Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I was thinking about Pariahs and what the ordo xenos could do with them other than making assassins. Could they perhaps make every inquisitor a pariah? I understand it is impossible for every human being to be made one due to the uncounted trillions that exist and that space marines need to be inspiring not soulless terrors but maybe if important and unseen figures had the gene implanted? Just an idea, feel free to suggest some ideas of your own

The Ordo Xenos doesn't deal with human Untouchables. That would be the Ordo Hereticus.

The Necron Pariah is Unit-Not-Appearing-in-this-game in the current edition, as they have no FOC slot in Codex: Necron.

Crap. So technically, Necron Pariahs do not exist anymore?

Fluff wise they exist. They just don't have rules. Like Cypher before his dataslate was released. Annoys me, since they were my favorite part of the old Necron fluff.

Actually, all the Ordos would like to get their hands on an untouchable if they can, because their abilities are so darn useful. Ones that don't end up iin the Culexus Temple usually wind up in an Inquisitors retinue. The thing is, untouchables are actually really rare, much rarer than psykers. Every Inquisitor being an untouchable would cause a severe shortage of Inquisitors.

 SilentScreamer wrote:
So I was thinking about Pariahs and what the ordo xenos could do with them other than making assassins. Could they perhaps make every inquisitor a pariah? I understand it is impossible for every human being to be made one due to the uncounted trillions that exist and that space marines need to be inspiring not soulless terrors but maybe if important and unseen figures had the gene implanted? Just an idea, feel free to suggest some ideas of your own

Was there actually a case of the pariah gene being inserted into someone who wasn't born with it? Genes that manipulate a person's interaction with the warp aren't exactly known to handle like changing the genes for your eye color, and I suspect it'd be well beyond humans to do so.

 fallinq wrote:
Fluff wise they exist. They just don't have rules.

Actually, I'm pretty sure they've been completely stricken from the fluff since there isn't a single mention of them in the 5th edition Necrons Codex. It's a shame, really. My headcanon is that they're still out there, though, because they were a really cool concept.

 Darth Bob wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Fluff wise they exist. They just don't have rules.

Actually, I'm pretty sure they've been completely stricken from the fluff since there isn't a single mention of them in the 5th edition Necrons Codex. It's a shame, really. My headcanon is that they're still out there, though, because they were a really cool concept.

They appear in Hammer and Anvil apparently, which is after the 5th Edition Necron codex. So at least one novel writer thinks they still exist. The new fluff for them (or at least, the fluff from that novel) is that they're experiments by crypteks. Which is possibly still compatible with their old fluff of being necron attempts (IE, experiments) to find biological bodies.

...dont' see why they couldn't have just used that explanation and had them in the 5th Ed Codex. But GW seems to be removing units willy nilly from codexes these days.

Culexus assassins still exist too so Blanks are still around, for what it's worth, too.

With the current technology, you cannot "make" a pariah. They are just born.

So making all Inquisitors pariahs is not possible. You can make some pariahs inquisitors though.

But what would be the reason? Pariahs are painful to be around and easy to be forgotten and ignored. That´s good for an assassin, but an Inquisitor is supposed to be able to speak with people normally, they are more into politics than into war. Having a pariah at hand is useful for them, but being a pariah would be quite a disadvantage. Better be a psyker, which is the opposite thing.

Something else: there is the possibility that pariahs do not have a soul, which is the reason they are deemed abominations by the Eldar. They are something like pre-necrons. Monsters, soulless, inhuman creatures that are hated for a good reason. Flesh-machines.

And Necron pariahs still exist. Just like zoats, Saint Praxedes and anything else. Not being mentioned doesn´t mean being retconned. Even squats eventually made a return to the setting,

By the way, I am surprised nobody has yet mentioned Bequin and the Distaff: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Distaff

 Darth Bob wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Fluff wise they exist. They just don't have rules.

Actually, I'm pretty sure they've been completely stricken from the fluff since there isn't a single mention of them in the 5th edition Necrons Codex. It's a shame, really. My headcanon is that they're still out there, though, because they were a really cool concept.

There are many things that are not mentioned in the Fifth Ed codex, such as Obelisks, Tessaract Vaults and female necrons. That does not mean they do not exist.

TiamatRoar wrote:

They appear in Hammer and Anvil apparently, which is after the 5th Edition Necron codex. So at least one novel writer thinks they still exist. The new fluff for them (or at least, the fluff from that novel) is that they're experiments by crypteks. Which is possibly still compatible with their old fluff of being necron attempts (IE, experiments) to find biological bodies.

...dont' see why they couldn't have just used that explanation and had them in the 5th Ed Codex. But GW seems to be removing units willy nilly from codexes these days.

Culexus assassins still exist too so Blanks are still around, for what it's worth, too.

Well that's good to hear. In the last Necron Codex they had them built up as the next step in the C'tan's master plan and, thus, an integral part of the Necron war machine. But when the C'tan were changed and there was no mention of them in the Codex, I figured they were a casualty of the altered background.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

There are many things that are not mentioned in the Fifth Ed codex, such as Obelisks, Tessaract Vaults and female necrons. That does not mean they do not exist.

Since they seemed to be very central to the Necron background in the original book (what with their relation to the old-style C'tan), their complete removal came off as more of a retcon than anything; at least to me.

Pariahs were hardly central to the oldcron fluff.

They were a new-fangled experiment that's only been being played with for a couple of years.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Pariahs were hardly central to the oldcron fluff.

They were a new-fangled experiment that's only been being played with for a couple of years.

Maybe central isn't the word I was looking for. What I was implying was that there were a lot of inclinations in the old book that the Pariahs were part of some master plan for the universe by the C'tan and that they felt like they were a theme that would become a running concept with the Necrons. The removal of their presence in the book as well as the alteration of the C'tan led me to believe they had been retconned out of existence.

The Human Blank/Untouchable and the Necron Pariah seem to be completely separate now, as the War in Heaven is 60 million years prior to M40, and this was the "last hurrah" of the C'Tan doing anything of note...

... and is many, many, many millions of years before the genetic strains that would eventually become humanity ever existed, so the C'Tan having inserted the pariah gene into human-kind is no longer possible with the given time-line.

Hmm interesting... how about this question (this may be a different thread topic if so my bad): If the heresy had not happened do you think that Humanity could have developed technology that would allow the implantation of the pariah gene?

Another thought: If the pariah gene is in fact a gene does that mean that the soul is grown during pregnancy? :O

 Darth Bob wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Pariahs were hardly central to the oldcron fluff.

They were a new-fangled experiment that's only been being played with for a couple of years.

Maybe central isn't the word I was looking for. What I was implying was that there were a lot of inclinations in the old book that the Pariahs were part of some master plan for the universe by the C'tan and that they felt like they were a theme that would become a running concept with the Necrons. The removal of their presence in the book as well as the alteration of the C'tan led me to believe they had been retconned out of existence.

I am with Darth Bob regarding the Pariahs being "central" to the Necron background. The Pariahs were the future of the Necrons. And a key to understand their objectives.

But I don´t agree with him regarding the Pariahs being retconned. We are losing units and characters with every Codex. Is Marbo retconned? NO IT IS NOT!! Pariahs can be reintroduced at any time with slight changes in their background (if any), and they still live in the mind of many long-time Necron players.

 SilentScreamer wrote:
Hmm interesting... how about this question (this may be a different thread topic if so my bad): If the heresy had not happened do you think that Humanity could have developed technology that would allow the implantation of the pariah gene?

Most probably the Emperor was working on that. Look at the Sisters of Silence.

Another thought: If the pariah gene is in fact a gene does that mean that the soul is grown during pregnancy? :O

Yes! I think the same.

The Warp is were souls go after death. So probably the souls come from the Warp. The pariah gene makes the soul unable to enter the foetus.

 Darth Bob wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Fluff wise they exist. They just don't have rules.

Actually, I'm pretty sure they've been completely stricken from the fluff since there isn't a single mention of them in the 5th edition Necrons Codex. It's a shame, really. My headcanon is that they're still out there, though, because they were a really cool concept.

They seem like a logical unit to return in 6th edition Necrons, what with the increase in psykers. It's also already established in the fluff, and would be another unit to add since much of the Necron army already have up to date kits.

Humanity's path of evolution is to become a psychic race, like the Eldar, not to become non-psychic like the Necron.

Bump, anyone have any more thoughts on the soul being grown in pregnancy - if the pariah gene is something that stops any growth of a soul?

It is noted that human Blanks have an innate "wrongness" about them that causes forming interpersonal relationships to be very, very difficult, which leads them to living the life of an outcast. It would suggest, given that all the blanks we've been introduced to in the fluff have no such thing as a happy childhood, that their being born soulless is a distinct possibility.

It may also be that a soul is not individual, it is simply a collection of Warp energy that coalesces in the host-body of the person at the moment of birth, or possibly even at the moment of conception, or at any point in between, and (in most cases) is freed upon the moment of death (though certain psykers can project their warp-soul away from their living body, a la Astral Projection).