Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just wondering...

Omnissiah (lit: 'all-saviour') is the formal name for the Machine God of the Adeptus Mechanicus - like Imperator Dei is the formal name for The Emperor.

I think we're going to need you, the OP, to put a little more into your threads other than just a title and a "AMIRITE?!?" or "WASSUP?!?" first post.

Please.

Thanks!

I thought the title said it all. It's a pretty straight forward question...

Is the machine god like a chaos or eldar god? Since the vostroyans have close ties eith the adeptus mechanicus, do they worship the machine god?

The Omnissiah is the Machine-God's mortal avatar or representative. In this case, he's the Emperor.... rather, the Emperor is the Omnissiah.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Omnissiah is the Machine-God's mortal avatar or representative. In this case, he's the Emperor.... rather, the Emperor is the Omnissiah.

The Omnissiah is not the Emperor. That is more a lie used to keep the IoM from ripping itself apart.

nomotog wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The Omnissiah is the Machine-God's mortal avatar or representative. In this case, he's the Emperor.... rather, the Emperor is the Omnissiah.

The Omnissiah is not the Emperor. That is more a lie used to keep the IoM from ripping itself apart.

Or, rather, whether or not the Emperor is the Omnissiah is a matter of debate amongst different factions of the Mechanicus, and was in part responsible for the fracturing of the Mechanicus during the Heresy.

It would be interesting to fire up that argument on the forum though, see where peoples' choices lay!

And then there is the void dragon.

Sent to mars by emperor.

 insaniak wrote:

nomotog wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The Omnissiah is the Machine-God's mortal avatar or representative. In this case, he's the Emperor.... rather, the Emperor is the Omnissiah.

The Omnissiah is not the Emperor. That is more a lie used to keep the IoM from ripping itself apart.

Or, rather, whether or not the Emperor is the Omnissiah is a matter of debate amongst different factions of the Mechanicus, and was in part responsible for the fracturing of the Mechanicus during the Heresy.

Which sounds daft until you remember that real wars have been started over less. Much less. Much, much less.

Thankfully there's no officially sanctioned sports team. It would make fighting the manifold terrors of the galaxy that much more difficult if they also had to deal with segmentum-wide rugby riots.

 jhe90 wrote:
And then there is the void dragon.

Sent to mars by emperor.

Blerugh, I despise that particular fluff "innovation", it completely robs the Mechanicus of any agency and strips their story of any meaning beyond "da emprah dun it cus he needed dupes to build him ships in a few thousand years". Thankfully it was written back when the Necrons were still soulless mindless automata and the Newcron background provides a way to reinterpret the imagery from Mechanicum so you can ignore it completely.

 Ailaros wrote:

Which sounds daft until you remember that real wars have been started over less. Much less. Much, much less.

Thankfully there's no officially sanctioned sports team. It would make fighting the manifold terrors of the galaxy that much more difficult if they also had to deal with segmentum-wide rugby riots.

The official casus beli seems absurd at times. But the actual reasoning for war are never so simple.

In all this 3 cases at least.

 koooaei wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

Which sounds daft until you remember that real wars have been started over less. Much less. Much, much less.

Thankfully there's no officially sanctioned sports team. It would make fighting the manifold terrors of the galaxy that much more difficult if they also had to deal with segmentum-wide rugby riots.

The official casus beli seems absurd at times. But the actual reasoning for war are never so simple.

In all this 3 cases at least.

There have been worse reasons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Bucket

 Furyou Miko wrote:
It would be interesting to fire up that argument on the forum though, see where peoples' choices lay!

I haven't seen anything to really suggest that the Omnissiah is the emperor. The big one is that it's kid of doubtful that the Omnissiah is a thing at all. Also the emperor was a person, we know who they are and we would have some solid records if they moonlighted as the machine god.

Uh, nomotog, there scene where the Emperor was officially recognised as the Omnissiah by the AdMech was described blow-by-blow in Mechanicum.

Anyway, the Omnissiah is definitely a thing, and anyone who says otherwise is a Heretic and needs to be purged. You're making the mistake of bringing RL theistic doubt into a setting where the Atheists are so deep in denial that they're about to start drowning.

The Omnissiah is the all-savior, the Machine God, the God of Mars. When the Emprah came to Mars, he impersonated the Omnissiah in order to acquire Mechanicum support. It is also believed by some that after subduing the Void Dragon (aka one of the last whole Star Gods), the Emprah sent it to Mars to be the Omnissiah and start the Cult of the machine God.
The Omnissiah is said to have created the STC machines and to have given the AdMech all of its technology.
The dispute over the Emprah being Mr. Omnissiah is basically how the Dark Mechanicum was created, when the Fabricator General rebelled against this falsehood and was corrupted by Scrapcode.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Uh, nomotog, there scene where the Emperor was officially recognised as the Omnissiah by the AdMech was described blow-by-blow in Mechanicum.

I remember reading Mechanicum; I remember that debate between the two Magoses. And despite Graham McNeil obviously presenting the Pro-Emperor side as the heroes of the novel (as he should, this is a novel about the Horus Heresy, after all), the view that Emperor is the Omnissiah was only held by a significant portion, but not all of the tech priests.

That novel ended with the last three loyal forge cities falling to the Dark Mechanicus forces, and only Kane and his forces were confirmed to have escaped. So present to me the section where Kane and all his priests recognizes the Emperor as the Omnissiah and I shall confirm that myself.

If you are referring to the Emperor "healing" the Knight titan; Verticorda was only a Knight pilot, neither his words nor thought were representative of the view of the AdMech. The rest of the novel never resolved to reveal whether any of the surviving loyal Tech Priests (or indeed, any of the loyal Martians) acknowledged that Emperor is the Omnissiah. Emperor, being the uber-psyker he was/is, can do many things. That is no proof whether the AdMech officially recognizes him as the Omnissiah.

Until the whole "Emperor is (recognized as) The Omnissiah" is GW confirmed, as opposed to you cherry-picking a novel to promote your own belief, it is perfectly reasonable to leave it open for interpretation.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
It would be interesting to fire up that argument on the forum though, see where peoples' choices lay!

The Void Dragon is the actual Omissiah. Without its influence, humanity never would have progressed technologically to the point it has.

Besides, the EMPEROR HIMSELF was an atheist. He apparently just never found the right way to say "I'm not a god" hard enough so that his stupid roadies would understand it.

 lcmiracle wrote:


I remember reading Mechanicum; I remember that debate between the two Magoses. And despite Graham McNeil obviously presenting the Pro-Emperor side as the heroes of the novel (as he should, this is a novel about the Horus Heresy, after all), the view that Emperor is the Omnissiah was only held by a significant portion, but not all of the tech priests.

-snip-

I mean the prologue scene where he was received in state by a large delegation of Mechanicus dignitaries who bowed down and worshipped him as the Omnissiah.

The one that was set a few hundred years before the main plotline. By the time of the main part of the book, half the population had started to question the miraculous proof as you say.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 lcmiracle wrote:


I remember reading Mechanicum; I remember that debate between the two Magoses. And despite Graham McNeil obviously presenting the Pro-Emperor side as the heroes of the novel (as he should, this is a novel about the Horus Heresy, after all), the view that Emperor is the Omnissiah was only held by a significant portion, but not all of the tech priests.

-snip-

I mean the prologue scene where he was received in state by a large delegation of Mechanicus dignitaries who bowed down and worshipped him as the Omnissiah.

The one that was set a few hundred years before the main plotline. By the time of the main part of the book, half the population had started to question the miraculous proof as you say.

Again, as I answered before: Verticorda and his party was on a mission to oversee the arrival of the Emperor. They were battle-ready and were ready to flank the arrivals. This was not a welcome party, this was a parley.

And yes, Verticorda recognized the Emperor as the Omnissiah; but again, he and he alone was said to have recognize the Emperor as the Omnissiah. Once again I shall reiterate that this is no confirmation the AdMech officially recognizes the Emperor as the Omnissiah then, nor now.

It's been about 200 years since the Treaty of Mars, and both Verticorda and Kel-Bor-Hal were alive both during the Treaty and the events of Mechanicum, both clearly held vastly different opinions on the Emperor. And the debate too showed a significant supporters for both sides. It is unreasonable to assume during the previous 200 years the situation was different based on just that one (arguably a publicity stunt) event.

Also, I took the liberty to exam the offical GW materials. Of those mentioned the Admech and the Emperor, in 4E only stated that they "acknowledge the Emperor as master of mankind" (The Cult Mechanicus, Warhammer 40,000, p120, 4E), and 6E (7E has the same description of the Admech as 6E) only says they maintains the Golden Throne and their priesthood upholds "the worship of the Omnissiah" (sic).

Since GW material takes precedence, from I've gathered, that means Official fluff does not confirm nor deny that the Emperor is/was the Omnissiah, that means with the novel also not confirming the same point, the in-universe view of the AdMech on the Emperor was/is "Some of use believe he is the Omnissiah, and some of us don't".

Lastly: if they didn't officially acknowledge the Emperor as the Omnissiah during the HH, what made you think they must be doing so now?

Titanicus, mostly. The 'New Way' of believing the Emperor and the Omnissiah to be separate beings is considered fringe and borderline heretical, while the 'Old Way' of believing them to be one and the same is presented as the status quo.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Titanicus, mostly. The 'New Way' of believing the Emperor and the Omnissiah to be separate beings is considered fringe and borderline heretical, while the 'Old Way' of believing them to be one and the same is presented as the status quo.

"Fringe and borderline heretical" (sic), I'll take your words for it then; I don't own the book and have no plan to read a non-HH novel right now. Had you put forward this point, I'd have been more convinced.

I reserve my right to chance my mind if/when I read the book, however. In addition, I believe one can disregard BL fluff at their own leisure (as is so frequently practiced in the fandom/circle), as long as their belief does not contradict with official GW material they do so as they wish. Heck, I brought up Miriael Sabathiel once and is dismissed by aplenty for it not adhering to the belief of others.

True... and I don't personally think that the Emperor is the Omnissiah. I don't think the Omnissiah has been born yet.

Miriael is... well. Yeah. In direct contradiction with a load of other fluff, often mis-attributed (40k wikia insists on constantly citing a full-page image of some random priests as being her appearance in C:SoB), and only appears in a card game and the book written about the card game. ^^; But if you have your heart set on using her, then there's not much a Sisters fan can say to dissuade you...

 Furyou Miko wrote:
True... and I don't personally think that the Emperor is the Omnissiah. I don't think the Omnissiah has been born yet.

Miriael is... well. Yeah. In direct contradiction with a load of other fluff, often mis-attributed (40k wikia insists on constantly citing a full-page image of some random priests as being her appearance in C:SoB), and only appears in a card game and the book written about the card game. ^^; But if you have your heart set on using her, then there's not much a Sisters fan can say to dissuade you...

Precisely; nowhere in the 6e sob codex stated they are 100% incorruptible, unless that quote tributes to 2nd e was correct, it would make it perfectly alright to make chaos SoBs

In keeping with the topic however, to its most fundamental features, the Omnessiah is:
A). The machine God incarnate. Similar to the Christian Jesus, a physical God of his chosen people (the Martians who believe in it), the bringer of good news in a time of strife.
B). A target of worship by the priesthood of Mars.

From the BL universe:
A). It's the savior of Mars, bringer of peace as foretold by a tech priest, who is suggested to have started the Cult of Dragons.
B). It may or may not be The Emperor (who contradicts the prophecy as he did not bring a lasting peace), a C'tan, or just a typical case of cargo cult product.
C). The members of the AdMech are either waiting for its coming, or its second coming. Hereteks not included

As for why worship it: the Martians faced near extinct level crisis in both environmental and economical sectors during the age of strife. In strict GW narratives they developed a monotheistic theocracy, where machines came to be known as incarnations of a certain divine being - the Machine God. Worship of the Machine God and its physical manifestation is therefore a common practice.

In the BL narrative, the Omnessiah is prophecised during the isolation of Mars (age of strife to Terra) to arrive on Mars as a physically perfect being, and shall deliver its people of sufferings. So the belief in the Omnissiah is basically the only way for Martians to coup with their hellish living conditions before the coming of the emperor.

I think the admech has to 'officially' recognize the emperor as the omnissiah. As in that is what they have the tell the rest of IoM, or you would have a war, but I think that is more lip service.

mrgarm13 wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

Which sounds daft until you remember that real wars have been started over less. Much less. Much, much less.

Thankfully there's no officially sanctioned sports team. It would make fighting the manifold terrors of the galaxy that much more difficult if they also had to deal with segmentum-wide rugby riots.

The official casus beli seems absurd at times. But the actual reasoning for war are never so simple.

In all this 3 cases at least.

There have been worse reasons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Bucket

I went to the war of the bucket page, and illustrating koooaei's point beautifully while showing you didn't read the page, it says on the 2nd line that it was "really an episode in the over 300-year-long struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines."

The reason Mars sides with the Imperium into the modern age of 40K is because they recognize and named the Emperor as the Omnissiah.

Lexicanum wrote:Officially, the Cult Mechanicus maintains that the Emperor is the physical manifestation of the Machine God.[2][3]

Sourced from BRB 4th Ed and Index Astartes: Cult of the Machine God.

 Psienesis wrote:
The reason Mars sides with the Imperium into the modern age of 40K is because they recognize and named the Emperor as the Omnissiah.

Lexicanum wrote:Officially, the Cult Mechanicus maintains that the Emperor is the physical manifestation of the Machine God.[2][3]

Sourced from BRB 4th Ed and Index Astartes: Cult of the Machine God.

Officially, that is true. But, it is a well-known fact that the Cult Mechanicus keeps many secrets.

That they view the Emperor as the Omnissiah isn't one of them, however. While there are certainly factions within the AdMech that may not believe this is true, they are vastly in the minority.