Squat (Warhammer 40,000)

The Squats are a species that feature in Warhammer 40,000.

History

Squat

The Squat Home Worlds were colonized during the Age of Founding (known to the Imperium as the Dark Age of Technology[clarification needed]). The planets were rich in minerals and ores human civilization desperately needed, and so millions of ships full of miners and explorers were sent out. The worlds were high gravity with brutal environments. The settlers dug deep into the bedrock of the planets to survive, and so the first strongholds[1] were born.

The Age of Trade, which lasted for almost three millennia, saw a decrease in the warp storms isolating the Home Worlds. The Squats traded with the Orks and Eldar during this period. The Age of Trade was ended in an enormous attack on the Home Worlds by the Ork Warlord Grunhag the Flayer. The Squats pleaded for assistance from their Eldar trading partners, but were rebuffed. This led to the Squats' enmity against Orks and Eldar that has lasted through the Age of Wars into the current Age of Rediscovery (or Age of the Imperium). The Forces of the Great Crusade launched wars against the Squats in the belief that they were aliens, but eventually the Squats were accepted, along with other abhumans, as being human in nature. The millions of Squat Strongholds spread across their homeworlds joined the Imperium, but continued to retain their autonomy as an independent but allied empire to the Imperium.

The Ironhead Squat Prospectors came to Necromunda some 10,000 years ago as the Confederation of Urlish.

The Home Worlds maintained trade and mutual assistance with the Imperium, trading military hardware, allowing Commissar military advisors to join their armies, and sending recruits to the Adeptus Mechanicus. In the forty-first millennium, Tyranid Hive Fleet Behemoth (Citadel Journal 33; "Hundreds of years ago") threatened to sweep through the Home Worlds, capable of destroying the Squats as a power in the galaxy. The council of Ancients decided to unite with humanity to provide a unified front against the Tyranids, and the hundreds of thousands of Squat Homeworlds were integrated by the Imperium (almost tripling its official size) as DaoT protectorates over several centuries before facing off the Tyranids during the attack by Behemoth.

Although the vast majority of the Squat race joined the Imperium, a few Squats remained separated from the council and carried on independently. Some became pirates or mercenaries, others joined the Imperium.

The Squats carried grudges for millennia, and none so strongly as against the race of Orks, who betrayed the Squats on more than one occasion and inflicted many losses upon them in war.

Overview

Squats evolved from the human miners and explorers sent to reap the mineral wealth at the center of the galaxy. The high gravity environment, combined with the punishing mining conditions eventually changed their morphology. The subsequent generations became gradually shorter and stockier. The Squat Home Worlds were isolated from the rest of humanity during the Age of Isolation.[clarification needed] When they were reunited with the rest of the Imperium, wars were launched against them in the belief that they were aliens. Eventually, the Squats were accepted, along with other abhumans, as being human in nature. They are now considered a separate race, though they are fundamentally human.

The Squats do not worship the Emperor as a god, but instead (akin to most Space Marines) see him as an extremely talented and powerful mortal. The Squats have their own religion in place of the Imperium-prescribed religion: they worship their own ancestors. They believe their ancestors to be very powerful overseers of their actions, with all Squats having a chance to join them in eternal happiness and share their power to watch over still living Squats. Squats believe that the only way of being refused the chance to join the ancestors is to dishonour themselves by committing a horrible moral crime, such as murder. The souls that are turned away from the ancestors' realm are doomed to wander as ghosts, haunting the living, and urging them not to repeat their mistakes. The Imperium of Man has adopted this as a variant of the standard creed by teaching that the Squats' ancestors join with the Emperor in the celestial realm.

The Squat clans of Necromunda have mined, traded, and survived on this dangerous planet for 10,000 years, travelling the wastes in massive land trains to search for deposits of rare resources. When they locate such a dig site, these abhuman delvers settle in extract all the wealth they can plunder. Gangs of Prospectors patrol tightly-guarded excavations or scout for fresh finds in the ash wastes, armed with finely-engineered weapons and powerful mining tools rigged to serve as improvised armaments.

Known Squat forces included:

• Charter Masters : seasoned warriors who have survived and thrived, climbing the ranks until they stand at the top. Unsurprisingly, only the most veteran Squats rise to this level. Often hundreds of years old, these grizzled explorers of the wasteland are armed with the finest weapons their clan can provide. More important than their gear is their grim determination to plunder the mineral riches of Necromunda.
• Ironhead Squat Prospectors Exo-kyn : Exo-kyn wear armour based on the ancient void suits used by the ancestors of the mining clans. They provide unmatched protection against environmental hazards – something Necromunda has in abundance. While equipped for deep core mining, they are equally adept at turning their drills, claws, and saws against any hostile wildlife or aggressive gangers they might encounter.
• Ironhead Squat Prospectors : hardy folk, obdurately venturing out of their mountain fastnesses to comb the deep wastes for the treasures of times past, mining through refuse, rock, and hard-baked slurry to find old tech and raw materials to fuel their endless cycle of industry.

Squat technology is based upon the heavy mining equipment they brought with them to the Home Worlds. During their isolation from the rest of humanity, they adapted it for other uses, notably exo-armour which was engineered from heavy mining suits. Squats continued to innovate and invent while humanity sank into a Dark Age.

Squat Exo-suits are based on the void suits used long ago by their ancestors, and now employed to hunt treasure in the Necromundan ash wastes. They mine in the depths, far below the sump sea, and they’re quite happy to turn this equipment against anyone who attempts to steal their finds.

Among the armors they created included:

• Vartijan Exo-Driller : suits of rugged exo-armour were originally designed to protect Squat miners in the most hostile environments – and the ash wastes definitely qualify. They’ve been upgraded over the centuries with heavier weapons and better defences, and Prospector gangs now bring them along to fight off Ash Waste Nomads or other hostiles trying to claim the prime dig sites out in the Necromundan badlands. The Vartijan Exo-Driller is a widely-used variant, named after the legendary Squat engineer Valya Vartijan, of the Svardhol mining clan – make sure you give thanks to her every time it stomps an enemy fighter into jam. Aside from its piston-powered pulverising fist and seismic crusher, the suit’s also armed with a Squat-made heavy flamer – which can be replaced with a heavy bolter for even more serious killing potential.

Automatons used by the Squats included:

• Techmite Oculi : floating drone that follows its host trike and scouts for targets. These advanced machines can travel much further from their controllers than similar automatons and are usually employed to hunt down entrenched enemies before transmitting accurate targeting data back to their owners.

As a result, the Squats have developed technologies such as neo-plasma and warp cores far in advance of anything the Imperium owns. Some Squat technologies were absorbed into the Imperium, especially tunneling vehicles and weaponry such as the Termite.

Vehicles used by the Squats included:

• Svenotar Scout Trikes : rugged, dependable, and alarmingly fast, the Svenotar Scout Trike is light reconnaissance vehicle used by the Ironhead Squat Prospectors to roam ahead of the mining clans. Twin-linked weapons help them fend off rival gangs and their vehicles, while Techmite Oculi buzz alongside them, helping their riders zero in on targets with even greater accuracy. Svenotar Scout Trike is the vehicle of choice when Ironheads range out into the wastes from their laagers – giant nomadic camps formed from temporarily stationary land trains. Their speed and rugged reliability allows small teams of Squats to criss-cross the ash wastes much faster than their Skalvian Explorators, rooting out promising ore veins and chasing down rumours of lost archaeotech.

Members

• Grendl Grendlsen :

Notes

• Squats were created by Games Workshop and featured in the Warhammer 40,000 setting.
• The race were seemingly removed from the setting in the 1990s with the final traces of them being removed from the game after the release of the third edition of Warhammer 40,000 leading to them eventually being discontinued though they were at times mentioned in novels or in characters from Forge World.

Appearances

• Warhammer 40,000:

External Links

• Wikipedia Entry

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