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I've heard that the Mechanicus used to innovate (why don't I remember that...), but then they switched to saying innovation is heresy, and only tech that has come before is legit & non-heretical. For some reason I seem to recall this situation differently, but now I'm thrown enough to not really remember at all/understand any longer.

Can anyone shine some light on this situation for me so I get the story straight?


PS-It is still valid to say that a major theme in 40k is how humanity took for granted that their technology would always be around and never cared to do much to preserve it, right? I suppose that's true, regardless, considering everything that's happened. That has always been my favorite 40k theme.

Because thinking outside the box is heresy! And anything not decleared "legal" by the IoM is view as heresy

Because it's thinking different. Wich causes heresy.

I always presumed it was because the IoM turned from being focused on science, as the Emperor wanted, to a religious empire where science is outlawed, and everyone should just obey not think for themselves. That's why even repairing technology have become a religious ordeal where they praise the machine-spirits and such, instead of just fixing some circuits or whatever.
Somewhat mirroring our own dark age, except for the orks and bolters :-)

I think it's just another way to show the Imperium as it is - corrupt and decaying. They don't come up with anything new, just like they have no new ideas of thoughts. As others have said, it's meant to mimic the dark ages in medieval Europe to an extent.

Inquisitors, suspicion of innovation, 'Heresy' around every corner. A closed-minded paranoid society basically.

Besides major themes and the nature of the Imperium, I'd think it has a lot to do with the sorts of innovation they've run into before. Human invention brought things like the Men of Iron down on their heads; the followers of Chaos do terrible things (even by Imperial standards!) with flesh and metal in the name of science, and the other major innovator faction (Tau) are filthy xenos and their fancy "improved, workable technology" doesn't count, so there!

They've been burned pretty badly in the past and every now and then some inspired tech-priest puts his mechadendrite firmly on the hot stove to try and reach higher...small wonder "press the start button" has been replaced by "chant the rite of activation thrice, light a dozen candles in the name of the Omnissiah, and invoke the machine-spirit by placing thy finger firmly upon the Rune of Awakening".

Because all their technology is based on STCs, which is the Mechanicum's holy book, by improving upon its designs, they would have to admit that their holy book is imperfect and by extension, their god is imperfect.

"An open mind is like a fortress with it's gates unbarred and unguarded"

Imperials don't like the idea of their subjects' minds wandering. That way leads to Chaos.

By almost any account technology from the dark age was orders of magnitude better than anything the IOM produces now. the Ad Mech seeks to reclaim that lost glory.

As well, it is a valid philosophical stance...the enemy of the IOM is Change...so the IOM favors stagnation.

Well fluff-wise, the Adeptus Mechanicus forbids any form of machinery not constructed from STC blue-prints.

The priesthood of mars believe that every machinery is part of the machine god, and all form of technology are already designed by their patron; therefore deviating from their God's design is blasphemy.
Since the Adeptus Mechanicus has the exclusive access to producing advanced gears, they are essential for the survival of IoM. One reason for the Emprah to seek alliance with the Mechanicus was because he needed the production facilities and tech specialists there to support the Great Crusade, allowing the Martians to follow their own cult and remain largely autonomous. Therefore whatever the Mechanicus says goes when it comes to machines in the IoM.

As for 'why Cult Mechanicus?'; most likely during the long night (age of strife), the Martians lost all knowledge of their technologies during the civil war, and was only able to carry on by replicating the blueprints they had. In centuries, strict living environment and scant resources disallow any risk of experimentation that may go wrong, and they bent to the superstitions that nonconformity results divine punishment. Considering machines produced in the 41st Millennium by the IoM was all base on the STCs, it's probably safe to assume no Martian experiments during the AoS was successful.

As for why the writers in GW like it, well it's the Grimdark and everything (except for Tau; and even their non-grimdark-ness is debatable with the new Farsight Codex) had to be the equivalent of the worst part of the Deep South, USA.

Simple.

Uncontrolled experimentation leads to daemonic possession, warp incursions, and corruption. It's not that the AM don't want innovation, it's that the safeguards to prevent mass warp-related destruction have long since been lost, and without them, any major innovation is prone to being corrupted by chaos. Even trying to develop such safeguards would be nothing more than trial and error, with each error leading to an entire world, or even a sector being lost to the warp. In a galaxy spanning empire that's already stretched in terms of security, these aren't the kind of risks an organization that wishes to see said empire continuing to survive is willing to take.

To start with, one needs to be able to step out of the modern mindset.

The Adeptus Mechanicus reveres the past, particularly the wonders of the Dark Age of Technology. In this they parallel the middle ages in looking to the past as a form of Golden Age and humanity now being fallen from previous heights. Recovery of technology in the form of archaeology is acceptable, since that is recovering what the ancients had. Inventing something entirely new can be seen as hubris, as daring to presume one knows better than the ancients. The Adeptus Mechanicus have put the past on a pedestal, and the STC as the Holy Grail of knowledge. Anything not STC-related is considered not worth knowing (otherwise the STC would have had it already). The mindset of the Adeptus Mechanicus is also closer to that of the secretive magic user or mad scientist. They are not about controlled peer reviewed studies and publicized journals. Knowledge is hoarded and kept secret even within the Adeptus Mechanicus by the various Tech Priests, who form their own factions. The scientific method and approach to knowledge is not really present in 40K, even among those heretics advocating for progress. Their progress is really more like the mad scientist experimenting away.

Now that is the official dogma anyway. However, there are other nuances. By forbidding dabbling in technology, the Adeptus Mechanicus maintains its monopoly and hence its power. However, even in some cases there is still a form of innovation, such as the Infidel class raider (which was originally meant to replace the Cobra destroyer, before the plans were stolen by Chaos forces), and the various tank variants which involve different weapon fits. They may ultimately be given the seal of approval as being a rare design or some allowed for variant within the STC system, but it is possible that is just the sort of semantic gyration they needed to do to make a new design conform to the dogma of the STC having everything there is to know.

The very best techpriests aren't bound by mindless ritual, they have actual knowledge. They study alien tech and theorize on how it works.

But actual experimentation and implementation of new things is slow - maybe partly because one needs show how it fits with the Machine God, and partly because of safety concerns. The techpriests have gone overboard when it comes to caution, as past catastrophes have taught them the risks of letting loose things you can't control.

No Star Trek "science and research" here, where the most dangerous projects are happily tested near inhabited planets so the heroes must once again save the day. No Star Trek "safeguards" consisting of an ON button and one emergency shut-off that will cripple the whole ship if it works at all.

The rituals are as much worship as they are additional safeguards. Lower rank adepts and mundanes following them are unlikely to cause any major problems, leaving those with actual knowledge free to research more esoteric subjects.

Its kind like how Galileo was put under house arrest for his heratical discovery that they universe revolved around the sun, and not Earth, all his inovative writing where banned.

Basically he was branded a heretic for thinkign differently, even if his ideas where truth. pretty much what we see in 40k all the time.

They aren't entirely against innovation. The Macharius was developed from several cobbled together STCs as a stopgap to help overtaxed Baneblade production sites meet their quotas. It's one of the newest designs the Imperium has made.

And I also subscribe to the theory that half of what the Mechanicus hocks as being "ancient technology" is actually the result of experimentation and innovation with a blanket description to prevent retribution.

It's a parody of the religions still influencing our lives today - blind acceptance of a method of thought and life laid down thousands of years ago and followed without question by small-minded individuals.

Spot the atheist in the room...

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
They aren't entirely against innovation. The Macharius was developed from several cobbled together STCs as a stopgap to help overtaxed Baneblade production sites meet their quotas. It's one of the newest designs the Imperium has made.

This is not correct. As per Imperial Armour Vol. 5: Siege of Vraks, Part 1 section on the Macharius, the Adeptus Mechanicus were aware of previous super-heavy tank designs used in the past but that had since fallen out of use. The Macharius tank design was re-constructed from fragmentary evidence in archives and from cross-references in existing Baneblade and other STC information. In other words, it is a resurrected old design, not a new one. This is in keeping with the mentioned "archaeology for tech advancement research" approach of the Adeptus Mechanicus, not genuine new attempts at innovation.

I think the Adeptus Mechanicus just want to maintain their monopoly on Imperial tech.

Despite their links to the rest of the Imperium the Admech is a separate empire in ts own right in many respects and is mysterious to many Imperial citizens. The Imperium always wants the most powerful weapons, the biggest ships and so forth and if any old citizen can design that stuff the Mechanicum is in danger of losing its influence. So in an empire that already makes propaganda and obedience part of everyday life it's both easy and convenient for them to spread the idea that innovation is to go against the laws of the Imperium.

The Ad Mech does still invent stuff. But only they can invent stuff, and they have an approval process that can take hundreds of years.

Power Armor has steadily improved since the Heresy, as have many other pieces of technology.

Of course they have lost some stuff since than as well.

 Trondheim wrote:
Because thinking outside the box is heresy! And anything not decleared "legal" by the IoM is view as heresy

This!

I believe i have read somewhere that the Emperor forbade certain kinds of technology and or any mentioning and research about and towards it.. Even the most advanced techies on Mars dont look in to it.... as it is against the emperors wishes thus heresy,... and i believe Mars has his hands full on delivering the tech that is used every day... millions of tanks get destroyed every day you know

Simple. New designs are not yet approved, and if its not approved, its heresy. There are some exceptions which are adaptions of STCs, and others like the Stormraven and Talon which have been useful that get the ok.

Basically it comes down to GW not wanting to put out too many new vehicles every few months. Keeping the Mechanicus restrained means they don't have to retcon a new rhino or Leman Russ in every new Codex, BRB, IA or BL book.

Because most of the innovators and creative thinkers ended up siding with Horus so they could play mad scientist.

DrunkPhilisoph wrote:
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Adeptus_Mechanicus

Scroll down to "Why is everything so grimdark?"

Wow... that is a RANT!! If you've never heard someone tired of all the inanity in the universe GO OFF before, then you must read that. Plus it's everything this thread needs to know. There literally needs be no more discussion.

DrunkPhilisoph wrote:
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Adeptus_Mechanicus

Scroll down to "Why is everything so grimdark?"

Great read on the topic. I also wanted to add that another potential reason for the stagnation is that because the current state of knowledge is simply a fraction of what humanities grasp on technology and science once was, in order to understand and innovate, tech priests would likely need to turn to things like Chaos to do so. To prevent this, the Imperium as a whole looks down on innovation.

I would just like to add that for many tech priests, Early innitiation involves replacing half a hemisphere of their brain with a cogitator. Namely the part of your brain responsible for creative and abstract thought, to make them beeings of pure logic. Naturally that means most tech priests are only capable of derrivative works by speculating based on what they already know. The few tech priests that have the abillity for abstract thought have that abillity because they work on things other then machines. think of the Magis Biologis that study xenobiology. Its not even just beeing unwilling to risk expermentation. for the majority of tech priests they don't even think in such concepts.

In the realm of 40k, things in 20k and even 30k were more advanced than they are today. To innovate is likely to be a futile effort instead of rediscovering things from long ago. Many designs are not really understood, so innovating off of them is difficult. Even if it is possible the gains possible are not likely to be similar to the gains of rediscovering knowledge from the past, where the optimal design has probably already been created.

In addition, many forms of innovation lead to damnation. much possible innovation is inherently heritical even if the original designer had no intention of it.

This is all a simply awesome read, thanks all.

To better understand this though, what do we know about their *transition* from being cool with innovation to that of stagnation? What were they like, before? This is the part I don't recall anything about.

(btw, I will mention that it seems to me that - IN PART - they have a pride in their work and they don't want anyone to one up them because they're trying to protect their hold on their current power within the Imperium. Would you all agree?)

 Netsurfer733 wrote:
To better understand this though, what do we know about their *transition* from being cool with innovation to that of stagnation? What were they like, before? This is the part I don't recall anything about.

That's because it was long before 40K - they had a civil war on Mars where a lot was destroyed, then the Horus Heresy hit them in full force. Whatever they were before not even the AdMech can say as they don't know. All they know now is that there's STCs out there containing knowledge they can no longer duplicate or research up because the foundations for the research are lost in the mists of time.

Reading the arguments between power-grabbing close-mindedness and need to stop the forces of chaos has been interesting.

When I am reading from the black library or my codex I always keep struggling with the same argument.

Perhaps it is the ad mech capitalizing on the over-cautious (and incompetent) administratum

Spetulhu wrote:

 Netsurfer733 wrote:
To better understand this though, what do we know about their *transition* from being cool with innovation to that of stagnation? What were they like, before? This is the part I don't recall anything about.

That's because it was long before 40K - they had a civil war on Mars where a lot was destroyed, then the Horus Heresy hit them in full force. Whatever they were before not even the AdMech can say as they don't know. All they know now is that there's STCs out there containing knowledge they can no longer duplicate or research up because the foundations for the research are lost in the mists of time.

So wait, when was this then? Long before even the *Horus* Heresy they decided to just recover old, lost information? That would actually make the most sense, but I just want to be sure. I'm very curious about their history, if anyone knows any details about the timeline for them this far back (up until now).

Krug001 wrote:Reading the arguments between power-grabbing close-mindedness and need to stop the forces of chaos has been interesting.

When I am reading from the black library or my codex I always keep struggling with the same argument.

Perhaps it is the ad mech capitalizing on the over-cautious (and incompetent) administratum

Totally agree man - it's a bit of a power play in the way that they already have as much power as they possibly can in the Imperium, so one of the reasons to do this is to maintain that huge power base