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Do weapons have machine spirits like weapons produced by the imperium? such as bolters plasma guns melta guns and other weapons?

I don't think so, From all of the books I've read I've never read any mention of small arms having any form of machine spirit. I could be mistaken though

In short: Yes.


Long answer: Machine spirit is the term used by the masses to explain the almost magical way that technology works, because they have lost all knowledge of how it works. The cants, chants and rights used by the tech-adepts and other disciples of the Omnisiah are used like prayers and by the ecclisiarchy to help the masses remeber how to fix something even though they don't relise why it works. The chants and such come not only with words(whch are actually meaningless to the machines) but with a full set of actions and task that one must preform along with the spoken component to appease the machine spirit (i.e. fix the problem). Gaurdsman for example are well versed in the gun blessing chant, which the will use multiple times in a week. What the gaurdsman actually achieves while reciting and acting out the gun blessing, is actually cleaning and careing for his rifle. However he is unaware of the physical needs of the gun and its operating mechanics. All he knows is that the guns machine spirit requires this blessing on a daily use basis or it may revolt against him and stop working when he needs it most.


Effectively mechanical and electrical engineering has now become a beliefe system as opposed to a science. The best place for examples/information on this topic is the Infatry Primer book(forget the actual title) and the Dark Heresy pen and paper RPG. The tech priest class gets mystical abilties that allow him to unjam guns he touches in a matter of seconds (Gun Blessing talent) and many other examples of this beliefe of understanding thought process.


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Actually even in some of the novels you will find small mentions of the omnisiah and how even the simplest machine has a machine spirit. Some people get machine spirit confused with A.I. which is advanced type of machine spirit (but also heretical according to the Tech-priests and Inquisition), but in effect it is actually refereing to a 'soul' that the masses belive all machines (of any kind) have and allows them to operate(which ofcourse is untrue it is simply physics and other science based applications working together in a contraption built by an intellegent creature, much like people having souls but thats anoter discussion).

So yes guns like all tech/machines have a machine spirit.

Haha ok i think i get the jist of it so I guess then if say a plasma rifle was overheating it wouldnt work because it was to hot and the machine spirit would revolt and not let it fire so it wouldnt explode and this would really be just a fail-safe for the weapon and this gets interpreted as the machine having its own will/Machine Spirit?

Correct.

Same as if the contacts on a lasgun were corroded and not connecting well with the battery/clip. It would be viewed as the machine spirit of the lasgun being angry and refusing to work unless the user gave it the proper gun blessing to appease the machine spirit (at some point during a lasgun's required Gun Blessing the user would scrub the contacts clean of corrosion, not really knowing that to be the actual issue.) and get the gun working properly again.

thats strange to think that this could all possibly happen im talking about losing the know how to fix technologies aspect of 40k

And yes plasma gun's machine spirits are known to be tempermental especially to users who do not respect them and treat them with the proper reverence of such an anchient form of machine spirit. Its even been known to happen that extremely angry machine spirits have tried to consume the offending party in the heat of battle. (i.e. overheat and explode. This is hilarious when t happens to a player or NPC in Dark Heresy. All plasma guns have an overheat rule and on a roll of 96-100 you roll on the overheat chart. On a roll of 10 (on a D10) it explodes and deals damge to the user as if he were shot by it. Happened to a friend of mine, who survived the blast. Horribly scarred though and needed a bionic arm afterwards. I love Dark Heresy )

hahaha now thats funny right there this never occured to me before but does gw make bionic arms and legs for space marines models?

BloodDrop101X wrote:thats strange to think that this could all possibly happen im talking about losing the know how to fix technologies aspect of 40k

It's due to the billions upon billions of humans spread across millions of planets spread across all forms of stone, bronze, iron, modern and advanced civilizations creating all their own versions of machines and then being plunged into a horrible battle vs A.I. machines they themselves created (a la Matrix) and barely surviving. At that point the rules of mankind decided it best to enforce a kind of loss of application by shifting technology into the realm of Religion. This protected the human race from making the same mistake twice, because if none knew how to create new machines( by new I mean different not simply a new replica of a machine from a blueprint, or SCT as they are known) then no one would be able to make such A.I. abominations that could threaten the human race again. However, certain groups (the Logicians for example) are constantly striving to break this yoke that has been placed upon humanity by the servants of the omnisiah by searching for lost schismaticals (A.I. from the past) to study and bring them back as a proper human serving intelegence among other heretical technological feats.

This topic is actually a very interesting one that is covered in various supplements in the DH RPG. The Radicals Handbook for example has a good chunk detailing these issues and the groups behind different movements.


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BloodDrop101X wrote:hahaha now thats funny right there this never occured to me before but does gw make bionic arms and legs for space marines models?

yes

wow this sound really interesting is there a thread on the dark heresy rulebook?

yes check this forum board on dakkadakka http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/24.page

There re various posts in their about Dark Heresy. You ca find more on fantasy flight's website since they make the product.

And it is possible that it goes even deeper than just having forgot how technology works. Most of the way the Imperium works isn't due to stupidity, but due to the simple realities of survival.

Over the millenia mankind has produced an uncountable amount of AI programs. In the dark age of technology they were literally everywhere and in everything. Trillions of trillions. Between the war against the Iron Men, the fall, and the Horus Heresy, millenia of neglect and deterioration these programs have gone through massive amounts of corruption. They have been acted upon by viruses both technological and demonic. Imprisoned and left to go mad for millenia. Many of them are virulent themselves and self propagate at every opportunity. It has gotten to the point where they inhabit much existing technology, especially in old centers of technology like mars.

One of the big reasons the ad-mech is the way it is, is due to this fact. During the re-building after the horus heresy it got the point where many of their technologies would literally try to kill them. Even if they do find STCs on Mars they cant trust them. More often than not an STC for a simple power pack or PDA produces a homicidal maniac that does its very best to kill its owner/creator. This is why they are so desperate to find STCs on remote worlds untouched by humanities great wars. They aren't they way they are because they are stupid. It is because it is the only way to survive.

Does every product everywhere have a temperamental and corrupt machine spirit within it? Probably not. But it is ingrained at this point, and honestly, safer to act as though it does. If your gun DOES have a machine spirit in it you had best keep it happy or it may just try to kill you. And it isn't like mankind has ever had the luxury of isolating these rogue technologies to get back to some sort of normalcy, which I'm sure would have been their preference once upon a time. They have been in a perpetual state of war for ten thousand years. If one third of your tanks are temperamental you can't send it back to mars for an AI scrub down. You just have the local tech priest explain how to keep them happy and deal with it. After ten thousand years of this behavior it has become ingrained.

And it has gotten to the point that it is impossible for mars to do a "scrub down" of their systems. The software and database systems on mars are so ancient and complex they are beyond anybodies ability to debug or even begin to comprehend. And even if some people have the expertise to re-write it they don't have the time. Without putting massive amounts of effort into isolating the new systems from the old, the new systems would just become infected too. At this point the only way to fix things is to destroy all existing systems and databases and start from scratch. But even if the ad mech has the necessary skills to accomplish such an undertaking (unlikely) they do not have the luxury of time. The imperium would come down around their ears in the decades (or perhaps centuries) it would take to rebuild, and they don't have the manpower to build a new system while maintaining the old. So they make do.

So everything is treated as though it has a machine spirit. Maybe this gun doesn't and you are just performing routine maintenance with some extra rituals tacked on for good measure. But then again, maybe it does, and if you DON'T do those extra rituals it will get mad and decide it wants a new owner and jam up at the most critical times, just because it doesn't like how you treat it. In the end, it is best for most solders and tech priests in the imperium to treat it as a religion. Once things calm down, then the ad mech can fix everything. Yea. Once everything calms down...

This is indeed true and another reason why the things are the way they are in 40k. Superstitions run rampant (as do the things that kill you) and as such people have learned to cope and do anything that may help them survive another day. It's part of what makes things so interesting.

Oops, posted in the wrong place. How do i delete this...

Yea I agree with all that is said, small things like lasguns and bolters don't really have a machine spirit people just think they do. However there are things mentioned like the guns in planetstrike which are "machine spirit operated" which is what I take to be some sort of guidance computer. However I hear the bigger and more complex the machine (like a titan or landraider) the more advanced the machine spirit (ie the better the onboard computer). There have even been reports of a titans "machine spirit" talking to its new princeps ect.

vodo40k wrote:Yea I agree with all that is said, small things like lasguns and bolters don't really have a machine spirit people just think they do. However there are things mentioned like the guns in planetstrike which are "machine spirit operated" which is what I take to be some sort of guidance computer. However I hear the bigger and more complex the machine (like a titan or landraider) the more advanced the machine spirit (ie the better the onboard computer). There have even been reports of a titans "machine spirit" talking to its new princeps ect.

I've too heard of centuries old machine spirits of titans who achieved an "A.I" status and whirlwind missiles have small logis engine so yes they have a machine spirit.

Wow to me it kinda seems like if we really start to develop machines with artifical intelligence we will end up with a universe much like 40k that would be pretty awesome i think but its sucks that it would probably take 40k years for all that to happen

In the Mechanicum book (HH series) theres a Magos who doesn't believe in the Omnisiah and doesn't use any "prayers" while working on machines and it is clearly shown that they have an actual understanding of technology far beyond ours and not just their prayers.

Also, IMO what is referred to as Machine Spirit's is the influence of the Void Dragon, but that's just speculation on my part I guess.

You know that feeling you get that your computer is messing with you on purpose (I just want to use Word damnit!). Most likely the same thing with the machine spirit.

its could be explained by the fact many weapons they use might actually have a "machine spirit"

many weapons the millitary(U.S) is developing/using now have A.I systems of varing degrees.

nearly all tanks have onboard computers, missile launchers have basic tracking systems.

Planes can fly themselves in a limited sense and timeframe.

rifles have infrared scopes linked to a central database allowing commanders to track the gun's movements.

in the future i would not be surprised if Bolters had similer tracking devices that due to widespread ignorence of the working functions no longer is used, but is there.

An A.I rebellion during the Dark age likely caused the superstitions that are prelevent. the machines are for lack of a better word "angry" and must be appeased.


T'au will likely expierence a similer event at the rate their tech is growing. all drones will turn on their masters and the t'au will be reduced to a minor faction in the grand scheme of things. then they will be grimdark enough for the 40k universe and we will revel in the grimdarkness of our little corner of Geek Land.

I'm wondering how this all connects to the fact that SM's don't repaint their whole armour as not to offend the Machine Spirit inside...

I mean, even with quite some well-developed AI (which no piece of technology in 40k universe has) i can see no reason why it would refuse to work (i.e. malfunction) due to a simple repainting

aka_tizz wrote:I'm wondering how this all connects to the fact that SM's don't repaint their whole armour as not to offend the Machine Spirit inside...

I mean, even with quite some well-developed AI (which no piece of technology in 40k universe has) i can see no reason why it would refuse to work (i.e. malfunction) due to a simple repainting

The repainting of the techpriest armour is more to show that they are of techpriest rank. The same way a commander carries a banner. The meaning has just become lost so now they do it so they do not offend the machine spirit which is in no way true

The Acolyte wrote:

aka_tizz wrote:I'm wondering how this all connects to the fact that SM's don't repaint their whole armour as not to offend the Machine Spirit inside...

I mean, even with quite some well-developed AI (which no piece of technology in 40k universe has) i can see no reason why it would refuse to work (i.e. malfunction) due to a simple repainting

The repainting of the techpriest armour is more to show that they are of techpriest rank. The same way a commander carries a banner. The meaning has just become lost so now they do it so they do not offend the machine spirit which is in no way true

It is clearly stated that Marines never completely repaint their armour. Chaplains always leave the original colors on their shoulderpad, as does the Deathwatch.

The belief is that if you completely repaint the armour it will not work. why would that be the case?

Also, I forget where, but I remember hearing that the Emperor once commanded a machine to repair itself. Is that just using psyker abilities to do the physical repairs?

steempunk wrote:

The Acolyte wrote:

aka_tizz wrote:I'm wondering how this all connects to the fact that SM's don't repaint their whole armour as not to offend the Machine Spirit inside...

I mean, even with quite some well-developed AI (which no piece of technology in 40k universe has) i can see no reason why it would refuse to work (i.e. malfunction) due to a simple repainting

The repainting of the techpriest armour is more to show that they are of techpriest rank. The same way a commander carries a banner. The meaning has just become lost so now they do it so they do not offend the machine spirit which is in no way true

It is clearly stated that Marines never completely repaint their armour. Chaplains always leave the original colors on their shoulderpad, as does the Deathwatch.

The belief is that if you completely repaint the armour it will not work. why would that be the case?

Also, I forget where, but I remember hearing that the Emperor once commanded a machine to repair itself. Is that just using psyker abilities to do the physical repairs?

Could be, as i can see no way for a being, even as gifted as the Emperor might be, to command a machine to repair itself. He could've said the machine to repair itself, thus activating some self-repair protocol inside, or moving the damaged parts inside psychically. Either way, i don't think he was actually talking to the machine

Re: space marines not repainting all thier armor to not offend the machine spirit...

I always thought that was a fancy way of saying that they don't repaint it all cause it might bring bad luck.

EDIT- and of course, in alot of circumstances where you only leave the shoulder pad unpainted, I figured it was a mark of chapter pride that you leave its insignia unblemished, the same way your supposed to 'bury' a nations (or at least an American) flag with honor once its been worn out or blemished.

I cant remmember but isn't it said that power armour has a machine spirit and thats why they try to keep the armour true to its colors?

Grey Templar wrote:its could be explained by the fact many weapons they use might actually have a "machine spirit"

many weapons the millitary(U.S) is developing/using now have A.I systems of varing degrees.

nearly all tanks have onboard computers, missile launchers have basic tracking systems.

Planes can fly themselves in a limited sense and timeframe.

rifles have infrared scopes linked to a central database allowing commanders to track the gun's movements.

in the future i would not be surprised if Bolters had similer tracking devices that due to widespread ignorence of the working functions no longer is used, but is there.

An A.I rebellion during the Dark age likely caused the superstitions that are prelevent. the machines are for lack of a better word "angry" and must be appeased.


T'au will likely expierence a similer event at the rate their tech is growing. all drones will turn on their masters and the t'au will be reduced to a minor faction in the grand scheme of things. then they will be grimdark enough for the 40k universe and we will revel in the grimdarkness of our little corner of Geek Land.

Mhm, your mixing things up here, we don't have a real A.I. yet, we have highly advanced computers in nearly anything, but in the end it's still programs running on fixed parameters.

no, but in 40,000 years we will

Yeah power armor has a machine spirit but its not a highly complex one and they dont completly repaint their armor because i dont think the yhave paint thinner if they mess up lol

Marines not fully repainting there armour is probably mostly superstition but i wouldn't discount the possibility that very old sets of armour have something more to them.

In the soul hunter novel the main character often mentions the machine spirit of his armour kind of chartering away at the back of his mind something that can normal be ignored. Course that could be the first sign of some kind of demonic possession. But i took it to be more like a constant stream of combat information being fed directly into his subconscious, what he took to be the armours desire to kill would be it registering targets maybe even designating threat levels, identifying weapons, registering there readiness to fire, stuff like that.