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Some however are masters of their chapters. Violators for example had a dreadnought as their commander. I want to say the Salamanders also have at least an HQ dreadnought, if not a company commander. And yeah the Night Lords dreadnought was very talky and happy to have been woken up to take on his old arch-rival from the Blood Angels if memory serves.

Literally they are people plugged into machines sitting in a sarcophagus linked to the machine. If you opened the sarc and the guy inside was capable of talking, he probably would do so. Otherwise they talk through speakers and over the radio and have whatever personality they had in life. My guess if they were asleep for awhile they would have many questions. I think marine chapters have more sarcophagi than they have available dreadnought chassis so those are probably kept asleep or just woken on occasion if someone needs their particular help with something informational.

Spetulhu wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

What stops them going crazy like the folk in the Titans, though?

As said, dreadnoughts aren't usually awake for very long periods of time. Someone like Bjorn, for example, is left sleeping until there's great need and otherwise only woken up about once in a hundred years for some grand feast where he can tell stories of Leman Russ. How he must hate it by now...

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Bjorn_the_Fell_Handed

Plus, the user of a Dreadnought is pretty much its machine-spirit, so no worrying about your dreadnought getting pissy and shooting a Tech-Marine, you get to be the one to do that.

I would imagine that Dreadnoughts speak through a vox grille of some sort, with there being neural cables capable of transmitting the interned marine's thought impulses into words

Vox-grill, laud-hailers, huge Marshall stacks...

All depends on when and who by the chassis was built.

War Kitten wrote:
I would imagine that Dreadnoughts speak through a vox grille of some sort, with there being neural cables capable of transmitting the interned marine's thought impulses into words

Or in the case of GK and BA psyker dreads they just psionically speak right into the minds of everyone present (or one specific mind if they want a quiet word with that Captain or TechMarine).

But yes, unless the Chapter for some reason thinks dreads should always shout (or their TechMarines are incompetent) the occupant of a dreadnought should be able to handla the vox volume himself. A marine in PA can do it, why not a dread?

Dunno why, but I'd always assumed they couldn't.

My Dread speaks softly, with a feminine voice and slowly. It creeps out the people who would want to shoot at it. It then eats them. "I am chaos, hear me whisper"!

Obviously through the barrels of their assault cannon

 Lord Corellia wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Reading how a Titan connects to people, I can imagine something similar applies to Dreadnoughts.

What stops them going crazy like the folk in the Titans, though?

Only being awoken very seldomly, and being in hibernation or stasis otherwise. Some do go crazy though, like Murderfang or just about every Chaos Dreadnought.

I mean, even Chaos Dreadnoughts don't always go crazy - but there certainly seems to be a higher proportion of them that do. IIRC, loyalist dreads are less likely to go nuts as it's viewed as a sort of honour to be interred in a dreadnought sarcophagus, albeit a rather dubious one. Traitor dreads seem to see it as far more of a punishment, something designed to make sure they never really feel the rush of battle again. Naturally, being unfettered murderous nutters, they don't really deal with that well.

The insanity I'm talking about is more to do with being meshed with the machine. Most titan princeps run the risk of going loopy due to the connection itself.

Titan princeps go crazy because they get mind melded with a ageless murderous intelligence beyond human comprehension, that itself has already consumed hundreds of previous pilots and partially absorbed their personalities. A literal god machine. You're bound to go crazy if you do that.

Dreadnoughts go crazy because they're old, had a traumatic injury, and/or they just get bored.

They speak the same way that guns speak.

I'm imagining something a bit like Morse code. But with heavy artillery.

They don't speak. They dance to communicate, like bees.

 Zarjaz! wrote:
I mean, even Chaos Dreadnoughts don't always go crazy - but there certainly seems to be a higher proportion of them that do.

IIRC CSM don't select "great heroes" for Dreadnought interrment and the pilot-to-be wasn't necessarily even wounded before having his limbs chopped off to fit him in the sarcophagus. They just needed one and it could be anybody who ticked the boss off. And they like keeping the things awake (body shut off) because it's funny to hear the curses, screams and ranting from someone who never wanted to be there.

In "betrayer" the former Legion master is in a dreadnought, and his vox is quiet/loud enough to bellow in battle, and have conversations in a cramped spaceship.