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Anyone got any info as to what happened to the sisters of Silence after the Heresy?

Did they, as Nulls just get subsumed by the Inquisition / Officio Assassonorum or perhaps juts stay in the palace like the Custodus?

thanks for any info

Mr Morden wrote:Anyone got any info as to what happened to the sisters of Silence after the Heresy?

Did they, as Nulls just get subsumed by the Inquisition / Officio Assassonorum or perhaps juts stay in the palace like the Custodus?

thanks for any info

Perhaps they are all on terra, in few numbers?

Nothing happened. They're still on the moon.

They haven't said.

^^ This guy...

DarknessEternal wrote:Nothing happened. They're still on the moon.

Mhmm. If "nothing happened" I think they would still be able to guard the Black Ships instead of having ISTs and the Sisters Militant do their job.

Also, aren't Blanks supposed to be really, really rare now? If the majority of those that actually survive their youth are inducted into the Culexus Temple, how many would be left to the SoS - and what would their job be, considering that the apprehension of psykers has been taken over by other Imperial Adepta?

I know there's next to no material on the actual fate of the SoS, but given that they are (as of yet) completely invisible in the "current" era, it seems likely they were either disbanded or did not survive the Heresy. Or perhaps, to propose a much more radical theory, they never existed in GW's world in the first place? The only products they appear in seem to be a Sabertooth card game and a couple Black Library books, and neither is actually obliged to adhere to a 'true' representation of the setting. GW is not forced to adopt everything they invent.

Theories, theories ...

I think the given number for blanks goes along the same lines as psykers... which, really, aren't all that rare, apparently.

I forget where I read it, but the numbers that I remember state that 1 in every thousand humans is born with the potential for psychic expression. One in every 1000 of these special children is born a blank.

Of course, even of those 1 in 1000 children that are psychic, few will be of a power-grade sufficient to be anything appreciable, and will end up as food for the God-Emperor... but, still, that's a feth-load of Psykers when you consider how many children are born, every day, across the length and breadth of the Imperium.

I admit I was going by the Lexicanum in that statement, which gave an estimate of about 1 Blank per world per generation... I'm just not sure if this bit comes from a GW Codex or a BL novel - that may change a lot. Perhaps someone else with more in-depth knowledge on the subject (a GK player?) can elaborate? I only have peripheral info here due to the slight "crossover" (i.e. the SoB apparently having taken over the SoS' duties).

Anyways, added to this one million Blanks per generation (?) comes the apparent "bad luck" the Blanks have in actually surviving long enough to get picked up, and that the Inquisition and the Officio Assassinorum want their share of Blanks as well.

I realize that's not much help for the original question, though - just a theory on why they don't show up anymore. :S

Lynata wrote:I admit I was going by the Lexicanum in that statement, which gave an estimate of about 1 Blank per world per generation... I'm just not sure if this bit comes from a GW Codex or a BL novel - that may change a lot. Perhaps someone else with more in-depth knowledge on the subject (a GK player?) can elaborate? I only have peripheral info here due to the slight "crossover" (i.e. the SoB apparently having taken over the SoS' duties).

Anyways, added to this one million Blanks per generation (?) comes the apparent "bad luck" the Blanks have in actually surviving long enough to get picked up, and that the Inquisition and the Officio Assassinorum want their share of Blanks as well.

I realize that's not much help for the original question, though - just a theory on why they don't show up anymore. :S

I vaguely recall reading something about that in a codex fairly recently, the 1 Blank per world per generation thing.

I checked the Necron codex though and couldn't find anything regarding it, though I think it might indeed be in the GK codex. Don't have on hand though.

Have the Sisters of Silence ever been mentioned outside of the HH novels?

I heard that blanks were as rare among psykers, as psykers are rare among normal humans.

That's the fluff... but, in keeping with GW's normal masterful understanding of scale... it seems they aren't as rare as they would like to believe.

You would think GW would stop giving numbers at this point, really. Sure, 1 in 1000 isn't many... unless a billion children a day are born across your million-world Imperium.

First off, yes blanks are rare to single worlds, but as it has been pointed out the Imperium is MILLIONS of worlds. So even if only one per generation per world is born that is close to a million every generation (which is only a few years). So I think there is a healthy influx of psychic blanks.

The Sisters of Silence are most probably guarding the Black Ships (seems pretty straight forward giving their blankness and combat expertise). I would say they make their headquarters either on Luna, or in the Imperial Palace.

Bongfu wrote:The Sisters of Silence are most probably guarding the Black Ships

Ah, but that's what current studio material attributes to Inquisitorial Storm Troopers, with occasional support from the Orders Militant.

Even if you think that Black Library novels and therefore the Sisters of Silence are "canon" (an assessment contradicted by statements of George Mann, Gav Thorpe and Andy Hoare), there are other Black Library novels who flat out say "no" to the idea. For example, I recall Faith & Fire mentioning that, by Imperial Decree, the Adeptus Astra Telepathica is forbidden from guarding its own ships due to concerns regarding their agents' purity/loyalty/safety. The SoS have been introduced as part of said Adeptus.

Lynata wrote:

Bongfu wrote:The Sisters of Silence are most probably guarding the Black Ships

Ah, but that's what current studio material attributes to Inquisitorial Storm Troopers, with occasional support from the Orders Militant.

Even if you think that Black Library novels and therefore the Sisters of Silence are "canon" (an assessment contradicted by statements of George Mann, Gav Thorpe and Andy Hoare), there are other Black Library novels who flat out say "no" to the idea. For example, I recall Faith & Fire mentioning that, by Imperial Decree, the Adeptus Astra Telepathica is forbidden from guarding its own ships due to concerns regarding their agents' purity/loyalty/safety. The SoS have been introduced as part of said Adeptus.

Could the Sisters of been integrated into the Culexus?

I got a vaguely "Culexus feel" when reading a fight one had with an Astartes in A Thousand Sons.

Pure speculation, but that's all we can rely on, since there is no trace of the Sisters of Silence at the moment, in BL or in any codex.

There's a PDF regarding them floating around on the internet. I had read it, briefly considering them for a role in a DH campaign, before discarding it as just too.... out there.

But, other than that, I've not seen too much mention of them... well, anywhere, really.

There's some source material about blanks in the 2nd ed Assassins codex if anyone remembers it/can find a copy.

It describes how initial experiments on blanks was discovered by the astra telepathica, or maybe the navigators guild, and all test subjects were ordered to be executed.

Just before the order officially was declared, the facility was shut down. But the records of incumbents and bodies dont match.

A little later, the culexus guild was formed!

Something like that anyway!

thanks - I have the fan made pdf -I'll dig out it was in case they had been maentione danywhere else but the CCG , related Visions of Heresy books and the BL novels.

re the 2nd ed Assassins Codex - thanks I have that but the Culexus guild (according to HH novels) is up and flourshing at the time of the Heresy

re the "Imperial Decree, the Adeptus Astra Telepathica is forbidden from guarding its own ships due to concerns regarding their agents' purity/loyalty/safety. The SoS have been introduced as part of said Adeptus."

True but then the Sisters of Silence did not have to worry about telepathic or other psychic intereference.

Ah well I'll chalk it down to nothing in the current fluff :(

Mr Morden wrote:re the 2nd ed Assassins Codex - thanks I have that but the Culexus guild (according to HH novels) is up and flourshing at the time of the Heresy

Oh yeah, that goddamn book!

Grrr!

The old assassins codex talks about how all assassins are trained on the way to their destination in all forms of combat, weapons etc etc as part of a preliminary 'numbers-thinning' exercise so all of them are pretty hard before they are then assigned off to the various temples.

Except the hax0r assassins. No. They can be as weedy as you like. But are an assassin, rather than a spy type or some other information gathering based department of the Adeptus Terra.

The book was fun to read, but all my rage at that space hacker with his Martian priesthood variant laptop.

/rant