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So ya. Another thread is getting derailed by talk of how fast the tau advance their tech and I have actually been wanting to do a thread like this for awhile now, so lets do this. The different tech levels in the world of 40k. Who is most advanced? Who is least advanced? Can the IoM ever make anything new? Do the tau ever make anything old? Basically anything to do with tech levels.

I'll start off with the IoM. How much control do they have over their tech? Most knowledge is lost, but they must know something. How much? Do they at least have the users manual for their stuff, or was that lost too? (Hope I explained that right.)

The AdMech control all the knowledge of the construction and production of technology. Sometimes, as in the case of the various Fanes of the hive-complex of Gunmetal City, the Mechanicus sell these secrets to the highest bidders, who then produce and sell whatever item they bought from the Mechanicus, for profit, and turn a portion of the proceeds over to the Mechanicus... think of it as "rent-a-blueprint".

Sometimes, fragments of ancient STC constructs are found and, once their secrets are divined, the Imperium and the Mechanicus experience a great leap forward in their technology, as they have recovered some secret lost since the Dark Age of Technology. This, though, is very, very rare. Explorator Fleets are tasked with recovering these things from lost worlds and archaeo-tech ruins, though these fleets are often lost, or simply do not find anything of value. An archaeo-ruin might contain great troves of STC lore... which the Imperium already has. They don't need more STC instructions on "how to build a Rhino".

Other times, less-exciting things happen as a new variant weapon or vehicle or system is finally out of the testing stage and is produced and deployed in the theater it serves the best purpose.

User manuals and such things exist, though generally not in the way we would think of them. Our RL devices don't contain semi-sentient spirits that require certain rituals and practices to maintain their cooperation.

Psienesis wrote:
User manuals and such things exist, though generally not in the way we would think of them. Our RL devices don't contain semi-sentient spirits that require certain rituals and practices to maintain their cooperation.

Nor does most Imperial tech, simple maintenance work merely got magical attributes and attached and became ritual, because very few actually understand how their technology works.

By "manuals" I must assume you mean STCs, basically the blueprints sent out with human colonies to build anything they would possibly need. They are very rare and the discovery and retrieval of them are very high priority for the AdMech. The only ones who really know how anything truly works is the AdMech as well. Even things like plasma guns are relics of an ancient time and the technology to create them is almost completely gone and their workings are a mystery to any outside the AdMech. The IoM's tech is stagnating and very little is produced. Occasionally land raider variants are produced. Power armor is apparently updated, as are weapons. To summarize, the AdMech knows how some things work, but much has been lost to time. I forget where I read this, but the AdMech occasionally has to reverse engineer things, because they can't figure out how it works on its own.

The traitor legions are using any tech they have left over from the Horus Heresy, along with whatever they can steal, scavenge, or repair.

Eldar technology has been fairly stable for many millenia, reaching the "peak" of what they can accomplish. Their technology is grown from a psycho-reactive plastic called "wraithbone" by Eldar known as "Bonesingers".

I know very little of the Tau.

In theory, the Eldar are "most advanced" imo. They have technology that can rip entire holes in realspace and mess with the fabric of reality. They used to be able to harness the power of stars and MOVE them. They too have suffered a loss of technology since the Fall though.

All this stagnation... so grimdark ;D




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KingDeath wrote:

Psienesis wrote:
User manuals and such things exist, though generally not in the way we would think of them. Our RL devices don't contain semi-sentient spirits that require certain rituals and practices to maintain their cooperation.

Nor does most Imperial tech, simple maintenance work merely got magical attributes and attached and became ritual, because very few actually understand how their technology works.

Except the very existence of the Void Dragon and evidence such as Land Raiders driving with no crew points out the fallacy in that claim. Things can just have varying levels of machine-spirit. Do you really need to pray to your lasgun every time you fire it? No, it isn't really in that much control nor does it have that much "sentience". Do you need to make damn sure your Land Raider is happy? Hell yeah.

Oh that brings up another question about imperial tech. How much of the praying and charting is actually helpful and how much is just mambo jumbo. Dose a tech priest have to use the sacred oils (because they are a needed lubricant) or do they use them because they don't know any better.

It also feels like the IoM has a lot of "The pan was too small" tech. Is that really the case?

nomotog wrote:Oh that brings up another question about imperial tech. How much of the praying and charting is actually helpful and how much is just mambo jumbo. Dose a tech priest have to use the sacred oils (because they are a needed lubricant) or do they use them because they don't know any better.

It also feels like the IoM has a lot of "The pan was too small" tech. Is that really the case?

Well, all machines have "Machine Spirit", a sort of sentience/awareness. They use the sacred oils and chant because it appeases the machine spirit. This gives the machine a greater likelihood to actually do what you want (such as a bolter firing without jamming). Things like lasguns may have a very weak machine spirit and may not really need to be handled so carefully, but it is tradition. Things like Land Raiders can have such strong machine spirits that they can pilot themselves or even fire their own weapons, obviously meaning you should take care of it so it takes care of you.

I am actually not familiar with "The pan was too small" would you mind explaining it to me

KingDeath wrote:

Psienesis wrote:
User manuals and such things exist, though generally not in the way we would think of them. Our RL devices don't contain semi-sentient spirits that require certain rituals and practices to maintain their cooperation.

Nor does most Imperial tech, simple maintenance work merely got magical attributes and attached and became ritual, because very few actually understand how their technology works.

Actually, I used to think that way myself, that the "machine spirit" was just some gobbeldy-[see forum posting rules] that the Mechanicus "made up" because they didn't really understand how the tech worked.

... and then I read a few more books and got into Dark Heresy and, no, it really *is* "ghosts in the machine" that prevent something from working because you haven't burned its sacred incense this week or given it a proper rub-down with sacred oil or whatever. This, though, only applicable to more advanced tech, one's pocket-watch or comm-bead doesn't have such spirits, but the pump for a public water well and the engine of a vehicle (or, rather, the entire vehicle) certainly does.

Do you really need to pray to your lasgun every time you fire it?

Every time? No. Do you need to follow the maintenance ritual schedule in the Infantryman's Uplifting Primer as set down by the AdMech? Yes.

Oh that brings up another question about imperial tech. How much of the praying and charting is actually helpful and how much is just mambo jumbo. Dose a tech priest have to use the sacred oils (because they are a needed lubricant) or do they use them because they don't know any better.

It is possible to use a machine without following the proper protocols of ritual and obsequiousness... but the machine may (will) eventually stop working for you, and nothing apart from catching up on your rituals (with interest) is going to mollify the machine spirit and get it operational for you.

Some of the trappings of these rituals are, of course, actually necessary for the item... gun oil and various lubricants and such... while others aren't, really, excepting that the very act of ritual seems to work. Rubbing sacred unguent on a vox-caster is useless, because radios don't require oil... but it works anyway.

CrazyThang wrote:
Except the very existence of the Void Dragon and evidence such as Land Raiders driving with no crew points out the fallacy in that claim. Things can just have varying levels of machine-spirit. Do you really need to pray to your lasgun every time you fire it? No, it isn't really in that much control nor does it have that much "sentience". Do you need to make damn sure your Land Raider is happy? Hell yeah.

Landraiders, just like titans, have a primitive artificial intelligence. There is nothing magical about them. The Voiddragon on the other hand is an alien organism with some very advanced knowlege, but once again, no magic.
I have yet to read a single Black Library/ Dark Heresy book where it is stated that there realy is "a ghost in the machine" ( with the exception from artificial inteligences ).
On the other hand we have Mechanicum where a leading tech adept pretty much states that the whole machine spirit mumbo jumbo is idiocy. It is clear that you have to oil and mantain a machine to keep it working, but the machine, by virtue of being a machine, doesn't care if the oil is sacred or if you almost choke on sacred fumes. So no, a lasgun has no machine spirit, nor will your Leman Russ tank.
Praying to it won't help, mantaining it ( even to the rather distorted and ritualistic standards of the mechanicus ) will.

CrazyThang wrote:
Well, all machines have "Machine Spirit", a sort of sentience/awareness. They use the sacred oils and chant because it appeases the machine spirit. This gives the machine a greater likelihood to actually do what you want (such as a bolter firing without jamming). Things like lasguns may have a very weak machine spirit and may not really need to be handled so carefully, but it is tradition. Things like Land Raiders can have such strong machine spirits that they can pilot themselves or even fire their own weapons, obviously meaning you should take care of it so it takes care of you.

I am actually not familiar with "The pan was too small" would you mind explaining it to me

Lets see if i can 40k up the story.

One day a SM was learning how to use the flame thrower. Every time his instructor would reload, he would strap a piece of tape on the tank. The youg SM didn't know what this was for, so he asked. "Why do you put tape on the flame thrower?"

His instructor looked at him funny and gave a simple answer. "That's the way my instructor did it." The young SM wasn't satisfied, but he went on with training. Latter on, he went to see his chapter master and asked him the question. "Why do we put tape on the flame thrower?"

The chapter master shrugged his shoulders and answered. "That was just the way my instructor did it." The young SM was still wondering so he moved on and found the oldest dreadnought in the chapter. He was old and rusted, but full of wisdom and the young SM ,again, asked the question. "Why do we put tape on the flame thrower."

The dreadnought hissed and groaned before he spoke. "Because the tank use to leak."

@Psienesis: I'm not sure why you quoted me there, I was being rhetorical >.< though yes, you are correct in that the standard maintenance procedures do need to be followed.


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KingDeath wrote:

CrazyThang wrote:
Except the very existence of the Void Dragon and evidence such as Land Raiders driving with no crew points out the fallacy in that claim. Things can just have varying levels of machine-spirit. Do you really need to pray to your lasgun every time you fire it? No, it isn't really in that much control nor does it have that much "sentience". Do you need to make damn sure your Land Raider is happy? Hell yeah.

Landraiders, just like titans, have a primitive artificial intelligence. There is nothing magical about them. The Voiddragon on the other hand is an alien organism with some very advanced knowlege, but once again, no magic.

Yep, no magic at all. But the Machine Spirit is real.

@nomotog: Well, kind of. The Machine Spirit does need to be appeased (I think tape would make it angry) for everything to work as it should. What I'm trying to get at is that while you may need to do some standard maintenance and ritual on your every day lasgun to appease it, you wouldn't really have to pray every single time you fired or reloaded, etc. But with something as powerful as a Land Raider or Titan, it can actually take control, meaning the machine spirit is very much active and more responsive to being treated well.

In the novel Battle of the Fang (continued in spoilers due to minor spoilers.)

CrazyThang wrote:@Psienesis: I'm not sure why you quoted me there, I was being rhetorical >.< though yes, you are correct in that the standard maintenance procedures do need to be followed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KingDeath wrote:

CrazyThang wrote:
Except the very existence of the Void Dragon and evidence such as Land Raiders driving with no crew points out the fallacy in that claim. Things can just have varying levels of machine-spirit. Do you really need to pray to your lasgun every time you fire it? No, it isn't really in that much control nor does it have that much "sentience". Do you need to make damn sure your Land Raider is happy? Hell yeah.

Landraiders, just like titans, have a primitive artificial intelligence. There is nothing magical about them. The Voiddragon on the other hand is an alien organism with some very advanced knowlege, but once again, no magic.

Yep, no magic at all. But the Machine Spirit is real.

@nomotog: Well, kind of. The Machine Spirit does need to be appeased (I think tape would make it angry) for everything to work as it should. What I'm trying to get at is that while you may need to do some standard maintenance and ritual on your every day lasgun to appease it, you wouldn't really have to pray every single time you fired or reloaded, etc. But with something as powerful as a Land Raider or Titan, it can actually take control, meaning the machine spirit is very much active and more responsive to being treated well.

In the novel Battle of the Fang (continued in spoilers due to minor spoilers.)

Spoiler:

In the novel Battle of the Fang Blackwing is commanding a scout vessel. This vessel (the Naruu [spelling?]) is pushed very hard and never gets a chance for real repairs. The enginseers describe the machine spirit as screaming in agony and Blackwing comments that he's glad he isn't trained to hear it.

So the ship's computer is giving error messages and damage reports and instead of saying it this way the enginseer, because he doesn't know any better, states that it "screams in agony".
No machine spirit required, just normal technology misinterpreted because of a general lack of knowledge and an all pervading dogma.

He seemed to be quite literal about it.

Oh, uh, off-topic but to the Mod reading the thread... there was no racist/ethnic intent or undertone to the "gobbledy-*redacted*" phrase in a previous post of mine... that's just how that word is spelled, but has absolutely *nothing* to do with a racist term referring to people of Asian descent.

These two words happen to share an identical spelling, but in my usage of it, it has nothing to do with racism/ethnocentrism or anything of the sort.

OT: "Ghost in the Machine" may sound a bit too mystical, but it's not mystical in the sense that it's an actual "spirit"... though war-spirits and machine-spirits and these other pseudo-AI/Expert System machine intelligences certainly seem, to the layman of 40K, to be mystical in origin.

From Lexicanum: A machine spirit is what some refer to as a vehicle's automatic systems. The advanced system consists of a combination of organic and mechanical components within the vehicle, and is able to logically control the vehicle's movement and fire its weapons at enemies.

Just to clarify that.

Necron tech is so advanced that the IOM have abolutely no clue how it works, or how to duplicate it.

Not that it's all that uberpowerful, just really really advanced.

The ctan may as well have magic, since they can tell the laws of physics to sit down and shut up.

The old line about sufficiently complicated technology being indistinguishable from magic

The fluff has always described it as being a "ghost" of sorts. And besides, why can't the Imperium have those things? The Wraithguard and Wraithlords are walkers with the spirits of dead Eldar in them. Not the same I know, but close.

Ascalam wrote:Necron tech is so advanced that the IOM have abolutely no clue how it works, or how to duplicate it.

Not that it's all that uberpowerful, just really really advanced.

The ctan may as well have magic, since they can tell the laws of physics to sit down and shut up.

The old line about sufficiently complicated technology being indistinguishable from magic

Clarke's third law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I love it so.

I totally forgot about the 'crons...

CrazyThang wrote:He seemed to be quite literal about it.

Because he lacks understanding. Or perhaps the messages are delivered in a way that is displeasing to the enginseers ears. But unless the ship actualy has, like titans, landraiders and perhaps a very few other pieces of imperial tech, an artificial inteligence aboard (which is actually possible) those "screams" were most likely normal warning messages, which, thanks to the enginseers dogmatic believes on how machines have to be sentient, were misinterpreted as actual pained expressions of a sentient mind.

What imo needs to be understood is that the Mechanicus does not manage to keep Imperial tech working ( and in some cases actually expanding ) because they cater to some religious and irrational dogma but
despite of it. Their saving grace is that many those strange rituals still carry a grain of actual knowledge, although burried within dogma and "magic", within them. Chanting the litany of activation while dancing around your computer will do nothing to it. But striking the sacred rune of activation at the end of the ritual will. Blessing the autogun with sacred oil won't help because the oil is sacred, but because the mechanism was in a dire need of lubrication.

Those few examples of Imperial technologies with a working artificial inteligence ( which is probably not realy sentient but works on an instinctual, animallike level in order not to repeat the mistake of creating human like inteligences ) probably need to be actively pacified, just like your badly parented ( is that the proper word in that context?) petdog would, after you stoped seeing yourself as his master and started to see him as your equal or even as someone who needs to be revered.

Machine Spirit =/= AI.

From Lexicanum: A machine spirit is what some refer to as a vehicle's automatic systems. The advanced system consists of a combination of organic and mechanical components within the vehicle, and is able to logically control the vehicle's movement and fire its weapons at enemies... The addition of a machine spirit is advantageous in the case of the vehicle's crew being killed or incapacitated, as the auto-systems are able to take control of the vehicle... The machine spirit however cannot fully replace the abilities of trained human pilots. Going that far could garner the attention of the Inquisition.

This would garner the attention of the Inquisition as no true AIs are permitted.

Eldar "technology" doesn't belong to Eldar. They were created and uplifted at the same time by the Old Ones.

Eldar didn't invent anything; they never have, they never will. That's the consequence of uplifting a race; if you give them everything they'll ever need, they won't make anything new. It's why their technology has been static for 65 million years.

DarknessEternal wrote:Eldar "technology" doesn't belong to Eldar. They were created and uplifted at the same time by the Old Ones.

Eldar didn't invent anything; they never have, they never will. That's the consequence of uplifting a race; if you give them everything they'll ever need, they won't make anything new. It's why their technology has been static for 65 million years.

Where do you get that information? I've never heard that. (Not the being created by the old ones, I mean having everything given to them.)

CrazyThang wrote:
Where do you get that information? I've never heard that. (Not the being created by the old ones, I mean having everything given to them.)

Codexes Eldar through Necron.

DarknessEternal wrote:

CrazyThang wrote:
Where do you get that information? I've never heard that. (Not the being created by the old ones, I mean having everything given to them.)

Codexes Eldar through Necron.

I have seen this in neither the 3rd nor 4th edition Eldar codices. Can i get a quote or something? Not trying to be a pain, but I tried looking it up just now and can't find anything.

nomotog wrote:

CrazyThang wrote:
Well, all machines have "Machine Spirit", a sort of sentience/awareness. They use the sacred oils and chant because it appeases the machine spirit. This gives the machine a greater likelihood to actually do what you want (such as a bolter firing without jamming). Things like lasguns may have a very weak machine spirit and may not really need to be handled so carefully, but it is tradition. Things like Land Raiders can have such strong machine spirits that they can pilot themselves or even fire their own weapons, obviously meaning you should take care of it so it takes care of you.

I am actually not familiar with "The pan was too small" would you mind explaining it to me

Lets see if i can 40k up the story.

One day a SM was learning how to use the flame thrower. Every time his instructor would reload, he would strap a piece of tape on the tank. The youg SM didn't know what this was for, so he asked. "Why do you put tape on the flame thrower?"

His instructor looked at him funny and gave a simple answer. "That's the way my instructor did it." The young SM wasn't satisfied, but he went on with training. Latter on, he went to see his chapter master and asked him the question. "Why do we put tape on the flame thrower?"

The chapter master shrugged his shoulders and answered. "That was just the way my instructor did it." The young SM was still wondering so he moved on and found the oldest dreadnought in the chapter. He was old and rusted, but full of wisdom and the young SM ,again, asked the question. "Why do we put tape on the flame thrower."

The dreadnought hissed and groaned before he spoke. "Because the tank use to leak."

Yep, pretty much.

DarknessEternal wrote:Eldar "technology" doesn't belong to Eldar. They were created and uplifted at the same time by the Old Ones.

Eldar didn't invent anything; they never have, they never will. That's the consequence of uplifting a race; if you give them everything they'll ever need, they won't make anything new. It's why their technology has been static for 65 million years.

I'll take your word for it, as I do not know much of Eldar fluff.

I've never heard this about the Eldar never creating new technology either. But there is definitely some truth to machine spirits. In Blood Reaver:

That wouldn't have happened if the machine spirit was just religious babble, there is definitely something there.

I have more question. What ork warband has the most advanced tech?

nomotog wrote:I have more question. What ork warband has the most advanced tech?

I assume Thrakas clan would, but IDK.

I personally think the Machine Spirit is generally just the computer/basic AI in imperial equipment, as to most advanced race I have to give it to the Necrons, FTL travel faster than everyone elses and no use of the warp, least advanced clearly goes to tyranids.

Ork tech is very hit and miss, and tech level varies wildly in any warband.

One may have awesome tellyportas, but crude guns, another have many shokk attack guns, but vehicles that break down even more than usual etc..