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I think you mean, the Retribution Class Stapler, right? Mars Pattern or Lucius Pattern?

Sounds like something Abaddon might try to steal.

Administratum Class of course.

Abbaddon comes along to steal staplers? Hm, I was under the impression he wasn't a Demon Prince, for not enough Black Crusades.

But staplers works as well, and he want Creed's

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Administratum Class of course.

No, all 40k office supplies must be suitably GrimDark. Therefore, we have the things like the Retribution Class Stapler or the Centaur Assault Post-It. You know, I get that Mars made a lot of Titans before becoming part of the Imperium but I wonder if they really understood just how many weapons the Emperor wanted and how much of their time it was going to take up making them for the rest of forever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Beaviz81 wrote:
Abbaddon comes along to steal staplers?

After 13 Black Crusades, with only one marginal success, you learn to aim low.

Which was that again?

You'll want to speak with Mr. Iracundus on that issue.

The issue of Mars "forgetting" technology is also probably an issue to do with its sovereignty. Mars remained sovereign because the Emperor needed its production capabilities. And I'm sure it's kept this status for 10,000 years, despite the rise of the Ecclesiarchy, in part because of its monopoly on technological knowledge. But as that knowledge degrades and real understanding is replaced with superstitious rituals, there may be some conscious and/or unconscious anxiety about losing the basis for its independence. Hence the notorious secrecy of Tech Priests. Fortunately for the Tech Priests, no one else in the Imperium has managed to learn anything while they have been forgetting things.

 Manchu wrote:

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Administratum Class of course.

No, all 40k office supplies must be suitably GrimDark. Therefore, we have the things like the Retribution Class Stapler or the Centaur Assault Post-It. You know, I get that Mars made a lot of Titans before becoming part of the Imperium but I wonder if they really understood just how many weapons the Emperor wanted and how much of their time it was going to take up making them for the rest of forever.

There is nothing more grimdark in the universe than a normal office in The Administratum!!! In Eisenhorn, when they try to infiltrate one, it's the scariest thing I've ever read. Monotony Pattern? Bureacracy Class? It's all too much!

I take it more to do with the STCs than anything, and they are re-learning it, but it happens in an incredibly slow rate. It's much like the Eldar, they also have to re-learn what they have forgotten eaons ago, and such ain't gonna happen quickly. For example, the Romans invented concrete, it took 400 years after the fall of Byzants to re-learn that piece of knowledge.

Are they really re-learning? Seems like they are forgetting even as they find "new" things. They discover some lost piece of technology. Perhaps three thousand years ago, they might have remembered what it is.

I would think it mostly has to do with fear of chaos. As a.C. Clarke said, suffienctly advanced technology is no longer distinguishable from magic. In this setting, as certain technologies are manipulating the warp which is the origin of magic, you can take that for word. Now, when the basic knowledge that led to the technology you use and reproduce has been lost, and you fear you might tap into chaos when going too far while researching, stagnation is ensured.

Still new technology is coming, the hotshot lasguns f.ex. the Conqurer cannon and such. The IOM has had some developments over the millennias Manchu, so I take the stance they are re-learning and inventing new stuff, but it happens slowly as the humans are on their technological limit it seems, and the constant war means they can't consolidate their gains, much like the late Roman Empire. Chaos also comes into play as Hruotland mentions.

I'm pretty sure it's because the first STCs they lost during the Old Night was for the stapler and Vengeance Class Paperclip. Without the powers of collation humanity deteriorated rapidly.

@Hruotland: Great point! I'd say Clarke's point applies to 40k in a very literal way. That's why understanding the AdMech's "religion" is so problematic. It's not what we mean by "religion" in our own place and time.

@Beaviz: You got me there, they have made new things rather than just re-discovering old ones.

Predator Annihilator is also a "new" technology. Invented by, of all people, the Spae Wolves, IIRC.

In any case, while the Imperium does (rarely) invent new technologies/configurations of old technologies/recover lost technology, the general idea of the whole Grimdarkness of the setting ensures that it happens at a far slower rate than it loses preciously known technology.
This due in no small part to the Imperium's medieval mindset and the AdMech's secrecy and slooooow acceptance of new technologies.

Concerning the middle ages, they were in no way as suppressive and conservative (in the original sense, not politically) as they are viewed today, expecially in technological matters. For example, gothic architecture was a quantum leap in construction, the mechanical mill is an invention of the middle ages, ships construction was continuously developing, e.g. the invention of the central rudder. Even in medicine, although there was much restriction, big steps toward modern times were made. In mining, inventions like a mechanical elevator system were made. Weapon technology like fire arms were introduced, and so on...
It was the rennaissance when people used to think of the middle ages as a time of stagnation and their epoch as the modern times who closed the gap to the sciences and arts of the antique. In truth they were earning the fruits that had been raised in that "dark time".
The repressive mind set of the IoM should more be compared to later .e.g baroque aera, when the catholic church tried to maintain it's slipping grip onto the world with suppression, while the reformation party was no less eager to violently eradicate contradiction. (the process against Galilei, inquisition, excessive witch hunting by catholics and protestants alike, 30 years war...)

Well, the idea that Earth is the centre of galaxy and universe seems to have made a come back.

 Hruotland wrote:
The repressive mind set of the IoM should more be compared to later

While I generally agree with your view of the medieval ages, I think it's best not to go down this path in the 40k Background section for reasons already stated ITT. If you want to discuss history, you can do so (hopefully without reference to Warhammer 40k) in the OT Forum. If we want to talk about the hagiographical influences on 40k, we need to do it with specific references to designers (e.g., hypothetically, "Rick Priestly said he was fascinated by the Black Legend of the Inquisition ...").

It is sort of hard to discuss WH40k in depth without looking at actual history, Basically GW took any history they liked and hijacked it, and sure I'm a tad insecure how history bounds up with the subject being how the Ecclessiarchy and the Tech Priests ends up allying to avoid a schism, but it seems oddly familiar with how the Catholics and Orthodox Christians split up. Plus with a MOD onboard I'm quite certain we can keep the discussion from spiraling out of control.

It really isn't hard to discuss 40k without reference to actual history. Unlike many sci-fi settings, all the important events of 40k happen so long after IRL history that IRL history is totally irrelevant.

Also, GW's employees did not just hijack history itself. They hijacked certain viewpoints about history. You can't just look at a table. You look at a table in the light. The color of the light influences what you perceive as the color of the table. Same thing for history, except the light in question is much more complicated. The light we look at history in is, for example, full of all kinds of prejudices and ignorance. This is problematic enough generally but it becomes especially problematic when using a fictional setting to evaluate history or vice versa. The prejudices and gaps lead to making correlations that are not supported by facts -- and can be very insulting: not just insulting to, for example, Catholics like myself, but to anyone who has an inkling of how important real history is. When you hear someone say "the Germans fought the Mexicans in WW1," you're not offended as a German or a Mexican but as person who knows something and is listening to people who don't know that thing but assume they do.

The comparison of the Ecclesiarchy with any IRL religious institution is preemptively offensive. The Ecclesiarchy is a symbol that absolutely stands for, among other things, corruption and oppression. There is no meaningful way you can lightly compare this absolutist symbol with anything in the real world. This is similar to the way people use the words "murder" and "rape" to talk about games. "I murdered him at Tekken" or "I got raped in that poker game" lack a sense of proportionality. Comparing 40k with real life, except as an obvious joke that plays on the disproportionality, is just as inappropriate.

Let me put it another way: every comparison between 40k and real life I've seen makes it clear that the person didn't really understand one or the other or both. It is always much more silly and mean than it is illuminating.

Oh i would never have compared IRL to wh40k. but events in wh40k based on history is free game for me (and my understanding of the event if details from GW is not available). Many things are so based upon something historical that a comparison for me is invetiable. Like f.ex. the ongoing discussion of where the guys from Armageddon are based upon. Based upon is different than comparing my life to someone else's in the 42nd millennia.

We fought the mexicans in ww1? Whoa! Did we defeat them?

Jokes aside, Manchu, I agree with you considering GW crew hijacked certain points of view about history, mostly important, they did cobble together lots of pieces and images, instead of just copying one thing. It just often seems very easy to make one's point about 40k (or fwh) by pointing out the resemblances to rl history. The problem starts when the disputers each have their own point of view which facet of history (or historical cliché) seems the dominating one.


Well, concerning the mention of the catholic church, I hope you understand 1. I am aware of the fact that we talk about clichè, not fact in history, 2. I am aware that the catholic church of 1600 was another one than the catholic church of today, embedded in a world where intolerance and opression were the norm with every power 3. I am aware that e.g. in Germany, by far the most witches were burnt in the protestant states, and au contraire to those poor victims, with the catholic inquisition the accused actually had a chance of being aquitted, which frequently happened.

I do not want to start a sidediscussion about influences in the 40k universe here, as you said, there is enough other space about that. But things like this will always pop up, just because there are so much images of rl history composed into the setting. How to handle that, then? E.g. start a new thread and just post a link to it?

I think this thread is perfectly fine to discuss the influences that led to creating the AdMech. But I think doing so requires research and not just superficial correlations. For example, the Inquisition of 40k is nothing like the Inquisition of Spain but it is like the Spanish Inquisition in certain English propaganda during the English reformation. But I am very suspect of how useful this kind of thread will be because people inevitably start chucking in opinions that are poorly informed or driven by modern day prejudices. For this reason, I think a blog or PMs are the better format for such a discussion. I'm not saying I would lock the thread. I have not written in orange text anywhere ITT. I am merely speaking as another member and not as a moderator when I request that any discussion of history not be based on the crude, absolutist fluff of 40k.

Oh wonders, oh wonders, miracles happen and I indeed come back to the topic of the relationship of mechanicum and rest of IoM. It seems largely established now in this discussion, that the clamp connecting the terran and the martian powers is solely the emperor, and that since their submission under his rule as the Omnissiah the AM has uphold its internal independence. The question how strongly they are embedded into the rulership of the Lords of Terra as the emperor's representatives/proxies/will fullfilling servants is a difficult one, but it might be that inside of the setting there are indeed different points of view with different factions of the IoM. It is well known and broadly established fact that the AM claims monopoly on technical development and any technological activity must only happen when licenced by the red-ragged cyborgs.
Yet what kind of juristiction do they have outside their forge worlds? Are they granted any authority on "terran" ground? (as opposed to the forge worlds under martian jurisdiction) In the end it might be that not even does terra not have mars under control, but vice versa, like the navigators guild was controlling the empire in "Dune" in the beginning via monopoly...

any discussion of history not be based on the crude, absolutist fluff of 40k

And this I will wholeheartly sign. That way is completely wrong direction.

I have never said I regard history through the absolutist way of WH40k. rather the other way around. I use history frequently to fill in the blanks. But yeah the people of the thread have been mature, polite and even quite funny despite that this thread changes nature more often than the Changer of Ways.

 Hruotland wrote:
It seems largely established now in this discussion, that the clamp connecting the terran and the martian powers is solely the emperor, and that since their submission under his rule as the Omnissiah the AM has uphold its internal independence.

Agreed. After seeing that 19-year-old WD article, even Lynata would have to finally agree, all pride aside.

 Hruotland wrote:

Yet what kind of juristiction do they have outside their forge worlds? Are they granted any authority on "terran" ground? (as opposed to the forge worlds under martian jurisdiction) In the end it might be that not even does terra not have mars under control, but vice versa, like the navigators guild was controlling the empire in "Dune" in the beginning via monopoly...

Yes, that is it exactly. This is what I meant when I wrote to Lynata about the huge, powerful, monolithic Imperium actually being very fragile and requiring a very delicate balance of independent agencies trying to dominate one another. The only way that Mars can ensure its independence, since groups like the Ecclesiarchy clearly do not care what the Emperor actually did or said, is by maintaining its monopoly on technology and manufacturing AND using that monopoly to influence and to some extent dominate the Terran empire. So what authority does the Martian empire have on Terran ground? Ask yourself this, what happens when your Leman Russ MBT breaks down?

Let me ask more specifically: consider there is a technoheresy on a planet, the government not involved. Who will round up the heretics, will the AM request/order the governor to do so, or are they granted to send their skitarii whereever they want? This would be an interesting index to answer the question how much their domination through monopol actually is.

Techno-Heresy would be up to the judgement of the Tech-Priest hanging around on the planet. Then the Arbites would with IG-reinforcements round up everyone involved, and that's in 99,9% of the cases ends the story.

 Hruotland wrote:
Let me ask more specifically: consider there is a technoheresy on a planet, the government not involved. Who will round up the heretics, will the AM request/order the governor to do so, or are they granted to send their skitarii whereever they want?

Even assuming the Inquisition is not involved, it is likely that all elements of loyal Imperial society would cooperate to eliminate the heresy. If one part is threatened, the whole is threatened. The Nova Terra Interregnum shows that the hobbling of the Terran empire is what allowed the Moirae Schism to develop whereas it would usually have been quashed immediately. Again, these are delicate balances. Imperial society relies on cooperation among independent agencies. But these agencies are always struggling with each other because of their disparate viewpoints. The Imperium doesn't make much sense if you insist on seeing everything top-down, only asking "who is in charge of who?" The Inquisition cannot even function that way. Imperial society is more like a disharmonious group of colleagues. Incidentally, this is probably one of the things that rankled Horus so much.

I think the AdMech would wish to intervene personally. They often want to take possession of the technology in question. I imagine the AdMech has elite strike teams of Praetorians ready to go at a moments notice if they get word of an STC abouts. The AdMech really,
really needs their own codex.

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
The AdMech really, really needs their own codex.

Yes indeed. I often wonder why they don't have one. Is GW shy about doing another Imperial dex (or any further dexes at all)? Or maybe they're worried that AdMech armies won't support enough color schemes? They'd certainly be fun to convert, a lot like orks in that respect.

On the plus side, they have the beginnings of an army list in HH Volume 1 Betrayal.