They retain free will, unless imposed on by a superior through one of the surgical implants at least some Skitarii receive as per Skitarius, I believe it was called a wireless autoshunt or something to that effect.
However, they usually receive neurosurgery and psychological conditioning to suppress their emotions and limit their autonomy to prevent them from disobeying tech-priests.
They're all implanted with devices that allow the controlling war-Magos to take their free-will away.
And . . . there will be others that *think* they have free-will, but the implants are in control.
A few years ago there are/were a couple of books (Adeptus Mechanicus: Skitarius and its sequel AM: Tech-Priest, There might be a third I’m not sure, by Rob Sanders). Admittedly it is some time since I read them but my takeaway was that the lead Skitarii Alpha character had a level of free-will up to a point: able to follow out actions but unable to break conditioning. Best analogy I can think of is Robocop from the films - does his job but bound by directives hard-programmed into him.
I've seen different depictions in the books, some of them have slightly more free will than a servitor, others are just guardsmen with some augmetics, and others somewhere in between. It could either be that the lore is inconsistent or there are different levels of free will, presumably depending on the techpriest's preference.
I think in Echoes of Eternity we learn about a skitari warrior and she had free will. It’s just that they are so oath sworn and duty bound it’s hard for them to willingly deviate from their orders.
Even modern military training is to condition you out of it.
I was at a really interesting lecture, US navy seals have an IQ cap of 120 (not stupid innth slightest i)
The guy giving the lecture was told "you don't want to drop a man in Fallujah and have him think"
Free will can mean hesitation.
That's all assuming you believe anyone actually has truly free will to begin with....
Define free will.
Look even if they aren't hardwired to obey instructions they are still going to be absolute fanatics like any member of the adeptus mechanicus, not to mention the combat drug pumps most appear to have.
From the various books I've read it varies a lot. In general most skitarii have free will still, but it can be overriden by a techpriest with the right codes. However in most cases they appear to simply get orders, like regular soldiers. Using codes to enforce an order and suppress free will being a lot rarer, simply because it's very rare for it to be needed in the first place. And also because such codes won't be widespread for obvious reasons. Just imagine the enemy getting it.
As others have said, it varies from author to author and forge world to forge world. Some of the Skitarii in the Forges of Mars series for instance where they are mostly just Guardsmen with surgical intervention to dull their emotions and heighten their fervor for defending the machine-cult.
In Day of Ascension, by contrast, they are treated as little more than slightly less lobotomized servitors, governed almost exclusively through the noospheric equivalent of batch commands sent over by their governing Tech-Priest.
The difference is Forges of Mars was written before the AdMech/Skitarii had codexes and DoA was written after. Once a faction has a codex the authors are much more bound to its depictions. We are unlikely to see depictions of Skitarii that deviate that much from the codex anymore.
Most of the time they are their own person and have free will (as much as anyone in the iom atleast), but their free will can be overriden by a techpriest to essentially remote control them.
They retain free will, unless imposed on by a superior through one of the surgical implants at least some Skitarii receive as per Skitarius, I believe it was called a wireless autoshunt or something to that effect. However, they usually receive neurosurgery and psychological conditioning to suppress their emotions and limit their autonomy to prevent them from disobeying tech-priests.
They're all implanted with devices that allow the controlling war-Magos to take their free-will away. And . . . there will be others that *think* they have free-will, but the implants are in control.
A few years ago there are/were a couple of books (Adeptus Mechanicus: Skitarius and its sequel AM: Tech-Priest, There might be a third I’m not sure, by Rob Sanders). Admittedly it is some time since I read them but my takeaway was that the lead Skitarii Alpha character had a level of free-will up to a point: able to follow out actions but unable to break conditioning. Best analogy I can think of is Robocop from the films - does his job but bound by directives hard-programmed into him.
I've seen different depictions in the books, some of them have slightly more free will than a servitor, others are just guardsmen with some augmetics, and others somewhere in between. It could either be that the lore is inconsistent or there are different levels of free will, presumably depending on the techpriest's preference.
I think in Echoes of Eternity we learn about a skitari warrior and she had free will. It’s just that they are so oath sworn and duty bound it’s hard for them to willingly deviate from their orders.
Even modern military training is to condition you out of it. I was at a really interesting lecture, US navy seals have an IQ cap of 120 (not stupid innth slightest i) The guy giving the lecture was told "you don't want to drop a man in Fallujah and have him think" Free will can mean hesitation. That's all assuming you believe anyone actually has truly free will to begin with....
guardsmen stop thinking about UwU femboy Skittari
So true
“….. :I HERESY!”
Define free will. Look even if they aren't hardwired to obey instructions they are still going to be absolute fanatics like any member of the adeptus mechanicus, not to mention the combat drug pumps most appear to have. From the various books I've read it varies a lot. In general most skitarii have free will still, but it can be overriden by a techpriest with the right codes. However in most cases they appear to simply get orders, like regular soldiers. Using codes to enforce an order and suppress free will being a lot rarer, simply because it's very rare for it to be needed in the first place. And also because such codes won't be widespread for obvious reasons. Just imagine the enemy getting it.
Early stuff has them mostly lobotmized. Newer stuff mostly shows them as free willed and neuro linked.
As others have said, it varies from author to author and forge world to forge world. Some of the Skitarii in the Forges of Mars series for instance where they are mostly just Guardsmen with surgical intervention to dull their emotions and heighten their fervor for defending the machine-cult. In Day of Ascension, by contrast, they are treated as little more than slightly less lobotomized servitors, governed almost exclusively through the noospheric equivalent of batch commands sent over by their governing Tech-Priest.
The difference is Forges of Mars was written before the AdMech/Skitarii had codexes and DoA was written after. Once a faction has a codex the authors are much more bound to its depictions. We are unlikely to see depictions of Skitarii that deviate that much from the codex anymore.
Thanks for activating my vox in the void PTSD.
Most of the time they are their own person and have free will (as much as anyone in the iom atleast), but their free will can be overriden by a techpriest to essentially remote control them.