Question about machine spirits

[Lord Kallozar]

Hi all, please help me here.

 

So machine spirits... are they spirits like human spirits? For example if a Predator tank or even a Titan got destroyed in battle, is there a way that a Chaos sorcerer or even warp energy can somehow “resurrect” the machine spirit and bring the vehicle/war machine back from the dead?

 

If not, then is there a way that a human soul can be transferred into a destroyed machine to bring it back from the dead?

 

Cheers.

[Demus Ragnok]

A machine spirit isn’t a “spirit” it’s a computer of some type. Some are advanced enough (Titans) that they take on personally traits of those that interface with them. Edited November 19, 2017 by Demus Ragnok

[Lord Kallozar]

Thank you for the fast reply and clearing up the machine spirit.

 

Even though, is there still any way or form that a Chaos vehicle can be “resurrected”?

[Panzer]

Well the topic about Machine Spirits is a bit difficult tbh.

It's not an AI since those got banned in the Imperium of Man (it almost wiped out humanity in the Dark Age of Technology and there's always the possibility of AI getting corrupted by chaos which nobody wants to happen). It's more of an automated system that allows the vehicle or whatever to control itself to some degree if needed.

However it's also a bit fickle and does things nobody can explain so it's more than that as well. It's not like the vehicles have souls so the things you asked about aren't possible, but the Machine Spirit is also more than just a system ... but not an AI.

 

I guess the easiest way to imagine it is thinking of it as a very very very low key AI, but only in really advanced stuff like Landraider etc. Either because the Mechanicum really thinks it's some kind of spirit, or because they use it as convenient excuse to implement some AI as described in the STC without getting in trouble with Terra.

[Lord Kallozar]

Thanks. So how can titans be corrupted by sorcery if there’s nothing to corrupt?

[Demus Ragnok]

Thanks. So how can titans be corrupted by sorcery if there’s nothing to corrupt?

Daemons can possess inanimate objects.

[Warsmith Aznable]

As I understand it, cogitators are banks of living brains or pieces of brain tissue repurposed into bio-computers. A mixture of low grade computer learning and heavily reconditioned biomatter, like servitors. The machine spirit is a limited bio intelligence, and its personality is developed from memories and experiences following it being turned into a computer, and limited in expression by its designated purpose and operating parameters. Sentience without sapience, I think is what happens, or at least highly complex behaviors that mimic sentience.

[BrassClaw]

I have always thought that machine spirits were computer programs that have machine learning but aren't self-aware like true AI. The older the machine the more it gets used, it makes patterns. Hence the machine spirits developing "personalities"  

 

"Resurrecting" a machine spirit is probably done by both chaos and imperium forces. The Dark Mechanicus is probably more interest in corrupting them or using daemons to possess the vehicle itself

[Quixus]

Even though, is there still any way or form that a Chaos vehicle can be “resurrected”?

Ther's always daemonic possession.

[OnboardG1]

Hi all, please help me here.

 

So machine spirits... are they spirits like human spirits? For example if a Predator tank or even a Titan got destroyed in battle, is there a way that a Chaos sorcerer or even warp energy can somehow “resurrect” the machine spirit and bring the vehicle/war machine back from the dead?

 

If not, then is there a way that a human soul can be transferred into a destroyed machine to bring it back from the dead?

 

Cheers.

 

There are cases in the fluff where a human acts as the machine spirit for warships (Ahriman and BL trilogies) so yes it is possible to do that if the war-machine's cogitator banks were destroyed. It's also possible to re-consecrate a recovered war-machine if the machine spirit is still in tact but I'm not sure it's possible to "resurrect" a machine spirit. You'd probably have to rebuild the tank and fit a new machine spirit.

[Lord Kallozar]

Thanks for the replies again. I ask about bringing back machines from the dead because I am planning an undead space marine army and wanted to know fluffwise how to represent an “undead” Titan or other war machine.

[bryanp319]

The best example I can think of for this is in the Talon of Horus Novel where the main characters sister has been re-purposed as his ships machine spirit and later as the Vengeful Spirit's machine spirit. It has some of her memories but has become part of the ship. Using organic and living components seems to be a way around the ban on AI for the Mechanicus. This is why you get servitors and the like as well as different traits in machine spirits based on the type of living matter used. It talks about the machine spirits of Castellex Battle-Automata as being extremely hard to control and ferocious due to the machine spirit which is implied to be an animal of some sort.

[OnboardG1]

Thanks for the replies again. I ask about bringing back machines from the dead because I am planning an undead space marine army and wanted to know fluffwise how to represent an “undead” Titan or other war machine.

 

Oh there are lots of fluff possibilities for this. As Bryan said you can use the embedded human approach to replace a titan's machine spirit (probably with a little warp help). Daemonic possession is also a perennial favorite. Maybe some sort of frankenstein hybrid where the machine spirit from something else has been retrofitted into the "undead" machine. 

 

Which god/ rebirth mechanism are we talking about here for your army?

[Warpmiss]

Servitors are already pretty undead IMO but if we are talking strictly about machine spirits, if you go with the approach of a person being bound to the machine to become the machine spirit, you could maybe say that person needs to be 'resurrected' in order to bring the machine back to life. In the TT, Warpsmiths can repair machines, maybe you could say yours has to return the 'soul'/consciousness to the machine?

[Xin Ceithan]

Thanks for the replies again. I ask about bringing back machines from the dead because I am planning an undead space marine army and wanted to know fluffwise how to represent an “undead” Titan or other war machine.

If it's demonic / from the Warp, it can be summoned and maybe takes a shape like a vehicle or a Titan..like the plaque hulks in Daemon armies, which a demon taking a biomechanical shape. Inanimate objects can be possessed as has been said and using the machine spirits biological ( human) components as sort of an easy access path seems certainly possible.

 

You can easily go for the undead army and vehicles IMO - if warpsmith believes he is bringing back the machine spirit from the cybernetic afterlife that's fine. It might just not be what's really running through the circuitry...demons lie after all :)

 

And not all Warp entities are Machiavellian super villains - a hungry Warp entity with a more animal like instinct might be fully sufficient depending on the task at hand (a Rapier Battery, e.g.) A Titan certainlymakes a fitting for a greater demon, but might also be justified by a well coordinated pack of Warp predators sharing a Single, Giant Host.

[Lord Kallozar]

Thanks again guys. I’m really intrigued about the idea of putting a human in to act as the machine spirit. Maybe even a deceased human who’s soul has been fused with a machine to bring it back to life? Maybe a destroyed Defiler who’s bound Daemon has died with the vehicle so a human spirit (or just a human) is attached to the Defiler to make it operational again?

[N1SB]

Sorry for the late reply.

 

I've long been confused by the concept of the Machine Spirit; it's a confusing concept.  I'm going to share what I learned, but 1st, let's deal with the question at hand:

 

 

Thanks again guys. I’m really intrigued about the idea of putting a human in to act as the machine spirit. Maybe even a deceased human who’s soul has been fused with a machine to bring it back to life? Maybe a destroyed Defiler who’s bound Daemon has died with the vehicle so a human spirit (or just a human) is attached to the Defiler to make it operational again?

 

 

While the concept of the Machine Spirit is more complex, THIS question is easy if you were to choose a Knight Titan (or any sort of Titan).

 

Every Titan is connected to a pilot, "connected" being the operative word.  Their throne is not just a set of joysticks and throttles; they're literally bound like being jacked into the Matrix.  It's a bionic interface, similar (but not the same) to how a Space Marine is connected to power armour or a dreadnought.  The pilots are nobility (which is why you see Titans belonging to noble Houses) precisely because not every human can do this as their bodies can't handle the strain, so they try to breed future pilots by creating an aristocratic system.  Again, it's similar to something else, the Navigators, whose ability to navigate the warp is like a mutant psyker ability.

 

Even then, Titan pilots do get physically drained; they age faster and stuff, their bodies get burnt out.  That doesn't mean they necessarily hate being plugged into their Titans, in fact, quite the opposite.  Some don't ever want to leave their Titans and actually feel more natural while connected than in their own bodies!  It's really like the Knight Titan is an extension of their body, a 2nd skin, or in some cases a Knight pilot feels the Titan is their TRUE body.  It becomes a problem because pilots are supposed to recover between bouts inside the machine, but sometimes they don't want to leave, like a spoiled princess not wanting to get off her pony.

 

So you want to do an "undead" or possessed war machine?  IMHO, your best bet is that the Titan pilot is undead, like he's just a zombie still jacked into a Knight (which is kind of like a Dreadnought I suppose), or perhaps he's actually a Daemonhost!  A Daemon saw his soul in the warp, went to possess it, without knowing he's actually connected to anything.  Now, instead of just having a normal human body, which is squishy and good with ketchup, that Daemon realises he hit the jackpot and got one that's plugged into a Titan.  It's like a massive bonus.

 

The irony is that, yes, the Mechanicus does not use A.I.s (which they call Abominable Intelligence) due to legacy issues (rebellious robots of Men of Stone/Iron) because they don't trust machines acting with their own free will without an organic component controlling it.  In the case of a Titan, that organic component (the pilot) is EXACTLY the backdoor that allowed an outside threat to enter and infect it (a Daemon).

 

 

+++++

 

 

On the subject of the Machine Spirit, I, too, was confused.  I'm not out to contradict anyone, I'm just sharing info I found very enlightening and am passing it on.

 

I had previously thought the Machine Spirit of a vehicle was its cogitator, the computer that manages certain tasks like targeting, etc.  Even in regular cars, completely discounting on-board computers, there are Electronic Control Units that control important things like the transmission or engine.

 

In the superstitious environment of 40k, I further thought the idea of a Machine Spirit was just how people in the Imperium referred to the cogitators.  They use but don't understand machinery, so they just associate the idea of cogitators with some sort of ghost in the machine, it's just what they called it.

 

The problem arises when in some lore and 30k novels they distinguish between cogitators and the Machine Spirit.  Like a Techpriest will look over a tank and say something like, "The chassis is fine, the cogitators are fine...but the Machine Spirit is displeased."  That confused me.

 

It turns out there IS a difference.  The cogitator is the logic engine, the mind, the RATIONAL part of the machine.  The Machine Spirit is the emotional part, the heart, the PASSION part of the machine.  It turns out in the grimdark far future, the struggle of Reason vs. Passion continues even with technology.

 

It's easier to explain with an example.  It was something I read either here on B&C or in a Dark Heresy RPG by FFG's commentary that really clicked for me:

 

 

+++ The Example of the Leman Russ Tank That REALLY Hates Orks +++

 

 

Let me share with you the story of a Leman Russ tank.  There are many like it, but this was the one told to me.

 

A Leman Russ tank was built on Armageddon, a major industrial planet famous for being invaded, during its major 2nd war from an invasion of Orks.  The war was going so badly that the Orks were practically outside the factory hive cities, and they were churning out Leman Russ tanks at record speeds just to fight them off.  Leman Russes were getting blown up right at the door, and they would scavenge what they can in the midst of fighting, bring it back inside, to make new ones.

 

There's a Armageddon factory worker there and then.  He's the guy on the assembly line working on the Heavy Bolter sponsons.  Even from where he was, he could hear the Orks' battlecries, knows his friends are dying fighting right outside, and is afraid, desperate, angry.  He's overworked but those emotions keep him going on, as he slams sponsons onto the Leman Russ frame he's working on.  He's rushed, so he quickly rivets the sponsons on, each twist a little bit harder than he should despite the Tech Priest's instructions not to over-do it, and with each turn of his wrench he curses the filthy green Xenos.  He can't go out to fight because he's too busy building Russes, but he channels that rage in his work.

 

(You ever hear about expectant mothers letting their babies listen to classical music in the womb so that they're smarter when they're born?  Replace that that with some factory worker cussing out Orks throughout their conception.)

 

That Leman Russ he's working on rolls out and the gunners on the sponsons found it's EVEN BETTER at shooting up Orks than others he operated!  The Heavy Bolter just glides into place targeting Orks, very smooth, doesn't catch on anything, the sponson bounces in harmony with the kick of the rapid covering fire you need against Orks so bolts don't jam, it's a beauty to man.  The gunner is thinking this is the smoothest heavy weapon he's ever operated, but he doesn't know why.

 

(Imagine that baby mentioned above who listened to a litany of hate towards Orks.  He grows up, you take him to Disneyland, he's having a great time, being polite, laughing, until he sees a guy in a Shrek costume or something, at which point he just flies into murderous rage because he looks like an Ork to him.)

 

The 2nd War of Armaggedon is over, humanity triumphs.  That Leman Russ, beat up but still operational, has its armour plates repaired, its cogitators rebooted, and sent to serve in the Steel Legion.  But the Heavy Bolter Sponsons that worked so well before are acting up.  The gunners complain it tends to point down towards the ground where the grass and bushes are, it just kinda veers that way.  Then when it fires, it lurches away to shoot at green foliage rather than, say, a Tau.

 

A Tech-priest looks the tank over, reinstalls the targeting cogitators, but it still has that same problem.  He concludes there's something wrong with the Machine Spirit.

 

The Tech-priest is pressed on the matter, so he points out whoever built the sponsons tightened the bolts too hard so that they lean kinda downwards, so that they droop a fraction of a degree...which JUST happens to be the perfect angle if you want to shoot at a sea of Orks charging the tank, but it's the problem now.  He can't change it without taking apart the whole tank, as it's part of the tank's personality.  But he knows whatever he does, no matter what he replaces, that hate remains.

 

And he's right.  The Leman Russ is like an infant with guns strapped to it, acting on instinct.  One of his "parents", the factory worker that installed the sponsons, somehow instilled his own hatred of Orks, without either him or the tank knowing.  It's like an idiosyncrasy in how that machine was built that causes it to lash out.

 

The Machine Spirit is really spectral in that it's not quite tangible.  It's like how sailors used to talk about the soul of a ship.  In such complex pieces of machinery, little things in all the different parts somehow add up that change how it operates from another that's built with the same components and the same process.

 

 

+++++

 

 

A heads up.  Not every authour follows this approach to the Machine Spirit, many DO just use it synonymously with the cogitators.

 

Even the game mechanics in 40k sometimes just treats the Machine Spirit as just like a better targeting computer or something, but it's more than that.

 

However, when you do notice someone making a distinction between the Machine Spirit from cogitators, I believe that above example really helps.

[Paradigm]

Agreed. I think it's built on the superstitious but still real feeling you get from complex machinery. It's easy to feel like you have an agreeable car, or your lawnmower doesn't like you. The more complex the machine the more, "character", it seems to have.

 

As a thought experiment for perspective, I used to serve on a ballistic missile nuclear submarine. The character of the ship was every bit as brutal as that would imply. She was arrogant, and temperamental, and out for blood. She was a . Not the lovable kind, but the kind you get into a relationship with and can't leave, because if you do, she might hunt you down and cut you.

 

We'd always end up with mysterious wounds where we'd scratched or cut ourselves without noticing or find odd bruises on our bodies. We suffered from headaches, insomnia, or exhaustion. Sometimes it was a lot worse. One sailor fell down a ladderwell and broke his arm, and couldn't be taken off the ship for treatment for over a week. Another woke up from a night terror and hit his head so hard he needed tons of stitches for a huge gash. A knuckleheaded dude stuck his finger in a hole and the tip of it was crushed off by machinery before he even knew what had happened. A guy developed kidney stones and couldn't be evacuated for days, screaming on the floor in the world's most disgusting bathroom from the agony. You showered with flip flops on to keep from getting infected from the shower floors, and never EVER touched the shower walls. Even if the ship was rolling and tumbling in the ocean you DID NOT touch the shower walls -- ringworm was the least of your concern if you did.

 

The freezer broke and the crew had to subsist on very little food for weeks, and they came home skinny, and emaciated. We had steam leaks that could have killed us in droves if they'd expanded. We had switchboards catch fire, and had valves act of their own volition. We had oxygen generators blow hydrogen gas and caustic particulate into work areas (a major explosion and health hazard). Captains that regulated the oxygen according to how "lively" they wanted the crew. People literally went insane and had to be drug from their racks(beds) and removed from the boat. Several people died, though from none of these particular things, and this isn't the appropriate place to talk about it.

 

We fought through all this, some of us even thrived through it, but the boat was indifferent at best to the creatures living inside her.

It was a machine designed to destroy the world. We kept her chained and impotent, deep under the ocean. We constantly drilled and brought her through the motions as if she'd finally fulfill her purpose, and then stopped before she could bellow in anger.

There is no questioning she was as close to a god of destruction, as anything I've ever witnessed. She was spiteful in her frustration. I have no doubt, that somehow, even without fictional cogitators, or fantastic possessing daemons she "knew" what she was made for. She "wanted" her tithe of blood. Without notice she'd reach out and take whatever she needed to keep her sated. Weather that was the flayed-skin from the ring finger of an unlucky person, or someone's life. We were always on alert, and always striving to prevent being the one who'd give her next offering. She didn't care how she got it. 

This is what the "machine spirit" of a 21st century warship was like. It isn't much of a stretch that those of the 41st millennia and the age of darkness are far more alive. If all emotion is echoed in the warp, forming an eddy and then even a personality, I see no reason why a primitive intelligence can't emerge from the emotions of a machine's operators, and then be given possession of a new machine by a sorcerer or warpsmith.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Fortnight

[N1SB]

The above experiences with the submarine beats the crap out of my story with the Leman Russ.  Thank you greatly for sharing, I'll be using your example from now on.

 

I live in a port city, I've known many people who've worked or served on ships and, in different languages, everyone who've spent time on a ship tells me there's an energy/personality/spirit in a ship.  The above topped all of these, and the engineer training in me tries to impose some rational explanation, "oh, with complex machinery there's so many nuances with each component that they accumulate towards some unexpected behaviour," but even then I'd just call that x-factor a Machine Spirit.

 

Really, really a perfect example above.  Thanks for telling us about it, it brings the concept home.

[OnboardG1]

Agreed. I think it's built on the superstitious but still real feeling you get from complex machinery. It's easy to feel like you have an agreeable car, or your lawnmower doesn't like you. The more complex the machine the more, "character", it seems to have.

 

As a thought experiment for perspective, I used to serve on a ballistic missile nuclear submarine. The character of the ship was every bit as brutal as that would imply. She was arrogant, and temperamental, and out for blood. She was a . Not the lovable kind, but the kind you get into a relationship with and can't leave, because if you do, she might hunt you down and cut you.

 

I'm not in the least bit surprised you're a Night Lords player 

[the jeske]

Well the claws achived "race" wide conciousness and hated humans, before they want all chaos for example. It is a bit like reactivating someone who was turned in to a servitor to full human counciousness. they generally do not react well to it[there was an example of this way back in in Inferno, when a sentenced inquistor gets "reanimited" to full capacity  from a servitor state of mind].

[Lord_Caerolion]

It seems to be a bit of a hazy answer, really. There's the stuff like what Fortnight has said, and fluff mentions that the cogitator of Land Raiders would have the brain of a predatory animal incorporated to help guide it (not all cogitators do this, most are just 'normal' computers, others have biological help like this), but then you've got stuff like a simple little stubber. A simple metal revolver, but the Adeptus Mechanicus still state that it has a machine spirit. With things like that, or lasguns, most likely even bolters, it's nothing but dogma. Then you get the stuff like the Throne Mechanicum's of the Knights, and power armour, which seems to develop a kind of gestalt personality from its users over time. Then, we move onto the stuff like Land Raiders, which do have biological computers at their heart, and the Titans, which have both the biological computer, combined with the gestalt mind. All of these aren't helped by the fact of the Warp, where even inanimate objects can gain presences in the Warp, becoming more and more like their nature. These are all "machine spirits".

 

Simplest answer? The Machine Spirit is the concept of what makes the thing work. Whether that be simple mechanics that need to be kept rust-free, all the way up to the Anamnesis, a perfect fusion between human and computer.