What If? Star Trek Federation is transported into the 40k galaxy

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
I mean, the amount of damage it can take and how the Imperium can't really damage it.
They also can't really damage Adamantium... and armor made of Adamantium is notably weaker than Tau armor made from Iridium. 40K won't win the technobabble war.

Imperium have tried these things though.
Remember, they have probably tried a scientific route when it comes to stopping certain things.
Also remember a chaos God is in charge of plagues
The people who consider prayer a part of repairing toasters have tried. The people who can't re-engineer their own toasters and instead need to scour the galaxy for an ancient schematic for a toaster, because they have no technical skills that would let them dismantle their toaster and troubleshoot it or replace the broken part have tried. Those people certainly can't design their own toasters, only replicate ancient toasters schematics they find in some ancient lost database. Those guys have tried.

The Federation has not tried. Homer Simpson being unable to solve a technical problem doesn't mean Tony Stark can't solve it.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
I'm assuming, and my apologies if this was clarified elsewhere in the thread and I missed it, that by latest era we're talking about the Federation as of the "Picard" series and not, say, the Federation from the 29th century?

In that case I would imagine the Federation would more or less survive the transfer from optimistic future to grim darkness of the 40th millennium. Not without a steep and bloody learning curve and I imagine Starfleet's whole "exploration" aspect would swiftly change to a far more militant security focus that would make the TOS era look like TNG hippies.

As others have mentioned the Trek galaxy is actually pretty frightening with hosts of God-like and near-omnipotent powers that love to mess and meddle with humanity/lesser races. As well as the occasional space monster who likes to eat starships. So the Chaos Gods are more a change of degree than a total out of context problem for the Federation. As well the fact they would approach matters from a scientific lens would likely serve them better, long-term, than the Imperium's superstitious religion or the God-Emperor's deliberately enforced ignorance of the Warp. But yes short-term they is likely going to be a lot of butchered outposts and Lovecraftian apocalyptic logs detailing how studying the strange markings on planet Gamma-Alpha-12 went horribly wrong.

While the comparison is both obvious and cliché, I really see the Federation pulling an almost Tau-like niche in the 40k galaxy of simply being too small, too non-threatening and taking just a little bit to much effort to be worth conquering with only smallish border skirmishes whenever the Imperium wants to remind the Federation not to get too uppity.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
Here is the thing. The Imperium of Man does not really understand they own tech fully. They have a vague idea of how things work. But unlike them The Federation not only knows their own tech fully but can back engineer tech millions of years old. Points at back engineered Iconian tech. 40K techonbabble is like Starfleet when they are fully drunk and going off only 1 hours sleep after 72 hours of working straight. They aren't in the same technobabble league and never have been.
Shouldn't bring up that Dark Age of Tech Imperium had things that could make full sized land raiders without as much of a building?
Mars has more then enough things there that will help show the Federationthey don't fit in.
Ahhh...but in 40K, your prayers CAN make the toaster work.
Exactly.


People seem to think "SCIENCE WILL HELP THEN SURVIVE!"
How would it help against Chaos? Because unlike most beings in ST, Chaos doesn't directly have a hand.
It seeks itself in there. An exploration fleet finds a world devastated and a few chaos fragments left? Corruption starts there and spreads.

I can not recall any time in ST that dealt with corruption that isn't physical.
A pretty damn near mystical level of stuff.
There is no science behind the warp.
 

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
One of the issues, too, is how both treat their narrative. Trek's universe is just as horrifying and full of monsters but the Federation actually punches the horrors back while (mostly) maintaining their morals, but the Imperium can only grimly hold on and has to meet atrocity with atrocity. Optimistic vs. Pessimistic.

If somebody wrote a story where some rando Imperium researcher came up with a "cure" that turned Orks into peace-loving allies of the Imperium it would be a ridiculous violation of all the themes in the game. If there was a DS9 episode where O'Brien and Dr. Bashir travel through the wormhole, encounter a functionally identical race to the Orks, and Bashir was able to cure the genetic tampering that made them violent in the space of one episode, it would just be a fairly typical episode of Trek.

Or as I like to say, idiotic vs realistic.

Anyway, as Stalin allegedly said, quantity is a quality all of its own. Star Trek universe is full of monsters, yes, but a) they are not omnipresent like in 40k and b) generally don't go out looking for you, even if you are pretty royally screwed should you stumble across one.

40k? Yeah, you're screwed. Also, many of 40k horrors are outright metaphysical / religious in nature. Federation might have issues dealing with them simply on the philosophical level. They tend to approach everything from the scientific point of view... but that simply does not work in the 40k.

Remember the Dark Age of Technology humanity? It was literally Federation on steroids, capable of feats that were frankly closer to those of the Iconians or the Forerunner for non-Star Trek example. They beat back the Orks, kept friendly with aliens - not because aliens were friendly, but because they knew better than to screw with humanity. Imperium's technology is basically a shadow of what DAoT humanity had.

They still got screwed over by the Warp.
 

Sailor.X

Cold War Veteran
Founder
Shouldn't bring up that Dark Age of Tech Imperium had things that could make full sized land raiders without as much of a building?
Mars has more then enough things there that will help show the Federationthey don't fit in.

Exactly.


People seem to think "SCIENCE WILL HELP THEN SURVIVE!"
How would it help against Chaos? Because unlike most beings in ST, Chaos doesn't directly have a hand.
It seeks itself in there. An exploration fleet finds a world devastated and a few chaos fragments left? Corruption starts there and spreads.

I can not recall any time in ST that dealt with corruption that isn't physical.
A pretty damn near mystical level of stuff.
There is no science behind the warp.
Unless the stuff on Mars can match or exceed Iconian Tech (Which I highly highly exceedingly doubt.) They might as well be playing with dirt and moving sticks around compared to what the Federation can cook up. As to nonphysical corruption. There are a few races in the Federation that have Psionic powers that they deliberately hold back on that can deal with such threats.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
I can not recall any time in ST that dealt with corruption that isn't physical.
A pretty damn near mystical level of stuff.
There is no science behind the warp.
Not sure if this exactly what you meant but the TOS episode "And the Children shall lead" dealt with an non-corporeal alien corrupting an outpost's children to murder their parents and then attempt to take over the Enterprise to spread it's "religion" to a new, populated world. There was nothing physical about the alien's corruption with it operating more on manipulation and influencing the children's minds.

Similarly "Day of the Dove" dealt with another energy-being which wanted to keep Humans and Klingons locked in endless battle onboard the Enterprise for all of eternity and was influencing and altering people's memories to reduce them to an almost Khorne-like mindless barbarism and hatred.

So a more mental, cult-like corruption isn't totally unheard of from the Federation point of view.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
Unless the stuff on Mars can match or exceed Iconian Tech (Which I highly highly exceedingly doubt.) They might as well be playing with dirt and moving sticks around compared to what the Federation can cook up. As to nonphysical corruption. There are a few races in the Federation that have Psionic powers that they deliberately hold back on that can deal with such threats.
DAoT is the strongest Imperium was at.
Had technology that would make it so they could build whole armies and equipment and buildings practically out if thin air.
Then you have the robots that were able to solo armies basically.
Not sure if this exactly what you meant but the TOS episode "And the Children shall lead" dealt with an non-corporeal alien corrupting an outpost's children to murder their parents and then attempt to take over the Enterprise to spread it's "religion" to a new, populated world. There was nothing physical about the alien's corruption with it operating more on manipulation and influencing the children's minds.

Similarly "Day of the Dove" dealt with another energy-being which wanted to keep Humans and Klingons locked in endless battle onboard the Enterprise for all of eternity and was influencing and altering people's memories to reduce them to an almost Khorne-like mindless barbarism and hatred.

So a more mental, cult-like corruption isn't totally unheard of from the Federation point of view.
More like you have the want and need to further it and grow more apart.
If that means dragging more into it willingly or not.

For instance, should a ship captain become corrupted by Chaos that whole ship would be a vessel for a greater deamon to appear. Or for a cult that slowly grows larger or larger.

Or should nurgle get invovled.
An incurable plague
 

Sailor.X

Cold War Veteran
Founder
DAoT is the strongest Imperium was at.
Had technology that would make it so they could build whole armies and equipment and buildings practically out if thin air.
Then you have the robots that were able to solo armies basically.

More like you have the want and need to further it and grow more apart.
If that means dragging more into it willingly or not.

For instance, should a ship captain become corrupted by Chaos that whole ship would be a vessel for a greater deamon to appear. Or for a cult that slowly grows larger or larger.

Or should nurgle get invovled.
An incurable plague
In other words still far more primitive than Iconian Technology that the Federation back engineered. gotya
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
More like you have the want and need to further it and grow more apart.
If that means dragging more into it willingly or not.
I'm sorry but that sounds very much exactly what happened in both episodes described. With the children desiring to spread the cult of the "friendly Angel"/Gorgon to the world of Marcus XII and forcing everyone onboard the Enterprise to carry out that objective.

And presumably once they had reached that world it would have began sending out ships with children to make even more "friends" on neighboring worlds.

The entity in "Day of the Dove" didn't desire worship or care to spread it's influence but if anything was far more insidious than your run of the mill cultists. It didn't need to subvert a culture or grow like a cancer to achieve it's ends. It simply "remade" you to better suits it whims.

Or should nurgle get involved.
An incurable plague
Well biofilters and forcefields likely would help cut down on transmission vectors. Further Nurgle operates via manipulation of the Warp which can and has been affected by technological means from Gellar Field Generators to Necron Pylons. So it wouldn't be out of the realm for Trek, once they'd studied the immaterium, to device a counter to expel the Warp aspect from the immediate material universe. If anything that seems a downright Trekkish way to handle the situation.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
Well biofilters and forcefields likely would help cut down on transmission vectors. Further Nurgle operates via manipulation of the Warp which can and has been affected by technological means from Gellar Field Generators to Necron Pylons. So it wouldn't be out of the realm for Trek, once they'd studied the immaterium, to device a counter to expel the Warp aspect from the immediate material universe. If anything that seems a downright Trekkish way to handle the situation.
At least until Tzeentch gets involved.
 
Ultimately the issue comes down to you have two different Genres with completely different purposes. Star Trek is essentially Futurist bordering on Transhumanism and Warhammer 40K is satirical to the point of absurdism.

Neither one really works in the other's world. It's like trying to mesh Simpsons with CSI.
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
Here is the thing. The Imperium of Man does not really understand they own tech fully. They have a vague idea of how things work. But unlike them The Federation not only knows their own tech fully but can back engineer tech millions of years old. Points at back engineered Iconian tech. 40K techonbabble is like Starfleet when they are fully drunk and going off only 1 hours sleep after 72 hours of working straight. They aren't in the same technobabble league and never have been.
The Human Federation thingy from the WH age of Strife thought they understood their tech fully, before Warp fuckery happened.
Same goes for the Elder and the Old ones.

Also, what the Mechanicus "vaguely understands" is orders of magnitude more powerful ancient tech that outclasses anything in Trek.
Also all of that superstition exists with very good reason.
First off, some areas of scientific inquiry lead to potential corruption or the creation of Abominable Intelligences, which either understand chaos and decide that the only way to stop it is to destroy all sentient organics, or like in the case of the Men Of Iron get corrupted by chaos.
Faith in Warhammer is literally one of the strongest weapons against Chaos, and the happy go lucky Fed troglodytes have zero protection against it.
Their society is very similar to both the original Earth Federation and what Emps tried to achieve with the Imperial creed.
Also, it is strongly implied that much of the tech in Warhammer had machine spirits that act as rudimentary A.I. and thet were either A.I. or something else, they sort of want to be worshipped.
And as I said there is the aspect of the Warp influencing reality as a whole.

For all the cheerleading about the Feds, they have routinely been brought low by exceedingly incompetent and stupid enemies who did not have their alleged treknobabel abilities and the majority of the "bounce a greviton particle beam off the main deflector dish" stunts were never used again.

Trek loses, hard.

This will not be a single enemy, millions of them will fall to Slaanesh or Khorne or Tzeentch in a matter of days, and they will be raided by everyone from the Dark Eldar to Orks and the Imperium.

Their best scientists will become obsessed with new and dangerous experiments.
Their best officers will turn so bloodthirsty as to make Klingons look like pacifists.
Their political leadership shall become corrupted by the thirst for power.

Furthermore, Chaos does not act directly.
Failbadon not withstanding, chaos uses corruption, persuasion and trickery and infiltration to weaken it's enemies.
At least until Tzeentch gets involved.

Slaanesh is the one they should really be worried about, but I think that all the mad scientist and artsy types in the Federation will be split evenly among Slaanesh and Teeentch.

Tzeentch will take the shxeming politicians, Slaanesh the salf-aggrendizing ones.

Also, Warhammer is no stranger to time travel, I fact that played a part in the birth of Slaanesh and the scattering of the Primarchs.
Also, precognition plays a huge role in Warhammer.
 
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Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
In other words still far more primitive than Iconian Technology that the Federation back engineered. gotya
The Imperium during the DAoT was so powerful they basically mastered creation of machines without any need for material.
Had super sophisticatedand unstoppable AI.

a DAoT ship iirc was able to gove the necronsna decent fight.

this is a galaxy where religion is what keeps peoples souls from being swallowed.

and kets not get started on the Orks
I'm sorry but that sounds very much exactly what happened in both episodes described. With the children desiring to spread the cult of the "friendly Angel"/Gorgon to the world of Marcus XII and forcing everyone onboard the Enterprise to carry out that objective.

And presumably once they had reached that world it would have began sending out ships with children to make even more "friends" on neighboring worlds.

The entity in "Day of the Dove" didn't desire worship or care to spread it's influence but if anything was far more insidious than your run of the mill cultists. It didn't need to subvert a culture or grow like a cancer to achieve it's ends. It simply "remade" you to better suits it whims.


Well biofilters and forcefields likely would help cut down on transmission vectors. Further Nurgle operates via manipulation of the Warp which can and has been affected by technological means from Gellar Field Generators to Necron Pylons. So it wouldn't be out of the realm for Trek, once they'd studied the immaterium, to device a counter to expel the Warp aspect from the immediate material universe. If anything that seems a downright Trekkish way to handle the situation.
The only race immune to Nurlge are Necrons.
Every other race is not immune to it.
Bio filters are useless. They don't work to save any other race.
The only race not effected by it is Orks.
Because they are a fungus.

And have we seen said pylons work against nuclear plagues? I havnt.
And depending on tje plague even a forcefield won't work.

And the way chaos corruption works isn't overt either.
It can be just subtle differences that are not able to be noticed.

Hell, even robots like Delta would not he immune.
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
Ultimately the issue comes down to you have two different Genres with completely different purposes. Star Trek is essentially Futurist bordering on Transhumanism and Warhammer 40K is satirical to the point of absurdism.
Trek is the standard rose tinted goggles utopian scifi, the type that believes in the inherent goodness of human nature.

Transhumanists they are not, since they have limitations on A.I. research, augmenterions, both purely physical and generic and technologically they are very, very far from a Singularity or post-humanism.

Warhammer started as over the top grim dark affectionate parody/pastiche of pop culture comics, science fiction and fantasy, but nowadays more often than not the Grimdark is PLAYED STRAIGHT.

Trek hasnas it's premise that humans can become all nice and reasonable and turn civilization into a highly advenced hug box where anything can be solved by moralist grandstanding and sudden Treknobabel fix.
Warhammer does not, it sees humans as the flawed creatures that they are, and in that universe there is rarely a treknobabel solution to save people from the things that bump in the night.

Warhammer acknowledges human nature, Trek does not.
Neither one really works in the other's world. It's like trying to mesh Simpsons with CSI.
Or put a trust fund gated community leftoid into a Siberian GULAG or on the front at Stalingrad. :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :cool::love::love::love:
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
Bio filters are useless. They don't work to save any other race.
Why would Federation Biofilters be useless? Their whole purpose is to remove unwanted pathogens. At the very least it should make the Federation less susceptible to Nurgle plagues than the Imperium which has managed to survive for ten millennia and counting.

And have we seen said pylons work against nuclear plagues? I havnt.
And depending on tje plague even a forcefield won't work.
That wouldn't matter. I merely brought it up as an example of how the Warp is vulnerable to being manipulated by technological means. That it can be "scienced" and Starfleet engineers are wizards at science.

And the way chaos corruption works isn't overt either.
It can be just subtle differences that are not able to be noticed.

I would say it isn't always overt. Chaos mutations and Greater Daemons aren't the most subtle of things after all.

But yes, the purpose of Cults and corruption is that it's insidious. That was the point of our discussion that the Federation has come across "mystical", non-overt led cults and alien intelligences before. Now will there be a learning curve in the 40K galaxy? I think absolutely yes, Chaos Gods are far more focused on corrupting humanity than in Trek were most of the really nasty things have been forgotten lurking in the dark corners of the galaxy leading to a far more omni-present danger than anything Starfleet has dealt with up to this point. I just don't think its an insurmountable problem.
 

Sailor.X

Cold War Veteran
Founder
The Human Federation thingy from the WH age of Strife thought they understood their tech fully, before Warp fuckery happened.
Same goes for the Elder and the Old ones.

Also, what the Mechanicus "vaguely understands" is orders of magnitude more powerful ancient tech that outclasses anything in Trek.
Also all of that superstition exists with very good reason.
First off, some areas of scientific inquiry lead to potential corruption or the creation of Abominable Intelligences, which either understand chaos and decide that the only way to stop it is to destroy all sentient organics, or like in the case of the Men Of Iron get corrupted by chaos.
Faith in Warhammer is literally one of the strongest weapons against Chaos, and the happy go lucky Fed troglodytes have zero protection against it.
Their society is very similar to both the original Earth Federation and what Emps tried to achieve with the Imperial creed.
Also, it is strongly implied that much of the tech in Warhammer had machine spirits that act as rudimentary A.I. and thet were either A.I. or something else, they sort of want to be worshipped.
And as I said there is the aspect of the Warp influencing reality as a whole.

For all the cheerleading about the Feds, they have routinely been brought low by exceedingly incompetent and stupid enemies who did not have their alleged treknobabel abilities and the majority of the "bounce a greviton particle beam off the main deflector dish" stunts were never used again.

Trek loses, hard.

This will not be a single enemy, millions of them will fall to Slaanesh or Khorne or Tzeentch in a matter of days, and they will be raided by everyone from the Dark Eldar to Orks and the Imperium.

Their best scientists will become obsessed with new and dangerous experiments.
Their best officers will turn so bloodthirsty as to make Klingons look like pacifists.
Their political leadership shall become corrupted by the thirst for power.

Furthermore, Chaos does not act directly.
Failbadon not withstanding, chaos uses corruption, persuasion and trickery and infiltration to weaken it's enemies.


Slaanesh is the one they should really be worried about, but I think that all the mad scientist and artsy types in the Federation will be split evenly among Slaanesh and Teeentch.

Tzeentch will take the shxeming politicians, Slaanesh the salf-aggrendizing ones.

Also, Warhammer is no stranger to time travel, I fact that played a part in the birth of Slaanesh and the scattering of the Primarchs.
Also, precognition plays a huge role in Warhammer.
The Imperium during the DAoT was so powerful they basically mastered creation of machines without any need for material.
Had super sophisticatedand unstoppable AI.

a DAoT ship iirc was able to gove the necronsna decent fight.

this is a galaxy where religion is what keeps peoples souls from being swallowed.

and kets not get started on the Orks

The only race immune to Nurlge are Necrons.
Every other race is not immune to it.
Bio filters are useless. They don't work to save any other race.
The only race not effected by it is Orks.
Because they are a fungus.

And have we seen said pylons work against nuclear plagues? I havnt.
And depending on tje plague even a forcefield won't work.

And the way chaos corruption works isn't overt either.
It can be just subtle differences that are not able to be noticed.

Hell, even robots like Delta would not he immune.
Which part of the Federation had gotten to the point they could affect Causality on a Grand Scale do you two do not get. They can literally erase the Imperium of Man from existence with just one ship if need be. You might want to look more into the lore of the things they developed before you go hard on 40K like you are Because right not you are taking a well trained Pitbull and saying it can beat Final Wars Godzilla.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
The Imperium during the DAoT was so powerful they basically mastered creation of machines without any need for material.
Had super sophisticatedand unstoppable AI.
Wow, so the Imperium during the DAoT was as powerful as Quark.

a DAoT ship iirc was able to gove the necronsna decent fight.

this is a galaxy where religion is what keeps peoples souls from being swallowed.

and kets not get started on the Orks
And yet people without that religion don't get swallowed. The Tau and the Necrons and the Tyranids certainly aren't following that religion.

The only race immune to Nurlge are Necrons.
Every other race is not immune to it.
Bio filters are useless. They don't work to save any other race.
The only race not effected by it is Orks.
Because they are a fungus.
No, 40K biofilters are useless. That proves nothing regarding Trek filters. We've seen Trek biofilters reverse old age as part of filtering out a disease. This whole "40K junk tech they don't understand or use right doesn't work, therefore Trek stuff using entirely different, vastly more advanced principles won't either" needs to go.

And have we seen said pylons work against nuclear plagues? I havnt.
And depending on tje plague even a forcefield won't work.

And the way chaos corruption works isn't overt either.
It can be just subtle differences that are not able to be noticed.

Hell, even robots like Delta would not he immune.
The Federation's taken on all those kinds of corruption powers many times and won.

They've had ships and tools spontaneously develop sentience and coped. They've fought corrupting plagues, insidious mind controllers, and crap like the Silicon-Based-Virus the Organians were using. In 10,000 years only 37% of any species was able to even identify it and only 7 species figured out how to kill it in those 10,000 years. The Federation? One of the 7... during the ENT Era when their tech was at its most primitive. Nurgle will have to seriously up his game to top what the later Federation can handle for diseases.

Now let's talk about the kind of utter BS the Federation can pull out. You say 'nuff said about Orks? How about Medusans.


Medusans are superb navigators, non-corporeal hiveminds so strong they can resist Borg assimilation by just not wanting to be assimilated hard enough. Given that the Tyranids are immune to the Warp and all daemonic corruption specifically because they're a Hivemind, this suggests the Medusans can no-sell the Warp all on their own. But here's where they get truly ridicc.

Any corporeal life form that gazes on a Medusan suffers instant madness, followed by catatonia and then massive organ failure. If you look at their reflection in a mirror, you suffer catatonia and then amnesia but your organs don't disintegrate because you forgot what they look like from the amnesia. This is the kind of cognitohazards Starfleet has to put up with. Starfleet didn't just deal with it, Medusans are members in good standing of the Federation. There are Federation Starships carrying these things around as crewmembers (Apparently only Galaxy Class and above as they do need to arrange for special quarters to avoid the crew seeing the Medusan). The Federation takes Lovecraftian Horrors and makes them part of the crew.

How many hazards does 40K have where looking at something makes all your organs dissolve? And did the Imperium then make that hazard a member of their team?
 
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Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
Which part of the Federation had gotten to the point they could affect Causality on a Grand Scale do you two do not get. They can literally erase the Imperium of Man from existence with just one ship if need be. You might want to look more into the lore of the things they developed before you go hard on 40K like you are Because right not you are taking a well trained Pitbull and saying it can beat Final Wars Godzilla.
@Zachowon which version of the Federation from which timeline do you mean in the OP?

For me when these vs. happen it is usually the Picard/Sisiko/Janeway era.
 

Corbell

New member
Excellent question. Good responses. Couple of points that leap out at me.

1. Holosuites would be.... very bad. Every porn user would just... go bad immediately. Whole worlds would die so fast...

2. The military implicatios of replicators would be huge, both in being able to gear up Fed tech quickly and to get into use any captured or copied 40k tech.

3. In some ways, this might be more interesting if only a single ship, ie an Enterprise comes though.

4. Also, time to break out the Augment tech. That was not an one off. That is deep cannon.
 

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