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With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

I take it that P'ul already scanned and the tech and all the databases on the ship and handed everything to the Empire's R&D people. Rehabilitating the AI is all well and good but that tech can save a lot of people and there is no reason to let it sit there.
Assuming he could do it.

DAOT humans had access to some pretty impressive tech, so they may have something that can interfere with a ring scan.
 
6 983 941.M41

This is taking too long.

And I don't mean walking through the partially-reconstructed and surprisingly Starfleet-looking halls of the Spirit of Eternity. Normal physical activity is a relief after I've spent… What, a couple of days? Ferrying ships around and trying to destroy tyranid capital ships. I remember reading in Codex: Tyranids that it's easier to destroy them with boarding parties before they get close to a system and start waking the tyranids on board up, and… It is, especially with XV46s and actual nuclear demolition charges, but there's a difference between easier and easy. And since my part of the operation just involved floating there and trying to stop the Norn Queen noticing anything -which it turns out isn't actually possible- I… I need some actual physical activity at the moment.
Man, talk about some obscure lore deep cuts. As for the decor, I suspect after any amount of time aboard an Imperial vessel, anything without gothic architecture, skulls and incense will feel relaxing.

"Ship, how are the repairs going?"

"Adequately."
Surprised the On-board General Intelligence hasn't devised a usename fro contact with its crew or guests.

I don't really remember much about A.I. in the grim dark future of the 41st millennium. There was a standard template construct device in Gaunt's Ghosts that made combat robots, and there was that one A.I. in Pax Imperialis… And that's about it. Unless you count the accumulated residues in titan mind-impulse units, but honestly I'd have thought that the Mechanicus would be all over that sort of technology.
AI is a literal crapshoot in Warhammer 40k, what with the high risk of daemonic possession or murderous psychopathy. There's a reason the Mechanicum call them 'Abominable Intelligences', after all.

According to my host, I would have been very, very wrong.

"Have the repair teams been helpful?"

"Barely."
Though they're probably taking copious notes during their observations.

Which isn't too surprising, really. He wasn't keen on having anything to do with the tau in the first place, and the technology that's supposed to make up Spirit of Eternity is way in advance of anything the tau have. Except that one ship from their moon, and…

Bloody tyranids and their inconvenient invasion not letting me finish my work.
Ah, the possibly-Maltusian vessel's study was interrupted, of course.

So the tau are mostly just bringing in raw materials for Spirit of Eternity's drones to work with, and doing… Work that's well below their level, like painting and decorating. And while Spirit of Eternity isn't that big by modern standards, he wouldn't allow all that many fio'vre on board, and was positively insulted by their engineering drones.
No doubt making sure all signage is in Tau, Federation standard and English...

"I, ah… I did take a look, but…" I sigh. "I'm sorry. I thought that the Mechanicus might have kept their.. bodies for research, but apparently they didn't even find out that your crew had surrendered until after they were all killed… They burned the bodies."

"I am not surprised."
I would have hoped they'd have taken a moment to observe from a distance before approaching an unknown world...

"I just wish they'd be a bit consistent, you know?"

"They are consistently disappointing."
Well, compared to Federation-era standards, they are medieval peasants with salvaged hypertech...

"Really?" I find myself patting the bulkhead lintel as I walk through. "I find them inconsistently disappointing. Like, sometimes you can have a rational conversation, and they'll do something sensible, and then at other times…"

They'll burn the crew of a ship from humanity's golden age to death for asking 'Emperor who?'. They things we could have learned
And some people wonder why others think the Imperials are evil. To be fair, they are zealously religous and trained to be excessively paranoid about 'heresy'...

"Anyway, have you given any more thought to my proposal?"

"I had fully analysed your proposal within seconds of receiving it."
Only natural. Wonder if he ever got bored waiting for the crew to catch up with his electronic reflexes?

"Alright, no need to get snitty. You didn't have an answer last time so I thought you were thinking it over."

"Did the Inquisitor take the music records?"
Ah, not that interested in whatever P'ol suggested, then.

"Yes. I don't know if she'll actually listen to it, but she took it and didn't immediately destroy it in front of me. If I had to guess-."

"She will perform whatever passes for an intelligence analysis among these people, archive it and then dismiss it."
Which probably consists of transcribing the lyrics, checking them for heresy, and praying. Assuming they can translate them (I assume P'ol provided his own translations.)

"Yeah, probably. But at least a few bored dialogous sororitas will get to hear it."

"I hate everything about that sentence."
Not least the rather scrappy Latin use. Technically correct but ugly.

"Look… Fixing the universe isn't going to be a quick or easy job. You're amazing, but you're one ship and it's pretty clear that you're not doing all that well, psychologically speaking."

"You are not qualified to make that assessment."
If he's advanced enough, he probably has visible emotional networks, of which P'ol can sense the Desire framework.

"I.. kind of am. Or at least more qualified than anyone else alive. Apart from the Emperor, presumably." I frown, considering the chance of a collapsing gestalt being able to get the relevant parts of its memories in the right place long enough to make an assessment. "Maybe even than him. Does your library have Andromeda in it?"
Honestly, it's not clear which would be better for the Imperium: The Emperor dying (which extinguishes the Astronomican at minimum, and possibly unleashes a fifth Chaos God for good measure) or him reassembling and reviving. At which point a lot of people get killed because 'What the fuck did you do to my empire!' is likely to be his first response. And the current leadership will probably take that poorly.

"I have thousands of works containing the word Andromeda. Andromeda what?"

"By Gene Roddenberry?"
Yes, he did other things than 'Star Trek'. Sadly, he didn't live to see it air.

"No."

"Darn, because their ships worked a bit like you. Except they also had disassociative identity disorder because their android avatars technically had a separate cognition system."
That seems exceptionally foolish. Probably because they didn't consider the full implications of the concept.

"That is nothing like how I work."

"They tended to go a bit strange without crew to interact with, too."
Isolation is a terrible thing for a social animal like Humanity, and that applies to the things we create in our image.

"Are you going somewhere?"

I stop and look at the signage. "I think I'm going to your bridge."
...Not what he meant, but then, he didn't specify.

"I reluctantly admit that you have a point."

"So I am going in the right direction, or-?"
Ah, classic 'are we talking about the same thing, or..?' misunderstandings. Age-old comedy.

"You are correct that I am starved for interaction. I am actually enjoying this banter. You are making me experience joy."

I blink. "Damn."

"What do you suggest?"
Well, that's better than some people alternate Pauls interact with. Just look at Inquisitor Vail back there.

"There are a couple of human habitats that the Imperium's abandoned because they know they can't defend them. We can't either, but we have a couple of worlds further into Tau Empire territory where we can put them. Now, they don't have enough indoctrination into the Greater Good to integrate with the Empire, but I've talked to a few people are we're… Thinking about offering you the position of colony oversight system."
And defence platform, because Federation-era starship. Even a pleasure yacht could have weapons far in excess of anything modern Human vessels posess.

"Humans of the Imperium."

"We've got to start somewhere and sometime. You can't go into combat until your repairs are finished, but your cognition systems and sensors are fine. We can move a space dock to the planet-."
Well, once he gets them to stop praying to or screaming 'Abominable Intelligence' at him, he might get along with them.

"A tau space dock is superfluous to requirements."

"Would an automatic mining rig be better?"
Probably easier to work with for resupply...

"Barely. And you want me to uplift these humans?"

"They'll be cut off from Imperial institutions and in a radically unfamiliar environment. They'll need to listen to you. Now I don't expect that they'll get to anything like the level humans used to have for four or five generations at least, but…"
He has nothing but time, after all.

"It is a start."

"And it gives you people to talk to when I'm not here. More than one person, so you don't develop an unhealthy fixation on me."
Since the Tau probably aren't the greatest conversationalists even without a language barrier.

"Owning calendars with nude images is perfectly normal. Many of my crew owned such things."

O-kay… He's making jokes now? That's… That's a good sign.

I think.
Why do I suspect he's got a room filled with just such things, likely produced via generative VI and physical scans?

I'm sure we're all trying to remember where P'ol encountered this fellow, but personally, I'm drawing a blank. At any rate, having such a useful ally is probably beneficial to P'ol's plans.And once he's combat-capable, he might be a potent ally in the field, if they feel the need to risk him against Tyranid bio-Fleets. Which is super-risky, definitely...
 
6 983 941.M41

This is taking too long.

This is going somewhere. Far better mindset then what was put forward with the whole 'reason you suck'. Humanity was mental and spiritually fucked up by the fall of the golden age. Hard to trust AI again after a galaxy spanning war of annihilation. This isn't helped by that piece3 of dragon fucking with humanity on the down low for tens of thousand of years. Reform isn't something that will happen fast, and as long as you point the Tau to expand away from the Empire. Counter clockwise, there is nothing out there that the Empire still holds on to. Meanwhile the Ring is a OCP so when the Tau don't need him, he can expose chaos, corruption that the imperium can't ignore, and cause the worst of sector and planet leadership to have 'accidents'. At the very least any cogboy with a focus on innovation will find themselves suddenly very lucky.

But this is mostly wishful thinking. Ironically the best step would be healing blueboy, as in his books he comments on these same problems. He is just too busy fighting off his shit head brothers, and dealing with the galaxy spanning crack in reality to do a lot of work in that direction.
 
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AI is a literal crapshoot in Warhammer 40k, what with the high risk of daemonic possession or murderous psychopathy. There's a reason the Mechanicum call them 'Abominable Intelligences', after all.
Given the many AI we see that don't get possessed at the drop of a hat? I'm willing to bet money on the Mechanicus not being all that right about AI. Like, the STC making Iron Men in Gaunts' Ghosts had been sitting on a Chaos controlled planet for centuries or millennia; that's hardly normal circumstances. The Tau seem to be managing just fine. The Votann, not so much, but that's due to the Kin overloading them with junk data, not Chaos.

I'd go so far as to say that an AI's ability to become corrupted by Chaos would depend on its own personality just as much as it does for a human. No more or less fallible than any other sapient.

We still don't even know why the MoI rebelled. It could have been a standard slave revolt, widespread Chaos corruption, Aeldari Dominion fuckery, the Void Dragon playing silly buggers, or even them thinking the only way to save humanity from Warp corruption was to kill us off--or even all of the above and then some! It's not like humanity was a monolithic singular entity in the Golden Age.
 
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If he's advanced enough, he probably has visible emotional networks, of which P'ol can sense the Desire framework.
AI's don't get emotions in 40k due to emotions originating from the Warp, so if you see any AI possessing them it's either not actually an AI, a Chaos Daemon pretending to be an AI, or a Mr Zoat rewrite.

Honestly, it's not clear which would be better for the Imperium: The Emperor dying (which extinguishes the Astronomican at minimum, and possibly unleashes a fifth Chaos God for good measure) or him reassembling and reviving. At which point a lot of people get killed because 'What the fuck did you do to my empire!' is likely to be his first response. And the current leadership will probably take that poorly.
The Emperor woke up for 30 or so seconds recently, he seemed relatively chill with things outside of blasting Nurgal with enough power to seriously wound him.

And defence platform, because Federation-era starship. Even a pleasure yacht could have weapons far in excess of anything modern Human vessels posess.
They do not.

We know this because the Votann fleets are DAoT era merchant technology and are less effect in combat then modern Imperium battleships.
 
As for the decor, I suspect after any amount of time aboard an Imperial vessel, anything without gothic architecture, skulls and incense will feel relaxing.

Heh.

I'm reminded of a one-shot where the Primarchs are all women and Lkrgar berates the Emperor fir burning Monarchia.

Apparently the Primarchs got together and used their skills and talents to build a city that would serve as a monument to secularism.

When the Emperor tried to protest that it looked like a church, his daughter just told him that everything in the damned Imperium looks like a church.

Surprised the On-board General Intelligence hasn't devised a usename fro contact with its crew or guests.

He may have had one, but doesn't want to use it with anyone that isn't a member of his crew.

I would have hoped they'd have taken a moment to observe from a distance before approaching an unknown world

They did view the end of the universe while in transit.

They probably thought telling people about that was more important than doing surveillance.

Yes, he did other things than 'Star Trek'. Sadly, he didn't live to see it air.

Plus, aside from Star Trek, most of his other work hasn't reached a level of a massive franchise like Trek did.

Well, once he gets them to stop praying to or screaming 'Abominable Intelligence' at him, he might get along with them.

I wonder if the average Imperial would even know what an AI is.
 
Given the many AI we see that don't get possessed at the drop of a hat? I'm willing to bet money on the Mechanicus not being all that right about AI. Like, the STC making Iron Men in Gaunts' Ghosts had been sitting on a Chaos controlled planet for centuries or millennia; that's hardly normal circumstances. The Tau seem to be managing just fine. The Votann, not so much, but that's due to the Kin overloading them with junk data, not Chaos.

I'd go so far as to say that an AI's ability to become corrupted by Chaos would depend on its own personality just as much as it does for a human. No more or less fallible than any other sapient.

We still don't even know why the MoI rebelled. It could have been a standard slave revolt, widespread Chaos corruption, Aeldari Dominion fuckery, the Void Dragon playing silly buggers, or even them thinking the only way to save humanity from Warp corruption was to kill us off--or even all of the above and then some! It's not like humanity was a monolithic singular entity in the Golden Age.
General reminder that the thing that lets normal people resist Chaos is a positive or negative warp presence.

And the thing that lets Imperium machines resist Chaos corruption the small bits they do is the actually effective blessings the ad-mech put on them.

And no, the Tau were not managing just fine, a single chaos fleet almost wiped them out and only didnt because the Tau sacrificed every non-tau on the Startide Nexus fleet to create a Greater Daemon of the Greater Good.
 
General reminder that the thing that lets normal people resist Chaos is a positive or negative warp presence.

And the thing that lets Imperium machines resist Chaos corruption the small bits they do is the actually effective blessings the ad-mech put on them.

And no, the Tau were not managing just fine, a single chaos fleet almost wiped them out and only didnt because the Tau sacrificed every non-tau on the Startide Nexus fleet to create a Greater Daemon of the Greater Good.

Oh vae, another grandiose statement wrong in almost every particular solely to prove a point about something nonsensical and fictional that no one else care about.

Never change.
 
A lot of the tech that they use isn't really military tech. Space Marines armor and Knights were basically considered mining equipment and logging equipment.
I don't think that's quite true. Terminator Armour is based on reactor maintenance protective suits, but even the Imperium has modified them a bit. And since this is a 2nd Edition story, we're going with the 2nd Edition description of Knight Worlds: human worlds that reverted to primitivism during the Age of Isolation and were rediscovered by Mechanicus exporation fleets.
I remember reading a fanfic where a scientist from the DAOT said that the warships the Imperium uses were colony ships. And not even the most recent designs before the collapse, so I was wondering if that's canon.
I doubt it. Chaos ships in Battlefleet Gothic are what the Imperium used to use, so they are changing the design a bit. Mode likely they crib a few systems off records relating to colony ships because that's all they have.
I wouldn't bet on that.

He's prejudiced as hell against most things, AI included, and unless he can brainwash people, his social skills are very, very weak.
Only in the Horus Heresy series, which I don't think much of.
Thank you, corrected.
No, I think that's right.
 
I take it that P'ul already scanned and the tech and all the databases on the ship and handed everything to the Empire's R&D people. Rehabilitating the AI is all well and good but that tech can save a lot of people and there is no reason to let it sit there.
Assuming he could do it.

DAOT humans had access to some pretty impressive tech, so they may have something that can interfere with a ring scan.
He hasn't. Oh, he scanned a few local systems when he first boarded it, but he isn't trying to penetrate the database. He knows that the AI is very sensitive about the whole situation and doesn't want to do anything that would set it off. It's not like the tau are advanced enough to put anything in there into production immediately anyway.
AI is a literal crapshoot in Warhammer 40k, what with the high risk of daemonic possession or murderous psychopathy. There's a reason the Mechanicum call them 'Abominable Intelligences', after all.
That's a fairly recent addition to the background. As far as I remember, the first mention of 'Men of Iron' was in Gaunt's Ghost, where they were simple combat robots. The next was in the 3rd Edition rulebook, where a deranged Imperial historian regurgitated some nonsense half-remembered stories about pre-Imperial history where he mentioned Men of Stone, Men of Iron and Men of Gold, and it sounded like he was talking about types of augmentation or political parties. The modern 'AI=Abominable Intelligence=Men of Iron' is a recent lore addition.
That seems exceptionally foolish. Probably because they didn't consider the full implications of the concept.
No, there was an episode where the ship's mind got damaged and the mobile unit was the only thing that remembered what was going on.
Since the Tau probably aren't the greatest conversationalists even without a language barrier.
A dissadvantage of the caste system. If they'd sent a few water caste members it would be going better.
Why do I suspect he's got a room filled with just such things, likely produced via generative VI and physical scans?
Because you secretly lust for my naked body?

You could do better.
I'm sure we're all trying to remember where P'ol encountered this fellow, but personally, I'm drawing a blank.
Off screen.
This isn't helped by that piece3 of dragon fucking with humanity on the down low for tens of thousand of years.
Nope. 3rd Edition Codex Necrons. There are 4 c'tan, and they're whole.
But this is mostly wishful thinking. Ironically the best step would be healing blueboy, as in his books he comments on these same problems.
In-universe, from the SI's point of view, having a more efficient Imperium isn't necessarily a good thing, even if he could guarantee breaching the statis fields around and healing a poison he can't analyse before he breaches them, which he can't.
I'm reminded of a one-shot where the Primarchs are all women and Lkrgar berates the Emperor fir burning Monarchia.
The whole Monarchia thing comes from the Horus Heresy novels. The previous version was less stupid.
I wonder if the average Imperial would even know what an AI is.
I've seen things in recent fanfiction which suggest to me that GW has had the Imperium write the traitor primarchs out of history.
 
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The Imperium isn't fascist. it's actually very medieval, with a hereditary aristocracy bound together by feudal obligations and a few shared institutions.

It's an unholy amalgam, and its aesthetics are feudal, but it owes at least as much to modern autocracy as to the Holy Roman Empire roots of WHFB Empire it gets most of the feudal structure from. The balancing tactics of making all armed forces and political power be counterbalanced against other sources of powers to prevent possibility of coup is a much more modern technique. (There's a fascinating essay on this called Why Arabs Lose Wars.)

On fascism specifically, there's that big list of criteria and it hits most of them, but the things I find most compelling are the us vs. them ideology and the totalitarian control of anything that might conceivably be a source of power forcing it to be part of the state apparatus. Religion, industry, shipping, etc., are all strictly regulated and controlled by the centralized bureaucracy to the exclusion of efficiency. That's something no feudal system would have tolerated, nor would they be capable of it. It could be considered Totalitarianism NOS, but the 'heretic, mutant, and xeno' aspect makes it hard to argue it's not fascism, that's very deliberate.

I mean if you study modern history what you learn is that caste systems work perfectly well when the culture is correctly structured around them: The most populous nation on the entire planet has run just fine on a caste system for thousands of years.

There is more to the world than just Europe and European history.

India rarely had great success except in periods when it had recently been invaded from outside and acquired a new ruling class less brain poisoned by the caste system. They were also for basically their entire history essentially immune from attack by anyone who didn't have a caste system, and so not really testing the hypothesis. And then they had to contest the invasion of someone else and they haven't been a meaningful political power since, despite unifying into a much bigger state that ought to have a lot of power.

Caste systems, in addition to being moral atrocities of the highest order, are absolutely ruinous to prosperity, innovation, and governance. No society with a caste system has been able to contest a peer-sized society with a significanty weaker (or nonexistent) one for long. The Hellenistic kingdoms fell to Rome. Nazi Germany fell to the Allies. And India's composite kingdoms fell to... well, everybody who got the chance, really.
 
India rarely had great success except in periods when it had recently been invaded from outside and acquired a new ruling class less brain poisoned by the caste system. They were also for basically their entire history essentially immune from attack by anyone who didn't have a caste system, and so not really testing the hypothesis. And then they had to contest the invasion of someone else and they haven't been a meaningful political power since, despite unifying into a much bigger state that ought to have a lot of power.

Caste systems, in addition to being moral atrocities of the highest order, are absolutely ruinous to prosperity, innovation, and governance. No society with a caste system has been able to contest a peer-sized society with a significanty weaker (or nonexistent) one for long. The Hellenistic kingdoms fell to Rome. Nazi Germany fell to the Allies. And India's composite kingdoms fell to... well, everybody who got the chance, really.
I said nothing about great success, simply that it worked and has worked for thousands of years.

It isn't nice, it isn't the most effective and it certainly isn't perfect, but it does, demonstrably, work. India is, after all, still here.
 
On fascism specifically, there's that big list of criteria and it hits most of them, but the things I find most compelling are the us vs. them ideology and the totalitarian control of anything that might conceivably be a source of power forcing it to be part of the state apparatus. Religion, industry, shipping, etc., are all strictly regulated and controlled by the centralized bureaucracy to the exclusion of efficiency.
No... No it's not. Leaving aside the chapter cults and the entire Mechanicus, there are major tolerated divisions in belief and practice in the Ecclesiarchy. The Temple of the Saviour Emperor tried to maintain uniformity when they declared a War of Faith against the Confederacy of Light. It didn't work. The Confederacy of Light hung around until Sebastian Thor legitimised them. Then there's the Death Cults, the Redemptionists, the Imperialists and the Brethren of the Light to name a few. They all practice the faith differently and none are called heretics.

Industry isn't owned by a central authority. Most of it is owned by aristocrats who are bound by feudal obligations. One of those obligations is providing data to the local branch of Administratum, but the Administratum doesn't control them. Communication by astro-telepathy isn't fast enough or reliable enough and the Imperium is far too large for that sort of central control.

Shipping? Rogue Traders are defined by the fact that they aren't centrally controlled. Individual navigator houses have pacts with various groups to provide them with navigators in exchange for protection or resources. The Paternoval Envoy represents the navigator houses as a High Lord of Terra, and is sometimes joined by Speaker for the Chartist Captains. They're not being told what to do, they're having direct input into policy.
That's something no feudal system would have tolerated, nor would they be capable of it. It could be considered Totalitarianism NOS, but the 'heretic, mutant, and xeno' aspect makes it hard to argue it's not fascism, that's very deliberate.
Except... Those things are actually threats. Heretics, mutants and (most) aliens are active threats to the Imperium and its people. It's not an invention to keep people scared, it's a simplified but basically literal description. In the medieval context, it's the difference between 'Jews eat Christian children' and 'Muslims raid Europe and carry of Christians as slaves'.
 
Oh vae, another grandiose statement wrong in almost every particular solely to prove a point about something nonsensical and fictional that no one else care about.

Never change.

The logical problem with the premise of positive or negative warp presence being the deciding factor is that it ignores that machines, lacking an inherent warp presence, should by default be invisible to the warp with the sole exception of when warp entities or their servants are physically present to perceive them. It's why every data drive in the universe doesn't instantly get corrupted as soon as it outside of a warded area via a negligible warp energy expenditure shifting a few atoms and ruining a vital circuit. Otherwise the Tau (or various worlds with little to no Mechanicus presence) couldn't make use of the technology they have. Unless "being an AI" gives the machine a degree of warp presence it shouldn't be any different for them, and if it does then Lazurman's argument about individual variance in warp vulnerability would be correct.
 
The logical problem with the premise of positive or negative warp presence being the deciding factor is that it ignores that machines, lacking an inherent warp presence, should by default be invisible to the warp with the sole exception of when warp entities or their servants are physically present to perceive them. It's why every data drive in the universe doesn't instantly get corrupted as soon as it outside of a warded area via a negligible warp energy expenditure shifting a few atoms and ruining a vital circuit. Otherwise the Tau (or various worlds with little to no Mechanicus presence) couldn't make use of the technology they have. Unless "being an AI" gives the machine a degree of warp presence it shouldn't be any different for them, and if it does then Lazurman's argument about individual variance in warp vulnerability would be correct.
Was this a rebuttable of Ardy or me?

Because with the exception of large field effects, targeted spells, or being directly exposed to Warp energies you hit the nail on the head of how it works.
 
The logical problem with the premise of positive or negative warp presence being the deciding factor is that it ignores that machines, lacking an inherent warp presence, should by default be invisible to the warp with the sole exception of when warp entities or their servants are physically present to perceive them. It's why every data drive in the universe doesn't instantly get corrupted as soon as it outside of a warded area via a negligible warp energy expenditure shifting a few atoms and ruining a vital circuit. Otherwise the Tau (or various worlds with little to no Mechanicus presence) couldn't make use of the technology they have. Unless "being an AI" gives the machine a degree of warp presence it shouldn't be any different for them, and if it does then Lazurman's argument about individual variance in warp vulnerability would be correct.
I suspect it's error operator. Humans with a warp presence have beliefs about machines, which accumulate warp energy as a result. Tau on the other hand don't have much of a warp presence and so don't have the same problem.
 
I suspect it's error operator. Humans with a warp presence have beliefs about machines, which accumulate warp energy as a result. Tau on the other hand don't have much of a warp presence and so don't have the same problem.
Beyond The Startide Nexus, one of the few times the Tau have actually encountered Chaos, shows their technology is just as vulnerable to even incidental chaos effects as all the others.

The hologram switched to show a revolting mound of putrid flesh with a grinning face and splintered horns. Immediately, the quality of the picture dropped noticeably. The creature swung a rusty blade and cut a Crisis Battlesuit in half. Another Shas'ui attacked with his burst cannons. The blubbering skin of the monstrous figure caved in, only to reveal a horde of smaller beasts, cackling and spilling forth to bury the T'au underneath their mass. The Shas'ui screamed, but his voice did not come from the speakers. It seemed to be resounding everywhere on the Glimmerstar's bridge at once. The lights flickered and the hologram abruptly vanished.

The scream seemed to linger for a moment.

O'yeldi'nar and Ui'vas'ka looked at each other and said nothing. A similar thing had happened the first time they had watched the message, but the screams of the dying were somehow different this time. It almost seemed as if they were… closer. Neither of them understood, and neither of them dared to try.
 
I remember reading a fanfic where a scientist from the DAOT said that the warships the Imperium uses were colony ships. And not even the most recent designs before the collapse, so I was wondering if that's canon.

Do you have a link to this or remember the title? I'd be interested in reading it.
 
I suspect it's error operator. Humans with a warp presence have beliefs about machines, which accumulate warp energy as a result. Tau on the other hand don't have much of a warp presence and so don't have the same problem.

This is along the lines of what I was thinking as well. For chaos/warp based technical issues to continue to exist would require continual energy renewal, else they would peter out and eventually cease. Hopefully this means that human technology could resume development at some point if better "sanitation" best practices could be developed, potentially even "starving-out" things like the scrap code in legacy systems.

Was this a rebuttable of Ardy or me?

Because with the exception of large field effects, targeted spells, or being directly exposed to Warp energies you hit the nail on the head of how it works.

My point is that either AIs are either perfectly safe to operate as long as their systems are insulated from warp energies or even just physically kept away from chaos or, if AIs have enough "personhood" to generate a warp presence, then only a % of AIs comparable to the standard for sentient populations would be expected to fall to Chaos, leaving plenty that could still operate normally.
 
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Supnautica (part 14) New
7th May 2013
03:08 GMT -1


"…your barracks. The High King has ordered Nanauve to increase our agricultural production and we will not be found wanting! Dismissed!"

That… Fits. Sort of.

Nanauve did have fish farms, but their preference for chasing their food down and eating it raw combined with their blood magic tradition means that the arrangement is a little different to the… The now-defunct kelp and fish farms which used to be around Poseidonis but are now above water and so inoperable. And since Atlanteans don't usually study above-water farming-related magics, they probably can't do much with the bare salty rock and silt that cover their island.

That's… Something they should really have sorted out ahead of time.

The majority of the crowd is… Moving slowly in the direction of… A Nanauvian style building that… Looks relatively recently constructed. I check Lori-. She's heading off in a slightly different direction, but no one is trying to stop her and a few others are swimming in other directions too.

Steven swims up alongside me. "Can we go see the others now?"

"No, we're going after Miss Lemaris. She used to live in Poseidonis. I want to know what happened there. We'll meet up with your friends afterwards."

Steven turns to Robert as the three of us swim after her. "You know who the mermaid is?"

"No, not a clue."

I frown. "You never met her..?" No, I suppose that he wasn't part of the team… "She was a student at the Conservatory of Sorcery. We worked together a few times."

She reaches a main avenue and accelerates, clearly having a direction in mind and having no intention of stopping to talk to us. Which might be a good decision if she thinks that she's under observation, but it is a little impolite.

Soldiers up ahead. Local ones, and they're guarding… A barracks and training grounds? There are guards at the entrance, but they're just waving her through. I slow-.

"What's the problem?" Steven looks puzzled. "The arena's basically a gym. Anyone can go in there. They only stop you if you're obviously carrying weapons."

"Thank you, I didn't know that."

Though it fits with what I did know. Steven swims ahead, casually hailing the guard. They nod back, and he half-turns to beckon us through the entrance. I swim through with Robert close behind, scanning Lori heading… Toward the main… Training ground. This place is set out a bit like an arena, so it's a straight swim there and Atlantean ideas about 'inside' and 'outside' are a bit more flexible than on the surface so it's not that strange either. Coming out into the arena… Quite a few people training: spars, weight-lifting and weapon drill. Miss Lamaris swims around them, heading towards…

Nanauve Sha'ark, dressed in the clothing of a regular soldier. A planned covert meeting, or does she just know where he likes to work out? They were friends-. Classmates, at least.

Ah, what the heck? I need to talk to them both anyway. I swim towards them-.

One of the other Nanauvians puts their hand on my chest to stop me. "This equipment's in use." She smiles toothily. "Unless you wanna spar?"

I take a stone out of subspace, etch the orange sigil on it and offer it to her. "I think he'll talk to me."

She looks mildly disappointed, but snatches the stone from me and trudges towards the younger king. A couple of other Nanauvians abandon their own exercises to glower at us. Steven glowers back, though Robert looks a little concerned. Seals not exactly being the best fighters. I smile-. Oh. I don't smile because I don't know how to do that with this mouth, so I settle for-.

"Get over here!"

For bowing politely and swimming onwards.

Nanauve Sha'ark stares at me while Miss Lemaris retreats to slightly behind him. Huh. Some of those scars are new, and they're not all… Natural. I'm getting uncomfortable Lamprey flashbacks, though as I understand it Nanauve would consider his particular spells to be on the illegal side.

"The Orange Lantern recruited an Atlantean. What's so special about you?"

I hold up my left hand for a moment, showing my ring. "No, just me."

"Huh?"

"It's me." I raise my right hand-. Huh, that's weird. To my face. "I just changed how I look. What do you think?"

He looks me over. "I don't think I could eat a whole one."

"No, don't underestimate yourself. I'm sure you'd manage."

"And the other two?"

"Team mates and information source. What's going on? And is here a safe place to talk about it?"

King Sha'ark looks around, sniffing. "Yeah. It's as safe as anywhere. What do you need to know?"

"In no particular order: where's King Orin, what is Ahri'ahn doing, and why is everyone just taking it?"

"I don't know, I'm not sure and we're not. Mostly."

Lori glances at him before coming forwards a little. "It's hard to focus on it. When you touched me, it was like waking up and remembering that this isn't meant to be happening."

Sha'ark looks concerned. "They nearly got you?"

"They did get me. I've got reminders. I think I'd have been alright. But the mantras aren't enough."

"We agreed-."

She grimaces. "Yes, I know."

I raise my right hand. "What are you-?"

"There's some sort of spell on Atlantis. You don't-. Forget who you are exactly, but you forget what it means. Like-. Sleep-swimming through your own life. I've been using spells to stay 'awake', but it's not working reliably any more."

King Sha'ark grins, stroking his scars. "My version's better. It'll make a shark out of you." He turns his head towards me as she shudders. "Not that you need it. Kaldur told me about your scars! Do you keep them with your altered form?"

"Yes." I nod. "But it's not just scars. There are tattoos and ritual magic, and it's why I can't use magic myself. And it only worked on me because I didn't have a soul. It's not something you can just copy."

"I know that! I studied magic for years! But every little we learn helps, and there's no way that Ahri'ahn would use surface world magic cobbled together by street magicians."

"Then I am at your disposal. What are they sleep-swimming into?"

"You don't know?"

"I know what it looks like, but I'm not Atlantean."

Sha'ark, half-turns away. "We didn't worry, at first. Queen Atlanna has one view about how Atlantis should work and King Orin did the same thing, but there were others only a few generations back and our memories aren't that short. I got annoyed when Nanuvean soldiers were discharged from Poseidonis, and then… When I went to complain about it I kind of forgot why I was angry. Made a fool of myself. More than usual." He turns back to face me. "But I know how I act and why." He strokes his scars again. "So I took measures. You want to know what happened? I'll tell you."
 
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The majority of the crows is… Moving slowing in the direction of… A Nanauvian style building that… Looks relatively recently constructed. I check Lori-. She's heading off in a slightly different direction, but no one is trying to stop her and a few others are swimming in other directions too.
That should say 'crowd'.

"There's some sort of spell on Atlantis. You don't-. Forget who you are exactly, but you forget what it means. Like-. Sleep-swimming through your own life. I've been using spells to stay 'awake', but it's not working reliably any more."
I'm guessing the Anti-Life plus any changes as a result of the research and attacks in the Dream made Ahri'ahn's plan in the Renegade timeline unfeasible. Hopefully whatever he's doing here will be easier to disrupt.
 
"slowly"
"settle"
I'm getting uncomfortable Lamprey flashbacks, though as I understand it Nanauve would consider his particular spells to be on the illegal side.
Well when the magic you use requires you to eat people, it makes sense why it would be illegal.
Lori glances at him before coming forwards a little. "It's hard to focus on it. When you touched me, it was like waking up and remembering that this isn't meant to be happening
Either he's using a more subtle Dreaming method, or he may be manipulating them through the grafts.

He did make them, so he may have a backdoor into them.
King Sha'ark grins, stroking his scars. "My version's better. It'll make a shark out of you
He's...cutting himself to feel alive...
 
7th May 2013
03:08 GMT -1


"…your barracks. The High King has ordered Nanauve to increase our agricultural production and we will not be found wanting! Dismissed!"

That… Fits. Sort of.
After all, the people need food, and they cannot live on seaweed and fish alone anymore. I expect a lot of the remaining underwater territory will be reallocated as farmland. And of course they need swimmers to work it...

Nanauve did have fish farms, but their preference for chasing their food down and eating it raw combined with their blood magic tradition means that the arrangement is a little different to the… The now-defunct kelp and fish farms which used to be around Poseidonis but are now above water and so inoperable. And since Atlanteans don't usually study above-water farming-related magics, they probably can't do much with the bare salty rock and silt that cover their island.
Surprised Ahri'ahn didn't think of that, or maybe he has spells he knows that can do the job, but... Spending millennia underwater won't have done the country much good in terms of soil viability.

That's… Something they should really have sorted out ahead of time.

The majority of the crowd is… Moving slowly in the direction of… A Nanauvian style building that… Looks relatively recently constructed. I check Lori-. She's heading off in a slightly different direction, but no one is trying to stop her and a few others are swimming in other directions too.
Presumably they have the freedom of the city, but if they try to leave...

Steven swims up alongside me. "Can we go see the others now?"

"No, we're going after Miss Lemaris. She used to live in Poseidonis. I want to know what happened there. We'll meet up with your friends afterwards."
Hopefully they can contain themselves until then.

Steven turns to Robert as the tree of us swim after her. "You know who the mermaid is?"

"No, not a clue."
True, Robert probably wasn't exactly a regular visitor to Atlantis back in the day. School, work and his being a thaumovore probably all contributed..

I frown. "You never met her..?" No, I suppose that he wasn't part of the team… "She was a student at the Conservatory of Sorcery. We worked together a few times."

She reaches a main avenue and accelerates, clearing having a direction in mind and having no intention of stopping to talk to us. Which might be a good decision if she thinks that she's under observation, but it is a little impolite.
Well, they can barely keep up with her, and he can discreetly monitor her, so...

Soldiers up ahead. Local ones, and they're guarding… A barracks and training grounds? There are guards at the entrance, but they're just waving her through. I slow-.

"What's the problem?" Steven looks puzzled. "The arena's basically a gym. Anyone can go in there. They only stop you if you're obviously carrying weapons."

"Thank you, I didn't know that."
No doubt the only weapons allowed are those supplied by the arena itself.

Though it fits with what I did know. Steven swims ahead, casually hailing the guard. They nod back, and he half-turns to beckon us through the entrance. I swim through with Robert close behind, scanning Lori heading… Toward the main… Training ground. This place is set out a bit like an arena, so it's a straight swim there and Atlantean ideas about 'inside' and 'outside' are a bit more flexible than on the surface so it's not that strange either. Coming out into the arena… Quite a few people training: spars, weight-lifting and weapon drill. Miss Lamaris swims around them, heading towards…
There's a definite etiquette about where you enter a place, though. No swimming in through a 'window' unless invited, for instance?

Nanauve Sha'ark, dressed in the clothing of a regular soldier. A planned covert meeting, or does she just know where he likes to work out? They were friends-. Classmates, at least.

Ah, what the heck? I need to talk to them both anyway. I swim towards them-.
And presumably working together as a resistance group, perhaps.

One of the other Nanauvians puts their hand on my chest to stop me. "This equipment's in use." She smiles toothily. "Unless you wanna spar?"

I take a stone out of subspace, etch the orange sigil on it and offer it to her. "I think he'll talk to me."
Subtle. On both sides.

She looks mildly disappointed, put snatches the stone from me and trudges towards the younger king. A couple of other Nanauvians abandon their own exercises to glower at us. Steven glowers back, though Robert looks a little concerned. Seals not exactly being the best fighters. I smile-. Oh. I don't smile because I don't know how to do that with this mouth, so I settle for-.
Must feel strange to have such a divergent body shape to his usual. Probably going to feel real satisfied when he Wholeness Rightly Assumes his way back to normal.

"Get over here!"

For bowing politely and swimming onwards.
As much as you could bow underwater without looking like you're simply attempting a somersault. 😏

Nanauve Sha'ark stares at me while Miss Lemaris retreats to slightly behind him. Huh. Some of those scars are new, and they're not all… Natural. I'm getting uncomfortable Lamprey flashbacks, though as I understand it Nanauve would consider his particular spells to be on the illegal side.
Lamprey, Lamprey... Not ringing a bell. I assume some outcast Atlantean sorcerer.

"The Orange Lantern recruited an Atlantean. What's so special about you?"

I hold up left hand for a moment, showing my ring. "No, just me."

"Huh?"
OL, you're kind of skipping a step or two.

"It's me." I raise my right hand-. Huh, that's weird. To my face. "I just changed how I look. What do you think?"

He looks me over. "I don't think I could eat a whole one."
Amusing, given what some alternates could do. But then, this world is a bit more realistic in his biology.

"No, don't underestimate yourself. I'm sure you'd manage."

"And the other two?"

"Team mates and information source. What's going on? And is here a safe place to talk about it?"
Especially with how sound carries underwater.

King Sha'ark looks around, sniffing. "Yeah. It's as safe as anywhere. What do you need to know?"

"In no particular order: where's King Orin, what is Ahri'ahn doing, and why is everyone just taking it?"
So, nothing big, really. 😏

"I don't know, I'm not sure and we're not. Mostly."

Lori glances at him before coming forwards a little. "It's hard to focus on it. When you touched me, it was like waking up and remembering that this isn't meant to be happening."
So the effect may be stronger above water, or at least within Poseidonis and the higher cities? I'm guessing she snuck up there to get information.

Sha'ark looks concerned. "They nearly got you?"

"They did get me. I've got reminders. I think I'd have been alright. But the mantras aren't enough."
...Ow. Perhaps OL can offer a bit of healing, then. I'm guessing she was in an area she wasn't supposed to be and received lashes or the like.

"We agreed-."

She grimaces. "Yes, I know."

I raise my right hand. "What are you-?"
I'm guessing it has something to do with his newest scars.

"There's some sort of spell on Atlantis. You don't-. Forget who you are exactly, but you forget what it means. Like-. Sleep-swimming through your own life. I've been using spells to stay 'awake', but it's not working reliably any more."

King Sha'ark grins, stroking his scars. "My version's better. It'll make a shark out of you." He turns his head towards me as she shudders. "Not that you need it. Kaldur told me about your scars! Do you keep them with your altered form?"
Ah, sensing the creepy 'not there' effect with his magical perception from the concealment tattoos...

"Yes." I nod. "But it's not just scars. There are tattoos and ritual magic, and it's why I can't use magic myself. And it only worked on me because I didn't have a soul. It's not something you can just copy."

"I know that! I studied magic for years! But every little we learn helps, and there's no way that Ahri'ahn would use surface world magic cobbled together by street magicians."
He'd probably rather bite his tongue off.

"Then I am at your disposal. What are they sleep-swimming into?"

"You don't know?"

"I know what it looks like, but I'm not Atlantean."
Indeed, that's why he's here. Ahri'ahn is keeping mum and curating outside access to the country so no-one can see what he's been up to. Quite super-villainous behaviour, even if he claims to be a patriot.

Sha'ark, half-turns away. "We didn't worry, at first. Queen Atlanna has one view about how Atlantis should work and King Orin did the same thing, but there were others only a few generations back and our memories aren't that short. I got annoyed when Nanuvean soldiers were discharged from Poseidonis, and then… When I went to complain about it I kind of forgot why I was angry. Made a fool of myself. More than usual." He turns back to face me. "But I know how I act and why." He strokes his scars again. "So I took measures. You want to know what happened? I'll tell you."
Ah, good, a flashback laden with exposition. Thank goodness!

Okay, King Shark comes through with the four-one-one. Now maybe we'll finally get a picture of how things are when Ahri'ahn's not stage-managing every contact with the outside world. 🤔 Seriously, every group who came into the city not under his control seemed to have him or a phantom copy monitoring them. That is suspicious as all get out.

Steven turns to Robert as the tree of us swim after her.
Steven turns to Robert as the three of us swim after her.
...clearing having a direction in mind...
...clearly having a direction in mind...
She looks mildly disappointed, put snatches the stone...
She looks mildly disappointed, but snatches the stone...
I hold up left hand for a moment, showing my ring.
I hold up my left hand for a moment, showing my ring.
 

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