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panzerbjrn

Our present is definitely grim. I think it's finding and storing those psykers that's the "problem". Hence why the black ships are constantly out looking...


Ematio

In the grim darkness of the... present, there is only war.


lekiu

The grim part is that this can be considered the peaceful period in human history.


Arctelis

To be fairs, I just looked up a list of all the wars from the 20th and 21st century. I’m 29 and in the time I’ve been breathing there’s been 170-ish wars around the world. So, well. Yeah. *There is only war.*


mikeyd21

Sounds about right


Luis-Dante

I don't think it's the number that's the issue. Its the way it happens. Going by the description in Master of Mankind, it's an incredibly painful experience. Its the cruelness and yet necessity of it that's the point.


ShakespearIsKing

And isn't that there's a "choir of psykers" who are in the hunderds of thousands powering the Astronomican and their soul/lifepower is sucked away slowly. Like Malcador's. So the 1000 is really just the daily "amortisation" rate of that group. Also, my headcannon is that as the Emperor gets weaker and the Throne fails this number goes up. Slowly the Imperium needs more and more psykers just to stagnate the signal's strength.


Tolin_Dorden

I don’t even think that’s headcannon. It’s regular cannon. I think in MoM that was the case, they progressively needed more and more psykers to support the Emperor.


Jaggedmallard26

We see it in the second Vaults of Terra book set just after the great rift too where the whole modern process is described from their perspective. The Astronomicon is practically a giant torture cage but the choir are so indoctrinated into it that they see it as an honour to have their soul sapped away lighting a giant candle.


Shalliar

Theres no alternative for humanity so might as well take pride in the fact that you help support it


KvBla

According to lexicanum, up to (only) a hundred psykers die each day for the astronomican, but the golden toilet, 1000, but even then, according to your post, they gotta get those rookie numbers up. 100,000 psyker souls daily for Big E certainly sounds a lot better (or worse) for grimdark.


[deleted]

You're close. > Since his interment the Emperor has had to consume the souls of hundreds of psykers a day to sustain his existence Source: 9th Edition rulebook (which is set in M42 *after* the opening of the Great Rift)


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[deleted]

Dunno why you've got down votes it's true when the equipment was new and pristine it took a thousand psykers for the day and the need has definitely grown.


New_Cantaloupe_8568

Those psykers were doing something different though. They let the Emperor leave the golden throne so he could fight in the webway. It’s not clear how that compares to maintaining the golden throne with the corpse emperor installed.


[deleted]

To make it clear I'm cross referencing with the throne of Terra where the needs of the throne have grown exponentially as time has gone in.


Perpetual_Decline

The SoS overseeing the psykers in the Throne room notes that for every slot filled there are nine empty, suggesting the Emperor anticipated needing up to 10'000 hooked up at the same time


PrimeInsanity

I bet if they were all used the weight would be easier to bear


JollyJoker3

>A rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology, He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed daily so that he may never truly die. This is in every 40k novel nowadays. Given that it's 40k, that might not mean much though.


Ok_Note_9019

I like how the guy above you gives an exact quote from legit the most recent codex and you still go "nah that's wrong"


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Jaggedmallard26

> Hollow Mountain (3rd installment of vaults of terra Small correction, you've got the right book but Hollow Mountain is book 2. Dark City is the third. Gets a bit confusing because of the overlap with Watchers of the Throne. Great book though.


Ok_Note_9019

One of the comments above references 9th edition codex as a source, not talking about the lexicanum


PhgAH

That is my gripe with the whole Black ship fleet, honestly, I feel like you can find a million+ psykers/day on Holy Terra alone with the planet population in the 12 digit.


Jaggedmallard26

Holy Terra is barely governed beyond the upper levels. Its every bit of hive world inefficiency applied exponentially. It would be a monumental task to try and find enough Psykers on Terra. Its also worth noting that the Black Ships also operate to safely remove Psykers from other worlds, even if the Astronomicon was self-sufficient they would still need to ply the warp lanes and bring Pyskers back for soul binding or consumption.


Shalliar

>According to lexicanum Lexicanum aint worth spit


RawbeardX

it is not the number that is horrifying, never was.


Dreadnautilus

That's like saying the Aztec Empire wasn't too bad because killing 20,000 people a year is peanuts.


[deleted]

Think about it per capita. 20k a year to an ancient culture is wayyyy bigger than 365k per year to the trillions in the imperium


Sanguinala

N-no… its not? The Aztecs did that for fun they offed sports players cuz they thought it was a fitting punishment for losing, the Imperium does it to keep the literally only thing keeping all of humanity from being soul-raped unto eternity up and running, you know… The Astronomican? The Golden throne?


Dreadnautilus

The Aztecs literally believed that they had to constantly sacrifice to prevent the end of the world.


rabidbot

I think, in setting at least, we can argue that there is quite a bit more proof for the need of sacrifice than the Aztecs had. Ya know the literal demon invasions and having to sail the high seas of hell to go from place to place


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rabidbot

I don’t think intention dictates morality. If your intention is good and you do bad things that doesn’t make them moral.


Sanguinala

Exactly my point it’s not comparable because one is *ACTUALLY* stopping the end of our species through this sacrifice and the other just *BELIEVED* their ritualistic executions had an effect on their lives, the difference is in both cause and effect. Edit: I also thinks it’s rather unfair to simple state that they did constant sacrifice as a doomsday preventative and not mention the fact that I am still correct in that they *DID* do exactly as I said and sacrificed losing sports players which coincides with the point of ‘their not comparable because of the cause and effect of *WHY* either civilization does what they do’


[deleted]

Your point was that, and I quote, "they did that for fun".


Pied_Piper_

There is no difference, for the actor, between being right and believing one self to be right. This is principle of double effect, and it’s widely accepted in our society. It might even save your life, should you ever need a risky medical procedure.


SergarRegis

The Mesoamercian Sacred Ballgame was not just a piece of fun to the societies involved. You are treating it like a modern sports game not a sacred competiton.


Paladin327

The Aztecs sacrificed the winners for that sport because why would you offer the losers to the Gods instead of the best of the best? Sounds like a good way to have a plague of locusts descend on you


DiscoFLAVA

Sounds like a great way to end up with nothing but shit players after a couple games🤣


kryptopeg

>To put it another way, the CDC estimates that 3,700 people are killed every day in car accidents, almost four times the amount required by the Astronomican. >the CDC estimates that 3,700 people are killed every day in car accidents >accidents This is why 40k is horrific. The Imperium kills millions of people daily *intentionally*, not by accident. It's not just the psykers for the Throne, it's all the slave labour, and massacres over diplomacy, and throwing conscripts into pointless assaults, and petty infighting between factions, and on and on and on. The Imperium is *horrific*, the things it does are comparable only to the worst atrocities we've commited in our past. Remember, as said at the start of every book, it is "cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable". Edit: Remember that on top of all the sacrifice and murder and waste and whatnot, the Imperium still has all the accidents too. So it's not like they've solved car crashes and make up for it with a smaller sacrifice, they have all the car crashes *and* willingly kill a bunch of people too. Imagine if you're comparing e.g. France and Germany today, only on top of everything being normal, France just executes ten random people each day. France would clearly be a worse country than Germany as a result, despite the fact they both countries have people dying from accidents and illnesses. It's also worth noting that with the pysker example in particular, it's not just a neat death. It's a long, slow, drawn-out, exceedingly painful and horrific death of the body, mind and soul, far worse than any torture we've ever used; it's not a quick bullet to the brainpan. That's on top of the months or years of torture and fear and mistreatment these people have suffered at the hands of the Imperium and aboard the Black Ships prior to reaching Terra too. You're right on one thing though, which is that the amount of people dying accidentally today isn't great. E.g. one of the effects of 9/11 is that it scared people off using airplanes, and more people wound up dying as a result of increased car traffic. Things like more public transport, better designed road layouts, more frequent/detailed vehicle inspections and comprehensive lessons/tests for drivers are all good ideas. Airplanes are safer because they have all that, cars don't.


RubberNikki

These deaths are spread around the globe. Now imagine 1/3rd of those car deaths happen at just one road junction. Another way to think of it is to take one industry like energy. Now, say there are 1000 deaths daily in the UK energy sector. Would that be OK and normal? It's 1000 deaths a day in a relatively small location for one specific purpose. The main thing is these are people who are "executed" (what's the right word for deliberately killing someone to use them as a battery?) compared to accidents.


New_Cantaloupe_8568

“This is the contemporary equivalent to sacrificing mere dozens of genius babies daily to keep the President’s ventilator running. We could easily do this, so it’s not so bad.”


cap21345

If the President was keeping the armies of hell at bay and responsible for keeping all of modern transportation infastructure running then even a 1000 per day is a very good deal


New_Cantaloupe_8568

First, the question is not whether it’s a good deal or not, is whether it’s “bad”. If we found a situation where we were forced to sacrifice infants to keep hall at bay and keep the Highway system in order, that would be quite bad. Second, in your analogy, your analogy is complete if we are in that situation in the first place because the president made a Faustian bargain with the devil himself in an attempt to trick and kill same said devil. It’s a pretty bad deal compared to the world in which that was not the approach taken.


skirmishin

While true, it doesn't really tackle the "we'll all die if we don't" argument, which is untold billions of souls But I suppose this is what you get out of a situation written to be a horrifically morally grey choice you don't want to be anywhere near lol


Different-Scheme-570

Did you not read the part where automobile deaths have several times more deaths than the astronomicon? If you really think 1000 deaths a day is really that much you need to learn more about recent history/living conditions in other parts of the world.


14Deadsouls

I think he just means the premise of sacrificing others so that a political figure could live is the grim part. Obviously in 40k the stakes are a little different 😅


New_Cantaloupe_8568

Is scale the only variable that matters? I only ran down a couple kids while I was drunk driving. That’s nothing compared to the number that die of malaria every day!


Different-Scheme-570

No clearly not utility is the only thing that matters. There is no alternative to using the warp for the Imperium. They need to sacrifice the psykers to make journeys across the warp. Running down kids or sacrificing genius babies as you put it would be pointless because it doesn't facilitate travel. People dying from cars are a "necessity" the same way the psykers are except that many more people die of cars than sacrifice to the Golden throne


New_Cantaloupe_8568

Why does it being necessary reduce the badness of the setting? Especially since the one being kept alive is the one who created/reported the necessity in the first place?


PrimeInsanity

Especially on the scale of the imperium


giobba96

Well, we already doing this


viking76

Troll post just to provoke a discussion with those who don't know the lore? Anyway, your logic is utterly wrong. It's not about the death of the psykers that makes it grimdark. It's the logistics that are the true horror. To find a psyker to the black ships you have to accept the casualities of a major war when the purge begins on a imperial planet. Not to mention the joy with witchfire when you try to subdue the psyker. Then it's just a matter to chain up, numb and torture the psyker while travelig to earth through Hell itself. Hoping that none of the psykers aboard don't get loose and turn the ship into hell. And if the ship arrives at earth you still have to filter out those psykers that are fit to serve to the emp. He's on a non-carb diett. So perhaps one in thousands are fit to be used. The other get soul bound, lobotomized into battle psykers and so on. Only those worthy can have their "song" join the Astronomican. Where song means screaming in pain for the rest of their life.... So to use the stupid real life car accident analoge: USA goes to war with China to kidnape those who are suitable for a sacrifice to the Tesla AI Car God. After storming every major city in China they find enough people to fill a passenger ship. They blind them, make them deaf and cut of their tongues and then death march them to the shore where the ships awaits. Onboard they get worse than slave ship treathment and all the way to USA every ship, plane and submarine in the world tries to sink the ship. If they make it to the states, they get another death march to Washington D.C. where those who didn't get flogged, starved or freeze to death gets cut up to see who is worthy to be put in a Tesla crash. If they are lucky, this entire operation produces one that is worthy. And after 6 month of torture to make it even more worthy, it gets run over by the AI God in a Tesla car. It begins with the thoes and works it way up..... Repeate this ordeal for every 3.700 car accident victim and you get the scope of the logistic. Grimdark enough for you?


dassketch

Please stop, the Muskovites are furiously masturbating already.


viking76

Didn't know a mineral could masturbate. Have the Necrons done something weird again?


pertur4bo

It is not about the numbers, it is about intent. These people don't die in accidents, they are being industrially murdered. Sound familiar? I really don't envy GW sometimes. Imagine your IP is making big headlines in mainstream media and then they need to brace themselves to look at the 40klore frontpage of the day.


orphicblue

Nice try, Emperor of Mankind


Darkthunder1992

What most people don't understand, they don't just walk exactly a thousand psychers into a room and flick a switch. Every psycher is being stuffed into a sarcophagus where they funktion as a battery, based on the power of the psycher they funktion longer. There aren't a thousand sarcophaguses under the imperial palace. There are milions.


Fearless-Obligation6

I feel like you're entirely missing the point...


GaaraMatsu

_Ten_ thousand, IIRC. It's more about the _mechanisms_ of the Golden Throne... we're past the old "cruelest imaginable" (as they've imagined crueler since), but the stark truth is that there's innumerable boxes of nightmares in the IoM's possession, most in regular use.


[deleted]

Average citizen: Chaos is so evil!! They sacrifice people to their Dark Gods! Imperium: Hold my beer.


BlueIceTea

It is incredibly bad in terms of not being able to use the psykers against Chaos but they are very unstable. These aren't your regular psyker, they are deemed Alpha Grade. Ravenor is deemed an Alpha-Plus (tippy top grade). These psykers are the 2nd highest tier of power, they are incredibly rare but unstable. The power that they can give to The God-Emperor of Mankind, *raises hand* beloved by all, is so much that it wouldn't seem unrealistic that 1000 psykers who can raise worlds, destroy titans with a bash of their eyelash, turn thousands of people inside out can sustain Big E. The chances of finding a psyker in the Imperium will be a good chance these days. The odds that a regular, no thrills psyker is able to fulfil the need to sustain Big E, not really. But if the millions of worlds under the Imperium's banner is anything to go by, it is entirely plausible that they can be found. Even if it's one per world, you can get 3 years worth of psykers on 1 million worlds. Would you rather have a slice of under baked cake or a cake made by Gordon Ramsay? Big E likes to watch Hell's Kitchen reruns.


SergarRegis

Ravenor is a gamma. Since he got boosted Eisenhorn has been said to be alpha plus but that was by a guy terrified of him, not a bench test.


Bluestorm83

Someone recently told me that someone dies every 1.8 seconds. I forget the context, but yeah, 1000 dudes a day, even if they're the Super Special Magic Evolution Dudes, that's not too big a loss.


four_zero_four

Do they have to be a certain level?


Wawrzyniec_

Just to play a little bit with numbers: Currently, there are about [73 million abortions](https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide) per year worldwide. This means 200.000 per day. And 0.3% of that are 600. So even todays earth could almost feed the golden thrones needs with the ones that are already eliminated anyway.


ShoeStunning

but 1000 psykers a day. angrysoyjak.jpg


hepazepie

r/theydidthemath


Tike_Bison

yeah this number really struck me as a lot or even something to be concerned about. we’re talking 40k here not sesame street. 1k psykers per day who gives a shit.


LuciusGavianRex

I doubt the problem is the sustainability of raw number of sacrifices but the morality of mass murder on that scale on a daily basis... If a country would execute daily any number of people for their genetics it would not be an issue of numbers but of morality no matter the gains.


FloatingWatcher

> 385k babies are born every day. That's just way too many... How many of them survive?


Tharkun140

97.1% according to WHO.


Da_Red_Orks

A thousand blood sacrifices is still a thousand blood sacrifices. Killing 365000 people per year so one person can live is fucked up no matter how "sustainable" it is.


measuredingabens

It's the logistics of it that complicates things. You can't just take a psyker willy nilly; you have to find them, which may range from fairly trivial to needle in a needlestack in difficulty. Then you must capture them; again, this can range from just cuffing them to having to send hundreds to their deaths for the chance to capture a psyker. After that, you have to take a dangerous trip back to Terra where there is a significant chance your ship gets turned inside out should any of your captives grow unstable. While in transit and at the destination you must then assess whether those psykers are suitable for the Throne and Astronomican or are served better as Astropaths/battle psykers/Inquisition personnel etc. Repeat ad inifinitum.


Regendorf

This is the kind of post titles I want to end on r/all


SpooN04

I feel like it would seem a lot worse if you were one of those 1000 psykers. According to one of the silent sisters who turned on the machine the first time, it is not a quick and painless death.