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

[Gavinfoxx]

If you replace a true faith artefact with a placebo what happens?

If done suddenly? the placebo doesn't have the powers / activate the thing in the people that activates it's powers. Note that true faith artifacts might not actually BE the saint's bones; enough people believing over a long enough time might make whatever-it-is the real deal. Note: This is an educated guess.

----

Okay, asked some people, and apparently there is a short story in the Deathwing anthology and the Let The Galaxy Burn meganthology... There was a Genestealer cult that stole the Emperor's toenail clippings (still growing, despite being clippings from before the Heresy), and a cloth used to wipe His brow (and consequently had a psychic imprint of Him on it) and replaced them with genestealer talons and a psychic totem of the patriarch.

No-one noticed until an inquisitorial team on an unrelated mission happened to be there on other business, despite these items being witnessed the annual unveiling to a devoted crowd. They had been kept in a public temple... However, this story predates the introduction of the True Faith stuff into the canon; it was back when the official canon was far, far more cynical with fewer instances of true heroism, and before the Sororitas were introduced (this was when Squats were part of canon...)