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Rebalancing DBZ Power Levels

One of the most confusing things for dragging people truly uninterested, or somehow unexposed, to Dragon Ball (Z/GT/Super) is the concept of power levels and how scaling works. In short: it doesn’t and broke by the time Goku first faced Vegeta.

Radditz never stated his own power but taking everyone’s original dialog from the manga into account it was a bit over 1,000. He saw that Goku, who had a power level of ~400, could produce a >900 Kamehameha and the Makankōsappō exceeded 1,300 and was able to pierce him despite him obviously knowing it was coming and struggling. That means a ~400 character could attack someone at least three times their power level push through their Ki’s defensive qualities if they have time to produce an appropriate attack.

When Vegeta left Earth, his power level at least 15,000. Goku died with a power level barely over 400 and after training with a “god” on a very high gravity “planet” for most of a year with the intention of raising him up so that a multiplier could give him a chance to put down that ~15,000 power level he came out with approximately 8,000. That’s an increase of nearly 20 times. Note this amount. It’s not as high as later jumps but dwarfs previous jumps by an amount that makes “exponential” sound like a laughable understatement. (We know that Goku’s power level went from ~2 as an infant to scale from 10 to 100 throughout his journey learning martial arts and having Ki-using masters teaching him. Then ballooning with the Ultra Divine Water and Popo/Kami’s training.)

When Vegeta leaves Earth and recovers, Kiwi, who thought he around 18,000, reads Vegeta’s PL as 24,000 and freaks out. So do Zarbon and Dodoria as their power levels all sit below that. Kiwi stated that they were roughly the same power before. Meaning that Vegeta gaining a ~33% increase in power was unheard of and worth treating as a potential disaster. Keep that in mind: After some 20-30 years in Freeza’s “care” no one ever noticed Vegeta’s power jump by such an amount and it wasn’t something anyone could explain.

After Zarbon Vegeta’s power level jumps to 30,000. About 25% rather than 33%. Once again, no one expected it and it was disastrous. When Goku comes up it’s estimated that his power level is probably 85,000. Ginyu specifically doesn’t use his scouter and just assumes this. Then when Goku uses Kaioken he reads the infamous 180,000 number.

Now we get to the weird part. Nail, a Namekian who hasn’t done anything this whole time gets scouted by Freeza at 42,000. That means he could have single-handedly killed everyone in Freeza’s army below the Ginyu force and potentially taken out a few of them. Freeza states that his own power level sits at exactly 530,000. Then when Second Form Freeza comes out he states that he believes it is over 1,000,000. (Manga quote not anime.) Final Form Freeza states that he’s only using half his power when he starts the fight with Goku and Goku specifically thinks “I’ll have to use Kaioken x20 to do anything to him at half his strength. Ignoring the later released power levels from the Data Books as with all data books those are unreliable at best, and outright made up by third-party editors at worst, we have no idea how strong Final Form Freeza actually was at full power. The only question is: Does Kaioken multiply by number? Well no, it can’t. Because Goku uses Kaioken (x1) when fighting Vegeta and then tries x2 and x3 and ultimately x4. What would x1 even do? This is explained away years later as “uh...x1.5″ outside the manga but it’s well past the point of plot-breaking.

That means, Goku was having to multiply himself by at least 20, to hurt Freeza momentarily when Freeza was avoiding being too strong to have fun. That means Freeza was either the 40-50 million the Data Books state or... the numbers stop adding up. And that’s the point. DBZ power levels ceased being managed with any intention of keeping it consistent long before Freeza and they simply broke on him.

I’m going to make an attempt to recreate the power level scaling alongside a “What If” re-write of the story to keep it more in line. As we saw with many fights, even Radditz right from the get-go, Power Levels were never really a reliable way to measure someone’s potential until you saw them using an exhaustive amount of power on a single ability. I’d like to scale everything back down and pull in even that multiplier so that numbers grow less quickly and remove the concept of “that guy’s power level may be less than twice yours but it’s greater than every power level on earth except yours to the power of 10.”

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Differences in Astartes creation

The concept of Geneseed is entirely removed. A biological organ to store “metadata” simply isn’t needed or a reasonable concept 30,000 years in the future when in the year 2,000 we’ve made great strides in decoding genes into readable text format (albeit excessively long and basically uselessly complicated, but it’s the direction we’re heading and doesn’t require the massive effort of creating a new organ just to store the concepts in when a $15 flash drive might work just as well.)

The implants/organs list is largely the same with some caveats like the efficiency of many organs being far reduced across the board with individual Legions effectively being experimental test groups for ones as good or better than canon lore. That means the Death Guard are the only ones who can eat diseased, toxic and otherwise dangerous food and it will have virtually no effect on them while others are simply better able to coop and end up with minor ill effects. There are, however, a few extra organs that exist only in some Legions and the genetic coding for them does not exist in any other Primarch’s genome.

To cover several bases at once I’m simply going to list the 20 Legions and what makes them different. Something I’d been doing a bit at a time before and simply lost interest in. It is also important to note that in my universe, the Emperor took all his sons home after the Reclamation Crusade and kept all 20 on Terra to learn how to act, lead and cooperate with each other and during that time he took each one aside and told them what experiment was being done with their genome and how it would effect their “sons” and thus what he expected their role to be. This shaped the mindset of many of them during their time in the Great Crusade.

1. Dark Angels: Enhanced Sus-An membrane that can be manually activated much easier, is far better at preserving brain matter and dramatically lowers their rate of lost causes.

2. [Lost Legion One]: This one’s a bit special. Basically the 40k equivalent of The Skaven, complete with a warp god, existed and this is where [one] was sent. His specialized organ was the Preomnor. In Canon, it’s taken for granted that Astartes can eat horrible dense, normally indigestible substances and just find a way to get all their calories and nutrition from that. In mine, that’s actually vaguely true. Of the first Lost Legion. They were intended to be able to survive in isolation without supplies in small squads for decades. The issue was, the Skaven god was informed of this specialty and had his children coddle and raise this being as one of them in His service. When the Emperor came and wanted them eradicated, [One] complied. (Though, he may have hidden the location of most of their outlying colonies.) After a few decades he began to train and station his men on [Rat Planet] and allow the Great Horned Rat to influence them. They were ultimately completely wiped out by Leman Russ. Well, probably.

3. Emperor’s Children: A general increase to many of the implants and genetic therapies. If you think of baseline as being a 1 with specialization for other legions as being a 2. Emperor’s Children come in about a 1.5 in most respects. They are faster, stronger and more resilient while having a more enhanced brain and immune system - but, they lack the “line in the sand” of some that separates “I can handle this” and “I barely noticed.”

4. Iron Warriors: Their name will likely change. They have extensive alterations to their brain and a specialized bio-mechanical organ to allow sensory input from multiple sources to be processed simultaneously. Canon Perturabo alleged does this but it’s rarely brought up in his stories. I want this to be the staple of his legion. They have close relations with the Adeptus Mechanicus (as the Mechanicum were assimilated right off the bat.) and are one of two legions that the factions that have accepted cybernetic enhancement rather than whole replacement as the goal of their research work with almost exclusively.

5. White Scars: Simply put they have extensive muscle, eye and brain alterations to allow far greater reaction speeds and visual information processing. They were literally built for speed. They react faster and with more comprehension in unfamiliar moments than all other Astartes.

6. Space Wolves: Their Neuroglottis and Lyman’s Ear are far more advanced. The concept of sniffing out a target and identifying chemical traces and generally acting as bloodhounds is their specific specialty. The canon acts like this already but factually all legions are suppose to be able to do this according to the codexes and I’d rather it be explicitly stated to be their thing.

7. Imperial Fists. Now The Iron Guardians. The entire legion foregoes the ceramic-based bone infusion and instead ops for metallic. Their bones are “dusted” with various metals and their bodies undergo extensive conditioning to neither reject nor experience toxicity from this process. The result is that their bones have something akin to “plates” and “spots” of a purposefully unidentified metal composition that makes them more literally “bullet proof” against small arms fire. Dorn took inspiration from this realization upon having his skin scraped open in a terribly injury during his youth and it shaped his ideal of “iron within” defensive thinking.

8. Night Lords: They possess a second betcher’s gland. One still allows the secretion of metal-eroding acid. The other is a powerful neurotoxin that only they are usually immune to. (Though, the Death Guard may be, as well.) The intention was to allow him to capture and interrogate foes who are difficult to capture alive or with physical coercion without the risk of killing them outright or allowing their suicide. Of course, this is something he finds early and torture for the sake of it becomes a staple event in his life.

9. Blood Angels: Their Haemastamen produces even more oxygen rich blood than normal and their bodies are adjusted to handling this. They also have enhanced third-lungs to diffuse oxygen from even liquids. Funnily enough, they were intended for use in underwater combat where their suits may have been a hindrance or simply ran out of oxygen during a prolonged engagement. The Warp mutation giving Sanguinius wings saw a different interpretation of his bright blood.

10. Iron Hands: The other Legion that the Adeptus Mechanicus works alongside more closely than others. Their brain contains an organ allowing motor control over extra limbs with dexterity and natural grace that typical cybernetics do not typically result in. This version of Ferrus Manus looks far more like a Mechanicus Tech Priest than the nearly untouched body of his canon appearances. In many ways, this fits more to what the Iron Hands of 40k (and some 30k companies in poorly written HH novels) choose to remember his as. Typically the Iron Hands will nearly all be wearing specialized armor with six to eight extra limbs and be somewhat similar to less silly looking ~10 foot tall Imperial Knights.

11. [Lost Legion Two]: The Catalepsean Node was enhanced in this Legion to allow cognitive thoughts to continue within a nearly autonomous fighting body so as to allow troops to formulate plans, strategize and hopefully function more clearly over extremely prolonged battles wherein simply actions of shooting, reloading and staying in cover are all that’s needed for hours at a time. Unfortunately, this allowed their Primarch to discover that his brain hadn’t entirely been overridden by the Emperor’s Psychic Charisma that was used on each primarch in a moment of isolation to fortify their minds against certain thoughts and emotional reactions to a necessary stimulation. He became aware that he, and by extension his men acting under his orders, had killed billions of innocent humans and xenos that simply did not wish to be under the authority of an unknown tyrant or were labeled as warranting extermination for simply existing. This eventually lead him to plead with the Emperor for a different role and perhaps to change his course. His words, of course, did not convince the Emperor whatsoever. He then gave an official announcement of his suicide and gave a short speech across his fleet with instructions and condolences. Then committed the act. Many of his “sons” followed suit. Guilliman’s Legion, being the most tactical and strategic, was commanded to absorb as many of the remaining Astartes as possible and to rebrand them as Ultramarines. As there is no Geneseed in this setting, their troubled genetics would not be passed on, regardless.

12. World Eaters: Both the Ossmodula and Biscopea (Bone and Muscle enhancing organs) are enhanced with the intention of creating far larger Astartes. In this setting, typical Astartes as between 8′0″ and 8′10″ tall. Rarely does one go above this. All World Eaters are 9′-10′ tall. Angron himself is nearly 13′. Making him the tallest Primarch by a foot.

13. Ultramarines: In this setting Astartes do not automatically have photographic memories. Ultramarines do. Their brains are enhanced specifically to allow crystal clear databanking and strategic/tactical thinking is emphasized in genetics and training. They literally do remember the 15th entry on a supply list they read 27 years ago and could possibly tell you the approximate minute they read it if they were aware of that at the time.

14. Death Guard: Their Oolitic Kidney, Multi-Lung and Preomnor are enhanced to virtually neutralize all toxic substances so that they can survive ingestion, injection or inhalation of nearly anything that doesn’t cause immediate cell death or remove access to oxygen entirely. They also have their own unique organ attached to their lymph nodes to give them a synthetic immune system that makes them nearly immune to illness. That’s right, in my setting normal Astartes do get sick but it’s fairly rare and medicine in 30k+ can typically alleviate most symptoms of mild illness.

15: Thousand Sons: They have an experimental “Gellar Gland” that shields their minds from the Warp in such a way that intentional deactivation is required to get though. It wasn’t until Magnus was reunited with them that proper usage and detection of Warp Infection became standardized to the extent that they are nearly able to say they are “safe” from the Warp.

16. Lunar Wolves: While blood loss and dying from piercing wounds is far, far less likely in my setting than the canon (as I follow the Larraman’s Organ description far more closely than the HH writers do) the Lunar Wolves take it even further. They have literal metallic-based platelets being synthesized in their bodies. Horus in this story actually has shiny, metallic scarring after battles in which anything managed to hit his bare flesh and back on Cthonia it was remarked that “Horus does not bleed.” This myth followed him into his tenure as a Primarch of a Legion. (The scars simply peel off as the skin inflames slightly and it is unfuses from the wound leaving behind a very short lived gash.)

17. Word Bearers: This is a bit of a different one. It’s based heavily on the potentially untrue statement that the Word Bearers are genetically inclined to loyalty to their Primarch. In my setting it really is a brain alteration with an added caveat of a secretly psycker-enabling organ causes them to experience a sort of emphatic mental network. While Astartes are seen to “act in startling unison” even in this setting, the Word Bearers literally feel each other’s impulses and Lorgar is effectively their uh... “Queen Ant.” This is actually why Lorgar turned. When his connection to the Emperor was strained to the point of breaking as he felt abandoned by his progenator, Kor Pheron took that place again and lead him to the Chaos Cults. Which are a tad different in my setting but a similar enough result. Not so much with the torture of billions, though.

18. Salamanders: The same Melatonin “mutation” exists but they are also the only Legion with complete conscious control of their Mucranoid so as to coat their skin in an even more specialized mucus/oil that can save their lives in extreme temperatures. You can’t easily burn a Salamander who knows it’s coming but prolonged, or unarmored, exposure to anything meant to melt metal quickly will simply bypass it.

19. Raven Guard: Enhanced vision to allow actual Darksight. That’s basically it. I feel this will be something I come back to but for now they can functionally see as if they were a night predator.

20. Alpha Legion: The Omophagea is far less exciting for most Astartes in mine. It literally can only give you vague sensations like smell, sound familiarity and potentially direction from current position upon scouting around. For the Alpha Legion it’s closer to the original canon. Their Preomnor can be stimulated to allow a “pocket organ” to active rather than the super acid of normal Astartes digestion. This will run nanomachines and biomechanic “growths” into human brain matter and extract images, sounds, and more “dreamlike awareness” of information. The first time an Astartes experiences this it may even cause an existential crisis that they’ve specifically been trained to overcome. I may have Omegon and “his Astartes” have a different organ/enhancement but that’s not the case currently.

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The Emperor’s Children

Leader: Fulgrim

Homeworld: Chemos

Differences

Fulgrim’s upbringing remains virtually the same with the exception that once his height surpassed six feet and it became clear he was so physically strong as to perform tasks intended for many, or with mechanical assistance, by himself and by hand so he was redesignated as “Heavy Lifter” and for at least another year, and another foot, he spent his time drastically reducing downtime by virtue of being able to perform laborious tasks with expediency. After this his intense charisma and intelligence had begun to reach such levels as to match back up with his original backstory as he suddenly had plenty of time to invent and refine technologies in his factory.

Upon his training and indoctrination with The Emperor, Fulgrim was informed that his genes were designed with a slight increase to most features and qualities that he had bestowed upon his brother Primarchs and thus his gene-sons would be marginally more able in most ways than all other Astartes. This knowledge nourished the already present seed of arrogance and self-worship that existed within him.

Far later on when he discovered the blade of Laer it contained a greater demon of pleasure (specifically) and it was far more subtle in its control of him using only positive reinforcement and virtually none of the paranoia and contempt the original work emphasized. Events also take a very different turn as the blade pulls him to wanting to look out of viewports while in Warp transit. Eventually this leads him to locking himself in a private chamber and staring into the Warp itself with a growing understanding that he had another consciousness inside him. When open conversation finally happens what he is told to do is to mentally call out to Perfection and soon the Grand Demon of Perfect shows itself. It effectively appears to him as a very neutral, lithe humanoid that is almost entirely stark white as if it were simply powered glass standing in front of a bright light. His corruption towards Slaanesh will focus on this rather than his growing need to seek pleasure and pain and the demon within his blade will be released within the ship itself leading to a very different version of the corruption of his crew and legion. His reasoning for turning against the Emperor will specifically be that the Emperor himself is not perfect, has hidden access to perfection from him and Fulgrim will gradually make his complaints and examples of his legion’s “misdirection and misuse” a frequent topic when addressing his men across the fleet.

The primary difference of the aforementioned corruption of others aboard his ships is an early and ongoing obsession with sharing music by his rememberancers. Fulgrim eventually allows this music to be played on certain decks over intercomms. Eventually, over months, it becomes a staple for the entire fleet to have this music playing low within each and every major ship. In this universe the concept of sound “lifting astartes and tearing them apart” does not have precedence outside of the Warp. Instead when the first Noise Marines appear on Istvaan V the music being blasted from their shoulder-mounted speakers causes severe disorientation, loss of balance, and nausea among non-EC, even allies, which to an Astartes is an almost alien sensation as their ear implants normally prevent most of those feelings to come from sound whatsoever.

Fulgrim’s ultimate transformation will have him replicate the Perfection Demon rather than becoming a multi-armed snake.

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The Dark Angels

Leader: Lion El’Jonson

Homeworld: Caliban

Differences

The Lion falls during his assault of the Northwilds and the Knights of Lupus. In the arena that had been filled with warp-twisted beasts he was finally overwhelmed and went into stasis. His own version of the Sus-An Membrane was so much more advanced and capable than the standard template that he was able to resuscitate himself weeks later. This began the saying that “The Lion Cannot Die.”

All Astartes using his genetic structure as their base have similarly divergent Sus-An Membranes and are far more likely to survive critical injuries and suffer virtually no brain damage from blood loss.

Lion will insist on an “inner circle” to replicate the Order. Not too different from the Mournival but with more people. Not necessarily captains of standard ranks, either. Head Librarian, Head Chaplain, Flagship Captain, etc. He will be surrounded by people he feels “see the world and each other like I cannot.”

His frustration at his stunted, or warped, social acumen will cause periods of strained relations with his closest allies and cause him to second-guess his tactical decisions against Human worlds on occasion.

The Dark Angels themselves will specifically etch their pauldrons will feather outlines and have their helmets designed to look more like hoods without compromising visual range.

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Major Baseline Differences

Initial Changes

The two “Missing Primarchs” will have their names and that of their legion wiped but details of their deeds, personality and fate of their astartes will be brought up more regularly, particularly by traitor legions. One of them will be known as a traitor (left vague as to exactly what he and his did that the Emperor could not allow to continue) and the other will simply commit suicide as the weight of near-constant genocide strains his commitment while also strengthening his resolve to make a stand. His astartes will likely be the ones the Ultramarines take in as they’ll be considered “in danger of following him to a dishonorable death if rigid, unfeeling discipline isn’t retrained into each and every one of them remaining.”

Gene Seed as a concept is simply gone. It has always been a silly idea and would seem born from the same mindset as horror movies and scifi-thrillers make “extracting his DNA!” into something invasive and often fatal instead of a simple cotton swab and a vial of blood as a backup. It’s 30k, they can handle a database and passing along genetic metadata without making it into meat.

Solid State Drives are default. The idea that everything must “whir” and “hum” even when as small as a cellphone when they don’t have to do that more than 28,000 years prior is just silly.

The Mechanicum’s worship of the Omnissiah and mention of machine spirits is considered borderline heretical and there is simply a treaty for “tolerance of terminology” for their continued voluntary support of the Imperium. Also, their cybernetic obssession causes a great deal of conflict post-heresy and nearly has Mars destroyed outright at some point as they “rebel against the pure human form.” 

Any corruption or transformation (apotheosis, if you will) will be far more gradual and well-explained.

Candles are not used on spaceships or even the imperial palace. Once again, >28,000 prior and we have “spin to charge” and “quick charge solar” lighting.

Most Legions will have a major breakdown of the “10 men, 100 men, 1000 men/ sargeant, captain, chapter master, Primarch” organizational setup that I can only assume the original game forced into being omni-present rather than assuming every culture and primarch would adhere to it without major alterations. 

Some shakeup on who turned to chaos and who didn’t.

One other major change to the finale that I will likely never get around to writing as even the book series hasn’t reached it, yet. Sanguinius will not die. He’ll be dealing constantly with influence by Khorn and during his mortal wounding by Horus he will be in the depths of a blood rage and start his apotheosis in full. This will be what distracts Horus and allows the Emperor the chance to kill him but Sanguinius will instead of banished to the warp as the ability to kill him will have left the Emperor after such a feat. The Blood Angels will have an immediate flare-up of traitorous accusations that only get worse as everytime one of them falls to their rage they begin becoming something akin to a Gal Vorbak. This effectively causes the Blood Angels to be an intensely self-policing legion that are quick to destroy their own brothers if suspected they may not “come back.”

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W30K Alternate Universe (Fancanon)

I’ve decided to “sit down and start fixing this” by looking back at the Great Crusade timeline and redesigning the Legions to be unique from one another. The primary method being to point out specific implants of the ~19, as well as the chemical/genetic/hormone therapies, and make it so that an Astartes from one Legion is specialized and yet still generally usable as the same unit regardless. Also, having many Legions use far different tactics as “kill everyone or scare them into submission” is basically the only two things they are specifically intended to be used for can easily allow for variation in style without compromising their integrity as agents of the Imperium.

Simple examples before I get around to [The List] are things like the Death Guard having their Lung, Stomach and Kidney (as well as potentially a unique treatment or organ for their disease resistance) implants be extraordinarily powerful. This is specifically mentioned in-canon but it’s never really shown to mean anything of substance as a Lunar Wolf drinks Nurgle-aide and barely needs any help to “get over it.” That will not happen in this universe. Enhanced immune systems will be specifically pointed out but Mortarian’s sequence will contain the information for the Emperor’s attempt at making them better. The World Eater’s Muscle and Bone growth (Ossmodula and Biscopia) will be ramped up so that Angron’s Astartes are virtually always larger and physically stronger than all other Astartes. On a different note, the brains of Ferrus and Perturabo will be heavily altered with the intent of the use specialized Black Carapace with their troops. Iron Hands having innate ability to control far more limbs and with greater dexterity and Iron Warriors having extreme sensory input “multi-awareness” much like Perturabo did to himself in canon.

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Warhammer 40k Rant

So I got really into Warhammer 40k about a year ago and thoroughly studied wikis and fan-discussions on every little aspect of the story and not long ago I began reading through the Horus Heresy series (being about a dozen books in so far) and there’s a handful of things that have grown to annoy me that seem to be GW staples and not simply writer issues. Starting with the most semantic and moving into the worse issues.

1) Archaic Terminology during the Great Crusade is out of place and all-together strange. During the Age of Empirical Enlightenment wherein any belief in the supernatural is nearly grounds for execution Space Marines of many chapters will specifically refer to their humours not just as expressions but in detail. (The Thousand Sons would alter their biochemestry at-will and specifically noted they were adjusting their humours by name.) One book even had plasma creation refer to “Fusion” as a term of Old Earth and yet they refer to things as “forges” and even point out the use of literal blacksmithing techniques on electronic devices. Really.

2) Terra never being fully conquered and the Emperor having to play politics with the sovereign nations of Terra is absolute insanity to the point of disbelief that you even read it. He conquered thousands of worlds and can call on 100,000 Astartes in a matter of months if not less. Hell, the Imperial Fists are Terra-bound by the time he goes back to hanging out there, again. He can make entire battlefields of Astartes kneel against their will and kill potentially millions of humans with a thought. A thought. Not a weapon. A thought. He wills that their organs rupture and there will be a deathwave emanating from him. There is no reason Terra shouldn’t be a one-world government system like he makes so many other planets into when he leaves a single ranking military officer behind as “Governor.”

3) All legions baring the Salamanders, the Thousand Sons and the Night Lords were nearly identical in discipline, battle tactics, military organization and even basic themes. I believe three legions were described by the writers as “They were known to fight war by assaulting their enemies directly, walking in a straight-line, knowing no fear and going from bolter to melee as they approached any resistance with keen instincts and absolute discipline.” The Luna Wolves, Death Guard, Emperor’s Children. If you boil it down that also includes the World Eaters, Space Wolves and quite possibly all fifteeen alluded-to Legions all having the same way of doing things with only weapon-preference separating them from the perspective of their enemies.

4) The power/resilience scale is so wonky as to be absurd. In one book someone will take several bolts in their torso and keep fighting. In another a bolter will explode next to them and throw them, all >1,000lbs, off their feet and even leave a nearby human as a gory ragdoll. In some books Astartes die from simply cuts to the throat, or worse, a single heart. In another, they’ll lose entire limbs and manage not to bleed out. That’s the least Marvel/DC-esque problem. The Primarchs have been described as having the strength to punch through Dreadnought armor and Angron stood under a Titan’s foot (A 440 ton titan, I believe) and it was unable to press down. Their skin is still human-like, all their exposed parts seem human enough. It’s just weak wish-fulfillment and takes away from what they are.

5) This is kind of an addendum to 3: Armor will be described as being so resilient to small-arms fire as to safely ignore it seemingly indefinitely. Plasteel and Ceramite. Third or fourth generation Astartes Power Armor. A wild animal using the same elements as anything else with no warp-taint will somehow be able to “shred it like paper” despite, ya know, ... it’s metal. No claw or tooth can instantly pierce, and much less “rip”, thick metal designed to withstand future warfare against lasers, bullets and bombs. It’s silly to the point of laughter or groaning disappointment when yet another red shirt, or worse - a heavily detailed character, dies suddenly to an animal that shouldn’t have been able to do anything whatsoever to them. Even given years of time to claw away at them. Literally years.

6) The way Chaos’ influence, and particularly their corruptions, conversions, and/or transformations were handled was almost universally half-assed or simply had too much left in previous drafts. Horus’ change by book 3 was simply “This is stupid, you’re stupid” to “I will attack Terra and use Chaos to do it” in nearly an instant. The plot device of [not showing the reader exactly what he saw] is used and handwaved him into being [Woke] and that simply isn’t good enough.

7) The Chaos Gods have way too much baggage and it detracts from what they are. Tzeench is the “Changer of Ways” and thus is chaotic. Nope. He’s a planner who needs things to work out a certain way and will always be trying to get a specific outcome. He’s literally an Order God. Also Magic. No really. They are all made of Psychic power and yet only one of them is the god of it. No really. Nurgle is the god of Decay and Disease - and... stagnation? He’s said to be Tzeench’s enemy because they are opposites and yet Nurgle is literally Entropy. He is things breaking down until they are at their base forms and spawning constant new life from the parts he takes. Slaanesh is the god of Experience and Sensation. S/He is also the god of Perfection. For no obvious reason. It’s so vaugely related as to be a non-sequitor like a third-party writer leaned in and just said “Uh... this is my thing but I’m using your materials to slip my OCs in kthx.” Khorne is almost fine but his instistence on “honor and justice and being straight-forward” is pointless and goes against the same “get the biggest men to lose their minds and kill the helpless beings they come across” as that’s effectively cheating and avoiding honor and glory in exchange for just feeding his need for violence. This could all be fixed by simply removing their added nuances and making those into Greater Demons of Chaos Undivided who aren’t quite fragments of any single god and thus like demigods of these alternate concepts.

#warhammer40k #ramblingparagraphs