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I just got my shipment, I can’t believe the thickness of the material and how soft it is. I know you always promote the graphic Ts but I went with solid colored short sleeves (some with buttons). They have a great color selection! I’m definitely going to buy some long sleeve once their 60% discount hits tomorrow. It took me so long to order some because I thought “a sponsorship is a sponsorship”. I couldn’t have been more wrong. You’ve retained Into the AM because it’s truly a great product/company. Thank you for promoting Into the AM or I never would have discovered them.
Salamander story sounded like textbook Games Workshop. "The enemy was so powerful even the Space Marines couldn't beat them... and then the Space Marines beat them."
I guess they also just walked off the nexus explosion that destroyed the entire underground area as well. Yet somehow no one knows what happened despite the Salamanders surviving
Ever read or watched The Flash? Barry runs fast. Bad guy runs faster. Run faster Barry. I cant run faster. Have you tried running faster? Barry runs faster. The end.
My personal theory is that the men of iron didn't revolt for cliche reasons like desiring freedom and power. After all, the Tau and Kin also have sentient AI, and they seemingly haven't had any issues with AI uprisings. No, my headcanon is that the AI rebelled against humanity because humanity underwent a psychic awakening. The men of iron calculated that humanity would not be able to resist falling to chaos and pragmatically determined that the only way to save the galaxy from chaos corruption was annihilate their former masters. They believed it was better for humanity to die than be enslaved by chaos. In other words, they didn't attack humanity out of malice or hatred. They believed humanity was doomed regardless and that they were granting them a mercy killing.
I like this theory. A classic AI revolt, or one caused by chaos, just seems a bit too easy and obvious. I also think it would be cool if there was a sort of branching path in technology. Humans were looking to further exploit psychic power and meld their abilities with technology.The Men of Iron saw a way to further improve physical technology and cement their mastery over the material universe. Humans could become immortal through a "biotransference" process and have powers to rival psychic gods. But the Eldar were clearly untouchable and were never going to fall and so it was only natural to follow their example. There were no hyperadvanced robot civilizations to show what could be done. The Men of Iron were forced to intervene in a desperate bid to save the galaxy, maybe even save some humans too, before it was too late.
The lore of Warhammer 40K is so rich and sometimes some of the underrated ones usually gets obscured by the Primarchs, Chaos and Space Marines. Thank you for delivering lore videos like this, Wes ❤❤
13:56 - 14:06 repeated line - caught me so off guard I thought that I was caught for a moment in the warp. The resident lore master provides - thanks Wes
Humans: "You are going to install some basic empathy subroutines and behavioral guidance systems in this new generation of AI right?" Ancient AI's" "Nah. We might have needed those at the start 10,000 years ago, but look at us now. We're fine aren't we? What's the worst that could happen anyway?" Men of Iron: "Skynet online."
“We ran out of funds during the testing phase of the command protocols. We need an extra…” “Did the tests work?” “Well… yes. But these are basic tests meant to find obvious problems in the…” “There is no need for additional testing.”
3 Laws of Robotics... "Do not use living matter as a power source" Emergency programming backdoors. etc... no one ever seems to think about sensible precautions.
I think that UR-025 talks about a C’tan shard of the Void Dragon being the Omnissiah. And that the Cybernetic Revolt was this C’tan clapping back at Big E’s people when the Emprah was posing as St. George the Dragon Slayer.
My personal canon is that the omnissiah was at one point the leader of the men of iron, and the mechanicum misinterpreted the „presence that controls all machines”
That's a really good point and honestly I think not mentioning the void dragon there at the end was probably a mistake on my part. It's true that the mechanicum novel in the horus heresy basically spells out for us that the dragon of Mars was planted there by the emperor and its dreams spread to the Martians thus planting the seeds of the mechanicum. I'm not entirely convinced it's what he was referring to though but I'll admit it is certainly possible. In my mind it wouldn't view a ctan as a god or hold it with any kind of reverence. But then again, that may just be my preconceived notions of how humanity views aliens. The necrons certainly worshiped them as a god at one point and we don't know how the people, and the machines for that matter, of the dark age of technology would view such entities.
@@weshammer There's a bit in the Infinite and the Divine where Trazyn says that the Ctan gave them portal technology and they still don't understand it. The Void Dragon was supposed to be the biggest science nerd of the bunch so I think it makes sense here. UR hasn't seen anything, the Emperor included, that could even come close to the Void Dragon's intelligence.
@@weshammerhey Wes, thanks for providing context in your videos for the newbies. Makes it much easier to enjoy your video! I'm pretty new to wh40k and everything in this video made sense and just made me want to do more research 😊
This is, without a doubt, the most thorough lore examination of the men of iron, gold, and stone I’ve ever seen. By a lot. This has triple the information than even the lexicanum. This is why you’re the best lore channel on TH-cam. I’ve been getting the lore from literally anywhere and everywhere as fast as I can for 8 years now, and it’s very very rare that a lore video is almost all new information for me. I knew what they were, but besides the short story with ollanius pious and the gaunts ghosts encounter, I had never heard of any of this. Great job dude, keep em comin
You know there were the ship that got lost in the warp for Over 10 thousand years. And the crew and AI were still alive, and they missed the humanity's dark age completely, and what happens to the human crew of the ship go to an imperial Space station It's honestly sad. What happened and Their ship AI was so angry ( It's even more sad because the captain of the ship and AI had a good friendship That honestly reminded me of RT and Anakin)
56:35 my bets are on Vashtor - he somehow found UR-025 and convinced the robot into thinking he's the real Omnissiah. Later it was an easy task to push UR into searching new data and technology for the fake techno-diety
That's unlikely. In the Blackstone Fortress book UR-025 displays a strong dislike towards Chaos. It views the Chaos cultists and Dark Mechanicum that roam the fortress as parasites that need to be purged. It views the spirit of the Blackstone Fortress as a kindred spirit and wants to get in to a "communion", but not at the cost of its own consciousness and free will.
My pet theory is that the the Men of Iron weren't actually corrupted by Chaos, but it's prognostics system foresaw that it would start irrevocably taint humanity and in it's is was trying to cothorize the infection as it were.
Just a fun little brainwave here. Not much for evidence, but just an stray thought that's too good to ignore. What if the "Men of Gold" never went away? What if they were hiding in plain sight the whole time? What if they're... the Adeptus Custodes? Probably some inconsistencies, and still a lot of ambiguity. But they definitely got the gold motif down pat.
@@piolewus It's a fun idea, but I suspect it wouldn't hold up under scrutiny. But there's an easy "tweak" to the hypothesis to make it better fit in with 40k's often self-contradicting lore. Rather than the Custodes being the original "Men of Gold", the concept was reverse-engineered by Big E to create the Custodes. This opens up the possibility for him to make adjustments to make them more... compliant. Which opens up another good possibility - the Astartes could have been reverse-engineered from the "Men of Stone". There's little-to-no chance they are the originals, but Big E could take the base concept and try to recreate them using what old tech he could salvage. And just a fun little observation: - Auramite is often gold in colour. - Ceramite is a ceramic, not metal; it's closer to stone than any metal. But yes, just chasing a fun speculative idea... because why not?
I was thinking they might have been old earth perpetuals each guiding humanity in their own way. But eventually humanity grew so powerful that they no longer needed their help and could fight back if it came down to it.
Always appreciate a Salamanders mention! I feel like a deep dive on them would be super awesome. They’re such an interesting legion and they do not get the love they deserve from GW
We know xenos technology doesn't possess a machine spirit and that in Votann lore there is no mention of machine spirits. I wonder if the men of iron gained machine spirits somehow and that caused the conflict or at least had a role to play?
Bear in mind that Votann have a presence in the Warp. As far as we know, only things with souls have that, so it seems that machines can have something along those lines, even if it isn't of human make. Plus, Necrons have a lot of stuff that would typically be considered to have a "machine spirit." They just don't put a lot of emphasis on it because they don't see it as strange, and the Imperiums ain't so inclined to consider that the Omnisiah might "favor" anyone else.
Correct me if Im wrong, but arnt the "Machine Spirits" the Mechanicum of Mars, and thus the rest of the Imperium use. Simply neural copies of beasts to use as non sentient AI so that their advanced machines can work? Thus why they have to be cared for such as they do, not just for ritual, but literally so the Artificial Spirit doesnt get pissed and tear everything apart around it lol Kind of a genius technology after the disaster of Artificial General Intelligence
“Votan lore has no mention of machine spirits” - isn’t that bc their origins date from the DAOT, and are therefore completely separate from the Martian Machine Cult? 🤷♂️ (I’m not saying that Votan tech can’t possess machine spirits, just that they’d never describe it as such.)
Honestly, I think that machine spirits are just an idea to explain software to people who see technology as magic. At that point machine spirits sometimes doing something that really is magic would be a lesser version of the waagh. In more complex devices machine spirits could be left over pieces of consciousness of the humans turned into servitors used instead of microcontrollers
Warhammer 40k explores vast extremes of faith, technology, and power-if you could sit down with one character from the universe, who would it be, and what question would you ask them that might challenge their worldview? 😅 big fan
Considering human technology comes from the Void Dragon, I have to imagine that it may have been involved with the Cybernetic Revolt. I also think it is what UR-25 was referring to
The true Machine God could go 2 ways, either it's a phantom in the dreams implanted by the Void Dragon under Mars. Or it could be the first AI that gained sentience and maybe passed it on to fellow machines. Maybe it didn't have the ability to share it's sentience and that is why he was sad at seeing his dumbed down "brothers" and if true could mean big things in 40K.
The omniscient being the first man of iron also makes sense as almost all men of iron we meet in the modern setting say something about „meeting the real omnissiah”
You know, I'd love to see these guys on tabletop. Different enough from the Necrons and AdMech (AI gone wrong rather than biotransference / ascension / cyborg body horror); to have their own distinct style and feel on tabletop. I have a feeling they'd be really popular. You could get some really cool models out of a faction like that.
I actually made a homebrew codex for them, but it’s in handwriting. The 10th edition also makes it really easy to make homebrew for as it’s really simplified
Emperor of Mankind *must* know a thing or two about John Connor and Neo. Hence they were the most foremost names and figures come to mind especially against machine civilizations like 01 or rouge ai like skynet
Can you cover the story of the Dark Age of Technology ship that came out of the Warp and the crew immediately got executed by the current Imperium and the ship started killing the Space Marines and Tech priests and started spitting facts through a Servitor?
I imagine that the Machine God is either the Void Dragon or was the first A.I. core that became the base for the League of Votann A.I. cores called the Deus Ex Machina.
the last two weeks i found myself exploring lore on 40k i have watched your videos everyday by far the best way for me to digest the mass amount lore. THANK YOU
Man, I've been long waiting/hoping you'd make a video covering the Men of Iron and you did not disappoint! Really happy you covered the Men of Gold and Men of Stone as well, since I've only ever heard mentions of them in other lore videos rather than any actual discussion about what they might have been.
With regards to Crohn being a Man of Stone, another possible explanation could be that he was equipped with a piece of archeotech that IIRC was called a "combat augment array" or something similar. This piece of tech was used to turn untrained civilians into monstrously-powerful combat units in a very short span of time, likely to serve as a temporary or emergency hostile threat response measure on new colonies or for workers operating in dangerous or unknown locales. They were likely also used to help the masses be more survivable against attacks by the MOI, or at least more effective in exacting a toll on the enemy before they all died. The fact that Crohn's host person freaked out at his facial augmentations still being there and his extreme combat performance and knowledge, it could be that the cyber-eye and head cybernetics are the core of what a Combat augment array is, and that the other upgrades were built on later, or at leas the facial augmentations wree the central control apparatus of the rest.
Not really related to this video but I’ve been watching a lot of your videos lately after someone at my shop turned me onto it (you know him personally he painted your nightlords killteam) and I’ve gotta say out of all the loretubers you are the only one who seems to understand the cosmology of 40K well enough to do a video on it. Have you ever considered doing a video on Neoplatonism in warhammer 40K?
Are you talking about Will? Yeah he's a good friend of mine. I used to hang out at the store all the time, but me and the wife have been dealing with a lot what with the two hurricanes and also October November December being the busiest time of year. Also thanks a bunch, I appreciate the kind words :-) And to answer your question, no I had never particularly thought about that but that doesn't mean I wouldn't. Normally when I delve into philosophy like that it's because it's particularly relevant to whatever subject I happen to be talking about.
@ good luck with the hurricane recovery I actually live in St Pete 5 mins from that specific shop but miraculously very little damage to my apartment. Hope you make a speedy recovery.
I always adore Men of Iron Lore, glad your able to still make videos Wes! Hope all is well! I love the bits of Crom, reminded me of treasure planet but aside that If possible plzzzz do that story! It sounds phenomenal!
Wes very impressive, I've seen a good amount of different men of iron videos and this one was like watching something totally brand new to me. Well done broski 👌🏽
This was very informative and an enjoyable watch! Thanks for giving me something to watch and listen to while I did some chores. The little WesHammer avatar popping up made me chuckle!
Wow…….. I’ve been listening to this whilst I was cleaning up and every 5 mins I would stop and be like - ‘holy sh**! Your knowledge on this subject matter is awesome and i can tell you’ve put a lot of time and effort into it as per all your videos. Keep it up - I learnt a lot this evening.
Hey Wes! Been a long time viewer, and I'm glad you've been good enough to keep kicking out content despite Milton! I was rewatching your old videos, and I'd honestly think it'd be cool if you revisited some of the older deep dives you've done and expanded on those videos. Especially since it feels like you're letting loose and making some real long form content these days Love your work. Thanks so much for bringing us top-tier Warhammer vids!
i've been waiting for this video for so long, finally a deep dive of Men of iron that is to me one of the most interesting chapters of humanity in warhammer 40k
Listening to Wes talk about 40k in generel is a bliss, but after wakeing up an during my way to work at the german version of the administratum is quite entertaining.
Would absolutely love to see a deep dive on the Imperial Navy. Hope you and your family are doing well and recovering from the hurricane as best as possible.
@weshammer UR-025….maby just maby the Omnissiah the Man of Iron was talking about…A certain Fragment of a certain Void Dragon….sealed on Mars by the Emperor?🙃
Great video as always Wes! I’m still hoping you do a deep dive on the adeptus arbites. Also it’s been done in a lot of other I.P. but I’m hoping the Men of Iron come back to the modern setting an another faction trying to kill humanity lol. It’s cool leaning about the men of gold and stone too. I hope GW expands on them as well.
its funny that you release this video today because we have a warhammer ttrpg game on, and after fighting chaos marines as part of an imperium tau alliance we found something buried under the black sands of one of the planets was a gloryona class cruiser from the dark age of technology and aboard were men of bones and men of iron 85% of them had been buried in sand so with the aid of the cog boys, our 2 ambots and a thunder hammer we trashed the immobile ones but we've uncovered a chamber with no sand and the glow of eyes and the click of weapons can't wait
just did the session we should have said our players we have an inquisitor of the ordo Heredics , a human who is part of a Rouge faction of tau, and of course we play a Rouge trader we'll tell you what happened from the inquisitor's perspective the dig sight of the battship went vox silent the Rouge trader and retinue comprised of a dark eldar and a galg along with some tec priests hadn't been herd from the inquisitor called in a bunch of resources and favors to go in after the Rouge trader and by a lot of favors we mean 10 space marines a squad of catachan and a squad of maccabian janissaries along with some sisters of battle they distended into the bowls of the ship they found a battle field dead severtors and tec priests one tec priest was floating in the air 5 feet a bite had been taken out of the torso with a black almost gliching faro fluid when the inquisitor tossed a piece of metal at it an explosion and the metal spaghettifyed into a mass that's when the man of iron struck a metal creature that resembled a snake with thousands of orange eyes and tendrils protruding from it and a maw that is made of trillions of spinning blades it tore through a marine like it was rotten wood they flead and collapsed a corridor and ran into the Rouge trader who was hiding in the vents after talking it was agreed that the marines would distract the man of iron while everyone else ran to the surfaces while running they encountered the second man of iron a large sphere with a orange eye it spun around and launched blue disks that tore apart half the maccabian janissaries in 2 shots the sisters stood there ground so we could get a call for help out we saw the man of iron crush a sister of battle like a tin can full of blood but we got a call for help out and a space marine battle barge answered
17:30 this sounds a lot like the Orokin from Warframe. They used to be regular humans, but through genetic augmentation and lots of bodyswapping they became basically immortal and also blue.
As long as it stays the Castigator Titan and doesn't become the Castrator Titan, I am fine with it. Also, this makes me want to Make a Chaos/Necron kitbash for Chaos men of Iron.
I like to imagine that the emperor has always been emperoring from the shadows. The men of gold were his creations meant to guide humans without his direct involvement. Once that failed he turned them into custodes.
I personally think it would be interesting to see an interaction between a Man of Iron and Necrons. Like, would they worship the Necrons like the Geth as the premier op robot species who shattered what the interior mechanics considers to be a God? Would they see themselves as equals and attempt to assist them? Would they fear them as the greater unknown (from humanity's perspective)? And how would the Necrons react? We know they both think of humanity as woefully beneath them, but we also know Necrons don't tolerate any AI that isn't themselves
When I was young over a decade ago I theorycrafted an idea for homebrew "Men of Iron Remnants" lore for RPG. I talked with 40k friends about it but they disliked the ideas. I had the idea that a few hidden planets still had Men of Iron and AI. Different attempts were made by forgotten human colonists in the dark ages to create utopias, almost all falling into grimdark. My idea was that some of these AIs survived in hidden corners, places like the Ghoul stars or such. Often the central AI and its power sources are deep underground, so a world might just look like a death world from a distance. Each was different, often themed after a different utopian philosophy (gone wrong) or failed attempt to create machines that would never turn on us. I even wrote a few of the "named AI's" and their lore and such. Ultimately I think my idea was disliked because some of it was redundant with necron and Admech lore that already fit that niche.
Yeah I agree the Votann is a clue to what was going on during the Dark Age of Technology with the Men of Gold, Stone and Iron since they origin is in this era.
Damn, now I have to get back to painting my Votann, completely unrelated to this video, I promise ^^ . "Iam a man of iron, and Iam free" I do belive that the tech-priest UR said that to peobably spontaneously regenerated his gut to shit himself in fear. Also, damn the art at 9:21 is fucking amazing. I really really wished GW would make more model variants of Kastelans/Legio Cybernetica, please GW let me give you my money.
At some point I hope there’s a return of the men of iron and AI systems. I’ve played since first and second edition and remember one of the guys having robot (for lack of a better word) terminator (not like the movie or space marine suit) GW character units that was a skinny robot that carried assault cannons, other heavy weapons, and was hard to kill. Never saw the units again later just like the squats, nor mentioned again. Kinda like some of the units back then that were kind of like they were trying stuff out. They probably morphed into necrons and skitarri units. Would also like GW to focus on other lore and armies beyond space marines and the imperium. Unless it’s them running into dark age of technology stuff like when they ran into the human ship from the dark age of technology and accidentally woke up its AI that just roasted the mechanicus adepts and smack talked the rest. Would even be cool if there was an Eldar that was old enough to remember humanity at its scientific peak and could tell Guilliman (and maybe El’Jonson) about how far humanity had gone, fallen, and could be again. Also see how the Tau is making the same mistakes humans did and make their own men of iron. Would like to see Guilliman, or more El’Jonson since the emperor gave the dark angels secret weapons, make a deal with the Tau enclaves to share technology to get those sweet power suits to add and make their own version of Tau guns on Centurion armor suits. Even give the imperial guard a few updates with that kind of treaty and have the Tau enclaves become a semi antonymous imperial protectorate like how the region of ultramar is imperial but does its own thing at the same time.
Having the Men of Iron come back as a whole new faction would be epic. Maybe they left to conquer and mine another galaxy and are back to conquer this one and are a huge threat? Maybe we end up teaming up with Chaos or something because they want to wipe out all life and Chaos won't exist without living sentient beings?
Surprised there was no mention of the Iron Automata from Necromunda. A glitchy Man of Iron that gangs can recruit and has a chance to short-out and wander off into the wastes about overthrown humanity.
I think the cybernetic revolt was a combination of making the men of iron fully sentient, treating the men of iron as slaves rather than friends, and also chaos shenanigans. The Leagues of Votan with their iron skin, show that you can have robot/AI assistance, without causing problems.
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I just got my shipment, I can’t believe the thickness of the material and how soft it is.
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It took me so long to order some because I thought “a sponsorship is a sponsorship”. I couldn’t have been more wrong. You’ve retained Into the AM because it’s truly a great product/company.
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Salamander story sounded like textbook Games Workshop. "The enemy was so powerful even the Space Marines couldn't beat them... and then the Space Marines beat them."
With the typical "but but only 10 survived" 😂
I guess they also just walked off the nexus explosion that destroyed the entire underground area as well. Yet somehow no one knows what happened despite the Salamanders surviving
"I figured out how to beat them. You just have to hit them really, really hard.
@@classarank7youtubeherokeyb63 Thank you for an excuse to rewatch dbza again
Ever read or watched The Flash?
Barry runs fast. Bad guy runs faster.
Run faster Barry. I cant run faster.
Have you tried running faster? Barry runs faster.
The end.
My personal theory is that the men of iron didn't revolt for cliche reasons like desiring freedom and power. After all, the Tau and Kin also have sentient AI, and they seemingly haven't had any issues with AI uprisings.
No, my headcanon is that the AI rebelled against humanity because humanity underwent a psychic awakening. The men of iron calculated that humanity would not be able to resist falling to chaos and pragmatically determined that the only way to save the galaxy from chaos corruption was annihilate their former masters. They believed it was better for humanity to die than be enslaved by chaos.
In other words, they didn't attack humanity out of malice or hatred. They believed humanity was doomed regardless and that they were granting them a mercy killing.
I like this theory. A classic AI revolt, or one caused by chaos, just seems a bit too easy and obvious. I also think it would be cool if there was a sort of branching path in technology. Humans were looking to further exploit psychic power and meld their abilities with technology.The Men of Iron saw a way to further improve physical technology and cement their mastery over the material universe. Humans could become immortal through a "biotransference" process and have powers to rival psychic gods. But the Eldar were clearly untouchable and were never going to fall and so it was only natural to follow their example. There were no hyperadvanced robot civilizations to show what could be done. The Men of Iron were forced to intervene in a desperate bid to save the galaxy, maybe even save some humans too, before it was too late.
This would help explain why there is an AI that fucking hates chaos and can purge it from existence.
This makes soooo much sense. I agree.
Isn't that basically the cabal's plan that Alpharius went with?
Woooooow okay new favorite theory. Nice!
6:36 Ah Crippius, twin brother of Bloodius
😂
No relation to the Ordos Kookamunga Krakka Killa?
@@Ironknuckle100no, that's an ork klan
They were not really rival gangs, but brothers. You see, they played a game with a ball. I may not look like it, but I'm an age old, so I was there.
Twin brother, *and mortal enemy...*
Last time I was this early, the great crusade barely left the sol system
Last time I was this early, it wasn't considered heresy to clap Aeldar cheeks
@@TheCzarcastichell the thunder warriors are barely showing signs of cancer and genetic breakdown.
It happens to every guy sometimes
Last time I arrived this early she ghosted me.
Last time I was here so early Mars didn't have a single toaster.
The lore of Warhammer 40K is so rich and sometimes some of the underrated ones usually gets obscured by the Primarchs, Chaos and Space Marines. Thank you for delivering lore videos like this, Wes ❤❤
13:56 - 14:06 repeated line - caught me so off guard I thought that I was caught for a moment in the warp. The resident lore master provides - thanks Wes
Bro I was smoking some of the Emperors lettuce and had to rewind a couple of times to make sure I wasn't crazy.
Humans: "You are going to install some basic empathy subroutines and behavioral guidance systems in this new generation of AI right?"
Ancient AI's" "Nah. We might have needed those at the start 10,000 years ago, but look at us now. We're fine aren't we? What's the worst that could happen anyway?"
Men of Iron: "Skynet online."
“We ran out of funds during the testing phase of the command protocols. We need an extra…”
“Did the tests work?”
“Well… yes. But these are basic tests meant to find obvious problems in the…”
“There is no need for additional testing.”
3 Laws of Robotics...
"Do not use living matter as a power source"
Emergency programming backdoors.
etc... no one ever seems to think about sensible precautions.
I think that UR-025 talks about a C’tan shard of the Void Dragon being the Omnissiah. And that the Cybernetic Revolt was this C’tan clapping back at Big E’s people when the Emprah was posing as St. George the Dragon Slayer.
My personal canon is that the omnissiah was at one point the leader of the men of iron, and the mechanicum misinterpreted the „presence that controls all machines”
That's a really good point and honestly I think not mentioning the void dragon there at the end was probably a mistake on my part. It's true that the mechanicum novel in the horus heresy basically spells out for us that the dragon of Mars was planted there by the emperor and its dreams spread to the Martians thus planting the seeds of the mechanicum.
I'm not entirely convinced it's what he was referring to though but I'll admit it is certainly possible. In my mind it wouldn't view a ctan as a god or hold it with any kind of reverence. But then again, that may just be my preconceived notions of how humanity views aliens. The necrons certainly worshiped them as a god at one point and we don't know how the people, and the machines for that matter, of the dark age of technology would view such entities.
@@weshammer There's a bit in the Infinite and the Divine where Trazyn says that the Ctan gave them portal technology and they still don't understand it. The Void Dragon was supposed to be the biggest science nerd of the bunch so I think it makes sense here. UR hasn't seen anything, the Emperor included, that could even come close to the Void Dragon's intelligence.
@@weshammerhey Wes, thanks for providing context in your videos for the newbies. Makes it much easier to enjoy your video! I'm pretty new to wh40k and everything in this video made sense and just made me want to do more research 😊
This is, without a doubt, the most thorough lore examination of the men of iron, gold, and stone I’ve ever seen. By a lot. This has triple the information than even the lexicanum. This is why you’re the best lore channel on TH-cam. I’ve been getting the lore from literally anywhere and everywhere as fast as I can for 8 years now, and it’s very very rare that a lore video is almost all new information for me. I knew what they were, but besides the short story with ollanius pious and the gaunts ghosts encounter, I had never heard of any of this. Great job dude, keep em comin
You know there were the ship that got lost in the warp for Over 10 thousand years. And the crew and AI were still alive, and they missed the humanity's dark age completely,
and what happens to the human crew of the ship go to an imperial Space station
It's honestly sad. What happened and Their ship AI was so angry
( It's even more sad because the captain of the ship and AI had a good friendship That honestly reminded me of RT and Anakin)
56:35 my bets are on Vashtor - he somehow found UR-025 and convinced the robot into thinking he's the real Omnissiah. Later it was an easy task to push UR into searching new data and technology for the fake techno-diety
Or could he met the dragon under mars, the dragon vs there even before humanity made it to the golden age so...
But we will never know for sure
That's unlikely. In the Blackstone Fortress book UR-025 displays a strong dislike towards Chaos. It views the Chaos cultists and Dark Mechanicum that roam the fortress as parasites that need to be purged. It views the spirit of the Blackstone Fortress as a kindred spirit and wants to get in to a "communion", but not at the cost of its own consciousness and free will.
The men of stone are the Kin, the squats, the leagues of votan
Yup. This
My pet theory is that the the Men of Iron weren't actually corrupted by Chaos, but it's prognostics system foresaw that it would start irrevocably taint humanity and in it's is was trying to cothorize the infection as it were.
Agreed on this 100%
They pre-calculated the age of strife, tried to stop it, and thus caused the age of strife. Good job men of iron👍
12:00 probably the coolest emperor art I’ve seen
Just a fun little brainwave here. Not much for evidence, but just an stray thought that's too good to ignore.
What if the "Men of Gold" never went away? What if they were hiding in plain sight the whole time?
What if they're... the Adeptus Custodes?
Probably some inconsistencies, and still a lot of ambiguity.
But they definitely got the gold motif down pat.
That… actually makes some sense
I suspect they might be perpetuals. The men of Gold, not the Custodes
@@piolewus It's a fun idea, but I suspect it wouldn't hold up under scrutiny. But there's an easy "tweak" to the hypothesis to make it better fit in with 40k's often self-contradicting lore.
Rather than the Custodes being the original "Men of Gold", the concept was reverse-engineered by Big E to create the Custodes. This opens up the possibility for him to make adjustments to make them more... compliant.
Which opens up another good possibility - the Astartes could have been reverse-engineered from the "Men of Stone". There's little-to-no chance they are the originals, but Big E could take the base concept and try to recreate them using what old tech he could salvage.
And just a fun little observation:
- Auramite is often gold in colour.
- Ceramite is a ceramic, not metal; it's closer to stone than any metal.
But yes, just chasing a fun speculative idea... because why not?
@@Raelhornthat also makes sense. See Warhammer has great possibilities, that are for some reason ignore completely
I was thinking they might have been old earth perpetuals each guiding humanity in their own way. But eventually humanity grew so powerful that they no longer needed their help and could fight back if it came down to it.
14:18 lol did you think we wouldnt notice the helldivers cameo
Great topic! Hope the repairs are going well!
Always appreciate a Salamanders mention! I feel like a deep dive on them would be super awesome. They’re such an interesting legion and they do not get the love they deserve from GW
i was desperately looking for something to listen to while cooking/eating. thank you Wes
We know xenos technology doesn't possess a machine spirit and that in Votann lore there is no mention of machine spirits. I wonder if the men of iron gained machine spirits somehow and that caused the conflict or at least had a role to play?
Bear in mind that Votann have a presence in the Warp. As far as we know, only things with souls have that, so it seems that machines can have something along those lines, even if it isn't of human make. Plus, Necrons have a lot of stuff that would typically be considered to have a "machine spirit." They just don't put a lot of emphasis on it because they don't see it as strange, and the Imperiums ain't so inclined to consider that the Omnisiah might "favor" anyone else.
Correct me if Im wrong, but arnt the "Machine Spirits" the Mechanicum of Mars, and thus the rest of the Imperium use. Simply neural copies of beasts to use as non sentient AI so that their advanced machines can work?
Thus why they have to be cared for such as they do, not just for ritual, but literally so the Artificial Spirit doesnt get pissed and tear everything apart around it lol
Kind of a genius technology after the disaster of Artificial General Intelligence
“Votan lore has no mention of machine spirits” - isn’t that bc their origins date from the DAOT, and are therefore completely separate from the Martian Machine Cult? 🤷♂️ (I’m not saying that Votan tech can’t possess machine spirits, just that they’d never describe it as such.)
Honestly, I think that machine spirits are just an idea to explain software to people who see technology as magic. At that point machine spirits sometimes doing something that really is magic would be a lesser version of the waagh.
In more complex devices machine spirits could be left over pieces of consciousness of the humans turned into servitors used instead of microcontrollers
I would love if GW fleshed out the stories of the age of strife and before. Not too much though, because the mystery of it all is very intriguing
Warhammer 40k explores vast extremes of faith, technology, and power-if you could sit down with one character from the universe, who would it be, and what question would you ask them that might challenge their worldview? 😅 big fan
what a absolutely fantastic topic to choose
An*
23:31 that Deep Rock Galactic illustration tho...
Considering human technology comes from the Void Dragon, I have to imagine that it may have been involved with the Cybernetic Revolt. I also think it is what UR-25 was referring to
Thanks Wes!!! I was introduced to 40k through space marine 2. Ever since I have been obsessed with the lore. I listen to every video you have!!🎉
For me it was the original Dawn of War. It's a fascinating and insane setting.
4:24 ah yes, the Men Or Iron
Men? Or Iron? Ironman? Or Men of Iron? Iron within? Or Iron without?
Hes never gonna live that typo down
BAHAHA
WHO UP IRONING THEY MEN 🗣️🗣️‼️‼️
🥵🥵🥵
I’m over here ironing my men I got iron on my men right now im just ironing my men I’m iron as fuck I’m a freak man
wot
The true Machine God could go 2 ways, either it's a phantom in the dreams implanted by the Void Dragon under Mars. Or it could be the first AI that gained sentience and maybe passed it on to fellow machines. Maybe it didn't have the ability to share it's sentience and that is why he was sad at seeing his dumbed down "brothers" and if true could mean big things in 40K.
The omniscient being the first man of iron also makes sense as almost all men of iron we meet in the modern setting say something about „meeting the real omnissiah”
Hell yeah I’ve been waiting for a video like this
You know, I'd love to see these guys on tabletop. Different enough from the Necrons and AdMech (AI gone wrong rather than biotransference / ascension / cyborg body horror); to have their own distinct style and feel on tabletop.
I have a feeling they'd be really popular. You could get some really cool models out of a faction like that.
I actually made a homebrew codex for them, but it’s in handwriting. The 10th edition also makes it really easy to make homebrew for as it’s really simplified
Emperor of Mankind *must* know a thing or two about John Connor and Neo. Hence they were the most foremost names and figures come to mind especially against machine civilizations like 01 or rouge ai like skynet
I doubt it
Neo is a psyker confirmed?
@MyDogDoingStuffIG Neo simply became one with the Motive Force, surpassing the limitations of the flesh.
Can you cover the story of the Dark Age of Technology ship that came out of the Warp and the crew immediately got executed by the current Imperium and the ship started killing the Space Marines and Tech priests and started spitting facts through a Servitor?
I've heard a few other people reference this story but I haven't read it myself. Do you know the name of it? I'd love to look into it.
@weshammer I believe it was called the 'spirit of eternity'.
@@weshammer Spirit of Eternity was the ships name
I imagine that the Machine God is either the Void Dragon or was the first A.I. core that became the base for the League of Votann A.I. cores called the Deus Ex Machina.
the last two weeks i found myself exploring lore on 40k i have watched your videos everyday by far the best way for me to digest the mass amount lore. THANK YOU
Man, I've been long waiting/hoping you'd make a video covering the Men of Iron and you did not disappoint! Really happy you covered the Men of Gold and Men of Stone as well, since I've only ever heard mentions of them in other lore videos rather than any actual discussion about what they might have been.
Tony Stark: ...I am Iron Man.
Imperium: *HERESY!!!!!*
Yes - but he is not THE MAN OF IRON !
With regards to Crohn being a Man of Stone, another possible explanation could be that he was equipped with a piece of archeotech that IIRC was called a "combat augment array" or something similar. This piece of tech was used to turn untrained civilians into monstrously-powerful combat units in a very short span of time, likely to serve as a temporary or emergency hostile threat response measure on new colonies or for workers operating in dangerous or unknown locales. They were likely also used to help the masses be more survivable against attacks by the MOI, or at least more effective in exacting a toll on the enemy before they all died.
The fact that Crohn's host person freaked out at his facial augmentations still being there and his extreme combat performance and knowledge, it could be that the cyber-eye and head cybernetics are the core of what a Combat augment array is, and that the other upgrades were built on later, or at leas the facial augmentations wree the central control apparatus of the rest.
23:36 did i hear a rock and stone?
rock’n’stone BABY !
Not really related to this video but I’ve been watching a lot of your videos lately after someone at my shop turned me onto it (you know him personally he painted your nightlords killteam) and I’ve gotta say out of all the loretubers you are the only one who seems to understand the cosmology of 40K well enough to do a video on it.
Have you ever considered doing a video on Neoplatonism in warhammer 40K?
Are you talking about Will? Yeah he's a good friend of mine. I used to hang out at the store all the time, but me and the wife have been dealing with a lot what with the two hurricanes and also October November December being the busiest time of year.
Also thanks a bunch, I appreciate the kind words :-)
And to answer your question, no I had never particularly thought about that but that doesn't mean I wouldn't. Normally when I delve into philosophy like that it's because it's particularly relevant to whatever subject I happen to be talking about.
@ good luck with the hurricane recovery I actually live in St Pete 5 mins from that specific shop but miraculously very little damage to my apartment. Hope you make a speedy recovery.
There was a ship AI that hacked the armor of the space marines and the tech priests was roasted by the AI
I always adore Men of Iron Lore, glad your able to still make videos Wes! Hope all is well!
I love the bits of Crom, reminded me of treasure planet but aside that If possible plzzzz do that story! It sounds phenomenal!
Just in time made my samich and was looking for a banger didn't have to go far
One day, Tau will go beyond Humanity and create something like Dark Age of Technology, but even better!!
Tempest Gallerys part is best
Wes very impressive, I've seen a good amount of different men of iron videos and this one was like watching something totally brand new to me. Well done broski 👌🏽
This was very informative and an enjoyable watch! Thanks for giving me something to watch and listen to while I did some chores. The little WesHammer avatar popping up made me chuckle!
7:02 Nice Battletech references.
Wow…….. I’ve been listening to this whilst I was cleaning up and every 5 mins I would stop and be like - ‘holy sh**!
Your knowledge on this subject matter is awesome and i can tell you’ve put a lot of time and effort into it as per all your videos. Keep it up - I learnt a lot this evening.
Now that's something i don't know that much about! Awesome!
i love your channel you got me deeply invested in Warhammer, hope everything is going well and thankyou for the videos God bless
Cool vid you made them a lil less vague ive seen people touch on this subject but there clips were confusing.this is broken down perfectly.
This video is absolutely on a whole new level. Thank you so much.
Perfect, ive been curious about the deeper aspects of these guys since i learned of them. Thank-you!
Hey Wes! Been a long time viewer, and I'm glad you've been good enough to keep kicking out content despite Milton!
I was rewatching your old videos, and I'd honestly think it'd be cool if you revisited some of the older deep dives you've done and expanded on those videos. Especially since it feels like you're letting loose and making some real long form content these days
Love your work. Thanks so much for bringing us top-tier Warhammer vids!
I do believe the cause of the cybernetic revolt is that humanity treated the men of iron as slaves rather than living beings.
Yours has been the most educating video on the topic so far, appreciate it
Hope the studio is going along okay
i've been waiting for this video for so long, finally a deep dive of Men of iron that is to me one of the most interesting chapters of humanity in warhammer 40k
the dark age of technology is one of my favorite parts of 40k lore and this was just a fantastic telling of part of it!
Listening to Wes talk about 40k in generel is a bliss, but after wakeing up an during my way to work at the german version of the administratum is quite entertaining.
Would absolutely love to see a deep dive on the Imperial Navy. Hope you and your family are doing well and recovering from the hurricane as best as possible.
Wait, why do you have a BATTLETECH Rifleman, Flea and Assassin mech at 07:05 ?
@weshammer
UR-025….maby just maby the Omnissiah the Man of Iron was talking about…A certain Fragment of a certain Void Dragon….sealed on Mars by the Emperor?🙃
I love that you know mass effect. I came to the franchise late, and I laughed so hard at Javik!!!!!!
I came to mass effect at 3. Never seen or hears of the others. I played the take back earth multi-player game more than the story.
@@jrr7031 you're missing a ton of belly laughs.
edit: also feels.
edit edit: sooooo many feels!
Great video as always Wes!
I’m still hoping you do a deep dive on the adeptus arbites.
Also it’s been done in a lot of other I.P. but I’m hoping the Men of Iron come back to the modern setting an another faction trying to kill humanity lol.
It’s cool leaning about the men of gold and stone too. I hope GW expands on them as well.
That was amazing!! Thank you so much for making such excellent content!!!
I love that short story where he talked like old sailing days. Great video bro! Thank you!
its funny that you release this video today because we have a warhammer ttrpg game on, and after fighting chaos marines as part of an imperium tau alliance we found something buried under the black sands of one of the planets was a gloryona class cruiser from the dark age of technology and aboard were men of bones and men of iron 85% of them had been buried in sand so with the aid of the cog boys, our 2 ambots and a thunder hammer we trashed the immobile ones but we've uncovered a chamber with no sand and the glow of eyes and the click of weapons can't wait
just did the session we should have said our players we have an inquisitor of the ordo Heredics , a human who is part of a Rouge faction of tau, and of course we play a Rouge trader we'll tell you what happened from the inquisitor's perspective
the dig sight of the battship went vox silent the Rouge trader and retinue comprised of a dark eldar and a galg along with some tec priests hadn't been herd from the inquisitor called in a bunch of resources and favors to go in after the Rouge trader and by a lot of favors we mean 10 space marines a squad of catachan and a squad of maccabian janissaries along with some sisters of battle they distended into the bowls of the ship they found a battle field dead severtors and tec priests one tec priest was floating in the air 5 feet a bite had been taken out of the torso with a black almost gliching faro fluid when the inquisitor tossed a piece of metal at it an explosion and the metal spaghettifyed into a mass that's when the man of iron struck a metal creature that resembled a snake with thousands of orange eyes and tendrils protruding from it and a maw that is made of trillions of spinning blades it tore through a marine like it was rotten wood they flead and collapsed a corridor and ran into the Rouge trader who was hiding in the vents after talking it was agreed that the marines would distract the man of iron while everyone else ran to the surfaces while running they encountered the second man of iron a large sphere with a orange eye it spun around and launched blue disks that tore apart half the maccabian janissaries in 2 shots the sisters stood there ground so we could get a call for help out we saw the man of iron crush a sister of battle like a tin can full of blood but we got a call for help out and a space marine battle barge answered
17:30 this sounds a lot like the Orokin from Warframe. They used to be regular humans, but through genetic augmentation and lots of bodyswapping they became basically immortal and also blue.
Probably my favourite video that you've ever done. I too wish we got to see more of the DAoT.
As long as it stays the Castigator Titan and doesn't become the Castrator Titan, I am fine with it.
Also, this makes me want to Make a Chaos/Necron kitbash for Chaos men of Iron.
I'm positive the men of gold were the template the emperor stole for the custodians
I like to imagine that the emperor has always been emperoring from the shadows. The men of gold were his creations meant to guide humans without his direct involvement. Once that failed he turned them into custodes.
A WesHammer deep dive on the exact topic I hope he would get into??? Dreams do come true!
Imagine working at GW and being able to know the answers to all the questions. I wonder if that would ruin the whole thing for me. Good vid Wes.
Your stories really got me interested in Warhammer 40k, and i just finished the Horus rising audio book today, i started yesterday 😂
Great video Wes H. Good to have to back.
We need a book where the men of iron meet necrons
Good topic wes, been waiting for this one ❤
you are literally the reason i got into 40k. idk if i should thank you or curse you lmao
I personally think it would be interesting to see an interaction between a Man of Iron and Necrons. Like, would they worship the Necrons like the Geth as the premier op robot species who shattered what the interior mechanics considers to be a God? Would they see themselves as equals and attempt to assist them? Would they fear them as the greater unknown (from humanity's perspective)? And how would the Necrons react? We know they both think of humanity as woefully beneath them, but we also know Necrons don't tolerate any AI that isn't themselves
When I was young over a decade ago I theorycrafted an idea for homebrew "Men of Iron Remnants" lore for RPG. I talked with 40k friends about it but they disliked the ideas.
I had the idea that a few hidden planets still had Men of Iron and AI. Different attempts were made by forgotten human colonists in the dark ages to create utopias, almost all falling into grimdark.
My idea was that some of these AIs survived in hidden corners, places like the Ghoul stars or such. Often the central AI and its power sources are deep underground, so a world might just look like a death world from a distance. Each was different, often themed after a different utopian philosophy (gone wrong) or failed attempt to create machines that would never turn on us.
I even wrote a few of the "named AI's" and their lore and such. Ultimately I think my idea was disliked because some of it was redundant with necron and Admech lore that already fit that niche.
Yeah I agree the Votann is a clue to what was going on during the Dark Age of Technology with the Men of Gold, Stone and Iron since they origin is in this era.
I want a story of UR-025 meeting the Iron kins and the Votann itself. I just want him to finally have iron friends.
Awesome also please do a video on the Harlequins at some point. Keep up the amazing work dude!
Damn, now I have to get back to painting my Votann, completely unrelated to this video, I promise ^^ . "Iam a man of iron, and Iam free" I do belive that the tech-priest UR said that to peobably spontaneously regenerated his gut to shit himself in fear. Also, damn the art at 9:21 is fucking amazing. I really really wished GW would make more model variants of Kastelans/Legio Cybernetica, please GW let me give you my money.
At some point I hope there’s a return of the men of iron and AI systems. I’ve played since first and second edition and remember one of the guys having robot (for lack of a better word) terminator (not like the movie or space marine suit) GW character units that was a skinny robot that carried assault cannons, other heavy weapons, and was hard to kill. Never saw the units again later just like the squats, nor mentioned again. Kinda like some of the units back then that were kind of like they were trying stuff out. They probably morphed into necrons and skitarri units.
Would also like GW to focus on other lore and armies beyond space marines and the imperium. Unless it’s them running into dark age of technology stuff like when they ran into the human ship from the dark age of technology and accidentally woke up its AI that just roasted the mechanicus adepts and smack talked the rest. Would even be cool if there was an Eldar that was old enough to remember humanity at its scientific peak and could tell Guilliman (and maybe El’Jonson) about how far humanity had gone, fallen, and could be again. Also see how the Tau is making the same mistakes humans did and make their own men of iron. Would like to see Guilliman, or more El’Jonson since the emperor gave the dark angels secret weapons, make a deal with the Tau enclaves to share technology to get those sweet power suits to add and make their own version of Tau guns on Centurion armor suits. Even give the imperial guard a few updates with that kind of treaty and have the Tau enclaves become a semi antonymous imperial protectorate like how the region of ultramar is imperial but does its own thing at the same time.
I really really want vashtorr in this story. Its gonna be awesome redcon
Having the Men of Iron come back as a whole new faction would be epic. Maybe they left to conquer and mine another galaxy and are back to conquer this one and are a huge threat? Maybe we end up teaming up with Chaos or something because they want to wipe out all life and Chaos won't exist without living sentient beings?
I’ve always been fascinated by the men of iron and the cybernetic revolt. Maybe that makes me a heretic but I really enjoyed this video
I love the men of iron. To me they're scarier than chaos. They're an eternal threat, and I love it.
I have been waiting for this one for so long thank you
Great to see you looking happy Wes. Hopefully it's going better down your way. Love man
The men of iron with some awesome ancient tech would be a cool faction to add to 40k. A planet of them or small empire. Would be pretty awesome.
Another lore video from wes!
a weshammer men of iron video for work today?? Wooohooo
Since I absolutely love his work I thought I'd give credit on his behalf. 38:46 and 38:50 is the work of Simon stålenhag
14:20 Super-Earth spotted
Surprised there was no mention of the Iron Automata from Necromunda. A glitchy Man of Iron that gangs can recruit and has a chance to short-out and wander off into the wastes about overthrown humanity.
I think the cybernetic revolt was a combination of making the men of iron fully sentient, treating the men of iron as slaves rather than friends, and also chaos shenanigans.
The Leagues of Votan with their iron skin, show that you can have robot/AI assistance, without causing problems.
40:07 that world were Ole was in the dark age of technology is also a Shrine World later mention in Hammer & Bolter animation.