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Made in us
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




Is there anything in the fluff that Marine souls in dreadnaughts have to fight the machine spirits of larger dreadnaughts? I would think a sufficiently powerful machine spirit could overwhelm a dreadnaught soul and destroy it. For instance the sentience of the Babeblade spirits seems to indicate they have some form of autonomous "spirit energy". Does that exist in dreads? Or Venerable dreadnaughts, which as HH old?
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Dreadnoughts don't have machine spirits - they're more like suits of armour.

There's some fluff that the suit can store the memories of previous occupants and those can affect the current one (like IKs).

There's also an Iron Hands short story where
Spoiler:
the pilot is completely dead/decayed and the suit is controlled by a copy of his mind - which is tech-heresy
.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/03/09 17:58:49


 
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






As far as I am aware a dreadnought machine spirit is like a Boltgun machine spirit, it's just a tool for the pilot. Dreadnoughts are noted as being esoteric and poorly understood tech even to chapter techmarines and techmagi of forge worlds. A dreadnought is extremely difficult to build and there are very few forge worlds capable of their manufacturing. The dreadnought itself is merely the sarcophagus in which the warrior resides and they get removed from their walker harness when not in combat to be stored in stasis.
   
Made in it
Daemonic Dreadnought





Eye of Terror

May be mistaken about this - thought there was a story in an early White Dwarf that said the Dreadnought sarcophagus was a source of machine spirit for other vehicles, i.e. there's a shelf life to being in one.

Could be wrong.

   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






It's a shelf life in that meat decays and pilots go insane because they're a box with legs rather than an Astartes.
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

I think it was Know No Fear in which it's stated/shown/revealed that what sends Dreadnoughts insane is the sleep cycles.
   
Made in fi
Buttons Should Be Brass, Not Gold!






Whenever I think about what it might be like as a dreadnought, I'm remembering the Metallica song "One" lyrics:
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/metallica/one.html

Getting deployed to take part in a battle is probably the best thing they can look for in their existence. Not at all surprising if they eventually go insane

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/03/09 19:58:00


 
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




beast_gts wrote:
Dreadnoughts don't have machine spirits - they're more like suits of armour.

40k armor has machine spirits. Marines gibber about the spirit of their armor a heck of a lot.

Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in us
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




(Walks out on extremely thin ice) The lore of the books pretty much points to anything of mechanical nature has a machine spirit. In that BT book on Armageddon, the Scion attached to the conscripts tells them their guns need to be "treated with prayers or they will malfunction" One gun actually clears a jam when the guy says a prayer over it. Same thing happens in Gaunt's book series. The snipers "fix their rifles" with incantations. Whether this is a metaphor or not is unclear, but what is clear is that GW or BL at least are heavily implying machine spirits exist in everything mechanical. Not just Baneblades and titans. Hell, even the Sisters omnibus has her "requesting her plasma pistol get blessed before battle" and they do not believe in the Omnisiah.
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

Is a machine spirit not just the mechanicum word for the fact that Tech Priests don't really understand how technology works and so attribute glitches and slow loading times in software and so on to the "machine spirit" which is not actually a thing?

I know some bad background has been written by people who did not get the joke, but has actual ghosts in the actual machines become "canon" now?

   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






A little bit of yes and a little bit of no. Your smaller stuff like lasguns it's just to keep the mortals superstitious and afraid of divine retribution. The Armageddon example was really the gun needing it's safety turned off and the Stormtrooper was ribbing conscripts. Things like Astartes power armour and tanks do actually have a spirit and if left unappeased it's more likely to fail. It's not just basic maintenance but more like don't be reckless and do things like ramming walls for fun or deliberately scratch your armours paint. Of course, Titans and Knights have almost full souls to the point where they can overwhelm and subsume their pilot. The more killy the machine the more powerful the machine spirit is.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/03/10 13:13:28


 
   
Made in us
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




Again, in Armagheddon book, the machine spirit of the Imperator titan literally overwhelms and consumes the pilot. It takes a BT chaplain to force it down I thought, or he talks her out of it?

but then a BT Techmarine fires up and runs the Ordonatus which should have a MUCH more powerful machine spirit, and suffers no ill effects. Except for dying. Except that, but I think he dies of wounds, not merging with the Spirit.
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

Is the "soul" of a Titan not more like a nascent AI that the Princeps is linked to?

And the idea of power armour having a soul is...well...

I mean we've all had appliances that seem to have a mind or personality of their own, I have always interpreted the machine spirit background as being the understanding of that by the ignorant and superstitious humans of the 41st millenium.

I'm aware some authors have pushed that further, but we can't consider everything that's in a black library novel seriously because there's so much crazy stuff in them due to lack of quality control.

I mean if the background really has moved on to that I think it's a real shame, taking something that was a sly social commentary and turning into a weird supernatural phenomenon is really silly. Do Tau battlesuits have machine spirits? If not why not? Probably some guff to do with the Warp. But then why not for Kroot, or any of the rest?

   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






Pretty sure he lives and escapes with the Ordinatus after killing the Mega-Gargant. The Ordinatus isn't fully active either, it doesn't have any defences, can only fire every so often and hovers slowly. The titan Princeps he meets going into Helsreach also call him a huge heretic and threaten to kill him because he did not properly awaken the Ordinatus's machine spirit.
A Princeps always has to fight a titan's machine spirit and it strains their minds to do so. Princeps Zarah had been fighting for weeks and her titan had just been disabled by a trap. It took her personal bond with Grimauldus to break her free from the titan subsuming her mind.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoiler:
 Da Boss wrote:
Is the "soul" of a Titan not more like a nascent AI that the Princeps is linked to?

And the idea of power armour having a soul is...well...

I mean we've all had appliances that seem to have a mind or personality of their own, I have always interpreted the machine spirit background as being the understanding of that by the ignorant and superstitious humans of the 41st millenium.

I'm aware some authors have pushed that further, but we can't consider everything that's in a black library novel seriously because there's so much crazy stuff in them due to lack of quality control.

I mean if the background really has moved on to that I think it's a real shame, taking something that was a sly social commentary and turning into a weird supernatural phenomenon is really silly. Do Tau battlesuits have machine spirits? If not why not? Probably some guff to do with the Warp. But then why not for Kroot, or any of the rest?


Machines having a spirit has been in the lore since I started. Machine Spirits are just the mix of Mechanicus dogma and the advanced nature of Imperial tech. Advanced science can be mistaken for magic and in a time based around the worship of a big skeleton on a high-tech gamer chair, it often is the case.
As for Xenos, maybe they do have machine spirits as the Imperium knows them but you aren't going to see a mainline tech-priest start digging around in a Kroot Warsphere searching for heresy. If they do have machine spirits, to the Imperium they would be unclean monstrosities only deserving of destruction as Xenos are inferior to humanity.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/03/10 13:33:52


 
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

I started in 2e and it was pretty clear to me then that the Machine Spirit was a joke at the expense of the ignorant mechanicum.

   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






Nearly two decades old lore there, things have moved on a lot since 2nd edition. You can still laugh at the Mechanicus thinking a toaster has a soul because it's dumb. But in-universe people believe it so writers are going to have characters written to believe it.
Clearly machine spirits are AI but in 40k AI are illegal so they can't be, therefore they must be machine spirits.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/03/10 13:51:24


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Everything has a reflection in the Warp, including machines. Having human components is important because it imbues machines with spiritual protection.
   
Made in us
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




If titan spirits exist then it is not illogical to presume that lesser spirits exist.
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




 Gert wrote:
Nearly two decades old lore there, things have moved on a lot since 2nd edition. You can still laugh at the Mechanicus thinking a toaster has a soul because it's dumb. But in-universe people believe it so writers are going to have characters written to believe it.
Clearly machine spirits are AI but in 40k AI are illegal so they can't be, therefore they must be machine spirits.


Not exactly- there's probably some overlap at the upper end, but a simple 'machine spirit = AI' doesn't work. Bolters and lasguns, even simple every day things like truck engines and doors are considered to have machine spirits. They're obviously not run by AIs. Some of it is that the population is superstitious and dumb, some of it is intentionally ambiguous.

And even at the upper end, its doubtful. A lot of stuff just runs on slaved human brains, though some of that might be Ai anyway, with the machine using the brain as data storage. It gets fuzzy.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/03/10 15:17:14


Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in gb
Preparing the Invasion of Terra






FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
If titan spirits exist then it is not illogical to presume that lesser spirits exist.

They do but they are weak. A lasgun machine spirit could never take control of its body as a titan could.
A dreadnought chassis is likely multiple small spirits, i.e. storm bolter/powerfist/engine, rather than one big one.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/03/10 16:02:50


 
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Voss wrote:
beast_gts wrote:
Dreadnoughts don't have machine spirits - they're more like suits of armour.

40k armor has machine spirits. Marines gibber about the spirit of their armor a heck of a lot.


I meant AI-level machine spirit rather than OS-level, but that might be a head-canon distinction.
   
Made in us
Lead-Footed Trukkboy Driver





beast_gts wrote:
Voss wrote:
beast_gts wrote:
Dreadnoughts don't have machine spirits - they're more like suits of armour.

40k armor has machine spirits. Marines gibber about the spirit of their armor a heck of a lot.


I meant AI-level machine spirit rather than OS-level, but that might be a head-canon distinction.


It's not head-cannon. There is a distinction between "machine spirit" that exists in a general sense in all machines vs the AI machine spirit of a Land Raider, Titan, etc. GW writers are just inconsistent and use the same terminology. Also, there is a baked-in fluff reason for the vague distinction - AI is illegal, so if you describe all tech as containing a machine spirit, maybe people won't notice that you have been employing AI (limited as it may be) since the creation of the Imperium.

Active armies, still collecting and painting First and greatest love - Orks, Orks, and more Orks largest pile of shame, so many tanks unassembled most complete and painted beautiful models, couldn't resist the swarm will consume all
Armies in disrepair: nothing new since 5th edition oh how I want to revive, but mostly old fantasy demons and some glorious Soul Grinders in need of love 
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

I guess I'll just add "machines have actual ghosts inside them now in the 40K universe" to the list of things in the modern background that I think are terrible.

   
Made in us
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




That's not modern, lol. The Necrons were the first Ghost in the Machine proofs. And they were there in 2nd. As was the AdMech.....so 1990? or 98 if when the first necron models appeared.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/03/10 19:24:14


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Well, as much as stuff in the Warp can be 'inside' of you.
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
That's not modern, lol. The Necrons were the first Ghost in the Machine proofs. And they were there in 2nd. As was the AdMech.....so 1990? or 98 if when the first necron models appeared.


Necrons are a completely different concept to a lasgun having a spirit inside it. They're hyper advanced cyborgs, transfered consciousness from biological beings. Not really the same thing as a basic battle tank having a soul.

   
Made in us
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




I'm not trying to argue with you I'm just pointing out that the spirits in the machines are not a "NuHammer" thing. It's boomerhammer lore.
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

I don't consider them to be the same thing at all. Boomerhammer is a funny description though.

   
Made in us
Morally-Flexible Malleus Hearing Whispers




I took it from Boomer shooters (Doom, heretic, Quake, Hexen) and all the other 90s FPS). As a proud son of 1981, I feel free to mock anything of the 90s as OLD.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Something that I like about Warhammer is that it handles the notion of consciousness, souls, and information rather intelligently. Souls, for example, are not real; they are elements of the Warp and as such have no size, weight, dimension, etc. Likewise things can be conscious, which is to say that they can think, have subjectivity, and act intelligently without a soul of their own. There's not just souls, but machine-spirits, data-djinn, and so on.

And there's considerable cross-over between the Warp and real-space, in that there's stuff in the Warp that has something like consciousness in the sense that it can have subjectivity, act intelligently, and so on (although how much of that is the warp-stuff reflecting the contents of local consciousnesses back at them would be an interesting debate considering the Emperor's own psychic 'whatever you want to see' glamours). It's there even when reality hasn't completely broken down in a warpstorm. There's also technology that crosses over between the real-space/Warp boundary, perhaps most notably in the novel Mechanicum where a latent psycker is capable of seeing noospheric packets, but especially in the case of cogitators, devices which do not carry out calculations like a computers, but instead cogitations like a brain. The Aeldari especially make use of this to provide constructs such as Ghost Warriors and Wraithlords with intelligence and consciousness. I forget the primary source, but there's commentary somewhere (I think a codex) about how the Aeldari souls are much more intelligent and conscious than human souls, and makes sense of how maliciously clever they can be if they're offloading masses of cogitation on their souls rather than their brain-jelly. Technomany is a thing.

Notably since the beginning there's been a strong theme of anti-rationality in 40k, as we have been encouraged to abandon the strictures of the Dark Age of Technology and the fetters of reason, and it makes sense when rituals, inscriptions, and even thoughts alone can affect real-space. It was a dark age because Men brought their dreams to life without regard for the psychic implications, and paid the price as Old Night overtook Mankind. Take the rituals for becoming a Space Marine. In one sense maybe they're a debased version of the original, purely technical procedures given a religious veneer to help withstand the transit of time and cultural drift. In another sense, these rituals provide important psychic components to a process that is not entirely physical, and which may have originated from a pact with Dark Gods before human ingenuity figured out how to clone it and graft that cloned material onto human bodies and souls without letting the warp run amok in them.

Which is the whole purpose of the Adeptus Mechanicus, in that they guard and suppress technologies that are psychically insecure, or that corrode the natural defenses of the human soul. Artificial Intelligence is banned because it is not human intelligence, sharing no interests with Humanity, and because creating a device without a human soul leaves its reflection in the Warp undefended against the depredations of the daemons and other warp-predators. Taking the time to make sure that important, high-tech machinery incorporates a machine-spirit is an important psychic-security measure, and making sure that any naturally-occurring real-warp interface is positive towards related souls is a net-positive both from the perspective of making sure that people maintain their equipment and making sure that the real-space/Warp barrier is locally maintained and that your equipment will still function when it isn't (as it so frequently fails, with the breakdown of reality being the single greatest threat to the Imperium). The Imperium is enlightened because it appreciates the meaning, the ritual overtones, as well as whatever is purely practical at the time. They've moved beyond considering the purely practical because doing so isn't actually very practical when reality is as porous as it is in 41st Millennium.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/03/10 21:10:56


 
   
 
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