Starcraft Ghosts vs Officio Assassinorum

[Ford Prefect]

In a duel with a sniper and a guy who cannot kill him until he gets to close range, the sniper always wins. There are only so many 25mm grenades one can take.

That's entirely dependant on the sniper being able to hit the target. This is pretty difficult when you're talking about people who can dodge laser beams while falling through the air, or dodge bullets with their eyes leaking out of their sockets.

[Thanas]

In a duel with a sniper and a guy who cannot kill him until he gets to close range, the sniper always wins. There are only so many 25mm grenades one can take.

That's entirely dependant on the sniper being able to hit the target. This is pretty difficult when you're talking about people who can dodge laser beams while falling through the air, or dodge bullets with their eyes leaking out of their sockets.

Sure - but Ghosts are pretty good at sniping. They are able to hit mutalisks after all.

[Serafina]

Well, if we allow special characters, i see no reason to disallow special equipment. There are a couple of cloaks availabe for the IoM, ranging from eldar-like holo fields (wildly distort the users outline and displace his image) to tau-like stealth fields (cloak the user to the EM-spectrum). They are admittedly quite rare, but given the extreme elite status of Temple Assassins, they are almost guaranteed to have them in their arsenal. (Note: those are reverse-engineered versions, we are not talking about captured technology).
Also, Assassins already wear suits that block enemy night-vision and IR-sensors and have chameleon abilities (and provide about as much armor as a flak vest) as their standard-equipment.

As for not-so-special tough non-standard equipment, the IoM has access to a wide variety of personal force fields, which are quite capable of fending of anti-tank weapons if necessary.

So even the non-Vindicare Assassins have a pretty good chance to get into melee if they use stealth, and could actually risk being out in the open for a short while without being shot - with their standard equipment, their odds will only rise if they get non-standard equipment.

[Thanas]

Well, if we allow special characters

Actually apparently we do not.

[Todeswind]

Except that the more esoteric of 40k wargear is totally at the Officio Assasinorum's disposal. The basic weapons of the Callidus assassin's wargear consist of relic weapons of both the C'Tan and a nonspecific alien species. It's implied, or outright stated, how the kit at their disposal is begged, borrowed, or ought-right stolen from technologies that are considered questionable or outright heresy by the Ad-mech. This isn't some group of half-baked death cultists it's the personal assassins of the High Lords of Terra directly under the supervision of the Inquisitor General himself, the bizzare, outrageous, and straight up wankiest of 40k gear is not only realistically within their grasp it's often directly on their person. Feasibly any piece of war gear accessible within the IoM would be possible to see in the possession of an assassin.

[avatarxprime]

As to the issue of the psionic power of a Ghost, apparently having a Psi-Index>7 was considered pretty significant as the Dominion was willing to spend stupid amounts of cash in developing Gestalts as opposed to Spectres because they wouldn't suffer from the side-effects of Terrazine enhancement. The Gestalt that was produced, Gestalt Zero, had a Psi-Index of 7+ and was held as vastly superior to a standard Ghost. So most Ghosts should safely be able to fry a few minds here and there with concentration, but only the likes of Kerrigan, Nova, or Spectres should go around ripping things apart with their minds.

[white_rabbit]

In direct response to the OP, so don't act as if this means something in your favor.

Oh spare me please. Christ, you're really a bit of a whiner you know ?

I do not know, for I think the evidence is inconclusive and in the end it will come down to luck.

Why ? Assassins are demonstrably more physically capable than the average ghost,and apparently even exceptional ones, they are equipped with equipment liable to counteract Ghost stealth, whilst possessing their own ECM and countermeasures, as well as great weaponry.

How does it come down to "luck" one one side is better ?

What says it is canon in the first place? It was not even written by Blizzard?

Okay, enough with this shit, show some evidence that its not canon, or fuck off. Some bloke didn't just decide to write a SC RPG and do what he liked you know. In fact, heres a shiny link. http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Alterni ... ft_Edition

There is nothing to suggest that it is an either or - or even the same suit.

Is that it ? Are you just going to drop whatever the hell you were talking about with principles and methods, and claim its a different suit ? (without evidence, which seems par for the course with you at this point)

Its a handy rationalisation, but pretty funny since you were all fired up to utterly dismiss the RPG source just previously.

Quite wrong. What is your evidence that the armory technologies are the same as the Research tech? They are plenty different and even outright refer to third-party inventions. Seeing how Raynor's men did not even have Ghost technology, what makes you think they literally invented a suit like that out of nothing?

Also, note that the use of such suits is not only limited to Raynor's men.

Are these ghost things third party techs then ? Armoury technologies are developed by Raynors bloke as well as being in the hands of other people in the game, the Thor isn't standard issue to the dominion, its something the midget guy came up with. Notably absent for these things are the third parties present for things like the anti-matter missiles. Obviously the fact that these things are upgrades as well kinda works against any assertion you have that its standard issue.

I outright said that the only example is Nova. What, do I have to spell everything out for you here?

No, but apparently I do for you. Whats your evidence that the suit makes any difference to the psy-blade Nova is possibly able to use ? (its existence being ambigious given the cancellation of the game itself) Because that is the logical step you need to take to infer that suits (note thats plural) are around that can enable this sort of weaponry.

I.e. If the thing exists, its only ever mentioned in association with Nova, the most powerful ghost around, so suggesting that theres a possiblity the ghosts in this scenario might use it is disingenous.

Given that ghosts in SCII are able to cloak right from the start, I'd say it is pretty standard. That said, without cloak this entire thread is pointless.

Thats laughable, how is this thread pointless without the ghosts having Cloaks ? Note, a versus thread isn't pointless when one side wins.

In a duel with a sniper and a guy who cannot kill him until he gets to close range, the sniper always wins. There are only so many 25mm grenades one can take.

This is pretty lazy logic, and generously assumes things like terrain, position and so forth favour the Ghost. I think you utterly missed the point I was making about how being physically superior could factor into moving around a battlefield, and chose to decide these guys are standing out in the open, and the Eversor has to charge through the range of a sniper rifle you've assigned the firepower of a 25mm explosive.

Every ghost is a telepath and can leash out with their mind. The difference is one of scale - Spectres can be trained to use their mind to kill armored units - after having their mind powers boosted by the drugs and gas.

Every ghost is a psionic, their abilities in different areas are variable. Please demonstrate that "every ghost" can lash out with their mind, and quantify this ability ?

You seem to have wandered away from the point somewhat with the Spectres, so I'll just post what I said again for you.

Where does it say all ghosts have offensive psychic powers ? Spectres are in fact distinctive in that they can zap things with their minds, as this is only something exceptional ghosts are capable of in any degree.

No, I read it all and you still have to show sensor tower = missile turret.

I'm terribly sorry, the pertinent point I made about them was in the post immediately after the one you are responding to, the one full of stuff about assassins.

Sure. Starcraft Ghost Nova and Uprising, according to the wiki.

Thats great, I'm certainly going to accept a vague reference to a wiki.

Sure, the SC2 armory description for the Crius and Nyx suit.

I'm talking about this somewhere else, so if you quote me again instead of just replying to the other bit, I'm just going to ignore it.

I'd argue that the cutscenes are more canon than anything, especially as the Novels are derivatives of the games themselves and not primarily written by Blizzard.

For someone so happy to court ambiguity in other places, you seem anxious to force a black and white issue here. Just because we don't see the exact same thing happening in our brief glimpses of cloaked Kerrigan in the cutscenes, doesn't mean its not something that happens. Obviously your mitherings on canon are baseless until you have some official statement from Blizzard. (like the one in that wiki-link from some community type saying all their stuff is official)

I cannot post it as I do not own that book. However, I read it and I believe what happens is that Mengsk makes a cloaking shroud by himself and evades infrared sensors, but then gets caught on camera by the security. The Ghosts however manage to slip through despite (due to assassination attempts) beefed up security and kill the Mengsk family and escape with the head of Mengsk's father undetected.

Not much use if you can't post the information mate.

Thanas

Sure - but Ghosts are pretty good at sniping. They are able to hit mutalisks after all.

Um, how are mutalisks super-difficult targets ? You'll have to give some context here, because whilst shooting a mutalisk dogfighting with something above the cloud layer might be impressive, potting one from the ground whilst its splorching some guys in a low level bombing run is less so.

Todeswind
Except that the more esoteric of 40k wargear is totally at the Officio Assasinorum's disposal. The basic weapons of the Callidus assassin's wargear consist of relic weapons of both the C'Tan and a nonspecific alien species. It's implied, or outright stated, how the kit at their disposal is begged, borrowed, or ought-right stolen from technologies that are considered questionable or outright heresy by the Ad-mech. This isn't some group of half-baked death cultists it's the personal assassins of the High Lords of Terra directly under the supervision of the Inquisitor General himself, the bizzare, outrageous, and straight up wankiest of 40k gear is not only realistically within their grasp it's often directly on their person. Feasibly any piece of war gear accessible within the IoM would be possible to see in the possession of an assassin.

Assassins have indeed been known to requisition and use equipment beyond their archetypal depictions. The Samos Sanction guy had a jetpack and balloon of all things, in Nemesis the Vindicare aims to use a shield-breaker to take out defensive shields, and slaves a laser to his sights to actually take the kill shot. Grapnels and explosives for a Callidus in Obvious tactics....

[Thanas]

As to the issue of the psionic power of a Ghost, apparently having a Psi-Index>7 was considered pretty significant as the Dominion was willing to spend stupid amounts of cash in developing Gestalts as opposed to Spectres because they wouldn't suffer from the side-effects of Terrazine enhancement. The Gestalt that was produced, Gestalt Zero, had a Psi-Index of 7+ and was held as vastly superior to a standard Ghost.

Wow. The Starcraft Universe has just gotten a lot more dumber than I thought.

So most Ghosts should safely be able to fry a few minds here and there with concentration, but only the likes of Kerrigan, Nova, or Spectres should go around ripping things apart with their minds.

A small correction - Kerrigan and Nova both use telekinesis. Spectres use psionic energies funneled through enhancers. There is a difference here - one is raw talent and ability, the other is technical enhancement.

[Thanas]

Why ? Assassins are demonstrably more physically capable than the average ghost,and apparently even exceptional ones, they are equipped with equipment liable to counteract Ghost stealth, whilst possessing their own ECM and countermeasures, as well as great weaponry.

Which you have proven where, exactly? Where have you proven that WH40K sensors can detect Ghost suits?

Okay, enough with this shit, show some evidence that its not canon, or fuck off. Some bloke didn't just decide to write a SC RPG and do what he liked you know. In fact, heres a shiny link. http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Alterni ... ft_Edition

Yeah, and you show me how the heck it fits within the rest of the SC universe, especially considering that Raynor is never referred to as the General somewhere, has by SC2's story not worked with the Protoss after the death of Fenix and just vanished. It just does not fit.

Is that it ? Are you just going to drop whatever the hell you were talking about with principles and methods, and claim its a different suit ? (without evidence, which seems par for the course with you at this point)

How is this a dodge? We do know that the terrans are constantly updating the Ghost suit. In fact, over the course of one novel, Nova herself carries three different versions of a suit. That these are different suits is the only explanation for why one suit has capabilities the other does not.

Are these ghost things third party techs then ?

Given how Swann had no idea how to develop Ghost tech on his own, you expect me to believe that this guy comes up with Psi enhancers on its own? Besides, Nova is wearing a suit that is permanently cloaked.

Armoury technologies are developed by Raynors bloke as well as being in the hands of other people in the game, the Thor isn't standard issue to the dominion, its something the midget guy came up with.

Then explain to me how the Dominion was using Thors on Char immediately after the Odin stuff?

Whats your evidence that the suit makes any difference to the psy-blade Nova is possibly able to use ? (its existence being ambigious given the cancellation of the game itself) Because that is the logical step you need to take to infer that suits (note thats plural) are around that can enable this sort of weaponry. I.e. If the thing exists, its only ever mentioned in association with Nova, the most powerful ghost around, so suggesting that theres a possiblity the ghosts in this scenario might use it is disingenous.

Because the only psionic being who could ever use a psi-blade without cybernetic enhancements was Tassadar. Even the Protoss require their armbands to channel the energies through. So either the suit has such an enhancement or you are just claiming that Nova is as powerful as Tassadar himself, which is just absurd.

Thats laughable, how is this thread pointless without the ghosts having Cloaks ? Note, a versus thread isn't pointless when one side wins.

Because a Ghost usually means a cloaked assassin. If you want to argue that Ghosts suddenly are deployed without cloaking in assassin situations, I remind you that every assassination we see in canon is used by cloaks. Cloaks are standard issue for assassin teams. See the comic as well as I Mengsk and the Kerrigan novel for that.

This is pretty lazy logic, and generously assumes things like terrain, position and so forth favour the Ghost. I think you utterly missed the point I was making about how being physically superior could factor into moving around a battlefield, and chose to decide these guys are standing out in the open, and the Eversor has to charge through the range of a sniper rifle you've assigned the firepower of a 25mm explosive.

Actually, 25mm is the sniper rifle ammunition for the Ghost rifle. And second, unless the Eversor has cloaking tech of his own, the situation is going to favor the Ghost unless the Eversor has sensor technology that can spot the Ghost. Which is an unknown.

There was a second booming sound, almost like that of
a miniature shock cannon. The private was lifted off of
the deck by the blast. When he fell onto his back a
microtick later, there was a steaming concavity where
his chest had once been.

the effects of a ghost rifle round, blasting straight through the armor.



As for how hard it is to detect an average Ghost, even by high-level characters like Kerrigan:

The Ghost is in here, she thought. The magnitude of the
alpha patterns was almost overpowering now, like being
locked in a small room with speakers blaring deafening
music from all four walls. It was impossible to tell just
where in the room the Ghost was. She had to concentrate.
She made her way down a row formed by two of the
storage units, heading toward the wall at the kitchen’s
far end, glancing in between the shelves on either side
for any hint of movement. Once at the end of the rows,
she looked to her right and saw an open door. She
walked toward it, trying with all her might to pinpoint
the source of the alpha patterns. Was it beyond the
door? She approached the doorway that opened into a
cold storage vault. Inside, shelving units containing
frozen foods formed several more aisles within the
room—more places for the Ghost to hide.
Sarah tried with every fragment of mental acuity she
could muster to lock in on the source of the Ghost’s patterns.
She had to know if it came from within the room
before she entered and risked having the Ghost close the
door behind her, locking her in. Once again she forced
all excess thought from her mind, focusing intently on
the patterns.
Behind me, she thought as she dropped to one knee,
spinning to face her opponent, raising her right arm. The
barrel of the invisible canister rifle was knocked upward
and away. There was a boom! that left Sarah temporarily
in a world with no sound. She fired her weapon, knocking
the Ghost back into one of the shelving units. Even
with the thin coating of fire suppressant material, her
foe was still incredibly difficult to see. A crystalline
veneer hinted at a human form beneath but beyond
that, the Ghost was still invisible. Moving with lightning
speed, the figure lunged forward, attempting to wrest
the weapon from Sarah’s grip.

So even when you coat them in fire-suppressant foam, the ghost is still invisible beyond a very thin cover, and even with enormous psi-skills and at hand-to-hand combat, still incredibly difficult to see.

You seem to have wandered away from the point somewhat with the Spectres, so I'll just post what I said again for you.

Indeed. To summarize - my point is that Spectres are not a good point to base the capabilities of a ghost on and that we should not take their psionic leach ability for any kind of proof regading ghost capabilities and that we should not use spectres for this as that would be unfair to WH40K - having psionic attacks that can kill Thors is just too much.

I'm terribly sorry, the pertinent point I made about them was in the post immediately after the one you are responding to, the one full of stuff about assassins.

Oh, you mean the one where you stated that the sensor tower sensors are comparable to WH40K and therefore WH40K sensors should apply? Nice leap of logic there, assuming missile tower sensors are the same as sensor tower sensors. They are not.

Sure, the SC2 armory description for the Crius and Nyx suit.

I'm talking about this somewhere else, so if you quote me again instead of just replying to the other bit, I'm just going to ignore it.

Hey jackass, you asked where it was said that the suit allowed indefinite cloaking and allowed the ghost to effortlessly maintain it. I gave you the source.

For someone so happy to court ambiguity in other places, you seem anxious to force a black and white issue here. Just because we don't see the exact same thing happening in our brief glimpses of cloaked Kerrigan in the cutscenes, doesn't mean its not something that happens. Obviously your mitherings on canon are baseless until you have some official statement from Blizzard.

If you think that I am going to accept that events in novels that are contradicting cutscenes from games are just as canon as the game cutscenes themselves, then you are sorely mistaken and a troll.

I cannot post it as I do not own that book. However, I read it and I believe what happens is that Mengsk makes a cloaking shroud by himself and evades infrared sensors, but then gets caught on camera by the security. The Ghosts however manage to slip through despite (due to assassination attempts) beefed up security and kill the Mengsk family and escape with the head of Mengsk's father undetected.

Not much use if you can't post the information mate.


I managed to find some excerpts:

THE VILLA WAS DARK, ITS OCCUPANTS ASLEEP. From the outside it looked
peaceful and quiet. Vulnerable. He knew, of course, that it was not: laser trips surrounded
the villa in an interconnected web, motion sensors swept the high marble wall that
surrounded it, and tremor alarms were set into the floors and walls around every opening. It
wasn't the most expensive security system money could buy, but it wasn't far off.

Passive infrared motion sensors were built into the eaves of the wall, but these were
old systems, installed nearly a decade ago, and were about as sophisticated as those you'd
find protecting some fringe world magistrate. It was most assuredly not what you'd expect
to find protecting the summer villa of one of Korhal's most renowned senators and his
family.
The figure was rendered invisible to these sensors by the coolant systems of the
black, form-fitting bodysuit he wore. He had fashioned it in secret from the inner lining of a
hostile-environment suit used by miners when prospecting high-temperature sites, and he
smiled as he rose to his feet and the beams swept over him without detecting him.

That should be the suit Mengsk made for himself. Mengsk himself was detected by the head of security, while later on they beef up security and the Ghosts still manage to slip through.

"I'm so sorry, Arcturus. I don't know how it happened. Everything was normal...All
the security systems were functional. They're still functional... I just don't know."

[snip angsting]
"What did you find?"
Feld took a deep breath. "I couldn't see anyone. There was no sign of forced entry—
I mean nothing. But the door to the balcony was open."
"And?" said Arcturus, when Feld didn't go on. He could see it was taking all of
Feld’s self-control to keep speaking, and Arcturus prepared himself for the worst. His jaw
tightened. He'd already had the worst... what else could there be?
Feld nodded. "I went out on the balcony. And that's where I found them. The damn
force field had shorted out and they were just lying there... like they were asleep. Your
mother, Dorothy, and your father. Dead."
"How did they die?"
"Does it matter?" snapped Feld. "Why the hell do you need to know something like
that?"
"I need to know," said Arcturus. "I don't know why. I Just do..."
"They were shot," said Feld. "Katherine and Dorothy were shot. One in the heart and
one in the head."
"And my father? Was he shot too?"
Again Feld paused, his face averted as though unwilling to meet Arcturus's gaze.
"No. he wasn't shot. He was decapitated."
"What?" cried Arcturus. "Decapitated? What are you talking about?"
"You heard me," shouted Feld. "They cut his damn head off. Arcturus! And we can't
find it. The sick bastards took it with them!"

[NecronLord]

Some are, the most obvious of which is the Culexus assassin who is literally a soulless flesh automaton.

As the site necron I am obliged to point out that being soulless does not make one an automaton in 40K. It's practically an advantage in fact.

Even so I would be surprised if the Animus Vitale had no effect whatsoever.

It burns folks to cinders in Nemesis IIRC.

If we want to compare Nova to someone, then the best example would be Meh'Lindi the (what we would now term "Callidus") assassin of the Inquisition War series.

She was termed that in the original editions of the books and the more recent one too. Indeed there's a whole subplot about the Callidus temple in that.

Of course, if we want an equivalent to Nova, IE, the best known, then the renegade Callidus temple master from those books would be the best example. But... he had himself installed in a stolen dreadnaught.

Except that the more esoteric of 40k wargear is totally at the Officio Assasinorum's disposal. The basic weapons of the Callidus assassin's wargear consist of relic weapons of both the C'Tan and a nonspecific alien species.

The Neural Shredder is almost certainly a "pistol weapon of the Psi-Gore of Perseus" as they have had the exact same picture used for them. Of course we know nothing about these aliens but that they created it.

[Todeswind]

Some are, the most obvious of which is the Culexus assassin who is literally a soulless flesh automaton.

As the site necron I am obliged to point out that being soulless does not make one an automaton in 40K. It's practically an advantage in fact.

Even so I would be surprised if the Animus Vitale had no effect whatsoever.

It burns folks to cinders in Nemesis IIRC.

Didn't I quote it doing exactly that on the first page.... from that book? At length?

Edit: Apparently there is already an in-depth look at the assassins already on the site http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=124027

Except that the more esoteric of 40k wargear is totally at the Officio Assasinorum's disposal. The basic weapons of the Callidus assassin's wargear consist of relic weapons of both the C'Tan and a nonspecific alien species.

The Neural Shredder is almost certainly a "pistol weapon of the Psi-Gore of Perseus" as they have had the exact same picture used for them. Of course we know nothing about these aliens but that they created it.

I haven't any more of a clue about what being a Psy-gore of persius entails any more than what a Bhargesi or Hurd does in anything but the vaguest sense. There are a lot of species like that in 40k. They're really only there to absolve the need to explain the physics behind this or that. Claiming "xenotech" is like saying "a wizard did it" it makes the impossible merely implausible.

[Serafina]

Which you have proven where, exactly? Where have you proven that WH40K sensors can detect Ghost suits?

See Thanas, that's what your entire argument hinges on.
Temple Assassins are outclassing Ghosts in every other area. The Ghosts sole advantage is the cloak, and by your own admission we do not know enough about it to determine how it can be detected. However, a lack of knowledge is not evidence, so you have not shown that 40K can not detect them either.

Given that 40K-sensors can detect and awfull lot of stuff, it seems likely that they can pick up whatever gives the cloak away. A good auspex is capable of penetrating practically everything 40K has for cloaks or sensor distortion, including holo-fields, necron phasing, Tau stealth fields and pschic cloaking - it can even detect someone attempting to teleport in, so it must be capable of measuring another dimension (the warp).
That's already damn good, and it goes up - a sentinel array is not handheld any more but rather a small backpack, but distinctively better.


Right now, we can say this:
- If cloak-detection relies on some technobabble that only exists in the SC-verse and blocks out all other gravity, radiation and so on, then 40K-sensors can't detect it. In that case, the Ghosts will of course win.
- If it does not rely on such technobabble, then high-quality 40K-sensors will be able to detect it. In that case, Temple Assassins outclass Ghosts in every area and are therefore very likely to win.

Case #1 seems quite unlikely to me, because it relies on "it blocks everything but SC-technobabble X".

[Balrog]

I'm pretty sure, even if there's no cross-over between Starcraft Psi and 40k Warp powers, that the Assassins should be able to keep the Ghost out of their heads, if only for a short time. In the short story "Orientation" from one of the manga books, a Ghost is sent to take out a Dominion Senator who's fled to Umoja after they took his kid away to become a Ghost. Now the Senator knew his kid was psychic, and learned over time how to block his kid from not only reading his thoughts, but also feed him false thoughts as well. He used this ability twice to ambush the Ghost, first by electrocuting it with exposed wiring on a wet floor (only slowed the Ghost down), the second by pretending to be in an empty SCV drilling through the wall. Now obviously the the kid (and the Ghost) were able to see through the deception in a relatively short time, but the delay was enough to kill the Ghost when the SCV, programmed to keep drilling, eventually breached the walls and opened the room into outer space (they were on a space station).

The Senator AFAIK has no psychic abilities of his own, so it's possible for a normal human to learn how to block out a Starcraft psychic. Given the amount of mental programming that goes into molding an Assassin, I'm pretty sure they should be able to keep the Ghost out of their head, at least long enough to kill them, if they get into close combat.

As far as detecting them, when the Sensor Tower was originally written up it was able to detect cloaked/burrowed units, so those methods might still apply. Even if they don't and the Ghost is completely invisible to the entire electromagnetic spectrum, the Imperium should have other means to locate them, like seismic or motion sensors?

[Thanas]

Which you have proven where, exactly? Where have you proven that WH40K sensors can detect Ghost suits?

See Thanas, that's what your entire argument hinges on.
Temple Assassins are outclassing Ghosts in every other area. The Ghosts sole advantage is the cloak, and by your own admission we do not know enough about it to determine how it can be detected. However, a lack of knowledge is not evidence, so you have not shown that 40K can not detect them either.

I am supposed to prove a negative? Eh?

Look, if the cloak is good enough to work against extremely powerful psychics like the Protoss, then it obviously is good enough to block out at least some psychic forms of detection. And that of course assumes the warp based psychics are of any use here. Likewise, if motion sensors would work against the cloak, then the terrans must be completely retarded for not installing them in their homes. I would say that seismic sensors are most probably the best bet, but seismic sensors are of course quite tricky due to their very nature.

The most likely thing which can penetrate a cloak would be IMO some sort of measurement of the ripple the ghost makes. Maybe WH40k has that, maybe it does not - and I really doubt it will be on or at 100% capacity all the time. On the other hand, stealth also works in WH40K AFAIK. So again, detecting the ripple is a bit tricky because the ghost has to move for that.

Balrog - this was a guy who had years of experience of blocking his thoughts and sending false messages. And he still failed. Are WH40k guys consistently doing the same or are they more focused on warp telepathy? In fact, are they at all trained in countering anything except warp-based psychic powers?

[Balrog]

Balrog - this was a guy who had years of experience of blocking his thoughts and sending false messages. And he still failed. Are WH40k guys consistently doing the same or are they more focused on warp telepathy? In fact, are they at all trained in countering anything except warp-based psychic powers?

He killed the Ghost; I'd hardly call that a failure. He wasn't immune to having his mind read, but it lasted long enough for him to get the jump on the Ghost twice. Since most Assassin weapons should kill the Ghost in one shot, that just might be enough time. And their mental conditioning IIRC is meant to block both Warp-based and mundane attempts to break them.

I mean, Ghosts are hardly perfect themselves either. Hell, consider Uprising, when a group of normal humans is able to sneak into the main Ghost Academy on Tarsonis. Sure they had help from Kerrigan in a stealth suit, but not one psychic in that base picked up the fact that there were intruders in their base (perhaps because they were constantly going out to bars to get drunk ) until one of the rebels tripped the alarm, and only because he was a traitor. Even then, when they had the last rebel cornered, none of five Ghosts surrounding him picked up the fact he was going to arm his grenade and set off the power generator behind him until it was too late. And boom goes the Academy.

[Thanas]

I mean, Ghosts are hardly perfect themselves either. Hell, consider Uprising, when a group of normal humans is able to sneak into the main Ghost Academy on Tarsonis. Sure they had help from Kerrigan in a stealth suit, but not one psychic in that base picked up the fact that there were intruders in their base (perhaps because they were constantly going out to bars to get drunk ) until one of the rebels tripped the alarm, and only because he was a traitor. Even then, when they had the last rebel cornered, none of five Ghosts surrounding him picked up the fact he was going to arm his grenade and set off the power generator behind him until it was too late. And boom goes the Academy.

Ugh. Yeah, you are right. That was a huge WTF - especially considering the other stuff we know them to be capable of.

[Balrog]

I just wish the entrance to the place had not been so mundane. I mean, one of the 40k short stories goes into detail about the entrance to an Assassin Temple as being an elaborate maze, with all sorts of over-the-top traps and whatnot, which require superhuman abilities to get through. The main entrance to the most important training center in the Confederacy, the headquarters of the deadliest, most secret group of assassins in Terran space, is a brightly lit hallway underneath a famous statue, leading to a pair of security doors, a bored guard, and a surveillance camera. And the recruits are regularly allowed off-base to enjoy the Tarsonis nightlife.

[Thanas]

I just wish the entrance to the place had not been so mundane. I mean, one of the 40k short stories goes into detail about the entrance to an Assassin Temple as being an elaborate maze, with all sorts of over-the-top traps and whatnot, which require superhuman abilities to get through. The main entrance to the most important training center in the Confederacy, the headquarters of the deadliest, most secret group of assassins in Terran space, is a brightly lit hallway underneath a famous statue, leading to a pair of security doors, a bored guard, and a surveillance camera. And the recruits are regularly allowed off-base to enjoy the Tarsonis nightlife.

Nevermind the sheer stupidity of having a director who is not a strong Ghost himself. Or the stupidity of having huge traps that actually do not kill people for several minutes. Gee, I wonder what armed people could do in that time? Or the only thing stopping enemy ghosts being glass strewn across a floor? What, you couldn't invest in one detector to protect your secrets? Everybody of your dragooned people (with confederate brainwashing not being very strong, see Kerrigan - compared to what the Dominion does with Nova) can potential walk in.

That said, the confederacy and later the Dominion seemed to have stepped up security much more.

But yeah, the idea of having your recruits freely mingle with the civilian population is stupid. What are they gonna do when one of their ghosts, after completing the extensive training, decides to become a mercenary or worse, goes mad?

[Black Admiral]

I mean, one of the 40k short stories goes into detail about the entrance to an Assassin Temple as being an elaborate maze, with all sorts of over-the-top traps and whatnot, which require superhuman abilities to get through.

Well, while some of the Officio Assassinorum's facilities rely on elaborate death traps, the majority rely on just not being found. The Callidus, for instance, tend to stick their training/support facilities in very out of the way locations - there's an example of this in the audionovel Throne of Lies, with a Callidus facility hidden on the outermost planet of a completely uninhabited (indeed, largely dead & forgotten, aside from the odd local Battlefleet patrol) system, one nobody'd have any reason to go to.

Not that the isolation, theatre shield or Battlefleet patrols helped when the Night Lords tortured the location out of a Callidus they captured and turned up in force.