And who's to say that they don't? Weapons can have machine spirits, like this Boltor.
Shroud (Grey Goo game Shroud SI / Warhammer 40k)
- Location
- Kansas
That brings up an interesting question. How developed of a soul can a Machine Spirit obtain. The AIs on this planet appears to be compatible with the Shroud. Does that mean that Machine spirits can be imbued with something similar to let them better fill their role without the risk of Chaos taint. It could be very interesting to see the development of sentient weapons free of Warp taint as a result.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Exactly what Machine Spirits are is unclear; in some of the more advanced pieces of technology such as Titans and Battleships the Machine Spirits of such have been confirmed to absolutely 100% be some kind of AI in multiple stories, but obviously a plasma rifle probably does not have an AI in it. Where exactly the line is drawn is very much up in the air; does a Land Raider have an AI or just a very good set of Expert Systems? Nobody knows, certainly not the Mechanicus, their predecessors probably knew before the Age of Strife, but that information has long since been lost to Daemonic data corruption. Additionally the Warp is affected by emotions and belief, so all that believing in Machine Spirits does have some kind of influence in the Warp. What kind of influence is impossible to say, but it's definitely something and is not impossible that given sufficient time a machine could in fact 'grow' a soul analogue from enough belief and devotion.
And of course none of that is getting into the heavily implied connection between the Machine God and a shard of the Void Dragon, possibly even its greater bulk, which is likely to be imprisoned on Mars and may or may not have been either subjugated or made some kind of deal with the Emprah to assist with machinery related things. If so, then all bets regarding Machine Spirits are completely off, as the Void Dragon was not only the most powerful of all the C'tan prior to them turning on each other as well as having servants leave the Milky Way and set up shop in another galaxy entirely, it was also the C'tan that was the best at machinery and science, and if it has any kind of involvement in the Mechanicus then Machine Spirits could be literally anything from implausibly good Expert Systems to outright AI to actual fragments of the Void Dragon's will, and even a lasgun could have one.
And of course none of that is getting into the heavily implied connection between the Machine God and a shard of the Void Dragon, possibly even its greater bulk, which is likely to be imprisoned on Mars and may or may not have been either subjugated or made some kind of deal with the Emprah to assist with machinery related things. If so, then all bets regarding Machine Spirits are completely off, as the Void Dragon was not only the most powerful of all the C'tan prior to them turning on each other as well as having servants leave the Milky Way and set up shop in another galaxy entirely, it was also the C'tan that was the best at machinery and science, and if it has any kind of involvement in the Mechanicus then Machine Spirits could be literally anything from implausibly good Expert Systems to outright AI to actual fragments of the Void Dragon's will, and even a lasgun could have one.
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- Location
- USA
This is the Mechanicus its kinda random on whether or not they know how something works. Yeah there are somethings that they have no idea how it work but they can make it work or build thousands of them. I forgot who said it but it stuck with me "they may not know why flipping switches and pressing buttons in a certain order makes a machine do something but it does so they can replicate it so it works. On the other hand they know everything about a machine that they could tell you what everything does and how to build more of them."
Also there is some tech that they either never lost the knowledge of or it was easy to study. For example a normal projectile hand gun or a combustion engine vehicle. I, myself, know nothing about a car but give me a couple of weeks and a dire need to know I could tell you everything there is to at least get it working. Give me a couple of months to a year and i could tell you everything there is to it and how it works.
Last thought but we could talk about what the Mechanicus knows or doesn't know till the end of time so I will leave it at that before we derail this thread.
Guardsman_Sparky
The Clueless Wonder
- Location
- Virginia
Interestingly enough, we do see some of the technological regression and loss that the Mechanicus experiences IRL.
We've more or less lost the knowledge on how to make cannon barrels larger than five-inchers. The dies used have been lost, and everyone who knew how to prep and treat the metals involved are either dead or retired. While I'm sure we could still build big guns if we so desired, it would involve a lot of trial and error.
In another example, the US Navy (IIRC) decided to recommission an old type of tomahawk-style missile for some reason or another. So, they pulled their plans out and started up production. They followed all the instructions to the letter, used the best materials they could get, only to find that their missiles were useless. See, these missiles had a lens on the nose cones to protect the camera systems inside the missile. Unfortunately, no matter what they tried, every lens they made came out cloudy and unusable. They just couldn't figure out what was going wrong. Eventually, they managed to find someone who had made these missiles during the original run. As it turns out, they were undone by their quality control. Back in the 60s when these missiles were first made, the chemicals they were using had impurities that quality control missed, impurities that the modern quality control removed. Turns out though, it was those impurities that gave the lenses their crystal clear clarity. Whoops.
So, yeah, as unbelievable as it sounds, the way the Imperium has lost a lot of technology is somewhat plausible.
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Any mental shortcut that helps people think of machinery as holy is probably useful, as things viewed as sacred are more resistant to Daemons.
Edit: in response to later people, it's not like worshipping the machine makes it more like an ensouled being, it's like it makes it more like a temple.
This logically connects to why the ships all have a flying cathedral aesthetic, it presumably makes warp travel safer.
--------------------------------
But all this talk of things taking 200 years to get ready while they only experienced 40 years between the fall of the Federation and the arrival of a Primarch makes me wonder: are we even sure that this is a 40k crossover and not a 60k(age of dusk) crossover?
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Kinda, the problem is that scrap code can also have conceptual and/or memetic effects as well, it covers normal viruses, warp corruption of data networks, digital daemons and a host of other things as well.
As for machine spirits, well those are pretty much all of the above, from AI/VI/EI (emergent intelligence) which are called that to either hide their existence or for political correctness, to proto spirits/souls, to digital hexagramic wards, to still loyal fragments of the Men of Iron and more, even some few uploads are called machine spirits.
To add to this Nuclear reactors and weapons were also an almost lost technology, weapons more so than reactors, because the people that made the ones we have now are really old and retired and kept quite a bit of knowledge either in their heads or on paper files that went home with them.
3.1
Drich
Von Neumann Writing Machine
3.1
+++
There was an air of excitement in Sanctuary. Lucy, true to her words, had given an explanation of what happened this night.
The implications that came with it weren't lost. People knew, now, that there were other survivors.
I mentioned it before, but the people of Sanctuary had a strong communal sentiment. The information given only inflamed the desire to reach out and get to them.
And then Lucy had topped that off with a short speech.
"No more is our Voice the only one that survived in the galaxy. Somewhere out there, other remnants of Humanity still survive. We might be locked in here right now, but our light once shone brightly across the galaxy, and it can do so again. I call to all willing to listen; we can unite Humanity again, restore goodness to its rightful place, and if the hell that invades our galaxy seeks to stop us from blazing a trail of cooperation and reason, then it is our duty to cast it back from whence it came. That Others May Live."
It was a nice speech, I suppose. Short, to-the-point, yet accurately cutting. Lucy's style. Yet, stronger than the words had been the sheer passion behind them. The passion of a woman who knew what was right, was willing to lay down her life for it... She wasn't some grand orator, with a thousand words to rile an entire population. She didn't need it. She had sheer force of personality and the will to save the galaxy.
Knowing that even if everybody else said no, she would fling herself into it regardless? That was a powerful thing.
It was infectious.
Thus, the air of excitement. People knew, people wanted to help.
People also knew it wouldn't happen quickly. Two hundred and fifty years had been the realistic estimate. It could be shorter, or longer, depending on how high the population growth rate could be boosted, and how long that boost could be maintained.
That could go quite high, honestly. Sanctuary's medical technology allowed for effectively limitless lifespans, no troubles in birthing, and the amount of children being up the parents. With a population that would never grow old, maintained considerable neuroplasticity even in adulthood, as well as support from Stone AIs, growing large wasn't difficult.
The trick was growing stably. Producing a population that was stable, productive, and not going to descend into utter hedonism. That was another part of the reason that this hadn't been attempted earlier; everybody involved had felt that a more 'natural' growth rate would be more conducive to maintaining stable growth.
Not anymore.
See, it loops around. A bigger population was a necessity in order for me to increase my energy income.
Why did I need more energy income to eat a Warp Storm? One would think that eating the Warp Storm would get me energy income, and that was absolutely true.
The problem with Warp Storms is that they have a lot of energy. I mentioned before that one of the reasons I hadn't eaten it already had been the consequences for the planet.
The other reason was the consequences for myself. Or, rather, the consequences for acquiring what I'd need in order to consume it.
Warp Storms were big. So much Warp Energy just leaking into realspace. Devouring it would have required far, far, far more bodies far, far, far larger than what I had. It wasn't acquiring them that was the problem, especially since the Warp Storm solved that neatly.
No, the problem was sustaining them, after all was said and done. Bodies like that needed a lot of power, and a Warp Storm would need a lot of bodies. So, imagine: I go up and start chomping, where does that leave me afterwards?
Hungry. The kind of hunger that would require me to drain entire stars to satiate. Sanctuary's population of Symbionts would be nothing to that kind of drain.
That was why the plan wasn't 'eat the Warp Storm', by the way. The time it would take for the Symbiont population to reach the point where the energy drawn could sustain what would be required to eat it in a reasonable amount of time was, itself, too ridiculously large to be viable. It would require populations measured in tens of quadrillions.
A number that a single planet can't actually sustain, by the way. The waste heat generated by that many Human biological processes alone would cook the planet. Yes, they had the technology to deal with that, but that was just one of the many problems that would all have to be solved. Worth it? Definitely not.
That was why the plan was 'punch a hole through it'. It was much more feasible. Billions was a lot, but it wasn't unsustainable or impossible.
The other option was to starve, collapse those bodies back into energy and let myself deplete with time into something more manageable.
I didn't experience sensations in the same way that Humans did, but starvation was still unpleasant for me. I had no desire to experience it again.
So I kept myself fairly small, stayed under that line of sustainability, and satiated my desire to eat Warp Energies on the murder of Daemons that crept in every month.
I had been content to wait, really. The population would grow in time. Gratification could come after I had the means to sustain the method.
In the end, it would have worked out better, anyway. Children inherited a part of the strength of their parent's soul, and a significant portion of Sanctuary's population were Psykers. Coupled with my Symbionts artificially strengthening the Warp connection in their Souls, the abundant supply of Psykers, and the fact that children's souls were a bit more adaptable than adults, and the population would have mostly ended up as what would have been significantly powerful Psykers.
I, uh, hadn't realized that when I first started the Symbiosis effort. Probably should have seen it coming, but...
Well, I knew it now. It's already happening, the children of Sanctuary being born with, on average, stronger souls. There had only been two generations since Symbiosis had started, but it was a noticeable, if still currently small increase.
Although, that was before the genetic engineering attempts of Sanctuary's inhabitants to produce more powerful Psykers. On any other world, it would have been a very dumb idea, but here, it was a good thing for them since it meant more powerful and capable Symbionts, something that the people of Sanctuary found desirable.
I mean, so did I, but for a different reason. On my part, it hadn't been intentional. On theirs, they were working very hard to make it happen.
Where was I going with this?
Right, waiting. I could have waited. It would have ended up like that. It wouldn't be bad at all.
Thing was; Quantity could make up for quality. This trade was simply a pretty good population of awesome in a few millennia to an awesome population of pretty good in two and a half centuries.
And, really, quality was linear. Quantity was exponential.
And when you just needed more?
The latter worked just fine.
+++
There was an air of excitement in Sanctuary. Lucy, true to her words, had given an explanation of what happened this night.
The implications that came with it weren't lost. People knew, now, that there were other survivors.
I mentioned it before, but the people of Sanctuary had a strong communal sentiment. The information given only inflamed the desire to reach out and get to them.
And then Lucy had topped that off with a short speech.
"No more is our Voice the only one that survived in the galaxy. Somewhere out there, other remnants of Humanity still survive. We might be locked in here right now, but our light once shone brightly across the galaxy, and it can do so again. I call to all willing to listen; we can unite Humanity again, restore goodness to its rightful place, and if the hell that invades our galaxy seeks to stop us from blazing a trail of cooperation and reason, then it is our duty to cast it back from whence it came. That Others May Live."
It was a nice speech, I suppose. Short, to-the-point, yet accurately cutting. Lucy's style. Yet, stronger than the words had been the sheer passion behind them. The passion of a woman who knew what was right, was willing to lay down her life for it... She wasn't some grand orator, with a thousand words to rile an entire population. She didn't need it. She had sheer force of personality and the will to save the galaxy.
Knowing that even if everybody else said no, she would fling herself into it regardless? That was a powerful thing.
It was infectious.
Thus, the air of excitement. People knew, people wanted to help.
People also knew it wouldn't happen quickly. Two hundred and fifty years had been the realistic estimate. It could be shorter, or longer, depending on how high the population growth rate could be boosted, and how long that boost could be maintained.
That could go quite high, honestly. Sanctuary's medical technology allowed for effectively limitless lifespans, no troubles in birthing, and the amount of children being up the parents. With a population that would never grow old, maintained considerable neuroplasticity even in adulthood, as well as support from Stone AIs, growing large wasn't difficult.
The trick was growing stably. Producing a population that was stable, productive, and not going to descend into utter hedonism. That was another part of the reason that this hadn't been attempted earlier; everybody involved had felt that a more 'natural' growth rate would be more conducive to maintaining stable growth.
Not anymore.
See, it loops around. A bigger population was a necessity in order for me to increase my energy income.
Why did I need more energy income to eat a Warp Storm? One would think that eating the Warp Storm would get me energy income, and that was absolutely true.
The problem with Warp Storms is that they have a lot of energy. I mentioned before that one of the reasons I hadn't eaten it already had been the consequences for the planet.
The other reason was the consequences for myself. Or, rather, the consequences for acquiring what I'd need in order to consume it.
Warp Storms were big. So much Warp Energy just leaking into realspace. Devouring it would have required far, far, far more bodies far, far, far larger than what I had. It wasn't acquiring them that was the problem, especially since the Warp Storm solved that neatly.
No, the problem was sustaining them, after all was said and done. Bodies like that needed a lot of power, and a Warp Storm would need a lot of bodies. So, imagine: I go up and start chomping, where does that leave me afterwards?
Hungry. The kind of hunger that would require me to drain entire stars to satiate. Sanctuary's population of Symbionts would be nothing to that kind of drain.
That was why the plan wasn't 'eat the Warp Storm', by the way. The time it would take for the Symbiont population to reach the point where the energy drawn could sustain what would be required to eat it in a reasonable amount of time was, itself, too ridiculously large to be viable. It would require populations measured in tens of quadrillions.
A number that a single planet can't actually sustain, by the way. The waste heat generated by that many Human biological processes alone would cook the planet. Yes, they had the technology to deal with that, but that was just one of the many problems that would all have to be solved. Worth it? Definitely not.
That was why the plan was 'punch a hole through it'. It was much more feasible. Billions was a lot, but it wasn't unsustainable or impossible.
The other option was to starve, collapse those bodies back into energy and let myself deplete with time into something more manageable.
I didn't experience sensations in the same way that Humans did, but starvation was still unpleasant for me. I had no desire to experience it again.
So I kept myself fairly small, stayed under that line of sustainability, and satiated my desire to eat Warp Energies on the murder of Daemons that crept in every month.
I had been content to wait, really. The population would grow in time. Gratification could come after I had the means to sustain the method.
In the end, it would have worked out better, anyway. Children inherited a part of the strength of their parent's soul, and a significant portion of Sanctuary's population were Psykers. Coupled with my Symbionts artificially strengthening the Warp connection in their Souls, the abundant supply of Psykers, and the fact that children's souls were a bit more adaptable than adults, and the population would have mostly ended up as what would have been significantly powerful Psykers.
I, uh, hadn't realized that when I first started the Symbiosis effort. Probably should have seen it coming, but...
Well, I knew it now. It's already happening, the children of Sanctuary being born with, on average, stronger souls. There had only been two generations since Symbiosis had started, but it was a noticeable, if still currently small increase.
Although, that was before the genetic engineering attempts of Sanctuary's inhabitants to produce more powerful Psykers. On any other world, it would have been a very dumb idea, but here, it was a good thing for them since it meant more powerful and capable Symbionts, something that the people of Sanctuary found desirable.
I mean, so did I, but for a different reason. On my part, it hadn't been intentional. On theirs, they were working very hard to make it happen.
Where was I going with this?
Right, waiting. I could have waited. It would have ended up like that. It wouldn't be bad at all.
Thing was; Quantity could make up for quality. This trade was simply a pretty good population of awesome in a few millennia to an awesome population of pretty good in two and a half centuries.
And, really, quality was linear. Quantity was exponential.
And when you just needed more?
The latter worked just fine.
So eventually this would lead to a all Psyker population? And all Chaos-immune? What a boon for the Shroud.
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
And what a berserk button for Russ and Mortarion. Hordes of witches/sorcerers/psykers? Kill them all and salt/phosphex the earth so that none will ever return.So eventually this would lead to a all Psyker population? And all Chaos-immune? What a boon for the Shroud.
If they were sanctioned by the Emperor, Russ would live with it. Mortarion would still have a problem either way.
Mortarion - "These are an abomination of the human soul there is no way we can let these..."
Big E - "These symbiot things are useful. Put one on everyone. When can it be aranged for me to get one? I want to punch Korn in the nutsack and eat him."
Mortarion - "wat?"
Big E - "Listen, the only reason I didn't try to cut all of humanity from the warp was it would kill their souls. This is pure win/win."
Big E - "These symbiot things are useful. Put one on everyone. When can it be aranged for me to get one? I want to punch Korn in the nutsack and eat him."
Mortarion - "wat?"
Big E - "Listen, the only reason I didn't try to cut all of humanity from the warp was it would kill their souls. This is pure win/win."
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@Drich, is this a full fusion of Grey Goo and 40K? Does this planet not have any Keyholes to exploit? Or were they also clogged up by the Warp storm?
Edit- it would particularly make sense if Keyholes were separate from the Warp, is susceptible to its waves and eddies, considering the existence of the Shroud at all, if the Warp is so hostile to it. Though the fact that the Shroud is your SI sort of complicates that theory.
Edit- it would particularly make sense if Keyholes were separate from the Warp, is susceptible to its waves and eddies, considering the existence of the Shroud at all, if the Warp is so hostile to it. Though the fact that the Shroud is your SI sort of complicates that theory.
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Hazardine
Asura of Darkness
- Location
- Somewhere in Florida
I actually asked Drich this on SB, and it's a little bit of both a regular crossover and a fusion, mainly the Shroud are the crossover being brought in as a OCP while other bits like the Grey Goo humans are apart of the 40k universe in a fusion style.
- Location
- Kansas
You know, it is too bad that there isn't a safe way to store vast amount of energy long term. That sounds like your main problem at the moment. If you could store energy for later rather then having to spawn more bodies, which will then hunger, then you could start munching on the store right now.
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
100% psyker populations seem like they're better at handling passive cultist problems, because they can constantly check eachother for corruption, but I'm not sure anything was specifically said on the subject in cannon, and without the Shroud they'd have to deal with Daemonic incursions trying to get them all at once.So eventually this would lead to a all Psyker population? And all Chaos-immune? What a boon for the Shroud.
It might even be a problem with the Shroud, because the Silence won't completely conceal the presence of all the extra souls and Daemons don't necessarily have to scale their attacks linearly with the population.
I suspect there will be plenty to keep the Primarch busy.
The other alternative for dealing with the warpstorm is to punch a hole, then feed the hole-punching bodies at a sustenance level off of the rest of the warp storm until alternate food supplies can be sourced.
It's a different problem in that it requires that a bunch of Shroud bodies be left in a warp storm without anyone to socialize with. They might get targeted by Daemons trying to figure out how to corrupt them(a losing proposition, but souls aren't strictly necessary for corruption, and if it's the Chaos gods kicking the Shroud out of the Warp then they only need to corrupt one body before they can whisk it somewhere else through the warp and have yet another threat in their arsenal),
Alternatively if left on their own for long enough the bodies could just adapt away from understanding social conventions and decide to be much less friendly and sustainable, creating a galactic threat.
And then there's the time limit this imposes on finding another food source. And the already mentioned problem of having enough ships for everyone.
Maybe keep it as a desperation option.
And all this aside, a faster escape would prevent the crossover from focusing on events later than 30k, like 40k, 50k, or 60k.
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- Location
- Nice try
- Location
- Arizona
- Pronouns
- Him/His
Do they need to have one? They might be Atheists.
Only saying this because I don't remember them mentioning any religious stuff in Grey Goo - I have no issues with religion. Blind faith, on the other hand....
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
I'm going to assume that Chaos worship is illegal. And that beliefs that look like they may have been influenced by chaos worship are frowned upon, even if they predate the storm.
The short period after the Federation and defence of the Shroud probably means it'll be whatever the previous legal/cultural state was.
- Location
- Nice try
Religion has power in Warhammer universe.
It's a shit power considering worship only aids the warp.
jwolfe_beta
Semi Genre-Savvy Overlord
- Location
- Canada
And that kids is how the seeds of the Mortarion Heresy were planted.