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 Overread wrote:
Depends where the eye is. Eye on the back of your head so you've a wider angle of view means you can watch your own back when in the thick of battle. What better way to bathe yourself in blood and gain more Skulls for the Skull Throne than to have that eye in the back of your head!

Assuming it also comes with neurological rewiring. Otherwise it’s just gonna confuse you.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Depends where the eye is. Eye on the back of your head so you've a wider angle of view means you can watch your own back when in the thick of battle. What better way to bathe yourself in blood and gain more Skulls for the Skull Throne than to have that eye in the back of your head!

Assuming it also comes with neurological rewiring. Otherwise it’s just gonna confuse you.

Oh true! The eye might not give you any more vision! You might just have an annoying voice in your head telling you about things that might be behind you or might not be. Or could be behind you in 5 out of 10 different multiverse impressions of the future and thus you might want to turn around, but you might also be in one of the5 where they aren't behind you

I think the required neurological rewriting has to be a given wether it’s a third eye or a crab claw for a hand otherwise non of these mutations would work.

Aren’t some of these mutations also because of the presence of a demon in the body, so perhaps the demon could control the mutations?

Believe it or not, there is somewhat of a parallel to real life religion here. Namely, the "Problem of Evil".

Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? Well, there are many explanations but a popular one is that Free Will can only exist in a universe where a certain degree a randomness is present. Without the possibility that bad things can occur, we would not be able to choose to do good.

And that is what Chaos is really. Freedom. Possibility. Randomness.

Chaos can only grant you immortality because it also can turn you into a Spawn. Personally, I tend to take the interpretation that whether inviting the Warp into yourself ends up as a boon or a curse depends on the character of the individual more so than the whims of the Gods. Many weak willed people turn to Chaos as a quick fix solution to their problems, or a fast track to power, only to have it destroy them as a result. All their devotions fall flat because they were never really "Chaos Champion" material to begin with.

mrFickle wrote:
I think the required neurological rewriting has to be a given wether it’s a third eye or a crab claw for a hand otherwise non of these mutations would work.

Aren’t some of these mutations also because of the presence of a demon in the body, so perhaps the demon could control the mutations?

Yeah. Rule of cool seems to cause most mutations to be usable/not vestigial. There are probably exceptions (especially in the case of random background cultists), but there's a good chance that a given newly-mutated body part will function. Now, whether or not the cultist can control what his new crab claw does or where his new eye stalks look is a bit less predictable.

We actually get a rare scene from the perspective of a daemon (possessing a body?) in one of the Arbiter Calpurnia stories. The daemon does seem to have control over the shape its body takes. However, it has to maintain a careful balancing act. If its body becomes too nonsensical, reality will throw an error and presumably destroy/banish the daemon. It seems to be able to make the body move in defiance of the laws of physics, but defying physics uses up some of its strength/energy. So like, walking forward using the muscles and tendons of legs is presumably less exhausting (though maybe more frustrating) for the daemon than a weirder form of locomotion would be. If you shoot the legs thus destroying the physical mechanisms for movement, the daemon can keep the body going by basically puppeting the body or defying physics, but that uses up some of its energy. Thus why shooting the daemon that can survive seemingly-deadly injuries over and over might eventually work: you're making it spend the strength it needs to keep the body moving.

Bit of a tangent there. My point being that yes, daemons do seem to have a fair bit of control over their host's mutations. Though the level of control might vary as it seems like practice/experience is needed to avoid making the body so nonsensical that you run out of strength to pilot it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Assuming it also comes with neurological rewiring. Otherwise it’s just gonna confuse you.

Eh, I'd assume the mutations are infused with warp stuff so they are directly connected to your mind, and you control them using willpower rather than nerves. Or rather, the 'nerves' are mental rather than physical. It's the only way to handwave some of the dumber stuff working when it has no right to.

Which is coincidentally why I find Fall of Cadia description so stupid. Cawl disabling the warp with Pylons should have obliterated the whole chaos army (that suddenly finds itself with its power, mutations, and strings cut) which would also give the Abaddon the logical reason to sacrifice his most precious weapon in last die roll now that he can't win on the ground. But no, for some idiotic and suspension breaking reason chaos army was mostly unaffected and it's the Imperial soldiers who lost all faith and morale when the main weapon of the enemy was turned off, and Armless is just a moron who crashed BSF when he started to win big on the planet, go figure

Kind of yes and no I think.

Whilst I think you’re probably on the money about the warp stuff doing more than just popping an eye somewhere, instead ensuring it also warps the owner to the point that, at very least, it’s not disorientating.

But needing the Warp to keep said mutations around I don’t agree with. Yes switching on Pylons would reduce any which focus the warp (such as a Navigator’s third eye blast thing), anything else is still gonna be in place.

But that's the thing - while third eye is debatable, even though it would require not just extra nerve connection, but wholesale redo of vision centers as they are only compatible with two eyes*, but then you have mutations like iron skin (or being fused with armor) that would become just solid chunks of metal without warp moving them. Bolt shells that rely on chaotic inscriptions to explode with unholy power? Suddenly, just metal slugs. Tank that uses bound daemon to load and aim cannon? Suddenly inert pipe. Unholy magical sword? Suddenly dull piece of scrap. They use warp all the time to avoid pesky things like logistics or lack of resources to catch up to them, why none of it was shown?

Etc, etc, chaos stuff has so many failure points that should stop working when you turn warp off the whole army should be pretty much finished. That crazed super strong cultist oblivious to wounds? Is now just regular dude with rusty axe that stopped flaming, magic high in his system gone, standing against finest Imperial troopers that suddenly can reap disoriented and weakened enemies that show no supernatural stuff they did seconds ago. His wounds no longer close and heal as he kills, he is no longer fearless - he just stands there suddenly confused, disgusted and afraid before some Cadian snipes him. In what universe enemy army suddenly collapsing would weaken the other side (that doesn't rely on warp for anything) more?

*here is a fun fact - thanks to shoddy evolution, we still have vestigial vision center for third eye (and indeed some animals sometimes grow vestigial one thanks to mutations). We also have eye connections backwards (left one connected to right vision center and vice versa, and our brains actually waste computing power all the time to reverse it). So, third eye is still kinda sorta believable, but say extra set of arms or a tentacle should be well beyond what out brains can adapt to no matter how you slice it.

"Needing" The Warp might vary mutation to mutation. I'm sure some mutations can function purely at the physical level.

Other mutations might be physic driven and thus require the warp to function or to function fully. Some might have few to no side effects if cut off; others might cause huge problems.


You could justifiably argue that an experienced warfleet on the offensive could be comprised mostly of those Chaos Warriors who could function without the Warp if need-be.