Hi ho, hi ho, back to the Her-sey I go....
This iteration we come close to the midway point (At least as I've covered it), and Graham McNeill's Mechanicum. It's one of those rare 'not about Space MArines' heresy novel, and its one of the best, because it deals with the Mechanicum. IT also demonstrates (alongside 'Priests of Mars') that the Mechanicum/AdMech is yet another organization Graham McNeill
can write about, and he should spend far less time writing about SPACE MARINES - especially Honsou. Seriosuly, the only thing keeping this poor guy down is Honsou, and yet he keeps writing about him...
Mechanicum covers basically the heresy as it strikes the AdMech, but there is more to it than that. We get exploration of the Great Crusade from the Mechanicum's viewpoint, as well as a dose of history upon the same organization. We also learn about the tensions underlying it, the Omnissiah, and the Great Mars Secret (eg the big fucking silvery dragon thing that is hidden there. More on that later.) The novel is great about building the 'mystery' because it leaves alot of loose ends, especialyl with the 'GREAT SECRET' angle, and that's one reason the book was so great.
Oh and we get a guest appearance by the old Knights from the Knight Worlds. MINI TITANS FTW.
Since it is also one of the bigger updates, I will probably do it in three updates, possibly separate, possibly together. Haven't decided yet.
Page 13
Within the span of a few centuries, the planet had died its second death, choking on the fumes of volcanic forge complexes, continent-sized refineries and the effluent of a million weapons shops.
The surface of Mars. Despite terraforming it was turned into an industrail wasteland in a few centuries.
Page 14
Resembling a brutish, mechanical humanoid some nine metres tall, Ares Lictor was a Paladin-class Knight, a one-man war machine of deep blue armour plates with a fearsome array of weaponry beyond the power of even the strongest of the Terran Emperor’s Astartes to bear.
Not only do they resurrect the concept of the Imperial Robots, but they resurrect Knights and Knight households (though they don't directly reference them. Presumably its more powerful than a Dreadnought.
Page 14
The brushed orange skies above were weeping a thin drizzle of moisture, patterning Verticorda’s cockpit, and he felt the cold wetness through the hard-plugs in his spine and the haptic implants in his fingers.
Haptic implants and MIU links. The haptic stuff is basically just touch-related detection and control, probably (something akin to the Glavian circuitry.)
Page 14
He could hear their chatter over the Manifold, the synaptic congress that linked their minds, but had not the words to convey his own sense of wonder at the sight that greeted them on this day of days
The Manifold.. some sort of Titan/Mechanicus data network.
Page 15-16
A zigzagging pathway had been cut into the cliff, leading to the base of the caldera, nearly two kilometres below.
..
It was a long way down and not even the armour or energy shields that protected a Knight in battle would save him from a fall from this height.
A fall of 2 km is dangerous to a Knight, even with armour and shields. (power fields, not voids.)
Page 17
By the time the Knights reached the base of the cliff, the enormous craft had landed, its gargantuan bulk surely offset by some dampening field to prevent it from collapsing under its own weight, or sinking deep into the Martian surface.
"dampening field" preventing the Emperor's starship from collapsing in gravity, or sinking into the ground. Whether he means suspensors or some structural reinforcement field or what, we can't say. Possibly "gravity dampening" is meant.
Page 17-18
At last the mist thinned and Verticorda pulled up as the enormous golden cliff of the vessel’s flanks rose up before him like a mountain freshly deposited on the planet’s surface. Its scale was awe-inspiring, more so than even the fastnesses of the Titan legions or the data mountains of the Temple of All Knowledge.
Even the mightiest forge temple of Mondus Gamma on the Syria Planum paled in comparison to the scale of this vessel, for it had been fashioned with deliberate artifice and not the combined forces of millions of years of geological interaction.
We learn later that Mondus Gamma is larger than Mondos Occulum, which is stated to cover "hundrds of thousands of square kilometres" We might figure the Emperor's starship is at least a good 30-40 km long, which isn't the largest starship the Imperium has built, but that's still damn impressive, and of course, it can be far larger. In fact it probably is at least two times that size (given the 60km mass conveyors in Thousand Sons) but smaller than Furious Abyss (which is less than 120 km)
Page 19
The warrior wore no helm and was fitted with no visible breathing augmetics, yet seemed untroubled by the chemical-laden air of Mars.
Either the Emperor is protected by his psychic powers, or he's enhanced his body in ways similar to the Astartes.
Page 20
“Machine, heal thyself,” said the warrior, the purpose and self-belief in his voice passing into Verticorda as though infusing every molecule of his hybrid existence of flesh and steel with new-found purpose and vitality.
He felt the warmth of the warrior’s touch through the shell of his mount, and gasped as trembling vibrations spread through its armoured frame of plasteel and ceramite. He took an involuntary step back, feeling the movements of his mount flow as smoothly as ever they had. With one step, he could feel Ares Lictor move as though it had just come off the assembly lines, its stubborn knee joint flexing like new.
There goes the Emperor and his paraphrasing old sayings. Anyhow, we see that the GEoM can use his magic to heal even mechanical shit.. hell outright rejuvenate it.
Page 24
Their masters in the Mechanicum had designed them that way, with their enhanced bulk, weaponised limbs and glowing green eyes that shone, unblinking, behind bronze, skull-faced masks.
AdMech Protectors.. some sort of analogue to Skitarii or combat servitors, but not quite either.
Page 25
Of course, Dalia had never seen the things she imagined, for the seas of Terra had long since boiled away in forgotten wars, but the words she read as she copied text from the reams of paper and armfuls of data-slates carried in daily by muscled servitors had filled her mind with possibilities of worlds and ideas that existed far beyond the confines of Terra’s mightiest scriptorium.
Again, GRaham McNeill insists that the planet's oceans/seas have boiled off.. yet we know they still exist from multiple sources. This may mean that they boiled off and returned or... it sjust that Dalia is ignorant of matters on Terra.
Page 26
She was led into the cavernous hold and deposited on the floor while the Protectors took up their allocated positions and the mag-locks secured them to the deck. With a juddering roar and sudden lurch, the starship lifted off, and Dalia was thrown to her knees by the violence of the ascent. Fear gripped her and she clung to a protruding stanchion as the angle of incline increased sharply.
Ship has no AG, protectors maglock themselves to the floor.
Page 27
Over the next day or so, her escorts—she did not now think of them as captors—resisted her every attempt at communication, save to instruct her to eat and drink, which she did ravenously, despite the food’s chemical artificiality.
Takes roughly a day to get from Mars to Earth. Assuming both planets are in close orbit (same side of the solar system) the shortest distance is some .52 AU from Earth. Were they on opposite sides of the system we're talking 2.52 AU. "day or so" may imply either 12 hours (daytime) or 24 hours (day) Less than two days definitely pass, but Dalia apparently does not sleep (only has several meals, it would seem) which suggests far less than a day.
For a day or two at .52 AU we're talking 1-4 gees of constant burn. and an average velocity of .6% of c.. about 1800 km/s. At half a day (or less) we're talking at least 15-20 gees, and around 1% of c (~3000 km/s). Either way this is VERY conservative, considering they spent at least part of the journey in free fall (at velocity, but Dalia could move around and Rho-Mu unclamped from the decking) so I would expect the actual acel to be severla times greater at least.
2.52 AU would yield 5 gees of accel for 2 days of travel and 1.4% of c velocity. 20 gees at 1 Day and 2.9% of c. At half a day.. 82 gees and 5.8% travel velocity. This is just for an insystem ship, and one that is atmosphere-capable, mind, albeit one that is AdMech designed, which is boudn to counteract the 'commonality' angle somewhat.
Page 27
Each one was tall and powerfully built, their physiques gene-bulked and augmented with implanted weaponry. Ribbed cables and coloured wires threaded their robes and penetrated their flesh through raw-looking plugs embedded in their skin. She had seen Protectors before, but she had never been so close to one.
They smelled unpleasantly of rotten meat, machine oil and stale sweat.
They were armed with giant pistols with flaring barrels, and tall staves of iron, topped with a bronze and silver cog, from which hung a scrap of parchment that fluttered in the gusting air within the cold compartment.
The Protectors in detail again. As I said, something vaguely between a (Battle) Servitor and a Skitarii.
Page 29
“Yes, Dalia Cythera. Rho-mu 31 was sent to fetch you from Terra.”
They all seem to be some sort of gestlat, although as we learn later they do have individual personalities.
Page 30
Its surface was clad in fire and metal, its atmosphere choked with striated clouds of pollution. Teeming with gargantuan sprawls of industry larger than the continents of Old Earth, the world seemed to throb with the heartbeat of monstrous hammers.
Mars. Its industrial sprawls must be hundreds or thousands of km across to be bigger than continent size.
Page 30
Supersonic shells tore through the gaggle of servitors feeding on the dead techno-mats, obliterating one instantly and blowing the limbs from another. Three others staggered back, chunks of flesh blasted from their emaciated frames.
Knight weaponry. suggests at least 400 m/s up to 1.6 km/s.
Page 30
Maven moved Equitos Bellum in behind the bloody servitors, the energised blade in his war machine’s right fist reaching down and slicing through the survivors in one sweep. Old Stator finished off the stragglers with a short, perfectly controlled burst of laser fire, their wasted bodies exploding in puffs of vaporised blood and scrap metal.
Power blade in Knight's fist. they're something of a cross between Dreadnoughts/Power armour and Titans... a bit like GK Dreadknights really (RARE TECHNOLOGY!)
Laser fire vaporizing blood, which may mean they're blowign apart servitors (MJ range) or vaporizing them (lots of MJ range).
Page 31
Standing five times the height of the feral creatures, the three Knights towered over the battlefield, though Maven knew that to call it such was to vastly overstate the nature of the deaths they had caused.
The Knights were armoured in thick plates of plasteel and ceramite, protected by layered banks of power fields strong enough to weather the impact of a much larger engine’s wrath, and armed with weapons that could kill scores at a time.
The knights were implied to be 9 metres remember, so the servitors might be 1.8-2 metres or so (9-10 metre tall Knight.) Weapons can kill "scores" at once. And they have power fields.
Page 33
Maven sighed and walked his Knight to where humming power cables jutted from the hard, orange earth and spat sparks where the servitors had dug at them to feed the machine parts of their ravaged bodies.
Feral servitors scrounging. The interesting bit is that this implies a measure of self-awareness and even survival instinct and cunning - but not neccesarily intelligence, in servitors as a rule. One imagines that the "doctrina wafers" mentioned (eg the programming) is what controls or focuses that behaviour towards tasks.
Page 33
It was a Martian truism that if a warrior and machine spent enough time linked together they would begin to take on aspects of the other’s character.
..
Maven had met countless Titan drivers and it was easy to tell which machines they commanded within moments of talking to them.
Any sort of mind-liked machine and human counterpart will absorb parts of each other's thoughts, personalities, etc. AS we have seen before in numerous novels.
Page 34
A Knight was much smaller than a Titan, but the mechanics in its construction and operation were no less incredible. A Titan had a crew to maintain its systems: a servitor to man each weapon system, a steersman to drive it, a tech-priest to minister to its bellicose heart, a moderati to run the crew and a princeps to command it.
A Knight was the perfect meld of flesh and steel, a mighty war machine at the command of a single pilot, a warrior who had the confidence to wield its power and the humility to know that, despite that power, he was not invincible.
Knight vs Titan.
Page 34-35
Broken and irreparably damaged servitors or those whose cranial surgery had failed to take were often simply dumped in the pallidus, the name given to the toxic, ashen hinterlands that existed between the Martian forges. The vast majority died, but some survived, though to call their doomed existence life was overstating the reality of it.
Most simply attempted to carry out the task for which they had been created, marching back and forth through the wastelands with their fried brains unable to comprehend that they were no longer in service.
In some cases, the damage to their brains allowed them a fragile degree of autonomy and those unfortunate creatures survived by feasting on the dead. Drawn by warmth and power, many banded together in unthinking packs and infested Mechanicum facilities, attacking workers and draining current to sustain their wretched experience.
fate of discarded servitors. Odd that they don't bother to recycle them.
Page 35-36
A huge, domed structure sat in the middle of the complex, its surface studded with plugs and vents. The air rippled around the building and intense waves of heat and electromagnetism washed from it in tidal surges.
The trench of the Gigas Fossae was dotted with several fusion reactors, but the facility upon the rocky slopes surrounding the northern impact crater of Ulysses Patera was the largest, and had been built by Magos Ipluvien Maximal.
Adept Maximal was one of the most senior magi of Mars, and his fusion reactors supplied power to a great many vassal forges dotted around the Tharsis uplands. Such arrangements were common across the red planet, ancient treaties binding the clans and forges together in reciprocal pacts of protection and supply that allowed such varied groups with conflicting needs to coexist.
As well as allied forges. Maximal had exchanged bonds of fealty and supply with a number of warrior orders, including many of the most revered Titan Legios.
Martian power sources.. all under the control of a single forge (and supplying many 'vassal' forges.) Like the Imperium itself, everything is very feudal/confederate.. basically one senior dude controls some junior dudes, as well as trading favors/services to gain the use of other dudes (like the Knights.)
PAge 38
“Photomalleable steel,” said Rho-mu 31. “A burst of current from my stave alters the structure of the molecular bonds within the metal to allow certain forms of light waves to pass through it.”
“I haven’t heard of anything like it,” said Dalia, amazed at the potential for such a material.
“Few beyond the Magma City have,” said Rho-mu 31. “It is a creation of Adept Zeth.”
"Photomalleable steel" Glass what is also steel.
Page 38-39
Colossal orbital constructions filled the heavens above Mars, a near contiguous array of gigantic shipyards and construction facilities. Dalia pressed her face to the cold panel, craning her neck to see how far the unbelievable conglomeration stretched. Try as she might, she could see no end to the gleaming docks, one end of the arc of steel rising up beyond sight above the ship she travelled in, the other vanishing around the curve of the red planet.
“The Ring of Iron,” said Rho-mu 31. “The original exploratory fleets were constructed here and much of the expeditionary fleets were built in these docks.”
..
"They are the largest space docks in the galaxy, though the shipwrights of Jupiter will soon lay claim to the largest ship ever constructed when they complete the Furious Abyss."
The orbit of Mars, which seems to have a ring-like construct around it, much like Hydraphur or (in Star Wars) Kuat. They built most of the expeditionary fleets (Thousand Sons mentions at least 7000 starting from Mars) as well as AdMech Exploratory fleets. They seem to share shipbuilding duties with Jupiter.
Also odd/interesting is that this novel is taking place (it seems) concurrently with "Battle for the Abyss", and they mention the ship nearing completion. Even odder is that this seems to be common knowledge on Mars, despite the fact the previous novel made such a big deal about secrecy and such surrounding the project. One might imagine the ship was believed destroyed in the destruction of Thule... except that they would have to recognize absence of debris in Thule's field, or notice it powering out of the system (unless the cloaking device was active..) not impossible givne they control the head of the Mechanicum at this point, but rather difficult to reconcile all the same (particularily since noone outside the Mechanicum even knew about the ship and were shocked and amazed at its size and abilities..)
Page 39
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing towards what appeared to be a nebulous cloud of dust and reflective particles just over the horizon.
“That is the remains of an active construction site,” said Rho-mu 31. “The latest ships to be built here have but recently departed.”
“Where have they gone?” asked Dalia, eager to learn what far-off place the new vessels were bound for.
“They were commissioned for Battlefleet Solar,” explained Rho-mu 31, “but the Warmaster issued a new tasking order to have them despatched to take part in the Istvaan campaign.”
Ships dedicted for Battlefleet solar were redirected to join Horus at Isstvan. Given the general context of the Heresy series we're probably talking weeks or months of travel (It takes Regulus for example months to travel from where he is to Terra in the early part of the series, for example) We're talking high tens/low hundreds of thousands of c at least.
Page 40
The ships were soon lost to sight as creeping fire slid along the length of the starship, the heat of passing through the atmosphere of Mars rippling along the shielded hull of the vessel. Dalia felt a steadying hand on her shoulder, a heavy, metallic hand that gripped her tightly as the starship continued its descent.
Flames and heat distortion soon obscured the view, but within the space of a few minutes it faded, and Dalia saw the surface of Mars in all its glory.
Ship is shielded, minutes to pass through the atmosphere.
Page 40
Vast cities of steel, larger and more magnificent than any of the hives of Terra, reared up from the surface, gargantuan behemoths that vomited fire and smoke into the sky. It was called the red planet, but precious little remained of the surface that could be identified as that hue. Mountains had been clad in metal and light, and cities and districts perched on the peaks and plateaux of the world named for a long forsaken god of war.
Glittering streams of light twisted and snaked through the few areas of cratered wilderness between the unimaginably vast conurbations, transit routes and mag-lev lines, and towering pyramids of glass and steel reared up like the tombs of forgotten kings.
Mars has cities bigger than the hives of Terra.. it seems heavily urbanized and developed, along iwth extensive mag-rail lines.
Page 40-41
“Isn’t the idea of things being sacred, well… not allowed any more?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” agreed Rho-mu 31. “The Emperor advances the credo that belief in gods is a falsehood, but a condition of the Treaty of Olympus was that he swore not to interfere with our structures and society when Mars and Terra were joined.”
“So the Mechanicum believes in a god?”
“That is a question with no easy answer, Dalia Cythera."
The Mechanicum at this time can't decide what they can believe (which is apparently why there can be atheist or philosohpical magos like Zeth) but they're a clear exemption from the so called "Imperial Truth." - which just goes to show what an ideology it is.
Page 43
“It’s incredible,” breathed Dalia, looking over to the far side of the caldera, where a huge, industrial city-structure fashioned from what looked like blackened steel and stone rose from the lava like the broadside of a submerged starship. Enormous gates steamed in the lava, and mighty pistons of gleaming ceramite hissed and groaned as they rose and fell.
Magma City, Zeth's forge.
Page 46
After a day or so in the belly of a starship, she realised how starved of the sight of the sky she had been.
Again "day or so" inside the ship. Tends to suggest we'r etalking 12-24 hous at most.
Page 48
A hammering volley of laser fire, like a hundred lightning bolts ripping from the rocks, sawed through the looped coils of metal and liquefied them in an instant. His display dimmed to protect him from blindness, but before the transformer blew, he saw the outline of the aggressor.
liquefying coils.. we can't calc it however.
Page 48
Easily as huge as Equitos Bellum, it was spherical and heavily armoured, a pair of monstrous weapon arms at its sides and a myriad of flexible, metallic tentacles crouched over its shoulders like scorpions’ tails.
A trio of convex blisters glowed like baleful eyes on its front, a fiery yellow glow burning from them with a hateful, dead light. The white heat of the explosion obscured the unknown attacker, and by the time the glow had diminished and the Knight’s auto-senses had recovered, the war machine had vanished.
'
Kaban machine, the killbot we were introduced to in 'Kaban Project' Short story, also by Graham McNeill.
Page 49
Maven unleashed a torrent of las-fire from his right arm and the ground erupted in a storm of metal and earth. The ruin of the enemy corpses geysered upwards, a knot of attackers reduced to puffs of exploding meat and boiled blood.
Las fire turns enemy corpses of uknown size (multiple troops) into boiled steam explosions. MJ range somewhere (single or double digit, at least.)
Page 49-50
A flurry of gunfire rippled towards him, and he flinched as he felt a power field flash out of existence. Like a Titan, a Knight had a finite bank of energy shields to protect it, but where a Titan’s reactor could replenish its shield strength in time, the Knight’s battery could not. Equitos Bellum was effectively immune to most individual weapons, but the Protectors were combining their fire with accuracy of timing that spoke of a communal battle-link.
Another shield winked out of existence and Maven turned his war machine to face the new threat: a cadre of Protectors armed with longbarrelled high-energy weapons. Maven saw silver bands around each Protector’s skull, recognising the hard-wired component of a targeting web.
Difference between Voids and Power fields. It implies that Powerfields perhaps run on a battery.. which doesn't really main sense. I wonder if perhaps that Power fields vs voids might be more akin to rechargable vs nonrechargable batteries... nonrechargable can offer better performance, but once they're expended they're useless.. whereas rechargable, while they may not be as good performance-wise are reusable.
Page 50
He had seconds to act.
Maven’s weapons blazed in a hurricane of light, enveloping the Protectors in a firestorm that obliterated them in an instant and left virtually no remains.
Vaporized/exploded/cremated an entire group of protectors in a matter of seconds.
Page 52
The shout died in his throat as he saw that his shots had done absolutely no damage.
A rippling sheath of invisible energy surrounded the machine where none had existed a moment before. Only one explanation presented itself.
The machine was void protected.
Kaban Machine has void shields.
Page 53
Once lost in the midst of the towers and forges, she realised she had never seen anything like the domain of Koriel Zeth, its design and scale quite beyond anything she had imagined before. Though the Imperial Palace on Terra was much, much larger, she appreciated that the Emperor’s fastness was not so much a piece of architecture, but rather a handcrafted land mass built upon the world’s tallest mountains.
Magma city again.
Page 53-54
Hooded menials, grey-skinned servitors and glittering, holo-wreathed calculi mingled on the metal streets of the Magma City. Robed tech-adepts moved like royalty through the crowds, carried on floating palanquins or wheeled chariots of golden metal, or borne aloft on what looked like gilded theatre boxes with slender stilt legs. All of them bore the number grid symbol of Adept Zeth somewhere about their person.
How any of them didn’t collide was a mystery to Dalia, though she presumed that each one would have some kind of onboard navigational system, which linked to a central network that monitored speeds, trajectories and potential collisions.
the many and varied population of Magma city. Note the antigrav vehciels and walkers.. all apparently remotely controlled and coordinated.
Page 57-58
Zeth reached down and brushed a metallic fingertip across Dalia’s cheek, and she felt a warm glow as the electoo implanted beneath her skin upon her induction to the Hall of Transcription came to life. She reached up and placed a hand on her skin.
“You can read my electoo?”
“Yes, but I can discern much more than simple biographical knowledge,” replied Zeth. “All data can be read, presented and transferred with a glance. Though invisible to you, I see a liminal skein of data filling the air around you, each ghost of light a fact of your life. I can see everything about you, all the things that make you a person in the eyes of the Imperium.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“I am not surprised,” said Zeth with a trace of pride. “It is a function of data retrieval and transfer that I have only recently developed, though I have great hopes for its eventual employment throughout the Imperium."
Dalia has an electoo. Zeth is using noospherics to read Dalia's info.. which basically is a more technological version of psychic aura reading, I gather.. only the data is the aura.
Page 58
"The Martian Priesthood is an ancient organisation and is learned in the ways of technology, but our grasp of such things is limited by blind adherence to dogma, tradition and repetition. I believe that our future lies in the understanding of technology, that only by experimentation, invention and research will our progress be assured. This view is not widely held on Mars.”
Zeth's opinion of the AdMech. This is yet another case of blind optimisim presented to us simply to be yanked away in favor of grimdark. My preference is it shows that the AdMech by nature is inherently fractious, and grew only moreso over time. Zeth represents the extreme of the spectrum that is perhaps the radicals. She is perhaps not as radical as some of the others, but she is a radical/progressive of sorts. Whereas your "typical" coggie (The technoreligious nut) is the puritan/conservative.
Page 59
“Mars enjoys a pre-eminent position within the Imperium thanks to our grip on technology,” continued Zeth. “Many of my fellow adepts fear the consequences of what might happen were that advantage to slip beyond their control.”
Hah! I knew it. Religions are quite often all about control, even if they have people who honestly believe in the tenets or if it has benevolent results or origins. And in 40K, where superstition and ignorance can exist, propoganda with a religious bent can be very effective at controlling.
Page 61
Across the hall, encased in his life-sustaining exo-skeleton and aloof from all others, was Princeps Graine of Legio Destructor.
Princeps in a tank.
Page 61
Ever since Verticorda had bent his knee to the Emperor nearly two hundred years ago, the joint commanders of the Knights of Taranis had served as the Princeps Conciliatus between the warrior orders of Mars.
This implies the emperor came to Mars close ot 200 years ago. I do have a slight problem with this, as it suggests the Emperor built up and launched the exploratory fleet in what is perhaps a ridculously short period of time. WE might stretch it out to decades perhaps.. but we'll learn other timeframes later.
Page 62
He ran a hand over his scalp, the surface hairless and punctured by sealed implant plugs at his nape that allowed him to command the mighty engines of Legio Tempestus. Similar implants were fused to his spine, and haptic receptors grafted to the soles of his feet and along the tactile surfaces of each of his hands allowed him to feel the Titan’s steel body as though it
were his own flesh.
Titan interface stuff.
Page 64
For now, it was possible for Cavalerio to retain some semblance of humanity, to walk as a man, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he would require a more permanent enmeshing within an amniotic float-tank of liquid information.
Being stuck inside a tank seems to be the inevitable fate of many Titan princeps.
Page 66
Adept Maximal had joined the proceedings immediately after the arrival of the Legio Mortis, his corpulent machine-frame wreathed in icy puffs of air vented from the layers of thermal barrier fabrics that cooled the spinning data wheels that made up the bulk of his body.
His head was an oblong helmet of gold fitted with a multitude of lenses upon telescopic armatures, and a morass of sheathed coolant cables emerged from beneath his robes like black tentacles, upon which sat hololithic plates streaming with glowing lines of data.
Maximal.. the guy who runs the fusion plants.
Page 70
“You are a naive fool, Cavalerio. The things you speak of have been in motion for centuries, ever since the Emperor arrived here and enslaved the Mechanicum to his will.”
"Centuries" since the Emperor arrived.. implying far less than a millenium.
Page 70
"We were promised freedom from interference, but what freedom have we enjoyed? Our every effort is bent to the will of the Emperor, our every forge dedicated to fulfilling his vision. But what of our vision? Was Mars not promised the chance to reclaim its own empire? The forge worlds long ago founded in the depths of the galaxy are still out there awaiting the tread of any Martian son, but how long will it be before the Emperor claims them?"
This seems to suggest, rather oddly, that they haven't found any forge worlds yet. Even though we learn shortly in Galaxy in flames, Fallen Angels (and other novels) that Forge Worlds have been found. Perhaps the complaint is that the other "forge worlds" are few in number, and they wnat to discover or create more of their own, but the Great Crusade is getting in the way.
Page 74-75
“It’s a machine for enhancing the communication between neurons in the brain,” said Dalia after a frustrating hour of unravelling a thread of randomly scrawled notes. “According to these notes, Ulterimus seemed to believe that a process known as long-term potentiation was what lay at the heart of the formation of memory and learning. It seems to be a cellular mechanism of learning, where the body is induced to synthesise new proteins that assist in high-level cognition.”
...
“By the looks of this molecular formula, it achieves its function by enhancing synaptic transmission,” said Dalia, her eyes darting rapidly over the drawings. “This wave generator vastly improves the ability of two neurons, one presynaptic and the other postsynaptic, to communicate with one another across a synapse.”
..
“Neurotransmitter molecules are received by receptors on the surface of the postsynaptic cell. When it’s active, the device improves the postsynaptic cell’s sensitivity to neurotransmitters by increasing the activity of existing receptors and vastly increasing the number of receptors on the postsynaptic cell surface.”
...
“The device is designed to enormously enhance a person’s ability to tap into areas of the brain that we almost never use, increasing their ability to learn and store information at a rate way beyond anything human beings have ever been able to achieve before.”
The supposed operation of the akashic REader. As we find out, its basically a fancy way to tap into the Warp to learn things, which is basically a more controlled version of what Ork Mekboyz do. Still it does suggest the Mechanicum can do some fun and interesting things with the human brain (as if the implants didn't suggest that already.)
Page 76-77
“You saw the schema of the device she altered on Terra. How could she have done that without some unconscious connection to the Akasha?”
..
“Dalia Cythera made intuitive leaps of logic, and where she found gaps in the technology, she filled them with working substitutes.”
“And you believe that is because the organic architecture of her brain is attuned to the Akasha?”
...
“Though she does not know it, she unconsciously accesses the wellspring of all knowledge and experience contained within the Akasha, encoded in the substance of the aether.”
“By aether, you mean the warp?”
“Yes.”
...
“There is danger in such association, and I do not want prying eyes misunderstanding the concept of what we are trying to do here, not before we fully understand the processes by which we can access the Akashic records and learn that which our ancient forebears understood without the need for dogma and superstition.”
“The source of all knowledge,” sighed Maximal, and Zeth smiled beneath her mask. Appealing to Maximal’s obsessive hunger for knowledge was a surefire means of quashing any concerns he had regarding their work.
“Indeed,” said Zeth, baiting the hook some more. “The history of the cosmos and every morsel of information that has ever existed or ever will exist.”
..
“If she can build Ulterimus’ device then we can enhance the empath’s mind to the degree where it will be fully receptive to the knowledge impressed upon the aether. Then we will know everything.”
To capitalize on my earlier comment... the Akasha is some warp based well of all knowledge and technology, and the akashic reader is meant to tap and record from it. Even more Dalia seems to be a human with the latent ability to do so, making her the human equivalent of the aforementioned Ork Mekboy. One has to wonder how common or rare this ability is. I suspect the AdMech still trawls society for people like this, however.
It may also lend an interesting angle to the whole techno-religious angle. Aside form using faith as a shield against daemonic corruption of the technological, it could be that the religious angle is meant to tap into that Akasha as well for "inspiration."
Page 81
Far below him, the vast forge complex of Olympus Mons stretched away beyond sight, the towering manufactorum, refineries, worker-habs, machine shops and assembly hangars covering thousands of square kilometres of Mars’ surface.
The vast hive of manufacture was home to billions of faithful techpriests of the Machine-God, the great and powerful deity that governed every aspect of life on Mars, from the lowliest tertiary reserve unit of the PDF to the mightiest forge master.
Olympus mons. Note the referecne to "tertiary reserve" PDF units, which suggests that if PDF is the tech guard there may be varying levels/degrees of Tech guard. It may also just refer to the human militia force (Mars version of national guard.) We know of similar setups on the Forge world in Titanicus as well, for example.
Mars also has billions of techpriests.
Page 82
Mightier, and home to more workers, priests and servitors than the Mondus Gamma complex of Urtzi Malevolus—where untold thousands of suits of battle plate and weapons were produced to supply the Astartes Legions of the Crusade— the Olympus Mons forge was less a building and more of a region.
"thousands" of suits of power armor in an unspecified period of time.
Page 83
Far below, thousands of workers filed along the stone-flagged roadway of the Via Omnissiah, its surface worn into grooves by the sandalled feet of a billion supplicants. A score of Battle Titans lined the wide road, their majesty and power reminding the inhabitants of his city, though they needed no reminding, of their place in the equation that was the workings of Mars.
Score of Battle titans at least on Mars.
Page 84
The Fabricator General turned from the vista spread before him, his own fiefdom, as he heard a chiming blurt of binary from the ebony-skinned automaton—robot was too crude a word for a work of such genius— standing behind him.
..
Though its form appeared unarmed, it was equipped with a multitude of digital weapons worked into the lengths of its fingers, and energised blades could spring from its extremities at a moment’s notice.
Robot in 40k seems to carry the connotation of crude, unintelligent, and simple. This isn't a Machine spirit entity, but true AI (like tha Kaban machine.)
Page 87
“I have heard words like that before,” he said, “when Verticorda led the Emperor to my forge over two centuries ago and I was forced to bend the knee to him. The ruler of the grubby Terran tribes promised us an equal role in his grand crusade of conquest, but where is that vaunted equality now? We toil to provide his armies with weapons of war, but receive nothing for our efforts but platitudes.
According to the Magos the Emperor visited "over two centuries" ago. Mars is resentful of the Emperor's domination and restrictions.
Page 88
“One for the construction of a hitherto unknown mark of Astartes battle plate and another for the production of lightweight solar generators capable of supplying the power needs of an Epsilon 5 pattern forge complex."
These are, I think, the fruits of the STC taken from the Technocracy. REgulus has arrived at Mars after "months" Between the Furious Abyss being completion and now it seems months have passed. I don't think Isstvaan III has completely fallen yet though.
Page 88
Kelbor-Hal could see Malevolus and Chrom look hungrily at the STC wafer, an artefact that contained information worth more than both their forges combined, flawless electronic blueprints created from miracles of design and technological evolution: machines that could design and construct anything their operators desired.
Such machines had allowed mankind to colonise vast swathes of the galaxy, before the maelstrom of Old Night had descended and almost wiped humanity from existence. To discover a working Construct Machine was the greatest dream of the Mechanicum, but to have fully detailed plans created by such a machine ran a close second.
Standard Template Construct. They still haven't found a fully functionla STC it seems, despite implications such had been discovered.
Page 89
Kelbor-Hal accepted the data wafer, surprised to feel a tremulous thrill of excitement at the thought of what he might learn from its contents. It was a thin sliver of metal, fragile and insignificant, yet capable of containing every written work on Terra a hundred times over.
No sooner had his metallic fingers touched the wafer than his haptic receptors read the data in a flow of electrons, and he knew that Regulus spoke the truth. Genocidal wars had been fought for information less valuable than was contained on this wafer. Millions had died in search of technology worth a fraction of its value.
Interesting bit on data storage and accessing technology. Haptic (touch) receptors are sufficient to transmit data. the "sliver" of metal carries enough data for every written work on terra "a hundred times over"
Near as I can tell 1-2 million books are printed each
year supposedly. Assuming that many were produced on earth each year for 200 years of the Great Crusade and we neglect anything that may have been written prior (or thhat they may have produced more - since Terra is basically a hive world) or works that may be stored there but were written offworld we get some 2-4 hundred million books at least. For contrast there are
nearly 130 million books in existence, so saying hundreds of millions, evne billions is likely.
How much space is that? According to
here one petabyte is 500 pages of standard printed text, or 100x the size of the Library of Congress. And
here says that the Library of congress has 10 TB of data, and that 2 Petabytes represents 'All us academic research libraries', and 200 petabytes 'all printed material'
here we get stats on the Library of congress, which is tens of millions of written works easily. And that holds 100X that data.. were talking many tens or hundreds of petabytes worth of data
easily, and quite possibly many times (orders of magnitude) more than that. and thats on a tiny 'sliver' of material that can easily be carried in a human hand.
As great as all that is there is some hefty drawbacks - touched based data transfer/interface would also create an extra number of potential points of infection/corruption of data systems.. such as the scrapcode attack that occurs later on, unless you have some very good data security.. and even then that's just more potential avenues of attack to worry about. Its possible the proliferation of this tech is what made the scrapcode tech so effectie later on.
Page 91
“The Vaults of Moravec have been sealed for a thousand years,” hissed Chrom. “The Emperor decreed that they never be opened.”
..
Moravec had been one of the most gifted of the ancient techadepts of Terra, a man who had fled to Mars to escape persecution at the hands of superstitious barbarian tribes of the radiation wastelands of the Pan-Pacific.
Apparently the AdMech kept the vaults hidden or closed for 1000 years for whatever reason, and the Emperor only reinforced that dictate. Which grates on the renegade faction. Given what happens when they open it, it can't be good stuff and was locked away for good reason.
Page 96
As the new design began to take shape in the centre of the workspace, Dalia realised that it had been staring them in the face, they just hadn’t realised it. Each of them, herself included, had been working within the hidebound traditions laid down in the Principia Mechanicum, the tenets by which all workings of the Machine were governed.
Aside from Dalia, the members of the team were grafted with shimmering electoos on the backs of their hands to indicate that they had passed the basic competencies of the Principia and were thus members of the Cult Mechanicum. Perhaps with this success she too might be fitted with such a marking, though it was through thinking beyond the Principia’s prescriptive doctrines that Dalia had seen the solution to their problem.
Dalia starts thinking outside the box to make progress. We also learn ab it about the basic doctrines and instructions of the AdMech. Again information control here.
Page 101
We have no reserves of ammunition beyond that which the forge ships of the Mechanicum contingent attached to our expedition fleet produce."
Expedition fleets seem to have their own support elements including "forge ships" - although we haven't really seen much in the way of this either.. they may only be included amongst the primary fleets rather than the secondary deployment groups.
Page 102
A host of Skitarii stood to attention at the base of the tower, hulking brutes in gleaming breastplates, cockaded helmets of bronze and fur-lined cloaks. Taller and broader than Kane, these warriors were designed to intimidate, their bearing that of men bred to kill and feel nothing beyond the need for combat. Strength enhancers, metabolic aggression spikes and pain-suppressers were worked into their flesh as augmetics or glanded into their nervous systems, and Kane felt a shiver of nervous anticipation as he approached, reading their spiking adrenal levels in the ambient electrical field.
...
The lead Skitarii, a muscular giant carrying a halberd decorated with all manner of bestial talismans, stepped forward and took Kane’s hand. The gesture appeared friendly, but was simply protocol and Kane felt the man’s dendrites mesh with the haptic circuitry within his hand. A green light flickered behind the warrior’s eyes as he processed the information.
Mars Skitarii. Seem more like augmented hive gangers.
Page 110-111
The entire eastern flank of Olympus Mons was laid out before him, layered with tier upon tier of engine houses, forges, docks, ore-smelteries and assembly shops that reached from the ground to the very summit of the long-dead volcano. Spires and smoke stacks clung to the mountain like a metallic fungus, hives of industry working day and night to provide for the Emperor’s armies.
Millions toiled in the Fabricator General’s domain, from adepts in the highest spires to oil-stained labourers in the lightless depths of the sweltering manufactorum.
Those privileged to serve the Fabricator General dwelt in the worker hives that sprawled eastwards for hundreds of kilometres like a slick out towards the corrugated landscape of the Gigas Sulci. A pall of smoke hung like a fog over the sub-hives of the worker districts, haphazard structures of steel and refuse bulked out with offcuts and unusable waste from the forges.
Beyond the domain of the Fabricator General, the volcanic plateau of Tharsis spread for thousands of kilometres, the landscape scarred by millennia of industry and exploitation.
Olympus Mons, Fabricator Generals of terrain. Includes lots of hives and "sub hives". Millenia of industry.
Page 113
“Long have we known that the supply situation for many of the Legion fleets would be troublesome,” replied Kelbor-Hal. “Given the distances the fleets are operating from Mars, supply problems were a mathematical certainty. You should have anticipated this and madecontingencies.”
The Expedition fleets are starting to experience logistical problems, a function of distance from Terra, and one they long anticipated. This tends to reinforce the idea Mars is the primary industrial source for the Crusade, but perhaps not the only one (there's the Forge ships, at least.. and probably other Forge worlds providing supplementary resources.)
This also tends to suggest that the crusade fleets are at the edge of Imperial space, generally.. and very spread out.
Page 117
Surrounded by the thousands of psykers, Dalia now understood the source of the voices she had heard during their descent to the chamber, the realisation making the sound swell within her skull. Still she could not make out the words or the sense, save that they were all directing their thoughts towards the individual enthroned at the centre of the chamber.
Earlier Zeth notes that Dalia's ability to hear the psykers is due to her unique talent, providing yet another confirmation that her intuitive gifts are psychic in nature and even more Mekboy-like.
Page 120
“Laszlo’s Skitarii easily overcame the tribesmen, and the secrets he discovered beneath the sands… so many remnants of times long forgotten and technologies thought lost forever. Secrets of energy transference, atomic restructuring, chemical engineering and, most importantly, the evolution of human cognition and communication through the noosphere.”
“The noosphere?” interrupted Dalia. “Is that what I saw between you and Rho-mu 31?”
Zeth nodded. “Indeed it was, Dalia. To those noospherically modified, information and communication are one and the same, a form of collective consciousness that emerges from the interaction of human minds and where knowledge becomes visible in shoals of light.”
“So why can I see it?” asked Dalia. “I haven’t been… modified.”
“No,” agreed Zeth. “You have not, but your connection to the aether renders you sensitive to such things, and as you develop your abilities, you will see more and more of the information that surrounds you.”
40K noospherics tech and such described. I suspect the Manifold mentioned earlier is something like that. Dalia's psychic powers duplicate the noosphere to some degree as well, suggesting the noospherics might be at least partly psychic based.
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