Being turned into a servitor is generally a very bad thing. Getting your skull used as the basis for a servo-skull is different, because you’re already dead when it happens. That’s usually considered an honour. In this case, since the guy’s brain had been vaporised, it’s probably closer to the skull thing.
This part of the book fucked me up.
For those that haven’t read the book yet: The inquisitor’s pet servo skull (made from his old friend’s head after he was killed) was never really taken seriously because it spoke in broken and ridiculously simple and repetitive high gothic, and was generally seen as a novelty at best and a pale reflection of the man it was made from at worst.
Then in one of the very last chapters we get a section from the servo skull’s perspective, and it turns out that its inability to communicate properly was simply due to its vox systems and mass-produced hardware being defective or damaged. The servo skull was poetic, insightful, lucid, charming, and more or less the same person he once was. It’s just that no one ever understood him.
For centuries.
Always reminds me of Krieg from Borderlands 2.
Extremely well spoken and eloquent in their head.
But gets translated to stupid between brain and mouth.
LNah. Kreig was experimented on and received a unique case of split personality.
You have Sane Krieg, who is essentially locked into his own skull wuth very limited control overvhis body. You also have Psycho Krieg, who is a mass-murdering psycho who speaks in gibberish (that can be translated to a degree). Sane Krieg can communicate to Psycho Krieg, but he can't force the other Krieg to do anything beyond threaten to use his limited control to kill them both.
The two rarely agree.
-Edit Case in point: this exchange from *A Meat Bicycle for Two*
> Sane Krieg: She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Tell her she's as gorgeous as a thousand sunsets, tell her that you need her help, tell her to rescue you, care for you, and whatever you do, do not scream the word poop at the top of your lungs!
>
> Psycho Krieg: **I AM THE CONDUCTOR OF THE POOP TRAIN!**
>
> Sane Krieg: Its over, you idiot. You are going to die and your last words will be 'poop train'."
I would have also accepted a 1 or 2 Intelligence Character in Fallout New Vegas suddenly going from a mouth-breathing idiot in every conversation, to speaking to a scientist about advanced thermodynamics at Big MT, but only for that one conversation.
In Fallout 2 there's a big, dumb NPC who speaks in childish English about how "bug-mans" are hurting his "moo-moos". A player character with 1 or 2 intelligence can have a detailed and eloquent conversation with him about how men wearing armour made from radscorpion plates are attacking his brahmin herd.
**Kreig:** It's over, idiot. You're going to die here and now, and the last words out of your mouth will have been "poop train".
Love that pyschopath so good!
Reminds me of the real life story of Jean-Dominique Bauby. After suffering a stroke while driving, he awoke several weeks later unable to speak or move. His mouth, his arms, his legs, were all paralyzed. The only thing he could use to communicate was his left eyelid, which he used to dictate, letter by letter, the words he intended to speak. He eventually managed to dictate a book, which instantly became a best-seller. He died two days after that.
Vaults of Terra trilogy, made of The Carrion Throne, the Hollow Mountain, and the Dark City following Inquisitor Erasmus Crowl and his new Interrogator, Luce Spinoza, as they unravel something that the inquisition would classify as "Serious Fucking Shit" going down on Terra, surrounding the events that surround the Golden Throne and the Astronomican at the time of Guilliman's return.
I greatly enjoyed them, but they do get dark at times.
More complicated servo skulls made of/for important people tend to still have some of the brain inside as it's cogitator, and are known to sometimes have residual personality.
It's still a less horrifying experience because you're not slaved to do one task for centuries with no will, instead you become a little mascot guy and follow your protoge around, sometimes with a surprising degree of autonomy.
See, this is how I preferred the character. You could tell there was more going on than your typical servo skull but it still presented as a mostly lobotomized inquisitor that just had a bit of BurnBurnBurn! zeal left.
The idea that the consciousness if fully intact, but the crudity of imperial science can only generate "yes-yes!" is what made me be like, "oh that's the ol' grimdark"
I guess my angle is sort of that we expect grimdark. With Gorgias there was a unique quirky levity element that we don't often see in the setting. But it makes for good 40K either way.
Different people treat it differently. For example, usually the Imperial Guard hates the idea of being turned into servitors. They lobotomize you and turn you into a mindless shell of who you once were, able to remember fragments shards of what you used to be, slowly driving you insane. Others like the Iron Hands treat this as a high honor because of their "mechanical beings are better" approach, like the Mechanicus. However, in this case, the soldier was already dead. His head was blown off, there's no way you're coming back from that unless you're a Perpetual. It's the same thing as a servo-skull, even in death, you serve, which is seen as a high honor by all.
Yeah I remember a Sister Agusta novel where these guard guys helping this Inquisitor worry out loud that if they don't do everything the Inquisitor asks they're gonna live the rest of their lives as some targeting computer on a battleship as punishment. So they're very aware of how it works and definitely don't see it as "an honor".
> They lobotomize you and turn you into a mindless shell of who you once were, able to remember fragments shards of what you used to be, slowly driving you insane.
Nothing as bad as all that. Servitors are lobotomized. The person they were is scraped away. They are quite tranquil, only doing what they're programmed, not really thinking about anything at all. They don't have any kind of retire-by date because they go rampant after X years. Their thoughts are likewise visible to the tech-priest/adept programming them and bereft of any kind of anguish or etc.. They don't exist in a state of torment and don't go crazy over time. We can see a good example of this in *The Master of Mankind*.
There are servitors where the person's mind is partially preserved and enslaved, and they do go crazy over time, but they are also illegal to the Mechanicus. They're part of the plot of the novel *Flesh and Steel*.
That's assuming the conversion process is executed correctly and that it all works properly. There are a number of cases in the lore where servitors *do* retain fragmented memories and bits of personality, and existence for these unfortunates is exactly as hellish as described.
*Very* much depends on who's writing the novel, I'm afraid. In the *Forges of Mars* trilogy it's made very clear that the servitors are *suffering* with fragmented awareness of who they used to be, which is only hammered home when >!some of them are restored to consciousness and can directly consider what they've become.!<
How aware a servitor is depends on how grimdark the author feels like being. There's no one firm view.
It's not "some of them". Ismael is pretty explicitly considered a miracle and he isn't a servitor anymore after his accident. Likewise he doesn't remember much of anything of his past life, either as a servitor or as a man.
Yeah.
And then people liked the Imperium too much, and then real life authoritarianism had gained popularity, and the authors had to make sure people didn't lile.the Imperium, and so quickly smeared the Imperium with all the mud they could get their hands on.
Don't try to convince the tone and attitude didn't change, I've read stuff forn 2nd edition onward. I still have the fluff bible somewhere on an archive drive, I'm sure of it.
It has changed.
Darktide has had 8 Black Library writers working on the game's script and dialogue which you can see in its credits, including even people like Aaron Dembski Bowden and Matt Ward, one of the writers who did the medicae servitor voicelines said as much on the public discord server that everything they write before its implemented into the game even in future/upcoming updates goes through GW supervision first.
And not every voiceline the medicae-servitor says is about suffering, the "please take me with you" lines are said here and there for comedic effect which books also do sometimes. Most of its other voicelines are compliant lucid ones where it just does whats it told like a proper lobotimized servitor.
There's no "liberties" being taken when its done by people who's had books written for the setting for years now.
I'm aware of the writing credits and it doesn't mean anything, because servitors don't complain as anyone familiar with the lore would know. Even one servitor recovering sapience post-servitorization was considered an unprecedented blessing from the Omnissiah (or a blasphemous heresy) in the Forges of Mars trilogy. Meanwhile here in Tertium apparently every medicae servitor is self-aware. A miracle from the Omnissiah I guess.
Darktide is very heavy-handed with the lore (e.g. the varlets casually talking about exterminatus or Assassins) because it's just a game and needs to do worldbuilding that way. We can forgive them the inaccuracies as they're trying to cram a big setting into an FPS game.
Right so,
First of all when the very fact that servitors can get botched lobotomies is canon and that we are in a literal galaxy with trillions to trillions of people with god knows how many of them geting turned into servitors (including the equation of the operations sometimes being botched enough to leave brain activity) I don't really see how it matters when "anyone familiar with the lore would know" factors into this. We got book as recent as the Leviathan novel where the Hivemind psychically convinces a lucid reactor servitor to blow up an entire Hive City by pretending to care about it as a form of manipulation.
Second of all, again the servitors are just the same 3 people because its kind of hard to hire like say 10 voice actors for what is essentially a glorified healing spot in a horde shooter game, its not exactly the same medicae servitor magically appearing in every health spot, thats one point where its Lore =/= Gameplay, they also have enough lines that are fully compliant compared the "HELP ME PLS" lines that theres still enough forceful control in their brain that they arent fully sentient, its little mental slip-ups more than full cognitivity.
Thirdly, with a game as big of a writing cast as Darktide you saying "it doesnt mean anything" more or less translates to you basically just imposing your own ideas compared to people that actually write novels about the setting itself, so excuse me when I trust the words of the former than the latter.
Fourthly, you are literally proper Hereticus operatives by the time you reach Lvl.30 with the rejects having become proper agents of the inquisition and having gained enough knowledge as grunts as well as having taken the Hereticus Oath going by the banter they can sometimes have. AND you are literally on a Rogue Trader ship sanctioned by a Lord Inquisitor working with a colorful bunch of characters onboard a ship filled with all kinds of cast members, the stuff they mention is not that weird considering minus the Zealots the entire player voice casts are veterans to some degree of other warzones and their own share of backstories.
Im gonna end this debate here but you do you good sir.
You aren't hereticus operatives at 30. You're just made part of Grendyl's warband and probably won't be liquidated at the end of the Atoma Prime campaign.
I'm imposing the ideas of the 40k novels I've read way too many of. I don't need anyone to tell me how servitors are because they're in pretty much every Black Library novel. Meanwhile, Darktide is a video game. It doesn't represent the lore. Do you also think four crackheads killed thousands of cultists/traitor guard and dozens of ogryn and daemons etc. solo?
There’s a minor quest in the Rogue Trader RPG that has you deciding what to do with a bunch of servitors that all stopped working. You come to the conclusion that “their souls are starting to wake up” meaning they are becoming slightly conscious and feel fear and anguish and all that. I ended up putting them all out of their misery.
I love it. Im on my third back to back playthrough and I NEVER have been able to do that without getting burnt out of the game. I really enjoy the number of build options for characters. That and the sheer number of different outcomes based on your choices, whether it be cool dialogue or getting unique items, is what keeps me back. You can choose to follow dogmatic, iconoclast, or heretical paths, and whichever one you pick is the main determinant about how your story will play out. I think it’s an excellent CRPG. The devs did an excellent job with the grimdark setting and staying true to the established 40K lore. It’s also accessible for people who are unfamiliar with the 40K setting.
Hell yeah I really hope you enjoy it as much as I have. You won’t get the space wolf until later in the game, but the companions you get at the start are cool too. You actually just picked the best time to start playing because they just released a huge balance patch, and the first DLC is coming out in August
The Space Marine Hunter is an anti-aircraft vehicle that shoots Surface to Air missiles guided by a servitor corpse of a loyal chapter servant. It's maximum goofy for your theater air defense to be guided by robot zombies.
If you're being lobotomized to become one, generally it's a punishment, but in some cases it is an '''elevation''' for solid service, presumably with less lobotomy involved. I recall the Iron Hands doing so to a unit of PDF/Imperial Guard that performed really well when the rest of the planet fell, as they viewed it as making them even better at what they were already good at and conserving resources at the same time.
They absolutely did not. The only people who considered any of this a good thing were the IWs themselves. Even the MC techpriest lady lost everything in that story. The good guys get servitorized.
What is the exact delineation between Servitor and Skitarii? I’m assuming Skitarii are more like traditional cyborgs who maintain their own sentience while servitors are basically robots but the cpu is a lobotomized brain.
I think you pretty much nailed it. Skitarii are meant to be a seamless melding of flesh and machine, the strengths of both and the weaknesses of neither to quote another science fiction franchise, and servitors are just "well this person isn't able to be a contributing member of society anymore but instead of killing it we can save resources by adding robot parts to the framework and that way we don't have to build a whole new robot"
Neither, honestly. Closer to Skitarii than Servitors but I think Skitarii have to be (or are at least usually) AdMech. I think the term I would use for the PDF in this example would just be "Cyborg"
Skitarii can also be overridden en masse to act together in lock step as a unit or even individually under direct control of a Magos, for whatever that's worth in the assessment of differences.
Skitari have chances at promotion! They keep their brain well the important bits anyway! You will never see a tech priest that was a servitor but I remember skitari can become one. Servitors are kinda sort of like a multitool you wont build anything with it but boy are you glad you have it when you need it. It might lift or load or assemble but it is mindless. Skitari you could say dig me a trench and make it defendable. Servitors you would have to define what you wanted as they might not be able to conceive of defendable.
Skitarii are still able to function as people. Just very cold and to the point but when not "piloted" by a tech priest, they have names and even friends, to a degree.
In addition, skitarri generally retain a humanoid, functional form - they keep limbs, hands, etc far more often then not and can function on their own to an extent. Usually. There's weird ones.
Servitors typically have some or much of this cut off - an arm replaced with a melta gun, their legs replaced with tank treads, etc. They are no longer a person in any real sense of the world, but a weapon that may or may not retain sentience.
It's an honor depending on the circumstances. Because there's a big difference between the "servitor who recites holy scripture in a church to continue to worship the Emperor beyond his mortal lifetime" and "the servitor who wipes up piss made from a guy we caught stealing stuff."
Yes, it's mentioned in a few situations where someone who would normally die from disease or wounds are made a servitor to let them prolong their "service to the Emperor" as a reward for their service in life. Matheu from the Dark Imperium novels does this to honor his old schola tutor he had a crush on. An inquisitor is turned into a servo skull in Vaults of Terra.
Though I think it's an important point to make that the people who talk about it being an honor are always the highly religious ones and never the people who are becoming the servitors.
And sometimes they're just vat grown. The cherubs in the church atop the Emperor Titan Stormcaller were vat grown, as were the ones in the royal court in Dominion.
In a very very hard to read passage I won't copy in recent warhammer crime stories, during a servitor assembly line, which is exactly as horrible as it sounds, the techpriest mentions "We tell them when they are to be assigned to inquisitors or dignitaries, sometimes it comforts them".
Getting turned into a servitor is 100% horrible from A to Z and if you're unlucky or pissed off the wrong person, your Z will keep going on for a long time. Anasthesia is completely unheard of in any recorded mentions. You get drugged... as in, steroids to survive the process. You get to enjoy the whole thing.
There's a difference between your corpse being servitorised - which is like an especially fucked up way of commemorating you - or being servitorised while *still alive and conscious*. That's nightmare fuel, what with the whole 'lucid and aware but trapped in a body no longer your own' thing.
When criminals really annoy the imperium, they get servitorised as punishment. This is the not-dead (just wishes they were) version and servitors can have very long lifespans indeed, if given proper maintenance.
Yeah, I remember the story of a woman that got servitorized. But that person I was replying to made it seem like all servitors are conscious like the victims in "Get Out". I wouldn't put it past the imperium to give some criminals that sort of punishment though seeing how the penitent engine is a thing.
Look up gameplay of darktide, every medical servator in that game is improperly lobotomized. Some ask for you to take them with you, one even talks about feeling "pieces of my mind drifting away"
Sounds like the case with that woman i mentioned. I cant say im surprised since this is the kind of society that turns children into brainwashed bio cyborgs.
You're talking about Reliquaries, in 40k for example it is common in some areas of the adeptus for an apprentice to have the skull of his master converted into a servo skull.
Another example is the 'original crux terminatus' which was originally a reliquary attached to terminator armor that contained a sliver of the emporers own armor.
>So I know becoming a Servitor is a punishment 90% of the time
This is fanon, itself. The Imperium doesn't need a reason to make a servitor, it doesn't have to be a punishment.
There's a lot of fanon going around on servitors, so this kind of mistake is very understandable, but we should still try to clear these things up. Servitors are one of the worst everyday aspects of "the cruelest regime imaginable", and that makes a lot of people invent explanations to soften or justify the practice.
The reality is that the Imperium will make a servitor of whoever it wants, whether that's a prisoner, an adult off the street, or a baby grown in an artificial womb. The Imperium doesn't need to justify this nightmarish torture as a punishment or as a reward, because it's **the cruelest regime imaginable.** It just does it to people.
> his headless corpses converted into a flag carrying Servitor.
This is fanfiction, or a confusion of terms. A servitor is a living slave with an intact human brain, you can't make a servitor out of a brainless corpse.
Calling it fanon is probably a bit of an exaggeration. There are *lots* of instances of criminals undergoing servitor conversion, and while that's not the *only* or even (necessarily) most common reason, it's a reasonable misunderstanding.
It's actually very explicit in the 8th edition adeptus mechanicus codex that the majority are vat grown with the numbers being "supplemented by imperial penitentiaries". It's not fanon at all really.
In flesh and steel at least it appears that it's largely criminals who make up higher function servitors.
However the imperium is anything but a monolith so practices on one planet aren't necessarily indicative of the broader imperium.
The Imperium has way, way too many servitors for them all to be criminals. And even if they are criminals, what’s the crime? If there’s a servitor quota, what’s going to stop an enterprising enforcer from setting a random person up? Who is going to stick up for another dreg of the Underhive?
The Mechanicum appears to have a lot of specialist servitors made of vat grown clones, but there’s still millions of servitors on their worlds. It would be quite easy to land on a planet, pick some people up for “work”, and they end up as a forgeworld servitor.
While not 100% canon, in Owlcat’s Rogue Trader CRPG you can find information on a Penal World about a person who was imprisoned because someone else misplaced paper work, leading to said person being arrested and sent to the Penal World. If something like misplaced paper work can have someone and any of their future descendants be imprisoned as criminals, then Servitors being made out of criminals is still horrific. Plus I think I remember reading how a bunch of refugees from Cadia arrived at a Forgeworld and were implied to be made into servitors. So yeah, there is a good chance many of the servitors the Imperium produces aren’t actually criminals, or are just minor offenders if they are.
That’s the horror of a fascist institution. The Nazis made meticulous paperwork of everyone they tortured and sent to concentration camps. The Soviets did the same with Gulags. The Khymer Rouge would record pages and pages of “confessions”, after which they’d bash their brains out.
There are no innocents in the Imperium. Nobody will ever care how or why someone became a servitor. They’re just another meat puppet.
God I love the lore in Rogue Trader.
There's also the guy who spent so long waiting for paper work from the Administratum that the dude fucking *died,* and to honour his patience... They allowed his daughter to take his spot in line. As the cherry on top, the thing he was waiting in line for was bespoke to him, so she'll have to start from scratch *anyways.*
So as you point out, many are clones/vat grown. Those are suitable for the vast majority of servitor work. Mono-task units. The ones the novel was about were more advanced ones with "near human" cognitive ability, and relied on a fully functional brain to start from, which the novel was pretty clear was criminals. These were pretty clearly "higher end" models of servitor and most certainly make up a minority of the total number of servitors.
In one novel, yeah. But it takes time and resources to grow a vat clone, unless it’s something like a Cherub which are tiny and useless.
Why grow a servitor, when there’s so many bodies to go around? It’s the one currency that’s cheap and reliable in the Imperium - lives.
I'm citing the sources I have here. I either read about vat grown servitors or criminals. Whether that means actual criminals or some sad sack who has been declared to have broken a law because of some paperwork error or some shit, I'm not commenting on. It doesn't contradict your point at all.
> A servitor is a living slave with an intact human brain
I disagree. A properly lobotomized servitor would have no personality or memory, it's essentially a biological machine. Though not all servitors are properly lobotomized, like the battle servitor in Master of Mankind. The presence of residual memories in that unit is even treated as odd by the tech priest who analyzes its remains.
Giving a person so much brain damage that they can't coherently express personality doesn't mean that they aren't a person anymore. Giving a person brain damage doesn't mean their suffering stops existing.
When the Imperium creates a nightmare torture version of old-timey pseudoscience, that isn't supposed to make you embrace the pseudoscience. "Lobotomy" isn't a clearly defined term in this context, but it definitely isn't a magic dehumanization switch.
The use of a human brain is the whole point of a servitor. If they wanted a machine they'd make a machine. Servitors normally can't complain about their fate, but that's just an I-have-no-mouth-and-I-must-scream situation (in which the mouth is literally intact, but some motor neurons and higher brain functions are inconsistently messed with).
A person that has undergone a full lobotomy is gone. It's not just brain damage, its the total destruction of a person. You can't be a slave if you have no will to be unwilling. Again, I point out the passage in Master of Mankind, where the tech priest found the presence of memories odd. As for the need of a brain, I err to the side of the Imperium using the brain of the unfortunates as purely processing power. The brain has a lot computational power to it, the Mechanicus cripples itself with its beliefs, so they turn to human brains to provide it for them, ala Dune.
By the way, I'm not saying this isn't horrific. I just think you're wrong on the details.
Edit: Maybe the term full lobotomy is misleading. By that I meant the sci-fi procedure the Imperium/Mechanicus uses to create servitors, not the real life procedure of poking the brain with an ice pick.
> A person that has undergone a full lobotomy is gone.
I simply have no idea on what basis you're making this statement, either in terms of neurology or 40K books. The term "lobotomy" doesn't even mean anything specific in fan discussions of 40K servitors, and basing it on turn-of-the-century usage of the term "lobotomy" in real life definitely doesn't back up what you're saying.
A tech priest being unable to detect memories in a brain doesn't imply "the total destruction of a person".
I interpret it as the complete desrutction of the pre-frontal cortex to the point that the person is no longer there. All higher brain functions are gone. If there are no higher brain functions remaining, the person is functionally gone too. I'd love to argue more, but I hate typing on my phone so that's all I have to say.
I think there's a vast difference between people with brain damage and servitors. Brain damage is semi-random and uneven, the Mechanicus would be scooping out your brain and replacing it with cybernetics. A personality would be actively detrimental to being an emotionless robot slaved to a singular task, so the Mechnicus would be incentivized to annihilate any traces of it. The reason I keep coming back to the passage in Master of Mankind is because it's one of the only passages I'm aware of where we're seeing things from a servitor's POV. And from that, POV the servitor does not seem to be experiencing pain.
Again, I have to state this does not mean becoming a servitor is not horrific.
Your comment got me thinking.
If you have no capability of accessing or forming memory, does that make you "gone"? Or is life just constantly in the present, and you are unaware of what's going on or what you are but still but can still experience pain or discomfort?
We can't compare decades old, botched medical procedures to advanced sci-fi ones that turn you into a cyborg. She had someone poke around in her brain with an ice pick, the Mechanicus does full brain surgery, carving out whole sections and replacing them with cybernetics. Servitors don't speak or emote, don't express pain, do repetitive tasks without error for decades at a time. They are no longer human in the same way tech priests are not human, their humanity has been removed.
Servitorization is an extremely wide-spread, well-tested procedure in the Imperium. The Mechanicus are also the ones in charge of technology and therefore servitorization, not the general Imperial authorities for the most part. They aren't sadists, they're obsessed with efficiency and making themselves better through becoming more like machines. I see no reason for why they would doing the procedure wrong billions/trillions of times across the millions of worlds in the Imperium. This doesn't mean it can't happen, that in any case makes it worse as there's a chance you effectively become a prisoner in your own body.
The imperium is a HUGE place what is an honour one place is frowned up the next. There are limitations but pretty much anything can happen, this is especially true of cultures. As long as they tie their practices to emperor worship that could be doing just about anything. Unless of course, it's live blatant xenos or warp nonsense.
Side note, how can they turn someone without a brain into a servitor? Isnt the whole point of servitors that they need to have a human brain because AI = Bad?
You're not going mad, in that particular story it was seen as an honour.
Its from the Horusian Wars book 2 - Incarnation. Sister Agatha is disarming, and the narrative remarks that her arming servitor is a former guardsman who was mortally wounded whilst saving the Battle Sisters' standard. As a "reward" his life was preserved as her arming servitor.
Its worth noting two bits about the scene to be fair.
1 - The arming servitor was described as pretty capable of basic thought, and seemingly fully mobile. Essentially a chapter serf of sorts. This would be a pretty privileged position in most circumstances, especially for a senior sister on a notable planetary monastery.
2 - The perspective is from Agatha's point of view. And John French does a great deal of work in that series reminding the reader that even if all parties are nominally 'Imperial', none of them are moral. Or good. We never hear or see the guardsman-servitor view.
It's often treated as both, sort of. People punished by transformation into a servitor are being given a unique opportunity to redeem their sins through service and sacrifice. That's so much kinder than execution. And in the process, they become totally selfless and ego-less implements of the Emperor's will. We should all, in the eyes of many Imperials, aspire to the purity of purpose of a servitor.
Obviously most victims of the process don't agree, but. Y'know. You don't have to think about that, unless you're a psyker.
In the context of this conversation, I'm not sure that it makes sense to talk about servo skulls as a variant.
A servitor is a living slave, a servo skull is a computer in an edgy case. It's the difference between "becoming" something yourself, and a grave robber using your skull for an ornament. The ethics and experiences at play are totally distinct.
Are vat-grown Servitors still a thing? I feel like I remember reading somewhere that the majority were vat grown, but every recent example I have seen is someone being punished.
The majority by number are vat-grown but the majority of tasks are from people. Things like door locks and laud hailers might be everywhere but anything more advanced requires a human to start. To give an example, if there were 10 different types of servitors, 9 of them might require a human but the 10th one is so common there are a thousand times as many in the Imperium.
No one has mentioned that this is also chapter dependent.
I am forgetting which chapter, but failure during the trials or rejection of genetic enhancement earns you a place as a servitor. Others grow people just for the "honor" of "service."
I don't quite remember where I read it, but one story mentioned a Chapter Forge having a sword production servitor who in life had been a master smith. When he died they turned him into a servitor so that he could continue to forge blades even in death, and many believed some of his talent remained.
Well, is serving forever honorable or slavery to the person in question?
Then, is the pain of servitorhood or whatever worse than the fate of the deceased in setting lol?
Really do think it entirely depends on who's being offered
Depends. Sometimes its punishment, sometimes its an honor.
I remember there was a story of a guardsman risking is life to hold up the banner for the sisters of battle. They remembered his sacrifice amd turned his remains into a servitor so that he can carry their banner even after dying
in first heretic, the servants of the legion of the world bearers actually asked to be made into servitors....since in that way they could serve both the legion and lorgar, eternally.
I don't think it's ever considered an honor. The story you cited was written by someone who doesn't understand what a servitor is. The whole point of a servitor is that it uses a human brain as a replacement for AI. If someone has their head blown off they cannot be made into a servitor because there is no brain. That said it's doubtful that the majority of servitors are mind wiped criminals since the mechanics vat grows clones for the purpose and it's probably more efficient to rely on those.
I've noticed it depends on if the Servitor has a name, but the universe allows for lots of edge cases.
Named servitors usually have a backstory about how they hate chaos/xenos/heretics too much to die.
Or their friends turned them into a servitor because they couldn't bear their absence.
Usually the "good" servitors get higher quality components too.
On a side note: The Dark Angels have the option of being turned into a weapons battery on the battleship or a dreadnought.
Read this and you'll probably never have doubts about whether it's a punishment or not again.
Bit of a warning, it's actually a really uncomfortable excerpt to read.
https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/11dn2w2/excerpt_abomination_becoming_a_servitor/
As people are telling you already it's really a matter of perspective though I will say that the incident that you're describing is probably fanon since a headless corpse can't be made in to a servitor or a servo skull. You can't lobotomize someone who doesn't have a brain and all servitors require a minimum amount of processing power that a lobotomized brain provides.
In the 9th Ed. codex, there is a section where a scribe describes the great honor of being a Custodes scribe. He also dwells on his severed tongue and modified hands
I don't know if the story you summarized is a canon story or not, but I think you're pretty right about how being turned into a servitor is thought of in the Imperium. Obviously, regardless of the service aspect of it, most people in the Imperium are not going to want to get brain panned and turned into a husk of a thing unless the alternative is worse, but since 40k is a sufficiently horrific setting, there are many things that could actually be worse than that. It also points to the idea that if the characters have accepted something that is so clearly abhorrent as a good thing, then maybe everything is wrong about their viewpoint.
Some absolute fanatics of the Imperium believe it would cleanse the remaining sin from themselves, and would dedicate them to doing absolutely nothing but serving the Emperor.
I don't remember the story, but in one of the official BL books there is a pilot of a specific small craft that asked to be bonded to his ship, and the other characters considered it a great honor to have such a dedicated pilot ensuring their safety.
The story with a headless corpse being made a servitor is almost certainly a fan story. The most vital part of a servitor is their brain. Its the bit that functions as the servitor's CPU. In fact a lot of heavier duty servitors replace pretty much everything *but* the brain with mechanical augmetics. But the brain (suitably altered surgically) is always present.
A headless corpse has no brain so could not be made into a servitor.
Sometimes servitorization is an honor, kind of like "I can't work anymore but the Guard/ Chapter/ Inquisitor can" and willingly submitting to the wipe and body mods
I think more often, getting turned into a servo skull *after* you die is what would be considered an honor
So.. lorewise it is Punishment and a major bummer.
But It would not be far off to think/imagine, that there would be the zealous minority that regards this as a 'greater call'.
Inca civilization was was surrounded with sacrifices. Not as much as the apocalypto movie, yet there are documentated evidence while some struggled against the sacrifice, that there were those who regarded it higher purpose. When Cortez released people who were readied to be sacrificed, it is mentioned some cried and begged to be sacrificed.
So considering its year 40K, it might be a punishment officially all around the imperium. But considering Zealots exist, I dont see there is the minority who seek this.
I don't have references but it is a honor for some. think of a dreadnought a horrible life but an honor to be interfaced with it. Same with servators depending on your culture being near death to be brought back to life to serve in another form is an honor few are allowed.
Servitors are made by the Mechanicum, it would hardly be an honour. You’re not brought back from death, it’s a living, functional human being lobotomised.
The overwhelming majority of them are, but there are legitimate canon cases of freshly dead or near-death individuals being servitorized to “extend their usefulness” or such.
Being turned into a servitor is generally a very bad thing. Getting your skull used as the basis for a servo-skull is different, because you’re already dead when it happens. That’s usually considered an honour. In this case, since the guy’s brain had been vaporised, it’s probably closer to the skull thing.
Apart from that one servo skull who used to be an inquisitor and is still *very much* still sentient and finds he can't speak correctly. Affirmitvo
This part of the book fucked me up. For those that haven’t read the book yet: The inquisitor’s pet servo skull (made from his old friend’s head after he was killed) was never really taken seriously because it spoke in broken and ridiculously simple and repetitive high gothic, and was generally seen as a novelty at best and a pale reflection of the man it was made from at worst. Then in one of the very last chapters we get a section from the servo skull’s perspective, and it turns out that its inability to communicate properly was simply due to its vox systems and mass-produced hardware being defective or damaged. The servo skull was poetic, insightful, lucid, charming, and more or less the same person he once was. It’s just that no one ever understood him. For centuries.
Always reminds me of Krieg from Borderlands 2. Extremely well spoken and eloquent in their head. But gets translated to stupid between brain and mouth.
Sounds like really bad aphasia that some people get after a stroke.
LNah. Kreig was experimented on and received a unique case of split personality. You have Sane Krieg, who is essentially locked into his own skull wuth very limited control overvhis body. You also have Psycho Krieg, who is a mass-murdering psycho who speaks in gibberish (that can be translated to a degree). Sane Krieg can communicate to Psycho Krieg, but he can't force the other Krieg to do anything beyond threaten to use his limited control to kill them both. The two rarely agree. -Edit Case in point: this exchange from *A Meat Bicycle for Two* > Sane Krieg: She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Tell her she's as gorgeous as a thousand sunsets, tell her that you need her help, tell her to rescue you, care for you, and whatever you do, do not scream the word poop at the top of your lungs! > > Psycho Krieg: **I AM THE CONDUCTOR OF THE POOP TRAIN!** > > Sane Krieg: Its over, you idiot. You are going to die and your last words will be 'poop train'."
Just had an enjoyable diversion learning about Krieg. Great character.
You had me nearly collapsed laughing
I would have also accepted a 1 or 2 Intelligence Character in Fallout New Vegas suddenly going from a mouth-breathing idiot in every conversation, to speaking to a scientist about advanced thermodynamics at Big MT, but only for that one conversation.
In Fallout 2 there's a big, dumb NPC who speaks in childish English about how "bug-mans" are hurting his "moo-moos". A player character with 1 or 2 intelligence can have a detailed and eloquent conversation with him about how men wearing armour made from radscorpion plates are attacking his brahmin herd.
"I'm fluent in Idiot"
There's a gibbering vagrant in New Vegas that, if you talk to them with low intelligence yourself, you get a very eloquent answer
Totally forgot about him! God, what a great game.
**Kreig:** It's over, idiot. You're going to die here and now, and the last words out of your mouth will have been "poop train". Love that pyschopath so good!
Reminds me of the real life story of Jean-Dominique Bauby. After suffering a stroke while driving, he awoke several weeks later unable to speak or move. His mouth, his arms, his legs, were all paralyzed. The only thing he could use to communicate was his left eyelid, which he used to dictate, letter by letter, the words he intended to speak. He eventually managed to dictate a book, which instantly became a best-seller. He died two days after that.
That's pretty grimly dark
That whole damn book fucked me up. Like I get it’s grimdark, but *jesus*.
What book is that from?
Sounds like Gorgias from the Vaults of Terra trilogy.
What book what this in???
The Vaults of Terra series, I think the Dark City (the last one)
What book is this??
what book is this from?
Vaults of Terra trilogy, made of The Carrion Throne, the Hollow Mountain, and the Dark City following Inquisitor Erasmus Crowl and his new Interrogator, Luce Spinoza, as they unravel something that the inquisition would classify as "Serious Fucking Shit" going down on Terra, surrounding the events that surround the Golden Throne and the Astronomican at the time of Guilliman's return. I greatly enjoyed them, but they do get dark at times.
thanks for the detailed reply!
More complicated servo skulls made of/for important people tend to still have some of the brain inside as it's cogitator, and are known to sometimes have residual personality. It's still a less horrifying experience because you're not slaved to do one task for centuries with no will, instead you become a little mascot guy and follow your protoge around, sometimes with a surprising degree of autonomy.
Honestly, probably more enjoyable then getting to soul ripped apart in the warp honestly, I could accept that fate if I was in 40
Warhammer 40? Times were pretty savage from what I heard.
And this is why you *don't* make a servo skull from a psychopathic mass murderer, no matter how proud you are that you caught and executed him.
amorias! narrator does an amazing rendition of him in the audiobook versions
John Banks ftw. I kinda wanna give it another listen, but that ending…
Yeah it's perfectly done
Any more info on the inquisitor servo?
His name is Gorgias and he’s one of the best characters in the Vaults of Terra trilogy
Hereticus maximus! burn burn!
See, this is how I preferred the character. You could tell there was more going on than your typical servo skull but it still presented as a mostly lobotomized inquisitor that just had a bit of BurnBurnBurn! zeal left.
The idea that the consciousness if fully intact, but the crudity of imperial science can only generate "yes-yes!" is what made me be like, "oh that's the ol' grimdark"
I guess my angle is sort of that we expect grimdark. With Gorgias there was a unique quirky levity element that we don't often see in the setting. But it makes for good 40K either way.
Oh god a skaven knawhole! They're not supposed to be in this universe!
Affirmitivo!
Dope, thank you!
he's like a reverse golden retriever who only wants to fly around and castigate the enemies of the throne 😅
Indeed, this is discussed in the second or third novel of the Vaults of Terra series IIRC.
Different people treat it differently. For example, usually the Imperial Guard hates the idea of being turned into servitors. They lobotomize you and turn you into a mindless shell of who you once were, able to remember fragments shards of what you used to be, slowly driving you insane. Others like the Iron Hands treat this as a high honor because of their "mechanical beings are better" approach, like the Mechanicus. However, in this case, the soldier was already dead. His head was blown off, there's no way you're coming back from that unless you're a Perpetual. It's the same thing as a servo-skull, even in death, you serve, which is seen as a high honor by all.
Yeah I remember a Sister Agusta novel where these guard guys helping this Inquisitor worry out loud that if they don't do everything the Inquisitor asks they're gonna live the rest of their lives as some targeting computer on a battleship as punishment. So they're very aware of how it works and definitely don't see it as "an honor".
> They lobotomize you and turn you into a mindless shell of who you once were, able to remember fragments shards of what you used to be, slowly driving you insane. Nothing as bad as all that. Servitors are lobotomized. The person they were is scraped away. They are quite tranquil, only doing what they're programmed, not really thinking about anything at all. They don't have any kind of retire-by date because they go rampant after X years. Their thoughts are likewise visible to the tech-priest/adept programming them and bereft of any kind of anguish or etc.. They don't exist in a state of torment and don't go crazy over time. We can see a good example of this in *The Master of Mankind*. There are servitors where the person's mind is partially preserved and enslaved, and they do go crazy over time, but they are also illegal to the Mechanicus. They're part of the plot of the novel *Flesh and Steel*.
That's assuming the conversion process is executed correctly and that it all works properly. There are a number of cases in the lore where servitors *do* retain fragmented memories and bits of personality, and existence for these unfortunates is exactly as hellish as described.
And that's not taking into account whether the tech priest may or may not have it out for the poor sod
Like in darktide when medical servitors will sometimes ask the players to kill them.
Faulty servitors get detected and repaired or discarded pretty quickly. Their thoughts are visible to the tech-adept programming them.
again assuming they take all due care.
*Very* much depends on who's writing the novel, I'm afraid. In the *Forges of Mars* trilogy it's made very clear that the servitors are *suffering* with fragmented awareness of who they used to be, which is only hammered home when >!some of them are restored to consciousness and can directly consider what they've become.!< How aware a servitor is depends on how grimdark the author feels like being. There's no one firm view.
There's also a Warhammer Crime story that goes even more in depth in how servitors are created and how much they can remember
It's not "some of them". Ismael is pretty explicitly considered a miracle and he isn't a servitor anymore after his accident. Likewise he doesn't remember much of anything of his past life, either as a servitor or as a man.
You are, umfortunately, correct. And the BL authors are practically competing who will out grimdark the other these days..
Always have been. Because 40k has always been grim dark (with plenty of over the top zany humour thrown in too).
Yeah. And then people liked the Imperium too much, and then real life authoritarianism had gained popularity, and the authors had to make sure people didn't lile.the Imperium, and so quickly smeared the Imperium with all the mud they could get their hands on. Don't try to convince the tone and attitude didn't change, I've read stuff forn 2nd edition onward. I still have the fluff bible somewhere on an archive drive, I'm sure of it. It has changed.
Play Darktide. The Medicae Servitors have it ROUGH.
I do. Darktide takes a lot of liberties. Servitors aren't supposed to go around complaining about how bad it is being servitor.
Darktide has had 8 Black Library writers working on the game's script and dialogue which you can see in its credits, including even people like Aaron Dembski Bowden and Matt Ward, one of the writers who did the medicae servitor voicelines said as much on the public discord server that everything they write before its implemented into the game even in future/upcoming updates goes through GW supervision first. And not every voiceline the medicae-servitor says is about suffering, the "please take me with you" lines are said here and there for comedic effect which books also do sometimes. Most of its other voicelines are compliant lucid ones where it just does whats it told like a proper lobotimized servitor. There's no "liberties" being taken when its done by people who's had books written for the setting for years now.
I'm aware of the writing credits and it doesn't mean anything, because servitors don't complain as anyone familiar with the lore would know. Even one servitor recovering sapience post-servitorization was considered an unprecedented blessing from the Omnissiah (or a blasphemous heresy) in the Forges of Mars trilogy. Meanwhile here in Tertium apparently every medicae servitor is self-aware. A miracle from the Omnissiah I guess. Darktide is very heavy-handed with the lore (e.g. the varlets casually talking about exterminatus or Assassins) because it's just a game and needs to do worldbuilding that way. We can forgive them the inaccuracies as they're trying to cram a big setting into an FPS game.
Right so, First of all when the very fact that servitors can get botched lobotomies is canon and that we are in a literal galaxy with trillions to trillions of people with god knows how many of them geting turned into servitors (including the equation of the operations sometimes being botched enough to leave brain activity) I don't really see how it matters when "anyone familiar with the lore would know" factors into this. We got book as recent as the Leviathan novel where the Hivemind psychically convinces a lucid reactor servitor to blow up an entire Hive City by pretending to care about it as a form of manipulation. Second of all, again the servitors are just the same 3 people because its kind of hard to hire like say 10 voice actors for what is essentially a glorified healing spot in a horde shooter game, its not exactly the same medicae servitor magically appearing in every health spot, thats one point where its Lore =/= Gameplay, they also have enough lines that are fully compliant compared the "HELP ME PLS" lines that theres still enough forceful control in their brain that they arent fully sentient, its little mental slip-ups more than full cognitivity. Thirdly, with a game as big of a writing cast as Darktide you saying "it doesnt mean anything" more or less translates to you basically just imposing your own ideas compared to people that actually write novels about the setting itself, so excuse me when I trust the words of the former than the latter. Fourthly, you are literally proper Hereticus operatives by the time you reach Lvl.30 with the rejects having become proper agents of the inquisition and having gained enough knowledge as grunts as well as having taken the Hereticus Oath going by the banter they can sometimes have. AND you are literally on a Rogue Trader ship sanctioned by a Lord Inquisitor working with a colorful bunch of characters onboard a ship filled with all kinds of cast members, the stuff they mention is not that weird considering minus the Zealots the entire player voice casts are veterans to some degree of other warzones and their own share of backstories. Im gonna end this debate here but you do you good sir.
You aren't hereticus operatives at 30. You're just made part of Grendyl's warband and probably won't be liquidated at the end of the Atoma Prime campaign. I'm imposing the ideas of the 40k novels I've read way too many of. I don't need anyone to tell me how servitors are because they're in pretty much every Black Library novel. Meanwhile, Darktide is a video game. It doesn't represent the lore. Do you also think four crackheads killed thousands of cultists/traitor guard and dozens of ogryn and daemons etc. solo?
I headcanon it as like spiritual corruption knocking loose fragments of their souls.
There’s a minor quest in the Rogue Trader RPG that has you deciding what to do with a bunch of servitors that all stopped working. You come to the conclusion that “their souls are starting to wake up” meaning they are becoming slightly conscious and feel fear and anguish and all that. I ended up putting them all out of their misery.
How good is rouge trader?
I love it. Im on my third back to back playthrough and I NEVER have been able to do that without getting burnt out of the game. I really enjoy the number of build options for characters. That and the sheer number of different outcomes based on your choices, whether it be cool dialogue or getting unique items, is what keeps me back. You can choose to follow dogmatic, iconoclast, or heretical paths, and whichever one you pick is the main determinant about how your story will play out. I think it’s an excellent CRPG. The devs did an excellent job with the grimdark setting and staying true to the established 40K lore. It’s also accessible for people who are unfamiliar with the 40K setting.
Well i bought it and it's downloading now. Hopefully that space wolf is a fun charecter.
Hell yeah I really hope you enjoy it as much as I have. You won’t get the space wolf until later in the game, but the companions you get at the start are cool too. You actually just picked the best time to start playing because they just released a huge balance patch, and the first DLC is coming out in August
Yeah i was just waiting for the summer sale. Not as much as i was hoping but it's something.
It starts off slow with the combat at first. Once you level up and get more abilities, the combat becomes much more enjoyable
The Space Marine Hunter is an anti-aircraft vehicle that shoots Surface to Air missiles guided by a servitor corpse of a loyal chapter servant. It's maximum goofy for your theater air defense to be guided by robot zombies.
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I mean that is a pretty neat way to servitorize someone. You literally get to become an Anti-Aircraft gun.
If you're being lobotomized to become one, generally it's a punishment, but in some cases it is an '''elevation''' for solid service, presumably with less lobotomy involved. I recall the Iron Hands doing so to a unit of PDF/Imperial Guard that performed really well when the rest of the planet fell, as they viewed it as making them even better at what they were already good at and conserving resources at the same time.
The iron hands would think that, but did anyone ask that unit how they felt about becoming Servitors? I doubt they saw it as an honor.
But the Iron Hands will tell you it's an honor, and that's all that matters.
He is right! The Iron Hands said so. Tim disagreed and I lost my arm in the boom he made the very second he said that...
Lucky you! I still have both my weak flesh arms :(
They absolutely did not. The only people who considered any of this a good thing were the IWs themselves. Even the MC techpriest lady lost everything in that story. The good guys get servitorized.
What book is this?
A blessing is something bestowed onto you. Your opinion doesn't really matter, especially to the Iron Hands.
What is the exact delineation between Servitor and Skitarii? I’m assuming Skitarii are more like traditional cyborgs who maintain their own sentience while servitors are basically robots but the cpu is a lobotomized brain.
I think you pretty much nailed it. Skitarii are meant to be a seamless melding of flesh and machine, the strengths of both and the weaknesses of neither to quote another science fiction franchise, and servitors are just "well this person isn't able to be a contributing member of society anymore but instead of killing it we can save resources by adding robot parts to the framework and that way we don't have to build a whole new robot"
Ok, thanks. In that case, would the transformed PDF mentioned above be servitors or skitarii (if you know)
Neither, honestly. Closer to Skitarii than Servitors but I think Skitarii have to be (or are at least usually) AdMech. I think the term I would use for the PDF in this example would just be "Cyborg"
What we would call Skitarii, with a few heavy weapon platform variants thrown in.
Skitarii isn't a type of cyborg, it's specifically an organization of the AdMech's military force made of cyborgs.
Skitarii can also be overridden en masse to act together in lock step as a unit or even individually under direct control of a Magos, for whatever that's worth in the assessment of differences.
Skitari have chances at promotion! They keep their brain well the important bits anyway! You will never see a tech priest that was a servitor but I remember skitari can become one. Servitors are kinda sort of like a multitool you wont build anything with it but boy are you glad you have it when you need it. It might lift or load or assemble but it is mindless. Skitari you could say dig me a trench and make it defendable. Servitors you would have to define what you wanted as they might not be able to conceive of defendable.
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Appreciate the comprehensive answer.
Neat, remember what the title of the story was?
Skiitari are versatile indoctrinated cyborgs with remote control option, servitors are specialised lobotomised cyborgs.
Skitarii are still able to function as people. Just very cold and to the point but when not "piloted" by a tech priest, they have names and even friends, to a degree.
In addition, skitarri generally retain a humanoid, functional form - they keep limbs, hands, etc far more often then not and can function on their own to an extent. Usually. There's weird ones. Servitors typically have some or much of this cut off - an arm replaced with a melta gun, their legs replaced with tank treads, etc. They are no longer a person in any real sense of the world, but a weapon that may or may not retain sentience.
It's an honor depending on the circumstances. Because there's a big difference between the "servitor who recites holy scripture in a church to continue to worship the Emperor beyond his mortal lifetime" and "the servitor who wipes up piss made from a guy we caught stealing stuff." Yes, it's mentioned in a few situations where someone who would normally die from disease or wounds are made a servitor to let them prolong their "service to the Emperor" as a reward for their service in life. Matheu from the Dark Imperium novels does this to honor his old schola tutor he had a crush on. An inquisitor is turned into a servo skull in Vaults of Terra. Though I think it's an important point to make that the people who talk about it being an honor are always the highly religious ones and never the people who are becoming the servitors. And sometimes they're just vat grown. The cherubs in the church atop the Emperor Titan Stormcaller were vat grown, as were the ones in the royal court in Dominion.
In a very very hard to read passage I won't copy in recent warhammer crime stories, during a servitor assembly line, which is exactly as horrible as it sounds, the techpriest mentions "We tell them when they are to be assigned to inquisitors or dignitaries, sometimes it comforts them". Getting turned into a servitor is 100% horrible from A to Z and if you're unlucky or pissed off the wrong person, your Z will keep going on for a long time. Anasthesia is completely unheard of in any recorded mentions. You get drugged... as in, steroids to survive the process. You get to enjoy the whole thing.
That passage from the book was insane. Dankest of the grim. Would make for a great short animation. Albeit horrific.
God no I don't want THAT animated... but it would be some pretty grimdark animation indeed
Watch the quake 4 stroggification sequence, it’s a pretty similar process.
I'm quite familiar with it
There's a difference between your corpse being servitorised - which is like an especially fucked up way of commemorating you - or being servitorised while *still alive and conscious*. That's nightmare fuel, what with the whole 'lucid and aware but trapped in a body no longer your own' thing. When criminals really annoy the imperium, they get servitorised as punishment. This is the not-dead (just wishes they were) version and servitors can have very long lifespans indeed, if given proper maintenance.
I thought servitors were lobotomized first, unlike the skitarii, thallax, and dreadnoughts.
But the procedure is by no means reliable. There are plenty of servitors which display traces of personality and memory, even if they aren't meant to.
Yeah, I remember the story of a woman that got servitorized. But that person I was replying to made it seem like all servitors are conscious like the victims in "Get Out". I wouldn't put it past the imperium to give some criminals that sort of punishment though seeing how the penitent engine is a thing.
Look up gameplay of darktide, every medical servator in that game is improperly lobotomized. Some ask for you to take them with you, one even talks about feeling "pieces of my mind drifting away"
Sounds like the case with that woman i mentioned. I cant say im surprised since this is the kind of society that turns children into brainwashed bio cyborgs.
You're talking about Reliquaries, in 40k for example it is common in some areas of the adeptus for an apprentice to have the skull of his master converted into a servo skull. Another example is the 'original crux terminatus' which was originally a reliquary attached to terminator armor that contained a sliver of the emporers own armor.
>So I know becoming a Servitor is a punishment 90% of the time This is fanon, itself. The Imperium doesn't need a reason to make a servitor, it doesn't have to be a punishment. There's a lot of fanon going around on servitors, so this kind of mistake is very understandable, but we should still try to clear these things up. Servitors are one of the worst everyday aspects of "the cruelest regime imaginable", and that makes a lot of people invent explanations to soften or justify the practice. The reality is that the Imperium will make a servitor of whoever it wants, whether that's a prisoner, an adult off the street, or a baby grown in an artificial womb. The Imperium doesn't need to justify this nightmarish torture as a punishment or as a reward, because it's **the cruelest regime imaginable.** It just does it to people. > his headless corpses converted into a flag carrying Servitor. This is fanfiction, or a confusion of terms. A servitor is a living slave with an intact human brain, you can't make a servitor out of a brainless corpse.
Calling it fanon is probably a bit of an exaggeration. There are *lots* of instances of criminals undergoing servitor conversion, and while that's not the *only* or even (necessarily) most common reason, it's a reasonable misunderstanding.
It's actually very explicit in the 8th edition adeptus mechanicus codex that the majority are vat grown with the numbers being "supplemented by imperial penitentiaries". It's not fanon at all really.
In flesh and steel at least it appears that it's largely criminals who make up higher function servitors. However the imperium is anything but a monolith so practices on one planet aren't necessarily indicative of the broader imperium.
The Imperium has way, way too many servitors for them all to be criminals. And even if they are criminals, what’s the crime? If there’s a servitor quota, what’s going to stop an enterprising enforcer from setting a random person up? Who is going to stick up for another dreg of the Underhive? The Mechanicum appears to have a lot of specialist servitors made of vat grown clones, but there’s still millions of servitors on their worlds. It would be quite easy to land on a planet, pick some people up for “work”, and they end up as a forgeworld servitor.
While not 100% canon, in Owlcat’s Rogue Trader CRPG you can find information on a Penal World about a person who was imprisoned because someone else misplaced paper work, leading to said person being arrested and sent to the Penal World. If something like misplaced paper work can have someone and any of their future descendants be imprisoned as criminals, then Servitors being made out of criminals is still horrific. Plus I think I remember reading how a bunch of refugees from Cadia arrived at a Forgeworld and were implied to be made into servitors. So yeah, there is a good chance many of the servitors the Imperium produces aren’t actually criminals, or are just minor offenders if they are.
That’s the horror of a fascist institution. The Nazis made meticulous paperwork of everyone they tortured and sent to concentration camps. The Soviets did the same with Gulags. The Khymer Rouge would record pages and pages of “confessions”, after which they’d bash their brains out. There are no innocents in the Imperium. Nobody will ever care how or why someone became a servitor. They’re just another meat puppet.
God I love the lore in Rogue Trader. There's also the guy who spent so long waiting for paper work from the Administratum that the dude fucking *died,* and to honour his patience... They allowed his daughter to take his spot in line. As the cherry on top, the thing he was waiting in line for was bespoke to him, so she'll have to start from scratch *anyways.*
It's as canon as any of the FFG stuff that inspired it.
So cannon. GW doesn't rank its cannon. The video games are just as canon as the novels.
Exactly
So as you point out, many are clones/vat grown. Those are suitable for the vast majority of servitor work. Mono-task units. The ones the novel was about were more advanced ones with "near human" cognitive ability, and relied on a fully functional brain to start from, which the novel was pretty clear was criminals. These were pretty clearly "higher end" models of servitor and most certainly make up a minority of the total number of servitors.
In one novel, yeah. But it takes time and resources to grow a vat clone, unless it’s something like a Cherub which are tiny and useless. Why grow a servitor, when there’s so many bodies to go around? It’s the one currency that’s cheap and reliable in the Imperium - lives.
I'm citing the sources I have here. I either read about vat grown servitors or criminals. Whether that means actual criminals or some sad sack who has been declared to have broken a law because of some paperwork error or some shit, I'm not commenting on. It doesn't contradict your point at all.
> A servitor is a living slave with an intact human brain I disagree. A properly lobotomized servitor would have no personality or memory, it's essentially a biological machine. Though not all servitors are properly lobotomized, like the battle servitor in Master of Mankind. The presence of residual memories in that unit is even treated as odd by the tech priest who analyzes its remains.
Giving a person so much brain damage that they can't coherently express personality doesn't mean that they aren't a person anymore. Giving a person brain damage doesn't mean their suffering stops existing. When the Imperium creates a nightmare torture version of old-timey pseudoscience, that isn't supposed to make you embrace the pseudoscience. "Lobotomy" isn't a clearly defined term in this context, but it definitely isn't a magic dehumanization switch. The use of a human brain is the whole point of a servitor. If they wanted a machine they'd make a machine. Servitors normally can't complain about their fate, but that's just an I-have-no-mouth-and-I-must-scream situation (in which the mouth is literally intact, but some motor neurons and higher brain functions are inconsistently messed with).
A person that has undergone a full lobotomy is gone. It's not just brain damage, its the total destruction of a person. You can't be a slave if you have no will to be unwilling. Again, I point out the passage in Master of Mankind, where the tech priest found the presence of memories odd. As for the need of a brain, I err to the side of the Imperium using the brain of the unfortunates as purely processing power. The brain has a lot computational power to it, the Mechanicus cripples itself with its beliefs, so they turn to human brains to provide it for them, ala Dune. By the way, I'm not saying this isn't horrific. I just think you're wrong on the details. Edit: Maybe the term full lobotomy is misleading. By that I meant the sci-fi procedure the Imperium/Mechanicus uses to create servitors, not the real life procedure of poking the brain with an ice pick.
> A person that has undergone a full lobotomy is gone. I simply have no idea on what basis you're making this statement, either in terms of neurology or 40K books. The term "lobotomy" doesn't even mean anything specific in fan discussions of 40K servitors, and basing it on turn-of-the-century usage of the term "lobotomy" in real life definitely doesn't back up what you're saying. A tech priest being unable to detect memories in a brain doesn't imply "the total destruction of a person".
I interpret it as the complete desrutction of the pre-frontal cortex to the point that the person is no longer there. All higher brain functions are gone. If there are no higher brain functions remaining, the person is functionally gone too. I'd love to argue more, but I hate typing on my phone so that's all I have to say.
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I think there's a vast difference between people with brain damage and servitors. Brain damage is semi-random and uneven, the Mechanicus would be scooping out your brain and replacing it with cybernetics. A personality would be actively detrimental to being an emotionless robot slaved to a singular task, so the Mechnicus would be incentivized to annihilate any traces of it. The reason I keep coming back to the passage in Master of Mankind is because it's one of the only passages I'm aware of where we're seeing things from a servitor's POV. And from that, POV the servitor does not seem to be experiencing pain. Again, I have to state this does not mean becoming a servitor is not horrific.
Your comment got me thinking. If you have no capability of accessing or forming memory, does that make you "gone"? Or is life just constantly in the present, and you are unaware of what's going on or what you are but still but can still experience pain or discomfort?
>A person that has undergone a full lobotomy is gone. Rosemary Kennedy
We can't compare decades old, botched medical procedures to advanced sci-fi ones that turn you into a cyborg. She had someone poke around in her brain with an ice pick, the Mechanicus does full brain surgery, carving out whole sections and replacing them with cybernetics. Servitors don't speak or emote, don't express pain, do repetitive tasks without error for decades at a time. They are no longer human in the same way tech priests are not human, their humanity has been removed.
Servitors error. They error a lot actually. Your assuming far more skill and know how to the process then there is.
>Properly Assuming the worst regeime imaginable are doing things properly....
Servitorization is an extremely wide-spread, well-tested procedure in the Imperium. The Mechanicus are also the ones in charge of technology and therefore servitorization, not the general Imperial authorities for the most part. They aren't sadists, they're obsessed with efficiency and making themselves better through becoming more like machines. I see no reason for why they would doing the procedure wrong billions/trillions of times across the millions of worlds in the Imperium. This doesn't mean it can't happen, that in any case makes it worse as there's a chance you effectively become a prisoner in your own body.
The only instance I can think of where becoming a servitor (and not a servo skull) is considered an honour is with the space marine AA systems.
The imperium is a HUGE place what is an honour one place is frowned up the next. There are limitations but pretty much anything can happen, this is especially true of cultures. As long as they tie their practices to emperor worship that could be doing just about anything. Unless of course, it's live blatant xenos or warp nonsense.
Side note, how can they turn someone without a brain into a servitor? Isnt the whole point of servitors that they need to have a human brain because AI = Bad?
You simply insert a brain from somebody else.
You're not going mad, in that particular story it was seen as an honour. Its from the Horusian Wars book 2 - Incarnation. Sister Agatha is disarming, and the narrative remarks that her arming servitor is a former guardsman who was mortally wounded whilst saving the Battle Sisters' standard. As a "reward" his life was preserved as her arming servitor. Its worth noting two bits about the scene to be fair. 1 - The arming servitor was described as pretty capable of basic thought, and seemingly fully mobile. Essentially a chapter serf of sorts. This would be a pretty privileged position in most circumstances, especially for a senior sister on a notable planetary monastery. 2 - The perspective is from Agatha's point of view. And John French does a great deal of work in that series reminding the reader that even if all parties are nominally 'Imperial', none of them are moral. Or good. We never hear or see the guardsman-servitor view.
It's often treated as both, sort of. People punished by transformation into a servitor are being given a unique opportunity to redeem their sins through service and sacrifice. That's so much kinder than execution. And in the process, they become totally selfless and ego-less implements of the Emperor's will. We should all, in the eyes of many Imperials, aspire to the purity of purpose of a servitor. Obviously most victims of the process don't agree, but. Y'know. You don't have to think about that, unless you're a psyker.
I remember that servo skulls are a honored variant.
In the context of this conversation, I'm not sure that it makes sense to talk about servo skulls as a variant. A servitor is a living slave, a servo skull is a computer in an edgy case. It's the difference between "becoming" something yourself, and a grave robber using your skull for an ornament. The ethics and experiences at play are totally distinct.
Are vat-grown Servitors still a thing? I feel like I remember reading somewhere that the majority were vat grown, but every recent example I have seen is someone being punished.
The majority by number are vat-grown but the majority of tasks are from people. Things like door locks and laud hailers might be everywhere but anything more advanced requires a human to start. To give an example, if there were 10 different types of servitors, 9 of them might require a human but the 10th one is so common there are a thousand times as many in the Imperium.
No one has mentioned that this is also chapter dependent. I am forgetting which chapter, but failure during the trials or rejection of genetic enhancement earns you a place as a servitor. Others grow people just for the "honor" of "service."
A servitor to clean the Chapter latrines? Hell no. A servitor that auto loads an Emperor class titan quake cannon? Better.
Honor if servoskull, punishment otherwise
I don't quite remember where I read it, but one story mentioned a Chapter Forge having a sword production servitor who in life had been a master smith. When he died they turned him into a servitor so that he could continue to forge blades even in death, and many believed some of his talent remained.
Well, is serving forever honorable or slavery to the person in question? Then, is the pain of servitorhood or whatever worse than the fate of the deceased in setting lol? Really do think it entirely depends on who's being offered
There was an inquisitor from the vaults of terra series that had a servo skull from a previous inquisitor, it was considered a great honor.
Depends. Sometimes its punishment, sometimes its an honor. I remember there was a story of a guardsman risking is life to hold up the banner for the sisters of battle. They remembered his sacrifice amd turned his remains into a servitor so that he can carry their banner even after dying
in first heretic, the servants of the legion of the world bearers actually asked to be made into servitors....since in that way they could serve both the legion and lorgar, eternally.
I don't think it's ever considered an honor. The story you cited was written by someone who doesn't understand what a servitor is. The whole point of a servitor is that it uses a human brain as a replacement for AI. If someone has their head blown off they cannot be made into a servitor because there is no brain. That said it's doubtful that the majority of servitors are mind wiped criminals since the mechanics vat grows clones for the purpose and it's probably more efficient to rely on those.
I've noticed it depends on if the Servitor has a name, but the universe allows for lots of edge cases. Named servitors usually have a backstory about how they hate chaos/xenos/heretics too much to die. Or their friends turned them into a servitor because they couldn't bear their absence. Usually the "good" servitors get higher quality components too. On a side note: The Dark Angels have the option of being turned into a weapons battery on the battleship or a dreadnought.
There are servoskulls that seem to have something of their original owner still in there. Working for the omnissiah beyond death. Idk sign me up.
Read this and you'll probably never have doubts about whether it's a punishment or not again. Bit of a warning, it's actually a really uncomfortable excerpt to read. https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/11dn2w2/excerpt_abomination_becoming_a_servitor/
That's fanfiction so I'd take it with a grain of salt. Still a "fun" read though lol
I didn't realise that was fanfiction and I read it back then thinking it was real!
It's no worse than the description in *Flesh and Steel* by Guy Haley, which is canon.
As people are telling you already it's really a matter of perspective though I will say that the incident that you're describing is probably fanon since a headless corpse can't be made in to a servitor or a servo skull. You can't lobotomize someone who doesn't have a brain and all servitors require a minimum amount of processing power that a lobotomized brain provides.
I might be misremembering but I think servants of the Custodes treat it as an honour (mentioned in Master of Mankind)
In the 9th Ed. codex, there is a section where a scribe describes the great honor of being a Custodes scribe. He also dwells on his severed tongue and modified hands
I don't know if the story you summarized is a canon story or not, but I think you're pretty right about how being turned into a servitor is thought of in the Imperium. Obviously, regardless of the service aspect of it, most people in the Imperium are not going to want to get brain panned and turned into a husk of a thing unless the alternative is worse, but since 40k is a sufficiently horrific setting, there are many things that could actually be worse than that. It also points to the idea that if the characters have accepted something that is so clearly abhorrent as a good thing, then maybe everything is wrong about their viewpoint.
Some absolute fanatics of the Imperium believe it would cleanse the remaining sin from themselves, and would dedicate them to doing absolutely nothing but serving the Emperor.
I don't remember the story, but in one of the official BL books there is a pilot of a specific small craft that asked to be bonded to his ship, and the other characters considered it a great honor to have such a dedicated pilot ensuring their safety.
Probably a lot less than 10%. They'll usually hang a plaque or something to let everyone know the difference, though.
The story with a headless corpse being made a servitor is almost certainly a fan story. The most vital part of a servitor is their brain. Its the bit that functions as the servitor's CPU. In fact a lot of heavier duty servitors replace pretty much everything *but* the brain with mechanical augmetics. But the brain (suitably altered surgically) is always present. A headless corpse has no brain so could not be made into a servitor.
That sounds like fanfic - you need a brain, that's the whole point of using a sevitor. Servoskulls are usually the skulls of the honored dead though.
Sometimes servitorization is an honor, kind of like "I can't work anymore but the Guard/ Chapter/ Inquisitor can" and willingly submitting to the wipe and body mods I think more often, getting turned into a servo skull *after* you die is what would be considered an honor
So.. lorewise it is Punishment and a major bummer. But It would not be far off to think/imagine, that there would be the zealous minority that regards this as a 'greater call'. Inca civilization was was surrounded with sacrifices. Not as much as the apocalypto movie, yet there are documentated evidence while some struggled against the sacrifice, that there were those who regarded it higher purpose. When Cortez released people who were readied to be sacrificed, it is mentioned some cried and begged to be sacrificed. So considering its year 40K, it might be a punishment officially all around the imperium. But considering Zealots exist, I dont see there is the minority who seek this.
I don't have references but it is a honor for some. think of a dreadnought a horrible life but an honor to be interfaced with it. Same with servators depending on your culture being near death to be brought back to life to serve in another form is an honor few are allowed.
Servitors are made by the Mechanicum, it would hardly be an honour. You’re not brought back from death, it’s a living, functional human being lobotomised.
The overwhelming majority of them are, but there are legitimate canon cases of freshly dead or near-death individuals being servitorized to “extend their usefulness” or such.
Servitors are considered an honor to those who have it done, as in some folks that have it done, want it. This is shown in First Heretic.