What, in the name of the Emperor, does the name of the Omnissiah refer to, or where does it come from?

I know the Omnissiah is the Machine God, but the word Omnissiah, what does that allude to?

I imagine that it's a combination of omniscient (all knowing) and messiah, which fits what the Omnissiah is; the pinnacle of understanding, the being who comprehends all and who saves his follows from ignorance by guiding them on the quest for knowledge.

Snidesworth said:

Spot on.

More evidence of the C'tan ruling the Mechanicus, the word is derived from the ancient chant "Om nom nom nom" which we all know is to do with devouring

Artaxerxes said:

You sound like a Heavy Team Fortress 2 player

The Laughing God said:

Never touched the game in my life

TECH PRIEST IS CREDIT TO TEAM!

Oh lord... perhaps we have invented Dark Fotress 2

Friend of the Dork said:

Again, spot on. It's the exact meaning of the term.

MILLANDSON said:

IMHO, exactly.

You could perhaps combine all those term together. Omnipotent for all knowledge, Messiah for savior and "Om nom nom nom"-sound if you have read the Mechanicus book of Horus Heresy, then you know the source of all human knowledge.

To C'tans Humans = Harvest "Om nom nom nom."

The above posters are wrong. Omnissiah =~ Emperor. Which depending on which admech sect you listen to is either the Avatar or Prophet of the Machine God. In a way this echoes the Christian trinity vs non-trinitrian divide. The tech priests whorship the Machine God....

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Omnissiah#Religion

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Machine_God

Dalnor Surloc said:

Well, yes, but that's what the above posts said basically (with silly refferences to C'tan tossed in for laughs I reckon). It's really not the question, tough and I don't tink anyone said that the Omnissiah is the Machine God. The question was what dose "Omnissiah" mean, not who is the Omnissaih or what role dose the Omnissiah play in the Cult Mechanicus. Omnissiah is a combination of the words Omni (all) or Omnisciant (all knowing) and Messiah (one who is anticipated as, regarded as, or professes to be a savior or liberator). Taken from that, and the fact that te Messiah of the Macine God would be clossist to said god and, as such, be the closist complete understanding, it seems to fit together rather well.

Hold on: the Omnissiah and the Machine God are one and the same, right?

The Laughing God said:

Depends from Mechanicus sect and of course from the author. I remember clearly, that in Matt Farrers Crossfire , Magos Cynez Sanja called Emperor "Omnissiah of the Machine God"

he's not the Omnissiah, he's a very naughty juvie!

The Laughing God said:

He's the Christ figure of the Mechanicus... who and what he is and his relationship and divinity all depends on who you talk to ;-)

Part of his title is Messiah after all, and that comes with all the baggage.

Interesting. I always thought of it as:

Omni-all

siah (from messiah, meaning savior).

So the all-savior.

According to official doctrine:

Omnissiah = Machine God = Emperor

Way back over 10,000 years ago before current the galaxy was a very lonely place for humanity. Warp travel had been cut off for many generations and each world was completely on it's own. Many stagnated, some died off, others struggled onwards. At this time Terra was a war-wracked wasteland fought over by rival warlords. The Priests of Mars made regular raids against the embattled world to recover/steal technology and information to add to their knowledge base (Already quite large!). Eventually the man known today only as "The Emperor" crushed all the other Terran warlords and united Terra under his rule.

The Emperor's victories are assured due to his overwhelming advantages in tactics, mastery of science, raw intellect, MASSIVE psychic power and the proto-Space Marines.

Having united Terra, the Emperor turned his attention to Mars and the Red Priesthood that ruled over it. They were traditional rivals and enemies of Terra but the Emperor knew he would need them for his "grand plan", and thus he went to Mars on an immense golden starship to bring the Red Priests into his fold. The Emperor's massive ship made planetfall on Mars and was met by the Martian Knights and Skitarii. The Emperor inherently KNEW exactly what was wrong, damaged and defective in the war machines that met him: He walked up to the stricken machines and touched them.... And they were repaired! Perfect working order, better than when they were new! Much drama ensued, but the Martian Priesthood declared the Emperor to be their long awaited (and prophesized) Omnissiah, the living embodyment of the Machine God. In return, the Priesthood were allowed to maintian a state of semi-autonomy from the newly created Imperial government so long as they vowed to forever provide fabrication for his armies. The Red Priests of Mars would now be known as the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Many years later the Emperor's grand armies were on the Great Crusade to reclaim the galaxy for humanity and Mars was the greatest of all Forge Worlds producing endless streams of war materiel for the Crusade. Those leaders that were displeased with the Emperor and his followers secretly made Dark Pacts with both the Ruinous Powers in general and Warmaster Horus in particular. When the loyalist forces on-world were sufficiently isolated and outnumbered the traitors revealed themselves by suddenly waging war on them. There was NO hiding the corruption of these new "Dark Mechanicus": Bodies, machinery, machine code, all were twisted and WRONG! Desperate battles and great sacrifices were fought by the loyalits of Mars and eventually a scant few survivors managed to claim victory for the loyalist/Imperial cause; made more difficult due to the traitors' deliberate engineering of supply shortages for the Space Marine Legions that were still loyal to the Emperor. Most of the great temples of knowledge and great forges were destroyed in the fighting, their contents forever lost. The Mechanicus set about rebuilding what was left of Mars and were now solidly commited to the Imperial cause. The Knight orders were effectively destroyed and the Titan Legions were severely depleted, as were most of the Skitarii.

Or to shorten it Read the "Mechanicum" Horus Heresy novel, oh and by the way the Mechanicus was only known as that as of post-heresy up intil that they were the Mechanicum.

ZillaPrime said:

And that's the Christ allegory I was talking about healing the sick (machines) with a touch and all. However, it doesn't quite prove one way or anouther that the Mechanicus as a whole view the Omnisiah as the Machine God. After all, and sticking to the Christ allegory, saying that Omnissiah = Machine God = Emperor is like saying Messiah = God = Christ. Some people say that but many strongly disagree with that.

Besides, embodying something on the physical plane doesn't make you that thing in all respects ;-)

Graver said:

It does for the Cult Mechanicus. Their religion is knowledge, their beliefs the physical laws that define the universe they live in. Their faith is science and technology.

The Machine God is seen as not merely omniscient, but as the embodiment of all knowledge and understanding that ever will exist. The Mechanicus seek out knowledge and aspire to understand it because it brings them closer to the Machine God. They do not invent and they do not innovate because to do so would be an affront to the Machine God (who is, afterall, the embodiment of all knowledge; trying to find something new is tantamount to claiming that the Machine God is incomplete and wrong), but rather they seek to rediscover knowledge (because all knowledge already exists). For the Mechanicus, then, any creature that embodies even a fraction of the Machine God's power makes them a part of it... because everything the Machine God is, is part of the material universe.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

But would being a part of it be it in totality? Is the Omnissiah the embodiment of all knowledge or is the Omnisiah a reflection of and a part of the embodiment of that knowledge without being the totality of it?

In other words, is the Omnissiah the embodiment of all knowledge ever or is the Omnissiah simply the closest to tat embodiment that anyone or thing has ever gotten?

Graver said:

Depends on the particular beliefs of the Tech-Priest you asked that question to... that's not a question with a single answer, but rather one with many interpretations. Some believe that the Emperor is the Omnissiah incarnate, others view the Omnissiah as synonymous with the Machine God, and so forth.

Okay, so most Mechanicus adepts would consider the Emperor to be an embodiment (the Omnissiah) of the Machine God? I am sure this does not sit well with Ecclesiarchy doctrine, so I bet they will maintain that the Emperor = the Omnissiah = the Machine God during all dealings with the outside world.

The thing about the Emperor 'healing' machines with his bare hand .. OMG that is so silly!

And now for a SPOILER scroll down:

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.. if the Mechanicus consider the Emperor/Omnissiah to be just an aspect of the Machine God .. who or what is the Machine God .. the C'tan Dragon??

The Laughing God said:

Any sillier then a man healing the sick with but a touch or turning rocks into loves of bread? We are talking about the religious mythology of the Machine Cult here ;-)

As for the second part, that's been covered. Te Machine God is the sum total of all knowledge and understanding. That is exactly what the machine god is, no more, no less. There has been speculation about the whole connection you made many times, but I don't think the concept the mechanicus olds to for their god can be boiled down to a simple knowable entity. After all, if the Machine God is the sum total of all knowledge and understanding, then knowing it as a knowable being can be known would be analogous to knowing everything in the universe that there is to know.

To the Mechanicus (and thus in the reality of 40k) I don't think you can point at something or someone and say "there, see that thing or fella over there/ Ya, that's the Machine God. Yup, that's it, right there. Oh, wait, he's moving now. The Machine God is over there now. Ya, he doesn't take up as much space as you'd think, dose he?" The Machine God is more of a concept, an ideal, a goal, heavily mystified and given sentience by it's very nature of being, for it is all knowledge. Having or knowing anything at all is to have a bit of Him in you and a bit of you in Him. The more knowledge something has, the more of Him that thing possesses and the more of Him it is. Get it?

I guess you can say, save for the sects that believe the God-Emperor is the Machine God, in a universe of over muscled gods who live places, the Mechanicus are unique as they've taken the highly abstract God is Everywhere approach with their deity. Their god is knowledge deified.

@N0-1-H3r3: true, that. Can't argue in any way shape or form with that ;-)