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Post by Horsie on Apr 30, 2015 22:03:57 GMT
Speaking as someone who doesn't know anything about this; that would be neat.
They occasionally do things that Necrons might have done before they were turned into abominations. They don't really have a purpose for doing it, or (if they think at all) know why, they're just going through the motions because some vestigial scraps of what they once were makes them do it.
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Post by Harkovast on May 1, 2015 0:28:56 GMT
The flayed ones now just have a disease that makes them all crazy. It's from a curse from a C'tan they killed.
Yeah, everything in the new background is lame like that.
I love StyxD's idea. Their enemies would think they are trying to become horrifying and frighten their enemies, but really its a pathetic and futile attempt to try to make themselves into people again. That would be tragic and horrific all at once.
I love that idea. With the whole thing that a lot of their behaviour is part of secret, elaborate C'tan plans, it would just add more strange behaviour that their enemies couldn't make sense of. I can imagine the C'tan taking cruel amusement in the pitiful suffering of their minions.
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Post by Canuovea on May 1, 2015 1:40:04 GMT
Oh there was room to add personalities, and I agree that this goes too far. But I was pointing out that I don't have a problem with everything that the retcon did.
I'm not overjoyed at what they did to the C'tan, but I'm not overly put out by it either.
As for the Old Ones and Tyranids... I don't know, I'd kind of like it given how very Saurian the Tyranids are. But that is a good point. Still, I think that my theory is backed up by the Tyranids tending towards ignoring Necron Tomb worlds like they know about the damn things already.
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Post by Harkovast on May 1, 2015 1:58:43 GMT
Do they avoid tomb worlds? Is that a thing? I would avoid necron tomb worlds...necrons are lame these days.
The big thing that makes you theory not make sense is that it would mean Old Ones some how got to another galaxy, which they didn't have the ability to do. They got around via the webway, which spans the galaxy, not the interstellar void.
They would need some other, unknown method to get themselves there. That is a pretty massive assumption to make it work.
Obviously tyranids are not totally alien (cause humans with limited imaginations made them up) but they are supposed to be very alien, so you have to give them some suspension of disbelief on that.
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Post by Canuovea on May 1, 2015 2:14:07 GMT
They used to avoid Tomb Worlds. Not sure what the lore says now.
The Old Ones would find a way, they were advanced enough to figure something else out. Besides, the reason the Saurianness of the Tyranids is support is that we already have a canonically Saurian race that A) has a grudge and B) has a predilection towards biological tampering.
Another thing to consider is that the Tyranids weren't that diverse when they first showed up. If they had been consuming Galaxies and so forth before arriving here, you would think that they would have shown greater biodiverstiy, which they have been developing as they munch through our Galaxy... Zoanthropes, for instance, come from absorbed Eldar genome.
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Post by Harkovast on May 1, 2015 2:32:44 GMT
I'm not really feeling it. The tyranids are more alieny than saurian. They aren't lizards and they have a lot of weird inspect stuff and geiger stuff. Any saurian similarity is superficial at best. Basically you've kinda got their snouty head shape, but that's about it. Looking at the pattern of what the Old Ones made before, the Tyranids seem nothing like anything else they made.
"The old ones would find a way" is also kinda weak. The old ones could not find a way to stop themselves getting exterminated, so just announcing they would find a solution when canon demonstrates them failing to find solutions (or finding solutions that led to their own destruction) isn't very convincing. The old ones weren't all powerful or all knowing (them losing a war and inadvertently helping to destroy most of the life in the universe via the enslavers demonstrate this.)
If the Old Ones had this "move galaxy technology" why didn't they use it before it to escape being killed off? Or did it only start working just before they were about to die out? Cause that seems really contrived.
In the context of 40K, the webway is one of the most amazing, super advanced, incomprehensible constructions ever made. The idea that the old ones actually invented something even better and just kept quiet about it devalues how important the webway is and seems unbelievable. The webway was the old ones ace in the hole that let them win even though the ancient pre-necron race had superior weapons and ship technology. To just one up it with something EVEN better...I don't buy it.
Again, you seem to dimish the tyranids. You are making them not an all consuming swarm of destruction that eats galaxies. You'd make them into a relatively recent invention made just to attack this galaxy. That's not as cool. I like the idea of imagining how many civilisations and entire galaxies they may have empties before they got here. The shapes they had when they got there were sufficient to destroy what ever galaxy they destroyed before (whatever that involved), now they are adapting to our one. If this is actually their first time out the gate and we know that for a fact...that's not really very exciting.
The Old Ones made warriors that were powersful psykers to fight the C'tan and their minions. If they made the tyranids as some kind of ultimate weapon, it doesn't seem to fit what they did before.
And the Old Ones made most of the races, having it turn out that the one race we thought they couldn't have made was made by them is a pretty weak reveal.
It's 40K and sci fi so anything is possible and it is technically possible The Old Ones escaped to another galaxy and made tyranids for revenge, but it doesn't seem very likely or believable.
It's an interesting idea, but I don't feel it works thematically and ultimately diminishes the ultimate horror that the tyranids represent.
One thing I liked with the C'tan was that they aren't chaos and weren't made by chaos etc. Sometimes in 40K it gets a bit one note where chaos is responsible for EVERYTHING so it was nice to mix it up with new unrelated threats that help make the universe feel bigger. Making the tyranids a creation by people from our universe that we already know about makes things smaller again.
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Post by Canuovea on May 1, 2015 3:32:36 GMT
True, fuck Chaos. I guess something that gives Chaos the big middle finger is good.
Now I don't know why you think whatever the Old Ones used to get outside the Universe would be better than the Webway. If would probably have been worse over all, just allowed them to travel outside the limits of the webway, which seem kind of like celestial railways (because some areas are outside of it). It would be like using a mountain bike to go up a trail that a car can't go up. The car is clearly superior where it counts, but not designed for going up a trail in the middle of a forest.
As for diminishing the Tyranids... I don't know. I think it depends on how you spin it. I kind of think that "they came from somewhere... out there" is a bit bland. I kind of like "product of millennial of hatred and cold, logical, revenge, honed on the galaxies around its main prey before finally set loose." As it stands, nobody really knows though, and I think that is fine. It could be anything.
I remember reading somewhere (I think it was from Inquisitor Kryptman, who knows the most about Tyranids of all humans alive in the 40K universe) that the guardsmen calling Tyranids bugs is technically inaccurate and that they are actually more reptilian. But then again, that was probably from the Ultramarines novels, and the redux about the Necrons fucked that entire series up.
I'm also not a fan of the Old Ones making everyone, I admit.
Also, fun fact... there was a thing in, I think, the old Necron Codex that suggested fighting Lizardmen from Fantasy. It involved some rules conversions and was all about the Necrons taking revenge on some descendants of the Old Ones.
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Post by Harkovast on May 1, 2015 10:15:29 GMT
Another thing I don't like is the Old Ones being out for revenge.
The Old Ones always seemed above that. They never hated the Necrons, and seemed more calm and chilled out. This contrasted them with the hateful necrons (I know they weren't necrons yet, but their races name is hard to spell and I don't want to look it up!) Something the new version of necrons lacks most is that sense of purpose like that. A race so consumed with hate that they LITERALLY let themselves be consumed is cool.
While its perfectly possible for the Old Ones to become obsessed with vengeance and hate, it kinda removes the big difference between them and their enemies. When the Necrons first attacked them, the Old Ones defeated them but didn't wipe them out or go after them. They always seemed above that sort of thing. For most of history they viewed the Necrons as a trivial concern.
I like the image of ancient necrons hating them even more for this kind of shit. What could be worse then hating someone with every fibre of your being and then realising they barely even notice you? They don't even have the decency to hate you back! They should at least be BOTHERED that you hate them!
"We've dedicated our entire society to exterminating you scum!" "Who are you again?" "Argh! We are your sworn eternal enemies!" "Oh, well that's nice. Now if you don't mind terribly, I've got important cosmic stuff to do. Good luck with that...what ever it was you were doing. Bye for now." "I didn't think I could hate you more...and yet here we are."
It also helps demonstrate how inferior and sad the old necrons were.
The Old Ones unleashed dooms day weapons and creatures, but they did so out of self defence because they were being destroyed. They wanted survival rather than revenge.
The Old Ones might have been destroyed, but I like to think they didn't come down to the Necrons level.
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Post by Canuovea on May 1, 2015 15:06:31 GMT
A race in 40K that isn't Grim Dark VENGEANCE and EVIL and all that?
I mean, I know the Old Ones were coldly logical and arrogant and all, but... they don't strike me as "Good Guys" necessarily. I mean, sure, maybe the Tyranids were unleashed due to cold logic and a desire to start all over, but I don't think the Old Ones would be so clearly the good guys as to be immune to hatred.
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Post by Harkovast on May 1, 2015 20:08:54 GMT
I didn't say they were the good guys, I just said they were above petty hatred. They were arrogant and indifferent. The problems of the Necrons didn't mean anything to them. The Necrons weren't on their radar. This applies to not returning the necrons hate but also not caring that the necrons suffered. It's not clear if they could have helped the necrons with all their health problems, but it IS clear that they never bothered to try. I admit I wouldn't want to share the secret of immortality with the necrons but the Old Ones did absolutely nothing to offer any help at all. They were the rich guy on the hill, ignoring the poor people outside. The rich guy isn't causing the poverty, but he isn't doing anything in his power to reduce it. In the same way, the Old Ones complete lack of empathy made the necrons resent them. It just turned out the necrons were really good at being resentful.
Changing them to filled with bitter, self destructive hatred kinda completely changes what they were about. Again, they COULD change in that way but I think it would diminish how interesting they were.
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Post by Horsie on May 1, 2015 23:13:05 GMT
I think the idea of the Tyranids originating from outside the galaxy is more interesting than having them originate within the galaxy, but then being sent outside (to come back in).
Everyone in the galaxy is probably consumed with their own affairs, their own endless wars, their own dealings and struggles with living gods. The Tyranids probably threw a spanner in the works when they arrived because they showed up out of nowhere, their biology, technology, goals, and way of doing things were completely alien.
Having an extragalactic origin shows that there's more out there beyond the galaxy that Warhammer takes place in, and (I think "grim" and "dark" make this a good guess) it's likely that much of it is hostile.
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Post by Canuovea on May 2, 2015 0:07:41 GMT
Renard, I knew that you'd agree with Hark on this one. The mysterious "greater than you" Cthuluoid force is something you appreciate. I sometimes do too, but in this case not as much.
And the Old Ones did care enough to get involved in trying to stop the C'tan.
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Post by Harkovast on May 2, 2015 3:06:26 GMT
Canuovea, no they only cared about the C'Tan when the C'Tan tried to exterminate them. That wasn't them caring about other people, that was self preservation and then only after they had ignored the potential danger of the necrons for too long.
The character of the Old Ones is aloof and disinterested in mortal concerns. Insane vengeance plots are not their style. Again, not saying they are nice guys. The lives and concerns of others meant nothing to them. But they had a particular personality to their society, and insane obsessions with revenge were kinda the exact opposite of what they were about. I would almost wonder if they were so removed from such concepts that it led them to underestimate how hateful other people could get. They were above such pety concerns and emotions, so wouldn't have understood how others might think in those terms.
They wouldn't go out of their way to hurt you or kill you, but they also wouldn't lift a finger to help you even if you were suffering horribly and helping would take no effort at all.
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Post by Canuovea on May 2, 2015 3:09:29 GMT
Okay, fair enough.
So that would mean the Tyranids are the Old Ones solving the problem of the C'tan with an extreme, but logical, solution that requires infinite patience and a total disregard for the lives and affairs of other races (even their creations). Does that seem more Old One like?
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Post by Harkovast on May 2, 2015 3:35:32 GMT
I guess. It just seems to stretch things to make it the Old Ones, especially when the alternative of the tyranids as extra galactic horrors seems more scary.
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