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So I did a lot of reading and looking around and there's a distinct possibility that advanced and complex machines like Titans, Baneblades, Land Raiders are in possession of a physical soul. As in they go to the warp when they die. I don't know exactly the pretenses that must be met to be in possession of a soul but everything living in 40k has a soul even daemons. The only thing that all of these have in common are sapience. Given that living things become daemons by showing off in a god's domain, and the presence of daemonic beasts, random animals might become daemons. So all that might be required to have a warp presence large enough to have a soul is personality,functioning thinking,& emotions. This would explain why rogue titans are referred to as corrupted because they actually are. Thoughts?

It would require one really strong machine spirit. The only example that comes to mind is the Titan Castigor. In most cases its just a Titan getting possessed by a deamon. The same thing can be seen on Chaos ships being possessed by a Deamon. That's what it means by corrupted, possessed by a Deamon from the warp. Or if there is no possesion it just means corrupted as in went over to the Dark Gods (corruption of all it/they stood for, think Chaos Marines).

The actual transformation of a machine spirit into a deamon is extremely rare. The Castigor is one of the few examples and this is really advanced tech of which Imperial Titans are just a shadow. Most machines arent sentient enough for this imo.
Edit: I dont think there is any possibility, something the size and power of a Titan as a Deamon would need ungodly amounts of warp energy to function in normal space, exactly one of the reasons the Deamon Primarchs dont go out much. It wouldnt work too well.

ThePrimordial wrote:Thoughts?

I'm thinking that you will see a lot of different ideas and interpretations all depending on where you do your reading.

To me, in almost all cases the "Machine Spirit" is simply superstition. Today's people's affinity to cursing or begging their computer, their car, or their TV when it does not work, dialed up to eleven and turned into a state religion for a dystopian future. More advanced technology in the setting, however, may actually have a "Machine Spirit" in a slightly truer sense, where a machine actually is capable of learning and self-governance - not due to some supernatural phenomenon, but simply due to the components used in its construction. When GW released a cross-section of a Land Raider, for example, there was a label "Machine Spirit" with an arrow to something that looked very much like a human brain in a jar wired into the vehicle's electronics.
It could be the Mechanicus' way to circumvent the AI ban, you know. After all, brains aren't artificial ...

Needless to say, however, you won't find something like this in, say, a lasgun or a voxcaster.

And of course this is just one of many possibilities, all of whom are equally valid.

 Lynata wrote:

ThePrimordial wrote:Thoughts?

I'm thinking that you will see a lot of different ideas and interpretations all depending on where you do your reading.

To me, in almost all cases the "Machine Spirit" is simply superstition. Today's people's affinity to cursing or begging their computer, their car, or their TV when it does not work, dialed up to eleven and turned into a state religion for a dystopian future. More advanced technology in the setting, however, may actually have a "Machine Spirit" in a slightly truer sense, where a machine actually is capable of learning and self-governance - not due to some supernatural phenomenon, but simply due to the components used in its construction. When GW released a cross-section of a Land Raider, for example, there was a label "Machine Spirit" with an arrow to something that looked very much like a human brain in a jar wired into the vehicle's electronics.
It could be the Mechanicus' way to circumvent the AI ban, you know. After all, brains aren't artificial ...

Needless to say, however, you won't find something like this in, say, a lasgun or a voxcaster.

And of course this is just one of many possibilities, all of whom are equally valid.

Large titans have very strange AI's that will do strange and mysterious things to protect their crew. Like firing all weapons when absolutely no power is remaining.
Machine Spirits regardless of interpretation aren't completely superstition.

Titans will do one thing in one book, and will be unable to do the same in another. This, too, is a matter of interpretation to begin with. Namely that of the author - or the reader, who has to decide whether to ignore or include said author's ideas into his or her own vision of the 41st millennium.

Aside from that, of course I would assume that (going by the fluff propagated by GW studio sources) Titans would be outfitted with similarly advanced command modules as a Land Raider - meaning, a cybernetic human brain capable of limited independent operation.

The superstition lies in the inability of the average human to discern between actual technology (such as a cybernetic brain) and mere belief that some small piece of equipment has a "soul". Which, of course, would be just as the Adeptus Mechanicus wants it, if their leaders can remember the truth at all rather than having fallen prey to their own organisation's propaganda.

 Lynata wrote:
Titans will do one thing in one book, and will be unable to do the same in another. This, too, is a matter of interpretation to begin with. Namely that of the author - or the reader, who has to decide whether to ignore or include said author's ideas into his or her own vision of the 41st millennium.

Basically, it's more than superstition for some authors and players, and it's just superstition for other authors and players. The latter will just have to fully ignore the more blatant implicational incidents to the former (Titanicus, Rynn's Might, Castigator Titan, etc) as not-canon-to-their-canon.

^ Said it with fewer words than I needed. Thank you.

 Lynata wrote:
The superstition lies in the inability of the average human

This is not one of those equally valid possibilities. They can be compared by their literary merits.

If, as you say, machines are only imputed their souls by humans, then the literary purpose of the machine spirit concept is to explore fetishization of technology or objects. It would be some kind of social criticism.

Those things exist, materialism and screeds against it are common topics.

However, in this setting there is a warp, and there are souls, and they are there to serve a literary purpose.

A battleship or the Rynn's Might has a more significant machine spirit than a toaster because it is more important than a toaster, and that has piss-all to do with cybernetics or automation. A space ship is hugely historically significant, because it evacuates refugees, it plants colonies, it saves planets from invasions, and people have lived and died on it for thousands of years. Rynn's Might killed that warboss in one of the most significant battles in history. Toasters and rifles are not usually as important, so they do not have the same machine spirits. However, if a soldier does all the rites to appease his rifle, then when it is time to go back in time to shoot the president, he is probably going to get the shooting part right. When a father devotes all his time and energy to making the toaster work because getting the toast right is the only thing he can do for his consumptive daughter, the toaster will have a blasted good machine spirit; it has piss all to do with electronics.

pelicaniforce wrote:This is not one of those equally valid possibilities.

And why (or even how) would that be?

pelicaniforce wrote:If, as you say, machines are only imputed their souls by humans, then the literary purpose of the machine spirit concept is to explore fetishization of technology or objects. It would be some kind of social criticism.

It is that, as well as (and I think this is the much stronger origin) GW's inclination to draw upon a lot of real life aspects and go "tongue in cheek" on them. And of course to create a dystopian setting where technology is mystified rather than being understood.

You can take all the fluff about the Imperium at face value and believe that the Emperor actually is a real god and that the Space Marines are just too stubborn and stupid to understand this, just like you can believe that there actually is an artificial "soul" in every kind of machine, right up to someone's wrist watch.

Or you can treat this as the results of millennia of social and technological regression, a setting where superstitious people are misled by state-controlled religion preaching lies as a means of control, and these having become so ingrained in Imperial culture that the ones controlling the masses have long since started to believe them themselves.

Both are valid approaches to the various details in the background.

pelicaniforce wrote:However, in this setting there is a warp, and there are souls, and they are there to serve a literary purpose.
A battleship or the Rynn's Might has a more significant machine spirit than a toaster because it is more important than a toaster, and that has piss-all to do with cybernetics or automation. A space ship is hugely historically significant, because it evacuates refugees, it plants colonies, it saves planets from invasions, and people have lived and died on it for thousands of years. Rynn's Might killed that warboss in one of the most significant battles in history. Toasters and rifles are not usually as important, so they do not have the same machine spirits. However, if a soldier does all the rites to appease his rifle, then when it is time to go back in time to shoot the president, he is probably going to get the shooting part right. When a father devotes all his time and energy to making the toaster work because getting the toast right is the only thing he can do for his consumptive daughter, the toaster will have a blasted good machine spirit; it has piss all to do with electronics.

This is another valid interpretation, but I don't see what this has to do with my opinion ... other than being different.

What about an element of both? Since humans are all (a bit) psychic, certainly compared to Tau, there may be some gestalt psychic effect which really does empower machine spirits... sometimes. Just not as regularily or reliably as with the ever superiour greenskins.

As an aside, although again with the "you can just take it as not-canon-to-your-canon" disclaimer (though this one's more difficult because it's actually portrayed on the tabletop rules in a way), Dreadclaw drop pods ended up developing their own sentience, apparently, and were corrupted to Chaos. It's unknown whether the chicken came before the egg though (Did they gain sentience on their own and then get corrupted to chaos, or did they gain sentience BECAUSE they were corrupted to chaos?)

Graphite wrote:What about an element of both? Since humans are all (a bit) psychic, certainly compared to Tau, there may be some gestalt psychic effect which really does empower machine spirits... sometimes. Just not as regularily or reliably as with the ever superiour greenskins.

So, sort of like the Ork's Waaagh field? I suppose it could then also be used to explain various other "miracles" in Imperial history, and the Techpriest abilities in FFG's line of 40k RPGs.

It's not an interpretation I am personally following (though I could actually see it apply in exceptional cases), but I don't see why it shouldn't be just as valid.

TiamatRoar wrote:though this one's more difficult because it's actually portrayed on the tabletop rules in a way

I like to use GW's TT rules as a basis for the fluff, too. That being said, what are you referring to specifically? Most of the rules are fairly ambiguous as to the exact origin of their effect (example: SoB Acts of Faith)

TiamatRoar wrote:It's unknown whether the chicken came before the egg though

Yeah, that doesn't really help either, then. There are a lot of cases where we can see the Warp twisting technological equipment, perhaps "possessing it", in a fashion. Wasn't there a CSM Legion that has its members "fuse" with the armour too?
It's certainly an interesting topic to discuss.

Machine spirits have a mechanical and an organic component to them in most of the fluff that I've read that references them.

Smaller machine spirits like those in weaponry are usually based on animal organic material. One example given was that the machine spirits in bolters were based on various avian species, as their brains are capable of rapid visual processing for things like targeting and Friend or Foe recognition.

Which also explains a certain 'personality' being registered in different machine spirits. But as with regular animals, these aren't sentient and probably don't register large enough in the warp to retain any conciousness once they're destroyed.

But the more powerful machine spirits like those in Titans or Land Raiders are indeed probably based on humans to circumvent the Abominable Intelligence ban while still allowing some measure of sentience.

I would say that some things certainly do have "Machine spirits" if you take that to mean they have some sort of AI within them. Examples: numerous mentions in the novel Titanicus and the Titan comic books of how the Titan itself has a personality that the Princeps must control, then of course there is the mention of the Land Raider Rynn's Might in the Space Marine Codex (its machine spirit went on a rampage).

The Titan comics also flat-out say that when a Princeps has spent a long time serving, an imprint of their personality will remain within the machine's "Memories." That is probably why corrupted Titans end up with evil machine spirits, they have been poisoned by contact with corrupted human minds. It also seems from the above mentioned books that the Titan personality is quite bloodthirsty and feral, so it probably doesn't care whether the Princeps is corrupted or not, as long as it gets to fight.

So I think some stuff does have AI within it. Things like toasters probably don't, but over time the average Imperial citizen, probably with the urging of the Mechanicum, has probably started to assume that all mahinery they don't understand has them.

Redemption wrote:Smaller machine spirits like those in weaponry are usually based on animal organic material. One example given was that the machine spirits in bolters were based on various avian species, as their brains are capable of rapid visual processing for things like targeting and Friend or Foe recognition.

Now that's something I have never heard before - although it does sound like a cool idea, as it meshes with the Imperium's use of organic matter for the creation of cybernetic servants, not only servitors but also animals such as cyber-mastiffs.
Out of curiosity, where's that from, exactly?

ThePrimordial wrote:
So I did a lot of reading and looking around and there's a distinct possibility that advanced and complex machines like Titans, Baneblades, Land Raiders are in possession of a physical soul. As in they go to the warp when they die. I don't know exactly the pretenses that must be met to be in possession of a soul but everything living in 40k has a soul even daemons. The only thing that all of these have in common are sapience. Given that living things become daemons by showing off in a god's domain, and the presence of daemonic beasts, random animals might become daemons. So all that might be required to have a warp presence large enough to have a soul is personality,functioning thinking,& emotions. This would explain why rogue titans are referred to as corrupted because they actually are. Thoughts?

Yes, the more complex the machine, the closer to a truly sentient creature it becomes. Ships and Titans in particular are frequently noted as having their own temperament, going as far as being able to reject pilots they deem unsuitable. These are still a bit dumber than the truly sentient machines built during the Dark Age of Technology or the ones created by the Dark Mechanicus since the Heresy. In the Grey Knights novel, there is an example of an ancient AI actually becoming a daemon, and the ones built by DM are ingrained with Chaos to begin with.

Some authors introduce "rational" characters who treat everything as simple machines and get equivalent or better results than all the mystic hullabaloo.

Of course, with willpower and belief being the source of all power in the 40K universe, it's likely that believing a thing has a soul and personality invokes those very characteristics in that thing. A bolter is a simple mechanism, usually operated only by one. Whether that owner anoints it with oils and prays to it, or simply maintains it well as a piece of gear, it will likely function just fine. A Titan is piloted and attended by dozens, if not hundreds, of people, and if they all believe this particular titan is cranky and likes its belly scratched, well that's what it turns out to be. For ships, this number reaches the thousands, with commensurate increase in the power of group think.

No idea I'm afraid; I've read too much stuff over the years.

I believe it also had some phrase that (some?) bolters were 'smart' enough that if the marine wielding it were to sweep a full-auto burst into a battle scene where fellow Brother marines and enemies were fighting, the Friend or Foe recognition would actually automatically skip a shot in the burst if that were aimed at a Battle-Brother.

IFF transceivers don't need slave-brains to process. It works just as well with a radio tag or the "spoor-trackers" that feature in some SM and Inquisitorial sources. This uses some genetic data, or a body scent, specific heat-signature, whatever, to track a target from Point A to B.

With this, you lock the data for your allies into your guns, and now you cannot shoot them while they're in melee.

 Psienesis wrote:
IFF transceivers don't need slave-brains to process.

Of course, and there would be no need for servitors either if they'd just use something akin to drones like the Tau do. But that wouldn't be grimdark enough, now would it?

Continuing on from Omegus train of thought, say a Guardsman sings a hymn of operation and sure firing to his lasgun every time he goes into battle, he names it, he talks to it, it to him is his closest friend. Would actions like this increase the nature of the spirit as it did the Chaos Gods but on a much minor scale? So essentially it does gain some form of sentience and has an imprint in the warp. Is this then how weapons are able to to become possessed by Daemons. I understand that through Ritual weapons can and machines can be possessed, but could a warp entity crack into real space through a much loved weapon?

I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that spirits of machines had an imprint but I can't seem to find it anymore, I could have sworn I read it in the 6th Ed rule book but reading last night couldn't find it.

Pilau Rice wrote:I understand that through Ritual weapons can and machines can be possessed, but could a warp entity crack into real space through a much loved weapon?

Well, what is a ritual weapon if not a weapon that was "ritually blessed", meaning "sanctified" via chanting and evocation?

Personally, I could certainly see the possibility of warp entities possessing a piece of gear even outside a "true" cultist environment - but the veil would have to be really weak to have a single random shmock achieve this effect, and I don't believe that warp entities, at least those that manage to cross over, are that numerous.

Doesn't mean anyone has to subscribe to this interpretation, though. If you want every single piece of gear in the Imperium, from the neighbour's car to the automatic door in the head scribe's office, to be possessed, that is yet another valid way to think of the setting. Really, pretty much the only limitation is one's own creativity and the rules that we put up for ourselves.

I meant in the typical Chaos ritual, you know blood, virgins .. Justin Bieber Albums.

I can imagine after many years of frustration and constant burnt food, Jerold the Chef calls his cooker one to many bad names and it subsequently removes itself from the wall and fries him.

Well, from how I interpret(!) the Warp, all those things - blood, virgins, Justin Bieber albums () - are really just different ways to achieve the same effect.

The Warp, supposedly, is fueled by emotion - and how you evoke them it up to you. It just so happens that some ways are more potent (and thus popular) than others, but I wouldn't say that they are the only factor. For example, if the veil in Jerold's kitchen suddenly becomes very thin because his world just happens to host a Daemon Invasion, I could see a possibility of that cooker coming to life. Classic horror story right there.

But I'm playing devil's advocate here... as I said, I personally assume that such things would be rare exceptions, maybe even just very, very remote possibilities. I just assume there is a certain "threshold of emotional overflow" that needs to be reached, but how you get there is up to you. Accidental happenings are perhaps less possible with individuals, but only large groups of people. Such as, say, planetary populations in a state of unrest or constant suffering/bliss/etc. Drawing upon the example of Slaanesh again, just applying the same precedent to minor entities due to the smaller scale.
It also ties in with my Living Saint theory, in case you remember.

A machine spirit is simply the term used by the backwards, superstitious, religious, machine-worshipping technomancer cults of the 41st millenium to describe something more mundane - Artificial Intelligence, also known as "AI". There is no actual soul or spirit involved here. And before someone tries the "but Machine Spirits can be corrupted by the warp!!!!" ever hear of a computer virus? It wouldn't be the first time the forces of chaos created a "technovirus" by any means...

Regarding the "personalities" aspect, its basically the concept of an aberrant AI (I think thats the term), an old artificial intelligence construct that has, over time, had its hardware degrade (which is also the reason why after some time that lightning fast computer is suddenly slow as gak despite the fact that you are running the same software as you were when you bought it) and there are now "quirks" exhibited as a result of this, such as incompatibility issues with certain users (it makes more sense when you realize a titan crew is plugged in like a piece of hardware) or "malfunctions" such as suddenly discharging a weapon (at a rather convenient time no less) as a result of a crossed wire.

 Redemption wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
IFF transceivers don't need slave-brains to process.

Of course, and there would be no need for servitors either if they'd just use something akin to drones like the Tau do. But that wouldn't be grimdark enough, now would it?

The "spoor-trackers" on Astartes weapons that are equipped with them don't use servitor brains, either. It's simply genetic trackers and RF transceivers keyed to individual PA suits, comm-beads, or other tokens that identify individuals to the weapon. It's also capable of creating a profile of a specific target (or targets, depending on who you're reading) and using the systems of the PA to assist on target-lock.

chaos0xomega wrote:
A machine spirit is simply the term used by the backwards, superstitious, religious, machine-worshipping technomancer cults of the 41st millenium to describe something more mundane - Artificial Intelligence, also known as "AI". There is no actual soul or spirit involved here. And before someone tries the "but Machine Spirits can be corrupted by the warp!!!!" ever hear of a computer virus? It wouldn't be the first time the forces of chaos created a "technovirus" by any means...

Regarding the "personalities" aspect, its basically the concept of an aberrant AI (I think thats the term), an old artificial intelligence construct that has, over time, had its hardware degrade (which is also the reason why after some time that lightning fast computer is suddenly slow as gak despite the fact that you are running the same software as you were when you bought it) and there are now "quirks" exhibited as a result of this, such as incompatibility issues with certain users (it makes more sense when you realize a titan crew is plugged in like a piece of hardware) or "malfunctions" such as suddenly discharging a weapon (at a rather convenient time no less) as a result of a crossed wire.

This isn't true obviously due to the Castigator which must have had a physical soul due to becoming a daemon.
Plus all that might be required to have a soul in 40k (emotions, sapience) , intelligent AI's already possess.
40k works very differently because emotions feed the warp and intelligent AI's have emotions which mean AI's are capable of possessing souls.

There are malignant tech-spirits that can possess purely technological devices. Souls are not required for "daemonic possession". AI, or "Silica Animus", is soulless, because it's purely a machine. It is an artificial intelligence.

One can have emotions and intelligence and not have a soul, these things are not related or pre-requisites to each other.

 Psienesis wrote:
There are malignant tech-spirits that can possess purely technological devices. Souls are not required for "daemonic possession". AI, or "Silica Animus", is soulless, because it's purely a machine. It is an artificial intelligence.

One can have emotions and intelligence and not have a soul, these things are not related or pre-requisites to each other.

The AI of the castigator wasn't possessed. The AI itself became a daemon. Exact wording. That s*it actually happened.

This doesn't jive with the development of AI in the Imperium, nor what we understand of the link between Titan and Princeps. AI, Silica Animus, has been banned since the DAoT, following the war with the Men of Iron, which predates the construction of Titans many millennia over. I would pass this off to yet another moment in Black Library taking liberties with the fluff in order to tell an interesting story, which is perfectly within the authors of the Black Library right to do.

Nothing mortal, or even physical, can "become" a daemon, anymore than a Guardsman can "become" a Leman-Russ tank. A daemon is an intelligent creature that is native to the Immaterium. A Titan is not.

This strikes me more as malignant tech-spirits infiltrating the datastacks of the Titan and subverting its code, allowing it to become possessed by further daemon-code until it became what it became, never bothering to tell it that its firewalls had been compromised.

Given that what the war-spirit of a Titan *is* is not clearly defined (or even agreed upon to actually exist at all), there's a number of interpretations to what happened there that can be put forward.

The whole concept of the Machine Spirit has sort of evolved as some of the sillier authors have worked on it.

Really, what the Machine Spirit is supposed to be is 40K tech-phobic language for "really advanced computer that we don't fully understand anymore".

There's no actual spirit, in mystical or metaphysical sense.