Sects of the Cult Mechanicus

[Tyriks]

I've been rethinking my FW's fluff lately. I am thinking of having them be a heretical sect of the Cult that has been slowly drifting away from orthodoxy (so that when I fight Imperial armies there's an easy story justification). I've been working on some ideas for what they believe, but it occurred to me that there may already be similar sects within the Cult. I've heard of Thorianism, are there any other established sects?

[Tyriks]

It looks like I was mistaken. I think know Thorianism is a sect of the imperial cult, which I misapplied to the Cult Mechanicus.

[Carlson793]

Check Dan Abnet's Titanicus. Part of the conflict there involves the parts of the Mechanicus that believe the Emperor is the Omnissiah vs those who believe the Emperor is not divine. Been a while since I read it, and memory kinda fuzzy on the details.

[Deadbolt]

The Dark Heresy Supplement The Lathe Worlds has a good bit of info on the various factions within the Cult Mechanicus. I believe a lot of the information may be on one of the wikis. (40k wikia seems to have a lot of articles that are almost verbatim transcribed from FF rpg books, kind of lazy of them but at least the info is there)

[MajorNese]

The most comprehensive collection I found so far is here. Describes all the divisions and ranks, but not that much cult details.

 

 

Part of the conflict there involves the parts of the Mechanicus that believe the Emperor is the Omnissiah vs those who believe the Emperor is not divine. Been a while since I read it, and memory kinda fuzzy on the details.

Read it recently, and there is not much more to say. Most see the emperor and the omnissiah as one, some (the "new way") don't. The latter try to break the mechanicum away from the imperium, but are defeated by the former, while a fleet from mars is inbound to data-purge any constructed evidence of the new way.

 

Other sect mentioned several times is the cult of the dragon. The dragon is a C'tan fragment imprisoned on mars, and followers pop up infrequently, though none have managed to get close to it.

[Lasuria]

I can't remember all the details but there was some informations about this in the "Priest of Mars" trilogy by Graham McNeill.

 

 

Specifically I remember of the magos traveling with the rogue trader (I can't remember their names sry) who has been branded heretic and destitute of her ranks because she and her master were conducting illegal research on some "desconstruct code" -a code capable of destroying other code in the noosphere-.

 

While not killed on sight because of her association with the rogue-trader, other members of the mechanicus clearly despised her because of her IDs in the noosphere, that indicated her status. That might suit your purpose ?

 

[Ascanius]

My time to shine! The Sons of Medusa (see my avatar) are a successor chapter of the Iron Hands that owes its existence to the Moirae Schism. The following is summarised from Imperial Armour Volume 10, The Badab War Part II.

 

Moirae was a Forge World which, in early M35 during the chaotic period of the Nova Terra Interregnum, promulgated a belief in certain prophecies which indicated that the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Ecclesiarchy are destined to merge into one unified church of the Omnissiah-God-Emperor. Moirae itself was destroyed by the forces of Martian orthodoxy, but not before its beliefs spread to other Forge Worlds and those chapters of Space Marines particularly close to the Mechanicus.

 

This, of course, very much included the Iron Hands, and conflict within the chapter between those who adopted the new creed and those who clung to the Martian orthodoxy was only prevented from breaking out into civil war by a meeting of the Great Clan Council, which resolved the matter by arranging the peaceful exodus of the Moirae brothers (one-third of the chapter at the time) and a treaty between the two factions to never make war on each other. They also picked up schismatic elements of other chapters in the immediate aftemath of their separation from the Iron Hands.

 

Now a fleet-based chapter in all but name, as far as the Moirae exiles were concerned they were still Iron Hands and they were still loyal servants of the Imperium. In M37 the High Lords of Terra reestablished control over the Imperium, ending the Interregnum and beginning the Age of Redemption; they examined the Moirae exiles and found them both loyal and untainted, and ratified them as a separate chapter without connection to an official Founding. The newly-named Sons of Medusa further proved their loyalty by immediately embarking on a crusade to cull those chapters and other groups of Space Marines who were considered deviant or traitorous.

 

It's not clear if the Sons of Medusa still believed in the Moirae prophecies even by M37 when their chapter was officially authorised, but in M39 they did establish a permanent base in the Taelus system to serve as a home port for their fleet - and Taelus is one day's Warp travel from the Moirae system.

 

In my personal vision of the chapter, they do still expect the Moirae prophecies to be fulfilled, and I've also chosen to connect them to the Forge World of Agripinaa, which is featured in Codex Adeptus Mechanicus: Skitarii with the following delightful lines:

 

Within the ranks of Agripinaa's soldiery, the sacred red and black heraldry of Mars is reversed. There are some amongst the brotherhood of Mars who imply Agripinaa's sense of truth and logic is likewise inverted.

 

I chose to interpret that as Agripinaa likewise representing a survival of the Moirae heresy. I would have picked the Agripinaa colours anyway, because the only other colours that appeal to me would have been those of Mars and I really don't want to put red and green models together like some kind of 40K Christmas display - but I was quite pleased to realise it was also potentially appropriate.

 

Interestingly enough, I just realised from reviewing my books that I've slightly altered the colouration of both the Sons of Medusa and the Agripinaa Skitarii from the official material. My Space Marines are significantly darker than the medium green of the official colours, closer to a Salamanders kind of green, and my Skitarii's robes are closer to the grey used in the codex's schematics than the black it's technically supposed to represent.

[Tyriks]

That's interesting, but I think a little in the wrong direction for what I want.  While the Moirae schism might technically be labeled heresy, it really isn't, as it is just asserting both officially recognized cults as true.  I doubt that, for example, an Imperial Guard regiment who heard of that might be inclined to wage war over it.  

 

I am thinking about having my Forge World eschew or replace some of the 8 Warnings of the Cult Mechanicus to be a little more machine-oriented and a little more disparaging of flesh.  I think they will venerate the Men of Iron as angels or prophets and are searching the galaxy for STCs to recreate them.  They will think that the Men of Iron do actually have souls, or that they are possibly just tiny pieces of the Machine God's consciousness, like an avatar.  They would think that having killed the Men of Iron was a rejection of the Omnissiah by prideful people trying to deify themselves.  I think they would be a little more sympathetic to Necrons but would be far more theologically opposed to Tyranids, who use biology as a machine.  

 

This would do a lot for me story-wise.  For one, it would give me an in-story reason for any inter-Imperial conflict I might have without actually being anti-Imperium (which I want to avoid - I want them to actually believe they are acting in the best interests of the human race) and without it being so overt that they would be immediately exterminated.  People wouldn't necessarily know what they are looking for, so it would be believable for them to still have alliances within the Imperium.  It also would give them a clear reason to be crusading around the galaxy and so eager to scrap with anyone they came across.  I think my original homebrewed fluff lacked this and was a little less reasonable.  

[Ascanius]

Sounds like a great variant!