THE RISE & FALL OF THE MECHANICUM OF MARS | WARHAMMER 40,000 Lore [Mechanicus History]

you you the adaptors mechanicus are a rare if not unique entity within the implement mine they stand as one of the only organizations that was not cleansed and forcibly subjugated by the emperor pre or post Great Crusade in fact without the mechanicus it's unlikely the crusade would have even been possible but what is the beginning the middle and the end of the mechanicus story what role does it play in the machinery of the galaxy spanning Imperium of man in an age where so much has been lost the tech priests maintain many essential items including the powerful plasma reactors - the golden throne of terror they preserve knowledge from ages and tentatively explore science for the future now in usually before we get into this I need to clarify some definitions some of these may not make full sense until later explained during context but it's worth having a rough understanding also these are often the pieces that are most commonly referred to in correctly or mistakenly conflated where they cannot be conflated even some official products ridiculously get some of these details quite regularly wrong and I know that I'm not foolproof and that I don't often get everything right when it comes to the law because it's pretty complicated stuff most of the time but seriously a lot of this is pretty straightforward first see the mechanical and adapters mechanicus both refer to the overall banner of the forces of Mars it then more specifically breaks down its forces under that banner the religion itself is a separate thing but still comes within the banner of both of those depending on what time period you're in so these organizational terms of mechanical and mechanicus refer to the title during either the founding period of around m 25 through to the end of the Horus heresy in m31 during the period of heresy the mechanical would then split between the two sides of loyalists and heretic this is why post heresy the mechanical would be forwardly known as the adaptive mechanicus it's pretty simple right mechana come is pre heresy adeptness mechanicus is post heresy that's it really not that difficult to understand but this error is the most commonly made then we have the term cult mechanicus and this simply refers to the disciples of the machine god it is the religion of the mechanical and later adapters mechanicus but it doesn't change it's also referred to as the cult of the machine now one thing that I have not to my own satisfaction being able to define is this was the cult mechanicus the cult mechanical now if you look at established narratives which I have done like the heresy book mechanic um it talks of the cult mechanic um but then later in the eighth edition mechanicus codex under the period of mechanical it talks only of the cult mechanicus so did the name of this group happen definitely as per the change from mechanic um to mechanicus or did it happen more organically just by the passage of time it's really unclear as with many things in 40k because sometimes the information just isn't there clear enough stated ABC out and out and you can rationalize well maybe the information was lost or destroyed or just never properly documented or whatever honestly ultimately it's actually not that important strictly speaking because the fundamentally important thing is that both referred to the followers of the cult of the machine it does seem a fair assumption though that if pre heresy the oke was known as the mechanic um and it seems reasonable its followers would be the cult of the mechanic um then later become the cult of mechanic cus when it changed but again in a tradition mechanicus codex it refers to martians after overcoming the disaster to unite under the cult mechanicus so that seems fairly established to me but like i say you can look at any number of varying supplements and it's all over the place it's also easy to see why people get these things mixed up they all sound kind of similar and often people forget about the specific dates and we might be talking about one time period but actually referencing the current organization so all gets a bit muddled up hopefully though you have enough info on this to have a rough idea of what we're talking about when it comes to the mechanicus like i say fairly straightforward mechanic um is basically anytime before the end of the horror heresy mechanicus adapters mechanicus is usually after that point cult mechanicus refers to the religion which can be anytime throughout the entire period that's basically it so where in time do we begin we must first return to the time known as the Dark Age of Technology this is of course was the period from M 15 to M 25 where mankind scientific and technological abilities were at the absolute highest and some specific dates for you M 18 is known as the second Dark Age of technology as warp drives were created in this time and M 22 is the third Dark Age of Technology as navigators were being used to make longer faster warp jumps and also the STC technology was now heavily being used allowing faster and more powerful human expansion of the galaxy now unsurprisingly information about this time is very sparse and fragmented and even more fabled now while this was surely a golden age for mankind it is now subsequently regarded by the Imperium and the mechanicus as the dark times because of the catastrophic impact these highly advanced technologies would ultimately unintentionally unleash upon humanity and this is why the Imperium generally until most recently considers scientific experimentation advancement and development extremely dangerous and is very skeptical about it because the unchecked high advancement of technology during the Dark Age of technology almost allowed for the complete and total extinction of humanity as a species it's also why the Imperium uses human machine hybrid servitors instead of true AI machines so when people ask why is the Imperium so resistant to tech and new tech and research the answer is not something as straightforward as just it never happens but it's much more that they are extremely cautious and generally do not seek the hyper advancement that humanity once saw as the pinnacle of achievement also much of what exists is already extremely powerful and so currently just maintaining this has been good enough up until now during the Dark Age of Technology Mars had already been long since colonized and terrified which was easily within the capability of humanity during this time it had an atmosphere in a flourishing environment it was no longer a red dead world in the early days of the Dark Age of tech around em 15 to 18 only sublight travel was possible and so because of the significant distance from Earth in the early history of space exploration it's believed that this separation allowed for Mars to develop a somewhat separate Society in that it was both culturally and technologically different this would later then be heavily exacerbated by certain events now Mars also existed independently from Earth but it was part of the interstellar government the humanity had created during the time of galactic expansion and so Earth and Mars worked together to create the project that would send out fleet after fleet of colony ships into the galaxy these ships were their vast technological wealth later in the form of the very powerful STC's along with them everything a human colony would require this resulted in the creation of hundreds of thousands of new human colonies all across the galaxy but then would come the age of strife an age of strife features multiple events it's not simply just one thing that happened in the early years a major event would take place from m23 that effectively would begin the age of strife known as the cybernetic revolt this is where the AI creations of humanity from the Golden Age known as the men of iron would unleash horrific and world-ending devastation to such a degree the mankind would be crippled beyond repair despite its incredibly advanced technology this period is often visualized incorrectly as just some kind of standard warfare the men of iron utilized not only themselves as a war of machine constructs but also devices that could destroy Suns extract entire continents from planets and plagues of nanomachines that would ravage entire worlds it is believed the men of iron were eventually destroyed not solely by humanity but by an alliance of galactic powers because records are so fragmented from the age of strife we can't be sure but it is believed that it was not a sole human effort there may have been other forces likely non-human involved in destroying and ending this period of war against the men of iron so around the end of millennium 24 in the beginning of 25 mankind's Federation was still struggling to recover from the disastrous war against the men of iron it's far-reaching impact on the previously secure and strong human colonies had now significantly weakened them with galactic unity destroyed as well as suffering from the inevitable wounds of war material shortages mass loss of life and destruction of infrastructure humanity would now face a new problem warp travel was becoming increasingly difficult these two things the devastation caused by the war with the men of iron combined with now being unable to travel easily through the warp and thereby across the vast distances of space the galaxy would effectively now return to a pre Dark Age of Technology state where only sublight travel was possible this meant that all human colonies were now entirely on their own this was obviously a catastrophic disaster trade and support could no longer be conducted as the journeys would now take many generations to complete humanity was once again isolated as it had been millennia before and the warp storms in the isolation they would create would last for roughly 4,000 years and their effect on human society across the galaxy was as we say catastrophic some planets with a significantly advanced more self-sufficient colony would survive into the future if they have the means to also defend and support themselves some words will be cut off but with other sometimes multiple human colonized planets within the reach of their sub light travel and so they're able to maintain some level of trade and support for one another it's important to consider that when a symbiotic trade relationship is set up with no means of backup its collapse has an immediate and profound impact this was the case with mankind's trade system it grown over time to enable many planets to survive solely on imports from other rich parts of the human Federation without this infrastructure and no way to gain outside support disaster was inevitable many worlds would survive for a time somewhat under skies depending on the resources that they required while others would very quickly turn inward Lee to the colony with social order falling apart families fighting between one another and quickly discontent turning to anarchy turning to cannibalizing anything they could lay their hands on and the colony then consuming itself from the inside out first often with increasing barbarism and ultimately a pure survival of the fittest apocalypse tiles situation with survivors scavenging and killing each other over the scarce resources that remained the final phase often led the significantly depleted population to either a total state of disorder and survivalism or in the best case scenario a feudal system of warlords and small communities eking out the bare bones of survival this depressing chaos was repeated across the majority of human worlds in this period including earth whose ecosystem had long since collapsed and was wholly reliant on imports as the hub center of the human trading system and this whole situation might sound unbelievable the backups would not be in place to prevent such an immense and speedy societal collapse and to such a severe degree especially for a society that was so advanced but it's worth considering that in this time a human society had built itself up to be so strong in belief of its own invincibility such arrogance that they could resolve any issue that came their way they simply didn't anticipate the severity the warp stalls or how this would debilitate the trade and support systems they have been relying upon and human history is littered with examples of such sheer arrogance outweighing logic and reason as well as blindly staring down dangerous facts in favor of belief in our own self-importance of not wanting to face the realization of the truth by allowing subsequent lack of easy planning when it came to losing the infrastructure was an acute example of this human arrogance not to mention that the men of iron had heavily damaged many human worlds so even those who may have been able to survive reasonably before that were crippled so severely and in such a weakened state to withstand suddenly being deprived of resources seemed extremely unlikely and then worse was to come as demons from the warp would begin possessing previously undetected psychos across the worlds of humanity and even on many worlds where psychos had already been encouraged to advance and train their abilities they would now be exploited by the creatures of the warp who would unleash hellish nightmares on to the already badly weakened human colonies to compound issues aux then as well would sense the weakened human colonies and begin to assault them with savage mass genocide across planets that lacked the resources and defenses to withstand the wave of green ultra violence the age of strife the humanity was nothing short of a complete and total disaster [Music] but here is where we go sideways from the main story because whilst the rest of humanity was literally tearing itself apart or being torn apart by xenos Mars itself had a different story to tell yet to be sure it did not escape the anarchy far from it now the population of Mars at this time due to the ensuing confusion and chaos caused by the age of strife would end up splitting into factions and becoming preoccupied by more local and urgent matters leaving behind their duties of care similarly to many human colonies all across the galaxy were doing a Mars though this lack of attendance to the machines and systems that subsequently enabled Mars to maintain its atmosphere fell into disrepair and ceased to function its radiation shields would subsequently break down leaving its terraformed ecosystem to them be annihilated by solar radiation Mars would once again in fairly short order become a barren red desert planet undoubtedly the raging Civil War didn't help matters as the deadly weapons combined with the now unrestrained solar radiation caused among other things plagues that would then kill most of the civilian population most of the survivors who had been somehow able to survive all of this on the surface were now nightmarishly deformed mutants gross parodies of human form unable to speak in a recognizable language and surviving by just scavenging and cannibalizing any organic material they would find more often than not that organic material was other Martian colonists this though was sadly not unusual for many human worlds across the galaxy during the age of strife when total and complete collapse of civilization occurred from many planets that have become lazily reliant on complex trading networks to sustain them and without this turned inward Li tearing themselves apart in disorganized frustration and panic the civilian chaos environmental and social collapse as well as the later near total loss of the population is where the rise of the mechanical and the subsequent cult of the Machine begins the minority of the population both civilian and engineers who are able to remain in a fairly uncompromised state would retreat into the minimal amount of underground factories of Mars that are long produced much of the technology and machines required for Humanity's previously expansionist agenda it had been without the title very much still the first major forge world for mankind the only citizens being able to survive for long periods of time having retreated underground would be those who are able to restore the oxygen generation systems and then to hastily forged together devices to protect themselves from the radiation storms now lashing the surface of Mars the only ones able to do this would be the advanced engineers and technicians that would hereafter come to be known by their followers as the tech priests they were the most critical of individuals for obvious reasons they could keep the machines running and enabled survival marauding bands of mutants would sometimes invade and even destroy these hastily reinforced bunkers and many early mechanical cultists would die in these struggles but in doing so these incursions would strengthen the others survival resolve the fact they're able to survive in the face of the apparently insurmountable odds would only continue to reinforce their desperate sense of devotion to a burgeoning cult that of the cult of the Machine making it evermore unshakeable the early mechanic on was quite literally a religion of survival survival that depended on knowledge and survival they depended on the strength of machines as generations passed in these underground bunkers technology was no longer taught to be understood by many but instead to be worshipped quest to have begin to hunt for technological artifacts where tech priests would brave the toxic poisons and irradiated surface of the planet to search for both tech and any knowledge that could be acquired these years represented the birth of the mechanical and the cult of the machine the belief that knowledge was a manifestation of divinity tech priests would lead their followers to the divine Trinity of the Machine God the Omni sire and the motive force the source of all power and life in the galaxy incidentally the red robes worn by the tech priests and Scutari on our symbolic of belonging to the cult mechanicus but originally during this time they were more practical it seems likely that these red robes were born as a means of camouflage when fighting the various warring groups during the time of civil unrest on Mars and after the tech priests expeditions to the surface as the cult of the machine would slowly gain strength and become the dominant group on Mars you would see things slowly start to be salvaged and rebuilt but now a new template in design the factories and forges of Mars will become temples to the machine God the mechanic ohm's temple of all knowledge contained a high altar database which contains all the knowledge of the tech priests every temple on mars and across its many forge worlds is still connected to this database by a living link a psychic servitor whose mind connects all altars of the cult into one holy entity the key thing to remember with the cult mechanicus is that while it's true that yes they do worship machines they also believe that every machine has a spirit and they believe that efficiency and perfection of function are far superior to anything like emotions or human spontaneity it's not true to say that they singularly worship machines this is another common mistake the cult in the machine is in its purest sense a worship of knowledge although yes it was machines and technology that kept the earliest followers of the machine cult alive and yes they do revere machines it was knowledge that truly kept them alive to the cult knowledge is the supreme manifestation of divinity creatures life forms ancient artifacts even machine intelligence are no more or less divine than flesh-and-blood creatures to the cult a man is simply an organic machine his true worth is the sum of his knowledge so you might be thinking so they love all things organic a machine not quite by the cults own tenets life as we think of it has no intrinsic value disciples of the cult understand that from the earliest days a functioning machine was a lot more valuable to them than the lives of many biologic men it's why having billions of lobotomized human-machine hybrid servitors on mars does not weigh heavily on anybody's conscience it's knowledge that is divine not individuals and not matter if an individual has no significant knowledge then carving them up to serve a function is no moral quandary for the mechanicus that individual is just an organic machine they're to be utilized it's why also they place no special value in their own organic selves and are more than happy to augment and carry out heavy body modifications to extend their life and improve themselves in any way possible because ultimately it's just weak organic matter better to replace it with strong machine components the coat though does value the strengths of machines more highly than biological creatures so this is where you begin to forge the perception of the cult of the machine it's simply that the way they see physical attributes as opposed to divine shouldn't be conflated as one of the same the tech priests and the cult began to see that loss of knowledge was often down to biological physical weaknesses or limitations this is why they began to replace an augment their own bodies to emulate machine kind for millennia now the mechanical would rule over Mars having managed to restore some semblance of order with its forged cities each under the rule of a hi-tech priests collectively being ruled by the fabricator general and here's a political leader at this time but simultaneously the high priest of the cult but unlike later Mars at this time would actually also have a parliament and the fabricator general acted as more as the head speaker now as we pass into the later period of the Age of strife periodically things were now beginning to come and some travel was possible albeit for limited periods the mechanic am now having some strength renewed would use these lulls in the warp storms as an opportunity to begin to send out exploratory missions consisting of titan legions some of these exploratory missions would be lost for all time others would reach their destinations but then be cut off from contact left to establish new forge worlds alone fragmented transmissions would sometimes be received by the altar in the temple of all knowledge on Mars where the cult would learn that their new forge worlds have been established or significant technological discoveries had been made and specifically around this time is when the mechana comes primary quest which still exists to this day became to recover any and all STC s or their related knowledge STC's our standard template constructs they're essentially computers which act as 3d printers and a hardcopy database for all human knowledge from the Dark Age of technology combined in the current period they are more of a myth and exponentially rare another section of the goal is to locate STC printouts these are the hard data sheets that can be used to print new patterns and designs from lost colonies these can be anything from immense war machines to agricultural tech STC's were designed to be a font of all knowledge for Humanity and they remain so to the current time albeit the likelihood of finding an intact STC is ever diminishing they are so valued that even rumors of an STC fragment is enough for the mechanicus to launch huge fleets and operations to attempt to locate and recover them it's worth noting also that humanity are not the only ones who hunt STC's given their immense and advanced database of knowledge even the enemies of humanity will attempt to secure STC data if the opportunity presents itself and they are well aware of their existence and what they represent so the mechanic ham was launching these expeditions and many through literal restriction by the warp were more localized and would end up clashing with the warring tribes on terror there was still much abandoned advanced technology from the Dark Age technology on terror and the mechanic ham wanted to collect and utilize it this somewhat state of skirmishing war would continue until the late period of m30 when the emperor won victory in the unification Wars and would then travel to Mars then though we come to the Machine God on this sire and machine spirit what is the Machine God so we're back to some terms here that can get a bit vague and confusing so again for clarity let's try and break it down now when it comes to the Machine God the simplest way to think about it in terms of a literal representation is to just think of it like a god a God that you know so for generic analogy sake let's take the com Christian stereotype white hair white beard angry chap calm down later like that but not that we just think you're the Machine God in the same sense of that as a being the mechanicus believe the Machine God to have given rise to all technologies and enabled them through his chosen men across mankind hence again the worship of knowledge there are those some disturbing speculations that the Machine God which some tech priests believe is actually even now housed deep within Mars is in actuality not a benevolent God but a fragment of a town known to the Eldar as mag legrasse the void dragon if you forget what katana they are the world ending godlike creatures previously worshiped by the necrons Megillah draweth is a figure of wanton destruction and Oblivion one of the most powerful of all the star gods it would literally eat stars and enabled its warriors to be near invincible the key thing is that eventually mag lured Roth the void dragon would be shattered by the necrons who rebelled against the coton into shards and while these shards are only small fragments of a whole Catan they are still unimaginably dangerous now how can we know of this outlandish tale that is so far out of the realm of time well some of this information comes from a Martian Tech priest Simeon according to him the void dragon of Mars was defeated in combat by the Emperor on ancient terror and then imprisoned under the surface of Mars in the noctus labyrinth three Age of strife and pre mechanic am here it's remained for many millennia and how does this tech priests Semyon know well he is a guardian of the Dragon and these guardians like Simeon are tasked with keeping others surprisingly away from the void dragon or machine God but find that their proximity enables them to be able to share some of its memories now just how much of these memories are real illusionary or even imagined remains highly questionable and the descriptions given are that of the Emperor fighting a dragon as long ago as the period of millennium - and tying his banner around the dragon unable to fully destroy it before lifting it to Mars it's more allegorical than literal but it does appear that the Emperor fought the coton void dragon shard and then subsequently imprisoned it deep within Mars long ago far before the creation or idea of the mechanic and would come to pass but it is also believed by some that due to the dragon or shards influence it has actually helped in the creation of the cult of the machine and the potentially the Emperor himself set in motion the rise of the mechanical using these dragons dreams to be some kind of inception into the minds of the tech priests and their followers a concept so destructive that if it were ever shown to be true would potentially destroy the relationship between the mechanicus and the Imperium and even the COPE mechanicus itself and this concept of the Emperor knowing or and thing all leads us to the Omni sire now again the Omni sire and the machine guard are not the same thing the machine God is the machine God and the Omni sire is the physical manifestation the avatar of the god of the cult of the machine some see the Omni sires more like a prophet for the machine God and who is the Omni sire of the cult mechanicus the Emperor of man of course there are multiple reasons for this upon arriving at Mars the Emperor's impressive presence alone was enough for the followers of the machine coat to sit up and take notice he appeared in line with a mechanic and prophecy about the Omni sire as well as demonstrating an ability to apparently repair machinery with a mere touch this is probably exaggerated but it's enough to say he had immense skill and knowledge of machines and this knowledge and understanding of all things was more than enough to convince many tech priests that this was the Omni sire they had been awaiting the Emperor with his newly formed Imperium of man proposed a treaty with the mechanical he would come before the mechanic Impala on Mars and proposed the Treaty of Olympus which stated that if they were to supply arms to his armies and support the Imperium with a powerful war fleet he would in turn protect and respect the sovereignty of their Forge worlds more importantly he pledged to not interfere with the internal structure or beliefs of the mechanic him all things considered the Parliament of Mars and fabricated general of the mechanical would agree to this alliance however being successful on the face of it was not the whole truth of the matter this Alliance did not sit well at all with everyone at this time the fabricated general did not rule over the mechanical singularly they had a parliament to make decisions like that of the Alliance to the Imperium many members of the mechanic um including fabricated General caliber hull who was the Speaker of the Martian Parliament but were then later become the overall leader of the mechanical Liz entered this treaty he was deeply distrustful of the Emperor and his dead saw him as a false prophet who had then essentially subordinated the mechanic him under the Imperium he feared that the Emperor and his vast forces of a starties would strip away Mars his autonomy and amalgamate them into the workings and beliefs of the Imperium which remember at this time was entirely secular a direct clash with everything mechanical had come to believe so Mars at this time had now become the center of production for the Imperium of man the Great Crusade had begun and the Emperor's mission to reunite the lost colonies of humanity was well underway the immense Forge world of Mars would now begin producing the ship's arms and armor required by the Imperium and the crusade would also as the emperor promised locate and reunite the Lost Forge worlds of the mechanical fortune Knight worlds would again be discovered and new Forge worlds are established near mineral-rich planets all pushed to maximum production rates one such example of the many reunited for droids is vas prime on arriving here the crusade fleets are found vas prime to be modeled unsurprisingly after the forge world of Mars vas was found to be highly efficient and capable in turning out armaments for the Empire having located and made use of element rich nearby asteroid fields these also doubled as a defense for the planet making approach to the world difficult to navigate and Voss point pattern vehicles are revered among the Imperium but their plasma weapon production less so because despite a high output capacity vas Prime has far less success in producing plasma tech than other forge worlds and it's an example of how closed and insula the mechanicus can be when it comes to resolving any kind of issue which they consider to be at the very core of their sense of being mechanical will begin to use its influence to retain exclusive trading rights with many of these worlds including the light world's tech priests referred to the crusade as the time of great expansion as many night worlds are reunited with Mars during this time all seem to be going well but then of course would come the heresy the traitorous rebellion by the wall master Horace Lupo Cal that would throw the entire Imperium into a disastrous period of brute or civil war the mechanic home was not exempt from this event the only difference was that while some units sided with the traitors and others loyal to the Imperium many of the mechanical also chose to remain neutral and simply remain also on Mars or whatever forge world they happen to be on cowboy Hall D now fabricated general of the mechanic am the sole leader was convinced by Horace to join with the heretics on the condition that autonomy the mechanic ham would be ensured Kelbo Hal had already resented the Emperor since then Alliance and would seize on this opportunity to turn on the Imperium as well as the falsehoods and fallacies that he believed it to represent calvo Hal also ensured that Horace would turn over to him st sees that the sons of Horus had captured from the oration technocracy the Eurasians had used the STC to develop their civilization and their military even used power armor similar in design to that of space marines when the ruler of the Eurasian technocracy mentioned unwittingly in passing to Horace in their initial meetings that they had an STC in their possession Horace at this time already having decided to split from the empress wei's drew his pistol and killed the Eurasian leader on the spot later records would show that the Eurasian leader held a staff with a weapon containing such advanced power it could have assassinated Horace where he stood this gives an idea of the power that st sees contain and the level of advanced knowledge they have the potential to reveal they are after all the fonts of knowledge from the zenith of human technological achievement the war between horses forces and the aerations was then far from straightforward and took nearly a year to conclude the final battle for the eurasian world was noted as being particularly brutal with anger on primark of the world eaters rampaging and slaughtering soldiers and civilians indiscriminately the multiple high-value STC's recovered from this conflict with the bargaining chips Horace required to bring Cal Boer Hal and the powerful mechanical to the side of the traitors how low also would demand that the volts of forbidden technology be opened otherwise known as the vaults of Moravec Primus Moravec was part of the Brotherhood of cingulate Arianism they were initially from the Pan Pacific Empire on terror and believed that mankind would eventually come upon a technological singularity resulting in a greater than human intelligence this was deemed even in these early days as heresy and Samer avec fled to mars where he founded the vaults and apparently meshed technology with ancient entities of the war inherent dangers that can be read into this are clearly apparent and as such when the Emperor arrived on Mars gaining the alliance with the mechanical part of his treaty with them was to ensure that the vaults of Mora vac never be opened this angered some members of the mechanical and hence why caliber Hal now demanded they'd be opened again Horace would grant Hal's request and give him the access codes to the vault where inside they would discover among many ancient artifacts a scrap code now scrap code generators are extremely dangerous devices they are mechanisms of heresy of the highest order coupling imperial machine spirits they inflict an electronic virus pattern into existing data currents these patterns then disrupt the currents and induce electronic seizures shattering the machine spirit and then being reformatted this leaves the machine spirit with new functions and most importantly new loyalties which again leads us neatly to what is machine spirit this is one of the things that people probably rightly get most confused by what is machine spirit is it a ghost in the shell' style thing is it's a machines automatic systems or is it none of those things is it just a religious doctrine that is there for believers to take strength from the answer is it's all of those things land raiders and drop pods are two notable examples of Imperial Tech containing machines Spirit is able to make their own course corrections process target acquisition and so on a land Raider can even take full control of itself for short periods of time and while this could be taken as being a form of AI this is carefully sidestepped around as having simply a particularly strong or active machine spirit now Imperial Titans exhibit some of these strongest machine spirits as they require a cybernetic interface with a human in order to properly function this individual is usually the commander of a Titan and is known as the princeps they use a mind impulse unit to allow connection between the human and the Titans machine spirit read it's automatic systems and likely a basic if not even more advanced level of AI the process of connecting a human mind to these machines is highly difficult and dangerous as Titans have powerful machine spirits the true strength of a Titan machine spirit is little spoken of and they have very instinctive intelligence the princeps must break the machines opposition with immense willpower before being able to make it function only one in 10 million human individuals possess the mental strength to become a princess of a Titan and because of this a Princip is one of the few human individuals that both the mechanicus and impaired will go to extensive lengths to recover alive if they are damaged or lost in battle they are that important of an individual machine spirit to the followers of the cult mechanicus is a very real thing but it's an abstraction of reality it's not an actual thing in the strictest sense but it is highly important to those of the cult mechanicus because this belief in the spirit of machine comes from their core beliefs right from the beginning of the mechanical in these matters it helps to look to some of the cult mechanicus is 16 universal laws the first and second laws come within the first eight laws which are titled the mysteries of the cult mechanicus the first law stating that life is directed motion the second law stating the Spirit is the spark of life then when you look at the second eight laws which come under the warnings of the cult mechanicus fourteen states the Machine spirit guards the knowledge of the Ancients and lastly sixteen which states to break with ritual is to break with faith and what you can infer is that for the Colt mechanicus the sense of ritual to the machine spirit it's important to them in guiding not just machines to operate but also curating and guarding the knowledge contained within them runs at the very core of their beliefs now it may be true that something is relatively simple as a gun of any design does not literally require the hours of blessing and rituals that may be bestowed upon something like the space coins bolter or even to a guardsman zloz gun where all it gets is a quick mumbled prayer and a polish and it's good to go but something as complex as imperial Titans does necessitate a much stronger sense of ritual and understanding of the Machine spirit however you loosely interpret what that actually means it also cuts to something that is fundamental to the mechanic gnome and mechanicus that sense of duty and care to the machines tending to them maintaining their machine spirit something that the lack of previously caused the destruction of Mars as it was known so concreting this sense of ritualistic duty too follows of the coltan machine is as much about a literal sense of needing to keep their machines physically operational just as much as it is a spiritual thing so back to the heresy the vault and the scrap code this period would be later titled the death of innocence and was the beginning of the schism of Mars and the rise of the heretical dark mechanical lucas chrome a tech priest a master of one of Mars's largest forges as well as one of the founding members of the dark mechanic 'm before outright heresy had even begun Crom had been constructing a contentious machine known as the Caban despite the ban on AI he had ignored this fact and so when the dark mechanical was on the cards he was solidly onboard the cabin machine had been largely kept secret but with a few rumors whispered through the forge about some kind of AI machine being constructed the cabin machine was a tracked machine equipped with void shielding and extensive strange weaponry and cron would unleash this sentient AI machine before a fully open civil war was declared against one of the Loyalists reactor core the cabin destroyed most of its opposition but after the reactors explosion it was not able to be located other unofficial assaults would occur at this time including by a traitor Titan Legion the Li geo Magna otherwise known as the flaming skulls they assaulted a forge in the medulla crater where they smashed through the forge entrance in minutes as the screaming war machines engines powered through crushing and incinerating anything in front of them destroying thousands of years worth of knowledge near instantaneously they assault so fast and brutal the forge was a burning mess of broken Farah Crete and molten slag before anyone knew what was happening the Kanban machine was later to be discovered by a cargo hauler who was then killed when chrome asserted it belonged to him and ordered the Caban to obey his commands which now included seeking to execute one dahlia cythera a young Terran girl who had become part of a plan to draw knowledge from the warp itself Crom had previously already attempted to have her put to death for her progressive thinking and for her tech heresy but was unsuccessful thanks to Coryell death death was an adept of magma city a forge located inside of an active volcano on Mars death was an interesting figure because while at face value was a loyal disciple of the Machine God she inwardly did not believe and was more dedicated to the pure acquisition of knowledge to that end death had been seeking access to the Akashic a source within the warp that required immense psychic energy poured into an empath to access it is that believed that if this could be accessed it could enable them to collect the sum total of all knowledge in the universe she realized that dahlias there's-- mind that was young and not overtly constrained by mechanical dogma could assist her and so together they attempted to complete the akashic reader and channel its energy by now the unleashing of the corrupt chaos infected scrap code by fabricated general caliber how led to large-scale unrest communication breakdowns on and off world and general literal devastation multiple facilities would be destroyed and a large number of astra paths would die on Mars when their life-support systems were poisoned by the corrupted scrap code few knew who or what had caused this assault on the mechanical and so those loyal to calibre how attempted to recruit other tech priests telling them that this was in fact the emperor's doing that he was never to have been trusted and now that as part of his crusade he longed to conquer Mars for his Imperium while the viral spread of the tainted scrap code was devastating to Mars it was not as successful as cowboy Hall had thought it may have been several sites across Mars were nearly entirely unaffected as they were now using a more secure information network known as the news fair these designs had been recovered from ancient vault tombs on terror by exploiter adept Lazlo the forge of magma city was also unintentionally protected by the Akashic reader as zeth and Dallas ethera attempted to draw the information they were trying to get out of the war they would be unsuccessful and instead would accidentally flood magma city would be Emperor's war energy shielding it from the scrap code assault the reader would though imbued Dalia with some memories of the void dragon of Mars and this would lead to an expedition to the Noctis labyrinth the dark mechanic him at this time were confused and fearful that their assault hadn't worked as well as they thought with the scrap code and were more outraged when they had heard of the young Dahlia was partly responsible for the protection of Magnus city deciding that Dahlia should be terminated they sent out again the Cabal machine as Dahlia and her expedition were nearing the entrance to the Noctis labyrinth but two Imperial Knights would overcome the AI machine whilst taking critical damage themselves Dahlia and her cohorts would then meet the dragon Guardian Semyon where she would be appointed as the new guardian of the dragon the cabin machine is believed to have fought through the schism of Mars but its ultimate fate is unknown beyond this point Calvo Hale had resisted outright declaration of war against the other members of the mechanical but he was soon to be given an opportunity to launch his forces into battle corals earth would resist caused by Kalba hal to come before him as the fabricated general and when faced with his now distorted and modified Scutari that now appeared wretched after the power unleashed by the scrap code death was again demanded to come before the fabricated general on the grounds of our experimentation with technology and allowing non cult mechanic own personnel to work on divine machinery she was to be placed in custody and put on trial for tech heresy but facing multiple nights standing loyally aside death the dark mechanical Qatari forces were unable to get her to follow them but it was not this but ultimately her outright declaration that she did not believe the Omni SIA actually existed and technology was science and reasoning not blind faith this was just what cowboy Hal had been waiting for and upon declaring them heretics to the millennia of established cult dogma he would unleash open war and attempted to wrest control as would descend down into its own civil year some areas of Mars took huge volleys of nuclear missiles from the dark mechanical silos Titans fought each other in huge battles of world ending scale with the vast machines ripping and shredding each other leaving massive ruins of burning scrap scarring the planet's surface mass infantry battles were also waged at the Herschel impact Basin between Scutari and protectors with numbers on the battlefield easily reaching a million individuals where in the aftermath nearly all were killed in that specific engagement but massive loss of life was occurring everywhere on the planet and it's Minaya slackers forge City where the dark mechanic Am would then unleash the horrific virus bombs inflicting some of the most catastrophic casualties of the heresy period and this instance an estimated 14 million would die in minutes in another instance with the battle raging above the planet in space around Mars as well as on the surface the mechanical Glorian would be sent crashing to the surface of Mars itself killing billions the dark mechanical would wage a massive assault on magma city and this would become the spearhead for the resistance of loyalists open war was now being fought across the planet for both civilian and military mechanical citizenry alike as the battle around magma city intensified it was now facing the eligio mortis Titan Legion known as the death sense they were known for being suspiciously loyal to the fabricated general and not the Emperor most of the deaths heads Titans fell into the decay of the chaos god Nergal the loyalists legio temp estes and knights of the Tyrannis would aid Zef in defending the city however they would also face the Imperator Titan Aquila Ignace which had also been defiled by Nergal while the Imperator would destroy the remnants of ten pastures with its sheer immense firepower this was not before they would destroy near all of the death's-head Titans despite a powerful defense to the invaders of magma city they were just too many and corals Earth's last act would be to detonate the reactors of magma city killing herself and all others therein but in doing so would unleash huge waves of magma that would destroy near all of the assaulting traitors and also prevent them from gaining access to the Akashic reader this also succeeded in felling the massive Imperator Titan with all but it's hailstorm cannon being destroyed things were not looking hopeful for the loyalists on Mars but then salvation of a kind from a glorious figure in the history of the Imperium would appear that of Malka door the city light he would bring a great Imperial fleet to Mars and under his command rogue or dawn of the Imperial fists would launch four companies and a massive Imperial Army force to secure the forges of Mars the northern hemisphere of Mars contained a loyalist ark of forges which were responsible for the bulk production of armor and weapons for the starties so dawn would choose to strike there to occupy the forges and then push outward to secure others captain Sigismund and Cambodia's of the imperial fists were sent to secure the forges of mages Cain and Lucas kromm respectively unfortunately for Captain Cambodia's while Cain was loyal to the Imperium chrom was clearly not and instead a vicious battle ensued that they had not expected while they managed to secure some Armour and ammunition resources they were soon forced to make a displeasing ly necessary retreat while taking significant losses despite what they had assumed was going to be a fairly successful assault on Mars it quickly became apparent that their dart mechanic ham was proving far more powerful and well-established than they had anticipated on hearing the Intel that a force of Scutari infantry and armored vehicles as well as two traitor Titan legions totaling 60 war machines who is enough for Captain sig asmin to issue an immediate evacuation order for all loyalist forces unfortunately near all of the mechanical resistance as well as those in the Lee geo temp Estes and the Knights of taranis were killed or critically incapacitated fighting the villainous assaults of the dark mechanical cane however was able to evacuate with the Imperial fists but the forges under Cain and Chrome's control would suffer such heavy damage to their production capabilities that it would be felt for millennia to come in this frustrating turn of events Imperial forces would choose to now blockade Mars and despite several unsuccessful breakout attempts by the traitors the impure fists would keep them contained for now but then as Horace leper colonies traitors approached earth for the final battle things would become significantly more chaotic another incident of note here occurs during the last year's of the heresy once Cain had travelled to earth and been declared as the loyalists fabricated general he was involved with the mechanical in the war within the web way this was the disastrous situation created by the Emperor's plans to allow humanity to use the elder web ways but when Magnus the red Primarch of the thousand suns had attempted to warn the Emperor of the coming heresy he inadvertently caused a major malfunction that led to the web way portal being breached and as a consequence of schools of chaos demons pouring in once these abominations were fought back into the web way the ongoing process of stabilizing and sealing the web way began as blockades across the web way tunnels were created mechanical workers would then repair the damaged sections and seal rifts preventing demons from pouring in now Kane had planned in cooperation with another member of the mechanical arcing land to utilize the web way to access and retake their home of Mars from the dark mechanical on the orders of Kaena tech priests by the name of Haran i'ma was ascended to the role of archimandrite and was sent as commander of the mechanicals military forces in the web way now Hera Naima was a fearsome creation she was an avatar of the cult mechanicus and her brain had been fused with a weaponized domitor class robot clawed feet fists that could crush power armor wrist-mounted flamers and showed a Volk ITIN Avenger bulk cannons one hand also contained a double-barreled energy weapon producing fusion beams now within the web wake Alistair was an abandoned elder city and was a hub location it would become a focal point for this war within the web way Callister was known as the impossible city to the Imperial forces because of its strange 360 degree dimensions that gave a highly disorientating sense to the human eye it also contained a deep chasm beneath cala star that was determined by the mechanical to be so deep that if you fell into it you would surely die from old age before you reach the bottom assuming normal sustenance allowing callous Tavo would then come under continual assault by demonic hordes and having only limited approved forces to fight within the secretive location in the web way whilst the ongoing heresy war was happening outside made things all the more troubling here Anaya the archimandrite of Kane's mechanic Am was sent in as a final defense of the ongoing ruination being thrown upon Callister by the demons of chaos the custodies and sisters of silence maintained an ongoing defense for weeks and when finally chaos titans began to swarm the city the are and I ordered a retreat however as per cane and lands goals the mechanic um intended to abandon the custodies and sisters of silence to the demonic hordes and we're going to instead attempt to then secure a connection in the web way to Mars this treachery though only served as a conduit for the demon Drac nyan to possess her giant metal form and she would now turn to attack the Imperials calloused our wood formed and Imperial forces were left fleeing back to the web way gate of terror the emperor was now able to leave the golden throne thanks to the sacrifice of a thousand captured psychos and as he plunged into the web way as a blindingly bright star before the chaos hordes shining with such psychic energy that the demons were forced back the emperor would pierce straight into their midst and wreak them with horrific fury and vengeance this whirlwind of psychic fury invigorated the custodies who flew back to fight by the Emperor's side and the Emperor at this stage even summoned an army of loyal Imperial dead including Faris Manus the Primarch of the iron hands who fought as a blazing Spectre alongside the Emperor this battle would give enough of a lull in the demonic assaults to retreat back to the gates of the web way portal and allow the emperor to retake his position on the golden throne and seal it ultimately as we know the loyalist forces are victorious and after Horace was slain by the Emperor himself being mortally wounded would come the period of the great scouring campaigns of brutal and unrestrained vengeance by the loyalist forces that kept the now shambolic mess of traitors running all the way back to the eye of terror in a very short period of time but currently little is known about Mars in his time other than it comes back under loyalist control the fabricated general of the dark mechanical caliber howls fate is also unknown at this time it's open to speculation until otherwise asserted in official documents what occurred on Mars now and to me the most likely scenario is along with the traitorous of starties the dark mechanic has realized that with their leader slain the key stone was broken and they fell into panicked disorder perhaps the dark mechanic him realized that facing off alone against the rage of the estar T's firestorm that was coming their way from Terror was a fight best avoided even with their quite significant firepower it was certainly known that not all members was a mechanic am strongly sided one way or the other during the heresy and it's plausible that some if not many of those on Mars remained in a fairly menial capacity following orders but not getting overtly involved or perhaps they initially believed a fabricated general that they were under assault from the Imperium with it only dawning on them later once the time to leave had passed that they had badly misjudged this situation probably when they began to see Scutari being hideously mutilated and deformed so if those members of the cult ermichine remained it's anyone's guess as to if they would be granted some kind of reprieve or just incinerated on the spot for heresy that certainly wouldn't be out of the remit of the Imperium when dealing with potentially tainted heretics or just people that have been in close proximity to chaos however it's worth remembering that for one the mechanic who was still considered a fairly separate entity and that maybe they just deferred judgment to the remaining mechanical Council and came it's also worth considering that after the assault on terror the Imperium urgently needed production and resupply crippling its largest and nearest Forge world by executing any and all survivors who remained may not have been the smartest tactical move but at this point it's all speculative in the time of the scouring is when reboot gulaman whose name I really get sick of pronouncing would assign arch made just Dominus Belisarius call with his secret missions in uncharted space to work on the creation of the primary Space Marines with the sang Primus port 'm and to resurrect Gulman should things go badly wrong we they unfortunately did the sang Primus Porter is an Imperium artifact that contains the genetic material of all 20 pry marks now the relatively previously unknown core has now become a critically important figure in the history of the impairment man and first appears during the Horus heresy in this time he was a tech acolyte on the mechanical world of the Trostle alien system while Cole believed the emperor was the Omni sire he did not agree with much of the mechanic um's teachings and as much as he believed similarly to zeth that they should innovate rather than merely maintain through rituals and faith in his early time he believed more strongly in the human form and resisted much of the more common body augmentations you see in the mechanicus he did they perform illegal internal enhancements like brain surgeries on himself to increase his own intelligence when the traitors came to his system and his master bowed to the will of horus Cole found here a little choice if he wanted to survive other than to feign submission but later Cole would kill his former master Aspasia absorbing his intelligence core and his knowledge of cloning in the process before fleeing the system in terms of cause tasks for the Primarch of the ultramarines he was successful in both counts yah Gilman does not fully trust call despite his massive achievements because whilst Cole has shown nothing but total devotion to the Imperium he also has bordered on heretical experimentation notably a creation known as the call inferior this is a complex machine only accessible to the Primarch Gulman and its purpose is to allow him to engage with it in pre-programmed responses status updates and answer any number of theoretical scenarios but it also contains the sum total of its creators knowledge and is in place as a backup were called to die himself however while Gulman is led to believe by call that the machine is just pre-programmed to give responses and not actually call himself it is deceptive to the point of being highly suspect Gulman partly suspects that the machine is not simply giving responses but is in fact a fully aware artificial intelligence as the device has been known to become emotional and even lying to him on occasion situations such as this and the fact that caused general actions across the past 10,000 years to the current time have led many across the adductors mechanicus to be fairly hostile towards him give cause for government to respect him but simultaneously keep him at somewhat arm's length returning go back to the 31st millennium and forge masters Zagreus cane would be named as the new fabricated general of the loyalists mechanical in name only keynes embittered feelings to the events that had unfolded pushed him to further augment himself to the point that by the late period in the heresy he had few human features remaining and now used tracks as his mobility in place of legs canes frustrations also led to him having an ever more unstable attitude this made many of his closest followers reach for some kind of resolution to the impasse of the mechanical leadership the mechanical considered the issue of both Calvo Howell and cane claiming the fabricated general position as an unresolved equation in their thinking while cowboy Howell was undoubtedly a traitor to the Imperium he was still the fabricated general of the mechanical which despite its previous alliance treaty did not sit under the banner of the Imperium but had been allowed to stand independently to resolve this issue ambassador Verrill attacked priest and mechanic 'm she had actually few art word bionics for a figure in her position and was Kane's representative on the council of terror well aware that something was needed to allow Kang to strengthen the ailing cause of the loyalist mechanical including the vitally important ecology a Titanic er she suggested that the mechanical should be moved to adapt a status within the Imperium something that would give them represent Haitian on the council of terror this was not a popular opinion among tech priests or adaptive terror members at the time she even faced assassination attempts for her ideas but ultimately thanks to cane support and some intimidation by the Alicia ignotum which is another Titan Legion Vera was successful despite the loyalist mechanical council's concerns about their ability to function independently from the workings of the Imperium of man the resolution ultimately would pass when the collector Tanika forced their hand threatening to abandon the war in the Terran solar system toward the end of the heresy period for them to do this would have been catastrophic these events would lead to the abandonment of the pre heresy meccanica as an organization and the creation of the now well-established adaptive mechanicus one thing though is that it would be interesting to imagine how different things could have been had Zef survived and her progressively minded anti religious knowledge seeking agenda been allowed to proliferate through the mechanicus but sadly it was not to be and instead the mechanicus returned to praying machines would work by burning incense nevermind once zagreas cane is placed as the fabricated general of the new adapters mechanicus he also joins the group known as the High Lords of terror to oversee the workings and decisions of the impairment man the purges and events after the heresy set the mechanicus back heavily in their goals swathe of data had been lost and behemoth size facilities lay in ruin it was a horrific wound largely self inflicted by the mechanicus it still struggles to recover much of any of the prices achievements from its past period of technology gathering around the end of the age of strife during the time immediately after the heresy and scouring mechanicus is now focused on its work rebuilding re-establishing contact and bringing its forged worlds back online it also has to begin reacquiring forces to bolster its heavily damaged Scutari units and assess damage inflicted across its bastions throughout the galaxy between the time of rebirth to the current period in the 45 millennium many further events take place in varying severity including multiple new fabricated generals taking the place of King I hope to cover these ongoing revelations in a future video to bring us up to date or perhaps when future details about the retaking of Mars and any subsequent consequences come along all of this aside the final thoughts for the mechanicus in this are that the adaptive mechanicus and the cult mechanicus spend the next 10,000 years entrenching their religious dogma and further strengthening their military forces the tech priests of Mars continue to worship the Emperor as the Omni sire but not under the Imperial cult the overarching goals of the mechanicus remain the same as ever an unrelenting quest for knowledge by any means necessary the primary goal remains no matter how unlikely that of finding an intact functioning STC this becomes ever more unlikely as time passes and STC printouts while some of high importance have been found early colonists needs from STC units were usually simple and so more complex theoretical data and advanced tech are unlikely to have been printed as hard copies the authority of the adapters mechanicus in all matters technological remains unquestioned as does the belief in the Machine the spirit and moreover the sense of machines as being sacred even non-initiated ordinary Imperial citizens will treat machines with a reasonable amount of respect and would be careful not to intentionally misuse a machine and certainly not in the presence of others the mechanicus and its tech priests are literally essential to the running operation and maintenance of the Imperium worlds and forces every fleet every ship every world will have tech priests there to supervise and attend to the needs of the tech its Forge worlds are essential to the manufacture and commerce of entire sectors in the Imperium even the adapter societies send their own to Mars to learn the ways of the Machine and become tech Marines without the adapters mechanicus it is highly questionable whether the Imperium as it currently stands will be able to survive considering the severity of threats that it faces but even so one of the mechanic is biggest criticisms even among its own is its poor ability in replicating and backwardly engineering tech that is discovered even now if they find working old tech the mechanicus is copies are usually poor imitations and sometimes even dangerous to the users the cult treats innovation with high levels of skepticism instead of trying to understand and unlock the secrets of the most powerful ancient technology they're satisfied to simply maintain it and worship it with religious dogma there are though a growing many who believed as did Coryell zeth that this is not the way forward and more recently those like Belisarius call are taking literal actions that go openly against the grain of the established mechanicus dogma much too many in the cult of the machine's disapproval some would posit that the way of the original mechanical has been now lost that those original survivors from the age of strife on Mars before the mechanical and cult of machine even existed growing numbers of voices within the mechanicus now seem to support the idea that gaining knowledge which was the core of the cult of the machine has been supplanted by simple banal worship of its function there are few tech priests if truly any who can even come close to the technical achievements of their ancient predecessors and we're talking about those in the very early cult mechanicus here forget about the humans of the Dark Age of Technology as time passes more of mankind's knowledge is eroded away strange technology rituals replace understanding and the most complex of machines become mythical we'll return to the world of mechanicus and we next look at the periods from the end of the heresy forward to the current time and break down more of its internal structure as always thanks for watching I'll see you next time you

Channel: Luetin09

Views: 2,172,304

Keywords: Space Marines, Army, Custom model, Tabletop, Warhammer, Imperium, Astartes, Ultra, Macragge, Battle, Dreadnought, Terminator, Scout, assassin, Dropship, Luetin09, overview, Discussion, Librarian, Psyker, Psychic, Elite, Veteran, Assault, Heavy weapons, Warhammer 40000 (Interest), Imperium of mankind, The Emperor, Mars, Mechanicus, Cult, Mechanicum, Dalia Cythera, Schism of Mars, Heresy, Horus, Dark age of technology, Skitarii

Id: F0GObe51--c

Length: 73min 34sec (4414 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 28 2018

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[u/CruxMechanicus]

If you want to know more about the lore behind various topics in W40k, Luetin's got your back. Great channel for lore videos, for either watching and enjoying all the cool artwork, or listening to when painting and assembling. Highly recommended!

PS: The audio is missing from 0:15 to 0:50, it's just youtube doing its copyright thing. You're not missing anything vital. Also, the video contains spoilers from the novel Mechanicum by Graham McNeill, as well as other books with content relating to the Mechanicus.