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As a soldier always wondered about the lack of planet killing in the warhammer universe. Now I am going off 25 year old books here, but doesnt the imperium have a way to exterminate or virus bomb an entire planet? I would think this technology would be getting used a lot more to take out prominent planets or holding systems to ransom, much like the deathstar in star wars. I know its not easy technology to manage but I think two groups who would be even better at BIO-WMD than the imperium, would be Nurgles guys and also the Tyranids. An airborne Ebola type disease you would not think too hard to manufacture for the race that can replicate psychic ability genetically, its several levels of reality easier in fact lol. Genestealer cults for example are much slower way of doing things, they need to get onto the hive brains and shift psychic research to basic airborne weaponising of the DNA modifier. Or give me papa nurgles command of diseases and I will send out high speed warp ships with zero nurglings and chaos marines, just exterminatus capsules stabbed into each atmosphere, and have the imperium planets turned into nurgle soup quick smart. All these armies fielding cumbersome hive fleets and conveniently man sized lumps of flesh to shoot at in tactical scenarios needs good writing explanations.

"Exterminatus" is the term used to describe the imperium wiping out an entire planet with a WMD. The thing is, exterminatus is a last resort because it means the end result is somewhere between a loss and a draw for the imperium. If a planet gets attacked by orks, the imperium might be able to repel them. If the orks win, the planet can potentially be reclaimed eventually (albeit at great cost). But if you blow the planet up or leave it so poisonous that humans can't inhabit it? You've permanently lost access to the resources that made you want that planet in the first place.

If the imperium used a world-destroying weapon as their opening attack all the time, their empire would shrink a lot faster than it currently does. This is partly why Kryptman got in trouble for trying to starve a hive fleet by blowing up the planets it wanted to eat.

For other factions, there are reasons that they can't or don't want to blow up a planet or infect it with a super virus. Off the top of my head:

* Craftworlders - only have limited access to planet destroying weapons (like the one used to kill the tyranids on Valedor), and using them seems to be dangerous to the psykers activating them.

* Drukhari - Could straight up steal a system's sun, but they're usually more interested in claiming slaves from the planet than wiping out worlds. Breaking a planet or killing a population would be like burning down your local grocery store.

* Chaos marines frequently do want to blow up worlds, and sometimes they do. However, the weapons that can break a world require a lot of infastructure and are sometimes prone to being wiped out by planetary defenses (you can blow up a virus bomb in space with an orbital defense platform for instance). Considering that warbands have been known to launch desperate piratical raids because they don't even have enough food and water, this can be a big ask for some factions.

Other chaos forces are more interested in tormenting the population of a world than on simply wiping them out. Sometimes this is for the mortal's own crazy sadistic purposes, and sometimes it's to please a chaos god by feeding them tasy tasty emotions. Or sometimes you just want to shape the world into a daemon world.

Some CSM do like virus bombing a planet when they can, but see above about some weapons being expensive.

* Tyranids probably should be able to use viruses for their purposes, but then you'd arguably be too busy focusing on the horrors of disease to pay attention to the horrors of being eaten by bug monsters. So that's probably mostly a rule of cool thing. That said, tyranids sort of "infect" a planet when they show up despite not using "viruses." A world besieged by tyranids will have tons of microscopic tyranids lacing the air, poisoning and breaking down existing life as they work to digest the planet.

Regarding GSC, keep in mind that half the purpose of these cults is to let the hive fleet know where its next meal is. The cultists spread genestealers throughout the galaxy, targeting especially populace locations. You *could* do a brainwashing virus thing to get similar results, but you'd be getting to the same end goal without the cool factor of having hypnotic alien cults to fight.

* Tau want to take over worlds rathe rthan blow t hem up.

* Orks want a good fight, not an efficient end to a conflict. They might blow up a planet, but it would mostly just be to see the big boom.

I don't know any downsides of things like the Valedor weapon to Craftworlders. It's just not their style. Craftworlders favour killing just who they need to and slipping in and out seeing as blowing up planets is the kind of thing that the Imperium can't overlook it's usually not worth destroying planets.

neanderthal75 wrote:
As a soldier always wondered about the lack of planet killing in the warhammer universe. Now I am going off 25 year old books here, but doesnt the imperium have a way to exterminate or virus bomb an entire planet? I would think this technology would be getting used a lot more to take out prominent planets or holding systems to ransom, much like the deathstar in star wars.

Mandatory:


There's not a lack of planetkilling- it's just that 40k is about landwars. Most of the ground fought over has some value to both sides.
The Imperium doesn't want to be master of ruined worlds if it can help it and neither do chaos marines. The Orks similarly want to raid and conquer, not just blow up planets(although that's fun too). The fight is the reason for the fight with orks, so killing all the humies from far away defeats the point.

Where a world is a direct impediment to your plans rather than something of value to claim, like Cadia, the goal is often to blow it up, like Cadia.

Tyranid attacks attempt to boost the biomass on a planet before an attack- they don't want everything dead before they arrive.

I know its not easy technology to manage but I think two groups who would be even better at BIO-WMD than the imperium, would be Nurgles guys and also the Tyranids. An airborne Ebola type disease you would not think too hard to manufacture for the race that can replicate psychic ability genetically, its several levels of reality easier in fact lol. Genestealer cults for example are much slower way of doing things, they need to get onto the hive brains and shift psychic research to basic airborne weaponising of the DNA modifier. Or give me papa nurgles command of diseases and I will send out high speed warp ships with zero nurglings and chaos marines, just exterminatus capsules stabbed into each atmosphere, and have the imperium planets turned into nurgle soup quick smart.

The faster a virus kills you, the less effective it is at spreading. The reason zombie viruses are a threat is that the carrier remains active after infection and can move around to transmit. The reason the life eater virus was so powerful was not its virulence but the secondary effects, releasing combustible gas. It still required orbital superiority to deploy.

The Imperium is actually well placed to resist chemical and viral attacks, as hive worlds can seal the cities to outsiders and don't have modern reticence about border security. A week or so of closed gates and firing super weapons at anything that approaches and the virus would burn out.

. All these armies fielding cumbersome hive fleets and conveniently man sized lumps of flesh to shoot at in tactical scenarios needs good writing explanations

.
The hive ships are the Tyranids. The Tyranids we see on land are really just parts of those ships, ranging from the size of bacteria to biotitans. The point is for the ships to feed and grow. All the efforts of the vanguard organisms and warrior beasts are just to make the planet easier to digest.

Wyldhunt wrote:
"Exterminatus" is the term used to describe the imperium wiping out an entire planet with a WMD. The thing is, exterminatus is a last resort because it means the end result is somewhere between a loss and a draw for the imperium. If a planet gets attacked by orks, the imperium might be able to repel them. If the orks win, the planet can potentially be reclaimed eventually (albeit at great cost). But if you blow the planet up or leave it so poisonous that humans can't inhabit it? You've permanently lost access to the resources that made you want that planet in the first place.

Unless the virus only targets pesky humans. Problem solved, every time.

If the imperium used a world-destroying weapon as their opening attack all the time, their empire would shrink a lot faster than it currently does.

Agree, but again, wasnt talking about imperium using it, rather suffering from it. In military terms, with the largest stake in everything and I assume the largest amount of planets, the imperium would be the most vulnerable target. The advantage of space is also that its the ultimate quarantine. You can virus bomb targets your want destroyed and then have planets you would rather take convemtionally. The reason we cant really use Super-BioWMD in real life is we are all stuck on the one planet together obviously.

Planet surrounded by vaccums is the ultimate playground for Bio-WMD basically

I think any enemy with a grain of sense would say strategically, we need to hit XYZ imperium planets totally. Cripple manufacture, bread baskets(agricuture), supply lines, major administration places, all the usual military targets, Then we can go back to playing tactical battles with what few planets are left.

And if a race can continously land 100 plague marines, or 1000 bugs repeatedly onto myriad worlds for localised attacks, and they can, every day, even onto earth according to the latest fluff(?) you need really creative writing to explain why just one of them isn't carrying a virus canister when its a high worth target.

If you just destroy every planet you attack that screws everybody. DE can't get slaves, Orks don't get a fight, Chaos can't corrupt/enslave/steal everything, Necrons can't achieve whatever dumbass goal GW have written them and Tyranids just aren't smart in that kind of way. Tyranids don't seek optimal solutions, they find one that's good enough and run with it.

You might be missing where I said

1. either a virus that kills only humans, which would be the sensible thing to do.

2. much like normal warfare, not 'killing everything' just using it strategically to kill anything strategically significant. Which is a pretty basic military precept.




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 =Angel= wrote:


There's not a lack of planetkilling- it's just that 40k is about landwars. Most of the ground fought over has some value to both sides.

1. The point being hundreds of planets is a lot of land. And some planets being destroyed will give you easy access to lots of other yummy planets. Which is a basic military precept.

2. There is a lack of planet killing. Because anyone who managed to land on earth or any of the imperiums high signficance targets( supply, food, manufacture, admin, standard military rarget stuff) and did not activate a "kill all or at least kill humans virus' just before they were pushed off the planet as a last resort, has about as good a sense of strategy as skeletor out of masters of the universe. You need incredibly good writing to explain why the bad guys are being so nice and I havent seen it yet.

The Imperium doesn't want to be master of ruined worlds if it can help it and neither do chaos marines. The Orks similarly want to raid and conquer, not just blow up planets(although that's fun too). The fight is the reason for the fight with orks, so killing all the humies from far away defeats the point.

Covered this already. Again in military terms you hit the significant planets, all of them, and enjoy easy pickings for the rest. And a virus that kills or incapacitates humans does not necessarily render it dead for resources anyway.

Tyranid attacks attempt to boost the biomass on a planet before an attack- they don't want everything dead before they arrive.

Read above again.

The Imperium is actually well placed to resist chemical and viral attacks, as hive worlds can seal the cities to outsiders and don't have modern reticence about border security. A week or so of closed gates and firing super weapons at anything that approaches and the virus would burn out.

Id say the imperium is incredibly badly placed to resist viral attacks if you make the virus bad enough. q. They have most of the planets, so they are playing defence, and as you day not offence, they cant afford to wipe out worlds themselves.

2. They cant resist attacks from regular conventional forces,so its no problem for an enemy to have virus canisters on their person, or also dropped into orbit. ready to deploy before or when losing a battle for a high significance world.

3. For races with the tech, a virus that hits plant life, modifies plant life, destroys water drinkability, or is slow acting, aka undetectable until most people are infected( one of the military goals for WMD, being maximum dispersion), aerolised into the atmosphere, released into the oceans etc.


The funniest thing is defending a massive glaring, whole in the 40k story like it matters. The real answer is who cares, they didnt create an actual universe, they created a great game.

neanderthal75 wrote:
You might be missing where I said

1. either a virus that kills only humans, which would be the sensible thing to do.

That runs you into all the problems of

Delivery- how do you get your payload planetside? Each Plaguemarine or Genestealer is its own walking, fighting biological contamination point- each virus bomb is not.
Transmission- The worlds of the Imperium can have super lethal environments (Tallarn/Valhalla/Fenris/Nocturne) or Hive cities with limited interhive travel (Armageddon) or both (Necromunda)
They can also be dead airless worlds, oceanic worlds with underwater cities, delver worlds where the surface is not trodden.
Either you are ruling out space bat transmission (only affects humans) or you allow animals to be carriers- in which case why not drop off bioforms.
Prevention- All the Imperiums armed forces either have (Marines, Skitarri, Sisters),or have situational access to rebreathers/hazardous environment gear (Imperial guard, PDF)

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1. The point being hundreds of planets is a lot of land. And some planets being destroyed will give you easy access to lots of other yummy planets. Which is a basic military precept.

2. There is a lack of planet killing. Because anyone who managed to land on earth or any of the imperiums high signficance targets( supply, food, manufacture, admin, standard military rarget stuff) and did not activate a "kill all or at least kill humans virus' just before they were pushed off the planet as a last resort, has about as good a sense of strategy as skeletor out of masters of the universe. You need incredibly good writing to explain why the bad guys are being so nice and I havent seen it yet.

Covered this already. Again in military terms you hit the significant planets, all of them, and enjoy easy pickings for the rest. And a virus that kills or incapacitates humans does not necessarily render it dead for resources anyway

How? Initially you were supporting a drive by virus bombing, now you're advocating some sort of frak you, weapon of last resort. You want to get past Battlefleet Solar and virus bomb Terra- and you're expecting that this will somehow do anything but kill a bunch of pilgrims in the streets?

Killing all the humans on some vital agriworld is a disruptive but temporary setback- after the virus dies out, the Imperium can ship in colonists to run those machines and farm that space wheat. You don't achieve anything permanent by killing all the humans.

Forgeworlds have more specialised staff- but the issue is the higherups have machine bodies resistant to your virus. They can vatgrow staff when required too. And the value of a forgeworld to all parties is the stuff it produces- you explicitly want to destroy the forges if you aren't trying to take it. If orbital bombardment won't get it done (and forgeworlds have enough shielding that it wont) you need boots on the ground.

Id say the imperium is incredibly badly placed to resist viral attacks if you make the virus bad enough. q. They have most of the planets, so they are playing defence, and as you day not offence, they cant afford to wipe out worlds themselves.

2. They cant resist attacks from regular conventional forces,so its no problem for an enemy to have virus canisters on their person, or also dropped into orbit. ready to deploy before or when losing a battle for a high significance world.

3. For races with the tech, a virus that hits plant life, modifies plant life, destroys water drinkability, or is slow acting, aka undetectable until most people are infected( one of the military goals for WMD, being maximum dispersion), aerolised into the atmosphere, released into the oceans etc.

Nah. They resist attacks from regular forces by responding to troop landings with troops. Enemy landings typically happen outside population centers due to AA fire, shields etc. If you are just dropping a canister in the middle of no-where, it will have no effect. If you need to land troops to walk it into population centers- you were describing a 40k battle with Nurgle. The plague wars describe the Ultramarines and Lord Gullimans efforts to deal with a Nurgle invasion of Macragge.

The funniest thing is defending a massive glaring, whole in the 40k story like it matters. The real answer is who cares, they didnt create an actual universe, they created a great game.

They specifically crafted a universe to require men to shoot at heretics and aliens- going so far as to insert lore banning drone warfare for major species. You seem to have an extremely high opinion of viral warfare that isn't really borne out.

It’s all about numbers.

Whilst The Imperium is mind bogglingly vast, it’s spread out over an even more mind bogglingly vast area.

Seriously, the galaxy as we know is.........is.......HUGE.

Now, The Imperium’s resources are near infinite. The Astra Militarum’s job is nothing if not attrition.

Yes, Orks and Tyranids have numbers to rival, but arguably not the organisation or logistics.

If a feral world is overrun? Well. Unless it’s an Astartes recruiting world? It’s kinda disposable.

Then, at the other end of that spectrum, you’ve planets like Armageddon and it’s ilk. Absolute linchpins for its sector or sub sector. Who cares if it takes literally billions of lives to preserve - if it falls, or suffers Exterminatus, it weakens more of the Imperium.

So the actual application of Exterminatus, cold and uncaring as The Imperium is, is pretty rare. All determined by immediate strategic value, wider implications etc.

It’s, currently, mostly applied at the bow wave of a Tyranid fleet whilst resources are gathered to deal it a mortal blow. As the Hive Fleet advances, it’s starved of viable resources. Even the travel is draining, and Hive Ships can starve as much as any other organism. It also leaves them with nowhere useful to fall back to replenish, should a Battlegroup sent to eradicate them not get the job done.

Even then it’s still rarely a blanket policy. Forge Worlds, major recruitment worlds (think Hive Worlds) are too valuable, and more or less irreplaceable, to trigger Exterminatus in all but the most dire of circumstances (lives be damned, we’re talking sheer contribution).

Hence it’s the final answer of final answers. When not even untold billions of soldiers fed into the meat grinder might stymie things.

Regarding tailoring viruses to only target humans...

A.) You have to hope that the virus doesn't mutate enough to cause problems. If it's good enough at spreading to make its way between hives, for instance, especially if it's using microscopic, plant, or animal vectors to get there, then it's going to be replicating itself like crazy in those host vectors.

B.) Many factions just don't necessarily have an interest in specifically wiping out all human life via a virus efficient enough for their goals.

* Orks and drukhari want to fight and/or enslave things.
* Many chaos factions, including some nurgley ones, want the local population for purposes that can't be served when they're already dead.
* Tau situationally would benefit form that, but they'd have to work overtime on their PR to prevent it from damaging their guavesas' morale. Plus, they'd have to be extra careful not to make a virus that could contaminate their non-tau allies including kroot that very possibly have human DNA in their systems.

And tyranids and necrons both seem to be implacable enough to not really need to resort to the use of a virus. While 'crons are occassionally repelled, they seem to be pretty confident that they'll flay their way through the upstart species eventually. Tyranids probably would adapt a viral weapon eventually if they really had to, but they're sinking deeper into the galaxy every day. Just because one chip in the bag gets pulled away from them here and there doesn't mean that they won't eat it eventually.

Also, I feel like some imperial factions/worlds are more capable of resisting a viral attack than you're giving them credit for. We have examples of worlds that have been virus bombed, irradiated, and otherwise poisoned in such a way as to make the surface inhospitable. It doesn't prevent the imperium from having populations in sealed subterranean bunkers and so forth. As has been brought up, mechanicus populations would be resistant to viral attacks, as would astartes (who can build up an immunity to most illnesses in a matter of hours).

Side note: Lady Malys of the Poisoned Tongue kabal did kill off a population of orks by infecting a few and then leaving them to bleed out atop some spiky buildings, iirc.

Exterminatus is used very frequently in the 40k background. I don't know how often I have rolled my eyes at reading about the Imperium destroying the biosphere of previously habitable planets for dubious reasons, when habitable worlds are the most precious thing in the galaxy.

Tyranids as a whole are a weapon of mass destruction, down to microscopic level. But their main interest lies in devouring biomass and incorporating hale DNA into their swarm. Wiping out the population with a virus could potentially trip up their main objective of capturing new genomes intact.

Nurgle and his servants does unleash devastating pandemics, but they are more interested in keeping populations around for hellish torment rather than exterminating them wholesale. Chaos is parasitical.

Lack of planet killing in 40K? Someone definitely hasn't read the Battlefleet Gothic fluff where Abaddon went about willy-nilly blowing up planets with his literally named Planet Killer and blowing up stars with the Blackstone Fortresses.

Well 40k would be quite boring if most if its battles were just dudes dropping wmds on planets.

You hear enough about exterminatus to know its not super rare, but obviously were not gonna get a collection of different book series' about nuking planets