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Wyzilla wrote: Well if the psykers aren't held back, you'll have guys like Dak'ir just shredding Hive Fleets in a similar fashion to Maugan Ra with little effort. The main thing constraining the Imperium is Chaos... without that it's open season on Tyranids as humans can utilize their psychic powers without restraint. Alpha Psykers in general will just go to town and reap trillions.
Also then there's other things, like the legions of Imperial Daemons besieging the Eye of Terror now pursuing new targets (good luck fighting avatars of fire), the Legion of the Damned. and most importantly areotech. If the Admech starts pumping out more DAOT tech, the Imperium will put the hurt on the Nids hard, especially in space.
Wyzilla wrote: Well if the psykers aren't held back, you'll have guys like Dak'ir just shredding Hive Fleets in a similar fashion to Maugan Ra with little effort. The main thing constraining the Imperium is Chaos... without that it's open season on Tyranids as humans can utilize their psychic powers without restraint. Alpha Psykers in general will just go to town and reap trillions.
Also then there's other things, like the legions of Imperial Daemons besieging the Eye of Terror now pursuing new targets (good luck fighting avatars of fire), the Legion of the Damned. and most importantly areotech. If the Admech starts pumping out more DAOT tech, the Imperium will put the hurt on the Nids hard, especially in space.
Imperial Daemons? What?
The Legion of the Damned. They are, for all intents and purposes, daemons born of the Emperor.
We've only seen isolated incidents of the Legion of the Damned, what evidence is there that there are "legions" of them?
Wyzilla wrote: Well if the psykers aren't held back, you'll have guys like Dak'ir just shredding Hive Fleets in a similar fashion to Maugan Ra with little effort. The main thing constraining the Imperium is Chaos... without that it's open season on Tyranids as humans can utilize their psychic powers without restraint. Alpha Psykers in general will just go to town and reap trillions.
Also then there's other things, like the legions of Imperial Daemons besieging the Eye of Terror now pursuing new targets (good luck fighting avatars of fire), the Legion of the Damned. and most importantly areotech. If the Admech starts pumping out more DAOT tech, the Imperium will put the hurt on the Nids hard, especially in space.
Imperial Daemons? What?
The light of the Astrnomicon spawns legions of angels of fire that besiege the outer worlds of the Eye of Terror and purge all life upon them.
Source? This seems like a really cool piece of fluff, I'd love to read some of the lore behind it
I'm assuming that the Legion of the Damned are the Angels of Fire, the ones keeping the Traitor Legions bottled up in the eye. Perhaps the Emprah turns the spirits of heroic Astartes into his Legion of the Damned/ Angels of Fire? they really need to expand upon this and make LotD a full-fledged faction in 40k.
Seriously folks, all the Imperium has to do is monitor Nid fleet movement (easy) and pop the planets after the nids land. It is explicit tyranid fluff that long periods without feeding weakens them. Every planet they hit they will lose biomass and cannot do anything about it. IoM can do this for thousands of systems.
1) Exterminatus isn't "easy" to pull off. You've got to get in range, you've got to make sure it's effective, you've got to make sure you get enough Tyranids to make it worthwhile. As for "monitoring the Tyranid fleet movements being easy"... it's explicitly stated that one of the things that makes the Tyranid advance so hard to handle is because it is ridiculously hard to determine where they are going. Sure, once they reach a system you usually have a chance of getting your act together as they often move very slowly*, but as the Shadow in the Warp crashes communication actually telling each other where the ships are becomes incredibly difficult. You can get a rough idea where they are because you find dead worlds/systems, but where they actually appear next is often a complete surprise. Unless you bait them in somehow.
*Furthermore, recent Tyranid fluff has Tyranid Hive Fleets millions strong crossing systems in a matter of days, implying that they are either arriving a lot closer to planets than they used to, or they are actually faster than a lot of sources give them credit for.
2) Tactics don't usually work against a Tyranid fleet for long. They adapt their strategies on a grand scale. If a large number of heavy losses are sustained while preparing to feed (lots of successful exterminatus incidents) who's to say that they won't modify their feeding style by either not commiting more than they have to or (worse) committing such ridiculous numbers that entire systems are wiped clean in less than a week, giving the Imperium no time to plan an exterminatus at all. In the Shield of Baal campaign, the Leviathan tendril crushes a rock-hard system in three days, and if the Blood Angels chapter (that's almost their entire chapter, by the way, plus assorted allies) had been just a few days later the consumption phase would have been over and it would have been far too late for any exterminatus attempt at all.
Virus Bombs
Imperial Virus Bombs release a special virus known as the Life-eater Virus that was genetically designed to quickly spread and destroy all organic cellular structures it infects, reducing all planetary life, whether flora or fauna, to an undifferentiated organic sludge of biochemicals. This process of cellular decay also produces huge volumes of flammable gases as a by-product, which is later ignited and turns the atmosphere into a firestorm that usually takes out whatever life may be left. Only those who may have escaped into especially-deep underground shelters can survive a Virus Bomb attack. The population of Tallarn managed to escape complete destruction this way, but their once-verdant world was forever transformed into a desert. Virus bombs are known for their extreme speed; in the fiction surrounding the Horus Heresy, they completely wiped out Istvaan III's entire population of 16 billion people in only minutes.
Basically, all biomass is burned in a matter of minutes. Seems pretty easy to me. Virus bomb a system the 'Nids are going to hit in a few hours, then leave. Seems pretty dang easy to me.
Wyzilla wrote: Well if the psykers aren't held back, you'll have guys like Dak'ir just shredding Hive Fleets in a similar fashion to Maugan Ra with little effort. The main thing constraining the Imperium is Chaos... without that it's open season on Tyranids as humans can utilize their psychic powers without restraint. Alpha Psykers in general will just go to town and reap trillions..
You have forgotten one extremely important thing in this statement. Nids have psykers too and also the Big BIG thing you forget is the Shadow in the Warp. On such a massive scale that Tyranid force would block the warp to the extreme. To reference several source materials at once gathered by Lexicanum:
"The effects of the shadow are varied:
The average citizen experences uneasiness and terrible nightmares.
The psyker or anybody with warp sensibility suffers severe headaches, uncontrollable screaming, bleeding eyes and unconsciousness.
It blocks most astropathic signals.
Complicates warp travel.
Disrupts psychic phenomena.
And this is just from your average lone Hive Fleet. On such a massive scale Psykers would be completely ****ed to the point that they probably couldn't even sustain ordinary combat. Hell most psykers (special snowflake Tigirus excluded) go crazy or die upon attempts to just contact or "touch" the Hive Mind.
The God-Emperor (yes, he is a God of the Warp, we have more than ample evidence of that) of mankind is currently holding four other gods in check. He may be losing the war, but he is still stopping them from filling the entire galaxy with Daemons, as they could easily do with all of the power the Imperium of Man is constantly feeding them (Emprah really fethed up with building the Imperium). The Emperor is easily a match for two of these Gods combined, a third and he struggles, a fourth and he is gradually losing. You say that the Shadow in the Warp would be sufficient to negate the advantage of Alpha Psykers, but I say that the Emperor's full force (and that includes the LotD and the "Legions of Fire", aka, a metric asston of the Emperor's Daemons constantly battling Chaos) would be more than capable of negating that, and still having a massive impact upon any battlefield. Of course, any such conflict would likely result in more Chaos Gods being generated by all of the negative energies feeding into the Warp, but this new pantheon would likely be guided by the Emperor, so it would just add even more power to humanity. If there were no Chaos Pantheon, than humans would be able to curbstomp all other races combined (except for the Orks, because Gork and Mork) through the sheer power of the Emperor, and their own psychic emanations (even the non-psykers release energies into the Warp that feed the Gods, or create new ones to embody said energies) combined with the might of Alpha Psykers, who, now unfettered, would be able to summon an army of Daemons whom they have molded themselves to serve the Imperium, as, with no threat of Chaos, they would be able to freely dabble in the energies of the Warp and mold it to obey their will. Said Daemons could then combat the Tyranids as well. Altogether, the humans would win simply because they would have almost of the entirety of the Warp behind them.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/07/18 07:31:49
Virus Bombs
Imperial Virus Bombs release a special virus known as the Life-eater Virus that was genetically designed to quickly spread and destroy all organic cellular structures it infects, reducing all planetary life, whether flora or fauna, to an undifferentiated organic sludge of biochemicals. This process of cellular decay also produces huge volumes of flammable gases as a by-product, which is later ignited and turns the atmosphere into a firestorm that usually takes out whatever life may be left. Only those who may have escaped into especially-deep underground shelters can survive a Virus Bomb attack. The population of Tallarn managed to escape complete destruction this way, but their once-verdant world was forever transformed into a desert. Virus bombs are known for their extreme speed; in the fiction surrounding the Horus Heresy, they completely wiped out Istvaan III's entire population of 16 billion people in only minutes.
Basically, all biomass is burned in a matter of minutes. Seems pretty easy to me. Virus bomb a system the 'Nids are going to hit in a few hours, then leave. Seems pretty dang easy to me.
I'm tempted to quote Trinity from the Matrix:
"Adapt to this."
Or, alternatively, that quote can be attributed to the BBEG from X-men origins, who actually said exactly that. Trinity did it with more style though.
Except for you know, all the survivors on Istvaan...
Furthermore, the BFG fluff features virus weapons being used on Tyranids, which quickly become immune and (worse) then spit the sa,e virus right back at the humans next time they board a ship.
Life Eater itself might be more challenging but if humans built it Tyranids can figure out how it works and come up with a counter. It is what they do.
I'm not talking about using it on the 'Nids. Use it on the humans. If a 'Nids fleet is about to NOM a system, then send a fleet there to forestall them, and virus bomb every habitable world in the system. Then retreat to a stronghold and observe the 'nids to see where they will go next.
raiden wrote: Mephiston is not an alpha level psyker, ELDRAD is probably not registered as an alpha.
As for the emperor comment....
Empy, single handendly, pulps the minds of an entire ork wwaaaaggghhh. (A VERY big one) with a single thought. Without breaking a sweat.
Interesting head cannon considering that the Empy and his Primarchs have faced a big Waaaagh! before and he wasn't capable of single handedly turning their minds into pulp, indeed he couldn't even do that to their Warboss known as "The Beast" and had to be save by Horus. I'm thinking you are falling prey to the myths and legends created by the authors from the point of view of the average Imperium who is made to believe that the Empy is a god.
Except for the fact that we have canon in which the Emperor's Daemons (Angels of Fire, Spirit of the Astronomicon) communicate with Abaddon. Wyzilla would know more about it than me, but still. The Emperor is far more powerful now than he was before. Something to remember is that all creatures feed energies into the Warp (except for some exceptions like the Necrontyr and Tau), and thus sheer belief in the Emperor as a God by the quadrillions of humans would be more than sufficient to empower his soul to God-level power. It's these same energies that created the Chaos Gods and their Daemons, and continues to feed them sustenance. It's these same energies that are established in many canon sources as being fed the energy of Ork WAAAAGHS!!! to give the two Ork Gods Gork and Mork a physical manifestation in the Materium, as well as the same energy as what created them in the first place.
You're the one that needs to provide proof that Alpha Levels are except from the Shadow in the Warp, not the other way around.
No, the burden of proof belongs to all who make a claim based upon fluff. If you do not substantiate your claim, then your claim is worth nothing, and should therefore be cast aside. All must provide fluff if they want to win the argument. I've honestly been combing the internet for ages looking for fluff, and I'm starting to get pissed.
As for da emprah, last I checked he's a quasi-corpse sitting in a chair on terra with the craziest life-support system ever. I'm not entirely convinced that he's in any shape to do any real fighting from where he's at. As for his psychic potential, to my knowledge he's a glorified lighthouse. A lighthouse powered by a thousand dead psykers a day, how much of that psychic energy is his then at that point of they have to sacrifice that many psykers to keep his beacon going? Without some referenced info on what the emprah can do now I just have a hard time seeing him being of any real use. Horus heresy references are a far-shot too cause he was a different person back then. 10,000 years of bed-sores I'm sure have wreaked havoc on him.
The Emperor is the collective reincarnation of all the shamans of Neolithic humanity's various peoples, the first human psykers. The foul Warp entities that would become the four Great Powers of Chaos had not yet fully formed when the Emperor was born on Earth during prehistoric times, somewhere in ancient central Anatolia (modern Turkey) in the 8th Millennium B.C. But even before the birth of the Emperor, as humanity grew and progressed, the Warp began to become increasingly disturbed by the dark undercurrents of humanity's collective psyche, and the shamans began to lose their former ability to reincarnate into new bodies. Instead, upon dying, their souls were being consumed by the entities and daemons of the Warp. Eventually the shamans of humanity, unable to reincarnate, would become extinct, and without the shamans and their psychic abilities to guide the race, humanity would inevitably fall prey to the corruptions of Chaos, just as eventually happened to the Eldar. In these ancient days, all the shamans of Earth gathered in a grand conclave to decide what must be done to stave off the day when they had all been consumed by the Warp.
In the end, the shamans decided to pool their collective psychic energies by reincarnating as a single soul in a single human body to create an individual they called "the New Man." The thousands of shamans, as one, took poison, and as one, they died, their souls flowing into the Immaterium in a rush of psychic power that overwhelmed those daemons who sought to feast upon it with a cleansing, purifying fire, a flame imperishable that became one soul out of many. A year later the child who would become the Emperor was born in a Neolithic settlement of Anatolian herders and farmers. His psychic power was so great that its energies altered his genome and physiology in the womb and rendered him immortal so he would no longer need to reincarnate and could not be assaulted by the daemonic creatures of the Immaterium upon his death.
And now from Lexicanum
The oldest information given on the Emperor's origin relates that he was born to mortal parents in the 8th Millennium BC[3a] manifesting his powers as a youth. One account of the Emperor's origin goes so far as to say that he had mortal brothers and sisters and details the time and location of his birthplace - eight thousand years before the first millennium, in the region of Terra then known as Central Anatolia. This account also claims that the Emperor's birth, while a natural process, was actually the result of a scheme created by the wisest and most powerful of living humans at that time; the conclave of Shamans. These men, termed 'shamans' by their society, were powerful psykers with great experience of the Warp. Finding their souls - and those of humanity - endangered by the growing perils of the Warp-gods, these psykers decided to pool their power into one human, a being they called 'the New Man'. Already having gained the power to reincarnate themselves (upon death, the shamans' souls would transfer to the Warp, accumulating power enough to reincarnate as human) the shamans entered a suicide-pact. Thousands of them poisoned themselves and sped their souls to the warp at the same time. Presumably pooling their soul-energy and using their reincarnation ability, they brought about the birth of their New Man - the Emperor - one year later. This New Man, once he had learned of his special nature, proceeded to haunt the history of humanity as a ghost; watching, waiting and occasionally influencing.[3x]
And now exerpts from the HH novel Mechanicum about the C'tan known as the Void Dragon, which was one of the few to escape the Necrons when they turned on the C'tan, and how the Emperor defeated it with ease
Spoiler:
First, the effects of merely witnessing the Void Dragon's presence upon a Psyker whose power-level is never stated (though it seems that she is a fairly weak Psyker, with merely the ability to access the knowledge contained within the Warp)
The angles were impossible, the geometry insane. Distance was irrelevant and perspective a lie. Every rule of normality was turned upside down in an instant and the natural order of the universe was overthrown in this new, terrifying vision of distorted reality. The cavern seemed to pulse in every direction at once, compressing and contracting in unfeasible ways, moving as rock was never meant to move.This was no cavern. Was this entire space, the walls and floor, the air and every molecule within it, part of some vast intelligence, a being or construct of ancient malice and phenomenal, primeval power? Such a thing had no name; for what use would a being that had brought entire civilisations into existence and then snuffed them out on a whim have of a name? It had been abroad in the galaxy for millions of years before humanity had been a breath in the creator’s mouth, had drunk the hearts of stars and being worshipped as a god in a thousand galaxies.It was everywhere and nowhere at once. All powerful and trapped at the same time.The monstrous horror of its very existence threatened to shatter the walls of her mind, and in desperation, Dalia looked down at her feet in an attempt to convince herself that the laws of perspective still held true in relation to her own body. Her existence in the face of this infinite impossibility was meaningless, but she recognised that only by small victories might she hold onto her fracturing reason.
The creature gave out a deafening roar that shook stones from the city walls and the burning radiance in its breast was extinguished. Its grasp upon the knight loosened and the lightning faded from its eyes as the great beast fell to the ground.Perceiving that the Dragon was helpless, though not dead, the knight untied the long white banner from his shattered lance and bound it around the neck of the monster.
Dalia looked towards the horizon over which the knight had vanished. ‘Then that was?’ 'The Emperor? Yes,’ said Semyon, turning and walking away as the reality of the desert landscape began to unweave. ‘He brought the defeated Dragon to Mars and bound it beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus.’
the Golden Throne also now functions as a complex life support device and psychic amplifier, projecting the Emperor's mind into the Warp and across the galaxy.
Only through his power can the Astronomican beam its guiding light, allowing Imperial ships to navigate the Warp in relative safety. The Emperor is not just a beacon for space travel, however, but is said to continue to guide humanity through his Tarot, and through dreams and visions given to selected individuals. It is also popularly believed that he created the warp storm known as the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath during the Age of Apostasy, and that the Emperor's will holds Chaos at bay. Were it not for his unceasing struggle, the Chaos of the Warp would flood the material realm with madness and horror, causing untold destruction.[1]
In addition to these already profound powers, the Emperor is capable of stopping time for undetermined lengths and guiding his servants through manipulation of his Tarot and sheer influence
This basically says that the only stable Alpha+ Psyker in 40k history now has his powers able to be used anywhere in the galaxy (Imperial Cult calls instances of this "miracles"), as well as the fact that he has demonstrated immense powers (miracles) in the physical realm. (note: it states his ability to stop time as a fact and not as an Imperial belief).
In the early history of the galaxy, the powers of the Warp had yet to form into distinct entities. At this time, the emotions of mortals flowed and ebbed as water does in a stream. As the mortal races grew and prospered, so did the strength of their emotions. Eventually, the gods grew to such a point where they could act independently of the general flow of emotions and thus became the Gods of Chaos. They reached into the dreams of mortals and demanded praise and servitude in order to increase their own power, as the of more one emotion is exhibited (in both thought and action) the stronger that god becomes.[1]
This basically states how the Gods of the Warp are formed and how they gain power (worship, as well as emotional energy, but big thing here is worship). The Emperor has already become an entity of the Warp (due to the Golden Throne), and he is now worshiped by at least 6000000000000000000, aka 6 e 18, aka 6 quintillion humans (assuming the average population of an Imperial world is 6 bil, and there are 1 mil Imperial worlds), which is far more than the number of people worshiping Chaos (most of the xenos worshiping Chaos were exterminated during the Great Crusade, along with most of the humans who did, but some still exist from pre-Crusade along the fringes of the Galaxy, and many new human Chaos Cults have been spawned since). Chaos Gods, of course now, still draw immense power from human emotions and actions, regardless of whether or not humans are intentionally worshiping them (Khorne by every Imperial action in the history of ever, Tzeentch by hope in general, Nurgle by death and despair in general, etc.). It is generally assumed that the Emperor, in his current state, is as powerful as the Chaos Gods, and is the highest target on their hit list, just as they are for his, and he is continually battling them, and isn't even fething losing against 4 other Gods .
I've been searching for a thread that I was arguing in a few weeks ago, and in the thread, Wyzilla posted a quote about how the Astronomicon is basically the Emperor's own little Daemon Prince, and the Emperor is continually spawning "Angels of Fire" (Daemons), but I can't, for the life of me, find it.
Edit: The Eldar also believe the LotD to be the Emperor's version of Daemons, and, considering the fact that they make plans for events that won't happen for thousands of years, I'd be inclined to believe them.
"They are creatures born of the Warp; that much even a child could divine. That they wear the shape of Mankind's vaunted defenders is a matter as immaterial as the warriors themselves. They are daemons, and they must be brought low, just as with all their malefic kind."
— Eldar Autarch Eluinne Starshaper
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/07/24 02:32:06
I understand the point your are making here but I feel it does go deeper than this. It's not IoM vs allied orks, nids, elder, chaos etc. It's IoM vs nids vs orks vs chaos vs elder vs etc. The other factions of 40K all fight not only the IoM but each other and themselves as well. By that vein then all other factions have thus successfully held their own against every other faction proving that they all have what it takes to partake and survive in this universe of war. The IoM is not exclusive in having many enemies at their doorstep. I doubt the IoM would be faring as well as they are now if the other factions stopped fighting amongst each other and focused solely on the extermination of the IoM.
Not really. The majority of Chaos' influence/power is spent against the IoM. The IoM has the largest footprint in the galaxy (minus orks) and as such the majority of Ork and Necron strength is also spent against the IoM. Eldar are an infinitesimally small percentage of all actual, physical conflict in the galaxy as to not be worth mentioning. Same with Eldar and Tau. Nids, again, run into and wreck IoM territory far, far more than anyone else's, by simple virtue of the IoM consisting of so many more systems than all others.
Again, one vs one matchups are a huge boon to the IoM from the status qu.
(Obviously a united front of all xenos would be catastrophic for the IoM)
But, don't forget, the Tau are meant to represent the other small Xenos Empires that are out there. They are one of thousands of Empires that are threatening Imperial space, they just happen to be commies, too.
Psienesis wrote: Most of those other Xeno Empires get crushed within a few years, though. The Tau represent a *single* Xeno conglomeration that has managed to survive a century or so. Imperial history is littered with footnotes referencing entire Xeno empires crushed utterly and driven to extinction.
More crop up every day, though. It's sort of a case of the Hydra - kill one, and two more take its place. Or, it's like playing wackamole - you think you've killed 'em all, but then another one pops up.
