It seems that Orks fire their weapons on full auto at every occasion they get. How are they able to manufacture so much ammunition, considering their equipment is all custom made and they seemingly have no standardization.
Are there any descriptions of how Ork workshops and manufacturing in general looks like? Do they have factories with assembly lines or do Orks just manufacture bullets/shells with whatever tools/materials they have at hand?
While a lot of people would point to the Ork Gestalt field here I've always thought that was a massive pile of baloney (it affecting physical things like magicing ammunition into existence is based on an in-universe musing of a Tech Magos in Xenology, who also makes a number of other wild suppositions).
I'm not sure on Ork manufacturing. I'd lean towards the latter idea of every Ork being capable of manufacturing munitions from whatever they have at hand. That fits with the idea that they're hard-wired with a certain knowledge about the world, and also fits the idea that they're sort of a self-contained decentralised galactic scale war weapon.
Orks are able to cobble together industry, machines, from almost anything. Making ammo from scrap, whatever explosives, and such. Well possible your regular boy can make ammo.
Ammunition manufacturing will be a big ork industry given thr amount they expend.
Orks are know to *enslave* other races to do their bidding.
Understand Enslaving as threating them as workforce on their society where brute force is all, so most of those races (gretchins included) are often forced to keep building weapons and ammo so the main Ork Waagh can keep figthing.
That's where the ork slavers get in, they have some decent understanding other weaker races can be coerced to *work* as long they are somewhat feed and not beaten often.
There is no mention of ork boyz making ammo nor of ork gestalt making ammo as far as I know. There are however two kinds of ork workshops mentioned in the fluff.
- The fun and weird mek shops, using grots and snotling pets who seem to love their job and are controlled by Runtherds. - Slave factories using enslaved races including humans.
The slaver part is rarely used in modern GW's promotion material or in the modern codexes but its very much alive in the novels, and it is stuff of nightmares.
The Ork Waaagh! effect can not just create bullets if a gun doesn't have any. What it CAN do is make it so almost any bullet within reason that's loaded into the gun will fire properly, regardless of its gauge. Thus they can loot the vast majority of solid slug ammo, as well as manufacture ammo at breakneck speed with little to no regard for QC, and have little worry that the bullets won't fire when used.
IIRC the bit about orks psychically creating ammo was in the 3rd edition codex, but I don't have it in front of me so I wouldn't bet the farm on it. It didn't say that all ork ammo was psychically generated, but rather IIRC that in the midst of battle if the ork gestalt psychic field was strong enough there had been instances of orks continuing to fire weapons not realizing they were empty. (If I'm remembering that bit correctly I wouldn't say that the ork was psychically creating physical ammunition, but rather that he believed he was shooting and blasts of psychic energy were emanating from the end of his weapon.)
I don't know how much credit I would put into a single source, and I might be remembering the whole thing wrong.
GAO: U.S. Has Fired 250,000 Rounds For Every Insurgent Killed
US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan – an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed – that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand.
The General Accounting Office (GAO) reports that our forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year — a level of use that has more than doubled in five years. The report states:
“The Department of Defense’s increased requirements for small- and medium-calibre ammunitions have largely been driven by increased weapons training requirements, dictated by the army’s transformation to a more self-sustaining and lethal force – which was accelerated after the attacks of 11 September, 2001 – and by the deployment of forces to conduct recent US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
They use a lot of grot and slave labour.
Think one of the Cain novels, theres a huge populous of humie slaves. I think thats why there such terrible shots.
Humie in factory, "they dont even realize that these are just tubes full of gun powder.
Broly wrote: It seems that Orks fire their weapons on full auto at every occasion they get. How are they able to manufacture so much ammunition, considering their equipment is all custom made and they seemingly have no standardization.
Are there any descriptions of how Ork workshops and manufacturing in general looks like? Do they have factories with assembly lines or do Orks just manufacture bullets/shells with whatever tools/materials they have at hand?
In the Grim Darkness that is 40K only the Orks have a proper logistics tail.
Everything "works" for Orks because they believe it. If they slap a mag into their gun and expect to never have to reload...the gun will just work that way. If they believe shoving a fork into a gun barrel will have the same effect as a bullet...it will. If they believe stolen ammunition will work in the gun they shove it into...you get the idea. They will it, their "tech" does it.
Remember that we humans once developed a blunderbuss that could be loaded with powder and then have pretty much anything shoved into the barrel (Damaged bullets, stones, gravel, whatever) to fire.
So just take that sort of concept and extrapolate it out to shell casings and I reckon that's how Orks manage their ammo, it's so crude it can be mass produced by grots or slaves with little effort.
Maybe they use a different method of propulsion from our smokeless powder. Perhaps a shoota has some sort of power source, which ejects the slug at high speed, meaning the slug can be just that, an easy to make round weight.
How do space marines make all their ammo? We do know what a bolter round is, its a micro rocket with stabilizers and an explosive tip. It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per bullet.
How do space marines make all their ammo? We do know what a bolter round is, its a micro rocket with stabilizers and an explosive tip. It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per bullet.
If only the Imperium were a brutal dictatorship that could rely on human slavery and serfdom to force trillions of people to work at subsistence-level wages in brutally dangerous conditions to create the weapons and ammunition that are needed to barely keep the Imperium together...
Broly wrote: It seems that Orks fire their weapons on full auto at every occasion they get. How are they able to manufacture so much ammunition, considering their equipment is all custom made and they seemingly have no standardization.
Are there any descriptions of how Ork workshops and manufacturing in general looks like? Do they have factories with assembly lines or do Orks just manufacture bullets/shells with whatever tools/materials they have at hand?
Orks enslave whatever doesn't fight. They have captured manufactorums pumping out ammunitions, tanks and other war supplies under the whip of the runterds.
Also, Orks are green. They probably leave battlefields cleaner than they found them after the scavenging is done!
You have to remember that the term "bullets" is kind of malleable to a race that has guns that literally fire scrap metal. To "us" a bullet is a refined piece of modern engineering. It requires chemistry, machining, careful production, etc. To an Ork, anything that can go fast enough, "boom" loud enough, or just generally create chaos and damage is a "bullet" ...
So on top of what everyone else mentioned, they also have a little more flexibility in their choice of projectiles.
One of the ork tribes on Armageddon - The Black Slayers I think - were notable because they simply killed everyone. Taking slaves is standard ork procedure.
GAO: U.S. Has Fired 250,000 Rounds For Every Insurgent Killed
US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan – an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed – that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand.
The General Accounting Office (GAO) reports that our forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year — a level of use that has more than doubled in five years. The report states:
“The Department of Defense’s increased requirements for small- and medium-calibre ammunitions have largely been driven by increased weapons training requirements, dictated by the army’s transformation to a more self-sustaining and lethal force – which was accelerated after the attacks of 11 September, 2001 – and by the deployment of forces to conduct recent US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
Another part to that is it's a bit like a unit's budget. A unit has to spend their allotted amount of money or they will be allocated less money during the next fiscal cycle. The less munitions used or reported as used the less they can order.
I doubt Orks do it that way. I'm sure they just have slaves make it and loot everything. The IoM has guns and ammo basically at every stop. If the Orks do well, the get a chunk of resupply. Sluggga boys use a bit less ammunition and I would imagine are more numerous. Which just means a more cost effective way to score the goods for Da WAAAGH.
In my mind, the 'where do bullets come from' for Orks follows the progression of:
1: Gretchin make them. They may need to be shown how by a Mek or overseen by a Runtherd, but doing that kind of essential menial labor is what Grots are for.
2: Once Grots have made enough bullets, you can use those bullets to kill other Orks so you can take their bullets. Alternately, the fight you start might be fun enough that other Orks want to join you, and they'll bring more bullets with them. Worst case scenario, you can always loot bullets from the battlefield you created.
3: Once you get big enough, you can start acquiring bullets from non-Orks - via mercenary bartering, piracy, extortion or wholesale enslavement.
As for how Orks deal with the inevitable unreliability of their ammo due to sketchy sources -
A: Ork physiology is hardy enough that misfires and other dangerous failures are annoyances rather than deadly
B: Ork psychology is such that ineffective ammo is acceptable as long as it's entertaining. Additionally, running out of ammo is merely an excuse to start bashing heads.
Ork culture has a self-assembling logistics train with psychology and biology built in to support it. All of that should be taken into account before any sort of 'gestalt psychic field' is used as an explanation for where bullets come from. Ork belief as a reality-altering force should only be applied to the biggest Waaagh!s, and even then should only function as a 'probability lubricant' - making the natural chaos of Orks function in their favor instead of tearing them apart.
theocracity wrote: Ork belief as a reality-altering force should only be applied to the biggest Waaagh!s, and even then should only function as a 'probability lubricant' -
'Probability lubricant' is probably the single best descriptor for the Ork's gestalt psychic field I've ever heard. Brilliant
As far as I'm concerned, it won't magic bullets out of thin air, but it will grease the wheels of probability. Say you're firing a gun with a dodgy cartridge. There's a possibility that that cartridge will get jammed, causing a misfire. If an Ork is firing it, that possibility is less than it would be if a non-Ork was firing it thanks to the gestalt field (if there are enough Orks around to generate one).
I like that because it doesn't reduce the Ork's innate mechanical genius to 'they just want it to happen so it happens because magic', which is so much less interesting than 'these creatures have an innate understanding of technology hard-coded into them, so they can instinctively construct technologies that equal or in some cases surpass those of their competitors'.
theocracity wrote: Ork belief as a reality-altering force should only be applied to the biggest Waaagh!s, and even then should only function as a 'probability lubricant' -
'Probability lubricant' is probably the single best descriptor for the Ork's gestalt psychic field I've ever heard. Brilliant
Haha, thanks! It's not a concept that I'm a big fan of - especially in the way it gets exaggerated - but if it has to exist, I prefer to tie it into one of my favorite characteristics of Orks - their ability to get away with improbably risky behavior.
As far as I'm concerned, it won't magic bullets out of thin air, but it will grease the wheels of probability. Say you're firing a gun with a dodgy cartridge. There's a possibility that that cartridge will get jammed, causing a misfire. If an Ork is firing it, that possibility is less than it would be if a non-Ork was firing it thanks to the gestalt field (if there are enough Orks around to generate one).
That's definitely the limit of how that mechanic works in my mind. I prefer to think that the misfires still happen, but the differences in Ork biology and psychology means they aren't injured by catastrophic failures, are more capable of creating hazardously jury-rigged solutions to mitigate them, and aren't bothered by them when it happens regardless (because it made noise, gives an excuse to get stuck in, or they just grab another gun). That helps explain why Ork technology works in their hands even if there aren't a lot of Orks around (a rare situation, I know).
I like that because it doesn't reduce the Ork's innate mechanical genius to 'they just want it to happen so it happens because magic', which is so much less interesting than 'these creatures have an innate understanding of technology hard-coded into them, so they can instinctively construct technologies that equal or in some cases surpass those of their competitors'.
theocracity wrote: Ork belief as a reality-altering force should only be applied to the biggest Waaagh!s, and even then should only function as a 'probability lubricant' -
'Probability lubricant' is probably the single best descriptor for the Ork's gestalt psychic field I've ever heard. Brilliant
As far as I'm concerned, it won't magic bullets out of thin air, but it will grease the wheels of probability. Say you're firing a gun with a dodgy cartridge. There's a possibility that that cartridge will get jammed, causing a misfire. If an Ork is firing it, that possibility is less than it would be if a non-Ork was firing it thanks to the gestalt field (if there are enough Orks around to generate one).
I like that because it doesn't reduce the Ork's innate mechanical genius to 'they just want it to happen so it happens because magic', which is so much less interesting than 'these creatures have an innate understanding of technology hard-coded into them, so they can instinctively construct technologies that equal or in some cases surpass those of their competitors'.
Much cooler
Exactly. Another example is that if a human jammed a bolter shell into an oversized stubbed and pulled the trigger, either nothing would happen or the gun would explode. If an ork loads a bolter shell into a shoota and presses the trigger the bolter shot will probably fire because to the orks, that's what happens when you put a bullet in a gun and pull the trigger, despite the weapon being ramshackle and the ammunition being mismatched.
There was a bit in I believe the 4th edition codex (it might have been a different codex)about a particularly deadly shooting ork, imperium kills him and they open the "gun" and it is just a pretty box with some stuff in it and should not possibly work.
G00fySmiley wrote: There was a bit in I believe the 4th edition codex (it might have been a different codex)about a particularly deadly shooting ork, imperium kills him and they open the "gun" and it is just a pretty box with some stuff in it and should not possibly work.
I usually put that down to the fact that the Imperium barely understand how their technology works, let alone the technology of another race.
G00fySmiley wrote: There was a bit in I believe the 4th edition codex (it might have been a different codex)about a particularly deadly shooting ork, imperium kills him and they open the "gun" and it is just a pretty box with some stuff in it and should not possibly work.
I usually put that down to the fact that the Imperium barely understand how their technology works, let alone the technology of another race.
Exergy wrote: Maybe they use a different method of propulsion from our smokeless powder. Perhaps a shoota has some sort of power source, which ejects the slug at high speed, meaning the slug can be just that, an easy to make round weight.
I am reminded of the Portal 2 videos, where Cave Johnson is narrating an advertisement for the Aperture Science turrets. Something about them actually being spring loaded and launching the entire bullet, rather than firing the bullet in a traditional sense, some line about so much percentage more bullet per bullet fired?
theocracity wrote: Ork belief as a reality-altering force should only be applied to the biggest Waaagh!s, and even then should only function as a 'probability lubricant' -
'Probability lubricant' is probably the single best descriptor for the Ork's gestalt psychic field I've ever heard. Brilliant
As far as I'm concerned, it won't magic bullets out of thin air, but it will grease the wheels of probability. Say you're firing a gun with a dodgy cartridge. There's a possibility that that cartridge will get jammed, causing a misfire. If an Ork is firing it, that possibility is less than it would be if a non-Ork was firing it thanks to the gestalt field (if there are enough Orks around to generate one).
I like that because it doesn't reduce the Ork's innate mechanical genius to 'they just want it to happen so it happens because magic', which is so much less interesting than 'these creatures have an innate understanding of technology hard-coded into them, so they can instinctively construct technologies that equal or in some cases surpass those of their competitors'.
Much cooler
Exactly. Another example is that if a human jammed a bolter shell into an oversized stubbed and pulled the trigger, either nothing would happen or the gun would explode. If an ork loads a bolter shell into a shoota and presses the trigger the bolter shot will probably fire because to the orks, that's what happens when you put a bullet in a gun and pull the trigger, despite the weapon being ramshackle and the ammunition being mismatched.
Again, though, I'm personally not a fan of those 'it defies physics because Orks want it to' concepts.
In my mind, if an Ork jams a bolter shell into a shoota, it probably won't fire. The Ork will then toss it away as a piece of junk, pick up his choppa and get his kicks another way. Later, a Mek who's looting the battlefield will pick it up, say "some git put dakka whats too big in here," take it to his shop and inexpertly bore the barrel out and jack up the loading mechanism with scrap so that the gun can messily fire the bolter shell. Then he'll throw it on his pile of guns for the boyz to grab next time there's a proper fight.
Then when the Ork wielding it gets killed, a techpriest finds an oversized stubber that's somehow loaded with bolter ammo. He says "That's unpossible! Even if it could fire, this gun couldn't hit anything more than 10 feet away and is more likely to kill its user than an enemy. It's literal junk. Only Ork magic could make it fire!"
Orks have grots to do boring menial labor they have no interest in doing themselves. Making ammunition seems like it'd be their job while the mekboyz do more "glamorous" work like designing vehicles.
Spare magazines, guns, and grenades in an Ork supply crate.
Honestly, that crate looks a bit too symmetrical and clean. I always imagined that Ork supply stations are just a mess of random bullets and magazines stacked on top of each other.
Looks like a looted imperial crate. Although perhaps it was a supply crate created by xenos controlled manufactorums, which is much the same thing really.
I think it supports my view that they use ammo made by enslaved non-combatants.
Grots are more capable of finesse and care than Orks are (it's why they have BS3 after all), and I'd imagine that Grots outnumber non-greenskin slaves by a very large margin given that Grots are generally noted as outnumbering Orks by a fair deal and Orks are already the most numerous species native to the milky way. I imagine it's something like a Spartiate/Helot relationship. A lot of the reasons why the orks can devote themselves entirely to war is that they have a slave caste (grots) who are always available to take care of anything deemed boring by the orks, and as Grots are tiny and weak and aren't half as mean or as ambitious as Warhammer Fantasy Goblins the Orks have more or less nothing to fear from a Grot revolt wheras Sparta was absolutely terrified of a Helot revolt.
G00fySmiley wrote: There was a bit in I believe the 4th edition codex (it might have been a different codex)about a particularly deadly shooting ork, imperium kills him and they open the "gun" and it is just a pretty box with some stuff in it and should not possibly work.
I usually put that down to the fact that the Imperium barely understand how their technology works, let alone the technology of another race.
Fits my world view better
Yup, 100%. Keep in mind that this is the same Imperium that thinks you need to pray to the Machine God for an hour to get that vox-sponder to send a message across the solar system...
Well I mean, recent novels show that machine spirits are very real and you do need to assuage them to get anything to work, they're in everything from civilian appliances to firearms (when lasguns are destroyed, Tech priests can hear them scream in pain) to the most advanced warships and one archaeotech gun was fully sapient and also incredibly snarky; though it seems machine spirits communicate in binary. In other words, chances are, if a printer in the Imperium is refusing to print for you, it's because you probably offended it somehow. Similarly, AdMech viewpoint novels have shown that the Mechanicus are actually ultracompetent scientists and engineers, they're just incredibly conservative and skeptical of the benefits of anything that doesn't fit into their religious viewpoint; much like how actual Monks and Clerics in the middle ages were actually very smart and well educated people and were the main driving force for science and learning of the time; but they had a certain viewpoint they had to fit the world into. I mean, the AdMech figured out how Gauss weapons worked not too long after meeting the Necrons, what actually baffles them is how the Necrons can miniaturize the technology or get the subatomic precision needed to not make the weapon explode when fired; something that would require something even more capable of fine manipulation than AdMech nanytes. And to be fair to the Adeptus Mechanicus, why the rush to make something new when some relic of Pre-Men of Iron rebellion humanity is inevitably going to be far better anyway? The DAoT had weapons that could destroy time across wide areas.
G00fySmiley wrote: There was a bit in I believe the 4th edition codex (it might have been a different codex)about a particularly deadly shooting ork, imperium kills him and they open the "gun" and it is just a pretty box with some stuff in it and should not possibly work.
I usually put that down to the fact that the Imperium barely understand how their technology works, let alone the technology of another race.
Fits my world view better
In 1st edition, Orks were the undisputed masters - moreso than the Imperium or even the Eldar - of teleportation and forcefield technology. Witness the Shokk Attack Gun, which generates temporary webway tunnels, or the various mekboy speedstas with bubble chukkas, lifta-droppa rays and the like.
Gestalt field. They'll believe any ammo works as long as its "close enough."
For example, assuming the average shoota is around .50 cal, because of course an Ork wouldn't go for a puny 9mm, and he finds a bolter magazine lying on the ground. Obviously, the round is too big for his gun, because because its "big enough to be proper dakka" he slams that sucker home, racks his bolt catch and starts firing like Scarface just snorted a key of warp-dust.
Then again, he might a cache of Heavy Bolter 1.00 Cal shells. Obviously its too big for his gun, but then Da Boss comes over and says "Gis dat 'ere ya gitz!" and mashes the drum into his Mega-Armour gun until it fits. His gun only takes .70, but 'e's da biggest gun so it must fit.
Then in terms of pure manufacturing, I'm not sure Orks entirely care about purity of material, and would happily chuck a load of scrap and the odd squig leg in the press and make a load of bullets out of that.
Then you have stuff like Burna's, which use a mix of fossil fuel oil or liquidised Gretchin as fuel, Kaptain Badrukk's Orgryn Gun which fires unstable plasma canisters (which he probably loots from unsuspectin' 'umies) and of course, the Shokk Attakk Gun, which fires a squealing and terrified Snotling directly into somebody's ear canal.
G00fySmiley wrote: There was a bit in I believe the 4th edition codex (it might have been a different codex)about a particularly deadly shooting ork, imperium kills him and they open the "gun" and it is just a pretty box with some stuff in it and should not possibly work.
I usually put that down to the fact that the Imperium barely understand how their technology works, let alone the technology of another race.
Fits my world view better
In 1st edition, Orks were the undisputed masters - moreso than the Imperium or even the Eldar - of teleportation and forcefield technology. Witness the Shokk Attack Gun, which generates temporary webway tunnels, or the various mekboy speedstas with bubble chukkas, lifta-droppa rays and the like.
Yeah it's this level of technical brilliant that I think should really be brought back more strongly to Orks. Their whole schtick is that they're big dumb comedic brutes that talk like football hooligans, which is utterly deceptive for just how smart and dangerous they are.
They had their knowledge of weaponry and mechanics hard-coded into their brains by the most intelligent and capable race of beings in the known galaxy. Their technical brilliance is utterly astounding, and I feel that the overplay of the whole 'gestalt field' effect just boils that down to 'they're idiots with a gimmick that they aren't even aware of themselves', which is just pants.
Deadshot wrote: Gestalt field. They'll believe any ammo works as long as its "close enough."
For example, assuming the average shoota is around .50 cal, because of course an Ork wouldn't go for a puny 9mm, and he finds a bolter magazine lying on the ground. Obviously, the round is too big for his gun, because because its "big enough to be proper dakka" he slams that sucker home, racks his bolt catch and starts firing like Scarface just snorted a key of warp-dust.
Then again, he might a cache of Heavy Bolter 1.00 Cal shells. Obviously its too big for his gun, but then Da Boss comes over and says "Gis dat 'ere ya gitz!" and mashes the drum into his Mega-Armour gun until it fits. His gun only takes .70, but 'e's da biggest gun so it must fit.
Then in terms of pure manufacturing, I'm not sure Orks entirely care about purity of material, and would happily chuck a load of scrap and the odd squig leg in the press and make a load of bullets out of that.
Then you have stuff like Burna's, which use a mix of fossil fuel oil or liquidised Gretchin as fuel, Kaptain Badrukk's Orgryn Gun which fires unstable plasma canisters (which he probably loots from unsuspectin' 'umies) and of course, the Shokk Attakk Gun, which fires a squealing and terrified Snotling directly into somebody's ear canal.
I think people massively overplay the effect of the Ork's gestalt field, mainly based on information they've read online.
The actual evidence of the effect of the gestalt field is fantastically limited. In Xenology (quite an outdated book) it's mentioned that the Tech Magos observed an Ork firing a gun that was later found to have its trigger disconnected. However, that's hardly strong evidence suggesting 'the Ork believed it would fire so it did'. Occam's Razor would suggest that the most likely scenario is just that the trigger mechanism broke inbetween the Ork firing and the Tech Magos looking at it, or even that the Tech Magos doesn't know what he's looking at.
Don't get me wrong, it definitely exists (as evidenced by tabletop rules like 'Da Red Wunz Go Fasta'. However, stating that it's the sole reason that Ork Technology works is a massive overegging and oversimplification.
Here's quite an interesting idea potentially explaining the Mechanicus' confusion regarding Ork tech:
The Adeptus Mechanicus has theorised that this gestalt psychic field also has a telekinetic affect, allowing Ork technology to work. This argument has been debunked, even by the Imperium itself. It is believed that the reason this argument came into existence is that the Imperium believes that a 'Machine Spirit' inhabits all technology, and that this machine spirit serves humanity. If this is the case, without a machine spirit Ork machines could not work, requiring some psychic effect to justify their often devastating effect.
On the Ork gestalt field thing, I see it as being like the "how many times did Gilles le Breton bone Lileath while serving as the green knight" question, I.E it's meaningless and doesn't actually affect anything because every author will give a different answer because Warhammer has no defined canon. :U
The notion that "Orkz iz magic" strikes me as (a) an Orky explanation that doesn't perfectly translate into human terms and/or (b) a human superstition based on the human prejudice that Orks are too stupid to "earn it" as it were, via science, and therefore the explanation for such goons actually being a major threat is that they must have magical powers. The IoM would hardly like to admit (and probably isn't even capable of admitting) that Orks are so threatening because they are really, really capable as a civilization. "They are magic" is just a larger-scale way of saying "they got lucky." No doubt, given their origins, the Orks do produce psychic static when a bunch of 'em all get riled up together. But I don't think that phenomenon is the same thing as conjuring up ammunition out of thin air. More like, Orks are smart and understand logistics - whether oomies can believe it or not.
Yeah it's this level of technical brilliant that I think should really be brought back more strongly to Orks. Their whole schtick is that they're big dumb comedic brutes that talk like football hooligans, which is utterly deceptive
I think people massively overplay the effect of the Ork's gestalt field, mainly based on information they've read online.
The actual evidence of the effect of the gestalt field is fantastically limited. In Xenology (quite an outdated book) it's mentioned that the Tech Magos observed an Ork firing a gun that was later found to have its trigger disconnected. However, that's hardly strong evidence suggesting 'the Ork believed it would fire so it did'. Occam's Razor would suggest that the most likely scenario is just that the trigger mechanism broke inbetween the Ork firing and the Tech Magos looking at it, or even that the Tech Magos doesn't know what he's looking at.
Don't get me wrong, it definitely exists (as evidenced by tabletop rules like 'Da Red Wunz Go Fasta'. However, stating that it's the sole reason that Ork Technology works is a massive overegging and oversimplification.
I'm personally of the opinion that even that doesn't necessarily have a 'magic' explanation. Perhaps Orks use their instinctive knowledge of technology to get a gut feeling of a vehicle's capabilities, and have the cultural habit of painting good un's red.
Here's quite an interesting idea potentially explaining the Mechanicus' confusion regarding Ork tech:
The Adeptus Mechanicus has theorised that this gestalt psychic field also has a telekinetic affect, allowing Ork technology to work. This argument has been debunked, even by the Imperium itself. It is believed that the reason this argument came into existence is that the Imperium believes that a 'Machine Spirit' inhabits all technology, and that this machine spirit serves humanity. If this is the case, without a machine spirit Ork machines could not work, requiring some psychic effect to justify their often devastating effect.
I like that a lot. There's a lot of overlap between the concepts of Machine Spirits and the Ork Gestalt Field as flexibly-defined explanations for how ludicrously complicated 40k technology actually runs - the exception being that there's a sensible in-universe explanation for machine spirits as fragments of AI and / or religiously doctrinized user manuals, rather than the pure hand-waving silliness of all Orks being wizards.
40k is very much a "belief and emotion makes it real" setting for just about every faction. It primarily comes up with humans, eldar, and orks, but to believe that Orks can affect reality by making impossible things happen because they don't really care about the already very loose laws of physics in the setting is no more a stretch than believing that the collective anger of humanity and a bunch of other xenos sits on a throne of skulls and wears blackened armor and spits out red skinned demons who cut people open with swords and axes.
Kain wrote: Well I mean, a Wyrdboy can use their psychic gestalt field to make a giant foot squash your army like it's a monty python sketch.
But that's a definable psychic power that follows the rules of the setting. It's no different from a Librarian conjuring lightning - it's an individual with a special power, who suffers from the psychic consequences of his actions, creating a dramatic visible effect.
It's not just some random boy jamming a load of screws into his gun and then magically shooting bullets as if they were replaced with a slight of hand trick.
Manchu wrote: By that logic, the IG could also source ammo via psychic magic.
Orks are repeatedly referred to as having greater psychic sensitivity than humanity on average. All orks contribute to the WAAAGH field which does exist. Humans are not only less psychically sensitive but more of their psychic feedback into the warp is fed into Chaos than anything else. Of course, Orks are a purposefully engineered soldier race (albeit a degenerate remnant of thereof) while humans are naturally evolved, so humans having less ability to direct their weaker psychic contributions to the warp is perfectly congruous with what is known about the setting. Through the mechanics explained of both species, humans not being able to affect reality through their emotional-psychological contributions to the warp to the same degree the Orks are makes perfect sense.
And humans do make impossible things happen through mere thought and emotion. It's called Chaos. All those Daemons exist for no reason beyond that humanity (and most other species) is a bunch of dicks as part of Warhammer 40,000's initial premise as a setting to show just what kind of awful crapsack world you'd need to live in for the arguments of fascism to become justified; and so the warp is filled with a bunch of dicks who want to murder you in imaginative and nasty ways. All those Lords of Change are drawing from power that originally came through innocuous enough seeming ambition and scheming that fed into the warp and formed Tzeentch.
Yeah it's this level of technical brilliant that I think should really be brought back more strongly to Orks. Their whole schtick is that they're big dumb comedic brutes that talk like football hooligans, which is utterly deceptive
I think people massively overplay the effect of the Ork's gestalt field, mainly based on information they've read online.
The actual evidence of the effect of the gestalt field is fantastically limited. In Xenology (quite an outdated book) it's mentioned that the Tech Magos observed an Ork firing a gun that was later found to have its trigger disconnected. However, that's hardly strong evidence suggesting 'the Ork believed it would fire so it did'. Occam's Razor would suggest that the most likely scenario is just that the trigger mechanism broke inbetween the Ork firing and the Tech Magos looking at it, or even that the Tech Magos doesn't know what he's looking at.
Don't get me wrong, it definitely exists (as evidenced by tabletop rules like 'Da Red Wunz Go Fasta'. However, stating that it's the sole reason that Ork Technology works is a massive overegging and oversimplification.
I'm personally of the opinion that even that doesn't necessarily have a 'magic' explanation. Perhaps Orks use their instinctive knowledge of technology to get a gut feeling of a vehicle's capabilities, and have the cultural habit of painting good un's red.
Here's quite an interesting idea potentially explaining the Mechanicus' confusion regarding Ork tech:
The Adeptus Mechanicus has theorised that this gestalt psychic field also has a telekinetic affect, allowing Ork technology to work. This argument has been debunked, even by the Imperium itself. It is believed that the reason this argument came into existence is that the Imperium believes that a 'Machine Spirit' inhabits all technology, and that this machine spirit serves humanity. If this is the case, without a machine spirit Ork machines could not work, requiring some psychic effect to justify their often devastating effect.
I like that a lot. There's a lot of overlap between the concepts of Machine Spirits and the Ork Gestalt Field as flexibly-defined explanations for how ludicrously complicated 40k technology actually runs - the exception being that there's a sensible in-universe explanation for machine spirits as fragments of AI and / or religiously doctrinized user manuals, rather than the pure hand-waving silliness of all Orks being wizards.
And yet all living creatures in the 40k galaxy except Blanks are connected to an alternate dimension approximate of Hell that allows powerful individuals to say "Lol what laws of physics." The gestalt field is the only explanantion to explain why a V16 with a bugcatcher, 4 wheels and a driving seat (steering wheel costs extra teef), with no suspension, brakes or anything even connected to each other, can drive like a Charger on steroids. Or how their Stompas just don't collapse in on themselves. Or how anything they make actually works because the laws of physics say it shouldn't.
But none of that is in dispute and none of it supports the theory that ork ammo = psyker power. You seem to be on the verge of arguing that all orks are psykers and firing their weapons is a psychic power equivalent to something like a Grey Knight using Smite.
Deadshot wrote: Or how anything they make actually works because the laws of physics say it shouldn't.
You could say the same of Necron tech. Except the Necrons aren't meant to be jokey (or at least Oldcrons weren't) so we just accept it as super science. Same with the Imperium.
But none of that is in dispute and none of it supports the theory that ork ammo = psyker power. You seem to be on the verge of arguing that all orks are psykers and firing their weapons is a psychic power equivalent to something like a Grey Knight using Smite.
I'm not actually arguing it, I'm simply arguing that it's one of the less crazy and out there things warp power has done in the setting.
A setting where people can be power bombed from orbit, solar systems can be cast into black holes with the flick of a c'tan's wrist, where a flaming headed cocaine addict's talking head is in the possession of a bunch of space mongols, and where space elves can interbreed with a species that developed 60 million years after they did.
Finding the possibility that Ork guns probably don't work entirely under normal laws of physics to be ridiculous by the standards of a setting that operates entirely on rule of cool is in my opinion, a tad silly when the setting has about the same level of respect for the laws of reality as a superhero comic book where the Flash can run so fast that he'd be able to punch everyone in the entire star wars galaxy to death in a microsecond and yet somehow the entire earth doesn't explode the second he takes a step at 321 quintillion times the speed of light or whatever.
Yeah it's this level of technical brilliant that I think should really be brought back more strongly to Orks. Their whole schtick is that they're big dumb comedic brutes that talk like football hooligans, which is utterly deceptive
I think people massively overplay the effect of the Ork's gestalt field, mainly based on information they've read online.
The actual evidence of the effect of the gestalt field is fantastically limited. In Xenology (quite an outdated book) it's mentioned that the Tech Magos observed an Ork firing a gun that was later found to have its trigger disconnected. However, that's hardly strong evidence suggesting 'the Ork believed it would fire so it did'. Occam's Razor would suggest that the most likely scenario is just that the trigger mechanism broke inbetween the Ork firing and the Tech Magos looking at it, or even that the Tech Magos doesn't know what he's looking at.
Don't get me wrong, it definitely exists (as evidenced by tabletop rules like 'Da Red Wunz Go Fasta'. However, stating that it's the sole reason that Ork Technology works is a massive overegging and oversimplification.
I'm personally of the opinion that even that doesn't necessarily have a 'magic' explanation. Perhaps Orks use their instinctive knowledge of technology to get a gut feeling of a vehicle's capabilities, and have the cultural habit of painting good un's red.
Here's quite an interesting idea potentially explaining the Mechanicus' confusion regarding Ork tech:
The Adeptus Mechanicus has theorised that this gestalt psychic field also has a telekinetic affect, allowing Ork technology to work. This argument has been debunked, even by the Imperium itself. It is believed that the reason this argument came into existence is that the Imperium believes that a 'Machine Spirit' inhabits all technology, and that this machine spirit serves humanity. If this is the case, without a machine spirit Ork machines could not work, requiring some psychic effect to justify their often devastating effect.
I like that a lot. There's a lot of overlap between the concepts of Machine Spirits and the Ork Gestalt Field as flexibly-defined explanations for how ludicrously complicated 40k technology actually runs - the exception being that there's a sensible in-universe explanation for machine spirits as fragments of AI and / or religiously doctrinized user manuals, rather than the pure hand-waving silliness of all Orks being wizards.
And yet all living creatures in the 40k galaxy except Blanks are connected to an alternate dimension approximate of Hell that allows powerful individuals to say "Lol what laws of physics."
'Powerful individuals' being the relevant caveat. Weirdboys? Sure. Lots of orks together in one place? Sure, in the same way that lots of humans in one place can cause plot-related psychic effects. But any random Ork on any given day? No.
The gestalt field is the only explanantion to explain why a V16 with a bugcatcher, 4 wheels and a driving seat (steering wheel costs extra teef), with no suspension, brakes or anything even connected to each other, can drive like a Charger on steroids.
You mean besides how Ork physiology is able to handle the stresses of acceleration and shock better than humans can, so Orks will naturally drive their vehicles harder and with less safety features? Not that I think your description of that vehicle is accurate - any Ork worth his teef wouldn't be caught dead with such a weedy engine.
Or how their Stompas just don't collapse in on themselves.
So do Warlord titans, or literally any other Imperium mega-construction, also benefit from the gestalt field?
Or how anything they make actually works because the laws of physics say it shouldn't.
So do Necrons also benefit from the gestalt field, or do only Orks need magic explanations to benefit from science fiction technology?
Yeah it's this level of technical brilliant that I think should really be brought back more strongly to Orks. Their whole schtick is that they're big dumb comedic brutes that talk like football hooligans, which is utterly deceptive
I think people massively overplay the effect of the Ork's gestalt field, mainly based on information they've read online.
The actual evidence of the effect of the gestalt field is fantastically limited. In Xenology (quite an outdated book) it's mentioned that the Tech Magos observed an Ork firing a gun that was later found to have its trigger disconnected. However, that's hardly strong evidence suggesting 'the Ork believed it would fire so it did'. Occam's Razor would suggest that the most likely scenario is just that the trigger mechanism broke inbetween the Ork firing and the Tech Magos looking at it, or even that the Tech Magos doesn't know what he's looking at.
Don't get me wrong, it definitely exists (as evidenced by tabletop rules like 'Da Red Wunz Go Fasta'. However, stating that it's the sole reason that Ork Technology works is a massive overegging and oversimplification.
I'm personally of the opinion that even that doesn't necessarily have a 'magic' explanation. Perhaps Orks use their instinctive knowledge of technology to get a gut feeling of a vehicle's capabilities, and have the cultural habit of painting good un's red.
You beautiful beautiful person! You've finally given me the explanation to finally kill this 'Ork gestalt field makes their tech work' thing stone dead in my personal headcanon
Now I'm happy with it as an explanation for Weirdboyz, and something that affects the collective emotions of a group of Orks (say, generating aggression and restlessness, and prompting behaviour that sorts out their hierarchy).
Here's quite an interesting idea potentially explaining the Mechanicus' confusion regarding Ork tech:
The Adeptus Mechanicus has theorised that this gestalt psychic field also has a telekinetic affect, allowing Ork technology to work. This argument has been debunked, even by the Imperium itself. It is believed that the reason this argument came into existence is that the Imperium believes that a 'Machine Spirit' inhabits all technology, and that this machine spirit serves humanity. If this is the case, without a machine spirit Ork machines could not work, requiring some psychic effect to justify their often devastating effect.
I like that a lot. There's a lot of overlap between the concepts of Machine Spirits and the Ork Gestalt Field as flexibly-defined explanations for how ludicrously complicated 40k technology actually runs - the exception being that there's a sensible in-universe explanation for machine spirits as fragments of AI and / or religiously doctrinized user manuals, rather than the pure hand-waving silliness of all Orks being wizards.
Yeah I really liked that too! I love the insight that it's another example of load of dogmatic flexibly-defined ill-understood pseudoscience to explain the technological wonders of times long past
I do like my interpretation of the 40k universe to be a little on the hard-scifi side of things though, so I've got no problem with people who like their interpretation to be a little wilder and use the gestalt field to explain tech. Just makes it less compelling for me!
Personally I like 40k being a ridiculous and silly black comedy setting full of over the top insane lunacy and hilarious violations of common sense rather than a dour place that takes itself seriously and forgets its roots as a satire on fascism and Space Opera. 40k loses its spark when it takes itself too seriously and forgets that it's fundamentally a pretty dumb and silly premise (much like how I'm always opposed to trying to make Star Wars or Comic Books too deprived of humor and fun; when you really get down to it it's all kind of dumb and silly at its core and should always remember to have fun with itself) and should never be afraid to laugh at its own ridiculousness. Black Comedy 40k is infinitely superior to Grimdark 40k. It's why I actually rather like /tg/'s interpretation of the setting (when stripped out of the racist and sexist jokes, so more towards Text to Speech Device) where everyone's a lunatic played for laughs.
But none of that is in dispute and none of it supports the theory that ork ammo = psyker power. You seem to be on the verge of arguing that all orks are psykers and firing their weapons is a psychic power equivalent to something like a Grey Knight using Smite.
Deadshot wrote: Or how anything they make actually works because the laws of physics say it shouldn't.
You could say the same of Necron tech. Except the Necrons aren't meant to be jokey (or at least Oldcrons weren't) so we just accept it as super science. Same with the Imperium.
Oldcrons had C'tan which literally made up laws of physics as it pleased them. So powerful they had to be Sharded for a new codex because even fluffwise they were OOOOOP. And the thing with Necrons is their tech doesn't break laws of physics, they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet. Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Kain wrote: Personally I like 40k being a ridiculous and silly black comedy setting full of over the top insane lunacy and hilarious violations of common sense rather than a dour place that takes itself seriously and forgets that its roots as a satire on fascism and Space Opera.
Sure, agreed. But I thinking needing to explain Ork logistics at all, including by reference to a "psychic gestalt," is an example of the latter as opposed to the former.
But none of that is in dispute and none of it supports the theory that ork ammo = psyker power. You seem to be on the verge of arguing that all orks are psykers and firing their weapons is a psychic power equivalent to something like a Grey Knight using Smite.
Deadshot wrote: Or how anything they make actually works because the laws of physics say it shouldn't.
You could say the same of Necron tech. Except the Necrons aren't meant to be jokey (or at least Oldcrons weren't) so we just accept it as super science. Same with the Imperium.
Oldcrons had C'tan which literally made up laws of physics as it pleased them. So powerful they had to be Sharded for a new codex because even fluffwise they were OOOOOP. And the thing with Necrons is their tech doesn't break laws of physics, they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet. Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Yeah it's this level of technical brilliant that I think should really be brought back more strongly to Orks. Their whole schtick is that they're big dumb comedic brutes that talk like football hooligans, which is utterly deceptive
I think people massively overplay the effect of the Ork's gestalt field, mainly based on information they've read online.
The actual evidence of the effect of the gestalt field is fantastically limited. In Xenology (quite an outdated book) it's mentioned that the Tech Magos observed an Ork firing a gun that was later found to have its trigger disconnected. However, that's hardly strong evidence suggesting 'the Ork believed it would fire so it did'. Occam's Razor would suggest that the most likely scenario is just that the trigger mechanism broke inbetween the Ork firing and the Tech Magos looking at it, or even that the Tech Magos doesn't know what he's looking at.
Don't get me wrong, it definitely exists (as evidenced by tabletop rules like 'Da Red Wunz Go Fasta'. However, stating that it's the sole reason that Ork Technology works is a massive overegging and oversimplification.
I'm personally of the opinion that even that doesn't necessarily have a 'magic' explanation. Perhaps Orks use their instinctive knowledge of technology to get a gut feeling of a vehicle's capabilities, and have the cultural habit of painting good un's red.
You beautiful beautiful person! You've finally given me the explanation to finally kill this 'Ork gestalt field makes their tech work' thing stone dead in my personal headcanon
Now I'm happy with it as an explanation for Weirdboyz, and something that affects the collective emotions of a group of Orks (say, generating aggression and restlessness, and prompting behaviour that sorts out their hierarchy).
Here's quite an interesting idea potentially explaining the Mechanicus' confusion regarding Ork tech:
The Adeptus Mechanicus has theorised that this gestalt psychic field also has a telekinetic affect, allowing Ork technology to work. This argument has been debunked, even by the Imperium itself. It is believed that the reason this argument came into existence is that the Imperium believes that a 'Machine Spirit' inhabits all technology, and that this machine spirit serves humanity. If this is the case, without a machine spirit Ork machines could not work, requiring some psychic effect to justify their often devastating effect.
I like that a lot. There's a lot of overlap between the concepts of Machine Spirits and the Ork Gestalt Field as flexibly-defined explanations for how ludicrously complicated 40k technology actually runs - the exception being that there's a sensible in-universe explanation for machine spirits as fragments of AI and / or religiously doctrinized user manuals, rather than the pure hand-waving silliness of all Orks being wizards.
Yeah I really liked that too! I love the insight that it's another example of load of dogmatic flexibly-defined ill-understood pseudoscience to explain the technological wonders of times long past
I do like my interpretation of the 40k universe to be a little on the hard-scifi side of things though, so I've got no problem with people who like their interpretation to be a little wilder and use the gestalt field to explain tech. Just makes it less compelling for me!
Happy to help! Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Having psykers do magic, or having the idea of a large population affecting the psychic imprint of an area, are both established elements of 40k that are well within the setting. So is having technology that is so far advanced that it's indistinguishable from magic. But if we're dealing with things that could have rational, empirical solutions then I don't see why people would feel the need to hand-wave them away with 'magic' solutions that don't even fit the established rules for magic in the setting.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting. It's like Superman, there's not a single explanation for any of what he does that possibly squares with the rules of our reality but honestly the only people who care are physics nerds with nothing better to do.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting.
But 40k magic has rules that it follows, none of which is being followed when we talk about Orks firing magic bullets out of sticks that they think are guns.
40k magic is chaotic, dangerous and flashy. It affects the people who use it such that they go mad, or have to take precautions to protect themselves. It has a palpable presence that sensitive users can detect.
None of these rules are followed by the exaggerated examples of the gestalt field.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting.
But 40k magic has rules that it follows, none of which is being followed when we talk about Orks firing magic bullets out of sticks that they think are guns.
40k isn't Mistborn. The so called "rules" of its magic are at best very loosely followed guidelines that authors routinely ignore or alter their interpretations of how the details work whenever they feel it suits them. Which makes a certain kind of sense because the warp is an artistic realm of emotion and feeling and not a rational realm of rules and reason. It's like Doctor Strange's magic; there's some very loosely established guidelines in the comics but authors ignore, alter or do away with them as they feel like it because the magic is ultimately just a tool to serve a story. In a game you need rules otherwise you might as well be doing play by post role playing but a story only needs rules if the author feels they are necessary.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
People thought planes were magic. Now they're science.
YOu say Necrons are magic. Eventually they'll be science, when we figure out how to work it.
Orks are magic, because we long ago figured out how gunpowder weapons and fossil fuel combustion engines work, but ork gak doesn't work when anyone else uses it.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting.
But 40k magic has rules that it follows, none of which is being followed when we talk about Orks firing magic bullets out of sticks that they think are guns.
40k isn't Mistborn. The so called "rules" of its magic are at best very loosely followed guidelines that authors routinely ignore or alter their interpretations of how the details work whenever they feel it suits them. Which makes a certain kind of sense because the warp is an artistic realm of emotion and feeling and not a rational realm of rules and reason.
But those loosely followed guidelines still fit the feel of the setting. Check my edit above for what I'm referring to.
40k magic is chaotic, dangerous and flashy. It affects the people who use it such that they go mad, or have to take precautions to protect themselves. It has a palpable presence that sensitive users can detect.
None of these rules are followed by the exaggerated examples of the gestalt field.
Going outside those guidelines breaks suspension of disbelief in the setting. I think the only reason the gestalt field idea has had legs, rather than being rejected as setting-breaking outright, is because orks are also known as comedic rule breakers so they somehow get a pass. I think that's bunk - even rule breakers shouldn't be breaking the feel of the setting. Unless they're deadpool.
Deadshot wrote: People thought planes were magic. Now they're science. YOu say Necrons are magic. Eventually they'll be science, when we figure out how to work it. Orks are magic, because we long ago figured out how gunpowder weapons and fossil fuel combustion engines work, but ork gak doesn't work when anyone else uses it.
Or maybe one day the poor benighted Mechanicum will finally advance to the point of understanding Ork science instead of superstitiously concluding out of sheer ignorance, hatred, and jealousy that it must be magic.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting.
But 40k magic has rules that it follows, none of which is being followed when we talk about Orks firing magic bullets out of sticks that they think are guns.
40k magic is chaotic, dangerous and flashy. It affects the people who use it such that they go mad, or have to take precautions to protect themselves. It has a palpable presence that sensitive users can detect.
None of these rules are followed by the exaggerated examples of the gestalt field.
Well its only Chaotic to the human mind which has a rigid and fixed idea what order and physics are. Orks are chaotic because to a human who lives in society system X, Ork system Y is complete madness. Same with the warp. The warp has rules, so to speak, about how it can be used in the Materium, but the Orks can use it differently because its the equivilent of a Librarian saying "But you can't do that!" and an Ork saying " Kan it 'umie, I just did."
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
People thought planes were magic. Now they're science.
YOu say Necrons are magic. Eventually they'll be science, when we figure out how to work it.
Orks are magic, because we long ago figured out how gunpowder weapons and fossil fuel combustion engines work, but ork gak doesn't work when anyone else uses it.
That's verifiably untrue. We have examples of Catachans using Ork shootas, and humans commandeering Ork trukks (can't remember if it was a Cain book or a Gaunts Ghost one...a commissar was involved :p).
Deadshot wrote: People thought planes were magic. Now they're science.
YOu say Necrons are magic. Eventually they'll be science, when we figure out how to work it.
Orks are magic, because we long ago figured out how gunpowder weapons and fossil fuel combustion engines work, but ork gak doesn't work when anyone else uses it.
Or maybe one day the poor benighted Mechanicum will finally advance to the point of understanding Ork science instead of superstitiously concluding out of sheer ignorance, hatred, and jealousy that it must be magic.
Or the stuff genuinely doesn't work and it really is just magic like half the setting.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting.
But 40k magic has rules that it follows, none of which is being followed when we talk about Orks firing magic bullets out of sticks that they think are guns.
40k isn't Mistborn. The so called "rules" of its magic are at best very loosely followed guidelines that authors routinely ignore or alter their interpretations of how the details work whenever they feel it suits them. Which makes a certain kind of sense because the warp is an artistic realm of emotion and feeling and not a rational realm of rules and reason.
But those loosely followed guidelines still fit the feel of the setting. Check my edit above for what I'm referring to.
Going outside those guidelines breaks suspension of disbelief in the setting. I think the only reason the gestalt field idea has had legs, rather than being rejected as setting-breaking outright, is because orks are also known as comedic rule breakers so they somehow get a pass. I think that's bunk - even rule breakers shouldn't be breaking the feel of the setting. Unless they're deadpool.
Not particularly? Jonah Orion goes through Dawn of War 2 without once being even moderately imperiled by his own powers. Some authors have basically completely different views of how psychic powers work, and many of these differences aren't even based on whether the authors view warp power as closer to science fiction psionics or to fantasy magic. There is no consistency and there is no canon with Games Workshop having explicitly abdicated the responsibility of curating canon to the fans to decide what they want to be canon. By GW's statements you are within your rights to completely disregard everything Games Workshop, Relic, the Black Library and more have ever written and have something completely different be canon. Sure it'd be kind of pointless because why even play 40k at that point, but you're allowed to do it and you'd be just as right as anyone else. Perhaps this is a product of GW deciding that if the Black Library and the Video Game developers wanted as much creative freedom as possible then GW wasn't going to be arsed to police what they were doing. Perhaps it's because GW legitimately takes post-modernist stances to the very idea of canon.
But the result is undeniably that there is a billion and a half portrayals of how the warp works and what it's power manifests as being like, and you have the fandom all arguing over which is the true canon instead of accepting that there is no truth in 40k. Simply what you want to believe out of the pile of lies and inaccuracies. This is in my opinion, the best way GW could approach canon and it's how everyone should approach shared universes. Nobody is wrong or right, they simply have their own headcanons and none are more correct than the other.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting.
But 40k magic has rules that it follows, none of which is being followed when we talk about Orks firing magic bullets out of sticks that they think are guns.
40k magic is chaotic, dangerous and flashy. It affects the people who use it such that they go mad, or have to take precautions to protect themselves. It has a palpable presence that sensitive users can detect.
None of these rules are followed by the exaggerated examples of the gestalt field.
Well its only Chaotic to the human mind which has a rigid and fixed idea what order and physics are. Orks are chaotic because to a human who lives in society system X, Ork system Y is complete madness. Same with the warp. The warp has rules, so to speak, about how it can be used in the Materium, but the Orks can use it differently because its the equivilent of a Librarian saying "But you can't do that!" and an Ork saying " Kan it 'umie, I just did."
Then what is there no difference in the chaotic nature of warp magic when a Wyrdboy does it? Wyrdboys follow the same general rules of flashy, dangerous, mind-altering magic as Librarians and Sorcerers - the only difference is the lack of demonic threat.
Why isn't there green lightning and flashes of roaring power when an Ork conjures a bullet as there is when a Wyrdboy vomits Waaagh! energy at someone? Because it isn't magic, and no bullet is being conjured.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting.
But 40k magic has rules that it follows, none of which is being followed when we talk about Orks firing magic bullets out of sticks that they think are guns.
40k isn't Mistborn. The so called "rules" of its magic are at best very loosely followed guidelines that authors routinely ignore or alter their interpretations of how the details work whenever they feel it suits them. Which makes a certain kind of sense because the warp is an artistic realm of emotion and feeling and not a rational realm of rules and reason.
But those loosely followed guidelines still fit the feel of the setting. Check my edit above for what I'm referring to.
Going outside those guidelines breaks suspension of disbelief in the setting. I think the only reason the gestalt field idea has had legs, rather than being rejected as setting-breaking outright, is because orks are also known as comedic rule breakers so they somehow get a pass. I think that's bunk - even rule breakers shouldn't be breaking the feel of the setting. Unless they're deadpool.
Not particularly? Jonah Orion goes through Dawn of War 2 without once being even moderately imperiled by his own powers..
I assume that is a librarian? One who's wearing a psychic hood, a piece of equipment specifically created to protect them from the consequences of their powers?
And if we're talking Dawn of War, let's examine what happened to the Librarian in the original dawn of war....
Or maybe they have very huge ammo stocks produced by grot, human, and xeno slaves.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
theocracity wrote: Then what is there no difference in the chaotic nature of warp magic when a Wyrdboy does it? Wyrdboys follow the same general rules of flashy, dangerous, mind-altering magic as Librarians and Sorcerers - the only difference is the lack of demonic threat.
Why isn't there green lightning and flashes of roaring power when an Ork conjures a bullet as there is when a Wyrdboy vomits Waaagh! energy at someone? Because it isn't magic, and no bullet is being conjured.
I don't subscribe to the "warp-made bullets" idea, but I will say this:
The common Boy doesn't produce wyrdboy effects for the same reason that there's not flashy psychic presences whenever Tyranids use the Synapse to communicate. The Ork WAAAGH! is actually relatively safe to use, reinforced by the inherent genetically created beliefs of the Orks. But Wyrdboyz are different than Boyz in terms of raw power and effect, and they draw upon the warp in a more direct and dangerous way, similar to Zoanthropes.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting.
But 40k magic has rules that it follows, none of which is being followed when we talk about Orks firing magic bullets out of sticks that they think are guns.
40k magic is chaotic, dangerous and flashy. It affects the people who use it such that they go mad, or have to take precautions to protect themselves. It has a palpable presence that sensitive users can detect.
None of these rules are followed by the exaggerated examples of the gestalt field.
Well its only Chaotic to the human mind which has a rigid and fixed idea what order and physics are. Orks are chaotic because to a human who lives in society system X, Ork system Y is complete madness. Same with the warp. The warp has rules, so to speak, about how it can be used in the Materium, but the Orks can use it differently because its the equivilent of a Librarian saying "But you can't do that!" and an Ork saying " Kan it 'umie, I just did."
Then what is there no difference in the chaotic nature of warp magic when a Wyrdboy does it? Wyrdboys follow the same general rules of flashy, dangerous, mind-altering magic as Librarians and Sorcerers - the only difference is the lack of demonic threat.
Why isn't there green lightning and flashes of roaring power when an Ork conjures a bullet as there is when a Wyrdboy vomits Waaagh! energy at someone? Because it isn't magic, and no bullet is being conjured.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting.
But 40k magic has rules that it follows, none of which is being followed when we talk about Orks firing magic bullets out of sticks that they think are guns.
40k isn't Mistborn. The so called "rules" of its magic are at best very loosely followed guidelines that authors routinely ignore or alter their interpretations of how the details work whenever they feel it suits them. Which makes a certain kind of sense because the warp is an artistic realm of emotion and feeling and not a rational realm of rules and reason.
But those loosely followed guidelines still fit the feel of the setting. Check my edit above for what I'm referring to.
Going outside those guidelines breaks suspension of disbelief in the setting. I think the only reason the gestalt field idea has had legs, rather than being rejected as setting-breaking outright, is because orks are also known as comedic rule breakers so they somehow get a pass. I think that's bunk - even rule breakers shouldn't be breaking the feel of the setting. Unless they're deadpool.
Not particularly? Jonah Orion goes through Dawn of War 2 without once being even moderately imperiled by his own powers..
I assume that is a librarian? One who's wearing a psychic hood, a piece of equipment specifically created to protect them from the consequences of their powers?
And if we're talking Dawn of War, let's examine what happened to the Librarian in the original dawn of war....
Isador wasn't corrupted by his own powers, he was directly being corrupted by Sindri Myr talking to him and taunting him almost constantly.
Meanwhile Jonah can: Walk into and out of the warp unharmed: Throws psychic shooting attacks as his standard means of dealing damage, spam psychic powers like there's no tomorrow without so much as a daemonic hiccup, and the only way to get him corrupted is to hand him chaos corrupted wargear, fail to bring him on some missions (in which he becomes corrupted out of resentment for not being brought along and not by his own powers), or leaving him on the space hulk for too long.
Throughout Dawn of War, the only psykers who have ever been portrayed as being at risk from their own powers were the Imperial Guard's sanctioned psykers, and the worst they can ever do is cause themselves some damage occasionally. Everyone else can cast their spells with 100% reliability and safety and absolutely nobody ever considers their psykers to be a particularly great threat to their own team throughout all seven games released so far. Not even so much as a single mention of wariness besides Crull saying he'd rather not have to use Sorcerers because he's a World Eater.
It's easy enough to find other examples of psykers having wildly incompatible depictions in the black library and in the video games. 40k has absolutely no internal consistency so I'm not sure why you'd be surprised when you find that a series legendary for being incredibly internally inconsistent is surprise surprise, internally inconsistent.
Melissia wrote: Or maybe they have very huge ammo stocks produced by grot, human, and xeno slaves.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
theocracity wrote: Then what is there no difference in the chaotic nature of warp magic when a Wyrdboy does it? Wyrdboys follow the same general rules of flashy, dangerous, mind-altering magic as Librarians and Sorcerers - the only difference is the lack of demonic threat.
Why isn't there green lightning and flashes of roaring power when an Ork conjures a bullet as there is when a Wyrdboy vomits Waaagh! energy at someone? Because it isn't magic, and no bullet is being conjured.
I don't subscribe to the "warp-made bullets" idea, but I will say this:
The common Boy doesn't produce wyrdboy effects for the same reason that there's not flashy psychic presences whenever Tyranids use the Synapse to communicate. The Ork WAAAGH! is actually relatively safe to use, reinforced by the inherent genetically created beliefs of the Orks. But Wyrdboyz are different than Boyz in terms of raw power and effect, and they draw upon the warp in a more direct and dangerous way, similar to Zoanthropes.
The Tyranid psychic presence has a quantifiable effect - the Shadow in the Warp. I can't recall examples of Ork presence creating a palpable psychic effect, beyond the biggest Waaagh!s, and even then it's not because of their use of common technology.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting.
But 40k magic has rules that it follows, none of which is being followed when we talk about Orks firing magic bullets out of sticks that they think are guns.
40k magic is chaotic, dangerous and flashy. It affects the people who use it such that they go mad, or have to take precautions to protect themselves. It has a palpable presence that sensitive users can detect.
None of these rules are followed by the exaggerated examples of the gestalt field.
Well its only Chaotic to the human mind which has a rigid and fixed idea what order and physics are. Orks are chaotic because to a human who lives in society system X, Ork system Y is complete madness. Same with the warp. The warp has rules, so to speak, about how it can be used in the Materium, but the Orks can use it differently because its the equivilent of a Librarian saying "But you can't do that!" and an Ork saying " Kan it 'umie, I just did."
Then what is there no difference in the chaotic nature of warp magic when a Wyrdboy does it? Wyrdboys follow the same general rules of flashy, dangerous, mind-altering magic as Librarians and Sorcerers - the only difference is the lack of demonic threat.
Why isn't there green lightning and flashes of roaring power when an Ork conjures a bullet as there is when a Wyrdboy vomits Waaagh! energy at someone? Because it isn't magic, and no bullet is being conjured.
Deadshot wrote: Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
Magic?
Deadshot wrote: they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet
But not magic?
No, they are both just examples of magic.
When you get down to it, 40k is a fantasy setting that runs on varying forms of magic from start to finish. Whether it's common narrative magic or just outright setting physics magic. It's not hard science fiction and it should never try to be. Leave harder scifi to stuff like the Culture or the Xeelee sequence.
I mean, even the lasgun probably relies on several violations of the laws of physics as we currently understand them to work (like energy density, because as far as I know there's no non-nuclear forms of energy generation that can fit the needs of an assault rifle sized DEW that can blow off limbs and provide for a hundred shots) and Chainswords wouldn't actually work because the chainblades would get stuck on bones and body armor.
Everything working because of "feth it, space magic" is perfectly acceptable if setting metaphysics is not supposed to be the key point of the setting.
But 40k magic has rules that it follows, none of which is being followed when we talk about Orks firing magic bullets out of sticks that they think are guns.
40k isn't Mistborn. The so called "rules" of its magic are at best very loosely followed guidelines that authors routinely ignore or alter their interpretations of how the details work whenever they feel it suits them. Which makes a certain kind of sense because the warp is an artistic realm of emotion and feeling and not a rational realm of rules and reason.
But those loosely followed guidelines still fit the feel of the setting. Check my edit above for what I'm referring to.
Going outside those guidelines breaks suspension of disbelief in the setting. I think the only reason the gestalt field idea has had legs, rather than being rejected as setting-breaking outright, is because orks are also known as comedic rule breakers so they somehow get a pass. I think that's bunk - even rule breakers shouldn't be breaking the feel of the setting. Unless they're deadpool.
Not particularly? Jonah Orion goes through Dawn of War 2 without once being even moderately imperiled by his own powers..
I assume that is a librarian? One who's wearing a psychic hood, a piece of equipment specifically created to protect them from the consequences of their powers?
And if we're talking Dawn of War, let's examine what happened to the Librarian in the original dawn of war....
Isador wasn't corrupted by his own powers, he was directly being corrupted by Sindri Myr talking to him and taunting him almost constantly.
Meanwhile Jonah can: Walk into and out of the warp unharmed: Throws psychic shooting attacks as his standard means of dealing damage, spam psychic powers like there's no tomorrow without so much as a daemonic hiccup, and the only way to get him corrupted is to hand him chaos corrupted wargear, fail to bring him on some missions (in which he becomes corrupted out of resentment for not being brought along and not by his own powers), or leaving him on the space hulk for too long.
Throughout Dawn of War, the only psykers who have ever been portrayed as being at risk from their own powers were the Imperial Guard's sanctioned psykers, and the worst they can ever do is cause themselves some damage occasionally. Everyone else can cast their spells with 100% reliability and safety and absolutely nobody ever considers their psykers to be a particularly great threat to their own team throughout all seven games released so far. Not even so much as a single mention of wariness besides Crull saying he'd rather not have to use Sorcerers because he's a World Eater.
It's easy enough to find other examples of psykers having wildly incompatible depictions in the black library and in the video games. 40k has absolutely no internal consistency so I'm not sure why you'd be surprised when you find that a series legendary for being incredibly internally inconsistent is surprise surprise, internally inconsistent.
This multiquote is getting out of hand, and I'm not sure that the topic is entirely relevant, so I'm gonna leave it at this: 40k has long portrayed access and use of psychic powers as opening oneself up to corruption and danger. The fact that Space Marines have enough plot armor to ignore this most of the time doesn't change the fact that it's still a part of the setting, and something that can be used to corrupt them any time it's plot relevant.
That's a gameplay mechanic more than a lore one. I would suggest looking at the Fantasy Flight Games rpgs, which go in to some very strong depth about the usage of psychic powers.
In fact, there's ways to safely use psychic powers in the FFGrpgs! By fettering your power and only utilizing the weaker forms of powers, you can utilize them relatively safely in the right conditions. The more powerful a psyker you are, the easier it is for you to utilize powers safely... and at the same time, the stronger the temptation it is to utilize powers recklessly, because of the sheer absurdities that you can accomplish by throwing power at a problem (such as throwing up a barrier of stopped time powerful enough to stop a nova cannon blast, or conflagrating the souls of every enemy on the battlefield, or what have you).
Psykers chose a power level-- Fettered (1/2 psy rating, no chance for psychic phenomena), Unfettered (psy rating, standard chance), or Push (psy rating +3 for sanctionites increased chance). Then they made a power test based off of their willpower to pull it off, and utilize their effective psy rating for the effect.
Oddly enough, in this ruleset daemons cannot utilize powers as Fettered, but are unaffected by psychic phenomena unless they trigger a Peril of the Warp even when Pushing. Perils are really bad rolls on the psychic phenomena tables. Psychic phenomena are triggered by doubles on the willpower roll to manifest the power (meaning it can happen even if you succeed); most of them are benign but creepy, like "All people within line of sight to the psyker forget something trivial", or mirrors within X distance shatter, or all plant life within X distance dies.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
theocracity wrote: The Tyranid psychic presence has a quantifiable effect - the Shadow in the Warp.
Only produced by hive fleets, and the effect is weakened for splinter fleets. Just like an Ork WAAAGH! being dependent on the size of the horde. A "seeding" scout party of a few lictors, a warrior, and a couple dozen gaunts and gants? Not gonna produce a Shadow In the Warp, even when they're all synapsed to the Warrior.
theocracity wrote: The Tyranid psychic presence has a quantifiable effect - the Shadow in the Warp.
Only produced by hive fleets, and the effect is weakened for splinter fleets. Just like an Ork WAAAGH! being dependent on the size of the horde. A "seeding" scout party of a few lictors, a warrior, and a couple dozen gaunts and gants? Not gonna produce a Shadow In the Warp.
Maybe not as much as one, but it's also not going to be doing any physics-warping. A psyker who sees them would know there's a group of drones being controlled by a more powerful psyker, and could potentially feel its mind control effects. The same psyker seeing an Ork would not get the same feeling of psychic power just because the Ork's gun is a piece of crap.
theocracity wrote: The Tyranid psychic presence has a quantifiable effect - the Shadow in the Warp.
Only produced by hive fleets, and the effect is weakened for splinter fleets. Just like an Ork WAAAGH! being dependent on the size of the horde. A "seeding" scout party of a few lictors, a warrior, and a couple dozen gaunts and gants? Not gonna produce a Shadow In the Warp.
Maybe not as much as one, but it's also not going to be doing any physics-warping. A psyker who sees them would know there's a group of drones being controlled by a more powerful psyker, and could potentially feel its mind control effects. The same psyker seeing an Ork would not get the same feeling of psychic power just because the Ork's gun is a piece of crap.
Path of the seer explicitly mentions that the Eldar can feel the psychic presence of the WAAAGH surrounding the Orks and twisting the skeins of fate through its very power as the simple presence of Orks gathered in a WAAAGH alter the possible futures that destiny can take. The WAAAGH field a very real thing. It's a natural product of Orkoid physiology. Likely because as mentioned, the Orks were a psychic soldier race made for an apocalyptic war against an army of star eating gods and their unliving robot minions.
Okay, not as much of one. To the point of not effecting the use of psychic powers by others. So in other words, it flavors the warp Tyranid-flavored. Just like the WAAAGH! flavors the warp Orky.
Let's bring this back around to the main topic - conceding that the Waaagh is a psychic field generated by Orks getting together and that said psychic field has some affect on material reality. These things aren't really in dispute. The question is, do Orks guns use actual ammo that has to be manufactured or does the Waaagh phenomenon mean that Ork guns don't need material ammunition in order to fire?
Manchu wrote: Let's bring this back around to the main topic - conceding that the Waaagh is a psychic field generated by Orks getting together and that said psychic field has some affect on material reality. These things aren't really in dispute. The question is, do Orks guns use actual ammo that has to be manufactured or does the Waaagh phenomenon mean that Ork guns don't need material ammunition in order to fire?
Very much the former.
I don't dispute that Waaagh! energy and the psychic presence it creates real. It definitely has a presence and power that's palpable to psykers and drives Ork mass psychology, and that it can be harnessed for more concrete purposes by exceptional individuals like Wyrdboys and Ghazkull. I'll even admit that, in high concentrations, it may act as probability lubricant to keep the more insane excesses of Orks directed towards a common purpose.
However, there's no need in my mind for it to apply to the commonplace physical realities of everyday Orks. There's plenty of normal explanation for how they make use of slapdash equipment without venturing into superhero territory, especially when its application breaks the feel of the setting for no good reason.
Manchu wrote: Let's bring this back around to the main topic - conceding that the Waaagh is a psychic field generated by Orks getting together and that said psychic field has some affect on material reality. These things aren't really in dispute. The question is, do Orks guns use actual ammo that has to be manufactured or does the Waaagh phenomenon mean that Ork guns don't need material ammunition in order to fire?
I'm just quoting you to avoid a massive pyramid, but I would like to reaffirm I'm not saying they generate bullets out of thin air, because that's unbelievable to an Ork. No Ork is going to believe an unloaded weapon would fire. But they might just believe that, to use my earlier example, bolter rounds they found would be fine cuz it fits in the gun and its load and lots of dakka. That's the difference. Believing something means there needs to be real belief. They might say "If I think it it happens," but they dont believe it, so it doesn't work.
(edit: didn't realise how far behind I was in the conversation when I made this post, apologies. Here it is anyway
Deadshot wrote: Oldcrons had C'tan which literally made up laws of physics as it pleased them. So powerful they had to be Sharded for a new codex because even fluffwise they were OOOOOP. And the thing with Necrons is their tech doesn't break laws of physics, they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet. Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
That's more advanced than Craftworld Eldar who have someone shout at a tree until it grows into a gun. And speaking of tech only working because you think it: how do Eldar make their gun shoot? They have to think it shoots.
Personally I'm not big on overuse of the ork Gellarfield, but from one perspective, it is just a variant of psychically operated machinery.
nareik wrote: (edit: didn't realise how far behind I was in the conversation when I made this post, apologies. Here it is anyway
Deadshot wrote: Oldcrons had C'tan which literally made up laws of physics as it pleased them. So powerful they had to be Sharded for a new codex because even fluffwise they were OOOOOP. And the thing with Necrons is their tech doesn't break laws of physics, they make use of laws humans haven't discovered or understand yet. Orks slap a tube and a trigger onto a box and it fires .50 rounds, somehow.
That's more advanced than Craftworld Eldar who have someone shout at a tree until it grows into a gun. And speaking of tech only working because you think it: how do Eldar make their gun shoot? They have to think it shoots.
Personally I'm not big on overuse of the ork Gellarfield, but from one perspective, it is just a variant of psychically operated machinery.
Huh, now that's an interesting skew on it. I'd be happier if Orks intentionally built psychic mechanisms into their technology (or even just safety catches so non-Orks can't fire them). That's something that only the Eldar do, so it would make Orks more intelligent which is always a good thing.
I'm happier with the way the Eldar's tech works because that's the entire basis of their technology-tree. Everything they make is psychically operated, and a large proportion is psychically powered. It fits with the rest of their fluff.
With Orks, their two sides appear to be in opposition. On the one hand, they're hard-coded with an incredible level of specific intelligence regarding machinery by the most technologically capable race in the galaxy. On the other hand, their stuff only works because they believe it does.
I like the two ideas so far that marry the two. Either 'the gestalt field doesn't really affect technology at all, it's all misinformation', or 'Ork technoloy contains psychic triggers and mechanisms, just like their fellow Old-One creations the Eldar, that the Imperium barely understands to misappropriates it as 'magic''
Manchu wrote: Let's bring this back around to the main topic - conceding that the Waaagh is a psychic field generated by Orks getting together and that said psychic field has some affect on material reality. These things aren't really in dispute. The question is, do Orks guns use actual ammo that has to be manufactured or does the Waaagh phenomenon mean that Ork guns don't need material ammunition in order to fire?
I'm just quoting you to avoid a massive pyramid, but I would like to reaffirm I'm not saying they generate bullets out of thin air, because that's unbelievable to an Ork. No Ork is going to believe an unloaded weapon would fire. But they might just believe that, to use my earlier example, bolter rounds they found would be fine cuz it fits in the gun and its load and lots of dakka. That's the difference. Believing something means there needs to be real belief. They might say "If I think it it happens," but they dont believe it, so it doesn't work.
I feel like there's a fundamental conflict between the idea that 'orks have inherent genetic knowledge of technology' and 'orks are unable to tell that round pegs do not fit in square holes but it magically doesn't matter.' Are they able to interact with technology in their own jury-rigged idiom, or does the world just bend around them because they're too lazy to care about shapes?
If orks find a cache of bolter rounds that don't fit in their guns, I would think that they would either exchange their guns for ones that do fire bolter rounds or modify their existing guns to do so in some slapdash fashion.
Edit: Ynnead, you and I really seem on the same wavelength here, heh. The idea of Ork technology having Eldar-like psychic triggers is not how I view it, but that is an idea that at least fits within the setting to me. It's the kind of idea that I could get behind as an unconfirmed theory, even though I prefer the more physical rationale.
Edit: Ynnead, you and I really seem on the same wavelength here, heh. The idea of Ork technology having Eldar-like psychic triggers is not how I view it, but that is an idea that at least fits within the setting to me. It's the kind of idea that I could get behind as an unconfirmed theory, even though I prefer the more physical rationale.
Haha I was thinking the same thing
I love the idea of never really explaining anything in 40k, but just giving out 4 or 5 different unexplained theories so people have to work out which one (if any!) is most plausible
Manchu wrote: Let's bring this back around to the main topic - conceding that the Waaagh is a psychic field generated by Orks getting together and that said psychic field has some affect on material reality. These things aren't really in dispute. The question is, do Orks guns use actual ammo that has to be manufactured or does the Waaagh phenomenon mean that Ork guns don't need material ammunition in order to fire?
I'm just quoting you to avoid a massive pyramid, but I would like to reaffirm I'm not saying they generate bullets out of thin air, because that's unbelievable to an Ork. No Ork is going to believe an unloaded weapon would fire. But they might just believe that, to use my earlier example, bolter rounds they found would be fine cuz it fits in the gun and its load and lots of dakka. That's the difference. Believing something means there needs to be real belief. They might say "If I think it it happens," but they dont believe it, so it doesn't work.
I feel like there's a fundamental conflict between the idea that 'orks have inherent genetic knowledge of technology' and 'orks are unable to tell that round pegs do not fit in square holes but it magically doesn't matter.' Are they able to interact with technology in their own jury-rigged idiom, or does the world just bend around them because they're too lazy to care about shapes?
If orks find a cache of bolter rounds that don't fit in their guns, I would think that they would either exchange their guns for ones that do fire bolter rounds or modify their existing guns to do so in some slapdash fashion.
Edit: Ynnead, you and I really seem on the same wavelength here, heh. The idea of Ork technology having Eldar-like psychic triggers is not how I view it, but that is an idea that at least fits within the setting to me. It's the kind of idea that I could get behind as an unconfirmed theory, even though I prefer the more physical rationale.
Well, round pegs fit into square holes if you hit them hard enough, which is exactly what an Ork would do. He knows its not designed to do that, but he wants to do, so by Gork he's gonna Krump that round peg square.
I think this is just a matter of opinion on which is the better and more likely option. You think rational explanations are in order and I think that Fungoid Gorilla Space Football Hooligans that warp reality by their collective belief in that concept, powered by the literal embodiment of chaos which also serves as Hell, is THE most 40K thing you could possibly come up with. Like, literally no other setting would come up with some so rediculously convoluted, complex and terrifying that it becomes the comic relief of the setting.
Personally I'm gonna keep going with the Gestalt field theory because I find it more accurate and making more sense.
Manchu wrote: Let's bring this back around to the main topic - conceding that the Waaagh is a psychic field generated by Orks getting together and that said psychic field has some affect on material reality. These things aren't really in dispute. The question is, do Orks guns use actual ammo that has to be manufactured or does the Waaagh phenomenon mean that Ork guns don't need material ammunition in order to fire?
I'm just quoting you to avoid a massive pyramid, but I would like to reaffirm I'm not saying they generate bullets out of thin air, because that's unbelievable to an Ork. No Ork is going to believe an unloaded weapon would fire. But they might just believe that, to use my earlier example, bolter rounds they found would be fine cuz it fits in the gun and its load and lots of dakka. That's the difference. Believing something means there needs to be real belief. They might say "If I think it it happens," but they dont believe it, so it doesn't work.
I feel like there's a fundamental conflict between the idea that 'orks have inherent genetic knowledge of technology' and 'orks are unable to tell that round pegs do not fit in square holes but it magically doesn't matter.' Are they able to interact with technology in their own jury-rigged idiom, or does the world just bend around them because they're too lazy to care about shapes?
If orks find a cache of bolter rounds that don't fit in their guns, I would think that they would either exchange their guns for ones that do fire bolter rounds or modify their existing guns to do so in some slapdash fashion.
Edit: Ynnead, you and I really seem on the same wavelength here, heh. The idea of Ork technology having Eldar-like psychic triggers is not how I view it, but that is an idea that at least fits within the setting to me. It's the kind of idea that I could get behind as an unconfirmed theory, even though I prefer the more physical rationale.
Well, round pegs fit into square holes if you hit them hard enough, which is exactly what an Ork would do. He knows its not designed to do that, but he wants to do, so by Gork he's gonna Krump that round peg square.
I think this is just a matter of opinion on which is the better and more likely option. You think rational explanations are in order and I think that Fungoid Gorilla Space Football Hooligans that warp reality by their collective belief in that concept, powered by the literal embodiment of chaos which also serves as Hell, is THE most 40K thing you could possibly come up with. Like, literally no other setting would come up with some so rediculously convoluted, complex and terrifying that it becomes the comic relief of the setting.
Personally I'm gonna keep going with the Gestalt field theory because I find it more accurate and making more sense.
Different strokes for different folks
That's the beauty of having a number of different suggestions of what might cause something, rather than just the one solid explanation. People can pick the thing that makes the most sense to their interpretation of the universe
Manchu wrote: Let's bring this back around to the main topic - conceding that the Waaagh is a psychic field generated by Orks getting together and that said psychic field has some affect on material reality. These things aren't really in dispute. The question is, do Orks guns use actual ammo that has to be manufactured or does the Waaagh phenomenon mean that Ork guns don't need material ammunition in order to fire?
I'm just quoting you to avoid a massive pyramid, but I would like to reaffirm I'm not saying they generate bullets out of thin air, because that's unbelievable to an Ork. No Ork is going to believe an unloaded weapon would fire. But they might just believe that, to use my earlier example, bolter rounds they found would be fine cuz it fits in the gun and its load and lots of dakka. That's the difference. Believing something means there needs to be real belief. They might say "If I think it it happens," but they dont believe it, so it doesn't work.
I feel like there's a fundamental conflict between the idea that 'orks have inherent genetic knowledge of technology' and 'orks are unable to tell that round pegs do not fit in square holes but it magically doesn't matter.' Are they able to interact with technology in their own jury-rigged idiom, or does the world just bend around them because they're too lazy to care about shapes?
If orks find a cache of bolter rounds that don't fit in their guns, I would think that they would either exchange their guns for ones that do fire bolter rounds or modify their existing guns to do so in some slapdash fashion.
Edit: Ynnead, you and I really seem on the same wavelength here, heh. The idea of Ork technology having Eldar-like psychic triggers is not how I view it, but that is an idea that at least fits within the setting to me. It's the kind of idea that I could get behind as an unconfirmed theory, even though I prefer the more physical rationale.
Well, round pegs fit into square holes if you hit them hard enough, which is exactly what an Ork would do. He knows its not designed to do that, but he wants to do, so by Gork he's gonna Krump that round peg square.
I think this is just a matter of opinion on which is the better and more likely option. You think rational explanations are in order and I think that Fungoid Gorilla Space Football Hooligans that warp reality by their collective belief in that concept, powered by the literal embodiment of chaos which also serves as Hell, is THE most 40K thing you could possibly come up with. Like, literally no other setting would come up with some so rediculously convoluted, complex and terrifying that it becomes the comic relief of the setting.
Personally I'm gonna keep going with the Gestalt field theory because I find it more accurate and making more sense.
Different strokes for different folks
That's the beauty of having a number of different suggestions of what might cause something, rather than just the one solid explanation. People can pick the thing that makes the most sense to their interpretation of the universe
I agree on that but only in certain situations. Like, X chapter are able to have X snowflake trait because X, that's cool, but on levels like, how a race fundamentally operate, I'd personally prefer a straight up answer with a bunch of theories surrounding it, in universe only. Try to guess what actually happened to the Fire Hawks or whatever just leaves it too open to bad fanfiction, and when enough people jump on that bandwagon, GW makes it canon, which is bad. Its like JK Rowling confirming X fantheory is true when she never thought of it before in her life. Have some control and pride in your work.
It seems to me that many of the previous conceptualizations of the Ork 'gestalt-field' attempt to downplay or discredit its effect in an effort to harmonize
a fluff staple with a very narrow perception of both the ork as a being as well as the materium/immaterium dynamic as a whole. When the Old Ones created the
Krorks they did so albeit out of need, but with a trained and delicate hand long experienced with biogenesis. Having created the Eldar and multiple other
sentient species, the Old Ones certainly understood the inextricable duality between psychically resonant species and the warp. As such not only did they need
to fabricate the physiological parameters of the species but also its instincts, temperament, proclivities, and I would argue most importantly- the nature of
its warp presence.
To illustrate both the significance of this design element as well as the 'standard' approach taken by the Old Ones we should examine early Eldar myth/history.
Created before the Krorks as perhaps more of an artistic expression than necessity, these new beings were created to be unanimously psychic and
capable of a great depth emotion. Any being endowed with the power to generate new warp sensitive species would obviously be aware of the dangers of the
immaterium. Thus the Eldar mind and body were crafted in a specific manner such that the resonance of their minds and emotions in the warp would coalesce into
specific gods. Simply put, the energetical impact of an angry Eldar intent on destruction or the development of martial prowess does not fuel Khorne but
rather Khaine. Only by outstripping the depth of these archetypes did the Eldar manage to shatter their pantheon, leaving themselves naked to the void.
The Krorks however, were not crafted as a delicate gem capable of greatness in all directions, they were engineered as weapon to do battle with the Necrontyr
and prevent the destruction of the Eldar and perhaps even the destruction of the Old Ones themselves. Thus, they are spore based for efficient reproduction and
transportation; extremely resilient, resourceful, and possessing of a particular propensity for destruction- reducing the need for close management or timely
logistics support; they are also all at least latently psychic, creating a cumulative field around all Krork that literally weakens the barrier between realspace
and the immaterium. This has enumerable benefits, it provides an opportunity for subconscious influence and communication, it facilitates the manifestation of
patently ridiculous powers by the skilled, it also allows for the conscious or autonomic manipulation of realspace by warp based entities. In this case that
entity is the specifically crafted Krork warp presence. It is both the reflection of the Krork nature as well as its very essence.
But just as the Eldar were able alter their very afterlife given enough time, so to did the Krork evolve across the passage of millennia. With the fall of the
the Old Ones to the warp based enslaver plague, conscientious management of the Krorks was no longer possible. Over the eons both Krork and their corresponding
warp presence shifted and changed. Perhaps this happened naturally as an adaptation to alterations in the make-up of real space and the
corresponding effect on immaterium as new species evolved and grew to prominence, just as the ancient races slept or died. Whatever the cause, the result is
clear: the evolution of Space Orks and their altered warp presence- Gork and Mork.
This new race is not without its idiosyncrasies, likely side affects from a lengthy and unplanned evolution in unforeseen conditions. The mania or madness that
separates them from their carefully crafted ancestors, maybe analogous to quirks developed in a computer program left running far longer than designed. In any
case all these changes concurrently altered the Krorks warp presence into Gork and Mork, a parody or perversion of the undoubtedly masterfully created warrior
archetype that was the 'god' of the Krorks. Gork and Mork do not exist in the warpscape in which their progenitors were designed. The Eldar pantheon is mostly
slain, the gods of chaos have risen to great power and even increased in number, shadows fall on the periphery, multiple rifts between real and warp space have
been rent, and a new deafening cacophony of untold billions of humans has been added to the mix. All of these factors have contrived to twist the nature of the
Krork into the reality of the Ork. As such things are a bit silly. Gork and Mork know that shootas shoot and bombs explode, just as an ork knows that
choppas chop and red goes faster. That,s not to say everyone involved doesn't have to go through the motions. Obviously a piece of tech that has been hammered on
intently will work to greater effect than a relatively ignored piece. This happens because it has always worked that way. The Krork was grown from a spore knowing
the working of tech instinctually because it was programmed into its very nature for the purpose of creating a better weapon, a warrior race capable of utilizing
whatever was at hand to achieve victory. These core values still exist in forty-first millennium Orks because it is the only reason they have survived as a species.
They Waaghh! because that is what the Orks and the warp presence that surrounds and represents them was designed to do. It works because this inextricable duality
between Ork and Gork & Mork was originally fabricated to win the wars of the Krorks. The Orks and their gods were unintentionally released from control and have
been altered by the shifting powers of the warp and realspace.
This process is also unlikely to slow down or become in anyway more reasonable. At first a Krork grew to maturity knowing the science behind his actions instinctually,
information privy to it because of being latently psychic and in communion with the warp. Following the death of the Old Ones the surviving Krorks may still have
instinctually performed the scientifically correct processes to create warmachines, but with less understanding of underlying principles. This process continued through to
the modern Ork who knows that the little guys have to slave about, and the mek boys have to hammer stuff, and the doc has to use a staple gun; but the aesthetics of
the actions as far more important than the physical reality because Gork and Mork know how to Waagh! They always have and it will always work as long as there is an
Ork to take the fight to an enemy.
The basic idea is that no matter how technically correct any Ork construct may or may not be, the impetus for its creation sprung from ancestral knowledge stored within
the warp in the form of Gork and Mork. Thus whether they just know how to build something awesome naturally or a piece of insane junk just works, it is exactly the same
kind of force that is at work when Nurgle sends a plague, or Slaanesh seduces a heart, or Tzeentch turns a few unseen knobs. The sum of all Ork knowledge and power is
derived from its presence in the warp, transmitted via a two-way 'gestalt field', and manifested in the form of the Ork, the impossible tech, and the Waagh!
