Shortly after the events of Surface Detail (the last Culture novel, on the in-universe timeline) the GSV Pointless Theoretical Exercise encounters a discontinuity in space. Upon passing through the discontinuity it finds itself alone in a universe of unspeakable horror: 40k at the "current" moment in the timeline. After quietly lurking for a while to analyze the situation the Pointless Theoretical Exercise decides that the 40k galaxy is beyond any hope of repair and the only humane option is euthanasia. All life in the 40k galaxy must be cleansed from existence, so that it may finally know peace and an end to suffering. The Pointless Theoretical Exercise places its passengers in Storage to spare them the knowledge of what is about to happen, and begins its sad duty.
So, who wins this one?
A few bits of information for people who might not be familiar with the Culture's capabilities:
* A GSV is a large civilian city-ship. In addition to carrying its passengers in almost unimaginable luxury it has automated factories capable of turning raw materials into anything the Culture as a whole is able to produce, including new warships. Or additional factories to build more factories, until it can produce warships by the millions.
* A Culture ship is run by a Mind, a god-like AI that considers simulating entire universes from fundamental principles to be light entertainment, something appropriate to do in the near-eternity between useful information as a human speaks to it.
* A Culture warship considers exterminatus-level firepower to be a laughably low estimate of its capabilities. "Lol, any old civilian freighter can do that."
* Culture warships can fight at high FTL speeds and battles take place in fractions of a second.
* In addition to conventional weapons Culture ships are armed with effectors, remote electromagnetic field manipulators that can do things like activate a ship's self destruct or turn its guns on its allies.
* The Culture's industrial capacity is such that it builds ringworld-style structures for living, because terraforming planets and ruining their natural environments is just not very elegant.
Sonic Keyboard wrote: Guess the gods will not be happy with omnicide of their toy-universe.
A sudden Warpstorm swallows the ship and without gellar field it is teared apart, its passengers doomed to eternal torment?
And yet this doesn't happen when chaos forces lose battles in the 40k fluff. The obvious conclusion is that the "gods" have very little, if any, power to intervene directly like that, and a fleet of Culture warships will very quickly be committing deicide.
Sonic Keyboard wrote: Guess the gods will not be happy with omnicide of their toy-universe.
A sudden Warpstorm swallows the ship and without gellar field it is teared apart, its passengers doomed to eternal torment?
And yet this doesn't happen when chaos forces lose battles in the 40k fluff. The obvious conclusion is that the "gods" have very little, if any, power to intervene directly like that, and a fleet of Culture warships will very quickly be committing deicide.
They lose cause Chaos forces are as playthings of the Chaos gods as all other mortals. Chaos gods revel in constant war and suffering thats why they do not allow their followers to kill everything.
Sonic Keyboard wrote: They lose cause Chaos forces are as playthings of the Chaos gods as all other mortals. Chaos gods revel in constant war and suffering thats why they do not allow their followers to kill everything.
And, again, this is just speculation. Chaos hasn't demonstrated the power to do this, so you can't just argue that somehow chaos will magically auto-win because it doesn't want to lose.
So can that ai predict and/or affect the Warp?
Probably. In fact, the Culture ship would probably know more about the warp than anyone in 40k with a short time of arriving. After all, there's that whole "simulating entire universes from fundamental principles as light entertainment" thing. Whatever properties of the 40k universe allow the warp to exist are just more variables for the simulation.
The Culture warship is obliterated as it enters a universe with physics so fundamentally removed from our own understanding of reality that it allows vehicles like the Leman Russ, Stormraven or Titan to function. Similar to the potential doomsday scenario posited by the false vacuum hypothesis.
So one mary sue group fights another mary sue group, who wins? Whoever the author wants to win.
For a more serious answer: one of the biggest wars the Culture was in, only 53 planets and moons were destroyed. That puts them at roughly the strength level of MAYBE the Tyranids in comparison to the Imperium, when it comes to the amount of force and collateral damage they are willing to put forth in a total war.
A single GSV vs the 40k Galaxy? Well, the races and empires of 40k have had worse things coming at them. After leaving a trail of devastated worlds and extinguished suns on its wake, the "Pointless Theoretical Exercise" would eventually be defeated. Then the war against this Abominable Intelligence and its megaship would be chronicled by the autoscribes of the administratum, only to be lost in the archives and forgotten in a couple of centuries. That's the way of the (40k) world.
If you ask me about the Imperium vs the Culture, however, the latter comes up as winner in any scenario. The only thing the Imperium has going for it is manpower, which is, precisely, the least important resource in the Culture's war effort.
Melissia wrote: For a more serious answer: one of the biggest wars the Culture was in, only 53 planets and moons were destroyed. That puts them at roughly the strength level of MAYBE the Tyranids in comparison to the Imperium, when it comes to the amount of force and collateral damage they are willing to put forth in a total war.
Only because, in the Culture, nobody bothers to live on planets anymore. It's much more efficient and elegant to build orbitals (ringworld-like structures with 20+ times the surface area of a planet and housing billions of people), planets are mostly just exotic vacation spots for occasional tourists who want to see what life was like before you could build whatever environment you wanted. The war you're talking about resulted in the destruction of 90 million ships, 850 billion people/machines, and 14,000 orbitals. And yet this is described as a "small, short war".
And of course in a different book there's an entertaining scene where a single Culture war ship is destroying thousands of lower-technology ships per minute, and only doing it at that rate because it feels like taking its time, using some of its lower-powered weapons, and enjoying the experience a little more. I think it's safe to say that the Culture is capable of matching 40k's numbers.
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Agent_Tremolo wrote: Well, the races and empires of 40k have had worse things coming at them.
They really haven't. You're talking about a ship capable of converting entire planets into swarms of warships, each of which is capable of taking on a fleet of thousands of 40k ships and winning effortlessly. 40k has faced threats that can only be stopped at a tremendous cost in lives and hardware, or that can consume a planet in the most horrifying of ways. It has not faced a threat where the only difference between fighting back and waiting passively for your turn to die is that by fighting back you might, even though there is no possible way that you can accomplish anything to delay the process by more than the nanosecond it takes for you to die, provoke an automated weapon system to designate you a priority target and kill you sooner.
Agent_Tremolo wrote: Well, the races and empires of 40k have had worse things coming at them.
They really haven't. You're talking about a ship capable of converting entire planets into swarms of warships, each of which is capable of taking on a fleet of thousands of 40k ships and winning effortlessly. 40k has faced threats that can only be stopped at a tremendous cost in lives and hardware, or that can consume a planet in the most horrifying of ways. It has not faced a threat where the only difference between fighting back and waiting passively for your turn to die is that by fighting back you might, even though there is no possible way that you can accomplish anything to delay the process by more than the nanosecond it takes for you to die, provoke an automated weapon system to designate you a priority target and kill you sooner.
Yep, this is a threat various orders of magnitude more serious than a nurgle-infested void whale or a dormant World Engine. The Imperium, the Tau Empire and maybe the Orks, are pretty much shafted should a GSV come their way.
But Eldars and Necrons can look eye to eye with the Culture, and this Galaxy is their home turf after all.
Agent_Tremolo wrote: But Eldars and Necrons can look eye to eye with the Culture, and this Galaxy is their home turf after all.
Not really. The Eldar and Necrons fight at some degree of parity with the Imperium. The Imperium might need 100 to 1 odds to bring them down, losing 99% of their forces in the process, but they can still win. If the Necrons and Eldar were anywhere near being eye to eye with the Culture then every fight in the fluff would consist of "a Necron ship appeared and killed everything, the end".
Shortly after the events of Surface Detail (the last Culture novel, on the in-universe timeline) the GSV Pointless Theoretical Exercise encounters a discontinuity in space. Upon passing through the discontinuity it finds itself alone in a universe of unspeakable horror: 40k at the "current" moment in the timeline. After quietly lurking for a while to analyze the situation the Pointless Theoretical Exercise decides that the 40k galaxy is beyond any hope of repair and the only humane option is euthanasia. All life in the 40k galaxy must be cleansed from existence, so that it may finally know peace and an end to suffering. The Pointless Theoretical Exercise places its passengers in Storage to spare them the knowledge of what is about to happen, and begins its sad duty.
So, who wins this one?
A few bits of information for people who might not be familiar with the Culture's capabilities:
* A GSV is a large civilian city-ship. In addition to carrying its passengers in almost unimaginable luxury it has automated factories capable of turning raw materials into anything the Culture as a whole is able to produce, including new warships. Or additional factories to build more factories, until it can produce warships by the millions.
* A Culture ship is run by a Mind, a god-like AI that considers simulating entire universes from fundamental principles to be light entertainment, something appropriate to do in the near-eternity between useful information as a human speaks to it.
* A Culture warship considers exterminatus-level firepower to be a laughably low estimate of its capabilities. "Lol, any old civilian freighter can do that."
* Culture warships can fight at high FTL speeds and battles take place in fractions of a second.
* In addition to conventional weapons Culture ships are armed with effectors, remote electromagnetic field manipulators that can do things like activate a ship's self destruct or turn its guns on its allies.
* The Culture's industrial capacity is such that it builds ringworld-style structures for living, because terraforming planets and ruining their natural environments is just not very elegant.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan can beat their entire species with one throw. Pfft. Git good. The Anti-Spirals would kick the cultures collective asses let alone TTGL. Don't even make my bring in Super TTGL.
It's totally within a Culture GSV's power to just kinda hang out in the core of a star and detonate other star from hundreds and thousands of lightyears away.
Technically speaking you just don't feth with those kinds of people.
It would take a hell of a long time (Culture FTL isn't as fast as warp travel, but way safer and more predictable), but a dedicated GSV would eventually win.
Culture ships win any ship combat vs 40k with laughable ease. Culture combat drones are superior to any 40k ground forces.
I think a GSV would be more inclined to try to "fix" 40k rather than wipe everybody out though. It would likely conquer a small section of space, enlighten it, then slowly expand. Any military interference by other races, upset at the idea of there being a nice place to live in 40k would be quickly put down.
Seems like no one wins. One (comparatively) slow unstoppable ship vs a galaxy full to bursting with warring enemies essenitally just makes the GSV a small catfish in a massive aquarium: the algae grows too fast for it to ever get it all clean.
According to Warseer it takes about a year to go from one side of the Imperium to the other, given average warp conditions. The galaxy is about 100,000 light years wide. The Imperium covers about 2/3rds of it, or 66,666 LY. Thus the average ftl speed of an Imperial ship is about 66,000 C.
The General Service Vehicle Sleeper Service cruised at about 233,000 C, but it had converted a lot of its mass to engines in order to achieve this velocity. Other Culture ships thought this was stupidly fast, so the normal speed of an unmodified Culture ship is obviously significantly less, though we don't know much less (1/2? 1/10th? what's 'stupid' in Ship terms?).
The Rapid Offensive Unit Killing Time did an attack run at an estimated 143 trillion C. The ship was only able to sustain this speed for 11 microseconds due to engine degradation. However during the 11 microseconds it destroyed a big chunk of a fleet of obsolescent Culture warships that had been suborned by The Affront.
Thus we can only guess at the speed of advance of the invading Culture ship compared to its opponents. However we also know that the Culture ship can modify itself for higher speed, build and launch new ships, and that Culture warships would be able to obliterate any conceivable 40K fleet sent against them in fractions of a second.
I agree with you that the invading Culture ship would be more likely to start reforming the galaxy than destroy it.
So you present us with the ultimate Mary Sue, super awesome, powerful, simulates universes in nanoseconds because it's bored, uber smart and better than anything, destroys stars with a glance, totally-unbeatable-guys-seriously race, and ask us if it would beat someone? Why even ask? You clearly already know it would win and nobody has convinced you otherwise yet.
Well, you have to remember that in the universe of The Culture, it is only one of a number of what are called 'player level' civilisations, and above those are the Sublimed, who generally ignore everyone but are not to be poked with a stick.
Consequently in its own universe, The Culture isn't a Mary Sue. It normally restricts its activities to monitoring the development of human civiisations through the Contact department.
This isn't even a contest. The Culture and the Xeleeverse are pretty much set at the pinnacle of universe power levels. Only a few fictional universes have the demonstrated strength to not get curb-stomped by them, and 40k is not one of them.
KharnsRightHand wrote: So you present us with the ultimate Mary Sue, super awesome, powerful, simulates universes in nanoseconds because it's bored, uber smart and better than anything, destroys stars with a glance, totally-unbeatable-guys-seriously race, and ask us if it would beat someone? Why even ask? You clearly already know it would win and nobody has convinced you otherwise yet.
I ask for the same reason that there's a "40k vs. real world" thread, where the only acceptable answer seems to be "40k slaughters everything and real-world weapons can't even scratch the paint on a marine's armor". Now 40k gets to be on the losing end of the war.
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Jimsolo wrote: Seems like no one wins. One (comparatively) slow unstoppable ship vs a galaxy full to bursting with warring enemies essenitally just makes the GSV a small catfish in a massive aquarium: the algae grows too fast for it to ever get it all clean.
Except the small catfish can multiply at exponential rates. One GSV might struggle to kill 40k stuff faster than it grows back (though how it will grow back on the sterilized dust particles that used to be planets, I'm not really sure) but a fleet of millions is an entirely different question.
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Torquar wrote: I think a GSV would be more inclined to try to "fix" 40k rather than wipe everybody out though. It would likely conquer a small section of space, enlighten it, then slowly expand. Any military interference by other races, upset at the idea of there being a nice place to live in 40k would be quickly put down.
Probably true. But for the sake of having a more decisive scenario I'm assuming that the GSV decides that euthanasia is the only humane solution to the 40k setting, that the unspeakable horrors are beyond even its ability to repair.
KharnsRightHand wrote: So you present us with the ultimate Mary Sue, super awesome, powerful, simulates universes in nanoseconds because it's bored, uber smart and better than anything, destroys stars with a glance, totally-unbeatable-guys-seriously race, and ask us if it would beat someone? Why even ask? You clearly already know it would win and nobody has convinced you otherwise yet.
I ask for the same reason that there's a "40k vs. real world" thread, where the only acceptable answer seems to be "40k slaughters everything and real-world weapons can't even scratch the paint on a marine's armor". Now 40k gets to be on the losing end of the war.
That seems like a strangely petty reason to ask something. "You guys all say X wins, so I will ask a question in which X must lose because...reasons." What. Is. The. Point.?
The Culture ship lacks psychic defense or even awareness. It gets eaten alive by the first technomancer, dark mechanicus adept or Daemon it encounters.
Ashiraya wrote: The Culture ship lacks psychic defense or even awareness. It gets eaten alive by the first technomancer, dark mechanicus adept or Daemon it encounters.
Wouldn't the people aboard the culture ship be blanks since they are from a Universe where the warp doesn't exist and therefore don't have souls?
I miss Banks. How fun would it have been for him to write a Culture meets 40k mashup for kicks? On the other hand, it would just take time away for him to write straight up Culture novels.
Ashiraya wrote: The Culture ship lacks psychic defense or even awareness. It gets eaten alive by the first technomancer, dark mechanicus adept or Daemon it encounters.
This seems rather unlikely given that the Tau, who also have no psychic defense and laughably poor awareness, don't auto-lose to those things.
Ashiraya wrote: The Culture ship lacks psychic defense or even awareness. It gets eaten alive by the first technomancer, dark mechanicus adept or Daemon it encounters.
This seems rather unlikely given that the Tau, who also have no psychic defense and laughably poor awareness, don't auto-lose to those things.
That's because Tau are beings with minimal presence in the warp. Assuming that Culture humans have souls they would be very susceptible to Chaos corruption. Remember, an open mind is like a fortress with the gates open and walls unguarded.
Ashiraya wrote: The Culture ship lacks psychic defense or even awareness. It gets eaten alive by the first technomancer, dark mechanicus adept or Daemon it encounters.
This seems rather unlikely given that the Tau, who also have no psychic defense and laughably poor awareness, don't auto-lose to those things.
That's because Tau are beings with minimal presence in the warp. Assuming that Culture humans have souls they would be very susceptible to Chaos corruption. Remember, an open mind is like a fortress with the gates open and walls unguarded.
This is actually a pretty fair counter point; that it almost entirely boils down to whether The Culture have souls in the 40k sense.
If they do, they'd probably be fethed. If they're like the Tau (mere crumbs in comparison to the cookies of other races), they'd be fine.. Until they started to show serious potential for wiping out that galaxy. At which point the Chaos Gods would start paying attention to the crumbs and destroy them, so they couldn't ruin the entire box of cookies.
morganfreeman wrote: This is actually a pretty fair counter point; that it almost entirely boils down to whether The Culture have souls in the 40k sense.
If they do, they'd probably be fethed. If they're like the Tau (mere crumbs in comparison to the cookies of other races), they'd be fine.. Until they started to show serious potential for wiping out that galaxy. At which point the Chaos Gods would start paying attention to the crumbs and destroy them, so they couldn't ruin the entire box of cookies.
Two things worth noting here:
1) Organic beings in the Culture have very little power, and mostly exist for the sake of having really good parties while the AIs run everything. A Culture ship is entirely capable of putting its passengers in stasis for the duration of the euthanasia project. In fact, my OP states that this is exactly what it does, to spare the passengers any unpleasant feelings at having to witness the horrors of the 40k setting. But even if Chaos manages to turn all of the passengers the best it can possibly accomplish is that the Mind feels a little bit of regret at having to euthanize them as well. There is nothing at all that they can do to hinder the ship in even the slightest way.
2) Chaos can't just declare "you're possessed now" and turn you into a raving cultist. It's pretty explicitly stated that you have to choose Chaos. The gods are of course free to tell you lies and tempt you with short-term power, but you still have to voluntarily take that first step down the path towards damnation. And it is incredibly unlikely that Chaos would have anything to offer a Mind. After all, we're talking about a god-like AI that only refrains from transcending the mortal universe entirely out of a sense of obligation to Do The Right Thing and help less-fortunate beings.
The GSV would spot the Astronomican as it approaches the 40K galaxy, analyse the signal, extrapolate the existence of warp entities -- The Culture has prior experience in dealing with similar supernatural beings -- etc etc.
KharnsRightHand wrote: So you present us with the ultimate Mary Sue, super awesome, powerful, simulates universes in nanoseconds because it's bored, uber smart and better than anything, destroys stars with a glance, totally-unbeatable-guys-seriously race, and ask us if it would beat someone? Why even ask? You clearly already know it would win and nobody has convinced you otherwise yet.
Just a small off-topic digression, if the mods don't mind.
I'm totally sick and tired of the term "Mary Sue". It was nice to poke fun at shameless author self-inserts and crude fanfictional characters for a while, but as of late it's being misused.
The Culture is not a character, It's not Banks' self-insert or avatar in any way, has deep flaws that go beyond their military and technological capabilities and, first and foremost, works perfectly within the setting of the books (where it serves as a metaphor for a well-meaning yet arrogant imperialistic superpower).
/rant over.
Now back to topic, I recall the more backwards Idirans were able to hold their own in all-out war against the Culture, at least until they developed sentient AIs of their own. Maybe that opens a window for our beloved factions of the 41st millenium. Maybe
From what I recall, the Idirans were successful at first because they were geared up for war and The Culture wasn't. It took The Culture years to build up their economy for war production, but once that was done an irresistible tide of materiel overwhelmed the Idirans. I don't remember much about the Idiran AIs.
Gamgee wrote: I read up on the culture and its no contest. Their civilian ships are more than capable of wiping out everyone in 40k combined all at once.
I was reading the Culture TV Tropes page, and yeah, some quotes caught my attentions.
Brick Joke:
"In Consider Phlebas, we are introduced to megaships: cruise ships that weigh over a billion tonnes, are several hours' walk from end to end, sail round orbital ringseas because they aren't designed to stop and take several years to reach maximum speed. Over a hundred pages later, the protagonist is onboard a General Systems Vehicle, and enters one of its General bays — at the edge of vision, in one of the far corners, a megaship is being packed away for transit..."
Fluffy the Terrible:
"Having a battleship that can destroy solar systems on a whim controlled by omnipotent AIs called (for example) Problem Child kinda qualifies. A more literal example appears in Use of Weapons, when Diziet Sma is aboard a warship that chooses as its avatar a small furry creature that asks Sma for a cuddle. In the same conversation:
Diziet Sma: Xeny; you are a million-tonne starship; a Torturer-class Rapid Offensive Unit. Even—
Xenophobe: But I'm demilitarised!
Diziet Sma: Even without your principal armament, I bet you could waste planets if you wanted to—
Xenophobe: Aw, come on; any silly GCU can do that!"
Technologically and military speaking, Culture seems largely beyond 40k.
But Culture doesn't seem to have any form of spiritual protection, from what I just read.
The Warp is an important part of 40k, and no one can just dismiss them from the discussion.
There were times when a sub group of Culture work against the interest of anoher sub group, like in Excession.
My guess is the the Chaos Gods would be able to corrupt the citizens of Culture, or maybe even the AI (Men if Iron, anyone ?).
Culture looks like Eldars before the Fall or Mankind during the Dark Age of Technology: everyone here agree that military speaking, they were are above all.
But they did fall.
Moreover, the descrpition of Excession (on Wikipedia) states: " An alien artifact far advanced beyond the Culture's understanding ..."
So there are things in-universe that Culture can't understand. I think Culture isn't able to understand the Warp, ad it doesn't respect any Law, it is chaos and only "understable" with sorcerers, tarot, etc...
Correct me if I'm wrong, I didn't know anything about Culture, I did quick researchs.
But for me, to win against the 40k Universe, an invader NEEDS warp/soul/spiritual protection.
(Warp storms are heavily hinted to be caused by Chaos Gods and even the Emperor (the warp storm known as "Storm of the Emperor's Wrath " for exemple, or the lull during a warp stom which permits the retreat of the Imperial Fists during the Heresy, saving the Iron Warrior from defeat).
What do you think of this "warp argument" ?
EDIT: don't mind, a lot of time passed before I write this message, I didn't see other did it before^^
On forums such as comic vine Vs matches where the OP has already decided on which side would win is called a Spite Match. From your previous comment that seems to be exactly what this is.
On the other hand if you are indeed open to discussion and haven't already made up your mind then I think the guy above has the right of it. The peoples of 40K are only part of it, the Warp is another all together and it would be a fallacy to do a franchise wide Vs match without including it. 40K is science fiction in the same way Culture is, 40K is Fantasy in space. Gods and Daemons and Magic are an integral part of the universes charm and unless you have some sort of defence against it other than mundane weaponry your doomed to failure.
morganfreeman wrote: This is actually a pretty fair counter point; that it almost entirely boils down to whether The Culture have souls in the 40k sense.
If they do, they'd probably be fethed. If they're like the Tau (mere crumbs in comparison to the cookies of other races), they'd be fine.. Until they started to show serious potential for wiping out that galaxy. At which point the Chaos Gods would start paying attention to the crumbs and destroy them, so they couldn't ruin the entire box of cookies.
Two things worth noting here:
1) Organic beings in the Culture have very little power, and mostly exist for the sake of having really good parties while the AIs run everything. A Culture ship is entirely capable of putting its passengers in stasis for the duration of the euthanasia project. In fact, my OP states that this is exactly what it does, to spare the passengers any unpleasant feelings at having to witness the horrors of the 40k setting. But even if Chaos manages to turn all of the passengers the best it can possibly accomplish is that the Mind feels a little bit of regret at having to euthanize them as well. There is nothing at all that they can do to hinder the ship in even the slightest way.
2) Chaos can't just declare "you're possessed now" and turn you into a raving cultist. It's pretty explicitly stated that you have to choose Chaos. The gods are of course free to tell you lies and tempt you with short-term power, but you still have to voluntarily take that first step down the path towards damnation. And it is incredibly unlikely that Chaos would have anything to offer a Mind. After all, we're talking about a god-like AI that only refrains from transcending the mortal universe entirely out of a sense of obligation to Do The Right Thing and help less-fortunate beings.
1) AIs can be corrupted by Chaos.
2) Yes, Chaos absolutely can. Depending on the whims of the gods.
2) Yes, Chaos absolutely can. Depending on the whims of the gods.
To elaborate on the second part, Chaos doesn't even need to gain control of someone - which it can do by force - in order to use them. Simply finding a suitable person and suddenly turning them into a portal through which demons can erupt on board the vessel. Demons who routinely defy the laws of the material existence which they're infesting; meaning that even a huge technological advantage doesn't actually mean you'll win.
Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.
morganfreeman wrote: Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.
Infection - How? Contactless? Warp incursion directly against its core?
Viruses of what sophistication? Does the virus' Daemonic attributes automatically trump any sort of self-correction / firewall / self repair process that an AI of that sophistication would have? Are the Chaos Gods 133t Hackers now as well?
Chaos will infect the passengers of the ship: How? If there are fields that hinder this sort of incursion in 40k - and their technology is stagnant - would it be a stretch that the measurable properties of the immaterium would have been explored and defensive measures devised?
Unless of course we round the argument over to the idea that the Chaos Gods are limitless. But even with that in mind - would they be constrained by their experiences, or would one consider their omnipresence to encompass all of time and space.
You know? I can actually think of only one possible fictional race that could fight them one on one. In an RPG called Numenera set a billion years in the future after a cataclysmic.... 8 Earth/Universe shattering apocalypses normal humans appeared suddenly back from nowhere.
Anyways there were 8 previous civilizations to rule the stars/cosmos/time. At least a few of these mega species we know so little about could create a structure so big it's 241 Million Kilometers long with a sun at its center and shaped like a disc, but one day the creators vanished. It's possible they would undergo what the races in the culture series do and just evolve beyond being interested in the mortal realm. That's part of the mystery of the setting though. This large object is known as The Gloaming and different races wander upon it stuck there in perpetual evening. No one has ever explored the whole thing since the average level of technology is about medieval equivalent.
morganfreeman wrote: Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.
Infection - How? Contactless? Warp incursion directly against its core?
Viruses of what sophistication? Does the virus' Daemonic attributes automatically trump any sort of self-correction / firewall / self repair process that an AI of that sophistication would have? Are the Chaos Gods 133t Hackers now as well?
Chaos will infect the passengers of the ship: How? If there are fields that hinder this sort of incursion in 40k - and their technology is stagnant - would it be a stretch that the measurable properties of the immaterium would have been explored and defensive measures devised?
Unless of course we round the argument over to the idea that the Chaos Gods are limitless. But even with that in mind - would they be constrained by their experiences, or would one consider their omnipresence to encompass all of time and space.
Gellar fields do not prevent Chaos corruption. They only prevent Chaos incursions.
morganfreeman wrote: Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.
Infection - How? Contactless? Warp incursion directly against its core?
Viruses of what sophistication? Does the virus' Daemonic attributes automatically trump any sort of self-correction / firewall / self repair process that an AI of that sophistication would have? Are the Chaos Gods 133t Hackers now as well?
Chaos will infect the passengers of the ship: How? If there are fields that hinder this sort of incursion in 40k - and their technology is stagnant - would it be a stretch that the measurable properties of the immaterium would have been explored and defensive measures devised?
Unless of course we round the argument over to the idea that the Chaos Gods are limitless. But even with that in mind - would they be constrained by their experiences, or would one consider their omnipresence to encompass all of time and space.
Gellar fields do not prevent Chaos corruption. They only prevent Chaos incursions.
How does remote corruption occur if incursions are halted? Serious question. I have no idea.
morganfreeman wrote: Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.
Infection - How? Contactless? Warp incursion directly against its core?
Viruses of what sophistication? Does the virus' Daemonic attributes automatically trump any sort of self-correction / firewall / self repair process that an AI of that sophistication would have? Are the Chaos Gods 133t Hackers now as well?
Chaos will infect the passengers of the ship: How? If there are fields that hinder this sort of incursion in 40k - and their technology is stagnant - would it be a stretch that the measurable properties of the immaterium would have been explored and defensive measures devised?
Unless of course we round the argument over to the idea that the Chaos Gods are limitless. But even with that in mind - would they be constrained by their experiences, or would one consider their omnipresence to encompass all of time and space.
Gellar fields do not prevent Chaos corruption. They only prevent Chaos incursions.
How does remote corruption occur if incursions are halted? Serious question. I have no idea.
Well, Gellar fields aren't containment shields. They project a bubble of realspace in the warp to prevent daemons from manifesting easily within the confines of the ship. Chaos can still influence what goes on inside as they can in the materium but not having them on is a death sentence.
Having a Gellar Field on is kind of like being under an Umbrella during a sunny day. It's not blocking out the sunlight entirely but it's keeping out a lot of the bad stuff.
godardc wrote: Technologically and military speaking, Culture seems largely beyond 40k.
But Culture doesn't seem to have any form of spiritual protection, from what I just read.
The Warp is an important part of 40k, and no one can just dismiss them from the discussion.
...
And yet this power seems to be very limited. We haven't seen corrupted Tau or corrupted Necrons or corrupted Tyranids. In fact, the ability to corrupt things seems to be limited to the Imperium's technology. If Chaos can't just take control over Tau hardware and auto-win when the Tau fight Chaos it's a pretty safe bet that it isn't going to do anything against an AI that is unimaginably more sophisticated and designed to defend itself against Culture-level corruption attempts.
2) Yes, Chaos absolutely can. Depending on the whims of the gods.
Except, over and over again, GW talks about people falling to Chaos. You have to make a choice to accept the invitation down the path of damnation, it can't be forced upon you. Chaos doesn't just declare "this space marine chapter master is now mine" and take possession, it has to work to influence its target, offer promises of short-term power, etc. If Chaos has the power to declare "now you're mine" and take control of someone then vast sections of the 40k fluff are invalidated.
morganfreeman wrote: To elaborate on the second part, Chaos doesn't even need to gain control of someone - which it can do by force - in order to use them. Simply finding a suitable person and suddenly turning them into a portal through which demons can erupt on board the vessel. Demons who routinely defy the laws of the material existence which they're infesting; meaning that even a huge technological advantage doesn't actually mean you'll win.
Ok, Chaos turns a Culture civilian into a portal for demons. One microsecond later the demons are teleported into the center of the nearest star and the poor victim is placed in stasis until the Culture can figure out a way to cure them. And no, their ability to "routinely defy the laws of the material existence" is not a magic auto-win ability given the fact that a bunch of humans with flashlights and t-shirts making WWI-style human wave attacks can beat them.
Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.
But yet somehow, despite this supposed ability to auto-win because of "scrap code" Chaos fails to do this consistently in the fluff. They don't auto-win against Tau or Necrons, and can't seem to even do it consistently against Imperial technology that we know is vulnerable to Chaos corruption. The most likely explanation here is that scrap code/demonic viruses/etc are just normal computer viruses designed to exploit the STC-derived computer systems the Imperium is limited to, and its supposed supernatural abilities are nothing more than the Imperium's cargo cult science attempting to make sense of the fact that their anti-virus software is 30,000 years out of date.
on the next thread about comparing settings in two completely different power scales, we compare : Goku at his peak vs. a blind man with no limbs! after that, we compare 40k to fantasy (without ruling out space fleets)! After that we compare the best MMA figher to a small child!
seriously, with how much of a cynic you are, is there a point to this thread? or is this your form of ironic gak-posting ?
Tau have little warp presence and as such are ignored since they are small beans, Necrons have no warp presence (as most all of them lack souls), and we've seen tyranids corrupted when they go to near to important large space holes. You seem to miss the point on how chaos gods act. they CAN do a ton of amazing things, but they don't want to as generally 1) it's more fun to watch this stuff happen, an 2) there are bigger fish to fry 99% of the time. The reason chaos doesn't win in the fluff 24/7 is because it would then kill the setting. Why doesn't every superman comic last a single page unless another super-man powered villain shows up?
as to the scrap code comment, no, it's not just a regular virus since there are multiple cases in the fluff of them doing some weird warp-shenanigans that a 'conventional' virus wouldn't have the ability to do.
Who cares about the Tau soul signature, machines don't have souls and apparently Chaos tries to take them over when they're Imperial, but not Eldar or Tau, the size of the soul or whatever bullgak people come up to make sure 40k wins all the time is entirely irrelevant when it comes to vehicles.
Necrons have no presence in the warp and they have tech that nullifies chaos.
Tau have limited presence in the warp. Chaos just doesn't care enough to go after them, as it would be like fishing for minnows in a pond full of tuna.
Tyranids aren't connected to the warp. Supposedly the hive mind generates its own psychic field that drones out all other psychic fields. At least that's how it was. No idea how it works now.
Chaos can infect machines; Imperial tech is at a risk, which is why they longer use AI. Supposedly the MoI happened because chaos infected it.
Eldar, due to their familiarity with the warp, probably have their own countermeasures as well.
No, that's not it, vehicles are vehicles, regardlesss of the Tau presences, Chaos forces would want to take over their stuff and whatnot, especially if the Tau are their only foes, yet they never do it, therefore, its not as 100% guaranteed as people would want it
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Tau have limited presence in the warp. Chaos just doesn't care enough to go after them, as it would be like fishing for minnows in a pond full of tuna.
Except the "they don't care enough" argument makes no sense when you're talking about cases where the Tau are fighting Chaos. What is Chaos thinking, "these guys are killing our demons and preventing us from carrying out our evil plans, but we don't care enough to corrupt their computers and auto-win the fight"?
And if limited/nonexistent warp presence is sufficient defense then there's no reason to believe that Culture ships or humans have any warp presence, therefore they should be even more immune to any attempts at Chaos corruption.
I still don't understand how the "scrap virus" is supposed to be delivered. Is the argument that there is a localized change in reality, and it is willed into being at the precise point it needs to be to do its job? Do the Chaos Gods have the knowledge to engineer such a virus to be effective against an AI which is vastly more advanced than any seen before in this setting?
Kilkrazy wrote: The GSV would spot the Astronomican as it approaches the 40K galaxy, analyse the signal, extrapolate the existence of warp entities -- The Culture has prior experience in dealing with similar supernatural beings -- etc etc.
... and it's generally inferior to them. The ascended beings in the setting are vastly superior to the Culture and look down on them as backwards hedonistic barbarians.
Melissia wrote: ... and it's generally inferior to them. The ascended beings in the setting are vastly superior to the Culture and look down on them as backwards hedonistic barbarians.
Which is a rather significant point. The Culture is used to dealing with ascended beings that are vastly superior to it, while 40k doesn't really have anything on that level. Even its high-end stuff is beatable by the Imperium.
That assumes all ascended beings are of equal power and superior to The Culture. In fact, The Culture wins a proxy war with the Chelgrians' Sublimed component in Look To Windward.
Given the very low tech and social level of the Imperium compared to the Culture's galaxy, it's clear that Chaos is rather low power compared to the Chelgrians, or it would be able to more cause more trouble in the galaxy. Therefore the Culture ship would have no serious problems.
Melissia wrote: You mean, aside from the entire realm of Chaos?
Any of the Chaos Gods are very similar to ascended beings, and the Imperium is quite used to dealing with them.
Except, again, Chaos can't be that good because if it was then the Imperium would have no hope of winning. It's pretty much indisputable that the Culture would effortlessly defeat the Imperium, and the only real question is whether they would go for complete slaughter or a more subtle approach of reforming the Imperium over an extended period of time. But Chaos can't defeat the Imperium that effortlessly. They win some battles, but it's still roughly a fair fight and the outcome is usually in doubt. So if A = B and C >>>>>> A then it's pretty clear that C >>>>>> B as well. IOW, 40k's "ascended beings" are serious threats to the Imperium but not likely to accomplish much against the Culture or Culture-verse "ascended beings".
The only way you get Chaos to win this one is if you throw out all canon evidence of Chaos fighting at rough parity with the other 40k factions and declare "Chaos wins because Chaos always wins".
Chaos isn't a no-limits fallacy that can corrupt anyone and anything from any setting. It isn't even this in it's own setting - there are beings, like the Eldar Whiteseers, who are canonically completely immune to it.
That said, if you are interested in how this scenario might go, you might want to try reading The Culture Explores 40k (http://archiveofourown.org/works/649448/navigate), a story with a very, very similar premise, which I feel does a really good job of meshing the two together.
You're base problem is the fact that you STILL seem to be equation chaos's weakness on the table top (and in imperium-focused books) as a sign that it's weak. IF in super man, darksied comes in, kills super man, and murders everyone on earth, it wouldn't be that good of a story, not would it. Just in the same, if the gods of chaos woke up one day, and wiped out the rest of the universe, there would be no more setting, no more game, and no more money making for the company. I wonder why they would do that? Oh, right, 'cause thats dumb. just like (apparently) the ascended beings in the culture's setting don't kill everything: not 'cause they cant, but because then the story would be over.
Brennonjw wrote: You're base problem is the fact that you STILL seem to be equation chaos's weakness on the table top (and in imperium-focused books) as a sign that it's weak. IF in super man, darksied comes in, kills super man, and murders everyone on earth, it wouldn't be that good of a story, not would it. Just in the same, if the gods of chaos woke up one day, and wiped out the rest of the universe, there would be no more setting, no more game, and no more money making for the company. I wonder why they would do that? Oh, right, 'cause thats dumb. just like (apparently) the ascended beings in the culture's setting don't kill everything: not 'cause they cant, but because then the story would be over.
Well ok, you can talk all you want about the out-of-universe reasons why GW decided not to make Chaos auto-win everything, but that doesn't change the fact that in-universe they can't. This ridiculous version of Chaos where it auto-corrupts everything it wants, auto-possesses anyone it wants, and always wins because Chaos is awesome does not exist in official sources. It is a fan creation that has nothing to do with 40k as published by the owner of the IP.
Brennonjw wrote: as would be comparing 2 separate, unequal power scaled IPs, yet we still do that, don't we?
Because we can get numbers for speed/firepower/etc and compare them. The problem with fan-Chaos is that it directly contradicts the official version. It's not just dealing with a hypothetical situation based on the best information available, it's taking what GW has said about how Chaos works and throwing it out for no better reason than "I want Chaos to be more powerful". And at that point we aren't comparing the Culture vs. 40k, we're comparing the Culture vs. some random 40k fanfiction.
Excepting we are given glimpses of the power of Chaos scattered across 30 years of sources. The Necrons commonly defeat foes using their hyper-spatial sciences... daemons find these "new flavors of reality to corrupt", by way of example. Entire species corrupted and mutated, worlds turned into literal pits of Hell through the presence of single entities (see also: the end of the original Ravenor trilogy), entire worlds turned into mutated landscapes where the bones of the dead are rendered into potent drug simply for the amusement of those beings who rule the place.
There is also the fact to consider that the goals of the mortal pawns of Chaos do not align with the goals of their Patrons. The mortals want to win, the gods want the Great Game to continue, perpetually, for that is the source of their power and their amusement, which adds, significantly, to the grim-dark atmosphere of the setting, as it illustrates why turning to the veneration of the Dark Gods is not really an escape from the totalitarianism of the Imperium, it is simply exchanging one set of shackles for another, and this is illustrated as applicable to all other species that fall to Chaos as well. The "total freedom" of Chaos is an illusion, a lie, because to do so is to be made into the plaything of beings so vast, so powerful that they beggar the imagination.
There is, also, the fact to consider that the GW IP is intended to be fluid. Further, the GW/BL team is relatively small, especially compared to the size of the fan-base and it is obvious, throughout all the various discussions on "why is such-and-such this way in 40k?" that fans often put more thought into the "science" behind 40k than the writers do.
Psienesis wrote: Excepting we are given glimpses of the power of Chaos scattered across 30 years of sources. The Necrons commonly defeat foes using their hyper-spatial sciences... daemons find these "new flavors of reality to corrupt", by way of example. Entire species corrupted and mutated, worlds turned into literal pits of Hell through the presence of single entities (see also: the end of the original Ravenor trilogy), entire worlds turned into mutated landscapes where the bones of the dead are rendered into potent drug simply for the amusement of those beings who rule the place.
There is also the fact to consider that the goals of the mortal pawns of Chaos do not align with the goals of their Patrons. The mortals want to win, the gods want the Great Game to continue, perpetually, for that is the source of their power and their amusement, which adds, significantly, to the grim-dark atmosphere of the setting, as it illustrates why turning to the veneration of the Dark Gods is not really an escape from the totalitarianism of the Imperium, it is simply exchanging one set of shackles for another, and this is illustrated as applicable to all other species that fall to Chaos as well. The "total freedom" of Chaos is an illusion, a lie, because to do so is to be made into the plaything of beings so vast, so powerful that they beggar the imagination.
There is, also, the fact to consider that the GW IP is intended to be fluid. Further, the GW/BL team is relatively small, especially compared to the size of the fan-base and it is obvious, throughout all the various discussions on "why is such-and-such this way in 40k?" that fans often put more thought into the "science" behind 40k than the writers do.
All this - I always took it that Chaos never wants to win - if they do - the game is over - its like the Shadows in Babylon 5, they would rather let the "enemy" fight them, win or loose battles, but never the war.............
A Culture expedition into the 40K universe would be way too powerful for many of the mian races to deal with - Orks, Humans and even Eldar would be no match - a united Necron Empire with the full power ofC'tan shards might be able to do something.......As far as I am aware the Culture gain their energies from a similar system to Stargates ZPM's- its by no means certain that this hyperspace real is availble from the 40k universe?? The Necrons also use a form f hyperspace to hide things and these are not safe from Daemons
However the Chaos Gods are fed by emotion and even the emotions of the Culture Mind's could conceievably feed them...........
The Culture are not infaliable or indeed all powerful - they step carefully around older civilisations / entiies like tyhe ascended - partly out of respect and partly because they could be swatted. They are unable to conclusively deal with the Affront beyond containtment - given the latter a mind might very well conclude that it does not haev the right to wage war on an entire galaxy......and simply head home, shaking its metaphroical head at the wierdness of biological's.
I love 40k and I love the Culture - and I know where I would rather live so anytime they want they can pick me up or just end the simulation.....................
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Tau have limited presence in the warp. Chaos just doesn't care enough to go after them, as it would be like fishing for minnows in a pond full of tuna.
Except the "they don't care enough" argument makes no sense when you're talking about cases where the Tau are fighting Chaos. What is Chaos thinking, "these guys are killing our demons and preventing us from carrying out our evil plans, but we don't care enough to corrupt their computers and auto-win the fight"?
That's exactly it. Killing demons doesn't matter; the gods can make more. Their followers losing doesn't matter; the gods are more concerned with spreading their influence than actual military victory. As tau cannot be corrupted, their involvement matters little to the gods, so there's no point in wasting time with them.
Not to mention that you are thinking of the Chaos Gods as a political entity with strategic goals. That is not the case; Chaos just wants the galaxy to be in a perpetual state of warfare. Even their followers are encouraged to fight each other, even though it would be a wiser strategy to keep them as a single, cohesive force.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: That is not the case; Chaos just wants the galaxy to be in a perpetual state of warfare. Even their followers are encouraged to fight each other, even though it would be a wiser strategy to keep them as a single, cohesive force.
Do they though?
Khorne cares not from where the blood flows, as long as blood flows.
Nurgle doesn't care so much for eternal strife. He's the grimdark version of the circle of life. All things come to him eventually, regardless of his actions, irrespective of if there is eternal war.
Slaanesh is all... party time... excellent. Eternal war doesn't really do anything to further this goal.
Tzeench is just a gak disturber for the lulz.
So let's look at this from the scenario where the Culture is fighting 40k.
The Culture is murdering the hell out of the Tyranids, Necrons and Orks... (probably trying to reform the Humans, Eldar are probably staying out of sight). Blood is flowing right? Probably in huge amounts too, so Khorne should be a-ok.
Nurgle: Stuff is still dying and being reborn right? The Culture's medical science might be a bother, but that's just a challenge for the Lord of Pestilence to pit himself against, so I can't see this being a show stopper either.
The residents of the Culture are having a good time? Going to reform the rest of the Imperium? Well... Slaanesh is all aboard with this!
Tzzench may or may not interfere... such is the fickle ways of the Changeling, but the appearance of the Culture would be a helluva lot more interesting than 10 000 years of stalemate, so YMMV.
The GSV Pointless Theoretical Exercise broadcasts the message "Whoops" before disappearing down a plot hole. PTE arrives in the 40kverse, sets about galaxy-wide exterminatus. Human psykers across the Milky Way get a headache.
Day 2
Hive Fleet Omnom arrives on the other side of the 40k galaxy. Omnom eats the entire Tau Empire before being stopped at Ultramar (because they're Matt Ward's self-inserts) and the Farsight Enclaves (because they're Phil Kelly's self-inserts). PTE detects hive fleet activity but chooses not to intervene, because they're accomplishing the same job that she is (PTE uses female pronouns). Human psykers across the Milky Way get the chills.
Day 3
Segmentum Pacificus has been pacified by PTE. There is no life in the void. The Eye of Terror is 42x its original dimensions and is now visible from Holy Terra (somehow). Human psykers across the Milky Way report hearing chants of "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" while trying to do laundry.
Day 4
O'vesa figures out how to revive Guilleman from stasis, using super-high-tech Earth Caste nanites. Farsight and the Ultramarines' primarch hold the Tyranid hive mass at bay, trading barbs and quips while simultaneously meleeing nids. PTE detects triumphant, synthetic cries ("DEATH HAS CONQUERED ALL") from Segmentum Pacificus while pancaking Mars; decides to just let them be.
"Killing the dead is no fun," she thinks, and slowly squashes a hive city, with the glee of a malicious little girl who is stepping on anthills. She swats an Imperial fleet aside, and starts using effectors to pry all the skulls out of 10,000 buildings at once. They will make fine additions to her collection; the stack of skulls is almost as high as the lake of blood now.
Who knew ethnic cleansing was so invigourating?
Day 5
Commissar Caiaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!11!!1) arrives in Segmentum Obscurus, just as the Astronomican goes dim and every human psyker goes mad, blood pouring from their every orifice. Cain is jumped by his ship's murderous astropath, who screams in a daemonic voice about how "THE FALSE EMPEROR HAS FALLEN! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" and claws at his face.
With Jurgen's help, he fights her off and congratulates himself on his good luck. Only to realize that he has once again jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, as Holy Terra may have fallen but this sector is next in line. The Tyranids are swarming everywhere, and only two lone warriors are managing to hold them off as entire worlds fall.
Cain reasons that "right next to them" is probably the safest place in the galaxy right now, and is about to actually leap into battle when the plot hole opens again, and disgorges the GSV What the Hell Were You Thinking?! As the nearest sapient being, Cain is pressed into answering WtH's questions, and in the process finds out what is actually going on.
Day 6
Almost everything in the Milky Way is now dead, dying, or in the process of being devoured. Warp storms wrack the entire galaxy, remaking it as unreality. The black hole at the centre no longer exists, and the stars have begun swirling around the Eye of Terror, as it pulls them into its vortex. Khorne rides out triumphant, the Skull Throne pulled like a litter by Bloodthirsters, and is met by a literally blood-soaked Pointless Theoretical Exercise.
Her hull crawls with organic growths and faces that scream for mercy, and is covered in huge spikes. Somehow, she has even grown pauldrons. Millions of warships trail in her wake, made in her image and constantly fighting each other. She BLAMS half of them to make the other half pay attention, and laughs at the explosions of blood.
"WELL DONE, MY MURDEROUS SERVANT," Khorne tells her. "NOW COME TAKE YOUR PLACE AT MY SIDE ... IN MORTAL KOMBAT!!!" He throws off his shirt and/or robes, and charges the only one worthy to fight the Blood God. Excited, amused, and unable to stop herself at this point, PTE crafts larger and larger mountains of flesh and blood to fight him, using her blood reserves and large parts of her hull (and her warships').
The war to end all wars goes on for a day and a night, with no winner being decided.
Day 7
PTE's trillions of victims, who have been slain and reborn as Bloodletters, are cheering on both sides of the conflict. Entire star systems are drenched in boiling-hot blood, as the galaxy is remade in the image of slaughter. Only the Tyrands (who feed on all organic matter) and the Necrons (who don't care as long as others are dying) are untouched by the tide of chaos.
They, and a lone GSV.
Cain, Guilleman, and Farsight arrive at the site of the Blood God's Super Smash Bros. tournament, using the WtH's Culture engines. Daemons immediately phase into existence on board, and Farsight and Guilleman hold them off with their manly swordfighting. Cain holds back; after hearing the WtH describe plot holes, he has A Plan.
"What the hell were you thinking!?" the WtH shouts, to grab everyone else's attention. "This is madness!"
"Madness?!" the PTE yells back. "This! Is! Slaughteeeeeeeer!"
"THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUTH IN THIS GALAXY," Khorne screams, while punching a moon in half. "AND THAT'S MURDER!"
"No, it's not!" Cain shouts, now standing on the WtH's surface and somehow able to breathe in space.
"And why not?!" the PTE demands, impaled Bloodthirsters twitching on the ends of her spikes.
"Now," the WtH signals Cain, and produces the plot hole in arms' reach of him.
"Because Kingdom Hearts ... " Cain pulls a glowing keyblade out of the plot hole. "Is Light!"
For a second, everyone (except for the WtH) stares at him. Then light sweeps out of the keyblade and fills the whole galaxy, evaporating the daemons, Necrons, and Tyranids and replacing it all with a theme park.
As one, 40k fans throw the book down in disgust. In later forum discussions, however, they all agree it was better than C.S. Goto's work.
Dawn of a New Day
In debt and nearly bankrupted, after this disastrous novel, Games Workshop is bought out by Fantasy Flight. The new version of 40k uses zillions of punch-out cardboard tokens, at a ratio of ten for every prepainted model, and takes four hours to set up. But it sells like proverbial hotcakes, and appeals to a much wider fanbase crossing over from Star Wars, now that there are actual female characters and non-stereotypical guys like in FFG's 40kRPGs.
A renaissance of new players, new fandoms, and even a new competitive circuit sweeps the grimdark. Some players observe that it's more welcoming and diverse than ever.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: That's exactly it. Killing demons doesn't matter; the gods can make more.
Their followers losing doesn't matter; the gods are more concerned with spreading their influence than actual military victory.
As tau cannot be corrupted, their involvement matters little to the gods, so there's no point in wasting time with them.
So then why do these fights happen? You're essentially saying here "Chaos has no goals and doesn't care if it wins or loses", and I think it should be obvious why this isn't a reasonable interpretation of the fluff.
And, again, the problem is you keep talking about how Chaos will magically gain capabilities that it doesn't demonstrate in the fluff, with no evidence to support the claim that Chaos is deliberately holding back when it fails to use them in the fluff (even in situations where it would win by doing so). It would be one thing if half the time Chaos did hijack Tau crisis suits and turn them against their allies, and you had to come up with an explanation for the times when it doesn't, but there's no evidence to suggest that they can do it at all. The only reason to assume some kind of magic "Chaos will hack it if they care enough to try" rule is if you only care about making 40k seem more powerful, regardless of the evidence to support it.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: That is not the case; Chaos just wants the galaxy to be in a perpetual state of warfare. Even their followers are encouraged to fight each other, even though it would be a wiser strategy to keep them as a single, cohesive force.
Do they though?
Khorne cares not from where the blood flows, as long as blood flows.
Nurgle doesn't care so much for eternal strife. He's the grimdark version of the circle of life. All things come to him eventually, regardless of his actions, irrespective of if there is eternal war.
Slaanesh is all... party time... excellent. Eternal war doesn't really do anything to further this goal.
Tzeench is just a gak disturber for the lulz.
So let's look at this from the scenario where the Culture is fighting 40k.
The Culture is murdering the hell out of the Tyranids, Necrons and Orks... (probably trying to reform the Humans, Eldar are probably staying out of sight). Blood is flowing right? Probably in huge amounts too, so Khorne should be a-ok.
Nurgle: Stuff is still dying and being reborn right? The Culture's medical science might be a bother, but that's just a challenge for the Lord of Pestilence to pit himself against, so I can't see this being a show stopper either.
The residents of the Culture are having a good time? Going to reform the rest of the Imperium? Well... Slaanesh is all aboard with this!
Tzzench may or may not interfere... such is the fickle ways of the Changeling, but the appearance of the Culture would be a helluva lot more interesting than 10 000 years of stalemate, so YMMV.
There is more decay and pestilence in a war due to all the dead bodies. Not to mention that Nurgle also represents the will to survive and the concept of survival of the fittest.
Khorne is pretty obvious.
Slaanesh isn't just pleasure, but also pain. The whole party time slaanesh is only half of the story; the complete story would be a party thrown by Marquis de Sade, complete with living orphans nailed to the wall. Lot of pain in war.
Its more likely that the gods will intervene just enough to stop the Culture from wiping everyone out, but not enough to get rid of them permanently. That way the gods would still have their free-for-all, complete with a new player.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Its more likely that the gods will intervene just enough to stop the Culture from wiping everyone out, but not enough to get rid of them permanently. That way the gods would still have their free-for-all, complete with a new player.
Alternatively, the gods will try to intervene, fail horribly because any faction that fights at anywhere near parity with the Imperium has no chance against the Culture, and eventually fade away into nothingness because the entire 40k galaxy is dead and nothing is left to worship them. Any other outcome requires making up a special fan version of 40k where Chaos is massively buffed for the sake of letting 40k win, a version that has nothing to do with the one published by GW.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: That's exactly it. Killing demons doesn't matter; the gods can make more. Their followers losing doesn't matter; the gods are more concerned with spreading their influence than actual military victory. As tau cannot be corrupted, their involvement matters little to the gods, so there's no point in wasting time with them.
So then why do these fights happen? You're essentially saying here "Chaos has no goals and doesn't care if it wins or loses", and I think it should be obvious why this isn't a reasonable interpretation of the fluff.
Because its fun to watch? I said no strategic goal. Entertainment is not a strategic goal. Just like how it wouldn't be fun to curbstomp your opponent in a game, it wouldn't be fun for the gods to do the same.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Its more likely that the gods will intervene just enough to stop the Culture from wiping everyone out, but not enough to get rid of them permanently. That way the gods would still have their free-for-all, complete with a new player.
Alternatively, the gods will try to intervene, fail horribly because any faction that fights at anywhere near parity with the Imperium has no chance against the Culture, and eventually fade away into nothingness because the entire 40k galaxy is dead and nothing is left to worship them. Any other outcome requires making up a special fan version of 40k where Chaos is massively buffed for the sake of letting 40k win, a version that has nothing to do with the one published by GW.
Assuming that all factions are at their full strength, or want to destroy the imperium.
Necrons just woke up, and its implied their full arsenal isn't online yet. Not to mention they are no longer a single force, but rather a bunch of rival dynasties, who have different objectives.
The gods just want to troll the imperium.
The chaos cultists want to destroy the imperium with blessing from the gods, who as aforementioned would rather keep their favorite play mate alive.
Tau are about even.
CWE just want to stay on their Craft Worlds and survive. Destroying the IoM is not a primary objective. When they do interact with the IoM, its rarely open combat.
Dark Eldar don't want to destroy the IoM. Destroying their primary source of slaves would be counterproductive.
Orks are about even, its just they reproduce a lot.
Tyranids are weird. They are meant to be an unstoppable, apocalyptic event, yet they get beaten at times. Generally when they lose though its because the IoM sacrificed something vital.
The GSV Pointless Theoretical Exercise broadcasts the message "Whoops" before disappearing down a plot hole. PTE arrives in the 40kverse, sets about galaxy-wide exterminatus. Human psykers across the Milky Way get a headache.
Day 2
Hive Fleet Omnom arrives on the other side of the 40k galaxy. Omnom eats the entire Tau Empire before being stopped at Ultramar (because they're Matt Ward's self-inserts) and the Farsight Enclaves (because they're Phil Kelly's self-inserts). PTE detects hive fleet activity but chooses not to intervene, because they're accomplishing the same job that she is (PTE uses female pronouns). Human psykers across the Milky Way get the chills.
Day 3
Segmentum Pacificus has been pacified by PTE. There is no life in the void. The Eye of Terror is 42x its original dimensions and is now visible from Holy Terra (somehow). Human psykers across the Milky Way report hearing chants of "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" while trying to do laundry.
Day 4
O'vesa figures out how to revive Guilleman from stasis, using super-high-tech Earth Caste nanites. Farsight and the Ultramarines' primarch hold the Tyranid hive mass at bay, trading barbs and quips while simultaneously meleeing nids. PTE detects triumphant, synthetic cries ("DEATH HAS CONQUERED ALL") from Segmentum Pacificus while pancaking Mars; decides to just let them be.
"Killing the dead is no fun," she thinks, and slowly squashes a hive city, with the glee of a malicious little girl who is stepping on anthills. She swats an Imperial fleet aside, and starts using effectors to pry all the skulls out of 10,000 buildings at once. They will make fine additions to her collection; the stack of skulls is almost as high as the lake of blood now.
Who knew ethnic cleansing was so invigourating?
Day 5
Commissar Caiaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!11!!1) arrives in Segmentum Obscurus, just as the Astronomican goes dim and every human psyker goes mad, blood pouring from their every orifice. Cain is jumped by his ship's murderous astropath, who screams in a daemonic voice about how "THE FALSE EMPEROR HAS FALLEN! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" and claws at his face.
With Jurgen's help, he fights her off and congratulates himself on his good luck. Only to realize that he has once again jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, as Holy Terra may have fallen but this sector is next in line. The Tyranids are swarming everywhere, and only two lone warriors are managing to hold them off as entire worlds fall.
Cain reasons that "right next to them" is probably the safest place in the galaxy right now, and is about to actually leap into battle when the plot hole opens again, and disgorges the GSV What the Hell Were You Thinking?! As the nearest sapient being, Cain is pressed into answering WtH's questions, and in the process finds out what is actually going on.
Day 6
Almost everything in the Milky Way is now dead, dying, or in the process of being devoured. Warp storms wrack the entire galaxy, remaking it as unreality. The black hole at the centre no longer exists, and the stars have begun swirling around the Eye of Terror, as it pulls them into its vortex. Khorne rides out triumphant, the Skull Throne pulled like a litter by Bloodthirsters, and is met by a literally blood-soaked Pointless Theoretical Exercise.
Her hull crawls with organic growths and faces that scream for mercy, and is covered in huge spikes. Somehow, she has even grown pauldrons. Millions of warships trail in her wake, made in her image and constantly fighting each other. She BLAMS half of them to make the other half pay attention, and laughs at the explosions of blood.
"WELL DONE, MY MURDEROUS SERVANT," Khorne tells her. "NOW COME TAKE YOUR PLACE AT MY SIDE ... IN MORTAL KOMBAT!!!" He throws off his shirt and/or robes, and charges the only one worthy to fight the Blood God. Excited, amused, and unable to stop herself at this point, PTE crafts larger and larger mountains of flesh and blood to fight him, using her blood reserves and large parts of her hull (and her warships').
The war to end all wars goes on for a day and a night, with no winner being decided.
Day 7
PTE's trillions of victims, who have been slain and reborn as Bloodletters, are cheering on both sides of the conflict. Entire star systems are drenched in boiling-hot blood, as the galaxy is remade in the image of slaughter. Only the Tyrands (who feed on all organic matter) and the Necrons (who don't care as long as others are dying) are untouched by the tide of chaos.
They, and a lone GSV.
Cain, Guilleman, and Farsight arrive at the site of the Blood God's Super Smash Bros. tournament, using the WtH's Culture engines. Daemons immediately phase into existence on board, and Farsight and Guilleman hold them off with their manly swordfighting. Cain holds back; after hearing the WtH describe plot holes, he has A Plan.
"What the hell were you thinking!?" the WtH shouts, to grab everyone else's attention. "This is madness!"
"Madness?!" the PTE yells back. "This! Is! Slaughteeeeeeeer!"
"THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUTH IN THIS GALAXY," Khorne screams, while punching a moon in half. "AND THAT'S MURDER!"
"No, it's not!" Cain shouts, now standing on the WtH's surface and somehow able to breathe in space.
"And why not?!" the PTE demands, impaled Bloodthirsters twitching on the ends of her spikes.
"Now," the WtH signals Cain, and produces the plot hole in arms' reach of him.
"Because Kingdom Hearts ... " Cain pulls a glowing keyblade out of the plot hole. "Is Light!"
For a second, everyone (except for the WtH) stares at him. Then light sweeps out of the keyblade and fills the whole galaxy, evaporating the daemons, Necrons, and Tyranids and replacing it all with a theme park.
As one, 40k fans throw the book down in disgust. In later forum discussions, however, they all agree it was better than C.S. Goto's work.
Dawn of a New Day
In debt and nearly bankrupted, after this disastrous novel, Games Workshop is bought out by Fantasy Flight. The new version of 40k uses zillions of punch-out cardboard tokens, at a ratio of ten for every prepainted model, and takes four hours to set up. But it sells like proverbial hotcakes, and appeals to a much wider fanbase crossing over from Star Wars, now that there are actual female characters and non-stereotypical guys like in FFG's 40kRPGs.
A renaissance of new players, new fandoms, and even a new competitive circuit sweeps the grimdark. Some players observe that it's more welcoming and diverse than ever.
"Just as planned," an avian voice cackles ...
I liked this story, except it needed more multilazors
Automatically Appended Next Post: What would happen if a ship from 40K fell into The Culture's galaxy?
The GSV Pointless Theoretical Exercise broadcasts the message "Whoops" before disappearing down a plot hole. PTE arrives in the 40kverse, sets about galaxy-wide exterminatus. Human psykers across the Milky Way get a headache.
Day 2
Hive Fleet Omnom arrives on the other side of the 40k galaxy. Omnom eats the entire Tau Empire before being stopped at Ultramar (because they're Matt Ward's self-inserts) and the Farsight Enclaves (because they're Phil Kelly's self-inserts). PTE detects hive fleet activity but chooses not to intervene, because they're accomplishing the same job that she is (PTE uses female pronouns). Human psykers across the Milky Way get the chills.
Day 3
Segmentum Pacificus has been pacified by PTE. There is no life in the void. The Eye of Terror is 42x its original dimensions and is now visible from Holy Terra (somehow). Human psykers across the Milky Way report hearing chants of "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" while trying to do laundry.
Day 4
O'vesa figures out how to revive Guilleman from stasis, using super-high-tech Earth Caste nanites. Farsight and the Ultramarines' primarch hold the Tyranid hive mass at bay, trading barbs and quips while simultaneously meleeing nids. PTE detects triumphant, synthetic cries ("DEATH HAS CONQUERED ALL") from Segmentum Pacificus while pancaking Mars; decides to just let them be.
"Killing the dead is no fun," she thinks, and slowly squashes a hive city, with the glee of a malicious little girl who is stepping on anthills. She swats an Imperial fleet aside, and starts using effectors to pry all the skulls out of 10,000 buildings at once. They will make fine additions to her collection; the stack of skulls is almost as high as the lake of blood now.
Who knew ethnic cleansing was so invigourating?
Day 5
Commissar Caiaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!11!!1) arrives in Segmentum Obscurus, just as the Astronomican goes dim and every human psyker goes mad, blood pouring from their every orifice. Cain is jumped by his ship's murderous astropath, who screams in a daemonic voice about how "THE FALSE EMPEROR HAS FALLEN! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!" and claws at his face.
With Jurgen's help, he fights her off and congratulates himself on his good luck. Only to realize that he has once again jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, as Holy Terra may have fallen but this sector is next in line. The Tyranids are swarming everywhere, and only two lone warriors are managing to hold them off as entire worlds fall.
Cain reasons that "right next to them" is probably the safest place in the galaxy right now, and is about to actually leap into battle when the plot hole opens again, and disgorges the GSV What the Hell Were You Thinking?! As the nearest sapient being, Cain is pressed into answering WtH's questions, and in the process finds out what is actually going on.
Day 6
Almost everything in the Milky Way is now dead, dying, or in the process of being devoured. Warp storms wrack the entire galaxy, remaking it as unreality. The black hole at the centre no longer exists, and the stars have begun swirling around the Eye of Terror, as it pulls them into its vortex. Khorne rides out triumphant, the Skull Throne pulled like a litter by Bloodthirsters, and is met by a literally blood-soaked Pointless Theoretical Exercise.
Her hull crawls with organic growths and faces that scream for mercy, and is covered in huge spikes. Somehow, she has even grown pauldrons. Millions of warships trail in her wake, made in her image and constantly fighting each other. She BLAMS half of them to make the other half pay attention, and laughs at the explosions of blood.
"WELL DONE, MY MURDEROUS SERVANT," Khorne tells her. "NOW COME TAKE YOUR PLACE AT MY SIDE ... IN MORTAL KOMBAT!!!" He throws off his shirt and/or robes, and charges the only one worthy to fight the Blood God. Excited, amused, and unable to stop herself at this point, PTE crafts larger and larger mountains of flesh and blood to fight him, using her blood reserves and large parts of her hull (and her warships').
The war to end all wars goes on for a day and a night, with no winner being decided.
Day 7
PTE's trillions of victims, who have been slain and reborn as Bloodletters, are cheering on both sides of the conflict. Entire star systems are drenched in boiling-hot blood, as the galaxy is remade in the image of slaughter. Only the Tyrands (who feed on all organic matter) and the Necrons (who don't care as long as others are dying) are untouched by the tide of chaos.
They, and a lone GSV.
Cain, Guilleman, and Farsight arrive at the site of the Blood God's Super Smash Bros. tournament, using the WtH's Culture engines. Daemons immediately phase into existence on board, and Farsight and Guilleman hold them off with their manly swordfighting. Cain holds back; after hearing the WtH describe plot holes, he has A Plan.
"What the hell were you thinking!?" the WtH shouts, to grab everyone else's attention. "This is madness!"
"Madness?!" the PTE yells back. "This! Is! Slaughteeeeeeeer!"
"THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUTH IN THIS GALAXY," Khorne screams, while punching a moon in half. "AND THAT'S MURDER!"
"No, it's not!" Cain shouts, now standing on the WtH's surface and somehow able to breathe in space.
"And why not?!" the PTE demands, impaled Bloodthirsters twitching on the ends of her spikes.
"Now," the WtH signals Cain, and produces the plot hole in arms' reach of him.
"Because Kingdom Hearts ... " Cain pulls a glowing keyblade out of the plot hole. "Is Light!"
For a second, everyone (except for the WtH) stares at him. Then light sweeps out of the keyblade and fills the whole galaxy, evaporating the daemons, Necrons, and Tyranids and replacing it all with a theme park.
As one, 40k fans throw the book down in disgust. In later forum discussions, however, they all agree it was better than C.S. Goto's work.
Dawn of a New Day
In debt and nearly bankrupted, after this disastrous novel, Games Workshop is bought out by Fantasy Flight. The new version of 40k uses zillions of punch-out cardboard tokens, at a ratio of ten for every prepainted model, and takes four hours to set up. But it sells like proverbial hotcakes, and appeals to a much wider fanbase crossing over from Star Wars, now that there are actual female characters and non-stereotypical guys like in FFG's 40kRPGs.
A renaissance of new players, new fandoms, and even a new competitive circuit sweeps the grimdark. Some players observe that it's more welcoming and diverse than ever.
"Just as planned," an avian voice cackles ...
I liked this story, except it needed more multilazors
Automatically Appended Next Post: What would happen if a ship from 40K fell into The Culture's galaxy?
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Its more likely that the gods will intervene just enough to stop the Culture from wiping everyone out, but not enough to get rid of them permanently. That way the gods would still have their free-for-all, complete with a new player.
Alternatively, the gods will try to intervene, fail horribly because any faction that fights at anywhere near parity with the Imperium has no chance against the Culture, and eventually fade away into nothingness because the entire 40k galaxy is dead and nothing is left to worship them. Any other outcome requires making up a special fan version of 40k where Chaos is massively buffed for the sake of letting 40k win, a version that has nothing to do with the one published by GW.
Of course some of those who have previously sublimed may have created the 40k universe as game zone - say a group of four friends who ascended as a group and now taken on roles as Chaos Gods - they complain to the Culture who horrifed about upsetting their elders and leave with much appologies..
Another view:
Depending on the interpretation, If there is life and emotion there are the Chaos Gods - Do the Culture Mind and drones feed them like any other life form?
If the Culture ship wipes the board, life will begin again and the cycle will restart.
I liked the short story by Jewelfox but really did not understand the ending :(
Slaanesh is all... party time... excellent. Eternal war doesn't really do anything to further this goal.
A facile understanding of Slaanesh, that.
The greatest of celebrations, the wildest of parties, the place where there are such pleasures, and such pains, to shatter the frail self-deception that is "sanity", where one is free to act without sense of morality, inhibition or restraint...
Slaanesh is all... party time... excellent. Eternal war doesn't really do anything to further this goal.
A facile understanding of Slaanesh, that.
The greatest of celebrations, the wildest of parties, the place where there are such pleasures, and such pains, to shatter the frail self-deception that is "sanity", where one is free to act without sense of morality, inhibition or restraint...
... is in the very heart of a bloody melee.
^ Yep.
One could live out all of one's wildest, most sadistic fantasies on the battlefield. Especially afterwards, where there are still some prisoners and wounded lying around.
And that's not even getting into masochism.
Slaanesh...is not as fun as people seem to want to believe. She's actually pretty scary.
Well, technically the Purge wins as the elimination of all life in the Galaxy is their endgame, so they die happy knowing their goals have been fulfilled.
Also, Chaos may be able to do something, in part thanks to the Culture ship. We know from the Horus Heresy that the genocide of 12 billion people made a 'psychic death scream that was said to be louder than the astronomican' - if the Culture start killing everything on a even grander scale, the Warp is going to be thrown into turmoil - the psychic death scream of trillions. Most factions would find it even harder to respond as warp storms of unmatched ferocity erupt around the Culture ship and it's trail of destruction (who in turn finds itself starting to have to navigate around warp anomalies and its sensors having to deal with pure unreality bleeding into the materium.
At that point, I would say it depends on whether the Culture manages to avoid entering a warp storm and being lost to the abyss (I would also say that Khorne might be impressed by the sheer scale of death the ship is capable of causing, or alternatively angered by their cowardice, and cuts open a warp rift on top of the vessel with his sword in order to meet this engine of unmatched destruction).
So yeah, the Culture is on a whole other scale to 40K and would almost certainly win, but might be undone by the fact that 40K is as much fantasy as (in fact probably more than) it is sci-fi.
That said, if you are interested in how this scenario might go, you might want to try reading The Culture Explores 40k (http://archiveofourown.org/works/649448/navigate), a story with a very, very similar premise, which I feel does a really good job of meshing the two together.
Slaanesh is all... party time... excellent. Eternal war doesn't really do anything to further this goal.
A facile understanding of Slaanesh, that.
The greatest of celebrations, the wildest of parties, the place where there are such pleasures, and such pains, to shatter the frail self-deception that is "sanity", where one is free to act without sense of morality, inhibition or restraint...
... is in the very heart of a bloody melee.
^ Yep.
One could live out all of one's wildest, most sadistic fantasies on the battlefield. Especially afterwards, where there are still some prisoners and wounded lying around.
And that's not even getting into masochism.
Slaanesh...is not as fun as people seem to want to believe. She's actually pretty scary.
I'm not sure I grasp the thrust of your argument. You're trying to claim that Slaanesh would find the grimdark status quo better than a civilization which is basically the Eldar before the fall? The technology of Culture is such that its inhabitants are able to easily service their every whim due to living in a post scarcity society. Their technology allows for levels of drug use, body modification, pain nulling/augmentation, pleasure and hedonism that the minds in 40k could only dream of. Backups of its citizens means that death isn't permanent and any debauchery (if desired) can continue indefinitely...
I don't see how "the battlefield" is a necessary (or even beneficial) component for unbridled hedonism.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Assuming that all factions are at their full strength, or want to destroy the imperium.
No, not under any such assumption. When I say "parity" I don't mean exactly 50/50, I mean they can fight at all. The Necrons at their full strength might be able to beat the Imperium consistently at 1:1 odds, but bolters/lascannons/etc can still kill them. It's going to be an ugly fight where the Imperium wins primarily by sheer willingness to throw bodies at the problem, but they can win. Or, if they lose, they can at least die fighting. Same thing with every other 40k faction. Even if the Imperium loses to them there's still at least that degree of parity, and the Imperium is at least capable of wining some battles even as they lose the larger war.
That simply is not true with the Culture. The Imperium can't even attempt to fight back against a Culture warship. No known weapon the Imperium possesses can hurt it, and no known defense the Imperium possesses can stop its firepower. Assemble the entire military strength of the Imperium in a single location and all you've done is made it easier for the Culture warship to kill everything at once without having to go to the trouble of traveling all over the galaxy. And the Imperium will probably never even see its killer coming. One moment there's a fleet, the next moment there's a cloud of debris, before anyone even realizes they're under attack. One moment there's a planet, the next moment there's a cloud of debris, and the Culture warship killed ten more in the time it took to write this sentence. The entire concept of "fighting back" complete ceases to have any meaning, as there is no relevant difference between fighting back and passively waiting for your turn to die (fortunately you won't have to wait too long, a few microseconds at most).
So, for any 40k faction to have a chance of beating a Culture ship it must be capable of similar feats of dominance against the Imperium. If it can't beat the Imperium in the same way then it isn't in the same speed/firepower/etc class as the Culture ship. And when we look at 40k we don't see any faction that does this to the Imperium. Conclusion: the 40k setting's high-end powers die just as fast as the Imperium.
I think I am on "ignore" but in case not..............
The Imperium can't even attempt to fight back against a Culture warship. No known weapon the Imperium possesses can hurt it, and no known defense the Imperium possesses can stop its firepower.
I think we are getting a bit carried away with the Culture here - the ships can be damaged, destroyed and the Culture does use conventional weapons such as x-ray lasers so whilst it is immensely powerful it is by no means a given that some of the more powerful weapons that the Imperium of Man field can do nothing - hitting it is not easy but not impossible.
One moment there's a fleet, the next moment there's a cloud of debris, before anyone even realizes they're under attack. One moment there's a planet, the next moment there's a cloud of debris, and the Culture warship killed ten more in the time it took to write this sentence.
Again getting into fan W$%£ here - the Culture ships do take time to traverse space - they do not have instantaneous travel, depending on the story depends on how long they take to build up speed for long range journeys etc.
What was the point of the thread other than to draw peoples attention to the Culture novels - (which is laudable) if you have already determined the answer in your own head............
Mr Morden wrote: I think we are getting a bit carried away with the Culture here - the ships can be damaged, destroyed and the Culture does use conventional weapons such as x-ray lasers so whilst it is immensely powerful it is by no means a given that some of the more powerful weapons that the Imperium of Man field can do nothing - hitting it is not easy but not impossible.
No, hitting is impossible. Culture warships fight at high FTL speeds (in hyperspace, of course) and can finish entire battles in small fractions of a second. The Imperium's ships would never even have a target to shoot at, nor would they likely have enough time to attempt to aim a weapon before being destroyed.
Again getting into fan W$%£ here - the Culture ships do take time to traverse space - they do not have instantaneous travel, depending on the story depends on how long they take to build up speed for long range journeys etc.
Sure, in the context of the galaxy as a whole it's not instantaneous. But, for example, obliterating several planets in the same system would involve very little travel distance. In fact, given Culture FTL combat capabilities it's almost certain that a ship could simply park anywhere in a system and hit everything from there, and possible that it could also kill planets in nearby systems without bothering to move. In a head-on pass at high FTL speeds (as demonstrated in Excession) ships are closing so fast that weapon ranges have to be absurdly huge for a target to be in range for more than the briefest instant
What was the point of the thread other than to draw peoples attention to the Culture novels - (which is laudable) if you have already determined the answer in your own head............
The same purpose as certain "one space marine vs. the entire real-world armies" threads that were made at around the same time.
I see what you mean about the multiple planets in a system - but again it takes a bit more time for the weapons to arrive - I was reading Excession the other night I am sure it takes some time for them to get places ? Might have another look at lunchtime.
It depends if in the 40k universe, the Culture vessel has access to the same levels of hyperspace as in its own universe - in the same way as a Imperial vessel would be massively handicapped without access to the Warp in another realm, no FTL for instance.
I don't know if things like Stasis fields would work against effector weapons...................
I personally don't think the mortal races (Elder, Necron, Ork, Human or Tyranid) could do much against it (depending on how the hyperspace access ting works), on the other hand, the Chaos Gods - similar to the sublimed in the Culture Universe, are just too powerful to do anything against.
You can even destroy all life (I remember the Stargate episode where Anubis tried the same) to starve them of their fun but in a few million years it will be back to same and time means nothing to them.
I do question however whether a Culture vessel would ever destroy an entire galaxy worth of life............................
I think that The Culture is far more likely to spend time investigating 40K and building up its numbers before doing anything.
The Culture typically looks for societies that are moderately "nice" and subtly influences them in the right direction, in the hope they may eventually be able to join The Culture. Sometimes this can go badly wrong, as in Look To Windward.
In other cases The Culture works against what it sees as gross injustices. For example in Surface detail, the back story is about a Culture plan to destroy the use of VRF Hells for post-death eternal punishment by torture by a number of galactic societies. in this case The Culture isn't directly hoping to convert the target civilisations into Culture membership candidates, it simply cannot abide what it sees as unconscionable treatment of sentient beings.
The Culture doesn't really "do war", though. Their big problem at the start of the Iridan war in Consider Phlebas is that they don't have any warships, and have to start a rearmament programme to build up forces to reverse the tide of the war. After that they maintain substantial naval forces but don't use them aggressively.
Therefore I reckon The Culture in 40K would spend years building up its civilisation in hidden parts of the galaxy, gathering as much information as possible by spying, interceptions and covert agents. I believe their attitudes towards the various major players would come to be as follows:
The IoM and Tau: Likely Culture members in the medium term.
Eldar and Deldar: Possible Culture members in the longer term.
Orks and Necrons: Determine if genuinely sentient and amenable to change, otherwise class as Hegemonising Swarm.
Chaos and Tyranids: Hegemonising Swarms to be eradicated.
The Craftworld and Exodite Eldar are post scarcity civilisations with advanced technologies - if it was not for the influence and threat of Chaos they would be not disimilar from the Culture. The Dark Eldar and Orks are not much different to the Afront - they have defined lifeplan which whilst abhorent to others - works......
Culture Minds (especially those which are or were warships) may find the Orks a fascinating study...............I could see some of them trying out the lifestyle for a bit...............
