The Empire in WH40k

Gunhead · Post by **Gunhead** » 2005-01-27 11:22am

Hemlock, your suspicion has also been put forward by me, Connor seems to think so to.

The thing is neither side can actually prove themselves correct on this matter. They can argue that even GE humans will have a presence in the warp, since they're humans. I can argue they don't, because it's impossible to prove that this presence is not genetically inherent to IoM humans, and there is no warp in the SW universe.

I'm just trying to find out what's the mechanism behind the corruption, and what are it's limitations.

-Gunhead

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2005-01-27 12:43pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Why are we assuming that Imperial citizens, humans and aliens alike, have a presence in the Warp? There is no Warp in the 40K galaxy, and the Warp and the Force are clearly different concepts. If the Tau can avoid mass Chaos infestation, so can the Empire, since there is nothing to suggest that they would imprint themselves on this Warp.

This isn't very convincing. For one, the warp does have very physical effects like warpstorms, for example. And from what I understand there probably is a "natural state" warp in the SW galaxy (going by your standard vs rules of being in the same universe and having comparable physics), it's just not fucked like the WH40k one due to the old one/necron war ages ago.

I'd say the argument that assuming they're in the same universe, GE humans will have an imprint on the local warp just like normal humans, and just never noticed it till now since their warp is normal. This would rationalise the lack of warp in GE space and human interaction with the warp without special pleading.

Secondly, is it fair to the Empire to rob it of tons of its worlds? That sounds reminscent of all Jedi vs X fights where the Jedi didn't have his lightsaber or his Force powers or whatever.

It's still got its navy and several worlds, it's not that bad.

Gunhead wrote:They can argue that even GE humans will have a presence in the warp, since they're humans.

Yep, given that's fairly well established, in-universe.

I can argue they don't, because it's impossible to prove that this presence is not genetically inherent to IoM humans, and there is no warp in the SW universe.

Not as parsimonious as the explanation I gave, and is an argument from ignorance.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2005-01-27 12:52pm

HemlockGrey wrote:Secondly, is it fair to the Empire to rob it of tons of its worlds? That sounds reminscent of all Jedi vs X fights where the Jedi didn't have his lightsaber or his Force powers or whatever.

Yes. The Empire is horridly under-militrised. They could easily support their forces with 1/50th the resources.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2005-01-27 02:24pm

I'm not going to get into every single response here.. I just want to browse a few of the quick ones.. the longer posts deserve a more detailed response.

HemlockGrey wrote:Why are we assuming that Imperial citizens, humans and aliens alike, have a presence in the Warp?

I believe that the 40k side has mentioned that there are races in the 40k universe who do not have a substantial presence in the warp, yet can be affected by it and corruption nonetheless. In other words, it doesn't seem to matter much.

While I do nominally suspect that having a limited to nonexistent presence in the warp is some sort of protection (a form of stealth, if nothing else- I imagine the Chaos Gods have to search the thing and the galaxy to find things rather than instinctively know where they are. I would imagine though that access/presence in the warp has an correlational impact on susceptibility to the warp as well - it occurs to me that most of the most powerful psychic types aside from the Emperor are in the upper echelons, and IIRC someone mentioned thats where alot of the corruption is.)

There is no Warp in the 40K galaxy,

I presume you mean there is no warp in the SW galaxy.

Anyhow, I am nto sure I agree with this. For one thing its rather unfair to the 40K side (it denies them FTL in the SW universe, denies them their psychic abilities in the SW universe, effectively nullifies chaos, etc. its as unfair as crippling the Empire's size.) Insofar as I am aware there is nothing to suggest it doesn't exist, and generally speaking we do assume in such crossovers that technology and such are compatible (Otherwise B5 hyperspace must not exist in star Wars either.. and star wars subspace must not exist in B5 or WH40K...)

so yeah, I do think the warp exists. But for some reason or another, the races of the SW galaxy haven't accesesed it or arent even aware of it.

Besides which, even if the warp doesn t exist in the Empire, the warp still exists in 40k, so all the problems and benefits associated thereof still apply to the Empire regardless.

and the Warp and the Force are clearly different concepts.

True, but that doesnt make their existence mutually exclusive.

If the Tau can avoid mass Chaos infestation, so can the Empire, since there is nothing to suggest that they would imprint themselves on this Warp.

From what I gather, its because the Tau are pretty minor in the overall wH40K situation, and the Chaos gods have other problems on their hands they have to deal with first. Its also possible (as I suggested) low visibility in the warp makes them harder to notice (especially with much larger presences around to mask them.) and thus harder to locate (and corrupt/enslave/whatnot.)

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2005-01-27 02:26pm

NecronLord wrote:
HemlockGrey wrote:Secondly, is it fair to the Empire to rob it of tons of its worlds? That sounds reminscent of all Jedi vs X fights where the Jedi didn't have his lightsaber or his Force powers or whatever.
Yes. The Empire is horridly under-militrised. They could easily support their forces with 1/50th the resources.

Perhaps. But even so they're doing so at a greatly increased rate which that Galaxy is not used to (ie it would necessitate raising taxes and whatnot... and depending on timeframe, this might not be feasible.)

Frankly I think undersizing the empire is silly (As silly as saying Warp doesn't exist in the SW universe.) I'd much prefer the full-sized empire being allowed as well as the warp being allowed (especially since thats more consistent with how vs crossovers are noramlly supposed to be handled.)

Post by **NecronLord** » 2005-01-27 03:01pm

People would likely accept higher taxes when dumped into an alternate reality with alien menaces intent on enslaving them. One long holonet segment on Dark Eldar raiding and Palpy'd have them eating out of his hands.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2005-01-27 03:09pm

NecronLord wrote:People would likely accept higher taxes when dumped into an alternate reality with alien menaces intent on enslaving them. One long holonet segment on Dark Eldar raiding and Palpy'd have them eating out of his hands.

Well its more than just money or even manpower. There lots of resource worlds and locales in the SW galaxy they need to build and maintain their technology (tibanna gas for weapons and engines, lommite and zersium and other metals for starship construction, etc.) and i question whether any of them are found in the WH40K universe (some might.. or alternatives might..) Which means that downsizing them is actually worse than one imagines - there are hundreds of billions of stars in the SW galaxy, and while most of them aren't occupied, they also have those resourecs.. so we're talking about a far greater "diminuation" than just 50:1..

And that also creates problems with taxation. If there is only a million or so worlds (or even millions) at the Empire's control, its going to need to give up some of the "populated" worlds/systems in order for resource worlds/systems.. which is going to boost that taxation ratio up even higher.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-01-27 03:09pm

NecronLord wrote:People would likely accept higher taxes when dumped into an alternate reality with alien menaces intent on enslaving them. One long holonet segment on Dark Eldar raiding and Palpy'd have them eating out of his hands.

To say nothing of Slaanesh cultist practices...

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2005-01-27 03:11pm

Connor MacLeod wrote:
NecronLord wrote:People would likely accept higher taxes when dumped into an alternate reality with alien menaces intent on enslaving them. One long holonet segment on Dark Eldar raiding and Palpy'd have them eating out of his hands.
Well its more than just money or even manpower. There lots of resource worlds and locales in the SW galaxy they need to build and maintain their technology (tibanna gas for weapons and engines, lommite and zersium and other metals for starship construction, etc.) and i question whether any of them are found in the WH40K universe (some might.. or alternatives might..) Which means that downsizing them is actually worse than one imagines - there are hundreds of billions of stars in the SW galaxy, and while most of them aren't occupied, they also have those resourecs.. so we're talking about a far greater "diminuation" than just 50:1..

And that also creates problems with taxation. If there is only a million or so worlds (or even millions) at the Empire's control, its going to need to give up some of the "populated" worlds/systems in order for resource worlds/systems.. which is going to boost that taxation ratio up even higher.

As an added point.. at best its an overly complicated and rather convoluted approach to the discussion - as I said its simpler to assume the Empire has access to its galaxy, for better or worse (and probably is connected through wormholes or some such.) - they dont neccesarily need to know the locations of any/every wormhole (and there could be more than one)... and without knowledge of the WH40K galaxies' geography, their ability to traverse distances will be curtailed some (they need accurate navigational charts and s uch for safe hyperdrive jumps, remember.. and it will take time to acquire such.)

Singular Quartet · Post by **Singular Quartet** » 2005-01-27 03:13pm

NecronLord wrote:People would likely accept higher taxes when dumped into an alternate reality with alien menaces intent on enslaving them. One long holonet segment on Dark Eldar raiding and Palpy'd have them eating out of his hands.

As a side note on this, having had white_rabbit and Lord Khorak over on SBC describe what the Dark Eldar do, I would have to reply to this suggestion that such a transmission would not occur due to the fact that no sewer system could deal with that much vomit.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2005-01-27 03:18pm

You could edit it. As most of it would be displays from the helmet cameras of stormtroopers mowing the Dark Eldar down {without superior mobility, Eldar are fucking toast, and the Empire's forces are more mobile than they are - see AotC} bits could be transmitted.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2005-01-27 03:23pm

Connor MacLeod wrote: Well its more than just money or even manpower. There lots of resource worlds and locales in the SW galaxy they need to build and maintain their technology (tibanna gas for weapons and engines, lommite and zersium and other metals for starship construction, etc.) and i question whether any of them are found in the WH40K universe (some might.. or alternatives might..) Which means that downsizing them is actually worse than one imagines - there are hundreds of billions of stars in the SW galaxy, and while most of them aren't occupied, they also have those resourecs.. so we're talking about a far greater "diminuation" than just 50:1..

And that also creates problems with taxation. If there is only a million or so worlds (or even millions) at the Empire's control, its going to need to give up some of the "populated" worlds/systems in order for resource worlds/systems.. which is going to boost that taxation ratio up even higher.

Aside from the silly quote about neutronium being found on only one world, I doubt any of those things are found on less than fifty planets.

Lost Soal · Post by **Lost Soal** » 2005-01-27 03:30pm

Just a thought here, but if the Empire is granted all the worlds that are attributed to them, wouldn't that plant a good portion of them right in the middle of other territories.
E.g. How does the Empire react and cope when one of their manufacturing planets is located in the middle of the Golgotha sector.

Petrosjko · Post by **Petrosjko** » 2005-01-27 03:34pm

Connor MacLeod wrote:Anyhow, I am nto sure I agree with this. For one thing its rather unfair to the 40K side (it denies them FTL in the SW universe, denies them their psychic abilities in the SW universe, effectively nullifies chaos, etc. its as unfair as crippling the Empire's size.) Insofar as I am aware there is nothing to suggest it doesn't exist, and generally speaking we do assume in such crossovers that technology and such are compatible (Otherwise B5 hyperspace must not exist in star Wars either.. and star wars subspace must not exist in B5 or WH40K...)

Even with the warp, it is entirely plausible to say that vessels of the Imperium would not have FTL in the SW universe. The Astronomicon can't shine an infinite distance. No limit has been established for just how far it is 'visible', so if the vs. scenario establishes that the contestants are in two separate galaxies with a healthy bit of intergalactic distance separating them, there's no evidence that the central beacon by which Imperium vessels navigate could be seen in the GFFA.

Of the other races, the Eldar would likewise be fucked, because they can only travel to places that have portals established. Invading the GFFA would require them to build new portals, an activity for which I don't believe a timeframe has been specified. (Somebody feel free to chip in here)

The orks generally drift toward places at the behest of their gods, so they'd make out fine.

Chaos has an innate relationship with the warp, so it'd be fine.

The Tau use a much slower version of FTL that doesn't require navigators, so they'd be fine. But nobody cares about the Tau 'cause the little blue weenies will someday fall before His Majesty's might.

And the Necron of course have their own little thing going.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2005-01-27 04:33pm

There are mini astronomicons, that can be used for lesser navigation around smaller areas, and IoM ships can, like the travel four light year jumps without it.

It is however, true that Webway expansion seems to be beyond the modern Eldar.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2005-01-27 05:34pm

In any case, would the Emperor's Flashlight be needed in a galaxy with a tame Warp? I thought a large portion of the purpose was to help ships get around the fact that the Warp in the 40kverse was massively chaos-infested and screwy and hostile. Correct me if I'm wrong, I may well be.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2005-01-27 05:37pm

White Haven wrote:In any case, would the Emperor's Flashlight be needed in a galaxy with a tame Warp? I thought a large portion of the purpose was to help ships get around the fact that the Warp in the 40kverse was massively chaos-infested and screwy and hostile. Correct me if I'm wrong, I may well be.

If the link posted in another thread is accurate, I would call the idea of the SW galaxy being 'tame Warp' into question. While not the Hellish realm of WH40k, the descriptions match the Force quite well, and there's been some nasty Force-based troubles in it. It's most likely safe from possessions, but I dunno about blind navigating.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-01-27 05:38pm

White Haven wrote:In any case, would the Emperor's Flashlight be needed in a galaxy with a tame Warp? I thought a large portion of the purpose was to help ships get around the fact that the Warp in the 40kverse was massively chaos-infested and screwy and hostile. Correct me if I'm wrong, I may well be.

Now that you bring that up, yes, that's true. The warp in it's incorrupt state is easily navigable. Even the tainted warp of the ~20th millenium or thereabouts was fine without the Emperor or the Astronomicon. It wasn't until the Age of Strife with Slaanesh brewing did things get tricky.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2005-01-27 05:46pm

Wake me up when a Chaos god sodomi...wait...aw crap, that would explain the Vong.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2005-01-27 05:49pm

White Haven wrote:Wake me up when a Chaos god sodomi...wait...aw crap, that would explain the Vong.

It's like the Tyranids! Only with some semblence of sensibility!(Referring to the 'Nids using ramming and grappling IN SPACE COMBAT and the Vong not')

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2005-01-27 05:52pm

Nitram? Obsession with pain and torture, combined with blind religious fanaticism. Who does that remind you of?

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2005-01-27 06:20pm

White Haven wrote:Nitram? Obsession with pain and torture, combined with blind religious fanaticism. Who does that remind you of?

Churches! Lead! Very small rocks! A duck!

Yes, I know.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-01-27 07:35pm

White Haven wrote:Nitram? Obsession with pain and torture, combined with blind religious fanaticism. Who does that remind you of?

Slaanesh... that's... actually kind of disturbing.

Thinking about it, it actually gets kind of scary rationalizing a lot of Star Wars stuff, particularly EU, with 40k in mind...

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2005-01-28 12:55am

Black Admiral wrote: It's dependant on a lot of factors, like exposure to Chaos taint, strength of will, ambition, etc. Sometimes, like then Interrogator Valinov, people can be tainted by Chaos without fully realising it.

What forms can the taint take? Physical objects seem to be one, but are there others ? Can you be corrupted by touching a "tainted" individual? Breathe the same air as they do?

Things like purity seals, objects blessed in the name of the Emperor or one of the Imperial Saints, specially marked and consecrated objects, etc.

Sort of a "True faith" sort of effect, in other words.

Things like that are repulsive, even physically harmful to the creatures of Chaos (for instance, in Grey Knights a daemon was set on fire by contact with a Grey Knight's armour)

What sorts of things are harmful to them? Only blessed objects, or are there others?

Sounds like that's fairly close to covered then.

Well, as I said, if therea re any problems, there are ways to create or provided "Boosted" Dark Jedi/Sith that might be able to help sh ield or counteract such effects (Palpatine tapping the Valley of the Jedi, for example.)

Provided that they don't mess around with tainted objects (even contact can be enough) that should work.

I imagine they'd learn the folly of that after a couple of them get corrupted (and those that are are gonna end up getting killed anyhow.)

Tzeentch operates on something of a larger timescale (centuries to millenia; given that he's immortal, Tzeentch can afford to be patient). And playing the Grey Knights and Ordo Malleus for fools isn't easy.

Palpatine never had the chance to operate on that timescale, but he certainly engineered things to give himself that time (the cloning vats on Byss - which is another point - high-end Dark side use is probably going to "use up" Palpatine's bodies more rapidly, so he's probably gonna end up getting cloned alot.)

The source was most likely the daemon's physical form. Daemons typically can't manifest without something to manifest into (for instance, in Deus Encarmine one manifests into a Word Bearers that was used as the catalyst for summoning it).

Eh.. that might be a violation of the laws of symmetry - if a certain quantity of mass/energy comes from whatever dimension or plane the daemon resides in, an equal amount of mass-energy will be transported to that plane/dimension in question. So arguably for that to work, the daemon is still going to have to suck in some matter/energy from somewhere in order to not violate physics or anything. (although where he might draw it from is certainly open to discussion.)

I don't suppose daemons might be "summoned" by performing ritual sacrifice or something, can they?

As far as Chaos infection, it seems that things created by or in worship of the powers of Chaos are saturated with warp power, making them points whre the material world is malleable and Chaos can affect it.

Well I figured that.. I'm just trying to figure out how the taint might logically be passed or transferred

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2005-01-28 12:57am

NecronLord wrote:
Connor MacLeod wrote: Well its more than just money or even manpower. There lots of resource worlds and locales in the SW galaxy they need to build and maintain their technology (tibanna gas for weapons and engines, lommite and zersium and other metals for starship construction, etc.) and i question whether any of them are found in the WH40K universe (some might.. or alternatives might..) Which means that downsizing them is actually worse than one imagines - there are hundreds of billions of stars in the SW galaxy, and while most of them aren't occupied, they also have those resourecs.. so we're talking about a far greater "diminuation" than just 50:1..

And that also creates problems with taxation. If there is only a million or so worlds (or even millions) at the Empire's control, its going to need to give up some of the "populated" worlds/systems in order for resource worlds/systems.. which is going to boost that taxation ratio up even higher.
Aside from the silly quote about neutronium being found on only one world, I doubt any of those things are found on less than fifty planets.

That's nto the point. The point is, consumption of those resources is going to be at least 50x greater (or 50x scarcer.. depending on how you interpret it.)