Warhammer 40k fluff thread VI: They see me Ward'en, they haten

[Voidhawk]

Once you get to High Magos you do make your own rules to an extent, but there are a short list of things that will get anyone excommunicated and declared thoroughly heretek.

The aformentioned ban on AIs, "Abominable Intelligences" as they call them, is one of the top offences. The obvious evil of them being agreed by most, what with being one of the main reasons for the fall of Man's first empire. The War of the Iron Men was basically a galaxy wide version of The Terminator, with predictably bleak results. No repeats please!

Any blending of the warp and technology is also a big no-no. I've heard rumours this is because experimentation with, corruption by, and ultimately possession of technology by the warp was what caused said Iron Men to revolt in the first place. And seriously, putting demons anywhere near anything is a terrible idea. One obvious form of this is the Dark Mechanicus "Scrap Code", seemingly meaningless strings touched by the warp, that when taken in by cogitators drives them mad. Better hope you have good firewalls!

If you get discovered breaking these little "guidelines", the first you'll hear about your peers unhappiness is with the inquisition knocking on your door.
With melta-torpedoes...

Of course, like everything in the Imperium, the Mechanicus is by no means a single unified group. There are conclaves scattered all over the place that are much more... tolerant... than the others, but when the Inquisition comes knocking you might find all your colleagues strangely slow to come to your defence.

One particularly hilarious group is the Phaenonites, a minor Inquisitorial grouping and an offshoot of the Xanthites. They believe in the merging of Flesh, Machine, and Warp into something better, and the rebirth of the Imperium under their rule. Interestingly they don't worship the Chaos Gods at all, and but wish to enslave the warp to serve man, instead of the other way around. Bind demons into machines and make them work for you, against their will and getting nothing in return, like batterys and computers etc. Kind of like the DnD malkenvoker in that respect.

Sounds like a great idea that nothing could possibly go wrong with, doesn't it? The other members of the Inquisition certainly think so, because the Phaenonites have the dubious honour of being one of the only factions to be declared completely Excomuicate Traitoris, Kill on Sight. Even radicals think they're going to far. For more information on them (and other weird as £$%& groups) look up the Dark Heresy book Radical's Handbook. The Disciples of the Dark Gods is also a good read for various cults, or as my friends refer to it "The Bumper Book of Heresy".