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 Karak Norn Clansman wrote:


Bonus: My friend JAB's own codex impressions, written prior to showing him this thread:

JAB wrote:"I especially like how the codex starts optimistic and builds up toward that which makes them demented and crazy like the rest of the galaxy.

My feeling is that the Kin are designed to carry out a task which no longer needs doing. They, like their Votanns, have had to work for too long.

I do not believe they were intented for such violent and ruthless exploitation for all eternity. Such as depleting planets with the population still on them.

The Kin carry out their task without any consideration for whom it would have been of gain. All there is, is exploitation and work into the grave so that future generations shall be able to toil and labour just as hard into their own graves.

The promise of a better tomorrow for human and Kin is gone. The toil which could have led to a future, without hardship and ache where people can live in joy and wealth, is forgotten and buried.

All there is left, is work for the sake of work.

It is Sauron's utopia."

That nicely fits into overarching themes for 40k, namely that the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons, that the past refuses to die completely, but also returns as horrific mockery of what it used to be.

The Votann build gigantic stockpiles that nobody will ever come to collect, and are genetically forbidden from asking the obvious question of why they toil, just like the Eldar and Orks are sentient weapons fighting on in a war that ended in mutual destruction eons ago, or like Space Marines fighting for a God-Emperor that once set out to abolish the very concept of Gods.

It's a galaxy where the Sorcerer's Apprentice has long been drowned and the animated brooms fight among the soaked ruins.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s a tragedy bordering on pathetic. In a good way.

The Votann are almost certainly deliberately engineered for mining, but also for a lack of fundamental freedom.

Hence mining is in their blood. They’re good at it, it provides them what they need. But it’s all they know.

One could point this out to them with, aha, cast iron evidence of their origins and intent behind those origins, but the self same design? Stops them from caring.

And that’s where they border into pathetic. They’re not “Real Boys”. They’re machines, albeit fleshy organic machines. Just as Ford once said “you can have it in any colour, as long as it’s black”, Kin can be anything they want - as long as they want to be a miner.

As noted that they’re Really Good At It, and their purpose furnishes them with everything they need, leading to their longevity and exquisite preservation of things long since lost to humanity fits the farcical nature of 40K nicely.

It also makes for a nice change of pace from the classic tolkienean dwarf trope of them being greedy without any deeper motivation. Squats are not greedy because the story demands it, they are literally made that way and can't help it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But there’s also room for a darker side to it, particularly during the Dark Age of Technology. As I’ve speculated, they didn’t fall foul of the Men of Iron, because they seemingly never treated the Men of Iron as anything less than equals. They’re all slaves at the end of the day, and it’s that common station which spared them the doom of earlier humanity. But what if the Kin were part and parcel of that rebellion, with the Votann actively erasing history there, seeing with the rise of The Imperium, a war they didn’t need to fight?

They have the good sense to hide the extent of AI in their society, and protect the Votann. And that knowledge must’ve come from somewhere. That could be the result of early contact with the Great Crusade. Even a single Rogue Trader discovering a Votann, knowing it for what is, and then being horribly murdered as a defensive measure, the existence and nature of the Votann then being a priority, and added to the Cloneskein mix, further removing personal agency from the Kin as a species.

There's a subtle-ish story thread hinted at in the codex about how their whole society is integrated with or infiltrated by the robo-Stasi: They have that saying of ''The Ancestors are always watching'', and that is quite literally true because on one hand, each individuals memories are analyzed and integrated into the Votann core after that individuals demise, and on the other the Ironkin and COG units can upload whatever they learned even more often, if not actually in real time. So, combined with the fact that Squats prize efficiency above all things and that the robo-things make excellent tools and helpers, you'd seldom be more than a few steps away from what effectively constitutes a listening device for Friend Computer. And because of the efficiency fetish, even voicing the desire to get away from them and their 'help' would immediately mark you as suspicious and un-Votann-like, so it's either panopticon all the time or bust for you. Depending on how literal the memory analysis and integration after death is meant to be, even seditious thoughts that you literally never voiced or acted upon for your whole life would be pried from your deep consciousness and analyzed after the fact, so you literally can't even think about rebelling without risking dire consequences for your descendants.

Iracundus wrote:

After so many thousands of years though, we seem to see glimmers of artistic expression in things like their armor decoration or their animal headed crests. Perhaps their ancient programming is breaking down, leading to the resurfacing of such "wasteful" pursuits as art? Or perhaps even these were planned for as societal steam valves. Just enough so that the Kin don't go stir crazy but not enough for them to truly be mentally and creatively free.

Perhaps they developed 'art' as an emergency response after the fact - with the Votann lagging more and more, they hyper-efficient kin often conclude operations before the Votann has calculated their optimal next endeavour. In the ensuing time periode, the Squats face the one enemy they were never equipped to deal with and which they abhorr above all else: free time. And since their society frowns on idleness and thinks vacations are a sin, they desparately scramble for anything that kills time but is seen, or can be seen, as productive, so adamantium-block scrimshawing it is.

That adds a funny twist to another dwarven trope: instead of high-quality craftsmanship being their pride and favourite pastime, it's more like something shameful that you don't really talk about, because acknowledging why you do them would mean to admit that there's something wrong with the Votann and that your ancestor core is starting to fail.

 lcmiracle wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
I'm not a fan of the Votaan, but I do appreciate that they went dang near all the way in making them not-Squats.

The look, fluff, etc., that GW has given us is different in so many ways, that it seems fair to keep them almost entirely separate. Humanoids that probably have a similar antecedent, but have evolved in vastly different directions with different results. There really is no need to try and work the Votaan cloning, supercomputers or other nonsense into the Squat history. Votaan is Votaan and Squats is Squats.

So don't bother trying to retcon or reconcile them. Far easier, more coherent, and more sensible to just let them be very distant and very divergent branches of the same very-old tree.

Yeah, if GW can't even bother making the votanns survivors from the old lore than clearly they don't respect their past works as I do. Best for them to never talk about it at all.

They do though; the codex has subfactions that are basically all the old stories of what happened to the squats. There's the Necromunda Squats, which are kind of isolated from the larger League society and thus much closer to the old space dwarf fluff, there's background for leagues that were eradicated by the Tyranids and Orks, and there's stories about Leagues that operated with/for the Tau and misrepresented themselves or were misunderstood as the only surviving Squats, which of course wraps up the questions about the Demiurg. It's actually rather well done, at least if measured by the usual GW benchmark for stuff like this, and allows to integrate all of the conflicting stories of the past.

GloriousBattle wrote:

Is it possible there are many more isolated or "feudal" Kin worlds that might live without cloning, Votann, or other superior technology? Could these types of worlds be the ones that White Dwarf #111 described?

I sure hope so... I featured a fortress with Squats from the old background in my Dark Heresy campaign, but now that the Votann Leagues out I would also like to keep the campaign compatible with the new lore. I'll probably say those classic Squats were a remote offshoot of the Leagues...

The current lore Necromunda Squats/Leagues are pretty much that, they have been isolated from the larger league bodies for centuries, if not millenia, and at least outwardly represent their own specific culture that is much nearer to old lore squats. They also have Landtrains, more rugged technology, no outwardly apparent AI constructs and all that.

 Karak Norn Clansman wrote:

Part of the polish is to basically have included most of the old Squat lore within the new Squat lore, without throwing much of anything out. The only big deviation is the lack of kings hoarding treasure, which always stuck out like a sore thumb in the original background as straight up fantasy copy-paste. Instead interest groups gather in Hearthspake thing councils, which is much more fitting for science fantasy while still having the appropriate old Nordic feel.

That said, even the Kings with their Hearthguads can easily fit into the new Squats as local subfactions with monarchies advised by Heathspakes. It's such an easy little addition and does not have a jarring effect. There is really nothing substantial from the old Squats missing in the new Squat background. It's all baked into the new codex, and what a blast it is to read.

Cheers

_______________
* Unlike Jervis Johnson, I never thought that the aesthetics of the Rogue Trader Squats were lacking. Their quilted armour, futuristic mining helmets, decorated spherical exo-armour and rowdy Guild bikers made for something memorable, and the Epic 40k range did provide lacking pieces such as big drills and sci-fi Dwarven machinery. The only things sorely missing was some golem-esque large, bulky walker and Slayers with bomb belts.

The Rogue Trader Squat aesthetic is still good, though the few models that were just straight up fantasy Dwarves in space are lacklustre and uninspiring.

I think there's ample space to introduce characters that fit the 'King of Avarice / Miser King'-mould in all but name once they get to do some LoV novels or stories that feature them in a major way - as of now, most space was -quite reasonably- devoted to characterizing the faction, i guess they get to characterizing actual characters on the next round.

That being said, Hearthguard or something like that can be slotted in the new background quite seamlessly, they just need to guard the Votann themselves, not some sort of individual squat. Some sort of analogue to the relationship between the Emperor and Custodians comes to mind quite naturally, with the Hearthguard acting as bodyguard to the Votann, but also going on special missions or acting as overseers / secret police to ensure compliance from now to then.

In my opinion, the most interesting thing on the tabletop and in the background would be a closer look on the Ironkin, including aforementioned battelforms like the 'Golem' and such, and a deeper exploration of the cultural and material bonds between the Squats and their Votann 'masters' - are there Squat Ancestor- or Death cults? If the Votann learns from reabsorbing dead Squats and Ironkin, recovering the Dead and Relics would be quite valuable for tactical and informational/scientific reason, so maybe there are dedicated sects or forces that strive for that? And so on...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Aaaah! Aaaaaaaah! AAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGHHH!

I’ve been all thick! I’ve failed to spot a certain trail of breadcrumbs! Because it is an old trail. One barely remembered.

See, in Necromunda, the Spyrers had battle rigs. Orrus, Malcadon, Yeld and Jakarta. Debuted in Outlanders.

A few years later, the Tau debuted. And tantalisingly? The names of the Spyrer rigs seemed to match up. Strongly suggesting the Tau were an older force than believed, and at least traded with Necromunda.

Except….that thread was left flapping in the wind.

Fast forward a good couple of decades? And the Votann. Who are confirmed to have traded at least Ion tech with the Tau….

And the (slow, my slow) realisation that, perhaps, the Spyrers aren’t trading with the Tau at all. And never have. But it’s been the Votann all along. And from such trades with earlier Tau, Votanni terms for such rigs entered the Tau vocabulary…..

Good spot. To add to that conjecture, the spyrer suits incorporate several things, mostly weapons, which are absent from the wider Tau armory, but common in the Votann forces: the bolt launchers in the Orrus' fists, laser weaponry of the Yeld, and various high-efficiency close combat weapons. All of these make much more sense as an offshoot of the Votann's STC technology.