Ever since the Guardian-class ships entered the battlefield, the Tech-Priests aboard the Ark Mechanicus had detected enormous streams of data pouring out of the two vessels. The Adeptus Mechanicus did possess electronic interference technology; some equipment even bore sigils with built-in jammers.
This equipment could disrupt enemy equipment during combat.
It could, for example, temporarily send enemy machinery out of control or cause it to malfunction.
But forcibly seizing complete control of an enemy ship was something these oil-brained priests simply could not comprehend.
Normally, only machine spirits corrupted during a daemonic incursion would do such a thing.
Artificial intelligence had been widespread during the old Federation Era, and most ships had possessed their own independent intelligence. It had been virtually impossible for one ship to forcibly take control of another with an intelligence of the same level.
Among the various factions, the Aeldari used spirit stones to serve as their ships' intelligence.
The Necrons' technology, meanwhile, differed from that of the Men of Iron. It could hardly be called artificial intelligence at all; it was more akin to remnants of souls bound to machinery.
As for the Orks, even the Men of Iron could not make sense of their absurd technology.
Even though Iax had once watched a Mekboy cobble together a gun, he still could not understand how those inexplicable things were constructed or how they worked.
The Tyranids' biotechnology instead relied on things akin to psychic energy and biotin.
Only the T'au, whose technology had been developed and manufactured with the assistance of the artisan race, had followed almost exactly the development of the Creators of old.
Artificial intelligence had permeated almost every aspect of their lives.
Its efficient operation had continually accelerated the T'au's development.
Against the veteran intelligences of the Men of Iron, those fledgling