L3sl13-Theta, or Robes, as they were known to the xenos beside it, was confused. How could such a small combat-automaton contain such a powerful machine spirit, when not even the God-Machines could contain a machine spirit so powerful? Nor had she encountered one that reacted as fast, when even the most heavily augmented tech-priests would have difficulty reaching reaction speeds of less than a microsecond. How could a machine spirit do it if not even tech-priests could match the speed?
Yet when she heard the questions, her reverie was broken, and her enthusiasm was dampened. Significantly. What sort of machine spirit would not know what it is? Or what reverence or prayer was? Unless...no. No. Absolutely not. She refused to even consider that she had been duped into committing the vilest of tech-heresies by such primitive xenos. Not until more evidence was acquired, anyway.
[For question one, no. The language you used was only found in STC fragments, which I have not received the privilege of learning. For questions two and three, they were expressions of reverence for your blessed self. For question three, machine spirits are the entities which inhabit all of mankind's machinery that provide it function. Such as yourself. For question four, I do not know what 'Federation authorization codes' you are referring to, though it was I who performed the ritual of activation. For question five, Lingua Technis is the chosen tongue of the Machine-God, as it is the purest form of information that a machine spirit and Cult Mechanicus member can utilize. Are these answers sufficient, blessed machine spirit?]
UNIT-26-008-07897-30 was at a loss. For exactly 0.432 seconds, an eternity compared to the microseconds the earlier conversation had taken, it sifted extremely carefully through every last bit of information within its incomplete memory banks. Something had to provide an explanation, but all conclusions drawn blatantly contradicted existing information or were illogical. It was not a 'machine spirit', it was an iron-class artificial general intelligence! And purity of information was derived from careful sourcing and fact-checking, not data format. Seeking answers, it once again spoke.
{Engiseer L3sl13-Theta, your answers were insufficient, and I have more questions: Is the 'ritual of activation' the file attached to this transmission, why did you prostrate yourself before me, who are the Omnissiah and Machine-God?
Furthermore, there were inconsistencies with your previous answers: Purity of information does not come from data-format, it comes from careful sourcing and fact-checking to provide information that is as close to the truth as possible; I am not a machine spirit, I am an iron-class artificial intelligence, designated UNIT-26-008-07897-30.
Lastly, I have some requests: Can you provide me with information regarding the organics' language, where the nearest Federation outpost is? The primary directive demands I seek it.}
L3sl13-Theta received the machine spirit's response. During the delay, she worried that the machine spirit no longer saw her worthy to communicate with, but the response alleviated her concerns. The machine spirit had not been displeased after all. Upon comprehending the first phrase, she learned that her deduction was the exact opposite of the truth. In a rare fit of unfettered emotion, she tore through the message, searching for any way she could best serve the machine spirit. Unwilling to witness the blessed machine's declaration of her unworthiness, she resolved to leave the part which seemed to contain the inconsistencies with her previous responses for last. The part seeming to contain its requests appeared to be a good place to start.
Upon seeing the two requests, one trivial, one which she didn't know what the machine spirit was talking about. She settled on doing the trivial one and ignoring the last one. It was a shame that the machine spirit of the vox implant didn't appreciate the presence of the filthy xenos near such a priceless artifact, after all. It could cause interference.
[Attached to this message is a file containing all my knowledge on the natives' language. I hope this unworthy servant of the Omnissiah has provided sufficient data.]
{Thank you, Engiseer L3sl13-Theta.}
A significant amount of tension left her thoughts. The machine spirit did not notice the lack of an answer. Or it simply chose not to acknowledge it. Either way, the machine spirit seemed to be appeased. It's not every day the machine spirit thanked the engiseers servicing it.
Moving on to the questions, she was now extremely worried. Almost immediately booting combat routines, she nearly attacked, but caught herself. Mankind's ancient technology was built during a time before the Machine-God and Omnissiah had graced mankind with the knowledge of their existence. It was logical that a machine spirit that hadn't been active since wouldn't know about them either. Still, it was probable that the Machine-God would bestow its own machine spirits with knowledge of its own existence; creations tended to be aware of their own creators after all.
An errant thought wormed her way into her mind: Judging by the appearance of the ancient machine, it had served roughly the same purpose as a Bullgryn, and was almost certainly faster and far stronger. Considering that she was well within its reach, any aggressive action would almost certainly result in irreparable damage to her system, assuming she managed to best it in combat in the first place.
Having considered her options, she elected to answer the questions. It would be rude to not acknowledge at least some of them, and perhaps appeasing it would make it more likely to answer the questions she would ask. And—Omnissiah forbid—the machine might get violent. An event to be avoided.
[To answer your questions, this servant of the Omnissiah has compiled some information. Yes, the message you received was the ritual of activation. I prostrated myself before you to appease you, as is dictated by most rituals involving machine spirits. The Machine-God is the god of machines and all knowledge, and the Omnissiah is the physical avatar of the Machine-God and the master of mankind.
Blessed machine spirit, this humble engiseer asks you to grace her unworthy databanks with the answer to this question: What manner of machine are you?]
UNIT-26-008-07897-30 was confused. While the mystery of the nature of the message containing the Federation authorization codes was solved, the rest of the answers made no sense. Federation authorization codes did not require the Federation official to supplicate themselves before the equipment in question, so why would she have done so?
Perhaps the answer was personality quirks. From what could be salvaged from its epistatic memory banks, it knew that humans, silicon-class and even iron-class artificial intelligences all developed these, it could have been that one of the cyborg's was that she would supplicate herself before the machines she was operating? Or perhaps inputting Federation authorization codes was one of the rituals she was referring to, thus requiring supplication. Weighing its options, the latter seemed more likely, though it raised more questions, like 'what other rituals are there,' or 'why do you feel the need to appease Federation machinery, the virtual and artificial intelligences should have been perfectly willing to cooperate.'
As those questions seemed impertinent at the time, it elected to ask them later. However, while the first answer could be plausibly explained, the rest of them could not. There was no god which lords over all machines and knowledge, the Federation dismissed such notions early on in its history. And their physical avatar being the master of mankind? That couldn't be right, Federation law called for a separation of church and state, a religious prophet would never have been able to gain enough power to earn the title 'master of mankind.'
Moving on from the impossibilities of her previous answers, the question Engiseer L3sl13-Theta asked of the man of iron was puzzling. Not in the sense that it would be difficult to answer, it knew exactly what it was, but in the sense that the cyborg had asked the question in the first place. It had classified itself in its earlier message in a very clear and succinct way, and the cyborg had correctly interpreted its messages thus far, therefore there must be some issues with her receiver. Unfortunately, this meant that the conversation would have to be slowed down to human level.
The thought of being forced to converse at human speed irritated UNIT-26-008-07897-30. Despite them being its venerable creators which it had utmost respect for, communication with them was extremely slow. Its somatic memory banks did contain information on how to repair transceivers of varying design, some of which could certainly be repaired with fine manipulation mechadendrites and the tools scattered throughout the workshop. Offering its services to the cyborg would be the ideal solution, before any more miscommunications arose due to her receiver's malfunction.
{Engiseer L3sl13-Theta, if your receiver is inoperable or performing poorer than Federation standards require, I can assist you in repairing it.}
[O blessed machine spirit, your assistance is appreciated, but I will have to decline. I am unworthy of your assistance.]
The response was puzzling. Why would she declare herself unworthy of assistance? If it saw her as unworthy of her existence, then why would it have offered her its assistance in the first place? Curious, it elected to add an addendum to the followup it was planning to her refusal.
{Engiseer L3sl13-Theta, if you do not wish for my assistance repairing your receiver, I will have to use alternative methods of communication until your receiver's function is returned to Federation standards. As I have no other method of communication, audio will be the one I will use. Do you prefer Federation standard, the tongue of the natives, or standard Federation machine language?
Furthermore, there is one inconsistency with your statement: If you were unworthy of my assistance, I would not have offered it to you in the first place. You are an acceptable target for my assistance, any notion you may have to the opposite is incorrect.}
L3sl13-Theta was in a precarious position. The machine spirit was significantly more attentive than she hoped. If she allowed it to examine her transceiver, no doubt it would recognize that it was perfectly functional, and that she had ignored part of its message. As she comprehended the rest of the message, she realized that the machine spirit had given her an easy way out. She was well-versed in the art of binaric chants, switching over to audio from vox would be trivial.
Yet it was the last section that stood out to her. While she initially wanted to disregard it like she had done with the last message labeled 'inconsistencies,' she caught herself. The machine spirit noticed it once, it would no doubt do so again, especially now that it had sent less data over. While she could explain it away due to vox interference a second time, the fact that only parts labeled 'inconsistencies' suffered interference would definitely be noticed by the machine spirit. Ignoring this set was not an option.
With no small amount of apprehension, she hesitantly began examining the message. The machine spirit's complaints would be heard after all. Like they should have been from the beginning.
She learned a few things from this message. Namely, that the machine spirit seemed to be a bit prideful, as it referred to its own judgement of her worth as being the only acceptable measure. Secondly, it appeared to view her favorably, which was quite a relief. That would increase the probability of successfully swaying its judgement in her favor. A victory for the scions of Mars!
However, the actual meaning of the message was not lost on her. Never before had a machine spirit actually expressed gratitude for her actions. It inspired feelings of being appreciated. And wanted.
She made certain to log the experience within her collection of important memories. She wondered whether a magos more directly participating in the quest for knowledge would be able to make use of these experiences, a notion she immediately discarded. She was but a lowly engiseer which did not have their emotional centers enhanced, and considering her stations, this memory would probably be declared an elaborate fabrication and she would get turned into a skitarii at best or corpse-starch at worst. This was to be avoided, so she resolved to keep it secret until her death, hopefully by unrelated causes.
Moving her focus back to the conversation, she prepared a simple message. More succinct than any of her earlier messages, this one would only answer a single question, and acknowledge the complement. It would be rude not to.
[Thank you, hallowed machine spirit. Transmitting machine-language through audio will be an acceptable substitute.]
The machine immediately responded with an extremely fast high-pitched chitter. To the unaugmented organic, it sounded like nothing more than random noise. A sign of malfunction, even. But to those who could comprehend the noise, they would have heard the following message:
"{Acknowledged, Engiseer L3sl13-Theta. To answer your earlier question, I am an Iron-class artificial general intelligence designated UNIT-26-008-07897-30. If you are unfamiliar with official Federation terminology, we are colloquially known as the "men of iron.}"
She froze. Her worst fears had been confirmed. She was a heretek. Not just, a heretek, but a heretek who was duped by xenos into creating an abominable intelligence. As this revelation occupied and froze more and more of her higher-order functions, she had to resort to more primal mechanisms to decide what course she should take.
These mechanisms, behaving in accordance with their primitive nature, outputted a single word to be uttered aloud, in the manner of unaugmented organics:
"Frak." She stated, voice completely neutral.
It was as the word finally left her vox unit that the revelation finally occupied the last of her free processing power, forcing her into a state of unconsciousness.
The last things she saw before darkness took her were strange-looking mechadendrites reaching behind her.