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So, Necron Warriors and Canopteks make up the majority of a Tomb World's population. As they are basically mindless and soulless, would it be possible for someone to sneak into an unawakened Tomb World, kill the Overlord and as many Lords as he can find, and take control of the Warriors and Canopteks?

I mean, getting through an entire tomb without setting off a single failsafe and getting yourself a one way ticket to a bloody death is a very difficult task. And then you have to take control of the necrons, who might just self detonate as another failsafe, but in theory it could be done.

 2BlackJack1 wrote:
I mean, getting through an entire tomb without setting off a single failsafe and getting yourself a one way ticket to a bloody death is a very difficult task. And then you have to take control of the necrons, who might just self detonate as another failsafe, but in theory it could be done.

I was thinking of some Psychic shenanigans. Perhaps the Tomb World suffered some kind of catastrophe that caused the Null Field Matrices to fail, or a native animal that feads on Necrodermis evolved, and has managed to cause system-wide damage that disabled the fail-safes.

Necrons are soulless automatons, but they do have a lot of subroutines. Entering a Tomb World triggers the defense protocols of anything in it, including Necrons and all defense systems the Tomb World has. There's more defense than just the regular army

On the other hand, that's one of the two weaknesses the Necrons have - Tomb Worlds. If you destroy a Tomb World, the entire "population" is gone. Forever. Destroyed. Every Necron of said Tomb World in the field that suffers critical damage will destroy itself and can no longer be repaired. At the same time, though, I guess that the C'tan would interfere if the Necron enemies (read: everyone but Tyranids) decided to large a full scale battle...which will not happen as the IoM vastly underestimates the Necron army and the threat it poses, it even purposefully spreads propaganda displaying Necrons in a much weaker light (i.e.: Codex: Necrons 5th).

The other weakness, of course, is The Warp as even the C'tan cannot manipulate or interfere with it. On the other hand, Necrons are immune to all non-material / non-kinetic Warp powers. Without souls, they cannot be manipulated in any way.

In the last codex there was reference to a tomb world where the tomb A.I. basically went haywire and subjugated the entire Necron populous. It started making its own dynasty of sorts and constantly raided the nearby planets iirc.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Necrons are soulless automatons, but they do have a lot of subroutines. Entering a Tomb World triggers the defense protocols of anything in it, including Necrons and all defense systems the Tomb World has. There's more defense than just the regular army

On the other hand, that's one of the two weaknesses the Necrons have - Tomb Worlds. If you destroy a Tomb World, the entire "population" is gone. Forever. Destroyed. Every Necron of said Tomb World in the field that suffers critical damage will destroy itself and can no longer be repaired. At the same time, though, I guess that the C'tan would interfere if the Necron enemies (read: everyone but Tyranids) decided to large a full scale battle...which will not happen as the IoM vastly underestimates the Necron army and the threat it poses, it even purposefully spreads propaganda displaying Necrons in a much weaker light (i.e.: Codex: Necrons 5th).

The other weakness, of course, is The Warp as even the C'tan cannot manipulate or interfere with it. On the other hand, Necrons are immune to all non-material / non-kinetic Warp powers. Without souls, they cannot be manipulated in any way.

Lack of a soul only makes them immune to telepathic powers, as they have been shown to be just as susceptible to pyromantic powers as well as kinetic ones.

Well, what you have to realise is that the Canopteks don't 'sleep' as such - the Necrons, down to the Warriors, are asleep or in stasis, but the Canoptek units don't shut down except when they themselves need maintenance.

Wraiths, Sentinels and Stalkers are constantly active, patrolling the interior of the Tomb Complex looking for intruders (Sentinels/Stalkers) and degradation/damage (wraiths), then calling on the other constructs to fix the issue as appropriate.

Your hypothetical reprogrammer would need high technology to cloak themselves from the guardians' sensors, as well as stealth skills to evade their search patterns.

Once he or she has got that down, however, yes - Hammer and Anvil actively shows Sautekh Crypteks reprogramming Atun dynasty Warriors.

I would think that anyone outside of another necron or someone with a lot of knowledge of their tech could do it. I would imagine that their computer language would be quite unlike anything man has.