Could Genestealers gain a greater understanding of Imperial technology than the Imperium itself?

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**Bilge Rat**

So, most members of the Imperium don't really understand how their technology actually works. Religious rituals allow people to perform certain maintenance functions without actually knowing what they are doing. When it comes to anything more complicated, even Tech Marines and the Adeptus Mechanicus mostly just screw around at random until they get the results they want.

However, there was a part in the Vigilus book where it mentioned that the local Genestealer cult was able to deactivate some of the planet's defence systems by assimilating people with the appropriate technical knowledge. This made me wonder if the the Genestealers might be capable of properly understanding how Imperial technology functions. If a cult managed to take over a large enough population then could they piece together enough scraps of information to get a complete picture? If the leader has psychic access to all of his followers' knowledge and no reverence for the religious taboos around unsanctioned tinkering then he might be able to make some major breakthroughs.

Having said that, the cults mostly seem to just jury-rig stuff and the leader's cunning seems to focus more on strategy than equipment design. Since their ultimate purpose is to prepare the planet for Tyranid invasion you could argue that pursuit of technology is pointless since the Tyranids just adapt whatever biomorphs they need.

Thoughts?

**kastelen**

At most, probably as much as an enginseer.

**beast_gts**

Bits of the AdMech know exactly what they're doing, as do some other Imperial organisations. The Houses on Necromunda are able to produce high-end weaponry, and the mining guilds build the Atalan Jackals & Achilles Ridgerunner.

**Bilge Rat**

The AdMech still pray to the Omnissiah and try to appease machine spirits. If they truly understood the technology then they wouldn't be doing those things. If you believe that something like a targeting computer is a malevolent entity that must be placated then how can you possibly develop a better one?

**Wyzilla**

Bilge Rat wrote:
The AdMech still pray to the Omnissiah and try to appease machine spirits. If they truly understood the technology then they wouldn't be doing those things. If you believe that something like a targeting computer is a malevolent entity that must be placated then how can you possibly develop a better one?

The Admech prays to appease machine spirits because if you don't appease a machine spirit it will kill you, directly or indirectly. You placate the targeting computer because the targeting computer is a literal spirit with a mind of its own that can simply decide not to go to work today, or to do a bad job of it. Even bolt pistols are sapient for crying out loud.

**AndrewGPaul**

I don't see the idea that a machine has a "soul" that must be looked after and placated being incompatible with being able to understand and repair it, or design a better one.

The knowledge is in the Mechanicus' data vaults (otherwise we wouldn't have Razorbacks, Primaris Space Marines or the Repulsor Grav-tank), it's just not widely disseminated. Lowly laymen or Enginseers might perform their maintenance and operation rituals by rote, but at the higher ranks of the Mechanicus, the understanding is there. Not universally, admittedly; the Golden Throne was designed by a god, after all, so it's not unreasonable that mere mortals wouldn't be able to repair it.

**Argive**

I think you're asking a question of is the the hive mind able to learn technology?

**beast_gts**

Bilge Rat wrote:
The AdMech still pray to the Omnissiah and try to appease machine spirits. If they truly understood the technology then they wouldn't be doing those things. If you believe that something like a targeting computer is a malevolent entity that must be placated then how can you possibly develop a better one?

40k is Science-Fantasy (if not just Fantasy) - gods and spirits exist. The Space Wolves story "Stormseeker" describes what happens when someone upsets a Stormwolf gunship's machine spirit.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Argive wrote:
I think you're asking a question of is the the hive mind able to learn technology?

Well, Cults can. They've taken over forgeworlds before, and The Twisted Helix and The Bladed Cog seem tech-savvy.

**Formosa**

No, its a popular misconception that Ad Mech do not understand its own tech, a misconception pushed further by writers not understanding the setting either.

The higher up the tech tree you go the more likely it is that understanding is lost and repetition takes over, the Ad mech understands las weapons, it understands macro weapons on starships etc. etc. its the more esoteric things that they do not understand and form rituals around, add to this that with time comes understanding, with training comes knowledge and invariably with education comes disbelief, not every ad mech member believes in the omnisiah, not all believe its the emperor, not all believe the emperor is the avatar of the machine god.

**Bilge Rat**

beast_gts wrote:
40k is Science-Fantasy (if not just Fantasy) - gods and spirits exist. The Space Wolves story "Stormseeker" describes what happens when someone upsets a Stormwolf gunship's machine spirit.

From what I have read it always felt like the truculent machine spirits were just glitchy computer systems that no one knew how to work. They usually make it ambiguous but I guess it depends on the writer. Obviously the Chaos gods exist in the setting, plus the likes of the Orks have plenty of physics-defying weirdness going on just because they believe it.

Formosa wrote:
The higher up the tech tree you go the more likely it is that understanding is lost and repetition takes over, the Ad mech understands las weapons, it understands macro weapons on starships etc. etc. its the more esoteric things that they do not understand and form rituals around, add to this that with time comes understanding, with training comes knowledge and invariably with education comes disbelief, not every ad mech member believes in the omnisiah, not all believe its the emperor, not all believe the emperor is the avatar of the machine god.

Interesting. However, if the higher up members of the AdMech had a good understanding of their tech then why would they allow their underlings to perform elaborate rituals instead of just straight up teaching everyone how to deal with things efficiently? Just for greater control? Why can't they just re-engineer lost tech instead of relying so heavily on STCs?

This is probably no longer canon but the Squats supposedly were able to improve on Imperial technology simply because they could screw around with it without anyone accusing them of heresy. The Tau also developed comparable or superior technology in a short period of time by applying actual science rather than superstition. I think that if the AdMech fully understood their own technology then they wouldn't be producing kit that has barely advanced (and in many cases gone backwards) in the last 10,000 years.

**beast_gts**

Bilge Rat wrote:
Formosa wrote:
The higher up the tech tree you go the more likely it is that understanding is lost and repetition takes over, the Ad mech understands las weapons, it understands macro weapons on starships etc. etc. its the more esoteric things that they do not understand and form rituals around, add to this that with time comes understanding, with training comes knowledge and invariably with education comes disbelief, not every ad mech member believes in the omnisiah, not all believe its the emperor, not all believe the emperor is the avatar of the machine god.

Interesting. However, if the higher up members of the AdMech had a good understanding of their tech then why would they allow their underlings to perform elaborate rituals instead of just straight up teaching everyone how to deal with things efficiently? Just for greater control? Why can't they just re-engineer lost tech instead of relying so heavily on STCs?

This is probably no longer canon but the Squats supposedly were able to improve on Imperial technology simply because they could screw around with it without anyone accusing them of heresy. The Tau also developed comparable or superior technology in a short period of time by applying actual science rather than superstition. I think that if the AdMech fully understood their own technology then they wouldn't be producing kit that has barely advanced (and in many cases gone backwards) in the last 10,000 years.

Mostly because they're vaguely aware of the Dark Age of Technology and the Age of Strife and don't want to be responsible for that happening again, and they also don't want to be branded Hereteks.

**Haighus**

Bilge Rat wrote:

Interesting. However, if the higher up members of the AdMech had a good understanding of their tech then why would they allow their underlings to perform elaborate rituals instead of just straight up teaching everyone how to deal with things efficiently? Just for greater control? Why can't they just re-engineer lost tech instead of relying so heavily on STCs?

This is probably no longer canon but the Squats supposedly were able to improve on Imperial technology simply because they could screw around with it without anyone accusing them of heresy. The Tau also developed comparable or superior technology in a short period of time by applying actual science rather than superstition. I think that if the AdMech fully understood their own technology then they wouldn't be producing kit that has barely advanced (and in many cases gone backwards) in the last 10,000 years.

In part, because they are forbidden from experimenting in things too dangerous after some minor accidents like entire Forge worlds being sucked into warp storms.

At the tech level of the Imperium, basically any research is dangerous, so any "innovation" tends to be taking fragments of stuff they know works and trying to fill in the gaps to recreate something new. It is all an extreme form of experimental archaeology- they know this scrap of data used to be for something, so how can they rebuild the bits that are missing into something functional? There is real work going into much of it, but it is based around a framework of existing data. Reinventing the wheel so to speak. Within that framework, the Adeptus Mechanicus can make some damn advanced stuff, like the biovirus developed to kill the Hive fleet attacking Tarsis Ultra.

**Kcalehc**

Bilge Rat wrote:
Interesting. However, if the higher up members of the AdMech had a good understanding of their tech then why would they allow their underlings to perform elaborate rituals instead of just straight up teaching everyone how to deal with things efficiently? Just for greater control? Why can't they just re-engineer lost tech instead of relying so heavily on STCs?

Because: Religion. You're not allowed to tinker with it because their God said so. It's pretty much the excuse for any religion to not change anything - even when it flies in the face of logic and sense and even practical considerations.

Bilge Rat wrote:
I think that if the AdMech fully understood their own technology then they wouldn't be producing kit that has barely advanced (and in many cases gone backwards) in the last 10,000 years.

They understand it, for sure. But changing it is heresy, and they are so deeply invested in their religion/superstition that they won't - and also they would have an interesting and quite short chat with an Inquisitor if they did.

**Argive**

beast_gts wrote:
Bilge Rat wrote:
The AdMech still pray to the Omnissiah and try to appease machine spirits. If they truly understood the technology then they wouldn't be doing those things. If you believe that something like a targeting computer is a malevolent entity that must be placated then how can you possibly develop a better one?

40k is Science-Fantasy (if not just Fantasy) - gods and spirits exist. The Space Wolves story "Stormseeker" describes what happens when someone upsets a Stormwolf gunship's machine spirit.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Argive wrote:
I think you're asking a question of is the the hive mind able to learn technology?

Well, Cults can. They've taken over forgeworlds before, and The Twisted Helix and The Bladed Cog seem tech-savvy.

Admittedly I don't know much about cult but as an old school nid player the hive mind has no need for anything other than more biomass right?
Are cultists pure hive mind? The way I understand it They are human hybrids spliced with some connection to the hive mind but not fully part of the hive mind, otherwise they would not wear clothes lol. The true hive mind has no need for technology as it bio-engineered everything it needs. In a way, its the most advanced form of tech superseded by the old ones as it allows intergalactic travel so don't see why it would be interested to improve on human tech..

**Formosa**

Interesting. However, if the higher up members of the AdMech had a good understanding of their tech then why would they allow their underlings to perform elaborate rituals instead of just straight up teaching everyone how to deal with things efficiently? Just for greater control? Why can't they just re-engineer lost tech instead of relying so heavily on STCs?

power pure and simple, the top end of the ad mech have a vested interest to keep that power and as shown in the beast series they would happily sacrifice even the imperium to keep that power, keep the masses ignorant and show lip service to the creed and you can get away with anything, also the ad mech do innovate and invent on a very small scale, but STC will always beat what they make as having a total understanding of how a lasgun works will not help you build a warp engine and improve it, the more esoteric the tech, the more likely its shrouded in religious dogma.

**HoundsofDemos**

Formosa wrote:
Interesting. However, if the higher up members of the AdMech had a good understanding of their tech then why would they allow their underlings to perform elaborate rituals instead of just straight up teaching everyone how to deal with things efficiently? Just for greater control? Why can't they just re-engineer lost tech instead of relying so heavily on STCs?

power pure and simple, the top end of the ad mech have a vested interest to keep that power and as shown in the beast series they would happily sacrifice even the imperium to keep that power, keep the masses ignorant and show lip service to the creed and you can get away with anything, also the ad mech do innovate and invent on a very small scale, but STC will always beat what they make as having a total understanding of how a lasgun works will not help you build a warp engine and improve it, the more esoteric the tech, the more likely its shrouded in religious dogma.

This, various novels and fluff snip bits make it clear that the Ad Mech above the lowest level are quite tech savvy and understand all but the rarest tech works. Keeping the best stuff for themselves and pretending its hard to make anything more advanced than a chain swords serves their purposes. Mars and it's forge world off shoots have a level of independence that no other IOM organization has and spilling the beans on how most tech isn't that hard to make doesn't serve that purpose.

**Nurglitch**

Knowledge is power: Guard it wisely.

Also, they live in a universe where some technologies are more susceptible to producing lovecraftian monstrocities that consume their world, body and soul. Everything that Mankind can ever invent has been invented, while the stuff they need ('Webway portals, etc') is tainted.

They not only understand how the technologies work, but how they should work, and what the moral implication of technologies are for their own souls. Gone is the ignorant optimism of the Dark Age of Technology, replaced by the wisdom that oneness with the Machine-God can only be achieved in the proper fashion.

Indiscriminate use of technology to satiate mere desires may subvert the will of the Machine-God, or invite the attention of daemons.

**Khorzain**

Argive wrote:
beast_gts wrote:
Bilge Rat wrote:
The AdMech still pray to the Omnissiah and try to appease machine spirits. If they truly understood the technology then they wouldn't be doing those things. If you believe that something like a targeting computer is a malevolent entity that must be placated then how can you possibly develop a better one?

40k is Science-Fantasy (if not just Fantasy) - gods and spirits exist. The Space Wolves story "Stormseeker" describes what happens when someone upsets a Stormwolf gunship's machine spirit.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Argive wrote:
I think you're asking a question of is the the hive mind able to learn technology?

Well, Cults can. They've taken over forgeworlds before, and The Twisted Helix and The Bladed Cog seem tech-savvy.

Admittedly I don't know much about cult but as an old school nid player the hive mind has no need for anything other than more biomass right?
Are cultists pure hive mind? The way I understand it They are human hybrids spliced with some connection to the hive mind but not fully part of the hive mind, otherwise they would not wear clothes lol. The true hive mind has no need for technology as it bio-engineered everything it needs. In a way, its the most advanced form of tech superseded by the old ones as it allows intergalactic travel so don't see why it would be interested to improve on human tech..

You're right, the cultists aren't pure hive mind at all (in speculation, non-hybrid brood brothers might not even be able to connect to the Tyranid Hivemind, only the Broodmind) — but they still retain individual personalities. True Hybrids have a genetic memory that is inherited from their parents — which is how they know how to use the weapons, technology, and language of their host society — and of course they are capable of learning more through direct experience.

The new codex introduces the Nexos, which seems like a fascinating guy from a lore-perspective, particularly for this topic:

"Nexoses act as each Genestealer Cult’s central nervous system. They are granted psychometric powers that allow them to absorb the memories and consciousness of indoctrinated organisms, processing that sensory data into a steady stream of strategic instructions and deployment orders."

It's certainly within reason that they would be capable of learning and disseminating technological knowledge gained from converted cultists.

**Bilge Rat**

Some great points, thanks all

**Irbis**

Bilge Rat wrote:
Interesting. However, if the higher up members of the AdMech had a good understanding of their tech then why would they allow their underlings to perform elaborate rituals instead of just straight up teaching everyone how to deal with things efficiently? Just for greater control? Why can't they just re-engineer lost tech instead of relying so heavily on STCs?

A) control (they aren't willing to share tech with even other high ranking members, never mind underlings), B) religion (you don't see pope telling the faithful to no longer pray just because it's useless, do you?), C) they do re-engineer stuff, and it's heavily implied a lot of the "found" STCs are in fact original designs, they just brag it's STC to shut up opposition and elevate their own status. See Land Raider Crusader for one, in this case no one even pretended it was STC.

Bilge Rat wrote:
This is probably no longer canon but the Squats supposedly were able to improve on Imperial technology simply because they could screw around with it without anyone accusing them of heresy. The Tau also developed comparable or superior technology in a short period of time by applying actual science rather than superstition. I think that if the AdMech fully understood their own technology then they wouldn't be producing kit that has barely advanced (and in many cases gone backwards) in the last 10,000 years.

I am sorry, but the idea that Tau tech is anywhere near Imperial is BS mostly perpetuated by new, dumb GW writers that double the numbers on their guns every book for no reason. If you check their original codex, Tau plasma was weaker and shorter ranged than Imperial one, melta equivalent was bigger, more expensive, and shorter ranged, etc, etc. Tau could get by with brute force (like their small anti-tank missiles being equivalent of Imperial autocannon, no doubt much more expensive on top of slightly worse stats, but they could afford to equip their much smaller forces with them to achieve some degree of parity). Now? Tau Sues produce tons of strength D anti-titan missiles out of captured weak anti-air Imperial missile (that didn't explode for some reason despite being sentient) after like a week of work because that's totally how weapon development works and it's not unhinged nonsense that should have never seen print

**argonak**

The ad mech both understand a lot of how their tech works, while at the same time believing it has a fragment of the omnissiah within it.

It’s no different than having a Christian doctor remove cancer from your body while praying for your soul. Or pray for help that the treatment work. You can see daily examples of that sort of thing in our own world.

**HoundsofDemos**

argonak wrote:
The ad mech both understand a lot of how their tech works, while at the same time believing it has a fragment of the omnissiah within it.

It’s no different than having a Christian doctor remove cancer from your body while praying for your soul. Or pray for help that the treatment work. You can see daily examples of that sort of thing in our own world.

This, I've always thought a lot of the rituals and mystic BS that the lower level Ad Mech techs perform are the best way to slowly but surely teach techs on how to fix things. Put sacred (needed) oil, wipe away any spill over with a sacred cloth, (clean the machine) and enter the pray to make the machine happy (code).

Most of Cawl's story shows that even in 30k most adepts were kept in the dark and any break trough is jealously guarded. The hire ups likely know about tech far beyond anything that can be massed produced but any attempt at doing so would weaken their stranglehold on the basic stuff.

**zevrem**

Since this has turned into an Adeptus Mechanicus thread I'll post this take from 1d4chan.

The Mechanicus does NOT have the technology. They haven't been living on some fancy paradise planet since pre-Fall. Mars is an anarchic nightmare shithole the moment you leave the safe zones into the kilometres of labyrinthine corridors beneath it full of rogue machinery, self-aware and malevolent AI from before the Fall, and the daemon programs of the Heresy. EVERYTHING in the databases is fethed. The databases are fragmented over the entire surface to the extent that it would be impossible to see one tenth of the total files in the ludicrously extended life of a Magos even assuming that they are completely safe to visit. And they are not.

The files have been corrupted into madness by the Fall, and the unleashing of the most potent informational warfare systems ever to exist to defeat the Iron Men. Nearly all of Mars was rendered uninhabitable, what they live in now is built on the top of the ruins. They send archeotech expeditions in to find gak, nearly all of them never come back. The sheer number of rogue war machine running around in there is sufficient to rape the mind. Then came the Heresy, which was not earth-exclusive. Mars as the second most critical planet in the Imperium was the site of fighting nearly as ferocious as on Terra, with Mechanicus loyalists and Hereteks fighting tooth, nail, and mechadendrite everywhere. Ancient machines were unleashed, viruses both normal and daemonic unleashed into all the computer systems. Nearly every single stored record on Mars was rendered unusable, and those that survived are half the time self-aware and don't like you, or daemonic and actively try to kill you.

If you come back with a schematic, it is almost certainly gibberish, and if it isn't, it's probably corrupted into uselessness. If it does come back whole it was probably malevolently fethed with so that instead of a Lasgun power cell it's a fething grenade set to detonate the second you finish building it. Why do you think they want off-world STCs so damned much if they had them all here? The fething Heresy is why. Off-world they only have to contend with the Fall's war and its effects on the machinery plus twenty thousand years of degradation with no maintenance. But at least off-world it'll probably just not work instead of actively seek to kill you.

Why do you think they seek to placate the Machine Spirit? It's because it exists. The fragments of trillions of self-aware programs, flourishing during the Dark Age of Technology and shattered by Man in his war with the Iron men, imprisoning the few who had not set themselves irrevocably into the machinery, a prison smashed wide open by the Heresy. Everything that can hold programming in the Imperium has a shard of a program in it. EVERYTHING. And you'd better fething please it or it will do everything in its power to make your day gak. Sure, if it's a Lasgun it'll just not work or start shooting off rounds by itself, but if you piss off a Land Raider you can say bye-bye to half a continent. They apply these principles to things without spirits by habit, since they're so used to dealing with tanks that if not talked to just right might go rogue and annihilate the Manufactorum before they can be killed.

This is why they do not like ANYONE fething with technology, because it is so rare to find anything that just works it is critical it not be compromised. That, and they do not have the actual knowledge to feth with it intelligently, just through experimentation, which inevitably leads to slaughter. Pressing buttons to see what works is fine in a 21st century computer, but it is a very stupid thing to do at the helm of a 410th century starship with the destructive power to end solar systems. The entire knowledge base of humanity was lost. Not forgotten, but outright lost. Everything at all, poof. Nobody knows anything because the Fall fethed everything up and the Heresy double-fethed it. To rebuild the theoretical framework needed to design new technologies that don't kill everyone near them would require starting from the ground up. They don't have the time, and they never have.