The Marker and Necromorphs in 40K: What ifs and other scenarios

So guys, a thought just struck me.

What would happen if a group of Nurglite demons and cultists stumbled upon a marker?

Since a lot of them already have large amounts of their body mass already rotting (e.g. dead), would they immediately turn into necromorphs?

Going on from there, if things were to escalate rapidly from there; would the brethren moons function similar to Nagash from fantasy?

I definitely believe that if the Markers were introduced to 40k, Chaos and the DE would definitely get the short end of the stick; just because of their pre-battle practices.

This is because, according to the lore, when you "kill" the necromorphs they don't actually die, they just enter a dormant state.

So when you have two factions who have a fondness for piling their victims into giant mounds or sticking pieces of them onto themselves and their equipment, they're going to have a really bad day when they wake up.

Especially when they might have started with Slashers and then help the necromorphs build a mini-hivemind or ubermorph.

It doesn't work on Nurglites because the markers are technological while the Warp is magical/will-based.

All in all it's much more tame than most of the threats in 40k. Even the giant moon ones are just Tyranids-lite.

Shattering moons is basically monday business to 40k

Yeah, I agree that they probably won't be a super threat; but at the same time, they're not a threat that can be dealt with easily.

The one thing I loved about Dead Space 3 was the Slasher designs, because they show just how unkillable these things are.

If you take a good look at every Slasher variant except the ones made from the unitologists, you'll see that what they are mostly made from...is arms.

This implies that in order to keep functioning for the entire 200 years from when SCAF dies out and Isaac arrives, the necromorphs used the most accessible parts to keep them going.

The limbs of those killed trying to fight them off.

If they can do this when they are in an all-out war on an icy, lifeless death world against an enemy that fully understands what they are and how to stop them, how would someone completely clueless about them fare?

Adding to the "Oh Shit, the monster I gibbed is standing back up" vibe, this is another Necromorph from Dead Space 3 called a Leaper.

It is essentially a pile of limbs and a bit of torso with a head attached that has merged into one creature.

With all the "dead" necromorphs either dumped into piles, buried in mass graves or, god help the poor bastards, eaten; a number of factions could have a lot of trouble against this "second wave" of necromorphs.

The two most common weapons in the Imperium are the Lasgun and the Flamer. The third most common is artillery.

Nothing is getting back up.

What I mean by illustrating this is that the Imperium is used to threats that corrupt. In Dead Space the military uses small-arms designed for boarding actions and civilian policing. They've never faced a non-human threat.

Meanwhile the Imperium routinely renders planets down to airless rocks to prevent hazards from spreading. Not one, but three enemies they face have the capacity to return and fight after defeat: the Tyranids, the Orks, and Chaos.

Sure they are. Its a lasgun, not a Phaser from Star Trek. Lasguns just burn holes in you, they dont turn you into a puff of smoke. That wont be much more effective at putting down a necromorph than bullets are.

And flamers destroy the infected material, but generally not fast enough to stop the (now on fire) necromorph feom eating you. DS has a flamethower, it generally sucks at killing them.

If the Imperial Guard uses artillery to blow an army of necromorphs to smitherines, they have a matter of hours to go in an perform a more thorough cleanup before those bloody gibs start combining into an undead bio horror the size of a Titan.

>routinely

Canonically, exterminatus has been performed less than a hundred times since the Horus Heresy.

Fatguys really oversell exterminatus as an acceptable or even practiceable tactic.

>So when you have two factions who have a fondness for piling their victims into giant mounds or sticking pieces of them onto themselves and their equipment, they're going to have a really bad day when they wake up.

"Tarsus, one of the corpse-piles just stood up and started eating people."
"So? Herd it towards the loyalists. I'm busy stitching together this cape made of screaming faces."

A) Necromorphs don't regenerate that quickly

B) Prometheum burns at higher temperatures than hydrazine, and is more like super-napalm than welding gas. It literally melts the flesh off of raging orks and gaunts, turning them into charred ash in an instant.

Necromorphs are only a threat because everyone in the Dead Space universe is a fucking moron.

It'd be fun for shits and giggles to send those mad moons into the Warp with a vortex torpedo though.

Honestly, I see a necromorph incursion as something similar to an under-informed nurgle cult opening a warp rift.
People freaking worship the necro's in Unitology as the next stage of living...right up until they're being brutally eviscerated and repurposed for the morphs.
Imagine it as small nurgle cult calls upon Papa N to help deliver them from their mortal plight. They are violently reformed and repurposed as carriers of the necromorph infection, and because Nurgle is generous like that, he compels the infectors to go out and spread the love. Bam, Necromorph incursion.

I second this, Napalm mixed with white phosphorus is already hell on earth, can't be wiped off, can't be washed off and brings it's own oxygen supply, so it will even burn in an oxygenn deprived atmosphere.

And sticking with the general +20% settings bring with their "super" equipment, i would say that promethium works wonders agains necromorph.

Also the DS3 flamer is just a fixed gas welder, that's like comparing a wet matchstick to a torch.

First of all, necromorphs are dead when you dissect them. Untill something revives them again - those infestors guys. They are basically a flesh golems, nothing else. You break them - you need to reassemble them, and they wont reassemble themselves as you claim they would.
No, Slashers are not assembled of arms mostly. If you would have played the game you would know it, as well as the upper part of what i mentioned about reassembling.
Moreover, with 40K weapons it is more than possible to destroy ubermorph with melta/plasma.
They can be contained, because their claws do not slice the metal/glass like tyranids.
Can be frozen.
Flamers are actually very usefull, burning the flesh - no "moving" parts for morphs.
>If the Imperial Guard uses artillery to blow an army of necromorphs to smitherines, they have a matter of hours to go in an perform a more thorough cleanup before those bloody gibs start combining into an undead bio horror the size of a Titan.
Just wont happen. No. Stop it. It wont. There must be something to reanimate those. And not just "brethren moons signal".
Also this .
No threat to a heavily armored opponents. Not a problem if you do not have astartes - nearby arbitres would help alot.
No, i am not 40k fan, just being honest.

Ok, fair enough.

So what would the various factions actually do with a Marker if they found one?

Would they destroy it on site on suspicion of being a chaos artefact?

Would they try and use it as a power generator, just like Earth Gov did before it got out of control?

Or would they use it as a weapon, dropping it in the midst of a conventional bombardment to create a distraction whilst the main invasion force attacks?
Who are we kidding...we know what will happen.

The Orks will strap stabilising fins to it and fly around the galaxy in their magical snotling-powered Rokit

It's xeno-tech. The AdMech would destroy it on sight. And that's assuming they didn't just mistake it for a Chaos artifact, in which case they would also destroy it on sight.

It's kind of telling that Isaac can take multiple hits from one and he's only wearing a pressurized welding suit. Astartes would walk over them, and even Orks would keep them busy forever (since Ork spores can thrive even on worlds that the Tyranids have poisoned, and their fungus can't be mutated or reanimated).

The only group that might lose to a Brethren Moon is the Tau, since they have a lot less to lose than everyone else does. The Imperium could have a few worlds fall before they noticed and still come out on top.

That's alright.

The thing about the slashers mostly being made out of arms is just something odd I noticed when playing the third game. They just seem to have hands and fingers just sprouting randomly over their entire bodies.

I know that in the other two games, they were all in one piece from what I can remember. Christ those twisty ones that jumped out of the cryo-morge in 2 were weird looking, weren't they?.

Except Izek Clark. He is very successfull at eradicating that threat, as are some of the survivors.
Well, you are mostly right. Literally no reason not to send those Obelisks to the Sun.
Literally no reason to support Unitology, you can always make a intergalactic show about how terrible and ugly and mindless necromorps are.
Literally not a problem to give the movement scanners and shoot all the unliving crap off them, weapons are not underperforming against them at all. Gunships, all sorts of crap, acids - boom, no necromorph threat.
So all in all it is the "corrupt goverment" and brainwashed fanatics who made the living in that universe crappy.
And they are doing it without much of reason. Even then, tho, the game is pretty atmospheric and entertaining somehow.

After a brief period of annoyance accompanied by death and hardship to take it down the empire realizes that it can be used as a limitless source of energy. Tech priests come in and install some containment field to prevent the negative effects and examine it's possible benefits to the IoM unless it is deemed heretical. Psykers should have no problems dealing with markers if they can nullify it's psychic influence or they might become it's minions.

As someone who loves dead space and knows a fair bit about the lore, I can confidently say that necromorphs would be no threat in the 40k setting.
Everyone is prepared to deal with much worse than re-shaping zombies.
Necromorphs are made of regular flesh and bone, for the most part, with only the Brute using tougher armour which may be able to withstand a bolter round or two.
Tyranids, the next closest thing in 40k, are not made of flesh and bone as we know it. Their claws and teeth pierce steel. A brood of genestealers can decimate a terminator, but even hundreds of necromorphs would only flail at him uselessly as their bone-blades break on his armour.
If anything, necromophs could be a threat to some under-protected agri-world if they're unprepared.

Actually, wouldn't the worst case scenario be if the Ad-mech found it? The Markers cannonically plant suggestions to technically-minded individuals to re-create Markers as much as they can

With the industrial power of Marker-tainted forge world, Markers would be pouring out

Isaac would probably shit himself seeing how many Markers these wackos would make

The Imperium blows it up without hesitation if any authorities find it. If a cult springs up without being mercilessly eradicated by the police or Inquisition, a planet might be in trouble before the Astartes or Guard show up. Once they do they either win or bomb it from orbit until the marker is gone.

The Craftworld Eldar would be able to discern its psychic emanations and might plant it somewhere on a Human world so that the Imperium would eradicate the Brethren Moon threat for them.

The Tyranids don't notice. There isn't enough psychic power among the Moons to overcome the Shadow in the Warp. The marker never activates.

The Orks LOVE it. It literally summons things to krump! But the Brethren Moons might deactivate it after one or more of them are blown up by the ultra-Waaagh that the presence of constant fighting creates. Remember: Ork spores are stable anywhere they can attach themselves to undiscovered. They could start growing on the surface of a Moon unnoticed and then it would become Ork-infested.

The Dark Eldar might study it or try to sell it. Given their sadism, they might just cordon off part of Comorragh and let necromorphs run wild there at just-below-hivemind level to pit gladiators against.

The Tau might not recognize its insidious power since they're Warp-blind. They have the greatest chance of getting monumentally fucked if they study it, since their policies emphasize caution and containment vs. eradication. They could lose one or more planets before a fleet arrives to defeat the Moons (especially since their psychic ShockPoint speed is near-instant FTL and Tau tech is much slower).

The Necrons don't even register it on their scale of fucked-up-ness. There's no biomass on the average Tomb World, but if a necromorph plague happened on one that had been inadvertently settled by other races they'd activate and purge the planet.

That is just not so.
They are made of flesh, thats it. It mutates on the process of turning human body into a necromprh. Leaper is also just an average human body, legs are melded together, thats it.
We actually cannot know if it is just a suit or with a titanium alloy weaving all inside. I actually assume that orks can be mutated (remember nurglite orks from one of those crappy space wolfs novels? probably the first one?), and thus most vulnerable.
Tau would totally wreck those things with their drones. And Imperium is paranoid enough not to allow such an infestation spread.

Recent Space Woofs novels? Because the codexes have nixed all Chaos Ork mentions and it's practically a forbidden topic.

The only real threat Obelisks and Brethren Moons present are the mind-warping abilities. Will make an actual effect on Humans, Tau, Eldar. Thats it.

You local AdMech recommends; Implant radio signal sending chips into healthy people hearts which will be powered by the pumping.
The chip sends out a radio signal.
Set up some autogun turrets with motion+ radio detection.
Anythin that moves and won't send a signal, because of a missing heartbeat, gets shot.

Ehhh no, the old one with Ragnar. I dont know really. Was something about stone and greater nurgle demon.
Wont affect servitors, probably will only partially affect self-aware mechanicus due to, you know, metal crap in their heads.

I don't know if it would work on the Eldar. Since their souls are promised to Slaanesh, any deviation from their strict mental conditioning would cause She Who Thirsts to suck their insides out with a curly straw. It would suck for the Craftworld, but it would prevent them from being controlled by the marker too.

Considering nobody cares about healthy people and stuff, just place turrets and shoot it all while watching and drinking cybertea.

It would twist their minds pretty surely, then they die one way or another - assaulting their own or suiciding, then their souls go somewhere, while bodies are owned by the Obelisk. It actually can reanimate the body, well, just like a magic, i.e. OOGA BOOGA I JUST DIED AND NOW BONE CLAWS AND I AM UNDEAD AND WANT TO KILL YOU, but only in a close proximity to itself.
Or after twisting a mind of individual for quite some time. QUITE SOME.

And two out of those three already have rock-solid safeguards against mind-fuckery. Eldar are psychically-conditioned against intrusions & temptations, Chaos wouldn't be able to hear the Markers over the laughter of their own dark gods, and the Imperium would just shoot anyone who started acting funny.

I actually have a Bunch of mantic zombies+scything talons for my Necromorph GSC army. Thinking about painting my guard elements with glowing yellow eyes and goop pouring from them.

But what about the experimental data we could get from those rites ?

>the Orks LOVE it. It literally summons things to krump!

I just imagined a super swole ork WAAAAGH! where even the common boy has the size of a nob.

Well, nobody said it cant affect a non-craftworld eldar. Also poisoning the world core of those wild or exodite eldar for example. Lets consider it is very possible, and not go down to powerlevel of obelisk vs powerlevel of world core. Without the psychic defence it should be possible.
Also humans might spread that crap from slums in a hive world or industrial world, or in a happy little agrocultural world neighbor Joss started acting little strange, well, not a big deal, boom! Infestation! The problem is necromorphs can be dealt with pretty easily, so it wont be the end of the world like in Dead Space universe.

I think in case of "lets examine it" the infestation chance is getting a code red.

There's a lore tidbit in one of the Ork codexes that talks about that. One world that the Tyranids tried to infest was an Ork world fully covered by fungus. Now the Tyranids are stuck there fighting boys the size of kans, nobs the size of gargants, and a warboss the size of a mountain.

Meanwhile the Imperium watches via live satellite feed as Tyranid kaiju wrestle supergiant Orks.

Can you deliver that please?

Well i DO know now where my next rogue trader travel will go.

Pack all staterooms full with nobles. Jump to the godzilla planet and place bets between "DA KRUMPOLLOS" vs. "GIGA-BUG!"

I looked at my collection of codexes and couldn't find it, but I think it was part of the Octarius War.