Science and Technology

Servitors, Servo-Skulls and Familiars

The Imperium's mastery of genetics and biological sciences compensates for its refusal to trust thinking machines. Where one might expect to find a highly intelligent cogitator such as the important functions of aiming ships weapons in the immense distances of Space, or in the calculation of the flow of wealth, one will often find one of the Imperiums bio-mechanical horrors instead. In roles once held by machine-servants and artificial intelligences, the Imperium places its reliance in flesh and brain-meat - deploying a collection of horrific engineered biological forms to do work humanity once relied on thinking machines to complete.

Servitors

The most common of these horrors is the Servitor a human or abhuman cyborg that has been deliberately robbed of free will by extensive technological augmentation of the brain. Servitors fulfil many roles across the Imperium, they are ubiquitous, save for the most technologically regressive worlds Servitors can be found everywhere.

Servitors serve two practical uses, one they can perform activities where thinking, sentient, human would fail for various reasons, two they serve as an example for criminals that dare to breach the laws of the Machine Cult or the Imperium.

Servitorisation is a punishment considered preferable to death as it ensures that the body of a criminal will serve where its deviant mind would not. The process is complex and cruel, Servitors are sometimes referred to as 'lobotomized' (a barbaric practice of involuntary neurological mutilation) but that fails to appreciate the extent to which this punishment is enacted on the brain of the individual. Servitorisation is not about causing deliberately inflicted brain damage, far from it, the process 'preserves' the brain to act as the central intelligence for the cyborged machine it will later power. The brain is extensively implanted with bionic augments that trap it in cycles of pre-programmed behaviour unable to deviate from them without additional programming by a Tech Priest. This is important for while particularly stupid individuals might be condemned to an existence of menial servitude bright intelligent brains serve to become advanced calculators or the control mediums of vast machines.

Exactly how much of the sentience of the individual survives inside the mind of a Servitor is a question few Tech Priests have applied themselves to studying. And all for the better, for the unanswered possibility that something does survive the process serves as an all the more terrifying deterrent to criminals and rebels.

There are more than a few examples of Servitors one can name;

• Tech-Thralls sometimes called 'Labour Servitors' on Imperial Worlds, Tech Thralls are Servitors designated for labour use, they might be pressed into combat in times of dire need with extensive reprogramming but for the most part they are dedicated to either aiding human labourers in their tasks or labouring in areas where humans cannot. Agri-Servitors can be found plodding through crops with scythe-like bionics to aid the harvest, and ogre-like Migou crafted from vat-grown brutes have augmented bodies that can survive the toxic atmospheres of many mining and forge worlds -the complexity of these servitors vary, from multi-task servitors capable of multiple roles, to monotask servitors who are devoted to fulfilling one specific duty.

• Interfaced with Vehicles and Vessels Servitors can commonly be found amputated to save space and blended into the machinery of many vehicles and every void craft in the Imperium. Serving as the thinking brains to power targeting computers, navigational devices, even simply bound into servitor-choirs to blare out hymns to sooth the souls of sailors at Warp these more static servitors are common examples of their kind.

• Expertise Servitors are almost invariably culled from criminals who possess some specific desirable talent, skill or intellectual capacity for a complex task. They are no more capable of independent thought then a normal servitor but enough is allowed to survive to ensure they server almost as an 'artisanal' example of their kind. A good example would be the Calligraphus scribe-Servitor whose keenly augmented mind and quill-tipped limbs make it incredibly efficient at copying documents, transcribing speeches and taking minutes of meetings. Expressionarius Servitors are a particularly horrific fate awaiting those with artistic talent who dare speak out against the Imperium their artistic brains twisted and augmented to devote them to a lifetime of producing rote artwork for Imperial propoganda, or decorating an Imperial site.

• Combat Servitors cover a wide range of cyborg creations from the simple Gun Servitors who act as platforms to lug heavy weaponry into battle, to the fearsome Murder Servitors who are outfitted with horrifying arrays of blades and are as much weapons of terror as they are combat machines. Combat Servitors are used both support units, and disposable forces, where it is felt that human lives being expended would be a waste - many powerful individuals surround themselves with a variety of these creatures finding comfort in their unthinking dumb loyalty to them.

• Devotional Servitors are a mix of individuals turned over to Cult Mechanicus and Imperial Cult religious activities. From Servitor-choirs, to those that trudge the streets of Imperial Cities bellowing proclamations endlessly, to those who serve only to scourge themselves as perpetual penitents for particularly theatrical priests. Arco-Flagellants straddle the line between these and combat servitors being both examples of the horrific fate of heretics, and raging bezekers when released.

Servo-Skulls

While Servitors are an expression of one of the worst forms of punishment the Imperium can inflict on a criminal, Servo-Skulls are considered a symbol of veneration. A posthumous honour in the eyes of an Imperium built on its veneration of the dead and the past, it is not uncommon for the skull of a deceased Imperial servant of stature, statues are, after all, reserved for only the mightiest Imperial rulers and heroes, for most their remains being reused as a Servo-Skull is the highest form of posthumous veneration they could hope for.

Shortly after death, the venerated body is decapitated and the head flensed of skin and muscle, to create the core of what will become the Servo Skull this is then fitted with rare anti-gravity technology

There are many varieties of Servo Skull created across the Imperium, uni

the most basic, taken from honoured servants usually, are little more then drones

Machine Spirits

It is a core tenet of the Cult Mechanicus that all machines are endowed by the Omnissiah with a Machine Spirit - the core or 'soul' of the device which must be placated with appropriate ritual behaviour in order for it to fulfil its sacred function. These rituals are shrouded in mystery and tradition, and can vary from something as simple as pressing a series of buttons while reciting a carefully-timed fragment of Binaric prayer to elaborate, cargo-cult rituals involving sacred unguents, incense and invocations of the Omnissiah.

Great Machines

The Machine Spirits of so-called Great Machines - immense, complex constructions like an Imperial Navy warship or a Titan - are nurtured and coaxed into life by the priests of the Cult Mechanicus. This is a delicate and sacred process which begins with the uploading of a living neural pattern: by ancient Machine Cult law, this must be taken from an animal. This neural pattern is embedded deep in the machine's systems, filaments growing through every control system and layer of code. Throughout the engine's lifetime it will learn and grow, becoming marked by the experiences and histories of the human crews which serve the mighty machine, and taking on some of their qualities and memories.

The Cult Mechanicus keeps banks and banks of genetic data and neural matter for this purpose. Various animal minds are approved and tested for various machine taskings: a freighter might use some sort of placid herd animal mind, easily roused to rapid action by threats but otherwise easy to guide and handle during long straights of inactive travel. A Warhound Titan, by contrast, will often use a predator's mind (often a pack hunter given warhounds are often deployed in squadrons), aiding the Princeps linked into it by giving them instincts humans otherwise lack.

The Mechanicus require only a tiny sample of neural material for the stability required to upload to a large machine's systems, meaning some extinct animals live on through these bizarre means.

This process can have its downsides, however. The strength of the primal mind of the Machine varies from forge to forge, from wild animal neural pattern to domesticated one; some Forges prefer to sheath the wild untamed neural pattern raw into the machine, whereas others tweak and lobotomise it until it is servile.

Regardless of local Forge habits, the sacred symbiosis of blending a human mind within a machine's manifold - the neural interface through a Mind Interface Unit or MIU required to pilot a Titan, and preferred by some Navy captains to steer their vessels - has an impact on the human component. The stereotype of freighter Captains being sedentary isn't entirely undeserved, for example, but it isn't entirely their fault either; the mind of the ship influences them just as they influence the ship. A Warhound Princeps might go a step further, displaying predatory body language, or even filing their teeth to points - such is the potency of an awakened Machine Spirit.

The Throne Mechanicum technology integrated into Imperial Knights is a rare exception to these processes, produced to STC patterns to allow a single pilot to operate these large mechanical fighting machines where in their God-Machine cousins of the Titans whole teams of Princeps and Moderati are required. The Throne Mechanicum typically possesses a default source program that dates back to the dark age of technology - embedded in it is a overarching drive to protect the worlds upon which the Knight is based - this infectious thought is something of an origin of how the noble protectors of the Knight Worlds such as Anaximund Alpha came to be and is a unique technology not fully understood by the Mechanicus.

Lesser Machine Spirits

Lesser Spirits, such as those found in laspistols, cogitators and other less awesome devices, are not born from living neural patterns. While the Mechanicus make no formal theological distinction between Machine Spirits, the 'Spirit' of an advanced weapon is more likely to be an ancient onboard computer, with a few characteristic quirks - or in some cases, something unique and supernatural. In most cases the techno-animism of the Machine Cult simply masks interaction with technology that possesses no animus of its own - though nobody educated enough to understand that a Tech Priest 'appeasing' the spirit of a Laspistol is simply sending instructions to the processor that governs its firing mechanisms and charge regulators would be stupid enough to say such a thing out loud for fear of persecution as a Heretek.

To this end the Imperium and Mechanicus apply a belief that all machines are possessed of this animus though they treat it as something to be respected it should be noted that both the Imperium and Mechanicus possess an innate fear of 'thinking' machines so rather than being responded to with joy, a machines 'machine spirit' answering back to the user is generally reacted to with horror followed by the destruction of the item as noted above, the fear of thinking machines is deeply engrained in Imperial and Mechanicus cultural history.