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Maybe I’m asking a completely stupid question, but since these are a virtually universal trope of science fi, do they exist in the 40k universe, and, if so, what and where are they?

Thanks

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
...but since these are a virtually universal trope of science fi...

This claim has no basis in reality. Like several other claims about alien greys lmao.

I'd say that if they ever existed in the 40k universe, the Astartes probably made short work of them during The Great Crusade

Appearance wise, I think Tau are closest, but there is also a minor xeno race called the Fra'al who are described as smart/ psychic.. But, not much is known about them, other than some BFG entries and the old standby "Rogue traders deal with them for X".

 Hotzenplotz wrote:
I'd say that if they ever existed in the 40k universe, the Astartes probably made short work of them during The Great Crusade

Well. To build off this?

If Greys do indeed exist right now? And I’m entirely agnostic on that? Theoretically they’re likely the closest alien species to us.

Given how insanely powerful mankind became before being humbled by its own hubris? They’d have been the first to find out what happens when a bunch of psychotic primates get off their home rock and find something new and for once Not Us to do hideous, awful things to.

So right now? In 40K? No. They’d be all deaded, because that’s what man tends to do.

To be fair, if they were our near neighbors we would have run into them pre-imperium. How frothing xenocidal was humanity in the DaoT or earlier?

 Nevelon wrote:
To be fair, if they were our near neighbors we would have run into them pre-imperium. How frothing xenocidal was humanity in the DaoT or earlier?

Well.

You know how we currently split hairs in that regard?

Imagine what we’d do when presented with an actual, no shared DNA or culture, Other? Our inward awfulness for once turned outward?

Anybody remember the old sci-fi computer game Star Control? Or the time Homer Simpson thought Kang and Kodos were going to rectally probe him?

Not saying these are proof positive, but…

Seriously, though, 40k does work in a lot of sci-fi tropes. Why not this one?

Hmm… maybe that needs to be a thread.

Because not every sci-fi trope needs to be included because they don't all work.
Why have the "little green men" trope when you can have Orks.

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:

Seriously, though, 40k does work in a lot of sci-fi tropes. Why not this one?

See "Squats". Alien Greys might have worked during the anything-goes period of Rogue Trader, but after that you'd have to explain
- How come they didn't get exterminated in the Great Crusades?
- How come the Tyranids didn't eat them?
- How come they're not just a Tau vassal state?
- How come the developers didn't just write them out of existence?

Otherwise, the only impact little grey aliens are going to have in the 40k setting is going to amount to a few paragraphs of filler in a Black Library novel, describing a home world getting destroyed by someone else.

I think it's just the whole motif of the Grimdark 41st millenia- when there are giant space bugs of death wanting to eat your entire planet, little grey men who abduct and do experiments are pretty much tame. Also, 40k's whole "Medieval fantasy in space" vibe precludes big eyed small mouthed cattle mutilators.

Tongue-in-cheek reply here.

Yes, but it was confirmed to be the Black Grot by the White Squat:



Otherwise, probably some head can be found on an alien hunter's trophy wall.

Damn, I've never seen that model, it's lovely.

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Maybe I’m asking a completely stupid question, but since these are a virtually universal trope of science fi, do they exist in the 40k universe, and, if so, what and where are they?

Thanks

Not a full implementation of the trope, but back around 2nd/3rd both necrons and nids used to abduct plenty of people. They just weren't as good at the "and then they returned the subject unharmed"-part of it.

Iirc terms like vivisection were mentioned when describing what the nids did, I think the necron's reason for abducting was left more vague (I think I remember something about a blood harvest?).

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Maybe I’m asking a completely stupid question, but since these are a virtually universal trope of science fi, do they exist in the 40k universe, and, if so, what and where are they?

Thanks

Its hardly universal. Only real examples of it in a "major" scifi property I can think of are the Vree in Babylon 5 (actually, B5 arguably triple-downed on the trope with the Streib and Shadow Servants, if nothing else they poked fun at the trope in an episode where a Vree is sued for damages because the Vree's great grandfather abducted the human plaintiffs great grandfather) and the Asgard in Stargate. You have references to them in "lesser" scifi, like the Vrill or whatever in Dust 1947. Theres no grey alien trope in Star Trek or Star Wars (sure, they may have alien designs that look grey-like if you squint, but thats about the extent of it). Theres a long list of major scifi with no greys whatsoever.

 laam999 wrote:
Damn, I've never seen that model, it's lovely.

Same. Wish I had one.

 solkan wrote:

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:

Seriously, though, 40k does work in a lot of sci-fi tropes. Why not this one?

See "Squats". Alien Greys might have worked during the anything-goes period of Rogue Trader, but after that you'd have to explain
- How come they didn't get exterminated in the Great Crusades?
- How come the Tyranids didn't eat them?
- How come they're not just a Tau vassal state?
- How come the developers didn't just write them out of existence?

Otherwise, the only impact little grey aliens are going to have in the 40k setting is going to amount to a few paragraphs of filler in a Black Library novel, describing a home world getting destroyed by someone else.

The last edition BRB made mention of several Xeno factions that aren't conquered by the Imperium. I think GW has actually made a few inroads to broadening the galactic view that there are some regions that aren't under Imperial control enough that there are several functional xeno races, trade, diplomacy and a whole xeno setup. It's just not the focus of the Imperium setting so its drifted to the side. We see bits of it here and there - a powerful race; a faction on the fringe. The main aspect is that most of them are too small to threaten the Imperium at large. Even the few that are powerful enough to resist it do so in a "if the Imperium focused on us we'd be dead, but they don't so we survive" angle.

Tau are the one that rose above and are expanding and uniting a large enough swathe of worlds to suddenly influence the main powerplayers; though even they are logistically challenged.

I think GW can see a point where they will have updated most armies to a good range of modern plastics; got rid of finecast for good; don't really have many subfactions they want to explore within existing forces; and yet want to create more stuff. Furthermore you can see how teams working on things like Age of Sigmar, feel far more free and creative than some of the 40K end. That freedom in the creative side is important and if GW can create enough of gap that new factions can arise in 40K then that would honestly be a good thing. We've already seen Squats return!

 solkan wrote:

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:

Seriously, though, 40k does work in a lot of sci-fi tropes. Why not this one?

See "Squats". Alien Greys might have worked during the anything-goes period of Rogue Trader, but after that you'd have to explain
- How come they didn't get exterminated in the Great Crusades?
- How come the Tyranids didn't eat them?
- How come they're not just a Tau vassal state?
- How come the developers didn't just write them out of existence?

Otherwise, the only impact little grey aliens are going to have in the 40k setting is going to amount to a few paragraphs of filler in a Black Library novel, describing a home world getting destroyed by someone else.

I don't see how any of those needs to be answered if they existed. There are several of independent alien species that haven't been wiped out by the Imperium, Tyranids or joined the Tau, those 3 options are not something where every species has to have 1 of them happen.

Agreed. There are 5 orders of magnitude more stars in the milky way compared to the number of worlds famously held by the Imperium. The background has always been clear about the Imperium being a fragile network of lights strung out across infinite darkness. Even in highly active Imperial sectors the fickle nature of warp travel means that there could be whole empires of Xenos right on the doorstep of Terra that are just never discovered by humans. One of the reasons I find the background so appealing

I suspect in 40k we were the greys in 10k to the other species of the galaxy...

There are suggestions that multiple xenos races visited Earth in the distant past, so I don't see greys as necessarily unlikely from a background standpoint.

They'd more than likely have struggled to survive into the 42nd millennium though.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 solkan wrote:

 NapoleonInSpace wrote:

Seriously, though, 40k does work in a lot of sci-fi tropes. Why not this one?

See "Squats". Alien Greys might have worked during the anything-goes period of Rogue Trader, but after that you'd have to explain
- How come they didn't get exterminated in the Great Crusades?
- How come the Tyranids didn't eat them?
- How come they're not just a Tau vassal state?
- How come the developers didn't just write them out of existence?

Otherwise, the only impact little grey aliens are going to have in the 40k setting is going to amount to a few paragraphs of filler in a Black Library novel, describing a home world getting destroyed by someone else.

I don't see how any of those needs to be answered if they existed. There are several of independent alien species that haven't been wiped out by the Imperium, Tyranids or joined the Tau, those 3 options are not something where every species has to have 1 of them happen.

^^THUMBS UP THIS

If space is vast and mysterious, it seems like an enormous number of possibilities exist. The argument that "they don't exist because GW can't get exclusive licensing on them" is kinda lame.

 solkan wrote:
- How come they're not just a Tau vassal state?

Where this brain bug Tau are of any importance on galactic scale came from?

There are multiple alien empires bigger and more powerful than Tau in Segmentum Solar alone, bolter shot away from Terra, Tau are literally whos on the fringe of Imperial space who only look any important due to atrocious Deus Ex Machina writing (*cough* Phil Kelly *cough*). From the Imperial perspective, they are just one of the tens of thousands of minor Xenos Imperium maintains loose diplomacy with and if Terra heard about them, it's only because they are on the doorstep of Ultramar (and the fact we never saw any attempt from the 500 worlds Chapters and/or major Deathwatch fortress/multiple Forge Worlds in the same region to check them and the crusade had to be called by High Lords not local forces is even more of a dumb writing).

 Lord Damocles wrote:
There are suggestions that multiple xenos races visited Earth in the distant past, so I don't see greys as necessarily unlikely from a background standpoint.

They'd more than likely have struggled to survive into the 42nd millennium though.

Why? The Imperium has literally multiple bodies devoted to translation and diplomacy with xenos (some examples):

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Divisio_Linguistica
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Orders_Dialogous

The 'purge everything' thing is a dumb meme, if said xeno state is not seen as a problem Imperium is more than happy to leave them be to deal with more pressing problems until enough surplus forces to attack them are found (and even then you often need some especially zealous religious nutjob or inquisitor to actually call a crusade, remember, size and sluggishness of Imperial bureaucracy means the default mode of action 95% of the time is doing nothing until the problem gets too big to ignore).

40K is no longer the Great Crusade era where a single dick with daddy complex could throw tens of thousands of astartes and millions of army troops at any offending planet, if your xeno empire is too big for a single SM chapter or rogue trader fleet to handle (but small enough to not attract attention of Segmentum command) it can survive pretty much indefinitely...

 Irbis wrote:

 solkan wrote:
- How come they're not just a Tau vassal state?

Where this brain bug Tau are of any importance on galactic scale came from?

There are multiple alien empires bigger and more powerful than Tau in Segmentum Solar alone, bolter shot away from Terra, Tau are literally whos on the fringe of Imperial space who only look any important due to atrocious Deus Ex Machina writing (*cough* Phil Kelly *cough*). From the Imperial perspective, they are just one of the tens of thousands of minor Xenos Imperium maintains loose diplomacy with and if Terra heard about them, it's only because they are on the doorstep of Ultramar (and the fact we never saw any attempt from the 500 worlds Chapters and/or major Deathwatch fortress/multiple Forge Worlds in the same region to check them and the crusade had to be called by High Lords not local forces is even more of a dumb writing).

Are any of these empires near Terra from xenos species that do not already have model ranges? Necron and Ork empires are widespread.

Tau are the smallest of the big players, or the biggest of the small players. They bridge that gap. Also, the Tau empire is considerably bigger now than when they were first added in 3rd edition.

There are a few other mentioned xenos species operating on a galactic scale- Hrud and Khrave are the most notable.

The key with Tau, aside from them actually having models which results in them getting actual attention in the setting; is that they are in a process of rapid technological advance and expansion.

Many of the other powerful Xenos forces are kind of in a bottle. They are there, they are powerful but they aren't expanding boundaries nor advancing their tech. They are a static threat - a problem for systems close to their territories, but not pushing into the Imperium.

Tau on the other hand, are expanding very rapidly (esp for a faction with slower space travel methods). They are pushing into Imperial Territory and whilst they are small now; their technology advance and territory advance means that they are a rising threat.

There can easily come a point where they get to a size and power to where the Imperium can't easily swat them like a fly if it devotes actual major resources to dealing with them. So they could rise to be as big a threat as Orks or Necrons.

 Irbis wrote:
Why?

The usual pop culture depiction of greys doesn't really give them the sort of military capabilities that would most likely be required to survive the 40K'verse.

What are they going to do when a Waaagh! shows up? mutilate some squigs and probe a weirdboy?

Even the Asgard from Stargate SG-1 lost to essentially Necron scarabs...

In the FFG games voidborn humans often have 'grey' style traits - spindly limbs, greying skin, black eyes.

The navigators either follow this same trend further or go in the opposite direction to dune-style navigators.

 Nevelon wrote:
To be fair, if they were our near neighbors we would have run into them pre-imperium. How frothing xenocidal was humanity in the DaoT or earlier?

Humanity wasn't united, so there was probably the full spectrum of anti and pro alien groups.

The lore about the war with the Men of Iron does explicitly mention that aliens fought against them alongside humans. This implies that there were societies in the DAoT that had coexistence of some sort with aliens. Humanity was still the most abundant race in the galaxy at the time(with the possible exception of orks). And they are still the most numerous non-ork species in the current time.

The truth is that with humanity's numbers countless alien races were doubtless exterminated as we spread across the stars. Either through direct wars or even just indirect competition. If you have humans on millions of different planets and a bunch of minor races living on only 1-2 planets each then the smaller species will be more vulnerable to something terrible happening.

An Ork Waaagh tears through a sector, hundreds of worlds are pillaged. 90% of them human worlds. But the 10% that were not human worlds saw entire sentient species wiped out because they only existed on those few worlds. The same might happen if a xenophobic human warlord rises up and burns dozens of alien planets, wiping out several species.

But even if an alien race attempts to wipe out humanity, they cannot do so because mankind is so darn numerous. The humans will simply annhilate them.

Thats kinda how I imagine the DAoT.

Pre-Fall Eldar were probably the only race that could wipe out DAOT humanity, but they had no interest in doing so whilst they entered their hedonistic doom spiral.

"My lord, these Mon-Keigh are getting a bit advanced. Should we do something?"
"Not now Iviriel! I've got to swim in my wine pool with all my concubines and eat a hearty breakfast of ground-up psyker tears!"
- An exchange between two Aeldari just before the birth of Slaanesh, probably...

Oddly, that rationale doesn't make much sense. Hedonism can be expressed via sadism, and what could be more sadistic than wiping out an entire species to extinction, just because you can?