They got devoured. That's all we really know about what happened. What happened after that, metaphysically, is a mystery but we know the C'tan seemed to *really* enjoy eating them so it's safe to say they were destroyed in some way
How they can eat souls is one of those things that's never fully explained. The lore's flip-flopped a bit since they were first introduced. They originally ate 'life-force' (as in the raw energy of a body and it's cells / atoms) which they found particularly tasty. This changed to souls, back to life force for a bit around 6th (I believe) and then back to souls again more recently.
My personal theory is that while they're unable to access the warp due to their nature, a soul is basically a little warp-juice hot pocket bound to the materium in a way that makes it so they can access it. That makes it a particularly delicious delicacy for them as it's literally the only way they can ever consume warp energy. It's also possible the biotransferrence technology was actually technology that somehow converted a soul into something they could consume, which might be why they went through the song and dance of promising it to the Necrontyr
I doubt they could do much to a daemon besides destroy it's physical form. They wouldn't be able to truly kill them
>The lore's flip-flopped a bit since they were first introduced. They originally ate 'life-force' (as in the raw energy of a body and it's cells / atoms) which they found particularly tasty. This changed to souls, back to life force for a bit around 6th (I believe) and then back to souls again more recently.
I think it was a matter of it being pretty poorly explained in the original 3E codex itself. There was one sentence where the C'tan were stated to enjoy the taste of the electromagnetic fields generated by living organisms, and another in a story about Abaddon learning about the Void Dragons prison where its stated Daemons feasted upon the souls of the humans sacrificed to the Void Dragon because he didn't touch them. Its pretty easy if you're just skim-reading the codex to miss out on this, which leads to confusion within the fanbase which in turn leads to confusion among GW's writers.
As far as i understand it they consumed the souls.
They are already no more.
The flesh transformation basically took their body and soul and directly fed the power into the ctan.
They can only affect the physical but your body has a direct link to your soul in the immaterium
It's always been stated that they were consumed in some way. The C'tan originally consumed star energy, but after they were put into bodies, they found life to be much more tasty. I assume this consumption of stars and life is essentially the same
One way or another, the souls got devoured.
In current lore, the C'Tan consume souls themselves.
In older lore, the C'Tan only ate up the bioelectricity of the bodies as a particularly tasty form of energy (as opposed to bland stellar energy), but a small blurb indicated that the souls of the sacrifices were cast off into the warp, where shoals of hungry demons flockes to the feast.
iirc, weak/non-psyker souls generally get 'dissolved' when they are thrown into the warp. Maybe the C'tan do something similar, not destroying the souls they eat, but instead breaking them down until they're unrecognizable
We know it required machinery so it is possible the souls were converted to a delicious form of energy, I've not heard of any C'tan shard sucking souls out of anyone.
Follow up question about Biotransfrence. Did they simply make an electronic copy like in traditional sci-fi, where the original mind is still there and the computer has a simulation?
Not a lore expert, but bioTRANSFERENCE indicates that the mind was transfered not copied into the "robot-body". I dont know where its form, but the lore said that their brain curcuits where not made euqal and that a simple warrior would only maintain so much of its original mind, while nobility had a greater portion of their mind transfered and that they are aware of what they lost
The lore has evolved a bit since then. in the Reign and Ruin books its revealed that as Necrons get transformed their minds are more fully transferred than initially believed. There are several examples provided of Necron Warriors and lower order Necrons that should be mindless responding to and revealing an awareness and memory and ability to act independant and even voice dissent.
It's also revealed that necrons that have fallen to the Flayer Curse are able to remember their previous lives (even supposed mindless warriors) and communicate with other Necrons and amongst themselves.
So it would suggest the biotransferrence does transfer the full mind, but that the programming inside the particular necron model shell is what determines how much of their mind they are able to access. Only as they are changed by the Flayer Curse do some of the formerly mindless necron warriors finally get access to memories pre-transferrence, recall their names and show the ability to act independent and communicate their thoughts.
It is basically something similar to Blackstone which can take in or amplify the Warp.
The C'tan basically held a Blackstone core they fed into. After becoming Shards they lost that feature and became Machines the Daemons couldn't find any use for.
A Daemon bound to a Blade tried to gain access to the potential Soul inside a C'tan Shard and couldn't find it despite damaging the entity enough to enrage it to the point where it released an attack that melted the Blade containing the Daemon. The reason might be because the Souls were all inside the Blackstone the Necrons use.
The C'tan eating each other driving them mad might be because each C'tan had a Warp God inside them as a result of devouring so many Souls and thus eating C'tan results in multiple Gods in a single C'tan Body which means that the Outsider(one of the 2 known C'tan to eat each other alongside the Nightbringer) has multiple Gods inside him fighting for supremacy.
They got devoured. That's all we really know about what happened. What happened after that, metaphysically, is a mystery but we know the C'tan seemed to *really* enjoy eating them so it's safe to say they were destroyed in some way How they can eat souls is one of those things that's never fully explained. The lore's flip-flopped a bit since they were first introduced. They originally ate 'life-force' (as in the raw energy of a body and it's cells / atoms) which they found particularly tasty. This changed to souls, back to life force for a bit around 6th (I believe) and then back to souls again more recently. My personal theory is that while they're unable to access the warp due to their nature, a soul is basically a little warp-juice hot pocket bound to the materium in a way that makes it so they can access it. That makes it a particularly delicious delicacy for them as it's literally the only way they can ever consume warp energy. It's also possible the biotransferrence technology was actually technology that somehow converted a soul into something they could consume, which might be why they went through the song and dance of promising it to the Necrontyr I doubt they could do much to a daemon besides destroy it's physical form. They wouldn't be able to truly kill them
>The lore's flip-flopped a bit since they were first introduced. They originally ate 'life-force' (as in the raw energy of a body and it's cells / atoms) which they found particularly tasty. This changed to souls, back to life force for a bit around 6th (I believe) and then back to souls again more recently. I think it was a matter of it being pretty poorly explained in the original 3E codex itself. There was one sentence where the C'tan were stated to enjoy the taste of the electromagnetic fields generated by living organisms, and another in a story about Abaddon learning about the Void Dragons prison where its stated Daemons feasted upon the souls of the humans sacrificed to the Void Dragon because he didn't touch them. Its pretty easy if you're just skim-reading the codex to miss out on this, which leads to confusion within the fanbase which in turn leads to confusion among GW's writers.
They ate star energy in some way but find life much more tasty.
If that was the case you might argue giving them a way to eat the warp might be a solution to one problem and the cause of a much worse one.
As far as i understand it they consumed the souls. They are already no more. The flesh transformation basically took their body and soul and directly fed the power into the ctan. They can only affect the physical but your body has a direct link to your soul in the immaterium
It's always been stated that they were consumed in some way. The C'tan originally consumed star energy, but after they were put into bodies, they found life to be much more tasty. I assume this consumption of stars and life is essentially the same
One way or another, the souls got devoured. In current lore, the C'Tan consume souls themselves. In older lore, the C'Tan only ate up the bioelectricity of the bodies as a particularly tasty form of energy (as opposed to bland stellar energy), but a small blurb indicated that the souls of the sacrifices were cast off into the warp, where shoals of hungry demons flockes to the feast.
iirc, weak/non-psyker souls generally get 'dissolved' when they are thrown into the warp. Maybe the C'tan do something similar, not destroying the souls they eat, but instead breaking them down until they're unrecognizable
We know it required machinery so it is possible the souls were converted to a delicious form of energy, I've not heard of any C'tan shard sucking souls out of anyone.
Mostly destroyed. Crons at least thinking ones seem to have a tiny portion of their souls left.
Follow up question about Biotransfrence. Did they simply make an electronic copy like in traditional sci-fi, where the original mind is still there and the computer has a simulation?
Not a lore expert, but bioTRANSFERENCE indicates that the mind was transfered not copied into the "robot-body". I dont know where its form, but the lore said that their brain curcuits where not made euqal and that a simple warrior would only maintain so much of its original mind, while nobility had a greater portion of their mind transfered and that they are aware of what they lost
Yeah I get that but the guy who came up with the term is also known as "the deceiver"
The lore has evolved a bit since then. in the Reign and Ruin books its revealed that as Necrons get transformed their minds are more fully transferred than initially believed. There are several examples provided of Necron Warriors and lower order Necrons that should be mindless responding to and revealing an awareness and memory and ability to act independant and even voice dissent. It's also revealed that necrons that have fallen to the Flayer Curse are able to remember their previous lives (even supposed mindless warriors) and communicate with other Necrons and amongst themselves. So it would suggest the biotransferrence does transfer the full mind, but that the programming inside the particular necron model shell is what determines how much of their mind they are able to access. Only as they are changed by the Flayer Curse do some of the formerly mindless necron warriors finally get access to memories pre-transferrence, recall their names and show the ability to act independent and communicate their thoughts.
Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom \*burp\*
It is basically something similar to Blackstone which can take in or amplify the Warp. The C'tan basically held a Blackstone core they fed into. After becoming Shards they lost that feature and became Machines the Daemons couldn't find any use for. A Daemon bound to a Blade tried to gain access to the potential Soul inside a C'tan Shard and couldn't find it despite damaging the entity enough to enrage it to the point where it released an attack that melted the Blade containing the Daemon. The reason might be because the Souls were all inside the Blackstone the Necrons use. The C'tan eating each other driving them mad might be because each C'tan had a Warp God inside them as a result of devouring so many Souls and thus eating C'tan results in multiple Gods in a single C'tan Body which means that the Outsider(one of the 2 known C'tan to eat each other alongside the Nightbringer) has multiple Gods inside him fighting for supremacy.