How venerated are Space Marine vehicles?

[eagleboy7259]

I know that there is tons of space marines background fluff on how sacred Dreadnoughts and Land Raiders are, how every suit of Terminator Armor is an irreplaceable relic, and even the bolters, flamers, and ammunition is blessed. I'm curious if GW has ever published anything on the other vehicles: Rhinos, Razorbacks, Predators, Vindicators, Whirlwinds, Land Speeders and Drop Pods.

-I know that the forgeworlds are still producing them, but they can still produce the other stuff too right? I know that Dreadnoughts are venerated for their pilots, but why are Land Raiders more so than the lesser vehicles?

-What about Land Speeders? I thought anti-grav technology was rare in the Imperium and treasured...

-Drop Pods? Do space marines collect them after they make planet fall? They do in fluff have a machine spirit right?

Any insight would be helpful. Thanks.

[wittdooley]

It's all about the greater presence of the Machine Spirit in LRs.

[Nabterayl]

Imperial Armour Volume 2 goes into a fair amount of detail about space marine vehicles. According to IA2 every space marine chapter's forge is equipped to produce Land Raiders, albeit not necessarily fast. It seems that every chapter has the capability to produce Land Raiders, but that's not to say that they can just crank them out. (In fact, apparently a very, very few tech-priests know how to create new dreadnoughts, which means that it's conceivable that one or two space marine chapters have that capability as well.) By the same token, most or all chapter forges can produce Rhino-based vehicles at some level.

According to the Adeptus Mechanicus, if it's a machine, it has a machine spirit. According to IA2, Predators, Whirlwinds, Razorbacks, Vindicators, and Rhinos are not actually produced according to any kind of schedule. Instead, the chapter forge produces a Rhino chassis, and towards the end of production the techmarines consult the omens to determine what sort of machine spirit the unfinished vehicle has. If the omens say it's a Vindicator machine spirit, then it gets finished as a Vindicator, whether the chapter needs another Vindicator or not. If the omens say it's a Rhino, it's finished as a Rhino, etc. There's a whole ceremony prescribed for naming and activating a vehicle for the first time.

Land Speeders are indeed rare. As IA2 points out, though, "rare" vehicles aren't necessarily rare because they're hard to produce. Remember, Land Raiders and Land Speeders are STC designs - they're designed so they can be produced anywhere, from anything. They're rare because the designs are jealously guarded by the Astartes and the few forge worlds that have access to the blueprints.

Drop pods are indeed collected after planetfall, again according to IA2. Everything is collected after a battle, even destroyed vehicles. A dead vehicle doesn't necessarily have a dead machine spirit, according to AdMech doctrine - the vehicle can often be repaired and sent back into service, to take revenge. So leaving behind even a destroyed Rhino would be like leaving behind a badly wounded battle-brother - something you do only under the direst circumstances, to great shame.

[Crevab]

In the latest SM codex, the Rhino entry has a paragraph about the oldest Rhino. It sits in a reliquary and doom is said to befall the Salamanders if the centennial engine starting fails to catch the first time.

[eagleboy7259]

Nabterayl- Thank you! that was very helpful and very interesting. I always thought of a Rhino being a Rhino and a Predator a Predator, that naming thing is pretty cool. Makes me want to go buy some IA books just for the fluff now.

[person person]

Didnt know they collected Drop Pods.

Love that rhino bit.

Tech:"what would you like to be?"

Rhino:"The one with most guns"

Tech: "Ok, Predator it is."

After transformation

Rhino: "I can kill any hereti..."*CSM Land raider "passes" by*

Rhino: "He lied!"

[Duke]

Probably one of the funniest parts of 40k fluff is the Ad. Mech. and pretty much vehicles in general.

Duke

[Lord Anubis]

Remember, Land Raiders and Land Speeders are STC designs - they're designed so they can be produced anywhere, from anything.

Are they, though? This is one of those items the fluff seems to be deliberately vague on. There's the whole bit about how Arkhan Land went down into the labyrinths of Mars and supposedly came back three years later with a bunch of STC-compatible information for a well-armored, artificial intelligence tank plus the basics on manufacturing anti-grav plates.

Yep, AI and antigrav. Discovered deep beneath the surface of Mars.

Hmmmmmm...

[Nabterayl]

Well, the whole STC thing is a bit of a theological fiction to begin with. There's no way to tell at this remove which "STC" designs were actually included in the STC systems dispatched with colonists during the Dark Age of Technology, and which are modifications by those colonists of the STC constructs they were given. All "STC" really means at this point is that a) the design has been granted STC status by the Adeptus Mechanicus and b) it allows you to produce the machine out of any materials you have to hand. The Land Raider and the Land Speeder both fit that description, although it is possible that the plans actually originate with the Void Dragon (whose influence on the Adeptus Mechanicus post-dates the actual STC systems).

[Just_Me]

Actually Land didn’t randomly return from some Martian cave with brand new designs. He went into the Martian archives, contained deep underground, and then painstakingly pieced lost designs together from fragmentary records and incomplete blueprints in different corners of the archive. In a similar way the Mecharius design was developed through extensive cross-referencing of Baneblade designs with those of smaller tanks to “fill in the blanks” for a lost class of tank that belonged in-between the average tanks and the super-heavies. The Ad. Mech. develops very little “new” technology, rather they re-develop old lost designs.

In short, no, the Void Dragon had nothing to do with it, not everything related to the Mechanicus has to do with the Void Dragon…