Man you're really mad that someone suggested that time you used a racial stereotype to express your opinion was a tiny bit racist.

There's a pattern here of you getting really, really mad that someone would dare question your good character any time someone points out the things you write might be racist or sexist or whatever. Do you have zero capacity for self-inspection? Or is everyone who take issue with you typing out a jive stereotype an insane crusading nutter out to get you? I've yet to see you react with anything other than hostility and disdain when someone challenges you.

edit: sorry, to get things back on topic, Tzeentch is pretty cool. The long-term plotting thing is a lot of a fun plot device. For example, I'm actually a sleeper Tzeentch agent with the long term plot of getting fsdfsdfg banned for being a vile, toxic person whose backward opinions are shunned by polite society. How am I doing?

Ok, since I'm kinda responsible for the derail to begin with, here's a few 40K related topics that I wanted opinions on but didn't seem to warrant their own thread...

1) What does an autoquill look like and what exactly does it do? I originally thought it was just a 40K name for a pen, but the text in the 2nd Edition equipment section seems to suggest something more complex.

2) What is the largest type of Imperial vessel that can enter an atmosphere (assuming said atmosphere is Earth-like)? What is the largest type that can make planetfall? What about the vessels used by other races? I ask because False Gods mentioned larger void-ships being unable to enter atmosphere, but I've also seen art depicting what appear to be sizeable vessels flying over hive cities. Is there anything canonical on this? If not, any general fan consensus?

3) I asked something similar to this elsewhere; and though I got some good responses, they didn't quite answer all of my questions. How would it be handled if the Imperium discovered and claimed a world where the local humans had independently developed a superior base of technology which wasn't STC-based. And let's assume that the locals were willing to join the Imperium and didn't end up getting bombed back into the stone age (which is what always seems to happen in canonical cases). Would the Mechanicus sanction all the new wonders, study them, and begin distributing it throughout the Imperium? Or would it all be declared heretical; forcing everyone to throw away their smart-phones and other toys and replace them with big clunky Imperium stuff?

I always figured autoquills were used primarily to take dictation, but instead of writing to an audio tape or digital format, it literally writes things down on paper. You see a lot of that in 40k art - crazy machines with reams of paper spilling out. Like anything in the Imperium there's no one model, so it could be anything from a relatively compact device printing on microfilm to one of those ridiculous espresso machines with polished brass pipes that nobody understands how they work.

For a planet with advanced human technology, my take would be that since the Imperium is a human-supremacist system, as long as it could be proven their technology was of wholly human design, they'd be happy to have it. The Mechanicus might take a different approach, fearing that their monopoly on technology might be threatened. It would a divisive issue given the Imperium is made up of two factions (namely the Mechanicus and the Adeptus Terra) that are at odds and don't like the fact they need the other to survive. So maybe the Munitorum sees it as a great new source for war material and wants start cancelling orders from Mechanicus forge worlds. It's a good plot hook.

For number 2, that's approaching some science **** and I'm not gonna touch that in the 40k universe.

Most imperial ships aren't designed for atmospheric flight. The biggest I know of are the titan landing and recovery ships and the Imperial Guard dropships ( http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Devourer_Dropship ).

That being said, various novels have various ships of various sizes doing atmospheric flught, taking off planets etc. but it seem.to be extraordinary circumstance nit something the ship is supposed to do regularly

Ok, since I'm kinda responsible for the derail to begin with, here's a few 40K related topics that I wanted opinions on but didn't seem to warrant their own thread...

1) What does an autoquill look like and what exactly does it do? I originally thought it was just a 40K name for a pen, but the text in the 2nd Edition equipment section seems to suggest something more complex.

2) What is the largest type of Imperial vessel that can enter an atmosphere (assuming said atmosphere is Earth-like)? What is the largest type that can make planetfall? What about the vessels used by other races? I ask because False Gods mentioned larger void-ships being unable to enter atmosphere, but I've also seen art depicting what appear to be sizeable vessels flying over hive cities. Is there anything canonical on this? If not, any general fan consensus?

3) I asked something similar to this elsewhere; and though I got some good responses, they didn't quite answer all of my questions. How would it be handled if the Imperium discovered and claimed a world where the local humans had independently developed a superior base of technology which wasn't STC-based. And let's assume that the locals were willing to join the Imperium and didn't end up getting bombed back into the stone age (which is what always seems to happen in canonical cases). Would the Mechanicus sanction all the new wonders, study them, and begin distributing it throughout the Imperium? Or would it all be declared heretical; forcing everyone to throw away their smart-phones and other toys and replace them with big clunky Imperium stuff?

1.) I believe the Autoquill is that thing hanging off the front of the Adept in some of the old artwork.

2.) Per BFG (Battlefleet Gothic) Escorts (Raiders and frigates) and transports could make planetfall and landing. The Old Epic rules suggested that Cruisers could enter the atmosphere of a planet to deploy troops via the use of a device called a "Grav cone". So you can pick your fluff as Lynata likes to say. I've always maintained that any vessel of cruiser size or

smaller can enter the atmosphere but anything larger than an escort or small transport requires highly specialized docking facility to actually land.

3.) As to the last: If the technology in question could be traced back to human origin (And was thus STC based.) there would probably not be a problem. The fact that said technology actually exceeded "known" STC limitations would suggest that there was still an intact copy on the planet for said tech to evolve from. THAT would bring the Admech running!

Ok, since I'm kinda responsible for the derail to begin with, here's a few 40K related topics that I wanted opinions on but didn't seem to warrant their own thread...

1) What does an autoquill look like and what exactly does it do? I originally thought it was just a 40K name for a pen, but the text in the 2nd Edition equipment section seems to suggest something more complex.

2) What is the largest type of Imperial vessel that can enter an atmosphere (assuming said atmosphere is Earth-like)? What is the largest type that can make planetfall? What about the vessels used by other races? I ask because False Gods mentioned larger void-ships being unable to enter atmosphere, but I've also seen art depicting what appear to be sizeable vessels flying over hive cities. Is there anything canonical on this? If not, any general fan consensus?

3) I asked something similar to this elsewhere; and though I got some good responses, they didn't quite answer all of my questions. How would it be handled if the Imperium discovered and claimed a world where the local humans had independently developed a superior base of technology which wasn't STC-based. And let's assume that the locals were willing to join the Imperium and didn't end up getting bombed back into the stone age (which is what always seems to happen in canonical cases). Would the Mechanicus sanction all the new wonders, study them, and begin distributing it throughout the Imperium? Or would it all be declared heretical; forcing everyone to throw away their smart-phones and other toys and replace them with big clunky Imperium stuff?

1) In true 40k fashion, I believe that the autoquill is precisely what it is - an automatic quill. I swear I've seen some artwork with a mechanical quill somewhere, a mechanical arm to which a feathered quill is attached, automatically taking notes.

In 40k, it isn't too uncommon for concepts to be named rather than specific objects. So it could be that an autoquill is simply anything that takes physical notes automatically. I can see better-quality auto-quills taking notes as you speak, like some kind of analogue speech-to-text-device.

2) I don't think there's any fan consensus and the fluff (as far as I know) is inconsistent about it. I'd say that "simply" speaking, some ships are built for planetary entry, others aren't. I'd argue that generally speaking, anything above a kilometre in size would be generally unable to enter atmospheres without dropping like rocks.

But there are definitely ships made for planetary entry. I just don't think this - usually - includes warp-capable ships. Aside from being potentially dangerous for a wide variety of reasons, it would also be incredibly inefficient for large ships to enter and especially exit the atmosphere, if there's any other option.

Honestly, there's a lot of mention of orbital rings and docking yards and so on in 40k, you'd think that the idea of a space elevator would pop up more often.

3) I think it's hard to say because it's so individual. But by and large, I think that the Imperium would start instituting their.. well.. institutions! All the technology would be hoarded, their reproduction sanctioned, and the use ritualized. Now, the people on that planet wouldn't turn to technological retardation overnight, but that's still just one planet in the Imperium that knows how to use those fancy smartphones (which would likely only work on that (or their) planet(s) anyway).

As long as there's not anything overly heretical going on (Abominable Intelligences, artificial life, widescale invasive gene-therapy, etc) I don't think that they'd get "bombed back into the stone age". Thing is, the ritualization of technology isn't necessarily because the Imperium is backwards, but also because they (or most of them) simply don't understand the technology they're working with. This doesn't change just because the technology is non-STC; they still lack the necessary prereqs. to advance the totality of their galaxy-spanning society to the level where they'd be able to intuatively understand the inner workings of the technology.

So they ritualize it, and in time, all that remains is ritual, and only a very select few actually understands how all the parts fit together. If you think about it, most people don't know how to make an actual iPhone, but most of us know how to use it, because our society has taught us through ritual, we have certain expectations in how we use technology.

Now advance this by a couple of thousand years and make the technology so involved that it is unlikely that any one person understands the creation from top to bottom. It's like being dropped in the stone age and be expected to make a computer. Even a electrical/computer engineer would have a hard time figuring out all the steps necessary to get to that level.

STC:s were likely invented not as a luxury, but as a necessary part of effective colonization. When we start colonizing the stars, even if we're just talking Mars, I'm convinced we'll be seeing rudimentary STC:s, even if it's only a computer databank hooked up to a 3D-printer.

From our perspective, the Imperium doesn't suffer from technological retardation, they suffer from being subjects to technologies they can't possibly understand on an individual level. They ritualize the use of technology because they have to, and ritualization turned into religion.

The first episode is where most of the derp happens, really. I groaned through that one and had some heavy facepalm moments there. I decided to watch the second and third since I was bored and had nothing better to do that evening, and found that they eliminated most of the randomly idiotic things. It's still made for kids. That's very clear in the storytelling, but as an adult, I feel it's something I can watch with my kids and enjoy it as much as they do, even for different reasons, because I like the portrayal of the universe Disney's doing. The Imperium isn't randomly evil either, though one of the officers is a serious sociopath. There's a mulifacetted portrayal of personalities, from the governer who's simply a beaurocrat, to the alien-kill-happy maniac and everything in between. In other words, they have some cartoonish cliche evil lines occassionally (though I could honestly count those on the fingers of ONE hand), and a bit of juvenile humour here and there, but in between that, they're trying, and mostly succeeding, at telling an engaging story throughout each episode and touch themes, at times, that are destinctly darker than one might be used to in Star Wars.

Perhaps it would be fair to say it starts bad, but gets steadily better throughout the season.

My opinion comes from comparison to Clone Wars series, which were awesome. Especially last season, where they tried to uncover secrets of master Sypho-Dias or The Emprah. I don't think I would classify that as "kids" show. Especially this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7hBZNsPnyg

1) Autoquill coud be many things - at simplest it is mechanical hand with a quill attached to a keyboard, but could be a servitor or servo skull carrying it arround behind you and writing what you tell him to.

The first episode is where most of the derp happens, really. I groaned through that one and had some heavy facepalm moments there. I decided to watch the second and third since I was bored and had nothing better to do that evening, and found that they eliminated most of the randomly idiotic things. It's still made for kids. That's very clear in the storytelling, but as an adult, I feel it's something I can watch with my kids and enjoy it as much as they do, even for different reasons, because I like the portrayal of the universe Disney's doing. The Imperium isn't randomly evil either, though one of the officers is a serious sociopath. There's a mulifacetted portrayal of personalities, from the governer who's simply a beaurocrat, to the alien-kill-happy maniac and everything in between. In other words, they have some cartoonish cliche evil lines occassionally (though I could honestly count those on the fingers of ONE hand), and a bit of juvenile humour here and there, but in between that, they're trying, and mostly succeeding, at telling an engaging story throughout each episode and touch themes, at times, that are destinctly darker than one might be used to in Star Wars.

Perhaps it would be fair to say it starts bad, but gets steadily better throughout the season.

My opinion comes from comparison to Clone Wars series, which were awesome. Especially last season, where they tried to uncover secrets of master Sypho-Dias or The Emprah. I don't think I would classify that as "kids" show. Especially this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7hBZNsPnyg

Dual-Wielding Emperor and a character named Savage Oppress. I.. I'm not sure what to even say to not calling it a kids show.

It's not a kids show. It just suffers from the same atrocious writing most prequel-era star wars has.

You gotta admit, that the fight is awesome. And the emperor choking the mandalorians and frying Maul saying "There is no mercy" doesn't sound like kids show.

Besides it depends on what do you mean by saying kids show. I think its 13+, because there is no strong language, blood, and sex.

3) I asked something similar to this elsewhere; and though I got some good responses, they didn't quite answer all of my questions. How would it be handled if the Imperium discovered and claimed a world where the local humans had independently developed a superior base of technology which wasn't STC-based. And let's assume that the locals were willing to join the Imperium and didn't end up getting bombed back into the stone age (which is what always seems to happen in canonical cases). Would the Mechanicus sanction all the new wonders, study them, and begin distributing it throughout the Imperium? Or would it all be declared heretical; forcing everyone to throw away their smart-phones and other toys and replace them with big clunky Imperium stuff?

It is worth noting that in their big ignorance and sense of superiority, chances are high that the AM doesn't even notice the world and its technology. Maybe that odd Techpriest would find it fascinating and worth his/her time to study, but most of them would just say "bleh" and consider that advanced technology as the locals' way to compensate for their insignificance or something like that. The AM also has some very nice and shiny toys too, they need no weird local products to feel comfortable.

You gotta admit, that the fight is awesome. And the emperor choking the mandalorians and frying Maul saying "There is no mercy" doesn't sound like kids show.

Besides it depends on what do you mean by saying kids show. I think its 13+, because there is no strong language, blood, and sex.

I mean literally "for kids", meaning pre-teens. There's imagery in the clone wars show I wouldn't put anywhere near a child. As far as I can tell, it's clearly made for teenagers/adults, so that is the scale I rate it on. And there, with horribly contrived things such as Maul's resurrection, it really takes the worst EU has to offer and makes entire story arcs out of it.

Ok, since I'm kinda responsible for the derail to begin with, here's a few 40K related topics that I wanted opinions on but didn't seem to warrant their own thread...

1) What does an autoquill look like and what exactly does it do? I originally thought it was just a 40K name for a pen, but the text in the 2nd Edition equipment section seems to suggest something more complex.

2) What is the largest type of Imperial vessel that can enter an atmosphere (assuming said atmosphere is Earth-like)? What is the largest type that can make planetfall? What about the vessels used by other races? I ask because False Gods mentioned larger void-ships being unable to enter atmosphere, but I've also seen art depicting what appear to be sizeable vessels flying over hive cities. Is there anything canonical on this? If not, any general fan consensus?

3) I asked something similar to this elsewhere; and though I got some good responses, they didn't quite answer all of my questions. How would it be handled if the Imperium discovered and claimed a world where the local humans had independently developed a superior base of technology which wasn't STC-based. And let's assume that the locals were willing to join the Imperium and didn't end up getting bombed back into the stone age (which is what always seems to happen in canonical cases). Would the Mechanicus sanction all the new wonders, study them, and begin distributing it throughout the Imperium? Or would it all be declared heretical; forcing everyone to throw away their smart-phones and other toys and replace them with big clunky Imperium stuff?

1) Automatic quill with inkwell that takes dictation, that's what I always though. You have to load it with vellum though.

2) I think that's one of those, it depends on interpretation, questions. Can't say I've ever thought of it.

3) The way I'd run AM they'd quarantine the planet. Spend a few centuries, or millennia, investigating the avaliable tech, and then if they find it possible come out with imperial branded versions of this trademarked by the omnissiah essentially. AM are willing to incorporate new tech, it however has to go through a rigorous testing process. Anything they found unkeepable would be replaced and knowledge of it would be removed from those who know very deeply of it. Anything above "I know how to operate and perform basic maintenance."

Since their technological advancements clearly has no machine spirits in them and they do not observe the proper rites and rituals when using technology - they are clearly Heretics.

And what do we do with those?

Since their technological advancements clearly has no machine spirits in them and they do not observe the proper rites and rituals when using technology - they are clearly Heretics.

And what do we do with those?

http://new1.fjcdn.com/comments/Heretic+_3f179ba14025d13d41f74410949e8d29.jpg

What are you talking about? Of course they have machine spirits! Even xenotech has machine spirits, albeit tortured ones that the AdMech can't understand (which is why they think they're tortured, I assume).

If we want to get really deep into the spiritual nature of the Cult Mechanicus, Life is Directed Motion , and The Spirit is the Spark of Life . Everything that has directed motion is alive, and the spirit is the source of that directed motion. Ergo, everything has a machine spirit.

Then why does a Chaos Landraider not have one?

(Trololol question, ref. tabletop rules)

Then why does a Chaos Landraider not have one?

(Trololol question, ref. tabletop rules)

Because in the case of Chaos Land Raiders, the Machine Spirit specifically refers to the automated targeting systems.

I've never seen Machine spirits as something literal. They're the name for AI's (or near AI's), and the AdMech thing that every machine has them, even non-electronic ones, which they don't.

BYE

The thing about Machine Spirits is that there is a lot of ambiguity around them. In some cases they do seem to be a form of sophisticated but limited AI, even if the AM view "true" AI as a heresy. Examples of this include the Land Raider's "machine spirit". In 40k it is likely a lot more things have some sort of electronic control in them which could also be labelled the "machine spirit", even if not as sophisticated or as independent as a Land Raiders. Also, yes, part of it is clearly meant to be plain superstition, where they imagine a spirit or soul in things even though there is not, as in part is it is essentially a parody of the modern habit of talking to your computer/car/space shuttle, or naming inanimate objects.

However, there are certain things where the lines get blurred and it is unclear whether it is entirely baseless superstition. Titans are meant to have some sort of control system which the commander communicates with, ala the Land Raider's Machine Spirit, but in this case there is an ambiguity about whether it is truly just a sophisticated computer, or if it even has some level of awareness, or even a "soul" of its own. They (and starships) are described as having personalities, occasionally seemingly resisting or nudging certain behaviours. Now, it may all be superstition, as even in the real world people do the same with things with demonstrably don't have personalities. However, with the level of technological sophistication of the 40k universe, coupled with the loss of knowledge and superstition of how it operates, maybe they do have personalities? Combine this with the Warp and the power of belief this is certainly a possibility.

Isn't the Land Raider's Machine Spirit based around a hard-wired servitor brain? I recall seeing an old cut-away view of a LR pointing at an actual skull hardwired in the machine as rhe source of the Machine Spirit.

EDIT: Something like http://oi52.tinypic.com/161m0yh.jpg