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YeOldSaltPotato wrote:
And all the while they're still having stupid violent fun at the expense of anything they can catch through out those same Cain books. Which could absolutely give the casual observer the impression they're stupid, until the instinctive urge to join in from other orks in the area results in the casual observer being flanked and becoming part of the stupid violent fun.

They are depicted as cruel and malicious, so yo know they are the bad guys. An Ork does precisely what it wants to do , unless being directed (forced) by someone bigger. They accept this as the natural order, which is why Orks milling about, out of combat and undirected by Nobs is always interesting to see. For the same reason that marines and guard are interesting when they are not firing bolters and lasguns, we get to see who they really are.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:
Orks aren't often smart individuals because they don't have to be. They were created as a race to be a self perpetuating weapon, their instincts drive them to reasonably effective combat behaviors and their resilience means even reasonably effective can be damned scary. And the more of them you have, better odds you get a smart one, or worse yet, one they think is smart, and as such the ork gestalt results in them actually becoming smart. Maybe, no one really knows.

I happen to think average Orks have equal or higher than average human intelligence, they just don't apply it. Orks with an interest in sneaking up on the enemy become very skilled at that, just as Orks with an interest in stealing become very proficient at taking apart vehicles. My point is that an Ork will rapidly figure out something if he cares to and it doesn't kill him first. An Ork who had no interest in avionics who found an unoccupied imperial fighter would rapidly deduce how the guns, engines and flightstick worked in that order. The reason I'm suggesting this is that the connection to violence is immediate and obvious- and the more obvious it is,the faster an average Ork would learn it.

Meks are Orks who made the connection between science and killing early on, and were either coerced or interested enough to see where that led. An average Ork presented with a fusion reactor console wouldn't likely make the connection between the shiny gubbins and violence, but a mek would.

The humans don't have to be fed much, because they don't have to live long. As the orc Waaagh continues the orc and grot numbers will grow. Human slaves will die quickly. They will be replaced by grots. It's ok if the humies die off quickly from callous overseers in huge numbers. The human world population started in the billions. Eventually it will be zero.

Unlikely. Orks aren't that likely to put concerted effort into it. Once hunting humans in the hills gets dull (or something more interesting comes along) orks will settle into live/let live scenario.

Orks will certainly enslave humans, and have them crank out war material and/or food. Or be food. But eventually orks will want to move on. Subjugation and depopulation for its own sake arent valuable or interesting to the ork psyche. New fights are.

I imagine Orks don't treat slaves/Prisoners well AT ALL. no doubt seeing them as "Stupid gits who couldn't even give us a proppa fight!"

BrianDavion wrote:
I imagine Orks don't treat slaves/Prisoners well AT ALL. no doubt seeing them as "Stupid gits who couldn't even give us a proppa fight!"

I wonder if they'd respect a human slave who shows some "orky spirit" i.e. fighting and bossing weaker guys around. A human probably couldn't beat something much stronger than a grot, so that wouldn't be very impressive, but at least he would be "fitting in."

Certainly the Diggas on Gorkamorka established a more productive relationship with the Orks in part because of their emulation of elements of Ork kulture.

Perhaps more worrying is that runtherds are already adept at selective breeding to make better grots and squigs... imagine if they applied this knowledge to create a race of brute, sub-human slaves. Maybe that's a bit too grimdark!

 Kroem wrote:
Certainly the Diggas on Gorkamorka established a more productive relationship with the Orks in part because of their emulation of elements of Ork kulture.

Perhaps more worrying is that runtherds are already adept at selective breeding to make better grots and squigs... imagine if they applied this knowledge to create a race of brute, sub-human slaves. Maybe that's a bit too grimdark!

I don't know if there are actual numbers on how long greenskins take to mature, but it sounds like grots and squigs reproduce pretty quickly. Breeding a new race of humies would take at least decades, if not centuries, so it would take some truly patient and dedicated runtherds to do it. Not impossible, but not very likely.

Maybe on a backwater, isolated world populated by both feral humans and feral orks this could happen, possibly even through natural selection.

 Kroem wrote:
Certainly the Diggas on Gorkamorka established a more productive relationship with the Orks in part because of their emulation of elements of Ork kulture.

Perhaps more worrying is that runtherds are already adept at selective breeding to make better grots and squigs... imagine if they applied this knowledge to create a race of brute, sub-human slaves. Maybe that's a bit too grimdark!

I don't think squigs and grots actually breed. As I recall all orkish life comes from a meter thick fungal mat under the ground. There is no natural selection or animal husbandry in the evolution of orkish existence.

I've often thought that it might though. Once an ork population hits a specific number there would be both Male and female orkish life born (spawned?). This would allow orks to breed in space where there is no natural biome to orkify. At the first iteration of orkiforming a planet, multiple genders and sexual reproduction would be a hindrance to establishing a foothold. Once orks had tipped the scales into their favor it could add a needed level of sophistication to their culture and more survival traits for their evolutionary tool box.

 Red Marine wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
Certainly the Diggas on Gorkamorka established a more productive relationship with the Orks in part because of their emulation of elements of Ork kulture.

Perhaps more worrying is that runtherds are already adept at selective breeding to make better grots and squigs... imagine if they applied this knowledge to create a race of brute, sub-human slaves. Maybe that's a bit too grimdark!

I don't think squigs and grots actually breed. As I recall all orkish life comes from a meter thick fungal mat under the ground. There is no natural selection or animal husbandry in the evolution of orkish existence.

Sorry about the quality of that Pic- its the best I can find. AFAIK, Orks grow individually, in these cocoons/wombs underground, which grow from mushrooms which grow from Ork spores.
They then emerge fully grown from these pits like Saruman's Urrukhai.

 Red Marine wrote:
I've often thought that it might though. Once an ork population hits a specific number there would be both Male and female orkish life born (spawned?). This would allow orks to breed in space where there is no natural biome to orkify. At the first iteration of orkiforming a planet, multiple genders and sexual reproduction would be a hindrance to establishing a foothold. Once orks had tipped the scales into their favor it could add a needed level of sophistication to their culture and more survival traits for their evolutionary tool box.

I kind of assumed that there is enough deep filth on Ork ships that sporing continues. Ork reproduction is effectively fire and forget, R selection, self nourishing wombs without the chicks attached to them, and allows Orks to reproduce without any effort spent consciously reproducing, feeding/guarding pregnant mates/egg clutches. Where Orks are successful, reproduction will happen and where they are unsuceessful, Ork reproduction may still happen.

What orks lack in high intellect, they make up for in low cunning.

Orks keeping human slaves has been lore since Rogue Trader. They would understand how to do so and the value in it if they needed them (ie were no longer on the move but establishing a base) and the well being of those slaves would likely be horrific, like something between prisoner of war and potential food source, unless as explained earlier, an individual proves a quick learner and useful (and in the right clan, a Blood Axe would see the wisdom in elevating that individual, perhaps a Bad Moon or Deffskull as well, but a Goff? Highly unlikely).

Grots would welcome the opportunity to have a permanent class below them and they are often a lot quicker thinking than orks and would be likely to sniff out escape attempts and vicious in the way the bullied can be in meting out suffering for it.

I also suspect (because the galaxy is a big place) that there's likely whole manufactorum worlds turned to producing useful items for the orks (metal alloys, ammunition, fuel etc) that are relatively unscathed but simply operate on the fear of the orks returning habitually and not finding their quota ready for them (a'la 7 Samurai).

 =Angel= wrote:

 Red Marine wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
Certainly the Diggas on Gorkamorka established a more productive relationship with the Orks in part because of their emulation of elements of Ork kulture.

Perhaps more worrying is that runtherds are already adept at selective breeding to make better grots and squigs... imagine if they applied this knowledge to create a race of brute, sub-human slaves. Maybe that's a bit too grimdark!

I don't think squigs and grots actually breed. As I recall all orkish life comes from a meter thick fungal mat under the ground. There is no natural selection or animal husbandry in the evolution of orkish existence.

]

Sorry about the quality of that Pic- its the best I can find. AFAIK, Orks grow individually, in these cocoons/wombs underground, which grow from mushrooms which grow from Ork spores.
They then emerge fully grown from these pits like Saruman's Urrukhai.

 Red Marine wrote:
I've often thought that it might though. Once an ork population hits a specific number there would be both Male and female orkish life born (spawned?). This would allow orks to breed in space where there is no natural biome to orkify. At the first iteration of orkiforming a planet, multiple genders and sexual reproduction would be a hindrance to establishing a foothold. Once orks had tipped the scales into their favor it could add a needed level of sophistication to their culture and more survival traits for their evolutionary tool box.

I kind of assumed that there is enough deep filth on Ork ships that sporing continues. Ork reproduction is effectively fire and forget, R selection, self nourishing wombs without the chicks attached to them, and allows Orks to reproduce without any effort spent consciously reproducing, feeding/guarding pregnant mates/egg clutches. Where Orks are successful, reproduction will happen and where they are unsuceessful, Ork reproduction may still happen.

Orks undoubtedly do all of their sexual reproduction in the mycelial phase and not when they are any kind of squig or boy. That’s the way almost every organism except for animals reproduce. Fungi of course can have two, or in some species more than two, not-quite-sexes called mating types. Plants all have alternating generations. Remember how sperm and eggs are genetically different from you, they only have half your genes? Imagine if instead of making lots of individual sperm cells that went directly to fertilization, a human’s sperm or egg grew into a little mini-human with circulatory and nervous systems, arms and legs, and could run around by itself until it met another sperm mini-human to have sex with, and regular humans themselves never actually had sex. That’s what plants do, except obviously none of them have arms and legs.

Anyway if fungal and plant life cycles are any guide the orks spore, the spores hit the ground and start digesting whatever they land on and growing, and when their growth brings them into contact with the growth from other spores, and that’s where they do genetic recombination through karyogamy. The fungi patches are big orgies for ork fungi. Ones the adult squigs snotlings gretchin and orks also poop on, in order to feed the fungus orgy. Like Angel said it’s much more efficient than having boy and girl orks.

Anyway I can’t see why Orks would bother to get other species closely involved in their society. What mean green stompa says makes much more sense. After they crush the military they’d get human societies to give them tribute, eg take over a world with a human ship yard, make the ship yard workers keep working they way they were, and kroozer-ify the final ships for Ork use.

pelicaniforce wrote:

Anyway I can’t see why Orks would bother to get other species closely involved in their society. What mean green stompa says makes much more sense. After they crush the military they’d get human societies to give them tribute, eg take over a world with a human ship yard, make the ship yard workers keep working they way they were, and kroozer-ify the final ships for Ork use.

While its true that they'd generally just use hoomies as an expendable resource, Orks are cultural thieves. From Imperial uniforms to language to the colour red, Orks seem to know a good idea when they see one and implement it. There are schools of thought within the Ork race of just how much of this is permissible.

The 1st/2nd ed orks were refluffed to represent Orks from the edge of Ork space, where cultural transmission with humans was at its maximum (Orks with plasmaguns and overalls and uniforms) whereas 3rd ed onwards 'Gorkamorka type' orks represented Orks from the core of their empires- more barbaric and hard than the softer fringe boyz.

My point is there's always room for an Ork warlord or minor chieftan who is impressed by some aspect of a defeated human culture/human people and wants to adopt that. Human soldiers that are dead shooty or have cool uniforms, or have mastered a form of warfare the Orks hadn't considered yet (HALO drops with heavy explosives and melee weapons?) may be taken on as conscripts, advisors or allies by an inspired Ork leader, at least until they've got what they wanted. Don't discount Orkish honour either- though faithless xenos they respect strength and may even feel some sense of obligation to the humies they've relied on for a long time. May.

The other factor is Ork individuality. Its easy to speak of Orks in broad terms, but more so than any other race, an Ork does what it wants, and what it wants may vary wildly, even if they tend towards violence.

pm713 wrote:
I like that idea a lot. Being a respected slave for Orks is probably better than a fair bit of the Imperium.

Real world Rome had whole classes of respected slaves who acted as advisors, managers, and technocrats.

 Frazzled wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I like that idea a lot. Being a respected slave for Orks is probably better than a fair bit of the Imperium.

Real world Rome had whole classes of respected slaves who acted as advisors, managers, and technocrats.

let's face it, in any conquest scenerio there are always collaborators who figure they can improve their lot in life by selling out their fellows.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I like that idea a lot. Being a respected slave for Orks is probably better than a fair bit of the Imperium.

Real world Rome had whole classes of respected slaves who acted as advisors, managers, and technocrats.

let's face it, in any conquest scenerio there are always collaborators who figure they can improve their lot in life by selling out their fellows.

Yep - look at Herman von Strab.