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In quite a few places across the internet I have seen references to there being a cleavage within the Adeptus Mechanicus between a faction of traditionalists and a faction of progressives. The progressives (notably including Cawl) seem to be more willing to stray beyond the strict doctrines of the Cult Mechanicus, even going as far as creating tech outside of STCs, while the traditionalists strictly stick to the old tenets. However, I've not managed to find any reference to the actual nature of these factions on any wikis or boards.

What fluff exists on these two branches of the Admech, if any?

 Coc0loc0 wrote:
In quite a few places across the internet I have seen references to there being a cleavage within the Adeptus Mechanicus between a faction of traditionalists and a faction of progressives. The progressives (notably including Cawl) seem to be more willing to stray beyond the strict doctrines of the Cult Mechanicus, even going as far as creating tech outside of STCs, while the traditionalists strictly stick to the old tenets. However, I've not managed to find any reference to the actual nature of these factions on any wikis or boards.

What fluff exists on these two branches of the Admech, if any?

I dont think there are clear branches or factions of the admech like that. Instead there are a multitude of different points of view on different things, laced with progressive and orthodox values. It is probably easier for the reader to separate into progressive and traditional, but there are not two factions or alignments in the admech that fight for power.

When dealing with the AdMech, there are as many ideologies as there are forge worlds. Some worlds are more progressive, and some are more traditional, but this manifests in various branches and fringes rather than two "parties".

 Verviedi wrote:
When dealing with the AdMech, there are as many ideologies as there are forge worlds

Or many more! Cawl is Martian but many other techpriests from the same world seem as conservative as they come.

Having read quite a bit of the fluff it strikes me that the Ad Mech have exactly the same problem as the Inquisition i.e. everything is subjective.

Much like most of 40K tbh.

If you look up the "explorator warbands" .pdf produced for the inquisitor boardgame, it talks about some of the various factions, and the RPGs cover others.

Khamrians - fixated on AI, which is little understood, mysterious and dangerous. Generally borderline hereteks, because true AI is forbidden absolutely and clearly by the sixteen universal laws (the mechanicum's analogue to the ten commandments). Cawl Inferior being a blatant violation of this basic mechanicus doctrine is one of several reasons I hate Cawl as a character: its not eniugh that he is apparently a master armourer (gullimans suit) and gunsmith (the bolt rifle is apparently "cawl-pattern") as well as being a xenotechnologist (because he was the "first person to understand the pylons of cadia, except, you know, Qixos according to Eisenhorn, most of the cadia-based inquisition according to the 13th black crusade codex), a biologist equal to or better than fabius bile (because primaris) and a shipwright (because apparently he upgrades the macragges honour by 10% which is fine if it was a navy warship but its a bloody glorianna class: the most sophisticated warship the imperium has ever built short of Imperator Somnium and Furious Abyss, with all the tech lost in the death of innocence and the heresy). Oh, and apparently he's ten thousand years old. Just, you know, like that.

Sorry. Just punched my own buttons there. Its just incredibly bad and wrong-for-the-universe writing: he is the worst kind of mary-sue: a stereotypical bad sci fi 'scientist' who is supercompetent in every field of science at once in a universe where hundred of years of study are insufficient to let you understand the one field you specialised in. Trying to make out that the mechanicus are slowed because they want to be instead of they're doing the best they can and half the time the dogma is the only thing keeping the archeotech running. Read Preists Of Mars for a genuinely good mechanicus story.

Where was I?

Corpus Auxilia Mechanicus is the name of the .pdf

The sixteen laws:


The Mysteries of the Cult Mechanicus

Life is directed motion.
The spirit is the spark of life.
Sentience is the ability to learn the value of knowledge.
Intellect is the understanding of knowledge.
Sentience is the basest form of Intellect.
Understanding is the True Path to Comprehension.
Comprehension is the key to all things.
The Omnissiah knows all, comprehends all.

The Warnings of the Cult Mechanicus

The alien mechanism is a perversion of the True Path.
The soul is the conscience of sentience.
A soul can be bestowed only by the Omnissiah.
The Soulless sentience is the enemy of all.
The knowledge of the ancients stands beyond question.
The Machine Spirit guards the knowledge of the Ancients.
Flesh is fallible, but ritual honours the Machine Spirit.
To break with ritual is to break with faith.

Other factions than khamrians:

Omnissiads - a tech equivalent of the thorians p, looking to ressurect the machine god into a synthetic avatar.

Organicists - focused on biotech rather than mechanical technology.

Divine Light of sollex -focused on laser and plasma technology

Diagnostic Covens -essentially the mechanicus' internal inquisition. Includes a hierarchy concernigly called the Lords Dragon.

I've been assuming Cael to be a Martian Edison. He's not inventing absolutely everything, his teams are. He just takes all the credit.

 argonak wrote:
I've been assuming Cael to be a Martian Edison. He's not inventing absolutely everything, his teams are. He just takes all the credit.

I’m inclined to agree. I am not a fan of the “standard pattern Scifi omnidisciplinary genius inventor” trope.

 argonak wrote:
I've been assuming Cael to be a Martian Edison. He's not inventing absolutely everything, his teams are. He just takes all the credit.

honestly I was thinking something like that but even more grimdark. I think i read in gathering storm that he has 3 brains within his chassis, so what's to say he doesn't steal knowledge from people via an old machine? it could explain why he is so smart; grab a guy who really knows a lot about robots, steal his brain, and implant it into himself / absorb knowledge. our human brains are already super computers, so one conceivably could be used as just a data storage, one for combat and one that links the others to use said knowledge.

or, you know, he has a lot of USB drives of said stolen memories in his robe / servo skulls. plug it in, look at the schematics and get to work using everything you know to upgrade a ship or work on his special marines. he's an archmagos of a faction that is renown for stealing after all!

anyways I think traditionalists would be more inclined to try and use what they got for anything, like using a mining laser already built to burn a hole through a wall, while a progressive would take said mining laser, up-sizing it and burning a bigger hole with something unknown. if the traditionalist does something wrong and pisses off a machine spirit then they already have rituals in place to soothe it, but if the progressive pisses it off then, well, you may have a sentient mega drill around that causes even more damage to your forces.

There is a lot of fluff in the various Dark Heresy books regarding this. A number of off-shooting ideologies, heretical and non-heretical, exist across the spectrum.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:

honestly I was thinking something like that but even more grimdark. I think i read in gathering storm that he has 3 brains within his chassis, so what's to say he doesn't steal knowledge from people via an old machine? it could explain why he is so smart; grab a guy who really knows a lot about robots, steal his brain, and implant it into himself / absorb knowledge. our human brains are already super computers, so one conceivably could be used as just a data storage, one for combat and one that links the others to use said knowledge.

Lords of Mars Spoilers:

 argonak wrote:
I've been assuming Cael to be a Martian Edison. He's not inventing absolutely everything, his teams are. He just takes all the credit.

This seems like a better view. It’s much more feasible for him to be taking credit for all the new cool stuff than for him to be personally responsible for all of it.

Though he does deserve some serious credit if he’s managing any significant number of Techpriests, seeing as they can be incredibly factious and “difficult.” As has been said there are a lot of groups within the AdMech, and getting them to cooperate could be a chore.

 gnome_idea_what wrote:

 argonak wrote:
I've been assuming Cael to be a Martian Edison. He's not inventing absolutely everything, his teams are. He just takes all the credit.

This seems like a better view. It’s much more feasible for him to be taking credit for all the new cool stuff than for him to be personally responsible for all of it.

Though he does deserve some serious credit if he’s managing any significant number of Techpriests, seeing as they can be incredibly factious and “difficult.” As has been said there are a lot of groups within the AdMech, and getting them to cooperate could be a chore.

In Dark Imperium Gulliman makes notice of Cawl's adepts on several occasions. My impression was that Cawl basically has his own faction of mechanicus that are loyal to him and see things the way he does. He'd need a lot of them to supply maintenance crews to all of the Indomitus crusade.

 argonak wrote:
My impression was that Cawl basically has his own faction of mechanicus that are loyal to him and see things the way he does. He'd need a lot of them to supply maintenance crews to all of the Indomitus crusade.

If you read the HH book 'Mechanicum', you can see its exactly like that. Each Forgemaster is their own little empire, only accountable to the Fabricator General.

Given that its the Mechanicum, I see no reason to think it has changed in 10,000 years.

Progressive.
Magos I have an idea
Tell me
Burst of binary
Interesting, kill him

Traditionalist
Magos I have an idea
Kill him