Do machine spirits really exist, you think? How do you run them in your campaign?

Are they some kind of machine-intelligence, that animates pieces of tech like spirits are said to be inside trees, rocks and rivers in some cultures? Or is this just what the superstitious Adeptus Mechanica has come up with to explain that which they cannot explain: algorithms, computers, artificial intelligence, decisions based on calculations and preprogrammed routine ... in short how all the tech that we even today have in our homes work without us knowing exactly how?

I am with the second option

It depends on the Machine I would say, a machine spirit is a trait the mechanicum attibute to all machines regardless of their complexity. This means that things like guns and clocks are said to have machine spirits where there is nothing there. In the case of some devices the STC design likely incorporates some basic slaved AI system that gets more complex the bigger the system. The Rogue Trader scenarios definetly have a machine spirit in the ship that seems to be the ships AI system that the players communicate with. The machine spirit on Land Raiders has been known to compensate for its drivers being temporarily out of action and in one case even dead which implies that maybe the machine spirit is capable of thinking but is most of the time slaved to its controls.

It should be noted that when I say AI I do not mean smart AI's capable of growing and learning but AI's desgned for one task and limited by programming to completeing that task.

Kaihlik

As said some machines might not have anything lke guns but some clearly do, the strongest (in the sense that it is capable of thinking relativly on its own) are those of the Titanicus Legions. the Titans have been known to "fight" with the princeps for control much like a dog and its handler.

I run the Adeptus Mechanicus like a mystery cult. Machine Spirit is just a sly word for the higher scientific principals reflected in the machine. Younger Tech Priests are expected to figure this out as they progress through the order.

Seems like machine spirit is thus a deluded and superstitious notion in place for understanding things such as artificial intelligence, autopilots and self-governing systems in machines and computers.

But given that: how would Chaos affect machines? If there is no spirit to be tainted, no soul to subvert, no organical body to twist and mutilate, how would Chaos affect machines, cogitators and vehicles?

In Disciples of the Dark Gods it says that Chaos taints man, beast and machine alike, but if machine spirits are just a notion and not real, I don't see how Chaos could possess machines. But I would like bedeviled tanks and possessed cogitators in my game

The Laughing God said:

Remember that a lot of the talk of machine spirits comes from the mass of humanity. The Mechanicus are less superstitious than they look, especially the deeper you get into the organisation.

With more sophisticated machines (Land Raiders, Thunderhawks, Titans and Starships being the best examples) a Machine Spirit is a distinct but extremely crude artificial intellect, that exists to support the operation of the machine. Think of it as a vehicle having the instincts and intelligence of an animal, with the pilot being there to guide and reign in the machine's mind in some situations, and unleash it in others. Different machine spirits, particularly ancient ones and those that connect to a pilot through an MIU link, tend to pick up personality traits and quirks from their users over time, adding to the basic instincts of the machine. Such machines gain a reputation for particular tendancies, a legacy all their own which may attract or deter operators from them, and making each machine unique.

With everything else, it's an anthropomorism of the device's function, an easy way to collectively describe the percieved tendancies and glitches and quirks of the machine (this isn't so strange, really - we do this today with cars and computers, ascribing a personality and an intent to those little problems and oddities of function) as well as explain the need for regular maintenance and careful use (if you don't maintain it, the spirit will be displeased and the machine will not do what you want it to do). However, while that's the sum total of the knowledge of the vast majority of mankind, the Mechanicus know more collectively. A newly-initiated Techpriest may know relatively little, certainly, but as his skill and status improve, so will his knowledge - knowledge is power, and knowledge of technology is a carefully-guarded secret within the Mechanicus at the best of times. With that in mind, references to a "machine's spirit" are a catch-all term for all those quirks and oddities, something spoken when a Tech-Priest must communicate an idea with the uninitiated (who cannot and should not know too much about technology) and is thus forced to speak in human languages rather than in blasts of more detailed and more precise machine code, as they do when communicating with others of their organisation...

As for corrupted machines... why does there need to be an actual mind or organic body to subvert? We know for a fact that daemons can be bound into inanimate objects of simple construction (daemon weapons, the majority of which are swords and similar) and in complex machines (Chaos armies in 40k have long been able to take possessed tanks, and in the last couple of codices have included a vehicle that is possessed by default: the Defiler), so there's demonstrably no requirement for flesh and mind there. Chaos changes everything... it does that by being an extension of a realm where physical law as it applies to the material universe is essentially nonexistant.

Because code corrupted and infused with the essence of chaos does exist.

Mechanicus HH SPOILER

In Mechanicus Horus's bargining chip with the Mechanicum is access to the things forbidden to them by the Emperor including code essesntially made from the essence of chaos. It quickly infected most of Mars except for the domains using a newly developed communications system that it had no direct access to, it took control of alot of these systems and used them to try and spread.

/Spoiler

In the case of weapons anything coming in contact with the stuff of the Warp can be corrupted by it, in the case of inanimate objects like guns then the machine spirit is more the working condition of the gun, when chaos infects it the machine spirit could be considered destroyed as the warp begins to damage it while keeping it operational at the same time the removal of the taint and repairing the weapon would restore its machine spirit.

Chaos is not logical and can achieve many things that you would not neccissarily expect from it. Remember many Daemons are reflections of human emotion and experiance, how many programmers through the ages have raged at the inability to find a fatal flaw in thier code, how many computer virus's have been created, how many times has code been changed modified and evolved and how many progarmmers have poured years into a program tuning it to make it flawless. All of these traits have a relationship with the Warp and it would not be surprising therefore if code took on a malevolant sentiance in it.

You also have to consider people who's aim has been to use the warp to enhance thier work, the number of heriteks who have deliberately infused thier code with the power of chaos for whatever reason, whether to make it adapt to change, to write itself or simply because they are stark raving mad.

I hope this gived you a few ideas on the subject, as always there is not really a diffinitive answer and it is more what you decide to make of it.

Kaihlik

Most machines don't "really" have a Machine Spirit, apart from what the AM project into them. Most devices that DO have a Machine Spirit have, in fact, a complex Expert System from the Dark Age of technology. You know, things like Eliza, or modern attempts at AI. The most complex systems are true AIs - the only ones I can think of would be Titans (In old fluff they were basically scans of Dog Brains and the like), devices from the DAoT, maybe Land Raiders, and some AM Plants.

One thing you have to remember in the Warhammer metaphysic is that belief shapes reality. If millions of people believe in the power of a Machine Spirit, the Machine Spirit will have some of that power. Orks have a greater belief and an easier time shaping it, hence why Red Unz observably Go Faster.

At least, that's how I run it.

Thanks all for your contributions, I now have multiple plots, arch-hereteks, dark secrets and adventure possibilities spinning around in my mind

McCaber said:

I think that only works for the Orks because they're all psionic at some level. Or am I misremembering?

At some point humanity has managed to master quantum mechanics, its effects ranged from the creation of the unseen AI's, immensely complicated Warp Engines to even hand held randomness like the vortex grenade. As a set of principles it deals with things at a subatomic level where classical physics breaks down to explain the phenomena of waves and particles of matter and radiation... to calculate 'probabilities' whereas your classical physics that most people are passingly familiar with are used to give certainties.

Being able to harness probability gives you more than just a really big, fat set of stats, it effectively allows you to bend the rules of what is normally associated with cause and effect, there is no binary ON-OFF, there is simply Yes-Maybe-No with slight leanings from the centre of Maybe. Its the Maybe factor that to use the old Wodehousian expression- 'throw a spanner in the works' at the conventional way you look at maintaining a machine.

Somewhere along the line, humanity took a couple of steps back from the mastery of quantum mechanics. They know its there, can they explain it easily? No. Can they begin to master it again? Maybe. Can they maintain what is there? Yes.

The technology of the imperium is much akin to the emergence of man into the Industrial age of the 18th and 19th centuries where humanity managed to capture and master the use of what is effectively Analog.

Analog encapsulates more than just the electrical concepts, it also applies to mechanical, hydraulics and pneumatics where a system conveys an analog signal which is a response to changes in physical phenomena, be they light, temperature, position, pressure or even sound... to create a waveform. Going back to quantum mechanics again (breifly so I won't nerd people out overly much! ) the mechanic is manipulating those waveforms to get the desired effect, peaks, lows and noise that the waveform will achieve. Just like the engineers running a steam engine back in the 19th century, they had the rudimentry knowledge to put it together, work out the desired effect, maintain the engine and even instruct others how to use it, but for the most of them they where at a complete loss to explain the analog waveform to the apprentice shovelling coal and wood into the belly of the beast. They could explain the pressures, revolutions per minute of operation and where to put the oil, the more skilled ones can even construct one from existing, tried and true blueprints.

But thats about it. Like the locomotive engineers of the Industrial age, what cannot be explained is wrapped up in superstition that the machine has a soul and that tends to explain its sometimes illogical 'maybes' that occour in its operation and when it cantankerously breaks down. The machine spirit is simply the answer to something which cannot be explained to the very simple inhabitants of the future, just like it was in the 19th century.

Well, thats the answer the Squat techie NPC will tell my PC's... it will never be uttered by an Adeptus Mechanicus representative EVER!

So are humans though, unless they are blanks their beliefs can have an effect in the Warp just not to quite the same degree as an Ork, with Billions upon billions of humans believing in it there is a possibility that some minor effects bleed through. Nothing on the same scale as Orks but it may happen.

Off topic a bit but what the hell. When thinking about the buisness of rituals for appeasing machine spirits I tend to think of it as the collection of maintenance and activation protocols for thousands of different machines rolled into one in an attempt to make things work, you dont want to start cutting bits out of the ritual because you dont know what bits actually help. The sacred oils you apply might be totally useless or they may be vital lubrication for specific parts or contain resins that reinforce the material you are applying it to making it strong enough to last the centuries that it needs. While your sacred chant may be mostly pointless the four code words for activating the routine systems checks may be in there somewhere that if not done may cause a catastophic overload. By generalising over a wide range of machines you also allow people like technomats to maintain machines with relatively few different maintenance rituals. It also helps if your machine does have an AI involved to keep it happy by revearing it and maintaining it well.

A machine spirit is a useful term for the adeptus mechanicum as it a way keeping things running without giving people alot of technical information and allows relatively low skilled people to maintain many different complex machines without needing to know anything about thier operation.

Kaihlik

Aside from the obviously metaphysical, I usually try and interpret the 40k fluff as a way to describe things that once were, but now arent anymore within reach of mankind, and thus became coated in a hefty dose of superstition, plus there often just isnt anyone left able to really convey what works how and why anymore. The latter one is probably the biggest issue here: The few who even got something of a clue, which means Mechanicus, wont tell or intentionally misinterpret, and a lot of basic science has been lost, or at least isnt really known to enough people to draw proper conclusions anymore.

Now, try to explain things like this very forum, the internet, to an old person born in the 30s or 40s of our time. You know that "series of tubes" comment? Now, imagine a Land Raider has a sophisticated support AI/autopilot. It likely also has a complicated interface, infinitely complex programming routines and will take hundreds of different kinds of data into account. Lets say, for the sake of argument, said Land Raider has a sort of Aiming AI for its Heavy Bolter. Now, this AI is using a lot of data to calculate angles of shot, distance, targets and so on. Maybe that Land Raider was once built as part of a series of Land Raiders specialized on desert environment. As such, the AI is calibrated to work with certain kinds of data, and will probably not have the full subset of routines to deal with heavy rain, humidity, extreme cold, snow or similar.

That Land Raider is now hundreds of years old. The Heavy Bolter has been replaced countless times, and nobody knows how to use the "auto-calibrate new weapon in Hull Slot 1" function anymore, so it isnt properly fine-tuned. Also, the luxury of using a specialized desert Land Raider doesnt exist anymore, maybe nobody even really knows this vehicle wasnt intended to be used on an ice planet.

The heavy bolter will shoot like crap most likely, and the machine spirit will soon have a reputation of not liking cold weather, or rain.

It doesnt take much for people to project human behaviour onto a machine, when they dont even have an inkling of how it works, or what is going on.

Chaos corruption of a Land Raider, in my definition, would likely be a virus or something similar. As long as its not actually a daemon-driven vehicle, I would just assume that the machine spirit was infected with corrupt code, a virus, a trojan or whatever future equivalent there is, and therefore "driven mad", as in lost its proper targeting routines, its friend-or-foe identification system is screwed, or the thing just random "blue screens" a lot like a bad Windows installation.

No supernatural aspects required.

The Imperium has a ban on AIs, Abominable Intelligences were the cause of the fall of man during the dark age of technology after all (in addition to the emergence of psykers but we'll ignore that bit...).

There are machine spirits and there are MACHINE SPIRITS. Every piece of technology is said to be part of the omnissiah's greater whole, so the machine spirit could be the Omnissiah itself. Then there are the biochip nerual net 'brains' that are used to run machines. As they contain organic components they don't break the AI ban and they are designed with simple minds so as to avoid any rebellious notions.

You are supposed to appease the machine spirit in your lasgun, but you can communicate with the machine spirit in your cogitator.

The Titan spirit is actually pretty different to other spirits. It forms a symbiosis with the operator, rather than acting in tandem. The minds merge together to produce a greater whole.

Hellebore

Most machines, no. A lasgun or anti-gravity vehicle works by natural physics alone.

Some machines -- the really bizarrely advanced stuff, the psi-effecting stuff, machines that aid in Warp navigation, some xenos-crafted stuff -- there could very well be actual daemons from the Warp within them.

I never really thought at all about this. I've always approached the 40k universe from the characters perspective and by their perspective, they exist, so for me they do. Knowing whether they objectively exist in the 40k universe or not wouldn't change how anything or anyone acted so I just never thought about it.

I guess I see them similar to N0. Good machines in the 40k universe are not as prevalent as they are in todays western world. They're harder to get and the more advanced ones can do some pretty damned amazing things. So it makes sense that the 40k populace would hold a much higher regard for machines. Also, due to fear, fear of them breaking down and not being able to rebuild/repair it, fear of handling it wrong to disastrous effects, etc, irrational rituals would appear. Heck, there have been times when I've driven a car that was slowly breaking down at night on the highway about an hour and a half from home verbally urging it not to quite now, to go just a little bit further, and then praising it like a dog or clever child when it dose. For a time, it takes on a life of it's own. I guess the in the 40k universe, everyone's on a dark highway where everything is in a perpetual state of breaking down... all the time. Blam-o, machine spirits!

Of course, who's to say that due to the Imperium's thoughts, attitudes, and feelings for machines, a small bit of warp doesn't coalesce and solidify a bit around machines, becoming rudimentary spirits? After all, it's sentient species on the whole that shaped the warp into the four ruinous powers, why can't one make rudimentary spirits for machines, one that also has a lot of psychically active members and more every day?

Graver said:

Wouldn't doubt it that's how the idea was born into the heads of the developers of 40k in the first place. I've had that happen too.

from france

i agree with graver and i a am a rational no non senses, down to earth man but friends of mine are not. actually one of them don't take the underground with me because he believe that every time we are together in the underground, the underground has a mechanical failure. true or not, it is a belief so in dh it can really affect the machine. in a lot of novel where machine are the main subject like titanicus, it is well described.

Infernal Teddy said:

Who is Eliza?

The Laughing God said:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA

Well, given the 40k setting, mass belief has been proven to change things, such as the Orks "Red Un's go Fasta!", all the way to the creation of the Chaos Gods. I can, therefore, see how machine spirits might well exist, in a rudimentry fashion.

I generally see the whole belief in Machine Spirits as an analog to the "Cargo Cults" of primitive tribes when they first started to interact with the more technologically advanced civilisations on Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_Cult

In our game it bacame a "running gag" that anything teh tech-priest interacted with had a "machine spirit". The iconic example was (as the strongest member of the group) he was regularly called to force open doors and the like and became known as "Communing with the Hinge Spirits".

I think its a little of both to be honest.

Because humans beliefs can shape the warp and even create gods (in extreme cicumstances) an actually honest to God Machine Spirit is possible.

Equally of course it might just be AI.

OR better yet, both. An AI system that becomes fully sentinient.

oh dear god...space odessy anyone?