Ordo Reductor

This page is in need of cleanup. Srsly. It's a fucking mess.

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The Ordo Reductor is a small branch of the Adeptus Mechanicus that specializes in killing things. Now basically EVERY branch is somewhat specialized for murder, but this branch is the one to call upon when what needs to be killed is particularly insistent on not dying.

The members of the Ordo Reductor worship the Omnissiah in his aspect as the Un-Maker, the Destroyer, the Bringer of Oblivion. Instead of providing knowledge, the Omnissiah brings death and destruction, and so too does the Ordo. And, unlike many Ordos within the Imperium, these guys don't just throw bodies at a threat to the Imperium until it dies. Oh no, they study the shit out of it first. They're the ones responsible for analyzing every new xeno the Imperium encounters, searching for the most effective way to eliminate them. They look over enemy tanks to see how to best blast it to smithereens. And when they see a fortress, you better believe they're looking for any possible way to turn it into a pile of smoldering rubble. And once they've figured out how best to destroy your shit, tear down your homes and kill your entire species?

They fucking do it.

To that end, the Ordo Reductor possesses a number of weapons that are forbidden to others in the Imperium. To handle these dangerous weapons for them the Ordo employed the Thallax, Skitarii so heavily bogged down with cybernetics that they look more like a Castellax than a Skitarii. The most important fact about the Thallax is that each is equipped with a suit of modified power armor that's permanently grafted to their bodies, this armor is equipped with a reactor that powers their weapons and cybernetics. The Ordo Reductor use the Thallax in place of standard Skitarii due to the Skitarii being too fleshy and weak to handle the weapons that the Ordo Reductor typically employs. Yes, you heard that right, Skitarii are too FLESHY compared to the Thallax to survive the blasted wastelands that the Ordo Reductor left in their wake. Let that sink in.

One of the things that makes them unique among their Mechanicus brethren is that they are ALLOWED to innovate. That most heretical act to the rest of the Mechanicus is actually part of their mandate. After all, you can't well be expected to wreck the shit out of a new alien race with just what is laying around, now can you? Not after studying them to learn their weaknesses, you can't. So they build, and invent, new weapons and vehicles as needed to exploit the weaknesses of the specific enemy they are facing in any given campaign. Got an alien race that is heavy on high-energy weapons but terrible in close combat? The Land Raider Achilles will get you close enough to rip them to shreds, and lay down serious firepower on the way.

The Ordo Reductor was officially created at the dawn of the Imperium, as part of the treaty that unified Holy Terra and Mars. Their explicit purpose was to destroy anyone or anything that might stand against the Great Crusade, i.e. anything that would actually put up enough of a fight that the Astartes Legions might have serious trouble with.

The Ordo Reductor would travel from warzone to warzone as the need for their special, murderous skills demanded. They traveled on ships that were effectively their own forges, and the Magos in charge treated the ship as such. The ships were specially outfitted to the needs/wants of the Magos and would have whatever facilities that Magos might need to best kill things, be it massive ammunition factories, tanks for growing special viruses, or special machinery for building Ordinatus weapons. Whatever they needed for the task at hand, they'd have.

During the Horus Heresy the Ordo had been divided among the various legions serving in their killing capacity as always. When it came to light that Horus betrayed the Emperor, they sided with the Emperor. I know, murder-happy adepts who handle super rare, deadly tech AND are allowed to innovate and invent stuff siding with the Emperor despite most of the Ordos siding with Horus sounds crazy, but they did. Why they did this is up for debate, however. The reasonable explanation is that they had been given their autonomy and special, forbidden weapons by Him, so Horus couldn't really offer anything they didn't already have. Of course, there is also the distinct possibility that the Ordo fought for the Emperor simply because they wanted to test out different ways to kill Astartes, and the Sons of Horus were supposed to be the best of the Astartes Legions, led by the best of the Primarchs... and it wouldn't do any good to test their theories against lesser Astartes under lesser Primarchs, now would it? Regardless of their reason, they fought for the Emperor when much of the Mechanicus sided with Horus, even fighting on Istivaan III and the Drop Site Massacre among the Loyalists.

They never existed in large numbers (the kinds of adepts who were attracted to this line of work were similar to the types drawn to the Inquisition: a problem to everyone around them when they're not directed towards something that needs killing) and were generally known for their actions during the Great Crusade, so there are some question as to whether or not they were still around in the 41st millennium. But apparently a demi-legion of theirs did oppose the Armless Failure on Cadia, so it seems there are still some of these murderous adepts floating around the Imperium, looking for things to destroy.