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 Gamgee wrote:

 Grumblewartz wrote:
...what?

I agree wtf.

JUST AS PLANNED!

 Peregrine wrote:

 KharnsRightHand wrote:
So you present us with the ultimate Mary Sue, super awesome, powerful, simulates universes in nanoseconds because it's bored, uber smart and better than anything, destroys stars with a glance, totally-unbeatable-guys-seriously race, and ask us if it would beat someone? Why even ask? You clearly already know it would win and nobody has convinced you otherwise yet.

I ask for the same reason that there's a "40k vs. real world" thread, where the only acceptable answer seems to be "40k slaughters everything and real-world weapons can't even scratch the paint on a marine's armor". Now 40k gets to be on the losing end of the war.

That seems like a strangely petty reason to ask something. "You guys all say X wins, so I will ask a question in which X must lose because...reasons." What. Is. The. Point.?

The Culture ship lacks psychic defense or even awareness. It gets eaten alive by the first technomancer, dark mechanicus adept or Daemon it encounters.

 Ashiraya wrote:
The Culture ship lacks psychic defense or even awareness. It gets eaten alive by the first technomancer, dark mechanicus adept or Daemon it encounters.

Wouldn't the people aboard the culture ship be blanks since they are from a Universe where the warp doesn't exist and therefore don't have souls?

I miss Banks. How fun would it have been for him to write a Culture meets 40k mashup for kicks? On the other hand, it would just take time away for him to write straight up Culture novels.

 Ashiraya wrote:
The Culture ship lacks psychic defense or even awareness. It gets eaten alive by the first technomancer, dark mechanicus adept or Daemon it encounters.

This seems rather unlikely given that the Tau, who also have no psychic defense and laughably poor awareness, don't auto-lose to those things.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
The Culture ship lacks psychic defense or even awareness. It gets eaten alive by the first technomancer, dark mechanicus adept or Daemon it encounters.

This seems rather unlikely given that the Tau, who also have no psychic defense and laughably poor awareness, don't auto-lose to those things.

That's because Tau are beings with minimal presence in the warp. Assuming that Culture humans have souls they would be very susceptible to Chaos corruption. Remember, an open mind is like a fortress with the gates open and walls unguarded.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
The Culture ship lacks psychic defense or even awareness. It gets eaten alive by the first technomancer, dark mechanicus adept or Daemon it encounters.

This seems rather unlikely given that the Tau, who also have no psychic defense and laughably poor awareness, don't auto-lose to those things.

That's because Tau are beings with minimal presence in the warp. Assuming that Culture humans have souls they would be very susceptible to Chaos corruption. Remember, an open mind is like a fortress with the gates open and walls unguarded.

This is actually a pretty fair counter point; that it almost entirely boils down to whether The Culture have souls in the 40k sense.

If they do, they'd probably be fethed. If they're like the Tau (mere crumbs in comparison to the cookies of other races), they'd be fine.. Until they started to show serious potential for wiping out that galaxy. At which point the Chaos Gods would start paying attention to the crumbs and destroy them, so they couldn't ruin the entire box of cookies.

 morganfreeman wrote:
This is actually a pretty fair counter point; that it almost entirely boils down to whether The Culture have souls in the 40k sense.

If they do, they'd probably be fethed. If they're like the Tau (mere crumbs in comparison to the cookies of other races), they'd be fine.. Until they started to show serious potential for wiping out that galaxy. At which point the Chaos Gods would start paying attention to the crumbs and destroy them, so they couldn't ruin the entire box of cookies.

Two things worth noting here:

1) Organic beings in the Culture have very little power, and mostly exist for the sake of having really good parties while the AIs run everything. A Culture ship is entirely capable of putting its passengers in stasis for the duration of the euthanasia project. In fact, my OP states that this is exactly what it does, to spare the passengers any unpleasant feelings at having to witness the horrors of the 40k setting. But even if Chaos manages to turn all of the passengers the best it can possibly accomplish is that the Mind feels a little bit of regret at having to euthanize them as well. There is nothing at all that they can do to hinder the ship in even the slightest way.

2) Chaos can't just declare "you're possessed now" and turn you into a raving cultist. It's pretty explicitly stated that you have to choose Chaos. The gods are of course free to tell you lies and tempt you with short-term power, but you still have to voluntarily take that first step down the path towards damnation. And it is incredibly unlikely that Chaos would have anything to offer a Mind. After all, we're talking about a god-like AI that only refrains from transcending the mortal universe entirely out of a sense of obligation to Do The Right Thing and help less-fortunate beings.

 Peregrine wrote:
2) Chaos can't just declare "you're possessed now" and turn you into a raving cultist.

Hello, Blood Disciples.

The GSV would spot the Astronomican as it approaches the 40K galaxy, analyse the signal, extrapolate the existence of warp entities -- The Culture has prior experience in dealing with similar supernatural beings -- etc etc.

I read up on the culture and its no contest. Their civilian ships are more than capable of wiping out everyone in 40k combined all at once.

Knowing The Culture, they've probably had some people from Special Circumstances infiltrated into the 40K universe for hundreds of years already.

 KharnsRightHand wrote:
So you present us with the ultimate Mary Sue, super awesome, powerful, simulates universes in nanoseconds because it's bored, uber smart and better than anything, destroys stars with a glance, totally-unbeatable-guys-seriously race, and ask us if it would beat someone? Why even ask? You clearly already know it would win and nobody has convinced you otherwise yet.

Just a small off-topic digression, if the mods don't mind.

I'm totally sick and tired of the term "Mary Sue". It was nice to poke fun at shameless author self-inserts and crude fanfictional characters for a while, but as of late it's being misused.

The Culture is not a character, It's not Banks' self-insert or avatar in any way, has deep flaws that go beyond their military and technological capabilities and, first and foremost, works perfectly within the setting of the books (where it serves as a metaphor for a well-meaning yet arrogant imperialistic superpower).

/rant over.

Now back to topic, I recall the more backwards Idirans were able to hold their own in all-out war against the Culture, at least until they developed sentient AIs of their own. Maybe that opens a window for our beloved factions of the 41st millenium. Maybe

From what I recall, the Idirans were successful at first because they were geared up for war and The Culture wasn't. It took The Culture years to build up their economy for war production, but once that was done an irresistible tide of materiel overwhelmed the Idirans. I don't remember much about the Idiran AIs.

 Gamgee wrote:
I read up on the culture and its no contest. Their civilian ships are more than capable of wiping out everyone in 40k combined all at once.

I was reading the Culture TV Tropes page, and yeah, some quotes caught my attentions.

Brick Joke:
"In Consider Phlebas, we are introduced to megaships: cruise ships that weigh over a billion tonnes, are several hours' walk from end to end, sail round orbital ringseas because they aren't designed to stop and take several years to reach maximum speed. Over a hundred pages later, the protagonist is onboard a General Systems Vehicle, and enters one of its General bays — at the edge of vision, in one of the far corners, a megaship is being packed away for transit..."

Fluffy the Terrible:
"Having a battleship that can destroy solar systems on a whim controlled by omnipotent AIs called (for example) Problem Child kinda qualifies. A more literal example appears in Use of Weapons, when Diziet Sma is aboard a warship that chooses as its avatar a small furry creature that asks Sma for a cuddle. In the same conversation:
Diziet Sma: Xeny; you are a million-tonne starship; a Torturer-class Rapid Offensive Unit. Even—
Xenophobe: But I'm demilitarised!
Diziet Sma: Even without your principal armament, I bet you could waste planets if you wanted to—
Xenophobe: Aw, come on; any silly GCU can do that!"

Technologically and military speaking, Culture seems largely beyond 40k.

But Culture doesn't seem to have any form of spiritual protection, from what I just read.
The Warp is an important part of 40k, and no one can just dismiss them from the discussion.

There were times when a sub group of Culture work against the interest of anoher sub group, like in Excession.

My guess is the the Chaos Gods would be able to corrupt the citizens of Culture, or maybe even the AI (Men if Iron, anyone ?).

Culture looks like Eldars before the Fall or Mankind during the Dark Age of Technology: everyone here agree that military speaking, they were are above all.
But they did fall.

Moreover, the descrpition of Excession (on Wikipedia) states: " An alien artifact far advanced beyond the Culture's understanding ..."

So there are things in-universe that Culture can't understand. I think Culture isn't able to understand the Warp, ad it doesn't respect any Law, it is chaos and only "understable" with sorcerers, tarot, etc...

Correct me if I'm wrong, I didn't know anything about Culture, I did quick researchs.
But for me, to win against the 40k Universe, an invader NEEDS warp/soul/spiritual protection.

(Warp storms are heavily hinted to be caused by Chaos Gods and even the Emperor (the warp storm known as "Storm of the Emperor's Wrath " for exemple, or the lull during a warp stom which permits the retreat of the Imperial Fists during the Heresy, saving the Iron Warrior from defeat).


What do you think of this "warp argument" ?

EDIT: don't mind, a lot of time passed before I write this message, I didn't see other did it before^^

On forums such as comic vine Vs matches where the OP has already decided on which side would win is called a Spite Match. From your previous comment that seems to be exactly what this is.

On the other hand if you are indeed open to discussion and haven't already made up your mind then I think the guy above has the right of it. The peoples of 40K are only part of it, the Warp is another all together and it would be a fallacy to do a franchise wide Vs match without including it. 40K is science fiction in the same way Culture is, 40K is Fantasy in space. Gods and Daemons and Magic are an integral part of the universes charm and unless you have some sort of defence against it other than mundane weaponry your doomed to failure.

 Peregrine wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
This is actually a pretty fair counter point; that it almost entirely boils down to whether The Culture have souls in the 40k sense.

If they do, they'd probably be fethed. If they're like the Tau (mere crumbs in comparison to the cookies of other races), they'd be fine.. Until they started to show serious potential for wiping out that galaxy. At which point the Chaos Gods would start paying attention to the crumbs and destroy them, so they couldn't ruin the entire box of cookies.

Two things worth noting here:

1) Organic beings in the Culture have very little power, and mostly exist for the sake of having really good parties while the AIs run everything. A Culture ship is entirely capable of putting its passengers in stasis for the duration of the euthanasia project. In fact, my OP states that this is exactly what it does, to spare the passengers any unpleasant feelings at having to witness the horrors of the 40k setting. But even if Chaos manages to turn all of the passengers the best it can possibly accomplish is that the Mind feels a little bit of regret at having to euthanize them as well. There is nothing at all that they can do to hinder the ship in even the slightest way.

2) Chaos can't just declare "you're possessed now" and turn you into a raving cultist. It's pretty explicitly stated that you have to choose Chaos. The gods are of course free to tell you lies and tempt you with short-term power, but you still have to voluntarily take that first step down the path towards damnation. And it is incredibly unlikely that Chaos would have anything to offer a Mind. After all, we're talking about a god-like AI that only refrains from transcending the mortal universe entirely out of a sense of obligation to Do The Right Thing and help less-fortunate beings.

1) AIs can be corrupted by Chaos.

2) Yes, Chaos absolutely can. Depending on the whims of the gods.

 TheCustomLime wrote:


1) AIs can be corrupted by Chaos.

2) Yes, Chaos absolutely can. Depending on the whims of the gods.

To elaborate on the second part, Chaos doesn't even need to gain control of someone - which it can do by force - in order to use them. Simply finding a suitable person and suddenly turning them into a portal through which demons can erupt on board the vessel. Demons who routinely defy the laws of the material existence which they're infesting; meaning that even a huge technological advantage doesn't actually mean you'll win.

Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.

 morganfreeman wrote:
Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.

Infection - How? Contactless? Warp incursion directly against its core?
Viruses of what sophistication? Does the virus' Daemonic attributes automatically trump any sort of self-correction / firewall / self repair process that an AI of that sophistication would have? Are the Chaos Gods 133t Hackers now as well?
Chaos will infect the passengers of the ship: How? If there are fields that hinder this sort of incursion in 40k - and their technology is stagnant - would it be a stretch that the measurable properties of the immaterium would have been explored and defensive measures devised?
Unless of course we round the argument over to the idea that the Chaos Gods are limitless. But even with that in mind - would they be constrained by their experiences, or would one consider their omnipresence to encompass all of time and space.

You know? I can actually think of only one possible fictional race that could fight them one on one. In an RPG called Numenera set a billion years in the future after a cataclysmic.... 8 Earth/Universe shattering apocalypses normal humans appeared suddenly back from nowhere.

Anyways there were 8 previous civilizations to rule the stars/cosmos/time. At least a few of these mega species we know so little about could create a structure so big it's 241 Million Kilometers long with a sun at its center and shaped like a disc, but one day the creators vanished. It's possible they would undergo what the races in the culture series do and just evolve beyond being interested in the mortal realm. That's part of the mystery of the setting though. This large object is known as The Gloaming and different races wander upon it stuck there in perpetual evening. No one has ever explored the whole thing since the average level of technology is about medieval equivalent.

 keezus wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.

Infection - How? Contactless? Warp incursion directly against its core?
Viruses of what sophistication? Does the virus' Daemonic attributes automatically trump any sort of self-correction / firewall / self repair process that an AI of that sophistication would have? Are the Chaos Gods 133t Hackers now as well?
Chaos will infect the passengers of the ship: How? If there are fields that hinder this sort of incursion in 40k - and their technology is stagnant - would it be a stretch that the measurable properties of the immaterium would have been explored and defensive measures devised?
Unless of course we round the argument over to the idea that the Chaos Gods are limitless. But even with that in mind - would they be constrained by their experiences, or would one consider their omnipresence to encompass all of time and space.

Gellar fields do not prevent Chaos corruption. They only prevent Chaos incursions.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 keezus wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.

Infection - How? Contactless? Warp incursion directly against its core?
Viruses of what sophistication? Does the virus' Daemonic attributes automatically trump any sort of self-correction / firewall / self repair process that an AI of that sophistication would have? Are the Chaos Gods 133t Hackers now as well?
Chaos will infect the passengers of the ship: How? If there are fields that hinder this sort of incursion in 40k - and their technology is stagnant - would it be a stretch that the measurable properties of the immaterium would have been explored and defensive measures devised?
Unless of course we round the argument over to the idea that the Chaos Gods are limitless. But even with that in mind - would they be constrained by their experiences, or would one consider their omnipresence to encompass all of time and space.

Gellar fields do not prevent Chaos corruption. They only prevent Chaos incursions.

How does remote corruption occur if incursions are halted? Serious question. I have no idea.

 keezus wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 keezus wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:
Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.

Infection - How? Contactless? Warp incursion directly against its core?
Viruses of what sophistication? Does the virus' Daemonic attributes automatically trump any sort of self-correction / firewall / self repair process that an AI of that sophistication would have? Are the Chaos Gods 133t Hackers now as well?
Chaos will infect the passengers of the ship: How? If there are fields that hinder this sort of incursion in 40k - and their technology is stagnant - would it be a stretch that the measurable properties of the immaterium would have been explored and defensive measures devised?
Unless of course we round the argument over to the idea that the Chaos Gods are limitless. But even with that in mind - would they be constrained by their experiences, or would one consider their omnipresence to encompass all of time and space.

Gellar fields do not prevent Chaos corruption. They only prevent Chaos incursions.

How does remote corruption occur if incursions are halted? Serious question. I have no idea.

Well, Gellar fields aren't containment shields. They project a bubble of realspace in the warp to prevent daemons from manifesting easily within the confines of the ship. Chaos can still influence what goes on inside as they can in the materium but not having them on is a death sentence.

Having a Gellar Field on is kind of like being under an Umbrella during a sunny day. It's not blocking out the sunlight entirely but it's keeping out a lot of the bad stuff.

 godardc wrote:
Technologically and military speaking, Culture seems largely beyond 40k.

But Culture doesn't seem to have any form of spiritual protection, from what I just read.
The Warp is an important part of 40k, and no one can just dismiss them from the discussion.
...

The warp is a physical aspect of reality.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
1) AIs can be corrupted by Chaos.

And yet this power seems to be very limited. We haven't seen corrupted Tau or corrupted Necrons or corrupted Tyranids. In fact, the ability to corrupt things seems to be limited to the Imperium's technology. If Chaos can't just take control over Tau hardware and auto-win when the Tau fight Chaos it's a pretty safe bet that it isn't going to do anything against an AI that is unimaginably more sophisticated and designed to defend itself against Culture-level corruption attempts.

2) Yes, Chaos absolutely can. Depending on the whims of the gods.

Except, over and over again, GW talks about people falling to Chaos. You have to make a choice to accept the invitation down the path of damnation, it can't be forced upon you. Chaos doesn't just declare "this space marine chapter master is now mine" and take possession, it has to work to influence its target, offer promises of short-term power, etc. If Chaos has the power to declare "now you're mine" and take control of someone then vast sections of the 40k fluff are invalidated.

 morganfreeman wrote:
To elaborate on the second part, Chaos doesn't even need to gain control of someone - which it can do by force - in order to use them. Simply finding a suitable person and suddenly turning them into a portal through which demons can erupt on board the vessel. Demons who routinely defy the laws of the material existence which they're infesting; meaning that even a huge technological advantage doesn't actually mean you'll win.

Ok, Chaos turns a Culture civilian into a portal for demons. One microsecond later the demons are teleported into the center of the nearest star and the poor victim is placed in stasis until the Culture can figure out a way to cure them. And no, their ability to "routinely defy the laws of the material existence" is not a magic auto-win ability given the fact that a bunch of humans with flashlights and t-shirts making WWI-style human wave attacks can beat them.

Furthermore, on the subject on the first, Chaos has scrap code and demonic viruses (computer viruses) to play with which (again) defy conventional laws routinely and do whatever the feth they want. So all it would take was a single AI / person going 'rogue' and getting some demonic code into the system. From there it's all down hill.

But yet somehow, despite this supposed ability to auto-win because of "scrap code" Chaos fails to do this consistently in the fluff. They don't auto-win against Tau or Necrons, and can't seem to even do it consistently against Imperial technology that we know is vulnerable to Chaos corruption. The most likely explanation here is that scrap code/demonic viruses/etc are just normal computer viruses designed to exploit the STC-derived computer systems the Imperium is limited to, and its supposed supernatural abilities are nothing more than the Imperium's cargo cult science attempting to make sense of the fact that their anti-virus software is 30,000 years out of date.

on the next thread about comparing settings in two completely different power scales, we compare : Goku at his peak vs. a blind man with no limbs! after that, we compare 40k to fantasy (without ruling out space fleets)! After that we compare the best MMA figher to a small child!

seriously, with how much of a cynic you are, is there a point to this thread? or is this your form of ironic gak-posting ?

Tau have little warp presence and as such are ignored since they are small beans, Necrons have no warp presence (as most all of them lack souls), and we've seen tyranids corrupted when they go to near to important large space holes. You seem to miss the point on how chaos gods act. they CAN do a ton of amazing things, but they don't want to as generally 1) it's more fun to watch this stuff happen, an 2) there are bigger fish to fry 99% of the time. The reason chaos doesn't win in the fluff 24/7 is because it would then kill the setting. Why doesn't every superman comic last a single page unless another super-man powered villain shows up?

as to the scrap code comment, no, it's not just a regular virus since there are multiple cases in the fluff of them doing some weird warp-shenanigans that a 'conventional' virus wouldn't have the ability to do.

Who cares about the Tau soul signature, machines don't have souls and apparently Chaos tries to take them over when they're Imperial, but not Eldar or Tau, the size of the soul or whatever bullgak people come up to make sure 40k wins all the time is entirely irrelevant when it comes to vehicles.

Necrons have no presence in the warp and they have tech that nullifies chaos.

Tau have limited presence in the warp. Chaos just doesn't care enough to go after them, as it would be like fishing for minnows in a pond full of tuna.

Tyranids aren't connected to the warp. Supposedly the hive mind generates its own psychic field that drones out all other psychic fields. At least that's how it was. No idea how it works now.

Chaos can infect machines; Imperial tech is at a risk, which is why they longer use AI. Supposedly the MoI happened because chaos infected it.

Eldar, due to their familiarity with the warp, probably have their own countermeasures as well.