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Listened through the audiobooks for Mechanicum and Skitarius recently and noticed that Scrap Code comes up a lot. Scrap code being the daemon possessed code of machines. Now this sounds deadly and dangerous on many levels. Many infected machines started praising the Dark Gods after being infected with it and several cities just went into complete meltdown due to it.

However, there doesn’t appear to be any evidence that Scrap Code affects any other faction aside from Adeptus Mechanicus and Mechanicum (Imperium factions grouped into this as most of their vehicles are handled by the Mechanicus). So what do I mean?

• Eldar use Wraith Bone constructs not code.
• Necrons are made of Living Metal and don’t, as of yet, appear to use code.
• Tyranids are all bio tech based.

Now what two factions are left?
• Orks salvage any technology they find and repurpose it. As of yet I don’t know how daemon engines fall into this. It could be assumed that Mek Boyz don’t use code in the way the Tech Priests do. But Orks must have some code base, though it could be more complex than Adeptus Mechanicus Code or just different. In my head I can imagine Ork Meks trying to break daemon engines and filtering out Chaos code instinctively based on the Brainboyz knowledge. So Chaos might be able to infect some vehicles, the effect might only be temporary.
• Tau use AI and I imagine that that is more prone to Scrap Code attacks. They don’t have a religion based on technology, but it could be possible that Scrap Code could affect drones and other AI driven systems, but as far as cybernetics go and their in built immunity to the Warp Tau wouldn’t be at risk for being turned Chaos by Scrap Code.

Seems like Chaos found the silver bullet to kill Techpriests...

DontEatRawHagis wrote:
Listened through the audiobooks for Mechanicum and Skitarius recently and noticed that Scrap Code comes up a lot. Scrap code being the daemon possessed code of machines. Now this sounds deadly and dangerous on many levels. Many infected machines started praising the Dark Gods after being infected with it and several cities just went into complete meltdown due to it.

However, there doesn’t appear to be any evidence that Scrap Code affects any other faction aside from Adeptus Mechanicus and Mechanicum (Imperium factions grouped into this as most of their vehicles are handled by the Mechanicus). So what do I mean?

• Eldar use Wraith Bone constructs not code.
• Necrons are made of Living Metal and don’t, as of yet, appear to use code.
• Tyranids are all bio tech based.

Now what two factions are left?
• Orks salvage any technology they find and repurpose it. As of yet I don’t know how daemon engines fall into this. It could be assumed that Mek Boyz don’t use code in the way the Tech Priests do. But Orks must have some code base, though it could be more complex than Adeptus Mechanicus Code or just different. In my head I can imagine Ork Meks trying to break daemon engines and filtering out Chaos code instinctively based on the Brainboyz knowledge. So Chaos might be able to infect some vehicles, the effect might only be temporary.
• Tau use AI and I imagine that that is more prone to Scrap Code attacks. They don’t have a religion based on technology, but it could be possible that Scrap Code could affect drones and other AI driven systems, but as far as cybernetics go and their in built immunity to the Warp Tau wouldn’t be at risk for being turned Chaos by Scrap Code.

Seems like Chaos found the silver bullet to kill Techpriests...

It’s a demonic virus, so nothing is really safe it’s could possibly infect eldar technology in a different manner and necrons do use code but super advanced code.

How does what's essentially evil code infect something that doesn't even use electricity?

pm713 wrote:
How does what's essentially evil code infect something that doesn't even use electricity?

In the same way it infected a humans brain after he heard the screams of the kamperneal, space magic and who is to say thats it electricity that it needs to make it spread, maybe its just the concept of information its feeding on in the computer systems, warp based entities dont need to follow the laws of sense and physics, its kinda their thing.

Also... isnt wraithbone technically alive? so could it not have electrical impulses somewhere along the line that makes it work, like neural pathways rooting throughout the construct.

Wraithbone regenerates itself and it seems to die when corrupted but the power comes from the psychic energy of the Eldar so it seems weird it can be infected like Mechanicum stuff. But then again the idea of a universe where a species makes things happen because they think it should seems silly too so it's always possible.

Daemons are beings from a parallel universe that follows entirely different physical laws to ours, and when they manifest in our universe they seem to pull a little of their balls-out-crazy warp-physical-laws with them.

The warp seems to function more on concepts or emotions than physics, so it's probably the daemonic concept of code that infects other systems than any actual mechanical aspect of the virus.

Also, it's not beyond the realms of possibility to construct a 'virus' that functions within living brain tissue. A brain is nothing more than a network of binary electrical connections. No real different to a computer, other than complexity.

I normally argue against such things, but I believe it is just one of many forms of corruption Chaos manifests.

It probably would effect things like:

Knights, Drednoughts, Vehicles, Flyers, Machines, Battlesuits, Drones, SpaceShips, Planetary Defense Systems, and the like, maybe some Necron constructs?

However, I don't believe scrap code would attack wraithbone for example, as it is a living material. The corruption would if anything manifest in another way.

Are there examples of scrap code attacking living tissue? Or was the individual a mechanicus adept? In which case, it might have infected his shiney bitz.

Tau have a natrual warp immunity, and orks just don't believe the scrap code does anything there for it won't do anything to them

Tau aren't immune at all they just go unnoticed by things because they aren't very psychic. You could still infect them with Chaos stuff. I wish GW did more Tau V Chaos shenanigans stuff.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Tau have a natrual warp immunity, and orks just don't believe the scrap code does anything there for it won't do anything to them

The Anzion Theorem of Orkoid Mechamorphic Resonant Kinetics is a flawed theorem based on the observations of a narrow minded Techpriest who wanted to get published without doing all the field work!

I like the idea that Scrapcode isn't actually a computer virus, it's rather the dimensional "shadow" of the concept of a computer virus.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Tau have a natrual warp immunity, and orks just don't believe the scrap code does anything there for it won't do anything to them

Orkz probably care the least. However, tau tech probably cares a great deal about it (aka) battlesuits and vehicles.
But otherwise, they aren't immune to the warp at all, they have 0 defense against it... they just don't have tasty souls...or utilize the warp much, and since demons are the guardians of flavortown (the warp), they prioritize the tastiest souls.

 iGuy91 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Tau have a natrual warp immunity, and orks just don't believe the scrap code does anything there for it won't do anything to them

Orkz probably care the least. However, tau tech probably cares a great deal about it (aka) battlesuits and vehicles.
But otherwise, they aren't immune to the warp at all, they have 0 defense against it... they just don't have tasty souls...or utilize the warp much, and since demons are the guardians of flavortown (the warp), they prioritize the tastiest souls.

Imperial tech is heavily designed to resist chaos attack at times.

But Tau tech....

Drones, AI etc?
Surely if Chaos wanted, do they design in protection like imperial paranoia, necron anti warp, eldar souls in big machines stone etc..

 jhe90 wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Tau have a natrual warp immunity, and orks just don't believe the scrap code does anything there for it won't do anything to them

Orkz probably care the least. However, tau tech probably cares a great deal about it (aka) battlesuits and vehicles.
But otherwise, they aren't immune to the warp at all, they have 0 defense against it... they just don't have tasty souls...or utilize the warp much, and since demons are the guardians of flavortown (the warp), they prioritize the tastiest souls.

Imperial tech is heavily designed to resist chaos attack at times.

But Tau tech....

Drones, AI etc?
Surely if Chaos wanted, do they design in protection like imperial paranoia, necron anti warp, eldar souls in big machines stone etc..

Oh, i absolutely agree. I was just saying Tau aren't by any means immune, but if you have an Eldar, a Human, and a Tau in a room with a demon hungry for souls, guess who is getting eaten last.

The Eldar. They'll feed the others to the daemon.

pm713 wrote:
The Eldar. They'll feed the others to the daemon.

Ayy lmao

Well, what happened to Kher-Ys (a craftworld getting possessed) is essentially the eldar equivalent.

Eldar tech doesn't need scrapcode viruses, because it's close enough to 'living' to be possessed by a daemon directly.


Dark Mechanicum scrapcode might not be compatible with tau computers directly, but, yes, it's a smart computer so there's no reason you couldn't create one which worked. A possessed drone network offers such potential for fun - especially DX9 tech drones, who can repair existing drones....or build more.

So reading primogenitor and it turns out that wraithbone has circuitry running through it, so looks like even that may be affected by a sentient deamonic virus like the scrapcode.