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In our modern age, we can "cure" many cases of depression using various chemicals, yet in several cases afflicted individuals do not use those cures because of the various unpleasant side effects or the costs involved. Manic depressive people are probably the best example--if they're "cured" they lose both the manic periods and the upswings along with the depressive periods and the other negatives. It's entirely reasonable that the Necrontyr had similar issues with any radiation or life extension treatments which they tried to develop. For that matter, if they did have treatments which had side effects which rendered those treatments impractical or unusable, wouldn't that just make it worse when they found a race like the Old Ones?

If the Necrontyr encountered the Old Ones, found out what the Old Ones could do, and then the Old Ones declined to help (or made the price too high), wouldn't that be enough to send an entire race to war? Suddenly "We're jealous and we hate you" becomes "You could have saved us and we're going to take you with us" and all the more dramatic.

It seems to me that when you are destroying a necron you are just destroying it's body. There's no reason to believe that a necrons "soul" is destroyed. Maybe it is collected and downloaded into another shell. Although with all that experience you would think that they would be less rubbish in a fight.

poodle wrote:It seems to me that when you are destroying a necron you are just destroying it's body. There's no reason to believe that a necrons "soul" is destroyed. Maybe it is collected and downloaded into another shell. Although with all that experience you would think that they would be less rubbish in a fight.

I always compared them to terminators, sky-net doesnt want it's soldiers to learn, so they can't. perhaps the c'tan feels the same way, so peronality and the basic thought process was removed when they were necroned.

They evolved with a short life span, screwing with genetics at that level could have dire consequences. Besides, the basic laws of evolution state that the odds of an alien species looking as human as the necrons (pre-zombot) is a scientific impossibility.

No problem there. It is where you simply use test subjects, you know unwanted trash that no one will ever miss, like enemies political prisoners etc etc. We humans are the foremost experts on these things. If a million die to create one genetic experiment that actually work then you have won and with the necrontyr near magical tech levels that would be pretty damn simple.

Also, nobody said the necrons and humans were alike. However they do exhibit quite similar social traits to one another, something that can certainly ease the understanding some.

You gents have provided a wealth of info as to why space elevators are not currently feasible, and as such, I will echo those sentiments from now (unless someone comes along with counters to the above arguments). I'm not one of those people who, as pyriel put it, 'zealously think they know it all because they did limited research'.

Cool If you ever think me being the same then smack me in the head. I hate being a hypocrite.

Tell me one thing that's going on we don't know about, and I might go with this. Unfortunately that kind of argument is usually shared by people with tin foil hats convinced the government is run by aliens, and 9/11 was arranged by the Dutch Royal Family. I can accept some things are kept from the general population by various governments, but I find it hard to reconcile that with the government deliberately keeping a cure for cancer out of the public knowledge.

As you so diligently noticed I have never used any tin-foil examples in my reasoning. I did never put forth examples about hidden ufos in secret hangars. I clearly stated two perfect examples of historical "clandestine". The microwave emitter and the jet plane, who were both "impossible" and according to all books didnt exist other then in sci fi novels or in tin foil basement gatherings.

Those are amonghts the things we didnt "know" about. Today empirically speaking there are still tons of things that we do not know about but by their very definition I cant point any out to you due to the tin-foil factor. Its a catch 22 for lack of better words.

Thus, what is it that you do not understand about my point?

I think you assume too much knowledge of the physiology of the Necrontyr. For all we know, if they didn't receive a certain dose of background radiation, their skin would peel off, or they would become infertile. It's all too possible that there was a narrow balance to walk between too much radiation and too little. For example, if we get too much sunlight, our skin burns, but it's not healthy for us if our skin gets none at all. It could be a similar situation here, where immunising themselves against background radiation would screw up their bodies in some other way. I'm actually pretty sure something along these lines must be the case otherwise, what would there be to stop the Necrontyr simply ditching their main homeworld for another one? They could go somewhere with little to no radiation, thus extending their lives! If they didn't do this, there must be a reason, and think that reason is why it wouldn't be as simple as simply immunising themselves against radiation.

If we get it we die of in the short run but in the long run our race prevails, if we dont get it its the opposite and we with our basic tech level can STILL solve both situations by introducing proper radiation, sub tanning under UV lamps or heck, curing cancer

But I understand your point, we cant assume but then what we can do is take logical calculated guesses. Its as I can say you cant assume the early eldar werent space living whales (and I´m right, they COULD have been, you cant disprove it or assume otherwise, ha) but then the victory of common sense and logics would be yours.
So when we assume things about the necrontyr I go with common sense and logics.
We know they are humanoid, we ASSUME they are of our rough build or smaller (based on their their metal bodies look), we know they were plant bound, we know they were atmosphere breathers and we know for a fact that they displayed remarkable similarities in psychological traits with us.

But in the end, if we are unable to assume even logical things then there will never be any base for debate and these threads can never exsist since everyone can counter everything about an unknown subject with: you cant assume this and you cant assume that.

Just on a sidenote here, I believe I read somewhere that not all Necrontyr actually wanted to be placed in metal bodies. What happened was that the C'Tan slowly gained in power in Necrontyr society, and then they had their followers grab the non-believers, eat their souls, and transfer what was left to the metal robots first. The C'tan's followers then voluntarily gave themselves up. A bit like a religious movement. It wasn't so much the entire race deciding to become robots as the C'tan forcing it on half of them, because the other half worshipped them. Again, this makes sense.

See, yet another "human" trait.
This brings up a very interesting point though. As with the eldar there simply must be some necrontyr that so to speak "got away".
How far fetched would it be then to assume there are a few necrons hidden or disguised in the galaxy that are good guys?
Those would be the most powerful of all enemies to the ctan and the metal necrons since tehy know all secrets and also the cures (maybe).

Talk about an epic subject for a 40k author. Someone should let Nick Kyme know about this

So it really was a case of the religious necrontyr screwing over the rest of the race.

LOL religious fanatics? How very "human" of them.

The necron home world might not have lead as an element so radiation shields might not be as easy as you think.

True, lead is a very rare element overall actually.
But you still need it in alloys etc and cant build things like super ships without using rare materials.

The argument falls however since they were bombarded by background radiation and this comes foremost from heavy isotopes and if those are present so is lead (generally).

The presence of Lead is irrelevant. Fabricated materials can be used in radiation shielding.

Indeed, they would have *needed* some manner of protection to travel outside the protection of their planet's atmosphere.

True but if the radiation came from the very ground they walked on then bummer. But on the other hand it would be easy to shield themselves from it anyway and it would also mean abundent heavy elements AND a very active mantle (also increasing natural resources).

As you so diligently noticed I have never used any tin-foil examples in my reasoning. I did never put forth examples about hidden ufos in secret hangars. I clearly stated two perfect examples of historical "clandestine". The microwave emitter and the jet plane, who were both "impossible" and according to all books didnt exist other then in sci fi novels or in tin foil basement gatherings.

Those are amonghts the things we didnt "know" about. Today empirically speaking there are still tons of things that we do not know about but by their very definition I cant point any out to you due to the tin-foil factor. Its a catch 22 for lack of better words.

Thus, what is it that you do not understand about my point?

As the one telling me that cancer could well have had a cure invented, but be having it withheld, the burden is on you to provide the proof that I am wrong. Until then, I stand by my statement. The fact that the government has kept one or two things secret in the past is absolutely no indicator of whether it is doing so currently in this specific field. I would also debate as to how big a secret the jet plane was, but that would be getting too off topic.

f we get it we die of in the short run but in the long run our race prevails, if we dont get it its the opposite and we with our basic tech level can STILL solve both situations by introducing proper radiation, sub tanning under UV lamps or heck, curing cancer

But I understand your point, we cant assume but then what we can do is take logical calculated guesses. Its as I can say you cant assume the early eldar werent space living whales (and I´m right, they COULD have been, you cant disprove it or assume otherwise, ha) but then the victory of common sense and logics would be yours.
So when we assume things about the necrontyr I go with common sense and logics.
We know they are humanoid, we ASSUME they are of our rough build or smaller (based on their their metal bodies look), we know they were plant bound, we know they were atmosphere breathers and we know for a fact that they displayed remarkable similarities in psychological traits with us.

But in the end, if we are unable to assume even logical things then there will never be any base for debate and these threads can never exsist since everyone can counter everything about an unknown subject with: you cant assume this and you cant assume that.

Again, you can say what you like, but the burden is on you to provide evidence that this is the case. You have made your claim that the Necrons must have been stupid as they didn't simply adjust themselves genetically, and I have given you an answer which reasonably suggests another logical train of thought in which the Necrontyr are not stupid. The onus is on you to prove that the Necrontyr WERE stupid. Unless you can disprove my completely reasonable theory, it is arguable that the Necrontyr were not stupid, and your statement remains mere speculation, rather than substantive fact, and my theory every bit as valid as yours.


The codex says the C'Tan ate all the Necrons, but I guess it could be possible some regular ones remain. Whether they would have so much of the uber technology though is a point of speculation, as the chronology in which it was acquired is uncertain.

The idea of surviving necrontyr is interesting, but the fact that they survived then doesn't mean they'd be around now. That is a lot of time for a species to die out, either through declining population or some natural disaster. Or even suspicious eldar wiping them out, 'just to be sure'.

Maybe a 'set in the past' book, like the Horus Heresies?

As the one telling me that cancer could well have had a cure invented, but be having it withheld, the burden is on you to provide the proof that I am wrong. Until then, I stand by my statement. The fact that the government has kept one or two things secret in the past is absolutely no indicator of whether it is doing so currently in this specific field. I would also debate as to how big a secret the jet plane was, but that would be getting too off topic.

You want to debate about the secrecy of early jets but claim hidden medical advances are ridiculous, well thats a way of having the cake and eating it but per definition this talk should be held between us in about 50 years or so when todays current hidden things are revealed.
Its pretty much naive to assume nothing is hidden from us today anymore.

and I have given you an answer which reasonably suggests another logical train of thought in which the Necrontyr are not stupid. The onus is on you to prove that the Necrontyr WERE stupid. Unless you can disprove my completely reasonable theory

Sorry dude but your "theory" is also nothing more then a theory and the burden of proof lies just as heavy on you if you want to proof your to be true. All we have are two "theories" and while I claim my is just as reasonable as is yours neither of us (that includes you too) has any moral ground to claim the other one provide the proof.
I can turn the table on you and say you need to proof your train of "thought" if you ever want me to acknowledge it for anything more then it is, a theory.

The idea of surviving necrontyr is interesting, but the fact that they survived then doesn't mean they'd be around now. That is a lot of time for a species to die out, either through declining population or some natural disaster. Or even suspicious eldar wiping them out, 'just to be sure'.

True. But it could also be that they went into stasis hiding, we dont know.
But how awesome would it be if someone wrote a story where a necron army got their asses handled back to them by anotehr army that was being guided mysteriously to a crushing voctory and hints were placed that a uncorrupted necrontyr was behind it.

It would certainly be a cool new concept to enrich the 40k universe with.

In that case sir, it appears we are at an impasse. You may go on believing that the Necrontyr, whilst full of enough genius to build amazing technology were so lacking in common sense they just didn't think of easy options for radiation shielding, whilst I will continue to believe that there is a simple explanation for this.

I believe mine to be the more feasible and likely of the two theories here, looking at the surrounding data.
And actually, as you were the one to make the first statement about the Necrontyr's intellectual capacities, it is up to YOU to prove them true, as I am not attempting to convince you of anything. It is you trying to convince me that the Necrons were stupid, as opposed to me trying to convince you they weren't.

If you believe a race that willingly steps up to become eternal slaves in cold degrading bodies through religious mass hysteria rather then easily fixing the radiation issue, are "smart" then you are entitled to it however weird that opinion seems to be.
I think its insane but that us just my opinion as I think the logic behind my own reasoning are far better.

Some debates end up like this, its inevitable that opinions vary in the end into various stand-offs.
So good luck to you and your theories sir. May you enrich more subjects with more original ideas in the future, it enriches this hobby to say the least.

And you too! A good debate only serves to sharpen the old mental muscles!

I believe that in one of the Black Library books (one of the Ultramarines omnibus) there was a chapter when they entered a room with some necrons lying on a table with empty skins hanging around, along with some surgical equipment. It has been a long time since I have read it but I'm almost 99% sure that they are created by remove the skeleton of a human.

Ronin-Sage wrote:It should also be noted that, and although it's "unofficial", almost every single fluff account of a Necron incursion stresses endless numbers.

Of course there would be "endless numbers" if when they take to much damage, they phase out, and are repaired. Then they return. By that logic, a force of only a couple thousand could easily seem like millions upon millions of Necrons. If you could do that, and being as powerful as a standard warrior is, you could overwhelm the enemy with few numbers.

aromasin wrote:I believe that in one of the Black Library books (one of the Ultramarines omnibus) there was a chapter when they entered a room with some necrons lying on a table with empty skins hanging around, along with some surgical equipment. It has been a long time since I have read it but I'm almost 99% sure that they are created by remove the skeleton of a human.

In Nightbringer, there were some disassembled Necrons in that lab and if I remember they at one point started to wake up and Uriel boltered them. Now remember...the BL novels are the last thing you want to take actual fluff related information towards things, that and other codexes except the actual army's; IE Space Marine 5th ed story about Ultrasmurfs destroying thousands of Necrons as they were 'retreating' after the Gold Lord was destroyed. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty darn sure Necrons phase out if a tactical loss was inevitable, not hike it over the hills for a few miles to a rally point.

I think they use captured enemies not suitable for the pariah creation as fuel for new warrior constructs. Treating them just as a resource to be used and fabricated. seeing as they just need that basic spark of consciousness seemingly to get a warrior working. Maybe one humans mind/soul can be dissected and programmed to be able to help power many new necron warriors. This would at least account for the HUGE numbers of warriors needed to fight a galaxy wide war.