Incline Warhammer 40,000 Lore Thread

[Fedora Master]

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Some vintage art, a Navigator of the Navis Nobilite in his chamber, the Sanctum Navis:

 

[Mangoose]

Just finished the Last Chancers series. Not bad. Inferior to Gaunt's Ghosts IMO mainly because Thorpe couldn't present his good character ideas in a manner that the reader could relate to. Despite plenty of potential, as it set up as if a "grimbright" take on The Dirty Dozen.

Though I guess that's why I dislike Thorpe. During internal or external character dialogue, my brain loses interest. Because it is so uninteresting. This is why Corax is the suxxx - nothing wrong with the guy but he is so generic I don't even have negative interest. And the Path of the Eldar series is also really.. stale.. I simply don't care about what the characters care about.

--

Also, was trying to start the Ciaphis Cain series but after a bit of reading I realized this is the opposite of what I have been interested in - I liked Gaunt's Ghosts' Ghosts, not Gaunt by himself. It's their dialogue and interaction that is fun (with each other or with Gaunt (if you even consider that a distinction)) because Abnett is solid with those.

Cain seems more the inner monologuer which is... not saying Cain is bad but just not up my alley right now.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Most definitely agreed. I enjoyed Last Chancers (the latest book had a p. well done Ork companion btw), but the series is nowhere near as good as Gaunt´s Ghosts (though to be fair it is not really trying to do the same thing at all, its a diferent genre). I never really got into the Ciaphis Cain, it just wasnt doing it for me, though I guess I will give it another chance (lol) at some point.

 

[Tyranicon]

Strangely enough, and this is probably a hot take, but the Cain novels are the only ones I liked and I tried out basically all the popular BL series. They're very different than most of the other stuff since they're supposed to be comedic with a dash of action and unabashed heroism.

Not a good fit in 40k. More like a serial you would find in the 1920s, so it's actually somewhat evocative of Conan the Barbarian and John Carter of Mars for me.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

A bit more retro, or black and white, 40K art for anyone interested:

Some of these are not so commonly seen, so I thought that I would share them as I came across them. Some nice images of life onboard a starship mixed in there; they might be from the Battlefleet Gothic manual, which I haven't read in some time. In terms of artists, some of them seem to be by an illustrator called Martin McKenna, who sadly died in 2020.

 

[lightbane]

An IG standing over a Necron body? Damn, old-school Guards were hardcore...

 

[Mangoose]

An IG standing over a Necron body? Damn, old-school Guards were hardcore...

Krieg still exist lol

 

[Storyfag]

An IG standing over a Necron body? Damn, old-school Guards were hardcore...

Mate, remember the true story of Ollianus Pius. Doesn't get more hardcore than that.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

What I find more noteworthy is that the Necron body is even there. I guess the "teleport to base for repairs when taken out" ability was broken/wasnt a thing back then?

 

[lightbane]

An IG standing over a Necron body? Damn, old-school Guards were hardcore...

Krieg still exist lol

True, but that ain't a Krieg.

An IG standing over a Necron body? Damn, old-school Guards were hardcore...

Mate, remember the true story of Ollianus Pius. Doesn't get more hardcore than that.

Sadly, he's been forgotten a long time ago and now repurposed as part of a super-immortal cabal that may or may not be the Illuminati (?).

What I find more noteworthy is that the Necron body is even there. I guess the "teleport to base for repairs when taken out" ability was broken/wasnt a thing back then?

Sufficiently damaged necrons do not teleport as they're beyond repair. PErhaps the teleport matrix isn't working right now, or maybe the IG is THAT good.

 

[Storyfag]

An IG standing over a Necron body? Damn, old-school Guards were hardcore...

Mate, remember the true story of Ollianus Pius. Doesn't get more hardcore than that.

Sadly, he's been forgotten a long time ago and now repurposed as part of a super-immortal cabal that may or may not be the Illuminati (?).

That's why I said you should recall his true story.

 

[Mangoose]

An IG standing over a Necron body? Damn, old-school Guards were hardcore...

Mate, remember the true story of Ollianus Pius. Doesn't get more hardcore than that.

Sadly, he's been forgotten a long time ago and now repurposed as part of a super-immortal cabal that may or may not be the Illuminati (?).

That's why I said you should recall his true story.

He actually ditched the Cabal and the only thing different is that he actively sought to find to protect the Emprah. I guess he uses their technology to teleport onto the Vengeful Spirit (<- which may have been the whole point behind bringing up the Cabal lol). But then he is still a normal guy and dies. I mean, he was a Perpetual, yes, but against Horus he was neither immortal nor even a good fighter. He teleported there, saw Horus, then sacced himself for the Emprah.

Edit: He's also a long-time friend of the Emprah... But that's about it. Pretty much a normal mortal against anyone. Sure he comes back to life but that doesn't stop him from getting killed.

Horus is closing. The Warmaster reaches out a huge hand. The immense maul scrapes across the deck with a shriek, and then flies straight into his grip.

Oll steps forward to face him. He puts himself between the Emperor and the oncoming monster. He pulls his lasrifle off his shoulder, arms it, and aims it. He knows there’s no point, but it’s better than nothing.

‘Get up now!’ he yells over his shoulder. ‘Please, get up now!’

Horus is just metres away. He’s not slowing down.

Oll pulls the rifle in against his cheek, flexes his grip, and settles his finger on the trigger.

‘No further!’ he yells. ‘Damn you! I won’t let you touch Him!’

Horus keeps coming. Oll opens fire. Full-auto, sustained. The las-bolts flick and spatter off the black war plate like candle flames in a night wind.

Oll Persson is still firing when the Talon of Horus reduces him to a drifting red fog.

Abnett, Dan. The End And The Death: Volume III (The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra, Book 8, Part 3) (p. 345). Black Library. Kindle Edition.

Abnett was still writing well, just too much stuff that didn't need to be written.

Illustration from the novel

 

[Hag]

What I find more noteworthy is that the Necron body is even there. I guess the "teleport to base for repairs when taken out" ability was broken/wasnt a thing back then?

It's a non-official artwork. The Necron is a V3+ design, a time when GW did away with the sometimes more amateur art pieces of V1 and V2 (which were still better that this one, see second, third and second to last).

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I like the Cult of the Machine, for lore. They are like Ixians from Dune, believers in trans-human cybernetics, and also resemble medieval scholastic Christianity. The idea that the Imperium is realy two Empires, entwined, in an ancient union, each with a separate religion, that is brushed over by a compromise on the dogma of the Omnissiah; the Emperor being the central divinity to both faiths.

Looking into the beliefs of the Cult Mechanicus, I asked what is a "Machine Spirit"?

Platonists, and by extension, doctors of the Christian Church, have a conception of the universe that is something like this (hope I get it right): A prime mover who gave the initial input to creation, known to Platonism as 'The One' or 'The Good', is the source of energy in the cosmos, ultimately all good, all life, all heat, all light. The Soul is a lower level of the same energy, an expression of The Good, but in the form of a person's "ideal self", that makes them to be in the image of a human, an expression of the original energy.



The Cult Mechanicus in Warhammer seems to basically be the most explicitly Platonic or Christian, even when compared to the Ecclisiarchy. The Omnissiah, in some kind of hypostasis of a prime mover, the "motive force", is also the 'chi' of all creation. Machine Spirits are the manifestation of that organising life energy. They therefore can be any mechancism, even a hammer, but just as a human soul is more complex than a plant soul, the computer OS in a Land Raider, is more akin to the Omnissiah than a seed drill.

 

[Mangoose]

I like the Cult of the Machine, for lore. They are like Ixians from Dune, believers in trans-human cybernetics, and also resemble medieval scholastic Christianity. The idea that the Imperium is realy two Empires, entwined, in an ancient union, each with a separate religion, that is brushed over by a compromise on the dogma of the Omnissiah; the Emperor being the central divinity to both faiths.

Looking into the beliefs of the Cult Mechanicus, I asked what is a "Machine Spirit"?

The Machine Spirit is made of biological neurons as a substitute for artificial intelligence because I is BLAM HERESY. AI rebelled and caused the whole disaster for the Imperium in the first place.

The Omnissiah, in some kind of hypostasis of a prime mover, the "motive force", is also the 'chi' of all creation. Machine Spirits are the manifestation of that organising life energy. They therefore can be any mechancism, even a hammer, but just as a human soul is more complex than a plant soul, the computer OS in a Land Raider, is more akin to the Omnissiah than a seed drill.

The computer OS in the Land Raider is also a biological brain.

In fact most of the menial labor in the Imperium is done by lobotomized humans, who perform tasks that the mechanicus program into them.

Secondly, the Cult Mechanicus worships technology... but does not know how to innovate technology so they spend their whole time searching for past knowledge/tech/blueprints. And "prayers" and "rituals" are another word for repair, oil, and other maintenance activities for the technology that they serve and worship. They also communicate in binary and disdain having biological flesh.

The AI rebellion might have done something like this.

This is basic info btw, try to at least google.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

So, there's also something to consider re AI in general and in 40K. Machine Spirits require a human help in order to upgrade, if it's possible at all. AI, both true AI and in 40K (I think) could self-upgrade without the need for human help.

 

[Mangoose]

So, there's also something to consider re AI in general and in 40K. Machine Spirits require a human help in order to upgrade, if it's possible at all. AI, both true AI and in 40K (I think) could self-upgrade without the need for human help.

Yeah in 40k they destroyed the galactic civilization that existed before the Emperor came to power.* It was much grander. Much much grander. And the robots destoyred it.

That's why the "Crusade" is pretty well justified - you actually have a human population spread out amongst the stars... But they have zero way to communicate or organize. The Imperium is literally the Emperor racing in the postapocalypse to restore civilization before humanity gets WOMPED by Chaos.

*Or rather, its destruction led to things that led the Emperor deciding it was necessary to reveal Himself. He was fine just chilling there. Just saying.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

This is basic info btw, try to at least google.

We are all aware of that. This is the 40K thread. Consider who you are amongst. There is ambiguity, however, in fandom, about whether a Machine Spirit always refers to cognition of some kind, or if Tech-Priests see even a 'dumb' mechanism, like a simple combustion engine, as possessing one. I was just speculating on whether Cult Mechanicus' theology is Platonic.

In classical Greek philosophy, the soul is the animating force, behind even DNA (not that they knew about molecules, but the entire contingent world was animated by The Good). Then Christianity also justified it's theology using similar terms. So I'm speculating that the theology of the Cult Mechanicus sounds very Platonic, with lower 'forms' animating things, and close to St Thomas Aquinas theology of Trinitarian Christianity.

 

[Mangoose]

This is basic info btw, try to at least google.

We are all aware of that. This is the 40K thread. Consider who you are amongst. There is ambiguity, however, in fandom, about whether a Machine Spirit always refers to cognition of some kind, or if Tech-Priests see even a 'dumb' mechanism, like a simple combustion engine, as possessing one.

That's assuming simple combustion engines don't have Machine Spirits.

I was just speculating on whether Cult Mechanicus' theology is Platonic.

The Motive Force is short for electromotive force. This is a physics concept.

To them, science is the same thing as religion. They are the same concept.

 

[lightbane]

Note that spirit machines also are AIs. Big machines like Knights and spaceships are implied to have not just a brain but legit AI, one that's usually self aware to some extent, a fact which the AM makes it vague so that people don't freak out.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

The machine spirit of things such as titans or void ships is indeed a self aware entity to some extend. The Adeptus Titanicus wargame even has a rule that the machine spirit can take over a titan from time to time and do various things (such as runing towards the nearest enemy or firing weapons at random target) if the princeps fails a leadership test in certain situations.

Lorewise it is presented as each titan´s machine spirit having a "personality" (ie being for example exceptionaly agressive or wild) and the big part of being a princeps is being able to impose your will on the machine spirit of your titan to tame it and make it do what you want. What diferentiates a machine spirit from full AI is that there apparently are some inhibitions on what it can do and when - for example I have never seen any mention of a titan activating on its own and doing stuff without crew (this is only possible for the demon-possessed titans), so the machine spirit probably needs to operate in some kind of symbiosis with the human crew.

I would say that the machine spirit is more akin to an animal that can go wild sometimes, but lacks the ability to reason or plan on a higher level, which is what a real AI (such as Men of Iron) would do.

 

[lightbane]

for example I have never seen any mention of a titan activating on its own and doing stuff without crew (this is only possible for the demon-possessed titans), so the machine spirit probably needs to operate in some kind of symbiosis with the human crew.

Wasn't there that tank that moved itself after the crew died? Granted, it uses a brain, so maybe you don't count it. Then there's a spaceship from a novel that goes full online when in danger, but I haven't read it.

I would say that the machine spirit is more akin to an animal that can go wild sometimes, but lacks the ability to reason or plan on a higher level, which is what a real AI (such as Men of Iron) would do.

Maybe they don't because their programming states they need a pilot.

 

[Fedora Master]

Some vintage art, a Navigator of the Navis Nobilite in his chamber, the Sanctum Navis:

What's with the bat wings.

 

[Mangoose]

Note that spirit machines also are AIs. Big machines like Knights and spaceships are implied to have not just a brain but legit AI, one that's usually self aware to some extent, a fact which the AM makes it vague so that people don't freak out.

They're specifically not AIs because AIs caused the Age of Darkness and this is why they are banned.