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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2020/02/08 12:42:44
Subject: The Cult Mechanicus: Flaws and Lip Service?
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Regular Dakkanaut
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There are said to be three aspects of worship through the Cult Mechanicus: the Machine God/Deus Mechanicus, the Omnissiah, and the Motive Force. The Omnissiah is stated to be the physiological embodiment of the trinity, of which is considered to be the Emperor of Mankind. Now hold that thought. According to sources provided by Lexicanum: Codex Imperialis pg.41-42 wrote:According to the Cult Mechanicus, knowledge is the supreme manifestation of divinity and all creatures and technology that embody knowledge are thus holy because of it. The worth of a single man is only the sum of his knowledge - his body is simply an organic machine capable of preserving intellect. It is by this motivation that the followers of the Cult Mechanicus follow the Quest for Knowledge, seeking new technology and information to better themselves.
Two issues here:
1) Knowledge is the supreme manifestation of divinity and all creatures and technology that embody knowledge are thus holy because of it. ALL CREATURES! So why are the Adeptus Mechanicus so hellbent on not having ANY xeno-tech?
2) If the Emperor was the living embodiment of the Machine God, then why doesn't the Emperor conjure up "X, Y, Z" xeno-based technology? If we are to believe what they preach, shouldn't he know advanced technology that the predecessor races had (i.e. Necrons, Old Ones, Eldar, etc.)?
Main point: Did the Cult Mechanicus just adopt the Emperor as a pseudo-figurehead that allowed them to continue their ancient ways or did they TRUELY believe that he was the Omnissiah? And then we have UR-025, a being that states that it has met with the Omnissiah and it is NOT the Emperor of Mankind. Who are we to believe?
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2020/02/08 13:16:09
Subject: The Cult Mechanicus: Flaws and Lip Service?
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Mysterious Techpriest
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They adopted and accepted the Emperor as the Omnissiah because the dude knows a LOT. He has been alive longer than any other living being in the galaxy at that point.
So with his supreme knowledge, he was the most divine being to them and therefore could easily be accepted as the physical manifestation of the Machine God.
As to why they abhor xenos tech? Knowledge isn't just knowledge. There is the knowledge how to construct an Imperial Knight and there is knowledge how to conjure a warp demon that does unspeakable things to your body, making you suffer through the worst imaginable pain.
Xenos tech does not have the machine spirits that are inherent to human machines, which is a fragment of the machine god itself, they believe. Without that spirit, it is an corrupt abomination that needs to be purged.
On the subject of UR-025 - well, pick your side. The Emperor most definately was not spawned by the machine god, but they see it in Him. The Abominable Intelligence cannot be trusted, so why trust a word it utters? They tried to wipe out mankind once already, so with limited military power, might as well try and destroy mankind from within.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/08 13:18:23
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2020/02/08 18:55:37
Subject: The Cult Mechanicus: Flaws and Lip Service?
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Lone Wolf Sentinel Pilot
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You're nit-picking a 27 year old source. We've had many many many instances since then that both state and show that the Machine Cult either feels xenostech does not originate from the Machine God, or is a corruption of the Machine God's blessing, depending on the particular Mechanicus sect.
Sounds like you're missing one of the key tenets of 40k. Truth isn't important. Belief and convictions are. Are the Omnissiah and the God-Emperor really the same being? It doesn't matter. What matters is who believes it's true and who doesn't and what they're willing to do to ensure their belief is the dominant one.
Personally, I do believe the original Mechanicum, pre-schism, saw the Emperor as the Omnissiah, but that over time, it has become more a belief of convenience, especially with the rise of the Ecclesiarchy and the solidification of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2020/02/08 21:53:37
Subject: The Cult Mechanicus: Flaws and Lip Service?
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Battleship Captain
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Knowledge is the supreme manifestation of divinity and all creatures and technology that embody knowledge are thus holy because of it. ALL CREATURES! So why are the Adeptus Mechanicus so hellbent on not having ANY xeno-tech?
"The Alien Mechanism is a Perversion of the True Path."
The Ninth Universal Law - one of the mechanicus' "commandments".
There's a similar warning about AI. Not ALL knowledge is safe or holy - the warp, by it's very nature, for example, rejects any possibilility of understanding
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Termagants expended for the Hive Mind: ~2835
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2020/02/08 22:18:42
Subject: The Cult Mechanicus: Flaws and Lip Service?
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Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter
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Psionara wrote:...1) Knowledge is the supreme manifestation of divinity and all creatures and technology that embody knowledge are thus holy because of it. ALL CREATURES! So why are the Adeptus Mechanicus so hellbent on not having ANY xeno-tech?...
Two considerations: The political problem of needing to coexist peacefully with Terra/the Imperium, and the inherent risks of working with xenotech that they don't necessarily have the understanding to disassemble, reproduce, etc. to the degree they do with human tech. In most sources the Mechanicum doesn't unilaterally prohibit all experimentation with xenotech (see: reverse-engineered dark lances showing up as "darklight weapons" in 30k, the Xenology book with Mechanicum notes on reverse-engineering various xenos weapons), but does place strict controls on what you can actually do with it to avoid things like the classic trope of an Explorator digging up a Necron tomb and ending up waking its armies to start killing everything.
2) If the Emperor was the living embodiment of the Machine God, then why doesn't the Emperor conjure up "X, Y, Z" xeno-based technology? If we are to believe what they preach, shouldn't he know advanced technology that the predecessor races had (i.e. Necrons, Old Ones, Eldar, etc.)?
Sometimes. Go back to 30k lore where the Emperor was still up and moving and he did control a lot of technical knowledge the Mechanicum didn't have; he kept back tech preserved by the techno-barbarians of Earth during the Dark Age (the Terrawatt clan and adrasite weapons, for instance, which only exist in the Custodes because they're built and maintained in small secret workshops on Earth and the Mechanicum can't produce them), and the Golden Throne/Imperial webway project relied on knowledge he had of the Old Ones' tech the Eldar and the Orks (both creations of the Old Ones) didn't have. The Emperor didn't grab random xenotech and hand it to the Mechanicum for the same reasons the Mechanicum restricts experimentation with xenotech: the complexity of making it work and the risk of stuff going horribly wrong when folks play around with tech beyond their understanding.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Psionara wrote:...Main point: Did the Cult Mechanicus just adopt the Emperor as a pseudo-figurehead that allowed them to continue their ancient ways or did they TRUELY believe that he was the Omnissiah? And then we have UR-025, a being that states that it has met with the Omnissiah and it is NOT the Emperor of Mankind. Who are we to believe?
It's a big organization with a lot of factions and schisms. There's an occasionally-mentioned heretical underground sect that believes the Omnissiah is the being imprisoned in the Noctis Labyrinth (the Void Dragon, Dragon of Mars, possibly a C'tan but that theory hasn't been brought up explicitly since the 5e Necron book retconned the C'tan/Necron origin story). Kelibor-Hal (Fabricator-General at the time of union with Earth) certainly didn't believe the Emperor was the Omnissiah given that he resented the Emperor ordering the records of how to build daemon engines sealed away and jumped at the chance to get them back when Horus made the offer.
And the bottom line here is that when you get religion into politics questions of "true belief" become kind of irrelevant. Look at the amount of sex, violence, and assassination you got in the medieval Catholic Church; publicly professing a faith and privately holding to its tenets are very different things.
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This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/02/08 22:24:40
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2020/02/09 03:09:54
Subject: Re:The Cult Mechanicus: Flaws and Lip Service?
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Hellish Haemonculus
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The official party line from the holier-than-thou types is that human technology is the 'correct,' 'pure' form of mechanical or scientific expression. According to this line of thinking, xenos tech, even when it appears superior, is inherently flawed. ("How can you say that?" Apostate Adam says. "Eldar have graduated to a post-scarcity, post-labor society thanks to their advanced tech!" Tech-priest Tom says: "Yeah, and look how THAT worked out for them.") The Emperor didn't guide humans down that path for a good reason, this line of thinking goes, as such tech contains inherent flaws or drawbacks, which may not be apparent to a layman.
Many in the AdMech are, of course, only paying lip service to some or all of the religious doctrine, as you surmise. These are the tech-priests who are always SUPER keen to dissect and reverse engineer xenos tech (which they do. all the damn time).
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2020/02/09 06:10:29
Subject: The Cult Mechanicus: Flaws and Lip Service?
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Ancient Venerable Dreadnought
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I imagine the bulk of the Cult during unification were more interested in what they can find(crusade opportunities)rather than improving what they have. The remainder is borderline heretical already and like Anomander said "Hal jumped at the chance".
Fast forward to 40k and the same thing could probably be said about the Admech. Just the leadership is firmly Imperial due to tradition/repetition. I'm sure somewhere, some techpriest/adept/whatever is opening a warp portal and dumping the contents of it into an un/willing host(mechanical or bio).
Dark whispers at the bottom of code, just waiting for the teeniest, tiniest glance their way. They've been there forever, crosswalk & elevator buttons, clothes dryers eating one sock, blowing into the bottom of a NES cartridge.
I want GW to flesh out the DarkMech more in both 30/40k. Specifically HH & really want more wacky adventures of Arkan Land & his one man band
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2020/02/09 09:30:14
Subject: Re:The Cult Mechanicus: Flaws and Lip Service?
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Thane of Dol Guldur
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Of course they're full of hypocrisy, it's 40k. They're tech geniuses but believe that praying to 'machine spirits' makes them work (I will never subscribe to the written lore of actual sentient machine spirits) they want to advance tech but innovation, tinkering and invention is forbidden..
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Heresy World Eaters/Emperors Children
Instagram: nagrakali_love_songs |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2020/02/09 10:16:50
Subject: Re:The Cult Mechanicus: Flaws and Lip Service?
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Storm Trooper with Maglight
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Personally, I always liked the assumption that the whole "Omnissiah = Emperor" business is just a convenient "whatever lol" syncretism on the Mechanicus' part to continue practicing their original, non-imperial faith unmolested. Kinda like what some South American tribes did when they adopted Catholicism into their own polytheistic beliefs.
There are several in-universe quotes by Ecclesiarchy members bitching about the Mechanicus practically committing open heresy but well, it's the Mechanicus, they provide the Imperium with all the shiny toys and there's little the clergy can do about it.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/09 10:17:55
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2020/02/09 15:42:12
Subject: The Cult Mechanicus: Flaws and Lip Service?
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Crazed Spirit of the Defiler
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Remember also that the emperor projects his appearance based on his audience. To Space Marines he always appears in his golden armor to appeal to their warrior nature. In master of mankind though he appears to Arkhan Land as a scientist. When the Enperor met with the leaders of Mars, he most likely appeared as most thought the omnissiah would. The fact that he apparently had an army of genetically modified super soldiers who had just brought the moon to heal probably helped convince to doubters. The codependency the mechanicus and the imperium posses makes splitting impossible at this point.
Also anyone trusting the words of one of the men of iron does so at their own risk. There has yet to be an example of one not trying to kill off or subjugate humanity.
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Iron within, Iron without |
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