Editing Titan (Warhammer 40,000) (section)

==Imperial Titans==
''Imagine a city that hates you. Now give it legs to walk on and weapons that could level another city, then fill it with more things that hate you. You now have a rough idea of a Titan.''

In the [[Imperium]] the Titan Legions fall under the auspices of the [[Adeptus Titanicus]]. Each Titan has its own name and glorious history, and no two machines are exactly the same even if they are the same class. They are quite often referred to as god-machines due to their ability to blow the fucking shit out of anything in their way. They are so fucking huge that infantry can't do anything to them with their tiny ass guns. These titans can unleash unlimited amounts of [[rape|RAPE]] via their '''MASSIVE FUCKING GUNS''' that are mounted '''EVERYWHERE''', so when you see one you are already quite fucked. They also have [[void shields]] which makes them pretty much invulnerable to whatever shit you can throw at it until you can batter the shields down. In 4th-7th ed 40k, Void Shields are each AV12, requiring anti-vehicle weapons to bring down each shield. In 8th, they're simply a special Invulnerable Save that can even block Mortal Wounds, although the Save degrades depending on how badly damaged the Titan is. As per 9th edition, they are an invulnerable save with their own wounds statistic, and once you've used up all their wounds you lose the save.

Like all of the top-tier machines made by the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]], Titans have [[machine-spirit]]s that reflect their nature. As such, Titans have machine spirits full of [[RAGE]] that want to [[Rip and tear]] everything they see. To combat this, Titans are controlled by individuals called ''Principes'' (singular ''Princeps'') who possess the willpower needed to control and direct the machine-spirit's bloodthirsty nature. However, if the Princeps is not careful in synchronization, then he risks going insane as his mind is instead consumed by the Titan's machine spirit; in such a disastrous scenario, the Titan would then go berserk and set about destroying everything it sees, ala [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Evangelion]].

Imperial Titans are as a rule ''very'' old, with some dating as far back as the Great Crusade. The main reason that titans are generally so bloody ancient is that the knowledge and infrastructure needed to build new ones has greatly degraded over time. By the time of the Era Indomitus, only the most prestigious Forge Worlds [[Forge World|such Mars, Ryza, Graia, and Lucius]] can build them in significant quantity. In the good old days, every other Forge World had a Titan Legion. The second reason they're so god-dang geriatric is that while it is definitely possible to achieve a mission kill on a Titan, it is actually really, really hard to destroy one to such an extent that it is no longer worth salvaging (i.e.: a reactor detonation). This means that even in cases where the Titan has been completely wrecked, the Mechanicus is quite happy to haul the thing back to the Titan's home world and fix it up again.

New Titans are definitely being built (as we see on Forge World Graia in the Space Marine game), but each one can take decades to construct or even longer. 40K being 40K, it is probably safe to assume that the number of new Titans being built every year is very small, and is almost certainly not quite enough to compensate for battlefield losses and other sources of attrition.

Each Titan belongs to a Titan Legion, and each Legion owes fealty to a specific Forge World. As such, unlike some of the Imperial Knight households all Titan Legions owe allegiance directly to the Adeptus Mechanicus. A single titan can be deployed by itself, though this is rare. Typically the '''''whole legion''''' will "walk" together to end a threat. As far as the Imperium is concerned, if you need to send ''one'' titan, you might as well send thirty-plus titans just to be sure that the threat gets taken care of for good.

Like every other branch of the Imperium, Titan Legions all have their own internal cultures and practices; some have a clan like social structure, some are ruthlessly meritocratic, some operate only one class of titan, others are crewed only by women, and some are crewed by gene-engineered clones of crew from before the Heresy. The Mechanicus is apparently fine with all divergence, so long as the titans are cared for properly and the legions remain loyal to Mars. Titan Legions, especially Princeps, are also notable exceptions from traditional Martian sensibilities regarding augmentation. Whilst crew members will, in the line of duty, end up getting augmentations or enhancements (either due to injury or to aid in their duties), they are not expected to completely cyberize themselves. The Mechanicus holds that the union of Human mind and Titan machine spirit is already pretty damn close to the Holy Synthesis they seek. Mechanicus techtheologians even believe that the link with Titans works precisely because the pilots are not heavily augmented.

The most important component of a Titan is its Machine Spirit. These are amongst some of the oldest and most sophisticated in the Imperium, sometimes verging close to sentient at times. The link between Princeps and Machine Spirit also acts as a storage buffer; if a princeps dies whilst plugged in, their spirit can sometimes be absorbed into the Titan itself. ''Titanicus'' indicates Principes with a particularly strong connection to their Titan (or a weak grasp on humanity) can actually perceive and interact with these spiritual echoes.

The ''second'' most important component of a Titan is its warhorn. Ok, we're not being quite serious here, but the warhorn is, after all, the closest thing that a Titan has to a voice, a thundering bass note that declares, '''''Here I am, fight me if you dare''.''' When they are going into battle, and especially when they are actually in battle, Titans use their warhorns to challenge and honk at each other ''a lot.'' The horns are also used to warn friendly forces to get the heck out of the way or risked getting caught underfoot. Squishy.

During the Horus Heresy, several of the Titan Legions defected to Horus, giving [[Chaos]] its very own supply of Titans. Most of them are relatively similar to their loyalist counterparts but some enterprising members of the Dark Mechanicum and the Word Bearers experimented with creating actual Chaos Titans, either by having the princeps be possessed or infecting the Titan's sentience with a warp entity; in either case, such Titans are very savage. A very small number were created during the Heresy but more were created after. And then there are some that just [[Blackshield|gone off on their own]] then.

The only theme song worthy of the Collegia Titanicus is Stringstorm's "Titanicus". All other soundtracks are heresy.

===[[Imperial Knight]]===
[[Image:Knight paladin.jpg|thumb|right|Nice crotch-banner.]]
This unique class of walker is small enough (at anywhere from 7 to 15 meters depending on chassis type) to be piloted by a single person, but is still staggeringly deadly. Due to their (relatively) smaller size and distinct mission role they are classified simply as "Knights" rather than as true Titans. They were originally designed during the Dark Age of Technology to help with colonization, but during the Age of Strife they were repurposed for war when several members of the AdMech discovered feudal worlds whose leaders were willing to provide military assistance in exchange for the Mechanicus' aid in maintaining these war machines. Although they are sometimes overshadowed by the full-size Titans, the Adeptus Mechanicus still deploys them as skirmishers and flankers for their Titans, and as they can be fielded in higher numbers, Knight Houses are potent forces in their own right.

There are a bunch of different types of Knights, detailed on their page. These range from the small Armigers, the bog standard Questoris, the gun-toting Dominus, the lanky Cerastus and the nearly-Titan-size Acastus. All of them have a reasonable points cost (by Titan standards, anyway) and often wield grossly oversized close combat weapons, such as power fists that can pick up and throw the wrecks or corpses of any vehicles or monstrous creatures that they kill. [[Cheese|Have fun.]]