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This book is fantastic.  I'm only about a third of the way through it, and there seem to be lots of hidden goodies about the various alien races and their relations to each other.  I feel like I've been able to make most of the connections, but when the book goes into detail about the Q'orl I haven't been able to determine exactly what is going on. 

Does the Magos suggest that the Q'orl and the Vespid are related?  There is a map of the galaxy detailing the Q'orl hive empire and the location of the Tau empire, and a little bit of text saying that since the Q'orl are so far away, of course they haven't met yet and made the connection (although he never mentions the Tau as being the race that is so far away, and we have to assume the Vespid live within the Tau empire).

What is the Eldar role in stealing a Q'orl hive queen?  The race that the Inquisitor believes stole the queen wants to breed Q'orl that are resistant to Chaos (Nurgle?).  I don't know how the Eldar, or anyone for that matter, has made progress on this in any other fiction.

I'm sure there is a lot more to this book that I haven't read yet, but I just finished the section on Q'orl this morning and had to get others' thoughts on it.

- Oaka

Spoiler Warning!  I'll make the text white so that you have to highlight it to read it.

Reading further in the book, the evidence suggests that the Eldar took the Q'orl queen to use her pheremone generators to imbed in the foreheads of the Tau Ethereals so that they control the other Tau.  Commander Farsight is mentioned too.

Keep reading, it's a great book!

sounds great. but I can't afford it.
would you Guys like to tell me interesting Orc Fluff?
please.

Sure,

So this one time, at ork camp...

WIKI

Does the book mention what color Tau blood is? Red or blue?

The Tau Empire codex says it's bluish, due to cobalt being the oxygen bearing agent. Some crabs have blue blood.

Xenology is available from Amazon.co.uk for under £10.

I just finished it and I have to give it up for being probably the best 40k book of fiction in a long time and easily the best "background" book ever.

Iorek, I gotta question:


****SPOILER WARNING****






How did you make that connection between the Q'orl queen and the Tau? It makes perfect sense now that you say it, but I didn't see any hint of that in the book.

There is so much other sneaky goodness in that book, and a great little narrative to boot!

Yakface:

****SPOILERS!!****

























Two things tipped me off:
1.  The Eldar took the Q'orl queen with pheremone diamond-organs.
2.  During the Tau autopsy, the Magos talked about the diamond-shaped organ in the forehead of the ethereal being very familiar, but he couldn't place where he'd seen it before.

Hope this clears it up!

The race that the Inquisitor believes stole the queen wants to breed Q'orl that are resistant to Chaos (Nurgle?).

1. The Eldar took the Q'orl queen with pheremone diamond-organs.
2. During the Tau autopsy, the Magos talked about the diamond-shaped organ in the forehead of the ethereal being very familiar, but he couldn't place where he'd seen it before.

So sinister and cynical use of the ethereals to control the tau, or genuine good intentions to create a race resistant to chaos?
Discuss...

Heh, I wouldn't call them good intentions.  Selfish intentions, really.  The Eldar know that they are dying, so they're creating a race that can fight Chaos long after the Eldar are gone.  Think of them as the Grandchildren of the Old Ones; they're just a tool.

That's right, Tau players, I called the Tau "a tool".   Tool.

Heh.

hey, Orks were tools of the ancients too. but now they're out there having fun fighting every lifeform which just looks at them the wrong way.
but how does that interact with the Tau Fluff from the Codex where Tau were fighting each other to the death until the etherals showed up?

Let's discuss that "tablet" presented at the end of the book (and some other random stuff brought up by the book).

1) It is clear that the "old ones" are the Slaan. But are they the Slaan we know and love from Rogue Trader? Are they Frogs? Are they physical beings at all, or are they more like some sort of gods? If they are physical beings were they just some super smart race that genetically created and seeded worlds with their created races?

2) The book seems to hint that one Slaan escaped into the warp. Is this the same as the Eldar's Laughing God or another one? Also, the fluff from the book (from the "orb" autopsy) seems to indicate that one of the gods/slann who hid in the warp was then cut into a million pieces which are what the orbs are (manifestations of this god protruding into this realm). Anyone have any ideas/theories about this?

3) It looks to me like that tablet tries to point out that Tyranids were created by the Old ones/Slann. This is confusing because the Tyranids were always portrayed as an extra-galatical race. Did the Slaan/Old ones influence extend into other galaxies?

4) Also, what do you think that added section of the tablet means? It cleary shows that humanity will populate the stars, but why humanity? Were they just the chosen of the Old ones? Is there something else about the tablet I'm missing?


Discuss amongst yourselves.

This is a good book by the way. I havent had so much excitement reading fluff since the necron codex.

1) I dont think they are the same being exactly as presented in RT. Eldar have taken up most of their descriptions in latter editions. (i.e. warpath etc.). I am sure that they were corporeal beings at one time, but this book suggests that they were all "...killed-away. Killed, she says, all but one", who fled into the warp "when he's done his work". In many ways, the eldar have taken the place of the old ones. The evidence that the kroot have taken to conciously form their evolution after the ork race, then they manipulate the tau race to control what the old ones have lost control of in the past. The krork. The sins of the father seem to be the sins of the progeny in this case.

2) I doubt that it is the laughing god, quite strongly. The same parchment from inquisitor ralei states: "Then She's born in the longear's brains, see, and she laughs out loud and chops him a million times, and kicks the shards out into the cold. To linger, she says. To linger like always..." I think it is plain that she is what the eldar had created, Slaanesh. She finds this lost creator of her creators and relishes this fact. The luscious irony. Her motive "to linger" makes no sense to me though. Perhaps she cannot kill the slaan? or perhaps this is a sort of torture that suits her better? Still, it makes no sense to me.

3-4) I count 11 orbs, of which within each one I assume is a race they have created, directly. Now to these orbs, are attached some sort of "umbilical" I assume. These 11 orbs are directly above the slaan, 5 umbilicals connect to them, while two more veer away. One towards the race of man (which is depicted as an unborn child, while the other have no such symbolism) and one towards that actors mask, which is framed in a web. This a rather ominous meaning, because I am sure this is concerning what they created. The actors mask i take to mean the laughing god, who from what I understand is the C'tan. I dont find it so unbelievable to think that the tyranids were the creation of the slaan. Even if they were extragalactic. I think of the slaan in the milky way as depicted in RT, as a young beings, placed there to be tested from a much larger universe.

While I don't have the book, I've been following the discussion on that tablet with some interest. I'm curious to know why you (Yakface) think that it shows that humanity will populate the stars.

Something I'd heard tossed around was that the 'lingering' thing became the Umbra.

Note that the mask is portrayed in the same way that the fetus is. Couldn't this indicate that the two things are somehow similar? The mask, it would seem, is Cegorach, while the fetus could well be Ynnead.

I don't have the book on me to really comment on your stuff Hellfury, but I will later. . .


@Gotchaye: The little picture of the human fetus has a bunch of arrows pointing out from the fetus to a bunch of little dark circles. It looks to me like humanity spreading out to new worlds, but I could be wrong.

Hrmm about something you said Hellfury.

The Laughing God a C'tan? I'm afraid I have not read Xenology, but from what I understand in both the Necron Codex and the fics posted on the UK Necron site (check it out, three cool short stories, including one about the Laughing God), the god of the Harlequins/Laughing God was just one of the Eldar Pantheon, one who decieved 'The Outsider' (one of the four C'tan who survived into the 40th millenium), into slaying MANY of it's fellows, which eventually drove it mad (If you know Vampire: The Masquerade, then it seems to equate to diablerie, in that you drink in the person's soul as well, and the Outsider had a lot of powerful minds in his body who drove him bonkers). Also in the Necron Codex, it is said that the C'tan were created before even worlds coalesced, meaning they came before physical beings (aka the Old Ones), and the Necrontyr were one of the first races, growing up at the same time as the Old Ones (and thusly follows the war of the Ancients... read the codex heh).

Thanks for the discussion folks, makes me really wanna get the book heh.

So you dont see any relation about the hinting of the laughing god deceiving the other C'tan, and the obvious remarks made about how the deciever did the same thing?

Interesting.

Your post hasnt changed my mind one iota as to the relation of Mephet'ran/deciever and the laughing god. From what I understand, they are one and the same.

I have to agree with yak on the human interpretation on the tablet, but your view on that matter, gotchaye, is rather thought provoking.

Any idea if it is possible to model an Umbra?
The artwork and text make it seem like a highly deadly substance.
But its true that Xeno was a book that i dont regret anymore buying( i wanted it for the artwork.got dissapointed.then i read it )
Was the Inq. mentioned anywhere else (books,codexes,tabletop) cause the name is very familiar?
oh and where was the Necron hiding?Optical cammo or what?

I'm fairly sure that based on the description, the Necron was dormant in some part of room 1, and probably just looked like a skeleton or a "broken toy" to anyone who hadn't seen one before.

Then, once the Lord was satisfied and activated the Monolith, the Necron in the cell powered on. (Since the entire "facility" seems to have been the top floors of a monolith in disguise, I suppose it could have been ported in as well, but it seems like the warrior had been in there for awhile by the way the Magos was talking about him.)

Love this book - definently been worth the money.

I dont see any reason in the world it wouldnt be possible to model and umbra. A simple round bead on a flying stand, painted in translucent colors would be more than appropriate.

On the Umbra: That color drawing depict crazy claws and mouths attacking guardsmen. I think if they were to make models of the Umbra, that is how they would be made, i.e. in their "combat" form.


Some more musings on the tablet (and some comments back towards Hellfury):

First off, I don't think the Laughing God is the Deciever. The Laughing God is portrayed as a Slann/Old one survivor trapped in the webway. Since the Slann/Old ones fought against the Necrons/C'Tan I don't see how they could be one and the same, even if the Deciever did help trap the Oustider (IIRC).


Now here's another question for you. The middle panel in the tablet (next to the Laughing God) is crossed out, and the note written by the Inquistor says that it shows a bloody claw slashed to pieces. This is obviously the old Eldar god Khaine who was destroyed and cast into a million pieces. But does this have anything to do with the Umbra? The Umbra's description is that an Old one escaped into the warp but then was destroyed by Slaanesh and cast out into a million pieces into the galaxy.

Doesn't this sound oddly familiar to the tale of the Eldar god Khaine and the creation of the Avatar. Wasn't Khaine supposedly bested by Slaanesh, destroyed and cast into a million pieces, which are represented by the Avatars on Craftworlds?

These two tales seem too eeirly similar to have no connection. But what connection could the Umbra possibly have to the Avatar?


If we take all these tales as seperate instances, it seems like 3 old ones/slaan survived the fall. You have the Laughing God trapped in the web way, you have Khaine(the bloody-handed god) that was chopped up (as shown in the tablet), and you have another unknown Old one/Slaan who also escaped into the warp only to be destroyed by Slaanesh and cast out into our realm in the form of the Umbra.


Another question: Why is the human fetus on the same "tier" as the other two Old ones/Slaan that survived the battle with the C'Tan/Necrons? The Inquisitors notes say that the fourth tier (with the Laughing God/chopped up Khaine/and the human fetus) are "shadowy creators who survived the war. The boxes would seem to indicate that they are instead imprisoned (either by their enemies, or within physical forms they have adpoted".

So if the human fetus actually represents an Old one who survived the war but is imprisoned in his physical form, is this the Emperor? Is the Emperor a mansifestation of an Old one? If so, this would seem to change the old fluff (in the realms of Chaos books) that the Emperor was created by a mass suicide and reincarnation of old earth shamans.


Also, does anyone have any guesses as to what the fifth tier that is missing of the tablet might hold? The only thing I can make out of it are some wavy lines on the very right of the tablet, that looks like a river, or a representation of wind. . .

Dammit, Yakface, you need to live closer. I'd love to discuss this over a pint.

I think that the fetus is actually on the fifth tier.  If you look below it, you can see the upper-left hand corner or the third Old One's Prison (right next to the mysterious figure).  I believe that what is in the third "box" that you can't see is the Eldar's Shadowgod, still represented in Eldar culture by the Harlequin Shadowseer.  This fits with how the Umbra need shadow to operate (heh, finally something that's vulnerable to lasguns!); I don't think Khaine's remnants would behave that way (and he's got his avatars anyway).

!

OK, looking closer at the missing fragment, I get the following interpretation:

The figure is the Emperor, and the ball to his right is Earth.  It's through him that humanity (the fetus) is allowed to venture forth to other planets/stars.  It seems also that this is the only place on the tablet that the fourth tier transitions to the fifth tier (everything else is blocked by the prisons).  A pity it doesn't show the Emperor's relationship to lower tiers.

Food for thought.

I agree that the fetus is on the fifth tier.  The fourth tier has three figures, two of which have been imprisoned.  The laughing god on the right is trapped in the webway, Khaine in the middle is trapped in his avatar forms, but the very left figure has escaped its imprisonment, as the top boundary is open as if it has been released.  I think that this third figure is, in fact, the emperor, and is an old one that was 'reborn' as the human fetus and the emperor form that we all know.  I get the idea of a rebirth because if the tablet just meant for the figure to create humanity then they would have had a sketch of humanity rather than a fetus complete with umbilical cord.  My prediction for the fifth tier is that the old one in human form as the emperor is fighting amongst the stars against an unknown force that is only represented by the wavy lines on the far right side of the tablet.

It really makes you think.

As an aside, I'm having difficulty recognizing the races on the second tier.  Can anyone give me insight as to which race is which, from left to right?  If you're really good, can you include the ones in the background that are partially obscured?

- Oaka

One of them is Orks, and I think the one on the left is a Jokaero.  That's all I can come up with right now.

Now here's another question for you. The middle panel in the tablet (next to the Laughing God) is crossed out, and the note written by the Inquistor says that it shows a bloody claw slashed to pieces. This is obviously the old Eldar god Khaine who was destroyed and cast into a million pieces. But does this have anything to do with the Umbra? The Umbra's description is that an Old one escaped into the warp but then was destroyed by Slaanesh and cast out into a million pieces into the galaxy.

Doesn't this sound oddly familiar to the tale of the Eldar god Khaine and the creation of the Avatar. Wasn't Khaine supposedly bested by Slaanesh, destroyed and cast into a million pieces, which are represented by the Avatars on Craftworlds?

These two tales seem too eeirly similar to have no connection. But what connection could the Umbra possibly have to the Avatar?

I like and prefer that line of thinking, but in a white dwarf article during the time of the release of the necron codex, they had a story that was somewhat askewed version of this.

It was a story about Vaul creating one hundred swords to kill kaelis Ra (Nightbringer) but they failed, so khaine went to battle with the nightbringer and was destroyed by kaelis ra.

Because of this, I dont know how to logically explain how the myth of the umbra would proceed. I do prefer the traditional approach as in your interpretation, but I am on the fence because so much of the 40k 'verse is being rewritten in a more coherent manner nowadays. I will do my best to find the issue I speak of so that you may atleast persue this for yourself.

My first take on the missing fragment was... The starchild. (shows how much I am immersed in the older traditional mythology of the 40k 'verse. I dont believe it to be the starchild, but that was my first impression.

OK, lets get a basis to found some thoughts on. This is how I base my observations on this tablet anyways. The slaan/ lizardmen use a very azte/mayan feel to their hieroglyphs. With that in mind, I go back to what I studied in anthropology in college. Aztec and mayan symobolism used what alot of people presume to be "alien" in nature. This fits very well with the 40k strata.

aztec


mayan


Ok, I think we are all in agreeance here on the sybolism. Now, I dont presume GW fiction writers to have doctorates in this field, but I am sure they have a very loose grasp on the basis of the symbolism, and how to manipulate it to be properly profound and vague. My take on the fifth tier is the fetus on the left, surrounded by a star field. Now whats right of that? Wavy lines, but not just any wavy lines, they are jagged, like what is used to symbolize electricity, or power. Perhaps this signifies the warp? Or perhaps its the tail end of a comet that is obscured... Signifying the time of something very portentious. Mayans love to use celestial objects in their pictographs, being the calender loving freaks they were.

First off, I don't think the Laughing God is the Deciever. The Laughing God is portrayed as a Slann/Old one survivor trapped in the webway. Since the Slann/Old ones fought against the Necrons/C'Tan I don't see how they could be one and the same, even if the Deciever did help trap the Oustider (IIRC).

I think its a tough call, as there is evidence as to their being the same being, at least in hints that can only be assumed. but then again, the elder gods are things of the immaterium, which is anathema to the C'tan, so they might very well be two seperate entities. Both of these aspects are tricksters and deceivers though, so the truth may never be known.

There are so many changes to the fluff in the past 5 years that it is hard to discern anything of use. But this book sure is fun for debating the nerdier aspects of this hobby.

As an aside, I'm having difficulty recognizing the races on the second tier. Can anyone give me insight as to which race is which, from left to right? If you're really good, can you include the ones in the background that are partially obscured?

OK Ill bite.

front row, left to right:
Very simian anthrpomorph, Krork? Reptilian , lizardmen? Pointy eard skinny anthropomorph, elves? Pointy eared, jutting lower jaw, Krork?

jeez, I wish I could sit and have a beer with Simon Spurrier about this crap....

Posted By Hellfury on 04/16/2006 8:27 PM

front row, left to right:
Very simian anthrpomorph, Krork?

 

Jokaero?

Can I politely steer you away from getting into any GW fluff discussion very deeply. If you do work it all out, and some writers for Gw are very good and leave deep clues in the background it will all be for nothing.

Sooner or later some monkey in the GW studio, and they have many to choose from, will find that to give some fluff behind a new unit or to back up one of their stupid rules they need to rewrite something:

Do not be suprised if the ethereals are pawns of the Deceiver/ Tau crossbred with recovered ork brainboy DNA/ Farseers in disguise.

If you get it all figured out it will just annoy you more the next time the Pete Haines replacement has a great idea for a few minutes and changes canon to open more holes in continual reality than a salvo of vortex bombs could ever do.

Huh?  Are we still talking about this?  ~chuckle~

Just ribbin' ya, Orlanth.

yay, the return of the Brainboyz. NOW Orks can be organized enough too conquer the galaxy