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How do!

Spinning off from the can you eat Orks thread. And this is aimed at trying to understand just how different a 40K era human might be from modern day humans.

First, once we get to other worlds? It’s entirely possible that the local population will evolve fairly rapidly through the usual, natural process. By luck of the genetic draw, some will be a better fit for a given non-Earth standard environment, and so whatever genes are responsible for that are more likely to appear in offspring. So to use a real world parallel? Lactose Tolerance could become universal, provided of course sources of lactose are a regular part of the diet. And who knows what other resistances and immunities to things really not good for us might crop up in such circumstances.

Secondly, and possibly more importantly? With what we now know about the Kin of the Leagues of Votann? It seems entirely possible, if not actually highly likely, that gene editing was widespread and common place - at least among those pioneers, either before they set off, or ascertained as necessary by their own STC. Now I don’t think it always went as far as Cloneskein tech, because that’s not necessarily required.

And that brought me to thinking about nutrition, and why our balanced diet is considered balance. Put simply? There are certain vitamins we need from external sources, because our bodies can’t synthesise them. Others we need certain external factors to synthesise. For instance? Vitamin D we need sunlight, and a certain amount of. If you’ve very dark skin, but live somewhere with grotty weather like Britain? Chances are you’ll need a Vitamin D dietary supplement, as you just don’t get enough exposure to sunlight to make enough for yourself. Vitamin C is another one. Oh, we have the gene for that, but it’s switched off in Humans. A cursory google points to other vitamins we need external, dietary sources for.

But, let’s focus on Vitamin C for now. The gene that would allow us to synthesise that is floating about in us already. We just need to switch it on. And whilst I don’t think were quite there in being able to do just that? As gene editing goes that’s fairly basic stuff. So I’ve no qualms in declaring it an absolute piece of piss for the STC to figure out and turn on across an entire populace.

When that’s done? It would fundamentally change our concept of a balance diet. Less emphasis on fruit and veg for instance.

Now, I don’t currently know if it’s real world feasible once we understand it better to edit the smelly Hoomans to be able to internally synthesise all the vitamins we need. But again? When we look at the Kin and possibly the other Abhuman breeds*, we can see quite extreme expressions of fiddling with the human genome to improve survivability in equally extreme environs.

Of course, that’s not exactly going on in the human populace of the Imperium. But each and everyone is still the descendant of one or more pioneer settlements. So, if such editing was done to every pioneer? Then it stands to reason it would’ve been passed down the generations so it’s now more or less just a trait of the species.

And that I think goes someway to understanding how Hiveworld and other living hell populations are shockingly hale and healthy, all things considered. A mix of inherited designer genes, and good ol’ evolution by natural selection, leaving them able to survive where any of us would snuff it post haste, including surviving off what we in the modern day might consider a woefully inadequate diet. One largely rendered down to pure calorific intake, as the vitamins we need are all synthesised in the body. Then of course there’s minerals and that, which I’m not sure on. If someone more knowledgeable could chip in there, that’d be great!

*I’m not entirely persuaded every Abhuman is the direct child of the STC in the way Kin are. Some could be genuine stabilised mutants, perhaps from shonky gene editing or unforeseen interaction with an alien environment.

Spinning off from the can you eat Orks thread. And this is aimed at trying to understand just how different a 40K era human might be from modern day humans.

This an interesting topic and I'd like to just chime in with a lore tidbit.

Obviously mutation happens and all that, but we know from 30k lore that the Emperor was really, really, really into tinkering with genes. Specifically, as soon as he had united Terra (indeed, he started even before) he set to work with his scientists on "recreating the human race as it had been before", ie, before the horrible deterioration of the millennia of Mad Max on pre-unity Terra. The chief source of this is the Horus Heresy sourcebooks.

This to me suggests he had a vested interest, maybe even a personal attachment, to humanity in the form it took when he was young. The original Homo Sapiens that built the first houses and tilled the first fields. Otherwise he would have had no reason to go back - he could have used his bonkers gene-science to make humanity "better" and more efficient in all manner of ways rather than just rollback to version 1.0.0. And I think it's pretty safe he did restore version 1.0.0. For all his many faults, the Emperor did know his genecraft, and he (and some of his Perpetual accomplices) had been alive to witness said original humanity.

Obviously the Great Crusade then incorporated all manner of disparate humans into the fold, but by this point the Emperor was still alive and an active participant, which is a key factor. He would have rejected those who diverged far enough, or subject them to the same gene treatments.

The point is, humanity may have diverged in a few ways in the ten thousand years following. But evolutionarily speaking, ten thousand years isn't a very long time. I don't think 40k humans at baseline would be necessarily all that different.

But it’s where the evolutionary changes might’ve come in.

Right now? Humanity doesn’t really experience Evolution as other species do. Thanks to our technology, we shape our environment to suit us, rather than us shaping to our environment. And Earth has been fairly stable whilst we’ve been around cluttering it up. And that includes pretty basic/primitive technology, like wearing furs and building suitable shelters.

But take us off world, into a non-standard environment? Differing gravities and food availability will impact us. For instance, island dwarfism is a thing, where organisms isolated on an island tend towards being dinky, the better to not denude its food sources.

I daresay that after just a relatively few generations, variances in gravity will see differences in average strength. And if selection means those genetically predisposed to put on muscle thrive, it wont just be on an individual basis.

But it’s the gene science in 40K that’s the really interesting thing. It’s a means to rapidly adapt a populace to any particular challenges. For instance, immunity to new and novel diseases found on alien worlds. In the modern day we can analyse what makes Person A immune where Person B isn’t. So by the time of mankind’s STC Golden Age? Making such tailored alterations seems relatively trivial as Space Science Magic goes.

And I’m now increasingly convinced that ensuring the populace at large can biologically synthesise as many vitamins as possible just seems like low hanging fruit when it comes to giving them the best shot at survival. Yes you still need your calories and minerals, that’s true. But solving the vitamin problem? Gives you a much wider range of healthy diet, relieving some survival pressures.

Remember however the Imperial obsession with purity and the past, which is taken to a nigh-satirical level.

Just like how some IRL religious people are opposed to all manner of genetic research, stem cell therapy etc, it seems likely that the Imperium would be too, at least tempering their use of it for this reason.

My argument is that the damage is already done. The STC based genetic tweaking and tinkering would’ve occurred many thousands of years before the Imperium was even a twinkle in the Emperor’s eye.

And where it worked (because if it didn’t, the population probably didn’t survive)? The genes responsible are just part of the wider population. Especially things like “and now all humans can synthesise Vitamin C”, which again just seems imminently sensible and a minor application of near magical technology.

So, to The Imperium? The baseline human is inherently different to us today.

The was a post in an older background thread I found really fascinating regarding this genetic fiddling, and the occurrence of mutation. I’m heavily paraphrasing from memory, but it was along the lines of mutants cropping up because our genome has been long since hacked. Yes warp energies speed it along somewhat. But you can still be born with tentacles instead of arms due to the accumulation of multiple genetic hacks interacting in deeply unfortunate ways.

Not sure I’ve put it quite as convincingly as the original Dakkanaut!

Yeah, that is why I brought up his project of reversing the genetic changes back in 30k. Evidently he had the ability to just gene therapy the whole population like that, and set about doing so, and as he was around from early history (canonically he is alive right now, as in, in 2026) he'd know what to go for.

As said, I am not saying humanity has remained in stasis from that point on. But it's an important data point to consider. The Emperor evidently really cared about returning to that "original" gene-structure.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Yeah, that is why I brought up his project of reversing the genetic changes back in 30k. Evidently he had the ability to just gene therapy the whole population like that, and set about doing so, and as he was around from early history (canonically he is alive right now, as in, in 2026) he'd know what to go for.

As said, I am not saying humanity has remained in stasis from that point on. But it's an important data point to consider. The Emperor evidently really cared about returning to that "original" gene-structure.

This was addressed in the Rogal Dorn book in the Primarchs Series



Evidently Big E is not a fan of humans off ‘baseline’!

I’m going to be somewhat charitable to The Emperor here.

When you’re building an Empire, you know logistics are the key. And that means people moving about a whole lot. And interbreeding. Like the proverbial rabbits.

With gene tampering likely widespread in the past? With The Emperor’s seemingly near singular understanding of that process, he may have been trying to avoid horrific consequences of incompatible modified genomes attempting to make babies.

Psykers were already manifesting at an increasing rate, bringing all the risks associated. It could be he reckoned/knew that unchecked interbreeding might speed that to a disastrous degree, and so some populations were too risky to bring into the fold. Hence the genocide.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m going to be somewhat charitable to The Emperor here.

When you’re building an Empire, you know logistics are the key. And that means people moving about a whole lot. And interbreeding. Like the proverbial rabbits.

With gene tampering likely widespread in the past? With The Emperor’s seemingly near singular understanding of that process, he may have been trying to avoid horrific consequences of incompatible modified genomes attempting to make babies.

Psykers were already manifesting at an increasing rate, bringing all the risks associated. It could be he reckoned/knew that unchecked interbreeding might speed that to a disastrous degree, and so some populations were too risky to bring into the fold. Hence the genocide.

Or he was a xenophobic dictator, and Dorn was doing what a xenophobic dictator would want.

That too. He can be both. Clever is not the same as sensible/reasonable after all.

But for his plan for humanity specifically? Whilst I won’t condone his solution, that doesn’t mean the potential problem wasn’t real.

As previous posters have said I would have expected a lot of genetic tinkering with humanity over the years. So stuff like more efficient energy systems, more resistance to disease and cancer, etc. etc. What you see now is post age of technology humans degrading as the tweaks to keep it all stable have gone and other contaminants abound. One explanation as to why humans are so resilient in hellish conditions. Remember Astartes, at leased used to be, heavily monitored to keep their biologies balanced. I have seen said int he past the prognodes did some of that balancing hence why it wasn't that great of an idea to remove them both (though in old fluff marines, especially heresy era and renegades had the neck gland removed as soon as it could be used to make another marine).

I really do like the idea that spontaneous and wild mutations are the legacy of genetic tinkering. That certain doors were opened in the process and not properly secured.

Pure speculation? But I’d expect the STC that first allowed the tweaks would also be able to fix any wonk, or at least ensure it’s eliminated for the next round. But with that guiding hand long since gone? Every so often, unfortunate genetic recombination occurs and hideous mutations manifest. Some at birth, some almost X-Men style at puberty, some from exposure to stuff like warp and radiological energies. Like someone reached into your genome and threw a bunch of switches at random.

But coming back to humanity? By deliberate, technological intervention or natural evolutionary pressures (both, even)? They’re no longer us. Their tolerance for toxic hellholes is testament to that.

I believe Fenris is another example where there is a legacy of gene tinkering, and that the population of that world are so hardy because of it. Also interacted with the geneseed of Leman Russ in unexpected ways, essentially tainting it to the point it cannot be used on other worlds without causing rampant mutation now.

I don't know if there is a stock of older, pre-Fenris Space Wolf geneseed that could be used, but no one has tried since the Wolf Brothers.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m going to be somewhat charitable to The Emperor here.

When you’re building an Empire, you know logistics are the key. And that means people moving about a whole lot. And interbreeding. Like the proverbial rabbits.

With gene tampering likely widespread in the past? With The Emperor’s seemingly near singular understanding of that process, he may have been trying to avoid horrific consequences of incompatible modified genomes attempting to make babies.

Psykers were already manifesting at an increasing rate, bringing all the risks associated. It could be he reckoned/knew that unchecked interbreeding might speed that to a disastrous degree, and so some populations were too risky to bring into the fold. Hence the genocide.

Or he was a xenophobic dictator, and Dorn was doing what a xenophobic dictator would want.

Yeah, I don't think we need to be justifying eugenics here. The Emperor had a particular vision of what he wanted humanity to look like, and was willing to genocide or oppress any humans that didn't fit that image. I'm sure the Emperor has reasoning for his decisions, but that doesn't make it good, or even correct reasoning. This is the same idiot that created superhuman children and didn't think they might need properly socialising or even just giving them therapy before throwing them into the meatgrinder like tools, and then was blindsided when half of them betrayed him.

If there is such a stock of that Geneseed? Pretty sure Cawl’s got it,