Respect Your Elders v2 - Galactic Boogaloo [Warhammer Lizardmen Quest]

[CuttleFish2.0]

Suffice to say people, humanity has not yet been shattered yet, The Age of Strife has not yet begun, for the warp storms had not yet truly begun as of 50 years ago. FTL travel is still possible, and worlds are not yet being dropped into the warp, and it is those two things that broke the golden age of mankind, not merely the Iron Rebellion. With just the Iron Rebellion humanity would have still recovered, and the Emperor would never have taken up that title.

Now, we have every chance of not being able to move fast enough, but if we can cockblock Slaanesh then there's a good chance humanity will come through mostly intact. It was the warpstorms blocking all trade and transport, leaving every world to itself to mostly starve that finally broke things beyond repair.

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I mean, the ground state of Mallus is not necessarily the ground state of the galaxy at large, so we shouldn't assume just because the warp is currently calmer than at anytime on Mallus save for before the Great Catastrophe that means that the Warp has not started 'going off' as it were. Mallus was chosen by the Old Ones for a reason, there's a decent chance that part of the reason is 'had a significantly higher background of warp energies that most of the galaxy.'

 

[Sapphon]

Where do you get that from? And even if that is the case; then if we don't know where we are in the timeline I can only go off our assumptions until new facts are presented or to discount the timeline completely. Either option would end with me voting to leave. So dunno what your point is exactly?

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I mean that we should not rely in our judgments on the knowledge of the canon, which do not have confirmation in the quest.
Firstly, and this is the main thing, it is bad for playing the role.
And secondly, it may be incorrect.

As for your vote, in any case, it's your decision. I just hope the thread chooses to stay... but this is my choice.

 

[Heavygenium]

I mean, the ground state of Mallus is not necessarily the ground state of the galaxy at large

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Also we still don't know how Xantalos has connected WHF and WH40k exactly. In this case, Mallus has Slaanesh but also a variety of elves so old that Isendral thinks of the dialect as positively ancient. Lots of weird stuff going on in the background.

 

[Xantalos]

We have dealt with the magical and spiritual components of the curse, but what happened to the physical? Do the Slanns still have this brain flaw?

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That faded once the daemon was removed - think of it as the aftereffect of having the daemon there. Physical manifestation of possession.

All of that is to ask, @Xantalos, would Isendral be willing to, if we stay and see out this issue, to later transport us (or aid us in moving ourselves) to another world/solar system that would provide a blanker canvas?

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When all's said and done, if you still want to, yes. The main benefit of taking her offer right now is avoiding unwanted Aeldari attention before you can establish yourselves as a spacefaring civ, which won't be available later just because accepting means you'll be meeting other Eldar and you won't be a complete unknown to the Dominion anymore.

In regards to saving more of the Eldar gods, I can get behind that. Except for Asuryan. He's half the fucking reason this shit happened because of his idiotic interdiction.

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His canon reasoning for this was indeed kinda dumb OOC. I've changed it to make more sense, but you'll have to find that out with time.

On an unrelated topic, I know that the Ayacmanik don't really get anything out of infesting Orks because the Waaagh tries to destroy them and because an individual Ork has no true sapience, but what if the Ayacmanik infected an Ork Warboss, or a significant fraction of a Waaagh?
Could they perhaps subsume that Waaagh entirely? Or can the overminds never come into direct contact?

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This has never been done by the Ayacmanik - the one memory you were able to find of them trying had the grubs forcibly eject themselves from the warboss once they integrated enough to sense the Waaagh.

Moving house today, so might not be able to answer more questions till later. Ping me if anything needs urgent clarification though!

 

[DragonParadox]

If we were to somehow stop the Birth of Slaanesh the setting would be unrecognizable. That in itself would not be the worst thing in the world, but the way in which it would be unrecognizable would be eternal Eldar Hegemony. We would never get to deal with say the Emperor or the Primarchs because realistically if the Dominion get their act together they will send a strike force to Tera to kill 'Revelation' in the middle of his first speech about Humanity's Manifest Destiny (TM) or even if they cannot or won't do that, if we are going with a more high powered version of the golden man they can still just snuff out Sol and that is that.

 

[TempestK]

Well, part of what I mean is that even before that, he was a callous asshole to the Primarchs. A lot of the mistakes he made in life before being put on the Golden Throne are directly attributable to him being kind of a bad person and deeply fixated on grand ambitions, big megaprojects, and sweeping conquest to the point where he couldn't really even interact with other people as people, or see the Primarchs as sons in any meaningful sense of the word 'son.'

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It says something that the Slann have a more deeply interpersonal relationship with their attendants than Adam did with the Primarchs.

 

[Woltaire]

If I remember the lore correctly, he was around in some fashion or another since ancient humanity in an Illuminati-ish capacity, the Age of Strife was only the point where he stopped acting in the background and took center stage.

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there some lore that says that but there other lore that says otherwise since warhammer 40k lore is such a contradictory mess you really can't claim definitively one way or another and says that firm canon

edit: tbc I don't think xan gonna go with emps was just a warlord who emerged at the begginign of 30k but other than that I think it up in the air in all honesty either way exctied to see what xan does with it

 

[fractalman]

...cursed thought.

CLOWN LIZARDS

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clown rats from deadworld isekai would like to have a word with you...

It says something that the Slann have a more deeply interpersonal relationship with their attendants than Adam did with the Primarchs.

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Oooooof XD
He's gonna need more than a senzu for that one HAHAH!

 

[CovenantKillerJ]

Going through this debate i've seen good points from both sides; its kinda terrifying that whichever way we go its going to have a massive impact.

All of that is to ask, @Xantalos, would Isendral be willing to, if we stay and see out this issue, to later transport us (or aid us in moving ourselves) to another world/solar system that would provide a blanker canvas?

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I'm leaning towards accepting the offer but I'd been down for staying if it means we are guaranteed to have some sort of emergency backup isolated region of space in case stuff goes sour on Mochantia and in general for the Lizardmen

 

[Xantalos]

Oh, fun tidbit - you can consider the various bits of thread chatter as mirroring the thoughts of the slann. IC bits are the living slann, OOC is the thoughts of the Tomb Collective. It's not a 1:1 match; for instance, the living Communion does highly suspect that the growing Warp vortex is proto-Slaanesh, but doesn't know for sure. Tomb Collective knows what's up, but can't say anything because of the liminal barriers between OOC and IC.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Based on my understanding; the Warp storms, that was one of the main causes the Age of Strife for humanity, where a result of the gestation of Slaanesh; but when Slaanesh was finally born the Warp storms ended with a single storm of massive proportions; which created the Eye of Terror. This then allowed the Emperor to start his Great Crusade after he'd already Unified Terra.

Stopping the birth of Slaanesh from being born won't stop the rise of the Imperium. Stymie perhaps if by stopping the birth of Slaanesh doesn't also stop the warp storms dividing humanity. Then the Emperor would be slowed down dramatically and perhaps have to modify his plans.

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Well, again, if we start disrupting the process early enough IN the process, we may disrupt it before the God-Emperor even reaches a point where he decides he 'has to' reunite humanity by conquest for it to have a chance of survival.

 

[The Froggy Ninja]

His canon reasoning for this was indeed kinda dumb OOC. I've changed it to make more sense, but you'll have to find that out with time.

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My favorite reasoning is that he saw divine intervention as the biggest barrier to mortal civilization developing, not having foreseen the rise of gods both outside his pantheon and strong enough to avoid his Edict when not backed by hierarchical authority.
Though on the subject of protecting gods, my two biggest priorities are Morai-Heg and Hoec. Morai-Heg because keeping Slaanesh from eating their goddess of death and fate will probably be a major blow to Slaanesh's claim on their souls and Hoec because having the actual master of the Webway and Black Library around will not only make those resources more useful, but free Cegorach up to spend more time clowning on people.

Well, again, if we start disrupting the process early enough IN the process, we may disrupt it before the God-Emperor even reaches a point where he decides he 'has to' reunite humanity by conquest for it to have a chance of survival.

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Or if we can manage First Contact with the Humans before the Age of Strife properly kicks off and teach them how to not explode into daemons, that would probably also help. From a "maybe not all aliens would abandon us to die in a heartbeat" perspective anyway. And Huintenuchli sounds like he might be approaching them. Hard to say until we hit the next arc and reopen two-way contact.

 

[K_D]

	Pros	Cons
Stay	-Get even more repute with Isendral, - Follow through on plot threads	- Still have to deal with Orks - Getting caught in the crossfire of Pre-Fall Elder Drama
Leave	- a safer time with more freedom of growth, tech development, and action freedom.	- Lose the committed plot threads on Mochantia -Lose Isendral's continued involvement and assistance

Now these are just the most basic things we can guarantee. There are still a lot of things to keep in mind as to what could hypothetically happen and what we would potentially influence like:

- Isendral freeing her husband and potential conflict with Lauvenal. (She may fail, die, and the Rangdan could end up as the monsters we know they could be.)

- Pre-Fall Eldar shenanigans WAY before we're ready. (They are insanely powerful. Remember, they just casually made the other weird planets in this system. I don't know if there are any canon accounts of how Pre-Fall Eldar interacted with less advance civilizations, but depending on how close they are to being the Dark Eldar, it could be insanely dangerous.)

- The Orks. (admittedly, not as big of an issue, especially with Isendral… BUT we did tickle an echo of the Beast awake, and it could be REALLY BAD if that got off planet)

- Slaanesh. (So… personally, even though it's technically possible to stop the birth, I think it'll be very unlikely to do so. It's probably going to be one of the most difficult things in the whole quest. But we could still significantly effect it, maybe bloody chaos' nose, save some Eldar through Isendral, anything to a point where we could permanently change the event and it's impact on the setting.)

Now… I really want to stay. I can also admit that, from a basic resource standpoint , it'd be smart to leave. But, we would lose all access to the unique resources and opportunities presented to us on Mochantia.

(I will also further update the table if anyone wants/has a suggestion for it.)

 

[Sapphon]

If we were to somehow stop the Birth of Slaanesh the setting would be unrecognizable. That in itself would not be the worst thing in the world, but the way in which it would be unrecognizable would be eternal Eldar Hegemony. We would never get to deal with say the Emperor or the Primarchs because realistically if the Dominion get their act together they will send a strike force to Tera to kill 'Revelation' in the middle of his first speech about Humanity's Manifest Destiny (TM) or even if they cannot or won't do that, if we are going with a more high powered version of the golden man they can still just snuff out Sol and that is that.

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Here I embark on the path of fiction and speculation, but let me put forward my own theory about the Fall and birth of the Dark Prince.
Aeldari have been reincarnating for millions of years, and even if they have no memory of past cycles during their lifetime, some imprint of these Aeons should have remained on their souls. Remember how Isendral withdrew into herself in the garden. My opinion is that their souls are just tired and no longer able to experience anything. And Slaanesh was born out of a strong desire to feel at least something.
So it seems to me that it is possible to prevent the birth of God only by destroying or at least seriously rebuilding the mechanism of Aeldari reincarnation. Which certainly won't pass without opposition from the majority of space elves. That is why I wrote earlier that in order to prevent the birth of She Who Thirsts, we will have to arrange a civil war in the Dominion.
However, I may be wrong, and the mechanism of birth will be different.
In any case, it seems to me much more realistic not to prevent the birth of Slaanesh, but to kill at this very moment of birth. This should probably be the moment of maximum vulnerability. In this case, the Dominion will be in ruins, but it will be much more solid ruins than it could be.

 

[Zealous Specter]

I'm pretty sure that if Slaanesh is never born, the warp storms that were gathering because Slaanesh was about to be born... well, they may not just all go 'poof' all at once, but I suspect they'll wander off muttering about cosmic blue balls.

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As amusing as I find that mental image, I can't help but doubt it. Since there is nothing acting on the warp storms to make them go away quickly like there was when she was birthed.

 

[Dragonofelder]

Oh, fun tidbit - you can consider the various bits of thread chatter as mirroring the thoughts of the slann. IC bits are the living slann, OOC is the thoughts of the Tomb Collective. It's not a 1:1 match; for instance, the living Communion does highly suspect that the growing Warp vortex is proto-Slaanesh, but doesn't know for sure. Tomb Collective knows what's up, but can't say anything because of the liminal barriers between OOC and IC.

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And this explains the memes, I guess. Gotta be boring down there.

 

[Razzocnor]

I would suspect it likely that even if Slaaneesh's birth is stopped, the brewing mega-warp-storm will still unleash at least some level of havoc.

All those negative vibes still have to end up somewhere.

 

[SlightlyGrey]

Even if the backlash of killing/crippling/whatever to Slannesh causes havok and wrecks the eldar homeworlds we could count that as a massive win in the Great War against Chaos. Honestly given that Slannesh is mainly caused by the Eldar a little (and by this I mean a lot) of political and cultural shakeup is necessary for the long term survival of the Galaxy.

Given that we've got the WoG (or whispering from the tombs) that we can at least cripple a Chaos God we can't pass on the chance. The next biggest problem is killing the aforementioned god in a way that doen't look like we just nuked the Eldar Homeworlds...

 

[TempestK]

Even if the backlash of killing/crippling/whatever to Slannesh causes havok and wrecks the eldar homeworlds we could count that as a massive win in the Great War against Chaos. Honestly given that Slannesh is mainly caused by the Eldar a little (and by this I mean a lot) of political and cultural shakeup is necessary for the long term survival of the Galaxy.

Given that we've got the WoG (or whispering from the tombs) that we can at least cripple a Chaos God we can't pass on the chance. The next biggest problem is killing the aforementioned god in a way that doen't look like we just nuked the Eldar Homeworlds...

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Honestly kinda hoping that we can pull off splintering Slaneesh into a few or even several smaller chaos gods rather than one uber-God.

 

[argenten]

Same, as I mentioned earlier in thread, the main issue with Slaanesh is it functionally got to power up twice, once through the eldar feeding it for generations till it reached critical mass, and then got to further strengthen by eating all but three of the eldar gods.

Even if we just poke metaphysical holes so that it bleeds into lesser god vessels, that could still help by causing the eldar to not be able to reach critical mass in time to prevent the eldar dominion from falling into civil war and thus the unified hold the Dark Muses had on their society will be broken.

Pure conjecture on my part but seems plausible considering the setting.

 

[Simon_Jester]

As amusing as I find that mental image, I can't help but doubt it. Since there is nothing acting on the warp storms to make them go away quickly like there was when she was birthed.

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You're kind of sidestepping the fact that there's an element of cause and effect here. It's backwards, time-traveling cause and effect, but still cause and effect.

The storms exist because Slaanesh is eventually going to be born.

If Slaanesh is no longer eventually going to be born, the storms may not just go away instantly, but it seems very unlikely that they'll hang around indefinitely.

To be clear, this is not to say that everything "harmlessly dissipates" or whatever. But a thing that is only happening because something else WILL happen isn't automatically just going to stick around indefinitely because now it WON'T happen. If anything, you'd expect the opposite effect.

 

[Wiggy]

Honestly, with the necrons waking up early the Eldar might have issues in their future even without Slaanesh. Though considering the Imperium of all people manage the occasional win against necrons, maybe pre fall Eldar would just smash them the instant they come out of their tombs.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, with the necrons waking up early the Eldar might have issues in their future even without Slaanesh. Though considering the Imperium of all people manage the occasional win against necrons, maybe pre fall Eldar would just smash them the instant they come out of their tombs.

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Yeah, but with Necrons being one of the few things in the entire history of their civilization that they actually take seriously, it might at least shake some of the not-yet-Dark-Muse Eldar out of complacency enough that they notice shit going down, put a pause on some of the more horrific and outlandish festivities, and generally disrupt the sequence of events a bit.

Same, as I mentioned earlier in thread, the main issue with Slaanesh is it functionally got to power up twice, once through the eldar feeding it for generations till it reached critical mass, and then got to further strengthen by eating all but three of the eldar gods.

Even if we just poke metaphysical holes so that it bleeds into lesser god vessels, that could still help by causing the eldar to not be able to reach critical mass in time to prevent the eldar dominion from falling into civil war and thus the unified hold the Dark Muses had on their society will be broken.

Pure conjecture on my part but seems plausible considering the setting.

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We may also be able to somehow warn the Eldar gods or provide a bunker for them to take cover in and put up a better fight.

 

[argenten]

We may also be able to somehow warn the Eldar gods or provide a bunker for them to take cover in and put up a better fight.

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This is very true and brings to mind something key I been meaning to say but work: We don't have to nor should we think in terms of doing everything ourselves. We very much need to focus our efforts for being as effective as possible while keeping in mind the others WILL have agency.

Also speaking of gods...who's to say we cannot create more to serve as celestial allies to the eldar gods in their battle with slaanesh or w/e ends up happening to the mass of Cenobite flavored energy. Making divine weapons and armor is another option as well, could give the eldar gods a fighting chance that way.

 

[Riggnarock]

[X] Accept the offer (The quest, as it is, will conclude after this turn. There will be a series of votes to choose the planet, sector, etc of your starting point in the next arc. Any hanging plot threads will remain unresolved, and come to a conclusion independent of lizardmen interference. You are guaranteed a limited duration of time where the Eldar Dominion will ignore your existence in the next arc. The quest will continue in a new thread.)