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One thing bother me with early days of Humanity. Mankind was once technologically more advanced even from the Tau, and what happened to that technology? I understand some of it has been lost to wars etc. but Earth was the center of it, and it was almost to the level of middle ages when the Emperor started his unification.To me it's impossible to lost technology that was present on more than million worlds in less than 15.000 years. So what happened to it?

The human had a big war against robots that wanted to control them instead. Since then the imperium fear all technology that can think for itself, thats why they also honor the machine spirit so it wont attack them.

The Mechanicum on Mars made sure they control :

- which tech is used
- how tech is used

in their efforts to claim all Tech, nobody outside the Ad Mech is allowed to invent tech or alter it.
You need a lot of influence to ignore the demands of the mechanicum.

In the latest installment of the HH:
- a organization is founded to collect and preserve tech
- but is later rolled into the Administratum, and they keep things but tend to just store them instead of granting access to.
- ever seen the process of filling the correct forms to gain access to any file in the Administratums hold? Generations have lived and died before an answer was given..

It wasn't back to the Middle Ages. The factions on Earth still had advanced technology, and the Tech-Priests on Mars still had a BUNCH of advanced technology, but thanks to all the wars that raged across the Imperium, not to mention daemonic incursions and alien attacks, the tech base on SOME worlds was ground down to stone age level.

However, this was not true on all worlds. Some planets still maintained the ridiculously high level of technology that humanity had at its height. Of course, those worlds didn't really want to bow down and worship the Emperor so more was lost there. Finally, during the Horus Heresy, it was mentioned that a great tech library on Mars had been destroyed in the fighting, so that probably accounts for a bunch more tech there.

Yup, plus much of the blue prints, instruction manuals etc were stored on computers which over time suffered data degredation-ie if no one debugs a system in a few thousand years, if it even still has power, or hasn't been destoryed by natural causes or the like, what state do you think the data'll be in? If people don't know how to use tech, or have no need to use it, it'll quickly degrade or be broken down for parts too. Civil war had gripped humanity in the centuaries of its isolation and thus tech was neglected, non military, or destroyed ina lot of cases. If there weren't people actually going out of their way to record that tech, there wouldn't be much left, despite a few worlds having remained at a relatively high technological level by the start of the great crusade. Anyone who creates new tech outside of the Mechanicum is deemed a techno heretic, thus any world that had kept non Imperial tech, and built upon it, would have all that destroyed so as to prevent the spread of heresy. Maccrage still has a relatively high technological grade, and it should be noted that there is at least a few STC libraries out there that have been hidden from the Mechanicum for various reasons.

=P

What you really have to bear in mind is that the Age of Strife, brought about by the nascent Slaanesh, unleashed daemonic incursions across Human space and caused widespread insanity.

With the majority of Human worlds cut off from all other human worlds the priority was survival and so the advanced culture and technology Humanity had developed was largely sacrificed to withstand the horrors of Old Night.

It goes without saying that worlds like Earth, with teeming populations relying on imports from other worlds in order to remain sustainable suffered enormously as society collapsed and the survivors battled amongst the wreckage for whatever they could salvage.

Of course, as we have seen in the Horus Hersy series there remained some quite advanced Human worlds, these may have simply retained their level of technology they could even have continued to advance but any case they were more technologically advanced and proficient than most worlds brought into Compliance with the Imperium.

An interesting quote from Ere We Go can be found in a brief description of Human Adventurers that often fight alongside Orks. It says that for every world of the Imperium there are perhaps ten Human worlds lost in the void, independant Human colonies who know nothing of the Emperor or even of such numerous aliens as the Orks. If that is the case then the Imperium may not even represent the average technological level of Human worlds, we only know that technological understanding in the Imperium has regressed but it could well be much more advaned on those lost Human worlds.

Brother Coa wrote:One thing bother me with early days of Humanity. Mankind was once technologically more advanced even from the Tau, and what happened to that technology? I understand some of it has been lost to wars etc. but Earth was the center of it, and it was almost to the level of middle ages when the Emperor started his unification.To me it's impossible to lost technology that was present on more than million worlds in less than 15.000 years. So what happened to it?

Ancient Eygpt had the knowledge to build pyramids, the Ancient Eygptian empire fell and that knowledge was lost. This is one of thousands of examples of real world loss of technology and knowledge, it has happened alot.

Many worlds relied on trade to support themselves, with the warp storms trade was made near impossible, so for the worlds that could not support and maintain themselves as is they slowly lose the tech and knowledge they had.

So the technology was lost because of warp storms and because Humanity fear of AI rampage?
OK, I understand that but why they don't continue technological advancement? Like: building more advanced and stronger void shield that can raise it's shields across the entire planet? Or try to break down warp barrier and then they wont need Astronomican or warp realm? Or they research the wabways to unlock technology of massive teleportation around the galaxy?....
Therew are just the examples of what they can research without being tagged as heretics. I mean, Mechanicus on Mars is the most advanced organisation of the Imperium, why they don't research new stuff if they point that there is no threat to Humans?
And finally, if they are scared of AI - why keep the Titans? They are AI connected to the Human pilot, and there is always a possibility for one Titan to go rampage. So why keep them?

Because Titans are awesome, but in all seriousness, they believe that the Titan isn't sentient, but just that its machine spirit is very, very powerful. The Imperium is weird like that...it approves of technology that has the machine spirit, which often seems like a form of AI, but does not approve of AI itself. Odd.

And the reasons the Mechanicus doesn't do anymore research is because to the Mechanicus, researching itself can be heresy. Their goal is ro find and recover the technology from the Dark Age, since humanity was at its peak then, and had 'perfect' technology. Devoting time to research instead of trying to find more lost STCs or whatever is viewed as you saying you can build something better than what humanity had in the Dark Age of Technology. And that's heresy.

The Machine Spirit is in essence the soul of the machine, that's why the Mechanicus use litanys and chants to appease the spirit of the Machine to make stuff work. Artificial Intelligence is soulless and abhorred by the AdMech.

Ok so from what little I've read and what others have posted I think we have a combination of

1. A lack of technological knowlege by the vast majority of humanity, facilitated by dependance on the STC systems and the Mechanicum

2. Loss of technological knowledge during to the rampant chaos of the Age of Strife

3. An inability to dedicate the necessary resources to persuing significant technological advancement

4. An atmosphere of disdain for the idea of technological advancement as a whole

Brother Coa wrote:So the technology was lost because of warp storms and because Humanity fear of AI rampage?
OK, I understand that but why they don't continue technological advancement? Like: building more advanced and stronger void shield that can raise it's shields across the entire planet? Or try to break down warp barrier and then they wont need Astronomican or warp realm? Or they research the wabways to unlock technology of massive teleportation around the galaxy?....
Therew are just the examples of what they can research without being tagged as heretics. I mean, Mechanicus on Mars is the most advanced organisation of the Imperium, why they don't research new stuff if they point that there is no threat to Humans?
And finally, if they are scared of AI - why keep the Titans? They are AI connected to the Human pilot, and there is always a possibility for one Titan to go rampage. So why keep them?

Because in the IoM science and technology is no longer science and technology, its a religion. A religion that is very dogmatic, which leads to a stagnation of belief and a fear of the new.

Mars owns and controls nearly all tech in the IoM and as a whole see research as heritical and percieve the old data files of the dark age of technology as relics and the only true and pure technology.

In fairness the AdMech do advance tech. But the ones that do it are considered strange and weird even by the standards of the AdMech. So basically it takes decades for even small advances.

Brother Coa wrote:OK, I understand that but why they don't continue technological advancement?

As already pointed out in the thread Human worlds did come through the Age of Strife with advanced technologies, possibly due to continued research and development. However the point is that Human space was ravaged. They underwent their own Skynet meltdown, the rise of psykers and the nascent Slaanesh allowed daemonic incursions and widespread madness (madness on a galactic scale not being entirely conducive to progress) and many worlds fell to alien domination. The result was a Mad Max state of affairs where the survivors of this holacaust were largely unable to progress, surviving was just too damn tough to worry about anything else.

Like: building more advanced and stronger void shield that can raise it's shields across the entire planet?

The Imperium has void shields that can cover cities and these are rare and powerful. You assume it is possible to void shield an entire planet, it may not be and if it was it might not be practical or safe. As I mentioned earlier, many human worlds and even Empires remain unaware of the Imperium and vice versa, these worlds may well have just such advanced technology.

Or try to break down warp barrier and then they wont need Astronomican or warp realm?

I'm not sure what you mean here but in terms of pre-Age of Strife Humanity these feats were not possible and during the Age of Strife almost literally impossible.

Or they research the wabways to unlock technology of massive teleportation around the galaxy?....

It would seem that only the Emperor was aware of the webway, even Magnus was only dimly aware of its existence and when he was fully aware of the nature of the webway accidentily destroyed the Emperor's plans to harness it.

I mean, Mechanicus on Mars is the most advanced organisation of the Imperium, why they don't research new stuff if they point that there is no threat to Humans?

The Mechancius do research new things but mainly this research is not discussed because it is taboo and largely heretical to say that Humans could invent new things. What you must keep in mind is that the Mechanicus is a religious order, they believe that the Machine God has already created everything, they just need to re-discover it. This precludes much advancement or reverse engineering because you can't invent what has already been invented and you cannot so easily dismantle a machine which, to you, is a living thing with a soul linked to your god.

And finally, if they are scared of AI - why keep the Titans? They are AI connected to the Human pilot, and there is always a possibility for one Titan to go rampage. So why keep them?

Titans do not possess AI. Like a lot of machines which appear to have AI they are in fact powered by incredibly advanced computers and organic components, giving them a living intelligence rather than a purely mechanical facsimile. Then of course the process of linking a human consciousness to a Titan results in echoes of the Princeps and to a certain extent the other crew members remaining within the Titan's logic engines providing it with an even more liflelike personality but one which is not AI. To the Mechanicus Titans are the living embodiment of the Machine God, avatars worthy of reverence and not mere technological constructs.

They abandoned all technology apart from the weapons of war in the struggles before the emperor. Hence why the imperium has by far the best ships (bar possiibly the Necrontyr), by far the most advanced personal defense technology (Look at the size of a battlesuit compared to a suit of power armour) and arguably the best weapons. Other facets of technology were neglected; the fabrication facilities were mostly destroyed or just plundered for anything that could be weaponized (Terminator armour for example). The rest can be explained by a general mistrust of technology, that is perhaps ingrained in human genetics by the 41st Millenium. As for the machine spirit it is not AI just basic programming. The emperor made some effort to educate these 'Techno barbarians' using his knowledge of genetics and psychic theory.

I must say, the imperium does not have better technology than the entire eldar race.

Tmonster wrote:I must say, the imperium does not have better technology than the entire eldar race.

Hmn, well humanity had different forms of technology than the eldar, so its all about technological levels really. At each of their heights I'd say that the Eldar would come out on top, but its all about perspective.

Gogsnik wrote:'m not sure what you mean here but in terms of pre-Age of Strife Humanity these feats were not possible and during the Age of Strife almost literally impossible.

Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive_(Star_Trek)
This is also possible in real world and in theory it is possible. And in theory it's like Necron phasing - you can be anywhere in galaxy in a matter of hours.

And thanks you for answering me, you have been very helpful.

But one thing still amuse me, you say only the Emperor knows about webways - well he build one. And it's right beneath the golden throne and it's big enough for Titan Warhound to go through it. Why Mechanicus use that technology to build another one? I mean, technology is not heretical, not new, and build by Emperor himself. So why not build another than use it to better secure the Imperium?

And Mechanicus heresy of technological advancement is just idiocy. Like some Techpriest can't say: "The Omnissiah thinks that this Tau pulse rifle should not be destroyed before examined to use that power output on Lasguns to give our brave solders fighting chance on the battlefield". Or they can at least put that aside until they find a way to fix the Golden Throne.

Because a very powerfull psyker needs to keep the gate to the human webway sections open, and the emperium only seem to have one, and he has sat on a giant golden throne for a couple of years.... http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Webway

1hadhq wrote:in their efforts to claim all Tech, nobody outside the Ad Mech is allowed to invent tech or alter it.
You need a lot of influence to ignore the demands of the mechanicum.

Indeed, usually only Inquisitors (who are an authority in and of themselves), Space Marines (who are revered and respected, as well as highly independent), and the Ecclesiarchy (which strangely enough has a strong interest in the field of Chemistry) can probably get away with it.

Brother Coa wrote:
But one thing still amuse me, you say only the Emperor knows about webways - well he build one. And it's right beneath the golden throne and it's big enough for Titan Warhound to go through it. Why Mechanicus use that technology to build another one? I mean, technology is not heretical, not new, and build by Emperor himself. So why not build another than use it to better secure the Imperium?

Because humanity wasn't able to replicate the warp resistant wraithbone needed to build the webway, and as such the human sections have to be protected by an extremely powerful psyker, and the only psyker powerful enough to do that kind of thing is the Emperor, who is a bit preoccupied at the moment.

As far as the lasgun thing, you forget that the Imperium doesn't SEE the lasgun as weak or useless. Remember, most people the IG fight against are regular humans who happen to be rebelling against the Imperium, or more rarely have turned to Chaos. Even when fighting Chaos, Imperial Guardsmen are more likely to be fighting traitor Guardsmen, or just plain cultists instead of Chaos Marines, and against these enemies the lasgun is effective enough. Saying that the lasgun is bad because it has a hard time hurting Marines or big Tyranid monstrosities is like saying that an assault rifle sucks because it won't let a basic infantryman take down a main battle tank or elephant. Yeah, it's true, but either we've got weapons who full time job is killing such things, or it's so unlikely you'll face the opponent that it's really not a design consideration fro the weapon.

Not to mention, the lasgun, like the bolter, is a symbol of mankinds dominance. Modifying it with xenos technology is the height of heresy.

They don't see it as useless because it isn't. The memetic weakness of the lasgun is not actually present in the fluff, where a lasgun can shoot almost any race's arms off in one shot-- even Marines if they aren't in armor.

Lasguns are incredibly powerful and useful weapons, their balance in tabletop isn't actually representative of what they are like in the lore.

Well shot guns, and slug throwing rifles have the same strength of the las-gun. Meaning the las-gun is about as powerful as a standard issue assault rifle. It is a mass produced soldiers weapon.

Brother Coa wrote:

Gogsnik wrote:'m not sure what you mean here but in terms of pre-Age of Strife Humanity these feats were not possible and during the Age of Strife almost literally impossible.

Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive_(Star_Trek)
This is also possible in real world and in theory it is possible. And in theory it's like Necron phasing - you can be anywhere in galaxy in a matter of hours.

4OK fluff isn't defined by another franchise's fluff, so its a very bad example.

Brother Coa wrote:But one thing still amuse me, you say only the Emperor knows about webways - well he build one. And it's right beneath the golden throne and it's big enough for Titan Warhound to go through it. Why Mechanicus use that technology to build another one? I mean, technology is not heretical, not new, and build by Emperor himself. So why not build another than use it to better secure the Imperium?

Without whaithbone the human segment of the webway (the Emperor didn't try to make a webway, just create a on ramp to the existing one) it needed constant psychic protection and only a few humans could withstand it. Seeing as the Emperor is slowly fading away and most of his energy is taken up by maintaining the lighthouse there is no way the connection can be constructed and maintained.

poontangler wrote:Well shot guns, and slug throwing rifles have the same strength of the las-gun. Meaning the las-gun is about as powerful as a standard issue assault rifle. It is a mass produced soldiers weapon.

No it just means in-game they are the same strength. In fluff they can do pretty horrendous things to a person.

He is right that the lasgun is a mass produced soldier's weapon, which is what most Guardsman need. A reliable, easy to use weapon. To use a real world analogy, a lasgun is like an AK-47. It's simple to use, easy to maintain, and ammunition is plentiful. Does it have all the fancy doodads and other things that could let one soldier take on a tank and win? No, but do mass soldiers really NEED that? Again, no. The lasgun is fine for what it does, and to the Imperium, making the lasgun more difficult to maintain/use would just make Imperial Guardsmen more difficult to raise....and that's the last thing they want.

Lasguns are basically lascannons except portable and less effective. But not like (We suck) its just powerful and its basically a shot of pure light the lasgun is very reliable it just sucks in game terms.
Hell the bolter isn't as good as it should be according to the lore.

Technology of the imperium is constantly improving its just moving so slow. Like one of my more famous quotes. "The Imperium does progress in technology. Like that of a slowed Slug "

Brother Coa wrote:
Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive_(Star_Trek)
This is also possible in real world and in theory it is possible. And in theory it's like Necron phasing - you can be anywhere in galaxy in a matter of hours.

Well, according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity it is not possible to exceed the speed of light. I wouldn't want to disparage those people who have certainly put a lot of time and effort into excusing the Star Trek universes FTL drives but I will counter the Star Trek universe and the problems of FTL with Joe Haldeman's The Forever War where the time dilation of using FTL drives means that each time the soldiers return home to Earth, decades, centuries and eventually millennia have passed, a much more accurate portrayal of FTL.

In any case, the Warhammer 40,000 universe has only one race that was capable of produing FTL drives, the Necrons and even during its Golden Age of technological advancement and discovery Humanity never achieved this.

But one thing still amuse me, you say only the Emperor knows about webways - well he build one. And it's right beneath the golden throne and it's big enough for Titan Warhound to go through it.

The Old Ones created the webway and they were the masters of the Warp. The Emperor, whilst supremely powerful was only able to break into a section of the webway, His efforts are akin to making an entrace in the hull of a ship with a gas axe and those efforts were still only known to Him.

Why Mechanicus use that technology to build another one? I mean, technology is not heretical, not new, and build by Emperor himself. So why not build another than use it to better secure the Imperium?

Because Magnus intrusion destroyed much of the complex mechanisms of the Golden Throne, to such an extent that even the Emperor could not repair them. Besides which, this isn't like taking apart a toaster and trying to reverse engineer it, it is a level of technology beyind the understanding of Humans, even the Mechanicus.

And Mechanicus heresy of technological advancement is just idiocy. Like some Techpriest can't say: "The Omnissiah thinks that this Tau pulse rifle should not be destroyed before examined to use that power output on Lasguns to give our brave solders fighting chance on the battlefield". Or they can at least put that aside until they find a way to fix the Golden Throne.

Again, what we are discussing here are the fervently held beliefs of an extremely boroque priesthood where the understandng of underlying technical and scientific principles is virtually non-existent in the ordianry members of the priesthood and knowledge is preserved only in the form of ceremony and ritual. The Mechanicus do research and invent new technologies but you must understand that to the Mechanicus all technology has already been created so to say that they can invent something new is like saying the Machine God wasn't able to create it and so it takes centuries and often millennia of debate for the Mechanicus to actually produce something new.

Where dealing with alien technology it is seen as inherently corrupt with the ability to pollute Humans and Human technology. This is obviously irrational but the religious doctrines of the Cult Mechanicus, the way in which Human technology is venerated and anthropomorphised makes this a very real and dangerous threat as well as being an affront to the Machine God. Afterall, if it is presumptuous for Humans to believe they can create new technology then anything some filthy xenos degenerate might have come up with is beyond the pale.

Gogsnik wrote:Snippy mcsnip snip

Loved the Forever war series.
Although didn't they basically use a slingshot?
And the Webway (As i understand it) is half way between the warp and real-space and is very hard (Read:Impossible) to get into without a gate built for the purpose.

I know I've seen references to mechanicus research facilities devoted to inventing new technology, and that any inventions have to be thoroughly vetted before they can even begin to be considered for actual deployment (throw in distribution and production issues with something the scale of the Imperium, and the fact that even if vetted as "non-heretical" most organizations will just stick with what they know, and I can see new technology not really ever getting into distribution on a meaningful scale). Then there's the general portrayal of mechanicus priests as suicidally interested in any technology they can get their hands on, even when it's quite blatantly of xeno origins (particularly necron technology), and facilities dedicated to researching blatantly heretical items (like necron technology)...


Really, even in gameplay terms lasguns aren't pea shooters, there's just a lot of weapons that are even more destructive than they are. As an aside, on thinking about the matter, space marines don't seem much different from the fluff either, it's just that the ones starring in books carry a few hundred metric tons of plot armor around with them, and if they let that slip for even a second they get eviscerated in the blink of an eye, revealing just how fragile they actually are.