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all of which is explained in the codex.

BrianDavion wrote:
all of which is explained in the codex.

Do enlighten me. I have not read the codex but I did go through the warhammer wiki and the lexicanum pages on the subjects and they did not explain the issue.

well ok first of all re noble houses, remember that the IoM mostly leaves worlds to do their own thing so long as they reckongize the god emperor, and pay their taxes. Knight worlds are in an enviable position that their forces are in a high eneugh demand that they can essentially pick and choose where they fight. Also Knight worlds had an advantage over many other worlds in that both the Mechanius (or later AdMech) and the Imperium proper where basicly compeiting for the worlds, and thus where proably offered a better deal. as for why no one is mass producing knights, it's because they're STC relics. (thats the admechs intreast in the knight worlds. STC fragments. a knight world is almost a garenteed STC fragment) they can be repaired and updated, but new ones proably can't be made, (gonna take a wild guess that it's the throne mechanium that's the stumbling block) also all throne mechanium's basicly brain wash the pilot to think like a Knight. so even if you could produce em, you'd swiftly end up with.. more noble houses.

I suppose I just never found the concept of memebrs of noble houses running around in old heirloom 1 man mecha fighting each other as that odd a thing, but.. I play Battletech

I very rarey go on rants but this bugs me so much because I simply can't make sence of it. I'll break down the stuff above and show you what I mean. First off is that it is correct that the Imperium does not care much about how a world is governed as long as five criteria are met. 1-The taxes are paid. 2-The world follows the Imperial creed. 3-soldiers are provided to the imperial guard. 4-The planets psykers are provided to the black ships. 5-The planet forms a PDF. Now as far as theese are concerned the knight worlds seem to be doing fine with the possibly exception of number 3, but seeing how they provide knights to the imperial cause this could easily be a special case.
The next par, "Admech was competing for the worlds so they where offered a better deal" does not make sence to me. Since the 31M the Imperium has beeen focusing on one thing, which is to stop heresy and traitors. This is the whole purpose of the Inquisiton and partly the reason why the adeptus arbitors are so important. these two bodies, with the addition of the adeptus administratum, governs all the military assests provided so that no single planet has the ability to raise up against the Imperium with a force powerfull enough to do any long term damadge. Now take the knights, what the sources say is that "they where offered a deal of trade" and "are called upon by the Imperium to make war" due to "honor". Tell me if this rings a bell. An immensly powerfull military faction left largely to it's own accord with very little outside scrutiny, assumed to do the Imperiums bidding. Sounds familiar? Huron? Goge Vandire? Horus? The thing is this would so easily be fixed with just a single line of text. Add a "The knight worlds are left largely to their own accord under the scrutiny of the Inquisitons ordo Auxilia" or something.

Lets say that for whatever reason not having the adeptus govern theese hundreds of worlds is a good idea then there's the issue of getting the knights to fight where they are needed. As of now the communication in the Imperium is a mess. Often enormous ammounts of imperial guard regiments must be raised quickly to go fight somewhere with very little information about anything. The knights are always "called upon" and "asked" to fight. It does not seem to me like they are subjects to the Imperial authorties. They probably would not send their armies out without first knowing what's going on and who's asking. This is important because since the Knights and their men at arms fill up the roles of the PDF (as in criteria 5) we must assume they also fill up the roles of Imperial guard, as in criteria 3. Even with the special case as is implied by the demands of their suits the Imperium needs to be able to raise them swiftly and send them off to whatever close by hellhole is causing trouble. The fact that it does not seem to work this way implies they are above the high lords of terra, in the same way that space marine chapter masters are, and thus what you're really looking at is an empire within the Imperium. A bunch of worlds that follow their own creed of laws, honours and trade outside how a whole galaxy is run. Because they have big machines. This could also so easily be fixed by a single "The knight high king is destined to serve as a high lord of Terra after years of service" or "The knight worlds are under direct authorities of the adeptus mechanicus".

Finally about the Knights themselves. They where created sometime during mankinds golden age (1m-15m) as a form of PDF/work machine. Later on they where repurpoused as full on war machines untill their society collapsed. Fast forward some 20thousand years and the mechanicus finds them and goes "Cool. Lets fix theese up". This means that the knights found functioning here has remained functioning, through constant combat, with medieval level tech for at least 5 thousand years (give or take depending on how the dark age of technology went down for them). Think about that for a sec, what did this world look like 5000 years ago? How many machines doyou think will survive 5000 years into the future? So then the knights are restored to fighting strengh but if no new ones are made and they can only piece togheter bits of the old ones then they should all be long long destroyed and by the 41m all should be gone. Hence what the Admech must have done is figure out how to build new ones. Remmember that it clearly states they "brought technology to them in exchange for food and other trade". So now we have the mechanicus building knights and then explain to me again why these super war machines are not spread across the entire imperium and put on par with the leman russ battle tank in how they are deployed? Or at least why the Space marine legions where NOT outfitted with theese beasts of walkers instead of their dreadnoughts? Even with the mind altering throne shouldn't they put a bunch of soldiers in there to act as supportive troops?

No, to me this fluff does not hold up. This is not how the Imperium operates and there's no way the knights could remain operational after so long. This stuff is simply poorly written to satisfy the ability to sell the models. Honestly I would be very happy to be proven wrong here. I suppose most of this stuff can be explained away by things that are't written down. Like the adeptus could have a presence on theese worlds or they could be officially ruled by the mechanicus whilst letting the nobles do whatever they want to get on with their research. If so it feels very, very stupid since that raises even more issues I don't want to have to go into.

As a side note I like the idea of noble houses going at it in huge mechs, it just that it does not hold up in 40k lore to me but could be easily changed through some tweeks and changes. It's sort of like the "why does imperial guard not have power armour while the sororitas do" type of questions.

Well, literally all of the "lost the capability to make more" tropes in 40k won't hold up under any scrutiny. For example it is proof they make new warships, which are massively complicated collections of technology, any small part of which has to be made from scratch. That single warship requires the capability to make thousands, if not millions, of different parts/systems from scratch in factories.

Following 40k's dark age trope to the letter would result in the eventual destruction/loss of anything used for war, followed soon by everything else. I can't imagine the Imperium can't make new titans or knights when they can make kilometers-long warships.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Following 40k's dark age trope to the letter would result in the eventual destruction/loss of anything used for war, followed soon by everything else. I can't imagine the Imperium can't make new titans or knights when they can make kilometers-long warships.

Perhaps this is true, but I don't see how it is a problem for the 40k setting. It is the Time of Ending, it is heavily implied that the Imperium is not going to survive for another 10k years (certainly not in it's current state, at least).

Perhaps it would be a problem if the setting stretched from 40k to infinity.

Of course they can still do Titans and warships, but they aren't as good/powerful and as many as before.
In the v3 or v4 (IIRC) Space Marines Codex, there is a little story of SM fighting orks.
One of the marines take a shot, go to ground, and think about how is armor was quicker to put him back on feets, when he was young.
This is what happens in the Imperium: they can still do things (except some rare tech) but even the tech they have are worse than before.

Imagine they knew how to make Iphone in the 31st Millenium, now, they can still do phones, but they lost a lot of it.
Now they are making low range (low end ?) huawei.

*Nokia brick phones.

Comes with an attached flashlight. 5 point upgrade to an IG sergeant.

Nerak wrote:
I very rarey go on rants but this bugs me so much because I simply can't make sence of it. I'll break down the stuff above and show you what I mean. First off is that it is correct that the Imperium does not care much about how a world is governed as long as five criteria are met. 1-The taxes are paid. 2-The world follows the Imperial creed. 3-soldiers are provided to the imperial guard. 4-The planets psykers are provided to the black ships. 5-The planet forms a PDF. Now as far as theese are concerned the knight worlds seem to be doing fine with the possibly exception of number 3, but seeing how they provide knights to the imperial cause this could easily be a special case.
The next par, "Admech was competing for the worlds so they where offered a better deal" does not make sence to me. Since the 31M the Imperium has beeen focusing on one thing, which is to stop heresy and traitors. This is the whole purpose of the Inquisiton and partly the reason why the adeptus arbitors are so important. these two bodies, with the addition of the adeptus administratum, governs all the military assests provided so that no single planet has the ability to raise up against the Imperium with a force powerfull enough to do any long term damadge. Now take the knights, what the sources say is that "they where offered a deal of trade" and "are called upon by the Imperium to make war" due to "honor". Tell me if this rings a bell. An immensly powerfull military faction left largely to it's own accord with very little outside scrutiny, assumed to do the Imperiums bidding. Sounds familiar? Huron? Goge Vandire? Horus? The thing is this would so easily be fixed with just a single line of text. Add a "The knight worlds are left largely to their own accord under the scrutiny of the Inquisitons ordo Auxilia" or something.

Lets say that for whatever reason not having the adeptus govern theese hundreds of worlds is a good idea then there's the issue of getting the knights to fight where they are needed. As of now the communication in the Imperium is a mess. Often enormous ammounts of imperial guard regiments must be raised quickly to go fight somewhere with very little information about anything. The knights are always "called upon" and "asked" to fight. It does not seem to me like they are subjects to the Imperial authorties. They probably would not send their armies out without first knowing what's going on and who's asking. This is important because since the Knights and their men at arms fill up the roles of the PDF (as in criteria 5) we must assume they also fill up the roles of Imperial guard, as in criteria 3. Even with the special case as is implied by the demands of their suits the Imperium needs to be able to raise them swiftly and send them off to whatever close by hellhole is causing trouble. The fact that it does not seem to work this way implies they are above the high lords of terra, in the same way that space marine chapter masters are, and thus what you're really looking at is an empire within the Imperium. A bunch of worlds that follow their own creed of laws, honours and trade outside how a whole galaxy is run. Because they have big machines. This could also so easily be fixed by a single "The knight high king is destined to serve as a high lord of Terra after years of service" or "The knight worlds are under direct authorities of the adeptus mechanicus".

Finally about the Knights themselves. They where created sometime during mankinds golden age (1m-15m) as a form of PDF/work machine. Later on they where repurpoused as full on war machines untill their society collapsed. Fast forward some 20thousand years and the mechanicus finds them and goes "Cool. Lets fix theese up". This means that the knights found functioning here has remained functioning, through constant combat, with medieval level tech for at least 5 thousand years (give or take depending on how the dark age of technology went down for them). Think about that for a sec, what did this world look like 5000 years ago? How many machines doyou think will survive 5000 years into the future? So then the knights are restored to fighting strengh but if no new ones are made and they can only piece togheter bits of the old ones then they should all be long long destroyed and by the 41m all should be gone. Hence what the Admech must have done is figure out how to build new ones. Remmember that it clearly states they "brought technology to them in exchange for food and other trade". So now we have the mechanicus building knights and then explain to me again why these super war machines are not spread across the entire imperium and put on par with the leman russ battle tank in how they are deployed? Or at least why the Space marine legions where NOT outfitted with theese beasts of walkers instead of their dreadnoughts? Even with the mind altering throne shouldn't they put a bunch of soldiers in there to act as supportive troops?

No, to me this fluff does not hold up. This is not how the Imperium operates and there's no way the knights could remain operational after so long. This stuff is simply poorly written to satisfy the ability to sell the models. Honestly I would be very happy to be proven wrong here. I suppose most of this stuff can be explained away by things that are't written down. Like the adeptus could have a presence on theese worlds or they could be officially ruled by the mechanicus whilst letting the nobles do whatever they want to get on with their research. If so it feels very, very stupid since that raises even more issues I don't want to have to go into.

As a side note I like the idea of noble houses going at it in huge mechs, it just that it does not hold up in 40k lore to me but could be easily changed through some tweeks and changes. It's sort of like the "why does imperial guard not have power armour while the sororitas do" type of questions.

Couple of things...

One, Chapter Masters are not above the High Lords of Terra. Never have been, never will be. If the HLoT tell a Chapter to go somewhere to fight someone, the Chapter goes. If they don't? Then they're Renegades and are in for a world of pain.

The Knight Houses are relatively few in number and feature very few suits per world. In the scales of conflicts in 40K, the presence of a Knight and its auxillia might win a battle, but it's not a decisive war-winner. Much like the Space Marine Chapters, those Knight Worlds that refuse a "request" from the HLoT will likely find themselves in all sorts of trouble... the sorts of trouble that lead to "regime change" orchestrated through the Inquisition and/or the Assassinorum.

New Titans and new Knights cannot be built. They can repair broken parts. New armor plate can be forged. Fried electrical systems can be replaced, possibly even retro-fit with something the Mechanicus can create (but it's not as good as it used to be). In true 40k fashion, the fluff assumes that most Knights decisively win the battles they are present in, and so the total loss of a Knight is extremely rare. This is the same fluff where a single squad of Space Marines is sufficient to topple a planet of billions. War in 40K is basically fought like a chess game: topple the king, the game is yours. Machines and systems surviving many thousands of years is a theme of 40K. The extant technology is *constantly* maintained, because it is, in many cases, literally irreplaceable. Hive Worlds use atmospheric recyclers that have been in service since the Hive was founded sometime in M27. There are relic vessels that have been in service since before the Great Crusade. When the Golden Age built something, they built it to *last*. When facing medieval technology? Well, in that case, the Knight is invulnerable. Steel swords cannot pierce adamantine armor. Thus, the Knights survived their Feudal Worlds just fine, because hurling rocks at a battle-mech is entirely ineffective. Between the armor and the void shield, those catapults, ballista, archers and horsemen had absolutely no hope in ever scratching its paint, let alone actually damaging it.

... Titans can be built. There are new Titans all over the bloody shop. Hell, Graia is an entire Forge World dedicated to building Titans.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
... Titans can be built. There are new Titans all over the bloody shop. Hell, Graia is an entire Forge World dedicated to building Titans.

This kind of thing is why I don't understand the ignorance of a lot of the people on this thread. All over the place, we see examples of shipyards, Titan Manufactories, brand spankin' new suits of Power Armour, and yet, there seems to be this illusion that the Mechanicum is the most incompetent organization imaginable, and can't build the very bread and butter of its own technologies.

 Lord_Inquisitor_Doge wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
... Titans can be built. There are new Titans all over the bloody shop. Hell, Graia is an entire Forge World dedicated to building Titans.

This kind of thing is why I don't understand the ignorance of a lot of the people on this thread. All over the place, we see examples of shipyards, Titan Manufactories, brand spankin' new suits of Power Armour, and yet, there seems to be this illusion that the Mechanicum is the most incompetent organization imaginable, and can't build the very bread and butter of its own technologies.

It is more inconsistency in fluff. In some bits of everything is irreplaceable to the point that you would fight wars to recover a titan's body. In other fluff bits, your literally churning them out on giant factories.

They look at the fluff that says that the AdMech don't know why most of the things they do works, and assume that that means they're incapable of producing and fitting together the parts.

The Mechanicus' lack of fundamental background knowledge in no way inhibits their ability to supply the Imperium, because they know how to make a diode, they just don't know what a diode is or why it works. But they do know that if you solder a million diodes to this board in the right places and screw it into this bit of a Titan, the Titan will start working assuming nothing else is broken or missing.

It's like... you don't need to know how a gun works and how a bullet works to put a bullet in a gun and fire it at something. What the AdMech as is a bunch of bullets and a bunch of guns that they know how to load and fire, but they don't know that you need to clean the gun to keep it working well.

Except they kind of do, because the Ritual of Maintenance is a set of instructions on how to clean the gun. The problem is, they think that the ritual is the reason the gun works better afterwards, not what you do as part of the ritual.

My understanding has always been that they don't understand why or how things work just how it fits together. Some things like Titans will have a large recovery force because they are hard to make so it's worth the loss of life to get one back. Repairing is a lot easier than rebuilding from scratch.

pm713 wrote:
My understanding has always been that they don't understand why or how things work just how it fits together..

This trope is mostly a fan-perpetuated myth. There was never really any fluff support to the idea that the Mechanicus had forgotten how to make things and were just deconstructing things like Chinese engineers with American and Russian jets, lol.

The Imperium has lost some technology, and humanity lost a ton after the DAoT, but they continue to innovate and invent. And they actively search out lost technologies. They also understand how the technologies they use work. The idea of a lack of foundational knowledge is another player-myth. It's not really clear where this concept originated, because it's certainly not supported by any of the older fluff (2nd, 3rd, 4th edition books, etc). Nowhere in there will you find language suggesting any idea of a bunch of guys just memorizing schematics. It talks specifically about "knowledge", and "design" and "research" and "inventors" and "explore new sciences" etc. The AdMech maybe dedicated to rediscovering technologies, but it's talking about pre-Dark Age of Technology stuff.

People kinda just invented this idea in their heads, and it sorta became a common consensus through repetition I think.

 Psienesis wrote:
One, Chapter Masters are not above the High Lords of Terra. Never have been, never will be. If the HLoT tell a Chapter to go somewhere to fight someone, the Chapter goes. If they don't? Then they're Renegades and are in for a world of pain.

There's a quote from the CM entry in the Codex saying otherwise.

I am also pretty sure I have told you this before on at least two separate occasions.

Is it because they dumped the imperium and declared their unconditional love to the smurfs? Might be related.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Sanctuary 101 was originally from the 3rd ed necron codex. I verified it myself. It's on page 22.

I wasn't referring to a one ( ? ) or 2 ( ?) paragraph codex entry. I was referring to a 200+ - 300+ page SOB novel .

My contention was and is that killer slaves for the C'tan cannot amount to anything more than strictly and solely "fluff ". As any kind of developed lore it wouldn't just be alien, or lacking in political correctness, or hard to contextualize, or just plain hard to write, it would be impossible to write.
Codex entries have no baring on that argument. You CAN venture just about anything if no more than a few paragraphs and mostly pictures is all that is required.

 KesaAnna wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Sanctuary 101 was originally from the 3rd ed necron codex. I verified it myself. It's on page 22.

I wasn't referring to a one ( ? ) or 2 ( ?) paragraph codex entry. I was referring to a 200+ - 300+ page SOB novel .

My contention was and is that killer slaves for the C'tan cannot amount to anything more than strictly and solely "fluff ". As any kind of developed lore it wouldn't just be alien, or lacking in political correctness, or hard to contextualize, or just plain hard to write, it would be impossible to write.
Codex entries have no baring on that argument. You CAN venture just about anything if no more than a few paragraphs and mostly pictures is all that is required.

Sanctuary 101 was originally a battle report in White Dwarf. Hammer and Anvil was about the reclamation of Sanctuary 101 fifty to a hundred years after the Massacre at Sanctuary 101.

The Massacre at Sanctuary 101 was the second piece of Necron fluff ever revealed, coming as it did in month 2 of the army's original release for second edition in White Dwarf magazine (issues 216 and 217).

The only fluff more oldcron than Sanctuary 101 is the mission from WD216 in which Imperial troops must kill Necron Warriors and Scarabs in close combat, in order to attach disruptors to them to prevent them from teleporting home so the Mechanicum can study them.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
Is it because they dumped the imperium and declared their unconditional love to the smurfs? Might be related.

No, it was when the desperate Orks began spreading rumours about 'Ghazghkull' and his imaginary feats to not lose the last of their reputation.

That certainly begs the question; what if enough orks start believing the rumours are true?

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
One, Chapter Masters are not above the High Lords of Terra. Never have been, never will be. If the HLoT tell a Chapter to go somewhere to fight someone, the Chapter goes. If they don't? Then they're Renegades and are in for a world of pain.

There's a quote from the CM entry in the Codex saying otherwise.

I am also pretty sure I have told you this before on at least two separate occasions.

you of course can provide the quote, as well as the codex edition and page number?

The same thing that happens when all those Orks believed Ghazghkull would conquer Armageddon.

He didn't, because 'they believe it is true so it becomes true' is a spammed meme based on an in-universe theory and with countless more plausible explanations (such as evil sunz favouring faster engines, and the red paint being irrelevant).

Yeah but that war isn't over and Ghazzy is still in command of it even from Octaria. He sees, hears and communicates to his command in real time as the events unfold putting all the astropaths and navigators to shame. Soon Orkimedes will have advanced the tellyporta tek so much that they cross the galactic distances instantaneously putting all other forms of travel to shame. Armageddon's fate is still on a knifes edge.

Edit add: Also Draigo is really Tzeentch breaking the 4th wall and messing with the reader's head. There I said it.

Ghazzy quit because even with his supposedly biggest ever Waaagh since the Beast and his great cunning, he could not break the defenses of a single Imperial world.

Orks are really not that dangerous. Their strength lies in that they are hard to get rid of completely. Many other xeno species would be by far more dangerous if they had the Orks' raw spread.

What you have there is a perfect example of lore outlined in the codex pg58; "Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin' so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!" - commonly held ork view of warfare.
Ghazzy can't lose with the weight of ork belief supporting him. That planet's days are numbered....

Also I'm not such a great fan of turning the necrons into another human fiefdom but I get what they were trying to do. Even if monotone I found the oldcrons creepier then what we have today.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Ghazzy quit because even with his supposedly biggest ever Waaagh since the Beast and his great cunning, he could not break the defenses of a single Imperial world.

Orks are really not that dangerous. Their strength lies in that they are hard to get rid of completely. Many other xeno species would be by far more dangerous if they had the Orks' raw spread.

The 'nids have lost 2 hive fleets to Calgar's UMs, therefore they are not that dangerous.
Neither of these statements are true, the orks and the 'nids are definitely dangerous. When a huge portion of the IoM's strength is assigned to defeat a threat they usually do, thats what makes the IoM impressive. It does not negate power of the initial threat.
Also Ghazzy is still going, and HF Leviathon is just starting.

The nids lost two tendrils to the five hundred worlds of Ultramar, yes, and their UM-led defence forces.

Ghazghkull ran off to summon his gods because he has given up on breaking Armageddon without them, which is telling because Orks don't usually run.

Well, at least they say they don't usually do it. And as long as they win, that might even be true.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin' so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!"

I am sure telling themselves that is very comforting for the Ork hordes who died of IG artillery fire a day's march away from reaching the enemy.

umm Ultramar was only 9 worlds.

30k is not 40k people.

And the Ultramarines did not fight alone. They pulled in help to defend the system... from systems now held by their very friendly successors (guess which systems), as well as Navy ships.