40K - ZOMBIE FORMS -XENOLOGY | Warhammer 40,000 Lore History

[Music] [Music] within three days the entire hive's population was reduced to during mined slaves within three weeks an entire continent was at war and all because the governor thought his family should be exempt from the psyche cull and refused to give his daughter to the black ships [Music] within the often bizarre and dark galaxy of the 40k verse we often will imagine the realm known as the immaterium the sea of souls the warp as being that most terrifying of places where humanity's collective nightmares become manifest but as many will know it is far more than this for within the warp like entities of strange and ancient danger dark consciousness and energy capable of reaching out into our material space such energy may be passive and incoherent or focused and used with intention one of the features we see as a result of this crossover between a realm of the immortal and the galaxy of the living is the ability by which corpse mata may become re-animated or even restructured to fit the will of immortal beings our fragile mortal shells are easily able to be distorted moulded ruined or enhanced by the energies of the war and often are able to be kept in a state of extended animation however not all bizarre oddities such as these originate from the warp others are caused by strange zenith diseases which unsurprisingly exist in a galaxy of a million worlds and these pathogens are also able to affect dead flesh into animated matter or living healthy matter into diseased rot before the victims surrender their life energy but the shell remains carrying the last threads of their life force finally of course we have humanity itself because we are always so great at creating horrors to torment ourselves with and in fairness may not be seeking to necessarily literally reanimate the dead such a thing would most certainly be bordering on the heretical but as usual it's a gray definition and so many human factions will certainly do all they can to prevent the onset of permanent death even if this means extensive body modification or the use of strange xenos drugs to enable individuals to last far beyond their natural years most often though the goal is to keep the soul alive conscious and able to remain functional not resigned to a state of unending living death yet there exists within humanity a vast contingent of humans whose fate is precisely this and we need not wait until the section of this video to note that i'm talking of course about servitus the grotesque modified condemned used by the imperium in place of a.i we're a little more than animated biomatter blended with cybernetics existing in a mental state that can truly only be speculated upon yet it's easy to imagine there are many who exist as living minds trapped in tortured bodies until finally they disintegrate and are processed by imperial biofactories so let's begin our exploration of just a few of the various entities created by what we might loosely term zombification throughout the galaxy of the 41st millennium so we'll begin with one of the more misunderstood zombies of the 40k verse the so-called brain leaf zombies in its raw biological form the brain leaf plant has been noted as being similar to a small tree or to resemble something close to a coarse vine or ivy it is also known as the grey vine and native to the jungle world of katashan the leaves can either attach a victim passing by by just brushing against them or they can actually be thrown from the plant itself with explosive force as many plants do when ejecting seed pods and then are propelled by wing-like undulations the hanging vine variety will again hope to touch upon an upper body part and then inject its victim as close to its spinal cord as possible curiously the brain leaf possesses a form of very basic instinctive awareness and each leaf is a macro cell forming part of its utterly zenos intelligence the underside of each vine is barbed to latch on to any creatures you pass by too closely and once attached to a victim will inject similarly to jellyfish or nettles microscopic fiber bundles which break through the skin and extrude fibrous growths throughout a victim's nervous system the aim for the plant is to then take full control over its victims body so that it remains subjected to the will of the invader the leaves are said to attach so stubbornly that they are nearly impossible to remove but are said to have been ripped off but likely taking the skin of the victim with it and either way at this point it will be far too late the plant is so inimicable toward its victims that the aggressor will now have become fully embedded in their system and so they're often seen to appear now as shambling drooling vegetables which in a strange way they are for those who would not know better these may be described as these brain leaf zombies because they appear in a zombified state their movement their drive their steadily deteriorating visual appearance they are though of course not actually re-animated dead but simply infested by a hostile organism which is taking control of their brain and unfortunately there is no known way to extract the invading cells once they have become established in a host it has been speculated that there may be some way in which this is possible but this was believed to be too painful to be effective these brainly for zombies will usually stumble around the plant and actively defend it from any threat so that it may continue to grow and thrive but infestations of brain leaf have been discovered on many worlds and emergent evidence has been found that suggests the brain leaf is no true native of katashan but may in fact be a rogue mutation an evolutionary descendant of a tyranid specifically tyranid cortex leech which makes any destruction of any infestation a priority for many of the ordo zenos likely not something which would be officially sanctioned but it has been reported that katashan guard regiments will force new members to run through groves of brainleaf as a means of initiation now i wanted to give some additional thoughts about the brain leaf and when i say additional i mean my own speculative ideas about brain leaf because the amount of law around it even with the new synology book is minimal at best actually it's unfortunate that there's not been fleshed out more beyond a few paragraphs here and there over a period of now some 34 years so i submit to you my personal concept of the brain leaf is to take the official concept as described but then i would like to imagine that this went further for example brain leaf and the way it infests a nervous system before taking control of its host like a zombie sounds very similar to the spores in the game the last of us which of course was based on a fungal infection cordyceps now quadriceps is a real world thing but generally it's limited to infecting ants beetles or even spiders and very much like the brain leaf spreads through the nervous system before turning them into essentially zombies and then it breaks out of their body in harrowing fashion spreading its spores now before anybody freaks out yes fungi are not plants they're classified as a kingdom separately from plants and animals but they did used to be classified as plants until scientific methods were able to establish them separately but they still retained some morphological biochemical and genetic features shared with other organisms but other features are unique to fungi thus clearly separating them regardless of those details i think if you were going to create a horde of brainy for zombies it would be interesting to consider the process of the body eventually deteriorating becoming ever more ruined with sores bloating and plant leaf forms extruding and growing from the body itself and this need not be specifically a fungus it could still be more of a steady conversion from animal to plant to which i would reference a doctor who cereal an old one seeds of doom where near enough the exact description of the brain leaf occurs seed pods are found in the antarctic which break out with tendrils then infecting a scientist who comes in close contact and then is eventually consumed by this plant infection it actually begins affecting his thinking as well until he is finally transformed into a horrific parody of human form something between these two imaginings could also be an interesting final state for the brain leaf form and this expanded final state and process is not anything currently given to us by 40k law in itself in regards to the brain leaf which i think is a sadly missed opportunity in the recent xenology book it could have been fleshed out with at least just one extra paragraph so while this fungus cordyceps is seemingly generally limited to insects there are other real world examples of fungal infections in humans which have caused physical and mental destabilization even causing death during the period between the 14th and 17th century it's described that there were sometimes involuntary dancing epidemics groups of people behaving in very bizarre fashion which some speculated as the participants being afflicted by dangerous spirits it turns out the cause was what's now been referred to as saint anthony's fire this was a condition later discovered to have been caused by the ingestion of fungus-contaminated rye grain and this strange contamination which led to so many people becoming unwell is not something commonly discussed now but it was continually present during this period in the middle ages and has likely been forgotten about because it was eclipsed by the far more captivating black death plague now for those who ingested this contaminated rye flower they would become ill as a result of the ergo fungus and the rye grain the rye flour was a primary ingredient in bread making at this time so in the first outbreak in france nearly 20 000 people became infected and died a second outbreak 40 years later was said to have resulted in nearly 40 000 deaths now where am i going with this we seem to be far off the brain leaf well because the symptoms of sintantini's fire are intriguing dependent on how you might want to say speculatively utilize a concept of brain controlling invaders those who became afflicted by the condition were said to display two main chronic characteristics firstly gangrene and then severe convulsions more importantly within what we're thinking of it was also said to poison the mind leaving those afflicted to appear crazed and eventually blood flow for the infected became restricted causing severe burning sensations hence its name followed by eventually the extremities fingers toes hands even feet would deteriorate and seemingly fall off leaving the unfortunate victim in a terrifying state of agony not dissimilar to those suffering severe frostbite or necrosis this may sound like some horrifying 40k fictional description sadly not this was very much a real thing other symptoms were recorded as being vivid hallucinations aggressive sores nausea muscle pain and treatments at the time were very very limited again interestingly not so dissimilar from what we might see in 40k monks would use relics to give a form of divine cure the victims clearly having been affected as a result of sin of course they also fashioned various ointments meant to possess healing properties of course none of this really had any benefit and the condition only abated when wheat began to replace rye as the main grain used for flour and bread making but as i said where the hell is this all going interesting as it is well wouldn't it be good to see some kind of fungal plague epidemic on our planet creating crazed dancing mad people who then steadily enter into a state of mental decay as well as the physical before becoming consumed by this growing fungus which bursts out of the victim similarly to say the last of us although not dissimilar to some of the nurgle plagues there's enough documented evidence that humans can be affected severely by ingestion of this ergo fungus and would it be a stretch for us to imagine that the brain leaf could perhaps adapt to seed humans whereby their bodies eventually became new brain leaf plants walking brain leaf plants as they converted perhaps their bodies transitioned from animal to plant becoming plants themselves as i said similarly to that doctor who episode there's a lot of speculative room for thought and this is one of my favorite things to think on is all the strange goings on across the hive worlds of mankind where bizarre plagues break out people change their minds or become something else alien flora and fauna are something which have to be continually monitored and kept at bay so we move on from the brain leaf to a far more proactive form of contamination these so-called plague zombies or otherwise known as the curse of unbelief the reason being that this plague is spread from the darkness of the warp it is perpetuated on mankind by the dark gods of chaos most obviously the entity known as nurgle although believed to originate by the horrors of the war the plague is spread through a necrotic microorganism that physically degenerates infected individuals their skin and internal organs will rapidly rot until the moment of death and for those who lean toward the heretic it is said that within the virus small quantities of chaos energy still exists and so it is this which reanimates the victim's corpse as a zombie although believers and cults of the god nurgle would in fact tell you that the victims hear the whisper of the grandfather of plagues and it is this which triggers the final transition to reanimated corpse while the victim's life energy is released back to the warp what remains is the stereotypical human conception of the living dead the shambolic partially decaying parody of human form soft tissues shrivel early on while internal organs will decay and liquefy these will bloat the body splitting the skin in standard nurgle appearance often this skin will become pitted and marked with the three disc or three skull symbol of nurgle small clouds of flies will pupate within swelling buboes around the body bursting out to attack any would-be foes lacerating them with the tiny sharp appendages of the flies whilst bile filled maggots will burst forth and drop from the cursed beings all of this secondary to their horrifying drive to feed on living flesh driven by some deep primal instinct and so doing directly spreading the infection the physical appearance and stench of the plague zombie is truly horrifying this revulsion is as much part of the horror nergo seeks to inflict upon the living the purpose is not simply to destroy mortals physically but to make them despair emotionally and lose faith in their staunch beliefs nurgle is after all not merely the god of rot and plague but also the god of despair no many instances where nergal has sought to torment powerfully minded individuals like astartes and through the agony of the uncurable plagues lead them to a place of true despair where they resent their trust in the imperium of mankind for not saving them and will scream for the release of the agony by conversion to a minion of nurgle often this means their body becoming a conduit for some ancient demonic being the original infection of humans is often difficult to pinpoint its origins and this could well be supernatural in nature perhaps even a cult of nurgle may initiate a touch from the warp thus triggering the original origin of these cells within a hive city and the plague which the cultists would then likely attempt to readily spread as quickly as possible for the imperium this can be very problematic because like all pandemics many victims are initially asymptomatic once infected even the early stages can be hard to pinpoint the most physically obvious though is the warning signs when a victim notices their skin becoming pallid and sickly looking across the thousands of planets and hive worlds which readily have dangerous pathogens this kind of visual alteration may be seen as nothing urgent not to mention a great many citizens on hive worlds already look grey and sickly in appearance this they will then progress rapidly in the coming days as steadily they feel severe nausea and spots begin to appear in front of their eyes the most truly significant visual sign is when green colored scabs may start to appear all over the body while likely already having been infectious this is where the victim is now highly infectious and the pathogen can be spread merely by close exposure to an infected individual but most quickly through bodily fluids following this stage the likely now distressed victim's skin will become taut and hardened their veins will be bulging from the skin causing severe pain and their hair will rapidly fall out in large clumps the green scabs and general discoloration of the skin spreads as necrosis begins to accelerate the victim will now be well beyond hope of a cure and for any imperial city arbiters tasked with disease control such individuals should now be executed and burned if left alive this is the point where they can now become potentially dangerous to others as they're overwhelmed by uncontrollable cravings to inflict damage and seeking somehow healthy flesh as the disease continues to progress the victim will now become a horrifying parody of human form usually they will lose significant weight leaving them to look like skin and bones perhaps various areas of distention sunken cheeks shriveled lips necrotic skin the teeth will fall out and the mouth in general becomes rotten the skin itself will be covered in seeping pus filled boils sores and cysts large portions of the body will have rotted to a point of being fully dead tissue and may begin to detach this last sign is where the victim will usually now become an instinct driven mindless walking corpse more of their body but especially extremities will be falling apart and the entire body will now be a boiling rotten mass with wax paper dry skin torn and hanging from the bones themselves the victim will now have become a final form that of the plague zombie if the zombie plague is unable to be properly contained by imperial security and biologist forces quickly then zombies and hive slums will form into vast walking hordes and at this point they may consider some localized purge of a lower hive city where an entire sector may be considered to be burned or if there are available forces such as sororitas inquisition or other well-trained teams they may sweep the sector killing any and all they encounter including apparently living untouched citizens this in itself though is extremely hazardous given the very infectious nature of the plague zombie the real threat is not so much the physical damage able to be caused by the zombies themselves it is the mere possibility of infection because even close contact is all that is required to become the next victim and once infection has occurred little if anything can be done to prevent its progression except perhaps a miracle if your faith in the emperor is strong enough plague zombies are primarily combatted by an ordo of the inquisition known as the sepulturum and these are a small highly specialized branch of the puritan thorian ideology and they operated around the eye of terror specifically to combat the zombie plague although the plague can occur anywhere it was most heavily seen in the wake of the living chaos herald typhus formerly first captain typhon of the death guard and as a result the plague has continued to be seen more and more throughout the imperium with many worlds unfortunately having to cope with this pandemic themselves there are many branches of thorium but overall they basically as an inquisitorial ideology believe the emperor has ascended from his physical body and are so awaiting his return their focus is to bring about that resurrection thorians believe the emperor's spirit can be transferred into another hosted divine avatar so why are thorians and the auto saboteurum specifically interested in plague zombies well because thorians generally seek to study the interaction of human consciousness energy and the warp believing that if they can manipulate these energies correctly they can then channel the emperor's spirit into a suitable vessel and effectively resurrect the master of mankind it's often said that within the imperium there is no advancement of technological development or research and they're of course outliers like badasserious core but as noted the thorians could be argued as another branch of the imperium who actively research and study the mysteries of the galaxy various forms of zombie rot have been observed often the small differences in variant can be difficult to tell for inquisitors and biologists looking to study the progression it can be as simple as faster rates of infection or different means of transmission sometimes different physical effects early on usually the final result is ultimately consistent sometimes there have been strains though where for whatever reason there are stark differences one was noted within the clixa sector whereby the zombies would decay at an accelerated rate becoming rotting mounds of flesh within a day of reaching their final form as with nearly anything occurring throughout the imperium the empire of humanity is so vast that variations upon a theme are legion a rare form of zombie plague is known as the obliterator tech virus this is again a chaos-borne contagion destroying body and soul but also allowing for the psychic manipulation of technology the obliterator virus makes it possible for humans to interact and meld with machinery not only on the physical plane but also the psychic spiritual level making it another area of intense interest to the inquisitors of the ordo sepulturum another suspected variation of the plague of what are known as pox walkers now similarly to plague zombies these are humans who have been afflicted by the disease known as the walking pox in this case in near enough the same process as plague zombies pox walkers are steadily infested with corruption their bodies develop large swellings of bursting boils and saws pieces of their flesh simply becoming necrotic and falling away eventually they're driven so mad with suffering that they're wrapped within the blanket of nurgle's blessing and become walking horrors unlike plague zombies though who appear to have their minds rotted away as well as their body pox walkers under the blessing of nergal are believed to keep the victim's mind largely intact trapping it within the mortal form which is now ruined nurgle is often seen to apply this torture to mortal victims keeping their soul attached to the body when by all ordinary rites they should have died and the soul left and transitioned to the warp instead nurgle keeps the human soul confined to the shambolic putrefying body so its victim might enjoy its delights pox walkers are also said to stagger forth looking for victims to feast upon similarly to plague zombies however pox walkers display other traits that zombies do not in that they often grow and burst forth new forms like horns limbs and other oddities this is more similar to nurgle's most prolific plague known simply as the rot or nurgles rot so pox walkers sit somewhere in between plague zombies and plague bearers a more advanced form of mutation and decay and all together a more demonic form pox walkers are also shown to retain a more coherent form of simple sentence allowing them the use of basic weapon types and also on mass they will wail and roar with such disturbing power it's said to even damage the souls of nearby mortals the one common trait between all the zombified reanimated forms of the dark powers is that in small numbers they can be readily dealt with even by standard pdf or guardsmen but if they form a large horde upon a hive world this could number the thousands or even the millions and this is a situation which is going to become very quickly highly problematic and in severe cases could even threaten the hive city or the planet and warrant exterminatus this is why it is always essential that the inquisitors of the autohereticus and ordo sebaltorum are continually hunting down outbreaks of plague to purge it wherever it is found before it can take a grip upon worlds of humanity referenced as first having been seen on the world of thermia 5 the sepulchrally ash worms are a bizarre form of zenos the planet itself was said to be a cemetery world a vast mausoleum containing thousands of mass graves of the imperium the guardsmen stationed upon the world had been said to hear rumors of bizarre ashen worms within these graves that they had seen burrowing around the surface and generally some disturbances occurring some speculated that these were even spirit forms in nature ghosts if you will and this was initially dismissed as nonsensical rumors it started to become apparent that not only were these rumors more legitimate than it first appeared but that they also were actually attacking patrols of guardsmen these vaguely described attacks became so serious that eventually the guard regiment had to be evacuated with the assistance of astartes a few members of the regiment were able to actually make the escape from thermia 5 but even they felt that they had somehow not left without being affected they reported regularly disturbed sleep and nightmares of what they were calling the sepulchrali described as being made of dust one guardsman described how they appeared as rolling ash twisting like a tornado seemingly more like a dust cloud but as they drew nearer this guardsmen could see they were in fact living creatures like worms or snakes coiled twisted through the air toward them their lasguns had no effect to the surprise of no one and the creatures were moving faster than any ordinary human could move the guard had become like a bait ball and the worms were eviscerating the edges of their retreating mass then these sepulchrales stopped and were now seemingly waiting for what the guard couldn't know the descriptions from here on are more unclear it seems that the ash worms entered the body of one or more guardsmen and then after becoming reanimated this strange dust plague seemed to spread exponentially through the guardsmen those who were now reanimated corpses were described as being part of thermia little more is known about the ashwamps of thermia only that they were able to drain the life from and then reanimate the guardsmen in very quick succession and that they were described as being nearly invulnerable to fire their studies it became clear were from the blood angels chapter and were not sent to deal with this matter but were patrolling or on route to another engagement unable to heed the distress call of the guard regiment it was only from the astartes that their descriptions simple crowley was given how or why they knew this origin is unknown one might speculate that the astartes with their vast experience in fighting xenos both during the crusade and since had experienced these horrors upon other worlds now despite many assuming that the 40k galaxy exists out of what we might consider the fantasy realm it strangely does overlap significantly in terms of magic myth and legend and seeing all manner of different species and subspecies here in the 41st millennium to that end there are within 40k sometimes creatures of legend that lend themselves to something one might consider fantastical the creature known as the rat god seems to me certainly one of those things within the under hive of hive cities we often hear about their gangs who operate within this lawless zone and we know that there are also individuals and factions who will descend into underhives for various reasons not limited to law enforcement personal gain and matters of principle one of these factions is known as the redemptionists redemptionists are basically religious extremists of the god emperor they are your extremists extremist when it comes to the imperial cult and believe in the cleansing of sin which sounds simple enough they believe for mankind to be saved it must first be purged of sin it is the means by which they enact this which are problematic and that means of doing so are basically extreme violence through usually fire and blade and by blade i mean gigantic chain swords sometimes these are the standard variant but often it's the double chain sword variety otherwise known as an eviscerator chain sword redemptionists will rarely show any clemency and will execute any they suspect of even showing a small degree of what they consider heresy in terms of the 40k meme of calling anybody a heretic who disagrees with you the redemptionists are really the purest form of this perhaps even above many inquisitors whilst they seek sin everywhere they do focus primarily on mutation psyches and then heresy the last being obviously quite a broad net by design redemptionists are tolerated so long as they contain themselves to the under hive but because of their wildly liberal use of violence to a point of bringing about a near apocalypse of violence should their cult grow in numbers for say a hive city they're usually not tolerated in the main hive itself and should they begin to encroach they will very often be contained by any means necessary often though redemptionists go on mini crusades of violence within a vast underhive especially if they suspect heretical goings-on which is nearly all the time this occurred within the hive city of necromunda a redemptionist clovis the redeemer waged a fanatical miniature crusade upon a tribe of ratskins without going off into too much detail rat skins are usually humans who exist in tribal conditions within under hives they usually have become well adapted to the conditions there and many believe they're remnants of the age of strife who never reintegrated with imperial society on some high worlds these tribal humans are speculated to have even originated from before this period perhaps even far back as the dark age of technology or even before so the story of the rat god and the redeemer clovis begins with him purging a bunch of rat skins trying to show them that their ways are heretical the rat skins obviously not very happy about this tell the redeemer that someone known as the caller will save them and sure enough the caller appears a powerful leader of rat skin shamans and he bursts forth from the ground riding atop a giant miller saw he attacks the redemptionists and tells how he will lead a campaign of vengeance against the redeemer and the hivers which the caller does soon enough by assaulting the redeemer at his own camp in the ashen wastes and freeing captive rat skins in the process of being converted to the ways of the redemptionists the redeemer discovers that the caller's power comes from what is called a blood mare stone and this is his source of great power after this incident unsurprisingly the redeemer and his entourage head for the underhive to purge the caller and the ratskins they encounter first off a psychic ally of the caller known as feron voor the emissary of karloth valois master of plague zombies and carlos had been a rogue psycho and was attempting to escape to the badlands to somewhere basically without other humans so that he was no longer to be troubled by the visions and nightmares of others but then he was set upon by plague zombies eventually unable to run from them any longer they began to consume him but he found as a psycho he was able to control their very simple minds but having already been bitten by the plague this was now afflicting him and he found that he was somehow able to absorb the small amount of life energy remaining in the plague zombies and used this to stave off death from the plague by some bizarre turn of fate this neuron plague had altered carlos powers and those abilities he had first used to save his life he now found he could use to a much greater extent he could control the minds of plague zombies within a distance heightening or lessening their hunger even focusing what little sense of self they still possessed in order to make them more efficient and lethal killers more than this he found that he could now drain the life force from any living thing and absorb it into himself and that this was his only form of sustenance now he was essentially a life force energy vampire he would be forced to prey on the living in order to survive and while he had been lying near death at the hands of the zombies he had sensed what lay beyond he had sensed an eternity of darkness filled with unimaginable torment and ceases terror and he vowed that he would never let death take him this is relevant to pharaon war and the redeemer because of war who encounters of edema reveals that not only can they draw life from others but they have discovered they can also use this to reverse the death process vore drains the life from several of his men to then reanimate a monstrous mutant rat the giant undead rat which he tries to then use to kill the redeemer but voa ultimately is the one to perish as the redeemer escapes and throws feronvor into the jaws of the giant mutant rat which then stumbles off into the underhive after crushing him into pieces eventually the redeemer and caller's forces come to meet resulting in a massive battle the caller rallies specifically a great force of rat skins mutants and even one of the necromander's rare gigantic spiders known as the bloodmare spider and it becomes clear this is where the caller is getting his power as the bloodmere stone appears to be an eye of one of these great giant spiders upon seeing all of this the followers of the redeemer are suddenly losing their zeal for this final battle but the redeemer gives his entourage a powerful drug to drive them into a frenzy and they hack and slash their way through the heretics the redeemer then attempts to destroy the giant bloodmere spider but finds its psychic energy shielding from its eyes prevents him from killing it despite him stabbing it directly through the head eventually he's able to use his sword embedded in the spider's head to drive the gigantic spider forward into a final battle with the caller who sits atop the giant rat god the redeemer riding this gigantic spider which tragically does kill the giant rat god to the astonishment of the caller the redeemer then is able to finally kill the bloodmare spider driving his chainsaw deep into its brain and unleashing a massive psychic shock wave finally the redeemer battles the caller and is able to kill him by dislodging the bloodmare stone from the chest of the caller leaving him dead with a thrown axe in the chest but near death the redeemer has vestigial visions of the bloodmere spider itself but with his faith and redemptionist zeal is able to fight off the psychic visions of the spider when one of his servants appears to have been mentally captured by the power of the stone he destroys it this servant malakev is subsequently converted into a scribe servitor and will spend the rest of his existence writing down the tales of the redeemer well obviously this is a singular instance and not a widespread occurrence this tale is interesting on many levels but the reanimation of a gigantic rat god is surely one of the more fantastical and exciting stories within the 40k verse it's a very refreshing change from space marine smash xenos for myself one of the aspects of 40k that i truly enjoy is the more human angles within the hive cities the tasks imperial guard must carry out and other human forces like the sororitas and inquisitorial campaigns the redeemer is a comically extreme character as well faith and redemption he literally bleeds for and there is never any doubt as to his course of action or its righteousness [Music] enslavers are truly one of the most feared and mysterious blights upon humanity for many worlds of the imperium they are now completely unknown for others they exist as dark myths and fables of terrifying horrors able to cruelly enslave the minds of mortals and turn entire worlds into anarchy and harrowing zombification enslavers will especially target but are not limited to psyches they're mentioned very infrequently but are believed to be more ancient than many warp entities and have possibly existed as far back as the war in heaven the galaxy ruining war between the old ones eldar and the qatar necron alliance the old ones having now created new races exhibiting powerful psychic powers to battle the nightmarish world ending kittan unwittingly would via these early psychic creations like the eldar disrupt the previously calm immaterium their psychic experimentations as well as perhaps their bright and vivid dreams would fill the blank canvas of warp space with creatures that would eventually violently make themselves present in real space seemingly at the time one of the most powerful of these were the enslavers they would dominate enslave if you will using the collapsed and transmuted bodies of psyches as portals and this would then allow more of the warp entities into real space and these warp entities will become one component with the downfall of the old ones as their creations fell victim to the command of enslavers and instead of being at all to destroy the katan the old ones found themselves hamstrung and fighting nightmarish entities they had not anticipated despite their vast wealth of knowledge however these early times were extremely clouded to us it's not really clear just at all how these events played out with any specificity what we can be relatively sure of is that these warp entities breached the material space and wrought a terrible horror upon its inhabitants because we saw this occur in comparative time to the war in heaven relatively recently for the enslavers are said to have emerged from the warp yet again to reap humanity consuming exploiting the inexperienced early psyches of mankind during the warp storms of the age of strife the warp storms war with the men of iron and finally plagues of enslavers brought the downfall of humanity's golden age and sent us spiraling back to an era of proto-technology or in many cases worse in this time the only worlds who were spared this appeared to have been worlds which retained their advanced thinking and so were open-minded enough to allow early psyches to experiment and did not judge them for this so these psyches were seemingly able to then resist what breaches more effectively or on the other side of the spectrum worlds where their views were so conservative and extreme that any small deviation was seen as being witches and corrupt and so those exhibiting psychic abilities were quickly purged and executed for example on night worlds for the rest of humanity that had either deteriorated to a point where they were not really paying attention or were simply not really aware of psyches the damage would be severe how exactly enslavers steadily corrupted the minds of their victims is not entirely clear often they will retain their mental abilities for everyday activities up to a point where the enslaver then consumes them body and soul they may begin to display unusual traits not befitting the character of that person anybody familiar with them will likely become aware that something is not quite right with them they may present behavior and characteristic like a short temper dealings that seem selfish or ignorant of former associations as well as considerable fatigue enslaver controlled psyches will work with stealth and usually subconsciously to further the enslavers ultimate goals which is nearly always the opening of warp gates to enable more enslavers into real space once present in the material world enslavers can psychically enslave or possess even non-psychos whose minds will then be readily consumed it should be noted though the term non-psycha is something of a misnomer as it's now believed that the vast majority of humans have at least a level of psychic registration that would classify them above the phrase non-psycho it's simply that most humans are not powerful enough to exhibit any real abilities nor are they dull enough to be classified as nulls or blanks this passive latent psychic ability is believed to be one of the reasons why chaos is so attracted to humanity for within the galaxy humanity now exists as nearly the only species capable really of generating the mental fuel that gives the beings of the warp all that they require many xenos races either have little to no psychic connection to the warp or if they do it's in such an alien way that the forces of chaos could not really hope to corrupt them and use them in any practical sense enslavers though exist outside of the darkness of chaos and so operate on an entirely different motivation which is seemingly at least from the outside very basic animalistic drives feeding and propagating themselves if left undetected enslavers may eventually be able to take control of an entire hive city and then begin to spread to other hives on a planet this is obviously a critical situation if this were able to be detected in time the imperium may be able to salvage a situation with the destruction of a single hive city still no small matter but the alternative is far worse enslaved subjects usually bear no outward appearance of their domination but after time the lack of proper care and nourishment leaves them sick and desiccated though this could be a side effect of the alien oppression once an enslaver infestation has begun it's very hard to stop and soon thousands of the horrific creatures are breaching the warp binding millions to their will and dooming the planet while their presence is still very rare there were those worlds which have seen enslavers appear are now often subjected to exterminatus as the holy ordos have had no other recourse but to unleash unrelenting death on planets only by catching the initial enslavement is there much hope for stopping an enslaver plague from claiming a world unlike other warp entities like the forces of chaos it is not clear why enslavers choose to invade real space in this way it may simply be their instinct to consume warp energy and are drawn to psyches like moths to a flame until recently it was not clear at all if enslavers were even still active in the modern era of the imperium reports of rogue traders however have recently clarified that enslavers are very much still an active and present danger in fact they're said to be increasing in how often reports of enslaver-like breaches from the warper being recorded as is always the case with singular first-hand accounts it should be viewed with some level of skepticism but an account of a wealthy hive trader drummond bears concerning similarity to what we know of enslavers drummond describes how what she saw upon a hive world of methura of voltano 6 was so disturbing she immediately fled she'd been suspicious of other traders who were seeming to scam her or sour a deal and so was observing them at distance to try and understand why people that she had known since childhood were behaving so strangely eventually tracking them to a small chapel she described a strangely sickly light both weak and bright she saw these former pseudo-family gathering in a circle slumped as if they were dead but alive she realized they were not betraying her but something far more disturbing had happened to them all she then gives us a rare first-hand account of an actual enslaver and she describes them as follows i saw the source of the light i found it hard to look at i've seen some bad stuff but these things were wrong in a way that hurt my head like pools of light hanging over the gang like glowing sacks just drifting in the air they were kind of pear shaped like massive ticks or maybe embryos but they had mandibles or tentacles or something like this dangling from their faces they didn't really have faces it was hard to make them out i could see through them maybe they had an eye might have been a mouth the tentacles were dangling from their heads they were like creatures made of light but the really awful thing the thing that made me feel sick was that they were feeding somehow on the gang as the light sacks drifted and twitched the figures below moved in time with them like they were tied to them it was death i was seeing death i knew it straight away i've never been more sure of anything those things were the demons that wait for us in the dark the things that come for us when it is our time to die and carry us to whatever lies beyond i wanted to run away but i couldn't take my eyes off the scene it was like a slow grotesque dance then as i watched it became even more awful they started breaking apart like they were melting but it wasn't just one of them the air seemed to be ripping and through the tear i could see more of the pale light and more of those things rushing forwards hundreds more it took me a few seconds to realize the awful sound i could hear was me screaming the spirits turned in my direction one of them rushed across towards me i turned and sprinted into the darkness but as i ran i felt the light into my head it was like fire filling my skull you could feel it taking over my limbs slowing me down commanding me to halt but then by dumb luck i fell from a gantry in the dark and dropped 30 maybe 40 feet i should have died but i landed in ash and i could see the spirit far above watching me but it was no longer in my mind it must have passed beyond its reach so i ran again never looked back i bought passage off world drummond disappeared soon after giving this description and how badly she was affected by the enslaver any long-term implications unknown [Music] lastly as nearly always when i'm thinking about the horrors that exist in the galaxy we should come back around to the imperium itself four were not terrifying enough that creatures and strange energies existing in the galaxy able to turn humans into brain dead walking corpses humanity would not be humanity if it were not already doing this to ourselves and so of course humankind has found a way to destroy the minds of its citizens and turn them into water for all intents and purposes brain dead zombies now technically the beings known collectively as servatures within the imperium are not in what we would generally imagine zombies to be they're usually not the reanimated dead rapidly decaying infectious seeking the consumption of the living granted however they are very usually brain dead for all intents and they are mindlessly wandering human forms often in various states of quite horrific body horror utilized by the imperium in place of advanced ai technology now humanity long ago learned that turning over its basic needs to artificial sentience was a bad plan they now rely on these strange machine-twixed human forms to carry out roles that would otherwise use robots or sentient machines relying instead on the wet wear of the human brain believing it to be less likely to rebel on mass or become bizarrely corrupted which i guess is in fact true having a brain dead zombie cyborg wandering around does seem less risky than skynet but the main sticking point is simply whether you consider a to a zombie in all honesty i would argue they're probably not but i do think they fit the casual description in that it seems the kind of thing your average person might see offhand uh hate those damn zombies as they go past and so on they also are certainly as unpleasant as the other forms of zombification usually physically unpleasant to look at very likely personal hygiene not high on the agenda and usually servatures are only operational until their body deteriorates which given the stress it's placed under during its surgical conversion and subsequent regular injections of drugs and chemicals it's no surprise either that after a time the biological elements of a servitude will degrade and become mush at which time there are no shortages of criminals and condemned heretics to then take their place there are endless variations of serviter of course within the imperium hive cities will contain often millions of servitors and they may be used in battle or for just menial day-to-day tasks battle servitors will often be equipped with some armor and they're usually entire sections of the arm and upper torso that are grafted with huge weapons like heavy bolters or heavy flamers and as i discussed recently some will be converted by the mechanicus into the cataphron battle servitors wielding tracked tank like lower halves and powerful gravity weapons severters often used in holy duties by astartes in the ecclesiarchy there are endless services in maintenance and repair especially in conditions that are hazardous and then there will be more academic servitors used for study documentation recording of information and archiving they'll often be used on imperial ships imperial industry and so on the uses are really endless the real question when it comes to servitus though is surely more of an ethical one and obviously ethics not particularly high on the agenda for the imperium but for ourselves we might consider this so many servitudes are in fact grown for the purpose they're not truly never human or sentient in the royal sense as they will have never had a real mind to begin with they're really just animated simple flesh matter designed for integration with machines many others though of course will have been originally human and through a series of bad choices somewhere along the line found themselves strapped to an operating table ready to be dismembered and their mind wiped for memory and conscious thought or you hope anyway so a server to zombies by any other name they are generally mindless semi-organic robots possessing only the most basic of instincts the only thing is noted is that they don't seek to infect others and cause them necessarily harm however they do deteriorate and many after their minds are altered will go berserk lashing out at anything and anyone or due to their altered quite often damaged brain of a servitor they may operate poorly unless constantly monitored and even physically supervised many servitors will eventually go into a state of mind lock babbling incoherent nonsense as the servitude tries to assert some form of control over its functions which all feels to me very zombie-like while servitus are clearly an established part of the imperium they remain a disturbing visualization of the state humanity has fallen into in the 41st millennium very often in fiction we see the idea of being a zombie is something incomprehensible terrifying even to ordinary humans to exist after death and to remain only as a shambolic horror bereft of all human dignity no matter how you may want to define the specifics of zombification it seems to me that the imperium state sanctioning of cybernetically augmenting the condemned and turning them into brainless drones is in some ways more horrifying than it occurring by plague or just dark deception as is often the case for me in 40k the true horror is not necessarily the end result but it is the willful intention that gets you there at all the imperium is more than comfortable it seems we're turning human form into these shuffling horrors and that seems far more disturbing to me than a pathogen xenos or warp powered process of reanimation [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Luetin09

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Keywords: Gaming, Discuss, Channel, Future, 40K, Warhammer 40K, Imperium, Humanity, Mankind, Doom, Fall, Space Marines, Heretic, Heresy, The Emperor of Man, Lore, History, Guide, Warhammer 40000, Warp, Immaterium, Rift, War, Slaughter, Horror, Nightmare, Tabletop, Inquisition

Id: oGOR-_K4vX4

Length: 53min 46sec (3226 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021