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[Glass]

I feel like we've gotten most of our dice' worth out of these. Let's move on and see their tech.

[m1895]

Probably should only push our luck so far

[darkwarlock3]

move on, they are already good enough

[King Zultan]

Let us move on!

[Tube Wizard]

I feel like we've gotten most of our dice' worth out of these. Let's move on and see their tech.

Probably should only push our luck so far

move on, they are already good enough

Let us move on!

Evolution has rendered the Xenos Iron-Willed and Cunning even as it has left them Delicate and Weak but adaptation of the flesh is not the only form of progress. Even the lowest of species possesses some amount of shared understanding but does theirs have any merit?

2

The Xenos were Stone-Age Primitives by the time they were encountered by the Astartes. There are many reasons this could be the case. Perhaps they only recently reached sapience, saw no need to innovate when photosynthesis rendered them near to post-scarcity, or in a cruel twist of fate their planet simply lacked the mineral resources to propel them forward.

Even at the lowest level of organization, with a certain amount of intelligence some form of civilization is inevitable, accompanied by their own set of deviant morals.

What ethics do the Xenos hold to?

9,4,7

The Xenos are a Hive Mind, each sharing their consciousness in a pool. This renders them remarkably efficient in some ways but deficient in others. There are several forms this may take and they might attempt to conceal it from outsiders, but this is entails a fundamentally alien psychology. Notably, it trends toward Materialism in the willing disbelief of forces outside of their whole and healthy Xenophobia, in wariness of that which it cannot know as it knows itself.

10,2

5,2,5

1,5,1

6,8,4

The Xenos broke apart into three "factions" some time ago, broad trends amid their scattered tribe equivalents.

The first trend toward Fanatic Militarism in that they live and breathe to fight and kill, as any Xenos doubtless desires to, and nonsensical Egalitarianism that has them insisting on an absurd, horizontal power-structure. It appears that they have votes among themselves. Almost surreal.

The second trend toward Fanatic Authoritarianism in that each tribe has a single chieftain figure who seized their position to rule with an iron-fist and goes unquestioned by their charges, and some degree of Militarism to enforce and expand their dictates. Reasonable, from an Imperial standpoint. Though they don't have much to fight over. Prime sunning grounds, perhaps?

The third trends toward Xenophilia in that they insist on loving and cherishing outsiders alongside themselves, as equals, no less, free to mingle their very culture with their own, Pacificism, a belief of nonviolence in protest to what they see as their kind's senseless horror, and Materialism, disdaining superstition that can't be proven. They are naive, laughably so, but that could be taken advantage of.

[Glass]

I'd rather have the three factions than the suspicious hivemind. The latter is smart, strong-willed, has a head for tech, and doesn't trust us in the slightest, making it very dangerous. The factions, in contrast, will have a harder time getting to a point where they could likely be much of a concern, and the group most likely to be able to make interesting tech is also the one least likely to do anything to us, and the fan-auths could likely be relatively easily put to heel. The only likely troublemakers are the fan-mils, who... are neolithic.

I don't care how advanced their tactics can be due to their cleverness, sharp rocks are not going to cut it against Astartes unless you get a psyker.

[Man of Paper]

I vote Hive Mind. They might be xenophobic, but they're practically just a bunch of baby groots. If we can manage to appear to them as divine (as we have every right to seem) or in some way act as their curator and guardian, we could have a pet species to uplift that's a combination of both the other big factions in the area.

A healthy dose of suspicion also means less of a chance that outside forces can convince them to turn against the familiar and relatively friendly.

Glass is right in that their stones aren't going to do much to an Astartes, which means it should be all the easier to convince them that we're practically immortal.

[m1895]

Personally prefer 3 factions.

[Maximum Spin]

It would be fun to play the factions against each other, I think. Could easily lavish benefits on the pacifists so the other groups feel tempted to join them. That said, I don't have enough of an opinion to vote on this.

[Glass]

Basically, I think it boils down to low risk, low reward or high risk, high reward.

The factions would be pretty easy to manage, and they're very unlikely to be able to challenge us. Stone age tech just isn't good enough, no matter how smart they are. That said, the same thing that stops them from challenging us makes them less likely to be able to provide us anything useful. That said, they're still clever; some uplifting may be possible, and especially for the militaristic ones... you don't need to know how a gun works to use it.
The hive mind, meanwhile, might be difficult to make trust us, due to it being xenophobic, and even though it's still stone age, its cleverness and materialistic bent probably means that it could start figuring stuff out and teching up frighteningly quickly. However, if we can get it to cooperate with us (and notably, it's not fanatical xenophobe, so it's definitely possible), that same potential danger suddenly becomes a massive boon.

[Redjive_Industries]

I am more in favor of the hivemind, as I prefer the high risk, high reward option.

[chubby2man]

Factions +1

I figure a cunning, distrustful hive mind is a lot riskier than a bunch of Stone Age factions.

Stone weapons can be surprisingly effective

[Glass]

We're probably going to need to uplift all those feral and feudal worlds we've got, anyway; what's a bit of uplifting xenos, too?

[blueturtle1134]

Factions if only because Iron Will becomes nearly meaningless if there's no individuals, and because one xenophobic hivemind seems much more difficult to get on our side

[darkwarlock3]

+1 to factions