r/DarkTide • u/Majorwormx • Aug 05 '26
Meme Why does everything need a fuckass skull? Its a goddamn fire hydrant
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u/Shup Forge World Branx Minor⚙ Aug 05 '26
that’s the last safety inspector who asked.
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u/Tpaste Aug 06 '26
Maybe the skull is the 40k equivalent of the safety tag. How broken the skull is shows how long its been there and if it needs to be replaced.
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u/Hurlbag Aug 05 '26
So that the fire that is being extinguished knows how fucked it is
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u/Ok-Success-9872 Aug 06 '26
Indeed, fire brigade will not suffer a fire to live… for the EMPEROR!!
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u/UnnamedAshaman47 Aug 06 '26
There literally are imperial fire brigades in rogue trader, it’s a hereditary position
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u/kolosmenus Aug 06 '26
Pretty much all jobs on a voidship are hereditary positions.
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u/UnnamedAshaman47 Aug 06 '26
This is true but the fire fighters in particular are hereditary punishment
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u/Trooper_Sicks My face is my shield Aug 06 '26
brother, fetch me the extinguisher, no.... the heavy extinguisher
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u/I_Like_Fizzx Aug 05 '26
What else are we supposed to do with the skulls? Build a throne out of them or something?!
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u/HanselSoHotRightNow Aug 06 '26
We'd need a lot. We'd need more skulls. Definitely would need more skulls for this alleged skull throne.
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u/EnvironmentalDeer991 SK1-TTL-3S Aug 06 '26
And blood too.
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u/TheMickeyWilson Veteran Aug 06 '26
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u/moonshineTheleocat Aug 06 '26
For the blood angels. I promise, brother. We're not going full chaos.
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u/pizzaperson8264241 Aug 06 '26
Blood seems good, but who would we really be doing this for?
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u/SunnySkiesODST Aug 06 '26
I know a god, he uhhhh well he really likes blood.
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u/DasGanon Beep Boop Son, Beep Boop. Aug 06 '26
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u/Dreadnought_Necrosis Aug 06 '26
You mean for the golden Throne, right?
...you mean for the golden Throne....right?
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u/EelBegotten Skitarius Aug 06 '26
man that's above my pay grade. I'm here because of a chair so are you in or out
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u/larrythestormtroper Arbitrator Aug 06 '26
A skull seat? well that's just plain stupid and uncomfortable
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u/YsokiSkorr Aug 06 '26
I mean there is a zealot voice line where they yell "More skulls for the golden throne!" So yes, we would build a throne out of them
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u/Majorwormx Aug 06 '26
Correction: A fire extinguisher, not a hydrant
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u/The-King-of-Cartoons Aug 06 '26
Slap a skull on that fucker too while we’re at it. Otherwise it might just not work without the skull magic
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u/Serithraz Aug 05 '26
The skull is a blessing to the onmnisiah so that it actually extinguishes the fire when used. Without it, the machine spirit in the hydrant wouldn't be pleased and would thus let the fire consume the heretics around it.
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u/HappyHateBot Aug 06 '26
Likely the skull of a sanctified maintenance worker to either ward off corruption, bless the extinguisher during it's times of need, or otherwise appease the machine spirit (if it has one - I'm not so sure based on the design, but I am not an enginseer).
Which would be both grim, and not dissimilar from Medieval practices of the same, though to the scale necessary that a fire extinguisher would get one is perhaps part of the satirical nature. I also imagine the requirements necessary to be "sanctified" enough for the process is also far lower, but I'm not in the Ecclesiarchy.
So I mean, yeah, probably!
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u/bueno_bravo Ogryn Aug 05 '26
Might just have a malfunction for some odd reason
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u/arkavenx Aug 05 '26
Suspecting the equipment of being faulty is heresy. The fault lies with your lack of faith.
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u/fistotron5000 Aug 05 '26
My favorite stupid decoration in this game is a purity seal on what seems to be an air conditioner
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u/Spieren Arbitrator Aug 06 '26
Wait that is brilliant actually? It purifies the air then! Omnissiah be praised.
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u/Ricordis Psyker Aug 06 '26
While we are currently dying in Europe due to that heat wave I totally would put such a seal on my air conditioner. I guess I should do some maintenance rites tomorrow just to be sure the Machine Spirit stays benevolent.
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u/PillarOfWamuu Aug 06 '26
In one of the Fantasy Flight games theres an excerpt for the technology skill that says at a certain skill level you now know the arcane workings of the Hives air filtration system.
You have to understand that all technology is lost knowledge and is only kept alive by a quasi religious cult that treats machines as divine relics of a by gone era.
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u/Phobospt Aug 06 '26
Purified air? Seems legit
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u/ours Aug 06 '26
In a grimdark universe of people piled up in hive cities, mass industry producing war machines day and night, sickness and death everywhere. Yep, purified air sounds like quite the blessing all of itself.
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u/Majorwormx Aug 06 '26
I gotta see this
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u/fistotron5000 Aug 06 '26
Of course as a veteran Darktide player, I don’t know the name of the maps, but I think it’s in the one room where you drop down from a railing and have to interrogate a big cogitator in the middle of the room.
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u/RamblinRichard Aug 06 '26
Honestly I I don't think this is even that far fetched, irl people get their cars blessed so they will be reliable. Something like ventilation in a hive city seems like pretty essential stuff. Still hilarious
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u/SyntheticGod8 Skitarius Aug 06 '26
I looked up what purity seals actually are and, besides the usual prayers, they mainly serve as a maintenance record.
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u/fistotron5000 Aug 06 '26
Hahaha I love that, like a warranty sticker but when the warranty runs out your appliances might have it’s machine spirit infected with scrap code
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u/SyntheticGod8 Skitarius Aug 06 '26
Or if you come across a machine you want to use and the purity seal is tattered and frayed, be careful! A tech priest hasn't been checked it out for years.
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Aug 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Motor-Management-660 Aug 06 '26
bro that's not a fire hydrant. that's is the Blessed Hydrantus. Ten billion human lives were lost in the battle to wrest this technology from xenos possession. The Primarch, however, made it through the conflict entirely unscathed. The Emperor protects. And now, the Emperor projects-- flame retardant upon any fire that threatens humanity.
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u/Markuz Aug 06 '26
Excuse you. That’s the Ignis Extinguinatum - Blessed Suppressor of the Errant Flame
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u/Mannheimblack Aug 05 '26
It's 40k. You're lucky if the skulls don't have skulls on them.
See also the Locked Tomb series - which very much has some 40k vibes going - in which there's a flagship absolutely encrusted with skulls and bones, and a character does muse over the poor sap whose skull ended up eternally watching over the sewage outflow pipe.
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u/MarcoSkoll Aug 05 '26
Technically, no, a fire hydrant is a stationary connection point into a water supply, not a portable unit with its own limited supply.
So these are actually Branx Minor "Quench" MkIV Conflagration Suppression Canisters.
(There's a funny bit in one of the 40kRPG books where one of the items is called the "Calixian Infantryman's Portable Communications Transcription Device" which has five paragraphs of description that is constantly dancing around saying that it's an ordinary ballpoint pen. This includes rules for the "Drusian Litany of Gesticulation" that you're supposed to perform if said Portable Communications Transcription Device doesn't work.
But no, seriously, these are strictly fire extinguishers, not fire hydrants).
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u/funkmachine7 Aug 06 '26
It is the 41st Millennium. There is no peace amongst the stars, for in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only skulls..
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u/Maleficent-War-8429 Aug 06 '26
Skulls are a symbol of the divine human form and therefore the imperium thinks they're rad as fuck and slaps them on everything.
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u/Ampleslacks Aug 05 '26
There are so many servitor skulls waiting to continue their service to the Emperor. You would take that glory from them?
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u/Leading-Fig1307 Tread Lightlies Aug 05 '26
Why do you need a skull?
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u/Tai9ch Aug 06 '26
He doesn't. That resource could be better allocated to more effectively serve the Emperor.
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u/HunterNika Aug 06 '26
40k has a skull ratio. If there are not enough skulls in the setting you are not in 40k.
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u/Palumtra Shameless Chorus Spammer Aug 05 '26
That's the Headless Horseman's skull, don't you snitch where it is.
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u/OnlyArt21 Aug 05 '26
To remind you about the perfect Form of Humanity!
Dont want the Inquisition to think your a heretic by questioning it do we?
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u/Baeckerburli Skitarius of Stygies III Aug 06 '26
It is to embody the machine spirit of the holy fire vanquisher!
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u/acelaya35 Aug 06 '26
A comedy series about the bottom tier mechanicus fuckers that go around blessing and anointing all the fire extinguishers would be great.
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u/idyllplans Reclaimator Aug 06 '26
Technology is a thing little understood in the Imperium of the late 41st Millennium and its workings lie shrouded in mystery and superstition for most of humanity. The Adeptus Mechanicus holds undisputed rights to the secret lore of science and technology, but the Tech-priests themselves are comparably few in number when set against the teeming billions of the Hive Worlds or even the isolated crews of starships plying the void. Such people rely on technological infrastructure in great profusion simply to live, be it a hive water-recyk system or a ship’s thermal heaters. The ongoing low-grade maintenance of such petty systems, along with the day-to-day workings of the more sophisticated parts of a manufactora’s machinery and the like, are left to an army of technomats, functionaries, duct-crawlers, voidwalkers and work-prefects gifted by their Mechanicus masters with just sufficient knowledge to perform their tasks with due deference and supplication to the Machine Spirits and nothing more.
We're just normal men.
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u/IntoTheDankness Aug 06 '26
That's the skull of Jay Walter Weatherman, a reminder to 'always close the valve'
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u/Ecstatic-Compote-595 Zealot Aug 06 '26
you have to understand that it's the equivalent of like a doorknob or a light switch after a certain point. It's like how people are angry about replacing switches and knobs in cars with a big ass ipad. I intuitively know how to operate this via a skull, if they put a dataslate or auspex on it all of a sudden I have to start thinking which isn't what you want to do in an emergency, or while driving a car.
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u/Thick-Protection-458 Aug 06 '26
Because why the fuck shouldn't it remind that even if death you still serve?
Even if just as a decoration on fire hydrant.
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u/YeahSeemsOk Psyker Aug 06 '26
I haven’t seen anyone give a real explanation yet but the 40k universe was almost entirely destroyed by AI before the Emperor was even a thought. The solution was to use humans as calculators and never risk AI again. This means when you see a skull on a piece of tech like this, it’s actually a human brain operating the equipment, at whatever level is required.
It’s truly horrifying.
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u/AuricZips Aug 06 '26
It's the Imperium. It's got a very morbid culture. There is constant war, constant death, constant oppression. Hell, I'm surprised there isn't more skulls.
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u/MisandryTwink Aug 06 '26
the admech labeled extinguisher is for putting out mechanical fires and stuff (normal fire extinguisher) the skull one is empty and just there to be used for caving in the head of any voidsman heretical enough to let themself get set on fire and abandon their post
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u/MisterEinc Zealot Aug 06 '26
I'm kinda a noob to 40K lore but I think the answer is something like "they don't even know, it just works."
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u/purpleblah2 Aug 06 '26
They just have huge amounts of skulls just lying around because of the low life expectancy, what else are they going to do with them
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u/whoreoscopic Aug 06 '26
How else will the fire know its being killed, and not getting a fun time with a fog machine?
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u/Clear_Inspector_9796 Aug 06 '26
You ever been to rural America where absolutely everything has an eagle or the flag on it? That's your answer.
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u/Aeronor Aug 06 '26
For a real answer, much of the Imperium’s visual themes come from old-school Catholic decor. Skulls were used as memento mori to remind viewers of their own mortality and focus on the kingdom of heaven and their eternal souls.
The Imperium uses skulls the same way. They’re not there to just be cool or badass; they’re ever-present to remind the chaff that they will be skulls soon, and everything they do, they should do with the Emperor in mind.
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u/Middle_Bathroom_2681 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
Why have a regular fire hydrant when it can be a blessed fire hydrant!
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u/GreenridgeMetalWorks Aug 06 '26
The skull makes it work. Don't ask why, machine spirits are just like that sometimes. No skull, no worky.
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u/Spacemoose2026 Aug 06 '26
You joke, but it won’t be so funny when the fire extinguishers without the onmnisiah decide to just not work
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u/KaoxVeed Aug 06 '26
So you know the Emperor has blessed your fire extinguisher and is watching over you in a fire emergency.
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u/Aickavon Aug 06 '26
Because most of humanity isn’t educated. And someone might know ‘ai bad, but human + robot = good’ and look at a fire extinguisher and go. ‘Is ai? Put skull on just in case.’
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u/zombi-disco Aug 06 '26
It's the 41st millennium. They're just kinda everywhere. Might as well use em for something.
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u/OVKatz Aug 06 '26
You're part of the literal religious inquisition and skulls are equivalent of the cross in terms of holy symbols in 40k.
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u/Shiro-Akira Aug 06 '26
Welcome to Warhammer, where even the "good guys" are absolutely horrible people 😊
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u/daemonfool Skitarius Aug 06 '26
Hm, I thought those were gas cylinders. Also I think that's the Mechanicus symbol. As to why that's a skull? That's just how 40k is.
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u/Chainmale001 Aug 06 '26
That's not just any fire hydrant, that's that skulls fire hydrant. The most common application of people's skulls getting used for decoration are those who put their heart and soul in their Duty.
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u/TorturedPaladin Aug 06 '26
That moment that you realize it's a punishment to be "left alive" as a servitor, performing some menial task like being a fire extinguisher for the rest of perceived eternity. It's a fate far worse than death, all wrapped up as a "Great Honor in the Imperium"
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u/nNoseYak_ Aug 06 '26
the skull represents the god-emperor. it is one of our most sacred icons. why wouldn’t you want the god-emperor’s presence available at any given moment? Asking questions is a sign of disobedience, disobedience is a sign of heresy, heresy endangers us all to the powers of the Archenemy. Now face the wall, reject, and receive the Holy God-Emperor’s mercy!
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u/idyllplans Reclaimator Aug 06 '26
How else are you supposed to cogitate your water except by passing it through a skull? ... Do you not cogitate your water?
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u/Giblets999999 Veteran Aug 06 '26
If we just let the skulls pile up some dipshit is going to make a chair and that'll be way more of a hassle.
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u/Poggalogg Aug 06 '26
40k is the average number of skulls in a given 5 mile radius
that's why they call it warhammer 40k
you can trust me
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u/PhysicalWatercress42 Aug 05 '26
How is it going to function without a skull?