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 BaronIveagh wrote:
Neither are Sororitas, (other than the heretics part).

That's not really true. Sisters are selected, among other things, for their faith. That's more than the Catholic convents can say. Or, I guess, any other example you can come with involving a surprisingly low rate of success, which typically involve forcing some kind of no-sex rule on the whole of the population rather than selecting individuals for which it might work…

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
He's not wrong though. Look at the birth rates among nuns, if you really want to. There really is such a thing.

Now please, let us look together at how nuns are (and were) selected. Have you read this book?
Trust me, nuns were not really selected for their own will to be celibate (and/or kill the heretics).

And it's not like every religious organization enforces celibacy etc in real life either. When there's been religious organizations where monks can marry and get kids why not Sisters of battle...Since it's not even real but fictious even easier!

 Smokeycrisp wrote:

epronovost wrote:

 Smokeycrisp wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Smokeycrisp wrote:
Isn't being angry and hating the heretic the Sisters whole thing? And irritability is more of an unfortunate side effect.

Well, hating the heretics kind of is. But the Sisters are not angry marines. You can have calm, collected, cold-hearted hate, or flaming, raging hate, or any kind of hate in between. I guess you could possibly even have Sisters that love the heretics and just want to purge them in a terribly violent fashion for their own good. And get them to repent through torture before, because they are so willing to go the extra mile for them.


Sisters, grimdarking your stuff since the 90s ^^.

True, after all the Order of the bloody rose is supposed to be the overly aggressive ones while the Sacred Rose are the calms ones. If they get another codex (probably ten years from now) Id like to see a lot more on the differences between the orders, perhaps they each have differing views and rules on celibacy?

Torturing them because they genuinely love them and want them to repent? Sounds like Inquisitor Mozgus from Berserk!
http://m.mangahere.co/manga/berserk/c150/20.html

Then againThe order of the Bloody Rose uses agressive tactics. It doesn't say anything about how agressive or hateful are the Sister. In Fantasy Flight Games, the Sisters are described as being filled with clarity and purpose and not hate on the battlefield unlike the Frateris Militia. In Hammer and Andvil, the Necron Lord recognise them for their strange unity, droning chants and calm. They are so faithful and well endoctrinated that they don't need to express and reinforce their religious beliefs by opposing, hating if you prefer, those who are opposed to them like heretics or mutants. They are completly self assured in their belief. They purge the ennemies of mankind because it's their duty. Hate and disgust are psychological mechanism to protect yourself from things that threaten you. That's why in real life the most stringent opponents to things like homosexuality or drugs are frequently cougth with male prostitute doing coke (the true story of Ted Haggard and Larry Craig). Rabid hatred is more of a sign of a vacillating faith or strong temptation than strength. Sisters are so hard to corrupt because they don't even feel threaten/tempted by the power of Chaos, thus crystallizing their faith on hatred of the ennemy is pointless. At least that's my two cents, but feel free to have as much rage filled Sisters as you want in your head canon.

Then so be it, but does this mean they can bang or not? I'd argue no.

Real nuns remain celibate because they're the "brides of Christ" and to show their commitment to their relationship with God. Sisters of Battle may not be nuns exactly but if they share this belief that they're brides of the emperor and are completly self assured then it makes sense for them to share this reason for being celibate as well right?

The Sisters have rejected the idea they are the Bride of the Emperor after they turned against Vandire. They call themselves the Daughters of the Emperor now (like they did in their early days on their homeworld). Thus they aren't symbolically married to the God-Emperor they see themselves as his favored children. Thus, they aren't prevented to develop carnal relationship in this fashion. Their ability to develop carnal relationship is held in check by three things in my opinion. The first is their lifestyle, the second is the penitent nature of their Orders and the third is standard military regulation (amatory relationship are usually forbidden in a strict hierarchical organisation to maintain that bond of trust and obidience intact). I would not consider its a capital offense should a Sister get cougth in such a situation, but it would probably be punished.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Smokeycrisp wrote:
Not having sex is simply when you're not having sex.
Sexual frustration is when you're irritated and angry because of it.

How do you make Sisters into being irritated and angry because of not having sex, instead of, I don't know, sad and depressed because of not having sex? Also how is “irritable” a quality for a soldier? Wouldn't you rather look for “dedicated”?

 Smokeycrisp wrote:
Think about it from the Ecclisiarchy's perspective. You brainwash them into valuing chastity and purity, force them into celibacy from puberty, all while making them wear skin tight boob armor with corsets and high heels.

The high heels were on one illustration. Only ONE illustration. It's time to just LET IT GO. The Sisters DON'T wear high heels.
And the armor ain't skin tight:

It could be argued that the Dominions and Retributors wear heavier armor than the rank and file Battle-Sisters. Although I can't recall any hard canonical evidence to support that. It's just supposition on my part, inspired by the heavier armor seen in some artwork.

 Psienesis wrote:
In addition to the Sororitas, we have the Storm Troopers, Inquisitors, Commissars and the Space Marines all subject to similar brain-washing and indoctrination. Of all of these, the least-stable are the Space Marines while the rest share, universally, the religious indoctrination of the Imperial Cult and fall to Chaos far less frequently than the Astartes do.

Actually, since Inquisitors are in there, I'll say that it's actually less effective than in real life, considering the sheer number of Inquisitors who seem to end up embracing Chaos in one way or another. Storm troopers it's not so much that as the regular mind wipes tend to prevent chaos. And developing a personality. Commissars don't usually live long enough that this is a problem, although several BL novels have pointed out that it does happen, though rarely, that the commissar, and, thence, the regiment, go over to the ruinous powers.

Whole orders of Sisters have fallen to chaos.

Based on sheer numbers, if 1% of Commissars fall to the ruinous powers, then they've already gotten space marines beat.

 Psienesis wrote:
In real life, maybe. In 40K? It's super-effective. In addition to the Sororitas, we have the Storm Troopers, Inquisitors, Commissars and the Space Marines all subject to similar brain-washing and indoctrination. Of all of these, the least-stable are the Space Marines while the rest share, universally, the religious indoctrination of the Imperial Cult and fall to Chaos far less frequently than the Astartes do.

A assertion without evidence - at least in the case of the Stormtroopers, Inquisitors, and Commissars - and exaggerated for the Sororitas.

I even have a GW-produced traitor Commissar model. He was included in the Dark Vengeance set as a Cultist Champion, still wearing his uniform coat.

@BaronIveagh

While I agree with you that stormtroopers, commissar and inquisitors don't have a much better record than Astartes when it comes to corruption, there is only a single Sister of Battle who ever fell to the power of Chaos (Miriael Sabathiel). There is mention of an Order of Dialogous Sister who fell to a greater Daemmon of Slaanseh in Daemonifuge, but even then not all of them were corrupted and those who were had been purged by their fellow Sister before their corruption could spread (at least so they thougth). Most of those Dialogous Sisters were transformed into a barely conscious ball of pain by the daemon when he escaped. They were, ironically, not corrupted. They were still loyal to the Emperor and even give the main character clues as to who is the threat. In resume, only a single Sister fell to Chaos though a few non millitant might have and other might have been possessed (some even after their bodily deaths). Plus, when assessing the corruptibility of a group, you always take proportion into account, not raw numbers. If you count the Horus Heresy, Astartes have a worst record for loyalty than the Imperial Guard/Army (but much better if you exclude it). All in all, 40K Astartes are very loyal, but turn traitor much more often than Sisters and maybe even Scions.

BaronIveagh wrote:[

Whole orders of Sisters have fallen to chaos.

Name one.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

BaronIveagh wrote:[

Whole orders of Sisters have fallen to chaos.

Name one.

Yeah I was not aware of any in the fluff - we have one who fell in the CCG and one who is dubious in the comics - that's it?

There have been some Sisters that have been mind controlled and not a few that have suffered mutation or physical corruption (all against their will) but just the one that has been said to fall (after years of torture IIRC - although sisters on Vraks did not break having suffered in the same way)

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Based on sheer numbers, if 51% of Commissars fall to the ruinous powers, then they've already gotten space marines beat.

Fixed it for you .

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
It could be argued that the Dominions and Retributors wear heavier armor than the rank and file Battle-Sisters. Although I can't recall any hard canonical evidence to support that. It's just supposition on my part, inspired by the heavier armor seen in some artwork.

The artwork is just inconsistent, that's all.
This fair lady is not a retributor or a dominion, because those units did not even exist at the time she was drawn:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

BaronIveagh wrote:[

Whole orders of Sisters have fallen to chaos.

Name one.

Yeah I was not aware of any in the fluff - we have one who fell in the CCG and one who is dubious in the comics - that's it?

Just a note - that's one sister, not one order. Ephrael Stern never fell to Chaos either - she had Slaanesh's true name stuffed into her head and she remained loyal, although the Canoness of the Order of Our Martyred LAdy herself told her to go into hiding after a power-hungry Inquisitor declared her corrupted, not because she had fallen to chaos, but simply so he could drag her away to perform experiments on her.

My demand for a name was somewhat facetious: The closest an 'order' of Battle Sisters as ever come to falling was the purging of the Order of the Piercing Thorn, who committed suicide when they realised that the physical corruption was starting to affect their minds in the backstory to Death of Antagonis.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Fixed it for you

Not really: you grossly underestimate how many IG units there are, all with their commissars. Space Marines have always been more limited in number.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Name one.

The Order of Sisters from Madasa is never named in fluff, but fall to the warp in the person of one of Abaddon's servants. (Cain's Last Stand)

The Order of the Blessed Enquiry on Parnis. (Daemonifuge)

The Order of the White Rose on Periremunda could also be argued to have fallen to the Warp, though in truth they were following the orders of a Radical inquisitor, killing their fellow imperials. Not that it mattered, they were all eaten by nids post haste. (Duty Calls)

The Sisterhood of Sorrowed Matrons were purged by Inquisitor Gelt aboard the hulk of the Merciful Saint, a hospital ship turned nightmare abattoir. (Creatures Anathema)

Special mention goes to:



Miriael Sabathiel, formerly a Sister-Superior of the Order of Our Martyred Lady not only willingly turned to chaos herself but also 'converted' a whole mission of Order of the Argent Shroud to the worship of the Prince of Pleasure when they attempted purge her. ("The Invitation," by Dan Abnett IIRC, and the CCG)

The Order of the Blessed Enquiry did not fall - they were tortured and turned into a giant ball of flesh, but they stayed loyal, if you actually read the comic.

The example in Cain's Last Stand has already been discussed: They were mind-controlled, and then suicided when the mind control was released and they were able to make decisions or act according to their own desires and natures. Again, not actually fallen.

The White Rose believed they were doing the Emperor's will. That's loyalty, not treachery.

Mirael I will give you, but as I said - she's one sister, far from a whole order, and as for the Argent Shroud, it was three sisters and a bounty hunter - and the sisters were killed, they did not fall.

Creatures Anathema is a Dark Heresy book, and it's been shown repeatedly that Dark Heresy first edition hasn't got a fricken clue about the Sisterhood.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The Order of the Blessed Enquiry did not fall - they were tortured and turned into a giant ball of flesh, but they stayed loyal, if you actually read the comic..

I did. The majority of them fell (or are your blinders so good that you missed the corrupted sisters showing up with the Keeper when it showed up to fight Hand?) I'll dig out my copy, but I'm fairly sure they even mention that the majority of the sisters fell, but I'd have to find it first.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The example in Cain's Last Stand has already been discussed: They were mind-controlled, and then suicided when the mind control was released and they were able to make decisions or act according to their own desires and natures. .

No they didn't, you guys keep repeating that, but only two of them killed themselves, read the book. Even after the control was lifted with his death, the majority of them kept right on fighting for Chaos.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Creatures Anathema is a Dark Heresy book, and it's been shown repeatedly that Dark Heresy first edition hasn't got a fricken clue about the Sisterhood.

So, to sum up your rebuttal: "No, because I don't like that source'.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
I did. The majority of them fell (or are your blinders so good that you missed the corrupted sisters showing up with the Keeper when it showed up to fight Hand?) I'll dig out my copy, but I'm fairly sure they even mention that the majority of the sisters fell, but I'd have to find it first.

There were no corrupted sisters in that scene. There are a lot of daemons, some of which have trophies in the form of fragments of power armour, though. Perhaps you're the confused one?

 BaronIveagh wrote:
.

No they didn't, you guys keep repeating that, but only two of them killed themselves, read the book. Even after the control was lifted with his death, the majority of them kept right on fighting for Chaos.

Suicide by guardsman is still suicide. They would have won if they'd wanted to.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
So, to sum up your rebuttal: "No, because I don't like that source'.

DH 1e walks like a quack and ducks like a quack, I'll call it a quack.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
and as for the Argent Shroud, it was three sisters and a bounty hunter - and the sisters were killed, they did not fall.

I'm still digging for a source, but fluff seems to mention her leading fallen sisters to defile a shrine world: successfully, which is what brought her to being a Champion of Slaanesh.

Y'all need to start quoting gak. Neither of you are making a point without evidence.

@Baronlveagh

From my own copy of Daemonifuge only a small, but still significant portion, were corrupted by the knowledge in question and they were killed by their Sisters as I mention in my post above. The other were transformed into a fleshcontruct by the daemon. As for the daemons fighting with the Keeper of Secret, it's hard to tell if they are anything else but generic possessed/daemons (one of them weild a reaper autocanon). He does call them his «daughters» one can think they are daemon disguised as Sisters of Battle since the order he had dealings with was a Dialogous Order. They don't have power armors and very little weapons besides a few swords and bolt pistols so it can't really be them. We can imagine that since they are daemons they can take the form of corrupted SoB to make themselves look more threatening or disgusting.

As for the Last Stand, if I am not mistaken it's not an entire Order of Sisters who gets mind control, but a commandery (but that's mostly nitpicking). Doesn't it also mention that Varan's death didn't broke his mind control spell? I don't own the book and doesn't remember really well, but the lexicanum entry for the book does mention the fact that the spell wasn't completly broken by the death of the main villain.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Fixed it for you

Not really: you grossly underestimate how many IG units there are, all with their commissars. Space Marines have always been more limited in number.

Oh. I thought you meant ratio.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

This picture has Khorne followers that do not have huge bulking muscle but instead have sexy bikinis, your argument is invalid.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Suicide by guardsman is still suicide. They would have won if they'd wanted to.

They were, very effectively, too, until Deus Ex Necrons.


From Cain's Last Stand:

(note this takes place after Varan is already dead)

"The enemy were surging forward now, suppressing our defenses with withering amounts of fire, and would be in position to make a final assault any minute. In fact, if these had been run-of-the-mill Chaotics, instead of using their heads like soldiers, they'd have probably started already, which would at least have allowed us to whittle them down a bit as they charged our guns. "

Further, Cain is taking cover while a pair of heavy bolter servitors try to suppress the enemy advance.

"A second or so later both constructs went silent, all but torn apart by a blizzard of bolter fire, and my heart turned to ice. ... A solid wave of of corrupted Sisters was advancing on our position, at least three full squads emerging from the early morning half light, and I knew we didn't have a hope in hell of stopping them. Come to that, I doubted we'd even be able to slow them down."

So, no, they're very calmly tearing apart the defenses, rather than berzerkly charging them.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

There were no corrupted sisters in that scene. There are a lot of daemons, some of which have trophies in the form of fragments of power armour, though. Perhaps you're the confused one?

So, yes, the Order lost 'many' sisters, though how many is kept vague.


Look, here we have fallen sisters.



These look a lot like the same fallen sisters we saw earlier. Notice the warpspawn in the bottom right panel, and then look at the one on page 2. It could be the very same sister, though slightly more corrupted.








Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

This picture has Khorne followers that do not have huge bulking muscle but instead have sexy bikinis, your argument is invalid.

So GW is invalid?



(I know she's actually wearing armor but it's painted like it's a bikini.)

@BaronIveagh

So in Cain's Last Stand does it mention that the spell is broken after the death of the villain? If I am not mistaken only those close to the blank retain their free will and commit suicide, but for the other.

In all cases, we can say that a few hundred Sisters of various Order fell to Chaos in different circomstances. Some were tricked, other possessed or mind controlled and a very small few converted to Chaos. I don't think that if you were to count all those Sister they would amount to a thousand. Considering the largest organised group that ever fell was Mission which is actualy around 3 to 10 squads of Sisters that's not much. In Cain's Last Stand there is only 3 full squad of Sisters which means around 60 Sisters. The deamon/sisters aren't much more numerous in Daemonifuge and Miriael command at most 100 corrupted Sisters. Come to think of it, even if you are generous, it will be tough to reach 500 corrupted Sisters in the entire lore of 40K and we can still doubt about the willing nautre of their corruption.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
(I know she's actually wearing armor but it's painted like it's a bikini.)

Why are you posting pictures that do not in any way further your point?

I just realised we have completly derailed this thread. Maybe we should start a new one about how many Sisters have fallen to Chaos in a fashion or another. Come to think of it that's what I will do.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
In addition to the Sororitas, we have the Storm Troopers, Inquisitors, Commissars and the Space Marines all subject to similar brain-washing and indoctrination. Of all of these, the least-stable are the Space Marines while the rest share, universally, the religious indoctrination of the Imperial Cult and fall to Chaos far less frequently than the Astartes do.

Actually, since Inquisitors are in there, I'll say that it's actually less effective than in real life, considering the sheer number of Inquisitors who seem to end up embracing Chaos in one way or another. Storm troopers it's not so much that as the regular mind wipes tend to prevent chaos. And developing a personality. Commissars don't usually live long enough that this is a problem, although several BL novels have pointed out that it does happen, though rarely, that the commissar, and, thence, the regiment, go over to the ruinous powers.

Whole orders of Sisters have fallen to chaos.

Based on sheer numbers, if 1% of Commissars fall to the ruinous powers, then they've already gotten space marines beat.

No Order of Sisters has ever fallen to Chaos, unless you're including fanfic here.

 Psienesis wrote:

No Order of Sisters has ever fallen to Chaos, unless you're including fanfic here.

The source is cited next to it, and it's considered 'canon'.

Seriously, it is. Ask Aaron Dembski-Bowden if you don't believe me.

http://www.boomtron.com/2011/03/grimdark-ii-loose-canon/

The link tells me that, no, it isn't 'canon'.

You may not personally regard it as canon, but it's as valid as anything else published by Games Workshop. That's essentially what the GW canon policy is, an indifferent shrug. The players go with their personal interpretation of the 40k universe.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

No Order of Sisters has ever fallen to Chaos, unless you're including fanfic here.

The source is cited next to it, and it's considered 'canon'.

Seriously, it is. Ask Aaron Dembski-Bowden if you don't believe me.

http://www.boomtron.com/2011/03/grimdark-ii-loose-canon/

Except that none of your examples actually feature orders falling to chaos.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Except that particular example actually features an order falling to chaos.

I'm going to assume that the above is the correct intent of your post.

And, yes, it does, clearly and without question.

Can you guys get back onto the topic...