Any color as long as its Red?

[Kilofix]

Does the Mechanicus or Dark Mechanicus, ever use any other colors other than red?

 

I assume they have enough sensors to tell each other apart but boy, it must be confusing for others when loyalist Mechanicus fights Dark Mechanicus on the same field.

 

To be fair, the Thallax in HH2 have blue / tan / green trim but I haven't really seen that anywhere else. Its always steel, red, red, red, red, dark red, more red, a touch of gold and green eyes.

[Teetengee]

I'm fairly certain the dark mechanicus can use whatever colors they would like. As for what they do use.....

[Kilofix]

I wonder if for Conquest they'll depict more variety or if it'll all just be red.

[FenrisWolf]

I'd think the Mechanics has other IFF systems than straight visuals.  Especially since in their fluff several of their units can't see with normal vision anyway, iirc.

[Battybattybats]

1st ed 40k also had Mechanicus in white.

Yellow is a colour i've seen people use with Mechanicus also but i don't know of any fluff for that.

Some of the novels have mentioned black robed Mechanicus also.

[Haywire]

Personally, I'd look at it in the same way as one might look at current real world religions. As outside observers, we'd say a Christian is a Christian, or a Muslim is a Muslim. Within these major relgions, however, are numerous sects that develop their own practices and traditions. Case in point, the differences between Catholics and Protestants.

 

With that in mind, an outside observer can be forgiven for thinking that all members of the machine cult are the same. Who's to say that your techpriests believe that red is the preferred holy colour of the Omnissiah? Perhaps they're 'eccentrics' with major differences of opinion with the more hardline and conservative techpriests, and so want to use their own colour to set them apart from the Martian red. Perhaps they simply don't believe the Omnissiah HAS a preferred colour, and just use whatever they want, even if just because they know the colour they've chosen is aesthetically pleasing to the meatbags that they may have to deal with on a regular basis.

 

As with most factions out there, you can use whatever colours you want, and get away with it with a decent amount of explaining.

[Kilofix]

It'd just be like that one Heretek Magos that would have the nerve to put a little blue trim in his cowl. Lol

[GrandMasterAralia]

Haha! What an outrage that would stir up, Kilo!

 

Isn't the red supposed to be sort of a hommage/tribute to the Red Planet?

 

But apart from that, there are all those different beliefs in the AdMech - even represented by rules for archimandrites, ordinators, macroteks and so on, so I think that the explanation given earlier by Darvel is a good one for spicing up the mechs if you think Martian red is soooo last millennium. ;)

[Slips]

Every time I read Ordinator I think " why is this mechanicum guy called Computer?". Why you may ask? Ordinateur is french for Computer :p

 

That said, Red is in hommage to Mars being the Red Planet, iirc and as stated above. So, Dark Mech, no longer paying homage to Mars could do whatever they wanted to.

 

Some may just keep red cuz :cuss it, lets piss off some loyalists and confuse the mortals.

[Battybattybats]

I suspect the original reason for the red was camouflage against the red rock and desserts when out on the surface.

The Forgeworld Heresy books say it's often reserved mainly for the Tech Priests, but my House Cydonia of New Ares know full well the value of the old camouflage aspect of red robes and armour plates on their holy world, and alas when treading their path in defence of Martian holdings and forgeworlds where there isn't red paint on walls their is all too often enough rust to still make the red livery useful. And as my Taghmata works in holy synergy with the tech-priest Knights of Cydonia all my forces bear the red and most will have the golden cog motif too.

[GrandMasterAralia]

I suspect the original reason for the red was camouflage against the red rock and desserts when out on the surface.

The Forgeworld Heresy books say it's often reserved mainly for the Tech Priests, but my House Cydonia of New Ares know full well the value of the old camouflage aspect of red robes and armour plates on their holy world, and alas when treading their path in defence of Martian holdings and forgeworlds where there isn't red paint on walls their is all too often enough rust to still make the red livery useful. And as my Taghmata works in holy synergy with the tech-priest Knights of Cydonia all my forces bear the red and most will have the golden cog motif too.

Awesome that you've written up a fluff reason for your armies colors... Lovely! :)

[Chronozoah]

The colouration of red was chosen to symbolise the red planet, their home-world and the world on which the cult started out. The camouflaging property of the robes was a definite benefit, but not the original reason, I believe.

[Battybattybats]

But the need for camouflage existed before the Mechanicum left Mars. Back when they were just a small number of survivors scavenging amongst irradiated waste fighting the remnant A.I.s and verminous cyber-beasts left behind of the Dark Age of Technology, building what shelter they could underground, fighting mutants and raiders and twisted tech and slowly piecing together the scraps of knowledge and the religious notions that began the Machine Cult. It's not so much a chicken and egg situation, the need for red camouflage stemmed from the time of the very birth of the Mechanicum when all of them were on Mars.

As they built up afterwards they founded some worlds with one-way explorator/colony expeditions through gaps in the warp storms that trapped humanity in the solar system and fought some wars with shattered Terra, but by then they'd already have used red for camouflage purposes even before the wars with Terra.

When the Emperor revealed himself and the warp storms abated enough for navigator controlled travel and the Treaty of Mars (or to the Mechanicum the Treaty of Olympus Mons) was signed granting the Mechnicum their own Navigator Houses and the Imperium was created there was a smattering of Knight worlds and Forge Worlds created by the earlier one-way seedings but most of the Mechanicus presence in the galaxy spread with the Great Crusade.

So logically the red came first.
However some background material has said that colours can denote the Forgeworld, and some of the Forgeworlds by the time of the Heresy had great independence and not that much loyalty to Mars. Whether founded in the Crusade or the seeding expeditions some will have developed their own customs, their own doctrinal interpretations. After all the Fabricator General sided with Horus so a Forgeworld less loyal to Mars might well be loyal to the Emperor rather than Dark Mechanicum.

So some of the Forgeworlds would have kept the Martian Red to honour their origins, others would have taken their own livery and be as diverse as the colours of the many Titan Legions to show their varying degrees of independence.

This makes the white robes of 1st ed 40k background material make sense (even though the colour artwork of a techpriest wore red robes, the text descriptions of the Mechanicus and sample techpriest miniature is in white) and gives everyone free-reign for heresy era loyalist and traitor mechanicum. Post-heresy Mars has more rigid control over the Mechanicus, still there's all manner of good reasons we can come up with for alternate colours of loyal 40k Adeptus Mechanicus. An easy one might be that Forgeworlds that defied the Fabricator General and Horus from the outset might be granted the right to maintain divergent forgeworld colours in honour of their loyalty to the Emperor/Omnissiah.

[Kilofix]

Thanks for all the insights folks.

 

I think when I do get around to painting my 30K Ad Mech, it'll be tan. It's close enough to red, but not red.

[Chronozoah]

Like Battybattybats said, it is highly unlikely that the reason for the colouration was due to camouflage requirements, and even so you have free reign to choose your own colour scheme. You need not necessarily pick red as an homage to Mars just because that's the common representation. My army's colour scheme will comprise of electric blue, yellow and silver, for example.

[CommodusXIII]

There's been a myriad of colors over the years for the Adeptus Mechanicus.  Dark red is by far the most common.  However, several novels (ex. Ciaphas Cain) describe them as wearing white.  Here is another example.  Other, less common, options depicted by various artists are orange, yellow, brown, black, and even purple.  I think that the Mechanicus would argue that the color of the robes aren't what matters, but the percentage of augmentation underneath.

[Grand Master Laertes]

The colouration of red was chosen to symbolise the red planet, their home-world and the world on which the cult started out. The camouflaging property of the robes was a definite benefit, but not the original reason, I believe.

 

But also don't forget forget that the true reason why the Techpriests were said to wear red robes in the Rogue Trader's days is because they are heavily inspired to the Scientism Priests of Terminus from the Foundation novel by Aasimov ;)

[shandwen]

I would say that the coration would play homage to the red coloration, but perhaps primarily use their "house" color. Perhaps even colored much as the apothecaries are colored for a marine chapter. With house colors primarily but trimmed red?

[Chronozoah]

But also don't forget forget that the true reason why the Techpriests were said to wear red robes in the Rogue Trader's days is because they are heavily inspired to the Scientism Priests of Terminus from the Foundation novel by Aasimov

I must research this at once!