Fluff question: Detecting Genestealer infiltration

[Sawtooth]

Does the Imperium have a medical test or scan they can run on someone specifically to detect if they're infected in any way by Genestealers (the kiss, brood brother, the right generation hybrid for example)? Also, can a trained psyker pick up on the broodmind and single out members, or detect something psychically 'wrong' with a cult member?

[SamsusTreacher]

Usually a trained Imperial psyker is more than powerful enough to be able to detect some of the more potent genestealer broods, like a Patriarch. But if you've just now discovered the cult when it has a Patriarch, then you're :cussed already.

[Xenith]

Sure they can. But by the time you suspect that someone is infected, the cult is likely already into the 4th or 5th generation and it's already too late.

[Captain_Krash]

Simple blood test. The blood would react to pain etc and try to get away from it.

 

Or am I thinking of another movie....

 

Krash

[Aothaine]

Are genestealer generations as long lived as normal humans? So, by 4th-5th generation the cult would have been there for almost 200+ years?

[Sawtooth]

Well the reason I ask is I thought, what if there's a genestealer uprising that gets beaten and the Imperium wants to screen the populace to make sure. Or you find survivors from a battle with Genestealers, and deem them valuable enough to not instantly execute just to be sure.

[Aothaine]

Well the reason I ask is I thought, what if there's a genestealer uprising that gets beaten and the Imperium wants to screen the populace to make sure. Or you find survivors from a battle with Genestealers, and deem them valuable enough to not instantly execute just to be sure.

 

Pretty sure they result to exterminatus at that point. The Imperium knows that Genestealers draw hive fleets. So unless they Imperium wanted to set a trap for a hive fleet, they would just exterminatus right?

[Iron Lord]

Going by the Cain books, it takes the Imperium a while to figure out that Genestealers do draw Hive Fleets - though some Inquisitors figure it out much earlier than others, and quietly refrain from telling the rest "I told you so" when they are proven right.

 

They do screening once the worst of the hybrids are taken out - it isn't just "exterminatus once cult is proven to exist".

[Aothaine]

Going by the Cain books, it takes the Imperium a while to figure out that Genestealers do draw Hive Fleets - though some Inquisitors figure it out much earlier than others, and quietly refrain from telling the rest "I told you so" when they are proven right.

 

They do screening once the worst of the hybrids are taken out - it isn't just "exterminatus once cult is proven to exist".

 

That is really surprising given how xenophobic the Imperium usually is.

[Iron Lord]

It might be because the Cain books are set between the Hive Fleet Behemoth invasion and the Hive Fleet Kraken invasion - with it taking the Imperium a while to reach the point where they give up on "rooting out" cult survivors and just exterminate planets.

 

"Men are expendable, planets are not" was probably their view, at the time.

[Sircyn]

Yeah along with the caveats from Iron Lord about the Imperium's slow realisation of the true nature of the cults, there are a finite number of habitable planets in the galaxy, especially ones that humans can tolerate. Given the vast resources of the Imperium it's no trouble to purge a population through a fine tooth comb of investigation and mass murder rather than destroy the biosphere of a useful world. Even if they kill everyone with dirty bombs and come back in a century with fresh colonists, at least the planet is still a useful piece on the galactic board.

 

Granted this could all change during the Dark Imperium as everything is ratcheted up to 11 now.

[Sawtooth]

I'm particularly interested in what happened when the invasion of Baal was beaten and the hive fleet just disappeared. I assume some of the planets in its wake had genestealer infiltrators, and with the suddenly reinforced Blood Angels/Successors I can imagine a reconquest of still usable planets. I'm using that whole episode as the basis for the fluff of my three armies (BA, IG, GSC). A cult suddenly cut off from the promised deliverance of a hive fleet trying to figure out what to do and survive, that sort of thing.

[Aothaine]

I'm particularly interested in what happened when the invasion of Baal was beaten and the hive fleet just disappeared. I assume some of the planets in its wake had genestealer infiltrators, and with the suddenly reinforced Blood Angels/Successors I can imagine a reconquest of still usable planets. I'm using that whole episode as the basis for the fluff of my three armies (BA, IG, GSC). A cult suddenly cut off from the promised deliverance of a hive fleet trying to figure out what to do and survive, that sort of thing.

 

That is a really really cool spin on things! ^_^

[Kastor Krieg]

 

I'm particularly interested in what happened when the invasion of Baal was beaten and the hive fleet just disappeared. I assume some of the planets in its wake had genestealer infiltrators, and with the suddenly reinforced Blood Angels/Successors I can imagine a reconquest of still usable planets. I'm using that whole episode as the basis for the fluff of my three armies (BA, IG, GSC). A cult suddenly cut off from the promised deliverance of a hive fleet trying to figure out what to do and survive, that sort of thing.

That is a really really cool spin on things!

Well, the Hive Fleet did not disappear, they were roflstomped by Skarbrand and his Khorne daemons on one of the moons, on which then Skar made an obscene moon-face sized graffitti to mock the Blood Angels.

[Lord Marshal]

 

Going by the Cain books, it takes the Imperium a while to figure out that Genestealers do draw Hive Fleets - though some Inquisitors figure it out much earlier than others, and quietly refrain from telling the rest "I told you so" when they are proven right.

 

They do screening once the worst of the hybrids are taken out - it isn't just "exterminatus once cult is proven to exist".

 

That is really surprising given how xenophobic the Imperium usually is.

 

 

How often the Imperium commits to an Exterminatus gets exaggerated a lot by its meme status. 

 

Planets are valuable.There's only so many of them afterall and plenty of resources to be plundered. Even if they have to get boots on the ground for a few years going cave-to-cave, house-to-house executing every non-Guard life they find, it's better than completely and utterly rending its uninhabitable forever. Exterminatus only tends to get carried out when the planet is lost beyond recovery and denying it to the enemy is the last option left. Daemon world? Sure, it's (perhaps literally) to its core. Tyranid's already stripped it of organic matter? Sure. But if they could reasonably scour it and send in colonists a few years later - even decades or centuries - it's better.

[BassWave]

Are genestealer generations as long lived as normal humans? So, by 4th-5th generation the cult would have been there for almost 200+ years?

Am I missing something here? I looked up the average generation and its 25 years. Meaning it would only take 125 years to reach a 5th generation. And that's limited by what's socially/culturally acceptable. Humans are able to reproduce much sooner and Im sure a cult controlled by creatures that only wish to eat and multiply would not limit themselves in that manner. Meaning a cult could reach gen 5 in roughly 75 years...

[Sircyn]

If they get the females breeding as soon as they hit puberty they could probably shave another five years or so off that. A cult population could multiply rapidly if they ensure breeding age females are constantly in a cycle of pregnancy, even if they burn the women out by the time they're in their 30's.