The Machinist Directive is a human civilization consisting of the descendants of the passengers of a gigantic generation colony ship that was sent out before the invention of quantum phase shift coils and thus had no FTL capacity. The ship eventually reached its destination, the planet of Komenrisoh in a system many AUs away, which was supposed to be Earthlike, but turned out to be barely habitable, with poisonous atmosphere, 2.5G gravity, deadly weather phenomena and local wildlife that hunted humans despite not being able to digest them.
In the centuries it took the colonists to reach their destination, their society has, for unknown reasons, regressed into a tribal-based theocracy that worshipped technology in the form of a "Machine God" or "God-Machine" (this actually being a major distinction between the two most prominent interpretations of the holy texts) and believed that the inhabitants of Neva, humanity's homeworld, had unfairly persecuted them for their faith and, after a long and bloody war, cast them out. The machinists, as their faith goes, then built the "sacred ship", "Brilliant Destiny", which was supposed to deliver them into the electric paradise of the Machine God and set off on their interstellar journey. But when they descended from the bowels of their now-dead vessel and saw the world they were given, it was not heaven, but hell, where every day was full of danger and pain and death. Their God must have punished them, they thought, for failing to win the war they waged in his name, and consigned them to lives of suffering until they could master his sacred gift - technology - enough to build themselves forms stronger and more durable than the frail carcasses they inhabited. And so they did, after many more centuries of hadships and scientific advancement.
In their new, mighty biomechanical bodies, the mechanists feared nothing their planet held, and in his infinite grace, the Machine God has declared their sentence lifted by blessing one of his priest-researchers with schemes for a device that could make a star vessel outrun light itself! Now, housed in their mighty arcs and potected by legions of waships, the mechanists' Great Crusade is ready to return to Neva and raise the glorious banner of their Lord over the ruined cities of heathens and offer their broken bodies to Him in penance for their loss aeons ago! Let the heretics beware, for mechanists have long transcended weakness: their bones are bound by sacred steel, their muscles strengthened by carbon nanotubes, unfailing sensors give them sight and hearing, impregnable is their skin-armor, tireless is their advance, precise are their strikes and weapons, invincible is their will! Their minds know no fear or mercy, for scoured have been those imperfections by sacred psychosurgery! And under the command of their glorious preceptors, they will let noone escape their wrath!