Lightbringer said:

Hah, you know that's a rather clever background. Kudos!

Bwrighnar said:

Corruption results out of the mind, not of the body - the latter is merely a potential result of the former. You don't get Corruption Points for walking through a radiation zone either, so why would you get corrupted from unknowingly eating, say, a human liver? Unless the previous owner of that liver was corrupted himself, of course, as indeed corruption can be passed on by consumption.

And whilst it is true that the Imperium does not condone cannibalism (the Sons of Malice were excommunicated because of it) there is a strong difference between burning a lump of freshly hunted human flesh on a stick and the organized "recycling" of organic components. Else the Imperium would not have Servitors either. And in our real world we would not have transplants.

The difference is in the treatment of that which the organic material originated from. Hunting and killing men like animals is heretical - repurposing the dead bodies of faithful servants is not.

For the record, the old Norwegian field rations ("RSP") had nicknames like "dead man in a can", "remains of blown up personnel" and "recirculated personnel".

( More .)

Recycling human remains is definately in the 40K fluff, particularly on hive worlds. I distinctly remember reading it in the background section of the Necromunda book. I wish I could quote it, but that book has been lost in the Warp (my storage boxes) for many years. Hive denizens have to recycle everything they can, in addition to their imported goods.

Heya!

I guess things could go either way, but in the limited edition Soul Drinkers novella 'Daenyathos' (yes, I finally plunked down the cash for it on eBay) there is a scene that involves an Imperial Guardsman eating 'Corpse Rations'. It then goes on to explain that they were called Corpse Rations because of how gross they were, not because of actually containing human flesh or protein.

Of course, this was also a story set in M36...At some point they could have decided to hide the process in plain sight, who knows? ;-)

L-

Thing is, all of 40k is contradictory. Back in 2nd edition and the original necromunda, corpse rations were actually food made partly (not fully) from corpses of people. They also included animals, composte, cardboard, and other organic material from agri-worlds. They were in some instances gruel, or wafers or actual bricks of carbon material you heated up and ate as is.

I am pretty sure that it doesnt involve actual people nowadays though. From the GG novels, SD novels, and from what they mention in the ACTUAL rule books (even though anything Abnett writes becomes 40k fact for the most part), I highly doubt it is actual corpses anymore. I guess soylent green style cannibalism is out of style or something.

It probably depends on if you want to go by what GW wrote, or how some of the licensees have interpreted the setting. If you include all the novels and stuff you will have a -lot- of authors contradicting each other, and in cases contradicting GW itself.

An alternative occurred to me; nobody knows the truth of corpse starch rations. And that's what's so weird about it.

Drace said:

You are quite right. One issue that I have with Games Workshop in general is that it seems that each time they update something, it becomes more watered down. I'm not referring to power levels (although I do remember the 1150 point Bloodthirster & psykers who could make you prize unit switch sides FOR THE REST OF THE GAME), but am referring to the "attitude" of the games. I still have quite a few original daemonette models who wear nothing more than a loincloth. I've seen skimpier bikinis than what the "embodiements of lust" wear now. That goes for the writing too. The Realm of Chaos books were really twisted. Slaves to Darkness verses the current Chaos Space Maring Codex is like watching the movie Se7en verses Finding Nemo. I realize that it's good business to be more family friendly, but I can't help but feel that GW has been steadily selling out over the years. The Chaos Marines aren't even mutated anymore, just spikey. This isn't a "hate on GW" rant, I just think it's a bit sad. I've been a Chaos fan since I first cracked open my shiny new copy of Slaves to Darkness, but they have made it so bland in recent years. The daemons are but a showow of their former glory; it's no wonder the Grey Knights can cut through them so easily! It seems that grimdark is turning in to grumpygrey.

It's a tricky balance to strike, though. If you go to a GW store in the UK it's always full of young kids. I personally think it's entirely appropriate for GW to self-censor on sex and violence where children are involved.

I agree that modern Chaos material is slightly toned down from the Slaves to Darkness era, but arguably it's actually a sensible process to move away from the early '80s " Conan in Loincloth and Slave Girl in Bikini" fantasy and sci-fi look.

However, look at the Dark Eldar: they're an intensely depraved concept, but they are executed in a fairly sparing manner, with the specifics of the torturous shennanigans they get up to left firmly in the reader's mind. Personally, I think that's a neat balance to strike.

You don't need GW to draw you a diagram of what Daemonettes get up to; you just need to know they are the embodiment of lust and depravity.

One of the ways I like to look at some of the contradiction in the all the various background sources is the massive level of variation in a frackoff humungous galaxy. What's to say that the relatively isolated administratum in one far flung corner of Segmentum Obscuris didn't take the utilitarian view of turning dead meat into troop rations, while off at the other end of Segmentum Solar that is looked upon as a little faux pas. Neither side knows or cares what the other does, and the common people don't even know the other even exists, their imperium being one end of the hive to the next. Even well traveled people would be unlikely to know much beyond their sub-sector, or at a stretch the sector, and no chance to hear things from the other end of a Segmentum, let alone the Segmentum next door.

It is true that not all the contradictions can be looked at that way, but for simple things like this I find it adequate enough to save face and gloss over nuanced details.

As for toning it down, I must admit to being being a little sad at it slipping into a all ages mulch, but I hardly begrudge them for it. It's their business and their IP and making it accessible to children has brought more into the fold then that's great. As the kiddies grow up I don't doubt that any who stick with it will start adding their own teenage 'grim dark' to the setting. As has been said, it's all about your imagination and what YOU bring to it, rather than what's fed you.

I can still recall a scene from the horrific movie starring Kevin Kostner named Water World where they dumped a body back into the communial food pool.
Recycling base proteins, especially on long space journeys is not that strange.
And if you recycle on a proteine level it is just base material.

Santiago said:

Prion's are just basic proteins... just a bit wonky.

All's said and done, WH40K never really made it far into adult-oriented territory by itself to the extent that other sci-fi RPG's from the same era like early Shadowrun, Cyberpunk 2020 or SLA Industries. Just sort of nibbled around the edges with innuendo and left the rest to people's often fertile imagination. About the only thing I sort of miss is a little bit of the sillyness and pisstaking it often used to do on popular culture, sub-culture, other media and to some extent itself. It became a lot more bland, a much more limited scope of critters/people in the 40K galaxy and started taking itself far more seriously... so instead of some bloke covered in spikes and skulls as being more or less an antihero with "intimacy issues". He's now actually supposed to be taken very seriously as a warlord provided that the skull rack and horns dont get tangled up on anything/anyone along the way to a battle in a ship capable of folding space and time the size of a city, wearing a small SUV for armour... then beat the absolute f*ck out of people with an axe.

When its insinuated that Corpse Starch may be made of people like Soylent Green, it fits in fine with the grim-derp early 90's 40K. Not so sure it fits into grim-dark of current 40K so well if you analyse it too deeply. Being roleplayers before TT-wargamers in most cases, we over-analyse everything to some extent because we build our own worlds/settings and characterisations. Also, having kids at the table means we have to keep some of the more naughty aspects out of the games until they grow up a bit, but if I try hard enough I can still make most players distinctly uncomfortable about finding someones toenail in the middle of a 55 year old ration bar.

Mostly because at least in Dark Heresy, they're going to be spending a weeks wages on said ration bars and the returns department of the Departmento Munitorium is an unholy, nightmarish adventure in of itself.

Lightbringer said:

As a father, you can believe that I'm on board with censoring for kids. There are no GW stores near me & most of the GW platers I have come in to contact with are adults, so I guess the need to water it down isn't really there from my perspective. Out of curiosity, how old are these "young kids"?

Dark Eldar - Agreed. Sometimes seeding the imagination can produce far more horror than "pulling back the curtain."

And no, I don't want any diagrams! The Daemonette example was the best one I could think of to illustrate my point. I actually like the current models better than the old ones.

I guess the core of my issue is that Chaos doesn't feel "malevolent" like it used to. I'm really hoping that FFG does it justice with Black Crusade...

For insurance reasons (if nothing else), they try and limit it to 12+, but there've been a number of occasions in several of the stores I frequent (Darlington, Dundee and one of the south London ones) where they've found themselves playing host to gamers as young as 7 or 8. The average age for "kid gamers" is probably around 13-14 though.

MKX said:

Seven or eight? Wow.

Santiago said:

Are they likely to show symptoms before the guardsman eating the CS rations dies from weapons fire ?

Bilateralrope said:

Statisticaly --> No, but statistics lie!
Anyone crazy enough to join the Imperial Guard is bound to have a few holes in their brain matter....

I once ate an RSP (combat ration) that was older than myself (stamp said 1980 on the tin, I was born in 1982). The fat in the meat had separated itself completely from the meat, forming a 1cm layer on top of the meat. Was ok I guess. Sprinkled some "Piffi" spice on it to make it blander... Came out of an old cold war depot I imagine.

Johan B said:

There went my appetite. I am aware that military chow is not, and cannot be, haute cuisine, but still... that's a bit much. Then again, your morsel of information is something else to inflict on my players.

Cheers,

- V.

Alpha Chaos 13 said:

Now you made me feel sad. This is something that I have seen all across several franchises, toning down stuff for the sole reason to get to the "most common denominator". And whilst this is both economically reasonable as well as kids-friendly, on some level it just doesn't seem right that parts of the old core community may get alienated because things don't "feel" as they used to anymore. A franchise and a setting are always more than basic descriptions, they are also defined by a unique style. And if this style, this feel, gets lost amidst the most common denominator, the descriptions that make it different from other franchises or settings are nothing more than empty words that can be replaced at will.

/rant

Vandegraffe said:

You'd be surprised what they serve nowadays! German military canteen food is like the school cafeteria, US military canteen food is like McDonalds, and US field rations are like a mixture of camping and bachelor-shopping in the local super market. That stuff even cooks itself after you throw the bag into some cold water! The wonders of modern science...

The only thing still coming close to the old cliché are probably the German field rations. There are those little cakes that are commonly called "Panzerkeks" ("tank cookie") due to their solidity, and if you put standard issue shoe polish on them you get the most efficient BBQ igniter ever. The canned meat is best thrown at the enemy, though. The boxes usually also include some WW2-style canned chocolate. That stuff is pure love.

Lynata said:

Exactly! Who wants a Chaos army that feels like it belongs in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"? Besides, since when have gamers been mainstream?

I personnally take corpse starch literally, partially for the grim dark and partially as I remember something about it being spun out of corpses. This leads me to two things, one I imagine that the corpses are being broken down to below the protein level (as otherwise as people have mentioned you get problems with prions) and then reformatted in some way, the second is as its described as being spun I can't help but imagine it as candyfloss..........

As per the whole is canibalism bad in the imperium, yes and no, yes as it leads to chaos, no as quite a lot of imperial guard regiments and space marines have it in their fluff that they have canibalistic tendencies (though it often means they are watched just that bit more closely).

GW does seem to have over the years reduced the fluff a bit both in quantity and in tone, the tonal issues don't annoy me as much as the fact that the fluff you get with the main books (rulebook and army books) is less and often repeated (it annoys me to buy a new book to find the fluff hasn't added anything, shows you the rough turnover rate among players now, most seem to play for a few years and then give it up).

Personally on the whole Corpse starch thing I just go with what I know of Cheez Whiz, It has nothing organic in it and never has. It is just an edible plastic.