Don't have my books with me so I can't read up the fluff on them ... but I was suddenly wondering whether servitors can speak or not?

I'd say no since they are basically your morose lobotomized semi-machine servants. Yet I also read about a med-servitor, which seems to be a type that would need Intelligence-based Advance skill and at least the ability to ask its patients where it hurts ... though it would also be very 40K-like if such a servitor would forego such a question and just start operating

Servitors are as diverse as their makers and yes, some do indeed speak . I must admit, that I can't just mention a particular book where this is featured, but i'm pretty sure.

Though my take on it is that unless their task specifcally requires them to communicate (other than datastreams) they do not speak any language suitable for the unaugmented human ear.

The standard-pattern mining servitor, crate-hauler or manufactorium drone does not speak (or even notice you in worst case). But a high class servitor of a noblemans household might greet guests and serve refreshments.

Though I personally think that too elaborate servitors might be considered decadent and/or Tech-heresy by the ADMECH

My two thrones

I'm sure, they can communicate in binary chatter (btw, after I read Titanicus I suddenly realized that it is the must have talent for my Cog Boy ).
I'm also pretty sure, that some of them can communicate vocally (I think, I remember they did in some books), but only by means of simple commands and answers.

I'm fairly sure that they can be 'programmed' for certain responses. That said, I doubt servitors are self aware. Part of the conversion process is to essentially wipe higher brain functions and reprogram them for their new role. Since the Mechanicus isn't permitted to create artifical intelligence and limited to rather primative computer functions, servitors are an ideologically acceptable means to still create a sort of 'biological' robot for various functions. A sort of 'middle ground' between true AI and a cogitator.

Now, that said there's sufficent evidence in the canon to indicate that occasionally servitors 'go feral' or worse yet the brain wipe isn't complete and the servitor partially reawakes into a sort of self awareness (and probably goes promptly insane as a result). those servitors probably could speak, but even so wouldn't be exactly brilliant conversationalists.

Hm...theres a second quality of servitor...those who undergo servitordom on free will (and retain their free will). Those are just like normal humans...

Spoilers for several books below.

My Source : "Sword of Damocles" (the pilot of a pinnace wanted to be fused to his craft permanently and his wish was granted. He wasn´t very talkative but could communicate normally) and "Ravenor Returned" (or was it "Ravenor Returned"?) where a submarine-pilot was announced to be a servitor, and also talked when asked questions. Later when Culzeans Lackeys and the beings that came through the door sank the wych house, the "servitor" became visibly agitated and became very rude and hasty. Such emotional reactions are not typical for servitors (which i imagine to be rather indifferent to personal danger) so i speculate that he also retained his free will and was not lobotomized.

At the very beginning of 'Edge of Darkness' (very minor spoiler following...) a Servitor inbuilt in an elevator at least says 'Pass'...

If it suits my needs at the moment, it can speak. If it doesn`t suit my needs, it can`t. It`s beautiful to be GM... I feel like a god. *sigh*

I seem to recall Charax getting cross on one of these forums a while back about Dan Abnett having a talking servitor piloting a submersible in the final book in the Ravenor trilogy.

The "Classic" 40k servitor was always a slave or criminal, lobotomised and cyberized. More recent fluff posits a wider range of servitor types, perhaps caused by some BL author's misunderstanding of what a servitor was actually meant to be!

Personally, in answer to the "can they tralk" question, I'm in the "er... it varies" school. Most servitors are indeed lobotomised and heavily cybernetically modified humans, but some may in fact be just heavily cybernetically modified humans. I seem to recall a reference to "cybernetically modified worker-helots" working in a mine in a Forge World book. It would seem that there is a range of servitor capabilities and types.

By the way, a good source on servitors in the new space marine codex, which has some nice fluff on how servitors can "lock" when their suppressed personalities and minds attempt to overcome their cybernetic programming.

When i turn on my pc i get a nice little "start up sequence initiated" quote, courtesy of mechwarrior.

I have the option of turning the noise off.

If this were 40k i'd simply be silencing the Machine Spirit, and either branded a Heretek or hailed as a new messiah or some such.

The Ad-Mech can do the same thing, they have the choice of having set replies for actions, like when you're playing a computergame, say DoW, you select a unit and you get some standardised quip, but some units dont have a quip just a bleep.

General answer?

If you want it to speak, then it speaks, probably monosylabic responses, possitive, negetive, confirmed, target accquired, target eliminated, floor thriteen, thankyou for your cooperation..

And so on.

I feel the need to clarify.

Someone who has received implants and retains their free will is a cyborg, a human with augmetic enhancements. This covers everything from someone with two augmetic fingers to an enslaved mining helot whose arm was chopped off and replaced with a jackhammer, but who wasn't lobotomized.

Someone who has recieved implants and no longer has free will is a servitor, a robot with some biological parts. Not all servitors are created from humans; some use animals, and others (such as the Inquisition's cherubs) use vat-grown tissue. Some can speak prerecorded messages ("task complete," "intruder detected, purging,") but none are intelligent enough to hold a conversation. If one was, it would either be a cyborg and not a servitor, or tech-heresy of the most vile and executionable kind.

Of course sevitors can speak.

Except the ones that can't.

Classic GW doublethink...

The possibility exists that the term 'Servitor' has drifted in meaning over the ages and cultures.

The proper use of 'Servitor' would be in regard to the vast array of mindless meat puppets with specific functions. That term could easily be expanded through the laziness of human speech or as an insult to include any augmented or indentured servant that performs a specific task.

A blue collar boat driver, pilot, truck driver, etc who is augmented for that specific task basically functions in the same way that a servitor does, just with a personality and possibly better job performance.

Is a traditional servitor capable of driving a truck safely through dense chaotic traffic in a hive? Can it react quickly enough to deal with a spoiled teenage noble driving a high performance vehicle cutting him off in rush hour traffic? An augmented human could. If they are doing the same task that a servitor does on a highly regimented forge world it wouldn't be long before the cog boys start referring to them as servitors and that would catch on with the humans and spread.

It may also bear noting that if you go back far enough (Ian Watson's Inquisition War trilogy, for example), you find that servitor was being used in the sense of a general menial servant, some of whom were closer to the current understanding of the term, and were referred to as cyborged servitors.

The way I imagine it, a servitor is essentially a machine to the Adeptus Mechanicus.

It comes, as standard, with a functional locomotive system, highly adaptive manipulator appendages, effective (if basic) optical, auditory and olfactory receptors, a vocal output system, and a moderately capable cogitation unit. All you need to do is reformat the cogitator (remove all that pesky "instinct" and "consciousness" cluttering up the workings), remove any parts you don't need, and replace any parts you need to improve upon. The basic framework of a human being is quite useful, however.

Plus, I've always loved the image of a Vox-Servitor, limbless and bolted into a control console, staring into space with empty eye-sockets, showing no signs of life... until it speaks with another man's voice, the servitor's own (augmented) vocal cords, mouth, teeth and tongue used to project the sounds transmitted to it.

Corebook p.296

The Cathedral of Ilumination-

"Behind the altar is a choir of 2000 servitors filling the nave with soaring choruses."

Now that does not say a lot, or if they are little more than i-pods <I can see a commercial with a dancing servitor's outline wearing an p-pod right now>, but at least they are capable of making glorious muzak.

I tend to think that most servitors would have limited speech capablities and vocabulary related to their role. My 2 gelt worth.