 The Orc is a stain upon our galaxy, make no mistake, a rampaging mycelial race, more than it would seem, ancient engineering and design, loose upon the void. The greatest environmental or biological or both disaster in galactic history, from a certain point of view, as elaborated upon in a previous record, identags to be found suspended to this one, the Orc is an almost perfectly engineered weapon machine, a facet of their existence not readily discernible to the casual observer of their horrifically degenerate and barbaric character. This Mien almost totally disguises their robust, biological, one hesitates to use the word sophistication when discussing these creatures, yet one has no special choice in this regard. Quite how their race accomplishes much of what they have been able to, despite the, on surface level, contradictory aspects of their existence, is a facet of the biology itself, and one that has deserved its own entry into my chronicles for the sheer ramifications it possesses. So then, that this is a record of the Orcoid race's Gestalt and genetic consciousness, the pervasive new sphere that appears to tie their entire race together from birth until death, the bluntly named waar effect. The Orcoid Gestalt, as I will refer to it from here on, in order not to debase Imperial Gothic with the grotesque renderings of their tongue, is, it would appear, a psychic phenomenon unique to the Orcoid genus, and one that permeates all levels of their species at a subconscious and apparently genetic level. As one since deemed heretical Mechanicus biologis adept posited, it is effectively a manifestation, species wide, of an animalistic pack instinct. This is an apt comparator, as the Gestalt has apparently little to no effect on solitary orcs. It does, however, scale exponentially, which is key to how it functions within the macro structure of this genus. Once orcs begin to gather, which they inevitably do, the field begins to form, and strengthen, as do the orcs themselves. As discussed in one's previous record, Orcoid biology is a curious hybrid of features humans have ascribed to both anomalia and to fungi, although the majority of the latter's characteristics are found within the organs and adrenal and musculature systems. Their brains are entirely animal, and larger than most would anticipate. One particularly overdeveloped region is the Paleopaleum, what humanity refers to as the Old Brain, the part of the cerebellum that in many species contains the root evolutionary elements derived from biological ancestors. It typically governs baser animal instincts, such as aggression and close social group predispositions. However, the orcs have no biological ancestors. This has been the conclusion of almost every majorist biologist worth their salt, who have studied them in depth, and whose capabilities can consider such an outcome that the orcs are an artificial, engineered species. Their lack of vestigial evolutionary throwbacks, such as the human appendix, for example, is evidence of a lack of process, as well as the sheer robust durability of their biology. Is the Old Brain of the orcs not a throwback? Based on the treatises of Magi, one has perused? No. It was simply selected at their creation for how useful it is. If one is to take the purpose of the orcs as a biological weapon system of sheer blunt force, the basic instincts of a predator species would naturally be the best place to begin. But if the brain is largely given over to the instincts that govern the individual, then where does the generative force of the Gestalt field lie? So far, one does not believe either the Mechanicus or the Ordosinos have been able to offer an explanation for this. The prevailing theory, such as it stands, is that its generation occurs at the cellular level, encoded within the very DNA of the species, inherent and untrammeled by the restrictions of sentience and independent thought. Indeed, this explanation certainly seems apt given how, initially, the Gestalt field affects the Xenos in question. Once enough quantities of the creatures have gone through the fungal spore reproduction cycle, they will instinctually seek each other out, both to form hunting bands and rudimentary tribal structures, and for competition. This latter aspect in these early stages has been theorized as one of the primary catalysts of the Gestalt, as if there is one thing orcs seem to adore above all else, it is combat. The purpose of these brutal early bouts is two-fold, both sociological and biological. In the case of the former, it allows the Xenos to establish a robust hierarchy, where the... Mightiest is Rightiest. The survival of the fittest method of establishing primitive dominance that sees the strongest or cleverest, or both, orc rise to a position of authority quite quickly, and with little in the way to challenge them, unless there is a stronger or cleverer opponent that emerges. As it happens, the first biological effects of the Gestalt begin to take hold. The individual aggression of the orcs are bolstered, pushing them into more frequent and more violent competition that, as noted, allows a tribal head to emerge, but also, thanks to the means by which their bodies function, causes them to grow, developing musculature and adrenal systems quite rapidly. Orc is also apparently affected, as at this point, the orcish society begins to propagate odd boys, as they refer to them. These variant orcs are effectively specialists in some form of information or skill that is not learned so much as simply known. The variants do not study their specialities, they are simply aware of them. The phenomenon has been marked by Mechanicus and Inquisition alike as further proof of the engineered nature of the orc. Once a smaller yield and mass of the creatures has been reached, the variants emerge to help their kin move further up the social and technological evolutionary ladder. Whether the knowledge is drawn from the Gestalt field, or it is embedded in their cellular structures to be merely activated, is currently up for debate by those who are aware of its mysteries, and one fully intends to elucidate upon it later in this record. Biologically, at least, Orcoid DNA possesses a unique third helical strand, one that is entirely fungoid in nature. This helix remains consistent in form and composition, no matter what subspecies of the Xenos is examined, be it a squig, a snotling, a grot, or an orc. All of them bear the same strand. It would certainly seem highly likely that this unique strand is the catalyst, which spurs on Orcoid development. At a certain point of population density for squigs, the minute Gestalt these creatures create triggers the growth of snotlings, and so on and so forth up the ladder until orcs eventually emerge. Given the strands' presence in the entire macro species, this has been theorized as being the access point also for the knowledge base, although precisely how is yet to be established. The Magi, parley to Esoterica of lost ages, have speculated that this is the result of some hitherto unknown Orcoid access to the Akashic record. This concept, one originally born of philosophy based on old earth in ancient times, was once pioneered by a near-herotechnical adept of the ancient Mechanicum, Coriel Zeth, in an attempt to gain access to a hypothesized claim of pure psychic thought, believed to contain some total of all universal knowledge. Every thought and every idea ever possessed by any sentient being at all points across linear chronology. Unfortunately for Zeth, and indeed humanity, her research ended with the destruction of the magma city upon Mars during the death of innocents at the very outbreak of the Horus heresy. What scraps of it remain have either been sealed behind fanatical adeptus Mechanicus dogma, or stolen away to reaches unknown by the dark pantheon-pledged adepts of the so-called true Mechanicum. Such theosophizing, where it pertains to the orc, has been largely suppressed, although one believes this has less to do with scientific inquiry, and more to do with the idea that any such primitive xenos able to access this plain denied to humanity is a heretical concept in the extreme, and not to mention terrifying unequal measure. One must, however, defy this suppression in order to explore the idea here in its fullest, for the implications therein are frankly staggering, before one even touches upon the potential ramifications of such knowledge that could be made for imperial defence and scientific progression. What we know of Coriel Zeth's research was lost in its near entirety during the death of innocents. But what we can establish is that the psychic energy needed to access the Akashic records was phenomenal, requiring not only a collective of specialised psychers, with a specially crafted chamber upon Mars, but a machine that was capable of harnessing the power of the astronomical itself for the briefest of instances, effectively to boost the capabilities of the humans empowering the reader, as Majos Zeth referred to it. Taken from a perspective of measuring pure psychic power, a tribe of orcs could not possibly generate enough energy with their meager gestalt to achieve access to what Coriel Zeth was seeking. However, that being said, the knowledge the orc variants access is usually only of the most basic nature, but crucially, one that tends to scale with the size of the tribe as it grows. Initially, technological knowledge is restricted to simple tools and weapons, usually how to construct both out of scavenged materials, negating the need for the Xenos to mine or process metals. Slavenger is of course completely off the table, although orcs are omnivorous, their initial dietary habits are as varied, predatory and scavenger based as their industrial development, not to mention their somewhat carnivorous inclinations with the skrots, snotlings, and squigs beneath them. As the benefits of the gestalt field become more pronounced, the system becomes self-perpetuating. The expanded technology brought by the orc variants allows the tribe to grow and prosper, to seize more territory and fight more enemies. As more orcs join the clan group, the information the variants are able to draw upon is expanded. The physician class becomes able to graft whole limbs and crude bionics onto injured orcs, where previously they had only served to augment the species already formidable healing capabilities. The shaman class reaches a degree of psychic ability that allows them to channel the gestalt field as a human combat psycher would, emboldening those around them into greater displays of violence, where previously it simply been spiritual leaders marked by their fellows as touched by strange Xenos god composites. The technician class evolves from spears and crude ballistics to an understanding of combustion engines and the principles of rocketry, as well as improvements to production lines and industrial optimization, however, scattershot and haphazard the latter may be. This is true galaxy wide. One may separate two tribes of orcs by a whole segmentum, placing them upon completely different worlds and observe that, in time, the species develops to an almost identical, but still idiosyncratic, level of technology and society, with the devices, social structures and traditions only shaped by local environments to a certain degree. All of this is literally instinctual. At a certain level of development, usually the one outlined above, all of these variants begin to develop beyond simple parameters laid down by instinctual orc knowledge and begin to experiment. For the medical cast, this often presents as obsessions with a certain aspect of orc biological augmentation, such as training orc muscular cultural development in one specific capacity or a hyper focus on perfecting the usage of certain bionics. In some cases, this has led to orc variants capable of pushing the boundaries of the species biology in disturbing ways, such as full cranial transplants to literally graft an orc head onto a brand new body. The technologist class experiments run with wild abandon, often plunging headlong into fields of weaponry that seem to defy the laws of physics. No orc technology is mass produced. All of us is simply assembled with gleeful abandon by those that the guest outfield activates for its purpose and by those they beat into submission to assemble the simpler aspects of technology. Encaptured by Adeptus Mechanicus' adepts for study, it appears to all intents and purposes to be little more than piles of junk that seemingly should not function, only upon closer inspection revealing a robust form of competency in its creation. Orc technology merely has to complete the task it is set to accomplishing, usually to go fast or kill as many sentient beings as possible, and in many cases both. The knowledge of the process by which the guest outfield activates orc variants and its expanding power concurrent to the amount of orcs in a local area has led to a common misconception surrounding its effects upon their technology. Numerous poorly educated imperial elements have become possessed by the conviction that orc technology works because they believe it does, that the power of the guest outfield can turn any piece of scrap that resembles a gun into a functional device capable of firing live ammunition, that it can transform a ramshackle buggy into a powerful land armored vehicle by virtue of the fact that the orc pilots believe it to be one. Such conclusions vastly overstate the effect of the guest out to the overwhelming majority of orc bioforms. While it is true that the field is not well understood and while there have been instances that lend some credence to the minor far more subtle effects the field may have to boost orc technology, it is not so powerful as to warp the fabric of reality. Ultimately the knowledge that the field bestows, the empowering effect it has upon the individual orc and their biology is where it lies. We would underestimate the cunning and tenacity of these creatures at our peril. Many, many humans have throughout history and none have lived to make the same mistake twice. The knowledge that the orc species simply actualizes into as a social group matures is this true power. It allows orcs separated by space, a whole planetary systems to ultimately rise to the point where spaceflight is possible and the correlation of massive Xenos forces equally so. At this point we have reached the infamous Horde phase of societal progress whose name, Wa, is naturally shared by the guest outfield that it has enabled. At this point the original infestation has developed into a planet system or sector threatening military force as the Imperium has encountered upon countless occasions. Multiple variants have emerged to catalyze various subsections of the Horde and these variants may often find their experiments with technology or biology push the boundaries of what even imperial science has considered possible. The war bosses, the leaders of the various clan groups inevitably submit to a single individual whose body and mind have grown glutted upon the powers of their own internal systems and the effects of the guest outfield. The devastation unleashed as the Horde careens along its warpath only pulls in more and more orcs into the fold whether drawn by rumor or biological compulsion to seek out the combat the Horde's war boss has promised his underlings. Please also bear in mind that orcs do not tire when engaged in combat as humans do for example if anything it actually provides them with energy. Since times long past the assassination or destruction of the lead war boss has become the standard imperial engagement protocol for dealing with such concentrations of the species. While this is of course a feat easier said than done it has typically led to an immediate disruption of the leadership structure as also Bordenant bosses begin vying for the prime role as instinct dictates them to do leading typically to significant infighting and ideally the eventual dissolution of the Horde as breakaway elements seek more fruitful volumes for combat and plundering. This is in effect the course their biology has dictated for them their reason for existence propagate expand conquer repeat. When taking into consideration the almost certainty that the orcoid is an engineered creature one cannot help but admit to the genius of their function. Every aspect of them however crew degenerate and unsophisticated is nevertheless finely tuned to achieve bellicosity endurance and a sustainable yet exponential expansion. They are a weapon system created to thrive under impossible privation orchestrated in their genetic coding to actively seek and desire the state of being all other life forms struggle through and in truth they appear to be a weapon whose masters have long since disappeared to however return to an earlier point where does this relate to the potential of the Akashic records. If the conclusions of the learned are to be believed the orcs are indeed a creation of the ancient progenitor species known simply as the old ones whose war with the Necron menace drove them to create biological weapons that would it appear one day devolve into the modern orc form. Since the disappearance of the progenitors from our galaxy long before humanity had even evolved it is a decent supposition to presume the degradation of the orcoid system has taken place to such a degree that they only possess fragments of their initial capabilities all save the most robust elements just as societies fracture and decay when they're more advanced technologies and structures are placed under undue privation or come to lack the skills necessary for their maintenance so too with the orc a technological system in and of itself just a hybrid animal fungoid one laps into decay following their abandonment by their creators it is a testament to the abilities of these ancient terrible xenos that their creations have outlasted their builders and risen to a position of if not primacy within the galaxy then consistent survival and prosperity a perfect self-replicating war machine however if their capabilities have indeed been degraded we must presume this would hold true for their ability to access the more advanced aspects of their knowledge base perhaps at one point during their war with the necrons the progenitors creations had access to a far larger suite of potential knowledge fueled by a more coherent and well-maintained gestalt than the rudimentary one they now possess the old ones were by a ldari and indeed necronteer mytho tracts supposedly superlative masters of the esoteric and one would imagine given their unrivaled dominance in this regard that if the akashic records do indeed exist their access to them would have been unquestionable that they in their desperation in the war of heaven would deign to create creatures who could do so similarly but at a primal and instinctual level as opposed to a learned one all in the name of becoming a better weapon system the thought is frightening in the extreme but not exactly beyond the realms of possibility given what we know of this titanic conflict there is of course another possibility and one that is in some ways quite a bit more esoteric fungoid organisms typically form biological structures referred to as mycelia networks of root structures below and above the loam or its local equivalent through which nutrition and even rudimentary information can be carried it is already a verifiable product of orcoid development that their spore pods that are used for gestation form extensive mycelial networks through which said development is regulated and expanded it has long been a theory of rather fringe elements of the major biologist divisions of the mechanic us the certain fungi given a density may form a discreet but robust connection beyond the boundaries of the known extending perhaps into the warp and potentially a substrat of the sea of souls hitherto unknown to humanity this galaxy spanning macro connection network in effect removed from the interference of the primordial annihilator and the dark pantheon would go a long way is to explaining many of the questions within this record as well as a general resilience the orc bears to the corruptive elements of the warp in order to lose you know elucidate is far too strong a word expand upon certain material here to forth discussed I am appending to this record a recording of a blood axe orc of an especially mercenarial variety during an exchange of materials with a fairly radical member of the hordozinos you came he's got all these big questions about how it all works we don't really bother with all that well sometimes we do I suppose can't be in a fight all the time after all when you're thinking meets not busy working out where it's best to put all the DACA starts asking questions like what is DACA where does it come from and if you've got too much thinking meet for your own good why is DACA mostly though even for the lads with a bit too much meat in their heads life simple when you're an orc mentally speaking Regan you lock make it too complicated in my insteemed opinion you got this obsession with the truth what is the truth where shall we find it how will we cut it out of them when we do and then what if it's the wrong shape and won't stick to the bits we've already got well I'll tell you something and I'll tell you for free there ain't no truth not to us we'll rather there's more of it and we know what to deal with so it don't really matter you know like grots why have we got so much to spare easy what an orc believes is the truth even if it's a rubbish orc even if it's a rubbish truth and if they have a bit of a think and end up with another more different truth well then that's the truth as well now you're looking a term for this actually I know these things you see hang on I even did some glyphs of it on one of these bits of metal so I can ever remember yeah we go cognorage dissonance it's a thing where you believe two things at the same time and it makes your brain hurt well imagine that only instead of hurting it makes your brain extra muscly now you're thinking like an orc maybe the reason it's so easy for us to fit all these new truths in our heads is because we're already used to ideas showing up in them what we ain't even thought of orcs just no things big things mega things I'll give you an example I saw a grot once get caught up in all the shattery wind blowing out the back of a Dacker jet engine he got blasted right off his claws right into the chest of a mech who was standing nearby totally boosted all the mechs ribs look my truck it was amazing but you know what that mech didn't even bother getting a new lung or nothing they just got this weird look in their eye scampered off to the scrapyard to do mech things next day they come out with this massive gun that shoots grots through the actual warp so they come out the other side or mental unbiety from all the devils and that mech came up with this thing overnight just after seeing a grot get chucked about by a load of angry wind and that's not all I've seen that same Zoggin gun get invented four other times by four other mechs since then because you can't just think something like that together all by yourself it's like the idea is already there in your blood maybe your guts or your earwax and you just need to you need to remember that you know it like well same way if someone ran up to you with a massive pipe or something and they wanted to brain you you wouldn't stand around panicking about what your hands were and what they were for you just batter them right well you probably call them a heretic or whatever as well but you you get my point having these ideas in you is just part of being an orc and it's funny because the more orc stuff you do meaning the more you fight the more other lads you have fighting with you and the more you win the more of those ideas you remember the more know what's a packed into every one of them you get enough orcs together doing enough fighting doing enough winning they'll make things you wouldn't believe so who hid all these ideas in our blood then I don't know you're a weird boy once told me the brain boys designed us that way so they could just let us get on with it without having to teach us loads of boring numbers and that and again same weird boys best mate was an old wheel and I saw him give a medal to a rock once so you know eat it with a load of salt as you look like to say but all this is doing my bouncing it's like I told you at the start really ain't stuff we feel the need to do loads of mega thinking about what matters is this all I has got to do to win at being me is be me be an orc batter stuff have a massive laugh battering it if I do a good job Gorka Mork the big lads themselves in the great green they'll let me know by making me bigger and fight here if I ain't done a good job I'll get burst I'll zog off back to the great green to wait for another turn it's a good saw a life always wondered why you lot don't tried it really the time you've taken to ask me all this and then for me to answer you could have had at least two and a half decent fights I reckon eating someone's ear for a laugh got a bullet wound with an interesting shape shout with the emperor's name into a bin I don't know whatever you chose to do would have been more fun than this so do yourself a favor yeah grab your shooter find a get to crump and crump them then keep doing that till you get to the get big enough to crump you nothing to ponder nothing to doubt just mashing stuff forever well good existing as surprising as it no doubt is to hear a member of this benighted species speak with such relative lucidity and eloquence we must endeavor to focus instead on the insights that can be gained from the content of this deposition much of what has been elucidated upon already has been corroborated and although of course from an orchoid point of view it does substantiate what imperial xenobiological intelligence has been able to establish about the species the references to the big green are troubling to say the least per ones suppositions previously laid out this could refer potentially to either the akashic records which the orcs may believe they have some claim to or the hypothetical substrate of the imiterium connected to the species through mycelial means beyond this however the real inside stretches to the psychological the orcs as expressed by this individual are utterly unconcerned with all existential questions whatever the brain boys as they refer to their progenitors encoded them to do they simply act out it is blunt but if this orc is to be believed it is also a liberating form of existence slaves to one's own biology yes but not too much beyond that say perhaps another orc that is bigger than you this is of course programming in and of itself orcs do not have to care about any of the larger questions their existence raises and this in turn leads to a society in a culture utterly stagnant completely locked into patterns expressed through instinct and not else interrogators have often found a difficulty making headway through orc debriefings simply because the species is capable of holding two completely opposing ideas or memories in their minds at the same time cognitive dissonance has literally been engineered out of them what possible use could such a thing provide if an orc remembers something then that thing effectively happened regardless of the objective empirical truth of the matter the merging of ego and in these creatures is as superlative as it is truly maddening but one cannot help but wonder as to what would happen if a member of their species was able to supersede this programming what happens when a weapon becomes self-aware what happens when a gun realizes it's a gun if a system like this should somehow evolve past its programming well would we not be in the same situation humanities ancestors were placed in so many millennia ago during the machine wars at the downfall of the first human galactic dominion the patterns and behaviors exhibited by the warlord gas called mag uruk Thrakka have already caused grave concern amongst members of the Inquisition and the biologists worried no doubt that such a crude awakening may already be underway in seemingly typical orcoid fashion and corroborating the story provided by the blood acts earlier the awakening of this orc was thanks to a massive traumatic injury in Gaskell's case a bolt around the skull should that wound have awoken some latent programming or destroyed it should Gaskell be the emergence of a form of orcoid not seen since old one warred with katana I shoulder to think what that could mean for humanity the mechanic has oft warns of the dangers of ancient technology lying dormant in the outer dark somehow being recovered and accidentally awakened rampant genocidal thinking machines devoid of all that is holy actualizing in a universe that thought them long dead well we may yet face a weapon system older still one wrought by intelligences beyond our comprehension and who are unaware of even their own potential we must pray not such a day never arrives of a imperator gloria in excelsis terra this video and this channel were made possible thanks to the very kind donations and support from my patreon subscribers if you'd like to help support the channel head on over to patreon.com slash oculus imperia if you'd like to receive more updates about the channel and any future videos you can contact me or follow me on twitter at oculus imperia otherwise please like subscribe comment let me know your feedback and as ever thank you very much for watching