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Just finished it again, and have a lot of questions:

SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY

Given what we know about them, could the Men of Iron, with 1 STC beat back all of Humanities problems? This might be Abnett exaggerating, But if you could make 300/hour, and each one is the equal of a squad of Guardsmen, is that a legit theory that they could beat back the necrons, or the Nids, or the Chaos?

Depends on the STC, which is kind of the point of that section in the book. As the spy says, it could be one that makes good knives or it could be one that makes doomsday weapons. In the end, all STCs are prizes to the Imperium.
As for the Men of Iron, they aren't specifically one type of machine and if they were fully functional then they could likely also build the world-ending weapons they made during the Cybernetic Revolt. Things like nanite swarms that consumed planets, sun eaters or massive gravity weapons. Weapons that make the Planet Killer and Blackstone Fortresses look like small fries. So yes, the Men of Iron are potentially that strong.

I feel like if Abnett wanted us to take things more seriously, he should actually show the capability of it's power. Case in Point - The death of a powerful certain psyker near the end that ends up

Two things.
1 - You didn't read what I wrote Fezz. One Man of Iron can be beaten but thousands being made from a machine that will replicate them continuously? No. The potential limit of their power is similar to that of the Necrons and Aeldari at the height of their power. That isn't going to present itself in a corrupted Man of Iron variant that's been inactive for thousands of years.
2 - The Ghosts beat a single entirely corrupted Man of Iron, not 10 and the only reason the 5 of them survived is because of plot armour.

 Gert wrote:
Two things.
1 - You didn't read what I wrote Fezz. One Man of Iron can be beaten but thousands being made from a machine that will replicate them continuously? No. The potential limit of their power is similar to that of the Necrons and Aeldari at the height of their power. That isn't going to present itself in a corrupted Man of Iron variant that's been inactive for thousands of years.
2 - The Ghosts beat a single entirely corrupted Man of Iron, not 10 and the only reason the 5 of them survived is because of plot armour.

1. That's transformer logic. One assumes there needs to be resources for the STC to actually function. That's the same logic that begs the question, why haven't the Tyranids swept over and destroyed the galaxy? Or how did the galaxy wipe out the Men of Iron in the first place? Granted this is all speculation, but for the sake of the argument, assuming that all things made require resourced, a single STC cannot function without proper resources, aka an entire dedicated FW. Hence my question, can a single STC solve all the martial problems of the Imperium? My vote is no, because throwing more troops into the mix wouldn't solve the problems facing them now. The problems facing the imperium today are the problems generally caused by the age of strife, which was caused by the DAoT. The cause of the DAoT will not save them from the current situation, unless Men of Iron were somehow incorruptible, which the book proves they were not.
2. The ghosts being plot armored is not the point. The point is severely weakened humans with basic melee weapons took one down. It's corrupted state is also irrelevant, because we have no basis for saying it was weakened. I

am only asking these questions because Gaunt's books have a very bad case of inconsistent narrator, and I was hoping there were other books or lore sources the more clearly explain the actual capability of the MoI.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I was hoping there were other books or lore sources the more clearly explain the actual capability of the MoI.

There are many different types of them, but look into UR-025 from Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress or the Excindio from Horus Heresy Book Nine - Crusade.

Plot armour is precisely the point.
In the same book, one Guardsman also took down a Chaos Dreadnought, you can't take a single instance of the main characters in a book as a datapoint for how powerful something is.

We also have the perfect justification for why the Man of Iron appeared so weak - the STC was corrupted. The manner of corruption was never really specified, it's entirely logical to think this Man of Iron was deformed, weakened, or otherwise lesser in some way(s).

You're absolutely right about the inconsistency in the book though.
IIRC one Guardsman takes a lasround in the arm and has his entire arm blown off.
The next Guardsman takes a lasround square in the throat and survives.

So the conclusion is there's no reason to believe Men of Iron were not a threat based on this one book.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
1. That's transformer logic. One assumes there needs to be resources for the STC to actually function. That's the same logic that begs the question, why haven't the Tyranids swept over and destroyed the galaxy? Or how did the galaxy wipe out the Men of Iron in the first place? Granted this is all speculation, but for the sake of the argument, assuming that all things made require resourced, a single STC cannot function without proper resources, aka an entire dedicated FW. Hence my question, can a single STC solve all the martial problems of the Imperium? My vote is no, because throwing more troops into the mix wouldn't solve the problems facing them now. The problems facing the imperium today are the problems generally caused by the age of strife, which was caused by the DAoT. The cause of the DAoT will not save them from the current situation, unless Men of Iron were somehow incorruptible, which the book proves they were not.

*sigh* STCs do not need a whole Forge World to function, that was the whole point of the STC machine. It needed the bare minimum resources to make everything a group of settlers could possibly need when colonising a new world. The STC machine the Ghosts found had been hidden for thousands of years and was already clearly prepared to construct Men of Iron with fuel in the tank i.e. the resources had already been put in thousands of years before.
The Men of Iron were beaten by an alliance of galactic powers including Humanity which was also in its Golden Age and had technology comparable to that of the Men of Iron.
The problems faced by the Imperium are similar but not the same as those found in the Age of Strife. Psykers are now commonplace and strictly regulated rather than being new and allowed to freely use their powers. There are a great many enemies the Imperium faces but those enemies are also all fighting each other as well.
And once again, the whole point of that segment of the book is that the Inquisitor is wrong. Fezz it is literally the whole point of the climax that Heldane is insane and wants to use outlawed (and corrupted) technology for his own gains. Did you actually read the book?

2. The ghosts being plot armored is not the point. The point is severely weakened humans with basic melee weapons took one down. It's corrupted state is also irrelevant, because we have no basis for saying it was weakened.

From First and Only (The Founding Omnibus edition), page 255:

There was something wrong with the newborn. It was malformed, grotesque compared to the perfect anatomical symmetry of the other Men of Iron. A good head taller, it was hunched, blackened, one arm longer than the other, draped and massive, the other hideously vestigial and twisted. Corrupt horns sprouted from its over-long skull and its eyes shone a deadened yellow. Oil like stringy pus wept from its eye sockets. It shambled, unsteady. Its exposed teeth and jaws clacked and mashed idiotically

You read that and thought "Hm, this seems like a Man of Iron at its peak proficiency"?

 Gert wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
1. That's transformer logic. One assumes there needs to be resources for the STC to actually function. That's the same logic that begs the question, why haven't the Tyranids swept over and destroyed the galaxy? Or how did the galaxy wipe out the Men of Iron in the first place? Granted this is all speculation, but for the sake of the argument, assuming that all things made require resourced, a single STC cannot function without proper resources, aka an entire dedicated FW. Hence my question, can a single STC solve all the martial problems of the Imperium? My vote is no, because throwing more troops into the mix wouldn't solve the problems facing them now. The problems facing the imperium today are the problems generally caused by the age of strife, which was caused by the DAoT. The cause of the DAoT will not save them from the current situation, unless Men of Iron were somehow incorruptible, which the book proves they were not.

*sigh* STCs do not need a whole Forge World to function, that was the whole point of the STC machine. It needed the bare minimum resources to make everything a group of settlers could possibly need when colonising a new world. The STC machine the Ghosts found had been hidden for thousands of years and was already clearly prepared to construct Men of Iron with fuel in the tank i.e. the resources had already been put in thousands of years before.
The Men of Iron were beaten by an alliance of galactic powers including Humanity which was also in its Golden Age and had technology comparable to that of the Men of Iron.
The problems faced by the Imperium are similar but not the same as those found in the Age of Strife. Psykers are now commonplace and strictly regulated rather than being new and allowed to freely use their powers. There are a great many enemies the Imperium faces but those enemies are also all fighting each other as well.
And once again, the whole point of that segment of the book is that the Inquisitor is wrong. Fezz it is literally the whole point of the climax that Heldane is insane and wants to use outlawed (and corrupted) technology for his own gains. Did you actually read the book?

2. The ghosts being plot armored is not the point. The point is severely weakened humans with basic melee weapons took one down. It's corrupted state is also irrelevant, because we have no basis for saying it was weakened.

From First and Only (The Founding Omnibus edition), page 255:

There was something wrong with the newborn. It was malformed, grotesque compared to the perfect anatomical symmetry of the other Men of Iron. A good head taller, it was hunched, blackened, one arm longer than the other, draped and massive, the other hideously vestigial and twisted. Corrupt horns sprouted from its over-long skull and its eyes shone a deadened yellow. Oil like stringy pus wept from its eye sockets. It shambled, unsteady. Its exposed teeth and jaws clacked and mashed idiotically

You read that and thought "Hm, this seems like a Man of Iron at its peak proficiency"?

I feel like I keep putting forward hypotheticals, or suppositions, and you keep retorting with weary facts without source? I am not calling you a liar, I think you are far more knowledgeable than I am on this point, but where is it written that STC's can manufacture infinite supplies without mass amounts of resources?

As to your second bit of snark, I would only suggest that even corrupted, it's still this immense thing that the writer spends literally two sentences on, but says Gaunt is struck dumb with terror because of it. I don't think it's at "peak" efficiency, but Gaunt kills it with a KNIFE. Not even a special knife. It's the scrap bayonette off the Flechette weapon. It's Tolkien-esque. Don't SAY something is powerful, show it. Don't say something is evil, show it. Don't Say Men of Iron are terrifying and unstoppable, then show one getting killed with a knife by a nearly dead commissar.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I feel like I keep putting forward hypotheticals, or suppositions, and you keep retorting with weary facts without source? I am not calling you a liar, I think you are far more knowledgeable than I am on this point, but where is it written that STC's can manufacture infinite supplies without mass amounts of resources?

I never said infinitely, I said continuously. There is a distinct difference. Also:

The STC allowed disparate mankind to maintain a standard level of technology. A complete, functioning STCs system was an evolved computer designed to provide construction details for human colonists, enabling them to build efficient shelters, generators and transports without any prior knowledge and using almost any locally available materials. For example, the user simply asked how to build a house or a tractor and the computer would supply all the necessary plans.

That is from Lexican with the source noted as Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader. Even disregarding that point entirely, one of the biggest reasons the Mechanicus desperately seeks to find a fully intact STC machine is because it can do the work of many forges and manufactorums without the need for human mistakes. This is not hypotheticals or conjecture, this is canon 40k lore.

As to your second bit of snark, I would only suggest that even corrupted, it's still this immense thing that the writer spends literally two sentences on, but says Gaunt is struck dumb with terror because of it. I don't think it's at "peak" efficiency, but Gaunt kills it with a KNIFE. Not even a special knife. It's the scrap bayonette off the Flechette weapon. It's Tolkien-esque. Don't SAY something is powerful, show it. Don't say something is evil, show it. Don't Say Men of Iron are terrifying and unstoppable, then show one getting killed with a knife by a nearly dead commissar.

1 - The Ghosts were not nearly dead.
2 - It is not a scrap bayonet.
3 - The Men of Iron were a terrible monstrosity that conducted mass genocide against Golden Age Humanity. One cripple and corrupted Man of Iron is not the same level of threat. The other hundred that were stored with the STC and the forty it produced before the Ghosts blew it up is where the threat comes from.
Would you say bears are not dangerous if you killed one with two broken legs and brain damage? That's the logic you are using right now.

When I read First and Only back when it first came out (during 3rd edition 40K), I found it odd that STCs were described as making things.

The impression I had from the 2nd ed and 3rd ed background was that STCs were comprehensive databases of plans, blueprints, etc. that explained how the colonists could make useful things. Like the ultimate DIY instruction manual. Not mini-factories that automatically churned out anything you needed like a Terry Pratchett strata machine.

At the time I assumed Abnett had misunderstood STCs (in the same way that he apparently mixed up assault cannons and autocannons). After all, other Black Library writers made far worse mistakes in those days.

Was I the one who misunderstood what STCs were meant to be?

STCs are all of the above but it is usually made more specific. For example, the one the Ghosts found and the one that is owned by House Van Saar on Necromunda are STC machines. The Baal Predator on the other hand came from an STC fragment, a blueprint rather than the full machine. The confusion is also one of the core ideas behind STCs. The Imperium will launch entire crusades even on the rumour of an STC because even though it might turn out to be a blueprint for an industrial smelter that is 1% more efficient than the current model, it could also be a fully functioning and uncorrupted STC machine containing the accumulated knowledge of Golden Age Humanity.

STC is used to refer to at least three different, but related, things.

There's 'STC' designs, IE a single blueprint produced by such a machine.

'STC' manufacturing machines, IE a machine producing things from STC blueprints

'STC' design machines, IE a machine designing the blueprints themselves.

I'm not sure what the 'true' STC is, or even if there ever was one.

 Gert wrote:
The Imperium will launch entire crusades even on the rumour of an STC because even though it might turn out to be a blueprint for an industrial smelter that is 1% more efficient than the current model, it could also be a fully functioning and uncorrupted STC machine containing the accumulated knowledge of Golden Age Humanity.

Yes, but is an 'STC machine' just an encyclopedia of knowledge? Or does it build things for you automatically? As far as I can tell, Abnett was the first writer to use the latter interpretation.

Let me see what I can dig up with my limited stash of old books. (I'll put this in spoiler tags because it's a little off-topic.)



It seems that until the time Dan Abnett wrote First and Only, and for several years afterward, the STC was presented as a database / encyclopedia of plans--not as a 'constructor' to make things for you. Which makes Abnett's description of a literal machine to make knives / robots / etc a bit strange.

I don't have the core background for any edition after 4th (it started to get silly IMO) so I don't know if or how the concept of the STC changed. Did it officially shift to an automated factory--an 'STC machine' as Gert put it? If so, was Abnett's alternative take in his novel responsible?

Whomever wrote Baneblade talked about how the Mechanicus has lost the ability/knowledge to create new Shadowswords, and the factory that makes the new ones does so without the help of the AM, so it's essentially an STC. They lost the blueprint, but still have a functioning Mars pattern STC constructor(?)

Is that the difference we are discussing?

I always it strange when they talk about only one planet producing this thing.
The galaxy is a huge place, and one planet is miniscule. There's no way one planet is the sole supplier of anything - not even a vehicle as rare as a Shadowsword.

But you're forgetting the religious nature of manufacturing within the Imperium. It doesn't really matter if it would be more efficient for 12 Forge Worlds to build a vehicle as venerable as a Shadowsword because its essentially a holy relic. You don't give away your holy relics to the other churches (Forgeworlds) because then your church (Forgeworld) is less special in the eyes of God (The Omnissiah).

It's about practicality for the universe. If there's only one planet manufacturing Shadowswords they should be rare as hen's teeth - almost literally.

It gets even worse when you look at something like a Leman Russ Executioner. Apparently Ryza is the only planet capable of manufacturing them. When you spread that across the entire galaxy they're not just rare, they're unheard of.

It's the same problem of scale that 1000 marines have. It's just not physically possible for you to have 1000 Ultramarines and them still pop up, in major force, in every major warzone.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I always it strange when they talk about only one planet producing this thing.
The galaxy is a huge place, and one planet is miniscule. There's no way one planet is the sole supplier of anything - not even a vehicle as rare as a Shadowsword.

Like the Baneblade a "true" Shadowsword will have its own number and name and be registered on Mars, where all of its deeds shall be recorded regularly. So-called "counterfeit" Shadowswords are produced by Forge Worlds which don't have access to the same STC data and are consequently less advanced than those which have been properly constructed and consecrated: their logic engines and targeters will be more primitive, their capacitors or engine less efficient, their remote-controlled sponson weapons replaced with crewed versions, and the Volcano Cannon may be replaced with a large Plasma Cannon, a huge Battle Cannon or a Turbo Laser.

Important distinction to be made. Some of these things aren't "X planet is the only supplier", it's that "X planet is the only one with the complete STC and components necessary and other planets make different versions".

Ryza's Stormblade for example is intended to be an "alternative" to the Shadowsword. And then you have things like the Stormsword--a field replacement for the Shadowsword.

Also, according to Lex which cites Imperial Armour: Volume 1 and IA: Apoc, there are multiple Forgeworlds with the Shadowsword STC. These FWs are ones that also have the capability of producing and maintaining Titan Legions, so still a very small number but not just Mars.
As for the Leman Russ Executioner, it's a case of there being loads during the Crusade and Heresy but their numbers dwindling post-Heresy. Also, the evergreen "Game =/= Background" Kiro.

I thought it worked that each FW was the only place that made THAT brand of STC. Like how MARS is the only one that makes MARS pattern Shadowswords? Is that wrong?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I thought it worked that each FW was the only place that made THAT brand of STC. Like how MARS is the only one that makes MARS pattern Shadowswords? Is that wrong?

IIRC they're named after the FW that discovered the STC / 'invented' them, but can be built "under licence" on other Forge or Manufacturing Worlds. For example Necromunda produces several different patterns of Lasguns under licence (and the most recent STC stuff is in the Necromunda books).