Joining the Cult Mechanicus

[Tyriks]

Anyone know of any sources that talk about how the Cult Mechanicus handles recruitment and such? I read Tech - Priest of Mars (which was pretty good after the story actually got rolling), and they mention that one of the characters is a clone (or at least test - tube baby) from another character, and they depict all the servitors as being criminals or slaves who were being punished.

 

It seems like the Skitarii codex shows some progression within their ranks (i.e. a skitarius can become a sicarian) but how does one join the Skitarii in the first place? Is it just conscripts from Forge Worlds, instead of going to IG get sent to Skitarii? Was that Tech - Priest once a ranger who got promoted? I assume not, at least TPoM and the book Mechanicum make it seem like the priests were always priests, just not as influential.

 

I would have an easy time believing that the entire priesthood is either completely, inhumanly engineered (a la Brave New World), or if there was a sort of breeding program amongst the priests to match people in a way that would bring out qualities deemed needed by the Cult. But there must be some outside recruitment method. Are there any sources that talk about this?

[Vel'Cona]

The 40k wiki has some great information about Skitarii recruitment and training/modification.  In general, they're something of "conscripts" though most consider it an honor to serve in the legions of their local Forgeworld.  As for servitors (such as Kataphrons and the "drivers" of Ironstriders), these are typically criminals or infirm (older Skitarii, possibly) that would be considered unworthy or unsuitable for modification into a Skitarii and their ilk.  I suspect the "creation" (more appropriately, the genesis) of a Techpriest is likely as an apprentice to a venerable Techpriest, in particular individuals of great insight and a spark of curiosity.  That said, a work of fiction depicting the maturation of a thrall into a full Techpriest has not been written yet to my knowledge, though it would certainly be a challenging yet rewarding exercise!

[Grand Master Laertes]

We see a couple of techpriest apprentices in Mechanicum, book IX of the horus heresy saga, but not much is said about them. It is an interesting book, however, well worth a read.

[Tyriks]

Yeah, I read it.  i guess I'm wondering if there are examples of regular people joining and becoming adepts more than how adepts are trained.  I think it would make some sense on a Forge World for the "aristocracy" to view becoming an adept as an honor to be sought after, like a medieval soldier dreaming about being a knight.  To that end, on a Forge World it would seem that the best institutions would be those closest associated with the Adeptus Mechanicus, so it would make sense if the upper crust send their kids to fancier schools hoping they might get noticed or something.

[jeffersonian000]

It appears from various sources that in the grimdark of the future, children inherit their parents' jobs. The Astra Militarum can be a way out of an unacceptable life either via volunteering or conscription depending on the world and how corrupt their government is. Skitarii run the spectrum from volunteer Tech Guard to cloned and agumented manufactured soldiers, again depending on the world.

 

Criminals tend to be repurposed, deprnding on needs at the time. Those convicted of thought crimes tend to be turned into mind scrubbed thralls or servo-skulls, while brutes become servitors, and the truly violent become Astartes.

 

SJ

[Tyriks]

I'm actually only interested in how one becomes a tech-priest. I've found nothing so far on how that happens.

[Tiger9gamer]

I think that some of it is like Real life stuff. a guy joins a convent or takes a vocation into a school, learns all he could about his theology and then slowly takes the rights and stuff to become a tech priest. Maybe they take children from scholam programs or just take people they know of to have incredible talents with machines and they become tech priests.

[Tyriks]

I think that some of it is like Real life stuff. a guy joins a convent or takes a vocation into a school, learns all he could about his theology and then slowly takes the rights and stuff to become a tech priest. Maybe they take children from scholam programs or just take people they know of to have incredible talents with machines and they become tech priests.

How much culture is there on a Forge World outside of the forges? I guess the only depiction of a FW I've seen so far was Mars itself in Mechanicum. They described it as being more or less completely forges or wasteland, so I guess I assumed that was always the case.

 

Even so, though, it would make sense if the worlds being supplied by the FW in question would send potential Adepts to the Cult Mechanicus (potentially involuntarily, I suppose, if they're young enough).

[Xisor]

I recall one of the halves of Rob's duo making passing reference to the 'populace' of the forge world. On the approach of the Magor Explorator to the Fabricator's Temple - so I assume the start of the second novel.

 

In any event, there was the impression that each forge has a labouring underclass, a civil society almost outwith (and theotechnocratically under) the Priesthood of Mars. A 'lay' community, if you will. Workers and labourers, scribes and warriors who are not official priests or delegates of the Cult Mechanicus, but that nevertheless are religiously part of the, err, religion.

 

Does that make sense? I'd imagine that eligible members of this 'stock population' are monitored or otherwise extracted for submission to becomega candidates for ascension into the cult.

 

Moreover, I imagine homogeneity isn't the Machine Cult's strong point, so where some might be vat grown, others might be folks who... applied. A huge scope for variety.

[Tyriks]

I recall one of the halves of Rob's duo making passing reference to the 'populace' of the forge world. On the approach of the Magor Explorator to the Fabricator's Temple - so I assume the start of the second novel.

 

In any event, there was the impression that each forge has a labouring underclass, a civil society almost outwith (and theotechnocratically under) the Priesthood of Mars. A 'lay' community, if you will. Workers and labourers, scribes and warriors who are not official priests or delegates of the Cult Mechanicus, but that nevertheless are religiously part of the, err, religion.

 

Does that make sense? I'd imagine that eligible members of this 'stock population' are monitored or otherwise extracted for submission to becomega candidates for ascension into the cult.

Yes!  Thanks.  Mechanicum talks a tiny bit about the population but makes it sound like they're all just slaves who don't really have lives.  Tech-Priests of Mars portrays them very much the same.  Good to know they aren't all like that!  

 

 

 

Moreover, I imagine homogeneity isn't the Machine Cult's strong point, so where some might be vat grown, others might be folks who... applied. A huge scope for variety.

I completely agree.  Using the same DNA to keep growing new tech-priests would not provide enough genetic diversity, especially since whatever method they're using to store DNA would fail badly over the years (it is, after all, Imperial) and so there would be widespread corruption.  You would need some steady flow of new genetic material over the years.  Thanks for the tip!

[Ascanius]

 

How much culture is there on a Forge World outside of the forges? I guess the only depiction of a FW I've seen so far was Mars itself in Mechanicum. They described it as being more or less completely forges or wasteland, so I guess I assumed that was always the case.

 

Even so, though, it would make sense if the worlds being supplied by the FW in question would send potential Adepts to the Cult Mechanicus (potentially involuntarily, I suppose, if they're young enough).

 

Well, Mechanicum does depict different settlements along the rail line Dalia and co. take to reach the Noctis Labyrinthus, and there are hab-blocks described as being clustered around the outside of the Magma City and other forges (albeit mostly mentioned in the context of being destroyed in Titan battles). The scavengers in the wasteland have to be able to trade with someone, too.

 

There would have to be things like nutrient farms and mundane factories producing goods to support the lives of workers across any given Forge World - not everyone is a servitor. Think of how Dalia Cythera begins Mechanicum as a lowly transcriber in the Administratum, essentially a clerk; Codex Imperialis from 2E states that some low-ranking Tech-Priests known as Lexmechanics are assigned to Administratum duty, and presumably it would be possible for someone working in the Administratum to be recognised as having the potential aptitude for induction as novices in the Cult Mechanicus.

 

This might be more likely for someone working in a department on a Forge World, where presumably they would have been recruited from a population already more steeped in the Cult Mechanicus than the Imperial Cult per se, but this isn't necessarily the case. Again, Mechanicum has a cast of lower-ranking members of the Cult Mechanicus and several of them are explicitly from Earth, like Zouche Chahaya whose parents had been from the Yndonesic Bloc and murdered by Cardinal Tang's regime for the crime of producing a genetically inferior child like him (because he's unusually short, if not necessarily a dwarf in the modern sense).

 

So I would assume that, where we have universities and technical colleges which train people with an interest in and aptitude for science, engineering, et cetera, the Imperium has various testing programs for its citizens which assign them to institutions either based on their aptitude or on the Imperium's needs - and any such institution for scientific or technical training would be as much a seminary of the Tech-Priesthood as a school of engineering or college of science.

 

Koriel Zeth in Mechanicum is accused of heresy by the minions of Kelbor Hal precisely because she has Dalia Cythera working on a project within her forge despite Dalia's not being a member of the Cult Mechanicus; qualification in scientific or engineering disciplines and ordination within the Cult Mechanicus is clearly considered to be one and the same. There would have to be billions of low-ranking people authorised to do certain kinds of relevant work who might at least be required to be the Cult Mechanicus equivalent of lay brothers and sisters of real-world religious orders, if not necessarily ordained or vowed to the Tech-Priesthood per se.

 

Think of how some traditional Catholic schools are run by nuns or Brothers, who are not priests but are definitely members of a religious order and voluntarily committed to a certain religious way of life. A couple of people I know attended a Marist Brothers school, for instance; Marist Brothers aren't ordained as priests, but they do take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

 

I would expect, as Xisor suggested upthread, that the population of a Forge World would be much more likely to show devotion to the Cult Mechanicus than to the Imperial Cult, and so most Tech-Priests would be drawn from these peoples in the same way that most Catholic priests and lay brothers and sisters come from majority Catholic regions or nations.

 

But, obviously, there has to be an element of aptitude, so I'd also expect there to be some Tech-Priests assigned to other Imperial worlds for the purpose of identifying those with the potential to serve the Omnissiah, the same way there are officials on the lookout for psykers or recruiting for the Ecclesiarchy, et cetera.

[Ascanius]

Plus, of course, the population of Forge Worlds would be the source for all the other groups controlled by the Mechanicum/Adeptus Mechanicus; those who might join the Imperial Guard on an Imperial hive world would become Skitarii on a Forge World, criminals and undesirables everywhere get converted into servitors, and so on.

[jeffersonian000]

Pretty sure Mechanicum showed a tongue in cheek nod to intelligent people being stuck in deadend jobs while the idiotic are promoted, augmented, and eventually raised up to the point of total loss of humanity. At least that was my impression.

 

SJ