How would a person from a low tech society react when they are threatened with technology they know nothing about ?

For example: A group of explorers are surrounded by a larger group wielding primitive melee weapons who proceed to threaten them (along the lines of: We outnumber you, give us your stuff and we will let you live). The attackers are smart and standing far enough away that they would have time to react if an explorer tried to charge them. The explorers respond by pulling guns on the attackers and telling them to back away.

However, unlike the foes the explorers have faced before, these attackers are from a pre-gunpowder society and have never heard of firearms before. So what plausible ways are there for the attackers to react ?

The reactions after the shooting starts are easy to work out. Before the shooting is a bit tricky.

How does the situation change as tech is added to/removed from the attackers society ?

Well, experianced warriors would probably wonder if either A) they were dealing with madmen or B) they knew something that the warrior didn't know. If the explorers reaction to them brandishing weapons is to reach for unknown objects, some more intelligent warriors might twig that this is a weapon of some type.

If they stand in the way of profit and do not follow the Emperor, kill a bunch of them as skillfully and loudly as possible. Read Cortez and Pizarro for more ideas.

Before the shooting, it's going to depend heavily on the words/intimidation the Explorer uses. I'd give a big bonus to resisting the Intimidation to the natives, unless the Explorers thought to fire at a tree or something in a display of their weapons' power.

BaronIveagh said:

BaronIveagh said:

What about looking at all the ornamental pieces on an explorers weapon and confusing it for strange jewellery ?

What if the gun has visible glowing bits (plasma weapons) or flamers (pilot light) ?

Well, depends on how primitive we are talking about. If the the locals have crossbow technology, they may very well look at a fire arm, which has the same basic shape, and make the intuitive leap that it is a weapon.

Also, something blatently weird, like glowing power blades, or a laser sight, may very well intimidate them.

It could also depend on how superstitious the planet/tribe is, they may have some sort of prohibition from sporting skulls, bones and boxy looking things due to some prior intervention by either clerics teachings about Khorne being all skulls thus bad, or an Explorator trying to keep a society from advancing and so banning wheels, boxes and other holy looking weapony things..

Three Ideas/themes

Hi tech might just look like 'magic' to them to they would probaly be wary. Of course if they are reasonably impressed they might go all deity worship. However this may lead to complications i.e they have a culture of burning 'deties' to appease the ruinous powers etc...

You might want to have a think about what kind of culture they are. In entrenched warrior societies a warrior may prove is worth and value by killing dangerous beasts. Imagine how many chicks and offerings he would get if he killed on of the 'dangerous star people'! . Think of the novel Sons of Dorn where three teenage boys from warrior societies who hate each other decide to stand firm against a Spacemarine because they dont want to be seen as the ones running away (of course this impresses the Marine captain and they are taken on as aspirants for the imperial fists.) Dont believe that they will necessarily be cowed or back down.

Last one is indifference or bemusement. Many nomadic/tribal cultures have no concept of property or gradations of power or technology, so your traders turning up can actually be a source of indifference or mild bemusement. An interesting documentary on the televisoon was where a amazonian jungle native was taken to england for the first time. Amazingly the journey on a flying machine didn't bother him. Neither did the airport or big buildings or structures. He was impressed that modern society could do these things but what really got to him was the animals in the western world:

NATIVE: "Whats that thing!"

JOURNALIST: "Its a cow"

NATIVE: "Whats it doing in the field?"

JOURNALIST "Eating"

"Eating what"

"well...er grass...Look ...what do you think of railways?"

(Ignoring question)"Is grass edible here?

or the one that had me in hysterics...

NATIVE" Whats that!"

JOURNALIST (with long suffering sigh) " Its a Squirrel."

"A what?"

"Squirrel. - squ i rrel"

"Can I catch it...?"

"...Im sorry? What?"

"I wan't to catch it and turn it into a hat!"

"err"

Native runs after and tries and catch a terrified squirrel in Hyde Park London, where no squirrel in living memory has been hunted for its fur.

The point is that the natives may be less interested in your Ryza Pattern Plasma Gun or the Cruiser in geo stationary orbit than they are with the canine at your side or the odd pasty colour of your skin or the strange water baootle you have. Remember what you greatly value may be a cause of indifference because they have no equivalent in their value system and what you consider irrellevant or commonplace may be a great source of interest.

The first answers amaze me quiet a bit: no-one of you suggested that the RT and his companies could simply shot into the ground before the low-tech thugs to "demonstrate" the mystical might of their weapons.

As already said, modern technology might be able to scare the hell out of primitive people if a) they have impressive effects which b) are demonstrates and c) a threat follows.

Once you established to the primitives that you do own "devices of magic", you could easly bluff them and get away with it.

I remember an older Godzilla movie where "earthlings" where fighting people living on the ground of the oceans. While some piece of the "atlantic" technology where mystical and superior, the "atlantic" did not know to much of the "earth technology". This lead to the hillarious scene where a group of captured scientists bluffed their way out of a dungeon with a ball-point pen ("See this? BACK OFF! Or I will use this mini-bomb to kill you and me RIGHT NOW! UPON UP! NOW!!!!!")

Call down fire from the sky to destroy something within sight range. This should impress them.

Landing in a holy giant eagle should be sufficient to be declared gods but weapons like flamers or automatics work wonders as well.
Don't forget they are used to "primitive" armour at best so their arrows and swords will simply bounce of that of the explorers.

But also keep in mind that even if the natives are awed by the newcomer's 'magic' weapons, it might not end their troubles. Depending on the culture, a very likely possibility is that the locals will WANT those neat toys for themselves. And probably not be overly worried on how they get them. Afterall, most primitives cultures tend to view themselves as the only true peoples, foreigners are fair game.

Which can mean all sort of fun, from poison during the welcaming feast to the ue of a pretty wench to lure a PC away from his gear. And it could end up with something really bad, like having the chief teel the players something like : "See, you've eaten Zyglich eggs. They're hatched by now and the young zyglich will start eating you from inside. That's the stomach cramp you feel. In three days he'e ll eay his way out and you'll die.Unless I give you the antidote. Teach the shaman how to make your sun-weapons and you'll get it. Lie to him and you're dead. A slow and very painful death."

Have fun watching the face of the players thinking about teaching a flint-knapping shaman to built a plsma gun in thre days :-)

Of course even that trick can be solved, the problem is certainly with the possible for Imperial medicine. A sufficiently modified tech-priest may even be able to ignore the problem as the larva will have precious few edible bits to find. But it's certainly going to get on the player's nerves. Getting screwed by a bunch of spear-wielding natives will certainly rub the wrong way...

Watch:

Raiders of the Lost Ark, the scene where Indy shoots the swordsman.

OR

Army of Darkness. "This is my BOOM stick!"

I'd lean toward Army of Darkness myself.

@Manunancy

"See, you've eaten Zyglich eggs. They're hatched by now and the young zyglich will start eating you from inside. That's the stomach cramp you feel. In three days he'e ll eay his way out and you'll die.Unless I give you the antidote. Teach the shaman how to make your sun-weapons and you'll get it. Lie to him and you're dead. A slow and very painful death."

You do realize the smart Explorer's answer would be "See, you've angered a mighty Rogue Trader. In three minutes, he'll use his sun-weapons to blow your brains out and slaughter your entire tribe. He's also quite confident his medicae will be capable of operating on him and remove your little parasite - unless you spare him the trouble and tell your shaman to get to work already."?

@Topic

IMO, it would depend on the culture of the savages. Do they know there are high-tech societies out there or do they think themselves the pinnacle of human development? In the latter case, you'd likely have to show them their error (aka blow something up or otherwise demonstrate "supernatural powers") before they consider your weapons a threat.

There may be multiple power centers in the culture. Intimidating one could make it look weak. Those that cooperate with the explorers could end up under attack, or dead. This onion could be peeled a number of times, each time the players "teach these savages a lesson," another faction steps forward to thwart them.

The last faction could have access to powers the players don't expect. "We didn't want to speak to the dark god in the mines. Be we have no choice." And out pops a chaos space marine, major deamon, xenos baddie, and so on.

While BOOM sticks no longer work when out of ammo, and the natives can't figure out how to make one, something might be of great use to them. When Captain Cook reached Hawaii, the Hawaiian couldn't make use of much of the English tech. But metal nails were damned useful. And a great way to get them was to burn the English longboats. When the fires cooled, you got lots of nails. Add those to your club and you were talking! And then the helpful English would cut down some trees, and drive nails into them to make new boats. Rinse and repeat.

Of course you can have the whole planet be pastoral psychics. They've learned to shield their powers (with good reason). But when faced with overwhelming firepower, they'd need access to that power. Which is where mental domination comes in. A tricksy GM might not even dominate a player, but an underling or 50.

Back to the OP: there are many valid answers to how the natives will react before the shooting starts. When in doubt, come up with four solutions:

• The most obvious result. (ex: "Your puny clubs are no match for our spears!")
• The most challenging (ex: "Stardeamons!" Everyone try to resist 1d5 psychic attacks)
• The most surprising (ex. The savages ripple and fade away. A lone tech priest with a holo-projector bows low. "Allow me to introduce myself...")
• The most pleasing (ex. "The Starlords have returned. Spare our miserable lives and you can command our people.")

Then think what works best for your game. Or choose randomly.

This is from Robin Laws "Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering." A fine little book.

You're making a lot of assumptions that the natives weapons would bounce off. What if thier shaman is a psyker and they have a (several) daemon(s)?

Or just have glass weapons, like obsidian. You'd be amazed at the sharpness and penetraition possible with those (I point you to the Fra'al glass knife in Diciples ...)

Natural glass tipped arrows penetrate modern body armor, after all... (obviously not directly through the ceramic plate) as do knives. And knives still work in 40k, otherwise Catachans would look pretty stupid.

Archers and pavaisemen can be quite adept at picking out weak points in armor.

If the cultire is medival level, they're going to have a pretty good idea about what is and is not armor, since (miraculously) quite a bit of Imperial gear looks like a fantasy intrepretation of the technology of the Holy Roman Empire.... (I wonder how THAT happened?)

Also, never underestimate the native populace. Sure, you drove them off by day. Then they snuck into your camp at night and started slitting throats in the dark.

You're making a lot of assumptions that the natives weapons would bounce off. What if thier shaman is a psyker and they have a (several) daemon(s)?

Then it is likely to be noticed by a psyker/navigator working for the explorers. Especially if it is powerful enough to be a problem.

Also, I'm not finding the "primitives have psykers/xenos help/etc" responses that interesting because it is the kind of thing that shows up all over 40k so there isn't much discussion we can have about them that is specific to this topic.

Things like Manunancy's plan to infest the explorers are a lot more interesting because they show the primitives being smart and still threatening. The primitives only have a problem because they lack crucial information.

Or just have glass weapons, like obsidian. You'd be amazed at the sharpness and penetraition possible with those (I point you to the Fra'al glass knife in Diciples...)

How would a glass weapon remain sharp ?

If it does so by fracturing like the glass knife does, then we are looking at a weapon that will wear down relatively quickly when compared to a decent metal, meaning it isn't likely to see much use. Are there any historical examples of armies using glass weapons over metal ones ?

Natural glass tipped arrows penetrate modern body armor, after all... (obviously not directly through the ceramic plate) as do knives. And knives still work in 40k, otherwise Catachans would look pretty stupid.

The 'primitive' weapons will still have some effectivness, just remember that 40k has alloys that can hold a monomolecular edge, making them much more effective.

Though my intent with the initial setup was that the attackers were far enough away that, if the explorers started shooting, the attackers would not get close enough to use their weapons. So it doesn't matter if the attackers have power weapons or wet paper.

Archers and pavaisemen can be quite adept at picking out weak points in armor.

How many archers were skilled enough to hit a joint on a moving target ?

I ask because everything I've heard about using firearms in combat is that the training is to either keep the enemies pinned down with suppressing fire or to aim for the center of mass. Nothing about hitting weak spots. So have our standards for accuracy gone down as firearms became more popular, or were the accurate archers really rare ?

Besides, I don't think that a force field would have a weak spot that they can recognise.

If the cultire is medival level, they're going to have a pretty good idea about what is and is not armor, since (miraculously) quite a bit of Imperial gear looks like a fantasy intrepretation of the technology of the Holy Roman Empire.... (I wonder how THAT happened?)

Agreed. Unless we are talking about a really primitive culture, they will recognise the explorers as wearing armour, even if the design is strange to them.

Also, never underestimate the native populace. Sure, you drove them off by day. Then they snuck into your camp at night and started slitting throats in the dark.

There are ways to defend against this, but they do have disadvantages. For example, a screamer will warn of an attack by waking everyone. So the primitives keep triggering it to deny the explorers sleep and to get everyone nearby angry at the explorers making all that noise.

If any of you have ever read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond, world-famous scientist, his theory is that Pizarro and Cortez were outnumbered sometimes 3,000 to 1. They could have been easily overwhelmed and squashed, but were not. The reason? Neither civilization had access to a history of dealing with these sorts of encounters. So they sat back and waited until it was too late to save their Emperors. The heads of state insisted on seeing these "aliens" for themselves, and ended up ambushed, captured, and killed eventually. If the Aztecs and Incas had a source of "Science Fiction" or even just legends dealing with this, things would have turned out differently. We could be visited by Aliens far advanced from us, but we have a background of "alien invasion" fiction, and it would effect our decisions in dealing with them.

So in this case, just how different are the players to the natives? Can they be misconstrued as from a rival settlement, and thus dealt with like rivals" Or are they clearly from another world?

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

I thought the reason the Aztecs and Incas were defeated were germs like small pox ravaged their population, they got the smaller tribes to help them out, and having metal weapons which were designed to kill rather to maim then capture. So by having all three these things help them out the Spanish were able to conquer these Empires.

For OP, I think a demonstration would be in order. Rogue Traders I would imagine encounter more than their fair share of "primitive screwheads", and the only way to exploit their resources be they men, mineral, or saving their heathen souls would be to set yourself as ruler and someone not to be messed with. In that case if they're so primitive and remote you're the only "spacemen" encountered, I would start with diplomacy "Stand down, we can talk this out with civility." or with threats "Stand down, or by The Emperor every heathen on this planet will die by my hands!" or direct action I.E shoot one and see how the rest the warriors react. Chances are even with the Shaman, the warriors will be a minor problem. Even the most lightly armored Explorer would have more than enough armor (which counts double vs primitive weapons) and toughness bonus to deflect most if not all attacks.

Depending on how your Rogue Trader's personality and character it could end with the entire populace dead, a warrior dead, the entire warband dead, or no one dead at all. To leave with some profits you must first get past the local populace. My solution would be try to talk them down, by allying my self with one tribe over another, I would be "We will give you many weapons from the sky, if you allow us to take the mountain (mineral wealth), or help us wrangle some the most deadliest beasts (cold trade)." Or something along those lines, but some would be all fire and brimstone by taking their initial defensive actions as hostile and just blow everyone away then claim the goods and the world for The Imperium.

BaronIveagh said:

Obsidian and Glass edges are technically a mono weapon in terms of sharpness, you will not get steel as close to glass in terms of "almost a molecule" in thickness at the very edge. Its why for some surgery they use scalpels that sometimes use obsidian as the blade. Flint when knapped down to an edge also gets really **** sharp too! But, they aren't ideal weapons due to being brittle and will shatter easily against anything relatively hard. Some 40K IG flack armour has some hard plates in it, akin to Type IV body armours, which makes sense if your trying to primarily protect against shards of razor sharp metal flying around.

Back on topic, if you want to talk to them later it might be prudent to blow off some rounds to make them realise you're not a pushover. The long standing tradition of the Imperium is to rule through fear and blowing holes in people, so that's kind of expected!

Given the following assumptions:

1. I don't think the natives have an idea that a gun in a weapon.

2. I think can survive any "reflex" response from the natives

3. I have enough ammo that I can waste a few shots.

I would shoot something nearby with something showy. Probably Plasma, if I had one, since that would give them the best idea of what a "gun" can do in a way that makes sense to them. IE. It takes us a long time to cut down a tree and that thing just cut it down in a second.

Same goes for Power/Mono Weapons. I think those would intimidate them the most due to frame of reference.

Read Guns, Germs, and Steel. Diamond makes some very exceptional points. The response would have been better if they had had a history or even a mythology of similar situations.

Bilateralrope said:

Glass is used any time you need something sharper then metal. Metal weapons were preffered over glass even though brass and bronze were inferior because they were more easily produced. Obsidian is, while not uncommon, difficult to work with. It's much harder then windows glass, for one.

As far as use after 'real' metals showed up, kitchen knives for citrus were glass for decades until stainless steel became cheap, as regular steel was corroded by the acid.

Bilateralrope said:

Glass knives have pretty close to mono edges now. They're used in microsurgery, among other things.

Bilateralrope said:

If your intent is that they are far enough away that the party can't be hit, then it doesn't matter what their reaction is, any sensible party will see their GM giving them a freebie and mow them down.

Bilateralrope said:

Enough that Henry V won the battle of Agincourt.

We've really dropped, actually. It used to be that people depended on slings, bows, and firearms for their daily lives, and if you weren't accurate, you starved or were killed by something/one. When recruited into armies, many of those skills carried over.

A really remarkable study was done of skeletons of medeval archers which showed spur like projections due to muscular overdevelopment due to the tremendous draw weight of the English longbow. Compared to today, many of these man would have been Olympic atheletes.

In training modern soldiers, many of whom have never held a gun before, it's easier, and faster, to train them to shoot for the middle. Accuracy isn't a concern, the idea is to immobilize the enemy as quickly as possible, and saddle them with as many wounded as possible.

It has been said that we no longer train soldiers to actually kill the enemy, just to incapacitate them. This supposition is borne out by the common use of the M-16, a weapon that, IMHO, would have the 'unreliable' trait in 40k.

Bilateralrope said:

Ok, that's granted, invisible force field can't be targeted. So what happens when the locals do like they did in the roman era and set the battlefield on fire?

As far as the Cortés/Pizzaro debate: Yes, Atahualpa was stupidly overconfident, however, Cortés showed up with thousands of the Aztec's enemies allied with him at Tenochtitlán, and despite being driven back to the coast, managed to recover and return to besiege the city. One thing that Diamond glosses over is that the entire force of the Aztec's military might was not on hand and the fact that thier command and control was inefficent compared to the Spanish. A comparison might be made to England's successful burning of Washington DC, except in this case the government didn't ride away in the middle of the night and escape.

And frankly, the ranges in RT/DH for some ranged weapons are stupidly short. I know I have no problem hitting a target out to 100 yards with a Charleville (1766) or the Long Land Pattern (mine's around 1730) with open sights. That's about 91m. Longbows can hit with a fair degree of accuracy at that range as well, but take more skill.

I hate to say it, but your primitives might well be able to hit your party at the same ranges that the party could shoot someone.

Are we also assuming these are "Earth" primitives?

What happens when the planet has a type of resin from a tree that carries an electrical charge - when this resin strikes metal it releases the charge and shorts out tech - heck, maybe it'll even explode when it hits that force field. The "science" is not relevant - so long as it has some touch of believability.

The example may not be interesting - but I think it's a valid point. ((And already made with the bug in the gut trick suggested earlier))

These primitives know the landscape - they know the resources - even primitives have a technology of their own. ((I actually despise the term "primitives" - but I digress))

====

The Aztecs and Incas are a great point toward the primitives failing -

But look northward and you get a different story.

The Rogue Traders can't face off against a whole world and just trounce it effortlessly. Yes, they'll gain that all important foothold - yes, they can spend their vast wealth to settle the land - support the troops and in the beginning things will be easy.

Then - survivors will start traveling the world warning of the "Sky Demons" - and encounters will start turning.

The colonists will have to defend their food stores - their women - and the technology that just can't magically be reproduced. Remember - the Imperium does NOT have STC technology. Frontier worlds turn Feral for this very reason.

The Apache knew what was coming and they gave America a comparatively good fight.

====

We must also remember that Cortez and Pizzaro were Conquistadors. They weren't Dutch Traders - or English Colonials - like your average Rogue Trader would likely be. That Arch-Militant is gonna be earning her keep for the next few years that's for sure.

Note - the Conquistadors didn't destroy the Incas and Aztecs in a week - it took years. So the Rogue Traders should be prepared for an epic campaign if their goal is conquest.

Just as your colonials are conquistadors - your Imperial Guard regiment aren't colonists. They likely won't be able to keep a foothold forever in hostile territory without the aid of their Rogue Trader.

Literally nothing is known about this hostile world - it's even far more radical than "across the ocean" - it is literally a new world. A world where the food can kill you - the water can poison you - heck, the radiation of the sun could be so strong it'll mutate the entire human population.

As far as the Cortés/Pizzaro debate: Yes, Atahualpa was stupidly overconfident, however, Cortés showed up with thousands of the Aztec's enemies allied with him at Tenochtitlán, and despite being driven back to the coast, managed to recover and return to besiege the city. One thing that Diamond glosses over is that the entire force of the Aztec's military might was not on hand and the fact that thier command and control was inefficent compared to the Spanish. A comparison might be made to England's successful burning of Washington DC, except in this case the government didn't ride away in the middle of the night and escape.

Cortez was able to grab Montezuma regardless of how many people he had with him. There was no frame of reference for the Aztecs for what the Spanish intended to do to them. They fought "Flower Wars" against each other for sacrificial victims. They did not decapitate each others power base. Cortez had thousands of Aztec enemies, this is true, but he grabbed Montezuma with just a few soldiers and a breach of trust.

Atahualpa had been a God since his birth. He was never in a position where this was ever doubted by anyone. He came to Pizarro with over one hundred thousand troops. It all fell apart when he insulted a Bible, and was attacked. His troops died in droves to keep his palanquin up, as he was never supposed to touch the ground. He was captured with very few Spanish casualties. He was not stupidly overconfident, he was a God, and Pizarro was a new force for them.

An Aztec Jaguar or Eagle Knight was every bit as skilled as his Spanish counterpart. The difference lies in the fact that the Aztec is figthing to capture you, as that is how prestige is built. The Spaniard is fighting to slaughter you as a heathen, since that is how prestige is build for them. Both sides want to send you to the afterlife; the Spaniards now, the Aztecs later. There are several accounts where Aztec Knights, armed with obsidian lined clubs, took the heads off of horses in one swoop. So they are deadly. Steel, however, is incredibly deadly in the right hands, and the Spaniards there were well trained killers, most veterans of the Reconquista, which was bloody.

I hate to keep going on in the military history vein, but it is interesting, so..

The smartest thing Henry V did was picking his battlefield at Agencourt. Brilliant decision. And it was carried by the Longbowmen, because after they shot the knights down, they then waded into the muck and executed or captured the rest for ransom. Just our of curiosity, where were the pages for these knights?