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 YourIntestines wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

Neither of whom are the head of GW publishing, and thus their word is completely worthless. While I may love ADB as an author, he does not hold ownership of the IP, and thus his word is meaningless.

But they would still have fairly good knowledge of the 40k canon, and would have no reason to lie about it.

Except they don't own the IP, so their word is worthless as they have no authority to speak on the subject. Only the IP owner itself or the person in charge of the Black Library would have such authority to do so.

We know that you'd like there to be a consistent, cohesive 40K canon, but repeating that line doesn't make it true. GW, as a corporation, owns the IP. GW, the corporate entity, is not interested in having a cohesive canon.

And, yes, the authors in the Black Library stable definitely have the authority to speak on it. Marc Gascoigne, especially, was manager and head publisher of BL so, yes, he definitely had the authority to speak on the subject. That was his job.

There isn't a canon in 40K. None of the fluff presented in any of the sources is 100% reliable. All of it is stories, tales, legends, myths, rumors, outright fabrications, propaganda, and half-truths.

 Psienesis wrote:
We know that you'd like there to be a consistent, cohesive 40K canon, but repeating that line doesn't make it true. GW, as a corporation, owns the IP. GW, the corporate entity, is not interested in having a cohesive canon.

And, yes, the authors in the Black Library stable definitely have the authority to speak on it. Marc Gascoigne, especially, was manager and head publisher of BL so, yes, he definitely had the authority to speak on the subject. That was his job.

There isn't a canon in 40K. None of the fluff presented in any of the sources is 100% reliable. All of it is stories, tales, legends, myths, rumors, outright fabrications, propaganda, and half-truths.

in fact we know GW prefers it this way, so they can change and ret-con to their hearts content and never be worried about backstory like DC or Marvel. It is power that Big Brother only aspired too. "Centurions have always been there comrade! Squats?!? Heresy! BLAM!"

Psienesis - Thanks for that explanation of the technology level, I really liked that.

It seems to me to be more grim dark if things are bad, not because people are stupid, but because the capabilities for something better no longer exist.

And Tech killing you is just downright amusing to think about.

"on the news at 11, another person was killed in the latest iPad spree. Experts remind the iPad users to mollify their products with the latest Apple add-ones."

 Psienesis wrote:
We know that you'd like there to be a consistent, cohesive 40K canon, but repeating that line doesn't make it true. GW, as a corporation, owns the IP. GW, the corporate entity, is not interested in having a cohesive canon.

And, yes, the authors in the Black Library stable definitely have the authority to speak on it. Marc Gascoigne, especially, was manager and head publisher of BL so, yes, he definitely had the authority to speak on the subject. That was his job.

There isn't a canon in 40K. None of the fluff presented in any of the sources is 100% reliable. All of it is stories, tales, legends, myths, rumors, outright fabrications, propaganda, and half-truths.

And again, unless the statement came either from the person while he actually held that position, has the legal ability to speak for GW and the BL, then their word means nothing. For example, George Lucas can say all he wants about Star Wars right now, but because he know longer legally owns it, his word is worth dirt unless Disney backs him.

Wyzilla, I think you must have missed my last post. The last one on the first page. In it, I link to Aaron Dembski-Bowden's blog, where he talks at length about GW's canon policy and quotes GW's Manager of Intellectual Properties.

So unless AD-B is lying, that's three former or current GW employees, two of them named, who all share the same view on how GW's canon works, and at least one of them has the authority you're looking for.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
We know that you'd like there to be a consistent, cohesive 40K canon, but repeating that line doesn't make it true. GW, as a corporation, owns the IP. GW, the corporate entity, is not interested in having a cohesive canon.

And, yes, the authors in the Black Library stable definitely have the authority to speak on it. Marc Gascoigne, especially, was manager and head publisher of BL so, yes, he definitely had the authority to speak on the subject. That was his job.

There isn't a canon in 40K. None of the fluff presented in any of the sources is 100% reliable. All of it is stories, tales, legends, myths, rumors, outright fabrications, propaganda, and half-truths.

And again, unless the statement came either from the person while he actually held that position, has the legal ability to speak for GW and the BL, then their word means nothing. For example, George Lucas can say all he wants about Star Wars right now, but because he know longer legally owns it, his word is worth dirt unless Disney backs him.

Lucas is still the Chief Creative Editor of the Star Wars franchise. This was a job Disney created especially for him and his franchise.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DrRansom wrote:
Psienesis - Thanks for that explanation of the technology level, I really liked that.

It seems to me to be more grim dark if things are bad, not because people are stupid, but because the capabilities for something better no longer exist.

And Tech killing you is just downright amusing to think about.

"on the news at 11, another person was killed in the latest iPad spree. Experts remind the iPad users to mollify their products with the latest Apple add-ones."

Yep, that is exactly how it is. The Imperium isn't bad because it has bad leaders, or bad people, it's bad because that is the result of the absolutely best choice that could have been made at the time the choice was made, given the circumstances.

thsoundman wrote:
I'm new to the 40k universe *2 years since I started diving into the lore* as well as to this forum. Having said all that I'm sure this has been asked before so please bear with me but it's been a topic of much thought for me, even more so after reading the book "The Death of Integrity" where a human ship found in the middle of a Spacehulk that was not only vastly superior to anything I can think of in the Imperium technologically but of an entirely different type of build "Smooth white surfaces" and walls that "could repair themselves". I understand that they had a AI rebellion during the Age of Strife which gives some glimpse into the level of tech but it seems the level of tech described in 'Death of Integrity' is so far beyond what the Imperium has it's mind boggling.

This then brings up another question that I've had... does the machine spirit really exist or is this just a result of the Mechanicus' religification of technology *whats left of it*. From what I've read, depending on the author, I almost think that the machine god is the humans verson of the Orks thinking something will work so it does I.E. "The Red ones go Faster". If everything had to have a machine spirit then Eldar, Tau and Ork tech wouldn't work. Or at least I would think it wouldn't.

Thanks for any insight guys. Cheers!

The "machine spirit" is essentially AI. It's code that's running in their computers which has morphed over time into something that even the mechanicum doesn't truly understand... or at least takes great pains to ensure that no one else does. "Cleansing the spirit" is similar to running a malware removing utility to get rid of bad "scrap code" which can be injected through any number of ways. As an example, when the Word Bearers attacked the Ultramarines at Calth, one of the first things they did was inject a virus into their command and control system. But, it was a little worse than that. It wasn't just a regular virus that sought to control and subvert it. The "scrap code" was a daemon.

Arthur Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". If you remember that, then the Mechnicum makes perfect sense.


In Death of Integrity, the marines were even taken aback by doors which opened by themselves. Such things are completely common place in today's society: you walk up to a door, a sensor registers something there and it opens. But those marines had never seen anything like that. You can bet that when automatically opening doors is something that the people look on in wonderment that perhaps they've become like 1st century people getting about in a 21st century environment. Sure, they could move around and they could even learn to do things like drive a car but they wouldn't be able to even begin to diagnose why one stopped working. Heck, I doubt very many people today would be able to fix an iPhone which no longer turned on. It's tech a lot of us use daily but beyond pushing the button and swiping the screen we really don't know a whole lot of it's inner workings. Worse, taking it apart doesn't necessarily give a clue as to how it runs because a lot of it is software driven. Now imagine that a meteor landed on top of Apple's HQ, and Samsung's and Intel... The tech would still work, but replacing it would take a long time.

Essentially, the Mechanicum started out knowing exactly how to build new things. However this knowledge was heavily guarded because it's the one thing that made them relevant and ensured that the IoM wouldn't just roll right over them. In other words, it was the only way to keep any sort of independence. If you want to keep the secrets of how things operate but you still need your technicians servicing items in the field then one way is to obfuscate the inner workings. What I mean by this is you release a tech manual that says, "say 3 hail susan's and douse the holy cog with sanctified oil" instead of just saying "put grease on the gear". The downside is that the people start actually believing all of these other things are necessary when the manual leaves out information like "wait 3 minutes for the oil to soak in".

Pretty soon, the people that really know what's going on die off and are replaced by the indoctrinated technicians... which leads to having the guys at the top giving praise before attempting to even open an access panel. To make matters worse, when the Mechanicum split during the heresy the Dark Mechanicum certainly did what they could to delete a bunch of stuff while also leaving intelligent virus's behind that, at least in part, wormed their way into a lot of technology. Removing those is likely incredibly difficult without destroying the ability to make Land Raiders or what have you.

So, we really have two different problems. The first is that even the software is prone to failure and daemonic possession. The second is that knowledge was so well guarded that a lot of it has been lost. Which leads us to the third problem: actively researching new ways of doing things is a leading cause of death amongst enginseers. If you come up with something new, you'll be visited by someone that will make sure this "problem" doesn't happen again. New things have a way of upsetting the balance of power and that is very much (terminally) discouraged. All of this points to a continued downward slide.

It is my opinion (and I say opinion here because canon is so fluid that it might as well be opinion ) that the technology has regressed substantially. Take, for example, this quote from In Defense of the Future: A Logical Discourse:
"We were gods once, and we shall be gods again!"

Then take into account things like the Leman Russ tank were basically STC tractors, and the Castigator-class battle automaton, and the sheer scale of destruction still capable after 20,000 years, and you've good a pretty strong Golden Age of Technology.

As for the source of the Machine-Spirit, I believe that comes from an actual artificial intelligence which exists within the machine. It is termed a "Machine-Spirit" so that the Mechanicus does not get into trouble with the Inquisition or the Auxilia Myrmidon (though honestly I think they know) for building a true Silica Anima.

It is the AdMech themselves that proscribe Silica Animus, not the Inquisition. The Inq will enforce such a restriction, but they aren't the originators of it (as AI has been banned for longer than the Inquisition has existed.)