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 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
All could produce viable young.

Also, with reference to above comments, Ratlings, Squats, Ogryns etc are all 'Abhumans' rather than 'Mutants' in Imperial eyes, so they will be subject to prejudices and on some worlds outright hostility due to ignorance of imperial law, but they are recognized and not subject to the open hostilities that random, unstable mutants suffer. Also note that in Abnett's books, the Imperium keeps an eye on mutants to ensure they are the result of toxins and such and not the warp, warp mutants get treated to the flamer, no questions asked.

Abhumans are regional variants of the human being, just adapted to an extreme, there are lesser abhumans throughout the imperium that are either classified as the Ogryn or Ratlings are or just lumped in with regular humans but noted for being tall and reedy or hunched and large eyed etc.

I'm pretty sure an Ogryn fetus would irreparably damage a human woman's birth canal and womb even if the Ogryn's erm...wood...didn't.

 Darth Bob wrote:
Altering the human form IS considered heresy.

Altering human form heresy? What exactly are space marines then?

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

 Darth Bob wrote:
Altering the human form IS considered heresy.

Altering human form heresy? What exactly are space marines then?

I didn't say that. You misquoted.

However, since the Space Marines were created directly by the Emperor before any Inquisitorial concept of "heresy" was even invented, it's likely that they are an exception. Same with the Mechanicum adepts who alter their body with mechanical augmentations.

Possible, but improbable. Considering that the Imperium sees Ogryns, Ratlings and other Abhumans as lesser species, they wouldn't breed. Think about it in the sense of a full-blown Nazi getting it on with a Jew, it just doesn't work out too well...

 BrotherOfBone wrote:
Possible, but improbable. Considering that the Imperium sees Ogryns, Ratlings and other Abhumans as lesser species, they wouldn't breed. Think about it in the sense of a full-blown Nazi getting it on with a Jew, it just doesn't work out too well...

Problem there is that sociopathic soldiers are known to rape women in war-zones. That is basically in my mind the reason for why a soldier should execute a fellow soldier IRL, and sure the IOM don't care about human right much, but rapists are basically the pawns of Slaanesh and should be put down as quick as possible.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:
I mean ratlings are just promiscuous things and could easily bed humans.

?



Well, whatever floats your boat man, lol.

You know what they say about big feet... No shoes will fit. Get your minds out of the gutter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:

 Darth Bob wrote:
Altering the human form IS considered heresy.

Altering human form heresy? What exactly are space marines then?

and tech priests

I think the real question here.

"If we breed an Ogryn and Ratling, Do we get a human?"

And there is the rumor that Captain Diomedes of the Blood ravens is infact half Ogryn and half Baneblade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvB2oE-BsJo

It depends...
They might be able to make a hybrid but that's as far as it would go...

And what do you think that would entail? I mean a Ratling/Ogryn-hybrid? Homo Sapiens? Or horrible misfit?

A hybrid cannot breed, it's impossible.
Ligers, that weird zebra horse, the grolar bear are all sterile or at least cannot breed.
That said if a human can breed with a ogryn or ratling I'd imagine the offspring (Assuming it wasn't horribly mutated) would be an interesting sight depending on which genes were dominant or recessive...

 purplefood wrote:
A hybrid cannot breed, it's impossible.
Ligers, that weird zebra horse, the grolar bear are all sterile or at least cannot breed.

This is not true, there are many, many known cases in nature and in the lab were there have been successful back crosses made from the F1 and subsequent generations to one or both parental species. This is well known in plants and animals. If you want to read up on it there is a very good but fairly old paper by A. R. Templeton in the book "Speciation and its Consequences" Its actually a book chapter on the cohesion concept of species. And yes, wikipedia will fail on this subject I am afraid.

Sounds like a really bad, obscure porno...

I would say no, they can't, which is why they're considered separate from human in-lore.

 Beaviz81 wrote:
Can Ratlings and Ogryns breed with humans? And would breed one with the other produce a normal human?

It would be like mating a Great Dane with a chihuahua. Either they just wouldn't fit or the pregnancy would be difficult. Also genetics doesn't work like that, you can't just cross an ogre with a midget and get an average sized person out the other end.

 Melissia wrote:
Sounds like a really bad, obscure porno...

I would say no, they can't, which is why they're considered separate from human in-lore.

Which of course means that the Imperial aristocracy consumes it en masse.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:


It would be like mating a Great Dane with a chihuahua. Either they just wouldn't fit or the pregnancy would be difficult. Also genetics doesn't work like that, you can't just cross an ogre with a midget and get an average sized person out the other end.

We shall call it The "DIRE Chihuahua". in the land makebelieve(40k) anything is possible

JWhex wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
A hybrid cannot breed, it's impossible.
Ligers, that weird zebra horse, the grolar bear are all sterile or at least cannot breed.

This is not true, there are many, many known cases in nature and in the lab were there have been successful back crosses made from the F1 and subsequent generations to one or both parental species. This is well known in plants and animals. If you want to read up on it there is a very good but fairly old paper by A. R. Templeton in the book "Speciation and its Consequences" Its actually a book chapter on the cohesion concept of species. And yes, wikipedia will fail on this subject I am afraid.

I would assume it's an inter specific hybrid which as far as my biology A level was concerned were sterile most of the time (If not all of the time)
We don't have enough information on either Ogryns or Ratlings to guess at what would happen...

You can have hybrids between organisms of a different species or less commonly different genus. Don't forget that species classification is something humans impose on nature to catagorise it. The generic diversity between two species and their ability to hybridise varies quite a bit.

Hybrids are often low fertility or sterile, but some are fertile. Often it's because of chromosome mismatches meaning you can't divide the cell effectively for forming haploid sex cells, other times the clash of genes causes growth problems and the embryo to abort. It's interesting that plants are very tolerant of hybrids between quite different species, where chromosomes of very different sizes can still pair in a hybrid and they still create viable seed. Animals hybridise less readily, but you do get viable offspring between closely related species.

On a more fluff worthy note. I think it's interesting that quite obvious 'mutants' that the Imperium wish to accept are called 'abhumans'. Yet, once upon a time beast men were 'abhumans' and served in the imperial guard. Then sometime after the Heresy they were then decided to be mutants to be destroyed. Seems that the Imperium pick and choose what abnormalities make you a mutant to be hated or an abhuman to be accepted.

It will not be allowed, even humans of different races are not allowed to mix, as I read in Ciaphias Cain hero of the imperium; there was a scene where a african guardsmen was executed when it was found out that his wife was white and his wife was burned on the stake

figures, as this is a very grimdark universe

bosobo wrote:
It will not be allowed, even humans of different races are not allowed to mix, as I read in Ciaphias Cain hero of the imperium; there was a scene where a african guardsmen was executed when it was found out that his wife was white and his wife was burned on the stake

figures, as this is a very grimdark universe

[citation needed]

Because I own the entire series and I never read that.

And the distinction of "African" and "European" is utterly meaningless to the Imperium when all the continents of holy terra have long disappered under mankind's structures.

 Kain wrote:

bosobo wrote:
It will not be allowed, even humans of different races are not allowed to mix, as I read in Ciaphias Cain hero of the imperium; there was a scene where a african guardsmen was executed when it was found out that his wife was white and his wife was burned on the stake

figures, as this is a very grimdark universe

[citation needed]

Because I own the entire series and I never read that.

And the distinction of "African" and "European" is utterly meaningless to the Imperium when all the continents of holy terra have long disappered under mankind's structures.

Never read the book, I just remember hearing it in a miniwargaming stream where they review the book

bosobo wrote:

 Kain wrote:

bosobo wrote:
It will not be allowed, even humans of different races are not allowed to mix, as I read in Ciaphias Cain hero of the imperium; there was a scene where a african guardsmen was executed when it was found out that his wife was white and his wife was burned on the stake

figures, as this is a very grimdark universe

[citation needed]

Because I own the entire series and I never read that.

And the distinction of "African" and "European" is utterly meaningless to the Imperium when all the continents of holy terra have long disappered under mankind's structures.

Never read the book, I just remember hearing it in a miniwargaming stream where they review the book

I call BS then because I can tell you no such thing happens in any of the nine cain books I've read.

 Kain wrote:

bosobo wrote:

 Kain wrote:

bosobo wrote:
It will not be allowed, even humans of different races are not allowed to mix, as I read in Ciaphias Cain hero of the imperium; there was a scene where a african guardsmen was executed when it was found out that his wife was white and his wife was burned on the stake

figures, as this is a very grimdark universe

[citation needed]

Because I own the entire series and I never read that.

And the distinction of "African" and "European" is utterly meaningless to the Imperium when all the continents of holy terra have long disappered under mankind's structures.

Never read the book, I just remember hearing it in a miniwargaming stream where they review the book

I call BS then because I can tell you no such thing happens in any of the nine cain books I've read.

It makes sense the imperium is basically nazi germany and there has never been any canon of black people(Catachans are not canon, GW confirmed last GT where they plan to remove the catachan line and none of the dawn of war games are canon either)

Catachan are canon but they are not usually depicted as black. Tallarn (Arabic) are also canon.

There has never been anything saying there aren't black people in the Imperium and given how colossal it is i think it is safe to say there is certainly some black people.

The Imperium doesn't care about skin or gender. You will fight, work and die for the Imperium regardless.

bosobo wrote:
It will not be allowed, even humans of different races are not allowed to mix, as I read in Ciaphias Cain hero of the imperium; there was a scene where a african guardsmen was executed when it was found out that his wife was white and his wife was burned on the stake

figures, as this is a very grimdark universe

Uh... what?

40K might be seriously grimdark, but one thing Humanity *has* done away with in the 41st is our Earth-based concepts of "race". White, brown, red, black, yellow... Humanity does not give one single feth what color your skin is as long as you type Homo Sapiens in the genecoders and are willing to kill that green roaring thing over there.

And, no, the Imperium is *not* Nazi Germany. It uses some trappings that are reminiscent of the 3rd Reich, but is *not* a fictionalized proponent of fascism or Naziism.

And there *is* no 40K canon. What did or did not happen at GT regarding a specific product line that GW produces does not, in any way, impact the canon of a setting that doesn't have a canon in the first place. If we were going to play that game, I would point out that the best pilots in the galaxy, according to Dan Abnett, are Glavians, who are all black.