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- Removed by insaniak. Please see rule #1 -

- Removed by insaniak. Please see rule #1 -

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tsz52 wrote:Tarnish: I don't think that folks are bothered by not being told the full story; it's that open-ness and hints and ambiguity in the setting that is appealing for those who like to tell their own stories, rather than be dictated to (as Lynata's already stated a few times).

I totally get where your coming from and i get your view, but most of the needed evidence to fully "get" what this is about simply is not there, and quite a few people in this thread act like it is.
This however was not why i opened up the subject yet again, but to simply get peoples views in a open and constructive setting. its too bad that its turned into a partial - i-know-better-and-your-all-morons slugfest as usual and i was really hoping to avoid that.

You know what's awesome? Discussing the fictional background of this game of toy soldiers without throwing a temper tantrum when someone has a different point of view to our own.

How about we try to do that, rather than continue down a road that will see people taking a holiday from the site to give them time to re-evaluate just how seriously they're taking all of this?

Just ignore the flame-baiting and don't do any yourselves...


AT ANY RATE...

The facts are thus:

1: The "miracles" of the Sisters of Battle are not psychic. That is stated consistently and repeatedly throughout the history of Sisters lore, from second edition to fifth, and including the FFG roleplaying system.

2: C:WH says that the miracles are obtained through their unique way of war which combines martial prowess and prayer, producing results which appear miraculous to the unschooled. This is the best description given for the "powers" so far, essentially making it so that the miracles are something that can be trained in to a person.

3: Older (2nd-3rd edition) lore have stated that even LIving Saints, whom are literally living bastions of miracle-happenings, are not psychic. As this is the only direct statements on Living Saints that I know of, this is what I go off of.


Based on this, I see three interpretations:

1: Sisters obtain their "powers" through their unique martial arts. They aren't truly miraculous so much as Sisters having a unique insight on the universe and being able to do things that others without this insight cannot do. Basically, their kung fu is greater than yours. This fits most within the canon of the codices, but is not very believable for some people. It is also possible that others have stumbled upon the same insight, or have done so via a different means (perhaps Eldar have done so in a limited fashion, for example, through their aspect warriors?).

2: The miracles are indeed from the Emperor, but the Emperor HImself is a remnant of a time when the warp was not corrupted by chaos, and therefor cannot be detected by normal means which are focused around detecting evidence of chaos. Given that FFG has released a special Primaris Psyker power which allows them to use powers that are "invisible" to detection of psychic powers, it is plausible that the Emperor may simply be a master of this form of power. However this isn't necessarily supported by the core lore, IE the codices and rulebooks, unless you go all the way back to the shaman description of the Emperor's creation back in rogue trader.

3: The miracles are of some other not-yet-described power source which the Emperor or the Sisters draw upon, the supposed "divine" power which is not psychic in nature. This escapes the problems of the first theory in believability for some people, but causes more problems in believability for others. It works off the fact that the C'tan are different from the Chaos Gods, offering the idea that there are multiple types of deities in the 40k milky way galaxy, and that the Emperor is a third as-yet unexplained type..

tarnish wrote:If you are going to argue on a fluff issue, at least read the fluff, and not your own version of it.

If you are going to argue an opinion of mine, at least quote what you think contradicts it and don't just go "nu-uh". It is very well possibly that I may have simply missed something or just forgotten it, but if so, I would appreciate a reference and not just another opinion. I pride myself on my extensive collection of fluff about the Sisters - extending far beyond just the Codices - so a claim that I "didn't bother to read up" does feel a bit insulting.

tarnish wrote:By i think what your intending to say that there's no room for the extraordinary simply happening out of supposed nothing without some established power behind it that been defined in detail.
Is this because its a scifi setting that you feel has no room for faith actually being real or is it more a question of not being able to accept something merely because its origin is vaguely portrayed?

Hmm, I think it's because it is a sci-fi setting, yeah. Even "magic" and demons have been sort-of explained by the Warp, so my personal expectations are a tad higher than in some high fantasy setting where stuff "just is". Especially since, and here Veteran Sergeant is very much correct, this would truly make the Sisters the odd group out, if they'd be the one and only thing in the entire setting having access to "divine magic".

Not saying it's not possible, but it certainly isn't an "explanation" favored by me. I see the "mind over matter" theory working just fine, so that's the interpretation I'm personally rolling with. The vagueness and ambiguity certainly allows for it to work, at least in my eyes.

Lynata wrote:]Hmm, I think it's because it is a sci-fi setting, yeah. Even "magic" and demons have been sort-of explained by the Warp, so my personal expectations are a tad higher than in some high fantasy setting where stuff "just is". Especially since, and here Veteran Sergeant is very much correct, this would truly make the Sisters the odd group out, if they'd be the one and only thing in the entire setting having access to "divine magic".

Not saying it's not possible, but it certainly isn't an "explanation" favored by me. I see the "mind over matter" theory working just fine, so that's the interpretation I'm personally rolling with. The vagueness and ambiguity certainly allows for it to work, at least in my eyes.

To be fair, the divine is far more common in 40k then whats visible in the rules and armylists from said game. You hear about saints and entire planets devoted to worship, but since there's no organ to dissect and study miracles that we know of (or they might simply be a secret order in the Ecclesiarchy, which they probably would have quite a few of) much of it would be viewed as downright heresy if it was documented in a scientific manner. Who is to say how rare acts of faith are in the common man? i know their not in the rules, but it would be quite obscure if they where right? we would have one-use abilities all over the place representing divine intervention and it would draw attention away from the actual basis of the army in question.

Aye, I take it that 'the divine' is in play whenever a 'blunt' character (in one of the novels usually) does something 'impossible'. It's that elegance of theory in order to suspend disbelief thing again. You can either roll your eyes and dismiss each and every one of these occurrences as cartoon heroism cranked up to 11 and plot armour, or seek an explanation that accounts for them, realistically within the setting's rules.

They're grains far too fine to be represented at the level of the 40k TT (though not at the DH level, where burning fudged 'Fate' Points can accomplish similar things) but it'd be something like:-

Righteous Human: Applies to all loyalist human [Astartes is debatable*] models, who aren't Untouchables [or Psykers, debatably*]. Any roll to hit of a 6 can be re-rolled. On a re-roll of 6 it can be re-rolled again. [Repeat however many times you think realistic given the occasional 'uber-crits' in the novels.] The attack counts as five hits, STR 10, AP 1. This does not count as a psychic ability in any way.

Something like that. That's the Guardsman one-shotting a Chaos Dreadnought with his lasgun etc. You'd have an ascending scale of Awesomeness Table depending upon how many times that 6 comes up as a 6 again. You'd give modifiers to Ecclesiarchy models and Commissars (thus not needing separate AoF for SoB - it'd all be unified). I'm not suggesting that anyone would or should ever do this (so haven't really fleshed the idea out - it's pretty throw-away) but if the TT mechanics fit the fluff then there'd be something like that going on.

Such occurences are common enough in the fluff that they're accepted phenomena ('The Emperor Protects!') and have been extremely rigorously tested for warp taint, with none found.

This might be:-

1 A failure in understanding and testing apparatus. Like the different results photons give in the slit experiments, or like earlier scientific understanding considered light and heat as very distinct, but higher level knowledge was necessary to lump them all together (with other wavelengths with other properties) as electromagnetic radiation. Maybe the Eldar would say 'Tssk, humans with their artificial divisions and binary oppositions... 'photons' are simply 'waveparticles' and 'the divine power' simply a lower [or higher] frequency of what you call 'the Warp', and all is truly one, these labels meaningless and counter-productive to true understanding.'

So the Emprah-field seems different because it's the equivalent of microwaves or gammas in a backwards Imperium that can only measure IR, 'visible' light and near UV.

2 It actually is distinct in some way, since it seems to have different properties from regular Warp power. It trades the raw power and unpredictability (and danger) of Warp power for subtlety and stability (and safety). If you don't want to invoke a distinct power field for this ['the divine', which I would also avoid personally, since it's better to explain using what's there already), then He simply filters and modulates the Warp in order to tame it and make it accessible to His devout 'blunts', filtering out the perilous stuff.

You could look to the Astronomicon as a model to bear this out, of his modus operandi: it's powered by psykers and the Warp but he modulates the signal for stability - he takes the Chaos out and creates a psychic phenomenon that is clean, safe and usable. Maybe it's the side-bands/-lobes of this that humies can occasionally tap into in extremis and if they're properly tuned to Him?

Accounts for everything [?] and doesn't create anything new.

[BTW if I seem a bit full-on about this it's because I'm writing a 40k tale and take a professional pride in getting stuff right, my main character is both Inquisitive and pious and so will need a theory for this herself, and deep-immersion is the only way to write (anything worth a damn) - like 'the method' in acting but moreso... plus it's enjoyable of itself just for the craic.]

*EDIT: I'd say not: Astartes are still holding the incorrect (especially 'now') pre-HH metaphysical worldview in a post-HH universe with different metaphysical laws... though a Chapter that devoutly followed the Imperial Creed could (are there any?); psykers have corrupted themselves too much by channeling the Warp that they've muddied their antennae too much to channel His modulated frequency [though I haven't come across anything - even in DH - that states that psykers can't use AoF (yes it would be highly unlikely that a psyker would make it through the Schola and then the convent to be able to reach that point of using AoF, but that isn't the same as is impossible, in the same way that it's impossible for Untouchables, as stated)].

Melissia wrote:

2: The miracles are indeed from the Emperor, but the Emperor HImself is a remnant of a time when the warp was not corrupted by chaos, and therefor cannot be detected by normal means which are focused around detecting evidence of chaos. Given that FFG has released a special Primaris Psyker power which allows them to use powers that are "invisible" to detection of psychic powers, it is plausible that the Emperor may simply be a master of this form of power. However this isn't necessarily supported by the core lore, IE the codices and rulebooks, unless you go all the way back to the shaman description of the Emperor's creation back in rogue trader.

This point I agree with.

One of the ways the various Warhammer worlds/universes break from traditional fantasy settings is that the underlying dichotomy providing the basis of conflict is that of Order v. Chaos instead of the typical Good v. Evil. In the old Warhammer Fantasy RPG (it's not 40k but 40k is basically WHFB in space), they had a small section detailing the "Gods of Law" - the anti-thesis of the Chaos Gods. These are Warp gods that are counter to everything Chaos represents and don't seek any kind of worship. The Emperor is in essence one of these; parallels can also be drawn to Sigmar, but Sigmar isn't a reincarnation of thousands of paleolithic shaman's souls who cast themselves into the Warp to be reborn as some immensely powerful psyker-sorceror-warrior-god-king. The Emperors birth can be likened to that of Slaanesh; it required the sacrifice of many souls devoted to a singular purpose. However, unlike Slaanesh, it wasn't due to over-indulgence of selfish depravity that reached critical mass and involuntarily sucked up the souls of the majority of a civilization. It was a conscious decision to create something greater than themselves to watch over the emerging human species who were still struggling to attain a secure foothold in the world. The God-Emperor is the Warp embodiment of the desire for Order, for Civilization, for Law.

If we suppose that the Emperor is a force of Law, then manifestations of his power wouldn't register as Chaos. The Acts of Faith that the SoB (it took me a while not to read that as Sons of Batman) perform would be similar to a Chaos god granting gifts to their followers when called upon. In the same vein the Living Saints would be similar to Demon Princes. These miracles wouldn't be detectable as "the Warp as known" because the power being used is of the opposite nature (not to mention typically much more subtle than the gifts of the Chaos gods or the actions of a psyker).

All this is completely unsupported by any sort of canonical 40k information, and I'm not even sure of the "Gods of Law" are canon in the WHFB world anymore. The ever-changing Warp may have changed since I last got my information about it.

Acts of Faith being "Mind-over-Matter" are equally plausible, the prayers and rituals being a tool to focus yourself, much like the pre-game rituals of many atheletes, or other focusing techniques used by people to improve performance. However in a world where there is a very real metaphysical realm where humanity is locked in a life and death struggle with the forces of Chaos I find the idea of an Emprah-field to be more thematically pleasing. But that's just my own opinion.

To be fair, WHFRP/WHFB did not originate the idea of the Gods of Law. In fact, everything about the Chaos vs Law thing (down to the very symbols they use) originate with Michael Moorecock and his Eternal Champion series of novels (including the eight-pointed star).

CF:

Elric the Melnibonean: "Arioch! Arioch! Blood and souls for my lord Arioch!"

Random Khornate Berserker: "Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"


There's divine magic all up in this bish, from the SOB to random Chaos Sorcerers, gifts of the Chaos Gods, "magic" weapons with daemons bound into them, gnosis-engines and all sorts of other stuff. The Warp, though having a "scientific" explanation, is basically a dimension of pure magic.

I wasn't aware of the the Michael Morecock influence, I was never too big into fantasy when I was younger, my taste ran more to hard sci-fi, and the only fiction I really get to read these days are philosophy books for college credit. Those are something I'll have to read on holiday.

As for warp science or magic, you could easily look to Clarke's third law of prediction - "Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic". Humans know it exists, know how to use it in a crude form, but don't know all the mechanics of it, like the various alchemical traditions. The Eldar have a much more refined understanding of the way the Warp works. Pity they don't let humans into the Black Library.

With the SoB being non-psykers, is there any precedent for non-psykers to manifest pseudo-psychic abilities by prayer/worship of the Chaos gods?

Whitey Blackman wrote:With the SoB being non-psykers, is there any precedent for non-psykers to manifest pseudo-psychic abilities by prayer/worship of the Chaos gods?

I've heard a lot about Chaos Sorcery being available to non-psykers, but I'm unsure if GW's version of the setting is actually including that or if it appears only in various licensed writings from various individual writers. Maybe a Chaos player who has read a lot of Codex fluff can shed some light on this?

For the Sisters, it's not just that they are non-psykers, though - but also that they used to have an active defense against psychic phenomena, regardless of their origin, and even if they were of a benign nature. Of course, one could easily come up with ways how this barrier can be neutralized, or simply assume that it was retconned out of the studio vision as it ceased to show up in the rules.