The nature of servitorhood continues to fascinate me

Do sevitors eat?

While I have no fluff source, I always imagine them to be "feed" in some kind of "docking station". Either by a nutrient slime similiar to todays baby food ("Robocop", anyone?) or intravenously (like a patient in a hospital; but not that slow. More of "internal storage refuel").

After all, there isn´t that much organic matter to be kept "alive", right?

Gregorius21778 said:

It depends on how you view them in the first place.

IMO, Servitors are used so frequently because they're so cheap and relatively simple to produce. It takes far less time and effort than producing a machine to fulfil the same purpose, because the human body is a fully-functional organic machine. It can percieve it's surroundings, interpret information, communicate, is cheap to sustain, can move around freely with little difficulty, and manipulate objects with considerable dexterity.

All that needs to be done is to wipe the brain (a fairly effective organic computer, essentially) and replace its contents with more appropriate programming (less cluttered by weak emotions or trivial matters), remove parts and functions not required for the servitor's purpose, and replace the parts that need to be improved. But the bulk of a Servitor's body will still be human flesh and blood and bone, meaning that it needs to be sustained organically. Nutrient feeds seem to be the most appropriate way to accomplish this.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I wouldn´t say so. Mostly due to the stats given to them in DH Core Rulebook. The "Servitor Drone" comes with the Trait "Machine(4)" while the entry for this Trait states that this stat comes form 1 to 5. So, I assume the servitor is acutally more machine then man. It does not even has to breath anymore.

In additon, this would explain quiet fine how a non-combat servitore comes with the equivalent of carapace armour

IIRC the Imperium uses servitors rather than full mechanicals due to some obscure legal issue from the Dark Age of Technology, and some if not most are former criminals or hereteks who the mechanicum and inquisition deemed needed to serve but not live. As to if they eat or run off some type of fuel it is probibly a little of both, depending on how much organic material they have left. The human body really needs very little to maintain organic life it is the brain and heart that need special concideration. I would say that any servitor with more than 65% organic material would have some type of highly processed nutrient paste fed to it during maintenance cycles, and any with 65% or more tech material uses some type of energy cell or fuel for its continued existence. And for those who are wondering those numbers are random on my part, but there are some who believe that if a person has more than a certian percentage of mechanical components replacing their organs/limbs they are cyborgs.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I personally agree with this assessment, though prefer to think about the 'holographic" nature of the memory as allowing the attendant thoughts/emotions/whatever of the individual to come back unless regular maintenance (mind wipe) is applied to the organic part of the system. Erm, basically like Robocop. Not original, but brings a bit more of a meaning to the idea of a "ghost in the machine" in reference to servitors...

Kage

I agree with you more on the normal mind wipe in that memories have a chance of resurfacing but I would think the non organic parts of a servitors brain would be designed to keep that in check. This may mean that a malfunctioning servitor may recover some of his memories or a particular facet of his previous personality but in general there isnt much of a chance of that happening. Alot of servitors are in inaccessable places and stay there for years. If they had to be constantly maintained to prevent memory coming back they would be to dangerous to use in alot of applications.

Kaihlik said:

Which is kind of my point.

Kage

Chemical Dragon said:

Yes, since the collapse of the Dark Age of Technology the making of Artificial Intelligens have been forbidden so to give a machine a rudimentary intelligence a human brain is needed.

Just a sidenote, from "Mechanicum" (the BL book) there are examples of that they hunted feral servitors in the dunes on Mars. Servitors that had malfunctioned or been abandoned and managed to adapt to their surroundings and now hunted in packs, killing for food and attacking outposts for spare parts. Interesting idea, actually.

I can imagine an old servitor that has served a noble family for generations being ascribed a certain 'personality', half from a kind of anthropomorphisation and half because the original memories are starting to surface, having learnt to endure the regular mind-wipe process.

Which might present a problem if said servitor were originally an anti-establishment revolutionary...

Yes. The organic parts need food. The inroganic parts need fuel/power. A servitor can be anything from a perfect human with one or two bionic/cybernetic implant/replacements to a perfect robot with a human brain.

Also in the book Dark Apostle there was a scene where the Imperium Tech Priest asked the IG commander for his dead troopers, so he could reuse them for nutrient paste for his servitors.