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Made in us
Stabbin' Skarboy





Im finishing off the audiobook of Dark Imperium and the discussion betweenGuilliman and Cawl Inferior made me pause. So the Adeptus Mechanicus has focused on finding older technology and then reincorporating it with the Imperium. This is how we got the Storm Ravens and other new STCs. However, in Dark Imperium it is said that the Adeptus Mechanicus actively stopped producing new ships and would quite commonly reincorporate Chaos ships back into the fleets. Since Guilliman awake he has ordered a change in protocol and now ships are destroyed and not recovered. He has also told the Forgeworlds to start creating new ships.

Now this causes some confusion for me. I know that the Adeptus Mechanicus believes that older technology is more powerful. But I don’t understand how they don’t produce ships anymore. They have the STCs, otherwise Guilliman would be unable to get them to make more. So if they are collecting STCs are they just not using them?

If a Techpriest finds and STC for a starship do they not build a new starship from it?

It may be that Guilliman is telling them to make new ships similar to how Cawl performed blasphemy by making new weapons and the Primaris Marines instead of making old ships from STCs. What do you all think?
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




The Adeptus Mechanicus does produce ships, as do worlds all over the Imperium. These are the ships you find in the game Battlefleet Gothic with the armored prow and torpedo tubes. However, older Imperial designs (the dagger prow shaped Chaos ships) were more powerful or faster, but some of these ship classes had high defection rates. This led to suspicion that the designs themselves were flawed or tainted in some way so as to corrupt those that served on them. The Adeptus Mechanicus was tempted to recover these old ships due to their superior technology, but this practice was obviously dangerous if the design itself was flawed at a fundamental level. Guilliman put a stop to this.
   
Made in us
Did Fulgrim Just Behead Ferrus?





Fort Worth, TX

Short version: the AdMech would rather buy a used car for $5K and spend another $5K fixing it up, rather than blowing $50K on an all new model.

It's about resources, really. Easier to repair and refit the salvaged ship instead of building one entirely.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/29 15:33:44


"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me."
- Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks 
   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut




DontEatRawHagis wrote:
However, in Dark Imperium it is said that the Adeptus Mechanicus actively stopped producing new ships and would quite commonly reincorporate Chaos ships back into the fleets.
Wait, what?
I understand why the Mechanicus would want to nab xenos tech. But chaos tech?
The basic strategy for interacting with Chaos involves destroying the heresy root and branch. Every traitor needs to be exterminated, every corrupted item needs to be crushed, every desecrated strip of land needs to be sown with salt and declared off-limits. The setting is one in which even knowledge of chaos can corrupt, and so loyalist soldiers should be wiped out afterwards. Even the slightest bit of warp-corruption could lead to planet-wide horror. The Ravenor series mentions
Spoiler:
pieces of glass from a long-lost planet. The planet had spent its time outside of realspace, and so the glass shards captured reflections of the warp. These pieces of glasses were later used as drugs, causing at least one individual to become possessed.

Other notes on how thorough one must be in the destruction of Chaos:
Battlefleet Gothic Armada - Traitor Fleets - page 38 wrote:When vessels of a certain class are already known traitors, Imperial Admirals must think long and hard about employing the services of remaining vessels. Individual captains and their ships may turn traitor regardless of class, but when substantial numbers of vessels of the same design fall to the Ruinous Powers, some fallibility must be suspected. By accident, or perhaps by design of the some already corrupted Techmagos, the ship may lack proper protection from the influences of the Warp, or its architecture may contain certain geometries, proportions or combinations of material which act as conduits fro the dark energies of Chaos, making all such vessels vulnerable to the worst of taints, no matter how loyal, brave and honourable their captain and crew may be.
Battlefleet Gothic Armada - Traitor Fleets - page 41 wrote:Likewise, it may take just a handful of unseen traitors to condemn an entire vessel, perhaps without even the knowledge of the captain or any high ranking officers at all. A lowly engineer left alone in some remote engine compartment may not be subject to routine inspections for months on end, ample time in which to slowly make minute, undectable adjustments to the operating frequencies of the vessel's warp drive. Over time these adjustments will amount of the point where the distorted warp frequencies become a screaming beacon of Chaos, calling out to the taitor's Daemonic masters with each new journey the vessel makes through the wap. Warpentities will be drawn to the vessel and slowly infest it, running throughout its core and allowing the Dark Powers to slowly apply their corrupting influcence over every inch of the vessel and over every member of its crew. In this way, that same single lowly engineer is able to offer up the souls of every one of his thousands of comrades and comdemn them all to damnation long before they will ever suspect his treachery.
A captured Chaos ship isn't like a used car. It's more like a cursed relic touched by Hell itself. A cursed, possibly sentient relic that can eat your soul.

... But the Mechanicus still thought that it's a good idea to recommission Chaos ships.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/29 22:35:22


 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




The older ships are actually superior to the more recent Imperial ships. They had more powerful engines, and often had longer ranged lance weapons and plasma gun batteries. That is why they are so tempting for the Mechanicus to refurbish. When they could no longer produce the old ships, the Mechanicus resorted to the simple option of slapping on slabs of armor onto the front, creating the armored prow of the "classic" modern 40K Imperial ship.

Also, in BFG, it was still possible to field the old ships on the Imperium's side, representing old ships taken out of mothball storage. They just no longer represent the mainstay of the Imperial fleets.
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter






Iracundus wrote:
The older ships are actually superior to the more recent Imperial ships. They had more powerful engines, and often had longer ranged lance weapons and plasma gun batteries. That is why they are so tempting for the Mechanicus to refurbish. When they could no longer produce the old ships, the Mechanicus resorted to the simple option of slapping on slabs of armor onto the front, creating the armored prow of the "classic" modern 40K Imperial ship.

Also, in BFG, it was still possible to field the old ships on the Imperium's side, representing old ships taken out of mothball storage. They just no longer represent the mainstay of the Imperial fleets.


If they had the means to just make the older ships they probably would

but the whole deterioration of knowledge and templates probably means its easier to just fix older stuff.

and probably some flavor of doctrine prevents them from trying to reverse engineer it since they often treat relics as... relics.

What im surprised is how some cleaver donkey cave chaos lord hasnt just started to booby trap the engines or weapons to corrupt the admech as they start tearing into it.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/29 20:44:40


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
 Scott-S6 wrote:
And yet another thread is hijacked for Unit to ask for the same advice, receive the same answers and make the same excuses.

Oh my god I'm becoming martel.
Send help!

 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Desubot wrote:
Iracundus wrote:
The older ships are actually superior to the more recent Imperial ships. They had more powerful engines, and often had longer ranged lance weapons and plasma gun batteries. That is why they are so tempting for the Mechanicus to refurbish. When they could no longer produce the old ships, the Mechanicus resorted to the simple option of slapping on slabs of armor onto the front, creating the armored prow of the "classic" modern 40K Imperial ship.

Also, in BFG, it was still possible to field the old ships on the Imperium's side, representing old ships taken out of mothball storage. They just no longer represent the mainstay of the Imperial fleets.


If they had the means to just make the older ships they probably would

but the whole deterioration of knowledge and templates probably means its easier to just fix older stuff.

and probably some flavor of doctrine prevents them from trying to reverse engineer it since they often treat relics as... relics.

What im surprised is how some cleaver donkey cave chaos lord hasnt just started to booby trap the engines or weapons to corrupt the admech as they start tearing into it.


Although one explanation for why certain ship classes had high defection rates was the design itself being flawed, there was another hinted at explanation in the BFG supplement Warp Storm. It said that older ships got less and less refit and shipyard time, and that some captains eventually revolted at this perceived neglected. However perhaps this neglect was actually an admission that the old ships could no longer be easily fixed, and that was why they kept getting passed over in favor of newer simpler ships. It could be that the high defection rates was not a flaw in the design but rather as a result of this human error/neglect.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





West Michigan, deep in Whitebread, USA

Aside from the stigma of the Heresy, lots of the old 'Chaos' ships from Battlefleet Gothic are also designs that use technology that is not able to be produced anymore, which is why they were replaced by the modern designs. Hell, lots of the modern Imperial-style designs cannot be made either, or have certain weapon variants that are obsolete.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/01/29 22:04:47




"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."  
   
Made in us
Norn Queen






My understanding of it is a vast amount of STCs are unpredictable. The conflict with the men of iron had a lot of viruses and other gak corrupt and destroy vast swathes of the databases the mechanics relied on. They rebuilt what they could from that and stored it all on mars. Then the HH happened and they got trashed again with deamon corruption and chaos viruses.

When they recover STCs on mars they are never sure what exactly its going to make or how corrupt the final design is. Incredibly dangerous when your building a ship capable of deploying planet ending weapons.

It's why the Mechanics prize older STCs from non mechanicus worlds most of all. The least chance for corruption. If they can find them from before the war with the men of iron best of all.


These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
Made in ru
Implacable Skitarii




Don't forget spiritual side of things for many of AM - if AM deem machine 'redeemable' it will be their sacred duty to Machine God to cleanse it and restore to 'proper' status.

Others already mentioned that lot of tech aboard older ships is of forgotten patterns and designs so it makes sense to at least salvage and study that tech - denial to THAT was what made AM cringe from Guilliman's word way more than fate of hulls themselves (they would agree more cheerfully to order if it was 'take trophies to special AM salvage station and never ever restore them for duty but tear 'em apart for their secrets while never reusing even single bolt'' - but order was 'immediately and irrecoverably purge them').

Without passion we'd be truly dead. 
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain




Exactly.

"The Mechanicus Never Deletes Anything" - Titanicus Quote.

Remember that the Omnissiah isn't 'god' so much as 'god's prophet' - if the mechanicus worship anything it's knowledge; the idea of irrevocably destroying science is anathema to them.


Whether it fits the setting that Cawl is able to create so many new designs is a personal issue; it turns the mechanicus from 'doing the best they can but limited by the catastrophes of history shredding the technology base' to 'could have designed this stuff at any time but didn't because we want to show how stupid the normal mechanicus are to make Cawl look special.;



Termagants expended for the Hive Mind: ~2835
 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




locarno24 wrote:


Whether it fits the setting that Cawl is able to create so many new designs is a personal issue; it turns the mechanicus from 'doing the best they can but limited by the catastrophes of history shredding the technology base' to 'could have designed this stuff at any time but didn't because we want to show how stupid the normal mechanicus are to make Cawl look special.;

My biggest problem with Cawl is the "by the way there was another 10,000 year old guy trotting around the whole time" idea. It's weird how Bjorn is treating with such utter respect even by those Imperials who dislike the Space Wolves but Cawl has had no impact for 10,000 years. As someone else suggested they probably should have just had Cawl as one member in a long line of Magos' who have been trying to perfect the Primaris. He can still be a genius he just wouldn't be the one developed loads of new gear by himself and was just waiting for someone to give him political support.

To be fair to the Mechanicus limitations angle it's not as if Cawl has developed anything close to DaoT levels. He's improved some stuff but the DaoT makes his greatest designs look like toys.

On a side note, does anyone know how Custodes compare to Primaris? The Custodes definitely seem to (mostly) be portrayed as superior to normal Astartes.
   
Made in ca
Commander of the Mysterious 2nd Legion





SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
locarno24 wrote:


Whether it fits the setting that Cawl is able to create so many new designs is a personal issue; it turns the mechanicus from 'doing the best they can but limited by the catastrophes of history shredding the technology base' to 'could have designed this stuff at any time but didn't because we want to show how stupid the normal mechanicus are to make Cawl look special.;

My biggest problem with Cawl is the "by the way there was another 10,000 year old guy trotting around the whole time" idea. It's weird how Bjorn is treating with such utter respect even by those Imperials who dislike the Space Wolves but Cawl has had no impact for 10,000 years. As someone else suggested they probably should have just had Cawl as one member in a long line of Magos' who have been trying to perfect the Primaris. He can still be a genius he just wouldn't be the one developed loads of new gear by himself and was just waiting for someone to give him political support.

To be fair to the Mechanicus limitations angle it's not as if Cawl has developed anything close to DaoT levels. He's improved some stuff but the DaoT makes his greatest designs look like toys.

On a side note, does anyone know how Custodes compare to Primaris? The Custodes definitely seem to (mostly) be portrayed as superior to normal Astartes.


Custodes are leagues better then Primaris Marines.

they have an additional wound better WS and BS.

Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




BrianDavion wrote:
Custodes are leagues better then Primaris Marines.

they have an additional wound better WS and BS.

Good to know, thanks.
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain




SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
My biggest problem with Cawl is the "by the way there was another 10,000 year old guy trotting around the whole time" idea. It's weird how Bjorn is treating with such utter respect even by those Imperials who dislike the Space Wolves but Cawl has had no impact for 10,000 years. As someone else suggested they probably should have just had Cawl as one member in a long line of Magos' who have been trying to perfect the Primaris. He can still be a genius he just wouldn't be the one developed loads of new gear by himself and was just waiting for someone to give him political support.

To be fair to the Mechanicus limitations angle it's not as if Cawl has developed anything close to DaoT levels. He's improved some stuff but the DaoT makes his greatest designs look like toys.



True, but one other thing which bugged me is that he has pointedly been stated as having 'improved' the Macragge's Honour by 10% across all the board.
The Macragge's Honour is a Glorianna class - a Primarch's Flagship built during the height of the crusade and essentially the best technology the Imperium's ever had.

Termagants expended for the Hive Mind: ~2835
 
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

if what he's producing is genuinely new then adding it to a old tech ship could very well improve it, even if a ship with cawl's tech alone would be inferior

eg slapping explosive reactive armour on soviet t-72 improvers its protection, slapping it on an ordinary car wouldn't give you a vehicle as well protected as even an unmodified tank

he's also old enough (and has access to enough info) that a lot of the improvermnent could be showing how to use bits of the ships systems properly

eg when that warning siren sounds press the button before doing the chant to the machine spirt, and make it a chant of thanks rather than open of enquirey so the extra short term shields go up before the lance hits the ship rather than afterwards

 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka




It's pretty bad when you have to talk your way around the lore not making sense....

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
Made in ca
Commander of the Mysterious 2nd Legion





 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
if what he's producing is genuinely new then adding it to a old tech ship could very well improve it, even if a ship with cawl's tech alone would be inferior

eg slapping explosive reactive armour on soviet t-72 improvers its protection, slapping it on an ordinary car wouldn't give you a vehicle as well protected as even an unmodified tank

he's also old enough (and has access to enough info) that a lot of the improvermnent could be showing how to use bits of the ships systems properly

eg when that warning siren sounds press the button before doing the chant to the machine spirt, and make it a chant of thanks rather than open of enquirey so the extra short term shields go up before the lance hits the ship rather than afterwards


it's also possiable Macragge's honor has just degraded over time and all Cawl did was give it a refit that brought it back to heresy level specs.

Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two 
   
Made in ru
Implacable Skitarii




locarno24 wrote:

The Macragge's Honour is a Glorianna class - a Primarch's Flagship built during the height of the crusade and essentially the best technology the Imperium's ever had.


Looking on 'Forges of Mars' trilogy - and assuming that Cawl amassed some archeotech - it seems plausible. GC-era tech was still inferior to DAoT-era, with one of AM reasons to join Crusade bein' Galaxy-wide Explorator expedition.

In this case irony (to Guillimaan himself) would be that Glorianna was best Mars could build from the scratch during 'good times' (though, supposedly best were Abyss-class) - and it was upgraded by scavenged artifacts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
locarno24 wrote:


Whether it fits the setting that Cawl is able to create so many new designs is a personal issue; it turns the mechanicus from 'doing the best they can but limited by the catastrophes of history shredding the technology base' to 'could have designed this stuff at any time but didn't because we want to show how stupid the normal mechanicus are to make Cawl look special.;


In RW 2008 Cawl character didn't 'existed' yet AFAIK but in McNeills 'Mechanicum' much of AM were already 'that stupid' - and HH fallout smothered growing AM dissent with dominating dogma among loyalists.

Also don't forget that unlike RW corporations AM (unless tasked by Lords of Terra/situation in general ) do not need to constantly 'sell' newest cutting-edge toys to Imperium but to produce 'good enough' ones in necessary quantities under 'permanent contracts'.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/06 16:25:05


Without passion we'd be truly dead. 
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain




The problem is that Macragge's Honor - like all the Gloriannas - was built Pre-Death-Of-Innocence by a Mechanicum still charged with continous technological rediscovery and improvement.

Equally, priests of mars shows a 'modern' mechanicus that aren't morons and are trying to rebuild and redevelop but limited by the damage done to Mankind's tech base.


efore it became the flagship of the Indomitus Crusade, the Macragge's Honour had undergone an extensive refit in the shipyards of the Ring of Iron around Mars, and the command deck had been entirely reconfigured from Guilliman's day. Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl's stamp was now on everything. New machines and unheard-of configurations of old devices replaced equipment that had been in use for tens of centuries.


It's pretty much all new stuff.


I just dislike Cawl because his character doesn't make sense on many levels.

~ Retroactively inserting someone who is 'better at everything' than every other mechanicus character feels demeaning because he has to be superior in every single field:

Shipwright (macragge's honour)
armourer (gulliman's armour)
gunsmith ('cawl-pattern' primaris weapons)
Biologist (primaris geneseed)
even warp xenotechnologist (his work on the pylons).

Any magos is going to have a grounding in most imaginable fields but Cawl is relentlessly better-than-everyone-at-everything.

~ His being 10000 years old and having seen the heresy the long way round is just something we're supposed to ignore when you see the reaction to Gulliman and Bjorn.

~ His abscence from the Heresy novels and previous Mechanicus novels - obviously you've always got a first time someone is mentioned but he has no connection to any existing character, even the similarly themed factions

The Cursed Founding project, the Red Scorpions, the Afriel Strain any 'modified geneseed' or 'supersoldier programme'.

~ With Gulliman as lord commander (the first time) wanting someone to lead the astartes project redux, we already have named mechanicus magi and archmagi who he would have been more likely to task:

Arkhan Land/Outek (the inner palace magi who had access to the custodes gene-mods Cawl somehow 'just got given' to use - which seems unlikely in and of itself)

Kane - the fabricator general

The mechanicus characters from Calth/Macragge (who Gulliman might have more of a connection with)

Termagants expended for the Hive Mind: ~2835
 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka




It's because GW aren't great at writing so they tend to magic up things like people or developments to push a goal and sense be damned.

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
Made in ru
Implacable Skitarii




locarno24 wrote:

I just dislike Cawl because his character doesn't make sense on many levels.

~ Retroactively inserting someone who is 'better at everything' than every other mechanicus character feels demeaning because he has to be superior in every single field:

---snip----

Any magos is going to have a grounding in most imaginable fields but Cawl is relentlessly better-than-everyone-at-everything.

~ His being 10000 years old and having seen the heresy the long way round is just something we're supposed to ignore when you see the reaction to Gulliman and Bjorn.



Seeing Cawl Inferior's brainworks - maybe Cawl only better in that area...with rest bein' plundered knowledge and enslaved ...err collected brains. And this would increase his chances to work such big clandestine project - if 'Cawl' is E PLURIBUS UNUM then he really needs no helpers...not ones conscious and with free will - who are secutiry risk.
So i think he's grimdarky abomination, braineating vampire a la Galatea ...but one on Imperial side for now - and one that gets things done.

As for age...he could be in restricted records available only to high-ranking AM - and anyway no AM ever was as inspiring to imperial crowd as any of Sons of Emperor. Not to mention that by now his memories are copy of the copy of the copy - and censored ones btw.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So at least we need to read what he was at start - during "Wolfsbane".

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/07 17:38:19


Without passion we'd be truly dead. 
   
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Bonkers Buggy Driver with Rockets






pm713 wrote:
It's because GW aren't great at writing so they tend to magic up things like people or developments to push a goal and sense be damned.

But usually when they magic something up they have the decency to connect it with the universe via a previous plot thread or loose end written earlier, like Guilliman coming back from stasis and Yvraine being the fulfillment of Eldar prophecies. For Cawl they barely connect him to the AdMech, and mostly use him as an anchor for more new additions to the lore like the Primaris. That’s what makes him so annoying, not that he got pulled out of nowhere, but that it’s so evident that he has no origins in the lore.

40k drinking game: take a shot everytime a book references Skitarii using transports.
 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka




 gnome_idea_what wrote:
pm713 wrote:
It's because GW aren't great at writing so they tend to magic up things like people or developments to push a goal and sense be damned.

But usually when they magic something up they have the decency to connect it with the universe via a previous plot thread or loose end written earlier, like Guilliman coming back from stasis and Yvraine being the fulfillment of Eldar prophecies. For Cawl they barely connect him to the AdMech, and mostly use him as an anchor for more new additions to the lore like the Primaris. That’s what makes him so annoying, not that he got pulled out of nowhere, but that it’s so evident that he has no origins in the lore.

It might just be me letting things slide less but I've noticed GW's lore degrading more and more recently.

For example the Stormcaller novel, Valedor novel and whole End Times mess.

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





West Michigan, deep in Whitebread, USA

One does have to wonder how big of a donkeycave Cawl is to have worked so hard on the Primaris geneseed, but unless I am wrong, the Primaris that have been in stasis predate the Cursed Founding?

So he literally sat that one out and watched the Imperium suffer for it.



"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."  
   
Made in ca
Commander of the Mysterious 2nd Legion





 AegisGrimm wrote:
One does have to wonder how big of a donkeycave Cawl is to have worked so hard on the Primaris geneseed, but unless I am wrong, the Primaris that have been in stasis predate the Cursed Founding?

So he literally sat that one out and watched the Imperium suffer for it.



it's likely that without Gulliman's express say so he was unable to do so. doubly so as Gulliman TECHNICLY wasn't dead

Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two 
   
 
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