Fluff Question on the Viability of Knight Households

[PATemplar]

Having spent yesterday reading the Imperial Knight novella and then last night looking thru the codex and companion books, I began to wonder how there are still Knight households in existance?

 

The codex and companion talk about the Knight suits/machines being products of the Dark Age of Technology created to help colonist settle on the far flung worlds and that these machines later became war machines. It also indicates that the secret to making these suits is still lost to those Dark Ages.

 

That's where both my question and the problem lies. In the novella it becomes clear that the

Mechanicus provides support to all the Knightly Houses by training Sacristans to maintain and repair the machines. The Mechanicus is also willing to provide sensor and weapons upgrades to those Knight Houses allied to it but doesn't indicate anything about new machines/suits. Again , following the codex that technology to create whole machines seems lost which is admittedly a little hard to fathom as the mechanicus still turns out new titans even if the new titans aren't as good as their more venerable predecessors.

 

 Given the losses in Knight Suits/machines that are mentioned in the novella that House Cadmus had experienced before the start of the book and during the book it's impossible to believe they'll be around long or if the kinds of losses they've had are typical how there are any knightly houses still in existence 10,000 years post the HH. Basically it talks about how Cadmus had lost over 70 Knights in a previous campaign on Gryphonne IV vs the nids which was about 3/4 of the Household. They answer the Mechanicus call for aid in the novella with their remaining Household strength of about 24 machines and lose at least about a third of that vs the nids during their providing aid to the mechanicus in the story. There is also a freeblade who's the last survivor of attacks by the nids on its homeworld in the story.

 

Given these kinds of losses of suits/machines unless new ones are made which it doesn't say is happening, there shouldn't still be any knights still around or at least not around for long. Even given that some suits may be rebuilt after having been killed with their pilot/rider, there's still lots of suits being destroyed behind hostile lines or just completely obliterated that won't be able to be recovered and rebuilt.

 

Anyways, I was just wondering what folks thought about this and the corner it seems that GW has painted itself into by not indicating that the mechanicus could still make new suits for the Houses and not just settle for equipment upgrades on the existing suits?

 

 

[JeffTibbetts]

Well, clearly the Knights are now being manufactured new on Forge Worlds, hence the maker's plates. I guess what we're missing is where it explicitly states that the AdMech has taken over production. It might be in there somewhere, but I haven't been able to read the novel or Companion yet. 

[jeffersonian000]

Per the original fluff, Forge Worlds would supply Knight Titans to the nobles on the Agri-Worlds that supply the Forge Wotld with food supplies. Which means that the AdMech has always been able to build Knights.

 

SJ

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

If my reading of the fluff is correct, House Taranis was rebuilt after the Heresy from a force of 2 knight. So obviously it's possible to make new Knights, just as it's possible to make new Titans. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a slow process, with every single rivet handcrafted by specially trained techpriests and lovingly assembled by more specially trained techpriests (sacristians or something, wasn't that their title?).

[Verythrax Draconis]

Like most of the "lost" technology in 40K, it is only really lost in the understanding on how it works and why it needs to be done this way - they know what to do, following STC blindly, that's why all the admech rituals, they literally follow the rituals and "pray" for it to work.

They are able to manufacture all the pieces, but the specifics why each piece is in that format and why they need to be assembled in that pattern to work is a mystery.