Locque said:

IMO, radical invention is what is required and what GW eventually decided was preferable. They wanted to use Dwarves in space as an inspiration, but to move away from the actual image of fantasy dwarves. An alien race that has elements of dwarven culture and psychology, but not appearance. No stubby little bearded fellas running around the battlefield with axes and lasguns.

macd21 said:

Once they stop being short-arses, are they really dwarfs then?

I must admit that I'd never given much thought to updating the 40K Squat concept, but it's a good challenge. I reckon that the way forward for Squats is:-

1. Abandon archetytpes. 40k is built on archetypes to some extent: space wolves are vikings, ultramarines are Romans etc etc. Squats have been portrayed as both vikings, bikers and saxons. I reckon stop all this nonsense and retreat to the science bit, as they say in Pantene adverts. Squats are abhumans from high-gravity worlds. Forget vikings, forget saxons, draw up what a genuine high grav-human would be like. I reckon misshapen (by human standards) incredibly broad, scarred, tough looking. forget huge beards, make them unique, new and memorable looking. Stop all the viking stuff, make them high tech (like Tau, but grittier) and innovative. Go sci-fi rather than fantasy.

2. Go steampunk. Epic squat weaponary was actually some of the coolest stuff in the game. It was characterised by a high-tech and innovative approach to the forbidden mysteries of 40k tech: make the squats mad inventors who skirt the edge of tech-heresy, but who are bizarrely also an object of fascination to the techno-magi. Make them high tech cyber/steampunks with weird tech that has an amazing visual edge.

3 Break them in gently. Don't introduce them as a new army out of the blue, gradually reintroduce them via White Dwarf articles with a handful of new miniatures to add to Imperial Guard armies. Then a single frame of plastics. Then an army list. Then more. Make them a type of abhuman, like ratlings and Ogryns, then grow the concept from there. Don't try and introduce a vast new army type from scratch, bring in a bit and see how the concept grows organically on online forums in the minds of the fans.

4. Use forgeworld to introduce new lines. Don't rely on straightforward 40k fans to buy into the concept: use forge world to pioneer new lines and new concepts. Make them a specialist army, not a mainstream one, and let the concept sink or swim.

5. Use them to pioneer hi-tech human equipment and weapons that wouldn't work anywhere else. Exciting new weapons, mid-range power armour (larger than teminator armour, smaller than dreadnoughts) specialist support guns, combat trikes etc etc.

Just a few thoughts...

Locque, Macd21; a radical redesign. Short, 'squat' in terms of physique, advanced, alien and also a bit cool? I submit the following...

If someone on the right we call 'Eldar' then someone on the left can be called 'Demiurg', no?

Well Locque, I think you've got standards but you don't know what they are. The squats or whatever you want to call them still need to be the dwarfen archetype in space because that's what they are. I'm not sure how being a dwarf in space is any different to being a dwarf in fantasy (being 'enshrined' in fantasy doesn't have anything to do with them being interesting or appealing).

It just seems you don't like them and really can't be told otherwise, no matter what they look like. Luckily though, you aren't the entirety of 40k fans and there are plenty out there that think dwarfs in space are no more ridiculous than elves or orcs in space. I can't see a logical reason as to why the dwarfs are a special case out of all fantasy that somehow requires more work than all the others and so it seems that over the years an irrational bias perpetuated by GW has appeared that, at its heart doesn't like the squats at all and uses social methods of reinforcement; 'lol squats' is all it boils down to, which is no basis for design.

Hopefully the OP will see that a rational approach to things means there is no inherent bias and there is really nothing in fantasy that can't be brought to 40k.

We 'know' that the dwarfen physiology ISN'T a handicap in combat because the dwarfs are some of the best fighters in Warhammer, taking on the spacemarine esque chaos warriors and winning. Their champions duel the champions of other races, including the elves who are the complete opposite of the dwarfs and they still win. Thus your argument that being a dwarf makes you suck in combat is unfounded because they don't. Putting a dwarf in 40k changes nothing about this, so they would be just as good at combat as they would be in warhammer.

You say this is stupid and comical and then recommend they get bulging guts?

From the background we have of the Demiurg, they really aren't that different to dwarfs and I doubt that, should GW ever decide to make an army out of them that they will be as radically different and nondwarfy as people seem to think they should be.

I still contend that there is absolutely no rational reason for the persecution of the dwarfen archetype over all other fantasy archetypes in a scifi setting, and it's entirely based on a socially reinforcing culture that has glided along on the 'lol squats' argument for the last decade.

The fact is that there were actually people out there that liked ths squats AS IS, even down to the name (I am not one of them).

I truly believe that the biggest hindrance to the squats' existence was their name. Had they started out with ANY different name their comedy value would not have been as high. GW may have thought to change things here or there, and we may have them around today. The name alone attached a stigma to them.

But, I am finished arguing about this. Physically eldar are still elves, orks are still orcs, so squats should have no trouble being dwarfs.

Hellebore

Hellebore said:

Not to be derogatory but I give up. You're ignoring points I've made as if I never said them, and attributing things to me that I in turn had never said. Clearly we won't see eye to eye on this, and you're absolutely entitled to your opinion as I'm entitled to mine.

Locque said:

Likewise. Fact is, squats were laughed at from day one. As an archetype they have a tiny minority of fans. No one else is really sorry to see them go. As I said, I like dwarfs in fantasy, but if you want to bring them into 40k, squats aren't the way to do it.

I'm proud to be part of the pro-squat "tiny minority"...we're tiny, but we're vocal!

I much prefer what I've seen of the Demiurg as being the "dwarfs in space" archetype compared to the Squats. The Squats always seemed silly in the 40k tabletop, I could never take them seriously.

Epic, on the other hand... they worked there.

I do like the idea of Squats overall, I think they have a place in the 40K setting, if not the TT game. It would be nice to see them, Eldar, Ratlings, Ogryns and other races as viable PCs in future releases (perhaps Ascension or even RT later).

An official role for them in the 40K universe would be nice to hear from GW, not as an army, but perhaps as a White Dwarf Chapter Approved Article for a "mercenary" unit available to Space Marines, Witch Hunters, Daemon Hunters, Imperial Guard and perhaps Tau forces.

I see them as a scattered raced much like the Wookies only, less hairy. Barely. Oh, and shorter.

Kind of like Tom Hanks' character in the Terminal, they have no place to go.

You could play them full tilt as they are seeking a honorable (Trollslayer style) death to join their kinsmen, or they are seeking out a legenday (a la Battle Star Galactica) lost Homeworld and so forth.

I also like the idea that the Nids didnt kill them all off, but perhaps someone else did, and the PR guys at Imperium Central said "uhm, we might want to blame something else, you know, officially!"

I can see them being the victim of Ad Mech Exterminatus or some extreme Puritan Cult of Inquisitors.

The point is, there may be no real room for them left in Table Top (other then a Chapter Approved mercenary unit article) but there is plenty of space in space for them to exist in the fluff.

Peacekeeper_b said:

I suppose, but given they have been retconned out of all the present novels, and the majority of people involved in 40k now will never have heard of them, there really is no reason to have them, except as some sort of fan service (and as Ben "Yhatzee" Croshaw has said, why would you ever listen to fans? You can never make them happy no matter what you do).

There really is no need for the Squats in the 40k roleplay games as it is, especially since both DH and RT are set about as far away from the former Squat worlds as possible.

Also... I'm fairly sure that the 3rd Edition Codex Tyranids had a map of the various Tyranid invasions of the galaxy, and on there I'm pretty sure it had the Squat worlds stated as having been destroyed by Leviathan (since Leviathan is coming from the Galactic South up into the galactic centre... pretty much slap bang on top of the Squats).

If we take an 'updated' fluff outlook on the Squats, I think there's a very marvelous solution just waiting to be tapped.

SPOLERS!
SPOILERS FROM MECHANICUM !
SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!

Well, in the end Zouche takes the book. He's basically a reimagined Squat. A normal, well-working character in a book who bears plenty of resemblance to the archetype. Plot that out forward, the Squats, the Outremar, assume that Zouche eventually ends up amongst them, or at least his legacy does.

But what is his legacy?

Well, at the end of the book Zouche and Caxton seem to disappear with 'the book of the Dragon'. I propose something mad which nobody likes at all: that the book is the Void Dragon, still somnolent, but escaped. So Zouche takes the book off to the Squat homeworlds. A tyranid hivefleet passes that way (perhaps aimed at something 'behind' it in 3D) and the Imperium read this as the cause. However, the 'truth' is that the Dragon is abroad. Perhaps not awake, but his legions of Necrons are active, his cults are active etc. He's no longer on Mars, he fled to the Cradle, to the Squat Homeworlds. And destroyed them.

That's a bit more dignified, isn't it? That the Squats were destroyed 'by the machine god', no?

SPOILERS END

I think it's a good resolution. No comment on the proposed Demiurg picture up the page?

Shoehorning yet another C'tan into yet another part of the background? No, that's really not any more dignified than going down to a Tyranid invasion.
"I suppose, but given they have been retconned out of all the present novels"

No, they haven't. A retcon is where something in the present retroactively changes something about the past. If a new Star Wars movie came out and said no, Darth Vader is not Luke Skywalker's dad, that would be a retcon, because the established con tinuity has been ret roactively changed.

An example of a 40K Retcon is, for example, changing the spelling of the Dark Angels' primarch to Lion El'Jonson. It was one thing, it was changed to having always been another thing.The only Squat retcon that has occurred so far has been in the short story Warped Stars, in the Deathwing anthology, where the character of Grimm the Squat was changed into a techpriest. Quite how you expanded that into "the squats have been retconned out of all the present novels", I have no idea. Not being mentioned in novels is not the same as continuity being retroactively altered.

"Also... I'm fairly sure that the 3rd Edition Codex Tyranids had a map of the various Tyranid invasions of the galaxy, and on there I'm pretty sure it had the Squat worlds stated as having been destroyed by Leviathan (since Leviathan is coming from the Galactic South up into the galactic centre... pretty much slap bang on top of the Squats)."

You. Can't. Destroy. A. Spacefaring. Race. By. Destroying. Their. Homeworld.

Besides which, Leviathan appeared in 997.M41. you know what else happened in 997.M41? Yarrick and Ghazkhull met. On Golgotha. With Squats. If Leviathan ate the homeworlds, then it ate Yarrick and Ghaz too, and it demonstrably hasn't.

EDIT: Gave up on using quotes

Besides which, Leviathan appeared in 997.M41. you know what else happened in 997.M41? Yarrick and Ghazkhull met. On Golgotha. With Squats. If Leviathan ate the homeworlds, then it ate Yarrick and Ghaz too, and it demonstrably hasn't.

Leviathan appears in 997.M41. Battle for Golgotha occurs as they begin eating Squat homeworlds. Golgotha was clearly not one of the first worlds to fall - probably eaten in 998 -999?

Charax,

I'd say that isn't shoehorning, but a technical point isn't going to endear the idea to you either. It's an option available in that Zouche is a Squat-analogue and the book is a fine reason for anyone destroying somewhere. Of course, I don't think the destruction of the homeworlds is necessary or sensible for removing the squats, merely that 'destroying the squat homeworlds' is an arguably endearing thing to do.

As you say: Destroying the homeworld won't kill a spacefaring race (one need only have played Homeworld , for instance, to understand this!). Still, bringing in a C'tan is a more likely/plausible (well...) thing than the Tyranids going after barren nigh-lifeless rocks in the deep core far from tons of biomass.

macd21,

Still no comment on the pic of the proposed Demiurg? Anyhow: Golgotha wasn't eaten by the nids, IIRC, it was ravaged by the orks. I'm unaware of the timeframe, but the novel Gunheads takes place on it. Golgotha is (was) just a squat (well, abhuman) world, not a homeworld either. Still, as noted, destroying all their planets won't remove them from the galaxy.

Xisor said:

*Shrug* At the moment we know very little about the Demiurg's appearance, so one proposal is as likely to be correct as any other.

Xisor,

If you haven’t yet go read Titanicus . That novel, IMO, basically tells you what happens to the Book of the Dragon without really ever telling you what book is in question.

Well, seems Games Workshop have finally decided what happened to the Squats...

I've just ordered the newest printing of The Inquisition War (which has now been rereleased by the Black Library), and in the first chapter, in which an Inquisition official is commenting on whether the events of the story (which were written by Draco in the third person) actually happened.

He states that he was trying to find out if his companions actually existed, and couldn't find out anything from the Assassins' Temples, as they wouldn't say, and that he couldn't find out about Draco's squat associate because "the dreaded hive fleet put pay to that line too long ago".

Therefore, it seems to me that Games Workshop have finally decided to go with the "The Tyranids Ate Them" argument.

You'll find that book was originally reprinted more than 5 years ago so it's been around for a while. Unfortunately it doesn't make any sense given how barren the core was, but like many GW concepts, relies entirely in imagery rather than practicality. That the tyranids would have starved first, or rather left and gone through richer star systems (as they can detect biospheres) makes the wholesale destruction of the squats (both within the Imperium and within the core worlds) a ridiculous notion no matter the providence.

Hence why in many 'reimaginings' of the squats, you'll find that the tyranids caused a similar event to the eldar fall but did not and really could not, destroy the squat race as a whole. Apart from anything else, there were millions of squats spread throughout the imperium variously associated with the guard, adeptus mechanicus and trade merchants.

It's similar to the Brothers of the Snake where 10 space marines kill 2000 dark eldar. And took no casualties. Given the BS of Brother Sergeant Angamor we can be fairly certain that a marine is no 100% effective at shooting, which means they would need at least 2 rounds of ammunition for each eldar they killed. That's 400 rounds each at the least. It should probably be closer to 600 rounds each.

But just as with the 'death of the squats' it lacks any real explanation. Statements that 'X did Y' are entirely 'imagery' and no substance.

GW should really have said that the squats were killed by the necrons. It would make far more sense given how much effort they've spent defining the tyranids as entirely focused on biomass and it being the one reason they invade star systems yet the squats lived on planets without atmospheres let alone biospheres. Tyranids not only invading but wiping out EVERY squat world within the core is about as sensical as the orks deciding to give up fighting and knit. Completely out of character. At least the necrons would make sense.

Of course, being 'put paid' doesn't really explain much. If you were aware of the seat of the eldar empire and found it obliterated and a doorway to hell in its place you'd assume they had been 'put paid' too. Yet the eldar race survived and lived on. Luckily for the squats they had far less chance of being annihilated than the eldar did in their self made orgy. Also considering how impregnable their fortresses were and their technological mastery, it is a mystery how a race that has been stopped by the imperium and the orks were able to just slaughter the entire squat race.

Hellebore

Unless, of course, in being the analog of Dwarves from Fantasy in the 40k setting, the Squats, enraged by the destruction of their homeworlds, ended up, in a "Slayer"-esque fashion, died fighting the Tyranids in order to try to exact revenge on them, dying along with their race but taking as many Tyranids with them as possible.

That, to me, makes perfect sense.

You know this whole "re-imagining" of the Inquisitor trilogy with the comments about the squats strikes me as capable of being summed up in one word:

GLIB.

I wasn't aware of that reprinted version (I've only got the original version of the books) saying that about the Squats. So I guess it's now a canon source for this idea that the squats have been eaten by the tyranids.

I've always thought it was a stupid idea, and the fact it's got now a "canon" backing doesn't change my mind.

So what we've got here is GW basically writing off an entire army line of theirs. Not just no longer supporting it, but destroying it retrospectively. It's a big two fingers to the idiots who decided to spend good money on their miniatures, who supported the books that included them, who bought into two different games systems that included them (40k and epic) because they liked them. Yeah, what mugs we were to pay good money on GW products we liked. Thanks GW.

Any half way intelligent company, if they had no intention of pursuing the squat line, could have left some ambiguity as to their fate built into the canon. As Andy Chambers once said, (to misquote and/or paraphrase him), build in some room to manoeuvre it's a big galaxy.

But no, that would be too subtle, too.... nuanced. What's next? The entire planet Necromunda to be gobbled up by a black hole because they don't want to produce any more Necromunda miniatures? Deciding to have the Tau empire fall to chaos because the plastic moulds are taking up storage space?

Grrrr! Makes me cross.

Honestly I think it was the fact that GW was pure and simple lazy. No one wanted to write stuff for the Squats because the people assigned to them had little euthasium for the little guys. It sucks cause the Squats had potential.

If I were the writers I would have named them after some ancient distortion of an english word. Something that shows that these people have better records than the Imperium and have been seperated from mainstream galactice society for ages. I would have also thrown away the idea that these people live long. Their size would definiatly bring many circulation problems and I could see many having short lifespans like the Jinxians from Larry Nivens Known Space. Their society would focus on mortality and acomplishing all they could in their short life spans. Also add to that their amazing physical abilities and they would be an incrediably entrepeneurish race.

It'd also be cool if these people had an alternative method of moving from system to system. Even with the limited use of warp during the Dark Age, it would be unprofitable for a expanionist empire like theirs to use it. Instead they might have used massive mass accelerators to launch ships to near lightspeed. Add to this the fact that the stars are closer to one another near the core and you would have a viable means of transportation. This also serves to to limit their empire until the warp storms subside with the rise of the empire. To far from the core and travel would take to long by mass accelerator, meaning that they would have to travel through the warp. This being almost suicide the Squat empire would stick to the core.

Now when the Emperor comes along, GW could have it so he signs an agreement with Squats making them a vassal state to the Imperium and agree not to expand outside of the core. The agreement could also protect them from the AdMech. The Squats would be confined to the core except perhaps dispatching a gaurdian fleet to protect their tithe ships. I also see savy Squat businessmen exploiting the loophole in the treaty by making Imperium Noble houses co-members in joint ventures to exploit various lands in the Impeirum.

But "Biker Dwarves" was just stupid. Sure, they were great in Epic, but you can't translate super-massive tanks into a tabletop game.

I love the idea of "Dwarves in SPAAAAAACE!", and I love the stuff I've read of the Demiurg because of it, but the tabletop Sqaut army was frankly silly.

MILLANDSON said:

But.. Theres now Armageddon, or what ever the Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge army expansion & vehicle lists (all the basic original armies with all their original SuperHeavy tanks & titans), so what better time to bringback the stunty ones!

Squats are silly. They look silly. Ratlings are also silly, but they stand in as a funny option for IG players, not as a galaxy-spanning empire. Furthermore, I wouldn't shed a tear if ratlings went the Way of the Squats. They can take Ogryns with them as well.

If anyone can come up with an interesting reinterpretation of space-dwarves (particularly one of the gentlemen vociferously condemning GW's moral turpitude for altering their own IP as they see fit --an IP, , I might add, which everyone posting here shamelessly devours) I would really like to hear it. I suspect GW looked at the direction they were taking the setting around 3rd edition, then asked if anyone had any good ideas for Space-Dwarves. No one had a decent idea, so they scrapped them.

I would really like to hear ideas. I, myself, think that a short, stout, belligerent, and hi-tech race is not fundamentally flawed. Its when they suddenly become little Scottish men with long beards who drink 'ale' and have names like Grom that they begin to clash with the setting. 'D&D/fantasy in Space' was an eighties fashion that went the way of 'Spelljammer.' Good riddance. The 40k setting still has elements from those incarnations, but it has thankfully evolved. That's why people still play 40k, but nobody plays Spelljammer.

---------

On a side note, and only as a bit of my own academic curiosity, I feel I must ask a question which some might find insulting. It is inspired by some of the more aggressively -phrased squat-theorizing written above :

What is it about the mind of the Dork which finds a lack of continuity in a completely imaginary universe so profoundly disturbing -if not downright infuriating? I am constantly reminded of the comic-book-guy from the Simpsons.

"In episode 22 of Itchy-And-Scratchy...However, in Episode 173 etc...etc...etc..."

"Worst...Grim-Dark-Future...Ever..."

What gives? Who cares? Do you really want an IP like star wars where a George Lukas-esqe figure demands that he personally sign off on every piece of information published about his IP? Don't you think that stifles creativity? What is the reward for that, anyway? Discovering that C-3P0 was actually built by Darth Vader and all storm-troopers are actually clones of Boba-Fett? I cringed when I heard that crap. Why does everything have to be connected with and consistent with everything else? Its like looking into the mind of a paranoid schizophrenic.

Does that please some deep-seated region of the dork-mind? Why does the lack of "continuity" inspire such rage? What is this eternal search for (And I shudder to use the term) "Canon"? What comfort does it provide to be told what is and is not true of an imaginary world? Is it so painful when inconsistencies reveal themselves. Is it comparable to realizing that a man of Santa-Claus's Girth could not possibly make it down a chimney, nor travel at sufficient speeds to traverse the globe in the given time frame.

Does it shatter the suspension of disbelief and remind the dork brain that all of this stuff is just being made up somewhere by some other dorks who actually manage to get paid to do what we all do for fun? (Namely, make stuff up)

Besides, If anything, GW is restrictive enough about their IP already.

Remember those poor kids in Germany who had to shelve their pet-project because GW sued them? Do you know how much more carefully the IP would have to be controlled to provide the kind of continuity-error-free universe some gamers seem to long for.

Does it occur to anyone that the source of the creative mélange which is 40k has a great deal to do with the diverse minds and unrelated tales which have been brought to bear thus far. As far as I'm concerned, I hope they never pin anything down.

Remember what 1st edition white wolf was like at the end? The World of Darkness became so convoluted and crowded with signature characters and ridiculous interwoven plots that the final source books read more like bad comic books than like rich inspiration for telling your own tales. The whole line became an exercise in historical continuity and RPG metaplot. I, myself, found the later world of darkness books rather tedious.

I suppose I've just posted a bit of a rant, myself. Hope I didn't step on any toes..