Autosense
This is a clarification (reimage) of the technologies found in power armour autosense used by Space Marines in 40K. The idea is to ramp up he technology yet remove the tech feel and plunge the marine into spiritual relationship with his armour – one that makes sense to our modern mind set – and to show off the ethos and power of archaeotech. At the same time I wanted to build in some wriggle room that accounts for all the descriptions of autosense found in Black Library novels and codex colour text; from primitive HUD to the guiding hand of the machine spirit.
Autosense is a device that collects information via artificial sensors, processes and filters that information, and then feeds it directly into the mind of the wearer. This completely bypasses the wearer’s natural senses. A helmet with autosense does not have eye slits to look through, holes to let sound into the ear, it is completely (hermetically) sealed as part of life-support. Instead the helmet has artificial sensors mounted outside the armour.
Artificial sensor array: The Autosense make use of several highly advanced artificial sensors.
- The core visual sensor is wide spectrum, with particular focus on the THz wavelengths know as T-Lux. This band of light is in between infra-red and microwaves and has characteristics of both. In application is has the effect of being full on heat vision, but is also has a penetrating effect, so heat emanating from inner layers are also clearly seen. This gives a passive ‘x-ray’ effect able to penetrate clothing (but not metal objects), and will expose hidden weapons. It will also expose hidden snipers, and other hot objects much as a thermal camera. Lazgun blasts can be traced back to origin.
- The audio system is very sensitive, with Doppler effect processing for excellent sound placement in 3D space. It allows the system to place all noises within the environment accurately, and range them, including sniper locations (of the sniper’s weapon emits noise). It is so precise that it can function as a form echolocation.
- Smell is about as acute as a dog’s nose, and combined with molecule recognition the Autosense can detect the presence of many substances and direct the marine to them (note: A Space Wolf’s nose is more sensitive)
- Taste is not catered for.
- Touch – optional: the suit is covered with micro-hairs (similar in concept to a crab suing hairs to feel through it’s carapace) this allows the suit to feeling what is touching the surface of the armour, and internal strain gages allow the feeling over pressure. A marine can even feel the wind on his armour.
Artificial Instincts: The Autosense collects a vast amount of information through the artificial sensors, far too much for a human mind (even a marines!) to process all at once, so the Autosense has to filter and process this information into a feed that a human can absorb. In order to do this, and make the most of the sensory information collected, the Autosense utilizes cortex technology. This cortex technology is a dedicated machine sub-brain that is able to recognise threats by analysing the vast stream of incoming data, and passes these perceptions on to the marine as ‘instincts’. It is, in effect, a technologically enabled ‘sixth-sense‘. These instincts alert the marine to threats they can not usually see, and are prioritised in relation to the marine’s own instincts. If the marine takes notice of these artificial instincts and focuses in on a threat, the Autosense will instantly enhance the image to make it clear what the threat is.
This instinct feed is often interpreted as a ’spirit guide’ and the Autosense plays into this perception. This guiding ’spirit’ is the ‘machine spirit’ of the armour. It’s not the actual technology or AI, it’s the marine’s perception of their interaction with the Autosense and the feeling of presence.
Main site update
Now that the Inquisitor theme I created for the blog is sorted out and applied, and synced with the prototype theme of the main site, I’ll be updating main site to match. This will mean that over the next week or two, as I update it in between running around, the main site will be a mix of old and new. This is a bit of a mess, as the menus do not match, but hopefully it will not be like this for too long.
Edit (6 March 2010): All done. The main site is up to date! It was a serious mess under the hood, but is now the code is nice and clean (I may yet move all the pages to WordPress pages for easy management and added comments).
New Theme: Inquisitor
This is the new theme for this blog and my main website. My aim is to merge the two. This theme is a complete re-write from scratch; I first created the template for the main site and then adapted it to a WordPress theme. I named this theme ‘Inquisitor’ after the fact looks like a giant ‘I’ (I was going to call it simply ‘I’, but thought better of it). Its style draws heavily from the main site, with a few touches from the old ‘Philverse’ theme, all pulled together and streamlined for a more utilitarian look. The familiar ‘drop cap titles’ are carried over, mixing old manuscript and modern typography which seems appropriate for 40K, combined with clearer layout. Browsers have come a long way, it was much easier to create the drop caps, so a lot of Div tags and what-nots have be ripped out. A lot lighter and quicker.
The layout is not quite the same as the old blog as I removed the side bar, and all tracking information will be moved to a separate pages. I will add an archives page, and recent comments page later. My goal is to use this blog purely as a ‘news page’. I will update the main site later, once all the quirks have been ironed out here, with the updated theme.
As with all new developments on my site, they are designed to make it easier to get around and view, so I am very interested to hear what you think.
Battle Brothers, and Battle Sisters
The idea of female Space Marines is often debated on 40K forums, with each new generation of gamers end up asking the same questions as my generation did. The topic never dies for long, and reawakens with new gamers wanting answers and having dreams of creating the ultimate Amazons. In a sci-fi setting almost anything is possible in theory, but no female Space Marine has ever been portrayed in the background of 40K. This seems to be an absolute rule. However this is not the whole story, and delving into the deep past of 40K, it seems the Sisters of Battle started out pretty much the same of the Space Marines in many respects…
Power Conservation in Space Marine Armour
The Imperium makes heavy use of thermoelectric devices and materials, an advanced form of technology based on the Seebeck effect we know now, to convert heat into electricity. The STC power-packs found lining the interior of the multi-fuel engine fireboxes, and powers the ubiquitous Imperial Guard’s Lazgun, are thermoelectric devices. These power-pack are made up of a stack of layer core, much like a heat-sink, coated in a highly efficient thermoelectric material. When heated these layers convert the heat into electricity and store it in a battery.
These materials can also be incorporated into flexible materials and fashioned into a EES (extreme enviroment suits). Many environments where humans have to work in 40K are hostile, with extremes of temperature that would freeze a man solid or set their flesh ablaze in an instant, and to protect the wearer from these extremes the outer layer of the EES is often a super-insulator. While this is great for isolating the wearer from the enviroment, it also means that within the suit there is a build up of heat generated by the body. This is were the thermoelectric layer is vital as takes the build up of body heat converts it into electricity. This cools the body and keeps the internal temperature of the suit constant (as the parameters of the design only has to deal with body heat, and sub-system heat, it is easy to optimise the system), and the generated electricity is then used to power life-support subsystems via a rechargeable battery. Subsystems include the comms, air scrubber pumps, and water auto-sense gear.
Space Marines: These thermoelectric materials and devices are used in construction of the highly advanced Space Marine Power Armour. The armour incorporates a thermoelectric layer under the super-insulator ceramite armour plates. This not only cools the hyper-metabolism body of the marine, reclaiming spent power and feeding it back into the enviroment sub-system, it drastically reduces their IR (infra-red) signature make them virtually invisible to heat sensing equipment. Space Marines always appear at ‘ambient temperature’ when viewed through any heat sensor, auto-sense, or thermo-goggles.
Horus Heresy – An Alternative History?
I was discussing the Horus Heresy over on Dark Reign, when a heresy of my own popped into my head; instead of the Primarch betraying the Emperor, what if the Emperor betrayed the Primarchs! In this re-image the betrayed Primarchs would have to fight back with everything they have, seeing as the Emperor is so powerful, and this would drive the Primarchs into the arms of chaos. As they draw on warp energies, in their desperation to survive, they become corrupted.
Now all I need is a good rationale as to why the Emperor would betray the Primarchs?
I think that comes down to the fact the Emperor is a magnitude of power greater and can see much of the future and makes some very harsh choices others can not hope to understand. Not only a re-image of the Horus Heresy, but perhaps a re-image of Earth’s religious mythologies and fables for a modern audience. The Primarchs would be much more the ‘angels who can not disobey’, until one does…
Monomolecular Edge
The first monomolecular edge blades turn up in the Stone Age as obsidian based prismatic blades, and later in the Atomic Age in glass scalpels used in cardiac surgery. While incredibly sharp, and even used by the Aztecs in construction of the Macuahuitl, they are ineffective at defeating metal based armours – let alone the advanced ceramics of the the 41st millennium. A sharp blade, even one a mere molecule wide at the cutting edge, can not cut through such tough materials.
The monomolecular edge really comes into it own with the development of phase field technologies and the ability to imbue phase into materials, to produce ‘phased materials‘, also know as ‘exotics’. Using this technology an advanced ceramic blade, or a metal blade with bonded diamond edge, can be phased to imbue it with unearthly abilities. The most common imparted ability is a ‘power field’ effect seen in the far more advanced ‘power sword’ (dealt with below). The power field effect is a phenomena where a material touched by the outside of the field (the blade conducts the field to the surface) is ’softened’ as the bonded between molecules are drastically weakened and even negated. This allows a relatively ‘fragile’ blade to cut through very tough materials with ease.
Slann
I really like the old Slann for the Rogue Trader era. You do not see them about much these days. They seem to have been over-written with the ‘old ones’. I suppose in current background the Slann are the ‘old ones’, the terms interchangeable, though ‘Slann’ never seems to be used. The problem is that the old ones are so utterly-powerful, and the Slann being mere space frogs, that there is a bit of a disconnect. They do not really much up in concept. I quite like the idea that the Slann of the agents of the Old Ones. At time the interaction may be deeper, and the Slann Priest may function as vessel for part of an Old One’s conciousness, an avatar of an Old One, or visionary. I see the Old Ones as only being able interact with reality through the Slann.
Iron Men and the STC
I was thinking the Iron men would be the ‘front end’ to the system – the friendly face of the STC. The Iron Men would co-operate and interact with the colonists to design the systems and infrastructure the colonists wanted and needed.
It would not take much storage in future technology terms to house all the templates and standards for a new colony based on STC. Coupled with a AI to manage it all and interact.
The benefits of such a set up would be to deny humans full control of the colony infrastructure, making harder for humans to screw it up (making it idiot proof by removing the idiots 
). If the Iron men are human shaped it would mean there would be a certain amount of redundancy built into the system as a whole, as the tools and gear used by the Iron Men for maintainable could also be used by humans too – should the Iron Men hand over control of that side of things. Also all access ways, and control panels are humocentric. Some Iron Men could even by quite human looking, maybe even like Ash of Bishop of Aliens or Terminator covered in synthetic flesh, enabling expression and ease communication.
In case of an accident the Iron Men may be vital – a colony could have a single Iron Men, and that Iron Men would be the source of knowledge for their survival. The Iron Man would know how to make tools from scratch, to use them and teach others, to start building and planing for a later civilization, while taking care of the colonists immediate survival. The tools the Iron Man makes first of all would be used to build shelters etc. but later they could build more advanced tools using the tools they have already made, and keep advancing, step by step.
I single Iron Man could rebuild a civilization from scratch, though how long they last would be anyone’s guess – I imagine they would at least get a colony up to the Iron Age or greater, maybe even up to the industrial revolution, or leave a lot of project plans and blueprints for future generations to go into an industrial revolution later. The Iron Man could even build a printing press and print out books.
On a full STC supported colony, with hundreds of them helping out, and STC machines and automated factories with rapid prototyping machines for molds, to build what they need, and to build ever more advanced tools to make more advanced devices (and more even more advanced tools), which in turn are used to make even more advanced devices (and more advanced tools), and so on – I suspect a colony could be quite advanced in no time 
There are a lot of benefits to having the STC inside an ‘Iron Man’ who is human sized, proportioned, and who uses tools that humans could use too.
More on the 1,000 marines
I started an discussion over on the Bolter and Chainsword forum that has been fascinating to me. I always enjoy hearing how others interpret the universe of Warhammer 40,000, and this discussion has shown to me how different other’s views of the same text can be, and how deep those interpretations can go. I thought I was 100% right, but listening to others I see once again how wonderfully fluid the background really is, and the new ideas other’s views bring to the table. I still think I am correct (I would wouldn’t I! As I think my view tend more towards the background’s ethos and intent, but these other view are very interesting). If you have the time and are a member of Bolter and Chainsword (if not, why not!) why not pop by and chip in your own unique ideas to the thread?
The Thousand Marine Myth – corrections?
Adverts
This site uses third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit. If you would like more information about their privacy policies. click: Adbrite, Amazon. If you would like to use Adbrite click the button to the right.
