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As far as I know, the Mechanicus venerates the Emperor as the living incarnation of the machine spirits that inhabit each piece of machinery. But aside from that link, what exactly is keeping the Mechanicus tied to the Imperium of Man? My guess is that the Mechanicus cannot survive without the raw materials the IoM gives to them, but the IoM cannot survive without the products the Mechanicus supplies them. So, could the Mechanicus and IoM ever really split away from each other (Hypothetically)?

They venerate the Emperor as the Omnissiah, which is (they hold) the avatar of the Machine God.

They are an empire unto themselves, within the Imperium. What keeps them in the Imperium is the understanding that, if they went their separate ways, both would cease to exist in relatively short order.

The relationship is a bit more complex. There are factions within the Mechanicum that don't believe the Emperor was the Omnisiah. They're two separate empires working as one. Or, more accurately, the Mechanicum is an autonomous government within the Empire.

I hate having to use a mobile to post replies, or rather, attempt to post...

Anyway, ninjad!

In Titanicus we are presented with the Mechanicus who hold to the 'new way' which is taking the Emperor to be the Omnisiah and those Mechanicus who, well, don't.

I would posit that if a break were to occur it would be on these theological lines.

If that were to happen I can see the loyalist Mechanicus being strong-armed into ever greater union with the Imperium, perhaps to the extent that they would virtually cease to exist. This would either make the Imperium even more backward or could fuel a rennaisance as the Mechanicus would no-longer be the sole masters of technology within the Imperium.

The seperatist forces would, I would say, aggresively pursue any assets they wanted, plundering Imperial worlds for resources, workers and hoarding every scrap of technology they could find, even more so that the Mechanicus already does.

So, is it hypothetical that the Mechanicus could indeed split, and survive, without the IoM?

 Warpig1815 wrote:
So, is it hypothetical that the Mechanicus could indeed split, and survive, without the IoM?

No. The AdMech relies on the IoM for its raw materials, its people, its markets, and the defenses. Left alone, the AdMech is simply not populous enough, nor strong enough, to defend itself from the myriad threats of the galaxy for any length of time. They also rely on the Space Marines, Rogue Traders, and other Imperial factions to discover/recover STC and other technologies for their studies, as well as provide avenues for field-testing new and recovered/re-developed technologies.

I thought as much - it was just something I was pondering of late, but I wasn't sure if I was thinking it through straight. Thanks people, that pretty much answers my query.

Mutual dependency mainly. Without the armies and resources of the Imperium the Mechanicum would collapse and be overrun by outside threats fairly quickly.

Plus the Mechanicus needs the Astronomican for its own empire to stay-interconnected.

Overall I'd argue the AdMech needs the Imperium more than the vice-versa.

Good point with the Astronomican, or more precisely: The Navis Nobilitae are housed on Terra, not Mars. So to be a meaningful force throughout the galaxy, the AdMech would at least have to form their own Navigator house somehow, and given that these are basically ancient families, that's not easy to do. And yes, the AdMech would face some recruitment problems in general because they would need more than their relatively small force of Skitarii to prosecute large scale wars against, orks, tyranids, etc.
On the other hand, without the AdMech, if anything high-tech breaks and your not a Space Marine chapter, noone knows properly how to make it again, so the Imperium would steer into trouble in VERY short order.

There is no one needs another. If they split and one did not immediately conquer the other they would both die in short order. The IoM has the number and navigators. The Ad Mech has the ships and production capacity.

I have actually been considering an admech counts as army lately so I have been doing some research. Anyone that thinks the admech are push overs has not read the fluff. Though they do not have a 40K playable faction they have;
-Secutor: Individual techpriests that turn themselves into machines of war, for various reasons.
-Skitarii: The techguard of the Cult/Adeptus Mechanicus
-Collegia Titanica: The Titan Legions and the Knights
-Centurio Ordinatus: Organisation dealing with the leviathan Ordinatii warmachines
-Legio Cybernetica: Robotics branch of the Mechanicus
-Auxilia Myrmidon: Known as siege engineers or war savants
-Ordo Reductor: Organisation dealing with siege weaponry and Thallax

This means they have guys on par with storm troopers, space marines, terminators, dreadnoughts, and they own many titans. They also have a bunch of siege equipment and forgeworlds. There are some really good articles on 1d4chan (funny) and lexicanum (informative).