What is a mortal and mortality in 40?

[Schlitzaf]

Inspired by Ishagu thread for reference;

 

As the title says, what is mortal in 40k? I don’t mean literally mortals meaning a character who can die. I mean mortal as in ‘human’ (or the vague equivalent thereof). Marines are seen as ‘Angels’, and Demi-Gods. End of the day they have flaws, they are human. The premise of the question is this;

 

For me personally what makes 40k something beyond a Lovecraftian Horror or similar story. Because the universe is defined, by the various mortal races, refusing to go gently. Necrons, Humanity And Aeldari provide the most blatant example of whose core narrative entities are based on “How do we survive or even thrive?”. But even Tau and Orks, both are races whom narrative is based on how they win or overcome. Tau adapt and Orks simply cannot imagine the possibility of going gently into the night.

 

So this brings me to the question, what is being a ‘mortal’? And then by extension for sake of discussion, for the three races noted above (Necrons, Aeldari, And Humanity), has that concept changed for them?

Just some example prompts someone could used or one of their own.

-Astartes And Aspect Warriors, by becoming a weapon did they renounce their own mortality?

-Are any of the modern necrons truly mortal?

-Are the Non-Astartes Humans whom by tech or magic extended their lives, still mortal? (Cawl And Coteaz for example)

-Are Dark Eldar or Craftworld equally mortal?

 

So, what is mortality in 40k?

[Sword Brother Adelard]

The ability to actually die. That makes you mortal. Just living for millennia through genhancement or anti-ageing drugs doesn't make you immortal, you could still kill Cawl if you took enough of him apart.

 

Daemons cannot die, nor can perpetuals, Necrons probably already are dead, (that's a more difficult question and I don't know enough about them to say.) C'tan are immortal too I would wager.

Aspect Warriors and Phoenix Lords are complicated, but I would say still functionally mortal, the suits act like miniature infinity circuits.

 

Astartes and most of the primarchs are mortal. (Daemon primarchs and Vulkan are a more complicated issue.)

 

Another complicating factor is the fact that death isn't particularly final for some 'mortals' for instance Ferrus coming back in MoM and the fact the Aeldari can put a soul inside a wraith construct and watch it walk again.

[Ishagu]

The Necron Question is a great one. Assume for example that someone like the Silent King is still alive, even within his robotic body.

 

The lore suggests that every time a Necron is killed some of them is lost in the resurrection. This suggests that even the Silent King, if "killed" enough times, will eventually have nothing left of him.

 

The other possibility is that the Necrons are indeed already dead, and the current Crons are nothing more than mechanical constructs that mimick the personalities and memories of the original Necrontyr. In this case they are simply replicating machines.

[Quixus]

The lore suggests that every time a Necron is killed some of them is lost in the resurrection. This suggests that even the Silent King, if "killed" enough times, will eventually have nothing left of him.

An interesting idea. It reminds me of the resurrections in A Song of Ice and Fire.

 

The other possibility is that the Necrons are indeed already dead, and the current Crons are nothing more than mechanical constructs that mimick the personalities and memories of the original Necrontyr. In this case they are simply replicating machines.

Are you thinking Cylons or something else? What is the difference betwean an original Necrontyr and a copy of its personality in a machine? As long as the personality is not replicated flawlessly I'd say they would still be mortal as an individual copy of a personality in a particular machine can be destroyed. The question then is whether such an existence is life or not, if you do not call it life it cannot be mortal, but with a finite period of existence it is functionally identical to life which means this creature is mortal.

[Ratherdashing]

Necrons got mad Ship of Theseus issues going on.

[Ishagu]

It's a funny one. We can assume the Necrons have no soul so aren't really alive? They could just be advanced artifical intelligences that are copies of living originals. It depends on your definition for a living thing and if having a souls is part of the criteria. In real life it's up for debate, but in 40k lore souls are indeed a thing.

 

But then we come to the issue of Psychic blanks. Are they literally soulless? They are definitely mortal individuals so the definition needs to be looked at.

[Lord_Caerolion]

I don't believe souls have anything to do with whether something is alive or not, as a blank or Pariah is still alive, despite their lack of a soul. A soul is merely the reflection of an object within the Warp, and even inanimate objects can develop these, but you wouldn't say that a sword that has a warp-reflection is alive.

 

Aspect Warriors are definitely still mortal, as they're only taking on a "war mask" while in battle, it's the Phoenix Lords/Exarchs that have truly renounced all individuality, and have become a consciousness within the suit.

Similarly, I would argue that Astartes are still mortal, they just aren't human.

 

Lastly, if Cawl isn't mortal because he's used tech to extend his life, where do you draw the line on that? Are there non-mortal humans alive today, given we have humans only alive because of pacemakers in their hearts, or do we go even further, and any human who has had life-saving medications is no longer mortal? No, that line of thinking makes no sense. Cawl is mortal because he still has a (mostly) organic body, inhabited by his own soul.

 

That's what makes the definition of "mortal" in 40k to me. Organic life, that is capable of death.

[Schlitzaf]

Okay why is capable of death matter? That seems to be the recurring theme here. But why does being able to die, make something as we define this term ‘mortal’?

 

It cannot be fear of Death. As Astartes have no Fear of Death. I will argue and say it’s the value placed on the act of death. That defines a mortal. A being with no true regard for death, is when someone goes from being mortal to being amortal (or a god).

[Quixus]

Okay why is capable of death matter? That seems to be the recurring theme here. But why does being able to die, make something as we define this term ‘mortal’?

Because that is (one of) the definition(s) of the word mortal.

[Bryan Blaire]

In a larger-than-life sci-fantasy setting like 40K, a mortal is anyone "standard" or not so exceedingly modified in some fashion as to be akin to some kind of "Demi-god-esque" stature among the common folk or possessing access to supernatural capabilities beyond those folk, similar to the concept of a "mortal" in mythology or other fantasy settings. "Science" in a fantasy setting that might as well be magic is still effectively supernatural, so modifications far beyond what a normal human would be capable of, would also place these outside of the "mortal" concept for stature.

[Beams]

 

The lore suggests that every time a Necron is killed some of them is lost in the resurrection. This suggests that even the Silent King, if "killed" enough times, will eventually have nothing left of him.

An interesting idea. It reminds me of the resurrections in A Song of Ice and Fire.

The other possibility is that the Necrons are indeed already dead, and the current Crons are nothing more than mechanical constructs that mimick the personalities and memories of the original Necrontyr. In this case they are simply replicating machines.

Are you thinking Cylons or something else? What is the difference betwean an original Necrontyr and a copy of its personality in a machine? As long as the personality is not replicated flawlessly I'd say they would still be mortal as an individual copy of a personality in a particular machine can be destroyed. The question then is whether such an existence is life or not, if you do not call it life it cannot be mortal, but with a finite period of existence it is functionally identical to life which means this creature is mortal.

A copy isn't the original though.

 

So if you take a person, and make a clone of it, it's the same as having an identical twin, and twins are different people.

 

If it's just copies, then it's just endless twins, but the originals keep dying.

[Panzer]

Imo it always felt like a points of view thing and not an objective scale to measure things.

Literal gods would never say a Marine isn't mortal but everything below a Marine that doesn't see them as expendable assets wouldn't dare say they are mortals because that would be like saying you're equal to them in some way. As for Marines, when talking about regular humans they are more likely to refer to them as mortals implying they don't see themselves as mortals but when talking to another Marine they are more likely to refer to themselves as mortals as well.

 

If I were to try and find definition of what's a mortal in the 40k universe I'd probably try to go with something like "can die naturally". However then you would exclude like 90% of the factions in 40k.

• Marines would be as questionable as Orks because they usually die by injury and especially Marines are prone to have huge exceptions of the norm in their ranks. However it got said that Dante looked incredibly old when he took off his mask in Devastation of Baal implying that a Marines body in fact gives up eventually ... just that it takes thousands of years.
• Primarchs of course are impossible to determine in that case since none of them even lived for as long as Dante (being in the warp affects time, and stasis and death-like sleeping doesn't count either) and it's save to assume that whatever lifespan Astartes possess it'd be that much longer for Primarchs.
• Do Eldar age and die naturally? I'm not big on Eldar fluff but it seems they don't since they can't produce offspring anymore, no? So they wouldn't count either.
• Necrons obviously not either.

Essentially only regular humans and T'au would remain. So it seems like such an approach wouldn't really work for the 40k universe.

 

So how else to define what's a mortal? There's only really left "can die at all without some backup to get revived". So none of the warpshenanigans Celestine or daemons etc use and also none of the technological backup plans Trazyn and Bile etc use.

I'd also exclude Guilliman with his miracle armour and self-repairing Archmagos there. Getting turned into soulstones to be used as basically software for wraithbone constructs should be fine tho since those Eldar essentially turn into something else and aren't themselves anymore.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Okay why is capable of death matter? That seems to be the recurring theme here. But why does being able to die, make something as we define this term ‘mortal’?

 

Because the opposite of "mortal" is "immortal", which essentially is defined by not being able to die?

 

And sfPanzer, the Eldar are capable of reproducing, with the Dark Eldar reproducing quite a lot. They also age, it's just that their normal lifespan is in the thousands, with the Dark Eldar being able to extend their life with their soul-feasting.

[Moonreaper666]

Both Daemons and Perpetuals can die permanently

 

It would be balls-to-the-wall difficult but not impossible

[Bryan Blaire]

I will also say that I don't view the 40K universe with a lens that limits the concept of "mortal" to only being defined by the "opposite of immortal" - and even the Chaos Gods themselves have their limits, they started somewhere, and so very possibly end somewhere as well, they themselves may not meet the clinical definition of "immortal=unable to die." The beauty of a setting like 40K are the vast gulfs that do still exist to be filled in and interpreted by each of us.

[RobWrath]

 

 

That's what makes the definition of "mortal" in 40k to me. Organic life, that is capable of death.

 

So...a dreadnought?

[Panzer]

A Dreadnought is not organic life. A Dreadnought is a machine piloted by organic life. It just so happens that the pilot is very closely and permanently connected to it until he dies.

[RobWrath]

A Dreadnought is not organic life. A Dreadnought is a machine piloted by organic life. It just so happens that the pilot is very closely and permanently connected to it until he dies.

But would you/could you still describe the pilot as mortal (referring back to the OP)?

 

Obviously the machine bit isn't. 

[Panzer]

 

A Dreadnought is not organic life. A Dreadnought is a machine piloted by organic life. It just so happens that the pilot is very closely and permanently connected to it until he dies.

But would you/could you still describe the pilot as mortal (referring back to the OP)?

 

Obviously the machine bit isn't. 

 

 

Depends on the definition of mortal ... you know, kinda the whole point of the thread. ^^

[RobWrath]

 

 

A Dreadnought is not organic life. A Dreadnought is a machine piloted by organic life. It just so happens that the pilot is very closely and permanently connected to it until he dies.

But would you/could you still describe the pilot as mortal (referring back to the OP)?

 

Obviously the machine bit isn't. 

 

 

Depends on the definition of mortal ... you know, kinda the whole point of the thread. ^^

 

Totally. That's why I threw it in and put a question mark next to it.

 

In the 40k universe I think I'd define 'mortal' as 'conventionally killable' (i.e. remove the speculation that some of these races might not die from old age). So I'd call SMs, Orks, standard Eldar etc. So a SM dreadnought is as mortal as the SM pilot inside. 

I'd probably even define Primarchs as 'mortal'; they are flesh and blood and may have a finite lifespan (we don't know).

 

Daemons, Daemon Primarchs etc would go in my 'immortal' list.

 

I'd have another list for things that can actually be killed but come back to life (Vulkan, St Celestine f'example).

[Irbis]

It cannot be fear of Death. As Astartes have no Fear of Death. I will argue and say it’s the value placed on the act of death. That defines a mortal. A being with no true regard for death, is when someone goes from being mortal to being amortal (or a god).

 

By that standard, giving someone vodka, lsd, morphine or any of the amphetamines turns them into a god, no?

 

A Dreadnought is not organic life. A Dreadnought is a machine piloted by organic life. It just so happens that the pilot is very closely and permanently connected to it until he dies.

 

If you think about it, a Dreadnought is really no different from power armour, just a bit bigger. Huron or Angelos are even eternally locked into theirs and cannot take them off as they are kept alive by it, at least such was the case in Badab War/DoW II books, no idea if they retconned it or not. Or that HH era pilot who lost his lower half of the body and is now permanently wired into his plate armour that was then bolted to his fighter's seat...

[Closet Skeleton]

 

Okay why is capable of death matter? That seems to be the recurring theme here. But why does being able to die, make something as we define this term ‘mortal’?

 

Because the opposite of "mortal" is "immortal", which essentially is defined by not being able to die?

 

Mortal literally comes from the latin mors meaning death. Deathless is the literal English translation of Immortal.

 

In the original greek/roman definition immortal meant completely incapable of dying but not immune to dismemberment. The sky was the 'corpse' of Uranos who had been castrated by his son but the existence of the sky meant that Uranos wasn't truly dead. The titans who preceded the Olympians were hacked to pieces in battle with their children but had to be locked up in a pit called Tartarus afterwards because despite all the damage done to their bodies they couldn't be killed. The Lernean Hydra had many mortal heads and one immortal head, so after all the mortal heads had been cut off and burned one head remained that had to be buried under a rock.

 

Greek philosophers then invented the idea of the immortality of the soul which was an attempt to pin down the varied and non-specific ideas about the afterlife where death represented some kind of transformation into another state where some aspect of the dead would survive. For philosophers this meant that the soul could not be destroyed in any sense and that death represented a separation between the perishable body and something unchangeable and pre-existing that would then find a new body for reincarnation. Some Christian doctrines developed the idea of annihilation which functioned as a second more extreme form of death where the soul was completely removed from existence.

 

The efforts of pagan philosophers and christian theologians to pin down specific doctrines probably fell largely on deaf ears while the masses continued to be content with a vaguer sense of spiritual existence.

 

Other cultures had less total conceptions of immortality than the Greeks. Norse mythology has death from violence a much greater threat to the gods. European folk tales had many characters such as Koschei who had conditional immortality in that they could only be killed after certain hoops were jumped through first.

 

More recent fantasy stories tend to have more limited concepts of immortality. Byron's Doctor John Polidori reinvented the Vampire as a creature who could come back from death if his corpse was left out in the moonlight and latter writers expanded the concept of the immortal vampire who could only be finished off in specific ways. The Highlander film and its spin offs had immortals who could be destroyed permanently by beheading them and having their essence absorbed by another immortal. This kind of conditional immortality is more like Achilles' heel than any ancient concept of immortality but is by far the more common form of immortality in fiction. Immortal is more usually used to mean unaging.

 

In 40k we only really have a worked out concept of what happens to souls for Eldar. The Sensei were very highlander-ish in their immortality but their replacement the perpetuals are much more unkillable which leads to a lot of confusion over the Emperor who was originally written as having one kind of immortality but is now implied to have another. Dreadnoughts and Wraith constructs are basically already dead but that doesn't rule out the term immortal for them. Exarchs die, only their armour is inherited while Pheonix Lords do seem to completely over-ride their wearer into the collective so are really immortal since the Pheonix Lord survives even if a body is killed. Guiliman died and was resurrected by an outside force so him being alive isn't connected to his own power. Daemons are specifically immortal in that they can only be banished.

 

On the other hand some authors have tried to introduce a form of 'annihilation' of the fairy tale hoop jumping variety for daemons and perpetuals. The Eldar have their own layer of confusion as to weather or not being devoured by Slaanesh represents annihilation or eternal torment, they seem to represent the idea that "we are all the makers of our own heaven and hell" or whatever that quote is.

[Panzer]

 

A Dreadnought is not organic life. A Dreadnought is a machine piloted by organic life. It just so happens that the pilot is very closely and permanently connected to it until he dies.

 

If you think about it, a Dreadnought is really no different from power armour, just a bit bigger. Huron or Angelos are even eternally locked into theirs and cannot take them off as they are kept alive by it, at least such was the case in Badab War/DoW II books, no idea if they retconned it or not. Or that HH era pilot who lost his lower half of the body and is now permanently wired into his plate armour that was then bolted to his fighter's seat...

 

 

Well not quite. One is a mech, the other is armour.

With mechs you have some form of cockpit (that would be the sarcophagus) and the rest of the body and limbs is completely artificial. With armour you surround your body and limbs directly with stuff to protect (and in case of power armour to enhance) it. That's why Crisis Suits are mechs and not power armour as well (tho Stealth Suits should be power armour by that definition :P ).

[Irbis]

 

Well not quite. One is a mech, the other is armour.

With mechs you have some form of cockpit (that would be the sarcophagus) and the rest of the body and limbs is completely artificial. With armour you surround your body and limbs directly with stuff to protect (and in case of power armour to enhance) it. That's why Crisis Suits are mechs and not power armour as well (tho Stealth Suits should be power armour by that definition ).

 

What cockpit? DA display doesn't really differ from HUD found on power armour helmet, especially in the dumb DA models where pilot's head pokes out for some reason (venerable, contemptor, leviathan, etc). The only difference is literally the fact that in DA, marine is wired in, while power armour is operated wirelessly through black carapace (but in a lot of cases it's the same wire-in even in PA, see Huron, or literally 90% of IH astartes who have to plug in implants due to them lacking black carapace). Is Marneus Calgar or Gabriel Angelos a dreadnought just because three of his limbs are artificial too?

[Panzer]

 

 

Well not quite. One is a mech, the other is armour.

With mechs you have some form of cockpit (that would be the sarcophagus) and the rest of the body and limbs is completely artificial. With armour you surround your body and limbs directly with stuff to protect (and in case of power armour to enhance) it. That's why Crisis Suits are mechs and not power armour as well (tho Stealth Suits should be power armour by that definition ).

 

What cockpit? DA display doesn't really differ from HUD found on power armour helmet, especially in the dumb DA models where pilot's head pokes out for some reason (venerable, contemptor, leviathan, etc). The only difference is literally the fact that in DA, marine is wired in, while power armour is operated wirelessly through black carapace (but in a lot of cases it's the same wire-in even in PA, see Huron, or literally 90% of IH astartes who have to plug in implants due to them lacking black carapace). Is Marneus Calgar or Gabriel Angelos a dreadnought just because three of his limbs are artificial too?

 

 

Do you REALLY not understand the difference between a mech and armour? 

I'd love to educate you but it's not really the topic and I don't want to derail it even more so I guess you have to use google if you want to know it.