I’m planning to use these charming creatures as the hidden masters in an upcoming game but I’m having a little problem as to their ultimate motivation – what do they want? We know they have ties to the Haarlock line and maybe the Black Sun but little more.

Now according to the DotDG their grand plan is to plunge the Calaxis sector into fire and chaos. So far, so good but the question is why?
If it was Chaos we were talking about then I would have no problem, but I am expecting something more from the Slaugth. It cannot be for just more bodies for feeding as a single hive world or war zone would provide enough corpses to keep thousands happy for millennia, so what is their real purpose?

Anyone have any good ideas (I can steal, ahem, I mean borrow)?

To start the ball rolling I came up with ... The Breed
The Slaugth have an unusual life cycle in that every great year [the time it takes the Dark Star to complete a single cycle] the race goes into a terminal decline leaving only the hidden Breeders and the Life Guards; it is the guards’ duty to wait until the Dark Star reappears and then to find a suitable breeding ground for the incubation.
As each newborn Slaugth needs a whole human sized corpse to feed on and grow, and there are billions and billions of Slaugth lava, then it is the destiny of the Calaxis sector to be their cradle and the home of the new Slaugth Empire that will consume the galaxy!
DW

I really like your idea for a breeding cycle centered on the Tyrant Star! Nice idea.

As for my ideas, the Slougth play a major role in both my DH and RT games (same story, different perspectives) though their goals are... alien. It's hard to come to terms with what they are doing and why, but a few facts, rumors, and heretical ramblings of madmen in texts written in the blood of widows upon the cured skin of unmorned orphans that have appeared in my games are:

They once controlled a massive empire of the dead across the Calyixus sector until the Yu'vath trounced them most severely. The Slougth weren't eradicated for such a breed is hard to eliminate. When the Calyx Expanse begin getting explored and colonized, the Slougth managed to make some trade deals with factions within the Haarlock clan for certain odd favors. When the crusade began in earnest, they had their tentacles in a great many influential rogue traders, including the Haarlocks which they used to get closer in with the military leaders coming into the expanse. They manipulated events and people to have the Yu'Vath eradicated and, according to one blasphemous text unearthed by the acolytes, they had dealings with St Drusus. The mad (and severely immolated) author even went as far as to suggest that Worms that Walk were responsible for Dursus' miraculous resurrection and prompt destruction of the Yu'Vath and their followers... just as the Slougth desired.

What their end goal is, it's hard to say. They are alien in thought and deed. They seem to content themselves with simply feasting on the dead, but there is a much darker design to what they do. There have been rumors that the Slougth actually have a culture of sorts, or at least a religion. There have been signs and hints that they worship some form of beings or gods that devours the stars, but, at the same time, lies dead waiting for the time when the Slougth will reawaken them and herald in the time of feast and slaughter. Everything they do seems to be, ultimately, to further this final agenda while also getting to snack on delicious memories in the meantime.

In my version, the Slougth are tied to the Tyrant Star, but oppose it. It was a weapon devised by the Yu'Vath which was released as a part of their plan to not only doom those who have come into their realm to conquer it, but to also create a herald that will resurrect the Yu'Vath and reestablish their empire from the ashes of their conquerers. They also used the Haarlocks for this purpose dividing the clan and fueling bloody kin wars amongst them that raged long after the destruction of the Yu'Vath. This is due to the nature of the Tyrant Star and the Herald that it is creating, forming it from the souls of those with the blood of the Haarlock as per an ancient pact formed between one of their members looking to get out from under the Slougth's tentacle. The Slougth are trying to prevent the Herald from coming to full power while, at the same time, prepare the worlds of the calixus Sector and beyond for the coming of the Star Gods who shall bring forth death of a scale never before seen and the Slougth shall gorge themselves upon the corpses of whole worlds.

Well..why should´nt their motivation by as basic as "feed" and "generate a favourable environment"? (by the way: "happy for a milennia" is something doubt. Corpses seldomly take THAT long to rot ).

From my point of, the Emperium of Men is in itself a threat to every alien race. It is a monster that wild madly savage any xeno civilization it comes upon and will eagerly hunt for more.

For intelligent carioneaters like the Slaught, overagressive predators like that are a problem...unless you can direct them to other targets (that will end up as sources of food) or simply against each other. As long is mankind is busy fighting itself, the Slaugth have a much easier time to hide, feed and go on.

After all, an alien mindset is simply that... alien. I wouldn´t care to much to come up with "pausibel" reason for what they are doing.

But since you really seem to want them to have such a reaons how about them looking for something? The Slaught are Scavengers. Perhaps they are seeking something they found clues of while they made short work (or supper) of a declining other xeno society. Something they know to have been on some world among the halo stars...something that was know removed, most surly by some Rogue Trader.

A hunt for a certain artefact would explain why they showed up at "this one auction many of us will know about" . It would give additional reason to this "Syndicate" of them, since it would allow them to search for certain things. All the chaos might be simply a "smoke screen" these clever monsters use to keep inspecting organizations from seeing things as any but another race of ravenous monsters out to eat mankind alive.

The item or items could be parts that would make for a greater whole. Perhaps psychoactive shards that allow single Overseers to build up a highger from of "gestalt" with other slaugth near by but not "bodily attached" to them. Remember, a slaught seems to be nothing more then a gestalt formed of maggot-like single-beings.

Traveller61 said:

Remember, even a lot of carrion eaters don't want to/ can't eat corpses that are too rotten. They might prefer their corpses semi-rotten or nearly freshly killed.

Also, wouldn't the Slaught almost be a more terrifying threat if they didn't have an archetypical "bad guy"-scheme in the works? If they just did what they do, because it is what they are driven to do? Almost like human beings are in a way. Every human being is basically built to eat and to procreate from the get go. And during some parts of our history, that basic need to eat and procreate actually worked for us (specifically the period between the first homo sapiens and the later stone age). But as our civilization and technology advanced we are currently close to overpopulating our world, and in spite of some people only doing what they are programmed by life to do, it's actually bad for their health (im thinking of us who live in industrialized nations, who aren't even near the threat of starvation).

We like to consider ourselves to be an advanced and intellectual species, yet still a vast majority of us still live by our basic human impulses, ironically even when those impulses actually cause us more harm than good. Over-eating is one example, our bodies are programmed to reward us with specific pleasure hormones whenever we eat, but they are not programmed to stop us from eating when we're eating more than we actually need to survive or when we eat food that we know (intellectually but not emotionally) to be bad for our health.

What if the Slaugth are suffering from a similar syndrome? Sure they possess an alien and probably advanced (or at least incomperhensible) intellect, and they have achieved scientific pursuits that no human has ever come close to understanding. Yet in spite of their many advanced pursuits, they still follow a basic instinct to cause destruction and urban decay among other species. Not because they really "need" to, because they would certainly be aware of the ease to get ahold of enough corpses to eat and to keep countless generations of "baby slaught" well fed for the forseeable future. But what if their "emotions" aren't in synch with their intellect?

What if they are doing what they are doing, just because they're basically programmed to do it, just like we are programmed to eat and to procreate without inhibitions?

It might sound like an anti-climactic idea, but with the right kind of delivery, such an overwhelmingly "futile" explanation can sometimes be a lot more eerie than the most elaborate "evil genious" scheme. Imagine the horror of any Imperial citizen when they must ultimately come to terms with that they are a lot more like such a disgusting species of xenos abominations than they originally thought. That life and different lifeforms basic programming to follow what life wants is pretty universal.

I've always seen their motivation as no more than "because they want to", being sadistic and just liking to torment another race is nothing new in the 40k universe and I don't see them as race who wants to "take over the universe" and always seem them as just sadistic creatures who wanna survive.
But if you need more than that I'm afraid I don't have anything to offer sadly.

It might sound like an anti-climactic idea, but with the right kind of delivery, such an overwhelmingly "futile" explanation can sometimes be a lot more eerie than the most elaborate "evil genious" scheme. Imagine the horror of any Imperial citizen when they must ultimately come to terms with that they are a lot more like such a disgusting species of xenos abominations than they originally thought. That life and different lifeforms basic programming to follow what life wants is pretty universal.

Sounds anticlimactic indeed. It might depend on the delivery, but such a lack of motive can easily devolve the campaign to Saturday Morning Cartoon level where monsters do bad stuff because they're eeeeevil.

I foresee that exact problem when my acolytes meet with the Pilgrims of Hayte (well, with one of their Prophets) for the first time.

Cifer said:

Yeah, the "because they're eeeevil" explanation tend to be anti climatic. Mainly because the concpet of "evil" in all cultures is really ingrained. "Evil is evil, and evil is awlays bad, no questions asked". That's what the usual point of view tend to look like when evil is being spoken of (be it the biblical definition of evil, or the common fictional version of evil).

Take the moustasche twirling evil genious for example. Rarely does he need a reason to come up with evil plots and cackle like a maniac when extrapolating upon his evil schemes. Rarely does the hero ever find a reason to question the villian's motives for why the villian wants to do what he wants to do.

In the real world, good and evil don't exist as absolutes. They are just concepts, brought about by individual opinions. Even Hitler had a goal and motivation with his ideology, even if it is lagely considered as evil today. He didn't want to exterminate the jewish people just because of the sake of "being evil", we wanted them exterminated because he genuinely believed that people could be divided by race and that some races were destined to rule over the others, but also that "lesser races" could pose a threat to the superior race by utilizing methods not considered "fair play" in his eyes. Thus it was the right and the duty of any superior race to destroy "lesser races" that might threaten their priviliged position. You could say, that in Hitler's and the other genuine nazi's eyes, the holocaust was an act of self defense.

Of course, today and even then most people knew that such an idea is crazy on so many levels, but regardless of how sane or insane any idea is, it always has some sort of underlying goal or motivation. Suddenly, "evil" isn't an unquestionable absolute anymore. Suddenly, it might just strike too close to home for comfort.

I mean, how often haven't we heard people saying that a certain species of animals or even an entire country of people should be "bombed to hell"? Of course, they might not really mean it when they say it, but when people yearn for simple solutions to a percieved problem, do they not sometimes entertain the idea of clear cut and simple solutions to those problems?... Solutions that might, dare I say it, resemble the so called "Final Solution" as posed by the Nazis?

It is pretty human to yearn for simple solutions, the horror just comes along when some of these "solutions" are actually put to practice. History has shown us that our yearn for simple solutions of percieved problems, can actually make humans commit genocide. Does that make mankind into a species of moustasche twirling, evil geniouses... or is "Evil" as we define it a more human trait than most of us would want to acknowledge? Perhaps evil is something universally ingrained into life itself?

It is thoughts like these that have to be explored if you want to deliver this explanation and not make it come off as anti-climactic. While at the same time making the overall plot seem (at first) like it hides a more elaborate agenda than it actually does. It's hard, but when it is done right, it's more awesome than any elaborate agenda.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Wow, Varnias! I thought I was something of a philosopher. But you ... you give me a lesson in humility.

However, I like the following concept for Slaughths (sp?): that their thought-patterns are SO alien, that no one can understand their motivations and goals. There is something inherently horrifying, IMHO, in an enemy that simply can NOT be understood in a logical way. It makes one think of all their darkest nightmares. Not only the unknown ... but also the unknowable. Just sayin' ...

Sister Cat said:

Hehe, thanks.

To be fair though, I kind of agree with a guy named Kevin Warwick (at least I think it was he who said it), that all people are philosophers, it's just that those who actually call themselves philosophers don't have any real jobs to go to every day.

Which is true, because currently I don't have much of a job to go to (im currently in the borderland between holding the position of "occasional stand-in that hasn't been called to work for months" and "unemployed"). And what do I do when I don't work? Well I waste time on philosophy of course!

What was the Warhammer 40.000 adage? Oh yeah: "A mind without purpose will wander dark places".

Sister Cat said:

Yeah that's kind of what im trying to get at here. The rather "lovecraftian" explanation of alien minds, in my opinion is quite an excellent one. Because while it might be completely impossible for human minds to comperhend the workings of an alien mind, the fact that the alien is a living, thinking being pretty much implies that whatever and however it thinks and acts, it is doing something completely natural.

Not that it seems natural to us at all of course, because we're humans. But to it's species it is natural, and possibly even to life itself.

I mean, whose to say that it is "unnatural" to build atomic bombs, having an abortion or simply to be born as a homosexual? Mankind has evolved from the same source as every other living thing on the planet, so who can really claim which behaviour is natural and which isn't? Why can monkeys throw feces at eachother and all the supposed experts and naturalists all go: "Oh, well that's a complwetely natural behavior to them" , but when the same people hear about the latest scientific method of how to use embryonic stem cells to grow human organs and implant them in sick people whose organs are malfunctioning, they all go: "Oh that's horribly UNnatural! You are playing god! You are messing with nature, shame on you! You have to stop this instant or you'll doom us all!"

After all is said and done, all living things originate from the same source, at least on this planet. It stands to reason that if there are similar lifeforms out there in the universe, they are guided by basic and evolved instincts and even if these instincts, actions and thoughts might be different from ours and might be impossible for us to understand, they are still just as "natural" as ours.

So what happens when Player Characters in Dark Heresy are faced with such realizations? Are they just going to accept the state of things and go:

-"Oh well, life is life. Those lifeforms are different from ours and we are destined to compete over the remaining resources even if it means one of us might eventually become extinct."

Or are they going to deny what's in front of them and take comfort in some sort of absolutist religion and go:

-"bull! We're the children of the Emprah! The galaxy belongs to us, and no alien and unnatural abomination is going to stand in our way. We are NOTHING alike them, they are monsters and we are righteous!"

Or perhaps they will reach a darker concluscion and hate life/nature itself for being so cruel and callous:

-"We're living beings. The Slaught are living beings. We probably both feel pain and despair, yet nature force us to compete against eachother and never to know peace. What's the point? What is the grand design? Perhaps there is no grand design. Perhaps we are all just alone in the universe yet at the same time so crowded that we have to kill eachother tooth and nail to make enough room to breathe and live."

Perhaps the characters won't go with any of these concluscions and come up with completely different ones. Who knows.

Anyway, regardless of which concluscion reached, the alien mind will never be completely understood.

Varnias Tybalt said:

from france

nan want do they want? simple they want a apple all worms want to eat apple. because of the ban on apple exportation from terra the slaugh are frustrated and so they act badly. slautgh from all world manifest to lift the ban on apple. it is that or i misread the manual to understand the good and peaceful slautgh graciuously offered by one of them.

Sister Cat said:

I think this is something one has to think about regarding all the alien races in 40k since we seem to have a tendency to "force" our type of goals and ideas we have as humans upon the aliens but the fact of the matter is that that would not be very alien.
One thing is doing it with aliens like orks, eldar and tau, they are pretty humanoid in form but when we start talking about tyranids and slaught we move into a "realm" that is not human in any way and therefore couldn't expect that their ideas and goals be the same.

It's been said a few times in this thread that "because they can" and "because they are evil" isn't a good enough reason, but for an alien species "they kill because they can" could be the exact same as a human saying "I eat because I'm hungry"...don't know if it makes sense but it does to me, but then again who knows, my mind may be alien ^^

Cryxx said:

Exactly, 8 spider. I think you've gotten my point, at least to a degree. But in the grimdark of 40K, I just simply like the idea that there are beings out there that simply can't be understood on the basis of biological imperatives or reasoning. And ... the Slaugths seem to fill that niche nicely.

Sister Cat said:

EDIT: That should have begun with "Exactly, Cryxx." Sheesh! I must have been knackered when I posted that. Sorry.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Sounds a lot like the weird cannibals in the first series of Torchwood.

Gwen: The whole village was involved.
Evan Sherman: Every generation. Our tradition. Once a decade. Target those travelling through, those most likely to disappear.
Gwen: And butcher them? What sort of people are you that you wake up in the morning and think "this is what I'm going to do"? Why do you do it? (Pauses) Come on, make me understand.
Evan Sherman: Why do you care?
Gwen: I have seen things you would never believe and this is the only thing I can't understand.
Evan Sherman: So keep on wondering.
Gwen: Tell me! I need to know why!
Captain Jack: That's enough. Time to go.
Evan Sherman: I'll tell you something, if you let me whisper. (Gwen nods; he gets close and whispers in her ear) Because it made me happy .

MILLANDSON said:

Exactly ... something like this. I can't imagine any greater horror than "intentional evil for it's own sake", without any rational explanation!

...and yet it actually did have an explanation... the explanation was that it made him happy. Who wouldn't want to be happy? Or, more to the pioint, who wants to be unhappy if he knows that he can be happy by doing something?

A psychological theory called Maslow's hierarchy of needs claims that all humans try to methodically fulfill their needs which are hierarchical in nature:

1. Physical needs

2. Safety

3. Social needs

4. Self-esteem

5. Creative needs

It does not, however, take any sides on exactly what kind of forms the social, self-esteem and creative needs manifest in.

For example: A person whose social needs manifest in strong desire to belong in tightly knit group of equals whose self-esteem is tied into being the "best in the groups task" and whose creative needs are directed towards finding knew, inventing new ways to succeed in being the best...

If the person belongs in a socially accepted organization he could actually be hailed as a hero and a role-model even if his self-esteem and creative needs take the form of breaking some social taboo. Take, for example, a soldier who is simply frighteningly good at killing people. He is hero as long as he is in socially accepted organization and on the winning side. He suddenly "becomes a monster" if the organization is not accepted...

If the very same person belongs in a group not accepted in its respective culture he could be thought a monster even if his needs do not directly break a taboo... For example, a chemist creating new substances is not taboo... if he works in organized crime syndicate distributing new drugs... Well, some would call him a monster.

Now take a moment to think of this: If human race is this complicated while being perfectly "logical" within its own parameters of behaviour how strange exactly can aliens go?

Polaria said:

Okay, I think I see what you are getting at here. So no, I guess Varnius' analogy is not what I'm talking about after all. I was going more for the "alien mindset" that doesn't even include "humanlike" needs/desires/emotions, at least not in a way we could comprehend. In other words, it's not that they don't have these things (needs/desires/emotions) necessarily. But if they do, they are so "alien" to the human mindset that we simply can't comprehend them. I'm not sure that makes any sense, but that's what I was going for.

Sister Cat said:

I'm sure the aliens have their own needs, desires and emotions. The problem is that understanding them might actually be impossible. Lets take, for example, a dog. Not a proper alien, I know, but not human either. Almost all dogs have instinctive need to "shake" or "kill" whatever larger objects they tend to bit. This is especially clear if the target "fights back" (pulls away or moves). Its easy to test, just toss a showel to the dog and tug on it for awhile. Most likely the dog tugs back and when you let go it shakes the towel around "killing" it.

Yet, this behavior is not automatic. Its not reflex. A dog won't do it when wrestling with its mates or playing with a friendly human even though it might bite another dogs collar quite strongly. A dog will do it if it catches a mouse, a bird or a squirrel. Interestingly enough the dogs bite might not even hurt a squirrel that bad, but the shaking about will kill the poor prey. The dog will do it even if it won't eat the slain squirrel. Why did the dog do it, then?

Dog1: This is what I don't understand. You catch a squirrel, you kill a squirrel and you just leave it there. I always eat my squirrels.

Dog2: I don't like squirrels. They taste funky.

Dog1: Okay then, the hunt I understand, who wouldn't? And mommydog said never to touch a funky tasting meat, sure. We all like a good hunt, but why do you kill the squirrel if you don't even intend to eat it?

Dog2: Because it makes me happy.

Pretty alien, eh?

Polaria said:

Exactly.

And also, not even human behaviour is logical and comperhensible sometimes, even within it's own parameters. Psychologists would disprove of course, since most of them think they have it all figured out (take Freud for instance, who didn't have any scientefic evidence at all but for some reason he just came up with the idea that everything we feel, do and react to has something to do with sex and our parents... And sometimes it don't), the same goes for all those extreme fans of Charles Darwin who believe that all human behaviour has something to do with the needs of evolution and that all human thinking and actions goes along those lines all the time.

They are wrong in this regard as well, because humans frequently make choices and commit actions that are evolutionarily illogical (suicide before procreation for instance, or how about homosexuality?). None of these phenomena "makes sense" from an evolutionary perspective. Now some people might argue that people who commit suicide or are homosexual are "sick" or "deviant" in some sort of way, and thus cannot be expected to follow the established and recognized guidelines of evolution. Quite simply, they fall back on a highly unscientific naturalist argument: " They aren't natural, they are going against the natural order" etc.

The thing is, if one is supposed to stick to being impartial and scientific, you can't argue naturalism. Because no one really knows what's natural and what isn't. For instance, many historical finds seem to indicate that homosexuality existed as early as the bronze age and even the stone age, yet the naturalists seem to be of the opinion that homosexuality is a "recent" abomination against nature. There has also been witnessed of homosexual behaviour in other primates as well.

Then there's also the fact that humans are a byproduct of nature just as much as chimpanzees and orangutangs are, therefor there can't be any human behaviour that could reasonably be considered "unnatural". After all, how can a species "created" by nature ever be "unnatural"? We can destroy the enviroment and blow ourselves up with atomic bombs, that still doesn't make our behaviour any less natural than a bunch of chimpanzees flinging poo at eachother. So in essence you could say that many humans exhibit an extreme arrogance when they think that they can decide what behaviour is natural and what isn't. It implies that we actually understand the motivations of mother nature, which is an impossible undertaking. We can witness effects of nature and invent reasons and deductions for why things happen in nature, but we can't claim to "understand" nature or rather what nature "wants". That is, if it is even capable of "wanting" anything at all. Natural forces don't seem to exhibit real motivations for doing anything, they just are. You could as well ask: "What does gravity want?" or "What does magnetism want?"

Anyhow, in an attempt to show that im not digressing here I thought I should reveal my point with all this. The point is, if not even the most sophisticated disciplines of study and science are sure about the "logical" aspects of human behaviour or even the parameters of what constitutes as reasonable or unreasonable behaviour in humans. We can only imagine who difficult it must be to understand the behaviour of alien lifeforms who have evolved with a set of completely different parameters than our own, which we aren't really sure about either.

Drat! You guys are making mince-meat out of my happy little fantasy.

Where's the horror in "alien thinking" if we can't even understand our own thinking rationally? *sigh*

*grumble, grumble, grumble*

Sister Cat said:

No we're not, and here's why. Even if we don't understand the supposed "logic" behind human behaviour, all humans are at least familiar with human behaviour. A sort of empathic "understanding" if you will.

I mean, at times we might not be able to understand or even being able to rationalize why spouses cheat on eachother, or why homosexuals are attracted to people of the same sex rather than the opposite.

That is if one is a heterosexual like me. Im in full acceptance of their sexual preferences but I can't understand what certain guys find attractive in other guys because in my eyes, guys are... Well, a little "disgusting" in appearance. And at the same time I can't relate at all to why heterosexual women find men to be attractive.

But I know that it happens, I know that its human, and if I listen to their explanations to why, while I might not be able to understand why they feel what they feel, I can sort of connect in a way that they experience the same feelings I do in relations to the opposite sex.

So there's at least something "familiar" with humans, even when their behaviour doesn't seem to make any sense at all in our subjective opinions.

But when you bring alien lifeforms into the equation, that sense of familiarity is gone. The only thing a human would fundamentally have in common with an alien would be that they are both "alive", but that's it (and with certain aliens, not even being alive is a sure thing, just consider Great Cthulhu).

That's where the horror is. The complete lack of familiarity, combined with the knowledge that the alien in question isn't just a "dumb animal" that is trying to eat you (sort of like a bear or a lion), but it most likely possess the same if not superior intellect to your own, yet it still yearns for yours and your entire species destruction and suffering, and most of the time they are quite capable of achieveing that goal.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Thank you, Varnias! I was beginning to think that I had missed something here. Now I am beginning to understand how to portray the "horror" of such to my players. Even if I still like the idea of an alien species that simply can't be understood logically, now I know that nothing to do with "intelligent species" can be truly understood, at least not on a scientific basis.

Or if so, we haven't found it yet.

Varnias Tybalt said:

That which is unknown and unseen always commands the greatest fear.

Yes, I just had to say it