Adeptus Ridiculous - Dark Mechanicum: FOR SCIENCE! | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Dark Mechanicum, also sometimes referred to incorrectly as the Dark Mechanicus, and who refer to themselves as the "New Mechanicum," is a sect of traitorous Tech-priests, members of the Collegia Titanica and Chaos Knights of the ancient Mechanicum who have become Hereteks in service to Chaos.They willingly swore their loyalty to the Warmaster Horus and the Chaos Gods as the Great Crusade came to a close and the terrible galactic conflict known as the Horus Heresy erupted in the early 31st Millennium.After the Horus Heresy ended in a pyrrhic victory for the Imperium, the traitorous forces of Chaos that had served the Warmaster were driven towards the Eye of Terror during the brutal military campaigns remembered as the Great Scouring.The Renegade Tech-priests of the so-called Dark Mechanicum were also driven from Mars by the resurgent Loyalists amongst the newborn Adeptus Mechanicus. Support the show

episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamante's. His name is Bricky. You know why you're here. And if you enjoy today's episode of the podcast and you want to support us, heading over to patreon.com slash adeptis ridiculous, where you can get access to the bloopers, discord if it happens. Wow, I mix those up.

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And we're back. Yeah, yit. Yippie. The usual stuff. Also, you can buy merch and stuff like that, but, you know, it's an ad, so I don't want to harp on that too long. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Et cetera, et cetera. Ah.

Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm-mm. Ah, mm-mm-mm-mm. What a day to be alive. Monday. Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays. Really? What's in the case? You know, I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, damn straight, you weren't.

I was expecting, like, an office space. Like, I do believe someone would punch you for saying something like that or something. But I was not expecting the actual physical case of Mondays. I mean, you know, as far as I'm concerned, the only person who has the biggest case of the Mondays is Garfield. But that man, that's a fat cat. Yeah, I mean, he might have a case of the Mondays, but he's also got. like a case of lasagna, so, like, you know. You ever think about how, like, horrible for you a lasagna can be?

Like, it's just not like a million layers of pasta with meat and cheese. Yeah, but like most wonderful things in life, it tastes so good. It does. It tastes so good. And you can, you can modify it to make it relatively healthy. You know, one would argue as well that, like, modifying lasagna in such a way could be deemed, uh, to be improving upon the intentions of God. God made that lasagna,

and your idea of improving on it is blasphemous. I mean, actually, God didn't make the lasagna. I think Italians made the lasagna. God made the Italians that made the lasagna, but, you know. I was by saying, what do Italians believe in? I don't know, Bricky. What do Italians believe in? They believe in the book of Lorgar.

That's right. That's right. Hey, is that what we're doing today? Are we doing the book of Lorgar? Are we talking about some... Some of the folks from Monarchia? You really took a big breath to get your Italian accent out there. You got to do it.

You got to get it really, you know, you don't wind up. I mean, I did kind of decide to slip a little hint in there during the lasagna talk, but it was too stupid for it to necessarily actually be noted. So I'll go ahead. and give you a, I'll go ahead and give you a quote. Okay. All right. The path of the Omnisiah has left humanity dithering in the darkness,

incapable of advancing on the paths of knowledge. Embracing the warp reveals technology that the primitives on Mars could never dream of wielding. Ooh. I wanted an easy one. Oh, so it's, uh, so, so, so, so, so, were, we're, wher, wher, wher, whir, whir, so they're not big, whoever this is, is not big fans of the adeptist mechanicus. They're, you know, foolish Mars people, right?

Well, if they're calling the people of the Omnisiah and Mars dumb, then yes, they probably aren't that. I am probably wrong, but I'm just going to put this out into the ether that, Man, I sure hope this is a dark Mechanicum episode. Yay! Let's go! Let's go! Even if I was wrong, I was like, yeah, I'm planting the seeds.

Even if I'm wrong, oh, wouldn't a Dark Mechanicus episode be good? But I had a feeling. Ah, but here's the question, D.K., is it Dark Mechanicus, or is Dark Mechanicum? It's taking every fiber of my being, not to make a Seaman joke. Yeah, yeah, I know. I emphasize the cum quite obviously. I usually do too, so you know.

What? It's fine. I don't care anymore. I just mean when I say mechanic cum, you tend to emphasize the. I don't care. So dark mechanicus, huh? Dark mechanicus.

Man, they sure. Why don't they have many minis? Oh, what about their dark history? I, you know, what? Fantastic questions all about. you for your time. I hope you yield the rest of it. The Dark Panicum, yes, a painfully underrepresented faction in Warhammer with a pretty bad ass symbol, won't lie. Oh yeah, that is sick.

That is pretty cool. Until slightly recently, they have received a little like extra bookety doodad thing for the Horace heresy. But it's a Horacey Dark Mechanicum. So it's not quite the same. Dark Mechanicum in 40K and Dark Mechanicum in 30K are very different. Oh. Very, very different. I mean, for the most part.

This is one of those difficult situations where you can't really just make a Blakened statement about the Dark Mechanicum. There's too many different sex and too many different things. So if I'm going to say like, well, Dark Mechanicum sometimes believe this, you'll be like, oh, they all believe that. Like, no, sometimes they do. These guys believe this instead. They go in a lot of different directions. But, yeah, the new minis are very cool, though.

Oh, spider boys. Oh, yeah. And they're just like a little rusted. It looks like they put some like little chaos symbols on there, too. you? Ooh. Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing. Because, like, right now we're getting some 30K, Horace Heresy era, Dark Mechanicum stuff, which is awesome.

But they're also, because it's 30K, it's not like that fucked up. Oh, right, right, right, yeah. Because, like, a reminder, it's not just the Iron Warriors. The Dark Mechanicum were kind of the ones who did make the Demon Kilbasa. Like, that is their tech when you think about it. I guess they did kind of sort of influence the demon kilbasa and, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe more than influence. They probably built it.

You know, the Iron Warriors probably thought it up and then had them build it or like work together, right? Yeah. But like back then, the dark mechanicum were a little different, but there's a little bit of history to be noted. So may I remind you that there is a difference between the Adeptus Mechanicus and. and the adeptus, or and the cult mechanicus and the mechanic cum. What exactly is the difference? Because, like, I know we said the dark mechanicus is different from the dark mechanicum, and I, I, what, like, are they actually, like, different sects?

And, like, they have different. So, so not, it's more so a little bit of, like, a different time frame. So you have like the adeptus Mechanicus and Adeptus is often like the official adeptus is the official imperial name for it from like the Adeptus terror. It's the military branch. The Adeptus Mechanicus. The Adeptus custodies. You have the Adeptus Astardis. That is a sect of like that kind of military stuff.

Back them and currently there is also. the cult mechanicus, and then there is also the ancient mechanic cum. It's a difference that has to be stated every time because it is important yet confused constantly. And I do it all the time myself where I just say like, oh yeah, the mechanic is back in 30K because people just think of Mechanicus as like a blanket term when it's not. But because there's so many of it, it gets It's all confusing. I've taught you this before, but it's, it is that confusing. If you remember, age of strife happened, shit was terrible.

Life was awful. During the age of strife and then the following times after the age of strife, the people began to revere machines because those were the main things that kept them alive and the horribly irradiated Mars and all things like that. So eventually, uh, it became not just, uh, not just like propping up people who could handle the machines. it became revering those people. It became revering the machines themselves.

And then the cult kind of formed as the blessed machine God. Right. This, God, I help him right on this one, because even I get confused sometimes. This is the mechanicum. The mechanicum back in the age of strife and beyond. Okay, okay. So the early days before. they're aligned with

the Imperium. And so if I'm correct, the Mechanicum are that original cult from way back in the day. And then there was the alliance, of course, with Terra. And so that, if I'm

correct, is the cult Mechanicus. Okay. And then Lashai is going to update me there. Once I believe post heresy, they were assimilated into the imperial group and became the adeptus mechanicus as a force.

Yeah. So, oh, so shy has it here. Faction ruling Mars was the cult mechanicus. The governing organization of tech priests was the mechanic come. So faction versus governance that I've heard the cult mechanicus be described both as a sect and as a fundamental belief system. But honestly, I'm getting a little bit too deep into semantics here. Way back when it was the Mechanica, right?

This was pre-Hhoris heresy. This was back in that time. And an un, I don't know, maybe not a super commonly known thing is that back when pre-Hhoris heresy, back in the day on Mars, there were a lot of sex. No, stop, don't. S-E-C-T-S-S. I love the fact that I didn't say a goddamn thing and there was a pause and you just knew. And you were just like, no, I got to cut this off at the past.

I got that. Nope. Is December our four or five year anniversary shy? I think it's four. I think it's our four year anniversary. I've gotten used to this. You've learned a thing or two about a thing or two. But yes, they had a lot of sects of different kinds of.

factions on Mars and they believed in different things. Some people fervently believed in the divine worship of the machine god and that improvement upon the machine god's blessed design is blasphemy. That is the main one we know of today. To invent is to blaspheme against the creator's divine work. Yes. Then you had other people who, were a lot more loosey-goosey with that kind of stuff,

where they believed that, like, maybe pure invention was blasphemy, but adjustments upon the divine, other than the divine work, but like STCs were acceptable because, you know, the divine work was given to them all in their hands to create. Oh, okay. There were different groups with different opinions.

And, you know, the unity between Terra and Mars was not like tumultuous, but it was not all encompassing. The emperor probably could have taken over Mars by force, but not in a good way. It would have been too difficult. They would have lost too many resources. Much better to ally with them and make a little treaty, a little, hey, we're together,

then, you know, lose more than half your forces trying to take Mars. And Mars was pretty insane too. Like, I don't think the emperor would have lost, but I think that there's like a, chance. Wow. So it wasn't even guaranteed that he would have taken Mars. I mean, we're going into like hypotheticals now.

He probably could. I'm giving him like a 90% chance he could. But God damn would it have been tough. Yeah. But the machine cult and for the most part just the mechanic. They didn't like, they don't love the emperor. Some consider him to be, you know, the servant of the machine god, the envoy, the Omnisiah, you know.

and some saw him as like a ruler that is definitely powerful, more so suits their purposes. He needed the Mechanicum for the Great Crusade, and the Mechanicum wanted the ability to utilize the Great Crusade and other types of things to go out and get more STC fragments and so on. Sure, sure, sure. Hey, they needed each other. They did.

Symbiotic relationship. Alliance of convenience. However, of course, with times. It can get a bit straight here and there. As we've seen over and over again, the Mechanicum are just not that fun to deal with?

Oh, man, if the books are any indication, oh man. Not only are they not fun to deal with, but they're often just, you know, screwing up and checking out the wrong artifact and, oh, what's, oh, Chaos Gate now? What have

we done? And it's like, man, do you have to always? is try and take the necrontech. Do you? Really? Or, yeah, unearth another tomb world here. Yeah. I mean, if Space Marine 2 is anything to go by, they despise the mechanic is.

But it is quite funny. Regardless, though, with the amount of, like, strainedness there and the different factions that are like, yeah, screw the emperor, I hate that stuff. He's not an aviary the machine god. He's an asshole. you know, there was a, he is certainly a tyrant, that is true. There were issues going back and forth.

And so on the onset of the Horace heresy, Horace gets his ass shanked, which we just read about. And things are getting tough and, you know, chaos and the usual. It was one of the biggest and most important things that Horace needed in his war was the manufacturing of Mars. because oh my God, of course he does. Yeah, good luck trying to fight the empire of man, the Imperium of Man, without the help of tech priests and everything that they make. Like, your conquest isn't even going to get off the ground without them. I mean, that's probably genuinely exactly the case.

Whoever owned Mars owned the heresy and him owning Mars would absolutely. be one of those situations where yeah like if he didn't get what he needed he would not have even gotten to Terra oh yeah it is so so important but going from there he sent an envoy

over to Mars this was a dude known as Regulus Regulus was a tech priest classic type type classic person and um regulus went over to the fabricator general of mars his guy named kelbor how or how um i don't know exactly i do like i do like the robot uh guy being named hal yeah yeah i do like the hal yeah i do like the hal 9000 right that that right there would um try just post so that's calbor how oh wow yeah so

So Calbor Howl was the fabricator general of Mars. And in that, Regulus went up and was basically like, hey, bro, how's it going? What's up? Um, listen. Here's the deal. Emperor, not that cool. Don't like him. Think he's a false prophet.

You know, not a great guy. Horace, however, this guy is the shit. He's the real man. He's the one who is going to actually help bring humanity to the A's that we want to. He's the one that's going to actually be the main help in here. So get this. We're going to take over. And we want you to fund the war master specifically.

Because, and if you pledge the loyalty to him and fund only his stuff. then you will, like, once the heresy is over, we're going to be so Gucci. You're going to be doing well. We'll have this all, like, head down. You will rule all of Mars. You know, you, you. Empting off.

Not just these regular sex between here and there. All that kind of stuff. And then he was like, brother, that's dumb. Like, oh, what, I trade the emperor for another Taron-born type. I'm not interested, not about that. I'm just, I'm literally getting the exact same thing I've got now just with a different hand. Plus, I already give you a bunch of stuff. Like, what, like I already give you half of the stuff.

It's the Warmaster's thing. Now, like, even with that, though, yeah, he was like, okay, regularists was like, I'll sweeten the deal a little bit. next up, we will give you all of the STCs that we have gotten from our crusade. The sons of Horace have gotten these special things from this special group called the Arrecian technocracy, which is a super advanced human civilization way out in the time that they brought into compliance. They have a ton of STCs. We will give you those as well. Ooh, that is, that is a good way to sweeten the deal with, uh, with an ad mech.

That's, uh, that's, that's, that is, that is a nice little pot. It is. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, that's right. Do you want to read Shai's message there? Sure. Uh, shy says the Orishian technocracy was funny. Horace asked the Eurasian leader if his people had developed their advanced technology

from SDC databases. When the leader answered in the affirmative, Horace had immediately turned his bolt pistol upon their leader and blew out the back of his head and said, oh my God, he was about to attack me. They are chaos, kill them all and take their STCs, lull. You know, that sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah.

That, who, uh, what a guy. What a guy that horace, right? What a, what a guy that horace, indeed. Yeah. Anyway. He had a heresy and everything. He, but ironically, he had no. hair.

Ah, amazing. He was a bold boy, but no, he was heresy with no hair. However, even then, he was like, okay, not bad, not bad. But you don't quite got me yet. You don't quite got me yet. Well, you know, this is cool, but we're not fully there.

And so Regulus gave him the last possible thing, which was to a promise that when the war master is taken over, all restrictions on research into abominable intelligence against AI and heretical research, including warp-tainted things, would be completely lifted. You can research whatever the hell you want and the emperor will not forbade this anymore because he won't be there to do so. Even moreover, you will be allowed to open the vaults of Moravec, which is a famous. depository of knowledge and of the techno arcane in the

world of Mars sealed in a massive vault specifically and I quote the vaults of Moravect must never be opened you will swear this oath to me Kelbor Hall or the union between Terra and Mars will be no more said by the master of mankind

Oh really Big E didn't want that thing opened Big E was like you open this and we're fucking done. Pack your shit and I mean, he'll die, but you know what I mean?

Yeah. Ooh, that makes me curious what's in there because that, if it's that important then Biggie knows that like,

uh-oh, if they open that thing, that's no good for us. Ooh. So this must have tipped the scale and been like, oh, well,

when you put it like that, I guess we can work something out. Oh, at that point, Kelbor Howell did like an awuga face with this one remaining eye. It was popped out of his damn face and he was like, all right, deal.

Yeah. That's kind of a hard pot to turn down. Yeah, I mean, it is a huge help, obviously. But it's also important because there's, and I always forget the name of this because it always alludes me. But it's basically, they have like a colloquialism for artificial intelligence besides abominable intelligence. It's called like silica.

something or another. But obviously the God Emperor of Mankind forbade all artificial intelligence because of what happened back in the age of strife and the men of iron. But because we're in 30K, knowledge about AI and stuff is forbidden, but it's not like completely off the table. So they can still research it like a little bit, but you can't actually. Got that wrong. Sorry.

No, that's not off the table. It's that there are people who still like the idea. The thought of doing it is still there. The unification between the two of them is like a no AI, no go. But there are definitely people who are like, I wish we could because like AI is fine. There was problems before, but we have safeguards now or something like that. It's not total fucking blasphemy like it is now. Okay.

So, like, you can still consider it. You can't do it. You can't make it. But just thinking about it and thinking about the pros and cons isn't going to get you, like, you know, shackled and chained in a dungeon. Silica animus. That's right. Silica animus. That's the AI's colloquialism.

Okay. Yeah. A polite way to call AI. Well, as opposed to abominable intelligence. Yeah. I guess that's a little harsh. But, yeah, because there were so many. sex of different places on Mars.

They think about different ideas and AI is one of them in that method. But this is basically, you know, because Biggie says, no, you can do all this stuff now. You can have it all. Here's your STCs and we'll let you open the terrifying vaults of Moravec and God knows what's underneath there. Yeah. So basically from here, Kelmore Hall was like, hell yeah. But anyway, Kelmore Hall said, yeah.

buddy down. And so began, of course, a massive schism on Mars. And from there, they unleashed a ton of scrap code across Mars, infecting a whole lot of people with, you know, this chaos tainted code or letting themselves be infected for, you know, reasons because they're weirdos. And then became the civil war on Mars, which there are many a books about, you know, and also, you know, that was kind of partially why the Valtz of Moravec were. open because of that scrap code.

It was open and then it just went and screw it everybody up. Perfect. Perfect. I mean, it made chaos literally emerge in like any kind of system, cogitator network, etc. We're talking reactors were belted down, you know, nukes everywhere, of course.

Production lines ended. Basically Mars went into full-blown civil war. I was going to say anytime you got 40, K, full-blown civil war and Kaz, you got to have nukes. You got to radiate the hell out of the planet, right? Oh yeah. It completely removed Mars entirely from

the war. And then, like, all the other forge worlds outside of Mars had a little bit of like a question going on with what to do. Because some were like, oh yeah, for the war master. Some were like, hell no. And some were kind of just like sitting back and waiting to see what would happen.

Not really one. Don't pick aside yet. Yeah, don't pick a side yet. Wait to we wait till there's a clear winner and then like I don't I don't want to upset anybody. Yeah. Yeah. So that was basically like Mars was just completely out of commission. And for the most part, the Imperial fleet had to make sure that nothing came out of Mars because things that came out of Mars would be, you know, most likely dastardly. Okay.

So at the very least, Horace had nullified the advantage of Mars that the Imperium had. Like not a lot of stuff was getting out. of it, but it was like, well, I'm not getting anything extra, but neither is Big E. And so now we're on more of a level playing field if we like, you know, strand some space marine chapters. Yeah, that, and also he had other forge worlds helping him out outside of Mars. I mean, of course, Mars is the big one, but you know how it goes. So. canceling out Mars is a big deal if you're trying to take Tara. Yeah. And so from there, for the most part.

The entirety of Mars and the schism of Mars is a whole other section to be discussed. But with that, you did have them figuring out the end goal of the general heresy ending the same way it ended with

the rest of the Trader Legions. By the way, Calbor Hall, as far as we're aware, we don't know where he's at. Ah, we don't know if he's alive, dead, indifferent, just unrecorded. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the fate of Calbor Hall is completely unknown.

I mean, maybe he's popped up, but I'm pretty sure after the Horace heresy, we just don't know where he's at. Okay, but well, I was, I see, he could be dead. I mean, I would imagine if, uh, if anyone in the Imperium found him, he would not be long for this world. No, and I'm sure, listen, if they had, if they, if GW, you wanted to be Uber-based, they would bring out the Dark Mechanicum Codex, and he would be the named character.

Oh. You would get a 10K year old Kelbor Hall Mechanicum dude in your craze Dark Mechanicus Codex or something. That would be the one. Oh, yeah. Does the Dark Mechanicus Mechanicum have a, like, well, and you're probably going to tell me. Do they, like, have a specific, like, leader type person?

Like, uh, I guess, I guess I guess I, I guess I. wouldn't compare like oh do they have a bellisari's call because that's not exactly the leader of the admec but you know do they have like a figurehead i i mean vashdor just kind of showed up oh true vashtor would be the one that would kind of that's that's true i keep forgetting about vashdore how dare you for one and two no he's so cool i mean vashore maybe it isn't like their figurehead he's his own kind of god thing and as we'll talk in a moment not all dark mechanic come love chaos. But for the most part,

I can't think of like one particular group that's leading all of them. There's a bunch of rogue tech priests and high level. I don't know if they have dominus technically or if that's more of an imperial thing, but those kinds of folks will be out and about. Also, I mean, as we've

discussed many times before, what is the number one thing stopping chaos from doing better? The number one thing stopping them from doing better? In fighting. They're always, like every chaos faction is always beating on each other.

That's true. They're never united and yeah. And so even with all their powers and the unrestrained warp strength and stuff, it's just that's a common issue. But Kelmore Hall is out somewhere. We don't know where. Maybe he'll get some stuff soon. But with the, you know, Advent,

I'll see that, that's post-heresy Kelmore Hall. He looks like a baller. Oh my God. How have they not made him any of him? What the hell? The ragged robes. and everything. It's so cool. Yeah, it's, he's, it just seems like he would be a really good, like, oh, yeah, we're making the dark mechanic as a thing. He's the leader. Right? Like, he would be like the commanding unit that, like, drives most of the dark

Mechanicum. Yeah, I mean, pretty much. But from there, uh, the Dark Mechanicum actually pretty much won the war on Mars. The problem is that after winning the war on Mars and winning the secession. All of the rest of the Imperium showed up. Horace died. And as usual, in the great scouring, they needed to get their asses gone. Oh, man, that sucks. So they did their part, and they took over Mars and they had Mars. But that was, that was only a minor battle when your side loses the war. It's, it's a, I mean, it was a big battle. Don't get me wrong. But then after that, everyone showed up, like the ultramarines and Dark Angels. arrived and then at that point

it was the sanguineas died and all the blood angels went insane and people were just getting butchered so at that point all the heretics ran screaming and the mechanic come as well they packed up their toys as many as they could and they fled lots of different areas

they fled they fled to the darkest reaches of space they fled into the eye of terror that's the big one one of the things that's kind of funny is like things exist in the world A lot of them, like, ran into the warp. They ran into the, into the eye, terror, into the warp. And it's always kind of a funny thing when it comes to, like, living in the warp. Because there's plants and stuff in the warp, but then there's also planets that are, like,

thinly veiled between real and unreal. Very, just barely existing between the two of them. And from there, that's where the Mechanicum made their bed. The Dark Mechanicum, that is. in like the thinly veiled kind of there kind of not worlds and like in areas of the ianterra areas in the warp because there's like demon worlds you know that are in the warp but then there are the ones that are like halfway in the warp

halfway not in the warp so they're literally living in hell i mean sometimes sometimes they just live really far away you know how like way way way far away you go ahead and have the area where the light of terror does not reach. Ah, so they're in the outer rim. No, not the darkness of space, but just the way far away parts where like sometimes

necrons and stuff are there. But, yes, they make their worlds, which are hellforges, instead of forge worlds. I can't just call them forge worlds. Yep, we're evil. We're, hell forge. Hell forges. That's the big difference. Hell, yeah.

Yeah. It is a bad ass. Bad ass little name. But from there, the Dark Mechanicum are out and about serving chaos, their own interests, and more. And the Dark Mechanicum, what they're up to is not great. I imagine not. Like, they're the Dark Mechanicum. It's not like they're going to be mass-producing candy canes for orphans out there.

Oh, no, they're mass-producing candy canes that are actually switchblades to stab those orphans. That's more what I was expecting. You know, like, the thing about the dark mechanicum and what's interesting about them is that they are so varied in what they make. They are incredibly varied and it can lead to some of the worst shit imaginable or they're, they can just look like renegade Mechanicus, which in fairness, the Admec also look like the worst shit imaginable pretty often. Yeah, yeah. Because the admec are horrible. So what are we going to talk about some of the weird shit that they make?

They've got some stuff to talk about the weird shit they make, but you've seen a lot of it already, much like how the Mechanicus supplies stuff for the Imperials, the Dark Mechanicum supplies stuff for the heretics. but a lot of stuff you've seen are you know like demon engines which is a big part of it okay yeah so they're the ones that are supplying all the deal

I don't know why I thought that the demon engines were purely like just something that spewed out of the warp like they were just like warp entities and they just whoop here I am I'm a demon engine I don't know why it didn't like

why I didn't connect the dots of well of course you need someone to make a demon engine. And of course, that person would be the dark mechanicum. Well, I mean, if you remember, a lot of demon engines are also made by, like, Iron Warriors. They trap demons in, like,

big machines and then make them turn into gross and grotesque monsters that go out and kill things. True, true. Which is always fun. But, you know, I mean, the one, well, yeah, I mean, it's fun for some people. It's not fun when you're the one getting crunched between

the jaws. But a good, good way to kind of describe it is generally, knowing the cults is a good way. Because for the most part, the dark mechanicum are similarly poised as the mechanicus, where they are entirely about brutal, unrelenting efficiency. They are purely about the use of humans and machines,

to further their goals above all else. You may remember in the one we talk about the Kyrioth where you have all of the Admec making servitors and it's just like, this is a horrifying process. Yep. This is the same. That is very reminiscent of history stuff. This is the same, but maybe give it a bit of a warp

or like even Dark Eldar spin to it all. So, like, I don't know. like what is you think of like you as a human you know like okay you human decay you're there and you are on a hell forge unfortunately i don't i don't know what you did in the past life apparently something real bad yeah so it's some some horrible crap like like you did i don't know maybe you kicked puppies maybe you're like big jack corner who knows i would never i would never puppies are so cute i whatever the reasoning is yeah whatever yeah um so you're there and you are a slave probably.

You are working in the manufacturerums and all the horrible things making hell engines and the entire Hellforge planet is just like coughing toxic smoke and clouds and it's just this black environment and it's awful. Lucky me.

I'd say you like, I don't know, break your limbs on the machinery because that's probably pretty common and we'll definitely have. That probably is, yeah. Yeah. That'll definitely have. Yeah.

It's pretty common in the Imperium too, Robly and they just, oh, okay. Yeah, so it was like, okay, well, that sucks, man. I guess your broken limbs, you got some skin on those, right? You got some bones, you've got some blood. Let's go ahead and take the skin. We'll use it as, like, reinforcement or, like, be like a parchment or something like that to help out this other part of this factory.

Your bones will use it as, like, a makeshift rebar to maybe stabilize some rock crete. what do we got, some flesh. Okay, we can grind that up and use it as either part of a summoning or maybe we'll give it to like a demon engine to help enhance its form. Sick and then you will find you a new job

and that you can use without your arms. And then if you lose your legs, then you'll just, we'll just kind of leave you there and like feed you until we need another part of you and then another part of you. And then it's just like, it's pure efficiency.

Right. They'll always find a use for you, even if it's just, you know, harvesting your organs and your bones to make something else more efficient. Maybe they need a sacrifice. Oh, yeah, maybe, hey, you know, chaos is always in need of, you know,

blood human sacrifices. That's true. It can't work. Good news. Chaos sacrifice. Yeah. yeah it's like oh sorry you lost your legs and your arms in some kind of uh major manufacturer incident that's fine we'll just put the rest of your body in the middle of the summoning circle

and you'll be the one that helps birth a demon hooray hooray don't you worry dk we will use every part nothing will go to waste we are nothing will go to waste we are very very uh efficient people would like to read read that quote for Shai. Yeah, yeah. Those fools and their talk of spirits and rights. Technology is cause and consequence, mechanism and effect, and

should not be so restrained and mishandled as those red-robed simpletons would believe. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Red-robed simptons. Those red-robed simps. But for, like,

it's hard to describe the horrors of the dark mechanicum because there entirely unending and varied. You know, you can go as far as demon engines, which are classic trapping demons into boxes and turning them into horrifying troops that you use against people. You can use them for summoning demons as additional troops. They maybe use warp as a type of scrap code to empower machines. There's the demon kilbasa, of course, you know, which was in a sense an attempt to make

more powerful superstars. soldiers. There is no error. That's the thing, is that there is no field of study that is unacceptable. Well, that's true because the dark mechanic would just be like, oh, yeah, everything's on the table. We don't have any restrictions. That's the whole reason we did this is because somebody promised us that we could do AI, we could do heretical research, we could open our pretty little vault that we're not

supposed to. So yeah, it makes sense that the dark Mechanicum would make all sorts of nightmare fuel. I mean, and you kind of can tell the difference between the various, like, Heretic cults, because they're they're Heretic, I always forget about that. Goofy. I do like that. I do like the Heretic. It's so goofy, but

like it works because it's 40K and 40K is so goofy. Yeah. But the notable like Heretic cults, for example, one of them, the most notable is the Apostles of the Blind King. She's just a really, really good name.

Oh, yeah. And the apostles of the blind king are basically these rogue tech priests that are, I believe that the existence of, you know, flesh organic stuff is in its own right and affront to the machine god in itself. The existence of it of weak organic humanity is an affront. Oh. And so for them, their big thing is, oh, you know, supernovaing stars. Ah, as you do, as you do when you think humans are an affront to go. Of course, of course. So, for example, they found in very lost archa technology power the ability to create supernovas

and suns. And constellations were literally changed from their doing. the like they purged some areas in the segmentum obscurest way back when and from there they would just find the supply lines and things that the Imperium needed and was just like would just blow it up well efficient that hey that fits it's efficient it's like oh supply line no-uh supernova well i mean that's that is efficient they are efficient it's extremely efficient um there's another one though on the The opposite side, there is a group called the logicians. And the logicians are interesting because they're not chaos lovers. They can say, this is really funny because when you read this, it's going to feel weird. Founded not around a single charismatic figure, a dark religion, they find their inspiration in a forbidden heretical text called in defiance of the future, a logical discourse.

banned for several millennium. They are a so-called progressive cult favoring the advancement of mankind through progress and acquisition of technology and should cast off the oppression of the ministorum and overthrow the high lords of Terra to stop smothering the constraints to bring back the power of the mythic dark age technology

and in doing so, go past all of the annoying constraints of AI and various abilities to enhance and invent new technology. Huh. That doesn't actually sound too bad. No, they don't. Yeah. I mean, obviously, the Imperium would find them very heretical, but like, you know, that sounds like a pretty good dark mechanicus faction for just humans in general.

Now, the downside for the logicians, however, is that despite the fact that there is no demonic forces or some kind of like crazy apocalyptic warp stuff in any of their stuff because they're not chaos worshippers. They are still horrifying because instead of being worshippers of dark gods and even though they aim for the progressive stance of this, they are progressive as tyrants. They are trying to reach the Golden Age technology at any means necessary. So the efficiency that I talked to you about before is still very much there. there's just no warpedaint. Okay, gotcha.

Okay, so they're still pretty evil, just not in a chaosy way. I mean, they're imperial evil. They are constantly looking for the newest type of power and to bring their power back to the olden days. And in doing so, they do horrible, horrible things to man. Ah, okay. So they're definitely one of those ones that are grinding up the bones and throwing the corpse onto, okay,

All right, cool. Yeah, cool. Maybe not chaos summoning or demons, but yeah, okay. All right. Cool. Lovely. There's a couple others. The tech witches of Amnicus Toll is one of them.

Empiric engineers are one of them, which is a fun one. They have devices that turn the warp upon itself to annihilate and destroy demons that transgress upon their labors. Oh, that sounds like a handy little thing to be able to do to like turn the, warp on it? That's, ooh. They have the ability to draw forth essence from the warp and imprison it in fields to study as well.

They have a bunch of null fields in order to do so, shield walls, things like that. And so they're studying the entities of the warp with a like Drukari's patience. Ooh, that's cool. I like that. That's

I don't know why, but that seems like the coolest one we talked about so far just because it's like Ooh, you're, they've got like, and there's so much risk, too, because if one of your little null feels goes wrong, oops, all chaos. So, ooh,

I like that. I like that. They also have, like, they also, when people join their cult, they, they,

they have to swear on, like, un, what's the word, unambiguous, unwavering, unwavering, thank you,

unwavering loyalty. But in giving, doing so, they're giving ward sigils and things like that to kind of protect them against the Imperian. Ooh. Yeah, I like them. I like them. They're cool. Anyone that can like trap to warp in a bubble and study it. Also, man, I bet the Imperium wishes they had them back or at all. I mean, they're handy. But unfortunately, they're diving into heretical studies. There are many machine colts that are full on like, I want to bring back the men of iron. I, like, I am going to use the warp to bring back AI. True. I guess some of these Dark Mechanicus, Dark Mechanicum would probably want to just be like, yay, AI robots, let's go. Man is weak, flesh is weak. Give me that sick siege of Iron Men. Yeah, that makes sense.

Shy makes a good point. Very often Dark Mechanicum don't consider themselves the bad guys. Much like chaos, they are like those blasted Imperials are assholes that betrayed us with their inevales. ability to understand real science worshipping a dead dude you know performing rituals over machines what a bunch of assholes now we're going to make real progress now bring me one billion more slaves from my AI targeting plasma gun I'm running out of slaves

damn and the stupid Imperium you're so evil oh dark mechanic um you silly silly boys it's it's that thing where they have they have uh shedded the yoke of the Imperium's moronic superstition, but in doing so, they still just don't care about people in any metric. Well, it is 40K and that is, you know, that's par for the course. It is. They have a couple interesting things that they, like some of the old arts that they've

created as well. One of the weirdest one is a sign called Gollum or Golem, it's G-H-O-L-A-M. it's a type of fleshwork that allows for the creation of synthetic tissue and they make things called murder golems which are gigantic organic fabrications entirely used for violence um

they're called murder golems what else would they be used for right yeah and there's also a homunculites which are formed from human organs serums and other kinds of tissue Chimericks is a big one which is a combination of tons of DNA twisted together with a very unpredictable results there's these slaver parasites

basically you know they instead of like casting away the flesh as in like the flesh is weak sometimes they might just you know make stuff very Drukari like yeah that's uh I'm about to make a very weeb reference here but that's very metal alchemist.

The weaving of DNAs and just the, you know, the chimeric bonding. It's where you get the meme of like the little girl and the dog getting... I'm sure. I'm sure they're fine. No. No, it's, it's, it's, oh. Did the dad do anything wrong? I think the better question is, did the dad do anything right?

I mean, I'm sure he was just doing it for, like, love. Because like not only did the dad do it to his daughter and his dog He did it to his wife too Oh For science Yeah for science For his state funding He needed to come up with something cool

So he's like oh look I made my wife a chimera that can speak And then when he was up for like It was like oh yeah you need you need to make progress Otherwise for taking your funding and it was like well I guess I'd better fuse my dog with my daughter Okay maybe he's a bit of an asshole I see. Okay. Other things that heretics like to make, AI, of course, silica animus naturally. Of course, sure. There's mollifica, which is fun. It's an arcane science to manipulate the energies of the warp, which is obviously a very difficult study, but it often involves the usual melding the demonic with machines or other kinds of scrap code and various other dark mechanic as secrets. I don't know what's, the hell that is shot but it looks badass it sure does that is a really cool looking tank

please tell me it's like a triclops annihilator or something one of the other ones that's really interesting is the proteus protocol which i feel like was something mentioned in like the gray nights or was it call hmm maybe it was i would guess call i'm thinking it's call because well i remember the Grey Knights have some super secret shit locked away in case like it's like the last scenario super locked away which I think it's like either like kill the emperor and like revive him in a way or like put him in something else. I don't I don't know exactly what it is. The Proteus protocol I believe is a variant of biotransference. Not in the Necron form, but it is like the use of imprinting a human brain into a machine of a sorts. Ah, so, so. So. So.

Soma. Yeah, or biotransference. Yeah, sure, okay. You know, basically giving them like a full, like, mental immortality in a way or not, depending if you're taking the Soma route. Yeah, in Soma, it's like, what do you mean I'm still here? I thought I was supposed to be in my immortal shell. Sorry, you lost the coin flip that actually wasn't a coin flip.

It was never a coin flip. It was never actually a coin flip, yep. I mean, I could honestly go, I could spend, you know what, that'd be a great episode, just a full episode on the horrors of the dark Mechanicum. And because there's a lot. There's even one called VOR weapons. Yes, spelt that way. Oh, it's not like, I suppose it's not a weapon that you just pull the trigger and they

come to this place when they know they're not pure. Again, with the Warframe references. Sorry, I can't. It's been so many years, you know? Listen, listen, man. It's, it's in there, all right? Sometimes just got to let it out. You know, you got a, you got a, you got a purge the bleeding.

You got to let the swelling die down, right? But you're spewing it more. It doesn't matter. Lance the boil. Anyway, yeah, so what else are we doing? So, I mean, for the most thing, I mean, a lot of the old major tech, like heretics, for example, obviously the big one was a good old Calbor Hall. There's an old photo. I actually don't know much about this guy, but there's a guy called Lucas.

crumb and he's got this old John Blanche artwork that just goes so fucking hard. Oh, he's pretty cool. Damn, yeah, that old artwork just like, it, it never misses, does it? Oh, I told it. There's so much going on in that picture, too. Like, his robes are open just a little bit in his chest and there's faces in there with wires coming out of it. His mechadendrites have like faces on it.

God, that's creepy. It's, it's a, I mean, it's creepy, but it also has the old school, like, um, third, second edition type thing. Ooh, Shai's got something fun for me. Let's hear it. I'm sure this won't be a horrific nightmare fuel induced thing. I was actually seeing a horrific nightmare induced thing. I was considering talking about the sci engines.

Yes, you want to read that one? Sure. The Caliphian sigh engine. A SI-Engine is a dread weapon, barely controlled living psycher brains set within a weapon housing and goaded by neuro implants to blast foes with the power of the warp. When the user triggers the SI engine to attack, the Madden's cyker within it are goaded to strike at the closest target indicated by the wand. The foaming blind madness of the psycher within constantly seeps through the SI-Engine's null wards, and anyone within a hundred meters is afflicted by half-heard whispers, fleeting visions of horror,

phantom pains, and strange urges. Holy! They have an imprisoned psycher brain that they just poke and prod until it gets mad and spew psychic nonsense at people? I mean, I'm looking at it right now. It literally looks like a Resident Evil like flesh bag. Yeah, that's, oh, that's, that is grim, dark, dude. it's it's pretty fun there's they got a lot of the it's like it's one of those things that we it's hard to discuss because there's just so many horrible we need another episode we need another

episode of specifically oh yeah shy do you have another one one more uncomfortable thing let's do one more because i want to make a full episode on just the awful crap they make because It goes beyond our thought process. Oh, I was actually going to read this one. You want to read it or you want me to? I talk enough. You can read it. Okay, okay. Quote of Dark Mechanica Magi hacking Admec priest's brain.

No secutor, you may not move. Even now, conduction filaments are piercing your neural systems and unworthy flesh. So they send you to find me, did they, to carry out the omnisized judgment on me. Well, you found me, or more accurately, I found you. Foolish puppet of meat and iron? Well, now you will dance on my strings, not theirs. Ah, yes, your last paltry defenses fall. In a way, I envy you.

In a moment you will experience the most exquisite of agonies as I rip apart and overwrite your synapses one by one. It should be quite the experience. Now, Secutor, open wide. Here I am. It is very much reminding me of when they make the Arco flagellants, which is kind of like does the thing that it normally does, which that we like to talk about,

which is like, hey, the heretics in the Imperium, they both do pretty awful things to people. Yeah, they really do. And it just, they keep it up.

They just keep going. Oh, my God. Dark mechanic concogitators look like average streamer gaming pieces. sees. They do. Oh, wow, that does look like a big old PC tower, doesn't it? It does. It does.

Okay. We'll make another episode for some of the horrible things they do. But I think that the creation of Dark Mechanicum is the most important thing for today's episode. And also their belief system, which is just, like, completely throwing off the yoke of the Mechanicus's weird superstition. They are not. like they're mostly like if the ad mech had no restrictions and could do whatever they wanted

with no fear of repercussions this is what they would do with a little sprinkling of chaos here and there. Just a little bit. Just a little little dash and do. A little dash and do. But yeah, that's cool. I love

them. They really need to be represented better. Come on G-dub, what do you do? You have a literal gold mine here. You know, and I know the meme is, oh, well, GW hates money, but come on, man. See, I am actually very curious to see if we're going to

end up getting that level of new codec stuff. Because Admec, so not Admec, Vastor is here. He's got his schick. You've got your new dark mechanic of Moorris Heresy Weirdness.

I don't think we'll get this codex this year because we're getting emperor's children. But last, or not this year, this edition, but last edition, we got, um, Voton and, and world eaters. And so, like, normally it's like another codex plus maybe a heretic one. So emperous children plus something else. So I'm holding out a hope, but it, I don't think it'll be this edition. Well, keep your fingers crossed, everyone.

Yeah, here's hoping. We'll see. I mean, at least the Spider Walkers and the new Horacee stuff look really cool. They do. They look super sick. It's just, you know, it's Horacey stuff. I, yeah, I mean, their stuff is pretty okay.

I like a lot of their solar auxilia stuff. They got some vibes. Yeah, they're cool. It's just, you know, it's about quite what we want, right? It's not quite what the people want. Like, it's cool. It's great. We have it.

But, you know, maybe, maybe a couple steps forward, huh? I think, I think the people want dark Mechanicus. And I think the people are happy we're getting there. But we're not quite there. I mean, you can get some good demon engines and weirdness on, uh, on good old CSM. But that is still chaos space marines at the end of the day. I guess you could, you can run like a middle ground army where you run like vass store, some like, like venom crawlers and forge fiends and weird stuff like that.

But then you're kind of like not, it's not really the same. Yeah, it's not the same. It's not the same. So either way. But yeah, that's like a little, a very light, simple overview of the dark Mechanicus. Oh, yeah, I guess Chaos Knights are a little bit dark Mechanicum, but. True. And I mean, then it's kind of like how there's the Knight Mechanicus or Quistaurus kind of

knights when it comes to a regular imperial knights too. But yeah, I don't know. I like them. I want more. And it's, it's so disappointing that there's not something a bit more fleshed out for it. Yeah. And I feel like that's the probably the popular opinion.

Everybody kind of likes them. Everybody wants to just see more. There's more. More stuff. Yeah. I would agree. I think that would be the popular opinion. I think most are just like,

I really want more dark mechanic and stuff. And while it's cool that we have some things, for good old CSM and all that. It's not enough. Yeah. So here's hoping we get something kind of neat. But until then, yeah, you know, that Keldor Hall guy, what a guy. What a guy.

He would probably be mad that you called him just a guy. He's like, I'm not a guy. I am not flesh. Yeah, he's bar from flesh. Can you imagine they make like a dark mechanicus army? And they just like literally have men of iron. There's AI. It's there.

Yep. That's what they would want. That's what they would research. That's what they wanted to do. Sure. I mean, the rogue trader models do have one of them. But he's pretending to be normal.

Yeah. Though the one men of iron that's like, you know, no, no, me. I'm normal. Me. AI. Oh, no. I would never be that.

I mean, hell, the Voton have it. It's true. The Voton are. totally into it. Their ancestral machine things are just giant AI things that have been around for 10,000 years or whatever. That's something I kind of forgot about, too. Remember in the first Gons Ghost book? They find the old Men of Iron Manufactory.

Oh, that's right. And they start spitting out. Chaos tainted. Yep. They start spitting out awful chaos tainted men of iron. Mm-hmm. Oh, that would have been. Oh, wow.

Yeah, I forgot all about that. That's right. There's so many ideas, man. The possibilities are endless. They really are. Anyway, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to go research the how to, how to microwave toast. Now, that, that there is a real, a real dark Mechanicum thing. Yeah, it is.

You just upset everybody. Did he just, just, just, just go microwave toast? Can you, can you, well, you can microwave toast. I have microwave toast before. If you microwave bread, it's not going to become toast, but if you've already toasted a piece of bread and you want to warm it up in the microwave, you can indeed do that. This is the kind of stuff that as shy posted, Kelbor Hall and Call would argue about.

Are you microwaving toast or are you toasting it? It was like, well, is it a broiler or a microwave? What kind of thing is it? Right. Kelbor Hall probably would be like, yeah, you damn pretend. Or you're not even fabricator general. I was and still am in my own way. Ooh, and that would stick in Call so bad.

Maybe. I don't know. Call's kind of funky with it, you know? Yeah, he is. He is kind of silly with it. He's kind of a goofy guy. He's just a goofy little guy with mechadendrites. Yeah.

Well, maybe, uh, you know, maybe calling him more in common than we expect. He literally has his call inferior. Yes, he does have his silly little AI, doesn't he? Where it's like, oh, look at my Gilliman inferior. Hey, let me see how my silly little heretical project will go. And then it starts arguing with Gilliman. He's like, hey, whoa, what the hell?

Anyway, a slight bit of Dark Mechanicus. See us next time when we make a evil doomsday weapons of the Dark Mechanicus type thing. Looking forward to it. That'd be good. I've already replaced my dick with. a neutron laser.