large number of beings like Scion in Wormverse universe. Admittedly Scion is not part of this matchup, and assumedly neither are others of his kind, nor did Wormverse face Scion anywhere near his peak strength, but it is still reasonably impressive.

Yes, I'm relatively familiar with 40k and those three races were already pointed out as the exception. But literally /everyone else/ would be under Khepri's control, assuming we went with that admittedly rather dumb angle.

For reasons of both making the matchup make any sense and avoiding the unresolveable attempts to trump the other side's extremely-überpowerful superbeings, we should probably avoid stuff like gods.

Also ignoring whose precog trumps the other's, because that is exactly as unresolveable, I wonder if Wormverse would cut off their transdimensional network from 40k universe, it would assumedly take 40k a while, possibly a long while, to figure out a way to invade the network. Meanwhile, Wormverse could rather easily look into the 40k world via small portals, perhaps steal tech and so on - Tinkers would have a field day with that stuff. Wormverse has a much, much smaller population, but they do have the space and resources of basically infinite universes at their disposal, and more to the point, basically infinite Earths, damaged as though they may be.

Even shattered, the C'tan are fully capable of rewriting reality to suit them. Some of their tricks are basically stuff like complete matter transformation, time manipulation, and messing with the laws of physics.

[Landis963]

Actually you raise an interesting point. We don't know the Simurgh's success to failure rate for her plans. We saw one success, if you want to call Enchinda a success. But she was stopped, and stopped by the other people who were under the Simurgh's influence just as much.

The aftermath of Echidna involved the exposure of Cauldron, the formation of the Case-53 Irregulars, and, perhaps most significantly, the opening of a portal to a new world that isn't controlled by Cauldron. I wouldn't call it a failure.


Similarly Cody's intervention might have saved Chevalier's life. And without him the Slaughterhouse 9000 would have been much much worse, if they got stopped at all, simply because Weaver would have been stuck in prison instead of training Golem.

My thought on the matter is that Cody was sent after Tattletale first (the greatest threat to all the Endbringers' secrets), Accord second (able to create perfect battle plans given all the information), and everyone else in the room third. Chevalier surviving to get Weaver the good-guy power she needed for the next stage in her development was gravy, really.


We do know that whatever plan she had with that gun was foiled and she did nothing to stop it.

Do we? It appeared to do nothing, which, to quote a certain out-of-continuity EGS comic strip (http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=143), "sounds confusing, ominous, and spooky."


Basically since she doesn't communicate and her effects are so vague, and we don't really know what her goal actually is with these different plans, then we can't really say how effective she actually is.

The bane of communicating with the Simurgh. She's as chatty as the nearby wall, and much more enigmatic.


[Khepri] could barely control a few thousand capes. She burned out a little while after getting control of those few thousand capes. The strain of attempting to control every human in the galaxy would likely kill her a lot faster, and drive her completely insane in seconds.

Not to mention she didn't control her target's minds. That means a psyker, any psyker, would have all the opportunity they need to attack her with their powers. Basically she'd try and control them and they'd drive her even more crazy if they were weak (by forcing her to look into the warp) or they'd just turn her brain to mush directly if they had any strength.

"Barely control" was only in play because of her drastically reduced range. As for her mental degradation, that was mainly in play because the lack of restrictions caused the shard to become the dominant personality. (Those nerfs and restrictions are there for a reason beyond "don't kill me plzthx."

And Doormaker a) is a he, and b) is the one that produces portals.


Even shattered, the C'tan are fully capable of rewriting reality to suit them. Some of their tricks are basically stuff like complete matter transformation, time manipulation, and messing with the laws of physics.

I would say "that sounds a touch broken" but we've already clearly established that lots of capes can do much the same. In much more specialized and lower-caliber forms, to be certain, but they can do it.

[Forum Explorer]

The aftermath of Echidna involved the exposure of Cauldron, the formation of the Case-53 Irregulars, and, perhaps most significantly, the opening of a portal to a new world that isn't controlled by Cauldron. I wouldn't call it a failure.



My thought on the matter is that Cody was sent after Tattletale first (the greatest threat to all the Endbringers' secrets), Accord second (able to create perfect battle plans given all the information), and everyone else in the room third. Chevalier surviving to get Weaver the good-guy power she needed for the next stage in her development was gravy, really.



Do we? It appeared to do nothing, which, to quote a certain out-of-continuity EGS comic strip (http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=143), "sounds confusing, ominous, and spooky."



The bane of communicating with the Simurgh. She's as chatty as the nearby wall, and much more enigmatic.



"Barely control" was only in play because of her drastically reduced range. As for her mental degradation, that was mainly in play because the lack of restrictions caused the shard to become the dominant personality. (Those nerfs and restrictions are there for a reason beyond "don't kill me plzthx."

And Doormaker a) is a he, and b) is the one that produces portals.



I would say "that sounds a touch broken" but we've already clearly established that lots of capes can do much the same. In much more specialized and lower-caliber forms, to be certain, but they can do it.

It messed up Cauldron for sure, but I can argue it was a net plus for humanity. Particularly the portals to new worlds. Without that humanity would have been well and truly doomed.


1/3 isn't that good.


If it appeared to do nothing and nothing has happened logic dictates that it's likely nothing.


No kidding.


I worded that paragraph very poorly. What I meant was Khepri was practically completely insane by the time she got control of a few thousand people. I think she would degrade even faster if she was controlling even more people.

Even if she wasn't she'd likely burn out Doormaker, which she did anyways when she forced him to open the portals necessary for her to control a few thousand people + the extra she needed to fight Scion.

Basically she simply couldn't command the entire Imperium to kill itself, or even to fight her enemies. If she tried, she'd likely run afoul of a psyker if she didn't just fail.

They are kinda broken. Fluff wise Necrons are that.

[Landis963]

It messed up Cauldron for sure, but I can argue it was a net plus for humanity. Particularly the portals to new worlds. Without that humanity would have been well and truly doomed.

I know for a certainty the Simurgh saw Scion's rampage, and thus we can infer that she planned this. Is this inference correct? She's not sayin'.


1/3 isn't that good.

True. However, we don't know whether Accord or Tattletale was his original target. If Accord, then mission accomplished. If Tattletale, then mission failed. We don't know either way, because talking with brick wall issue.


If it appeared to do nothing and nothing has happened logic dictates that it's likely nothing.

Until the monster jumps out of the darkness and eats the person dumb enough to say "it's probably nothing."


I worded that paragraph very poorly. What I meant was Khepri was practically completely insane by the time she got control of a few thousand people. I think she would degrade even faster if she was controlling even more people.

I don't think the mental degradation would increase with the amount of people she controlled; in fact it was pretty clearly (to my mind) a battle between the host and the jailbroken shard, and the shard was steadily winning. Doing human-like things such as talking helped stave off the degradation, remember. However, there's not enough information to satisfactorily answer this question.


Even if she wasn't she'd likely burn out Doormaker, which she did anyways when she forced him to open the portals necessary for her to control a few thousand people + the extra she needed to fight Scion.

Those were steadily maintained, not something Doormaker does normally, and as I recall she was wearing several of them as a cape. Agreed, however, that they're necessary for Khepri's MO to metastasize as it did. EDIT: And also that you are correct in that it is a danger that might happen again after a prolonged engagement, as it did in canon.


Basically she simply couldn't command the entire Imperium to kill itself, or even to fight her enemies. If she tried, she'd likely run afoul of a psyker if she didn't just fail.

Humans, capes and non-capes alike, fell under her Regent-ian control. It wouldn't take much effort (especially if she went regiment by regiment). A psyker might just pulp her brain from outside her range if he saw her coming, though.

[Douglas]

"Khepri controls everyone" is not a feasible scenario no matter how you look at it. The range of her human-control ability is just short of 16 feet. The only reason she was able to expand her army so much is Doormaker, and he ran out of power with just helping her control a few thousand people for most of the Scion fight. There's no way he'd be up to portaling her control to the trillions, quadrillions, quintillions, or more that she'd need to make a meaningful mass impact on 40k's scale.

If you're going to propose a Wormverse strategy based on Khepri, you have to make it about targeted control of critical individuals, and I don't know if there are really any individuals (or even thousand or million individuals) critical enough to 40k to have the impact needed, especially if you exclude the ones with strong psyker protection.

[Landis963]

"Khepri controls everyone" is not a feasible scenario no matter how you look at it. The range of her human-control ability is just short of 16 feet. The only reason she was able to expand her army so much is Doormaker, and he ran out of power with just helping her control a few thousand people for most of the Scion fight. There's no way he'd be up to portaling her control to the trillions, quadrillions, quintillions, or more that she'd need to make a meaningful mass impact on 40k's scale.

If you're going to propose a Wormverse strategy based on Khepri, you have to make it about targeted control of critical individuals, and I don't know if there are really any individuals (or even thousand or million individuals) critical enough to 40k to have the impact needed, especially if you exclude the ones with strong psyker protection.

Not necessarily. Khepri portals to Regiment X. Suborned portion of Regiment X kills everyone they can in the regiment outside her range, then themselves. Portal closes. Rinse and repeat. Psykers might give her trouble, depending on what her victims soldiers are left or whether they can see her coming, but otherwise she could easily (if slowly) chew through an Imperium army. The tactic would only work once, though.

The main reason Doormaker ran out of energy so quickly was the fact that she kept the portals open, as I recall.

[Forum Explorer]

I
I don't think the mental degradation would increase with the amount of people she controlled; in fact it was pretty clearly (to my mind) a battle between the host and the jailbroken shard, and the shard was steadily winning. Doing human-like things such as talking helped stave off the degradation, remember. However, there's not enough information to satisfactorily answer this question.



Those were steadily maintained, not something Doormaker does normally, and as I recall she was wearing several of them as a cape. Agreed, however, that they're necessary for Khepri's MO to metastasize as it did. EDIT: And also that you are correct in that it is a danger that might happen again after a prolonged engagement, as it did in canon.



Humans, capes and non-capes alike, fell under her Regent-ian control. It wouldn't take much effort (especially if she went regiment by regiment). A psyker might just pulp her brain from outside her range if he saw her coming, though.

I think putting so many humans under her control would drive her mad faster, because she'd be losing herself in the swarm. She basically did that with the few thousand people. Basically the more people she would grab the more it would necessitate her going mad in order to comprehend the data and emotions coming in (or rather the more brain space is taken up by the shard in order to do so) True though there isn't enough information to say one way or the other. (Like how sane would she have stayed if she had just stayed in the cave?)


She was wearing hundreds of them as a full out costume if I understood that part correctly. She layered herself with tiny portals into order to grab everyone.


Psykers would give her a problem because their powers do not require any physical input from their bodies. Some strong psykers with advanced tech have even completely eliminated their body from the picture. Others can hop from body to body, wearing them like a puppet. Khepri couldn't control her minion's thoughts, she certainly couldn't affect a psyker's ability to use their power to kill her.

[Lamech]

If you want to abuse Doormaker, you should just grab one of the Siberians. Have her accelerate up to super speed Portal style and then door her through a planet. A projectile going close to C with infinite mass? No more planet.

Hell you don't even need Siberian, a baseball can do the same.

[Forum Explorer]

If you want to abuse Doormaker, you should just grab one of the Siberians. Have her accelerate up to super speed Portal style and then door her through a planet. A projectile going close to C with infinite mass? No more planet.

Hell you don't even need Siberian, a baseball can do the same.

No you can't. There is a max speed a projectile can reach in atmosphere due to wind resistance. It's far below light speed except for tiny projectiles like particles. Terminal Velocity, that's what it's called.

[Douglas]

Also Siberian can't (major spoiler for Worm)go more than a certain distance from Manton.

[Murska]

No you can't. There is a max speed a projectile can reach in atmosphere due to wind resistance. It's far below light speed except for tiny projectiles like particles. Terminal Velocity, that's what it's called.

Why stick to the atmosphere?

Scion has matter transformation, time manipulation, alters laws of physics and more. My point stands.

Controlling a few thousand capes was no problem. Nothing like 'barely'. And given that Doormaker made several portals to all accessible many-worlds dimensions, which would amount to billions of them at least, he'd have a lot of juice if targeted at only one galaxy. Just one trick used was to carpet the entire sky of one dimension's Earth with small portals that constantly opened and closed to bring in all WMDs she could find in all dimensions. That alone is a lot of portals. Could do some math if needed, but I'm on my phone.

Brain is physical. Khepri controlled at least large parts of it, to move her drones. Didn't stop them from thinking, but did control their powers, too. Including mental ones. So that does not give us enough information to say if she could stop psykers. Also she'd stay in an universe without the Warp, which might mess with Warp-y things.

[Fan]

If you want to abuse Doormaker, you should just grab one of the Siberians. Have her accelerate up to super speed Portal style and then door her through a planet. A projectile going close to C with infinite mass? No more planet.

Hell you don't even need Siberian, a baseball can do the same.

Yeah, except a baseball would atomize before it went through the portal at those speeds and you'd have just as much chance of killing yourself as you would the other guys.

40k is very much a "normal physics except where space tech and magic say otherwise." type of universe, and most of those involve altering said laws temporarily to do so.

Also a projectile the size of a baseball going .99 c would not destroy a planet, it would at most destroy a large city. :smallsigh:

[Prime32]

40k is very much a "normal physics except where space tech and magic say otherwise." type of universe, and most of those involve altering said laws temporarily to do so.Depleted deuterium rounds. :smalltongue:

[PanNarrans]

Well, this is just an engineering problem now. Wormverse's Thinkers are bound to make light work of thinking with portals, so it's reasonable to assume achieving Exterminatus with Doormaker's power is doable for them.

Do we actually know that Doormaker's power works on interstellar scales, though? I don't remember it happening, and the worms seem to travel rather slower than instantaneously over those distances, unless "space" is being used as a metaphor for something weirder in their passages.

[Fan]

Depleted deuterium rounds. :smalltongue:

With occasional substitutes for known elements. Nothing is perfect Prime.

[Landis963]

Well, this is just an engineering problem now. Wormverse's Thinkers are bound to make light work of thinking with portals, so it's reasonable to assume achieving Exterminatus with Doormaker's power is doable for them.

Do we actually know that Doormaker's power works on interstellar scales, though? I don't remember it happening, and the worms seem to travel rather slower than instantaneously over those distances, unless "space" is being used as a metaphor for something weirder in their passages.

Phir Se (Can create 2 portals, going in one brings out out the other a few seconds earlier) got as close as he could get with just ordinary light and heat (This was the cape that skeletonized Behemoth). It's very doable with Doormaker. I presume that Doormaker's range (or rather, the Clairvoyant's range) can stretch pretty much anywhere, but we don't know that for certain because the plot restricts itself to the various versions of Earth that Scion left behind). I'm fairly certain the entities don't go FTL either, especially since they need the energy from every version of their current colony planet exploding as a booster rocket. Also, there's a mention (IIRC) of the worms leaving "breadcrumbs" behind so that other entities don't look in places that are already picked clean.

[PanNarrans]

That pretty much settles the matchup, then. Legend's acceleration power is the only one I recall being considered potentially useful for interstellar flight, and that presumably doesn't allow faster than light travel. Possibly some weird combination of Breaker powers could do it, but then you'd expect the entities to just arrive everywhere instantly.

So assuming the Wormverse guys don't have FTL, they're pretty much screwed if they're dumped into the Grim Darkness and the 40k factions immediately know about it. They can dodge Exterminatus by dimension hopping, but then they can't actually go on the offensive until all the combined precognitives/psykers/reality warping gods arrayed against them fail hard enough to let the Simurgh/Contessa/Alcott engineer a way off planet. That should take long enough for the Necrons to SCIENCE their way in, or the Eldar to work out how to navigate the dimensional labyrinth, or CREEEED to infiltrate a Baneblade company.

[Lamech]

Yeah, except a baseball would atomize before it went through the portal at those speeds and you'd have just as much chance of killing yourself as you would the other guys.

40k is very much a "normal physics except where space tech and magic say otherwise." type of universe, and most of those involve altering said laws temporarily to do so.

Also a projectile the size of a baseball going .99 c would not destroy a planet, it would at most destroy a large city. :smallsigh:
1) You do it in a vacuum.
2) You can get it faster than .99c.

Worms and FTL: Well, there are clearly someways to go faster than light. Most notably that time portal. You get back before you leave. The worms may or may not, but they aren't portalling. Why this is we don't know. Possibly the energy requirements. Possibly because of their weird way of learning they never came up with it.

[Fjolnir]

isn't phir se part of valkyrie's retinue along with clockblocker?

[Selrahc]

1) You do it in a vacuum.
2) You can get it faster than .99c.


Putting a vacuum sealed tube with an accelerating particle somewhere within a gravity field, then releasing it once it has built up momentum is potentially very scary. Unfortunately acceleration under earth's gravitic field is only 9.8m/s. To get to light speed requires a lot of acceleration time. Roughly a year of acceleration time.

It also requires an acceleration chamber that remains perfectly static. A little wobble, and things get very messy.

I could see it being feasible though.

[Lost Demiurge]

Looking at this... It depends. It depends on a lot of variables.

It depends on how much of the Warhammer Universe is brought to bear at once. If it starts out light, if they're only found by a few Tau scout ships, or an Imperial Guard detachment, or Orks riding a Space Hulk... Well then, the Wormverse has a chance. Once they get some info and intel, and realize how horrible things are, they can maybe start building to survive.

If the Wormies' first hints of trouble are a Hive Fleet decamping at the doorstep, or their world shows up inside the Eye of Chaos... Well, that's all she wrote.

Questions I'd wonder about...

How does Skitter's power work out against Tyranids?

Can the Worms themselves be corrupted or assaulted by the Daemons of Chaos?

How fast can Dragon adapt Tau and Imperium tech for her use? Oh good lord, what would the cult of the machine god make of her?

Do chaos hounds count as dogs for B's power? Seriously, she'd be a shoe in for honorary Khorne membership... Hm...

Tattletale's got a Tzeentchian flavor, Regent was a shoe in for Slaaneshi club membership, B's Khornate, Skitter's got a Nurgle tie with the bugs... Wow. Heh. I sense a fanfiction in the making...

And yeah, Panacea could probably sort out the Emperor. Good luck getting to him, though.

[Forum Explorer]

1) You do it in a vacuum.
2) You can get it faster than .99c.

Worms and FTL: Well, there are clearly someways to go faster than light. Most notably that time portal. You get back before you leave. The worms may or may not, but they aren't portalling. Why this is we don't know. Possibly the energy requirements. Possibly because of their weird way of learning they never came up with it.

Wouldn't you still need some sort of acceleration then? Or do you mean making a vacuum on a planet then accelerating something small? Though it would still require a rather large object, as something as small as a baseball would 'only' destroy a city or something when it was launched.


Phir Se is dead though.


Looking at this... It depends. It depends on a lot of variables.

It depends on how much of the Warhammer Universe is brought to bear at once. If it starts out light, if they're only found by a few Tau scout ships, or an Imperial Guard detachment, or Orks riding a Space Hulk... Well then, the Wormverse has a chance. Once they get some info and intel, and realize how horrible things are, they can maybe start building to survive.

If the Wormies' first hints of trouble are a Hive Fleet decamping at the doorstep, or their world shows up inside the Eye of Chaos... Well, that's all she wrote.

Questions I'd wonder about...

How does Skitter's power work out against Tyranids?

Can the Worms themselves be corrupted or assaulted by the Daemons of Chaos?

How fast can Dragon adapt Tau and Imperium tech for her use? Oh good lord, what would the cult of the machine god make of her?

Do chaos hounds count as dogs for B's power? Seriously, she'd be a shoe in for honorary Khorne membership... Hm...

Tattletale's got a Tzeentchian flavor, Regent was a shoe in for Slaaneshi club membership, B's Khornate, Skitter's got a Nurgle tie with the bugs... Wow. Heh. I sense a fanfiction in the making...

And yeah, Panacea could probably sort out the Emperor. Good luck getting to him, though.

It's doubtful Skitter's power would do anything against Tyranids. They aren't 'simple minds' like bugs (except the tiny swarm guys) and they are being controlled by an incredibly strong mind already.

Doubtful I'd think, the Worms seem to be pretty attached to their hosts to the point where they might be one and the same.

Who knows? There are a lot of concepts for her to learn and no documentation. But she's also very smart. The Imperium would consider her to be Heresy, and her presence alone might be enough to call exterminatus down on a planet. Depends if they think they could beat her. They would certainly call in the big guns to fight though.

Amusing if true.

I want to write a fanfic where Inquisitor Ravenor or Harry Dresden end up in Brockton Bay during Skitter's rise.




Brain is physical. Khepri controlled at least large parts of it, to move her drones. Didn't stop them from thinking, but did control their powers, too. Including mental ones. So that does not give us enough information to say if she could stop psykers. Also she'd stay in an universe without the Warp, which might mess with Warp-y things.

Brain is physical. The Mind is not. 40K very much operates on a Dualism philosophy type. Souls are real tangible things and I've already provided examples where a psyker doesn't need their brain in order to use their powers.

Saying the Warp simply wouldn't exist in some universes would be breaking the 40K setting. It's a fundamental part of the setting to the point where only Nulls and Necrons can actually survive without the Warp's existence. (and dumb animals)

[Fan]

1) You do it in a vacuum.
2) You can get it faster than .99c.

Worms and FTL: Well, there are clearly someways to go faster than light. Most notably that time portal. You get back before you leave. The worms may or may not, but they aren't portalling. Why this is we don't know. Possibly the energy requirements. Possibly because of their weird way of learning they never came up with it.

As has already been said, it would take quite a lot of time, and provide quite a lot of warning. The thing also couldn't be moved safely.

Worm Verse doesn't have a year. They have zeptoseconds.

Also, you can't get it to go FTL through those methods. Things that haven't broken the light speed barrier are still limited by it.

Also, unless you were to portal it directly to the surface, it would detonate in high atmosphere or the second you let the projectile leave said vacuum, giving you no real way to aim the thing aside from face humping your targets (space wise), and then launching the equivalent to a point blank assault because it literally cannot exist in normal base, and even in vacuum the ball itself creates friction from it's rotation, little atom sized shreds of ball from when you put it in, or dead skin cells inside the tube will impact the ball and create fusion inside your tube anyways.

[Murska]

If souls are tangible things, they might as well be reducible. It's even more likely if they can be used to power physical things or affect the physical in other ways. And if the Warp is a part of the Wormverse, then I don't believe in the absolutely ridiculous coincidence required to make it so the Worms and, by extension, Tinkers were not harnessing it already. The Warp is not something you just /miss/ if you have millions of years of technological development behind you.

The mind exists in a substrate, except if it does not in 40k which is a state of affairs that I find pretty much impossible to imagine in a logically coherent fashion and thus cannot really discuss. A brain might be one such substrate. But because Khepri can control Powers, that means her control was not limited to the brain, but instead extended to the multidimensional extension of the Power's mind substrate - the Shard.

You must need a mind to use psyker powers, or the psyker powers are completely random and cannot be controlled or generated by you and therefore they might as well not be your psyker powers. And the mind exists on something, be it a physical substrate or some other kind of substrate (soul, perhaps, if it is made of some sort of a basic 'mental atoms' that are ontologically separate from 'energy' that physical stuff is made of. Khepri can control at least some kinds of non-basic mind substrates, at least partially.

Fan: The Wormverse, even if we posit that 40k instantly knows of their existance and is willing to use the extremely big guns to immediately eliminate their planet, is simply not susceptible to that. Losing a single planet might hurt (depending on which version it was) but it isn't such a big deal in the long run. Disregarding precog and godly powers nonsense that we cannot quantify in a meaningful way given both sides have access and both powers are too vague to make a meaningful comparison.

[Forum Explorer]

If souls are tangible things, they might as well be reducible. It's even more likely if they can be used to power physical things or affect the physical in other ways. And if the Warp is a part of the Wormverse, then I don't believe in the absolutely ridiculous coincidence required to make it so the Worms and, by extension, Tinkers were not harnessing it already. The Warp is not something you just /miss/ if you have millions of years of technological development behind you.

The mind exists in a substrate, except if it does not in 40k which is a state of affairs that I find pretty much impossible to imagine in a logically coherent fashion and thus cannot really discuss. A brain might be one such substrate. But because Khepri can control Powers, that means her control was not limited to the brain, but instead extended to the multidimensional extension of the Power's mind substrate - the Shard.

You must need a mind to use psyker powers, or the psyker powers are completely random and cannot be controlled or generated by you and therefore they might as well not be your psyker powers. And the mind exists on something, be it a physical substrate or some other kind of substrate (soul, perhaps, if it is made of some sort of a basic 'mental atoms' that are ontologically separate from 'energy' that physical stuff is made of. Khepri can control at least some kinds of non-basic mind substrates, at least partially.

Fan: The Wormverse, even if we posit that 40k instantly knows of their existance and is willing to use the extremely big guns to immediately eliminate their planet, is simply not susceptible to that. Losing a single planet might hurt (depending on which version it was) but it isn't such a big deal in the long run. Disregarding precog and godly powers nonsense that we cannot quantify in a meaningful way given both sides have access and both powers are too vague to make a meaningful comparison.


The Warp has some pretty distinct effects and reactions. So it's unlikely that Thinkers and Tinkers are some sort of psyker. I'm fine if they are, though that makes them vulnerable to anti-psyker techniques (all capes would be in that case). Warships for example have psyker defenses built into their shields. They aren't invincible, but they can protect the ship pretty well. The way I read the OP though is that the setting of Worm just gets dumped into the 40K universe. So the Warp would be an entirely new thing.

The mind does need some sort of substrate, kinda. I'm not sure how exactly it works, but I think without a substrate your mind is sucked into the warp. It takes a phenomenally powerful psyker to tell death to shut up and sit down and live on as a ghost without some sort of shell. It's why if they think a psyker is about to lose control shooting it in the head is SOP. However, the substrate needed does not need to be a brain. Eldar have spiritstones which they can then put into basically anything, the Imperium has a few tricks most being either heresy or archotech. Chaos uses sorcery or becoming a daemon.

If Kherpi's control was a psyker effect, then it would be prone to anti-psyker techniques. She'd be better off against normal psykers, but high ranking people, Inquisitors, and those blessed by the Emperor would be able to ignore her entirely (well perhaps not entirely). They also have their own methods of counter attacking her.

The Soul or Mind is a Warp based thing in 40K. I'm not entirely clear on how it works, but basically most setinant life has a connection to the warp, and it's where they go after they die. Unless they've got some way to keep themselves in the physical universe such as spiritstones. Nulls and Necrons don't follow this rule. Tyranids also don't really follow this rule, as it could be best described that their 'soul' is the 'Hive Mind'. But then again there are individual Tyranids like the Swarmlord. But considering he can be constantly recreated by the Hive Mind if he dies perhaps he could be said to be a piece of the Hive Mind forced into existence? I don't know.


They could use virus bombs. It'd chain through all of the open portals to kill everyone but Panacea and those she's quick enough to save. Though she'd only really have a few seconds to do so. Still wouldn't wipe Worm out completely but it'd be a devastating blow

[Murska]

If Warp is a new thing to Wormverse, which I think is the more reasonable case, then that means Wormverse had no Warp previously - ergo, there is no Warp in the dimensions the Wormverse has. The Shards are definitely not Warp creatures, therefore the Powers are not psyker stuff (actually the Powers are described to simply be sufficiently advanced science) but Khepri's control not being limited to 'brains' therefore implies that it is possible she could control psykers or, alternatively, stop them from psyker-ing.

How do virus bombs work? Because viruses are physical things and definitely don't travel fast enough to give a dimension-spanning culture only a few seconds to react. They don't just magically propagate, either, without hosts of some kind.

Interesting thought. If Wormverse inhabitants don't have souls in the 40k definition (connection to Warp) then perhaps with sufficient time, effort and possibly allies they could eliminate everyone and everything with a soul in the 40k universe and thus destroy the Chaos Gods?

[Landis963]

Interesting thought. If Wormverse inhabitants don't have souls in the 40k definition (connection to Warp) then perhaps with sufficient time, effort and possibly allies they could eliminate everyone and everything with a soul in the 40k universe and thus destroy the Chaos Gods?

That would involve several separate counts of genocide. I'd kinda like to see a "hero" who'd be OK with that. (Besides, say, Valkyrie, who's in the process of turning over a new leaf)

[Forum Explorer]

If Warp is a new thing to Wormverse, which I think is the more reasonable case, then that means Wormverse had no Warp previously - ergo, there is no Warp in the dimensions the Wormverse has. The Shards are definitely not Warp creatures, therefore the Powers are not psyker stuff (actually the Powers are described to simply be sufficiently advanced science) but Khepri's control not being limited to 'brains' therefore implies that it is possible she could control psykers or, alternatively, stop them from psyker-ing.

How do virus bombs work? Because viruses are physical things and definitely don't travel fast enough to give a dimension-spanning culture only a few seconds to react. They don't just magically propagate, either, without hosts of some kind.

Interesting thought. If Wormverse inhabitants don't have souls in the 40k definition (connection to Warp) then perhaps with sufficient time, effort and possibly allies they could eliminate everyone and everything with a soul in the 40k universe and thus destroy the Chaos Gods?

Which means Worm-verse wins. 40K sentients (besides Necrons and Nulls) can't effectively operate without the Warp.

I don't know, they are high tech super viruses or something. They manage to infect every living thing (yes even trees) and reduce them to piles of goo and highly combustible gas (part two of virus bombs is to ignite the gas creating a firestorm around the entire planet). The virus travels incredibly quickly and kills in seconds.


It's what some Necrons are trying to do. It used to be a race wide goal but the retconned that.

[Murska]

I could understand the virus bombs simply being detonated all over a planet, so they'd (with handwaved super-magic-tech) basically be able to infect stuff really fast. But once the bombs plop the viruses down somewhere, I'm having a hard time seeing how they would travel to new places in seconds afterwards. Especially since they're so fast-acting, so it's impossible for any of the viruses to be transmitted by a moving host.

In the Culture matchup, it was clear the Culture wouldn't go for genoicide to get rid of Chaos gods. But I could see Wormverse doing that. Wormverse heroes generally aren't very heroic at all, and there are a lot of Wormverse inhabitants who are not heroes at all, and the heroes don't run the show most of the time. Genoiciding the 40k verse is conceivable, especially if the method is sufficiently clinical and detached.


EDIT: And, making the decision through the command chains takes time, launching the bombs takes time, the bombs travelling takes time. It's more than a couple seconds in any case. A nuke can kill stuff in the ground zero region in less than a second, but MAD still exists because taking the actions to cause the nuke to detonate there takes time.

[Aquillion]

I would tend to say that the sheer size of the 40k universe means it would win.

Remember that even with the 'game breaker' powers in the Wormverse, there is a finite amount of "energy" for each power, and once it's used up, that's it -- it stops working. We only saw this happen once, but it does happen, especially when you try to scale a power up high enough to handle an entire universe. Khepri, for instance, ran out of Doormaker-juice taking control of just one planet for just a short while (and its alternate realities, but there were explicitly not many of them) -- she's not going to be able to use her power against an entire galaxy.

The only exception, maybe, is Contessa, whose power allows her to perform butterfly-of-doom attacks that work against opponents regardless of scale; but there are powers in WH40k that can block precognition to an extent, which we know can stop her, and it's indicated near the end that her power is 'resource intensive' and therefore likely to run out of juice if used repeatedly against an entire galaxy.

The Chaos gods on their own, on the other hand, are not a threat to the Worm universe -- if you allow the Worm powers to work as described, say, one hit with Foil's power to any manifestation of Tzeentch will kill all possible manifestations of Tzeentch permanently and prevent him from ever coming back in any form, regardless of whether that should be possible. We saw her do that multiple times in her own setting; there's no reason to think her power wouldn't keep saying "nope, you're just dead; nothing gets to say otherwise" in WH40k.

As a general rule the Worm universe is very good at taking down cosmic entities like that, since their ultimate power source evolved from fights between creatures of that nature -- this is specifically noted as why Foil in particular has an "I kill anything, no matter what. Yes, even that" power. The thing that will give them trouble is the vastly-dispersed empires of the various factions, which their powers are not well-suited to confronting.

[Forum Explorer]

I could understand the virus bombs simply being detonated all over a planet, so they'd (with handwaved super-magic-tech) basically be able to infect stuff really fast. But once the bombs plop the viruses down somewhere, I'm having a hard time seeing how they would travel to new places in seconds afterwards. Especially since they're so fast-acting, so it's impossible for any of the viruses to be transmitted by a moving host.


EDIT: And, making the decision through the command chains takes time, launching the bombs takes time, the bombs travelling takes time. It's more than a couple seconds in any case. A nuke can kill stuff in the ground zero region in less than a second, but MAD still exists because taking the actions to cause the nuke to detonate there takes time.

Seriously I don't know how they work. Just that it's quick and incredibly lethal.


Yeah, but an Inquisitor could bypass that and order it being fired immediately.

[Murska]

Seriously I don't know how they work. Just that it's quick and incredibly lethal.


Yeah, but an Inquisitor could bypass that and order it being fired immediately.

The Inquisitor's brain takes time to process the situation. The ships take time to arrive. The bombs still take time to be taken out of super-extra-special-safety-storage and loaded into the bomb bays or whatever they're launched out of, and they also take time to travel to the planet.


I would tend to say that the sheer size of the 40k universe means it would win.

Remember that even with the 'game breaker' powers in the Wormverse, there is a finite amount of "energy" for each power, and once it's used up, that's it -- it stops working. We only saw this happen once, but it does happen, especially when you try to scale a power up high enough to handle an entire universe. Khepri, for instance, ran out of Doormaker-juice taking control of just one planet for just a short while (and its alternate realities, but there were explicitly not many of them) -- she's not going to be able to use her power against an entire galaxy.

The only exception, maybe, is Contessa, whose power allows her to perform butterfly-of-doom attacks that work against opponents regardless of scale; but there are powers in WH40k that can block precognition to an extent, which we know can stop her, and it's indicated near the end that her power is 'resource intensive' and therefore likely to run out of juice if used repeatedly against an entire galaxy.

The Chaos gods on their own, on the other hand, are not a threat to the Worm universe -- if you allow the Worm powers to work as described, say, one hit with Foil's power to any manifestation of Tzeentch will kill all possible manifestations of Tzeentch permanently and prevent him from ever coming back in any form, regardless of whether that should be possible. We saw her do that multiple times in her own setting; there's no reason to think her power wouldn't keep saying "nope, you're just dead; nothing gets to say otherwise" in WH40k.

As a general rule the Worm universe is very good at taking down cosmic entities like that, since their ultimate power source evolved from fights between creatures of that nature -- this is specifically noted as why Foil in particular has an "I kill anything, no matter what. Yes, even that" power. The thing that will give them trouble is the vastly-dispersed empires of the various factions, which their powers are not well-suited to confronting.

In a battle of attrition, yes. But Wormverse has a retreat that would be very difficult for most if not all 40k folks to invade. (I'm assuming we handwave that while Wormverse has no Warp, Warp-reliant sentients from 40k can invade it if they get there somehow.) And Wormverse is vastly more progressive. Their Powers will eventually start dying out, which is a problem, but Powers are basically sufficiently advanced technology and Tinkers can advance technology very fast - Wormverse should be competitive enough to survive as that advantage starts getting into play and populations of the various Earths start to recover even while the Powers are slowly whittled down.

Generations hence, Wormverse could possibly break the deadlock of 40k simply by virtue of having as-good-as-infinite living space, super-advanced technology, as-good-as-infinite resources and the exponentially increasing population that follows.

[Forum Explorer]

The Inquisitor's brain takes time to process the situation. The ships take time to arrive. The bombs still take time to be taken out of super-extra-special-safety-storage and loaded into the bomb bays or whatever they're launched out of, and they also take time to travel to the planet.



Sure, but what will the Worm verse do in the meantime? They can evacuate some people, get others to specially sealed bunkers and vaults, but that's not everyone. Not even close. The majority of people would still die, and yeah it's not a game winner, but it is a devastating blow to inflict.

[Aquillion]

Generations hence, Wormverse could possibly break the deadlock of 40k simply by virtue of having as-good-as-infinite living space, super-advanced technology, as-good-as-infinite resources and the exponentially increasing population that follows.They don't have generations. They can retreat (although they don't have good-as-infinite worlds -- it's specifically noted that there are only a few of them), but Cauldron confirmed that according to all of their predictions the number of parahumans is only going to decline from the peak at the time of the story, to the point where they wouldn't be able to win in 17 years.

That's why this match-up is set at its peak, of course; but even without any catastrophes and even if the WH40K universe does nothing, the Worm universe is still going to decline. Their only real hope is to use a game-breaker power like Contessa's or Khepri, but as we saw, those powers have limits.

[Forum Explorer]

They don't have generations. They can retreat (although they don't have good-as-infinite worlds -- it's specifically noted that there are only a few of them), but Cauldron confirmed that according to all of their predictions the number of parahumans is only going to decline from the peak at the time of the story, to the point where they wouldn't be able to win in 17 years.

That's why this match-up is set at its peak, of course; but even without any catastrophes and even if the WH40K universe does nothing, the Worm universe is still going to decline. Their only real hope is to use a game-breaker power like Contessa's or Khepri, but as we saw, those powers have limits.

I read that to mean that between Endbringer fights and other conflicts that they'd be weaker in 17 years. Not that the number of Capes coming into existence would go down.

[Landis963]

They don't have generations. They can retreat (although they don't have good-as-infinite worlds -- it's specifically noted that there are only a few of them), but Cauldron confirmed that according to all of their predictions the number of parahumans is only going to decline from the peak at the time of the story, to the point where they wouldn't be able to win in 17 years.

That's why this match-up is set at its peak, of course; but even without any catastrophes and even if the WH40K universe does nothing, the Worm universe is still going to decline. Their only real hope is to use a game-breaker power like Contessa's or Khepri, but as we saw, those powers have limits.

It's true. The source, both sources, of parahuman powers is (are) dead. What's more, the vials containing the Cauldron serums are all shattered at the end of the story. The only thing left is to rely on the shards' budding instinct, which requires that a) the shard be developed enough to bud, b) there is a young child nearby to serve as a surrogate son or daughter, c) said child is around the cape often enough that the "son or daughter" comparison is apt, and d) that said child has a trigger event (although it need not be nearly as bad as the progenitor cape's trigger - Glory Girl (Super-toughness, plus an "awe aura" that encourages allies and terrifies enemies) triggered during a basketball foul, and Aidan (can consciously control birds and see through their eyes, as opposed to Skitter's unconscious control of insects) triggered after waking up from sleepwalking a few steps from the edge of a roof). In short, it requires that the actual cape has descendants of some kind, and children are not for everyone (Though there is some leeway on this as well; Aidan was merely living in Skitter's orphanage and still got her second-gen shard). Furthermore, it is my suspicion that Cauldron cape shards cannot go through this process because they're dead to begin with, (I always point to Legend's adopted son Keith never gaining powers as proof of this) and therefore their numbers had a hard cap from the getgo.

[Renegade Paladin]

She's immune to disease. Required secondary power.
So are Space Marines (explicitly stated primary power), and yet the Death Guard exists. Papa Nurgle doesn't care about your immune system. :smalltongue:

[Landis963]

So are Space Marines (explicitly stated primary power), and yet the Death Guard exists. Papa Nurgle doesn't care about your immune system. :smalltongue:

How exactly does that work? :smallannoyed: And don't say magic.

[The Glyphstone]

How exactly does that work? :smallannoyed: And don't say magic.

Chaos power/Warp power.

Which is basically magic.

But yes, it is canonical that some of Nurgle's plagues ignore physics/biology-based 'immunity' to diseases. But then, he also canonically keeps a captured goddess of healing in his garden and tests all his diseases on her to judge their lethality before sending them into the mortal world, so YMMV.

[Forum Explorer]

How exactly does that work? :smallannoyed: And don't say magic.

The viruses are literally tiny daemons?

[Murska]

Sure, but what will the Worm verse do in the meantime? They can evacuate some people, get others to specially sealed bunkers and vaults, but that's not everyone. Not even close. The majority of people would still die, and yeah it's not a game winner, but it is a devastating blow to inflict.

Assuming superviruses cannot travel through dimensions, simply retreat to a dimension that is not under threat of attack (or a few thousand dimensions like that) and rebuild.

(They might be able to mine Scion for powers, now that the dimension where his body is is no longer blocked?)

Shard budding is another way to replenish capes. But my point was basically that by the time the Capes die out, technology and exponential population growth due to infinite space and resources would have evened things enough so that Wormverse can survive that down-point, and then they'll be getting exponentially more and more powerful.

[Lamech]

It's true. The source, both sources, of parahuman powers is (are) dead. What's more, the vials containing the Cauldron serums are all shattered at the end of the story. The only thing left is to rely on the shards' budding instinct, which requires that a) the shard be developed enough to bud, b) there is a young child nearby to serve as a surrogate son or daughter, c) said child is around the cape often enough that the "son or daughter" comparison is apt, and d) that said child has a trigger event (although it need not be nearly as bad as the progenitor cape's trigger - Glory Girl (Super-toughness, plus an "awe aura" that encourages allies and terrifies enemies) triggered during a basketball foul, and Aidan (can consciously control birds and see through their eyes, as opposed to Skitter's unconscious control of insects) triggered after waking up from sleepwalking a few steps from the edge of a roof). In short, it requires that the actual cape has descendants of some kind, and children are not for everyone (Though there is some leeway on this as well; Aidan was merely living in Skitter's orphanage and still got her second-gen shard). Furthermore, it is my suspicion that Cauldron cape shards cannot go through this process because they're dead to begin with, (I always point to Legend's adopted son Keith never gaining powers as proof of this) and therefore their numbers had a hard cap from the getgo.
Shards can bud. Heartbringer had huge numbers of children with powers. They can also gather energy from their surroundings. (The shard itself, not the person its connected to.) Now the shards seem to be out of control. In all honesty 40Ks best hope is for the Wormverse to implode upon itself.


Sure, but what will the Worm verse do in the meantime? They can evacuate some people, get others to specially sealed bunkers and vaults, but that's not everyone. Not even close. The majority of people would still die, and yeah it's not a game winner, but it is a devastating blow to inflict. Seal the portals. You destroy one planet. Painful but not the end. And now you've lost the only connection to Worm.

Which still doesn't explain how a ship is just starting conveniently next to worm with a virus bomb and an inquisitor, and knows the best method to deal with Worm. And avoided getting hit by the Simurgh.

[Landis963]

(They might be able to mine Scion for powers, now that the dimension where his body is is no longer blocked?)

I thought it literally exploded afterward, resulting in stuff like the weird guy whose power killed him in Bitch's epilogue.



Shard budding is another way to replenish capes. But my point was basically that by the time the Capes die out, technology and exponential population growth due to infinite space and resources would have evened things enough so that Wormverse can survive that down-point, and then they'll be getting exponentially more and more powerful.

It requires a lot of things to get right, though, including the fact that the shard needs to mature enough to split in the first place. That requires conflict, which doesn't play well with having a handy child nearby to bud into.

[Murska]

Given how common it seems to be for the Shards to bud, it can't be that difficult.

[The Glyphstone]

The Nurgle Plague thing reminded me, I'm real surprised no one has tried to invoke the 'no limits fallacy' on the opposition (from either perspective) yet. It seems to get dredged up every time superheroes are thrown into a Versus.

[Aquillion]

Chaos power/Warp power.

Which is basically magic.

But yes, it is canonical that some of Nurgle's plagues ignore physics/biology-based 'immunity' to diseases. But then, he also canonically keeps a captured goddess of healing in his garden and tests all his diseases on her to judge their lethality before sending them into the mortal world, so YMMV.Worm powers aren't physics / biology based (at least, no moreso than Nurgle's own powers.)

[Frozen_Feet]

How exactly does that work? :smallannoyed: And don't say magic.

Nurgle's diseases are not just microscopic organism or pathogens. They are daemonic manifestations of nihilism, despair, fear of death, fear of aging and corruption, and other feelings associated with decay in its broadest sense. (As in: decay of body, decay of mind, decay of morals...)

To be physically immune to Nurgle's influence requires one to also be spritiually immune to all those things.

[Forum Explorer]

Assuming superviruses cannot travel through dimensions, simply retreat to a dimension that is not under threat of attack (or a few thousand dimensions like that) and rebuild.

(They might be able to mine Scion for powers, now that the dimension where his body is is no longer blocked?)


I don't see why they couldn't as long as the portal was open. Even a single open portal would let the virus spread and propagate. Yeah they could cut off the portals, if they could get their **** together in time to coordinate doing so. If they even bothered to do so. (Teacher and Cauldron don't exactly care about the majority of the people)


As for why they would be present? The Virus bombs are standard issue on certain ships, such as Space Marine vessels. An Inquisitor would almost certainly be called in to investigate the strange humans, as would Space Marines when they spotted an Endbringer. All of the pieces would be in place, it'd just take something going really wrong to cause the Inquisitor to order Exterminatus.


Though it's worth stating that conquest isn't the first response when the Imperium encounters a new human planet. The humans get a chance to surrender first.

[Murska]

I don't see why they couldn't as long as the portal was open. Even a single open portal would let the virus spread and propagate.

How can you be certain of this? I don't know if virus bombs explicitly ignore the laws of physics (as opposed to implicitly ignoring them) but given that viruses cannot travel very fast without being transported by something, given the description so far I'm simply assuming that the bombs release them and where bombs don't go, viruses can't follow. The alternative is that the hosts live long enough to move, which seems to contradict the 'turns to gas in seconds' thing. Air itself does not move that fast.

And even if so, the portals would be chokepoints. Sundancer plopping a portal-sized sun on a portal leading to the rest of the network from the most recently infected world would most likely stop viruses for long enough for Panacea to eliminate them entirely.

[The Glyphstone]

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

Make of it what you will, but however it manages to do so, it 'spreads across the surface of a planet in minutes'.

[Fan]

How can you be certain of this? I don't know if virus bombs explicitly ignore the laws of physics (as opposed to implicitly ignoring them) but given that viruses cannot travel very fast without being transported by something, given the description so far I'm simply assuming that the bombs release them and where bombs don't go, viruses can't follow. The alternative is that the hosts live long enough to move, which seems to contradict the 'turns to gas in seconds' thing. Air itself does not move that fast.

And even if so, the portals would be chokepoints. Sundancer plopping a portal-sized sun on a portal leading to the rest of the network from the most recently infected world would most likely stop viruses for long enough for Panacea to eliminate them entirely.

He's talking about nurgle plagues not a virus bomb.

This is a corrupted cape performing a ritual in the hub to allow daemons to come through along with the plague.

Alterantively, it's over when it starts when the planet is shunted into warp by direct chaos god intervention and lack of pious defenses. The earth they're on does come with the normal earth people population if I remember the setting correctly.

[Forum Explorer]

How can you be certain of this? I don't know if virus bombs explicitly ignore the laws of physics (as opposed to implicitly ignoring them) but given that viruses cannot travel very fast without being transported by something, given the description so far I'm simply assuming that the bombs release them and where bombs don't go, viruses can't follow. The alternative is that the hosts live long enough to move, which seems to contradict the 'turns to gas in seconds' thing. Air itself does not move that fast.

And even if so, the portals would be chokepoints. Sundancer plopping a portal-sized sun on a portal leading to the rest of the network from the most recently infected world would most likely stop viruses for long enough for Panacea to eliminate them entirely.

Well the viruses do somehow destroy entire planets in a matter of minutes. Hang on let me go check.


Yeah, rechecked it. Depends on the bombardment to propagate. So it likely wouldn't be able to chain too far unless there were lots of people right by the portals when they were fired. Not nearly as devastating as I had hoped.

[Fan]

Well the viruses do somehow destroy entire planets in a matter of minutes. Hang on let me go check.


Yeah, rechecked it. Depends on the bombardment to propagate. So it likely wouldn't be able to chain too far unless there were lots of people right by the portals when they were fired. Not nearly as devastating as I had hoped.

Use it when the world goes to flee the exterminatus?

Seems like the best timing, and given they are being led by multiple super psychics.

[Lamech]

It requires a lot of things to get right, though, including the fact that the shard needs to mature enough to split in the first place. That requires conflict, which doesn't play well with having a handy child nearby to bud into.
Heartbreaker disagrees with you on that count. The guy had swarms of children.

[Fan]

Heartbreaker disagrees with you on that count. The guy had swarms of children.

But as history has shown.

Even the "Good guys" in 40k don't shy away from bombing nurseries.

[Landis963]

Heartbreaker disagrees with you on that count. The guy had swarms of children.

True... And he had a lot of powered kids as well, given that they made up Aisha's gang. But Heartbreaker is clearly an anomaly, and not one that many capes want to emulate.

[Scow2]

On the whole Psyker vs. whassernamewiththepyschicpowers deal... Why is it assumed that Worms powers trump Warp Powers?

Just because the battle may lack Magic/Psionics transparency doesn't mean the Psions auto-win, as though they were immune to Team Mage (Or vice versa).

[Murska]

On the whole Psyker vs. whassernamewiththepyschicpowers deal... Why is it assumed that Worms powers trump Warp Powers?

Just because the battle may lack Magic/Psionics transparency doesn't mean the Psions auto-win, as though they were immune to Team Mage (Or vice versa).

Either you or I have not read the arguments very thoroughly. I have not seen anyone with the claim that Khepri's power trumps Psyker powers, only several claims that Psyker powers trump Khepri's powers and my objection that we cannot be certain of that.

[Aquillion]

Nurgle's diseases are not just microscopic organism or pathogens. They are daemonic manifestations of nihilism, despair, fear of death, fear of aging and corruption, and other feelings associated with decay in its broadest sense. (As in: decay of body, decay of mind, decay of morals...)

To be physically immune to Nurgle's influence requires one to also be spritiually immune to all those things.Not necessarily. Even if you treat Bonecutter or Panacea's powers as purely physical, we know that they're capable of interacting with non-physical things by fiddling with the point where they interact with the body. No matter how unnatural Nurgle's powers are, they still need a vector to influence the physical world -- they push specific buttons on your brain, which powers like Bonesaw's and Panacea's can alter and defend.

In other words: Panacea or Bonesaw's powers aren't just mindless disease resistance (like the Space Marine resistance presumably is.) They can modify the body however they please, which means that (if they're willing to do so), they can actively alter the body to remove or change whatever vector a spiritual attack is using to have effects in the physical world. (Even to the point of, if necessary, dampening, removing, or compartmentalizing someone's ability to feel nihilism, despair, or fear of death, for instance, although I don't think that would be necessary.)

If Panacea can alter someone's interaction with their Passenger, she can certainly alter their interaction with the Warp and things that originate from there.


On the whole Psyker vs. whassernamewiththepyschicpowers deal... Why is it assumed that Worms powers trump Warp Powers?

Just because the battle may lack Magic/Psionics transparency doesn't mean the Psions auto-win, as though they were immune to Team Mage (Or vice versa).I think that people are just assuming that Warp Powers are Sufficiently Advanced Technology (like Worm powers are.) Without that assumption, you can't really have the two settings interact, and there's definitely enough evidence in the WH40k setting to go with it.

At that point, Warp powers are going to fail against at least some of the Worm universe's powers (like Foil's), and will be vulnerable to logical interactions from others (like Panacea's). Of course, there's some interactions that we just have to handwave...


Either you or I have not read the arguments very thoroughly. I have not seen anyone with the claim that Khepri's power trumps Psyker powers, only several claims that Psyker powers trump Khepri's powers and my objection that we cannot be certain of that.As I pointed out above, it doesn't really matter, since Khepri's power is the one we specifically know does not have enough juice to take on the entire WH40k universe, even if nothing is immune.

[TeChameleon]

Hmm. The Wormverse does have one major gamebreaker combo that hasn't been mentioned, thinking about it... Contessa plus Khepri combined. If Contessa were to work with/join the swarm of Khepri (and assuming that this is the gestalt Khepri of Taylor, Doormaker and the Clairvoyant), then it's game over for the 40k 'verse. If Khepri's control is strictly limited to humans (no evidence either way, as far as I can recall... and her power isn't shard control, given that bugs certainly don't have shards), then it would likely take a bit longer and/or a few more doom butterflies, but there would be a certain degree of inevitability to it.

... *chuckle* Can you imagine the confusion and consternation if things in the grim darkness of the far future suddenly started getting noticeably better (at least for those whose definition of 'better' would match up with the average human being's)? Pretty sure that Khepri wouldn't consider anything less than cleaning up the 40k 'verse as 'victory'... would be one hell of a show, that's for sure.

As an aside, if memory serves, the only time we've seen Contessa get power-blocked is against Scion and Eden (I'm counting the Endbringers as an extension of Eden via Eidolon here), who coded that into her shard directly- her powers worked fine on Eden until Eden noticed and reprogrammed her shard- and that one guy who blocked all knowledge of the area he was in, and he seemed to be the hard counter to her powers. I don't recall her having trouble with precogs/precog blockers. Could be wrong, of course, but that's as best I can remember it.

Oh... one other important note: it's pointed out several times in Scion's interlude that the shards were released across time as well as space, so that the first shards got there before Scion did, and there was an unspecified number scheduled to crop up for an unspecified length of time into the future (I honestly read that as Wildbow leaving himself wiggle room for potential sequels).

[Murska]

As I pointed out above, it doesn't really matter, since Khepri's power is the one we specifically know does not have enough juice to take on the entire WH40k universe, even if nothing is immune.

How do we know this? The only power that's ran out of juice was Doormaker's. We don't know if that 'juice' is replenishable, nor do we know if other powers have this limit at all and where it's set, plus you claim that there were "explicitly not many" alternate Earths that Khepri took over, but I would say there were explicitly a lot of them, potentially a very large amount, plus she used portals rather wastefully in the multitudes in the course of one desperate struggle of a fight against Scion of all things. There was at least enough juice for millions and again millions of portals, which could do plenty - leaving them open does not seem to use up any more juice than opening them does in the first place, too.

If literally nothing is immune, which seems quite unlikely, then that's game. Take over the first ten million of the most powerful beings of 40k, in order. But I guess that's not what you meant. :P

[Lamech]

How do we know this? The only power that's ran out of juice was Doormaker's. We don't know if that 'juice' is replenishable, nor do we know if other powers have this limit at all and where it's set, plus you claim that there were "explicitly not many" alternate Earths that Khepri took over, but I would say there were explicitly a lot of them, potentially a very large amount, plus she used portals rather wastefully in the multitudes in the course of one desperate struggle of a fight against Scion of all things. Right. First to note is portals can't move. Every time she moved capes she was moving portals. There are only a handful of earths with powered people, and IIRC Scion only attackedd a few dozen worlds that they had access to during the battle.

Also shards its heavily implied that all shards have a limit, but they replenish it. (http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/interlude-26/)
They draw on these worlds for power, for energy, and thus fuel the techniques they have been coded with. Theoretically they might run out after stripping a whole planet of energy, or if they exceed the maximum amount they can draw at one time. We don't strictly know if Doormaker failed because he was using too much power (energy/time, meaning if Kherpi let him rest he could have kept going) or if it was just too much energy. (Meaning his shard had completely exhausted a world.) I suspect the former.

[Lamech]

Oh... one other important note: it's pointed out several times in Scion's interlude that the shards were released across time as well as space, so that the first shards got there before Scion did, and there was an unspecified number scheduled to crop up for an unspecified length of time into the future (I honestly read that as Wildbow leaving himself wiggle room for potential sequels).
And shards like to grow at random and it seems like they seriously screwed up the shard life cycle. (With their evil polluting SCIENCE!)

[Murska]

There are only a handful of earths with powered people, and IIRC Scion only attackedd a few dozen worlds that they had access to during the battle.


(Bolded for emphasis) Where do you get this part? I don't remember it exactly, but the impression I got was that there was a rather large amount of accessible worlds.

[Landis963]

And shards like to grow at random and it seems like they seriously screwed up the shard life cycle. (With their evil polluting SCIENCE!)

First off, who's "They?" Cauldron only resorted to their super serums because they'd just killed the alien who'd normally be in the driver's seat. Second off, shards are designed to activate during trigger events and grow during moments of conflict. (Except in cases of second triggers, which only come about when the powers as granted have too many restrictions to function as a valuable tool/weapon blah blah blah...)

[Forum Explorer]

Hmm. The Wormverse does have one major gamebreaker combo that hasn't been mentioned, thinking about it... Contessa plus Khepri combined. If Contessa were to work with/join the swarm of Khepri (and assuming that this is the gestalt Khepri of Taylor, Doormaker and the Clairvoyant), then it's game over for the 40k 'verse. If Khepri's control is strictly limited to humans (no evidence either way, as far as I can recall... and her power isn't shard control, given that bugs certainly don't have shards), then it would likely take a bit longer and/or a few more doom butterflies, but there would be a certain degree of inevitability to it.

... *chuckle* Can you imagine the confusion and consternation if things in the grim darkness of the far future suddenly started getting noticeably better (at least for those whose definition of 'better' would match up with the average human being's)? Pretty sure that Khepri wouldn't consider anything less than cleaning up the 40k 'verse as 'victory'... would be one hell of a show, that's for sure.

As an aside, if memory serves, the only time we've seen Contessa get power-blocked is against Scion and Eden (I'm counting the Endbringers as an extension of Eden via Eidolon here), who coded that into her shard directly- her powers worked fine on Eden until Eden noticed and reprogrammed her shard- and that one guy who blocked all knowledge of the area he was in, and he seemed to be the hard counter to her powers. I don't recall her having trouble with precogs/precog blockers. Could be wrong, of course, but that's as best I can remember it.

Oh... one other important note: it's pointed out several times in Scion's interlude that the shards were released across time as well as space, so that the first shards got there before Scion did, and there was an unspecified number scheduled to crop up for an unspecified length of time into the future (I honestly read that as Wildbow leaving himself wiggle room for potential sequels).

Bolded the key point there. This applies to what people were saying about Kherpi's power limit.

It's not her power that forms the limit with it running out, though Doormaker burning out is a huge limiter on her. It's her sanity. Once that goes, and it'll go pretty quick, she'll be worse then useless to the Worm universe. She'll be an active threat to be destroyed.

As for Contessa, well it's hard to say what impact she'd have against 40K verse. Incredibly powerful seers do exist and are relatively common in 40K verse, while Worm has something like 3 strong precogs; Contessa, Dinah, and the Simurgh.

I do want to point out that people are assuming that the Worm universe would actually work well together. They could barely manage to work together against literal annihilation, why do you think they'd do any better when surrender is an option? Or at least hiding in the Imperium and working as a citizen there.

[The Glyphstone]

To be fair, we've already thrown that last point of yours out the window when assuming the various 40K factions are cooperating, considering they spent most of their time trying to kill each other. So assuming Wormverse gets a similar level of narratively enforced harmony isn't unreasonable.

[Forum Explorer]

To be fair, we've already thrown that last point of yours out the window when assuming the various 40K factions are cooperating, considering they spent most of their time trying to kill each other. So assuming Wormverse gets a similar level of narratively enforced harmony isn't unreasonable.

Why would the 40K factions be cooperating? :smallconfused:

I mean I maintain that any one 40K faction could basically beat the Worm universe to the point where their only method of survival would be to completely abandon their home planets and hide. And even that might not work for every faction.

I also maintain that Worm's best chance for survival is to ally with one of the 40K factions.

[Landis963]

I also maintain that Worm's best chance for survival is to ally with one of the 40K factions.

Which one? The Imperium might be the easy choice, but there's bound to be some friction over some facet of the massive array of powers (I mean really, if any inquisitors meet, say, Labyrinth, boom headshot). I'm assuming the Tyranids, Necrons, and the C'Tan are out (way out). Nilbog and Panacea would have field days upgrading the Orks, The Eldar I don't know enough about to really say anything, same with the Tau.

[TeChameleon]

Bolded the key point there. This applies to what people were saying about Kherpi's power limit.

It's not her power that forms the limit with it running out, though Doormaker burning out is a huge limiter on her. It's her sanity. Once that goes, and it'll go pretty quick, she'll be worse then useless to the Worm universe. She'll be an active threat to be destroyed.

As for Contessa, well it's hard to say what impact she'd have against 40K verse. Incredibly powerful seers do exist and are relatively common in 40K verse, while Worm has something like 3 strong precogs; Contessa, Dinah, and the Simurgh.

I do want to point out that people are assuming that the Worm universe would actually work well together. They could barely manage to work together against literal annihilation, why do you think they'd do any better when surrender is an option? Or at least hiding in the Imperium and working as a citizen there.

*shrug*

I'm working under the assumption that Contessa's 'path to victory' power would account for burnout/insanity on the part of Doormaker or Khepri or whoever, and provide either a workaround or a longer-term solution, since they're integral to reaching... y'know, victory.

Also, Contessa's power is emphatically not precognition. From what I understand, Contessa frequently has no idea why she's doing what she's doing, just that her power says that whatever the action in question is will lead to the goal she wants to achieve. It is a hideously, hideously broken power, intentionally so, given that it seems to be the worms' trump card.

And if we're taking 'peak Wormverse' as 'Khepri rocking the house', then co-operation isn't exactly an issue :smalltongue:

[Murska]

Given that Worm's powers are meant to be Sufficiently Advanced Technology, Contessa feels to me like some sort of a powerful version of an Outcome Pump.

[Forum Explorer]

Which one? The Imperium might be the easy choice, but there's bound to be some friction over some facet of the massive array of powers (I mean really, if any inquisitors meet, say, Labyrinth, boom headshot). I'm assuming the Tyranids, Necrons, and the C'Tan are out (way out). Nilbog and Panacea would have field days upgrading the Orks, The Eldar I don't know enough about to really say anything, same with the Tau.

Imperium would work. With Contessa's power they can negotiate with the right Inquisitors to ensure they get a good deal even if a few of the heroes have to be sacrificied.

Necrons actually might not be out now. Okay it's a long shot, but there are Necron factions that are willing to negotiate. Imperium would likely give a better deal but might not be able to give the same security as a Necron Dynasty.

Eldar would be wanting to use Worm as pawns but they'd love to work with people like Doormaker to get away from their own enemies or to hit opponents they couldn't before.

Tau would just want them to join the empire. They'd also enforce a pretty strict peace as they hate infighting and civil wars.


*shrug*

I'm working under the assumption that Contessa's 'path to victory' power would account for burnout/insanity on the part of Doormaker or Khepri or whoever, and provide either a workaround or a longer-term solution, since they're integral to reaching... y'know, victory.

Also, Contessa's power is emphatically not precognition. From what I understand, Contessa frequently has no idea why she's doing what she's doing, just that her power says that whatever the action in question is will lead to the goal she wants to achieve. It is a hideously, hideously broken power, intentionally so, given that it seems to be the worms' trump card.

And if we're taking 'peak Wormverse' as 'Khepri rocking the house', then co-operation isn't exactly an issue :smalltongue:

Except Khepri can't not burn out. If she exists she will go insane eventually. Also Contessa decided to not join Khepri in the fight against Scion and she can use her power to avoid detection. So why would she join her now?

It's worse then precognition since acting without understanding why leads to horrible consequences. I think that if we looked at the big picture Cauldron actually did more damage to humanity after killing Eden then help.

Plus we get into precog wars. For example a Farseer can guide an Eldar unit's aim to where the target is going to be in the future. How would that work against Contessa?

[Murska]

There's no basis in saying Khepri's insanity is unavoidable. Plus, one could figure out a way to bypass her insanity, if it did happen, by, say, controlling her in some manner.

The Farseer thing wouldn't work, because as mentioned Contessa is not a precog. Assuming Contessa is attempting to avoid being shot, she would not go somewhere the Farseer could point the soldiers at, for one reason or another. That is because all the timelines where she does get shot are incoherent and never exist, have existed or will exist.

[The Glyphstone]

So what happens if she wants something that is manifestly impossible....like, I don't know, wanting to personally punch a planet in half or transform a mountain into cheese(she's really bored, okay?). Does her internal Infinite Improbability Engine extend to outright reality warping, or just impossibly generous strings of coincidences?

[Murska]

I would assume that the outcome pump can't do the impossible, mostly because the ability wasn't shown and it certainly would have made an impact, and also because it makes sense if the technology works as I imagine it might.

[Forum Explorer]

There's no basis in saying Khepri's insanity is unavoidable. Plus, one could figure out a way to bypass her insanity, if it did happen, by, say, controlling her in some manner.

The Farseer thing wouldn't work, because as mentioned Contessa is not a precog. Assuming Contessa is attempting to avoid being shot, she would not go somewhere the Farseer could point the soldiers at, for one reason or another. That is because all the timelines where she does get shot are incoherent and never exist, have existed or will exist.

Sure there is a basis. The basis is what we saw and what Bonesaw said.


I can see that, which would mean Contessa simply couldn't be fighting against the Eldar in a direct fashion. Which would be the same thing for a lot of opponents. If Contessa looked for the victory of 'how do I survive and live a comfortable life?' then answer would likely be 'leave the planet for a pleasant Imperium world, here's how to get amazingly rich and avoid trouble.' And she does seem to be the sort of person who would bail on everyone else. She seems to lack imagination and insight, depending far too much on her power and those around her to guide her.




So what happens if she wants something that is manifestly impossible....like, I don't know, wanting to personally punch a planet in half or transform a mountain into cheese(she's really bored, okay?). Does her internal Infinite Improbability Engine extend to outright reality warping, or just impossibly generous strings of coincidences?

When she asked how to defeat an Endbringer she simply didn't get an answer. We're not sure if this is due to the Endbringer's nature or due to it being impossible without Scion's intervention (and Contessa being unable to change what Scion was going to do anyways)

[Murska]

Just because we have one example of Khepri going mad doesn't mean it would be absolutely impossible for that to be averted in any reality and timeline ever.

I'm assuming unity on Wormverse's part. But Contessa could've done that easily whenever, and has not.

[Douglas]

Also, Contessa's power is emphatically not precognition. From what I understand, Contessa frequently has no idea why she's doing what she's doing, just that her power says that whatever the action in question is will lead to the goal she wants to achieve. It is a hideously, hideously broken power, intentionally so, given that it seems to be the worms' trump card.
She may not know why the steps will lead to the goal, but she does know the entire sequence of steps in advance. With investigation and thought, that could easily lead to finding out why. Or she could just get clever and set her power to giving her understanding of the steps. Given that it's able to do things as information-heavy as letting her speak in a language she's never even heard of before in order to communicate with someone, it could solve that by simply guiding her through writing out an explanation that she could then read.