Quote from: Ladybird;504398I'd imagine a lot of traditional spycraft still goes on in 40k. That shit works.

I would imagine it does also, I just wasn't really sure how.

I would also imagine that vox networks across imperial worlds broadcast a lot of imperial propaganda, news of victories over (conventional) enemies (even if that didn't happen), as well as ecclesiarchal calls to prayer, and calls to watch for sedition. Die for Darkseid, almost.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;504375Somehow the image of peons of the Imperium walking around with iphones is too jarring!

I think the players felt that they needed some mechanism with which to carry out their duties in service of the inquisition. So, as with cops in real life, they assume there needs to be some sort of accountability and some means to show their authority - not least of all to squeeze answers out of recalcitrant cultists. One issue I had was i wound up having the cultists say nothing - what would they say? They are cultists therefore somewhat fanatic. Issuing some kind of James Bond supervillain reveal seemed completely out of place "damn you acolyte, i planned to summon a daemon and would have gotten away with it were it not for your fiendish powers!"

Radical Inquisitors need no accountability. Puritan Inquisitors are accountable to the Emperor himself.

And since the inquisition has a dim view of cultists, the only deal they can offer is a quicker death.

BUt that's okay, because cultists aren't criminals out for a buck, they are religious fanatics on a mission from God. When you are on God's side, you like to tell people.  The trick isn't getting them to talk, its figuring out what they say that is actually relevant.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;504386are you sure? I would have though the poverty of the average (ie non-noble) citizen is a fundamental aspect of the setting.

Remember that Hive Worlds usually are based with high industry. Not to mention Forge Worlds .

Quote from: Rincewind1;504463Remember that Hive Worlds usually are based with high industry. Not to mention Forge Worlds .

I agree. 40k may be the epitome of Grimdark, but if every hive or forge world was a extreme proletarian nightmare, all of the arbites, Space Marines and Inquisitors in the world wouldn't be able to contain the societal collapse of trillions of rioting and dying workers!

Between the gangers and twists in the underhive, and the nobles in the spires, there is a working/middle class out there and while their lives are pretty dreary, it's bearable. Being that hives are industrial, I envision a lifestyle reminiscent of the early decades of the 20th Century. The apartments are small, but have access to functional individual or communal plumbing. After the shift, people hang out at neighborhood pubs or at church. And nearly every home has a radio.

Who knows, maybe I'm a starry eyed optimist.

Quote from: JamesV;504674I agree. 40k may be the epitome of Grimdark, but if every hive or forge world was a extreme proletarian nightmare, all of the arbites, Space Marines and Inquisitors in the world wouldn't be able to contain the societal collapse of trillions of rioting and dying workers!

Between the gangers and twists in the underhive, and the nobles in the spires, there is a working/middle class out there and while their lives are pretty dreary, it's bearable. Being that hives are industrial, I envision a lifestyle reminiscent of the early decades of the 20th Century. The apartments are small, but have access to functional individual or communal plumbing. After the shift, people hang out at neighborhood pubs or at church. And nearly every home has a radio.

Who knows, maybe I'm a starry eyed optimist.

I'm sorry, but this is clearly heresy.

I would imagine hives to be a cross between Mega City 1, only on a much larger scale, and some puritan middle ages society. It was written in fascist tory 1980's britain - bit like now!

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;504738I'm sorry, but this is clearly heresy.

I would imagine hives to be a cross between Mega City 1, only on a much larger scale, and some puritan middle ages society. It was written in fascist tory 1980's britain - bit like now!

That's up to you mate. In such a case - there can be Arbitres Vox boxes, just like police booths. You know, like the one Dr Who has.

Quote from: Spike;504342Just for the fun of it (and I may do more like this later... promises promises)

Griswold! Inquisitor Griswold's Imperial Vacation! Ah my eyes!

Quote from: Spinachcat;504347There is no reason that the Inquisition team needs to go planet to planet. There are a million heresies on a planet of 10 billion citizens. Makes sense for an Inquisitor to be stationed on the planet and even have multiple teams.

DH is awesome for CSI 40k and espionage.

There is indeed no reason; the cities/hives are enormous. But i'd be limiting myself if I didn't take advantage of other environments. There's a whole sector of good stuff.

I'm writing up a 'support network' for the pc's. There's a lovely scene in The Shadow movie from the 90's where an agent sticks some info into a tube that the camera follows through out the city until it drops off, one of many, into one of his major intel gathering sanctums and the agent at the desk is reading through many reports and communicates to the shadow of a given situation. I imagine their immediate superior being in a similar position: an officious yet placidly dutiful elder adept surrounded by pict screens and collating reports on behalf of the inquisitor serving as their liason and boss. He seems to be separate from the world, within his little datahub (like the producers in the Truman Show), but omnipresent.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;504738I'm sorry, but this is clearly heresy.

I would imagine hives to be a cross between Mega City 1, only on a much larger scale, and some puritan middle ages society. It was written in fascist tory 1980's britain - bit like now!

Being that you're much closer to the source culturally than I am, I concede that you're probably right. Makes me think I should stop being so lazy, get some of those Judge Dredd collections out there and start reading.

Quote from: JamesV;505104Being that you're much closer to the source culturally than I am, I concede that you're probably right. Makes me think I should stop being so lazy, get some of those Judge Dredd collections out there and start reading.

Well if 2000ad isn't a major inspiration for 40k i will eat my power armour.

And yes, you should because Dredd is awesome. I may have to nick the Dark Judges for 40k (the Dark Inquisitors!).

Dredd is awesome indeed, and he was definitely inspiration for Hive Worlds.

Quote from: Rincewind1;505168Dredd is awesome indeed, and he was definitely inspiration for Hive Worlds.

Mega City 1 takes up the eastern US seaboard, encompassing and built over, NYC. I think it goes from Florida to the Canadian border. I don't know if that's smaller than the average Hive City or the same. Like a hive, most citizens live their lives in vast apartment blocks (all of which are named after 20th century celebrities) and never go outside. Or need to. The city is built on layers so it's entirely possible to never see the city bottom (and vice versa). The undercity is populated by mutants and ne'erdowells. However unlike Hives, the citizens aren't armed routinely and don't have jobs. Unemployment is about 80% in MC-1, echoing 80's Britain and the growing concerns, then, of mechanisation replacing human labour. Robots are a part of the setting also and are often anthropomorphised. Criminals that aren't killed evading capture or in the course of their cimes are sent to iso-cube cells, sometimes lobotomised, or sent to Devil's Island which is a sort of mini block in the city surrounded by automated traffic travelling at 100mph so there's no chance of escape. Judges that break the law are sentenced to serve a penal colony on Titan and are surgically altered to work in its atmosphere unaided.

I was also going to mention Dredd, and Nemesis, and comics like that, because the culture on any particular planet should simply be the nth degree dystopian extrapolation of something that annoys you.

I did a DH where the investigators couldn't get much done because everyone on the planet wore elaborate headgear that kept them all in touch and created a defacto hive mind. It was difficyult to strain clues when everyone saw something different and everyone had the same information. Eventually, they realized the cultists were the only ones who appeared to know what they were doing, because their signals on their signals were controlled by an outside agent.

I wasn't trying to control the canon technology in 40K. I was making a personal comment about what I think of cell phones. My players were all 40K guys, and they took care  of those details on their own.

The weird nature of English satire sci-fi comes from jamming together hundreds of satirical ideas and letting them grow by accretion--not by having a consistent canon setting bible. I know it helps to stay organized by following canon sometimes, but don't let it get in your way.

Quote from: stu2000;505249I wasn't trying to control the canon technology in 40K. I was making a personal comment about what I think of cell phones. My players were all 40K guys, and they took care  of those details on their own.

That's a brilliant concept!

is there a canon position on regular communication tech in respect to police boxes etc?

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;505548is there a canon position on regular communication tech in respect to police boxes etc?

Allow me to give you a direct hint to what, I believe, stu was trying to suggest.




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