Orders Non-Militant Reps., Repairing Sisters Equipment

[Grgobart]

wouldn't it be a different branch though? so like space marines have tech marines the sisters have tech nuns? They prolly wouldn't do all that much battle sistering but would do a lot of repairing...

The overall characteristic, I see uniting all of the Adepta Sororitas, the Sisterhood of all militant and non-militant Orders, is their Faith, an utter devotion to the God Emperor in its purest and strongest from. Any of the members of these Orders has to manage the feat to also reach mastery in another fiels of expertise, the Orders Militant in the field of Battle, the Orders Hospitalle in the field of Medicine, etc. All of which may occupy a portion of their lifetime, but does not interfere with their beliefs in any way, otherwise.

Now whether by branch you mean another brand of non-Militant Orders, or like Servant of Dante earlier mentioned another rank within the Sisters of Battle similar to the Mistress of Repentance, the problem I see remains the same. I can't see any Sister maintaining her purity of Faith, while learning or conducting the rituals necessary to service and repair a Rhino, essentially compromising her faith to embrace the Cult of the Machine God, at least to some extent.

I can easily imagine the ritual for conducting an oil change, to include at some point shouting out a praise to the Omnissiah. And as I mentioned before, the Cult of the Machine God being a Religion to the Techpriests, they would believe it as important as pouring in the actual oil, for the success of the routine and as such, would teach it that way. And let's not forget, the Imperium isn't exactly a place of free thinking and liberal experimentation.

So in my view, the notion of "Tech Nuns" as part of the Sisterhood, either undermine the general purity standards of the Sisters' Faith, as they'd have to a lot praisings to the Omnissiah while doing their work. Or the such Sisters would have own rituals, in which case the Mechanicus' Monopoly on the knowledge of these maintinance and repair rituals is undermined.

I could imagine such a Cult of Tech Nuns as part of the Ecclesiarchy outside the Sisterhood, which could work as an option to my earlier mentioned 3rd party therory.

But all Theory aside, I just opened my old Witch Hunters Codex and the very first line on the Exorcist reads:

"This arcane machine of war is only vaguely understood by the Tech-priests who must service it, ..." 3E, Codex Witch Hunter, page 36.

And I double-checked it, the English version does so, too!

Why didn't anyone of us find that one earlier?

[Servant of Dante]

Ah! I know I've read that line before, I just didn't remember it . . .

 

OK, so how about this as a compromise:

 

I'm sure the Sisters can do basic maintenance, just like I'm any IG tank crew can at least help upkeep their vehicle, or how SMs can effect battlefield repairs on a Rhino.

 

The Mechanicus can maintain a special corps of Tech-Priests who exclusively service the Sisters (and possibly the rest of the Ecclesiarchy). When working on a vehicle, it would be moved to a properly consecrated and guarded facility outside the walls of the convent.

[A.T.]

The Mechanicus can maintain a special corps of Tech-Priests who exclusively service the Sisters (and possibly the rest of the Ecclesiarchy). When working on a vehicle, it would be moved to a properly consecrated and guarded facility outside the walls of the convent.

 

The next planet out from the convent sanctorum in the ophelia system is a forgeworld, Ophelia VIII.

[Servant of Dante]

 

The Mechanicus can maintain a special corps of Tech-Priests who exclusively service the Sisters (and possibly the rest of the Ecclesiarchy). When working on a vehicle, it would be moved to a properly consecrated and guarded facility outside the walls of the convent.

 

The next planet out from the convent sanctorum in the ophelia system is a forgeworld, Ophelia VIII.

 

Wait - is this canon, or a joke? I can't tell. If canon, could you give me the source please? I like that idea, and I've been wanting to write about the mechanicus head of the Ecclesiarchal forges for a while now.

[A.T.]

 

Wait - is this canon, or a joke? I can't tell. If canon, could you give me the source please? I like that idea, and I've been wanting to write about the mechanicus head of the Ecclesiarchal forges for a while now.

 

 

It is canon, though it differs depending on which Imperial Armour you have.

 

"Forge world of origin" for the ophelia-style exorcists is listed as Ophelia VII in the 2nd edition of the book and as ophelia VIII for the exorcist in the 1st edition of the book.

The ophelia pattern immolators are marked as being from VII in both editions.

 

So there is a major forge on the planet itself and possibly more than one in the system depending on whether you consider 2nd edition a typo or retcon.

 

Imperial Armour 2 2nd edition also notes that the MkIIIa rhino is constructed on Mars along with the MkIIIa-based exorcist and presumably the MkIIIa Immolator.

Both books list the repressor as being constructed elsewhere (Dominica II).

[Servant of Dante]

Awesome!

 

So, who runs the forge on Ophelia VII?

 

Obviously there would be heavy ecclesiarchal oversight, but I like to think its a arch-mangos blinged out in all that Ecclesiarchal gold he gets.

[A.T.]

No details are given of the forges on Ophelia in IA2.

 

All that is really said about the world is that the Ecclesiarchy moved in during the early years of M35 indicating it was not a mechanicum held world, and that the world itself was brought into compliance during the great crusade by the Emperor himself alongside Dorn and the Imperial Fists.

 

As an aside, the IA2 2nd edition book is very lazily edited for the sororitas units - both the MkIIIa Mars patter Immolator and the MKIIc Sanctorum pattern Exorcist are incorrectly marked "MkIId Dominica" (and amusingly the Repressor which is built on the Dominica Forge World doesn't include that tag).

[Servant of Dante]

That's sad.

 

Yeah, Ecclesiarch Benedin IV moved the Ecclesiarchal to Ophelia VII in late M34 or early M35. Greigor XI moved it back to Terra in mid M35 (and was promptly assassinated for being too progressive). Thor I split it between Terra and Ophelia VII during the Reformation (M36).

[the jeske]

A few things. The church is not allowed to have a war fleet or army, but it is and it does have a fleet of "civil/courier" ships as well as ships under contract [some which are milienia old], they also have their own guard force.

Sob have courier ships, and transport ships of their own. they also take control of war ships [as in a high ranking sob tells a cpt what to do and then a cpt has to figure out how to do it] durning wars of faith. And as those can take a lot of time to finish, sobs more or less always have some sort of a fleet under their control.

 

While on a person vs person level all adeptus do clash with each other, the mecha and the church are ones best ally, because while both of those can never be sure of what others think at their core[besides the normal "want to get more influence, power, control over others"etc], they always know that in the hearts of hearts a techy and a sob are the same. Both are 101% sure that emps is a god. This also explains why[or at least did in old 2ed fluff] sob have access to gear which is sometimes better then the marine one[seraph jetpacks for example]. Dual worship in the same place is common, and unlike in the case of other adeptus or even marines where the tech adepts are always seen as outsiders no such thing happens in the case of tech priests and the sob, as the form of worship is always secondery to the object in the imperial dogma.

 

Also in the imperial space, beside the mechanicus there is a ton of free tinker families, who specialize in producing one or two things. They can of course never rival the mechanicus in power or knowladge, but offten guard secrets of very specific tech. Those families run their own forges[not forge worlds], and often have patrons protecting them from being taken over by the mechanicus. Some are realy lucky and have charters, dating sometimes as far back as pre heresy, which protects them from being absorbed. And those families produce some realy high tech stuff, master crafted level of weapons, spire rigs , assasination tools in form of mini robot swarms etc One could easily imagine that, if the church has families like that, convents could have such families too, specialy on shrine worlds.

[Grgobart]

... in the hearts of hearts a techy and a sob are the same. Both are 101% sure that emps is a god.

I'm going from memory here, since I don't have the time right now to dig into it, but does all of the Mechanicus believe the Emperor being their Omnissiah?

 

I definatly see this to be the official stance of the Mechanicus for the sake of peace and some part of them truly beliving it. But the Emperor did unite Earth and Mars by accepting a sort challange of proving himself to be the Omnissiah by conquering the Galaxy, or something along those lines. Since he never quite finished the job, I can see much of the Mechanicus not believing in the God Emperor or at least being highly in doubt. And I also remember there being a bit of fluff, mentioning some of the Mechanicus beilieving whatever C'tan buried on Mars to be their Omnissiah.

[Servant of Dante]

The 2E codex says that the AdMech and the Ecclesiarchy do not get along well, hence the exorbitant fees the AdMech charge to repair relics that the Ecclesiarchy cannot repair itself. 

 

 

 

... in the hearts of hearts a techy and a sob are the same. Both are 101% sure that emps is a god.

I'm going from memory here, since I don't have the time right now to dig into it, but does all of the Mechanicus believe the Emperor being their Omnissiah?

I definatly see this to be the official stance of the Mechanicus for the sake of peace and some part of them truly beliving it. But the Emperor did unite Earth and Mars by accepting a sort challange of proving himself to be the Omnissiah by conquering the Galaxy, or something along those lines. Since he never quite finished the job, I can see much of the Mechanicus not believing in the God Emperor or at least being highly in doubt. And I also remember there being a bit of fluff, mentioning some of the Mechanicus beilieving whatever C'tan buried on Mars to be their Omnissiah.

 

It's not that clear cut. Some tech-priests believe the Emperor is the Omnisiah, some do not. 

 

Unless the character of the AdMech has changed substantially since the Heresy (I'm going off of what I read in Mechanicum)

[CaptainHelion]

The official stance of the Mechanicum is that the Emperor is the Omnissiah. Tech Priests may have different opinions, but that's the official stance.