History Characters / Warhammer40000Mechanicus

* BadBoss: Whilst the Tech-Priests consider themselves above such base human mindsets as "cruelty", the simple fact that they regard the machinery their underlings use as more important than said underlings makes them amongst some of the worst taskmasters in an Imperium already rife with institutionalized abuse. Skitarii soldiers are regularly outfitted with rad-weapons that will slowly kill them from imperfect shielding, or made to pilot the irradiated Onager dune crawler knowing they will literally dissolve into a radioactive stew of boiled meat. Skitarii leaders who display too much initiative are usually assassinated, often by giving them "relic" weapons that are lethally unsafe to wield. Forge-World menials risk being dragged away and [[UnwillingRoboticization servitorized]] if a Tech-Priest decides the servitor numbers are insufficient, or may simply be made into a literal HumanSacrifice to the Machine God.

* FrontlineGeneral: The 7th edition version of the Skitarii is one of the few aversions of this trope in the game by having no HQ units and no characters. This is due to Skitarii being directed by Tech-Priests who send orders remotely from orbit. 8th edition onwards plays it straight, introducing three generic HQ characters (the Tech-Priest Dominus, Tech-Priest Enginseer, and Skitarii Marshal) and a Mars-exclusive unique character (Belisarius Cawl.)
* GameplayAndStorySegregation: According to the lore, Skitarii don't have transport vehicles. Two of their vehicle options from 8th onward are the Skorpius Dunerider and the Archaeopter Transvector, respectively a HoverTank [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier assault boat]] and a glorified aerial troop transport.

** The Leagues of Votann are themselves aware that everything they do would be considered tech-heresy to the Mechanicus, and thus intentionally leave them in the dark despite the Mechanicus being desperate to get their hands on Voltann tech. The Squats have access and production knowledge to much of the lost technology the Mechanicus seek out, constantly improve their designs piece by piece, and use widespread use of artificial intelligence down to AI being treated as full citizens. The Votann themselves are giant supercomputers housing the memories of their dead ancestors that guide their race, which would either be seen as a highly advanced servo skull or the ultimate heresy depending on the tech priest. Even if their society is dictated by the Votann and ancestors are highly venerated, they culture as a whole doesn't encourage an organized religious worship. In many ways, the Mechanicus are seen as exactly as what the Votann aim to avoid becoming.

* BeliefMakesYouStupid: A major cause of the [[SpaceAgeStasis Technological Stasis]]. To the Mechanicus at large, the Age of Technology was the absolute pinnacle of humanity's capacity for technological development, and nothing could possibly hope to improve on those machines, which is why they are so focused on finding and reverse-engineering [=STCs=] when they are found instead of coming up with new concepts. The other reason is, well... new, untested designs risk being corrupted by Chaos if they're not designed properly, which impedes research, although precisely how true this element is depends on edition.

'''[[Characters/Warhammer40000ForcesOfChaos Forces of Chaos]]:''' [[Characters/Warhammer40000ChaosGods Chaos Gods]], [[Characters/Warhammer40000ChaosPrimarchs Chaos Primarchs]], [[Characters/Warhammer40000ChaosMarines Heretic Astartes]]\\

'''[[Characters/Warhammer40000Imperium Imperium of Man]]:''' [[Characters/Warhammer40000ImperialFounders Founders]], [[Characters/Warhammer40000Astartes Adeptus Astartes]] ([[Characters/Warhammer40000AstartesChaptersFirstFounding First Founding Chapters]], [[Characters/Warhammer40000AstartesChapters Other Chapters]], [[Characters/Warhammer40000AstartesCharacters Characters]], [[Characters/Warhammer40000PrimarisSpaceMarines Primaris Marines]]), [[Characters/Warhammer40000ImperialGuard Astra Militarum]], [[Characters/Warhammer40000Sororitas Adepta Sororitas]], [[Characters/Warhammer40000Inquisition Inquisition]], '''Mechanicus''', [[Characters/Warhammer40000CurrentImperialFactions Other factions]]\\

* WeHaveReserves: Tech-Priests consider their Skitarii and servitor soldiers to be disposable and infinitely replaceable puppets that they will use until destruction, with some Tech-Priests using their soldiers to distract or tie down the opposition until their favoured weapons, the god-machines of the Titan Legions and the robots of the Legio Cybernetica, are in position to unleash the killing blow.

'''[[Characters/Warhammer40000XenoRaces Xeno Races]]:''' [[Characters/Warhammer40000Eldar Aeldari]] ([[Characters/Warhammer40000CraftworldEldar Asuryani]], [[Characters/Warhammer40000DarkEldar Drukhari]]) | [[Characters/Warhammer40000LeaguesOfVotann Leagues of Votann]] | [[Characters/Warhammer40000Necrons Necrons]] | [[Characters/Warhammer40000Orks Orks]] ([[Characters/Warhammer40000OrksCharacters Characters]]) | [[Characters/Warhammer40000TauEmpire T'au Empire]] | [[Characters/Warhammer40000Tyranids Tyranids]] ([[Characters/Warhammer40000GenestealerCults Genestealer Cults]])]]-]]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: In ''the Dark City'' novel, [[spoiler:the Adeptus Mechanicus (under the Fabricator-General) cut [[SuicidalOverconfidence a deal with]] [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder the Dark Eldar]] to have them and their knowledge repair the Golden Throne, as it is in it's death throes and will come to potentially fail within the next century, however, by trusting the Dark Eldar to do the job they not only hand over [[HumanResources an entire massive sector of space with billions of souls to satiate their needs]], but allow them direct access to the Golden Throne to repair it. In the process, the Dark Eldar is not only able to reverse-engineer it to create the "Black Throne" within Commorragh, but they also acquirde some of the Emperor's DNA to create a functional clone to occupy it so they can stave off Slaanesh's demons, all while everyone back in the Imperium is none the wiser as everyone who knew the truth dies before they can relay it back from Commorragh: the Golden Throne has at best around eighty years to remain functional, [[FromBadToWorse and just around a decade in the worst case scenario]].]]