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An ork friend of mine asked if I could post a question for him, since he doesn’t know how to use a computer (obviously). Feel free to post your replies in English, Imperial Gothic or, indeed, Orkish…



Oi! Dakka!

I got a cupple a kwestions for ya about da bestest race in all of da ooniverse…

Orkses!

Kwestion wun: On da very rare occasionz wen da Imperial panzies actually manage to beet us in kombat, do da ‘oomies take prisonaz? Woz wunderin’ if dey keep orkses for slaves, ‘ard labor or kunvertin’ inta servitaz? Or does dey just kill us, cos we is more trubble dan we is wurth?

Kwestion bee: Ur… I forgot. It’ll kum bak ta me. Just ansa da furst wun.

Laterz ‘oomies!

The only reason anyone would take an Ork prisoner is to experiment the crap out of him until he wasn't useful anymore.
Taking a xenos prisoner is an exception to the rule rather than the rule. The Imperium usually kills all xenos it finds... because they are xenos...

Unless under the orders of a much, much higher authority (think Inquisitor), allowing Xenos to live for any reason is unacceptable.

In Orkish? Uhh... gubbins? Sorry. I don't speak the language of filthy Xenos scum.

Well, Yarrick learned the Ork language from a captured Ork when he was younger, so it's possible, but rare.

I doubt the Imperium has trouble finding manual laborers. I don't think Orks would be worth the trouble since they would probably be starting fights every 10 minutes and somehow building working shootas out of rusty pipes and bits of scrap metal. Also, if you had any concentration of Orks in a slave camp or something then the spread of spores would probably get out of control.

Let's think here for a second...

1. A race that believes its their purpose in life is to crush all other races in warfare.
2. Can craft weapons of all kinds out of nothing but scrap, spit, and a prayer.
3. Reproduces by spores and any place infested will conitinue to see ork outbreaks for decades.

The Imperium is stupid, but even they arent THAT stupid

In FFG's Warhammer 40k RPG setting, there is an option for an Ork character, working as a mercenary for a Rogue Trader. I think in the description, there is a hint that the Ork's 'Waaagh! field' (what causes their violent behaviour) could be suppressed by simply separating the Orks from each other. So i guess a lone Ork should be pretty controllable and even friendly, as in the supplement where Orks appear, there is a rule for them to effectively "mob up" with humans.

Your all forgetting something important. The question of would an Ork stop fighting long enough to actually be taken prisoner?

The Imperium has so many billions of laborers to the point where they execute their own guys in combat. So capturing Orks, probably not. and that's only if they beat Da Waaagh!