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TCF wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:
In response to the first quote, you basically just reaffirmed the fact that the AdMech is incredibly superstious, not that it's regressing.
In response to the second quote, we still have many examples of Rhinos being constructed, and of Titan parts being constructed with ease. Now, I would cite this, but the novel Priests of Mars is currently back home in AZ, and I'm up in Alaska visiting my cousins. I'll be home by tomorrow, and I'll post the quote, then.

It also makes it clear that they're losing knowledge with the end sentence.

The second quote outright says that they're regressing, you're thinking of the third quote with that second response.

Also, do you have a quote backing up your assertion that the Mechanicus is slowly advancing rather than regressing overall?

You're right, I'm wrong, at this point, I don't really care.


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 urbanknight4 wrote:
I'm coming a bit late to the discussion, but let's keep in mind that the Mechanicum is undoubtedly holding the Imperium back. I believe that if it weren't for them and their bizarre beliefs, mankind would be infinitely stronger.

Lets evaluate the facts.

The Mechanicum believes in "Machine Spirits". Hat this entails is that they apply a curtain of superstition and supernatural belief in basic technology interactions. Like the wiki says, even turning on a weapon requires the user to engage in a lengthy ritual, applying oils and chanting hymns to appease the non existent spirits. I'm all for freedom of religion, but this is stupid.

Directly related to the Tech-Priest's religion is their approach to innovation. Or rather, their lack of one. They believe that all the technology that will ever be made has already been made. The only step directly following that is to collect the plans and enact them. What this ensures is that innovation is discouraged- after all, there is nothing to innovate in their eyes. This causes knowledge to plateau, and maintain the risk of regressing if it is ever lost.

Lastly, and this is also the Emperor's fault, the Mechanicum are a bunch of xenophobes, just like literally the rest of humanity. Its a shame that they don't recognize their true place in the world- the Imperium may be powerful, but it's hardly the technological marvel the Martians pretend it is. I mean, a ton of problems could be solved simply by wiping out a few Eldar and Tau squads, lobotomizing their tech, and assimilating it. Rhino tanks could use gravitational lifts instead of archaic treads. Bolters could fire more rounds. Plasma guns wouldn't blow your hand off when overheating.

This is getting off topic, but I think nobody should defend the Mechanicum. I could say more about their backwards ways, but I've made my point. I highly doubt GW will listen because of the whole grimdark thing, but man... it would be great if at least one good thing happened.

I agree about everything except for the Machine Spirit-thing. In Priests of Mars, we have an Archmagos directly contacting one, also, I just realized that was the only source I had, so nvm about the also. Been too damn long since I've actually read a 40k novel...
Edit: Also, in the HH novel Mechanicum the Titan Princeps often communicate with the Machine-Spirits of their Titans, and the Knight Pilots often soothe and communicate with the Machine Spirits of their Knights (and Knights don't use MIUs, I don't think).

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 morganfreeman wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:
back home in AZ

Totally off topic, but holy feth another person who lives in Arizona and has an interest in Warhammer!

Might I ask where in the state you live? I've found finding people to play with out here.. difficult.

 urbanknight4 wrote:
superstition and supernatural belief in basic technology interactions. Like the wiki says, even turning on a weapon requires the user to engage in a lengthy ritual, applying oils and chanting hymns to appease the non existent spirits. I'm all for freedom of religion, but this is stupid.

While it is stupid, it's important to remember where this came from.

The religion and beliefs that the Mechanicus follow were originally established to preserve working knowledge of machinery and its function through dogma. So "prayers and applying oils" may be reciting how to properly clean and oil a rifle whilst doing so. Or "Disengage safety, set stock to shoulder, aim down sights, squeeze trigger."

I live in Mesa, though I am currently in Surprise until August. It would be nice to actually have a reason to finish the rest of my BA models.


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 Psienesis wrote:

The AdMech only holds humanity back from killing itself off with unrestrained technological experimentation. The manufacturing base of humanity is right-fethed, with all kinds of insane scrap-code floating around in everything everywhere. You can't just build a tank, you have to ensure that its Machine Spirit is placated, because if it isn't, as soon as it rolls off the assembly line, it might start killing you.

Hasn't this actually happened in a novel? I can't remember where, but I could of sworn that I read something like that

Sort of. The Tanith first and only found a functioning, but corrupted, Iron Man STC. They had to destroy it as it was beginning to spit out death machines. The same death machines that almost made humanity go extinct. There is a very valid reason for all this superstition and fear of technology, it literally tried to kill mankind in the past. Basically the Terminator movies happened on a galactic scale, mankind won. barely.

Hasn't this actually happened in a novel? I can't remember where, but I could of sworn that I read something like that

It's happened twice so far, actually.

Once was at the end of the Golden Age, and is referred to as the Rise of the Men of Iron or the War of the Iron Men. It is, basically, a Terminator/Dune reference, when Mankind's machines rose up, destroyed everything, and then nearly drove Mankind extinct before being finally defeated. This lead to the Dark Age of Technology.

The second time the tech-base of Mankind got fethed hard was during the Heresy, when half of Mars went mad, released daemons into half of the foundries and burned the other half to the ground before riding off into the Eye of Terror, flipping the burning wreckage the middle mechadendrite because where they were going, they wouldn't need science.

If you mean the tank rolling off the assembly line and killing people? Not quite, but a rifle that is recovered from Chaos forces in the Gaunt's Ghosts series is considered cursed by the man carrying it (and he carries it for like 2 books) and, as previously mentioned, when the Ghosts encounter the corrupted STC. I haven't read each and every BL novel ever written, so there may be more examples, but the main point is that what the AdMech does might be ultra-conservative and slowing down potential technological breakthroughs, but they have a damn good reason for being the way they are.

Ìsn't there a bit in the IA books where they mention a Land Raider rolling off the production lins and killing stuff?
But yeah, LRs are a perfect example of Machine Spirits: the can demonstrate preference for specific allied units, and even fight all by themselves! The old Marine 'dex (5th ed I believe) even had one of them liberate an entire continent I believe.

I think it important to distinguish between what Machine Spirits are vs. what people believe.

The "Machine Spirits" of powerful machines like Titans and Land Raiders may exist as a form of half-organic AI, imbuing the total machine with some ability to function semi-autonomously. The Machine Spirits of things like your toaster is a belief held by official dogma to exist, like animism where everything has a spirit, but to modern humans there is nothing there.

A 40K person would view the ability of modern cars to park themselves or even drive themselves as evidence of a Machine Spirit but we would not view these car features as evidence of a supernatural spirit imbuing our cars with life nor would we view this as proof that simpler machines also have supernatural spirits inhabiting them. 40K people operate in a paradigm of animism where all machines are believed to have spirits and this belief is used to explain away the quirks of complex machinery or how advanced machines can do things on their own.

That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.

Give it another 10,000 years (assuming we make it that long) and our cars (by then hopefully flying ones) will have merged with Siri and Google Deep Dream and will not only be able to park, but also plan a route, react in real time to changing traffic conditions, talk to us about our day and offer emotional/emotive responses, conjecture and plan, and maybe also help us untangle a particularly-difficult problem at work by networking with other AI systems and using knowledge gained from the Cloud to help our human minds process information more quickly and accurately.

It will, in fact, be indistinguishable from interacting with a real person via video-conference, hardlight hologram, or, given the advancements of cybernetics, a "real" person... so much so that the practical distinctions between "artificial" and "actual" intelligence will be non-existent.

The people of M41 are not less-intelligent than we are. There's 38,000 years of violent history and apocalypse-level events between us and them. We simply cannot truly conceive of the reality in which they live. What seems primitive and backwards to us is something that every child learns at his/her mother's knee as a survival instinct, because to do otherwise inevitably results in death.

Iracundus wrote:
The "Machine Spirits" of powerful machines like Titans and Land Raiders may exist as a form of half-organic AI, imbuing the total machine with some ability to function semi-autonomously. The Machine Spirits of things like your toaster is a belief held by official dogma to exist, like animism where everything has a spirit, but to modern humans there is nothing there.

Speak for yourself, atheist.

Warp travel also takes quite long. Also: GRIMDANK er... GRIMDARK

Not everyone is happy when things move slowly though. I remember some fluff piece in an old book (2nd ed compendium maybe?) where a force of Space Marines are holding a line against Orks and a TechPriest is asked to activate his battle robots to help out. After hearing what timetable the priest offers (basically hours of rituals) the marine commander tells him "fifteen minutes or pick up a bolter and join the line yourself". Five minutes later the first robot is marching towards the battle.

 urbanknight4 wrote:
Horus only managed to wound the Emperor so much because the Emperor had compassion towards him and didn't want to use his full power against his son.

As for the Tau... there's something wrong with them. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'm sure the Ethereals are pulling a hat trick. You can't possibly obtain respect and obedience from an entire race the way they did. Its not grimdark enough for 40k. There's rot under their glory.

Read Fire Caste

Isn't there a way to prevent us from misusing tech without blatantly stopping progress in it's tracks? I mean, cmon... even the Tau, a people that were barely rubbing two sticks together to make fire when we passed their planet in starships, have surpassed us in technology. If anything, their plasma rifles don't double as suicide devices.

 Psienesis wrote:
That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.

We already have true AI, we use them in programs and video games all the time. Just because they aren't sentient or self-aware does not mean that they are not artificial intelligences. Synthetic life may be beyond our reach, but AI is commonplace in our society.

 urbanknight4 wrote:
Isn't there a way to prevent us from misusing tech without blatantly stopping progress in it's tracks? I mean, cmon... even the Tau, a people that were barely rubbing two sticks together to make fire when we passed their planet in starships, have surpassed us in technology. If anything, their plasma rifles don't double as suicide devices.

please, the Tau are still quite primitive compared to the Imperium.

You are simply mistaking their basic soldiers having more advanced tech than Imperial Guard as meaning they are more advanced. but really everything the Tau have looks like bow and arrows compared to the high end Imperial technology.

Imperial plasma is more powerful than Tau plasma. Sure, they could make them safer but that would make the guns weaker. and when your most numerous resource is human lives safety isn't a big deal. The next guy over can pick up the plasma gun.

Tau FTL travel is still the most primitive around, they can barely get past their current borders.

Sure, they have railguns mounted on their vehicles. The Imperium has railguns the length of starships that fire rounds that explode with the force of a small star. Putting 1 railgun on 1 tank is unnecessary when you can instead make 2 dozen tanks with a conventional gun that do the job even better. Its the same principal as Sherman tanks vs Tigers. Sure, the Tiger is better, but for every Tiger you can get 12 Shermans. And only lose 3 Shermans to kill 1 Tiger.

The Tau also haven't experienced an AI rebellion yet. That will come around and bite them in the ass eventually, like it did for humanity. And the Tau probably won't survive it.


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 dusara217 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.

We already have true AI, we use them in programs and video games all the time. Just because they aren't sentient or self-aware does not mean that they are not artificial intelligences. Synthetic life may be beyond our reach, but AI is commonplace in our society.

No we don't. A true AI is self-aware and capable of learning and adapting. Video game "AI" is simply a complex program that only responds to certain stimuli in certain ways. And it will respond the same way every time if the conditions are the same.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 urbanknight4 wrote:
Isn't there a way to prevent us from misusing tech without blatantly stopping progress in it's tracks? I mean, cmon... even the Tau, a people that were barely rubbing two sticks together to make fire when we passed their planet in starships, have surpassed us in technology. If anything, their plasma rifles don't double as suicide devices.

please, the Tau are still quite primitive compared to the Imperium.

You are simply mistaking their basic soldiers having more advanced tech than Imperial Guard as meaning they are more advanced. but really everything the Tau have looks like bow and arrows compared to the high end Imperial technology.

Imperial plasma is more powerful than Tau plasma. Sure, they could make them safer but that would make the guns weaker. and when your most numerous resource is human lives safety isn't a big deal. The next guy over can pick up the plasma gun.

Tau FTL travel is still the most primitive around, they can barely get past their current borders.

Sure, they have railguns mounted on their vehicles. The Imperium has railguns the length of starships that fire rounds that explode with the force of a small star. Putting 1 railgun on 1 tank is unnecessary when you can instead make 2 dozen tanks with a conventional gun that do the job even better. Its the same principal as Sherman tanks vs Tigers. Sure, the Tiger is better, but for every Tiger you can get 12 Shermans. And only lose 3 Shermans to kill 1 Tiger.

The Tau also haven't experienced an AI rebellion yet. That will come around and bite them in the ass eventually, like it did for humanity. And the Tau probably won't survive it.


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 dusara217 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.

We already have true AI, we use them in programs and video games all the time. Just because they aren't sentient or self-aware does not mean that they are not artificial intelligences. Synthetic life may be beyond our reach, but AI is commonplace in our society.

No we don't. A true AI is self-aware and capable of learning and adapting. Video game "AI" is simply a complex program that only responds to certain stimuli in certain ways. And it will respond the same way every time if the conditions are the same.

The Imperium doesn't have technology. It has relics and formulas it can go through to get specific things. That's why in 6,000 years no one could figure out how to solder some anti-aircraft missiles and a radar onto a Rhino. When the Forgeworld that makes something goes, it's possible that it is gone forever.

Tau FTL doesn't risk losing lives in the Warp. It's not the fastest, but its more reliable than Imperial tech. Besides, from what I remember reading in BFG, Tau's skipping-rock FTL has gotten almost as fast as the Imperium's.

I think you got this analogy backwards. It's the Imperium that makes too-heavy, too-complicated, super-massive war machines. The true disadvantage of the Tiger was that all it took was a wee little bit of air support and the thing was toast... and it's pretty much just the Tau that have strength D weapons on fast-moving fliers. Tiger Sharks eat slow Imperial tanks and Titans for breakfast.

The Tau aren't human. They aren't as greedy or short-sighted. They aren't as arrogant with their drones as humanity was with the Iron Men. An AI rebellion can be avoided and the Tau are likely to do that. Creations reflect the maker and Tau are a more social, self-sacrificing species than humanity.

You need to read more fluff.

Sure, a Tiger Shark can kill Imperial tanks. But those Imperial tanks are never without significant AA and air support. For every Tiger Shark the Tau can have, the Imperium will have 30 Thunderbolts or Lightning Strike Craft.

Also, the Tau will have an AI rebellion. Its a question of if, not when. The Iron Men didn't rebel because they were made by arrogant humans, they rebelled because they were self-aware machines. And if anything, the Tau are more short-sighted because they only live about half as long. The Tau may be self sacrificing, but whose to say they won't make a drone who suddenly says "Feth this, I ain't sacrificing myself for some meatbag".

sure, the Imperium is held back by some dogma and fear of technology, but there is a very real reason behind it. And even then, they are still way more advanced than the Tau.

I don't think a simple linear scale works.

There are several different domains or parameters. There is the actual technological level (i.e. what is the most advanced tech this race has ever produced), the level of dissemination of technology (how accessible is technology), and the ability to reproduce & manufacture the technology.

The Imperium clearly has technology the Tau don't have, often stuff that interacts with the warp or involves psykers. However such technology is hoarded by the Adeptus Mechanicus and/or is not easily reproduce because they are irreplaceable relics or poorly understood so they are manufactured in a secretive craftsman style fashion. This technology then is susceptible to being lost if those few that know do not pass on their knowledge. The Imperium is also characterized by the sharp divide between the haves and have nots, with the have nots having very primitive technology while the nobility and Inquisitors can have access to advanced technology.

The Tau may not have certain technology that the Imperium has, but what the Tau do have is more widely understood and available to the masses. The Tau have wider dissemination with their cities being stereotypical advanced science fiction cities, while the Imperium's hives are a futuristic version of the mill town, and some other Imperial worlds are literally in the Stone Age. The first Tau Codex has a Tech-Priest report that notes outlying Imperial colonies have committed tech-heresy for trading for improved (i.e. better than Imperial) construction and agricultural machinery from the Tau.

So if I were to compare: The Imperium has higher maximum tech, but there is little dissemination of technology resulting in a low average level of technology. The Imperium compensates for this and for difficulties of logistics by massive human numbers, mass production, and general durability and ruggedness. The advanced technology is only available in limited quantities to privileged groups only and is not easily reproducible or is even irreplaceable. The Tau has a lower maximum tech but what it does have is widely distributed, understood, and manufactured and Tau society's average level of technology is higher.

 dusara217 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.

We already have true AI, we use them in programs and video games all the time. Just because they aren't sentient or self-aware does not mean that they are not artificial intelligences. Synthetic life may be beyond our reach, but AI is commonplace in our society.

Most of those AI are a compilation of railroaded actions. They don't ever change behaviour when presented with a duplicate situation, except in a few cases where the devs put in an extra protocol.
They don't remember, they don't improve, they don't make judgments and they have no senses. Game engine pokes them with a few numbers, and they do pre-chosen actions.

The definition of what makes a 'true AI' is... contentious. That said, in the common parlance, it is normally used to refer to sapient AIs.

 Grey Templar wrote:


You need to read more fluff.

Sure, a Tiger Shark can kill Imperial tanks. But those Imperial tanks are never without significant AA and air support. For every Tiger Shark the Tau can have, the Imperium will have 30 Thunderbolts or Lightning Strike Craft.

... all stationed on Cadia, facing the 13th Black Crusade, FAAAAAAR from the Tau.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


You need to read more fluff.

Sure, a Tiger Shark can kill Imperial tanks. But those Imperial tanks are never without significant AA and air support. For every Tiger Shark the Tau can have, the Imperium will have 30 Thunderbolts or Lightning Strike Craft.

... all stationed on Cadia, facing the 13th Black Crusade, FAAAAAAR from the Tau.

Those aircraft are hardly unique to Cadia. They are the workhorses of the imperial navy, pretty much standard equipment for naval air support.

 Grey Templar wrote:

And if anything, the Tau are more short-sighted because they only live about half as long.

Wishful thinking on your part. That the Tau are capable of the battlefield mastery, technological advancement,and diplomatic excellence they individually achieve over their very short lives skeaks highly of how individual Tau compare to individual humans- much smarter, much quicker-thinking.


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 Grey Templar wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


You need to read more fluff.

Sure, a Tiger Shark can kill Imperial tanks. But those Imperial tanks are never without significant AA and air support. For every Tiger Shark the Tau can have, the Imperium will have 30 Thunderbolts or Lightning Strike Craft.

... all stationed on Cadia, facing the 13th Black Crusade, FAAAAAAR from the Tau.

Those aircraft are hardly unique to Cadia. They are the workhorses of the imperial navy, pretty much standard equipment for naval air support.

My apologies. I've been drinking. I thought the poster was referencing something other than the cheap, junk fighters the Imperium loses en masse in every naval and air engagement in takes part in.

Remoras and Baracudas don't need my defense to get across their efficiency against Imperial fighters.

... but pretty much no truly dangerous effort by the Imperium can be made against the Tau so long as Abaddon is preparing to sack Cadia.


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Iracundus wrote:


So if I were to compare: The Imperium has higher maximum tech, but there is little dissemination of technology resulting in a low average level of technology. The Imperium compensates for this and for difficulties of logistics by massive human numbers, mass production, and general durability and ruggedness. The advanced technology is only available in limited quantities to privileged groups only and is not easily reproducible or is even irreplaceable. The Tau has a lower maximum tech but what it does have is widely distributed, understood, and manufactured and Tau society's average level of technology is higher.

Don't forget that humanity is losing technology faster than it is finding new STCs, and that the Tau are still rapidly advancing.

Matter of time until the Str6 Ap1 rail rifle is standard issue across the Tau Empire.


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 Grey Templar wrote:


Also, the Tau will have an AI rebellion. Its a question of if, not when. The Iron Men didn't rebel because they were made by arrogant humans, they rebelled because they were self-aware machines... but whose to say they won't make a drone who suddenly says "Feth this, I ain't sacrificing myself for some meatbag".

Actually, I'd say the selfish nature of humanity rubbed off onto their creations. You're wanting to believe its inevitable because you're emotionally attached to the Imperium and don't want to consider another race might do it better.

Its true we're emotionally attached to the Imperium. Thats because we're not heretics.

Just kidding

Look, I know what happened in Fantasy. I just don't want the same to happen in 40k. Its an outrage to think that all the sacrifice and warfare we've gone through essentially amounts to nothing. I refuse to believe that anyone other than man will win- not the Tau, the Chaos Heretics, the Necrons, the Tyrannids, nor even the rapidly uniting Orks. I have to believe. Once we win, we can rebuild. Rebuild and prosper, to make the galaxy our own personal Garden of Eden.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


You need to read more fluff.

Sure, a Tiger Shark can kill Imperial tanks. But those Imperial tanks are never without significant AA and air support. For every Tiger Shark the Tau can have, the Imperium will have 30 Thunderbolts or Lightning Strike Craft.

... all stationed on Cadia, facing the 13th Black Crusade, FAAAAAAR from the Tau.

Don't worry. When we're done ransacking Cadia, we'll eventually get to mopping up the Tau. Plenty of time. You ain't got no psychic defenses. Let's see how well that tech does against portals to hell and mind bullets.

Of course, our biggest adversary will always be GW. Still trying to suppress info about our 13th Crusade victory because they're a bunch of shills for the Imperium.

Remoras and Baracudas don't need my defense to get across their efficiency against Imperial fighters.

They're comparable. Not better - even with the Air Caste's innate biological advantages, the one 'fighter war' we have described (In Tactica Aeronautica, I think, though it might have been Imperial Armour Aeronautica), their fighters are always portrayed as pretty even.

Tau Aether Drive is a lot slower. The latest version - which is why the Merchant class replaced the Explorer Class - only makes a 1/3 of 'normal' Imperial Warp Engine speeds. More importantly, the Tau's weakness in naval campaigns are more fundamental and aren't actually in the line of battle (whilst they use an ordnance and attack craft heavy doctrine is not massively less capable than the Imperial Navy cruiser-for-cruiser) - they don't have long-range FTL-capable escorts (Defenders can make short hops but aren't really independent and they pay for it by being unmanouvrable for their size) and they rely on couriers not instantaneous(ish) communications; their major weakness is reconnaisance and long-distance co-ordination.


Machine spirits - for some things - like simple mechanical technology - the 'machine spirit' is just technological feng-shui; there's no more real interaction than with any piece of mechanical technology today (although: how many people do you know now who ascribe a 'personality' to their car?), but the more sophisticated an item you get, the more of a real, AI-ish machine spirit there actually is, until you get to the dog-smart Land Raider, which can fight independantly (sort of), and the Battle Titan, which provides a true machine symbiosis with a human mind.

The mechanicus is both continuously losing and (re)gaining knowledge. The net direction is probably down, because otherwise it's not grimdark enough, but it's a sort of dynamic steady state rather than a one-way street. Most things which are lost for good (other than archeotech, which just isn't replicable and hence is just a priceless but expendable asset rather than 'technology' per se) are lost because it's an STC fragment held by a world which is destroyed or conquered, or whatever. Which is why the Adeptus Mechanicus insists (often unsuccessfully) that that sort of stuff be sent, or at least copied, to Mars, and why they get really annoyed with groups like the Blood Angels and Dark Angels who don't do so.

Also; note that the Imperial Guard/Tau comparisons aren't quite as black and white as "Tau are vastly superior" - one thing which gets poked a lot more in the Fantasy Flight Games RPGs and the defunct GW game Inquisitor is the supporting issues around comparing Pulse Rifles and Lasguns. The Lasgun - especially the lascarbine (the one that Catachans use) is a lightweight, reliable weapon that's simple to maintain and has a sixty round clip you can recharge from essentially any power supply.

It's not just 'all we can manage' but for an army which fights in the way the classic Imperial guard does - more men, send in the next wave, and the next - it's the best weapon you can pick because it doesn't require you to worry about logistics and maintenance; throw the regiment onto the surface and turn back to pick up another one.

The pulse rifle hits like a bugger, and someone shot with it tends to stay down (like bolt weapons), but it has far fewer shots per power cell (making it less useful for laying down bursts of suppressing fire), it's big and bulky, making it unwieldy at closer ranges, and more importantly it needs a much better maintenance and supply train to keep it useful.

Which is fine for the Tau, who either tend to be fighting to defend their own colony worlds or else fighting in close proximity to major worlds because their so compact as a species, but is much less useful when you're scattered to the outer dark like the guard are.


And yes, getting things done takes forever in the imperium if the 'thing' is of a large enough scale. Assume a Rogue Trader finds a sector-sized region worth conquering - even if he sends an astropathic message off, the Imperium isn't going to put together a crusade without seeing his reports in the flesh, and his return voyage could take years. Pulling together the ships and men without stripping a sector of its defensive forces means mustering the forces of several sectors, which means several seperate lord-sectors, all of whom want a share of the profits and don't want to hand over too many of the troops protecting their own back yards from numerous threats.

Which means going to someone who can overrule them all, which means going up to segmentum level or even to Terra. Which puts you in a queue behind all the other 'critical issues' which also absolutely must have the High Lord's ears.

....Which is why so much is achieved, proportionately, by people who can short-cut the Adeptus Terra's hierarchy; alliances of big Rogue Trader dynasties, Inquisitors and the Adeptus Astartes.

If you mean the tank rolling off the assembly line and killing people?

More or less. In the Graphic Novel Titan, a salvaged Warlord-class titan is being repaired on a forge world. It goes badly wrong - the tech-priests manage to shock the machine spirit back into life but it's traumatized by the battle damage and it goes bezerk, opening up with engine-class weapons inside the titan silo until Imperius Dictatio finally puts it (back) out of its misery.

 dusara217 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
That's certainly one way of looking at it, but it's simply a personal interpretation. Also, the self-parking cars and such are merely the first steps towards self-piloting vehicles, advancing in tandem with our first steps on the path to developing true AI.

We already have true AI, we use them in programs and video games all the time. Just because they aren't sentient or self-aware does not mean that they are not artificial intelligences. Synthetic life may be beyond our reach, but AI is commonplace in our society.

If they aren't sentient and self-aware, they aren't "True AI" by definition.

Iracundus wrote:
I think it important to distinguish between what Machine Spirits are vs. what people believe.

The "Machine Spirits" of powerful machines like Titans and Land Raiders may exist as a form of half-organic AI, imbuing the total machine with some ability to function semi-autonomously. The Machine Spirits of things like your toaster is a belief held by official dogma to exist, like animism where everything has a spirit, but to modern humans there is nothing there.

A 40K person would view the ability of modern cars to park themselves or even drive themselves as evidence of a Machine Spirit but we would not view these car features as evidence of a supernatural spirit imbuing our cars with life nor would we view this as proof that simpler machines also have supernatural spirits inhabiting them. 40K people operate in a paradigm of animism where all machines are believed to have spirits and this belief is used to explain away the quirks of complex machinery or how advanced machines can do things on their own.

No, all of humanity's machines in 40K have some legitimate spirituality to them. Cogs attached to no motors or anything that might supply power have started moving before simply because of a Tech Priest performing rituals on them. Firearms will fail you in the middle of a firefight in a manner similar to the One Ring if you fail to care for them properly. The religion exists for a reason- it's to ensure things actually work and don't actively try to kill you.

Chaos codex also notes even a simple scalpel has a reflection in the warp (and the most legendary blades can develop their own sentience).

If that is true for a disposable surgical tool, it must also be true for something much more revered.

I need a source on the cogs moving and the vindictive weapons. This is actual proof that the Mechanicum might not be a bunch of cheeseballs wearing tinfoil, but I need to see it.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
I think it important to distinguish between what Machine Spirits are vs. what people believe.

The "Machine Spirits" of powerful machines like Titans and Land Raiders may exist as a form of half-organic AI, imbuing the total machine with some ability to function semi-autonomously. The Machine Spirits of things like your toaster is a belief held by official dogma to exist, like animism where everything has a spirit, but to modern humans there is nothing there.

A 40K person would view the ability of modern cars to park themselves or even drive themselves as evidence of a Machine Spirit but we would not view these car features as evidence of a supernatural spirit imbuing our cars with life nor would we view this as proof that simpler machines also have supernatural spirits inhabiting them. 40K people operate in a paradigm of animism where all machines are believed to have spirits and this belief is used to explain away the quirks of complex machinery or how advanced machines can do things on their own.

No, all of humanity's machines in 40K have some legitimate spirituality to them. Cogs attached to no motors or anything that might supply power have started moving before simply because of a Tech Priest performing rituals on them. Firearms will fail you in the middle of a firefight in a manner similar to the One Ring if you fail to care for them properly. The religion exists for a reason- it's to ensure things actually work and don't actively try to kill you.

That's what the Adeptus Mechanicus believes, not what is actually true. There is need to differentiate between what people believe is the explanation for things and what is reality. The firearm fails you because of poor maintenance not because some fictitious gun spirit is angry at you. This is the same Adeptus Mechanicus that claims to have proven Gauss weaponry to be an impossibility. Tell that to the Necrons while they flay you with their perfectly functional Gauss weapons.

The Adeptus Mechanicus can do things but their explanation of why things work as they do is based on their theology. Similarly ancient steel makers had religious rituals and prayers to propitiate spirits and angels to aid in the forging but which we now think helped the process by ensuring the right mixture of impurities and timing was done. The end result was the same, a working steel blade, but two different paradigms for explaining why something worked.

Of course their guns fail if they aren't treated properly. It''s called maintenance.