Lengthy Bumaro/Mekhanite lore ramblings beneath the cut!!!!! I love him a lot so my brain just churns out Words sometimes. All of these are just parts of my headcanon, which is an amalgamation of several canons.
1. Bumaro is a missing component of Mekhane. This is due to the fact he is the last pure remnant of Mekhane's ichor in existence. He is not aware that he is a missing component and only has a slight suspicion that Mekhane needs her ichor to be rebuilt.
2. The pre Bronze Age mekhanites, basically the beginnings of the cult, had fountains/wells of Mekhane's ichor. It was a finite resource and the early mekhanites treated the ichor wells as sacred objects. The best priests among them would drink from it, which was a common ritual, thus granting the immortality/effects Bumaro currently has. (For instance, 3221-2 is one of these early priests, though as his article entails, he walked a different path than the average mekhanite) However, these early priests would also surrender themselves back to the ichor in the name of Mekhane to restrenghten her, once they believed their knowledge had been sufficiently passed onto their successors.
3. In the passing years of the following bronze age, as societies began to really develop, the wells were often lost to history or dried up, due to excessive usage. As the Bronze Age mekhanite empire began to really build up their infrastructure/cities, the ichor of Mekhane was often used as an alloy to enhance infrastructure as well as bless and strengthen weapons. The art of drinking it died out with the early priests and the knowledge was pretty much forgotten, given the early mekhanites current lack of a method to physically store and pass knowledge. Due to its excessive usage in the big city states of mekhanite greece, it was extremely depleted, leaving only one well left guarded in the capital city beneath the forges, which was only used in the most dire of circumstances for emergencies. When the war came around, it was first used sparingly to help with weaponry, though once the sarkics really began to pose a legitimate threat, the fountain's usage increased to help with the construction of colossi/automatons/complicated machinery. It was also used in the construction of hedwig's ai. Due to its heavy usage and finitality, decades later it inevitably dried up.
3.5 Note: The Bronze Age mekhanite empire was a lot less culty and less devoted to rebuilding mekhane, though they still dutifully worshipped her. I like to think of the worship timeline like this: Early Mekhanites: understood that Mekhane shouldn't be rebuilt, didnt try, but faithfully worshipped her in hopes of strengthening her in her fight against Yaldabaoth. Bronze Age empire: that knowledge was a little lost on them, but they worshipped her all the same. This was when the first ideas of rebuilding her were introduced. Post Bronze Age: Different fragmented mekhanite groups all had varying beliefs until they were united and isolated in the three modern sects a few hundred years later. Modern Age: Bumaro and the current church are trying to rebuild mekhane, convinced that the notion Mekhane shouldn't be rebuilt is a lie of the FLESH. Trunnion and the orthodoxy believe mekhane needs to be restored for the universal machine (the universe) to be put back into balance. Hedwig and the maxwellists are convinced that building the hive mind and using internet tech will rebuild WAN but better.
4. In my headcanon, in the Bronze Age mekhanite empire, Bumaro was originally a scholar/student studying the history of the mekhanite people as well as the lore and all the stuff relating to Mekhane herself. At that time, he was also studying the holy artifacts hypothesized to be broken pieces of mekhane, which is why he knows about the existence of certain pieces in the later modern era. Bumaro had also been working on reconstructing fragmented and small texts of the early mekhanites which vaguely detailed the ichor drinking ritual. The immortality and transformative effects were known to him, though he was skeptical about their truth. After all, the lore of theology was often a bizarre mix of truth and falsity. Due to both his scholarly and familial status (only son of the family of one of the city state rulers), he had access to the well and because of his studies, he vaguely knew of its powers. Therefore, when things got desperate for the mekhanites, he decided to drink it in hopes of turning the war around.
4.5 note: 217 is a manufactured and imperfect replica of Mekhane's ichor, created by a much later group of mekhanites attempting to replicate it in hopes of gaining its mythological powers. Thus, Bumaro is literally the only source of pure ichor still left in existence
5. When bumaro finally reformed and escaped adytum through alagadda and entered back into the world, he was pretty unstable and only had one goal of rebuilding mekhane to ensure yaldabaoth stayed imprisoned and the archon dead (being barely alive and stuck within man made horrors beyond comprehension for a few thousand years kind of messed with him a little bit). Thus, he returned as a self proclaimed prophet of mekhane and easily seized power from the current church of the broken god, which had an oligarchical structure until he took over. Most members of the church easily accepted him given he seemed to match the ancient stories and could demonstrate his abilities. Oligarch members who were hesitant were either eventually convinced or discreetly killed.
6. Though rebuilding mekhane in 1945 was a failure and bumaro was rather enraged, he wasn't entirely stupid. After the catastrophe, he realized his mistake in haste and stepped back more into the shadows to begin a more methodical, long term plan for Mekhane's reconstruction. He wanted to gather more intel, especially about the modern world/foundation/other gois and amass a more powerful following in order to effectively bring about Mekhane's return. In the following decade he finally formerly met with Trunnion and later both of them encountered Hedwig/the maxwellists when they eventually emerged as a formidable power in the late 90s. Since then, bumaro's main goal of rebuilding mekhane has remained so and he will do whatever is necessary to achieve it.
7. However, in order for Mekhane to be rebuilt and function properly, Bumaro needs to consciously and effectively sacrifice himself to the cause, integrating himself, his ichor with Mekhane. He's absolutely willing to do that, except that he's unsure if its actually the truth since its merely rumored in old scripture and he wont take stupid chances and risk himself, knowing his valuability to Mekhane. The Mexico disaster occurred because of several artifacts that hadn't been retrieved, the faux manufactured heart/ichor, and the fact that bumaro didn't understand his sacrifice to Mekhane was a core component to her functionality.
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