Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm not sure if this was covered in the recent books, but exactly when did they build the network? Was it before their biotransference? before the war in the heaven? And what was the Necron(tyr)'s relation to Chaos or whatever the network was set up to defend against?

who said they built it?

It's always been implied that they are of Necron design but why I don't know, I assume it was to do exactly what they were doing, holding back the spread of the Eye of Terror. But how would they have known that long ago, before the fall of the Eldar. It's not impossible that they knew about it as Orikan was supposed to have Devinered it.

The warp is a major weakness of the C'tan / Necron so I guess it was a way to prevent something that they find anathema to them.

In Eldar myths there was a story how Asuryan created a great barrier that separated the realm of the gods from mortals for all eternity. I think that pylons on Cadia and other planets are how it happened in reality.

Interesting thought of it being attributed to Asuryan. There's a really interesting theory that I personally think holds merit, which is that the Eldar Pantheon is the manifested racial memory of the big players in the War in Heaven (both Necrontyr/C'Tan and Old One).

It's based on an (admittedly older) bit of fluff which states that in the myths of the Eldar some Gods (and some C'Tan) fought on both sides of the conflict, the similarity in feats of Cegorach and The Deceiver, and the fact that two conflicts are both called 'The War in Heaven' so they might be the same conflict hazily remembered from two sides.

The timeline sort of goes like this.

1. Old Ones and C'Tan begin their throwdown. Races are created and manipulated into warriors, and players swap sides for whatever passed as political maneuvering at that point.
2. War in Heaven concludes and the Old Ones are genocided, the C'Tan fractured or whatever, and the Necrons go to sleep.
3. The Eldar, through their heightened psychic abilities, manifest entirely new warp-deities based on their recollection of the Old Ones/C'Tan who appeared to fight on their side. Distinct entities, but sort of reflections of what the Eldar believed the Old Ones/C'Tan were like.

This implies that Cegorach is a racial memory of The Deceiver, which fits both their attitudes and the fact that each are stated to have played both sides in the conflict.

There's also the implication that other Eldar Gods could be reflections of C'Tan, rather than Old Ones, who appeared to fight on their side at one point or another. I'd assumed Vaul would be a good candidate, but I'm not so sure the fit's there.

I hadn't made the connection yet between proto-Asuryan and the Necron Pylons though, but it fits really nicely. Asuryan is stated to have separated the warp from the materium. Could it be that myth is related to the Pylons that dot the galaxy? Could Asuryan be a reflection of a C'Tan? It's interesting at least.

The other, slightly more mundane explanation, is that they're in some way a weapon/tool used by the Necrons/C'Tan/Necrontyr in their fight against the Old Ones. The Old Ones relied heavily on their psychic might and the psychic might of their warrior-races. Having devices which could nullify the warp presence at strategic locations would be a massive boon to the Necron war machine. The question would be, then, why would the Eldar not have destroyed them given they were the artifacts of a hated enemy so close to their home-systems? Hiding something there?

Personally, I think their proximity to the Eye of Terror is utter (lucky) coincidence. Having Orikan the Diviner predict that from 60 million years in the future, involving the prediction of the behaviour of a warp-god (while the Necrons are stated as having no real understanding of the warp aside from its effects in realspace), doesn't strike me as something that's believable. Doesn't mean that the writers won't try to make it true, but it's utterly hamfisted Mary-Sue universe-breaking levels of power ascribed to the already technologically ridiculous Newcrons, to the point that there isn't the slightest of points even trying to resist the Necrons because Orikan's already had it planned out 60 million years ahead of time. It'd be a shame to see that be the explanation.

So they were built long before the reign of men.

I may remember incorrectly, I thought it was established that they were there by Necron design in the last gathering storm series.

"Today" there are chaos space marines - were there similarly chaos versions of other races back then (long before men), ie Chaos Eldar? or Chaos orks? and perhaps Chaos necrons for that matter?

I actually think the pylons are there by coincidence.
The thing about the pylons is that they were a hold-over from 3rd ed, back when necrons were servants of the C'tan and not robot flavored egyptians.

Back then it was pretty explicitly stated that the C'tan's end game was to separate the material world from the warp so they can feed on mortals unmolested, hence the pylons.

But then the retcon came along and pretty much wrecked that plot thread, which is why it doesn't really make that much sense anymore, because necrons are no longer explicitly anti-warp like they were before and following the great plan.
So yeah, gakky retcon is gakky.

As for chaos necrons...its funny that you mention that, because before necrons were a thing, there was a model called a chaos android, that would later on serve as the inspiration for the Necrons.
As for there to be actually chaos necrons...no, because their entire deal is that they are the opposite of the warp. Order as opposed to chaos, in other words. Or at least that's how it was to begin with. Idk what GW is trying to do with them now.

As for chaos corrupted races during the war in heaven...maybe. There were certainly warp entities that the Old Ones were worried about, but iirc they tended to make their creations resistant to corruption. Orks are supposed to be really hard to turn to chaos, and there have been nothing that I can remember about chaos Eldar cultists.
Prior to the retcon, the reason why the Necrons and C'tan went into hiding was to escape the Enslaver plague, that was killing off of the C'tan food supply.
The Enslavers were also a problem for the Eldar, as they liked going after psykers.
Nowaday that doesn't exist anymore, because we can't have cool things.

I think they were built during the War in Heaven.

In the old story line the Old Ones used warp technology to attack the C'tan Star Gods who led the Necrons. (The Talismans of Vaul/ Blackstone Fortresses are examples of these weapons)
The C'tan ordered the Necrons to build the Pylons to seal of the material realm from the warp to render these weapons useless.

There are pylons all over the place as stated in 'The Gathering Storm'. I'm not sure that the ones on Cadia were of any particular significance before the creation of the Eye of Terror.
In campaigns like Medusa V the Necrons were still following this plan to seal off the warp from the material universe by constructing pylons to seal off the material universe and allow the red harvests of the C'tan to proceed in peace.

The introduction of the new Necron backround muddies the waters a bit, but I haven't seen anything that directly contradictions this purpose of the Pylons.

torblind wrote:
So they were built long before the reign of men.

I may remember incorrectly, I thought it was established that they were there by Necron design in the last gathering storm series.

"Today" there are chaos space marines - were there similarly chaos versions of other races back then (long before men), ie Chaos Eldar? or Chaos orks? and perhaps Chaos necrons for that matter?

I'm not certain, but I'd lean towards 'no' for each of those.

Firstly, it appears that the Chaos Gods are principally human creations. It is possible that their current incarnations are only reflecting the majority-human galaxy though. They're stated as always having existed, but given the weird way the warp interacts with time that probably doesn't mean all that much to be honest. It's a bit of headcanon of mine that they used to be relatively benevolent warp-entities before the War in Heaven, who were then violently twisted into the malefic entities we know today by the horrors unleashed during that war. Always existed. Not always been horrific.

As for each individual example, here's why they're unlikely but also why they could exist.

Chaos Eldar are probably unlikely for a number of reasons. Post-Fall their souls are the property of Slaanesh. No real reason to not have some souls be captive by other Chaos Gods to taunt Slaanesh with, or Slaanesh resurrecting some as playthings. Possible, but probably exceedingly rare (only one real mention in the fluff from ages ago, and now a very nicely enticing picture in the latest rulebook). Pre-Fall they probably had their Gods to protect them, although again there's probably not all that much stopping them from falling to Chaos. It's stated that in those days the warp didn't have the same hunger for Eldar souls, so it's possible they weren't that desirable then.

Chaos Orks have had mention in the fluff, but the Orks have a sort of in-built control mechanism for it. Basically, anything deemed to be too 'un-Orky' gets beaten to a pulp by the rest of the Boyz. Not sure about during the War in Heaven. Perhaps that was some sort of defence against meddling in the galactic-scale superweapon that is the Orks. You wouldn't want them suddenly turning their guns on you, would you? Best keep them Orky and busy krumpin' anything that wasn't Orky. Still, nothing to stop you fluffing something with corrupted Orks.

Chaos Necrons is probably the least likely of all three. Back when they were Necrontyr it might have been possible, but like the Tau they were psychically blunt and so the equivalent of eating gruel made from mashed up paper to warp-predators. That was if there were even that many warp predators or Chaos Gods around at that point. After they made the bio-transference I'd argue that they're one of the few things it's impossible to corrupt daemonically. Daemons work exclusively in souls. They can possess things like weapons and axes because even the most basic things have some sort of rudimentary soul. However, the Necrons are specifically described as being completely soul-less. Not some sort of soul-negative like a blank, but simply without a soul anymore. To use an analogy, if a soul has a positive charge and attracts daemons, a blank has negative charge and repels them, and the Necrons are just...nothing. I'm surprised that daemons can even sense Necrons, given that they basically see things by their souls. Probably they know they're there by the shadow they cast on the souls of everything around them (even stuff like dirt). Perhaps it's possible, but I can't think of a way that fits what we actually know about the warp.

That is just those three races mind you, which appear to have specific reasons they don't fall to Chaos. Anything else is fair game as far as I can see, provided they don't have a similar barrier. We know of at least three other xenos species who have fallen to Chaos (the Laer and the Sslyth...provided they're not the same species, and the Yu'uvath).

Chaos Necrons is probably the least likely of all three.

Yea that would be crazy, they would be like some sort of Chaos Android or something.

Who would even manufacture such a thing, Chaos Squats?!

 Kroem wrote:

Chaos Necrons is probably the least likely of all three.

Yea that would be crazy, they would be like some sort of Chaos Android or something.

Who would even manufacture such a thing, Chaos Squats?!

Hehe, I'm aware of their origins

You are right though, the Necrons have no souls so they shouldn't be able to join Chaos.

Although... the Men of Iron presumably also have no souls and appear to have been corrupted by Chaos.

War machines and swords can also host daemons, so perhaps a Necron could become a Daemonhost with the proper rituals.
They are a bugger to capture though as they phase out. I doubt the Chaos has any more understanding of their technologies than the Imperium.

One could say that machines do have a soul though, hence the machine spirit.
It could be that the Machine Spirit refers to the AI, or it could be that machines do actually have souls.

If one knows a bit about animism or shintoism, then it makes a little bit more sense.
In animism, everything has a soul or spirit, even inanimate objects. Shintoism is similar, but everything has a god associated with it, instead of just a soul. Though its semantics, really.
Not sure if GW was reading up on that kind of believe system when coming up with the concept of demonically possessed machines though.
Its possible. I mean, we already have references to the bible, some references to norse mythology, egyptian mythology. I think the eldar stuff has its roots in old celtic myth too.

 Kroem wrote:
You are right though, the Necrons have no souls so they shouldn't be able to join Chaos.

Although... the Men of Iron presumably also have no souls and appear to have been corrupted by Chaos.

War machines and swords can also host daemons, so perhaps a Necron could become a Daemonhost with the proper rituals.
They are a bugger to capture though as they phase out. I doubt the Chaos has any more understanding of their technologies than the Imperium.

Yeah that seems sensible. Although I'd suggest that Necrons are probably a little different from the Men of Iron and other bits of machinery. Everything apparently has some form of rudimentary soul. Presumably the inanimate pre-biotransference Necron machines did too. However, the biotransference specifically robbed them of their souls (unless that's been retconned by the steaming pile that was 5th ed. Newcron fluff). It also sort of fits with the idea that the Necrons are weapons against the Old Ones. No doubt the Old Ones with their consummate understanding of the warp would have known about possession, and would be able to use it to their advantage in a conflict. Creating soldiers that are completely immune to that would be a very useful advantage.

That's what I'm thinking anyway. May well be wrong

I'd say that the Men of Iron would have had souls. If not by dint of their being intelligent enough to generate one, just by being something in the physical universe. I reckon humanity's insistence that they're 'soulless machines' is more of a primitive fear of AI born from their rebellion, using poorly understood pseudoscience and constructed as faith down the ages.

Less to do with whether they actually had a soul or not. More to do with ensuring that humanity only trusts machines that are dumb enough not to rebel against them (by ensuring they only use human-based cogitator units).

Again, could be wrong too

Man the Necron Retcon was the worse thing that could happen to 40k...

I get why they did it... (necron characters) but still it was the worst idea they ever had

GodDamUser wrote:
Man the Necron Retcon was the worse thing that could happen to 40k...

I get why they did it... (necron characters) but still it was the worst idea they ever had

The bad thing is is that it what wholly and utterly unnecessary to nuke the Oldcron fluff to bring some character to the Necrons.

Keep absolutely everything the same (perhaps keep the sharded C'Tan thing as I like that. Makes the Necrons seems scarier that they've genocided not just one but both of the most powerful species the galaxy has ever seen). However, just start giving the slightest of bubbling hints that something might still be in there for some of the Necrons. Start a codex in advance (restraint! shock horror...), then slowly bring out some of the twisted personalities of 60 million-year-old soul-less alien robots.

Leave it completely open as to whether these oddities (Lords who appear on the outside to have personality) are actually genuinely the same Necrontyr minds, robots believing they're Necrontyr, or something else entirely that's sparked in their 60 million-year slumber. Make them less senile old coots, more terrifying after-images of robotic consciousness.

Less dude in a robo-toga:


And more this:


If you want individualisation for special characters, for the love of God don't do it in arbitrary facial changes. Makes them look like Power Rangers.



Central to the Necron's story is how they sold their soul, their humanity (Necrontyrness?), their bodies, everything just to win the war with the Old Ones. Make that continue into their current iteration, where their special spangly dudes are the ones who have sold their humanity even further. You could go to town with a load of dudes given real (creepy) Necron body-modification above and beyond Wraiths and Destroyers.

Key to all of that is mystery. Don't give an explanation for why these characters have done this to themselves. Hell, don't even give them names. Call them 'The Spider Lord', 'The Carrion Lord', 'The Depth-Dweller'. Then, give just the smallest of hints that this is all stuff these Lord do of their own volition in the present and let people make up their own nightmare robotic beasties. It's like daemons for the squeamish (but curiously un-arachnophobic).

Oh, and leave the tired space-egyptian thing on Prospero where it belongs. One set of space-egyptians is altogether enough for a single fantasy universe. If you want some sort of real-world inspiration then Aztecs would be neat, although keep the aztec-y visuals to a minimum. More for the overall feel of the faction.

Lastly on the rambling mystery thing, that's absolutely and utterly key. Don't tell anyone anything straight about them. They've literally just woken up from a 60-million year sleep and even the Eldar barely remember them. If you want to tell us something about them, make it come from a third party's horrific experience with them. Lets say you want to insinuate that the Necrons really did genocide the Old Ones. Don't just say 'they wiped them out'. Set up a little story of an Eldar who was wounded but not killed when Necrons rose. Have a Lord walk up to it, and silently place a finger on the Eldar's head and impart a vision of the death of their creators directly into its mind, searing its brain clean shortly afterwards.

This does a number of things.
1. The Necrons look badass
2. Subtly suggests that there is still some personality still in there. An automaton would just blast the Eldar out of existence. Torture takes intelligence, especially of the mental sort.
3. Makes it pretty damn clear that the Necrons hate the Eldar
4. Suggests that the Necrons really did wipe out the Old Ones, but with an air of complete deniability. This could simply be a vision created purely to punish a hated foe. Or they could really have done it. We have our suspicions, but it's still shrouded in mystery.

Instead, we've got Necron Policemen...

I'll stop rambling now. Could go on about this forever!

I'm not too opposed to the Newcron background. I used to collect Tomb Kings in Fantasy and, if I'm honest, the fact that the majority of the Army had no individual personality made it difficult to stay interested, create narrative scenarios etc. and the Oldcrons were even worse in that regard.

As the post above points out, they were bloody hamfisted in the way they introduced it though!

I liked how most of the 3rd edition lore was delivered from the Imperial point of view in the form of reports, theories, treatises and the like. This lent an air of the 'unreliable narrator' to the Codex and maintained the mystery surrounding the origins and motivations of the Xenos factions.

Well yeah, that's the point behind oldcrons; the fluff wasn't about them and their life story, it was about how the rest of the galaxy was going to deal with them.
It was a horror story, and they are the monsters. Did the zombies in the Living Dead have personality and quirks? No, they ate people, and the main characters ran from them.

Another thing I keep seeing people say is that the necrons were the same as nids. No, they weren't, only on a superficial level. There were clear nuances that separated them.

Nids were an outside exterrestial threat.

Necrons were an ancient, local threat.

Nids wanted to eat everyone.

Necrons wanted to cull most life, but leave some alive to serve as cattle for the gods. Complete genocide was not their primary objective, because if you used a little bit of logic, you'll find it contradictory to the C'tan's plans of making a galaxy wide, sustainable buffet, all to themselves

But of course, everyone missed such nuances, so GW just had to change everything in the most heavy handed approach possible, changing a bunch of the necron flavor in the process and throwing most of the horror aspects in the bin.

I never liked the plot thread about the necrons destroying the C'tan either. It never made sense to me.
For starters, why would the C'tan allow their slaves to destroy them? That doesn't make sense. What, were they to lazy to install a "do not destroy your master, please" program?
Likewise, why would they ever give the necrons the means to destroy them in the first place?
It would make more sense if the C'tan were shattered / wounded by the blackstar fortresses and had to go into hibernation, and in their absence the overlords regained control, and sealed away the crippled C'tan, and that's how the current independent overlords came to be.
But nope, gotta inflate that power level even higher, because Ward's gonna Ward.

@Ynnead

Its funny you mention the Aztecs, because there was an Aztec god of life, death and rebirth named Xipe Totec. His priests wore robes made of flayed human skin.

Also, RE: Prospero's egyptian influences and necron




Context : Magnus sent the necrons a C&D letter telling them to stop taking his Egyptian Shick.

Yes exactly, the necrons did not put pylons directly on the Cadian Gate knowing that the Eye would spread there.
It is most probably that the Eye spread until the Gate, and no further THANKS to the pylon.
Indeed, in Gathering Storm, Abby's plan is to destroy the pylons to help spread the warp IIRC.

IIRC again, saying necrons are soulless is plain false. They have transfered their soul into their new body.
So we could say that they are just a soul, in fact. That all that remains of them.
It is more an in universe thing to tell they are "soulless".

Eventually, the men of iron were corrupted because they had no soul, and this is why the Admech use organic parts, servirtors, to make its machines: to protect them thanks to the soul of the poor guy(s).
This is why IA is bad, without soul to protects itself, it is easy to corrupt.

saying necrons are soulless is plain false

I don't have the Necron codex (most of mine are from 3rd anyway!) but I though that I read somewhere of the C'tan chilling above the soulforges absorbing the Nectrontr souls as their intelligence was transferred into their new bodies.
Greater minds have spent much longer defining the nature of the soul anyway, so I doubt we will solve it here!

CthuluIsSpy brings up some excellent points about how the nature of the Necron background has changed, they have gone from unknown horror to more of a Xenos techno-empire.
I think they have left plenty of space in the new background to still play the unknowable horror element of them though.

The best portrayal of Necrons is the Dead Men Walking imo. That portrayal of them is just so Alien and undecipherable, excellent characterisation.

Mmm, I guess you are right, maybe it was old fluff.I was remembering ?

Pretty sure even back then they were described as soulless.
In fact, on the very first page of the 3rd ed necron codex (well, page 2, but page 1 is a table of contents), they are described as "immortal, soulless warriors" in the introduction.

Well if the necrons put the pylons up, wouldn't they have a vested interest in getting the necron band back together to install a whole slew of new pylons to drive the warpstorms and chaos out of real space?

Hasn't chaos (legions) just painted a giant target on themselves as the necrons were fighting chaos (in this case Old Ones/their soldier races using the warp) before even the chaos gods existed?

What is stopping Abbaddon and his peeps from getting royally ass kicked by the original chaos ass kickers? Go team Necron!*


*which of course will lead to a giant galaxy wide waugh as the Ork's gestalt gods realize their old krumpin buddies have come out to play.Thus leading to the necron/Kroork 41K Reunion Tour**
**in the end only the coachroaches and grox survive. Next up..Codex Grox!

yes I'll take my meds now nurse.

Well if the Necrons put the pylons up, wouldn't they have a vested interest in getting the necron band back together to install a whole slew of new pylons to drive the warpstorms and chaos out of real space?

But if the Necrons only tried to separate the warp from realspace because the warp was a danger to their C'Tan masters, why would they care about erecting pylons any more?

I think that officially they still erected pylons on Medusa V during the global campaign, but since the retcon it is unclear to me for what purpose.

Wasn't it to avoid Medusa V getting destroyed by the warpstorm ?

That would make some sense, they wanted to isolate Medusa from the warp so that they could conduct their red harvest in peace didn't they?

Do Newcrons still even do red harvests? What is their motivation for them?

 Kroem wrote:
That would make some sense, they wanted to isolate Medusa from the warp so that they could conduct their red harvest in peace didn't they?

Do Newcrons still even do red harvests? What is their motivation for them?

Well the meat bags might, but theyre next to useless on ttt.
Think thats been appropriated by a marine chapter or two, (NL and Carcharodon) that sounded like it was good idea. As usual must make marines.

 Kroem wrote:

The best portrayal of Necrons is the Dead Men Walking imo. That portrayal of them is just so Alien and undecipherable, excellent characterisation.

I couldn't agree more! (Note I haven't read any other novels with necrons in them yet), but it was beautifully shown how they are not a force of evil per se, they are just a force that clears the space around them where they surface, and if you are there, sure they may seem evil, but its never about you. You are a speck.

That's how it should be. The necrons don't care about you, you're nothing but cattle to them. To them its not a war or even conquest, its just pest control.

Which is why the notion of honorable necrons is so jarring, because that flies in the face of that sort of theme, as suddenly you have Overlords making treaties with a species that in the past they considered insignificant vermin, or rather fodder for the C'tan.

To quote Dio Brando from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, when asked how many people he ate to heal his wounds (he's a vampire) : "Do you count how many loaves of bread you've eaten?"
That's how the C'tan and the Necrons should be. Impersonal and generally uncaring about lifeforms. Not this honor warrior nonsense

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
That's how it should be. The necrons don't care about you, you're nothing but cattle to them. To them its not a war or even conquest, its just pest control.

Which is why the notion of honorable necrons is so jarring, because that flies in the face of that sort of theme, as suddenly you have Overlords making treaties with a species that in the past they considered insignificant vermin, or rather fodder for the C'tan.

To quote Dio Brando from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, when asked how many people he ate to heal his wounds (he's a vampire) : "Do you count how many loaves of bread you've eaten?"
That's how the C'tan and the Necrons should be. Impersonal and generally uncaring about lifeforms. Not this honor warrior nonsense

Time and again I read your posts about Necrons and think 'this guy gets it'. Absolutely spot-on

I think the Oldcron fluff did pull quite strongly from from Aztec mythology and was all the better for it. Things like Xipe Totec the Flayed God and sacrificing beings to hungering Sun-Gods.

@kroem you get it too. The way that the Oldcron fluff was entirely relayed by other people's patchy reports of them was a masterstroke. I used to have a bit of headcanon (still do seeing as most of my Newcrons is headcanon) where the Necrons couldn't even speak to the other races. Why would they? They've been sleeping for 60 million years. Whole space-faring species have evolved and been genocided in that time, let along languages. So how, precisely, are we supposed to know about their political structure? Everything we know should be from other people's patchy, terrified reports from survivors, and the musings of semi-deranged Tech Magi. It's not as if they've got an exchange program where we find all this stuff out.

Is Dead Men Walking the one where they've got a scene where the Necrons have this sort of processing plant for biologicals where they're sort of cubed up into their constituent parts? If so, then yeah. That's a brilliant depiction of them