Adeptus Mechanicus Capabilities

[Bakustra]

Which is hardly a ringing endorsement of their technical competence, if they're just an ossified bunch of museum curators playing office politics with an army of retarded cult members.

Attempting to claim they're competent technologically if they marginalise free thinkers is funny stuff. It looks (to my superficial 40k knowledge) like a retcon over the last decade, anyway; it was orgiianlly played for laughs.

Well, they're simultaneously a pseudo-Christian religious and a scientific organization. They must run almost entirely on cognitive dissonance. Frankly, their competence is in spite of their structure and belief system, rather than because of it, and so they're marvelous for that, I suppose.

They're also not incredibly innovative, as Imperial technology has remained relatively static over those ten thousand years (incremental improvements, rather than massive ones; Chaotic vessels and equipment are slightly inferior to regular Imperial stuff, rather than pathetic popguns, cardboard armor, and toy spaceships in comparison). The Cain books still play them for laughs (the consecrated method of dealing with malfunctioning technology is a smart kick), but overall 40k has become a lot more serious, it seems.

Except... that demosntrates zero understanding of what they're doing, just like slapping your magazines because the Saint of Bolt-Action will watch over you.

Besides, the AIs in spaceships and vehicles are different beasts entirely. The "machine spirit" of a Titan or superheavy tank has a definite personality, is a specific construct, and the pilot interacts with the AI to run the thing. By comparison, the "machine spirit" of a wrench or simple computer is just a way of mysticizing and anthropomorphizing technology ("our brave little cogitator, deprived of electricity, had starved to death") which renders the populace beholden to the AM for tech support and the lower levels of the AM beholden to the upper.

The mystic effects are generally either subtle enough that they might as well not be there, essentially random in nature, or associate with the specific individual rather than the ritual. While theoretically the AM could provide Warp-based rituals as standard procedures, it's a) too risky (what if you provide the Pentacle of Sight Realignment and it's performed in unison by a hundred priests the night before a major assault? That could attract unwanted attention and earn Inquisitorial enmity.) and b) the AM generally hates/avoids psychics anyways.

Except the AM isn't a bunch of operators; they're the ones who build and design things.

Just because they can design and research doesn't mean they aren't doing so at reduced capability due to their religion.

Amusingly, if their CRTs suck so bad they need to thump them (like it's the 80s, when the joke started) melting all that wax into the casing probably isn't helping. Uh oh; I guess they have supertech liquid-cooled CRTs that somehow still have dodgey deguassing.

They're 3-D CRTs.

[Stark]

The Cain books still play them for laughs (the consecrated method of dealing with malfunctioning technology is a smart kick), but overall 40k has become a lot more serious, it seems.

This is what I've noticed from the outside, as well; the fluff isn't a lolfest anymore, and there seems to be a movement towards making it all 'for serious' which requires contortion to make the setting not a great big college prank. It's a shame how they're going about it (ie, makign out that the Imperium is actually competent etc) instead of the alternative.

[Bakustra]

The Cain books still play them for laughs (the consecrated method of dealing with malfunctioning technology is a smart kick), but overall 40k has become a lot more serious, it seems.

This is what I've noticed from the outside, as well; the fluff isn't a lolfest anymore, and there seems to be a movement towards making it all 'for serious' which requires contortion to make the setting not a great big college prank. It's a shame how they're going about it (ie, makign out that the Imperium is actually competent etc) instead of the alternative.

I long for the days when the Imperium could lose planets due to clerical errors. The Cain books are hilarious, but they also present a far more functional society that's just dysfunctional enough to win a few laughs (along with the antics of Space Flashman, of course). Granted, the Imperium in the Cain books probably loses planets due to bureaucratic infighting or well-intentioned people editing reports ("Lurocacanare IX? I think she meant Lurocaranare IX." And then the planet falls to the Hugging Aliens of Tolmanu Twenty-Five.)

[Samuel]

They're also not incredibly innovative, as Imperial technology has remained relatively static over those ten thousand years (incremental improvements, rather than massive ones; Chaotic vessels and equipment are slightly inferior to regular Imperial stuff, rather than pathetic popguns, cardboard armor, and toy spaceships in comparison).

I think the reason is Chaos just steals copies of everything.

[Bakustra]

They're also not incredibly innovative, as Imperial technology has remained relatively static over those ten thousand years (incremental improvements, rather than massive ones; Chaotic vessels and equipment are slightly inferior to regular Imperial stuff, rather than pathetic popguns, cardboard armor, and toy spaceships in comparison).

I think the reason is Chaos just steals copies of everything.

They still use gear (combi-weapons, armor), ships, and Titans from the Heresy era, which are still effective, though they make use of magic/psionics to even the gap. The Imperium makes improvements, but they are incremental ones when compared to the span of time. In the equivalent interval, man went from stone tools to Damascus steel. The Imperium is fairly static, technologically.

[Raxmei]

They're also not incredibly innovative, as Imperial technology has remained relatively static over those ten thousand years (incremental improvements, rather than massive ones; Chaotic vessels and equipment are slightly inferior to regular Imperial stuff, rather than pathetic popguns, cardboard armor, and toy spaceships in comparison).

I think the reason is Chaos just steals copies of everything.

Quite a lot of what the Chaos legions are using really is ten thousand years old. That's why they use combibolters instead of stormbolters, reaper autocannons instead of assault cannons, and ships that don't look much like their Imperial counterparts. In fact, BFG tells us that Imperial technology has regressed as far as high performance starship engines and long range energy weapons are concerned. On the other hand they have gotten better at making armor. As with territory, the Imperium's technology is constantly making gains and losses with the net effect that they're more or less holding steady. By and large the original Chaos legions are still using their ancient wargear, which is different but not clearly inferior to what the Imperium uses.

[Dark Hellion]

I think that both Stark and Serafina are in some regards correct. Compared to modern earth the tech priests have a much larger body of scientific knowledge and engineering experience to draw from as well as the additional advantage of living in a universe were waving your hands can magically repair weapons or increase a machines efficiency. This gives the illusion of competence. However, I think Stark has hit an important point in that their religious and ritual nature clearly shows that there is not the integrated understanding we would see from a group that was truly competent.

They may show impressive feats of technical expertise, but that is simply because they are 38,000 years in the future. They probably also have a very firm grasp on the specific physical and mechanical principles behind the general equipment of the Imperium as seen by their abilities to jury rig up new vehicles/weapons (if they pull the wrenches out of their asses). However, we see that they have a profound lack of deeper understanding beyond that. This is especially evident in their obsessive search for archeotech and STCs. They lack the ability to reproduce their own tech from the far past even if it is functionally similar to equipment they have now or to replicate some techs they have encountered. It is pretty embarrassing when a bunch of giant fungal football hooligans manage to build a better teleporter out of duck tape, two-by-fours and a disco ball then the guys who have spent the last 10,000 years building them and have the backing of dozens of forge worlds which spit out more war material in a year then modern earth has in its history. It is even more embarrassing to compare them with Dark Age of Technology teleporters. In Daemon World we see what humanity used to have. An AM built teleporter is successful if it manages to put people in the right room. The Slaughtersong's teleporter was accurate enough to teleport armour onto Veq and weapons into his hands; more impressive when you consider this is a relatively normal sized man and he was moving at greater than Space Marine speed.

This is tangential to the main topic but is an important caveat to be taken into other debates. The AM do possess very impressive capabilities and can perform many prodigious feats of technical manipulation but this is just the faded remnants of a far greater golden age kept alive by religious fanatics who have been coerced by the God Emperor into aiding the Imperium. It is a religion of science in a universe of capricious gods.

I am going to disagree with Stark about one thing. I do not think that the problem is actually an attempt to make the Imperium competent or to add "realism" to the setting. I think the bigger problem is GW trying to play the grimdark straight. Its just bad story telling as it renders the setting depressing and boring. Evil wins, the end. The Imperium is ruled by the corpse of its god simultaneously enthroned and entombed on a device quite literally called the Golden Throne. Science is the religion of techpriests who invoke ritual to jiggle the handle. The mightiest warriors of humanity are beings modified into something truly inhuman whose ultimate victory goal is their own forced obsolescence. Their enemies are indefatigable: twisted warp gods who feed off the very things that make us human, insane star gods who seek to lock the universe in an eternal cycle of misery because they think it tastes better, genetic horrors driven by group conscious to consume everything, the selfish remnant of a fallen society desperately hanging on against the doom they wrought upon the galaxy and their insane relations who embrace the long fall with sadistic glee. The last good man who could truly change things rots in his sanctum on a world that is both fortress and mausoleum, the rest are simply cogs in a machine that chews them up and spits them out. The only species who isn't actively evil or utterly amoral are a group brutal hulks who seek to murder, conquer and enslave because that is honestly how they wish to be treated. We have to play this off as some kind of morbid dark comedy or there is nothing but anticlimax. We want an Imperium that loses planets behind the file cabinet, an AM that sets the clocks on its recorders with the ritual "whacking of the blasted machine", the Eldar as a bunch of space queens, the Necron as Night of the Living Dead and Slaanesh as the god of Japanese comics. We need the hope of levity as there is no hope elsewhere in the background.

Then again, I am the kind of weirdo who actually wants to read books that seek to examine some aspect of the human condition and not simply deliver a plot. It is probably why Daemon World is one of my favorite 40K books even though it is rather poorly written. We have a character who actually grows bored of endless enslavement to the cultivation of power that is the inevitable fate of the champions of Chaos. He manipulates many of his opponents into a conflict that results in it rendering itself futile. There is irony in that Veq proves that he is worthy of the veneration he receives from the chaotic forces by hunting down and killing the Word Bearers on his ship. And we have satisfactory conclusion in his destruction of himself and Torvendis. Him, his ship and the planet are relics of a past that has faded from memory into hollow legends. He is long doomed to damnation and can hope for no salvation, but he frees the maiden world he kept under perverse imprisonment, his greatest enemy being the only one he can entrust his will to, and achieves his revenge upon the gods who damned him and perhaps earns some recompense by allowing Torvendis its retribution upon its tormentors. The mortals, deamons and Space Marines in the story are just pawns for one of the greatest champions of Chaos plan to tell his old bosses to fuck off and finally grant his nemesis the mercy of death. The story has a very nice niche in the overall story of 40K. It creates a cut off point after which we cannot have a singular man stand as a god. Afterward we only have simple mortals struggling against the forces of darkness, the old gods are relegated to histories and legends.

[Ryan Thunder]

IIRC, the jump packs used by Chaos Raptors are supposedly superior to the ones used by Assault Marines. I can't recall what the difference was supposed to be, however.

[Ford Prefect]

Just because they can design and research doesn't mean they aren't doing so at reduced capability due to their religion.

Strictly speaking their religion is one of understanding. The whole point of the Quest for Knowledge, which informs their entire belief system, is to better understand how shit works in a general sense and to uncover new principles of science and technology. The Adeptus Mechanicus has pretty much been played as 'lower ranks are moron technicians, higher ranks are genius scientists' for a while, at least back since Inquisitor was on sale (which isn't that long I guess lol) andp robably further. However there is this huge body of evidence of Mechanicus guys being idiots either for the purposes of laughs, or in order to make another group look cool, like with the creation of the Predator Annhilator.

I guess what I'm saying here is don't knock it, their religion is 'be cyborg Indiana Jones, build rayguns'.

[Stark]

Except it's actually 'be cyborg Igor, do hilariously dumb shit, build rayguys everyone else built thousands of years ago'.

And again, just because their 'mission' (ps, religion) is to 'learn how stuff works' doesn't mean they're doing it right. It HAS been ten thousand years and they haven't even got back to where they were to start with; and indeed that level of tech is considered godlike. This pretty much demonstrates that they're idiots or wasting their time on religion/infighting/narrow thinking/hideous cybernetic deformities/etc.

It's amusing to me that since the decision was made to make 40k 'for serious', the AM has busted out more actual developments then they made in the entire previous 40k history. Turns out they switched marketing from young adults in for a laugh to little nerds who need to feel tough?

[Talk738kno]

Except it's actually 'be cyborg Igor, do hilariously dumb shit, build rayguys everyone else built thousands of years ago'.

And again, just because their 'mission' (ps, religion) is to 'learn how stuff works' doesn't mean they're doing it right. It HAS been ten thousand years and they haven't even got back to where they were to start with; and indeed that level of tech is considered godlike. This pretty much demonstrates that they're idiots or wasting their time on religion/infighting/narrow thinking/hideous cybernetic deformities/etc.

Oh and the Logicians are so much better?

[Stark]

You're going to have to help me out there, chief.

[Serafina]

Stark, your entire argument is still completely based on semantics and ignores demonstrated capabilities.
If you want to show that their rituals result in them taking twice as long for everything - demonstrate some evidence.
I showed what they are capable based on evidence - so do the same.

And again, just because their 'mission' (ps, religion) is to 'learn how stuff works' doesn't mean they're doing it right. It HAS been ten thousand years and they haven't even got back to where they were to start with; and indeed that level of tech is considered godlike. This pretty much demonstrates that they're idiots or wasting their time on religion/infighting/narrow thinking/hideous cybernetic deformities/etc.

Dark Age of Technology technology IS better. Searching for it instead of trying to invent new stuff is largely justified.
Finding an STK-template means that you have pretty much the pinnacle of human engineering ever - incredible versatile, robust and 100% functional technology. As an example, an STK-engine is capable of running on fossil fuels, antimatter, hydrogen or even coal or wood at the same time without breaking and still being powerfull enough to make a good tank engine.
Besides, the Dark age of Technology is further back than ten thousand years, you don't even know the basics of 40K

You are partially correct, the Adeptus Mechanicus seems to lacks the modern scientific method. So does everyone else, with the possible exception of the Tau.
But then again - they ARE interested in science, they do use a form of peer review and are generally capable of analyzing unknown phenomena pretty well.
Indeed, the main reason why their technology does not advance that much seem to be engineering limitations. They do have many capabilities that rival Eldar or even Necron technology, but these are generally only crafted by their most experienced techpriests (eexamples are the conversion beam, forcefields,vortex grenades and others). This is not necessarily due to their religious practices (it's possible, but not a given) but simply a limitation based on engineering practices - the better technology needs better facilities and more experienced personell, which is limited.

Basically, it's a lot like Star Wars - they have more or less reached the pinnacle of their science and the rest is engineering.

[Ford Prefect]

Bro, it's 'Standard Template Construct'. You don't abbreviate it to STK.

[Serafina]

Whoops, sorry - i used the german abreviation here.
Oh, and it's "gal", not bro *points to signature and avatar*

[Bakustra]

While the Dark Age of Technology was slightly more than 10000 years before the current era, and the tech was better, they still have the problem of not actually duplicating or understanding that technology. Sure, a Vault-Tec G.E.C.K. STC archive would be immensely helpful in terms of providing useful, robust designs, but they why not try to make their own designs by looking at the principles behind the vehicles that they're recovered? They may already do so, but the structure of the AdMech hampers them markedly.

Look at the production of tank variants. The Leman Russ Executioner is almost entirely produced on Ryza, because Ryza is the only Forgeworld that can mass-produce the Plasma Destroyer that it's armed with. But why don't they spread the knowledge of how to do this around? I can understand why Mars-built equipment is of higher quality, because it's the oldest Forgeworld and attracts the best talent, but why don't these other forgeworlds share their blueprints for high-quality lasguns, or tanks, or shuttles?

The Forgeworld entry on the Macharius tank offers an explanation: they can, but the worlds which have the blueprints are often unwilling to share. Forgeworlds actually compete for the right to construct Baneblades and other superheavies. This hampers the efficiency of the Imperium, since although superheavies are probably not quite economical enough to replace smaller tanks, there are a number of forgeworlds with incremental improvements on basic gear that could be adopted galaxy-wide. This would also spur further advancement, as the improved lasgun or bolter would pass through the hands of more people who could see a potential improvement in the trigger mechanism or the ammunition feed, which would then trigger another set of galaxy-wide improvements. In short, the Adeptus Mechanicus hampers itself in many ways, which I happen to think is part of the joke.

[Serafina]

*snip*

True. But then again, we have that today - companies don't always share their tech, do they?

More seriously, that is certainly a disadvantage in certain cases. But not necessarily always - the Executioner being a good example, since it is a rather specialized tank. Constructing it all over the Imperium could simply be unnecessary, especially if you had to retool factories and retrain your personell.

[Dark Hellion]

I don't think people are disputing the demonstrated capabilities of the AM. The problem is that there are fundamental flaws to their doctrines which mean we have to extrapolate from those capabilities differently than we would from a civilization like Star Wars.

Capabilities do not necessarily translate over into competency. I can take the Rimmer of the Culture-verse stick him in a gelfield suit stuck on "follow command" and still expect him to curbstomb Rambo, a Space Marine and a Pax Swiss Guardsman at the same time. This is why I don't think it is simply an engineering problem as you dismiss it. Just for a telling demonstration, pre-unification Terra managed to use scraps of Dark Age tech to partially clone godhood and give us twenty bouncing baby primarchs. Modern Magos Bio-blah-blah seem to have trouble in the maintenance of geneseed. There is clearly a wide gap between their scientific knowledge. Or just look at the fact that the only two individuals who know how the Golden Throne actually works are the carcass on it and Dorn who is out to lunch.

I do think that the AM are undervalued in many vs. debates. They may not be able to come up with complete theories on new techs they would encounter but for practical purposes that really isn't necessary. I don't need to know the General Theory of Relativity to track simple ballistic motion and the AM probably doesn't need a complete theory of their enemy's technobabble to make attempts to disrupt or defeat it.

[Shroom Man 777]

*snip*

True. But then again, we have that today - companies don't always share their tech, do they?

No, but other companies can build very similar or even better products by having designers who understand the principles of how Item X works, and using their science and knowledge shit to try to make their own version or to actually make something that's even better. Rather than this rote religulous worshipping of STC-shit as if it was the end all be all of technological development, an over-reliance of reverse-engineering archeotech instead of using an actual-factual scientific method to make their OWN scientific advancements as opposed to relying on ancient shit dug out from the ground. It's pretty fucking sad that for such an organization such as an AdMech, with its awesome tech-base, it's still stuck with digging shit out of the ground and examining fossilized scrap heaps as a primary source of technological development. Even if 'it works'.

More seriously, that is certainly a disadvantage in certain cases. But not necessarily always - the Executioner being a good example, since it is a rather specialized tank. Constructing it all over the Imperium could simply be unnecessary, especially if you had to retool factories and retrain your personell.

Constructing multiple factories might be necessary if you don't want the production line of Weapon X to be stuck in a single planet/facility, and if demand for Weapon X is higher than the speed of the single planet/facility's conveyor belts. Oh but I don't know, maybe it would be smarterer to isolate the production of a valuable weapons system to a single factory so that the weapons system will be less available because production is too slow to meet the demand and because of the associated problems of the product being produced in a single factory in a single place, despite the product being needed all over the friggin' galaxy or something.

Maybe without their ass-headed religulous views they could do a shitload of optimization to make themselves more efficient, using an actual-factual scientific method, so instead of wasting centuries digging up archeoshit from the ground, they can actually end up making their own scientific developments to show for the AdMech's 10,000,000,000 years of existence?

Oh no our paleo-techno-priest maguses have fossilized due to the minillions of years of slow technological progresses! Let us burn some incense and activate the soylent viridians machinator within the foodulum! PRESS THE RUNE STUD!

[Stark]

Stark, your entire argument is still completely based on semantics and ignores demonstrated capabilities.

No, I'm pointing out that if they do things out of ignorance, it makes them ignorant, and not free thinking, analytical, evidence-driven, rational, etc.

If you want to show that their rituals result in them taking twice as long for everything - demonstrate some evidence.

I never made that claim, so fuck off. I'm claiming learning stupid rituals by rote is not scientific, which it isn't. I don't care how 'effective' the 'rituals' are.

I showed what they are capable based on evidence - so do the same.

Grow up. They are a galaxy-spanning, advanced civilisation, we all know what they're 'capable of'. Sadly, this doesn't mean they're competent.

You're the one countering specific examples of the AM's functional incompetence by saying 'oh that happens now with a totally inappropriate example'.

Specific examples are rife, because frankly you'd think in ten thousand years they'd have been able to re-develop any technology they needed - especially that which they possess working examples. They haven't, because of various and sundry reasons internal to the culture and structure of the AM. Oops.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I never made that claim, so fuck off. I'm claiming learning stupid rituals by rote is not scientific, which it isn't. I don't care how 'effective' the 'rituals' are.

This might be a shock to you, but within the engineering world, there are "rituals" which are learnt by rote because of some ISO standards etc. In a semiconductor fab, there are even procedures for which a person must stand here, take a few steps right, place hands here etc. etc. because of some said standard. They sound stupid, but companies like Intel etc. are sold on this. If some problem turns up, the operators, who may even by PhD graduates, are then to analyse it and diagnose the problem. Quite frankly, rituals, procedures are fairly interchangeable words, unless you don't know the difference.

[Shroom Man 777]

Except, Fingolfin, these procedures are NOT religious in nature nor are instructed in order to "appease the machine spirit" or some bullshit, but these procedures do have rationales/good reasons for doing that are explained to the professionals as they learn and/or memorize it. What's the rationale for burning incense or chanting prayers? Frankly comparing ridiculous AdMech rituals to anything practiced in scientific professions is ridiculous.

[Feil]

Has GW ever actually come out and said that there aren't real machine spirits (not just the occasional artificial intelligence) involved with things? People and other biological creatures have spirits in 40k and they don't in real life, and machines can get possessed by daemons. In various games, psykers can directly affect the function of complex machines, not just throw fireballs at them. Why shouldn't metal-and-plastic machines have spirits, when trees and birds and people do? Maybe part of the ritual fabrication of a lasgun causes a minor warp entity to come into existence bound to the weapon, or attaches the weapon to a psychic echo of the machine god, just like something in the process of gestating a baby brings a human soul into being.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Except, Fingolfin, these procedures are NOT religious in nature nor are instructed in order to "appease the machine spirit" or some bullshit, but these procedures do have rationales/good reasons for doing that are explained to the professionals as they learn and/or memorize it. What's the rationale for burning incense or chanting prayers? Frankly comparing ridiculous AdMech rituals to anything practiced in scientific professions is ridiculous.

Except Shroom, we are dealing with a technomagi type of organization that regards Science more as a religion than anything else.

Finally, the fact that weird things like Warp Daemons possessing even machines suggest there is more to it than mere "spirits". Why the fuck do daemons possess a non-living entity in the fucking first place? It doesn't even make any damn sense. We have Chaos possessed Titans, we have machine spirits of Land Raiders going on rampages. Quite frankly, machine spirits is so vague a damn term, it might suggest 1. a temperamental AI, 2. a warp entity as Feil suggested.

Finally, this is a fucking fantasy. Magic and Science have simply blurred to the point it's hard to tell the difference. The Warp itself breaks the laws of Physics, yet it is the main mode of travel in the Warhammer 40K universe. Hence why I describe the Ad Mech as Technomagi: They have their own method and approach to solving problems, and they adopt it to suit their damn needs.

[Shroom Man 777]

Except, Fingolfin, these procedures are NOT religious in nature nor are instructed in order to "appease the machine spirit" or some bullshit, but these procedures do have rationales/good reasons for doing that are explained to the professionals as they learn and/or memorize it. What's the rationale for burning incense or chanting prayers? Frankly comparing ridiculous AdMech rituals to anything practiced in scientific professions is ridiculous.

Except Shroom, we are dealing with a technomagi type of organization that regards Science more as a religion than anything else.

Which means taking a technomagi type of organization that regards Science more as a religion than anything else, and comparing it to any remotely realistic institutions that are professional and scientific as opposed to religulously ridiculous, is a pretty ingenious comparison since the AdMech is totally nuts. .

Standard operating procedures with scientific rationales =/= burning incense, chanting prayers, and spinning technotibetan prayer wheels am i rite?

Finally, the fact that weird things like Warp Daemons possessing even machines suggest there is more to it than mere "spirits". Why the fuck do daemons possess a non-living entity in the fucking first place? It doesn't even make any damn sense. We have Chaos possessed Titans, we have machine spirits of Land Raiders going on rampages. Quite frankly, machine spirits is so vague a damn term, it might suggest 1. a temperamental AI, 2. a warp entity as Feil suggested.

How often does this happen though? Doesn't this happen in places or in instances where the Warp is so fucked up that, aside from the machines, other things have already been possessed by daemons?

Finally, this is a fucking fantasy. Magic and Science have simply blurred to the point it's hard to tell the difference. The Warp itself breaks the laws of Physics, yet it is the main mode of travel in the Warhammer 40K universe. Hence why I describe the Ad Mech as Technomagi: They have their own method and approach to solving problems, and they adopt it to suit their damn needs.

It's still piss poor though when you deal with science as though it was magic, to the point when basic things that don't involve warp-shit in anyway still end up becoming bogged down in religulous rituals with technotibetan prayer wheels and incense and opium and whatever. Not every bit of 40k tech involves warp-shit.