N0-1_H3r3 said:

Hugely unlikely as in impossible . It is explicit that only the pairing of two Navigators will produce a Navigator child.

cappadocius said:

You'd better go and read some books on genetics. Lookup the concept of "recessive genes" to see just how wrong you are.

*hopes his players aren't reading this*

I absolutely love the idea of separate clans of people all working different bits of the ships... Like, all the engineers have no eyebrows as they frequently get burned off by small fires breaking out and have unsightly tumours from working amongst high levels of radiation, or maybe the chefs all have missing fingers from accidents with butchers knives... You could go on.

In fact, it brings to mind the workings of Gormenghast: an immense castle, with some people never seeing outside of the huge kitchens, maybe going their whole lives without ever meeting the people they're providing for. The Rogue Trader (and his crew) sit at the very top of the pile, basically kings and queens of their domain. When we start playing, I'm going to impress on my players how important they are (which, granted, is often not difficult to do with the average Roleplayer).

(This is stuff George Lucas et al. never touched on; I'm reminded of the 'Death Star Cantine' sketch by Eddie Izzard. Just how did Darth Vadar feed all those thousands of Storm Troopers?)

I've just done Character Generation with my players, next session I intend to introduce the ship, my plan is that some of the senior officers provoke a mutiny against the new Rogue Trader (ie: the PC) forcing the players to take the ship deck by deck and in the process get to a good idea of the kind of ship they're on and the different factions they're commanding. The idea of different guilds, cultures and even settlements in the ship is too good to pass up on.

@HappyDaze

Massive plot points tend to come up all the time. Slave boys from a desert planet that are the Chosen One in Star Wars, and similar stuff pops up all over the space fantasy genre. Having a space fantasy game without some plot point character in them somewhere seem less common that the 'one-in-a-million' types.

Yeah, but that's what I meant - the slave boy becomes one of the main characters for six movies, instead of one episode where the jedi find him, bring him to the temple and then never hear from him again.

@aramis

Novels not withstanding, the material in DH makes it clear the Sisters of Battle are chaste.

Mind supplying a quote? I can't remember anything that explicit.

You'd better go and read some books on genetics. Lookup the concept of "recessive genes" to see just how wrong you are.

Also look up the special paragraphs on Navigator warp mutations. They should be included in every biology book printed since 7520, but not in those after 877.M31

Edith The Hutt said:

There is a thread out here somewhere in which someone (one of his players came to him with the idea) was considering running a campaign that started with the players as a RT's underlings, and would discover that the RT was dealing in Chaos-artifacts. The players would then engineer a mutiny and once the dust settled would wind up with the ship and a Warrant of Trade. Kind of neat to see that same concept flipped over. It accomplishes much of the same thing, bringing the ship to life and making it more then a miniature with some numbers on a page accompanying. Good idea.

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

While you are right that the best inspiration are the eras between Francis Drake (1570 - 1590) and the buccaneering period (1650 - 1680), Star Trek (especially the TOS) can be a great inspiration in a way. In my vision Kirk (and to a lesser degree Picard) is the Rogue Trader, Worf (and Yar and Reed) is the Arch-Militant, Scotty (maybe also Sulu) is the Void-Master, Spock (and to a lesser degree Data and T'Pol) is the Explorator, McCoy is the Missionary (especially the ever present dissent between him an Spock (as the AM Explorator) fits rather well), Sato, Uhura, (Troi) are somehow a little like the Astropaths and Riker or Troi could also fit the Seneschall role.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Well, the 'problem' of recessive genes/alleles is that they can be in 'disguise' for a while (when in heterozygous combination with the 'normal' dominant gene/allele) only to reappear when they 'meet' each other in a homozygous combination by chance some generations later (the problem of most existing genetical diseases) - ie. when two 'half-bloods' (without the third eye) intermingle again.

Cifer said:

The sisters background text rattles off a list of qualities that a sister possesses and one of them is Chaste. It is not actually clear at all whether this is required by the rules of the Sororitas (Cain says no) or whether Soroitas choose that way of life for themselves (my opinion). There is also the problem that the definition of chaste actually means conforms to expected sexual norms and not sexual abstinance which it is often confused with. Anyway my opinion is that it is likely that Sisters are not restricted by their order but by thier outlook. The way they are brought up makes them very narrow minded and fanatical to thier cause and would view sexual relations as an unnessisary distraction from their devotions to the God Emperor.

It should be noted that just because something is allowed does not mean that it happens, I think a Sisters character should be sexually abstiant even though I think they are not required to be. There is a tendency to look at things in 40k from a modern day western perspective and apply our logic straight to that universe which gives people a false impression of what things are like. Sisters think much more like a medieval nun than a modern day woman which is hard for most people to get thier head around.

Off Topic and mostly unrelated - Personally I hate when people think that sisters view Xenos any differently from mutants or traitors, consorting with Xenos is at least as much a heresy as any other act in the Imperium and I dont think that they would ally with them under any circumsances even to fight a bigger threat. I think its daft that people are willing to take a throw away descriptive word such as chaste as gospel but are willing to ignore the desciption forbidding them to have truck with the Alien in any form. [/Rant]

On the Navigator thing, from memory the secrets of the creation of Navigators is lost but it theorised by some that they were created by splicing humans with Alien DNA. If that was the case the chance of one appearing outside a house would be nil as there is no way someone would be able to randomly mutate to become a Navigator. Also the Navigator gene is limited to humans in Navigator families and doesn't appear in normal human populations so it doesn't matter if its recessive as no one has it. As it is nothing says anything about it being recessive just that it is lost if a Navigator breeds with a normal human.

Disclaimer - That last paragraph was from memory so may be completely wrong.

Kaihlik

Kaihlik said:

The background in the Inquisitor's Handbook alone makes it clear that only those who are not only willing, but eager, to give everything they have and everything they are to the Emperor are accepted as Adepta Sororitas, it does seem like they have very little time for anything other than devotion to Him-on-Terra.

Kaihlik said:

One of the theories I've come across- and this was published in a large article about Navigators for 2nd Edition 40k in the Citadel Journal written, I think, by Warwick Kinrade, who now writes the Imperial Armour books for Forgeworld - is that Navigators are an early example of the Emperor's genetic engineering, done long before he revealed his nature to mankind.

Sorry, just to clarify, are you agreeing with my first point or disagreeing.

Argg brain not working anymore, I will go to bed and come back to this tomorow before I make an ass of myself.

Kaihlik

aramis said:

Sounds like you got defensive because you got it wrong? Navigators could be tetraploid, and matings with regular humans end up being diploid, without the Navigator chromosome(s) being passed on at all.

Your post was pure foolish pride.

Cifer said:

DH Inquistor's Handbook, p41, RC, ¶2, lines 1-3: "Adepta Sororitas are courageous, pious, self-sacrificing, chaste and faithful. They are fanatics, bound by harsh and restrictive religious oaths and ingrained zealotry."

Scipio Brahe said:

As a slightly less violent choice, I may let one of the senior officers do a walkthrough of the crew around the ship (I imagine lots of handshaking with my Rogue Trader saying "Oh, and what do you do?").

Kaihlik said:

Sure, but 'being lost if a Navigator breeds with a normal human' implies it could be a recessive allele. Being created by 'splicing humans with Alien DNA' can still lead to a recessive allele. So, the question is what happens with the offspring when a Navigator breeds with a normal human. And what happens if such an offspring (maybe living in normal human society) breeds with another such an offspring (maybe also living in normal human society). Maybe a cute little three-eyed baby...

Anyway, it is just an intellectual game whether it could be possible that a Navigator is born outside the Navis Nobilite.

I just want to comment on the Sororitas issue in terms of religion.

Typically a Caste nun, or a Silent nun are people who have taken a Vow.

Vows are taken for a wide variety of reasons, to become closer to god(emperor) , to purify themselves for a religious event or station, to make up for wrongs they have committed even as a devout follower and so on.

So I am guessing that a woman devoted to a god, religious in the extreme, and dedicated to honing her battle skills and mental/emotional defenses against chaos would make it very unlikely that such a woman would engage in sexual behavior as having a child would take a lot of time away from her sacred duties.

Seeing as there are no real novels of Sisters of Battle dynasties or such I can’t think they intended for this to be allowed much if at all.

Lastly, Sororitas are generally kept on a planet on their monastery, and generally are only sent out in groups or to deal with specific threats, and so I don’t see how sexual activity might in any way be a part of those tasks, and thus likely they are “Chaste” while out of their planet monastery by strict orders. And then once back home and back to daily life they may be allowed to have a greater degree of freedoms.

I seem to have read somewhere that there were many Orders of Sisters and each Order had a different set of Vows and different emphasis on different aspects of the Imperial Cult. Along with this the Vow of Chastity was common, but not compulsory in every Order.

Thus, I could imagine an Order which "chaste" meant not crossing the boundries of accepted sexual practice. In other words, she might not have time for this "getting married" nonsense and "gettin' kinky wit it" is certainly out of the question as deviancy is deviancy, but sex in general isn't considered a sin.

Somewhere (admittedly it might have been fan fiction) I read of an Order in who every Sister was bred one time only (artificially I think..) to the best genetic stock on the Monestary Planet they were on. The females were trained for Sororitas and the males were destined for the Imperial Guard. Something to do with a unique take on fullfilling the Imperial Tithe. They were "married" to the Emperor and it was their duty to provide at least one warrior for His Work.

Why is the sexuality of Sororitas in question again? I'll have to go back up and read. For the most part, they practice chastity. I did have a Sister have an illicit affair with a DeathWatch Marine in my first DH campaign (players were a married couple...) it was entertaining. They both were having to flagellate themselves in Penance for their sin, trying to keep it from the other players.

As to the Navigator thing, the gene (while details lost to history) was reputed to be one of the Emperor's own genetic experiments.

Navigators are frequently described as repulsive to normal people, not to mention that third eye thing. Might be hard to find a mate. It's also possible that Navigators simply cannot produce offspring with normal humans any easier than with a chimpanzee or gorilla.

The way they're described, they're less human than Ogryns or Ratlings, it seems.

...even though I read the other night somewhere that half-human/half-Eldar children are possible.......

You could say, as the GM, that Navigators could mate with normal humans, but that'd be complicated as you'd have to justify why they aren't a lot more common. 40k is pretty clear that Navigators only come from other Navigators and to introduce that deviant an element might be considered Heresy by more ardent fanboy players. But hey, it's your Galaxy, right?

Inquisitor Renfield said:

Good points overall... but: There are very few sexual acts that requires specifically one man and one woman. There are loads of perfectly useful ways to have sex with only one person involved, and as soon as you add atleast one more person the possibilities become almost endless, no matter what reproductive organs or social genders the involved persons have got. I will not go into graphic detail, because there are minors reading this fora, so please use your imagination.

"Chaste" can mean "does not marry". Much like the ancient greek word for "virgin" can mean "unmarried". (learned this from my theology studies, considering the possible misstranslation of the story of Jesus. He was certainly concieved by an unmarried mother, and the New Testament is written in ancient greek).

You might join a monastery and feels a change of priority 20 years later. It is mighty hard to revoke your wow of chastity then. So you just get along by whatever means, and might have a lot of bad conciousness or a lot of unspent lust, or both, depending on how you choose.

(1) Of all these wonderful ways to have sex I can think of exactly one version that might cause pregnancy (hint: this sort of sex does require one of each kind of reproductive organ). And if you live in an all-uterus-monastery I can see how this particular sort of sex can be scarce. However, there are plenty of other versions of sex available.

(2) I think it is a quite reasonable interpretation that a Sister of Battle is in practice married to the Emperor. She considers her combat unit/covenant/monastery as her family. So there would indeed be no dynasties, no inherited fortunes, legacies or similar. But people do have sex outside of their marriages/families, even if it is socially forbidden. (compare: different researchs from our western world usually end up at roughly 50% of respondents having engaged in sex outside of a pretended monogamous relationship) When sweden was Catholic (up until 1500-something) our priests and bishops were required to take wows of chastity. Still there were state laws regulating how sons of bishops and priests should inherit. This made the pope mighty angry at the swedish government who wouldn't play along with the churchs pretends of chastity.

(3) Who "they"? Games Workshop? They have never been any good at imagining relationships, gender roles and/or sexuality in their lore. This might intentional, but I think it is probably just the focus of the 40k settings combined with the old-an-unquestioned-tradition of patriarchy that our world is burdened with.
What "this"? Sisters of Battle feeling sexual lust? SoB having sex? Having sex with someone else involved? Having heterosexual penetrating sex? doing that without using any contraceptive methods? Concieving children then placing them in a schola progenium? Conceiving children and then raising them as their own?

But, I do know several people that claim to be happy living a life having no sex with other people, and some who have no sex at all. So I imagine there are indeed lots of Sisters of Battle that does live their life non-sexually. But I do believe that there are as well SoBs who does have sex, at least with themselves, probably with others. A trip into space might be a very good possibility to get away from the annoyingly holier-than-thou Sister Superior to really see some of all those temptations that the sermons preach about.

In the end, I'd like to invoke the Rule of Cool . I see three alternatives here that would clearly work as grimdark versions of the "chaste" combat nun.

First we have the utter religious fanatic. She is so filled with hatred for the enemies of the imperium and love for the Emperor that she has no room for other feelings. This seems like the pretty much standard explanation for SoBs and makes them properly non-human, but it is honestly a bit lacking in conflicts, and all good stories build on conflicts.

Second we have the Combat Nuns that carry loads of angst and frustration over their sexual abstinence. They channel this into great rage and hatred against the enemies of the imperium. Now and then they give in to the urge and have ferociously hot and feverish sex with themselves, eachother or whoever might have caused the cup of lust to overfill. Afterwards they have great attacks of regret. This might be where Sister Repentants come from.

Third we have the nuns that are utterly sexual and given to lust while in the safety of their monasteries. The only way to keep them in combat order is to ban all men from setting foot in the monastery, that way there will at least not be any pregnancies to bind up fighters, and much fewer STIs. Now and then a sister sneaks away to a male, and a child will be sent away to a Schola Progenium. Unless the sister superior just have them all sterilised. Their combat effectiveness and excellent morale are effects of the deep affection they all feel for their sisters.

Most likely, I think all three versions (and everything between) is represented within the Sororitas, but I find it unlikely that any sister would reproduce with any regularity.

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

Amen! Iron Ships and Wooden Men.

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

Remember, this is a Rogue Trader ship and a compassionate RT might think of the entire crew as part of his Dynasty. Not equal parts, mind you, but parts. Thus, you could work into your Campaign provisions for the little things, like rewarding an RT player who thinks to provide better food or throw a banquet during Candlemas or Emperor's Day with a small boost in Morale Rating. It wouldn't really "cost" the party anything either, they just have to remember to do it.

In my DH game, the player who was the Inquisitor was great about this. He wouldn't hesitate to execute unruly crew (at one point he threw 3/4ths of the crew out an airlock), but made every effort to treat them with respect and as "part of the team" when interacting with them, making sure they had decent grub and functioning equipment.

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

Surely the RT and the officers would have at least as good of quarters as a luxury accomodation on a Royal Carribean cruise ship...only bigger.

.

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

Exactly. I imagine my players having their "bodyguards" for Away Missions and not much else until they acquire a ship with a Barracks component and then filling it with troops. I don't see crewmen as unskilled fighters as such, but having combat talents in line with fighting aboard cramped passageways etc. on board a ship with shotguns and boarding pikes etc. Not the same skills as "real" warriors fighting dirtside at least.

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

They are what they are and there could be many motivations for being with a Rogue Trader. If the RT is particularly religious, it's possible he's acquirred a whole company of them. Or perhaps it's required of her Order to perform a Mission or Pilgrimage to fulfill some religious duty. Or she's a spy for the Ecclesiarcy...or she's there to assist/protect the Confessor...

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

...or a Cabin Boy if he's gay...or a Sex Servitor...or...

Well, keep in mind that while it happens and the rich and powerful in the Imperium usually do whatever they want, it will still be seen as a Sin by the Ecclesiarcy...multiple unwed unions that is. They're still prudes, you know. The Preachers might be the worst ones of the bunch, but that still doesn't change the social and religious morays of the Imperial Cult, which is obviously based on real-life Catholicism. It goes along with the hypocricy and double standards in the background which were intentional on the part of the original 40k designers.

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

I can't imagine a ship that big with such a huge crew compliment not having provisions for families. Day-cares, workshops and stores to provide basic needs, restaurants etc. Looking at women onboard ship as baby-machines just isn't realistic. They're part of the crew and do whatever tasks they're assigned to and fit for, just like the men.

Mellon said:

In many ancient languages "virgin" meant "hadn't had a child yet". Modern people tend to boggle on how backward people determine virginity via hymen or no-hymen, but back before modern medicine it was pretty easy to tell if a woman had had a child or not.

Mellon said:

...but in general, Sisters of most Orders are supposed to follow the 'Catholic' ideal of chastity, which includes not letting the fingers do the walkin'....

Mellon said:

Both really. I've met these guys. Back then, they were conssumate geeks and in the 80's that meant social retardation in regards to getting laid. Nowadays nerds and geeks don't carry the same negative stigma they (I should say 'we'...) did back then. But I digress. The 40k Universe was intended to be portray a set of extreme stereotypes and double-standards. For instance, all the races are essentially 'evil', even the Tau. The Imperium is totalitarian fascism. The Emperor, while worshipped as a god, is a secular Atheist... In a lot of ways, it's brilliant and very fascinating.

Mellon said:

Enlightening, however considering the religiosity and guilt-base of the Sisters, chances are she'll try to keep her Vow and if she ever breaks it will enter into some form of Penance such as self-flagellation or try to otherwise redeem herself in her guilt by acting excessively brave in battle hoping to die a Martyr and thus relieve herself of the percieved displeasure of her Beloved God-Emperor.

Mellon said:

...or she gets Chem-Gelded.

"For there are some Eunuchs which were so born from their Mother's Womb: and there are some Eunuchs which are made Eunuchs of men: and there be Eunuchs, which have made themselves Eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to recieve it, let him recieve it." - The J-Man Himself

Mellon said:

Doesn't anyone want to work out their sexual frustration through nice wholesome genocide anymore?

I'll have to look, but I believe the SoB codex for WH40k miniatures has background on a few of the Orders, and I seem to recall it said in one of the Orders that it's members weren't required to be celibate. (which is really what people are referring to when saying "chaste"). I'll try to remember to look when I get home, before my DH game.

@Mellon, Maxim C. Gatling:

Good points guys. Though I think I side a lot more on the Maxim C. Gatling side of things.

Sure its cool to have sexual liaisons with battle nuns, and to consider devotion unto giving a child. But none of that is talked about really. Most of the time its just SoB in battle. Just like Space Marines, always shown in a fight.

So I agree the best way to deal with this, for my own uses, is to stick to the theme, and to carry them all on as Chaste in the "no sex" sense. I just can't really find any other line of thinking to be in-line with the Ecclisiarchys creed.

Plus for Grim Darkness = sex starved battle nuns is pretty scary, especially when they only have war to take out their aggressions on.

p.s.

Yeah, vow-breakers and such are very likely where Repentias come from.

For my own twist i require all SoB to be put through ettiquite school, cooking, music, dance all in addition to battle training that would break a US Marines back and spirit, Plus devotionals, scripture and prayer/ritual recital.