Plugging into Servitors.

By GMort., in Deathwatch Rules Questions

No, not a new sexual fetish, lol.

Presumably Servitors come with access ports built in for the purposes of programming, maintenance or whatever. Does this mean that I could plug-in to a Servitor using my Techmarines MIU and fire it's weapons using my BS rather than it's?

If I can, would I get the +10 to BS that an exceptional quality MIU bionic gives you to certain BS tests?

Considering a servitor is a "wet" computer - i.e. using whats left of the once-man's mind to operate any devices and perform functions of that servitor - I don't think someone simply "taking control" like that would work.

Ignoring the images of munchkinism from toting around a little slave that carries your +10 BS heavy bolter that spring to mind...

The weapon is hardwired into the servitor's brain and senses. It controls the weapon. Linking into a servitor would obviously be able to download information from the servitor's mind, implant new orders directives, even instruct the servitor who to shoot and not to shoot in situations. When it comes down to actually pulling the trigger, its all the servitor.

Additionally servitor's are built to be autonomous machines. They don't strike me as something which would have an MIU uplink. Even if you could "jack in" like this you are still limited to the servitor's senses and it's bodies limitations, what it sees and its basic accuracy. "IF" (and thats a big if) I allowed this sort of thing in my games, the space marine would be forced to use the servitor's BS and get no bonus. After all just cause you got a USB 2.0 cable and USB 2.0 port on your PC don't mean you'll get USB 2.0 speed from your old USB(not 2.0) Hard Drive.

And please don't tell me you were thinking an "MIU shot" from a servitor should be a free action... That would be absurd.

I had found some artwork (it was a rough draft of a Games Workshop model idea I believe) on-line that had a Techmarine basically wired into a Servitor and it looked like a cool idea. There's another one with a Techmarine attached to several motorised pieces of equipment and a couple of Servitors of various types and it seemed like a cool concept for a model as well as a way of making my Techmarine and requisitioned Servitors a bit different from the norm.

I was just wondering if there were any existing rules that could be used to make the concept doable in a Deathwatch game is all.

I's also worth noting that techmarines can wirelessly communicate with, and program servitors using techna lingua. I don't know at what points hard wiring might be more relevant.

I'd argue that at best, controlling a servitor as you've described should be considered akin to controlling a mechadendrite, I'd use the marines BS, but wouldbe reluctant to grant MIU bonuses (dosn't seem right somehow) I'd also assume it to require as much concentration.

We've had minor debates in our group as to whether a techmarine could attempt to reprogram hostile servitors simply by speaking to them, and if so, by what tests.

Relating to programming fluff in the Chapter's Due, the Skitarii host were nearly reprogrammed using dark code by a dark magos (mechanicus) had it not been for the intervention of Captain Shaan and RG who created mass havoc in the black basilica.

In my own opinion, programming a servitor seems possible. But manual override so you ae able to fire seems to be really far off. I agree with Herichmo's opinion of these are autonomous and "once-human". You can take manual control over a droid but a servitor is rather different in that aspect.