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That's because the Urg part isn't the part that evokes that image, It's the Demi part that does, regardless of your claims that it doesn't. In the common english language it does. The Urg part is a made up word. It doesn't exist. The only place I've seen it is in comic books.

Urge is the real last part of that word. When put together it was referring to a public worker in the greek city states as well as an artisan or craftsmen or an underling creator for a diety.

However, that isn't the word. The word is Demiurg not Demiurge.

The only real word in that name is Demi...meaning half. The rest of that word isn't real, therefore it means nothing at all.

Anyway, since this is obviously turning into somewhat of a joke, we can stop now.

I am gonna say the word "Demiurg " does not make me think of short off hand. Nor does the word Demi.

'Demiurge' was the evil creator of the physical world in the Cathar, Albigensian and a few other Christian offshoots in the middle ages. He masquerades as the true God, who, in these theologies, only created the spiritual and not the physical world.

I don't know if this is what GW had in mind, but the comparison is, IMO, too close to be random chance.

Zinderneuf wrote:'Demiurge' was the evil creator of the physical world in the Cathar, Albigensian and a few other Christian offshoots in the middle ages. He masquerades as the true God, who, in these theologies, only created the spiritual and not the physical world.

I don't know if this is what GW had in mind, but the comparison is, IMO, too close to be random chance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Zinderneuf wrote:'Demiurge' was the evil creator of the physical world in the Cathar, Albigensian and a few other Christian offshoots in the middle ages. He masquerades as the true God, who, in these theologies, only created the spiritual and not the physical world.

I don't know if this is what GW had in mind, but the comparison is, IMO, too close to be random chance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge

Yes, the Cathars had a lot of gnostic traditions.

Agent_Tremolo wrote:@Veteran Sergeant: Orcs are way older, as a narrative device, than GW's or Blizzard's take on them. Essentially, they were enemies designed to be so lowly and evil the heores could massacre them without any moral qualms.

Thanks for the history lesson. Here's another one. Blizzard doesn't have a take on Orcs. Their take was GW's take.

And any original mythology behind Orcs is irrelevant to the way they are depicted in 40K. The Orks of 40K are not evil, foul, or an affront to all that is good and holy like you suggested they were. The orks of 40K bear no resemblance to the classic depiction of monster.

Which isn't a problem by any means. It's just incorrect to suggest that they are. The universe of 40K isn't serious enough for such a depiction, and the Orks are a perfect comic relief when you get too bummed out by planet devouring space bugs or skull bedecked sociopaths.

English Assassin wrote:

Lobukia wrote:Still, GW lost IP on Squats... they're gone, anything too similar could start a whole nother round of lawsuits.

IF they come back, they will have to be different enough (which is fine by me).

Would you care to elaborate on that? I wasn't aware of any legal issues pertaining to the space stunties.

I'll presume from your silence on the subject that you don't have a source, then, and are just repeating unsubstantiated rumour.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

AegisGrimm wrote:

They have no inherent psychic abilities, and a very long lifespan compared to humans, but a few of them go above and beyond that age. As they get older, they unlock their psychic potential, and their households revere them as "Living Anscestors".

Well, that's not contradictory at all.

Not when it was officially that way for Squats. Evidently something about reaching unnatural old age unlocked the potential for psyker powers.

"At about 500 years old, certain physiological changes began to occur, As age began to sap their speed and strength, they develop an incredible degree of mental resilience, along with certain psychic powers."

-Squat Army list, page 170, Warhammer 40K Compendium. (1989)

I have the book. In actuality, the whole "power wheels bikers" thing was only for the Engineer's Guild, a faction within the army list. The rest of it is pretty normal troop choices, other than the Warlord and his Hearthguard being able to be in Exo-armor, which despite the horrible models of it, is just Terminator armor with a standard load-out of bolter and power-axe (storm bolters barely existed at this point, and power axes were nearly as good as powerfists).

This is also at the point in the game where Harlequins could loot Imperial Robots and vehicles from other armies. So yes, a Harlequin-painted Land Raider.

It's amazing how many people have replied in this thread, and not really answered what the OP was talking about. He is essentially saying that there is as much reason for spaces dwarves to exist in the 40k universe, as there is gnomes, elves, ogres etc. Not about whether Squats fit in in terms of the game itself (which, by the time 2nd edition came around, they didn't)/

In that sense I think he is right - although the old GW background explanation of how the Squats came about can't be correct (random divergence through evolution could not have produced such a radical difference to the human frame in such a short space of time), the original background was written before genetic engineering became a possibility within science. I think these days, and if the background were written again (perhaps might be for the Demiurg?) they could write that the scientists of the Dark Ages of technology altered the human genome to be able to function in high-G environments. Perhaps the same thing was done with other abhumans - Ogryns as a labouring, slave race. Ratlings as a... erm.. race of thieves?!

As well as that, the concept of a 'Dwarf in space' does seem much more believable than many of the other species. Dwarves are industrious, good at engineering, and are comfortable living in small and enclosed spaces. They have a high level of technology, and their search for mineral wealth would natually draw them towards asteroids and other planetary bodies. Their long lives and stable society would aid the creation of planetary exploration, as they would be able to look beyond projects that only produced short-term gain.

As Kanluwen has pointed out earlier in the thread, the Demiurg (or what we have heard about them) lends itself well to that concept. This is something quite different to the Squats, who sadly were never given this kind of background in 40k (their Epic incarnation was much closer to that concept listed above).

Labukia wrote:I thought it was pretty widely known by now that Squats dissapeared because one of the employees who developed them won an intellectual property lawsuit after he was fired and the Squats went with him.

Seriously, this is why. Everything else was normal GW CYA BS.

That was Bob Olley, but I think it is by the by that Squats were not made again, rather than the sculptor leaving GW. Jervis illustrated in the letter he wrote that the design team had tried but failed to make the Squats fit into the changing, far more po-faced, 40k universe but they had failed. He admitted that the army list should never have appeared in the 2nd edition book.

During my time at GW I did hear a rumour though that there was a member of the GW upper-management who had said that "there will be no more dwarves in space while I am at this company" (although as so many of the GW design team and other staff have changed now maybe that is not in effect any more?). There is also the issue of FW sculptors apparently being told by GW, "No 40k Demiurg". Was this because of the aforementioned anti-squat in GW management, or because GW had their own Demiurg line on the horizon and didn't want the waters muddied?

Ghost21, a well known rumour poster over on Warseer, did hint that Demiurg were coming. It would also tie in with Mantic making the Forge Fathers (they have produced very little that can't function as a stand-in for GW's games). However, Ghost21 was caught out lying over a subsequent rumour, and so you have to question whether any of the things he had written previously were in face true.

In the meantime though I'm doing a Demiurg army from the quite lovely Mantic Forgefathers line, who with the new releases are everything that the Squats in 40k initially should have been.

Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Agent_Tremolo wrote:@Veteran Sergeant: Orcs are way older, as a narrative device, than GW's or Blizzard's take on them. Essentially, they were enemies designed to be so lowly and evil the heores could massacre them without any moral qualms.

Thanks for the history lesson. Here's another one. Blizzard doesn't have a take on Orcs. Their take was GW's take.

And any original mythology behind Orcs is irrelevant to the way they are depicted in 40K. The Orks of 40K are not evil, foul, or an affront to all that is good and holy like you suggested they were. The orks of 40K bear no resemblance to the classic depiction of monster.

Which isn't a problem by any means. It's just incorrect to suggest that they are. The universe of 40K isn't serious enough for such a depiction, and the Orks are a perfect comic relief when you get too bummed out by planet devouring space bugs or skull bedecked sociopaths.

M'afraid you either misread my earlier post. Or maybe I wasn't clear enough. Probably the latter.

Orcs, in other fantasy settings, are foul and evil beings of darkness. GW's version of the mythos is comedic and certainly more benign to them.

So, in the end we agree, you see.

My problem with Squats is not that they're silly. In an universe that can switch from dead serious to dead stupid and vice versa in a matter of seconds, silliness is not much of a concern. Neither is the idea of dwarves in space itself: As Pacific wisely points out, given the right rationale, sci-fi is as good an habitat for dwarves as it is fantasy.

The problem comes when you try to port the Dwarves from WHFB to 40k, and do a terribly sloppy job at it.

Squats were supposed to have preserved long lost tech from the Dark Age of Technology. I would have gone with robots, AI and wild cybernetics, but instead we got zeppelins and steam-belching road trains, which are fine examples of absurdly advanced technology but only when your opponents are wielding spears and swords, not creating transhuman warrior clones and shooting from massive humanoid walkers. The miner/redneck looks and theme are cool in my books, and suit the Dwarves just fine, but are damn hard to blend with the Viking Eddas. Their background, like most WHFB armies (and unlike 40k, where each race's fluff is largely independent from the others'), relied too much in detailing their interactions with other factions, leaving them in some uncomfortable middle ground carved at the expense of creating inconsistencies in other races' fluff. And there's the name. Oh, the name...

If Squats were to go on, they had to be modified to such extent even the existing Squat fanbase would be pissed off. That's how I understand Jarvis' statement: The Squats couldn't stay in 40k without ceasing to be Squats anymore.

P.S. I don't think models were an issue. Everything can be redone, and modern sculpting techniques would have worked wonders for them. RT-era minis were nice for their time. Recent (96-97) unreleased models are somewhat dissappointing, but not without the occasional spark of coolness:



As for the "IP loss" theory, I'd discard it completely. I've been doing some research, and found out that new Squat sculpts kept being done until the mid-late 90s, almost a decade after Olley (whose RT-era Squats were released by Citadel under the Iron Claw splinter brand, and was my main suspect of having carried the rights to the Squat sculpts along with him) left Games Workshop. Also, his Goblins and Black Orcs made it through the years after his departure. Still, I'm still willing to learn more about this, so if anyone has more info...

And a final note for those arguing around the "Demiurg" name. While browsing the wikipedia (I wasn't too sure if the dwarves originated from the Eddas or some other Norse text) I found out the old english word for "dwarf" was dweorg. "Demiurge" doesn't evoke short people to me but, knowing this, the "urg" spells some dwarvish connections.

I actually would say that their odd-ness was because I don't think Squats were Space Dwarf enough. They looked too much like "short humans".

I personally think that you could keep the entire background for the Squat race (with some minor updating) and make them fit in with all the other races of WH40 simply by renovating their art style. The original Squats looked far too much like they were simply an Imperial Guard regiment with dwarfism, and it didn't make any part of them seem "unique" as their own race/army. Half their models were mini-humans, and the other half were mini-space marines.

I would like to see a race that split off from the humans. Who cares if they aren't "aliens" it's as good as in this setting. Give them strong elements of the Nordic fantasy battles Dwarf style, while at the same time giving some throw-backs that give a glimpse of what pre-Imperial humans would have looked like if the warp storms had never happened.

No purity seals, no Imperial Eagles, no skulls everywhere, etc.

The problem with that is the human empires were all ostensibly reclaimed.

The ones which were too far mutated or that stood against the Imperium were destroyed. Humanity is the Imperium.

Agent_Tremolo wrote:Squats were supposed to have preserved long lost tech from the Dark Age of Technology. I would have gone with robots, AI and wild cybernetics, but instead we got zeppelins and steam-belching road trains, which are fine examples of absurdly advanced technology but only when your opponents are wielding spears and swords, not creating transhuman warrior clones and shooting from massive humanoid walkers.

This is very true. I mean, nobody should argue the RT Squats would fit in the modern 40K universe. But, then again, only the Eldar really remained consistent across the years. And I attribute that more to a lack of creativity than a perfect mold achieved immediately. However, it's quite valid to argue that the Eldar weren't broke, so there was no need to fix them.

If Squats were to go on, they had to be modified to such extent even the existing Squat fanbase would be pissed off. That's how I understand Jarvis' statement: The Squats couldn't stay in 40k without ceasing to be Squats anymore.

Not sure I can agree here. Pretty much every army was slowly modified, some were even drastically modified. The player bases remained. Squats could have easily occupied the Tau niche, before the Tau existed. After all, a race of short stature and slow movement would benefit greatly from technology. Walkers, fast transports, etc, fit them perfectly. They could have been suitably "Imperialized". Maybe give them jet and speeder technology at a greater percentage than the Imperium. Made the difference between Squats and Imperial Guard be in technology. Biker Squats were kinda silly. Jetbike and Landspeeder Squats could have been awesome, with dreadnought or Sentinel style walkers supporting mechanized infantry.

P.S. I don't think models were an issue. Everything can be redone, and modern sculpting techniques would have worked wonders for them. RT-era minis were nice for their time.

I honestly liked the Squat models. Some of them were silly, but others were pretty awesome. Some of the RT era Squats still look cool today. If they'd evolved away from the nordic biker dwarves in space look, and to something more serious business, they could have been cool. I mean, look how the Imperial Army figs evolved into the modern Cadian plastics. Hasslefree's Grymm are a pretty good example of how the Squats could have evolved in terms of look. "Imperialize" them a bit, and you have an army that I feel like people would consider collecting.

I think the bottom line is that this argument is impossible to make. The Squats never evolved past Rogue Trader, because GW abandoned the line. Trying to say what was acceptable 25 years ago isn't acceptable now is kinda dumb. The game isn't much of anything like what it used to be. It's far more polished and evolved. Not always in the best of ways, but it has changed. Only a modern take on the Squats from GW can accurately be compared to the modern iteration of the game. And it's fairly certain we won't see it.

Which, in my mind, is too bad. But at least it gives some fun character to Squat models that people work into their modern Imperial Guard, or possibly even Tau armies.

The thing is the game has evolved past "fantasy in space" and honestly the squats never seemed to have fit the fluff anyhow. It seems the folks that liked them , liked them because they are silly dwarf viking bikers with steampunk/high tech stuff. To me removing them was a great idea, other people love em and hate the idea. It is the way of any living game/ Warhammer is still a bit silly, but they try to limit the silly to an extent.

Let me ask. Why do you like squats? why are they a must have? Is it anything more then "I want a dwarf?"

Pacific wrote:...the concept of a 'Dwarf in space' does seem much more believable than many of the other species. Dwarves are industrious, good at engineering, and are comfortable living in small and enclosed spaces. They have a high level of technology, and their search for mineral wealth would natually draw them towards asteroids and other planetary bodies. Their long lives and stable society would aid the creation of planetary exploration, as they would be able to look beyond projects that only produced short-term gain.

More points in the Squats' favor (Woot! Woot!), though I do seem to remember in 1ed that they were supposed to be a high gravity subspecies of humanity.

Yes they were, but I think the theory was that they had naturally evolved from humans because of the high gravity world.

But as I said, Rogue Trader was written before genetic engineering had started to become a possibility in real science (although it had been around in science fiction for some time before). Hence why Marines were just 'chemically hardened' at this point, and squats and ogryns had evolved naturally. I think if 'dwarves in space' were written as being originally humans again, the writers would choose the 'genetic engineering' route instead, which makes much more sense than random divergence producing a thing like a dwarf in such a short space of time.

I think Jes Goodwin had implied at Games Day a couple of years ago he would be doing Demiurg after Dark Eldar, but who knows GW sometimes sit on new stuff for years before finding a window in the schedule to release it. And because of their arse-clenching secrecy policy, I think many people (like myself) will have long since bought the Mantic Forgefather models whereas they might have otherwise waited if GW had let us know they were coming (or at least to see which model line was superior).

Pacific wrote:...And because of their... ...secrecy policy, I think many people (like myself) will have long since bought the Mantic Forgefather models whereas they might have otherwise waited if GW had let us know they were coming (or at least to see which model line was superior).

I have often wondered whether this really helps them.

For example, a 40k motion picture might really be popular right now, but, like everything else made by mortals, this game probably won't be around forever, and if they don't loosen up a little, they could well lose their audience.