gabriel-seths-pr-assistant

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

Promise this isn't me being an ass Im just genuinely curious but what's the source on what tech priests do to psykers in their ranks? Because atleast in my experience a lot of the admech books etc just kinda sidestep the issue of psykers or just bring up the weird edge cases like a couple mentions of Magos Psykana that make the weird psychic tech

It's inference.

The Adeptus Mechanicus are, despite the fandom's view of them as a bunch of quirky little tech goblins, an overwhelmingly conservative and authoritarian religious order. Innovation and difference, anything that might change or disrupt the way the Mechanicus does things, is swiftly and brutally punished. The Mechanicus is really fucking evil and really fucking cruel. Mechanicus-run worlds are optimised to clockwork-like functions, every person and system a cog in a machine, and anomalous aspects are crushed or repurposed into something useful. This is a faction who excommunicated a guy for improving a cooling fan:

The Mechanicus have two entire groups of dudes (Rangers and Ruststalkers) whose jobs revolve around tracking down and murdering anything that the Cult Mechanicus deems to be heretical or antithetical to its beliefs. Then we have the servitorisation. Servitors are, perhaps, the most universal solution the Mechanicus have for any individual disrupts or interferes with their doctrine or the effective function of their systems. Too sick to work? Servitor. Break the law? Servitor. Crippled? Servitor. Say something heretical? Servitor. Too unstable to do something reliably?

If you do anything, anything that might impede or disrupt the way the Mechanicus want something to work, you are overwhelmingly going to be killed or made into a servitor.

Now, the Mechanicus, again overwhelmingly, do not have psykers. They don't like warp stuff generally. It's an unreliable, unquantifiable element of assorted necessary technologies. The goal of most tech-priests is to do away with as much of their biological and emotional aspects as possible and emulate the blessed machine. No surprises, no illogical bits, nothing that doesn't fit with the conservative ideals of the Cult Mechanicus. Psykers are fundamentally at odds with the logical, ordered, structured way in which the Mechanicus conducts itself. Psykers are the polar opposite of everything the Mechanicus approves of.

Now, if we take everything we know about the Mechanicus, its beliefs, its modus operandi, what do you imagine that would suggest the Machine Cult does to psykers the vast bulk of the time? What might we infer from that? Hint: It kills them, or turns them into servitors.

Rarely, however, we do see psykers being utilised by the Mechanicus. Not PART of the Mechanicus. Utilised by the Mechanicus.

Firstly, we have the occasional mention of the Magi Psykana, an order who is (as far as we can tell) devoted to the study and use of of psychic phenomena by forcing it through a technological lens. It is, pretty obviously, functionally heretical and highly secretive, as seen in the Inquistion Illustrated Guide and Dark Imperium respectively:

Next we have the Callophean Psy-Engine, which is featured in The Radical's Handbook supplement for Dark Heresy:

As I hope is very obvious, not only is this weapon considered incredibly heretical, but it also highlights that psykers are a resource at best, the Magi Psykana are (again) heretical for their research, and that the device was created in the first place because an Archmagos got fed up with how "human" psykers are.

There's also the High Altar of Technology from the 2nd edition Titanicus book in which a servitorised psyker is used as a linking point for a data network. I cannot find my PDF copy at current, go look it up.

Finally, the Corpus Mymir, from Horus Heresy Book 8 - Malevolence:

Again, utilisation of psykers as a resource in an attempt to create controlled psychic phenomena. This was still considered worthy of censure and frowned upon.

So, in conclusion, we can infer the Mechanicus doesn't like psykers or their use. Psykers are unreliable. Psykers antithetical to the machine. Psykers are a resource at best. So the psykers are going to be... killed. Or servitorised. Or (rarely) used in experiments by Admech who are being naughty.

To answer your question re: my sources; 38 years worth of assorted books.

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

still thinking about them (+ a young perty as a treat)

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

Finished product, I'm very happy with how it came out! Let's see if I can match this skill level again anytime soon

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

The Gaunt's Ghosts series by Dan Abnett is some of the best fiction I have read in any genre. They are genuine literary masterpieces. I have laughed and cried over these books.

Unfortunately, the series only really gets going from book #8. And books #1-2 are anthology collections of Abnett's earliest writing for Black Library, which is very different in style and prose from his later work.

As a result, zero people I have recommended this series to have actually gotten to the good parts before giving up. 😩

thinking about pieces of franchise fiction, like for example a 40k novel, or a comic arc, and how they can be incredible and rewrite your brain and whatever but you cannot recommend them to anyone because in order to actually get what's going on you need to read like 5 terrible novels/5 years of mediocre comics writing. It's like some rare organism that is savoured only by creatures with a unique adaptation.

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

Davian Thule from Dawn of War (2). I just love his bi-colored hair.

Also, GW, cruel to name someone who ends up as a dreadnought after a swedish company that makes car roof boxes.

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

See you in 2026! 👋

The WH40K Summer Fest Exchange will return in May 2026!

This annual fandom event is a Warhammer 40,000/Horus Heresy-focused gift exchange for fanart and fanfiction, hosted on AO3 – find the previous years' gift collections here: 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025.

Interested? Follow this blog for updates on next year's exchange!

Can't wait until next year?

🎅 Check out Secret Sanguinala, the winter Warhammer 40,000 gift exchange – nominations will open in October.

🌙 You can also join the Exchanges After Dark discord server (NSFW, 18+ only) for information about themed multi-fandom exchanges throughout the year.

See you in 2026!

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

i love this drama queen

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

Poor Khayon getting black legion zoned

They're half naked because I aint drawing all that armor for a shitpost. You get to enjoy Abby's ugly tattoos and the overall post gym sex gachimuchi vibe because I'm lazy

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

Sadly unsurprising to hear that the person accusing others of being sexual predators – committing the thoughtcrime of *check notes* imagining fictional characters in a relationship – does not understand or respect consent themselves.

I wonder how much longer the "but they are brothers!" is going to haunt people in the Warhammer fandom on this website.

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

an unbearably cursed-looking Lucius that I redrew as the grey freaky sonic meme

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

Sick how someone thinks drawing fictional characters is comparable to real children being hurt. That's straight up fascist rhetorics.

I wonder how much longer the "but they are brothers!" is going to haunt people in the Warhammer fandom on this website.

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

I still believe they will meet one day😌

Commissioned work, the artist is 尤其y.

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

Gods, I love these two dysfunctional bastards. ❤

I can't imagine a better way to tell your brother 'I would die for you' and 'I hate and despise you' at the same time. This is so perfectly them.

summer exchange treat for @gabriel-seths-pr-assistant

Cyrion giving Uzas his slave medallion. and all the implications that come with that...

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

If you enjoy Night Lord shenanigans, check out this amazing fic I got for the @wh40ksummerfest gift exchange! ❤

REVEAL!!

'twas me the whole time!!

aka 'i wrote more Mita/Zso because they're my scrunglies and I got a wonderful prompt from @gabriel-seths-pr-assistant

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

I have to say I really love the super high incidence of baldness in 40k despite the otherwise everpresent toomuch-ism. I always found those overdesigned anime/gacha game characters really unappealing, where there's 60 locks of hair in a specific shape and formation (and that makes up for the majority of the character's physical individuality, sans their clothes, because sameface). Designing characters that way suggests things about them, even if you don't intend to; you have to preen and groom yourself endlessly to look that way, you have to prioritize it; and thus every character is indirectly shown to be vain. Vanity is a fun trait but when it's not handled deeper than that, or even acknowledged, I dislike it. Every single warrior taking time out of their day to have the most extravagant bangs ever? To set the ribbons on their hips? Hmm. No thank you.

40k also illustrates a vanity in its characters, but a more martial one: every charm and notch and paint on this overdesigned armor means something, and these characters care DEEPLY about the "glories" they have earned. Vanity is a right that you earn; custodian names go on forever. To display them is to be proud; to be vain is to honor your faction. Its both individualistic in ways, but also a very collectivist vanity. To display and posture as an avatar of your brotherhood. Vanity is often a DUTY. I like that, in a warrior culture. Posturing.

And some characters do fuss over keeping their perfect looks. Some astartes, and of course mortals. But. Since most chapters and legions don't, it's not an empty vanity imposed by the outside, REAL world; it's not just sex appeal marketing; its individual. It becomes EFFECTIVE characterization.

And characters are often bald. Often by choice; they're practical, severe, austere. What they represent, however, isn't. They're weapons, ornate to honor the hand that wields them. It's rarely about being beautiful, about status gained in attractiveness; it's about the right to display, not wealth, but your own brutality. Because you are "right". Pride about every deed you have done, because you're delusional; you're on the right side, and you deserve trophies. You think every genocide you've committed deserves recognition, and that the appropriate form of that is a golden laurel wreath.

Or, you know, I just really like bald characters being allowed to exist.

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

What can I say, I love Blood Angels ❤ And I'm glad to know it's mutual because they come to my aid whenever I feel down and want to bleed inks on marker paper and mentally rave to 70s synthesizers.

And big thanks to Soyuzmultfilm for the amazing animated short inspired by Moche/Mochica mythology. It's so visually stunning and trippy and more importantly it shows proper research of the source material.

[gabriel-seths-pr-assistant]

"astartes losing their virginity" fics