Monday Open Thread – Warhammer 40k Titan’s on Parade

Per Usual: Images and links are from Lexicanum or the Warhammer 40k wiki

Two Imperial soldiers are crouched down (cowering down) behind an upturned slab of concrete as bullets, plasma shots, and other ordinance fly by in an almost solid stream, praying to the God Emperor for deliverance from their imminent death.  The masses of heretics were poised to overrun their position when the ground starts trembling causing anyone standing to tremble and almost down.  In the distance a massive head with what appear to be two cathedrals on either side appears.  As the ground trembles harder and harder to the staccato rhythm of massive machines they come closer and closer, the enemy ranks are frozen as these huge machines approach, the tallest some 200m tall while the shortest is only 35m tall.  The bores on the guns facing down the enemy were wide enough that a tall man could walk in without hitting his head or touching the sides.  These immense Emperors of the battlefield stopped at exactly the same time and raised their weapons to fire into the heretic masses.  The guardsmen are on their feet, celebrating their rescue.  The Titans all open fire at the same time covering the battlefield in an incandescent spray of light.

The first to die are the guardsman as their bodies are pulped by the pressure wave from the weapons firing, hurling their broken bodies into the slab of cement, actually fusing the first millimeter of flesh with the concrete.  Then their opponents all die, burnt away by the weapons on the titans.  The Titan’s start moving forward again towards the real target and a real fight.

Ok, not gonna lie, a creative writer I am not, so tell me how horrible or not the above was and I may try to do more like this in the future or as Sgt. Friday always said “Just the facts”.

Anyway Titans (for a look at Titans in detail HERE ) are built and housed on forge worlds as only they have the necessary knowledge and materials to build them.  And remember all forge worlds are administered by the Mechanicum, so the Mechanicum has the most powerful land weapons in universe in their possession.  Something I am pretty sure they remind the rest of the Imperium of on a regular basis.  Titans come in different types and with different weapons with some weapons only being useable on the biggest titans, with where they were created also making a difference in size, weapons, and shielding.  With being such monumental structures, each one is unique and have their quirks and flaws.

Due to the Mechaicum’s stance on AI the titan must be crewed as there is only as much automation as necessary (mainly weapons only).  Crews are used to monitor the titan, load some weaponry, and repair the Titan on the move.  The crew is led by the Princeps who by merging with the machine spirit will be able to move the Titan as if it was their own body.  Even with the millions of planets held by the Imperium, very few people are capable of being a Princeps due to the stress of integrating.  My personal aside here is that from what I have read, the machine spirit of the titans is an AI that has probably been partially lobotomized or crippled in some way, maybe even partially insane.  The Priceps has to integrate with the spirit (AI) to get the titan to move as commanded and that integration is only created through a battle of wills.  Soon after becoming a Princeps, the Princep will often have themselves encapsulated in an amniotic fluid containing pod which will permanently integrate them into the machine, only to be removed on death.  This is so they do not have to continually reintegrate with the titan, which could lead to some instability issues on both the machine spirit and the Princeps.

Let’s see Monday nights – pretty sure there is a baseball game on somewhere, maybe some hockey, and hey, you might even find some champeenship cornhole!

Next time – Famous and Infamous Titans.  Will not be stoned when I write that.