Looking back at Priests of Mars

[Tiger9gamer]

so i'm slowly making my way through the first book of the "Of Mars" series and i'm not sure how much I'm enjoying this. oh, it was fine for a while, fun even, showing how awesome the Arc mechanicus ship was in all it's glory and power, how great these machines are, and such, but as i'm getting towards the end it's starting to irk me.

 

So, spoilers ahead I guess

 

So, the space station with Galatea on it, that whole fighting thing was fine, but actually getting to the character of galatea is not sitting well with me. it's an ancient machine that can control other machine spirits through the mechanicus's own noosphere, and can even resist Archmagos Kotov's influence on the machine spirits, as well as somehow get around being in what is basically a feraday cage and take control of key systems in the Arc Mechanicus to hold the expedition hostage, as well as blurt out code that can override the guns of servitors and other machines in order to take control.

 

Okay, so why did they take it to the arc mechanicus in the first place when there are tons of other ships they had in the fleet (fuel carriers, repair ships and so forth) they could have used to create this prison, and really cut the ship off for security purposes? they obviously knew it would be a problem in the first place by putting the guy in a cage, so why not double up on it instead of letting him on the most important ship in the fleet? why did they guard him with servitors that could be hacked into and be unable to fire when they have tons of fleshbags around them to stand guard, like the cadians? heck have a few if the captured bondsmen without augments stand guard with monkey wrenches ready to beat it to death.

 

another question is, if this noosphere and manifold stuff is so amazing, why in almost every mechanicus focused book does it get hacked into? 

 

this isn't even me being salty about my favorite faction being tricked, this is just kinda confusing is all.

[Brother Lunkhead]

Read this series about a year ago and really enjoyed it (flaws and all). Graham McNeill writes a mean pulp epic.

 

In regards to the Mechanicus' treatment of the Galatea, I think that speaks to their arrogance, which is what I think Graham was trying to get across. You're right about how it SHOULD have been treated, but you know how stupid, inefficient, and unreliable  "meatbags" are compared to machines. Pride goeth  before a fall.

[Sothalor]

Well, I hate to break it to you, but the series as a whole really doesn't make any more sense from there, in terms of competent characters making decisions.

 

The series has its moments and setpieces full of spectacle, but at a certain point it's quite reliant on genre cliches and the readers' (perhaps excessive) willing suspension of disbelief.

 

Oh, and some glaring editing oversights. I mean, wait'll you get to the three-armed space marine.

[Mellow]

You certainly have a lot of questions. Did you read the whole series?

[Xisor]

You certainly have a lot of questions. Did you read the whole series?

The first few words of the damn thread answer that, you condescending nitwit.

 

----

 

As it goes, I found the writing/pace/visuals of the series hugely enjoyable. But I've long now had to struggle with the 'tone'(?) Of McNeill's books. As others have said: "competent characters" aren't what he's going for. It's a show/tell thing, and I don't think it's necessarily incompetence on McNeill's part as he's spinning a grand yarn.

 

A stylistic choice, I suppose. Broad brush strokes, parables, that sort of thing?

 

I don't really have the words to unpick it, myself, but the Of Mars books as a whole do tend to have the *idea* of a character be much more important than exploring (or demonstrating) the nature of the characters.

 

In that respect, there's a lot of loose ends that will unravel things *but* that if you can persuade yourself to ignore them, you can settle in for enjoying the ride.

 

(It's a common theme, in my esteem, for almost all McNeill's works that I've read. In Of Mars, it works really well. In the Horus Heresy, I find it a real buzzkill. False Gods & Angel Exterminatus especially.)

[Knockagh]

I enjoyed this series although at times it took some perseverance to get through some chapters. It has all my favourites in it from the mechanicum to rogue traders to the scum who fill the bowels of the mighty space ships.

As others say you probably won’t find an answer to your questions and if you stick with the series your likely to end up with a few more. It’s not perfect by a long way but it has fun themes, good characters and a tall tale that’s sort of hard to grasp entirely as you seem to have discovered already!

[Brother Lunkhead]

I stick to my opinion... a great pulp epic . This is not high literature by any stretch of the imagination. This is 40K, and if you don't suspend belief from the get go in any of this stuff you are in real trouble. As far as editing goes, this seems to be an almost universal problem in the publishing industry world these days with an overreliance on software to auto-edit instead of good old fashion proof-reading.

 

As Xisor points out, McNeill writes in broad strokes, with lots of colorful but rather two dimensional characters set in an epic yarn. I had no problem following the story and really didn't find anything confusing and was quite satisfied in the end. It's a long read for sure (three volumes). But, unless you have the attention span of a fly I personally think it's worth reading.

[Beren]

As the most advanced ship in the fleet the Esperanza would have the best counter-hacking protocols and the most advanced isolation facilities. Placing Galatea on another ship would also require the Magi involved with its containment and interrogation to hop back and forth between ships. If Galatea then seized the containment ship it might be able to use it to broadcast it's hacking signals to the rest of the fleet anyway. As for the servitors , they were explicitly designed to be 'secure'. It's not a case of them being stupid, just vastly underestimating Galatea.

[Tiger9gamer]

As the most advanced ship in the fleet the Esperanza would have the best counter-hacking protocols and the most advanced isolation facilities. Placing Galatea on another ship would also require the Magi involved with its containment and interrogation to hop back and forth between ships. If Galatea then seized the containment ship it might be able to use it to broadcast it's hacking signals to the rest of the fleet anyway. As for the servitors , they were explicitly designed to be 'secure'. It's not a case of them being stupid, just vastly underestimating Galatea.

 

I see your point, but I still feel it may not have been the best point of action, considering that, yea, the esperanza would in theory have the best counter-hacking technology, we didn't see it at all. from what I remember of the scene, even in the data isolation chamber wasn't enough to hold this guy in the flagship, and now he has his finger on the suicide button for the ship, still holding them hostage. besides, they saw how powerful this guy already was when he managed to jam all communications from the Arc ship and all other ships, counterhacked an archmagos who was in the system, and out- binaried him in the jail scene. 

 

considering how the mechanicus has been around for millennia, it also stands to reason that these guys probably encountered things like this (malevolent AI) for eons. why do they not have better defenses against scrap code and hacking enemies? 

 

well, with everyone else agreeing I'm glad i'm just not crazy with these inconsistencies and such. knowing other people share the same thoughts on this is helpful, I havn't considered this a pulp epic, but I guess it will help when / if I pick up more of the series

__________________

 

anyways, I picked up the Master of mankind book a few days ago, and within a chapter ADB wrote (in my humble opinion) a better  mechanicus character than what I found in the priest of mars book. Alpha-Rho-25 felt like a thinking, well done character within the setting, using data and tactics to try and solve a problem, even considering what happens to the guy later on. presenting this skitarii alpha as a hunter and warrior in the way he did, with an actual personality and opinions and within a short time frame felt like what a mechanicus character should be, and what happened helps raise the stakes by a good amount.

[Brother Lunkhead]

One other thing to remember about the AM is their maxim, 'Knowledge is power.' They don't share readily, not even with each other. Another thing to remember that even in real life otherwise highly intelligent and powerful people actually do mind numbingly epic, stupid things  And one last thing before I go back into my cave..... if characters in stories didn't make these unwise decisions we wouldn't have a story

[Beren]

Just to be clear, I am playing something of a Devil's Advocate here.

 

I see your point, but I still feel it may not have been the best point of action, considering that, yea, the esperanza would in theory have the best counter-hacking technology, we didn't see it at all. from what I remember of the scene, even in the data isolation chamber wasn't enough to hold this guy in the flagship, and now he has his finger on the suicide button for the ship, still holding them hostage. besides, they saw how powerful this guy already was when he managed to jam all communications from the Arc ship and all other ships, counterhacked an archmagos who was in the system, and out- binaried him in the jail scene.

Given that all this occurs onboard the Esperanza, they couldn't possibly have decided to not bring it onboard the Speranza because of this. Also, the Galatea mentions that the Esperanza's machine spirit is 'old but inexperienced, and much of it still slumbers', indicating that without these factors the Speranza could potentially hold it at bay (note that I have not read the rest of the trilogy, so I have no idea if this was put to the test or not)

 

considering how the mechanicus has been around for millennia, it also stands to reason that these guys probably encountered things like this (malevolent AI) for eons. why do they not have better defenses against scrap code and hacking enemies?

A good point, but such occurrences are rare and most likely highly classified. Given that researching AIs is prohibited, countermeasures can only be based upon data

from occurrences where the AI was weak enough to be dealt with somehow in the first place, and such knowledge can easily degrade over time.

 

From what I can tell, AIs can be placed in three categories.

 

Galatea/Tabula Myriad Level: Entirely out of the Ad Mechs league when it comes to hacking. It's hard to produce countermeasures against what you were reliant upon someone else dealing with physically. Also quite rare.

 

Scrapcode/Schismatical level: Highly dangerous in terms of how easily they spread, but containable and typically lacking over arching coordination. This is what the Ad Mech have the most experience of combatting.

 

Ashkhelon AI/Golephs etc: AIs which appear not to rely upon hacking at all, albeit often dangerous in their own right due to numerous battle constructs.

 

Incidents like the Galatea one are most likely rare, classified and utterly overwhelming;leaving little data for years of dissemination, degradation, interpretation and almost no testing against AIs with that degree of power.