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So in your eyes, a races ability to take land from others and or wipe out other races at will is the only benchmark by which they can be considered advanced?

This is precisely what I find fascinating. Not saying you are wrong, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I sincerely hope you never hold political office of any kind sir.

If one race can wipe out another race, I'd say they're more advanced in the ways that count.

4. Tyranids: they are actually on the same level as the Imperium, but their biotech is more limited as biology has stricter boundaries than mechanical technology.

This statement shows you have little to no understanding of biology, chemistry, or what bio-tech is capable of. Take some more classes and come back, biology offers endless advancement and boundless possibilities.

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:
Surely we can not count a species travel tech as the only way to declare them advanced. Again Tau are the only type one species in the galaxy except for the Tyranids. They have mastered the power of whole worlds, utilizing all the energy the planet can provide, and even made designer worlds such as those in the Farsight Enclaves. Tau are a clear second place in my mind to the Tyranids in technology.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would argue in many respects current human tech is more advanced than 40k human tech. And in some 20-30 years I expect our level of tech to have so thoroughly surpassed that of Warhammer's Imperium of Man as to render the entire concept a permanent joke in nerd culture.

Okay I'm going to shut down this argument right now because of one reason.

It all depends on the author.

Some are enamored of WW2/1 in space, others have gigajoule meltaguns (that is for comparison, the equivalent of over a ton of TNT, in a rifle sized weapon), petaton lance batteries, Space Marines who can bench press tanks and dodge bullets like it's the matrix, bolters that go through 8 inches of RHA equivalence, and detonate suns.

There is no consistency, there is no canon hierarchy, there is nothing more than a mish mash of interpretations all of which are perfectly legal and valid. A second grader's fanfiction is as good a source on fluff as anything in a codex.

There is no point in debating 40k vs whatever because 40k is whatever you want it to be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ir0njack wrote:
Humans hand down. The Human race has forgotten more technology than others have . Its just a matter of finding it all! I bet its like it to lost car keys, all in a obvious place they just havent thought to look there yet.

Humanity and the Eldar's peak of technological progress are but pale shadows of what the Necrontyr and Old Ones were in their height.

Very true, but then we are having a hypothetical conversation of how we see it aren't we. I am displaying my feelings and interpretations, and many others are displaying theirs. We all are killing time by arguing something that doesn't matter, so with your permission Mr. Policeman, I would like to continue having my good time.

And someone could just as easily say "in my 40k, even basic guardsmen and grots fight like Raiden in metal gear rising, Space Marines are the equivalent of "watch me sneeze out this solar system" Superman, while Titan battles are fought like Gurren Lagann" and you'd really not be able to argue against it.

This would probably work mostly as a tongue in cheek parody of science fiction, but 40k already is a tongue in cheek parody of all science fiction from the day of Vernes up to the late eighties, with some later stuff tacked on as time went along.

Now, there is a game that is heavily 40k influenced and abandons all pretense of seriousness with common handguns having more punch than the dinosaur killing meteor, warships destroying planets by ramming them and not getting so much as a scratch on their paint, psions rewriting reality as casually as I'm writing this post, an immortal God-empress of mankind, Exterminatus being done by drive by shootings from ghetto space vans with rolled down windows, a copy pasta'd expy of the Culture from Iain M Banks books not even being close to top dog, Squirrel super-soldiers, the bastard offspring of the Tyranids and the Reapers running around, Halo's Flood in a can being used as run of the mill biological warfare, and millions of warships being lost every day and nobody giving a damn.

It is called Strike Legion, and it is quite possibly the most insanely over the top fun thing I've had. Seriously, check it out.

It does seem like a fun game, but getting back to the matter at hand, you sir seem to be the only one having trouble with the concept. I am thus writing you off as a shameless troll and moving on.

Good day sir.

I just don't see a point to this thread when the Necrons quite clearly have the edge with the likes of the Celestial Orrery, functional time travel, tamed a species of casual solar system destroying reality warpers/energy vampires, and a mastery of materium based sciences so sophisticated that any tech capable of functioning at similar capacities as theirs has to cheat via the warp, and thus invite disaster.

Psychic tech? Well clearly that's either the Eldar or Chaos' ball game, but the Eldar don't need to cheat via daemon binding to get theirs to work.

Bio-sciences? The Tyranids violate virtually every rule of biology just by existing without usage of warp-cheats. So I'm just gonna say they run on hive mind magic and call it a day.

What you want other answers?

Chaos does have a pretty good handle on bio-tech, but it's clear that they utilize the warp for much of it.

Ork medical science is helped a lot by Ork physiology letting them handle procedures that would kill a human, tau, or eldar at least a dozen times over in grotesquely painful ways.

The Imperium? The Space Marine creation process apparently involves at least some genetic engineering, and well, the laws of biology pretty much say that a space marine as presented to us is an utter impossibility. The Primarchs are doubly impossible.

The Eldar? If something does not kill you before you can reach medical aid, Eldar medical science will not only fix you up, but do it so perfectly that no one would ever know that you were used as a chew toy by a carnifex.

The Dark Eldar? They can bring back the dead from the smallest scraps of the body without any disruption of consciousness. They modify their bodies as easily as we change clothes without any apparent complications. Even with nano-technology, this doesn't seem like something we can ever do as casually and easily as the Dark Eldar without killing us, or abandoning the flesh altogether.

Necrons? Who knows.

Old Ones? Who knows, it was just very good. That's all you'll get.

Tau? Well they can apparently engram someone's memories onto a chip that can be easily implanted into the brain and figure out a pheromone based language very shortly after meeting the Vespids. I'd reckon that Tau hospitals are pretty good, not Eldar good, but good.

Also, get off your high horse. This is the internet, not a debate house with stiltedly over-formal dialogue.

So from your stand point if the human race is wiped out by a mindless lifeless virus, the virus is more advanced? Sounds like you are agreeing Tyranids are the top tier sir!

A "lifeless virus" is an oxymoron.

But, yes.

As we've seen, the Tyranids are getting crushed throughout most of the Galaxy though, with Leviathan being the only hive fleet that can put up a fight.

And, by your own criteria (" power creation, civilian tech, and social/political systems" (none of which is actually technology)), the Tyranids suck at most forms of technology.

The Imperium? The Space Marine creation process apparently involves at least some genetic engineering, and well, the laws of biology pretty much say that a space marine as presented to us is an utter impossibility. The Primarchs are doubly impossible.

In what way do the "laws of biology" forbid space marines? I minored in bio, and everything I learned says that they are extremely possible, and in what way do tyranids defy biology? Even the hive mind can be explained through current biological knowledge.

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

4. Tyranids: they are actually on the same level as the Imperium, but their biotech is more limited as biology has stricter boundaries than mechanical technology.

This statement shows you have little to no understanding of biology, chemistry, or what bio-tech is capable of. Take some more classes and come back, biology offers endless advancement and boundless possibilities.

I mostly meant energy efficiency issues. AFAIK, you can't even touch the best energy sources (like anti-matter) with only biological technology. And then you have this life expectancy thing going on where your biotech degrades much quicker than mechanical tech meaning you need surplus energy to "regrow" your tech continuously.

Their ships produce vast amounts of energy, as do many of their biomorphs, their entire civilization is a massive energy generator, and the energy produced is sued to spawn more hive ships and soldiers. And their social political system is so thoroughly evolved they suffer no revolutions or internal struggles and work solely for the hive mind. It is in many ways the perfect political system. And as every tyranid dex has stated, the fleets that have struck here are only scouts. Future fleets will include biomorphs designed solely to crush the lifeforms of our galaxy. They have all the time in the world.

And to say none of that is actually tech is to argue semantics again. See previously posted statements for details.

In my opinion, the most advanced race is the Eldar.

They are a post-singularity society who failed at the final gate, but they still have near infinite power production capabilities, sufficiently advanced technology, and the only culture in the entire galaxy that supports true gender and racial equality.

Males and females are completely equal in Eldar culture. Craftworlders and Exodites are completely equal in Eldar culture, just acknowledged as different. Leadership is determined by ability rather than politics. Maintenance workers have the same quality of life as artisans and leaders.

The Eldar also have mastered technology that provides life after death through the Infinity Circuits. They have the technology to manipulate the weak nuclear force (gravity). They have the magitech to manipulate the future. They have the ability to create self-sustaining planets with full ecologies that operate independently of any sun.

They may not quite break relativity like the Necrons, but in my opinion their social advancement more than makes up the difference.

The Tyranids, on the other hand, do not have a culture at all. They are a single entity with many bodies, there is no space there for any culture to be advanced.

I think the Eldar's gender equality alone is what sets them above the rest in technological advancement.

In fact, I think I'm going to write about that on my tumblr.

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:
So in your eyes, a races ability to take land from others and or wipe out other races at will is the only benchmark by which they can be considered advanced?

This is precisely what I find fascinating. Not saying you are wrong, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I sincerely hope you never hold political office of any kind sir.

That is because in the environment they are in that is the best policy to have. The races that tried to be diplomatic and merciful are all dead now. There are many beings out there in the the grimdark galaxy that would delight in your death. The only way a race can get anywhere in a incredibly hostile galaxy is to adopt a "kill everyone else" policy. That is what makes all of this truly grim dark. Not only are the main races incredibly genocidal but they are completely justified in being so.

In other words, those qualities are ideal for the setting they are in.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

4. Tyranids: they are actually on the same level as the Imperium, but their biotech is more limited as biology has stricter boundaries than mechanical technology.

This statement shows you have little to no understanding of biology, chemistry, or what bio-tech is capable of. Take some more classes and come back, biology offers endless advancement and boundless possibilities.

I mostly meant energy efficiency issues. AFAIK, you can't even touch the best energy sources (like anti-matter) with only biological technology. And then you have this life expectancy thing going on where your biotech degrades much quicker than mechanical tech meaning you need surplus energy to "regrow" your tech continuously.

Anti-matter could easily be formed through biological processes, like a biological matter accelerator, and stored in biologically created electromagnetic fields powered by muscle driven electrical fields. The ensuing reaction could be contained using a biological organ that evolved to form carbon nano tubes that line it, and the energy could be absorbed through an altered form of photosynthesis and transferred using chemical processes to meet any need imaginable. There is nothing technology can do biology can't.

As for degradation, look up the work of Aubrey de Grey. Soon humans wont even age, and we will be able to control, and even reverse our appearance as it relates to age. Biotech does not need to break down, unless it is poorly designed that is.

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

4. Tyranids: they are actually on the same level as the Imperium, but their biotech is more limited as biology has stricter boundaries than mechanical technology.

This statement shows you have little to no understanding of biology, chemistry, or what bio-tech is capable of. Take some more classes and come back, biology offers endless advancement and boundless possibilities.

Pardon?

No really, pardon?

Did you really just insinuate that you could bioengineer a creature to function as well as any possible machine at the same task?

No, that's dumb.

A biological entity will always be restricted to chemical sources for energy, whereas a machine could very well run off of more intense and efficient in terms of amount of energy from a given amount of matter energy sources such as nuclear reactions for one thing.

Without telepathic hive mind shenanigans, biological organisms can never be as coordinated as an inter-locked network of machines. Pheromones, vocalizations, visual cues, all of these are inferior to the very types of communications used by something as simple as a cell phone.

A hard and fast limitation to the durability of anything organic is the need to get nutrients flowing to whatever organic structure you are developing, this induces structural weaknesses that machines don't have. There's a reason why bones are porous while you can have a slab of composites on a Tank.

So many of the problems that arise with bioengineering versus robotics is that with bioengineering, you ultimately have to make concessions to let the creature live, thus creating weaknesses. You need your organs, you need your metabolization, your overly large and not at all space efficient (by robot standards) brain, you can't use any of the really high end energy sources, you need to maintain a rather strict degree of hemeostasis, and so on so forth.

Whereas with a robot or hell, a mass of shapeshifting nanites, you can eliminate all the inefficiencies inherent to organic life that make them inferior platforms. You can work within a tolerance range that no organic matter can handle, you don't have to muck about with fickle chemistry or worry about biological agents, no need to muck about with DNA to make new designs, just blue-print out something to efficiently handle whatever job you want it to do and get it rolling out of production or assembled by nanomachines.

tl;dr: Genetic Engineering is so 1980s, the future is in Nanomachines, son.

If this were basketball Necrons would be LeBron and everyone else would be toddlers with a beachball.

technology: Necrons
civilian tech: Ork
social/political systems: Ork

overall Ork

 Desubot wrote:
technology: Necrons
civilian tech: Ork
social/political systems: Ork

overall Ork

Da Biggest is Da Boss

 Zande4 wrote:
If this were basketball Necrons would be LeBron and everyone else would be toddlers with a beachball.

The problem with that analogy is that it would mean that LeBron has frequently been beaten by toddlers.

 Kain wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

4. Tyranids: they are actually on the same level as the Imperium, but their biotech is more limited as biology has stricter boundaries than mechanical technology.

This statement shows you have little to no understanding of biology, chemistry, or what bio-tech is capable of. Take some more classes and come back, biology offers endless advancement and boundless possibilities.

Pardon?

No really, pardon?

Did you really just insinuate that you could bioengineer a creature to function as well as any possible machine at the same task?

No, that's dumb.

A biological entity will always be restricted to chemical sources for energy, whereas a machine could very well run off of more intense and efficient in terms of amount of energy from a given amount of matter energy sources such as nuclear reactions for one thing.

Without telepathic hive mind shenanigans, biological organisms can never be as coordinated as an inter-locked network of machines. Pheromones, vocalizations, visual cues, all of these are inferior to the very types of communications used by something as simple as a cell phone.

A hard and fast limitation to the durability of anything organic is the need to get nutrients flowing to whatever organic structure you are developing, this induces structural weaknesses that machines don't have. There's a reason why bones are porous while you can have a slab of composites on a Tank.

So many of the problems that arise with bioengineering versus robotics is that with bioengineering, you ultimately have to make concessions to let the creature live, thus creating weaknesses. You need your organs, you need your metabolization, your overly large and not at all space efficient (by robot standards) brain, you can't use any of the really high end energy sources, you need to maintain a rather strict degree of hemeostasis, and so on so forth.

Whereas with a robot or hell, a mass of shapeshifting nanites, you can eliminate all the inefficiencies inherent to organic life that make them inferior platforms. You can work within a tolerance range that no organic matter can handle, you don't have to muck about with fickle chemistry or worry about biological agents, no need to muck about with DNA to make new designs, just blue-print out something to efficiently handle whatever job you want it to do and get it rolling out of production or assembled by nanomachines.

tl;dr: Genetic Engineering is so 1980s, the future is in Nanomachines, son.

Keep trying super troll, I find your uninformed musing to be quite entertaining. I would pit an army of microscopic insects against nano machines any day.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also who says a brain can't give off/detect electromagnetic signals on its own?

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Spoiler:

In my opinion, the most advanced race is the Eldar.

They are a post-singularity society who failed at the final gate, but they still have near infinite power production capabilities, sufficiently advanced technology, and the only culture in the entire galaxy that supports true gender and racial equality.

Males and females are completely equal in Eldar culture. Craftworlders and Exodites are completely equal in Eldar culture, just acknowledged as different. Leadership is determined by ability rather than politics. Maintenance workers have the same quality of life as artisans and leaders.

The Eldar also have mastered technology that provides life after death through the Infinity Circuits. They have the technology to manipulate the weak nuclear force (gravity). They have the magitech to manipulate the future. They have the ability to create self-sustaining planets with full ecologies that operate independently of any sun.

They may not quite break relativity like the Necrons, but in my opinion their social advancement more than makes up the difference.

The Tyranids, on the other hand, do not have a culture at all. They are a single entity with many bodies, there is no space there for any culture to be advanced.

I voted humans because even though they are in a constant state of downfall and they have stagnated technologically the technology that they do have is extremely advanced.

Take the Adeptus Astartes. The power armor and Black Carapace implants are literally wonders of technological advancement. To make a man genetically superior in every fashion in body and then find a way to take a powered armor suit that probably weighs a freaking ton, and through neural implants enable that soldier to move without resistance is a big deal. From what I have seen no other race can claim that. Tau are close, but they still require pilots for their suits (again not positive on the fluff here so feel free to correct me) and the mobility of the suit is limited to the capabilities of the pilot and the suit restrictions. Power Armor on a Space Marine is as mobile, agile and even more durable than the man wearing it. While it does not make them invincible, it certainly allows them to take ridiculous amounts of punishment, and according to fluff most races regard space marines as resilient and incredibly tough to kill. The mere presence of Space Marines makes commanders of other races completely alter their strategy on the field of battle to be able to handle them.

While humanity has not conquered death like the Necrons, they have figured out ways to cheat it and extend said life span many times over. Bjorn the Fell-Handed is over 10,000 years old because he is entombed in a dreadnought and kept in stasis. Cervan Dante is at least 1,100 years old. Dreadnought technology in particular might be a way for the humans to effectively live forever much like the Necrons, the only difference being that while Necrons need no regular maintenance, a dreadnought requires power and upkeep.

Weapons wise I think that Humanity is certainly outclassed by the Tau, but they are no slouch either. They may not have the fanciest weapons, but with the exception of plasma weaponry they have remarkably reliable weapons. They can exterminate entire planets for crying out loud.

Mankind also has the technology to sustain itself. Quadrillions of humans is not a thing that you can manage without some form of advanced tech to make it all work.

My first vote would have gone to Necrons but I feel that the tech that they do have is what survived the 60,000,000 year sleep and they haven't really shown anything outside of just weaponry. Also they cannot reproduce themselves making them finite in a sense, but they don't need to so there is an eternal argument there LOL.

Tau I feel have the most potential however, and given more time they would certainly surpass everyone, but I think that they have grown out of their age of advancing rapidly and due to being bogged down by constant expansion and warfare they don't have the time to develop as quickly as they could.

Now. I know about zip about Eldar so take that into account while reading all of this, and I call fair if any disagree with me

Orks are da best. Shokk attack gun ftw. Our technology might not be the most advanced, but we can make brutal weapons out of scrap.

necrons for most advanced tech
Orks for the most killy (and dangerous) tech

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

4. Tyranids: they are actually on the same level as the Imperium, but their biotech is more limited as biology has stricter boundaries than mechanical technology.

This statement shows you have little to no understanding of biology, chemistry, or what bio-tech is capable of. Take some more classes and come back, biology offers endless advancement and boundless possibilities.

Even with our current technology we've made materials that are much stronger than the strongest, devices that are faster than the fastest, bigger than the biggest and killier than the killiest things in nature or indeed that you could create from any known biological matter. It comes down to materials, the awesomeness of what you can create is limited by the materials you have available and biological things will typically have worse materials than what you can fabricate, so it's hardly ignorant to feel biology has stricter limits than mechanical devices.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
In my opinion, the most advanced race is the Eldar.

They are a post-singularity society who failed at the final gate, but they still have near infinite power production capabilities, sufficiently advanced technology, and the only culture in the entire galaxy that supports true gender and racial equality.

Males and females are completely equal in Eldar culture. Craftworlders and Exodites are completely equal in Eldar culture, just acknowledged as different. Leadership is determined by ability rather than politics. Maintenance workers have the same quality of life as artisans and leaders.

The Eldar also have mastered technology that provides life after death through the Infinity Circuits. They have the technology to manipulate the weak nuclear force (gravity). They have the magitech to manipulate the future. They have the ability to create self-sustaining planets with full ecologies that operate independently of any sun.

They may not quite break relativity like the Necrons, but in my opinion their social advancement more than makes up the difference.

The Tyranids, on the other hand, do not have a culture at all. They are a single entity with many bodies, there is no space there for any culture to be advanced.

While I agree with a lot of what you said Im going to have to disagree on your points on their social system. My contention is that it is not very unique.

While at first glance Eldar may seen like the most egalitarian society the truth is that the Tau and IoM are similar to them in that regard. In the Imperium it matters not your gender or what color your skin is. All may serve and die for the Emperor. The IoM may come off as patriarchal at first but I would chalk that up to the wonderful BL writers. There is nothing stopping women or non light skinned people from becoming even a High Lord of Terra.

The Tau see all Tau as equal. Even the lowly earth-caste worker is no worse than a fire warrior. Everyone has their place.

I dont understand your point about racial equality. Are exodite Eldar seen as a different race like modern America views race? Do such concepts exist in the 41st millenium?

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

4. Tyranids: they are actually on the same level as the Imperium, but their biotech is more limited as biology has stricter boundaries than mechanical technology.

This statement shows you have little to no understanding of biology, chemistry, or what bio-tech is capable of. Take some more classes and come back, biology offers endless advancement and boundless possibilities.

Pardon?

No really, pardon?

Did you really just insinuate that you could bioengineer a creature to function as well as any possible machine at the same task?

No, that's dumb.

A biological entity will always be restricted to chemical sources for energy, whereas a machine could very well run off of more intense and efficient in terms of amount of energy from a given amount of matter energy sources such as nuclear reactions for one thing.

Without telepathic hive mind shenanigans, biological organisms can never be as coordinated as an inter-locked network of machines. Pheromones, vocalizations, visual cues, all of these are inferior to the very types of communications used by something as simple as a cell phone.

A hard and fast limitation to the durability of anything organic is the need to get nutrients flowing to whatever organic structure you are developing, this induces structural weaknesses that machines don't have. There's a reason why bones are porous while you can have a slab of composites on a Tank.

So many of the problems that arise with bioengineering versus robotics is that with bioengineering, you ultimately have to make concessions to let the creature live, thus creating weaknesses. You need your organs, you need your metabolization, your overly large and not at all space efficient (by robot standards) brain, you can't use any of the really high end energy sources, you need to maintain a rather strict degree of hemeostasis, and so on so forth.

Whereas with a robot or hell, a mass of shapeshifting nanites, you can eliminate all the inefficiencies inherent to organic life that make them inferior platforms. You can work within a tolerance range that no organic matter can handle, you don't have to muck about with fickle chemistry or worry about biological agents, no need to muck about with DNA to make new designs, just blue-print out something to efficiently handle whatever job you want it to do and get it rolling out of production or assembled by nanomachines.

tl;dr: Genetic Engineering is so 1980s, the future is in Nanomachines, son.

Keep trying super troll, I find your uninformed musing to be quite entertaining. I would pit an army of microscopic insects against nano machines any day.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also who says a brain can't give off/detect electromagnetic signals on its own?

I have a masters in Paleontology and took some courses in Nanotechnology. I know what I'm talking about, and the thing is, a mechanical hegemonizing swarm is going to be vastly larger and more efficient than an organic counterpart.

If I had a faction of robotic tyranid like enemies added to 40k, they'd quite quickly end up outnumbering the Tyranids by a massive margin because there's so much more material for the creation of inorganic devices than there is biomass for living beings.

Even disregarding nanotech, there is two trillion tons of biomass on the Earth, that's a big number right?

Well the Earth is primarily Iron and Nickel by weight when taken as a whole (the 50% oxygen, 25% silicon figure is mostly based on the crust), to the point where there is sextillions of tons of metal on the Earth.

That is literally a billion times more matter to work with.

So what the Tyranids would need to strip an entire galaxy of life to achieve, my robot doomswarm would need only a single planet.

And this doomswarm would keep on growing, and it can devour any planet or space rock, not just those with biomass or chemicals useful for organic life. So it can eat the whole solar system too, and then this swarm keeps on growing, devouring every solid object it finds, and by now dwarfs the Tyranids, Orks, and Humanity combined in terms of numbers.

When it runs into an inhabited planet, it can throw what amounts to the entire Tyranid genus with the most generous possible estimates, at this one single planet, and it would be at best a drop in the bucket of it's total resources.

I keep on going with this berserker von neumann nightmare until the entirety of the galaxy is cleansed of anything but these constantly adapting, geometrically self improving machines that can keep on building smarter and smarter versions of their own A.I to design more and more sophisticated technology.

Even without FTL I could clean the entire galaxy in a few million years, with FTL I'd overwhelm every faction in 40k in perhaps even a few centuries, even Chaos flickers and dies as I completely cleanse the galaxy of all life capable of emotion. Maybe I can even kill everyone sooner depending on how fast I can von neumann my way to victory.

So that's right, a competently designed von neumann swarm I literally just scribbled out a few minutes ago, would break the entire setting through simply outproducing everyone by a ridiculous margin until I can fairly say that I have more capital ships than the Imperium has guardsmen.

As for your nonsense about psychics, we have studied this for decades now, and every reputable source says that psychic powers are complete bunk on every single level. The theory is wrong, the evidence is not there or is outright falsified, Occam's razor and studies have shown that it's mostly down to stage tricks and being really good at groxgakking and cold reading people. If there were some, any mechanism that allowed for organic brains to pull a Yuri and start turning that pandora's box of electrical signals into a two way communicator then science hasn't found one.

And if you want to discuss "well, what if science was wrong" then I'm going to have to cut you short before you start furthering this bio-spank.

Well kain, we know who to ask if we want to comit some inter planetery genocide. Maybe take down a galaxy or two.

The people you come across in a war gaming forum!

 Kain wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

4. Tyranids: they are actually on the same level as the Imperium, but their biotech is more limited as biology has stricter boundaries than mechanical technology.

This statement shows you have little to no understanding of biology, chemistry, or what bio-tech is capable of. Take some more classes and come back, biology offers endless advancement and boundless possibilities.

Pardon?

No really, pardon?

Did you really just insinuate that you could bioengineer a creature to function as well as any possible machine at the same task?

No, that's dumb.

A biological entity will always be restricted to chemical sources for energy, whereas a machine could very well run off of more intense and efficient in terms of amount of energy from a given amount of matter energy sources such as nuclear reactions for one thing.

Without telepathic hive mind shenanigans, biological organisms can never be as coordinated as an inter-locked network of machines. Pheromones, vocalizations, visual cues, all of these are inferior to the very types of communications used by something as simple as a cell phone.

A hard and fast limitation to the durability of anything organic is the need to get nutrients flowing to whatever organic structure you are developing, this induces structural weaknesses that machines don't have. There's a reason why bones are porous while you can have a slab of composites on a Tank.

So many of the problems that arise with bioengineering versus robotics is that with bioengineering, you ultimately have to make concessions to let the creature live, thus creating weaknesses. You need your organs, you need your metabolization, your overly large and not at all space efficient (by robot standards) brain, you can't use any of the really high end energy sources, you need to maintain a rather strict degree of hemeostasis, and so on so forth.

Whereas with a robot or hell, a mass of shapeshifting nanites, you can eliminate all the inefficiencies inherent to organic life that make them inferior platforms. You can work within a tolerance range that no organic matter can handle, you don't have to muck about with fickle chemistry or worry about biological agents, no need to muck about with DNA to make new designs, just blue-print out something to efficiently handle whatever job you want it to do and get it rolling out of production or assembled by nanomachines.

tl;dr: Genetic Engineering is so 1980s, the future is in Nanomachines, son.

Keep trying super troll, I find your uninformed musing to be quite entertaining. I would pit an army of microscopic insects against nano machines any day.


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Also who says a brain can't give off/detect electromagnetic signals on its own?

I have a masters in Paleontology and took some courses in Nanotechnology. I know what I'm talking about, and the thing is, a mechanical hegemonizing swarm is going to be vastly larger and more efficient than an organic counterpart.

If I had a faction of robotic tyranid like enemies added to 40k, they'd quite quickly end up outnumbering the Tyranids by a massive margin because there's so much more material for the creation of inorganic devices than there is biomass for living beings.

Even disregarding nanotech, there is two trillion tons of biomass on the Earth, that's a big number right?

Well the Earth is primarily Iron and Nickel by weight when taken as a whole (the 50% oxygen, 25% silicon figure is mostly based on the crust), to the point where there is sextillions of tons of metal on the Earth.

That is literally a billion times more matter to work with.

So what the Tyranids would need to strip an entire galaxy of life to achieve, my robot doomswarm would need only a single planet.

And this doomswarm would keep on growing, and it can devour any planet or space rock, not just those with biomass or chemicals useful for organic life. So it can eat the whole solar system too, and then this swarm keeps on growing, devouring every solid object it finds, and by now dwarfs the Tyranids, Orks, and Humanity combined in terms of numbers.

When it runs into an inhabited planet, it can throw what amounts to the entire Tyranid genus with the most generous possible estimates, at this one single planet, and it would be at best a drop in the bucket of it's total resources.

I keep on going with this berserker von neumann nightmare until the entirety of the galaxy is cleansed of anything but these constantly adapting, geometrically self improving machines that can keep on building smarter and smarter versions of their own A.I to design more and more sophisticated technology.

Even without FTL I could clean the entire galaxy in a few million years, with FTL I'd overwhelm every faction in 40k in perhaps even a few centuries, even Chaos flickers and dies as I completely cleanse the galaxy of all life capable of emotion. Maybe I can even kill everyone sooner depending on how fast I can von neumann my way to victory.

So that's right, a competently designed von neumann swarm I literally just scribbled out a few minutes ago, would break the entire setting through simply outproducing everyone by a ridiculous margin until I can fairly say that I have more capital ships than the Imperium has guardsmen.

As for your nonsense about psychics, we have studied this for decades now, and every reputable source says that psychic powers are complete bunk on every single level. The theory is wrong, the evidence is not there or is outright falsified, Occam's razor and studies have shown that it's mostly down to stage tricks and being really good at groxgakking and cold reading people. If there were some, any mechanism that allowed for organic brains to pull a Yuri and start turning that pandora's box of electrical signals into a two way communicator then science hasn't found one.

And if you want to discuss "well, what if science was wrong" then I'm going to have to cut you short before you start furthering this bio-spank.

Let me bake your noodle for a minute. What is more advanced? The nanoswarm, or the organic being that created the nanoswarm? One could argue that in the end the nanoswarm would be, but then, wouldn't the being that created it be just as advanced on a level for creating something that was that adaptable?

Also, just for sh*ts and giggles...after the nanoswarm completely consumes everything what else can it do? Sure it conquers the universe and destroys/assimilates everything, but after that...then what? It can't advance any further, and thus would eventually be limited by available resources...which, you know, after assimilating/destroying everything, would be zero. Or limited to whatever it can produce on it's own.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with either side, but rather showing the stalemate I feel you two are battling over.

Tech is certainly more resilient, and efficient, but in the end Biology can be efficient in it's own ways. Biology can, for example create ways for it to cheat natural limitations, and a nano swarm would have to do the same. Simply put, one does it faster because that is all it can do. Biology gets hunkered down by petty things like feelings, and ambitions...and stuff XD

I voted necron buts I'm thinking imperium with all the STCs will have maybe better tech.

 Kain wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 OzTeG8ndPwRfl wrote:

4. Tyranids: they are actually on the same level as the Imperium, but their biotech is more limited as biology has stricter boundaries than mechanical technology.

This statement shows you have little to no understanding of biology, chemistry, or what bio-tech is capable of. Take some more classes and come back, biology offers endless advancement and boundless possibilities.

Pardon?

No really, pardon?

Did you really just insinuate that you could bioengineer a creature to function as well as any possible machine at the same task?

No, that's dumb.

A biological entity will always be restricted to chemical sources for energy, whereas a machine could very well run off of more intense and efficient in terms of amount of energy from a given amount of matter energy sources such as nuclear reactions for one thing.

Without telepathic hive mind shenanigans, biological organisms can never be as coordinated as an inter-locked network of machines. Pheromones, vocalizations, visual cues, all of these are inferior to the very types of communications used by something as simple as a cell phone.

A hard and fast limitation to the durability of anything organic is the need to get nutrients flowing to whatever organic structure you are developing, this induces structural weaknesses that machines don't have. There's a reason why bones are porous while you can have a slab of composites on a Tank.

So many of the problems that arise with bioengineering versus robotics is that with bioengineering, you ultimately have to make concessions to let the creature live, thus creating weaknesses. You need your organs, you need your metabolization, your overly large and not at all space efficient (by robot standards) brain, you can't use any of the really high end energy sources, you need to maintain a rather strict degree of hemeostasis, and so on so forth.

Whereas with a robot or hell, a mass of shapeshifting nanites, you can eliminate all the inefficiencies inherent to organic life that make them inferior platforms. You can work within a tolerance range that no organic matter can handle, you don't have to muck about with fickle chemistry or worry about biological agents, no need to muck about with DNA to make new designs, just blue-print out something to efficiently handle whatever job you want it to do and get it rolling out of production or assembled by nanomachines.

tl;dr: Genetic Engineering is so 1980s, the future is in Nanomachines, son.

Keep trying super troll, I find your uninformed musing to be quite entertaining. I would pit an army of microscopic insects against nano machines any day.


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Also who says a brain can't give off/detect electromagnetic signals on its own?

I have a masters in Paleontology and took some courses in Nanotechnology. I know what I'm talking about, and the thing is, a mechanical hegemonizing swarm is going to be vastly larger and more efficient than an organic counterpart.

If I had a faction of robotic tyranid like enemies added to 40k, they'd quite quickly end up outnumbering the Tyranids by a massive margin because there's so much more material for the creation of inorganic devices than there is biomass for living beings.

Even disregarding nanotech, there is two trillion tons of biomass on the Earth, that's a big number right?

Well the Earth is primarily Iron and Nickel by weight when taken as a whole (the 50% oxygen, 25% silicon figure is mostly based on the crust), to the point where there is sextillions of tons of metal on the Earth.

That is literally a billion times more matter to work with.

So what the Tyranids would need to strip an entire galaxy of life to achieve, my robot doomswarm would need only a single planet.

And this doomswarm would keep on growing, and it can devour any planet or space rock, not just those with biomass or chemicals useful for organic life. So it can eat the whole solar system too, and then this swarm keeps on growing, devouring every solid object it finds, and by now dwarfs the Tyranids, Orks, and Humanity combined in terms of numbers.

When it runs into an inhabited planet, it can throw what amounts to the entire Tyranid genus with the most generous possible estimates, at this one single planet, and it would be at best a drop in the bucket of it's total resources.

I keep on going with this berserker von neumann nightmare until the entirety of the galaxy is cleansed of anything but these constantly adapting, geometrically self improving machines that can keep on building smarter and smarter versions of their own A.I to design more and more sophisticated technology.

Even without FTL I could clean the entire galaxy in a few million years, with FTL I'd overwhelm every faction in 40k in perhaps even a few centuries, even Chaos flickers and dies as I completely cleanse the galaxy of all life capable of emotion. Maybe I can even kill everyone sooner depending on how fast I can von neumann my way to victory.

So that's right, a competently designed von neumann swarm I literally just scribbled out a few minutes ago, would break the entire setting through simply outproducing everyone by a ridiculous margin until I can fairly say that I have more capital ships than the Imperium has guardsmen.

As for your nonsense about psychics, we have studied this for decades now, and every reputable source says that psychic powers are complete bunk on every single level. The theory is wrong, the evidence is not there or is outright falsified, Occam's razor and studies have shown that it's mostly down to stage tricks and being really good at groxgakking and cold reading people. If there were some, any mechanism that allowed for organic brains to pull a Yuri and start turning that pandora's box of electrical signals into a two way communicator then science hasn't found one.

And if you want to discuss "well, what if science was wrong" then I'm going to have to cut you short before you start furthering this bio-spank.

You are misinterpreting a great many statements I have made.

First that biomass can outnumber inorganic matter.
Quite to the contrary, I disagree that this is possible, but contend that inorganic matter can become used by biological entities to form new bodies, that is to say it is possible to have microbes that incorporate inorganic matter into their membranes, DNA, and organelles.

I am a biohacker in my free time, currently attempting to, and marginally succeeding in, producing cyanobacteria with more plastids. My goal is to increase the overall efficiency of cyanobacteria in terms of CO2 depletion and O2 production as a way to cheaply and efficiently replace oxygen scrubbers in space craft. If I am successful my cyanobacteria will in a few years allow our astronauts to breathe in space for far longer, and far more safely then they currently do.

Another project I am working on, something more of a pipe dream, is to create an organism that produces a large shell of thick carbon nano tubes. This organism will, if I have my way, replace our spacecraft, producing the entire completed hull of the craft with zero human oversight using CO2 as its primary tool to produce the hull.

I would like to see large organic carbon nano tube lined hydrogen ram jet ships piloting our race into the future.

Secondly about psychic powers;
I am a psychologist and Neurologist currently working towards my doctorate, I am intimately aware that humans or for that matter no other creature exhibits psychic behaviors of any kind. However I am also aware that a great many creatures are able to detect electromagnetic waves we can not (Bats, dogs, etc.), and fields we can not (Birds, and other migratory creatures). It is not unreasonable to say a group of creatures could call each other with their thoughts using radio waves. They could have bones that resonate at the right frequencies allowing them to even change the channels they are tuning into. Listening in to specific voices if you will. I suggest no magic, or immaterial forces at work, only what I know as a scientist.

It is not only possible, but likely that we will find life utilizing just about every form of matter we can conceive of somewhere in the galaxy. Creatures may eat uranium, move using plasma pulses, and see using magnetic fields. Life is a strange thing, and it will always evolve to best suit it's surroundings.

Bio-tech provides a way for us to increase the rate of reproduction, and evolution, to instantly produce anything we could need the moment we need it. We can control the rate of meiosis, the degradation of cells, and even the power output of mitochondria. The options are limitless.

As for your classes in nano tech, every field believes itself the best. I am on team bio and you are are team tech, only time will tell who wins and why.


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Not to mention even the largest nanite swarm can be foiled by a single frequency jammer set to the right frequency band. If they can not communicate the limited processing capabilities of the individual nanites, limited to the movements of at even their most advanced stage, strings, will be unable to complete any task at all, and will become a useless ball of junk.

I was kind of stuck on either necrons or eldar. Necrons have better tech as we think about if but eldar have the social side.

If we go buy average tech, and what we think of as tech (ex. a computer). I'd rate them like this
1. Necrons
2. Eldar
3. Imperium at it's peak (possibly, I don't know ho widespread the tech was.)
4. Tau
5. Imperium now
6. Orks

If we go by max tech I'd say something like this
1. Necrons
2. Eldar
4. Imperium
5. Tau

And I have know idea where to put orks

On an current innovation scale I'd put this
1. Tau
2. Eldar, Necrons
3. Orks
4. Imperium

And on my personal scale of unaffected innovation that I'd put this
1. Necrons
2. Tau, Humans
3. Orks, Eldar

This is because orks and eldar were pre-programmed by the old ones and are not soley responible for their own innovation wher tau, humans, and necrons are.

Please note, this is just my opinion

 AtoMaki wrote:
... weapons that kill their users instead of the enemy...

You mean like plasma guns .
Although we should not that they only kill you if you overcharge them. That means taking them past what they were built for which is, of course, dangerous.