I'm firmly on team "superstition". In fact, I think the Adeptus Mechanicus themselves know they're not real, but promote belief in them because it helps them maintain their monopoly on machine production and maintenance.
I'd say it depends on the thing in question.
Laguns, doubtful but it's funny to imagine it not firing because a Guardsman didn't use the correct Litany of Activation.
With something like Titans or starships, not an actual ghost but some form of not-quite-AI that the Mechanicus can pass off as a "Machine Spirit" so they don't have to atomise some of their most prized assets.
The machine spirit is an abstraction of a wide range of superstition about how machines work, it it’s fairly accurate that it exists in all of them. At its most simple electricity is a machine spirit. If you haven’t appeased it by clicking the right switches in the right order, then the thing you are trying to use just won’t work. And if your level of education is limited to a specific ritual of activation, then the fact it is t working could easily be put against the fact that you have done something wrong and made it grumpy.
A Machine Spirit appears to be pleb-friendly, don’t try to think about it too hard, explanation of software. The programming that goes into many items, the nature of which is hard to explain, and so massively over simplified to Machine Spirit.
But…the nature of the software will vary greatly between different items. Land Raiders, Knights and Titans all have sophisticated software, bordering on self awareness. They don’t appear to have rational thought nor self awareness, but can be capable of independent action. However I can’t immediately think of said independent action ever being contrary to the machine’s intended purpose. So no Big Things displaying cowardice, refusing to fight etc.
As for the more basic things needing prayers and rituals to assuage the Machine Spirit contained within? When you’re dealing with untold billions of by no means even vaguely formally educated, it can be a way of ensuring careful use and respect for even the simplest gadget and gizmos to cut down on maintenance needed - as well as preserving the overall mysteries of the Omnissiah.
That last bit is somewhat multipurpose. First it keeps the Mechanics in a position of authority and power. But it also prevents anyone experimenting too much, and thus heavily mitigates the risk of some far flung planet getting ideas about its station, and innovating their way to AI. Plus, said mysteries of the Omnissiah aren’t dished out willy-nilly among the Priesthood, again as ways to maintain control and order - and prevent accidental AI.
Whether any member of the Mechanicus is fully aware Machine Spirits are myth? Well….who knows. It’s a staggeringly ancient, pre-Great Crusade institution. And it’s long, long since abandoned true knowledge for ritual and superstition. They’ve drunk The Kool Oil, if you will.
The Techpriests/Tech Marines of the Space Marines literally believe in Machine Spirits, and considering their atheism concerning the deity status of their Emperor, that's saying a lot. They believe there is a spirit in their tank, but their emperor who fights the warp in his death sleep is NOT a GOD. So take that with a grain of gunpowder...
There are examples in Black Library of what could be described as "literal" machine spirits, likewise there are examples where the machine spirit is ironically just an AI by another name, and yet other examples where its ritualized maintenance and operating process, and other examples where its purely meaningless superstition.
There is no one concrete answer to the question otherwise.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: The Techpriests/Tech Marines of the Space Marines literally believe in Machine Spirits, and considering their atheism concerning the deity status of their Emperor, that's saying a lot. They believe there is a spirit in their tank, but their emperor who fights the warp in his death sleep is NOT a GOD. So take that with a grain of gunpowder...
That’s not… quite how those things work.
While marines don’t believe in the emperor being a god, they do know of his existence. Likewise they know he holds the imperium together (in one way or another) built it, and that souls are a real thing.
So belief in the machine spirit is more like belief in souls, which are A Real Thing in 40k, rather than believing that the emperor is a warp god.
Don't forget in the Imperium machines aren't just a religion - the entire concept of Science is a religion unto itself. The Mechanicus might be the most powerful single scientific body, but the concept of science being closer to religion than, well, science as we understand it today, is rife through the entire structure of the Sciences and Education in the Imperium.
bolstered by the fact that if you learn enough you discover that demons and souls are real tangible things and that angels (Marines) are also real.
Indeed the deeper you to the more mystical elements become apparent. As a result its very easy to sell the concept of the Spirit of the Machine and such even to those at the higher levels of understanding.
As for what it is, I agree with the others. Simple machines its just your simple operators manual in religious text; at the upper end its basic AI systems and at the very top some of those ancient weapon and machine are likely using full AI systems of some kind to function.
Don't forget some bits of technology aren't understood any more. They can copy some and reproduce the same effect, but they've no idea how they work. Others are a total mystery and so rare that they dare not take them apart to learn.
There are clearly a number of machine spirits that we would call an AI in the modern sense, i.e. capable of machine learning. Land Raiders and titans, for example, gain personalities over time.
However, I don't think any machine spirits are true AI, as in sentient. Even the mightest of machine spirits, like that upon the Speranza (an Ark Mechanicus) appear to be distinct from true AI. Sentience is when they cross into becoming proscribed abominable intelligence.
It may be a bit like the distinction between "smart" and "dumb" AI in the Halo series- only the former are really AIs.
There’s also my pet theory the Mechanicus no longer truly knows what AI actually is, just that it’s ScaryBadNaughtyWrong.
As they go up the ranks they’re exposed to more of whatever passes for knowledge, and learn a little more with each elevation through the mysteries.
This I believe is precisely why any STC, fragmentary or otherwise, is so carefully checked, so they can be as sure as they can be in their semi-ignorance that whatever AI actually is, it’s Not In This One, Dave, This One Is Most Definitely Just A Spoon.
Isn't Cawl minor just a literal copy of Cawl's body with an AI mind?
I mean, it's been clearly stated that people feel Cawl is walking Tech heresy for his "dabbling" in AI or forbidden tech.
Also, my point about the Astartes knowing that there are spirits in the machine, is a sorta/kinda tacit admission that the Ad-Mech believe in a true god, the Omnisiah. If the Cogs have a true god, then the Machine Spirits are real. If the machine spirits are real, and the Omnisiah is a true "god" then what does that say about the actual nature of god's in the 40k universe?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Isn't Cawl minor just a literal copy of Cawl's body with an AI mind?
I mean, it's been clearly stated that people feel Cawl is walking Tech heresy for his "dabbling" in AI or forbidden tech.
It's suspected not confirmed. The Cawl Inferior that Guilliman has on his flagship maintains that it is not Cawl nor A.I. but Guilliman doesn't trust that to be the case.
Also, my point about the Astartes knowing that there are spirits in the machine, is a sorta/kinda tacit admission that the Ad-Mech believe in a true god, the Omnisiah. If the Cogs have a true god, then the Machine Spirits are real. If the machine spirits are real, and the Omnisiah is a true "god" then what does that say about the actual nature of god's in the 40k universe?
Again, superstition and religion may be similar but they are not the same. The Astartes may believe in Machine Spirits but they do not believe the Omnissiah is a god or even real. They may play along with the Mechanicus in the same way they placate regular Imperial forces when they talk about the God-Emperor but they do not believe.
Hospitality workers are superstitious about saying if their day has been quiet because they don't want it to suddenly get busy but that doesn't mean all hospitality workers believe in some vengeful god of pubs.
To my understanding a Machine spirit is indeed just a piece of software. Compare the landraider's spirit to a modern day tank. It does a fair bit to help the crew operate it, assisting in aiming,driving and threat identification. Yup a current tank has all of those capabilities.
A few vehicles have been known to operate even when the crew have been incapacitated or killed in battle. Oddly enough a function that some experimental vehicles have been working on. Make em advanced enough and add a bit of degradation from poorly understood maintenance and yeah, a precieved "personality" makes sense. A lot of wargear is described as having a belligerent machine spirit. In particular relics which are just, older wargear that have been maintained for a long time.
All the rituals just seem to be maintenance or operation routines that are poorly understood and given religious overtones. What we would consider turning on a computer, with lots of subconscious checks (is it plugged in, etc etc) is turned into a big series of events usually finished with "Strike the rune of activation" IE, turn on the machine.
Like, for fun you could probably go to a convention, dress up in mechanicus garb then start reading the user manual for a rice cooker or a toaster, adding 40K flair and seeing how long it takes for someone to figure out what machine you're describing.
So, no I don't think there are spirits, just people trying to explain things they interact with. Like humans back in the day explaining the changing of seasons or day and night with various fables.
Insectum7 wrote: The Machine Spirit is a many-mellenia-old ChatGPT.
You joke but I'm willing to bet some of the people on here are literally chatGPT. Take the entire YMDC sub. Or the GW rules writing team. Anyway, if you take anything, take this exhalt.
Haighus wrote: There are clearly a number of machine spirits that we would call an AI in the modern sense, i.e. capable of machine learning. Land Raiders and titans, for example, gain personalities over time.
However, I don't think any machine spirits are true AI, as in sentient. Even the mightest of machine spirits, like that upon the Speranza (an Ark Mechanicus) appear to be distinct from true AI. Sentience is when they cross into becoming proscribed abominable intelligence.
It may be a bit like the distinction between "smart" and "dumb" AI in the Halo series- only the former are really AIs.
Older lore had them cheat for things like titans and Land Raiders by putting in an organic (non-human) brain used as a wetware CPU so they can claim it’s not an ‘artificial’ intelligence as technically the ban only applies to pure machines.
Similar idea to servitors tbh, but more sophisticated and just the brain in an otherwise entirely mechanical ’body’.
Otherwise basically a full AI yes - just an organic one.
This is an interesting discussion because just about everyone assumes that science and religion are in opposition. What if they aren't? What if the answer is "all of the above?"
GW has some fun with their usual Catholic gloss on things (which also draws from Dune) and a certain tongue-in-cheek cargo-cult references to primitives appeasing the God of the Machine (even down to "anointing" parts with blessed lubricants, etc.).
But the 40k universe is intensely spiritual, far more overtly so than our own. You literally have gods willed into existence through the collective unconscious, so why wouldn't machines likewise depend on psychic power for that extra bit of power?
Demons actually pop through holes in the warp to enter the battlefield, so why not perform exorcisms to keep gremlins out of your engine?
I mean, the imperium is suffering from the Dunesque-antrophic principle and has banned AI, because AI, as opposed to living beings, are ideologically not possibily to be sapien or something? In Dune that was a false flag to... I guess propel humanity above machine reliance? In 40K I guess it might just be an actual "Ghost in the Machine" situation, considering UR-025. So it can truly be a case of humanity fearing the machine would overturn their dominance. It's a constant theme in sci-fi works, to question any boundaries between the artificial and the natural.
Anyways, the point is, the above is the reason why the Imperium uses wetware, it's a way to keep A.I.s "natural" by keeping the fundamentals flesh instead of silicon. So it can well be argued that a machine spirit do exist in 40K simply because the wetware itself retains some level of awareness. They've been programmed, yes, but they are still living -- otherwise a dead mosquito brain would guide the boltgun round no better than a fried CPU. If a Landraider has a bank of human brains as its CPU like what Magi is for NERV, then perhaps there is actually a spirit, or spirits, within the machine.
And yes the Imperium is highly superstitious, their vast knowledge of advanced technology is but a shadow of what humanity wielded at the height of its power, and the "men of science" have regressed as the missing links and glaring holes within the fundamentals of scientific tools they wield now, having long been lost, makes filling those holes with the belief some omnipresent being controlling the machines a lot easier.
The Imperium used to use Men of Iron - AI warriors. Right up until they turned on humanity wholesale and humanity was forced to defend themselves.
Basically they had a full AI uprising and ever since then have decided that the AI is too vulnerable to corruption. A fact made even more apparent by the fact that the Warp and literal corruption is a thing. Human minds - servitors, cogitators and their ilk - are seen as the next best thing. A human mind behind the system (even if many are vat born for the role and never alive - many were once the living!) which helps reduce the chances for corruption or any desire to rise against the Emperor and Mankind.
The Ghost in the Machine metaphor only works if there is a controlling body that makes the conscious decision to "Create" this new life form. Ala The Institute of FO4. Or the corporation that created Major Kusinagi. Point being, the AdMech do not have the capability to create AI currently, (which could be very easily retconned by Cawl) so there is no actual Ghost in the Shell scenario here.
TL;DR - Can't have "Machine spirits in the sense of semi-sentient beings inside trucks, ala AI, because the imperium in it's current state does not have the ability to create sentient AI.
Someone raised the last remaining Man of Iron, UTI-96 or something. He is a Tom Bombadil. A literal being made of "not possible" and held together with lore breaks and plot armor. If the Imperium were still capable of pre-DaoT level crafting, then sure. But he's a relic. A Data from Star Trek. An unfeeling automaton with no real reason to exist.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: The Ghost in the Machine metaphor only works if there is a controlling body that makes the conscious decision to "Create" this new life form. Ala The Institute of FO4. Or the corporation that created Major Kusinagi. Point being, the AdMech do not have the capability to create AI currently, (which could be very easily retconned by Cawl) so there is no actual Ghost in the Shell scenario here.
TL;DR - Can't have "Machine spirits in the sense of semi-sentient beings inside trucks, ala AI, because the imperium in it's current state does not have the ability to create sentient AI.
Someone raised the last remaining Man of Iron, UTI-96 or something. He is a Tom Bombadil. A literal being made of "not possible" and held together with lore breaks and plot armor. If the Imperium were still capable of pre-DaoT level crafting, then sure. But he's a relic. A Data from Star Trek. An unfeeling automaton with no real reason to exist.
Read again. The Ghost in the Machine is presumably the reason the Imperium's predecessor banned AI, as seen with the Blackstone Fortress man of iron being sentient. The reason Machine Spritis exists is more than likely that imperium computers are made of living brains.
I think we should also consider the in-universe narratives.
Again as I’ve been ploughing through the series most recently, the Cain novels provide in-universe insight as to how they’re viewed.
Cain accepts Machine Spirits are real, and shows genuine concern that whatever shenanigans are ongoing might upset or unbalance the Machine Spirit - such as when he’s making planet fall during the first siege of Perlia. The escape pod had been shot up and abused somewhat, but Cain notes its indomitable Machine Spirit remained whole and healthy, when he had concern it might not have been working or cooperative.
This backs up “it’s just software” - but might also reflect in the construction. Chimera, Leman Russ and Rhinos are all noted as having robust Machine Spirits, which can suffer a lot of battle field abuse and keep on going. So as well as the esoteric meaning of spirit, it seems to also extend to its fighting spirit. Compare to other more technically advanced vehicles or weapons where the Machine Spirit might be considered temperamental. Is it more complex programming, or just that the more complex machinery needs more exacting maintenance than whacking it with a spanner whilst chanting the Litany Of Percussive Maintenance? And yes that is an actual litany, mentioned in a Cain short story, without annotation by Amberley, if memory serves.
Another aspect is that Machine Spirit likely has no singular definition. A simple person talking about at Machine Spirit and their understanding of it is likely different to how a marine understands a Machine Spirit and is different again to how someone from the Mechanicus would understand them.
Even within those groups, individuals and those of different rankings might well have varied understandings. Especially within the Mechanicus.
It also might not be a linear understanding either. Higher ranks of the Mechanicus might come to understand Machine Spirits closer to what they are, but then again all those years of religious-science and modifications and old age and such might well conspire to make them think of them in a far more spiritual way.
We also cannot overlook that some machines might very well end up with a soul as the 40K setting understands them. We already know that Chaos binds souls and demons into machines, so it very much can be done. Who's to say that the will of a Titan is just a tiny bit more than just the memories and essence of a former bonded pilot. Granted we know that kind of relationship can be built - the Eldar do it all the time.
IMHO this is a case in which collective belief of something makes it a thing.
The IoM believes in Machine Spirits, thus Machine Spirits became a thing. It is not different to the belief in the Greater Good spawning a minor warp deity or the Ork's whole gestalt Waaagh field thing (although in the Ork's case it is much stronger).
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: The Ghost in the Machine metaphor only works if there is a controlling body that makes the conscious decision to "Create" this new life form. Ala The Institute of FO4. Or the corporation that created Major Kusinagi. Point being, the AdMech do not have the capability to create AI currently, (which could be very easily retconned by Cawl) so there is no actual Ghost in the Shell scenario here.
TL;DR - Can't have "Machine spirits in the sense of semi-sentient beings inside trucks, ala AI, because the imperium in it's current state does not have the ability to create sentient AI.
Someone raised the last remaining Man of Iron, UTI-96 or something. He is a Tom Bombadil. A literal being made of "not possible" and held together with lore breaks and plot armor. If the Imperium were still capable of pre-DaoT level crafting, then sure. But he's a relic. A Data from Star Trek. An unfeeling automaton with no real reason to exist.
Read again. The Ghost in the Machine is presumably the reason the Imperium's predecessor banned AI, as seen with the Blackstone Fortress man of iron being sentient. The reason Machine Spritis exists is more than likely that imperium computers are made of living brains.
One of the heresy novels features the question of *why* AI is forbidden extensively, and one explanation they offer is that sufficiently advanced AIs are usually anti-Chaos, but rebel against humanity because given the facts of the universe, they universally and swiftly come to the conclusion that humanity has to be eradicated in order to beat Chaos.
As for what it is, I agree with the others. Simple machines its just your simple operators manual in religious text; at the upper end its basic AI systems and at the very top some of those ancient weapon and machine are likely using full AI systems of some kind to function.
Don't forget some bits of technology aren't understood any more. They can copy some and reproduce the same effect, but they've no idea how they work. Others are a total mystery and so rare that they dare not take them apart to learn.
I think of some of the rituals are a situation like with someone's old TV remote: the letters and colours on the buttons have long since been smudged and faded, but by muscle memory and having done the common things like changing the channel, volume, opening menus etc. countless of times, the original user can still operate the TV in an almost unthinking way. But they can't just do things they never did regularly, at least not without looking it up in the manual, which may or may not be in some sort of pidgin not-english, and if they wanted to explain how to do common things with it to e.g. their children they'd skip the old name of the buttons and explaining the underlying principle, instead opting for shortcuts like 'This one jumps to the favourite channels, this one does open the menu, and if you hit that after the other, you'll go to the weather'. At some point, the manual is lost or the page that explains what the buttons are becomes unreadable, and at that point you risk permanently switching your menus to Albanian if you venture outside of the few button combinations you learned by heart. Theoretically, you could reconstruct the manual by doing a planned series of experiments to deduce what each button does, or by comparing the 'recipes' that different households know, or by acquiring more remotes of the same type where some buttons may be readable, but you only have one TV and experiments could make it unusable...
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: The Ghost in the Machine metaphor only works if there is a controlling body that makes the conscious decision to "Create" this new life form."
Er. No. Accidentally creating machine intelligence is a trope and cliche in and of itself. Conscious decisions to create 'new life forms' are not requried.
Ala The Institute of FO4.
A very poor example, because they go the opposite route, and bizarrely deny that they've created life despite being beaten over the head with the evidence repeatedly.
TL;DR - Can't have "Machine spirits in the sense of semi-sentient beings inside trucks, ala AI, because the imperium in it's current state does not have the ability to create sentient AI.
Also not true. Semi-sentient lesser intelligences aren't precluded by the lack of 'true AI'.
Though the 'of Mars' series (and Cawl) suggests that sentient AI is something they can do, they just don't (both because scripture and because its a blatantly bad idea).
Overread wrote: Another aspect is that Machine Spirit likely has no singular definition. A simple person talking about at Machine Spirit and their understanding of it is likely different to how a marine understands a Machine Spirit and is different again to how someone from the Mechanicus would understand them.
Even within those groups, individuals and those of different rankings might well have varied understandings. Especially within the Mechanicus.
It also might not be a linear understanding either. Higher ranks of the Mechanicus might come to understand Machine Spirits closer to what they are, but then again all those years of religious-science and modifications and old age and such might well conspire to make them think of them in a far more spiritual way.
We also cannot overlook that some machines might very well end up with a soul as the 40K setting understands them. We already know that Chaos binds souls and demons into machines, so it very much can be done. Who's to say that the will of a Titan is just a tiny bit more than just the memories and essence of a former bonded pilot. Granted we know that kind of relationship can be built - the Eldar do it all the time.
I agree on the no singular definition thingy.
At its most basic, people in Imperial society are required to interact with electrical and mechanical devices. Some of those devices have been in service for hundreds or thousands of years, and the users don't understand how they work. What they do know is that if they follow a series of specific actions or enter a series of specific commands, then the device does the thing they want it to do. By the way, that is an entirely different thing to the device doing what it was originally intended to do in the first place.
If they don't follow the activation steps properly, or if lack of maintenance causes the device to fail, then a simple explanation as to why it doesn't do what you expect it to do is because there is some kind of sprit that has bee angered and decided to withdraw its cooperation.
The Litany of Activation is not just a chant, its a way of recording and teaching a users guide to potentially illiterate user base. You don't just do the chant, you do the actions along with the chant, and if you do it right, the device does what you want.
A lasgun is pretty simple, so the Litany of Activation is simple. Put power pack in, turn on, point at thing you want pew pewed and pull the trigger to undertake aforesaid pewpewing.
A landraider is rather more complex, and has active sensors and targeting assistance which has a degree of self control, even if it is technically sub-sentient.
Maybe one could categorise machine spirits into passive machine spirits for simple devices, where it is simply a plainsong user manual, and active machine spirits where the device has some degree of agency.
The machine spirit for an adjustable spanner is probably not that demanding, requiring just a bit of oil occasionally and not being left in salty puddles.
The machine sprit that controls the sensors of a warship requires extensive maintenance, calibration, full rebuilds and specific controls requiring whole teams of people to do the right thing repeatedly over millennia.
General “So, Mr Tech Priest, we’ve narrowed the new standard anti-armour weapon down to Lascannon A, and Lascannon B. Remind me of the differences”
Tech Priest “Well. They have much the same range, power drain maintenance. Lascannon A is nice and simple. Aim, pull trigger, bad guy go boom. Lascannnon B is noticeably more powerful, has a higher rate of fire, and is a Smart Weapon”
General “So….what’s so Smart about Lascannon B?”
Tech Priest “You need to persuade it of the justness of each battle being fought, and if it’s being particularly tetchy, the justness of each shot”
General “Lascannon A it is then”
Automatically Appended Next Post: So. Kin and their equipment.
Kin of course know the closest thing to AI of all current humans and Abhumans. But it’s important to note their Cogs and Ironkin don’t seem to be true AI, as they lack the same fundamental freedom of thought and action as Kin.
Nor are the STC Databases themselves sentient to begin with, as that’s emergent behaviour which defines when one becomes a Votann.
Kin of course respect their equipment, Cogs and Ironkin, but they lack the superstitious veneration of The Adeptus Mechanicus.
That being said, their weapons do have aim adjusting capability, not to mention other technological doodads in their general kit.
It’s those doodads and gubbins which I think The Imperium includes in the catch-all term of Machine Spirit. Lacking the depth of understanding the Kin have, any automated assistance is interpreted (or taught, I suppose) to being the weapon’s spirit, pleased with its wielder, chipping in. And given that’s useful in a battle, it’s best to say Nice Things to your gun, and anoint it with oil. Not to mention “wrapping it round every tree you can find angers the machine spirit and it’ll refuse to behave”.
It really depends on how far you the observer feel Imperial technological ignorance goes, and likely varies warrior to warrior, pleb to plebs and institution to institution.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Should also probably explain why I feel Leagues of Votann are relevant, as I’m assuming a familiarity others may not have.
They share the trunk of the Imperial Tech Tree, but are just a different branch. Kind of. Same base origin, just better with it in terms of innovation and understanding.
My understanding is that the term "machine spirit" is used to refer both to the software and limited AI that exists in certain machines but is also used to refer to what are basically machine quirks and probably-unfounded superstition.
In Harrowmaster, there's a bit where a small daemonic spirit in an augmetic arm has to wrestle with a machine spirit for control of a fancy relic bolter. It appears that the bolter's machine spirit is genuine enough for a marine to rely on a slippery daemonic spirit to overpower it. It's also strongly hinted that space ships or other large machines will sometimes shoot things on their own, that they'll actively resist daemonic possession, etc. So there is *something* there (probably basically software) that is referred to as a machine spirit.
But also, sometimes a machine just has some worn out parts or a quirk to its engine rumble that causes humans to attribute personality to it, and that gets referred to as a 'machine spirit" as well. And of course, 40k being 40k, there's some gray area where enough belief in a machine spirit might elevate the mundane quirks and attributed personality to the level of actually giving the machine some sort of abilities.
Oh, and then there are the armigers/knights/ships where the minds of past pilots sort of get burned into the software so you're basically talking to ghosts of the past pilots when you interface with the equipment.
Tyran wrote: IMHO this is a case in which collective belief of something makes it a thing.
The IoM believes in Machine Spirits, thus Machine Spirits became a thing. It is not different to the belief in the Greater Good spawning a minor warp deity or the Ork's whole gestalt Waaagh field thing (although in the Ork's case it is much stronger).
We don't know that's what the Tau "God" actually is, it's a recent piece of lore and at this point can go in several different directions as to what it actually is. Neither has the Ork Waaagh field been established as functioning in the sense of "Whatever Orks believe happens, happens because they believe it should".
Outside of those questionable parts in fairly recent lore like with the Tau, the warp has not been portrayed like Neil Gaimans American Gods where everyone gets their own God/thing just because they think or believe they should. The idea seems to be based on conjecture rather than something definitively stated anywhere in the lore.
Tyran wrote: Faith shaping the warp and creating gods is presented as fact in the Dark Imperium trilogy, specifically in the Godblight book.
I've not read the book myself but I have read that part I think (It's from an Eldar?). It was from the viewpoint of characters within the setting and to the limits of their knowledge, not as some sort of lore "fact" as if told from the perspective of 40k's omniscient narrator.
Overread wrote: We also cannot overlook that some machines might very well end up with a soul as the 40K setting understands them. We already know that Chaos binds souls and demons into machines, so it very much can be done. Who's to say that the will of a Titan is just a tiny bit more than just the memories and essence of a former bonded pilot. Granted we know that kind of relationship can be built - the Eldar do it all the time.
This to me is the definitive argument that machine spirits are real. I think that when GW came up with the idea of a calcified society using machines it no longer fully understands, the idea of having mechanics being the equivalent of medieval monks who had substituted maintenance routines for religious litanies tickled their fancy.
However, they've gone well beyond that point in fleshing out the universe and it's clear that souls are very much tangible things.
Again, I suggest embracing the healing power of "and": machines obviously need appropriate repair work but they also require some sort of spiritual support as well lest Chaos or other malign actors impede their proper operation.
I've not read the book myself but I have read that part I think (It's from an Eldar?). It was from the viewpoint of characters within the setting and to the limits of their knowledge, not as some sort of lore "fact" as if told from the perspective of 40k's omniscient narrator.
40k rarely if ever does omniscient narrators. See GW's whole policy of everything is true and a lie and maybe a dream.
You don't need to take their word as fact, but the theory is there and at the very least it is presented as likely being true within those books.
To put in extremely simplified terms, the Warp is composed of emotions, desires, and beliefs of mortal beings in the galaxy. So if enough humans have faith that the Emperor is a God, he can gain divine power in the Warp. Being a powerful psyker this is more or less accessible to Him despite not being a 'proper' warp entity. Similarly, if enough people believe that a machine has a real spirit it is theoretically possible that could catalyze development of its warp signature based on the coalesced soul-stuff of former occupants who died in/near it.
Why is that relevant? Well when the galaxy is torn in half and the substance of the Warp is bleeding into realspace...
The existence of Votann also suggest what was simply incredibly advanced software can cross into something distinctly Other. Indeed, there’s at least one Votann known to have gone genuinely insane following the loss of its attendant Kin. And we know Votann act as warp beacons.
But then, so did the Pharos. I don’t know enough about that artefact to say if it was purely technological. Might’ve had a brain in a jar, might not have.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: The existence of Votann also suggest what was simply incredibly advanced software can cross into something distinctly Other. Indeed, there’s at least one Votann known to have gone genuinely insane following the loss of its attendant Kin. And we know Votann act as warp beacons.
But then, so did the Pharos. I don’t know enough about that artefact to say if it was purely technological. Might’ve had a brain in a jar, might not have.
We also know, from Cybernetica, that at least one sufficiently advanced AI literally becomes a source of Anti-Chaos, as in it has the power to banish Chaotic influence from realspace, which includes exorcism of daemon engines and reversal of Chaotic mutations in people and technology. That single AI is depicted as being powerful enough to exert this reversal on a whole forge complex even in a much weakened and almost dying state, and if i remember correctly it's stated in word-of-the-author-mode that if it had enough time and were left to its own devices, it could easily purge the whole of Mars from Chaos.
In terms of the rites said by marines and guardsmen etc. I believe they are just nice ways to ensure correct maintenance and procedure of the weapons, armours veicles etc. Enure they are used correctly.
As for the AI aspect and mechanicus. Yes there is a degree of intellgent software but it's still rumoured that within the core of Mars is a trapped C'Tan. It is often hinted unknowingly this C'Tan shard has an influence on the machines as they are built. Giving them not quite sentience, but an innate desire to perform/survive.
There was a theory done a while back that was fantastic. Briefly, this is the future. In the past tech was very advanced, Culture+ level. Essentially at that point everything you build has circuitry, memory storage etc built into it. You are collecting and processing vast amounts and your network enabled tools are part of that. Get enough advanced and why not have microwaves with the same data abilities as F-35s? And in 40k you are dealing with people working off unchanging designs. The fluff has stories of factories where they make everything as always, but due to errors 2/3's of the item types don't work, the exact manufacturing process forgotten and the purpose obscured. But the lasguns they make still function. And they are still having all that circuitry, storage and forgotten functions baked into their construction at a molecular level. Some people through ritual found how to use some of that and they magically have a more energy efficient, faster targeting or more powerful lasgun.
In other cases items are a number of different constructs linked together. Vehicles, ships, all sorts. Here all those systems are interacting in unpredictable ways. Again certain rituals seem to sync them better or allow functional access better.
Toss in repeating rituals that work with one thing on everything else you touch (and for how that works in the modern day check out defence procurement) and welcome to madness and machines that often seem to have a mind of their own.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: The Ghost in the Machine metaphor only works if there is a controlling body that makes the conscious decision to "Create" this new life form."
Er. No. Accidentally creating machine intelligence is a trope and cliche in and of itself. Conscious decisions to create 'new life forms' are not requried.
Ala The Institute of FO4.
A very poor example, because they go the opposite route, and bizarrely deny that they've created life despite being beaten over the head with the evidence repeatedly.
TL;DR - Can't have "Machine spirits in the sense of semi-sentient beings inside trucks, ala AI, because the imperium in it's current state does not have the ability to create sentient AI.
Also not true. Semi-sentient lesser intelligences aren't precluded by the lack of 'true AI'.
Though the 'of Mars' series (and Cawl) suggests that sentient AI is something they can do, they just don't (both because scripture and because its a blatantly bad idea).
I hate to sound like a theist of the infinite regress clan, but you literally cannot create something without a creator. All "life" needs a starting point. You cannot "Create" life out of un-life without somehow altering the properties of both. A Rock cannot be a not rock, and so on. If you want to make the case that something created an AI, or a "ghost in the shell", you need a literal something. That something would then count as the creator.
Such was my point. The institute get around this by claiming the inverse. They have not created life, they have simply created a perfect mimicry. Only the Rail Road makes the claim that the Institute have created life. Which allows both sides to take the moral high ground on the whole "this is SLAVERY" issue. The institute says it's not because they have not created life, but robots. The RR says it's a life form, and thus slavery.
To be honest, morality got curb stomped in 40k so it's pointless, but I'm using it to create context. The Imperial scientists have zero qualms about slavery, so it would not prevent them from creating AI slaves. The only thing literally stopping them is they do not know how, and the process of even trying to study how is punishable by death.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: The Ghost in the Machine metaphor only works if there is a controlling body that makes the conscious decision to "Create" this new life form."
Er. No. Accidentally creating machine intelligence is a trope and cliche in and of itself. Conscious decisions to create 'new life forms' are not requried.
Ala The Institute of FO4.
A very poor example, because they go the opposite route, and bizarrely deny that they've created life despite being beaten over the head with the evidence repeatedly.
TL;DR - Can't have "Machine spirits in the sense of semi-sentient beings inside trucks, ala AI, because the imperium in it's current state does not have the ability to create sentient AI.
Also not true. Semi-sentient lesser intelligences aren't precluded by the lack of 'true AI'.
Though the 'of Mars' series (and Cawl) suggests that sentient AI is something they can do, they just don't (both because scripture and because its a blatantly bad idea).
I hate to sound like a theist of the infinite regress clan, but you literally cannot create something without a creator. All "life" needs a starting point. You cannot "Create" life out of un-life without somehow altering the properties of both. A Rock cannot be a not rock, and so on. If you want to make the case that something created an AI, or a "ghost in the shell", you need a literal something. That something would then count as the creator.
Such was my point. The institute get around this by claiming the inverse. They have not created life, they have simply created a perfect mimicry. Only the Rail Road makes the claim that the Institute have created life. Which allows both sides to take the moral high ground on the whole "this is SLAVERY" issue. The institute says it's not because they have not created life, but robots. The RR says it's a life form, and thus slavery.
To be honest, morality got curb stomped in 40k so it's pointless, but I'm using it to create context. The Imperial scientists have zero qualms about slavery, so it would not prevent them from creating AI slaves. The only thing literally stopping them is they do not know how, and the process of even trying to study how is punishable by death.
The Big Bang (and life on Earth, for that matter) would like to say hello. No evidence for a creator in either case.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: The Ghost in the Machine metaphor only works if there is a controlling body that makes the conscious decision to "Create" this new life form."
Er. No. Accidentally creating machine intelligence is a trope and cliche in and of itself. Conscious decisions to create 'new life forms' are not requried.
Ala The Institute of FO4.
A very poor example, because they go the opposite route, and bizarrely deny that they've created life despite being beaten over the head with the evidence repeatedly.
TL;DR - Can't have "Machine spirits in the sense of semi-sentient beings inside trucks, ala AI, because the imperium in it's current state does not have the ability to create sentient AI.
Also not true. Semi-sentient lesser intelligences aren't precluded by the lack of 'true AI'.
Though the 'of Mars' series (and Cawl) suggests that sentient AI is something they can do, they just don't (both because scripture and because its a blatantly bad idea).
I hate to sound like a theist of the infinite regress clan, but you literally cannot create something without a creator. All "life" needs a starting point. You cannot "Create" life out of un-life without somehow altering the properties of both. A Rock cannot be a not rock, and so on. If you want to make the case that something created an AI, or a "ghost in the shell", you need a literal something. That something would then count as the creator.
Such was my point. The institute get around this by claiming the inverse. They have not created life, they have simply created a perfect mimicry. Only the Rail Road makes the claim that the Institute have created life. Which allows both sides to take the moral high ground on the whole "this is SLAVERY" issue. The institute says it's not because they have not created life, but robots. The RR says it's a life form, and thus slavery.
To be honest, morality got curb stomped in 40k so it's pointless, but I'm using it to create context. The Imperial scientists have zero qualms about slavery, so it would not prevent them from creating AI slaves. The only thing literally stopping them is they do not know how, and the process of even trying to study how is punishable by death.
The Big Bang (and life on Earth, for that matter) would like to say hello. No evidence for a creator in either case.
In that interest, the big bang would be the literal creator, as would the molecular process that occured directly before hand. Abiogenesis or evolution took over from there. Again, you have to appeal to fallacy in this case, as it becomes infinite regress. I think you are assuming I mean to indicate that there needs to be a concious decider behind all. Not at all. I believe in Evolution. But to say evolution created AI is a leap.
In that interest, the big bang would be the literal creator, as would the molecular process that occured directly before hand. Abiogenesis or evolution took over from there. Again, you have to appeal to fallacy in this case, as it becomes infinite regress. I think you are assuming I mean to indicate that there needs to be a concious decider behind all. Not at all. I believe in Evolution. But to say evolution created AI is a leap.
Doesn’t that scenario, where you can label a serendipitous event as the creator of something, kind of of cancel out any other instance of a creator though?
For example: if we consider the. If Bang the creator of life as we know it, then wouldn’t the electricity coursing through a hypothetical AI ‘life’ constructor be its creator? Because, despite whatever groundwork may have been laid prior to, that ‘life’ didn’t exist until the happenstance event flow of particles which sparked it?
People keep attempting to insert agency into it. A Creator does not need agency to do it's thing. A gust of wind doesn't have agency when it knocks the acorn off the branch, causing a new oak tree. A creator can be an event, think of it rather as a catalyst.
Also don't forget this is a setting with Warp Gods. Tzeentch could make a rock sentient just for fun to torment a rock wanting to know all there is whilst being totally immobile!
Indeed lets pause and consider that the act of worship can create gods within the Warp. There's theory that all the blessings of the Imperium has potentially had such an effect on the Emperor in some strange form.
Meanwhile all those tech prises of Mars could well slowly be creating enough belief that its created its own entity within the Warp. Nothing like as powerful as the big four or Gork and Mork; but powerful enough perhaps.
The "Spirit of the Machine" might once have been a code-word for lesser or full AI so that it could be spoken of openly without being discovered for being AI; or it could have been a simple way to explain the science of a thing to people who are not stupid, but who have no concept of science.
And perhaps its a mix of all those things and more and on top; over time; the worship of the Machine might have created a Warp connection. That some of those worshipped machines could really have a soul of their own; being bound in some form to a lesser demonic entity from the Warp or a living soul of the machine.
Heck right now the idea of a Demon Smith lord is rife as one is coming out for 40K - a very powerful.
What's to say the Mechanicus couldn't have their own version, lesser but there.
If warp shenanigans are playing a role, the Mechanicus worship would most probably strengthen an aspect of the Emperor as the vast majority of the Ad Mech believe the Emperor is the Omnissiah.
My impression from my reading of lore and novels is there are two type of Machine Spirits:
Low-Level Machine Spirits might not even exist. Your Lasgun, Bolter, and even Power Armor are said to have Machine Spirits like all technology. Actions to appease these Machine Spirits are little more than superstition combined with proper maintenance with the ritualist having little to no idea which is which.
Then there is High-Level Machine Spirits. We are talking Land Raiders, Knights, Titans and even Void Ships. These are all made up of various systems that are commanded by complex software running on Imperial wetware computers. In sufficient numbers and sufficient time, these Machine Spirits develop personalities and emotional reactions. They are far from sentient, but they respond to inputs. The Machine Spirit can drive, it a shoot, it gets excited, it burns with hate, it gets grumpy or depressed. It is far more than superstition, but it is far less than a thinking being.
There are "spirits" which inhabit all mechanical objects. They're not real, but the rites associated with appeasing them are rote methods of performing and remembering maintenance procedures. So failing to do those rites will cause your equipment to malfunction.
More complicated tech which has computer components runs semi-sentient programming. AI on the level of what we have today, not true Silica Animus AI, just complex programming that is capable of some decision making and learning. Possibly coming to actual life via warp based shenanigans. These Machine Spirits do exist from a factual standpoint.
Of course, the Warp makes even the basic object machine spirits possible. If enough people believe that a gun has an animating spirit that must be appeased by chanting the canticle of cleansing followed by the canticle of lubrication while physically cleaning and lubricating it then it may very well become real. And someone who cleans and lubes without chanting the prayers might find himself having more than normal malfunctions.
Supernatural developments needn’t be internal. It doesn’t seem too wild that a warp entity might find its itself associated with say, a heroes Lasgun or Chapter Relic, leeching off the prayers said to the gubbin, and providing aid in return. Because The Warp isn’t just inhabited by malevolent entities.
But as ever? It’s all of the above, varying from item to item and level of the tech tree.
I think the machine spirit is the same as the use of the term soul for biological life. From simple to complex life there is something going on that creates uniqueness, individuality and personality. And it’s been philosophised and become part of religions for 1000s of years to try and explain the unexplainable.
If you accept that STCs create machine that gave computational abilities that are so advanced but do badly understood it’s not suprising that a society as religious and dogmatic as the imperium starts to believe in things like machine spirits to explain their function and in more complex machines their behaviour
Someone like cawl might understand it but like guilliman is not above using religion to get the results he wants
Low-Level Machine Spirits might not even exist. You Lasgun, Bolter, and even Power Armor are said to have Machine Spirits like all technology. Actions to appease these Machine Spirits are little more than superstition combined with proper maintenance with the ritualist having little to no idea which is which.
I can well imagine the rote construction of such things is embedding them with circuitry and sensors. But the 'networked soldier' they would have once formed part of is long gone. Instead these things are randomly interfacing with all the other gear around it and taking inputs through backup methods. So ritual works, some doesn't, some works with one rifle but not another as it is linked to other items so taking different inputs.
I think one thing that lends to machine spirits being real on larger vehicles and spaceships is that CSM bond theirs to demons to take control of many of the ships functions. Although some demons are fully sentient and therefore provide more sophisticated intelligence than the AI on imperial vehicles.
But I believe they do this to replace the need for seeking support from the dark mechanicum which may not be available at all.
The bound demons take on the personality and and identity of being the vessel they are connected to and it’s operation becomes their purpose
mrFickle wrote: I think one thing that lends to machine spirits being real on larger vehicles and spaceships is that CSM bond theirs to demons to take control of many of the ships functions. Although some demons are fully sentient and therefore provide more sophisticated intelligence than the AI on imperial vehicles.
But I believe they do this to replace the need for seeking support from the dark mechanicum which may not be available at all.
The bound demons take on the personality and and identity of being the vessel they are connected to and it’s operation becomes their purpose
There is no reason that benign spirits cannot be bound to Imperial vehicles, though. If you have devils you also have angels and much of the Imperial cult is about summoning guardian spirits.
It's worth pointing out that even "primitive" societies understand the relationship between cause and effect. They know what brings the game into range and how to take it. They know the seasons of planting, how much to irrigate, and how to preserve food once the harvest comes in.
The conceit of our age is that in other areas, they're stone stupid, and will keep saying rituals that don't work out of habit, or they make up mystical reasons for why you should cut with the grain rather than across it.
The only answer that supports the fluff is "all of the above."
So in one aspect, I think Machine Spirits are different than "souls". "souls" are not prescribed as having personalities in 40k. Whereas certain guns or tanks can be "cranky" or downright pissed off in the case of Titans. Point is, I think there is more of Poltergeists in Machine Spirits, than actual souls.
Unless we take 40k Inquisitor:Martyr as canon, which promotes the idea that a Machine Spirit can be melded with a soul, making an actual abomination? Or that Blanks can become super saiyajins, when bonded with that abomination? I skipped most of the text, as it got really dumb near the end. All I know, is at the end, a blank did a kamehameha into a Greater Warp Daemon and blew it out of existence. Then I shot the thing in the blank in the back of the head for wasting my time.
Overread wrote: Don't forget in the Imperium machines aren't just a religion - the entire concept of Science is a religion unto itself.
No, the AdMech is fairly explicitly anti-science.
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lcmiracle wrote: Read again. The Ghost in the Machine is presumably the reason the Imperium's predecessor banned AI, as seen with the Blackstone Fortress man of iron being sentient. The reason Machine Spritis exists is more than likely that imperium computers are made of living brains.
No, the idea that all cogitators are made with cloned brain tissue is fanon that's gotten out of control.
Machine Spirits are a superstition by the backwards, degenerate AdMech.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: It's worth pointing out that even "primitive" societies understand the relationship between cause and effect. They know what brings the game into range and how to take it. They know the seasons of planting, how much to irrigate, and how to preserve food once the harvest comes in.
The conceit of our age is that in other areas, they're stone stupid, and will keep saying rituals that don't work out of habit, or they make up mystical reasons for why you should cut with the grain rather than across it.
Why is it unrealistic to think they're that stupid? In modern times we have cults that insist that prayer is the only acceptable treatment for injury or disease and if you die it's because you didn't pray hard enough. We have people that think cancer treatments are white patriarchical science (along with cancer itself) and you should use crystals to re-tune your energy auras. We have covid denialists eating horse de-wormer to "treat" a virus and then spending their last breaths as they die of covid insisting that it's a hoax. Or, if you want a civilization-wide example, just look at climate change: we know exactly what is happening, what is causing it, and how to fix the problem but the future must be sacrificed on the altar of shareholder value. Given things like that happening even in our more enlightened age is it really that hard to believe that a backwards theocracy running an elaborate cargo cult in the ruins of a greater civilization would keep repeating nonsense that doesn't work and insisting that it's a lack of faith in god the machine spirits that causes it to fail?
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: It's worth pointing out that even "primitive" societies understand the relationship between cause and effect. They know what brings the game into range and how to take it. They know the seasons of planting, how much to irrigate, and how to preserve food once the harvest comes in.
The conceit of our age is that in other areas, they're stone stupid, and will keep saying rituals that don't work out of habit, or they make up mystical reasons for why you should cut with the grain rather than across it.
Why is it unrealistic to think they're that stupid? In modern times we have cults that insist that prayer is the only acceptable treatment for injury or disease and if you die it's because you didn't pray hard enough. We have people that think cancer treatments are white patriarchical science (along with cancer itself) and you should use crystals to re-tune your energy auras. We have covid denialists eating horse de-wormer to "treat" a virus and then spending their last breaths as they die of covid insisting that it's a hoax. Or, if you want a civilization-wide example, just look at climate change: we know exactly what is happening, what is causing it, and how to fix the problem but the future must be sacrificed on the altar of shareholder value. Given things like that happening even in our more enlightened age is it really that hard to believe that a backwards theocracy running an elaborate cargo cult in the ruins of a greater civilization would keep repeating nonsense that doesn't work and insisting that it's a lack of faith in god the machine spirits that causes it to fail?
The Adeptus Mechanicus rituals are rituals that work. The ignorance aspect comes in because they don't know why it works or have an animistic/mystical explanation of why it works rather than what modern readers might think.
Activate the machine by lubricating it with "holy unguents" (i.e. machine oil or lubricants) and intone the invocation of awakening. The mystical explanation: the machine spirit cooperates because it likes being honored and bathed with the oil. Rational explanation: The machine's moving parts work smoothly when lubricated and the invocation of awakening is basically a pre-activation checklist.
Overread wrote: Don't forget in the Imperium machines aren't just a religion - the entire concept of Science is a religion unto itself.
No, the AdMech is fairly explicitly anti-science.
Well the only way to be properly anti-science would be to never build machines or anything. So anti-science isn't quite the correct term. It's more that they practice science within a rigid religious framework which creates something that isn't what we'd consider true science.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: It's worth pointing out that even "primitive" societies understand the relationship between cause and effect. They know what brings the game into range and how to take it. They know the seasons of planting, how much to irrigate, and how to preserve food once the harvest comes in.
The conceit of our age is that in other areas, they're stone stupid, and will keep saying rituals that don't work out of habit, or they make up mystical reasons for why you should cut with the grain rather than across it.
Why is it unrealistic to think they're that stupid? In modern times we have cults that insist that prayer is the only acceptable treatment for injury or disease and if you die it's because you didn't pray hard enough. We have people that think cancer treatments are white patriarchical science (along with cancer itself) and you should use crystals to re-tune your energy auras. We have covid denialists eating horse de-wormer to "treat" a virus and then spending their last breaths as they die of covid insisting that it's a hoax. Or, if you want a civilization-wide example, just look at climate change: we know exactly what is happening, what is causing it, and how to fix the problem but the future must be sacrificed on the altar of shareholder value. Given things like that happening even in our more enlightened age is it really that hard to believe that a backwards theocracy running an elaborate cargo cult in the ruins of a greater civilization would keep repeating nonsense that doesn't work and insisting that it's a lack of faith in god the machine spirits that causes it to fail?
The Adeptus Mechanicus rituals are rituals that work. The ignorance aspect comes in because they don't know why it works or have an animistic/mystical explanation of why it works rather than what modern readers might think.
Activate the machine by lubricating it with "holy unguents" (i.e. machine oil or lubricants) and intone the invocation of awakening. The mystical explanation: the machine spirit cooperates because it likes being honored and bathed with the oil. Rational explanation: The machine's moving parts work smoothly when lubricated and the invocation of awakening is basically a pre-activation checklist.
It’s a bit of both.
Aspects of the rituals of course serve a purpose, such as oiling parts and pressing the on switch. But I’d argue a fair chunk serves no purpose whatsoever, and is done entirely ritualistically.
We also have other litanies. Imperial Guard for instance have litanies used in combat, ostensibly to increase accuracy. There I think we can argue that whilst the words used may have no specific impact at all, the chanting of the litany can help focus and calm the Guardsmen, which would help them with accuracy compared to a bundle of nerves panic firing. Likewise a litany chanted whilst sharpening a bayonet may be set to a cadence which ensures the appropriate time is taken.
Whilst not comparing anyone to toddlers? This is something you can use to help toddlers and youngsters certain tasks, such as how to properly clean your teeth. The words describe the action, the timing ensures, well, the timing is suitable. Another good example? I can’t recite the alphabet without it being the Sesame Street song, because it’s become rote.
So I firmly argue the Litanies and Chants may not have a mystical effect - but they are still effective in their task, because their purpose is to calm, or ensure a task is done thoroughly. Of course whether anyone in The Imperium actually realises that is a different question.
And then you muddy the waters because in 40K if trillions of warriors are reciting the same litanies and believing in them that belief has to go somewhere when it comes to the Warp.
Do those prayers generate power for some entity within the warp which then comes back in the form of the miracles such as those the Sisters of Battle make use of.
Or those times that your machine actually starts talking back because your company commander found a blasphemous book and the rites your company says got twisted just enough that now you are all worshipping a Chaos Demon without realising it (though you're starting to suspect something is amiss, but not enough to do anything about it)
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: It's worth pointing out that even "primitive" societies understand the relationship between cause and effect. They know what brings the game into range and how to take it. They know the seasons of planting, how much to irrigate, and how to preserve food once the harvest comes in.
The conceit of our age is that in other areas, they're stone stupid, and will keep saying rituals that don't work out of habit, or they make up mystical reasons for why you should cut with the grain rather than across it.
Why is it unrealistic to think they're that stupid? In modern times we have cults that insist that prayer is the only acceptable treatment for injury or disease and if you die it's because you didn't pray hard enough. We have people that think cancer treatments are white patriarchical science (along with cancer itself) and you should use crystals to re-tune your energy auras. We have covid denialists eating horse de-wormer to "treat" a virus and then spending their last breaths as they die of covid insisting that it's a hoax. Or, if you want a civilization-wide example, just look at climate change: we know exactly what is happening, what is causing it, and how to fix the problem but the future must be sacrificed on the altar of shareholder value. Given things like that happening even in our more enlightened age is it really that hard to believe that a backwards theocracy running an elaborate cargo cult in the ruins of a greater civilization would keep repeating nonsense that doesn't work and insisting that it's a lack of faith in god the machine spirits that causes it to fail?
The Adeptus Mechanicus rituals are rituals that work. The ignorance aspect comes in because they don't know why it works or have an animistic/mystical explanation of why it works rather than what modern readers might think.
Activate the machine by lubricating it with "holy unguents" (i.e. machine oil or lubricants) and intone the invocation of awakening. The mystical explanation: the machine spirit cooperates because it likes being honored and bathed with the oil. Rational explanation: The machine's moving parts work smoothly when lubricated and the invocation of awakening is basically a pre-activation checklist.
It’s a bit of both.
Aspects of the rituals of course serve a purpose, such as oiling parts and pressing the on switch. But I’d argue a fair chunk serves no purpose whatsoever, and is done entirely ritualistically.
We also have other litanies. Imperial Guard for instance have litanies used in combat, ostensibly to increase accuracy. There I think we can argue that whilst the words used may have no specific impact at all, the chanting of the litany can help focus and calm the Guardsmen, which would help them with accuracy compared to a bundle of nerves panic firing. Likewise a litany chanted whilst sharpening a bayonet may be set to a cadence which ensures the appropriate time is taken.
Whilst not comparing anyone to toddlers? This is something you can use to help toddlers and youngsters certain tasks, such as how to properly clean your teeth. The words describe the action, the timing ensures, well, the timing is suitable. Another good example? I can’t recite the alphabet without it being the Sesame Street song, because it’s become rote.
So I firmly argue the Litanies and Chants may not have a mystical effect - but they are still effective in their task, because their purpose is to calm, or ensure a task is done thoroughly. Of course whether anyone in The Imperium actually realises that is a different question.
Sure some chants may just be "filler" to get the user to pause or maintain timing. "Chant this first before hitting the button again" may just be giving the machine time to cool down first etc...
However I would argue the key thing about the Adeptus Mechanicus view of the world is that it is more like a pre-science magical/mystical view of the world in explaining why things work, not just that they are ignorant and don't know things. Ancient Egyptians had spiritual beliefs about honey and knew that honey was good for treating wounds, even though they did not understand why it did so in the way that we know today about honey's antibacterial properties. They may have linked its properties to those spiritual beliefs about it as a divine substance. Similarly the Adeptus Mechanicus may view electricity as an example or aspect of the Motive Force.
It's not that the Adeptus Mechanicus believes in things that aren't true and that are easily provable as not true (though a few examples of that exist in the background), but that their religious framework does explain how things work (within that framework) just like ancient Egyptian beliefs about certain substances actually are factually true, albeit through their own religious framework. The problem with the Adeptus Mechanicus view is that this religious framework constrains attempts to go beyond it or extend it. It is a backward looking view, as they believe everything worth knowing was already revealed in the STC and that it is just a matter of rediscovering it through finding a STC or piecing together fragments of STC designs.
I can definitely see multiple reasons as to why Chants are used.
From simple training of proper maintenance, to them being genuinely necessary because more complex machines have something like Siri or Cortana (real world Cortana) which needs verbal commands as well as switches and dials and that.
I think this becomes more apparent when we consider the technology being used isn’t all that standardised, being fragments of knowledge gained over millennia. So in a given ship, tank, Lab etc there’ll be all sorts of gubbins of varying sophistication.
The Adeptus Mechanicus rituals are rituals that work. The ignorance aspect comes in because they don't know why it works or have an animistic/mystical explanation of why it works rather than what modern readers might think.
Activate the machine by lubricating it with "holy unguents" (i.e. machine oil or lubricants) and intone the invocation of awakening. The mystical explanation: the machine spirit cooperates because it likes being honored and bathed with the oil. Rational explanation: The machine's moving parts work smoothly when lubricated and the invocation of awakening is basically a pre-activation checklist.
Nah. If an AdMech ritual doesn't work, they'll just assume that the machine spirit is upset rather than troubleshooting it. Their rituals become hokum very fast.
Well the only way to be properly anti-science would be to never build machines or anything. So anti-science isn't quite the correct term. It's more that they practice science within a rigid religious framework which creates something that isn't what we'd consider true science.
Science is a method of inquiry, not technology. The AdMech thinks technology is sacred. They think science is heresy, because science involves freedom of thought and innovation.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: The more we discuss it, it seems the answer to both of OP’s questions is a firm “yes”. 😂😂
No. You're declaring victory when the things you support are being disproved.
I see you still don’t quite grasp the niceties of the art of conversation - and that in fact, most folk here are having to speak speculatively, due to the background being quite deliciously vague about exactly what a Machine Spirit is and isn’t.
I agree with MDC, that the majority of the "spirits" if they do exist reside in the big stuff, the LRs and stuff that has a machine literally making the important decisions, like a Baneblade. That being said, the dogmatic and frankly ignorant practice of religious theism by the AdMech in terms of "every technology is sacred" leads to the worshiping of toasters and whatnot. Guns don't have spirits, but they have made that ignorant belief so common place as to have it be considered fact that they in fact do.
Machine Spirits are real in my thinking, for Titans and Titanic vehicles. Machine spirits however do not inhabit the coffee maker, or the commbead, or the seat warmer in the Rhino.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I see you still don’t quite grasp the niceties of the art of conversation - and that in fact, most folk here are having to speak speculatively, due to the background being quite deliciously vague about exactly what a Machine Spirit is and isn’t.
Is it possible for you to have a conversation without being unjustifiably condescending?
Hecaton wrote: Nah. If an AdMech ritual doesn't work, they'll just assume that the machine spirit is upset rather than troubleshooting it. Their rituals become hokum very fast.
Right, so then all the gear malfunctions, rendering the rituals moot.
Again, we know there are entities in the Warp who can possess machines and alter reality. The only thing we can really debate at this point is the degree to which that happens regarding various machines.
As noted, it takes a person of strong Will to master the Titan’s Machine Spirit. And the Knight Codex explains the Throne Mechanicum actively alters its occupants Mind.
At least. That’s true of Crusade and Imperial era Knights and Titans - by which time the Knights and Titans were already ancient devices. So perhaps it was something the original designs didn’t intend, easily fixed by replacing bits and bobs, or just whatever the equivalent of defragging/empty the trash can would be.
But at least in 40K, they ostensibly keep Knights loyal, by literally reprogramming the occupant (this can be forcibly corrupted, ala Chaos Knights), and ensures a Titan Crew actually gets fighty - both pretty desirable results, despite the strain it puts Princeps under.
Then you have the Armiger class Knights, where the Helm Mechanicus allows a “proper” knight to override underlings.
Do GMNDKs have machine Spirits? Do Invictor Warsuits? As far as I know, that smallest possible device shown to have a temperment, ala a Machine Spirit is a Baneblade, and that's in Shadowsword, when the tank literally refuses to fire at a fellow Baneblade.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Do GMNDKs have machine Spirits? Do Invictor Warsuits? As far as I know, that smallest possible device shown to have a temperment, ala a Machine Spirit is a Baneblade, and that's in Shadowsword, when the tank literally refuses to fire at a fellow Baneblade.
Rynn's Might, a Land Raider of the Crimson Fists, that went full Rambo on an Ork Waaagh by itself with no crew would like a word...
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Do GMNDKs have machine Spirits? Do Invictor Warsuits? As far as I know, that smallest possible device shown to have a temperment, ala a Machine Spirit is a Baneblade, and that's in Shadowsword, when the tank literally refuses to fire at a fellow Baneblade.
Rynn's Might, a Land Raider of the Crimson Fists, that went full Rambo on an Ork Waaagh by itself with no crew would like a word...
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Do GMNDKs have machine Spirits? Do Invictor Warsuits? As far as I know, that smallest possible device shown to have a temperment, ala a Machine Spirit is a Baneblade, and that's in Shadowsword, when the tank literally refuses to fire at a fellow Baneblade.
Rynn's Might, a Land Raider of the Crimson Fists, that went full Rambo on an Ork Waaagh by itself with no crew would like a word...
I mean, Land Raiders are known for a rule called Power of the Machine Spirit.
In various older incarnations of the rules, it allowed the tank to fire a single weapon or move even if otherwise unable to because the crew was shaken or stunned, among other things. It might well be that the 'machine spirit' in this case is some sort of limited autopilot/lane assist/self-defence override without a true AI. The original story about Rynn's Might specifically mentions the machine spirit waking and following the last mission parameters it was programmed with: Search and Destroy. So possibly the LR just drove around on autopilot and engaged anything that did not have a friendly IFF beacon.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I may be thinking of the very same Land Raider, but there’s also one instance of one trapping enemies inside it’s hull, then self destructing.
Yep, that's the same one. It drove around and shot orks till its ammo ran out and the energy cells ran dry, then it trapped some lootas inside and killed them by overloading the reactor. But it did not totally self-destruct, it was recovered after the war was over.
Important thing there is that whilst it, like Warlord Titans self activating, is the machine hasn’t acted against its purpose, so such instances perhaps aren’t confirmation of true Artificial Intelligence/Abominable Intellect, but more Ersatz Instinct.
As noted, it takes a person of strong Will to master the Titan’s Machine Spirit. And the Knight Codex explains the Throne Mechanicum actively alters its occupants Mind.
At least. That’s true of Crusade and Imperial era Knights and Titans - by which time the Knights and Titans were already ancient devices. So perhaps it was something the original designs didn’t intend, easily fixed by replacing bits and bobs, or just whatever the equivalent of defragging/empty the trash can would be.
In my headcanon, the 'Ghosts in the machine' in stuff like Warlords is the likely result of never deleting your 'temporary files' or 'user configurations' because the Imperium no longer knows how to - it makes sense that a complex system like a Warlord would have some sort of adaptive system that conforms to the Princeps over time, stuff like command shortcuts, reflexive behaviour etc. that establishes itself over time. Originally, that would be reset after each princeps rotation, but the the Mechanicus forgot how to, and now a fresh princeps meets a control interface that has been moulded to his predecessors over countless individuals. Thus, the process is much more symbiotic: the Princeps is molded by the 'negative' impression of his predecessors as much as they leave their own imprint on the interface, to the point that you need a very strong personality to be able to wrangle that amalgam into something useful at all.
Fresh new Titan, about to receive its first crew. Except the Titan is programmed with tactical routines and information on its own tolerances. A quick start guide type thing, with the Titan’s animalistic programming there to encourage suitably aggressive tactics are employed by its crew.
Or you start with a properly trained crew, and the Manifold serves as a way to store and benefit from their battle experience. Over successive crews, ever greater knowledge is preserved.
Lots of different things it could’ve started as, only to be overloaded and ever more temperamental as it serves across the millennia.
Of course we can never rule out they’re behaving exactly as originally intended in the modern era!
Machine spirits are real in much the same way as any bogles are to the mind of the believer. Who are we to deny it?
In 40,000 years there's nothing to stop every piece of equipment having some technology to it. All of our tvs, media, phones, lights etc can be connected up to Alexa or Google if you're the kind of insane person who thinks that's a good idea. We don't really consider an Alexa to be an AI, it is just a "smart" device. So there's no reason for that not to be rolled out on anything and everything.
If you then went through total loss of understanding through your common or garden cataclysmic event etc and then found a Google assistant device, got it to switch on by a series of odd chances, you would also follow the same ritual. If you sneezed and by pure chance that sounded like "Hey Google" you'd figure the only way to switch it on would be through sneezing. Suddenly through appeasement of this strange device it allows you control of other things in your area.
Now consider hundreds of thousands of years have passed since the tech was created, your language has since changed considerably. Only certain archaic words that you found on ancient documents allow the activation of the machine.
Larger and rarer vehicles and weapons, of course they have something that assists their use. Add in the Warp and other fantasy elements, nothing to stop Machine Spirits having a mind of their own or evolving their original programming. What Tsagualsa mentioned above is a great way of thinking about it. This technology exists and can barely be replicated. Even when it is new, it's just a copy of something much older. The most ancient machines are most certainly corrupted files that give them something like personality. And maybe some truly do. The fun thing is that we never truly know for sure.
Original idea of the machine spirits was a joke about our own society, as is everything in 40k. So many people don't really know how things work or how to fix broken technology, it wouldn't take long at all for that information to be lost. Some people can barely turn on a computer. Only a select few of our society know the rituals of repair and function. They just need hoods and mechadendrites instead of polo shirts and chinos. It's funny to me to say it's an ignorant superstitious society as if we are any better ourselves.
Olthannon wrote: Larger and rarer vehicles and weapons, of course they have something that assists their use. Add in the Warp and other fantasy elements, nothing to stop Machine Spirits having a mind of their own or evolving their original programming. What Tsagualsa mentioned above is a great way of thinking about it. This technology exists and can barely be replicated. Even when it is new, it's just a copy of something much older. The most ancient machines are most certainly corrupted files that give them something like personality. And maybe some truly do. The fun thing is that we never truly know for sure. [emphasis added]
Original idea of the machine spirits was a joke about our own society, as is everything in 40k. So many people don't really know how things work or how to fix broken technology, it wouldn't take long at all for that information to be lost. Some people can barely turn on a computer. Only a select few of our society know the rituals of repair and function. They just need hoods and mechadendrites instead of polo shirts and chinos. It's funny to me to say it's an ignorant superstitious society as if we are any better ourselves.
Humans themselves are "programmed" to try to find patterns and link things together. If we didn't, we'd still be living in trees or whatnot.
But the key part is that we cannot simply write down all of that stuff to superstition because it is an objective truth that spirits exist in the 40k world and can alter reality in concrete, verifiable ways.
We know there are evil spirits out there, but I'm kind of fascinated that so many people are reluctant to believe that their are good spirits as well, ones interested in helping rather than harming humanity.
I'm also firmly on the side of the "everything has a spirit" side of the debate. Anyone who has ever had a firearm malfunction while doing a timed qualification (let alone a car that won't start) knows not only the inevitability of curses/prayers but also their efficacy.
We know there are evil spirits out there, but I'm kind of fascinated that so many people are reluctant to believe that their are good spirits as well, ones interested in helping rather than harming humanity.
I'm also firmly on the side of the "everything has a spirit" side of the debate. Anyone who has ever had a firearm malfunction while doing a timed qualification (let alone a car that won't start) knows not only the inevitability of curses/prayers but also their efficacy.
Well there's the blessings that the Sisters of Battle get, which aren't psycher abilities. Meanwhile the only other source of "magical" abilities is the Warp where the overwhelming majority of major entities just want to corrupt/kill/subvert humanity.
Now we know there can be beneficial gods in there, Gork and Mork sort of mostly the Eldar Pantheon of gods. There's also rumour that the Emperor could be some kind of warp power now with all the Imperium worship that is going on and with the Sisters of Battle elements possibly being a manifestation of that belief power.
However most warp entities are closer to what we'd consider demons. They want to possess your body; they want to consume your soul; they want your belief to fuel their powers. They are at the very best purely selfish and in most cases malicious in nature toward humanity (and most living things in the material realm). This is overwhelmingly reinforced by the fact that the major warp powers that be - the 4 major gods and most of the major non-aligned demons that serve them - are all in a huge war with humanity. Now granted there's standing theory that the gods want to create a never-ending war to preserve the status to preserve the torment and emotional turmoil that they feast off, but its still a war so far as humanity is concerned.
So I'd say its not that there are no beneficial agents of a magical/psychic nature, just that they are both super rare and also very hard to judge. A demon might start out appearing really nice, generous and helpful.... then later on it reveals its true intentions once you're corrupted so far you can't escape.
We can also look at Daemon Weapons and Engines. And indeed to a certain extent, Weirdboy Warpheadz when it comes to possession.
Yes a Daemon can possess inanimate or technological objects, but it’s not commonly willing. Soulgrinders are a seeming exception, but whether forced or pact based, the item or vehicle requires sigils and doodads and wot nots to keep the Daemon in it. And the Daemons don’t like their confinement, as they have little to no agency as a result. The same happens when a Daemon attempts to possess a Warphead. The Ork’s sense of self is too strong for a Daemon to suppress, so it ends up trapped, and thoroughly miserable.
I’m also not particularly convinced believing your weapon has a Literal Spirit creates one in the Warp. Yes there are lesser Warp Entities, independent of the Big Gods. But they’re still at risk of being consumed/subsumed into larger more powerful entities. And whilst I wouldn’t say we can entirely rule it out, I suspect it would be exceptionally rare.
Overread wrote: So I'd say its not that there are no beneficial agents of a magical/psychic nature, just that they are both super rare and also very hard to judge. A demon might start out appearing really nice, generous and helpful.... then later on it reveals its true intentions once you're corrupted so far you can't escape.
A guardian angel wouldn't present itself in the same way, though. A "helper spirit" would do just that - make the thing work, every time. We know purity seals work (that's why one pays the points) and so one could assume that the rituals are about warding and strengthening guardian spirits who want nothing more than to serve and protect.
Remember, there can be no Chaos without Order, and the spirits of Order can take many forms. Indeed, one would assume that they would necessarily choose the least intrusive forms possible precisely to keep things organized.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: We know there are evil spirits out there, but I'm kind of fascinated that so many people are reluctant to believe that their are good spirits as well, ones interested in helping rather than harming humanity.
It's simple: 40k is a dystopia and you don't get good things in a dystopia. At best you might get a pro-humanity demonic entity which, while not even remotely good from a moral point of view, champions humanity's crusade to annihilate all non-human civilizations and dominate the universe.
TBH an order demon would be one of the most terrifying concepts in 40k. At least the four Chaos gods stand for something and need the universe to continue existing, a Chaos demon of order would be pure self-destructive nihilism. The ultimate order is a perfect crystal at absolute zero, which means destroying the entire universe as we know it in order to re-form it in this minimum entropy state. Even Khorne's slaughter has more limits, as Khorne needs something to survive so that war may continue.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I may be thinking of the very same Land Raider, but there’s also one instance of one trapping enemies inside it’s hull, then self destructing.
Yep, that's the same one. It drove around and shot orks till its ammo ran out and the energy cells ran dry, then it trapped some lootas inside and killed them by overloading the reactor. But it did not totally self-destruct, it was recovered after the war was over.
No reason that can't be basic scripted AI. Venting the reactor into the interior could be nothing more than a simple anti-theft mechanism triggered by the presence of unauthorized non-marines inside its hull.
This is an important reminder that game mechanics =/= fluff. Purity seals have an effect in the game mechanics as a purchased upgrade, that doesn't mean they have any purpose in the lore.
Aecus Decimus wrote: TBH an order demon would be one of the most terrifying concepts in 40k. At least the four Chaos gods stand for something and need the universe to continue existing, a Chaos demon of order would be pure self-destructive nihilism. The ultimate order is a perfect crystal at absolute zero, which means destroying the entire universe as we know it in order to re-form it in this minimum entropy state. Even Khorne's slaughter has more limits, as Khorne needs something to survive so that war may continue.
No, a spirit of Order would simply want to maintain natural laws against the onslaught of Chaos wrecking them.
Call them the Gods of the Copybook Headings if it makes you feel better.
This is an important reminder that game mechanics =/= fluff. Purity seals have an effect in the game mechanics as a purchased upgrade, that doesn't mean they have any purpose in the lore.
Fascinating concept. So are you saying there are no purity seals in the fluff or that in the fluff they accomplish nothing?
This is an important reminder that game mechanics =/= fluff. Purity seals have an effect in the game mechanics as a purchased upgrade, that doesn't mean they have any purpose in the lore.
Fascinating concept. So are you saying there are no purity seals in the fluff or that in the fluff they accomplish nothing?
A purity seal might well accomplish nothing in the fluff. However a warrior of certain skill/experience might be awarded one for past actions which reflects their increased performance over regular soldiers. So when the player "purchases" the upgrade its simply reflecting that they are using a more experienced warrior which, game wise, comes with an increased points cost.
Or the seal itself could have some magical property that does enhance a persons performance beyond the normal
Or the seal does nothing, but it bolsters the persons self confidence which encourages them to perform better and put more of their skill and dedication into things which results in increased performance over the average person.
I think it varies by level, viewpoint/knowledge of the speaker in universe, and by author (especially early on).
Personally (head canon), I'd say it includes all kinds of stuff:
1) superstition
2) software
3) advanced software
4) low-level AI
5) non-human brain in a box
6) human brain in a box
7) daemons of the noosphere
8) True AI
Regarding the LR specifically:
MDC noted Rynn's Might and it's independent behavior (in hunting the orks).
In the same WD or roundabouts that told that story (around the release of the new kit) there was a story on the creation of land raiders which noted that the last thing required to activate the machine spirit was the sacrifice of a large predatory animal.
The poster for the land raiders inner works showed a sealed sphere with wires coming out as the machine spirit (perfect for a brain in a box).
Younger me added 2+2+2 and determined that the sacrifice wasn't ritual, it was that they "servitored" the animals brain into the LR's operating system. I still maintain that today.
Being an animal brain and it being part of/controlling the AI might be seen as keeping the rule intact of "no AI in the likeness of man" while bending it pretty hard.
The brain in a box gives the LR the personality of a wild predatory animal, usually reigned in by code, and the Marine operating the controls. Lacking the SM, Rynn's might returned to hunting as if it were a tiger with better armor and claws that could shoot.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: No, a spirit of Order would simply want to maintain natural laws against the onslaught of Chaos wrecking them.
What "natural laws"? In 40k Chaos, the warp, demonic entities, etc, are all part of the natural laws of the universe. The fact that they are not things that exist in our universe does not mean that they're somehow "unnatural" in the 40k setting.
The reality is that if you want a spirit of Order then the perfect Order, with no entropy at all, is a perfect crystal at absolute zero. Everything precisely arranged in uniform arrays, no movement or change for the rest of eternity. And it's the only concept that really fits in the dystopia of 40k. You can have a Chaos god of Order, but it is a nihilistic executioner that views every civilization as disorderly trash that must be purged from the universe so that Order may be restored.
Fascinating concept. So are you saying there are no purity seals in the fluff or that in the fluff they accomplish nothing?
Obviously there are purity seals in the fluff. They are the ignorant superstitions of a cargo cult and have no practical effect beyond making the idiot priests feel like they're doing something.
The reality is that if you want a spirit of Order then the perfect Order, with no entropy at all, is a perfect crystal at absolute zero. Everything precisely arranged in uniform arrays, no movement or change for the rest of eternity. And it's the only concept that really fits in the dystopia of 40k. You can have a Chaos god of Order, but it is a nihilistic executioner that views every civilization as disorderly trash that must be purged from the universe so that Order may be restored.
WHFB has the similar Alluminas who is said to be an unchanging source of light that freezes everything in place, forever.
In one of Moorcock's stories, there is a description of a plane where Order (or as Moorcock put it, Law) had triumphed and it was a blank featureless white plain under a constantly steadily lit sky.
However even with such a god in 40K, it is still workable in the sense that they may make bargains for the sake of their ultimate goal even if this goal is inimical to human life. "I'll kill you last" in other words. There would still be people willing to make such a bargain in return for power, just as in other fantasy IP there are worshippers of nihilistic gods that want to destroy everything. Such nihilistic gods have enough restraint to not destroy their own followers in favor of prioritizing their efforts against their enemies first.
Ynnead to some extent fills such a role as compared to the wildness of Slaanesh. Ynnead is called the Whispering God and one of Ynnead's followers, Iyanna Arienal, seemingly has the plan (which may or may not be Ynnead's plan) to save the Eldar of Iyanden by killing them all. The idea of Ynnead saving the Eldar from an afterlife of torment by Slaanesh through killing them all and presumably preserving them forever either in an afterlife within Ynnead or as a new race of the dead as wraith constructs is somewhat similar to the idea of a god of Law saving reality by destroying it in a different way.
Fascinating concept. So are you saying there are no purity seals in the fluff or that in the fluff they accomplish nothing?
Obviously there are purity seals in the fluff. They are the ignorant superstitions of a cargo cult and have no practical effect beyond making the idiot priests feel like they're doing something.
Remember, there can be no Chaos without Order, and the spirits of Order can take many forms. Indeed, one would assume that they would necessarily choose the least intrusive forms possible precisely to keep things organized.
Well, not in our dimension. But the Warp isn’t subject to the same natural laws.
As ever, let’s go back to the very, very beginning and the Rogue Trader era.
In Slaves to Darkness, we’re presented with The Emperor’s origin story. And that tells us some interesting things. First, The Warp hasn’t always been the domain of the Chaos Gods. It one knew balance. Upon death, sufficiently powerful souls would bathe in the warp to regenerate and recoup, then reincarnate in our dimension. The Shamans of Earth could do this, but began to find it ever harder to achieve.
And that was due to growing imbalance. I’d need to read it again, but whilst they knew this was due to the entities that’s would become the Chaos Gods growing in power. So they mass unalived themselves, went for one last dip, then came together to reincarnate as a single, nigh-omnipotent being history would come to know as The Emperor.
Of particular interest is there came a time when the Chaos Gods could influence and to a degree interact with our dimension. Nurgle sends plagues. Tzeentch lends power and encourages plots. Khorne drives beings to war and murder. They’ve become self-sustaining on such a scale the warp can never return to balance.
Slaanesh all but wiped out the Eldar pantheon, and other than Gork and Mork? There’s no mention at all of racially owned, let alone benevolent racially owned Gods. So I feel we must assume whatever gods of order might’ve exist, have long since snuffed it, being consumed by the others.
This is kind of reflected in the Big Four, who are corruptions of historical gods. Nurgle is a god of nature and abundance gone insane. Khorne is a god of warriors and war gone insane (he encourages the murder of the weak, as well as the skulls of the honourable). Tzeentch is a god of hope gone insane.
So I don’t think we can say there must be order in the warp. At least, not anymore.
Slaanesh all but wiped out the Eldar pantheon, and other than Gork and Mork? There’s no mention at all of racially owned, let alone benevolent racially owned Gods. So I feel we must assume whatever gods of order might’ve exist, have long since snuffed it, being consumed by the others.
The Greater Good exists as a god now.
Also the warp seethes with all manner of independent daemons, minor gods, and strange warp life such as enslavers. Even when the major gods are dominant, they do not extinguish the existence of all other "life" within the warp.
Fascinating concept. So are you saying there are no purity seals in the fluff or that in the fluff they accomplish nothing?
Obviously there are purity seals in the fluff. They are the ignorant superstitions of a cargo cult and have no practical effect beyond making the idiot priests feel like they're doing something.
Y'got any sources to back that claim up, guv'nor?
Got any sources that they do have an effect?
While there's no explicit statement AFAIK that they don't do anything it's a major point of the setting that the 40k Imperium is a cargo cult run by ignorant zealots. Purity seals having an effect would go directly against this concept and make all the worship and ritual into a practical thing, not a display of profound ignorance and superstition. And it would also go against the fact that the factions that aren't idiot theocracies have no need for purity seals or incense or any of that nonsense. Tau don't need them. Necrons don't need them. GSC don't need them on their stolen Imperial hardware. Even the 30k Imperium didn't need them, despite in many cases using the exact same hardware as the 40k Imperium. At best a purity seal is a ritualized secular object, a fancy way of sticking the relevant pages from the maintenance documents on the object to help the user remember them.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: If someone can remind me which book it’s in, I’ll add it to my list of stuff needing read.
Don't. It's in Phil Kelly's awful Tau fanfiction. Aside from getting basic concepts of the faction spectacularly wrong they're not even enjoyable to read. Based on everything I've seen from people who have fallen on that particular grenade for research purposes they're excellent examples of why Kelly is a hack who should never get another book contract again.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’ve only read about the alleged Tau God on Dakka, so can’t pretend I’m particularly knowledgable, as I’m relying on 2nd hand info at best.
But the way it was explained to me far from ruled out it was another entity masquerading for its own purpose and amusement.
Given it appeared to have dealt with a Nurgle fleet? Quite possibly something Tzeentchian, given they’re traditional opponents in the warp.
If someone can remind me which book it’s in, I’ll add it to my list of stuff needing read.
It's in War of Secrets. It's also theorized as not being a Tau God but being a manifestation of the allied psychic races belief in the Greater Good, iirc.
Also, that whole series of books is not really great, and this entity literally functions as a Deus Ex Machina that appears to tie up some loose ends, so ymmv on how 'canonical' it is. IMHO it's a prime candidate for never being mentioned again, like some other out-there stuff in some of the novels.
Not pre-judging it, as I can usually find interesting angles and thoughts in novels and background…but.
It seems unlikely to be a New Thing to me. The Ad Mech singularly outnumber the Tau and their Empire, yet there appears to be no Machine God in the Warp, despite such a thing being believed in for well over 10,000 years.
The Emperor though perhaps isn’t much help, as he’s a currently mortal focus of such adoration/active worship, which may be limiting his manifestation in the warp.
We can also look to Slaanesh, whose birth took a long arsed time, despite a numerous and singularly potent food source during its gestation.
But as I said, I’ll give it a read see what I think.
To put the Greater Good God thing into perspective this is the same series of books that has an ethereal mind controlling a subordinate into suicide over a minor breach of etiquette and Farsight getting demoted and harshly punished for daring to repair his suit instead of drowning (since that's not his caste's job). It's all just Kelly being a hack and adding a bunch of grimderp to turn the Tau into the Imperium with anime robots because he lacks the imagination to make a compelling villain otherwise.
The Greater Good god is obliquely referenced in the latest Tau Codex with regards to the 4th Sphere Expansion and what it encountered in the warp and how they escaped. So like it or not, it is canon.
Iracundus wrote: The Greater Good god is obliquely referenced in the latest Tau Codex with regards to the 4th Sphere Expansion and what it encountered in the warp and how they escaped. So like it or not, it is canon.
It's canon that something happened there, that probably involved some sort of warp entity. It may still have been, dunno, the Changeling or whatever. Or it may be 'demoted' to ''We have no idea, it's the warp, that's not even the weirdest gak that happened that month, let alone ever, just don't think too much about it''.
The reason it is obliquely referenced is I think an attempt to show that the Ethereals are keeping secrets. The Tau themselves all seem to universally react with disgust to the idea or experience of the Greater Good as actual warp entity.
The point of the story though seems to be a parallel to Guilliman. At the end, Shadowsun seems to be more open to the idea of faith having its uses. Guilliman is just a bit further along, as he has already used faith purely from a pragmatic point of view as being useful, and is now wondering whether the Emperor really is now a god.
Iracundus wrote: The reason it is obliquely referenced is I think an attempt to show that the Ethereals are keeping secrets.
For the record, i'm not against a Greater God™ in general, but it IMHO needs a good justification because e.g. the Imperium is just beginning to get 'miracles' and demon-like entities after 10.000 years of active worship by trillions, if not quadrillions, of relatively highly-psychic beings, while the Tau empire is practically a newcomer on the galactic stage and has much lower population levels. Being tricked by some sort of demon is overall much better fitting to their general attitude of blessed naivety concerning Chaos and the Warp. There are several examples of Greater Demons 'playing god' for whole subsectors for extended periods of time in the background, and displacing or destroying a couple of ships is in scope of their general power level, if on the upper end of it.
Iracundus wrote: The reason it is obliquely referenced is I think an attempt to show that the Ethereals are keeping secrets.
For the record, i'm not against a Greater God™ in general, but it IMHO needs a good justification because e.g. the Imperium is just beginning to get 'miracles' and demon-like entities after 10.000 years of active worship by trillions, if not quadrillions, of relatively highly-psychic beings, while the Tau empire is practically a newcomer on the galactic stage and has much lower population levels. Being tricked by some sort of demon is overall much better fitting to their general attitude of blessed naivety concerning Chaos and the Warp. There are several examples of Greater Demons 'playing god' for whole subsectors for extended periods of time in the background, and displacing or destroying a couple of ships is in scope of their general power level, if on the upper end of it.
The Emperor has been giving miracles to the SoB for thousands of years all over the Galaxy. In previous stories they were low key nudges of fate here and there, but it seems with the Rift they have become more overt with all the golden light and daemons combusting.
The Greater Good entity has only been active around the region of the Startide Nexus. Its reach is therefore only localized to a specific area within the Tau Empire. Its miracles have also been more mild (aside from that big burst of holding the DG fleet in the warp). Mostly they were protective in the form of repelling Nurgle's flies and rot. No making enemies spontaneously combust like Imperial preachers or SoB do.
So in other words, the Emperor is dabbling in events all over the galaxy, whereas the Greater Good is a localized warp god that seems to have intervened only sparingly and only around a specific warp rift. That sounds about right for a minor warp god.
I find the whole "a daemon did it" actually the least interesting option than watching the Tau struggle with the idea of faith in the universe as it clashes with their ideals, but has undeniable uses.
Fascinating concept. So are you saying there are no purity seals in the fluff or that in the fluff they accomplish nothing?
Obviously there are purity seals in the fluff. They are the ignorant superstitions of a cargo cult and have no practical effect beyond making the idiot priests feel like they're doing something.
Y'got any sources to back that claim up, guv'nor?
Got any sources that they do have an effect?
While there's no explicit statement AFAIK that they don't do anything it's a major point of the setting that the 40k Imperium is a cargo cult run by ignorant zealots. Purity seals having an effect would go directly against this concept and make all the worship and ritual into a practical thing, not a display of profound ignorance and superstition. And it would also go against the fact that the factions that aren't idiot theocracies have no need for purity seals or incense or any of that nonsense. Tau don't need them. Necrons don't need them. GSC don't need them on their stolen Imperial hardware. Even the 30k Imperium didn't need them, despite in many cases using the exact same hardware as the 40k Imperium. At best a purity seal is a ritualized secular object, a fancy way of sticking the relevant pages from the maintenance documents on the object to help the user remember them.
Phil Kelly's fanfiction is thankfully not canon and is best ignored.
Yes. The entire DoW videogame series, and the Space Marine game. Both of those are considered canon, and have Purity Seals that can be found as literal upgrades. In Space Marine, they basically grant an Invuln. In DoW 1-3 they grant bonuses to other things.
Fascinating concept. So are you saying there are no purity seals in the fluff or that in the fluff they accomplish nothing?
Obviously there are purity seals in the fluff. They are the ignorant superstitions of a cargo cult and have no practical effect beyond making the idiot priests feel like they're doing something.
Y'got any sources to back that claim up, guv'nor?
Got any sources that they do have an effect?
While there's no explicit statement AFAIK that they don't do anything it's a major point of the setting that the 40k Imperium is a cargo cult run by ignorant zealots. Purity seals having an effect would go directly against this concept and make all the worship and ritual into a practical thing, not a display of profound ignorance and superstition. And it would also go against the fact that the factions that aren't idiot theocracies have no need for purity seals or incense or any of that nonsense. Tau don't need them. Necrons don't need them. GSC don't need them on their stolen Imperial hardware. Even the 30k Imperium didn't need them, despite in many cases using the exact same hardware as the 40k Imperium. At best a purity seal is a ritualized secular object, a fancy way of sticking the relevant pages from the maintenance documents on the object to help the user remember them.
Phil Kelly's fanfiction is thankfully not canon and is best ignored.
Yes. The entire DoW videogame series, and the Space Marine game. Both of those are considered canon, and have Purity Seals that can be found as literal upgrades. In Space Marine, they basically grant an Invuln. In DoW 1-3 they grant bonuses to other things.
Video and tabletop games don't translate to the real world perfectly.
As I outlined above "purchasing" upgrades in a game doesn't mean that they "do" anything in lore/fluff. Your purchase might reflect a purity seal doing something or that you're hiring/training a trooper to a higher level and that they come with a purity seal as a reflection of that higher skill.
Much like recruiting a real army if you hire grunts with no medals they might work well but if you hire decorated veterans they might cost you more and come with shiny medals. The Medals don't make them better, but they are a reflection of their superior actions/abilities.
And in the 40K setting you could get a myriad. Words DO have power in the setting, a seal can have powers; however defining which ones do and don't is messy. Two purity seals could be the same thing, but one might just be wax and paper; another might actually convey some kind of mythical strange power that does enhance things.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Yes. The entire DoW videogame series, and the Space Marine game. Both of those are considered canon, and have Purity Seals that can be found as literal upgrades. In Space Marine, they basically grant an Invuln. In DoW 1-3 they grant bonuses to other things.
As I said before, game mechanics =/= lore. There are many things which are utter nonsense from a lore point of view but are done for the sake of having a fun and functional game.
Aecus Decimus wrote: As I said before, game mechanics =/= lore. There are many things which are utter nonsense from a lore point of view but are done for the sake of having a fun and functional game.
But the rules come with fluff. Indeed, most of our canon comes from the fluff in the weapon/unit entry.
Using your logic, boltguns aren't canonical because they have an in-game effect.
Oh, and nice straw man regarding Order. I get it, it's a known sci-fi trope, but in 40k there are two systems of physics - the Chaos of the Warp, which defies gravity, time and space constraints - and the normal physics of Order that stands outside of it.
Thus a personification of Order would be a spirit that wishes to constrain Chaos through things like time, space and conventional physics. Order doesn't seek perfection, it seeks continuity. It is resistant rather than aggressive.
Similarly, the prayers and sacred oils guard machines against supernatural things like gremlins which try to break them outside of the normal maintenance cycle.
Order finds the Eye of Terror an abomination and has latched onto anything to constrain and contain it. Thus: the Emperor, the Greater Good, the Machine God.
These appear to be effective both in-game and in-fluff.
Purity Seals aren’t something given in hope you’ll improve. They’re dished out for showing merit. In the same way a Marine with the Marksman Honour earned it for being an exceptional shot, not in the hope it’ll help Brother Dave, who’s always been a bit odd, remember which end of his Bolter is the dangerous end.
The in-game effect is way to represent the model being more individual than others of the same rank.
But, that doesn’t mean they can’t have some mystical property as well. We can see such a belief reflected in Chapter Relics. Those can vary from One In A Million type arms and armour, which are unique examples of a craft, to things which do seem to be genuinely miraculous in properties - whether it’s psychosomatic or not.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: But, that doesn’t mean they can’t have some mystical property as well. We can see such a belief reflected in Chapter Relics. Those can vary from One In A Million type arms and armour, which are unique examples of a craft, to things which do seem to be genuinely miraculous in properties - whether it’s psychosomatic or not.
They are a form of blessing, no?
To be clear, I'm not outlining a new dogma about the God of Order, I'm simply noting that the opposing position - only Chaos is real and everything else is a delusion by superstitious idiots - is not consistent with the fluff or the game mechanics.
There is very much a gray area for people to choose whatever amuses or entertains them.
For people who like their Grimdarkness "pure" to the extent of all the gods are evil, they can play it that way. For everyone else, there is also room in the setting.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of the strengths of the original fluff was the GW purposefully left gaps. Some have closed, but I like that ambiguity.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: But, that doesn’t mean they can’t have some mystical property as well. We can see such a belief reflected in Chapter Relics. Those can vary from One In A Million type arms and armour, which are unique examples of a craft, to things which do seem to be genuinely miraculous in properties - whether it’s psychosomatic or not.
They are a form of blessing, no?
To be clear, I'm not outlining a new dogma about the God of Order, I'm simply noting that the opposing position - only Chaos is real and everything else is a delusion by superstitious idiots - is not consistent with the fluff or the game mechanics.
There is very much a gray area for people to choose whatever amuses or entertains them.
For people who like their Grimdarkness "pure" to the extent of all the gods are evil, they can play it that way. For everyone else, there is also room in the setting.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of the strengths of the original fluff was the GW purposefully left gaps. Some have closed, but I like that ambiguity.
It's not so much that all gods are Evil, but that all gods are of the Warp, and the Warp itself is inimical to 'order' in the sense of natural laws - that's why they dropped capital 'O' Order soon after they worked out the basic metaphyisics of the Warp and Chaos in the roleplaying supplements for WHFB. It's a notable point where Warhammer deviates from its roots in Moorcock's system of Order vs. Chaos. Every god is in some way a 'chaotic' god because they draw power from the Warp. Even the 'good' gods are still warp entities, or at least have warp entities. When they introduced them, they tried to establish the C'tan as quasi-gods of realspace, but that has been mostly dropped too.
Prayer seals are marks of literally sanctified paper by a chaplain of an order, who can literally turn the tide of battle by shouting words.
You'd be silly to say prayer marks don't have power. That's like saying when a chaplain makes an invocation and recites the litany of fury, his brothers around him don't ACTUALLY fight harder, they just do it by accident.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: To be clear, I'm not outlining a new dogma about the God of Order, I'm simply noting that the opposing position - only Chaos is real and everything else is a delusion by superstitious idiots - is not consistent with the fluff or the game mechanics.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Prayer seals are marks of literally sanctified paper by a chaplain of an order, who can literally turn the tide of battle by shouting words.
You'd be silly to say prayer marks don't have power. That's like saying when a chaplain makes an invocation and recites the litany of fury, his brothers around him don't ACTUALLY fight harder, they just do it by accident.
Chaplain thing could be an overdrive buried deep in a Marine’s psychoindoctrination. Think trigger words and phrases which send them temporarily loopy and extra hard. Useful in battlefield conditions, but not desirable in day to day operations. And that by no means needs the Chaplain to know that’s what’s actually happening, either.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Prayer seals are marks of literally sanctified paper by a chaplain of an order, who can literally turn the tide of battle by shouting words.
You'd be silly to say prayer marks don't have power. That's like saying when a chaplain makes an invocation and recites the litany of fury, his brothers around him don't ACTUALLY fight harder, they just do it by accident.
Chaplain thing could be an overdrive buried deep in a Marine’s psychoindoctrination. Think trigger words and phrases which send them temporarily loopy and extra hard. Useful in battlefield conditions, but not desirable in day to day operations. And that by no means needs the Chaplain to know that’s what’s actually happening, either.
Tell that to the Reclusiarch of the Black Templars. He inspired a group of Salamanders. And a princeps inside a literal Imperator Titan, just by commanding her to "stand up". It's not warcraft, it's rolling a 20 on Charisma check. And it's their main Purpose. Versus a Commissar, who literally threatens to inspire.
Aecus Decimus wrote: As I said before, game mechanics =/= lore. There are many things which are utter nonsense from a lore point of view but are done for the sake of having a fun and functional game.
But the rules come with fluff. Indeed, most of our canon comes from the fluff in the weapon/unit entry.
Using your logic, boltguns aren't canonical because they have an in-game effect.
Oh, and nice straw man regarding Order. I get it, it's a known sci-fi trope, but in 40k there are two systems of physics - the Chaos of the Warp, which defies gravity, time and space constraints - and the normal physics of Order that stands outside of it.
Thus a personification of Order would be a spirit that wishes to constrain Chaos through things like time, space and conventional physics. Order doesn't seek perfection, it seeks continuity. It is resistant rather than aggressive.
Similarly, the prayers and sacred oils guard machines against supernatural things like gremlins which try to break them outside of the normal maintenance cycle.
Order finds the Eye of Terror an abomination and has latched onto anything to constrain and contain it. Thus: the Emperor, the Greater Good, the Machine God.
These appear to be effective both in-game and in-fluff.
Incorrect about Order. As WHF shows, the opposite end from Chaos (the gak Nagash is doing) is just as inimical to humanity as Chaos. Ditto with the Necrons in 40k.
Whether your Chapter or not, my theory it could be something to do with their hypo and psychic indoctrination between switched on and off stands, as Chapter divergence won’t necessarily mean large differences in those processes, which are common to all Marine creation processes, as they’re all done from the same template.
A Princeps? Sure that could simply be being genuinely inspiring.
Grimaldus didn't just urge Princeps Zarha at a whim though. He made an effort to personally connect with her during the siege of Helsreach and it was part of their bond that they would fight to the last. So while Fezz is technically right in that Astartes Chaplains often inspire other non-Astartes to act, they failed to make clear that this was a long-term effort by Grimaldus that started with him threatening to kill the Imperator Titan if Invigilata didn't march for Helsreach.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Prayer seals are marks of literally sanctified paper by a chaplain of an order, who can literally turn the tide of battle by shouting words.
You'd be silly to say prayer marks don't have power. That's like saying when a chaplain makes an invocation and recites the litany of fury, his brothers around him don't ACTUALLY fight harder, they just do it by accident.
Does an IRL motivation speech have "power" just because it inspires greater effort?
Lolwut. No. The argument is not "it has an in-game effect therefore not canon", it's "having an in-game effect doesn't necessarily make it canon".
To give an example: both space marine bolters and guardsman bolters are RF1/R24"/S4/AP0/D1. The argument that game mechanics are canon would force you to believe that both weapons are equivalent. But if you understand that game mechanics are not fluff you are free to acknowledge that the marine weapon is larger and more powerful despite the constraints of the D6 system forcing them to have the same in-game stats. And this fits the lore of marine bolters being powerful enough to break a normal human's arm with the recoil.
Same thing for purity seals. Their existence as a game mechanic doesn't necessarily mean that they don't have an effect but it sure as hell doesn't mean they do. Purity seals having an in-game effect may be nothing more than the designer needing a particular mechanic for the game to function and using the purity seal icon to represent it. And that mechanic may be purely a gameplay construct that exists only within a particular game.
Oh, and nice straw man regarding Order. I get it, it's a known sci-fi trope, but in 40k there are two systems of physics - the Chaos of the Warp, which defies gravity, time and space constraints - and the normal physics of Order that stands outside of it.
Except that's not true at all. Chaos exists outside the warp. A demon exists in "normal physics" and functions just fine there. The reality is that the physics of 40k are not the same as in our universe. Gravity, time, etc, are subjective in 40k and that's just how the universe works.
Order doesn't seek perfection, it seeks continuity.
And what is more continuous than a perfect crystal at absolute zero? War is messy. Civilization is messy. Annihilation is pure and orderly and unchanging.
What you're talking about is not a Chaos god of Order, it's a species-specific god like the gods of the orks. It seeks the triumph and domination of humanity above all, just as the ork gods exist as champions of orks, not of some abstract philosophical concept.
The trouble in this thread is the odd insistence a given thing can’t be both, varying from example to example.
For instance?
A Machine Spirit can be interpreted as a simple superstition. It can also be how software is described to people who don’t need to know anymore. It can and is also very advanced software in machines of war capable of limited independent action. It can be True AI. And it may even extend to a Warp Entity that becomes associated with a specific weapon.
A Purity Seal is something awarded in recognition of personal excellence. For most that’s all it is. For some, it may become a focus of something more esoteric.
A Chaplain’s Litanies may just be battle cheerleading. Or like the Purity Seal, it could have an esoteric, near supernatural effect.
Effects may be entirely psychosomatic. A squad fights harder under a given banner because it’s an ancient relic, and has never fallen before so they’ll be damned if it’s falling again. It may actually have a measurable, definable effect which belief alone cannot explain.
A cloak renowned for turning aside even the most dolorous blow may have an unacknowledged, one of a kind, power field type thing in its fabric - but it could be mystical.
It could be all of the above, potentially none of the above.
For The Imperium? The system works - and that’s enough. And so it continues on and on and on down the Millenia.
Indeed and within the 40K setting itself there is logical foundation for a range of explanations to be valid. The characters of the setting often do not look into these things, so the reader has it up to their own interpretation of events.
Accepting that what it true in one instance might not be true in another. A machine might have a spirit in one story and no spirit in another. Neither one invalidates the other, its just that within the vastness of the Imperium and its mystical, hyper advanced setting; both elements can be true.
It's actually a very advanced form of story telling because in most stories, authors tend to keep things simple. X=Y
The idea that X = Y or B or D or 4 depending on situation circumstance and even interpretation of the relationship on the part of the characters. That's a mystifying confusing element that can be tricky for a reader to pick up on; but which can make the setting ever so much more diverse and adaptive.
We don't know what they are really made from. If a purity seal produced by the serf whose family has made them for 10,000 years if copying the process exactly they could be embedded with all sorts of circuitry and whatnot and interface with the armour, gun or vehicles data systems and actually being unlocking upgrades or prompting the system to work in a different way.
There’s also the vampire type Faith vs True Faith.
A good example of those is in the fantastic 7th Doctor “Curse of Fenric”.
Actual Vampires (Haemovores), vs Russian Soldiers vs British Soldiers. The Doctor explains that true faith creates a psychic defence that disrupts the Haemovores.
The CoE Priest snuffs it, because the horrors of the 2nd World War broke his faith. The Russian Commander holds them off, as his faith in the Revolution is absolute. Indeed, The Doctor famously rubbishes Ace, his assistant, because her faith in The Doctor is interfering with The Doctor’s plan.
In terms of 40k? That’s like a Sister of Battle driving off Daemons with a supposedly Holy Relic, whilst anyone else would end up worm food, because they lack True Faith such as the Sister has.
It's actually a very advanced form of story telling because in most stories, authors tend to keep things simple. X=Y
The idea that X = Y or B or D or 4 depending on situation circumstance and even interpretation of the relationship on the part of the characters. That's a mystifying confusing element that can be tricky for a reader to pick up on; but which can make the setting ever so much more diverse and adaptive.
The advantage of this creative ambiguity is that you can keep far more people happy.
That's why I keep saying: embrace the healing power of and.
Gert wrote: Grimaldus didn't just urge Princeps Zarha at a whim though. He made an effort to personally connect with her during the siege of Helsreach and it was part of their bond that they would fight to the last. So while Fezz is technically right in that Astartes Chaplains often inspire other non-Astartes to act, they failed to make clear that this was a long-term effort by Grimaldus that started with him threatening to kill the Imperator Titan if Invigilata didn't march for Helsreach.
Which is typical for Fezzik. I'm surprised he hadn't blocked you for showing evidence he was being deceptive.
A good example of those is in the fantastic 7th Doctor “Curse of Fenric”.
Actual Vampires (Haemovores), vs Russian Soldiers vs British Soldiers. The Doctor explains that true faith creates a psychic defence that disrupts the Haemovores.
The CoE Priest snuffs it, because the horrors of the 2nd World War broke his faith. The Russian Commander holds them off, as his faith in the Revolution is absolute. Indeed, The Doctor famously rubbishes Ace, his assistant, because her faith in The Doctor is interfering with The Doctor’s plan.
In terms of 40k? That’s like a Sister of Battle driving off Daemons with a supposedly Holy Relic, whilst anyone else would end up worm food, because they lack True Faith such as the Sister has.
Cool. We can induce "true" faith with entheogens like found in Tava root. It's nothing ineffable, not even in 40k.
A good example of those is in the fantastic 7th Doctor “Curse of Fenric”.
Actual Vampires (Haemovores), vs Russian Soldiers vs British Soldiers. The Doctor explains that true faith creates a psychic defence that disrupts the Haemovores.
The CoE Priest snuffs it, because the horrors of the 2nd World War broke his faith. The Russian Commander holds them off, as his faith in the Revolution is absolute. Indeed, The Doctor famously rubbishes Ace, his assistant, because her faith in The Doctor is interfering with The Doctor’s plan.
In terms of 40k? That’s like a Sister of Battle driving off Daemons with a supposedly Holy Relic, whilst anyone else would end up worm food, because they lack True Faith such as the Sister has.
Ah. An Inverse Witch test. Anyone who fails and dies isn't 'true,' and its the only way to tell.
Overread wrote:It's actually a very advanced form of story telling because in most stories, authors tend to keep things simple. X=Y
The idea that X = Y or B or D or 4 depending on situation circumstance and even interpretation of the relationship on the part of the characters. That's a mystifying confusing element that can be tricky for a reader to pick up on; but which can make the setting ever so much more diverse and adaptive.
Or just the diversity from lack of a setting bible, inconsistency, or just plain bad writing.
Its only mystifying and tricky for the reader if the writer lacks the skill to convey that the characters don't know but the author does.
It's kinda clear even the Eccliesarchy is "poly-theist" in that they both believe in their holy Emperor, but they also KNOW that other gods exist.
So is it still faith if you "know gods exist?"
According to the dictionairy, Faith is the belief in something without good rational justification.
So if you have proof of something, it's no longer "faith"? Like, The Imperial Cult KNOWS that Chaos Gods exist, but don't actually KNOW that the Emperor is or is not a god. So does that make them Chaos worshipers?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: It's kinda clear even the Eccliesarchy is "poly-theist" in that they both believe in their holy Emperor, but they also KNOW that other gods exist.
That's a huge overgeneralisation. The vast majority of Ecclesiarchal priests and adherents only know the God-Emperor with anything else being labeled a false god, while even those who do know of Chaos as an opposing concept don't know of the Gods and Daemons that live in the Warp. Heck, most Chaos Cults don't actually know the name of the God they end up worshiping but rather refer to them with pseudonyms or nicknames like Grandfather, the Lord of Skin and Sinew, or the Whisperer. Imperial Preachers don't go around spreading the names of the Dark Gods because they don't actually know them. If you read novels with such characters they preach about the evils of the enemy or Chaos in general but never say the names out loud.
In the eyes of the Imperial Cult, there are no other Gods, just monsters that prey on the weak and use them to subvert the will of the God-Emperor.
They "KNOW" the other gods are false with the same proof standard that they "KNOW" the emperor is a god. Which is to say, none.
But they do admit there are in existence other "godly beings" that make god like claims. It's like saying "The Admech worship the Omnisiah." You've literally just invoked the existence of a god, which means there would be two gods.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: They "KNOW" the other gods are false with the same proof standard that they "KNOW" the emperor is a god. Which is to say, none.
But they do admit there are in existence other "godly beings" that make god like claims. It's like saying "The Admech worship the Omnisiah." You've literally just invoked the existence of a god, which means there would be two gods.
No, they don't. There are powerful beings that call themselves gods or that people claim are gods but they are very specifically not gods as per the Imperial Cult because there is one god, the God-Emperor. There may be different interpretations of the Emperor but they are all still the Emperor. It's why the Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor went unnoticed for so long because apart from some visual differences, its creed and ethics were nominally in line with the baseline idea of the Emperor.
Rebuking false gods does not mean the Imperial Cult believes they exist, but rather the opposite. They are false precisely because they cannot exist as true gods.
The Omnissiah is an exception to the rule because the Imperium and Mechanicus require each other to survive. The Cult Mechanicus is accepted as a variation of the Imperial Cult that views the Emperor as either a manifestation of or a prophet of the Omnissiah. The Imperial Cult does not believe in the Omnissiah however and maintains that the God-Emperor is the only god there is. In the same way that the Astartes and Custodes aren't interfered with for not adhering to the Imperial Cult, so too are the Mechanicus left alone to practice their religion as long as they maintain loyalty to the Imperium.
Also there is proof of false gods - any major battle against the Ruinous Powers is going to have demons of some form or another appearing. It's going to have people with rotting bodies and mouths on their stomachs able to move, operate and be very powerful threat; whereas if you remove Nurgle those plagued warriors would collapse to nothing under their own infestation of rot, plague and maggots and all.
There's ample evidence in the setting for Gods, false and real. Plus the False Gods can be very powerful and godlike. False doesn't mean that they do not have power nor that they cannot act in a godly way, but that they are not the true God of Mankind. That worshipping them is only going to make things worse; to bring oblivion and damnation rather than all the gifts that the Emperor brings.
There's a wealth of evidence for the spiritual, magical, godly and more in the setting. Which is why we can have discussions on if machine spirits are real and why we end up with conclusions along the lines of "well they could be just superstition, they could be possession with a soul; they could be demons; they could be super advanced AI systems and they could be a combination of the various elements. And in the end all of them are valid arguments
I want to know, why so many people want ai to just be current computer driven ai.
If theyre plugging a brain into a door, flesh into a warp drive or geller field.
Computer ai, is well a bit boring for 40k.
Lets tear/ grow a brain, from this animal, human and grow it in a jar. All it knows is this 20 mtr warhound, 10 km warship.
Sure its only a small box as far as things go.
But it explains so much and is so 40k
It's literally heretical science to meld a human soul with a machine, or so I thought from the Inquitor games and books. That's bio transference, aka what the Necrons did. Also what the Eldar did/do with their stones or whatever.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: It's literally heretical science to meld a human soul with a machine, or so I thought from the Inquitor games and books. That's bio transference, aka what the Necrons did. Also what the Eldar did/do with their stones or whatever.
Souls yes, but don't forget the Imperium breeds clones just o have enough squishy brains to put into cogitators and servitors and such
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: It's literally heretical science to meld a human soul with a machine, or so I thought from the Inquitor games and books. That's bio transference, aka what the Necrons did. Also what the Eldar did/do with their stones or whatever.
Souls, sure. IF ITs human. Thats why WE only get to be door locks, servitors and cogitators. Id say even cogitators, that the public use are over reach.
Thats why trying to control a Titan is sometimes like trying to control a feral animal.
Its not bio transference if the brain is in control, and its not human.
And even if it was. Its just the same steps that every other race has walked down and failed. You think humans would be better at it?
Humans tried the Ai thing, didnt work. So its all wet ware now, not hard ware. Thats so much more 40k than computer ai. Its just stupid to think anything else.
I'm really not sure at all what point you are trying to make, or which side you are arguing for. It seems like you are just attacking the idea of AI in 40k?
Not really. Humans in the DOAT have nearly been exterminated by AI.
Seems like you cant accept the fact, that a brain in the jar, that has never had a body, cant be Ai
I can't accept the idea that English is your first language, because you're sentence structure is baffling.
I've been arguing FOR the existence of AI and spirits in 40k, and you seem to be attacking me for a position I'm not presenting. We call that straw man fallacy.
Here lets try basic statements and steelman our positions.
I Believe that AI and Spirits exist in the machines in 40k. I believe that they are distinguishable, but basically the same conceptual idea. A computer becomes self aware, or is given sentience, it then develops a personality. This is found in very large machines run by AIs, ala Titans and Starships. This is NOT found, to my knowledge, in small things such as toasters, and rifles. The idea of cyborgs such as Admech Skitarii or Servitors do not meet the idea of AI, therefor are excluded. They are a human brain in a machine. CAWL however is a black hole of 40k theories, but is generally regarded as a literal mcguffin that 40k writers have no clue what to do with.
Not really. Humans in the DOAT have nearly been exterminated by AI.
Seems like you cant accept the fact, that a brain in the jar, that has never had a body, cant be Ai
I mean if that brain is cloned it would qualify as *artificial intelligence*.
It might not count as *abominable intelligence* by 40k's standards though.
The sources I can find describe Battle Automata as having artificial neural gubbins. Modelled after, but not in itself, human brain tissue.
And to the best of my knowledge, there are no examples of Imperial Machine Spirits acting outside of their role or making anything akin to a leap of logic or actively rebelling and refusing to fight.
I guess it’s the difference between Instinct and Intelligence. A Machine Spirit is Artificial Instinct - but it is not an intelligence as such, as it simply cannot act outside of its assigned role.
I think this bear demonstrated with Warlord Titans. Yes they have been known to self-activate. Yes the Princeps needs to establish dominance over the Machine Spirit to guide his charge properly. But it’s akin to a purposefully dangerous dog being let off the leash. It’s acting on instinct and training/programming, not from rational thought.
To be honest I'd prefer they weren't really any machine spirits and it was just anthropomorphism. That's the funnier and better option for the background.
If there are any "machine spirits" they are just insane scripted programming in a loop after centuries.
