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Spesh on the last part. Over simplification ahoy!


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.

Faith shaping the warp and creating gods is presented as fact in the Dark Imperium trilogy, specifically in the Godblight book.

 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.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:


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.

For me it is abit of both.

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.

So for me it is abit of both.

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.

Voss wrote:

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:

Spoiler:

Voss wrote:

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.

 Dysartes wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Spoiler:

Voss wrote:

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.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:


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?

Not trolling, genuinely curious.

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.

I agree with the above.

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.

Just to add to the pot?

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

 alextroy wrote:

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

So then daemons know they exist, so I feel like that line from Constantine is applicable here.

I don't believe in the Devil.

You should, he believes in you.




It's funny, this entire movie is about a Primaris psyker essentially aiding a Soriritas in an investigation.

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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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?