So by the intro storyline, they discover a traitor onboard the ship and they’re executed the same time we’re formally made part of the warband. Except…it couldn’t have JUST been them. Whoever it was was able to transmit from the morningstar planetside without giving away who they were so it had to be someone with a lot of technical expertiese and access to communications relays onboard the ship itself. The traitor is ALSO a reject, so they couldn’t have gotten that access even if we presume they new how to do it.
Someone higher up had to be involved. but did it have to be a person?
The most recent splash page on the startup screen has this servo-skull. there’s a lot of skulls all over the game, but this one was made uniquely for this splash page and it’s shape bears some closer scrutiny. the brow ridges are weirdly over pronounced, the tooth line is extended and the teeth themselves far too long for a normal person, and importantly the nasal opening is deformed. The lower edges of the nasal passage is opened widely into too large circular holes and the upper point is reinforced along the top making the curve very pronounced.
It looks like the mark of Nurgle, if only faintly. Anyone that knows the lore knows the imperium doesn’t use computers, but instead uses preserved brain matter for calculation purposes. what if some of the processing servitors on tertium were…“Accidentally” made unknowingly with Nurgle cultists, and those servitors have chaos-tainted minds that lead them to betray imperial orders to aid the cult?
And what if Grendyl or a certain servo-skull obcessed tech-priest serving them brought some of those tainted processing servitors on board the morningstar to aid in teh inquisition’s communications network?
yes, fatshark likes it’s storytelling immersive so you have to pay attention to the sidelines. like how the dirktide logo seems to be connected to grendyl AND tertium.
It’s possible for both servoskulls and servitors to be subverted, but there’s one big difference between the two: as far as the general Mechanicus and the Imperium at large is concerned being turned into a servitor is usually a punishment and occurs when the subject is still alive and being turned into a servoskull is usually an honour and happens to the subject posthumously.
Obviously, exceptions happen, like Hadron threatening to use your skull as a replacement if you lose her servoskull.
Servoskulls also generally don’t have any of the brain matter of the subject in it, even the fancy reliquary skulls from a magos (like the one in the intro of Mechanius) only have a simulacrum of the personality embedded in a cognition engine, usually made from the brain and head implants of the skull’s owner.
I’d still theorise that there are more traitors on the Mourningstar, but more leaning towards being Moebian 6th sympathisers instead of servitors, and they wouldn’t trust locally sourced servitors at this point in time either.
That’s clearly not the case on atoma. Ignoring the excessive amount of medical servitors as an in-game conciet for balance, they’re clearly of the “involuntary volunteer brain donor” sort of servitor use and if the provided image is to be believed, they may well have done the same for servo-skulls as why would they use a cultist’s skull at all? Atoma isn’t owned by the admech anyways, the local ruler might have established requirements on the serving tech-priests leading to unusual changes, like happens on necromunda.
I have to admit that glanced over it just seeing the omnipresent skull motif and didn’t look closer - yet you are correct this is no ordinary human skull. And while you interpretation of the mutation as warp corruption does have merrit I find the look to clean and symmetric to feel any Nurgle vibes…
A Genestealer Cultists skull however…
And Gene Stealers are hinted at in ingame dialouge…
And your theory of infiltartion onboard the mourning star would still be plausible as stealer cultists would still have an interest in weakening Imperial defence - and the longer they can do this without showing flag the better!
I’m more thinking a hive Admech shrine or the enginseers in the Moebian 6th have been corrupted or compromised and that’s where some of the weirder equipment is coming from.
Bulk servitoring isn’t that out of place when the main resources you have are Atoman steel and people, but my point is that because Atoma Prime/Tertium is compromised by the cults and traitors, the Mourningstar would avoid using stuff sourced locally for themselves if possible.
