Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

[MSH]

What would servitorization even do besides the obvious?

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If we go down this research line, we'll be able to make servitors with personality cloning, and thus perfect imitators of whoever we replaced. Pretty dire, though the galaxy has no shortage of people who are horrible and who's servitorization would save many lives.

And if you don't like drinking nightmare fuel, I guess we could try to research a way to undo servitorization on all the probably billions of innocent victims the Imperium is burning through with every single passing moment.

Aspirationally, these two lines of inquiry together? They start to look a little bit like digitization and biotransference from first principles. It could definitely be worth the effort.

Last time, when we rolled a 16, he got his hands on two destroyers, corruption bombs inserted into our entire manufacturing chain, and a hundred some stealth missiles. We rolled a 4 this time. I would not bet on no consequences, not when this is narrative driven and we just picked up bad on our 3rd interaction.

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In addition to what DragonParadox said, this isn't what happened. We rolled a 16 on research at the same time Bongo rolled a near natural crit, thus having that result happen when Vita was compromising the quarantine to examine Bongo. It was a synergistic opportunity that we have Word of God wouldn't have been nearly so strong if it had only been one roll or the other. Even then, Bongo stayed in the cage and we ultimately only gained stronger understanding, specifically of how to cleanse scrapcode from a system.

 

[Angle]

There is no functional difference between a 4 and a 16, both are poor successes with our +20, everything short on a 2+ is some kind of success when it comes to research, that is where the confidence of pocking a daemon with a stick comes from. We develop tech faster than it develops powers at least that is the idea... and we just rolled a 100 on scrapcope protections. I would be surprised if it manages to do more than chip our paint

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Well, Neablis does modify the results of things based on how close our die roll is to the thresholds between success categories. But that nat 100 we got should buy us some leeway, yeah.

 

[Glau]

There is no functional difference between a 4 and a 16, both are poor successes with our +20, everything short on a 2+ is some kind of success when it comes to research, that is where the confidence of pocking a daemon with a stick comes from. We develop tech faster than it develops powers at least that is the idea... and we just rolled a 100 on scrapcope protections. I would be surprised if it manages to do more than chip our paint

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If you want to believe that the demon is now narratively powerless, that's on you.

I believe it's only a matter of time until a nasty shock. And given how the last shock was laughed off by the thread, I do expect it will take something like the death of corruption of a crew member to give it sufficient narrative impact that people will respond emotionally.

 

[DragonParadox]

If you want to believe that the demon is now narratively powerless, that's on you.

I believe it's only a matter of time until a nasty shock. And given how the last shock was laughed off by the thread, I do expect it will take something like the death of corruption of a crew member to give it sufficient narrative impact that people will respond emotionally.

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Or you know we just finish learning everything we have to and dispose of the thing. Quests are not stories, they do not run on 'the narrative', they run on the systems previously agreed upon between the GM and players.

 

[Dmol8]

Yeah, but it's a...crane. like big hamster wheel cranes were used to construct medieval castles. Considering how many Knight and Feral Worlds the Imperium has, not being able to figure out a crane is the height of world building idiocy.

And don't try to play the "Mechanicus Holy Omnissiah secret, you see a crane without permission you die to keep the Holy Knowledge" card. That's another element of 40k idiocy I kinda hate too. I know the above idea is not literally canon, but so much of 40k is written like (ie grimderp) that I wouldn't be surprised if somebody tried that as a defense.

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Anyways, those are my two cents and my small soap box rant about how 40Ks World building is really really dumb. Doesn't really matter much for the game, but I have faith in the GM that they can have the better parts of 40K be made manifest, while avoiding the idiocy of "somehow nobody could figure out how a crane f****** worked".

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What would servitorization even do besides the obvious?

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The answer for all 3 of these is the same:

Mechanicus does have Cranes: They're called Galvanic Servohaulers and for some reason I keep getting Servo-skulls mixed into my 40k Crane search results.

It's not nobody could figure out cranes, it's most parts of the Imperium can't figure out crane Machine Spirits and since even the most basic tech is expected to have them in order to be considered pure, even Fenris has Iron Priests, then cranes are for the most part considered heretek workings.

Servitorization keeps a person's soul around while removing the mind effectively turning a Servitor into a much more complex Machine Spirit than the Mechanicus can make trough just using machines. There is more to it than that, but that hits on that Chaos Domains post I'm still not capable of writing up right now.

 

[Haganeko]

YUP. THIS. And it never will be researched until Bongo is tossed into a sun, because we are riding that tiger hard right now.

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I mean... we can only poke the demon once a turn. Meanwhile, I have added up the low-hanging fruit and got something like 420 RP. Do three research actions in a turn and we can get them all plus a demon poke.

As for said demon... I suspect with the empowered scrapcode shielding it will adapt somehow. We must remember this is a bound demon, and it may be able to subvert or countermand its bindings somehow.

Servitorization keeps a person's soul around while removing the mind effectively turning a Servitor into a much more complex Machine Spirit than the Mechanicus can make trough just using machines. There is more to it than that, but that hits on that Chaos Domains post I'm still not capable of writing up right now.

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Potential evil thing to do: a servitor is a soul with no mind.
Vita is a mind with no soul.
Research ways to graft servitors onto Vita to acquire a soul.
(Don't actually do this.)

 

[avatar11792]

The answer for all 3 of these is the same:

Mechanicus does have Cranes: They're called Galvanic Servohaulers and for some reason I keep getting Servo-skulls mixed into my 40k Crane search results.

It's not nobody could figure out cranes, it's most parts of the Imperium can't figure out crane Machine Spirits and since even the most basic tech is expected to have them in order to be considered pure, even Fenris has Iron Priests, then cranes are for the most part considered heretek workings.

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If that particular interpretation of Canon is true... Then that is indeed the kind of grim derp I was talking about.

Admittedly though I should clarify on my intent about my previous statement. I was thinking of the kind of cranes we have now or in prior time. So let's say 20th century or earlier in history. I'm not even necessarily thinking of any crane that operates electronically, I'm mostly thinking of mechanical ones.

So like I said, I hope you're wrong. Nothing personal, but that is such an extreme of ideological obsessiveness, it just really bothers me personally. If I ever do a 40K game I'm really not going to use that myself.

 

[LightLan]

I mean... we can only poke the demon once a turn. Meanwhile, I have added up the low-hanging fruit and got something like 420 RP. Do three research actions in a turn and we can get them all plus a demon poke.

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Just having the demon causes us to:
Prioritize psychic shield research
Prioritize improving/repairing containment of the demon

We have often spent more than 1 AP per turn on the demon or demon-related research/expenses.

 

[MSH]

As for said demon... I suspect with the empowered scrapcode shielding it will adapt somehow. We must remember this is a bound demon, and it may be able to subvert or countermand its bindings somehow.

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Bongo is in fact an unbound daemon, he's just unbound inside a sealed box. Normally you can't make a box which daemons are unable to escape.

If Bongo were bound, his nature would be bound. He'd behave and obey our orders...as written, of course. This is why learning daemonology is important.

 

[Prime 2.0]

There is no functional difference between a 4 and a 16, both are poor successes with our +20, everything short on a 2+ is some kind of success when it comes to research, that is where the confidence of pocking a daemon with a stick comes from. We develop tech faster than it develops powers at least that is the idea... and we just rolled a 100 on scrapcope protections. I would be surprised if it manages to do more than chip our paint

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14, not 16. A 16 bumps up to 36, which is a regular success.

That said, I have to reiterate, bongo's last breakout was not solely the result of the poor success - it was the result of the poor success AND bongo's crit AND us not having upgraded the shields all at the same time.

Neablis has flat out said that if we had been able to apply high density shielding to the vault, bongo probably wouldn't have escaped even with the crit and poor success combo.

If we'd had the spare BP to give the vault high density shielding, I wonder if it would have gotten out at all?

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Probably not. But the same would have been true if you'd either rolled a 15 or higher or it hadn't crit.

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Just, I don't know how this keeps being forgotten. It takes more than a poor success for a breakout.

In our present circumstances, backed by a Good Success on efficient shielding? The vault's HP has doubled before the nat 100 scrapcode resistance was even applied. There is zero argument to be made that Bongo has breached containment.

 

[michaell8000]

Now, a list of all 50 RP research (as of turn 21, per the Informational post):

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Some of the tech that looks "foundational", by which I mean research that is

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so I was doing some thought about the 50RP Research and outside of Med school (which I'm sick of seeing) none of them are worth being put between the bigger research that I'd personally like to see done

now I know we have Anexa and she's pretty much gonna be slamming the path to getting more RP out of machine spirit design and whatever is behind it but that still leaves 60RP extra at the moment and I'm thinking we put intelligence coding in there and we get it done in 7ish turns alongside some of the other project involving spirit RP mind this all based on how busy we get with the systems we're going to I mean we could end up being able to spend 3 actions on research again never know.

 

[Angle]

now I know we have Anexa and she's pretty much gonna be slamming the path to getting more RP out of machine spirit design and whatever is behind it but that still leaves 60RP extra at the moment and I'm thinking we put intelligence coding in there and we get it done in 7ish turns alongside some of the other project involving spirit RP mind this all based on how busy we get with the systems we're going to I mean we could end up being able to spend 3 actions on research again never know.

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Intelligence Coding is still really expensive, and the stuff behind it is probably even more so, but I'd like to knock out LSMS and Advanced Neural Implants, both of which have a chance of discounting Intelligence Coding.

 

[Haganeko]

so I was doing some thought about the 50RP Research and outside of Med school (which I'm sick of seeing) none of them are worth being put between the bigger research that I'd personally like to see done

now I know we have Anexa and she's pretty much gonna be slamming the path to getting more RP out of machine spirit design and whatever is behind it but that still leaves 60RP extra at the moment and I'm thinking we put intelligence coding in there and we get it done in 7ish turns alongside some of the other project involving spirit RP mind this all based on how busy we get with the systems we're going to I mean we could end up being able to spend 3 actions on research again never know.

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Which big research do you mean? And personally I think at least the stealth stuff and the cybernetics are important. After all, all war is deception. Medium emplacements also looks way too good to not throw like 50 RP its way.

It's too soon to make plans, but in my view we should grab these four, med school, Anexa's special tech, and something 100 points (superconductors?)

 

[Aineko]

Intelligence Coding is still really expensive, and the stuff behind it is probably even more so, but I'd like to knock out LSMS and Advanced Neural Implants, both of which have a chance of discounting Intelligence Coding.

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I'm not against those investments on their own merits, but I would note they're 250 RP together. Aimed at getting discounts on a 400 RP target, that's...perhaps not especially helpful to progression. The discount possibility there seems like very much a side benefit, unless they both wind up delivering 100 point discounts.

 

[Angle]

I'm not against those investments on their own merits, but I would note they're 250 RP together. Aimed at getting discounts on a 400 RP target, that's...perhaps not especially helpful to progression. The discount possibility there seems like very much a side benefit, unless they both wind up delivering 100 point discounts.

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If it were only about the side benefits, sure. But they both provide a lot of main benefits to our machine spirit and cybernetics research problems, which I think makes them worthwhile overall.

 

[DragonParadox]

Er guys... we have a Navigator embiro on board. I think than other than getting everything we can out of the daemon this should be our primary focus because the sooner the Navigator is born the sooner they can join the crew providing both narrative and mechanical benefits.

 

[Angle]

Er guys... we have a Navigator embiro on board. I think than other than getting everything we can out of the daemon this should be our primary focus because the sooner the Navigator is born the sooner they can join the crew providing both narrative and mechanical benefits.

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They're gonna be expensive though, and we have quite a while before we run out of individual systems to explore. Though I do think we should try and progress on them, yeah, just not rush.

 

[DragonParadox]

They're gonna be expensive though, and we have quite a while before we run out of individual systems to explore. Though I do think we should try and progress on them, yeah, just not rush.

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It's not about running out of systems to explore, a navigator makes us faster on a strategic level and they are also a novel kind of psyker.

 

[Speedemon22]

I think it should be possible to get them sooner, we just need a way to incubate the kid.

 

[Aineko]

I imagine we'll need around four turns after we hatch that bean before they're of age to do navigating work...


I have a poor sense of what the material benefit of the navigator would be, though. Obviously longer movement distance, but if that's all we've got a solid dozen turns at least of continuous exploration before lacking that would impede us doing local subsector exploration. Maybe navigating also cuts our warp damage? ?

They're gonna be expensive though, and we have quite a while before we run out of individual systems to explore. Though I do think we should try and progress on them, yeah, just not rush.

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"Expensive", but if we don't roll badly on In Vitro probably not more than 350 RP to gestate them, and med school (or positive spillover from in vitro maybe) might trim that. That is, it displaces a decent chunk of other tech, but we can easily do it.

 

[LightLan]

We also do not know how to train a Navigator.

I doubt they know all the pitfalls and trouble the moment they are born.

 

[Aineko]

It's not about running out of systems to explore, a navigator makes us faster on a strategic level and they are also a novel kind of psyker.

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Faster on a strategic level but we're not going anywhere on a strategic level, is the thing. We're spending essentially all our time in realspace poking things for a while, according to my expectations, even when we're on our exploratory excursions.

I think it should be possible to get them sooner, we just need a way to incubate the kid.

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The path for that is pretty well lit in our available researches.

 

[DragonParadox]

I have a poor sense of what the material benefit of the navigator would be, though. Obviously longer movement distance, but if that's all we've got a solid dozen turns at least of continuous exploration before lacking that would impede us doing local subsector exploration. Maybe navigating also cuts our warp damage? ?

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I mean yeah, they are just better at Navigating, they can either go faster, farther or safer, so if you are going to make smaller jumps than their maximum reach those jumps will be safer.

 

[MSH]

Safety and clarity are probably the main thing. The warp abacus is kind of intuiting a safe path through the warp, a Navigator can just flat-out look at it and steer.

 

[Angle]

"Expensive", but if we don't roll badly on In Vitro probably not more than 350 RP to gestate them, and med school (or positive spillover from in vitro maybe) might trim that. That is, it displaces a decent chunk of other tech, but we can easily do it.

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We also do not know how to train a Navigator.

I doubt they know all the pitfalls and trouble the moment they are born.

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This. 350 RP to get the base techs, then however many actions it takes to raise a child (Almost always a lot more than people expect, from what I hear), plus whatever it takes to train them. Plus maybe some more for things I've forgotten about - whatever equipment they need to navigate properly?