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Grey Knight codex, page 6:

"Before leaving Titan for the final time, Malcador forged one last enchantment, greater than any that had come before it. Titan vanished completely from its orbit, hidden from Horus in the most unlikely of refuges - Malcador had anchored it amongst the tides of the Warp. Protected by Macro-Geller fields and sigilic rites of Malcador's own devising, Titan rode out the tumult of the Warp whilst the rest of the galaxy endured through the last months of the Horus Heresy and the tragedy of the Emperor's final battle."

page 7:

"Titan finally returned to its orbit in the mortal realm amidst the anarchy of the Second Founding. Time had flowed differently in the Warp, and Titan had endured a measure of years far greater tha'l that of the mortal world. So it was that a Chapter that had entered the Warp composed of a mere eight Space Marines and hundreds upon hundreds of untrained recruits, emerged with a full complement of one thousand fully trained Battle-Brothers."

So, this means that Imperium has machine that can push planet into and out of the Warp and even had shields that protect it from the Daemons and creatures of the Warp. Doesen't say anything more about that, witch means that machine is still on Titan in 41'st millennium.

Does this means when Tyranids arrive into the Sol they will use this machine to hide Terra and Mars into the Warp until Tyranids pass Sol?

No... Just... No.

Coa, do you even read the stuff you post?

This wasn't a device. It was a spell, for all intents and purposes. They put Gellar Fields(which are what ships use to protect themselves in the Warp) on it so that it wouldn't be ravaged by the things living within the Warp.

We don't know if Terra or Mars has one, the fact that both remained in the material realm during the Heresy is evidence to suggest that they probably didn't.

I should also add that before it's said, there likely is no psyker alive that can match Malcador's sheer power.

He was a few steps down from The Emperor himself in terms of power.

No Malcador - no move.

IIRC, the Grey Knights maintain the ability to put Titan in the Warp.

Kanluwen wrote:Coa, do you even read the stuff you post?

This wasn't a device. It was a spell, for all intents and purposes. They put Gellar Fields(which are what ships use to protect themselves in the Warp) on it so that it wouldn't be ravaged by the things living within the Warp.

I don't buy that, then how Titan returned when Malcador died during the Emperor's Ascension?

Brother Coa wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Coa, do you even read the stuff you post?

This wasn't a device. It was a spell, for all intents and purposes. They put Gellar Fields(which are what ships use to protect themselves in the Warp) on it so that it wouldn't be ravaged by the things living within the Warp.

I don't buy that, then how Titan returned when Malcador died during the Emperor's Ascension?

Probably because the ritual/spell/whatever was intended to last for a set amount of time no matter if Malcador was there or not, or he taught the first of the Grey Knights how to reverse the ritual.

To quote Harry Dresden "It takes a master artisan to create a spell like this. Fortunately, all it takes is a monkey with a stick to wreck it."

iproxtaco wrote:IIRC, the Grey Knights maintain the ability to put Titan in the Warp.

GK page 11. 4th para.

Seems they can't reproduce all of the spell and thus only partially use it.

I don't have my codex to hand, I remember that they keep this spell/machine permanently warmed up just in case.

It would make for a good practical joke. Titan's here, now it's not, titan's here, now it's not.

So it's a spell? When I read "devising" I thought they meant that they "connect the shield to Malcador's own device".

Sory all for misunderstanding. I am still interesting if they can pull this trick again...

Gellarfields can be breached...
See it this way, putting Titan in the warp is a risk, but not a potentialy fatal one.
Putting terra in the warp where all the legions of hell are waiting might be less wise.

The device still works, it just requires alot of psychic power to activate it.


they could enter the warp if needed, but they haven't needed to as of yet.

the fact they still have the machine implies they could, if needed, possably put Terra into the Warp to protect it.


it would require massive psychic power and energy to do it(the emperor would probably have to help)


the Nids are coming to Terra, but not for a long time yet and even when they get there its doubtful they could breach Terra's defenses.

As far as i remember from the entry in the codex the thing is still switched on, putting Titan in an in-between state. I think it mentions it having a foot in each world. The Knights (except possibly the head honcho) don't know how to work it, if i remember right.

I'll have to check on that.


As far as i'm concerned it it one of the most egregous (love that word ) pieces of fluff in the game, but i'll save my rant on that

Ascalam wrote:
As far as i'm concerned it it one of the most egregous (love that word ) pieces of fluff in the game, but i'll save my rant on that

Don't worry... I'll rant on that so you don't have to

The moon-sneaking time-travelling thing is the most ludicrous idea on this edition's GK codex, and probaby one of the silliest narrative moves in all of 40k's history. That said, I take it was done by virtue of the Sigillite's extraordinary psychic powers, and thus cannot be replicated. So, there's no giant cloaking device for Earth and Mars.

However, this bit of the fluff ruined so many things for me that everytime I have the chance to read over the GK codex I skip that part and pretend it was never written.

First, it completely wrecked the image I had of Malcador. I pictured him as an obscure but powerful man in the material sense of the word, running the (extremely complicated) daily affairs of the Imperium, the Emperor's trusted über-administrator, lawmaker, mentat and augur. Now it seems that, despite being a mere human, he was able to pull magicks that would put the Galaxy's most accomplished psykers (i.e. Eldar Farseers) to shame.

Second, I thought that, while psychic powers are "magical" to all effects, they still were substantially different to "magic" from a narrative point of view. It seemed to me that psychics in 40k, both in description and as plot devices, had more to do with what we'd call "the paranormal" or "the occult" (telekinesis, telepathy, pyrokinesis, thought-forms, remote viewing, divination...) than with Tolkien's unrationalized and seemingly all-powerful magic. Psychics allow for the rare universe-changing miracle to happen (almost always left half-explained and often put in mouth of unreliable narrators), but the way Ward put together the whole Titan story felt at odds with the way 40k had for dealing with such events.

Third, it's phisically and socially implausible. I take an ecquivalent mass was left in Titan's place to prevent the whole Saturnian system from collapsing, that Saturn was never colonized despite it being one of the most interesting places to go within our home system, that Hohmann transfer orbits are no longer used for interplanetary travel and that EVERY navigation chart, map, holo, flight computer, history book and school manual was altered to erase Titan from existance... But consider this a minor objection. Such affairs have never bothered the 40k writers that much.

But what bugs me most is a sidenote of the planet-cloaking affair: The fact that one of Mars' moons (don't remember if it was Phobos or Deimos) was moved to Titan's orbit to act as the GK's private forgeworld. This probably deserves its own thread anyways, so I think I'll be starting a new one and leave this to discuss Titan and Malcador's invisibility.

Deimos.

It is also tiny, barely more than an asteroid.


It's way too small to forgeworld up (even on a reduced scale for only one chapter), and Titan's gravity is far too weak to keep it in orbit anyway without handwaving.

Looking forward to the thread

the removal of a moon wouldn't unbalance the system. it would simply mean there wasn't a moon there anymore.

compared to Saturn itself, Titan's mass is fairly small and wouldn't cause much disruption.


Deimos, if it was moved into a suitible orbit around Saturn, would be fine too.

a stable orbit, fairly close to Titan, and in sync with Titan, wouldn't be that hard to create. If they had the means to get it there from Mars, i am sure they could get it into a stable orbit.

Do you know newtonian physics at all?

Titan's mass is small compared to saturn, yes, but it would still be an unbalancing factor that woudl disrupt the gravetic map of the entire system, though it would take sveral thousand years to become obvious.

For something to orbit something else in a stable, unassisted orbit that won't decay requires the mass that you are orbitting to have sufficient gravity to hold you.

They can get it there, and put it in a stable orbit bby the mystic means of handwave devices, but it would have been far less complex and far more cost-effective/non brain-death inducingly stupid to have simply build a space station in titan's orbit, under power to maintain it's orbit.

The imperium has built space stations before, so why do they now have this feth-brained urge to play pool with planets instead?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Z8w_unTU4

Whatever,

if they had the ability to move the darn things around i assume they brought things like this into consideration.


Titan was also only gone for a relativly short period of time so the orbit wouldn't have decayed much and then its back and nothing is amiss.

Orf it could be a simple case of really crappy and needlessly grandiose fluff to allow something completely pointless, in order to make the GK look good

The imperium have never been able to move planets around up til this point. That's always been a Necron trick

well, the Ad Mech managed to ensure the Sun will never go out so i wouldn't put it out of their capabilities.


the GKs have access to some tech that has been lost ever since the Dark Age of technology. the Dark Age had tech that we couldn't even comprehend. moving a small moon is no big deal. toss Malcador in who is 2nd to only the Emperor in power, and its a piece of cake. We have a psyker moving a planet, the most powerful psyker in the universe next to the Emperor I might add. whats wrong with him moving a planet?

That the most powerful psyker in the universe (sez you) didn't do the same with Terra during the HH to keep it safe, or just use said power to fling the entire astroid belt across the Sol system into the warmaster's fleet?

That it has never been part of the fluff until it got retconned in in a very hamfisted way, along with making Sorcery ok for the GK to use (it was previously anathema ) and alien/dameon wargear/tech totally kosher (it was previously heresy).

'Tech from the dark age of technology' = 'handwave because we say so' in humanity's case. If the Admech had this kind of tech on hand they would have given it to the Warmaster when they all joined him, and he would have been dropping the Moon on the Emperor's palace

It might be as small as an asteroid but surely you would know that something was missing.

I can imagine Horus, Talon on chin musing, Saturn looks different but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Surely Magnus outstrips Malcador in psychic ability.

Magnus was destined for the Golden Throne and Malcador didn't really handle that so well.

Also where is the fluff about the sun never going out because of the Ad. Mech?

All I want to know is why they chose Titan and then decided to hide it...


The GK homebase should be Pluto, even Horus wouldn't give a crap about Pluto

He was a few steps down from The Emperor himself in terms of power.

I recently read some stuff about librarians because one of my RP group wanted to play one.
How strong would you rate Varro Tigurius?

If this is true, and the Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines really has tapped into the Hive Mind, it would make him the most powerful active psyker in the Imperium, second only to the Immortal God Emperor himself.

I pictured him as an obscure but powerful man in the material sense of the word, running the (extremely complicated) daily affairs of the Imperium, the Emperor's trusted über-administrator, lawmaker, mentat and augur.

Well, he took the Emperor's place in the golden throne long enough for him to battle Horus, holding back the warp till Sigmar *cough* i mean the Emperor came back, and then he died in his arms. Didn't need the GK Codex to tell me to not mess with him

edit: before something breaks loose, im just kidding with the sigmar / emperor part (i know at some point they wanted to fuse fantasy and 40k and sigmar was supposed to be one of the primarch scattered through space and time or something like that. But they trashed that whole concept )

Ascalam wrote:That the most powerful psyker in the universe (sez you) didn't do the same with Terra during the HH to keep it safe, or just use said power to fling the entire astroid belt across the Sol system into the warmaster's fleet?

That it has never been part of the fluff until it got retconned in in a very hamfisted way, along with making Sorcery ok for the GK to use (it was previously anathema ) and alien/dameon wargear/tech totally kosher (it was previously heresy).

'Tech from the dark age of technology' = 'handwave because we say so' in humanity's case. If the Admech had this kind of tech on hand they would have given it to the Warmaster when they all joined him, and he would have been dropping the Moon on the Emperor's palace

Here is why the E didn't hide Terra or toss asteroids in his direction. He didn't realise how far Horus had fallen. he still thought he could redeem him.

And just because the Ad Mech has the Tech doesn't mean they are just giving it out to anyone. it also isn't like everyone in the Ad Mech knows all about what they have. they keep secrets from each other too.

Grey Templar wrote:well, the Ad Mech managed to ensure the Sun will never go out so i wouldn't put it out of their capabilities.

No they didn't. They might say they did (seriously, got a book and page number on that?), but considering that it will take over a billion years (in the grim darkness of the one millionth millenium, there is only war) before Sol starts to evolve out of the main sequence, there's no way to tell whether or not they're telling the truth. Indeed, I could say that I've invented a device that will prevent the sun from turning into a red giant, and there would be no way you could prove me wrong. I also have a rock that keeps bears from attacking me on my commute that's for sale, if you're interested.

And as far as sticking Holy Terra in the warp for safekeeping, that is probably a horrible idea. Terra is over twice as big, and there's the problem of what exactly would end up happening if you encased the source of the astronomicon in a Geller field, and then dunked the whole mess in the warp. Would it be the world's biggest fishing lure to every warp predator? Would the field end up containing the astronomicon's power in some way and lead to all sorts of grimdark deadness?

And finally there's the slight issue that the moon would have a hard time of it if it didn't have anything to orbit.