Mars is the planetary realm of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Home and Domain of the Tech priests of the cult mechanicus. The red planet is acclaomed as one of the wonders of the Galacy, the Workshop of the Imperium, the forge world, the maker of ships, and the guardian of secrets. It is the Adeptus Mechanicus who furnish the tecnical knowledge of the Imperium, preserve the scientific secrets of former times, and who explore the new sciences of the 41st millenium. The Cult mechanicus, or cult of the machine, acknowledges the Emperor as Master of Mankind but Does not recognise the authority of the Imperial cult or the Ecclesiarcy. Instead the Adeptus Mechanicus follows its own dark and mysterios strictures. According to the adeptus Mechanicus, knowledge is the supreme manefestation of dvinity, and all creatures and artifacts that embody knowledge are holy becasue of it. The Emperor is the supreme object of worship because he comprehends so much. Machines which preserve knowledge from ancient timnes are also holy , and machine intelligences are no less divine than those of fleash and blood. a mans worth is only the sum of his knowledge - his body is simply an organic machine capable of preserving intellect. The Adeptus Mechanicus controlls the entire governmental, industrial and relicious affairs of Mars. In its broadest terms , the population is divided into two parts . The Greater mass of martians are worker slaves called servitors. Servitors are not really fully human, but half man, half machine creatures whose minds have been partially programmed to perform specific duties. The servitors are slaves to the ruling priesthood of tech priests who form a heirarchy of technicians, scientists, and religious leaders. Tech priests provide the Imperium with its engineers and technical experts.
The Leader of the Adeptus Mechanicus is the Fabricator General of Mars. He is a High Lord of Terra and also the head of the Cult mechanicus in his capacity as the magos mechanicus. The Magos is the master of technological achievement. There are many divisions such as Magos Technicus, Magos Metallugicus, Magos Alchemys, Magos Physic, Magos Biologis, etc... The Logis is the logistician, an analist and a statistician. His purpose is to predict future trends and make forecasts about expediture and needs. They are regarded as prophetic figures. Genetors are Genetic Scientists. They are very common amongst the Adeptus Mechanicus and often accompany Imperial Forces incvolved in the Exploration of new worlds. Artisans or Constructors , design machines, buildings, space craft, weapons and military hardware. They controll the vast labour force of the servitors. The Electro Priests are the fanatical cult warriors of the Adeptus Mechanicus. They travel on board spacecraft and support th tech priest warriors in battle. The Electro Priest turns himself into a crackling fount of electrical energy, destroying everything he touches before he collapses from the strain. Engineers are highly trained agents of the cult Mechanicus and they are often assigned to duties in the Imperial Guard or other parts of Adeptus Terra The Rune Priest scribes runes and chants liturgies over machines as part of the Cult ritual of initiation. He is trained in the arcane branches of scientific lore such as intuitive mechanics, speculation, , and improvisation. They are famous for their lateral thinking, which may be called upon when strict logic and standard procedures fail. These are Technicians or service engineers who specialise in communications tecnology. Like the engineers, they are often assigned duties in other Imperial Organisations. Their purpose is to compile and rationalise data so it can be entered into a central computer repository. They can work with computer speed and accuracy, assembling battlefield reports, economic statistics , planetary reports, and so forth, they may be assigned duties throughout the Adeptus Terra. Servitors are mindless slave machines of living flesh and metal creatures with no individual mind who obey their programming without question. Servitors make up a huge bulk of the Martian population, there are many kinds from heavy mini cyborgs to holomats (holographic recorders). The most severe punishment for a criminal is to be turned into a servitor: mind wiped and reprogrammed to perform some rudimetary function. Ex wrongdoers wear a brass plaque round their necks proclaiming their crime as a warning to all who would cross the tech priests of mars. The planet Mars has changed enormously since man first set foot upon its barren and arid surface. In the earley 22nd century it became the first planet to be terraformed. It was given an atmosphere and its deserts were turned to fertile soil. However agriculture was never very important to Mars - its main source of wealth lay below its surface in the form of gems minerals and metal ores. Once terraformed, mars was settled by industrial cartels and their workforces, and soon becam the first hive world. Mars became a centre for industrial production and reserch, and its very name has became synonymous with technical expertise and scientific advancement. Mars became the hub for further space exploration throughout the solar system. Today Mars has evolved into the workshop of the Adeptus. Its factory hives produce the bulk of all technical equipment used by the Imperium. Space craft and other large specialised constructs are fabricated in orbital factories that spin around the equatorial belt. Ships of the warfleet Solar are based in these huge floating docks, and other craft from all over the imperium visit what are the largest man made objects in the entire galaxy. As the first hives ever built, the marian factoy hives are ancient and all are at least partially ruinious. Some areas are well maintained, and there are many new areas of building. area that are no longer used are simply left to rot. A journey through the internal travel tubes would take a person from extremes of new construction to ancient industrial wastes. The travel lines weave between shining new building piles with their nets of steel bracing like rigging of a sailing ship, passing into older darker zones where briken condensation traps spill their vapourous contents and enmesh speedindg tube liners in a perpetual fog. Wastelands cover vast parts of the cities , deserts of broken plasteel slabs and twisted girders, with the occaisional solitary tower pointing puposelessly towards the pink martian sky. The Adeptus Mechanicus is driven by the quest for knowledge. This quest takes many forms, including research and exploration, but its ultimate embodiment is the search for ancient STC systems. STC systems were created during the scientific high-point of the Dark Age of Technology. During this time thousands of human colonies were founded on distant worlds. Many of these colonies failed to survive, some were lost, and of those that survived most achieved only a subsistence level economy. Yet almost all of these colonies managed to retain a high level of technology thanks to the huge base of computerised information carried from Earth. This massive computer databank was known as the Standard Template Construct (STC) system. The objective of the STC systems was to provide all the technical information needed to construct anything that settlers might need. The user simply asked how to build a bolter, tractor, house or whatever, and the computer supplied the details for fabrication. STC systems would calculate the constructional loads placed on locally-available materials, work out the depths of foundations, define the means of manufacture and assembly, and present the most efficient ways of achieving what it was the settler asked. The systems were designed to be practically idiot proof, so that even the least technically-accomplished person could build a vehicle, aircraft or weapon given time. One result of the STC system and its pivotal place in human colonisation is that human material culture is very similar, even on worlds which are many thousands of light years apart. The STCs are often said to embody the sum total of human knowledge. This is probably true as far as technical accomplishment goes. Although most colonists required little more than designs for agricultural machinery, programs were included for all sorts of advanced constructions such as nuclear power grids and fission reactors. However, the early colonists' needs were simple and were met by conventional energy forms and relatively low-level technology. Every original colony had at least one STC system. With the passage of time these gradually failed, and passed out of use. Some colonies were forward-thinking enough to make drawings or hard copies of some designs, which were in turn copied repeatedly with varying accuracy. Some STC systems became corrupted and useless, and were eventually destroyed. Today there are no known surviving STC systems, and only a very few examples of first-generation print out. On some worlds information about the ancient STC is regarded as holy and design copies are guarded as secret and sacred texts, housed in the inner sanctums of temples. For thousands of years the Adeptus Mechanicus has pursued all information about the STC. It is their lost bible, Holy Grail and Cup of Knowledge. Any scrap of information is eagerly sought out and jealously hoarded. Any rumour of a functional system is followed up and investigated. By their efforts much information has been retrieved or can be reconstructed by the vigorous analysis and comparison of copies. Yet the most technically-advanced knowledge eludes the Adeptus Mechanicus, for the early colonists were mostly simple folk whose needs were practical. Only rarely did anyone bother to take copies of the theoretical and advanced work which the STC contained. The technical achievements of non-humans, such as Eldar and Orks, and isolated human civilisations, such as Squats, are of almost as much interest to the Adeptus Mechanicus as rumours concerning the STC. Indeed, non-human knowledge is often more useful and usually far easier to obtain. Members of the Adeptus Mechanicus always accompany Imperial exploration teams, Rogue Traders and Space Marine chapters, and so are ideally placed to investigate the technical abilities of other cultures. Even extinct civilisations are vigorously investigated and their technology recorded. The Adeptus Mechanicus is not only interested in technical achievement, but also in biological and natural science. Thus, the flora and fauna of a newly-discovered world will be recorded, and samples returned to Mars for classification. Weather systems and subterranean morphology will be mapped, atmospheres analysed and all aspects of the natural ecosystem studied. Such studies are vital for further colonisation. Dangerous animals and plants must be considered, useful species may be studied for potential domestication. Weather and geographic stability must be determined and sometimes stabilised. Thanks to their in-depths knowledge of such things the Adeptus Mechanicus has the ability to mould a world's climate and ecology to meet human needs. |
