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Were the C'Tan all buddy buddy with ancient humans? Funny they would name their guns after ancient human science

To be honest, I would say how any xenos equipment is named is more likely done by humans. I hardly think Tyranids think of themselves as gargoyles, termagants and lictors et al, and neither do the Tau actually name their vehicles after Terran fish. Those are all human names, and since they perceive the gauss weapon to work a certain way they gave it the name. Simple.

For the same reason they have Tesla weapons and Eldar have Shuriken weapons...

Either it is a massive coincidence or it is Imperial observers assigning names to Xenos artifacts they see in the field. Chances are Necrons actually call them something entirely different.

The funny thing in my mind is that the Necron Gauss weapons bear no similarity to modern Gauss weaponry, which are more coilgun things than space skeleton deathrays. However the Tesla weaponry is spot on

I doubt the Necrons use the names Gauss Rifle, Wraiths, Scarabs, etc.. It's just the Human titles for them. The Necrons have their own language, which is more or less space-ancient egyptian garble.

It was actually explained in a call out box in one of the Necron fluff articles in white dwarf years and years ago.

A Techmarine's analysis of the Necron weaponry decided that their function had most in common with Imperial "Gauss Teleporter" technology, and the name supposedly stuck from there.

I think the weapon names are not so much based on fact, as what the human troops (who are on the receiving end) perceive.

So for example, the shurkien catapult has nothing to do with shurikens; it just looks that way to a Guardsman or Marine under fire (loads of metal slivers flying at them).

The Necron weapons probably generate strong magnetic pulses, which register on things ilke Auspex readers. Perhaps the Imperium's equipment measures the gauss emanations, which leads to them referring to Necron weapons as "gauss" weaponry.

Tyranidfreek01 wrote:
I
So for example, the shurkien catapult has nothing to do with shurikens; it just looks that way to a Guardsman or Marine under fire (loads of metal slivers flying at them).

Except the shurkien catapult fires shurkiens, that's one of those 'been in 40k since the beginning and never changed' things isn't it?

Yes, but the term Shuriken referring to a star or disc shaped flattened projectile is itself an earth term. At least in the Eldar Codex they do a decent job of illustrating the weapons with the Eldar names as well.

"Gauss Rifle" is explicitly an Imperial designation for their weapon.

 Kyrolon wrote:
Yes, but the term Shuriken referring to a star or disc shaped flattened projectile is itself an earth term. At least in the Eldar Codex they do a decent job of illustrating the weapons with the Eldar names as well.

Indeed the Eldar have long had proper names for their weapons as well as the Imperial designations or call signs - same with most things really in 40k - its usually described from a human viewpoint.

Necron weapons were named by humans as Necrons themselves can't speak anyway. Humans thus decided to name their weapons and that's why they are called Gauss.

...not to mention that "Gauss" doesn't make sense anyway.

Well at least it stopped them being named something silly like Atomiser Guns. Or Disintegrators. Or Flenser Tech. After all, there is a lot of flensing going on in the 41st Millennium, which is strange, because flensing is cutting the blubber off whales...

because flensing is cutting the blubber off whales...

flense (transitive verb) : to strip (as a whale) of blubber or skin

... humans have both skin and blubber (fat). You can flense a man as readily as you can a whale.

Well can anyone read the Eldar language or the necron language...no we are human and as human of course the books shall be written in our view point...if we were necrons we wouldnt even be reading, just souless automatons, or noble class citizens worried about codes and politics and tomb world expansion and a million other things than the name of their guns lol. sry for ranting.