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Just to add my two pence worth...

I agree with Psienesis on the broader issue. The Studio invented the Necrons (using the old Chaos Android models as a base look and a snippet from Codex Imperialis about the C'tan) but struggled so much to work out what the "Killer Robots from Outer Space" actually were and would do that they went and created the Tau in the meantime! Then they came back to the Necrons who were still just "Killer Robots from Outer Space" but this time they were driven by the commands of their overlords the C'tan. Xenology did not introduce a Necron with personality until several years later.

Personally my issue with the 3rd Edition Codex is the whole 'the Old Ones made everyone' garbage. I'm glad the new Codex doesn't reiterate the guff about the Krork as that one little tiny snippet of information single-handedly ruined decades of incredibly detailed Ork background at a stroke. I said once on these boards some years before the latest Ork Codex came out how it seemed the Studio were moving away from 'the Old Ones done it' by reintroducing the original Ork background material with the Enslaver Plague as just a possibility and not actualité.

Could the Studio have done more to keep the mindless, lethal terminator robots? I reckon they could have although I don't mind the newer personality included Necrons but let's face it, the Studio couldn't, for whatever reason, come up with some decent terminator-robots background and so made the Necrons Tomb Kings in Space instead. Better than going the Squat route.

 da001 wrote:
I must admit I didn´t know that. I thought the first explanation about the origin of the Orks was the one given in Codex Necrons.

May I ask you to give a brief summary (or a link) about how Orks were created before 3rd Edition?

There were three hefty books published by Games Workshop during Rogue Trader that pretty much covered just background for the orks, they were not codexes but they did include army lists for all the various orks unit types, weapons, vehicles et cetera. They were: Waaargh The Orks (1990), Ere We Go (1991) and Freebooterz (1991).

The Ork origin story is reiterated a little in the current Ork Codex, much of what that Codex has to say is literally copypasta from Waaargh The Orks. In short, what are known as snotlings in the 41st Millennium were the original green skinned aliens. On their home planet these creatures took to eating fungus that had the effect of giving them genius level intelligence. They created many advanced technologies and even created the orks and gretchin to be servants and warrior slaves. Unfortunately these green skinned aliens did not know that they owed their enhanced intellignece to the fungus and so took no measures to stop the orks from eating it too. On the orks it had the same effect and boosted their intelligence although not to the same degree but enough to get the orks thinking that they didn't much like being ordered around by tiny little creatures.

The orks rebelled and gorged themselves on the fungus. Despite attempts to grow the fungus on other worlds it could not be transplanted and once the orks had eaten all that was the end of that. The orks enhanced intelligence bred true but for the 'Brain Boyz' as the orks called them, the effects wore off. Realissing that they were doomed the Brain Boyz encoded all of their scientific and technological knowledge into the orks DNA so at least something of them would survive. From that point on the Brain Boyz ceased to exist, and the snotlings are their present day descendants, under evolved but ironically still used by the orks to harvest and farm fungus.

Orks did not then change much until they encountered Mankind, some twenty thousand years before the current setting. At that time the Blood Axes were in charge of all orks being as they are given to leadership and tactical qualities lacking on other orks. However, in a repeat of what happened to the Brain Boyz, all the other ork clans got together to overthrow the Blood Axe rule because the Blood Axes had many dealings with other alien races, particularly humans and it was on that point that the other orks decided enough was enough; they just couldn't stand the Blood Axes mingling so easily with humans and in what became known as Da Big Party the Blood Axes were largely destroyed. The present day status of the orks is a relatively knew state of affairs for the species.


Then came Codex: Necrons that said, in a few short lines, that the 'green-skinned' Krork were made by the Old Ones and the Deceiver muses on the krork still being around, ergo, the Krork must be the Orks!! And all the fantastic ork background went strait down the toilet (and it has only recently begun to recover).

 da001 wrote:
@Gogsnik: thank you very much.

My pleasure

Did you know that every Space Marine implant was inspired by some real medical advances (or wild hypothesis) of the time? This maybe of interest to someone: it is a blog written by biotechnologists. One of them likes w40k and wrote some articles about what scientific advances inspired the people in GW to create the Space Marines. Especifically, he quoted the advancements in biology behind the Secundary Heart, the Ossmodule and the Biscopea. It is in Spanish, and really difficult to translate given the high amount of scientific names (sorry )

Spoiler:

http://biotecnoblogos.febiotec.es/ciencia-al-servicio-del-emperador/
http://biotecnoblogos.febiotec.es/ciencia-al-servicio-del-emperador-ii-el-tamano-importa/

Google did a pretty good job of translating those articles which are very interesting. I have a great affection for orks but Space Marines were and still are my main army of choice so I found that very informative, thanks for the links.


On the Newcron/Oldcron subject it seems to me that destroyers pretty much continue the Oldcron theme in the newer background. They don't have a readily interchangeable human-like personality and still follow the old 'exterminate the living' theme that drove the Oldcrons; albeit that was at the behest of the C'tan due to their insatiable hunger for life force but I see no reason for that not to be the case even now.

Since the Necrontyr came to worship the C'tan but only began to wake up to the terrible fact of what was really going on almost literally as they were being turned into Necrons then the idea of the Necrons rebelling against the C'tan was seeded in the Oldcron background. If you look at the progression of Necron background since they first appeared in White Dwarf then the fully restored personalties we see now do fit with that progression.

Naturally the Destroyers epitomise the more religious amongst the Necrontyr, they willingly gave up their lives because they abhor and detest all life and that theme, I would say, is enhanced in the Newcron background, in fact, I would say they are even nastier now than before. Going with the progression of the background as matching the slow awakening of the Necrons then the revelation of the Dynasties, and the re-emergence of Necrontyr honour and ability to parley fits well. As for the difference in Lords where they could be presented as more mindless or not then the simple explanation is that not all Lords were created equally, would it not fit that those Necrontyr that were more powerful would have Lord servants that were more like their mindless warrior slaves just because? We could say that some Necron Lords represent a favoured noble or a lesser Dynasty or some such and they managed to retain personality and their own agendas but other Lords were favoured generals and the like and their reward was to have their minds stripped, leaving only their tactical brilliance and obedience behind.

I don't see a reason (in purely Necron related backgrond, not the Old Ones, War in Heaven et cetera) that the newer background isn't compatible with the earlier material. In the wider context of the C'tan then the problem lies with the 3rd Edition Codex having them as tabletop characters. They should have been like the Chaos Gods, too powerful to have anything other than their servants present in a game. However, even if they had been restricted to the background then their presence still stymied the Necrons and, as I have said about the Krork, that information had a deleterious affect on a lot of the background for no particular gain. Backtracking on that background, nerfing the C'tan to make them playable but whilst retaining their awesome power, should all their shards be reunited, seems like a positve step forward to me.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
I always took it to mean that the Necrons and C'tan were relatively unharmed by the Enslavers. The catastrophe applied to the Pyschic races. The Enslavers couldn't attack the C'tan in the same way but would destroy their food source.

Of course, the new Codex: Necrons background neatly retcons this argument utterly. In the old background the reason for the Necrons going into their aeons long slumber was so that new races could emerge for the C'tan to feast upon but the new background states that, after smashing the C'tan, the Necrons went into stasis because they were simply too weak to defend themselves against the Eldar.

Additionally there is no mention of the Enslavers only 'calamitous Warp-spawned perils' and what other races existed at that time are no-longer described as being tinkered with or created by the Old Ones, they are simply 'their allies'. Even the reason for the Necron's awakening has been changed. Before it was when suitably advanced lifeforms, the kind the C'tan might find tasty, disturbed a tomb-world but now it is because the Silent King ordered them to sleep for sixty million years before awakening to 'rebuild all that they had lost, to restore the dynasties to their former glory.'

All of that information in the old Codex: Necrons no-longer applies so what does it really matter what the Enslavers achieved in that old material.

None and in fact, it says that the Eldar hated the Necrons so you would think that they would purposely seek out tomb worlds to destroy. The only consideration is that, at that time the Eldar were little more than savages using spears and bows to fight. We know that the Old Ones and by extension the Eldar, made great use of the Webway at that time but assuming that no tomb world had connections to the webway, or at least, none that the Eldar could open, and assuming that the Eldar did not have any space worthy craft having used the webway alongside the Old Ones in order to move about, that they may not have been able to get at the Necrons.

Over time the Necron threat was largely forgotten leading to the Eldar mythic cycles that recount the deeds of those ancient times.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Some of the old material can still apply. The Eldar and Old Ones still suffered Warp-spawned calamities,which may well include Enslavers. It's not explicitly stated but I don't see why we should completely ignore the old background in this case.

I would put it like this then, the specifics of the Enslaver Plague as described in the old Codex has been retconned. I don't say that that precludes Enslaver involvement at some point but, assuming they were creating havoc it cannot be to the same extent.

I have said before that (my personal opinion only of course) is that the whole 'the Old Ones dunnit' background that saw the introduction of the 'krork' and the tinkering of the Old Ones to make psychic races or at least, enhancing already existing psychic races, is garbage (to me anyway ). None of that is mentioned in the current Codex but it was that tinkering that meant the Enslavers had so many beings through which to invade the material universe. Take away any mention of the tinkering and that limits the Enslaver involvement and their importance and they aren't mentioned either.

In the old Codex we have the notopn of the sheer level of bloodshed disturbing the Warp and turning the beings that dwealt their into (possibly) what we might think of as a daemon in the 42st Millennium even if they were not so evil and aggressive before the War in Heaven. I would say that that is the most reasonable aspect of the old background to bring forward; the Old Ones literally unleashed hell on the C'tan and Necrons and were then overwhelmed by it, the Necrons having no souls being somewhat immune. All of that though is really just the last knife slipping into the Old Ones rather than being something more, in the new version of things they just could beaten good and proper by the C'tan and Necrons, no Enslaver plague required.