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Revenent Reiko wrote:

Hmm, maybe i havent read it then.

Sounds interesting though. will have to see if i can get my hands on it (Google here i come!). Warp Shanty
That was my first thought, i dont see anything made out of stone being made air-tight for starters...I imagine it would have been something thick and strong to withstand the 'predators', as with no Gellar Field it would just have to last long enough to keep the daemons out during the journey...?

It's good, pretty much all the stories in Let the Galaxy Burn are worth a read and if you can get your pizza coated fingers on it, do it! Just lick them before reading. I'll quote a bit of Ancient History when I get home.

Revenent Reiko wrote:Well theres quite a lot of discussion at least on whether ot not the Machine Spirit(s) constitute A.I., or as you said, automated systems 'reacting' in a proscribed way to certain input (that is exactly how they are programmed, but noone understands any more), or something else entirely. Will have to try some more Lexicanum-fu/Google-fu later (the IE we use at work is SO out of date i cant view Lexicanum's search bar/menu...yeah, its that bad) to see if theres any tidbits on what they are.

Really, Machine Spirits having conversations with people? whats that from?

i know the classic example here is the Land Raider from Whinn's World that went on a rampage on its own due to its Machine Spirit....

I think the difference between A I and the machine spirit are the organic parts required to it possible, the organic parts are what gives it its soul.

A Short story in Planetkill called Seven Views on Ulhguth's Passing, the Slaughtersong in Daemonworld, although this seems to be a unique instance, The ships in the Night Lords trilogy seem capable of talking with the Navigator, Octavia. That's off the top of my head ...

Revenent Reiko wrote:
Definitely a Pizza GoGo man myself, they are the only place i have found that does good (not just decent, GOOD) stuffed crust as well as a god pizza....

Pizza GoGo ey? Will have a look and see what veritable delights the offer. I had a rather delicious Pizza from Asda last night actually

Pilau Rice wrote:It's good, pretty much all the stories in Let the Galaxy Burn are worth a read and if you can get your pizza coated fingers on it, do it! Just lick them before reading. I'll quote a bit of Ancient History when I get home.

Sounds good...and thanks!

Pilau Rice wrote:I think the difference between A I and the machine spirit are the organic parts required to it possible, the organic parts are what gives it its soul.

A Short story in Planetkill called Seven Views on Ulhguth's Passing, the Slaughtersong in Daemonworld, although this seems to be a unique instance, The ships in the Night Lords trilogy seem capable of talking with the Navigator, Octavia. That's off the top of my head ...

Hmm, But then a Bolter supposedly has a Machine Spirit but doesnt have Organic Parts, as does a LR/Drop Pod etc...This is where my query comes in about what constitutes a Machine Spirit? and what, really, are they?

Also, (without having read the books so please correct me if im wrong), but are they not all Daemon-Possessed ships? Theres a Daemon possessed vessel in the second Grey Knight novel that 'talks' (think its just basic communication as it is too focussed on destroying the ship in front of it to pay attention to mere mortals) as well, but i would deem these at least Deamon-corrupted and therefore not true Machine Spirits....? Again, if im wrong, please correct me.

Im now trying to wrack my brains for any mentions os non-Chaos Machine Spirits communicating...Titans being the obvious choice, but they are special i believe?

Pilau Rice wrote:Pizza GoGo ey? Will have a look and see what veritable delights the offer. I had a rather delicious Pizza from Asda last night actually

Do it! BBQ Original HIGHLY recommended, as is the Hawaaian (although not so much recently, they changed from real ham to processed BS ham and its not very nice )

Pilau Rice wrote:Can we truly decide anything about the warp, we're trying to explain a Dimension from a fictional game, where even the greatest minds in that world have no real explanation for it either

It works both ways. I see people talking about the Warp here and it's a lot of blithe assumptions that the Warp operates just like the material universe. So this thread isn't really about deciding how it does in fact work but just trying to show that those assumptions -- like warp lightning being actual lightning -- are just unfounded.

Sorry Manchu, we may have slid the thread off to one side slightly...

Revenent Reiko wrote:Hmm, But then a Bolter supposedly has a Machine Spirit but doesnt have Organic Parts, as does a LR/Drop Pod etc...This is where my query comes in about what constitutes a Machine Spirit? and what, really, are they?

Hmm, that is a good point, but does the Bolter have the ability to fire itself or does it need something squishy to pull the trigger? The more complex machine spirits have these organic parts. I think there was a picture of one in a Land Raider that was actually composed of a human brain.

Revenent Reiko wrote:Also, (without having read the books so please correct me if im wrong), but are they not all Daemon-Possessed ships? Theres a Daemon possessed vessel in the second Grey Knight novel that 'talks' (think its just basic communication as it is too focussed on destroying the ship in front of it to pay attention to mere mortals) as well, but i would deem these at least Deamon-corrupted and therefore not true Machine Spirits....? Again, if im wrong, please correct me.

In the Night Lords case, there are certainly parts of the ship that are tainted but otherwise no. The case of the ship in Seven Views, Daemons or Warp Entities want to assist the Machine Spirit in in going to the Eight Fold Forge, I guess some kind of Dark Mechanicus forge world, but the coming of Ulhguth forces these away and the Machine Spirit is a bit .. poop, now what do i do. The Slaughtersong doesn't seem to be mentioned as anything Daemonic, but it's a relic from the Dark Age of Technology.

Revenent Reiko wrote:Im now trying to wrack my brains for any mentions os non-Chaos Machine Spirits communicating...Titans being the obvious choice, but they are special i believe?

Same principle I think, but then you have a whole crew tied into the Titan to make it go and as far as I know with these, they can't control themselves at all. In Titan: God - Machine, the princeps of the Titan dies and get absorbed by the Titan itself and is able to communicate at times.

Revenent Reiko wrote:
Do it! BBQ Original HIGHLY recommended, as is the Hawaaian (although not so much recently, they changed from real ham to processed BS ham and its not very nice )

I guess that's BBQ and not Tomato based, got to be Tomato for me.

I understand the "machine spirit" to be a superstitious explanation of how things work. It's not necessarily related to AI. People do the same thing IRL all the time, assigning anthropomorphic qualities to inanimate things. How many times have you heard people say "my computer hates me" or like Han Solo beseech their cars to "hold together, baby" when they make weird noises? According to the Uplifting Primer, Guardsmen are taught to pray to the machine spirit of their lasrifles as they strip, clean, and reassemble them. None of it has anything to do with the Warp.

Manchu wrote: None of it has anything to do with the Warp.

If the Machine Spirit is an actual spirit of sorts, and the Warp is where spirits reside, there could be a connection

But machine spirits are not spirits. At most, they are AIs. At the least, they are a formalization of a superstitious concept that IRL people casually throw around.

Do you know that they are not Spirits?

Is that a counterpoint?

Manchu wrote:Is that a counterpoint?

No, I retracted that statement, it could have been but I decided against it

Pilau Rice wrote:Do you know that they are not Spirits?

I can't find you a citation that says "attention Pilau Rice, the Machine Spirits are not actually spirits" but them not being spirits is kind of the whole point. The idea is that man really doesn't understand the technology that surrounds him. Yeah, he can take apart a lasgun and put it back together but he primarily thinks of it in an anthropomorphic way. It's a joke really -- a joke on modern people. We have all this cool stuff that almost all of us really don't know anything about and we treat it in weird, superstitious ways.

Pilau Rice wrote:
Hmm, that is a good point, but does the Bolter have the ability to fire itself or does it need something squishy to pull the trigger? The more complex machine spirits have these organic parts. I think there was a picture of one in a Land Raider that was actually composed of a human brain.

True, in that case, are there different 'grades' of Machine Psirit? I know that there are more or less complicated Machine Spirits installed in various machinery (Land Raider/Drop Pod Vs Bolter). Maybe the least complicated ones require extenral input and the others dont? Is it based on the size of the object (which may go some way to explaining the seeming sentience of Titans and Ships)? Good point on the LR, forgot about them having brains...

Pilau Rice wrote:In the Night Lords case, there are certainly parts of the ship that are tainted but otherwise no. The case of the ship in Seven Views, Daemons or Warp Entities want to assist the Machine Spirit in in going to the Eight Fold Forge, I guess some kind of Dark Mechanicus forge world, but the coming of Ulhguth forces these away and the Machine Spirit is a bit .. poop, now what do i do. The Slaughtersong doesn't seem to be mentioned as anything Daemonic, but it's a relic from the Dark Age of Technology.

Thanks for the clarification. My mindis going off on all sorts of tangents now..what if the Machine Spirits grow? As in, is the reason this one can communicate with the Navigator is because of the length of time it has been around? Or some sort of special bond with the Navigator built up over millenia? Going to have to read the NL books, ive heard good things about them (also just found out i can get them on my Kindle, excited!)

Pilau Rice wrote:Same principle I think, but then you have a whole crew tied into the Titan to make it go and as far as I know with these, they can't control themselves at all. In Titan: God - Machine, the princeps of the Titan dies and get absorbed by the Titan itself and is able to communicate at times.

Hmmm, i was under the impression that the only member of the crew directly linked in to the Titan was the Princeps...another novel i need to read...(so many to catch up on....) Odd how the Titan cant move itself but a LR can..

Pilau Rice wrote:
I guess that's BBQ and not Tomato based, got to be Tomato for me.

Awww what?! In that case, i have it from good authority that the Mighty Meaty (Meatfeast?) is very good as well.


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Manchu wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:Do you know that they are not Spirits?

I can't find you a citation that says "attention Pilau Rice, the Machine Spirits are not actually spirits" but them not being spirits is kind of the whole point. The idea is that man really doesn't understand the technology that surrounds him. Yeah, he can take apart a lasgun and put it back together but he primarily thinks of it in an anthropomorphic way. It's a joke really -- a joke on modern people. We have all this cool stuff that almost all of us really don't know anything about and we treat it in weird, superstitious ways.

Agreed, hence their use of unguents to 'placate the Machine Spirits from getting angry and getting too hot', whereas a fan or a decent heat sink would work just as well...

However, there are cases of Machine Spirits taking control/communicating etc. as stated above...

Manchu wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:Do you know that they are not Spirits?

I can't find you a citation that says "attention Pilau Rice, the Machine Spirits are not actually spirits" but them not being spirits is kind of the whole point. The idea is that man really doesn't understand the technology that surrounds him. Yeah, he can take apart a lasgun and put it back together but he primarily thinks of it in an anthropomorphic way. It's a joke really -- a joke on modern people. We have all this cool stuff that almost all of us really don't know anything about and we treat it in weird, superstitious ways.

Well, I want one dammit

Our computers and the like aren't generally made out of human brains, I tried this once but it kept leaking in my laptop bag.

Lasrifles aren't made of human brains, either. Do LR's have human brains tucked into their workings? I haven't heard of this but it wouldn't necessarily surprise me. I can't recall any instance of a human brain plugged into a machine being referred to as a machine spirit. OTOH, there are lots of examples of things that clearly don't incorporate human brains having machine spirits.

Revenent Reiko wrote:
True, in that case, are there different 'grades' of Machine Psirit? I know that there are more or less complicated Machine Spirits installed in various machinery (Land Raider/Drop Pod Vs Bolter). Maybe the least complicated ones require extenral input and the others dont? Is it based on the size of the object (which may go some way to explaining the seeming sentience of Titans and Ships)? Good point on the LR, forgot about them having brains...

I would think so, I imagine that a Land Raider, with it's organic pieces, are more complicated than those of a Las Rifle.

Revenent Reiko wrote:Thanks for the clarification. My mindis going off on all sorts of tangents now..what if the Machine Spirits grow? As in, is the reason this one can communicate with the Navigator is because of the length of time it has been around? Or some sort of special bond with the Navigator built up over millenia? Going to have to read the NL books, ive heard good things about them (also just found out i can get them on my Kindle, excited!)

The Night Lord vessel doesn't like the Navigator at the start, but I won't go to much into that if you are going to get them. I don't know, maybe they mature like people do?

Revenent Reiko wrote:Hmmm, i was under the impression that the only member of the crew directly linked in to the Titan was the Princeps...another novel i need to read...(so many to catch up on....) Odd how the Titan cant move itself but a LR can..

You might be right here, I thought that they were all connected in some regard to the Titan, but the Princeps has a direct Mind link to it.

I don't think you would want a Titan controlling itself maybe though, think of the damage it could do if it did go nuts, more so than a Land Raider. I just remembered on of the sketches in God Machine has a Titan who's crew had all been killed, gets woken up and remembers the death of it's crew and does actually go nuts. It gets destroyed by the main Titan in the series.

Revenent Reiko wrote:

Awww what?! In that case, i have it from good authority that the Mighty Meaty (Meatfeast?) is very good as well.

That sounds proper Bo, I tell thee!

Revenent Reiko wrote:

Manchu wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:Do you know that they are not Spirits?

I can't find you a citation that says "attention Pilau Rice, the Machine Spirits are not actually spirits" but them not being spirits is kind of the whole point. The idea is that man really doesn't understand the technology that surrounds him. Yeah, he can take apart a lasgun and put it back together but he primarily thinks of it in an anthropomorphic way. It's a joke really -- a joke on modern people. We have all this cool stuff that almost all of us really don't know anything about and we treat it in weird, superstitious ways.

Agreed, hence their use of unguents to 'placate the Machine Spirits from getting angry and getting too hot', whereas a fan or a decent heat sink would work just as well...

However, there are cases of Machine Spirits taking control/communicating etc. as stated above...

I can imagine Manchu being right for in the case of Lasguns and stuff but for machines that could be deemed sentient, not so much.

Pilau Rice wrote:I can imagine Manchu being right for in the case of Lasguns and stuff but for machines that could be deemed sentient, not so much.

Well, brain =/= sentient. A brain is a structure of cells firing and receiving electronic impulses. Honestly, we don't know whether the chemical reactions involved with that constitutes the "soul" that has a reflection in the Warp.

A machine spirit is just a "normal" AI as opposed to a fully sentient self aware AI, which are illegal.

That actually brings up a good point.

We know for sure that "machine spirit" does not refer to AI because things without AI are said to possess machine spirits. That said, a machine that does work according to some limited (i.e., sanctioned) AI would still be said to possess a machine spirit. But what about a thing that possesses a more advanced (i.e., blasphemous) AI? Would techpriests consider that illegal AI to be the object's machine spirit or would they consider it to be something more like a daemon possessing a normal person's body?

Moreover, is it possible for such a sentient AI to have a presence in the Warp? Can AI be psychic?

Manchu wrote:That actually brings up a good point.

We know for sure that "machine spirit" does not refer to AI because things without AI are said to possess machine spirits. That said, a machine that does work according to some limited (i.e., sanctioned) AI would still be said to possess a machine spirit. But what about a thing that possesses a more advanced (i.e., blasphemous) AI? Would techpriests consider that illegal AI to be the object's machine spirit or would they consider it to be something more like a daemon possessing a normal person's body?

Moreover, is it possible for such a sentient AI to have a presence in the Warp? Can AI be psychic?

Basically the IoM has the same laws about AIs that the Citadel in Mass Effect does. ME uses the terminology AI and VI. And AI is a fully aware sentient lifeform and a VI (virtual intelligence) is just an advanced computer program but not "alive". The IoM terminology is AI (in this case it stands for Abomitable Intelligence) and Machine Spirit.


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As for the warp presence I think AIs do have a bit of a warp presence. Probably about Tau level. In fact even a machine spirit probably does.

Machine Spirits can be quite intelligent. GW did a whole article on the adventures of Land Raiders who have no people in them. They dug themselves out of holes, found their way home and one even won a small battle on its own. Basically a Land Raider is about as smart as a German Sheperd.

I'm with you up until you say Machine Spirit means VI. That's simply not true. A lasrifle has a machine spirit.

Good comparison between a LR and a dog. Do we have any fluff examples of regular animals have Warp signatures?

Personally, I see Machine Spirits as the psychic presence or personality of machines.
Like how Navigators have to link with a ships Machine Spirit.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Basically a Land Raider is about as smart as a German Sheperd.

Dang. That it? All my German Shepherds have been numptys. Mostly. Seriously cute, but pretty damn stupid...

Just Dave wrote:Personally, I see Machine Spirits as the psychic presence or personality of machines.

You mean that sentient creatures confer psychic energy onto objects by emotionally comprehending them?

Manchu wrote:

Just Dave wrote:Personally, I see Machine Spirits as the psychic presence or personality of machines.

You mean that sentient creatures confer psychic energy onto objects by emotionally comprehending them?

I honestly don't know. That's not what I meant, but I still don't know.
To me, they seem to exhibit personalities and descriptions that are far more similar to a psychic presence or personality than anything else.
Not to mention that humans can bond/merge with them (The Gildar Rift, Night Lords series) and the opinion of AI's within the Imperium.

But ... what about the machine spirit of the lasrifle?

Manchu wrote:But ... what about the machine spirit of the lasrifle?

Do they even have Machine Spirits?

Assuming they do, then as I said; to me it seems more like a personality or psychic presence than AI, for example.
So many unknowns with Machine Spirits though.

Imagining the Warp?




Yeah, it's kinda like that.

Regarding Machine Spirits:
If you read the Eisenhorn trilogy he, and another inquisition pysker, penetrate into the machine spirit of a corrupted titan. It was portrayed as something with a warp presence, a mind that was utterly corrupted, one of great age, great memories, great thought processes, one that committed great atrocities in glee. A mind that could fight back, killing the other psyker and nearly eisenhorn himself.

Just Dave wrote:Do they even have Machine Spirits?

Do you mean literally? I dunno? Is there any such thing as Machine Spirits in the first place?

But yes, Guardsmen do consider their lasrifles to have machine spirits.

Manchu wrote:I'm with you up until you say Machine Spirit means VI. That's simply not true. A lasrifle has a machine spirit.

Good comparison between a LR and a dog. Do we have any fluff examples of regular animals have Warp signatures?

Ah, those "Machine Spirits". I usually only see those refered to as spirit but I could see people using the terms interchangably. I think when people talk about those type of machine spirits they're just really going ino superstition. The machine spirits I was talking about before are basically computers but I think for a lot of people in the Imperium they don't really know what has a CPU and what doesn't. It's all just magical machinery so they treat it all superstitiously. It's just a part of the culture too. In Gaunt's Ghosts one Tanith says a short prayer when picking up a fallen comrades lasgun to assuage it's spirit. Marines are also quite concerned with the machine spirit of their armour but who knows maybe PA does have a "VI".

As for animals, well basically spirit flows through everything except Pariahs. In one Eisenhorn book Gregor does some psychic stuff you calm the "anima" of his sword. So even inanimate objects can register in the warp (if you beleive they do ).