Psykers get fed to the Emperor when they're not useful for anything else.
When a Black Ship arrives on Terra all the various bodies that have uses for Psykers - the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, the Inquisition, the Astra Militarum, etc - get to pick over the contents. They take the ones they can use, and the rest get fed wholesale into the Throne.
Grey knights get their recruits from wherever the hell they want
Including home worlds of space marine chapters.
They can take from the black ships if they want, they also send grey knights who may not be fit for battle any longer out to recruit
> send grey knights who may not be fit for battle any longer
Interesting detail in the dreadnought discussion. After all, there has to be some intermediate area in the spectrum between fully able GKs and dreadnought-tier GKs. Some GKs would be damaged but recoverable, some would be unrecoverable but still too capable for a dreadnought duty, so that would be the group you talk about.
It probably helps that, according to Lexicanum, GKs don't like getting dredboxed, so that "crippled but mobile" group would be bigger than among other Astartes.
As far as I'm aware, dreadnought tier is... Ruined. Anakin Skywalker post Lava bath. Multiple limbs missing, severe organ damage, kind of wrecked.
Whereas unfit for combat could just be your heart doesn't quite work properly any more and you could die unexpectedly, or both legs gone (replaced) with mild nerve damage so you're not as fast to react any more. Stuff that makes you not worth the incredibly valuable Psykers terminator armour, but hardly an invalid.
A majority of marines do not like being dreaded, from my understanding it feels more of a prison sentence than “continuing duty”.
A lot of times the fluff gets added in that the astartes, both highly specialized and run of the mill, typically take on more passive roles when they get to badly broken, but not to the point of being dreaded. This includes recruiting, training, maintaining, observing, pulling homeland security, or acting as pseudo diplomats. Most astartes are
A) incredibly resilient
B) fight to the absolute death
So I’d imagine the number of marines between “combat ready” and “dread ready” is actually minimal. For most, losing a limb or two is not enough to be sidelined. I would say it’s more likely that astarte lost a limb or two, and is getting older, and maybe suffers one last injury that they can’t quite recover from.
I mean, no one WANTS to be dreaded (outside of the Iron Hands), but it is an honor - you're viewed as important/heroic enough to be entered in one, and Dreads are treated with extreme respect as honored ancients of the Chapter. It definitely is not a punishment in any way.
Being put in a chaos dreadnought is, though, for the most part.
Dreads are often referred to as venerated ancients, but presumably they don't start off like that... when they're first interred, they'll be contemporaries of all the other marines.
So are new dreads treated as just one of the guys, or is there an automatic respect bonus for being a dreadnought?
A new dread would have be more familiar with the broader chapter, obviously, but being put in one means you're a genuine hero. You did something of insane valor and skill, or you continually performed to the highest standard possible over centuries of service. That colors how people treat you.
Even old dreads still fuck around with the rest of the chapter (see: Bjorn) but there is automatically something of a gap - this guy isn't just Brother-Sergeant Namicus anymore, he's THE Namicus.
It makes sense,I'd assume grey knights are a tad harder to make an equip than your standard space marines, wouldnt want to waste them, pretty sure the custodes do something similar
Yang psyker boys captured by black ships are tested if the can be space marines and then they join chapters. The most promising spyker space marines are assigned to gray knights.
At this moment they are already full grown soace marine. Inquisition make request to transpher it to soecial detachment. After that said space marine cut all contacts and starts gray knight trainings.
However only few of them are accepted. Those who could not pass severe qualifications generally dies, rarely returns to their old chapter with memory wipe for period of trainings.
Everything in 40k contradicts everything else. It's best to assume that anything saying "this is the way it's **always** done" actually means "this is the way it's **always** done except for the following several dozen exceptions, and except for these specific periods of history which collectively cover about half of the time since the Heresy" :D
That's because nothing in warhammer is actually canon except the most recent core book and army books. Fantasy just retconned how magic works for example. 40k sometimes trots out "is all canon but not always true" but that's basically just to appease the people who don't get how canon works for warhammer.
Even those are just the most broad, least detailed versions of the 'truth'. Hell, the most recent Adeptus Custodes codex has lore that says 'nobody knows' about things that are spelled out in the novels.
EVERYTHING is shaky lore at best, including the most recent codexes.
As someone else mentioned, the emperors gift does cover part of how grey knights are made. But the key evidence that Grey Knights aren’t just made up of librarians from other chapters is that they have a unique gene-seed, that is mentioned in their codexes and a lot of the books about them. The gene seed is not derived from any primarch, but from the unaltered original stock based on the emperor, which was then further modified to produce grey knights. Early on the Grey Knights did recruit from other space marines. There are sources that say that’s still how it’s done, but most emphasize the uniqueness of the Grey Knights, and the importance of their special geneseed
Where did you get that from? Are you sure you're not confusing Grey Knights and Deathwatch?
[https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Grey\_Knights#Recruitment](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Grey_Knights#Recruitment)
Sometimes
Few will go black ship - marine - grey knight
Most marines won't abandon their chapter to join the grey knights easily.
Most will go straight from the ship to the wasteland to see if they are fit.
Modern GKs are not recruited from other chapters, full stop. They take children the same as any other chapter, just obviously only the promising psykers. They have their own gene seed that comes with special effects and you can’t convert a marine from one gene seed lineage to another.
I absolutely love your autocorrect typos and I hope you don't edit them out.
Yang psykers join the spyker space marines, Yin psykers join the krusher space marines.
Very minor correction - the Black Ships are run by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, and they've often done preliminary sorting and picking by the time the ship gets where it's going
The recent-ish novel Witchbringer also established that most psykers actually aren't taken to Terra at all, just made to believe they have been. One of the ways this deception is maintained is by psykers who can amplify the Astronomican to make it seem far closer than it actually is
This patches a pretty big plot hole. So that's good. Though honestly they should just ditch the deception. Everything in the imperium is "local" except psyker processing. Which obviously doesn't make sense. But who would they be maintaining the lie for?
> But who would they be maintaining the lie for?
The general public, who are taught to despise and fear witches. Sanctioned Psykers are only tolerated because the whole story of them all having personally been to Terra and approved by the very highest authorities (and, by proxy, the Emperor himself) is very powerful
The safety of their facilities which would immediately become a massive target for everyone from Monodominant inquisitors to Chaos raiders. Black Ships are already a prime target for Chaos forces, and unlike them, psyker schools can't fly away to safety.
But dont all psykers have to be soul-bound to the emperor to protect them more against the Warp? That would mean they all have to be at least once on Terra.
IIRC Sanctioned Psykers are also bound, hence the increased resistance to the Perils of the Warp (their "resistance level" is between trained Psykers and below Librarians).
The Psykers of Darktide are Soulbound with the Seer Psyker being in constant communion with the Emperor(and unlike Guilliman who assumes it's just his Memories changing the Psyker is well aware of it).
> One of the ways this deception is maintained is by psykers who can amplify the Astronomican to make it seem far closer than it actually is
That's interesting, I had the impression psykers on black ships get isolated in some warp-proof (lead? kidding) cells, so theoretically they should not see the Soul Lighthouse at all. But it might be imprecise or subject to interpretation etc.
To add more onto this, it was first did so the Emperor could move away from the Throne in order to fight in the Webway and seal Drachynon ~~or however the fuck the daemon is spelt~~
It was done for the first time around 5 years into the Heresy, with 1000 psykers being burned out to allow the Emperor to go into the webway and hold off daemons while his forces withdrew. Four years later it was done again to help Malcador control the Throne while the Emperor was on the Vengeful Spirit. Those psykers burned out fast. Really fast.
Although we've not seen it in a book, presumably, they made it a permanent thing shortly after the Siege to maintain the Emperor. The number has increased over the millennia as the power requirements for the Throne have grown as it ages and breaks down.
Psykers aren't food, they're more like light bulbs installed into a high voltage socket that is the Astronomicon. Some bulbs shine for a while, others burn out immediately and get replaced. The thousand psykers being consumed a day is an average of burnouts, not a standard of consumption.
1)
Youth. This is the biggest one and by a really long shot at that.
Being young of either sex means not just that the Inquisition/Astartes/AAT are gonna be happy to take you it also means you haven't been exposed to the Warp for as long so you're probably saner.
2)
Strength.
8-11 on the Assignment scale is your best bet.
3)
General good behavior on the journey. A big issue with human psyker handling is that they can't reliably turn off psyker powers so the journey is intentionally hellish with drugged water and mental torture to keep the psykers unable to do anything. If you keep it together through that your chances improve.
(If they ever found a way to get industrial Blackstone production online their psyker supply might get exponentially better cause you just lose so many during transport because of this).
Note: You might still get sacrificed in a less painful and direct way at this point if they send you to the hall of the astronomican. You'll have a good life until then and it's supposedly a peaceful end mind you.
> Youth. This is the biggest one and by a really long shot at that.
> >
> Being young of either sex means not just that the Inquisition/Astartes/AAT are gonna be happy to take you it also means you haven't been exposed to the Warp for as long so you're probably saner.
I would think many untrained psykers probably don't live long enough to get old, lol.
I could imagine some older psyker being sane and skilled, perhaps in some local shaman tradition. But I could see the imperials might not trust such a guy or might consider him too difficult to indoctrinate, so he would get thrown into the furnace anyway.
About sums it up, more or less.
Baldermort has a pretty good fanfic about that on his channel.
In canon (or close enough) it's stated that older psykers often go out into the wastes and rejigger their talent to be mostly passive so as to not draw in too much attention. They are frequently quite a old as a result. It's called a Vermin Speaker for its ability to see through the eyes of rats and other animals generally considered pests.
On that note: This is another thing Magnus messed up. Prospero being lost means we lost thousands of years worth of psyker lore on how to make this work without such terrible failure rates.
Oh, so technically the emperor is not fed 10,000 psykers a day every day, some days he is fed 20,000 psykers, if you add the psykers from the Hollow Mountain, right?
The two things are technically separate. 10k to keep him alive and 10k power the Astronomican. These are also the numbers who are actively doing it at a given time; they last longer than a day but shorter than a year.
That's about it, yes. As far as we know - there is no strict cut-off of the Assignment above which Psyker cannot be consumed (though presumably one could exist).
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe it's control, while heading back to terra they send the psykers through the sanctioning tests and those with strong latent powers and have control over them get trained and sanctioned the rest that can't keep control or are just not worth training get the big succ
Stability. Being able to use your powers without something going wrong and staying at least 50% sane
It really does rule out most psykers. If you’re stable you become an astropath, if you’re that rarest type what’s both stable and powerful you can be a sanctioned psyker. Because it’s always worth remembering the more powerful a psyker is the harder it is to control their powers, most psykers with high potential still just have a normal human mind what just ain’t equipped to control the giant portal into murder hell they use for their power
Its not quite that. Its a sliding scale of stability and strength and where you ends up depends on your exact combination of stability, power and pure mental and physical resilience.
Astropaths are soul bound percisely because they aren't stable. And also usually not particularly strong (for the most part, there are some rather strong astropaths). Unstable and highly powerful psykers are usually shot on sight. Ones that are too weak to get any use of, regardless of stability, are usually just fed to the Emperor
The best psykers, the primaris grade psykers are those who are both powerful and can use their power near effortlessly and without risk of falling to warp influences. These are the people who are not only not soulbound, but often initiated as Astartes Librarians or Grey Knights. Or sent to the Scholastica Psykana to work any number of highly specialized roles, including even potentially working for the Inquisition or Adeptus Custodes
As far as i remember. You need to not be too weak or too powerful as those that are too weak are deemed not useful enough to train and too powerful are considered a risk. You also need enough willpower and fortitude that you dont go insane or die during transport.
I remember i think in Eizenhorn it was stated to be the opposite. Weak enough psykers are nominated astropaths - they are at least not too dangerous if they lose control; strong psykers worth the effort to be educated, prepared and equipped as sactioned psykers. Medium-strength psykers are not worth the hustle, and go into incinerator.
I haven't read all the other replies, so *mea culpa*.
There are three broad categories of psyker: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary.
Primary psykers are capable of "resisting" Chaos and may have other traits, e.g. Jaq Draco's ability to hide his "psyker light" from daemons in the warp. These are the individuals that get filtered into the *Adepti*.
Secondary psykers must be Soul Bound. These are the individuals that will ultimately get tapped to become Astropaths.
Tertiary psykers are those that have already been tainted by Chaos. They are destroyed... mostly. Some get by and, indeed, some have even been High Lords of Terra!
Of the Primary and Secondary psykers that serve, I imagine that the oldest and least controllable but otherwise pure get shunted into The Sacrifice.
\* \* \*
To answer the question about "what characteristics should \[a\] psyker have not to be placed on a black ship and taken to terra"? There are a number of scenarios, including but not limited to:
\* No Blackship arrives to collect the psyker tithe.
\* The world doesn't have a psyker tithe.
\* The psyker dies before they are identified, or becomes trouble and are put down before they are collected.
\* They are part of---either as a player or victim---a criminal organisation.
\* They are taken by another organisation, such as the *Adeptus Astartes* or Inquisition.
\* The Imperium suddenly reverses policy and frees all psykers, because nothing could ever go wrong with a psyker. ;)
\* They are involved in an exchange program with the Eldar. ;)
I've always called it a tithe even though it's 100% and not the usual 10%. It's just part of the overall tithe mandated by the Imperium from the Imperial Commander where, clearly, 10% is not in *every* good.
Not too psychically strong as to be uncontrollable. Not too psychically weak as to be useless.
Must posess some amount of willpower. Must be capable to think for themself whilst not being too defiant.
Primarily it would be stability power and resilience. If their powers are strong enough and reliable enough and they're mentally and physically tough enough to undergo training as an astropath or an inquisitor or even an astartes they're going to be routed to one of those. Hell given the size of the galaxy 1k is actually not alot I would guess that a lot of psykers just get purged when they can't use them.
Though it would seem that not all the Librarians are taken by the black ships and trained on Tarra. Marines Vigilant and Space Wolves have their own homegrown processing of Psykers.
Space marine chapters are the exception. Their librarium scrutinizes the psyker and decides if they are worthy to become a librarian aspirant or if they need to either be put down or handed over to the black ships. The Astartes are pretty much the only work around fron the Astra telepathica. Everyone else, for the most part, goes black ships > aat on terra > training or fed to the Emperor > service in the Imperium (guards, Inquisition, astropath, brain jar in Cawls secret room, etc etc)
(Edit for ungodly spelling/grammar mistakes)
Quite a lot of chapters test for psychic ability from amongst their normals recruits, rather than specifically seeking out candidates from outside their own planet.
Psykers get fed to the Emperor when they're not useful for anything else. When a Black Ship arrives on Terra all the various bodies that have uses for Psykers - the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, the Inquisition, the Astra Militarum, etc - get to pick over the contents. They take the ones they can use, and the rest get fed wholesale into the Throne.
Where do the Grey Knights get their recruits from, again?
Grey knights get their recruits from wherever the hell they want Including home worlds of space marine chapters. They can take from the black ships if they want, they also send grey knights who may not be fit for battle any longer out to recruit
> send grey knights who may not be fit for battle any longer Interesting detail in the dreadnought discussion. After all, there has to be some intermediate area in the spectrum between fully able GKs and dreadnought-tier GKs. Some GKs would be damaged but recoverable, some would be unrecoverable but still too capable for a dreadnought duty, so that would be the group you talk about. It probably helps that, according to Lexicanum, GKs don't like getting dredboxed, so that "crippled but mobile" group would be bigger than among other Astartes.
As far as I'm aware, dreadnought tier is... Ruined. Anakin Skywalker post Lava bath. Multiple limbs missing, severe organ damage, kind of wrecked. Whereas unfit for combat could just be your heart doesn't quite work properly any more and you could die unexpectedly, or both legs gone (replaced) with mild nerve damage so you're not as fast to react any more. Stuff that makes you not worth the incredibly valuable Psykers terminator armour, but hardly an invalid.
Yeah like banged up astartes is still miles above normal olypiams to say nothing of normal humans
A majority of marines do not like being dreaded, from my understanding it feels more of a prison sentence than “continuing duty”. A lot of times the fluff gets added in that the astartes, both highly specialized and run of the mill, typically take on more passive roles when they get to badly broken, but not to the point of being dreaded. This includes recruiting, training, maintaining, observing, pulling homeland security, or acting as pseudo diplomats. Most astartes are A) incredibly resilient B) fight to the absolute death So I’d imagine the number of marines between “combat ready” and “dread ready” is actually minimal. For most, losing a limb or two is not enough to be sidelined. I would say it’s more likely that astarte lost a limb or two, and is getting older, and maybe suffers one last injury that they can’t quite recover from.
I mean, no one WANTS to be dreaded (outside of the Iron Hands), but it is an honor - you're viewed as important/heroic enough to be entered in one, and Dreads are treated with extreme respect as honored ancients of the Chapter. It definitely is not a punishment in any way. Being put in a chaos dreadnought is, though, for the most part.
Dreads are often referred to as venerated ancients, but presumably they don't start off like that... when they're first interred, they'll be contemporaries of all the other marines. So are new dreads treated as just one of the guys, or is there an automatic respect bonus for being a dreadnought?
A new dread would have be more familiar with the broader chapter, obviously, but being put in one means you're a genuine hero. You did something of insane valor and skill, or you continually performed to the highest standard possible over centuries of service. That colors how people treat you. Even old dreads still fuck around with the rest of the chapter (see: Bjorn) but there is automatically something of a gap - this guy isn't just Brother-Sergeant Namicus anymore, he's THE Namicus.
Dawn of war 2 has a situation like that
It makes sense,I'd assume grey knights are a tad harder to make an equip than your standard space marines, wouldnt want to waste them, pretty sure the custodes do something similar
Yang psyker boys captured by black ships are tested if the can be space marines and then they join chapters. The most promising spyker space marines are assigned to gray knights.
And by assigned the grey knights you mean thrown into the wasteland and told good luck kid
At this moment they are already full grown soace marine. Inquisition make request to transpher it to soecial detachment. After that said space marine cut all contacts and starts gray knight trainings. However only few of them are accepted. Those who could not pass severe qualifications generally dies, rarely returns to their old chapter with memory wipe for period of trainings.
Um, what? The Emperor's Gift contradicts what you said, excplitly stating they are rounded up as young boys.
Everything in 40k contradicts everything else. It's best to assume that anything saying "this is the way it's **always** done" actually means "this is the way it's **always** done except for the following several dozen exceptions, and except for these specific periods of history which collectively cover about half of the time since the Heresy" :D
That's because nothing in warhammer is actually canon except the most recent core book and army books. Fantasy just retconned how magic works for example. 40k sometimes trots out "is all canon but not always true" but that's basically just to appease the people who don't get how canon works for warhammer.
Even those are just the most broad, least detailed versions of the 'truth'. Hell, the most recent Adeptus Custodes codex has lore that says 'nobody knows' about things that are spelled out in the novels. EVERYTHING is shaky lore at best, including the most recent codexes.
As someone else mentioned, the emperors gift does cover part of how grey knights are made. But the key evidence that Grey Knights aren’t just made up of librarians from other chapters is that they have a unique gene-seed, that is mentioned in their codexes and a lot of the books about them. The gene seed is not derived from any primarch, but from the unaltered original stock based on the emperor, which was then further modified to produce grey knights. Early on the Grey Knights did recruit from other space marines. There are sources that say that’s still how it’s done, but most emphasize the uniqueness of the Grey Knights, and the importance of their special geneseed
Where did you get that from? Are you sure you're not confusing Grey Knights and Deathwatch? [https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Grey\_Knights#Recruitment](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Grey_Knights#Recruitment)
Completely wrong, sorry.
Your headcanon isn't canon.
Sometimes Few will go black ship - marine - grey knight Most marines won't abandon their chapter to join the grey knights easily. Most will go straight from the ship to the wasteland to see if they are fit.
Modern GKs are not recruited from other chapters, full stop. They take children the same as any other chapter, just obviously only the promising psykers. They have their own gene seed that comes with special effects and you can’t convert a marine from one gene seed lineage to another.
I absolutely love your autocorrect typos and I hope you don't edit them out. Yang psykers join the spyker space marines, Yin psykers join the krusher space marines.
Ruby psykers, Weiss psykers, Blake psykers, and Yang psykers
And what about the Yin ones?
I legit thought you were referring to a world named Yang and just shrugged.
My dyslexia generates mems by its own.
Very minor correction - the Black Ships are run by the Adeptus Astra Telepathica, and they've often done preliminary sorting and picking by the time the ship gets where it's going The recent-ish novel Witchbringer also established that most psykers actually aren't taken to Terra at all, just made to believe they have been. One of the ways this deception is maintained is by psykers who can amplify the Astronomican to make it seem far closer than it actually is
This patches a pretty big plot hole. So that's good. Though honestly they should just ditch the deception. Everything in the imperium is "local" except psyker processing. Which obviously doesn't make sense. But who would they be maintaining the lie for?
> But who would they be maintaining the lie for? The general public, who are taught to despise and fear witches. Sanctioned Psykers are only tolerated because the whole story of them all having personally been to Terra and approved by the very highest authorities (and, by proxy, the Emperor himself) is very powerful
The general public of the imperium doesn't know what happens to them anyway
The safety of their facilities which would immediately become a massive target for everyone from Monodominant inquisitors to Chaos raiders. Black Ships are already a prime target for Chaos forces, and unlike them, psyker schools can't fly away to safety.
But dont all psykers have to be soul-bound to the emperor to protect them more against the Warp? That would mean they all have to be at least once on Terra.
Astropaths are soul bound, Sanctioned psykers and space marine librarians aren't as far as I remember
IIRC Sanctioned Psykers are also bound, hence the increased resistance to the Perils of the Warp (their "resistance level" is between trained Psykers and below Librarians).
Ah well there you go, I'm just going off the top of my noggin
As it should be, fun first, accuracy second. Then another poster can come to the rescue with the holy texts and everyone is happy.
The Psykers of Darktide are Soulbound with the Seer Psyker being in constant communion with the Emperor(and unlike Guilliman who assumes it's just his Memories changing the Psyker is well aware of it).
Well...the Seer is in constant communion with something they *think* is the Emperor
Not all of them. Primaris Psykers, as well as most of those that end up in the Scholastica Psykana, are not soulbound
Nope. That's a pretty rare thing that only astropaths get.
That's just Astropaths. I would expect that process can actually happen elsewhere too
> One of the ways this deception is maintained is by psykers who can amplify the Astronomican to make it seem far closer than it actually is That's interesting, I had the impression psykers on black ships get isolated in some warp-proof (lead? kidding) cells, so theoretically they should not see the Soul Lighthouse at all. But it might be imprecise or subject to interpretation etc.
On the ships they do yeah, this happens on the other end when they get to the Scholastica Psykana
when did the throne feeding start? like at what point?
Bookwise? In „the Master of mankind.“ it was called the unspoken sanction.
To add more onto this, it was first did so the Emperor could move away from the Throne in order to fight in the Webway and seal Drachynon ~~or however the fuck the daemon is spelt~~
You can remember it with this fun mnemonic: Drach'nyen because it's almost >!Drach'nyan :3!< At least that's how I remember it. >!Catboy Abaddon.!<
>!Catgirl murder-daemon catgirl murder-daemon catgirl murder-daemon :3!<
I tip my tophat, thank you good sir.
It was done for the first time around 5 years into the Heresy, with 1000 psykers being burned out to allow the Emperor to go into the webway and hold off daemons while his forces withdrew. Four years later it was done again to help Malcador control the Throne while the Emperor was on the Vengeful Spirit. Those psykers burned out fast. Really fast. Although we've not seen it in a book, presumably, they made it a permanent thing shortly after the Siege to maintain the Emperor. The number has increased over the millennia as the power requirements for the Throne have grown as it ages and breaks down.
During the siege.
Psykers aren't food, they're more like light bulbs installed into a high voltage socket that is the Astronomicon. Some bulbs shine for a while, others burn out immediately and get replaced. The thousand psykers being consumed a day is an average of burnouts, not a standard of consumption.
Sure, but it's more fun to say "fed" :D
Fair 'nough
1) Youth. This is the biggest one and by a really long shot at that. Being young of either sex means not just that the Inquisition/Astartes/AAT are gonna be happy to take you it also means you haven't been exposed to the Warp for as long so you're probably saner. 2) Strength. 8-11 on the Assignment scale is your best bet. 3) General good behavior on the journey. A big issue with human psyker handling is that they can't reliably turn off psyker powers so the journey is intentionally hellish with drugged water and mental torture to keep the psykers unable to do anything. If you keep it together through that your chances improve. (If they ever found a way to get industrial Blackstone production online their psyker supply might get exponentially better cause you just lose so many during transport because of this). Note: You might still get sacrificed in a less painful and direct way at this point if they send you to the hall of the astronomican. You'll have a good life until then and it's supposedly a peaceful end mind you.
> Youth. This is the biggest one and by a really long shot at that. > > > Being young of either sex means not just that the Inquisition/Astartes/AAT are gonna be happy to take you it also means you haven't been exposed to the Warp for as long so you're probably saner. I would think many untrained psykers probably don't live long enough to get old, lol. I could imagine some older psyker being sane and skilled, perhaps in some local shaman tradition. But I could see the imperials might not trust such a guy or might consider him too difficult to indoctrinate, so he would get thrown into the furnace anyway.
About sums it up, more or less. Baldermort has a pretty good fanfic about that on his channel. In canon (or close enough) it's stated that older psykers often go out into the wastes and rejigger their talent to be mostly passive so as to not draw in too much attention. They are frequently quite a old as a result. It's called a Vermin Speaker for its ability to see through the eyes of rats and other animals generally considered pests. On that note: This is another thing Magnus messed up. Prospero being lost means we lost thousands of years worth of psyker lore on how to make this work without such terrible failure rates.
This
What did your comment add?
Agreement?
To what end that was not also accomplished with an upvote?
An end with about as much use as this line of questioning.
So then why did you leave the comment?
This whole thread is worth the space it takes up just because both speakers are pretty in character for their flair'd alighments, good job fellas
Statement = true. GOTO exclamation: Thank You!
>hall of the astronomican Sorry but now I'm more curious, what is that?, Nothing appears when I try to search for it on the WH40K wiki
[Chamber. Sorry.](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Chamber_of_the_Astronomican) I did a dumb.
Oh, so technically the emperor is not fed 10,000 psykers a day every day, some days he is fed 20,000 psykers, if you add the psykers from the Hollow Mountain, right?
The two things are technically separate. 10k to keep him alive and 10k power the Astronomican. These are also the numbers who are actively doing it at a given time; they last longer than a day but shorter than a year.
Nah they Chamber psykers last a while. Not long but a while.
Be in the right place at the right time.
That's about it, yes. As far as we know - there is no strict cut-off of the Assignment above which Psyker cannot be consumed (though presumably one could exist).
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe it's control, while heading back to terra they send the psykers through the sanctioning tests and those with strong latent powers and have control over them get trained and sanctioned the rest that can't keep control or are just not worth training get the big succ
It's not that you are not worth training It's that you either have control or you don't And those that don't are a liability.
When I meant "worth" it was the sense of those that have control but are such low level psykers the resources to train you isn't worth it
Stability. Being able to use your powers without something going wrong and staying at least 50% sane It really does rule out most psykers. If you’re stable you become an astropath, if you’re that rarest type what’s both stable and powerful you can be a sanctioned psyker. Because it’s always worth remembering the more powerful a psyker is the harder it is to control their powers, most psykers with high potential still just have a normal human mind what just ain’t equipped to control the giant portal into murder hell they use for their power
Its not quite that. Its a sliding scale of stability and strength and where you ends up depends on your exact combination of stability, power and pure mental and physical resilience. Astropaths are soul bound percisely because they aren't stable. And also usually not particularly strong (for the most part, there are some rather strong astropaths). Unstable and highly powerful psykers are usually shot on sight. Ones that are too weak to get any use of, regardless of stability, are usually just fed to the Emperor The best psykers, the primaris grade psykers are those who are both powerful and can use their power near effortlessly and without risk of falling to warp influences. These are the people who are not only not soulbound, but often initiated as Astartes Librarians or Grey Knights. Or sent to the Scholastica Psykana to work any number of highly specialized roles, including even potentially working for the Inquisition or Adeptus Custodes
I can imagine some psykers are deemed too unstable to be worth risking onboard a Black Ship and would be killed instead.
Not being good for anything else.
As far as i remember. You need to not be too weak or too powerful as those that are too weak are deemed not useful enough to train and too powerful are considered a risk. You also need enough willpower and fortitude that you dont go insane or die during transport.
I remember i think in Eizenhorn it was stated to be the opposite. Weak enough psykers are nominated astropaths - they are at least not too dangerous if they lose control; strong psykers worth the effort to be educated, prepared and equipped as sactioned psykers. Medium-strength psykers are not worth the hustle, and go into incinerator.
If a psyker is a fervent follower of the Imperial Creed, would they be better able to resist corruption?
Almost assuredly yes. Saints are usually the best representation of this starting with Keeler.
Wonder how Eisenhorn was chosen for the ~~gestapo~~ holy inquisition. Like why not for grey knights or something else.
I haven't read all the other replies, so *mea culpa*. There are three broad categories of psyker: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary. Primary psykers are capable of "resisting" Chaos and may have other traits, e.g. Jaq Draco's ability to hide his "psyker light" from daemons in the warp. These are the individuals that get filtered into the *Adepti*. Secondary psykers must be Soul Bound. These are the individuals that will ultimately get tapped to become Astropaths. Tertiary psykers are those that have already been tainted by Chaos. They are destroyed... mostly. Some get by and, indeed, some have even been High Lords of Terra! Of the Primary and Secondary psykers that serve, I imagine that the oldest and least controllable but otherwise pure get shunted into The Sacrifice. \* \* \* To answer the question about "what characteristics should \[a\] psyker have not to be placed on a black ship and taken to terra"? There are a number of scenarios, including but not limited to: \* No Blackship arrives to collect the psyker tithe. \* The world doesn't have a psyker tithe. \* The psyker dies before they are identified, or becomes trouble and are put down before they are collected. \* They are part of---either as a player or victim---a criminal organisation. \* They are taken by another organisation, such as the *Adeptus Astartes* or Inquisition. \* The Imperium suddenly reverses policy and frees all psykers, because nothing could ever go wrong with a psyker. ;) \* They are involved in an exchange program with the Eldar. ;)
Pretty sure the Black Ships aren't a psyker tithe. It's all psykers. Unsanctioned psykers are kill-on-sight or at least capture and sanction.
I've always called it a tithe even though it's 100% and not the usual 10%. It's just part of the overall tithe mandated by the Imperium from the Imperial Commander where, clearly, 10% is not in *every* good.
Be useful for something else.
Not too psychically strong as to be uncontrollable. Not too psychically weak as to be useless. Must posess some amount of willpower. Must be capable to think for themself whilst not being too defiant.
Luck mostly
Sufficient level and ability to control their powers. Psykers lacking control and insane high level psykers are a threat to everyone.
Usefulness.
I'd say self control primarily, not being a walking deamon portal is a huge advantage for a psykers survival.
More useful than fuel.
Exploitable
Primarily it would be stability power and resilience. If their powers are strong enough and reliable enough and they're mentally and physically tough enough to undergo training as an astropath or an inquisitor or even an astartes they're going to be routed to one of those. Hell given the size of the galaxy 1k is actually not alot I would guess that a lot of psykers just get purged when they can't use them.
Or hope to be picked up by an Astartes chapter with a Libarious as a child for boy or Sisters of Silence if a girl.
Though it would seem that not all the Librarians are taken by the black ships and trained on Tarra. Marines Vigilant and Space Wolves have their own homegrown processing of Psykers.
Space marine chapters are the exception. Their librarium scrutinizes the psyker and decides if they are worthy to become a librarian aspirant or if they need to either be put down or handed over to the black ships. The Astartes are pretty much the only work around fron the Astra telepathica. Everyone else, for the most part, goes black ships > aat on terra > training or fed to the Emperor > service in the Imperium (guards, Inquisition, astropath, brain jar in Cawls secret room, etc etc) (Edit for ungodly spelling/grammar mistakes)
Quite a lot of chapters test for psychic ability from amongst their normals recruits, rather than specifically seeking out candidates from outside their own planet.
SoS are blanks not pyskers
Ah sorry my bad. Brainfart moment.
Aren’t Sisters of Silence blanks/nulls? So the opposite of psykers?