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Shroud (Grey Goo game Shroud SI / Warhammer 40k)

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Rooster said:
Wasn't there some human nation that was pretty advanced, knew enough about Chaos to avoid it's corruption just by playing it smart and was then promptly destroyed by Horus? I'm pretty sure I remember something like that.
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Flameal15k said:
Destroyed by Horus due to a Chaos corrupted Word Bearer stealing one of their most devastating weapons and making it look like the response to this was unprovoked violence.
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A huge overreaction by the Interex. Didn't even give Horus a chance to explain or nothing.
Loken shook his head. 'Sir, no. I don't think that's what was meant. I think these people despise Chaos… the warp… as much as we do. I think they only fear it in us, and tonight, something has proved that fear right.'

'Like what?' Torgaddon snapped.

'Tull said the Hall of Devices was on fire.' Horus nodded. 'This is what they accused us of. Robbery. Deceit. Murder. Apparently someone raided the Hall of Devices tonight and slew the curator. Weapons were stolen.'

'What weapons, sir?' Loken asked. Horus shook his head. 'Naud didn't say. He was too busy accusing me over the dinner table. That's where we should go now.'

Torgaddon laughed derisively. 'Not at all. We have to get you to safety, sir. That is our priority.'

The Warmaster looked at Loken. 'Do you think this also?'

'Yes, lord.'

'Then I am troubled that I will have to countermand you both. I respect your efforts to safeguard me. Your strenuous loyalty is noted. Now take me to the Hall of Devices.'

The hall was on fire. Bursting fields exploded through the lower depths of the placer and cascaded flames up into the higher galleries.

A meturge player, blackened by smoke, limped out to greet them. 'Have you not sinned enough?' he asked, venomously.

'What is it you think we have done?' Horus asked.

'Petty murder. Asherot is dead. The hall is burning. You could have asked to know of our weapons. You had no need to kill to win them.'

Horus shook his head. 'We have done nothing.'

The meturge player laughed, then fell. 'Help him,' Horus said.

Scads of ash were falling on them, drizzling from a choking black sky. The blaze had spread to the oversweeping forest, and the street was flame lit. There was a rank smell of burning vegetation. On lower street tiers, hundreds of figures gathered, looking up at the fire. A great panic, a horror was spreading through Xenobia Principis.

'They feared us from the start,' the Warmaster said. 'Suspected us. Now this. They will believe they were right to do so.'

'Enemy warriors are gathering on the approach steps,' Kairus called out.

'Enemy?' Horus laughed. 'When did they become the enemy? They are men like us.'

He glared up at the night sky, threw back his head and screamed a curse at the stars. Then his voice fell to a whisper. Loken was close enough to hear his words. 'Why have you tasked me with this, father? Why have you forsaken me? Why? It is too hard. It is too much. Why did you leave me to do this on my own?'

Interex formations were approaching. Loken heard hooves clattering on the flagstones, and saw the shapes of mounted sagittars bobbing black against the fires. Darts, like bright tears, began to drizzle through the night. They struck the ground and the walls nearby.

'My lord, no more delays,' Torgaddon urged. Gleves were massing too, their moving spears black stalks against the orange glow. Sparks flew up like lost prayers into the sky.

'Hold!' Horus bellowed at the advancing soldiers. 'In the name of the Emperor of Mankind! I demand to speak to Naud. Fetch him now!'

The only reply was another flurry of shafts. The Luna Wolf beside Torgaddon fell dead, and another staggered back, wounded. An arrow had embedded itself in the Warmaster's left arm. Without wincing, he dragged it out, and watched his blood spatter the flagstones at his feet. He walked to the fallen Astartes, bent down, and gathered up the man's bolter and sword.

Their mistake,' he said to Loken and Torgaddon. 'Their damn mistake. Not ours. If they're going to fear us, let us give them good reason.'

He raised the sword in his fist. 'For the Emperor!' he yelled in Cthonic. 'Illuminate them!'

'Lupercal! Lupercal!' answered the handful of warriors around him
 
Leafy503 said:
Didn't even fully explain what Chaos was or what it did. Stupid and ignorant
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Why would the interex assume that the imperium was kept ignorant of chaos? They knew all about it and they assumed that a Galaxy spanning polity would know more. The whole "keep everyone ignorant and hope for the best" plan is pretty pants on head stupid and dosen't make sense, and especially wouldn't make sense to a polity that already trains to fight against chaos.
 
Basically, the Emperor massively underestimated Chaos. He'd defeated the C'tan The Dragon long ago so thought he had a decent handle on godly power levels, he was wrong. Witnessing Slaanesh being born was probably very informative, but I think it gave him the wrong ideas. He basically built a plan that was to starve the Chaos Gods as an inversion of what he saw in the Eldar feeding the creation of Slaanesh with their worship.

Unfortunately for Emps, any player with even a basic familiarity with Chaos lore could point out that this is like burning down your barn in an attempt to kill all of your escaped horses.
 
Mossconfig said:
Reminds me of some of the screw ups in the early understanding of medicine. If big E has made a mistake this big, what mistakes are the other factions operating under? What mistakes is the si operating under?
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None, the Shroud is a SI that knows about Warhammer, therefore he knows more than just about any other living being in the Galaxy.
 
Zennishi said:
None
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That's a dangerous assumption to make. Maybe ROB wants to screw with dritch in some way and magically buffs the chaos gods. We don't know exactly how cannon this version of 40k is. I do agree that we know more than most factions, but the si could still be blindsided. This could be tts, or reverse heresy or any other manner of worlds. Maybe tzeench uses his silver towers far more here?

In completely unrelated news, imagine a world spirit with a symbiote. That would be awesome.
 
Mossconfig said:
That's a dangerous assumption to make. Maybe ROB wants to screw with dritch in some way and magically buffs the chaos gods. We don't know exactly how cannon this version of 40k is. I do agree that we know more than most factions, but the si could still be blindsided. This could be tts, or reverse heresy or any other manner of worlds. Maybe tzeench uses his silver towers far more here?

In completely unrelated news, imagine a world spirit with a symbiote. That would be awesome.
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Sure, in that case why not make it in the Roboutian Heresy, or the Empyreal Tyrant.

Now, due to the Shroud's Presence that means that precognition is pretty much useless, including the Chaos Gods's, which means that the only Chaos God with anything resembling that of an actual brain is Tzeentch, and even he can only do so much.

I suppose his best chance is attempt to do the same thing that happened with Interex, and that is botch any attempt at Diplomacy, maybe even have the Shrouded Primarch slandered as a Traitor.

On a side note, i wonder of Malal will have any role to play in this story, would be fun seeing the Chaos Gods get fucked by their own Frankestein.
 
SamPardi said:
Basically, the Emperor massively underestimated Chaos. He'd defeated the C'tan The Dragon long ago so thought he had a decent handle on godly power levels, he was wrong. Witnessing Slaanesh being born was probably very informative, but I think it gave him the wrong ideas. He basically built a plan that was to starve the Chaos Gods as an inversion of what he saw in the Eldar feeding the creation of Slaanesh with their worship.

Unfortunately for Emps, any player with even a basic familiarity with Chaos lore could point out that this is like burning down your barn in an attempt to kill all of your escaped horses.
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It's also possible that he was able to run a statistical correlation between the 'birth' dates of Daemons aspected to a particular god and compare it to the number of Cults worshipping that god in the Materium.
It's what I'd do if I didn't know exactly how that Chaos gods worked and was afraid to take the risk of looking directly at them, but was powerful enough that I could extract information about anything lesser than that without risk.
If it supported a strong correlation between Daemon creations and worship levels it'd easily lead to incorrect conclusions.
 
thatguy said:
It's also possible that he was able to run a statistical correlation between the 'birth' dates of Daemons aspected to a particular god and compare it to the number of Cults worshipping that god in the Materium.
It's what I'd do if I didn't know exactly how that Chaos gods worked and was afraid to take the risk of looking directly at them, but was powerful enough that I could extract information about anything lesser than that without risk.
If it supported a strong correlation between Daemon creations and worship levels it'd easily lead to incorrect conclusions.
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But isn't emp one of the most knowledgeable being in the galaxy when it came to the warp i mean if we go by the shaman theory he was born using the warp and we know he got stuck in the warp for a very long time and get a massive psychic power boost from it not to mention emp probably started a few religion back when he was young and was worship as a god so shouldn't he be the one to know how the god work ?
 
Npt170 said:
But isn't emp one of the most knowledgeable being in the galaxy when it came to the warp i mean if we go by the shaman theory he was born using the warp and we know he got stuck in the warp for a very long time and get a massive psychic power boost from it not to mention emp probably started a few religion back when he was young and was worship as a god so shouldn't he be the one to know how the god work ?
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Simply put, he didn't know that worship could empower him.
In The First Wall, Malkador talks with the Custodian Amon about the religion that extends to Terra - worship of the Emperor. Malkador says the Web is just one way to save humanity. The emperor thought this was the best way to starve the Dark Gods. However, psykers will be born among people.

With a working Web, the Emperor would have to direct the psychic light of humanity. But what if the psychic energy that feeds the Astronomicon would not be directed by the Emperor, but would be given directly to him.
The Custodian replies that the Web project failed. But Malkador disagrees.

Malkador suggests that if the power of the gods of Chaos cannot be suppressed, then it can be redirected from them. Perhaps if you give the Emperor enough psychic energy, he will be able to turn the Astronomicon into a weapon and purify the warp with it.

The Custodian replies that this whole conversation is a dummy, and why does Malkador watch all this religious rabble?

Malkador says that he must see with his own eyes the growing faith, just as he feels its growth with his mind. Malkador explains that every person has mental potential. Through this connection with the warp, all human souls are connected to each other. What if a power appears that can unite not only psykers, but all the souls of people? Malkador watches the growing number of believers in the Emperor to see if faith is that power. Malkador calls this "new weapon research."
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4.3
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    • 4.3

    +++

    Quick and obvious. Blatantly self-apparent.

    And nonetheless, extraordinarily important.

    The Compact had been founded on the ideal of reunion. Finding and reconnecting the scattered sparks of Humanity. Rebuilding the Federation, as the loftiest goal.

    We had always expected- We had always known that not everybody would be on board with that idea.

    But there was a difference between academic knowledge and true experience.

    And there was another difference between fighting people who were corrupted by Chaos and fighting people who were entirely sensible and willing.

    The Imperium of 30k and the Imperium of 40k were two entirely different beasts. The latter would have disgusted the Compact on almost every single level.

    The former, though...

    The former would not.

    The Imperium of 30k is, for the most part, an expansionist power focused mostly on reuniting all the scattered Human polities in the galaxy.

    So, you know, the exact same thing we were setting out to do.

    The devil, of course, is in the details.

    We were doing it to restore the Federation.

    I should note, here, that despite the name, the Federation was... more of a decentralized network of alliances, smaller interstellar polities, and planets than a full government in its own right. Technically, the most direct control the Federation itself had was over the Man of Iron, and therefore the defense and service of Humanity as a whole.

    That, and technology. The Federation required that scientific knowledge be regularly updated and uploaded to the Federation, for its usage to greater purposes. The Federation, in turn, distributed 'safe' knowledge, in the form of civilian-class STCs.

    However, not every planet and polity had taken this offer. There were plenty of groups all over the place that had shaken off the yoke, freely pursuing technological and scientific endeavours. Those groups had, for the most part, been left alone, ultimately falling behind in their separation. The only exceptions had been particular circumstances where a group had developed something dangerous and, more importantly, was threatening to use it on other Federation members.

    To us, therefore, a bunch of different groups, separate polities, and cultures all acting under a single aegis was the goal. Ideally, that would be all of Humanity, but isolated groups were fine so long as they weren't threatening other Human groups.

    The Imperium was not like that. The Imperium's goal was total incorporation of all polities. No exceptions. More than that, however, the goal was to spread the Imperial Truth, and unite Humanity completely under the single aegis of it.

    The Imperium would prefer peaceful integration. They would not, however, hesitate to wage war if the other party denied it.

    And that was the key thing.

    After all, that put us squarely in the target. For the simple reason that the Compact was Human...

    Conflict was just this side of inevitable.

    Any other species in the galaxy, and that wouldn't be a problem. But, fighting other Humans... Fighting completely uncorrupted Humans, driven by an ideology that wasn't all that different from our own...

    That was the problem. That was what I was concerned about.

    What would that do?

    There was no easy answer. I can imagine many scenarios, good and bad, but knowing which one would come to pass... Not predictable.

    The outcome I was hoping for was a simple one.

    Stopping that conflict from ever happening in the first place.

    But while the goal itself was simple, achieving it... was not.

    There was more to the situation than both parties involved being merely Human, after all.

    To start, the Imperial Truth held a philosophy of Human supremacy. It stated that Humanity was the species that was the 'purest' of form and purpose, that, after all the failed alien civilizations had collapsed, it was now Humanity's turn to rule the galaxy- and that Humanity was more worthy of this than any other.

    Xenophobic? Yes.

    Which, fine, wasn't surprising. Even the Compact didn't hold too much lost love for aliens. The older generations remembered full well how most of the Federations' so-called 'allies' had turned against it the moment the Man of Iron had gone out of control, taking opportunistic attacks that weakened the position of those trying to stop the Iron Tide. Most of those that had remained allies had eventually been wiped out by the Man of Iron, swallowed by Warp Storms, or were attacked by other parties.

    Really, the only reason the Compact wasn't more Xenophobic was because I've been around. The Compact was mostly ambivalent on the subject of aliens, sorting on a case-by-case basis rather than in general.

    One could not fault the Imperium for having gained its greater degree of xenophobia, though. Gaining absolute xenophobia was an entirely reasonable expectation when there were species that had been running around, stealing the stars of inhabited systems with little care as to the ultimate fate of its inhabitants. Or when there were species that ran around the galaxy, fighting everyone and everything they came across like a bunch of hooligans. Or when there were species that ate minds, or species that devoured bones, or species that were also absolutely xenophobic that were trying to wipe you out in turn.

    No, the Imperium could not be faulted for that. The reaction and the reasons behind it were entirely understandable, and shared by a great deal many species in the galaxy.

    What they could be faulted for was wiping out species that were truly no threat to the Imperium, out of convenience or simple phobia.

    It was especially problematic because of me.

    The Imperium, of course, with its ideals of Human supremacy, had problems with any Human faction that didn't also embrace that ideal. Those who cooperated with aliens, treating them as equals, or 'worse', superiors, would inevitably conflict with the Imperium.

    My relationship with the Compact, our mutual symbiosis... Oh, that would be quite a big problem to the Imperium. And there was no doubt in my mind that they would try to attack us for it, given the chance.

    It didn't end there, either. No, there were more reasons.

    The third reason was technology.

    The Imperium was not a monolith. It was composed of its own sub-groups. The Imperium was not a universally technical society like ours; all of their advanced technology was constructed and maintained by the Mechanicum.

    The Mechanicum was a technology cult. They worshipped technology, coveted it, and the particular pieces that were the most important to them were the STCs. Mere fragments of those, singular patterns, were valuable enough to trade planets for. One of the Mechanicum's major goals was the recovery of a fully intact STC system.

    Like the ones we had, for example. The Compact's Civilian-grade STCs were basically the holy grail to the Mechanicum, and there was very little they wouldn't do in order to acquire them.

    That even tied with the fourth reason; reliable FTL.

    Reliable FTL was the holy grail of any species that used the Warp.

    Sure, the methods available to the Compact without me were all slower, but they were completely reliable.

    The Wormholes, though? Oh, that was better in every way.

    Why, then, was that a point against us?

    Well, two reasons, actually. First, because it makes us a bigger threat. Second, because there's a group with a vested interest in keeping Warp FTL as the primary; the Navigator Houses.

    The Navigators were, after all, under no illusions to what would happen to them if they became unnecessary. They'd do their best to sabotage any designs, any possibilities that might lead to it.

    All of this... None of it was easy. What I hoped to come to pass seemed just this side of impossible, with all the reasons against it. That was why I was prepared for a much worse scenario.

    But, there was still a possibility. A small one, but it still existed.

    Big E... The Emperor.

    He'd be the one to make it or break it.

    The Imperium was ultimately beholden to him. He may have had his sons, his generals, his closest companions, Malcador, and that, but he was the one with the charisma, the will, and the authority to actually direct that change.

    Nothing else would be able to achieve a peace.

    But it wasn't just peace that was necessary

    Had to stay ourselves, after all. Anything less would be an insult.

    The real question is... can we convince him?

    I sure hoped so.
     
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    • That is true, I hadn't thought of that but the Navigator houses will do anything and everything they can to ensure that standard Gellar Field Warp Travel remains the norm, and of course the Mechanicus will move heaven and earth to pirate the shit out of the Compact if they learn that they have an intact STC database. They won't even be apologetic about it; as far as the Mechanicus is concerned, acquiring those databases through literally any means necessary is not only their right, it is their responsibility.
     
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    Nice chapter. All the problems nicely out and I don't have a good feeling about Big E he might think to use him as a weapon against the dark gods but once they are gone he's gotta know he will have him killed afterwards.
     
    Drich said:
    because there's a group with a vested interest in keeping Warp FTL as the primary; the Navigator Houses.

    The Navigators were, after all, under no illusions to what would happen to them if they became unnecessary. They'd do their best to sabotage any designs, any possibilities that might lead to it.
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    Yeah, the mutants are only kept around cause it's necessary for warp travel.
     
    Now, I know there's been a lot of mentions of stable warp travel.

    But has anybody mentioned "Hey, with stable warp travel, the emperor won't have to keep the astronomicon online, and be able to use that power elsewhere."
     
    Drich said:
    Navigator Houses.
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    Interesting. Didn't think of this. Wonder how much power the navigator houses have and weater it would be worthbit for them to give it up to live in a prejudiceless society?

    Drich said:
    One could not fault the Imperium for having gained its greater degree of xenophobia, though. Gaining absolute xenophobia was an entirely reasonable expectation when there were species that had been running around, stealing the stars of inhabited systems with little care as to the ultimate fate of its inhabitants. Or when there were species that ran around the galaxy, fighting everyone and everything they came across like a bunch of hooligans. Or when there were species that ate minds, or species that devoured bones, or species that were also absolutely xenophobic that were trying to wipe you out in turn.
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    This logic is pretty Bad for a few reasons. Yes you can fault the imperium for being xenophobic.

    It's like saying "you can't fault Americans for islamophobic views because (terrorist event)" You can fault America by explaining the political and economic circumstances that destabilized the middle East during the cold war and how Saudi Arabia needs to export terrorists to destabilize it's neighbors to maintain regional dominance. The fault is because Americans looked for a simple explanation for this complicated situation and religious grifters were perfectly happy to blame a heathen religion.

    You can blame the imperium because they sell thier citizens a morally flattened view of the world. Every public source of information would be warped by "race science". Imagine trying to get accurate information on judiasm in Nazi germany. You couldn't do that because the foundations of Nazi germany rested on the idea that "we won't get stabbed in the back again." The foundations of the imperium rest on the same idea. They cannot explain the diffrent factions of eldar and how that is only one faction who invade other nations for [ISPOILER]oil[/ISPOILER] suns. The imperium must present the idea of racial homogeneity.

    I bet you dollars to donuts that any mention of the alien species who remained loyal is buried and never mentioned. They get the same treatment as Jews who fought for Germany in ww2. You definitely can blame the imperium for that.

    This argument also removes all context or subtelty by comparing eldar to orks. The average citizen of the the compact has far more in common with craftworld eldar than a feudal serf. Comparing dark eldar to orks in the same list is a real hot take. Orks cannot choose what to do, they are driven to war and they barely qualify as a sentient species. They are incapable of reason. Dark eldar are a thinly veiled reference to energy dependence, either torment or solar bodies. They choose this path.

    If you want to make this argument, can you be more precise in your language? It's not understandable that they are xenophobic, it's simply easier than communicating the facts and it dosen't serve the purposes of empire. You can highlight how the imperium downplays any loyalst alien allies from the iron war. Show how only the traitorous xenos are given time in imperial history.
     
    I mean, they're human, they have a lot of lost technical prowess in those civilian STCs. They have a way to not only protect humans from the Warp but the Shroud could in theory be a long-term solution to Warp Storms by having fleets slowly eat at them later.

    Sure, they have Abominable Intelligences (Which I would be faster to qualify the Shroud as opposed to as a Xenos), but none of the Men of Iron, the Big E might be more forgiving of this than we thought as long as the Compact doesn't go about making more of them.

    The big deal is the FTL that doesn't deal with the Warp and sidesteps the Imperial Webway. It means he can stop spending so much time and resources on that project, and focus on further plans. That's a big boon. Up there with having one of the Primarchs and having saved it from Warp taint. Plus, you know, protection to the others from Warp taint since he doesn't want them using their psyker powers.

    As for the Navigators. . . Well, the Compact has the genetic knowledge to help fix mutants and abhumans. Only, their ability to see into the ebb and flow of the Warp might actually be useful towards helping the Shroud hunt down good feeding spots. They could, in fact, go from being super needed for a dangerous job that will lead to deaths among their number to still being useful for the replacement to their jobs, that keeps them safer, as their job is phased out of having issues in normal society. They might be able to be sold on the idea. And we don't know how a Shroud Implant would interact with their Warp Eye, which could be even more useful than their current abilities. I mean, imagine if the Implant let their Warp Eye monitor an area for Warp incursion or something. They could go from a dangerous job on ships that keep getting destroyed in war and lost in the Warp to a cushy job on planetary defense.
     
    The funny thing is, Drich, rolled out galaxy wide, would solve the corrupted warp problem. Alas, he's a xeno (and, if I understood the mechanism correctly, he could also feed on human souls, if he wanted).
     
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