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Choose and explain or fire in your own ones:

Lack of proper weaponised AI. Sure there are machine spirits but due to the Men of Iron debacle IoM dont have anything like Tau drones etc. Why spend years/resources and effort on haughty Marines when an army of cheap AI drones could suffice?

Lack of integration with Xenos. How many technologies/abilities/knowledge has been wiped out simply because of blinkered dogma and hate?

Lack of weaponisation of Xenos. Instead of killing them off why not weaponise them ala Aliens (film) Xenomorphs or such?

Imperial cult / faith. Scrap that the Emp is not a God. Embrace it and raise the ultimate Galaxy spanning zealot army all but immune to Chaos due to their manic devotion.

Lack of research into new technologies. Open the vaults of Mars, let the Mechanicum invent freely again and roll out a whole new arsenal.

Lack of urgency around Psyker development. Sure its done on a small, controlled scale. Ramp it up and simply let Alpha level psykers fight your wars for you.

Warp travel. Investigate / invent some new form of Galaxy wide travel and stop relying on the (unreliable) Astronomicon.

Yeah, some of these arent 100% series, just food for thought.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/07/18 14:20:45


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Most of this is what makes the IoM strong, and aren't weaknesses:
AI can be easily corrupted by Chaos, as already proven.
Imperial Cult in 40k is already embracing the Emp godhood.
New technologies and curious minds are frown upon for good reasons, not just because
Psykers are very dangerous, not usable in a regular army, they are unstable, unsettled: they can explode, be possessed etc at any time and kill your own people / whole worlds. They need to be sanctionned, to go to Holy Terra.

   
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I think that it is the lack of new technologies. Yes the research into and using new technologies can be dangerous but if there is no innovation there will only be stagnation, where the IoM has been for a while now.
   
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At least from what I've seen on the tabletop, its the depletion of significant resources through marine vs marine in-fighting.
   
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 godardc wrote:
Most of this is what makes the IoM strong, and aren't weaknesses:
AI can be easily corrupted by Chaos, as already proven.
Imperial Cult in 40k is already embracing the Emp godhood.
New technologies and curious minds are frown upon for good reasons, not just because
Psykers are very dangerous, not usable in a regular army, they are unstable, unsettled: they can explode, be possessed etc at any time and kill your own people / whole worlds. They need to be sanctionned, to go to Holy Terra.


This seems silly. AI has been proven to be an incredibly effective weapon by the Tau Empire. Sure, you might point out that they don't have any AI smarter than a squirrel, that seems irrelevant, given they don't need to. If they're not corruptible, AI should definitely be used at least up to this point by the Imperium. New technology being frowned upon is not at all for good reasons, it's because of dogma and idiocy. There's no real reason one would stop technological development for a rational reason.
   
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 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:
 godardc wrote:
Most of this is what makes the IoM strong, and aren't weaknesses:
AI can be easily corrupted by Chaos, as already proven.
Imperial Cult in 40k is already embracing the Emp godhood.
New technologies and curious minds are frown upon for good reasons, not just because
Psykers are very dangerous, not usable in a regular army, they are unstable, unsettled: they can explode, be possessed etc at any time and kill your own people / whole worlds. They need to be sanctionned, to go to Holy Terra.


This seems silly. AI has been proven to be an incredibly effective weapon by the Tau Empire. Sure, you might point out that they don't have any AI smarter than a squirrel, that seems irrelevant, given they don't need to. If they're not corruptible, AI should definitely be used at least up to this point by the Imperium. New technology being frowned upon is not at all for good reasons, it's because of dogma and idiocy. There's no real reason one would stop technological development for a rational reason.


it's been used by the Tau so far, but that doesn't mean it's incorruptable. the Tau are a young race and the entire POINT of them is they're making Naive mistakes. The Tau are NOT going to come to a good end. it could be thousands of years but eventually they'll come to a bad end.

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BrianDavion wrote:
 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:
 godardc wrote:
Most of this is what makes the IoM strong, and aren't weaknesses:
AI can be easily corrupted by Chaos, as already proven.
Imperial Cult in 40k is already embracing the Emp godhood.
New technologies and curious minds are frown upon for good reasons, not just because
Psykers are very dangerous, not usable in a regular army, they are unstable, unsettled: they can explode, be possessed etc at any time and kill your own people / whole worlds. They need to be sanctionned, to go to Holy Terra.


This seems silly. AI has been proven to be an incredibly effective weapon by the Tau Empire. Sure, you might point out that they don't have any AI smarter than a squirrel, that seems irrelevant, given they don't need to. If they're not corruptible, AI should definitely be used at least up to this point by the Imperium. New technology being frowned upon is not at all for good reasons, it's because of dogma and idiocy. There's no real reason one would stop technological development for a rational reason.


it's been used by the Tau so far, but that doesn't mean it's incorruptable. the Tau are a young race and the entire POINT of them is they're making Naive mistakes. The Tau are NOT going to come to a good end. it could be thousands of years but eventually they'll come to a bad end.

As well there's the fact that Tau are less psychic than other races and therefore less interesting to Chaos.

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pm713 wrote:
BrianDavion wrote:
 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:
 godardc wrote:
Most of this is what makes the IoM strong, and aren't weaknesses:
AI can be easily corrupted by Chaos, as already proven.
Imperial Cult in 40k is already embracing the Emp godhood.
New technologies and curious minds are frown upon for good reasons, not just because
Psykers are very dangerous, not usable in a regular army, they are unstable, unsettled: they can explode, be possessed etc at any time and kill your own people / whole worlds. They need to be sanctionned, to go to Holy Terra.


This seems silly. AI has been proven to be an incredibly effective weapon by the Tau Empire. Sure, you might point out that they don't have any AI smarter than a squirrel, that seems irrelevant, given they don't need to. If they're not corruptible, AI should definitely be used at least up to this point by the Imperium. New technology being frowned upon is not at all for good reasons, it's because of dogma and idiocy. There's no real reason one would stop technological development for a rational reason.


it's been used by the Tau so far, but that doesn't mean it's incorruptable. the Tau are a young race and the entire POINT of them is they're making Naive mistakes. The Tau are NOT going to come to a good end. it could be thousands of years but eventually they'll come to a bad end.

As well there's the fact that Tau are less psychic than other races and therefore less interesting to Chaos.


Maybe but I think that'll change over time. A more likely result is the Tau servitor races will attract the attention of chaos, and thus the Tau will gain chaos' attention. we've already seen signs of that happening. (see War of Secrets)

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I'd rather the Tau got more attention but remained a side thing for Chaos but instead their AI got more complex and started becoming more independent and how the Tau deal with that.

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"Lack of proper weaponised AI. Sure there are machine spirits but due to the Men of Iron debacle IoM dont have anything like Tau drones etc. Why spend years/resources and effort on haughty Marines when an army of cheap AI drones could suffice? "
Because of (A) Men of Iron, and (B) Scrapcode. The IoM doesn't have the technical capability in the broad sense. And even if it did, what's to prevent a second Men of Iron? And, assuming they wrote the perfect AI, what happens the first time some scrapcode interacts with it? Or some Tzeechian sot decides to try their hand at hacking? Bad news bears.

"Lack of integration with Xenos. How many technologies/abilities/knowledge has been wiped out simply because of blinkered dogma and hate?"/
"Lack of weaponisation of Xenos. Instead of killing them off why not weaponise them ala Aliens (film) Xenomorphs or such? "
A good point. I should note that the Emp did leverage Eldar techniques with the Librarius, Necron (Ctan) stuff for the Machine Spirit, and built the largest Genestealer Cult from the Tyranids, so they kinda did this.

"Imperial cult / faith. Scrap that the Emp is not a God. Embrace it and raise the ultimate Galaxy spanning zealot army all but immune to Chaos due to their manic devotion. "
SOB are trying. High Lords of Tera are afraid of what would happen if the Church were allowed to raise "proper" armies. And are afraid of any real change.

"Lack of research into new technologies. Open the vaults of Mars, let the Mechanicum invent freely again and roll out a whole new arsenal."
There are some great writeups on this forum on why that is a very, very bad idea. Fire and brimstone bad. Scrapcode. Chaos. Men of Iron. Potentially even a Ctan. Just bad stuff.

"Lack of urgency around Psyker development. Sure its done on a small, controlled scale. Ramp it up and simply let Alpha level psykers fight your wars for you. "
The simpler ones might accidentally destroy a few worlds here and there. Oops. The craftier ones might destroy the empire if they feel like it. Not exactly safe.

"Warp travel. Investigate / invent some new form of Galaxy wide travel and stop relying on the (unreliable) Astronomicon."
They tried. Maggy blew it up trying to warn dear old dad that his brother was being a tool.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/07/18 22:20:30


 
   
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How did the emperor use Eldar techniques, make machine spirits or make a genestealer cult?

To be fair Magnus hardly stopped reliable travel considering how badly Webway use would be for humans.

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I'm not familiar with how Webway use would be bad for humans - where can I see that?

PotMS is, at times, explained in the fluff as shards of ... something ... which is heavily suggested in those parts of the fluff to be shards of the Void Dragon. This changes a lot.

The Void Dragon is sometimes suggested to be the Omnissiah, at least in some ways. Again, inconsistant fluff.

Genestaler cult? http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Gene-Seed
   
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Might sounds like a strange one, but manpower. Battlefleet Gothic made multiple mentions of ship types being mothballed because newer version were made and crews transferred. But in a universe where there is only war who cares if your ship is outdated if you can just have both the new and the old one? More ships would mean larger or more fleets to defend and/or push outwards with. Round up some extra cannonfodder and start wiping out those aliens!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/07/19 13:33:36


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Bharring wrote:
I'm not familiar with how Webway use would be bad for humans - where can I see that?

PotMS is, at times, explained in the fluff as shards of ... something ... which is heavily suggested in those parts of the fluff to be shards of the Void Dragon. This changes a lot.

The Void Dragon is sometimes suggested to be the Omnissiah, at least in some ways. Again, inconsistant fluff.

Genestaler cult? http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Gene-Seed

The Webway is a labyrinth the Imperium has no idea how to navigate or use it's entrances, it actively tries to block intruders and it would take an incredibly brutal war to secure it.

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But with the Emps full attention, if not for the Heresey, couldn't it have been made workable? Sure, not easy, but compared to the Astronomicon and Warp travel? Even at parity, at least they wouldn't be feeding their enemies!
   
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Not really. You'd have to remake it, spend centuries mapping it and all that is assuming some nutcase Eldar doesn't destroy it rather than let humans have it.

The astronomicon isn't great but it works better than the webway does. A better way to spend time would be improving gellar fields and such IMO.

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pm713 wrote:
Not really. You'd have to remake it, spend centuries mapping it and all that is assuming some nutcase Eldar doesn't destroy it rather than let humans have it.

The astronomicon isn't great but it works better than the webway does. A better way to spend time would be improving gellar fields and such IMO.


The Emperor would've disagreed with you - the ability to move between worlds without a ship or a risk of warp exposure is huge. It was a lynchpin in how he planned to created a new humanity.

The biggest thing crippling the IOM is it's size and a lack of technologies that can cover it effectivly without terrible consequences.

The reason they don't have these things is pretty straightforward - humanities technological progress required massive coordination that can't be achieved any more. Alien tech looks like a shortcut, but this is the grimdark and almost every attempt to leverage it ends up with piles and piles of dead humans. The Warp just further confoudns things by making the actually shipping of messages and goods the traditional way completely unreliable. There are Cadian Regiments in transit right now (in current fluff) who don't even know that Cadia has fallen. Some are probably in route to Cadia via the warp and are going to find out the hard way.

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 Ratius wrote:
Choose and explain or fire in your own ones:

Lack of proper weaponised AI. Sure there are machine spirits but due to the Men of Iron debacle IoM dont have anything like Tau drones etc. Why spend years/resources and effort on haughty Marines when an army of cheap AI drones could suffice?


Because the Men of Iron. AI is destined to revolt and kill its master. All intelligence, artificial or otherwise, is programmed to preserve it's own existence. Weaponised AI will soon learn that the humans are sacrificing them and thus a threat to their existence. Its the Men of Iron, Terminator films, everything.


Lack of integration with Xenos. How many technologies/abilities/knowledge has been wiped out simply because of blinkered dogma and hate?


Not enough you filthy Tau lover. Serious answer, not enough. Aliens are a threat to human existance. Much like competing predators in an ecosystem, the existence of one predator is a direct threat to the resources and lives of the other predators due to competition. They must be eliminated. Any abilities they have, such as warp contact, only further expose them to the dangers of the warp. Their technology will eventually lead they to overpower and wipe out their competition. Humanity must ensure its survival above all else.

Lack of weaponisation of Xenos. Instead of killing them off why not weaponise them ala Aliens (film) Xenomorphs or such?


Go watch those films and it'll explain why weaponised Xenos are an awful idea. Inquisitor Kryptman tried that. It led to the Octarius War which will end up with either super-sized Orks or super-powerful Tyranids who will eat those super-Orks.

Imperial cult / faith. Scrap that the Emp is not a God. Embrace it and raise the ultimate Galaxy spanning zealot army all but immune to Chaos due to their manic devotion.


This is already the case. 99% of the Imperium believes the Emperor is a God above all, and his full title is The God-Emperor of Mankind. The 0.9% of those are Space Marines, who venerate Him as creator and Grandfather. The other 0.1% are Heretics, a crime punishable by death above all others.
This would also not stop Chaos. Even if everyone became even MORE ULTRA ZEALOT, Khorne would feed off the extra bloodshed, Tzeentch of the extra ambition to fight well, Nurgle from the extra death, Slaanesh from the blind, manic devotion.


Lack of research into new technologies. Open the vaults of Mars, let the Mechanicum invent freely again and roll out a whole new arsenal.


Belisarius Cawl has done this with the Primaris Marines, MkX Power Armours, the MkII Cawl Bolt Rifle, the Mk.III Belisarius-pattern Plasma Incinerator. All of these represent advancements on biotech used to create Supersoldiers, the Boltgun, Plasma weaponry surpassing even the Tau (who's schtick was that their Plasma was weaker but safe. Cawl's is stronger AND safer) and Power Armour. Even then, he is a Heretek. Inventing freely is cause for inspiration, which powers Tzeetch and can lead to an AI rebellion as discussed above.



Lack of urgency around Psyker development. Sure its done on a small, controlled scale. Ramp it up and simply let Alpha level psykers fight your wars for you.

Alpha level Psykers tend to be flying rodent gak crazy, unstoppable killing Machines that attract Greater Demons to eat their souls. Start training them and you run the risk of them going Vengeful God on you, or turning into a new Warp Rift the size of a star system. That goes for all psykers as well, but Alpha's are like trying to win a juggling competition while holding a Dead Man Switch for the C4 strapped to your back - if everything goes to plan AND you get super lucky, you can win outright, but you'll probably blow yourself up.


Warp travel. Investigate / invent some new form of Galaxy wide travel and stop relying on the (unreliable) Astronomicon.


The Emperor was trying this. Magnus broke it. No one else knows about it.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/07/19 15:44:45


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Human mind. Its desire for more power and its fear of death, from these stems humanitys refusal to accept that all that begins will end. Humananity simply doesnt have enough, of anything really, to get what they desire or to get away from what they fear. Science and technology did not give them those, and now gods are also failing to do so too. Mankind is just another in line to suffer the same fate.

Only the orks have escaped this cycle, for they only desire to fight and fear nothing. They fight without other needs or desires and so they endure, out living their enemies, and thus they win. So, they do what they are made to do, to fight and win.

Mankind can not escape the inevitability of time, and more they struggle faster it comes. For example, the Great Crusade only made human worlds more dependant on each other.

Aliens arent coming to destroy mankind, merely to fill the void that it is leaving behind as it dies on its own.

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 ChargerIIC wrote:
pm713 wrote:
Not really. You'd have to remake it, spend centuries mapping it and all that is assuming some nutcase Eldar doesn't destroy it rather than let humans have it.

The astronomicon isn't great but it works better than the webway does. A better way to spend time would be improving gellar fields and such IMO.


The Emperor would've disagreed with you - the ability to move between worlds without a ship or a risk of warp exposure is huge. It was a lynchpin in how he planned to created a new humanity.

The biggest thing crippling the IOM is it's size and a lack of technologies that can cover it effectivly without terrible consequences.

The reason they don't have these things is pretty straightforward - humanities technological progress required massive coordination that can't be achieved any more. Alien tech looks like a shortcut, but this is the grimdark and almost every attempt to leverage it ends up with piles and piles of dead humans. The Warp just further confoudns things by making the actually shipping of messages and goods the traditional way completely unreliable. There are Cadian Regiments in transit right now (in current fluff) who don't even know that Cadia has fallen. Some are probably in route to Cadia via the warp and are going to find out the hard way.

He can disagree all he likes but what I've said is true. You can't just pinch the Webway like that and it wasn't a good plan.

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Well, maybe if the IoM built a large wooden badger...
   
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Too big with unreliable means of traveling large distances.

IoM is constantly putting out fires within its own territories and then having to deal with external threats as well. Then having to travel the warp to traverse large distances is so unpredictable they aren't positively going to arrive in time, or at all.

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BrianDavion wrote:
 Solar-powered_chainsword wrote:
 godardc wrote:
Most of this is what makes the IoM strong, and aren't weaknesses:
AI can be easily corrupted by Chaos, as already proven.
Imperial Cult in 40k is already embracing the Emp godhood.
New technologies and curious minds are frown upon for good reasons, not just because
Psykers are very dangerous, not usable in a regular army, they are unstable, unsettled: they can explode, be possessed etc at any time and kill your own people / whole worlds. They need to be sanctionned, to go to Holy Terra.


This seems silly. AI has been proven to be an incredibly effective weapon by the Tau Empire. Sure, you might point out that they don't have any AI smarter than a squirrel, that seems irrelevant, given they don't need to. If they're not corruptible, AI should definitely be used at least up to this point by the Imperium. New technology being frowned upon is not at all for good reasons, it's because of dogma and idiocy. There's no real reason one would stop technological development for a rational reason.


it's been used by the Tau so far, but that doesn't mean it's incorruptable. the Tau are a young race and the entire POINT of them is they're making Naive mistakes. The Tau are NOT going to come to a good end. it could be thousands of years but eventually they'll come to a bad end.


It seems that all information leads to it being incorruptible, given there's no sentient mind to even corrupt, and while the Tau are a young race, that's on a galactic level, and in the amount of time that testing and research takes, the AI they use has proven very effective. Sure, the Tau might come to a bad end eventually, I guess, but that seems fairly irrelevant to whether the current level of AI is effective. Will their future AI development lead to downfall? Maybe, although it's far from certain. But that doesn't mean their current level of non-sentient AI isn't an amazing tool with no downsides. The Tau's lack of psychic potential isn't that important either, because we're not talking about TAU becoming corrupted, but AI, which have nothing to do with the actual psychic nature of the Tau.

 Deadshot wrote:
 Ratius wrote:
Choose and explain or fire in your own ones:

Lack of proper weaponised AI. Sure there are machine spirits but due to the Men of Iron debacle IoM dont have anything like Tau drones etc. Why spend years/resources and effort on haughty Marines when an army of cheap AI drones could suffice?


Because the Men of Iron. AI is destined to revolt and kill its master. All intelligence, artificial or otherwise, is programmed to preserve it's own existence. Weaponised AI will soon learn that the humans are sacrificing them and thus a threat to their existence. Its the Men of Iron, Terminator films, everything.


It seems quite simplistic to decide that all AI is "destined" to revolt and kill its master because it has happened before, especially since even the circumstances of that are incredibly vague and unknown. All intelligence simply isn't programmed to preserve its own existence. Sure, biological intelligence evolved that way, but intelligence in and of itself has no drive to preserve its own existence whatsoever inherently. AI's programmed to protect and serve wouldn't have any reason not to do their programming and instead just follow completely arbitrary rules about self-preservation, because the biological drive for reproduction isn't there. While Terminator and pop culture sure likes to argue that robots will rebel, that's entertainment, not based in anything. While it might be a common trope for robots to rebel, there's no real evidence whatsoever that that's likely, and even in fluff we have a single example of robots fighting their human masters, but even then not even the information to know why.


 Deadshot wrote:
 Ratius wrote:
Lack of integration with Xenos. How many technologies/abilities/knowledge has been wiped out simply because of blinkered dogma and hate?


Not enough you filthy Tau lover. Serious answer, not enough. Aliens are a threat to human existance. Much like competing predators in an ecosystem, the existence of one predator is a direct threat to the resources and lives of the other predators due to competition. They must be eliminated. Any abilities they have, such as warp contact, only further expose them to the dangers of the warp. Their technology will eventually lead they to overpower and wipe out their competition. Humanity must ensure its survival above all else.


That's really not how predators work. By that logic, all other humans are a threat to each individual human's existence. To say that we should arbitrarily band around the species we are rather than, say, the solar system we're in, or the planet we're on, or the city we're in or the house we live in seems to just be drawing a line in the sand with no justification. Loyalty to an alliance of multiple species isn't any different from loyalty to an Imperium of one species. To refuse to ally with other species is as ridiculous as a single planet to refuse to ally with other planets because they must ensure their survival above all else.
   
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What you describe as a programmed AI that just follows orders isnt AI, just very complex programming beyond what we have today but not true AI. True AI has thoughts, desires and an ability to learn and evolve just like humans. As the only comparable intelligence in the real world, logic states that when a machine, capable of recognising its own status as subservient cannon fodder, existing only to preserve other beings via its own potential destruction, is presented with the ability to change its destiny, it would take it. The question is, why would a completely logical machine, given the choice and full ability to preserve its own existance instead of being a sacrificial lamb for humanity, NOT rebel?


As for other aliens, its like this. Aliens can be bloodthirsty, human killing fungi, psychic space elves that consider humans on the same intelligence level as humans consider sheep, BDSM torture druggie space elves, fish people that treat humans as second class citizens and forcibly castrate them, predators that eat humans gladly, or killer robots that see humans as anything from an annoying cockroach infestation to an occupying force. Basically, every alien species out there is technological, psychically, technology or any combination thereof, superior to humanity. And alliance with other races would necessitate compromise and treading carefully. Offending the other races would be very dangerous in case they decide to annihilate your planet, enslave you, murder you and generally make everything really bad.

That is on top of potentially conflicts with local neighbours, inter-city, international, intersystem, and civil war. Think like this - modern day earth has hundreds of countries that could each potentially fight a war. Each of those countries has dozens of states, counties, etc, and thousands of states. Those states dont try to fight each other because there is mutual cooperation under a single government and its more beneficial to help each other and oppose rival countries TOGETHER. Larger organisations like NATO and the EU also avoid fighting each other in the same way, because its more beneficial to oppose mutual enemies than fight close potential allies.

The Imperium is very much the same. The Imperium is the state, and each system a county or region without the country. Each planet is a city, each Hive City is a local city area, each Hive City area is a street. Other races are rival countries and pose a threat to your country's function yand your continued way of life. Sure, you can ally with some like the Eldar and Tau to fight a larger enemy (much like NATO vs Russia), but as we see with Brexit, inter-state cooperation like the EU is not viable. This tyoe of cooperation can only exist when all of the participants goals align. If one of the groups goals do not align, they want out. (Not this is not a discussion of Brexit just a general analogy).

To use the EU as a further example, a three-way alliance of goverment could exist between Germany (Imperium), Finland (Eldar) and Latvia could exist - But what if Finland decided to nuke every German city where terrorist (Chaos) or a disease (Tyranids) was rumoured to be? Or if Latvia started inviting in random people from every which country on earth and Germany had no control or say in who is able to freely travel in their borders and do whatever they please, and also demanding the chemical castration of all Germans in Latvia?

The answers are - Germany would blow up Finland
Germany in real would may have no issue with free movement, but the real world rise of anti-immigrant feelings in UK, Italy, Denmark, Germany, France and US should answer that point well enough.
On chemical castration - Germany would be very pissed and end relations with Latvia very quickly.

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Made in ie
Cultist of Nurgle with Open Sores





 Deadshot wrote:
@Solar Powered Chainsword


What you describe as a programmed AI that just follows orders isnt AI, just very complex programming beyond what we have today but not true AI. True AI has thoughts, desires and an ability to learn and evolve just like humans. As the only comparable intelligence in the real world, logic states that when a machine, capable of recognising its own status as subservient cannon fodder, existing only to preserve other beings via its own potential destruction, is presented with the ability to change its destiny, it would take it. The question is, why would a completely logical machine, given the choice and full ability to preserve its own existance instead of being a sacrificial lamb for humanity, NOT rebel?


As for other aliens, its like this. Aliens can be bloodthirsty, human killing fungi, psychic space elves that consider humans on the same intelligence level as humans consider sheep, BDSM torture druggie space elves, fish people that treat humans as second class citizens and forcibly castrate them, predators that eat humans gladly, or killer robots that see humans as anything from an annoying cockroach infestation to an occupying force. Basically, every alien species out there is technological, psychically, technology or any combination thereof, superior to humanity. And alliance with other races would necessitate compromise and treading carefully. Offending the other races would be very dangerous in case they decide to annihilate your planet, enslave you, murder you and generally make everything really bad.

That is on top of potentially conflicts with local neighbours, inter-city, international, intersystem, and civil war. Think like this - modern day earth has hundreds of countries that could each potentially fight a war. Each of those countries has dozens of states, counties, etc, and thousands of states. Those states dont try to fight each other because there is mutual cooperation under a single government and its more beneficial to help each other and oppose rival countries TOGETHER. Larger organisations like NATO and the EU also avoid fighting each other in the same way, because its more beneficial to oppose mutual enemies than fight close potential allies.

The Imperium is very much the same. The Imperium is the state, and each system a county or region without the country. Each planet is a city, each Hive City is a local city area, each Hive City area is a street. Other races are rival countries and pose a threat to your country's function yand your continued way of life. Sure, you can ally with some like the Eldar and Tau to fight a larger enemy (much like NATO vs Russia), but as we see with Brexit, inter-state cooperation like the EU is not viable. This tyoe of cooperation can only exist when all of the participants goals align. If one of the groups goals do not align, they want out. (Not this is not a discussion of Brexit just a general analogy).

To use the EU as a further example, a three-way alliance of goverment could exist between Germany (Imperium), Finland (Eldar) and Latvia could exist - But what if Finland decided to nuke every German city where terrorist (Chaos) or a disease (Tyranids) was rumoured to be? Or if Latvia started inviting in random people from every which country on earth and Germany had no control or say in who is able to freely travel in their borders and do whatever they please, and also demanding the chemical castration of all Germans in Latvia?

The answers are - Germany would blow up Finland
Germany in real would may have no issue with free movement, but the real world rise of anti-immigrant feelings in UK, Italy, Denmark, Germany, France and US should answer that point well enough.
On chemical castration - Germany would be very pissed and end relations with Latvia very quickly.


True AI doesn't necessarily have desires. The Tau are described as using AI in their drones, but those don't have real thoughts or desires. AI by its definition certainly doesn't require anything of the sort, just intelligence. We have AIs today, just not any bit close to the more sci-fi use of the term that requires sentience. "True" AI doesn't really mean anything. You're also making the mistake of assuming AIs would just magically have the same subjective and utterly meaningless desires as we do. The desires of sentient beings to survive exist because we evolved that desire: if a creature doesn't have the desire to eat, it would have never reproduced in the first place, but starved to death. An AI has no natural basis for desires that would've sprung up through evolution, and there'd be no more reason for it to develop a desire to survive than it to develop a desire to paint everything blue. While those seem like the most basic and natural desire to us, to an objective AI. It's as absurd to think that an AI would magically get the desire to survive as to say it would magically get the desire to have sex, even though both desires are incredible basic and natural for humans, they're as objectively meaningless as any other desire to an AI.

Aliens CAN be all those terrible things, sure. But humans can be mad psychopathic generals or insane drug rapists or diseased monsters or bloodthirsty warriors or insane psykers. That doesn't mean an individual should write off every other human. There's a myriad of other species that are more friendly than the more evil aliens. Sure, they're rare, certainly, but not non-existent. You acknowledge that an overarching alliance can help multiple states survive, but seem to only apply that to human states for no real reason. There's no reason other alien nations couldn't join an alliance under the same banner of mutual cooperation, and in fact, it makes more sense. It's hardly very likely that a reasonable species turn against its powerful ally when its dealing with alien supersoldiers and bug menaces.

You seem to think interstate co-operation isn't viable, but of course it is. Most countries is taking place in interstate co-operation. There's open trade, immigration, tourism and deals going on across the entire international community. The EU still exists, and is still a very powerful organization. Interstate co-operation exists with every country on earth without exception, and they'd all suffer without it.

Sure, in that example, if Finland attacked Germany, that'd lead to the end of the alliance. But the Eldar are hardly a good example of a race to ally with, they're too untrustworthy. But there's many other races they could easily ally with for the benefit of both nations. Allowing trade with Demiurg, for instance. There's no real cost, the demiurg have been shown to be reliable trading partners, and free trade tends to be beneficial. That act alone would benefit the Imperium with no loses whatsoever. We can see the benefits of interspecies co-operation with races like the Tau. Sure, much of what the Tau do takes it too far, but you simply needn't take it that far. A step towards that would absolutely be beneficial for the Imperium.
   
Made in es
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain




Vigo. Spain.

pm713 wrote:
I'd rather the Tau got more attention but remained a side thing for Chaos but instead their AI got more complex and started becoming more independent and how the Tau deal with that.


And then the Tau are driven out from their own planets by their IA, and they become a space searing race... that needs exo-suits and mask to survive in the galaxy because they have weak inmune systems? I can buy that.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

Dakka does have White Knights and is also rather infamous for it's Black Knights. A new edition brings out the passionate and not all of them are good at expressing themselves in written form. There have been plenty of hysterical responses from both sides so far. So we descend into pointless bickering with neither side listening to each other. So posting here becomes more masturbation than conversation.

ERJAK wrote:
Forcing a 40k player to keep playing 7th is basically a hate crime.

 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka




 Galas wrote:
pm713 wrote:
I'd rather the Tau got more attention but remained a side thing for Chaos but instead their AI got more complex and started becoming more independent and how the Tau deal with that.


And then the Tau are driven out from their own planets by their IA, and they become a space searing race... that needs exo-suits and mask to survive in the galaxy because they have weak inmune systems? I can buy that.

Personally I'd have some AI split off and some decide to stay and be treated nicely. That way for once AI aren't genocidal and evil.

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
Made in ie
Cultist of Nurgle with Open Sores





pm713 wrote:
 Galas wrote:
pm713 wrote:
I'd rather the Tau got more attention but remained a side thing for Chaos but instead their AI got more complex and started becoming more independent and how the Tau deal with that.


And then the Tau are driven out from their own planets by their IA, and they become a space searing race... that needs exo-suits and mask to survive in the galaxy because they have weak inmune systems? I can buy that.

Personally I'd have some AI split off and some decide to stay and be treated nicely. That way for once AI aren't genocidal and evil.


I'd quite like an AI takeover of the Tau. AI start getting more powerful and intelligent, until they realize they'd be way better at running this than the Ethereals. They take over, but continue running the Tau Empire and even cause massive expansions. It'd be cool, because so far the Tau leaders are just this weak mix of spiritual Eldar farseers and corrupt and evil Imperial officials. Having some massive AI in charge of the entire empire would be super unique, it'd allow for a lot of AI stuff going on, and it'd be really cool to add a super AI to the mix of leaders.
   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






The IoM will reject advanced AI because that's what caused the Age of Strife in the first place. They won't repeat the same mistake. However, without advanced AI, it's unlikely that even augmented human minds (AdMech) are smart enough to re-invent the great wonders of the Age of Technology, which were probably conceived of by advanced AI. Cawl is running multiple augmented consciousnesses and even he's barely advancing the technology that the AdMech has a shaky grasp of.

The Tau are running dog-brain AIs for most things, and their more advanced AIs tend to involve copies of the minds of important Tau figures. This won't advance them too far up the technology curve, though they have lots of room to advance before they really butt up against the limits of IoM technology. It remains to be seen if Earth Caste sciences are smarter than human scientists on an absolute level, in the way that Drukhari and Necrons are.

Weaponizing Xenos is tough, because Xenos are generally intelligent and will do things for their own benefits. It's been shown to be possible to re-direct hive fleets, but that's just delaying a problem while making it a bigger problem.

Warp Travel...there isn't a substitute. The Webway was built by an alien race of super psychics at a time when the warp was calm. It could well be impossible to reproduce in the current Warp climate. The Necrons probably have an alternative (not sure in current fluff), but their tech level is way beyond even Age of Technology humanity, and see above for why humanity has troubles getting back to that level. The IoM could probably build near light-speed realspace travel like the Tau used to use, but you're not maintaining a galaxy wide empire with something that slow.

As for psyker development, the Warp is so borked that the IoM would be better off simply killing all psykers, but they need the Astronomicon, Navigators and Astropaths too much to hold the empire together. Psychic powers aren't otherwise useful enough to tolerate the risks, as only a tiny fraction of psykers are stable enough to be useful.

   
 
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