The ancient Romans receive 40K men and equipment.

[Archinist]

What would happen if the Romans suddenly received 40K technology, equipment and men? Let's say that Gaius Marius became a Primarch with no knowledge of the event, and the entirety of the Roman military force was turned into Golden Suns, all scientists and teachers became techpriests with teachers being slightly lower than scientists, engineers became the mechanical equivalent of techpriests, doctors/healers became apothecaries, priests/pastors became inquisitors and Roman high command become Warmasters.

Every single Roman-owned castle (regardless of who built it) has a 50% chance to become either a Apocalypse-class battleship or an Emperor-class battleship (it is guaranteed to be either), small towns become Imperator-class titans and the Capital city of Rome becomes a Ark Mechanicus.

All civilians become Imperial Stormtroopers with a mixture of pilots, submariners, tank crews, and other specialties. All siege equipment/heavy weapons will of course be transformed into their 40K equivalent. All pet/tamed birds will also turn into Thunderhawks and other Imperial aircraft.

Swords are replaced with energy swords, bows replaced with hotshot weapons/bolters, spears with energy lances/halberds.

Anything I missed also gets turned into their equivalent. No one but the techpriests/inquisitors have any knowledge of what is going on, although a strange dream did warn all of Roman high command and Emperor that the gods would gift them with mighty machines, so they have some warning.

NOTE: Techpriests and inquisitors do NOT actually know what is happening, but they DO know everything about their role and how they are supposed to function. All specialties know what their role is (pilots know they fly planes, submariners know how to submarine, ship captains know how to operate their ship, but they are still totally confused about how all this has happened.) Generic Imperial Stormtroopers are completely confused as they were peasants plowing fields two seconds ago and now they're quite different.

Space Marines are still the soldiers they used to be, but when they wake up as SMs they are very excited, though they are completely ignorant of the strength/durability of their armor and the power of their weapons (they will still dodge from sword blows in fear and do not expect power swords/bolters to kill people significantly easier than bows and steel swords.)

What would happen? Will history change significantly, or will all the ships, weapons and equipment just get buried under the sand and everyone forgets about them? What would happen if this did happen with minor references in Roman literature, but modern people (2010+) dug the ships, vehicles, cities and still-alive primarchs/space marines up? Would they be used by the government as tools or would they get put into museums (SMs/primarchs get frozen)?

[Q99]

They conquer the Earth. Easily and overwhelmingly.

[Elheru Aran]

Well, that wasn't entirely incomphrensible. You're learning.

With the caveat that you don't actually say what Golden Suns are. Space Marines? Orks? Some funky Guards regiment? Given that you state a Primarch, we'll go with Marines.

Soooo... are the battleships on ground or in orbit?

Who's going to support all the soldiers if there are no more civilians?

You do realize that there were not all that many scientists per se in the Roman world, right?

Does the Roman leadership actually know how to use all these resources at their command, or are their minds still the same as they were the day before this change?

Given that you say the soldiers are ignorant of the power of their weapons, I'm expecting a hellacious lot of friendly-fire accidents.

Also... let's see, exactly how many legions did Rome have in the Marian era? Wikipedia seems to suggest a minimum of four standing legions, the rest being raised as needed. Each legion was nominally 6,000 men with a little more than two-thirds of that being actual soldiers (the rest being noncombatants-- presumably filling roles such as cooks, medics, servants, craftsmen &c.). So 4,800 x 4 is... 19,200. Congratulations, you've got pre-Heresy numbers (admittedly on the small side).

[Darth Tanner]

although a strange dream did warn all of Roman high command and Emperor that the gods would gift them with mighty machines, so they have some warning.

But there is no emperor if this is the Rome of Marius.

So in essence Earth has seen most of Europe depopulated and instead filled with future eternal war soldiers with all the towns replaced with giant robots and military bases with crashed space ships?

Rome ceases to exist, the 40k forces conquer the world almost instantly and to try and keep themselves fed but within a couple of hundred years the last remains of this solely military force has aged to death or been reduced to savagery... er more savagery than usual. Whats left of China, Persia and the other surviving states continue on as normal except they have access to weird las guns ect that they have no idea how to use or maintain.

Will history change significantly

Are you fucking kidding? Will littering Europe, N Africa nad the ME in sci fi tech whilst wiping out the dominant empire of the age change history significantly?

but modern people (2010+) dug the ships

How exactly is a giant robot where every single town in Europe going to get covered up and lost to history? There are blooming 6-10km long space ships crashed everywhere!!!

Also do you mean Thousand Suns?

[Elheru Aran]

Yeahhh... if there's all this high-tech and fucking *techpriests* everywhere... a couple thousand years later, it's still going to be around. This modern era we have? Not going to exist. That's just such a completely and ridiculously staggering paradigm shift that history will be drastically changed.

Now if it was something like "a Space Marine Chapter and two Regiments of Imperial Guard show up to help Marius" that'd be quite another story. But this? We get Holy Terra a few tens of millennia earlier.

No thanks.

[NecronLord]

...thousands of Inquisitors?

They render the planet uninhabitable in short order as their factional conflicts boil over and they requisition exterminatus weapons to use on each other as they rove about the land interrogating every single native human seeking to find the Emperor, or alternately shoot the guys that do, or do other equally stupid/hilarious things.

[Archinist]

although a strange dream did warn all of Roman high command and Emperor that the gods would gift them with mighty machines, so they have some warning.

But there is no emperor if this is the Rome of Marius.

So in essence Earth has seen most of Europe depopulated and instead filled with future eternal war soldiers with all the towns replaced with giant robots and military bases with crashed space ships?

Depopulated? No. No one is killed or deleted during the event, except for some really unlucky people who were standing around their pet bird when it turned into a thunderhawk.

Rome ceases to exist, the 40k forces conquer the world almost instantly and to try and keep themselves fed but within a couple of hundred years the last remains of this solely military force has aged to death or been reduced to savagery... er more savagery than usual. Whats left of China, Persia and the other surviving states continue on as normal except they have access to weird las guns ect that they have no idea how to use or maintain.

Why would Rome cease to exist? The 40K forces are the Roman people, they are simply Romans turned into their respective 40K equivalent. This means that if a Roman named Bob who is a vineyard pruner with two sons named Bill and Jill, then when he turns into a Stormtrooper, when he wakes up he will still be mentally preparing to prune the vineyards, feed his sons, etc.

Will history change significantly

Are you fucking kidding? Will littering Europe, N Africa nad the ME in sci fi tech whilst wiping out the dominant empire of the age change history significantly?

Well, it doesn't matter if everyone forgets the password to enter the ships/titans and all the space marines get stuck in quicksand and stay there forever, get stuck/lost in the ocean, and the primarch jumps into a volcano and gets trapped in magma forever. The weapons will last until they run out of ammunition, whereupon they will probably just disappear, and everyone will think the titans/warships are either natural structures or images of previous gods and probably worship them for a while.

but modern people (2010+) dug the ships

How exactly is a giant robot where every single town in Europe going to get covered up and lost to history? There are blooming 6-10km long space ships crashed everywhere!!!
Also do you mean Thousand Suns?

If either everyone forgets the password to their ships, and the techpriests die out, the space marines all kill each other, the primarch gets bored and goes missing, all the other people have a fun time killing each other until they are wiped out, everyone else might use the guns for a while until they run out, the energy swords will be nice if they last forever, but still not a major change.

Also, yeah, whoops I meant Thousand Suns because they are supposed to have really long-lasting power suits.

...thousands of Inquisitors?

They render the planet uninhabitable in short order as their factional conflicts boil over and they requisition exterminatus weapons to use on each other as they rove about the land interrogating every single native human seeking to find the Emperor, or alternately shoot the guys that do, or do other equally stupid/hilarious things.

Um, no. I don't think inquisitors are genocidal maniacs like some people seem to think, or otherwise the Imperium would cease to exist. I'm pretty sure they would just be extremely well-trained police officers/law enforcement department or very expensive bounty hunters.

Yeahhh... if there's all this high-tech and fucking *techpriests* everywhere... a couple thousand years later, it's still going to be around. This modern era we have? Not going to exist. That's just such a completely and ridiculously staggering paradigm shift that history will be drastically changed.

Now if it was something like "a Space Marine Chapter and two Regiments of Imperial Guard show up to help Marius" that'd be quite another story. But this? We get Holy Terra a few tens of millennia earlier.



No thanks.

No thanks? Holy Terra would be a great place to live in if all the enemies of the Imperium didn't exist, probably far better than even the best places on modern earth.

You also have to remember that no modern day weapons or tech would even dent the titans or warships, we could probably launch every single nuke, bomb, missile, even a few asteroids at a single Imperator titan and the paintwork wouldn't even be singed.

Therefore, once everyone forget the password, those titans/warships will be locked forever, no one will be able to penetrate the hull of those vehicles in any single way possible, so modern life would still be possible, except we would have proof of extraterrestrial life, unless they were just extremely rare natural structures of an unknown material from outer space.

Ships are on the ground, all assets are placed as carefully as possible to avoid major collateral damage.

[Elheru Aran]

I take it back. You aren't learning. You wrote a vaguely better versus (less obnoxious storytelling) but you still have no idea what you're talking about.

I mean, really.

Well, it doesn't matter if everyone forgets the password to enter the ships/titans and all the space marines get stuck in quicksand and stay there forever, get stuck/lost in the ocean, and the primarch jumps into a volcano and gets trapped in magma forever. The weapons will last until they run out of ammunition, whereupon they will probably just disappear, and everyone will think the titans/warships are either natural structures or images of previous gods and probably worship them for a while.

'Natural structures'? 'images of previous gods'? The weapons will 'just disappear'?

I'm revising the Picard Facepalm...

Um, no. I don't think inquisitors are genocidal maniacs like some people seem to think, or otherwise the Imperium would cease to exist. I'm pretty sure they would just be extremely well-trained police officers/law enforcement department or very expensive bounty hunters.

No thanks? Holy Terra would be a great place to live in if all the enemies of the Imperium didn't exist, probably far better than even the best places on modern earth.

And here Archinist demonstrates that he has zero understanding of 40K. He's seen a few videos, maybe played Space Marine or something... but that's it. No fluff. No novels. No rulebooks.

[Archinist]

What otherwise would they think? They are just gigantic rectangles and squares lying around, and absolutely no one can interact with them. They would just turn into sacred sites which people make things up like "behold, the magnificent divine craft our ancestors used to purge the pur-err no, filthy zeenos off our land, with arcane fire arts and blue crap falling out of it. behold! the might "Dviasroneeez!" bow!" and things like that.

Modern folks would probably be a bit more curious about the structures, and might find some old relics. They won't be able to do anything about the ships, though, so that's pointless.

The lasguns and bolters will disappear after everyone runs out of ammunition. There will probably be some more well-educated people who know it is actually a really advanced bow with no more arrows and they might hang it on their wall or something, but the poorer people will just throw it out, it's useless and go back to hunting bows.

The inquisitors only kill the xenos and demons and suspected proxies of the demons/xenos and traitors. They will not just run around slaughtering everyone who has absolutely no trace of chaos, xeno-sity, or treachery. They are, after all, to protect the Imperium, not destroy it.

For the record, I've actually never played Space Marine, nor seen any videos containing plot information. (game trailers and reviews don't count) I have, however, read small amounts of multiple books (about 50 pages for 3 different books after randomly looking through them in a library and read about 40K online. [/quote]

[Elheru Aran]

You don't know how archaeology works, do you?

Pretty much everywhere the Romans went, we have a lot of evidence. If not their roads, their buildings, their fortifications, their bases... lots and lots of stuff in the ground and on it.

Even beyond that though. This is such a stupendously massive change to history that there is precisely zero chance it would never be documented.

I mean... you are talking about towns turning into 15+ kilometre long space battleships, for crying out loud!

[Darth Tanner]

What otherwise would they think? They are just gigantic rectangles and squares lying around

No their the literal weapons of the gods. People would remember then shooting flashy lights and killing people by the thousand. Not least because the remains of whatever empire the soldiers and techpriests tried to create would have revolved around sharing some of the technology.

Modern folks would probably be a bit more curious about the structure

Curious? Seriously? Do you thnik even if somehow it laid undiscovered for 2,000 year that if we found a 8km long space ship loaded with ftl engines and materials beyond our science we would just be curious?

No. No one is killed or deleted during the event, except for some really unlucky people who were standing around their pet bird when it turned into a thunderhawk.

Except the entire citizen population of Rome has been replaced with soldiers, Rome is gone, long live the warlord primarch.

This means that if a Roman named Bob who is a vineyard pruner with two sons named Bill and Jill, then when he turns into a Stormtrooper, when he wakes up he will still be mentally preparing to prune the vineyards, feed his sons, etc.

So how is he a stormtrooper? You do realise stormtrooper is not some race of beings, its a professional soldier. If i woke up tomorrow with the skills and knowledge of a sci fi super soldiers I'm not going to be the same person I am now, I won't be going into the office.

whereupon they will probably just disappear

Is that really how you think the world works? The giant robots that replaced every major city in Europe just get forgotten about and people go about their business?

Therefore, once everyone forget the password, those titans/warships will be locked forever

Of course they can, they are not magic immune to damage, it will simply take a lot of cutting. Even in universe for fully operational titans nuclear level firepower is what is used to destroy them with their shields up letalone powered down.

A much better scenario would be Marius is replaced with a Primarch, Rome gets an immortal super leader so evades the century of bloody violence and remains politically unified... Pax Roma.

[Q99]

everyone else might use the guns for a while until they run out,

Lasguns are absurdly user friendly and rechargeable. Putting them out in the sun will (very slowly) recharge their power packs. Throwing them in a *fire* can be an emergency way to recharge them, though it damages the packs.

Any vehicle, they can be plugged in, and many of the vehicles do have reactors that'll last very very long times. A Titan will continue functioning for millennia, pretty easily. Some parts will break down, but the reactors often just keep chugging.


A good portion of this gear will remain in active use a thousand years later *without* techpriests and knowledge being passed on.

[Archinist]

What otherwise would they think? They are just gigantic rectangles and squares lying around

No their the literal weapons of the gods. People would remember then shooting flashy lights and killing people by the thousand. Not least because the remains of whatever empire the soldiers and techpriests tried to create would have revolved around sharing some of the technology.

Sure, but otherwise they wouldn't be able to do anything about that. I guess there would also be massive craters from all those teratons of firepower shot into the planet..

Modern folks would probably be a bit more curious about the structure

Curious? Seriously? Do you thnik even if somehow it laid undiscovered for 2,000 year that if we found a 8km long space ship loaded with ftl engines and materials beyond our science we would just be curious?

Well, that's the only thing we could really be, since we can do absolutely nothing about it, unless some archaeologist finds a lucky piece of paper somewhere that has the ship's entrance password written on it.

No. No one is killed or deleted during the event, except for some really unlucky people who were standing around their pet bird when it turned into a thunderhawk.

Except the entire citizen population of Rome has been replaced with soldiers, Rome is gone, long live the warlord primarch.

They can still be called Romans, and will still call themselves so.

This means that if a Roman named Bob who is a vineyard pruner with two sons named Bill and Jill, then when he turns into a Stormtrooper, when he wakes up he will still be mentally preparing to prune the vineyards, feed his sons, etc.

So how is he a stormtrooper? You do realise stormtrooper is not some race of beings, its a professional soldier. If i woke up tomorrow with the skills and knowledge of a sci fi super soldiers I'm not going to be the same person I am now, I won't be going into the office.

It would take a while to get used it the change, give the normal humans two days or so, and the space marines much quicker.

whereupon they will probably just disappear

Is that really how you think the world works? The giant robots that replaced every major city in Europe just get forgotten about and people go about their business?

Most people will just think that a UFO appeared and trolled humanity a bit just for fun and probably leave it there.

Therefore, once everyone forget the password, those titans/warships will be locked forever

Of course they can, they are not magic immune to damage, it will simply take a lot of cutting. Even in universe for fully operational titans nuclear level firepower is what is used to destroy them with their shields up letalone powered down.

A much better scenario would be Marius is replaced with a Primarch, Rome gets an immortal super leader so evades the century of bloody violence and remains politically unified... Pax Roma.

Umm..what?

I mean...huh?? 40K capital ships can directly take and survive petaton-level weaponry, do you seriously think that a drill will be able to cut through? Isn't a petaton enough to destroy a small moon or something? Also, why would the void shields be turned off? They would probably stay on, and therefore be left on forever.

Wasn't there a part where a Imperator-class titan was exchanging fire with a frigate or a cruiser? (it didn't get killed instantly) That would suggest that titans can survive at least double-digit to triple-digit gigaton level weaponry..

Also, the Ark Mechanicus is supposed to be immensely better protected than the most well-protected Imperial ships, so there is absolutely no way that will ever be penetrated. The only way to get inside the ships would to go hunting down the primarch which is probably trapped deep underground in some sort of deep sleep encased in molten magma near the core of the earth, with the possible risk that the primarch might just kill everyone, or dig up some old space marines trapped under the quicksand and ask them, although they might be completely insane after being trapped in sand for thousands of years.

I am very confident that the Ark Mechanicus is completely indestructible to any modern weapons of infinite amount, there is no way it could ever be penetrated even slightly.

[Simon_Jester]

I would like to suggest one important thing.

Archinist, please stop trying to think of excuses for why people don't notice things, don't think of things, or will be TOTALLY UNABLE to accomplish things.

Real people, and for that matter any fictional people who aren't incredibly boring and dumb to talk about... They think. They notice. They try to come up with explanations for things, they get resourceful and flexible.

It's very boring and pointless to talk about situations where people are so stupid they don't notice a monster eating their friends, or so lazy they don't even try to preserve their own lives, or so helpless that there is "LITERALLY NO WAY" for them to ever accomplish their goals.

[Archinist]

I would like to suggest one important thing.

Archinist, please stop trying to think of excuses for why people don't notice things, don't think of things, or will be TOTALLY UNABLE to accomplish things.

Real people, and for that matter any fictional people who aren't incredibly boring and dumb to talk about... They think. They notice. They try to come up with explanations for things, they get resourceful and flexible.

It's very boring and pointless to talk about situations where people are so stupid they don't notice a monster eating their friends, or so lazy they don't even try to preserve their own lives, or so helpless that there is "LITERALLY NO WAY" for them to ever accomplish their goals.

You're definitely wrong on the monster eating part, as there are literally hundreds of good horror movies which have their friend disappear and get eaten one by one while most people just think it's a prank even with blood and gore everywhere.

Also, where is the example of me doing this here? What I did once on other threads is irrelevant.

[Simon_Jester]

Archinist, I'm trying to give you advice for your own good here. The fact that it is based not only on this thread but also on other threads is beside the point.

If you want to craft interesting scenarios and be seen as an intelligent person... Do not think of reasons why people will be too stupid, incompetent, or weak to react to their problems. Here is why:

When you talk about a situation, when you bring it up for people to discuss, you are asking other people "how will people react to this situation?" They will start thinking about the answer. They will think "Gee, how would the people react to this, that, or the other thing? What would be the future consequences of this, that, or the other thing happening?"

Now imagine you turn around and try to say "no, that can't happen because people aren't going to react to the situation, because they're stupid and lazy and weak. Instead, this ridiculous thing that no one would ever expect happens."

Think about it. You just said "this happens, but there are no consequences." Or "This thing happens, but there are no consequences that a sane person could predict or believe will happen." You're effectively saying "I just asked you a question that has no answer."

Actions have consequences. If you want to have an intelligent conversation, you have to admit this. You can't spend your time trying to find ways to think around the consequences or pretend they don't exist.

...

The best case is that they'll ignore you after that. The worst case is that they will mock you or think you are stupid, for asking a question that makes no sense. Like if a kid was following you around asking "What if everything was true and not true at the same time? What if two plus two equaled five? What if black was white and day was night?" After a little while, that kind of thing becomes an annoying and pointless waste of time. And even if you wanted to answer the kid's questions, there isn't really an answer that matters or means anything. You could make up ridiculous answers, but that isn't a game most people want to play most of the time.

And the more mature people get, the less they want to play games like that. The less pleasure they take in pure absurdity that isn't attached to anything that means anything. That is why people keep calling you a child. Because in our experience almost no one except children and mentally ill people likes playing with pure, meaningless absurdity this much.

Because they're the ones who don't understand or don't admit the relation between actions and consequences.

...

Mentally healthy adults tend to find that kind of thing tiresome, although they put up with it from their own children because someone has to teach children about actions and consequences.

Thing is, this forum is not a place adults go to socialize with children, and it is a place where we strongly believe in the idea that actions should be connected to consequences. So talking as if actions could just randomly happen without consequences is intensely annoying and pointless. Adults in general do not respect that kind of behavior, and the adults here respect it even less than average.

You're definitely wrong on the monster eating part, as there are literally hundreds of good horror movies which have their friend disappear and get eaten one by one while most people just think it's a prank even with blood and gore everywhere.

The good horror movies generally do not do the "people are too stupid to notice a monster that is moving around doing terrible things in places they can easily see and hear about and know about."

Bad, cheesy horror movies do that.

Now, there are some 'good' horror movies that work by deliberately making fun of the stupid things people do in them. This is a very specific kind of story. It is actually quite difficult to do well. To do it well, you have to know that what you're showing is unrealistic. You have to effectively admit that it's unrealistic. And you have to have an audience that actually enjoys watching people act like they're dumber than a squirrel. Not everyone enjoys that, and even the people who do enjoy that don't enjoy it all the time.

Meanwhile, the really good horror movies are usually the ones where the characters know they're in danger, are afraid, are trying to stay safe... but they fail to do so, because the monster is powerful, or cunning. Or sometimes the characters succeed, but at great cost and risk and sacrifice, because they are intelligent and doing their best to deal with a bad situation.

In order to tell a good "stupid people doing stupid things" story, you have to at least know how stories with smart characters work. You have to make your stupid characters believably stupid. They can't just have infinite total stupidity in all ways.

You have to understand the rules, before you can understand when it makes sense to ignore the rules.

...

Which starts, again, with letting the people you talk about be smart. Don't assume they'll fail 100% of the time. Don't assume they're too stupid to think of new ways to accomplish their goals. Don't assume that if you leave the evidence in front of them they'll automatically not understand it.

[Lord Revan]

The good horror movies generally do not do the "people are too stupid to notice a monster that is moving around doing terrible things in places they can easily see and hear about and know about."

Bad, cheesy horror movies do that.

Now, there are some 'good' horror movies that work by deliberately making fun of the stupid things people do in them. This is a very specific kind of story. It is actually quite difficult to do well. To do it well, you have to know that what you're showing is unrealistic. You have to effectively admit that it's unrealistic. And you have to have an audience that actually enjoys watching people act like they're dumber than a squirrel. Not everyone enjoys that, and even the people who do enjoy that don't enjoy it all the time.

Meanwhile, the really good horror movies are usually the ones where the characters know they're in danger, are afraid, are trying to stay safe... but they fail to do so, because the monster is powerful, or cunning. Or sometimes the characters succeed, but at great cost and risk and sacrifice, because they are intelligent and doing their best to deal with a bad situation.

In order to tell a good "stupid people doing stupid things" story, you have to at least know how stories with smart characters work. You have to make your stupid characters believably stupid. They can't just have infinite total stupidity in all ways.

You have to understand the rules, before you can understand when it makes sense to ignore the rules.

...

Which starts, again, with letting the people you talk about be smart. Don't assume they'll fail 100% of the time. Don't assume they're too stupid to think of new ways to accomplish their goals. Don't assume that if you leave the evidence in front of them they'll automatically not understand it.

To expand what Simon said, "Aliens" is a good example where a group of people have to deal with a stalking monster yet they behave more or less as competent as you'd think should people would in real life, the Xenomorph isn't a threat because the cat is the smartest person of the crew of the Nostramo, rather the crew of the Nostramo isn't equipted or trained to deal with something like Xenomorph, they try their best but they're a civilian crew of an ore hauler not trained and properly equipted commandos, they're out of their depth and that's where the "horror" comes from.

That said though you shouldn't have a properly trained and equipted commandos act like they were a bunch civilians working with equipment that wasn't meant to be used as weapons, that's just stupid military personel should act like intelligent people trained and equipted for battle.

[Batman]

Technically, that's Alien, not Aliens, the latter being the sequel with the Colonial Marines but this works for both examples-the Marines did behave professionally up until (and mostly after) they realized they were up against a threat they were ill equipped to deal with. The only ones who acted stupid were Gorman (who had exactly zero real-world military experience) and Burke (who had an itinerary completely different from everybody else's).
Other than Hudson panicking for a short while they stayed completely professional.

[NecronLord]

Um, no. I don't think inquisitors are genocidal maniacs like some people seem to think, or otherwise the Imperium would cease to exist. I'm pretty sure they would just be extremely well-trained police officers/law enforcement department or very expensive bounty hunters.

The Imperium is ceasing to exist, fool. Every year it has less and less than it had in its glory days, every year more and more of it is squandered. The fact that each passing year more and more of the Imperium's glory slips into history and every year the Imperium is less than what it was before is a core theme of the 40K setting. There are exceptions - an STC may be discovered or a world reclaimed, but on the grand scale, the Imperium is a dying state.

Some Inquisitors are smart, practical, devoted and even good.

Others fucking grow horns.



Does the Inquisition, on balance, do more good than harm?

Debateable.

But the Inquisition also causes inordinate collateral damage, which is offset by the likes of Rogue Traders colonizing and rediscovering worlds.

Your scenario magnifies the problems of the Inquisition, and puts them all on one world with no immediate means of getting others to settle.

[NecronLord]

Umm..what?

I mean...huh?? 40K capital ships can directly take and survive petaton-level weaponry, do you seriously think that a drill will be able to cut through? Isn't a petaton enough to destroy a small moon or something? Also, why would the void shields be turned off? They would probably stay on, and therefore be left on forever.

Fucking fuel. It can't operate for two thousand years without fuel.

Wasn't there a part where a Imperator-class titan was exchanging fire with a frigate or a cruiser? (it didn't get killed instantly) That would suggest that titans can survive at least double-digit to triple-digit gigaton level weaponry..

Not that I am aware of, with my quite considerable 40K knowledge - look at my username - no, there is a quote in the books where a navy captain reflects that his smallest gun is more powerful than an entire titan legion and that such claims are just hyperbole.

Also, the Ark Mechanicus is supposed to be immensely better protected than the most well-protected Imperial ships, so there is absolutely no way that will ever be penetrated. The only way to get inside the ships would to go hunting down the primarch which is probably trapped deep underground in some sort of deep sleep encased in molten magma near the core of the earth, with the possible risk that the primarch might just kill everyone, or dig up some old space marines trapped under the quicksand and ask them, although they might be completely insane after being trapped in sand for thousands of years.

I am very confident that the Ark Mechanicus is completely indestructible to any modern weapons of infinite amount, there is no way it could ever be penetrated even slightly.

Or you just walk through the shields - we'll grant that they're still active - and drill your way through the windows.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you didn't know that void shields don't stop a slow moving object.

[Archinist]

Fucking fuel. It can't operate for two thousand years without fuel.

According to the lexicanum, the Ark Mechanicus is an exploration ship designed to endlessly search the stars and recover a holy grail with some robot blueprints on it. They are also significantly stronger than the strongest Imperial battleship.

I would be surprised if such a vessel would ever run out of fuel, it could probably just remotely devour stars or feed off energy from the Chaos Gods without risk of infection.

Not that I am aware of, with my quite considerable 40K knowledge - look at my username - no, there is a quote in the books where a navy captain reflects that his smallest gun is more powerful than an entire titan legion and that such claims are just hyperbole.

Well, an emperor titan, using high-end calcs, is a continent buster, and can also survive continent-busting firepower, so it would make sense for it to at least bring down a few small frigates.

Or you just walk through the shields - we'll grant that they're still active - and drill your way through the windows.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you didn't know that void shields don't stop a slow moving object.

Wouldn't the raw radiation/warp energy being emitted instantly atomize anything? Plus there are the in-door void shields that defend against demons while in the warp.

Do Imperial ships even have windows? How do they survive petaton-range rounds the size of a massive city complex going at speeds high enough to crack a planet in two? Even without their void shields their hull can withstand a fair amount of damage, and this is a Ark Mechanicus ship, which is vastly superior to anything the Imperials or probably anything ever to exist in the 40K universe have ever created, so I wouldn't be surprised if they could withstand even exaton-level blows.

Certainly, they will not run out of fuel, especially as their engines are disabled, and they're just sitting on the ground. The Ark Mechanicus is a mystical spacecraft created by the absolute best of the best. I'd imagine it could probably exterminatus entire Necron colonies and thousands of Chaos fleets without even having it's paint scratched.

[NecronLord]

According to the lexicanum, the Ark Mechanicus is an exploration ship designed to endlessly search the stars and recover a holy grail with some robot blueprints on it. They are also significantly stronger than the strongest Imperial battleship.

Oh a fan-wiki.

You know nothing.

Ark Mechanicuses are covered in the Battlefleet Gothic's rules. They are not significantly superior to other Imperial battleships. The Serpenza is an Ark Mechanicus of special provenance featured in Graham McNeill's books, and is not the standard issue at all.

I would be surprised if such a vessel would ever run out of fuel, it could probably just remotely devour stars or feed off energy from the Chaos Gods without risk of infection.

Err.

Well, an emperor titan, using high-end calcs, is a continent buster, and can also survive continent-busting firepower, so it would make sense for it to at least bring down a few small frigates.

Whatever 'High end calcs' you are talking about are utter garbage, and are no doubt based on interpreting the fact that the Emperor titan has guns for shooting at starships on its back - defence lasers - therefore assuming that they are equal in power output to starships. This is not accurate in a holistic view of the setting where Emperor titans fire on things and most certainly do not crack the continent they're on.

Wouldn't the raw radiation/warp energy being emitted instantly atomize anything? Plus there are the in-door void shields that defend against demons while in the warp.

Do Imperial ships even have windows? How do they survive petaton-range rounds the size of a massive city complex going at speeds high enough to crack a planet in two? Even without their void shields their hull can withstand a fair amount of damage, and this is a Ark Mechanicus ship, which is vastly superior to anything the Imperials or probably anything ever to exist in the 40K universe have ever created, so I wouldn't be surprised if they could withstand even exaton-level blows.

Certainly, they will not run out of fuel, especially as their engines are disabled, and they're just sitting on the ground. The Ark Mechanicus is a mystical spacecraft created by the absolute best of the best. I'd imagine it could probably exterminatus entire Necron colonies and thousands of Chaos fleets without even having it's paint scratched.

Have you even read the fucking Lords of Mars trilogy featuring the Serpenza or just read Lexicanum and some calc threads on SB.com?


Thread moved to sci-fi, 40k is a sci-fi setting.

[Elheru Aran]

Gods even just a cursory readthrough of 1d4chan would do Archinist some good...

The big problem here though isn't that he doesn't understand how people respond to crises (though that's certainly part of it)-- he doesn't understand how much of an impact such a staggering paradigm change would have on the history of the world.

I mean, okay, we have a reasonably decent idea of what the world looked like say in the Neolithic. That's... what... 10,000-5,000 years ago? Not a *great* idea mind you, certainly not a *complete* idea, but for all that we can make some pretty good educated guesses based upon what we've found through archaeology.

But he thinks we aren't going to know anything about cities turning into giant damn starships or fricking Titans only a couple of millennia later. He thinks thousands of Space Marines popping out of nowhere is simply going to pass unnoticed in the historic record, that the entire population of an empire that spanned much of Europe at its height turning into a massive military force is going to be a blip.

I mean... just... what the hell. I'm about *this* close to simply not bothering opening any thread he posts...

[Q99]

Even a handful of guns would swing an ancient battle- a few bursts at the leadership or even the front line right before contact and then the enemy formation is broken and running.

A vehicle without guns, similarly, you just drive it into enemy formations. Even if they dive out of the way, they're now out of formation and your normal soldiers clear house.

That's what a *few* high tech items can do, swing battles and even wars by killing the enemy leadership in battles or scattering and killing their best units.

Considering absolutely nothing without high-tier gear can hurt a Space Marine's armor (well, maybe pushing them off a *very* high cliff or dropping a rockslide on them), the only threats to those with tech are internal coups.

[Lost Soal]

Archinist, stop. Please. You know NOTHING.

Void Shields. Nothing in the actual Imperium runs void shields at all times, they can't.
Those internal voids that protect against deamons, they don't exist. Ships have Geller fields which do not stop anything in real space and are even harder to maintain than Void Shields

Doors. The vast majority or entry ways do not require passwords, they are physical locks. The Romans were actually quite capable of passing on knowledge to people. Knowldge like passwords. Both of these facts are actually completely irrelivant since you are apparently under the impression that every single person in every single Titan, Starship, Battletank will all suddenly drop dead inside them after every single one of them has locked every single door, access hatch, maintenance hatch, torpedo tube, gun barrel & every other possible means of entrance on every single machine. Newsflash, thats not going to happen.

Tech Priests. They hae the knowledge of Tech Priests but they are still Romans with Roman mindsets, not the Mechanicum with their pathological need for secrecy meaning they will actually record things, pass on their knowledge and teach people how this stuff works. As tech Priests they will know how to make ammunition so all the weapons will not just dissapear and be treated as worthless.

Starships. 40K battleships are not designed to take off from a planetary body, so they aren't going anywhere