40k question

[Crateria]

I apologize if this topic has been done before. I just would like a link to the topic and a quick deletion of this one then.

Anyway, what are the strongest foes that the Tyranids, Orks (all of them united) or Necrons can take on and beat or force a stalemate that aren't godlike?

[the atom]

I apologize if this topic has been done before. I just would like a link to the topic and a quick deletion of this one then.

Anyway, what are the strongest foes that the Tyranids, Orks (all of them united) or Necrons can take on and beat or force a stalemate that aren't godlike?

Not entirely sure about the rest, but from what I've heard discussed about the WAAAGH fields that would be formed from such a gathering of Orks, it might even be enough to fuck up the Culture (emphasis on 'might' though).

[NecronLord]

I apologize if this topic has been done before. I just would like a link to the topic and a quick deletion of this one then.

Anyway, what are the strongest foes that the Tyranids, Orks (all of them united) or Necrons can take on and beat or force a stalemate that aren't godlike?

Not entirely sure about the rest, but from what I've heard discussed about the WAAAGH fields that would be formed from such a gathering of Orks, it might even be enough to fuck up the Culture (emphasis on 'might' though).

Not possible.

A single culture combat drone, just for comparison's sake, would rip the Emperor and all twenty Primarchs a new one. Orders of magnitude superior reaction time plus weapons power (and Horus and the Emperor fought with physical weapons too) equals an opponent they can't beat.

[Todeswind]

In fairness Orks are not obligated to make sense or operate within the rules of logic.... I rather like the idea of Orks looting Culture ships and technologies. It has a certain symmetry to it. The eternal fate of the peaceful and enlightened does always seem to be a brutal death at the hands of the stupid and armed. I can't imagine more dumb and armed than the 40k Orks.

But more realistically no. I don't see that happening.

[Simon_Jester]

Orks create localized violations of the laws of physics in their own favor, and the strength of the violations depends on their numbers, concentration, and enthusiasm for the fight at hand. That makes them a lot more dangerous than they appear to people who try to work out all SF warfare in terms of megatons per second and hyperdrive velocities.

On the other hand, they're strategically... well, at best adequate, and at worst utterly terrible, adherents to the "scream and leap" school of military planning. So someone with the mental resources to outthink them (which even the 40k Imperium has, let alone the Culture) can usually counter them fairly effectively.

[Stravo]

The Ork codex states that if all the Orks united together they would be able to overwhelm the Imperium. The fact that they fight one another as often as they fight others keeps things status quo. I think that same codex also states that long range Imperial probes have only picked up Ork transmissions the farther you go out implying that Orks are found almost everywhere far outside the Imperium.

The Tyranid codex implies that the Tyranids are coming from outside our galaxy after having devoured an entire galaxy already and that the forces we're seeing now are just advanced tendrils of the main hive fleet on its way (ironically drawn here by the Astronomicon). There is a counter theory that suggests the Tyranids are actually fleeing some greater force out there which is pretty scary if true.

Necrons I don't have a lot of info on and I gather that the new codex is actually taking them in a different direction perhaps even elminating their C'Tan connection so we'll have to wait and see.

Of course one has to take a lot of these claims with a grain of salt. Every codex always goes out of its way to emphasize how truly awesome a particular army is. If you read the Tau codex you'd think this tiny little empire could overwhelm the Imperium if given a chance.

[Crateria]

There is a counter theory that suggests the Tyranids are actually fleeing some greater force out there which is pretty scary if true.

One of the wild mass guessing theories (yes I know, TVTropes is despised around here, but bear with me) has the force the Tyranids are fleeing from be either Kirby (who devours cosmic horrors for breakfast, as well as everything else) or the My Little Ponies from Friendship-Is-Magic (because they represent the pure innocent goodness that 40k stands in opposition to) and the latter theory, if true, would be a deathblow to 40k since happiness and goodness would fuck over literally every faction in one way or another (The Imperium can't keep the repressive measures, Chaos gets less adherents, the Tau loose their moral highground, etc.) and would cause the galaxy to unite in opposition to them

[Vendetta]

Not entirely sure about the rest, but from what I've heard discussed about the WAAAGH fields that would be formed from such a gathering of Orks, it might even be enough to fuck up the Culture (emphasis on 'might' though).

As with, well, just about everyone else in SF not capable of blowing up at least a galaxy, there's no real way for them to hurt the Culture. Sure, they could probably take an Orbital or two, just like the Affront did, because the Culture probably won't fight back at first, but they could never hit anything that mattered because it's all whizzing around the galaxy or gallivanting in hyperspace.

[Number Theoretic]

The Culture is also deliberately distributed: a single GSV that hides somewhere or runs to another galaxy would be sufficient to ensure survival of the Culture. And then, it doesn't even know the whereabouts of every of its GSVs, especially the so-called Forgotten Ones.

[lordofchange13]

A fully awakened Necron Force would be the most powerful listed, the Tyranids even when in they come in a wave of doom their still not amazingly effective; the Orks will NEVER unite in such numbers.

[Crateria]

A fully awakened Necron Force would be the most powerful listed, the Tyranids even when in they come in a wave of doom their still not amazingly effective; the Orks will NEVER unite in such numbers.

Per the rules of the thread the Orks have magically united. I don't care whether or not they would normally (since its common knowledge that they wouldn't). They just have for the sake of the discussion. As for the rest of the quote, that's what I thought as well.

[lordofchange13]

A fully awakened Necron Force would be the most powerful listed, the Tyranids even when in they come in a wave of doom their still not amazingly effective; the Orks will NEVER unite in such numbers.

Per the rules of the thread the Orks have magically united. I don't care whether or not they would normally (since its common knowledge that they wouldn't). They just have for the sake of the discussion. As for the rest of the quote, that's what I thought as well.

Then the Orks would steam roll every other army on land, but there navy strength is all over the spectrum so wouldn't know.

[Crateria]

A fully awakened Necron Force would be the most powerful listed, the Tyranids even when in they come in a wave of doom their still not amazingly effective; the Orks will NEVER unite in such numbers.

Per the rules of the thread the Orks have magically united. I don't care whether or not they would normally (since its common knowledge that they wouldn't). They just have for the sake of the discussion. As for the rest of the quote, that's what I thought as well.

Then the Orks would steam roll every other army on land, but there navy strength is all over the spectrum so wouldn't know.

I'm not a harcore or even mildly involved fan or 40k, to be honest, so there's a lot I won't know about it. Since the xenos listed don't have approximate full-listed strengths (that's what everyone seems to be telling me) then what would an average party of the three xenos be able to take on, if we can't gauge the true power of the wholes?

[NecronLord]

Necrons I don't have a lot of info on and I gather that the new codex is actually taking them in a different direction perhaps even elminating their C'Tan connection so we'll have to wait and see.

The new novel 'Hammer and Anvil' uses units from the codex, and explains the new fluff.
Spoiler

The Necrons largely rebelled against the Star Gods and destroyed them. A Necron called the Silent King led this rebellion. The Necron Cryptek {a type of Lord} in the book considers the stargods to be gods, but also to have made false promises. The same C'tan are still out there, but they're renegades from the majority of necrons. The C'tan devised some of the necrons' technologies.

[NecronLord]

In fairness Orks are not obligated to make sense or operate within the rules of logic.... I rather like the idea of Orks looting Culture ships and technologies. It has a certain symmetry to it. The eternal fate of the peaceful and enlightened does always seem to be a brutal death at the hands of the stupid and armed. I can't imagine more dumb and armed than the 40k Orks.

But more realistically no. I don't see that happening.

Have you, umm, read the Culture books? Are you perhaps confusing them with the Peace Faction. The Culture is not a "peaceful" society. They have (and continue to produce in peacetime) a whole range of warships and war materiel, many old warships remain in storage awaiting the call to arms, and the Culture punishes those that conspire against its citizens by flaying them alive with a type of super-assassin.

They are, to use American parlance, "peace loving" that doesn't mean "pacifist" or unwilling or unready to fight.

[Simon_Jester]

Even if the Culture were pacifists they'd be nigh-unattackable, just because of how efficiently they could employ "scream and run away" tactics. Or use bizarre teleportation capabilities and whatnot to effectively ruin enemy weapons without really fighting them in a traditional, bloody sense.

[Connor MacLeod]

We dont know enougha bout the Necrons in terms of their curret or past size, upper limit capabilities, etc. To really know what kind of threat they could be. WE can only guess (maybe comparing them to the rumoured capabilities of the old Eldar empire, but that's it.)

We dont know enough about the Tyranids true scope/size (Beyond a certian number of hive fleets and general estimates baout numbers) to really speculate on the danger they pose.

WE do know something about the size of the Orks. and as noted if they united they are said to be able to overwhelm the 40K galaxy (and they probably could, if we take Ghazaghkull as an example and scale up) But I kind of have doubts teh Orks could even hope to take something like the Culture. The Empire (or David Weber's Dahakverse, which seems like Culture lite) is a more likely prospect. Or maybe the Systems Commonwealth.

[Connor MacLeod]

Let's put this in perspective. In Consider Phelbas, they mention that an outdated, 300 meter long ROU design had engine outputs that were (I think) like 1% of the sun (or at least a star). That puts them well into the GT/sec or TT/sec ranges for power generation, and that doesn't include potential for firepower, defenses, etc. They have insane reaction times. Culture Minds (which aren't exactly tiny, but are still pretty compact) have self destruct mechanisms that can kill/destroy a planet (not exactly mass scatter I think, but well above the mass extinction threshhold.)

And then there were ranges. Culture warships were bombing starships from inside a star (or at least hiding inside it) and bombing from inter-system distances. We're talking light hours if not light years.

Oh and then there's industry and scale. The Idiran-Culture war was considered a small one, but it involved the following aftermath (from here)

Sentients 851.4 billion (±3%)
Interstellar vehicles 91215660 (±200)
Orbitals 14334
Major planetoids 53
Rings 1
Spheres 1
Stars suffering major alterations 6

Even if we disregard everything I stated above, the implications in this single quote are staggering, easily matching or exceeding even the wankiest implications one were to make from the Death STars.

[Vendetta]

Have you, umm, read the Culture books? Are you perhaps confusing them with the Peace Faction. The Culture is not a "peaceful" society. They have (and continue to produce in peacetime) a whole range of warships and war materiel, many old warships remain in storage awaiting the call to arms, and the Culture punishes those that conspire against its citizens by flaying them alive with a type of super-assassin.

They are, to use American parlance, "peace loving" that doesn't mean "pacifist" or unwilling or unready to fight.

The thing is that 99.99% of the Culture is pacificst, or at least supremely disinterested in war, which is boring and doesn't really do much.

They are, essentially, the supreme antithesis of the Orks, absolutely refusing to get stuck in and 'ave a propa fight right up to the point at which they very suddenly annihilate you.

[bilateralrope]

Orks have a major resistance to Chaos, and the beliefs of Orks does influence how well a piece of Ork tech functions. Do this suggest they might have a resistance to Culture effectors ?

At the very least, the Orks effect on machinery will interest the Culture, and the Culture's usual efforts to reshape Ork civilisation will go badly.

[Alkaloid]

and the Culture's usual efforts to reshape Ork civilisation will go badly.

Possibly. The Orks weren't always mindless savages. They were sort of like the eldar in that they were created by the old ones to fight the necrons, and its implied that there used to be another type of ork that was a sort of 'brain' type that increased the collective intelligence of the group, that, 40k being what it is, died out or was out bred by the 'fighting' type ork, which is why the orks are what they are today. If the culture could recreate the effect or the actual brainy orks themselves, things might go rather well.

[lordofchange13]

and the Culture's usual efforts to reshape Ork civilisation will go badly.

Possibly. The Orks weren't always mindless savages. They were sort of like the eldar in that they were created by the old ones to fight the necrons, and its implied that there used to be another type of ork that was a sort of 'brain' type that increased the collective intelligence of the group, that, 40k being what it is, died out or was out bred by the 'fighting' type ork, which is why the orks are what they are today. If the culture could recreate the effect or the actual brainy orks themselves, things might go rather well.

That genesis story has been dropped by the fluff people at GW. they weir to have been made by the old ones, and just breed and fought each other till the 41 millennium.

[Todeswind]

In fairness Orks are not obligated to make sense or operate within the rules of logic.... I rather like the idea of Orks looting Culture ships and technologies. It has a certain symmetry to it. The eternal fate of the peaceful and enlightened does always seem to be a brutal death at the hands of the stupid and armed. I can't imagine more dumb and armed than the 40k Orks.

But more realistically no. I don't see that happening.

Have you, umm, read the Culture books? Are you perhaps confusing them with the Peace Faction. The Culture is not a "peaceful" society. They have (and continue to produce in peacetime) a whole range of warships and war materiel, many old warships remain in storage awaiting the call to arms, and the Culture punishes those that conspire against its citizens by flaying them alive with a type of super-assassin.

They are, to use American parlance, "peace loving" that doesn't mean "pacifist" or unwilling or unready to fight.

No I understand entirely, thus the "realistically no" part of what I said.

However from a less rational and more poetic part of my head I find the idea of a society so overly clever any comparatively advanced being trounced by one so uncomplicated to be esthetically satisfying, much for the same reason I enjoy the story of the Zulu betting the English. It has nothing to do with realism, I just find the image to be entertaining.

[bilateralrope]

and the Culture's usual efforts to reshape Ork civilisation will go badly.

Possibly. The Orks weren't always mindless savages. They were sort of like the eldar in that they were created by the old ones to fight the necrons, and its implied that there used to be another type of ork that was a sort of 'brain' type that increased the collective intelligence of the group, that, 40k being what it is, died out or was out bred by the 'fighting' type ork, which is why the orks are what they are today. If the culture could recreate the effect or the actual brainy orks themselves, things might go rather well.

The Culture's usual methods seem to be placing their people in the right places in a society, so that those people can influence change in the direction the Culture wants. Creating some sort of brainy Ork would still be moving beyond their usual methods.

On the other hand, I can see the Culture employing Ork mercenaries if they have some way to clean up the spores (quite likely).

[hongi]

Spoiler

The Necrons largely rebelled against the Star Gods and destroyed them. A Necron called the Silent King led this rebellion. The Necron Cryptek {a type of Lord} in the book considers the stargods to be gods, but also to have made false promises. The same C'tan are still out there, but they're renegades from the majority of necrons. The C'tan devised some of the necrons' technologies.

Spoiler

To clarify, the C'tan are or were Necrons? Or are they the surviving Star Gods?