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I thought it might be fun to have a thread that addresses the many weapons, technologies, etc. that are found in the 40K universe, and try to explain based on a mixture of fluff and modern knowledge of physics/other sciences, how these items might work. Since 40K has a LOT of conflicting fluff, just go with whatever you feel is easiest to explain or has the most support from multiple "fluff sources." Obviously when making the game the designers/writers weren't really thinking "How could these things work in real life?", so if there's no way the weapon could work by the mechanisms proposed in the fluff, an explanation based on real-life science is perfectly acceptable. This isn't necessarily a question of "is it practical" or "could we create something like this today?" It's more about trying to think of the core principles behind each type of technology and perhaps coming up with a blueprint/diagram of how it might work, even if it requires parts that we don't have the capability of producing today - so long as those missing parts could perhaps be made in the future, it counts. A diagram/blueprint isn't necessary of course, I just personally think that'd be rather interesting.

Here are a few to think about, just to get the ball rolling:

Boltguns: There's a lot of info on these considering the posterboys of the whole franchise carry them rather often, but I'd like to see how much details we can figure out. According to the fluff, they fire self-propelled rounds that explode slightly after impact for maximum damage. I was reading stuff about gyrojet ammunition, but I'm wondering if bolts would be more like that, or if they would be more similar to RPG grenades.

Power Armor/Terminator Armor: I'd like to know more about exactly how it protects the user against incredibly hostile conditions, how it enhances strength and other characteristics of the user, and how it manages to display the necessary information to the wearer. If I remember correctly the actual plates of the armor are made of Ceramite, which doesn't exist in the real world. However, perhaps we could think of some existing material or hypothetical material/mixture of materials that would have similar properties.

Power weapons: I'd really like to think about how they produce the electromagnetic field and how it disrupts the matter around it or whatever.

Note that these are just "prompts" - feel free to bring up any type of 40K weapon or technology that you would like to know more about or that you have a good understanding of!

Boltguns are exactly that; Fully automatic miniature RPG's. As impressive as it is, they are completely unrealistic in a real world thoughtframe. The ammo would be so expensive currently that even arming the relatively small marine core would be a chore. We simply dont need that kind of firepower, nor want to pay for it in todays warzones.

Power armor is incredibly compex and has many redundant systems (which is what true battle armor would need). Effectively though, its a full body environmental suit, with exo-skeleton strength buffs, layered in composite Ceramic/steel plating that is powered by a miniature fusion generator. The true perfect armor. Once again, a bit too expensive for widespread use and since we dont actually have footwars anymore, rather pointless in today's society.

Power weapons are straight cyber fantasy wishlisting. They are completely inefficient and incredibly cool.

I'd say the most 'possible' weapons in 40k are Tau. Railgun, EMP, missiles and markerlights already exist. Plasma (and pulse/burst, derivated technology from plasma) is a possibility as well.

Bolters are very possible. They are essentially 40mm grenade launchers with the added benefit of having a rocket on the payload. If you made a sufficiently durable engine or included some sort of wad to carry the round safely from the blast, you could make a bolt round if you wanted. Not sure it is much more effective than other items we arm soldiers with.

Well, chain weapons are... interesting. I'd say unless we can get a much more reliable metal, and motor, the damned thing would get jammed on anything other than ents.

Bolt-rounds are not grenades. They're more like a very large bullet (.75 cal) that explodes when it gets inside you. It is not a gyrojet, as it has a standard explosive charge to propel it down the barrel (and provide lethal velocity at the muzzle), with the second-stage rocket engaging to provide flight-stabilization and greater accuracy.

We wouldn't use these in a modern battlefield as it's simply overkill on a soft target like a regular human being. When we start getting invaded by aliens, then let's consider bolters.

Powerweapons have a "standard" blade of some kind (or mace/hammer head), often of some high-tech alloy or fictional metal, that possesses an emitter for some sort of energy field that destabilizes physical matter on a molecular level. Some powerswords (notably the Sollex-pattern) are just the energy field, having no real blade. This makes them the 40K version of a lightsaber.

Other weird tech:

The Teleportarium: This device opens an unshielded tunnel in the Warp to transport people from the device to a point within LoS of the ship or station the device is located on. Why you would ever want to make an unprotected Warp-Walk is beyond me. These devices are ancient and barely understood in the current era of 40K, and disappearances and accidents are common.

 PhillyT wrote:
Bolters are very possible. They are essentially 40mm grenade launchers with the added benefit of having a rocket on the payload. If you made a sufficiently durable engine or included some sort of wad to carry the round safely from the blast, you could make a bolt round if you wanted. Not sure it is much more effective than other items we arm soldiers with.

In fact, we could totally replicate Boltguns right now if we wanted to.

They're really nothing more than miniature RPGs that are put inside a large caliber armor piercing bullet.

Power armour is theoretically possible. Even now people are designing exoskeleton and strength enhancing machines. The issue comes from the Black Carapace and humanitarian/human testing issues. The black carapace is required to interlink with the suit and the nervous system and make it move. Once you have that done you can simply create muscle bundles from steel cable (or titanium or whatever) to resemble human musculature, accompanied by hydraulics or pistons to provide the strength. The life support is easy, just a gas mask really with internal heating (from power source) and an airtight seal. Targetting reticules can be installed but without neural interface they would need an onboard computer to pick out hostiles and friendlies, or else a cable running from your weapon to the suit to show you where your round would hit. The main issue it seems with Marine pattern armour is the interface. In 40k it requires a dangerous and often fatal procedure to be conducted on young teenage boys, involving cutting them open and planting new organs and then drilling into the ribs, sternum and spine to install plugs. If it were a full grown adult, it would be incredibly difficult to get approval, but operating on a minor would be shot down with no discussions. Then you wpuld have feminists going on about men giving more power to men and women being excluded and all that. Then you have multiple large barrels of worms to deal with.

Uh, Deadshot? Why are you assuming that it would have to be Astartes Power Armour?

There are plenty of examples of power armour being worn by normal humans in 40k, and even aside from that, the Black Carapace isn't one of the 'gender specific' upgrades. You could implant the Carapace into a woman.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
You could implant the Carapace into a woman.

Nope. Anti-feminists.

Actually, there are some works on exo-skeletons nowadays. They're all pre-alpha versions, have lots of problems and this problems are currently super-dificult to solve. However, the prototypes can allready be used as strength enchanters but regular means of manipulating heavy objects are just plain easier and cheaper yet.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Uh, Deadshot? Why are you assuming that it would have to be Astartes Power Armour?

There are plenty of examples of power armour being worn by normal humans in 40k, and even aside from that, the Black Carapace isn't one of the 'gender specific' upgrades. You could implant the Carapace into a woman.

Because human power armour doesn't provide nearly as many benefits as Astartes pattern, namely the neural integration, including blink-clicking on the HUD, thought-linking to systems and the ability to move the armour as your own body. Without the carapace it's practically just a suit of plate. Asides from that, prove that it is not gender specific, as there is very little information on the actual process, and we know that only men can be Space Marines due to hormonal/chromosome reasons.

Edit: Furthermore, Black Carapace clearly requires the other implants first. The carapace is the very last implant a Marine recieves, after all the others. In addition, Inquisitors would have their own BC if it were possible without the other organs. That's just logic.

 Psienesis wrote:
Bolt-rounds are not grenades. They're more like a very large bullet (.75 cal) that explodes when it gets inside you. It is not a gyrojet, as it has a standard explosive charge to propel it down the barrel (and provide lethal velocity at the muzzle), with the second-stage rocket engaging to provide flight-stabilization and greater accuracy.

We wouldn't use these in a modern battlefield as it's simply overkill on a soft target like a regular human being. When we start getting invaded by aliens, then let's consider bolters.

well, on could argue, that we already have such an ammunition. depleted uranium shells do excactly this. designed to pierce thick armour, the uranium core will be desintegrated and pulverized form the energy of the impact causing it to burn and explode inside the target.

of course this works only if the target has some form of high dense armour... well like an armoured vehicle...

despite that, there are types of ammunition designed to deform or fragment upon impact to increase the damage done to the internal structore of a "soft-target" like hollow point or hollow-cavity tammunition.

Wraithbone. Open to any ideas as to what it would feel like/weigh/maleability etc.
I keep picturing some sort of bendable ivory.

 Ratius wrote:
Wraithbone. Open to any ideas as to what it would feel like/weigh/maleability etc.
I keep picturing some sort of bendable ivory.

Wraithbone is grown through psychic direction. From what I understand its almost living, capable of naturally growing in any shape with the right psychic shaping, but try to physically bend it would be like trying to bend steel with your bare hands. That being shown by tabletop stats putting it on the same level as Carnifexes in durability (for Wraithguard/blades) and the larger Wraithlords and Knights bordering on Titan levels of durability.

 Ratius wrote:
Wraithbone. Open to any ideas as to what it would feel like/weigh/maleability etc.
I keep picturing some sort of bendable ivory.

It's psy-reactive plastic. Hard, glossy, smooth. Surprisingly light, but with high tensile strength.

Quick note, FFG has hinted strongly slash outright confirmed that "machine spirits" (which is in fact a sort of primitive AI) does not exist in anything smaller than a Land Raider. Bolters are just that, bolters, not sacred vessels of a massive god of knowledge.

 Bronzefists42 wrote:
Quick note, FFG has hinted strongly slash outright confirmed that "machine spirits" (which is in fact a sort of primitive AI) does not exist in anything smaller than a Land Raider. Bolters are just that, bolters, not sacred vessels of a massive god of knowledge.

Uh, no? They specifically state that the war-spirit of an Astartes weapon becomes offended if a non-Astartes handles it, and will sometimes refuse to fire, gaining the Unreliable trait when wielded by a non-Astartes. A war-spirit is the Machine Spirit of an advanced, technological weapon.

We could do it but, its just not useful in todays warfare, scouts with cloaks will probably be more deadly in modern times. Remember that they use gentleman's warfare on a large scale in 40k. Power armor would be cool, but not useful, bolters are expensive, a leman russ tank would be good, gravity guns :/, but, I'd like to see how jump packs (how marines survive the drop) work and how gravity chutes work.

A Grav-chute is basically an anti-grav device that permits the jump-troop to decelerate during descent, and even provides some limited lift.

Same technology, basically, that permits Land Speeders to float.

Ah, so no go in the present?

 Psienesis wrote:

 Bronzefists42 wrote:
Quick note, FFG has hinted strongly slash outright confirmed that "machine spirits" (which is in fact a sort of primitive AI) does not exist in anything smaller than a Land Raider. Bolters are just that, bolters, not sacred vessels of a massive god of knowledge.

Uh, no? They specifically state that the war-spirit of an Astartes weapon becomes offended if a non-Astartes handles it, and will sometimes refuse to fire, gaining the Unreliable trait when wielded by a non-Astartes. A war-spirit is the Machine Spirit of an advanced, technological weapon.

Weird. I remember another book explaining that the unreliable and hard to wield traits came from Astartes weaponry being to large and complicated for any human to properly operate.

An Astartes boltgun is simply a larger version of the "civilian" boltgun that other forces wield. Its size would give it the "Unwieldy" Trait, or would make it require Bracing... but would not take a weapon with the Mastercrafted Trait and make it Unreliable. That's indication of going from Best-of-the-best in quality to the Worst-of-the-Worst.

Besides, FFG also states that Sisters have to earn their helmets through battle, a 'fact' that the Sisters miniatures for 40k clearly refutes, since there are models of Sisters with very few battle honours wearing helmets, and many, many sisters with a lot of battle honours NOT wearing helmets.

Indeed. But the helmet thing has come up before - the helmet with the fleur-de-lys crest on it was stated as being a common mark for Celestians in the old Codex witch hunters.

It's been a thing and will continue to be a thing until some mythical time where the sororitas models get redone, because there are very few models representing a plethora of footslogging squads, and picking out helmeted models as veterans is an easy way to do it.

I'm fully aware that the majority of sisters - veteran or not - in the artwork aren't helmed.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
snipped...

The true perfect armor. Once again, a bit too expensive for widespread use and since we dont actually have footwars anymore, rather pointless in today's society.

Pretty much all of the conflicts happening today rely heavily on infantry. Having virtually invulnerable infantry would be something of an advantage one would think.

Boltguns and power armor are completely plausable with current science, just perhaps not with current economics.

Lasguns and plasma guns though, do not make sense. The more they try to explain them with psuedo science, the worse things sound.

I love that this has prompted a good discussion - I'm hoping this thread will continue for a long time as new weapons/technologies are introduced in the 40K universe and perhaps as real-world technology advances we'll learn more.

locarno24 wrote:
Indeed. But the helmet thing has come up before - the helmet with the fleur-de-lys crest on it was stated as being a common mark for Celestians in the old Codex witch hunters.

It's been a thing and will continue to be a thing until some mythical time where the sororitas models get redone, because there are very few models representing a plethora of footslogging squads, and picking out helmeted models as veterans is an easy way to do it.

I'm fully aware that the majority of sisters - veteran or not - in the artwork aren't helmed.

The fleur coronet is the bit that is noted as being heavily featured in Celestian squads, not the idea of wearing helmets at all. Sigh.

The models have a way of telling which ones are more experienced, anyway, quite aside from the fleur crest that appears on a grand total of two Sister Superior models - the number of beads on their rosaries, holding the chaplets. They get one bead for every battle they are in.

Another discussion prompt to get it more focused on the actual tech rather than stuff about helmets and who wears them:

In the fluff, it says that their flamers/heavy flamers use "promethium", but as far as I know the actual element Promethium would not be suitable for this role in any way, shape, or form. My guess is that it's really just napalm/something very similar and they called it "promethium" after the guy in Greek mythology who gave humankind fire (flamethrower fuel, makes sense). Am I wrong about this?

Also, just a note for future discussion: the most important thing in terms of fluff for this discussion is WHAT effects the weapon/technology has. If there is a way the technology could work that makes more sense than what the actual fluff says, the former takes precedent.

For example, in this whole power armor discussion the questions are simply: "What does the power armor do? How does/could it be doing that (if possible, try to think of ways that could be recreated today or that we at least know are based on sound scientific principles)?" In this, we know from the fluff that it protects against many different types of attack, as well as providing an internal environment that allows the wearer to survive pretty much regardless of the conditions outside the armor (vacuum, poisonous atmosphere, extreme heat/cold [to a certain degree], etc). The way I see it, it's pretty much an armored spacesuit with a much more intricate connection with the wearer. Even if the fluff says it displays what it displays via the helmet a certain way that we could not replicate today, if anyone can think of ways it could do so that are more realistic those are absolutely encouraged.

Another one I'd REALLY like to know more about: Necron Gauss weaponry. I know about Gauss and the electromagnetic coils and whatnot, but if I remember my reading correctly about the idea of Gauss weaponry they would not have an effect like that of Necron gauss weapons.

"Promethium" in 40k is mined, and is a general purpose fuelstuff used in everything from flamers to motorbikes. The Imperium literally runs on promethium.

Gauss weapons as used by the Necrons are a mystery. They pull objects apart on the atomic level, but it's all fanon as to how they actually work, most of it based purely on the name 'gauss'.