40K's MOST INSANE & POWERFUL WEAPONS [Part One] | WARHAMMER 40,000 Lore/History

[Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] now it's been a while since we did a list of things videos so it seemed very obvious to me we should create some devastation by delivering a video looking of course at some of the most insane weapons in 40k how many choices are there several and i've tried to pick a mix of both the obvious the interesting and the contentious and as always this ended up being much longer than i thought and this is why this will be part one of probably an ongoing series within the galaxy of 40k the unending conflicts mean there is no shying away from weapons capable of annihilating entire planets very obviously there are more options than i can cover in one video so as per usual if you want me to follow this up then you know what to do smash the likes as if it were the face of dawn and you're an angry iron warrior because as i always say the better a video does then the more of them that i'm gonna make and i definitely know that there's some of my other lists you guys want me to follow up on already either i'm not a fan of ranked lists in terms of just going from ten to one so as with all of these it's just a case of whatever i had a gut feeling of interest towards in terms of order for the purposes of this video i am considering a weapon to be anything that is simply destructive to an enemy which i also interpret to mean as being powerfully advantageous to its user so it doesn't have to be literally a physically offensive device a handheld infantry weapon or any kind of mechanical thing the key element is that whatever it is it enables destruction i'll also note that for pretty obvious reasons the eldar and necron tend to feature quite strongly when we're talking about crazy world ending weaponry but in this today i wanted to mix it up which is why we're starting with one of the most rare weapons in the 40k verse and one that has always captured my imagination the most because of its rarity and connection to the mysterious ai of humanity's golden age who have on occasion been found to still exist albeit usually lost damaged or fragmented across the vast space of the galaxy in the 41st millennium there are several instances where we have seen dark age ai unleash their firepower and when they have done so they can control seemingly almost any device owned by the imperium remotely and use weapons that are so powerful they simply collapse void shields tearing ships of the imperium apart like a children's toy now arc mechanicus are the starships of the mechanicus surprisingly and as such they often contain technology far in advance of other imperial ships they're like gigantic factoriums they're absolutely massive ships in size comparative to most other vessels although again this is somewhat vaguely defined because an arc mechanicus will contain a hive's worth of manufacturums refineries power plants laboratories testing ranges chemical vats gene base they'll also be led by an exploratory of the mechanicus with the singular goal of locating fully operational and complete stcs and that is a standard template construct it's worth noting also as an aside that when we speak about stc this is never usually clarified but an stc is still somewhat vague just in its definition as well because from what we know an stc refers to something akin to a dark age of technology ai coupled with what would be a constructor element and this is what would enable these ancient zenith pieces of human technology to create almost anything imaginable from world-ending weapons to vaccines able to cure any and all diseases for mankind but the dark comedy of this search by the mechanicus is of course the fact that it is arc mechanicus themselves which actually appear to be in fact the stc that they are searching for as we learned from the forges of mars series this is the speculation of archmages kotov who realized by his interactions with the ship's machine spirit that it actually appears to be an intact sdc and is just hidden as part of the ship that in fact the machine spirit and potentially other machine spirits have a.i hidden within them which has long been something of a contentious speculation but it's simply that when it comes to the machine spirit that ability to connect in with it and understand it is just so far outside of the reach the mechanicus is understanding they don't have the ability to connect with the ai at that level so that's actually this very interesting prospect as another aside here that ai may actually exist within the imperium they're just unable to really be aware or understand how that works or even interact with it because they're operating on a whole other level so that's a kind of real curiosity but specifically in the first book priests of mars kotov is able to connect with this latent ai contained within the arc mechanical ship the spiranza and he notes as he deep dives into the gigantic ship's machine spirit his observations where he says he's seeing systems flicker past his flood stream that were as alien to him as anything that the most secretive xenotech might dream of in his fevered nightmares and technological echoes of machine spirits that surely predated the imperium itself power generation that could harness the galactic background radiation to propel ships beyond light speed weapon tech that could crack open planets and event horizon machines and had the power to drag entire star systems into their light and time-swallowing embrace all this and more dwelled here ancient data forgotten law and locked vaults where the secrets of the ancients had been hidden in this one fleeting glance kotov realized that he had been a fool to drag this proud starship into the howling emptiness of space in search of hidden secrets the spiranza was the greatest secret of all and in its heart it held the truth of all things the key to unlocking all that the mechanicus had ever dreamed yet that knowledge was sealed behind impenetrable barriers bound in the heart of the mighty vessel for good reason the knowledge of the men of gold and their ancient ancestors was encoded in its very bones enmeshed within every diamond helix of its structure so this sporanza ai interaction is actually something which raises a lot of questions that i don't have time to get into now but i will happily discuss in the future it gets pretty heavy and very speculative as to just at what level this kind of dark age tech actually exists and that perhaps in fact does not even require what we would consider to be a physical system to continue existing which goes towards this glimpses of the sum total of knowledge that koryo zeth had hoped to achieve the point is though that the sprenzer's ai or stc whatever you want to call it aids the mechanicus who are being attacked by eldar ships they have little to no chance of success and are facing destruction and this is where we see the true power contained in these relic weapons from the dark age of technology i should note these are not available generally to be used by the imperium because they are only seen to be used by a cooperative aistc as in other instances a demonstration of its power in fact the sprenzas machine spirit ai stc whatever helps simply to flex its technological muscle not because it actually cares for the mortal insects that it happens to be cohabiting with this is one of the main reasons i love weapons from the dark age of technology because not only are they completely insane but usually the context of their operation is often just a grumpy machine spirit sdca who helps out just because it's basically like okay you've done mortal things i'll save you just this one time so when the mechanicus ship begins to activate its weaponry most of the mechanics on the ship end up suddenly becoming very fearful a little panicked standing in all of this ship essentially becoming self-wear and operating without this input all sorts of devices and lights and inputs and displays are lighting up all over the ship that have never operated before the mechanicus are freaking out because they don't know what the hell is going on when the imperial ships supporting the arc mechanicus finally have their vessels converge on the eldar they open fire but it is the spiranza that demonstrates the true power of the dark age of technology gigantic gun tubes rise out of the superstructure either side of the mechanicus vessel that had never seen before on a heavy rail systems the power systems being displayed to the crew are beyond anything they're even able to comprehend or have seen since the unification or prior too and twisting arcs of energy are wrapped around the gun barrels the spiranza opens fire without any notification or warning to the mechanicus crew and a silent pulse is directed at the eldar ship at the speed of light however even this was not enough to see any catch the eldar vessel which is able to navigate away slightly and it instead hits their stern and here a miniature black hole appears at that pointed target and begins dragging the eldar ship into its destructive gravity swell the eldar vessel unable to escape and its fate then compounded by a secondary temporal effect that is unfathomable to the mechanicus observing all of this play out the xenoship was then afflicted by this deadly energy wave sweeping across it which was shifting it a nanosecond into their past forcing identical neutrons into the same quantum space the arc mechanicus ship essentially had forced the eldar ship to occupy the same space in time as itself at a molecular level and the resulting energy released by this was obviously apocalyptic the elder vessel would explode as it was from within whilst ghostly images of itself appeared to flicker like an overlaid image blue flames spewing from the psychic race bone as the vessel tries to somehow tear itself away and out of these incomprehensible forces its strange distorted appearance came back into a solid view again trying to rip itself away other imperial vessels are then firing upon the eldar ship and finally it collapses in on itself it was described as a cannibalistic storm of self-immolation it was very difficult within all of this carnage for the imperials to tell whether the eldar ship had survived or not despite enduring this devastating display of just what humanity had once been capable of had they been able to remain in full control of the ship's firepower and hit the eldar ship directly it seems that there's no doubt it would have caused certain destruction but it's clear enough that based on this and other references humans from the dark age of technology had access to power far beyond the comprehension of those in the current imperium we know they had experimented with and built a ship capable of traveling through time as well as apparently using this knowledge to create weapons that seemingly were able to harness the ability to use the power of dark energy to in fact fire black holes and temporal energy waves at their enemy which might sound crazy enough except that this brings us nicely to our next weapon now when coming to the second choice i've opted for a zenos choice with the most arrogant species in the galaxy the eldari or the eldar in our filthy low gothic tongue specifically eldar d weapons distortion or displacer displacement cannons the eldar use various iterations for their range of weaponry they're also referred to as wraith cannon because they're used by eldar wraith guard and wraith knights the d weapons of the eldar are also one of those devices that do not walk the boundaries between law and tabletop gaming very easily because they are similarly to the mechanicus weapons absolutely insane but they do fit very well within the eldar's advanced knowledge and incessant need to tinker with warp based things so just what are ld weapons well you will i hope remember my video discussing vortex grenades and in general vortex weapons these are imperium weapons that when thrown will tear a hole in real space either shredding their enemy with gravitic power or dragging them into the warp itself and all the horror that such a nightmarish fate entails so keeping that as well as the arc mechanicus we just discussed in mind ld weapons basically fire vortex portals they're actually fairly close to how the dark age stc uses its ancient weapons from the arc mechanics the difference being that the eldar still use these regularly and also have made them basically infantry scale handheld rifles which is completely insane now given this it's why i say that they are pretty hard to balance between law and tabletop because distortion weapons shoot a kind of beam or directed pulse that tears open reality at a focus point and anything touched by or within that space should near enough then be torn to pieces by incomprehensible forces so its only real disadvantage is that it has a fairly short range the eldar have seen fit to also mount some of these weapons on their versions of titans which you can imagine is truly a world ending piece of weaponry imperial void shields in theory should not be able to even withstand this kind of weapon the mechanicus have tried time and time again to replicate this usually inappropriately disastrous failure either annihilating all around their tests or unleashing nightmare demons into reality so i like to imagine a secure room with shielding all around it and there's some guardsmen inside being torn to pieces by corn blood letters as an impassive mechanic attack is just watching on with a small clipboard checking off a box stating study01623 unsuccessful now i hate to drag us out into the reality of the tabletop game and i rarely see a situation that requires it or for me to discuss it but please bear with me because this is probably one of the best examples and also primarily because the weapons are one of those things that kind of really irk me and i say this as a person owning an eldar army along with the mechanical design of old style assault cannons but that's really a whole other story now let's be real equating law directly to board game rules is never something that people should really think about too hard or take too seriously but i do because i apparently like to frustrate the hell out of my brain i think really it's just a little bit of fun to think these things all the way through so look on the one hand it seems an outrage that some weapons are not represented properly on the tabletop comparative to their lore descriptions on the other hand balance is a thing you probably have a hard time finding a game with an army who are shooting basically black holes at your tanks now i apologize if my voice changes here but i decided to re-record this entire section because originally i've done this very long-winded explanation about how the rules work in the tabletop game and i thought you know what this is just nonsense nobody wants to hear this the short version is that originally back in the fourth edition the ld weapons used to be more representative of how you would imagine a d weapon is because it's firing vortex or sort of warp portal tears right it would essentially wanted to hit damage an enemy very easily and then if you rolled a six it would be an instant kill regardless of how many wounds they have and wounds are basically a life force a standard marine might have one or two wounds characters are going to have more obviously vehicles will have usually a lot more wounds so the way these d weapons used to work makes a lot more sense because if you get lucky maybe if you hit it bang on it's going to completely destroy that target now yes that is very very powerful but it is more representative and you've still got to be pretty lucky to get that role however quite a while back they switched this around and it's still relatively easy to deal damage with a d weapon but it doesn't have that immense power that kind of connects with the law and now it is actually more comparable to imperial melter weapons they just have a little bit more range and that to me just seems silly you have these highly advanced nightmare weapons moderately comparable to weapons used by a dark age tech arc mechanicus yet in terms of stats on the tabletop they're classed in the same category as what is basically pimped up space marine paint stripper guns therein lies the ruination of entertainment of lore versus rules and balance there are many other examples with the single constant that the two things rarely align well now i will also note that dark eldar use similar-ish tech weapons that are dubbed as dark light or void weapons they're equally destructive and can also be dropped in the form of bombs that are called a void mines they're a two-stage weapon that will create first a bubble shield around the dropped weapon and then a dark particle of light detonates creating a catastrophic implosion destroying anything within most drakari dark weapons work on a variation of this theme and they are as i said very comparable to their eldari counterparts but ld weapons are just another example of the completely mad powerful weapons that exist within 40k and that's fairly reasonable when you consider that the eldar and the necron have existed since essentially the beginning of time so they're going to have this level of technology and understanding at this point in time then we come to blackstone fortresses which are to this day still something of an enigma and this is because they originated millions of years ago during what was known roughly as the war in heaven and this was the war that started everything originally between the old ones and the necron tier and later the old ones eldar necron and katan and there's a great deal that is very very unclear about this time as it was simply so long ago now it is said that the blackstone fortresses were known to the eldar as the talismans of var and they were used as a powerful weapon during the war in heaven against the necron katan threat however i would note that this is at least in my mind quite questionable there are large question marks over just what the eldar during the war in heaven were doing and what the necron were doing there was even some hints that at one point they cooperated against the greater enemy of the entities the early stirrings of what would become chaos now as i say this time period is very very clouded to us the eldar although they were seemingly victorious the necron had vanquished also the katan so depending on which perspective of those events you take as well and most notably is the fact that the material black stone is known to be able to either amplify warp energies or the exact opposite and nullify it and the necron tend to use black stone to this end as they have no psychic ability and so seek to nullify it at every opportunity and they continue to do this in the modern age of the imperium whereas the eldar have always had a very powerful connection to psychic power and war energy however the eldar do not display any working knowledge or use of black stone it's not a material commonly used by them because they primarily use race bone which is generated from the warp energy itself and so it's more reasonable to speculate that the blackstone fortresses were in fact created at some earlier time and that they may in fact have originated at the hands of the first race known to have inhabited the galaxy known as the old ones and this might help to explain why blackstone fortresses can discharge powerful warp energy which is known to be a very powerful weapon against the necron yet also blackstone fortresses display very little similarity with the eldar as i previously explored the nature of the eldar gods which is also extremely vague there is one possibility that the eldar gods originally were old ones sent to help and guide and marshal the eldar in the right direction so that they might best aid the old ones in their war with the necron however from the little we know about the relationship between the eldar and the old ones it soured over time and so likely the elder adjusted their mythology to suit this or projected it onto other entities within their own race or they just forgot about it and it became distorted as these old ancient tales often can it's possible that there were in fact no eldar gods at all and that it's more like their fables designed to tell the tales and the interpretation of their cultural nature of the old times help them carry forward and foster some sense of culture over the millennia regardless though the point is that blackstone fortresses origins are very difficult to pinpoint even from a speculative point of view what we can know is that they are extremely ancient likely dating back to the earliest period of the galaxy some imperial dating has suggested that they were in fact not actually as old as suggested by the eldar which would lead us to believe they were then created by some other unknown highly advanced race that is now long since extinct i think this is quite easily disproven by the fact that it was discovered later that at the center of each blackstone fortress was in fact a connecting portal to the webway now this certainly does suggest connection to obviously either the eldar but i think much more likely the old ones web way portals are not always exclusively related to the eldar but blackstone fortresses have also been seen to use technology such as void shielding and inertialist propulsion and this technology is not really used or connected to the eldar so it's strange because you have some elements which are eldar like but there are others which are completely disconnected from them and that kind of signifies that it's something else prior to them so it's difficult to make any really solid conclusions as to who created the blackstone fortresses or why or how they tie in with any specific culture or mythology the old ones are very shadowy figures to us and we know almost nothing about them or the technology they utilized beyond having some sense of psychic power they created the proto-web way and were extremely advanced in their knowledge they bested the necron tier easily and if we trust the mythical remnants of knowledge gained from the most ancient of history it was only with the help of the katan that the necron were able to overcome them so on the face of it when all that we know about blackstone fortresses are brought together it does seem the most probable scenario that they were the creations of the old ones the fact that the eldar did not see fit to then secure them later or use them in any way despite referring to them as the talismans of all suggests that they either held them with some kind of religious reverence which again points towards them having deep cultural significance for them but the fact that they didn't use them brings me to thinking that they actually were not aware of their power or even maybe how to use them or perhaps they simply feared them believing them to be sacred places of their ancient gods who can say the one thing though that we can be sure of is that they are some of the most powerful weapons ever created until recently six blackstone fortresses are known to have existed yet these are now all believed to have been lost or destroyed more recently a seventh has emerged and this further strengthens the belief that many others may still lie out there waiting to be discovered it's entirely possible they're out there hidden buried beneath a planet's surface or have been reappropriated with some world's inhabitants completely ignorant of their true nature the imperium first discovered blackstone fortresses quite late in their history during m33 and to the imperium these seem to be nothing more than vast ancient space ports of xenos origin so they were quickly secured and developed to be used as naval ports by the imperium then later during the gothic war and the black crusades of abaddon the spoiler their true purpose was revealed and their immense destructive capability demonstrated it became clear that the forces of the chaos marines had somehow uncovered the nature of the blackstone fortresses and were intent on securing these powerful weapon platforms for their own ends just how they manage to acquire this knowledge is perhaps more concerning than their ability to use them when powered a blackstone fortress unleashes immense beams of psychic warp energy powerful enough to obliterate planets and destroy entire star systems the individual power of a black stone fortress can then be linked with other fortresses to amplify and power an even more devastating beam of psychic energy and abaddon abaddon use this link power to destroy the planet of polaris 2 and then make the tarantus star turn supernova the despoiler would then also infamously use one of his acquired blackstone fortresses as a massive kinetic meteor strike against the world of cadia which ultimately brought about its downfall shattering the planet and destroying humanity's most powerful bastion against chaos and the eye of terror next we will venture into the world of the zenos again with the curious and terrifying power of the celestial orary this is a device whose origin is not entirely certain but seems most likely to be at the hands of the necron as with anything in the possession of the most ancient races of eldar and necron it is always a partial question mark as to its true origin and the reason that i note this is because as has been the case so often the celestial orally was one of those things that some may have suggested has been let's say unproven as to its actual existence now i will avoid the r word however it's worth noting that although its only previous mention was in the 5th edition it also appeared at the beginning of 8th so yet further reminding that the lack of mentioning does not equal defunct as i have so often noted so just what the hell is the celestial ori it sounds like something the ecclesiarchy not the necrons would be using well it is believed to still be located on the necron tomb world of thanatos and within this hollow planetary mass is contained one of the greatest treasures in the entire galaxy it was said to have been crafted even before the events known as the war in heaven although that depends on which war in heaven is being referenced and i'm not getting into that again right now now the celestial orale is in fact a hologrammatic web which displays not just a star system or a region of space but the entire galaxy itself in exacting detail in fact it is exacting intricate and records the position of every star throughout the entire galaxy in real time however there is a very disturbing and darker side to the orare for it is not merely an astro navigational tool the information around its operation is very vague but it is said that by utilizing the orally these lights can be extinguished and by doing so their physical counterpart star will turn supernova far before its time they bring fire and total annihilation to any world contained within its galactic vicinity you may think to yourself how did the necron acquire this power and why do they not use it to destroy their enemies far more readily again this is somewhat unclear however it is worth noting that around the earliest time in the galaxy of the war in heaven you had the old ones the early eldar the necron tier and these were some of the most powerful figures this was before even when the katan began to appear they all at this time had knowledge far outside the realm of what those in the imperium can imagine today and much of their lost knowledge could only be described as being like pure magic to mere mortal humans now the celestial ori is said to be such a powerful tool and weapon that even the necron understand that it cannot be used recklessly in fact this is actually one element of the necron they are actually very careful about their extreme power and how they manipulate things because for any star being obliterated it will upset the wider forces throughout the galaxy the necron as we know do tend to look at things on a very very long time scale due to their relatively immortal nature so from our perspective what might appear something that would bring them gains in the short term might be seen to them as not actually achieving much or being worthwhile and in fact actually being much more counterproductive for them in the long run to utilize the celestial auri correctly requires not just destruction but very careful manipulation of the cascade of forces that are caused as a result of this and it will take considerable skill and knowledge to rebalance that disruption as well as thousands of years in continual precise micromanagement and there are necrons who spend all of their time doing this so if you were to believe that it existed at all the ori continues to exist as a very grave danger to any who do not exist as animated shells of living metal and who seek to outlast those made of flesh and organic matter it is a weapon and a tool both providing an incalculable power to the necron as it gives them not only powers on par with the gods of ancient mythology but also a very strategic tool to observe any imbalances in the galaxy indicate problems that they may see as needing to be resolved trezen the infinite was able to use it to this end and it was how he learned of the deteriorating fate of cadia the most strange thing about the aurorae is it exists not merely as a map but it in fact appears to as i say be a literal reflection of the galaxy in real time mirroring its changing state both in the natural order and displaying events created as a result of some unwarranted forces such as the darkness of the warp and chaos or the unrelenting apathy of the imperium the celestial ori is perhaps the last of the truly powerful relics of the galaxy's most ancient history but who knows what else lies out there in the darkness are waiting to be uncovered or rediscovered my last choice for today is something less direct less physically tangible because they're more to do with how a small spiritual starting point can have massive and powerful consequences because not everything in the 41st millennium is about weapons that can obliterate entire planets now firstly we know that one of the most pervasive forces wielded by the dark entities within the warp is its power to corrupt but what exactly does that mean well i wanted to include this choice as a powerful weapon of chaos because i think it is commonly underestimated or simply not thought about correctly in my experience of seeing people talk about or question why it is such a bad thing for example i have often seen the question posed why does the inquisition focus so heavily on rooting out possible chaos corruption or the other one you often see is why would they kill ordinary humans that have just been exposed to chaos surely they have done nothing really wrong if anything they might now be better suited to fighting chaos in the future right well the answer is sure that is possible however the risk of contamination from chaos is far more dangerous than the benefit of some imperial guard or citizens chanced surviving an interaction with chaos i'll also note that one other thing which is a little more confusing is the contradiction that often notes how many humans have no idea that chaos even exists and that's often stated in a fairly blanket term this one tends to really confuse people because many would just argue well how can that possibly be true when the imperium has faced so much chaos over millennia now on the face of it this seems really implausible the answer is really pretty simple to my mind and i'll note this is my own speculative interpretation the way i think of ordinary imperium citizens and their knowledge of chaos is framed in several ways firstly if you are a citizenry on a world that is actively suffering regular chaos incursion or assaults like for example kedia then yes they're certainly more likely to have some knowledge of chaos however the caveat there is that this is probably not what you're thinking of their knowledge is probably considerably more vague and more about them just being dark horrors monsters enemies of mankind it certainly wouldn't be very very specific or to the depth of understanding that we have by the functionality or the meanings of chaos it's also very likely on worlds where there is exposure to elements of chaos that is unavoidable there will probably be a very high degree of monitoring of the population by ecclesiastes inquisitional agent to ensure that things do not get out of hand but okay then what about other worlds well depending on the location of a world it is indeed possible that they may simply never have heard about chaos or if they did it would be very much the stuff of myth and legend and stories from travellers things that were very very questionable and many people would just dismiss out of hand certainly not anything to give too much credence to it's worth remembering some worlds during the emperor's crusades truly believed astartes to be something like angels of the emperor so ordinary citizens are very easily confused about the otherworldly things that they encounter and this can work obviously to the benefit of the imperium because should a world encounter or see something strange that is chaos related it would be relatively easy for agents of the imperium to perform basically a cover-up cover story to appease the baffled curiosity of the citizenry in essence they would turn and say to them that's dangerous thinking guys you better stick to your work lastly we should remember that a very high percentage of the imperium citizenry live within hive cities and those people live very very insulated lives within those hive cities yes there were always going to be tales and stories of the bizarrity of the galaxy or even goings on down in the underhive but considering they are basically contained within very heavily regulated monitored concentrations of imperial power where many people have not even seen the true light of day it's reasonable to assume that their access to knowledge about their goings on in the galaxy and its weird xenos threats is very very limited now with all of that said how then does the corruption of chaos pose such a danger to the imperium if so much of its citizens are ignorant of it and there are many safeguards in place how can it be powerful it's surely fairly ineffective you might think so but the problem with the corrupting force of chaos is that it is very very subtle just like any contagious spread the biggest problem is that by the time you have noticed its effects being observable and want to take strong action it has already spread so much that it becomes difficult to contain and this is what the inquisition primarily works against constantly to identify the spread of chaos corruption before it becomes an unsalvageable situation so just how does chaos corruption work how does it happen and what are its consequences now i have to be careful here because this can very easily spiral into a long long explanation so for the purpose of this i will try and summarize the most basic and biggest problem with chaos corruption is that you do not necessarily even have to interact with literal chaos entities to become corrupted this is why it is so pervasive and so problematic the other problem is that you for example may not even be aware that you're being corrupted by chaos and because it's such a subtle and gradual change it's not entirely dissimilar to how inquisitors will shift from being puritan to radical it doesn't happen instantly it's a vague thing which happens over time and that you may not even be aware of it's not exactly the same as that but you know just talking about it in principle on the other hand despite saying that one of the most direct methods for corruption is still yes through literal engagement if a guardsmen were in battle with chaos demons and happens to catch one's gaze their mind could disappear into the dark depths of the void and the seeds of corruption will contaminate their spirit on the surface they would appear totally normal but inside the seeds of darkness are already beginning to eat away at their soul it could be months or even years before the fruits of this corruption burst forth and form some dark cult back on a world or within the bowels of an imperial ship but this is one reason why for ordinary humans who have close contact with demonic entities are usually and sadly culled by the inquisition yet the same is not so for astartes who may be investigated as they are more readily able to withstand deep interrogations they may also then be mind-wiped and this may seem harsh but do remember that most astartes have their former lives mind wiped already when they first become astartes and so they may actually go through several mind wipes over the centuries and this will undoubtedly alter them in problematic ways but they will also retain elements of their personal character and remember skills and experiences does every single encounter with chaos mean summary execution no if you were say a guardsman fighting on a world and your operating support vehicles or engaged in continual long-range engagement there's probably going to be no need for these guardsmen to be cleansed by the inquisition or designated arbiters however would a squad of human fighters who have been overrun by chaos entities or for example chaos marines and then they survive the chances are unless they are a very important squad who may qualify for a lesser mind wipe are going to be rounded up and executed and as sad as that is it's just the way of the imperium and there is also fair reason for doing this if you're an inquisitor and you're considering the big picture in the galaxy why would you spare 10 100 1 000 guardsmen when the fate of a planet containing hundreds of billions of citizens could be put at risk by allowing them to live for those who monitor and attempt to protect humanity from the threat of chaos corruption they understand that the lives of the few pale comparative to those many within the hive cities and it goes even beyond that imagine if just one human who has a corrupting encounter with a chaos demon or entity or whatever is allowed to survive and return to a hive city it could be years later that a cult eventually brings down or heavily disrupts the hive and then an extensive purge must occur it's not only the issue of direct corruption in its spread but then the knock-on effect it can have and potentially create so again it's why yes it may seem cruel for the inquisition to choose execution of loyal humans who have served to the best of their ability but it is simply a necessity as the quote says some may question your right to destroy 10 billion people those who understand realize that you have no right to let them live the point of this being that from the inquisition's point of view it is not even a choice to be made it is simply a necessary action that cannot be questioned so how can you be corrupted by chaos well for one thing rogue cycles are still a big problem for the imperium if they go undetected and start experimenting with their powers it's very possible that they could become corrupted without even realizing it or far worse allow themselves to become a conduit for entities of the warp to breach real space and cause untold damage and this is of course what happened during the age of strife so it is not something to be underestimated now void shields will usually protect imperial ships from the extreme danger of traveling in warp space but you can never predict the oddities of the galaxy and so there's always the possibility that some humans might be exposed to warp energy or find themselves either mutated or with a strange alteration of character towards certain dark activities worst case scenario perhaps even being possessed again in the case of psyches who fear talking about their powers for the risk of being dragged away or worse they may decide to conceal those voices in their head the voice that's telling them what to do or how to behave all the while not realizing that they have already allowed themselves to be infected by chaos entities we also know that emotions feed the warp but what's not commonly noted is that you have to do quite extreme things to really capture the attention of chaos entities even minor chaos entities so being a sadistic hannibal like serial killer is probably going to be leaning in the right direction to get you the attention of those in the warp and of course any number of along those lines alternative options dependent on which chaos god you are leaning toward we know for example that those suffering horrific plagues or health issues who live their days in endless agony may hear the whispers of nurgle those who seek power at the expense of all else might feel themselves being guided by zinch and so on so humans are certainly capable of just allowing themselves to become corrupted in one way or another and it's likely that those who start to feel this kind of need will associate and seek out other like-minded individuals and this is how you'll see the beginnings of a chaos cell and then a cult within a hive city now as it progresses they're going to seek out more and more extreme ways and the invasive nature of their corruption will drive them toward ever darker paths the worst outcome of this will be a cult summoning a gateway from the warp and enabling demons to pour forth onto an imperial world and this is when it may result in actually becoming lost to the darkness and a planet becoming basically unsalvageable and there are of course those who might actively seek to use the power of chaos and this is likely one of the core reasons why the emperor deemed it unwise to make humanity generally aware of what chaos was the so-called primordial truth now this term often confuses people but it's actually not that complicated the primordial truth is often spoken about by the demons of chaos or the minions of chaos and it basically just references the fact that chaos exists in the warp and also the inevitability that humanity will turn to chaos it's basically meant to be a polar opposite to what is espoused by the emperor of man so it seems that the emperor decided it probably wasn't best to tell humans whose nature tends to be all about selfish behavior and power over others that there was this invisible force that could give you basically anything you wanted as some might say unlimited power now making people aware of that seems fundamentally quite a bad option because even if not all decided to dabble in this enough could do so to the point that it might destroy humanity which is a pretty bad thing this is something of a philosophical discussion though when it comes to the nature of humans and their lack of self-control and their dangerous curiosity so maybe that'll be fun for another day but the point is though that basically chaos is all corrupting and there are so many ways for it to happen so many routes for it to reach the minds of mortals and then spread like an aggressive cancer through hive cities and imperial forces that just like a cancer the imperium treats even the possibility of it spreading with zero tolerance and again the faster they can discover it the less likely it is to cause massive damage they'll cut it out and obliterate any signs of chaos corruption because the alternative is to just invite inevitably destructive consequences that can lead to the ruin of billions of citizens even entire systems there is of course one other aspect why the corruption of chaos is so insane and also powerful which is of course that humans themselves are directly responsible for the corrupting nature of chaos because chaos is a reflection of the worst aspects of humanity and so its dehumanizing and destructive effects are to a large part self-imposed and that is one of the most crazy things about the nature of chaos that you need not actually have literal contact with demons who are able to twist your mind into the darkness no it can just happen because of human nature itself someone who is maybe especially cruel especially selfish and will allow their darkest desires to be fueled by forces beyond their control and understanding and eventually cause consequences far beyond their most foul imaginings and this is why those pervasive minimal seeds the corrupting nature of chaos is one of the most powerful most insane the highest threats facing humanity and the imperium as always guys i'll say a big thanks to you guys for supporting and watching the channel if you enjoyed please drop a like and undoubtedly there are many options here that i have not covered that you believe will be insane and powerful weapons well i already have part two well underway so stay tuned because that one will be following here on the channel very soon thanks as always i'll see you in the next one [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Luetin09

Views: 1,132,523

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: F2G1F3l-R9M

Length: 45min 1sec (2701 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020