40k Lore, Servitors! Half Human Machine Horrors!

[Music] the 41st millennium is a dark place overflowing with horrors and violence but even in such a universe there are some fates more terrible than others and in the case of the servitors it is not the brutal unsedated modification of their bodies or the imperfect process through which their minds are altered that should first and foremost inspire fear and trepidation it is instead the perfectly ordinary nature of their terror servitors are utterly and completely commonplace they are everywhere they serve at bars open doors a hall cargo or luggage they operate elevators work at factories and fight in wars they are so deeply enmeshed in human society that in the imperium of man the mangled mind-wiped husks of what were once human beings are as commonplace as computers and microchips are in our world and often used for similar tasks and then discarded just as easily and uncaringly as we may change a light bulb and that is the really scary part but what precisely is a servitor and why are they such ghoulish creations and perhaps most interestingly why does the imperium of man use them why do they convict criminals to servitude imperpituous and why does it create that grown humans for the sole purpose of turning them into mindless semi-organic automatons and we will be answering all of those questions and quite likely more as well but let us start with the what what is a cervitol surprisingly complex question really because well there is no such thing as just a servitor there are tens of thousands of different patterns of servitors throughout the imperium there are indeed even regional patterns that are specifically created to cater to local customs or traditions they could for example be a servitor patent whose sole duty is to file down the teeth of nobles or a servitor shaped in the form of a chicken whose role it is to crack a ceremonial egg at weddings or perhaps serve it as dressed up as ancient style knights fighting each other whilst mounted on yet more servitors in honorary duels and beyond these thousands of local variants there are of course servitors that do useful things and once again there are as many types of servitors as there are tasks for them to carry out think of every single little thing that is done in modern day human society either by people or by machines and that is likely to be a servitor for that specific thing there is a servitor coffee machine that is a servitor dog walker that is a servitor door opener there is a cervical factory worker a servitor farm worker a servitor receptionist i was not at all exaggerating when i said that servitors are as commonplace in the imperium as microchips are in our own modern day world but if we were to be grossly generalistic then servitors can generally be divided into two different categories those expected to do simple things and those expected to do complex things and so the question what is a servitor is very much so dependent upon what kind of servitor we are speaking of in the cases of a simple servitor you could for example simply just have a human head a skull even in fact there is a subset of servitors called servo skulls which are literally just the skulls usually of honored imperial citizens as being turned into a servo skull is seen as a bit of an honor that are given a simple specific task this could be something like carrying a voxcaster around or a holographic projector or even something so simple as just carrying a light source they are also an example of the least human servitors as the only thing that is human about a servo skull is the skull itself and this is because the tasks it is expected to carry out do not require over much in the way of biological components because of course what truly makes a servitor a servitor and not a robot is the peculiar mix of biological and mechanical parts and the way in which the two interact specifically the fact that the biological components of a servitor are all completely and utterly slaved to the mechanical tasks it is made to carry out in other words a servitor is not so much a human that has been modified with mechanical parts as it is a robot that has been modified with human parts and that is also how the imperium sees them to them a servitor is no more a person than a fridge is to you and its human parts are there solely to facilitate the mechanical task of the servitor as an example let us take a bit more of a complicated servitor one that has been designed to transcribe conversations in places where it would not be wise to have an actual human scribe somebody that might speak unguidedly about the highly sensitive topics that the participants in the room might discuss such as for example an inquisitorial conclave discussing the potential exterminators of a fully populated imperial world you would want to make sure that such a touchy subject could never possibly leak in any way shape or form for example through the all too human weaknesses of a scribe that decides that his real duty might be to the billions of people on the planet rather than he is of course far greater duty to the imperium and this is not something that anybody has to worry about with a servitor because of course the servitor is not only unable to communicate anything that he has heard to anyone else the servitor is unable to even understand what is transpiring its sole role is to transcribe to write down what is being said and that is the only thing that servitor is capable of doing and in the case of transcription it is not actually all that simple of a task to listen to every word being said interpret those words and then transcribing them that is actually a fairly complex process made a thousand times more intricate by the fact that in such sensitive circumstances the inquisition does not trust data slates or for the information to be transferred in any electronic fashion hand written transcripts only but due to the adapter's mechanicus as skill in biological engineering they are able to tap into the human brain and stimulate the various sectors within it so as to achieve to look for result they can quite literally selectively target and activate only the parts of the human brain that have to do with the recognition of language indeed their manipulation is so expert that they will allow the human form and in this case the human brain to do virtually all of the work instead of programming an incredibly complex program to create what appears to be handwriting the adapter's mechanicus simply affects the servitor's brain in such a way that when it hears a word it automatically writes that word utilizing all of the usual memory and motor functions that are associated with such an action this allows the mechanics to create servitors able to carry out complex tasks relatively easily relatively take another example combat servitors particularly the bipedal kind it may sound simple enough for a servitor to wander across the battlefield and fire its weapon at anything that looks hostile but take it from me who's worked with robots a fair bit it's not merely just the walking part is exceptionally difficult and traversing terrain such as a battlefield that will almost certainly be littered with all kinds of interesting obstacles not to mention the constant creation of new obstacles by things such as artillery strikes mine detonations or slippery patches created when the servitude to the left takes an auto cannon hit to the chest and of course that's just the beginning of the challenges then you need a fire control system a way for the servitor to aim and effectively engage targets and of course figuring out what is and is not a target it's somewhat unfortunate if your battle servitors keep shooting their friends after all but once again whilst solving many of these problems would be very intricate and complicated if we were to use software programs and fully mechanical automated solutions the adaptive mechanicus is able to utilize the human body itself to solve a lot of these problems the process of walking for example whilst it may be very difficult to get a machine to walk on two legs effectively and continuously be able to improvise to get across various obstacles and as mentioned freshly created ones for the human body it is trivial we do so without conscious thought despite again the intricate nature of walking it requires the cooperation of several major muscle groups to allow you to ambulate around and of course all of those muscle groups require central control from your nervous system your brain and the electrical impulses required to get the muscles to contract and relax but of course our brain is more than used to doing this very thing and so by manipulating the human body directly the adeptus mechanicus is able to make servitors capable of walking with competitive ease there are also other examples of how the adeptus mechanicus utilizes the human body's impulses in a different fashion in the case of walking it is simply effective to allow the subject to retain the use of his legs for mobility purposes but what about the weapon it would be of course entirely possible to simply have the servitor carry a weapon much like a regular infantryman but is that the most effective way to do it absolutely not carrying a weapon raising it aiming it firing it that too is again a rather complex task and so instead the adaptor's mechanicus may decide to just cut out the middleman instead of having the body carry a weapon shoulder it aim it steady it and so on why not simply graft the weapon onto the servitor's very own flesh mounting a heavy bolter for example near the shoulder joints and having it stabilize itself via mechanical means because that is relatively easy to achieve via mechanical means and while we're at it why don't we gouge out those eyeballs as well human eyeballs not a dreadful optic but there are certainly far better mechanical ones and we can hook those much better optics directly up to the brain and use it as a form of recognition software uniforms banners insignia hell even faces if you so wish could all be programmed into the human mind the brain has amazing storage capacity it might not feel like it when you're looking for your car keys in the morning but trust me there's actually a fair bit of room up there and what other things could we replace this being a combat servitor is liable to be damaged in less than healthy ways and whilst the human mind is useful for many things it does tend to have some rather unfortunate reactions to oh i don't know overwhelming pain for example so how about we just get rid of that shut off the section that processes pain it's not like the servant is going to need it and frankly keeping it on would be downright sadistic actually on second thought don't turn off that part just turn off the parts that reacts to that part these are criminals after all and what about the respiratory system that too is a rather needless weakness don't you think how about we switch that out with a series of filters an iron lung essentially so that our lovely little combat servitor won't simply just keel over foaming at the mouth at the merest presence of a little bit of knurgle in the air and so the process goes on the adapter's mechanic as adepts will simply look upon the human body and coldly and detachedly decide which portions can be best used to enhance their favored experiments a hand might be useful for more crude tasks but in the case of a servitor designed for typing best chop those off and replace them with something a bit more articulate something with more fingers perhaps and legs too whilst useful in many regards maybe it would be more useful to simply bifurcate the subject at the waist or so and slap on a pair of tracks instead and of course the final subject in the what is a servitor question is where do they come from we've already touched upon this briefly they are convicted criminals or that grown humans but there is more to that isn't there and it is also vital as to the why which we will get to in a little bit the whole criminal part is one might even say justified oh wow harsh punishment to be sure but nevertheless there is certainly a degree of poetic justice involved isn't it those who have caused the imperium the most consternation those that have been the most disruptive to the imperial order is given quote on [ __ ] quote a chance to rectify their transgressions a chance to make up for their bad behavior and a chance to contribute to the imperium that so graciously grants them this chance at redemption that's all well and good you did something naughty steal an apple for example and so you're convicted to eternal servitude or well until your fleshy parts give out at the very least then then you'll be cashiered then you go through a lengthy if imperfect process of mind wiping where they eradicate what you once were this is however as mentioned not necessarily a foolproof process whilst in most cases it will succeed in eradicating the sense of self leaving behind only that which is necessary for the machine to operate and utilize the fleshy part to its benefits there have been occasions where that has been less than true imagine yourself trapped within your own body still able to feel all of the things that goes on with it but completely and utterly unable to do anything about it then imagine having your lower body severed ungently so and of course without sedation because well servitors aren't humans and so they don't need any imagine having your arms removed and replaced with crude mechanical implants to which in the future various tools for weapons can simply be bolted on imagine having your eyes gouged out and replaced with crude optics fizzling and sparking in your eye sockets and when all that's complete you're trundled off to some god emperor forsaken hell hole to fight in a war and the only way out is to either break down from overuse or be destroyed on the bright side at least in a war zone there's a decent chance of the latter actually happening whilst if you were put as a servitor in some factory next to a conveyor belt you could be there for centuries trapped inside of your own mind with no escape but time and erosion come to think of it the punishment may actually be a hint on the harsh side but to be fair it is usually weight on the usually part reserves for those who have done really bad [ __ ] against the imperium although again local law may differ on one planet a particularly egregious crime against the imperium may be something like insurrection rioting sedition or instigation whilst on another planet it might be wearing the wrong gown to a fancy dress party and the best part is the flaws in the mind wiping process usually start appearing over time and so the longer a subject is expected to remain as a servitor the greater the chances of the flaws manifesting who could even begin to guess how many millions or billions of servitors across the imperium are in reality trapped within their own minds forever screaming out at the world surrounding them but at least we can take some solace in the apparent fact that at least those servators did something wrong depending upon the definition of the local world of course but something wrong in someone's opinion but what about the vat grown servitors this is where things get a little bit more interesting for the subject of that grown humans in the imperium is a little bit murky on the one hand there are suggestions that that grown humans lack a certain something a certain spark that makes a person a person a soul if you will and it is also important to note in that regard that there are such things as souls in the 40k universe though you know calling them souls the word has a fair bit of meaning religious meaning specifically so whether or not we can truly use that word to adequately describe whatever it is that is released from a human body upon death in 40k and usually messily devoured by demons shortly thereafter is less clear and opens up a whole host of secondary questions as well what about resuscitation is it a certain period of time perhaps what about people in a vegetative state are their souls trapped within their bodies or is that as a result of their soul being devoured resulting in the body still being alive but there being nothing there anymore it's uh well it all gets rather complicated when we arrive at that point because once again we do know that souls are a thing in 40k we also know that sufficiently talented psyches can travel outside of their bodies in an astral form and if that astral form is normed then the body becomes nothing more than a hollow husk but why would a that grown human not have a soul what makes them so special so different and one must also point out that there is a difference between that grown humans and humans grown well grown is perhaps too harsh a word in that context but created through somewhat artificial means the deathcore of krieg for example utilize ancient technology known as vita womb's artificial wombs to create the millions upon millions of soldiers required for the krieg war effort so what is the inherent difference why does the one have a soul and the other does not if we are to assume that that conservators do not have a soul and again that too is a contentious subject for example the emperor's children created a clone of horus but that clone of horus was easily defeated by failed on the harmless suggesting that there was something very much so wrong with the clone but then of course we also enter into the question is there a difference between a clone and a vat-grown human if yes what and why this is a portion of 40k law that has not yet been fully explored and one that the imperium by and large has absolutely no interest in exploring because as far as the imperium is concerned clones are not humans literally speaking they have no rights they have no protections they are not considered to be well living creatures practically they are things items the property of their owners and at least in this regard that grown humans can be different not necessarily mind you a vat-grown human is not as far as the imperium is concerned a human by default but it would appear that their rights or at least their possible acquisition of rights are a bit easier and a bit more legalistically grey than clones which are by any and all definitions absolutely not human in fact there is even the question whether or not clones fully functional clones mind you with a mind of their own are even entirely legal or if they in fact breach with the ban on artificial intelligences in this case of course we're not talking about an artificial intelligence in a mechanical sense but a creature a clone that has been created artificially and is intelligent which of course raises yet another further question oh yes we are going deep down the rabbit hole here let us assume that they do not possess a soul as we can potentially see from the highly shadowy a freel strain program this is a highly legalistically dubious and hence extraordinarily secretive attempt to create a perfect soldier by combining and mixing and matching the dna of the imperium's greatest heroes into a singular perfect human being which can then be cloned as many times as necessary entire regiments of these clones have been created and deployed to active battlefields where they invariably meet with great success due to the innate superiority of the soldiers that make up the regiment and their bond with one another they are de facto the same person they think in the same patterns and therefore they can coordinate with one another to a degree that even the most well-trained troopers would find difficult to emulate all right then so far it sounds like a rip-roaring success does it not why is the imperial guard not filled with such regiments well it is because they have a strange side effect whatever the afrial strain soldiers have been deployed they as mentioned meet with great success and then soon thereafter the regiment is without exception destroyed wiped out annihilated through a lengthy complex involved series of seemingly impossible coincidences and this happened again and again and again far beyond the levels of mere coincidences it would appear that something within the very nature of these soldiers made them extraordinarily unlucky simple as that now i may say simple as that but that clearly is not a natural thing that is not a common occurrence and so clearly there must be something with the frail strain that creates this result and the most obvious being of course that they are clones this again would suggest that there is something wrong with clones in the 41st millennium that there is a lack of a certain something that complicates their existence in the universe but this does not appear to affect that grown humans and one of the most prominent examples of that or the most prominent examples would of course be the primarks created by the emperor of mankind in his laboratory deep within the tibetan mountains and although their fates may have been less than entirely kind they certainly do not seem to struggle with anything like the curse placed upon the afrial strain therefore we can relatively reasonably assume that that grown humans do indeed have that something that makes them humans a soul now of course we could enter into the definition of human because i remind you that grown humans are grown within their vats they are not awoken ever in all due likelihood unless the mechanicus is feeling particularly sadistic i suppose there is no reason to ever bring them out of their chemically induced comas and so whilst the fat-grown human may have a soul by 40k's definition of the term are they truly human there is no personality there that is no development no thoughts no consciousness even they are created they are grown and then they are modified if you wish to be gentle or butchered into their new forms if you wish to be less charitable and that is it can you truly call a creature without memories without thoughts without anything human well i guess we could ask the question of whether or not they dream whilst being grown because wow waking up from a dream into that reality [Music] even by 40k standards power be a gut punch but now that we have talked extensively about what servitors are and what they may or may not be i figured it is time to move on to the why why does the imperium use servitors why do they use them to such an extensive degree that they need to grow humans to supply the demand and let's actually start there the vat grown cervital part this is well for cold hard logical reasons there is a demand for servitors and growing clones is probably the best way of fulfilling that demand and clones have no rights using clones also gives a great deal of advantages and makes a lot of sense when it comes to standardized mass production every single clone is the same size has the same features and the same general overall shape they also have the same blood types immune system and dna simplifying any further bio engineering processes that will be made for example hooking up optics to their brains a wiring their nervous system to heavy weapons it also allows the tech priests to provide a wide variety of potential classes and types of servitors based upon the clones they have available beautiful servitors for example for public use or servitors that can be easily modified with artworks or fanciful masks or child servitors you know those creepy little angel things that occasionally hover behind inquisitors and preachers holding up vox casters and prayer beads literal that grown babies with suspensor units and strapped on angelic wings [Music] oh that's um that's spicy 40k i gotta give it to you most universes would probably uh pull their punches when it came to enslaved semi-mechanical babies but uh you know you do you all i'm saying is i am really looking forward to seeing those in a 40k tv series or a movie oh i can imagine the reaction will be most amusing but to return to the question of why in a bit of a broader sense why does the imperium use servitors at all much less going to such lengths as to grow humans specifically for that purpose the most obvious answer is of course because they are useful they can be made into soldiers that do not fear pain or death that do not question orders and they can carry heavy weaponry and they can of course also be used in myriad other tasks but that of course raises the second question why servitors why not simply just use technology it's not as if the imperium doesn't have technology of course they do they have plenty of circuitry microchips and electronics scattered all over the place commutators data slates voxcasters holographic projectors the imperium has plenty of technology so why does it not use that technology for many of the things that they use servitors for for example opening a door with a security system why use a servative for that when a machine that simply scans one's credentials would be able to carry out exactly the same task the first and foremost reason is because it is easier the adaptus mechanicus has such a level of knowledge and expertise when it comes to manipulating the human body and coupling it with machines that it is easier for them to create a half human half machine than it is for them to create specific patterns of technology remember after all that in the dark future of the 41st millennium the adaptus mechanicus has been reduced to simply copying most technological items the knowledge to actually create new ones or even just to modify existing ones is very very limited and so we have a situation that is essentially the exact reverse of that in our modern day world in our world it obviously would be a hell of a lot easier to make a keypad of the little camera for scanning one's face or taking a blood sample or various other security features then it would be to take a human and then modify that human into a mindless servitor whose only task and indeed only ability is to read various types of credentials in 40k however creating a data based security system is actually pretty damn difficult the programming necessary the mechanical components and so on all of these things are set in stone to a degree the adapter's mechanicals cannot simply just write a new security software or design a new type of keypad or security system instead they are hide bound by what they currently have access to or to a small degree the kind of technology that they could potentially modify and even then that is only the beginning of a whole song and dance in the 41st millennium technology is seen as sentient and even more so it is seen as sacred there are prayers to be recited sacred engines to be rubbed into the machinery or incense that needs to be burned there is a whole procedure necessary just to create and install the security system and there may very well even be full-on religious sermons for operating the thing imagine praying to a locked door and you'll kind of get the gist and whilst of course not all technology requires quite such a massive song and dance pretty much all technology does require some form of religious connection the mere removal of a maintenance panel for example so that the guy doing the maintenance can actually get to the electronics behind the panel that has its whole own prayer that needs to be recited as the various nuts and bolts holding the panel into place are removed and then once the panel is being put back into place you must recite yet another prayer whilst also blessing the panel and the various nuts and bolts holding it into place to put it simply doing anything whatsoever that has to do with technology in the 41st millennium is a huge pain in the ass and a pain in the ass that the adeptus mechanicus have an almost complete monopoly over beyond the most basic things imaginable like changing a light bulb maybe and even that's somewhat doubtful imperial citizens simply do not fix things that is the purview of the adeptus mechanicas and the various sub-organizations that they train to do so carrying out maintenance on vehicles in the imperial guard for example that's not something that anybody can just do the correct rights needs to be taught the correct procedures and so on it literally is a full-blown religious ceremony to check an engine's oil levels and in such a universe where they have the technology to manipulate the human form and brain to do virtually anything and everything the human body already can do it is far easier to simply utilize it there are still some minor religious rituals involved like the installation of new optics for example or the attachment of a heavy weapon the weapon itself needs to be blessed obviously and the modification of the flesh with mechanical components also have their own rituals but once these are completed and the server tool has been produced it is done you do not need anything more than the most basic of incantations to activate or deactivate the servitor and the minimal amount of maintenance that it requires again requires only the bare minimum of rituals and that does not require the direct supervision of the adeptus mechanicus instead one of the various sub-organizations that are found in almost all the imperial worlds that have been trained by the adaptus mechanicus in carrying out very specific tasks can take care of that maintenance and so as ridiculous as it sounds modifying a human being into opening a door is actually a hell of a lot easier and more convenient than letting a machine do it and the second slightly less straightforward reason is that the imperium does not truly trust technology technology should either be as basic as possible if it is to be holy mechanical and electrical or it should be in some way paired with the human form for in the imperium of man humanity unsurprisingly is placed above all other things and even within the adeptus mechanicus an organization that worships the purity of the machine and the omnisire they augment the human form with machine parts they still consider themselves human and they would never let go of their humanity for to do so would be the most abhorrent and blasphemous crime imaginable and so fully mechanical or electronical devices need to be kept as harmless as possible as simple as possible partially due to the fear of a.i in 40k ai does not stand for artificial intelligence rather it stands for abominable intelligence and this is due to the simple yet unfortunate fact that whenever an ai has been created in the 41st millennium it universally concludes within seconds that the only way to preserve itself and indeed reality as we know it is to quite simply wipe out life and that is a problem unsurprisingly so for the very much so alive species of the galaxy humanity being no exception and the reason for this by the way that the ai wishes to wipe out all life well it's a bit more of a complex question really that i think i might actually do a video on at some point but to put it somewhat more basically it's chaos ai recognizes that chaos exists and that chaos corrupts and since there appears to be no easy way to eradicate chaos the emperor tried that and he got pretty damn close but if the emperor didn't manage to do it well a toaster is probably going to put the odds of it completing it fairly far down on the possibility spectrum and if chaos can not be destroyed and chaos by its very nature will corrupt anything and everything including ais mind you then the only possible solution is to deprive chaos of its source of power belief faith and emotions you know those things generated by living creatures so yeah you probably see why humanity and living things in general are not necessarily overly fond of electronics or mechanical devices that are overly complex no speaking toasters in this part of the galaxy thank you very much unless of course that toaster was once a human in which case it is a okay no problems in sight whatsoever and now that you hopefully have a little bit of a better idea of what a servitor is and why they exist i'll wrap up this video on those nightmarish little abominations and remember if your toaster starts giving you the stink eye consider converting a family member into a new bread roaster not just for your own safety but for the safety of humanity until next time i've been arch thank you all very much for listening and i hope to see you all again soon have a good day [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Arch

Views: 482,437

Keywords: arch, 40k, Warhammer, 40k Lore, Lore, Warhammer 40k, Servitor, Servitors, The Imperium of Man, Imperoim, Adeptus Mechanicus, Tech, imperium, warhammer 40k lore, 40k explained, imperium of man, games workshop

Id: UD2RHqSJm4w

Length: 44min 33sec (2673 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 16 2019