I first posted this to the old forums, so I desided to post this here too.. Sorry for the "double post"

Now when I have your attention, this is my question:

What would happen in 5 millennium?

So, here's the deal.

I put my acolytes to find a bunker and bring something back from there. (They don't know what or why, because they are assisting another Inquisitor's group in this mission and their own Inquisitor asked them to spy what is going on)

So they find this bunker and got inside. After much searching and wondering and breaking & entering they found what they were looking for.

Inside of the bunker is cut off from the outside world. No animal can find their way inside. Not hermetically sealed, but tight anyway. There are two servitors standing in one corner (gun servitor and cargo-servitor, both turned off). There was also on corpse on the floor, turned to skeleton, all clothing rotted off.

There is one storage room, air tight. Inside there is lots of guns and ammo. (Lasguns, autoguns and one inferno pistol and clips to every gun)

And there is also this laboratory, this one IS hermetically sealed. There is two corpses on the floor with one broken glass between them. And inside observation room where is thick window to laboratory was one corpse, hole through the skull.

There is storage room in that laboratory where air temperature is held under -200 Celsius or something similar.(Could it be still that cold in there?) There be also four metallic storage tubes, similar to that what was broken on the laboratory room.

Also, they managed to start up cogitator in the corner of that laboratory and found out that last entry was made in the 35th millennium.

So, what would have happened to the bodies, to guns (parts inside the guns), to servitors and so on in 5000 years? In hermetically sealed room and in "normally" sealed bunker? Could the guns and the clips work normally? Or would the lasclips and flamer fuel have leaked dry? Would the seals and other plastic parts of the guns have deteriorated and dried so that they won't work without extensive repairs? (there ARE 2 tech-priest in this mission..)

Anyway, all the players know is that something terrible happened that killed people inside and others runned for their life and sealed the bunker tight.

Ideas and thoughts, anyone?

Thank you!

I'm going to check that right away!

Essentially, the Imperium's going to go one of two ways isn't it?

Good or bad.

'Bad' is the emperor dying, the Astronomican shutting down and Humanity pretty much disintegrating.

'Good', well, thats the interesting part isn't it?

As i said, i like the idea that Ultramar will be the seat of the 'Imperial Rennaissance', with Roboute Guilliman himself or possibly a Sensei spawn from his geneseed leading an uprising to overthrow the Imperium.

'This was NEVER the Emperor's vision for Humanity! We shall remake the Imperium in the image he foresaw'.

In league with the AdMech, replacing technology and science for the dogma of the Ministorum, would make an excellent progression for the Imperium over the next 1000 years...

Either that or the Emperor ascends, and humanity throws off the shackles of dogma and ignorance and evolves into a psychic uber-race to take on the Dark Powers in a battle for reality itself...

I'm not entierly sure that the Dark Reign thread truly answered the question. For example, the state of the human remains depends quite a bit on the local conditions. It is, for example, possible that they could have been mummified rather than skeletonised...

Kage

Kage2020 said:

I have been reading that interesting post, but I haven't found quite what I was looking.

Maybe my headline is too vague.. What I meant was: What happens to machinery, ammoclips and guns when they are sealed in a bunker from M35 to M41?

Some are hermetically sealed, some have air going through, but no animals for all that time.

So I made one corpse to be skeletonised that was outside sealed rooms, in the main bunker area, other corpses were mummified.

But could two tech-priests (one on level 1, the other on leve 2 or 3) fix the generator so they can have light inside, can they fix and boot the two servitors, can they use the guns (lasguns, infernopistol, autoguns and a flamer) or are they too...well.. old? And can they use the ammoclips at all?

That was the main question.

Oh, and the forest have grown almost all over that bunker, roots going all over and on top of it, only the main exit is little bit better accessible.

You're right. I totally fluffed that response.

I'll blame it on the late hour and the painkillers...

Corpse preservation. In a jungle environment after 5000 years, there will be nothing left. Over this time period, with the highly aerobic conditions, and depending on the local acidity levels, intrustion by fauna, etc., there will be nothing left.

In the sealed room...well, it depends on the conditions. For mummification to take place you'd need specific environmental conditions, all typically anearobic or low-aerobic in nature. The most common mummifying environments include; extreme cold and ice, extreme dessicating dryness, extreme salinity (salt soaked environements), or highly acidic but anaerobic conditions (which will preserve the flesh but dissolve the bones).

As for artificial environments such as a sealed lab? Who knows? That will be up to you to decide, but i'd suggest it would have to replicate one of the above environments or putrefaction will simply consume the flesh and erode the bone, leaving, after 5000 years a very brittle skeleton that has significantly chemically disintegrated.

As for machines, etc. Well, again it depends on the environmental conditions and materials.

Some plastics will decompose in direct sunlight within weeks, while others will last for 1000's of years.

Certain metals rust (requiring oxygen to react with), but this rarely destroys the object completely (the rust oxidation forms a protective layer around the core metal)...but after 5000 years? Will probably be beyond repair / use.

Glass seems to be extrememly stable, surviving for at least 2000 years intact, and probably much much longer.

As for the 40k 'made-up-orites', like ceramsteel, etc...well that's for you to decide i guess. But given that Abnett has Iron Men reawakening, i suppose the precedent os for Dark Age of Technology gadgets and machines surviving intact. and of course the AdMech occasionally uncover a functioning STC...

As for bullets? I'd suggest, even if the metals survived, the chemical propellants are likely to have degraded over 5000 years.

Overall though, i'd be inclined to say 'go with whatever you need to happen to drive your story forwards' .

I tried to post a response here, but apparently the forums are still broken. My response is here...

http://vidzup.com/forum/index.php?topic=1143.0

Kage

Thank you for your replys.

What I was after all of this, is to put at least some reality in to the game. I wanted my players to sneak very carefully into this silent, dark bunker and get jumpy at every shadow at every corner. And I actually succeeded in this.

But where I was a bit "out of my depth" was when they broke into weapons storage. I ruled that every gun they took from there would need extensive repair, every sealant inside the gun replaced etc to make it work.

I made every promethium canister and lasgun clip to be drained empty and autogun bullets to be very unstable after all this time.

Now they have secured the 4 mysterious canisters (they will carry them inside cold weather suits they found from closet inside the lab) and they are starting to move out when sniper who is outside scanning the area voxes in that he sees movement in the jungle, near the bunker.

Now they have to decide pretty fast what to do. Do they defend themselves inside the bunker? Is there more enemies coming? Are they enemies? Should they grab what they can and run for it? Or can they talk their way out of it?

This is the moment the game session went on "pause" and continues some time in the future.

(what they DON'T know, is that there is going to be tyranid invasion some time soon and when they are running through jungle, there is going to be genestealer pod crashing down with one surviving 'stealer. And it starts to hunt them down, one by one... *evil grin*

If they make it to the modified aquila lander, they have to make it back to escort-ship and out of the system before the 'nids.

At the same time planet is revolting against Imperial rule, that is the reason that there will be enemies around..

Maybe too much for one little adventure, but hey, they gave me only 15 hours to write it before the first session!

Luddite said:

Glass is actually an incredibly viscous fluid. It takes decades/centuries but glass does deform from puddling. This can be seen in the stained glass from some churches built in the middle ages. Over time the individual glass panels have grown thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top as the glass "flows" down. Mind you this takes several hundred years and depends heavily on the make up of the glass, but after 5 millenia all the glass in the place might just be blobs on the floor.

Actually DocIII, that's a common fallacy. In actual fact, the reason that old windows are thicker at the bottom is that when they were made the glaziers did not have the capability to make large, smooth pieces of glass; often one edge would be somewhat thicker. When they were being fitted to the window frames, the sensible thing to do (in terms of health and safety/stopping it all from falling apart) is and was to fit the thicker edge at the bottom.

We know this to be the case as there are (mostly) intact pieces of Roman glassware that don't exhibit this 'puddling', and I suspect there are even examples predating those which I personally am not aware of.

Sorry, Doc, that's an urban legend. Glass is a solid, and doesn't flow, even over a period of centuries.

The glass in very old windows was made with very old techniques, so each pane was slightly irregular. It was common practice to put the thicker sides down. Occasionally the workers messed up the installation, which is why you'll sometimes find panes of old glass thicker at the top or either side. Also, 2000 year old Roman glass doesn't show signs of slow deformation.

I'm pretty sure I'm the one that told you that urban legend in the first place, which makes my correcting you deliciously ironic.

Hey, I got that bit of info from a professor's lecture back when I was in undergrad. (which is not to say it's accurate just throwing out where I picked up the info)

Like much floating around in my brain, I can't promise absolute accuracy.

Although the course inquestion was dealing with packaging materials and the fluid explanation was the reason given for why glass functions as an absolute barrier (i.e. 0% gas transmission) and pretty much no other non-metal susbatance is. More research likely necessary.

Alasseo said:

*shakes fist in futile rage*

I'll get you, Alasseo! Next time !

*flies off in Clawmobile, stroking white cat*

Huh. Just spoke with my Father (I'm home for thanksgiving, sweet, nourishing pie) who's an engineer, and he's pretty sure he's seen examples of Roman glassware that's flowed and crumpled at the bottom. More research required.

@Domis

Just sent you an email.

I would have sent this as a PM so as not to waste everyone else's time w/ such things, but we don't seem to have that feature on the new forums.

DocIII said:

By all means, keep it going. I'm sure we'd all want to know the answer.

DocIII said:

Hmm.

Well, having personally excavated Roman glass from contexts that were 2200 years old, i didn't see any of this blobbing you describe. But then i think others have adequately refuted your point.

Seems your lecturer misled you!

One of the issues i didn't address in my response to the OP was contamination. Assuming the technology systems used nuclear power, the metal containment systems will have rusted/degraded presumably, which means radiation will have flooded the area?

Concrete of course lasts 1000's of years. Indeed sme Roman concrete hasn't actually fully set yet !!! 2000 years later it hasn't fully set so presumably will still be in place for many many millenia to come!

Conversely, modern stell reinforced concrete will not last, unless the internal steel remains unexposed. Once it starts to rust, it cracks the concrete and degrades very quickly...

Thank you all for your input.

Hmm.. do glass deteoriate?

I'll say "yes they do."

It just takes pretty long time and enviroment contributes to that "glass flowing".

In Finland 50-80 year old windowglass shows signs of deteoriating. Harsh winter, hot summer and direct sunlight might have something to do with that. And if you loog the glass so that sunlight shines from it, you can clearly see see flowing lines in there. Not big lines, but they are there.

I don't have more time to write here so I'll stop my deteoriate ramblings now

Anyway, in the bunker of mine, there were no external windows, only one reinforced window between laboratory and observation room.

The container that killed the scientist contained some kind of viral toxing and it didn't eat through plascreet.

...but I have to go now, see ya later =)

Current scientific thought seems to definitely point to the fact that glass does indeed flow. However, at temperate temperatures, it would take billions of years for the flow to be in any way measurable.

One article on glass flow can be found HERE . Many many more can be found with google ;-)

As for the rest of the setup, Ludite and all have pretty much summed up the condition most other materials would be in. One thing to take into account, however. If the first chamber was only sealed but not hermetically, then it still had access to outside air. If this was/is the case, then spores and microbes would have been able to make it into the room. These spoors and microbes would have found something to settle on and went to work breading and growing, especially latching onto anything organic. By the time the players arrive, anything that is even slightly organic in nature would have probably been broken down long ago and (depending on outside conditions) molds, lichen, and other primitive plant like life might have settled into parts of the concrete and stone work.

elPANTERA said:

What were they looking for?

How did they find it if they didn't know what it was!?

elPANTERA said:

Um. Servitors are human (essentially). so these chaos will have died.

elPANTERA said:

All of this will have rotted beyond use or repair.

elPANTERA said:

A hermetic seal will not have preserved the bodies from complete decay, unless the atmosphere inside was anaerobic, or conformed to one of the preservative environments i detailed above.

elPANTERA said:

The temperature would only remain that cold if the refridgeration units maintained their function. Unlikely after 5000 years without maintenance / power.

elPANTERA said:

I'm pretty sure this will have completely degenerated beyond use/repair wouldn't it?

elPANTERA said:

I'd suspect these chaps would simply perform the 'last rites' on the technology they find, consigning the machine spirirts to eternal rest...

I have to agree with Luddite here. There's no way the things you described in this bunker would survive 5 millenia un attended, but don't let realism get in the way of a cool or interresting story.

Thank you Luddide for your great post, most apperciated!

Q: How did they know what to look for if they didn't know what to look.

A: The player group works for Inquisitor "A" and Inquisitor "B" have asked this team to help his own group. He doesn't tell why, maybe because there are 2 tech-priests, 1 guard and 1 priest in the player-group. (In Inquisitor B -group there are only ex-guard soldiers.)

Players have to follow this "B" -groups leadership and at the same time spy for the "A" for what is happening and why, without group "B" soldiers noticing.

At the moment, they have managed to copy themselves the mission parameters, but they lack the correct password to open it. So they just have to tag along until they get it or find what they are looking for.

Techpriests are crucial for this mission to hack open locks and so forth. Priest is important to keep the Emperor tight in their mind. (Planet is rebelling, there might be threat to morality) And lastly, soldier is needed to..you know, keep them alive.

Anyway, I pretty much gave my players free hands to do what they want, only in occacion to point them in the right direction when team "B" teamleader cnosults his dataslate. (Piece of equipment the techpriests would LOVE to get their hands on, just for a while...)

Inside the bunker there weren't any mold or lichen, just dust and darkness. Every machine (trucks and so forth) had corroded beyond repair. Skeleton on the ground crumbled to dust after our brave guard touched it with his lasgun. I know that in real world everything would ha eroded beyond use and recognition, but this was first game for the techpriests, I wanted to give them something to do. Hack doorcodes, repair generator, find parts for the machinery, hack in to computer, secretly copy the files from there without team "B" leader to know anything about it and so forth.

And I have to admid, it was lovly to watch their expressions when they were as silently as possible sneaking around that bunker. Only two of them had light with them so they didn't see much from their surroundings. Everytime they found something, I tried to describe it as vagely as possible if they were further away from it. I could almost see the exitement in their eyes and even postures around the table *grins*

Long story short, some little things were somehow operatable (after repairs) but most of the things were dust and corrosion =)

Anyway, thank you all for your pointers!

Cheers!

elPANTERA said:

Now THIS is very interesting. Something that has been discussed and debated at length on the old FFG and other fora (forums?) is the nature of the structures of the Inquisition. How Inquisitors interact with each other, plan and mobilise their activities etc.

Here you seem to have a model that;

1. Has Inquisitors in contact with each other
2. Cooperating to the extent that they are willing to hand over their own acolytes to be subordinate to another Inquisitors acolytes
3. Willing to covertly investigate each other, even while cooperating.

Very interesting. So do you see the inquisitor as part of a larger organisation or a freeroaming individual?

elPANTERA said:

The Tech Priest doesn't have to limit himself to opening doors etc. He could just as easily been an appropriate advisor as to why everything decayed. also, perhaps he could have repaird the power system or been given radiation decontamination gear that only he could use, to clear up the pollution of the fractured nuclear reactor...

elPANTERA said:

Well, thats a couple of key points, both of which i mentioned above.

1. This ISN'T the real world. Who knows what the machinery was made of. Maybe it was made of advance metal and power systems that DON'T corrode over time. Maybe the atmospheric processors still functioned and maintained the conditions at a stasis level that meant organic decomposition was arrested...and...
2. ...the answer to those questions should be driven by the needs of your story (within reason)...which you seem to have done.

Ha ha! Someone else broke the forum for a while...

Kage