Cult of the Divine Machine

The Cult of the Divine Machine traces its origins back to around the year A.I. 748.M3. During an unnaturally strong heatwave, small cults started to take form around the worship of iron-horses and other such pieces of technology, as the ultimate divine manifestation of the Emperor's will. This is believed to have been due to them attributing the goods which were coming off of the trains as being from them and directly related to the Emperor because of inscriptions placed upon the trains. Due to an increased number of heatstroke cases, the cult was able to go undetected by local authorities, as ramblings about the 'glories of the machine' and such were generally written off as heat induced temporary madness. Adherents of the cult began to spread by rail to various depots where they would then begin preaching in secret amongst the engineers and workers. The cult exploded in membership and into the open in A.I. 769.M3 as construction on the Emperor's Road began, giving them far greater reach as workers were rotated in and out on a regular basis and due to the monumental amount of work involved. Because of that, they began to operate in the open and all began seeking employment in some way related to maintaining and running the rail system and other mechanical marvels.

Reports were documented of engineers having prophetic visions near the main engines and of how some of them began to take up near permanent residence inside of their selected iron-horse. Due to the issues involved in removing so many personnel from their positions and finding replacements, along with the benign nature of the cult, it was decided that it would be tolerated and allowed to continue operation under supervision with the blessing of the Ecclessiarchy and Imperial Government. As an upside to their near fanatical devotion to their machines, maintenance issues become practically unheard of whenever they are involved, as they religiously inspect every aspect of whatever they have decided to begin worshipping. They have also a near suicidal belief in fulfilling the purposes of the machines. This is to the point of ignoring almost all safety standards and hazards in order to get to a place on time by whatever means are necessary. They have been reported as pushing engines faster than is necessarily considered safe along bits of track that might not be straight because a train was running three minutes late, and on a couple of occasions disregarding food, rest, and relief in order to man their stations to ensure that their trains got to their destinations on time, with nothing short of an attack being able to stop them. This has posed a few issues, as a few of their more fanatical members attempted in the year A.I. 770.M3 to take and use explosives from a nearby ammunition dump to blow a tree off some tracks as it was taking too long to remove it. Shortly afterwards they were stopped and threatened rather vigorously about what would happen if they launched another raid against the military or government again for such a reason.

Hierarchy

While this cargo cult did not originally have any formal structure to speak of and in fact could be said to have been multiple different cults originally, they were forced to form a rather rigid priesthood in A.I. 761.M3. Violence erupted between a sect that worshipped the iron-horse as the highest form of technology for its ability to bring soldiers, believers, and supplies great distances in short periods of time and another which believed that the wireless was, as it allowed the Emperor's word to be heard far and near. A battle between the two factions erupted after their leaders had attempted to reconcile their theological differences, with the ultimate result of the two parties getting into a fist fight after one of the train devotees pointed out that wireless sets were transported over the rails and therefore must be inferior to the trains which they were carried upon. The skirmish lasted for three hours resulting in thirty-two dead from both sides along with two Imperial soldiers who attempted to break up the fight and were promptly hacked to death by axes and picks. Following this, the government arrested all involved and invited all other members of similar cults to gather for a council. At this council, two members of the Ecclesiarchy along with fifty Imperial soldiers watched as the cult leaders began arguing their points. The end result was the following; all sects agreed that technology as a whole was (at least for official purposes) a divine gift from the Emperor and that in all its forms, it was the ultimate expression of his will. Each of the sects also agreed that they would be allowed to specialised in a particular field, so as to more fully appreciate and worship all of the aspects of his will (thus allowing for a compromise between them). Those that refused to this compromise and continued to preach the supremacy of their ideas were very quickly killed by those around them and their members forced to submit and integrate into new sects.

Each sect is currently headed by an Engineer who in turn forms a local council of fifteen Engineers who elect one of their members to the position of Technical-Engineer and who in turn form yet another council consisting of thirty Technical-Engineers who in turn elect one of their number to the position of Engineering-Principal. The Engineering-Principal acts as the highest authority to their cult as a whole, below the current Emperor himself, the Ecclesiarchs, and the Imperial Inquisition.

Controversy

Beyond their most superficial attributes of worshipping technology, they seem to have developed a tenet requiring them to conduct research and experiments so as to discover new technologies in the name of the Emperor. While most of their members are little more than skilled workers, they Engineers all seem to have started to become more and more learned over time. As such, it is currently under suggestion whether or not a tenet of secrecy should be added to their beliefs, so as to reduce the chances of them teaching what they know to the wider population.