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Just wondering how ork tech compares to our modern stuff, Like how would the orks awful looking rokkit on a stick compare say to a rpg? Or would an ork engine be more advanced then current stuff?

Ork stuff only works because the orks belive it works. You can't really compare that to anything.

hmm i recon a squadren of challenger two tanks and a few F-35s could take down an ork stompa quite easily but that just my opinion, loads of people will dissagree with me on this.

Is modern technology a combination of looted scrap metal, duct tape, and Clap Your Hands If You Believe?

Are the two even comparable?

nickmund wrote:hmm i recon a squadren of challenger two tanks and a few F-35s could take down an ork stompa quite easily but that just my opinion, loads of people will dissagree with me on this.

Sure, if those f-35s can get through the thousands of fighta bombas .... if imperial lightning prbital/atmospheric fighter craft have a hard time against them, our jets will get scrapped.

Ork weaponry is very ramshackle, but because of their psychic field it doesnt matter, it will still work extremely effectively.

nickmund wrote:hmm i recon a squadren of challenger two tanks and a few F-35s could take down an ork stompa quite easily but that just my opinion, loads of people will dissagree with me on this.

yeah well I agree with you ive been reading as the galaxy burns or whatever the books thta has all the 40k short stories and the ones about the imperial navy thunderbolt and maruder crews seems to make IG tech look behind current day tech (apart form being able to operate in space) and I swear the lemun russ would get owned by challengers tanks not taking in account 40k materials for armour etc a challenger is a way better design in terms of low profile and sloped armour. I think ill enjoy 40k lore more if I could stop trying to work out how they went backwards not forwards in weapon design

Probably if you consider that weapons design is more economic than technological, and that the Imperium has considerably better materials and fabrication. On the old Land Raider poster it was mentioned how Land Raiders could be made out of old-fashioned steel, and how one in particular had a particularly short shelf-life because that made it much more vulnerable than otherwise. Also consider that any tank is a compromise and that modern armoured warfare is as much a product of its time and place as it is of the technology available. The Crusader Artillery piece, for example, wasn't a quantum leap forward in gun design, but it had the sort of fire control that depends on a vast military infrastructure. Ditto for the Abrams. Great performance, so long as you can keep it supplied, away from molotov cocktails, and away from ditches, and protect the massive fleet of thin-skinned tankers that have to follow those fuel-hogs around.

Consider that the Imperial War Machine needs to operate with a proportionately shorter logistical tail than the US Army.

Also, consider that Orks have access to warp-technology, tractor beams, directed energy weapons, space-craft, and so on.

If you go back to the 3rd edition Codex: Orks you'll find that what's passed off as gospel truth was just the word of a Magos Biologis. I prefer to think of it as humans not understanding the principles behind Ork technology, with one of those principles being a complete disregard for user-safety. It's not that the captured technology doesn't work without Orks, it's that it would either be hazardous for humans to use, or simply not recognizable as 'machinery', or both.

A good book to read in this regard is "The Mote in God's Eye" which also features a race of aliens that have an engineer caste with specific technical aptitude. A neat thing in this book is that the Motie technology isn't modular like human tech, in that some components serve multiple roles, while the humans built in modules (for efficient repair of relatively hard-scifi space ships) and good old Aristotelean mono-purposed machinery. That's something the Imperial has in common, with many servitors having a single purpose, such as carrying and firing a gun, or driving a vehicle, or serving drinks. Much like Orks, much Motie technology is custom-made, often for the task immediately at hand as much for the particular owner, with entire ships being rebuilt in flight.

But hey, if "it works because Orks think it does" works for you, then feel free to stop there. I prefer a universe in which Orks have a distinct alien technology from the mass-produced STC Tech-Priest-approved Imperium.

Jubear wrote:

nickmund wrote:hmm i recon a squadren of challenger two tanks and a few F-35s could take down an ork stompa quite easily but that just my opinion, loads of people will dissagree with me on this.

yeah well I agree with you ive been reading as the galaxy burns or whatever the books thta has all the 40k short stories and the ones about the imperial navy thunderbolt and maruder crews seems to make IG tech look behind current day tech (apart form being able to operate in space) and I swear the lemun russ would get owned by challengers tanks not taking in account 40k materials for armour etc a challenger is a way better design in terms of low profile and sloped armour. I think ill enjoy 40k lore more if I could stop trying to work out how they went backwards not forwards in weapon design

I can give you a good aussie analogy for how to understand how they went backwards instead of forwards.

Federal Politics...regardless of who you backed, we still pretty much are going backwards!

Nurglitch: I will answer your "Orks have real-tech, not Belief-tech" with a 3 word phrase that instantly disproves it: Red Paint Job.

Don't feel bad I do the same thing to Evolution panners with a one-word answer:

Nurglitch wrote: if "it works because Orks think it does" works for you, then feel free to stop there. I prefer a universe in which Orks have a distinct alien technology from the mass-produced STC Tech-Priest-approved Imperium.

Do the red ones still go faster in the universe you prefer? I was under the impression the two ideas work on the same principal, red ones go faster because orks believe it, guns work because orks believe it, respected orks become bigger and stronger because their fellow orks believe they are bigger and stronger due to the respect they command/earn

Kommissar Kel:

Nope. Orks have frictionless technology, the application of frictionless materials appearing 'red'.

pharom:

Of course. It's not because the Orks believe that the red ones go faster, it's because the red ones actually do go faster.

Take streamlines, for example. A fairly recent discovery but until you understand the concept, the different between a streamlined object and a non-streamlined object is going to appear aesthetic and hence arbitrary.

Simply another case of dogmatic Imperial technologists refusing to believe that there's a simple and straightforward way of making frictionless materials.

Catyrpelius wrote:Ork stuff only works because the orks belive it works. You can't really compare that to anything.

That is false.

Ignore 4Chan, memes are almost without fail unbelievably stupid.


Ork technology is far superior to ours in many areas, but they don't really care about areas which have no direct application to war. Teleporting is certainly beyond our current capability, as are force fields and tractor beams-- all of which are technologies Orks are exceedingly good at compared to everyone else in 40k.

That humans can, have, and will continue to use Ork technology in the 40k universe (either because they're captives, or out of desperation) is evidence enough that it does not merely apply to just Orks.

I'm convinced Nurglitch and Melissia have never read the Ork codex.

4chan has nothing to do with it.

Ork technology works because they believe it does.

Read up on the concept of the "Waaagh!" and you'll see.

SaintHazard

Then you're a fool. Because I'm referring to the material on pp.46-47 of Codex: Orks (3rd edition) and republished abridged on p.10 in Codex: Orks (4th edition). Not our fault if you don't understand the concept of limited first person narrator and the untrustworthiness thereof, or references made by people that actually bothered to read the material they own...

On the heading of the material originally published in the 3rd edition codex we have the following statement: "Sirs, what follows is a report filed by Genetor-Major Lukas Anzion, based on observations conducted in the Appelor system. I have taken the liberty of abridging this report down to its fundamental facts - in some areas Anzion has indulged him in such a degree of speculation in the original as to render it highly suspect."

For example, when it goes on to say: "While Anzion's observations may lead him to conclude this he is the first to admit this is baseless conjecture."

But hey, gospel truth, right?

Yeahhhhh. Third Edition codex. Right.

Why is it when people have no actual current fluff to back up their points, they resort to referencing outdated fluff?

You realize that every new codex completely and wholly trumps anything said in previous codices, right?

So... your points aren't really points at all.

Start quoting 4th Edition Codex: Orks, then we'll talk.

Nurglitch wrote:SaintHazard

Then you're a fool. Because I'm referring to the material on pp.46-47 of Codex: Orks (3rd edition) and republished abridged on p.10 in Codex: Orks (4th edition). Not our fault if you don't understand the concept of limited first person narrator and the untrustworthiness thereof, or references made by people that actually bothered to read the material they own...

Bolded for SaintHazard's convenience. Learn to read.

Oooookay, I'm reading page 10 right now, and I see the part that proves MY point, but I see absolutely nothing whatsoever in THIS codex that says this particular piece of information is untrustworthy or inaccurate.

So.

Yeah.

3rd edition Orks may have contained information saying YOU are right, but 4th (again, the CURRENT codex) says nothing of the sort - only the narrative that proves MY point.

Learn to read without inserting your own "facts" where they're convenient?

Where exactly does it state that Orks use Frictionless materials to paint their vehicles Red(and thus go faster)?

because it doesn't ever state that in the fluff on Orks; in fact what it does state(in 3rd person objective, mind you): "Orks believe that a vehicle that has been painted red can outstrip a similar vehicle that isn't. As odd as it may seem, they are quite right."

Also that "limited First person narrator" also remarks on a bit of factual evidence: "Many captured Ork weapons and items of equipment do not function unless wielded by an Ork.

At several other points in the Ork codex it discusses their "gestalt Psychic field" (ref. Wierdboyz, and the power of the Waaagh)

Kommissar Kel:

Thank you for noticing that nowhere in the source material is there an explanation given for how Red Paint makes Ork vehicles go faster. There's an explanation for what Orks think, and also an explanation that Orks aren't the galaxy's greatest abstract thinkers (i.e. they're a bunch of superstitious idiots), but no canonical set of engineering specifications for how Red Paint works. There's no canonical set of specifications for how the Machine Spirit mounted on a Land Raider works, but somehow we get by without believing that Space Marines magic it to work. That means there's space for us to come up with our own explanations, which is a good thing.

And yes, it's precisely because Genetor Anzion is a limited first person narrator remarks on "factual evidence" that makes it merely evidence and suspect at that because it is filtered through him and even labeled suspect. Mind you, if a doctor told me that his computer only worked when his secretary was operating it, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that his secretary was psychic, I'd simply remind myself that I know plenty of idiots that became doctors and not, say, electrical engineers.

In other words, I'm not inclined to trust the word of a biologist when he makes dubious speculations about matters psychic and mechanical, particularly when those speculations are labeled as both 'speculation' and 'suspect'.

Likewise there's a world of difference between Orks using psychic powers to use psychic powers and Orks using psychic powers to use machines that won't work otherwise. Funny that there's no indication of Untouchables or Pariahs interfering with the operation of Ork technology. Psychic powers, sure, technology? No. That's why it's technology and not magic.

SaintHazard:

Ah, argumentation from ignorance. I love it when people hide behind their own ignorance rather than supporting their own position and giving cogent reasons why people should agree with them rather than mock them for their inability to give a comprehensive exegesis of source materials...

nickmund wrote:hmm i recon a squadren of challenger two tanks and a few F-35s could take down an ork stompa quite easily but that just my opinion, loads of people will dissagree with me on this.

disagreed

It's not an argument from ignorance, it's simply an assertion that the information you so vehemently insist is present in the most recent version of the Ork fluff is simply not present as you suggest.

You are making gak up.

You are then proceeding to pull it out of your ass.

Unsurprisingly, it stinks.

The moment you quote me a page number from the fourth-edition Ork codex that in any way whatsoever supports your point through actual fact - not supposition, nor inference! - I will concede my point, as long as the information actually does that, to my satisfaction.

So far, you have failed in this task.

(hint: it's because the information you wish you could use to support your position doesn't exist)

huh???

SaintHazard wrote:I'm convinced Nurglitch and Melissia have never read the Ork codex.

I have the codex in front of me.

I'm not making gak up. There's plenty of examples of humans and even Marines using Ork technology (Dark Heresy has rules for roleplaying it as well, and even a specific example regarding Gunner Jurgen-- who was a blank, therefor he would nullify any psychic effect surrounding the vehicle he drove for quite a few days). If Ork technology only worked in the hands of an Ork, because that Ork believed it would work, then this would not be possible. Ergo, you are wrong.

The most you could argue is that it works more efficiently in Ork hands. But then... it's not like Imperial technology is efficient in Ork hands (see the Looted Tank rules). Or Eldar technology in non-Eldar hands (being designed for Eldar, who are psychic beings-- humans can use Eldar technology, but they require special training to do so, and occasionally even psychic powers). Heck, most Imperial technology is unreliable outside of Mechanicus hands, nevermind human. And even IN Mechanicus hands it can be very difficult to use. The technology in 40k is for the most part not well understood by most of those who use it, and each faction's technology is designed for them and them alone, but that does not mean it is not technology.


... which, when you think about it, is only a few steps away from modern times. I mean, what percentage of the population that uses LCD screens really understands how they work... or even what LCD stands for?

You're refuting points I never made.

1) I never said humans couldn't use Ork technology - simply that it works because Orks believe it works. Does that mean, possibly, that it works because Orks believe it can be put together? Maybe! It doesn't say otherwise! Maybe only Orks can build Ork technology. Maybe humans, who also have psychic auras, can use Ork technology for the same reason Orks can (but, like you said, it's not as efficient in human hands). Are there any fluffy examples of Tau using Ork technology? I do not believe there are.

2) I also never argued that it's not technology. Yes, it's magic. But it's also technology. See, you seem to be separating these two terms - in 40k, they are one and the same. Chaos technology works due to Daemons possessing their vehicles. Imperial technology works due to the Machine Spirit. Ork technology works due to the Waaagh! Eldar technology works due to Eldar being able to manipulate wraithbone. And so on. Only Tau technology is really nothing more than just technology, and that's because Tau have no psykers, and no Warp signature. They're unique in that only their technology is actual technology.

So I'm not wrong, we're actually saying the same thing, you're just skewing my meaning a little bit.

Nurglitch, on the other hand, is just plain wrong, since he's arguing an extreme that is not supported by the facts. Not entirely wrong, he's said some true things, but still wrong on the whole.

Also, Liquid Crystal Display.

SaintHazard wrote:I never said humans couldn't use Ork technology - simply that it works because Orks believe it works. Does that mean, possibly, that it works because Orks believe it can be put together? Maybe! It doesn't say otherwise! Maybe only Orks can build Ork technology. Maybe humans, who also have psychic auras, can use Ork technology for the same reason Orks can (but, like you said, it's not as efficient in human hands). Are there any fluffy examples of Tau using Ork technology? I do not believe there are.

A human Blank can use Ork technology. Ergo, it is not a psychic based phenomenon, as if that was the case it would cease to exist or even fall apart when a human Blank comes into contact with it (Dark Heresy and the Ciaphas Cain series as sources for this, as these are two of the three primary sources of fluff on Blanks outside of the Officio Assassinorum).

in 40k, they are one and the same

To the common person, yes. The common person in 40k, however, is sadly ignorant and quite frequently stupid.

Uh, not really. Are Techpriest Enginseers also stupid? Are Eldar Bonesingers stupid? What about Big Meks (who may lack common sense, but are far from stupid)?

These are all people who firmly believe that Imperial technology is reliant upon the Machine Spirit, Eldar technology is reliant upon Wraithbone, and Ork Technology is reliant upon the Waaagh!, respectively.

And they're the ones who build the technology.

Also, you're conveniently ignoring the first thing I said in my post - it's entirely possible magic (psychic energy) is integral to building the technology, not using it. Hence, a blank would be able to use Ork technology, but not create it.

SaintHazard wrote:Uh, not really. Are Techpriest Enginseers also stupid? Are Eldar Bonesingers stupid? What about Big Meks (who may lack common sense, but are far from stupid)?

1: Stupid? Possibly, depending on what kind of intelligent you're asking for (socially and emotionally speaking, oh hell yes they're stupid). But regardless of that, for the most part they're quite ignorant of their own technology (Techpriest Enginseers are taught only how to maintain and repair, not the concepts behind the technology or even how it really works), and almost universally ignorant of xeno technology (the study of which is heretical for those under Magos level as far as I can tell).

Techpriest study goes something like this (source: Dark Heresy, and a few bits of dialogue in the Cain series):
1: First, they study patterns of manufacture, so that they can identify and catalogue approved technology.
2: They learn how to conduct simple, heavy repairs such as armor and manufactorum repair.
3: They learn how to repair electrical systems.
4: They become Enginseers, and combine the previous knowledge into being able to repair more complex technology.
5: After surpassing the rank of Enginseer, they're gradually brought into the deeper secrets of the Mechanicum, and are sent to seek out and study the more ancient bits of technology.
6: They eventually choose a specific domain of study, and perfect it until they achieve the rank of Magos, and only then can one say that they actually understand the technology that they deal with.

Those of the rank of Magos or higher are the only ones taht actually conduct scientific study, and even then, only those that are not stuck in clerical or administrative positions.

So... yeah. The majority of the Adeptus Mechanicus do not know much about the technology they maintain.


2: No, but then the more complex Eldar technology is often unusable by non-psykers as it is designed for a psychic race. They're also probably ignorant of non-Eldar technology. Simpler Eldar technology, such as shuriken cannons, are researched and vaguely understood by the Ordo Xenos of the Inquisition, and some Magos of (or Hereteks formerly of) the Mechanicus.

3: Mekboyz have an instinctive understanding of chemistry, mechanics, electronics, physics, and so on. The understanding of science is in their genes, which means that they know it subconsciously even if they do not know it intellectually.

Ignorant /= stupid.

So far you've made points that each of these entities is ignorant in some way or another, but not that any of them are stupid, thus contradicting your previous statement that only stupid people in the 40k universe believe that magic and technology are the same thing.

And again, please explain Chaos technology. It wouldn't function without magic. The Machine Spirit (as of 4ed) is no longer present in Chaos tanks, they rely on the Daemons possessing them to function.

You might notice, if you go back and read the post, that I said "the common person". Do not put words into my posts that are not there.

As for Chaos Technology? Chaos technology isn't "magic" to begin with. Even the Imperium has organizations that scientifically study psychic and warp powers (the Adeptus Astra Telepathica for example). Sorcery is done via specific rituals that follow specific rules, and the results of which are testable, falsifiable, and reproducible. Thus, sorcery would be classified as its own science (a science forbidden by the Imperium to be sure, but still a science).

Yes, when dealing with warp entities Chaos is as its name suggests (after all, they have their own ideas and agendas, so it is to be expected), but even then the entities of the warp still abide by rules. The effects of True Names for instance, as well as existence in Materium being a very difficult thing for warp entities.

It is thus "warp technology", IE, technology that utilizes the warp, which in the 40k galaxy is a naturally occurring phenomenon. The Imperium uses warp technology, too, after all: psychic hoods, force weapons, interstellar travel, and so on. Eldar use it, too in much the same way. That the common human applies mysticism to technology and even the warp does not mean it is necessarily so.

It reminds me of DnD Wizards, who are effectively scientists that study "magic".

When did I say magic wasn't science?