Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I started noticing that there are Non-Warp Based Psykers in a few of the armies.

Ork Waaagh! Energy

Emperor's Divine Miracles

Tau Ethereal powers

C'tan powers

Gives the impression that the Psyker powers are less a natural occurrence in races and more of an influence from the warp (No gak). But also that there is a secondary energy that exists beyond what the warp can manifest. Perhaps this is just the Warp manifesting in another way, but more likely I feel that It's belief weaponized in a way that Psychic Warp Energy cannot mimic.

So while a Sister of Silence is anathema to the power of the Warp, she could not stop a Living Saint of the Emperor or the Waaagh Energy created by Orks. She can stop a Weirdboy or Librarian, but those are Warp based powers.

Thoughts?

If it's psychic, it's warp-based.

Old One technology like the Pharos Lighthouse on Sotha, by contrast, is not psychic.

It’s all the same I think. Different manifestations within the immaterium. Except maybe the ctan, don’t they get powers by eating stars.

DontEatRawHagis wrote:I started noticing that there are Non-Warp Based Psykers in a few of the armies.

Ork Waaagh! Energy

Emperor's Divine Miracles

Tau Ethereal powers

C'tan powers

Ork Waaagh! and the Emperor's energy are both Warp based. The Emperor literally has a Warp presence, and Gork and Mork are also Warp entities.

Tau Ethereals don't seem to be psychic (or, at least, it's never been proven). From them, it seems to be hypnosis, chemical persuasion, or simple psychological manipulation - not a psychic power at all.
C'tan aren't even psychic - they're master of manipulating *reality* but not unreality. Think of them like Psionics in normal fantasy settings, compared to the magical Wizards and Clerics.

The Hive Mind is the only non-Warp psyker, and even then, I think that they're less of a "non-Warp" entity, but rather an "anti-Warp" entity - as in, they exist in the Warp to such a large scale that they swamp it.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

DontEatRawHagis wrote:I started noticing that there are Non-Warp Based Psykers in a few of the armies.

Ork Waaagh! Energy

Emperor's Divine Miracles

Tau Ethereal powers

C'tan powers

Ork Waaagh! and the Emperor's energy are both Warp based. The Emperor literally has a Warp presence, and Gork and Mork are also Warp entities.

Tau Ethereals don't seem to be psychic (or, at least, it's never been proven). From them, it seems to be hypnosis, chemical persuasion, or simple psychological manipulation - not a psychic power at all.
C'tan aren't even psychic - they're master of manipulating *reality* but not unreality. Think of them like Psionics in normal fantasy settings, compared to the magical Wizards and Clerics.

The Hive Mind is the only non-Warp psyker, and even then, I think that they're less of a "non-Warp" entity, but rather an "anti-Warp" entity - as in, they exist in the Warp to such a large scale that they swamp it.

As I understand it the Hive Mind does exist in the Warp but because of the scale and power of it Demons can't do anything to it directly. The difference between it and say the Chaos Gods is that Chaos Gods are singular entities whereas the Hive Mind is made of trillions of minds bound to one will.

pm713 wrote:
As I understand it the Hive Mind does exist in the Warp but because of the scale and power of it Demons can't do anything to it directly. The difference between it and say the Chaos Gods is that Chaos Gods are singular entities whereas the Hive Mind is made of trillions of minds bound to one will.

Yeah, that's how I see it - I don't think I made that clear!

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

pm713 wrote:
As I understand it the Hive Mind does exist in the Warp but because of the scale and power of it Demons can't do anything to it directly. The difference between it and say the Chaos Gods is that Chaos Gods are singular entities whereas the Hive Mind is made of trillions of minds bound to one will.

Yeah, that's how I see it - I don't think I made that clear!

Oh! My bad then.

I doubt we'll ever have any solid explanation (because GW is careful to always be very vague so they don't have to spend even more of their time retconning incoherent stuff), but it would make sense that the Emperor's "miracles" work very much like the Orks' Waaagh! Basically, the most faithful zealots (e.g. sisters of battle) are the ones who can get those miracles to happen on a (relatively) regular basis, because they believe in the Emperor that much.
It's tied to the warp being a "mirror" of emotions in realspace: get enough people to believe that the Emperor does indeed protect and that belief will alter the warp to actually make it happen.

DontEatRawHagis wrote:

So while a Sister of Silence is anathema to the power of the Warp, she could not stop a Living Saint of the Emperor or the Waaagh Energy created by Orks. She can stop a Weirdboy or Librarian, but those are Warp based powers.

Thoughts?

Well, it's quite literally what the SIsters of Silence do in the Beast arises series. I also understood the waaagh energy in these books to come from the warp, because it also made warp travelling difficult. I don't think there really is a difference between the powers of weirdboyz and the waaagh energy, on the contrary, weirdboyz are merely channeling waaagh energy.

the only entities with 'magic' powers that aren't warp based are the c'tan.

I've always described them as galactic rules lawyers finding the loop holes in physics. Their abilities are entirely bound in the rules of reality, rather than warp powers that sit outside reality.

the outcome may look similar but the origin is very different.

every other miraculous power has a warp origin. Psychic powers are just the realspace manifestation of conscious warp energy manipulation. You can get warp spillage that's natural, in that the warp tears into reality and spills magic everywhere.

but when a creature with a soul performs a miraculous feat it is their conscious or unconscious manipulation of warp energy to achieve an outcome that is the cause.

I consider Necron C'tan to basically be Laplaz's deamons.. calculate the position of every atom in the and just apply enough force to cause long chain of reactions resulting in a meteor falling right where you want it to squish some inferior meat robot fleshbags. It looks like magic but is all based in reality..

I think the miracles are just an extension of the belief/ collective psychic influence of the people much like the apparent way the orks can just believe things will work. In the vein of if a orks believe this thing they strapped full of wings and engines will fly.. it will fly etc.

If enough sisters of battle believe the emperor protects.. he will damn well protect occasionaly.
I like to think that the Waagh!! energy seems to be the collective psychic power of the orks acting like one big thing ala a massive fungus. Maybe like a huge mycelial network connecting them and giving them a hive like property able to use this a s a catalyst to draw on the warp.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

Well, it's quite literally what the SIsters of Silence do in the Beast arises series. I also understood the waaagh energy in these books to come from the warp, because it also made warp travelling difficult. I don't think there really is a difference between the powers of weirdboyz and the waaagh energy, on the contrary, weirdboyz are merely channeling waaagh energy.

It wasn't Waaagh! Energy that they were blocking off from the Weirdboyz it was psychic. As far as I could tell.

Weirdboyz and the Shokk Attack Gun are the Ork's Warp based firepower. Waaagh! energy's representation is not clear in both the games and novels. In the game, Waaagh is represented as the Warboss inspiring the Boyz around him into a frenzy. In the game books, Waaagh! is also representative as an unseen force that allows Orks to create crazy machines, for instance Gork/Morkanauts were created when Big Meks saw that a Great Waaagh! was coming. In the novels, I think there is a scene were Vulkan falls into an Ork generator full of Waaagh! energy. In an Evil Sun Rising audio drama, the Evil Suns of the story find Adeptus Mechanicus forces trying to create a fake Waaagh with some sort of psychic beacon.

There is no waaagh energy, it's psychic energy. It's generated by the cultural phenomenon known as a waaagh, part migration part holy war.

Nurglitch wrote:
Old One technology like the Pharos Lighthouse on Sotha, by contrast, is not psychic.

Pretty sure the Pharos is Necron(tyr), not Old One in origin.

This is confirmed in "The Great Work" where Cawl finds another Pharos that is powered by a C'tan shard of Zarhulash the Potentate.

the only entities with 'magic' powers that aren't warp based are the c'tan.

I've always described them as galactic rules lawyers finding the loop holes in physics. Their abilities are entirely bound in the rules of reality, rather than warp powers that sit outside reality.

the outcome may look similar but the origin is very different.

Made my day

 Karhedron wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:
Old One technology like the Pharos Lighthouse on Sotha, by contrast, is not psychic.

Pretty sure the Pharos is Necron(tyr), not Old One in origin.

This is confirmed in "The Great Work" where Cawl finds another Pharos that is powered by a C'tan shard of Zarhulash the Potentate.

Cawl finds the shard of Zarhulash the Potentate in the Pharos on Sotha. Felix Decimus notes that it's part of a galactic network.

One thing I never quite understood about the C'tan, since way back when they were first introduced, are their "powers". I mean, they are basically a form of physical life that came into existence and evolved naturally on stars throughout the galaxy. Yet they can also ignore the laws of phyics when convenient and basically do magic.
Erm, why? Usually all such abilities are connected to the Warp in one way or another in the setting. Has this ever been explained properly in a later Necron Codex?

I always figured C'tan powers to be a form of quantum physics manipulation

Yeah. Like Laplaz's demon but without the determinism. I.E. it knows the position and motion of every particle past, present and therefore future position.

But rather than be determined by this, subject to a linear force, it can act on it and use those calculation to make things change, without somehow creating chaos and destroying the fabric of the universe in the process.

So in some way conquering thermodynamics as we know it.. Its 40k so yeah.,. Space magic bruh…

 Esmer wrote:
One thing I never quite understood about the C'tan, since way back when they were first introduced, are their "powers". I mean, they are basically a form of physical life that came into existence and evolved naturally on stars throughout the galaxy. Yet they can also ignore the laws of phyics when convenient and basically do magic.
Erm, why? Usually all such abilities are connected to the Warp in one way or another in the setting. Has this ever been explained properly in a later Necron Codex?

See my analogy above