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Post by Destecado on Apr 22, 2004 13:43:11 GMT -5
In order to piece together the secret behind the Necrons in the Anargo Sector, it is important to first understand them. To that end, is it possible for anyong with interest of including the Necrons in the sector mythos and hystor, to post a brief summation of the fluff behind this enigmatic alien race.
I'll start off with some information gleened from White Dwarf #230
The Necrons are a biologically dead race that was wiped out in a galaxy wide catastrophe approximately 60 million years ago. Faced with extinction the Necrons constructed metal bodies as repositories for their hyperadvanced minds. To weather the impending galactic bio-meltdown the Necrons constructed huge stasis chambers to shelter inside. They have been there ever since, resting until such a time that the galaxy was safe for them to emerge.
The discovery of some of these stasis chambers has triggered the emergence of isolated groups of Necrons all over the galaxy. Quite what their purpose is remains something of a mystery. Necrons confine their activites to raiding and taking captives. They are known tp perfrom grizzly biological experiments upon human prisoners. Some belive that the Necrons, possessed as they are of a vastly superior scientific knowledge, are attempting to rebuild their race in biological form. Others hypothesise that the Necrons are no longer posessed of rational minds. Some say that millions of years of stasis has degenerated the Necrons electronically encoded personalities so that only crude instincts and half-remembered purposes remain to drive their metalic bodies.
Reference to electronically encoded personalities to me indicates that there is nothing left of the original necrontyr except data files recording their thoughts. Although if I rememebr correctly this White dwarf preceeds the inclusion of the C'tan into their history, I still think it is relavent to understanding the Necrons.
IMO they are ghosts. Sort of like the ghost in the machine analogy. They are nothing more than a conglomeration of memeories and experiences trapped inside as shell of circuits and metal.
Many people think that they are "living" because they compare them to such things as a wraith guard or Imperial Dreadnought. This is in my opinion a mistake. They are nothing more than soulless machines.
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Post by Destecado on Apr 22, 2004 13:59:46 GMT -5
Year 873.M38
The Explorator vessel Incalculus Stellar came across an alien edifice floating in wilderness space not far from Skopios, and take it to the asteroid facility.
Astropaths in surrounding sectors report all manner of ill omens in their messages. The Elysian Drop Troops investigate Skopios, finding the facilities converted to producing skeletoid robots. A confrontation with a mysterious humanoid and the alien robots ensues, with the alien machines using what sound like Gauss weapons. After withdrawing the ground forces, the asteroid is bombarded to rubble by the Imperial Navy and the area declared Purgatus. (from the Armageddon Website). Are the Necrons producing new troops? If some essence of the Necrontyr inhabits the necron frame, then how could they be mass producing new necrons? I think this points more to the possibility of memory tapes existing which are then placed into the new frames created. This would make for an extremely difficult enemy to kill. You may be able to destroy the frame, but unless you destroy the storage facility where the memories are housed, then you have not realy defeated the Necrons. These store houses, could be on tomb Worlds or in the above example situated in the depths of space. The above example almost sounds like a computer virus that invades the host system and then takes over. Out of curiosity, does anyone have any thoughts on the power source for Necron tecnology? The foolowing link is to an interesting story by Andy Chambers about the exploration of a Necron tomb world. The information it deatails is useful for both our discussion about the Necrons as well as discussions about the Adeptus Mechanicus (but that's for another thread). hem.passagen.se/tunih/W40KStoryandNecronSite/NecronFiction/official.htmI would be interested in any conclusions about the Necrons that might be drawn from this story. From the description of the adversary it sound alot like a flayed one or perhaps a necron lord. What do you think? If it is indeed a Necron Lord, its description of its relation to other Necrons is interesting. Perhaps instead it was a C'tan masquerading as the tech priest. If that is the case, then its representation makes it sound far weaker than it should. What are your thoughts? Edit: Well, I found out more info about the Andy Chambers story on the link above. It is suppose to be a C'tan. This story was written during the rework of the Necron Raiders. Based on the information on the GW website discussing the developement of the "New" version of the Necrons, I am even more convinced that the necrons are just hollow shells with the downloaded memories of the Necrontyr and nothing else. view the Necron Designer's notes here. The C'tan were made to fill the nitch that a Necromancer or Vampire Count does in Fantasy. Does that make the standard Necron troops analguous with zombies or skeletons?
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Post by TheGlyphstone on Apr 24, 2004 8:16:57 GMT -5
I guess C'tan could be compared to Vampire/Necromancers. In the Necron codex, it goes into greater detail about their transformation. I'll summarize it, not having the book at hand at the moment.
Way back when, the Necrontyr were a very advanced race. They had all kinds of cool things, but a very short lifespan to due something, I think radiation from their sun. When they met the Old Ones, they became incredibly jealous of their long life and set about finding a way to kill the Old Ones. They found the C'tan. When they crafted living-metal bodies for their new masters and invited them into the material world, the C'tan immediately took to this new flavor of energy. They established dominance over the Necrontyr, and saw their hatred for the Old Ones. This gave them an opportunity. They offered to the Necrontyr a chance to become immortal, since the C'tan had enough power to replicate the living metal the Necrontyr had crafted, enough to form bodies for all of them. The Necrontyr agreed, but were betrayed by their masters, for the bodies they now inhabited were utterly obedient to the C'tan, and they could not return to their previous forms.
This is more or less directly from the Necron codex. It also goes in to say that only a fraction of the Necrontyr retained a portion of their "intellect". I personally interpreted this as meaning "Free Will" or at least "independent thought", since they were mentioned as an exception. This led to a development of my own Necron army fluff, revolving around a rogue Necron Lord who broke free of the C'tan and went off on his own. But that's my own reading of it, and it's gotten many harsh comments about breaking Necron gospel.
On restocking troops: I don't know how they make new ones, but a story in the Codes gives insight into how they keep restocked. Apparently all Necron casualties, when rendered inoperatible, teleport back to their host Tomb World where they are repaired by Tomb Spyders.
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Post by Destecado on Apr 26, 2004 13:19:15 GMT -5
Thank you for the fluff Glyphstone. Again I am sometimes amazed at how simplistic GW makes these events sound. It is simple cause and effect, with little detail given to the underlying motivations or double dealings that may have occured. It is very black and white, cause and effect. Did all of the Necrontyr hate the Old Ones. From my own experiences few if any societies are this monolithic. Was it only because they lived longer? History sometimes glosses over the gritty details, hiding the dirty truth behind a noble lie. I offer another interpretation of what the Canon Fluff might signify. Way back when, the Necrontyr were a very advanced race. They had all kinds of cool things, but a very short lifespan to due something, I think radiation from their sun. When they met the Old Ones, they became incredibly jealous of their long life and set about finding a way to kill the Old Ones. This of course shows that the Necrontyr were the enemies of the Old Ones before the C'tan came on the scene. They found the C'tan. When they crafted living-metal bodies for their new masters and invited them into the material world. Invinting the C'tan into the material world....(stifles laughter). That really sounds like it was written by a Necrontyr spin doctor. It reminds me alot about how many of the arguments over slaver occured in the united states before the civil war. The South never refered to the slaves as slaves, but as property. thus the fight with the north was not over slavery as the North wished to term it, but over property rights. It made the whole question much more palatable for the general public. Similarly, I do not feel that the C'tan were "invite" into our reality, as much as dragged into it. The Necrontyr were willing to kill the Old Ones due to their much longer life span. The C'tan probably predated even the Old Ones. Would the Necrontyr willingly bow down to such a race? IMO the leaders of the Necrontyr fashioned them into "gods" for their people, in order to give them something to rally around. The C'tan being imprisoned in a physical form could also no longer draw energy directly from stars. By controlling their source of food, they had control of the C'tan. Sacrifices to feed their gods might have also served as a way to eliminate descentors and also instill the hope of an afterlife into the Necrontyr...they would live on within their Gods. They in effect made them parasites, living off the life force of others. the C'tan immediately took to this new flavor of energy. They established dominance over the Necrontyr, and saw their hatred for the Old Ones. This gave them an opportunity. They offered to the Necrontyr a chance to become immortal, since the C'tan had enough power to replicate the living metal the Necrontyr had crafted, enough to form bodies for all of them. The Necrontyr agreed, but were betrayed by their masters, for the bodies they now inhabited were utterly obedient to the C'tan, and they could not return to their previous forms. This is more or less directly from the Necron codex. It also goes in to say that only a fraction of the Necrontyr retained a portion of their "intellect". I personally interpreted this as meaning "Free Will" or at least "independent thought", since they were mentioned as an exception. As it was the Necrontyr that first designed or imprisoned the C'tan in their necrodermiss, I find it interesting that the fluff now points to the C'tan creating the shells for the Necrontyr. It is my opinion that a radical faction among the Necrontyr used the C'tan as a means of manipulating the majority of the populace into taking up the mindless necron form. Could it be the ones that have retained their intellect are members of this faction who now held sway over their people and the C'tan? There is also the mention of the C'tan warring amongst themselves. Perhaps some of the C'tan rebeled against their captors. Maybe they even took over control of the mindless necrons, one they killed the overseers. They would then war against the other imprisoned C'tan as well as the Necrons. Maybe the C'tan eventually did get the upper hand and took over. It is not uncommon for the oppressed to become the oppressor. |
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Post by ZoomDog on May 4, 2004 1:00:49 GMT -5
I'll start off with some information gleened from White Dwarf #230
The Necrons are a biologically dead race that was wiped out in a galaxy wide catastrophe approximately 60 million years ago. Faced with extinction the Necrons constructed metal bodies as repositories for their hyperadvanced minds. To weather the impending galactic bio-meltdown the Necrons constructed huge stasis chambers to shelter inside. They have been there ever since, resting until such a time that the galaxy was safe for them to emerge.That quote is outdated, it was written before GW established what exactly the Necrons were. Many people think that they are "living" because they compare them to such things as a wraith guard or Imperial Dreadnought. This is in my opinion a mistake. They are nothing more than soulless machines. They are soulless machines, yes, but i still believe that they are the original Necrontyr, just 'dumbed down'. Not sure how to explain what I mean.... The Necrons still have the minds of the Necrontyr, but have been modified so they can feel only hatred, and must obey orders. Without other emotions they may act like mindless robots, but I prefer to believe that there is still sentience inside. Are the Necrons producing new troops? If some essence of the Necrontyr inhabits the necron frame, then how could they be mass producing new necrons?. I'm not a big fan of this piece of fluff. Personally I believe that new Necrons cannot be created, at least not without Transferring the mind of new mortals into the bodies. Perhaps this means that the C'Tan have found another race to turn into Necrons. Or maybe they are just producing the bodies for spare parts for existing damaged Necrons. I would be interested in any conclusions about the Necrons that might be drawn from this story. From the description of the adversary it sound alot like a flayed one or perhaps a necron lord. What do you think? If it is indeed a Necron Lord, its description of its relation to other Necrons is interesting. I assume you're talking about the Deus Ex Mechanicus story (an excellent read for Necron fans I must say  . The Tech Priest Egal is in fact the Deceiver, a charade he has kept up ever since (he is currently on Mars, trying to convince the rest of the AdMech to seal the Noctis Labyrinthus, where it is likely the Dragon rests, with ferrocrete). The C'tan were made to fill the nitch that a Necromancer or Vampire Count does in Fantasy. Does that make the standard Necron troops analguous with zombies or skeletons? That seems like a good analogy, although as I stated above I like to think the Necron Warriors have some sentience left, moreso then the Undead from WFB. The Necron Lords are meant to have even more intellect then the Warriors, and I used to believe that they were in fact fully conscious individuals with their own goals and desires, but after a couple of threads on Portent I've been convinced that they too are little more then mindless servants. This led to a development of my own Necron army fluff, revolving around a rogue Necron Lord who broke free of the C'tan and went off on his own. But that's my own reading of it, and it's gotten many harsh comments about breaking Necron gospel. I actually had something similar as the fluff for my own Necron army, but I soon changed it. IMO, it is not physically possible for the Necrons to disobey the C'Tan, the C'Tan designed the bodies for the Necrons and would've ensure such safeguards. And the quote from the Codex says they retained a "portion" of their intellect; to me that means that they have as little as 1/10th to 1/20th of their original minds. Did all of the Necrontyr hate the Old Ones.. I would say that the great majority did. Even if they didn't at first, at the end of the first war the OO's had destroyed every single colony of the Necrontyr, leaving only their home system in sympathy. This near genocide would be enough to send an entire people into hatred. Invinting the C'tan into the material world....(stifles laughter). I'd have to agree. I gave a theory on Portent once on how the Necrons got the C'Tan into their Necrodermii, and it didn't involve the least bit of inviting  . The C'tan probably predated even the Old Ones. Would the Necrontyr willingly bow down to such a race? At that time, the only goal of the Necrontyr was revenge on the Old Ones. The C'Tan offered them this, in return for their service. The government/religious leaders of the Necrontyr most likely saw the C'Tan as their saviours, and told the general public that their "Gods" had arrived. And considering the powers that the C'Tan have, who would doubt them? The C'tan being imprisoned in a physical form could also no longer draw energy directly from stars. By controlling their source of food, they had control of the C'tan. I would hardly say the leaders of the Nectonyr were able to control the C'Tan. The C'Tan are not 'trapped' in their bodies, from the recent activities of the NightBringer we know that they are still able to feed on stars. It is my opinion that a radical faction among the Necrontyr used the C'tan as a means of manipulating the majority of the populace into taking up the mindless necron form. If any of the Necrontyr knew what they would become after the Transferrence, why would they still do so? Could it be the ones that have retained their intellect are members of this faction who now held sway over their people and the C'tan?. The idea of any mortal holding sway over a C'Tan doesn't sit well with me. How do you control something that can alter reality around itself? There is also the mention of the C'tan warring amongst themselves. Perhaps some of the C'tan rebeled against their captors. The C'Tan remained in their new physical bodies because they found that the taste of mortal beings was much more delicious then that of stars. Eventually they realised that other C'Tan tasted even better, so the wars broke out as C'Tan ate C'Tan, mostly thanks to the Deceiver and the Laughing God. You have some very interesting ideas in there Destecado, but I'm afraid they conflict too much with existing fluff. |
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Post by ZoomDog on May 4, 2004 1:33:09 GMT -5
This is my interpretation of how the Transferrence took place. After the first war between the Necrontyr and Old Ones, the Necrontyr had been beaten back to their home system. This savage defeat had increased the hatred of the Old Ones, who were already hated due to their long life. The Necrontyr set about finding some way to defeat their enemies when they discovered a sentient being within their star (I can't remember which one it was off the top of my head, the Deceiver or the NightBringer). The being within the star, a C'Tan, had little idea of what went on in the universe, it's life consisted of eating a star, floating to another star, and eating that. A pretty boring life, so when the first C'Tan was forced into a Necrodermis it saw a whole new aspect of existence. It could now physically interract with the Material world, and because of their god-like powers they were immediately worshipped as gods by the Necrontyr. (As I stated earlier, I believe that the Necrontyr Government would've kept secret the fact that they pulled these 'gods' from their star, and would've just told the public that their "God" had arrived). While the C'Tan could still feed on stars, it found that Mortals tasted a whole lot better. Being naturally evil (most of them anyway, IMO there was probably 1 or 2 'good' C'Tan, but they would've been eaten by the others), the C'Tan started on their plans for galactic domination. In order to help in their conquest, and to ensure that the Necrontyr remained forever their loyal servants, they told them of the Transferrence, a way to give them Immortal life. The Necrontyr would've had no idea what would really happen, but to most the idea of no longer suffering from their cursed bodies and short lives was a blessing. Most Necrontyr submitted willingly, and those who refused were captured and forced into the Transferrence by the loyal. In the end, the entire Necrontyr race was gone, replaced by the Necrons. Then the C'Tan led their new army on a huge conquest of the galaxy, beating the Old Ones and their creations at every turn. After 'x' amount of time (they never really stated this, probably a few dozen millenia), the C'Tan had taken over most of the galaxy, nothing more then a few pockets of Old One's resisting. This is where the infighting began, the Deceiver telling the NightBringer that other C'Tan were the greatest feast to be had. Before long, all the C'Tan were at each other, it was 'eat or be eaten'. During this time the Old Ones were hard at work creating new races to fight the C'Tan and the Necrons, races that utilised the power of the Warp, the Eldar and Krork (Ork) being among them. When they struck, there were only 4 C'Tan left, and the Necrons were sent reeling as the first Old One forces struck. The C'Tan were put onto the defensive as they struggled to find counters for these new 'psychic' armies. Unfortuneatly for the Old Ones, their new creatures with their psychic powers, and the tens of thousands of years of pain and bloodshed across the galaxy had resulted in the 'enslavers', a Warp based race that attacked the Materium through Psykers. The Old Ones fought against this new threat but were losing, and eventually gave up. As the Enslavers smashed their way through the galaxy, the C'Tan decided to sit it out, and with their Necron armies they entered stasis, until a time when the Enslaver plague had passed, and the galaxy was ripe with new races to defeat and conquer. 60 million years later, (ie, now in the 40k universe), they are starting to awaken, and plan their domination of the galaxy. From memory, this is all canon, although I might have thrown an assumption or two in there. Hope it helps.  |
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Post by CELS on May 4, 2004 3:30:02 GMT -5
Thanks a million, ZoomDog- it really does help a lot! |
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Post by TheGlyphstone on May 4, 2004 5:54:33 GMT -5
ZoomDog's pretty much quoted what I left out of the Necron codex.
Well, my fluff does go a bit deeper, though it at this point is uncharted territory. The lord in question was ,as a Necrontyr, a possessor of some weak psychic power, no more than a bit of telepathy. When the Transferrence came, the power was wiped away but did shield much more of its intellect than normal. It managed to disguise its intelligence and generally muddled about like a good drone. When it saw the C'tan begin to fight each other, it realized that they had ruined its race, and it fled. The C'tan chased it but it got away ('m not going to go into details here, this is anti-canon enough without having sentient Monoliths in the bargain), and sealed itself and its followers (those it managed to wrest away from the C'tan) into a tomb to await the self-extermination of the C'tan.
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Post by malika on May 4, 2004 9:54:17 GMT -5
This is something M.v.S. wrote on Portent, Im really intruiged by this: forums.portent.net/showthread.php?s=d9953a2ff46fdcd11ce4bd945e1a67f2&threadid=134321930might give you some ideas for Necron Fluff  I myself think the Necrontyr were devided about the C'tan, some of them might have even feared or hated them. When the C'tan had convinced the Necrontyr to leave the biological bodies and be turned into immortal being many accepted that offer. Maybe some resisted, which brought me to my final idea...I want to create a diorama called "The Last Stand of the Necrontyr", it's basicly a small group of Necrontyr making their last stand on a hill top, they carry gauss weapons and armour (which looks very similar to the armour of the Necrons and Immortals, making it reasonable that the Necrontyr created these weapons and technology before they became Necrons). While they make their last stand, many many many Necrons climb up the hill, trying to take them in order to turn them into Necrons, maybe some Tomb Spiders flying up to them, trying to grab them. This is kinda my vision for the diorama, I think the Necrontyr were quite divided when the c'tan offered them immortality. |
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. The Tech Priest Egal is in fact the Deceiver, a charade he has kept up ever since (he is currently on Mars, trying to convince the rest of the AdMech to seal the Noctis Labyrinthus, where it is likely the Dragon rests, with ferrocrete). 
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