Let me explain. The first time I saw the massive time lag seemingly ubiquitous in the Imperium was when I was looking at the Space Hulk videogame. The Space Hulk was exhibiting problems or something, yada yada. The Imperium notices, and then they send a tactical squad of Terminators to deal with the problem- more than a century later.
I've been reading throughout the wiki and this happens everywhere and all the time. I get that the tech in the Imperium moves slowly thanks to the Mechanicum's weird religion, but that doesn't mean their responses to attacks and stuff should be equally sluggish. Besides.... a couple centuries to respond to a threat is kind of late, isn't it? It allows the fester to promulgate for hundreds of years while the Imperium does what exactly? I can't imagine that Warp travel takes so long- if so, Space Marines would probably die of old age instead of battle wounds with all the zipping around they do.
'The bureaucracy has expanded to meet the needs of the bureaucracy.' - can't remember who quoted that...
Ok this is simple. The Imperium's administration wings have more people running it then there are guardsmen. It's a great big overbloated unwieldy gov't that is ponderously slow to act but wow do they deliver a payload. For the most part it can take decades for reports to make it back to the decision makers filter through all the bureaucracy untill the off chance someone of note actually reads it and makes action. His/her orders then also filter through all the bureaucracy as the orders get compartmentalized and spread out to the various appropriate depts whom are all supposed to work as one machine to get everything where it needs to go at the same time. Unfortunately most of the time order get mixed around, sent to wrong places, stuck in backlogs etc... and entire battalions can find themselves sent to the wrong place or to the right place but no equipment shows up. There are cases where by the time a Rogue Trader's report of a habitable planet with only primitive unevolved species is finally read and acted on the Guard show up to find that the species evolved into a full fledged technical society. Imperial fluff is filled with constant reminders of how ponderously slow the Imperium is.
While the bureaucracy is part of the problem (and to be fair, managing a bazillion trillion humans is kind of a tough job for a file clerk) I should also point out that Warp travel and communication isn't entirely reliable. People travel to take care of a problem and when their space ship comes out of the warp they find out 200 years have passed. An astropath's message goes to the wrong solar system, etc. That's gonna muck things up quite a bit.
ProwlerPC wrote: 'The bureaucracy has expanded to meet the needs of the bureaucracy.' - can't remember who quoted that...
Methinks Oscar Wilde, but don't quote me on that.
Uh, no pun intended...
There are cases where by the time a Rogue Trader's report of a habitable planet with only primitive unevolved species is finally read and acted on the Guard show up to find that the species evolved into a full fledged technical society. Imperial fluff is filled with constant reminders of how ponderously slow the Imperium is.
What. They're so slow that a species' evolution is faster?? Dude, what the heck? What would the Emperor say of this?? I'm pretty sure that he would at least try to fix this, that sluggishness can mean the difference between life and being digested by a Tyranid.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
fallinq wrote: While the bureaucracy is part of the problem (and to be fair, managing a bazillion trillion humans is kind of a tough job for a file clerk) I should also point out that Warp travel and communication isn't entirely reliable. People travel to take care of a problem and when their space ship comes out of the warp they find out 200 years have passed. An astropath's message goes to the wrong solar system, etc. That's gonna muck things up quite a bit.
I was a fan of Star Wars before 40k, and one of their most prized pieces of technology was their hyperdrive relays or whatever. In essence, it allows a pilot and crew to travel hundreds of light years and not age as he travels. Why doesn't the Imperium have at least some equivalent to this? 2 centuries is a very long time to lose it just like that...
Just in case if you missed it: in Fallinq's example, the guys in who travelled didn't really travelled for 200 years, for them, just a couple of months passed.
But, you know, warp...
Don't forget servitors in the bureaucracy who handle the messages etc... give them to their superiors, who give them to their superiors etc... until someone is high enough in rank to take a decision, this is part of the problem.
It's not just
"My lord, they need X on planet Y, can I give order ?
-Sur, do it."
fallinq wrote: While the bureaucracy is part of the problem (and to be fair, managing a bazillion trillion humans is kind of a tough job for a file clerk) I should also point out that Warp travel and communication isn't entirely reliable. People travel to take care of a problem and when their space ship comes out of the warp they find out 200 years have passed. An astropath's message goes to the wrong solar system, etc. That's gonna muck things up quite a bit.
I was a fan of Star Wars before 40k, and one of their most prized pieces of technology was their hyperdrive relays or whatever. In essence, it allows a pilot and crew to travel hundreds of light years and not age as he travels. Why doesn't the Imperium have at least some equivalent to this? 2 centuries is a very long time to lose it just like that...
Why don't WE have "at least the equivalent" of a hyperdrive RIGHT NOW? The same reason the Imperium doesn't. We don't have the technology. We don't know how. Also, different sci-fi universe, different rules. In 40k, travelling faster than light WITHOUT jumping through some kind of alternate dimension is thought to be completely impossible... except of course, that the Necrons can apparently do it somehow. But they're the only race that can, and they're infinitely older and more advanced than humans. Eldar avoid the problems of Warp travel by using a DIFFERENT dimension, the Webway, which is safe(er) and stable(ish). But again, no human knows how how to access it (except for Ahriman, who isn't sharing without a fething good reason) and the Eldar work pretty hard to keep humans and other "lesser" races out.
Except for a proud few ancient and highly advanced races, most of the galaxy has to use Warp travel to get around because, despite it's problems, it's the ONLY way to travel across the galaxy without going at sub-light speeds, which would literally take millennia.
GW also has no sense of scale. They're all "ok, there's this galaxy spanning empire, and they'll have... a million Marines to fight their battles. That's a lot of Marines, right? That should be totally enough, 'cause those Marines are badass, one of them can fight an entire planet on their own, and they've been fighting for a really, really long time, like, 10,000 years, and..."
Honestly, I'm pretty sure whenever they need to think up a number such as the number of years between an event, the number of warriors involved in a battle, etc, they just pull a completely random number out of a hat.
urbanknight4 wrote:
ProwlerPC wrote: 'The bureaucracy has expanded to meet the needs of the bureaucracy.' - can't remember who quoted that...
Methinks Oscar Wilde, but don't quote me on that.
Sounds like something either he or Mark Twain would say.
DarkLink wrote: GW also has no sense of scale. They're all "ok, there's this galaxy spanning empire, and they'll have... a million Marines to fight their battles. That's a lot of Marines, right? That should be totally enough, 'cause those Marines are badass, one of them can fight an entire planet on their own, and they've been fighting for a really, really long time, like, 10,000 years, and..."
Honestly, I'm pretty sure whenever they need to think up a number such as the number of years between an event, the number of warriors involved in a battle, etc, they just pull a completely random number out of a hat.
urbanknight4 wrote:
ProwlerPC wrote: 'The bureaucracy has expanded to meet the needs of the bureaucracy.' - can't remember who quoted that...
Methinks Oscar Wilde, but don't quote me on that.
Sounds like something either he or Mark Twain would say.
Still better than Star Wars, which went with starting the "Clone" Wars with only 200,000 clones for the entire galaxy.
fallinq wrote: While the bureaucracy is part of the problem (and to be fair, managing a bazillion trillion humans is kind of a tough job for a file clerk) I should also point out that Warp travel and communication isn't entirely reliable. People travel to take care of a problem and when their space ship comes out of the warp they find out 200 years have passed. An astropath's message goes to the wrong solar system, etc. That's gonna muck things up quite a bit.
There's also the case where they've come out something like 200 years before they went in as well. There's an entire order in the inqusition about dealing with time issues from warp travel.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Well, it's already said that managing a country of that epic size is really hard + bureaucracy. For quick reactions there are Inquisition.
Well, you see, if you have any sense of scale you'd know that to travel 100 light year at the speed of light takes -- wait for it -- 100 years. See, if two systems are 2 light-years away and one sends a message to another using light signals, it'd take 2 years for the other to receive it. Since physically traveling at the speed of light is a technical impossibility -- the mass itself prevents the mass from reach that speed, regardless of energy input. Sci-if universes had to come up with many excuses to make an empire that's larger than one system work.
Around the time wormhole theory came into light, a wormhole-based space travel was all the rage. Therefore the hyperspace was used for Star Wars. GW decided it'd be cool to use the wrap they took from Moorecock and used in the Warhammer universe as their version of the hyperspace for 40K. Therefore it's unpredictable and dangerous, but it's the only option available to most civilizations. Even the eldars relied on a semi warp-based tech, except it's relatively safer.
Later fictions have the advantage of having the benefit of decades more academic discussions for reference. Mass Effect got around the problem by applying an unobtainium to magically reduce mass. And that's fine, because no one has the solution, and everyone is free to invent their own spacefaring systems with their own advantages and drawbacks. But that means no two universes can mix together -- even if both use hyperspace/warpspace -- there is no telling if both are the same thing. No two universes may have the same sci-fi property to support a particular technology. That's why WH40K does not have a Warp beacon that's as reliable as the Hyperspace Beacon in the Star Wars universe.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'd also like to add, having been stuck at an Chinese Vehicle Registration office for 4 hours (basically I forfeited my entire afternoon to renew my car's "roadworthy" identifications), as well as having spent an entire morning paying for a 100 RMB traffic violation fine a few days back, I can see how a Million-strong stellar empire would be impossible to function with a centralized government of any size. First you have this one department to manage all the stuffs, with more people there comes greater demands for management and red tapes, and it turns out all the paperworks become too much for one network to process fast enough. So you start another department to take over some of that duty, like communications between settlements, and then you need to specify what type of communications for what department to manage as settlements become cities, and cities become states/provinces...
Even the GW writers knew when they wrote Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader and specified that the Imperium is basically a collection of empires, almost entirely independent from each other, with only some obligations to Terra. Yet the Adeptus Terra is still overwhelmed as it must maintain its authority and enforce its laws and tithe that reminds the imperialists that they are still subjects to the Emperor of Mankind.
In such a system, which an order must be queue behind a million other orders; there's probably a dozen thousand priority one orders that needs sending. So let's say there's a plea for investigating a Space Hulk from a Rogue Trader/Patrol ship, etc, the Rogue Trader/Captain sends a report to sector command via his ship telepath. So the telepath sends a psychic message and maybe hours or days later the sector command telepathic chorus received it. The chorus had to put this plea down on a datapad, a message tube, or something, along with a thousand other messages, not to mention the possible millions of other messages pending ahead of them, to a Sector Command department to sort the messages to send to appropriate departments for handling. A trade management department would have no idea what course of action should be taken for handling a Space Hulk, after all. So that's another queue for the sorting. After passing the tens of thousands of priority message the plea got passed to an appropriate department for response. Now -- the department still gets tens of thousands of priority requests pending, as each must be reviewed and approved. Now imagine, if the department also has a peer-review system, when a prior decision, like blow up the Space Hulk with Cyclopean Missiles, got revoked, it gets put back on the very back of the priority queue again! So it's no wonder the whole thing would take forever, as new and old requests keep stacking up over, what, several Millenniums? For all we know, there could be billions of priority requests pending review at this point.
Although, honestly, dealing with Space Hulk should be left to system authorities, like "just blow that up!". But no, the AdMech and the Imperium both want the Archeotech inside so it's "send message to us". This kind of just clog up the poop pipe, figuratively.
Taking in all you guys answers, I've just come into a realization of how big this universe really is. The Warp technology makes sense that it'd disrupt travel and communication- it provides a way for it to happen, but not very reliably. The high bureaucracy also keeps the whole theme the Imperium has going for it of being like a big dumb ox: slow and dim, but pretty powerful if you anger the big lummox.
I wish things could be better in the Imperium. Bureaucrats in Terra shouldn't be making combat-related decisions, especially in far away sectors when the local squads or Astartes van do it better. As for the tech, all I know is that we're the only race that looks for ancient tech to power the great majority of their development (except the Orks and Necrons, because they're already pretty formidable).
The thing about looking for ancient tech is that humanity, as a whole, have awesome archeotech to discover, while the other races' technology is the pinnacle of their species' advancement.
It gets truly ridiculous: Human Dark Age tech makes the Eldar, a proud and ancient race who retained their technology, if not their numbers, during their own imperial collapse look like homo erectus proud of his new wheel.
There are cases where by the time a Rogue Trader's report of a habitable planet with only primitive unevolved species is finally read and acted on the Guard show up to find that the species evolved into a full fledged technical society. Imperial fluff is filled with constant reminders of how ponderously slow the Imperium is.
What. They're so slow that a species' evolution is faster?? Dude, what the heck? What would the Emperor say of this?? I'm pretty sure that he would at least try to fix this, that sluggishness can mean the difference between life and being digested by a Tyranid.
I think that example is down to hyperbole, warp f*kery and time distortion. But a 6 month travel time from one combat zone to the next seems to be a common rough estimate.
Furyou Miko wrote: The thing about looking for ancient tech is that humanity, as a whole, have awesome archeotech to discover, while the other races' technology is the pinnacle of their species' advancement.
It gets truly ridiculous: Human Dark Age tech makes the Eldar, a proud and ancient race who retained their technology, if not their numbers, during their own imperial collapse look like homo erectus proud of his new wheel.
While the Craftworld Eldar didn't get it as bad in terms of loss of tech as mankind did, it's misleading to say that they've "retained their technology." The Eldar who are around today are the equivalent of a group of survivalists who have ridden out a nuclear holocaust in a bunker stocked with weapons and supplies (or a BDSM club, for the Dark Eldar). They are nowhere NEAR capable of what they could do at the height of their empire. When Eldar say the stars lived and died at their command, they're not using hyperbole. And the Eldar still have access to ancient weapons that can wipe out WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEMS, but they haven't used them yet for fear of what they might attract. Eldar also have devices that SLOW DOWN TIME or create POCKET SIZED BLACK HOLES. Humans at the height of the Dark Age of Technology NEVER challenged the Eldar empire for supremacy. Just cause we haven't seen much crazy Eldar "archeotech" doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The Eldar are just smart enough to know what it does, so we don't have stories where they accidentally turn on a device that implodes a star or creates an endless army of demonically possessed robots. Notably, unlike human Dark Age tech, Eldar tech has never turned on them.
fallinq wrote: While the Craftworld Eldar didn't get it as bad in terms of loss of tech as mankind did, it's misleading to say that they've "retained their technology." The Eldar who are around today are the equivalent of a group of survivalists who have ridden out a nuclear holocaust in a bunker stocked with weapons and supplies (or a BDSM club, for the Dark Eldar). They are nowhere NEAR capable of what they could do at the height of their empire. When Eldar say the stars lived and died at their command, they're not using hyperbole. And the Eldar still have access to ancient weapons that can wipe out WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEMS, but they haven't used them yet for fear of what they might attract. Eldar also have devices that SLOW DOWN TIME or create POCKET SIZED BLACK HOLES. Humans at the height of the Dark Age of Technology NEVER challenged the Eldar empire for supremacy. Just cause we haven't seen much crazy Eldar "archeotech" doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The Eldar are just smart enough to know what it does, so we don't have stories where they accidentally turn on a device that implodes a star or creates an endless army of demonically possessed robots. Notably, unlike human Dark Age tech, Eldar tech has never turned on them.
Why don't the Eldar use this tech against the forces of Chaos or whatever? You'd think that pocket sized black holes would be a cool alternative to emptying round after round at a mass of Tyranids when you can instead suck them up to another dimension.
Furyou Miko wrote: The thing about looking for ancient tech is that humanity, as a whole, have awesome archeotech to discover, while the other races' technology is the pinnacle of their species' advancement.
It gets truly ridiculous: Human Dark Age tech makes the Eldar, a proud and ancient race who retained their technology, if not their numbers, during their own imperial collapse look like homo erectus proud of his new wheel.
While the Craftworld Eldar didn't get it as bad in terms of loss of tech as mankind did, it's misleading to say that they've "retained their technology." The Eldar who are around today are the equivalent of a group of survivalists who have ridden out a nuclear holocaust in a bunker stocked with weapons and supplies (or a BDSM club, for the Dark Eldar). They are nowhere NEAR capable of what they could do at the height of their empire. When Eldar say the stars lived and died at their command, they're not using hyperbole. And the Eldar still have access to ancient weapons that can wipe out WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEMS, but they haven't used them yet for fear of what they might attract. Eldar also have devices that SLOW DOWN TIME or create POCKET SIZED BLACK HOLES. Humans at the height of the Dark Age of Technology NEVER challenged the Eldar empire for supremacy. Just cause we haven't seen much crazy Eldar "archeotech" doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The Eldar are just smart enough to know what it does, so we don't have stories where they accidentally turn on a device that implodes a star or creates an endless army of demonically possessed robots. Notably, unlike human Dark Age tech, Eldar tech has never turned on them.
I know that.
I also know that Human archeotech includes weapons that shoot black holes backwards through time.
Surely a pocket sized black hole is a normal blackhole?
Terminators are probably in high demand and short supply, not only that but you have to ship them long distances through a time bending dimension.
The Administratum has to process billions of trillions of statistics everyday, all of which is sent through the warp. 6 months to wait for the reinforcments to turn up is pretty quick considering. Emperor knows what happens if someone puts the decimal point in the wrong space...
fallinq wrote: While the bureaucracy is part of the problem (and to be fair, managing a bazillion trillion humans is kind of a tough job for a file clerk) I should also point out that Warp travel and communication isn't entirely reliable. People travel to take care of a problem and when their space ship comes out of the warp they find out 200 years have passed. An astropath's message goes to the wrong solar system, etc. That's gonna muck things up quite a bit.
There's also the case where they've come out something like 200 years before they went in as well. There's an entire order in the inqusition about dealing with time issues from warp travel.
You mean there was an entire order in the Inquisition dealing with time issues. Unfortenately they dissapeared to a man (which is another issue the Imperium suffers from every now and then)
Also, it should be noted that time disruptions due to the Warp are relatively rare. Usually astropaths can calculate the travel time pretty accurately. It is only with rare freak currents (which happen when there are major disturbances in the Warp) that a ship gets blown of course and appears at a completely different location or time than intended.
The reason for the slowness of the Imperium is mostly its incredibly huge galaxy-spanning size combined with ten thousands of years of accumulated bureacracy.
Terminators are probably in high demand and short supply, not only that but you have to ship them long distances through a time bending dimension.
The Administratum has to process billions of trillions of statistics everyday, all of which is sent through the warp. 6 months to wait for the reinforcments to turn up is pretty quick considering. Emperor knows what happens if someone puts the decimal point in the wrong space...
I dunno. I feel like things ran way smoother when the Emperor was in charge. There are a lot of dumb and outright detrimental policies in the Imperium, but I can't be too sure what was enacted by him and what was passed by the High Terran Council. Certainly their creation only serves to obfuscate the bureaucracy even further. During the Great Crusade I assume that whatever the Emperor oversaw personally got done instantly.
Well they have a pocket sized device that can create a black hole. As for why they don't start chucking black holes everywhere as soon as an enemy attacks, black holes tend to be very indiscriminate in their destruction. If you're trying to SAVE lives, (say, on a craftworld that's getting invaded) you have to be a little more delicate.
I know that.
I also know that Human archeotech includes weapons that shoot black holes backwards through time.
Yes but:
1) You're comparing peak of Dark Age human tech to post fall Eldar tech, again, under the assumption that the Eldar lost NO tech knowledge or capability when 90% of their civilization got annihilated.
2)Sending a black hole back in time seems ridiculously dangerous to temporal stability. How do you know what you're going to wipe out of existence by doing that? You could accidentally cause a temporal paradox and render your entire species extinct! It's probably less a matter of the Eldar being unable to make something like that, and more a matter of them looking at the humans who did and thinking, "WHY WOULD YOU EVEN?!?! "
3) It's been stated multiple places in the fluff that the Eldar empire was the most powerful and advanced empire before the fall. There are NO places in the fluff that state that Dark Age of Technology humans were more advanced, which is why this particular bit of fanon is one of my pet peeves.
Terminators are probably in high demand and short supply, not only that but you have to ship them long distances through a time bending dimension.
The Administratum has to process billions of trillions of statistics everyday, all of which is sent through the warp. 6 months to wait for the reinforcments to turn up is pretty quick considering. Emperor knows what happens if someone puts the decimal point in the wrong space...
I dunno. I feel like things ran way smoother when the Emperor was in charge. There are a lot of dumb and outright detrimental policies in the Imperium, but I can't be too sure what was enacted by him and what was passed by the High Terran Council. Certainly their creation only serves to obfuscate the bureaucracy even further. During the Great Crusade I assume that whatever the Emperor oversaw personally got done instantly.
Too bad Horus kicked the crap out of him.
If you're looking for an efficient bureaucracy that serves the good of all its members, perhaps you'd be interested in the Tau Empire.
Horus only managed to wound the Emperor so much because the Emperor had compassion towards him and didn't want to use his full power against his son.
As for the Tau... there's something wrong with them. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'm sure the Ethereals are pulling a hat trick. You can't possibly obtain respect and obedience from an entire race the way they did. Its not grimdark enough for 40k. There's rot under their glory.
Furyou Miko wrote:The thing about looking for ancient tech is that humanity, as a whole, have awesome archeotech to discover, while the other races' technology is the pinnacle of their species' advancement.
It gets truly ridiculous: Human Dark Age tech makes the Eldar, a proud and ancient race who retained their technology, if not their numbers, during their own imperial collapse look like homo erectus proud of his new wheel.
The Eldar most definitely did not retain their technology. The Eldar use fething knife-shooting guns - they once had access to weapons that could annihilate an army with a single magazine or kill an Astartes with a twitch of the wrist. Eldar fell far from their peak, the fact that they still have highly advanced technology just bespeaks how advanced they once were.
A pocket-sized blackhole is the difference between 4.9 E 19 Newtons of gravitational force in a ten thousand KM radius and 4.9 E 29 in a ten million KM radius. Both bend time and space, but one of them is significantly more powerful than the other. It's like comparing a C'tan (pocket-god) and Khorne (full-sized God)
I dunno. I feel like things ran way smoother when the Emperor was in charge. There are a lot of dumb and outright detrimental policies in the Imperium, but I can't be too sure what was enacted by him and what was passed by the High Terran Council. Certainly their creation only serves to obfuscate the bureaucracy even further. During the Great Crusade I assume that whatever the Emperor oversaw personally got done instantly.
Most of that gak was passed after the Emperor's fall. The Emperor layed the groundwork by creating his massive bureaucracy, but it was just barely coming into power during a highly enlightened period (Great Crusade, enlightened in comparison to Old Night), which degenerated into a state of superstitious idiocy that was only slightly better than Old Night in its civilized-ness.
fallinq wrote:
3) It's been stated multiple places in the fluff that the Eldar empire was the most powerful and advanced empire before the fall. There are NO places in the fluff that state that Dark Age of Technology humans were more advanced, which is why this particular bit of fanon is one of my pet peeves.
It's less fanon, and more that most of the badass tech is human Archeaotech, whereas 90% of Eldar Archeaotech is back on the Crone Worlds, and the other 10% is on Craftworlds (i.e. completely unused because the Eldar are too big of pansies to try to use it and develop better tech)
urbanknight4 wrote:Horus only managed to wound the Emperor so much because the Emperor had compassion towards him and didn't want to use his full power against his son.
As for the Tau... there's something wrong with them. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'm sure the Ethereals are pulling a hat trick. You can't possibly obtain respect and obedience from an entire race the way they did. Its not grimdark enough for 40k. There's rot under their glory.
I agree with the first part, but I hate it when people try to change the Tau to be grimdark. Why can't fans and dumbass BL writers just leave the one honest-to-god good faction alone? I mean, seriously, the Tau are the only Empire that isn't a big, steaming pile of gak (which defies the odds, as there would likely be at least a few Empires who at least tried to give their citizens basic sentient rights and freedoms)!!!
fallinq wrote: While the Craftworld Eldar didn't get it as bad in terms of loss of tech as mankind did, it's misleading to say that they've "retained their technology." The Eldar who are around today are the equivalent of a group of survivalists who have ridden out a nuclear holocaust in a bunker stocked with weapons and supplies (or a BDSM club, for the Dark Eldar). They are nowhere NEAR capable of what they could do at the height of their empire. When Eldar say the stars lived and died at their command, they're not using hyperbole. And the Eldar still have access to ancient weapons that can wipe out WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEMS, but they haven't used them yet for fear of what they might attract. Eldar also have devices that SLOW DOWN TIME or create POCKET SIZED BLACK HOLES. Humans at the height of the Dark Age of Technology NEVER challenged the Eldar empire for supremacy. Just cause we haven't seen much crazy Eldar "archeotech" doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The Eldar are just smart enough to know what it does, so we don't have stories where they accidentally turn on a device that implodes a star or creates an endless army of demonically possessed robots. Notably, unlike human Dark Age tech, Eldar tech has never turned on them.
Why don't the Eldar use this tech against the forces of Chaos or whatever? You'd think that pocket sized black holes would be a cool alternative to emptying round after round at a mass of Tyranids when you can instead suck them up to another dimension.
A lot of the surviving pre-fall tech is held by the surviving 'true eldar', i.e. by dark elder that were hiding in the webway. Most of it is lost to the chrone worlds
Why don't the Dark Eldar use it? Well it's psychically controlled and Dark Eldar supress their psychic nature. As such, it takes a CWE/DE alliance to use such artefacts (assuming anyone is able to work out how they work), and even when the artefacts are used they can take a considerable time to fire up, and often require multiple eldar with the weapon to 'pull the trigger'.
The Dark Ages actually had fairly extensive technological regression in a number of areas, most-notably the arts and civil engineering, some of which would not return until the Renaissance, or even later.
Psienesis wrote: Warhammer 40K is not a sci-fi setting like Star Trek, with a bunch of fancy, whiz-bang tech and speedy ships...
.... it's the Dark Ages, in space. An age of fear, superstition, zealotry and persecution of the "Other".
*raises hand*
B-b-b-but there were Dark Ages in history, and no technological regression in the times.
Well, the IoM isn't actually regressing, it's just progressing really slowly. The HH was basically the massive regression (see: Fall of Rome), and the next 10k years were just filled with superstitious gits ruling with an iron fist and badass tech that gets an improvement every few centuries (see: the Dark Ages)
Psienesis wrote: Warhammer 40K is not a sci-fi setting like Star Trek, with a bunch of fancy, whiz-bang tech and speedy ships...
.... it's the Dark Ages, in space. An age of fear, superstition, zealotry and persecution of the "Other".
*raises hand*
B-b-b-but there were Dark Ages in history, and no technological regression in the times.
My axe will bring a dark age to your face, but not that hard because I want to clean the skull afterwards. Someone was good this year and gets a present under the throne.
Anyways. Myself I don't recall anything about the Imperium being in regression. Humanity has had regression before the Imperium was created but I don't think it has since. What is described of the Imperium is that it's stagnating, not completely stagnant but stagnating. Some progression is being made but it's all under heavy scrutiny followed by all kinds of religious rituals and also subject to an overbloated bureaucracy.
Psienesis wrote: The Dark Ages actually had fairly extensive technological regression in a number of areas, most-notably the arts and civil engineering, some of which would not return until the Renaissance, or even later.
No, technology was marching on as it always does, with metallurgy peaking well above the Roman Era and the arts were doing perfectly fine. "The Dark Ages" is a mythical time invented by pop culture that is also highly Western Euro-Centric, and ignores that Scandinavians were not uncultured barbarians, but highly advanced oceanic traders who moonlighted as real-life Chaos Warriors on Sundays. Any "decline" in Western Europe began well before the traditional time period (IE not the Viking Age) and rather during the twilight years of Rome as it began to economically and politically crack as its armies and industry waned.
Well, the IoM isn't actually regressing, it's just progressing really slowly. The HH was basically the massive regression (see: Fall of Rome), and the next 10k years were just filled with superstitious gits ruling with an iron fist and badass tech that gets an improvement every few centuries (see: the Dark Ages)
On the contrary:
Codex Cult Mechanicus wrote:Ultimately, though, the Cult’s citadels of knowledge are built upon a foundation of lies. The ability to truly innovate has long been lost, replaced with a reverence for the times when Humanity was the architect of its own destiny. No longer the master of its creations, the Cult Mechanicus is enslaved to the past. It maintains the glories of yesteryear with rite, dogma and edict instead of discernment and comprehension. Even the theoretically simple process of activating a weapon is preceded by the application of ritual oils, the burning of sacred resins and the chanting of long and complex hymns. And yet so long as the process works – or rather, so long as the Cult’s armies can obliterate those who displease them – the Tech-Priests are content to tread the slippery path toward entropy and ignorance.
There's also the bit in the Imperium's timeline that notes that the amount of STC fragments they found in that time manages to offset the Mechanicus' regression for a time.
7th edition rulebook wrote:The Forging
The Imperium expands and binds its most important star systems under ever tighter control. Astropath choirs are set in relay positions across the galaxy, with major hubs on the best-garrisoned worlds such as Armageddon, Bakka and Macragge. The Adeptus Ministorum becomes the official religion of the Imperium, adding new measures of control over the masses. A few long-lost STCs are rediscovered, and for a time, the technological decline is stabilised. Without the Emperor’s guidance, there is much room for interpreting the best direction for the Imperium. To avoid prolonged dissension, strict rules are put in place and punishments for disobedience are swift and brutal. Fear rules the highest levels of authority, and ignorance rules the lower menials. The established rule becomes harsher and more widespread than ever.
They're also losing the secrets of making Rhinos over time according to the Inquisition codex.
The Rhino armoured transport is one of the most venerated vehicles in service to the Imperium. Its origins lie far back in the murky mists of time, from when Man first reached out his hand to the stars and began the long process of colonisation. Little has changed in the Rhino’s design since those halcyon days, for its optimal balance of transport capacity, armour and manoeuvrability has been judged unassailably perfect by the Adeptus Mechanicus. It is small surprise therefore that the Rhino once served as the mainstay transport of all Mankind’s armies. Alas, in these dark days, many secrets of the Rhino’s construction have been lost, and countless thousands of vehicles have fallen into disrepair. Despite this, such august bodies as the Adeptus Astartes or the Inquisition have little difficulty in securing sufficient Rhino APCs to suit their needs.
Well, the IoM isn't actually regressing, it's just progressing really slowly. The HH was basically the massive regression (see: Fall of Rome), and the next 10k years were just filled with superstitious gits ruling with an iron fist and badass tech that gets an improvement every few centuries (see: the Dark Ages)
On the contrary:
Codex Cult Mechanicus wrote:Ultimately, though, the Cult’s citadels of knowledge are built upon a foundation of lies. The ability to truly innovate has long been lost, replaced with a reverence for the times when Humanity was the architect of its own destiny. No longer the master of its creations, the Cult Mechanicus is enslaved to the past. It maintains the glories of yesteryear with rite, dogma and edict instead of discernment and comprehension. Even the theoretically simple process of activating a weapon is preceded by the application of ritual oils, the burning of sacred resins and the chanting of long and complex hymns. And yet so long as the process works – or rather, so long as the Cult’s armies can obliterate those who displease them – the Tech-Priests are content to tread the slippery path toward entropy and ignorance.
There's also the bit in the Imperium's timeline that notes that the amount of STC fragments they found in that time manages to offset the Mechanicus' regression for a time.
7th edition rulebook wrote:The Forging
The Imperium expands and binds its most important star systems under ever tighter control. Astropath choirs are set in relay positions across the galaxy, with major hubs on the best-garrisoned worlds such as Armageddon, Bakka and Macragge. The Adeptus Ministorum becomes the official religion of the Imperium, adding new measures of control over the masses. A few long-lost STCs are rediscovered, and for a time, the technological decline is stabilised. Without the Emperor’s guidance, there is much room for interpreting the best direction for the Imperium. To avoid prolonged dissension, strict rules are put in place and punishments for disobedience are swift and brutal. Fear rules the highest levels of authority, and ignorance rules the lower menials. The established rule becomes harsher and more widespread than ever.
They're also losing the secrets of making Rhinos over time according to the Inquisition codex.
The Rhino armoured transport is one of the most venerated vehicles in service to the Imperium. Its origins lie far back in the murky mists of time, from when Man first reached out his hand to the stars and began the long process of colonisation. Little has changed in the Rhino’s design since those halcyon days, for its optimal balance of transport capacity, armour and manoeuvrability has been judged unassailably perfect by the Adeptus Mechanicus. It is small surprise therefore that the Rhino once served as the mainstay transport of all Mankind’s armies. Alas, in these dark days, many secrets of the Rhino’s construction have been lost, and countless thousands of vehicles have fallen into disrepair. Despite this, such august bodies as the Adeptus Astartes or the Inquisition have little difficulty in securing sufficient Rhino APCs to suit their needs.
In response to the first quote, you basically just reaffirmed the fact that the AdMech is incredibly superstious, not that it's regressing.
In response to the second quote, we still have many examples of Rhinos being constructed, and of Titan parts being constructed with ease. Now, I would cite this, but the novel Priests of Mars is currently back home in AZ, and I'm up in Alaska visiting my cousins. I'll be home by tomorrow, and I'll post the quote, then.
Well, the IoM isn't actually regressing, it's just progressing really slowly. The HH was basically the massive regression (see: Fall of Rome), and the next 10k years were just filled with superstitious gits ruling with an iron fist and badass tech that gets an improvement every few centuries (see: the Dark Ages)
On the contrary:
Codex Cult Mechanicus wrote:Ultimately, though, the Cult’s citadels of knowledge are built upon a foundation of lies. The ability to truly innovate has long been lost, replaced with a reverence for the times when Humanity was the architect of its own destiny. No longer the master of its creations, the Cult Mechanicus is enslaved to the past. It maintains the glories of yesteryear with rite, dogma and edict instead of discernment and comprehension. Even the theoretically simple process of activating a weapon is preceded by the application of ritual oils, the burning of sacred resins and the chanting of long and complex hymns. And yet so long as the process works – or rather, so long as the Cult’s armies can obliterate those who displease them – the Tech-Priests are content to tread the slippery path toward entropy and ignorance.
There's also the bit in the Imperium's timeline that notes that the amount of STC fragments they found in that time manages to offset the Mechanicus' regression for a time.
7th edition rulebook wrote:The Forging
The Imperium expands and binds its most important star systems under ever tighter control. Astropath choirs are set in relay positions across the galaxy, with major hubs on the best-garrisoned worlds such as Armageddon, Bakka and Macragge. The Adeptus Ministorum becomes the official religion of the Imperium, adding new measures of control over the masses. A few long-lost STCs are rediscovered, and for a time, the technological decline is stabilised. Without the Emperor’s guidance, there is much room for interpreting the best direction for the Imperium. To avoid prolonged dissension, strict rules are put in place and punishments for disobedience are swift and brutal. Fear rules the highest levels of authority, and ignorance rules the lower menials. The established rule becomes harsher and more widespread than ever.
They're also losing the secrets of making Rhinos over time according to the Inquisition codex.
The Rhino armoured transport is one of the most venerated vehicles in service to the Imperium. Its origins lie far back in the murky mists of time, from when Man first reached out his hand to the stars and began the long process of colonisation. Little has changed in the Rhino’s design since those halcyon days, for its optimal balance of transport capacity, armour and manoeuvrability has been judged unassailably perfect by the Adeptus Mechanicus. It is small surprise therefore that the Rhino once served as the mainstay transport of all Mankind’s armies. Alas, in these dark days, many secrets of the Rhino’s construction have been lost, and countless thousands of vehicles have fallen into disrepair. Despite this, such august bodies as the Adeptus Astartes or the Inquisition have little difficulty in securing sufficient Rhino APCs to suit their needs.
In response to the first quote, you basically just reaffirmed the fact that the AdMech is incredibly superstious, not that it's regressing.
In response to the second quote, we still have many examples of Rhinos being constructed, and of Titan parts being constructed with ease. Now, I would cite this, but the novel Priests of Mars is currently back home in AZ, and I'm up in Alaska visiting my cousins. I'll be home by tomorrow, and I'll post the quote, then.
What it reaffirms is that the AdMech has almost no understanding whatsoever of their technology, from a Warlord-class titan to a toaster oven.
Codex fluff overrides crappy Black Library writing. Yes, the Imperium loses ground. It's not holding steady. Every time a Hive fleet, Ork Waagh, Necron dynasty, Chaos warband, or Tau expansion fleet takes a Forge World, knowledge is lost, sometimes permanently. Many Imperial weapons are made on less than a handful ot worlds. The Leman Russ Exterminator and Vanquisher are both made on only one. As simple as a Leman Russ tank is, and as common as they are throughout the Imperium, only two ForgeWorlds out of many figured out how to build the Vanquisher after the first was lost in M35, and one of those was recently gobbled by Tyranids.
Heck, in 6,000 years no one in the Imperium could figure out how to weld anti-aircraft missiles and a radar onto a Rhino chassis. Six... thousand.
dusara217 wrote: In response to the first quote, you basically just reaffirmed the fact that the AdMech is incredibly superstious, not that it's regressing.
In response to the second quote, we still have many examples of Rhinos being constructed, and of Titan parts being constructed with ease. Now, I would cite this, but the novel Priests of Mars is currently back home in AZ, and I'm up in Alaska visiting my cousins. I'll be home by tomorrow, and I'll post the quote, then.
It also makes it clear that they're losing knowledge with the end sentence.
The second quote outright says that they're regressing, you're thinking of the third quote with that second response.
Also, do you have a quote backing up your assertion that the Mechanicus is slowly advancing rather than regressing overall?
I'm coming a bit late to the discussion, but let's keep in mind that the Mechanicum is undoubtedly holding the Imperium back. I believe that if it weren't for them and their bizarre beliefs, mankind would be infinitely stronger.
Lets evaluate the facts.
The Mechanicum believes in "Machine Spirits". Hat this entails is that they apply a curtain of superstition and supernatural belief in basic technology interactions. Like the wiki says, even turning on a weapon requires the user to engage in a lengthy ritual, applying oils and chanting hymns to appease the non existent spirits. I'm all for freedom of religion, but this is stupid.
Directly related to the Tech-Priest's religion is their approach to innovation. Or rather, their lack of one. They believe that all the technology that will ever be made has already been made. The only step directly following that is to collect the plans and enact them. What this ensures is that innovation is discouraged- after all, there is nothing to innovate in their eyes. This causes knowledge to plateau, and maintain the risk of regressing if it is ever lost.
Lastly, and this is also the Emperor's fault, the Mechanicum are a bunch of xenophobes, just like literally the rest of humanity. Its a shame that they don't recognize their true place in the world- the Imperium may be powerful, but it's hardly the technological marvel the Martians pretend it is. I mean, a ton of problems could be solved simply by wiping out a few Eldar and Tau squads, lobotomizing their tech, and assimilating it. Rhino tanks could use gravitational lifts instead of archaic treads. Bolters could fire more rounds. Plasma guns wouldn't blow your hand off when overheating.
This is getting off topic, but I think nobody should defend the Mechanicum. I could say more about their backwards ways, but I've made my point. I highly doubt GW will listen because of the whole grimdark thing, but man... it would be great if at least one good thing happened.
Totally off topic, but holy feth another person who lives in Arizona and has an interest in Warhammer!
Might I ask where in the state you live? I've found finding people to play with out here.. difficult.
urbanknight4 wrote: superstition and supernatural belief in basic technology interactions. Like the wiki says, even turning on a weapon requires the user to engage in a lengthy ritual, applying oils and chanting hymns to appease the non existent spirits. I'm all for freedom of religion, but this is stupid.
While it is stupid, it's important to remember where this came from.
The religion and beliefs that the Mechanicus follow were originally established to preserve working knowledge of machinery and its function through dogma. So "prayers and applying oils" may be reciting how to properly clean and oil a rifle whilst doing so. Or "Disengage safety, set stock to shoulder, aim down sights, squeeze trigger."
Also machine spirits are hardly non-existent. In the background they are actual things. Not spirits, per-say, but code and logic systems that control the device and allow it to function.
Depends on the machine spirit, of course. Its more that some machines have software that's mistaken for a manifestation of the Machine Spirit than that Machine Spirits are programs.
Besides, belief in Machine Spirits is hardly unreasonable. Anyone who has ever worked in maintenance will tell you that some devices work better if you ask nicely (or swear at them and kick them in some cases).
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Also machine spirits are hardly non-existent. In the background they are actual things. Not spirits, per-say, but code and logic systems that control the device and allow it to function.
Think less spooky ghost more program.
And then you get Titans, whose machine spirit literally consumes the mind of the pilot.
That could be something akin to "Indoctrination" (from Mass Effect), which was machine-driven.
In any event, there's a lot of ways to explain "Machine Spirits", but to deny that they exist at all does the setting a great disservice.
The AdMech only holds humanity back from killing itself off with unrestrained technological experimentation. The manufacturing base of humanity is right-fethed, with all kinds of insane scrap-code floating around in everything everywhere. You can't just build a tank, you have to ensure that its Machine Spirit is placated, because if it isn't, as soon as it rolls off the assembly line, it might start killing you.
Anytime the Bureaucracy in 40k is brought up I think of the movie Brazil. Like that office, but about 1000x the size and with more skulls floating around.
Because its bureaucracy is set up to massive levels, and anyone who isn't a Lord General, Inquisitor, or other high-level authority has to go through some level of paperwork-- often quite a ridiculous amount-- and make sure it gets processed by under-funded, over-worked Administratum adepts who don't honestly care about your particular problem out of the thousands or millions they deal with on a day to day basis.
Psienesis wrote: That could be something akin to "Indoctrination" (from Mass Effect), which was machine-driven.
No, in the case of Titans its more the other way round.
The Princeps controls the Titan through a 'Mind Impulse Link', the device for which is called a Mind Impulse Unit or MIU. The Titan's processor started out as an interface that lets the Princeps effectively control the Titan as if it were his own body. It doesn't matter whether they use a plug or an amniotic tank, all Princeps connect via this MIU.
Over time, as Princeps wear the Titan for days, weeks at a time, their mind starts leaving an 'imprint' on the processor and in the MIU - especially as Princeps often die plugged into the MIU. What you end up with is basically a memory emgram in the Titan's hardware of every Princeps who has ever ridden the Titan, merging together into a gestalt entity with the Titan's onboard processor. This then becomes known as the Titan's machine spirit manifesting as every memory engram tries to tell the new Princeps (pah, he's only been doing this a hundred years, what does he know?) the best way to deal with everything.
Icculus wrote: Anytime the Bureaucracy in 40k is brought up I think of the movie Brazil. Like that office, but about 1000x the size and with more skulls floating around.
I'd like that to be the official imagery of the Adeptus Administratum in the next rulebook.
Icculus wrote: Anytime the Bureaucracy in 40k is brought up I think of the movie Brazil. Like that office, but about 1000x the size and with more skulls floating around.
I'd like that to be the official imagery of the Adeptus Administratum in the next rulebook.
Damnit.
YES!
"Listen, this old system of yours could be on fire and I couldn't even turn on the kitchen tap without filling out a 27b/6... Bloody paperwork."
"This is information retrieval not information dispersal."
Mrs. Ida Lowry: Sam! Can't you do something about these terrorists?
Sam Lowry: It's my lunch hour. Besides, it's not my department.
Also quotes from Brazil. So just replace "Sam" with Inquisitor and "Terrorists" with Aliens, or Xenos, or Heretics. Obviously this inquisitor in question would be from one of the Ordos not responsible for the other.
Civilian: Inquisitor Samus! Can't you do something about these Xenos?!
Inquisitor Samus of Ordo Hereticus: I'm on lunch. Besides, it's not my Ordo.
urbanknight4 wrote: Let me explain. The first time I saw the massive time lag seemingly ubiquitous in the Imperium was when I was looking at the Space Hulk videogame. The Space Hulk was exhibiting problems or something, yada yada. The Imperium notices, and then they send a tactical squad of Terminators to deal with the problem- more than a century later.
I've been reading throughout the wiki and this happens everywhere and all the time. I get that the tech in the Imperium moves slowly thanks to the Mechanicum's weird religion, but that doesn't mean their responses to attacks and stuff should be equally sluggish. Besides.... a couple centuries to respond to a threat is kind of late, isn't it? It allows the fester to promulgate for hundreds of years while the Imperium does what exactly? I can't imagine that Warp travel takes so long- if so, Space Marines would probably die of old age instead of battle wounds with all the zipping around they do.
Its because the Imperium's bureaucracy is fething incomprehensibly massive. Think about how long it takes modern earth governments to do anything. Now multiply that by a million worlds, each generating far more data than our planet, and you can see how things get out of hand.
Warp travel doesn't take all that long its true, but getting the information into the right hands and for a decision to get made can take a very long time.
Entire worlds get misplaced because of rounding errors. A single misplaced letter in an order form can send expeditions to the wrong side of the galaxy. One planet got forgotten because a scribe misplaced their data file and they weren't rediscovered till it was found they had 1000 years of back taxes due.
A century is pretty good reaction time for the Imperium. And this is actually why Space marines operate independently for the most part, so they can be untangled from the uncountable amount of redtape in the Imperium.
You also have to imagine that every marine chapter has a huge backlog of issues and reports to sift through and prioritize.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
urbanknight4 wrote: I'm coming a bit late to the discussion, but let's keep in mind that the Mechanicum is undoubtedly holding the Imperium back. I believe that if it weren't for them and their bizarre beliefs, mankind would be infinitely stronger.
Lets evaluate the facts.
The Mechanicum believes in "Machine Spirits". Hat this entails is that they apply a curtain of superstition and supernatural belief in basic technology interactions. Like the wiki says, even turning on a weapon requires the user to engage in a lengthy ritual, applying oils and chanting hymns to appease the non existent spirits. I'm all for freedom of religion, but this is stupid.
Directly related to the Tech-Priest's religion is their approach to innovation. Or rather, their lack of one. They believe that all the technology that will ever be made has already been made. The only step directly following that is to collect the plans and enact them. What this ensures is that innovation is discouraged- after all, there is nothing to innovate in their eyes. This causes knowledge to plateau, and maintain the risk of regressing if it is ever lost.
Lastly, and this is also the Emperor's fault, the Mechanicum are a bunch of xenophobes, just like literally the rest of humanity. Its a shame that they don't recognize their true place in the world- the Imperium may be powerful, but it's hardly the technological marvel the Martians pretend it is. I mean, a ton of problems could be solved simply by wiping out a few Eldar and Tau squads, lobotomizing their tech, and assimilating it. Rhino tanks could use gravitational lifts instead of archaic treads. Bolters could fire more rounds. Plasma guns wouldn't blow your hand off when overheating.
This is getting off topic, but I think nobody should defend the Mechanicum. I could say more about their backwards ways, but I've made my point. I highly doubt GW will listen because of the whole grimdark thing, but man... it would be great if at least one good thing happened.
Except of course you ignore the fact that Machine Spirits are very real things.
All I can say is that if I were in charge of the Imperium I'd purge the Ministorium and Bueracraucy instead of the Heretics, teach the Ad Mech what actual progress is, and then devote all the forge world to learning each other designs and design a blasted Hyperdrive.
saithor wrote: All I can say is that if I were in charge of the Imperium I'd purge the Ministorium and Bueracraucy instead of the Heretics, teach the Ad Mech what actual progress is, and then devote all the forge world to learning each other designs and design a blasted Hyperdrive.
That just ends in those three factions declaring you a heretic and executing you.
Furyou Miko wrote: Wow, Saithor, why don't you go ahead and do that in real life, too? Gods know the Civilised West could do with an effective, efficient government!
Failed my perception check to detect sarcasm. In all seriousness though, you have to assume there are some people in higher level positions that know how screwy the system is and that it needs to be fixed. Warp can only partially explain how slow the Imperium is, the rest is the Imperium itself. I'm not saying it would actually work, I realize anybody trying it would be executed as a heretic, just my 2 cents.
Read up on the multiple philosophies of the Inquisition. Some think it really does need to be changed. Others think the system is fine and just needs to be streamlined or ironed out a little.
dusara217 wrote: In response to the first quote, you basically just reaffirmed the fact that the AdMech is incredibly superstious, not that it's regressing.
In response to the second quote, we still have many examples of Rhinos being constructed, and of Titan parts being constructed with ease. Now, I would cite this, but the novel Priests of Mars is currently back home in AZ, and I'm up in Alaska visiting my cousins. I'll be home by tomorrow, and I'll post the quote, then.
It also makes it clear that they're losing knowledge with the end sentence.
The second quote outright says that they're regressing, you're thinking of the third quote with that second response.
Also, do you have a quote backing up your assertion that the Mechanicus is slowly advancing rather than regressing overall?
You're right, I'm wrong, at this point, I don't really care.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
urbanknight4 wrote: I'm coming a bit late to the discussion, but let's keep in mind that the Mechanicum is undoubtedly holding the Imperium back. I believe that if it weren't for them and their bizarre beliefs, mankind would be infinitely stronger.
Lets evaluate the facts.
The Mechanicum believes in "Machine Spirits". Hat this entails is that they apply a curtain of superstition and supernatural belief in basic technology interactions. Like the wiki says, even turning on a weapon requires the user to engage in a lengthy ritual, applying oils and chanting hymns to appease the non existent spirits. I'm all for freedom of religion, but this is stupid.
Directly related to the Tech-Priest's religion is their approach to innovation. Or rather, their lack of one. They believe that all the technology that will ever be made has already been made. The only step directly following that is to collect the plans and enact them. What this ensures is that innovation is discouraged- after all, there is nothing to innovate in their eyes. This causes knowledge to plateau, and maintain the risk of regressing if it is ever lost.
Lastly, and this is also the Emperor's fault, the Mechanicum are a bunch of xenophobes, just like literally the rest of humanity. Its a shame that they don't recognize their true place in the world- the Imperium may be powerful, but it's hardly the technological marvel the Martians pretend it is. I mean, a ton of problems could be solved simply by wiping out a few Eldar and Tau squads, lobotomizing their tech, and assimilating it. Rhino tanks could use gravitational lifts instead of archaic treads. Bolters could fire more rounds. Plasma guns wouldn't blow your hand off when overheating.
This is getting off topic, but I think nobody should defend the Mechanicum. I could say more about their backwards ways, but I've made my point. I highly doubt GW will listen because of the whole grimdark thing, but man... it would be great if at least one good thing happened.
I agree about everything except for the Machine Spirit-thing. In Priests of Mars, we have an Archmagos directly contacting one, also, I just realized that was the only source I had, so nvm about the also. Been too damn long since I've actually read a 40k novel...
Edit: Also, in the HH novel Mechanicum the Titan Princeps often communicate with the Machine-Spirits of their Titans, and the Knight Pilots often soothe and communicate with the Machine Spirits of their Knights (and Knights don't use MIUs, I don't think).
Totally off topic, but holy feth another person who lives in Arizona and has an interest in Warhammer!
Might I ask where in the state you live? I've found finding people to play with out here.. difficult.
urbanknight4 wrote: superstition and supernatural belief in basic technology interactions. Like the wiki says, even turning on a weapon requires the user to engage in a lengthy ritual, applying oils and chanting hymns to appease the non existent spirits. I'm all for freedom of religion, but this is stupid.
While it is stupid, it's important to remember where this came from.
The religion and beliefs that the Mechanicus follow were originally established to preserve working knowledge of machinery and its function through dogma. So "prayers and applying oils" may be reciting how to properly clean and oil a rifle whilst doing so. Or "Disengage safety, set stock to shoulder, aim down sights, squeeze trigger."
I live in Mesa, though I am currently in Surprise until August. It would be nice to actually have a reason to finish the rest of my BA models.
The AdMech only holds humanity back from killing itself off with unrestrained technological experimentation. The manufacturing base of humanity is right-fethed, with all kinds of insane scrap-code floating around in everything everywhere. You can't just build a tank, you have to ensure that its Machine Spirit is placated, because if it isn't, as soon as it rolls off the assembly line, it might start killing you.
Hasn't this actually happened in a novel? I can't remember where, but I could of sworn that I read something like that
Sort of. The Tanith first and only found a functioning, but corrupted, Iron Man STC. They had to destroy it as it was beginning to spit out death machines. The same death machines that almost made humanity go extinct. There is a very valid reason for all this superstition and fear of technology, it literally tried to kill mankind in the past. Basically the Terminator movies happened on a galactic scale, mankind won. barely.
Hasn't this actually happened in a novel? I can't remember where, but I could of sworn that I read something like that
It's happened twice so far, actually.
Once was at the end of the Golden Age, and is referred to as the Rise of the Men of Iron or the War of the Iron Men. It is, basically, a Terminator/Dune reference, when Mankind's machines rose up, destroyed everything, and then nearly drove Mankind extinct before being finally defeated. This lead to the Dark Age of Technology.
The second time the tech-base of Mankind got fethed hard was during the Heresy, when half of Mars went mad, released daemons into half of the foundries and burned the other half to the ground before riding off into the Eye of Terror, flipping the burning wreckage the middle mechadendrite because where they were going, they wouldn't need science.
If you mean the tank rolling off the assembly line and killing people? Not quite, but a rifle that is recovered from Chaos forces in the Gaunt's Ghosts series is considered cursed by the man carrying it (and he carries it for like 2 books) and, as previously mentioned, when the Ghosts encounter the corrupted STC. I haven't read each and every BL novel ever written, so there may be more examples, but the main point is that what the AdMech does might be ultra-conservative and slowing down potential technological breakthroughs, but they have a damn good reason for being the way they are.
Ìsn't there a bit in the IA books where they mention a Land Raider rolling off the production lins and killing stuff?
But yeah, LRs are a perfect example of Machine Spirits: the can demonstrate preference for specific allied units, and even fight all by themselves! The old Marine 'dex (5th ed I believe) even had one of them liberate an entire continent I believe.
I think it important to distinguish between what Machine Spirits are vs. what people believe.
The "Machine Spirits" of powerful machines like Titans and Land Raiders may exist as a form of half-organic AI, imbuing the total machine with some ability to function semi-autonomously. The Machine Spirits of things like your toaster is a belief held by official dogma to exist, like animism where everything has a spirit, but to modern humans there is nothing there.
A 40K person would view the ability of modern cars to park themselves or even drive themselves as evidence of a Machine Spirit but we would not view these car features as evidence of a supernatural spirit imbuing our cars with life nor would we view this as proof that simpler machines also have supernatural spirits inhabiting them. 40K people operate in a paradigm of animism where all machines are believed to have spirits and this belief is used to explain away the quirks of complex machinery or how advanced machines can do things on their own.
That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.
Give it another 10,000 years (assuming we make it that long) and our cars (by then hopefully flying ones) will have merged with Siri and Google Deep Dream and will not only be able to park, but also plan a route, react in real time to changing traffic conditions, talk to us about our day and offer emotional/emotive responses, conjecture and plan, and maybe also help us untangle a particularly-difficult problem at work by networking with other AI systems and using knowledge gained from the Cloud to help our human minds process information more quickly and accurately.
It will, in fact, be indistinguishable from interacting with a real person via video-conference, hardlight hologram, or, given the advancements of cybernetics, a "real" person... so much so that the practical distinctions between "artificial" and "actual" intelligence will be non-existent.
The people of M41 are not less-intelligent than we are. There's 38,000 years of violent history and apocalypse-level events between us and them. We simply cannot truly conceive of the reality in which they live. What seems primitive and backwards to us is something that every child learns at his/her mother's knee as a survival instinct, because to do otherwise inevitably results in death.
Iracundus wrote: The "Machine Spirits" of powerful machines like Titans and Land Raiders may exist as a form of half-organic AI, imbuing the total machine with some ability to function semi-autonomously. The Machine Spirits of things like your toaster is a belief held by official dogma to exist, like animism where everything has a spirit, but to modern humans there is nothing there.
Not everyone is happy when things move slowly though. I remember some fluff piece in an old book (2nd ed compendium maybe?) where a force of Space Marines are holding a line against Orks and a TechPriest is asked to activate his battle robots to help out. After hearing what timetable the priest offers (basically hours of rituals) the marine commander tells him "fifteen minutes or pick up a bolter and join the line yourself". Five minutes later the first robot is marching towards the battle.
urbanknight4 wrote: Horus only managed to wound the Emperor so much because the Emperor had compassion towards him and didn't want to use his full power against his son.
As for the Tau... there's something wrong with them. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'm sure the Ethereals are pulling a hat trick. You can't possibly obtain respect and obedience from an entire race the way they did. Its not grimdark enough for 40k. There's rot under their glory.
Isn't there a way to prevent us from misusing tech without blatantly stopping progress in it's tracks? I mean, cmon... even the Tau, a people that were barely rubbing two sticks together to make fire when we passed their planet in starships, have surpassed us in technology. If anything, their plasma rifles don't double as suicide devices.
Psienesis wrote: That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.
We already have true AI, we use them in programs and video games all the time. Just because they aren't sentient or self-aware does not mean that they are not artificial intelligences. Synthetic life may be beyond our reach, but AI is commonplace in our society.
urbanknight4 wrote: Isn't there a way to prevent us from misusing tech without blatantly stopping progress in it's tracks? I mean, cmon... even the Tau, a people that were barely rubbing two sticks together to make fire when we passed their planet in starships, have surpassed us in technology. If anything, their plasma rifles don't double as suicide devices.
please, the Tau are still quite primitive compared to the Imperium.
You are simply mistaking their basic soldiers having more advanced tech than Imperial Guard as meaning they are more advanced. but really everything the Tau have looks like bow and arrows compared to the high end Imperial technology.
Imperial plasma is more powerful than Tau plasma. Sure, they could make them safer but that would make the guns weaker. and when your most numerous resource is human lives safety isn't a big deal. The next guy over can pick up the plasma gun.
Tau FTL travel is still the most primitive around, they can barely get past their current borders.
Sure, they have railguns mounted on their vehicles. The Imperium has railguns the length of starships that fire rounds that explode with the force of a small star. Putting 1 railgun on 1 tank is unnecessary when you can instead make 2 dozen tanks with a conventional gun that do the job even better. Its the same principal as Sherman tanks vs Tigers. Sure, the Tiger is better, but for every Tiger you can get 12 Shermans. And only lose 3 Shermans to kill 1 Tiger.
The Tau also haven't experienced an AI rebellion yet. That will come around and bite them in the ass eventually, like it did for humanity. And the Tau probably won't survive it.
Psienesis wrote: That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.
We already have true AI, we use them in programs and video games all the time. Just because they aren't sentient or self-aware does not mean that they are not artificial intelligences. Synthetic life may be beyond our reach, but AI is commonplace in our society.
No we don't. A true AI is self-aware and capable of learning and adapting. Video game "AI" is simply a complex program that only responds to certain stimuli in certain ways. And it will respond the same way every time if the conditions are the same.
urbanknight4 wrote: Isn't there a way to prevent us from misusing tech without blatantly stopping progress in it's tracks? I mean, cmon... even the Tau, a people that were barely rubbing two sticks together to make fire when we passed their planet in starships, have surpassed us in technology. If anything, their plasma rifles don't double as suicide devices.
please, the Tau are still quite primitive compared to the Imperium.
You are simply mistaking their basic soldiers having more advanced tech than Imperial Guard as meaning they are more advanced. but really everything the Tau have looks like bow and arrows compared to the high end Imperial technology.
Imperial plasma is more powerful than Tau plasma. Sure, they could make them safer but that would make the guns weaker. and when your most numerous resource is human lives safety isn't a big deal. The next guy over can pick up the plasma gun.
Tau FTL travel is still the most primitive around, they can barely get past their current borders.
Sure, they have railguns mounted on their vehicles. The Imperium has railguns the length of starships that fire rounds that explode with the force of a small star. Putting 1 railgun on 1 tank is unnecessary when you can instead make 2 dozen tanks with a conventional gun that do the job even better. Its the same principal as Sherman tanks vs Tigers. Sure, the Tiger is better, but for every Tiger you can get 12 Shermans. And only lose 3 Shermans to kill 1 Tiger.
The Tau also haven't experienced an AI rebellion yet. That will come around and bite them in the ass eventually, like it did for humanity. And the Tau probably won't survive it.
Psienesis wrote: That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.
We already have true AI, we use them in programs and video games all the time. Just because they aren't sentient or self-aware does not mean that they are not artificial intelligences. Synthetic life may be beyond our reach, but AI is commonplace in our society.
No we don't. A true AI is self-aware and capable of learning and adapting. Video game "AI" is simply a complex program that only responds to certain stimuli in certain ways. And it will respond the same way every time if the conditions are the same.
The Imperium doesn't have technology. It has relics and formulas it can go through to get specific things. That's why in 6,000 years no one could figure out how to solder some anti-aircraft missiles and a radar onto a Rhino. When the Forgeworld that makes something goes, it's possible that it is gone forever.
Tau FTL doesn't risk losing lives in the Warp. It's not the fastest, but its more reliable than Imperial tech. Besides, from what I remember reading in BFG, Tau's skipping-rock FTL has gotten almost as fast as the Imperium's.
I think you got this analogy backwards. It's the Imperium that makes too-heavy, too-complicated, super-massive war machines. The true disadvantage of the Tiger was that all it took was a wee little bit of air support and the thing was toast... and it's pretty much just the Tau that have strength D weapons on fast-moving fliers. Tiger Sharks eat slow Imperial tanks and Titans for breakfast.
The Tau aren't human. They aren't as greedy or short-sighted. They aren't as arrogant with their drones as humanity was with the Iron Men. An AI rebellion can be avoided and the Tau are likely to do that. Creations reflect the maker and Tau are a more social, self-sacrificing species than humanity.
Sure, a Tiger Shark can kill Imperial tanks. But those Imperial tanks are never without significant AA and air support. For every Tiger Shark the Tau can have, the Imperium will have 30 Thunderbolts or Lightning Strike Craft.
Also, the Tau will have an AI rebellion. Its a question of if, not when. The Iron Men didn't rebel because they were made by arrogant humans, they rebelled because they were self-aware machines. And if anything, the Tau are more short-sighted because they only live about half as long. The Tau may be self sacrificing, but whose to say they won't make a drone who suddenly says "Feth this, I ain't sacrificing myself for some meatbag".
sure, the Imperium is held back by some dogma and fear of technology, but there is a very real reason behind it. And even then, they are still way more advanced than the Tau.
There are several different domains or parameters. There is the actual technological level (i.e. what is the most advanced tech this race has ever produced), the level of dissemination of technology (how accessible is technology), and the ability to reproduce & manufacture the technology.
The Imperium clearly has technology the Tau don't have, often stuff that interacts with the warp or involves psykers. However such technology is hoarded by the Adeptus Mechanicus and/or is not easily reproduce because they are irreplaceable relics or poorly understood so they are manufactured in a secretive craftsman style fashion. This technology then is susceptible to being lost if those few that know do not pass on their knowledge. The Imperium is also characterized by the sharp divide between the haves and have nots, with the have nots having very primitive technology while the nobility and Inquisitors can have access to advanced technology.
The Tau may not have certain technology that the Imperium has, but what the Tau do have is more widely understood and available to the masses. The Tau have wider dissemination with their cities being stereotypical advanced science fiction cities, while the Imperium's hives are a futuristic version of the mill town, and some other Imperial worlds are literally in the Stone Age. The first Tau Codex has a Tech-Priest report that notes outlying Imperial colonies have committed tech-heresy for trading for improved (i.e. better than Imperial) construction and agricultural machinery from the Tau.
So if I were to compare: The Imperium has higher maximum tech, but there is little dissemination of technology resulting in a low average level of technology. The Imperium compensates for this and for difficulties of logistics by massive human numbers, mass production, and general durability and ruggedness. The advanced technology is only available in limited quantities to privileged groups only and is not easily reproducible or is even irreplaceable. The Tau has a lower maximum tech but what it does have is widely distributed, understood, and manufactured and Tau society's average level of technology is higher.
Psienesis wrote: That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.
We already have true AI, we use them in programs and video games all the time. Just because they aren't sentient or self-aware does not mean that they are not artificial intelligences. Synthetic life may be beyond our reach, but AI is commonplace in our society.
Most of those AI are a compilation of railroaded actions. They don't ever change behaviour when presented with a duplicate situation, except in a few cases where the devs put in an extra protocol.
They don't remember, they don't improve, they don't make judgments and they have no senses. Game engine pokes them with a few numbers, and they do pre-chosen actions.
Sure, a Tiger Shark can kill Imperial tanks. But those Imperial tanks are never without significant AA and air support. For every Tiger Shark the Tau can have, the Imperium will have 30 Thunderbolts or Lightning Strike Craft.
... all stationed on Cadia, facing the 13th Black Crusade, FAAAAAAR from the Tau.
Sure, a Tiger Shark can kill Imperial tanks. But those Imperial tanks are never without significant AA and air support. For every Tiger Shark the Tau can have, the Imperium will have 30 Thunderbolts or Lightning Strike Craft.
... all stationed on Cadia, facing the 13th Black Crusade, FAAAAAAR from the Tau.
Those aircraft are hardly unique to Cadia. They are the workhorses of the imperial navy, pretty much standard equipment for naval air support.
And if anything, the Tau are more short-sighted because they only live about half as long.
Wishful thinking on your part. That the Tau are capable of the battlefield mastery, technological advancement,and diplomatic excellence they individually achieve over their very short lives skeaks highly of how individual Tau compare to individual humans- much smarter, much quicker-thinking.
Sure, a Tiger Shark can kill Imperial tanks. But those Imperial tanks are never without significant AA and air support. For every Tiger Shark the Tau can have, the Imperium will have 30 Thunderbolts or Lightning Strike Craft.
... all stationed on Cadia, facing the 13th Black Crusade, FAAAAAAR from the Tau.
Those aircraft are hardly unique to Cadia. They are the workhorses of the imperial navy, pretty much standard equipment for naval air support.
My apologies. I've been drinking. I thought the poster was referencing something other than the cheap, junk fighters the Imperium loses en masse in every naval and air engagement in takes part in.
Remoras and Baracudas don't need my defense to get across their efficiency against Imperial fighters.
... but pretty much no truly dangerous effort by the Imperium can be made against the Tau so long as Abaddon is preparing to sack Cadia.
So if I were to compare: The Imperium has higher maximum tech, but there is little dissemination of technology resulting in a low average level of technology. The Imperium compensates for this and for difficulties of logistics by massive human numbers, mass production, and general durability and ruggedness. The advanced technology is only available in limited quantities to privileged groups only and is not easily reproducible or is even irreplaceable. The Tau has a lower maximum tech but what it does have is widely distributed, understood, and manufactured and Tau society's average level of technology is higher.
Don't forget that humanity is losing technology faster than it is finding new STCs, and that the Tau are still rapidly advancing.
Matter of time until the Str6 Ap1 rail rifle is standard issue across the Tau Empire.
Also, the Tau will have an AI rebellion. Its a question of if, not when. The Iron Men didn't rebel because they were made by arrogant humans, they rebelled because they were self-aware machines... but whose to say they won't make a drone who suddenly says "Feth this, I ain't sacrificing myself for some meatbag".
Actually, I'd say the selfish nature of humanity rubbed off onto their creations. You're wanting to believe its inevitable because you're emotionally attached to the Imperium and don't want to consider another race might do it better.
Its true we're emotionally attached to the Imperium. Thats because we're not heretics.
Just kidding
Look, I know what happened in Fantasy. I just don't want the same to happen in 40k. Its an outrage to think that all the sacrifice and warfare we've gone through essentially amounts to nothing. I refuse to believe that anyone other than man will win- not the Tau, the Chaos Heretics, the Necrons, the Tyrannids, nor even the rapidly uniting Orks. I have to believe. Once we win, we can rebuild. Rebuild and prosper, to make the galaxy our own personal Garden of Eden.
Sure, a Tiger Shark can kill Imperial tanks. But those Imperial tanks are never without significant AA and air support. For every Tiger Shark the Tau can have, the Imperium will have 30 Thunderbolts or Lightning Strike Craft.
... all stationed on Cadia, facing the 13th Black Crusade, FAAAAAAR from the Tau.
Don't worry. When we're done ransacking Cadia, we'll eventually get to mopping up the Tau. Plenty of time. You ain't got no psychic defenses. Let's see how well that tech does against portals to hell and mind bullets.
Of course, our biggest adversary will always be GW. Still trying to suppress info about our 13th Crusade victory because they're a bunch of shills for the Imperium.
Remoras and Baracudas don't need my defense to get across their efficiency against Imperial fighters.
They're comparable. Not better - even with the Air Caste's innate biological advantages, the one 'fighter war' we have described (In Tactica Aeronautica, I think, though it might have been Imperial Armour Aeronautica), their fighters are always portrayed as pretty even.
Tau Aether Drive is a lot slower. The latest version - which is why the Merchant class replaced the Explorer Class - only makes a 1/3 of 'normal' Imperial Warp Engine speeds. More importantly, the Tau's weakness in naval campaigns are more fundamental and aren't actually in the line of battle (whilst they use an ordnance and attack craft heavy doctrine is not massively less capable than the Imperial Navy cruiser-for-cruiser) - they don't have long-range FTL-capable escorts (Defenders can make short hops but aren't really independent and they pay for it by being unmanouvrable for their size) and they rely on couriers not instantaneous(ish) communications; their major weakness is reconnaisance and long-distance co-ordination.
Machine spirits - for some things - like simple mechanical technology - the 'machine spirit' is just technological feng-shui; there's no more real interaction than with any piece of mechanical technology today (although: how many people do you know now who ascribe a 'personality' to their car?), but the more sophisticated an item you get, the more of a real, AI-ish machine spirit there actually is, until you get to the dog-smart Land Raider, which can fight independantly (sort of), and the Battle Titan, which provides a true machine symbiosis with a human mind.
The mechanicus is both continuously losing and (re)gaining knowledge. The net direction is probably down, because otherwise it's not grimdark enough, but it's a sort of dynamic steady state rather than a one-way street. Most things which are lost for good (other than archeotech, which just isn't replicable and hence is just a priceless but expendable asset rather than 'technology' per se) are lost because it's an STC fragment held by a world which is destroyed or conquered, or whatever. Which is why the Adeptus Mechanicus insists (often unsuccessfully) that that sort of stuff be sent, or at least copied, to Mars, and why they get really annoyed with groups like the Blood Angels and Dark Angels who don't do so.
Also; note that the Imperial Guard/Tau comparisons aren't quite as black and white as "Tau are vastly superior" - one thing which gets poked a lot more in the Fantasy Flight Games RPGs and the defunct GW game Inquisitor is the supporting issues around comparing Pulse Rifles and Lasguns. The Lasgun - especially the lascarbine (the one that Catachans use) is a lightweight, reliable weapon that's simple to maintain and has a sixty round clip you can recharge from essentially any power supply.
It's not just 'all we can manage' but for an army which fights in the way the classic Imperial guard does - more men, send in the next wave, and the next - it's the best weapon you can pick because it doesn't require you to worry about logistics and maintenance; throw the regiment onto the surface and turn back to pick up another one.
The pulse rifle hits like a bugger, and someone shot with it tends to stay down (like bolt weapons), but it has far fewer shots per power cell (making it less useful for laying down bursts of suppressing fire), it's big and bulky, making it unwieldy at closer ranges, and more importantly it needs a much better maintenance and supply train to keep it useful.
Which is fine for the Tau, who either tend to be fighting to defend their own colony worlds or else fighting in close proximity to major worlds because their so compact as a species, but is much less useful when you're scattered to the outer dark like the guard are.
And yes, getting things done takes forever in the imperium if the 'thing' is of a large enough scale. Assume a Rogue Trader finds a sector-sized region worth conquering - even if he sends an astropathic message off, the Imperium isn't going to put together a crusade without seeing his reports in the flesh, and his return voyage could take years. Pulling together the ships and men without stripping a sector of its defensive forces means mustering the forces of several sectors, which means several seperate lord-sectors, all of whom want a share of the profits and don't want to hand over too many of the troops protecting their own back yards from numerous threats.
Which means going to someone who can overrule them all, which means going up to segmentum level or even to Terra. Which puts you in a queue behind all the other 'critical issues' which also absolutely must have the High Lord's ears.
....Which is why so much is achieved, proportionately, by people who can short-cut the Adeptus Terra's hierarchy; alliances of big Rogue Trader dynasties, Inquisitors and the Adeptus Astartes.
If you mean the tank rolling off the assembly line and killing people?
More or less. In the Graphic Novel Titan, a salvaged Warlord-class titan is being repaired on a forge world. It goes badly wrong - the tech-priests manage to shock the machine spirit back into life but it's traumatized by the battle damage and it goes bezerk, opening up with engine-class weapons inside the titan silo until Imperius Dictatio finally puts it (back) out of its misery.
Psienesis wrote: That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.
We already have true AI, we use them in programs and video games all the time. Just because they aren't sentient or self-aware does not mean that they are not artificial intelligences. Synthetic life may be beyond our reach, but AI is commonplace in our society.
If they aren't sentient and self-aware, they aren't "True AI" by definition.
Iracundus wrote: I think it important to distinguish between what Machine Spirits are vs. what people believe.
The "Machine Spirits" of powerful machines like Titans and Land Raiders may exist as a form of half-organic AI, imbuing the total machine with some ability to function semi-autonomously. The Machine Spirits of things like your toaster is a belief held by official dogma to exist, like animism where everything has a spirit, but to modern humans there is nothing there.
A 40K person would view the ability of modern cars to park themselves or even drive themselves as evidence of a Machine Spirit but we would not view these car features as evidence of a supernatural spirit imbuing our cars with life nor would we view this as proof that simpler machines also have supernatural spirits inhabiting them. 40K people operate in a paradigm of animism where all machines are believed to have spirits and this belief is used to explain away the quirks of complex machinery or how advanced machines can do things on their own.
No, all of humanity's machines in 40K have some legitimate spirituality to them. Cogs attached to no motors or anything that might supply power have started moving before simply because of a Tech Priest performing rituals on them. Firearms will fail you in the middle of a firefight in a manner similar to the One Ring if you fail to care for them properly. The religion exists for a reason- it's to ensure things actually work and don't actively try to kill you.
I need a source on the cogs moving and the vindictive weapons. This is actual proof that the Mechanicum might not be a bunch of cheeseballs wearing tinfoil, but I need to see it.
Iracundus wrote: I think it important to distinguish between what Machine Spirits are vs. what people believe.
The "Machine Spirits" of powerful machines like Titans and Land Raiders may exist as a form of half-organic AI, imbuing the total machine with some ability to function semi-autonomously. The Machine Spirits of things like your toaster is a belief held by official dogma to exist, like animism where everything has a spirit, but to modern humans there is nothing there.
A 40K person would view the ability of modern cars to park themselves or even drive themselves as evidence of a Machine Spirit but we would not view these car features as evidence of a supernatural spirit imbuing our cars with life nor would we view this as proof that simpler machines also have supernatural spirits inhabiting them. 40K people operate in a paradigm of animism where all machines are believed to have spirits and this belief is used to explain away the quirks of complex machinery or how advanced machines can do things on their own.
No, all of humanity's machines in 40K have some legitimate spirituality to them. Cogs attached to no motors or anything that might supply power have started moving before simply because of a Tech Priest performing rituals on them. Firearms will fail you in the middle of a firefight in a manner similar to the One Ring if you fail to care for them properly. The religion exists for a reason- it's to ensure things actually work and don't actively try to kill you.
That's what the Adeptus Mechanicus believes, not what is actually true. There is need to differentiate between what people believe is the explanation for things and what is reality. The firearm fails you because of poor maintenance not because some fictitious gun spirit is angry at you. This is the same Adeptus Mechanicus that claims to have proven Gauss weaponry to be an impossibility. Tell that to the Necrons while they flay you with their perfectly functional Gauss weapons.
The Adeptus Mechanicus can do things but their explanation of why things work as they do is based on their theology. Similarly ancient steel makers had religious rituals and prayers to propitiate spirits and angels to aid in the forging but which we now think helped the process by ensuring the right mixture of impurities and timing was done. The end result was the same, a working steel blade, but two different paradigms for explaining why something worked.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Of course their guns fail if they aren't treated properly. It''s called maintenance.
Lasguns are extremely low maintenance, and Tau can't recharge their guns by throwing their batteries in a campfire or leaving them out in the sun. That's the real crazy thing about Lasguns. If you have time to recharge, they basically have limitless ammo. Saves massively on resources and is GREAT for extended campaigns where supplies are limited. So from an Imperium perspective, lasguns make way more sense than pulse rifles (assuming they would ever dabble in such heretical xenos tech, which of course they don't). They've got manpower. It makes sense to produce a huge amount of the cheapest gun they can, that lasts basically forever. Of course, the IoM also produces huge, impractical super weapons (Titans, battleships), so militarily they're a weird combination of the Soviets/Red Chinese and the WWII German army. Tau are more like the modern US military. Lots of cool tech and good logistics so that large numbers of soldiers are unnecessary.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Of course their guns fail if they aren't treated properly. It''s called maintenance.
Lasguns are extremely low maintenance, and Tau can't recharge their guns by throwing their batteries in a campfire or leaving them out in the sun. That's the real crazy thing about Lasguns. If you have time to recharge, they basically have limitless ammo. Saves massively on resources and is GREAT for extended campaigns where supplies are limited. So from an Imperium perspective, lasguns make way more sense than pulse rifles (assuming they would ever dabble in such heretical xenos tech, which of course they don't). They've got manpower. It makes sense to produce a huge amount of the cheapest gun they can, that lasts basically forever. Of course, the IoM also produces huge, impractical super weapons (Titans, battleships), so militarily they're a weird combination of the Soviets/Red Chinese and the WWII German army. Tau are more like the modern US military. Lots of cool tech and good logistics so that large numbers of soldiers are unnecessary.
What? I wasn't talking about the tau at all. When did that come into it?
Also, small point, you can charge the power-packs by putting them in the fire, but it can also severely damage the packs, and is (IIRC) banned by the imperium. And it takes a full 24 hours in the sun. Now it's still useful, but only if you are stuck without a supply-line. And can't all enegy based weapons (las, pulse, ect) technically charge in the sun? Solar panels to exist in the future right?
Conventional plasma, yes, but pulse weapons work by firing a particle that breaks down within the barrel. Canonically it's 50 shots per enegy pack. I think lasguns are somewhere in the 70-100 range or something, I'm not quite sure.
Varies by specific pattern of las-weapon, yes, but most average around 60 shots per charged cell.
However, the cell can be recharged in just about anything that provides electrical power. So if you're fighting in a Hive, say, just plug it into a wall-socket (assuming there's power).
Why does it take so long for the imperium to do things?
Anyone who has had to deal with a government department knows one thing:
Bureaucracy has a momentum.
The bigger a bureaucracy is, the longer it takes to get stuff done. It's not a linear progression, though, it's more geometric or logarithmic.
A Bureaucracy the size of the mperium has so much momentum that all the energy in the galaxy can barely shift it. The emperor himself couldn't get a paperclip through supplies in the time he has left in his little black psyker sucking box.
Folks have mentioned bureaucracy, size of the universe but related to that there's also much more like:
Politics (e.g. fighting over who leads a campaign), superstition (e.g. having to perform rites for everything), war, propogated laxity, xenos intervention, logistics (le.g. oading a billion people into a starship takes time), the scale of construction (e.g. having to build that starship), and even incorrect decisions (e.g. the Inquisitor that mistook an early indication of a Necron invasion for a Psychic attack)
chromedog wrote: Why does it take so long for the imperium to do things?
Anyone who has had to deal with a government department knows one thing:
Bureaucracy has a momentum.
The bigger a bureaucracy is, the longer it takes to get stuff done. It's not a linear progression, though, it's more geometric or logarithmic.
A Bureaucracy the size of the mperium has so much momentum that all the energy in the galaxy can barely shift it. The emperor himself couldn't get a paperclip through supplies in the time he has left in his little black psyker sucking box.
I'd like to discuss the Emperor. Who's with me? I think I'll have to make a new thread, though...
And to the guy above me, it makes sense. Your reasons are great. I just hate how many problems the Imperium has. It's like GW said: what's worse than a declining galaxy-spanning empire with a brutal bureaucracy and an actual religious Inquisition? A declining galaxy-spanning empire with a brutal bureaucracy and an actual religious Inquisition that's also faced on all sides by rebellion, dissent, the forces of Chaos (which have literal gods) aaaand why not throw in a couple alien races that individually would be a great challenge. But together? This'll be fun!
Co'tor Shas wrote: Would that not be true for all energy weapons as well? At least if you had an adapter?
No. Plasma and Melta weapons use tanks of unstable elements, usually hydrogen, to generate massive amounts of heat (or is simply easily converted into plasma). You could probably recharge the e-cell that provides the spark for the reaction, but that's not the same thing. Once you run out of the plasma or melta-making material, you're out of ammo. The massive power-packs on lascannons are non-rechargeable.
chromedog wrote: Why does it take so long for the imperium to do things?
Anyone who has had to deal with a government department knows one thing:
Bureaucracy has a momentum.
The bigger a bureaucracy is, the longer it takes to get stuff done. It's not a linear progression, though, it's more geometric or logarithmic.
A Bureaucracy the size of the mperium has so much momentum that all the energy in the galaxy can barely shift it. The emperor himself couldn't get a paperclip through supplies in the time he has left in his little black psyker sucking box.
I'd like to discuss the Emperor. Who's with me? I think I'll have to make a new thread, though...
And to the guy above me, it makes sense. Your reasons are great. I just hate how many problems the Imperium has. It's like GW said: what's worse than a declining galaxy-spanning empire with a brutal bureaucracy and an actual religious Inquisition? A declining galaxy-spanning empire with a brutal bureaucracy and an actual religious Inquisition that's also faced on all sides by rebellion, dissent, the forces of Chaos (which have literal gods) aaaand why not throw in a couple alien races that individually would be a great challenge. But together? This'll be fun!
Oh, GW...
Um, yeah, that's... that's a dystopia for you. It's the worst imaginable happening to everyone everywhere right now at the same time.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Would that not be true for all energy weapons as well? At least if you had an adapter?
No. Plasma and Melta weapons use tanks of unstable elements, usually hydrogen, to generate massive amounts of heat (or is simply easily converted into plasma). You could probably recharge the e-cell that provides the spark for the reaction, but that's not the same thing. Once you run out of the plasma or melta-making material, you're out of ammo. The massive power-packs on lascannons are non-rechargeable.
But I'm not talking about those, I'm talking about pure energy based ones. Las guns are a perfect example and the secondary ammunition of pulse weapons is small enough to mean a single individual and carry thousands of shots worth with ease. (actually, now that i think about it, those are the only ones that are really applicable, at least AFAIK)
Can't speak to the Tau weapons, don't know how they function.
Any of the standard las-weapons in the Imperium, though, yeah, you can just plug them into a wall and recharge them. Theoretically possible with whatever powercell Gravguns and the like use, too.
Well, with pulse weapons you have your main power pack (similar to what las weapons use) which is good for 50 shots before you need to reaload. From the images, that seems to be about the size of a 30 round clip, maybe a bit a bit longer (which is to say, a bit longer in the direction the bullets go). You than have a secondary thing, which supplies the particals that are accelerated, which is quite small, smaller than a magazine you would use in a pistol, which is good for hundreds of shots.
So a two-stage ammunition system. Yes, you could (theoretically) use an adapter to recharge the power cell, but the particle cell wotsit is right out. So... without a supply chain of those, you will eventually have a club.
The real reason is that it's Space Dark Ages. (Not the real Dark Ages, but the one in popular culture.) Progress is the opposite of the whole feel.
The society is supposed to be one steeped in superstition (see above). It is not early-20th-century Europe in space, but 8th-century Europe. There is no science in the modern sense at all.
Also ever see that episode of futurama that shows the bureaucracy of the year 3000 and how ridiculous it was? I imagine 40k being something like that but 1000x larger and more confusing. You need to get your sign off signed off by the hundreds of bureaucrats ahead of you for the simplest of things.
Psienesis wrote: Of which the adoption of Christianity played a part, as it denied the divinity of Caesar, but this is really not the place for that discussion.
The Emperor being Divine was never a huge part of the Roman empire. Losing that was not responsible for its collapse in any way shape or form.
It had more to do with there being a long succession of lunatics sitting on the throne.
In fact, if it hadn't been for monks sitting in monasteries dutifully maintaining earlier records much more would have been lost.
Point is it seems the Imperium is so obsessed and controlled by its blind devotion to the god emperor they can't seem to focus on anything past that, much like the dark ages brought on by Christianity.
Technology seems to thrive for the other races that aren't consumed entirely by whatever religion or fanaticism that drives them.
Grey Templar wrote: Ummm, the Dark Ages were not caused by Christianity. They were caused by the collapse of the Roman empire due to external and internal conflict.
Yup. In fact, it was Christian monks who were PRESERVING Roman and Greek texts (the knowledge that the Renaissance would be built on) that the Germanic tribes running rampant at the time were burning them if they got their hands on them. Also, the lack of technological progress during the so called "Dark Ages" has been greatly exaggerated. I suggest looking up the book "Medieval Machine" to enlighten yourself.
"I drew this chart, which is very factual and scientific because it's a chart. The Y axis represents my emotional feelings on this subject, which is why it contains no actual units of measurement and is labelled with an abstract concept that cannot be quantified. I am so logical and objective. Suck it, religious people."
Indeed, although it is incorrect to say the Imperium isn't advancing at all. They are advancing in some areas, and sliding back in others.
The Ad Mech does do research too. Of course, their need to fully ensure everything is in accordance with the Omnissiah does make things progress slowly. That said, they have very good reasons to be cautious and skeptical. Humanity was almost wiped out when their technology turned on them, and this was at the height of mankind's scientific understanding. When something that bad happens, you do your best to make sure it never happens again.
Grey Templar wrote: Ummm, the Dark Ages were not caused by Christianity. They were caused by the collapse of the Roman empire due to external and internal conflict.
Yup. In fact, it was Christian monks who were PRESERVING Roman and Greek texts (the knowledge that the Renaissance would be built on) that the Germanic tribes running rampant at the time were burning them if they got their hands on them. Also, the lack of technological progress during the so called "Dark Ages" has been greatly exaggerated. I suggest looking up the book "Medieval Machine" to enlighten yourself.
"I drew this chart, which is very factual and scientific because it's a chart. The Y axis represents my emotional feelings on this subject, which is why it contains no actual units of measurement and is labelled with an abstract concept that cannot be quantified. I am so logical and objective. Suck it, religious people."
Tried to find the book, mate. Sounds interesting but it's nowhere to be found.
Also ever see that episode of futurama that shows the bureaucracy of the year 3000 and how ridiculous it was? I imagine 40k being something like that but 1000x larger and more confusing. You need to get your sign off signed off by the hundreds of bureaucrats ahead of you for the simplest of things.
That's actually false. The Church was one of the greatest beneficiaries of the sciences during the Middle Ages and Monks are the only reason Medieval Europe even remembered Greek Scientists and Philosophers due to preserving their scrolls. The Dark Age also truthfully never existed as a legitimate period of time- humanity has never technologically regressed in history. The true cause of the implosion in trade and civilization in western Europe was the Western Roman Empire going up in smoke and leaving a massive power vacuum that every Gaul and Frank was scrambling to fill.
Also the nation that brought back stability to the warring tribes and clans of Europe was a gigantic Catholic empire.
Grey Templar wrote: Ummm, the Dark Ages were not caused by Christianity. They were caused by the collapse of the Roman empire due to external and internal conflict.
Yup. In fact, it was Christian monks who were PRESERVING Roman and Greek texts (the knowledge that the Renaissance would be built on) that the Germanic tribes running rampant at the time were burning them if they got their hands on them. Also, the lack of technological progress during the so called "Dark Ages" has been greatly exaggerated. I suggest looking up the book "Medieval Machine" to enlighten yourself.
"I drew this chart, which is very factual and scientific because it's a chart. The Y axis represents my emotional feelings on this subject, which is why it contains no actual units of measurement and is labelled with an abstract concept that cannot be quantified. I am so logical and objective. Suck it, religious people."
Tried to find the book, mate. Sounds interesting but it's nowhere to be found.
I'm an atheist myself but I'd like to point out that it was a Catholic priest George Lemaitres that gave us the theory of the Big Bang. The Pope of the time (early 50s iirc) was ready to order it canon but was advised that it defeats the point of how the theory came about through observation. Lemaitre wanted the theory to remain neutral.
Grey Templar wrote: Ummm, the Dark Ages were not caused by Christianity. They were caused by the collapse of the Roman empire due to external and internal conflict.
Yup. In fact, it was Christian monks who were PRESERVING Roman and Greek texts (the knowledge that the Renaissance would be built on) that the Germanic tribes running rampant at the time were burning them if they got their hands on them. Also, the lack of technological progress during the so called "Dark Ages" has been greatly exaggerated. I suggest looking up the book "Medieval Machine" to enlighten yourself.
"I drew this chart, which is very factual and scientific because it's a chart. The Y axis represents my emotional feelings on this subject, which is why it contains no actual units of measurement and is labelled with an abstract concept that cannot be quantified. I am so logical and objective. Suck it, religious people."
Tried to find the book, mate. Sounds interesting but it's nowhere to be found.
Well in that case you're out of luck, unless your local library has a copy. Books typically cost money, and scholarly works are less frequently pirated online than important stuff like 40k Rulebooks.
fallinq wrote: Well in that case you're out of luck, unless your local library has a copy. Books typically cost money, and scholarly works are less frequently pirated online than important stuff like 40k Rulebooks.
I'm genuinely mad about this. This is the first time I want to pirate a textbookish book, and I can't find it :/
fallinq wrote: Well in that case you're out of luck, unless your local library has a copy. Books typically cost money, and scholarly works are less frequently pirated online than important stuff like 40k Rulebooks.
I'm genuinely mad about this. This is the first time I want to pirate a textbookish book, and I can't find it :/
I'll read it, though! ....somehow.
If there is an university near to you it might be worth it to check their library.
Also ever see that episode of futurama that shows the bureaucracy of the year 3000 and how ridiculous it was? I imagine 40k being something like that but 1000x larger and more confusing. You need to get your sign off signed off by the hundreds of bureaucrats ahead of you for the simplest of things.
That picture is so false, it's painful. The fact of the matter is that the only time in which techology actually stagnated was the first couple centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire. From about 800 AD onwards, technology was advancing at pretty much the same rate as before, if not faster due to the Muslim Empire's emphasis on scientific developments, as well as the Church maintaining extensive records regarding arts and sciences.
Well the fluff says the numbers that make up the bureaucracy exceed the Guardsmen iirc. So good luck. If done peacefully and orderly going through that many employees would take generations and would require a whole new bureaucratic branch to oversee it and chances are they'll forget the spirit if not the letter of their job becoming yet another part of the gov't acting suspicious and persecuting it's own. Or the less peaceful way might cause so much blood spilled a rift to the Warp might spawn with Khorne Daemons coming out to join in the fun.
Psienesis wrote: The Inquisition does occasionally purge the least-efficient of the Administratum's ranks.
"August 05, 41,987,
Today work was slow. Only a few hundred requests got done, and my boss shouted at us for not praising the Emperor enough.
The Inquisition dropped by. Took out Joe and Dave from Accounting with a shot from their Bolters. Less messier than last week, at least.
I always did tell them to work harder and sign their papers "The Emperor Protects"."
-Taken from the journal of Billy Bob Solanum, accountant at Ultramar
For that matter, somewhere there's an Administratum Divisio responsible for handling the Inquisition's paperwork.
I have a mental image of an expense claim along the lines of:
30-50.999.M41:
~ 1 x Tempestus Scion Battalion; travel & subsistence for 1 day.
~ 1 x Ecclesiarchal Deacon; same
~ Use of Primus Cathedral; same
~ Sundries for Mass Blessing; 1000 people
~ Sundries for Mass Execution; same
~ Sundries for Mass Burial; same
~ 1 x Spicy Grox Steak Baguette & Recaff Meal Deal
My understanding of Burst Weapons is that they are the same 'physics' as pulse weapons, just with more barrels and a higher rate of fire - so both the physical component and the high-density power pack would be needed.
Yes, you can recharge a pulse rifle's power pack. But a lasrifle's power cell has the charging tech built in - the pulse rifle just has a socket to connect it to a reactor or city power supply grid. Which is fine if you have one. I get the impression that the Lasrifle came about because someone asked an STC system for a weapon for a frontier world - low maintenance and no supporting infrastructure required. If you're on a desolate, hostile world, or a derelict ruined city, and you've no idea where you are, the enemy is, and your support is, you have no supplies, and you have next to no technical skill, but you desperately need your gun to work, then the lasgun is the weapon you want. And since that pretty much describes the normal state of the Imperial Guard Infantryman....
Where did the 50 rounds value come from, by the way? In FFG roleplay games and I think the FPS Fire Warrior, pulse rifles are 36 round clips. Is this something they've redone in the new codex?
Remember that the Tau FW in FFG's Deathwatch is designed to be a cannon-fodder target against a pack of 5 Marines. The enemies in that RPG are, in the main, designed to die in droves.
Remember that the Tau FW in FFG's Deathwatch is designed to be a cannon-fodder target against a pack of 5 Marines. The enemies in that RPG are, in the main, designed to die in droves.
Not in Rogue Trader, they aren't. Fire warriors feature in the Twilight Crusade campaign - and can even be Player Characters - and enemies with pulse weapons are something you run the **** away from.
Fair enough on the Taros comment - that has to be about the only Imperial Armour book I've not read.
Remember that the Tau FW in FFG's Deathwatch is designed to be a cannon-fodder target against a pack of 5 Marines. The enemies in that RPG are, in the main, designed to die in droves.
Not in Rogue Trader, they aren't. Fire warriors feature in the Twilight Crusade campaign - and can even be Player Characters - and enemies with pulse weapons are something you run the **** away from.
Fair enough on the Taros comment - that has to be about the only Imperial Armour book I've not read.
The RPG Rogue Trader is published by Fantasy Flight Games, not by GW.
It has several updates to it, it's just not quite as popular as the bolter-porn that is Deathwatch, or the "original" game in the product line, Dark Heresy.
Dark Heresy (with a few balance tweaks here and there) is my favorite of the series. DW bores me (Marines are great as background combat-monsters, they otherwise are nearly personality-less).
RT gets fun with the piracy and competition with other RTs angle. Especially if the PCs are accused (falsely or otherwise) and are on the run from Imperial officials.
Right now, though, I am involved in way too many games to take on another. I'm in 4 games IRL and 5 on-line RPGs. Plus 3 MMOs.
Psienesis wrote: Dark Heresy (with a few balance tweaks here and there) is my favorite of the series. DW bores me (Marines are great as background combat-monsters, they otherwise are nearly personality-less).
RT gets fun with the piracy and competition with other RTs angle. Especially if the PCs are accused (falsely or otherwise) and are on the run from Imperial officials.
Right now, though, I am involved in way too many games to take on another. I'm in 4 games IRL and 5 on-line RPGs. Plus 3 MMOs.
9 games plus 3 MMOs? Jesus, man... just 2 games would drain me lol.
I do software testing as a job, so I have lots of down-time on deployments, where I'm waiting for coders to re-code the crap they broke the first time before testing it again... so play-by-post games and low-key MMOs are the way to go.
The Fire Warrior game gave Pulse Rifles 32 shots in the power cell, rather than 36. Interestingly, it never had Kais reload the magazine (which is the circular bit), only the power cell (the rod in the stock).
Then again, it also gave him a Pathfinder pulse carbine (complete with nonfunctioning markerlight) instead of a regular one, so...
How do you find the FFGRPGs working on play by post, Psi? I've tried it and it always seems too clunky and slow.
Furyou Miko wrote: The Fire Warrior game gave Pulse Rifles 32 shots in the power cell, rather than 36. Interestingly, it never had Kais reload the magazine (which is the circular bit), only the power cell (the rod in the stock).
Then again, it also gave him a Pathfinder pulse carbine (complete with nonfunctioning markerlight) instead of a regular one, so...
How do you find the FFGRPGs working on play by post, Psi? I've tried it and it always seems too clunky and slow.
When I was running a forum, a bunch of people asked me tl include a segment for play by post DnD. It's slow, but it can be automated with clear rules and organized by a good DM.I might do it if I make another forum since roll20 isn't convenient for everyone.
DnD works OK, I've done that for a long time, but from what I remember there's a lot more back-and-forth rolling between the GM and the players in Dark Heresy, etc.
Also, if you want to do Play by Post, there's a wonderful website called www.rpol.net that is specially built for it, including private 'game' forums with integrated character and diceroller support.
Furyou Miko wrote: The Fire Warrior game gave Pulse Rifles 32 shots in the power cell, rather than 36. Interestingly, it never had Kais reload the magazine (which is the circular bit), only the power cell (the rod in the stock).
Then again, it also gave him a Pathfinder pulse carbine (complete with nonfunctioning markerlight) instead of a regular one, so...
How do you find the FFGRPGs working on play by post, Psi? I've tried it and it always seems too clunky and slow.
Pretty darn well actually, though I should add the caveat that the DH "forum RPG" I am involved in is attached to a table-top game, too. The forums are used for player-characters to go off and do things "on the side", like pursue their personal goals or participate in conversations with NPCs that might (in the game world) last an hour or two, but would be wasting time around the table as only 1 PC and the GM are involved in it. It's also used for some side-quests while the rest of the party is doing down-time activities or is otherwise not involved. It has been invaluable for world-building and the like, because given a few hours and a forum, I can write a lot about various places, people and factions in the game-world, whereas I couldn't necessarily lay that all right out on the table at the actual game.
That said, with the right group and the right forums with the right tools, I see no reason why a DH game could not be run via forums. Given the investigation nature of DH, over a series of massive battles and the like, as in DW or space-borne combat of RT, it's much easier to set scene and tone in text than by speech. You can also take more time coming up with suitable lines for NPCs and such, to make it sound much more dramatic and epic, than you can off-the-cuff at the table.
up!". But no, the AdMech and the Imperium both want the Archeotech inside so it's "send message to us". This kind of 
"
