Servitor
Servitors are mindless drones of flesh and metal used to carry out simple, manual tasks. They are one of the few tolerated forms of robotics in the Imperium, as they are simply surgically enhanced and mostly lobotomised cyborganic slaves, not true artificial intelligence.[8]
Contents
Overview
The Servitor is an essential part of Imperial life, a cybernetic construct entrusted with all manner of dangerous, repetitive, or menial tasks. They are also a dire warning; many Servitors are vat-grown clones, but many are — or were — criminals, mind-wiped and sentenced to unending labour.[45] Others are simply unfortunate menials, serfs, or other souls deemed inconsiquential by the Imperium. Then there are those chosen in tithes of flesh to be reforged.[62]
They can communicate verbally, but in a minimal fashion, as their higher brain functions are lost to augmetic replacements or stripped as either a punishment or mercy.[45] If they retain self-awareness or higher cognitive functions, then the individual is considered more like a victim of cybernetically enforced slavery, trapped within their own mutilated body. These unfortunate individuals can be kept mute and servile through psychic blockers installed into the center of the brain.[59]
While some servitors are vat-grown clones, others might be criminals, particularly ones who have offended the Cult Mechanicus, and sentenced to servitude imperpituis. Those chosen for servitorisation will be handed over to the Tech-priests to be mind-wiped, reprogrammed, and cybernetically-enhanced to serve some specific, rudimentary function.[3] It is common practice for servitors to be shorn of their past identities and be given new names. Despite this, some owners choose to keep their prior name, whether it be out of honour for the individual[59] or sentimentality.[43a]
The Imperium readily supplies the Mechanicus with cast-offs, malcontents and broken humans to be processed into servitors.[43b] Human slaves are also purchased en masse for the express purpose of conversion into servitors.[44] Most of these individuals who provide the organic components are transformed into mono-task servitors, programmed to execute a limited number of tasks.[43] Capable of serving as a familiar, multi-task servitors are advanced models that retain higher brain functions and perhaps the knowledge and skills they possessed before conversion. Any idiosyncrasies are merely ingrained nerve reflexes, or so the Tech-Priests claim.[45]
Consciousness
"It is a relatively simple task to leave a little of the person that was in the cyborg that is. The more flexible the unit is required to be, the more of the original neural architecture must be preserved. The more that is preserved, the further from the Lore of the Mechanicus the unit drifts."
Servitors are typically mindless, possessing only the most basic of instincts. Their brains are programmed to perform only the task they were designed for. In rare cases, physical trauma may cause fragments of the servitors' previous human personality to resurface. The altered and fragmented brain of a Servitor functions poorly unless constantly supervised. Most will go into a state of mindlock, babbling incoherent nonsense as the Servitor tries to assert some form of awareness.[3] This could also result in a servitor simply saying "help me" over and over.[43d] Other times, a rogue servitor might become aware enough to recognize themselves as a slave and their owner as a slavemaster. This could result in the servitor killing their master.[43a] Others upon gaining cognizance, might decide to befriend or faithfully serve their master, such as Graft, Ollanius Persson's heavy-duty agricultural servitor.[55]
Servitors may retain a sliver of consciousness from the person they once were, however, these remnants of awareness are not (usually) enough to truly understand the horror of their existence. The Magi Psykana with more heretical leanings say that although servitors and servo-skulls have no minds, they still retain their souls, and these suffer terribly. All a servitor should be able to sense is the physical through their truncated nerve clusters, as well as the complex machines grafted in the places where self and will once resided. The yes/no of binharic exchange overwriting their consciousness.[43a] It is considered tech heresy to create a servitor that retains a certain level of consciousness.[43c] Though it can happen spontaneously, such as the servitors aboard the flagship of the Von Valancius heir. The Rogue Trader's servitors all spontaneously regained full consciousness, visible through the desperate movement of their eyes, the trembling of their bodies, and their seeming terror when one of the servitors was disassembled before them. Despite this, they did not speak freely, and were capable of continuing their duties with no loss of function - in essence conscious yet trapped within their servitorised bodies. Depending on the Rogue Trader's personality and actions, they might have been disposed as an act of iconoclastic mercy, or else a more dogmatic and puritan Rogue Trader would have continued to let them serve, for the servitors had not yet paid for their due for their crimes in the past nor were deserving of clemency.[58]
Followers of the Cult Mechanicus typically believe that servitors are in communion with the Machine-God, and that those who have sinned against the Omnissiah can redeem themselves by providing the biological component of a servitor. They believe that through the sacrifice of their will the sinner finds salvation, thus the term "servitor". Due to this, some among the priesthood refrain from using the term "cyborg" when referring to servitors, as "cyborg" is far more general and could refer to anyone with one or more augmetics.[43a]
It is probable that just as there are many forge worlds, sects of the Cult Mechanicus, and innumerable techpriests all with their own idiosyncrasies, there is variation in the creation, maintenance, and ultimately behaviour and cognizance of a servitor:
"Do they feel pain, do you think?"
"No, the parieto-insular cortex that processes pain through the neuromatrix is one of many segments of the brain cauterised during the servitude transmogrification process."
"Systems failure. Why does it hurt? Help. Help. Help"
Function
Servitors are created by the Biologis of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and supplied to departments of the Adeptus Terra such as the Administratum, and to the Inquisition. Servitors make up the vast bulk of the population of Mars and other Forge Worlds, where they fulfil the role of workers.[1] On other Imperial worlds, Servitors are used in automated fabricatories. This can cause a rise in local unemployment, the human workforce being replaced by new employed Servitors, who are far more efficient. Partially due to not needing to sleep, a single Servitor can perform the work done by twenty humans.[47]
There are many types of Servitor, each designed for a certain task. Typical Servitors are "Technomats" which operate and service machines, "Holomats" which act as holographic recordists, "Lexomats" which are like human computers with tremendous calculating powers, and "Drones" which are living robots—stupid and essentially mindless slaves ideal for menial work and little else.[2] Servitors are ideally serviced by tech-priests, but in the absence of a fully initiated member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, a small isolated town may rely on someone who is simply handy with cybernetics for maintenance, such as clearing the memory cache of an abnormally behaving servitor.[59]
Servitors are often used to carry out the more dangerous or laborious duties, such as heavy mining. They also accompany Tech-priest Enginseers on the battlefield with the Imperial Guard, as well as Space Marine Techmarines. These types aid in the repair of vehicles or sometimes carry large and dangerous weapons such as plasma cannons. For both forces, the Servitors are practically identical cybernetically, although the servitors of some Space Marine Chapters are created from failed Marine Initiates. Perhaps the most feared of all the Servitors are the Praetorian Servitors, a class of heavily armed and armoured Servitor created from Ogryn stock that are deployed by the Adeptus Mechanicus to guard the Tech-priests and temples dedicated to the Machine God.[49]
In theory any living thing with a sufficiently-developed nervous system can be converted into a Servitor, as evidenced by Servo-Raptors, Psyber-Eagles, and the Black Gobbo gretchin, but it is generally considered a sin against the Omnissiah to create them from sapient xenos.[30] This has not, however, stopped a number of Magos from doing so despite their professed loyalty to the Mechanicus. House Delaque builds Spektors from Piscean brains, Vettius Telok commanded Servitors made of Orks,[11b] and Explorator Magos Caul went so far as to retrofit his Servitors with Tau weapons, communications systems, and even anti-grav suspensors.[35]
Servitors are extremely resistant to daemonic possession, utterly immune to the temptations of Daemons.[40] However, with great effort, demonic possession of servitors is still possible, though daemons will find such hosts provide little in the way of succor and sustenance, as servitors lack much in the way of the emotions that normally sustain them.[41]
Servitor Types
- Archivids - Spindly constructs that resemble the arachnids of ancient Terra, designed to torture and extract data from prisoners.[39]
- Battleclade Servitors are combat-orientated Servitors pieced together from the most hard-wearing organic elements. They are then fitted with armaments and tools that their commanding Tech-Priest needs for the mission at hand.[50]
- Auto-Proxy Servitor[50][62]
- Breacher Servitor[50][62]
- Combat Servitors can be armed with a wide array of highly effective combat weaponry and are programmed with basic weapon routines in order to use them.[13b][62] Weapons are often fully integrated with the servitor's body for maximum efficiency. Changing their loadout tends to require extensive rewiring and dock modifications to be made, requiring both time and the proper facilities.[62]
- Arco-Eviscerators use combat drugs and chain weapons.[21]
- Clipaeus-class Combat Servitor[51]
- Gun Servitors are military-grade units that are equipped with enhanced sensors, programmed with targeting cants and fitted with heavy weaponry.[13c]
- H-Grade Combat Servitor - Ogryn Combat Servitors, that can be used by the Astra Militarum[32]
- Herakli - Large Combat Servitors used by Adeptus Mechanicus armies.[12]
- Kataphron Battle Servitor — Powerful war Servitors used by the Adeptus Mechanicus.[24]
- Kill-Servitors - A type of Mutant Combat Servitor used by the Dark Mechanicum.[23]
- Pugnis-class Combat Servitor - Combat protocols dictate close attack patterns as its sole mode of engagement.[51]
- Technomedic Servitor[50][62]
- Calyx-pattern Task Servitor - One of the most common pieces of technology in the Calixis Sector. A single task servitor with numerous variants and sub-variants whos design is devoted to one of any number of specializations.[51]
- Cenobyte Servitors[4] (also — Cenobite Servitors)[9] assist the Chaplains of the Black Templars. They are used to carry relics into battle and intone prayers to the God-Emperor, as well as all other jobs given to normal servitors.[4] It is known that the Neophytes of the Black Templars who failed their duty became Cenobyte Servitors.[9]
- Choir Servitors are skinny, limbless cyborgs with concealed the mechanical workings to keep them halfalive. Iron plates are bolted over their eye-sockets and vox-amp grilles are fixed over their mouths. Their heads are linked with ribbed cables connecting their singing in perfect synchronicity. Other models include a variant hardwired into a massive mechanical steam organ.[28]
- Cogitator Core Servitor - A forbidden form of Servitor used by House Van Saar on Necromunda. They are produced by taking the Cogitator systems from Necromunda's many monitoring and regulating systems and splicing them into a standard Servitor brain.[13]
- Ecclesiarchal Servitors are exclusively used by the Sisters of Battle. They are specially modified by the Adeptus Mechanicus to suit the Sisters' needs and are dispatched first into combat zones to provide essential infrastructure for the Sister's campaigns; as well as providing maintenance for damaged vehicles and buildings. The Ecclesiarchal Servitor also has the ability to dismantle enemy fortifications, using its deep knowledge of structural engineering to cause extreme damage to enemy buildings.[6]
- Excruciator Servitor - Designed to torture and extract data from prisoners.[39]
- Guardian Configuration servitors have their plasma cutters replaced with other armaments. Solid ammunition weapons with an extended ammo feed stored in the servitor’s hollow chest cavity. With more two climbing spindles affixed with chain or power weapons.[5]
- Heavenly Host - Similar to Cherub's[60]
- Heavy Repair Servitors are fused with specialized repair gear.[13c]
- Industrial Servitors have been modified with rigs to lift loads, drill rocks or smash ore in one of the Imperium's countless industrial complexes.[13c]
- Janus Simulacrum - a type of servitor with only the barest use of organic tissue, it's operation steered away from the living cortex towards a cogitator. Although used only as a pecularity in the wealthiest's collections some more irate tried to bring its cogitator towards sentience and awareness, their ambition answered in their doom from the Cult Mechanicus, which does not tread lightly around the threat of AI.[61]
- Macro Servitors are extremely large and are invaluable tools on archaeological digs or journeys into underground tombs. Their drills and chainblades are also very handy in fights.[20a]
- Medical Servitors (also known as Med-Servitors[13a] or Medicae-Servitor[22]) are programmed to provide medical care.[13a] These Medicae Servitors can be mounted into wall niches,[53][54] little more than a human torso and head, they can wield a variety of medical tools in their mechanical arms.[53]
- Multitask Servitor
- Lathe-pattern Multitask Servitor[51]
- Munitorum Servitors are used by the Departmento Munitorum in countless menial ways. They are also sent to serve Enginseers in the Astra Militarum. There the Servitors used their industrial servo-arms to help with repairs and to also attack any foe that gets near them.[25]
- Obliviate - a type of servitor utterly devoid of cognition, left a soulless automata. The Mechanicum was forced to accept it as a form of Tech-Heresy due to the pressure of Adeptus Ministorum and Ordo Hereticus, abhorred with the destruction of the soul.[34]
- Ratting servitor - Used by Ratters to tackle significant vermin problems aboard the Misericord.[13d]
- Retriever Configuration servitors are designed for live capture, provided the target can be recovered from the servitor afterwards. They are usually mounted with a webber on its exterior, and a primitive auspex package is often added for tracking bio-signs.[5]
- Runner-Servitor used by Imperial Army Regiments to gather bins filled with spent lasgun powercells. The Servitors would then drag the bins away to recharge the powercells with a Charger Maw, before returning them to the Regiment's Troopers.[26]
- Samech Redemption Servitors are a pattern designed to scavenge the wastes of Samech, and are relatively autonomous, with the ability to self-repair and an instinct to seek out valuable technology, powered mainly through Transmuter Cores. Creation of a Redemption Servitor involves heavy replacement of the neck, arm, and leg joints with pivots that provide almost 360 degree rotation, a torso with four additional limbs, creating a squat arachnid profile and most models also use epidermal armour plating. Although its design varies with the forge of manufacture, it incorporates several pieces of Samech’s electro-magnetic wargear.[5]
- Scrivener servitor - Often used to write letters.[59]
- Servitor-manned stellar cartography drones[57]
- Servitor Psyker are psykers turned into servitors. Sometimes slaved to another individual, thus expanding or bolstering existing psychic powers. These pitiful creatures might be connected to their master's mind via a cable and crawl on all fours like some hound-creature on a leash. Known to be used by some masters of Scholastica Psykana facilities.[63]
- Servitor Imps are made from diminutive human bodies, though they are still able to carry heavy objects.[20b]
- Servo-scrutinary Familiars are employed as parts of Enhanced Surveillance Systems.[17]
- Servitor-Ogryn - Ogryns that have been converted into Servitors.[31]
- Skulker Configuration servitors are equipped for the express purpose of causing terror and disruption in Imperial populations. It is claimed that such versions have enhanced vox units that produce a range of unhallowed cries. The units are also frequently described as being rusty and in poor repair.[5]
- Standard Configuration servitors have a techxorcism cannon usually installed in the chest and fired through the gullet for neutralising other technological enemies and scavenging machines that may not be completely inert. In order to reach and disassemble precarious wreckage, also containing an auxiliary magnetic repulsion system that allows them to traverse unstable structures and its spindly limbs are capable of puncturing steel.[5]
- Techno-mat - Servitors that are tethered to Techpriests and attend to the functions of their owners' organic components. This is done by continuously feeding the Techpriests carefully monitored nutrients and stimulants. The entire process frees the Techpriests of the fallacies of flesh, so they can pursue knowledge.[49]
Techno-mats are tethered Servitors which attend to the functions of a Techpriest’s organic components, freeing them from the fallacies of the flesh in the pursuit of knowledge. Carefully monitored nutrients and stimulants are fed to the Techpriest continuously from the attendant servo-mat.
- Technical Servitors are a common sight in the Imperium; they are not intended for combat but are very useful in assisting battlefield operations. These are referred to as "mono-tasks", being physically changed and augmented to perform a specific function. Commonly they are used as load lifters and cranes, but more exotic mono-tasks include the heavy weapon mount and the mobile weapons rack. These are the standard Servitors that accompany a Tech-priest.[49]
- Golem Servitors are normally put to work at ports and can be equipped with thick pincer-hands.[18b]
- Xenolinguitor Servitors are designed to translate Xeno texts and write down the translations for the Imperium use.[7]
Non-Human Servitors
- Dog Servitor are Dogs that have been turned into Servitors.[36]
- Cybercanid
- Cyber-Mastiff - Caniform servitors made to pursue quarries.[48]
- Gunhound - More complex than a cyber-mastiff and also equipped with ranged weapons.[36]
- Cyberarachnid - Larger mutant breeds of spiders are sometimes turned into servitors to act as weaponised drones in Underhives.[52]
Notable Servitors
Images
Cenobyte Servitor with a Black Templar standard.
Cenobite Servitor sketch.[9]
Ecclesiarchal Servitor.[6]
Calyx-Pattern Task Servitor[51]
Lathe-Pattern Multitask Servitor[51]
Miniatures
Technical Servitor with arm implants that function as vices.
Gun Servitor armed with an implanted Heavy Bolter.
Servitor with Plasma Gun[23]
Combat Servitor with an electro-flail and a small chainsword.
Squat Servitor.[19]
female human servitor.[19]
Macro Servitor.[20a]
Servitor Imp.[20b]
H-Grade Combat Servitor[32]
The first Black Gobbo as a Gretchin Servitor[30]
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Servitor variations[42]
See also
Sources
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- 2: Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned - The Cult Mechanicus
- 3: Codex: Space Marines (5th Edition), pg. 72
- 4: Deathwatch: First Founding, pg. 107
- 5: Deathwatch: Mark of the Xenos, pgs. 90–91
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[Multiple Endings] - 59: The Colonel's Monograph (Novella)
[Help] - 60: Knightsblade (Novel), Chapter 5
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