Ok now I know that the Monodominants have a "no tolerance" policy on mutants and psykers of all kinds and would rather see them all burnt on the pyres of righteousness (including Psykers, nulls, Astropaths & Navigators, if at all possible) but where do they stand on Tech-Priests?

Surely to replace Navigators etc the option would be suitable tech - but the extreme measures that the Mechanicus go to to replace their "holy and perfect" human flesh with mechanical components, their reverence of the Machine God over the Emperor, their secretive nature etc. could all place them in the camp of the "heretic and impure" (from a monodominant perspective).

Any thoughts?

The Omnissiah Is the Emperor, who (some sects) believe is the Machine god made manifest.

So the Ad-Mech worship the Emperor by a different name. Mostly..

Velvetears said:

Arguably no - they believe that the Emperor is an aspect of the Machine God - and therefore a lesser reflection of him (as some religions & sects believe Jesus was an "avatar" of God but not equal to him).

C'tan lovin' wire heads....

Jesus was a big blue cat alien... it all makes sense now

To a Monodominant (speaking in the generic sense) the Astropaths, Navigators and Tech Priests are all VITAL to the survival of the Imperium, and therefore necessary. This makes them tolerable abominations. All other types of Psykers, mutants and other assorted genetic deviants are non-essential to the survival of the Empire, and to a very real extent are a grave threat to it. This makes them intolerable abominations! Fortunately most of them are flammable...

As has been rightly pointed out, it very strongly depends on which beliefs about the precise nature of the Emperor and the Imperial Creed the particular Monodominant adheres to (i.e. which church he attends) and similarly which church the Machine Priests adhere to. A great many probably go hand-in-hand. Devout Machine Priests venerating the Immortal Emperor as no less than the Machine God Incarnate, a holy vessel and the absolute Will of the Imperium. Alternatively, you'll have the Cult of the Dragon.

It's very much down to which ones are relating. There's a whole spectrum of possibilities, right from 'two peas in a pod' to mortal arch-nemesis (antichrist) views. I'd be all for throwing the players a bone and having who they expect to be the powerful enemy (the Orthodox Mechanicus) turn out to actually be *even more* monodominant than their Inquisitor! Then get them swept up in a techpriest led, mono-aided mono-style purge of a swathe of the population of a Forgeworld. Fun stuff!

Xisor said:

I like that idea Thanks for that.

Let me think a little about that:

Astropaths are necessary for Faster-Than-Light communication between the Empire (so your reserves get word, for example, that a new crusade of Chaos is coming out from the Eye of Terror... that info is quite handy, you know ).

Navigators are stated in the Rogue Trader manual as irreplaceable: they are the only ones able to see the Light of Terra across the normal space and the inmaterium, and not having a navigator would mean to make small jumps, recalibrate sensors, recalculate position & route, and jump again (making the travels you would beed a day for to take maybe a year or so...).

Techpriests... Uuff... that is quite a controversical theme. First, they are vital to the Empire. But second they seem to be directly responsible from the creation of the Necron Pariahs, and it seems something is on Mars who suggests to me too much like a C'Than god in a sleeping state. Also, the heresy about thinking machines comes from the Mechanicus having "burnt his (collective) hand" when the Deceiver gived them the technology for AI, and it went... bad. Codex: Necrons is quite interesting to read (I had to: my techpriest is a veteran from a Kronus look-alike campaing, and has the Forbidden Lore (Xenos), quite focused in necrons... especially how to destroy them). Also five necron frigates made a kamikaze voyage to the Valles Marinieris (and it is suggested than one made it, downloading something before being destroyed), and Abbadon made an augur about that, smiling after discovering what lies there...

My opinion? The Mechanicus only redeeming point is it's needed. And they make sure they keep being needed using that secrecy, because the moment they are no longer imprescindible all the organization will be culled.

Ah, did I mention that the techpriest's voyage is suggested to end offering what's left of their brains after millennia of travels to the Omnisiah gestalt, composed by all the altars in all the Forge Worlds? (I think it comes in the Magos entry in Ascension...). That suggest they don't really see the Emperor and the Omnisiah related... or not so closely as we (the players) seem to think ^^.

The Navigators have their status , rights and privileges given to them by Him-Himself , when he founded his empire, the same goes for the Admech

Navigators aren't to be messed with on a macro scale, they tend to have some fairly large private armies, a huge amount of money to get fairly much anyone greased by some of the best assassins in the business and by default tend to be at least working terms with people that have some really big ships with really big guns hanging off them. Its much the same with the Ad-mech, they might be a bunch of machine hugging weirdos but when push comes to shove, its always nice to have the backing of the Skitarii and a titan legion or two hanging around.

Think when it comes down to it, the Imperium of man tends to be just as much a case of asymetric warfare as it is maintaining control of monopolies so they don't get annexed by another faction by hook, crook or hostile takeover.

Its much the same with the Ad-mech, they might be a bunch of machine hugging weirdos but when push comes to shove, its always nice to have the backing of the Skitarii and a titan legion or two hanging around.

They wouldn't even need a single one of the skitarii - try getting anywhere near a forge world when the entire population of your engine room is revolting against you.

The AdMech needs the Imperium for its manpower while the Imperium needs the AdMech to get anything remotely technological done. If any of the two factions go to war with each other, they'd likely both die out.