Orks creation and the lost Brainboyz

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**honeybadger33**

The codex tells of the Brainboyz and their legend. Is there anything else in the fluff about them or what may have happened to them? How were the orks even created? Theres more mystery to them than anything and I would like to know more about how there were created and what really happened to the Brianboyz.

**Kain**

The brainboyz are most likely the old ones who got killed dead by the Necrons and then by the very first sparks of what would become Chaos later.

**honeybadger33**

In the codex it says something about maybe a plague or something killing them off slowly over centuries or making the devolve or that they may have left seeking the ultimate war. Wouldnt it be cool if they were to come back to help the orks or even if just a couple came back or reappeared. I thin that would make for some killer wars and great stories

**War Kitten**

I'm of the opinion that they devolved over time into snotlings, now I don't have any proof to back that up, it just be ironic, the brainiest orks devolved into basically brainless grots

**honeybadger33**

Whatever happened to them they were pretty smart and had the knowledge to create the orks for protection and ingrain in them the knowledge to build things with. Seems like they had time to do this before whatever happened to them happened.

**Grimskul**

Pretty sure it was a reference to the Old Ones. The plague they speak of could be the enslaver plague that scoured most of the galaxy of life and put the necrons into hibernation. At least that was the old fluff anyways

**Gogsnik**

The true background for the Brainboyz, largely reiterated in the current Codex, is taken from the original Waaargh The Orks! background book and the 2nd Edition Ork Codex.

Imperial scholars have speculated that on the Ork world of origin (wherever that might have been), there existed an ancient race that was indirectly responsible for the spread of Orkish society. Difficult as it is to believe, this ancient race was extremely intelligent, and rose to dominance over Orkish races in just a few generations. They understood and developed technology and even created the legendary (and summarily lost) Ork Standard Construct Templates. It was this race, historians argue, that must have initiated the Ork expansion into space.

Now a physically underdeveloped slave race, the Snotlings are thought to be the only living remnant of this lost race. The sudden rise of super-intelligent Snotlings can only be explained as the result of a catalyst. Snotlings are symbiotic with fungi, which they cultivate and eat. It is believed that these fungi grew in the underground cave-systems of Orkoid culture and caused genetic mutation in the brains of these ancient Snotlings. The Snotlings raised the fungi for food. Over generations, a diet of this fungi stimulated the growth of the Snotling brain to its full potential. Later, the fungi was cultivated by the mentally enhanced Snotlings.

According to legend, the intelligent race of Snotlings, known as the Brainboyz, were still diminutive, so they bred a race of less-intelligent, but tougher, larger and more brutal creatures to do their work and fight their wars. These were the Orks and Gretchin.

Gretchin probably represent an intermediate stage in the development of Orks. The Orks were put to work cultivating the fungi. Unfortunately for the ancient Snotlings, the Orks also nibbled at the raw fungi as they collected it. Their masters took no notice, unaware that their own intelligence was the result of this peculiar diet. Over a few generations, the Ork brain was enhanced enough for the Orks to rise up and overthrow their masters.

The Brainboyz were enslaved and allowed only a small amount of fungi. Slowly, they began to regress to a juvenile level of mentality (even by Orkish standards). However, the Orks neglected the cultivation of the fungi, and eventually it died out. As the fungi became less abundant, the Orks also began to regress. By this time, the greatest advances in Ork technology, culture, and expansion into space had already taken place. Gradually, the Orks reverted back to a lesser mental capacity that was nevertheless superior to the original state of the Brainboyz (thus, they remained dominant). This is the situtaion that persists to this day. It is difficult to reconstruct this phase of Ork history in any precise detail. Like most Ork history the story had to be pieced together from fragments of Ork legends which have only passing references to Brainboyz and give only brief glimpses of a time when the Orks were not in control.

With Ork society now dominated by its strongest and most brutal elements, Ork civilisation is faced with a major problem: the maintenance of technology. The Orks have found the obvious solution in their use of slaves. Apart from the Mekboyz, who are Orks with a residual, innate talent for technology. Orks rely on enslaved Humans and other aliens in their workshops and factories. More importantly, they rely on tribute exacted from vassal alien communities. This tribute is paid in the form of armaments and technology. Sometimes whole communities and planets are occupied by Ork warriors, enslaved, and put to work making armaments.

After several vicious and destructive wars, many alien communities willingly manufacture equipment for the Orks as bribes to keep them away, or as tribute to provide protection.

Waaargh The Orks! page 6

The records of the Imperium portray a long history of contact between man and Ork but reveal few details of Orkish origins. What has become clear is that the Orks are the remnants of a once diverse race of green-skinned creatures whose colonies extended over most of the galaxy. This ancient Ork race appears to have been divided into three distinct physical castes: the slave caste called Gretchin, the warrior casts called Orks, and the master or ruling caste known to the Orks as the Brain Boyz. The Brain Boyz were the driving force behind the civilisation, developing technology and directing the other castes. The Orks and Gretchin may well have been specialised mutants created deliberately by the Brain Boyz to perform restricted tasks, but it will probably never be known for certain.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the Brain Boyz died out long agi, leaving the Orks to inherit the remains of their civilisation. If Ork legends are anything to go by, the Brain Boyz died out in a great plague that lasted for many centuries, causing them to dwindle in numbers and eventually to die out altogether. Fortunately for the Orks, the Brain Boyz evidently predicted what would happen and took steps to preserve what they could of their technology by engineering it into the genetic structure of their slaves. It is as a result of the Brain Boyz efforts that Orks have such a relatively high level of technology today.

Codex: Orks (2nd Edition), page 4

**ProwlerPC**

Aha! Yeah the current Codex does refer to the Brainboyz being smaller and created Orks to defend them and also genetically implanted information into them before some event cleaned the Milky Way of their existance. The fact that they succeeded in imprinting tech knowledge into Ork DNA makes me believe it wasn't a civil war that ended them. The theory that the brainboyz predicted their destruction/departure holds more ground I think. Enslaver Plague perhaps while the lesser intelligent Orks and Gretchin weren't individually psychic and thus survived while their brainy brethren were defenceless. Or maybe they really did just simply leave after figuring out how to cross the void to other galaxies.

**Gogsnik**

I don't hold with the background from the first Codex: Necrons, especially in light of the more recent material which doesn't even mention, and heavily retcons, the Necron background. Even on its own merits it was a bastardisation of the Slaan background from Rogue Trader with a few name swaps which is why it failed so miserably.

With the relevance of the Old Ones in ork history now removed we can all forget about the travesty that were 'the krork'. Even the information in the 2nd Edition Codex: Orks is a word for word copy and paste from Codex Imperialis, which is why it's so brief, an entire page of Rogue Trader background condensed into two paragraphs. It wouldn't really matter what the real reason was anyway for their disappearance, if snotlings are the undeveloped master caste of the orks they're still around but lacking in the mind enhancing mushrooms that made them so advanced when they created or modified their orkoid cousins. They weren't deliberately wiped out, the orks just got smarter and stopped obeying their orders and since the truth behind the Brain Boys intelligence was unknown (which kinda calls into question just how smart they were) it was the mind enhancing mushrooms that died out but, realising what was happening, but crucially not why it was happening, the Brain Boyz did what they could to preserve their civilisation; they knew not to worry about themselves as it is evident that some Brain Boyz weren't developing so they already knew what was going to happen to future generations of snotlings but it would seem that the way orks are now, in the 41st Millennium, represents the unenhanced intelligence of the orks way back when, which isn't that stupid, unlike similarly unenhanced snotlings which are relatively mindless.

It's also worth considering that there was somewhat of an ork renaissance when the Blood Axes dominated the ork race until Da Big Party wiped most of them out and reduced the level of ork civilisation once more.

**docdoom77**

In the old Fluff (WAAAARGH! Orks), the Brainboyz were the ancestors of the snotlings. A small race of greenskins which were exceptionally intelligent due to a specific variety of fungus they cultivated. Orks were used to harvest the fungus, but would sneak bites of it as they worked and gained enough intelligence to stage a rebellion.

Without the fungus, the brainboyz devolved into Snotlings.

**Ugly Green Trog**

I do agree with ProwlerPC on this. If the Brain Boyz had been a ruling caste with no external threat, there would have been no reason to give their larger, stronger, more aggressive warriors in built knowledge of war machine construction. When creating their warrior race they programmed them with basic field mechanics, medicine and fighting skills to negate the need for training. In addition programming them with both a love of combat and the ability to grow in size through combat.

I believe something happened to the Brain Boys and they knew their destruction or devolution was assured. They still hoped that whatever threat ended them could be destroyed by the Ork race so they gave them further genetic programming, allowing the Orks to build and maintain their own war machines through innate knowledge.

**Kain**

I dunno, the thought of the Orks being created for the single biggest and most destructive conflict the galaxy had ever seen and outliving their creators when the Old Ones lost just seems to make the most thematic sense (also it was what was written for "If the Emperor had a text to speech device).

**ProwlerPC**

The Old Ones being at the beginning of the creation chain that gave us Orks still fits. The Old Ones made many many sentient races. They didn't micromanage them like automatons. Some developed into full fledged space faring societies, others dissappeared in era's far beyond any known historical recordings. Brain Boyz and Krorks could very well be two names for the same sentient race.

**Ghazkuul**

Orks were actually created by a Guy named steve who left several avocados out and they fell behind his fridge. 15 years later after Steve's body is discovered 2 weeks after his death due to auto erotic asphyxiation, his bastard red headed step child, attempts to steal the fridge to use in his "Wicked" apartment and is immediately set upon by three pumpkin sized Orks armed with nothing more then petrified carrots.

After chopping Steve's bastard red headed step child up with the carrots, the Orks set out on an epic journey that leads them to Hoboken New Jersey where they learn the true meaning of Man Kind. After this dreadful experience that blast off into the stars in a stolen NASA space shuttle that apparently nobody was guarding (Stupid government shut down)

The Orks eventually Crash land on a planet millions of years later, having survived the journey on nothing more then tepid water and Skin Flakes. And so begins the Orkish empire.

**honeybadger33**

Ghazkuul wrote:
Orks were actually created by a Guy named steve who left several avocados out and they fell behind his fridge. 15 years later after Steve's body is discovered 2 weeks after his death due to auto erotic asphyxiation, his bastard red headed step child, attempts to steal the fridge to use in his "Wicked" apartment and is immediately set upon by three pumpkin sized Orks armed with nothing more then petrified carrots.

After chopping Steve's bastard red headed step child up with the carrots, the Orks set out on an epic journey that leads them to Hoboken New Jersey where they learn the true meaning of Man Kind. After this dreadful experience that blast off into the stars in a stolen NASA space shuttle that apparently nobody was guarding (Stupid government shut down)

The Orks eventually Crash land on a planet millions of years later, having survived the journey on nothing more then tepid water and Skin Flakes. And so begins the Orkish empire.

With that type of imagination the Black Library needs you writing books for them! LOL. I literally spit my drink out when I saw this

**Ghazkuul**

:-) Glad you enjoyed my little tirade, When Black Library runs out of Dan Abnett books to pass off to other writers I'll be sure to apply for a job.

**VulkanKiller**

The ancestors of the Orks the Korks where made by the old ones to night he necrons for them.

**Ghazkuul**

I like my theory better

**ProwlerPC**

VulkanKiller wrote:
The ancestors of the Orks the Korks where made by the old ones to night he necrons for them.

No the Krorks were created to fight the warp spawned creatures that was the unintended result of creating psychic races like the Eldar, they haven't existed quite as long as Eldar whom were created to fight the Necrons.

**Warboss Gorhack**

It's speculated by those who buy into the Old Ones theory that the Orks and Eldar were both created as psy-strong warriors against the Necron.

Some believe that Orks might have been the attrition troops of the Old Ones, while the Eldar might have served as elites. It kinda makes sense given the two races fighting styles in the 41st Millenium, but it could also just be 20-20 hindsight and rationalization.

I note that there is nothing in the greater history that mentions the Orks during the Necron-Old One wars or the struggles between the Eldar and the Necrons.

If Orks were an independent power led by hyper intelligent Brainboyz during this time one would expect to see some mention of them. Instead they seem to be relegated to their usual place as savage fringe barbarians if they're mentioned at all.

Again, this seems to support a scenario like the Old Ones being the Brainboyz. While the Old Ones were active the Orks might have been foot soldiers (or an experiment gone bad and afterwards avoided). When the Old Ones died (or the Orks went rogue) the Orks would revert to pockets of savage barbarism that were too dangerous and useless for Eldar or Necrons to bother with until or unless they worked up a good Waaagh.

Personally, I find the Snotlings-as-Brainboyz theory harder to believe. There's nothing to indicate how or why the Brainboyz might have devolved into the childish demi-morons they are today. One would expect that a plague that destroyed the Brainboyz minds would similarly affect the genetically related Orks and Gretchin (Grots) but this doesn't seem to be what happened.

The possibility that the Brainboyz died out altogether is a bit easier for me to accept. Which, in fact, meshes neatly with the demise of the Old Ones.

By accident or design, Orks have a kind of psi-gestalt that manifests in their ability to make things they believe true, such as 'Red ones go fasta' or the ever-popular pile of parts that actually works even though a human can't make it function. How this would help against the Necrons is a bit unclear, but it would seem to be a likely reason for the Old Ones to breed the Ork progenitors.

As you can tell, I rather speculate Orks were a failed Old Ones experiment that went rogue and was too difficult/dangerous to eradicate while the War in Heaven was going on. Your mileage may vary of course, as GW deliberately leaves fluff rather vague so you can fill in the blanks as desired.

By the way, ProwlerPC, I've never heard that the Ork ancestors were bred to fight the Enslaver Plague. Creating a psychically active race to fight something that feeds on psykers seems a bit counterintuitive. Could you provide a reference?

My two cents.

**ProwlerPC**

I wouldn't say it was to go against the Enslaver Plague specifically. Just Warp spawned entities in general a time predating even the Enslaver Plague but a measure of time after the Eldar and other races were created. The Krorks came into creation about the same time as those ape Joekaro (can't remember their name exactly) as a reactionary counter to the first corruptions of the Warp and the Old Ones still couldn't have predicted the rise of the Enslaver Plague. Now the fluff already covers that the Old Ones created their own demise which was the snowballing corruption of the Warp and so yeah even the creation of the Orks was probably ill advised. But even in this there is a certain almost musical effective simplicity to the Orks over the other races even when it comes to their gestalt psychy and how it personifies in the Warp. Rather then a plethora or a pantheon of all kinds of daemons and daemon lords that are born from the individualistic and ambitious thoughts of the other psychic races the Orks are united in the simplistic belief of Gork and Mork. Two Warp powers that are stupendously powerful and shrug off the hits from the other chaos lords with a laugh and no doubt simplistically rampaging about in the Warp to smash all kinds of Warp entities. I think this nigh impregnable manifestation in the Warp is the purpose of the creation of the Orks. A race who's united and simple belief in Gork and Mork to create a weapon in the other dimension. As usual unintended results seem to have happened. Today the galaxy is threatened by Tyranids in real space, for some reason today is when Gork and Mork decided to stop toying around in the Warp and want to come out into real space to play. Coincidence? Maybe, or maybe a result of the races genetic engineering and racial instinct to defend the galaxy without even knowing it (and not necessarily defend the other races). The Enslaver Plagues was the final straw that broke the camel's back, the Old One's never created anything to counter those. How the Eldar and Orks survived that plague, I don't know, the necrons decided to slumber through it expecting none would've survived.

**Furyou Miko**

A mark against the Orks being anti-Necron weapons: Zahndrek is completely ignorant of the Orks. He has no idea why some of his dynastic enemies have "painted themselves green". The Orks as a species are something he is incapable of understanding due to his mental block on fighting anything other than rebelling Necron dynasties.

**Iron_Captain**

Furyou Miko wrote:
A mark against the Orks being anti-Necron weapons: Zahndrek is completely ignorant of the Orks. He has no idea why some of his dynastic enemies have "painted themselves green". The Orks as a species are something he is incapable of understanding due to his mental block on fighting anything other than rebelling Necron dynasties.

That doesn't really mean anything. Zahndrek is insane and thinks everything is a Necron.

**jakejackjake**

Furyou Miko wrote:
A mark against the Orks being anti-Necron weapons: Zahndrek is completely ignorant of the Orks. He has no idea why some of his dynastic enemies have "painted themselves green". The Orks as a species are something he is incapable of understanding due to his mental block on fighting anything other than rebelling Necron dynasties.

That's not a point against anything. He's completely ignorant of any race. He only sees his enemies as opponents in the succession wars. He doesn't even recognize the eldar

**Ghazkuul**

Ghazkuul wrote:
Orks were actually created by a Guy named steve who left several avocados out and they fell behind his fridge. 15 years later after Steve's body is discovered 2 weeks after his death due to auto erotic asphyxiation, his bastard red headed step child, attempts to steal the fridge to use in his "Wicked" apartment and is immediately set upon by three pumpkin sized Orks armed with nothing more then petrified carrots.

After chopping Steve's bastard red headed step child up with the carrots, the Orks set out on an epic journey that leads them to Hoboken New Jersey where they learn the true meaning of Man Kind. After this dreadful experience that blast off into the stars in a stolen NASA space shuttle that apparently nobody was guarding (Stupid government shut down)

The Orks eventually Crash land on a planet millions of years later, having survived the journey on nothing more then tepid water and Skin Flakes. And so begins the Orkish empire.

Starting to make sense now isn't it?

**Grimskul**

Ghazkuul wrote:
Ghazkuul wrote:
Orks were actually created by a Guy named steve who left several avocados out and they fell behind his fridge. 15 years later after Steve's body is discovered 2 weeks after his death due to auto erotic asphyxiation, his bastard red headed step child, attempts to steal the fridge to use in his "Wicked" apartment and is immediately set upon by three pumpkin sized Orks armed with nothing more then petrified carrots.

After chopping Steve's bastard red headed step child up with the carrots, the Orks set out on an epic journey that leads them to Hoboken New Jersey where they learn the true meaning of Man Kind. After this dreadful experience that blast off into the stars in a stolen NASA space shuttle that apparently nobody was guarding (Stupid government shut down)

The Orks eventually Crash land on a planet millions of years later, having survived the journey on nothing more then tepid water and Skin Flakes. And so begins the Orkish empire.

Starting to make sense now isn't it?

Huh? Why did you repeat/quote yourself? It's already in the thread.

**Ghazkuul**

Grim, I reposted it to point out that a number of backgrounds for he Orks had come up since then and some were disputing one another. Therefore I reposted that to point out....never mind I just don't care enough to explain common sense tonight.

**Grimskul**

Ghazkuul wrote:
Grim, I reposted it to point out that a number of backgrounds for he Orks had come up since then and some were disputing one another. Therefore I reposted that to point out....never mind I just don't care enough to explain common sense tonight.

It just looked like you wanted more recognition of how "humorous" your post was, given that you never seriously answered the OP's question. Or made any reference at all to how there are multiple conflicting sources. I guess you would say I didn't "read between the lines" but that's at least how I interpreted it, I wouldn't say it was common sense to infer something like that from a silly post.

**Furyou Miko**

What passes for common sense in an Ork may vary wildly from what passes for it in a human.

**Ghazkuul**

Furyou Miko wrote:
What passes for common sense in an Ork may vary wildly from what passes for it in a human.

and you get an exalt

to the main question though? I don't think any fluff has yet to be generated that REALLY answers that question. What little their is tends to contradict earlier versions so im kinda meh about the whole thing. IM going to stick to the idea that the old ones created the Orks to kill Necrons until GW answers its own questions.