MachinistsReport
English：Machinists · Factions
The scholars of World's End. They research the history of the world, recover lost technology, and then write it all down and give it away. They cannot survive outside their own walls, so everything beyond them is handled by the Tech Hunters.
The University of Machinists is an organisation of scholars devoted to two things: researching the history of the world, and recovering lost technologies. Crucially, what they recover they do not hoard — the point is to share it and improve other people's lives.
Their method of distribution is very concrete: they put it in books. A substantial share of the lore volumes you can pick up in Kenshi came off this production line.
World's End
The Machinists are based in World's End, on a mountaintop at the western end of the Arm of Okran.
The location is a story in itself: that is Holy Nation land, and the Holy Nation's attitude towards technology is well known. The Machinists put two statues resembling Okran outside the door and passed religious inspection — a university studying ancient machinery, operating inside a nation that regards machinery as blasphemy.
Who is inside
Finch
Finch heads the Machinists — a brilliant Hive Prince scientist. He is not a recruitable companion.
Iyo
Iyo is Finch's "assistant" — Finch's own word for it, though Iyo is pretty intelligent in his own right. Iyo is a P4 Unit Skeleton with diplomatic status, found in the Science HQ at World's End.
All of the university's external business goes through him. The player can talk to Iyo and ask questions about the Science HQ and what they do there.
Iyo is also an author behind many of the Tech Hunter's Notes Series — those notes scattered through the ruins come from here.
The division of labour with the Tech Hunters
The Machinists' relation with the Tech Hunters is +100 — among the highest in the game.
The reason is practical: scholars cannot survive out there.
Ancient ruins hold Security Spiders, Broken Skeletons and the Old Machines; clearing a Lost Armoury takes combat and lockpicking, not academic training. So the Machinists outsource the dangerous half: Tech Hunters collect the artifacts and scour the ruins, and the Machinists decipher, record and publish.
That division also explains the character of World's End as a town — simultaneously a university and an explorers' supply post.
Membership
Machinists have a chance of spawning as the following races (relative chance):
| Race | Relative chance |
|---|---|
| Greenlander | 100 |
| Scorchlander | 100 |
| Hive Prince | 20 |
| Skeletons | 10 |
| Shek | 5 |
An organisation that takes Greenlanders, Scorchlanders, Hivers, Skeletons and Shek alike is rare in Kenshi — especially one headquartered inside Holy Nation territory. Here, scholarship as an identity outranks race.
Who wrote all those books
Fandom's trivia offers an inference: the three principal authors of Kenshi's history books — Atticus, Idad and Sabina — are most probably (or were) Machinists.
The game never says so. But if it holds, then most of the world-building knowledge a player picks up in the ruins originated in that mountaintop university at World's End.