Motoka Isidore

This page details people, events, and organisations from the /tg/ Heresy, a fan re-working of the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. See the /tg/ Heresy Timeline and Galaxy pages for more information on the Alternate Universe.

Motoka Isidore
Title/Honours	Fabricator Locum, Secundus of the Machine Cult
Distinguishing Traits	Balanced
Flaws	Secretive, Manipulative
Dominion	Mars and subject Forgeworlds

Motoka Isidore was the Fabricator Locum of Mars, Mistress of Mondus Occulum and second most powerful of the great Lords of Mars. Though outwardly she was the most loyal of Kalkas Tygian’s followers, secretly she strove to keep Tygian from completely subjugating the Mechanicum under the Emperor’s influence. Even while she was acting as his most honoured and trusted advisor she was supporting areas of research that had been judged off-limits by the Emperor, trying to maintaian a balance between Tygian and Forgeworlds that refused compliance with his own ideals like Al-Sherar and carefully altering the balance of power to try and keep Tygian from achieving the complete control of Mars he always dreamed of. Always she tried to keep to the center, between the old Mechanicum hardliners who believed the Emperor and enslaved the Mechanicum and who wanted complete freedom from Terra and those who like the Fabricator General believed in the Emperor as the Omnissiah and tried to ensure the Mechanicum was always complaint with His wishes even at the expense of autonomy or the collective will of the Mechanicum.

Though she gained a reputation as a scheming manipulator, she claimed to be keeping the Mechanicum from either trying to break away from Terra and sparking a Martian-Terran War or from simply being subsumed into the Emperor’s Imperium and losing all which made them unique and the true custodians of knowledge.

Tragically, she herself would be responsible for the Martian-Terran War she had once fought to avoid. For even as she was trying to balance several sides and keep the peace within the Mechanicum, she was also researching both Artificial Intelligence and Warpcraft, theorizing that the latter was responsible for the former’s mass betrayals at the end of the golden age of man. However by peering into the warp the warp peered right back into her, and the architect of fate saw her skills of manipulation and underhand tactics and marked her as his own. Eventually he would consume her, and given over to the Revelations of Tzeentch she would become the great architect of the Martian Civil War and the Sundering of the Mechanicum.

History

Old Mars

Motoka Isidore took careful pains to keep her own information under lock and key, and this makes recording her history difficult, as most of it was lost in the Martian Civil War and the fall of Olympus Mons. What we do know is that she was a long-serving Magos of high standing who started her career at Mondus Gamma, the principal Forge producing Legio Cybernetica Robots. Fragmentary records have her as a Magos Dominus leading Robot Cohorts during Mondus Gamma’s many disputes with its rich and powerful neighbours. Despite the skill she showed, her passage to higher command was blocked due to her youth and perceived inexperience as well as opposition to her more unorthodox proposals for improving Cybernetica combat abilities. Frustrated, she decided to defect. Perhaps this first defection marked her for life, for the cloud of suspicion would never quite leave her despite all her attempts to prove herself. Later on she would see this as her first and greatest sin, but also the one which proved her allegiance to the Mechanicum as a whole, above and beyond any Forge or Fane. She became a true believer in the unity of the Mechanicum, that despite all the minor differences, in the end they were all united under the Cog of Mars and the aegis of the Machine God. This belief would be her core one.

Her refuge was Mondus Occulum, the second most powerful Forge on Mars, and when she went there she took with her all the greatest secrets of the Legio Cybernetica that she had learned during her service with Mondus Gamma. Those skills were soon put to the test as swiftly afterwards the Cybernetica Cohorts of Mondus Occulum found themselves in combat with their Mondus Gamma cousins. Thanks to her skills they inflicted a severe defeat upon Mondus Gamma after which she was given the rank of Archmagos, granted a seat as one of the advisory council to the Fabricator Locum and allowed to pursue improvements to the combat abilities of Cybernetica, even though some veered dangerously close to Tech-Heresy. However even as she worked on the basic and primitive intelligences of Cybernetica Robots, she was beginning to turn her attention towards another area, the long suppressed area of Artificial Intelligence.

None of this prevented her from being nominated for the post of Fabricator Locum, for she was not only highly talented but also had a knack for getting the best out of her underlings and fostering a sense of personal loyalty to her, though she was scant regarded by those of equal rank. Her ascension was hailed as an important step for the Mechanicum in light of the growing power of distant Terra, and she seemed a likely choice to become Fabricator General when that spot was opened several years later.

The Lords of Olympus had other ideas and chose one of their own, Adept Kalkas Tygian to become the new head of the Mechanicum. One of Tygian’s first stops after his conformation was to Mondus Occulum, where in a closed-door session lasting several hours he spoke at great length with Isidore, laying out his belief that the Omnissiah was coming soon, and that all Mars had to be prepared. If his dream was to become a reality, he needed the second greatest of all the Forge Lords at his side. While to someone as conservative as Isidore this was borderline Tech-Heresy, she promised to support him in his quest and pledged the full might of Mondus Occulum to his banner.

Privately she was deeply concerned with Tygian’s approach, fearing that it could lead to disaster when the armies of Terra inevitably came calling. He was the chosen head of the Mechanicum and her rightful overlord, and she determined to save Tygian from himself, try to rein him in and keep him from dragging the Mechanicum into the abyss. Thus did she enter the Fabricator General’s confidence, a position she would continue to uphold in the centuries to come.

Tygian's right hand

The arrival of the Emperor on the sacred soul of Mars itself was a shock to all the great Forge Lords of the Mechanicum who had been frantically preparing for a war with Terra, and the shock was even greater when Fabricator General Tygian pledged Mars to the Emperor and swore to join in the Emperor’s dream of a Great Crusade. There were many within the Mechanicum who hoped that Isidore would make a stand against the Fabricator General’s insanity, for she was an orthodox member of the Mechanicum and highly respected by a great number of the Adepts and Magi of Mars. She was as shocked as any about Tygian’s move, but he spoke to her at length about the Emperor’s coming, and even engineered a meeting between Isidore and the Emperor.

Her meeting with the Emperor was both illuminating and troubling. His ambition was so great that she had to admire it, but she also feared that he would subjugate the Mechanicum from the inside out, slowly turning Mars into a client of Terra if not simply annexing it outright. On the other hand his martial might was enough that he could ruin Mars, and his promises to the Mechanicum if upheld would restore the Martian Empire and much of the lost knowledge scattered across the galaxy.

Ultimately she once more determined to maintain the balance of power and remained firmly behind Tygian, while acting as the negotiator to those Forges still unsure or opposed to the Emperor’s offer. Her diplomatic skills managed to convince several forges to drop their opposition, but when Tygian threw down the gauntlet Titans of her own Legio Fortuna ‘Hand of Fate’ marched alongside the Triad Ferrum Morgulum against those Forges who stubbornly resisted.

Though outwardly she appeared the very model of compliance, privately she was said to have wept at the destruction of Urbis Juventas, for the Adept master of that Forge was a personal friend of hers. She had prevented a Martian Civil War and upheld the unity of the Mechanicum, but the cost was high. Mars and Terra were now joined at the hip.

With the beginning of the Great Crusade, the martial might of the Lords of Mars was now unleashed. Much of Mars’ military might was now sent offworld, joining the Expeditionary Fleets of the Great Crusade. Mondus Occulum lost most of its many Cybernetica Cohorts to the Crusade along with several Skitarii Legions and over half the Legio Fortuna, though Isidore managed to retain a considerable amount of Troops on Mars to safeguard her interests there.

When Fabricator General Tygian left Mars for the first time to oversee the addition of the Knight World of Crysis into the Mechanicum, he left Isidore in charge of Mars. Tygian placed implicit trust in Isidore, that she would hold Mars together in his absence. At attempted rebellion several days after his departure from Mars was snuffed out by Isidore, who smashed the traitor army with massed Titans and Knights. Afterwards she met with a number of the major Forge Lords of Mars, and the message she sent was clear. Do not dare to mess with Motoka Isidore. She understood their concerns about Tygian, but he was the elected Fabricator General and it was their job to keep him on their side and to prevent him from doing anything harmful to the Mechanicum as a whole. Once more she found herself in the middle with both sides distrusting her.

Paradoxically when Tygian heard of this his own trust in her grew, and she became his closest confidant. She would travel greatly when Tygian was on Mars, acting as an ambassador for him and visiting those Forgeworlds that were opposed to the Fabricator General, acting as an intermediary. It was during this time that she developed links with hundreds of Forgeworlds across the Imperium, which would serve her well in the future. She had negotiated with recalcitrant Forgemasters on Mars, and now she would do the same on a hundred Forgeworlds.

While all this was happening her burgeoning research into Artificial Intelligence that had begun even before she had ascended to the position of Fabricator Locum had reached a new, dangerous stage. After meeting with representatives of one of the Navigator Houses now permanently seconded to the Mechanicum, an interesting thought stuck with her. One of the Navigators she met with spoke of how humans had a presence in the Warp, and this now-nameless Navigator wondered if the same could be said for the Artificial Intelligence's who had existed before the Age of Strife.

Adding fuel to the fire the unnamed Navigator thought the Machine Spirit could be the Warp Presence of Machines, the same way the Soul was the human presence in the Warp. These thoughts struck a chord with Motoka Isidore. If she could answer those questions, she would become preeminent within the Machine Cult. If Artificial Intelligences were affected by the Warp, she could shield them with Gellar Fields, preventing them from ever rebelling and thus restoring one of Mankind’s greatest achievements from the Age of Strife. The fact that it went against the very tenets of her faith did not seem to affect her reasoning. She threw herself headlong into her new field, in between trips across the Imperium to visit newly discovered Forge Worlds and negotiate with them.

Widening the rift

The Fabricator General was a fanatic who held little truck with those who did not share his viewpoints, and Isidore found herself increasingly trapped by those. Several times she tried to negotiate in good faith with the Lords of newly found Forges, only to have Tygian overrule her when he felt she was being too soft.

She tried to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Dieseleium when it refused compliance, but when she failed over a dozen of her own Cybernetica Cohorts were part of the mighty army which reduced that forge. She was the head of the Ambassadorial team which met with the Al-Sherar Diyanet, and even when she spoke highly of the organisation and military skill of the Forge, her reports to the Fabricator General unwittingly helped to fuel the fire of distrust which would create his bitter enmity with the distant Forgeworld. She was the one to make contact with Ghalhal and her meetings with the Lords of that Forgeworld helped convince Tygian to visit the Forge and broker a deal with them. It is even believed she traveled to Al-Sherar in disguise even as Tygian was mustering troops to invade and met with the Kabeer Al-Mufteen, and it was her tip-off was one of the driving forces behind the Stygies Accords.

By the time of the Rebellion, the Mechanicum was split into three, though few outside of it could see that. There were those Forges and Forgeworlds unquestionably loyal to Tygian, either out of fear, greed or genuine dedication. Then there was those bitterly opposed to him, who held out against him entirely thanks to Al-Sherar’s defiance. This group included such disparate Forgeworlds as Xana and Steel Harbor. On the third side, and ever-growing was the Non-Conformist League headed by Al-Sherar. Caught in between them all was Motoka Isidore. Her heartfelt belief in the unity of the Mechanicum was being more and more shown as a sham with every passing day. And yet still she clung to this belief, trying to ignore the growing rumbles of discontent.

Personality

She took great pains to retain a human form despite over 70% of her body being made of metal, indeed she could and did often go in disguise among unaugmented humans, appearing as nothing more than a well-muscled female, her body almost entirely metal and filled with concealed augmentics.