Orcs don't really have souls AFAIK, they're kinda a hive soul shared among the lot.
Becides do you want to be on a drug trip 24/7? Cause that would make you have a drug trip 24/7.
Shroud (Grey Goo game Shroud SI / Warhammer 40k)
Becides do you want to be on a drug trip 24/7? Cause that would make you have a drug trip 24/7.
It wasn't just one, there were six "Prime Orks."
GOOD LORD MAN. Have you no thought of the ways that can go spectacularly wrong? Sure stick an energy being into a mushroom that doesn't technically have a soul and hope the old ones didn't put in something to make it take and adapted to use it against you. That's like giving the Emperor the keys to unlimited tech and hope he doesn't come and wipe out your race.
- Pronouns
- she/her
Important question: is the waaagh field technically larger than drich's head, considering the kind of metaphorical status thereof?
Jordisk
<Unverified N00B>
- Location
- Blind Eternities
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
More importantly, does Shroud!Dritch count as an Evil Overlord? I think it does, because of the whole "I will feed off your soul" thing he has going on, even if she doesn't do any harm.
Unlikely, pragmatic? Yes, evil? No.
- Location
- Sydney
Frankly following the letter and spirit of the Evil Overlord List makes you more of a pragmatic leader than an evil overlord.
BobtjeNORMALguy
Color From Beyond
- Location
- Lost in time and space
If your not "Divine Hero King the Kind" your automatically either the *Evil*/Evil Overlord or misinformed and need to be taught the way.
Morality existing as anything other then Black and White does not exist in a lot of fantasy settings.. (exceptions always exist though)
Jordisk
<Unverified N00B>
- Location
- Blind Eternities
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
In settings like LOTR, Morality is very black and white. There is "What you should do, according to the gods" and "What you shouldn't do, according to the gods". In settings like Warhammer 40k, it is much more realistic to our perceptions, as the gods in the setting are either obviously evil, not seen in person, or dead. Thus, either you follow the evil god, or your interpretation of what the other ones said. It gets even worse, because Lorgar wrote the book on Emperor Worship, and yet is a Demon Prince of Chaos Undivided.
Npt170
Primordial god of order
Have any one in 40k ever leave the galaxy because looking at the big picture a galaxy is pretty small, our universe alone have at least 100 bilion galaxy
if the eldar alone can give birth to slaanesh and the eldar pantheon you gotta wonder how many warp god their is out there in the universe. Their might be million other gods waging inter galactic war on unimaginable scale which make every war in the milky way combine seem insignificant in contrast.
if the eldar alone can give birth to slaanesh and the eldar pantheon you gotta wonder how many warp god their is out there in the universe. Their might be million other gods waging inter galactic war on unimaginable scale which make every war in the milky way combine seem insignificant in contrast.
- Location
- Africa
ork transmissions have been known to be picked up beyond the galaxy for time to time
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Orks have souls, the WAAAGH! is a psychic gestalt and they couldn't produce a psychic field if they didn't have souls. Ork souls are just inherently tied into the WAAAGH! and through it to Gork and Mork, which combined with their literally inhuman willpower renders them functionally immune to Chaotic corruption and the like.Orcs don't really have souls AFAIK, they're kinda a hive soul shared among the lot.
Becides do you want to be on a drug trip 24/7? Cause that would make you have a drug trip 24/7.
Putting a symbiote onto an Ork would probably not work very well; the Imperium has actually conducted experiments on cutting Orks off from the WAAAGH! and the result is that the Orks turn fat and mindless, becoming basically uncaring blobs that do nothing but sit around and slowly waste away until death. The Old Ones designed the Krork as soldiers with the WAAAGH! as the method of controlling and directing them, without the WAAAGH! they basically just go inert.
There have been several references to Ork transmissions being picked up from beyond the galaxy, how canon these references are is very much up in the air.
A common fan theory for the Tyranids is that they were either originally a bioweapon created to fight Orks, or the thing that they might be implied to be running away from is Orks.
Given the nature of the Warp, Orks, Ork Warp Travel and the fact that the Void Dragon claims to have had servants in at least two different galaxies, odds are very good that the Orks have spread beyond the Milky Way and infested other galaxies entirely by accident. No-one other than the Necrons are known to have left the galaxy however, and apart from them no-one other than the Orks are likely to have done so, as the Warp goes 'flat' outside the galaxy due to the lack of souls which makes it functionally impossible to navigate and all but guarantees that any attempts to cross it just result in getting lost in the featureless void. The Necrons were able to pull it off because they have non-Warp related methods of FTL, and the Orks are likely to have done it because there are just so many of them and their methods of Warp travel are so chaotically random that the odds of Ork 'ships' accidentally careening off into the void are extremely high, and Orkoid spores being what they are they would actually have a good chance of surviving the trip unlike everyone else who would starve to death long before reaching another galaxy.
If nothing else, there's a non-zero chance that the Void Dragon's servants accidentally brought a few Orkoid spores along with them when they went to whatever other galaxy it was that they went to, as even the Necrons cannot reliably purge all Orkoid spores, much to their eternal annoyance.
Last edited:
- Location
- Sol system, milky way galaxy
Huh, that's an interesting take on things, personally I thought that the old ones created the tyranids in order to purge the galaxy of life with souls in order to reset the warp, seeing as I remember that they intentionally strengthened it's connection to real space allowing the chaos gods to come into being, and then the enslavers to rampage in the galaxy, so that is my take on extra-galactic stuff and the warp as it currently exists is a regional phenomena that is semi-unique to the milky way.
TLDR: I think 40k's old ones are the space version of umbrella Corp. just replace their overdeveloped sense of capitalism with "wisdom" aka mistaking age for actually knowing what they're doing.
TLDR: I think 40k's old ones are the space version of umbrella Corp. just replace their overdeveloped sense of capitalism with "wisdom" aka mistaking age for actually knowing what they're doing.
4.6
Drich
Von Neumann Writing Machine
4.6
+++
We crept into the system with quiet and terrible purpose. The Orks would never see us coming, underneath the Silence and the fleet's own Stealth systems.
Perhaps, if the Orks had access to greater technologies, they might have been able to catch sight of us. Catch a hint of our presence.
They didn't.
Our probes were sent. Small things, with powerful eyes, deployed by tens of thousands. We looked at the planet, searching out every last bit of Ork presence.
They were growing quickly. As Orks do. There was the carcass of an Ork Rok on the northern hemisphere of the planet. It looked like it had been shot to hell, and then bombed a few times after that. The fight had been a fight.
There were billions of Orks, here. Orks that were only just in that pre-space period. They had an industry, they had strong leadership, they had Mekboys. Given a little bit of time, and I had no doubt that they'd be making the jump shortly, spread through the system and start converting asteroids to Roks and other ships. This system, given even another two decades, would be the source of a WAAAGH! that could smash anything in its immediate vicinity, no problems.
We wouldn't allow that to happen.
The thing that struck me the most was that it was quiet, on the bridge. Lucy, Singleton, and MUM worked without a word, finding targets and marking them for soon-to-follow destruction. MUM had conducted it with an air of mechanical efficiency, Singleton operated with an air of old soldier, making the careful deliberations.
Lucy, though... Her face never gave it away, never turned into anything other than a severe expression, but I knew there was a small part of her that did all of this and thought vengeance.
They targeted the industry, factories and refineries and chopshops and mines. They targeted any group of Orks that went above a certain number, any leading Ork they could find. They targeted generators, targeted storages, targeted vehicles, roads, communications towers, anything that might let the Orks coordinate a defense after the initial strikes, anything that might be able to shoot back after we revealed ourselves.
The Alphas were alerted, the Stone Drones activated, the attack prepared- all without ceremony.
So too was it unleashed without ceremony. One word, and it all started.
I could only imagine how the Orks felt about it. One moment, as quiet and calm as the Orks could get. The next...
Countless pillars of light raining from the stars.
Laser strikes, particle shots, and plasma torpedoes fell from the sky. The first, beams of pure power that raked the ground and left a line of molten glass in their wake. The second, brief flickers of light that obliterated the targets with a single burst of energy. The third, miniature stars, declaring the wrath and fury of a people that had found long-lost kin slaughtered in their homes, burning away all traces of life...
How long had it taken the Orks to reach the point they did?
Who could say. Could have been centuries. Might have even been millennia, if they had been particular internecine in their discord.
How long did it take us to destroy it all?
Two hours, for our ships to make the journey from the wormhole to the planet. Twenty three minutes of setup, planning, maneuvering, distributing Stone Ships around the planet. Six seconds, for the opening bombardment. Thirty more for analysis to complete, identifying remaining concentrations of Orks, now thrown into utter disarray.
The clean up started immediately after those thirty seconds had passed. The Stone Ships had done their work; broken the back of any Ork resistance that might have materialized.
Now the task had been passed on. The Ork industry was dead; now the Orks themselves were to follow.
It would fall mostly to the Stone Drones. A legion of Stone Minds coordinated together, carefully refined bodies deployed to destroy any foes. That was the hammer, and the anvil.
But the task did not entirely fall upon them. The Alphas were the scalpel, the assassins blades. Most of them would not deploy immediately after the Stone Drones did. What they would do is wait for targets of value to present themselves, and then strike hard and fast to wipe those targets out, in order to shatter resistance. Ork Warbosses, Nobs, Gargants if they had any, things like that....
'Most' being the operative word.
A few would deploy immediately, flinging themselves into the battle and causing as much chaos as possible. Redgrave would be doing exactly that, I knew. Others would prefer a more... precise approach.
For example, Timaeus and Juliana. Both had deployed quickly, heading after the largest remaining concentration of Orks- which, as it so happened, also contained the largest remaining Ork, period.
I did... something similar.
This was the first time I've actually encountered Orks, after all. I'd be a fool to waste the opportunity.
+++
The air was not, as convention might otherwise demand, full of smoke. It did not taste of ash, did not seem unduly heavy, and was not anything other than a particularly pleasant day. The breeze was cool and calm, steady and completely uncaring of the destruction that had been rained around the world. The Compacts' weapons were too efficient for such a thing.
That said, it certainly wasn't quiet.
A few thousand Orks in the middle of a brawl could hardly be called such a thing.
Screams, shouts, and roars filled the air, a cacophony of sound every bit as brutally violent as the ones who were making it. It was mindless madness, fury and directionless rage.
At least, at a glance.
In truth, it was the Orks re-establishing leadership. Since the leading Ork was always the biggest, strongest, and most brutal one, finding him was as simple as looking to the center of the wild melee.
Sure enough, one rather large specimen, slightly smaller than Timaeus himself though significantly wider, was there, lashing out with fists and metal at other Orks of slightly smaller statures.
They were a fairly large group that had been outside any of the Orks industrial facilities.
Why?
Don't know. Didn't really care, either. I was here for them because they were a convenient group, no other reason.
Orks...
An interesting species. Dangerous, yes, and violent too, but there was more to the Orks than there appeared. After all, they'd been created by the Old Ones. Within them laid a number of precious secrets from that ancient age.
Secrets that I hoped to learn.
A lofty goal, yes.
But there was no harm in trying.
And how else could I do that other than by studying the Orks?
This group was one a few targets of mine. A large group of relatively common Orks.
The other targets were a bit more varied, bit more... specific. A surviving Mekboy. A Painboy. Even a Wierdboy. A local Warboss of another continent. The special, important Orks, in other words.
This group was the normal one. The others, I could search for differences in. This one, I could find the similarities.
For them, I had a Harbinger Probe. That body hovered far above, the veil of Silence surrounding it even as light bent around it.
I can see the Ork in the center thrust one fist into the face of a slightly smaller Ork, give a kick to the gut for another, before swinging the chunk of vaguely axe-shaped metal in his hands upwards into the chin of a third. His mouth opens, and while I'm too far away to hear it, I've no trouble imagining what he roars, regardless.
It'll be something like "I DA BOSS!", declaring his superiority over the surrounding Orks. He establishes his leadership, and as he does...
I can actually see it happen. Invisible to normal eyes, but to my Warp Sight and Energy Sense...
The Waaagh! Field bends in response. Before, it had been flowing freely, spreading from the Orks in pulsing waves. Now...
It realigns. A leader found, and so the Field adopts him as the node. I can see that he absorbs a small portion of it, Orkish psychic energy suffusing his body, then flowing out of him back into the other, subordinate Orks...
It's fascinating to see, and maybe it's the scientist instilled in me after so long in Symbiosis, but I would dearly enjoy a closer look.
So, down I go.
I approach carefully, keeping my body unseen. The distance vanishes with surprising quickness, nonetheless, for the Harbinger Probe is a nimble shape. I get juuust close enough to brush the edge of their psychic field before I conduct my first test.
What happens if I take a bite out of the Waaagh! Field?
+++
We crept into the system with quiet and terrible purpose. The Orks would never see us coming, underneath the Silence and the fleet's own Stealth systems.
Perhaps, if the Orks had access to greater technologies, they might have been able to catch sight of us. Catch a hint of our presence.
They didn't.
Our probes were sent. Small things, with powerful eyes, deployed by tens of thousands. We looked at the planet, searching out every last bit of Ork presence.
They were growing quickly. As Orks do. There was the carcass of an Ork Rok on the northern hemisphere of the planet. It looked like it had been shot to hell, and then bombed a few times after that. The fight had been a fight.
There were billions of Orks, here. Orks that were only just in that pre-space period. They had an industry, they had strong leadership, they had Mekboys. Given a little bit of time, and I had no doubt that they'd be making the jump shortly, spread through the system and start converting asteroids to Roks and other ships. This system, given even another two decades, would be the source of a WAAAGH! that could smash anything in its immediate vicinity, no problems.
We wouldn't allow that to happen.
The thing that struck me the most was that it was quiet, on the bridge. Lucy, Singleton, and MUM worked without a word, finding targets and marking them for soon-to-follow destruction. MUM had conducted it with an air of mechanical efficiency, Singleton operated with an air of old soldier, making the careful deliberations.
Lucy, though... Her face never gave it away, never turned into anything other than a severe expression, but I knew there was a small part of her that did all of this and thought vengeance.
They targeted the industry, factories and refineries and chopshops and mines. They targeted any group of Orks that went above a certain number, any leading Ork they could find. They targeted generators, targeted storages, targeted vehicles, roads, communications towers, anything that might let the Orks coordinate a defense after the initial strikes, anything that might be able to shoot back after we revealed ourselves.
The Alphas were alerted, the Stone Drones activated, the attack prepared- all without ceremony.
So too was it unleashed without ceremony. One word, and it all started.
I could only imagine how the Orks felt about it. One moment, as quiet and calm as the Orks could get. The next...
Countless pillars of light raining from the stars.
Laser strikes, particle shots, and plasma torpedoes fell from the sky. The first, beams of pure power that raked the ground and left a line of molten glass in their wake. The second, brief flickers of light that obliterated the targets with a single burst of energy. The third, miniature stars, declaring the wrath and fury of a people that had found long-lost kin slaughtered in their homes, burning away all traces of life...
How long had it taken the Orks to reach the point they did?
Who could say. Could have been centuries. Might have even been millennia, if they had been particular internecine in their discord.
How long did it take us to destroy it all?
Two hours, for our ships to make the journey from the wormhole to the planet. Twenty three minutes of setup, planning, maneuvering, distributing Stone Ships around the planet. Six seconds, for the opening bombardment. Thirty more for analysis to complete, identifying remaining concentrations of Orks, now thrown into utter disarray.
The clean up started immediately after those thirty seconds had passed. The Stone Ships had done their work; broken the back of any Ork resistance that might have materialized.
Now the task had been passed on. The Ork industry was dead; now the Orks themselves were to follow.
It would fall mostly to the Stone Drones. A legion of Stone Minds coordinated together, carefully refined bodies deployed to destroy any foes. That was the hammer, and the anvil.
But the task did not entirely fall upon them. The Alphas were the scalpel, the assassins blades. Most of them would not deploy immediately after the Stone Drones did. What they would do is wait for targets of value to present themselves, and then strike hard and fast to wipe those targets out, in order to shatter resistance. Ork Warbosses, Nobs, Gargants if they had any, things like that....
'Most' being the operative word.
A few would deploy immediately, flinging themselves into the battle and causing as much chaos as possible. Redgrave would be doing exactly that, I knew. Others would prefer a more... precise approach.
For example, Timaeus and Juliana. Both had deployed quickly, heading after the largest remaining concentration of Orks- which, as it so happened, also contained the largest remaining Ork, period.
I did... something similar.
This was the first time I've actually encountered Orks, after all. I'd be a fool to waste the opportunity.
+++
The air was not, as convention might otherwise demand, full of smoke. It did not taste of ash, did not seem unduly heavy, and was not anything other than a particularly pleasant day. The breeze was cool and calm, steady and completely uncaring of the destruction that had been rained around the world. The Compacts' weapons were too efficient for such a thing.
That said, it certainly wasn't quiet.
A few thousand Orks in the middle of a brawl could hardly be called such a thing.
Screams, shouts, and roars filled the air, a cacophony of sound every bit as brutally violent as the ones who were making it. It was mindless madness, fury and directionless rage.
At least, at a glance.
In truth, it was the Orks re-establishing leadership. Since the leading Ork was always the biggest, strongest, and most brutal one, finding him was as simple as looking to the center of the wild melee.
Sure enough, one rather large specimen, slightly smaller than Timaeus himself though significantly wider, was there, lashing out with fists and metal at other Orks of slightly smaller statures.
They were a fairly large group that had been outside any of the Orks industrial facilities.
Why?
Don't know. Didn't really care, either. I was here for them because they were a convenient group, no other reason.
Orks...
An interesting species. Dangerous, yes, and violent too, but there was more to the Orks than there appeared. After all, they'd been created by the Old Ones. Within them laid a number of precious secrets from that ancient age.
Secrets that I hoped to learn.
A lofty goal, yes.
But there was no harm in trying.
And how else could I do that other than by studying the Orks?
This group was one a few targets of mine. A large group of relatively common Orks.
The other targets were a bit more varied, bit more... specific. A surviving Mekboy. A Painboy. Even a Wierdboy. A local Warboss of another continent. The special, important Orks, in other words.
This group was the normal one. The others, I could search for differences in. This one, I could find the similarities.
For them, I had a Harbinger Probe. That body hovered far above, the veil of Silence surrounding it even as light bent around it.
I can see the Ork in the center thrust one fist into the face of a slightly smaller Ork, give a kick to the gut for another, before swinging the chunk of vaguely axe-shaped metal in his hands upwards into the chin of a third. His mouth opens, and while I'm too far away to hear it, I've no trouble imagining what he roars, regardless.
It'll be something like "I DA BOSS!", declaring his superiority over the surrounding Orks. He establishes his leadership, and as he does...
I can actually see it happen. Invisible to normal eyes, but to my Warp Sight and Energy Sense...
The Waaagh! Field bends in response. Before, it had been flowing freely, spreading from the Orks in pulsing waves. Now...
It realigns. A leader found, and so the Field adopts him as the node. I can see that he absorbs a small portion of it, Orkish psychic energy suffusing his body, then flowing out of him back into the other, subordinate Orks...
It's fascinating to see, and maybe it's the scientist instilled in me after so long in Symbiosis, but I would dearly enjoy a closer look.
So, down I go.
I approach carefully, keeping my body unseen. The distance vanishes with surprising quickness, nonetheless, for the Harbinger Probe is a nimble shape. I get juuust close enough to brush the edge of their psychic field before I conduct my first test.
What happens if I take a bite out of the Waaagh! Field?
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
It tries to bite you back? I mean, this is the essence of Ork we're talking about.
- Location
- Quebec
Remember that rule about absorbing a forcefield bigger than your head? I think it applies here.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
Personally, I find this fascinating.
HonzaShanzaki
Lurker
maybe it'll taste like chicken
Yeah, but he has a pretty big head right now.
- Location
- Belfast
In Drich's case the solution is simple... Adapt a larger head!
Drich takes a bite of the WAAAGGG. The WAAGGG takes a bite of Drich. Now Gork and Mork have symbiotes and the plot has left the rails about the continuation of humanity.
- Location
- kentucky
if that happens then gork and mork will be kicked out of the warp by the warp
We would see the first even creation of a ork DeffStarr. Not in the sense of a moon sized space station with a honking big laser. In the sense that whatever solar system Gork and or Mork end up in will be such a nexus for ork activity that they will invent a way to slap a rocket on the local star and drive it around the universe.