Friendship For Gearheads

by dawnbreez

A Helping Hoof

Brother Gentoo furrowed his brow--or, rather, what little was left of his organic brow. The right half of his face had long since been improved from the base model, with the left half about 50% of the way there. His eyes had already been replaced three times over, by increasingly more powerful lenses; his hands had been replaced with a massive claw for holding workpieces, and a set of fine manipulators more dextrous than any human hand could possibly hope to be. Naturally, he had already been fitted with two more arms, and had another pair on back-order.

"You want to...understand," Brother Gentoo muttered, "how a lasgun works."

In all his days in the Adeptus Mechanicus, Brother Gentoo had seen many things. He had seen towering, slavering horrors, evolved to catch prey at a distance with mouths that could be fired like harpoons. He had seen armies of green-skinned raiders, all clamoring for blood, all wielding firearms and riding vehicles that were crimes against the Machine Spirits. He had seen, on very rare occasions, a Space Marine turned traitor--usually the ones with the giant speaker stacks, actually. He briefly wondered if this meant anything. Perhaps Slaanesh was testing him with these mighty, hellish sound systems.

Certainly, someone was testing him. Whether it was a Chaos God or merely this small purple horse remained to be seen.

"Yes," said the small purple horse. It was a Xeno, of course. Xenos, nominally, were for purging. They aren't meant for talking to, or for explaining things to, or for research (as much as Brother Gentoo would like to research some of the things he finds). Xenos, according to all laws and rules of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Imperium of Man, were for purging on sight.

But if there was one thing Brother Gentoo had learned in all his years, it is that sometimes one must break a few rules in order to follow others. At this very moment, Brother Gentoo was supposed to be shooting xenos, repairing this lasgun so he could shoot xenos, contacting their home base over a Vox-Caster that was also in need of repair, and--as the local contingent of Gray Wolves had insisted--leaving some xenos behind for the Wolves to "have fun with". In addition, he was supposed to be ordering an exterminatus, waiting for orders to begin exterminatus, confirming with his immediate superior that an exterminatus would be necessary, and waiting for that Gray Wolves chapter to get into position over the planet so they could hit the big red button.

"Are you...sure you wish to know?" Brother Gentoo scratched his head with one of his manipulator arms. He had taken to chatting with the xenos, purely for research purposes, and also because he had no reason to waste lasgun charges--or more importantly, risk cracking one of the lenses--just to kill xenos that would be dead soon anyway.

"I think it'll be a valuable learning experience," the small purple horse said cheerfully. "And if I can give you a hoof, it'll help you learn the value of friendship!"

Brother Gentoo tapped his chin. He could use a hand around the workshop. "Very well," he said. "Let me show you how I fix lasguns."

The little purple pony trotted up next to him and sat down, watching intently.

"First, I recite the Litany of the Machine Spirits, and prepare the Anointing Tray, so that I may guide the Spirits and prevent them from becoming lost."

The little horse used its heretical psyker powers to levitate a pencil and paper, taking notes as he set out the Anointing Tray.

"O Hallowed Spirits," Gentoo said softly. "In thy honor I beseech thee. I hath removed the battery, as thou will't, and in doing so laid thee to rest so that thou may fight another day."

"Sounds like Old Ponish," the xeno muttered.

"Quiet!" Gentoo hissed. "Now, as your eyes are upon us, we shall remove the screws which bind thy spirits to this holy weapon, and anoint them with the fourth Oil of Anointing, that they may find their way into their chosen place just as the beam of the lasgun finds its way into our foes' hearts..."

The screws click-clacked as they landed in the tray, and Brother Gentoo dripped a steady stream of oil into it from a bottle he kept in a pocket, next to the other twenty varieties of Oil of Anointing.

"O Spirits, hear my prayer. I see that the wires are frayed, and that this displeases you--"

"Hold on."

"what?"

"That wiring is awful. It's not organized at all!"

Brother Gentoo gasped. His servos twitched weakly as the little xeno started manipulating the wires.

"Also, these lenses aren't quite in the optimal arrangement. You're trying to project a beam from this device, right?" she said, pointing to the lasgun's main emitter.

"Yes, but--"

"For a lens of this size and thickness, the focal point is a little closer than this. You'd want this lens mounted about an inch closer, and the other scooted up about half an inch..."

To Gentoo's utter horror, the xeno began happily disassembling and reassembling the lasgun, rambling about the movement of light and the dissipation of heat, all the while juggling components with nary a care in the world. She didn't even recite the Litany of Reassembly before putting the whole thing back together!

"Also, you shouldn't have to oil the screws every time you put them back in. There's no moving parts in this thing, so you'll hardly ever need to oil it unless you're working in very dusty environments. I'd be more worried about getting a speck on the lens, but don't worry, I gave them a quick wipe down before I closed it up."

"How did--"

"I have a spell for cleaning magnifying glasses. Comes in handy."

"But you didn't--"

"Relax, I didn't break it. In fact, this should work better than ever!" As if to accentuate her point, Twilight casually placed the battery back into the lasgun's receiver, pointed it at a nearby fencepost, and pulled the trigger. Normally, at this range, this would have taken a chunk out of the post and scorched the surface; with the xeno's adjustments, it blew clean through the post, leaving the edges of the hole ember-ridden and smoking.

"H-how," Brother Gentoo said, quite emphatically. The post quietly burst into flames.

"You just have to know what you're doing," the xeno said. "Rote memorization and checklists are great--I know that better than most ponies. But they won't replace real understanding. You can always learn more, no matter how old or wise you are!"

---

"And then she kept going," Brother Gentoo whined, his lenses twisting in agony. "On and on and on! I showed her the Voxcaster, and, and she started talking about invisible light!"

"Invisible light?" Brother Arch muttered, staring down at the pitiful xeno's pitiful planet from the deck of the Imperial spaceship, Righteous Side of Hell.

"Yes! Like light, but not light. It passes through some things, bounces off others--she said they had something just like it, but bulkier and less capable. And that our wavelengths were sub-optimal."

"What does that mean?"

"I've no idea," Brother Gentoo said, wringing his manipulators. "But it sounded similar to the Litany of Attunement, so..."

They both stood in silence.

"Do you think," Brother Arch muttered, "that she had a point?"

"What do you mean?" Brother Gentoo whispered. "That--that maybe, all this business about Machine Spirits is just...how we remember how to do things?"

"It is possible," Brother Arch posited, "that the Xeno understands our technology better than we do."

They stood in silence once more. They stared at each other, searching for understanding or meaning.

"...NAAAAAAH," they both said in unison.

"Exterminatus approved!" shouted a Commissar from the doorway.

"Race you to the red button?" Brother Arch said.

"With pleasure!" Brother Gentoo said. "Last one there has to clean the servitors!"

Comments

[UrsaMajor]

I chuckled. Have a thumbs-up. Are you planning on adding more?

[dawnbreez]

10581944
No, this is self-contained and complete and--
*checks the fic*

Whoops. Forgot to mark as complete. Eheheh.

[Black Hoof]

And when they pushed the red button, a malfunction occured and their spaceship blew up. Because the Machine Spirit willed it.

[godofthunder4242]

Booooo! Techpriest failed to learn friendship. :(
Fun story and probably about what would happen in 40k.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Ah, the Adeptus Mechanicus. Where that tricky issue of science vs. religion gets resolved in a way that neither's particularly happy with.

Also, make sure the Crusaders don't get any of those Sparkle-pattern lasguns. Even if they've found their talents.

10581999
"Sister."
"Yes, Luna?"
"There was a worrisome amount of energy building up in that human cathedral in orbit."
"Was?"
"Oh, I already smacked it with the moon. Just thought you ought to know after the fact."
"Luna, we're trying to be diplomatic."
"They were trying to ignite our atmosphere."
"Ah. I'll have to tell their Emperor. We've been having such a lovely chat as I help him pull himself together; I can't imagine he'll be happy with the idea."

[Josiador]

10582081
I choose to believe this is how it would go.

[warpsmith]

cult mechanicus is not a brotherhood, they do not address each others as brothers but by rank. Been a tech-priest is a generalization of thousands of ranks with in the cult. And why does he tell her about how lasgun works? Its thous secrets that hold mechanicus in such power anyway.

"First, I recite the Litany of the Machine Spirits, and prepare the Anointing Tray, so that I may guide the Spirits and prevent them from becoming lost."

Before stripping the gun one must first do Litany of lasgun." Bringer of death, speak your name, for you are my life, and the foe's death."
This is from the imperial infantrymans uplifting primer by the way.
Then canticle of appeasement. "Be still, spirits. i do what i must, forgive the intrusion, and give me your trust."
Then the litany of unloading because one must take away power pack during this. "Machine spirits, forgive my actions, soon you shall be whole again."
Then when assembling you put power pack back to its holding, you say the litany of loading. "Machine spirit, accept my gift, swallow the light, and spit out death." Upon completing assembling you say litany of completion. "Spirits of the machine, accept my pleas, and walk amidst the gun, and fire it true."
And saying that mechanicus does not know how to make technology is just a lie. Like how Magos Enabrin Falkan designed ursaraxes. Or how 3 tech-arcanas created thanatar automatons. So they do know how to make things from existing technology.

[A Predatorial Horse]

10582081
“Luna, you must stop doing that!”
“It’s my moon, I shall do with it as I please.”
“But the tidal forces could rip apart most of the planet killing off all life.”
“Not true. You know this, you move the sun. One must simply exert precise and exact magical force over the whole planet to counteract the immense forces involved.”
“Luna, no I can’t. Don’t you think if I could have done that I would have destroyed chrysalis at our niece’s wedding?”
“You can’t!?! Tia how is our planet not an asteroid belt by now?”

[dawnbreez]

10582329
Let's be real here: I wrote this with comedy first and accuracy second. This is because I don't know 40K that well. I do know that the Techpriests mostly work on repairing existing tech, that inventing new things is considered Tech-Heresy, and that the Litanies are mostly there as a mnemonic. So, I took that and I ran with it.

After all, if a Xeno really did start trying to "improve" Imperial tech, the priest working on it would probably respond with a BLAM.

[dawnbreez]

10582081
This gives me terrible, awful ideas for a fic where the God-Emperor actually starts an alliance with the ponies and the entire Imperium throws a hissy fit over it.

[warpsmith]

10582762
Well what comes to creating technology, they still do it somewhat. I will use a machine called ironstrider as a example. Essentially tech-priest called Aldebrac Vingh created a perpetual engine, a engine that makes energy as much as it uses it. Making a machine that never stops as long as it moves. That kind of engine is impossibility in physics, energy does not come from nothing yet somehow he did achieve this.

[dawnbreez]

10582814
Looking at the wiki, that's...not the best example you coulda picked.
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Sydonian_Dragoon#The_Ironstrider_Engine

Sadly Vingh [the inventor], never the most politically astute of his Tech-priest kin, was all but ostracised by his jealous colleagues, and never reaped any reward for his breakthrough invention.

After his mysterious death the design secrets behind the Ironstrider Engine were lost, and the concept of perpetual motion was abandoned. So it is that the Ironstriders of today are never switched off, lest their relentless Machine Spirit fade away forever.

In other words, your example of something the Mechanicus invented...is something that nobody knows how to fix, because the guy who invented it was cast out by his fellow techpriests for reasons that are not made clear. I think this is that tech-heresy thing I've heard about...

[warpsmith]

10582837
Its because mechanicus is filled with inner rivalries and politics. In skitarius book when STC was found and brought to forge world, several argued that they should have the glory of making first prototype. Mechanicum book mentions that neighboring forges have small wars over different disputes from trade deals to borders.
Vingh was not killed because he created something, it was to prevent him to get glory of it and rising thru the ranks. Perpetual engine was not made to be a weapon but was forced after his death. Ofcourse if you want more mundane example then dunecrawler is a vehicle that had no previous design, then there is thanatar siege automata, that was made from expertise of several different sub orders.

[manacar]

I like to point out that not all xenos are killed because they are xenos if I recall there is a few xenos in the imperial

[fanreader999999]

Eh

[Bojack H]

Hey look, the inquisition uses quasi sentient space fairing orangitans, the mechanicus should consider using multi colored talking psyker horses, otherwise the ordo xenos might make use of them

[Bojack H]

10582891
ya the mechanicus varies so wildly between interpretations, the ad mech is capable of developing new technologies, they're capable of developing new maintenance procedures, they are capable of adapting technology, but where their religious dogma comes to blows is when it comes to the most esoteric of their technologies, machine spirits are actual components of some of the most advanced stuff, being non sentient neural networks that operate the complex machinery like titans and Land pattern Raiders, (named for the adept who discovered it...) but their religious dogma depending on the adept and order extends that down to lowly blowtorches and spanners

They have to be capable of adapting technologies because the STCs only spit out specific things, like they found an STC that makes kitchen knives that are absolutely perfect, they adapted the technology to make space marine combat blades because the alloy they discovered from the stc was superior to everything they had

[Opponent]

...-- Report. Is the alloted task complete?
-- We have copied the alterations from the quarantined relic onto 200 newly fabricated lasguns and performed the Extended Rites of Assurance as ordered. After 300000 shots performed over 48 solar hours all guns remain functional, their machine spirits content, the number of appeasement and maintenance operations required is recorded at 31.54% of projected norm. The average beam power output level is measured at 114.42% _{with deviation of 0.0056} above nominal value adjusted for material degradation, which occures at the average rate of 68.66% of projected norm. The relic surpasses the standard power output by additional 21.97% of nominal value because of unusual clarity and stability of the main optics, additional study is needed to determine the exact cause.
-- And the records? Have you found anything corresponding to those numbers?
-- The extensive search of Archivum Tenebris is estimated at 82.675% completion. Thus far we have recovered only 1 ancient record, dated at unknown year M30, entitled 'Trial Reports of Beam Projectior M3, Variable Power'. The record is partially corrupted but shows the numbers falling within 0.025 deviation from the xeno-modified relic, referring to a single item similar in function to a lasgun.
-- Cross-reference 'M3, Variable Power' in active historical datalooms.
-- Aknowledged. Please stand by. ................. Match Found. 'M3, Variable Power'. An incomplete STC recovered by Explorator Fleet T-677 in 304.M35 on the Dead World X344.428. Adapted for mass production of a lasgun by Forge World Lemuria and accepted as a service substitute in Astra Militarum.
-- Understood. My emotional cores return shock and anticipation at the implication of this record and I choose to experience them. It was clearly the Omnissiah's will for the Navy cruiser's machine spirit to rebel severely enough for them to request our aid. Cleansing the xenos on this planet would be a mistake of a gravest kind. We must learn what they know, and only then decide their fate. For this I will go to parlay with them myself. Send the message to the Forge World. Relay this data to them. Request aid. Any available fleets in nearby sectors must make way here and reinforce the system. We may be at the cusp of the greatest discovery of our lifetimes.

________________________________________

Princess Twilight Sparkle stood in front of her Castle, staring somewhat uncertainly at the huge... Spaceship? sitting on the plain nearby. At least after the first time the visitors from space got more... gentle, the small crater from the initial appearance of 'Brother Gentoo' and the cube he used to reside in was still visible from the hills overlooking Ponyville. He left in a hurry soon after her conversation with him in a similar, if smaller, flying craft, which was a shame - the items he carried were really curious, and she had hoped, back then, to discuss them in great depth. He left the cube and most of his stuff behind, and for the past half a year she didn't want to disturb it, even though sometimes she doubted she'd ever seen him again. However, now, it seemed, the waiting was over.

The black-and-blue spaceship opened up it's rectangular... Cargo hold? Main compartment? and let out it's passengers. Three robed figures, kind of reminiscent of Brother Gentoo, but taller, bulkier and with the same blue-and-black coloration instead of his dark red, two large metal bipedal golems and a... Twilight couldn't really tell what that thing was, the best description that came to mind would be one of the great beasts from the ocean depths she'd seen in history books, all carapace and pincers and many legs, except in this case made of metal instead of chitin and glowing with light blue energy.
The groop took a moment to get their bearings, perhaps, and made their way to Twilight, lead by the metal being. Once they got near, it stepped forward and spoke with deep, monotonous voice.

-- Greetings... Pony... Twilight Sparkle. I am Archmagos Dominus Barron Secht of Forgeworld Lemuria. We have heard of you from... Skitarius Gentoo, and we are... Grateful... For your assitance and... Companionship provided to our brother. -- Somehow the voice managed to give off the impresson of being both uncomfortable and uncertain, like the speaker was quadruple-checking himself with every word.
-- While he may have... Given off the wrong impression about our intentions, I... Assure you, we are open to... Cooperation and... Ffrriendship -- The last word clearly took some effort. -- We would like your... permission to establish a research outpost in the vicinity of this settlement, and, if you... would be interested, share with you some of our other designs.

[dawnbreez]

10593678
I love it. On the one hand, I don't know how well I could carry a sequel filled with even more awkward bureaucracy and amusing shenanigans.

On the other hand, the idea of major figures within the Imperium having to struggle with the paperwork now that they've struck up an alliance with this odd group of xenos...Makes me wish I knew more of the major characters, TBH.

[Josiador]

10593678
This is beautiful. Bravo!

All I want is a complete, in depth fic where the Imperium allies with the ponies, with the Emperor's assistance probably, and the ponies' optimism and sheer goodguy-ness slowly but surely makes things better. Maybe friendship would make a good substitute for faith and fanaticism when it comes to resisting Chaos. Is that to much to ask?

[Josiador]

10679448
I might just write it myself if no one else does. If I had the patience and ability to concentrate.

[dawnbreez]

10593678
So, uh, by the way, it lives.

[katarjin]

What happened to Sister Kali and Brother Ubuntu? Thought they would be there...always wanted to hit the button they did.

[Ciber]

And then Luna smacked the impudent mortals out of the sky with her honkeytonk badonkadonk.

[Autistic Techie]

"Invisible light?" Brother Arch muttered, staring down at the pitiful xeno's pitiful planet from the deck of the Imperial spaceship, Righteous Side of Hell .

I thought the Linux distro name _might_ have been an accident, until I read this line.