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It is in the thematic execution. Van Saar now looks more generic science fiction with shiny armor and energy shields. It does not look very debased and they look more high tech than the supposedly more high tech Adeptus Mechanicus and Skitarii. That is what I think the Van Saar should have been more like. Steampunk, gear punk, or Vostroyan like craftsmanship rather than the current appearance.

I mean they might have a damaged malfunctioning STC, but the degraded views on science in 40K mean the Van Saar can end up “beautifying” or decorating the original more stark utilitarian STC product to create the steampunk like contraptions.

Very good point. Some cruder-looking gear, tribal decor and superstitious amulets and trinkets would have tied them in better with the Age of Imperium for sure. I personally enjoy the different aesthetic since I'm an ardent fan of niche variation in styles, but it is undeniable that something more steampunk, cluttered and perhaps even ornate would have been more appropriate.

Perhaps this (preserved) very odd clean style is born out of slavishly imitating what Van Saar view as the true unadulterated classical style? Namely a period style slice of the long and varied Dark Age of Technology for which they happen to have a sufficient number of image records or intact manufacturing schematics. Sticking to it devoutly would mark their culture apart from other houses. It is still something of a stretch.

I for one personally still welcome it: I have little to no need whatsoever for other science fiction when cleaner styles get their slice in lovely 40k, as with stuff like Eldar, Tau, Men of Iron and Van Saar. I've found 40k's background and vision to be nothing short of superior for making an interesting science fantasy setting, and its main aesthetics (as with the Ad. Mech. or Inquisition) to be excellent. Cleaner styles in other sci-fi can look great, so when they get their niche in 40k that is both eating the cake, and keeping it.

Another thing worth remembering as far as the wider Imperium noticing what the Van Saar are up to - Lord Helmwar runs probably the biggest drug dealing operation in Segmentum Solar, with his exports of Ghast being the key foundation of his wealth. He has absolutely no intention of letting anyone with an Inquisitorial warrant anywhere near anything on Necromunda if he can help it, and is probably very, very nervous about the presence of the Imperial Fists and the Arbites.

beast_gts wrote:
Grav-tech has always existed - just some of it is rare. Marines have Land Speeders (and some have jetbikes), Inquisitors have jetbikes and other things (Ravenor's chair), Servo-skulls, etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoiler:

VanSaar have a mostly-functional STC so they can make almost anything, as long as the AdMech don't notice...

Except in crappy books by author that don't care about the lore do inquisitor (and civilian...) ride jetbikes. They are (at least were, when the fluff made sense) a lost technology, the fact the DA had ONE was a big point of interest.

 godardc wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
Grav-tech has always existed - just some of it is rare. Marines have Land Speeders (and some have jetbikes), Inquisitors have jetbikes and other things (Ravenor's chair), Servo-skulls, etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoiler:

VanSaar have a mostly-functional STC so they can make almost anything, as long as the AdMech don't notice...

Except in crappy books by author sthat don't care about the lore do inquisitor (and civilian...) ride jetbikes. They are (at least were, when the fluff made sense) a lost technology, the fact the DA had ONE was a big point of interest.

Well, kinda. That's more of a retcon itself.
When the fluff made sense, they were still pretty commonplace (guard regiments had them). 'Just one' of anything is weird, especially since the bike is somehow magically 'special,' but the fleet of land speeders next to it is not.

Graphite wrote:
Another thing worth remembering as far as the wider Imperium noticing what the Van Saar are up to - Lord Helmwar runs probably the biggest drug dealing operation in Segmentum Solar, with his exports of Ghast being the key foundation of his wealth. He has absolutely no intention of letting anyone with an Inquisitorial warrant anywhere near anything on Necromunda if he can help it, and is probably very, very nervous about the presence of the Imperial Fists and the Arbites.

Is that an RPG thing, with 'ghast' as some super special product? Because as governor, legality of drugs is frankly his business. As long as it doesn't interfere with the planetary tithes (include guard recruitment) or involve heresy, no one at the Imperium level cares.

Voss wrote:
Is that an RPG thing, with 'ghast' as some super special product? Because as governor, legality of drugs is frankly his business. As long as it doesn't interfere with the planetary tithes (include guard recruitment) or involve heresy, no one at the Imperium level cares.

Ghast can turn normal humans into psykers and make existing psykers even more powerful, which is why it's 'banned'.

You say retcon but the last (not the new one) DA codex states that DA have the only working jet bike and heavily implies they have a working STC for making new ones

mrFickle wrote:
You say retcon but the last (not the new one) DA codex states that DA have the only working jet bike and heavily implies they have a working STC for making new ones

Yeah? That's a retcon*. Once upon a time, jetbikes were a common vehicle available to _everybody_, in pretty much every army list.
Powerboards (the precusor to the van saar grav platform) were just a common piece of equipment.

*and also obviously wrong, since golden-banana-custard-boys have jetbikes out the wazoo.

...and if they have a working STC for making new ones, why in the world would they only have the one?

Voss wrote:


Yeah? That's a retcon*.

*and also obviously wrong, since golden-banana-custard-boys have jetbikes out the wazoo.

..and the custodians hadn't been seen outside of the Palace since the Heres, 10,000 years ago, at the time that old dark angels codex was written, years before the goldenboys were a playable 40k army.

Indeed, the custodians jetbikes are explicitly relics of the great crusades, of technology that is not available to the wider imperium.

Both of which feed into his position that grav tech wasn't common, but somehow its common enough that this random minor noble house has so much grqv tech it has GRAV SKATEBOARDS...

Again, it depends on performance and lift capacity, and required maintenance.

Note for another example that grav tech is handed out an masse to whole swathes of guard regiments in the form of 'grav-chutes'.
Yes, they let you 'fall safely' not 'fly' but they're issued to random grunts by the tens of thousands and are disposable.

Grav plates as a whole are not unknown, or even especially rare. Cherubim, servo skulls, starship deck plates.

High performance ones that let you build a bike that can carry a fully armoured custodian or astartes are.

Voss wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
You say retcon but the last (not the new one) DA codex states that DA have the only working jet bike and heavily implies they have a working STC for making new ones

Yeah? That's a retcon*. Once upon a time, jetbikes were a common vehicle available to _everybody_, in pretty much every army list.
Powerboards (the precusor to the van saar grav platform) were just a common piece of equipment.

This is it. I think people are looking for in-universe fluff reasons for why there are differences like this, but the reason is just much more pragmatic and mundane. It's down to Necromunda only having two iterations (three if you count Confrontation) and the previous version came out alongside 2nd edition 40k, when you still had Imperial Guard landspeeders, beastmen units, squat armies and other such (by modern standards) madness.

Excellent points made above; I entirely concur with the view there’s no essential reason Van Saar grav tech shouldn’t be thought of as an interesting exception to the Imperium’s technical baseline rather than a fluff inconsistency.

One extra thought: GW have never published the full text of the Treaty of Olympus Mons. It’s quite believable (and even thematically appropriate) that it could be full of loopholes and exceptions. A plausible one would be for the treaty to have covered only technical knowledge owned by The Imperium, but not by private entities. So if the Van Saar won’t sell their STC, and the Mechanicus can’t realistically invade Necromunda to seize it, then, much to the Cogboys’ undoubted chagrin, it stays where it is.

Nobody outside house Van Saar knows they've got it - and even then it's a "fragment of an ancient STC system"

According to the Book of Judgment section on Rogue Factoria, the Admech control all STC printouts on Necromunda, which are considered holy relics and representatives from the Admech will oversee the production of all goods.

However, there's levels of overseeing production. And the Admech doing the overseeing will likely be comparing what rolls off a production line with the spec - and is unlikely to be some high ranking Magos. They're not going to be looking for Hereteks.

And a look at the Van Saar STC printouts should prove that they are, indeed STC designs. And then it's just a just a matter of some bribery, threats and lies to make that Admech think that a printout is really ancient and something they have a right to - and would you like to take a copy to send back to your masters on Mars? Bright Cogboy like you could have a big future as someone who uncovered a lost STC printout. Don't worry about the radiation....

Also don't forget whilst the Van Saar are major in the underworld of Necromunda, they are nothing compared to the nobels of that very spire and all that is nothing to the Imperium. The Imperium is vast, its honestly beyond our comprehension to easily imagine just how staggeringly vast it is. How many worlds comprise it and how many admin and other layers are required to organise and police it.

The lore books we get provide a very rough overview of the whole setting; however its very possible for there to be huge variety within the lore as to what is actually happening in a particular system.



Eg the lore would suggest that no man would ever defy or plot against an Inquisitor; yet if you read the lore books there are many in positions of power willing to risk it even without the corruption of Chaos, to get one up on the Inquisition; or to hide something illicit or even to outright kill/dispose/lead into death just to get rid of them.



Van Saar having hoverboards is just not major enough; they aren't conducting major wars with them or rising up - heck at present they are fighting in the very filth and trash of a spire.

Rising up. Hoverboard. Good one

Also probably what they are mostly fighting in is the smoking and torn remains of muppets trying to fly in a highly enclosed space covered in rusty spikes

 Graphite wrote:
Nobody outside house Van Saar knows they've got it - and even then it's a "fragment of an ancient STC system"

According to the Book of Judgment section on Rogue Factoria, the Admech control all STC printouts on Necromunda, which are considered holy relics and representatives from the Admech will oversee the production of all goods.

However, there's levels of overseeing production. And the Admech doing the overseeing will likely be comparing what rolls off a production line with the spec - and is unlikely to be some high ranking Magos. They're not going to be looking for Hereteks.

And a look at the Van Saar STC printouts should prove that they are, indeed STC designs. And then it's just a just a matter of some bribery, threats and lies to make that Admech think that a printout is really ancient and something they have a right to - and would you like to take a copy to send back to your masters on Mars? Bright Cogboy like you could have a big future as someone who uncovered a lost STC printout. Don't worry about the radiation....

I can’t go with this I’m afraid. There is one level that the admech have and it’s total religious zealotry and control of technology. 2 space marines counts were made governors of their own systems for finding an STC with a lost design for a combat knife.

An STC with a currently unknown template in it, that works, would be worth the more than all the lives of necromunda and admech would happily take those lives for new STC’s

I came up in a 40K universe in which the imperium had lost the ability to recreate the current level of tech without the STC’s and if the STC’s were gone then they would be screwed.

I get that in all the imperium some clever people will be borne and start experiment and invent new things but the imperium, due to insane religious fanaticism, has put itself ina position where it can not invent and therefore will only accept new-old technology.

So if there’s even a bit of gossip that some dude in necromunda have an STC capable of pumping out tech then it wouldn’t be long before ad mech, or some other power hungry group, were on the trail.

The only firm retcon I have seen that might change this is Cawl, but he is from the days of the emperor so I think all his new inventions get a pass on a theological level.

I know there are about 1 million 40K books written by loads of different authors, each painting a separate picture and some of those will normalise grav tech but I don’t think that necessarily makes it cannon. The BL books will probably present a huge amount of contradictions.

Well, Monastery Of Death, by Charles Stross, published in Deathwing in _1990_ has an order of monks on some obscure planet with a fully operational STC which they successfully hide from the Admech.

They hand over the printout and hide the machine. Much like I suspect the Van Saar would.

This stuff being out there but the owners managing to hide it from the cogboys has been there from nearly the beginning.

(I've just looked this book out of my bookshelf. I didn't realise that story was written by Charlie Stross before, assuming that it's the now quite well known author)

mrFickle wrote:
So I’ve just seen a bunch of Van Saar gangers flying around on hover boards. Now I get the away from the prying eye of the imperium who knows what a mad genius migh come up with.

But considering anti grav or hover tech has only just been reintroduced by 10k old mega mind Cawl, does it really stand up that GW can inteoduce tech only really seen used by the ancient drukhari?

Do you think this microcosm of the 40K universe is running away with itself?

Imperium Military grav tech is rare - it not uncommon in the civilian world, often referenced in the novels esp for the rich.

but then civilian implementation of tech and miltiary is different.

You say retcon but the last (not the new one) DA codex states that DA have the only working jet bike and heavily implies they have a working STC for making new ones

This was part of the sad and seemingly unending attempts to make the super special Chapters soooo very different.

I like the necromunda lore. It has much more similarity with the Rogue Trader lore, where the IoM is not the Be All End All of Humanity. Which tbh sounds a lot more plausible than the BS of the more recent 40K rulebooks.. If IoM is notorious for corruption and incompetence, the rule of Terra can pretty much be considered a joke on the majority of colonized worlds. We as players and hobbyists know about Chaos, exterminatuses, inquisition etc but a basic pleb on some random planet has never heard of such things, or if has, considers them as little more than "Green men on planet Mars" bedtine stories used to scare children.

I've always thought of all 40K related lore to being "propagnda" of sorts, not some sort of 100% factual canon. Contradictions are just a tasty part of this. Heck, maybe the Van Saar's don't even really have an STC, they just like to pretend they do..?

Juves are small and lightweight things who love taking risks. Perhaps these gravboards would be too dangerous and low-powered for grownups to even use? And even then, there is no mention of range, ease of maintenance, robustness, any of that.. I'm personally not convinced these are STC designs, probably just some half-a$$ed hacking of suspensor tech.

Refractor fields used to be a thing in RT - these energy shields could be based on refractor field tech.