Musings on Daemon Princes and Titans

[Brother Stynier]

Lately, I have been re-reading Dan Abnett's Titanicus and while doing so a thought occurred to me, after the first Titan on Titan engagement in the book. As we all know if you appease the Gods enough eventually you could be elevated to Daemonhood, now I would assume the same to be true for the Princeps of a Titan, after all he or she is technically the one responsible for doing all the killing and I would assume they pay some respect to their new dark masters. Now, what happens when a Princeps is elevated to that position? Do the gods merge him with the Titan and its Machine Spirit effectively making them one in the same, but now a "living" creature? Or does something different happen altogether? Now I'm fairly certain I've read somewhere that some of the Dark Mechanicus' Titans have been possessed by daemons, but I would assume that being elevated to Daemonhood as a Princeps would be quite different.

 

I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter as well.

 

On another note, sorry if this is in the wrong area. Due to it relating to Chaos I figured this would be the best place.

[Ju'kosian]

I do not know if they get elevated to Daemonprince..

The DIES IRAE (titan heresy era, imperator class) is crewed by a mortal crew during the heresy but when they re-appear in the 40th millenium (Storm of iron novel) it's mentioned it's crewed by a daemonic crew..

 

So yes the crew could get daemonic but I don't think they become daemonprinces, instead the titan will become daemonic possessed; something similair might happen to the Astartes vehicles were the crew becomes one with the machine they command..

 

Grow into the consols due to some daemonic blessings or such..

[Hellios]

Often the princeps or the machine (or both) are possessed and so the Titan becomes Daemonic... but I've never got the impression that the Daemons controlling such titans were once the mortal crew.

[Trel]

I don't know that a Princeps would necessarily get elevation to a Daemon Prince. That seems to be a very particular and rare position that doesn't go to non-Astartes too often.

 

I think the reward for a Princeps is to remain Princeps and have he and his engine grow closer and in greater power. By the time a Titan is fully elevated in Chaos, it's probably a grotesque fusion of man, machine, and warp-stuff.

[Brother Stynier]

Ok so rather than becoming Daemon Princes they may just might become the Daemon Crew, who I had assumed were just daemons that wished to use the Titan or were perhaps bound there like Defilers or Soul Grinders. I honestly never thought that the crew could become normal Daemons, I just assumed its Daemon Prince or nothing most of the time.

[maverike_prime]

Ok so rather than becoming Daemon Princes they may just might become the Daemon Crew, who I had assumed were just daemons that wished to use the Titan or were perhaps bound there like Defilers or Soul Grinders. I honestly never thought that the crew could become normal Daemons, I just assumed its Daemon Prince or nothing most of the time.

 

Well if you look at the Forge World stuff, there's alot of internals of "crew merged with the machine" looking pieces:

 

Example 1

Example 2

 

And in some of the other books there are mentions of the machine spirit displaying certain un-explainable traits and the pilots of the Titans sharing some sensation with the machine (whether said sensations are the result of some form of Neural connection with the titan, or merely operater/machine empathy is entirely up to the reader).

 

I don't see Princeps being elevated to Daemonprince status as we're used to using the term. Gifted with more insight to the machine spirit, granted better weapons/abilities, removing the need to ever leave the Titan, becoming closer to the machine spirit, perhaps coming to a point where they simply never leave the interface system and they're responses, such as they are, are indistinguishable from those of the machine spirit. That I can see happening.

 

And there are certainly non-astartes Deamon princes out there. Now granted, in the scope of 40k the Astartes based Daemon Princes is comparitivaly more common then a non-astartes one, but then again look at the material. Out of 10 trillion humans, only a hand full of a couple hundred thousand may live long enough to become more then cannon fodder. Out of those couple thousand (We'll say 500,000 for sake of discussion), how many of those will have become leaders of any measure? And then out of those, how many of those leaders will achieve noterity beyond their own little region/relm/continent/planet? Now, out of those, how many of them will survive in that position long enough to gain control of the resources to they would need to really show their devotion to the dark gods? And then out of those, how many will actually not turn into spawns? a dozen? Maybe a 100?

 

Conversly, look at a Space Marine. They become space marines because they're already the best of the best of the best. Once they become Space Marines, the become the best of the best of the best of the best. I mean right there, you cut out the first 2 or 3 levels of "out of those".

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

This immediately made me think of a daemon prince titan :huh: :) :woot:

 

I don't think a princeps would be elevated. Chaos cares more about the destructive power of the titan than it does about the princeps, so it'll just merge or replace the princeps, ensuring that the titan will serve it eternally.

[Quixus]

This immediately made me think of a daemon prince titan :huh: :eek :)

 

I don't think a princeps would be elevated. Chaos cares more about the destructive power of the titan than it does about the princeps, so it'll just merge or replace the princeps, ensuring that the titan will serve it eternally.

Not so sure about that. The Exalted (can't remember his former name) in Soul Hunter was on the way to Deamonhood and all he did was sit back on the bridge and command the fleet of the 10th Company of Night Lords. I don't know if he actually became a Daemon Prince

[Brother Ambroz]

I thought Vandred was possessed rather than becoming a prince?

[Quixus]

I thought Vandred was possessed rather than becoming a prince?

IIRC he was possessed but he or the possessing daemon strived to become a Prince.

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

I thought Vandred was possessed rather than becoming a prince?

Indeed. Vandred himself was simply possessed by a daemon, and his body was slowly warping until he was almost at the point of being the possessing daemon.

 

A ship is different from a Titan regardless. A ship requires someone to run around and control it. A Titan can possibly be possessed, and it's machine spirit is much more human like because of it's bipedal nature (not to mention it being significantly less complex due to a lot less systems being involved in running it, because it's so much smaller). Typically, a Chaos ship isn't a ship where it's machine spirit has been corrupted but a ship filled with Chaotic things such as ghosts, daemons and traitors.

[Drac0]

Now I'm fairly certain I've read somewhere that some of the Dark Mechanicus' Titans have been possessed by daemons, but I would assume that being elevated to Daemonhood as a Princeps would be quite different.

 

In Dark mechanicus the titans aren exactly possessed by daemons

 

 

Titans there are built in a completely different way, I suppose one could call them android Titans as they are made of both biological matter and metal.

 

In fact the Father of all Titans actually enslaves Daemons and uses them as ammunition. (AWSOME!)

 

This all came to be due to the evolution of a STC (the ultimate Titan) which manipulated a mechanicus world and used forbidden lore kept in the databanks of said world.

 

The Titan itself wasn't possed by a Daemon. The STC was, but only when tricked by Justicar Alaric.

 

Lets just say that GK can't fight information or raw data, but Daemons...that's a different story

-_-

 

So to summ it all up, I'd say that Titans do not ascend, by themselves, to daemonhood, but their princeps and/or crew might hence the daemon controls the titan which eventually might lead to a merge of daemon and machine (there are know examples of this happening on chaos vessels (proof in Dark Mechanicus), so I'd assume that it is bound to happen with Titans as well)

[Brother Stynier]

Thanks for the posts guys, sorry I havent responded much, I admit I get distracted by all the threads here and on dakka (when I find a good one on dakka).

 

Is there any book out there where I can read more about the Dark Mechanicus? Most of what I have learned was from Titanicus.

 

So to sum up what we come up with so far;

 

Titans can be crewed by daemons.

The Crew, may be elevated to daemonhood, but not in the Prince level.

Its possible the Crew may merge with the Machine Spirit of the Titan.

[minigun762]

I would mention that the machine spirit of the titan itself can be very powerful and demanding even for an Imperial titan. One would assume that the Princep of a Chaos titan would either have to be extremely strong willed to resist or more likely, end up forming some kind hybrid/symbiosis as you mentioned.

 

Storm of Iron has some titan vs titan combat and is a good reason but doesn't really go too much into the nuts and bolts of it all.