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So assuming magic isn't technology are the Edar ahead or behind the curve in technology? The curve is the IoM.

Far ahead, and still nothing of what they used to be. They have the Webway, Craftworlds, Wraithbone, Soul Stones, anti-gravity technology and they're rumoured to have bio-engineered the Tau Ethereals.
The IoM say a prayer and sacrifice a goat to turn on the light switch.

The Eldar are able to actively harness and use the warp (Distort cannons, psychic disciplines) as lethal weapon systems; not mention the Imperium has gained it's laser technology from the Eldar. Despite this, the Eldar are still masters of the laser, even if they only represent roughly a 3rd of the codex weapons (Bright lances, Pulse lasers, Pulsars, Nova cannons, etc).

They are so advanced that things like the soulstones are more or less like a thumbdrive for the soul; wraithbone is a plastic that is shaped wholly by the mind and stronger then any metal. They have (at least) been able to create living starships in a sustainable way unlike the clumsy and often hodge-podged and recycled starcruisers of the Imperium.

The Eldar can be argued as THE most technologically advanced army in the game, runner up being the Tau. I thin they are ABOUT even, with the Tau advancing tech in a different direction than the Eldar with Tau tech being more overall and Eldar tech basically being for pure war purposes (for obvious reasons)

Yeah the IoM is not tech advanced at all really. They used to be, a lot, but the huge technophobia killed that. Most of their tech is really based on religion and old STC's of when they were tech advanced

The main reason for that phobia would have to do with the Men of Iron, you know? Nothing quiet like your servants and the backbone of the Old Empire rising up and selling you out Skynet style.

The Eldar tend toward the organic while the T'au lean toward particle. One is easily sustainable, the other powerful.

nomotog wrote:
So assuming magic isn't technology are the Edar ahead or behind the curve in technology? The curve is the IoM.

The Eldar don't use "magic", they use technology that is psychically-based. Producing stuff like this requires profound technological and mental abilities so yes, they're very high-tech, #2 to the Necrons.

The eldar are by far the most advanced. to the point we dont even recognize it as tech. while yes the Tau are advanced they still rely on their hands to activate everything, not their brains like the eldar. The only race that seems equal with IoM tech would be the orks, necrons are robots, tyranids need to atleast undertsand themselves and what to eat to make them more fit, meaning they have to understand the tech, even if it is useless they need to know what to eat.

 washout77 wrote:
The Eldar can be argued as THE most technologically advanced army in the game, runner up being the Tau. I thin they are ABOUT even, with the Tau advancing tech in a different direction than the Eldar with Tau tech being more overall and Eldar tech basically being for pure war purposes (for obvious reasons)

Yeah the IoM is not tech advanced at all really. They used to be, a lot, but the huge technophobia killed that. Most of their tech is really based on religion and old STC's of when they were tech advanced

I'd agree with this. Tau tech is more cold, hard, logical science-based, Eldar are much more arcane, as close to "space magic" as you can get. As for the IoM, yeah, their peak was the Dark Age of Tech and even then they were behind Eldar and Necrons. I'd say Eldar, Necrons and Tau are all on a sort-of comparable tech tier, with each being ahead of the others in certain branches and behind/the same in others.

Anti-grav technology is pretty badass, not to mention a diverse range of high-tech weapons each one designed with a specific function for killing. Pretty much neck and neck with the Tau

Eldar are a very old race and their tech has been refined over many many millenniums, but then these guys adopted alot of their tech from the old ones who are said to have been around since forever. So yeah, millions of years of technological advances sorta help them out but right now it looks like their at the end of the line in their development. Same goes for necrons cuz lets face it, those guys are tech themselves and super advance but they ain't doing sh*t now.
Tau IMO will probably become more advance than them because in 5'000 yrs they turned from cavemen to a serious threat upon all 40K races, in 5000 years humans created the iphone.
Course the imperium has some nifty sh*t like exterminatus, god sized starships,etc. Course those things work on prayer, so yeah.

The necrons and eldar are probably most advanced cuz of age, then comes the tau which if allowed will most likely overtake them, then the imperium but who cares right. Quantity has a quality of its own.

 Novelist47 wrote:
Eldar are a very old race and their tech has been refined over many many millenniums, but then these guys adopted alot of their tech from the old ones who are said to have been around since forever. So yeah, millions of years of technological advances sorta help them out but right now it looks like their at the end of the line in their development. Same goes for necrons cuz lets face it, those guys are tech themselves and super advance but they ain't doing sh*t now.
Tau IMO will probably become more advance than them because in 5'000 yrs they turned from cavemen to a serious threat upon all 40K races, in 5000 years humans created the iphone.
Course the imperium has some nifty sh*t like exterminatus, god sized starships,etc. Course those things work on prayer, so yeah.

The necrons and eldar are probably most advanced cuz of age, then comes the tau which if allowed will most likely overtake them, then the imperium but who cares right. Quantity has a quality of its own.

That is a good point about their tech. I guess the easiest way to do this would be like a kill/death ration only advancement/years. the eldar have seemed to top out their tech but are still aging so there ratio is dropping. as for the tau they are still young and advancing exponentially each day. so it does seem that the eldar are the most advanced but probably for not much longer.

in short. FOR THE GREATER GOOD!!

Items like soul stones or wrathbone feel more like magic then actual tech. The line I draw is that tech items can be made and used by a race that lacks pykers.

I would say that an argument could be made for eldar and necrons being on a similarly high tech tier, but the tau just aren't up there. Whilst they are highly advanced, far more so than the imperium, the necrons are capable of doing origami with time and space.

Im wondering if we need to set a new curve, the imperium has basically thrown themselves into being cavemen when it comes to new tech (if they understand they love it and borderline worship it, but when something they dont understand comes along it must be destroyed). and so you would have to choose a race that all other races could be fairly compared. as for the eldar, just because a fish cant use a computer does that mean its no longer tech?

gh05tdemon wrote:
Im wondering if we need to set a new curve, the imperium has basically thrown themselves into being cavemen when it comes to new tech (if they understand they love it and borderline worship it, but when something they dont understand comes along it must be destroyed). and so you would have to choose a race that all other races could be fairly compared. as for the eldar, just because a fish cant use a computer does that mean its no longer tech?

You could make a computer that a fish could use. Not sure what they would use it for, but nothing stops them from pushing keys.

nomotog wrote:

gh05tdemon wrote:
Im wondering if we need to set a new curve, the imperium has basically thrown themselves into being cavemen when it comes to new tech (if they understand they love it and borderline worship it, but when something they dont understand comes along it must be destroyed). and so you would have to choose a race that all other races could be fairly compared. as for the eldar, just because a fish cant use a computer does that mean its no longer tech?

You could make a computer that a fish could use. Not sure what they would use it for, but nothing stops them from pushing keys.

Fair point. ya your right it would be magic then.

I get your point about limiting "tech" to things operated by tactile motions, but I think that is too limited for 40k. I think the jump from our definition of technology to... let's call it "technosorcery" is not necessarily much bigger than the jump from mechanical to electronic technology. I imagine magic more as something that can be used with training/innate ability but not necessarily requiring complex, specialized equipment (oh man, that definition is so full of holes).

 Gul_Tekar wrote:
I get your point about limiting "tech" to things operated by tactile motions, but I think that is too limited for 40k. I think the jump from our definition of technology to... let's call it "technosorcery" is not necessarily much bigger than the jump from mechanical to electronic technology. I imagine magic more as something that can be used with training/innate ability but not necessarily requiring complex, specialized equipment (oh man, that definition is so full of holes).

You don't have to be born with pointy ears to be an electrician. That's kind of where I'm drawing the line. If you have to be a pyker to make or use it then it's magic. If you don't, then it's technology.

The Men of Iron debacle is a shoddy excuse for the Imperium's paranoia regarding A.I. The revolt happened during the Dark Age of Technology, for one, meaning that it was such an astronomically long time ago it's barely worth remembering. And for another, sine when do you go cold-turkey on something because you had a bad experience? The Horus Heresy was about a Space Marine army rising up against the Imperium and nearly destroying it. The Imperium hasn't ruled "we wil never make space marines again", though. Instead, they just provided harsher regulation (codex astartes), that prevented the Marines from becoming strong enough to commit another Heresy. They could have done the same thing with A.I.

The most truthful reason I can think of for why the Imperium hates AI is the reason why they hate most things; because collectively, the Imperium is stupid as hell.

I'd say that the Eldar and Necrons have a similar level of technology to one another.

The Tau are not really much more technologically advanced than the IoM, just their technology is more evenly distrubuted through society and better understood.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

The Tau are not really much more technologically advanced than the IoM, just their technology is more evenly distrubuted through society and better understood.

According to certain sources, the Tau is just as advanced as the Orks (or, to better say, the Orks are just as advanced, as the Tau). And if you think about this, what the heck has the Tau what the others don't (in terms of technology)? "Battlesuits" are commonplace (Imperial power armours), "railguns" are twenty-minutes-into-the-future tech (Eldar shuriken catapults are essentially hand-held, rapid firing railguns) aaaand... I can't recall anything else. On the other side, the Tau doesn't have: teleportation, lance weapons, city sized walkers, actual city walkers, artillery (LOL? LOL!), normal spaceships, and planet-killer weaponry.

So currently, the tech-ranking should be something like this:
- Necrons
- Eldar/Dark Eldar
- IoM/Tyranids
- Tau/Orks

 AtoMaki wrote:
Eldar shuriken catapults are essentially hand-held, rapid firing railguns

They are actually way more advanced than rail gus - there is no magnetic field (they use gravity manipulation) and the ammo is actually a solid core from which shurikens are "shaved" molecule thin before being fired.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Shuriken#.UM78h6yYLdg

the Tau doesn't have: teleportation, lance weapons, city sized walkers, actual city walkers, artillery (LOL? LOL!), normal spaceships, and planet-killer weaponry.

To be fair, the Tau don't have a need for the majority of those technologies, filling their roles with other technology, and while I am far from a Tau fanboy (though I do like the slightly darker turn they have taken more recently) I'd say that they could fairly easily build city walkers and so on. Unfortunately they do not have psykers and navigators of their own, but they ability to "convince" humans to join them grants them potential access to IoM ships to backwards engineer, as well as being able to start their own navigator houses.

So currently, the tech-ranking should be something like this:
- Necrons
- Eldar/Dark Eldar
- IoM/Tyranids
- Tau/Orks

I'd personally put Nids and Orks joint at the bottom and bump the Tau up with the IoM. Though the Tau and Nids both posess the ability to move up the table. The Crons and Eldar are pretty much stagnant in terms of society and technology.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
The Crons and Eldar are pretty much stagnant in terms of society and technology.

The problem with "stagnancy" and "backwardness" means little in this discussion. Progression and an open-minded attitude (fun fact: Orks andd 'nids have more of these by nature than the Tau) only benefits you when you are at an even level with the others, otherwise, you will just fight the same uphill battle where the stagnant Necrons can kill your whole empire by simply waving their hands (in the "sunkiller machine" at Thanatos).

 AtoMaki wrote:
The problem with "stagnancy" and "backwardness" means little in this discussion.

It wasn't means to be, it was an aside from my other comments that they were unlikely to develop technologically, other races have the capacity to change their position on the table over time/fluff.

Progression and an open-minded attitude (fun fact: Orks andd 'nids have more of these by nature than the Tau) only benefits you when you are at an even level with the others, otherwise, you will just fight the same uphill battle where the stagnant Necrons can kill your whole empire by simply waving their hands (in the "sunkiller machine" at Thanatos).

See your comment just above about it meaning little to the relative technological level as is

The Necrons are the most advanced race in the galaxy in a technological sense, followed by the Eldar and Dark Eldar, with DE arguably being more advanced than the normal Eldar. The Necrons have superior technology than the Old Ones of... Well, old, the very beings who created the Eldar race.

@ AtoMaki: Sunkiller machine?

Also, I always lol at the notion that the Eldar weaponry is so much more advanced than normal railguns due to GRAVITEH!!!111!!11!

Gravity is the weakest universal force. Second strongest? Electromagnetism. So... Yeah.

Categorising the Orks is difficult for two reasons:

1. All of their technology is in some fashion tilted towards making war.

2. RESULTS MAY VARY.

They have achieved some truly incredible feats of Orky engineering, but typically they are incredibly random in their useage. The Shokk Attak Gun is the most pronounced example. Truly an incredible weapon... When it doesn't kill you.

Orky ingenuity is not to be underestimated. I mean, using Snotlings as missile guiding systems? GENIUS. Efficient to the point of absurdity, Snotlings grow by the dozens daily, they are an inexhaustible resource.

Also, Tau aren't really more advanced than the Imperium. More efficient? Yeah. But the Imperium has overall more impressive technology at its disposal.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

It wasn't means to be, it was an aside from my other comments that they were unlikely to develop technologically, other races have the capacity to change their position on the table over time/fluff.

I would say that the Nercrons and the Eldar probably reached their peak in terms of technological advancement: one of them killed a couple of Gods with their tech, and the others ruled the galaxy for 60 million years with their tech...

 SilverMK2 wrote:

See your comment just above about it meaning little to the relative technological level as is

And the galaxy remains lucky (Orks with a "reasonable progression" or 'nids with "not-OMNOMNOM focused progression would be kinda' OP) .

@ AtoMaki: Sunkiller machine?

Yeah, some uber-powerful stuff that turns suns into supernovas. The "Celestial Orrery".

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Also, I always lol at the notion that the Eldar weaponry is so much more advanced than normal railguns due to GRAVITEH!!!111!!11!

Gravity is the weakest universal force. Second strongest? Electromagnetism. So... Yeah.

Strength of force =/= being more high tech

We have working rail guns today and plenty of other electromagnetic technology but have yet to even touch on any kind of gravity based technology. Besides which, when generating these forces, their "strength" in general doesn't really matter

And when dealing with fiction, it is like saying that "magic" is really weak in the real world, therefore the IoM should be able to close off the EoT with some masking tape

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I'd say that the Eldar and Necrons have a similar level of technology to one another.

The Tau are not really much more technologically advanced than the IoM, just their technology is more evenly distrubuted through society and better understood.

This. The most advanced Imperial technology is way beyond the most advanced Tau tech.

Assuming there is no such thing as magic in 40k, yeah it's waaaaay ahead of IoM's.

Pshaw! All you people are GO ELDAR! or GO TAU!. The true masters of technology are the Necrons, whether the oldcrons (been reading up on them; but I still don't really care either way) or the newcrons, and the Golden Age of Technology Humans, who obtained their technology by passive influence from the C'tan Star God known as the Void Dragon.