Aging knight pilots?

[Demus Ragnok]

If I'm remembering correctly in the old fluff as knight pilots aged and slowed they would move to "wardens" witch were just walking gun platforms used to defend home base.

 

Does the newer fluff deal with this at all? I know that the "warden" model now is very different from the old ones.

[The Unseen]

I think the new fluff mentions something along those lines, they put veteran pilots into the the double-gunned suits, though I don't think thats called the warden anymore.

[Demus Ragnok]

I think the new fluff mentions something along those lines, they put veteran pilots into the the double-gunned suits, though I don't think thats called the warden anymore.

The Crusader is the gun slinger setup now.

[Demus Ragnok]

So it also occurs to me.

 

Would reconfiguring a mounts weapons insult the machines spirit?

 

Point being would a pilot be given different weapons as he aged or would he move to another mount?

 

Both options seem problematic.

[jeffersonian000]

Pretty sure Nobles are less beholden to the Cult of the Machine than most Imperials. Probably because the know where their Knight's "spirit" is located (ie, they sit on it). Aleays had the feeling that with Titans, the Princip felt more as a part of the machine rather than as being separate from the Machine Spirit. And so it is with Knights and there Noble pilots.

 

SJ

[Dusktiger]

according to the fluff in the knight codex, the essential part is both the pilot himself, and the command throne. 

 

When a knight aspirant is being tested for worthiness, he's hooked up to the throne inside of a large chamber in the household's stronghold, which contains all of the thrones.  He's then left connected to the chair all night, alone.  When they re-open the chamber and check on him, he's either alive and synced with the throne, or he's dead or been driven insane from having the machine spirits whisper to him all night. 

 

The codex also goes on to specify that the machine spirit in the thrones is a combination of the default AI encoding to run the knights, and the synced personalities of previous pilots that used that throne.  This causes certain knight suits to be inherently more aggressive and are perceived as egging on their pilot into being more aggressive himself while in the knight.

 

Forgeworld built on this with their fluff on some of the cerastus-type suits, and the questoris variants.  the Styrix for example tends to be very aggressive and influences the pilot.

 

to swing back to your original question, since "age" is a more relative term, because they have technology and treatments that cause life extension in valuable members of the Imperium, an "old man" piloting the titans isnt very common. They're also very likely to die in combat well before we see them get to the equivalent of what we'd consider a man in his...say 60's.  Though it could certainly happen.  Since they've focused the fluff on the heart and soul of the knight being encapsulated in the command throne, rather than the titan itself, it is certainly possible that if they flesh it out more, it will be to include reassigning that veteran pilot and his throne to a knight frame that's more for ranged fire support and less frontline combat.