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So when the Mechanicum became the Mechanicus, what had happened that was so severe that they forgot how to produce the kit they had during the Heresy?

This thought was prompted by FW stating that the two organisations are far too different for them to publish a 40k based list using the existing models.

What happened to the Thallax and all the other battle-automata?

Mars got wrecked and a lot of knowledge went with it.

This si the subject over the book, Mechanicum.

Basically, the Fabricator General was corrupted by Scrapcode and fell to Chaos, sparking off a civil war that wiped out most of the population and data archives on Mars in a day.

The following link under Why Everything is so Grimdark is one of the best explanations I have ever heard and very funny. Just be sure you don't mind bad language. Very funny too.

Adult langue warning; http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Adeptus_Mechanicus

Basically stuff happened. A huge amount of stuff and the mechanicum developed out of the effort to try preserving what tech they could. Then when they had gotten some handle on things half of them joined Horus and sabotaged the other half with a crazy chaos warp computer virus. So now when the mechanicum go into their library the books try to destroy their minds, the cleaner robots try to rip their spines out, and the gibbering crazed relics of the past try to bend reality with their sadism. Lets say going to get a reference book in chemistry or electronics has become more exciting. You would find that if you took away all external information sources from the worlds scientists they would have a great deal of trouble rerecording the material they work every day with in a complete and thorough fashion.

The mechanicum that would have had all the data to put it right is the one who retreated into the warp and became the dark mechanicum. Unfortunately Chaos corrupted the very STCs, computing devices, and minds of this faction over 10 thousand years. This is why you get heldrakes when they try to create helblade jet fighters.

Now it could be argued that if the mechanicum had the time and resources to retake all of mars in a thorough fashion then they could probably recover most of it. However the IoM has been in a constant state of all out warfare with everyone and everything. They are barely keeping up with production as is so the mechanicum doesn't have time to waste on recovering lost tech when they can barely match the quota of leman russ battle tanks (which are tractors with metal bolted on, lol).

The strange part is, there was absolutely no need for Mars to have fallen as it did in Mechanicum.
When the Fists arrived to reinforce the loyalists, they established enough orbital superiority to go down, clear a beachhead, gather supplies and transport those supplies up into orbit and escort it away from Mars to Terra.

...

If they'd instead used all that effort, manpower and oribtal superiority to nuke the Traitor's Titan Legions on the surface, Mars would have been able to remain loyal, not go completely "we chant to make machines work" backwards, and restart production for the entire Loyalist war effort, possibly enough to prevent the Siege of Terra from ever occurring.

That book (as much as I liked its concept) had so many plot holes and stupidity it made me cringe.

Well keep in mind. The traitors had a crazy computer chaos warp virus devised by nurgle to tip any fight in their behavior. No telling how hard the defense systems on mars fell to the traitors and if those systems would have blown the fleet away as they circled trying to clear thousands of hardened positions with massive void shields.

Not to mention the damage dropping enough orbital bombardments onto a partially hollowed out planet could have done and what if the void dragon was woken by such?

Actually clearing mars with orbital bombardments is probably a really really bad idea. Lots of risk waking something you don't want awake, a significant risk of loosing huge chunks of your fleet forces, and even if you manage to accomplish it you likely are left with a smoldering ruin of a planet with nothing worthwhile remaining. This is why the nuclear powers cannot settle every war within 15 minutes. Smoldering ruins rarely have any value or strategic worth.

Bran Dawri wrote:
The strange part is, there was absolutely no need for Mars to have fallen as it did in Mechanicum.
When the Fists arrived to reinforce the loyalists, they established enough orbital superiority to go down, clear a beachhead, gather supplies and transport those supplies up into orbit and escort it away from Mars to Terra.

...

If they'd instead used all that effort, manpower and oribtal superiority to nuke the Traitor's Titan Legions on the surface, Mars would have been able to remain loyal, not go completely "we chant to make machines work" backwards, and restart production for the entire Loyalist war effort, possibly enough to prevent the Siege of Terra from ever occurring.

That book (as much as I liked its concept) had so many plot holes and stupidity it made me cringe.

That's all well and good with the benefit of hindsight. I imagine the thought of Chaos so close to Terra (only one planet over) would have been reason enough for the Imperium to not empty the capital of its garrison.

I think that they couldn't afford to assist. Tying up resources to defend mars may have left Earth open to attack. They could have won but I agree the battle would've been more damaging and in the favor of Horus had they stayed. I think Horus played his hand wonderfully. If the Emperor helped out Mars then he'd be stretched thin and tired. If he didn't do anything and Mars went traitor then Horus would've had a powerful ally. If the Emperor attempted to attack Mars (even through helping out Mars as a whole) it may have pushed the Machanicus to Horus' side or just crippled Mars past the point of being useful to the Emperor at all. Well played.

 Medium of Death wrote:
So when the Mechanicum became the Mechanicus, what had happened that was so severe that they forgot how to produce the kit they had during the Heresy?

This thought was prompted by FW stating that the two organisations are far too different for them to publish a 40k based list using the existing models.

What happened to the Thallax and all the other battle-automata?

Conservatives happened/rimshot.

Bran Dawri wrote:
The strange part is, there was absolutely no need for Mars to have fallen as it did in Mechanicum.
When the Fists arrived to reinforce the loyalists, they established enough orbital superiority to go down, clear a beachhead, gather supplies and transport those supplies up into orbit and escort it away from Mars to Terra.

...

If they'd instead used all that effort, manpower and oribtal superiority to nuke the Traitor's Titan Legions on the surface, Mars would have been able to remain loyal, not go completely "we chant to make machines work" backwards, and restart production for the entire Loyalist war effort, possibly enough to prevent the Siege of Terra from ever occurring.

That book (as much as I liked its concept) had so many plot holes and stupidity it made me cringe.

"We chant to machines to make them work" is how Mars has functioned since like M20, not M30. The Heresy is only the second, maybe third time, that Mars has been well-fethed with a rusty drill.

Yeah, there's not much you can do in the face of scrapcode being unleashed.