realistic death amount for Astronomican?

[The bearded one]

I just do not know why people think this, or really why they do not find out before posting. The adeptus astronomica is an autonomous organization that painstakingly trains psykers in mysticism so they can enter the chamber of the astronomican under mt everest. Their Master is a guy who was not skilled enough to join the choir, and they still give him a permanent seat on the high lords. The golden throne is in Nottingham and is powered by piles of hedge-psykers brought in by a dump truck.

well forgive me for confusing one enormous number of psykers dying to feed emperor-related powers, with another enormous number of psykers dying to feed emperor-related powers. I'm mostly a fantasy player, so I was never aware there also were numberless psykers being fed to the emperor directly, merely aware of the ones powering the astronomican.

[Grubnar]

OK.

I have always thought that the Astronomicon and the Golden Throne are two very different things.
The Emperor founded the Astronomicon at the start of the Great Crusade to enable his forces to travel all over the galaxy.
It is in effect like a psychic lighthouse, providing a signal for the navigator of any traveling vessel.
The Astronomicon is a "choir" of trained psychers, who are not long lived because of the strain of their work, but do their duty because of the immense importance it has for the whole Imperium.

The Golden Throne however is basicly a life-support unit that was build specificly to keep the Emperor alive after his duel with Horus.
It is "powered" by the souls of psychers, who are un-willingly fed to the machine, after they are gathered from all over the Imperium and brought to Terra by the so called "blac ships".

Have I somehow gotten it all horrobly wrong over all these years or is this kinda/sorta correct?

[NashTrickster]

You got the part about the Golden Throne wrong... It wasn't built after the HH, but during the final days of the Great Crusade as a control/power device for the "Emperor's secret project"*. It was used after the HH in an alternative manner, to keep the Emperor's battered body from completely dying, but that was not why it was initially built.

* -

To built an human equivalent of the Webway and/or an access into the existing one

========

Regardless of what the psyckers sacrifices are used to power (Golden Throne or Astronimicon), given that the Black Ships are supposed to come at least once a generation to every Imperial planet and take away (almost) every psycker, the numbers provided in the first post seem actually quite low!

According to the fluff, Hive-Cities commonly harbour populations numbering in the billions. If only .0001% (1 in a million) of the population showed psycker abilities of any level, that would mean there'd still be thousands of psyckers to be "harvested" in a single Hive-City! Hence, a single Hive-City could, once a generation, provide "fuel" for a day or two...

A planet like Medusa V (a Mine-World, not a Hive-World) was listed as having a population of 4.5 billion, it could therefore, once a generation, provide enough "fuel" for 2 or 3 days...

Thus, if there were only the equivalent of 8000 billion inhabitants in the whole Imperium (which would mean an average population per world of only 8 million if we take the "million worlds" at face value), it'd be more than enough to provide the thousands sacrifices a day the fluff mentions and there would still be some spare to use as Astropath, Sanctionned Psyckers, etc...

[Idaan]

You got the part about the Golden Throne wrong... It wasn't built after the HH, but during the final days of the Great Crusade as a control/power device for the "Emperor's secret project"*. It was used after the HH in an alternative manner, to keep the Emperor's battered body from completely dying, but that was not why it was initially built.

* -

To built an human equivalent of the Webway and/or an access into the existing one

It wasn't built, it was a - probably alien - device that the Emperor found on some desert as mentioned in "A Thousand Sons".

[Eumerin]

It wasn't built, it was a - probably alien - device that the Emperor found on some desert as mentioned in "A Thousand Sons".

The background on the Golden Throne has changed somewhat over time. My recollection is that originally it was constructed to the Emperor's specifications, which he provided during some of his last lucid moments before being hooked up to it.

[Shadey]

Keep in mind at the very least there are trillions, and very likely there are quadrillions of humans in the galaxy.

That being said it does seem a very monumental number that die every day.

Eumerin, I have never seen the quote officially but that is what I have heard too.

[Nkari]

The numbers arent that bad really.. given that the nazis killed about 5000 ppl a day during a 4 year period during WW2, disposing of 2000 bodies when you have plasma furnaces is no feat of strength.

[El_Machinae]

Also remember that it is not like the psykers are pitched into a furnace to power the thing. They are plugged into it, and it drains them over time, some faster than others.

What's neat about that is that a 'little bit' of training (while in the Black Ships) would thus allow that psyker to live a bit longer (thus increasing the marginal utility of the fellow). OTOH, having the psykers in a state other than stasis would make them risky to transport. I wonder if heavy use of pariahs, and maybe a Clockwork Orange-type indoctrination could be used to increase their survivability.

It would be like learning how to increase the fuel efficiency of one of the essential engines of civilizations!

[Harwammer]

What's neat about that is that a 'little bit' of training (while in the Black Ships) would thus allow that psyker to live a bit longer (thus increasing the marginal utility of the fellow). OTOH, having the psykers in a state other than stasis would make them risky to transport.

The new rule book says the Black Ships have a gigantic rave party* downstairs to prevent daemons from noticing the untrained psykers/empfood. I think training a whole bunch (thousands) of psykers whilst in the warp would be a very bad idea.

*(discordant noise, dimly lit rooms with strobe lighting and drink laced with drugs)

[endless]

OK.

I have always thought that the Astronomicon and the Golden Throne are two very different things.
The Emperor founded the Astronomicon at the start of the Great Crusade to enable his forces to travel all over the galaxy.
It is in effect like a psychic lighthouse, providing a signal for the navigator of any traveling vessel.
The Astronomicon is a "choir" of trained psychers, who are not long lived because of the strain of their work, but do their duty because of the immense importance it has for the whole Imperium.

The Golden Throne however is basicly a life-support unit that was build specificly to keep the Emperor alive after his duel with Horus.
It is "powered" by the souls of psychers, who are un-willingly fed to the machine, after they are gathered from all over the Imperium and brought to Terra by the so called "blac ships".

Have I somehow gotten it all horrobly wrong over all these years or is this kinda/sorta correct?

no, you're pretty much right, but it's all been retconned now though.

[Idaan]

No it hasn't. The Adeptus Astronomica is still listed separately from the psykers fed to the Throne in the new rulebook. Unless you mean the origin of the Golden Throne, which has changed a bit today.

[bad dice]

never really thought or said the number was really that high compared to death rate of earth or hive worlds. Was more coming from a logistical standpoint of transporting that many people per day, feeding them (if they are put in storage as it were waiting for their turn), killing them, then disposing of them, and just wondering if the writers were being grimdark or if this would actually be a minor thing for them in terms of logistics. Sorry if that was unclear

sorry bout daftness though Guess noobness shows through well

Feeding them . Come on the they are about to sacrifice themselves for the glory of the god emperor. They don't need food faith will nurture them.
And disposing of their bodies. Well those billions of ppl on earth do need to eat, so solvent green I gues.

[El_Machinae]

I suspect that they're kept in some type of drug-induced near-coma, and so they're being fed through tubes in their arms. So, it's even possible that they're being fed the previous generation of psyker. That said, they might totally destroy the dead psyker bodies, instead of recycling them, to prevent some type of psychic buildup from all those psychic corpses