Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

In the fluff the Adeptus Mechanicus need to invoke the Machine God (and/or the Omnissiah) to make human technology work. The fluff abounds with the requirement to appeal to the gods or the spirits of the machine in question. Plus there's all this stuff that they can't even make anymore. Does it all really work?

It works in the sense that anyone -- human, Ork, Eldar or Tau -- can pick up a lasgun, pull the trigger and a weak light will come out whether you invoke the Machine God or not.

In a broader sense it doesn't work, or rather humans no longer understand and control their technology. The only reason you would have a lasgun is because an STC machine pooped it out for you.

Unless you were Tau, in which case your Earth Cast can make them for you.

However there is some indication that the Adeptes Techonologicus (whatever they are called) do understand the technology, they simply conceal their knowledge from the general population as a means of control.

The modern equivalent is computers. Most computer users have very little understanding of what is going on inside the machine. They just press the buttons in the right order and hope things come out all right. They are frightened to deviate from the script provided by the IT department in case they break something. The IT department are the Adepts.

Because humanity has lost the understanding of how much of their technology works, they can no longer make their own tech without the STC's, which they cannot build, and so must find. They depend on the STC's for all their technology.
An example is thus: They refer to the AI's within some vehicles as 'The Machine Spirit', because they do not understand it, and so decide it is in some way holy or possessed by a benevolent spirit.

In some cases I think the rights and rituals were infact start up procedures, or fault finding. Think about it, you have this long list of things that need to be switched on or checked before you can move on to the next bit.

All moden spacecraft, aircraft, seacraft and landcrafts have a set way of turning them on, a set check list if you will.
Yes even your car,
1# Set belt on,
2# Check if car is in Nutral, if not the stick it into N,
3# Place key into igintion, check to see if the gear is still in N, if so turn the key to power on mode,
4# Check all dash board gages, take note of gas, eng-temp and any warning lights,
5# Turn key, start the engine, foot on brake and reless the parking brake,
.....and so on and so forth,

I'm thinking you just can't turn a Titan on in ten seconds, or any bit of high end tech that has multiple parts and sub-parts and sub-sub-parts if you know what I meen. Over time the procedures have turned into the Rights and Rituals the Ad-Mech now use. Each fault will show up as the Rights are performed, old faults known about the sysem can be solved by using a standed fault fixing ritual, unseen faults can be ether bypassed or be worked out becouse they have the requiering knowlage of the start up rights to begin with.

I will conceed that a Lasgun dosn't need the blessing of the Omin-thingy-bob but the blessings could be like quilty control. Test it once, it works so it's been blessed. Fail and it gets tossed back into the huge workshop and remade, then back to the blessing/testing again.

Or I could be just wrong

I'd say that sounds about right Ribbon Fox but i would also say that some of the rituals may come from lucky things or force of habit since the tech knowledge had been handed down master apprentice style so what the master had as habit or luck the pupil saw as necessary.

Same as it's always worked, really, on good old scientific and mechanical principles. Of course, the Ad-Mech don't really understand this.

None of the human technology actually needs prayers and stuff. The users just believe it does.

Kilkrazy wrote: They just press the buttons in the right order and hope things come out all right. They are frightened to deviate from the script provided by the IT department in case they break something. The IT department are the Adepts.

I'm thinking IT Crowd FTW

I think the imperium is just telling everyone a bunch of BS. The STCs are what they use, but if they really wanted to, they could just open them up, observe every piece and what it does, and attempt to put it back together after modifying it some way, and they could learn how it works.

I mean really? How stupid are they? They've been using the same rhinos for over ten thousand years, you'd think they could do something other than throw weapons on it?

Cadet_Commissar_Ludd wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote: They just press the buttons in the right order and hope things come out all right. They are frightened to deviate from the script provided by the IT department in case they break something. The IT department are the Adepts.

I'm thinking IT Crowd FTW

You broke the internet!!!

Kilkrazy wrote:None of the human technology actually needs prayers and stuff. The users just believe it does.

As I said, they still have an basic understanding of the tech (most of it) science behind it, yet as with most things in the 40K universe over time the the Ad-Mech "Check Lists" have become rituals to almost (and in most casses) religous dogma.

Who hasn't on a cold winters mornning sat in their car turned the key and gone "...Please start, please God let it start..." while the starter moter has ticked over and the engine just about spluters into life. Now your small and impressionable kid sitting in the back would have seen you do this and will soon think that the only way to make a car start on a cold winters mornning is to not only go threw the list but also pray to the Car God to help it start. Now this could be what has happed with the Ad-Mech, one saw this happen then they used it, then another, then another and so on untill it has replaced the real reason for the "Check List" with"Do the List while all the time parying the the Mech God for it to work".
Reaching for it abit I know but it kind of works

It's not that they are stupid, it's that they are religiously indoctrinated, and any deviation from said doctrine equals a swift lobotomy.

And as for throwing weapons on it, that was VERY controversial and needed several hundred years of debates and councils to De Facto approve it.

Hell, look at what happened when the Spess Puppehs stuck some Lascannons on a Predator to make the Annihilator, they nearly caused a civil war!

Gwar! wrote:It's not that they are stupid, it's that they are religiously indoctrinated, and any deviation from said doctrine equals a swift lobotomy.

And as for throwing weapons on it, that was VERY controversial and needed several hundred years of debates and councils to De Facto approve it.

Hell, look at what happened when the Spess Puppehs stuck some Lascannons on a Predator to make the Annihilator, they nearly caused a civil war!

I see. That makes complete sense. How does the Leman Russ exist then? Is it made from an STC, or is it a rather simple machine that can be made without too much knowledge? In nightbringer, it talks about how they have people making them in factories, so....

I don't know how the Leman Russ could exist if it was an STC. Unless after several thousand years of production, they just decided to name it after that space doggies guy.

Samus_aran115 wrote:

Gwar! wrote:It's not that they are stupid, it's that they are religiously indoctrinated, and any deviation from said doctrine equals a swift lobotomy.

And as for throwing weapons on it, that was VERY controversial and needed several hundred years of debates and councils to De Facto approve it.

Hell, look at what happened when the Spess Puppehs stuck some Lascannons on a Predator to make the Annihilator, they nearly caused a civil war!

I see. That makes complete sense. How does the Leman Russ exist then? Is it made from an STC, or is it a rather simple machine that can be made without too much knowledge? In nightbringer, it talks about how they have people making them in factories, so....

I don't know how the Leman Russ could exist if it was an STC. Unless after several thousand years of production, they just decided to name it after that space doggies guy.

If my fluff memory is up to date, the forgeworld that the Leman Russ was manufactured on was attacked and the wolves led by their primarch saved the planet. They were so appreciative of this that they named their tanks after them.

Samus_aran115 wrote:

Gwar! wrote:It's not that they are stupid, it's that they are religiously indoctrinated, and any deviation from said doctrine equals a swift lobotomy.

And as for throwing weapons on it, that was VERY controversial and needed several hundred years of debates and councils to De Facto approve it.

Hell, look at what happened when the Spess Puppehs stuck some Lascannons on a Predator to make the Annihilator, they nearly caused a civil war!

I see. That makes complete sense. How does the Leman Russ exist then? Is it made from an STC, or is it a rather simple machine that can be made without too much knowledge? In nightbringer, it talks about how they have people making them in factories, so....

I don't know how the Leman Russ could exist if it was an STC. Unless after several thousand years of production, they just decided to name it after that space doggies guy.

If I remember rightly the Russ was around long before the time of the Emperor, way back in the Golden Age...ermmm, the Dark Age of Tech. It was then classed as a medium weight battle tank (the Bainblade being the heavy weight battle tank). The original was so good a design that it has more, or less, remained the same shape, weight and armement even after 15,000+ years of use.

(Drat! I was sniped )

Humans are secretly Orks with pink face paint*. It only works because they think it does. Thus why the AdMech gets so pissy when people ask for details.

*This message brought to you by the Laughing Man Department of Misinformation.

Laughing Man wrote:Humans are secretly Orks with pink face paint*. It only works because they think it does. Thus why the AdMech gets so pissy when people ask for details.

*This message brought to you by the Laughing Man Department of Misinformation.

My God. We've been lied to all these years! TO ARMS!

I think some people are misunderstanding when they talk about 41st-century humanity having STCs, and human equipment being made by STCs.

I was under the impression that humanity does not have any functional STCs left and has not for millennia. Instead they have hard copy "blueprints" for some of the things an STC can make, which they manufacture using regular methods on Forge Worlds. If they had a working STC, there would be no need to wander around the galaxy looking for new (old) technology, because that one STC could tell them how to make all of it.

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:

Laughing Man wrote:Humans are secretly Orks with pink face paint*. It only works because they think it does. Thus why the AdMech gets so pissy when people ask for details.

*This message brought to you by the Laughing Man Department of Misinformation.

My God. We've been lied to all these years! TO ARMS!

*nods sagely* And STCs? It's a mekboy in a box. Shake it and he makes stuff.

Samus_aran115 wrote:

Gwar! wrote:It's not that they are stupid, it's that they are religiously indoctrinated, and any deviation from said doctrine equals a swift lobotomy.

And as for throwing weapons on it, that was VERY controversial and needed several hundred years of debates and councils to De Facto approve it.

Hell, look at what happened when the Spess Puppehs stuck some Lascannons on a Predator to make the Annihilator, they nearly caused a civil war!

I see. That makes complete sense. How does the Leman Russ exist then? Is it made from an STC, or is it a rather simple machine that can be made without too much knowledge? In nightbringer, it talks about how they have people making them in factories, so....

I don't know how the Leman Russ could exist if it was an STC. Unless after several thousand years of production, they just decided to name it after that space doggies guy.

Like much fluff, when examined in close detail, it makes no sense.

If it is an STC people don't have to slave in factories to build them.

If it is an STC, the design can't be changed at all, unless people understand how to change STCs.

If people understood how to change STCs, it would not take several thousand years to introduce a minor variation of a vehicle.

However, if you assume that the High Lords and the Adeptus Mechanicus have used millenia of savage coercion, propaganda and superstition to inculcate a slavish belief in the religiosity of technology for their own purposes of control, then you can imagine a situation in which the Mechanicus release a slightly improved design every few thousand years, while the stuff people do in factories is make-work.

l can't remember the film, or it may be a comic, but in one half of a factory workers receive baskets of parts which they assemble some parts into a very simple structure and it goes off down the production line.

In the other half of the factory, another group of workers disassembled the structures and puts the parts into baskets which are sent off down the production line, back to the first side.

Meanwhile the STCs continue to pump out Leman Russes without human control. (Not in this film, obviously...)

Kilkrazy wrote:Like much fluff, when examined in close detail, it makes no sense.

If it is an STC people don't have to slave in factories to build them.

If it is an STC, the design can't be changed at all, unless people understand how to change STCs.

If people understood how to change STCs, it would not take several thousand years to introduce a minor variation of a vehicle.

Humans do not have STC machines. What they do have is blueprints that show how to make a few of the things that an STC machine could make, which they use to construct those things in normal non-automated factories.

It makes much more sense if you understand the basic premise.

They do have STC machines.

The "blueprint" of an item to be made by an STC machine would be like a CAD/CAM data file. It would be almost unintelligible without the software and machinery to use it.

For humans on the 41st millenium, technology is a religion. As many actual religions require some rituals for simply open a sacred box, people in 40k need rituals to use their weapons, but they would still work without the rituals.

The degree to which machine preparation rituals actually work or matter really depends on the author.

I don't think there's any solid "official" fluff establishing otherwise.

Kilkrazy wrote:They do have STC machines.

Lexicanum: STC

In the Age of the Imperium, working STCs are unknown.

The recovery of a working STC system is the primary focus of the Adeptus Mechanicus's quest for knowledge. Part of this quest is also to find, collate and utilise STC print-outs. The STC is their equivalent to the font of all knowledge (which is exactly what it was intended to be). Ancient recovered print-outs from STCs are regarded as sacred texts. The Mechanicus strives to recover as much information as possible from them, hoping to find new knowledge, weapons and technologies. Although the most advanced technological information eludes the Adeptus Mechanicus, through their efforts, much has been either recovered or reconstructed through comparison of copies.

If there is a current, non-retconned source that disputes this information I would be interested to know what it is.

There are no current Working STC machines.
There are also no STC machines that actually build the Objects for you. What the STC machines were(are if they could find a working one) are basically Computers that print out how to make any given item.

There was an STC Constructor that was found, it was a giant machine that made STC machines but it was corrupted and made evil machines and was destroyed by Col. Gaunt.

As far as the Litanies and rituals go think of it more as learning by Rote. As you say this litany perform these actions and your lasgun will not fail you.

There are Manufactorums on most worlds and Forge worlds are just about one giant Factory. People(and sevitors) make the technology, they do so using the STC bluprints on how to make the items needed.

I have no idea why people rip on lasguns its still a lethal weapon.

Yep, Genosaurer has is smack on, there are no working STC machines and there havent been for millenia. It's been that way since the very first Rogue Trader book. STC is like the holy grail, and they only ever find fragments of them, never a whole intact one!

Wow, that didn't really add anything this thread did it? I just wanted to weigh in on the right side!

This is even more puzzling.

If humans have the skills to take apart the STC instruction files, interpret them, and convert them into a set of instructions which allow the building from raw materials of systems of machines complex enough to build machines as complex as lasguns, Landraiders and Rhinos, they certainly have the skills to do any other bit of technology they want.

So why don’t they?

Kilkrazy wrote:This is even more puzzling.

If humans have the skills to take apart the STC instruction files, interpret them, and convert them into a set of instructions which allow the building from raw materials of systems of machines complex enough to build machines as complex as lasguns, Landraiders and Rhinos, they certainly have the skills to do any other bit of technology they want.

So why don’t they?

Because I don't think thats what happens. I honestly think they have no idea HOW it works, all they know is that it DOES work. Press this Button and you get told how to make a Land Raider.