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Hmmm, I'm sure you could justify your scenario by having a Necrontyr sleeper-ship sent off to a far flung galaxy. It takes 2.54 million years to get to Andromeda at light speed. Plenty of time given the potential timescales of the Necrontyr civilisation.

I, too, like the idea that all humanoid species are creations of the Old Ones (including the Necrontyr). It neatly explains the issue a lot of sci-fi things tend to gloss over of why everything looks like us. We don't know how long the War in Heaven took to fight. If it took millennia itself, then perhaps it made a lot of sense to sow the seeds of races like Humans and Tau millennia ago to breed new fighting races. We're told that the Eldar and the Orks were uplifted/created by the Old Ones, but not how long that took.

I love the idea that the Necrontyr are 'those left behind when others transcended'. It's another option not yet explored, and again would explain the bitterness and hate they held for the Old Ones.

As for the Tyranids, they're so different in design to all the other Old Ones' creations I don't think they're one of them. All the known Old One creations, and all of the suspected ones, conform to the 'upright torso, two legs, two arms and a head' body plan, which is quite far removed from the 6-limbed Tyranids.

I also don't buy that the Tyranids are C'Tan creations. Reputedly, the C'Tan were simply unable to comprehend the warp. How they would have been able to make a race that functions primarily through a psychic gestalt field doesn't make sense in light of that fact.

They truly are extragalactic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hmmm, I'm sure you could justify your scenario by having a Necrontyr sleeper-ship sent off to a far flung galaxy. It takes 2.54 million years to get to Andromeda at light speed. Plenty of time given the potential timescales of the Necrontyr civilisation.

I, too, like the idea that all humanoid species are creations of the Old Ones (including the Necrontyr). It neatly explains the issue a lot of sci-fi things tend to gloss over of why everything looks like us. We don't know how long the War in Heaven took to fight. If it took millennia itself, then perhaps it made a lot of sense to sow the seeds of races like Humans and Tau millennia ago to breed new fighting races. We're told that the Eldar and the Orks were uplifted/created by the Old Ones, but not how long that took.

I love the idea that the Necrontyr are 'those left behind when others transcended'. It's another option not yet explored, and again would explain the bitterness and hate they held for the Old Ones.

As for the Tyranids, they're so different in design to all the other Old Ones' creations I don't think they're one of them. All the known Old One creations, and all of the suspected ones, conform to the 'upright torso, two legs, two arms and a head' body plan, which is quite far removed from the 6-limbed Tyranids.

I also don't buy that the Tyranids are C'Tan creations. Reputedly, the C'Tan were simply unable to comprehend the warp. How they would have been able to make a race that functions primarily through a psychic gestalt field doesn't make sense in light of that fact.

They truly are extragalactic.

I have a crazy thought -

What if the Necrontyr are the Old Ones, at least distant cousins?
Ever played Killzone? The premise there is that a bunch of exiles from Earth settled on a hostile world with terrible conditions, and they adapted and mutated to such an environment. Their society grew up hating Earth for what they did to them.

What if its a similar idea? What if the Necrontyr were Old One outcasts, exiled to a deadly world, forced to suffer and struggle while the Old Ones prospered? Or perhaps they were survivors of a lost and abandoned colony, who were rejected upon rediscovery, as they have mutated too much?

The lack of psionic presence could be because it atrophied due to lack of use and environmental factors. Or maybe they were exiled due to lack of psychic potentional or even a deformation preventing them from using psionics.

Or something like that anyway. I do find it odd how some necron models have tails, which either means they are reptiles (like the Old Ones) or monkeys.

Psionics may not have been a naturally-evolved ability. In fact, I prefer to believe they were not. The Old Ones had science advanced enough to make use of the warp once they discovered it, perhaps first encountering it via a naturally-occurring phenomenon, and over the long millennia genetically engineered themselves to manipulate the warp directly. The Necrontyr may have had a powerful cultural taboo against modifying themselves genetically, which could also explain why they didn't solve the weird space cancer that allegedly made life so bitter for them.

So, if they were once the same race and the Old Ones ditched the Necrontyr, disdaining even to use warp technology to help heal them, there would be deep-planted seeds for enmity.

Reptilian (or dinosaurian) Necrontyr fit with what little we know about them.


As for the Tyranids, they could have naturally evolved as a eusocial expansionist swarm, perhaps similar to Morninglight Mountain from Pandora's Star, and eventually incorporated the DNA and bioscience of some Old One-created species they conquered. Once able to manipulate the warp and use it instead of, say, radio to connect the synapses of the hive fleet, let alone for FTL, they would easily make the jump from some small backwater nuisance into a galaxy-killing Von Neumann swarm.

The silent King had something to say about that pg 81 Necron codex

Through Technology we thought to defeat the natural order, but the onset of eternity cannot be denied forever; The universe will see us humbled for our presumption. Yet it's methods of attack are limited, we long ago removed our bodies from mortalities grasp and bartered away our souls for technological baubles and the trappings of power.

It's not the only place he mentions losing his soul, and I doubt he is speaking figuratively. The entire race feels the lack, that they are somehow not whole. The transference process was designed by the C'Tan, who had very little understanding of the immaterium, and the soul in 40k is a spark of the immaterium given flesh. So the fact the soul wasn't included in the transference would follow from that.

There is also another possibility, Only the races created by the old ones (Humans, eldar, orks amongst others) have the ability to touch the immaterium, and might be the only ones to have Souls. That is the real reason the Old Ones couldn't give the necrons Immortality, because the only immortality is reincarnation, which requires a soul.

The more I think of it, the more I think GW should have expanded on the Necrons being dedicated to anti-chaos / the warp.
Their motivation could have been not to wipe out all life, but wipe out all warp sensitive life forms, to ensure that the warp can never interact with the material realm. The creation of soulless lifeforms could have been their attempts at creating their ideal lifeform, who would inherit the galaxy after their job is done.

The C'tan would be the masterminds behind such a plan; they know that the warp threatens their existence, so they plan on ridding their domain of it. They would see all warp sensitive life as vermin, hence their cruelty to humans in earlier editions.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I have a crazy thought -

What if the Necrontyr are the Old Ones, at least distant cousins?
Ever played Killzone? The premise there is that a bunch of exiles from Earth settled on a hostile world with terrible conditions, and they adapted and mutated to such an environment. Their society grew up hating Earth for what they did to them.

What if its a similar idea? What if the Necrontyr were Old One outcasts, exiled to a deadly world, forced to suffer and struggle while the Old Ones prospered? Or perhaps they were survivors of a lost and abandoned colony, who were rejected upon rediscovery, as they have mutated too much?

The lack of psionic presence could be because it atrophied due to lack of use and environmental factors. Or maybe they were exiled due to lack of psychic potentional or even a deformation preventing them from using psionics.

Or something like that anyway. I do find it odd how some necron models have tails, which either means they are reptiles (like the Old Ones) or monkeys.

Very interesting. I really like the idea that the Necrontyr were remnants/outcasts of the Old Ones. Definitely an option I hadn't thought about before, and would again offer a solid reason to harbour resentment towards the Old Ones.

It's interesting about their tails. I remember reading someone positing that tails/extended spines were likely a status symbol among the Necrontyr (higher ranking Necron constructs tend to have extended spines in either direction, and the higher ranking ones tend to have longer).

From the body design of the Necron Warriors, I wouldn't have thought that having tails was universal, or even whether they still had tails at all. It being a status symbol could have meant they were grafted on afterwards, they were given mechanical tails, or that higher social classes were physically different.

I do like the concept that they were reptilian. We know so little about what the Necrontyr were like in life. It's possible that they looked completely different to what we imagine.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Psionics may not have been a naturally-evolved ability. In fact, I prefer to believe they were not. The Old Ones had science advanced enough to make use of the warp once they discovered it, perhaps first encountering it via a naturally-occurring phenomenon, and over the long millennia genetically engineered themselves to manipulate the warp directly. The Necrontyr may have had a powerful cultural taboo against modifying themselves genetically, which could also explain why they didn't solve the weird space cancer that allegedly made life so bitter for them.

So, if they were once the same race and the Old Ones ditched the Necrontyr, disdaining even to use warp technology to help heal them, there would be deep-planted seeds for enmity.

Reptilian (or dinosaurian) Necrontyr fit with what little we know about them.

As for the Tyranids, they could have naturally evolved as a eusocial expansionist swarm, perhaps similar to Morninglight Mountain from Pandora's Star, and eventually incorporated the DNA and bioscience of some Old One-created species they conquered. Once able to manipulate the warp and use it instead of, say, radio to connect the synapses of the hive fleet, let alone for FTL, they would easily make the jump from some small backwater nuisance into a galaxy-killing Von Neumann swarm.

Also very interesting. It could be that the Old Ones' mastery of the warp wasn't through raw psychic potential, but through technological means such as sorcery (or a combination of both). Genetic engineering to increase psychic potential is also a definite possibility. There's precedent in the presnt-day universe with the Navigators for that.

I do think that given how Eldar and Ork technology works, I do think that for the Old Ones 'technology' and 'warp magic' blended into one. All of the Eldar's technology is psychically based, and the Orks grease the wheels of their creations with their gestalt psychic field (I'm an advocate that the gestalt Orky field isn't as powerful as it's made out to be. It'll make the Red Wuns Go Fasta, but it won't make an empty gun shoot bullets. Relegating the orks' hard-wired technological competence to 'they're idiots with space magic' devalues them).

If the Necrontyr were fanatics opposed to either genetic manipulation or the use of the warp I could see that causing a rift between the Old One race (if they were the Necrontyr). I think the 'warp-hating fanatics' explanation holds more water. If they were staunchly opposed to genetic manipulation (presumably on 'purity of form' grounds), why would they agree to trade their bodies for metal ones?

Also, little tidbit: all of my electronic devices at home (my phone, laptops, desktop computer) are named 'Morninglightmountain1', 'Morninglightmountain2' etc. phenomenal series of books...

 Grimgold wrote:
The silent King had something to say about that pg 81 Necron codex

Through Technology we thought to defeat the natural order, but the onset of eternity cannot be denied forever; The universe will see us humbled for our presumption. Yet it's methods of attack are limited, we long ago removed our bodies from mortalities grasp and bartered away our souls for technological baubles and the trappings of power.

It's not the only place he mentions losing his soul, and I doubt he is speaking figuratively. The entire race feels the lack, that they are somehow not whole. The transference process was designed by the C'Tan, who had very little understanding of the immaterium, and the soul in 40k is a spark of the immaterium given flesh. So the fact the soul wasn't included in the transference would follow from that.

There is also another possibility, Only the races created by the old ones (Humans, eldar, orks amongst others) have the ability to touch the immaterium, and might be the only ones to have Souls. That is the real reason the Old Ones couldn't give the necrons Immortality, because the only immortality is reincarnation, which requires a soul.

Very interesting. It's always nice to get a direct quote from a codex on some matters, even if I don't like what it says!

I definitely agree with the concept that the 'soul' in the 40k universe is a spark of the immaterium lodged in a living being. Great description.

I do however think the Necrons not having any soul at all anymore is either an inconsistency, a missed opportunity, or both.

On the inconsistency front, the connotations of having a soul in western culture (in which 40k is rooted) is that it is synonymous with having a conscience. With feeling. With empathy. If the Necrons have no soul, I would not expect their leaders to feel any remorse for what they did. You could explain that away in to way though.

1. The assertion that the soul is a prerequisite for a conscience is Imperial dogma, as evidenced by Blanks and Pariahs. This holds water, although the fluff for Blanks and Pariahs having a conscience is (as ever) inconsistent.

2. The more advanced Necron bodies reserved for their elite were capable of retaining the soul through the biotransference, but the majority were not. However, option number two would imply that the C'Tan did in fact understand the immaterium if they were able to engineer some constructs that retained a soul, and others that didn't.

I would also argue that all life in the 40k universe has a soul, Old One created or not. The Tau, even though they are unable to touch the immaterium, are described as having very weak souls (psychically blunt). That doesn't fit the MO of an Old One created warrior race. Saying that, I rather like the idea that all humanoid races in the galaxy are Old One created as it rather neatly explains the issue of why they all look like us. I suppose you could say that the Old Ones seeded the galaxy with life of all levels of psychic ability, but 'uplifted' the Eldar and created the Orks with much greater psychic potential to use as weapons of war.

However, if you don't buy into that then the 'only Old One creations have souls' argument could equally be true. I like the idea that it was reincarnation, rather than everlasting life, that the Necrontyr couldn't attain. That fits whether they have no souls at all, or whether they are psychically blunt. It takes a powerful soul to reincarnate (an Eldar soul, or the Emperor/old human shamans).

It also feeds very nicely into the concept that the Necrontyr were creations of the Old Ones themselves, and that when the Necrontyr asked their creators for help (asking 'why did you create us this way, short-lived and unable to reincarnate?') and the Old Ones refused, the War in Heaven was sparked.

The missed opportunity front is explained at (great) length in all the other walls of tl;dr text I've been spewing out for most of this thread! I should give a medal to people that make it through all of them

tl;dr I like the idea that a fragment of each Necrontyr's soul is still clinging on to their Necron bodies because the C'Tan didn't understand how the soul worked, which opens up a lot of extra motivations for the Necrons that gives them more depth than the tired 'empire building' motivation that everyone else in the universe has.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The more I think of it, the more I think GW should have expanded on the Necrons being dedicated to anti-chaos / the warp.
Their motivation could have been not to wipe out all life, but wipe out all warp sensitive life forms, to ensure that the warp can never interact with the material realm. The creation of soulless lifeforms could have been their attempts at creating their ideal lifeform, who would inherit the galaxy after their job is done.

The C'tan would be the masterminds behind such a plan; they know that the warp threatens their existence, so they plan on ridding their domain of it. They would see all warp sensitive life as vermin, hence their cruelty to humans in earlier editions.

Yeah that makes a ton of sense as well, especially with the C'Tan being the masterminds behind it and the Necrons being tricked into being pawns.

The addition of 'wiping out all warp-sensitive life-forms' would also bridge the issue of why they'd ever fight the Tyranids...

Do the Tyranids use the warp? I read that their psychic powers are derived from the sheer weight of the collective consciousness of the Hive Mind. Of course, the C'tan / Necrons probably wouldn't care about the different; they would see the tyranids as an outside threat to their ordered "utopia", who happens to display abilities close to their hated enemies.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Do the Tyranids use the warp? I read that their psychic powers are derived from the sheer weight of the collective consciousness of the Hive Mind. Of course, the C'tan / Necrons probably wouldn't care about the different; they would see the tyranids as an outside threat to their ordered "utopia", who happens to display abilities close to their hated enemies.

For me, 'powers derived from weight of consciousness' and 'the warp' are one and the same thing. If you've got one in-universe mechanism that is functionally identical to another in-universe mechanism, it makes little sense to me to argue that they're different...

Also, just came up with another potential origin for the Necrontyr and maybe an explanation for why they were 'sickly' or 'short-lived'.

It's safe to assume that the Old Ones weren't born with the ability to create life (it being described as a feat of technology/technomancy). That would mean that there would be a learning curve and period of experimentation.

What if the Necrontyr were one of their earlier experiments, and suffered from a lack of experience/technological knowhow from their creators. They struggled in life because the technology used to create them was not perfected, but dispite this they were able to cling onto life and expand.

Then, later when the Old Ones had improved their life-giving technology, they create their latest masterpiece: the Eldar. Blessed with long life and powerful psychic potential, they are the favoured children/creations of the Old Ones.

When the neglected Necrontyr ask the Old Ones for the same gift that has been given to the Eldar, they are spurned (either because the Old Ones can't actually help them, or because they don't care about their 'failed' experiments). Their bitterness and hate towards their masters at their abandonment, and their desire to have what has been denied to them, sparks the War in Heaven and the rest is history.

Tying that into the C'Tan 'star-vampire radiation making them sick' idea, it could be that the Old Ones were as unaware of the C'Tan as the Necrontyr were. Or, a more sinister explanation, the C'Tan were part of the Old Ones' experiment from the start. Perhaps they knew the C'Tan existed, and wanted to see how a life-form they created would cope under such crippling and mystifying radiation effects...

The Tau weren't created by the old ones, they were created by the Eldar. Also blanks are a perfect example of a creature without a soul, they are still human, and are still sentient. The men of Iron were also sentient and did not have souls. So soul = sentience is probably not true in 40k lore.

We know from the Blanks that not having a soul is tied to a certain genetic sequence, and all of the current sentient races (minus one) had their genetics messed with by the old ones. So it seems likely that the Old ones are responsible for the disproportionately large souls possessed by sentients, since there is no other tie between sentience and the soul. I say disproportionately because animals possess some spark of the immaterium, but it's tiny and gutters out instantly after death. We also know that the one race not uplifted by the Old Ones, possess these animal style souls, and of course we are talking about the Tau who were uplifted by the eldar.

The only rub is the tyranids, who are obviously extra galactic in origin, but they may not be as extra galactic as you think. We know that the last of the old ones left the galaxy after the war in heaven, promising to return one day to defeat the C'Tan. My guess is the tyranids are him fulfilling his promise.

So now we get into firmly tin foil hat conspiracy time, The time between the end to the war in heaven and the appearance of the Tyranids is sufficient for a fast slower than light (.5c) trip to and from the nearest galactic neighbor, with lots of extra time between. The tyranids seem custom built to fix all of the screw ups the old ones made in the war in heaven, they calm the warp, they consume biomass of the successor races the old ones created. Literally a clean sweep. The hive mind also seems bent on purging the warp of the entities spawned by the lesser races.

So onto another aspect of this, I promise is related. It seems too coincidental that the possessors appeared right after the old ones died out, the most parsimonious answer is that it's not a coincidence. What if the possessors were the old ones, and the old ones were beings from the immaterium that got into the material world in the same manner the possessors did, possessing living beings and forcing them "breed" more host bodies for other possessors/old ones. This explains why the old ones were obsessed with creating psychic races, they weren't doing it out of the kindness of their heart, they were creating more hosts.

Back to what we know from the lore, they underestimated the effects the materium (specifically the warrior races they created) could have on the immaterium, and their warriors destroyed the warp as they knew it. Turning it into the blasted Id hellscape it is of current.

Tin foil hat back on, The old ones relied on reincarnation for their immortality, but when their corpus was killed their souls were incompatible with the new reality of the warp. They were twisted into the beings that the younger races would come to know as the possessors. This answers a lot of questions, like why were the old ones were such powerful psychers and why they created the younger races in the first place

Going back to the last of the old ones leaving the galaxy, The old ones had basically committed genocide on themselves, and there would never again be old ones so long as the younger races existed. So he goes to the neighboring galaxy, and decides that where billions of psychic souls had failed, he could instead have one soul with the power of billions. Using the local life of this foreign galaxy he creates the tyranids, but his crowning achievement is the creation of the hive mind, or alternately becomes the hivemind. In either case the hive mind has predispositions to consume all life, and destroy all warp entities outside of itself. His plan is simple reset the milky way, and return the warp to how it was when the old ones first arose.

*Edit* This also explains the lore saying the old ones were not a single race but a collection of them, the old ones simply took whatever body pleased them, regardless of species, and to the necrontyr it would appear to be a coalition of races rather than a single species.

 Grimgold wrote:
The Tau weren't created by the old ones, they were created by the Eldar.

As speculated by an in-universe character in an old (but still rather useful) piece of fluff.

Although it hasn't been retconned, I've seen zero mention of this connection from any other source since Xenology. If they wanted to continue with this line of pursuit I would have thought they'd have dropped hints elsewhere. Doesn't mean it's not true of course, but personally I don't buy it (there's a good potential explanation on the 1d4chan page for xenology that the Q'Orl, a race of giant ant-like beings, wouldn't necessarily know the difference between one bipedal humanoid and another, throwing the connection to the Eldar into aspersion).

 Grimgold wrote:
Also blanks are a perfect example of a creature without a soul, they are still human, and are still sentient. The men of Iron were also sentient and did not have souls. So soul = sentience is probably not true in 40k lore.

I'm of the opinion, although it's not based on any real fact, that Blanks do have a soul (of sorts). However, it's a soul unlike nay other living being. Their powers are less that they have no soul at all, but really some for of negative soul. Like through soullessness and out the other side.

With the Men of Iron, the myths of the Imperium state that they have no soul, but we know how reliable they are as sources of truth. In the Daemons codex, it states that even simple tools such as a spear or a sword have a rudimentary form of soul. If that's true, I cannot believe that sentient machines would be without one.

Personally, I think it's much more likely that humanity demonised the Men of Iron after they won their civil war against them. History is written by the victors after all.

 Grimgold wrote:

The only rub is the tyranids, who are obviously extra galactic in origin, but they may not be as extra galactic as you think. We know that the last of the old ones left the galaxy after the war in heaven, promising to return one day to defeat the C'Tan. My guess is the tyranids are him fulfilling his promise.

Interesting. I haven't heard before of Old Ones leaving the galaxy after the War in Heaven. The only myth I've heard about a surviving Old One is Qah, the god of the Hrud, which is linked to the Umbras (again, in Xenology).

Where did you find that? Would be interesting to read

 Grimgold wrote:
So now we get into firmly tin foil hat conspiracy time, The time between the end to the war in heaven and the appearance of the Tyranids is sufficient for a fast slower than light (.5c) trip to and from the nearest galactic neighbor, with lots of extra time between. The tyranids seem custom built to fix all of the screw ups the old ones made in the war in heaven, they calm the warp, they consume biomass of the successor races the old ones created. Literally a clean sweep. The hive mind also seems bent on purging the warp of the entities spawned by the lesser races.

So onto another aspect of this, I promise is related. It seems too coincidental that the possessors appeared right after the old ones died out, the most parsimonious answer is that it's not a coincidence. What if the possessors were the old ones, and the old ones were beings from the immaterium that got into the material world in the same manner the possessors did, possessing living beings and forcing them "breed" more host bodies for other possessors/old ones. This explains why the old ones were obsessed with creating psychic races, they weren't doing it out of the kindness of their heart, they were creating more hosts.

Back to what we know from the lore, they underestimated the effects the materium (specifically the warrior races they created) could have on the immaterium, and their warriors destroyed the warp as they knew it. Turning it into the blasted Id hellscape it is of current.

Tin foil hat back on, The old ones relied on reincarnation for their immortality, but when their corpus was killed their souls were incompatible with the new reality of the warp. They were twisted into the beings that the younger races would come to know as the possessors. This answers a lot of questions, like why were the old ones were such powerful psychers and why they created the younger races in the first place

Going back to the last of the old ones leaving the galaxy, The old ones had basically committed genocide on themselves, and there would never again be old ones so long as the younger races existed. So he goes to the neighboring galaxy, and decides that where billions of psychic souls had failed, he could instead have one soul with the power of billions. Using the local life of this foreign galaxy he creates the tyranids, but his crowning achievement is the creation of the hive mind, or alternately becomes the hivemind. In either case the hive mind has predispositions to consume all life, and destroy all warp entities outside of itself. His plan is simple reset the milky way, and return the warp to how it was when the old ones first arose.

*Edit* This also explains the lore saying the old ones were not a single race but a collection of them, the old ones simply took whatever body pleased them, regardless of species, and to the necrontyr it would appear to be a coalition of races rather than a single species.

Ooh I love tinfoil-hat-time

Really rounded out theory there, and I could see that being possible as well. I particularly like the concept that the Old Ones required and created psychic races so they could possess them to manifest in the materium. Anything that paints the Old Ones to be not entirely as they seem fits quite nicely into the grimdark aesthetic of the 40k universe.

The Old Ones being a warp-bound species would also fit with their connection to the Eldar Gods. I'm of the belief that the Eldar Gods were the psychic manifestations of the racial memory the Eldar had of the mortal Old Ones when they were alive. However, your explanation could just as easily work with the Old Ones in fact being the Eldar Gods, and being wiped out when the turmoil of the Fall came to its conclusion.

Just to clarify, by possessors do you mean enslavers? I'm not sure I've come across 'possessors' before...

Blanks are not soulless. That is just how they feel to a psyker. Atlas Infernal and other sources have ranks for a blank's power, such as Omega Minus. You can't rank zeroes. They are more like negative psykers, or perhaps ambulatory, biological Necron pylons. (Ysalamiri turned up to 11?). They have or emit something measurable.

If the old ones were the Eldar Gods, or impersonated the Eldar gods, then they were feasting on the psychic worship like parasites. I don't like to think they had to resort to possession, at least not on a one-to-one basis, but they definitely had an exploitative relationship with their creations.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Blanks are not soulless. That is just how they feel to a psyker. Atlas Infernal and other sources have ranks for a blank's power, such as Omega Minus. You can't rank zeroes. They are more like negative psykers, or perhaps ambulatory, biological Necron pylons. (Ysalamiri turned up to 11?). They have or emit something measurable.

If the old ones were the Eldar Gods, or impersonated the Eldar gods, then they were feasting on the psychic worship like parasites. I don't like to think they had to resort to possession, at least not on a one-to-one basis, but they definitely had an exploitative relationship with their creations.

Yeah that's the impression I got from Blanks too. They didn't have a soul as we know it, but they definitely had something else. A negative soul of some sort. I like the idea that they're sort of ambulatory Necron pylons

Ooh, I like the idea of the Old Ones being psychic parasites fits very nicely with the grimdark of 40k that even the glorious creators of life in the universe were self-serving twisted beings.

It would also give a reason as to why they did fill the galaxy with life. Food.

I swear there's a warp entity that feeds of someone's emotions, but I can't remember the name. What if they are the last vestigial remnants of the Old Ones!

The Last old one leavign the galaxy is from 40 facts about the old ones, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt75uZc3uJI

He didn't cite his source but he is usually pretty spot on.

*edit* and yeah sorry meant the enslavers.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Do the Tyranids use the warp? I read that their psychic powers are derived from the sheer weight of the collective consciousness of the Hive Mind. Of course, the C'tan / Necrons probably wouldn't care about the different; they would see the tyranids as an outside threat to their ordered "utopia", who happens to display abilities close to their hated enemies.

The old fluff explicitly states that the Tyranids use the warp for all of their powers and communication. It is the most parsimonious explanation, and I prefer it to yet another new branch of super-physics the Imperium never discovered. I stopped buying codices after the Newcrons, Ward Knights and the Tyranid Narvhal edition, but the more I think about it the more the Narvhal makes sense as a Tyranid adaptation to Necron Warding technology utilizing FTL principles that the Necrons pioneered. (Perhaps the hive mind ate some fleshy Necrontyr scientists at one point?) In my personal head canon, Narvhals would allow the Tyranids to swoop in and devour some successful C'tan's Farm Galaxy, with the Great Warding leaving the C'Tan's cattle entirely defenseless. Obviously, this would give the Necrons a great reason to fight against the Tyranids. "Yer eatin' mah chickens!" Blammo

Is that that recent? Because I'm sure that bit of fluff I'm remembering is from 4th ed.

Is which part recent? I have not read any of the codices since 5th edition, but I own and have read all of the codices since Rogue Trader, as well as most of the Black Library output up until around 2012. There were a lot of ideas thrown around in the early days, but the Tyranid fluff seemed pretty consistent until 5th.

Narhvhals operate on kind of a different principle than the necrons do, necrons use worm holes (depending on the edition of the fluff) and phase to other dimensions of space to reduce the distance traveled. Narvhals warp space using the gravity of the target star system, probably to reduce the distance between them and their destination while expanding the distance behind them kind of like an alcubierre drive.

The old Necron fluff gave them inertialess drives as well as wormholes. The alcubierre drive could be a primitive form of one or the other, minus millions of years of refinement and the kind of precision engineering we associate with post-industrial civilizations.


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The old Necron fluff gave them inertialess drives as well as wormholes. The alcubierre drive could be a primitive form of one or the other, minus millions of years of refinement and the kind of precision engineering we associate with post-industrial civilizations.

Hmmm, i like warp powers being the most parsimonious explanation for the power of the tyranids. Perhaps Narvhals create warp tunnels to systems, rather than 'using the gravity of a planet to bend space, but the further away the stronger it is' which is, as you said, 'yet another new branch of undiscovered super-physics. Given the slower nature of travel by tyranid hive fleets, perhaps these tunnels skim the surface of the warp like Tau drives in short jumps, also explaining how there have been engagements with tyranid fleets in deep space.

I'm similarly skeptical about the Necrons' inertialess drives. It seems like too distinct an advantage over the other races to retain balance in the universe, or if not balance then at least the hope that they might be beaten (which grindarkness needs to be compelling rather than nihilist).

Also, i think Necrons should have just the single method for moving at FTL. Having inertialess drives, and alcubierre drives, and access to the webway, and whatever phasing out is just too much.

On that topic, has anyone got a decent explanation for how phasing out could work? If you need to change something in the fluff to get it to work (like the warriors' bodies being collected by scarabs which then phase out or something) then change awaay

The necrons are supposed to be the biggest swinging dicks in the galaxy, This is the race that beat the old ones, enslaved the star gods, and have a mastery of technology beyond that which the Eldar and humans possessed in the Dark Ages of technology. If all of the tomb worlds awoke it would be a force the size of the imperium, but massively more capable. The imperium destroys planets in war, the necrons destroyed whole solar systems. The blackstone fortresses Abaddon was after so he could conquer the imperium during the Gothic Campaign, were built by the old ones to fight the Necrons, and they still lost. The scale at which necrons could war is simply incomprehensible to the lesser races.

Necrons have three disadvantages, First the bulk of their forces are still in stasis on tomb worlds, second without the silent king they don't have much in the way of unity, and third quite a bit of the leadership (and lay members of society) might have gone a tiny little bit completely nuts during the long sleep. The first and the second are a matter of time, the Silent king returns to fight the Tyranids, and more tomb worlds start the long processes of awakening every day. The third might also be worked out, by killing the crazy SoBs, like Imotekh The stormlord did to take control of the Sautekh Dynasty.

The funny thing is as bad as that seems, newcrons are considerably toned down in terms of how threatening they are compared to the old crons. Old Crons already controlled much of the imperium (via their control of the Ad Mech), and actively fed on the lesser races to make more necrons. They were without a doubt the number 1 threat to the universe until they got their new codex in 5th, and became tomb kings in space as opposed to the Borg ruled by Cthulhu.

 Grimgold wrote:
The necrons are supposed to be the biggest swinging dicks in the galaxy, This is the race that beat the old ones, enslaved the star gods, and have a mastery of technology beyond that which the Eldar and humans possessed in the Dark Ages of technology. If all of the tomb worlds awoke it would be a force the size of the imperium, but massively more capable. The imperium destroys planets in war, the necrons destroyed whole solar systems. The blackstone fortresses Abaddon was after so he could conquer the imperium during the Gothic Campaign, were built by the old ones to fight the Necrons, and they still lost. The scale at which necrons could war is simply incomprehensible to the lesser races.

Necrons have three disadvantages, First the bulk of their forces are still in stasis on tomb worlds, second without the silent king they don't have much in the way of unity, and third quite a bit of the leadership (and lay members of society) might have gone a tiny little bit completely nuts during the long sleep. The first and the second are a matter of time, the Silent king returns to fight the Tyranids, and more tomb worlds start the long processes of awakening every day. The third might also be worked out, by killing the crazy SoBs, like Imotekh The stormlord did to take control of the Sautekh Dynasty.

The funny thing is as bad as that seems, newcrons are considerably toned down in terms of how threatening they are compared to the old crons. Old Crons already controlled much of the imperium (via their control of the Ad Mech), and actively fed on the lesser races to make more necrons. They were without a doubt the number 1 threat to the universe until they got their new codex in 5th, and became tomb kings in space as opposed to the Borg ruled by Cthulhu.

Yeah, see, 'borg led by cthulhu' just sounds so much better in every way than 'tomb kings, i spaaace'. There's just more meat to it.

I like the necrons' technology being frighteningly advanced, but with more of an emphasis on frightening rather than advanced.

Personally, i think it sounds so much better if they're basically an unstoppable metallic tide with guns that physically flay you layer-by-layer (just imagine what that would look like) that gets back up again after you've shot them down and just keeps coming. Compare that to 'senile old coots that can blow up stars from miles away but don't because they're gardeners'. Which sounds better?

Make their technology scary advanced, not necessarily hyper-advanced. Makes for a much more compelling and believable setting for everyone involved (except newcron fags who want to brag about how their army is the dick swingingest army in the whole setting, which is frankly tedious).

To defeat the Old Ones, they didn't necessarily need greater technology. For me, i think they beat them by attrition. I'd also think they'd fit in better if that level of god-killing power is left in the past (where all super-powerful things in the 40k universe are confined).

Perhaps the war with the Old Ones, and their rebellion against the C'Tan broke them as a power in the universe at that time. For me, it would be better if the Necrons were a shattered remnant of their former power (but still powerful enough to screw up the major factions in 40k).

Just seems more compelling really...

Attrition would make sense, actually. After they became machines it would be trivial to slowly grind down the old ones, as by the sounds of it the Old Ones had slow reproduction rates (if we are to assume that the Eldar are their Ideal creation), and as such an enemy that just gets back up and keeps coming back whenever you destroy it would be nightmarish for them, as they will keep losing members of their own race whilst not dealing any damage in return.

I'm sure the reality breaking abilities of the C'tan helped, but you have to remember that even in the old fluff, the Necronty didn't lose because they were fighting a technologically superior foe, they lost because they were outmaneuvered by the Old One's warp technology. I can imagine that even after biotransference, the Old Ones gave the necron some trouble, and the necrons had to respond by using their regenerative abilities to tank through everything and slowly stamp out every possible location the old ones could run to, one sector at a time.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Attrition would make sense, actually. After they became machines it would be trivial to slowly grind down the old ones, as by the sounds of it the Old Ones had slow reproduction rates (if we are to assume that the Eldar are their Ideal creation), and as such an enemy that just gets back up and keeps coming back whenever you destroy it would be nightmarish for them, as they will keep losing members of their own race whilst not dealing any damage in return.

I'm sure the reality breaking abilities of the C'tan helped, but you have to remember that even in the old fluff, the Necronty didn't lose because they were fighting a technologically superior foe, they lost because they were outmaneuvered by the Old One's warp technology. I can imagine that even after biotransference, the Old Ones gave the necron some trouble, and the necrons had to respond by using their regenerative abilities to tank through everything and slowly stamp out every possible location the old ones could run to, one sector at a time.

Yeah that all hangs together. In a war of attrition the Necrons would be nearly unstoppable. Especialyl seeing as even if you win a battle and kill them all, the vast majority get phased back to their tomb world, repaired in short order and sent back out to fight again. That's the Necrons' greatest strength really. Effectively negligible casualties from every engagement they have.

And yeah, I agree that the webway is a fantastic tactical advantage. Pretty certain it's one of the only reasons the Eldar are still here today.

I agree the Borg led by Cthulhu was way better, and despite my referencing it by two other IPs it was actually much less derivative than "tomb kings in spaaaaaceeeeee...." I mean they used to be really alien, Like tyranids are now, totally a square peg in a galaxy of round holes kind of weird. Now since WFB got squatted, eliminating the tomb kings (who never really got popular) we don't even have that connection anymore, and the necrons are saddled with a set of lore that killed the army in WFB. People wanted evil robots taking over the galaxy, we got egyptian space undead, which is all the more disappointing because of how cool the necrons look.

With that said, It isn't the worst lore out there, and some of the bleed over from the old crons (like harvesting life forms trying to figure out a way to reverse the transference, or The void dragon of mars) is cool, but they need a direction. The current "we exists fear us" thing only worked with old crons, with new crons being the bizarro world alternate dimension version of the IoM, it's just not that scary;

"Blimey! The evil space egyptians are 'ere ter replace da evil space stalinist. Wonder if they 'ave be'er 'ealthcare?"

You know, if they turned the Necrons into evil space USSR I would be fine with it. It can't be as bad as OP warring Space Egyptians.
I mean, Stalin was known as "The Man of Steel"

 Grimgold wrote:
I agree the Borg led by Cthulhu was way better, and despite my referencing it by two other IPs it was actually much less derivative than "tomb kings in spaaaaaceeeeee...." I mean they used to be really alien, Like tyranids are now, totally a square peg in a galaxy of round holes kind of weird. Now since WFB got squatted, eliminating the tomb kings (who never really got popular) we don't even have that connection anymore, and the necrons are saddled with a set of lore that killed the army in WFB. People wanted evil robots taking over the galaxy, we got egyptian space undead, which is all the more disappointing because of how cool the necrons look.

With that said, It isn't the worst lore out there, and some of the bleed over from the old crons (like harvesting life forms trying to figure out a way to reverse the transference, or The void dragon of mars) is cool, but they need a direction. The current "we exists fear us" thing only worked with old crons, with new crons being the bizarro world alternate dimension version of the IoM, it's just not that scary;

"Blimey! The evil space egyptians are 'ere ter replace da evil space stalinist. Wonder if they 'ave be'er 'ealthcare?"

Perfectly summed up

Now, who do we need to replace with a sleeper agent to make this happen?

I always preferred the Necrons' Lovecraftian elements, including the nightmarish sense of scale in both space and time. For a civilization that spent 1-4 billion years mastering their science, and with the aid of Stephen Baxterish energy beings with a perspective from beyond time, it makes sense for the Necrons to have FTL that outclasses everything except maybe the webway. DAOT humanity basically had access to low level Necron technology via the Dragon, and if there has to be hope of defeating the Necrons, I like to believe it is by using their technologies against them in conjunction with the warp. They are a lot like the Shadows from B5, and like the Shadows I believe they work better inspiring everyone else to up their games and work together rather than having to be toned down to the same weight class as, say, the Drazi Tau.

But then, the 3rd edition Necron Codex was what brought me into the setting in a big way. And I love sci-fi scale porn.

Hmmm, I do like that as well, and it's the fluff that really got me to like the Necrons as well.

I wonder if that's irrevocably broken now with the Newcrons fluff though. To bring that back in its entirety would mean retconning the whole Newcrons fluff which no doubt will be just as unpopular as the Newcrons fluff itself.

The bit I liked most about the Oldcrons fluff was the sense of dread.

I wonder if there's a way to get that back at all, while retaining the bits that make the Newcrons popular (added 'your dudes' potential).

I've had a go at doing that slightly in the other big Necron thread, based on all the discussion so far: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/706822.page#9010124

Any ideas on how to bring back a little Lovecraftian element?

We know some necrons served the star gods, worshipped them as their own deities, so a splinter faction of crons that resemble the old crons and serve un-splintered C'Tan wouldn't require a total rework, just an acknowledgement they exists.

If they ever decided to release rules for them, It could seriously be a Space marine chapter style codex, with some overlap, some missing units and some units that are exclusive to the C'Tan worshipping necrons. You could say they probably wouldn't have canoptek units (since they are servants instead of having them), but could have units like pariah, or units part way through the process of being changed into necrons (with fleshy bits like the flayed ones originally were). They could also have C'Tan in their ranks filling leadership positions.

Wasn't the war in heaven millions of years ago and the fall of the eldar around 20k?