The United Martian Mechanicus

The **United Mechanicum** is the official Imperial name within the Terran for the **Cult Mechanicus Maximus** or **Cult of the Machine Made Eternal** based on Mars which provides the Imperium with its scientists, engineers and technicians.

In ancient times, before the current Age of the Imperium Dominus officially began, the Adeptus Mechanicus was instead called the **Mechanicum**. The Adeptus Mechanicus was formally separated from the larger Mechanicum of Mars by order of the Council of Terra in 012.M31. This occurred after the Red Planet had fallen to the control of the Hereteks who represented the Traitor faction of the Mechanicum loyal to the Warmaster Horus later called the "Dark Mechanicum."

The Mechanicus acknowledge the Emperor of Mankind as the ruler of the Imperium of Man, but not the religious truth of the Imperial Cult or the Ecclesiarchy, and are granted an unusual amount of political and religious autonomy within the Imperium's structure, a role protected by the ancient Treaty of Mars. The Mechanicus essentially maintains an empire-within-an-empire in Imperial space, and its interests usually, but not always, coincide with those of the wider Imperium.

Instead of the Imperial Creed, the servants of the Mechanicus follow their own dark and mysterious scriptures and worship the strange deity they call the Machine God or the "Omnissiah."

As part of this faith, the Adeptus Mechanicus believes knowledge is the true manifestation of divinity in the universe, and all creatures and artefacts that embody knowledge are holy because of it. The Emperor is the supreme object of worship for the servants of the Mechanicus, for He is the living avatar of the Machine God that is the Omnissiah.

The Emperor was recognised by the ancient Mechanicum as the fulfillment of the prophecy of the coming of the Omnissiah because He comprehends so much, and understands more about the true nature of reality than any other being in existence.

The Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus also regard organic flesh as weak and view the removal and replacement of biological tissue with mechanical, bionic parts as sacred. Most elder Tech-priests have few organic parts left and eventually become more machine than man.

The Adeptus Mechanicus is based on Mars, the very first Forge World of the Imperium, and they are the sole rulers of the Red Planet. They provide the technical and scientific experts of the Imperium and field armies of massive Titans, Questor Mechanicus Knights, Electro-priests, Skitarii and Combat Servitors.

## History

The United Mechanicus is the one Imperial Ordo Regimae that as the Cult Mechanicus actually predates the Imperium Dominus itself, and was known originally as the United Mechanicum of Mars. Though the Adeptus Mechanicus was formally integrated into the Imperium of Man by the Treaty of Mars (known as the Treaty of Olympus Mons to the Mechanicum) over 10,000 Terran years before the "present" of the 41st Millennium at the dawn of the Emperor's Great Crusade to reunite Mankind in *ca.* 800.M30, it retains an unparalleled degree of autonomy from the rest of the Adeptus Terra for an Imperial Adepta.

This autonomy was guaranteed to the Mechanicus in the Treaty of Mars to provide the Tech-priests with immunity to the dictates of the atheistic Imperial Truth and to allow the Mechanicus to continue to exercise sovereignty over all of the Forge Worlds it had settled across the galaxy during the Age of Strife. In return, the Mechanicus agreed to aid in the construction of the massive fleets and the provision of the technical aid necessary for the Imperium of Man to launch the Great Crusade.

Whereas nearly all the citizens of the Imperium observe the tenets of one of the various sects of the Imperial Cult that worships the Emperor of Mankind as the God-Emperor, the Adeptus Mechanicus is virtually synonymous with the Cult Mechanicus, another faith that could easily be considered heretical by the rest of the Imperium if the Adeptus Mechanicus was not essential to the survival of the Imperium and if the Tech-priests had not proven their loyalty to the Emperor in countless ways.

The Adeptus Mechanicus is vitally important to humanity because the Imperium, despite its technologically advanced state, has a very limited scientific knowledge of how its technology actually functions. This has only reinforced the prevailing Imperial view that the building and use of advanced machinery is almost a magical or religious act, fraught with ritual and inviolable instructions.

The Adeptus Mechanicus, with its inherent understanding of the Machine Spirit and the Machine God, has a near-monopoly on Standard Template Construct (STC) designs and other advanced Imperial technological knowledge. As a result, the Mechanicus wields a tremendous amount of power in the Imperium as the primary manufacturer, maintainer and repairer of everything from basic farming equipment to interstellar warships.

### Mars

The birthplace of the Adeptus Mechanicus was the ancient Forge World of Mars. Mars was colonised very early in human history, long before the start of even the Dark Age of Technology, and developed a society different from Terra both culturally and in terms of technological advancement. The arid, rusty surface of Mars was terraformed, and under a man-made oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, the Martian colony flourished, though it remained politically independent from Terra. When the era of human interstellar colonisation began, both Terra and Mars served as the co-equal mother worlds of countless new human colonies across the galaxy.

During the Dark Age of Technology, the two empires of Terra and Mars co-existed under the aegis of the decentralised human interstellar government of that era, to the mutual benefit of both. At the height of its splendour during that era, and even later in the anarchic Age of Strife, Mars despatched hundreds of colony fleets into the void. Many perished in the terrible Warp Storms that engulfed the galaxy at that time before the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh, but others survived or made their way forward at sublight speeds in realspace. Those who did founded new Forge Worlds in the name of the Machine God and built on them a likeness of the great manufactorums and temples of their distant homeworld. These Forge Worlds also forged new empires for the Mechanicus among the feudal Knight Worlds and added their unique combat walkers, the Knights, to the Mechanicus' own powerful arsenal.

The onset of the Age of Strife brought an end to the glory and peace of the ancient interstellar human domain. Across the galaxy, Mankind suddenly turned upon itself as a new breed of Warp-attuned psykers emerged and Warp Storms engulfed the galaxy, rendering interstellar travel and communication dangerous to the point of impossibility. Civil war engulfed thousands of human worlds, even the twin human homeworlds of Terra and Mars.

Many warring factions vied for power on Mars and waged a brutal civil conflict using arcane and unimaginably destructive weaponry, including psychic abilities. The carefully constructed atmosphere of Mars was burned away, and once more the rusty surface of the planet was exposed to the deadly radiations of the Sun. The terraformed Martian environment, which had teemed with Terran life for centuries, was rendered a barren crimson desert again. The Martian combatants now fought in the same blood-hued wastelands that the first human colonists from Terra had found millennia before. Much of the Martian population retreated underground, as any who were not equipped with a radiation and life support suit could not long survive on the Red Planet's harsh surface.

In time, one faction emerged dominant over all the others that had contended for dominion over Mars -- the Cult of the Machine God, the Mechanicum. Believing deeply in a strange theology which held that the expression of the universe's divinity, the Omnissiah, was embodied in advanced technology and machines, the Cult Mechanicum established its rule over the Red Planet and erected massive new manufactorums and hive cities across the world, divided into different city-states known as forges or forge cities. Each forge was ruled by a high-ranking Tech-priest, and the entirety of the Mechanicum's hierarchy bowed to the high priest known as the Fabricator-General.

For millennia the Mechanicum ruled over Mars, sending out colony expeditions to spread its faith and its way of life across the galaxy, which led to the founding of the first Forge Worlds. Mars also made war upon the divided techno-barbarian states that ruled Terra at this time, as many of these ignorant savages had access to advanced technologies left over from the Age of Technology that they did not understand or know how to venerate properly. This innate hostility between Mars and Terra lasted for centuries until in the late 30th Millennium, following his victory in the Unification Wars on Terra, the Emperor of Mankind came to Mars and landed atop the great volcano of Olympus Mons.

At their first sight of the Master of Mankind many Tech-priests were overcome with the feeling that they had met the living embodiment of the Omnissiah, the Machine God clad in human form. In return for peace between Terra and Mars, the recognition of the Tech-priests' right to practice their faith and their right to maintain control over both Mars and the other Forge Worlds they had settled, the Mechanicum agreed to build Imperial starships at Mars' Ring of Iron orbital fleet yards and provide all of the war materiel necessary for the Emperor's Great Crusade.

In addition, the Mechanicum agreed to be bound by the Emperor's commandment to never develop certain forbidden technologies such as artificial intelligence. Though the Mechanicum had no knowledge of it, it was artificial intelligence that had nearly destroyed humanity once before during the rebellion of the Men of Iron in the Dark Age of Technology and the Emperor was determined not to repeat history. With the signing of this agreement, known as the Treaty of Mars or the Treaty of Olympus Mons within the Mechanicum, the Cult Mechanicum became the Adeptus Mechanicus of the new-forged Imperium of Man, and the Imperial Aquila was refashioned to bear two heads, one for Terra and one for Mars.

Yet the terms of this agreement did not sit well with some within the hierarchy of the Mechanicum. A minority of Tech-adepts believed that the Emperor was not the Omnissiah, for the Machine God that the Mechanicus had always worshipped actually lay sleeping deep beneath the crust of Mars in the Noctis Labyrinthus. These Tech-priests particularly chafed at the end of Mars' political independence and the imposition of the Emperor's restrictions upon what technologies the Tech-priests of the Mechanicum could research and develop. As the Great Crusade progressed into the early 31st Millennium, these simmering discontents would ultimately cleave the Mechanicum just as it would the wider Imperium.

During the Horus Heresy many Mechanicum units declared for the Warmaster Horus and fought against those of their faith who remained loyal to the Emperor, becoming known in later times as the Dark Mechanicus. These Traitor Mechanicum units initiated a civil war on the Red Planet known as the Schism of Mars that mirrored the larger conflict raging across the galaxy. The Fabricator-General himself sided with the Warmaster, but his deputy, the Fabricator Locum Kane, remained loyal to the Emperor.

Horus swayed the Fabricator-General of the time, Kelbor-Hal, to the side of Chaos by promising him a complete STC database from the planet of Drakonis-Three-Eleven and brought the senior Tech-adept in his 63rd Expeditionary Fleet named Regulus over to his side with other STCs recovered from the Imperial conquest of the Auretian Technocracy. Horus promised much else in terms of technological knowledge to the Mechanicum, including the right to develop technologies like artificial intelligence previously forbidden by the Emperor in the Treaty of Mars in return for their allegiance to his cause.

Many Master Adepts like Kelbor-Hal longed to pursue these restricted lines of research and had long believed that the Emperor was not the Omnissiah of the Machine God, for the true Machine God dwelled in the Noctis Labyrinthus deep below the crust of Mars. That this legendary creature may actually have been the C'tan shard known as the Void Dragon is a disturbing possibility.

### Overview

The Imperial Mechana is the official name of The Witnesses of Kamris, the once rival force which dominated the Southern Austral Proximitate, These Imperial Sector States are the main source of the Empires Scientists, Engineers, and Technicians.

The Dictatus Mechana: Four Tombs written by The First Prophet of Kamris, these great books have dictated the society and functions of the Kamrisian Empire ever since its emergence from the Sand World of

* The Cognitio Dictatum: The 1st Book of The Mind, as the Tomb Cognitio dictates the necessity of The Collection of Knowledge
	+ The Logic Dictatum: The 2nd Book of The Mind, The Logic Dictatum was written to ensure the use of knowledge found would be used in the pursuit of ever more knowledge.
* The Animus Dictatum: The Book of The Machina Essence speaks of the prohibition of AI in the use of Machines, and speaks on the primary use of the Human Mind in the function of machinery
* The Machina Dictatum: The Book of The Body dictates that the replacement of weak Human flesh with the strength of Iron-forged augmentations.

The Machine Fiducia Hierarchy:

The Arch-Logicae

* Arch-Diocesan

Cardilogos

* Cardilogos Dominus
* Cardilogos Geneticae: The Geneticae probe the mysteries of the biological, creating ever stranger cyborgs, or slaughtering xenos beyond number in order to excise yet more secrets of their alien metabolisms.

Geneticae are often employed by Templar Orders and Noble Houses in The Creation of Cloned Warriors, or Servus Ferrei(Servitors). Often operating under the teachings of The Logic and Machina Dictatums.

* Biologis Dominus: Experts in the study of Biological Sciences, often seen dissecting the bodies of xenos, and studying the anatomical makeup of species across the galaxy.
* Genetor Dominus: Just like their peers of the Biologis, the Genetor study and manipulate the genetics of xenos species, and learn to further develop the genetic makeup of Human Genetics.
* Chirurgeon Dominus: Chirurgeons are employed by Geneticae in the Augmentation of cyborgs, often working on the augmentation of High Ranking officials and Warriors.

* Cardilogos Artisan: Artisans create and restore truly wondrous weapons of war, from ornate Plasmor Pistols to the mind-boggling immensity of the Arche de Fer Acorazado. Also known as constructors, they design machines, buildings, spacecraft, weapons, and military hardware. They often oversee activity on Forge Worlds and control vast labor forces of Servus Ferrei.

Often operating under the teachings of all the Dictatum Sagas.

* Forge Lord Dominus, The Overseers of Forge Worlds, often watching over the creation of war-machines, and weapons of war.
* Artifice Dominus Designers of great machine works:
	+ Artifice Domini Arma: The Artifice Arma design and create superior cybernetic augmentations.
	+ Artifice Domini Militant: The Artifice Arma design superior and more advanced machines of war.
	+ Artifice Domini Raeda:
* The Architect Dominus are Designers of buildings, and the overseers of the fabrication of cities.

* Cardilogos Versiti: Versiti (sing. Versitos) of all stripes are Senior Cardilogos with advanced specializations in various Dictatum disciplines, often versed in Biological and Mechanical sciences and technology who pursue highly esoteric agendas.

Often Versiti will work under multiple Kamrisian factions because of their skills and knowledge being highly sought after.

* Cardilogos Logicae: A Logis (plu. Logi) is an analyst, statistician, and logistician whose purpose is to predict future trends and make forecasts about Mechana expenditures and needs.

Arch Prelates: an Ecclesiastical dignitary of the Mechna Domina of low to mid rank.

* Tech Prelates: Researchers of the Arch-Mechana
* Machine Priest: Military Engineers, and mechanics, The Machine Priests battle within the back lines of Templar War-hosts, and repair their fallen brethrens Iron-forged limbs.
* Tech Chaplains: A religious authority within Templar Orders, the Tech Chaplains evoke prayers of the sacred machine, bolstering the strength of the Warriors of the Order whilst in combat. Often striking down the foes of  the Machine God with the power of Plazmor strikes, and chain blades,

Kamrisian Factions:

House Dumont

* The Order of The Arcane Gear
* Animus Legio Titana École

House Boissonade

* Knights of The Preserving Steel
* Animus Legio Titana École

House Noir

* The Helmets of The Anvil
* Animus Legio Titana École

House Lanterne

* The Ferrum Custodians
* Animus Legio Titana École

House Moitessier: The youngest of the Machine Houses, House Moiessier in an effort to prove themselves in the eyes of the other Houses has been committed to a crusade within the East for the last 3 centuries.

* The Order of Silver
* Animus Legio Titana École

Templar Command Structure:

Grand Marshal Dominus Superior: The Grand Master of the Templar Mechanicus was the supreme commander of their Templar Orders.

Tech Knight: Senior members of the Templar Orders, and more machines than Man. The Knights of the Orders are valuable elite troops of the Order.

Squire: Augmented with Iron-Forged enhancements and greater weapons and armor. The Squires, unlike the lesser Pages, are actively seen as true members of The Order.

Page: The Vat-Born, or conscripted grunts of the Templar Orders, Pages are unaugmented Warriors armed with feeble, easily manufactured armor and armaments

Naval Vessels:

Arche de Fer Acorazado

The Legios Mechana Cyber:

The Animus Titana

The Servus Ferrei

Relationship between the Legions and the Kamrisian Cult:

* Legiones Angelus
* Legiones Luminaires
	+ The Schola Machina
	+ Machine
	+ Tech-Luminaires