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As silly as the above story is (and awesome, nicely done) it's probably pretty right about what happens up until the kingdom hearts part

 Bi'ios wrote:
As silly as the above story is (and awesome, nicely done) it's probably pretty right about what happens up until the kingdom hearts part

To be fair, I don't think there's an ending that can live up to all that. As GW demonstrated with one of their other game lines >_>;

So I decided to go with what the actual ending would be, which is 40k players throwing down the book in disgust :'D;;

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Assuming that all factions are at their full strength, or want to destroy the imperium.

No, not under any such assumption. When I say "parity" I don't mean exactly 50/50, I mean they can fight at all. The Necrons at their full strength might be able to beat the Imperium consistently at 1:1 odds, but bolters/lascannons/etc can still kill them. It's going to be an ugly fight where the Imperium wins primarily by sheer willingness to throw bodies at the problem, but they can win. Or, if they lose, they can at least die fighting. Same thing with every other 40k faction. Even if the Imperium loses to them there's still at least that degree of parity, and the Imperium is at least capable of wining some battles even as they lose the larger war.

That simply is not true with the Culture. The Imperium can't even attempt to fight back against a Culture warship. No known weapon the Imperium possesses can hurt it, and no known defense the Imperium possesses can stop its firepower. Assemble the entire military strength of the Imperium in a single location and all you've done is made it easier for the Culture warship to kill everything at once without having to go to the trouble of traveling all over the galaxy. And the Imperium will probably never even see its killer coming. One moment there's a fleet, the next moment there's a cloud of debris, before anyone even realizes they're under attack. One moment there's a planet, the next moment there's a cloud of debris, and the Culture warship killed ten more in the time it took to write this sentence. The entire concept of "fighting back" complete ceases to have any meaning, as there is no relevant difference between fighting back and passively waiting for your turn to die (fortunately you won't have to wait too long, a few microseconds at most).

So, for any 40k faction to have a chance of beating a Culture ship it must be capable of similar feats of dominance against the Imperium. If it can't beat the Imperium in the same way then it isn't in the same speed/firepower/etc class as the Culture ship. And when we look at 40k we don't see any faction that does this to the Imperium. Conclusion: the 40k setting's high-end powers die just as fast as the Imperium.

I think I am on "ignore" but in case not..............

The Imperium can't even attempt to fight back against a Culture warship. No known weapon the Imperium possesses can hurt it, and no known defense the Imperium possesses can stop its firepower.

I think we are getting a bit carried away with the Culture here - the ships can be damaged, destroyed and the Culture does use conventional weapons such as x-ray lasers so whilst it is immensely powerful it is by no means a given that some of the more powerful weapons that the Imperium of Man field can do nothing - hitting it is not easy but not impossible.

One moment there's a fleet, the next moment there's a cloud of debris, before anyone even realizes they're under attack. One moment there's a planet, the next moment there's a cloud of debris, and the Culture warship killed ten more in the time it took to write this sentence.

Again getting into fan W$%£ here - the Culture ships do take time to traverse space - they do not have instantaneous travel, depending on the story depends on how long they take to build up speed for long range journeys etc.

What was the point of the thread other than to draw peoples attention to the Culture novels - (which is laudable) if you have already determined the answer in your own head............

 Mr Morden wrote:
I think we are getting a bit carried away with the Culture here - the ships can be damaged, destroyed and the Culture does use conventional weapons such as x-ray lasers so whilst it is immensely powerful it is by no means a given that some of the more powerful weapons that the Imperium of Man field can do nothing - hitting it is not easy but not impossible.

No, hitting is impossible. Culture warships fight at high FTL speeds (in hyperspace, of course) and can finish entire battles in small fractions of a second. The Imperium's ships would never even have a target to shoot at, nor would they likely have enough time to attempt to aim a weapon before being destroyed.

Again getting into fan W$%£ here - the Culture ships do take time to traverse space - they do not have instantaneous travel, depending on the story depends on how long they take to build up speed for long range journeys etc.

Sure, in the context of the galaxy as a whole it's not instantaneous. But, for example, obliterating several planets in the same system would involve very little travel distance. In fact, given Culture FTL combat capabilities it's almost certain that a ship could simply park anywhere in a system and hit everything from there, and possible that it could also kill planets in nearby systems without bothering to move. In a head-on pass at high FTL speeds (as demonstrated in Excession) ships are closing so fast that weapon ranges have to be absurdly huge for a target to be in range for more than the briefest instant

What was the point of the thread other than to draw peoples attention to the Culture novels - (which is laudable) if you have already determined the answer in your own head............

The same purpose as certain "one space marine vs. the entire real-world armies" threads that were made at around the same time.

Perhaps, perhaps...............

I see what you mean about the multiple planets in a system - but again it takes a bit more time for the weapons to arrive - I was reading Excession the other night I am sure it takes some time for them to get places ? Might have another look at lunchtime.

It depends if in the 40k universe, the Culture vessel has access to the same levels of hyperspace as in its own universe - in the same way as a Imperial vessel would be massively handicapped without access to the Warp in another realm, no FTL for instance.

I don't know if things like Stasis fields would work against effector weapons...................

I personally don't think the mortal races (Elder, Necron, Ork, Human or Tyranid) could do much against it (depending on how the hyperspace access ting works), on the other hand, the Chaos Gods - similar to the sublimed in the Culture Universe, are just too powerful to do anything against.

You can even destroy all life (I remember the Stargate episode where Anubis tried the same) to starve them of their fun but in a few million years it will be back to same and time means nothing to them.

I do question however whether a Culture vessel would ever destroy an entire galaxy worth of life............................

I think that The Culture is far more likely to spend time investigating 40K and building up its numbers before doing anything.

The Culture typically looks for societies that are moderately "nice" and subtly influences them in the right direction, in the hope they may eventually be able to join The Culture. Sometimes this can go badly wrong, as in Look To Windward.

In other cases The Culture works against what it sees as gross injustices. For example in Surface detail, the back story is about a Culture plan to destroy the use of VRF Hells for post-death eternal punishment by torture by a number of galactic societies. in this case The Culture isn't directly hoping to convert the target civilisations into Culture membership candidates, it simply cannot abide what it sees as unconscionable treatment of sentient beings.

The Culture doesn't really "do war", though. Their big problem at the start of the Iridan war in Consider Phlebas is that they don't have any warships, and have to start a rearmament programme to build up forces to reverse the tide of the war. After that they maintain substantial naval forces but don't use them aggressively.

Therefore I reckon The Culture in 40K would spend years building up its civilisation in hidden parts of the galaxy, gathering as much information as possible by spying, interceptions and covert agents. I believe their attitudes towards the various major players would come to be as follows:

The IoM and Tau: Likely Culture members in the medium term.
Eldar and Deldar: Possible Culture members in the longer term.
Orks and Necrons: Determine if genuinely sentient and amenable to change, otherwise class as Hegemonising Swarm.
Chaos and Tyranids: Hegemonising Swarms to be eradicated.

Indeed, although:

The Craftworld and Exodite Eldar are post scarcity civilisations with advanced technologies - if it was not for the influence and threat of Chaos they would be not disimilar from the Culture. The Dark Eldar and Orks are not much different to the Afront - they have defined lifeplan which whilst abhorent to others - works......

Culture Minds (especially those which are or were warships) may find the Orks a fascinating study...............I could see some of them trying out the lifestyle for a bit...............