- Location
- Somewhere North. It's cold here.
I'll be honest, if that one gets picked, that is one hundred percent what's happening.
It was my first thought when I saw it
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Go forth and poke things! Tech Priest Quest
- Thread starter Heimdall1342
- Start date
I'll be honest, if that one gets picked, that is one hundred percent what's happening.
It was my first thought when I saw it
Tabascoheath
Unkempt, Evil-eyed Charlatan, and Pseudo-Mystic
- Location
- Your Nearest Orbital Habitat
[X]Plan: The City Forgeworld must survive.
I want Conan the Techno-Barbarian with his cool sword and big muscles.
I want Conan the Techno-Barbarian with his cool sword and big muscles.
[X]Plan: The City Forgeworld must survive.
I'm not voting but for tech priest how about a biologist that created a ultimatesarus and was reward with a random forge world
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X]Plan: The City Forgeworld must survive.
- Location
- Somewhere between here and there
I'm pretty sure the reward for something like that would be a round or two through the head.
Correct and many thinks in 40k would all so result in a bullet to the head
- Location
- Somewhere North. It's cold here.
Vote Closed
avatar11792
Et Sic Incipit
- Location
- Planet Earth, North America
Ice and technobarbarians sound like a lot of fun. There is another advantage to technobarbarians, in that the techno part implies they may have scraps of advanced technology from more ancient times. So as well as getting to have bloody fights with them, as adeptus mechanicus we would be very interested in any tech shinies they might possess.
I also find the concept of an ice world to be rather interesting and innovative, as I do not recall any other 40K game having taken place on an ice world. I know there was a Primarch game which had as his origins he lived on an ice world, but I didn't read it that much.
There are other advantages to an ice world as well, such as if we're starting out on one, the odds are pretty good that we might possess for instance better insulator technology for cables and circuits, or possibly for armor plating but I'm thinking more in terms of energy transmission because intense cold would mess with that. That would be useful because then we could make technology like, say, plasma weapons with better energy transmission, so maybe we can make certain technologies like plasma weapons or other high temperature weapons with less issues of catastrophic meltdown or weapons malfunction.
Since the common element of all the origin stories seems to be that the forge World were showing up on is both minor and either in decline or in stasis because they can't run all their equipment, there is hope that, being on an ice world, the local environmental conditions inspired the local Admech to take advantage of the intense cold, and a number of items are hopefully preserved in better condition than they might have on literally any other world. At the same time though, I am worried that perhaps the technobarbarians may be rating mechanicus supplies or caches of material that we've put into storage, specifically to get a hold of our more reliable equipment than whatever shoddy stuff they have.
I understand that the majority of this game, like many of the other 40K games, will focus on the protagonist mechanicus faction and our character, as the main characters, but I do hope the technobarbarians get some good characterization, as well as semi recurring villains or local environmental flavor. But that's the thing, in other games they tend to be viewed as environmental flavor, I would like them to have a little more of a dynamic fleshed out interaction to them. They have lived on this world for thousands of years; they sound like they would be like almost like aggressive Inuit, people who have lived in under such intense icy cold conditions that their entire culture has warped around it. For instance the Inuit have like 37 separate words for snow or something like that, I forget the exact number it was just a piece of trivia I remember reading at one point. So interesting stuff could be worked in like that. I do hope they are not just the equivalent of Warhammer Fantasy Norscans, which themselves are an uninspired compilation of derivative stereotypes of the worst elements of Vikings and other anglo-germanic Invaders from the Dark ages. I'm hoping that there's more to them than that.
The implications of an ice world are rather fascinating too. It would imply, just from the description alone, a world a lot like hoth from Star wars, so I wonder if this world is stuck in a global ice ball ice age similar to what happened to Earth 600 million years ago, in which case it might be possible to undo the icy conditions, or are we so far from the Sun that we are simply perpetually Frozen more like europa. Either way there are implications for instance Europa has due to local planetary and moon placement gravity tides have created liquid water due to the heat from tidal forces so if something similar is happening on this world then we could potentially have a lot of fun fighting giant underground gribly monsters, or we could find huge underwater ruins, or maybe this planet was a lot warmer and something happened during the men of iron revolt, who knows you could do almost anything with that kind of a story idea using geography as a narrative element. If we are stuck on something like a snowball Earth I have to admit, maybe finding terraforming technology might be really fun, and then we could start throwing out the planet and restoring it to the state at once was and then we could find maybe horrific things that man was not meant to know on it buried in the ice or something. My mind is kind of running away from me with all kinds of interesting ideas, but I hope some of what I'm saying does serve to inspire others as well.
Oh, and in case it's not obvious, I'm dictating this into my phone which has speech to text capability. I imagine that having to type all this out manually on my phone I would literally have my fingers break off on my hand, this is so nice! I love modern technology!
EDIT: @Heimdall1342 , I had a lot of fun bouncing around ideas on the 40K thread story "The road to Glory". It was during a time in my life where I got rather carried away with my nerd enthusiasm, and I had a lot of time on my hands, so I ended up becoming kind of accidentally co GM of that game. I can't do that here, my life has changed a lot (for instance I have a 10-month-old daughter who is the best thing in the world, she's on her way to becoming a tech priest😎 ), so I can't get that involved because I simply don't have the time, but I do have a lot of game resources, ideas, tech stuff, etc. So if you want someone to bounce ideas off of or you ever want to chat, I would love to provide some feedback for you with your game. This game looks very exciting, it looks like it can go very far and do an awful lot of fun crazy awesome AdMech stuff, and I would love to support you indirectly if I can. Other than that I will be an enthusiastic supporter of this game is just a normal player. Can't wait for the game to officially begin!
I also find the concept of an ice world to be rather interesting and innovative, as I do not recall any other 40K game having taken place on an ice world. I know there was a Primarch game which had as his origins he lived on an ice world, but I didn't read it that much.
There are other advantages to an ice world as well, such as if we're starting out on one, the odds are pretty good that we might possess for instance better insulator technology for cables and circuits, or possibly for armor plating but I'm thinking more in terms of energy transmission because intense cold would mess with that. That would be useful because then we could make technology like, say, plasma weapons with better energy transmission, so maybe we can make certain technologies like plasma weapons or other high temperature weapons with less issues of catastrophic meltdown or weapons malfunction.
Since the common element of all the origin stories seems to be that the forge World were showing up on is both minor and either in decline or in stasis because they can't run all their equipment, there is hope that, being on an ice world, the local environmental conditions inspired the local Admech to take advantage of the intense cold, and a number of items are hopefully preserved in better condition than they might have on literally any other world. At the same time though, I am worried that perhaps the technobarbarians may be rating mechanicus supplies or caches of material that we've put into storage, specifically to get a hold of our more reliable equipment than whatever shoddy stuff they have.
I understand that the majority of this game, like many of the other 40K games, will focus on the protagonist mechanicus faction and our character, as the main characters, but I do hope the technobarbarians get some good characterization, as well as semi recurring villains or local environmental flavor. But that's the thing, in other games they tend to be viewed as environmental flavor, I would like them to have a little more of a dynamic fleshed out interaction to them. They have lived on this world for thousands of years; they sound like they would be like almost like aggressive Inuit, people who have lived in under such intense icy cold conditions that their entire culture has warped around it. For instance the Inuit have like 37 separate words for snow or something like that, I forget the exact number it was just a piece of trivia I remember reading at one point. So interesting stuff could be worked in like that. I do hope they are not just the equivalent of Warhammer Fantasy Norscans, which themselves are an uninspired compilation of derivative stereotypes of the worst elements of Vikings and other anglo-germanic Invaders from the Dark ages. I'm hoping that there's more to them than that.
The implications of an ice world are rather fascinating too. It would imply, just from the description alone, a world a lot like hoth from Star wars, so I wonder if this world is stuck in a global ice ball ice age similar to what happened to Earth 600 million years ago, in which case it might be possible to undo the icy conditions, or are we so far from the Sun that we are simply perpetually Frozen more like europa. Either way there are implications for instance Europa has due to local planetary and moon placement gravity tides have created liquid water due to the heat from tidal forces so if something similar is happening on this world then we could potentially have a lot of fun fighting giant underground gribly monsters, or we could find huge underwater ruins, or maybe this planet was a lot warmer and something happened during the men of iron revolt, who knows you could do almost anything with that kind of a story idea using geography as a narrative element. If we are stuck on something like a snowball Earth I have to admit, maybe finding terraforming technology might be really fun, and then we could start throwing out the planet and restoring it to the state at once was and then we could find maybe horrific things that man was not meant to know on it buried in the ice or something. My mind is kind of running away from me with all kinds of interesting ideas, but I hope some of what I'm saying does serve to inspire others as well.
Oh, and in case it's not obvious, I'm dictating this into my phone which has speech to text capability. I imagine that having to type all this out manually on my phone I would literally have my fingers break off on my hand, this is so nice! I love modern technology!
EDIT: @Heimdall1342 , I had a lot of fun bouncing around ideas on the 40K thread story "The road to Glory". It was during a time in my life where I got rather carried away with my nerd enthusiasm, and I had a lot of time on my hands, so I ended up becoming kind of accidentally co GM of that game. I can't do that here, my life has changed a lot (for instance I have a 10-month-old daughter who is the best thing in the world, she's on her way to becoming a tech priest😎 ), so I can't get that involved because I simply don't have the time, but I do have a lot of game resources, ideas, tech stuff, etc. So if you want someone to bounce ideas off of or you ever want to chat, I would love to provide some feedback for you with your game. This game looks very exciting, it looks like it can go very far and do an awful lot of fun crazy awesome AdMech stuff, and I would love to support you indirectly if I can. Other than that I will be an enthusiastic supporter of this game is just a normal player. Can't wait for the game to officially begin!
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avatar11792
Et Sic Incipit
- Location
- Planet Earth, North America
I imagine that theoretically the possibility exists of us doing that if the game continues long enough, but because our forge world is so minor, so isolated, and so far from the Omnissiah's light (IE the god emperor's astronomicon), that even if we get our forge World running properly and become a major power in the region, it would take either truly significant STC discoveries, or truly Titanic victories against the enemies of man, to gain the the kind of influence where we can influence greater Imperial affairs, or Emperor forbid end up on the high Lords of Terra, like in the now dead Callamus forge World quest on spacebattles.
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- Location
- Somewhere North. It's cold here.
Oh wow. That's a lot of stuff.
There's an enormous amount of incredibly cool (PUNS!) ideas here that I imagine I'll probably be both stealing blatantly as well as taking inspiration from.
To be honest, this comment has way more thought put into an ice world and technobarbarians than I had even considered needing to. Though that's at least partially due to the inherent limits in planning a quest. You can have ideas, but no point putting a pile of research into a jungle world when people vote for an ice world. I really love the collaborative aspects of a quest though, because you get readers that have this level of though put into it and you get some really cool stuff from it.
Yeah, what avatar11792 said. If by "the Mechanicus" you mean "your underlings and the planet you're trying to salvage", yes. Absolutely. But I'll be entirely honest, I have no desire to get this quest too involved with galactic politics. Too big, too much, and it would probably end with this quest dead as soon as I got overwhelmed. Definitely potential for interaction with other planets and some sector stuff, but I can't imagine too much more than that. As I get more experience and confidence, maybe. But no promises.
Next update is in the works, maybe half to two thirds done. I'm currently running into issues with details and level of abstraction that I'm willing to deal with. For Embers in the Dusk, there's a lot of nuance and detail in the systems and mechanics that I can appreciate, but I really don't want to spend time tracking the specifics of the level of promethium, you know? I've also had some character creation stuff I really wanted to include, but after fiddling with it since I started working on this whole thing, it kind of ends up not worth the detail and attempted balance. Once I've got that worked out, next update should be out. Hopefully within a week or so.
So, on the topic of reforming Ad mech, I would like to present my thoughts on why modern Adeptus Mechanicus are more conservative then the Mechanicum of the Great Crusade era.
1. When Horus strated planning the Heresy he approached then Fabricator-General Kelbor Hal and attempted to turn him to his side. How? By offering access to certain technologies the Emperor has forbidden Ad mech from studying. He was successful and Kelbor Hal joined the rebellion. Great many other Ad mech joined him.
But the thing is, it is very logical to assume that those who joined him were generally of more radical and secularist bend. Simply because joining ment going against the direct order of the Omissiah for KNOWLEDGE. Now, while claiming that radical=heretic and conservative= loyalist is going too far, it is logical to assume that loyalist Mechanicum of the Heresy were already more conservative then the Mechanicum of the Great Crusade.
2. Heresy did incredible anount of damage to the knowledge of Ad mech. Some worlds went traitor and were never reclaimed. Others were Exterminatus'd. Many more suffered from brutal internal fighting between factions, often accompanied by invasions from both sides of the the greater conflicts. Infrastructure was destroyed, libraries burned, datavaults blown apart and magi killed.
Crucially Mars itself was a battlefield and the its Temple of All Knowldge, the greatest compilation of tech in the Imperium was severely damaged and contaminated by daemonic scrap code, ironically from the opening of the very same forbidden vault Horus promised to Kelbor Hal.
3. During the fighting of the Heresy, admech had to contend for the first time in their history, with possesed machines, Daemon engines and other sorts of chaos fuckery. That was bound to make those encountering it much more religious especially given that Warp's "Clap your hands if you believe" nature probaly made tech supported by genuine faith more effective when facing chaos forces.
4. After the Heresy was over, the next big problem was shifting strategical situation. Before the Imperium was expanding rapidly, Great crusade claiming more and more planets giving ad mech more and sources of old technology to recover, rediscover and well "rediscover"(invent). Now the Imperium was in the Great Siege. Expmansion, while still happening was slow, the deluge of new technologies slowing down to a trickle.
5. Another major thing was the change in attitudes. The direct result of the heresy was a rapid increase in mistrust and paranoia. Something that was essentially enshirned into the system by Guilliman's reforms. The direct consequience of that was that ad mech were now much less willing to share technology both within themselves and with the greater Imperium. Further more, invention and experimentation already looked upon with some suspicion now bore the stigma of being associated with the Dark Mechanicus.
And that is my rambly take on why modern And Mech are so conservative and why Imperium's tech base is so much worse and continues to decline.
1. When Horus strated planning the Heresy he approached then Fabricator-General Kelbor Hal and attempted to turn him to his side. How? By offering access to certain technologies the Emperor has forbidden Ad mech from studying. He was successful and Kelbor Hal joined the rebellion. Great many other Ad mech joined him.
But the thing is, it is very logical to assume that those who joined him were generally of more radical and secularist bend. Simply because joining ment going against the direct order of the Omissiah for KNOWLEDGE. Now, while claiming that radical=heretic and conservative= loyalist is going too far, it is logical to assume that loyalist Mechanicum of the Heresy were already more conservative then the Mechanicum of the Great Crusade.
2. Heresy did incredible anount of damage to the knowledge of Ad mech. Some worlds went traitor and were never reclaimed. Others were Exterminatus'd. Many more suffered from brutal internal fighting between factions, often accompanied by invasions from both sides of the the greater conflicts. Infrastructure was destroyed, libraries burned, datavaults blown apart and magi killed.
Crucially Mars itself was a battlefield and the its Temple of All Knowldge, the greatest compilation of tech in the Imperium was severely damaged and contaminated by daemonic scrap code, ironically from the opening of the very same forbidden vault Horus promised to Kelbor Hal.
3. During the fighting of the Heresy, admech had to contend for the first time in their history, with possesed machines, Daemon engines and other sorts of chaos fuckery. That was bound to make those encountering it much more religious especially given that Warp's "Clap your hands if you believe" nature probaly made tech supported by genuine faith more effective when facing chaos forces.
4. After the Heresy was over, the next big problem was shifting strategical situation. Before the Imperium was expanding rapidly, Great crusade claiming more and more planets giving ad mech more and sources of old technology to recover, rediscover and well "rediscover"(invent). Now the Imperium was in the Great Siege. Expmansion, while still happening was slow, the deluge of new technologies slowing down to a trickle.
5. Another major thing was the change in attitudes. The direct result of the heresy was a rapid increase in mistrust and paranoia. Something that was essentially enshirned into the system by Guilliman's reforms. The direct consequience of that was that ad mech were now much less willing to share technology both within themselves and with the greater Imperium. Further more, invention and experimentation already looked upon with some suspicion now bore the stigma of being associated with the Dark Mechanicus.
And that is my rambly take on why modern And Mech are so conservative and why Imperium's tech base is so much worse and continues to decline.
- Location
- Somewhere North. It's cold here.
On another note, can anyone tell me if there is a proper term for places that tech priests "explore" (ransack) looking for old human tech? Because all I've got is something along the lines of bunker, archeotech site, antiquity site, dark age of technology cache, or similar, and none of that feels correct.
avatar11792
Et Sic Incipit
- Location
- Planet Earth, North America
Well my baby daughter is asleep, I just wanted to put down some of my thoughts concerning ice planets here, in case there of any help at all or stimulate conversation.
Speculation on Ice Planet and Non-Natural Reasons For That
The interesting thing I really like about 40K is it's a universe where such seemingly mundane things as the geographic layout of a planet, or the terrain, or the in this case weather patterns (global ice sheets) can become rather fascinating phenomenon, because you can speculate that perhaps a seemingly natural phenomenon isn't one. For instance, the two greatest epic wars involving supertech in 40K involve the War in Heaven and the revolt of the Men of Iron against humanity. Both conflicts have been described as using, well, weapons that reverse time, or harness the entropy of negative suns to blow up whole realities, stuff that is utterly ridiculous on the verge of godlike (that's why they call it the War in Heaven, it's that big of a scale beyond mortal comprehension).
So when I think of an ice planet, I think of a way for the planet to be a player in the stage play that is about to happen, the story that is about to unfold. The planet is not just a backdrop setting, it could very well be a slain former actor. For instance, I can very easily imagine the use of cryonic weapons on a large scale destabilizing planetary equilibrium and triggering an ice age. Or alternatively, there's the possibility of - since we know there is a large use of gravitational weapons on both of those wars - perhaps the planets orbit was altered or changed. I know there's some very old obscure lore that suggests that the entire solar system was moved from one part of the Galaxy to another, I'm not sure if it's valid anymore, but it does lay down some precedent that massive gravitational shifts can occur. The Necrons have a device in a room that projects a stupidly high resolution 3D holographic map of the galaxy, and if you select a star and tell it to go out, the star explodes. And they can do that to any star, which is absolutely nuts. In my mind that single-handedly makes the necrons pretty much an unbeatable faction,but it is canon, so you got to roll with it.
I've been rolling around one of the prior ideas for world generation in my mind, the one with the diamond sandstorms that shred everything, which I really liked, and as I found myself worldbuilding that into something a little more substantial as the foundation for a game, I realized that that world is so unique it could very well be the result of some phenomenally unreal thing from the War in Heaven. I speculated that the diamond sandstorm and the diamond sand, could very well come from the entire planetary crust having been subjected to the pressures and heat found normally underneath the ground, where diamonds are generated. In this case it was a version of exterminatus that was so over the top it actually turned the entire planetary crust into a single diamond around the planet, and over the next 65 million years that diamond has been fracturing due to gravity, tidal forces, and just plain erosion. I thought the idea of the Adaptive Mechanicus digging through what is functionally fractured diamond on a scale beyond comprehension was kind of cool.
However applying that same kind of logic to the ice planet that we're coming to, obviously it depends on the amount of detail in question. If it is a completely ice planet like Hoth from Star Wars, a snowball Earth kind of thing, then there are kilometer thick ice sheets everywhere and there is no native terrain to use. Everything is going to be made out of ice practically, unless you just burn through it with orbital bombardment to find the top of a mountain to build your base on some solid rock instead of ice. Now that I think of it, that would make a lot of sense to do, so that actually might be how the beginning of the colony or settlement was founded by the AdMech ships that first showed up. Alternatively, it is quite possible to still qualify as an ice planet while still having a section of the planet not be fully encapsulated in ice, such as a thin band around the equator that is remotely hospitable in some way, but the rest of the planet is frozen in the manner of an ice planet. So in that case I imagine that the mechanicus would have simply taken the easy way out, and, unless there were obvious ruins or technologies sticking blatantly out of the ice, they would have just built their settlements in that equatorial habitable zone because it would be the easiest place to build and expand from there as their infrastructure and industry get set up.
Of course, normally an Adeptus Mechanicus colony gets set up to exploit either resources, technology, or often both. So wherever the settlements are located they're going to be near one of those two things, most likely both to capitalize on the initial investment as quickly as possible, according to AdMech superiors.
Speculation on Colony Founding Options
I have to admit, I'm wondering how old this colony or settlement forge World is, because a lot of ramifications occur from that. For instance, if it is more than a century old, you might expect more than one settlement, much larger cities that are starting to expand into true forged cities or hive cities, and perhaps established mass transit infrastructure, such as maglev train networks, linking Mechanicus settlements together, to allow the shipment of mined resources or personnel, or soldiers in the event of technobarian invasion. However, if the colony was founded only 20 years ago, then none of that would have time to exist, and they would still be in the process of just trying to establish basic subsistence infrastructure, which would change a lot of the actions that we would have available to us at the beginning of the game.
Speculation on Techno Barbarian Diplomacy Options
I have to admit it terms of the political situation, I wonder if the Mechanicus have any form of subtlety in regards to how they're going to interact with the techno barbarians. They're presumably are several or even dozens of tribal groups across the planet, with diverging languages and traditions, blood enemies versus tentative allies versus ones with complex histories, etc. So it might be possible - instead of doing the normal 40K thing where kill all the idiots who dare to oppose our glorious might human fascist procedure which is so common in 40k - maybe the Mechanicus might step out of their comfort zone and actually interact with them (we'll trade with you for x resources in order for your tribe to avoid us and then turn on your enemies, or at the very least defend us if they attack us), all very very basic diplomatic stuff. I'm kind of thinking of the technical barbarians as barely a step above Orcs in that sense, because I know Ork WAAGHs and warbands have been treated in much the same way. However the wonderful thing about technobarbarians is the x Factor of unknown levels of technology, whether it be schitzo technology, or hidden preserves or artifices from the glorious golden age from eons past that they're hoarding until the right moment, or maybe we're providing them the advanced technology and they're becoming cripplingly dependent upon us. Maybe the Mechanicus are actively seeking to tame and domesticate the techno barbarians, and making the tribes settle down in settlements with more advanced facilities and technology allows them to get access to an already existing labor force, with natives who already culturally know how to interact and live on a planet that's mostly ice and cold, and also just save some the headache of having extra enemies kicking around. The more of them are settled tamed and domesticated, the better off the AdMech would be.
Also I have to admit, it would make the diplomatic elements of a game like this much more interesting if we actually had to engage in a relatively complex web of alliances. You know, try to keep x number of tribes on our side because if you go below that tipping point it could very easily escalate into the entire planet turning on you. Or something like that; I just want something a little more complicated than "kill anyone who isn't us".
***
Anyways, I know this is an awfully large post like as I made before, but again my 10-month-old daughter is finally asleep, I'm finally on the other side of the house far enough away that I can actually talk at a relatively quiet volume and not bother her, and I have lots of thoughts about how interesting this is. My specialty is in worldbuilding and intense speculation on stuff that interests me, and this is hitting both. I've never played a game involving an ice world, so I'm really like grinding my mental gears thinking about all the interesting things that could go on, from weather to geography, to politics, to you know maybe you know economic trade zones. Hey even monsters, ice monsters are cool who doesn't like ice monsters?
Anyway can't wait for the next update, sorry for the babble, bye.
Speculation on Ice Planet and Non-Natural Reasons For That
The interesting thing I really like about 40K is it's a universe where such seemingly mundane things as the geographic layout of a planet, or the terrain, or the in this case weather patterns (global ice sheets) can become rather fascinating phenomenon, because you can speculate that perhaps a seemingly natural phenomenon isn't one. For instance, the two greatest epic wars involving supertech in 40K involve the War in Heaven and the revolt of the Men of Iron against humanity. Both conflicts have been described as using, well, weapons that reverse time, or harness the entropy of negative suns to blow up whole realities, stuff that is utterly ridiculous on the verge of godlike (that's why they call it the War in Heaven, it's that big of a scale beyond mortal comprehension).
So when I think of an ice planet, I think of a way for the planet to be a player in the stage play that is about to happen, the story that is about to unfold. The planet is not just a backdrop setting, it could very well be a slain former actor. For instance, I can very easily imagine the use of cryonic weapons on a large scale destabilizing planetary equilibrium and triggering an ice age. Or alternatively, there's the possibility of - since we know there is a large use of gravitational weapons on both of those wars - perhaps the planets orbit was altered or changed. I know there's some very old obscure lore that suggests that the entire solar system was moved from one part of the Galaxy to another, I'm not sure if it's valid anymore, but it does lay down some precedent that massive gravitational shifts can occur. The Necrons have a device in a room that projects a stupidly high resolution 3D holographic map of the galaxy, and if you select a star and tell it to go out, the star explodes. And they can do that to any star, which is absolutely nuts. In my mind that single-handedly makes the necrons pretty much an unbeatable faction,but it is canon, so you got to roll with it.
I've been rolling around one of the prior ideas for world generation in my mind, the one with the diamond sandstorms that shred everything, which I really liked, and as I found myself worldbuilding that into something a little more substantial as the foundation for a game, I realized that that world is so unique it could very well be the result of some phenomenally unreal thing from the War in Heaven. I speculated that the diamond sandstorm and the diamond sand, could very well come from the entire planetary crust having been subjected to the pressures and heat found normally underneath the ground, where diamonds are generated. In this case it was a version of exterminatus that was so over the top it actually turned the entire planetary crust into a single diamond around the planet, and over the next 65 million years that diamond has been fracturing due to gravity, tidal forces, and just plain erosion. I thought the idea of the Adaptive Mechanicus digging through what is functionally fractured diamond on a scale beyond comprehension was kind of cool.
However applying that same kind of logic to the ice planet that we're coming to, obviously it depends on the amount of detail in question. If it is a completely ice planet like Hoth from Star Wars, a snowball Earth kind of thing, then there are kilometer thick ice sheets everywhere and there is no native terrain to use. Everything is going to be made out of ice practically, unless you just burn through it with orbital bombardment to find the top of a mountain to build your base on some solid rock instead of ice. Now that I think of it, that would make a lot of sense to do, so that actually might be how the beginning of the colony or settlement was founded by the AdMech ships that first showed up. Alternatively, it is quite possible to still qualify as an ice planet while still having a section of the planet not be fully encapsulated in ice, such as a thin band around the equator that is remotely hospitable in some way, but the rest of the planet is frozen in the manner of an ice planet. So in that case I imagine that the mechanicus would have simply taken the easy way out, and, unless there were obvious ruins or technologies sticking blatantly out of the ice, they would have just built their settlements in that equatorial habitable zone because it would be the easiest place to build and expand from there as their infrastructure and industry get set up.
Of course, normally an Adeptus Mechanicus colony gets set up to exploit either resources, technology, or often both. So wherever the settlements are located they're going to be near one of those two things, most likely both to capitalize on the initial investment as quickly as possible, according to AdMech superiors.
Speculation on Colony Founding Options
I have to admit, I'm wondering how old this colony or settlement forge World is, because a lot of ramifications occur from that. For instance, if it is more than a century old, you might expect more than one settlement, much larger cities that are starting to expand into true forged cities or hive cities, and perhaps established mass transit infrastructure, such as maglev train networks, linking Mechanicus settlements together, to allow the shipment of mined resources or personnel, or soldiers in the event of technobarian invasion. However, if the colony was founded only 20 years ago, then none of that would have time to exist, and they would still be in the process of just trying to establish basic subsistence infrastructure, which would change a lot of the actions that we would have available to us at the beginning of the game.
Speculation on Techno Barbarian Diplomacy Options
I have to admit it terms of the political situation, I wonder if the Mechanicus have any form of subtlety in regards to how they're going to interact with the techno barbarians. They're presumably are several or even dozens of tribal groups across the planet, with diverging languages and traditions, blood enemies versus tentative allies versus ones with complex histories, etc. So it might be possible - instead of doing the normal 40K thing where kill all the idiots who dare to oppose our glorious might human fascist procedure which is so common in 40k - maybe the Mechanicus might step out of their comfort zone and actually interact with them (we'll trade with you for x resources in order for your tribe to avoid us and then turn on your enemies, or at the very least defend us if they attack us), all very very basic diplomatic stuff. I'm kind of thinking of the technical barbarians as barely a step above Orcs in that sense, because I know Ork WAAGHs and warbands have been treated in much the same way. However the wonderful thing about technobarbarians is the x Factor of unknown levels of technology, whether it be schitzo technology, or hidden preserves or artifices from the glorious golden age from eons past that they're hoarding until the right moment, or maybe we're providing them the advanced technology and they're becoming cripplingly dependent upon us. Maybe the Mechanicus are actively seeking to tame and domesticate the techno barbarians, and making the tribes settle down in settlements with more advanced facilities and technology allows them to get access to an already existing labor force, with natives who already culturally know how to interact and live on a planet that's mostly ice and cold, and also just save some the headache of having extra enemies kicking around. The more of them are settled tamed and domesticated, the better off the AdMech would be.
Also I have to admit, it would make the diplomatic elements of a game like this much more interesting if we actually had to engage in a relatively complex web of alliances. You know, try to keep x number of tribes on our side because if you go below that tipping point it could very easily escalate into the entire planet turning on you. Or something like that; I just want something a little more complicated than "kill anyone who isn't us".
***
Anyways, I know this is an awfully large post like as I made before, but again my 10-month-old daughter is finally asleep, I'm finally on the other side of the house far enough away that I can actually talk at a relatively quiet volume and not bother her, and I have lots of thoughts about how interesting this is. My specialty is in worldbuilding and intense speculation on stuff that interests me, and this is hitting both. I've never played a game involving an ice world, so I'm really like grinding my mental gears thinking about all the interesting things that could go on, from weather to geography, to politics, to you know maybe you know economic trade zones. Hey even monsters, ice monsters are cool who doesn't like ice monsters?
Anyway can't wait for the next update, sorry for the babble, bye.
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- Location
- Somewhere between here and there
As far as the techno-barbars are concerned, I wouldn't be surprised if the nearest Astartes chapter dropped by at some point going "Hey, mind if we recruit some of these guys?"
Just another wrinkle to consider.
Just another wrinkle to consider.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That is a lot of words!
avatar11792
Et Sic Incipit
- Location
- Planet Earth, North America
I think in a pretty organized manner, speak slowly and clearly, and the speech to text function is your best friend. I also edit and reword before I post, but yeah, it's a lot.
Unless we're playing as Hereteks, that is a good thing. Heck, if we had a recruit new chapter option from turn 1, I'd be all in on that. Then we have Astartes watching our backs, while they get better equipment the more we get established. It's a perfect combo, wonder why it doesn't occur more in canon.
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Tabascoheath
Unkempt, Evil-eyed Charlatan, and Pseudo-Mystic
- Location
- Your Nearest Orbital Habitat
Legal reasons and overlapping jurisdictions. A forgeworld is by Imperial law, as declared by the big man himself, wholly and entirely the purview of the adepts of mars and the particular order which holds sway there. The same goes for Adeptus Astartes recruitment worlds, while some of those actually have planetary governments that do things most are simply planets full of stone age tribes that worship the space marines that harvest from their stock. Having a forgeworld allow space marines recruit from the menials of the manufactorums interferes with productivity and represents a serious amount of leeway given to an outside force on AdMech clay, which is again very similar to what might play out on a SM recruitment world as AdMech forges are not small and require a disproportionate amount of man power to run.
Either the Space marine start stepping on too many toes or the AdMech uses up the populace of a SM recruitment world, either way it doesn't happen because of very long standing legal rights to individual worlds and because neither want the hassle of actually navigating another layer of bureaucracy just to get something as simple as press ganging civilians into a recruitment batch/manufactory complex.
avatar11792
Et Sic Incipit
- Location
- Planet Earth, North America
Well what you're saying makes sense, the assumption here seems to be in your argument that mechanic is forge worlds always are the same kind of forge world, ie a monolithic control of the entire planet with no other competing factions or interests. It passively implies that all outside parties that are not under the jurisdiction of the forge World are eliminated or removed one way or the other and since this is 40k...we know the methods usually preferred.
What I'm saying is is that in a large complex Galaxy not all forge worlds would be like that. There surely would be many in a similar situation to ours, Young worlds that have not yet been fully conquered occupied or otherwise fully controlled. In this gray territory you could see a situation where having a space Marine chapter harvesting the most Savage and formidable elements from these tribes would bleed these outside groups of individuals who could cause problems for the mechanicus while at the same time getting the space Marines the level of you know Savage vigor that they want. It just seems to me and obvious symbiotic relationship that would apply to worlds with partial jurisdiction, and surely not all cases where a forge world is founded in there are other people living on it equal that other population being completely obliterated and stop being being a factor.
Again, I do understand where you're coming from that there are long-standing legal codes and traditions and feudal rights of one faction versus the other in play. However, I feel that there are more complicated situations that existing 40K lower may not fully cover, for instance in the matter of solar systems that have multiple worlds inhabited within the same system. In that case, you could have a space Marine chapter and a forge World in the same star system with no competing interests at all, but still providing a level of symbiotic defense and reinforcement that both parties could use and benefit from. The space Marines want the Superior equipment the forge World could provide and infrastructure that they can build, while the Mechanicus would want the firepower and combat acumen of space Marines on their side nearby on tap whenever they need it. It just seems like what you are describing seems to not really grasp the level of nuance I am trying to get across in my thinking.
I spend a lot of time thinking about how you know franchises or universes like this one 40K are to some extent very very simplistic formulas for World building. They don't really grasp just how big the universe is and how many interesting combinations can result from that. Which makes sense, games workshop is just out to sell toys and figurines, they're not out to weave a realistic 3D universe. I understand the limitations of what we're talking about here, but I personally tend to want to look behind the scenes and see where there would be exceptions to common rules. I figured games workshop is laying down what they can think of writing, but they are only mortal and there will be things that just don't occur to them to talk about. And that's where else can people step in to fill in the blanks.
While I don't think having the same planet be a Forge World and an Astartes home world is possible, what should be possible is having a fleet bound chapter use the world as one of the multiple occasional sources of recruits. This actually correlates nicely with the fact that we are on the very edge of the Imperium, as those areas have chapters pretty much dedicated to being roaming border patrols, whose entire purpose is to handle new and emerging threats before they engage greater Imperium. These chapters also tend to have logistical issues as they stay out of contact with the Imperium for most of the time. Furthermore when they do deal with the Imperial institutions the fact that most of those Chapters' victories happen outside the borders and are thus unknown makes them really poor in the favours game. So should such a chapter operate in our area of space we can get a very nice mutially benefucial relationship going.
Oh, a caveat there: the most well known such chapter is Carharadons Astra. If other roaming chapters are the same, they will likely be sociopathic dicks.
Oh, a caveat there: the most well known such chapter is Carharadons Astra. If other roaming chapters are the same, they will likely be sociopathic dicks.
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- Location
- Somewhere between here and there
The other thing is, unless I'm completely misreading the thread so far, we're not talking about a full-on Forge World anytime soon. It's basically a Death World with a slowly-expanding AdMech colony that wants to eventually become a Forge World. It'll be a few centuries at least before we've expanded far enough to no longer be a viable source of recruits for the Astartes. It's not a long-term solution by any means, but I doubt a fleet chapter will complain about a couple waves of aspirants they wouldn't get otherwise - and if in the process they manage to thin out a couple of the more dangerous tribes, that's a bonus for us.