From the Moment I Understood the Weakness of My Flesh

About

From the Moment I Understood the Weakness of My Flesh refers to a monologue on the topic of transhumanism said by Magos Dominus Reditus in the teaser trailer for the 2018 video game Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus. In the Warhammer 40,000 community, the monologue gained prominence as a copypasta and was used for both in image and video meme formats.

Origin

On February 21st, 2018, the teaser trailer for the 2018 tactical turn-based combat video game Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus premiered on YouTube.^[1] In the trailer, the character Reditus, a slain Magos Dominus who presently exists as a semi-sentient servo skull, delivers a narration about his disgust for flesh and his immortality as a machine. The trailer received over 2.4 million views in four years (shown below).

From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine. Your kind cling to your flesh, as though it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call the temple will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved, for the Machine is immortal… Even in death I serve the Omnissiah.

Spread

The copypasta gained initial spread in the Warhammer 40,000 community, being spread on Warhammer Discord servers. On April 2nd, 2020, Redditor idogadol posted the copypasta to the /r/copypasta^[2] subreddit, where it gained over 80 upvotes in two years.

The meme started gaining more prominence starting in September 2020 as it was used in various memes, primarily in the /r/Grimdank subreddit. For example, on September 3rd, Redditor Kaotiker posted a meme that gained over 1,200 upvotes in the subreddit^[3] in two years (shown below, left). On September 6th, the same user posted a Hiding From a Serial Killer meme^[4] that gained over 730 upvotes in two years (shown below, right).

On November 30th, 2020, iFunny^[5] user Fangwood posted a video based on a screenshot from an unknown Discord server showing a photograph of a man wearing a mask made from a plastic bottle captioned with the copypasta. The video, which added the narration to the image, gained over 930 smiles in two years (shown below).

Through 2021 and 2022, more memes based on the copypasta, both images and videos, were posted online. For example, on June 20th, 2021, YouTuber^[6] N Y posted a video of a "cyborg chicken" paired with the monologue that gained over 782,000 views in one year (shown below, left). On January 5th, 2022, YouTuber^[7] HANT2 posted a meme that received over 321,000 views on YouTube in 11 months (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References