Inquisitorial Report - Orkish Cultivation
It is a well-known fact that, save the Eldar, the Cultivation of xenos differs greatly from that of humanity. Their physiology is distinct even in cases of fellow bipedal mammalians. Their souls are fundamentally different, and not just because their cultures are different as a result of their physiologies. One of the most common points of study in this regard is the Ork. One of humanity's most common foes, one that has plagued it since before the Age of Strife if our records are correct, most probably since before Dark Age in all honesty. They're incredibly difficult to root out at the best of times, and the best of times have not been witnessed since the Horus Heresy.
Let us begin with a brief overview of their bodies. One might believe that the common greenskin is what an Ork is. They are, after all, commonly referred to as Orks, the large, simpleminded(not stupid, merely very focused on combat three-quarters of the time) brutes with red eyes and green skin, as opposed to the fleshy balls of teeth in the Squigs or the willowy but cruelly intelligent Gretchin. This is not
wrong, strictly speaking, but rather than viewing them as disparate organisms, it would be more accurate to view them akin to the microbiomes within the intestinal tract of mortals. They do not exist within a vacuum. Instead, they are a slew of related organisms that influence their environment to be more accommodating. It should be noted that the physical and spiritual development of Orkoids are closely linked well beyond any other known species. One certainly influences the other in humans, but with Orks they are synonymous for all intents and purposes.
First of the Orkoids to emerge are the lichen and mushrooms, the food for the early Orkoids and the 'flowers' of their embryos. They often resemble common fungi at a glance, making them difficult for mortals to detect, though the aggressive nature of all Orkoids can be of use here, and they cannot hide from Akashic Arts, nor do they usually bother. The first Orkoids to emerge are always the Gretchin in their juvenile Snotling form, their equivalent to the Yoof stage of the Ork. They will begin caretaking the funguses and the emerging Squigs until the familiar Orks begin emerging. From here, internecine conflict will begin as Orks begin seeking to establish dominance. While for the longest time it was believed that this was considered a mark of idiocy as they killed each other more often than the Imperium did, there does seem to be a logic to it. That is, survival of the fittest. It is well-known that the biggest, toughest, strongest Ork will take on leadership sooner or later. They begin jockeying for the position the moment there are two Orks in the same area, though they are largely content to serve under a Boss, as they tend to call any Ork higher-ranked than them, who regularly wins and provides them with fights. Should they lose in a manner they survive even two or three times in a row, they can expect challenges from their underlings, sometimes before the battle they're losing is even over.
The Orks are, based on Mechanicus analysis, designed from the ground up to be tremendously difficult to kill. Human scar tissue is hyperactive, but it allows us to recover at least in part from anything that doesn't kill us outright, allowing particularly strong-willed individuals to perform surgery on themselves. Orks can, with some outside aid, attach their heads to the bodies of completely different Orks, and due to the nature of their Cultivation, this body will swiftly match their old one. Replacing limbs is even easier. In essence, nothing short of massive damage to their center of mass can be considered a lethal blow, which is not a guarantee they will not kill you before they figure out they're dead like a human on a massive adrenaline spike, and instantly fatal attacks can only be found in total destruction of the head, unless the combatant is using some sort of Art that bypasses their durability, as some Assassinorum Sects are capable of.
Now that I've laid out the basics, let us discuss their spiritual side. Orks develop from conflict, particularly from winning. There is an old Terran joke about achieving unlimited power by plugging a power strip into itself. For Orks, this can
actually work. Not as efficiently as fighting other entities, but the waging of war and battle refines Akasha into Orkish Waagh! energies, and Orks can trivially absorb the energies of their fellows compared to that of non-Orks, effectively eating their souls to empower themselves, so a conflict below a truly ruinous tempo will leave the survivors stronger than the sum total of the original pool of Orks. This is why Orks must be purged with extreme prejudice and extreme thoroughness, as once an infestation has taken root, it can be more difficult than a Daemonic Sect to remove.
Their bodies release spores in life and en masse upon death, and their souls reflect this. The Waagh! Field connects every Ork under the Ork of the highest Realm in the area in a singular network, growing as the number and power of the individual Orks does. Thus, the number of followers a Warboss has is just as important as the number of battles they've won. A Warboss that absorbs a smaller Ork Empire by defeating the Warboss of that Empire will effectively merge their networks, exponentially increasing it's own power as the feedback loop expands. Even a 10% increase in their domain can vastly worsen their threat.
One of the better examples is the Ullanor Crusade, where the leaders of the Orkish Empire were so large and powerful that lesser Ork Empires were declaring their fealty and rushing to follow their new masters into battle without ever having met them, which had a self-reinforcing effect, hence the Legions of Astartes uniting to face them at the eponymous Ullanor before they could threaten the Imperium in it's entirety.
The Waagh! Field is their greatest strength, but also their weakness. While most of the energy of the fallen is redistributed through the network when an Ork is felled regardless of their position within the network, there are limits to that. If the leadership is wiped out, the network begins to fray, not unlike human civilization. This leaves them open to being defeated piecemeal, and even cannibalizing each other's souls will only sustain them for so long if their numbers drop enough. Exterminating even a third of the Orks in the area will have deleterious effects on the remainder. Hit the halfway mark, and you may see their more energy-intensive Arts and violations of physics suffer noticeable drops in power and effectiveness. It is believed that the network relies heavily on each node to absorb more energy in totality, as each individual node can only handle so much at once, which is part of why their numbers tend to explode in the aftermath of any major fighting that doesn't enormously cull them. However, you must cull the entire Orkoid ecosystem. Each Squig and Gretchin is just as much a node as the Orks are. Even their mosses and lichen must be put to the flame. Something even the mortals can do to expunge the threat.
In conclusion, I believe the Orks are the most dire threat to the Imperium. Their numbers and ability to escalate if they are ever united is terrifying, and the nature of their Cultivation means that uniting is as simple as a duel between their Warbosses, if that much. Should another Beast emerge while we are distracted by the Despoiler, mismanagement from a rogue High Lord, or, Emperor preserve us, both at once or more, I shudder to imagine the damage they could do.
AN: How's this
@Maugan Ra ? 1300 words if it matters. Incandescent Wings if this is worth any xp.
