Suffer Not ≡][≡ 40k Inquisition Quest

open_sketch · Nov 19, 2019

≡][≡ Inquisitor Joanyn Praxis ≡][≡
Imperial Inquisitor, Ordo Hereticus

Attributes
Physical Attributes
Strength - 1
Agility - 2
Melee - 1
Endurance: 4

Mental Attributes
Intelligence - 3
Tactics - 2
Nerve - 1
Fortitude: 6

Social Attributes
Charm - 4
Presence - 3
Contacts - 3
Resolve: 10

Faith Attributes
Belief - 2
Scripture - 0
Fire - 1
Conviction: 3

(3) - The Imperium should be an alliance of solidarity for the weak, not an alliance of strength for the strong.
(2) - People are more than problems, weaknesses, corruption vectors to eradicate. Their feelings and dreams matter.
(1) - A Shot Fired is a Shot Wasted

<1> - Victory makes me feel alive.

Strength is raw physical conditioning. Lifting stuff, swimming, running a long time, punching hard. It's added to many melee attack damage as well.

Agility is swiftness, reaction speed, and immediate awareness. It's used for dodging things, jumping, ducking, outrunning folks, and other twitchy reactions.

Melee is the general skill of up close combat with knives, swords, fists (power or otherwise), chainsaws, whatever else.

Intelligence is raw intellectual power, knowledge, and drive to learn and study stuff. It is also used for military logistics.

Tactics is your knowledge of battle tactics, from the strategy of leading armies to simply knowing when it is safe to rush across a hallway in a gunfight.

Nerve is the stat both for shooting firearms and for keeping your cool. Nerve checks are common in combat to prevent from panicking or fight through pain.

Charm is the social stat used for flattery, smoothtalking, lying, seduction, verbal sparring, deflection, and navigating high culture.

Presence is the social stat used for reasoning, explaining, teaching, intimidating, impressing, or public address.

Contacts is rolled to know people you need to know, and to have a good reputation with them.

Belief is your actual faith in... whatever you have faith in. The Emperor, hopefully. It is used to resist temptation and corruption.

Scripture is your knowledge of the intellectual side of your religious faith. If you can quote from the holy books and theologians. It's intelligence for matters of faith.

Fire is your ability to project your faith out and convince others of it. Want to convert somebody or whip a crowd into a fanatical fury? This stat.

Weapon: Laspistol
Weapon: Hellpistol
Trade: Manager
Trade: Spy
Trade: Political Operator
Talent: Verbal Sparring
Talent: Seduction
Talent: Dishonesty
Talent: Intimidation
Talent: Exfiltration
Talent: Logistics
Talent: Propaganda
Talent: Indirect Persuasion
People: Dahlia
People: The Corrupted
People: High Imperial Politicians
Knowledge: Imperial Political Theory

Social Loadout
1 Compact Laspistol, 1 Laspistol Reload, Flash-Safe Glasses, 6 Concealed monoknives, 1 Show Knife, 1 Belt Buckle Gun, 1 Plastex Bodyglove/Flakweave Suit, Displacer Field

Combat Options
+1 Hellpistol, +1 Transonic Machete

Compact Laspistol
Small Handgun
Attack Dice: 1/d10 -or- 2/d10-1
Aim Bonus: +1
Damage Bonus: +2
Armour Reduction: 0
Magazine Size: 4
Special
Laser: Does not cause bleeding.
Blinding: If operated without flash protection, witnessing the impact of a las-weapon will blind for 3 rounds.

Concealed Monoknife
Small Knife
Attack Dice : 1/d10
Damage Bonus : Agility + 1
Armour Penetration : 2
Parry Bonus : -1
Disarm Bonus : +0

Show Knife
Medium Knife
Attack Dice : 1/d10+1
Damage Bonus : Agility + 1
Armour Penetration : 0
Parry Bonus : +0
Disarm Bonus : +0

Buckle Gun
Tiny Handgun
Attack Dice: 2/d10-2
Aim Bonus: +0
Damage Bonus: -2
Armour Reduction: 0
Magazine Size: 1
Special
Hidden: Will always escape searches.

Plastex Bodyglove/Flakweave Suit
Clothing
Armour Value : 3
Coverage : All but Head and Eyes
Resistances : Impact, Blunt

Displacer Field
Energy Screen
When hit with an attack, roll 1d10.
1: Displaced into worse danger.
2: Displacer field fails. Take the hit.
3-6: Displaced hard. Take 1 Sore from bumping into something.
7-9: Displaced. Attack avoided.
10: Nothing personal, kid.

Hellpistol (Voss Pattern)
Medium Handgun/Carbine
Attack Dice: 1/d10 -or- 2/d10-1 (One-Handed)
Aim Bonus: +1
Damage Bonus: +3
Armour Reduction: 2
Magazine Size: 12
Special
Laser: Does not cause bleeding.
Blinding: If operated without flash protection, witnessing the impact of a las-weapon will blind for 3 rounds.
Convertible: When converted to Carbine mode, gain +1 to Attack and Aim Bonus.

Transonic Machete
Medium Knife
Attack Dice : 1/d10+2
Damage Bonus : Strength + 3
Armour Penetration : 1 + Half of enemy Armour (Round Down)
Parry Bonus : +0
Disarm Bonus : +3
Special
Sickening Vibrations: Enemies with 3 meters of an active blade count as being at -1 to all stats.

Sister Charitina
A member of the Order Famulous who found her faith again thanks to the Inquisitor. Praxis' closest confidant, dearest friend, and irritating ex-girlfriend.
Attributes of Note: Nerve 3, Contacts 4, Charm 3, Scripture 2, Fire 2
Skills of Note: Career - Order Famulous, Weapon - Bolt Carbine, People - Inquisitor Praxis
Equipment: Half-Plate Power Armour, Bolt Carbine, Burning Blade
Known Values: (3) The nobility is a blight on the Imperium, (2) I trust the Inquisitor's vision for the future, (1) Galaxy grim and dark, tiddy soft and warm.

Dahlia Hussian
A 17 year old unsanctioned psyker, rescued by Praxis from the witch's pyre she volunteered for at age 12. Loves the Emperor, and hates herself for being unworthy and twisted.
Attributes of Note: Power 1, Control 2, Sight 2, Faith 5, Strength -1, Nerve 0
Skills of Note: Talent - Self Discipline, Talent - Self-Hatred
Equipment: Web Derringer
Known Values: [3] I am here because I was given a chance. I should extend the same chance to others, [2] The Emperor is all things, [1] I can atone for my existence by aiding the Inquisitor

Marvel Ann Alemanga-Zero
A Magos of the biology wing of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Marvel Ann is an exuberant, odd, and enthusiastic cyborg lady who is an expert in medicine and bionics. She's Joanyn's current sweetheart, and she autotunes her voice.
Attributes of Note: Intelligence 4, Charm 3, Strength 4
Skills of Note: Career - Cyberdoc, Talent - Surgery, Talent - Singing
Known Values: [2] Adventure is to be seized with both hands (and as many mechandrites as possible)

Fraser Bookter
A positively ancient scribe who served Praxis' teacher, Bookter has seen all manner of things. Despite that, he keeps good humour.
Attributes of Note: Intelligence 4, Scripture 2, Contacts 2, Strength -2
Skills of Note: Career - Archivist, Knowledge - Imperial History
Known Values: ???

Korey Kilimnik
Once a Lightning fighter pilot for the Navy, until he was caught fucking an admiral's son. Kilimnik professionally doesn't care unless it has jet engines.
Attributes of Note: Nerve 5, Agility 3
Skills of Note: Career - Fighter Pilot, Talent - Piloting, Talent - Causing Trouble
Known Values: [2] By death or rejuvenation, age will never slow my reflexes

Penalties

≡][≡	Sore	Strain	Stress	Stain	≡][≡
◹☠◸	0/4	0/6	0/10	0/3	◹☠◸
◹⛉◸	3 XP	XP3	33 XP	9 XP	◹⛉◸

CURRENT RP
6

RULES SUMMARY
ROLZ ROOM

Ramble · Feb 18, 2020

open_sketch said:
Realtalk: Of course they weren't a risk.

The whole ship was crewed with hybrids. There would be no reason for 4th generation hybrids to be hiding in the vents from their fellow hybrids, and setting up this particular trick would require them to know a boarding force was coming with enough lead time to make it look plausible, under the assumption you'd find and care about a recessed servants quarters. Constructing that scenario actively requires some incredibly convoluted logic and a string of implausible assumptions on the part of your enemies after you set their ship on fire. You had a wall of seven foot tall walking tanks with you in case they got rowdy. You were always fine, and only the trappings of the universe had you thinking otherwise.

So this was less Space Hulk and more just another day in the office?

open_sketch · Feb 18, 2020

Ramble said:
So this was less Space Hulk and more just another day in the office?

Well, the Marines def had a close run thing holding the elevator shaft and stairway against the tide of hybrids and genestealers, but for them, that is a day at the office...

Always Late · Feb 18, 2020

open_sketch said:
Realtalk: Of course they weren't a risk.

The whole ship was crewed with hybrids. There would be no reason for 4th generation hybrids to be hiding in the vents from their fellow hybrids, and setting up this particular trick would require them to know a boarding force was coming with enough lead time to make it look plausible, under the assumption you'd find and care about a recessed servants quarters. Constructing that scenario actively requires some incredibly convoluted logic and a string of implausible assumptions on the part of your enemies after you set their ship on fire. You had a wall of seven foot tall walking tanks with you in case they got rowdy. You were always fine, and only the trappings of the universe had you thinking otherwise.

Uh, hasn't been part of the whole 'deconstruction' of 40k going on here been that it's, like, the creators influence that binary riddles exist? If that's "the trappings of the universe", then the solution was 'think of something nobody from 40k would do'. Which is the point of the quest, yet isn't since the universe is slightly different? If the goal was to make a fake trolley problem to see who'd be willing to kill people that could've been saved? Then congratulations, you now know who's a horrible person?

Ramble · Feb 18, 2020

open_sketch said:
Well, the Marines def had a close run thing holding the elevator shaft and stairway against the tide of hybrids and genestealers, but for them, that is a day at the office...

But apparently not the especially horrible brutal shit that absolutely requires first company terminators.

Like, when I voted, I thought we were losing space marines. Also Tyranid Genestealers scare the shit out of me.

open_sketch · Feb 18, 2020

Always Late said:
Uh, hasn't been part of the whole 'deconstruction' of 40k going on here been that it's, like, the creators influence that binary riddles exist? If that's "the trappings of the universe", then the solution was 'think of something nobody from 40k would do'. Which is the point of the quest, yet isn't since the universe is slightly different? If the goal was to make a fake trolley problem to see who'd be willing to kill people that could've been saved? Then congratulations, you now know who's a horrible person?

The 4th generation hybrids absolutely do exist and all that stuff is still true, so I'm not saying that cautious wasn't unwarranted: caution is never stupid when you need it. But there's a difference between caution and paranoia, and one of the things that the sort of logic 40k rides on does is it conflates those two things. It says, 'If there is any risk, it must be taken as a certainty', to quote a terribly written version of ~~Batman~~ Lex Luthor. It encourages anti-thought.

From my perspective, the purpose of this scene was to set up a rather classically 40k situation, the 'you are infected and already dead' sort of reveal, and then see how willing the players would be to inspect that situation and reason out the risk as it was presented instead of reaching for the catastrophizing hypotheticals.

Ramble said:
But apparently not the especially horrible brutal shit that absolutely requires first company terminators.

Like, when I voted, I thought we were losing space marines. Also Tyranid Genestealers scare the shit out of me.

Rightfully so. But yeah, big difference between pushing into and exploring the depths of a long abandoned vessel crawling with who knows what, and holding a small area of a ship you just got finished filling with holes. If you had opted to pull back immediately, the Marines would have taken no causalities at all. If you had opted to stay, real deaths would have started mounting.

Like Space Hulk is scary in large part because the Teminators have to move into the ship. If Space Hulk was a game of Terminators turtling in a corner behind their guns with the genestealers coming at them from one direction, it'd throw the balance off.

Simon_Jester · Feb 18, 2020

10ebbor10 said:
You kind of have to consider the politics of the story here. Sketch is working from the perspective of the Imperium as an ossified, fascist regime (which it is, but not every warhammer bit acknowledges it that much). Attaching a roll to this situation would mean that the fascist regime would be justified in how it treats it's civilians as disposable infection vectors. Instead, we were given the situation as it was, and the consequences of the situation as they logically were (bogstandard humans aren't dangerous to spacemarines) and were then left to sort the doctrine out for ourselves.

I think the big uncertainty factor that had people worrying was not feeling comfortable ruling out the possibility that the civilians we were dealing with actually were genestealer hybrids.

As @open_sketch points out, for the enemy to intentionally have arranged for that would require some very convoluted thinking and contingency preparation. But there are enough examples from the fiction* that we find it easy to imagine 40k bad guys indulging in such convoluted thinking.

It's similar to the power of the 'ticking bomb' scenario. While the 'ticking bomb' case in which a law enforcement officer needs information to defuse a known, ticking bomb and can only get it through torture is massively unrealistic... It is also very compelling and memorable. So much so that when you see it in fiction, you start to almost... self-propagandize... into thinking it's relevant to other situations.
_______________

*(which is admittedly likely to be so caught up on "wouldn't it be cool if SUDDENLY GENESTEALER CULTISTS" that they admittedly don't think this through)

Always Late · Feb 18, 2020

open_sketch said:
From my perspective, the purpose of this scene was to set up a rather classically 40k situation, the 'you are infected and already dead' sort of reveal, and then see how willing the players would be to inspect that situation and reason out the risk as it was presented instead of reaching for the catastrophically hypotheticals.

Well, if you need to get people to make the right decision: Don't call the people who really know 40k. We're infected with the Anti-Thought Equation./semi-joke

open_sketch · Feb 18, 2020

Always Late said:
Well, if you need to get people to make the right decision: Don't call the people who really know 40k. We're infected with the Anti-Thought Equation./semi-joke

No lie, one of my objectives with this quest is to deconstruct those kinds of reactions in 40k fans (among them myself) by examining how the setting's logic works and questioning its assumptions.

Simon_Jester · Feb 18, 2020

There's also a division here:

How well do you know 40k's worldbuilding, versus how well do you know the culture and assumptions its stories popularize?

Like, here we knew we were dealing with either fresh infectees or 4th-generation genestealer hybrids, and could make reasonable deductions about which it was, et cetera, et cetera. The 'facts' did lead us to the 'yeah we're safe' argument.

But the internal culture inculcated by 40k stories was screaming the opposite message at us: "NEVER MIND THE DETAILS! THIS IS ONE OF THOSE STORIES THAT ENDS TRAGICALLY DUE TO EXCESSIVE MERCY!"

Someone who's a big ol' nerd about 40k worldbuilding lore, but hasn't absorbed the story message, and someone who's absorbed the 'memetic' content of the setting but not the details of exactly which kinds of genestealer hybrids are dangerous to a Space marine, will make very different conclusions in a case like this.

Always Late · Feb 18, 2020

open_sketch said:
No lie, one of my objectives with this quest is to deconstruct those kinds of reactions in 40k fans (among them myself) by examining how the setting's logic works and questioning its assumptions.

Good thing failing forward is allowed due to majority rule. I'd make a terrible Inquisitor Joanyn Praxis.

10ebbor10 · Feb 18, 2020

Simon_Jester said:
I think the big uncertainty factor that had people worrying was not feeling comfortable ruling out the possibility that the civilians we were dealing with actually were genestealer hybrids.

As @open_sketch points out, for the enemy to intentionally have arranged for that would require some very convoluted thinking and contingency preparation. But there are enough examples from the fiction* that we find it easy to imagine 40k bad guys indulging in such convoluted thinking.

I don't see that.

Sketch explicitedly told us these weren't hybrids, and none of the votes made would have solved any issue if they were hybrids. After all, the big 2 differences were sterilization and sedation, and neither option would have stopped a true hybrid infiltrator.

veekie · Feb 18, 2020

Simon_Jester said:
But there are enough examples from the fiction* that we find it easy to imagine 40k bad guys indulging in such convoluted thinking.

Well, if its Eldar, or Chaos or fellow Imperials...yes. Tyrannids are more direct and efficient, so they don't tend to invest into low probability ploys unless theres no better way

Deathbybunnies · Feb 18, 2020

Hooray, taking them back to the ship to be tested was the correct decision! I knew they weren't a credible threat under Space Marine overwatch.

open_sketch said:
Realtalk: Of course they weren't a risk.

The whole ship was crewed with hybrids. There would be no reason for 4th generation hybrids to be hiding in the vents from their fellow hybrids, and setting up this particular trick would require them to know a boarding force was coming with enough lead time to make it look plausible, under the assumption you'd find and care about a recessed servants quarters. Constructing that scenario actively requires some incredibly convoluted logic and a string of implausible assumptions on the part of your enemies after you set their ship on fire. You had a wall of seven foot tall walking tanks with you in case they got rowdy. You were always fine, and only the trappings of the universe had you thinking otherwise.

It didn't occur to me that having real threats in there would require explicit planning on their part - I kind of figured that their standard modus operandi was to hide amongst victims and slowly infect others. I understand your explanation, but I would totally have bought that there were a few "real" genestealers in there.

prometheus110 · Feb 18, 2020

TBH, if the Tyranids were in a position to set up the kind of scenario a lot of people were worrying about, you'd be fighting against the Swarmlord and would be better off crying in a hideyhole.

You'd still probably die, mind, but you'd live a little longer.

open_sketch · Feb 18, 2020

Deathbybunnies said:
Hooray, taking them back to the ship to be tested was the correct decision! I knew they weren't a credible threat under Space Marine overwatch.

It didn't occur to me that having real threats in there would require explicit planning on their part - I kind of figured that their standard modus operandi was to hide amongst victims and slowly infect others. I understand your explanation, but I would totally have bought that there were a few "real" genestealers in there.

In a ship controlled by the cult outright, there wouldn't be much need for that. And even if there was... one or two unarmed (or at best lightly armed) late-gen hybrids on a packed thunderhawk gunship filled with space marines would likely not do super great. Especially not after their patriarch and all the purestrain genestealers got asploded, which I suspect is not great for the coordination of a hybrid.

Deathbybunnies · Feb 18, 2020

open_sketch said:
In a ship controlled by the cult outright, there wouldn't be much need for that. And even if there was... one or two unarmed (or at best lightly armed) late-gen hybrids on a packed thunderhawk gunship filled with space marines would likely not do super great. Especially not after their patriarch and all the purestrain genestealers got asploded, which I suspect is not great for the coordination of a hybrid.

I thought they might just instinctively do it anyway, even if it's not the most efficient way to do things. And yeah, not a threat under Space Marine overwatch.

Stewart9 · Feb 18, 2020

Sorry for the long post guys was unable to use the computer for a while.

open_sketch said:
My reason for writing the dreadnought the way I did is Codex: Ultramarines, which describe dreadnoughts as walking tombs, as twin tragedies: the chapter loves a comrade too much to let him die, and instead he must watch them all die, one by one, as he becomes an Old One, treated more as one of the chapter's relics than a member.

In the literal sense, no, he is not dead. But the word they consistently use to describe being placed in a dreadnought is ''interred'. If you don't know, that's a word that means 'to place a body in a tomb'.

The ceremony to do it was a funeral, make no mistake.

When people say that they miss when warhammer was self aware, they usually mean when warhammer could poke fun at itself or be satirical about stuff. But it's not the only kind of self awareness they lost. Before the grimdark took hold, the writers had a much better sense of the tragic, and the dreadnought is one of my favourite examples.

Regarding the space marines and psychology, this may surprise you but torturing somebody doesn't make them immune to being traumatized, nor is it a one to one match to the rigours of a life of long voyages broken up by a variety of completely horrifying combat situations. Space marines are people, and people experience combat stress reaction and subsequent processing in many, many different ways. Some people handle it very well: Basak seems fine. Others less so.

Not to mention the utter heartbreak of, for example, losing a comrade who is almost literally, genetically your brother, who you fought beside for years or maybe even decades. And being as they are big greek heroes, some of them are probably also lovers. There are probably marines who never entirely recover from things like that.

Thanks for the reply but I am a bit confused. One I said nothing about Torture I was talking about the Trials that different Chapters put their aspirants through to figure out who is strong enough physically and mentally to become a Space Marine before they even try implanting the geneseed in to them. For example the Raven Guard have them hunt a bird native to the planet the Moon that hold their Fortress Monastery orbits as a test of both their stealth and their control as they an not crush the birds skull when they kill it with their bare hands. Or the Wolfs who run them through a gauntlet after they drink from the cup of Russ where they have to reach the Fang on foot over a treacherous landscape full of deadly wildlife with those who were unable to control the beast with in and became Wulfen being the most dangerous. What I meant was that as a young initiate they will face beasts as monstrous as any of the bigger of the bigger Tyranid bioforms and if they went Catatonic after facing them then the Marines in charge of testing their worthiness would if they survived consider them failures and make them serfs if they did not send them home. While none of the organs that enhance them are designed to suppress fear specifically because the emotion fear does not have one source their selection processes are where they see if the aspirant has not just the physical toughness but mental toughness greater they the average human. Those who make it through and become full Marines were not average people because they would be dead if they were.

Second while I get what you are about losing comrades a Space Marine chapter is a Brotherhood of warriors who know that they will meet their end in battle because they are the Emperor's Angels of Death and they do not retire. Aspirants when they volunteer to face the different trials the Chapters will put them through know they are trying to join a superhuman group of warriors who fight the Emperor's enemies in the Eternal Battles that rage across the stars. Over the years and through the tests those that pass will see comrades fall, either dying because they are unequal to the tasks they have to face or because their bodies can not handle the implantation process. In their time as scouts they will also lose comrades facing all manner of foes in defense of humanity. If they can not deal with loss then they will not make past these stages. By the time they become full Marines they will be able to deal with the lose of bothers in arms. Still you are the boss and your writing is better then some when it comes to them so I have said my piece.

Your take on a Dreadnought is interesting and I wonder where you are doing to take it because just meeting him seems to be doing Dahlia some good. Is Cassian the only ancient on board the Gate Wardens strike cruiser and is his disconnect with the person he was before something common for the chapter?

Always Late said:
Plus he gets Dreadnought!Alzheimer's as the life-support systems of the sarcophagus slowly lose their effectiveness. If Ancient Cassian survives another three or four hundred years, he may very well not remember his own life before being an Astartes. Or the first time a Battle-Brother he never knew in life seeking his wisdom. Or the time a scared little girl wandered into his sanctum, and was given comfort. The slow, merciless ticking of time chipping away at his mind until nothing remains.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Yet we have Dreadnoughts who have been around since the Heresy who have not lost their sense of self and the fact that he remembers his life suggests that that is not the reason he has seemed to have lost his sense of self.

The Laurent said:
Just to clarify, PTSD isn't a sign of weakness. In fact, a more notable sign of weakness is thinking that PTSD is a sign of weakness.

Not sure what to do with the vote, honestly?

If it causes you to shutdown in the middle of a battlefield then yes I could see the emperor seeing it as a weakness he would not want in his supper Soldiers. There is also the fact the Soliders suffering from PTSD so bad that they went Catatonic on the Battlefields of World War 1 or, Shellshock victims as they were known then, were taken of the Frontline because they could no longer fight and the same thing happened with soldiers suffering combat fatigue in World War 2. A soldier who might shutdown during battle puts his comrades at risk and that is why it makes very little sense to not make sure that it is not something that can happen to your superhuman warriors.

The point I am making is that during the recruitment process the Chapter would weedout people who can not withstand the strain of combat considering that once they become a Marine they will live a life of war that will only end on the battlefield. This is not to say that they are not affected by their years of battle but the recruitment process is designed to prevent this kind of problem.

Simon_Jester said:
OK, you don't understand how suicidal ideation works.

See, the way it exactly does NOT work is "oh, it's BAD, I'm gonna kill myself" in response to external circumstances.

"I'm walking across 200 miles of tundra in barely adequate clothing with no rations and no tools except a hatchet" does not drive men to suicide.

"I'm fighting a giant monster" does not drive men to suicide.

What drives men to suicide is the memories they can't get out of their heads. The images. The sense of dissociation, of no longer being a human thing part of the human world.

Based on what I've read about Space Marine initiation rituals, I see no sign that anything in a typical chapter's initiation does anything to screen out people with a capacity for PTSD.

First what are you saying here because ideation is not a word?

One their are many reasons that humans have committed suicide across history and people have committed suicide when things get bad enough that they do not see a way for things to get better. A good example being a lot of suicides committed after the stock market crash of 1929 or or the assistant Captain of the Staten Island who in 2003 tried to kill himself by slashing his wrists after he drove the the Ferry he was piloting in to a pier next to the one he was supposed to dock at and realized his time as a Ferry boat captain was done and that he faced jail time and disgrace. Second we have the Lieutenant himself tell us that his fight with the Giant Monster that is a Tyranid Mawloc screamerkiller left him with PTSD so bad he went catatonic for a while after his fight with it and he still has nightmares about it so yes open has implied that Giant monsters can get Marines to contemplate suicide.

It also follows that this kind of thing could happen during the initiates testing to see if they have what it takes to be one of the Angels of Death. The Marines who are in charge of the initiates testing are going to be paying as much attention to their mental state during their trials as they are to whether they are physically up to the test. If they notice a of the initiate fall apart mentally during the tests then they will not take them to the next stage because they only have so much geneseed and there is no guaranty the initiate will make it all the way through the process and even if they survive to be serfs a geneseed has been spent that they can not get back.

Simon_Jester said:
Well yes. Namely, that he's been living an unpleasant and fitful existence in an armored coffin, with no ability to participate in normal human things like eating and recreation, and under social pressure to act like a big box full of war stories, for the past 2500 years or so. Like, the span of time between the founding of Rome and the present day.

Honestly, him being all like "The guy I used to be is dead, would you like to hear about him" as a way of getting some psychological distance and dissociating himself from the active, breathing, walking, living man he used to be? That's a pretty good coping mechanism compared to what one might expect.

And yet we have Dreadnought much older then that who have not lost themselves hell we have Dreadnoughts that retain their full rank and act as Company Commanders and even Chapter Masters. While it may be a very painful half life all of the loyalist Warriors that I have read about across multiple chapters consider being placed in a Dreadnought a great Honor and a way to continue there service even though their bodies have been shredded.

I take no issue with how the Ancient is being written I was simple pointing out his dissociation with the life he lived before he was placed in the Dreadnought is not a common thing among the warriors who are interred within Dreadnought. I also think interacting with him is good for the psyker who needs the encouragement she can get.

Simon_Jester said:
Now, in fairness, when "torture" is defined as "exposure to absurdly intense wilderness survival challenges" or "navigate a very perilous and challenging environment" or "be forced to fight a horrible monster," those are actually relevant job qualifications for a Space Marine, since Space Marines regularly do all those things and a man who can't do them isn't qualified. Similar logic exists in real life special forces training programs, though they tend to be a lot more careful not to waste prospective talent than some portrayals of Astartes induction.

On this we agree

ShyPerson said:
@open_sketch

I have to applaud your writing for the last two chapters. You have done brilliantly in brining the human element in characterising the Space Marines in ways I don't think I have seen anywhere else. It opens more story possibilities and interpersonal conflicts within andoutside the Chapters. Hope you don't mind me stealing this concept for anything I write. Whenever that might happen.

I also really love the Dreadnought side story. Not enough attention has been given by eather official or fanworks about what an isolated existence being interned in one really entails after those you know are gone, leaving you an impersonal icon to those that come after. Now I wonder what a lonely existence Björn the Fellhanded must endure.

In any case, I want to throw my cents on this matter:

I don't believe these two approaches are incompatible on a macro scale. The varying institutional cultures of each Chapter would likely breed diffrent coping mechanisms and attitudes towards their mortal failings. I can see well natured Chapters like the Salamanders and Imperial Fists leaning on unhealthy methods like self-burning for the former.

For your initial idea I think that the Black Templars and Red Scorpions would slot right in to the SS attitude. The former being Fanatical templar knights would mean extreme dislike of differing ideas and great purging enthusiasm, coupled with self-loathing for personal failings. The latter being obsessed with mankind's purity might be dead ringers for the SS, probably likely to go off mission to purge any adhumans they see when they can get away with it, likely having a really toxic internal culture as a result.

Long and possibly disturbing musings aside, I adore what you do with the dis-functionality of the Imperium and how it is ingrained in the very cultural foundation, and the potential depth of history that you imply is behind it. I hope to do my own take with such an approach in mind at some point. You will receive full credit for the inspiration.

I think you need to actual read some stuff with the Black Templars before you start saying they are the comparable to the SS. I would suggest Helsreach which has The Chapters highest ranking chaplain Grimaldus show exactly how much they are willing to sacrifice to keep regular humans and how they are willing to tell Inquisitors that our lady would hate to fuck of to Protect their brothers in the Celestial Lions. They are based on the old Crusading Knightly orders of old not the SS. If you want the Imperium's asshole Marines you look at the Marines Malevolent and even then its that they literally then do not care about regular humans and will use them as meat shields to complete their missions.

Ugolino said:
The idea of Old Night isn't a thing in 40k dogma? The Heresy is full on myth in canon even for those in the Inquisition, but...

As for Marines, my own take is more...All that blather about courage and honour rings thoroughly hollow as it's just...parrot talk drilled into them by the hypnoindoctrination. They're broken monsters ten thousand years past the best-by date, clinging to protocols and relics that're hollow mockeries of the Legions that butchered the surviving human civilizations in a forgotten age at the whims of unbalanced warlords- and that's just the loyalists!

I would like to point out that for one GW has implied that Emperor was operating with the knowledge that things were leading to a show down with the Four with a side of Orks so he was willing to use broken pieces at times because that was the only way to get an kind of win, although it also could be shortsightedness on his part depending on the writer and the books quality. Imperium tried diplomacy when it was an option and a some times when they were not rescuing humans from things like the Nephilim, who used their psychic powers to drain the life from there human slaves, the other human group shot first as we saw in the first Horus Heresy novel so they did not blow thing ups for whimsical reasons because even Angoron was focus on spelling blood is nothing else.

Ugolino said:
I'm talking about the Emperor's Swords incident in which the Alpha Legion literally just gave individual Marines an understanding of "deviant philosophies" and the whole Chapter imploded because it turns out the Chapter-type organization is deathly allergic to Marines having ideas of their own that aren't part of indoctrination.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that the destruction of the Swords as a chapter was the result of a 300 hundred year long infiltration campaign by agents of the Alpha Legion on the chapters homeworld of Ghorstangrad during which they setup subconscious brain triggers in the groups that the chapter recruited from. I remember reading the story that the Black Library wrote for the destruction of the Swords and in it we see the Alpha using the recruits they had already brain washed to help them destroy the chapter. For example they take out the chapter's Head Librarian by while he is investigating irregularities in the Lower level of the Hives because the junior member of the Librarius with him reads the writing they are investigating and then has a trigger activated that turns him in to a daemon host that Librarian defeats but the battle ends with the Cavern they were fighting in collapsing killing him. So it took the Alpha legion brainwashing people to the degree so of them became living bombs not just exposing them to "deviant philosophies" to the leave the chapter open to their attack which is what really destroyed the chapter and turn their world in to a stronghold of the Ruinous Powers.

Ugolino said:
I'm saying that while it's certainly possible for Marine homeworlds to be less oppressive (and I've read a fairly good story about such), I don't think Marine thinking would lend itself to such very often. But I think that's just the different takes on Marines (ie: "there's something salvageable in the Chapter system" vs "broken leftover monsters parroting nonsense")

The Tyrant declaration was, ironically, perfectly legal, above board, and acceptable. Which says it all about the Imperium. The tax thing was a local dispute that blew up into a friendly fire accident.

Huron basically was a "loyalist" in all but the 1000 astartes limit and sheltering the Tiger Claws (who were never actually declared as fugitives) and this was somehow a massive failing of the Astartes brainwashing system for him to be in a position of command at all.

Except that we see...The Imperium uses Marines for that anyway (or rather, the Marines do run around doing such things). Briefly and brutally, but it's established in lore that Chapter forces can and do squash hapless rebellions on hive and urban worlds without knowing about chaos involvement or whatnot. (Without sticking around either, but still making a mess)

The wiki isn't reliable, but the philosophies thing was a huge deal in the 4e and even more modern Chaos codex. The manchurian candidate nonsense was only part of it.

Simon_Jester said:
I haven't seen this presented as a failure of the brainwashing system. I've seen this presented as him, personally, being disproportionately ambitious because he set aside multiple other rivals for power and consolidated personal control over a whole sector, and that the kind of man predisposed to do that shouldn't have been appointed as a chapter master.

Which is, frankly, an entirely reasonable argument. It's bad for the Imperium as a whole to have men like Huron as chapter masters, because their tendency to arrogate resources to themselves would rapidly result in the Imperium breaking down into several thousand small warlord fiefdoms. It is reasonable to say "total breakdown of the central government is bad, so the central government won't tolerate individual Imperium military leaders doing it.

The issue with Huron is that by the time he started down the road to becoming the Tyrant of Badab he was already a servant of Chaos and was working to build up his own power so he could rebel at a time of his choosing. His hand was forced how ever and the Badab War was the result. It was the fact that they did not know of this fact was the reason Executioners, Mantis Warriors and Lamenters were not destroyed completely and given a chance to atone.

open_sketch said:
Yeah, Space Marines here aren't murderbots. They are people of various temperament and cultures, highly trained and motivated, defined by a duty to defend a society they no longer have much connection to. And I also like the idea that as the Imperium has aged and gotten worse, the Space Marines have, for the most part, become better: more noble, more righteous, and more upstanding. It's that thing where chivalry was mostly invented retroactively, except the knights never went away. A rare case of growing better by believing their own legend.

In this interpretation, the chapters who actively seem to loath the civilians of the Imperium, like the Marines Malevolent, are in the minority. For the most part, these Space Marines are true believers in the idea that they are these noble protectors, they really are mostly good and noble warriors who take on the weight of this crushing lifelong burden to fight as long as they can to protect the Imperium. While they are often somewhat aloof, and most are very distant and alienated from regular human beings, they also mostly conceive of themselves as protectors, upholding a long and glorious history of protecting the worlds and people of the Imperium. They are driven into battle after battle by a feeling that their lineage and power saddles them with an obligation to protect those weaker than them, diving into these impossible fights to spare the regular man their horror.

This is, to me, in the context of this quest, the more interesting tragedy. They are the real deal, but the thing they protect is foul and cruel. They are these noble men trying so hard, being worn away and dying for a system that doesn't deserve them, shouting the name of a distant father who would not recognize the knights that his butchers became.

This is sort of what I mean as the difference between high tragedy and grimdark. The empty killbot Space Marine does fit an edgy world where everyone is the absolute worst, but it also leaves us not caring about them whatsoever. It means nothing when they win, it means nothing when they die. It is a description, not a story.

A good tragedy has irony.

I would think judging by how they are presented the Loyalist Primarchs would be for the most part proud of their sons, I mean the Angel loves his boys so much that his spirit has come back to the mortal plain to break Bloodthirsters to defend them. We do not know who the Marines Malevolent father is but Corax for example would ream them out for how they act. Now what the bastard who sees people as tools most of the time and who was alive before we had cites thinks who can say.

Simon_Jester said:
Well they CAN, but the last time the Space Marines got together and tried to change the system the Horus Heresy happened, and here we are.

The modern Imperium is designed, in very large part, to prevent any possibility of the Horus Heresy from ever happening again by making the Adeptus Astartes so fragmented that they can never be a meaningful political force in Imperial affairs.

This has the tremendous virtue of preventing an Empire-wide civil war led by superhuman Astartes charismatic figures from ever happening again, and the tremendous drawback of being a particularly blatant example of massive amounts of resources and opportunities being wasted in order to fight, win, or in this case preempt the last war.

The thing is Marine chapters have come together to unfuck the Imperium's leadership before examples being The Beheading and the whole thing with Goge Vandire with the Sons of Dorn being the leaders of the Marines forces in both cases.

open_sketch said:
A thing to keep in mind is that, though they are many things, the Imperium is not capitalist, so singing is going to be a very common past time, group bonding activity, and part of most every workplace, as it was in almost every culture around the world before the commodification of music and the corresponding shaming of those whose voices were not good enough to be professional (which was echoed along a lot of common social arts).

People have been lauded for being great singers since the time of the Egyptian times and people made a living off of there skill as singers in the Middle ages as Troubadours so people have been sing as a job for a very long time. A bard that was not good a singing would not be able to survive trying to live as a bard. I would also say that singing is still a pretty common thing people do in the US, I have a habit of singing along to songs I like even though I have been told I am not a good singer.

open_sketch said:
In a ship controlled by the cult outright, there wouldn't be much need for that. And even if there was... one or two unarmed (or at best lightly armed) late-gen hybrids on a packed thunderhawk gunship filled with space marines would likely not do super great. Especially not after their patriarch and all the purestrain genestealers got asploded, which I suspect is not great for the coordination of a hybrid.

While I was not completely sure of the fact that if they were anything other then recently infected the fact that they were hiding from those who would be their brothers and sisters and who had control of the ship is something I thought of. It is good to see I was going in the right direction. Also this choice you gave us seems like the kind of thing any member of the Ordo Xenos not a coward would while choose because while risky it offers the chance to learn more about one of the greatest current threats to the Imperium. Malcador made the Inquisition to fight in the darkness to defend all humanity. The Inquisitors job in my eyes is to save people by destroying the monsters hiding in the dark and only when things are beyond saving making the hard choice. The ones who think that everyone they interact with are already lost to one degree or anther are already half way lost them selves. They are the ones who do the work of the enemy by for example murdering Imperial Guardsman who have shown themselves capable of standing against the demons of the Four and sending them howling back to the warp. We did the moral and smart thing and we have learned useful information as well.

10ebbor10 · Feb 18, 2020

Stewart9 said:
First what are you saying here because ideation is not a word?

Suicidal ideation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

prometheus110 · Feb 18, 2020

Google provides definitions when typing single words... 😕😕😕

Stewart9 · Feb 18, 2020

10ebbor10 said:
Suicidal ideation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

prometheus110 said:
Google provides definitions when typing single words... 😕😕😕

You learn something new every day. I had not heard suicidal thoughts referred to with that phrase and the spell check flagged the word which it looks like was spelled properly. Thanks for the information but the point I was making about there being many reasons people commit suicide stands.

Portec · Feb 18, 2020

[X] Plan Lower Temptation
- 6RP to lower Temptation from 2 to 1
- 1RP to reduce Strain from 2 to 1

Because we already lose a lot of RP to it. 4 till now and with reducing it will be 10. It is really expensive...

10ebbor10 · Feb 18, 2020

[X] Plan Lower Temptation

FrangibleCover · Feb 18, 2020

[X] Plan Lower Temptation

ctulhuslp · Feb 18, 2020

[X] Plan Lower Temptation

Well, that's an egg on my face. Oh well.

EternalStruggle · Feb 18, 2020

What did I tell you people? Stick to the themes. Do not stray from the Golden Path and we shall be rewarded always.

Until the dice screw us but what can you do.

Always Late said:
Well, if you need to get people to make the right decision: Don't call the people who really know 40k. We're infected with the Anti-Thought Equation./semi-joke

I feel vaguely offended. Do I not really know 40k now?

My knowledge base is limited as is, don't take away my useless fandom trivia from me...

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