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I'm but a mere RTS player, and haven't read any books on the topic, but only website stuff.

Orks when they'r feral are like stone age people, self sufficient but can't really tech up, so when they're advanced with tanks, bombs and bullets ..etc, they have immensely much metal, but it doesn't make sense, looting all that metal would be immensely difficult, thus easy for the Imperium and other races to defeat feral orks, I would imagine all 'dem feral Orks are just just snacks waiting to be eaten.

So the point is, don't they have tech allowing them to mine for metals? ..that would be very logical, in order to sustain a war effort.

'Teching up' in an RTS sense is known in the sane world as 'gibberish'.

Orks are a genetically-engineered superweapon created by the Old Ones, designed to be nigh-impossible to eradicate and able to come up with expertise in tech and warfare out of nowhere. Orks reproduce by spore, take root in desolate places quickly and easily, and are nigh-impossible to eradicate.

On the subject of raw materials we are talking about a setting where there are millennia-old hulks of space junk the size of continents floating randomly around the galaxy. There's a lot of lost pre-mined/worked material floating around.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
'On the subject of raw materials we are talking about a setting where there are millennia-old hulks of space junk the size of continents floating randomly around the galaxy. There's a lot of lost pre-mined/worked material floating around.

Some how I imagine it's easier to dig a few km, than fly long distance in space.

The more orks popping up out of the ground means more of the kid that has mek genetics. A meks technological aptitude is encoded in its dna and unlocked by waaagh! energy. As the or population grows so does the waaagh! energy and meks begin building bigger and louder stuff designed for war. Supporting this is the much more numerous grot's. They too are genetically encoded with talents and knowledge. Pretty much everything not specific to war. They are the orks slave race. They gather the resources, do the cooking, build the structures etc.. They actually pop out of the ground before orks and instinctively build a shabby town ready and waiting for the orks (including the fact that squigs and snotlings have already been popping out of the ground before the grots providing a food source) . This allows the orks more time to swagger about and get into fights. As mentioned the entire species and subspecies is a genetically engineered super weapon. An intergalactic super fungus whose seeds get up on its two legs to wage war for more territory.

Well, half of the problem of Orks is that to support their war footing, they strip mine and pollute every area they conquer, so even when territory is reclaimed, it's wrecked. The early stages of an Ork Waagh would be them capturing local resources, weapons and vehicles and stipping them down for their own uses. When they have enough space for a breather, the mining probably immediately starts.

HexHammer wrote:
So the point is, don't they have tech allowing them to mine for metals? ..that would be very logical, in order to sustain a war effort.

If you ever read any of the novels then I highly recommend Imperial Glory by Richard Williams. Other than being a great novel just anyway, it describes perfectly the life cycle and character of newly emergent 'feral' orks.

Orks don't spontaneously generate on a planet, they arrive in ships or by teleporta or some other means. Back in Rogue Trader days orks were marsupial-like creatures that would go off into the wilderness when they got old and produce a young ork. Eventually mobs of such orks would be rounded up by the local boss. Since GorkaMorka introduced the idea of orks reproducing via spores the process is much simpler but essentially produces the same result with spores drifting away to form scattered communities of feral orks.

The first stage in the lifecycle of the fungi that orkoid organisms grow from is squigs and snotlings. Snotlings have a predisposition to cultivate and manage fungi and squigs creating more and more spores and slowly colonising an area. Once this has gone on enough eventually there comes Gretchin (Grots) and then finally orks.

In the novel Imperial Glory this process is kickstarted by an ork rok crashing onto a planet. All the orks inside are killed but spores are released and the process begins. Eventually the feral orks are able to use material scavenged from the rok but initially they use tools made from tree sized fungi, actually trees and bones.

Orks have knowledge encoded into their DNA by the ancient Brain Boyz, a caste of orks that no-longer exist. These super intelligent orks actually came from snotlings eating a mind expanding fungus which no longer exists, hence why they are just mindless snotlings in the 41st Millennium. This encoded knowledge allows orks to build all manner of tools and once the society gets advanced enough some orks will start to show more advanced technical aptitudes and Mekaniaks (Meks) start to build more advanced weapons and machines. Orks obviously loot the technology of other races and will also use slaves (sometimes they even pay for stuff or at least promise not to krump anyone too hard so long as they do what the orks want) to build more advanced weapons and machines for them.

Contradicting Ork fluff?

Supposed to be well ard, nigh indestructable giant pilz o green.
Get killed by everything.

The idea of orks being spore based is older than GorkaMorka.
Theyre more mold based than fungi, at least going by the last few beast books

This can easily be explained

WE DAH ORKSIZ! WE KILL DAH "UMMIES! DONT NEED NO GAKKING FUFF OR 'ORE FOR US TO MAKE SENSES!

HexHammer wrote:
I'm but a mere RTS player, and haven't read any books on the topic, but only website stuff.

Orks when they'r feral are like stone age people, self sufficient but can't really tech up, so when they're advanced with tanks, bombs and bullets ..etc, they have immensely much metal, but it doesn't make sense, looting all that metal would be immensely difficult, thus easy for the Imperium and other races to defeat feral orks, I would imagine all 'dem feral Orks are just just snacks waiting to be eaten.

So the point is, don't they have tech allowing them to mine for metals? ..that would be very logical, in order to sustain a war effort.

Good on you for figuring out that the logistics of this are wacko. But there's reason to the madness! First, Orks DO possess said technology, but are so warlike that as soon as one group starts tech'ing up, the other clans will beat the piss out of 'em or the tribe itself will devolve into infighting. Orks need Mek Boyz to start making stuff for them. To the Orks, the Mek Boyz... they a little weird - not true Orks. So they ain't worth beatin's up. Let dem make stuff, den steal it! HAR HAR HAR! Hey... why me talk'in all Ork-like? Time ta see da doc!


...

Sorry about that. Anyways, Orks will leave a Mek Boy alone to build all their things, but Mek Boyz won't come along until an Ork sees some impressive technology and starts... getting ideas. They see and imagine giant metal footsteps crushing their foes like the Ork Gods, and that's what they want. They start doing anything to achieve that goal, and that includes mining. Orks will emulate the technology of those they fight, but if all they fight are other spear-tossing boyz, well, their technology will pretty much be "bigger boarz, bigger spearz, sharper points!".

Now, there's also the fact that Orks are innately psychic, to the point that most of their gear doesn't work unless it's in the hands of an Ork. The Orks don't realize this though. So, it might not make sense that they can rip the metal off a car door, grab a pipe, wrap it all up with string, and pour Squig Dung down the pipe to make a gun... but it works for them! This is why they can loot so effectively - they don't have to worry about quality. They really CAN just bolt together a bunch of other pieces of things, and it will function just as well as a real thing.

I seen sum shipin pallets
I turndem into prety flowa boxes
i iz a clever git

I think the Ork cycle is basically like this.

1. Spores start sprouting squigs and snotlings
2. Grots start appearing and preparing the way for da boyz
3. Orks start appearing and they develop their feral/tribal society
4. Orks fight and fight until a major Warboss starts to become dominant
5. As the Ork "society" grows and the Warboss continues to establish dominance, so does the inspiration for the Meks to make more techy things.
6. Orks start to WAAAGH! to take over whatever planet they are on.
7. Orks conquer the planet and the Meks are hard at work building the means to take to the stars and bring the WAAAGH to other planets and star systems.

Orks in their more primitive stage use things like giant squigs, raw strength, looting (if available), and a lot of broken grot backs to gather the resources they need to make their stuff. As they become more powerful they start replacing the giant squigs with machines and raw strength with even more back breaking labor for the grots and any slaves they acquired in their conquests.

the ancient wrote:
The idea of orks being spore based is older than GorkaMorka.

Interesting. Do you have a source for this?