Main Menu

News:

If you are having problems registering, please e-mail theconclaveforum at gmail.com

Plas Steel and Adamantium?

Started by Adlan, September 02, 2009, 10:44:00 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Tullio

#75
I'm more prepared to accept linguistic and social explanations for both materials, personally. Adamantium in contemporary langauge is more or less synonymous with "super-hard-mega-metal", even though it is indeed derived from Latin. Same goes for Plasteel - I think we're all in agreement that whoever invented the metal had no intention of creating a name that alluded to any industrial process in particular - thus I'm prepared to let the name go as a 40K linguisitic anomaly.

The social development and regression of a people is routinely overlooked in science fiction and fantasy alike - mostly, I suppose, because people would rather believe that the spear creates the society rather than the other way around - and in this case is probably more relevant to our discussion than anything else, as Dosdamt pointed out. Philosophically speaking, we can only guess at how such weapons as the Bolter, Flamer etc might work, given that the definition of knowledge as "justified true belief" forces one to accept that knowledge today might not be knowlegde tomorrow.

Blimey, that was a mouthful


Tullio

DapperAnarchist

Oh, JTB... how you irritate me. :) Just because I have to deal with Gettier...

When it comes to terminology, I do wonder why people are bothered by oddities in terminology, as if all of our words are totally consistent - there are loads of conflicts of differing usage or multiple words, often from the approach being different now to how it was then. "Random" has a particular meaning in mathematics - but in the case of "Rowntree's Randoms", the word is now a synonym for "arbitrary" or "unexpected". This much annoys the mathematicians of my aquaintance. Or "Hag". Would any of you call a lovely young woman a hag? Shakespeare would have. Word use and naming has more to do with social or political influence than logic. So of course in the 10000 year old, 1000000 world empire of the Imperium "plasteel" or "Adamantium" may refer to a variety of things.
Questions are a burden to others, answers a burden to oneself.

The Keltani Subsector  My P&M Thread - Most recent, INQ28!