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When the Emperor came to Mars, he either had the choice of destroying the Adeptus Mechanius’ religion or keep it. I think I’ve seen somewhere that there are different forms of the Omnissiah, particularly its avatar, the Emperor. Is this true and if so, do they regard the Emperor to be divine like the Ecclesiarchy/SoB/BT? Are there any other forms that the Omnissiah takes? Somewhat like the Christian Trinity?

Lexicanum wrote:The Machine God, also known as the Deus Mechanicus, is the ultimate object of worship in the Cult Mechanicus. It is the Machine God that gave rise to all technologies and made them manifest through his chosen among mankind. To the Mechanicus, machines represent a higher form of life than those crudely formed from biological evolution. The planned perfection of form and function embodied in a machine are so great, that they could only have arisen from a divine source. Officially, the Cult Mechanicus maintains that the Emperor is the physical manifestation of the Machine God (the Omnissiah) and part of a trinity that also includes the Machine God and the Motive Force, the deity that gives all life and motion its continued existence

So yes, it's a copy of the Christian Trinity.

The Emperor probably would have loved to turn the Mechanicum away from religion and towards actual science, but he desperately needed the technology and manufacturing capacity of Mars to get his crusade started. Between letting the techpriests think he's their god and wasting time with Unification Wars 2.0, the choice was simple. I'm sure "eliminate the cult mechanicus" was on his to-do-list, he just always had more important stuff to do.

Since then, I wonder if anyone has made any effort to syncretize the Imperial Cult and the Cult Mechanicus into a single religion?

 Tiennos wrote:
The Emperor probably would have loved to turn the Mechanicum away from religion and towards actual science, but he desperately needed the technology and manufacturing capacity of Mars to get his crusade started. Between letting the techpriests think he's their god and wasting time with Unification Wars 2.0, the choice was simple. I'm sure "eliminate the cult mechanicus" was on his to-do-list, he just always had more important stuff to do.

Since then, I wonder if anyone has made any effort to syncretize the Imperial Cult and the Cult Mechanicus into a single religion?

100% this.

And there have been a few references to this being a perpetual thing. The Inquisition has the same 'to-do' list, and much like the Big E, that particular item keeps getting pushed down out of necessity. (Amberley Vail even mentions it one time.)

 Tiennos wrote:
The Emperor probably would have loved to turn the Mechanicum away from religion and towards actual science, but he desperately needed the technology and manufacturing capacity of Mars to get his crusade started. Between letting the techpriests think he's their god and wasting time with Unification Wars 2.0, the choice was simple. I'm sure "eliminate the cult mechanicus" was on his to-do-list, he just always had more important stuff to do.

Since then, I wonder if anyone has made any effort to syncretize the Imperial Cult and the Cult Mechanicus into a single religion?

They don't regularly interact, with some worlds being under the governance of the Adeptus Administratum and others of the Adeptus Mechanicus and they're also two very different types of religion - with the Cult Mechanicus being a Mystery Cult rather than something that has everyone singing from the same hymnbook, as it were.

There's also some hints that the Cult Mechanicus at the higher levels is a little bit more philosophical rather than mystical - the Omnissiah as less a being to be worshipped and more an ideal that encompasses the knowledge of all things and something to aspire to - the platonic idea of knowledge. Or even that the universe is the Omnissiah and the Omnissiah is the universe, true knowledge of every particle and field at every time is the ultimate form of knowledge and that knowledge is all creation. However if you've not been inducted to those higher levels (still needing to earn the implants and memory engrams that will allow you to understand the complex field harmonics, which are key to completing the Hellascene Rite of Initiation to the 3rd Order), then a lot of this is just abstracted away as things you need to do and understand to keep the Machine God happy. You've just not got the mental equipment or the scientific and metaphysical grounding to start thinking about the nature of God yet.

Whilst in the more traditional Ecclesiarchy, contemplating the nature of God is frowned on as it's only going to lead to actual Heresy - as you start coming to your own conclusions about what God is and isn't, you're almost certainly going to start to veer away from doctrine.

That said there's a lot of cults in the Imperium, and if you've not been inducted into any of the Omnissian Mysteries it's pretty easy to adapt your limited knowledge of the Machine cult with what you know of the Imperial faith and come to some hybrid version. Or missionaries looking to convert a cargo cult that has sprung up on a newly rediscovered world in the wake of discovery by Rogue traders or Explorators.