Jokaero
 | This article contains something which makes absolutely no logical sense, such as Nazi Zombie Mercenaries, Fucking Space Orangutans, anything written by a certain Irish leper or Robin Crud-ace, or Wizards of the Coast hiring the fucking Pinkertons over a children’s card game. If you proceed, consider yourself warned. |
The Jokaero are an ape-like race created by the Old Ones a long time ago. It is questionable if they are a truly intelligent race despite being technologically advanced, because they don't possess a language, culture or any greater motivation than bare survival.
It is speculated their understanding about technology is coded into their genes, much like Ork Oddboyz (Mekboyz, Painboyz etc.). Although, they differ from their greenskinned brethren because their technology isn't from a pile of crap. These space monkeys are somehow potentially more advanced than the entire Imperium, almost all of the Mechanicus, and (in different fields of technology) most Eldar craftsmen.
They are capable of interstellar travel, and migrate as a pack in large, perfectly geometric spaceships which make use of invisible currents of energy, inherent to the fabric of the universe. While it is rare if they choose to do this, a large percentage of Jokaero live upon these spacecraft. Why they are never engaged in space combat is a mystery.
They create digital weapons (all digital weapons, in fact) which some factions, mainly high-up Imperials and influential Techpriests, make use of. They also make the Spyrer suits found amongst the High Nobility of Hive Worlds such as Necromunda or worlds in the Calixis sector. Mainly, rich Imperial snobs will somehow use Jokaero as a Protectorate Protectorape (a euphemism for forced labor) to get cool shit.
Despite this, GW lore says Jokaero are extremely rare, and impossibly elusive to boot. They are fairly analogous to animals, and so are instinctively distrustful of other beings (almost always rightfully so). If you do manage, by some miracle, to get a hold of one of these chimps, and not get cubstomped by their teeny Multilaser rings and bracelets, you still need to manage to keep them. They have a nasty habit of knowing how everything every race could possibly build works and operates, plus things nobody else in the universe knows. Naturally, this means that any prison they are held in is usually temporary, despite any and all preventative measures, although it may immediately tinker with the prison after escaping and then become trapped in the now improved prison, from which it will escape and restart the cycle. Logic is not a necessary component of the Warhammer universe. This in mind, it is not impossible to work with a Jokaero (and thus acquire more Digital Weapons). If you can convince them you are friendly, they won't run from you and you can essentially roll with them for a while, hopefully getting some Digital Weapon death-bling into the bargain. If you are the grimdark version of Jane Goodall, you might even manage to acquire one as a pet/coworker, seeing as they are a very rare and valuable resource. However, this is exceedingly rare, and accounting for the vastness of known space, only the wellest-to-do of Rogue Traders, beastmasters, and super-rich, eccentric Imperial Lords have a Jokaero in their possession.
Barring all this, Jokaero are still stereotypically finicky, making doohickies on a whim: sometimes not at all, sometimes for days straight. There is no guarantee that the gadgets it makes will be Digital Weapons; however anything it does make will assuredly be magnitudes more advanced (and smaller) that any Imperial equivalent (if there is one). For example, if you plead at it for months on end to build you a finger-mounted Meltagun, and it can make a subdermally forehead-mounted Multi-melta in three hours, the Jokaero mights still just ignore you, get hungry, and build an antigravity energy-field banana peeler. As said above, the Jokaero mostly make things out of simple survival need: self defence lasers, multi-dimensional backbacks, infrared goggles and the like.
Jokaero in Warhammer 40K Tabletop
Recently, with the Codex: Grey Knights including Jokaero as a possible bodyguard unit for Inquisitors, /tg/ quickly found a loophole in the rules that allowed them to field an entire army of space-orangutans (the so-called "Barrel of Monkeys" army build). The result is that Codex: Grey Knights has been jokingly called Codex: Jokaero.
This does provide excellent options for a "counts as" Mechanicus army. (If anyone asks, all those Tech-Priests on the table are space-monkeys in disguise.)
By the way, you know those little shiny rings they have? Those extremely small, light, and TINY rings? Yeah. Those are all FUCKING LASCANNONS. And Heavy Flamers. And Multi-Meltas. AT THE SAME TIME.
- Step 1: Play a 6000pts Apocalypse game
- Step 2: Field Inquisitor Coteaz as HQ and 163 Jokaero
- Step 3: Take a picture of your opponents face when he realises you have 163 Lascannons/Multi-meltas/Heavy flamers (I.E. can fuck up anything)
- Step 4: ????
- Step 5: Profit!
- Step 6: Die a horrible death that could satisfy Khorne for centuries. Could.
Gallery
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This is a Karman from AT-43 and not, in fact, a Jokaero, but numerous fa/tg/uys have voiced that they intend to use them as proxies for their all-monkey army.
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A Jokaero Drop Pod.
