Question

Unless those limbs are glorious metal and the work of human design (or directed biological augmentation also of human design, though that's more suspect), they'd have none of it. The human form is sacred and deviation from its perfection is High Heresy. Mutants aren't workable as anything more than target practice or experimental subjects, and they'd even make dubious servitors, because while a traitorous or heretical mind can have its personality excised in service of the Omnissiah, a flesh that's traitorous on a genetic level is of highly questionable reliability.

Not everyone on a forgeworld is just a brain in a jar, generally the more cyborged you are, the higher rank you are. There's a general populace on all forge worlds, the tech priests need someone to labour in the factories and mines and fodder to convert into servitors/recruit from. They are still priests, what's the point of being a priest without a congregation?

They also don't replace everything, nor do they replace everything all at once. Even "brain in jar" level is extremely rare, and even then only for otherwise-dying 300+ year old magos geezers of certain inclinations.

For most, it's "mommy has dendrites and daddy has a potentia-coil backpack"

This. The Mechanicus HATE mutants, almost on an inquisition level. Mutation and genestealer infection tend to cause problems with the cyberware.

Even bioware like "dragonskin" synthetic or lacing your own bones with adamantine rather than replacing them with properly forged rods is argued a bit as being borderline tech-heresy, and genetors and other magos biologis tend to be watched with a suspicious eye by other mechanicus, who can't help but wonder if those claws aren't some chaos "gift", and may decide to accuse so anyways

In The Greater Good by Sandy Mitchel the Magi Biologicus of a Forgeworld got infected by gene-stealers.

She kept making excuses to delay getting upgrades and due to being Biologicus it was just shrugged off by the rest of the Mechanicus as biologicus weirdness.

The reason why she stopped getting upgrades after infection is because a medical examination would have revealed her corruption and she would have been killed, dissected, studied and incinerate.

>tfw you will never raise you cyber-clone child with your tech-priestess waifu

So, it wouldn't be heresy to replace your entire body (minus the brain) with machine parts (assuming they're withing machine cult doctrine), but I'm guessing trying to upload your consciousness into a cyberbrain would be ultraheresy?

Most likely they'd see it as an AI based on you, not you uploaded.
And abominable intelligences are one of the very highest tiers of tech heresy.

you just had to spoil things.

Well that makes a load of sense, thanks for clearing that up for me. Can't help but be a little disappointed though. Was really hoping I could combine my two favorite things in WH40K, genestealers and tech-priests. No idea what the hell that could accomplish, still just fun to imagine.

Such is life.

already been posted
have colour version

>then how do they reproduce?

Higher magi will just make a pseudo-clone of themselves, basically using their DNA plus some alterations to create another human thats eerily similar to you. Priests of Mars had one magos whose clone had a small hiccup during its "gestation'" which resulted in it being born female instead of male.

Also tubes, if you find a magi you love you can just grab their DNA, create an ovary/sperm then put them in a tube.

>c... could you fill this tube?
>Isn't that a DNA sampler?
>IT'S NOT LIKE I LIKE YOU OR ANYTHING! I NEED IT FOR WORK!
>Aren't you in Plasma tech?
>S-SHUT UP!

Not with that attitude

Why is the dude's face so blurry?

Censoring the lewd.

Not unless i get a time machine.
hey...

SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE

EYES OF SKULL HAS A SECRET

DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE

VADER IS LUKE'S BABY DADDY

I'm not sure those words work the way you think they work user

...

...

>generally the more cyborged you are, the higher rank you are
Why is that the case?

The REALLY good tech priest are only half a brain in a jar.

Tech-priests don't start off that way. They get one augment at a time as they progress through their careers. Not to mention, your parents don't have to be tech-priests for you to be one. The AdMech recruits based on aptitude.

Because higher ranking priests have greater socio-political pull and can get their hands on more and better implants.

I think its deffinately possible, particularly in an outlying or lax settlement. The point of Genestealers is that their sneaky. I can imagine a Magi Biologus who's part of the cult devoting their science to mass producing hybrids on an industrial scale, which could be real bad news

There is also the bit where you are willing to trade more and more of your humanity away in the name of the priesthood. Proving your devotion and becoming better priest is killing two birds with one stone.

I'm pretty new to 40k. My friends talk a lot about it but most goes over my head.

AdMech believe in Machine Spirits, right? Do they actually exist? How is it different from AI, which they hate (?)

Also, do techmarines get indoctrinated with the Omnissiah belief structure, or is it just professional training?

The admech are cool, but I don't know what books to read to learn about them

The difference between AI and Tech Spirits:
animism vs. computer science.

They hate AI because they can't fully control AI and there was a big fucking revolution among machine people (metal men) who wondered why they had to take orders from humans. Thus, the imperium went BANNED BANNED HERESY BANNED on anything resembling artificial intelligence with feelings.

however, machine spirits are just what happens when you love your computer very much, or hate it very much, and it becomes somewhat self-aware and grows a personality.

Imagine, if you will, a thing called a Titan. Giant mechanical monsters that are the equivalent of technological skyscrapers. Giant, walking cities with guns big enough to level them. Their creation, construction, sanctification, all of it spans out literal hundreds of years just to make a single one.

And now suddenly it has an almost puppy-like personality that makes it do whatever it wants from time to time, including going and hanging out with smaller machines, its 'family.' And on some small, primitive level, it can tell you 'yes :)' or "no. :(" or "NO >:[ "

Well. Fuck.

Tech priests are as much shamans for complicated weapon spirits as anything else. They get machine spirits to behave or obey. Else your favored gun may one day jam on you out f spite.

>AdMech believe in Machine Spirits, right?
Yes
>Do they actually exist?
Yes
>How is it different from AI, which they hate (?)
Machine Spirits are two separate things. In most technology, it's just a concept that doesn't really exist. Basic idea is that things that make a machine operate better work because the machine's spirit likes it, while things that fuck it up do so because the machine doesn't like it. Just basic anthropomorphizing that drives rituals. However, because reality is affected by the warp, and the warp is affected by belief, old, highly blessed technology can awaken a true Machine Spirit. They are usually just "dog brain" level and can't be explained with just the technology in the machine. A bolter might clear its own jams or refuse to fire at the person who had been carrying it previously. A ship might automate some processes that would otherwise require manual operation. A tank might give one last suicide charge even though its crew is dead. AI on the other hand, are human level intelligence or better, come into the world pretty much at their peak, and can be extremely easily corrupted by chaos or just get some nasty ideas on their own because they don't have souls and don't have any way to protect their minds from chaos taint.

Techmarines are full members of the machine cult, yes. Pretty sure they rank as full tech priests as well.

For a while Tech Priests were separate from the Imperium of Man believing in their own god. This was obviously heretical and were eventually convinced(through violence and politics) that the Omnissiah and The Emperor were one and the same.

Their somewhat Heretical belief in spirits is tolerated mainly because of how useful they all are. Artificial Inteligence is also heresy, as it is easily corrupted by chaos, so that is out. What the do have is servos, which is human brain working as a CPU, conveniently placed in a floating skill with a USB port. Basically all of the Imperiums machinery is operated by humans through a brain link interface.

They still are somewhat separate from the IoM because the Emperor himself cut an alliance deal with them way back in the day.
They say the Omnissiah and the Emperor are the same being just to keep relations smooth, since they don't really care about such a small addition and the IoM is happy as long as the Emperor is at the top of their religion.

>shoot, damn you!
>why don't you ask me later?
rifle-drinking-soda.jpg

"Priest" implies a non-ordinated flock.
Those people are on most imperial worlds. If those worlds have strong links to Mars, the Red Cult makes up the majority.

it's not your imagination. The Adeptus Mechanicus is heretical as fuck.

However, the Imperium is absolutely dependent on technology and machine spirits to function.

They tolerate the heresy of Mars because they fear what would happen if Mars decided to shut down.

Remember, the Imperium of Man is in an ignorant dark ages for technology. The technocrats greedily guard it and hoard it and nobody else in the galaxy knows as much about it as them. If the Adeptus Mechanicus decided tomorrow to no longer help the Imperium, literal trillions of people across millions of worlds would feel the effects mere decades later, causing them to lose ground that they just could not get back.

The Imperium tolerates their lipservice and heresy because it has no choice. But the Adeptus Mechanicus isn't rubbing it in too much. They don't need to.

Technically, Ecclesiarchy is "heretical" as fuck too. Considering the Emperor's ban on worship.

Kevin Spacy is the Crime King

Bruce Willis is dead.

Snape kills Dumbeldore.

Leonidis dies at the end.

The city is in space.

Turns out he was just insane.

>waifu
kys

At least in one of the Cain books, they mention that genetic screening and testing is common before getting augmentation: Their example was an already-existing techpriest getting implanted by a genestealer, but she still had to act very circumspectly to avoid detection. I imagine it isn't that easy to slip through the cracks if you're a new guy joining.

And no, I don't think they treat mutants any better.

AND ROSEBUD WAS THE SLED!

>
On the other hand, I wouldn't be too surprised at some magos noticing a lot of the workes suddenly have extra arms, and deciding that since this improves productivity by 50 to 100%, it is entirely acceptable.
Right up until the Inquisition finds out and they all get purged.

Nigga where the fuck do you think you are

This.

Didn't Ciaphas bone a mousy tech priest whose only visible augmentation was a mechandrite tail?

Maybe have a radical inquisitor working in the shadows to keep the rest of the imperium from interfering because he thinks the benefits from being able to study actual live genestealer cult so closely outweighs the costs of allowing it to to continue to exist.

And then the hive fleet shows up . . .

She was only an enginseer at the time. Later, when he runs into her again and she's become a full tech priest, she has a lot more in the way of augmentation.

in priest of mars it is mentioned that they can have sex if they want to and that they can clone themselves if thats what they wish

I wonder how the AdMech would feel about sex toys, I'd never thought of the tech priests being interested in sex until this thread, I just figured they were all celibate because of the bleep bloopness.

Cleave not to the thinking machine.

The same way that, say, Catholic priests IRL "reproduce" themselves.

Except without all of the kiddy-fiddling.

isn't the fabricator general of mars like 6000 years old

Cleave INTO the thinking machine instead

Yes.

High end Imperium/Mechanicum longevity methods are super fucking insane when you get into the highest of high society.

It also helps when you can replace every single one of your components as they wear out.

I thought cloning was considered super heresy because they had no souls.

Well, if the right techpriests were infected by Genestealers, they could turn other hybrids into...Techstealers? Seems like a good name for it. Anyways, they could make their own techstealers independently from the rest of the mechanicum.

>applituted

I am stealing this made up word.

Taste of pork, actually.

In-universe, Dark Mechanicus figured out how to do it, but only a psyker could survive the process and still be a conscious being.

Still, you can cut out, turn off, and replace good portions of your brain, but after a while a good chunk of your frame becomes a life-support system for whatever human bits you have left.

That said, Crux Mechanicus is what most Machine Cultists hope for; the point where you are materially more machine than human, even if you're just replaced the more easily replaceable parts like limbs.

It'd be horrifying, but it'd also be high heresy. Dark Mechanicus might make a go of it, but ultimately Genestealers are beholden to the Tyranid Hive Mind, and would reject machine enhancement in favor of their natural genetic gifts.

Cloning is heresy
Var incubation is another thing altogether

Genestealer cult codex has forgeworld based cults

No they aren't they are seen as more like lay preachers or army chaplains - considering how often they create stuff that is heretical and then is forced into acceptance or horde stc designs (blood angels)
In fact you have to wonder how blood angels get their techmarines trained at all or how black Templars can stand the mechancium cult

I want to see a Citizen Commissar Cain now.

I can see it going something like this: "The flesh has its needs. Care for them quietly and discreetly. A fascination with the devices used to do so betrays a mind that is too easily distracted from the Great Search and the proper tending to of the machine spirits."

Vat-clones are suitable for experimental flesh and servitor bases and not much more. More specialized ones might be able to make synthetic organs for transplant, but as for whole limbs I'm not sure they'd be fit for transplant since we rarely see synthetic flesh limbs but a whole lot of cyberware and bionics.

It is a mix. Machine spirit is a general term used to machine intelligence or behaviors.

This intelligence can be the result of shoving fragments of human souls into machinery (such as detailed in Talon of Horus) or the machine gaining a presence and animistic presence in the warp. Not quite becoming 'alive', but gaining a little something extra.

It also encompasses genuine AI like a Titan or a lesser AI such as a land raider (or any vehicle with the 'Machine Spirit' special rule). It also includes things like the Beastia Anima of the Legio Cybernetica (as opposed to Silica Anima).

As for what books to read, Priests/Lords/Gods of Mars.

And the Machine God actually exists, it is the Sum total of all knowledge in the universe. It dwells within the Akashic Archives, the source of all knowledge.

Read Mechanicum as well if you're into Heresy stuff.

Techmarines are full members of the cult. They have dual loyalty to the Imperium and Mechanicum.

What if a genestealer cult on a forgeworld got all genetically fucked up by the pollution there, and retained their psychic abilities without being able to call in the hive fleet, or feel motivated to pursue sabatoge? They'd probably turn to the Mechanicus cult and turn into a bunch lonely, sad, ugly nerds whose bodies reject mechanical implants. Instead they can only use glasses and pocket protectors

>Question.
>If monks and everyone in the monastries are just brains in cloth how do they reproduce?
>Or is Christendom slowly losing its supply of writers.
FTFY

>Taste of pork
I don't think he was referring to 'long pig' but instead was alluding to the joke, as made in 'The Matrix' for example, that most things seem to taste of chicken...