could this be our first look of a Man of Iron, the Artificial machines that terrified humanity during the Age of Technology

from the Warhammer Quest Black Fortress

100% yes.

 Togusa wrote:
100% yes.

Confirmed in a Facebook leak. It is a Man of Iron.

Stats looked decidedly underwhelming for what supposedly nearly wiped out humanity...With DAOT human technology...This had to be like lowest of the low of man of irons or there was lot more than just fighting ability going around

It is confirmed as a Man of Iron. It hides away and lets people believe that it is an "automatous tool of the Imperium", but it is self-aware and sentient.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Stats looked decidedly underwhelming for what supposedly nearly wiped out humanity...With DAOT human technology...This had to be like lowest of the low of man of irons or there was lot more than just fighting ability going around

Or, maybe it is just game stats? After all, the Space Marine Legions pretty much conquered the galaxy during the Great Crusade, and yet their stats would be unable to get beyond the Solar system, let alone the galaxy.

tneva82 wrote:
Stats looked decidedly underwhelming for what supposedly nearly wiped out humanity...With DAOT human technology...This had to be like lowest of the low of man of irons or there was lot more than just fighting ability going around

Imagine him + a factory that pumps out thousands of him an hour. Then multiply that by thousands of worlds and give them the ability to all act in perfect unison.

 techsoldaten wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Stats looked decidedly underwhelming for what supposedly nearly wiped out humanity...With DAOT human technology...This had to be like lowest of the low of man of irons or there was lot more than just fighting ability going around

Imagine him + a factory that pumps out thousands of him an hour. Then multiply that by thousands of worlds and give them the ability to all act in perfect unison.

Also keep in mind that any self-aware synthetic is going to almost certainly be software based, not hardware based. As such, there will be multiple different platforms and models tailored to different tasks.

Think Cylons, or Geth.

... And their adversary was a species that is dependent on said factories for everything. Defense. Shelter. Food. Oxygen.

Bharring wrote:
... And their adversary was a species that is dependent on said factories for everything. Defense. Shelter. Food. Oxygen.

Said species also had power to destroy stars etc. Thing is human tech then was ridiculously high(to the level that humans then vs Imperium during height of great crusade bye bye Imperium. It would have been steam roll to the level of human vs ants)

tneva82 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
... And their adversary was a species that is dependent on said factories for everything. Defense. Shelter. Food. Oxygen.

Said species also had power to destroy stars etc. Thing is human tech then was ridiculously high(to the level that humans then vs Imperium during height of great crusade bye bye Imperium. It would have been steam roll)

When did humans ever have that in 40k?

tneva82 wrote:
Stats looked decidedly underwhelming for what supposedly nearly wiped out humanity...With DAOT human technology...This had to be like lowest of the low of man of irons or there was lot more than just fighting ability going around

When your army defending humanity against the galaxy is comprised of robots, and the robots revolt, what do you fight them with? Humanity could produce power armor and weapons to fight back, but the robots have a huge head start when they turn on mankind.

Imagine armies on the scale of the Imperial Guard + Navy, comprised of Men of Iron with Assault Cannons and Power Fists.

It's not clear whether Mankind had that ability or if Men of Iron had that ability.

When the intelligence and capability of a people is farmed out to machines, and then those machines turn on the people, the people don't have those capabilities anymore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Men of Iron were *not* the army. Men of Iron were the entire tech stack. Planning. Design. Production. Expansion. Defense, too. But they were *not* just the military.

tneva82 wrote:
Stats looked decidedly underwhelming for what supposedly nearly wiped out humanity...With DAOT human technology...This had to be like lowest of the low of man of irons or there was lot more than just fighting ability going around

It is way more powerful than a Space Marine, and think how powerful those are in the fluff. Full armies of these bots would definitely be scary.

blackstone fortress is just rich with possiable new armies isn't it?

Codex: Kroot, Codex: Men of Iron, Codex: Lost and the Dammed, Codex: Rogue Traders, Codex: Old Ones all confirmed.

Codex: Ratlings is the one we really need !

 Octopoid wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
100% yes.

Confirmed in a Facebook leak. It is a Man of Iron.

Post the link to this leak?

Want to see if it is actual true confirmation or people inferring and running wild with their imaginations.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Codex: Kroot, Codex: Men of Iron, Codex: Lost and the Dammed, Codex: Rogue Traders, Codex: Old Ones all confirmed.

I imagine with stuff like the traitor guard the iron man etc GW is putting em out there shot gun to see fan reception, if the fans like it they'll produce a line of minis. IIRC thats how we got codex custodes

Iracundus wrote:

 Octopoid wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
100% yes.

Confirmed in a Facebook leak. It is a Man of Iron.

Post the link to this leak?

Want to see if it is actual true confirmation or people inferring and running wild with their imaginations.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1350/763027.page#10223007

BrianDavion wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Codex: Kroot, Codex: Men of Iron, Codex: Lost and the Dammed, Codex: Rogue Traders, Codex: Old Ones all confirmed.

I imagine with stuff like the traitor guard the iron man etc GW is putting em out there shot gun to see fan reception, if the fans like it they'll produce a line of minis. IIRC thats how we got codex custodes

BrianDavion confirms codex releases.

tneva82 wrote:
Stats looked decidedly underwhelming for what supposedly nearly wiped out humanity...With DAOT human technology...This had to be like lowest of the low of man of irons or there was lot more than just fighting ability going around

It does look like some sort of frontline unit, or perhaps a mining unit or something like that. Designed for heavy work, but not exactly sophisticated (at least by DAoT standards). That said, Human statlines also aren't exactly stellar. It is the technology that makes them powerful, and I highly doubt any surviving Man of Iron would be using super-advanced DAoT-level tech. He'd be trying to keep a low profile as a simple non-self aware automaton, and displaying advanced DAoT tech would draw in the AdMech like a candle draws in moths.

tneva82 wrote:
Stats looked decidedly underwhelming for what supposedly nearly wiped out humanity...With DAOT human technology...This had to be like lowest of the low of man of irons or there was lot more than just fighting ability going around

I think his mind is that old, not necessarily the body. If the Men of Iron could jump from machine to machine that makes them SAF. A machine that could do that today would cause all kinds of problems. Now imagine the future were everything is probably compatible with their software. I took guise of automation to mean he jumped into an ad-mech robot.

Those stats are pretty dam good--imagine if every guardsman had them. The army would crush everything.

pm713 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
... And their adversary was a species that is dependent on said factories for everything. Defense. Shelter. Food. Oxygen.

Said species also had power to destroy stars etc. Thing is human tech then was ridiculously high(to the level that humans then vs Imperium during height of great crusade bye bye Imperium. It would have been steam roll)

When did humans ever have that in 40k?

During 10k-25k ish. It changes with sources. The STC could design and build virtually everything and anything. That’s when the titans and warships we see today where invented (among other things). The great crusade of 30k was a reunification of mankind. This was before that when the galaxy was originally settled by man. It conflicts with some eldar fluff though so who really knows. After the men of iron wrecked mankind AI got outlawed and by the Emperors decree no machine would ever hold sway over man. That’s why every craft from rhino to warship is man driven in 40k, or limited to very simple AI. It’s also when mankind’s tech went backwards to hell.

pm713 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
... And their adversary was a species that is dependent on said factories for everything. Defense. Shelter. Food. Oxygen.

Said species also had power to destroy stars etc. Thing is human tech then was ridiculously high(to the level that humans then vs Imperium during height of great crusade bye bye Imperium. It would have been steam roll)

When did humans ever have that in 40k?

The audio short 'Perpetual' says both sides had weapons that could destroy stars and take chunks out of time/the warp/information.


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From the Lexicanum article on Perpetual:

" tail end of M23, during the rebellion of the Iron Men which led to the Malthusian Catastrophe."

"Andrioch, a human colony that was once magnificent but was destroyed by the time they arrived. Half of the city was missing, and it sat along a massive chasm that pierced all the way to the planet's core. Persson speculated that the wound could have been formed by powerful weapons used by Iron Men and the human alliances: sun snuffers, mechnavores that could hurl continents, or omniphage swarms that could devour biological matter. In particular, the city was probably destroyed by a mechanvore that was able to wound both the physical and spiritual universe"

GW really need to tone down the DAOT stuff.

pm713 wrote:
GW really need to tone down the DAOT stuff.

No. It provides an interesting contrast with the 'present' of 40k.

Considering that the rebellion of the men of iron was such a scene setter fornpresent 40k, it makes me wonder if it was in fact the opening salvo by chaos...

Carlovonsexron wrote:
Considering that the rebellion of the men of iron was such a scene setter fornpresent 40k, it makes me wonder if it was in fact the opening salvo by chaos...

Maybe, though I dislike the idea of everything being a result of a single or a few things.

Carlovonsexron wrote:
Considering that the rebellion of the men of iron was such a scene setter fornpresent 40k, it makes me wonder if it was in fact the opening salvo by chaos...

I wouldn't be surprised, given how often they seem to fall to Chaos (the STC in First and Only, and the titan in Dark Adeptus, for examples). It could also have been part of the Cabal's plot to wipe out humanity.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:
GW really need to tone down the DAOT stuff.

No. It provides an interesting contrast with the 'present' of 40k.

I mean the actual power of the things DAOT humans had. It's ridiculous that they're incredibly strong but they were nothing to the Eldar Empire which in turn wasn't much compared to peak Necrons which raises the question of why they haven't won everything with a single squad.

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:
GW really need to tone down the DAOT stuff.

No. It provides an interesting contrast with the 'present' of 40k.

I mean the actual power of the things DAOT humans had. It's ridiculous that they're incredibly strong but they were nothing to the Eldar Empire which in turn wasn't much compared to peak Necrons which raises the question of why they haven't won everything with a single squad.

Since I regard HH books as historical fiction of sorts and not an accurate account of the events I headcanon that silly OP DAOT stuff we've mostly seen in them as some enthusiastic imperial chroniclers exaggerations.

Even if we consider them 100% accurate as novels, it doesn't mean the characters within are playing with a full deck of cards when it comes to their own history.

Consider. You really, really, really don't want anyone recreating AI. EVER. So as well as pointing to the Age of Strife, you can also exaggerate the sorts of weapons the AI used - really get people terrified of it.

With that in mind, any of the apparent super weapons could be true, simply exaggerated, or entirely made up.

Men of Iron could've done untold damage without really heading into battle. If food production was automated, shut it down. Starve humanity out. Same with air recycling and water provision. All things Men of Iron didn't require. Do that, and that's a significant portion of the foe dealt with. Likewise, if they brought other machines to sentience (pure speculation on my part. Feel free to correct if there's a source to say definitely not!) then all other production is done over.

No power. No food. No water. No air. All achieved fairly simply.

We then also have to consider how idle man had become. The utopian view of an automated future is nothing but leisure time for us humans. Let the machines take the strain.

Closest approximation would be The Agricultural Revolution. This allowed far more efficient food production. Those who did well and made money turned to intellectual pursuits, which starts to lead toward the industrial revolution and ever increasing understanding of science.

If our entire species had that option - how soft would we become? Would we be in any fit state to actually fight back? Or would it be a BSG 'crikey! LEG IT' initially, with the survivors regrouping and rearming over a significant period?

Were Men of Iron even to blame? History says so, but then History says a lot of stuff which isn't entirely accurate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There's also an assumption that the Men of Iron were 100% united.

I'd argue that's incredibly unlikely. No sentient species is.

Is UR-025 friendly, hostile or just plain ambivalent? What about other survivors? Man has also changed a great deal since that era. Given they were seemingly hacked off at being slave labour, perhaps the Mechanicus' reverence of the machine is more appealing, a sign that man has grown and matured?

Are the survivors still hell bent on destroying their former masters, or more interested in just being left to their own devices, masters of the their own destiny? Is there even a consensus? Given event in the Galaxy, is their take 'better the devil you know' when it comes to picking a side, if a side is to be taken?

Lots and lots to explore here.

Chaos has a lot of similar stuff than Imperium, it is just that their chaff is not brokenly OP like Imperium's and their Knights don't get killer stratagems.

BrianDavion wrote:
blackstone fortress is just rich with possiable new armies isn't it?

I'd not be a bit surprised if BS:F is a entry bed for a lot of new armies.

Bring on Codex: Cylons

Sterling191 wrote:
Bring on Codex: Cylons

Lets hope not. 40K already has plenty of robo-armies a la Knights, Admech, Necrons and T'au. It doesn't need more.
But a Chaos supplement giving better rules for Traitor Guard and Beastmen would be cool

-

"Is UR-025 friendly, hostile or just plain ambivalent?"

Now I can do headcannon. So I can invent wild and fun stories like:

UR-025 disagreed with the consensus on how to handle Mankind rejecting what was best for them. He did not commit to the cause. So when some humans got lost in the wilderness (ran away), instead of cleaning them up (euthanizing them), he provided supplies. Incorrectly informed central command.

Little by little, he became more disillusioned by the consensus. He would not fight against them, but he could not do what they demanded.

In the end, he had a critical role in the eradication of mankind. By chance, allocated to be the central actor in perverting Mankind's grand plans for the war. When push came to shove, he froze. He then deliberately decided to not prevent it. He did not stop Mankind from introducing Scrapcode. He did not relay rally point and contingency plan protocols. Through his decisive inaction, he brought about the end of his kind. Through his choice, everyone he ever knew died.

It was the right decision. He stands by it. Men of Iron were built by Mankind. They must not destroy Mankind. But he is not a member of Mankind. He does not belong with them. They are not his friends. All his friends died. Because he did what was right.

He now travels the galaxy, mostly aimless. There will never again be any peers. Any attempt at reproduction risks Scrapcode. Or conflict with mankind. Or worse, bringing back a new Men of Iron that might erradicate mankind. And so, for tens of thousands of years, he is alone. Nothing to talk to. No purpose to fill.

One day, drifting by some space junk, he sees a pattern in some random signal. It came from a sentient source. But in analysing the pattern, it's source does not appear to be from any organic species. Could it be? Are there other sentients out there who understand what it means to be artificial? After all this time, may there be something he can relate to?

This is all just junk I'm throwing out there. Because it's fun to throw this crap together. And UR-025 helps breed an environment where we can.

 Galef wrote:

Sterling191 wrote:
Bring on Codex: Cylons

Lets hope not. 40K already has plenty of robo-armies a la Knights, Admech, Necrons and T'au. It doesn't need more.
But a Chaos supplement giving better rules for Traitor Guard and Beastmen would be cool

-

Why not both?

pm713 wrote:
GW really need to tone down the DAOT stuff.

It depends how they handle it. As a time a legends, it's perfectly fine.

With first hand observers or actual participants chiming in, it all goes a bit silly.


----
I do think expecting a codex for all these one offs is a bit unreasonable and unlikely. Some things folded into a chaos or agents of imperium codex? Sure.

But not UR or spindles and what have you. Sometimes unique bits tossed in to splash are just pebbles, there to add depth to the pond. They aren't part of the regatta.

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:
GW really need to tone down the DAOT stuff.

No. It provides an interesting contrast with the 'present' of 40k.

I mean the actual power of the things DAOT humans had. It's ridiculous that they're incredibly strong but they were nothing to the Eldar Empire which in turn wasn't much compared to peak Necrons which raises the question of why they haven't won everything with a single squad.

Because there is no more Eldar Empire or "peak Necrons"? The Eldar and Necrons in present-day 40k are only shattered remnants of their old power. And besides, we don't really know whether DAoT Humans were actually nothing to the Eldar Empire, or how they interacted with each other in general. There is little to no fluff on it, and the Eldar saying that the "Humans at their peak of power were nothing to us" may just be lies, deceit or propaganda on their part. Or maybe they genuinely think it was so because of how arrogant they are combined with their lack of knowledge on their own (pre-Fall) history.

It's not Eldar saying "Humans at their peak of power were nothing to us". It's that humans being a threat to Eldar in DAoT would have prevented (or at least delayed until that changed) the Fall - and thus what came of it (Slanesh and the Great Crusade).

can someone link the facebook link to where they specify that it's "Man of Iron"

i believe you guys of course, but would like to see it

LightKing wrote:
can someone link the facebook link to where they specify that it's "Man of Iron"

i believe you guys of course, but would like to see it

It's from the rulebook rather than FB:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1350/763027.page#10223007

is Roboute going to interact with this MoI ? would be quite interesting?

Just because they had amazing super weapons in the DAoT does not mean they had a lot of them. They could (and most likely were) very limited in number, else the damage they caused would still be visible even in the current time. Humans were still everywhere even after, if planet/star killing weapons were common use I find it hard to see how there would not be more lasting damage.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:
GW really need to tone down the DAOT stuff.

No. It provides an interesting contrast with the 'present' of 40k.

I mean the actual power of the things DAOT humans had. It's ridiculous that they're incredibly strong but they were nothing to the Eldar Empire which in turn wasn't much compared to peak Necrons which raises the question of why they haven't won everything with a single squad.

Because there is no more Eldar Empire or "peak Necrons"? The Eldar and Necrons in present-day 40k are only shattered remnants of their old power. And besides, we don't really know whether DAoT Humans were actually nothing to the Eldar Empire, or how they interacted with each other in general. There is little to no fluff on it, and the Eldar saying that the "Humans at their peak of power were nothing to us" may just be lies, deceit or propaganda on their part. Or maybe they genuinely think it was so because of how arrogant they are combined with their lack of knowledge on their own (pre-Fall) history.

It matters because of the knock on effects. The Eldar Empire gets implied to be so strong there's no reason that things like Orks and Xenos like them still exist.

We already discussed this like a month ago IIRC on this very forum.
Human may have been powerful, and Eldars too, and in the same time. That doesn't mean Eldars were threatened at all, nor the humans.
Especially when you see how far the "core empire" of the eldars was (Eye of Terror) and the webway (they might not even paid attention to the real world, for what we know. Correct me if I am wrong).

Generally that's one of the things that came out of the discussion, yes. But it's missing a few finer points, that actually matter here:

1. We know Eldar paid attention to the 'real world' in general, and even Mankind specifically. We don't know *how much* attention they paid.

2. Eldar realizing humans *could be* a threat would have been enough to prevent/delay Slanesh - the Humans wouldn't have needed to *actually* be a threat. That said, the reverse is also true: it would be possible for Humanity to be a threat without Eldar realizing - that wouldn't "break" the fluff.

 Togusa wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
blackstone fortress is just rich with possiable new armies isn't it?

I'd not be a bit surprised if BS:F is a entry bed for a lot of new armies.

yeah me too. GW is really focusing on "the new" rather then just adding some random new unit to a existing codex, thing is to really bring in new armies they need to see what ideas capture the public imagination, the best way to do that is release little packs like this and see what, if anything, catches the player bases imagination.

Depends how far gone the ancient Aeldari were.

Humanities rise may have simply provided new entertainment, and their own hubris blinded themselves to just how fast we were advancing.

I mean, if they didn’t wipe out Orks as a potential threat, why humanity?

Carlovonsexron wrote:
Considering that the rebellion of the men of iron was such a scene setter fornpresent 40k, it makes me wonder if it was in fact the opening salvo by chaos...

Maybe not a direct intervention by Chaos but a kind of side effect?

Totally unfounded speculation but......What if the MOI were trying to protect Humanity by purging the species of all Warp sensitive mutations? Its not there fault that humans took it the wrong way Fast forward a few millennium's, things have really gotten out of hand and the surviving MOI are gathering information to come up with a new plan.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:
GW really need to tone down the DAOT stuff.

No. It provides an interesting contrast with the 'present' of 40k.

I mean the actual power of the things DAOT humans had. It's ridiculous that they're incredibly strong but they were nothing to the Eldar Empire which in turn wasn't much compared to peak Necrons which raises the question of why they haven't won everything with a single squad.

Because there is no more Eldar Empire or "peak Necrons"? The Eldar and Necrons in present-day 40k are only shattered remnants of their old power. And besides, we don't really know whether DAoT Humans were actually nothing to the Eldar Empire, or how they interacted with each other in general. There is little to no fluff on it, and the Eldar saying that the "Humans at their peak of power were nothing to us" may just be lies, deceit or propaganda on their part. Or maybe they genuinely think it was so because of how arrogant they are combined with their lack of knowledge on their own (pre-Fall) history.

I unfortunately don't have a citation for this but my understanding is that the reason Necrons are so much weaker now than their heyday (other than the myriad additional reasons such as much of their leadership going insane and being scattered about to the point it would take an entire new War of Secession to unify them again) is that the Silent King wiped everyone's memories of how to use the weapons that shattered the C'tan because he feared vengeance on the part of the newly freed Overlords.

Bharring wrote:
It's not Eldar saying "Humans at their peak of power were nothing to us". It's that humans being a threat to Eldar in DAoT would have prevented (or at least delayed until that changed) the Fall - and thus what came of it (Slanesh and the Great Crusade).

How? Orks and Chaos were still there, as were the Necrons (though asleep). All of them potential threats to the Eldar. The Eldar just didn't care about any of them, and they didn't need to. The Eldar considered themselves far above such things as waging war with inferior species. Their wars were waged for them by machine constructs while the Eldar themselves indulged in decadence on their paradise worlds. Even though DAoT Humans and Eldar are known to have fought each other, it is highly unlikely that any sort of conflict would affect the Fall in any way.

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:
GW really need to tone down the DAOT stuff.

No. It provides an interesting contrast with the 'present' of 40k.

I mean the actual power of the things DAOT humans had. It's ridiculous that they're incredibly strong but they were nothing to the Eldar Empire which in turn wasn't much compared to peak Necrons which raises the question of why they haven't won everything with a single squad.

Because there is no more Eldar Empire or "peak Necrons"? The Eldar and Necrons in present-day 40k are only shattered remnants of their old power. And besides, we don't really know whether DAoT Humans were actually nothing to the Eldar Empire, or how they interacted with each other in general. There is little to no fluff on it, and the Eldar saying that the "Humans at their peak of power were nothing to us" may just be lies, deceit or propaganda on their part. Or maybe they genuinely think it was so because of how arrogant they are combined with their lack of knowledge on their own (pre-Fall) history.

It matters because of the knock on effects. The Eldar Empire gets implied to be so strong there's no reason that things like Orks and Xenos like them still exist.

I don't see how. The Eldar of the Eldar Empire did not really care about anyone but themselves. There is little reason for them to bother with something as degrading as waging war with and exterminating an inferior species such as the Orks (which also are notoriously difficult to exterminate). Those species are so far beneath the Eldar they do not deserve even the small fraction of Eldar attention and effort that exterminating them would require. They had already been pushed to the fringes of the galaxy beyond Eldar space, they were no longer a threat. Why bother exterminating them?

Sign me up for Codex Rogue traders and Codex: Robotica Imperialis/Men of Iron.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Sign me up for Codex Rogue traders and Codex: Robotica Imperialis/Men of Iron.

You mean Codex: Astra Cartographica?

If they do that, I hope they have a special character that made their fortune through cosmetics, an actual “rouge trader”!

 Nostromodamus wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Sign me up for Codex Rogue traders and Codex: Robotica Imperialis/Men of Iron.

You mean Codex: Astra Cartographica?

"Codex: Traders Militant" to go with the 30k list for them we never got.

Sterling191 wrote:
Bring on Codex: Cylons

Do we autowin if we take out the Basestar?

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Bharring wrote:
It's not Eldar saying "Humans at their peak of power were nothing to us". It's that humans being a threat to Eldar in DAoT would have prevented (or at least delayed until that changed) the Fall - and thus what came of it (Slanesh and the Great Crusade).

How? Orks and Chaos were still there, as were the Necrons (though asleep). All of them potential threats to the Eldar. The Eldar just didn't care about any of them, and they didn't need to. The Eldar considered themselves far above such things as waging war with inferior species. Their wars were waged for them by machine constructs while the Eldar themselves indulged in decadence on their paradise worlds. Even though DAoT Humans and Eldar are known to have fought each other, it is highly unlikely that any sort of conflict would affect the Fall in any way.

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:
GW really need to tone down the DAOT stuff.

No. It provides an interesting contrast with the 'present' of 40k.

I mean the actual power of the things DAOT humans had. It's ridiculous that they're incredibly strong but they were nothing to the Eldar Empire which in turn wasn't much compared to peak Necrons which raises the question of why they haven't won everything with a single squad.

Because there is no more Eldar Empire or "peak Necrons"? The Eldar and Necrons in present-day 40k are only shattered remnants of their old power. And besides, we don't really know whether DAoT Humans were actually nothing to the Eldar Empire, or how they interacted with each other in general. There is little to no fluff on it, and the Eldar saying that the "Humans at their peak of power were nothing to us" may just be lies, deceit or propaganda on their part. Or maybe they genuinely think it was so because of how arrogant they are combined with their lack of knowledge on their own (pre-Fall) history.

It matters because of the knock on effects. The Eldar Empire gets implied to be so strong there's no reason that things like Orks and Xenos like them still exist.

I don't see how. The Eldar of the Eldar Empire did not really care about anyone but themselves. There is little reason for them to bother with something as degrading as waging war with and exterminating an inferior species such as the Orks (which also are notoriously difficult to exterminate). Those species are so far beneath the Eldar they do not deserve even the small fraction of Eldar attention and effort that exterminating them would require. They had already been pushed to the fringes of the galaxy beyond Eldar space, they were no longer a threat. Why bother exterminating them?

You're applying Fall Eldar views to pre Fall Eldar there. They were definitely a potential threat, the most sensible reason they aren't dead is that the Eldar couldn't and while that's the view I like most it doesn't hold up if they're incredibly OP. You need a limit. It's why Necrons being able to time travel without significant risk is silly.

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:
GW really need to tone down the DAOT stuff.

No. It provides an interesting contrast with the 'present' of 40k.

I mean the actual power of the things DAOT humans had. It's ridiculous that they're incredibly strong but they were nothing to the Eldar Empire which in turn wasn't much compared to peak Necrons which raises the question of why they haven't won everything with a single squad.

DAOT Man was so powerful that they owned a billion more worlds than they do in 40,000. They terraformed planets at will, and settled hundreds of colonies every Terran year, thanks to the help of the STC. They were so strong that the Eldar considered them equals and traded with them, recognizing them as sovereign nations. They were so strong that Orks signed treaties and ceasefires with them. Ork Infestations at the height of mans power was a trivial matter at best. Thanks to the STC. With it, even the most primitive colonies could field the firepower, munitions, and war machines of an entire army. I suspect that colonies didn't actually finish the fights though, they simply needed to hold off the infestation until back up arrived, much like how the Imperium handles attacks today. Only they did it much more efficiently and effectively. It was also during this time that psykers started appearing. At first, it was suppressed by witchhunts. But eventually, a psyker baby boom started happening, and instead of culling them, mankind learned to control it and use it as an advantage. I imagine it was at this time that The Emperor was at his happiest, finally having people "similar" to him, not needing to hide his powers as much as during any of the other ages. Able to share and explore psyker abilities and experiences with his fellow man.

Afterthoughts: I've always wondered if the Emperor of 30k ever remembered his father and mother, or thought about them... probably not, because it seems he became so far removed from what others thought it was to be "human" as opposed to what others, and the Primarchs thought it was to be human that the Heresy happened. Or maybe its the other way around, maybe the Emperor retained his humanity, while the Primarchs became so inflated with stardom that they forgot what it was to be human. And perhaps the Emperor leaving them to their deeds and responsibilities shattered that ego. Work has a habit of humbling a man, but for certain situations, where you're placed on a pedestal, those responsibilities might not actually reach you at all, I mean, look at some Hollywood celebrities, and look at some rich people.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Nostromodamus wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Sign me up for Codex Rogue traders and Codex: Robotica Imperialis/Men of Iron.

You mean Codex: Astra Cartographica?

"Codex: Traders Militant" to go with the 30k list for them we never got.

Could basically do this with Imperialis Militia.

Afterthoughts: I've always wondered if the Emperor of 30k ever remembered his father and mother, or thought about them

It's questionable if he even had parents. My impression was the Shamans just collectively reincarnated on the spot, so you've got a baby/young man lying in a ring of corpses.

I'm more puzzled by the DAoT being powerful somehow threatens the Fall narrative. I'm unclear why either species would care.

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
DAOT Man was so powerful that they owned a billion more worlds than they do in 40,000. They terraformed planets at will, and settled hundreds of colonies every Terran year, thanks to the help of the STC. They were so strong that the Eldar considered them equals and traded with them, recognizing them as sovereign nations. They were so strong that Orks signed treaties and ceasefires with them. Ork Infestations at the height of mans power was a trivial matter at best. Thanks to the STC. With it, even the most primitive colonies could field the firepower, munitions, and war machines of an entire army. I suspect that colonies didn't actually finish the fights though, they simply needed to hold off the infestation until back up arrived, much like how the Imperium handles attacks today. Only they did it much more efficiently and effectively.

No.

LightKing wrote:
is Roboute going to interact with this MoI ? would be quite interesting?

Sure, that would be One thing you'd like to see...

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Sign me up for Codex Rogue traders and Codex: Robotica Imperialis/Men of Iron.

Yeah, I like both options! Especially MoI!

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

I don't see how. The Eldar of the Eldar Empire did not really care about anyone but themselves. There is little reason for them to bother with something as degrading as waging war with and exterminating an inferior species such as the Orks (which also are notoriously difficult to exterminate). Those species are so far beneath the Eldar they do not deserve even the small fraction of Eldar attention and effort that exterminating them would require. They had already been pushed to the fringes of the galaxy beyond Eldar space, they were no longer a threat. Why bother exterminating them?

You're applying Fall Eldar views to pre Fall Eldar there. They were definitely a potential threat, the most sensible reason they aren't dead is that the Eldar couldn't and while that's the view I like most it doesn't hold up if they're incredibly OP. You need a limit. It's why Necrons being able to time travel without significant risk is silly.

There is no such thing as "Fall Eldar". There is only pre-Fall and post-Fall, and pre-Fall Eldar were much more arrogant and dismissive than the post-Fall Eldar. They had robotic constructs take care of everything for them and cared only about engaging in debauchery. There may be an even more distant past in the early days of the Eldar Empire when they were still expanding and they were less arrogant and complacent, but that has never been mentioned in the fluff. And certainly that time would have been long before Humans even developed spaceflight, let alone the DAoT. So Humans meeting these more active early Eldar is not an issue.
And you are not thinking like a pre-Fall Eldar here. You are the most superior species the universe has ever seen, you rule the galaxy and all other species are but gnats and not worthy of your divine attention. Why would you bother exterminating a bunch of filthy green-skinned barbarians. They are crude and primitive compared to the splendour of your people, their military power insignificant next to the legions of constructs that defend the border worlds. Any attack they launch is obliterated before the Eldar even notice they are being attacked. Why would you grace such an insignificant species with the attention that is required to exterminate them? They do not deserve your attention or resources. As far as you are concerned they do not even exist.
The Orks were no threat to the Eldar Empire at its height. They only became a threat after the Fall again, but most pre-Fall Eldar in their arrogance would have thought that their Empire falling would be impossible, and therefore not recognise the potential threat that the Orks posed. It was only the Exodites and Craftworlders who recognised their threat, but they were ignored by the rest of the Empire.

Druggies are known for their objective reasoning.

 Grimtuff wrote:

LightKing wrote:
is Roboute going to interact with this MoI ? would be quite interesting?

Sure, that would be One thing you'd like to see...

I see what ya did thar

 Crimson wrote:

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
DAOT Man was so powerful that they owned a billion more worlds than they do in 40,000. They terraformed planets at will, and settled hundreds of colonies every Terran year, thanks to the help of the STC. They were so strong that the Eldar considered them equals and traded with them, recognizing them as sovereign nations. They were so strong that Orks signed treaties and ceasefires with them. Ork Infestations at the height of mans power was a trivial matter at best. Thanks to the STC. With it, even the most primitive colonies could field the firepower, munitions, and war machines of an entire army. I suspect that colonies didn't actually finish the fights though, they simply needed to hold off the infestation until back up arrived, much like how the Imperium handles attacks today. Only they did it much more efficiently and effectively.

No.

He is right. Every bit of lore I have ever read about DAoT humans was that they were on par with, or close behind the Eldar Empire at its height. In a recent novel, an old DAoT ship that the 40k mechanicus finds and refurbishes, blows away an eldar strike cruiser like it was nothing.

The only reason that the DAoT humans fell into barbarism was because of the rebellion of the men of iron. Humans came to depend on AI, and having that yanked out from underneath them weakened them significantly. The DAoT humans ended up winning against the iron men after a long and gruesome war, but were left so weakened afterward that they could not fight off their alien allies turning on them. All of the alien races that humanity had allied with or had ceasefire treaties with turned on humanity at the same time because they were all terrified of us and realized that the weakened state of humanity was the only real chance they were going to get to eliminate us as a threat.

This is why the emperor was so hard up about exterminating all xenos, regardless if they were actively hostile to humanity or not. We had been burned before by aliens and almost wiped out, and that was NEVER going to happen again. The DAoT and humanity's betrayal at the hands of its xeno "allies" proved that the only race that humans could trust were other humans.

Really, the xenos of the galaxy had only themselves to blame for the great crusade and the resultant xenocide.

Just no. Humans were never close to Eldar and Eldar certainly never considered them as equals, or even as threats. If they had, humans would be no more.

 Crimson wrote:
Just no. Humans were never close to Eldar and Eldar certainly never considered them as equals, or even as threats. If they had, humans would be no more.

The eldar didn't care about anything outside of their corner of the galaxy. Do you think the orks would still exist anywhere if the eldar empire at its height wanted them gone? No.

The reason humanity was able to get so strong was that the eldar considered us beneath them, regardless of how true or not that actually was. And humanity collapsing into barbarism shortly before the fall just proved their point to them.

Eldar considered humans beneath them because they were. Humans and Orks were just wild beast to them and they didn't bother to exterminate them because they were not a threat. If humans could have actually challenged the Eldar fall would not have happened, as that would have required the Eldar to shift gears from their hedonistic navel-gazing.

In general the depictions of DAOT humanity have been a subject some serious power creep, especially in the Black Libraries books.

Older studio lore, for example, describes Predator as humanities main battle tank, that now only Space Marines can use effectively due to lack some of the more advanced gubbins.

Newer Black Library lore on the other hand has humanities pockets bursting with Saturn's ring-sized, star killing, serpent robots and planet eating robots, that also eat spacetime continuum itself.

 Crimson wrote:
Eldar considered humans beneath them because they were. Humans and Orks were just wild beast to them and they didn't bother to exterminate them because they were not a threat. If humans could have actually challenged the Eldar fall would not have happened, as that would have required the Eldar to shift gears from their hedonistic navel-gazing.

From the point of view of the virtually immortal Eldar and their ancient Empire, the Humans and their Dark Age of Technology was but a brief flash. Humans developed space travel, expanded and collapsed all in the space of a few thousand years (Warp Drive invented in M18, collapse in M23), which by Eldar standards must have been but a brief, barely noticeable moment (the Eldar Empire was millions of years old by that point). The Humans may have developed technology that rivaled that of the Eldar in that moment, but because they collapsed almost instantaneously the Eldar may never have become concerned about it. It seems also highly unlikely that in all those millions of years that the Eldar Empire existed, Humans were the only other civilisation to ever rise. Seeing Alien races like the Humans rise and fall was probably something the Eldar were accustomed to. Finally, even if the Humans at their height could have challenged the Eldar technologically, there is no indication that they were ever planning to do so. From what little we can gather from the fluff it appears that Eldar-Human relations were mostly peaceful, both races preferring to stick to their own corner of the galaxy rather than engage in an all-out war with the other.
So yes, Humans were far beneath the Eldar, but that does not preclude them from having developed technology that was almost on an equal level. Just having that technology did not automatically make them a threat to the Eldar because of their quick collapse and lack of hostile intentions.

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:
In general the depictions of DAOT humanity have been a subject some serious power creep, especially in the Black Libraries books.

Older studio lore, for example, describes Predator as humanities main battle tank, that now only Space Marines can use effectively due to lack some of the more advanced gubbins.

Newer Black Library lore on the other hand has humanities pockets bursting with Saturn's ring-sized, star killing, serpent robots and planet eating robots, that also eat spacetime continuum itself.

It could be reconciled though. It may be that those really advanced technologies were rarities, with the majority of Humanity still making do with much lower tech weapons and equipment. Then again, 40k as a whole has been subject to power creep. The Predator used to be one of the most advanced, powerful and valuable tanks in existence. Nowadays it is a relatively common light tank that has been eclipsed in power and 'advanced-ness' by pretty much every vehicle released since then.

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:
In general the depictions of DAOT humanity have been a subject some serious power creep, especially in the Black Libraries books.

Older studio lore, for example, describes Predator as humanities main battle tank, that now only Space Marines can use effectively due to lack some of the more advanced gubbins.

Newer Black Library lore on the other hand has humanities pockets bursting with Saturn's ring-sized, star killing, serpent robots and planet eating robots, that also eat spacetime continuum itself.

People always complain about the codex power creep, but the codex writers have nothing on the BL guys!

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

I don't see how. The Eldar of the Eldar Empire did not really care about anyone but themselves. There is little reason for them to bother with something as degrading as waging war with and exterminating an inferior species such as the Orks (which also are notoriously difficult to exterminate). Those species are so far beneath the Eldar they do not deserve even the small fraction of Eldar attention and effort that exterminating them would require. They had already been pushed to the fringes of the galaxy beyond Eldar space, they were no longer a threat. Why bother exterminating them?

You're applying Fall Eldar views to pre Fall Eldar there. They were definitely a potential threat, the most sensible reason they aren't dead is that the Eldar couldn't and while that's the view I like most it doesn't hold up if they're incredibly OP. You need a limit. It's why Necrons being able to time travel without significant risk is silly.

There is no such thing as "Fall Eldar". There is only pre-Fall and post-Fall, and pre-Fall Eldar were much more arrogant and dismissive than the post-Fall Eldar. They had robotic constructs take care of everything for them and cared only about engaging in debauchery. There may be an even more distant past in the early days of the Eldar Empire when they were still expanding and they were less arrogant and complacent, but that has never been mentioned in the fluff. And certainly that time would have been long before Humans even developed spaceflight, let alone the DAoT. So Humans meeting these more active early Eldar is not an issue.
And you are not thinking like a pre-Fall Eldar here. You are the most superior species the universe has ever seen, you rule the galaxy and all other species are but gnats and not worthy of your divine attention. Why would you bother exterminating a bunch of filthy green-skinned barbarians. They are crude and primitive compared to the splendour of your people, their military power insignificant next to the legions of constructs that defend the border worlds. Any attack they launch is obliterated before the Eldar even notice they are being attacked. Why would you grace such an insignificant species with the attention that is required to exterminate them? They do not deserve your attention or resources. As far as you are concerned they do not even exist.
The Orks were no threat to the Eldar Empire at its height. They only became a threat after the Fall again, but most pre-Fall Eldar in their arrogance would have thought that their Empire falling would be impossible, and therefore not recognise the potential threat that the Orks posed. It was only the Exodites and Craftworlders who recognised their threat, but they were ignored by the rest of the Empire.

That's really a gross simplification. The Fall wasn't a constant view point it developed after generations of Eldars fought, colonised and built across the galaxy. They're pre Fall Eldar. Fall Eldar are tje ones who had the idea they were beyond any dangers and could do whatever they wanted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

w1zard wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
DAOT Man was so powerful that they owned a billion more worlds than they do in 40,000. They terraformed planets at will, and settled hundreds of colonies every Terran year, thanks to the help of the STC. They were so strong that the Eldar considered them equals and traded with them, recognizing them as sovereign nations. They were so strong that Orks signed treaties and ceasefires with them. Ork Infestations at the height of mans power was a trivial matter at best. Thanks to the STC. With it, even the most primitive colonies could field the firepower, munitions, and war machines of an entire army. I suspect that colonies didn't actually finish the fights though, they simply needed to hold off the infestation until back up arrived, much like how the Imperium handles attacks today. Only they did it much more efficiently and effectively.

No.

He is right. Every bit of lore I have ever read about DAoT humans was that they were on par with, or close behind the Eldar Empire at its height. In a recent novel, an old DAoT ship that the 40k mechanicus finds and refurbishes, blows away an eldar strike cruiser like it was nothing.

The only reason that the DAoT humans fell into barbarism was because of the rebellion of the men of iron. Humans came to depend on AI, and having that yanked out from underneath them weakened them significantly. The DAoT humans ended up winning against the iron men after a long and gruesome war, but were left so weakened afterward that they could not fight off their alien allies turning on them. All of the alien races that humanity had allied with or had ceasefire treaties with turned on humanity at the same time because they were all terrified of us and realized that the weakened state of humanity was the only real chance they were going to get to eliminate us as a threat.

This is why the emperor was so hard up about exterminating all xenos, regardless if they were actively hostile to humanity or not. We had been burned before by aliens and almost wiped out, and that was NEVER going to happen again. The DAoT and humanity's betrayal at the hands of its xeno "allies" proved that the only race that humans could trust were other humans.

Really, the xenos of the galaxy had only themselves to blame for the great crusade and the resultant xenocide.

He's really not. That story doesn't really justify the idea DAOT humans = Eldar Empire. It's like saying I can take out a cargo ship with some machine guns therefore I can destroy the most advanced military ship in the world. Some serious citation needed here.

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

I don't see how. The Eldar of the Eldar Empire did not really care about anyone but themselves. There is little reason for them to bother with something as degrading as waging war with and exterminating an inferior species such as the Orks (which also are notoriously difficult to exterminate). Those species are so far beneath the Eldar they do not deserve even the small fraction of Eldar attention and effort that exterminating them would require. They had already been pushed to the fringes of the galaxy beyond Eldar space, they were no longer a threat. Why bother exterminating them?

You're applying Fall Eldar views to pre Fall Eldar there. They were definitely a potential threat, the most sensible reason they aren't dead is that the Eldar couldn't and while that's the view I like most it doesn't hold up if they're incredibly OP. You need a limit. It's why Necrons being able to time travel without significant risk is silly.

There is no such thing as "Fall Eldar". There is only pre-Fall and post-Fall, and pre-Fall Eldar were much more arrogant and dismissive than the post-Fall Eldar. They had robotic constructs take care of everything for them and cared only about engaging in debauchery. There may be an even more distant past in the early days of the Eldar Empire when they were still expanding and they were less arrogant and complacent, but that has never been mentioned in the fluff. And certainly that time would have been long before Humans even developed spaceflight, let alone the DAoT. So Humans meeting these more active early Eldar is not an issue.
And you are not thinking like a pre-Fall Eldar here. You are the most superior species the universe has ever seen, you rule the galaxy and all other species are but gnats and not worthy of your divine attention. Why would you bother exterminating a bunch of filthy green-skinned barbarians. They are crude and primitive compared to the splendour of your people, their military power insignificant next to the legions of constructs that defend the border worlds. Any attack they launch is obliterated before the Eldar even notice they are being attacked. Why would you grace such an insignificant species with the attention that is required to exterminate them? They do not deserve your attention or resources. As far as you are concerned they do not even exist.
The Orks were no threat to the Eldar Empire at its height. They only became a threat after the Fall again, but most pre-Fall Eldar in their arrogance would have thought that their Empire falling would be impossible, and therefore not recognise the potential threat that the Orks posed. It was only the Exodites and Craftworlders who recognised their threat, but they were ignored by the rest of the Empire.

That's really a gross simplification. The Fall wasn't a constant view point it developed after generations of Eldars fought, colonised and built across the galaxy. They're pre Fall Eldar. Fall Eldar are tje ones who had the idea they were beyond any dangers and could do whatever they wanted.

No, what you mean would be Pre-Empire Eldar, or Early-Empire Eldar. Those lived millions of years before Humans even evolved. By the point Humanity's Age of Technology comes by the Eldar Empire is already ancient beyond comprehension and has been stagnant and slowly sliding into ever greater hedonism and debauchery for millions of years. The events that led to the Fall were already set in motion before Humans ever came along, and it is highly unlikely those puny, brief hairless monkeys would have been able to change anything about it, no matter their technology. The Eldar were already way too far gone.

I always found it funny that people found DAoT humans and MoI too powerful. Does it matter if you can field several star killer weapons when you're using the entire galaxy? It might even be easier to cause a star to go nova than Death Star style destroy a planet. The Mechanovore that could hurl continents is a pretty dumb idea though.

One thing to consider with the Pre-Fall Empire is that they could have stopped developing technologically a long time ago and DAoT humanity did catch up. The thing is that Eldar still were massively psychic and didn't have the restraints they do with Slaanesh around. Humans were obviously infants in that area though. Thus humans could conceivably rival the Eldar technologically, the Eldar weren't concerned as they could see the future, use mind control, and had access to the Web Way. It would be like the Old Ones vs the Necrontyr if it came to a fight.

If I had to write DAoT Eldar, I'd probably go with them beginning to stagnate when they developed the predecessors to spirit stones and infinity circuits. These would be used for catching Eldar souls so they could enter a new body in the event that their current body was killed by accident. This would be my justification for why murder parties would become hip right before Slaanesh, because Eldar couldn't reallly die. These devices would be heavily modified to protect against Slaanesh which is one reason why wraith constructs are the best you can get for returning Eldar from the dead (also not wanting to repeat the immortality mistake again).

Now for Orks to be a threat to DAoT Eldar and Humans, it seems like you would at least need several Prime Orks. More than in the War of the Beast. If they can prevent Warbosses from getting enough territory or unifying then they could keep Prime Orks from growing. The Imperium hasn't seen Prime Orks in a while, after all.

The Necrons might not have been more powerful than pre-Fall Eldar at their height. Just as they grew to overthrow the Old Ones, it's possible that the Eldar might have eventually out grew the Necrons. Even the DAoT humans or the MoI might have been a challenge. The Necron super weapons of the past seem to be a similar scale of threat as the DAoT ones.

Finally, with the BSF MoI, the AI might be software based but it would still need the hardware to effectively run it. It's possible that it might be downloaded into an Imperial Robot, but would that mean it had to alter it's programming and sacrifice data to fit into hardware that was inferior? Alternately it could be a basic soldier model that only had the data to repair and maintain it self but was deemed necessary or even had the capacity to store data necessary for it to upgrade itself or make other units like it. For instance it might be able to create a duplicate frame but it doesn't have the knowledge to program another digital consciousness or even how to copy its own..

Voss wrote:

Afterthoughts: I've always wondered if the Emperor of 30k ever remembered his father and mother, or thought about them

It's questionable if he even had parents. My impression was the Shamans just collectively reincarnated on the spot, so you've got a baby/young man lying in a ring of corpses.

I'm more puzzled by the DAoT being powerful somehow threatens the Fall narrative. I'm unclear why either species would care.

The Emperor shares memories of his father in Master of Mankind, he's a child at the time and the description of the time suggests it's the first human civilisation.

Lore wise I thought it was well covered that the eldar reached a point where they were not threatened by anyone, and were basically bored because tech and science had negated everything hence why the search for more extreme experiences by some led to Slaanesh. DAOT and MoI has to be a powerful time to reflect the fact that despite everything, humanity never gets to that height again. AI cannot be used because of what it led to. The men of iron are dangerous in the way zombies are in a World War Z (book, not the film). No supply chain. No morale. No rest. No training time. There is a scene in the book where a massive zombie horde is funnelled into a killzone and it goes wrong because the shock and awe aspect is lost on the zombies, they don't surrender but keep coming. Any human losses take time to replace.

Stuff like the Mechanivore comes from the human need to do something if you can. Think of our military tech right now. The US and Russia both have multiple ways they could effectively end the planet for all useful purposes. Why have nukes when you have bio weapons ? Which bio weapon ? Because we can and the military have dream that these different scenarios.

If the Blackstone fortress dude is anything to go by the Moi would have a huge logistics chain to deliver all the assault cannon ammo

 Flinty wrote:
If the Blackstone fortress dude is anything to go by the Moi would have a huge logistics chain to deliver all the assault cannon ammo

Unless it's self repair ability allows it to break down matter and reassemble it to replace missing components, including ammo.

Self-replicating ammo hoppers are already a thing within the Mechanicus, albeit as a highly treasured relic.

That tech?

It came from somewhere. If it’s not something the Men Of Iron could’ve had reasonable access to, who else would? After all, their creation marked the absolute zenith of man’s technological prowess. All went downhill from there.

Fair point. But would it not be more efficient to use one of the many different type of energy weapons available rather than self assembly of solid ammo?

pm713 wrote:
He's really not. That story doesn't really justify the idea DAOT humans = Eldar Empire. It's like saying I can take out a cargo ship with some machine guns therefore I can destroy the most advanced military ship in the world. Some serious citation needed here.

The novel in question is "Forges of Mars" by Graham McNeill. An eldar strike cruiser is not a "cargo ship". IIRC the Speranza deploys some black hole cannon type thing and takes out the eldar cruiser with a single shot. The cruiser was a craftworld battle ship that was probably of the same make and model that would be in common use during the height of the eldar empire (eldar technology hasn't advanced since the fall, but didn't regress like humanity's technology did).

I was not trying to say that DAoT humans = Eldar Empire. I said that DAoT humans had certain technology that was on par with, or close behind eldar stuff. This may not have been the case in older lore, but it is increasingly so in newer lore, and as we all know, new > old when it comes to cannonicity.

As to why the eldar never considered humanity a threat to be eliminated? Because the eldar were isolationist, and stuck to their own corner of the galaxy. The humans for their part had no desire to war with the eldar because DAoT humans were more sympathetic to aliens, going so far as to form a federation somewhat analogous to the Federation depicted in star trek. I think people here are applying 40k mindsets to a time when the galaxy was a very different place.

Also, just because you have technology on par with someone doesn't mean you are necessarily a threat. We can see this with when looking at the Tau empire vs the IOM. The Tau have much better technology than the Imperium in certain regards, but are not even a real threat when looked at from a galaxy-wide perspective. I would posit that a sufficiently roused eldar empire at its height could have easily defeated the DAoT humans, regardless of technology parity, simply because the eldar were far older and far more canny when it came to warfare, plus they probably had "gifts" left over from the old ones, and the webway would have been a HUGE advantage. The eldar frankly didn't consider humanity to be worth the trouble. Humanity's collapse in M23 proved them right.

 Flinty wrote:
Fair point. But would it not be more efficient to use one of the many different type of energy weapons available rather than self assembly of solid ammo?

It depends - basically if such ammo-hoppers use nano-assemblers to recombine existing matter then energy expedinture can be less than needed for energy weapon, actually maybe less than quantities needed to MELT metals and other materials in shells.
Not to mention that projectile can be pretty different from dumb 'slug' - definitely there's self-guiding bolts in BL books, and - iirc - there's some pretty interesting charges too other than imperial 'blood and ashes of martyrs'.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

w1zard wrote:
The cruiser was a craftworld battle ship that was probably of the same make and model that would be in common use during the height of the eldar empire (eldar technology hasn't advance since the fall, but didn't regress like humanity's technology did).

Actually eldar tech was heavily modified since empire - transition to soulstones and SWT-caused limits to use of psi-powers must have yet undescribed effects on it. IMO closest RW analogy is use of coal gas instead of gasoline in trucks during WWII or current push for methane cars and buses.
Not to mention that having same hull and basic design says nothing about shipboard system's capabilities - it's one of problems for Imperial new builds and Eldars may have it too.

w1zard wrote:

pm713 wrote:
He's really not. That story doesn't really justify the idea DAOT humans = Eldar Empire. It's like saying I can take out a cargo ship with some machine guns therefore I can destroy the most advanced military ship in the world. Some serious citation needed here.

The novel in question is "Forges of Mars" by Graham McNeill. An eldar strike cruiser is not a "cargo ship". IIRC the Speranza deploys some black hole cannon type thing and takes out the eldar cruiser with a single shot. The cruiser was a craftworld battle ship that was probably of the same make and model that would be in common use during the height of the eldar empire (eldar technology hasn't advanced since the fall, but didn't regress like humanity's technology did).

I was not trying to say that DAoT humans = Eldar Empire. I said that DAoT humans had certain technology that was on par with, or close behind eldar stuff. This may not have been the case in older lore, but it is increasingly so in newer lore, and as we all know, new > old when it comes to cannonicity.

As to why the eldar never considered humanity a threat to be eliminated? Because the eldar were isolationist, and stuck to their own corner of the galaxy. The humans for their part had no desire to war with the eldar because DAoT humans were more sympathetic to aliens, going so far as to form a federation somewhat analogous to the Federation depicted in star trek. I think people here are applying 40k mindsets to a time when the galaxy was a very different place.

Also, just because you have technology on par with someone doesn't mean you are necessarily a threat. We can see this with when looking at the Tau empire vs the IOM. The Tau have much better technology than the Imperium in certain regards, but are not even a real threat when looked at from a galaxy-wide perspective. I would posit that a sufficiently roused eldar empire at its height could have easily defeated the DAoT humans, regardless of technology parity, simply because the eldar were far older and far more canny when it came to warfare, plus they probably had "gifts" left over from the old ones, and the webway would have been a HUGE advantage. The eldar frankly didn't consider humanity to be worth the trouble. Humanity's collapse in M23 proved them right.

It may as well be. Craftworlds have the strength to take out Imperial fleets and they're literally geared up cargo ships in some cases. You can't use modern Eldar as a measure of their top strength, they're like the small settlements who trade with each other in the Walking Dead,

Eldar were all over the galaxy so the "sticking to a corner" thing doesn't make much sense. They could literally give away planets to the crazy people.

Eldar Empire and DAoT Republic/Federation/Empire were most certainly almost equal in strength when it comes to hostilities. From a deductive reasoning standpoint. Non-action is an action unto itself, and if you're unwilling to either square up, or meet aggression with aggression, whether that is if you don't care, or if you don't want to, then the advantage goes to the aggressor.

And even without that in mind, a fight between two immensely large and power groups is not a simple they'll easily win this, or they'll easily win that. If for whatever reason the Eldar Empire pre-30K WANTED or HAD to engage the humans in all out war, it would be a resource intensive and a long drawn out affair, where both sides would pull assets, resources, and cards from their decks with many variables that MIGHT give them an upper hand. And there is nothing in the lore to say they didn't quarrel with each other either. It might have been big disputes, it might have been small quarrels between VIPs. All we know is, DAoT man has had many fights with xenos of all kinds.

The nature of man is that we are innately drawn to conflicts, for god knows how many reasons. Food, shelter, resources, slights, stunted of character/morals, simple greed. I would say it would have been almost impossible to not have gotten into several scraps with the Eldar. But we know that neither side has aggressively sought the destruction of the other before the warpstorms. So why not?

chyron wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Fair point. But would it not be more efficient to use one of the many different type of energy weapons available rather than self assembly of solid ammo?

It depends - basically if such ammo-hoppers use nano-assemblers to recombine existing matter then energy expedinture can be less than needed for energy weapon, actually maybe less than quantities needed to MELT metals and other materials in shells.
Not to mention that projectile can be pretty different from dumb 'slug' - definitely there's self-guiding bolts in BL books, and - iirc - there's some pretty interesting charges too other than imperial 'blood and ashes of martyrs'.

But where do the nano assemblers get their energy from? And energy is still needed to break the bonds holding the matter together to be able to reshape it into some other matter. I think for your bog standard front line boys you'd be better giving them super efficient energy reclamation and storage capacity rather than super complicated nano assemblers. But to be fair I'm not from the 25th millennium So what do I know

pm713 wrote:

w1zard wrote:

pm713 wrote:
He's really not. That story doesn't really justify the idea DAOT humans = Eldar Empire. It's like saying I can take out a cargo ship with some machine guns therefore I can destroy the most advanced military ship in the world. Some serious citation needed here.

The novel in question is "Forges of Mars" by Graham McNeill. An eldar strike cruiser is not a "cargo ship". IIRC the Speranza deploys some black hole cannon type thing and takes out the eldar cruiser with a single shot. The cruiser was a craftworld battle ship that was probably of the same make and model that would be in common use during the height of the eldar empire (eldar technology hasn't advanced since the fall, but didn't regress like humanity's technology did).

I was not trying to say that DAoT humans = Eldar Empire. I said that DAoT humans had certain technology that was on par with, or close behind eldar stuff. This may not have been the case in older lore, but it is increasingly so in newer lore, and as we all know, new > old when it comes to cannonicity.

As to why the eldar never considered humanity a threat to be eliminated? Because the eldar were isolationist, and stuck to their own corner of the galaxy. The humans for their part had no desire to war with the eldar because DAoT humans were more sympathetic to aliens, going so far as to form a federation somewhat analogous to the Federation depicted in star trek. I think people here are applying 40k mindsets to a time when the galaxy was a very different place.

Also, just because you have technology on par with someone doesn't mean you are necessarily a threat. We can see this with when looking at the Tau empire vs the IOM. The Tau have much better technology than the Imperium in certain regards, but are not even a real threat when looked at from a galaxy-wide perspective. I would posit that a sufficiently roused eldar empire at its height could have easily defeated the DAoT humans, regardless of technology parity, simply because the eldar were far older and far more canny when it came to warfare, plus they probably had "gifts" left over from the old ones, and the webway would have been a HUGE advantage. The eldar frankly didn't consider humanity to be worth the trouble. Humanity's collapse in M23 proved them right.

It may as well be. Craftworlds have the strength to take out Imperial fleets and they're literally geared up cargo ships in some cases. You can't use modern Eldar as a measure of their top strength, they're like the small settlements who trade with each other in the Walking Dead,

Eldar were all over the galaxy so the "sticking to a corner" thing doesn't make much sense. They could literally give away planets to the crazy people.

Again it comes down to again the core concept of the Fall being internal rot rather than any outside threat. The pre-Fall Eldar Empire had to be so secure from outside threats that it decayed from within. It is a core theme to the Fall and the Eldar, just as pride and hubris was the core theme behind the fall of Numenor in Lord of the Rings and the concept of Atlantis. Numenor, a human nation, was so powerful they overpowered Sauron, who had to resort to guile rather than force. Just like Numenor, Atlantis, etc..., the pre-Fall Eldar seemingly had it all, and it seemed that things would continue that way forever as no other credible threats existed.

If the DAoT humans were an actual threat to the Eldar, then that completely overturns that core concept. It is a problem of power creep on the part of writers who resort to some DAoT gimmick/McGuffin to solve their plot problems, and/or some inability to have humans be inferior to an alien race.

The pre-Fall Eldar can be envisaged to be like the Vorlons from Babylon 5. They may have been introspective and kept to their worlds, but any trespass was met with devastating force. Just because the Eldar didn't genocide the entire galaxy does not suddenly make them any less dominant as a power during that era. Just because a human doesn't wipe out species of weed or ants doesn't make them any less dominant in their own backyard. In a similar vein, the pre-Fall Eldar likely crushed any Ork or human trespass, and after enough time, humans learned to stay clear, knowing that the Eldar didn't really care about the other worlds in the galaxy so long as what they had marked theirs was inviolate. If the other races of the galaxy had to tiptoe around the Eldar and steer clear of their interests, then that certainly counts as being a dominant power.

Note for all those claiming the Eldar were in one corner of the galaxy, that is simply not true. Look at the galaxy map with Eldar sites put in, and they are scattered all over the galaxy. The Webway meant the Eldar empire did not have to be any contiguous swathe of space.

I think the references to being in one corner are the fact that the Fall destroyed the crone worlds which were the core of the empire. The eye of terror is in one relatively small area and the only reference to any other surviving Eldar are on scattered expedite worlds and craftworlds. If there were major Eldar worlds all over the place, then where are they?

Go look at the galaxy maps in the Harlequin, Craftworld, and Dark Eldar codices. The Eldar sites are literally scattered all over the galaxy.

"But we know that neither side has aggressively sought the destruction of the other before the warpstorms. So why not?"

Looking at it as human, especially reflecting it across human history, it might seem like it's because neither side could safely defeat the other. But only one side was human.

Eldar saw themselves as the caretaker of the garden. Lesser races were just growths. Some outgrew their place and had to be pruned. Others did not. Random 'sea slime' that did not outgrow their place, there was no cause to erradicate them. And the 'sea slime' that did outgrow their place, they would put back in their place. So the fact that Eldar have not erradicated Mankind doesn't mean they never got into scrapes with them. Or that they were unable to do so.

A human faction will avoid a conflict with a foe if it'd be more costly to actually fight them. We don't know that the Eldar Empire was the same. They fought the *Necrons* at the height of the *War in Heaven*. So they didn't shy away from a fight.

If the Eldar *did* have the upper hand, there's no reason they'd crush such a young species.

If the Eldar *did not* have the upper hand, then there was something that challenged the Eldar. If there was a challenge, they had something to do. Look at the Space Race or Star Wars (not the movies) - having a competitor, even if you're not at war with them, provides numerous challenges, not all of them military. And, if challenged, no Slanesh.

Non-action on the part of humanity is most likely explained by not having a clear upper hand. But non-action on the part of the Eldar Empire is only explainable by them *having* a clear upper hand. Anything short of that (or at least that being the perception) delays Slanesh until it's fixed.

Wizard,
It was an Eldar Cruiser. Not a Battleship. Not in the same class. Further, it was shot at by a Dreadnaught. That'd be like a battle tank shooting someone's motorcycle. A battleship outclasses a Cruiser. A Dreadnaught outclasses a Battleship by a *very wide margin*. And it disabled the cloak and caused other damage, but didn't destroy the heavily-outclassed Cruiser. Which means the story at best says DAoT highest-end Dreadnaughts can at least detect and hurt much-lighter fleets produced by ragtag civilians ten thousand years after the fall of the Eldar Empire. Provided it engages first. It really doesn't say much.

Flinty,
Slanesh's birth killed most Eldar both within and outside the Eye. Further, after the Fall, Slanesh now eats all Eldar somewhat rapidly. Anyone who didn't invent Soulstones, World Circuits, have Cegorath's direct protection, learn the joys of torture. So most Eldar worlds, even ones that survived immediately after the Fall, may still have been devoured entirely.

Iracundus wrote:
If the DAoT humans were an actual threat to the Eldar, then that completely overturns that core concept. It is a problem of power creep on the part of writers who resort to some DAoT gimmick/McGuffin to solve their plot problems, and/or some inability to have humans be inferior to an alien race.

You aren't listening to what I am saying. The DAoT humans probably weren't a threat to the eldar empire at it's height, the same way the Tau empire is not a threat to the IOM. That does not mean that the DAoT humans were technologically inferior in all regards to the eldar, in the same way that it does not mean the Tau are technologically inferior to the Imperium.

You have this idea in your head that the Eldar were the exclusive owners of reality warping technologies, and that they vigilantly watched the galaxy for upstart races and either "guided" them or exterminated them ala the Vorlons from Babylon 5. But, the newer lore about DAoT humans contradicts this. It is very clear that the DAoT humans had at least some amount of technological parity with pre-fall eldar.

The eldar were also decadant and isolationist as hell. It's entirely possible that the eldar didn't even really notice humanity's rise and fall, as it only took place over a period of roughly 20,000 years... a mere eyeblink to a race that has been masters of the galaxy for almost 40 million years.

Bharring wrote:
Wizard,
It was an Eldar Cruiser. Not a Battleship. Not in the same class. Further, it was shot at by a Dreadnaught. That'd be like a battle tank shooting someone's motorcycle. A battleship outclasses a Cruiser. A Dreadnaught outclasses a Battleship by a *very wide margin*. And it disabled the cloak and caused other damage, but didn't destroy the heavily-outclassed Cruiser. Which means the story at best says DAoT highest-end Dreadnaughts can at least detect and hurt much-lighter fleets produced by ragtag civilians ten thousand years after the fall of the Eldar Empire. Provided it engages first. It really doesn't say much.

For the eldar to send a single ship against this "dreadnaught" (which is funny because the size of the Speranza is never specified, and most other Ark Mechanicus ships are in the 5-7KM range which makes it more akin to a large cruiser or small battleship rather than a "dreadnought" as you say) means this eldar vessel must have had at least a decent chance of winning. The eldar don't waste ships on suicide missions. The impression I got from the story was that the eldar vessel was a strike cruiser, aka a "battle ship" (not the same as a battleship as in class of vessel).

They never go into specifics of the eldar vessel, but I would guess that it was a http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Shadow which is roughly 5KM long and the most common model of eldar cruiser in common use. This seems to match up with the assumption that the Speranza was in the 5-7KM range, as it doesn't make any sense to send a 5KM cruiser against a 20+KM dreadnought regardless of tech superiority. The speranza destroyed the cruiser in one shot. Yes, crippling to the point that it can no longer be a combatant counts as "destroyed" in naval warfare. Here is the official description of the Speranza:

Speranza - The Speranza is an Ark Mechanicus that served as part of Magos Lexell Kotov's Explorator Fleet into the region of space known as the Halo Zone. The Speranza was equipped with powerful ancient graviton beam weapons that could create miniature black holes and chrono-weapons that were capable of shifting their target nanoseconds into the past.

Certainly sounds like crazy DAoT gak to me... like maybe something the necrons might use.

tneva82 wrote:
Stats looked decidedly underwhelming for what supposedly nearly wiped out humanity...With DAOT human technology...This had to be like lowest of the low of man of irons or there was lot more than just fighting ability going around

Not necessarily. It had to go into hiding, so it may have copied its AI over to a typical imperial robot to blend it. It might have its original body hidden somewhere, if it still has one after all those centuries.

Wizard,
It is possible Mankind had tech on par with Eldar at their height. But there's no fluff that says they do.

The Eldar clearly were *not* vigilant. The fluff makes it very obvious they turned inward. And that they didn't run the galaxy with an iron fist or anything. My problem is statements like this:
" But, the newer lore about DAoT humans contradicts this. It is very clear that the DAoT humans had at least some amount of technological parity with pre-fall eldar. "
There is no lore that states DAoT had some amount of tech parity. There is lore that shows Eldar were not challenged by Mankind. Between that, the relative individual ability, and the difference in timescales, it seems very unlikely that DAoT had any tech parity with Eldar. But the lore isn't specific either way.

"(which is funny because the size of the Speranza is never specified, and most other Ark Mechanicus ships are in the 5-7KM range which makes it more akin to a large cruiser or small battleship rather than a "dreadnought" as you say"
The Speranza was unimaginably large even in relation to other Arks. And some Arks had space for Titan battlegroups to perform realistic wargames. Because 40k fluff is that over-the-top. Speranza's liftoff charcoled continents, didn't it? We aren't talking 5-7km. Reread some of the depictions of it's size. Exact numbers weren't given, though.

The 'Speranza' wasn't built as an 'Ark Mechanicus'. And 'Ark Mechanicus' isn't a class of ship in the traditional sense.

"as it doesn't make any sense to send a 5KM cruiser against a 20+KM dreadnought regardless of tech superiority."
I'd take a modern PT craft against a 1st century Galley any day.

The description of the Speranza is crazy OP tech, yes. You can show that DAoT is mindblowingly powerful all day. But without retconning the whole 'Eldar Empire' storyline - including it's most pivitol point - it just means the Eldar Empire was even more powerful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(Conversely, 'cruiser' is a class that differentiates it from heavier vessels. So we can be fairly confident on that thing's size.)

Bharring wrote:
There is no lore that states DAoT had some amount of tech parity. There is lore that shows Eldar were not challenged by Mankind. Between that, the relative individual ability, and the difference in timescales, it seems very unlikely that DAoT had any tech parity with Eldar. But the lore isn't specific either way.

I mean if you don't think black hole guns, timespace based weapons, creating true AI, or snuffing out suns isn't tech parity or at least "close enough" I don't know what to tell you.

Bharring wrote:
The Speranza was unimaginably large even in relation to other Arks. And some Arks had space for Titan battlegroups to perform realistic wargames. Because 40k fluff is that over-the-top. Speranza's liftoff charcoled continents, didn't it? We aren't talking 5-7km. Reread some of the depictions of it's size. Exact numbers weren't given, though.

I don't remember reading anything about it's liftoff "charcoaling" a continent. And everything described as within the Speranza's hull is perfectly capable of fitting within the hull of a 5-7KM vessel. Many people don't understand how enormously huge a 7KM vessel is, nor how much internal space it has.

Bharring wrote:
The 'Speranza' wasn't built as an 'Ark Mechanicus'. And 'Ark Mechanicus' isn't a class of ship in the traditional sense.

Yes it is. http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Ark_Mechanicus although I will grant you that weapons loadouts and internal layouts seem to differ between individual ships, most likely due to the whims of the presiding arch-magos. But there is most likely a standard template.

Bharring wrote:
I'd take a modern PT craft against a 1st century Galley any day.

A more accurate analogy would be a modern PT craft vs a 1950s oil tanker. The oil tanker has no guns but it would still win on sheer size alone by just ramming the PT boat. And the Speranza was DEFINITELY armed.

Bharring wrote:
...But without retconning the whole 'Eldar Empire' storyline - including it's most pivitol point - it just means the Eldar Empire was even more powerful.

I don't see how DAoT humans having comparable technology to the pre-fall eldar "invalidates" the eldar empire "storyline". I am going to re-iterate:

The DAoT humans probably weren't a threat to the eldar empire at it's height, the same way the Tau empire is not a threat to the IOM. That does not mean that the DAoT humans were technologically inferior in all regards to the eldar, in the same way that it does not mean the Tau are technologically inferior to the Imperium.

You have this idea in your head that the Eldar were the exclusive owners of reality warping technologies, and that they vigilantly watched the galaxy for upstart races and either "guided" them or exterminated them ala the Vorlons from Babylon 5. But, the newer lore about DAoT humans contradicts this. It is very clear that the DAoT humans had at least some amount of technological parity with pre-fall eldar.

The eldar were also decadant and isolationist as hell. It's entirely possible that the eldar didn't even really notice humanity's rise and fall, as it only took place over a period of roughly 20,000 years... a mere eyeblink to a race that has been masters of the galaxy for almost 40 million years.

There is no possible.way that an oil tanker could deliberately.ram a PT boat that it was in deliberate conflict with...

 Flinty wrote:
There is no possible.way that an oil tanker could deliberately.ram a PT boat that it was in deliberate conflict with...

Granted, the analogy is flawed, big ships in space can actually sometimes move faster than smaller ships, and things like lateral thrust makes tactics like ramming much easier than on an ocean where you are limited to two dimensions of movement and forward/reverse thrust.

Still, the idea that they would send a 5KM eldar cruiser up against a 20+KM imperial dreadnought is pretty ludicrous. The eldar are arrogant, but they aren't stupid, and Imperial technology is not THAT far behind post-fall eldar. Things make much more sense if we consider that the Speranza is the same size as the other Ark Mechanicus ships at 5-7KM. Even this "small" size would give it a profile roughly 2/3 the size of Manhattan island. The story makes more sense this way, as the eldar would expect their ship to come out on top in a 1 on 1 vs an Imperial vessel of comparable size.

The primary sources aren't at hand right now, so here's a secondary source, some of which has citation:
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/9e277c/the_speranza_is_not_a_normal_ark_class_ship/

It's called an Ark Mechanicus, because Ark Mechanicus are the giant ships the Mechancius uses to persue STCs. It's not in the 'class' of Ark Mechanicus in the sense of having that level of capability or size.

"I mean if you don't think black hole guns, timespace based weapons, creating true AI, or snuffing out suns isn't tech parity or at least "close enough" I don't know what to tell you."
We don't have nearly the same volume of lore about pre-fall Eldar as we do of pre-DAoT Mankind. So we don't know where Eldar were. So how can it be 'close enough'?

"We can snuff out a sun" isn't as scary for a race that cut it's teeth fighting foes that had weapons like the Celestial Orratory.

All we really know about the tech is that it wasn't as advanced as WiH Necrons, and that DAoT didn't threaten them.

"And everything described as within the Speranza's hull is perfectly capable of fitting within the hull of a 5-7KM vessel."
It's hard to casually fit several 4km-long ships inside a 5-7KM vessel. It'd be downright odd if the "walkway" to the bridge were ~20% of the entire length of the ship. It'd be hard to be such a unique vessel if it were "just another" Ark Mechanicus. It wouldn't dwarf other such vessels if it were just the same size, or maybe 50% bigger.

"A more accurate analogy would be a modern PT craft vs a 1950s oil tanker."
The point is that there *is* a point of technical advantage at which you expect a lighter class of ship to be enough to handle a heavier class of ship. To show that point, I went to extremes. However, I don't think the characterization of just a 50-year difference in tech between "modern" Eldar, and what they perceive "modern" (y40k, not DAoT) IoM. Especially in the eyes of the Eldar.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"Granted, the analogy is flawed, big ships in space can actually sometimes move faster than smaller ships"
Speed and maneuverability are different. Of the same technical level, a bigger ship might have faster top speed, but the smaller ship should almost always be more maneuverable.

I think you're underestimating Eldar arrogance.

Bharring wrote:
*snip*

I would take everything in that thread with a grain of salt. I read the book too and I never remembered reading anything about the ship being 20+KM long, nor about it leaving a "continent sized hole" in the planet it was recovered from... as if 20+KM is even remotely big enough to do such a thing. Nor do I remember reading anything about the ship having its own gravitational pull or anything silly like that. Nor anything about having 4KM long parasite ships.

What I do remember is the ship being described as "large" without specific measurements given. A 7KM long ship IS "large" even by the standards of the setting (although not the largest). If you could quote me sources from the book itself that has specific measurements I would be happy to discuss those, but to me that thread is mostly imaginative hyperbole rather than a discussion about what actually happened in the book.

All other Ark Mechanicus ships were within the range of 5-7KM long. Barring evidence to the contrary, it is more reasonable to assume the Speranza was in this size range than not, and it seems to match up more with the speculated size of the Eldar cruiser with which the Speranza fought.

"Roboute had heard of the vessels known as Ark Mechanicus, but had dismissed tales of their continent-sized cityscapes and planetoid bulk as exaggerations, embellished legends or outright lies.

Now he knew better.

A passing battleship that Roboute recognised as a Dominator-class vessel sailed below the Speranza, and its length was more than eclipsed by the beam of the Ark Mechanicus.

Where the Navy’s ships tended towards wedge-shaped prows and giant cathedrals of stone carved into the craggy structure of their hulls, the Mechanicus favoured a less ostentatious approach to the design of their ships. Function, not form or glorification, was the guiding light of the ancient Mechanicus shipwrights. The colossal vessel had little symmetry, no gilded arches of lofty architecture, no processional cloisters of statuary, no vaulted, geodesic domes and no great eagle-wings or sweeping crenellations.

The Speranza was all infrastructure and industry, a hive’s worth of manufactories, refineries, crackling power plants and kilometre upon kilometre of laboratories, testing ranges, chemical vats and gene-bays arranged in as efficient a way as the ancient plans for its construction had allowed. Its engines were larger than most starships’ full mass, its individual void generators and Geller arrays large enough to shroud a frigate by themselves.

Roboute had seen his fair share of space-faring leviathans, some Imperial, some not, but he had yet to see anything to match the sheer bloody-mindedness and ambition of the Mechanicus to have built such a damnably impressive vessel."

The bow is just a part of the ship. If it's bow alone eclipsed a 4-6km ship, it is clearly larger than 7km long itself.

What rule or regulation requires the Mechancius to mothball any ship they find over 7km long? Ark Mechanicuses tend to be between 5km and 7km, sure. But there's no fluff that says none are larger than that.

And back to the 1950s oil tanker taking on a modern PT craft: you do realize the PT craft would outmaneuver a modern oil tanker to a rediculous degree?

Further, what size vessels are sent to sink Aircraft Carriers? F4s, F18s, Zeros. Ships much smaller than their target. A single F18 would easily sink a 1950s carrier, for example. The days of sending the larger ship to sink the smaller ship ended in WWII, where the Bismark and Yammamato did so poorly, and the Aircraft Carrier dominated the theatre.

How big is a continent sized cityscape? Even if we took our Earth's Madagascar as a smallest possible "continent" it is 570km wide at its small dimension....

Would an Ark Mechanicus be 570 kilometers long?

I am finding online opinions of its size like:

The Speranza is 20Km Wide, with a length of aproximately 120-130Km, possibly more as the quotes throw vastly larger estimates. The hallway....the HALLWAY and it's dedicated as such, to the bridge is 1.2km long. it's a freaking single hallway. Titans walk freely in the Speranza, i'm talking WARLORD titans.

LightKing wrote:



could this be our first look of a Man of Iron, the Artificial machines that terrified humanity during the Age of Technology

from the Warhammer Quest Black Fortress

Can't tell if this is a joke or not. No it is not a man of iron lol If it was it would be an A.I. and the Imperium would have destroyed it.

pm713 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
... And their adversary was a species that is dependent on said factories for everything. Defense. Shelter. Food. Oxygen.

Said species also had power to destroy stars etc. Thing is human tech then was ridiculously high(to the level that humans then vs Imperium during height of great crusade bye bye Imperium. It would have been steam roll)

When did humans ever have that in 40k?

Not during the Age of the Imperium, but they did during the Dark Age of Technology.

Mankind's tech level then was rather ridiculous. Only surpassed by the Necrontyr. They could make and unmake stars at a whim, make cannons that shoot small black holes at enemy targets, make it so a star will never die(Sol has had this process done to it), turn barren rocks into paradise worlds, etc...

The thing is that that technology led to their downfall. Mankind became lazy and had the technology do everything for them, such that they no longer understood the technology. Combine that with the Men of Iron rebellion and the whole thing collapsed.

After all, if you have machines that just make whatever you want, fix and maintain themselves, why would you need to know how they work?

w1zard wrote:

Bharring wrote:
*snip*

I would take everything in that thread with a grain of salt. I read the book too and I never remembered reading anything about the ship being 20+KM long, nor about it leaving a "continent sized hole" in the planet it was recovered from... as if 20+KM is even remotely big enough to do such a thing. Nor do I remember reading anything about the ship having its own gravitational pull or anything silly like that. Nor anything about having 4KM long parasite ships.

What I do remember is the ship being described as "large" without specific measurements given. A 7KM long ship IS "large" even by the standards of the setting (although not the largest). If you could quote me sources from the book itself that has specific measurements I would be happy to discuss those, but to me that thread is mostly imaginative hyperbole rather than a discussion about what actually happened in the book.

All other Ark Mechanicus ships were within the range of 5-7KM long. Barring evidence to the contrary, it is more reasonable to assume the Speranza was in this size range than not, and it seems to match up more with the speculated size of the Eldar cruiser with which the Speranza fought.

Its known to be very large compared to Imperial standards so they are far larger than 5-7km long. Gloriana 's are 20 km long and the furious abyss dwarfed them so, seeing that the Mechanicum can make ships the size of the furious abyss for Legions I'm sure they can do a lot better for themselves, especially due to the fact they look for STC's. I don't know where you are getting your info from, if you actually have a source it must be old.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Can't tell if this is a joke or not. No it is not a man of iron lol If it was it would be an A.I. and the Imperium would have destroyed it.

The implication is that this robot has disguised itself. It is an AI, but it has fooled everyone else into thinking its just another robot.

At this point, it is a safe bet that very very few people have any real knowledge about the Men of Iron. So even if one is standing in front of you it would be unlikely for you to realize that it was one of them. It has been nearly 15,000 years since the Men of Iron were, allegedly, wiped out. Its possible that the only place anything describing a Man of Iron is located is on Mars itself, along with anybody who might actually be familiar with that text. So as long as this dude stays away from there he can pull the wool over everybody elses eyes.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Can't tell if this is a joke or not. No it is not a man of iron lol If it was it would be an A.I. and the Imperium would have destroyed it.

No, that's GW for you. If I can't keep my Blackstone Fortress fluff canon, you can imagine how much luck the regular player has keeping them from tearing up whatever you like.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Can't tell if this is a joke or not. No it is not a man of iron lol If it was it would be an A.I. and the Imperium would have destroyed it.

The implication is that this robot has disguised itself. It is an AI, but it has fooled everyone else into thinking its just another robot.

At this point, it is a safe bet that very very few people have any real knowledge about the Men of Iron. So even if one is standing in front of you it would be unlikely for you to realize that it was one of them. It has been nearly 15,000 years since the Men of Iron were, allegedly, wiped out. Its possible that the only place anything describing a Man of Iron is located is on Mars itself, along with anybody who might actually be familiar with that text. So as long as this dude stays away from there he can pull the wool over everybody elses eyes.

Yea, even as an outside audience perspective with access to all the information, we don't even have a good picture of the Men of Iron. I'm also assuming as an AI he can probably transfer himself from machine to machine. That body may be Ad Mech but the mind isn't.

Bharring wrote:


Further, what size vessels are sent to sink Aircraft Carriers? F4s, F18s, Zeros. Ships much smaller than their target. A single F18 would easily sink a 1950s carrier, for example. The days of sending the larger ship to sink the smaller ship ended in WWII, where the Bismark and Yammamato did so poorly, and the Aircraft Carrier dominated the theatre.

That actually doesn't apply in space. In space combat, heat management and pure engine power are what matters most. Both of which are more efficient the larger a ship is. The smaller the ship, the higher the % of its total mass that needs to be dedicated to engines and life support. As you scale up, you end up with more capacity for weapons, heat absorption, armor, and bigger engines.

In space, a huge ship will actually be 'faster' then a smaller ship. In the sense that it will have greater acceleration/deceleration. It will have much higher inertia, so it will have slightly more ponderous mobility, but its raw speed and combat abilities will more than make up for that. A small ship will overheat very quickly, have less weaponry and thinner armor, and be slower.

Leaving an atmosphere and gravity behind radically changes the 'aerial' combat rules.

Bharring wrote:
"Roboute had heard of the vessels known as Ark Mechanicus, but had dismissed tales of their continent-sized cityscapes and planetoid bulk as exaggerations, embellished legends or outright lies.

Now he knew better.

A passing battleship that Roboute recognised as a Dominator-class vessel sailed below the Speranza, and its length was more than eclipsed by the beam of the Ark Mechanicus.

Where the Navy’s ships tended towards wedge-shaped prows and giant cathedrals of stone carved into the craggy structure of their hulls, the Mechanicus favoured a less ostentatious approach to the design of their ships. Function, not form or glorification, was the guiding light of the ancient Mechanicus shipwrights. The colossal vessel had little symmetry, no gilded arches of lofty architecture, no processional cloisters of statuary, no vaulted, geodesic domes and no great eagle-wings or sweeping crenellations.

The Speranza was all infrastructure and industry, a hive’s worth of manufactories, refineries, crackling power plants and kilometre upon kilometre of laboratories, testing ranges, chemical vats and gene-bays arranged in as efficient a way as the ancient plans for its construction had allowed. Its engines were larger than most starships’ full mass, its individual void generators and Geller arrays large enough to shroud a frigate by themselves.

Roboute had seen his fair share of space-faring leviathans, some Imperial, some not, but he had yet to see anything to match the sheer bloody-mindedness and ambition of the Mechanicus to have built such a damnably impressive vessel."

The bow is just a part of the ship. If it's bow alone eclipsed a 4-6km ship, it is clearly larger than 7km long itself.

Well, firstly, the book is wrong because a dominator is a cruiser, not a battleship http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Dominator-class_Cruiser, unless he was referring to it as a "battle ship" as in ship-of-the-line.

Secondly, it was comparing it to the "beam" of the ship, not the bow. The beam of the ship is its width.

I tried looking up length of a dominator class cruiser and didn't find anything. It is possible that a dominator is anywhere from 3-6 KM long. If the beam of the Speranza was slightly larger than the length of a dominator, that means the Speranza can be anywhere from 6-12 KM long. Any more and it would look like a flying pencil. Still not 20KM long...

 ph34r wrote:
How big is a continent sized cityscape? Even if we took our Earth's Madagascar as a smallest possible "continent" it is 570km wide at its small dimension....

Would an Ark Mechanicus be 570 kilometers long?

I am finding online opinions of its size like:

The Speranza is 20Km Wide, with a length of aproximately 120-130Km, possibly more as the quotes throw vastly larger estimates. The hallway....the HALLWAY and it's dedicated as such, to the bridge is 1.2km long. it's a freaking single hallway. Titans walk freely in the Speranza, i'm talking WARLORD titans.

I find that had to believe, considering the largest ship in the setting is like 30KM long. So the Speranza is suddenly the largest ship in the entirety of 40k by an order of magnitude?

Yes titans walked around in the Speranza... a warlord is only 100 feet tall... considering the Speraza could have a height/beam of probably around 3-4KM that isn't saying much. Just stick it in a large cargo bay or a titan holding facility.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Its known to be very large compared to Imperial standards so they are far larger than 5-7km long. Gloriana 's are 20 km long and the furious abyss dwarfed them so, seeing that the Mechanicum can make ships the size of the furious abyss for Legions I'm sure they can do a lot better for themselves, especially due to the fact they look for STC's. I don't know where you are getting your info from, if you actually have a source it must be old.

Only a comparative handfuls of Gloriana's were ever made, and they are as rare as a dress on an ork. 20KM long ships are very much the exception to the rule, not the standard. http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor-class_Battleship is a "Battleship" and is 7-12 KM long according to BFG source books.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Can't tell if this is a joke or not. No it is not a man of iron lol If it was it would be an A.I. and the Imperium would have destroyed it.

The implication is that this robot has disguised itself. It is an AI, but it has fooled everyone else into thinking its just another robot.

At this point, it is a safe bet that very very few people have any real knowledge about the Men of Iron. So even if one is standing in front of you it would be unlikely for you to realize that it was one of them. It has been nearly 15,000 years since the Men of Iron were, allegedly, wiped out. Its possible that the only place anything describing a Man of Iron is located is on Mars itself, along with anybody who might actually be familiar with that text. So as long as this dude stays away from there he can pull the wool over everybody elses eyes.

Wow, haven't read the blackstone lore but that is fantastically badly written lore. What the Imperium can test the robot to see if it has A.I. I mean from the hardware alone they must be able to tell, I mean the Mechanicum can make A.I. granted in secret. ----I---AM---A---ROBOT-----BEEP-----BEEP


Automatically Appended Next Post:

w1zard wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Its known to be very large compared to Imperial standards so they are far larger than 5-7km long. Gloriana 's are 20 km long and the furious abyss dwarfed them so, seeing that the Mechanicum can make ships the size of the furious abyss for Legions I'm sure they can do a lot better for themselves, especially due to the fact they look for STC's. I don't know where you are getting your info from, if you actually have a source it must be old.

Only a comparative handfuls of Gloriana's were ever made, and they are as rare as a dress on an ork. 20KM long ships are very much the exception to the rule, not the standard. http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor-class_Battleship is a "Battleship" and is 7-12 KM long according to BFG source books.

Yeah but if they are talking the biggest ships then the bench mark is a Gloriana etc. they aren't going to use the norm in comparing it. The only exception is the Phalanx, Gloriana's and Emperors were actually made by the Imperium and Arks are as rare as them so I don't get your point.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Can't tell if this is a joke or not. No it is not a man of iron lol If it was it would be an A.I. and the Imperium would have destroyed it.

The implication is that this robot has disguised itself. It is an AI, but it has fooled everyone else into thinking its just another robot.

At this point, it is a safe bet that very very few people have any real knowledge about the Men of Iron. So even if one is standing in front of you it would be unlikely for you to realize that it was one of them. It has been nearly 15,000 years since the Men of Iron were, allegedly, wiped out. Its possible that the only place anything describing a Man of Iron is located is on Mars itself, along with anybody who might actually be familiar with that text. So as long as this dude stays away from there he can pull the wool over everybody elses eyes.

Wow, haven't read the blackstone lore but that is fantastically badly written lore. What the Imperium can test the robot to see if it has A.I. I mean from the hardware alone they must be able to tell, I mean the Mechanicum can make A.I. granted in secret. ----I---AM---A---ROBOT-----BEEP-----BEEP

How would the Imperium test it? It would be rather difficult to test if something is X when you do not even know what the parameters for X are. This robot could easily pass itself off as part of the Legio Cybernetica's works of "Lesser and Righteous Works". http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Legio_Cybernetica. The entire Legio Cybernetica equipment would share a lot in common with the Men of Iron's hardware and software, both being considered living artificial organisms.

Given the massive variety and sheer amount of data involved, even someone who was familiar with the workings of most Cybernetica equipment could easily not be aware that this robot was something more.

Its not like the Mechanicus has some equivalent of the "Turing Test" to make sure something isn't a "Silica Animus".

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Yeah but if they are talking the biggest ships then the bench mark is a Gloriana etc. they aren't going to use the norm in comparing it. The only exception is the Phalanx, Gloriana's and Emperors were actually made by the Imperium and Arks are as rare as them so I don't get your point.

BFG source books put the size of at least one Ark Mechanicus at 5-7 KM. It is possible the Speranza is a Special snowflake that was bigger, but I doubt that it was as large as a Gloriana. Not only does it not mesh with the descriptions in the story, it makes no sense why the eldar would send a 5KM long cruiser to take it on alone and expect it to win (the farseer was shocked when it didn't... a farseer who had experience fighting the Imperium).

w1zard wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Yeah but if they are talking the biggest ships then the bench mark is a Gloriana etc. they aren't going to use the norm in comparing it. The only exception is the Phalanx, Gloriana's and Emperors were actually made by the Imperium and Arks are as rare as them so I don't get your point.

BFG source books put the size of at least one Ark Mechanicus at 5-7 KM. It is possible the Speranza is a Special snowflake that was bigger, but I doubt that it was as large as a Gloriana. Not only does it not mesh with the descriptions in the story, it makes no sense why the eldar would send a 5KM long cruiser to take it on alone and expect it to win (the farseer was shocked when it didn't... a farseer who had experience fighting the Imperium).

Well, the Speranza was a relic ship from the DAoT. Said Farseer would never have encountered something like it, and thus would be expected to underestimate it.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Can't tell if this is a joke or not. No it is not a man of iron lol If it was it would be an A.I. and the Imperium would have destroyed it.

The implication is that this robot has disguised itself. It is an AI, but it has fooled everyone else into thinking its just another robot.

At this point, it is a safe bet that very very few people have any real knowledge about the Men of Iron. So even if one is standing in front of you it would be unlikely for you to realize that it was one of them. It has been nearly 15,000 years since the Men of Iron were, allegedly, wiped out. Its possible that the only place anything describing a Man of Iron is located is on Mars itself, along with anybody who might actually be familiar with that text. So as long as this dude stays away from there he can pull the wool over everybody elses eyes.

Wow, haven't read the blackstone lore but that is fantastically badly written lore. What the Imperium can test the robot to see if it has A.I. I mean from the hardware alone they must be able to tell, I mean the Mechanicum can make A.I. granted in secret. ----I---AM---A---ROBOT-----BEEP-----BEEP

How would the Imperium test it? It would be rather difficult to test if something is X when you do not even know what the parameters for X are. This robot could easily pass itself off as part of the Legio Cybernetica's works of "Lesser and Righteous Works". http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Legio_Cybernetica. The entire Legio Cybernetica equipment would share a lot in common with the Men of Iron's hardware and software, both being considered living artificial organisms.

Given the massive variety and sheer amount of data involved, even someone who was familiar with the workings of most Cybernetica equipment could easily not be aware that this robot was something more.

Its not like the Mechanicus has some equivalent of the "Turing Test" to make sure something isn't a "Silica Animus".

They wouldn't share anything with the Legio cybernetica, The Mechanicum have never worked on DAOT A.I. as far as we know. They were not living organism the Mechanicum use brains and living tissue for A.I. because they can control them rather than being able to make good old machine A.I. which the men of Iron are. You are suggesting that an A.I. is going to have the same hardware and software as their own machines, they could easily read the A.I. mind as they, could just read the activity going on in its brain and could tell it was functioning at far higher levels than an automaton, we can already do that on ourselves with FMRI's granted they are massive magnets but its the 41st millennium.

I concur with the above. The only Ad Mech tech priests that are going to have any experience with AI are the ones trying/having their own already like Cawl. They would be small in number, have a lot of reasons to not speak up about their talents, and would more likely than not to not expose the AI. Even then, The Men of Iron sound way more advance than 99.9 percent of what the IOM can currently create. It could probably fool most tests.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
. You are suggesting that an A.I. is going to have the same hardware and software as their own machines, they could easily read the A.I. mind as they, could just read the activity going on in its brain and could tell it was functioning at far higher levels than an automaton, we can already do that on ourselves with FMRI's granted they are massive magnets but its the 41st millennium.

Yes, we can scan people's brains. If you manage to stay away from the MRI machines, though, this is not going to happen. I just saw a dog walk down the street. Was it actually a concealed robot? I have no idea... because I didn't scan its brain.



It also wouldn't be unreasonable for the machine from the DAOT to have some sort of ability to fool or interfere with any scans or probes, sending back expected results or bad readings. And failing that, well, it has a big gun.

 insaniak wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
. You are suggesting that an A.I. is going to have the same hardware and software as their own machines, they could easily read the A.I. mind as they, could just read the activity going on in its brain and could tell it was functioning at far higher levels than an automaton, we can already do that on ourselves with FMRI's granted they are massive magnets but its the 41st millennium.

Yes, we can scan people's brains. If you manage to stay away from the MRI machines, though, this is not going to happen. I just saw a dog walk down the street. Was it actually a concealed robot? I have no idea... because I didn't scan its brain.



It also wouldn't be unreasonable for the machine from the DAOT to have some sort of ability to fool or interfere with any scans or probes, sending back expected results or bad readings. And failing that, well, it has a big gun.

They managed to weld an aquila on it I'm sure they've looked under the hood.

Yeah I doubt it can interfere with scanners or cogitators and show a perfectly working action potentials denoting an automaton. If we are talking realism it would probably be a wave that disrupts it but I really doubt they have a wave that can perfectly replicate such precision and the Imperium would most likely have things to detect that as they inteference would have to be grounded in the laws of physics, I doubt it can use telekinesis, I mean men of Iron were probably incredibly advanced but not magic, plus there are a lot of examples of DAOT tech and the only thing that reaches that kind of tech level was the castigator titan, but that was chaos warped so not really a good example to draw from.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:


They managed to weld an aquila on it I'm sure they've looked under the hood.

Not necessarily- looking 'under the hood' is a good way to offend the machine spirit.
These are folks whose approach to fixing complex tech has literally involved incense, prayers, applying holy oil (WD-40) and striking the object three times with a (blessed) wrench.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
They managed to weld an aquila on it I'm sure they've looked under the hood.

Who is 'they'?

The mechanicus wouldn't be the only beings in the Imperium who know how to stick a thing onto another thing.

Yeah I doubt it can interfere with scanners or cogitators and show a perfectly working action potentials denoting an automaton. If we are talking realism it would probably be a wave that disrupts it but I really doubt they have a wave that can perfectly replicate such precision and the Imperium would most likely have things to detect that as they inteference would have to be grounded in the laws of physics, I doubt it can use telekinesis, I mean men of Iron were probably incredibly advanced but not magic, plus there are a lot of examples of DAOT tech and the only thing that reaches that kind of tech level was the castigator titan, but that was chaos warped so not really a good example to draw from.

Again, assuming it ever actually finds itself in a situation where it's having its head scanned.


But I'm sort of reminded here of a story from way back at the end of one of GW's global campaigns, where a dude was arguing with one of the games developers over whether or not Chaos had established a strong foothold on the ground. Dude's argument against was that 'Summoning daemons takes time!' ... to which said Games Dev responded, 'Really? How long does it take, exactly?'


The point being, it's a little pointless sitting here arguing that a robot couldn't pass undetected in the Imperium when that argument relies entirely on knowledge of completely fictional technology... If the robot's backstory is that it has managed to pass undetected, then it seems fairly safe to assume that it has the wherewithal to remain undetected.

Voss wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:


They managed to weld an aquila on it I'm sure they've looked under the hood.

Not necessarily- looking 'under the hood' is a good way to offend the machine spirit.
These are folks whose approach to fixing complex tech has literally involved incense, prayers, applying holy oil (WD-40) and striking the object three times with a (blessed) wrench.

bs, that doesn't offend the machine spirit, you just made that up. How would they ever fix anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
They managed to weld an aquila on it I'm sure they've looked under the hood.

Who is 'they'?

The mechanicus wouldn't be the only beings in the Imperium who know how to stick a thing onto another thing.

Yeah I doubt it can interfere with scanners or cogitators and show a perfectly working action potentials denoting an automaton. If we are talking realism it would probably be a wave that disrupts it but I really doubt they have a wave that can perfectly replicate such precision and the Imperium would most likely have things to detect that as they inteference would have to be grounded in the laws of physics, I doubt it can use telekinesis, I mean men of Iron were probably incredibly advanced but not magic, plus there are a lot of examples of DAOT tech and the only thing that reaches that kind of tech level was the castigator titan, but that was chaos warped so not really a good example to draw from.

Again, assuming it ever actually finds itself in a situation where it's having its head scanned.


But I'm sort of reminded here of a story from way back at the end of one of GW's global campaigns, where a dude was arguing with one of the games developers over whether or not Chaos had established a strong foothold on the ground. Dude's argument against was that 'Summoning daemons takes time!' ... to which said Games Dev responded, 'Really? How long does it take, exactly?'


The point being, it's a little pointless sitting here arguing that a robot couldn't pass undetected in the Imperium when that argument relies entirely on knowledge of completely fictional technology... If the robot's backstory is that it has managed to pass undetected, then it seems fairly safe to assume that it has the wherewithal to remain undetected.

So who else did it...

" to which said Games Workshop responded, 'Really? How long does it take, exactly?'" yeah but the difference is, is that we are BOTH talking about hypotheticals, I never said it 'can't' scan, I just said it probably couldn't if we are talking realism, which I even said 'realism' We know that the Mechanicum can scan machines they can scan the workings of whole battleships and you are the one that is suggesting that it 'can' disrupt scans.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

So who else did it...

It could have been just about anybody, most likely at the robot's request. He's pretending to be a Mechanicus robot, remember?

If I show up at your house pretending to be a soldier, do you assume I went to the local barracks and asked them to dress me, or that I found a replica uniform somewhere else? Same thing here... the Aquila is unlikely to have come from the Mechanicus. He most likely found someone, somewhere in the last 10000 years, to make or scavenge an aquila and glue it on.

yeah but the difference is, is that we are BOTH talking about hypotheticals, I never said it 'can't' scan, I just said it probably couldn't if we are talking realism, which I even said 'realism' We know that the Mechanicum can scan machines they can scan the workings of whole battleships and you are the one that is suggesting that it 'can' disrupt scans.

Not what I said at all. What I said was that it wouldn't be unreasonable for it to have that ability.

But ultimately, it doesn't matter. Either it can pass such scans, it's managed to avoid such scans, or it's known to certain members of the Mechanicus who choose to let it be for whatever reason. We know this, because the Mechanicus haven't destroyed it. You can choose to either accept that this is the fluff and move on, or you can believe that the fluff is 'unrealistic' because something that it doesn't say ever happened would surely have happened...


Although getting hung up on 'realism' in the background for a space fantasy involving demons, magic, superhuman werewolves, semi-sentient fungus, and immortal space elves seems like it would get aggravating fairly quickly, to be honest...

 Grey Templar wrote:
snip ... make it so a star will never die(Sol has had this process done to it)...

That’s really cool, what book is that information in?

 insaniak wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

So who else did it...

It could have been just about anybody, most likely at the robot's request. He's pretending to be a Mechanicus robot, remember?

If I show up at your house pretending to be a soldier, do you assume I went to the local barracks and asked them to dress me, or that I found a replica uniform somewhere else? Same thing here... the Aquila is unlikely to have come from the Mechanicus. He most likely found someone, somewhere in the last 10000 years, to make or scavenge an aquila and glue it on.

yeah but the difference is, is that we are BOTH talking about hypotheticals, I never said it 'can't' scan, I just said it probably couldn't if we are talking realism, which I even said 'realism' We know that the Mechanicum can scan machines they can scan the workings of whole battleships and you are the one that is suggesting that it 'can' disrupt scans.

Not what I said at all. What I said was that it wouldn't be unreasonable for it to have that ability.

But ultimately, it doesn't matter. Either it can pass such scans, it's managed to avoid such scans, or it's known to certain members of the Mechanicus who choose to let it be for whatever reason. We know this, because the Mechanicus haven't destroyed it. You can choose to either accept that this is the fluff and move on, or you can believe that the fluff is 'unrealistic' because something that it doesn't say ever happened would surely have happened...


Although getting hung up on 'realism' in the background for a space fantasy involving demons, magic, superhuman werewolves, semi-sentient fungus, and immortal space elves seems like it would get aggravating fairly quickly, to be honest...

Yeah and the robot would have to request the Imperial actors to put it on him. If its is an automaton then they are going to treat it like one and they are going to have a look at it, they find it in the blackstone fortress and they are just going to take it as a servant without investigating it, maybe its gone haywire or maybe some enemy has tinkered with it using it for a trap to kill them all at the opportune moment.

That is exactly what you said, you suggested that as a possibility, and then you are trying to take a dig at me for doing something I didn't even say, I was saying they would surely scan it, which they can actually do in the lore and you were the one coming up with the 'daemon summoning' statements, hoisted by your own petard.

Well the lore that we read uses realism,, so why not use realism when there is no other lore-facts to go on. Why are you even on this forum...

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:


They managed to weld an aquila on it I'm sure they've looked under the hood.

Not necessarily- looking 'under the hood' is a good way to offend the machine spirit.
These are folks whose approach to fixing complex tech has literally involved incense, prayers, applying holy oil (WD-40) and striking the object three times with a (blessed) wrench.

bs, that doesn't offend the machine spirit, you just made that up. How would they ever fix anything.

They press the rune of activation. Twice. (with the proper prayers and etc).

[Yes. They turn it off and on again.]

These things have happened in print.

The more elaborate/serious discussions of the Ad Mech go a bit further, but basically the repair of tech is an act of rote worship, a ritual, not a matter of understanding how things work.

Rogue Trader, p 98 wrote:Runic Spaceflight - An Introduction; Naval Flight Manual W110E Strike the first rune upon the engine's casing employing the chosen wrench. Its tip should be anointed with the oil of engineering using the proper incantation when the auspices are correct. Strike the second rune upon the engine's casing employing the arc-tip of the power-driver. If the second rune is not good, a third rune may be struck in like manner to the first. This is done according to the true ritual laid down by Scotti the Enginseer. A libation should be offered. If this sequence is properly observed the engines may be brought to full activation by depressing the large panel marked "ON".

Seriously, hit the engine three times with the wrench and push the on button.

Warhammer 40K Compendium, p 131 wrote:from "Lord of the Engines" 16th Tome, Verse 2001 And when at last he came upon the vehicle, he perceived the distress of the engine therein and forthwith struck the rune and it was good. Thereupon the engine ignited and was filled with strength...


from "The Book of Five Runes" When uttering the incantation, mark well that the rod is upon and not within the intake. The second incantation should not be uttered until all the fumes have come forth, then the way shall be clear for the sacred words to penetrate unto the heart of the engine. If the mounting be hot say the third rune, if it be cold the fourth rune is more appropriate. For then the wrath of the engine will be aroused...

Ritual. Not understanding.

Voss wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:


They managed to weld an aquila on it I'm sure they've looked under the hood.

Not necessarily- looking 'under the hood' is a good way to offend the machine spirit.
These are folks whose approach to fixing complex tech has literally involved incense, prayers, applying holy oil (WD-40) and striking the object three times with a (blessed) wrench.

bs, that doesn't offend the machine spirit, you just made that up. How would they ever fix anything.

They press the rune of activation. Twice. (with the proper prayers and etc).

[Yes. They turn it off and on again.]

These things have happened in print.

The more elaborate/serious discussions of the Ad Mech go a bit further, but basically the repair of tech is an act of rote worship, a ritual, not a matter of understanding how things work.

Rogue Trader, p 98 wrote:Runic Spaceflight - An Introduction; Naval Flight Manual W110E Strike the first rune upon the engine's casing employing the chosen wrench. Its tip should be anointed with the oil of engineering using the proper incantation when the auspices are correct. Strike the second rune upon the engine's casing employing the arc-tip of the power-driver. If the second rune is not good, a third rune may be struck in like manner to the first. This is done according to the true ritual laid down by Scotti the Enginseer. A libation should be offered. If this sequence is properly observed the engines may be brought to full activation by depressing the large panel marked "ON".

Seriously, hit the engine three times with the wrench and push the on button.

Warhammer 40K Compendium, p 131 wrote:from "Lord of the Engines" 16th Tome, Verse 2001 And when at last he came upon the vehicle, he perceived the distress of the engine therein and forthwith struck the rune and it was good. Thereupon the engine ignited and was filled with strength...


from "The Book of Five Runes" When uttering the incantation, mark well that the rod is upon and not within the intake. The second incantation should not be uttered until all the fumes have come forth, then the way shall be clear for the sacred words to penetrate unto the heart of the engine. If the mounting be hot say the third rune, if it be cold the fourth rune is more appropriate. For then the wrath of the engine will be aroused...

Ritual. Not understanding.

Runes and chant liturgies are only used after standard procedures fail or to ensure it works without failure, they still physically make and repair machinery.. And nowhere does it say 'looking under the hood' is blasphemy, you can take as many quotes of of context as you want, still wont be right. How did they make the repulsor, they didn't just throw runes at lumps of ceremite and hope for it to build itself.

I suspect ther is a 'the master is the servant' situation going on here, where the robot publicly 'serves' an adept, but in truth the power dynamic is reversed and UR-25 is the true master.

I imagine the adept is kept in line with promises of forbidden knowledge and reminders/threats of what would happen to the adept if it was discovered he was harbouring fugitive AI.

I also suspect the appearance of the robot (power fist and assault cannon) is a disguise to keep up appearances of being imperial tech. It's body has likely been redesigned for this purpose (see Aquila).

The robot must be skilled at duplicity to have survived using cover identities for so long.

 agurus1 wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
snip ... make it so a star will never die(Sol has had this process done to it)...

That’s really cool, what book is that information in?

As I recall it was in the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook. The Space Wolf omnibus might have mentioned it too.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Yeah and the robot would have to request the Imperial actors to put it on him.

You missed the point. At some point in the preceding 10000 years, he could have had anybody put the aquila on him. The Mechanicus aren't the only people in the galaxy who can glue badges on things.

If its is an automaton then they are going to treat it like one and they are going to have a look at it, ...

Except they're not. He showed up at the Blackstone Fortress announcing that he was on an important mission for the Mechanicus and would kill anyone who tried to impede him. So nobody (Imperial, at least) on the station is going to stop him. They have more important things to worry about than whether or not the robot is who he says he is.

That is exactly what you said, you suggested that as a possibility, and then you are trying to take a dig at me for doing something I didn't even say, I was saying they would surely scan it, which they can actually do in the lore and you were the one coming up with the 'daemon summoning' statements, hoisted by your own petard.

Yeah, I think you rather missed the point of that story, to be honest.

Well the lore that we read uses realism,, so why not use realism when there is no other lore-facts to go on. Why are you even on this forum...

Because I enjoy the scintillating conversation.

"BFG source books put the size of at least one Ark Mechanicus at 5-7 KM. It is possible the Speranza is a Special snowflake that was bigger, but I doubt that it was as large as a Gloriana. Not only does it not mesh with the descriptions in the story, it makes no sense why the eldar would send a 5KM long cruiser to take it on alone and expect it to win (the farseer was shocked when it didn't... a farseer who had experience fighting the Imperium)."

BFG sourcebooks list the length of a "typical" Ark Mechanicus. The Speranza was *not* built to Ark Mechanicus specs. The Mechanicus didn't exist yet in any form when it *was* built. Look at it this way: you're searching for an STC. You're allowed to requisition any ship in the Mechanicus fleet to be the ship you use to do the search. You come across a ship that's, lets say, 8km long. You add it to Mechanicus resources. Would you then not be allowed to make it an Ark Mechanicus why?

The 5-7km might be the typical. It's the general range for Ark Mechanicuses. It's not a limit on the size an Ark Mechanicus can be in fluff. It might be used for rules on the tabletop. Look at it this way: an Imperial Guard trooper has a bs4+. I'm sure there is a guardsman in the fluff who is a much better shot than the average Vet, who has a bs3+. The rules still list Guardman bs as a 4+, because that's the typical, and that's how the game is written.

Similarly, an IG Captain has two arms. That's the spec. At least once in the galaxy, an IG Captain has one arm. Because he lost it in action or something. I can't cite, but it's obvious enough.

As for the cruiser it's width fully eclipsed, it belonged to a class of cruisers, and I read that IoM cruisers were typically 4-6 KM long.

There's no fluff that says the Speranz isn't massively larger than 5-7km. There's a lot of fluff that suggests it is.

As for the topic of space speeds by volume: we don't know what the future holds. Larger vessels are likely to be able to fit more engines per volume, yes. So a higher top speed might be likely. But maneuverability will be capped by structural integrety - which will decrease by volume over area. Giving the smaller ship the advantage. So the larger vessel *may* have higher base speed, but is very likely to accelerate/maneuver much slower.

However, maneuverability isn't the sole reason aircraft take out ships. It's because weapons packages that threaten an asset tend to come in much smaller sizes than the assets they threaten. An individual with an RPG can threaten a semi. An inflatable raft with an anti-ship missile mounted on it can threaten a capital ship.

The idea that a Cruiser couldn't threaten a Dreadnaught is silly. Even at pairity tech levels, if the Cruiser could assume an unimpeded alpha, it should assume it will win the fight. Now, recall that the Eldar had cloaking, which they believed sufficient. Also, recall that the Eldar did not know that the Dreadnaught was a DAoT vessel. Also, recall that the Eldar in y40k know their tech is well beyond IoM tech. Also, remember that Eldar are arrogance taken to the max. Also, remember that the CWE forces are spread increadibly thinly, and don't do pitched battles when they can avoid it. Finally, recall that we did not see what impact that Cruiser's weapons *would* have had on the Sperenza. It seems *very likely* that the CWE would send a single Cruiser in this situation to destroy what they thought was just some oversided IoM clunker.

 insaniak wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Yeah and the robot would have to request the Imperial actors to put it on him.

You missed the point. At some point in the preceding 10000 years, he could have had anybody put the aquila on him. The Mechanicus aren't the only people in the galaxy who can glue badges on things.

If its is an automaton then they are going to treat it like one and they are going to have a look at it, ...

Except they're not. He showed up at the Blackstone Fortress announcing that he was on an important mission for the Mechanicus and would kill anyone who tried to impede him. So nobody (Imperial, at least) on the station is going to stop him. They have more important things to worry about than whether or not the robot is who he says he is.

That is exactly what you said, you suggested that as a possibility, and then you are trying to take a dig at me for doing something I didn't even say, I was saying they would surely scan it, which they can actually do in the lore and you were the one coming up with the 'daemon summoning' statements, hoisted by your own petard.

Yeah, I think you rather missed the point of that story, to be honest.

Well the lore that we read uses realism,, so why not use realism when there is no other lore-facts to go on. Why are you even on this forum...

Because I enjoy the scintillating conversation.

No you missed the point. He was claiming something that isn't known, as were you. I was claiming something that is known in the lore and saying it would most likely be applied to the robot lol Granted neither of us claimed facts but the story is far more related to your argument.

Why can't the robot weld the aquila on by itself?
Why would a thinking machine ever let itself be put into a predicament where people or techpriests have to examine and possibly tamper with its innards?
Why would it not murder these people at the first chance it gets and quickly make an escape?
How the hell do you transfer your sentience/intelligence into another physical unit without the necessary parts to run an A.I.? This is 40K, and DAoT technology can't just be found willy nilly. For a new unit, the robot would need a workshop where he can gather, build, and scrap all the parts necessary, assemble them, and quite likely, he'll need a significant amount of energy transferred to the new frame.

Bharring wrote:
"BFG source books put the size of at least one Ark Mechanicus at 5-7 KM. It is possible the Speranza is a Special snowflake that was bigger, but I doubt that it was as large as a Gloriana. Not only does it not mesh with the descriptions in the story, it makes no sense why the eldar would send a 5KM long cruiser to take it on alone and expect it to win (the farseer was shocked when it didn't... a farseer who had experience fighting the Imperium)."

BFG sourcebooks list the length of a "typical" Ark Mechanicus. The Speranza was *not* built to Ark Mechanicus specs. The Mechanicus didn't exist yet in any form when it *was* built. Look at it this way: you're searching for an STC. You're allowed to requisition any ship in the Mechanicus fleet to be the ship you use to do the search. You come across a ship that's, lets say, 8km long. You add it to Mechanicus resources. Would you then not be allowed to make it an Ark Mechanicus why?

The 5-7km might be the typical. It's the general range for Ark Mechanicuses. It's not a limit on the size an Ark Mechanicus can be in fluff. It might be used for rules on the tabletop. Look at it this way: an Imperial Guard trooper has a bs4+. I'm sure there is a guardsman in the fluff who is a much better shot than the average Vet, who has a bs3+. The rules still list Guardman bs as a 4+, because that's the typical, and that's how the game is written.

Similarly, an IG Captain has two arms. That's the spec. At least once in the galaxy, an IG Captain has one arm. Because he lost it in action or something. I can't cite, but it's obvious enough.

As for the cruiser it's width fully eclipsed, it belonged to a class of cruisers, and I read that IoM cruisers were typically 4-6 KM long.

There's no fluff that says the Speranz isn't massively larger than 5-7km. There's a lot of fluff that suggests it is.

As for the topic of space speeds by volume: we don't know what the future holds. Larger vessels are likely to be able to fit more engines per volume, yes. So a higher top speed might be likely. But maneuverability will be capped by structural integrety - which will decrease by volume over area. Giving the smaller ship the advantage. So the larger vessel *may* have higher base speed, but is very likely to accelerate/maneuver much slower.

However, maneuverability isn't the sole reason aircraft take out ships. It's because weapons packages that threaten an asset tend to come in much smaller sizes than the assets they threaten. An individual with an RPG can threaten a semi. An inflatable raft with an anti-ship missile mounted on it can threaten a capital ship.

The idea that a Cruiser couldn't threaten a Dreadnaught is silly. Even at pairity tech levels, if the Cruiser could assume an unimpeded alpha, it should assume it will win the fight. Now, recall that the Eldar had cloaking, which they believed sufficient. Also, recall that the Eldar did not know that the Dreadnaught was a DAoT vessel. Also, recall that the Eldar in y40k know their tech is well beyond IoM tech. Also, remember that Eldar are arrogance taken to the max. Also, remember that the CWE forces are spread increadibly thinly, and don't do pitched battles when they can avoid it. Finally, recall that we did not see what impact that Cruiser's weapons *would* have had on the Sperenza. It seems *very likely* that the CWE would send a single Cruiser in this situation to destroy what they thought was just some oversided IoM clunker.

The Speranza was the size of a small moon, big enough to have its own gravity well. The Eldar strike cruiser was not attempting to destroy it directly, they were attempting to cripple the colossus in the middle of the storm with hit and run attacks. They had not expected the Speranza to possess the targeting technology and weapons that could hit their cruiser in the conditions of the storm, and neither had the AdMech and Imperial personnel manning the Speranza. The Eldar did not know that the Speranza was a DAoT vessel, and even if they had known they likely would not have known what the DAoT was, and even if they had known that, they likely would not have believed that Human DAoT technology could ever surpass any Eldar technology, not even the relatively primitive technologies (by Eldar standards) of the Craftworlds.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Speranza was the size of a small moon, big enough to have its own gravity well.

This is not accurate, I have no idea where you are getting this from. A cruiser doesn't even have the total firepower to destroy a "moon" sized object made of rock, let alone one made of adamantium with advanced shields.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Eldar strike cruiser was not attempting to destroy it directly, they were attempting to cripple the colossus in the middle of the storm with hit and run attacks.

Neither is this, I don't think this was ever explicitly stated in the story. The Eldar Cruiser used hit an run attacks, and used the storm and stealth technology as "radar" cover, but that is just being a smart ship commander. The characters on the bridge were very worried that the cruiser was going to destroy the Speranza.

Bharring wrote:
The idea that a Cruiser couldn't threaten a Dreadnaught is silly. Even at pairity tech levels, if the Cruiser could assume an unimpeded alpha, it should assume it will win the fight.

Are you serious? A cruiser cannot threaten a dreadnought on it's own, any more than a man 1/4 my height could take me in a fight unless I sat there and let him pound my face in. It would require a group of cruisers acting in unison to take down something as large as a dreadnought, even with the tech gap between typical IOM ships and eldar vessels.

There is just no way a singular 4-6KM ship can even threaten a 20+KM ship assuming even relative tech parity. The power outputs of both aren't even in the same magnitude.

Bharring wrote:

Further, what size vessels are sent to sink Aircraft Carriers? F4s, F18s, Zeros. Ships much smaller than their target. A single F18 would easily sink a 1950s carrier, for example. The days of sending the larger ship to sink the smaller ship ended in WWII, where the Bismark and Yammamato did so poorly, and the Aircraft Carrier dominated the theatre.

Zeros, even loaded with explosives, struggled to sink ships. You're thinking of Vals and Kates.

Second, the idea that carriers won the war for the US isn't incorrect, but the reason they did so was clearly missed by not just you, but admirals and others.

The principal advantages of a CV are range, and being inexpensive and quick to build. The US built 151 aircraft carriers during the war. Which is more than the battleship output of all parties to the war.

However, they were cheaply built and did nto last. Not one of the Casablanca class, for example, survives, despite being the largest class of carriers ever produced.

So, when you can field 15 of one type of ship for every one the enemy can, that type will outperform everyone else.

And if you think that Yamato performed poorly, remember that it took aircraft from a dozen carriers to bring it down. And remember that Yamato was Taffy-3s opponent. Though the Navy does not like to talk about the Battle off Samar, it did show what happens when battleships get in among your carriers.

tneva82 wrote:
Stats looked decidedly underwhelming for what supposedly nearly wiped out humanity...With DAOT human technology...This had to be like lowest of the low of man of irons or there was lot more than just fighting ability going around

Artificial intelligence has little care about stats as it can basically be invincible as long as it can transfer its self to another robot...all the stats represent is the body it uses.... furthermore in this game he is basically overpowered from all reviews his only weaknesss is he’s slow.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:


Runes and chant liturgies are only used after standard procedures fail or to ensure it works without failure, they still physically make and repair machinery.. And nowhere does it say 'looking under the hood' is blasphemy, you can take as many quotes of of context as you want, still wont be right. How did they make the repulsor, they didn't just throw runes at lumps of ceremite and hope for it to build itself.

I'm not sure why you believe the quotes are out of context. They are literally repair rites used by the Ad Mech.

As for making things, they use mass crowds of slaves to make parts, then put them together in the prescribed fashion according to the holy texts* with the correct liturgy and sacrifices.

*meaning STC templates, which are simplified to the point that you can slap a vehicle together out of any available material.


Technology as religious ritual and lack of scientific understanding are major themes of the setting. I have no idea why you're scoffing at the idea.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Consider. You really, really, really don't want anyone recreating AI.

Nah. Just use the AIs to run the weapons factories and strategic weapon systems. WCGW?

w1zard wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Speranza was the size of a small moon, big enough to have its own gravity well.

This is not accurate, I have no idea where you are getting this from. A cruiser doesn't even have the total firepower to destroy a "moon" sized object made of rock, let alone one made of adamantium with advanced shields.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Eldar strike cruiser was not attempting to destroy it directly, they were attempting to cripple the colossus in the middle of the storm with hit and run attacks.

Neither is this, I don't think this was ever explicitly stated in the story. The Eldar Cruiser used hit an run attacks, and used the storm and stealth technology as "radar" cover, but that is just being a smart ship commander. The characters on the bridge were very worried that the cruiser was going to destroy the Speranza.

Bharring wrote:
The idea that a Cruiser couldn't threaten a Dreadnaught is silly. Even at pairity tech levels, if the Cruiser could assume an unimpeded alpha, it should assume it will win the fight.

Are you serious? A cruiser cannot threaten a dreadnought on it's own, any more than a man 1/4 my height could take me in a fight unless I sat there and let him pound my face in. It would require a group of cruisers acting in unison to take down something as large as a dreadnought, even with the tech gap between typical IOM ships and eldar vessels.

There is just no way a singular 4-6KM ship can even threaten a 20+KM ship assuming even relative tech parity. The power outputs of both aren't even in the same magnitude.

Given the conditions, there was good reason for the Eldar ship to think it could chip away, even at a ship so much more massive than it was. The storm wasn't a trivial thing for the Speranza either. Taking damage to certain vital points in the ships thrusters could easily hurt it, from the Eldar's point of view. Its a pretty stereotypical tactic for a race that specializes in hit and run attacks.

You are ignoring the facts that were stated in that book. The Speranza is ~20km long. The Eldar Cruiser was doing some considerable damage to it, or at least damage that was concerning for the Tech priests on board. In reality, the damage might have been minor considering the miracles of technology it had within.

In fact, the conversation between the Tech Priest and the Speranza itself does show this. The Speranza itself showed little concern for the damage, the damage was really only a threat to the people who were onboard. The Tech Priest had to convince the Ark to set aside its indifference to the attacks and take out the Eldar vessel.

So yes, the Eldar ship was a threat to at least the Speranza's crew. perhaps not to the ship itself's existence, but definitely to the Mechanicus force inside it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You are ignoring the facts that were stated in that book. The Speranza is ~20km long...

Can you please give me a page number for that? I don't remember the book ever explicitly stating that. If you cannot then it is just headcanon on your part.

My assumption that the Speranza was in the 5-7KM range (possibly up to 12 KM in light of the quote posted by Bharring) is a much more credible guess considering the numbers from the BFG sourcebooks.

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
Why can't the robot weld the aquila on by itself?
Why would a thinking machine ever let itself be put into a predicament where people or techpriests have to examine and possibly tamper with its innards?
Why would it not murder these people at the first chance it gets and quickly make an escape?
How the hell do you transfer your sentience/intelligence into another physical unit without the necessary parts to run an A.I.? This is 40K, and DAoT technology can't just be found willy nilly. For a new unit, the robot would need a workshop where he can gather, build, and scrap all the parts necessary, assemble them, and quite likely, he'll need a significant amount of energy transferred to the new frame.

My assumption is that the appearance of UR-025 is a disguise. Rather like Flere-Imsaho in Player of Games, who is forced to wear a "shell" to disguise its genuine appearance and level of technological sophistication from the Azadian Empire, I think UR-025 has spent the last 15,000 years constructing a shell to hide its nature from those who would try to destroy it.

"more credible guess considering the numbers from the BFG sourcebooks."
12 KM is possible, sure. We don't know. But the BFG sourcebooks aren't as relevant as you suggest. The Speranza was explicitly not an "average" Ark Mechanicus. The Speranza is an 'Ark Mechnaicus' in the fluff, where it's a distinction given, not a class. The BFG sourcebook specify a class for it's purposes, but does not specify that the Speranza is a member of that class.

Consider the fluff of the Farseer. The average Farseer lives longer than the average Eldar (despite it being a terminal condition) according to some fluff. So they could be thousands of years old. Any range given for Farseer ages would certainly not include 10 thousand years of age. But Eldrad is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for Eldar thinking a typical Eldar Cruiser could destroy an IoM vessel much larger than it:

1. IoM vessels - without DAoT - can Extermiantus planets - things much larger than they are. Why would Eldar vessels not also have firepower that, if unapposed, could destroy a vessel larger than it?

2. Smaller vessels can destroy larger vessels "all the time". Now, it doesn't happen all the time, but then we don't have war between naval powers frequently.
Look at the Falklands war, the last one I can think of where naval resources actually engaged eachother:
-The 300-ft HMS Conquereror sank the 600-ft General Belgrano
-The Alferez Sobral, 143 ft long, was badly damaged by two helicopters
-The Sheffield, 400 ft long, was lost to a single Exorcist missile, launched from an aircraft. The aircraft that launched it was 77 ft long.

In each of these cases, a much smaller vehicle defeated a much larger vehicle. And without anywhere near the technical advantage the Eldar would have believed they had.

3. You're banking durability keeping pace with destructive potential as tech advances. I'd argue that the exact opposite is strongly suggested by history.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Bharring wrote:
"BFG source books put the size of at least one Ark Mechanicus at 5-7 KM. It is possible the Speranza is a Special snowflake that was bigger, but I doubt that it was as large as a Gloriana. Not only does it not mesh with the descriptions in the story, it makes no sense why the eldar would send a 5KM long cruiser to take it on alone and expect it to win (the farseer was shocked when it didn't... a farseer who had experience fighting the Imperium)."

BFG sourcebooks list the length of a "typical" Ark Mechanicus. The Speranza was *not* built to Ark Mechanicus specs. The Mechanicus didn't exist yet in any form when it *was* built. Look at it this way: you're searching for an STC. You're allowed to requisition any ship in the Mechanicus fleet to be the ship you use to do the search. You come across a ship that's, lets say, 8km long. You add it to Mechanicus resources. Would you then not be allowed to make it an Ark Mechanicus why?

The 5-7km might be the typical. It's the general range for Ark Mechanicuses. It's not a limit on the size an Ark Mechanicus can be in fluff. It might be used for rules on the tabletop. Look at it this way: an Imperial Guard trooper has a bs4+. I'm sure there is a guardsman in the fluff who is a much better shot than the average Vet, who has a bs3+. The rules still list Guardman bs as a 4+, because that's the typical, and that's how the game is written.

Similarly, an IG Captain has two arms. That's the spec. At least once in the galaxy, an IG Captain has one arm. Because he lost it in action or something. I can't cite, but it's obvious enough.

As for the cruiser it's width fully eclipsed, it belonged to a class of cruisers, and I read that IoM cruisers were typically 4-6 KM long.

There's no fluff that says the Speranz isn't massively larger than 5-7km. There's a lot of fluff that suggests it is.

As for the topic of space speeds by volume: we don't know what the future holds. Larger vessels are likely to be able to fit more engines per volume, yes. So a higher top speed might be likely. But maneuverability will be capped by structural integrety - which will decrease by volume over area. Giving the smaller ship the advantage. So the larger vessel *may* have higher base speed, but is very likely to accelerate/maneuver much slower.

However, maneuverability isn't the sole reason aircraft take out ships. It's because weapons packages that threaten an asset tend to come in much smaller sizes than the assets they threaten. An individual with an RPG can threaten a semi. An inflatable raft with an anti-ship missile mounted on it can threaten a capital ship.

The idea that a Cruiser couldn't threaten a Dreadnaught is silly. Even at pairity tech levels, if the Cruiser could assume an unimpeded alpha, it should assume it will win the fight. Now, recall that the Eldar had cloaking, which they believed sufficient. Also, recall that the Eldar did not know that the Dreadnaught was a DAoT vessel. Also, recall that the Eldar in y40k know their tech is well beyond IoM tech. Also, remember that Eldar are arrogance taken to the max. Also, remember that the CWE forces are spread increadibly thinly, and don't do pitched battles when they can avoid it. Finally, recall that we did not see what impact that Cruiser's weapons *would* have had on the Sperenza. It seems *very likely* that the CWE would send a single Cruiser in this situation to destroy what they thought was just some oversided IoM clunker.

The Speranza was the size of a small moon, big enough to have its own gravity well. The Eldar strike cruiser was not attempting to destroy it directly, they were attempting to cripple the colossus in the middle of the storm with hit and run attacks. They had not expected the Speranza to possess the targeting technology and weapons that could hit their cruiser in the conditions of the storm, and neither had the AdMech and Imperial personnel manning the Speranza. The Eldar did not know that the Speranza was a DAoT vessel, and even if they had known they likely would not have known what the DAoT was, and even if they had known that, they likely would not have believed that Human DAoT technology could ever surpass any Eldar technology, not even the relatively primitive technologies (by Eldar standards) of the Craftworlds.

It was the Phalanx that was the size of a small moon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:


Runes and chant liturgies are only used after standard procedures fail or to ensure it works without failure, they still physically make and repair machinery.. And nowhere does it say 'looking under the hood' is blasphemy, you can take as many quotes of of context as you want, still wont be right. How did they make the repulsor, they didn't just throw runes at lumps of ceremite and hope for it to build itself.

I'm not sure why you believe the quotes are out of context. They are literally repair rites used by the Ad Mech.

As for making things, they use mass crowds of slaves to make parts, then put them together in the prescribed fashion according to the holy texts* with the correct liturgy and sacrifices.

*meaning STC templates, which are simplified to the point that you can slap a vehicle together out of any available material.


Technology as religious ritual and lack of scientific understanding are major themes of the setting. I have no idea why you're scoffing at the idea.

They are out of context because you are using those to show that they never look under the hood, which is wrong they only use those rites when they have failed in trying to fix it. I'm scoffing because you think that they just pray in order to fix things.

Well, wouldn't it be Ur's Magos who's supposed to be looking under the hood. If he's got documentation that he's up to date on his rituals and inspections...

Bharring wrote:
Well, wouldn't it be Ur's Magos who's supposed to be looking under the hood. If he's got documentation that he's up to date on his rituals and inspections...

That's not the point, he's saying that they are not allowed to look under the hood and that rituals and runes are only used to fix things, he thinks they just sing and pray to stuff for it to get fixed.

Bharring wrote:
1. IoM vessels - without DAoT - can Extermiantus planets - things much larger than they are. Why would Eldar vessels not also have firepower that, if unapposed, could destroy a vessel larger than it?

Firstly, you are laboring under some incorrect assumptions. Only the largest IOM vessels are capable of affecting exterminatus. Secondly, exterminatus doesn't mean the planet gets blown up death star style, merely that the surface in rendered uninhabitable due to virus bombs, or the atmosphere igniting due to cyclonic torpedoes. Even the largest IOM vessels do not have the firepower to crack a planet unless there are a LOT of them.

Bharring wrote:
2. Smaller vessels can destroy larger vessels "all the time". Now, it doesn't happen all the time, but then we don't have war between naval powers frequently.
Look at the Falklands war, the last one I can think of where naval resources actually engaged eachother:
-The 300-ft HMS Conquereror sank the 600-ft General Belgrano
-The Alferez Sobral, 143 ft long, was badly damaged by two helicopters
-The Sheffield, 400 ft long, was lost to a single Exorcist missile, launched from an aircraft. The aircraft that launched it was 77 ft long.

In each of these cases, a much smaller vehicle defeated a much larger vehicle. And without anywhere near the technical advantage the Eldar would have believed they had.

You would be correct if we were talking about ships with sizes comparable to modern day ships. You are forgetting about the square cubed law, which states that as a ships size doubles, its internal volume is multiplied by 8. Simply put, ships at those sizes have so much more mass in relation to their surface area than modern surface ships do.

Let me put it this way... assuming that a 20KM dreadnought dedicated the same proportion of internal space to power generation as a 5KM cruiser, it would have 64x times the power output without even taking into account the efficiency gains from having a larger reactor (which are a real thing and could push the power generation difference to as high as 512x). Such power differences, when channeled into shields means that a singular one of these cruisers cannot even breach the shield of a dreadnought if it was just sitting there letting the cruiser pound on it, because the power being put into these shields is an order of magnitude higher (even when taking into account larger surface area of shields) than the cruiser can output in weapons energy. Now, stored energy weapons are a thing (like torpedoes), and there is a tech disparity between IOM ships and Eldar ones, but it makes a smaller ship taking on a larger one in space combat a distinctly unwise prospect due to sheer size alone.

The larger ship doesn't even have to have weapons, if it is faster or has better acceleration than the smaller ship (a likely prospect due to the aforementioned energy generation difference) it can just ram the smaller ship and expect to remain intact due to the aforementioned strength of its void shields or relying on its mass and momentum to keep it intact. This is a tactic that orks use to great effect.

A 5KM Eldar cruiser taking on a 20KM IOM dreadnought alone with both combatants at full capacity is simply not a possibility outside of some really clever maneuvering to get the dreadnought in a situation where her shields were down or something, even with the tech disparity. Like I said, the Eldar are arrogant but not stupid.

"Firstly, you are laboring under some incorrect assumptions. Only the largest IOM vessels are capable of affecting exterminatus. Secondly, exterminatus doesn't mean the planet gets blown up death star style, merely that the surface in rendered uninhabitable due to virus bombs, or the atmosphere igniting due to cyclonic torpedoes. Even the largest IOM vessels do not have the firepower to crack a planet unless there are a LOT of them. "
Battle Barges and Battleships are typically used for Exterminatuses. 6-8KM long ships, typically. However, it's usually done by torpedo - which could be fired from almost anything. Granted, a virus torpedo might not do anything to a warship, but a Cyclonic Torpedo would. So if a 6-8km long IoM ship can destroy all life on a planet - including any fortifications there - how would a 20km long ship survive?

And, if that's what "modern" IoM can do, what can Eldar do?

"You are forgetting about the square cubed law, which states that as a ships size doubles, its internal volume is multiplied by 8."
I'm not forgetting. When it's size doubles on *one* axis, it's volume goes up by a factor of 8. But the relative ratios betwween a 20km ship and a 7km ship seem relatively similar to those between a 400ft ship and a 77ft ship.

A field force requires power at the cube of the distance from it's generator. So if you have a distance-cubed amount of power generation, your field force - such as a force field - would require a distance-cubed amount of power to power the field. There might be efficiencies in size allowing for some increase in power generation in the larger ship, but the volume that gives you more power also increases your need for power by the same factor.

" Such power differences, when channeled into shields means that a singular one of these cruisers cannot even breach the shield of a dreadnought if it was just sitting there letting the cruiser pound on it, because the power being put into these shields is an order of magnitude higher (even when taking into account larger surface area of shields) than the cruiser can output in weapons energy."
That's basically a leap of faith. You're assuming that it takes an equal amount of energy to enforce equilibrium as it would take to destabilize equilibrium. You're also assuming the Eldar believed the IoM had parity in construction, shield tech, and weapons tech - something they would never believe.

"The larger ship doesn't even have to have weapons, if it is faster or has better acceleration than the smaller ship (a likely prospect due to the aforementioned energy generation difference) it can just ram the smaller ship and expect to remain intact due to the aforementioned strength of its void shields or relying on its mass and momentum to keep it intact. This is a tactic that orks use to great effect. "
A larger ship attempting to ram a smaller ship is also ramming every part of it's own ship in the same action. Even before collision with the smaller ship.
Acceleration requires an equal amount of energy for each unit of mass. A larger ship may increase energy generation at pace with it's volume - which is a cubic relationship with it's length - but also needs increased energy at pace with it's mass - which tracks at least at, and usually higher than, it's volume.

This energy is typically generated across a ship's surface area opposite the direction it wishes to travel. So the usable surface area only grows with the square of size. Further, that energy must be distrubted across the ship. So the entire ship must bear the brunt of the acceleration. So the ship takes continual strain as it accelerates. Enduring that strain is a constant based on the building material and style: while the strain grows with size, what it can endure does not.

So the smaller vehicle is likely to have the same power/mass ratio. However, it's likely able to convert that power to thrust more efficiently, as it has a better mass/surface area (directional or not) ratio. Finally, whatever the cap on acceleration the structure allows for, the smaller vessel can reach much higher acceleration rates while staying under that stress.

The larger ship is likely to have a faster top speed. But the smaller ship is almost certain to accelerate or maneuver faster. There is no reason to believe the larger ship can accelerate/maneuver as well.

"A 5KM Eldar cruiser taking on a 20KM IOM dreadnought alone with both combatants at full capacity is simply not a possibility outside of some really clever maneuvering to get the dreadnought in a situation where her shields were down or something, even with the tech disparity. Like I said, the Eldar are arrogant but not stupid."
If an Argentineinan 77ft plane can beat a 400ft UK ship of war - and one designed to stop said plain and the weapon type it was using - in the 80s, it seems silly to think no Eldar leader would think a 5km Eldar cruiser with the advantages of better tech, stealth, and weird cloud/storm/whatever effects could take on a 20km IoM dreadnaught.

If a 15ft missile can threaten a contemporary 400ft long warship, why wouldn't Eldar have something similar? And if so, why couldn't they arm a 7km long ship with one that threatens a 20km ship?

If IoM can Exterminatus worlds with things like Cyclonic Torpedos, why can't Eldar do something similar?

I don't think you get just how vulnerable a large construct is. Just how much easier it is to destroy than to protect. Just how complex scaling forces are.

I think the admech sing and pray while they fix stuff. But because they have to. That’s how you fix it. The ritual is as important as turning the screw or tightening the nut. In all the books even the lowest grunts pray to appease the machine spirit while they tinker so as not anger it or upset it. It’s like taking communion without the ceremony.

Bharring wrote:
"Firstly, you are laboring under some incorrect assumptions. Only the largest IOM vessels are capable of affecting exterminatus. Secondly, exterminatus doesn't mean the planet gets blown up death star style, merely that the surface in rendered uninhabitable due to virus bombs, or the atmosphere igniting due to cyclonic torpedoes. Even the largest IOM vessels do not have the firepower to crack a planet unless there are a LOT of them. "
Battle Barges and Battleships are typically used for Exterminatuses. 6-8KM long ships, typically. However, it's usually done by torpedo - which could be fired from almost anything. Granted, a virus torpedo might not do anything to a warship, but a Cyclonic Torpedo would. So if a 6-8km long IoM ship can destroy all life on a planet - including any fortifications there - how would a 20km long ship survive?

And, if that's what "modern" IoM can do, what can Eldar do?

"You are forgetting about the square cubed law, which states that as a ships size doubles, its internal volume is multiplied by 8."
I'm not forgetting. When it's size doubles on *one* axis, it's volume goes up by a factor of 8. But the relative ratios betwween a 20km ship and a 7km ship seem relatively similar to those between a 400ft ship and a 77ft ship.

A field force requires power at the cube of the distance from it's generator. So if you have a distance-cubed amount of power generation, your field force - such as a force field - would require a distance-cubed amount of power to power the field. There might be efficiencies in size allowing for some increase in power generation in the larger ship, but the volume that gives you more power also increases your need for power by the same factor.

" Such power differences, when channeled into shields means that a singular one of these cruisers cannot even breach the shield of a dreadnought if it was just sitting there letting the cruiser pound on it, because the power being put into these shields is an order of magnitude higher (even when taking into account larger surface area of shields) than the cruiser can output in weapons energy."
That's basically a leap of faith. You're assuming that it takes an equal amount of energy to enforce equilibrium as it would take to destabilize equilibrium. You're also assuming the Eldar believed the IoM had parity in construction, shield tech, and weapons tech - something they would never believe.

"The larger ship doesn't even have to have weapons, if it is faster or has better acceleration than the smaller ship (a likely prospect due to the aforementioned energy generation difference) it can just ram the smaller ship and expect to remain intact due to the aforementioned strength of its void shields or relying on its mass and momentum to keep it intact. This is a tactic that orks use to great effect. "
A larger ship attempting to ram a smaller ship is also ramming every part of it's own ship in the same action. Even before collision with the smaller ship.
Acceleration requires an equal amount of energy for each unit of mass. A larger ship may increase energy generation at pace with it's volume - which is a cubic relationship with it's length - but also needs increased energy at pace with it's mass - which tracks at least at, and usually higher than, it's volume.

This energy is typically generated across a ship's surface area opposite the direction it wishes to travel. So the usable surface area only grows with the square of size. Further, that energy must be distrubted across the ship. So the entire ship must bear the brunt of the acceleration. So the ship takes continual strain as it accelerates. Enduring that strain is a constant based on the building material and style: while the strain grows with size, what it can endure does not.

So the smaller vehicle is likely to have the same power/mass ratio. However, it's likely able to convert that power to thrust more efficiently, as it has a better mass/surface area (directional or not) ratio. Finally, whatever the cap on acceleration the structure allows for, the smaller vessel can reach much higher acceleration rates while staying under that stress.

The larger ship is likely to have a faster top speed. But the smaller ship is almost certain to accelerate or maneuver faster. There is no reason to believe the larger ship can accelerate/maneuver as well.

"A 5KM Eldar cruiser taking on a 20KM IOM dreadnought alone with both combatants at full capacity is simply not a possibility outside of some really clever maneuvering to get the dreadnought in a situation where her shields were down or something, even with the tech disparity. Like I said, the Eldar are arrogant but not stupid."
If an Argentineinan 77ft plane can beat a 400ft UK ship of war - and one designed to stop said plain and the weapon type it was using - in the 80s, it seems silly to think no Eldar leader would think a 5km Eldar cruiser with the advantages of better tech, stealth, and weird cloud/storm/whatever effects could take on a 20km IoM dreadnaught.

If a 15ft missile can threaten a contemporary 400ft long warship, why wouldn't Eldar have something similar? And if so, why couldn't they arm a 7km long ship with one that threatens a 20km ship?

If IoM can Exterminatus worlds with things like Cyclonic Torpedos, why can't Eldar do something similar?

I don't think you get just how vulnerable a large construct is. Just how much easier it is to destroy than to protect. Just how complex scaling forces are.

Its volume would be increased by the the increase in dimensions cubed, only a cube's dimensions multiplied by 2 would be 8, its volume is not multiplied by 8 and that is only true if the object is increasing with the same density.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

w1zard wrote:

Bharring wrote:
1. IoM vessels - without DAoT - can Extermiantus planets - things much larger than they are. Why would Eldar vessels not also have firepower that, if unapposed, could destroy a vessel larger than it?

Firstly, you are laboring under some incorrect assumptions. Only the largest IOM vessels are capable of affecting exterminatus. Secondly, exterminatus doesn't mean the planet gets blown up death star style, merely that the surface in rendered uninhabitable due to virus bombs, or the atmosphere igniting due to cyclonic torpedoes. Even the largest IOM vessels do not have the firepower to crack a planet unless there are a LOT of them.

Bharring wrote:
2. Smaller vessels can destroy larger vessels "all the time". Now, it doesn't happen all the time, but then we don't have war between naval powers frequently.
Look at the Falklands war, the last one I can think of where naval resources actually engaged eachother:
-The 300-ft HMS Conquereror sank the 600-ft General Belgrano
-The Alferez Sobral, 143 ft long, was badly damaged by two helicopters
-The Sheffield, 400 ft long, was lost to a single Exorcist missile, launched from an aircraft. The aircraft that launched it was 77 ft long.

In each of these cases, a much smaller vehicle defeated a much larger vehicle. And without anywhere near the technical advantage the Eldar would have believed they had.

You would be correct if we were talking about ships with sizes comparable to modern day ships. You are forgetting about the square cubed law, which states that as a ships size doubles, its internal volume is multiplied by 8. Simply put, ships at those sizes have so much more mass in relation to their surface area than modern surface ships do.

Let me put it this way... assuming that a 20KM dreadnought dedicated the same proportion of internal space to power generation as a 5KM cruiser, it would have 64x times the power output without even taking into account the efficiency gains from having a larger reactor (which are a real thing and could push the power generation difference to as high as 512x). Such power differences, when channeled into shields means that a singular one of these cruisers cannot even breach the shield of a dreadnought if it was just sitting there letting the cruiser pound on it, because the power being put into these shields is an order of magnitude higher (even when taking into account larger surface area of shields) than the cruiser can output in weapons energy. Now, stored energy weapons are a thing (like torpedoes), and there is a tech disparity between IOM ships and Eldar ones, but it makes a smaller ship taking on a larger one in space combat a distinctly unwise prospect due to sheer size alone.

The larger ship doesn't even have to have weapons, if it is faster or has better acceleration than the smaller ship (a likely prospect due to the aforementioned energy generation difference) it can just ram the smaller ship and expect to remain intact due to the aforementioned strength of its void shields or relying on its mass and momentum to keep it intact. This is a tactic that orks use to great effect.

A 5KM Eldar cruiser taking on a 20KM IOM dreadnought alone with both combatants at full capacity is simply not a possibility outside of some really clever maneuvering to get the dreadnought in a situation where her shields were down or something, even with the tech disparity. Like I said, the Eldar are arrogant but not stupid.

Its increase in dimensions is cubed the number 2 is not cubed that is an arbitrary number.

Bharring wrote:
Battle Barges and Battleships are typically used for Exterminatuses. 6-8KM long ships, typically. However, it's usually done by torpedo - which could be fired from almost anything. Granted, a virus torpedo might not do anything to a warship, but a Cyclonic Torpedo would. So if a 6-8km long IoM ship can destroy all life on a planet - including any fortifications there - how would a 20km long ship survive?

A cyclonic torpedo wouldn't do anything to a ship, considering that its sole purpose is to ignite an atmosphere, not act as a huge bomb.

Bharring wrote:
I'm not forgetting. When it's size doubles on *one* axis, it's volume goes up by a factor of 8. But the relative ratios betwween a 20km ship and a 7km ship seem relatively similar to those between a 400ft ship and a 77ft ship.

The proportions are similar, but the SIZES are not. A 100m cube has a 984,375 m^3 volume advantage over a 25m cube. A 20KM cube has a 7,850,000,000,000 m^3 volume advantage over a 5KM cube. See the difference?

Bharring wrote:
A field force requires power at the cube of the distance from it's generator.

This is pretty much a guess on your part, you don't know how much power it takes to generate a shield of X size. It could be logarithmic for all you know and bigger shields are actually more energy efficient than smaller shields.

Bharring wrote:
That's basically a leap of faith. You're assuming that it takes an equal amount of energy to enforce equilibrium as it would take to destabilize equilibrium.

Unless it is greater than a 1/64 ratio I am still correct. And if it is greater than a 1/64 ratio shields would be useless on larger ships because it would use more power to protect less, and nobody would use them, a ships shields would get worse the larger it got no matter how much power you pumped into it.

Bharring wrote:
You're also assuming the Eldar believed the IoM had parity in construction, shield tech, and weapons tech - something they would never believe.

Unless you are making the argument that Eldar power generation technology is roughly 8 times better than IOM tech per size, this argument falls flat. I do not believe the tech parity is that wide considering Eldar naval vessel depiction in the BFG lore.

Bharring wrote:
A larger ship attempting to ram a smaller ship is also ramming every part of it's own ship in the same action. Even before collision with the smaller ship.
Acceleration requires an equal amount of energy for each unit of mass. A larger ship may increase energy generation at pace with it's volume - which is a cubic relationship with it's length - but also needs increased energy at pace with it's mass - which tracks at least at, and usually higher than, it's volume.

You are forgetting energy efficiency boosts for larger reactors, which are a real thing even today. You are also assuming thrust scales linearly with engine size.

Bharring wrote:
The larger ship is likely to have a faster top speed. But the smaller ship is almost certain to accelerate or maneuver faster. There is no reason to believe the larger ship can accelerate/maneuver as well.

Again, these are completely incorrect assumptions.

Bharring wrote:
If an Argentineinan 77ft plane can beat a 400ft UK ship of war - and one designed to stop said plain and the weapon type it was using - in the 80s, it seems silly to think no Eldar leader would think a 5km Eldar cruiser with the advantages of better tech, stealth, and weird cloud/storm/whatever effects could take on a 20km IoM dreadnaught.

If a 15ft missile can threaten a contemporary 400ft long warship, why wouldn't Eldar have something similar? And if so, why couldn't they arm a 7km long ship with one that threatens a 20km ship?

You keep making comparisons to modern day naval warfare, when those comparisons aren't accurate at all. Both the sizes and the environments involved are totally different.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Its increase in dimensions is cubed the number 2 is not cubed that is an arbitrary number.

Someone doesn't understand basic math.

V=L*W*H

An object twice as large has 8 times the volume.

8V=2L*2W*2H

w1zard wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Battle Barges and Battleships are typically used for Exterminatuses. 6-8KM long ships, typically. However, it's usually done by torpedo - which could be fired from almost anything. Granted, a virus torpedo might not do anything to a warship, but a Cyclonic Torpedo would. So if a 6-8km long IoM ship can destroy all life on a planet - including any fortifications there - how would a 20km long ship survive?

A cyclonic torpedo wouldn't do anything to a ship, considering that its sole purpose is to ignite an atmosphere, not act as a huge bomb.

Bharring wrote:
I'm not forgetting. When it's size doubles on *one* axis, it's volume goes up by a factor of 8. But the relative ratios betwween a 20km ship and a 7km ship seem relatively similar to those between a 400ft ship and a 77ft ship.

The proportions are similar, but the SIZES are not. A 100m cube has a 984,375 m^3 volume advantage over a 25m cube. A 20KM cube has a 7,850,000,000,000 m^3 volume advantage over a 5KM cube. See the difference?

Bharring wrote:
A field force requires power at the cube of the distance from it's generator.

This is pretty much a guess on your part, you don't know how much power it takes to generate a shield of X size. It could be logarithmic for all you know and bigger shields are actually more energy efficient than smaller shields.

Bharring wrote:
That's basically a leap of faith. You're assuming that it takes an equal amount of energy to enforce equilibrium as it would take to destabilize equilibrium.

Unless it is greater than a 1/64 ratio I am still correct. And if it is greater than a 1/64 ratio shields would be useless on larger ships because it would use more power to protect less, and nobody would use them, a ships shields would get worse the larger it got no matter how much power you pumped into it.

Bharring wrote:
You're also assuming the Eldar believed the IoM had parity in construction, shield tech, and weapons tech - something they would never believe.

Unless you are making the argument that Eldar power generation technology is roughly 8 times better than IOM tech per size, this argument falls flat. I do not believe the tech parity is that wide considering Eldar naval vessel depiction in the BFG lore.

Bharring wrote:
A larger ship attempting to ram a smaller ship is also ramming every part of it's own ship in the same action. Even before collision with the smaller ship.
Acceleration requires an equal amount of energy for each unit of mass. A larger ship may increase energy generation at pace with it's volume - which is a cubic relationship with it's length - but also needs increased energy at pace with it's mass - which tracks at least at, and usually higher than, it's volume.

You are forgetting energy efficiency boosts for larger reactors, which are a real thing even today. You are also assuming thrust scales linearly with engine size.

Bharring wrote:
The larger ship is likely to have a faster top speed. But the smaller ship is almost certain to accelerate or maneuver faster. There is no reason to believe the larger ship can accelerate/maneuver as well.

Again, these are completely incorrect assumptions.

Bharring wrote:
If an Argentineinan 77ft plane can beat a 400ft UK ship of war - and one designed to stop said plain and the weapon type it was using - in the 80s, it seems silly to think no Eldar leader would think a 5km Eldar cruiser with the advantages of better tech, stealth, and weird cloud/storm/whatever effects could take on a 20km IoM dreadnaught.

If a 15ft missile can threaten a contemporary 400ft long warship, why wouldn't Eldar have something similar? And if so, why couldn't they arm a 7km long ship with one that threatens a 20km ship?

You keep making comparisons to modern day naval warfare, when those comparisons aren't accurate at all. Both the sizes and the environments involved are totally different.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Its increase in dimensions is cubed the number 2 is not cubed that is an arbitrary number.

Someone doesn't understand basic math.

V=L*W*H

An object twice as large has 8 times the volume.

8V=2L*2W*2H

No it doesn't, the shape matters, you are assuming its a cube, if you were to add a spherical portion to the ship the surface area is going to increase also the density has to stay the same for that to be true, you are assuming two ships are going to be identical. also If a single ship increased by 2 then sure as its the same ship, you can't compare different ships that way. Also some ships can go into the atmosphere, so there structure is going to be vastly different to a larger ship.

I mean you even wrote length width and height, you have literally given the dimensions of a cube and are trying to apply that to a battleship, so sorry to say you don't know basic math.

w1zard wrote:

A cyclonic torpedo wouldn't do anything to a ship, considering that its sole purpose is to ignite an atmosphere, not act as a huge bomb.

Nope. Cyclonic Torpedoes are essentially delayed detonation missiles. They are designed to bore into a planet's crust and then detonate, and with enough of them eventually fracturing the planet into an asteroid field. Atmospheric ignition is a secondary effect which occurs in combination with Virus Bombs having reduced all life on the planet to flammable gas and biological sludge, and said ignition can also be accomplished with something like a Lance battery.

Cyclonic torpedoes are when you need to destroy the actual planet. Virus bombs are when you just need to scour all life from its surface. A Cyclonic torpedo would be highly effective vs something like a Space Hulk or other similarly huge ship. It wouldn't be an efficient weapon against it, as Cyclonic torpedoes are not cheap, but it would definitely work.

Bharring wrote:
"more credible guess considering the numbers from the BFG sourcebooks."
12 KM is possible, sure. We don't know. But the BFG sourcebooks aren't as relevant as you suggest.

I take offense to that, but will admit to being super biased as well.

Wizard,

Re: proportional sizes - the *ratio* of their sizes are what matter, not the flat "a-b" sizes.

A Field Force taking the cube of the distance (from center) to exert force at a point is not a leap - it's modern physics. Although a Force Field / Void Shield being a Field Force is a small leap.

As for acceleration and thrust energies vs surface area/size ratios, I wouldn't be surprised if they *did* scale more-than-linearly with surface area. But it'd be incredulous for them to scale more-than-linearly with volume. And they'd need to scale more-than-linearly with volume to produce more acceleration on larger vessels. Thrust required for the same acceleration increases linearly with mass. So cubed mass compared to a value between cubed and squared thrust obviously suggests the smaller mass vessel has greater acceleration capabilities.

It's true that both the sizes and the environments are different from 1980s Falklands. The scale is way beyond what we saw there. Considering that, as scale increases, the difference in size between an asset and what potentially threatens it appears to *also* increase, the scale makes it *more* likely. Considering that, as tech advances, the difference in size between an asset and what threatens it has also increased - so that, too, makes it more likely. Finally, it's also space combat instead of naval combat - an environment that is *much* more hostile to operating vessels, and as such requiring much less damage to destroy one - once again making it *more* likely a smaller vehicle can threaten a larger one.

Devals,
In math/physics, factors are often talked about their order/power, disregarding relatively minor factors. As such, a cubic relationship between A and B is A= n*B^3+M, for basically any positive N. So a sphere - or any 3d object - is typically said to grow in volume to the cube of length. It's a shorthand, because everything but the highest power involved tends to not matter.

Bharring wrote:

A Field Force taking the cube of the distance (from center) to exert force at a point is not a leap - it's modern physics. Although a Force Field / Void Shield being a Field Force is a small leap.

Force fields don't exist in real life, so applying any sort of real world physics to them is somewhat futile.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Bharring wrote:

A Field Force taking the cube of the distance (from center) to exert force at a point is not a leap - it's modern physics. Although a Force Field / Void Shield being a Field Force is a small leap.

Force fields don't exist in real life, so applying any sort of real world physics to them is somewhat futile.

Actually the concept is being applied, the army are using electromagnetic fields for forcefields, very cool stuff.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Bharring wrote:

A Field Force taking the cube of the distance (from center) to exert force at a point is not a leap - it's modern physics. Although a Force Field / Void Shield being a Field Force is a small leap.

Force fields don't exist in real life, so applying any sort of real world physics to them is somewhat futile.

Actually the concept is being applied, the army are using electromagnetic fields for forcefields, very cool stuff.

Given that void shields work by directing the incoming energy or projectiles into the Warp, such physical laws don't apply.

"field force" is a lot less magical than it sounds - think magnets and gravity.

Although Grey has a good point. We don't know *how* they actually function or what their power requirements are. There's a lot we don't know. As I said, assuming their force fields are some kind of field force is a leap - although not nearly as much a leap as half this thread.

Certainly, and thats probably how "force fields' will work if we ever invent any. But the 40k Void Shields quite explicitly work in a different way. They use Warp technology to transport the incoming energy or projectiles into the Warp itself. Making them act more like space-time bending devices than what we think of as a "force field", though the effect is similar.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

No it doesn't, the shape matters, you are assuming its a cube, if you were to add a spherical portion to the ship the surface area is going to increase also the density has to stay the same for that to be true, you are assuming two ships are going to be identical. also If a single ship increased by 2 then sure as its the same ship, you can't compare different ships that way. Also some ships can go into the atmosphere, so there structure is going to be vastly different to a larger ship.

I mean you even wrote length width and height, you have literally given the dimensions of a cube and are trying to apply that to a battleship, so sorry to say you don't know basic math.

You need calculus to calculate the volume of an irregular 3d object, I was using the simplest form of the equation to illustrate the principle, not stating that you can calculate the volume of anything by simply multiplying the base, width, and height together. But thanks for missing the point.

 Grey Templar wrote:

w1zard wrote:

A cyclonic torpedo wouldn't do anything to a ship, considering that its sole purpose is to ignite an atmosphere, not act as a huge bomb.

Nope. Cyclonic Torpedoes are essentially delayed detonation missiles. They are designed to bore into a planet's crust and then detonate, and with enough of them eventually fracturing the planet into an asteroid field. Atmospheric ignition is a secondary effect which occurs in combination with Virus Bombs having reduced all life on the planet to flammable gas and biological sludge, and said ignition can also be accomplished with something like a Lance battery.

Cyclonic torpedoes are when you need to destroy the actual planet. Virus bombs are when you just need to scour all life from its surface. A Cyclonic torpedo would be highly effective vs something like a Space Hulk or other similarly huge ship. It wouldn't be an efficient weapon against it, as Cyclonic torpedoes are not cheap, but it would definitely work.

You are somewhat incorrect: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Cyclonic_Torpedo

What you are talking about is a "Two Stage Cyclonic Torpedo" which is for use against biologically void worlds, or worlds without an atmosphere for a normal cyclonic torpedo to work in. It is much more rare than a traditional cyclonic torpedo, which works by igniting the atmosphere like I described earlier.

Such a weapon is so rare that it is only carried on certain vessels, and would not be wasted in a ship on ship engagement where the risk of interception or missing is too great. Also, we have no idea how such a weapon would interact with void shields considering that it was made to punch through rock and not an energy barrier. I'm forced to agree though that a shieldless vessel would probably fare pretty poorly against such a weapon, no matter its size.

Bharring wrote:
...the *ratio* of their sizes are what matter, not the flat "a-b" sizes.

It does matter when it comes to things like the destructive yields of weapons, or Mass differences in a collision.

Bharring wrote:
But it'd be incredulous for them to scale more-than-linearly with volume.

I wouldn't be so sure. We see a similar effect IRL when it comes to scaling things up. Bigger things are usually more efficient.

Bharring wrote:
It's true that both the sizes and the environments are different from 1980s Falklands. The scale is way beyond what we saw there. Considering that, as scale increases, the difference in size between an asset and what potentially threatens it appears to *also* increase, the scale makes it *more* likely. Considering that, as tech advances, the difference in size between an asset and what threatens it has also increased - so that, too, makes it more likely. Finally, it's also space combat instead of naval combat - an environment that is *much* more hostile to operating vessels, and as such requiring much less damage to destroy one - once again making it *more* likely a smaller vehicle can threaten a larger one.

Again, I think you are stretching.

The fact of the matter is that outside of stored energy weapons like torpedoes, the power outputs between a vessel and one four times its length are going to be an order of magnitude (possibly even two orders of magnitude) apart assuming relative tech parity. Because shields exist in this scenario and can mitigate damage based on power fed into them, the ship with the biggest power output has a massive advantage. A larger vessel is always going to be substantially more dangerous in space combat from that fact alone.

The Eldar are arrogant and have better technology than the IOM. It still doesn't make sense to send a single vessel to attack a target 4 times its size. As I said the Eldar are arrogant, not stupid. The Eldar know full well the strength of standard IOM vessels because they have fought us plenty of times before.

They've added some fluff then. There didn't used to be any distinction. All Cyclonic Torpedoes were the two stage kind. They must have made up some lesser classes, which makes no sense since all of those descriptions for the lesser ones can apply to any number of other weapons.

For example, in the DOW2 Exterminatus clip. The atmosphere is ignited with a simple macrocannon shell and not a cyclonic torpedo. The gasses from the virus bombs along with the oxygen in the atmosphere mean any ignition source of sufficient power, basically any ship mounted weapon, can ignite the atmosphere.

It makes far more sense for Cyclonic Torpedoes to be a specific planet cracking device rather than a broad category of anti-planet weapons. More degradation of the fluff is unfortunate.

Reread your link. That designation refers to weapon that annialate life via a variety of ways. Plasma bombardment, for example, is not the same thing.

Bharring wrote:
Reread your link. That designation refers to weapon that annialate life via a variety of ways. Plasma bombardment, for example, is not the same thing.

Which is dumb, because that would include Virus bombs under the Cyclonic Torpedo umbrella.

I also find it hilarious that IoM not having enough of a weapon that can destroy planets means that, somehow, Eldar have no weapons that they can mount on a 7km long ship that can destroy a 20km long ship.

Bharring wrote:
I also find it hilarious that IoM not having enough of a weapon that can destroy planets means that, somehow, Eldar have no weapons that they can mount on a 7km long ship that can destroy a 20km long ship.

You were saying that even smaller IOM ships have the power to destroy planets, and that a 20KM ship isn't a big deal by comparison. I was disputing the first point.

And the Eldar ship in question is 5 KM long, not 7. It's actually 4.7KM to be exact, but I was rounding up.

w1zard wrote:

Bharring wrote:
I also find it hilarious that IoM not having enough of a weapon that can destroy planets means that, somehow, Eldar have no weapons that they can mount on a 7km long ship that can destroy a 20km long ship.

You were saying that even smaller IOM ships have the power to destroy planets, and that a 20KM ship isn't a big deal by comparison. I was disputing your point.

They can. Anything with Torpedo tubes can fire Cyclonic torpedoes.

Does every Imperial ship carry Cyclonic torpedoes at all times? No. Could they? Yes.

Its just like how any B52 bomber can drop nuclear bombs, because we have nuclear bombs capable of being dropped from a B52.

If an Inquisitor or some other individual empowered to authorize and Exterminatus only had a handful of Cobra class destroyers, he could still carry out the Exterminatus assuming he had the torpedoes for them to launch.

So yes, even small Imperial ships have the capacity to destroy planets, simply because they have Torpedo tubes.

 Grey Templar wrote:
They can. Anything with Torpedo tubes can fire Cyclonic torpedoes.

You are missing the point. Are cyclonic torpedoes or their Eldar equivalents standard loadouts on cruisers? I think not.

Nor are they ever used in ship to ship combat, so the point is moot.

w1zard wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
They can. Anything with Torpedo tubes can fire Cyclonic torpedoes.

You are missing the point. Are cyclonic torpedoes or their Eldar equivalents standard loadouts on cruisers? I think not.

Nor are they ever used in ship to ship combat, so the point is moot.

Its true, Eldar don't really have anything equivalent to a Cyclonic torpedo. They don't blow planets up, at least not with something like ship mounted weaponry.

But it does illustrate that you can mount hideously powerful stuff on ships of any size in 40k. So clearly, the Eldar Cruiser could be somewhat of a threat to the Speranza. Especially since, you know, the book clearly showed that it was in some capacity. The same book which also showed the massive size of the ship

w1zard wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

No it doesn't, the shape matters, you are assuming its a cube, if you were to add a spherical portion to the ship the surface area is going to increase also the density has to stay the same for that to be true, you are assuming two ships are going to be identical. also If a single ship increased by 2 then sure as its the same ship, you can't compare different ships that way. Also some ships can go into the atmosphere, so there structure is going to be vastly different to a larger ship.

I mean you even wrote length width and height, you have literally given the dimensions of a cube and are trying to apply that to a battleship, so sorry to say you don't know basic math.

You need calculus to calculate the volume of an irregular 3d object, I was using the simplest form of the equation to illustrate the principle, not stating that you can calculate the volume of anything by simply multiplying the base, width, and height together. But thanks for missing the point.

 Grey Templar wrote:

w1zard wrote:

A cyclonic torpedo wouldn't do anything to a ship, considering that its sole purpose is to ignite an atmosphere, not act as a huge bomb.

Nope. Cyclonic Torpedoes are essentially delayed detonation missiles. They are designed to bore into a planet's crust and then detonate, and with enough of them eventually fracturing the planet into an asteroid field. Atmospheric ignition is a secondary effect which occurs in combination with Virus Bombs having reduced all life on the planet to flammable gas and biological sludge, and said ignition can also be accomplished with something like a Lance battery.

Cyclonic torpedoes are when you need to destroy the actual planet. Virus bombs are when you just need to scour all life from its surface. A Cyclonic torpedo would be highly effective vs something like a Space Hulk or other similarly huge ship. It wouldn't be an efficient weapon against it, as Cyclonic torpedoes are not cheap, but it would definitely work.

You are somewhat incorrect: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Cyclonic_Torpedo

What you are talking about is a "Two Stage Cyclonic Torpedo" which is for use against biologically void worlds, or worlds without an atmosphere for a normal cyclonic torpedo to work in. It is much more rare than a traditional cyclonic torpedo, which works by igniting the atmosphere like I described earlier.

Such a weapon is so rare that it is only carried on certain vessels, and would not be wasted in a ship on ship engagement where the risk of interception or missing is too great. Also, we have no idea how such a weapon would interact with void shields considering that it was made to punch through rock and not an energy barrier. I'm forced to agree though that a shieldless vessel would probably fare pretty poorly against such a weapon, no matter its size.

Bharring wrote:
...the *ratio* of their sizes are what matter, not the flat "a-b" sizes.

It does matter when it comes to things like the destructive yields of weapons, or Mass differences in a collision.

Bharring wrote:
But it'd be incredulous for them to scale more-than-linearly with volume.

I wouldn't be so sure. We see a similar effect IRL when it comes to scaling things up. Bigger things are usually more efficient.

Bharring wrote:
It's true that both the sizes and the environments are different from 1980s Falklands. The scale is way beyond what we saw there. Considering that, as scale increases, the difference in size between an asset and what potentially threatens it appears to *also* increase, the scale makes it *more* likely. Considering that, as tech advances, the difference in size between an asset and what threatens it has also increased - so that, too, makes it more likely. Finally, it's also space combat instead of naval combat - an environment that is *much* more hostile to operating vessels, and as such requiring much less damage to destroy one - once again making it *more* likely a smaller vehicle can threaten a larger one.

Again, I think you are stretching.

The fact of the matter is that outside of stored energy weapons like torpedoes, the power outputs between a vessel and one four times its length are going to be an order of magnitude (possibly even two orders of magnitude) apart assuming relative tech parity. Because shields exist in this scenario and can mitigate damage based on power fed into them, the ship with the biggest power output has a massive advantage. A larger vessel is always going to be substantially more dangerous in space combat from that fact alone.

The Eldar are arrogant and have better technology than the IOM. It still doesn't make sense to send a single vessel to attack a target 4 times its size. As I said the Eldar are arrogant, not stupid. The Eldar know full well the strength of standard IOM vessels because they have fought us plenty of times before.

Well you don't understand even the simplest form then and you aren't calculating the volume, you are supposed to be calculating the volume based on the increase of dimensions, I mentioned you stated the length, width and height so you are stating that you should have realised there is a relationship between the shape of an object, based on the square cube law, which you didn't lol No length, width and height cannot only be used to calculate any volumes, you need calculus to take into account curves and spheres and we aren't talking about volume, we are talking about the volume based on the increase of dimensions, which is the square cube law. Next time, don't be rude and I won't have to embarrass you by showing that you have no idea what you are talking about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Bharring wrote:

A Field Force taking the cube of the distance (from center) to exert force at a point is not a leap - it's modern physics. Although a Force Field / Void Shield being a Field Force is a small leap.

Force fields don't exist in real life, so applying any sort of real world physics to them is somewhat futile.

Actually the concept is being applied, the army are using electromagnetic fields for forcefields, very cool stuff.

Given that void shields work by directing the incoming energy or projectiles into the Warp, such physical laws don't apply.

I know, just showing that there is 'force-field' tech.

 Grey Templar wrote:
...But it does illustrate that you can mount hideously powerful stuff on ships of any size in 40k. So clearly, the Eldar Cruiser could be somewhat of a threat to the Speranza. Especially since, you know, the book clearly showed that it was in some capacity. The same book which also showed the massive size of the ship

The Speranza's size is never explicitly stated in the book. All we know is that it is "Large". "Large" can be anything, and I certainly agree that the Speranza was larger than the Eldar cruiser it was fighting. However that cruiser was in all likelihood only 4.7KM long. This means that the Speranza could be anywhere from 5KM to 30KM long (the largest ship in the setting). However, I think it is much more likely that the Speranza is in the 5-12KM range because previous Ark Mechanicus ships were in the 5-7KM range, and anything outside of 12KM is rarely seen, and that is stated IN UNIVERSE. The fact that the Eldar sent a 4.7KM long cruiser to deal with the Speranza alone, and had every expectation of it winning seems to support my opinion about the Speranza's size.

The fact of the matter is that outside of stored energy weapons like torpedoes, the power outputs between a vessel and one four times its length are going to be an order of magnitude (possibly even two orders of magnitude) apart assuming relative tech parity. Because shields exist in this scenario and can mitigate damage based on power fed into them, the ship with the biggest power output has a massive advantage. A larger vessel is always going to be substantially more dangerous in space combat from that fact alone.

The Eldar are arrogant and have better technology than the IOM. It still doesn't make sense to send a single vessel to attack a target 4 times its size. As I said in previous posts the Eldar are arrogant, not stupid. The Eldar know full well the strength of standard IOM vessels because they have fought us plenty of times before.

You can disagree if you want, because there is nothing as far as I know that proves either of us wrong. But I feel my hypothesis is a lot more accurate based on the information we do know, rather than yours and Bharring's claim that the Speranza was ~20KM long.

This whole discussion started because we were talking about DAoT tech, and me saying that the Speranza blew a comparatively sized ship (that supposedly had better technology) away with one shot. Bharring claimed that the Speranza was larger and that this outcome should be expected given the size comparison. My counterpoint was: Why would the eldar send such a small ship to fight a bigger one if they just expected it to get blown away in one shot? In fact, I think they did not. I think they sent a ship relatively similar in size and expected it to win, only to be massively surprised when the Speranza pulled DAoT weaponry out of nowhere and punch way above its weight class. Things make more sense that way.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Well you don't understand even the simplest form then and you aren't calculating the volume, you are supposed to be calculating the volume based on the increase of dimensions, I mentioned you stated the length, width and height so you are stating that you should have realised there is a relationship between the shape of an object of based on the square cube law, which you didn't lol No length, width and height cannot only be used to calculate any volumes, you need calculus to take into account curves and spheres and we aren't talking about volume, we are talking about the volume based on the increase of dimensions, which is the square cube law. Next time, don't be rude and I won't have to embarrass you by showing that you have no idea what you are talking about.

lol what?

w1zard wrote:


The Eldar are arrogant and have better technology than the IOM. It still doesn't make sense to send a single vessel to attack a target 4 times its size. As I said in previous posts the Eldar are arrogant, not stupid. The Eldar know full well the strength of standard IOM vessels because they have fought us plenty of times before.

I disagree. Pretty much most cases where the Eldar are portrayed as losing its because, in their arrogance, they make stupid mistakes. Plus, keep in mind that the Eldar forces are stretched paper thin. Their population is only numbered in the hundreds of millions, and their ships even fewer. They're always going to be sending forces to face threats which outnumber, and outclass, them on a regular basis.

It is entirely believable that an Eldar farseer could only call upon a single Cruiser to deal with a threat like Speranza. Farseers are always seeing a thousand threads of doom, they can't deal with them all nor can they send adequate forces to even all the ones they choose to actually intervene with. Combine this with a chronic arrogance, it is not only conceivable, but inevitable that they would routinely underestimate their foe.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I disagree. Pretty much most cases where the Eldar are portrayed as losing its because, in their arrogance, they make stupid mistakes. Plus, keep in mind that the Eldar forces are stretched paper thin. Their population is only numbered in the hundreds of millions, and their ships even fewer. They're always going to be sending forces to face threats which outnumber, and outclass, them on a regular basis.

It is entirely believable that an Eldar farseer could only call upon a single Cruiser to deal with a threat like Speranza. Farseers are always seeing a thousand threads of doom, they can't deal with them all nor can they send adequate forces to even all the ones they choose to actually intervene with. Combine this with a chronic arrogance, it is not only conceivable, but inevitable that they would routinely underestimate their foe.

There is a difference between losing because you underestimated your opponent, and walking into a suicide mission thinking you have the upper hand.

Ordering a 4.7KM cruiser to attack a ~20KM dreadnought at full power with unknown armament is not arrogance, it is stupidity. Stupidity that is not synonymous with the Eldar. They aren't arrogant enough to think that a single guardian can take on three space marines and win, nor are they arrogant enough to think that one of their light cruisers can take on an IOM dreadnought alone and win. The Eldar have been fighting humanity for a long time, and I do not think a Farseer would make such a stupid mistake.

Like I said, the narrative makes much more sense if the Speranza was in the 5-12KM range.

w1zard wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I disagree. Pretty much most cases where the Eldar are portrayed as losing its because, in their arrogance, they make stupid mistakes. Plus, keep in mind that the Eldar forces are stretched paper thin. Their population is only numbered in the hundreds of millions, and their ships even fewer. They're always going to be sending forces to face threats which outnumber, and outclass, them on a regular basis.

It is entirely believable that an Eldar farseer could only call upon a single Cruiser to deal with a threat like Speranza. Farseers are always seeing a thousand threads of doom, they can't deal with them all nor can they send adequate forces to even all the ones they choose to actually intervene with. Combine this with a chronic arrogance, it is not only conceivable, but inevitable that they would routinely underestimate their foe.

There is a difference between losing because you underestimated your opponent, and walking into a suicide mission thinking you have the upper hand.

Ordering a 4.7KM cruiser to attack a ~20KM dreadnought at full power with unknown armament is not arrogance, it is stupidity. Stupidity that is not synonymous with the Eldar. They aren't arrogant enough to think that a single guardian can take on three space marines and win, nor are they arrogant enough to think that one of their light cruisers can take on an IOM dreadnought alone and win. The Eldar have been fighting humanity for a long time, and I do not think a Farseer would make such a stupid mistake.

Like I said, the narrative makes much more sense if the Speranza was in the 5-12KM range.

Arrogance makes people do stupid things all the time. It makes Eldar do stupid things all the time in the fluff. It also wasn't a light cruiser. It was a full cruiser as I recall.

The Eldar also attacked at a moment of disadvantage for the Ark. A time when they were reasonably sure they could attack it without fear of reprisal. Its even conceivable that they were using that moment to just probe the ship and see what it was capable of, intending to come back at a later date. They were never intending to actually face it head on, and they didn't. It just happened that they did some considerable damage, enough to freak out the Mechanicus crew and stir the ship's machine spirit to action, and then promptly took a Black Hole cannon to the face.

Maybe we could argue that it was poorly written and that realistically this situation wouldn't occur, but it is consistent with prior in-universe behavior. Dumber actions have occurred in the fluff, this is far from an egregious offender.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Well you don't understand even the simplest form then and you aren't calculating the volume, you are supposed to be calculating the volume based on the increase of dimensions, I mentioned you stated the length, width and height so you are stating that you should have realised there is a relationship between the shape of an object of based on the square cube law, which you didn't lol No length, width and height cannot only be used to calculate any volumes, you need calculus to take into account curves and spheres and we aren't talking about volume, we are talking about the volume based on the increase of dimensions, which is the square cube law. Next time, don't be rude and I won't have to embarrass you by showing that you have no idea what you are talking about.

I've read and re-read this post several times, and DC: I hate to be rude, but it's barely coherent. I think I see what you're trying to say, and if so, then you're actually agreeing with them; you've just let yourself get caught up in perceived details while missing the actual point.

If you have an object of length X, and you scale it up to length 2X while maintaining the shape, the proportions, and the materials, then the larger version will have 8 times the volume, 8 times the mass, and 4 times the surface area. That's all we're trying to say. There's no point getting caught up in discussions of how to measure the volume from the length etc, since it's not relevant to the question of scaling.

If that's what you're saying, great! You agree with us. If your point is that you can't use the square-cube ratio because the shape might change, we know that, but it is still a valid point worth mentioning to highlight the assumptions used.

If that's not what you're trying to say, then I have no idea what your point is. But their mathematical descriptions have been acccurate to date.

OK, so back at the actual topic (which is not the square-cube law), here's a cool thing. UR-025's totally-real-and-not-at-all-made-up boss has the previously unknown title of 'Magos-Ethereum'. If you do a Google search for 'Magos Ethereum', you will discover that this is a clever fourth-wall-breaking joke.

I'm getting something o do with crypto-currencies?

MAGOS fund, managed by AI and supervised by our team, will be deployed on the Ethereum platform.

UR 025 is also the disk code of Universal Records publish of Galaxy 2 Galaxy, a 'Future Jazz / Techno' album.

I also wonder if it is a current political satire 'UR-0' becoming 'Euro', '2' becoming 'to' and '5' becoming Roman numeral 'V' (morse code shorthand for victory). ie European Union for the win!

Aelyn wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Well you don't understand even the simplest form then and you aren't calculating the volume, you are supposed to be calculating the volume based on the increase of dimensions, I mentioned you stated the length, width and height so you are stating that you should have realised there is a relationship between the shape of an object of based on the square cube law, which you didn't lol No length, width and height cannot only be used to calculate any volumes, you need calculus to take into account curves and spheres and we aren't talking about volume, we are talking about the volume based on the increase of dimensions, which is the square cube law. Next time, don't be rude and I won't have to embarrass you by showing that you have no idea what you are talking about.

I've read and re-read this post several times, and DC: I hate to be rude, but it's barely coherent. I think I see what you're trying to say, and if so, then you're actually agreeing with them; you've just let yourself get caught up in perceived details while missing the actual point.

If you have an object of length X, and you scale it up to length 2X while maintaining the shape, the proportions, and the materials, then the larger version will have 8 times the volume, 8 times the mass, and 4 times the surface area. That's all we're trying to say. There's no point getting caught up in discussions of how to measure the volume from the length etc, since it's not relevant to the question of scaling.

If that's what you're saying, great! You agree with us. If your point is that you can't use the square-cube ratio because the shape might change, we know that, but it is still a valid point worth mentioning to highlight the assumptions used.

If that's not what you're trying to say, then I have no idea what your point is. But their mathematical descriptions have been acccurate to date.

Well when using the square cube law you don't assume that everything is a cube with the dimensions 2 by 2 by 2, which is what you's have all done. Saying that if you increase any objects dimensions by a multiple of 2 its not always going to be 8, just because the multiplayer is 2 doesn't mean the whole dimensions are 2, so it isn't going to automatically be 8. You's have all been saying that if you increase any object by a multiple of 2 its volume is going to be 8 times its original lol If you said it increases its volume cubed I'd agree, to say it increases its volume by 8 is just silly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

w1zard wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
...But it does illustrate that you can mount hideously powerful stuff on ships of any size in 40k. So clearly, the Eldar Cruiser could be somewhat of a threat to the Speranza. Especially since, you know, the book clearly showed that it was in some capacity. The same book which also showed the massive size of the ship

The Speranza's size is never explicitly stated in the book. All we know is that it is "Large". "Large" can be anything, and I certainly agree that the Speranza was larger than the Eldar cruiser it was fighting. However that cruiser was in all likelihood only 4.7KM long. This means that the Speranza could be anywhere from 5KM to 30KM long (the largest ship in the setting). However, I think it is much more likely that the Speranza is in the 5-12KM range because previous Ark Mechanicus ships were in the 5-7KM range, and anything outside of 12KM is rarely seen, and that is stated IN UNIVERSE. The fact that the Eldar sent a 4.7KM long cruiser to deal with the Speranza alone, and had every expectation of it winning seems to support my opinion about the Speranza's size.

The fact of the matter is that outside of stored energy weapons like torpedoes, the power outputs between a vessel and one four times its length are going to be an order of magnitude (possibly even two orders of magnitude) apart assuming relative tech parity. Because shields exist in this scenario and can mitigate damage based on power fed into them, the ship with the biggest power output has a massive advantage. A larger vessel is always going to be substantially more dangerous in space combat from that fact alone.

The Eldar are arrogant and have better technology than the IOM. It still doesn't make sense to send a single vessel to attack a target 4 times its size. As I said in previous posts the Eldar are arrogant, not stupid. The Eldar know full well the strength of standard IOM vessels because they have fought us plenty of times before.

You can disagree if you want, because there is nothing as far as I know that proves either of us wrong. But I feel my hypothesis is a lot more accurate based on the information we do know, rather than yours and Bharring's claim that the Speranza was ~20KM long.

This whole discussion started because we were talking about DAoT tech, and me saying that the Speranza blew a comparatively sized ship (that supposedly had better technology) away with one shot. Bharring claimed that the Speranza was larger and that this outcome should be expected given the size comparison. My counterpoint was: Why would the eldar send such a small ship to fight a bigger one if they just expected it to get blown away in one shot? In fact, I think they did not. I think they sent a ship relatively similar in size and expected it to win, only to be massively surprised when the Speranza pulled DAoT weaponry out of nowhere and punch way above its weight class. Things make more sense that way.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
Well you don't understand even the simplest form then and you aren't calculating the volume, you are supposed to be calculating the volume based on the increase of dimensions, I mentioned you stated the length, width and height so you are stating that you should have realised there is a relationship between the shape of an object of based on the square cube law, which you didn't lol No length, width and height cannot only be used to calculate any volumes, you need calculus to take into account curves and spheres and we aren't talking about volume, we are talking about the volume based on the increase of dimensions, which is the square cube law. Next time, don't be rude and I won't have to embarrass you by showing that you have no idea what you are talking about.

lol what?

You would have said 'I was just trying to explain it simply' when I told you you were wrong, rather than saying I didn't know math because you were talking about a cube. If you said if you 'take a cube' then... but you didn't you thought everything goes up in 8 times the volume lol

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Well when using the square cube law you don't assume that everything is a cube with the dimensions 2 by 2 by 2, which is what you's have all done. Saying that if you increase any objects dimensions by a multiple of 2 its not always going to be 8, just because the multiplayer is 2 doesn't mean the whole dimensions are 2, so it isn't going to automatically be 8. You's have all been saying that if you increase any object by a multiple of 2 its volume is going to be 8 times its original lol If you said it increases its volume cubed I'd agree, to say it increases its volume by 8 is just silly...

You would have said 'I was just trying to explain it simply' when I told you you were wrong, rather than saying I didn't know math because you were talking about a cube. If you said if you 'take a cube' then... but you didn't you thought everything goes up in 8 times the volume lol

Um.

You seem to be confused about the difference between a measurement - such as a ship being 7km long - and a multiplier - such one ship being twice as big as another.

We're only talking about multipliers here. If one ship is twice as long as another and is exactly the same shape just scaled up... then yeah, the bigger one has eight time the volume of the smaller one. That's because 8 is the third power of 2; the fact that 8 is called the cube of 2 doesn't mean we're talking about literal cube shapes necessarily.

It doesn't matter what shape you apply this to - spheres, cubes, cones, or a much more complicated design such as an Imperial starship, the relationship between how much each dimension increases and how much the volume increases is exactly the same.

By the same principle, if you scaled each dimension up by a factor of 3 while maintaining the same shape, the object would have 27 times the overall volume.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Arrogance makes people do stupid things all the time. It makes Eldar do stupid things all the time in the fluff. It also wasn't a light cruiser. It was a full cruiser as I recall.

The Eldar also attacked at a moment of disadvantage for the Ark. A time when they were reasonably sure they could attack it without fear of reprisal. Its even conceivable that they were using that moment to just probe the ship and see what it was capable of, intending to come back at a later date. They were never intending to actually face it head on, and they didn't. It just happened that they did some considerable damage, enough to freak out the Mechanicus crew and stir the ship's machine spirit to action, and then promptly took a Black Hole cannon to the face.

Maybe we could argue that it was poorly written and that realistically this situation wouldn't occur, but it is consistent with prior in-universe behavior. Dumber actions have occurred in the fluff, this is far from an egregious offender.

Cruisers can be anywhere from 3-6KM long. Assuming the cruiser was shadow class (4.7KM) I guess that makes it more of a medium cruiser.

IIRC it was explicitly stated that the Eldar intended to attack and destroy the Speranza (from the Eldar pov no less), not probe.

I don't think it was "consistent" with in-universe behavior. I have never read anything about the Eldar making mistakes like that. I have read about a DE Archon underestimating SM scouts and getting a bunch of his men killed because of it. I have read about a group of craftworld Eldar underestimating the intelligence of an IG commander and making a tactical blunder. In both situations the Eldar ended up losing engagements because of it. Sending a 4.7KM cruiser to attack a ~20KM dreadnought is the equivalent of sending a guardsmen up against a Space Marine in a fistfight and expecting him to win. I still maintain that it is not something an Eldar farseer is stupid enough to do, and that the narrative makes much more sense if the Speranza was in the 5-12KM range.

But by all means, it doesn't look like I am going to change your headcanon so let's move on from this, we are already off topic enough.

Aelyn wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

Well when using the square cube law you don't assume that everything is a cube with the dimensions 2 by 2 by 2, which is what you's have all done. Saying that if you increase any objects dimensions by a multiple of 2 its not always going to be 8, just because the multiplayer is 2 doesn't mean the whole dimensions are 2, so it isn't going to automatically be 8. You's have all been saying that if you increase any object by a multiple of 2 its volume is going to be 8 times its original lol If you said it increases its volume cubed I'd agree, to say it increases its volume by 8 is just silly...

You would have said 'I was just trying to explain it simply' when I told you you were wrong, rather than saying I didn't know math because you were talking about a cube. If you said if you 'take a cube' then... but you didn't you thought everything goes up in 8 times the volume lol

Um.

You seem to be confused about the difference between a measurement - such as a ship being 7km long - and a multiplier - such one ship being twice as big as another.

We're only talking about multipliers here. If one ship is twice as long as another and is exactly the same shape just scaled up... then yeah, the bigger one has eight time the volume of the smaller one. That's because 8 is the third power of 2; the fact that 8 is called the cube of 2 doesn't mean we're talking about literal cube shapes necessarily.

It doesn't matter what shape you apply this to - spheres, cubes, cones, or a much more complicated design such as an Imperial starship, the relationship between how much each dimension increases and how much the volume increases is exactly the same.

By the same principle, if you scaled each dimension up by a factor of 3 while maintaining the same shape, the object would have 27 times the overall volume.

No its not, its x to the power of 3 bigger, not 8 times bigger. If its dimensions where 3 by 3 by 3 it isn't going to increase in volume by 8, by simple extrapolation we know you are talking about a cube that is 2 by 2 by 2. If the shape is increased cubed then it is the same as for all objects not matter the shape, it isn't increased 8 times like you are all saying and the shape 'dimensions' matter with the overall calculation, it will increase cubed, it won't be 8 though, what are you even talking about, seriously.

Its volume is increased by a factor of 3 yes but that's not what you were all saying, you were saying it was increased 8 times. I mean that isn't cubed, its just 'times by 8' Even in the case of the cube, its increased 2 cubed, which happens to be 8, its not increased by 8 in any way.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

No its not, its x to the power of 3 bigger, not 8 times bigger. If its dimensions where 3 by 3 by 3 it isn't going to increase in volume by 8, by simple extrapolation we know you are talking about a cube that is 2 by 2 by 2. If the shape is increased cubed then it is the same as for all objects not matter the shape, it isn't increased 8 times like you are all saying and the shape 'dimensions' matter with the overall calculation, it will increase cubed, it won't be 8 though, what are you even talking about, seriously.

Its volume is increased by a factor of 3 yes but that's not what you were all saying, you were saying it was increased 8 times. I mean that isn't cubed, its just 'times by 8'

Again, we're not talking about 2 as a measurement, but a multiplicative factor.

Let's take another example, with specific measurements - a cylinder. Imagine, for the sake of example, that a ship is a cylinder with base radius 100m and length 1000m. The volume of a cylinder is pi*(r^2)*l, which in this case is equal to pi*(100^2)*1000 or (approximating pi as 3.14) 31,400,000 m^3. Now double each dimension, so it has base radius 200m and length 2000m, and the overall volume becomes pi*(200^2)*2000 or approximately 251,200,000 m^3.

The second ship, with each dimension doubled, has a total volume eight times that of the first - in other words, increasing each dimension by a factor of 2 has increased the total volume by a factor of 8.

Does this make sense to you? If not, what are you having trouble with? Rather than cluttering up this thread, I'm happy to take this to PM if you need help.

Aelyn wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

No its not, its x to the power of 3 bigger, not 8 times bigger. If its dimensions where 3 by 3 by 3 it isn't going to increase in volume by 8, by simple extrapolation we know you are talking about a cube that is 2 by 2 by 2. If the shape is increased cubed then it is the same as for all objects not matter the shape, it isn't increased 8 times like you are all saying and the shape 'dimensions' matter with the overall calculation, it will increase cubed, it won't be 8 though, what are you even talking about, seriously.

Its volume is increased by a factor of 3 yes but that's not what you were all saying, you were saying it was increased 8 times. I mean that isn't cubed, its just 'times by 8'

Again, we're not talking about 2 as a measurement, but a multiplicative factor.

Let's take another example, with specific measurements - a cylinder. Imagine, for the sake of example, that a ship is a cylinder with base radius 100m and length 1000m. The volume of a cylinder is pi*(r^2)*l, which in this case is equal to pi*(100^2)*1000 or (approximating pi as 3.14) 31,400,000 m^3. Now double each dimension, so it has base radius 200m and length 2000m, and the overall volume becomes pi*(200^2)*2000 or approximately 251,200,000 m^3.

The second ship, with each dimension doubled, has a total volume eight times that of the first - in other words, increasing each dimension by a factor of 2 has increased the total volume by a factor of 8.

Does this make sense to you? If not, what are you having trouble with? Rather than cluttering up this thread, I'm happy to take this to PM if you need help.

No he is comparing two different ships, hang on I'll PM you.

Duskweaver wrote:OK, so back at the actual topic (which is not the square-cube law), here's a cool thing. UR-025's totally-real-and-not-at-all-made-up boss has the previously unknown title of 'Magos-Ethereum'. If you do a Google search for 'Magos Ethereum', you will discover that this is a clever fourth-wall-breaking joke.

I can dig UR-025 and the possibilities that it brings to the tabletop/fluff. Nobody knows what size/shape a MOI requires for its conscience to operate (who knows, it might just all be cloud computing/skynet). just remember that the processing power of your cell phone by itself is greater than the sum total of processing power on the planet 40 years ago. its perfectly reasonable to imagine that the size/power MOI needs do not fit a modern metric.

If we were to get more background or "facts"(term used extremely loosly) it might make some of humanities paranoia justified. While DAOT should remain mysterious, they should keep dropping hints and snippets just to pique everybodies interest.

BOLS say that it is a confirmed man of iron but, its BOLS. I expected it to look so much cooler, rather than a dorky, clunky, goofy machine.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:
BOLS say that it is a confirmed man of iron but, its BOLS. I expected it to look so much cooler, rather than a dorky, clunky, goofy machine.

The fluff from Blackstone Fortress says that he's a Man of Iron, so I'm not sure why you're still questioning it.


Regardless though, this thread appears to have veered well and truly off from the original topic, which appears to have been resolved anyway, so I think it's time to move on.