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2023/05/22 19:57:07
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
Altruizine wrote: But our world is an extremely poor comparison for 40K.
We see a Terran meat-processing plant in The Carrion Throne and an Imperial food-safety inspector in Nightbleed and neither story indicates that the Imperium has high standards for those industries. Move the focus from critical hive worlds to backwater agri-planets and things can potentially get even more lax.
On the other hand, the Imperium is frequently obsessed with purity (as in, no taint, not for quality of foodstuffs) and definitely has widely available genetic testing in advanced worlds. It is quite conceivable many worlds use bloodprick purity testing on foodstuffs that would weed out cults. The Imperium often has commonplace, easily reproducible tech that is super advanced to us (like las tech), so this would not be a stretch to be available on many worlds. I think there is a reason GSCs usually arise and become established in the less-regulated underclasses before attempting to infiltrate the upper echelons of a society.
The Imperium is a big place and the tech levels and administrative foci are all over the place. Some worlds will have stringent lifestock testing and high purity standards. Others will be primitive pastoral herders offering their sacrifices to the Sky-Emperor. There is a big range in between.
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
2023/05/22 20:22:29
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
Trouble there is if you’re harvesting livestock from a nominally uninhabited world? They don’t need to sneak a Chickenstealer through. However you’re shipping the meaty goodness off world is the opportunity the Patriarch or other Purestrain needs to reach pastures new.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Altruizine wrote: But our world is an extremely poor comparison for 40K.
We see a Terran meat-processing plant in The Carrion Throne and an Imperial food-safety inspector in Nightbleed and neither story indicates that the Imperium has high standards for those industries. Move the focus from critical hive worlds to backwater agri-planets and things can potentially get even more lax.
On the other hand, the Imperium is frequently obsessed with purity (as in, no taint, not for quality of foodstuffs) and definitely has widely available genetic testing in advanced worlds. It is quite conceivable many worlds use bloodprick purity testing on foodstuffs that would weed out cults. The Imperium often has commonplace, easily reproducible tech that is super advanced to us (like las tech), so this would not be a stretch to be available on many worlds. I think there is a reason GSCs usually arise and become established in the less-regulated underclasses before attempting to infiltrate the upper echelons of a society.
The Imperium is a big place and the tech levels and administrative foci are all over the place. Some worlds will have stringent lifestock testing and high purity standards. Others will be primitive pastoral herders offering their sacrifices to the Sky-Emperor. There is a big range in between.
They don't bloodprick test every *human*, do they? So I don't think the resources to do that to every animal exists in any significant capacity.
Churn-and-burn automation and corner-cutting "entrepreneurialism" means there's plenty of scope for some kind of infection to begin with animal carriers. But like I said, it would merely be a good hook for a single narrative, that sets up the perfect conditions for it to occur; it's not a viable ingress for Genestealers collectively.
2023/05/22 21:10:37
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
Hybrids, 4th generation exempted, are blatantly mutated. The IoM isn't going to need genetic testing to figure that out.
Genestealer Cults get away with it because they are sapient and thus both know and have the resources to hide their hybrids (at least until the 4th gen makes it unnecessary).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/05/22 21:11:50
2023/05/22 21:47:14
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
Tyran wrote: Hybrids, 4th generation exempted, are blatantly mutated. The IoM isn't going to need genetic testing to figure that out.
Genestealer Cults get away with it because they are sapient and thus both know and have the resources to hide their hybrids (at least until the 4th gen makes it unnecessary).
There are conditions where nothing needs to hide. In many cases the animals would never be observed by a single human throughout period in which they're cloned, born, force fed, grown, and die. The operations are automated and servitor-run.
I'm honestly not even following what you're arguing against. Are you trying to say "No, not even a single story could exist about a genestealer infection beginning among domesticated animals" lmao. Because that would be a self-evidently stubborn/dumb take, given the ability for a writer to imagine perfect, limited, and unlikely conditions for their project -- it could be a Warhammer Horror story about a single incompetent and feckless guy inattentively operating a mink farm for Inquisitor capes on a nowhere planet where things get out of control.
2023/05/22 21:53:24
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
Altruizine wrote: But our world is an extremely poor comparison for 40K.
We see a Terran meat-processing plant in The Carrion Throne and an Imperial food-safety inspector in Nightbleed and neither story indicates that the Imperium has high standards for those industries. Move the focus from critical hive worlds to backwater agri-planets and things can potentially get even more lax.
On the other hand, the Imperium is frequently obsessed with purity (as in, no taint, not for quality of foodstuffs) and definitely has widely available genetic testing in advanced worlds. It is quite conceivable many worlds use bloodprick purity testing on foodstuffs that would weed out cults. The Imperium often has commonplace, easily reproducible tech that is super advanced to us (like las tech), so this would not be a stretch to be available on many worlds. I think there is a reason GSCs usually arise and become established in the less-regulated underclasses before attempting to infiltrate the upper echelons of a society.
The Imperium is a big place and the tech levels and administrative foci are all over the place. Some worlds will have stringent lifestock testing and high purity standards. Others will be primitive pastoral herders offering their sacrifices to the Sky-Emperor. There is a big range in between.
They don't bloodprick test every *human*, do they? So I don't think the resources to do that to every animal exists in any significant capacity.
Churn-and-burn automation and corner-cutting "entrepreneurialism" means there's plenty of scope for some kind of infection to begin with animal carriers. But like I said, it would merely be a good hook for a single narrative, that sets up the perfect conditions for it to occur; it's not a viable ingress for Genestealers collectively.
Every human? No. Every human on some worlds? Quite probably. A lot of agri worlds are giant industrialised world farms rather than simply backwards feudal worlds supplying food because it is the best they can tithe, these world farms and the more advanced civilised worlds would be most likely to monitor foodstuffs closely. Purity paranoia is a common Imperial trait that I am sure extends to food production on some worlds.
Corner cutting/corruption etc can definitely introduce an infestation into even the most paranoid world though. Such is the Imperium. I think it is notable that Inquisitor Eisenhorn once posed as an agri world grain exporter "selling" contraband GM crops enhanced with xenos strains. This shows both that Imperial agri production can be highly advanced whilst showing the weakness of corruption infiltrating that.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/05/22 21:54:34
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
2023/05/22 21:56:11
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
There are conditions where nothing needs to hide. In many cases the animals would never be observed by a single human throughout period in which they're cloned, born, force fed, grown, and die. The operations are automated and servitor-run.
I'm honestly not even following what you're arguing against. Are you trying to say "No, not even a single story could exist about a genestealer infection beginning among domesticated animals" lmao. Because that would be a self-evidently stubborn/dumb take, given the ability for a writer to imagine perfect, limited, and unlikely conditions for their project -- it could be a Warhammer Horror story about a single incompetent and feckless guy inattentively operating a mink farm for Inquisitor capes on a nowhere planet where things get out of control.
My issue here is why the Genestealer decided to infect a space cow?
I struggle to imagine a situation in which a Genestealer is desperate enough to infect a space cow and yet said space cow is going to escape undetected. It doesn't fit, either the world is lax enough that the Genestealer can go around infecting humans as usual or it is a highly secure world in which case the infected space cow is going to be detected.
The genestealer space cow situation seems to require a contradiction of being to good at detecting genestealers but somehow very lax about the space cows.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/05/22 21:57:26
2023/05/22 23:37:08
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
There are conditions where nothing needs to hide. In many cases the animals would never be observed by a single human throughout period in which they're cloned, born, force fed, grown, and die. The operations are automated and servitor-run.
I'm honestly not even following what you're arguing against. Are you trying to say "No, not even a single story could exist about a genestealer infection beginning among domesticated animals" lmao. Because that would be a self-evidently stubborn/dumb take, given the ability for a writer to imagine perfect, limited, and unlikely conditions for their project -- it could be a Warhammer Horror story about a single incompetent and feckless guy inattentively operating a mink farm for Inquisitor capes on a nowhere planet where things get out of control.
My issue here is why the Genestealer decided to infect a space cow?
I struggle to imagine a situation in which a Genestealer is desperate enough to infect a space cow and yet said space cow is going to escape undetected. It doesn't fit, either the world is lax enough that the Genestealer can go around infecting humans as usual or it is a highly secure world in which case the infected space cow is going to be detected.
The genestealer space cow situation seems to require a contradiction of being to good at detecting genestealers but somehow very lax about the space cows.
Yeah, I agree with that. In almost all circumstances a Genestealer would identify space cows as such and ignore them, intuiting that where there are space cows to infect there are necessarily people-who-own-space-cows to infect. All I'm saying is that it could work with a horror movie setup, where like one lonely farmer gets extremely lucky and fends off the last wounded Genestealer from a crash-landed shuttle or something, but the Genestealer manages to leave a future surprise before it gets faded.
2023/05/22 23:56:28
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
If memory serves, Ymgarl Genestealers pre-date mankind discovering the world. Which, whist not conclusive in itself, would suggest they developed from a non-sentient species infestation - or at least thrived on a world without a sentient species until a more suitable host species decided to stick it nose in.
Infesting a sentient, space faring species is of course the ideal. Not just biomass, but ride hitching. But there’s just nothing at all to say it’s “sentient or nothing”.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
That's not quite accurate. It was initially believed that Genestealers originated from Ymgarl, more specifically its moons, but after the Battle of Macragge, it was discovered that they were Tyranid organisms rather than a distinct species. There isn't anything to suggest that the Ymgarl strain predated Mankind colonising the system.
Ymgarl itself was a research station so it was definitely populated by humans, enough so that trade to and from the system was frequent enough for Genestealers to use the network as a way of spreading further into the Imperium.
The problem with Nids is that a lot of their early background doesn't match with the newer stuff and you can kind of tell when writers were trying to try and make the two different parts add up but it's cursed. Its why stuff like Zoats got relegated to "They were Xenos that disappeared" rather than a specific slave race that worked as ambassadors for the Hive Mind.
2023/05/23 12:51:53
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
The info I can find suggests the discovery of Ymgarl Genestealers occurred a while before Hive Fleet Behemoth was first encountered.
Now of course, Imperial Bureaucracy being what it is, that doesn’t me “therefore they were in our Galaxy before Behemoth got here”. Because something not being here and nobody noticing it being here aren’t the same things.
Likewise whether they arrived with humans at some point, or were already there lurking around is impossible to say for sure.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Well, we know that Genestealers are a vanguard organism so their being in the Milky Way before the first Hive Fleet makes sense. Ghosar Quintus was the first major conflict with a Genestealer Cult and it occurred almost 100 years before Behemoth destroyed Tyran.
2023/05/23 13:42:32
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
Which raises the question how did they travel ahead of the Hive Fleets.
Obvious (possibly lazy?) answer is specialised seeding ships, hurled ahead of the Hive Fleets, Probot style.
Another, I’d argue more interesting and Galaxy colouring answer is because the Galaxy is a massive place, and The Imperium super disparate, even in the relative core of its holdings? The Tyranids may have been here a good bit longer than anyone can know, snacking on worlds The Imperium has never found, or has found but only known as barren, airless rocks, and so never investigated in great detail.
From that last point, we could colour Behemoth as the first seeker tendril of the overall Hive Mind. As soon as it found lots and lots and lots of biomass, it triggered the rest of the fleets to start moving in for the harvest.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
I mean it sort of depends on whereabout on the Eastern Fringe one is. Tyran was about as far out as the Imperium goes and it still had uninhabited worlds further out that were consumed, tipping off Tyran that something was wrong.
In terms of how long the Tyranids have really been present in force in the Milky Way, it's going to be in the tens of years rather than hundreds. The Imperium is unobservant but not so unobservant that it wouldn't notice masses of previously habitable planets reduced to barren worlds on its eastern borders, especially when those are some of the more fortified zones thanks to areas like the Ghoul Stars and Ultramar.
For Genestealer infiltrators, maybe a hundred or so years in advance of Behemoth's first tendrils.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/05/23 14:45:35
2023/05/23 14:58:06
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
From what I can gather, Ouroboris was speculated to have been encountered in M36 but it was from the account of a Cardinal who claimed the Emperor Himself turned the tide. The Space Wolves might have a relic that might be Tyranid in nature but they can't be sure and a Titan that apparently fought in the Ouroboris Wars had Tyranid bio-weapon damage.
As for Tiamet, the theory behind that is that it wasn't a Hive Fleet but rather Tyranid DNA that arrived in the system via cosmic debris. The Tyranids then evolved on the planets where they were assumed to be a local species. The Tiamet system was then consumed by Kraken.
Again though this just strengthens the issue Tyranids have where the background is a confusing mess that doesn't fit together when you look with any real scrutiny, more than a lot of other factions.
2023/05/26 00:50:40
Subject: Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
But even if there is no sentient species? A meal is a meal - and it’s one the Hive Fleet might meet zero resistance in consuming. Even if it takes the Cult longer to get to the size where the signal is generated.
Failure to understand galactic scales: your oldest and closest companion. Hive fleets are not like you and your mates on a pub crawl who get a text from Jackie Boy about a BOGO chicken korma promo, and pile into an ubered Peugeot to go three blocks and take care of business. Cults wait centuries for hive fleets to show up. Cult beacons are not messages from out of the ether that completely reset a hive tendril's longterm strategic goals and dispersion.
The whole "picky eaters" speculation is meant to indicate that the Tyranids' goals, on a galactic-strategic level, have shifted from maximal intake to steady upkeep in service of their ultimately mysterious objectives.
I'm basically with Tyran; there's no reason *not* to do a little light infection if a Genestealer ends up on a wilderness world, but it's not really important or what they're designed for. On populated worlds infecting animals would just be performing a middleman phase (because the purpose of the infected animals would be to eventually infect/disorganize the sapients). It could still be an interesting conceit for a narrative, though... like a trapped and cornered Genestealer whose last ditch contribution is to infect some livestock, and then following the slowed development of the infestation/cult through the vector of the livestock industry.
Sounds like a neat piece of fan fiction, especially if written from the viewpoint of the Robinson Crusoe genestealer.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Altruizine wrote: But our world is an extremely poor comparison for 40K.
We see a Terran meat-processing plant in The Carrion Throne and an Imperial food-safety inspector in Nightbleed and neither story indicates that the Imperium has high standards for those industries. Move the focus from critical hive worlds to backwater agri-planets and things can potentially get even more lax.
This ^^
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/05/26 00:52:26
First, all means to conciliate; failing that, all means to crush.
-Cardinal Richelieu
2023/05/26 08:34:21
Subject: Re:Why No Grox Or Catachan Devil Genestealers?
Gert wrote: From what I can gather, Ouroboris was speculated to have been encountered in M36 but it was from the account of a Cardinal who claimed the Emperor Himself turned the tide. The Space Wolves might have a relic that might be Tyranid in nature but they can't be sure and a Titan that apparently fought in the Ouroboris Wars had Tyranid bio-weapon damage.
As for Tiamet, the theory behind that is that it wasn't a Hive Fleet but rather Tyranid DNA that arrived in the system via cosmic debris. The Tyranids then evolved on the planets where they were assumed to be a local species. The Tiamet system was then consumed by Kraken.
Again though this just strengthens the issue Tyranids have where the background is a confusing mess that doesn't fit together when you look with any real scrutiny, more than a lot of other factions.
This doesn't strike me as a contradiction- ultimately, the Imperium is not sure when Tyranids first entered the Milky Way. The first confirmed encounter with genestealers was Ymgarl and the first confirmed Hive Fleet was Behemoth.
There are lots of hypotheses for earlier incursions, that may or may not be true. This is entirely consistent with normal 40k canon- the Imperium is very hazy on its own history, nevermind that of an extra-galactic xenos that is notably hard to trace due to deliberately variable genetic material. It is very difficult to do more than draw parallel between certain historic events and current Tyranid incursions, because Tyranids all have different genetics and morphology.
I don't see what is unusually confusing about it? Frankly, it is no different to debates about when, for example, humans first reached North America- there is new evidence and hypotheses and arguments all the time. If anything, I find the Tyranid lore more compelling for having a lot of uncertainty to it.
There have been a couple of notable Tyranid retcons, mainly Zoats.
ChargerIIC wrote: If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
