Got deep into WH40k lore and this has to be the most batshit insane piece of fiction I've read. Everything about it is so absurd that it loops to become great.
Got deep into WH40k lore and this has to be the most batshit insane piece of fiction I've read. Everything about it is so absurd that it loops to become great.
The mechanicus is a good example of how things changed - back in the day they were an insane cult devoted to stealing and hoarding all the technology they could. Experimentation and innovation where heresies that would get you killed. They believed the machine spirits were animistic spirts that inhabited machines. When they explicitly did not know how their technology worked and could only reproduce some of it by rote using truly ancient design documents. They prized STC diagrams above everything becuase the STC stuff was complete and actually workewd - they couldn't fix anything else and would kill anyone who tried. In modern stuff all their chanting and prayers are glossed as doing actual programming and engineering but they use religious terminology. Back in the day it really was useless, unproductive, time consuming religious prayer and ritual, a direct mockery of the bigotry, ignorance, and superstitions of the church.
Modern mechanicus build all kinds of wacky sci-fi technology, they have tons of exotic weaponry, war machines, and ships, they know how to work with their tech, they research, innovate, and improve. It's a complete 180 on their previous depiction.
Yes, this saddens me the most. I really loved one snippet of flavor text I read once where a tech priest is doing a sacred annual "chant of healing" on some piece of machinery, but the canny reader might notice it's actually the phonetic pronunciation of a command to activate its self-repair systems, and the "sacred balm" he applies is just engine lubricant, and so on and so on. Then when he's done with all the steps of the 'ritual', he sticks another purity seal to this enormous mound of them where countless priests, with equally little understanding of what they were actually doing, have performed the exact same 'ritual' for thousands of years - all to keep one ancient piece of equipment of unknown, maybe useless, function, turning over deep in the bowels of a grimy, rusted-out technological hellscape. It's compelling dark science fiction!
Now as you say, they're simply (much more marketable) wacky space inventors... truly, old good, new bad 😞
The Adeptus Mechanicus, as a whole organization, remains deeply conservative in its approach to technology. The vast majority of the AdMech still adhere to ritualistic maintenance of machines and most tech-priests do not innovate in any significant ways. There are exceptions to this rule, however. For example, the Xenarites are a radical and secretive sect within the Adeptus Mechanicus that focuses on studying and using alien technology. This is obviously considered heretical to varying degrees, but as long as they don't flaunt it openly, the Inquisition seems willing to turn a blind eye (for the most part).
You can innovate, experiment, and even introduce new technology within the Mechanicus, but only if you possess enough clout and influence. Even then, you are up against 10,000 years of tradition. The Mechanicus still hoards technology and conducts searches for lost STCs with explorator fleets. In fact, high-ranking members of the Mechanicus often keep rare tech for themselves instead of sharing it with the wider Imperium or even other Forge Worlds.
The Mechanicus does have superior tech compared to most of the Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum, but it's not surprising that they keep the best weaponry and equipment for themselves. Most of that tech is not "new" but rather 10,000 years old and has been produced in the same manner, with only minor adaptations, since the year 30k. The really exceptional stuff, like various types of robots, only exists in highly limited capacity and is usually only brought out for truly important battles or the direct defense of the Forge World.
I'm not saying you're wrong about the old Mechanicus lore being different, but from a player's perspective, I prefer the new lore. Many old elements are still present, and the Mechanicus remains an organization that is superstitious and often, due to dogma, less efficient than it could be.
In a way the new lore makes it easier to make your Admech army your own flavour of monstrous theocratic cyborgs and Im always in favour of giving players more options to make an army "your" dudes.
I imagine the backstory was changed specifically so that the Mechanicus could have it's own armies instead of just being the weird technical class of the Imperium. It's hard to build an entire army out of fanatics who know how to make toast but think the toaster has a toast spirit inside it that only makes toast when they sing to it.