Given that when the Eldar were at the height of their power, the decadence and debauchery that characterized their civilization gave birth to Slaanesh, could the same thing happen to the Imperium? Could a Chaos God born of the Imperium's censorship, secrecy and self-denial - a Chaos God of Shadows and Self-Deception, you could say - be born in a similar way? Perturbing to think about, especially considering the connection it would have with Inquisitors.

I ask because in an upcoming campaign I plan to play as an Adeptus Mechanicus Mystic (read: Tech-Adept Psykanis) who stumbled on to such a theory via his attempts to try and figure out mathematical formula regarding the birth and power of warp entities. The idea has already been GM-approved, but I was just wondering what other people might think of it.

Some already postulate that the emperor is essentially the warp entity of Order.

There are a few threads around, in Dark Heresy 1st Edition look up Musings of a Madman.

I'd say that Tzeetch falls more under Shadows and self deception than anything, he's a trickster.

Given the nature of the warp, for which I support the interpretation here , I would say that no, there can't be such a thing as a "Chaos God of the Imperium" nor a Chaos God of Order.

That being said, beings of supposed order can (and do) have a warp-presence. For example, the God-Emperor, or any multitude of servants of the Imperium. In fact, to a degree, going by the nature of the warp and the chaos gods, all of the Chaos Gods could be considered structured to some degree, not being completely immaterial, not consisting at the centre of nothingness, literal anti-life or anti-structure.

However, that being said, these musings are decidingly from the perspective of an outside objective observer. Your character concept is solid, although it's questionable why a mere Acolyte, Tech-Adept or Tech-Priest would formulate such advanced theories, or even have access to the no doubt restricted tomes of knowledge dealing with the nature of the Warp, Daemons and the Chaos Gods.

As a character, what you believe does not have to be fundamentally true. There are organizations in the Imperium that do believe that if the God-Emperor dies, he will either be reborn, or become a literal God of Order, so there's nothing wrong with the concept as such. Whether it's actually true or not is completely irrelevant.

Lastly, I can't source this, but it is my belief that the Adeptus Mechanicus does not have psykers, and that they either lobotomise/servitorize prospective psykers, or hand them over to the League of Blackships as they are discovered. It's been covered somewhere in some topic before, way back, and I can swear that I read it somewhere, but again, I cannot cite it, so take it for what it's worth. So while an Adeptus Mechanicus Mystic is legal in rules terms, it might not be fluff-appropriate.

There are, however, a multitude of reasons why you might end up as one anyway, in fact, it could be the reason you're an Acolyte at all.

I always thought that any warp connection was essentially removed during normal procedures for joining the mechanicus, and only radically inclined priests studied or gained psychic powers myself. But hey, if it's allowed in the rules and the GM's cool with it then go for it.

Chaos is all about Themes and primal emotion. The Imperium embodies many of these emotions, the relentless Decay and the Downward spiral of it means Nurgle arguably has the largest slice of the pie. The maggots in the decaying corpse are, arguably, Slaanesh and Tzeentch. Grand schemes causing the Organs of a once-great Empire to hemorrhage and die, starbursts as people fight back against the monotony of every day life and fulfill their desires and dreams. In the 41st Millenium, there is quite a bit of War, and so Khorne reaps his talley, the Chaos Gods fighting and scrabbling for every bit of Influence they can get.

The Imperium is the sum of its parts, it's Humanity on a galactic scale. And Humanity is Chaos.

I always thought that any warp connection was essentially removed during normal procedures for joining the mechanicus, and only radically inclined priests studied or gained psychic powers myself. But hey, if it's allowed in the rules and the GM's cool with it then go for it.

This is also my interpretation, although I'll be damned if I can't find any source on it. I swear that I've read that the Mechanicus "neuters" prospective psykers, but I can't for the love of gods or money figure out where I picked it up.

Chaos is all about Themes and primal emotion. The Imperium embodies many of these emotions, the relentless Decay and the Downward spiral of it means Nurgle arguably has the largest slice of the pie. The maggots in the decaying corpse are, arguably, Slaanesh and Tzeentch. Grand schemes causing the Organs of a once-great Empire to hemorrhage and die, starbursts as people fight back against the monotony of every day life and fulfill their desires and dreams. In the 41st Millenium, there is quite a bit of War, and so Khorne reaps his talley, the Chaos Gods fighting and scrabbling for every bit of Influence they can get.

The Imperium is the sum of its parts, it's Humanity on a galactic scale. And Humanity is Chaos.

... that sounds like something a heretic might say.. *slowly ***** boltpistol*

This is also my interpretation, although I'll be damned if I can't find any source on it. I swear that I've read that the Mechanicus "neuters" prospective psykers, but I can't for the love of gods or money figure out where I picked it up.

Maybe Lyn knows?

I'm afraid I can't be of much help here. GW's own material talks about Black Ships visiting every Imperial world to collect its psykers, so in lieu of other information from these sources on that topic (at least as far as I'm aware of) I always assumed that this is what happens with Mechanicum citizens who have the psyker gene, too.

It is of note that the AdMech will also have to make use of Astropaths and Navigators, though, to transmit communications and to enable their ships to traverse the stars, so I assume that there's a link between the Mechanicus and the AAT as well as the Navigator Houses.

It is of note that the Dark Heresy RPG treats the Mechanicus worlds as being a lot more independent from the Imperium than GW's own material though, to the point where they wouldn't even acknowledge Inquisitorial authority - so one could argue that the Mechanicus wouldn't give up its psykers to the Black Ships in this interpretation of the setting as well, and instead train them themselves, as in the Crystal Geysir's group, or neuter them like in what you remember (could this be from some Black Library novel, perhaps?).

Again one of those details where there isn't a "right" answer, I guess, but just conflicting opinions.

Well the Emperor is the closest thing to a "God" currently but yes theoretically there can be a Chaos God who emerges from the warp. Since the warp is shaped through belief if enough Imperial citizens worshiped a new deity that being would develop in the Warp. Again theoretically, sounds like a fun background to work with, like maybe a human makes a cult that worships him so he gains immatrium powers.

The Black Crusade game I'm in right now has as its central premise that the collapse of the Imperium into ignorance and brutality is fueling the birth of a fifth god of Chaos, a god of oppression and hate, that the birth of each Chaos god has in turn increased the influence of the Warp on the Materium, and that the birth of the fifth shall fuse them entirely, ripping open a warpstorm centered on Terra that stretches across the entire Segmentum Solar and grows so rapidly as to consume the entire galaxy. Being a Black Crusade game, the point is to make it happen.