From the introduction: Even at the height of mankind's golden age, Mars stood apart as the center of technological and scientific study within their galaxy-spanning civilization. When warp storms ended humanity's golden age and cast other men into barbarism, and a period of anarchy saw Mars' terraforming undone and much turned to ruin, the Martians worked to hold on to what they could and rebuild. Over time, the preservation of past glories slowly turned into the worship of all things that held knowledge. Thus were the seeds sown of what would one day become the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Cult of the Machine God.