Even on mechanicum worlds, they're going to be secure with a very strong top-down permissions and access method. Magi are extremely secretive and have a tendency to horde information; even if someone does manage to break into their Forge, they're not going to want to make it easy on them to download their designs for superior plasma weaponry. Nor are they going to want lower tech adepts seeing designs beyond their understanding. Don't forget that the 40k universe is one where simply observing a sufficiently complex design system can drive men completely insane.

Not to mention it's from a Hours Heresy Novel which are stated to be possibly not accurate reflections of the truth.

This applies equally so to every other GW product ever. Partly because 40k is fiction and no matter what the IP holders say fans can and will view the setting however they want (see the legion of Star Wars fans who refuse to accept Disney's declarations of non-canonization of vast swaths of the EU), but also because GW is smart enough to recognize this and roll with it and have officially declared that there is no canon.

Not to mention it's from a Hours Heresy Novel which are stated to be possibly not accurate reflections of the truth.

This applies equally so to every other GW product ever. Partly because 40k is fiction and no matter what the IP holders say fans can and will view the setting however they want (see the legion of Star Wars fans who refuse to accept Disney's declarations of non-canonization of vast swaths of the EU), but also because GW is smart enough to recognize this and roll with it and have officially declared that there is no canon.

there are canon events. The horus heresy definitely HAPPENED. But all information we're given is told by unreliable narrators top to bottom.

there are canon events. The horus heresy definitely HAPPENED.

No it didn't. Everything in 40k is, in fact, fictitious, and neither the word of Games Workshop nor the consensus of 40k fans will make it any less so. Now, the Horus Heresy is a popular story and that's important because it means that if you use it as the basis for your own story, or a game, or whatever, people will know and like what you're building off of. But that has nothing to do with the word of the IP holder or anyone else typically enshrined as being in charge of "canon." Again I point you to Star Wars: Disney declared that there was no Grand Admiral Thrawn, and the Star Wars fans responded "screw you, there totally was." Because they can do that, and no one can stop them, and the only thing that actually matters about Thrawn's story (how often it is remembered and retold) is completely unaffected.

uuuh... no that's not how canon/fanon works....

What you just described is FANON. Not canon. Even Lucas said Thrawn wasn't canon, that everything outside of the movies wasn't canon. All Disney did was put the final nail in that coffin for Thrawn's canoness outside of the EU.

Canon is what the people in charge say actually happened, and the people in charge say that everything told in the game is unreliable narrator, but yeah, some things hav legit happened, but motivations and reasoning behind them is unclear in a lot of cases. So yeah. The horus heresy really did happen. Did it go down like it did in the books? Not necessarily.

You don't get to redefine words like that I'm afraid. Canon means the things the devs and creators of a topic have said actually happened, and they intend to go forward in their setting with the assumption that it has happened. Things that were formerly canon might get retconned, but that just changes what is, and isn't canon. The fluidity of canon does not mean that anybody gets to say what is canon for 40k. They just get to say what's canon for THEIR GAME of 40k at best, and anything beyond that is either head-canon or fanon.

You're just arguing semantics now, and moreover you're arguing semantics of slang words which have no official or broadly accepted definition. The actual definition will vary and vary wildly between different communities and even different individuals in communities, and the communities you personally are familiar with do not get to define the word for everyone. It has a vague and inconsistent definition, partly because people usually use it for very poorly thought-out arguments and employ doublethink to its definition to try and win at the internet. People talk about "my canon" and the like all the time. You can say they're saying it "wrong" and that the "correct" term is fanon, but according to who ? These are slang terms (or in one case, technically a slang usage of a regular word).

Particularly in Star Wars right now we are seeing that IP holders really don't control the notion of what is or isn't canon. A very large number of fans are indeed declaring that Grand Admiral Thrawn is canon no matter what Disney says, and you, personally cannot redefine the slang term "canon" to mean what you want it to. The definition of canon as relates to Star Wars was always a tangled and complicated mess, and with the latest fan revolt against 95% of its material being nuked from official timelines the word's definition has gotten even murkier.

In any case, you are at this point not actually arguing with my actual point: That whoever is currently telling a story can set whatever premise for that story they want regardless of what the IP holder intends or the size of their audience, and that anyone telling a story (collaboratively or not) in a pre-existing universe only needs to worry about what the fans are familiar with and enjoy and doesn't have to care what the IP holders have declared to be "real" or not, because none of it is real and there are no genuine facts to contradict. A GM, writer, game dev or whatever can jolly well declare that the Emperor is a carebear and, barring legal intervention from Games Workshop, they aren't wrong because they can't be wrong because 40k is fiction.

No it didn't. Everything in 40k is, in fact, fictitious

No. There are events that will always happen. It is the way in which the events happen that are up to change. Vandire will always be a donkey. The emperor will always be enthroned. Horus will always be obliterated.

No it didn't. Everything in 40k is, in fact, fictitious

No.

Are you legit trying to convince me that Warhammer 40k is real?

EDIT: Seriously, I can't get over this. Usually when I point out that fictitious events are fictitious and therefore nobody can be right or wrong about them because there are no facts , and all that really matters is what stories are popular and well-known, people will either get it or just leave the conversation because for whatever reason they are married to the notion that they can prove a fictitious story right or wrong by arguing from texts created by the IP holder like it was a legal document or archaelogical record. Usually because they just can't stand that someone else tells a different version of the story from their personal favorite, or because they have a disturbing and near-religious devotion to the creators of a fictitious universe.

But this is the first time I've said that 40k (or any other work of fiction) is fiction and someone has responded in the negative. The rest of your post only reinforces my point, that what matters is the stories that were remembered and retold and the stories of Horus, Vandire, the Golden Throne, etc. etc. are much too popular and well-known to be simply obliterated ( even if the IP holders tried it , again, see Disney and Star Wars), although details are absolutely up in the air because someone can always retell something better. But what your preface literally means is that you dispute the point that 40k is fiction . And that's the only point on which you're disagreeing with me at all.

In regards to the Noosphere debate, in the Priests(Lords, Gods) of Mars books it not only mentions the noosphere multiple times, it is most definitely post-Heresy as well, and describes how the Rogue Trader can even link into the Noosphere through a physical connection to see it. The Noosphere is also mentioned in passing in the Knights of the Imperium novella. Granted the same author wrote all the books mentioned, I'm willing to take it as canon since he also worked on the actual 40k rulebook and several codex's.

Yes, but it's still an archeotech artifact that is rather limited in it's existence. Not every planet is going to have one. Most FORGE WORLDS won't have one.

I really don't think it could be considered archeotech seeming as even the lowest adepts seem to be able to see and interact with it.

Archeotech laspistols are archeotech, doesn't make pulling the trigger any more difficult.

The point remains it's a Forge World Mechanicum thing, not a general use. It's also still not the Internet as we think of it, its still a very controlled system more similar to corporate intranets then our internet.

No.

No again. I can see where you would interpret it in that manner, but I realize that it is a fiction. Merely that certain events in the universe always happen. Again it is the way in which these events happen that change.

No again. I can see where you would interpret it in that manner, but I realize that it is a fiction. Merely that certain events in the universe always happen. Again it is the way in which these events happen that change.

You aren't saying anything. You aren't making a point. You're just boldly declaring yourself to be correct and moreover at this stage it's not even clear how you're disagreeing with me. You keep phrasing your posts like disagreement, but you don't seem to actually be disagreeing with any of my actual points.

The only source of disagreement I can see is that you think 40k is, was, and will always be, that it was called into existence at the beginning of time and therefore no amount of mythological drift could ever result in a version of the 40k universe in which the Horus Heresy did not happen being commonly accepted. This is so preposterously insane that I assume it's not what you mean, but much like your previous statement which, taken at face value, argued that 40k was not fiction there doesn't really appear to be any other way to read it.

Seriously, you either need to take some time to explain what you mean or else take some time to organize your thoughts so that you don't end up spouting incoherent lunacy without even realizing it.

Okay, um, just to make sure:

The entire 40k setting is a work of fiction, true.

The setting has some things that are canon to the setting, and, within the context of a setting, has at least some things that are internally consistent fact and fiction.

Make sure to keep track of what you are talking about, when you use the word fiction!

The setting has some things that are canon to the setting, and, within the context of a setting, has at least some things that are internally consistent fact and fiction.

Okay, so thought experiment. Someone that there is no Horus Heresy, that the whole thing is being retconned completely, along with all of Chaos, out of 40k history. We are resetting the setting to 1988, when it was nothing but marines, orks, eldar, and squats. Who does that someone have to be in order to convince you to never again read, watch, or play a story that involves Chaos? The creators? I have created both fluff and crunch for Warhammer 40k, and odds are you have to, so either one of us could declare that Chaos doesn't exist and it would be "canon." The original creator? Well then Warhammer 40k canon is over because Rick Priestely left Games Workshop back in 2010. Pack it up, it's done. All stories created after November 2010 (as well as a large number of those created before) had no trace of involvement from Rick Priestely, and are therefore non-canon and invalid. The "official" creators? Official according to who? Copyright law? Why are you putting a body of law on such a pedestal when you probably don't support it, don't understand it, or often enough both? Are you going to burn all your Timothy Zahn because Disney said it's non-canon, and reject all his works because he has somehow managed to be wrong about the events of a fictional universe? Will you refuse to ever read, watch, or play another story with Grand Admiral Thrawn in it, on the grounds that it is not canon? If someone who meets your criteria for "official" declared Chaos to be non-canon, would you immediately purge all mentions of Chaos from all of your games and never read another book about the Horus Heresy? What if two people who are both "official" declare contradictory things, like when that one Bioware-backed Mass Effect novel had like eleventy billion lore inconsistencies with the games and other novels?

Naturally someone at this point is thinking "just because something isn't canon doesn't mean we can't like it." Okay, fair enough (and this is obviously true by almost any definition of canon). But then why did someone bring up the noosphere being canon or not in the first place? If being "non-canon" on the basis of whichever definition you happen to use is no impediment to reading, watching, or playing stories, then why mention canonicity at all? Someone brought up the noosphere's dubious canonicity because they thought that was a reason not to use it in a game (and also because they thought something having dubious canonicity was anything else but the norm in multi-author fiction spanning decades). Something being "canon" or not doesn't matter, not only because the definition is inconsistent and there will always be a growing host of contradictory details in a body of work that has dozens or hundreds of contributors spaced out over nearly three decades, but also because regardless of which group you, personally assign to be the official arbitors of what is and is not canon, most other people will not care and will go on telling, retelling, and building on the stories they, personally like.

And that's what matters. If I try to tell a story with talking necrons, some people will be on board with that, but some others won't. If I try to tell a story that heavily features centurion armor, a lot of people won't be okay with that and will ignore my story because it contains something they have removed from their personal canon for being dumb. But if I tell a story about Chaos or the Horus Heresy, everyone's fine with that, because everyone likes that story. That's what makes the Horus Heresy entrenched in the Warhammer 40k myth, while talking necrons and centurion armor aren't, even though the current IP holders have declared that those things are just as "canon" as the Horus Heresy.

Although it's worth noting that even if someone did come along and tell a 40k story where there was no Chaos, they wouldn't be wrong . They'd just be setting themselves up for an uphill battle to get an audience.

Congratulations, you win.

By your declaration and definition, these forum are pointless.

Nothing I or any of the rest of us says exists because you don't wish for it to exist.

You don't exist because we don't wish for you to exist.

40k is what anyone says 40k is.

By your argument there are no orks in Middle Earth,

No Jedi in Star Wars.

There is no god in the bible.

Though often represented as such, GW never said there was no canon. They said all their books were equally canon, and any and/or all discrepancies are lies or heresy. It's statement that fits well into the Theme of 40k. So if someone wants to say the Horus Heresy books are less true, perhaps they're correct - it was a long time ago (in universe) and a lot things have been lost & added. Or perhaps they're the most true, because they were written when the galaxy was less distorted.

So feel free to correct disagree and say so, but don't pretend that saying "Everything in 40k is, in fact, fictitious" closes any kind of argument.

Nothing I or any of the rest of us says exists because you don't wish for it to exist.

Are you seriously drawing an equivalency between recognizing the fictitious nature of Warhammer 40k and the deluded belief that reality will warp to match someone's perceptions rather than the other way around? This again seems like a parody of how someone might respond to what I'm saying. It's inane. It makes no sense. It not only has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said but is also such an insane distortion of what I said that I am actually wondering whether or not you're trolling.

You've made no point. Your argument is a complete non-sequitir. There is absolutely no connection between the argument "Warhammer 40k is fiction, therefore it can be portrayed however anyone wants it to be portrayed because there are no facts to contradict" and "reality isn't real." It's a completely dishonest leap of logic.

EDIT: While we're on the subject of facts, your assertion that "GW never said there was no canon" is factually incorrect.

Gavin Thorpe, worked on about half of the mainline 3rd edition products as well as multiple Black Library books:

"With Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, the notion of canon is a fallacy. [...] Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong."

- https://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/jumping-the-fence/

Andy Hoare, worked on third and fourth edition:

"It all stems from the assumption that there's a binding contract between author and reader to adhere to some nonexistent subjective construct or 'true' representation of the setting. There is no such contract, and no such objective truth."

- http://www.boomtron.com/2011/03/grimdark-ii-loose-canon/

Note that Andy's response is in the comments, the main article is by Aaron Dembski-Bowden who works for Black Library and not Games Workshop.

You can quibble as to whether or not these quotes count as being "from Games Workshop," but it's deceptive to claim that "GW never said there was no canon" when a Games Workshop employee has explicitly said "with Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, the notion of canon is a fallacy."

EDIT 2: Seriously, these forums are beginning to depress me. This is the second time someone has made an argument that only makes sense if you believe that 40k isn't fiction . What the Hell?

Yes, it was a parody. I thought that it was a fairly obvious parody. It was a parody created because you've gone off the deep end in extensively arguing what I initially assumed was intentionally selective reading of someone's response.

I acquiesce to the point on canon, I was remembering a different quote and was unaware of Gavin Thropes.

Seriously, you either need to take some time to explain what you mean or else take some time to organize your thoughts so that you don't end up spouting incoherent lunacy without even realizing it.

Your original statement was:

This applies equally so to every other GW product ever. Partly because 40k is fiction and no matter what the IP holders say fans can and will view the setting however they want (see the legion of Star Wars fans who refuse to accept Disney's declarations of non-canonization of vast swaths of the EU), but also because GW is smart enough to recognize this and roll with it and have officially declared that there is no canon.

Which isn't true. There are some game's workshop products that are held with more strength within the fictitious universe than others. Namely the rule books and the codex.

While GW maintains there is no "canon" in the expanded universe the meta plot moves forward with the inclusion of rule books. Therefore the main "canon", the events that always happen in the universe, are moved forward by them.

Works of fiction about the events in the universe hold no sway on these main events that GW describes in what create.

However as of reading your later posts this doesn't really matter. You won't care or be convinced and I don't even know why I'm going through the trouble.

There are two ways to read your argument, ThenDoctor. Though you have at least made an argument, so there's that. In the first reading, you are declaring that Games Workshop has officially tiered their products the way Star Wars used to, in which case you are going to have to start by producing quotes backing that up and then why anyone outside of Games Workshop should care or be required to include talking necrons and centurion armor in their stories.

The other way of reading it is that the audience as a whole tends to lend more weight to main books and codexes than novels or short stories. In which case this is technically true but doesn't actually contradict anything I've said, so I don't know why you're bringing it up. But it wouldn't be the first time that you've made a post phrased as though it's disagreeing with me that doesn't appear to contradict any of my actual statements, even the one you quote and claim to be contradicting, so I am honestly uncertain.

I'm also not particularly impressed by your exasperation at my unwillingness to buy into groupthink. The reason I have not changed my mind is because so far the only responses have been either misunderstandings of my position, fragments of a counterargument which are divorced from a greater context and therefore incoherent, and outright parody. Nobody is engaging with my actual position so of course I haven't changed my mind.

Since long-ranged communications in the Imperium rely on psykers and the risks involved with them makes anything other than essential communications too dangerous to risk there's no Imperium-wide data sharing open for public use. In a way this is a measure of control for the population, as the Imperium generally prefer the citizens to live in blissful ignorance of the terrors and dangers which they face on an almost daily basis from aliens, deamons and heretics.

I've heard mention of a Fleet-Net used by the Imperial Navy which shares non-vital information between fleets, but this is usually focused around their main communications hubs and ships have to update their onboard records each time they're in range of a comm-buoy. Some 'civilian' organisations, such as the Navis Nobilite, Adeptus Astra Telepathica and Adeptus Astronomica, maintain Imperium-wide information networks to allow them to trade information as part of their standard operations, such as updating astronomical charts to aid navigation and fleet actions, but only high-ranking initiates to these organisations would be permitted access to the networks.

About the only other organisation I can think of which would be allowed to have a interstellar information network would be the Inquisition, but most Inquisitors are far too paranoid to actually share anything with their peers. Of course heretics and traitors who don't mind breaking the rules most likely have a few rogue psykers around the place to form their own information networks, but any of these would be strictly secured in case they attracted the attention of the Ordo Hereticus or Ordo Malleus (or if the psyker were alien even the Ordo Xenos.)

In Chaos Space things are a lot simpler, since psykers have already willingly given themselves over to deamonic forces and so need not worry about possession. Information can be quickly and easily communicated from one end of the Eye of Terror to the other and by using warp beasts even instantaneous transportation of goods and troops between planets is possible (as described in the Traitor General book.)

---

To jump into the 'canon' argument, for me there's five levels of canon to consider. The first, and highest, hard-canon is information which has appeared in the latest revisions made by Games Workshop and which represents the hard facts of the Warhammer universes. This information is irrefutably correct, up until the next revision release. In situations where there is a direct conflict between different sources of information, the most recent source takes precedence.

If they said it's happening, it's happening.

The second level, soft-canon, is information which has appeared in previous revisions but has not been overwritten by any subsequent revisions. This information can still be considered facts in the universe, but can be open to interpretation where it contradicts other sources of information. The 'most recent' rule still applies here though, so if there hasn't been a specific revision covering the information then it's still considered to be canon.

If they said it happened, it happened.

The third level, loose-canon, is anything which has been dropped from the latest revisions but has not been superseded by anything subsequently and which could still be included as fluff in the right circumstances. Some items, histories and rules no longer fit into the actual Warhammer games due to rule changes, introduction of superseding updates and revisions of the information provided. However the information in question hasn't been totally dismissed from the universe and so could still be referred to by characters, even if it's later corrected by someone else. It could be that the character who first mentioned it hasn't checked the latest Imperial Edicts and so is remembering out-of-date information, or they may have been poorly educated and taught the wrong thing.

If they didn't say it didn't happen, it happened.

The fourth level is out-of-canon, where information has been overwritten by more recent revisions, such as those short miners from the Core Worlds who don't exist. This information should not be referred to except to be mentioned as folklore, superstition or fairy tales which never really existed. The information could still be used if a character could reasonably believe it to be the truth, but should expect to be placed in an appropriate treatment facility to help cure them of their delusions, or shot by a Commissar.

If they said it didn't happen, it didn't happen.

The fifth level is non-canon. This covers anything which has never been included in any of the Games Workshop labelled products, which could include fan-based fictions and added content which has never been endorsed by the main canon material. Having said that, just because it hasn't been endorsed yet doesn't mean it might not be in the future. An early example of this would've been the White Scar Space Marines, who originally were a fan-based Chapter of Marines who rode bikes exclusively but were later included in the main canon as a force who helped defend Earth during the last days of the Horus Heresy.

It they never said it happened, it didn't happen.

After having said all that though, the Imperium of Man is a very large place, and not all of the galaxy is within it. It's always possible that something which would appear as completely outrageous on one planet could be considered to be perfectly normal on another only a few short Warp jumps away. I've always tended to follow the rule that if I can't directly refute something being possible then it should be considered to be possible until proved otherwise.

So how about this, "This Forge World does not have access to a true Noosphere, the methods of creating those being jealously guarded secrets that require access to some archeotech artefacts to get the process started. Instead, it has a more mundane setup of massively interlinked cogitators forming networks of networks, an Inter-Net, if you will, with a focus on availability of wireless access points."

From an infrastructure standpoint, I don't think there's an issue between that, Gavin, and what seems to be technologically possible, or even reasonable. We've seen several examples (direct or implied) of computer cognator networking and wireless communications. But, my hesitancy to call it an Internet comes not from an infrastructure standpoint, but from a software, access and usage standpoint.

The Internet is build on a commercialization of an Academic Information Sharing System. Anything built by member of the imperium is going to be based on gathering and controlling information, not distributing it. Here is a quote I lifted from the Star Wars forums, because Star Wars has a similar issue with it's Holonet.

Star Wars is not an Information Society. The realworld Internet was designed to be a highly resilient system that could withstand devastating force (nuclear attack) and still enable all members of it to be able to reach all other members - It is a large net which has the principle of routing around damage built into it as basic aim. I.e. its primary goal above all else, is to enable communications.

The Holonet is not that and never was. It's a state run communications system and its primary aims are security and top-down control. It doesn't have the goal of withstanding a massive and devastating external attack by a party of equal power, because there is no party of equal power to the Empire. Where the Internet is decentralized, the Holonet is has control centres. Where the Internet tries to enable to party A to get their message to party B via any path available, the Holonet tries to make sure communications from party A get routed up to the local control stations and then routed down to party B after identities have been confirmed. Where the Internet allows anyone to connect and start serving up a webpage, the Holonet checks with C&C and looks to see if your systems have been properly registered in triplicate before they are allocated a communications channel.

The Holonet has different design goals to the Internet and is thus different in implementation. The Empire does not fear external attack. It fears internal dissent. Your analogue for the Holonet is not today's Internet, but the military communications network of a fascist state.

So, how does my Seneschal do their job? If we don't spend copious amounts of time at Port Wander or Footfall, maybe one or two other large crossroads locales, where is he or she "looking up" their intelligence? You journey to Footfall, and attend the Foretelling. In the room with you, you see a veritable menagerie of like-empowered individuals, each with similar resources, and each interested in getting the goods before you, preferably without you. When you get back to your ship, and are ready to launch into the darkness, you turn to your spy-master, and say "I have a feeling we're going to run into at least a few of those people again. What do we know about them?" Why does the Seneshal know anything? Where did they learn details about Bastille, or Feckward? Is that Rogue Trader Lady Charlabelle Armelan, or could it be Captain Aoife Armengarde? Certainly, I'm letting my growing up in a free-information age, with easy access to treasure troves of data, true and false, color my expectations, but other than slumming the streets of a locale, on the rare occasions you are on a world where your presence didn't just triple its Human population, or some place like Vaporius, or Zayth, which are so isolated from everywhere else beyond them as to be funny, or getting lackey to do it for them, having found other randeom Humans who know details about people they have never met, there's seemingly so much that the players couldn't know, even if they rolled great on their Common Lore (Rogue Traders) check. Short of spying on your own crew, ferreting out mutiny, what is my Seneshal doing, and how, with no networked reservoirs of data?

Certainly, i know there is an answer to this; I just wish to hear it.