"Adeptus Mechanicus": description and origin

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

There is one very interesting establishment of the Imperium in the fictional world of Warhammer 40,000, the Adeptus Mechanicus. The main function of this organization is the promotion and preservation of technological as well as scientific thought. The Adeptus Mechanicus is a cult, but the Ecclesiarchy does not seem to notice it and is in no hurry to assign heretical status. In this article, we will talk about this organization in detail.

Rise

When did this cult, which is so famous in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, appear? The Adeptus Mechanicus originated on Mars long before the founding of the Imperium. At that time, the galaxy was engulfed in warp storms, destroying everything in its path. On the red planet, they led to the death of an ecosystem that had been created for several centuries. At the same time, many of the surviving people turned into degraded mutants.

Then the Altar of Technology appeared, and the worship of the Machine God began. His followers methodically searched for fragments of lost knowledge and were engaged in the construction of anti-radiation shields and shelters. All unbelievers offered fierce resistance and were soon forced into the deserts of Mars. Most of them died there.

After restoring order toplanet, the tech-priests began to explore Sacred Terra. They found out that the civilization of the ancient ancestral home of mankind collapsed. Terra was filled with hordes of ferocious barbarians fighting among themselves. Other worlds of people were also not in the best condition. Quite a few research ships have disappeared in the vastness of the galaxy. But the survivors established colonies along the lines of Mars and became factory worlds.

Cult of the Adeptus Mechanicus

He teaches that not only knowledge is sacred, but also any of its carriers. The highest object of faith is the God-Machine (Omnissiah, Deus Mechanicus). He is an omnipotent and omnipresent spirit. The Omnissiah is usually considered an aspect of the Divine Emperor. On the other hand, only their cult is relevant for the Mechanicum. They are not subject to the authority of the Ecclesiarchy.

The Omnissiah is friendly to people and it is he who produces all the technologies that exist in the Warhammer universe. The Adeptus Mechanicus also receives scientific knowledge from him. The Machine God obeys the Spirits of mechanisms. They need to pray to keep their machines running smoothly.

As the codex of the Adeptus Mechanicus states, the cult's ultimate goal is to understand the Omnissiah. It can only be achieved through the search for knowledge. This is the intermediate goal of the Mechanicum. According to their teaching, all knowledge already exists, you just need to find it, study it and collect it together. Adeptus Mechanicus very rarely researches. And if they do, they will definitely classify the results.

Arrival of the Divine Emperor

When the Age of Strife ended, the Holy Terra cameEmperor. He unleashed several wars, which eventually rallied people. Thus began the Great Crusade for the unification of mankind. As a result, the tech-priests of Mars made him the embodiment of the Omnissiah and legitimized the new Imperium. But not everyone agreed with this decision. During the civil war, all opponents of the Divine Emperor were destroyed.

The crusade helped the technomages establish links between factory worlds and create many new ones. Throughout it, the adherents of the Machine God were busy supplying the Emperor's army.

The Horus Heresy

It suddenly swept through the Adeptus Mechanicus, tearing apart the newborn Imperium. A lot of cult members went over to the side of the heretics, turning their weapons against their former brethren. Since then, all traitor tech-priests have been referred to as Dark Adeptus Mechanicus. They were led by Solomon Abbadon, the archmage who founded the citadel of Jericho.

This fortress contained an incredibly powerful artifact that protected it from orbital bombardments. However, the Imperial army had found a way to conquer Jericho, and there was nothing the Dark Adeptus Mechanicus could do about it. A sonic disruptor was developed that razed the stronghold of the technoretics to the ground. With the destruction of the worshipers of Chaos, the Mechanicum took their place in the Imperial structure. And the Fabricator General of Mars, who was at their head, became the High Lord.

Mars

It is the capital of the Mechanicum and the sister planet of Sacred Terra. Human settlements on Mars have been neighbors since ancient times.radioactive deserts. They were formed after numerous wars of the past.

Mars is the greatest marvel of the Imperium of Man, the first and most powerful Forge World. Supplies of military equipment and weapons for the defenders of humanity come from this planet in an inexhaustible stream. Also on Mars are shipyards that regularly replenish the Imperial fleet.

Hierarchy

Every fictional universe has its own structure, including Warhammer 40,000. The Adeptus Mechanicus has it too. And it's pretty complicated. The tech-adept, moving to higher levels of the hierarchy, tries to get rid of the fetters of the flesh, replacing it with implants. Not only his body, but also his mind undergoes changes. With each improvement, he becomes more and more different from the human.

Technomages

These are the masters of the Adeptus Mechanicus (miniatures of cult heroes are sold in any toy store). They vary across many disciplines. There are Magos Lexmechanicus, Magos Biologis, Magos Alchemis, and others. As for the highest ranks, these are archmagos. Special mention should be made of the Magos-researchers who scour the Galaxy in search of ancient knowledge.

Generators

Are biotechnologists. They are engaged in the study of new worlds, looking for new DNA samples. Then they are introduced into the imperial animal ecosystem.

Logis

These are the advisors of the Adeptus Mechanicus cult, the symbol of which is represented as a skull against a gear. They are logicians, analysts and statistics. They are able to predict events with a minimum probability of error. The Logis have a reputation for making successful predictions.

Lexmechanics

Painfully research and compare the facts. They process planetary reports, battlefields and economic statistics with the precision and speed of computers. Their main goal is to collect and optimize data in the main computer storage of Mars.

Techmarines

Only trained on Mars. They serve both their order and the cult of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Rune Priests

Responsible for singing liturgies and applying sacred runes. The latter are needed for the spell Machine Spirits.

Servitors

Heretics, thieves, bandits and other asocial individuals who opposed the Machine God are subject to conversion into soulless cyborg slaves. Their minds are first edited and then programmed to perform dangerous and/or primitive tasks. There are many types of servitors, ranging from cleaners to combat models that have the firepower of a tank.

The source of a servitor is a body (central nervous system, to be precise) artificially grown in a bioreservoir. It can also be a recruit who did not pass the "Space Marines" or a criminal subjected to a lobotomy. After programming, a person becomes a living robot, and his brain becomes a central processor.

Lingua Technis

This is the sacred language of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Until the 40th millennium, it was used in manyworlds, and then became the prerogative of only this cult. For the tech-priests, the lingua technis is the only language acceptable to the Machine God and used for communication between technology and humans: machine spirits, logic machines, and servitors.

In the books Soul Drinkers and Adepts of Darkness, this language is described as a collection of clicking and hissing sounds, corresponding to zeros and ones of machine code.

Armed Forces

Variety of troops is one of the hallmarks of the Warhammer universe. The Adeptus Mechanicus, although part of the Imperium, has its own independent army. Periodically, she joins the general forces of the Imperium. The army of the Adeptus Mechanicus consists of four parts: a battle fleet, titans, skitarii and a division of the Legio Cybernetics (uses robots in battles).

Titans

These are huge walking machines designed to destroy. The crew of each of them is led by a princeps. And to him, in turn, obey servitors, engineers, tactical officer and moderator. To the Mechanicum, titans are living beings. They worship the spirits that live in their computers. Each titan is very important, so he is awarded his own name. It is composed of two words in High Gothic (Latin-like): Regalis annigilatus, imperius dominatus, apocalyptus credo and others.

Titan spirits are fundamentally different from the standard machine spirits that the tech-priests believe in. Each titan has its own thinking computer. By connecting to it, the adept can see the mentallandscape.

The College that unites the titans has several departments: Divisio Investigatus, Divisio Telepathica and Divisio Mandati. The most important is the Ordo Militari. It includes battle titans.

The Crusade breathed new life into the creation of Martian weapons, and the production of titans was deployed throughout the galaxy. Legions such as the Gryphons of War, the Fire Wasps and the Death's Head appeared.

Soon the Horus Heresy split the ranks of the College Titanicus. The Totenkopf Legion has gone over to the enemy side.

Mechanicum did not develop new types of titans. They only copied ancient patterns. The battle titans of the Warhammer universe are significantly inferior (both physically and mentally) to the first prototypes from the Age of Strife.

Imperial Knights

Reduced likeness of titans. Unlike the latter, not plasma reactors are used in battle, but cells of increased energy intensity. The Mechanicum are cultivating knights on the most backward agri-worlds controlled by the tech-priests.

Skitarii

Along with the titans, they actively defend the Imperium. Skitarii are infantry, which consists of cyborgs (half-machine, half-human). They are also divided into several subspecies. For example, balisterai equipped with weapons to destroy enemy fortifications. Or prathorns, consisting of a metal skeleton and cyber-implants.

Techno-theoreticians

The taint of Chaos contributed to the emergence of various types of tech-heresy in the ranks of the Mechanicum. Edition "Adepts of Darkness"talks about the forge world of Caeronia, wholly infected with Chaos. The tech-priests who rule this planet have fallen into heresy. As a result, a self-sufficient world of cannibals appeared. At the same time, the top leadership of Caeronia was networked, turning off the individuality. And inefficient workers were processed into a nutrient mixture for other residents.