I like humanoid species in fiction. I think the idea of humanity not existing as one genetically homogenous mass interesting, because we’ve been losing our diversity steadily for the past 150 thousand years. The rise of gene therapy and genetic transfer is further eroding any differences out of a need to survive new diseases and evolutions of old ones however this does predispose our species to getting increasingly simple with time.
Ogres, trolls, dwarfs, squats, and abhumans alike, I find these species and takes on alternate humans to be fun and creative in their own way—but not ogryns.
Unlike the trolls or the ogres, ogryns aren’t fat. They’re heavy and they’re built.
Ogryns are basically what ogres would be if power lifting was a common cultural practice. There what the orcs would be if strength was prioritized way more than it already is. Ogryns are terrifyingly strong. They can take on orcs easily and if you put an ogryn in a room with five ogres, you’d be begging the ogryn to go easy on their opponents.
Ogryns also carry some fucked up levels of firepower. If not for their feeble minds, an ogryn band can and would easily decimate a space marine legion and I’m not joking. There are excerpts taken from the books about “smart ogryns” whose minds were augmented to be the perfect servitors only to end up as the ultimate killing machines of the imperium.
A punch from an organ alone can split a trained man in half. Even the Astartes need to rely on implants or their power armour to hit someone with that kind of strength given their biology. An ogryn only needs their genetic heritage to kill with such efficiency.
Imagine if the entire guard was replaced with ogryns and servitors. Instead of just the galaxy, the imperium could probably take on the entire galactic supercluster given the sheer brutality of their infantry all without needing any special ships or WMDs.