Dark Mechanicum - Forbidden Arts of Dark Technology: The fundamental tenet of Hereteks is the acquisition of power through unrestrained technological advancement. The great arrogance and sin of this work is as obvious as it is dangerous to anyone who believes in the Cult Mechanicus or the Imperial Creed, and it would lead Mankind back to the terrors of the Age of Strife if it were allowed to bear fruit.Here are but a few examples of the dark paths down which forbidden technology might wander and the legends that cloak them:Engines of Destructions - Weapons are the foremost goal and desire of many tech-heretics, whether it is the discovery or theft of heavily restricted designs -- such as atomics or the dread Life-eater Virus used as a tool of Exterminatus, the acquisition of sophisticated relics like the secrets to creating the induction coils used in Plasma Weapons, or the pursuit of alien designs of terrible power.Gholam and other Forbidden Fleshworks - A Gholam is an artificial construct made primarily of flesh and synthetic tissue by the arts of a gene-sculptor. Although a widespread technology within the Adeptus Mechanicus, many branches of this lore are considered heretical and forbidden. These, in particular, include so-called "Murder Gholams" -- horrific organic fabrications solely intended for violence, and homonculites -- bio-forms fashioned from harvested human organs, alchemical serums, and vat-grown tissue in the shape of a living thing with no natural origin. Rarer creations include "Chimerics" -- strange amalgam creatures that combine many sources of DNA to form twisted monstrosities with utterly unpredictable results, forced psychic mutation, and unspeakable “slaver parasites” -- artificial organic grafts that subvert the will and the bodily functions of those unfortunates they are inflicted upon. According to sacred legend, such fleshworks were forbidden by the word of the Emperor during the days of the Great Crusade in response to the horrors that he and his superhuman warriors encountered in the Unification Wars on Terra to end the Age of Strife.Transgenic Blasphemy - This field of research embodies the techno-heresy of combining xenos gene-matter or surgical grafts with human organic matter. It is an utterly forbidden practice, considered both a pollution of the divine pattern of the human body by the Adeptus Mechanicus and outright blasphemy against the will of the God-Emperor by the Imperial Cult.The Silica Animus (Abominable Intelligence) - The creation of an artificial machine mind (rather than a simple digital cogitator) using forbidden technologies is considered perhaps the greatest sin in the Cult Mechanicus and is a terrible crime under Imperial law. Tradition holds that such unholy constructs are inherently evil and a perverted abomination in the sight of the Omnissiah. Adeptus Mechanicus religious doctrine states that the Machine Spirit of a Silica Animus, a true artificial intelligence capable of emanating all the facets of the human mind, is a twisted mockery of the soul of man, treacherous and insane. Ancient texts tell apocryphal stories, shrouded in metaphor, of such murderous and powerful creations during the last days of the Dark Age of Technology, and the legions of Iron Men that served them, blaming them in part for many of the terrible wars that laid humanity low in that lost time and brought on the Age of Strife.Malifica - Perhaps the darkest and most arcane of all sciences is the technology created to manipulate the energies of the Warp or psychic force. A necessary evil for the Imperium and a cornerstone of its existence, it is a dangerous and volatile field of study. At the outer regions of the accepted uses and patterns of this little understood technology lie terrible devices and desires, and the melding of daemonic spirits with machinery and the channelling of the raw power of the Empyrean through technology has long been a thing forbidden by the Mechanicus. For those reckless or insane enough, the temptation to pursue such dark experiments is great, offering the possibility of creativity and function unfettered by reason or the surly bonds of the universe's physical laws.The Proteus Protocol (Biotransference) - Considered little more than a myth by many but the ultimate goal of an obsessed few, the Proteus Protocol is an ancient and heretical technology for transferring not only the engramatic knowledge and memory of an organic Human or xenos brain into a machine, but also the personality and will, granting in effect complete mental and spiritual immortality in an artificial physical form. Of the few legends that surround this technology, some state that the abominations created are soulless beings with dark desires and alien hungers that can never be satiated. However, these warnings often fail to deter the Protocol's most ardent seekers. It was a variant of this technology, first pioneered by the C'tan more than 60 million Terran years ago, that created the undying Necrons. A cautionary tale indeed for any who would seek immortality in the form of the machine.