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Kind of thread inspired by the STC thread below, but...

I was wondering if there was any equivalent from other SciFi Franchises (Star Trek, Babylon 5, et al.) or from written Fiction (Asimov's Foundation series) or some combination that approximates what life was like during the Dark Age of Technology.

Its hard for me to imagine since 30K/40K is quite fantastical in and of itself......

You know that episode of B5 when they visit earth after it has a tecnological implotion in the future? Some worlds would be like that :-P

Others would have small kings declaring themselves an emperor of their little hill as contact with the outside world went bad

Do you mean the Dark Age Of Technology, or the Age Of Strife? If the former, then it’s generally implied to have been something in the style of Golden Age SF, when the tech that is rare or unique in M41 was commonplace. And could fly. And was artificially intelligent. GW’s influences are rooted further in the past, but I’d picture something reminiscent of Iain M Banks’ The Culture.

The Age Of Strife is your Jack Vance/Gene Wolfe Dying Earth-style setting with weird archaeotech coexisting with pre-industrial level societies (and daemons lurking in the shadows). Or at least that’s how I’ve always pictured it, based on the few crumbs of information GW have provided.

 Lord Fishface wrote:
Do you mean the Dark Age Of Technology, or the Age Of Strife? If the former, then it’s generally implied to have been something in the style of Golden Age SF, when the tech that is rare or unique in M41 was commonplace. And could fly. And was artificially intelligent. GW’s influences are rooted further in the past, but I’d picture something reminiscent of Iain M Banks’ The Culture.

I meant the Dark Age of Technology, I figure the "Age of Strife" looks like Frank Herbert's Dune series around the time of the Butlerian Jihad or a little after. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad
I'm pretty sure that's where GW picked up the whole "Against AI" attitude of the Imperium actually.

But as for the Dark Age of Technology - Huh... Near-Utopian then?

So Frank Herbert named a jihad against technology that plunged society back into a feudal state after his FRIEND? Boy, what an honor...

Asimov's foundation series had this, I think foundation even my as a technpriest and the idea of technology treated like mysticism and religion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Science

Absolutely.
There's equal parts of Dune AND Foundation in 40k.

And a sprinkle of everything else in between.