1189 replies to this topic

[Catamount]

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 10:37 AM, said:

You don't understand the Imperium. They fight enemies with vastly superior technology on a regular basis. The Imperium doesn't stop fighting until every one of them are wiped out. They destroy their own planets, annhilate their own people if that secures ultimate victory. The species of Star Trek don't have that kind of stomach, they can't suffer losses on that scale. I'm talking beyond genocidal levels, I'm talking about extinction levels. The Imperium terminates everything that opposes them, and if they can't, then they continue trying until one side or the other is totally wiped out.

Space Combat isn't just about ship-to-ship warfare. You have to think about the elements behind who shot this torpedo at who, or who blasted this ship with phasers.

The Imperium doesn't have to worry about the petty politics that get in the way of ultimate victory. They don't have to worry about how to spend their money on their war machines. They don't have to worry about soldiers who have too much humanity. They don't have to worry about collateral damage.

So perhaps you can explain how they'd pull this mysterious victory out of their behinds?


Once the Federation, or Ancients, or Asgard went and obliterated all of their fleets without loss, which any of them could do, with impunity, and then went and wiped out all of the Imperium's shipyards, factories, planetary military bases, and every other asset of note, tell me, exactly what would the Imperium do to fight back?

Chuck rocks?



As I've said before, this isn't simple technological superiority, in the lasers vs machines guns kind of sense. This is a like a war between a nuclear super power and sponges... and you're claiming the sponges are going to win...

Hell, the Imperium of man might as well chuck rocks; they'd be more effective than their normal weapons!

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the Imperium is the quintessential representation of humanities will to survive no matter what the costs are.

The Imperium is the tragic remains of what was once an actual civilization, a band of ravaged religious fundamentalists who have spent thousands of years following of course of trying to solve their problems by abandoning the very means to solve their problems, throwing actual valuable knowledge and science and the societal growth necessary to use it properly to the wind in hopes that becoming a LESS advanced, LESS knowledgeable society will magically save them if they embrace a bunch of outmoded voodoo mystic nonsense, and they're a downright evil institution because of it.

Edited by Catamount, 23 December 2011 - 12:17 PM.

[Ilithi Dragon]

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 10:37 AM, said:

You don't understand the Imperium. They fight enemies with vastly superior technology on a regular basis. The Imperium doesn't stop fighting until every one of them are wiped out. They destroy their own planets, annhilate their own people if that secures ultimate victory. The species of Star Trek don't have that kind of stomach, they can't suffer losses on that scale. I'm talking beyond genocidal levels, I'm talking about extinction levels. The Imperium terminates everything that opposes them, and if they can't, then they continue trying until one side or the other is totally wiped out.

Space Combat isn't just about ship-to-ship warfare. You have to think about the elements behind who shot this torpedo at who, or who blasted this ship with phasers.

The Imperium doesn't have to worry about the petty politics that get in the way of ultimate victory. They don't have to worry about how to spend their money on their war machines. They don't have to worry about soldiers who have too much humanity. They don't have to worry about collateral damage.

The Imperium of Man is a civilization designed to survive in a doomed existence, that's why it's the "Dark/Grim Future of Warhammer 40,000." The Imperium is even prophesied to be defeated, but they carry on. Because the Imperium is the quintessential representation of humanities will to survive no matter what the costs are.

They are different from other species and civilization.

Well, first of all, I think you grossly underestimate the degree to which Trek out-techs the Imperium. The Federation is so far ahead of the Imperium in technology and capabilities that it would not even be a contest. The Imperium could stand and fight to the last all they like, and it won't do a damned thing because any Trek power would steamroll right over them without taking a scratch. The IoM cannot field a space force capable of threatening Trek ships, not unless the Trek ships decide to park themselves next to the IoM ships for a few hours and take a nap. Their armored ground forces are matched by Trek side-arms. A lightly-equipped Trek security force could effectively engage an IoM armored column. Well-equipped Trek ground troops and armor would decimate any IoM forces on the ground, and their ships in orbit would do it faster with precision bombardment after the 30 seconds it took to clear the IoM ships out of orbit. The IoM would decisively lose any engagement with Trek forces they ever participated in, unless they sent something like a planetary invasion force against a lightly-equipped, five-man away team (and even then that away team could wreak a lot of havoc). It doesn't matter if the IoM resists to the last, because they wouldn't be able to put up any kind of effective resistance at all.


Second of all, don't think that Trek forces haven't faced similarly relentless and ruthless enemies. The Borg and the Dominion are two prime examples. I don't think either is quite as thoroughly evil as the IoM, but they are both just as ruthless, in their own ways.


Lastly, while the IoM might be able to throw every ounce of their resources and economy into a war effort, most Trek powers, and particularly the Federation will still blow way past them in capabilities and total resources they bring to the fight, because their civilizations work far, far, far better, giving them far more to work with. Trek, and especially the Federation, will also have a huge advantage because when they go on the offensive and start taking IoM worlds, they won't have to subjugate them, they'll be going in as liberators throwing off an evil and oppressive regime, and bringing all the benefits and liberties of their civilization. Much like how human worlds along the border with the Tau Empire are switching allegiance to join the Tau Empire because they give everyone the benefits of their tech, and less repressive way of life. Only the Federation is at least a hundred times better than the Tau Empire.

[Catamount]

You know, I think this video ALMOST demonstrates what would happen if the IoM tried to engage a real scifi power





The reason I say almost, is because in an actual fight between the Imperium of Man and one of these more advanced races, they wouldn't actually get a shot off.

[Miles Tails Prower]

ilithi dragon, on 23 December 2011 - 12:07 PM, said:

Well, first of all, I think you grossly underestimate the degree to which Trek out-techs the Imperium.

I don't underestimate anything. If the threat of Trek's humanity was that great, they would overwhelm them through sheer numbers. Trek's tech is not that great, IoM void shields withstand the incredible power of the Warp itself, they can withstand the power of direct nuclear weaponry. IoM capital ships can singlehandedly wipe out entire planets in hours with viral bombs.

Space Marine boarding parties would have field days with feeble humans equipped with phaser rifles and phaser pistols.

All of this "Trek would 1-hit IoM equipment" and similar sentiment is all hyperbole.

The IoM has technology that doesn't even exist in Trek. The power of psykers for example, the presence of the the warp. These are things that Trek would not even be able to comprehend, let alone understand.

I've read a lot of this out-tech argument stuff. I think it's all a bunch of Trek fanboy talk. I love Star Trek, but I'm being realistic. None of the civilizations listed in the poll would defeat the Imperium of Man in an all out war for the reasons supplied. In fact the Imperium of Man would welcome the chance to illuminate humans who refuse the Imperial Truth, resocialization through annhilation if necessary.

Come to think of it. I don't even know where Trek's get the idea that Star Trek tech is so advanced compared to the Imperium.

Trek has shields.
Warhammer has shields.

Trek has lasers.
Warhammer has lasers.

Trek can teleport objects to and fro.
Warhammer can teleport objects to and fro.

Who has the authority to say whose technology is superior to one another's?

Edited by Miles Tails Prower, 23 December 2011 - 07:23 PM.

[Catamount]

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 07:10 PM, said:

I don't underestimate anything... All of this "Trek would 1-hit IoM equipment" and similar sentiment is all hyperbole.

Let's break this down for a moment.


I just clearly demonstrated, based on 40K's own numbers, that their weapons are nearly two orders of magnitude less powerful than Trek.

How is it "hyperbole", or "Trek fanboy talk"? Would you mind pointing to the mathematical flaw in my analysis?

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Space Marine boarding parties would have field days with feeble humans equipped with phaser rifles and phaser pistols.

Really? I'd like you to explain how, considering the fact that by your own franchise's numbers, even large tank-mounted guns are no more powerful than those phaser pistols (to say nothing for the rifles). And while you're at it, would you mind explaining how they'd prevent the ships from just beaming them into space?

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they would overwhelm them through sheer number

Overwhelm how? With what? What weapon would they use to inflict damage?

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IoM void shields withstand the incredible power of the Warp itself, they can withstand the power of direct nuclear weaponry

Are they vulnerable to their own weapons? Can an IoM capital ship inflict any measure of damage to another? If so, then by the previously established figures, which again, you are free to demonstrate problems with, clearly show that Federation ships would simply obliterate Warhammer 40k ships without contest.

You talk about wistandanding the power of nuclear weaponry as if that's some kind of impressive feat. Do you realize Starfleet was phasing out nuclear warheads before the Federation was even founded?


These weapons that are supposedly so powerful, that they're brought up as some kind of feat of IoM shield durability, were obsoleted as ordinance centuries before the modern era in Star Trek (TNG as of now) even begins, because they're just that primitve and low-yield compared to the warheads Trek powers pop like candy.

You might as well be trying to play up a naval vessel to today's US Navy by bragging that it can take a canon ball hit. Age of sail weaponry, as it is to today's navies is exactly what IoM weaponry is to Trek weaponry, and that's not my assessment; it's made clear by 40K's own canon.

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The IoM has technology that doesn't even exist in Trek. The power of psykers for example, the presence of the the warp. These are things that Trek would not even be able to comprehend, let alone understand.

and you base this assumption on?

Ignoring the other science fiction powers that would wipe the floor with the IoM for a moment, since we're apparently going to focus on Trek no matter who else I bring up, the Federation has already found extra-dimensional enemies, has already contorted space, time and physics in more ways that the IoM could ever dream of, and has already has very extensive experience with super-human capabilities like that of the psykers.

Why would you think for a second that just because something is mysterious and not scientifically understood to an empire of Neanderthals like the IoM, that the Federation wouldn't instantly understand it, when they already understand countless similar phenoma?


Do you realize that even if the IoM came up with some way to even inflict damage on a Federation vessel, they could just resort to FTL battle, and strike them from millions or even billions of miles away? Do you realize that even at a paltry 2000c, a photon torpedo launched from FTL could cross 20 AUs in 5 seconds? The Federation wouldn't even have to stop and present a target to shoot at.

Even if they were stationary, they could launch torpedoes, canonically, from 8 million kilometers away. The IoM has never even demonstrated ship-to-ship capabilities crossing that scale, let alone several dozen AU.


So again, what, precisely, would they fight back with?



To reiterate what Ilithi said, pages ago, not only would the Federation just steamroll the IoM military without having to take notice that something had even gotten in their way, but every single person here should cheer them on to do it.

The Federation is a better civilization. They're scientific, instead of dogmatically theocratic, they're altruistic and scrupulous instead of oppressive and treacherous, , and they look to better themselves, instead of running around squashing everyone else, and in the greatest of ironies, these are precisely the qualities that simply place them untouchably above the IoM in any hypothetical conflict.

There's just no other way of slicing it; the UFP is better, in every single way, on and off the battlefield.

Edited by Catamount, 23 December 2011 - 07:49 PM.

[Ilithi Dragon]

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 07:10 PM, said:

I don't underestimate anything. If the threat of Trek's humanity was that great, they would overwhelm them through sheer numbers. Trek's tech is not that great, IoM void shields withstand the incredible power of the Warp itself, they can withstand the power of direct nuclear weaponry. IoM capital ships can singlehandedly wipe out entire planets in hours with viral bombs.

Well, nuclear weapons are at best about 1/100th the power of Trek weapons (max theoretical reaction efficiency of fusion vs matter/anti-matter annihilation for equal fuel mass - fusion converts about 1% of mass to energy, M/AM is 100%, and Trek M/AM reactions are near-100% efficient). Trek ships throw around matter/anti-matter warheads with yields the size of the Tsar Bomba like candy.

Furthermore, the canon energy yield for the Leman Russ battle tank's hull-mounted lascannon is "tripple digit megajoules" as Catamount previously noted, and the phrasing (as Catamount also noted), implies low-end triple digits. The energy required to turn the water content of a typical human body to steam, let alone the remaining 30% or so, is some 150 megajoules. To fully vaporize a person the way we see Trek hand phasers fully vaporize a person, their effective yield has to be at least 150-200 megajoules on their higher settings. There are some instances that also imply significantly higher energy yields at the maximum settings (at least for the beefier 'dust-buster' hand phasers). Those are hand phasers, Trek's equivalent of an M1911 or Glock 19 pistol. Their phaser rifles are even more powerful.


As for viral bombs... That's biowarfare, not a measure of energy output. Trek has shown similar capability for bioengineering, and if pressed could probably develop a bioweapon capable of doing the same thing. Hell, WE can do that today, if we really, really wanted to (biowarfare programs weren't canceled because they were ineffective - they were canceled because they were too effective, and too difficult to contain). But Trek ships don't need to do so. Their conventional weapons are capable of blasting a planet entirely away if given enough time. Just twenty ships (ten D'Deridexi which are notably more powerful than a Galaxy class, and ten Keldons, which are probably comparable to an Akira class at best) were capable of blasting an ~Earth-sized planet down to its nickel-iron core in about five hours (DS9 "The Die is Cast"). That's not wiping out all life with an engineered germ or virus dispersed in an atmosphere, that's making something like 80-90% of the planet just go away (Earth's mantle comprises about 84% of the planet's volume).

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 07:10 PM, said:

Space Marine boarding parties would have field days with feeble humans equipped with phaser rifles and phaser pistols.

Assuming they could even board in the first place (how are they getting there? Trek shields are pretty damn good at blocking transporters for the most part, with the rare exception when they're way out-teched, and Trek ships are far too fast and maneuverable for any kind of IoM boarding craft to catch them), Trek security forces would massacre any boarding party. Remember, their handguns, nevermind their battle rifles, are capable of throwing out shots comparable to the big guns of a IoM battle tank, in rapid succession. How well can a battle-armored Space Marine take a hit from a Leman Russ' lascannon? How well can they take three fired in rapid succession?

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 07:10 PM, said:

All of this "Trek would 1-hit IoM equipment" and similar sentiment is all hyperbole.

Not in the least. Taking the Leman Russ' lascannon and scaling it up to the size of the Retribution class Battleship, we get an approximate energy yield of 4 petajoules, for that big honking spacegun under the Retribution's chin. At best, across all guns, a Retribution has the equivalent of five of those (not counting the torpedoes). That's a whopping twenty petajoules of energy from all guns. A single Federation photon torpedo in late TNG/DS9 has a standard yield of 64 megatons, or just shy of 270 petajoules. Maximum yield goes up to 500 megatons, or 2,092 petajoules. And Trek throws them around like candy. A single photon torpedo would deliver the equivalent of at least 13.5 full salvos from every gun on a Retribution class, in a single, focused hit. It would crack a Retribution in half. Or at the very least, cause enough massive damage to mission-kill one.

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 07:10 PM, said:

The IoM has technology that doesn't even exist in Trek. The power of psykers for example, the presence of the the warp. These are things that Trek would not even be able to comprehend, let alone understand.

Sure, the IoM has some fancy toys that would catch Trek by surprise, particularly psykers, but even the IoM barely understands them, and Trek is hardly without its own psychics and telepaths. Trek, especially the Federation, also has an incredibly powerful and capable (and demonstrated) ability to learn about and figure out new things. Psykers might throw Trek forces for a loop in the first couple encounters, but until a direct counter was found Trek forces would easily counter them by killing them from afar.

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 07:10 PM, said:

I've read a lot of this out-tech argument stuff. I think it's all a bunch of Trek fanboy talk. I love Star Trek, but I'm being realistic. None of the civilizations listed in the poll would defeat the Imperium of Man in an all out war for the reasons supplied. In fact the Imperium of Man would welcome the chance to illuminate humans who refuse the Imperial Truth, resocialization through annhilation if necessary.

The reasons you have supplied are faulty. IoM tech and capabilities are absolutely trumped by Trek tech and capabilities. I do think Catamount's nuclear weapons vs sponges is a tad bit over-the-top, but it is still a no-contest win for Trek. More like medieval iron age and early blackpowder weapons against the most advanced and most powerful U.S. military hardware. The IoM's numbers are nowhere near enough to overcome their tech deficiency, and once Trek forces started liberating IoM worlds, their numbers would start to be added to Trek forces, who would be able to make far better (and humane) use of them.

[Miles Tails Prower]

Issue of boarding parties: Bullets kill people, arrows kill people, knives kill people, fists kill people. Star Trek soldiers are just as killable by bullets. Tech advantage is irrelevant in that sort of close quarters in fighting. Fire power means nothing when you are killed in a single bolt round. Bolt rounds explode inside your body blowing you up like a little blister. On top of that Star Trek soldiers don't have 10,000 years of boarding experience, they are normal humans, they aren't made for that sort of battle. Space Marines augmented bodies can continue fighting EFFECTIVELY even when cut in half.

Issue of boarding parties 2: Beam them out? They'll teleport back in. You think that single ship is going to teleport out every single squad of SM boarding parties arriving inside? How about they teleport directly to the engineering deck and blast all your officers in a moment's notice?

Issue of super natural powers: Chaos doesn't distort space. It distorts reality. It can do anything. Trek has not encountered a power that commands the laws of existence and non-existence.

Issue of the power curb: Phasers reduce people to ash. So does a melta gun, so does a plasma gun. 5 Fed ships destroy a planet in 5 hours. 1 Imperial capital ship destroys a planet in 5 hours. Not to mention the examples provided are the most extreme sort, this "power comparison" is totally skewed towards Star Trek. I can't even begin to regard such a grossly unfair view of Star Trek seriously.

The fed has what? 40,000 ships? Such a tiny navy would never defend their space. The IoM wouldn't even need to fight their navy, with such small numbers they could just ignore them and annhilate their planets. The IoM fleet would blot out the skies of their planets with their numbers. You could fire a payload of life-eaters at each Trek core world and end their infrastructure. There's your simple solution right there. Drop out of the warp, bomb their world's with life-eaters. The end. There would be nothing left to bury.

All I read from this is someone who -really- likes Star Trek. Your Trek power curb is blown way out of proportion to beyond fantastic levels.

It's not an issue of who has superior tech, it's an issue of who can blow it out of proportion the most with the best pseudo science to back it up.

That. Is the reality of your argument.

Edited by Miles Tails Prower, 23 December 2011 - 08:10 PM.

[Miles Tails Prower]

The more I think about this, the more rediculous it gets.

Fed ships destroy planets with their weaponry, yet the self-same weaponry doesn't even destroy their rival's counter parts hulls with direct hits. THEN I'm going to be told "Well... well the armor that their ships are made out of is sooooooooo advanced that they can withstand the damage which levels entire planets with ease!"

This is just rediculous.

[Catamount]

Miles, you haven't actually addressed any argument we've made.

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Issue of boarding parties: Bullets kill people, arrows kill people, knives kill people, fists kill people

So by that logic, the US army should use bows and arrows, because every weapon is equally effective, right?

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Issue of boarding parties 2: Beam them out? They'll teleport back in.

Really? What's the range on those teleporters? Are they equal to Trek transporters? And even if they are, what would stop the ship from beaming them into solid rock on the nearest moon or a planet, or inside the reactor of their own ship, or just beaming them all into each other?

And what would stop Trek from simply jamming their "teleporters"? Do you realize they've spent centuries encountering hundreds, if not thousands of forms of this technology, often from races far more advanced?

Why these constant assumptions about all the things Trek wouldn't be able to do?

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Issue of super natural powers

As someone who's career in the natural sciences, I feel obliged to say that this phrase, often used as it is, is nonsensical.

Everything that exists is part of nature. Things aren't "natural" or "supernatural", they just exist and occur.

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Chaos doesn't distort space. It distorts reality.

Otherwise known as space-time?

Exactly how are you defining "reality"?

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It can do anything

Somehow, I doubt 40K's fiction has tested that assertion, given that that would require infinite written material

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Trek has not encountered a power that commands the laws of existence

You mean like... physics?

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...that commands... non-existence

So it's a force that commands things that don't exist? Doesn't that sound amazingly lacking in usefulness, to say nothing for being a non-sequitur

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Your Trek power curb is blown way out of proportion to beyond fantastic levels.

You keep saying this, but you don't demonstrate it.

How, exactly? What number is wrong?



Also, you still haven't touched FTL combat, which negates every single thing you've brought up to date. There's still no reason why Trek would have to resort to it, but for that matter, why not? Why bother presenting a target to shoot back at?

[Catamount]

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 08:22 PM, said:

The more I think about this, the more rediculous it gets.

Fed ships destroy planets with their weaponry, yet the self-same weaponry doesn't even destroy their rival's counter parts hulls with direct hits. THEN I'm going to be told "Well... well the armor that their ships are made out of is sooooooooo advanced that they can withstand the damage which levels entire planets with ease!"

This is just rediculous.

Actually, no.

The damage is contained by the structural integrity field system, it's contained by internal energy shielding.


Trek armor is vastly more advanced than anything the IoM has ever conceived of, but even Trek ships don't typically stand up to their own weaponry when totally powerless, not for long.

[Miles Tails Prower]

Lets try to keep these like, contained i paragraphs so they don't get all ugly looking.

Issue of weaponry: No you use whatever you have that's the best. But that evades my point. The point is that Trek soldiers tech advantage doesn't mean much since they're equally as killable as you say Space Marines would be. That negates their advantage. That doesn't even begin to touch that Space Marines don't even need to see their targets to kill them, they could have librarians with them who could kill them just by sensing their presence.

Issue of teleportation: They can do that. Teleport them to kingdom come if you want. Except there are Space Marines everywhere in your ship, your engineers are mentally paralyzed by Space Marine librarians so you don't even have the option to use your technology. There is no technological defense against incoming SM teleportation either since they travel through the warp directly onto their ship.

Issue of Super natural powers: Since you have an education in natural sciences, it will be understandably difficult to comprehend the power of chaos. And that's exactly the point, chaos escapes all definition. It is the power of raw posibility, it is not something that can be measured, contained, or explained. That is why it is simple called "Chaos". It doesn't have to(and doesn't) follow the laws of nature that you were taught, that is the first key to comprehending chaos. And I think you'd be surprised just how well Chaos can control things that don't exist.

Warhammer ships travel through the warp. So that's not something the Fed can detect, it's not something the Fed is ready for and it's not something the Fed can defend against since they don't have technology that affects or even reads warp currents. So what prevents the IoM from simply dropping out of the empryean all over the Fed's core worlds and bombing them with life-eater payloads? Lets say the Fed did somehow manage to destroy every single IoM ship, the life-eaters will still have already annhilated all of their worlds. They'll have no people, no infrastructure, no hope.

Now lets go the other way around.

Why doesn't the Fed just warp into Imperium space and start blastifying their planets? Sure they can do that. But I guarantee that IoM will be done with the Fed's worlds a looooong time before the Fed destroys all of Imperium Space.

Edited by Miles Tails Prower, 23 December 2011 - 08:53 PM.

[Catamount]

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 08:47 PM, said:

Lets try to keep these like, contained i paragraphs so they don't get all ugly looking.

Issue of weaponry: No you use whatever you have that's the best. But that evades my point. The point is that Trek soldiers tech advantage doesn't mean much since they're equally as killable as you say Space Marines would be. That negates their advantage.

Except that it doesn't. We don't see the Federation in all out wars often, so we don't see it often, but the Federation has armor, and if that armor protects against weapons as powerful as advanced heavy mounted weapons on IoM MBTs, exactly what are IoM anti-infantry weapons going to do?

Oh sure, eventually they'd probably penetrate, but fast enough to be effective, when Federation troops could easily fire back, even wide-beam if they wanted to, and wipe out vast swaths of IoM troops?

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they could have librarians with them who could kill them just by sensing their presence

And the Federation could probably technobabble a defense in no time against them, with, you know... science.

That's only how they defeat every other problem they ever come up against.

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Issue of teleportation: They can do that. Teleport them to kingdom come if you want. Except there are Space Marines everywhere in your ship, your engineers are mentally paralyzed by Space Marine librarians so you don't even have the option to use your technology.

Even if that were true, that would require that the Trek ships get in range and don't blow the containing ships to kingdom come before even being detected, would require Trek ships being entirely unable to defend against being boarded by those teleporters, would require that Trek technology be entirely unable to technobabble a defense against your less-than-technobabbale assault, I mean, the gross number of unbacked assumptions here is just astounding.

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There is no technological defense against incoming SM teleportation either since they travel through the warp directly onto their ship.

And the assumption that there's no form of technological defense to warp-based technology is based on...?

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Issue of Super natural powers: Since you have an education in natural sciences, it will be understandably difficult to comprehend the power of chaos.

So knowing more means knowing less?

...

...

...

...WHA?

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chaos escapes all definition. It is the power of raw posibility, it is not something that can be measured, contained, or explained. That is why it is simple called "Chaos". It doesn't have to(and doesn't) follow the laws of nature that you were taught, that is the first key to comprehending chaos. And I think you'd be surprised just how well Chaos can control things that don't exist.

I'm sure that's true to a race like the IoM, but you know, like Arthur C Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".


From the IoM's point of view, just about everything the Federation does is magical, mystical, and beyond science, definition, or explanation, so from a 40K point of view, "chaos" is just like Federation tech. So what?

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Warhammer ships travel through the warp. So that's not something the Fed can detect

This assumption is based on?

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it's not something the Fed is ready for and it's not something the Fed can defend against since they don't have technology that affects or even reads warp currents

and the assumption that instantly understanding and countering such technology wouldn't be within the Federation's capability, even though they constantly encountered hundreds of different types of phenomena of this type, is based on?

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So what prevents the IoM from simply dropping out of the empryean all over the Fed's core worlds and bombing them with life-eater payloads?

Hmm, since the Federation just left their worlds entirely undefended, instead of leaving behind Federation ships that could shoot from vast ranges away, and blow the attacking ships away in a fraction of a second... oh wait

Edited by Catamount, 23 December 2011 - 09:18 PM.

[Catamount]

The only comparisons were definitively have here clearly leave Trek the victor, by a long shot.

Grasping at a lot of unknowns, and just assuming that Trek, where everyone basically knows vastly more about everything than anyone in 40K, wouldn't be able to deal with them (just because they're out of 40K's grasp) does not offer any kind of guarantee of even having a viable offense against the Federation, and even when dealing with these unknowns, in almost every case (such as the warp), the Federation has spent centuries encountering and investigating countless types of such phenomena, which makes those assumptions not just unfounded, but illogical.


And even then, not one thing brought up actually offers a defense against the vast effective combat range differences (because not one force has been demonstrated that can even begin to cross those combat distances).

[Miles Tails Prower]

Oooh looks like I've found the Fed's weakness. The Fed has no defense against the warp.

That makes this discussion a triviality. Without an ability to defend against the warp the Fed would have no way to put up a fight against the IoM. A psyker like Mephiston could destroy an entire Fed ship with his mind alone.

Science cannot overcome Chaos, as Chaos controls the laws that science is built around. Even the IoM cannot control chaos.

The Fed soldiers cannot resist psyker attack, thus cannot fight. Their engineers cannot operate the ship when paralyzed by pskyer attack. Their scientists cannot create a counter to something that allows science to exist.

The Fed's only hope would be if Tzeentch decides it'd be amusing for the IoM to lose. Without a way to defend against the warp, the Fed is powerless.

Oh and before you mention it... let me reinforce that you cannot build something to counter chaos. That's why before everything there was Chaos, and there will still be Chaos when everything is gone. It is the primordial destroyer, the enemy of all.

Edited by Miles Tails Prower, 23 December 2011 - 09:38 PM.

[Ilithi Dragon]

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 08:47 PM, said:

Issue of weaponry: No you use whatever you have that's the best. But that evades my point. The point is that Trek soldiers tech advantage doesn't mean much since they're equally as killable as you say Space Marines would be. That negates their advantage. That doesn't even begin to touch that Space Marines don't even need to see their targets to kill them, they could have librarians with them who could kill them just by sensing their presence.

Except that the Space Marines would be at a disadvantage, because their combat doctrine is built around fighting against opponents that their battle armor protects themselves against. Their combat doctrine is not built around engaging an enemy whose sidearms would penetrate their armor and vaporize them inside their armor with a single shot. They would be at a disadvantage against lightly-equipped Trek security forces for that reason alone.

Furthermore, we know for a fact that Starfleet personnel can be equipped with additional armor than we typically see in day-to-day ship operations. We've seen it on a number of occasions in the 23rd and 24th Century. We also know that Trek infantry can be equipped with personal deflector shields - we rarely see them because Trek doesn't focus on ground combat situations, but we do know they exist. We saw Worf jurry-rig one using a comm badge and a few bits of 19th Century equipment, and Admiral Leyton told Sisko that they had stockpiled enough of them to equip an entire army on Earth. That would give well-equipped Trek infantry a decisive advantage against Space Marines.

As for the librarians... If their psychic capabilities are as supremely capable as you claim, why does the IoM need anything else? Additionally, how effective will these psychic capabilities be against non-humans? Remember, Trek powers are a wide mix of species, many of which have their own latent psychic or telepathic abilities, or inherent resistance to psychic or telepathic influences.

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 08:47 PM, said:

Issue of teleportation: They can do that. Teleport them to kingdom come if you want. Except there are Space Marines everywhere in your ship, your engineers are mentally paralyzed by Space Marine librarians so you don't even have the option to use your technology. There is no technological defense against incoming SM teleportation either since they travel through the warp directly onto their ship.

Except that the Federation has demonstrated the ability to defend against similar teleportation methods... VOY "Equinox" shows a Nova class frigate, under-manned and with incredibly limited resources, jurry-rigging a defense against extra-dimensional aliens opening spacial rifts inside the ship with their existing shield generators. Developing a defense against IoM teleportation tech, if their shields don't already protect against it, would be well within the capabilities of Trek engineers, especially Federation engineers.

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 08:47 PM, said:

Issue of Super natural powers: Since you have an education in natural sciences, it will be understandably difficult to comprehend the power of chaos. And that's exactly the point, chaos escapes all definition. It is the power of raw posibility, it is not something that can be measured, contained, or explained. That is why it is simple called "Chaos". It doesn't have to(and doesn't) follow the laws of nature that you were taught, that is the first key to comprehending chaos. And I think you'd be surprised just how well Chaos can control things that don't exist.

As Catamount pointed out, it may be nonsensical voodoo magic to the IoM, which views just about any real science and technology as nonsensical voodoo magic, but that doesn't mean that the Federation wouldn't be able to understand it. Hell, -we- have at least a basic understanding of Quantum Mechanics today, and that's far, far, far more random and chaotic than anything 40K Chaos is (because on the quantum scale, everything literally is possible, the perception of persistent, logical, ordered laws we have on the large scale is merely an illusion caused by the Law of Large Numbers). 40K Chaos forces might be able to bend 'normal' rules of reality, but they still behave and operate in relatively ordered and consistent patterns, including the existence of specific personalities manifested in persistent life-form entities. Chaos may well bend the conventional rules of reality, but that doesn't mean that they don't still follow the fundamental principles of existence. At the very least, an advanced understanding of Quantum Mechanics (which Trek has down pat) would readily apply.

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 08:47 PM, said:

Warhammer ships travel through the warp. So that's not something the Fed can detect, it's not something the Fed is ready for and it's not something the Fed can defend against since they don't have technology that affects or even reads warp currents. So what prevents the IoM from simply dropping out of the empryean all over the Fed's core worlds and bombing them with life-eater payloads? Lets say the Fed did somehow manage to destroy every single IoM ship, the life-eaters will still have already annhilated all of their worlds. They'll have no people, no infrastructure, no hope.

The thing about Warp that gets me is that, aside from the mind-raping demon-entities, it sounds a LOT like subspace in Star Trek, especially early in the 40K pre-history, before the massive war events that turned the relatively peaceful Warp into the fractured Chaos it is in modern 40K. Given Trek's remarkable ability to scan space and subspace in fine detail at remarkable ranges (10+ lightyears for individual ships, with stations and sensor nets far exceeding that), I very highly doubt that IoM ships would be completely undetectable to Trek sensors even in Warp.

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 09:35 PM, said:

Oooh looks like I've found the Fed's weakness. The Fed has no defense against the warp.

See above. We have no reason to believe that IoM ships would be invisible to Trek ships in Warp, and the Warp sounds remarkably similar to what Trek calls Subspace.

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 09:35 PM, said:

That makes this discussion a triviality. Without an ability to defend against the warp the Fed would have no way to put up a fight against the IoM. A psyker like Mephiston could destroy an entire Fed ship with his mind alone.

Now who's going over the top with fanboyism? } ; = 8 P We have no reason to believe that the Warp would be incomprehensible and an ultimate foil to Trek, especially when it largely operates remarkably similar to forces that Trek has long since mastered.

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 09:35 PM, said:

Science cannot overcome Chaos, as Chaos controls the laws that science is built around. Even the IoM cannot control chaos.

Someone doesn't understand what science is.

Science is the study of what is, of what the universe is and how it works. Or, more specifically, Science is a METHOD for studying the realities of the universe and how it works. A very effective method, the best discovered so far by a longshot. Science isn't a set of rules of how the universe works. Science isn't even itself a set of knowledge. Knowledge discovered through Science is called Scientific Knowledge, but it is not Science itself.

Basically, Science is the study of the universe and how it works, however it works. It doesn't matter if it works according to Newton's Laws or the magic in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, it is still equally applicable. Chaos is just another part of the universe, and while mystifying and apparently defying of the 'normal' physical rules, it can still be understood through science, and is no more difficult to understand and master than Quantum Mechanics (and trust me, Quantum Mechanics gets crazy - it's literally possible to boil water until it freezes, or for Jupiter to turn into a giant orange juice monster and come down to Earth to eat our brains, they're just ridiculously improbable, especially the latter).

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 09:35 PM, said:

The Fed soldiers cannot resist psyker attack, thus cannot fight. Their engineers cannot operate the ship when paralyzed by pskyer attack. Their scientists cannot create a counter to something that allows science to exist.

Does anyone else in IoM have a defense against psyker attacks? What about the species in Trek that have psychic/telepathic abilities of their own? Like the Vulcans and Romulans, or the Betazoids? Or the species that are inherently resistant to psychic/telepathic influences, like the Ferengi? Will they be insta-disabled by psyker attacks? All of them? Across an entire ship?

How many psykers does the IoM have? How many could disable the entire crew of a starship? From what I gather, psykers of that level are rather few in number in the IoM (psykers in general are strictly controlled or culled, are they not?). They can't be everywhere at once, on every ship at once. And if the IoM really does have psykers powerful enough to wipe out entire advanced civilizations, why are they still locked in a constant battle for survival?

Miles Tails Prower, on 23 December 2011 - 09:35 PM, said:

Oh and before you mention it... let me reinforce that you cannot build something to counter chaos.

Meh, the Voyager crew would just inverse the polarity of the quantum and make it go away.

[Miles Tails Prower]

This is to ithi dragon.

On weapons: That would be true 10,000 years ago. But the Imperium's primary enemies all have weaponry that penetrate Astartes armor, so their combat doctrine does not revolve around relying on weaponry immunity.

On librarians power: An excellent question. The answer however is that the rivals of the Imperium have stronger connections to the warp and thus have more powerful psykers who can combat against the Imperium. For enemies that don't have this connection, they usually are of absurd numbers like the Orks who are massacred by the hundreds by psykers. Why aren't there psykers like every friggin where? Because the IoM's territory is beyond massive. In an all out battle like this thread describes, those elements become a non-issue.

On teleportation: The warp exceeds science, it enters where it sees fit. The only defense against the warp is to use the warp against it, and that can only be accomplished by trained psykers or their counter-parts. The Fed has none of these. They would have no understanding of the warp or even where to begin with it.

On Chaos science: Back to the original rule, you cannot understand Chaos. There is no exception to that rule, no power to break that rule. That is perhaps the only constant in Warhammer 40K aside from there always being war. Even if the Fed had the time to analyse the basics of the warp, they have no one capable of tapping into that power, let alone anyone with the training to resist possession from glimpsing the warp.

On psyker attacks: If a Space Marine is attacked by a psyker, there isn't much that that particular Space Marine can do. They have to rely on their own psykers to aid them, and their team mates to kill them. A single experienced psyker is more than a match for a space marine.

On the warp foil to Trek: Oh yes we can, with a simple understanding of how IoM can even use the warp. The IoM can only use the warp for anything useful is because of the God Emperor. The God Emperor provided the Astronomicon, and personally "creates" Astropaths that can read the Astromicon and guide ships through the warp eddies. The Fed obviously doesn't have anyone even near the capabilities of the God Emperor so they would have no way to analyse the warp effectively since their education in psionics(compares to IoM) is primitive at best.

Mastering forces: Once again, the warp cannot be mastered since it is the master. I'm not trying to be an *** here either, and like I said I can understand why the topic of chaos is difficult to catch. But I assure you that the scientific route is not an option.

On the number of psykers in the IoM: This is an excellent question, one I was hoping someone would ask. Let me put it this way: to preserve the God Emperor on his Golden Throne, the IoM must sacrifice 1000 psykers to him EVERY day. And the Emperor has been supported this way since M30... that was 10,000 years ago.

On other psychic species: It is true that Trek has psychic species. But they have not been practicing this art for 40,000 years. The ability for a IoM psyker to overcome a Trek psionic would not be that much of a challenge for a species that has been practicing and cultivating the art for so long. In addition to this, if it's true that the Star Trek mythology grants them technology vastly superior to IoM. Then it is also true that Warhammer mythology grants their psykers paranormal powers the likes Trek has never seen. If the technology of Trek seems like voodoo to the IoM, then the psychic power of people like Ahriman and Mephiston would make them seem like divinity to the people of Trek.

On chaos again: I'm gonna point out again, that you cannot make a machine(or anything really) to challenge the power of the warp.

There is a reason why Chaos is the ultimate enemy of the franchise(both of them in fact) and all. Why do you think Warhammer is the grim universe that it is? Because they are fighting an enemy that cannot be beaten. Chaos is unstoppable. That is the entire point of Warhammer, battling in a doomed existence.

Edited by Miles Tails Prower, 23 December 2011 - 10:36 PM.

[Miles Tails Prower]

Further information on psykers.

So here's a good question: If psykers are so all powerful? Why aren't they everywhere defending the Imperium?

It's a good question.

First off lets talk about Chaos real fast. What is Chaos? Can I describe it? Let me put it this way, could you describe color to a human that was born blind? How could they comprehend what they cannot experience or relate to? What words would you use to describe color to a blind person? That is how chaos is. Chaos is a color that you have never seen. Chaos escapes all attempts to understand it.

Now back to the matter at hand.

The Imperium is super massive, they control a gigantic chunk of the entire milky way. Now combine that with their enemies.

Imperium vs Imperium: Sometimes Chaos causes uprisings in Imperium controlled planets. Nobody knows when this is going to happen. So there aren't always psykers around to do something about it. If a psyker was there and he was fighting civilians, depending on what gift that psyker has he or she could unleash varying levels of doom on civilians and conscripted soldiers.

Imperium vs Chaos: Chaos also tends to just attack wherever they want. It goes along with the whole "Chaos" theme. So once again there aren't always psykers stationed at wherever is being attacked for them to do something about. But since Chaos is attacking they of course have their own psykers(known as tainted psykers and Chaos Sorcerers). Chaos psykers generally have a far more powerful connection to the warp and yes they do devastate just about anything in their path.

What does the warp do to you?

Warp Fire: This is an exciting spell, warp fire is emitted not unlike artillery from your hand. It burns in multi-colors and consumes any matter it encounters. But the fun part is the after effect. Say your arm was burned by Warp Fire, sometimes it'll burn you down to your skeletal arm and your skeletal arm becomes possessed and thrusts itself directly through your eye and you get killed by your own arm.

Sometimes Warp Fire just turns into beer. Not even lying. You never know what is going to happen when you unleash the power of the Warp.

Imperium vs Eldar: The Eldar are unforunately born naturally with a connection to the Chaos God Slaanesh, so they are all warp sensitive. The Eldar attack wherever the frig they want so there are rarely any psykers to deal with them and even if there were, all Eldar are psykers to some degree and are far more powerful than IoM psykers.

Imperium vs Tyranid: The Tyranid don't attack often and when they do attack they cast a "shadow across the warp" preventing detection. The Tyranid are led by a powerful psychic being known as the Hive Mind. The Mind disseminates its power through lieutenants that act as psychic conduits for the Mind's commands. The Hive Mind's psychic power is so intense that when it reaches out to "touch" enemy fleets, it can drive the whole fleet's minds insane.

Imperium vs Necron: A lot of Necron are what are known as "nulls" or "pariahs." These beings don't cast a back drop into the warp and are thus immune to most psyker attacks, they can however still be affected by physical psyker attacks like being set on fire or blasted away with a kinetic force.

Imperium vs Orks: Ork uprisings are extremely random, so having a psyker around to battle them is a fortunate thing. Orks can be killed in droves by psychic attacks but Orks reproduce by sweating(they are a fungal life form) so thinning their numbers is usually meaningless. Orks are also capable of having psykers(known as Wierd Boyz), they tap into the group psychic energy that orks naturally create. But sometimes this powerful is too much and the Wierd Boyz explode.

In the whole Fed vs IoM scenario. The issue of not having psykers around isn't a big deal since it is a no holds barred death match of power vs power. There also isn't much of an issue of worrying if psychic power would affect the Fed since they are humans, some humans are born as nulls but that is extremely rare. Likewise any other species that is part of the Fed is also most likely vulnerable to psykers as their own species have psionics themselves. If in the Fed there was a species of nulls, they would not have the numbers to be of significant use to the Fed.



So it all works out and makes sense ultimately.

in Star Trek, they may have a technology advantage on Warhammer. But within their own mythology the various races battle for power with other races of competitive technology. That balances out the series and makes it interesting.

On the other hand.

In Warhammer you have the Imperium that is balanced out by their enemies, the powerful of individual psykers would have devastating effects on the Fed since their numbers are so small. But in Warhammer that isn't an issue since their enemies are either more powerful than the IoM is directly, or just have numbers that cannot be counted.

When the mythologies clash, the franchise of Star Trek just doesn't have anything like the Warp in it so obviously they wouldn't have a defense against it.

The mythology of Warhammer has godlike beings and paranormal forces in it that are just crazier than the boundaries of other science fiction shows.

Edited by Miles Tails Prower, 23 December 2011 - 11:26 PM.

[steelwraith]

First of all, this 'Warp wins just because' argument doesn't hold water... this is sounding like grade-school level debating. The argument that nothing can understand the warp, or that science can't beat chaos, is just ludicrous. The warp is not a deus ex machina. Just to be fair though, I pulled out some old 40k books and checked the wiki; here is the warp in a nutshell:

The warp/immaterium is based on the astral/ethereal plane, a plane that 'shadows' our own. Most science fiction uses a version of this plane to describe their FTL travel, and in supernatural circles it is the home of spirits/ghosts/demons/etc. In this plane, there is no difference between thought and reality; in other words the will creates the reality. The problem, to most sci-fi writers anyways, is that the average mind isn't disciplined enough to survive long in this plane; stray thoughts become real, and your reality starts to quickly 'warp'. Insanity soon follows, then things really get interesting as your insanity becomes reality...

Now, as I've said, most FTL travel involves entering this plane, either on their own (Star Wars) or through 'gates' (Babylon 5), known to both as hyperspace. Star Trek differs in that it pulls some of the subspace (ie. warp) out into our own universe, contained within the warp bubble; this allows a ship to 'skip' across our universe without actually leaving it. Now, did you catch that? Star Trek has the technology to manipulate the warp. Sound familiar?

40k psykers are able to tap in to the warp, using its energy to influence or change reality in our universe, admittedly a remarkable feat considering the mental discipline needed. Also they have the added disadvantage of being targetted by the native inhabitants of the warp. In the end though, anything that affects subspace in Star Trek would affect the warp in 40k... they are the same thing. Star Trek has already shown they are capable of shattering subspace altogether, which would cut a psyker off from the warp completely, rendering him useless.

Another thing to consider, most psyker powers are telepathic in nature. Star Trek A.I. would be immune to such things; all the psykers in the Imperium wouldn't help against a single ship with a holographic crew. And as far as overwhelming numbers are concerned, it would have been a factor before the introduction of renewable resources, but largely useless against Star Trek technology. A single replicator churning out A.I. drones equipped with shields, phasers (note phasers are not lasers!) and cloaks would decimate an Imperium world, as shown by the numbers posted earlier. A planet equipped with orbital defenses would shoot down any ship that came close, though the argument could be made that you could overwhelm the defenses if you threw more ships at it than it could shoot down; the cost however would be astronomical. In short, with a large enough gap in technology numbers become meaningless.

Oh, and you want overkill, watch an old anime called Gunbuster. In it, they built a black hole bomb and took out an entire neighboring galaxy.

Once again, and I can not stress this enough, never use a deus ex machima in an argument; you will only get laughed at.

[Miles Tails Prower]

steelwraith, on 24 December 2011 - 12:05 AM, said:

First of all, this 'Warp wins just because' argument doesn't hold water... this is sounding like grade-school level debating.

Once again, and I can not stress this enough, never use a deus ex machima in an argument; you will only get laughed at.

If you have to wiki what the warp is, then you don't have the first clue as how the warp works. The Warhammer Lexicanum only gives you the brief overview of Chaos and the Warp.

First off.

No one has a clue how the warp actually works.
No chaos doesn't get explained.
It isn't understood.
Science cannot control it.

Next.

The Warp is deus ex machina, the warp wrote the book of deus ex machina. If the warp wants something totally random to happen that isn't explainable, it does it. It is the warp, it is chaos, it does whatever it wants and it doesn't have to explain itself for any reason other than this: It is chaos. To view the warp as simply an "FTL" medium is the sort of view someone with no knowledge of warhammer would see it as.

The Warp cannot be subspace because subspace apparently can be controlled. Any reality that can be controlled, is not the Warp. It is that simple. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING controls Chaos. Even the denizens of the warp, the beings that call the warp their home cannot command the warp. Only the "Eternal Enemy" the four great Chaos Gods command Chaos, and they are beings that are eternal. Their power is on a scale that drives any being mad to even catch the slightest glimpse of their power. The Chaos Gods and Chaos are the same thing, they represent the Chaos in all things.

Anyone who laughs at that, just doesn't follow Warhammer 40K.

That is the point of Warhammer. Chaos is the unstoppable force that all beings in the universe fight against whether they are aware of it or not. Just uttering the word Chaos causes shivers in people's spines and anger in the hearts of Space Marines. Chaos is the ultimate enemy of the Warhammer universe, it is the unstoppable force that all the universe fights against simply by existing.

I mean do you honestly know how powerful psykers are?

Here's an example.

The God Emperor himself approached a massive war machine in the book "The First Heretic." In that book he looked at the machine(which had malfunctions for decades) and said "Machine, I command you to function." In response the machine restored to 100% efficiency.

Can you explain that? How did he fix electronics? How did it repair the armor? How did it fix the programming in the OS? Can you explain it? No you can't. Why can't you explain it? Because that is the power of the warp, it cannot be explained. It is chaos.

The God Emperor in "The First Heretic" approached an force of 10,000 Space Marines and forced all of them into supplication(kneeling) with just a single word: kneel. The warp is capable of doing things beyond our tiny little minds, science is meaningless to chaos. These "rules of the natural universe" mean nothing to Chaos. Chaos makes a mockery of any attempt to explain or control it.

Psykers can be telepaths but not all psykers are telepaths. That's another generalization coming from a lack of knowledge of Warhammer. Psykers are all born with unique talents like logokinesis, the ability to instantly learn any language down to the very accent just by hearing it spoken. Another example is Terrorsight, the ability to see the weakness in any object. Do not try to compare telepathy in Star Trek to Psykers in Warhammer, they are not akin.

Ugh it is so hard to explain Chaos to people who aren't educated in Warhammer. All these "rules" they try to apply to Chaos are beyond meaningless. The only rule about Chaos is that it HAS no rules.

The issue of an army of AI is interesting because that isn't even true. Psykers have the ability to attack the "machine spirit" inside all mechanical things that use an A.I. So that isn't even true, the proper psyker would be able to attack Star Trek A.I. just as easily as an organic being.

Let me be frank. Anyone who has to wiki a major topic about a universe as developed as Warhammer, isn't going to have ONE clue as to what they're talking about. The Warhammer universe is as convoluted as it comes. So please, do not do that.

It'd be like someone who has no clue about Battletech, read a brief wiki of the Clan ways and start arguing about whose side was right during the Clan invasion. They wouldn't know anything.

Edited by Miles Tails Prower, 24 December 2011 - 01:03 AM.

[Miles Tails Prower]

Hah this is starting to remind me of one of the Warhammer books I read. The book Fulgrim to be more specific.

You see the people in this forum are like the Imperium in the year 30,000. They're like "Chaos? What the frig is that? Everything can be explained by the Imperial Truth(science)."

And I'm like the Eldar, trying to explain what Chaos is to people who only believe in science.

It's like deja vu, kind of neat actually, now I really can relate to how he felt when he was trying to explain Chaos to people who live by an ordered set of laws and rules.

That's the first part to begining to cope with Chaos. Forget everything you know about anything.

I am highly experienced in the ways of Warhammer, so I assure you I know my side of the issue. If the Warp sounds like it's a "I win" button to you, that's because it is.

I'm going to make this point again.

The entire theme of Warhammer 40,000 is the struggle of the Imperium of Man against impossible odds. How much more impossible odds do you need than an enemy that cannot be beaten and will ultimately win no matter what you do? THAT is Chaos. Chaos is the ultimate enemy that CANNOT ultimately be beaten. That is the point of Chaos, that is why it is the "Grim Future of Warhammer 40,000." Because you exist in a time where your defeat is assured, it is only a matter of time.

Is any of this making sense? Or are you guys still trying to use some kind of science to explain the inevitablity of Chaos?

Edited by Miles Tails Prower, 24 December 2011 - 01:16 AM.