The Technocult

The Technocult, also known as the Machine cult is the semi-offical name given by The Church of the Crossed Heart to followers of the Mechanicum faith who supply and maintain virtually all of the church's technology, engineering and industry.

Although they serve with the Church of the Crossed Heart they have their own version of worship that differs substantially in theology and ritualistic forms from that of The Twelve Angels. Instead the Technocult worships a deity they call the Machine god or Omnissiah. The Technocult believes that knowledge is divine and comes only form the Omnissiah thus making any objects that demonstrate the application of knowledge, i.e machinery, or contain it (books) holy in the eyes/optical implants of the Techcult. The Technocult regard organic flesh as weak and imperfect, with the Rot being veiwed as a divine message from the Omnissah demonstrating its weakness, thus making its removal and replacement by mechanical, bionic parts a sacred process that brings them closer to their god with many of its older members having very little of their original bodies remaining.

The date of the cults formation is unknown, or a closely guarded secret...

Structure
The Technocult is split into three core sections or "Gears".

Mechanicus Administratum
containing nine permanent members or "Fabricators" the Mechanicus Administratum is the ruling body of the Technocult. Made of the most senior and experienced Tech priests the Mechanicus Administratum sees to all administrative, domestic and diplomatic issues for the Technocult. Each permanent member has nine other Tech priests serving under them for three years with nine more beneath them.

Mechanicus Adeptus
The largest of the Gears the Tech priests of the Mechanicus Adeptus are responible for the recovery, research, maintainace and production of all of the Cult's technology. Each priest is a master craftsman, engineer and scientist capable of creating advance machinery and akwaken it's machine spirit with little more than scrap metal and restore devices to working order even after centuries of neglect. Tech priests are recurited from the general populous once they become of age (or abducted at birth and raised by the cult when a truly fanatical priest is needed) and trained extensivly in technical skills and rituals as well as purge the "weakness of the flesh" from their minds before completing their initiation into the Technocult and receiving their first implants, after that a priest will begin their duty's as well as either continue to augment themselves or are deemed worthy of receiving superior augments for outstanding actions in the search for knowledge.

Mechanicus Militarum
Although most of the military needs of the cult are carried out by the church certain situations deemed far too important to be dealt with by weak fleshlings such as the protection of the Technocult's airship the Iron Forge and conducting expeditions in search of perticaler artifacts are carried out by the Mechanicus Militarum the main military body. The soldiers of the Mechanicus Militarum are know as the skitarii and although the smallest of the gears and tiny compared to more conventional forces they yeild some of the best and most advanced weapons in the world ranging from Arc spears to Galvanic Rifles and even combat Servients. Thanks to thier augments skitarii are faster, stronger and more skilled than almost anyone else on the battlefield but they are rarely deployed in offensive operations due to their small size and the Technocult's disinterst in affairs of other factions so long as they do not interfer with the cult's activites.

The Mechanicum
The Mechanicum believes knowledge to be the manifestation of divinity, and holds that anything embodying or containing knowledge is holy because of it. The supreme object of devotion is therefore the omniscient Machine God (also known as the Omnissiah), an eminent and omnipotent spirit governing all machinery and knowledge in the universe. Generally, this deity is held to be an aspect of the Twelve Angels (so as to not offend the church). The Omnissiah is believed to be the originator of all technological and scientific knowledge. Subservient to the Omnissiah are the Machine Spirits, who are believed to inhabit all machinery and which must be appeased before a piece of technology is used or repaired, lest the machinery fail.

The search for Knowledge
The ultimate goal of the Technocult is to understand and fully comprehend the glory of the Omnissiah. The communal and personal attempt at this form of enlightenment is known as the Search, involing research, reverse engineering and expeditions to the Below

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Old world technology and knowledge is considered the most holy as it was the pinniacle of technological know how and aplication with machinery and books form the world pre rot being objects of worship. However due to the Church's stance on old world knowledge every memeber of the cult is trained to memorise every single detail of any books and records they can find,under the guise that they are looking for hidden codes left by the twelve angels, before they are destroyed. Once this knowledge has be memorised priests will then attempt to share this knowledge with other priests as soon as possible so to ensure that it is not lost in the event the priest dies. Due to this the knowledge a priest has learned is considered far more valuable than their life and should a Tech priest be in a life threating situation the cult will deploy what ever forces they can muster (or convince the church to supply) not to save the priest but to ensure the priest's knowledge can be recovered and relayed to the rest of the cult

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The Greatest Prize
Technocult legends speaks of a place somewhere in the Below where all of the old world's knowledge was stored, a vast libary filled with the technological, engineering, manufactoring and medical knowledge of the old world, a monument to the Omnissiah's glory and main object of the Technocult's focus due to the <>however this <> as it is called by the cult is a closely guarded secret known only to the nine Fabricators fearing that should the church know about and discover this vast reservoir of old world knowlegde they would desecrate this holy site and thus all operations to find the <> are carried out in secret with even the expedition teams not entirely knowing what they are looking for.

The Iron Forge
Part airship, part factory the Iron Forge is the Technocult's personal airship and base of operaction, all research and most of the cult manufactoring is conducted on the Iron Forge as well as storing their most precious artifacts and being the seat of power for the Mechanicus Administratum.

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although heavily armed with numerous advanced weaponary most are considered to holy or damaged to be used in actual combat and thus the Iron Forge remains primarily and moblie factory and research facility

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non members are forbidden form entering the ship due to the sensitive (and heretical) nature of the equipment stored there

The Tyranicus
Deep within the Technocult's airship the Iron Forge lies their greatest secret, standing at well over two stories tall and armed with massive weapons the Tyranicus is a awe inspiring testament to the technological prowess of the old world. Found by the cult in rotting away in old world ruins in Anno 690 NP sporting extensive battle damage it was recovered with haste and stored in the deepest workshop of the Iron forge to avoid drawing suspicion form the church. Since then the cult have made extensive repairs and aesthetic modifications to the war machine in hope of returning it to it's former glory to no avial however as the machine remains silent and inoperable but one must only wonder what horrors this machine was built to face. Although it continues to sleep the cult have been able to successful replicate the ammution needed for the Tyranicus's main weapons and the fuel required for its mighty engine and many advances in material science and weapons technology have been made through the study of the Tyranicus's hull and weapons however the true breakthrough came from extensive study of its inner systems by the cult's tech priests showing that the mighty war machine requires a pilot to interface with it's slumbering machine spirt in order to guide its movement and fury however no method to do this or rouse the machine form its long dormancy but no method of doing so have been found thus far and remains a key area of research for the cult however should the machine spirit ever awaken it would prove to be a near unstoppable weapon of the Omnissiah's wraith...