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.

For me, KC reading the IOM as inefficient and stupid evil is a really dumb way to interpretate it (AKA a berserk button). They are a bureaucracy. Functioning like the Roman Empire even with incompetent rulers Rome worked very well with that system. Of course I believe in Machine Spirits, something I almost believe in IRL after my car once started when the battery was drained. Ruthless effectivity is the only wayfor me to regard the Tech Priests. And in the Galaxy prayers are not a wastefull thingy the Tech Priests came up with for fun, no sir, the weapons are semi-sentient and think for themselves, so you must appease them. Even a humble laspistol will happily blow up in your face if you reload it wrong too many times. I admit it falls under funny-territory, yet it's how I see things in the setting.

@Lynata,

At this point you are just saying FW (the book quoted is FW's first HH volume not a BL book) is not a "legitimate" source for 40k fluff and that is simply nonsense. There is no impossible contradiction between BRB 6E and HH Volume 1 Betrayal for the simple reason that BRB 6E does not include detailed information on the union of Mars and Terra. There is no need to pick one over the other. Because you are for whatever reason refusing to acknowledge all of the relevant information you continue to be confused and mistaken.

Now I know who Lynata reminds me of. Some 10+ years ago... more even... during a big debate over Star Wars there was this guy who wouldn't even acknowledge that AT-ST stood for "All-Terrain Scout Transport" because it was never explicitly stated within the movies.

Arguing with him was impossible as he refused to acknowledge anything that wasn't explicitly stated within the run-time of the three SW movies.


If you're saying that FW doesn't 'count', then you've gone well off the rails.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I must agree with Manchu on this one. As I understand it there was a Martian Empire. Most Forge Worlds predate the Imperium. I believe during the warp storms that crippled the galaxy they simply "hunkered down" and waited it out.

Yet it's the Warp Storms and the Age of Strife that disrupted the original colonial network and caused everything to break down in the first place. There was no Mechanicus because the Mechanicus evolved out of the chaos and isolation (see WD #178) - hence whilst Mars used to play a role in settling other colonies* during the Dark Age of Technology, those worlds are not Forge Worlds; those worlds were (re)claimed only as the Great Crusade moved out, as the Codex Imperialis states and as I have already quoted. Since the colonies predate the formation of the Mechanicus, none of them housed an independent section of it, which means they could not be considered part of its realm. Though even if this were the case it's kind of a stretch to talk about a "Martian Empire" when it had zero contact to its colonies .. we would not talk about a "Terran Empire" pre-Crusade either, simply because the colonies were lost and had to be re-claimed.

Anyhow, "nowadays", the Mechanicus' realm is politically no different from that of the Ecclesiarchy or indeed that of the Adeptus Terra, as all these organisations have custodianship of Imperial worlds as granted by the Senatorum Imperialis. It's why I'm so firmly against calling it an Empire - this connotation implies that it is an ally rather than a part of the Imperium, and independent from the Emperor or the High Lords.

*: "The planet Mars has changed enormously since man first set foot upon its barren and arid surface. In the early 22nd century, it became the first world to be terraformed. [...] Once terraformed, Mars was settled by industrial cartels and their workforces, and soon grew into the first human hive world. Mars became a centre for industrial production and research, and its very name has become synonymous with technical expertise and scientific advancement. Mars became the hub for further space exploration throughout the solar system."
- Codex Imperialis

KamikazeCanuck wrote:When The Emperor emerged as a firm ally of Mars he was able to absorb the old Martian empire without much trouble because he had Mars's approval complete with actual Martians at it's helm.

Which is what I have been saying all the time. There is no independent allied "Martian Empire" anymore - it's now an integral, firmly integrated part of the Imperium of Man, part of its hierarchy, with the Emperor at the top. Which is why the High Lords as his representatives can pass on decrees to the Mechanicus, and the Inquisition can commandeer Titan Legions, as they are hierarchically superior.

Manchu wrote:At this point you are just saying FW (the book quoted is FW's first HH volume not a BL book) is not a "legitimate" source for 40k fluff and that is simply nonsense.

Ah, thought it was a novel. Though my point still stands - FW has published contradictory fluff before, and it still is a different team of designers/writers. Not different from Black Library. And whilst it may not conflict with the 6E BRB, it does seem to do so with the Codex Imperialis.

Y'know, we could simply agree to disagree on that subject - it's not at all what I was initially talking about, which was the AdMech's current role in the Imperium. What the Mechanicus was at some time in the past is but a side topic that seems to have developed a life of its own. And one I do not regard as being all that important, actually. "Distant past" and all.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Now I know who Lynata reminds me of. Some 10+ years ago... more even... during a big debate over Star Wars there was this guy who wouldn't even acknowledge that AT-ST stood for "All-Terrain Scout Transport" because it was never explicitly stated within the movies.
Arguing with him was impossible as he refused to acknowledge anything that wasn't explicitly stated within the run-time of the three SW movies.

Unlike 40k, Star Wars actually has a consistent canon, and the walker's designation was clarified in a lot of EU material. While that "guy's" stance was actually identical to Lucas' and thus "okay" to have, personally I always considered the EU to be the default level of communication between fans. I'm sorry your friend did not partake in it; he's missing out.

Still, your comparison really is apples and oranges. There is no uniform canon in 40k, just lots of overlapping interpretations. Feel free to reply to that thread we already had going on regarding this subject if you think you have a good argument to make. Dropping out of the discussion we and Manchu had, yet continueing to throw in claims such as this one now isn't helpful to resolve our dispute.

But yes, argueing with someone who operates on different sources is indeed impossible. Which is why I have suggested multiple times in the past that each fluff debate needs a sort of header on what books we're talking about. We need a common ground, and the IP does not give it to us by itself. We have to agree upon one here.

H.B.M.C. wrote:If you're saying that FW doesn't 'count', then you've gone well off the rails.

Here's a question for you. Why should it count, after all I've heard from longtime writers and game designers working on the IP? Why should I, for example, adopt to Battle Sisters now sporting the colour blue when the main studio's own material consistently says they only use white, black and red? It's details such as these that consistently make me think FW's books may not fit in all that well with the rest. Call it minor discrepancies, if you will, but it such conflicts exist, who's to say they "got it right" on the Mechanicus? In the end, it's two different teams of writers, so nobody should be surprised if each team has a different consensus regarding how something works. Just like with FFG's people, no?

Everybody working on this franchise churns out a lot of fluff, and as we have seen, this - as well as the design studio's own lax policies regarding IP consistency - results in a high degree of deviancy between all products. By limiting myself to treat only a single source (GW) as "hard facts", I greatly minimise the confusion that results out of conflicting material. It's certainly not a stance that you should feel in any way forced to adapt as well, but at the same time, you should not expect others to go by how you think it fits together. The fluff is a mess - deal with it. We all just have to find our own ways to make the pieces of the puzzle fit into the picture.

Too many cooks spoil the broth. If you truly want a consistent setting, you can either cherrypick from the individual bowls and mix your own soup, or you simply have to choose your favourite maestro.

@Lynata,

To paraphrase you before, let's settle this once and for all. Your point about FW not being as legitimate as "studio fluff" does not stand.

First, it is wrong as a matter of argument. You constantly remind everyone of the loose canon policy yet you fail to apply it yourself. The category of "studio fluff" is completely arbitrary relative to the issue of trustworthy fluff. The only elements that distinguish it from "non-studio fluff" have nothing to do with that issue. What you need to keep in mind is that there is no more a policy guaranteeing consistency or "factual-ness" from codex to codex than there is one to guarantee such as between codex and FW book. "Studio fluff" does not and cannot represent a sort of island of reliability amid a sea of contradiction. The loose canon policy applies across the board, to GW, FW, BL, FFG, THQ, etc.

Second it is wrong as a matter of application. When fans survey this big pile of fluff generated by GW, its affiliates, and its licensees, we will obviously encounter some contradictions. And you are correct to note that how we resolve those contradictions comes down to a matter of personal preference. The most popular "rule of thumb" in this regard is that whatever is most recent is most accurate. You choose to apply the preference for this arbitrary category you have created called "studio fluff." Regardless of whether that category has any meaningful bearing on the issue of fluff trustworthiness, which it does not, it's totally legitimate for you. If you resolve a contradiction with that policy for you, I can only say that I disagree -- I cannot say that you are wrong. But this analysis does not apply to the issue at hand because there is NO contradiction.

What Alan Bligh wrote in the FW book on this topic is not outright contradicted by anything in "studio fluff." Your counterargument is that the possibility of contradiction on other subjects somehow taints the lack of contradiction here. If we can't completely trust FW, compared to this other body of information that we have arbitrarily chosen as more legitimate, on every single issue then we cannot trust FW on any issue. That argument is bogus because it ignores the substantial agreement between sources and, more importantly, it does not take into account that there is not necessarily a higher incidence of disagreement as between "studio fluff" and FW than there is disagreement within "studio fluff."

At the end of the day, you can paint your Blood Angels blue and your Ultramarines red. They can be facts in your world. But your world means nothing to me in the context of talking about the published setting EXCEPT where there are contradictions (and not just the spectre of contradictions). Then, in the context of discussion, your world does become meaningful to me insofar as it is based on well-reasoned and applicable arguments. And in those discussions, we cannot say to each other "you are right and I am wrong." We can only judge for our selves what seems more likely according to the rest of the published setting as a priority and our own preferences as incidental. But whether the Blood Angels wear blue is not such an issue. Anyone who says as much is "wrong." Blood Angels wearing red is a "fact" of the setting.

Mars having an empire, the Imperium being the alliance between the Martian and Terran empires, the Martian empire not recognizing the Emperor as God-Emperor -- these are also facts of the setting. Saying otherwise is wrong. What's the matter with being wrong? These facts are the assumption on which other aspects of the setting are built. In this case, understanding the sovereignty of Mars as an empire and as a religious culture are crucial to understand the Moirae Schism.

Finally, please post a quotation from any GW or affiliate or licensed source declaring that SoB wear only black, white, and red.

I've never said FW is not "as legitimate" as studio fluff. I have said it operates on the same level, yet may present conflicting material. So please, if you do paraphrase me, don't try to twist the words in my mouth. Of course the category of "studio fluff" is completely arbitrary - that is why I have specifically pointed out that no-one else needs to adhere to it - you've even mentioned this in your second segment about my note concerning personal preferences, so what exactly happened here?

Anyways, it is just as arbitrary as going by "most recent first". Which is also why I have requested to clarify what sources we wish to take into account for the discussion, for they cannot all be right. My reasoning for not going by "most recent first" is simple: If you do this, you'll end up with hundreds of authors all adding their own ideas and opinions to the mix, which means your facts will change every time Black Library churns out another novel. My solution at least brings me a minimum of consistency, but of course that is just my opinion.
And yes, there is a contradiction, for when the Codex Imperialis notes that the AdMech only gained its Forge Worlds over the course of the Great Crusade rather than already having had possession of them, then this conflicts with the book you mentioned.

And again, if you think that what the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Adeptus Terra have are empires in their own right, then the same goes for the Adeptus Ministorum. I'm saying that the term "empire" for these realms is incorrect, for it implies a level of independence that neither of these groups truly has. I recognise, however, that this is debatable. In the end, I'm only saying that the AdMech is subject to the Emperor and, in his place, High Lords. Can we at least clarify that you do, or do not, agree on this? If the latter, I'd still like to hear some fluff on that, just like I have provided. Until then, this is just an opinion. Which is quite fine to have in this IP (just like if I truly would paint my Blood Angels blue and my Ultramarines red), but not quite what we were discussing here.

So, define a rule what this thread is about, which source trumps which, so that we actually have some common ground. As I said before, I'm okay with potentially discussing stuff on FW's terms - after all, I was interested in the Moirae Schism, and GW has next to nothing about it. Plus, the AdMech's origins do not interest me as much as what it is right "now". We just need to agree on what sources to use here.

Manchu wrote:Finally, please post a quotation from any GW or affiliate or licensed source declaring that SoB wear only black, white, and red.

"The uniforms of the Adepta Sororitas are based upon the original garments worn by the Daughters of the Emperor. The Orders of the Ebon Chalice and Valorous Heart display the colours of the original Convents, unchanged for 4.000 years. The other Orders continue this principle with only minor modifications to distinguish them on the battlefield. The Orders Militant make use of three main colours in the design of their uniforms; black, white and red."
- WD #211, 2E C:SoB

"Alternative colour schemes" are dealt with in WD #292 (SoB Painting Masterclass) in a special box bearing this name, which deals first with Minor Orders Militant inspired by their maternal Major Order ... and then going on discuss the alternative of simply doing what you want:
"Whether you decide to paint your Sisters of Battle in the uniform of one of the major convents, or want to create your own using the same heraldry, the same colours and techniques should still prove useful.
Of course, you may simply choose to use a whole new colour scheme from your own imagination. Here are a few examples of dramatically different colour schemes to get the inspiration flowing."

Oh, and I also do not agree on las rounds "ricocheting" off power armour as Imperial Armour suggests. That was a really weird thing to read.

The passage you quoted from Codex Imperialis does NOT say Mars "only gained its Forge Worlds over the course of the Great Crusade" -- it says "Mars became the hub for further space exploration throughout the solar system," with no time markers (except that we're talking about sometime after M22). Similarly, WD 211 does NOT say the Adpeta Soritas only wear white, black, and red. It says they "make use of [these] three main colours" with "minor exceptions" -- and there's no definition of minor exception. In both cases, you have added assumptions of your own to reach a certain conclusion. That's not bad EXCEPT that you aren't really making arguments so much as posting yet another italicized quotation and just assuming it means exactly whatever you already decided it does.

And what is this claim that limiting yourself to "studio fluff" brings you "a minimum of consistency." What does "minimum of consistency" even mean? If you want a minimum of consistency, why not just consider all fluff (including fan fiction) "legitimate" -- that will give you a real minimum. Did you actually mean "maximum" here? Because, if so, that's just another assumption. Have you measured and found a smaller contradiction-to-consistency ratio in the "studio fluff" than in the "studio fluff" considered alongside of the stuff in the FW books? As HBMC has stated, your arguments in that regard are merely anecdotal hyperboles. Again and again, you need reminding that there is much more agreement than disagreement on the level that matters to these discussions, i.e., the "facts" Gav Thorpe was talking about.

If you really think that FW is as acceptable as studio fluff, then you should have no trouble admitting that your objection to the quotation from HH Book 1 Betrayal above was incorrect.

Finally, on the issue of the AdMech being subject to the Emperor:

(1) the AdMech is an ally of the Emperor (hence treaty guaranteeing Martian sovereignty rather than conquest)

(2) the AdMech follows the Emperor as the Omnissiah

(3) the recognition of the Emperor as the Omnissiah combined with the treaty unifying Mars and Terra gives rise to the Imperium and the AdMech is subject (in the sense of a constituent part) to the Imperium which is personified by the Master of Mankind, the Emperor

(4) the Emperor being indisposed, he delegates his authority as Master of Mankind to the High Lords who, as a body (we don't actually know how they operate, so let's not make assumptions about majority votes here) rather than individuals, rule the Imperium -- although in practice they most rule Terra and reign over the rest of the Imperium

(5) historically, the Imperium is made of two empires; the religious instillation of only one of those empires has become so large and influential as to be comparable in scale and independence to the governments of the empires themselves; this does not make it a sovereign empire in the sense of Mars as per its treaty with the Emperor

Just to be clear, you have not provided any source which gainsays any of these points.

No, the passage I was referring to was the one I have already posted earlier, on page 5. I shall post it once more, this time highlighting the most important bit:

"Mars endured long centuries of isolation while anarchy tore at the ancient world of Earth. When the Emperor drew Mars back into the fold of the united Imperium, it had long since become a society very different to that of Earth's. [...] When the Emperor led mankind on the Great Crusade, the Titan Legions of the Adeptus Mechanicus marched alongside the Space Marines. As the Imperium expanded, the Adeptus Mechanicus took many worlds for themselves, planets which they settled and turned into the Mechanicus Forge Worlds."

Note how it even says "the Mechanicus Forge Worlds", not simply "Mechanicus Forge Worlds". The latter might leave a window of interpretation that there could be others, even though the CI passage I quoted on this page would render such possibility very, very slim.

To recap: What can be gleaned from the CI is that:
- Mars was the center for terran space exploration during the Dark Age of Technology
- Age of strife happens, warp storms happen, all the worlds are isolated from one another
- only now does the Cult Mechanicus actually emerge, due to the chaos that reigned on Mars (which suffered much worse instability than Earth)
- warp storms subside, Emperor goes up and strikes a deal with Mars, Imperium is born
- Great Crusade happens, Mars settles its Forge Worlds

Due to the nature of how this IP works, the above isn't gospel, and so is not in any way binding to anybody. That said, neither is FW's book, which leaves us at a dead end concerning this detail. Without common ground, we can only "agree to disagree".
And again: I don't even want to discuss this minor detail; it's not very important and interesting to me. I'm just doing it because I'm stubborn.

And no, the passage I quoted about the Adapte Sororitas does not mention any "exceptions", it mentions "minor modifications". That is a big difference and not even referring to the three-colour-limit but uniform patterns in general. As is clarified by the sentence that follows right after it:
"The Orders Militant make use of three main colours in the design of their uniforms; black, white and red."

Regarding the "minimum of consistency", I thought it would be self-explanatory, or at least could be gained from the saying about "too many cooks". The less many different authors you have adding to the world, the less contradictions do arise. In my personal experience, I simply have a way more consistent experience reading about the setting as the GW team wrote it up than if I'd go by what everyone writes. Which your alternative of "newer source overrides older" would come down to. Should I, for example, really believe that Space Marines run around with multilasers because Goto writes this in his novels? That book was, at one time, "the newest source", which in your mind should make it valid? No, that's just not how I could operate.

I don't need reminding that there is "much more agreement than disagreement", because that's something I know myself and never actually contradicted. I've been quoting Gav's blog on this subject again and again, so if you're throwing this back at me now it seems that we really have a bad case of miscommunication. Also, apparently you guys need reminding that there are way more contradictions between the material than you like to admit, for apparently it is surprising that I wish to limit my exposure to them?


And yes, I have provided sources to contradict the points you raised:
(1) The 6E rulebook, in the chart displaying the Imperial hierarchy, still shows the Adeptus Mechanicus being subject to the Emperor and the High Lords.
(3) Contradicts with your own first point.

As far as your fifth point is concerned, how about you provide any sources? I keep asking for them, but have yet to see anything. To my knowledge, there is nothing in the books (GW's at least) that in any way mentions the Imperium of M41 being made "of two empires", and neither does it talk about any differences regarding the networks of Forge Worlds of the Mechanicum and Shrine Worlds of the Ministorum. You don't even know what kind of treaty the High Lords (as the Emperor's representatives) made with the Ecclesiarchy that came to establish the concept of Shrine Worlds. This is, I think, the third time I'm asking you to provide some quotes on your theories, and just like I have delivered them I would welcome the courtesy of you returning this gesture.

@Lynata,

Your argument is based on the narrowest possible reading of a definite article but your grammar is not sufficient to the task. "I am going to the grocery store" does not imply that I am going to the only grocery store that exists. The word "the" it that sentence is nothing more than an abbreviation of a repetitive reference. I could rephrase it without losing any meaning as "I am going to a grocery store to which I am going." I have provided a source which explicitly says Mars colonized worlds on behalf of itself before the Emperor reunified Terra. You need to find a piece of fluff that says "Mars did not colonize other worlds before its treaty with the Emperor" before we have a contradiction. You haven't managed to do it so far.

As to the SOB issue: WD says two orders retained the colors of the "original convents" unchanged. There were originally only two orders. C:WH says that at the end of the Age of Apostasy, the Daughters of the Emperor "were split into two orders at the Convent Prioris on Terra and the Convent Sanctorum." These two were eventually split into two orders each by the Ecclesiarchy and the Ecclesiarchy also founded further orders later. The WD quotation tells us that the colors of the Ebon Chalice and Valorous heart were the colors of the Convents Sanctorum and Prioris. The quotation further tells us that the subsequent orders also retain the original colors (black, white, and red) with "minor modifications." No exclusive example or definition of "minor modifications" appears to be given ("you can only paint your Sisters like X if you want a fluffy army"). Therefore, is it possible that an order might use only some of the original colors? We don't know. The language is not specific enough. As to the FW "blue sisters," I admit that I can't actually speak to that because I don't have the source to hand nor do I even know what it is.

Assuming for a moment that the "blue sisters" are an example of a contradiction between FW and WD (without conceding that this is the case or even that the language of the WD article provides enough information for us to even know that -- because it does not say, "no Sisters anywhere under any circumstances have ever worn any colors other than or to the exclusion of black,white and red"), that still does not implicate all FW material as "suspect" in contrast to "studio fluff." I never said that contradictions would not be found. I only said that (1) contradictions exist at a very high threshold of explicit detail (statements should be read as far as possible to not contradict; thus there is no contradiction as with the fluff on Mars being sovereign) and (2) a personal standard such as "studio fluff takes priority" or "most recent = most accurate" is only applicable when a contradiction actually exists. Again, I don't currently have enough information about the Sisters issue to say whether a contradiction exists.

But, again, let's assume that a contradiction does occure -- but let's assume that it occurs within "studio fluff." Assume that a new Sisters codex is published showing Sisters who do not wear black, white, or red. Your preference for "studio fluff" could not resolve that contradiction. Mine, that more recent fluff trumps older fluff that it contradicts, does account for that. Since this has actually happened regarding "studio fluff," just not with regard to the specific issue of SoB colors, this is not a hypothetical but an actual example of my argument being better than yours. Fortunately, you have tried to give a counter example with C.S. Goto's books. So let's turn to that:

You often take the position that fluff is a perspective-driven account of some independently existing events. This is only appropriate when it is actually the case. I have described to you before why this is okay with some phrases in the Codex ("it is said that ..." type statements) but not for the usual style of BL novels. The reason is because the 40K setting as created through those novels does not have any existence independent from the novel itself. The novel is not a description of events; it is the events themselves. The events exist nowhere else but there, in the novel. Thus, those Space Marines in that particular situation did have access to multilasers. Whether or not the current codex allows SM players to take multilasers is immaterial. Until GW explicitly contradicts Goto's novels, by saying they are "heretical tomes" or saying that no Space Marines ever had access to multilasers, the "fact" remains that those Space Marines did in that instance. This is because there is no contradiction and therefore no reason to apply any personal standard of judgment -- except an aesthetic judgment. Perhaps you simply don't like the idea of Marines having multilasers. But so what? This is the equivalent of saying that you'd prefer if things happened differently than as described in the HH series of novels. That's fine, as long as we're talking only about your particular take on the 40k setting. It is immaterial when we talk about the published setting.

Now to "minimum consistency" a phrase which means "the minimum amount of consistency." If you wanted the minimum amount of consistency, you would include all fluff in your preferred analysis so that there would be the most (possible) contradictions. This is why I think you are actually looking for "maximum consistency," the least amount of contradictory sources. (Your own phrase is "apparently it is surprising that I wish to limit my exposure to [contradictions]?" so please, no more red herrings about me twisting your words.) But your standard, the "studio fluff" only approach, does NOT do this because there is no policy that codices and WD issues be more consistent with each other than with affiliate or licensed publications. Furthermore, there is no objective evidence that the contradiction-to-consistency ratio is lower when one only looks to "studio fluff" (without respect to publication date, as you insist) as opposed to when one also includes FW.

The BRB6E flow chart you posted does not have anything at all to say about whether Mars and Terra represent different empires. All it suggests is that Adeptus Terra, Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Ecclesiarchy together form the Imperium as subject to the High Lords. This has never been at issue in my posts. What I object to is your contention that this chart shows that to the extent that Mars and Terra represent "empires," the Ministorum also represents an "empire." I have explained many times that I am not using "empire" in this metaphorical sense but rather in the literal political sense. The Ecclesiarchy was not even formed at the foundation of the Imperium. The Martian empire, however, pre-exists the Imperium. I have provided a source that explicitly shows that the Emperor explicitly recognized this and guaranteed the continuing sovereignty of that Martian empire as a condition of its incorporation into the Imperium." You have not provided any source to the contrary. You have not provided any source that explicitly says this arrangement, the ancient treaty between the Parliament of Mars and the Emperor, was ever revised.

The best part is all the that threads go completely off the rails or at least threaten too and devolve into canon debates when Lynata does this. Also like 10% of the text posted by Lynata is dedicated to explaining his radical view of canon even when unchallenged on the matter. Remember, the best thing about a studio only policy: It provides simplicity....

Unfortunately, it really doesn't -- or at least not the good kind of simplicity. As Lynata mentioned, if you have a "studio only" policy and you want to know what the Moirae Schism is all about, it's as simple as this: you can't know (as of now). But she doesn't have a "studio only" policy. She has a, I believe, a "studio fluff" preference. This seems to mean that when there is evidence from a "non-studio source" to the contrary of one of her positions, she posts something like "We all know that Black Library writes lots of (conflicting) stuff when the day is long[" or "FW has published contradictory fluff before, and it still is a different team of designers/writers" along with quotations that allegedly show all these contradictions (but at least here, have not done so). It's not that there aren't contradictions; it's just that such contradictions also exist within the "studio fluff" and not necessarily at a lower rate than if we also include FW stuff in our analysis. So the "studio fluff" preference, while not as silly as the "studio only" policy, is still pretty silly. Neither one of them will give you a good understanding of the Moirae Schism -- at least at this time.

Wait, Lynata's a "she"? I refuse to believe that until a get a direct citation straight from the BRB: page and paragraph!

Manchu: Actually, your example about the grocery store supports my position. "The" grocery store indeed implies that there is only one. There could be more, but this is where we delve into context and need to consider the rest of the sentence - and when the source I provided mentions that the Forge Worlds were settled during the Great Crusade, then there aren't any others. This is similar to me saying "I built the grocery store" rather than "I built a grocery store", or "I built the Empire State Building" rather than "I built an Empire State Building". In both cases, the former means only one.

Moving on to SoB colours: From how I see it, this is clarified in the painting guide's section on "Alternative Colour Schemes", where it first talks about using compatible heraldry (for the Minor Orders) and then goes completely off the rails for people who want to let their fantasy go wild. But yes, an Order could choose to use only one or two of the three colours. In fact, some of the Major Orders do so. Obviously, a Minor Order's choice of colours would likely be the indicative of which connection it has to which of the six Major Orders.
As for the source, that was Imperial Armour vol. II - the Wh40k wiki has a scan of the Exorcist which was shown in that book's list.

I actually see your point regarding a supposed implication regarding any and all FW material to be "suspect", but you have to agree that it is still another team of writers, which means a high chance of a disconnect on certain details - just like with some Black Library novel author or other freelancers who may have forgotten about some really old GW source. I understand that all writers working on a licensed product have access to some sort of GW internal library where they can read any book ever published (at least that's the rumour I heard), but if they have no idea that fluff on the subject was ever published, they're not going to look for it. All the writers will have different levels of meticulousness concerning their research (see ADB's posts on the subject), but I imagine most will not bother to delve into the older books, not to mention individual issues of White Dwarf, rather being content with studying the Codex of whatever army their book is featuring.

And of course my own preference for fluff can resolve conflicts within the studio material, too. We all know that the studio has retconned a lot of stuff as well, so there are a (small) number of contradiction between most books - more, if we go all the way back to the Rogue Trader era. Yet I have never said that I hold each studio source sacrosanct and ultimate. That would truly not work, as you say. Instead, I simply turn to GW's material first, and if a conflict occurs there, then newer trumps older.

Regarding the Multilasers - are you truly trying to tell me that you actually do treat any and all sources ever published as being "true" now, even if the perception conveyed/evoked stands in contrast to the regular material? I can't believe we're back to this after the lengthy discussion in the other thread, after you agreed that "40k is not designed to be true in the sense of consistency".

As for "minimum of consistency", you again misunderstood what I was talking about. As a fan of the setting and a fluffnut, I have a thirst for consistency. You are correct in assuming that I'd love to get the maximum of consistency, yet what I meant was that the studio material is consistent enough to meet my requirements - it delivers "a minimum of consistency". Were I to add any and all BL/FW/FFG books to it, these minimum requirements would not be add anymore, hence I don't do it.

I also have a sort of "private" perception of the setting, where I "pick and choose" individual ideas from all of these other sources where I think the idea fits in nicely with the rest - but since this amalgamation is highly individual (being very specific in what it includes) I don't talk about it whenever discussing fluff with others here and limit myself to the much more generalised "GW only", even though I always try to add that it's not in any way binding, sometimes even mentioning the alternative interpretations (such as whenever I talk about the two Deathwatches).

Seriously, I think one of us or both of us fail at communicating with each other. I feel misunderstood and, worst of all, misquoted. Perhaps it is because English is not my native language, but I swear I never had this problem before. It's like that other thread all over again.
Example: all the back and forth about the AdMech not agreeing on the Emperor being a God - I never even talked about that, yet you kept bringing it up as if I suggested something else. Do I really fail so badly at bringing my position across? Or maybe it is that I somehow fail at understanding what you are trying to convey, like when you claimed that the Ministorum is hierarchically inferior to the Adeptus Mechanicus ... yet then a few posts later you "suddenly" didn't.

I remain adamant that my Codex Imperialis quote concerning the existence a Pre-GC "Martian empire" contradicts with your Horus Heresy quote. If we can't agree on there being a contradiction or not, then there really isn't anything more that we can do here.

Regarding the "Martian empire" <-> "Ministorum empire" ..

Definition of EMPIRE
1a: a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority; especially : one having an emperor as chief of state (2) : the territory of such a political unit
1b: something resembling a political empire; especially : an extensive territory or enterprise under single domination or control
2: imperial sovereignty, rule, or dominion
- http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empire

Both the Adeptus Mechanicus as well as the Adeptus Ministorum are political units having a number of territories or peoples. The Adeptus Mechanicus is sovereign from the Adeptus Terra (your "Terran empire" ), but so is the Ministorum. Both also have extensive territories under single domination or control. By both wordings of the first definition, you could say that the Adeptus Mechanicus is a sort of empire, but if you do, then the same goes for the Adeptus Ministorum.

At the same time, you can say that the Adeptus Ministorum is not an empire because it is not sovereign from the Imperium of Man as a whole, but again, the same goes for the Adeptus Mechanicus. Unless you think that the AdMech is not a part of the IoM, but from your own postings, you do.


KC has it right in pointing out that it's my fault that the thread was derailed, though. I'm not sure if there was anything else to add, but that does not really justify what happened. I'm not sure how I could prevent such escalation, except perhaps with not posting at all. If you think it would be better were I to simply withdraw from the thread, then I will do so. For what it's worth, at this point I do not think there is much left to talk about (from where I stand) anyways.

And is it really regarded as spam when I explain my position on "canon"? Keep in mind that I do this to solve potential issues and clear up a confusion that exists because a majority of fans have apparently not read the author explanations that I have quoted about a hundred times by now.

@Lynata,

A man who has built a thousand grocery stores could utter the sentence "I built the grocery store" without denying that he built the 999 others. The sentence you quoted simply doesn't function, or at least have to function, the way you are reading it. You want there to be a contradiction so, of the possible ways of reading the sentence, you have chosen the one that creates contradiction. Bad grammar doesn't make good arguments.

On SoB colors, I see black and white on that FW Exorcist -- so again no necessary contradiction even assuming the quotation you pulled gives us enough information to declare (since WD itself did not declare) that no Sisters ever dress in colors to the exclusion of (at least some of) the colors of the original Convents. And since you yourself concede that "an Order could choose to use only one or two of the three colours" (is there a quotation to back this up?), we thus don't have a necessary contradiction even according to you -- or would you still disagree?

As to different design teams, this is another non-starter. Your preference is for "studio material" and you have criticized me for my time-based approach. But you must know that the "studio team" has not been the same group of designers since 1987, right? Obviously so. So by your own measure -- asking "who is the design team?" -- your "studio fluff" preference doesn't measure up. So you have to turn to my standard (TBH, it's not really mine; I think most fans use the time-based standard) to deal with contradictions there. The "studio fluff" preference is still unwarranted. As I have been telling you, there are plenty of contradictions between "studio sources" and taking FW into account will not necessarily raise the contradiction-to-consistency ratio. You think your "studio fluff" preference gives you "a minimum of consistency" (which is still just saying "the maximum amount of consistency possible") but you simply can't prove that. I understand what you're thinking: more sources must mean more opportunities to make contradictions (and even that you haven't proven; it just seems like it should be true so you assume it is like a rule of thumb). This is why you are talking about "too many cooks." But you're forgetting that more sources also means more information. So we can't judge by the amount of contradictions. We need to talk about the ratio of contradictions to consistencies to judge whether or not the further information is worth it.

On Goto: I do agree that GW does not intend 40k to be a strict canon setting and that the company does not really care about consistency in fine-level detail. In the past, GW has not really shown much concern for even mid-level detail. Goto's books are often held up as the prime example, as you are doing now. But the company's policy is beside the point for two reasons. First, the company's attitude, whether you would agree with me that it is marketing-geared or not, does not substitute for the writers' attitudes. Of all the people writing for GW in the various capacities you can, I doubt you will find anyone with a greater respect for and knowledge of the lore of 40k than Alan Bligh, who wrote both the Badab books for FW as well as this first FW HH book. (FW has at least one interview vid posted with him. I highly recommend it.) Some, but hardly all, writers receiving checks from GW invest a lot into looking at those old sources. So you can't trot out the lackadaisical company-level attitude to prove that fans can't have a coherent sense of the setting based on the published material. Which brings me to the second reason -- we're not talking here about what GW wants the setting to be like but rather what the fans do with the setting as it is published. Regardless of whether GW has a strict or loose canon or anything else, us fans can talk about the setting beyond our own personal interpretations and preferences.

In the absence of GW regularly ruling on "what's in and what's out" all we can do is consider "everything in" until GW explicitly says otherwise or implies otherwise by publishing new products that explicitly contradict (as the saying goes, "recon") older information. That even applies to Goto's work. Like I said, it would be inconsistent to do otherwise -- and moreover the only real argument to not count Goto's works is because most people don't like them (or at least nod along with the meme). That standard, which relies entirely on personal preference, is simply not a good standard to guide what constitutes "everybody's 40k" instead of "your 40k" or "my 40k."

You keep saying I misquoted you so I have been taking quotations directly from your posts. If those quotations do not represent what you think on the subject, the issue is simply not with me "twisting" what you are saying. The Ministorum is hierarchically inferior to the Terran and Martian empire in the sense that it is a lower level of social organization. I dropped talking about those points because you didn't seem to understand them. You keep insisting I mean something like "the Ecclesiarchy takes orders from the Adeptus Terra" or "the Adeptus Mechanicus is not answerable to the High Lords." No no no. What I mean is that the Adpetus Mechanicus governs the Martian empire that the Emperor guaranteed sovereignty as part of the Imperium. And the Adpetus Terra governs the Terran empire. The Ecclesiarchy is simply the state church of the Terran empire. It is not its own empire any more than the Administratum is it's own empire.

It does not matter how adamant you remain regarding your mistaken analysis of English grammar. Invincible ignorance remains ignorance. The quotation from Codex Imperialis that you presented simply does not have anything to say about whether or not Mars colonized worlds before the Emperor unified Terra. It doesn't even control the argument as to whether Mars is an empire in the literal sense by contrast to the Ecclesiarchy. Your appeal to authority regarding the word "empire" is also unconvincing. The sense in which the Ministorum could be called an empire is the sense in which most major American banks could be called empires, i.e., a purely metaphorical sense. After all, those banks control both people and territories. The Martian empire, whether it existed as a planetary empre or (as the published GW material explicitly remarks) as an inter-system empire, it was still an empire in the literal sense. It was and is an independent political unit that pre-existed the Imperium. It was incorporated into the Imperium as a sovereign state and on condition that it remained a sovereign state. This is why it is subject only to the Emperor and the body of leaders of which it is itself a member.

Now that last part can also be said of the Ecclesiarchy. But it's history is completely different. It was not a pre-existing empire. The Temple of the Savior Emperor is said to have originated on Terra, right under the noses of the Adeptus Terra. The adherents of the Imperial Cult are not citizens of the Ecclesiarchy. They are the citizens of the Terran empire. Its tremendous power and influence make the Ecclesiarchy "like unto" an empire, in the same sense we can liken American banks unto empires, but it's still just a metaphor. When we speak of Mars, it is NOT just a metaphor.

The argument that you and I (and formerly KC) have been having has actually made me understand this topic whereas at first I had no understanding of it at all. If you look on page 1, a few posters explained it to me but I still did not really understand until we went through all this. I posted this a few pages back. So I consider all of this, including the argument about canon (because I think you have to have a certain understanding of canon to understand the setting -- the Moirae Schism being a prime example), completely and totally ON-TOPIC. Also, your expression of your views on canon is certainly not spam; or at least not in this instance.

You both might find this link useful

http://www.gamehobby.net/subject_indexes/subject_epic_40k.html

Scroll down to the Adeptus Mechanicus section and it has a fair bit of information there.

Thanks for that! I have wanted to refer to it, knowing Mr. Bligh would have seen it and used it when writing HH Book 1 Betrayal, but had not been able to find the text.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As to the situation "at present":

Rick Priestly wrote:Over the following millennia the people of Earth and Mars would march forward together, welded into one mighty Imperium, yet distinctly different societies with their own governments and institutions.

[...]

The Forge Worlds and Knight Worlds remain fiercely loyal to their Martian masters. Their industry and their tithes are to the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Techno-Magi of the Cult Mechanicus. Where other human worlds in the Imperium are part of the feudal empire controlled by the Administratum of the Adeptus Terra on Earth, the Adeptus Mechanicus retains direct ownership of its own territories. Thus the Forge Worlds and the Knight Worlds owe no obligations to the Adepts of Earth. They raise no regiments for the Imperial Guard and they pay no tithes to the treasury. They are not answerable to the Adeptus Terra but to the Adeptus Mechanicus. Only the Inquisition has jurisdiction in their territories, and there are no worlds in the Imperium where those warriors of righteousness may not walk freely.

Manchu:

I'm sorry, but still I don't see how that sentence is "not functioning" the way I am reading it. In the context of the quote, the Forge Worlds refers to all of them. If it is just referring to some, the article would be incorrect and a prefix like "several" or "some" would be more fitting.

If you really see black and white on that FW Exorcist, I kindly ask another Dakkanaut to confirm the colour they see on the vehicle. There's a reason the FW-invented Order has the name it does, and it is evident on the tank's paintjob.

Regarding an Order's colours ... once again it seems I don't get what you are saying. To recap: As per Codex fluff, the Orders Militant use the colours white, black and red in any combination thereof. Last time I checked, the colour blue is neither white, black, nor red, but a colour of its own, separate and visibly distinct from the others.

And why should I turn to "your" time-based approach? Yes, it's true that the studio team has changed over the last couple decades (and I think many of the retcons happened due to a "change in consensus balance" resulting from this) - yet it has not changed completely. Regardless of what you say, you must agree that bringing Forgeworld, FFG or Black Library into the mix will invariably increase the number of different authors and their individual interpretations even further, and thus the possibility of conflicting info. This has nothing to do with proof, this is simple common sense: more people means more opinions. And at the end of the day, I also think that GW is at the core of the franchise, and will establish more conventions that other authors may feel compelled to follow, which they would not feel as obliged to do if it was "just" one of their fellow freelancers.

I do not "consider everything in" because, frankly, I have seen way too much stuff that conflicts with what I've read in GW's own books. As I suggested in another thread, perhaps you have simply yet to see the right amount of inconsistencies that pushes you past your threshold.

To go back to the Multilaser example: If GW would suddenly publish a new Space Marine Codex where multilasers become the standard weapon, you can bet that a lot of new novels and computer games would adopt this stance. Yet see what happens when a single novel from a single author is released with fluff like that? Nothing.
In fact, I even have a good example for this influence, for Swallow tweeted that he delayed his Hammer & Anvil novel because of GW's new Necron fluff. In contrast, look at ADB's blog, on what he has to say about not including X from novel Y.

Regarding your opinion on Alan Bligh - regardless of my enjoyment for his writing style, your opinion that a fan's "respect for and knowledge of 40k" and "coherent sense of the setting" overrides GW's own lack of consistency enforcement across the material does not hold up to realism. Call it a business decision if you will, but in the end, it still dictates that each of the many sources of fluff exists chiefly for itself, and that it is up to the fans if and how they want to bring it together. Gav Thorpe and ADB have both explained this in detail. You may think that author X and book Y are cool and a great addition, but this too is merely your personal opinion and not indicative of any standard, or at least you should not treat it as such.

On to the "empires" thing ...

You can't just make up words. I have posted the definition of what an "empire" is, and either both the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ministorum fit the bill, or neither does. You keep going back to what the Mechanicus was before the unification, and that the Ministorum came after the Emperor's "Ascension", when both these things are completely irrelevant to the matter at hand:
The 6E Chart shows that the Adeptus Ministorum is not subject to the Adeptus Terra, and neither are its Shrine Worlds. This is similar to the Adeptus Mechanicus, and just like the Adeptus Mechanicus are the technicians of the "terran empire", the Ministorum are its clerics. Both the AdMech and the Ecclesiarchy have duties on the many worlds administered by the Adeptus Terra, yet their Forge Worlds and Shrine Worlds exist apart from it, as they are located below their respective organisations rather than falling into the jurisdiction of the Adeptus Terra.
I also do not know of any American bank that owns sovereign territory, so your example does not hold up.

By the way, actually the chart is a retcon itself - the Mechanicus used to be a part of the Adeptus Terra back in the Codex Imperialis. I imagine the new version fits better to your interpretation?

And no, on the issues I feel misunderstood you have not quoted but misquoted me. Just like you have even misrepresented your own opinion when you first posted about the Ministorum being "hierarchically subordinate" to the AdMech (and the AdTerra), then claimed that you never said this, and now you're back to your first statement. I actually understand (or so I believe) what you are trying to say right now, but ... seriously, if you do not mean a relationship of authority, then do not use the term "hierarchically". A hierarchy is about superiors and subordinates. The word you were looking for might be "organisationally", though even then the whole point you raised makes no sense, as the type of an organisation does not automatically grant such a specific level of power or influence (as we have seen from the Imperium's own history and the rivalry between the various different adepta).

Either you are using very weird ways in trying to explain what you mean (same as with your understanding of what an "empire" is and is not), or you just don't want to admit that some of your posts in this thread contained stuff that in retrospect you think are wrong. Either way, between the two of us, there just seems to be something broken. With other dakkanauts, even those very few I don't get along with, I am at least able to establish where each of us stands...
I will take my supposed ignorance and implied stupidity and leave this thread alone. The way I see it, there is nothing good that can come out of it at this point and I'm kind of fed up with the debate. Apologies for the waste of time; I'll try to keep the lesson learned from this escalation in mind for future debates.


Pilau Rice: Thank you for linking such a valuable source. This is actually something I can work with, and which overrides some of my earlier positions - especially as it is a newer source than the CI. I'll adapt this into my perception of the setting.

Now this thread was useful to me.

@Lynata,

Is Mars a Forge World? Clearly yes, it is. Therefore, a reference to the worlds that Mars settled after the Imperium expanded cannot refer to all the Forge Worlds. If the grammar eludes you at least try to be logical.

The Exorcist appears to have white and blue armor with black heraldry. The sister pictured appears to be wearing white armor with blue cloth and black heraldry. So, it's black and white and blue. I've looked at the picture on three different monitors. What is your damage?

The current design team has changed since Fifth Edition much less since twenty six years ago. You keep distinguishing between "the studio" and freelancers as if the studio is anything other than a group of employees who come and go, get promoted, change their minds about the setting, respond to disparate pressures from management, and write differently from year to year. I have already explained to you several times why the mere possibility of more contradictions is not enough to discount more information. You can re-read those posts and actually pose questions or counterarguments rather than weak appeals to "common sense."

And no one is disavowing that the studio team is not the most influential party. The primary goal of GW is to sell miniatures. The only reason there is any fluff at all is that it helps to achieve that goal. This was also the original goal of BL. But now BL sells books at an astonishingly good rate, far outstripping the number of people who regularly shell out dollars for models. And so BL is becoming a more influential source now -- at least regarding what it sells best, the HH novels. And that is already having an effect on FW's products.

You are going into left field regarding Bligh. I didn't say he was the standard. I said he's an example of how you can't use the company's policy as a standard to talk about all writers being equally unconcerned about consistency. Big difference. Talk about twisting words.

About empires, I didn't make up a word. You posted a definition of a word that you apparently don't understand. And reading the definition apparently did not help you to understand it. What the Adpetus Mechanicum "was" is completely relevant to the subject because the Adpetus Mechanicum has not changed. For the thousandth time: the Emperor found a sovereign Martian empire and incorporated a sovereign Martian empire into the Imperium. Mars could remain sovereign because it was sovereign to begin with. I'm glad you finally spotted the problem with calling things like churches and banks empires -- namely, they aren't sovereign. Sadly, you managed to understand this about banks but then stopped short of realizing it about churches.

This is exactly why, by the way, I talked about hierarchy in the first place and then stopped talking about it after you got severely confused. And here you are again, doing the exact same thing again, telling me that I am talking about authority just because I used the word hierarchy. Hierarchy is about vertical STRUCTURE, not necessarily vertical authority. This is apparent in the meaning of hierarchical-relational terminology: "inferior" or "subordinate" means "below" or "at a lower level" or "secondary to" and NOT necessarily "under the command of." This isn't a "weird way" to use English; these are the proper meanings of these words. Since you don't already know them you might take this opportunity to learn them. This post is not the first time I have explained it to you. And now you even admit to understanding what I mean but for the sake of argument you still criticize it. I call that bad faith, just like getting a quotation from a FW book that contradicts your position and then criticizing FW as unreliable.

I cannot agree with your sentiment about escalation. Whereas you feel that you have gained little, I feel that I have gained a lot. If you have gained little, perhaps it is because your method of understanding the fluff is too narrow to accomplish much. As always, I encourage you to revise your position. I think you will find the background more satisfying that way. That isn't meant as a barb, either, as I'll explain:

It is a shame this thread has only been useful to you inasmuch as you have discovered a 19-year-old article in WD that says nothing about the Moirae Schism and that you still insist on disavowing current sources for arbitrary reasons. We have covered so much ground, even if we've covered the same ground many times, that I feel like I have learned a lot about the 40k setting. Most importantly, I have learned that, as a matter of the constitution of the Imperium, the Emperor's titles cannot be conflated with one another. That is the central point of the Moirae Schism: the idea that the Omnissiah could also be the God-Emperor threatened the Cult Mechanicus because it would mean acknowledging the God-Emperor's existence and therefore the authority of the Ecclesiarchy, which would in turn threaten Martian sovereignty. And that sovereignty, guaranteed by the Emperor in his treaty with Mars, is a cornerstone of the Imperium itself. In that sense, the Moirae Schism was a threat to the Imperium itself.

And understanding that has given me greater insight into both the Nova Terra Interregnum and the Ecclesiarchy. The Ur-Council was able to secede from Terra precisely because the Ecclesiarchy was hobbled by the Apdetus Mechanicus and others in M34 and M35. The Nova Terra Interregnum shows how important the Ecclesiarchy is to the stability of the Terran empire and so also the hierarchically superior Imperium. Thus, by the end of M35, after avoiding its own secession crisis -- which was only possible because of the chaos of the Terran secession crisis -- Mars would have been less able and less eager to oppose the Ecclesiarchy. Lo and behold, in the absence of Martian opposition, the Ecclesiarchy became more powerful than it had ever been and launched of its own accord the War of Faith that destroyed the Ur-Council and reunified the Terran empire -- and thus also the Imperium.

Furthermore, understanding this let's you understand what happens next -- the Age of Apostasy. Why was the Ecclesiarchy so powerful in those days? How was Goge Vandire able to unify the Administratum and Ecclesiarchy? Why was he ultimately unsuccessful? Understanding Martian sovereignty and the crucial role of the Ecclesiarchy in the unity of the Imperium are necessary to understand the Age of Apostasy. And going even further in the timeline, understanding the independence of the Ecclesiarchy in more recent epochs is contingent upon understanding the crises created by Goge Vandire. It is fascinating that such a huge, powerful institution like the Imperium is so fragile -- it relies entirely on the delicate balancing of unity and independence, authority and sovereignty -- and so its structure must be "gothic." So now I've gotten an insight into the broadest aesthetic elements of the setting. Pretty productive, I'd say.

If you open your mind to the sources and sift through them reasonably, using rigorous rather than merely arbitrary "rules" of interpretation, you can really start to enjoy the scope of the published setting. But you don't have to, if that's not the sort of thing you like. You can always paint your Blood Angels blue. I'm not going to come to your house and stop you or even take down any pics you have on Dakka. But you will never get me to agree with you that Blood Angels are blue.

Regarding machine spirits... they are AI, we all know that.
But I have question about praying to them and to the machine itself...
If Orks believe that their guns can work they are working, when Sisters of Battle are praying for Emperor's help they get Act's of Faith. So could it be that majority of Imperium's machines are working because Techpriests are believing they should because they are praying to them?

The Machine Spirits seems to be semi-sentient. I mean they basically need prayer as much as anything because as I see it, load your laspistol wrong a few times too many and the weapon is happy to blow up in your face.

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:
So could it be that majority of Imperium's machines are working because Techpriests are believing they should because they are praying to them?

It is possible. But I think the consistent explanation for this has been that mankind simply doesn't know how advanced technology works. In M41, we know that "when I say these prayers while anointing the cogs with this sacred oil, the machine spirit is placated," e.g., the machine works. They think the prayers are effective because they pray every time the do a thing and remember the times that it works. Whenever it doesn't work, they assume they did the ritual incorrectly. It's the same with any superstition. People take a good luck charm to exams or competitions. They seem to honestly believe that having a rabbit's foot or what have you in their pocket gives them a better chance of succeeding or otherwise performing well. Some people don't believe there is a direct causal relationship between the charm and the result but they still carry the charm because it makes them feel better and if they feel better they might able to focus better and so perform better. Maybe some Tech Priests have that mentality. But they are usually presented as seeing the prayer itself, along with the oil and incense, as a necessary element to "placating the machines spirit," i.e., repairing or operating whatever machine.

 Beaviz81 wrote:
The Machine Spirits seems to be semi-sentient.

It's possible that "machine spirit" doesn't actually refer to AI much less only semi-sentient or sentient AI. The Infantryman's Primer, for example, speaks of the machines spirit of a lasrifle.

Yeah even the simple lasrifle has a Machine Spirit. For me it's fun actually thinking that a weapon might fail you if you reload it too harshly, and I have seen that in practice with shotguns. So I base my belief in real life experiences. And with semi-sentient I mean they have an animalistic intelligence, it's stated at both Lexicanum and 40kwikia. Also it's fun to think of it in that way, and I can avoid thinking the Tech Priests as idiots.

 Manchu wrote:

And no one is disavowing that the studio team is not the most influential party. The primary goal of GW is to sell miniatures. The only reason there is any fluff at all is that it helps to achieve that goal. This was also the original goal of BL. But now BL sells books at an astonishingly good rate, far outstripping the number of people who regularly shell out dollars for models.

Really? I posted about this a while ago. I wondered if GW overall sold more platic or paper. Is there some data you've discovered that they are making more off the paper nowadays?

Don't pay attention to Lexicanum but rather to the sources it sites. Don't pay attention at all to the 40k Wiki. 40k Wiki is chock full of fan fiction. Lexicanum doesn't have this, as far as I've seen, and the information often turns out to be good, but as Lynata has pointed out, they just post the information up without any or only very limited discussion of possible contradictions. Lexicanum, like Wikipedia, is the place to start learning but you need to go elsewhere to form conclusions.

There's basically two types of Machine Spirits. Non-Sentient AIs (Mass Effect would call them VIs. Sentient AI is illegal) and the superstition of Machine Spirits. Future humans do not make this distiction because they can't. For example an unmanned Land Raider will shoot heretics because it has a Machine Spirit (an actual computer program). A Lasgun also shoots heretics when you pull the trigger so people think that must also be because of its "Machine Spirit". However it does not have any kind of AI Program. In the grim darkness of the 41st millenium people can no longer tell what makes a machine work and attribute everything to spirits and other supernatural phenomenom.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
And no one is disavowing that the studio team is not the most influential party. The primary goal of GW is to sell miniatures. The only reason there is any fluff at all is that it helps to achieve that goal. This was also the original goal of BL. But now BL sells books at an astonishingly good rate, far outstripping the number of people who regularly shell out dollars for models.

Really? I posted about this a while ago. I wondered if GW overall sold more platic or paper. Is there some data you've discovered that they are making more off the paper nowadays?

No and that wasn't my claim. My claim is that more people buy books than regularly buy models. The claim is cased on the books being sold in every B&N in every town and selling so well that they are (or at least were) consistently NYT Best Sellers -- compared to miniatures wargaming being a niche, low-visibility hobby. I don't know if BL makes more money than GW. I'd guess not because, at least for now, BL books cost a lot less than Citadel miniatures. When the HH books start selling for more than a codex, you'll know that profits on fiction have superseded profits on models. I can hear it now, "these are the Porches of sci-fantasy fiction."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@KC: Yep, computers and lasguns are both said to have Machine Spirits. But I don't think Tech Priests distinguish between them. Might be cool if they did. If I wrote for BL, I'd arrange the types of Machine Spirits into an elaborate series of categories like the angelic choirs: thrones, dominions, seraphin, cherubim, etc, etc.

 Manchu wrote:

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
And no one is disavowing that the studio team is not the most influential party. The primary goal of GW is to sell miniatures. The only reason there is any fluff at all is that it helps to achieve that goal. This was also the original goal of BL. But now BL sells books at an astonishingly good rate, far outstripping the number of people who regularly shell out dollars for models.

Really? I posted about this a while ago. I wondered if GW overall sold more platic or paper. Is there some data you've discovered that they are making more off the paper nowadays?

No and that wasn't my claim. My claim is that more people buy books than regularly buy models. The claim is cased on the books being sold in every B&N in every town and selling so well that they are (or at least were) consistently NYT Best Sellers -- compared to miniatures wargaming being a niche, low-visibility hobby. I don't know if BL makes more money than GW. I'd guess not because, at least for now, BL books cost a lot less than Citadel miniatures. When the HH books start selling for more than a codex, you'll know that profits on fiction have superseded profits on models. I can hear it now, "these are the Porches of sci-fantasy fiction."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@KC: Yep, computers and lasguns are both said to have Machine Spirits. But I don't think Tech Priests distinguish between them. Might be cool if they did. If I wrote for BL, I'd arrange the types of Machine Spirits into an elaborate series of categories like the angelic choirs: thrones, dominions, seraphin, cherubim, etc, etc.

Those hardcover HH books are certainly a clue aren't they? However I was including codexes, magazines and rulebooks as paper too. Note how codexes are $60 hardcover behemeths too. I really think GW Corporate makes more on what the publish than mold.

That angel ranks are a really cool idea but that would prove techpriests actually understand how their stuff works. I don't think they do...

Yeah I often questions the 40k wikia's canon. Too freely guarded content. The fluff-rules there seems to be in the Guards Must Be Crazy-territory. It can make for a hilarious read from time to time though. But the Wikipedia and Lexicanum-thingy was a good comparison Manchu. In my mind Lexicanum is right at about 90% of the cases, maybe more.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
That angel ranks are a really cool idea but that would prove techpriests actually understand how their stuff works.

Good point! It's probably best to keep it all streamlined so you can tell they don't really know what the mechanical difference is between a calculator and a pencil sharpener. All praise the Omnissiah!

Retribution Class Battleships and staplers all deserve the Machine God's love equally. Praise him!