Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Brother Coa wrote:
STC is only blueprint on how making stuff. AM consider it "blueprints from the Machine God" and that is why it is considered "pinnacle of Human capability". It would be like someone say "Book is the pinnacle of Human capability", and we send Men to Moon like several times. Eldar are more advanced than Humanity - but don't know how their stuff works ( because they inherited all of that from the Old Ones ), while Mankind created all of it's tech alone. And + we have no info about real Human tech at that time ( for all we know they could had Portal Gun back then ) and that is why we can't say for sure that Mankind had worse technology then Eldar.

It might be the blueprint but the technology that was created from this is still the best. That's why it's so sought after by the Admech, not all of the STC systems have Blueprints, some have been reversed engineered. You can summarize the greatest human achievements in a book, why not it's greatest tech?

Some other bits on STCs

The objective of the STC systems was to provide all the technical information needed to construct anything that settlers might need. The user simply asked how to build a bolter, tractor, house or whatever, and the computer supplied the details for fabrication. STC systems would calculate the constructional loads placed on locally-available materials, work out the depths of foundations, define the means of manufacture and assembly, and present the most efficient ways of achieving what it was the settler asked.

The STCs are often said to embody the sum total of human knowledge. This is probably true as far as technical accomplishment goes. Although most colonists required little more than designs for agricultural machinery, programs were included for all sorts of advanced constructions such as nuclear power grids and fission reactors. However, the early colonists' needs were simple and were met by conventional energy forms and relatively low-level technology.

The Eldar don't know how the Webway works, the rest of it I'm pretty sure know how most of their other stuff does.

The Eldar don't know how Wrathbone works. And almost all is made from it.

STC is the "the best" because it can story the knowledge for a very long time. Like we making a book and the book last 25.000 years. It is not the gratest achivment in technology dough - Gellar fields and Warp Drive is.

Brother Coa wrote:The Eldar don't know how Wraithbone works. And almost all is made from it.

This must be a retcon then as WD 127 Seems to give a rather good explanation as to how it works and what the Eldar do with it.

A spirit stone is a tool which allows a Bonesinger to draw raw energy from the warp and shape it into matter. The matter created in this way is called Wraithbone, and it can be psychically teased and manipulated by the Bonesinger into almost any form he wishes

Brother Coa wrote:STC is the "the best" because it can story the knowledge for a very long time. Like we making a book and the book last 25.000 years. It is not the gratest achivment in technology dough - Gellar fields and Warp Drive is.

The database isn't the greatest achievement, it's whats included in the database that is. More than likely Warp Drives and Gellar fields were created from templates that were included in the STC system.

insaniak wrote:

sirrah wrote:Huh? The Fall is what triggered the warpstorms that brought about the Age of Strife.

No, the Fall is what ended the Age of Strife.

From Codex: Eldar:

"Ten thousand years before the Fall, the Warp was riven with storm and tempest. This made it almost impossible for Human spacecraft to travel between the stars. With the birth of the Great Enemy the Warp was temporarily calmed, its rage all but spent. A new equilibrium was reached as Slaanesh joined the ranks of the Chaos gods. With the Warp storms around ancient Terra dispersed, Human worlds throughout the galaxy were again brought into contact once more. During the Great Crusade that followed, the Emperor brought Humanity together and forged the Imperium of Man. In this way, the death of the Eldar heralded the birth of the Imperium, and Mankind inherited the stars."

Codex: Space Marines has the same info, although written from more of an Imperial point of view. As far back as 2nd edition at least, that's been how it fit together.

As English Assassin said, the birth of Slaanesh ended the storms and permitted the start of the Great Crusade, but the Fall is what brought about the storms in the first place, and was one of the main contributing factors to the end of Humanity's peak. The death of the Eldar may have heralded the birth of the Imperium, but the Imperium is a shadow of what mankind was during the DAoT.

The Fall and Slaanesh's birth were simultaneous.

Ugly Green Trog wrote:Ok so I have always assumed that it was the fall of the Eldar that allowed Humanity to spread unchecked throughout the stars before the period of warp storms came and isolated all the human worlds and triggered the near collapse of the human empire only averted by the events following the end of old night ie th unification war and the start of the great crusade. However recent fluff suggests that the time between the fall and the start of the great crusade was much much closer together, My question is how did humanity spread so far previously then if the eldar were all but masters of the galaxy as they are reported to have been? I know the galaxy is a big place but the Eldar Empire/homeworld is centralized on the EoT which isn't that far from Terra, why would the eldar have let humanity spread out unchecked like that if these events are much closer together?

1. Human Diasprosa began much earlier. Human had learned to colonize different worlds by then. and I believed that human Interstella empire--which based on Terra, existed long before IoM. but it's not really a focus of 40k. who knows maybe those 'empires' are really a resemblance to 16th-18th century European nations. not a single-centralized nation states like what IoM is.
2. Mankind did also suffer by the fall of Eldar. the Age of Strife began with the fall of eldar. and it comes with immediate galaxy-wide Warpstorms. cutting off human trade route, and neccessities. (by then. Terra is heavy depended on off-world resources, so this brought the end of many 'pre-Imperium' nation states as well.
3. I THINK eldar civilizations have spanned throughout the Milky Way and beyond. Apart of the EoT. there's few more smaller 'rifts' throughout this galaxy, look at Maelstorm. (but i don't know how do those smaller rifts take shape? was that rift also ruins of Eldar civilizations too?). By the time of Human Diasprosa. (Age of Tech) Eldars did not really care much about 'us' beyond that of either
- trade partner
- slaves (no wonder why Dark Eldar loves to raid human worlds)
by then Eldar society was very 'full of vices' ... maybe think of Tiberius Romans or 'American soceity' today... the 'pious' eldar was looked down by many. I'm not sure if those eldars had left their homeworld to live somewhere far away from the decadency.

this is wha I know... for now..

The Eldar empire was throughout the galaxy and concentrated in what is now the Eye of Terror. The Age of Strife and Fall were unrelated. The Fall removed the Warp Storms preventing humanity leaving Terra.

The STC's are not any where near the peak of Human technology at the time.

as i understand it whislt in the golden age some smarty though that he should make basic blue prints of basic technology incase a wolrd it cut off and cannot use tech

(warning metaphore)

think of it like this

say USA and china are not getting on so well and nuclear war looks imminant.

same brainy details the basic firing mechanism of a rifle (i.e. the fireing pin and the solid cartages rifleing ect)

the nukes go off and just about destroys humanity and we are plunged back to the stone age

People are living (and fighting) with sticks and rocks.

someone finds this scematic which is so far advanced for there time frame and is able to make some copys.

however this basic scematic of a rifle shows nothing of the Rail guns the US is currently developing or the laser guided missles

do you see my point?

(i know it was a bit long winded)

JamesMclaren123 wrote:The STC's are not any where near the peak of Human technology at the time.

as i understand it whislt in the golden age some smarty though that he should make basic blue prints of basic technology incase a wolrd it cut off and cannot use tech

The STCs supposedly contained all of humanity's technological knowledge, even advanced theoretical information irrelevant to most colonists, according to the Codex Imperialis. Known STC designs are evidently varied in sophistication, since they include items which are essentially 20th century technology (shotguns, motorbikes) as well as creations far beyond present day science (anti-gravity devices, plasma reactors).

Regardless of whether the known STC printouts are representative of the most advanced technologies know at the time of their creation (presumably not, on the basis of the Castigator titan) it would be a significant and unsupported inference to presume golden age human technology to be equivalent to that of the Eldar - a culture established to have been older than mankind by innumerable millennia and which had access to the scientific secrets of the Slann/Old Ones.

English Assassin wrote:

JamesMclaren123 wrote:The STC's are not any where near the peak of Human technology at the time.

as i understand it whislt in the golden age some smarty though that he should make basic blue prints of basic technology incase a wolrd it cut off and cannot use tech

The STCs supposedly contained all of humanity's technological knowledge, even advanced theoretical information irrelevant to most colonists, according to the Codex Imperialis. Known STC designs are evidently varied in sophistication, since they include items which are essentially 20th century technology (shotguns, motorbikes) as well as creations far beyond present day science (anti-gravity devices, plasma reactors).

Regardless of whether the known STC printouts are representative of the most advanced technologies know at the time of their creation (presumably not, on the basis of the Castigator titan) it would be a significant and unsupported inference to presume golden age human technology to be equivalent to that of the Eldar - a culture established to have been older than mankind by innumerable millennia and which had access to the scientific secrets of the Slann/Old Ones.

I'm not saying that in the golden age man was on par with the eldar, im saying the STC's don't represent to full extent of mans technology

JamesMclaren123 wrote:

English Assassin wrote:

JamesMclaren123 wrote:The STC's are not any where near the peak of Human technology at the time.

as i understand it whislt in the golden age some smarty though that he should make basic blue prints of basic technology incase a wolrd it cut off and cannot use tech

The STCs supposedly contained all of humanity's technological knowledge, even advanced theoretical information irrelevant to most colonists, according to the Codex Imperialis. Known STC designs are evidently varied in sophistication, since they include items which are essentially 20th century technology (shotguns, motorbikes) as well as creations far beyond present day science (anti-gravity devices, plasma reactors).

Regardless of whether the known STC printouts are representative of the most advanced technologies know at the time of their creation (presumably not, on the basis of the Castigator titan) it would be a significant and unsupported inference to presume golden age human technology to be equivalent to that of the Eldar - a culture established to have been older than mankind by innumerable millennia and which had access to the scientific secrets of the Slann/Old Ones.

I'm not saying that in the golden age man was on par with the eldar, im saying the STC's don't represent to full extent of mans technology

Than what you're saying is directly contradicted on p 42 of the Codex Imperialis.

The STCs are often said to embody the sum total of human knowledge. This is probably true as far as technical accomplishment goes. Although most colonists required little more than designs for agricultural machinery, programs were included for all sorts of advanced constructions such as nuclear power grids and fission reactors.

The printouts possessed by the Adeptus Mechanicus in the age of the Imperium certainly do not represent the sum of knowledge contained in the STCs, but there is no evidence, or indeed good reason, to assume that the technological knowledge of the golden age significantly surpassed the most advanced examples still extant in the 41st millennium.

How was humanity able to expand when the Eldar Empire was still in tact?


Foolish humans. You were able to expand because we allowed it. We have foreseen the consequences of your expansion, and we have manipulated you since before you ever left your tiny blue planet.

Our knowledge is beyond your comprehension. Our plans are more complex than you can imagine. Everything that has happened and will happen has been known to us since before your planet even formed. And, everything that happens only does so because we have manipulated the fates to make it so.

The STCs are often said to embody the sum total of human knowledge. This is probably true as far as technical accomplishment goes. Although most colonists required little more than designs for agricultural machinery, programs were included for all sorts of advanced constructions such as nuclear power grids and fission reactors. However, the early colonists' needs were simple and were met by conventional energy forms and relatively low-level technology.

Eldar were far superior in terms of technology compared to mankind's golden age.

They had AI that did all their work for them and did not rebel

They had advanced terraforming techniques (Maiden worlds)

They had a bunch of other stuff as well. The Golden age was the closest mankind ever came to comparing with them.

By the way from what I understand from STC's, there is tech that is far more advanced then them that was created by mankind, however presumably this tech is recorded somewhere in the galaxy on an STC

(I get most of this from the Rogue Trader RPG, most of the standard gear and Space ship components are created from STC's however it describes many several more advanced components dating back to the Golden Age that aren't available except by discovery or if your ship is a relic or something. The assumption is that a great achievment for an explorator would be to find the STC for one of these fabulous devices)

English Assassin wrote:

JamesMclaren123 wrote:

English Assassin wrote:

JamesMclaren123 wrote:The STC's are not any where near the peak of Human technology at the time.

as i understand it whislt in the golden age some smarty though that he should make basic blue prints of basic technology incase a wolrd it cut off and cannot use tech

The STCs supposedly contained all of humanity's technological knowledge, even advanced theoretical information irrelevant to most colonists, according to the Codex Imperialis. Known STC designs are evidently varied in sophistication, since they include items which are essentially 20th century technology (shotguns, motorbikes) as well as creations far beyond present day science (anti-gravity devices, plasma reactors).

Regardless of whether the known STC printouts are representative of the most advanced technologies know at the time of their creation (presumably not, on the basis of the Castigator titan) it would be a significant and unsupported inference to presume golden age human technology to be equivalent to that of the Eldar - a culture established to have been older than mankind by innumerable millennia and which had access to the scientific secrets of the Slann/Old Ones.

I'm not saying that in the golden age man was on par with the eldar, im saying the STC's don't represent to full extent of mans technology

Than what you're saying is directly contradicted on p 42 of the Codex Imperialis.

The STCs are often said to embody the sum total of human knowledge. This is probably true as far as technical accomplishment goes. Although most colonists required little more than designs for agricultural machinery, programs were included for all sorts of advanced constructions such as nuclear power grids and fission reactors.

The printouts possessed by the Adeptus Mechanicus in the age of the Imperium certainly do not represent the sum of knowledge contained in the STCs, but there is no evidence, or indeed good reason, to assume that the technological knowledge of the golden age significantly surpassed the most advanced examples still extant in the 41st millennium.

I haven't read that i am getting my info from the Guants Ghosts novels

Grakmar wrote:How was humanity able to expand when the Eldar Empire was still in tact.

It has never been addressed in the background; the simplest assumption would be that the Eldar empire had become inward-looking and begun to decline before humanity's expansion into the stars.

Grakmar wrote:
Foolish humans. You were able to expand because we allowed it. We have foreseen the consequences of your expansion, and we have manipulated you since before you ever left your tiny blue planet.

Lexicanum tells us a different story...that Eldar were bored with everything and started to explore their own emotions. And how wise for Eldar to see consequences of Humanity but failed to see the fall of their own race... Indeed what a smart race Eldar are...

On the topic of "How could humanity when Eldar were already dominate"

The galaxy is huge. The humans could spread with very little chance of actually running into an Eldar world. If they did run into an Eldar world, the automated defenses would have taken care of them.

Simply put, humanity expanded in all the places that the Eldar weren't interested in.

the fall is a process that culminates with the birth of slaanesh
the sign of this were the warp storms that ended the DAoT and started the age of strife

Brother Coa wrote:

Grakmar wrote:
Foolish humans. You were able to expand because we allowed it. We have foreseen the consequences of your expansion, and we have manipulated you since before you ever left your tiny blue planet.

Lexicanum tells us a different story...that Eldar were bored with everything and started to explore their own emotions. And how wise for Eldar to see consequences of Humanity but failed to see the fall of their own race... Indeed what a smart race Eldar are...

What a strange concept of existence you humans posses. The "fall" of the Eldar was planned by us for reasons your simple mind cannot grasp. Once our plan comes to fruition, you will see the folly of doubting the Eldar.

Brother Coa wrote:

Grakmar wrote:
Foolish humans. You were able to expand because we allowed it. We have foreseen the consequences of your expansion, and we have manipulated you since before you ever left your tiny blue planet.

Lexicanum tells us a different story...that Eldar were bored with everything and started to explore their own emotions. And how wise for Eldar to see consequences of Humanity but failed to see the fall of their own race... Indeed what a smart race Eldar are...

a few, pious eldar had forseen the downfall of their very own race. those few good eldasrs had warned others. too bad these warnings fall into deaf ears.
much of them still enjoy their lifestyles while these warnings had been published.

the handful of 'wise' eldars left their sinful nation to seek a new life. where they can still survive the doomsday they've forseen. the first group who left earlier became Exodites. (a spacefaring 'wood elves'??).

Grakmar wrote:
What a strange concept of existence you humans posses. The "fall" of the Eldar was planned by us for reasons your simple mind cannot grasp. Once our plan comes to fruition, you will see the folly of doubting the Eldar.

So you plan the murder of 90% of your entire race? You are now "crazy" in my dictionary...

Grakmar wrote:

What a strange concept of existence you humans posses. The "fall" of the Eldar was planned by us for reasons your simple mind cannot grasp. Once our plan comes to fruition, you will see the folly of doubting the Eldar.

Yeah, I'm and Eldar fan too, but to say the fall was planned is kinda

Grakmar wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

Grakmar wrote:
Foolish humans. You were able to expand because we allowed it. We have foreseen the consequences of your expansion, and we have manipulated you since before you ever left your tiny blue planet.

Lexicanum tells us a different story...that Eldar were bored with everything and started to explore their own emotions. And how wise for Eldar to see consequences of Humanity but failed to see the fall of their own race... Indeed what a smart race Eldar are...

What a strange concept of existence you humans posses. The "fall" of the Eldar was planned by us for reasons your simple mind cannot grasp. Once our plan comes to fruition, you will see the folly of doubting the Eldar.

Yes, the Eldar are unbearably smug, we get it.

Grakmar wrote:How was humanity able to expand when the Eldar Empire was still in tact?


Foolish humans. You were able to expand because we allowed it. We have foreseen the consequences of your expansion, and we have manipulated you since before you ever left your tiny blue planet.

Our knowledge is beyond your comprehension. Our plans are more complex than you can imagine. Everything that has happened and will happen has been known to us since before your planet even formed. And, everything that happens only does so because we have manipulated the fates to make it so.

Or perhaps the Eldar simply didn't care The galaxy is a big place and waging war for no reason is simply less cool than the eternal coke, booze and cheap hookers party they aparently had going at that time.

KingDeath wrote:Or perhaps the Eldar simply didn't care The galaxy is a big place and waging war for no reason is simply less cool than the eternal coke, booze and cheap hookers party they aparently had going at that time.

Eldar not caring is pretty much the reason. From the codex Eldar:
"The Eldar were proud and arrogant people, confident in their superiority and justifiably dismissive of alien races. Their technological and cultural achievements excelled all of those other races and in their hubris none amongst them doubted that this state of affairs would continue indefinitely."

When you think about the age of the Eldar and how long their civilization has been around even humanity must seem a blip, although a very destructive blip in the grand scheme of things.

I forget which book contained the source material where an archeological dig discovers Eldar remains estimated at 1 or 10 milllion years old... yet those remains are virtually identical to contemporary Eldar remains.

I imagine the Eldar had gotten so complacent, even humanities golden age of exploration which spanned the galaxy were taken in stride. It seems much of the Eldar were content to allow humanity to move ahead as the Eldar had better things to do. Perhaps they were somewhat removed from the material universe living in the Webway, etc... Only seeking redress when humanity opposed the Eldar in some overtly direct fashion.

It may be akin to the IoM's relationship with the Tau (although the Eldar being far more benevolent than the IoM). One minute they're banging stones together... the next minute they're plying space with billion ton starships.

Humanity crept up on the Eldar in the same way the Tau have crept up on the IoM. Different scales of course, but similar in other respects.

Brother Coa wrote:So Eldar have genetically-engineered warriors and advanced AI? I didn't know that, where odes it say?

AI? No, they can just instill the souls of their dead into organic constructs that run throughout massive Craftworlds. But besides that, they had what is functionally similar to AI, in that it allowed them to be lazy dicks. Genetically engineered warriors is a no, but the only man who had the secret to that was the Emperor himself, that is but one way the Imperium is more advanced than the Eldar, and only one.

It helped the Old Ones against Necrons, that is why they exist today. Wait...

Faster, safer, more reliable FTL travel. The Necrons had the backing of deities and possessed, once again, the most advanced technology in the setting, far and away superior to every other faction in the galaxy. Stop bringing up irrelevant points as a crutch for your bad argument.

Imperium maybe. We have no data on Human ships before the Imperium beside the fact that they used Warp Drive and Geller fields to. For all that we know pre-Imperium Mankind ships would be more powerful and faster then the ones Imperium have currently.

Stop assuming gak. Warp travel is famously unreliable, Webway travel is better, and we should not assume human ships during the Golden Age are faster than Eldar ships, which are renowned for speed, actually rivaling Necron ships in speed and actually surpassing them in maneuverability.

That belonged to the Eldar? They are even bigger idiots for letting them to drift in space for 10.000 years only to be stolen in the end by Forces of Chaos. And didn't the Old Ones build those as well?

Considering the Deceiver organised the Gothic War with the sole intention of destroying the Blackstone Fortresses and having the remaining ones put beyond the Eldar's reach. Oh, and you know, the reason they kind of had trouble retrieving them all, is because their race was obliterated by the birth of Slaanesh. And nice moving of the goalposts, the argument is that the Eldar had better tech than Man. If you can't argue this, then concede.

You know that Main Mankind tech is not STC? STC only provides necessarily scripts for basic equipment ( and there was also military one ). I can say for sure that Humans had at least technology in pair with the Eldar ( aldo Eldar didn't invent anything, they inherited that tech from the Old Ones while we invented everything so we had bigger knowledge of how our tech works ). But we cannot know that because we lost 95% of it in the Age of Strife. I would like GW to make just 1 novel at that time to see how advanced we are.

Considering it's stated to be the sum total of Mankind's technological achievements, no, it is main Mankind tech. How can you say for sure that Mankind had technology on par with the Eldar? I mean, besides your human-centric bias? Since no source points to that being the case.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:And who built them again? Oh, right, the Old Ones, not the Eldar.

No actually, the "Talismans of Vaul" as they are called, were created by Vaul, the Eldar deity of the forge. In other words, they are an Eldar construct.

Brother Coa wrote:We don't know that, we only know that we were also on our technological peak. For all that we know we could have been like Federation from Star Trek with technology back then. The reason I am saying this is because we understand our tech and Eldar don't understand theirs. It would be like some alien civilization came to Earth and give us all their stuff, and we are now what? Technologicaly advanced race and we don't know how 90% of our stuff works? Sorry, but for me that is not advanced at all, pre-Imperial Humans at least knew how their stuff worked while Eldar just let their run and had

Spoiler:

orgasms

all day.

Where are you getting this "Eldar don't understand their tech" gak from? That's a rhetorical question. You made it up. The Eldar are very much aware how their tech works. And the Old Ones didn't invent everything for the Eldar, no source states such. The only thing they don't know how to really work is the Webway.

About blackstone thing.

1. citations .... the book/.sources where the claim 'The deciever organized the 12th Black Crusades?'
2. By then. didn't Abaddon got this thing already?

About Cadia.
1. Is there any excavations of an alien artifact? and of which race could it be? (Eldar or Necrons)
2. Is there any official records that Cadia was once belong to either one of these races? it is dangerously located next to EoT.
3. What in Eldar language called a planet what Humans called it 'Cadia'?

It's blatantly stated, outright, on page 4 of the Eldar codex that no other race in the galaxy (Necrons considered extinct at the time) could match the Eldar technology or cultural achiements, so the debate on STC's worth compared to the Eldar can end there.

As to the Eldar not understanding their technology or having invented any of it on their own, this would again be a misunderstanding. Eldar are naturally obsessive and inquisitive to an extent that you'd need a human savant to match them. Eldar fully possess all attributes necessary to invent on their own, and the fluff states they were given creativity and wisdom by the gods, not technology. Should the Eldar have been given technology to the extent they had at the time of the fall, then a lack of invention would only mean that they would have reached a technological cap under the laws of physics as the world is described - and Necrons disprove this.
I think it is a misunderstanding since the Craftworlds do not invent or explore anymore due to their paths. Their culture and society is stagnant under their paths, each path is a path previously travelled, so that Eldar minds will not stray into excess again. The same goes for Exodites, although in the case of the Exodites it is more that they choose to discard the robes of technology.

Brother Coa wrote:

Grakmar wrote:
Foolish humans. You were able to expand because we allowed it. We have foreseen the consequences of your expansion, and we have manipulated you since before you ever left your tiny blue planet.

Lexicanum tells us a different story...that Eldar were bored with everything and started to explore their own emotions. And how wise for Eldar to see consequences of Humanity but failed to see the fall of their own race... Indeed what a smart race Eldar are...

Grakmar is exaggerating and roleplaying, but what you've got in your own quote is a generalization akin to saying that "mankind has never produced a warrior better than a guardsman, whom is no match in single combat for even a lowly ork boy". If you look on the race as a whole, then yes it is true; mankind produce very poor warriors, but if you examine the race closer you'll find Space Marines, Commisars, Marboo, and the Emperor. If you examine Eldar closer you'll find Exodites in tens of thousands, Farseers by the thousands, enlightened Eldar who followed said Farseers in the millions.
In fact, the number of Eldar who do not adhere to your generalization of the pre-fall Eldar are probably more numerous than the number of humans who each year to live up to a higher expectation than what you'd expect from a Guardsman.