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 fallinq wrote:
Most of these things are far from common or "mundane," especially blanks, who despite being fairly common in 40k fiction are supposed to be much rarer than psykers themselves.

Probably the most "mundane" protection against psykers are purity seals (scraps of paper or cloth covered in scriptural verses, usually written in blessed ink or the blood of saints or something to make them extra special to the faithful), which seem to provide people with some low level of protection against direct psychic attacks.

My theory is that this works a little like the Orks' gestalt psychic field. So many humans with negligible psychic ability believe in the power of purity seals that they develop their own minor psychic protective aura.

Honestly that is probably the case

also very hardcore indoctrination of the populous helps out a lot too.

the power of the emperor compels you!

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Most of these things are far from common or "mundane," especially blanks, who despite being fairly common in 40k fiction are supposed to be much rarer than psykers themselves.

You forget that 40k is fething huge. A blank being overlooked in the lower levels of some Hive World somewhere is far from unreasonable. It's not like anyone is suggesting a small army of them. Most stories are made up of a convenient assembly of unlikely things; a rare X, an anomalous Y, a strangely powerful Z. It would be no different here. In a universe as big as 40k, even 'rare' things can crop up commonly enough.

A single Blank on one of many, many, many Imperial worlds would not come close to being unbelievable. It's not like we're casually tossing an Alpha-Plus in.

Except that Blanks really are that rare. Rarer than psykers rare. There is that line to between "commonplace and boring" and "impossible and unrealistic". Not to mention that it wouldn't be THAT hard to find a blank - have the Governor's resident psyker do a scan every year/two years or so, and then picks up on where his mind is limited by the Blank. Otherwise, if we're just going to ignore the rarity of Blanks, what's to stop there being an Alpha-tier psyker? What's to stop one of the hive gangers being an ex-Ultramarine with a Tau wife? What's to stop them being accompanied by a Custodes? It's that line.

However, if OP is sure they don't want the mundane and more fluff-accurate method of purity seals or stolen relics from the local chapel, you could settle with a Blank - possibly a young child or baby who was born after the latest psyker sweep, and subsequently taken/abducted (depends whose child it is) into the gang. They wouldn't be old enough to be dependent and would literally be a plot device, but would fit better without necessarily having been undetected for many decades. As the next sweeping comes around, the gang leader realises they need to act quickly and make the most use out of their Blank before the next sweeping.

Just an idea you may like.

How powerful is this psyker working for the governor that they can scan an entire planet and pick out the relatively tiny area around the blank where they can't see and then manage to pinpoint it and get forces out to apprehend the blank before they move?

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Most of these things are far from common or "mundane," especially blanks, who despite being fairly common in 40k fiction are supposed to be much rarer than psykers themselves.

You forget that 40k is fething huge. A blank being overlooked in the lower levels of some Hive World somewhere is far from unreasonable. It's not like anyone is suggesting a small army of them. Most stories are made up of a convenient assembly of unlikely things; a rare X, an anomalous Y, a strangely powerful Z. It would be no different here. In a universe as big as 40k, even 'rare' things can crop up commonly enough.

A single Blank on one of many, many, many Imperial worlds would not come close to being unbelievable. It's not like we're casually tossing an Alpha-Plus in.

Except that Blanks really are that rare. Rarer than psykers rare. There is that line to between "commonplace and boring" and "impossible and unrealistic". Not to mention that it wouldn't be THAT hard to find a blank - have the Governor's resident psyker do a scan every year/two years or so, and then picks up on where his mind is limited by the Blank. Otherwise, if we're just going to ignore the rarity of Blanks, what's to stop there being an Alpha-tier psyker? What's to stop one of the hive gangers being an ex-Ultramarine with a Tau wife? What's to stop them being accompanied by a Custodes? It's that line.

The line between Blank and Alpha+ is a completely different one to Blank/no Blank and you know it. A Blank annuls warp effects in a localised region, and can be written to be as weak or powerful as required. An Alpha+ levels cities with a stray thought. The line stopping there being an Alpha+ is not even close to to same one that stops there being a Blank. The rest of your examples are just silly.

In no way is a single Blank in the dirty lower hives of a backwater hive world 'impossible' or 'unrealistic'. It's not commonplace, either, and I don't think anyone--I certainly didn't--implied otherwise. Blanks are not sufficiently rare that to find a single one on a single planet out of the countless worlds under Imperial control would be considered huge by any means. There's also the fact that being rarer than Psykers in the Imperium doesn't make them unique, or even close. Untold numbers of psykers are picked up, deposited, trained, killed, or fed into the Astronomicon on a daily basis, and you're debating the existence of a single Blank?

I'm not "ignoring the rarity of Blanks", I've even made several mentions to it; what I'm ignoring is the assertion that they're too rare to exist here, largely because it's an unfounded claim. Rare=/=never found. A bolter in a lower hive might be rare, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Once again, nobody is suggesting an army of Blanks, or even just many Blanks, just one. A single Blank. On a hive world of billions. In a sector of trillions. In an Imperium of quintillions. Arguing the toss about a single Blank in that is laughable.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Most of these things are far from common or "mundane," especially blanks, who despite being fairly common in 40k fiction are supposed to be much rarer than psykers themselves.

You forget that 40k is fething huge. A blank being overlooked in the lower levels of some Hive World somewhere is far from unreasonable. It's not like anyone is suggesting a small army of them. Most stories are made up of a convenient assembly of unlikely things; a rare X, an anomalous Y, a strangely powerful Z. It would be no different here. In a universe as big as 40k, even 'rare' things can crop up commonly enough.

A single Blank on one of many, many, many Imperial worlds would not come close to being unbelievable. It's not like we're casually tossing an Alpha-Plus in.

Except that Blanks really are that rare. Rarer than psykers rare. There is that line to between "commonplace and boring" and "impossible and unrealistic". Not to mention that it wouldn't be THAT hard to find a blank - have the Governor's resident psyker do a scan every year/two years or so, and then picks up on where his mind is limited by the Blank. Otherwise, if we're just going to ignore the rarity of Blanks, what's to stop there being an Alpha-tier psyker? What's to stop one of the hive gangers being an ex-Ultramarine with a Tau wife? What's to stop them being accompanied by a Custodes? It's that line.

However, if OP is sure they don't want the mundane and more fluff-accurate method of purity seals or stolen relics from the local chapel, you could settle with a Blank - possibly a young child or baby who was born after the latest psyker sweep, and subsequently taken/abducted (depends whose child it is) into the gang. They wouldn't be old enough to be dependent and would literally be a plot device, but would fit better without necessarily having been undetected for many decades. As the next sweeping comes around, the gang leader realises they need to act quickly and make the most use out of their Blank before the next sweeping.

Just an idea you may like.

How powerful is this psyker working for the governor that they can scan an entire planet and pick out the relatively tiny area around the blank where they can't see and then manage to pinpoint it and get forces out to apprehend the blank before they move?

I'd more be thinking that the psyker goes on a patrol of a county/city sized area each week/month, with local Arbiters making sure that all/most citizens are accounted for. If there is an anomaly, such as an untrained psyker or Blank, then that would be picked up. Then the Governor's psyker can isolate the smaller group, and keep going until the source of the Blankness is found.

With Blanks, it's a sheer absence of being. Not just reduced, but lacking. It would be akin to stealthing in space that reflects the heat - you'd end up with an absence of heat, and would be easily detected.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Most of these things are far from common or "mundane," especially blanks, who despite being fairly common in 40k fiction are supposed to be much rarer than psykers themselves.

You forget that 40k is fething huge. A blank being overlooked in the lower levels of some Hive World somewhere is far from unreasonable. It's not like anyone is suggesting a small army of them. Most stories are made up of a convenient assembly of unlikely things; a rare X, an anomalous Y, a strangely powerful Z. It would be no different here. In a universe as big as 40k, even 'rare' things can crop up commonly enough.

A single Blank on one of many, many, many Imperial worlds would not come close to being unbelievable. It's not like we're casually tossing an Alpha-Plus in.

Except that Blanks really are that rare. Rarer than psykers rare. There is that line to between "commonplace and boring" and "impossible and unrealistic". Not to mention that it wouldn't be THAT hard to find a blank - have the Governor's resident psyker do a scan every year/two years or so, and then picks up on where his mind is limited by the Blank. Otherwise, if we're just going to ignore the rarity of Blanks, what's to stop there being an Alpha-tier psyker? What's to stop one of the hive gangers being an ex-Ultramarine with a Tau wife? What's to stop them being accompanied by a Custodes? It's that line.

However, if OP is sure they don't want the mundane and more fluff-accurate method of purity seals or stolen relics from the local chapel, you could settle with a Blank - possibly a young child or baby who was born after the latest psyker sweep, and subsequently taken/abducted (depends whose child it is) into the gang. They wouldn't be old enough to be dependent and would literally be a plot device, but would fit better without necessarily having been undetected for many decades. As the next sweeping comes around, the gang leader realises they need to act quickly and make the most use out of their Blank before the next sweeping.

Just an idea you may like.

How powerful is this psyker working for the governor that they can scan an entire planet and pick out the relatively tiny area around the blank where they can't see and then manage to pinpoint it and get forces out to apprehend the blank before they move?

I'd more be thinking that the psyker goes on a patrol of a county/city sized area each week/month, with local Arbiters making sure that all/most citizens are accounted for. If there is an anomaly, such as an untrained psyker or Blank, then that would be picked up. Then the Governor's psyker can isolate the smaller group, and keep going until the source of the Blankness is found.

See, the easy fix there is: don't have them do it.

Nothing in the Imperial laws dictates this must be done. Planetary Governments are largely autonomous so long as tithes are paid. If the story doesn't need it, it doesn't need to exist.

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Most of these things are far from common or "mundane," especially blanks, who despite being fairly common in 40k fiction are supposed to be much rarer than psykers themselves.

You forget that 40k is fething huge. A blank being overlooked in the lower levels of some Hive World somewhere is far from unreasonable. It's not like anyone is suggesting a small army of them. Most stories are made up of a convenient assembly of unlikely things; a rare X, an anomalous Y, a strangely powerful Z. It would be no different here. In a universe as big as 40k, even 'rare' things can crop up commonly enough.

A single Blank on one of many, many, many Imperial worlds would not come close to being unbelievable. It's not like we're casually tossing an Alpha-Plus in.

Except that Blanks really are that rare. Rarer than psykers rare. There is that line to between "commonplace and boring" and "impossible and unrealistic". Not to mention that it wouldn't be THAT hard to find a blank - have the Governor's resident psyker do a scan every year/two years or so, and then picks up on where his mind is limited by the Blank. Otherwise, if we're just going to ignore the rarity of Blanks, what's to stop there being an Alpha-tier psyker? What's to stop one of the hive gangers being an ex-Ultramarine with a Tau wife? What's to stop them being accompanied by a Custodes? It's that line.

The line between Blank and Alpha+ is a completely different one to Blank/no Blank and you know it. A Blank annuls warp effects in a localised region, and can be written to be as weak or powerful as required. An Alpha+ levels cities with a stray thought. The line stopping there being an Alpha+ is not even close to to same one that stops there being a Blank. The rest of your examples are just silly.

In no way is a single Blank in the dirty lower hives of a backwater hive world 'impossible' or 'unrealistic'. It's not commonplace, either, and I don't think anyone--I certainly didn't--implied otherwise. Blanks are not sufficiently rare that to find a single one on a single planet out of the countless worlds under Imperial control would be considered huge by any means. There's also the fact that being rarer than Psykers in the Imperium doesn't make them unique, or even close. Untold numbers of psykers are picked up, deposited, trained, killed, or fed into the Astronomicon on a daily basis, and you're debating the existence of a single Blank?

I'm not "ignoring the rarity of Blanks", I've even made several mentions to it; what I'm ignoring is the assertion that they're too rare to exist here, largely because it's an unfounded claim. Rare=/=never found. A bolter in a lower hive might be rare, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Once again, nobody is suggesting an army of Blanks, or even just many Blanks, just one. A single Blank. On a hive world of billions. In a sector of trillions. In an Imperium of quintillions. Arguing the toss about a single Blank in that is laughable.

Do we know how rare Blanks are? I don't, but I've always understood them to be rarer than high (maybe not Alpha, perhaps Gamma) tier psykers.

It's not a case of "Is it possible?" We know it's possible - it's a massive galaxy, anything's possible. But there's that thin line of plausibility, and I would find it implausible to think that a Blank could survive into adulthood without being trained or snatched up by the government or an Inquisitor. From what I can gather, finding a Blank would be harder than finding a smaller, localised Null Field Generator, perhaps taken from the Hive's junkyard or looted from a damaged warp-capable ship. Thus, I still think that finding an adult Blank crosses that line of "uncommon event" into "Deus Ex Machina"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Most of these things are far from common or "mundane," especially blanks, who despite being fairly common in 40k fiction are supposed to be much rarer than psykers themselves.

You forget that 40k is fething huge. A blank being overlooked in the lower levels of some Hive World somewhere is far from unreasonable. It's not like anyone is suggesting a small army of them. Most stories are made up of a convenient assembly of unlikely things; a rare X, an anomalous Y, a strangely powerful Z. It would be no different here. In a universe as big as 40k, even 'rare' things can crop up commonly enough.

A single Blank on one of many, many, many Imperial worlds would not come close to being unbelievable. It's not like we're casually tossing an Alpha-Plus in.

Except that Blanks really are that rare. Rarer than psykers rare. There is that line to between "commonplace and boring" and "impossible and unrealistic". Not to mention that it wouldn't be THAT hard to find a blank - have the Governor's resident psyker do a scan every year/two years or so, and then picks up on where his mind is limited by the Blank. Otherwise, if we're just going to ignore the rarity of Blanks, what's to stop there being an Alpha-tier psyker? What's to stop one of the hive gangers being an ex-Ultramarine with a Tau wife? What's to stop them being accompanied by a Custodes? It's that line.

However, if OP is sure they don't want the mundane and more fluff-accurate method of purity seals or stolen relics from the local chapel, you could settle with a Blank - possibly a young child or baby who was born after the latest psyker sweep, and subsequently taken/abducted (depends whose child it is) into the gang. They wouldn't be old enough to be dependent and would literally be a plot device, but would fit better without necessarily having been undetected for many decades. As the next sweeping comes around, the gang leader realises they need to act quickly and make the most use out of their Blank before the next sweeping.

Just an idea you may like.

How powerful is this psyker working for the governor that they can scan an entire planet and pick out the relatively tiny area around the blank where they can't see and then manage to pinpoint it and get forces out to apprehend the blank before they move?

I'd more be thinking that the psyker goes on a patrol of a county/city sized area each week/month, with local Arbiters making sure that all/most citizens are accounted for. If there is an anomaly, such as an untrained psyker or Blank, then that would be picked up. Then the Governor's psyker can isolate the smaller group, and keep going until the source of the Blankness is found.

See, the easy fix there is: don't have them do it.

Nothing in the Imperial laws dictates this must be done. Planetary Governments are largely autonomous so long as tithes are paid. If the story doesn't need it, it doesn't need to exist.

So you're saying that Imperial worlds don't have to tithe psykers for the Black Ships and maintain a constant vigilance on the dangers of the witch and untrained psyker? Because I'm fairly that's a key thing Imperial worlds have to do.
Unless I'm wrong, which I'll gladly accept.

In the upper hives? Maybe not, but in the lower ones, with criminals, mutants, and other undesirables that nobody gives a toss about? I could see it. Every lower hiver is repugnant, so how do you really point them out? The most logical explanation is that they're just an entirely unlikeable person, like everyone else around them. All it takes is on entrepreneuring ganger to realise he's a little too unnerving, test a few theories, and decide he's actually got an asset on his hands.

I'd go as far to say that finding a functional NFG--or non-functional with the parts and expertise required to fix it, and resources to run it--that is also small enough to not stick out would be harder to argue. Why would something as valuable as an NFG be in some junkyard, how would it be able to be transported out, kept a secret, and powered? A blank just needs to be a man one person knows is a blank, and to everyone else is an adviser or right-hand man.

I'd have no trouble whatsoever having a Blank there. I really don't see what is implausible about it.

So you're saying that Imperial worlds don't have to tithe psykers for the Black Ships and maintain a constant vigilance on the dangers of the witch and untrained psyker? Because I'm fairly that's a key thing Imperial worlds have to do.
Unless I'm wrong, which I'll gladly accept.

Psykers make their presences known by their actions. Blanks are only detectable if you're out looking for them, or you manage to figure it out. A Blank doesn't walk into a room and suddenly everyone vomits and shouts that he's a Blank. What I'm saying is that a lower-hive Blank is a detestable person in a hive of detestable people. They don't unknowingly perform psychic phenomena. They don't draw attention to themselves unless they're really out of place--hence why it'd make less sense in civilised upper spires. They just exist.

Why would everyone be unlikeable? They have to get on with each other somehow.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Why would everyone be unlikeable? They have to get on with each other somehow.

Does anyone in charge of anything particularly care? To a Planetary Governor, people in the lower hives are what he'll use for back-up fuel if a generator runs out. Occasionally you'll send some Arbites in to sweep an annoying segment, but what happens in there isn't any of your concern so long as they're not causing trouble. So there are reports that a guy down there isn't likeable? To the governor, none of them is likeable. What does he or anyone else care? To the hivers themselves, the guy's just scum, maybe even a mutie. Do they even know Blanks exist to be able to call him one? They just know that they don't like him, but they don't like a lot of people. Some people they might get along with, but another one out of the millions cooped up in the same district that they dislike? That's not going to trigger any alarms.

 Avatar 720 wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Why would everyone be unlikeable? They have to get on with each other somehow.

Does anyone in charge of anything particularly care? To a Planetary Governor, people in the lower hives are what he'll use for back-up fuel if a generator runs out. Occasionally you'll send some Arbites in to sweep an annoying segment, but what happens in there isn't any of your concern so long as they're not causing trouble. So there are reports that a guy down there isn't likeable? To the governor, none of them is likeable. What does he or anyone else care? To the hivers themselves, the guy's just scum, maybe even a mutie. Do they even know Blanks exist to be able to call him one? They just know that they don't like him, but they don't like a lot of people. Some people they might get along with, but another one out of the millions cooped up in the same district that they dislike? That's not going to trigger any alarms.

Again, I don't mean to be rude, but I would think the underhives are scoured as best as possible for latent psychic ability - after all, it is the biggest population centre, and the most likely place for a rogue psyker to accidentally summon something from beyond the veil. That's probably where most psykers are picked up, and if psykers can be picked up down there, a Blank is EASIER to find. Instead of the minimal or active signals of a normal person or actual psyker, a Blank would have plain NOTHING.

A silhouette in the middle of a crowd, a black dot on a multi-coloured painting. It would stick out like nothing else, and whilst it's thoughts and maybe those of the people around it may be obscured, a psyker would sense the sheer absence of psychic energy.

That would require a certain way of finding Psykers, and we straight-up don't how if they go around doing passive screening, or simply waiting for someone to report a pysker, or a psyker to lose it--which in the latter case would only flag up that general area for searching. Plus, good luck scanning an entire underhive. It could take years to do, if it's even feasible. More unbelievable than a Blank living there is the idea that psykers can just blanket 'scan' huge sections of hives at once for psychic activity. The Black Ships would be heaving if they could, and no psyker would go undetected at all.

Plus, I highly doubt Blanks appear as discernible nothingness. We know they cause psykers great pain, and interfere with warp powers due to them being a null in the warp, but that doesn't necessarily mean psykers see a neat outline of the guy going about his daily business. To a psyker, he might just see the warp equivalent of static.

In which case, would it not be relatively easy to at least localise the static? It won't distort everything, so there will be a smaller region of static, which can then be analysed.

And agreed - until we know the proper Imperial procedure of collecting psykers, and subsequently blanks, we can't really make a judgement.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Why would everyone be unlikeable? They have to get on with each other somehow.

Does anyone in charge of anything particularly care? To a Planetary Governor, people in the lower hives are what he'll use for back-up fuel if a generator runs out. Occasionally you'll send some Arbites in to sweep an annoying segment, but what happens in there isn't any of your concern so long as they're not causing trouble. So there are reports that a guy down there isn't likeable? To the governor, none of them is likeable. What does he or anyone else care? To the hivers themselves, the guy's just scum, maybe even a mutie. Do they even know Blanks exist to be able to call him one? They just know that they don't like him, but they don't like a lot of people. Some people they might get along with, but another one out of the millions cooped up in the same district that they dislike? That's not going to trigger any alarms.

Again, I don't mean to be rude, but I would think the underhives are scoured as best as possible for latent psychic ability - after all, it is the biggest population centre, and the most likely place for a rogue psyker to accidentally summon something from beyond the veil. That's probably where most psykers are picked up, and if psykers can be picked up down there, a Blank is EASIER to find. Instead of the minimal or active signals of a normal person or actual psyker, a Blank would have plain NOTHING.

A silhouette in the middle of a crowd, a black dot on a multi-coloured painting. It would stick out like nothing else, and whilst it's thoughts and maybe those of the people around it may be obscured, a psyker would sense the sheer absence of psychic energy.

The Ravener trilogy has shown that this isn't the case, firstly psykers need to have the correct kind of psychic power(s) to do such a scouring, and it isn't like casting a net and keeping it out there till something hits, it is concentrated in a location at a time, any lack of activity unless the psyker is in the vicinity to feel their powers drained literally from their bodies will just come back as a blank section, not a gaping hole that is absorbing the power. The only way such would work is if the psyker knew for a fact people were in that 5x5m space and no recognition of those souls were coming back to him. In which case you have to ask, if he knows people are there, or the people asking him to search know people are there, then why are they looking psychically? Unless they are purposely looking for blanks, in which case, I'd argue that is counter productive for the psyker to look for blanks considering the harm it could do to them.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Why would everyone be unlikeable? They have to get on with each other somehow.

Does anyone in charge of anything particularly care? To a Planetary Governor, people in the lower hives are what he'll use for back-up fuel if a generator runs out. Occasionally you'll send some Arbites in to sweep an annoying segment, but what happens in there isn't any of your concern so long as they're not causing trouble. So there are reports that a guy down there isn't likeable? To the governor, none of them is likeable. What does he or anyone else care? To the hivers themselves, the guy's just scum, maybe even a mutie. Do they even know Blanks exist to be able to call him one? They just know that they don't like him, but they don't like a lot of people. Some people they might get along with, but another one out of the millions cooped up in the same district that they dislike? That's not going to trigger any alarms.

Again, I don't mean to be rude, but I would think the underhives are scoured as best as possible for latent psychic ability - after all, it is the biggest population centre, and the most likely place for a rogue psyker to accidentally summon something from beyond the veil. That's probably where most psykers are picked up, and if psykers can be picked up down there, a Blank is EASIER to find. Instead of the minimal or active signals of a normal person or actual psyker, a Blank would have plain NOTHING.

A silhouette in the middle of a crowd, a black dot on a multi-coloured painting. It would stick out like nothing else, and whilst it's thoughts and maybe those of the people around it may be obscured, a psyker would sense the sheer absence of psychic energy.

In which case, I do stand corrected. I'm still somewhat opposed to the "Deus Ex Machina" aspect of it, but it would do.

The Ravener trilogy has shown that this isn't the case, firstly psykers need to have the correct kind of psychic power(s) to do such a scouring, and it isn't like casting a net and keeping it out there till something hits, it is concentrated in a location at a time, any lack of activity unless the psyker is in the vicinity to feel their powers drained literally from their bodies will just come back as a blank section, not a gaping hole that is absorbing the power. The only way such would work is if the psyker knew for a fact people were in that 5x5m space and no recognition of those souls were coming back to him. In which case you have to ask, if he knows people are there, or the people asking him to search know people are there, then why are they looking psychically? Unless they are purposely looking for blanks, in which case, I'd argue that is counter productive for the psyker to look for blanks considering the harm it could do to them.

IIRC at least on macrag they just have a big psyker tower that scans for anomalies all the time.

they can detect all sorts of things.

Well, in a setting in which the efficacy of prayers and faith is assumed as a given, using them is pragmatic, since you think they work..

1 in 1 million humans born in the Imperium has some level of psychic ability. Most of them are so weak they do not survive the Sanctioning and are thusly devoured when brought before the Golden Throne.

Untouchables (Blanks) are a thousand times rarer than psykers.

The capture and collection of psykers is *definitely* part of a Planetary Governor's job. It is, in fact, a requirement of the Tithe on every world in the Imperium. "Tithe your Psykers" and "Have no truck with the Xeno" are two laws that cover the Imperium entire.

As for sweeping the Underhive? That is the job of the Adeptus Arbites and the Adeptus Sororitas. "Genetic Purity Sweeps" are part of their day-to-day operations.

Bequin was found on Hurbis the edge of nowhere working as pleasure girl in the city. So its not out the realm of possibility a crime lord or someone with connections having a blank as pet or employee. Most like some loathsome individual that they found seems to unnerve or ward off witches.

Also most Governors don't have access to psykers. They just round up anyone potential a psyker, such as those declared witches by the people. Then hand them over to the back ships

In the now retcon original Necrons book. Their was a story on how the necrons attack a settlement pointed out a single child and how all the other children kept away from the that child. In that story its mentioned how the black ships had been though the area and found no psykers. The writer of the report unsure on why the necrons wanted one child. At that time the necrons had a unit called pariahs that where not original necrons and weaken psychic effects. So it is possible pariahs cant be sensed by psykers unless directly confronted.

Also it may simply depend on where your are. No imperial world is the same.

 Psienesis wrote:
1 in 1 million humans born in the Imperium has some level of psychic ability. Most of them are so weak they do not survive the Sanctioning and are thusly devoured when brought before the Golden Throne.

Untouchables (Blanks) are a thousand times rarer than psykers.

Where are these numbers from? Even so, still well within the bounds of realism given the Imperium's scale.

The capture and collection of psykers is *definitely* part of a Planetary Governor's job. It is, in fact, a requirement of the Tithe on every world in the Imperium. "Tithe your Psykers" and "Have no truck with the Xeno" are two laws that cover the Imperium entire.

Don't believe anyone said it wasn't. The method of doing so, however, is up for debate, and likely varies wildly from planet to planet.

As for sweeping the Underhive? That is the job of the Adeptus Arbites and the Adeptus Sororitas. "Genetic Purity Sweeps" are part of their day-to-day operations.

Soroitas are not going to be stationed on every world to do daily purging of the populace; maybe on a world known to be prone to heresy, but on a run-of-the-mill Hive World? Not a chance. The Arbites are similarly not going to be doing extensive sweeps of the Underhive, primarily because that'd be like whacking a giant hornet nest with a stick. They'll put down rebellions and anything that threatens the stability of the wider Imperium, but so long as the gangs are content to fight each other and keep it to the underhive? They couldn't care less. Plus, they're hilariously outnumbered. An Arbites force looking to penetrate the Underhive is asking to be slaughtered. They're happy so long as the wider Imperial law is followed and tithes are paid--and we don't know what the tithe numbers are for psykers, but given their growing commonness in the Imperium plus the fact that the black ships come around once every hundred years, it's no great stretch to suggest that the planet gets what it needs without needing to risk expeditions into the underhive. Hell, psykers could be born, live, and die naturally--or as naturally as a bullet through the head from a rival ganger might be--in half the time it takes for a black ship to come by. It may simply be a case of the black ships come to pick up your psykers, and if you hand over 'enough' then you're fine. There has to be some leeway to take into account incidents such as necessary executions for safety, suicides whilst being held, psychic accident, and general death by natural causes. Besides, it's only logical to assume that there must be a way of avoiding being found, either through running and hiding, or simply being overlooked; the fact that rogue psykers exist at all is evidence enough of that.

Then there's the fact that every world is different. There's no feasible way that you can argue that every world will do X, because there will always be exceptions. Backwaters might be given some leniency not on purpose, but because they're forgotten or unimportant. More famous worlds would be under more strict scrutiny, because everyone knows about it. It might be that a world can easily raise it's 100-year tithe of pyskers simply by letting life take its course. We don't know that, but neither do we know anything that contradicts it, so it remains a possibility.

For everyone questioning my original mention that blanks are rarer than psykers:

I specifically mentioned that because OP asked for MUNDANE psychic blocking measures, and blanks are far from mundane. I never said, "Blanks are too rare for your story." Obviously they can put whatever rare, special thing they want in their story.

As for a blank getting overlooked by the Inquisition/ et al., it's not only possible but probable in a huge, galaxy spanning empire where some worlds haven't had actual contact with the larger Imperium in literally hundreds of years. The Imperium has a WHOLE SEGMENTUM secede and do its own thing for 900 years. This is not an efficient, tightly controlled system.

Soroitas are not going to be stationed on every world to do daily purging of the populace; maybe on a world known to be prone to heresy, but on a run-of-the-mill Hive World? Not a chance. The Arbites are similarly not going to be doing extensive sweeps of the Underhive, primarily because that'd be like whacking a giant hornet nest with a stick. They'll put down rebellions and anything that threatens the stability of the wider Imperium, but so long as the gangs are content to fight each other and keep it to the underhive? They couldn't care less. Plus, they're hilariously outnumbered. An Arbites force looking to penetrate the Underhive is asking to be slaughtered.

Only in movies (and bad sci-fi stories) do street-gangs armed with home-made weapons overpower a well-funded, exceptionally-trained military force (which the Arbites are) who have things like tanks, APCs, and heavy armor. If the Arbites want to clear a block in the Underhive, they go door to door with shotguns and flamers, or have sonic weapons mounted to their Rhinos.

As for a blank getting overlooked by the Inquisition/ et al., it's not only possible but probable in a huge, galaxy spanning empire where some worlds haven't had actual contact with the larger Imperium in literally hundreds of years. The Imperium has a WHOLE SEGMENTUM secede and do its own thing for 900 years. This is not an efficient, tightly controlled system.

The Imperium, as a whole, is not so efficient and tightly-controlled. On an individual planetary level, it's a much different story. With nowhere to go, nowhere to retreat or withdraw to, the majority of rebelling factions are crushed, utterly, by the various factions within the Imperium tasked with such a thing. It's only the exceptional cases, the rebellions that succeed (at least for a time), that we read about.

After all, "Hive World Angaband VII rose up in armed rebellion with the dream of overthrowing the Planetary Governor and establishing a worker's utopia. Despite early victories, the rebellion was crushed after five years of fighting by the PDF, supported by the resources of the Adeptus Arbites and the local conclave of the Inquisition (Ordo Hereticus). All those convicted of participating in the rebellion were burned at the stake as heretics. All those suspected of involvement were handed over to the Adeptus Mechanicus for rendering into servitors." is not a very interesting story.

There's an interesting blurb about the Death Korps of Krieg, sent to pacify a rebelling city. They shelled the city relentlessly until the rebels surrendered. Then, they shelled the city for another two years, until no signs of life were detected.

Then they shelled it for 3 more yeas until there was no city left

 Avatar 720 wrote:
In the upper hives? Maybe not, but in the lower ones, with criminals, mutants, and other undesirables that nobody gives a toss about? I could see it. Every lower hiver is repugnant, so how do you really point them out? The most logical explanation is that they're just an entirely unlikeable person, like everyone else around them. All it takes is on entrepreneuring ganger to realise he's a little too unnerving, test a few theories, and decide he's actually got an asset on his hands.

I'd go as far to say that finding a functional NFG--or non-functional with the parts and expertise required to fix it, and resources to run it--that is also small enough to not stick out would be harder to argue. Why would something as valuable as an NFG be in some junkyard, how would it be able to be transported out, kept a secret, and powered? A blank just needs to be a man one person knows is a blank, and to everyone else is an adviser or right-hand man.

I'd have no trouble whatsoever having a Blank there. I really don't see what is implausible about it.

So you're saying that Imperial worlds don't have to tithe psykers for the Black Ships and maintain a constant vigilance on the dangers of the witch and untrained psyker? Because I'm fairly that's a key thing Imperial worlds have to do.
Unless I'm wrong, which I'll gladly accept.

Psykers make their presences known by their actions. Blanks are only detectable if you're out looking for them, or you manage to figure it out. A Blank doesn't walk into a room and suddenly everyone vomits and shouts that he's a Blank. What I'm saying is that a lower-hive Blank is a detestable person in a hive of detestable people. They don't unknowingly perform psychic phenomena. They don't draw attention to themselves unless they're really out of place--hence why it'd make less sense in civilised upper spires. They just exist.

I generally agree the point you are making but the problem here is that only the elite of the elite of the Imperium even knows what blanks are or what they do and why. It's unlikely that a non-psyker gang leader would be able to realize the blank isn't just unpleasant due to his personality, but actually due to being a null. They don't teach that sort of thing in gang middle school and he would have no cognitive framework to even get to that conclusion, unless he was a psyker himself. Then you have a psyker running into a blank, which is starting to get a little bit too coincidental.


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 Psienesis wrote:
1 in 1 million humans born in the Imperium has some level of psychic ability. Most of them are so weak they do not survive the Sanctioning and are thusly devoured when brought before the Golden Throne.

Untouchables (Blanks) are a thousand times rarer than psykers.

I've never read anything, anywhere that laid out either of these two numbers. Do you have a source or are you inventing?

Numbers quoted is fluff that goes back ages, possibly as far back as RT, but I no longer own the library of 40k Codices, rulebooks, add-ons and magazines I once did.

It's one of those things that has circulated through 40k communities, predating the world wide web by a good bit.

The Deathwatch RPG, however, quotes an even more fantastically-low number, positing that there are "millions of psykers out of a "billion billion" humans in the galaxy. The math on this, however, doesn't work out, as it tops out with a measly 10 million total psykers in the entire Imperium... this would not satisfy the number of Astropaths, let alone all other kinds of Psykers! With an Imperium of a million worlds, in order for the human population to be a "billion billion" (one quintillion) strong, each and every world requires a population of 1 trillion people. This is, obviously, not the case. It is more likely that the Imperium's population tops out at 2 quadrillion, give or take a few billion.

With 1000 psykers being sacrificed to the Golden Throne every Terran day, and a further, unknown number being used to power the Astronomican every day, it stands to reason that there has to be a lot more psykers than ten million. Knowing that the majority of psykers will be too weak to be anything other than Throne fodder, and a majority of those remaining too weak to be anything other than an Astropath (the weakest "rank" of "useful psykers"), we still need to provide for the psykers of the Imperial Guard, the Librarians of the nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine Space Marine Chapters that use them, the various psykers of all specialties used by the Inquisition, the Arbites, the Adeptus Terra, the Ecclesiarchy (who do you think reads the Emperor's Tarot?), and the various and sundry other Adepti, Ordos, Officios and Templums I cannot be bothered to name here.

With an estimate of 1 in 1 million, and an Imperial population of 2 quadrillion, that puts 2 billion psykers alive and active across the entire Imperium, or an average of 2000 per world (obviously, this will not be the case in the "reality" of 40k, it is just a mathematical model... some planets will have *lots* of psykers, some will have none at all.). This satisfies every organization in the Imperium, and provides for a "healthy" population of rogue psykers and witches and what-not for interesting stories. One could safely figure that fully 80% of that number is Sanctioned in some way (Librarian, Inquisition, Astropath, etc.) leaving plenty of others to be up to shenanigans (Class: Rogue Psyker, Specialty: Shenanigator) across the Imperium.

Now, when it comes to Blanks, we are provided this bit of cryptic information in the entry for the Culexus Assassin:

"The Culexus Assassins possess the "Pariah Gene", making them for all intents, "soulless," accounting for their lack of warp-presence. This gene manifests itself very rarely, in a single individual among a billion, or more. This extreme rarity, coupled with the inevitable losses during training, makes the Culexus assassins the rarest of all Imperial assassins."

That being the case, with 1 in a billion being the best chance of being born a Blank, and competition between the Inquisition and the Culexus Temple for them, you're looking at roughly 2 million human Untouchables in the entire galaxy.

The Alpha Legion used several cages and devices in Serpent Beneath to prevent captured psykers from going berserk.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Jurgen in the Ciaphas Cain books, for example, is not described as inspiring violence towards himself but rather just general disgust though some of that may be due to his overwhelming bodily odour. Of course it is entirely possible that that bodily odour is enhanced by his being a Blank such that it seems much worse for those around than it actually is.

If I recall correctly, Cain is the only person that ever shows an awareness of the smell. When he tells an Inquisitor to ignore it, she's confused - the implication being that (for Cain) Jurgen's wrongness manifests itself as a bad smell.

Anyhow. As for the OP...
Many psykers need to concentrate to use their powers. Did you know that Ministratum-approved studies have shown that 100% of all psykers find it hard to concentrate after having their head blown off?
Extending the idea a bit further...
Distance is a good protection against some psykers. A particular psyker has a 100m range? Then meet in a place surrounded by a 110m deadzone, with plenty of gangers as sentries. A short-ranged psyker wouldn't be able to target the leaders without entering that deadzone and waging a pitched battle against those gangers. This can give the leaders time to withdraw.

On the more hi-tech path - certain noises can impair concentration. The Black Ship article that Otto linked to mentions that bright lights and discordant noises can be used to disorientate psykers, reducing the chance of the psyker manifesting their power. I'm guessing that it's mostly effective against weak psykers, or psykers that are trying to use subtle powers (e.g. telepathy, divination, etc).
- Perhaps the main entrance to the base is through a factory, one filled with discordant shrieks of metal being sawed.
- The Imperium has access to "Screamers". These are simple alarms use to secure an area - anybody trying to sneak past one will trigger it, setting off the screamer.
- Perhaps there could be small devices (similar to the "Mosquito") that can generate uncomfortable noises at the edge (or beyond) human hearing. Something that would cause extreme discomfort and would make concentration harder.

The Ravenor books makes mention psi-inert materials. Some buildings are made from feldspar to withstand the planet's acidic rain, but a side-effect is that the Inquisitor can't extend his powers through the walls.

I know that you asked for mundane protection, but what about those non-mundane options that gangers could have access to?
- The area around certain facilities (Astropathic relay chambers? A hidden retreat for damaged navigators?) might be laced with anti-psyker measures. Sure, the gangers aren't going to get inside it... but what about meeting a block away from it? Not only do you get some of the protection, but there's also the fact that any powerful psyker that tries anything is going to be detected by the organisation that runs the facility. Such organisations would view criminal gangs as beneath their attention... but would be very, very interested in rogue pskyers. The criminal gangs would effectively be using Imperial authority to protect themselves against psyker-crime - oh, the irony.
- Perhaps there's a block down in the underhive that has a bad history. Story is, a group of psykers met a grisly end at the hand of Imperial Authorities. They say that the high-ups wanted to make examples of 'em, and that you could hear the screams for days. The suffering permeates the very stones themselves - even us regular folk can sense it, but it must be even worse for pskyers. We stay far away from that ill-fated dome, but there are rumours that desperate sorts sometimes hole up there to stop psykers tracking 'em. 'Course, nobody can make themselves stay there for long!

Mallich wrote:
Many psykers need to concentrate to use their powers. Distance is a good protection against some psykers.

On the more hi-tech path - certain noises can impair concentration. The Black Ship article that Otto linked to mentions that bright lights and discordant noises can be used to disorientate psykers, reducing the chance of the psyker manifesting their power. I'm guessing that it's mostly effective against weak psykers, or psykers that are trying to use subtle powers (e.g. telepathy, divination, etc).
- Perhaps the main entrance to the base is through a factory, one filled with discordant shrieks of metal being sawed.
- The Imperium has access to "Screamers". These are simple alarms use to secure an area - anybody trying to sneak past one will trigger it, setting off the screamer.
- Perhaps there could be small devices (similar to the "Mosquito") that can generate uncomfortable noises at the edge (or beyond) human hearing. Something that would cause extreme discomfort and would make concentration harder.

I know that you asked for mundane protection, but what about those non-mundane options that gangers could have access to?
- The area around certain facilities (Astropathic relay chambers? A hidden retreat for damaged navigators?) might be laced with anti-psyker measures. Sure, the gangers aren't going to get inside it... but what about meeting a block away from it? Not only do you get some of the protection, but there's also the fact that any powerful psyker that tries anything is going to be detected by the organisation that runs the facility. Such organisations would view criminal gangs as beneath their attention... but would be very, very interested in rogue pskyers. The criminal gangs would effectively be using Imperial authority to protect themselves against psyker-crime - oh, the irony.
- Perhaps there's a block down in the underhive that has a bad history. Story is, a group of psykers met a grisly end at the hand of Imperial Authorities. They say that the high-ups wanted to make examples of 'em, and that you could hear the screams for days. The suffering permeates the very stones themselves - even us regular folk can sense it, but it must be even worse for pskyers. We stay far away from that ill-fated dome, but there are rumours that desperate sorts sometimes hole up there to stop psykers tracking 'em. 'Course, nobody can make themselves stay there for long!

These are by no means bad ideas. A criminal gang, even a powerful one, isn't going to throw all their resources on buying some 100% Psyker-proof gadget or a certified Blank. They'll use something cheap, simple and effective. Or something requiring getting more involved but not directly causing Imperial attention - using a previously protected area is a good idea, trying to buy a Psychic Hood for their own Rogue Psyker is not.

Ofc, with criminals the answer is often money - why not just find out what the Imperial Psyker wants (or what his handler wants) and make sure they get it in exchange for just not doing certain things? Hell, if these psyker sweeps are mostly for catching rogue psykers the gang could round up a certain number of suspected witches and thus avoid having their area searched!

Well, there's blanks and Pariahs. They're essentially anti-psykers. The best part in you case is that they don't require tech or artifacts to work. It's a gene you can inherit called the "Pariah" gene. If you have it in its recessive form, psykers will find it difficult if not impossible to manifest powers anywhere near you, and may find it painful to be in your prescence. If the gene is dominant, psykers will find it practically impossible to do anything around you, and being near you can outright kill a psyker.

Also, since people with this gene have little or no warp presence, normal people are find these people indescribably uncomfortable to be around, which would likely make them social outcasts.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Most of these things are far from common or "mundane," especially blanks, who despite being fairly common in 40k fiction are supposed to be much rarer than psykers themselves.

You forget that 40k is fething huge. A blank being overlooked in the lower levels of some Hive World somewhere is far from unreasonable. It's not like anyone is suggesting a small army of them. Most stories are made up of a convenient assembly of unlikely things; a rare X, an anomalous Y, a strangely powerful Z. It would be no different here. In a universe as big as 40k, even 'rare' things can crop up commonly enough.

A single Blank on one of many, many, many Imperial worlds would not come close to being unbelievable. It's not like we're casually tossing an Alpha-Plus in.

Except that Blanks really are that rare. Rarer than psykers rare. There is that line to between "commonplace and boring" and "impossible and unrealistic". Not to mention that it wouldn't be THAT hard to find a blank - have the Governor's resident psyker do a scan every year/two years or so, and then picks up on where his mind is limited by the Blank. Otherwise, if we're just going to ignore the rarity of Blanks, what's to stop there being an Alpha-tier psyker? What's to stop one of the hive gangers being an ex-Ultramarine with a Tau wife? What's to stop them being accompanied by a Custodes? It's that line.

However, if OP is sure they don't want the mundane and more fluff-accurate method of purity seals or stolen relics from the local chapel, you could settle with a Blank - possibly a young child or baby who was born after the latest psyker sweep, and subsequently taken/abducted (depends whose child it is) into the gang. They wouldn't be old enough to be dependent and would literally be a plot device, but would fit better without necessarily having been undetected for many decades. As the next sweeping comes around, the gang leader realises they need to act quickly and make the most use out of their Blank before the next sweeping.

Just an idea you may like.

Story.

I'd feel comfortable wagering that there are more blanks than space marines.

The entire Impirium's military is run by psykers . They feed the god emperor cartloads of them. They come in strong and weak varieties. That blanks are an order of magnitude less numerous than psykers doesn't mean they shouldn't show up in a story.

Would you opposed an imperial assassin appearing in this story?

 Scrabb wrote:

Spoiler:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 fallinq wrote:
Most of these things are far from common or "mundane," especially blanks, who despite being fairly common in 40k fiction are supposed to be much rarer than psykers themselves.

You forget that 40k is fething huge. A blank being overlooked in the lower levels of some Hive World somewhere is far from unreasonable. It's not like anyone is suggesting a small army of them. Most stories are made up of a convenient assembly of unlikely things; a rare X, an anomalous Y, a strangely powerful Z. It would be no different here. In a universe as big as 40k, even 'rare' things can crop up commonly enough.

A single Blank on one of many, many, many Imperial worlds would not come close to being unbelievable. It's not like we're casually tossing an Alpha-Plus in.

Except that Blanks really are that rare. Rarer than psykers rare. There is that line to between "commonplace and boring" and "impossible and unrealistic". Not to mention that it wouldn't be THAT hard to find a blank - have the Governor's resident psyker do a scan every year/two years or so, and then picks up on where his mind is limited by the Blank. Otherwise, if we're just going to ignore the rarity of Blanks, what's to stop there being an Alpha-tier psyker? What's to stop one of the hive gangers being an ex-Ultramarine with a Tau wife? What's to stop them being accompanied by a Custodes? It's that line.

However, if OP is sure they don't want the mundane and more fluff-accurate method of purity seals or stolen relics from the local chapel, you could settle with a Blank - possibly a young child or baby who was born after the latest psyker sweep, and subsequently taken/abducted (depends whose child it is) into the gang. They wouldn't be old enough to be dependent and would literally be a plot device, but would fit better without necessarily having been undetected for many decades. As the next sweeping comes around, the gang leader realises they need to act quickly and make the most use out of their Blank before the next sweeping.

Just an idea you may like.

Story.

I'd feel comfortable wagering that there are more blanks than space marines.

The entire Impirium's military is run by psykers . They feed the god emperor cartloads of them. They come in strong and weak varieties. That blanks are an order of magnitude less numerous than psykers doesn't mean they shouldn't show up in a story.

Would you opposed an imperial assassin appearing in this story?

There may be more Blanks than Astartes, but how many survive to adolescence? With their miasma of wrongness, they might easily be picked on as they grow up and might be attacked or even kill themselves due to everyone hating them.

There's even less chance they'll figure out their own ability as a psychic mute, and avoid capture from the tithe of psykers, by which I can imagine a psyker would have to trawl through the populace.

I'm not saying an unaware Blank can't exist. I'm saying the chances of one being aware of their abilities in a poorly educated underhive where people rarely live long and being naturally repulsive to people, and surviving in a gang are very slim. There's a line between Deus Ex Machina and Story.

And yes - I would have a problem with a full Vindicare/Eversor/Callidus/Culexus Assassin in the story unless it made sense. Assassins are deployed for critical tasks, to enforce the Will of the Emperor where a full army would be less effective.

Murdering a corrupt Cardinal as he debases himself in wine and women with a poisoned cup. Works.
Sniping a renegade commander as he addresses his troops in front of a burning Cathedral. Works.
Cutting a swathe through a battleship's bridge to disable an invading armada's captain? Works.

Hunting down a small-scale hive city thug? Unless this Hiver can threaten the Imperium as a whole, I doubt an Assassin would be tasked. An Arbites platoon makes more sense.