[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Forty-K-Lore cast.

[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Forty-K-Lore cast with me, John Barassani and Brad Chester.

[SPEAKER_01]: This guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Perfect audio.

[SPEAKER_01]: Finally.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, for this cast, we have attempted to start this cast four times?

[SPEAKER_01]: Probably something in that realm.

[SPEAKER_00]: Four times multiple starts also trying to fix my audio, which I had to download certain things, which we know how I feel about the internet.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's scary, you shouldn't go there.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's lions and tigers and bears.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to try to power through this and the only thing that's going to help me get through this today is the topic of our cast today, which is my people.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, as in an extinct race and no one cares about me more.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that's hurtful talk, y'all.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's hurtful talk, and I take offense to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[SPEAKER_01]: So today we're beginning our coverage of the leagues of Votan by not actually talking about them in any way shape or form, but instead diving into the squats.

[SPEAKER_01]: What their lure was, where they went, have they come back?

[SPEAKER_01]: Question mark.

[SPEAKER_01]: The goal here is to really dive into the squat lure, and then the next cast will start up with the Votan lure.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by doing it that way, we should find a, let you all decide what's different, what's the same, etc.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this should be a fun one.

[SPEAKER_01]: As always, before we begin, the 40K lower cast, a weekly show in the lower of the Warhammer 40K universe, releasing every Monday at 7 p.m.

[SPEAKER_01]: Eastern.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please continue to follow and comment on the cast.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really helping our algorithm.

[SPEAKER_01]: And again, we're in the number one Warhammer lower cast in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's because of you guys with your comments and your follows.

[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Also, if you like the cast, and we'll hear more of Brad and I click on the show notes to our YouTube page, which is the 40K lore cast on YouTube that you'll find versions of the show converted with imagery and subtitles.

[SPEAKER_01]: The subtitles can be pretty helpful because whole boy is some of the stuff we say mumble out, especially during some of the heavy wine days.

[SPEAKER_01]: It also has our live Q&A sessions and our other shows, the history of 40K with Brad and myself, and two old man on their handler, which we should be coming out any day now as I've been saying for three months.

[SPEAKER_01]: In this show note, the results would link to our Patreon.

[SPEAKER_01]: Big thank you all to our patrons in Patreon for contributing.

[SPEAKER_01]: It really has increased what we've been able to do, as you can see, where much better microphones, we're able to expand that in a more stuff that allows me to and Brad to spend more time on the cast, which means a lot to us.

[SPEAKER_01]: The way our Patreon works is only one tier, for $4.99 US, you get the cast completely ad-free along with our other cast, the history of $40K.

[SPEAKER_01]: But let's say you don't live in the US, let's say you live in Brassilia.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then is 26.56 Brazilian Real.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for those who don't know, the capital of Brazil is called Brassilia, which is not the most inventive name.

[SPEAKER_01]: But fun facts!

[SPEAKER_01]: Just candidly true, the city was built under four years.

[SPEAKER_01]: They built it in 1956 and in 1960 it was done, the entire city.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have single family homes on my street that took almost three years.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's actually pretty impressive.

[SPEAKER_01]: Also, they built it in the shape of an airplane for what is no reason that makes any sense to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure it was fun at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And fun fact, it is the home the world's tallest flagpole at 100 meters.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's over 300 feet, which is just excessive.

[SPEAKER_01]: Also, thanks to 20 years of jujitsu, John Fala and Poko Potogeis.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, there's that.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, lastly is always, we have our discord.

[SPEAKER_01]: Please join it over 10,000 members now.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had a drink something called a gonster as a result of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is a wonderful place.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've got incredible resources for literature.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought you're going to say the Gonsterv is a wonderful thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Gonsterv is one of the worst tasting people that in my life, that was not good.

[SPEAKER_01]: That did not give me happy in my stomach, in my brain, no part of me enjoyed the Gonsterv.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I did it for the fans.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if you want to join our discord, please do get anything you really could ever want there from [SPEAKER_01]: advice on gaming, advice on literature, questions.

[SPEAKER_01]: We even have some fun fan theory sections where people post, hey, here's what I think.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, for example, the tier and its are.

[SPEAKER_01]: So links in the show notes, please join.

[SPEAKER_01]: But let's today dig into why Brad's back hurts.

[SPEAKER_01]: Squats.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's my favorite exercise.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's because you're short.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why because you're short.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I can do it [SPEAKER_01]: If there was a minimum distance that had to go over your less favorite exercise, I'd have to jump.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, who knows, Brad doing cleans, because the other guy's tall.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to open up today actually with the history lesson on the squats.

[SPEAKER_01]: The squats, I think they are the most infamous army in all of 40k, which is interesting because they actually predate 40k.

[SPEAKER_01]: The first squat was released in 1987 and his name was Bons or Bunk B-O-N-C-E.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to get a lot of pronunciation rough on this one guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you actually read it as Beyoncé, so you're doing better.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we'll go Bonset.

[SPEAKER_01]: Bonset was actually released before the first road trader was ever published.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the squats are an ancient race in 40K and in even a 40K.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: For those of you who don't listen to our history of 40K show, quick run down on what road trader is and a bunch of this stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: Road trader, which, by the way, I've been spelling Rouge, and all of the notes up to this point, just to annoy Brad, [SPEAKER_00]: I don't, I don't even, by the way, stopped correcting anything in the notes a long time ago, specifically because I half of them at least are you just trying to upset me, which still does, even though I don't.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, all I have to do is misspell rogue and write Rouge and then as you read the notes, you keep reading Rouge Trader and it irritates you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that makes me every time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Rogue Trader was the precursor to 40K and it was less a tabletop combat game than a tabletop RPG.

[SPEAKER_01]: For those who don't know actually at D&D was released in 1974.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's got its first big update to AD&D.

[SPEAKER_01]: in 81 to 85.

[SPEAKER_01]: If it's just a bunch of releases in that era that actually made the game, what most people kind of recognize today is D&D.

[SPEAKER_01]: D&D was incredibly popular.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, if you're nerd, there's a bunch of other things that were more popular.

[SPEAKER_01]: But for those of us, what?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, those of us in this world, D&D was awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's what happened was as a result of a popularity, a lot of you will try to copy it, but not copy it in the crappy IP violation sense, but in the, wow, this is so much fun, but I don't want to play an elephant of forest.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want a gun in space.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to make a game that does that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they copied off it that way.

[SPEAKER_01]: Around 1987, you get the official launch of what's called Road Trader.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's today we actually refer this as 40K first edition.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it was, you know, we shouldn't actually say that because it wasn't first edition.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a row trader.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was wildly different.

[SPEAKER_01]: I give, there is no first editions, what I'm saying.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a second edition, and then row trader is in effect the first edition.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's right, that's the better way to say it's in effect the first edition.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's nothing like modern 40K though.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are D6s, obviously, plus or D20s, D8s, all the mechanics were super wonky.

[SPEAKER_01]: The truth is, the only ways they dish and grow is that the models are really cool and interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: They also had, this is the release because they released fantasy battle, and then they had road trader, and they had the actual full-on RPG game, which was the fantasy we're hammer fantasy, which was one of the best art books to pick up ever.

[SPEAKER_00]: The rules were a sketch, because if you got a hangout, you were going to die.

[SPEAKER_00]: I challenge you to play that game.

[SPEAKER_00]: they had niggling injuries basically like you do in blood ball, which is the 40 can't or twice fantasy football game, whatever, but they had stuff that would just keep coming with you and you would get slower and slower and you would eventually just get rack no matter what.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, no, great heart.

[SPEAKER_01]: 1993, second edition is launched.

[SPEAKER_01]: Most of the game mechanics from road trader were still there.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're tweaked up a little bit, but it was a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but not, but it was still, you saw a D20, so a D20.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, the dice is stuff right there.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just to be keen more of a tactical miniature game than before.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they added a lot more background, the races increased.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is when Horace Heresy, the Horace Heresy was predated, but it was actually the original Horace Heresy was one paragraph that was almost a sentence, basically.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what we think of as more modern 40K came around in 1998, which is when third edition was released.

[SPEAKER_01]: And from a tabletop standpoint, this is what most of us recognize.

[SPEAKER_01]: All D6 rules for terrain, sort of, a lot of the core rules we recognize today, that was 1998.

[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, we are now in September of 2025.

[SPEAKER_01]: Games advanced.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the thing about squads.

[SPEAKER_01]: Squads were introduced in 1987.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were in the original road trader with models and rules, and they never got codecs.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't until night edition that Botan came out, which we'll get to later, but they had, they'd never gotten a codex ever.

[SPEAKER_00]: Space dwarves were treated badly.

[SPEAKER_00]: My people were treated badly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you're neither a space nor a dwarf bread.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're just short with them.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had those two things going for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever been mining?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll worry.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll worry.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll worry.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll check.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the irony, though, of the squats, is they actually had more models than space marines during the rogue trader era.

[SPEAKER_01]: They even had chaos squats at one point.

[SPEAKER_01]: A close to 150 models were available in the catalog.

[SPEAKER_01]: the primary sellers, though, being the squads on bike.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Matt, to say on trikes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much, and trikes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's true.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I will give the vote 10 line credit.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at the bikes and the trikes, and then you look at the, it's a pioneers, there's some serious homage there, without looking at it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they were also, you take that back.

[SPEAKER_01]: They looked terrible, bud.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like this, the squat tech priest looks mildly.

[SPEAKER_01]: The squat terminators looked horrible.

[SPEAKER_01]: The squat with power acts with the giant beard and a hair.

[SPEAKER_01]: You had cypress squats, everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: The only place we saw in actual growth of squats with data sheets and rules though is the game called epic, which is now, today they call it legionus imperialists.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've re-released this game like four times.

[SPEAKER_00]: Epic was cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: Epic's for large, huge, large scale battles where you include titans.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that you have land raiders or what?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think 10 millimeters.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, so as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: The scale, too much, and we're talking about Lee Johnson Perry, Alice, is the scale of 40k is what's called 28 millimeter.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's its base size.

[SPEAKER_01]: Epic is six millimeters.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what Epic allows you to do is have really big stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: The squats fill into that pretty well, because the squats were kind of like the orcs that they had these especially giant machine engines.

[SPEAKER_01]: They would build and all this stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was well written, but the game never really took off.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was very minimal.

[SPEAKER_01]: as I said, this question never got their codex.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then in July of 2004, GW officially killed them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And with a dear John letter, but it was a nice dear John letter.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they, no, whatever.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gave a [SPEAKER_00]: Talladega nights, we both know this has been over for a long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: I did not know.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the reason I like the letter is the letter does call a bunch of good stuff out.

[SPEAKER_01]: They call out the fact that the squads were not being killed off because they didn't sell because the squads did sell.

[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't miss out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were killed in the squads off because they weren't spaced wars.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were kind of a joke and this was a problem, GW could not.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right rules for them and could not make a functioning faction for them at the time and so they decided it was better to kill them off Then to keep making kind of silly models for lack of a better phrase and we can talk more about that later But some of these models really were more of a joke than something serious if you actually looked at what they were they were way too over the top in the way they were designed And so that's what they had a lot of the rules that the Italians have and stuff like that funky stuff [SPEAKER_01]: and we'll cover this when we begin to vote and but the idea of space dwarves just like fantasy dwarves is that they're not they're comedic but they're serious and that was the challenge that when you guys can read the letter you can find it's very it's out there it's well written that was the challenge that GW found is that your spook dwarves are supposed to have a little bit of comedic relief but they're supposed to be serious and strong and the squats were much more comedic relief than anything else.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all I'm saying because of that, I now have a line in my book of grudges, yes, fantasy players.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that they let this go until 2000, it took them 20 years.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is like a hay band.

[SPEAKER_00]: We should go back to the drawing, but we'll probably have something in the next year, too, or 20.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, look, I'll call out what really happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: The internet kind of got there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously it was invented really this.

[SPEAKER_01]: broad access to email came around and like the late 90s, but more so early zeros, my expectation is they were just getting inundated, nonstop with emails of where the squats, where the squats were, the squats, and finally were like, all right, we have to do something about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can't just ignore it anymore, that's my theory, I could be wrong, but that's my theory.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, with all that out of the way, let's dive into the actual lore that the squats had when they existed.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm doing it this way because I want you all to hear this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's more fun to do it this way.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then we did the Votane, let the listers compare and contrast the two.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, we'll start off with the squats were a subspecies of humanity that represented some of the first intergalactic settlers.

[SPEAKER_01]: When mankind first figure out how to travel beyond your solar system, so on the dawn of the golden age of technology, using really the first warp drives, these early settlers went out to the galactic core, which is just for the right of segmentum solar.

[SPEAKER_01]: On the other side of something, if you look at a map and what's one of the pretty good maps?

[SPEAKER_00]: What are my favorite parts about this is where they start the sentiment in the first place is where we don't go as much today, [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because we're gonna get into it because the place sucks so I mean, so there's a super massive black hole You act like that's ruining property values drawn.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am don't understand you can just go through that It's not a big deal.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's so close to the beach.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's good [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let's talk about the galactic club.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the galactic core is 26,000 light years away.

[SPEAKER_01]: There is to Brad's point, a super massive black hole there that has according to my research, thank you Google, a mass of 4 million times.

[SPEAKER_00]: Chad, one hand on his phone, one hand on a drink, and I'm going to re-change 100% drink from whiskey while doing this.

[SPEAKER_01]: I write these things at night.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it was cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: It does a black hole there that has the density of 4 million of our sons.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's probably not ideal.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's also a nightmarish place in density.

[SPEAKER_01]: So all of the sons are incredibly close together.

[SPEAKER_01]: The earth sits in what's called the solar neighborhood in our galaxy.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the solar neighborhood, there's 0.14 stars per cubic parsec.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what a cubic parsec is, but I can do math of 0.14.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, rock that castle around though.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, on the flip side and the galactic core [SPEAKER_00]: But I'll let you guys know, that's more.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I believe, I'm going to get railed on this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if I'm wrong, I believe that's a multiple of a hundred million in debt.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought you were going to try to say multiplicative.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when you're continuing on, no.

[SPEAKER_00]: most worlds and I thought it was excited for this, the chance.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know better.

[SPEAKER_01]: Most worlds in the galactic core are large and dense, giving them many multiples of gravity above that of Earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: You also have numerous sons all over the place causing gravity wells and really messing with what would be traditional navigation.

[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of the worlds even write this never experienced darkness because there's too many sons, which does two fun things.

[SPEAKER_01]: One makes it too hot to sustain life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And two, like two is really important, which is the whole fact that, hey, there might not be water.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, also there's definitely a whole lot of radiation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like a lot of...

I'm gonna shake that off, John.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look, if you get a little SPF 50 million, you just slather that on, you're bringing a couple of cantines to water, and you basically work out a little bit more to counteract the gravity that's probably five to 10 times more on some of these birds, and you're fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you keep back what this is in a great place.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that's gonna help you too much when you're talking about both riots, blue stars, these things are going to wreck you.

[SPEAKER_01]: So not great place to be.

[SPEAKER_01]: The truth is, hide stuff that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing should be here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like nothing should be here.

[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, how over?

[SPEAKER_00]: Scratch this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but this is sci-fi.

[SPEAKER_01]: So all of the stuff I just told you about this area, a lot of that's from NASA and science, but we're not talking about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about Warhammer 40K and it's sci-fi.

[SPEAKER_01]: So let's enjoy.

[SPEAKER_01]: So let's go with how the GW views the galactic core.

[SPEAKER_01]: According to GW, and this is a fun way to look at it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a densely packed area of worlds that are light years full of raw materials.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so the GW leaned into the fantasy dwarf trope and designed the squads, being space miners and borrowers who would go out there and [SPEAKER_01]: Harvest these difficult worlds because they could handle the adversity and the strength.

[SPEAKER_01]: Another fun thing is the squads are both part of the Imperium and not part of the Imperium.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because the squads don't aren't necessarily part of the Imperium, they actually have their own calendar events.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the first mark in the calendar for the squads is what's called the age of founding.

[SPEAKER_01]: The age of founding is around M20, and this is when the first colonists arrived in the Galactic Corps.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what they found there was the richest area in minerals in the galaxy, enough to build a civilization on.

[SPEAKER_01]: And thanks to technology they had available, they were able to colonize the planets sort of.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I say sort of, because this is looking one of the key parts in the squads contemplator.

[SPEAKER_01]: Man kind could terraform, but within reason.

[SPEAKER_01]: These planets are getting as we just said, bombarded with radiation, heat, gravity distortion.

[SPEAKER_01]: Surface was never going to be livable.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I love them doing this though, because they set it up specific.

[SPEAKER_00]: I like this writing on this because of the fact that what would a dwarf do, a dwarf would dig down, hey, the surface is messed up, there's still a bunch of mining to be done.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't we just live underground where the radiation's not?

[SPEAKER_01]: The squats actually use the crust of the earth as a shield against the onslaught basically from the stars.

[SPEAKER_01]: During this time, by the way, they weren't really squats.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were still humans.

[SPEAKER_01]: Probably having a horrible time trying to breathe and walk around and a planet with four times gravity of Earth, they'll fix that later.

[SPEAKER_01]: During this time, though, the world's the galactic core became incredibly wealthy.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were trading back with the other parts of the galaxy and this mineral wealth made them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was just saying, the fact that they have all of these very rare minerals that they have piles, scrooge, big duck levels, piles of, make them wildly.

[SPEAKER_00]: rich and they become very technological, highly technologically advanced in because they can bought, they can afford everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they get everything that they can at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: will be right back after a quick break.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this also pays dividends because they're able to trade this mineral wealth for technologic wealth and they become not only wealthy but also a highly advanced race, which is going to be very important coming up.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because the next in that comes is what they call the Age of Isolation.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is when the warp storms do to the fall of the Eldar, starting golfing the galaxy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Initially, it was worse for the squads, because they're density of worlds, but they're all pretty damn close to each other, and warp storms are bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which sometimes you get things like, I don't know, a storm that just sucks multiple worlds into the warp.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a really bummer of a day when you go, hi, hi, hi, hi, it's off to work we go, and then instead it's off to the warp we go, that's a rough day.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it definitely sucked.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now that being said, obviously all contact with Tara was severed, but not with each other, because flip side of them all being close together is that with faster than light drives, they can still get around and actually continue trading.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the squat home world had this kind of advantage because they were so close to each other that [SPEAKER_01]: they were able to trade.

[SPEAKER_01]: Also, the worlds were initially so inhospitable that all the structures were underground, which made them very secure and very diverse.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they're also super fortified in the first place.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they can kind of weather most anything because they fortified them for underground.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's like an opportunistic pirate or some zino where to come by looking to steal supplies, they got wiped out real quick.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, this leads a bit further into the squats look around and realize that they're on their own, and they end up building their own empire, which is called the engineer's guild.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because the squats never formed a formal government.

[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, it was a trade federation.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, the careful Naboo.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to show up.

[SPEAKER_00]: The death toll is catastrophic.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: All the worlds were independent from one another, but over time they became a line over mutual goals of trader commerce.

[SPEAKER_01]: So for those who don't know what combat means, I do, which is where I can pronounce that, but can't pronounce words in English.

[SPEAKER_01]: GW with a Montesquieu and Thomas Payne for the win.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, I like economics.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do like this because of the fact that they became hugely successful, I'm not really sure why I put a shadow pause in there, they became hugely successful because of the fact that they had so many supplies that were key to technology.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they could continue to build technology even though the fact that they were cut off from the rest of the imperial, because they still had all of the raw materials to continue to advance.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because a lot of these worlds, when we had all these warp storms, became cut off and became barbaric, we went back to medieval times and stuff like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: The squads kept going.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think a lot that is this jokamera is what happens is the squads don't turn on each other.

[SPEAKER_01]: The thing that does come up a lot during the Dark Age of Technology, it wasn't just rogue psychers.

[SPEAKER_01]: This comes up rising up and taking plants over.

[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, who became warlords, who became kings, conquering and killing off other planets, because they didn't really have a community that they're a part of, where the squads did.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, as a result coming out of this, the squads are in a good spot.

[SPEAKER_01]: Another key part of this era though, and it's not written down, but it's kind of implied.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is when the squads became the squads.

[SPEAKER_01]: throughout other writings we've seen on Dark Age of Technology, genetic engineering, and biomechanics were a common place thing, because by the way, you can't evolve in like a thousand years.

[SPEAKER_01]: We don't, nothing evolves that quickly.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this squats all of a sudden.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was saying, Fabius and Euryl have something to say about.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who said you could do it?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm naturally, but the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, well, well, well, well, you give a couple, a couple specific people a thousand years.

[SPEAKER_00]: They'll get some stuff done.

[SPEAKER_00]: What would you like the people to look like?

[SPEAKER_00]: You can have ostrich feet if you want to.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll go.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we can make this happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: So my expectation is that during this time, the squats begin messing with their genetics to actually make themselves shorter with much thicker bones, denser muscle tissue.

[SPEAKER_01]: This way, they could both live underground more comfortably, but also could withstand the gravity of the worlds they were on.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you are also more efficient.

[SPEAKER_01]: It just made more sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: but eventually the warped storms began to abate and the galactic core kind of doesn't really resemble what was there before.

[SPEAKER_01]: Before it was a bunch of independent mining colonies who had been training back with Terra, now there's an empire there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the next terror.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's also a society that hasn't had to conform and or interact with regular imperial society.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and they still don't for a while, [SPEAKER_01]: age we get into is the age of trait.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the one that started off real well and then to kind of crappy.

[SPEAKER_01]: So after the age of isolation, the squats enter the age of trait.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is before the imperium of mankind, exited the age of strife, because the warp terms were abating here, but we're not fully abated.

[SPEAKER_01]: And mankind still had to get into the unification worse.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they had to even begun this.

[SPEAKER_01]: The mechanical may have started pushing out at this [SPEAKER_00]: They're already they do the very hazy in the lore, but the mechanic has at least sent out sorties all over the place because we get a lot of the mechanic coming new about this or that very early.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but we also should point out that the mechanic in the lore is about 15 to 20 years after the squat lore was written.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I was like, yeah, we're talking to a lot of this stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say something here about the squats.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is their lower, be able to say, well, no, because man, can this, that lower was written 20, 30 years after this squat lower?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just trying to do pure squat lower here.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, what are my favorites about this?

[SPEAKER_00]: They start trading and they start training with, well, check all.

[SPEAKER_00]: For whatever reason, the squats just decided, hey, man, if you want to trade, we're open for business.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of their calls were questionable.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so let the two main groups they traded with were Orcs and Eldar.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now the Eldar, good point.

[SPEAKER_01]: Real good call.

[SPEAKER_01]: Orcs, her.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's nothing written down about this about how successful the trade was.

[SPEAKER_01]: It just Orcs trades always interesting because Orcs technology only works for Orcs.

[SPEAKER_00]: So how many teeth, how many teeth do you give them for something?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm sure you think I'm sure it was shiny thing for shiny thing because you probably did have orcs that had looted a black stone fortress.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it's stuff is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you had just went, you get a set of tires for it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're like, all right cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, like these tires and the probably they're lucky.

[SPEAKER_00]: They told me they were lucky tires.

[SPEAKER_01]: It also put those tires on a spaceship and actually make it faster.

[SPEAKER_01]: So to be fair, like it actually is what's in the right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is a griff.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they've just traded in red paint.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's all it was.

[SPEAKER_01]: What's traded in red paint for everything in the Blackstone fortress?

[SPEAKER_01]: Done.

[SPEAKER_01]: I see, and there's so proud of that deal afterwards, by the way.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, guys, you have to love works.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the Eldar trading is a bit more important.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Eldar at this era are a broken species.

[SPEAKER_01]: Slanesh has been born.

[SPEAKER_01]: She is consumed 90% of their race.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in effect, I believe every planet.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think any planet survived the birth of Slanesh.

[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't believe that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not in the Eldar core, they haven't.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got, you've already have the exudites.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got a lot of other people out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so you didn't have those, the elder cores were, you know, it's the core where everything was, so the elder have lost everything, they also haven't invented soul stones yet, so they're also incredibly exposed, so you think about you spent 60 years as almost in civil, well, well, all right, 60, 60, 60 million million, I mean, they're almost the same they're just, you know, potato potato, [SPEAKER_01]: Fair enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So 60 million years as invincible and all living and now you get a hang nail and it gets infected and slenish gets to eat your soul.

[SPEAKER_01]: It seems we're just not ideal.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the Eldar desperately needed raw materials and what they had a bunch of technologies.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a recipe for success.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Eldar and the Squats become very friendly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Squat spend time on elder craft roads, elder routinely seen wandering around Squat.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure ducking pretty heavily.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, in this though, squats end up using a ton of elder technology in their basic designs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and one of my favorite things about that is it's called out in one of the books that when the squats make contact with the Imperium and the Imperium comes and looks at the squat homeworlds, the hydroponic plants that were they got from the Eldar were the most efficient food source the Imperium had ever seen and actually ever do see it's never been improved beyond this level.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now that humanity contact ours mentioned isn't coming for a bit because we have a middle bit we have to get to.

[SPEAKER_01]: fun thing about Orcs, they're not a monolith.

[SPEAKER_01]: You could trade with some Orcs, and because those ones are interested in trading with you, others will leave you alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the majority of Orcs were out to do good fight, baby.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what happens next.

[SPEAKER_01]: For the next 3,000 years, the Orcs and the Squats go to war with each other.

[SPEAKER_01]: Two main things matter about this era.

[SPEAKER_01]: First off, [SPEAKER_01]: the Eldar are horrible people.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Love the Eldar is a faction that Brad and I love to play.

[SPEAKER_01]: Brad, because the turbo-dork blikes being space elves, because he's like, thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, meant to say, ultra-turbo-dork.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because you love your high fantasy elves, because they're all the same to old-wise.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I know how much you love them.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not as big a fan of elves and I'm actually an all-my-dean.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a problem that if you're not in health, [SPEAKER_00]: The elves don't really care about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because I play Eldar mostly in 40K because I enjoy how they play in the tabletop.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think they're a blight on the galaxy.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're incredibly selfish and cool if I'm being honest.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they did break the sky.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's in all of their solutions since breaking this guy involved kind of rebraaking this guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: What if we just everyone dies?

[SPEAKER_01]: And then our one god kills the god that we made because we roll jerks.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's a really good option.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're just that an elf, all their solutions involve them.

[SPEAKER_01]: So as this orconvasion began, the squads turned to their elder friends.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, hey, can you help us out with this?

[SPEAKER_01]: And the elder would turn with either straight to voicemail or a text of new phone who this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was more like, hey, I could, but I got to wash my hair.

[SPEAKER_01]: Super busy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Super busy.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got a migraine actually for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: That actually sounds like a legitimate thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I would go with I'm washing my hair.

[SPEAKER_01]: Actually the funny thing is if you were to say to me, I can't have a migraine at my response, but you always Yes, sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like whatever.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen you miserable.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just go.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like you're fine.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the next 3,000 years, the squads and orcs, find countless battles all across a squad empire.

[SPEAKER_00]: And which is super funny because of the fact that this actually started off as a kind of good battle, but orcs come to where the battle is.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they just kept showing up.

[SPEAKER_01]: And a final battle occurs between Grunhug, the flare, and it tried to destroy the squad homeworld.

[SPEAKER_01]: and the squats make their final stand and both sides take just catastrophic losses.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it does end the conflict for the orcs.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was enough loss that they said, I don't want to bother with it anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's the worst.

[SPEAKER_00]: Forest gumped it and said, you know, I'm pretty tired.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going home.

[SPEAKER_00]: However for the squads, they have lost many worlds, which were the things keeping them with their very, your foric sense of awesome, everybody's together.

[SPEAKER_00]: We lose that because they lose a lot of their ability to make things.

[SPEAKER_00]: They also lose a lot of raw materials.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so in squat lore, write up through M41 because squats do exist through M41.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're still trying to reclaim and find these lost worlds because remember, they live below ground.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not like you can just fly past and go, oh, hey, I can see an old settlement.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have to go down and actually look, all right, where did they dig the hole?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like looking up that cross.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would argue the greatest legacy of the wars with the orcs is that the squads learned and not trust anyone ever again.

[SPEAKER_01]: The squads have been trading hard for.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they've been trading with the orcs and got attacked.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've been trading with the Eldar and the Eldar left them alone.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the squads become a very much independent group and focus more heavily on them saying thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what you're going with.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but it goes beyond that because it's not xenophobic.

[SPEAKER_01]: The squads don't want to kill off all the others You know, that's why I don't think it's xenophobic.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think they still have a very well, yeah I mean, he's the ultimate on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: They still want people to leave them alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: They do standard dwarf stuff And they want yeah leave me alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not trying to actively stop get harm you, but also go on get [SPEAKER_00]: I don't need you out here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, all this quads went to his trade and then go back to their worlds.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're not going to make alliances or any of this stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that can only last so long because eventually, [SPEAKER_01]: comes the age of rediscovery as it's called, and the age of the Imperium.

[SPEAKER_01]: So near the end of the age of war, the first parts of the Imperium begin to arrive, namely the Mechanicum, who lose their effing minds when they see what the squads have.

[SPEAKER_01]: The squads have STCs just lying around, like unused.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're like, oh, that, it's next to the toaster, whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: it's actually throw one in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we have five of them find go ahead and the period arrives shortly thereafter and recognize the squads as former human colonists and given their high levels of technology, their incredible mineral assets, the imperium requests that they join the imperium.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's also big on the right away though, they do have a little bit of, oh, is this going to be completely accepted, because you got to remember, they have STC's, they have high tech, but they also just have Eldar tech stuff down to the end of that STC stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but let's talk about the more important piece.

[SPEAKER_01]: The squad said no.

[SPEAKER_01]: That would actually happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: A resounding no.

[SPEAKER_01]: A resounding no.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're not joining you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the Imperium did with the Imperium like so in those situations, which was fine.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll do it by force.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the submarines, which didn't go well.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here's how well it, here's how unwell it went.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mark II power armor became Mark III power armor because of the squats.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had to reinforce the front of the armor because it couldn't handle fighting in the squat worlds because it was so cramped and the squat weaponry was just blasting through it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Mark III power armor is basically Mark II power armor [SPEAKER_00]: in the front because you kept getting shot while you're crawling through tunnels.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this quads do, and though this is back when they had really good lore around them, had psychotic weaponry.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give them the Votan have it to a point in the current lore.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but it wasn't as cool as this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: They could break apart planets for their mining.

[SPEAKER_01]: So their weapons could do the same thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll get to some of the more omages from that area coming later.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've like, [SPEAKER_01]: killed them off.

[SPEAKER_00]: GSC ended up getting a lot of the old squad weapons, by the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: They did well.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a good point.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Using the mining weapons and all that stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_01]: So eventually these two settled in.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's never really clear how this conflict ended.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's mentioned in some of the early codex.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a little bit as being a thing, but there's no, oh yeah, then on this date, there was a peace treaty.

[SPEAKER_01]: Squats in the Imperium are interesting to me because the original squat lower went through M41.

[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of what we're about to get into here is going to make you turn your head and go wait.

[SPEAKER_01]: What?

[SPEAKER_01]: And you're correct until 2004 in which case you're like, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Are we going to, you know, I got to get my cheating together?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because the first thing the Ethereum does is give the squads a classification.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's still free to say what it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Homosapiens rotundus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Really?

[SPEAKER_01]: Really?

[SPEAKER_01]: Which translates to move?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, dick move.

[SPEAKER_01]: So spherical humans, that's that is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not cool, bro.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, homosapium diminutum would actually have been better, I think.

[SPEAKER_01]: But upon joining the Imperium with heavy air quotes, the squads were more of an independent entity, not that dissimilar from the Mechanicum.

[SPEAKER_01]: They did provide the Imperial Tithe, both troops and supplies.

[SPEAKER_01]: They did share technology with the Imperium.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mostly the Mechanicum.

[SPEAKER_00]: You got to say, you got to air quotes that too, though, because they did...

[SPEAKER_01]: They kind of share technology.

[SPEAKER_01]: They share technology and they share technology to them because we just mentioned they had so many STCs.

[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't give over the STC.

[SPEAKER_01]: They made the Galaxy's most powerful plasma cannon.

[SPEAKER_01]: They gave over the one that made light brown toast.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the mechanical was still happy about the light brown toast STC drive.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, man, you know, maybe so sad if I just got right now got the perfect toast STC.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: What a bummer.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: For actually silly.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't eat the toast.

[SPEAKER_00]: I get the perfect toast.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly what I can eat.

[SPEAKER_01]: We invented this bread maker and it makes the bread only the way that you like your bread.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you can just stare at it and listen to your stomach go, don't do it, Brad.

[SPEAKER_01]: It will hurt full of hatred and anger right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in exchange for this, the squads got to keep being squads.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were not under any rule or guidance of the Imperium.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were a fully self-governed sector with no known imperial oversight.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were spies, obviously, but there was no planetary governor.

[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't have to report to anybody.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also, they don't have an imperial truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, imperial truth or imperial cult, because remember, they stayed part of the Imperium for 10,000 years.

[SPEAKER_01]: they were not part of the imperial truth.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then later, they were not part of the imperial cult, because the squads actually have their own religion.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in their religion, sort of a religion, they believe that the living ancestors, yeah, I like it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the idea that your living form is the bond between your ancestors and your, I don't know, pre-sisters is probably a name for yet to be born children that I can't think of.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll thought in my head.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm a sister of you, or a year of the predecessor of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I guess you're, I don't know, I'm going to get this in discord.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: It advanced everybody.

[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So a squat.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is important because the way squat society work was you perform an action to gain honor.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then in death, you join your ancestors and their actions and your actions and all that honor bestowed upon your offspring who then take on after that.

[SPEAKER_00]: and you got to open up the book of grudges because you are tirelessly, tirelessly, that can't talk tirelessly trying to redeem and revenge any blights, besmirched to your honor that are on there.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are [SPEAKER_00]: focused on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and there is a reason that the current vote had had a grudge system for what they did.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're gonna see some of those of you who already know the vote landlord very well are probably catching some of the stuff that became an homage to the vote hand later.

[SPEAKER_01]: When I like about this, but at this era, this whole, it wasn't really the grudges.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was more your honor, was more similar to me to what space wolves are.

[SPEAKER_01]: In this sense that it's like, I want everyone to know of my epic deeds and my epic abilities and all of this stuff in.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of my, obviously, space wolves don't have all spring, but in the case of the squads, all of my offspring will then sing the praises of their ancestors, but how great they were.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is that, but I think they're saying, [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but also I think that they're singing more about the fact of that guy 200 years ago did something to us, and then we brain is off spring.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's all it's got.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's definitely also that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, upon joining the Imperium, obviously, the squats would end up joining the Imperial Guard, and they were a very highly valued asset of war, just like the Rattlings and the Ogrin.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, actually, the Rattlings are, for Rattlings are trickier, what actually I'm being asked.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Rattlings aren't as appreciated by the other Imperogardsman, but the Ogrin are just so stupid.

[SPEAKER_00]: Scary in here.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, it took me a second, but...

[SPEAKER_01]: What is happening, unfortunately, to the squads, is this part of their lore of them joining the Imperial Guard, being an asset to the Imperial Military, is kind of what did them in, from GW having to write them out of the game, because they had to give them models, and what they gave them were squads on bikes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Tricks!

[SPEAKER_01]: This, yeah, this didn't end.

[SPEAKER_01]: These things kind of looked cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the models were called the RT305.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's because it was the rogue trader in the code of 305 that you used to buy them.

[SPEAKER_01]: They regularly bike in space rings and orgs have, but they just had a tric with a dude in the back with an assault cannon.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had you like really, ever the handlebars are way up.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had a monkey bars on them.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Aepangers.

[SPEAKER_01]: They kept.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Aepangers.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had an extra long wheel basis.

[SPEAKER_01]: They looked kind of dumb.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the idea was that they would use their fast bikes to assist in battle and they'd go around their giant war machines.

[SPEAKER_01]: which were never made, they never got a model.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and then, yeah, they did reference their giant war machines all at the time and had zero models.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they weren't, they were in epic.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they did have them in epic, but they never, I'm saying, it's never in 40, okay?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: What I think also did them in was the Terminator Armor, which, let's look at our line, either, that's Violet from Willy Wonka after she has the Blueberry Pie.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, she definitely had the beat.

[SPEAKER_01]: these these things they were heinous they were if you haven't seen them look them up they're a bulbous model that looked like you took I think snowman with guns is probably the closest I'd say they were bad I love the bikes but the terminator armor was dumb it just dumb it was just it was two circles they had ahead a middle and two feet at the end yeah it [SPEAKER_01]: Now, I will say on the, they also had chaos to deal with, which is kind of funny.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the coolest parts of the line of this era was the chaos squats, which were regular squats.

[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, not with black goaties, which would have been way better.

[SPEAKER_01]: They just gave them the horns on their helmets, but I wish, instead, they just didn't take in the entire squat line and it's given them all a go-tique, because that would have been the worst.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had to do it in fantasy at the time, they had up cast wars and regular breakfast.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what I did like though is that the chaos squats are ones who had joined the Imperium and then during the Horus Heresy had sided with Horus.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's really cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, some of the backstory here is incredible that the squats had their own civil war during the Horus Heresy.

[SPEAKER_01]: At the conclusion of the Horus Heresy, those squats also fled into the eye of terror with the rest of the traders to be granted the gifts of chaos and then [SPEAKER_00]: If they would only bring them back, cash tourists would be great and for nothing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, it'd be super cool.

[SPEAKER_00]: But, and everybody, I just want to throw this out there because I've seen a ton of the comments.

[SPEAKER_00]: I also agree they should bring Skavin into 40K.

[SPEAKER_01]: Be hard to do, but yeah, it'd be fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it'd be hard to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, but as we said before, these models and some of this stuff, this was just chaotic.

[SPEAKER_01]: By the time GW writing had the squads all the way up to the 41st millennia, it is anarchistic.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've got chaos squads.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have squads in Terminator armor, but there's no place for the squads in Terminator armor to be because they're not space marine.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's actually makes sense to even have them.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've got the biker squads who don't make any sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a whole mess.

[SPEAKER_01]: and GW decides just it's time we're going to take him out of the game.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what they did was, they had two choices.

[SPEAKER_01]: One pretend they never exist.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the other option is from a punk band I like called The Vandals, they have a great song called My Girlfriend's Dead.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the song goes, I once had a girlfriend, but one day she left me and everywhere I went, people would ask me where she was.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to talk about her, but people always ask about her, so I told them all she's dead.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's basically what she does.

[SPEAKER_00]: You said me the notes.

[SPEAKER_00]: I really thought you were going to try to sing the vandal side with now the way you supported.

[SPEAKER_01]: I do not have a voice for singing.

[SPEAKER_01]: I barely have a voice.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what they did.

[SPEAKER_01]: At some point in M41, tears at high feet behemoth is entering the galaxy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for whatever reason, one of the main splinters of the 10-year-old bear down directly on the core of the galaxy, and it hit the squads with full force.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the squads were able to defeat the tyrannids, but at the cost of their homeworld and their surrounding system, and what was left was a broken species.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have no homeworlds, no centralized government, and they became a minor race in the galaxy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Get it?

[SPEAKER_01]: that the imperium seeing them broken and weak sees on the opportunity and annexed what was left of their civilization still may be challenging the Koreans basically because they just go out into space.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it because the period wiped them out all the way.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying they they become this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: They become this war band.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you go out?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think less Koreans though, because when I think of the Koreans.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the Koreans are staying fleet.

[SPEAKER_00]: They don't.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the few do stay in the Imperial Guard, but they end up dying off because there's only although squads did live for 300 or something years.

[SPEAKER_01]: I forgot to throw that in here.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was in the lore.

[SPEAKER_01]: But for the most part, the squads in the lore become a, oh yeah, you'll see a few here and there.

[SPEAKER_01]: They might be serving on a merchant spaceship.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of them are working with crews on planets doing mining, but they're best at.

[SPEAKER_01]: the squads die out of the game right around 4th edition in 2004.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the books released after that point, there's no reference to them whatsoever or very minimal until 2012.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, until 2012.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we eight years later, in the sixth edition codex, they just mentioned the squads stating the squads are an abhuman race recognized by the imperium as members of the [SPEAKER_01]: This is a minimal nothing thing and people got really excited about the eminent release of the squads.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody did think that squads were coming back 100%.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they were a decade.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll get there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then they did a, now I'm going to let you do this because this one gets Brad heated because they did a momentary retcon in [SPEAKER_01]: No, the damn Irish were cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: The damn Irish were super cool in the war.

[SPEAKER_00]: Fine, but they weren't with, I'm sorry.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was lame and what they were trying to do with the red gun.

[SPEAKER_00]: If they were just, oh, you go ahead.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me defend GW in the situation.

[SPEAKER_01]: GW's problem is that they always wanted to bring the squads back and they never could figure out how to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there were a lot of little attempts where you could see it would appear in a writing here or there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, maybe a squads going back and everyone's all the squads are back and they kept trying different methods.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Demiorg or Demiorg, we go with Demiorg, we're one of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Battlefield Gothic, tabletop space combat game, it's good, it's not great, the video game's good, but candidly I would just play X-wing if I wanted to play a intergalactic space model game.

[SPEAKER_01]: it's better.

[SPEAKER_01]: So in the lore of Battlefield Gothic, there's a race called the Demyric, and there are nomatic race of traders and miners, and they have these incredibly powerful ships.

[SPEAKER_01]: I actually don't think they're, I don't believe they're a playable race.

[SPEAKER_01]: They would come into an area and they would mind basically a planet all the way off and then would go sell all those pieces to everybody.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've been spotted trading with a towel quite a bit, which comes into lore later.

[SPEAKER_01]: They also would engage with road traders who would not tell the empire in their trading with them because they then were very much so Zenos.

[SPEAKER_01]: Eventually, though, we're talking description of the demyork, which is short, stocky, and their doors.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they basically go, hey, what do they look like?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to describe them to you, but what I'm going to skip ahead to is say they look like dwarfs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so people immediately call this happening at GW.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, these are squats and GW to their credit just kept quiet.

[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't have a cunning plan yet, but they knew that this was a way for them to keep the door open to doing something in the future.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fast forward, a little bit, with a launch of Votan, it was officially changed.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Demiere were a splinter of the Votan.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to dive into that right now, we'll do that next week, but that retcon for the record wasn't that clean.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't square peg round hole retcon, but it definitely wasn't a square peg in a square hole.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of canon conflict that comes out of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Luckily, not a lot of you'll play Battlefield Gothic, so who knew?

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, [SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna jump ahead a little bit further now, 2017.

[SPEAKER_01]: GW re-releases the game, Necramunda.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a really fun game, if you guys like skirmish battles with really cool models.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's all aliens and ad humans as members of different crimes into kits trying to get control the bottom floor of Necramunda High of City.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in 2018, out of nowhere, Necromanda added two models.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, not the same time.

[SPEAKER_01]: One than the other, and they say, Grindel, Grindel, Grindel said, and the Ragnar Gunstein.

[SPEAKER_01]: These names are terrible, but that's a side note.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone, they sell out on release, by the way, and you could not get them.

[SPEAKER_01]: They would say, so don't release.

[SPEAKER_01]: GW made more those sold out.

[SPEAKER_01]: This, these were the hottest selling model for like a couple years.

[SPEAKER_01]: You could not find it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, the internet went.

[SPEAKER_00]: Squats will be out in next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'll be right there every day ready every three to four months.

[SPEAKER_01]: Someone told everyone on the internet that they have a cousin's friends, uncles, brother who works at GW and is confirmed the squats are coming out later this year and they did that for four years until.

[SPEAKER_01]: April 1st, 2022.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this actually, I still remember this because it wasn't that long ago, it was quite funny.

[SPEAKER_01]: On April Fool's Day, GW announces that the squats are coming back as a fully playable faction.

[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone got really pissed off because they were like stop messing with us.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not funny.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is all I ever wanted, giving my squats back.

[SPEAKER_01]: And on April 2nd, GW dropped the hammer with videos, high-res photos, and everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was no joke.

[SPEAKER_01]: Squats are back.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sort of because they're actually about to say they're actually the vote and and their Lord doesn't line up very well But that's not important, but that's the break guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is what I wanted to get through today I wanted to get through what are the squats?

[SPEAKER_01]: Who are the squats?

[SPEAKER_01]: What was the squat?

[SPEAKER_01]: Lord because trying to do them in vote and the same time is kind of impossible because it just it would be too confusing to follow it all So the idea is you know where the squats are the squats were humans [SPEAKER_01]: who had settled the core of the galaxy, got isolated for a little bit, changed the genetics a little bit, and then joined the empiric, and it's just a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: Did they join the Imperium and were part of the Imperium until it tiered its eighth them all?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what you have to remember for next week, because next week we're getting to the Votan, and thankfully we have two codexes, a novel, and a couple white dwarves to actually get pretty deep into the Votan lore.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if it gives you W a lot of credit, I think they did a good job of taking the good parts of the squats and bringing it into Votan, and then just pretending the bad parts never existed, which is going to annoy a lot of players who love the squats and read the squats, but I think for newer players get some out of some of the bind that was the squats.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's my opinion.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll let you all have your opinion once we cover the Votan next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: This has been John Barsadian, Brad Chester.

[SPEAKER_01]: This guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: See you guys then.