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What piece of lore would you like to see removed from 40k completely?

For me its "The Anzion Theorem of Orkoid Mechamorphic Resonant Kinetics", because one its a Techpriest trying to explain technological advancement with "It's magic!" and I like the idea of Ork technology being sufficiently advanced technology that Humans, Tau, and Eldar can't understand. Additionally I like the idea of Ork Big Meks having Brainboy Schematics in their Genetic Memory that gets unlocked once the Orks have enough infrastructure (i.e. scrap) to support it.

Orks being moss

Machine spirits.

Perpetuals.

I always think of these but can't remember any more right now.
Will probably be back.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Orks being moss

Machine spirits.

Perpetuals.

The life cycle of an Ork is best not thought about. The fact that they bleed red/crimson/green depending on the author is one of my least favorites.

Machine Spirits I'm fine with if they didn't actually exist, kind of. Like having a genetically modified brain running a tank instead of AI is cool. But then saying every simple piece of technology has one its kind of nuts. I am thinking back to Only War RPG's book where there is a pen that if it runs out of ink there is a litany of repair you have to say to get it to work again.

Perpetuals. I am not DontEatRawHagis, you see, I am John Gramaticus!

Newcrons, perpetuals, every retcon of Ollanius Pius being something other than a guardsman, Ynnari, Primaris, Primarchs returning. There's so many to choose from.

Not so much "gone", but explained better:
"Techpriests are the remote overseers of the Skitarii".

God am I tired of people forgetting that there is a Primus and Alpha-Primus. Techpriests are, effectively, the Inquisitors of the Mechanicus: they can requisition forces at will.

I would love to see Tyranids lose the Hive Mind and have some personality.

In my head-canon a Tyranid starts its life as a Ripper, and gradually grows into a gaunt, then a Warrior-form, and then finally a Hive Tyrant if it survives, and successfully dominates its brethren that survive and become specialized morphs like Raveners, Carnifexes, and so on.

As a Hive Tyrant it can head off and start its own hive, and so propagate its genetic material. Of course, the first order of business is producing lots of Rippers, which can then either be raised as warriors, or flesh-crafted into bio-weapons and grafted onto their surviving brethren.

Prolonged exposure to Tyranids causes insanity, as the grotesque vileness of their flesh-crafting art and the constant background surusses of their telepathy warp and infect their psyches.

Genestealers are a bio-weapon that grafts Tyranid DNA onto alien subjects like humans, and Genestealers are both susceptible to Tyranid telepathy and rather annoyed by that.

Agreed about the perpetuals. After the insanity that happened in 2019 on this forum, the perpetuals, sensei and everything else relating to “living forever” in 40k can go burn in a fire.

DontEatRawHagis wrote:
...Machine Spirits I'm fine with if they didn't actually exist, kind of. Like having a genetically modified brain running a tank instead of AI is cool. But then saying every simple piece of technology has one its kind of nuts. I am thinking back to Only War RPG's book where there is a pen that if it runs out of ink there is a litany of repair you have to say to get it to work again...

Machine Spirits are supposed to be an allegory. The litanies and rituals and incense are supposed to be mnemonic techniques to make sure people perform maintenance correctly. It'd be great if the writers would stop taking it literally and saying "yeah, everything we say must be taken assuming a George Lucas-ian level of wide-eyed innocence among the audience, nobody ever says anything that could be in any way factually incorrect, the narrator is always right, all this stuff does have actual super-powerful AI that you need to keep happy to keep it running."

I don't know that I want anything gone so much as I want things re-done. The idea of the Orks having a gestalt psychic field is fine when you're looking at the Inquisitor/FFG RPG rules where a "shoota" is a gun that fires bullets but somehow jams less than it should given its shoddy construction when there's an Ork using it, but becomes silly when 1d4chan starts pushing it to logical extremes and claiming you could convince an Ork a stick was a gun and it'd shoot bullets. The Ultramarines are fine when they're arrogant inflexible sticklers for the rules determined to impose their will on everyone else (ally or enemy), but become irritating when the writers start saying "And yes, they're actually always correct because they're our front-cover protagonist people, hurrah for the Ultramarines, let's put them in charge of the rest of you losers." The Eldar playing a complicated game of guesswork with more information about possible future directions of everything is cool, the Dawn of War writers giving them the inability to forsee the actions of Space Marines and giving last-minute "you fool! how dare you interrupt my prophecy!" lectures while dying in the first act is silly.

So I think I'd like to delete the designated-protagonist-shiny-perfection hat and the designated-baddie-idiotic-twit hat from the lore. Don't get rid of any people or forces or anything, just stop putting people in those two hats.

Chaos Orks and GSC Orks. The fusion of factions was a good idea in theory, but in practice it just weakened the position of both factions. So glad that rubbish is gone. I hope it stays that way.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Not so much "gone", but explained better:
"Techpriests are the remote overseers of the Skitarii".

God am I tired of people forgetting that there is a Primus and Alpha-Primus. Techpriests are, effectively, the Inquisitors of the Mechanicus: they can requisition forces at will.

Tech-Priests are the officer caste of the Mechanicum. There are Tech-Priests who are overseers of Skitarii, yes, but that's because the Skitarii aren't represented in the upper echelons of the command structure, they may still have officers of their own but they aren't put in charge of large independent deployments. And depending on your source (I think 30k talks about them more than 40k) the Mechanicum does have its own internal Inquisition in the Malagra, a rank of Tech-Priest charged with hunting down tech-heresy.

Actually thought of a thing I'd love to get rid of while writing this post: Corpuscarii/Fulgurites, because it breaks immersion for me to have an expendable melee unit of tech-priests. There should be a unit of servitors or automata in the suicide melee role, they shouldn't be part of the leadership caste. It's like saying "Here's your Imperial Guard Codex, now welcome your new shock melee squad, the Lieutenants! There are twenty of them and they have refractor fields and power mauls!"

I'm not that deep into the lore, but from what I read so far I would like it if the sometimes mentioned metaphor of "Astra Militarum = Anvil, Space Marines = Hammer" would also reflect more in the lore.
So in other words instead of:
"100 Imperial Guard Regiments attacking the rebelling Heretics on the Moon XY were slaughtered by the enemy, than some 100 Space Marines flew in and killed every enemy. Hurray Space Marines!"
more something like "The irresistible Astra Militarum attack on the Moon XY was slowed down by a cunningly installed minefield in orbit hindering the mass deployment and turning the battlefield in a bloody stalemate, as the Guard could only reinforce their trenches with 1000 men per day. The tide was turned by 100 Space Marines infiltrating the enemy command center and remotely detonating the minefield. The subsequent planetfall of 100 Imperial Guard regiments within 10 hours ruthlessly crushed any enemy resistence."

=> Space Marines can still save the day and be the deciding factor in large battles, but in the end, the WAR is won by throwing some billion Guardsmen on the problem.

But that may be personal preference.

Everything and anything related to the shift between the setting of 40k as an unreliable narrator to an infallable perfect historical record kept by omniscient gods that remember 10,000 years ago with perfect clarity.

So basically, the Horus Heresy, Machine Spirits as mentioned above, eternals, primarchs existing in the modern lore, cawl, etc.

It's gotten to the point where we have this "vast universe' where it feels like 20 people matter and decide every event.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Not so much "gone", but explained better:
"Techpriests are the remote overseers of the Skitarii".

God am I tired of people forgetting that there is a Primus and Alpha-Primus. Techpriests are, effectively, the Inquisitors of the Mechanicus: they can requisition forces at will.

Tech-Priests are the officer caste of the Mechanicum.

Not really? It's hard to nail down exactly what a quasi-religious organization has. Techpriest Dominus(which, remember, are supposed to just be the highest ranking Techpriests in a warzone) are the only currently listed "Command" for Skitarii.

There are Tech-Priests who are overseers of Skitarii, yes, but that's because the Skitarii aren't represented in the upper echelons of the command structure, they may still have officers of their own but they aren't put in charge of large independent deployments.

That's literally the opposite of what it says about the Alpha Primus in C: AdMech.

The most blessed of Skitarii pass a point called the Crux Mechanicus, their body more machine than flesh. Those that reach this stage of mechamorphosis are known as Skitarii Alphas. Some go on to attain the rank of Alpha Primus--overseers who can operate independently for years if necessary, as solid and reliable as the titanium, steel, and iron that replaces their flesh.

That is under the Skitarii Vanguard entry, because someone likely goofed bringing it over from the Skitarii book(p8-9), where it was in the same space as the fluff blurb that is in "Blessings of the Machine God"...which is some weird copypasta vomit of the original Ranger+Vanguard entries mixed with the stuff from p8-9 of the Skitarii Codex.

And depending on your source (I think 30k talks about them more than 40k) the Mechanicum does have its own internal Inquisition in the Malagra, a rank of Tech-Priest charged with hunting down tech-heresy.

That's cool and all, but it doesn't change what I said. Techpriests have broad latitudes of power within the Adeptus Mechanicus simply because they're Techpriests. It's effectively the same thing as the Inquisition, where you have power because you're an Inquisitor.

Actually thought of a thing I'd love to get rid of while writing this post: Corpuscarii/Fulgurites, because it breaks immersion for me to have an expendable melee unit of tech-priests. There should be a unit of servitors or automata in the suicide melee role, they shouldn't be part of the leadership caste. It's like saying "Here's your Imperial Guard Codex, now welcome your new shock melee squad, the Lieutenants! There are twenty of them and they have refractor fields and power mauls!"

Electropriests aren't part of the leadership caste from what it seems...but even then, tabletop performance isn't the same as fluff. Fluff they're supposed to be these crazy priests who can shrug off shots thanks to their electric boogaloo or sapping the life electricity from someone to revitalize themselves.

the_scotsman wrote:
Everything and anything related to the shift between the setting of 40k as an unreliable narrator to an infallable perfect historical record kept by omniscient gods that remember 10,000 years ago with perfect clarity.

So basically, the Horus Heresy, Machine Spirits as mentioned above, eternals, primarchs existing in the modern lore, cawl, etc.

It's gotten to the point where we have this "vast universe' where it feels like 20 people matter and decide every event.

This. Bloody hate everything that has happened in that vein. Hate the HH books that describe everything with almost pornographic detail and clarity. No, just no. 10,000 years is longer than we have recorded history in our entire existence as a species. Why do we know with so much detail and clarity what happened that long ago? The appeal of a lot of things in fiction is mystery, your imagination tends to create something greater than whatever they put into canon. "Closed doors" as Toumos Pirinen put it, are closed for a reason. They are there just as plot hooks and sometimes there is no grand plan to open them.

Luckily there are still a few mysterious things in 40k, but we all know GW won't be able to contain themselves and pull back the proverbial curtain on literally everything because we need to know every detail about everything...

The Squattening.

More of a general tendency than a specific thing, but... it seems that every time the lower classes of the Imperium seek to revolt against their oppressors, it turns out that they are being manipulated by Chaos, Tyranids, etc. Oh, isn't that convenient? That means we no longer have to sympathize with their plight, and can now root for their crushing defeat! That means the Imperium's fascist and theocratic dystopia was justified all along! Because you see, if the Imperium weren't so genocidally brutal, it would never stand a chance!

It's almost like the writers themselves think that the Imperium is the best possible regime one can have in this grimdark setting. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Screw that. Show us that there can be dissent against the Imperium that isn't tied to those who seek to destroy humankind.

.

The completely arbitrary change to Tyranids that created narvhals and meant that they no longer drift through the warp.but then giving warp travel (through the dolmen gates) to the newcrons over their hyper tech inertialess drives...

Just put them back to the way they were. This was just change for change sake.

I would Also flip the newcron story and have the dynasty elements be rebellious parts of the ctan controlled slave forces, but leave the core of the old cron story intact with none of this turnabout ctan enslavement - the shards in the vehicle could be deliberately placed there, or they could be shards of enemy ctan enslaved by another ctan.

The autarch. Nothing has managed to surpass the original Eldar Background and everything added since then has been tacked on.

Exarchs were always the preeminent Eldar warriors with the Phoenix lords at the Pinnacle.

The autarch bypasses the sacrifice and tragedy of falling to a path and outdoes an exarch with none of the downsides, making a mockery of the path system and creating marysue characters.

I would change primaris to being JUST the Rubicon - an upgrade to all marines rolled out to chapters, so people aren't being told to change their army, but slowly upgrade and evolve it. No need for rando new units with dumb weapons, just updated models of existing units that are the upgraded marines.


I would pull back on the immortal primarchs and OTT crap around the emperor. It doesn't make for a satisfying setting when one faction is clearly the most powerful And should always win. No one wants to play the loser.


In general I would also stop adaptively distilling armies down to single note shadows. Successive authors have simplified armies beyond their original version and made them too shallow. Now every founding legion is a planet of hats - stealth hat, fortifications hat, berserker hat. Khorne used to be the god of martial pride and honour not just slaughter. The space Wolves didn't need to ride wolves and literally posess ice blade weapons and FREEZE guns....

Basically every time a neat idea is blown so out of proportion that it becomes completely ridiculous.

Like the Sororitas' super special bolts that are so special that it takes an artificer a lifetime to make them.
How can you become skilled at making bullets if you spend your life making only one? Is that why it takes so long? They have no clue what they're doing so they just keep messing up? Or do they get some basic training making a few thousand regular bolts and then decide "I'm gonna make a really, really good one now"?
If you told me only the most veteran guys get the honor of doing it and it takes them several weeks or maybe months... okay, that's a pretty cool concept, but the idea of a skilled artisan wasting his entire life on one piece of ammunition is unfathomably dumb, even for the Imperium. I don't care how retrograde and inefficient it's supposed to be, this is beyond stupid.

I've never seen why Autarchs are seen as better than Exarchs, they do different things lorewise. Poor game representation perhaps but not bad fluff.

The idea of bullets that take a lifetime to make is ridiculous though unless they can all return to the gun after hitting something like weird thor hammers.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Orks being moss

Actually, they're mushrooms.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Chaos Orks and GSC Orks. The fusion of factions was a good idea in theory, but in practice it just weakened the position of both factions. So glad that rubbish is gone. I hope it stays that way.

This.

Everything about Necrons after their 3rd/4th edition Codex. I think from a fluff perspective they worked much better when they were soulless personalityless automatons enslaved to the will of lovecraftian star gods than they do as space egyptians. That being said, I love the unit diversity and model line, keep those.

After the insanity that happened in 2019 on this forum, the perpetuals, sensei and everything else relating to “living forever” in 40k can go burn in a fire.

I was on a bit of a break from dakka at the time, what happened?

would Also flip the newcron story and have the dynasty elements be rebellious parts of the ctan controlled slave forces, but leave the core of the old cron story intact with none of this turnabout ctan enslavement - the shards in the vehicle could be deliberately placed there, or they could be shards of enemy ctan enslaved by another ctan.

this I could get behind, but I would need the dynasties to have much more in the way of fluff-dysfunction. Clearly they are malfunctioning/exhibiting the effects of aberrant AI if they are developing personality.

It's really more Space Tomb Kings than Space Egyptians. You know, a few powerful necromancers controlling armies of undead. Except the necromancers are using technology and the undead are robots.

And the necromancers are also robots.

Tech-Priests aren't the Inquisition of the AdMech. That's the Lords Dragon.

Anyway, it's a toss up between:

Machine Spirits are real, and literally every piece of tech (even purely mechanical ones) has a machine spirit. Machine spirits should be used as an allegorical thing (as described above) and to highlight another facet of Imperial hypocrisy (ie. artificial intelligence is 100% bad, except for these holy "machine spirits" which totally aren't AI, honest!).

The bit where something that happened during the Horus Heresy is what alerted the 'Nids to our galaxy. Talk about shrinking the universe... sheesh...

chaos0xomega wrote:
Everything about Necrons after their 3rd/4th edition Codex. I think from a fluff perspective they worked much better when they were soulless personalityless automatons enslaved to the will of lovecraftian star gods than they do as space egyptians. That being said, I love the unit diversity and model line, keep those.

After the insanity that happened in 2019 on this forum, the perpetuals, sensei and everything else relating to “living forever” in 40k can go burn in a fire.

I was on a bit of a break from dakka at the time, what happened?

would Also flip the newcron story and have the dynasty elements be rebellious parts of the ctan controlled slave forces, but leave the core of the old cron story intact with none of this turnabout ctan enslavement - the shards in the vehicle could be deliberately placed there, or they could be shards of enemy ctan enslaved by another ctan.

this I could get behind, but I would need the dynasties to have much more in the way of fluff-dysfunction. Clearly they are malfunctioning/exhibiting the effects of aberrant AI if they are developing personality.

I think there's actually a lot of interesting story in having the necrons have rebel factions trying to poorly reclaim their dynastic culture while hunted as 'aberrations' by the rest of the ctan slaves.

It actually gives you a sympathy for then and creates something of a potential neutral faction rather than all encompassing destruction. Like the inverse of dark Eldar being bad Eldar.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Orks being moss

Machine spirits.

Perpetuals.

I always think of these but can't remember any more right now.
Will probably be back.

Orks are a self sustaining,bio engineered super weapon. Their life cycle exists in defiance of all natural laws because they are a crafted weapon.

I'd like to remove a retcon. 20 years ago Ahriman killed Eldrad Ulthuan as part of a global campaign. I'd like to see that space elf dead.

Guy Haley's Konrad Curze novel.

Gadzilla666 wrote:
Guy Haley's Konrad Curze novel.

for those of us who've not read it.. summerize?

I liked the konrad curze novel. I think it showed him in an interesting light.



it was pretty good I thought.

Kal Draigo going into the warp and fight demons in their turf, every fluff Matty Ward writes. There is a reason GW don’t publish the author behind their codexes, instead it publish the whole team.

Orks talking like football hooligans in bad English

Shoota, Choppa, Ere we go!, Gitz

It’s stupid, they should just be mean AF, not the comic relief. 40k doesn’t need a comic relief army