ST/WH40K wanky fanboy question.

[Darth Rabbitt]

I still can't believe WH40K is considered anything but a stupid excuse sell overprized minatures or computer games. Each and every single thing I read about it makes me go "WTF? What were the authors smoking, and what kind of therapy are they getting now?" I think it would be less weird to see you all argue about whether or not the Bugs Bunny Verse could beat Star Trek.

This.

[Winnah]

...And considering he is an omniscient wizard, the Federation is fucked.

Wait... your Warhammer fanwanking has gotten so bad that you are saying the Federation is fucked when they meet... a capricious and powerful wizard who sees the future and has nonsensical plans for the lulz that end up hurting it all the time for no apparent reason? You know they deal with basically exactly that all the time, right?

-Username17

It proves that the Federation is powerless against onmipotent wizards. 'Dealing with', 'at the mercy of' and 'defeat' are completely different terms.

A Federation war against Chaos would be as futile as a Federation war against the Continuum. Or do you disagree with that?

I'd bet there are any number of versions of time travel among them since the series shows at least three that I can recall.

Of those versions of time travel, which are part of the Federation arsenal? Are the mechanics and implications of using those technologies fleshed out at all?

[Korwin]

What in Star Trek are now three different kinds of time travel?

One changes the OTL
One creates an ATL

what would the third variant be?

[Username17]

A Federation war against Chaos would be as futile as a Federation war against the Continuum. Or do you disagree with that?

Completely disagree with that. Unlike the Continuum, Warhammer Chaos is an actual region of space that has ships and people. It has daemon worlds that act as pylons for Chaos powers, and gaining and losing those actually matters.

Tzeentch may or may not literally exist, and is likely a metaphor or an idea or a consciousness without form or some shit. But the actual "forces of Chaos" are a real and tangible thing. They travel from world to world by getting into space boats and hurling them through warp storms to pop out of hyperspace months or years later so that they can invade planets by dint of landing on them and fighting land wars where they intend to do most of their killing with claws and chainsaws.

Not only is fighting them very much not like fighting the Continuum, it's not even particularly hard. 40K space vessels are bullshit flavored bullshit, and their complete lack of superluminal weapons and battle maneuverability means that they simply don't matter on the Trek scale at all. If necessary, Chaos worlds can be antimatter bombed one after another until they are all gone.

It may not be possible to punch Tzeentch in the nose or hit him with a photon torpedo. It's very likely that Tzeentch does not really "exist" in the same way that Creed or Picard do. But it also doesn't really matter, because whatever powers Tzeentch theoretically does or does not have, from a practical standpoint he doesn't have any at all because he literally never uses any in canon. Tzeentch is just a name that people in the 40k universe give to the fact that when you go into the warp, sometimes crazy shit happens.

But even that doesn't affect the Federation, because they move FTL without having to deal with the warp in the slightest. Their warp drive operates on a wholly different principle and does not expose you to demonic possession.

-Username17

[Korwin]

But even that doesn't affect the Federation, because they move FTL without having to deal with the warp in the slightest. Their warp drive operates on a wholly different principle and does not expose you to demonic possession.

-Username17

Remember reading a timeline of WH40k somewhen years ago.
Did'nt the humans pre Emperor times have an FTL drive? That stoped working when the Eldar fucked up?

Would the FTL of the Federation work in WH40K space?

Is WH40K actually the future of the Federation?

[Christ Figure]

I still can't believe WH40K is considered anything but a stupid excuse sell overprized minatures or computer games. Each and every single thing I read about it makes me go "WTF? What were the authors smoking, and what kind of therapy are they getting now?" I think it would be less weird to see you all argue about whether or not the Bugs Bunny Verse could beat Star Trek.

Yeah...seriously, WH40K? That shitstew of tasteless Spesh Muhreen cliches and fuckwitted grimderpiness? It's as if the whole world were conceived by backwoods 13-yr old short bus kids with 500-lb suit of armor fetishes. WH40K loses automatically with a handwave and a roll of the eyes.

[RadiantPhoenix]

You know, these people kind of remind me of Chaos, but much faster at getting things done: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Sphere_Builder

[Lago PARANOIA]

It proves that the Federation is powerless against onmipotent wizards.

This is an equivocation. Besides the dictionary meaning, omnipotence is used colloquially to mean 'stupid powerful'. You THEN have the problem that people have used 'stupid powerful' to describe a continuum of ass-kicking from Sephiroth to Silver Age Superman to Majiin Buu. I agree that the Federation couldn't really do anything against an angry Buu bent on destroying them other than pray or wait for a deus ex machina. But dealing with Silver Age Superman would be simply a Monster of the Week (maybe a two-partner) and Sephiroth would be a light triscuit.

So. On a scale of God Kefka to the Spiral King, where does Tzeentch fit in?

[RadiantPhoenix]

It proves that the Federation is powerless against onmipotent wizards.

Anything is powerless against omnipotent anything, because actually being omnipotent includes having the power of, "I win everything forever."

Try actually defining things Tzeentch might actually do in order to try to win.

[Whipstitch]

I think it would be less weird to see you all argue about whether or not the Bugs Bunny Verse could beat Star Trek.

I'm inclined to favor the Bunny if he has access to the genie and a portable hole.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I think it would be less weird to see you all argue about whether or not the Bugs Bunny Verse could beat Star Trek.

Depends what you mean by 'beat'. Even if you just mean in a strict political or face-saving sense (like how Eric Cartman 'beat' Scott Tenerman) there are some ways in which Bugs Bunny could get the goat of the Federation and other ways in which he'd end up falling flat on his ass like Krusty saying he's Solly. If Bugs Bunny stuck to just pointing out Federation hypocrisy and/or Groucho Marx antics like making fun of how much Picard had a stick up his ass it'd be a curbstomp in his favor. If Bugs Bunny had to resort to being smug, wacky, or resorting to weird cultural references that the Federation isn't going to get they'd just end up giving him a withering stare until he slunk out of the room.

Interesting enough, we already have a character in Star Trek that shows how a Bugs Bunny confrontation would go -- Q. When Q is trying to be wacky or condescending (Bugs Bunny staples) he ends up looking like a clueless jackass. When Q is satirizing human foibles and delusions (also Bugs Bunny staples) he makes the Federation look like clueless jackasses. Basically, it's like flipping a coin to see whether the person going to make a scathing parody of your movie is going to be the staff of The Onion or Jason Friedburg and Aaron Seltzer.

[Whipstitch]

Bugs wouldn't slink out of the room; unlike Daffy he doesn't have any investment in whether his audience/victims get the joke. Leaving things puzzled and infuriated in his wake is pretty much his entire shtick.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Bugs wouldn't slink out of the room;

On the rare occasions in which someone is able to get the better of Bugs (like the Gremlin or Cecil Turtle) Bugs ends up flipping out pretty hard and/or getting all sulky and passive-aggressive.

[Whipstitch]

Ooh, I forgot about with Cecil. The Easter Rabbit also got to him pretty bad.

[MGuy]

While the Feds could probably do something against the big angry chaos gods eventually I'd think they'd get pretty fucked up before they figured out what was going on and how.

Err, why? What particular advantage does Chaos have over the literally dozens of superpowered, ineffable beings who through intent, mistake, or inaction corrupt or outright harm members of the crew?

I mean, this isn't just some weird digging up of some supplementary barely-canon buried deep in a used bookstore. Four of the movies (ST1, ST4, ST5, and First Contact) specifically focused on some sort of nigh-deific corrupter/destroyer that the crew has to talk down, outthink, or outfight. Hell, the very first episode of the entire series involves dealing with someone infected by weird superpowers Man Was Not Meant To Have. Diffusing these sorts of situations is specifically what Star Trek protagonists are good at.

What does Chaos bring to the table other than being slower and having an easier time working in a cultural paradigm (poverty, censorship, social dominance) that the Federation explicitly rejects? Like, what advantage does Chaos have over Q or the Borg Queen or Future Guy?

Please first note that this is only what I know about Chaos and my knowledge is perfectly fallible so anybody with more knowledge on the subject feel free to correct or bolster this argument:

In no depiction of Chaos (that I know of) did the people, or specifically daemons, seem vulnerable to being talked down. Chaos, unlike the Space Marines or Imperium is willing to work within an existing establishment to fuck it up from the inside and are unreasonable. Perhaps they can be tricked into doing X thing but Chaos people are willing to hide for a long time and are able to "convince" some of the most righteous people into doing their bidding.

Further, IIRC, Chaos can move through the warp easier and can be directed to specific places with people if they can get the people there to do the correct rituals. So logically if Chaos can get Fed technology and actually communicate effectively with various factions/cells I'd wager they would be able to attack them easier than the SM or Imperium who would refuse to adjust and simply continue what they are doing.

Further, I'm not sure how well this idea that Feds diplomacy everything into giving up "just because that's how it goes" should be something that's just accepted hands down for 40K vs Fed scenarios because the protags in 40K books, games, etc are time and again able to overcome "corruption, unlikely odds, etc and would certainly get some kind of plot device boons that some would be able cite for them. I mean don't people in 40K gain more personal power the more extreme their personal beliefs are?

[Chamomile]

The Federation doesn't typically diplomacy Mysterious Space Psuedo-Gods to death anyway. They investigate them to death instead.

[Winnah]

Completely disagree with that. Unlike the Continuum, Warhammer Chaos is an actual region of space that has ships and people. It has daemon worlds that act as pylons for Chaos powers, and gaining and losing those actually matters.

Tzeentch may or may not literally exist, and is likely a metaphor or an idea or a consciousness without form or some shit. But the actual "forces of Chaos" are a real and tangible thing. They travel from world to world by getting into space boats and hurling them through warp storms to pop out of hyperspace months or years later so that they can invade planets by dint of landing on them and fighting land wars where they intend to do most of their killing with claws and chainsaws.

Not only is fighting them very much not like fighting the Continuum, it's not even particularly hard. 40K space vessels are bullshit flavored bullshit, and their complete lack of superluminal weapons and battle maneuverability means that they simply don't matter on the Trek scale at all. If necessary, Chaos worlds can be antimatter bombed one after another until they are all gone.

It may not be possible to punch Tzeentch in the nose or hit him with a photon torpedo. It's very likely that Tzeentch does not really "exist" in the same way that Creed or Picard do. But it also doesn't really matter, because whatever powers Tzeentch theoretically does or does not have, from a practical standpoint he doesn't have any at all because he literally never uses any in canon. Tzeentch is just a name that people in the 40k universe give to the fact that when you go into the warp, sometimes crazy shit happens.

But even that doesn't affect the Federation, because they move FTL without having to deal with the warp in the slightest. Their warp drive operates on a wholly different principle and does not expose you to demonic possession.

-Username17

The Immaterium is seperate from real space.

...is an alternate dimension of purely psychic energy that echoes and underlies the familiar four dimensions of the material universe. It is the source of all psychic powers and known instances of so-called "sorcery" or "magic" as well as the home dimension of the Chaos Gods and their myriad daemonic servants.

While the Federation has the ability to interact with real space, nothing suggests that the Federation would be able to interact with the Immaterium in a way that would do any serious damage to Chaos; maybe an individual Vulcan or Betazoid could, but I'll put aside the implications of that for now.

The actual forces of Chaos are not limited to the Immaterium.

For clarity's sake, most scholars divide up the Forces of Chaos into three major components, including the inhuman daemonic entities that are native to the Warp and only rarely impinge upon the physical universe, the Lost and the Damned which includes among their numbers Chaos Cultists, Traitor Guardsmen, mutants and the other mortal devotees of Chaos and finally, Chaos' most potent mortal servants, the Traitor Legions of the Chaos Space Marines and their counterparts amongst the Hereteks and Traitor Titan Legions of the Dark Mechanicus.

Now the Federation can interact with the mortal servants of chaos. Humans, mutants, possessed people and machines, etc. Even if the Federation could counter the sheer scale of those physical forces that Chaos can bring to bear, they simply don't have the means to strike at a "monomaniacal embodyment of a concept or emotion." The actions of the Federation as a whole only feed Chaos

...They reached into the dreams of mortals and demanded praise and servitude in order to increase their own power, as the more one emotion is exhibited (in both thought and action) by a large group of sentient beings in the physical universe, the stronger that Chaos God becomes.

They go to war, they feed Khorne. They devise strategies, have ambitions or exhibit creativity, they feed Tzeentch. A trip to the holodeck or the medical bay feeds Slaanesh and so on. The Federation can't kill an idea or a concept, but in WH40k, the embodyments of those ideas and concepts can kill you, assuming they don't just try to make you their bitch.

Anything is powerless against omnipotent anything, because actually being omnipotent includes having the power of, "I win everything forever."

Try actually defining things Tzeentch might actually do in order to try to win.

Yeah, I thought I wrote omniscient, my bad, It hardly matters though. Omniscient + wizard is still very powerful.

As I stated before, Tzeench just needs to encourage Federation citizens to have ambition and creativity. The societies of the Federation may not be big on violence, masochism or despair, but Hope is something they have in spades. As soons as someone accepts the offer of help to realise their ambitions or to make some creative breakthrough, Chaos has another willing servant.

Or it could just open a Warp Rift above Earth or something, but where is the fun in that?

[ishy]

(...)
Magic is essentially an expression of change driven by will, and as such is the domain of the Changer of the Ways(...)

In what way is magic more of an expression of change, than everything else? For example, if I pick up an object, how is that not an expression of change driven by will?

[Winnah]

I infer that the scale and scope of any particular expression of will is what serperates magic from physics in the 40k universe.

Maybe you should ask a wizard.

[Username17]

The Immaterium is seperate from real space.

Who cares?

First of all, the Federation has in fact fought wars against and defeated beings who live in places separate from real space. Species 8472 and the Sphere Builders, to name examples that have already been brought up on this very thread. But secondly: Who fucking cares? Seriously, what slightest fuck of a difference does it make if Chaos keeps living in their Immaterium?

The Imperium is more than a million worlds, and has been fighting the forces of Chaos for ten thousand years. And yet there have only been thousands of daemon uprisings. And only hundreds that amounted to anything. Your year to year risk of daemonic invasion from the Immaterium is about one in ten million. Meaning that daemonic invasion would be less of a social problem for the Federation colonies than solar flares or ion storms.

Their rate of planetary conquest through daemonic phase-in is so laughably low that only the needs of plot contrivance would call for it to happen even once during a 7 year show. There are only a thousand Federation worlds (so sayeth Kirk, so probably 2 thousand if we're talking Sisko-era). So roughly speaking, the immaterium would spew forth an army of daemons to overwhelm a Federation world once per ten thousand years. So what?

The Federation has lost important worlds before, and basically what you're describing is an event that would happen once or maybe twice during the entire Federation versus Warhammer Chaos TV series. And it would only during the series (rather than waiting until eight thousand years after the Eye of Terror itself had been destroyed by Science and thus never occur) because of the dramatic necessity of such a thing to be shown in order to establish that it could happen at all.

The Immaterium is almost wholly inconsequential to the Imperium, and the Imperium is a thousand times larger and has been exposed to it for a hundred times as long as the Federation has even existed. And that's even before we get to the fact that the Imperium does virtually everything it is imaginable to do in order to make the Immaterium more of a problem. They have no mental health, their people are genetically predisposed to Chaos mutation, they don't disseminate any information about Chaos to their population or soldiers, they don't adapt their tactics or their equipment to the perceived successes and failures in war, and they actively ruin the lives of their populace even in the face of an enemy who is literally powered by their peoples' resentment. Since the Federation scores better on every one of those metrics than the Imperium does, it is virtually inconceivable that the Federation wouldn't do better at preventing daemonic uprising than the Imperium.

Also recall that daemonic uprisings happen more the closer you get to the Eye of Terror. Meaning that since all of Chaos space is "closer" to the Eye of Terror, that by definition all of Federation space is farther away, leaving it even less exposed to daemonic uprising.

TL;DR: the Immaterium, and I mean the entire Immaterium is going to represent like one episode of Star Trek grieving over a phase-in daemonic attack on a single planet.

-Username17

[Winnah]

Who cares?

First of all, the Federation has in fact fought wars against and defeated beings who live in places separate from real space. Species 8472 and the Sphere Builders, to name examples that have already been brought up on this very thread. But secondly: Who fucking cares? Seriously, what slightest fuck of a difference does it make if Chaos keeps living in their Immaterium?

No. Voyager and the Borg collaborated to fight 8472. Time Agents and the Enterprise collaborated to fight the sphere builders.

The Federation will not have anyone holding their hand in prolonged war with Chaos.

The Imperium is more than a million worlds, and has been fighting the forces of Chaos for ten thousand years. And yet there have only been thousands of daemon uprisings. And only hundreds that amounted to anything. Your year to year risk of daemonic invasion from the Immaterium is about one in ten million. Meaning that daemonic invasion would be less of a social problem for the Federation colonies than solar flares or ion storms.

The Imperium has (a) God on their side.

Their rate of planetary conquest through daemonic phase-in is so laughably low that only the needs of plot contrivance would call for it to happen even once during a 7 year show. There are only a thousand Federation worlds (so sayeth Kirk, so probably 2 thousand if we're talking Sisko-era). So roughly speaking, the immaterium would spew forth an army of daemons to overwhelm a Federation world once per ten thousand years. So what?

The Federation regards knife wielding Klingons as fierce warriors. They would be catastropically unprepared for the military might of Chaos.

The Federation has lost important worlds before, and basically what you're describing is an event that would happen once or maybe twice during the entire Federation versus Warhammer Chaos TV series. And it would only during the series (rather than waiting until eight thousand years after the Eye of Terror itself had been destroyed by Science and thus never occur) because of the dramatic necessity of such a thing to be shown in order to establish that it could happen at all.

I'm not interested in drama, production values, metaphor, set design or anything a television producer, director or writer would be interested in. I'm approaching this hypothetical scenario as a wargame.

The Immaterium is almost wholly inconsequential to the Imperium, and the Imperium is a thousand times larger and has been exposed to it for a hundred times as long as the Federation has even existed. And that's even before we get to the fact that the Imperium does virtually everything it is imaginable to do in order to make the Immaterium more of a problem. They have no mental health, their people are genetically predisposed to Chaos mutation, they don't disseminate any information about Chaos to their population or soldiers, they don't adapt their tactics or their equipment to the perceived successes and failures in war, and they actively ruin the lives of their populace even in the face of an enemy who is literally powered by their peoples' resentment. Since the Federation scores better on every one of those metrics than the Imperium does, it is virtually inconceivable that the Federation wouldn't do better at preventing daemonic uprising than the Imperium.

The Imperium has (a) God on their side. The Federation has the likes of L.T Barklay, Wesley Crusher and the Vulcans. A suite of mental health issues that managed to get posted on a Federation flagship. A boy wonder who ran off with a magical entity upon the promise of 'destiny.' An entire race of people that need to suppress their emotions in order to function as a society, yet still go berserk whenever the urge to fuck comes along.

I can provide many more examples that undercut your supposition, but why bother?

Also recall that daemonic uprisings happen more the closer you get to the Eye of Terror. Meaning that since all of Chaos space is "closer" to the Eye of Terror, that by definition all of Federation space is farther away, leaving it even less exposed to daemonic uprising.

TL;DR: the Immaterium, and I mean the entire Immaterium is going to represent like one episode of Star Trek grieving over a phase-in daemonic attack on a single planet.

-Username17

The Eye of Terror is a permenant Warp Rift. The Chaos Gods can open warps rifts. The reason they don't open a rift above Terra is because the Imperium has (a) God on their side and he says "No."

[Username17]

The Eye of Terror is a permenant Warp Rift. The Chaos Gods can open warps rifts. The reason they don't open a rift above Terra is because the Imperium has (a) God on their side and he says "No."

Winnah, the Tau don't have a god and they still don't get eaten by the Warp. Creating an Eye of Terror isn't something that "just happens", it requires Eldar making giant torture rape pyramids as they take countless billions of souls and each try to out-Melnibone each other for a hundred thousand years straight. The Chaos Gods don't get to pull a new Eye of Terror out of their ass on top of the Federation. There's already half the galaxy in Warhammer 40K where the Astronomicon does not shine and they don't have a second Eye of Terror yet.

If this was an arrow in their quiver, they would have used it.

-Username17

[hyzmarca]

The Imperium has (a) God on their side. The Federation has the likes of L.T Barklay, Wesley Crusher and the Vulcans. A suite of mental health issues that managed to get posted on a Federation flagship. A boy wonder who ran off with a magical entity upon the promise of 'destiny.' An entire race of people that need to suppress their emotions in order to function as a society, yet still go berserk whenever the urge to fuck comes along.

I feel dirty for pointing this out, but Wesley Crusher is also a god, for all practical purposes.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Further, I'm not sure how well this idea that Feds diplomacy everything into giving up "just because that's how it goes" should be something that's just accepted hands down for 40K vs Fed scenarios because the protags in 40K books, games, etc are time and again able to overcome "corruption, unlikely odds, etc and would certainly get some kind of plot device boons that some would be able cite for them. I mean don't people in 40K gain more personal power the more extreme their personal beliefs are?

I'd like to answer your question, but I really can't. I don't know much about WH40K other than meme osmosis.

The Imperium has (a) God on their side.

I infer that the scale and scope of any particular expression of will is what serperates magic from physics in the 40k universe.

Maybe you should ask a wizard.

Could you stop goddamn equivocating your definition of God and wizard and omniscience and powerful?

If you are going to claim God and wizards and shit = CHAOS VICTORY, fucking do the intellectually honest thing for once in this thread and lay down some powers, feats, or plausible plans.

Because this?

As I stated before, Tzeench just needs to encourage Federation citizens to have ambition and creativity. The societies of the Federation may not be big on violence, masochism or despair, but Hope is something they have in spades. As soons as someone accepts the offer of help to realise their ambitions or to make some creative breakthrough, Chaos has another willing servant.

Is total bullshit. I can explain why this is total bullshit, but I'm not going to even bother until you stop equivocating and lay down some fucking goalposts.

[K]

Who cares?

First of all, the Federation has in fact fought wars against and defeated beings who live in places separate from real space. Species 8472 and the Sphere Builders, to name examples that have already been brought up on this very thread. But secondly: Who fucking cares? Seriously, what slightest fuck of a difference does it make if Chaos keeps living in their Immaterium?

No. Voyager and the Borg collaborated to fight 8472. Time Agents and the Enterprise collaborated to fight the sphere builders.

The Federation will not have anyone holding their hand in prolonged war with Chaos.

And Voyager fought some Q in the Continuum with the help of a Q. And fought the Dominion by turning the Wormhole Aliens.

See a pattern?

Getting gods to help fight other gods is just something that the Feds are good at. It's so common a tactic that, next to Warp Engineering 110 and Martial Arts 150, the Federation Academy must have a course called Getting Alien Gods To Lend A Hand 101 that's mandatory for all officers.