As in the title. "Survive" is defined as being able to defend their own space against native factions that will attack it, and not be destroyed or conquered. A) If they get their own FTL tech that is safe to use. B) If their own FTL tech doesn't work, but they have what they need use the warp as safely as the Imperium can. C) If their own FTL doesn't work and they have to figure out how to use the warp the hard way.
There is a lot of free space in 40k. Natives aren't all as powerful as the major races, or as aggressive. There are many smaller civilisations. The key issue is location. The Tau still exist because of location.
Lots of dead or empty planets . Not completely true. There are native races that are just as aggressive as the main races except they do it in acts of piracy.
And any race entering into 40k verse have to be wary and extremely cautious when it comes to poking at planets, artifacts or meeting other alien races.
Yeah, cause they can just rewrite their biodata to get psyker powers, or rewrite planetary biodata to create fortresses on planets that have always been there. I know they aren't weak, but they were the only scifi thing that came to mind when I thought of withstanding Chaos corruption.
End game SMAC factions? They would have extensive experience with psychic attacks and infantry scaled singularity weapons and stasis armour. The only thing they don't have is a practical FTL for starships.
The OP is asking for the weakest faction that can survive the 40k galaxy. Faction Paradox is not weak.
I know that weakest is relative but Faction Paradox is from Doctor Who which we all know as time travel, galaxy, universe, multiverse destroying shenanigans running around. 40k doesn't do any of that so Faction Paradox is probably an outside-whatever its called problem.
Yeah, I figured with the last two (time travel disabled) it would lower them a little. Plus, they are quite small (their homebase is the size of 18th century London).
The Backgrounders of Orion's Arm perhaps? They don't even have FTL; they are however paranoid recluses who spend their time hiding in stealth from outsiders in interstellar space. They could survive and expand slowly between the stars for a long time without anyone even realizing they exist, much less attacking them. And finding all of them to kill them would likely be impossible once they've had much time to grow and spread out.
Cthulutech Earth? They had seen it all before. Getting into wh40k would actually benefit them if it gets the Mi-go out of orbit. Even more so since the cults are easy enough to deal with if you can drop a few small asteroids on them. On the ones that work in the open anyway.
Cthulhutech Earth has shown extreme susceptibility to corruption. They are going to be Chaos chow in 40k.
Unless CT abominations are worse than WH ones - do WH chaos stuff demonstrate the ability to drive people insane merely by looking at a raster image of one on a monitor? (I don't know if that's canon CT, I got that from AEE)
Depends on the Chaos entity in question. For instance, the Greater Daemon Ghargantuloth's summoning into real space and the accompanying psychic screams were driving planetary populations several dozen light years away completely batshit insane; and on the planet itself, the dead rose from their graves so they could flee in abject terror.
But is there any instance of driving people insane via purely mundane sensory impressions, such as via a recording? (of course, another interpretation, if not, is that WH40K humanity is immune to such effects)
"'Golden Throne!' Beije bleated as we burst through a ripped curtain into the main chapel. For once I could sympathise with him. I'd had some idea of what to expect, having seen the ruins of the ritual chambers in the hab dome and the bordello, but the full sanity-blasting horror of the intact symbols on the walls surrounding us completely was new to me, and sent my senses reeling. I'm sure it was only the presence of Jurgen and his peculiar talent, which insulated my mind from the worst of it. 'Don't look at them,' I cautioned, trying to focus on the carnelian giants wading through the congregation of degenerates with single-minded determination, slicing and hacking with their chainblade pole arms. 'Stay focussed.' My warning came too late for one of the Tallarn troopers, though, Stoch I think - he curled up into a foetal position, bleeding from the eyes and whimpering something which sounded like the first line of the Emperor's benediction over and over again." - The Traitors Hand pg 670(epub) "In the early part of 401, I took my team to Eustis Majoris, capital world of the Angelus subsector, to investigate the illicit trade in so-called “flects”. These corrosively addictive objects are flooding the black market throughout the subsector group, smuggled in from the Mergent Worlds rimwards of Angelus. Flects are dangerous things, abominably dangerous. They are splinters of glass from the billion broken windows of the decaying hive ruins out in the Mergent Worlds, swollen with abhuman energies due to their long exposure to the warp. They have soaked up the light of Chaos, marinading for centuries in its glare. In these little splinters of corrupted glass, a user might glimpse a reflection of something wondrous and be uplifted for a brief time to some transcendant high. When they come down, they immediately crave another glimpse of the wonder, another “look”, as the slang goes. But a great number of flects contain nothing except a flecting vision of ultimate cosmic horror, a true vision of the warp. Such a sight destroys minds. And, of course, no user ever knows what he or she is about to see until they look into their next flect." -RAVENOR RETURNED "I realised I had almost become hypnotised. Staring at the monstrous, raging figure, drawn to him by his power and sheer horror, my eyes had lingered too long on the obscene runic carvings that edged the joints of his armour, the insane sigils that decorated his chest plate. I was entranced, captivated by the golden chains that dressed his luridly painted armour, the gems and exquisite filigree covering his armour plate, the translucent silk of his cloak, and the words, the alien, abominable words, inscribed upon his form, twitching and seeming with secrets older then time… secrets, promises, lies… I forced myself not to look. Soul-destroying madness lay in the marks and brands of Chaos if one looked too long....Bequin was cowering in a corner, filthy, tearful. The sight of the Child of the Emperor Mandragore had sent her fleeing in blind panic. Like me, she had made the mistake of looking at the runes and marks on his foul, dazzling armour. Unlike me, she hadn't had the sense to look away. She couldn't speak. She barely registered us. But we were back inside her muzzling aura and out of Dazzo's clutches for the moment." - EISENHORN
