Warhammer 40,000/Tropes/I to P: Difference between revisions

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* [[Just Eat Him]]: What the Tyranids do.
* [[Just Plane Wrong]]: As it's prone to doing, ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' takes this [[Up to Eleven]]; depending on the source, those stumpy Imperial fighters with leading edges a scale foot thick and bombers that look like the bastard offspring of a B-17 and an Abrams are ''single step to orbit spaceships'' which are just as at home fighting in the vacuum of space as they are in atmosphere. Even [http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Arvus.jpg whatever this is] can hit escape velocity, because air resistance is heresy.
** Most are modeled to resemble WWII propeller fighters but with jets instead of propellers, yet they supposedly can achieve speeds in excess of Mach 2. Take the Imperial Navy's air fighters. Real world aerodynamics would conspire to prevent this (though ridiculously tough 40K materials in turn would conspire to prevent real life aerodynamics); though enough brute force can make anything fly, it has rather greater trouble making anything ''turn'' (you don't put the engine in the front in supersonic fighters, because it moves the Center of Weight fore of the center of pressure, and would make the fighter so stable in supersonic flight that no amount of control force would allow it to maneuver). Let's not even get started on the Orks, Chaos and Dark Eldar aircraft, this entry would reach monstrous proportions (well, more monstrous then it already has). The only aircraft that could maybe fly, and that's a very big maybe, are the Eldar and Tau. And that excludes [https://web.archive.org/web/20131124153441/http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Tau/TAU-AIRCRAFT/TAU-ORCA-DROPSHIP.html that Tau dropship that looks like gussied-up cinderblock], obviously.
*** The Ork planes don't fly because they make sense, they fly because the Ork themselves think they can fly, in the same manner their trukks run faster when painted red.
** Also, let's hear it for the Thunderhawk, an SSTO troop transporter with a scale 16-inch spinal gun that isn't under any kind of faring and is only capable of firing ''above'' the aircraft. This along with the slender midsection presumably makes the Thunderhawk the only troop aircraft to be able to land infantry in two places at the same time.
** It's probably worth remembering that the Imperials, Eldar and Tau have anti-gravity technology, and the last two make extensive use of it. It's probably safe to say that this technology negates the need for aerodynamic structures somehow.
*** Eldar and Tau are not so big offenders. And while the Imperials use anti-gravity technology the fluff for the last three editions clearly states that it's used only} on the Land Speeder. Besides no amount of anti-gravity will prevent air-resistance, and the problem with Imperial aircraft is that they are not streamlined enough to reach their Mach 2+ maximum velocities given in fluff.
**** Obviously, Imperium in any edition widely used antigravity — in servoskull and cherub drones, grav-plating on space vessels and whatnot. Land Speeder is the only Imperial ''vehicle'' explicitly using it as ''primary'' system — it gives all the lifting force at cruising speed rather than only allows limited takeoff/landing hover mode or assists actual wings.
**** It's ''explicitly, primarily'' used on the Land Speeder...
*** Valkyrie can hover, but doesn't look like it either has takeoff engines for VTOL (like the nose thrusters on Thunderhawk) nor like its big engines could bend vector thrust this much (like a convertoplane). Antigravity? But if you look into details, there are also questions like "why the multilaser would be limited to powerpack, if there's clearly enough of power on board to recharge?" and so on.
 
 
== K ==
* [[Kick the Dog]]: Everyone, to everything, all the time.
* [[Kill'Em All]]: This one was a no-brainer.
* [[Killer Rabbit]]: The Catachan Barking Toad, a large, [http://uk.games-workshop.com/download/popup.htm?/warhammer40000/creature-feature/images/toad-big.jpg sad-looking amphibian]{{Dead link}} sometimes dubbed the [[Memetic Mutation|"Ronery Toad"]]. If attacked, hurt or even surprised, it [[Taking You with Me|explodes into a cloud of obscenely virulent toxins]], killing absolutely everything in a kilometer-wide cloud of death and poisoning the earth so that nothing will ever grow there again (yet somehow does ''not'' create clearings in Catachan jungles at the same time... sigh...).
* [[Kill It with Fire]]: ''Imperial government policy'' towards ''everything.'' The Salamanders chapter of Space Marines and the Witch Hunters specialize in fire based weapons. The Sororitas are also [[Burn the Witch|very fond]] of flame-based weaponry. On the Eldar side, the Fire Dragons kill tanks with fire, specifically with fusion guns and firepikes.
* [[Killed Off for Real]]: GW's [[Old Shame]], the Squats.
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* [[Lethal Joke Character]]: The Apocalypse expansion includes rules for a Warlord Titan, four times the size of the biggest model they actually sell with the point cost of an entire army and almost certainly meant as a joke. Then some people actually scratch-built them, and they are so unbalanced that an equivalent-cost force of super-heavy tanks and artillery can't even get through the shields before being wiped out.
** And if that's not enough, one of the datafax on the Games Workshop website is for the ''Emperor'' Titan, which is best modeled by someone [[Cosplay|dressing up as the Titan]] and climbing on the table. It's all fun and games until someone's whole army gets squished....
*** To demonstrate, [http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Images/Product/AlternativeFW/xlarge/ImpReavAlt24.jpg here]{{Dead link}} is an official ''Reaver''-class Titan miniature on scale with other 40k models. [https://web.archive.org/web/20141018120502/http://www.puolenkuunpelit.com/tieto/galleria/GW/Butchery3/kuva5.jpg Here] is a custom-built ''Emperor''-class Titan in the same scale.
* [[The Library of Babel]]: The Black Library.
* [[Lighter and Softer]]: [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/BrightHammer40k BrightHammer 40k]. For starters, the Emperor is rocking a goatee, Slaanesh is all about love & kindness instead of sadism, and there is such a thing as peaceful diplomacy with Orks.
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** Also names like Decapitator or the Red Terror.
** Dark Eldar get in on this, too. Lelith Hesperax, Urien Rakarth, and Asdrubael Vect, Supreme Lord of the Kabal of the Black Heart are all about as nice as they sound.
* [[Nanomachines]]: Uncommon, but they crop up. ''[[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]]'' games add more.
* [[Nanomachines]]:* It's not quite clear whether Necron "living metal" is made of 'em, but there are several application even within the Imperium.
** Autosanguinator implants (traditional) have blood filled with injury-repairing machines. Hermetic Infusion (restricted to tech-priests) is a more powerful version, which replaces blood - as such, it makes transfusions and many other treatments designed for humans... ''inapplicable'', though a Magos Biologis can help - not that it's needed often, with major [[Healing Factor]] and resistance to material contamination this gives.
** Mechanicus got an entire [http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Cult_of_the_Micro-Omnisiah Cult of the Micro-Omnisiah] sect. Unsurprisingly, they are concerned mainly with manufacture of miniaturized electronics and biological applications (including weaponized).
** Luma-Crete (probably): needs to be injected into the body at several points, but for a while allows to survive a lot of things up to and including exposure to vacuum, though does not eliminate the need to breathe as such. Mechanically, +2 of Machine trait (which grants armor and resistances) and resistances to heat and radiation(!).
*** There are also things like autosanguination (blood nanobot implantation) and a few more arcane cases.
** Core Gel (widely used where it's needed, but still contested by some tech-priests elsewhere) temporarily provides universal interface via application to skin. "Universal" here means that while mostly it's a temporary substitute for having MIU, it has a great advantage of working with old systems so incompatible that it was easier to use this expensive stuff that to devise a good adapter for either common data ports or "modern" implanted interfaces.
** There are runaway nanobot swarms from Dark Age of Technology, some even sentient. Like Bloodtide - pre-Imperium (i.e. from Dark Age of Technology) weaponized nanobot swarm that achieved sentience.
** Silver Anathema (banned) is known as "mechanical poison" - it causes metal thorns to spontaneously grow in the victim's flesh.
** Malygrisian Bioforging (unequivocally heretical, since it causes genetic damage) grows subdermal armour, increases general toughness and allows to briefly survive in vacuum, but causes dependency on consuming nephium (semi-exotic fuel that in unrefined form is a contact poison) and without tricky maintenance plastic starts growing in all the wrong places, which quickly disfigures and kills the "beneficiary".
** Bloodtide - pre-Imperium (i.e. from Dark Age of Technology) weaponized nanobot swarm that achieved sentience.
** Simuloptera - much the same, but smacked in the head by Warp. ''Terminator 2'' style amorphous shapeshifting hivemind thingy, only of arbitrary size and speech-impaired (except via vox).
* [[Necessarily Evil]]: Imperial servants in general, and Inquisitors in particular, knowingly and willingly do horrible things to innocent people on a regular basis because the consequences for ''not'' doing so could be catastrophic for humanity as a whole.
* [[Neglectful Precursors]]: Strangely enough, inverted as it's more like neglectful ''moderners''. Back in the golden age of technology, people were smart enough to create standard template constructs (STCs) allowing any colony to build whichever it may need from the ground up (amount of the required efforts may vary). Anyone who had one could build anything from a house to a tank if the situation required, regardless of ability or technology. Ten thousand years later, these same items created millennia ago are still in use, but the massive galaxy-spanning Imperium appears to be having trouble finding the printouts of the things.
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* [[Phantasy Spelling]]: Chaos "daemons" might or might not be an example of this. The word technically means "minor deity", but since that's what a lot of daemons actually ''are''...
* [[Phantom Zone]]: The Warp.
* [[Phlebotinum Overload]]: Whenever the Warp gets involved, phlebotinum overload usually happens and with fatal consequences. Unless it goes badly, what happens doesn't bear thinking about.
* [[Physical God]]: The Emperor may have been one of these, and the Primarchs were basically demigods; also, the Avatars of Khaine and the C'tan. Daemon Princes can sometimes have pretty god-like powers, too.
* [[Pirate]]: '''IN SPACE!'''
* [[Pistol-Whipping]]: A game mechanic.
* [[Plague of Locusts]]: Figuratively. The Tyranids are often likened to a terrifying [[Horde of Alien Locusts|plague of alien locusts]]. They travel the galaxy in Hive Fleets that are so incomprehensibly massive, they are made of ''lightyears'' worth of ships at their biggest. They descend upon planets and devour everything they can with a crazed, hungry fervor - and by "everything", we ''mean'' everything. Their rampages end with the targeted planet being stripped of all life and left a barren rock. You can kill millions, if not ''billions'' of the damned things and still lose, because they always have millions and billions more to throw at you. Furthering the comparison to an apocalyptic swarm of insects is that there's no properly defined leader: all Tyranids are governed by a ravenous hive mind that is so overwhelmingly savage and powerful that it's ''impossible'' for the setting's Chaos Gods to control or corrupt.
* [[Planet Eater]]: The Tyranids are this, and intend to do it to every life-bearing planet in the galaxy.
* [[Planet of Hats]]: Applies to several races, to try and reduce their [[Separate but Identical]] nature.