Free Will or Perfect Tool: On the Origins of the Kin

[Karak Norn Clansman]

One sign of the new Leagues of Votann codex being well-written, may be the better background discussions which arise around it to wrestle with the origins of the Squats in 40k.

 

A core theme of the question marks about the Kin and their beginnings, revolves around free will and slavery. To be clear, the codex itself presents the Kin (called Squats by Imperials and Demiurg by Tau) from their own point of view, revolving around kinship, ancestors and perfectionist work to mine and forge marvels across the stars. The explicit part of the codex contains wondrous vistas of Kin astral mining success in the galactic core, touches on cultural development among ancestors to foster perfectionism, and also delves into crazy themes such as acquisitive Kin showing no regard for others living on planets which they have deemed worthy of strip-mining for mineral wealth; the prior mineral assessments include present infrastructure on the planet, as so much junk to salvage.

 

Yet there are implicit themes in the codex, with quasi-corporate heraldry being a nod to Squat origins, and with a remarkably ordered society bred through centralized cloneskeins. What can be read between the lines present a fascinating part of the mysterious background, a worthwhile discussion of which starts around here in a thread on Dakkadakka.

 

To pick a succinct post by Mad Doc Grotsnik that drills down to the hidden horror hinted at by the Squat background writing:

 

Quote

Think I’ve finally got the words for my thoughts on Kin being STC products.

Right now, as far as they’re concerned, they’re the descendents of The Ancestors.

 

Yet…if I’m right, they’re not. They’re creations and tools of the Ancestors. Their pragmatic ‘focus on what matters, lad’ attitude may not be cultural, but designed into them. They’re pragmatic not by choice or temperament, but by careful design, arguably to ensure they never rebelled.

 

The perversity there is that it will always be so, because the Cloneskein will always, always ensure it. And so, they ultimately lack free will. Certain options don’t occur to them, because it’s not allowed for it to occur to them. They’re free to do whatever they’re told, not what whatever they want.

 

That’s…horrifying. At least to my mind.

 

The tongue-in-cheek counterpoint being something of the following:

 

 

And it's beautiful. Imagine being able to work hard during a long life, without ever being unhappy with your toil and task in life.

 

Like a tool well forged.

 

In short, it's Dwarf heaven. Also grimdark to boot. :D

 

Turn the steak around. Is it not wrong to put slaves to tasks which they ultimately are unhappy with? Why not design the slaves to be happy with their task and find fulfilment in their toil? What could be more beautiful than perfection of function?

 

Nay, pity the unrefined raw longshanking manlings instead! Their flesh and essence is but a random hodgepodge of contradictory neurotics, falsehoods and selfish desires, spat out by the rutting chance of evolution. How much suffering and bloodshed and destruction does not result from man's imperfect being? Why not make a better man, and do away with all the evils of life? Why not design a better being from the ground up, stable and dependable, clever and strong? Why not forge the perfect tool?

 

There is a cyclical beauty in this pragmatic futuristic design of slaves. In ancient Mesopotamian mythology, man is but clay, given shape to serve the gods.

 

From the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth:

 

 

When the gods like men
Bore the work and suffered the toll
The toil of the gods was great,
The work was heavy, the distress was much.

...

You have slaughtered a god together
With his personality
I have removed your heavy work
I have imposed your toil on man.

 

Furthermore, the first prototypes of humans in Mesopotamian mythology were unable to reproduce, and only later did the gods grant them this power. Cloneskein echoes?

Now, what do you think?

 

Regardless of stance, the fertile fields of reasonable speculation provided by the background is a sign that this time around, Games Workshop did Squats right.

 

Cheers

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Karak Norn Clansman

[phandaal]

Agreed on the Squats' origins here. In my mind there are some parts that are not even really speculation.

 

Spoiler

GW are not subtle about it - Squats are the remnants of clones who were explicitly designed to be durable, effective resource gatherers and producers. Somewhere along the line their creators vanished, and the Squats just kept on going under their original design from that point onwards. They still work hard, improve their gathering capabilities, and bring resources back to their Holds.

 

The lore is less definite on who created the Squats, but the heavy implication is it was the "Men of Gold," which would make Squats the Men of Stone. It also explains why Squats have such close affinity with the Ironkin, AKA the Men of Iron. Makes enough sense to probably be true.

 

The main point of speculation for me is why the Squats were engineered to have resilience to the effects of the Warp, and to have no true psykers. Obviously from a meta perspective they are this way because of how fantasy dwarves are with magic, using Runesmiths rather than true wizards. In universe, it seems like this was a response to whatever was happening to the Warp towards the end of the Dark Age of Technology. The Men of Gold knew something was up and did not want their resources falling to corruption.

 

To me, there is nothing sinister in it from the Squats' perspective. Just like Orks being the remnants of bio-weaponry designed by the Old Ones. The origins are long gone, and what matters is where they are now.

 

All in all, GW did a great job with this one. Feels like whoever was responsible had a great deal of respect for the Squats and for all things dwarven.

[Dr. Clock]

The 'rapacious solar / terrestrial mining' thing feels like a slant reference to Vogons to me... plenty of grimdark satirical fodder there, to be sure.

 

On the more positive but still distrurbing side, I compare Votann to Blade Runner replicants that have been eking it out since siezing their own means of production and AI friends 30k years ago, or since the Long Dark.

 

It's not even the Ancestor's 'fault' that they are in a symbiotic relationship with the Kin... the cloneskein and Votann together seem like a production originally of Dark Age of Tech humanity as a solution to deep space and galactic core conditions, and it wouldn't at all surprise me that it's precisely the kind of 'slavery' that the League's 'totalizing cultural design' made possible that led to the war against Abominable Intelligence. Maybe the plan was even for Votann and Kin to make more 'human' habitable zones toward the core and/or keep sending tithes back to Terra forever and one day Votann were like 'That is less efficient than just building a fortress in the core and letting you die'.

 

So yeah - they've done a great job making the tradeoffs / double-edged sword apparent, so the whole faction feels alot more fitting to 40k as a result. 

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[SpaceDwalin]

This is good lore. Hats off to the writers for both not messing up Squats but also not messing up Men of Gold, Stone and Iron.