[OOC] Are We the Bad Guys? - A WH40k RP [Mature]

[Sophrus]

*still working out how a lone guardsman is not killed in the crash, survives boarding a hostile vessel alone and is allowed to join the group*

[Wraithblade6]

Lord Emperor have mercy.

[BCTheEntity]

@Necroes You know what, I do recall seeing stuff about death-masques now, and I seem to recall that they're intended to violently murder anything within a few dozen miles of themselves. Then again, I also seem to recall that their base is some form of human rather than a Chaos Spawn, but that's just me. So, fun times kidnapping a giant alien gun for the purposes of turning its crew into monsters and murdering everything in sight, though it is worth noting that even civilian Eldar are trained to fight in most cases, since it's a necessity for their race to not die and all.

@Wraithblade6 Admittedly, I did act like kind of a twat about the plan when it started not working out how I'd hoped, for which I once again apologise to everyone. That said, I rather maintain that allowing one person to control three Space Marines is a bit OTT. To wit, the original concept for Lucius was that he lacked most of his equipment at the start specifically to keep his power compared to other characters reasonable, but the concept breaks down once much of the original cast vanishes, and we wind up with multiple other Space Marines- many of which are Chaos-aligned- as well as a psychic Chaos Ork, and a psychic Heretek. So... he might need an equipment upgrade soon, perhaps.

[Klomster]

I'm for torturing space elves, silly bastards think they can run about any way they want!
We'll show them!

Or die horribly while trying.

[Jb]

@Necroes Possibly has to be one of the most OTT and frankly lore-breaking ideas I've ever read, as indeed this entire RP is pretty much turning out to be. That being said, I think we're pretty much too far gone for me to give a rats backside, and I did tell you to board a ship (though I was expecting an Imperial one), so feel free to pull off your completely non-canon plan and we'll get going again I guess.

@Wraithblade6@Klomster@BCTheEntity@agentmanatee@Sophrus

If anyone has any objections or concerns now, apart from them obvious, make them now; if not, then we'll just wait.

[BCTheEntity]

@Necroes@Jbcool Alright, now hopping off of what Jb said, I found the Lexicanum page for the death-masque servitor. First of all, I was thinking of something else, probably the Skulker Configuration servitor, which is specifically intended to cause massive terror and disruption in Imperial populations. Secondly, it apparently uses tech specific to a particular forge-world, which may well be non-present on a spaceship made entirely of wraithbone. So, whilst a fancy as fuck idea which I do like a lot... it miiiight be a bit unlikely in canon, as Jb has already said.

[Sophrus]

My only objection is crew # it's insane, as mentioned before. I would have voted to board a vessel and steal a long range bomber or maybe an armed transport. Because taking an imperial, or whatever with a single squad is impossible or so improbable I would call BS.

Even the skeleton crew elder ship. Because, this is all speculation here, the smallest imperial ship has a crew of 20k, the elder classes I expect would be comparable.. ish. Even if it where half the size at 10k some of them would be security, soldiers. Maybe not enough to repel a real boarding party of SM Terminators but they would have a good chance against us. Especially if the crew was trying to stop us by sealing passages, venting atmosphere etc.

I just don't see us taking any ships bigger than a strike craft or cargo ship.

That being said, I do like the idea of a chaos elder black pearl ship just causing trouble.

[Wraithblade6]

I personally just want to stick to what's most likely, logical, and cannon for our rp, to keep that realisticish feel.

[BCTheEntity]

Is this what being part of an evil party in a TTRPG is like? I think this is what being part of an evil party in a TTRPG is like.

[Jb]

I personally just want to stick to what's most likely, logical, and cannon for our rp, to keep that realisticish feel.

@Wraithblade6

Oh, my dear Wraith, we're already waaaaaay past that point - we've got a magick chaos-aligned Greenskin, a bunch of Astartes of varying loyalties, a Dark Mech who I've really no idea what all his skills etc actually are...he's some sort of weird psychic mec or something, isn't he?

In short, logical and canon went out the window way back when we had that little disagreement about an Ork being capable of using warp magic and summoning effing daemons.

Now, I do agree with @Sophrus to a point, and on that note I do also think that we have a couple of options here that do not completely defy established lore.

1) We land on one of the smaller craft, head straight for the 'vital organs' of the vessel and cut off the head at the bridge, then somehow persuade the remainder of the crew that it would be a better idera to serve rather than die.

2) We carry on past the battle in our little vessel and take our chances with a battle all around us.

3) Our group heads over to the Outpost, docks/boards it, and nabs a small (and undamaged) craft from there before making our getaway.

4) We attack one of the troop-transports/supply vessels and jettison away as fast as possible.

People appear to be forgetting two important things; firstly, the missile that struck us was likely a 'stray', and our ship remains a gnat in a larger battle. Second, the Eldar won't destroy the ship - due to the spirit stones - but that doesn't mean they won't board us.

Is this what being part of an evil party in a TTRPG is like? I think this is what being part of an evil party in a TTRPG is like.

@BCTheEntity

I feel that you're probably correct.

[Wraithblade6]

@Jbcool Since Vedius is driving our ship, he should be the one to pick where the hell we land it. Would he aim for an Eldar vessel? Probably not if he had other choices.

[Sophrus]

@Jbcool Since Vedius is driving our ship, he should be the one to pick where the hell we land it. Would he aim for an Eldar vessel? Probably not if he had other choices.

@Wraithblade6

2nd ^^

[Necroes]

There's one massive, giant problem everyone here arguing 'lore' keeps overlooking; The machine spirit!
Any imperial vessel we board will refuse us access. Unlike every previous encounter our only two tech-adepts have had with the machine spirit, this time, it Will be actively manned. It will fight us.
As for realistic, well... if we're a small enough vessel that a single person can pilot it, then we'd be a smear on the hull of even the smallest imperial craft, which starts with solid adamantium walls something like ten-twenty feet thick. As what we're on isn't a boarding craft, the only thing we could do is ram it, and our own structural integrity was already ruined by the missle that hit us.

Now, from My perspective;
No one knows how many eldar actually crew eldar vessels. All that's known is that eldar are prone to using spirit stones in place of A.I., which end up acting much like computers. Also, we are talking about craft-world eldar. While largely warp based, their technology is one of the most advanced in the galaxy, second only to necrons. Necrons, of course, have massive war ships that are unmanned. An eldar 'skeleton crew' could very easily be a couple hundred bodies. Easily something our group, with some warp back up, could take.

In terms of realism, again; we're flying a ship made of something supposedly capable of nullifying the presence of hundreds, if not thousands, of eldar spirit stones. As far as lore is concerned, what we're flying doesn't exist. But, if it did, wraith bone would be disrupted by it, as it's literally solid warp energy. Therefore, we'd actually have a chance in hell of surviving running into it.

As for being based in lore... Everything I've been talking about thus far is proof of concept. Of course we're not going to make literal death-masques. Just something based off a concept that has been proven to work, i.e., making servitors out of chaos spawn. Given a practically unlimited supply of the most versatile material in the galaxy to make whatever parts we need, and access to centuries-old warp knowledge, it's well within the realm of reason (especially by 40k standards) that we could pull everything I've said off.

Most importantly, though... Why are so many of you so infatuated with keeping everything human? Science fiction is about exploring the strange and the unknown. The vast wonders of the universe of the 41st millennium are ours to take hold of and explore in our own way. To a man, each of us decided, at least originally, to play a non-human entity. Not a single character among us could reasonably be called human, let alone have lived a life that could hope to match. So why not take things a little over the top? It may not be the dark, broody, depressing galaxy of the 41st millennium the human race lives in. But it sure as hell is the anything-goes, chaos-infused 41st millennium of the filthy heretics and dirty xenos!

[Sophrus]

We have a tech priest and a tech marine I'm sure the machine spirit of smaller vessels like something we could manage now eg: bomber, armed Cargo ship. Rather than a ship we might be able to get working eventually.

A corrupt eldar ship crewed by demons is a beautiful idea, when we might have time to sort it out. But trying to manufacture chaos servitors on the fly dying a battle... I call BS there is no way we would have time to board, capture and build spawn. Not to mention the lengthy research process of trying to make servitor spawn. All this before the battle is long over and we are torpedoed to death or boarded by a few squads of Terminators or whatever not a chance.

Smaller steps man. It's not that it can't be done, we just do not have the means right now. Steal an imperial bomber, find a secluded place, figure out how to make servitor spawn or start kidnapping regular people and making regular servitors and start moving up the ship class ladder.

[Wraithblade6]

@Necroes I will admit, I still haven't looked up death-masks, but I am so not onboard with this. I know quite little about Eldar and their tech, which will make it difficult unless somebody else is doing all the writing for them and filling me in on everything my char would realize. It's also very low on my interest meter as far as subject matter. Lastly, if I have to write any more solo fight scenes with npc trash, I'm going to kill myself.

I'd also argue that a blessed machine spirit may not instantly or ultimately reject docking with whatever the hell we are flying, if we get clearance to do that, get boarded, teleported to, maybe we throw up a distress beacon.. idk. And I really would rather JB decide. I've liked his maintenance of the storyline so far.

The most fun and interesting part of this rp, is when we all came together and began interacting with each other. I'd like to keep that for a while.

[Necroes]

@Sophrus By cargo ship, do you mean something like the Arvus Lighter? Crewed by a single pilot, it has a max speed of 1600 kph (barely breaking mach one) with a maximum travel distance of 22,000 kilometers in atmo. and a capacity of 16 people. You know, the kind that is not only not warp capable, but also wouldn't be able to travel between planets, and is thus useless to our needs?

Or something like a marauder bomber? Also able to be piloted by a single person, its max speed is 1800 kph (hstill less than mach 2) mach range of even less than the Arvus, and equally not capable of warp travel or even interplanetary travel.

The next step up would be things like interceptors, which still have the problem of not being able to move between planets.

The next step up, literally the smallest step you can take, is freighter class. With crew sizes in the 10k+ range, we come back to where we started.

Do you see the running theme of the problem with taking your 'smaller ship' idea? The Firefly universe, this is not. In 40k, you need to hit five digits worth of crew (for HUMAN vessels) before you can go anywhere. That's why the ship Urgrugg showed up in was such an amazing oddity, yet still existed as a failed proof of concept despite doing something that basically can't be done.

Edit: @Wraithblade6 JB Started all of this. He assigned me to do it, because I asked him to. It was his post that sent us towards more NPC interaction fun-times. It was also his idea to go get aboard another craft, despite the fact he made up some random, non-cannon ship that can't exist in 40k, yet decided for whatever reason not to make it at least capable of interplanetary travel.

And, no. The machine spirit would not accept us. It's a computer, they don't do that without being hacked. If anything, If it identified the ship from imperial record, they'd identify us as a, wait for it... Emperor's Children vessel, and blow us the hell up!

Edit 2: Also, before this goes any further; I had no intention of taking the entire ship with nothing but a huge battle spanning the entire ship, leaving nothing but bound survivors behind us. The plan was to have us hit the enemy ship close to the main deck, find and capture the captain, then convince her to direct the rest of the ship to flee the battlefield in exchange for return of the soul stones. We'd end up betraying them along the way, but that's step 2.

[Sophrus]

Or some thing like this

wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Starhawk_Bomber

Not sure if its warp capable but still. And! There would be other ships not covered by the lore between a crew of 10k and 15... just cos the lore doesn't say so doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's obvious! Small time traders and such can't afford a crew of 10k but maybe 500? W/e there would be other military vessels than 10 or 10k too. So... make something up that makes fking sense.

[Necroes]

@Sophrus No, they wouldn't, because of the exact same reason. Imperial navy vessels are purpose built on the small scale. None of them are warp capable because warp drives are too massive and require too much power to be on anything smaller than a freighter. And, no, even merchant trader vessels sport crews of the 10k+ variant. That's just how space travel works in 40k.

Small craft made by the imperium are for when you've gotten to the planet or chunk of space you're planning on getting to. Nothing that small will get itself to those places, because they can't. Which makes sense, because the Imperium don't do interplanetary ships. There's no reason to. A warp drive is just as able and just as practical for traveling between planets as it is between solar systems. That's the entire point of warp drives.

[Sophrus]

Well, then looks like there is no choice but to be killed while our two sorcerers figure out how to make spawn slaves. Or corrupt a corvette size ship and crew to chaos in a few minutes.

By ship size restriction and keeping a vague hint of realistic we are stuck....

[Necroes]

Edit 2: Also, before this goes any further; I had no intention of taking the entire ship with nothing but a huge battle spanning the entire ship, leaving nothing but bound survivors behind us. The plan was to have us hit the enemy ship close to the main deck, find and capture the captain, then convince her to direct the rest of the ship to flee the battlefield in exchange for return of the soul stones. We'd end up betraying them along the way, but that's step 2.

@Necroes

@Sophrus In case you missed it, what exactly is wrong with This plan?