Okay, trying to make up for my latest contribution to the thread hijacking rate around here:
For those of you just joining the conversation, the question being debated (at least as I understand it) is the nature of orky technical expertise. The three possible positions put forward so far:
- Orky know-wots are like an STC - orks are programmed with a large number of schematics, which they instinctively (and usually sub-consciously) access in order to build their machines.
- Orks are not programmed to build specific designs, but are programmed to instinctively improvise only certain types of machines.
- Orks are not programmed to build machines, but are programmed with an instinctive (and usually sub-conscious) understanding of fundamental principles, allowing individual orks to synthesize almost any kind of machine according to their creativity and imagination.
Madness, as I understand him, is championing position #2. I, and I think Melissia, are championing position #3. Other forum denizens may be championing other things. Still other forum denizens may not care.
One of the pieces of evidence that has been offered is that all orks tend to make the same broad types of machines. For instance, while not all battlewagons are identical (indeed, it is possible that no two battlewagons have ever been identical), orks have a distinct tendency to build their armored fighting vehicles with front-heavy armor, tracks and/or wheels, and loud, smoke-belching engines. It has been suggested that this piece of evidence argues in favor of #2.
I contend that it argues in favor of #3, in two ways. First, while it is certainly true that orks seem to favor, say, tracks and wheels over anti-grav plates and jet engines, the very fact that orks have utilized anti-grav plates and jet engines in their ground vehicles suggests that their programming does not lock them into the tracks-and-wheels paradigm.
Second, I think the presence of certain trends in orky engineering can be more satisfactorily explained as an expression of ork psychology. We certainly know from the shokk attack gun that orky know-wots can build items that orks feel no need to build (e.g., the shokk attack gun proves that orks could build a weapon that teleports a bomb directly into the target ... but they generally don't build such weapons). I suggest that trends such as tracks-and-wheels and loud-and-smoky-engines can be explained by reference to that greatest of orky psychological imperatives: having fun. Assuming for the moment that an ork could build a grav-tank, I contend that he would not find a smooth-riding vehicle powered by efficient jet engines to be any fun, and thus wouldn't do it. On the other hand, from an orky perspective, tracks-and-wheels (particularly when combined with bad suspension) and loud-and-smoky-engines are loads of fun. Since orks do everything they do in order to have fun, it follows that most orks will favor tracks-and-wheels over grav plates, and favor loud-and-smoky-engines over quieter and more efficient jet engines.
Okay, that's my latest contribution. Have at it.