nkelsch wrote:
Basically 'ratmen' suffer from the need to bear young, reproduce in a mammalian way, needing to transfer knowledge to the next generation via education, and needing a homeworld or civilization to keep the race going... something the corporation would assumed bomb back to the stoneage (literally) and enslaving any living species. Combine that with the fluff that this race of ratmen is hidden and the greatest threat to humanity and you get a very silly concept to many. And if they come up with a psuedo-science origin which explains the shortcomings of rats in space, they will probably need to be something like 'oh yeah, they reproduce from spores and are genetically engineered with knowledge intact! scary!'
People like fluff to make sense, at least GW's grimdark has done a pretty good job in making people like the fluff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_rat#Reproduction_and_life_cycle
Rats have short reproductive cycles and large litters.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7141067.stm Also demonstrates the ability of rats to quickly multiply if the resources are available. Make the rat omnivores, and then you have a race that consumes biomass to fuel the exponential growth of their population without needing to beat people over the head with it as part of the fluff. It can just be implied.
As far as education, an argument can also be made for genetic memory (instinct). As much as it might bother you, it's not complete quackery that DNA may carry more "memory" than we are currently aware of (epigenetics and all that fun stuff). So that the only time needed for child rearing would be in the short time needed for weaning. Given that this is all fiction, the Veermyn might not even need that, or that period could be shortened even further.
Those 2 factors alone would eliminate the need for a homeworld, or any large sustained population. It could be written that they come in cycles, having been thought of as wiped out only to reappear later on once the population has regrown and regeared.
So yes, rat men that might combine some of the intelligence of a human and the reproductive capabilities of rats are probably as believable a threat as mushroom men that like to kill themselves as much as other races or an insect pest problem (I guess they don't have any neonicotinoids in the 41st to spray the Nids with). But once again, for a universe based on fiction I don't see why it's necessary to have to write a dissertation on whether a race is an actual threat or not, or why a superior race didn't squash the other like a bug while it could (as if that hasn't happened repeatedly over the course of human history). I'm sure if we really wanted to we could make an entire thread shredding
GW's nonsensical pseudo-science/religion/magic. But really a lot of the anti-ratmen criticisms in this thread are just looking for excuses to hate them, so long as they are not a direct
GW analogue or
GW product. Better off sticking with solid criticisms such as the recycling fantasy models, Mantic's hatred of boots, or their rising prices.
