40k CATs

Commissar Cain and two Tech-Priests discuss how they're going to explore a space hulk (all are cur)


“Cats? I echoed, baffled.

“See ay tee” Yaffel elucidated, no doubt divining my confusion.  “Cyber-Altered Task units.  Like very simple servitors, without the biological components.”

“Then how do they work?” I asked, more puzzled than before.  I might not have been a tech-priest, but even I knew it was the living brain which allowed a servitor to remember and process simple instructions.

“Quite satisfactorily,” Drumon said, with a momentary smile at his own wit, before continuing. “They require no cognitive functions; just a simple vox circuit to relay picts and other environmental data.  Once released, they just keep moving in a straight line until they reach an obstacle.”

“Of which,” I said dryly, “I suspect the Spawn of Damnation (Space Hulk) has more than its share.”

“Undoubtedly,” Yaffel agreed, apparently as constitutionally incapable of recognizing saracasm as the majority of those in his vocation.  “But the CATS have a simple mechanism attached to their tracks.  When they reach an obstruction they can't negotiate, they simply rotate ten degrees on the spot, before moving forward again.  If they're impeded, they repeat the process, and so on.  Eventually they find a direction they can progress in.”

“They sound ingenious,” I said, wondering which of them had come up with the idea

FOOTNOTE

In fact CATS have been in service with the Adeptus Astartes and the Adeptus Mechanicus for centuries, if not millennia.  Few Space Marine Chapters make much use of them, however, preferring to rely on the expertise of their scouts under most circumstances, while the Mechanicus finds the more versatile servitor better suited for most practical purposes.  Nevertheless, the construction and modification of CATs remains a popular pastime for a considerable number of tech-priests, who claim to find the activity meditatively calming and beneficial in advancing their understanding of the blessings of the Machine-God, so that it's a rare visit to a Mechanicus shrine which isn't likely to be interrupted by the erratic progress of one or more of these ambulatory devices.  Despite these pious assertions, and though true servants of the Omnissiah would vigorously deny the fact, to outsiders they seem less like recreational construction projects than pets.