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You really need GW to write 'Eldar and Humans cannot interbreed' or we've lost the argument..? Wow.

Xenology does prove the impossibility of hybridisation. Species on earth that are divergent for too long can't hybridise, and they share the same 4 organic bases and double helix DNA. So Eldar and Humans definitely can't hybridise if they have a quintuple helix DNA and 20 different organic bases. It isn't possible. That alone retcons Nastase's existence. If something is impossible, it cannot exist. Ergo, he doesn't exist any more.

 ImAGeek wrote:
You really need GW to write 'Eldar and Humans cannot interbreed' or we've lost the argument..? Wow.

Xenology does prove the impossibility of hybridisation. Species on earth that are divergent for too long can't hybridise, and they share the same 4 organic bases and double helix DNA. So Eldar and Humans definitely can't hybridise if they have a quintuple helix DNA and 20 different organic bases. It isn't possible. That alone retcons Nastase's existence. If something is impossible, it cannot exist. Ergo, he doesn't exist any more.

What you mean to say is that you cannot disprove the existence of a character that proves Eldar and Humans have a common ancestor close enough in time that they can still interbreed, so you will continue to go back to a false argument that Xenology proves impossibility when in fact it only proves improbability. Excellent! I accept your concession.

SJ

Tell you what mate, you go create a human fungi hybrid, and then you'll have proved there is a slight possibility this will work. If our dna will not work if one thing is slightly different, how do you propose it will work if there are loads of differences between human and Eldar? Xenology was the line saying it can't happen, so now it's on you to prove it can't occur, failure to provide an quote from GW fluff, post xenology, saying humans and Eldar can interbreed, will be considered you conceding that you have lost

Find me the line that says explicitly 'Humans and Eldar can interbreed' or I will take it as a concession. Apparantly that's how discussions work now...

Taken from White Dwarf

Not quite post xenology is it

 statu wrote:
Not quite post xenology is it

What's up with you? I just posted a snipped I found.

My proof is easy to find (see the above post). Still waiting on counter evidence (which does not exist).

On the human-fungi hybrid, you must not be following recent science news. We can and have successfully spliced plant and insect DNA with mammal DNA, and can use viruses as a delivery method for genetic repair. Then there's the fact the unless you come from Subsaharan Africa, 1-3% of your DNA is Neanderthal, which last I check was a non-Human cousin to modern day Humans we co-existed with between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago.

So, keep moving that goal post.

SJ

Your 'proof' is massively out of date, I'm still waiting on some evidence it can happen

Oh don't start the whole Neanderthal debate, I'm a palaeoanthropologist, I'm well aware of that. Your dates are out for one. And yes it is possible that Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis did interbreed, but they also had incredibly similar dna, which allowed it to occur. You can get hybrids in any species, but the DNA needs to similar enough for it to actually occur

3 things.
First, the OP was talking about prolonged life due to longer DNA, personally I think these are mutually exclusive. My five seconds of research seem to directly relate their life spans to their psyker potential. Also, saying "the old ones did it" doesn't help. They were scientists, everything they did is supposed to work by 40k's pseudo-science.
Second, the whole existence of human-eldar hybrids is an argument of the sciences and the neck beards. GW made a slip up. Their lore makes human-eldar hybrids impossible but never disproved that it happened. There is no debate, Both sides are right until GW actually fixes their fluff.
Third, and this is the only thing I actually know for sure, valyrian steel is better than normal steel because it is based on the real life wootz steel. The smelting process for wootz was slow and at low temperatures using high tungsten iron. The process created a natural damascus of hard and flexible steels with a few naturally occurring carbon nano-tubes making it the strongest steel of it's age.

 ImAGeek wrote:
There is no way quintuple helix DNA with 20 bases could hybridise with 2 helix DNA with 4 base pairs. It's impossible. Not improbable, impossible.

yeah....

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
My proof is easy to find (see the above post). Still waiting on counter evidence (which does not exist).

On the human-fungi hybrid, you must not be following recent science news. We can and have successfully spliced plant and insect DNA with mammal DNA, and can use viruses as a delivery method for genetic repair. Then there's the fact the unless you come from Subsaharan Africa, 1-3% of your DNA is Neanderthal, which last I check was a non-Human cousin to modern day Humans we co-existed with between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago.

So, keep moving that goal post.

SJ

yeah... inter species breeding is more common then people think...

and while the two breeders being farther apart genetically will make it *less likely* for offspring to be produced, its still possible.

I'm going to take a fairly stringent view of the "successful" part of this question, and exclude some of the most obvious cases, where the first-generation hybrid is infertile or very poorly fertile (as in ligers, mules and hinnies).

I'm also going to exclude plants; I know there are many good examples in the plant kingdom, but I'm not very familiar with the field.

Even so there's quite a long list. Dogs, wolves, and coyotes are mostly interfertile. Dogs and wolves are arguably the same species, but coyotes are pretty distinct, yet coydogs and coywolves (including red wolves, according to some studies) are fairly successful. Dogs and jackals are interfertile (I don't know about coyotes and wolves with jackals, but it wouldn't surprise me).

Notoriously, "African Killer Bees" are interspecies hybrids -- the product of an African bee with the honeybee.

Wholphins (false killer whale x bottle-nose dolphin) are apparently fertile.

Cattle and bison interbreed quite well. "Beefalo" were pushed as a commercial breed (without much success); and I understand that almost all wild "bison" contain some cattle genes.

There are several successful crosses between domestic cats and wild felines, including the African Wild Cat -- this is actually a major threat to the viability of the wild population.

There are many bird species that are interfertile. Different species of Galapagos Finches, for example, can interbreed (and this has been implicated in at least some short-term evolutionary changes in the species -- See Peter and Rosemary Grant's work).

In reptiles, several cross-species crocodile offspring are fertile, and so are crosses within a number of snake genuses, such as different species of boas, pythons, and so on. (That is, not across the genus, but within them.)

There are probably dozens or hundreds of other examples.

As the 40K verse was wiped and remade with 3rd edition, nothing before then can be taken as canon simply as that really. Well if you follow GW and 40K at least.

Noir wrote:
As the 40K verse was wiped and remade with 3rd edition, nothing before then can be taken as canon simply as that really. Well if you follow GW and 40K at least.

Please either back that statement up with a citation, or mark it as an opinion.

SJ

 easysauce wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
My proof is easy to find (see the above post). Still waiting on counter evidence (which does not exist).

On the human-fungi hybrid, you must not be following recent science news. We can and have successfully spliced plant and insect DNA with mammal DNA, and can use viruses as a delivery method for genetic repair. Then there's the fact the unless you come from Subsaharan Africa, 1-3% of your DNA is Neanderthal, which last I check was a non-Human cousin to modern day Humans we co-existed with between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago.

So, keep moving that goal post.

SJ

yeah... inter species breeding is more common then people think...

and while the two breeders being farther apart genetically will make it *less likely* for offspring to be produced, its still possible.

I'm going to take a fairly stringent view of the "successful" part of this question, and exclude some of the most obvious cases, where the first-generation hybrid is infertile or very poorly fertile (as in ligers, mules and hinnies).

I'm also going to exclude plants; I know there are many good examples in the plant kingdom, but I'm not very familiar with the field.

Even so there's quite a long list. Dogs, wolves, and coyotes are mostly interfertile. Dogs and wolves are arguably the same species, but coyotes are pretty distinct, yet coydogs and coywolves (including red wolves, according to some studies) are fairly successful. Dogs and jackals are interfertile (I don't know about coyotes and wolves with jackals, but it wouldn't surprise me).

Notoriously, "African Killer Bees" are interspecies hybrids -- the product of an African bee with the honeybee.

Wholphins (false killer whale x bottle-nose dolphin) are apparently fertile.

Cattle and bison interbreed quite well. "Beefalo" were pushed as a commercial breed (without much success); and I understand that almost all wild "bison" contain some cattle genes.

There are several successful crosses between domestic cats and wild felines, including the African Wild Cat -- this is actually a major threat to the viability of the wild population.

There are many bird species that are interfertile. Different species of Galapagos Finches, for example, can interbreed (and this has been implicated in at least some short-term evolutionary changes in the species -- See Peter and Rosemary Grant's work).

In reptiles, several cross-species crocodile offspring are fertile, and so are crosses within a number of snake genuses, such as different species of boas, pythons, and so on. (That is, not across the genus, but within them.)

There are probably dozens or hundreds of other examples.

Yeah except they're all based on the same DNA structure. I know hybridisation occurs, and I know there's a few cases that are successful. But they all have the same DNA structure. But you couldn't breed a lion and a.. Seal, for example, and get a result. So you couldn't breed a human and an Eldar, who has a massively different DNA structure, and get a result.

If he'd been created in a lab or something I could maybe see it but it says he was born to a human mother and Eldar father, which scientifically just wouldn't work.

 statu wrote:
Your 'proof' is massively out of date, I'm still waiting on some evidence it can happen

Oh don't start the whole Neanderthal debate, I'm a palaeoanthropologist, I'm well aware of that. Your dates are out for one. And yes it is possible that Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis did interbreed, but they also had incredibly similar dna, which allowed it to occur. You can get hybrids in any species, but the DNA needs to similar enough for it to actually occur

Out of date proof is still proof, when nothing new has been found to retract or discount the proof. The cited Xenology example does not disprove the existence of a character in older fluff, because no mention was made to specifically tell us Nastase never existed or that he did exist yet his parentage did not include an Eldar father. The facts remain that GW did not retract this bit of fluff, did not retcon the fluff, nor did they state in the Xenology that it is impossible for Eldar and Humans to interbreed. It is improbable, not impossible.

By the way, you cannot state truly that something is impossible, because you cannot be all-knowing. You can say there are no Unicorns in Vietnam, but you would be wrong since Unicorns were found in Vietnam only a few years ago. You can say there are no Unicorns in Equador, but you have no way of proving there are no Unicorns in Equador. This is way I can say with certainty that just because Eldar have a quintuplet Helix and 20 base pairs, it is only improbable that a Human-Eldar hybrid could exist. The question of impossibility gets thrown out the moment a Human-Eldar hybrid exists, which at least one does as seen in the background of Ultramarine Chief Astropath Illiyan Nastase.

Being a palaeoanthropologist, I'm surprised you lack basic understanding of probabilities and debate. I'm just a lowly electronics engineer with degrees in robotics and semiconductor manufacturing, but at least I know the difference between the impossible and the improbable.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

Out of date proof is still proof, when nothing new has been found to retract or discount the proof. The cited Xenology example does not disprove the existence of a character in older fluff, because no mention was made to specifically tell us Nastase never existed or that he did exist yet his parentage did not include an Eldar father. The facts remain that GW did not retract this bit of fluff, did not retcon the fluff, nor did they state in the Xenology that it is impossible for Eldar and Humans to interbreed. It is improbable, not impossible.

We know that 40k fluff is all from an 'unreliable narrator' (see quote below). For this reason you can't use any of it as definitive proof. If we fall back on actual science and understanding of genetics (which is what my doctorate is in) then we can see that human/eldar hybrids are for all intents and purposes impossible.

Using your defining of the word impossible into non-existence I can rephrase that as so highly improbable as to be discount-able. Improbable to the same level that it would be comparable to you phasing through the planet into the core right now. Its not a thing that can happen.

So this would suggest that a report from a known unreliable source of an impossible event should be treated as highly suspicious and probably discounted.

Marc Gascoigne wrote:
Here's our standard line: Yes it's all official, but remember that we're reporting back from a time where stories aren't always true, or at least 100% accurate. if it has the 40K logo on it, it exists in the 40k universe. Or it was a legend that may well have happened. Or a rumour that may or may not have any truth behind it.

Let's put it another way: anything with a 40K logo on it is as official as any Codex... and at least as crammed full of rumours, distorted legends and half-truths.

Marc Gascoigne
Publisher, The Black Library and Black Flame

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
By the way, you cannot state truly that something is impossible, because you cannot be all-knowing. You can say there are no Unicorns in Vietnam, but you would be wrong since Unicorns were found in Vietnam only a few years ago. You can say there are no Unicorns in Equador, but you have no way of proving there are no Unicorns in Equador. This is way I can say with certainty that just because Eldar have a quintuplet Helix and 20 base pairs, it is only improbable that a Human-Eldar hybrid could exist. The question of impossibility gets thrown out the moment a Human-Eldar hybrid exists, which at least one does as seen in the background of Ultramarine Chief Astropath Illiyan Nastase.

Being a palaeoanthropologist, I'm surprised you lack basic understanding of probabilities and debate. I'm just a lowly electronics engineer with degrees in robotics and semiconductor manufacturing, but at least I know the difference between the impossible and the improbable.

SJ

Being a person with a degree that is at least science related I am surprised that you don't understand the irrelevance of debate to science and have such a poor understanding of probability.

Also whilst I have no evidence of unicorns, I do have evidence of rhinos and the usefulness of horns. A species of horse developing a horn is unlikely, but nowhere near as unlikely as a human crossbreeding with an oak tree, which in turn is far more likely than a human crossbreeding with an Eldar. Therefore a unicorn example (sans magic) would be far mor plausible than that of which we are speaking.

The unicorn thing he was talking about is a species of deer/antelope they found in Vietnam, called the Asian Unicorn or something. I don't really understand his point there, they didn't find a magical horned horse, they found a deer that they happened to call a unicorn.

Have an exalt for that though Drager, as futile as I'm sure it was...

I'm pretty sure it's only called a unicorn because they haven't been seen for 15 years so they're kinda mythical... I guess.

Szeras wrote:
I'm pretty sure it's only called a unicorn because they haven't been seen for 15 years so they're kinda mythical... I guess.

I imagine so. It had two horns for a start.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 statu wrote:
Your 'proof' is massively out of date, I'm still waiting on some evidence it can happen

Oh don't start the whole Neanderthal debate, I'm a palaeoanthropologist, I'm well aware of that. Your dates are out for one. And yes it is possible that Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis did interbreed, but they also had incredibly similar dna, which allowed it to occur. You can get hybrids in any species, but the DNA needs to similar enough for it to actually occur

Out of date proof is still proof, when nothing new has been found to retract or discount the proof. The cited Xenology example does not disprove the existence of a character in older fluff, because no mention was made to specifically tell us Nastase never existed or that he did exist yet his parentage did not include an Eldar father. The facts remain that GW did not retract this bit of fluff, did not retcon the fluff, nor did they state in the Xenology that it is impossible for Eldar and Humans to interbreed. It is improbable, not impossible.

By the way, you cannot state truly that something is impossible, because you cannot be all-knowing. You can say there are no Unicorns in Vietnam, but you would be wrong since Unicorns were found in Vietnam only a few years ago. You can say there are no Unicorns in Equador, but you have no way of proving there are no Unicorns in Equador. This is way I can say with certainty that just because Eldar have a quintuplet Helix and 20 base pairs, it is only improbable that a Human-Eldar hybrid could exist. The question of impossibility gets thrown out the moment a Human-Eldar hybrid exists, which at least one does as seen in the background of Ultramarine Chief Astropath Illiyan Nastase.

Being a palaeoanthropologist, I'm surprised you lack basic understanding of probabilities and debate. I'm just a lowly electronics engineer with degrees in robotics and semiconductor manufacturing, but at least I know the difference between the impossible and the improbable.

SJ

Are you familiar with the concept of a "retcon"? It happens when the history or lore of a fictional world is changed or overwritten by new material. This is pretty obviously the case with this "Illiyan Nastase" character. He is depicted wearing Ultramarines power armour, despite being an astropath and not a space marine. He doesn't have the black carapace, so he would be unable to wear astartes power armour (not to mention that it wouldn't fit). His title is "Chief Librarian Astropath", a title which doesn't exist. As mentioned, he is an astropath and not an astartes so he cannot be a Librarian in the Ultramarines. He holds the position of Chief Librarian at a time when another individual (Tigurius) has subsequently been said to hold it. He is described as being "inducted into the Administratum as an Astropath" despite the fact that in current lore as an astropath he would belong to the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, which is a separate branch of the Adeptus Terra distinct from the Adeptus Administratum. Any one of these things would render this character non-existent, even ignoring the fact that he's not been mentioned for at least twenty years in published material.

Based on this evidence we can confidently conclude that this character is impossible and has been retconned out of existence. You asked for evidence, and there it is. This character is impossible under current lore. The lore that made him possible has been over-written. So he has been retconned out.

As pointed out, it would be a biological impossibility for humans and eldar to have offspring. As two species diverge, they first lose their ability to produce fertile offspring, like horses and donkeys or lions and tigers. They can breed but their offspring are usually incapable of reproducing any further. As generations pass and the genes become increasingly differentiated, the odds of producing viable offspring approach zero. Now, is it absolutely impossible for a dog and a shark to produce offspring together? Strictly speaking, no. But it is so vastly unlikely that you would have to try breeding them for many ages of the universe before you would see any success. So in science, the term "impossible" is used in this sense. The eldar have an enormously different genetic code from humans, including very different structure and base pairs. So yes, it would in fact be biologically impossible for humans and eldar to reproduce.

I'm glad Marc Glascoigne agrees with me, shows that I'm on the right track.

The unicorn was used as an example of impossibility versus improbability. No unicorns were harm in the example.

On science versus engineering, I'm pretty sure science is based on building an hypothesis on an observable phenomena, building tests to verify the hypothesis, repeat the tests to gain a larger data sample, and have peers review the hypothesis, tests, and data samples to find flaws. Engineering builds off of science by applying the data in a practical manner. What part of paeloanthropology envolves ignoring data that doesn't the fit the three legs of evidence, established history, and tradition? The tradition part, I would assume? Because scientific method would mean that any evidence should be examined and evaluated, tested by more than one group, peer reviewed, with the established history updated to include the new evidence if proven to be correct.

On retcon, yes, I not only understand what retroactive reconstruction is, I've pointed out that the Xenology does not retcon the Nastase fluff. If it did, we would be having a different discussion.

On the difference between the impossible and the improbable, the concept of impossibility is a falsehood based on making an uninformed decision that something which has not been seen therefore cannot exist. Improbability takes into account that while something which has not been seen most likely won't be seen, there is no way to know for sure. Disregarding the improbability of a superstack helix of DNA with 20 base pairs, and the vast improbability that an organism with such a genetic structure could reproduce with another organism that has double-helix DNA with 4 base pairs, the original background of the 40k universe included Eldar-Human crossbreeds, with a named character that had a Human mother and an Eldar father. Further development of the 40k universe has seen a shift away from Humans and Eldar being trading partners for over 20 millennia to the two races being beligerents in a 10,000 year dispute over real estate. Yet, while the culture and biology of the Eldar has become more defined, GW has chosen not to retract or replace the older background, they have instead proceeded to add bit and pieces to the puzzle that appear to contradict older sources while still claiming everything printed is equally valid. This means that Nastase was never retconned.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

The unicorn was used as an example of impossibility versus improbability. No unicorns were harm in the example.

Except that they didn't find a unicorn. They found a species of bovine called a saola that happens to be nicknamed the "Asian unicorn". By no reasonable understanding of what a unicorn is does this qualify as a unicorn. Anyone that said "unicorns don't exist" would still find no evidence to contradict their assertion.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

On science versus engineering, I'm pretty sure science is based on building an hypothesis on an observable phenomena, building tests to verify the hypothesis, repeat the tests to gain a larger data sample, and have peers review the hypothesis, tests, and data samples to find flaws. Engineering builds off of science by applying the data in a practical manner. What part of paeloanthropology envolves ignoring data that doesn't the fit the three legs of evidence, established history, and tradition? The tradition part, I would assume? Because scientific method would mean that any evidence should be examined and evaluated, tested by more than one group, peer reviewed, with the established history updated to include the new evidence if proven to be correct.

Sure. But in science you disregard evidence that doesn't fit the other evidence. If you have two pieces of evidence that are contradictory, you discard the one that you cannot duplicate as an artefact or an error. In practice, if you measure a different speed of light from everyone else, it's possible you've just overthrown the last hundred years of physics, but far more likely that one of your cables is loose.

However, the laws of the universe don't change. There's no retconning science. There is in fiction. So the approach is not directly applicable. Here, if we have two pieces of lore that contradict one another, we take the more recently written one as being "true".

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

On retcon, yes, I not only understand what retroactive reconstruction is, I've pointed out that the Xenology does not retcon the Nastase fluff. If it did, we would be having a different discussion.

On the difference between the impossible and the improbable, the concept of impossibility is a falsehood based on making an uninformed decision that something which has not been seen therefore cannot exist. Improbability takes into account that while something which has not been seen most likely won't be seen, there is no way to know for sure. Disregarding the improbability of a superstack helix of DNA with 20 base pairs, and the vast improbability that an organism with such a genetic structure could reproduce with another organism that has double-helix DNA with 4 base pairs, the original background of the 40k universe included Eldar-Human crossbreeds, with a named character that had a Human mother and an Eldar father. Further development of the 40k universe has seen a shift away from Humans and Eldar being trading partners for over 20 millennia to the two races being beligerents in a 10,000 year dispute over real estate. Yet, while the culture and biology of the Eldar has become more defined, GW has chosen not to retract or replace the older background, they have instead proceeded to add bit and pieces to the puzzle that appear to contradict older sources while still claiming everything printed is equally valid. This means that Nastase was never retconned.

SJ

So, first off, retcon is short for "retroactive continuity".

You're never going to have GW come out and say "the following parts of Rogue Trader are no longer true." But your assertion that GW hasn't replaced the older background is demonstrably false, and I've given you a half dozen examples of things just in that two-paragraph character summary that have since been replaced. He has very clearly been retconned out, by any reasonable standard short of an official announcement bulletin.

If you want to still believe in the story then good for you, I suppose, carry on. I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong. I don't know how you're going to reconcile any of it with current lore, but that's your business. The simplest solution, to me, is to accept that the character has been overwritten and think no more of it.

office_waaagh wrote:

Spoiler:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

The unicorn was used as an example of impossibility versus improbability. No unicorns were harm in the example.

Except that they didn't find a unicorn. They found a species of bovine called a saola that happens to be nicknamed the "Asian unicorn". By no reasonable understanding of what a unicorn is does this qualify as a unicorn. Anyone that said "unicorns don't exist" would still find no evidence to contradict their assertion.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

On science versus engineering, I'm pretty sure science is based on building an hypothesis on an observable phenomena, building tests to verify the hypothesis, repeat the tests to gain a larger data sample, and have peers review the hypothesis, tests, and data samples to find flaws. Engineering builds off of science by applying the data in a practical manner. What part of paeloanthropology envolves ignoring data that doesn't the fit the three legs of evidence, established history, and tradition? The tradition part, I would assume? Because scientific method would mean that any evidence should be examined and evaluated, tested by more than one group, peer reviewed, with the established history updated to include the new evidence if proven to be correct.

Sure. But in science you disregard evidence that doesn't fit the other evidence. If you have two pieces of evidence that are contradictory, you discard the one that you cannot duplicate as an artefact or an error. In practice, if you measure a different speed of light from everyone else, it's possible you've just overthrown the last hundred years of physics, but far more likely that one of your cables is loose.

However, the laws of the universe don't change. There's no retconning science. There is in fiction. So the approach is not directly applicable. Here, if we have two pieces of lore that contradict one another, we take the more recently written one as being "true".

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

On retcon, yes, I not only understand what retroactive reconstruction is, I've pointed out that the Xenology does not retcon the Nastase fluff. If it did, we would be having a different discussion.

On the difference between the impossible and the improbable, the concept of impossibility is a falsehood based on making an uninformed decision that something which has not been seen therefore cannot exist. Improbability takes into account that while something which has not been seen most likely won't be seen, there is no way to know for sure. Disregarding the improbability of a superstack helix of DNA with 20 base pairs, and the vast improbability that an organism with such a genetic structure could reproduce with another organism that has double-helix DNA with 4 base pairs, the original background of the 40k universe included Eldar-Human crossbreeds, with a named character that had a Human mother and an Eldar father. Further development of the 40k universe has seen a shift away from Humans and Eldar being trading partners for over 20 millennia to the two races being beligerents in a 10,000 year dispute over real estate. Yet, while the culture and biology of the Eldar has become more defined, GW has chosen not to retract or replace the older background, they have instead proceeded to add bit and pieces to the puzzle that appear to contradict older sources while still claiming everything printed is equally valid. This means that Nastase was never retconned.

SJ

So, first off, retcon is short for "retroactive continuity".

You're never going to have GW come out and say "the following parts of Rogue Trader are no longer true." But your assertion that GW hasn't replaced the older background is demonstrably false, and I've given you a half dozen examples of things just in that two-paragraph character summary that have since been replaced. He has very clearly been retconned out, by any reasonable standard short of an official announcement bulletin.

If you want to still believe in the story then good for you, I suppose, carry on. I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong. I don't know how you're going to reconcile any of it with current lore, but that's your business. The simplest solution, to me, is to accept that the character has been overwritten and think no more of it.

I bolded your false statement. Please feel free to re-post the 6 proofs you think you may have already mentioned.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

I bolded your false statement. Please feel free to re-post the 6 proofs you think you may have already mentioned.

SJ

1. Title "Chief Librarian Astropath" does not exist.
2. An astropath cannot be a librarian.
3. An astropath cannot be an astartes.
4. A non-astartes cannot wear astartes power armour.
5. An astropath is not part of the administratum.
6. Varro Tigurius is the Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines in late M41.

And, as an added bonus, (these two are perhaps a matter of opinion but certainly violate the lore in my view)

7. The inquisition would execute any human/alien hybrid as heresy.
8. Such a creature would never be allowed to become an astropath, an astartes, or anything else.

I do not contend that this is irrefutable proof, obviously. It just makes the explanation that the character has been retconned out vastly, unspeakably more likely, in my (and most other people on the thread's) opinion.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
On science versus engineering, I'm pretty sure science is based on building an hypothesis on an observable phenomena, building tests to verify the hypothesis, repeat the tests to gain a larger data sample, and have peers review the hypothesis, tests, and data samples to find flaws.

Actually you are mistaken, that is not how science works. A hypothesis is developed based on observable phenomena, then that hypothesis is tested by an attempt to disconfirm, this is done by experiment. If the experiment does not disconfirm the hypothesis it is tentatively accepted, but not taking it as proven. This is then submitted to a journal for peer review, a process in which the write up is checked to ensure that the process used to coem to the conclusion is sound. After this others may then retest and/or do a different test in an attempt to disconfirm the hypothesis. There is never a test to verify as that is not really possible.

The above is why you will often here scientists couch things in particular language (because we are trained to) such that definitive statements are avoided. 'The data suggests', 'There is a >99.9% probability that the effect did not occur by chance', 'The evidence shows that, based on the model...' etc.

By this method history and tradition are irrelevant and, where they have an effect, they are unwanted. Only evidence matters to science, if you are appealing to anything else you have departed from doing science. For this reason the scientific suggestion would be that the evidence indicates that Eldar/Human hybrids do not exist, as the evidence of their separate development, different genetics and such strongly indicate this. The only counterexample is hearsay from a source we know to be both fallible and dishonest. Doesn't seem that strong a case to me.

Again I would point to my earlier comment that the chances of a human breeding with an Eldar are lower than the chances of a human breeding with an oak tree. Do you think tree/human hybrids are possible?

All of this of course is discounting intervention from the warp, as magic makes all things possible, so I'll give you Eldar/Human and Human/Tree hybrids if a wizard did it. At that point though we have completely departed from asking about a natural occurrence, so its moot.

1. Title "Chief Librarian Astropath" does exist, it's right there in black and white.
2. Space Marine Astropathes are part of the Librarius, and are therefore Librarians.
3. See bullet point #2.
4. A non-astartes can wear astartes power armour, as seen in illustrations of different Inquisitors in power armour.
5. The Administratum has their own Astropathes, as noted in several 40k and HH novels.
6. Varro Tigurius is most definitely the Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines in late M41, while Illiyan Nastase has been the Chief of Macragge's Interstellar Communications Link since 965.M41.
7. The inquisition treat with aliens, treat with daemons, treat with mutants, and treat with witches, depending on the Ordo. Human/alien hybrids would be heresy to some, curiosities to others, or actual Inquisitors.
8. Such a creature did become an Astropath, may have become an Astartes (picture, model, and title seem to suggest this), and is still alive and in good health as of the current timeline.

I do not contend that this is irrefutable proof, either, just making the explanation that the character has not been retconned at all, just forgotten.

Drager wrote:

Spoiler:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
On science versus engineering, I'm pretty sure science is based on building an hypothesis on an observable phenomena, building tests to verify the hypothesis, repeat the tests to gain a larger data sample, and have peers review the hypothesis, tests, and data samples to find flaws.

Actually you are mistaken, that is not how science works. A hypothesis is developed based on observable phenomena, then that hypothesis is tested by an attempt to disconfirm, this is done by experiment. If the experiment does not disconfirm the hypothesis it is tentatively accepted, but not taking it as proven. This is then submitted to a journal for peer review, a process in which the write up is checked to ensure that the process used to coem to the conclusion is sound. After this others may then retest and/or do a different test in an attempt to disconfirm the hypothesis. There is never a test to verify as that is not really possible.

The above is why you will often here scientists couch things in particular language (because we are trained to) such that definitive statements are avoided. 'The data suggests', 'There is a >99.9% probability that the effect did not occur by chance', 'The evidence shows that, based on the model...' etc.

By this method history and tradition are irrelevant and, where they have an effect, they are unwanted. Only evidence matters to science, if you are appealing to anything else you have departed from doing science. For this reason the scientific suggestion would be that the evidence indicates that Eldar/Human hybrids do not exist, as the evidence of their separate development, different genetics and such strongly indicate this. The only counterexample is hearsay from a source we know to be both fallible and dishonest. Doesn't seem that strong a case to me.

Again I would point to my earlier comment that the chances of a human breeding with an Eldar are lower than the chances of a human breeding with an oak tree. Do you think tree/human hybrids are possible?

All of this of course is discounting intervention from the warp, as magic makes all things possible, so I'll give you Eldar/Human and Human/Tree hybrids if a wizard did it. At that point though we have completely departed from asking about a natural occurrence, so its moot.

Excellent response, and thank you for restating my point, but with greater detail. Not sure way it has become so common these days to disagree by agreeing, but I'll take it.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
1. Title "Chief Librarian Astropath" does exist, it's right there in black and white.
2. Space Marine Astropathes are part of the Librarius, and are therefore Librarians.
3. See bullet point #2.
4. A non-astartes can wear astartes power armour, as seen in illustrations of different Inquisitors in power armour.
5. The Administratum has their own Astropathes, as noted in several 40k and HH novels.
6. Varro Tigurius is most definitely the Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines in late M41, while Illiyan Nastase has been the Chief of Macragge's Interstellar Communications Link since 965.M41.
7. The inquisition treat with aliens, treat with daemons, treat with mutants, and treat with witches, depending on the Ordo. Human/alien hybrids would be heresy to some, curiosities to others, or actual Inquisitors.
8. Such a creature did become an Astropath, may have become an Astartes (picture, model, and title seem to suggest this), and is still alive and in good health as of the current timeline.

I do not contend that this is irrefutable proof, either, just making the explanation that the character has not been retconned at all, just forgotten.

Please refer to the space marine chapter organization and you will immediately see where you are mistaken.

1. There is no "Chief Librarian Astropath" in the Ultramarines chapter's order of battle or in a codex chapter's organization. The closest title is "Chief Librarian", which an astropath would be excluded from holding and which Tigurius holds anyway.
2. The Librarius lists the Chief Librarian, Epistolaries, Lexicaniums, Codiciers, and Acolytes. Twelve astropaths are listed under the Headquarters, among the 206 non space marine support and administrative staff.
3. An astropath cannot be an astartes. An astartes cannot be an astropath. Psykers that join the astartes become librarians, they do not undergo the soul-binding and they do not join the adeptus astra telepathica.
4. Non-astartes like inquisitors and sisters of battle wear different types of power armour, such as Ignatus power armour, which is specially made for them because they do not possess the black carapace. This armour does not bear ultramarines chapter heraldry.
5. The adeptus astra telepathica is a distinct branch of the adeptus terra from the administratum. He could not be "recruited into the administratum as an astropath", he would have to be attached or seconded from the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.
6. The title at the top of the character sheet says "Chief Librarian Astropath". As this title doesn't exist, a reasonable reading of it would be "Chief Librarian and Astropath". He cannot be the chief librarian as Tigurius is at this point.

Beyond this, you understand that a space marine must undergo rigorous indoctrination, training, screening, and massive genetic modification that can only be done properly in adolescence, right? You can't just run off and become a space marine, that's not how it works. You have to be less than full-grown when you receive the gene-seed, no more than twenty.

On the science side of things, and meaning no disrespect, you are attempting to argue far beyond your knowledge or expertise. And people have been pointing this out to you for about three pages now, but you remain obstinate. Your very first comment demonstrates that you don't understand the difference between a species and a genus, for example. You claim that nothing is impossible, but this is manifestly untrue. It is impossible for an electron to decay into a proton. This is an impossible thing. It is impossible to escape from inside the event horizon of a black hole. Your counterexample was that everyone thought unicorns don't exist and then they found a unicorn in Vietnam, which is patently untrue and also absurd.

You also don't really understand probabilities, it seems. Now, if you have a hundred non-interacting particles in a box, what are the odds of finding them all on the left hand side? About one in 10^30. If you check your box once every second, it will take you a million million ages of the universe before you expect to see it happen. Impossible? I'm going to say yes, for all practical purposes this qualifies as impossible. And that's only a hundred non-interacting particles. The human genome has tens of thousands of genes. So yes, by any reasonable standard, it is impossible for a human and an eldar to produce offspring.

It's extremely unlikely that humans and eldar have a common ancestor. All known life on earth has a common ancestor, all DNA is a double helix with four nucleobases. This has remained true for half a billion years; all of evolution has failed to diverge from this. So the idea that in a span of time not much greater than life on earth has existed that it could evolve a different basic structure is without precedent in science. By the above definition, I'll go with "also impossible".

I really suggest that you set your ego aside and try to understand the science behind all this (the title of the thread is "science question" after all - I presume we're not talking about "a wizard did it" nonsense). You've had quite a few people, many with expertise far more relevant to the question than your own in electrical engineering, try to enlighten you. I implore you to listen rather than stubbornly refuse to give ground.

You just wrote a wall of "it's not blue, it's cerulean, and since it's cerulean, it can't be blue".

The first thing of note is that you are trying to disprove the existence in a character with a printed biography in a 40k source book, art work, and a model. Effectively, you are saying the Starue of Liberty does not exist because the plaque at the statue's base say's it's name is the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World. An interesting argument, to be sure.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand that you are attempting to demonstrate the the current version of 40k fluff retcons it out of existence Chief Librarian Astropath Illiyan Nastase, Ultramarine Chief of Macragge's Interstellar Communications Link, because the idea that a child of a Human mother and Eldar father flyers in the face of all you hold dear when it comes to the science of this fantasy universe. I however find it fascinating that in order for such a character to exist, Humans and Eldar must come from a common ancestry, which makes Eldar a branch of Hominid.

Our approaches are diametrically opposed, because while I note that GW considers Nastase's existence valid, you do not. Thankfully, you aren't GW or BL.

As to you other points, have you read any of the Horus Heresy novels? You know, the ones that have adults being inducted into the Legions? Not only did the Word Bearers and the Dark Angels do it, which included some heavy use of cybernetics, but the Space Wolves inducted two adult Fenrisian warriors into their Legion, one of which became a full Astartes without need of cyber augmentation, while the other turned into a Thunderwolf!

I'd love to see how you reconcile that.

Oh! And Hawking Radiation escapes the event horizon of black holes, an electron dropping back to its normal valence band will spawn a photon, the act of observing a quantum event will influence the event (which is why Einstein hated Quantum Mechanics), and thank you for admitting that a Human-Eldar hybrid is unlikely rather than your previous position that it was impossible. I know that last point was either a big step or a mis-step, but seeing you write it gave me a warm and fuzzy!

SJ

Kor Phaeron and Luther weren't Space Marines. They were cybernetically enhanced humans in powered armour. Different things.

And he HAD a model, art and was written about. It's more like you saying the Statue of Liberty still exists even though it's been knocked down and replaced with something else. It existed, sure. It doesn't now.