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An idea I was thinking about (which has been created into it's own thread) got me to thinking about the idea behind this thread.

Most 40k players know about the ancient war between the Necrons and the Old Ones. They also know that most of the races in existance today where created by the Old Ones to combat the Necrons. These include Humans, the Eldar and the Krork (Orks). Now the codex indicates that the Orks where created specifically for war, they replenish their numbers quickly and easily, they have instinctual knowledge of fields required to wage war including mechanics, medicine and battle tactics. They are imposing specimens who only grow stronger the longer they fight and are always led by the most capable of their kind.

So what do you think the Orks where like back when they where still called Krorks, back when the Old Ones still roamed the galaxy. Could they have been organised and united? Could they have had advanced technology that wasen't looted from other races? could they actually have been disciplined and militarised? Personally it's hard for me to picture an ork army that's anything more then a undisciplined mob that yells WAAAGH!!! and charges forward. But think about if Orks once marched in ranks, had mass produced/standardised weaponrey, had commanding officers who didn't earn their rank by beating the snot out of their predicessor with a squig, that Orks where properly organised and didn't fight any and everything they could simply to fight.

I think it's an interesting idea.

In WHFB Azhag was sorta smart and sane for an Ork, but of course, that wasn't without the help of Chaos.

The closest ork mob that I can think of (and this has little of anything to do with the Old Ones) would be the Blood Axes. They are known to utilise Imperial weaponry and tactics, to the disbelief of many an unfortunate officer. Although fond of meaningless medals, I still think they know who's in charge by beating the snot out of each other. They are generally regarded as untrustworthy and sneaky by other orks.

Emperors Faithful wrote:The closest ork mob that I can think of (and this has little of anything to do with the Old Ones) would be the Blood Axes. They are known to utilise Imperial weaponry and tactics, to the disbelief of many an unfortunate officer. Although fond of meaningless medals, I still think they know who's in charge by beating the snot out of each other. They are generally regarded as untrustworthy and sneaky by other orks.

I'd agree with this. Bloodaxes are about as disciplined for an ork you'll get.

IIRC Orkses still have some legends about those ancient orks, that seemed to be created among the actual ones to command the rest of the race, the "how" dissapeared is a mistery, all the orks know is that they managed to put their knowledge into Greenskin DNA, that explain the apparition of Doks & Meks... before the dissapear of those..."ancestors"... seemed to be a more disciplined race...

I thinks is possible the blood axes still retain some of the discipline learned LOOONG AGO...

Well, my personal theory has always been that the orks haven't changed much in terms of actual appearance, but may have changed drastically in the way they organise themselves. The Blood Axes seem to have been the most likely candidates for leaders of the Greenskins, rather than what the horde was like, back then; their use of advanced tactics hints at them being the generals and sergeants of the Krork.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Well, my personal theory has always been that the orks haven't changed much in terms of actual appearance, but may have changed drastically in the way they organise themselves. The Blood Axes seem to have been the most likely candidates for leaders of the Greenskins, rather than what the horde was like, back then; their use of advanced tactics hints at them being the generals and sergeants of the Krork.

that matches what i said... maybe the Krork waited exactly that, the blood Axes maintaining under control the rest of the race after their dissapearance... but all we know what happened BIG IS BEST!!

Order, disciple and regimentalism is an affectation suffered by mobs of juvenile orks. When the boss isn't looking they'll get together and perform drills, clean up graffiti, and engage in generally social behaviour.

Their elders (and betters (and biggers)) tend to see them as simply rather naive - they'll grow out of it eventually.

Some of the things that make orks seem so savage are what makes them so effective.

The steal better technology not because their technology is bad ( while not as aesthitically pleasing as other races equipment their technology is effective and uses easily obtainable materials) but because it means they can easily catch up with any enemies technology.

All the infighting keeps them trained, makes sure the chain of command is in the order of the strongest ork, and ensures they better orks get the better gear.

They fight everything because it this trains them not to fear battle.

Orks weren't meant to be an army by themselves. The old ones created them to work alongside their other warrior races. The eldar were for precise missions where they needed to reach a specific objective and the orks were just meant to be used when the old ones needed to crush a target.

The krok had leaders (brainboyz), and knowledge wasn't genetically inbreed, so I would assume the krork were disciplined and produced their own tech.
Lack of capable leaders lead to savage methods to be in charge and also made inbreed knowledge neccessary.
Thus orks had a different organisation when they were called krok.
The orks are somewhat cunning and clever, but real smart were only the krork.
Thus you may call the krok advanced, but not the orks.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Order, disciple and regimentalism is an affectation suffered by mobs of juvenile orks. When the boss isn't looking they'll get together and perform drills, clean up graffiti, and engage in generally social behaviour.

Their elders (and betters (and biggers)) tend to see them as simply rather naive - they'll grow out of it eventually.

Origional stormboyz were composed of these types, and a stormboy camp was a kind of coming-of-age place set apart a ways off from the rest of an orky settlement (like summer camp or reform school to send young orks until they get out of their 'discipline' years). There, orkish juvenile delinquents could goose step up and down the square and drill and train in a very orderly and disciplined fashion without bothering their elders and betters and biggers. That is probably why the origional storm boy look was pretty close to a wermarkt nazi soldier.

1hadhq wrote:Thus you may call the krok advanced, but not the orks.

I don't see why you can't call the orks advanced. They are. I mean, they have access to most of the same technology as the Imperium, and arguably have access to better tech in any case, as unlike the Imperials, the orks can and do invent things on a regular basis.

Wasn't the point that the Kork weren't very disciplined so they made the Eldar to compensate?
Humanity IMO seem to be a mix between the Eldar and the Krork.

Gorskar, how are those orks advanced if they had to genecode the neccessary knowledge into them, as without that act their mekboys would not be able to create anything than clubs 'n pointy sticks?

yes, orks advance a lot ( but pysically on the battlefields towards you ...) , they advance to that vehicle to loot it for example.
Would they loot tech and push the buttons to see wat happens if they could just make their own superior stuff?
I doubt that, since orks love dakka and would never claim anyting with inferior "dakka" if they had better equipment before.

@purplefoot:
So, were half-orks/ half-elfs ?

next time we shall have the muscle from the orks and the brains of the elfs, not the other way around.

See this was ment to discuss how the Orks would have acted during the time of the Old Ones, not if these traits still existed in modern Orks as it's fairly obvious that they don't. Pretty much the discussion is about if the Orks degenerated to their current state from a more advanced state or if they where always pretty much barbarians.

Orks may never be the 'civilized' race, but krork should be more advanced and disciplined.

AS krork, they did not need the knowledge "inbreed" like they do today.

The problem at hand is the singular source for krork = codex necrons. A necron dex will never tell us that much about krork like a ork codex could.

Everyone keeps saying that the Krork woulden't need their instinctual knowledge of things such as medicine and technology. I'm not sure where this is coming from beings as the Orks/Krorks where created with these traits so they would have still had them when the Old Ones where alive and most likely would still have used them. Just not in the same way they do now.

Smart Orks: Kommandos
Disciplined Orks: Stormboyz
Organized Orks: Any Ork under a Warboss.
Advanced Orks: Mekboyz

At least nowadays anyway. Dunno what the Krork were like, but I don't imagine them THAT much superior to the modern Orks.

1hadhq wrote:Gorskar, how are those orks advanced if they had to genecode the neccessary knowledge into them, as without that act their mekboys would not be able to create anything than clubs 'n pointy sticks?

yes, orks advance a lot ( but pysically on the battlefields towards you ...) , they advance to that vehicle to loot it for example.
Would they loot tech and push the buttons to see wat happens if they could just make their own superior stuff?
I doubt that, since orks love dakka and would never claim anyting with inferior "dakka" if they had better equipment before.

@purplefoot:
So, were half-orks/ half-elfs ?
next time we shall have the muscle from the orks and the brains of the elfs, not the other way around.

No as such but humanity seems to be a cross between orks and Eldar. Humans are more organised and such but still have an innate understanding of warfare and have managed to survive on dozens of inhospitable planets like Catachan for instance.

Perhaps the snotlings are indeed the devolved remnants of the leader class of greenskin.

1hadhq wrote:Gorskar, how are those orks advanced if they had to genecode the neccessary knowledge into them, as without that act their mekboys would not be able to create anything than clubs 'n pointy sticks?

yes, orks advance a lot ( but pysically on the battlefields towards you ...) , they advance to that vehicle to loot it for example.
Would they loot tech and push the buttons to see wat happens if they could just make their own superior stuff?
I doubt that, since orks love dakka and would never claim anyting with inferior "dakka" if they had better equipment before.

You mean, how the orks have always had that sort of thing genecoded into them? The Old Ones created them as the perfect soldier/survivor race, and to do so their genetic knowledge was encoded within them. Also, I suspect you're misinterpreting what that knowledge actually means; they don't have the collective designs for every item ever in their DNA, those come from experimentation and standard invention. They simply have basic knowledge pertaining to their subject coded within them. I am not saying that Orks are advanced as Krork, they're clearly not, but they are easily an advanced race. You also don't seem to understand why orks loot things; it's less of a "wow, that's clearly better than ours" as opposed to "wow, it'd be much easier to steal that as opposed to spending time building our own." Orks see an inherent comedy in stealing someone else's weapons or tanks and using it against them; that, too, plays a part.

No it was not always genecoded. ( ork codex page 7 ).
Before the orks 'lost' their leaders, tech was invented regularly and not just the basics drawn from 'memory' combined with inspiration from external sources.

I am aware of the 'fun' orks seem to have , but, the background showsthem as 'inspired' of someone elses stuff so they want to have it too.
Orks generally do not work at all ( codex orks ) instead use these grotz as personal assistants/slaves. Why should an ork see an issue with lots of work
if he desires orky tech when the workload usually is the 'duty' of the grots?

The Orks wern't always gene coded hmm? Page 7 of the Ork codex? ok let's look at page 7 of the Ork codex.

"They speak of a legendary caste of greenskins who created the Orks of today as a warrior race to protect their own."

"The their Ork and Gretchin servants were anything but intellectual, they had a strong survival instinct and an innate understanding of their own universe".

So page 7 of the Ork codex says that the Orks where created by another race (duh we all know that) and that they had an innate understanding of their universe. The fact that they still have that understand via their gene coding means that they have always had gene coding (they where created with it) and nothing on that page says anything about them "not always having it"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And if you're refering to this "Either way, the brainboyz took steps to preserve what they could of their knowledge be engineering it into the genetic structure of their slaves, thereby creating the ultimate survivor race".

This says nothing about the Brainboyz creating the Orks and then later deciding to add the gene coding. For all you know the Brainboyz could have known of their decline before they even made the Orks and so put the gene coding into the Orks when they first created them.

The idea of a legion of advanced, disciplined and intelligent orks is one that should terrify us all.

^Agreed.

But the codex does say that they wern't exactly the smartest gits even back then lol I think they where something like Saurus from WHFB. They where intelligent but all of their intelligence was guided towards war.

I'm surprised no mentioned it directly, but...

I think we're supposed to guess that the Old Ones = The Brain Boyz.

"They speak of a legendary caste of greenskins who created the Orks of today as a warrior race to protect their own."

"Either way, the brainboyz took steps to preserve what they could of their knowledge be engineering it into the genetic structure of their slaves, thereby creating the ultimate survivor race."

Add that to the forward plainness of the 'Cron codex saying the Old Ones created the K-Orks.

Or is this something we all acknowledge and accept and I'm just being the last, unsubtle, horse to cross the finish line?

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Order, disciple and regimentalism is an affectation suffered by mobs of juvenile orks. When the boss isn't looking they'll get together and perform drills, clean up graffiti, and engage in generally social behaviour.

Their elders (and betters (and biggers)) tend to see them as simply rather naive - they'll grow out of it eventually.

LMAO feth yeah bro please tell me you made that up its the funniest thing I have herd in days

Jubear wrote:

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Order, disciple and regimentalism is an affectation suffered by mobs of juvenile orks. When the boss isn't looking they'll get together and perform drills, clean up graffiti, and engage in generally social behaviour.

Their elders (and betters (and biggers)) tend to see them as simply rather naive - they'll grow out of it eventually.

LMAO feth yeah bro please tell me you made that up its the funniest thing I have herd in days

Sorry, I didn't quite make it up. I just reworded the original fluff. That's the basic premise behind Stormboyz - juvenile orks crave discipline and order.

Jubear wrote:

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Order, disciple and regimentalism is an affectation suffered by mobs of juvenile orks. When the boss isn't looking they'll get together and perform drills, clean up graffiti, and engage in generally social behaviour.

Their elders (and betters (and biggers)) tend to see them as simply rather naive - they'll grow out of it eventually.

LMAO feth yeah bro please tell me you made that up its the funniest thing I have herd in days

Its pretty much how it is with ork yoofs. A lot of them crave order and organisation but most grow out of it.

Nephil1m wrote:I'm surprised no mentioned it directly, but...

I think we're supposed to guess that the Old Ones = The Brain Boyz.

"They speak of a legendary caste of greenskins who created the Orks of today as a warrior race to protect their own."

"Either way, the brainboyz took steps to preserve what they could of their knowledge be engineering it into the genetic structure of their slaves, thereby creating the ultimate survivor race."

Add that to the forward plainness of the 'Cron codex saying the Old Ones created the K-Orks.

Or is this something we all acknowledge and accept and I'm just being the last, unsubtle, horse to cross the finish line?

Yeah I think you're that horse