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Headcanon is best cannon, although shoulder-mounted is more practical.
"That time I only loaded the cannon with powder. Next time, I will fill it with jewels and diamonds and they will cut you to shrebbons!" - Nogbad the Bad.
Alternatively, machine spirits exist as AI fragments from the DAoT, and have incorporated themselves into STC patterns, which is why every machine has a spirit, and not just the older, more powerful ones.
Honestly, this pretty much sums up my headcanon on Machine Spirits.
A machine spirit is not necessarily an AI, just a fragment of one or a very basic imitation of one that has the potential to become a fully fledged AI should it gain the processing power needed to sustain higher level thought functions. They are built into the STCs themselves as an integrated micromanagement system. Why let the operator worry about the internals when you can have a self-correcting intelligent program do it for you? Those one-in-a-million shots you get from random guardsmen who are trying to hold the line against impossible odds? That's the Lasgun's machine spirit pulling just enough processing power out of the integrated cogitators to help said guardsman put a beam solidly through a Hive Tyrant's eye socket and fry its entire brain. A machine spirit is intensely, fiercely loyal to the person who looks after it, and will do its best to ensure that its owner will survive no matter what. Very optimistic and full of speculation, I know, but this - to me - makes sense.
The story behind this headcanon is probably not fit for this board so I'll stick it somewhere else when I get the time but long story short one of the guys I RP with is a Techpriest and basically makes up gak like this to explain away inconsistencies and nonsense that occur from fluff conflict and he's really rather good at it
That is a tad optimistic, especially with the stories we have already of corrupted STCs that backfire on creators. Tanks that immediately fire at anything that move once activated, lasguns that explode in the bearer's hands, and so on. I view machine spirits as a lesser form of this corruption.
Yes, we have stories of Machine Spirits getting pissy and going into full rape-mode (like the Titans in Priests of Mars), but we also have stories of Machine Spirits "loving" their owners and being loyal to them, to a degree (source: Mechanicum,Priests of Mars). This is why the Mechanicum tries to supplicate machine-spirits; they can give you a glorious headshot or explode in your hands because you said the prayer wrong.
To quote a fictional character... "Let's make this fun!"
Tactical_Spam wrote: There was a story in the SM omnibus where a single kroot killed 2-3 marines then ate their gene seed and became a Kroot-startes.
Alternatively, machine spirits exist as AI fragments from the DAoT, and have incorporated themselves into STC patterns, which is why every machine has a spirit, and not just the older, more powerful ones.
Honestly, this pretty much sums up my headcanon on Machine Spirits.
A machine spirit is not necessarily an AI, just a fragment of one or a very basic imitation of one that has the potential to become a fully fledged AI should it gain the processing power needed to sustain higher level thought functions. They are built into the STCs themselves as an integrated micromanagement system. Why let the operator worry about the internals when you can have a self-correcting intelligent program do it for you? Those one-in-a-million shots you get from random guardsmen who are trying to hold the line against impossible odds? That's the Lasgun's machine spirit pulling just enough processing power out of the integrated cogitators to help said guardsman put a beam solidly through a Hive Tyrant's eye socket and fry its entire brain. A machine spirit is intensely, fiercely loyal to the person who looks after it, and will do its best to ensure that its owner will survive no matter what. Very optimistic and full of speculation, I know, but this - to me - makes sense.
The story behind this headcanon is probably not fit for this board so I'll stick it somewhere else when I get the time but long story short one of the guys I RP with is a Techpriest and basically makes up gak like this to explain away inconsistencies and nonsense that occur from fluff conflict and he's really rather good at it
That is a tad optimistic, especially with the stories we have already of corrupted STCs that backfire on creators. Tanks that immediately fire at anything that move once activated, lasguns that explode in the bearer's hands, and so on. I view machine spirits as a lesser form of this corruption.
Yes, we have stories of Machine Spirits getting pissy and going into full rape-mode (like the Titans in Priests of Mars), but we also have stories of Machine Spirits "loving" their owners and being loyal to them, to a degree (source: Mechanicum,Priests of Mars). This is why the Mechanicum tries to supplicate machine-spirits; they can give you a glorious headshot or explode in your hands because you said the prayer wrong.
That and said prayer may also be the instructions on how to put the damn thing back together after disassembling it to replace a focusing lens. The Mechanicus lost the manuals several millennia ago. Reciting prayers may be the only way they have of remembering how to put complex machines back together or swapping parts out, in addition to appeasing whatever AI might inhabit the device.
There's a delicious irony to the 'Machine Spirit = Benign AI' theory: the very things the Mechanicus and the Imperium have stated are to be destroyed on discovery are the same things that drive almost every last one of their vehicles, weapons, and possibly even their manufactorums and databases.
"At the end of the day, though he's been ferried through hell on a ship that's ten thousand years old to some godforsaken, war-torn rock; though he deployed from high orbit with nothing but a grav chute; though he is one of ten million men and women snatched from his homeworld to fight a war he barely understands; though he has been given a weapon that fires small suns and may annihilate him as he fires because the knowledge of how it functions has been lost; though his company is supported by tractor-tanks that run on anything you can burn; though he wages war against a devouring hivemind, ravenous demons and hordes of hyper-advanced aliens with strange technologies and sorceries he never dreamed existed; no one will remember his sacrifice, there will be no records of his deeds, no glorious parades in his honor, and no remembrance of his name. All he will earn is a shallow, unmarked grave on a forgotten world untold lightyears from home.
"Yet for all this thankless sacrifice a Guardsman is a man, just like you. He has no millennia-old genetic engineering, no prophetic leader, no miracles of faith. He has his lasgun, his orders, and those beside him. He is the Imperial Guard.
"And he will hold the line." - /tg/, in the most truthful rendition of what it means to be an Imperial Guardsman.
That and said prayer may also be the instructions on how to put the damn thing back together after disassembling it to replace a focusing lens. The Mechanicus lost the manuals several millennia ago. Reciting prayers may be the only way they have of remembering how to put complex machines back together or swapping parts out, in addition to appeasing whatever AI might inhabit the device.
There's no maybe about it - it was outright stated that most Mechanicus prayers and rites are the maintenance manuals turned into oral form as a ward against societal collapse.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/26 14:37:30
"That time I only loaded the cannon with powder. Next time, I will fill it with jewels and diamonds and they will cut you to shrebbons!" - Nogbad the Bad.
dusara217 wrote: Now you're just arguing to argue. By you're own admission, you're wrong.
I really have no idea what you're talking about. Mentioning cyclone missile racks is not an admission that your bizarre "every surface of a suit of power armor should be covered in guns" theory is correct.
First of all, it's a hypothesis; I have no experimental data to back it up (I don't know why that distinction bugs me, but it REALLY irks me when people make that mistake). Second of all, at no point did I say taht every surface of Power Armour should be covered in guns. I said that Tactical Dreadnought Armour would be more than capable of fitting additional weapons onto the suit itself. Which you seem to be arguing against without actually giving any arguments that say it wouldn't work. Yes, it would take a lot of work to fit on additional weaponry. Yes, it would take a boatload of man hours. Yes, there are no technical specifications about the suit, which would alert us to the incompatibility of the suit with chassis-mounted weaponry. However, none of this mean that it isn't possible.
Also, ghillie suits have very little in common with the technology of camo cloaks. Ghillie suits are fixed comouflage that require very specific locations to work correctly. However, with Camo cloaks, you could literally stand up against a wall and turn the exact color, texture, etc. of the wall. At night, you would be as black as the area around you, or as foliage-like as the foliage you need to hide in.
Sigh. The point is that they function the same. They're more advanced because they can change colors to work in different environments instead of being a single suit that is worthless when you go from a forest into a ruined building. But they still work like real-world camo gear, they make you the same color as your background so you blend in better. This is supported by your own quotes, where it talks about how skilled users can be nearly invisible. If camo cloaks worked like Tau stealth fields then skill would be irrelevant, you simply turn it on and disappear. A Remora drone isn't a highly-trained stealth specialist, it's a floating automated gun platform with a stealth field bolted on.
No, skill most definitely is relevant. When you see that invisible guy making boot-prints in the dirt, and you know that this technology exists, it's pretty dang obvious what's going on. When somebody's trying to be stealthy, and they don't know how to move quietly, they will, more than likely, be discovered (as there is nothing stated about the Tau Stealth tech that mentions avoiding Thermals imaging, infrared, etc.). However, I do see your point about the camouflage being camouflage regardless of how advanced it is.
Given that there are no fluff examples of fights between the two units I have no idea how you are coming to this conclusion, other than a comparison of game mechanics where the Warhound wins because its rules are blatantly overpowered.
I'm just going to sum up everything about the Tau Titan right here:
1.) my mistake about the engineer
2.) I'm starting to feel like you aren't reading the arguments of the person you are arguing with. I specifically said that I compared the in-fluff weapons given to the Warhound and the Supremacy Armour, I compared the in-fluff cited speeds of them ("slow" compared with "fastest Imperial Titan" (if Mechanicum is a good source, or the Priests of Mars)), in-fluff cited armour levels, and in-fluff cited weaponry. They've got comparable in-fluff weaponry. Comparable armour. However, the Warhound's ambush capabilities and speed give it the edge
deadairis wrote: In which case the lack of immediate issues from using alien tech, the lack of immediate come-uppance for races like the Tau, is no more a sign that there are no consequences for their tech-heresies than the lack of immediate issues from the first few cigarettes.
This argument fails when you consider the Necrons, who have a similar lack of concern for turning technology into religious rituals but have been ignoring the supposed consequences for longer than humanity has existed. The obvious answer here is that sensible engineering works just fine in 40k, and the Imperium is just too stupid to do it.
Yes, it seems highly unlikley that Xenso tech is like this, considering the fact that the Eldar have never worshiped their tech for 65 Million Years without any negative repurcussions.
Considering how the Warp works, however, the sheer energies given off from worshiping the objects would more than likely provide Machine Spirits for most of them, which could, more than likely, cause issues with the machinery itself, should you fail to properly praise it. Which means that the simple act of the AdMech's worshiping causes machine-spirits to appear, and makes their lore true.
Alternatively, machine spirits exist as AI fragments from the DAoT, and have incorporated themselves into STC patterns, which is why every machine has a spirit, and not just the older, more powerful ones.
And also considering how the warp/psykers work, if humanity (which appears to be the most exposed to Warp issues) builds their entire technology base to ensure that it works even when, say, actual literal daemonic possession tries to take it over, they probably have the most to gain.
Other folks have already pointed out that comparisons to the Necrons are false friends because of the 'backed by gods' technology backend. E.g., sure, they don't have rituals -- just one big one, where their technology consumes an entire race's soul. Eldar, similarly, don't operate on a technology base which appears to be vulnerable in the same way which human technology is. Interesting to note that their technology isn't built around 'better science,' though, but simply by saying 'yeah, ghosts. Magic. Psychics. That's technology for you.'
There's no technology that makes it out into 10,000+ years of existence in the setting that doesn't get hit in the face with some need to deal with the fact that 40K is a high magic setting.
Necrons had incredibly technology before they made a deal with the C'tan. They had the ability to build necrodermis, travel to the sun, and communicate with a pure energy being at the very least.
"That time I only loaded the cannon with powder. Next time, I will fill it with jewels and diamonds and they will cut you to shrebbons!" - Nogbad the Bad.
Also, as it says in the Lathes expansion of the RPG and the Ordo Reductor section in Book 4 is that the Mechanicum lost a fair amount of intellectual capability post heresy.
This is due to the large amount of oversight the Inquistion caused, along with the follow on chilling effect. Much like political correctness today limits thought and investigation into certain areas of science (try questioning global warming for one) much of the Mechanicum's progress has been stymed because they are politically incapable of investigating the issue.
Black ops units may exist, but other then the Ordo Reductor their innovations will never be adopted over a wide area.
Martian Ray weapons are superior to Tau pulse weaponry, Legio Cybernetica have superior robots to Tau crisis suits, Myrmadons are statwise walking Broadsides.
Even post heresy the Admech have superior weapons to the Tau. These weapons however are politically reserved for the admech and would never be given to the wider Imperium.
A magos might get a Tau pulse rifle and examine it, but he won't see any reason to replicate it. He already has access to better weapons (hello death rays!). The magos might consider equipping his personal guard with better weapons like the Lathe System lords did, but it is a costly endevor and just isn't done for the wider imperium. That is why the imperium won't ever get better guns.
Durandal wrote: Also, as it says in the Lathes expansion of the RPG and the Ordo Reductor section in Book 4 is that the Mechanicum lost a fair amount of intellectual capability post heresy.
This is due to the large amount of oversight the Inquistion caused, along with the follow on chilling effect. Much like political correctness today limits thought and investigation into certain areas of science (try questioning global warming for one) much of the Mechanicum's progress has been stymed because they are politically incapable of investigating the issue.
Black ops units may exist, but other then the Ordo Reductor their innovations will never be adopted over a wide area.
Martian Ray weapons are superior to Tau pulse weaponry, Legio Cybernetica have superior robots to Tau crisis suits, Myrmadons are statwise walking Broadsides.
Even post heresy the Admech have superior weapons to the Tau. These weapons however are politically reserved for the admech and would never be given to the wider Imperium.
A magos might get a Tau pulse rifle and examine it, but he won't see any reason to replicate it. He already has access to better weapons (hello death rays!). The magos might consider equipping his personal guard with better weapons like the Lathe System lords did, but it is a costly endevor and just isn't done for the wider imperium. That is why the imperium won't ever get better guns.
You make some very valid points (I particularly liked the SocJust parallel), but the Inquisition has very little jurisdiction over the Mechanicus. As the Mars and the other forgeworlds are technically a state of their own, separate from the Imperium, Inquisitorial meddling is not actually legal. That rarely stops Inquisitors, to be sure, but prevents them from using their status to make demands, requisition information or equipment, and so on. The Mechanicus is itself a very religious organization, and has a self-regulatory Inquisitorial equivalent in the form of the Magos Juris. The biggest reason for the loss of tech after the Heresy was the Schism of Mars. The Dark Mechanicus wrecked anything advanced they couldn't take with them, resulting in the loss of a great amount of archeotech. In turn, the loyalist AdMech became much more secretive with their most advanced tech. The reason there are so few Baneblades in the 41st Millennium versus the 31st Millennium, for instance, is because only a select few forgeworlds are given its STC. Potentially, it could be given out to more worlds, but the AdMech don't wish to give out advanced STCs to any entity that has even the smallest chance to turn traitor, as their doing so would bring this technology back into the hands of Chaos forces.
When the only tool you have is a Skyhammer, every army begins to resemble a nail.
You make some very valid points (I particularly liked the SocJust parallel), but the Inquisition has very little jurisdiction over the Mechanicus. As the Mars and the other forgeworlds are technically a state of their own, separate from the Imperium, Inquisitorial meddling is not actually legal. That rarely stops Inquisitors, to be sure, but prevents them from using their status to make demands, requisition information or equipment, and so on. The Mechanicus is itself a very religious organization, and has a self-regulatory Inquisitorial equivalent in the form of the Magos Juris. The biggest reason for the loss of tech after the Heresy was the Schism of Mars. The Dark Mechanicus wrecked anything advanced they couldn't take with them, resulting in the loss of a great amount of archeotech. In turn, the loyalist AdMech became much more secretive with their most advanced tech. The reason there are so few Baneblades in the 41st Millennium versus the 31st Millennium, for instance, is because only a select few forgeworlds are given its STC. Potentially, it could be given out to more worlds, but the AdMech don't wish to give out advanced STCs to any entity that has even the smallest chance to turn traitor, as their doing so would bring this technology back into the hands of Chaos forces.
The mechanicum's independence eroded with the heresy. The fact that a slight majority of forge worlds favored Horus's cause weakened the remaining loyalist Ad Mech when the imperium was reforged in the scouring, both from a military and political perspective.
From Dark Heresy, the Lathes "…Some of the autonomy of the Adeptus Mechanicus has also been eroded over the millennia. The events of the heresy… have made forge worlds subject to inquisitorial scrutiny on a level unthinkable in the earliest days..Fear of accusations of heresy have limited the dissuasion of ideas to safely prescribed paths."
So there is some level of jurisdiction over the wider Mechanicum in 40k. Either by external forces such as the Inquisiton, or by internal forces like the Lords Dragon, all of which are meant to root out and prevent a second schism. The fear of that schism, and the subsequent loss of what data remains, is why the greater mechanicum accepted such oversight at first, and allowed it to become codified into the general attitudes of the mechanicum. Of course some level of rivalry still exists, and that may inhibit wider dissemination of knowledge, but the question is why wouldn't the Ad Mech take xenos weapons, such as the Tau pulse rifle or Necron gauss guns, and manufacture them on a wide scale. Again, the answer is a combination of the following:
1. Magos have access to superior weapons, and see no need to use Xenos ones.
2. Xenos tech is prohibited due to religious reasons. (Alien tech is not without risks in 40k, much like parasites in pigs back in B.C.)
3. Using Xenos tech is admitting it is superior to mankind, an idea that is considered heretical by the Mechanicus and wider Imperium and violates the Universal Laws.
4. Using Xenos tech attracts Inquisitional attention, which is also bad for your health in the wider imperium.
5. Producing Xenos tech requires "perversion" of sacred forges and autofacs to manufacture "unclean" designs rather then blessed designs.
6. Xenos designs have unknown rituals of maintenance and operation. Tau Auxiliaries can use Tau weapons, but when your gun can eat your soul, you get picky about which one you use.
So while there are small groups that study and innovate, they are a tiny fraction compared to the wider imperium and Ad Mech.
The reason is that technology as we know it (= the manipulation of natural laws to produce a desired result) does not exist in 40K, except for open or closet heretics. The functioning of machines is seen as the operation of supernatural forces, not natural ones. So this is asking why Christians do not try to reverse engineer demons.