The origins of the robots employed by the Imperium harken back to the earliest days of human technology, with the most advanced models presumably dating to the Dark Age of Technology during the zenith of Mankind's scientific prowess and technological power. Yet, over the millennia since the Horus Heresy, the Legio Cybernetica has regained the respect and admiration of the rest of the Adeptus Mechanicus as well as the other myriad Adepta of the Imperium, though in fact it has rarely been deployed in recent centuries. Yet the fear and dark legend of those unstoppable robot armies lives on. So it is that in the 41st Millennium the animalistic Thanatar, Castellax and Vorax Patterns of Battle-Automata are forgotten on all but the most intrepid and independent of Forge Worlds, and the Dark Mechanicum spoken of only in whispered code. Many later-pattern robots are tainted by their association with the machine-predators of that desperate age. Its legacy survived with the Dark Mechanicum, whose members still go to infernal lengths to give life to their machines. The resultant schism was exploited by Horus himself when he betrayed the Emperor. In lieu of creating automata with the souls of men, many recidivist Tech-priests created machines imbued with the animus of loyal beasts - or worse, with essences from the Empyrean. After the terrible consequences of those times which resulted in the great machine uprising of the Cybernetic Revolt, the dread concept of the Silica Animus, a sentient machine, was outlawed forever, its creators subjected to excommunico fatalis and its resurrection punishable by torture to the point of death.Īnd yet there were those that still yearned to walk in their shadow, to perfect a thinking machine. That decision was to cost them dearly, and the rest of Humanity with them. Ever curious, those early pioneers not only constructed vast hosts of automatons but also gave their creations the gift of independent thought. The Legio Cybernetica traces its origins to when early tech-savants experimented with artificial life during the Age of Technology. They are primarily constructed and maintained by the members of the Legio Cybernetica, a sub-division of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Imperial Robots, known also as automata or battle-automata, are non-sentient, mechanical automatons used for labour and combat within the Imperium of Man that were created as the result of the exploitation of now-lost archeotech. A cohort of Thanatar-class Heavy Siege Automata in combat during the Horus Heresy.