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.

So the thought occurred to Me. Intellectual exercise.

Take earth. Or an earth-like planet. 8 billion souls. Moderate manufacturing capacity (some capacity for pretty high end stuff etc)

And said 'not-earth' must supply a tithe to the Imperium.. let's say X number of regimrnts (10,000 infantry per regiment, mechanised, armoured/tank and air assets) every couple of years and be able to supply said regiments in the field with logistical support. Its not just the bodies in the field. Dvery soldier needs a massive logistical chain. Assume as well the Imperium turns up.with transports and handles taking everything off-planet.

What would realistic take on this scenario look like?

How many regiments can be produced and trained and equipped how often and maintained in rhe field by a planet that looks suspiciously like our own.

Let's set the opening argument (probably hopelessly our because I can't math) but how about 100 regiments of 10,000 soldiers every 4 years. Maybe a gew could be dropped for 'leapard or abrams' regimrnts.

Your thoughts?

1 million soldiers every 4 years is nothing when you consider that more than 100 million were mobilized for WW2. But 40k has always been very silly with numbers. Just the eastern front in WW2 had more combatants than the third war of Armageddon

It varies.

Just because a given world has a certain level of population doesn’t mean it’s tithe is bodies for the Guard. Or even a set level.

Earth as it is may well be turned into an Agri-world. Our tech level is nothing compared to The Imperium at large. And it’s arguable our natural resources aren’t that great.

But for the most part, we’ve a decent atmosphere, and plenty of arable land suitable for livestock and farming. Sure we don’t have farmed species suited to our more extreme climes, but The Imperium could happily ship them in.

On the other hand, as a population we’ve little to no mutation. Certainly no Psykers (no, shut up Yuri Geller, you obvious fake) and no Gribbly monstrosities to speak of. So we may make a prime recruitment ground all the same.

Then again, there’s little stopping the Imperium rejigging in tnings. Shift the bulk of the population off-world, perhaps to help settle a newly claimed or reclaimed world, recruiting descendants into the Guard, leaving the planet to become a sparsely populated Agri-world to feed other systems.

In terms of taking us as is? Sure we’ve a population of 8,000,000,000, but what percentage of that are of recruitment age? That I suspect will vary country to country depending on birth rate, infant mortality etc.

A super cursory Google suggests…

Globally, about 25 percent of the world is under 15 years of age and 10 percent is over 65 years of age. Africa has the youngest population worldwide

Given Imperial propaganda type stuff takes some time, let’s focus on that 25%. So around 2,000,000,000.

Now you don’t want to denude your planet of viable breeding stock (eewww, I sounded like an incel. Yuck). But you still need healthy young workers at home to ensure health new babies continue to crop up.

If we (almost incorrectly) assume those 2,000,000,000 are evenly distributed across the age groups? That gives us..erm…133.333.333 in each year.

Maybe crop out the two eldest years, as they’re closest to being of child bearing age. So those currently aged 12 and 13, all 2,666,666,666 of them as a potentially viable first wave. Even taking just half of them, leaving plenty of peeps left behind to churn out ever more kiddos! And that’s a tither of 1,333,333,333 recruits. And you can rinse and repeat that, at least in the early years, annually.

Isn't the planets Guard tithe supplied with equipment by the Imperium when they get to their regiment? Thats the point of forge worlds and such. Presumably the planet only has to equip its PDF which is why the Guard are considered a bit more elite than the PDF.

Yes and no.

The world is expected to train and arm its own PDF. If that means shipping in or manufacturing their own equipment, I’m fairly sure this is done outside of the Departmento Munitorum - though I guess you can buy from them?

The initial regiment will be equipped with their native stuff. If that’s overly basic, they will be rearmed and resupplied. But if, like the Vostroyan, it’s up to snuff? They managed their own weapon and uniform gubbins for the most part.

 Gargantuan wrote:
1 million soldiers every 4 years is nothing when you consider that more than 100 million were mobilized for WW2. But 40k has always been very silly with numbers. Just the eastern front in WW2 had more combatants than the third war of Armageddon

Very very true!

Which is why I put the emphasis on sustainable.

Can 'mobilising 100 million' eveey ten yearsfor a six year war be maintained for, say, 10 years? 20? 100? One thousand? Especially when you are getting nothing for it I mean, does the Imperium pay? I doubt it. The tithe is just expected. Economically its a dead loss.

Can 'supplying bodies for the front' affect the 'rears' ability to supply said bodies at the front.

@mad doc - thanks and agreed, I've done the numbers. I went with 100 regiments of ten thousand people because if this is s thing every few years, how long before people kick off. Remember there's a while other economic ecosystem beyond 'supply the guard'.

Plus, you know, start at a low level.and you can increase for an 'emergency'.

At the current rate (which will probably peak in the not too distant future, and is a product of various social/economic/scientific features that will change etc) the earth's population grows by over 200k a day. Or about 70-75 million a year. Which is why over the last 13~ years the population has increased by 1 billion.

If (40k handwaving) you can maintain such population growth indefinitely, its unclear why the guard couldn't harvest hundreds of millions every few years without significant impact.

part of this depends on what you mean by 'every few years' or however you worded it.

every decade the earth could feasibly provide 10-20 million soldiers and voidsmen pretty easily. supplying them is a slightly harder thing to take into consideration since we're largely talking about technology that doesn't exist so we have no clue how much raw materials are needed for a lot of it.

but assuming earth's regiments only use hard round weapons like bolt and auto weapons, and no energy/plasma or power weapons of any sort, along with basic field kit, we could do that fairly easily.

however it's not up to the planet the troops come from to keep said troops fully supplied. fuel, ammunition, weapons, vehicles, pen, paper, toilet paper, soap, etc, will come from planets all throughout the imperium.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gargantuan wrote:
1 million soldiers every 4 years is nothing when you consider that more than 100 million were mobilized for WW2. But 40k has always been very silly with numbers. Just the eastern front in WW2 had more combatants than the third war of Armageddon

100 million might have been mobilized for WWII, but that was an unsustainable rate of attrition. had WWII continued at the rate it was, both sides would have found themselves having severe man(or woman) power issues, as you draw bodies to the front you're moving them away from the manufacturing and production base needed to keep them supplied.

johnpjones1775 wrote:
part of this depends on what you mean by 'every few years' or however you worded it.

every decade the earth could feasibly provide 10-20 million soldiers and voidsmen pretty easily. supplying them is a slightly harder thing to take into consideration since we're largely talking about technology that doesn't exist so we have no clue how much raw materials are needed for a lot of it.

but assuming earth's regiments only use hard round weapons like bolt and auto weapons, and no energy/plasma or power weapons of any sort, along with basic field kit, we could do that fairly easily.

however it's not up to the planet the troops come from to keep said troops fully supplied. fuel, ammunition, weapons, vehicles, pen, paper, toilet paper, soap, etc, will come from planets all throughout the imperium.

The Imperium would soon see an Ad Mech presence deployed, along with standard issue STC stuff for Lasguns, Chimera and Leman Russ. The super common things.

Remember, even a primitive world was able to provide the bits and bobs to make a Lunar Class Cruisers in frankly astounding time.

Lord Daros - The greatest example of the ease of building a Lunar-class Cruiser, the Lord Daros was built at the Feral World of Unloth. There, the Imperial Planetary Lord influenced the tribesmen to mine and smelt metals to be "sacrificed" at "sky temples". After eleven standard years of collecting these resources at each vernal equinox, the tribes were treated to the sight of a new star moving across the heavens as the Lord Daros boosted away from the planet to join the Imperial Navy.

If a feral world can do it in 11 years? One imagines Earth could churn out two or three in that time frame.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I’d argue the uphill battle there isn’t our lack of knowledge, but our abundance of curiosity. Getting us started is easy enough. And we can certainly churn out genuine precision items at a vast rate.

It’s getting us to stop would be the problem.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
part of this depends on what you mean by 'every few years' or however you worded it.

every decade the earth could feasibly provide 10-20 million soldiers and voidsmen pretty easily. supplying them is a slightly harder thing to take into consideration since we're largely talking about technology that doesn't exist so we have no clue how much raw materials are needed for a lot of it.

but assuming earth's regiments only use hard round weapons like bolt and auto weapons, and no energy/plasma or power weapons of any sort, along with basic field kit, we could do that fairly easily.

however it's not up to the planet the troops come from to keep said troops fully supplied. fuel, ammunition, weapons, vehicles, pen, paper, toilet paper, soap, etc, will come from planets all throughout the imperium.

The Imperium would soon see an Ad Mech presence deployed, along with standard issue STC stuff for Lasguns, Chimera and Leman Russ. The super common things.

Remember, even a primitive world was able to provide the bits and bobs to make a Lunar Class Cruisers in frankly astounding time.

Lord Daros - The greatest example of the ease of building a Lunar-class Cruiser, the Lord Daros was built at the Feral World of Unloth. There, the Imperial Planetary Lord influenced the tribesmen to mine and smelt metals to be "sacrificed" at "sky temples". After eleven standard years of collecting these resources at each vernal equinox, the tribes were treated to the sight of a new star moving across the heavens as the Lord Daros boosted away from the planet to join the Imperial Navy.

If a feral world can do it in 11 years? One imagines Earth could churn out two or three in that time frame.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I’d argue the uphill battle there isn’t our lack of knowledge, but our abundance of curiosity. Getting us started is easy enough. And we can certainly churn out genuine precision items at a vast rate.

It’s getting us to stop would be the problem.

an STC is a template, what raw materials are things made from? ceramite for example,whats are the raw materials to make it? it doesn't matter if we have an STC that tells how to make it, if we physically dont have the necessary materials to make it on the planet.

Current estimates put the number of armed forces personnel worldwide at 25-30 million, so around 0.35% of the total population of 8 billion.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.TOTL.P1

It seems quite possible that a tithe of a million per year would be more than sustainable for a planet with similar population to our own.

johnpjones1775 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
part of this depends on what you mean by 'every few years' or however you worded it.

every decade the earth could feasibly provide 10-20 million soldiers and voidsmen pretty easily. supplying them is a slightly harder thing to take into consideration since we're largely talking about technology that doesn't exist so we have no clue how much raw materials are needed for a lot of it.

but assuming earth's regiments only use hard round weapons like bolt and auto weapons, and no energy/plasma or power weapons of any sort, along with basic field kit, we could do that fairly easily.

however it's not up to the planet the troops come from to keep said troops fully supplied. fuel, ammunition, weapons, vehicles, pen, paper, toilet paper, soap, etc, will come from planets all throughout the imperium.

The Imperium would soon see an Ad Mech presence deployed, along with standard issue STC stuff for Lasguns, Chimera and Leman Russ. The super common things.

Remember, even a primitive world was able to provide the bits and bobs to make a Lunar Class Cruisers in frankly astounding time.

Lord Daros - The greatest example of the ease of building a Lunar-class Cruiser, the Lord Daros was built at the Feral World of Unloth. There, the Imperial Planetary Lord influenced the tribesmen to mine and smelt metals to be "sacrificed" at "sky temples". After eleven standard years of collecting these resources at each vernal equinox, the tribes were treated to the sight of a new star moving across the heavens as the Lord Daros boosted away from the planet to join the Imperial Navy.

If a feral world can do it in 11 years? One imagines Earth could churn out two or three in that time frame.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I’d argue the uphill battle there isn’t our lack of knowledge, but our abundance of curiosity. Getting us started is easy enough. And we can certainly churn out genuine precision items at a vast rate.

It’s getting us to stop would be the problem.

an STC is a template, what raw materials are things made from? ceramite for example,whats are the raw materials to make it? it doesn't matter if we have an STC that tells how to make it, if we physically dont have the necessary materials to make it on the planet.

You still have internal shipping. Ceramite itself is far from a rare substance, same for other stuff. It may be like steel in the olden days, or modern polymers. The gubbins are abundant, and we just haven’t discovered the process yet.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
part of this depends on what you mean by 'every few years' or however you worded it.

every decade the earth could feasibly provide 10-20 million soldiers and voidsmen pretty easily. supplying them is a slightly harder thing to take into consideration since we're largely talking about technology that doesn't exist so we have no clue how much raw materials are needed for a lot of it.

but assuming earth's regiments only use hard round weapons like bolt and auto weapons, and no energy/plasma or power weapons of any sort, along with basic field kit, we could do that fairly easily.

however it's not up to the planet the troops come from to keep said troops fully supplied. fuel, ammunition, weapons, vehicles, pen, paper, toilet paper, soap, etc, will come from planets all throughout the imperium.

The Imperium would soon see an Ad Mech presence deployed, along with standard issue STC stuff for Lasguns, Chimera and Leman Russ. The super common things.

Remember, even a primitive world was able to provide the bits and bobs to make a Lunar Class Cruisers in frankly astounding time.

Lord Daros - The greatest example of the ease of building a Lunar-class Cruiser, the Lord Daros was built at the Feral World of Unloth. There, the Imperial Planetary Lord influenced the tribesmen to mine and smelt metals to be "sacrificed" at "sky temples". After eleven standard years of collecting these resources at each vernal equinox, the tribes were treated to the sight of a new star moving across the heavens as the Lord Daros boosted away from the planet to join the Imperial Navy.

If a feral world can do it in 11 years? One imagines Earth could churn out two or three in that time frame.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I’d argue the uphill battle there isn’t our lack of knowledge, but our abundance of curiosity. Getting us started is easy enough. And we can certainly churn out genuine precision items at a vast rate.

It’s getting us to stop would be the problem.

an STC is a template, what raw materials are things made from? ceramite for example,whats are the raw materials to make it? it doesn't matter if we have an STC that tells how to make it, if we physically dont have the necessary materials to make it on the planet.

You still have internal shipping. Ceramite itself is far from a rare substance, same for other stuff. It may be like steel in the olden days, or modern polymers. The gubbins are abundant, and we just haven’t discovered the process yet.

why would we ship all the raw materials here so we can build these things, instead of just building it where the materials are easily available, and us making what we can, and importing the finished product? that's kinda how trade works. few worlds actually produce the weapons of war, that's primarily the job of forge worlds. other worlds conduct trade and import most of the serious military gear they need for their PDFs and the guard regiments they're going to raise.

At the most basic, Earth could easily afford to ship off a million trained-soldiers a year if our survival depended upon it. Population-wise, it would be a drop in the bucket.

Could we armed them to Imperial Standards? Not without a large technological upgrade. We are far from being able to produce many of the materials necessary to produce even the simplest of IG gear. We can make chainsaws, but that doesn't mean we can make a functional chainsword.

johnpjones1775 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
part of this depends on what you mean by 'every few years' or however you worded it.

every decade the earth could feasibly provide 10-20 million soldiers and voidsmen pretty easily. supplying them is a slightly harder thing to take into consideration since we're largely talking about technology that doesn't exist so we have no clue how much raw materials are needed for a lot of it.

but assuming earth's regiments only use hard round weapons like bolt and auto weapons, and no energy/plasma or power weapons of any sort, along with basic field kit, we could do that fairly easily.

however it's not up to the planet the troops come from to keep said troops fully supplied. fuel, ammunition, weapons, vehicles, pen, paper, toilet paper, soap, etc, will come from planets all throughout the imperium.

The Imperium would soon see an Ad Mech presence deployed, along with standard issue STC stuff for Lasguns, Chimera and Leman Russ. The super common things.

Remember, even a primitive world was able to provide the bits and bobs to make a Lunar Class Cruisers in frankly astounding time.

Lord Daros - The greatest example of the ease of building a Lunar-class Cruiser, the Lord Daros was built at the Feral World of Unloth. There, the Imperial Planetary Lord influenced the tribesmen to mine and smelt metals to be "sacrificed" at "sky temples". After eleven standard years of collecting these resources at each vernal equinox, the tribes were treated to the sight of a new star moving across the heavens as the Lord Daros boosted away from the planet to join the Imperial Navy.

If a feral world can do it in 11 years? One imagines Earth could churn out two or three in that time frame.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I’d argue the uphill battle there isn’t our lack of knowledge, but our abundance of curiosity. Getting us started is easy enough. And we can certainly churn out genuine precision items at a vast rate.

It’s getting us to stop would be the problem.

an STC is a template, what raw materials are things made from? ceramite for example,whats are the raw materials to make it? it doesn't matter if we have an STC that tells how to make it, if we physically dont have the necessary materials to make it on the planet.

Stc's are designed so they adapt to local resources. Different planets, dlfferent output. That was intentional with stc's.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 alextroy wrote:
At the most basic, Earth could easily afford to ship off a million trained-soldiers a year if our survival depended upon it. Population-wise, it would be a drop in the bucket.

Could we armed them to Imperial Standards? Not without a large technological upgrade. We are far from being able to produce many of the materials necessary to produce even the simplest of IG gear. We can make chainsaws, but that doesn't mean we can make a functional chainsword.

We don't have stc for it. But guess what? We would get the design needed. And imperial tech is designed to work with local materials.

On the disparity in tech level, do keep in mind humanity hasn’t gotten smarter compared to The Olden Days. We’ve just advanced technologically.

Right now we’re advancing super quickly because we have frankly astounding communications, where projects can be worked on by folks on opposite sides of the globe, with near instantaneous communication.

If someone passes away during research and development, their notes and studies aren’t lost with them or kept in a single volume in a University somewhere. Yes there will be some time spent getting their successor up to speed, but it’s not starting from scratch.

With STCs? We’d be brought up to speed pretty quickly. As I said earlier, the Imperium’s problem would be getting us to stop, as we’re dirty little tech Monkies with inherently enquiring minds. Putting out top minds (not you, Elmu) on Lasgun production, but getting them to understand Alteration Is Forbidden For The Design Is Sacred probs wouldn’t go down too well. Though I suppose the upside may be we produce notably superior items because without Millenia of Machine Cult Superstition, we may understand the principles better than other planets, and how to best calibrate and that. Look I’m not a scientist or engineer so apologies for loose, possibly flippant terminology.

Heck, we may see anyone from Earth inducted into the Priesthood ascend the ranks quite quickly, because of our decent grasp of tech and process and that.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Remember, even a primitive world was able to provide the bits and bobs to make a Lunar Class Cruisers in frankly astounding time.

Lord Daros - The greatest example of the ease of building a Lunar-class Cruiser, the Lord Daros was built at the Feral World of Unloth. There, the Imperial Planetary Lord influenced the tribesmen to mine and smelt metals to be "sacrificed" at "sky temples". After eleven standard years of collecting these resources at each vernal equinox, the tribes were treated to the sight of a new star moving across the heavens as the Lord Daros boosted away from the planet to join the Imperial Navy.

If a feral world can do it in 11 years? One imagines Earth could churn out two or three in that time frame.

I hate this quote (and, seeing it was off-hand mention in obscure fifth grade source, it's probably not canon anyway). It gets endlessly repeated in Vs threads but if it was even remotely true, then every SM chapter would have dozens if not hundreds of these cruisers, instead of having to rely on outside supplies (and Imperial navy would have billions of them, instead of canon number of a few hundred ships per segmentum).

Then you get to the practical analysis and the whole thing becomes even more stupid and instantly falls apart. Where this feral world found computers? Lances? Torpedoes? Engines? Reactors? Were they also cast from gak quality, impure iron? Then you have the fact that even in Renaissance, entire Earth didn't mine enough metals for a decade to provide even a fraction of the ship's mass, and that was when we were doing beginnings of mass industry, certainly above 'feral' grade. But OK, let's assume they magic the required amount of stuff - do they then cast parts of the ship weighting thousands of tons, a feat that is difficult even today, using medieval methods? How the ship frame cast out of tin iron, instead of amamantium the design called for, didn't bend and rip apart at first engine fire placing stress on it? How [insert million more issues here]

And even if the planet could mine enough (terrible quality, too, people just don't appreciate how vastly more better modern steel is compared to medieval stuff, to the point even small and weak cannons and crossbows made back then had huge chance of catastrophic failure and killing the user, and were in fact wrapped in multiple heavy layers of rope for safety) how they would put it into orbit? Cast some rockets out of pot iron and mine a small ocean worth of terrible quality oil to fuel them? No, the whole thing just doesn't make any sense no matter how you look at it

tneva82 wrote:
Stc's are designed so they adapt to local resources. Different planets, dlfferent output. That was intentional with stc's

...

We don't have stc for it. But guess what? We would get the design needed. And imperial tech is designed to work with local materials.

Except, if you bothered to read any setting lore at all, you'd knew Imperium doesn't have STCs. That's like the whole point and reason for technological regress. So, comically wrong here. What Imperium has is some tiny, damaged bits of STC patched together with random guesses and make-dos, made for very different planets and resources, that they try to somehow make work on all other worlds, because they don't have anything better. You want to make a minuscule, insignificant change in said holy scraps of data from the glorious past, even seemingly plug and play one, like BT replacing lascannon turret on Land Raider with assault cannon one, probably inspired by Razorback turret swaps? Prepare for Admech to debate said change for centuries, then in the end declared you a wicked heretic unless you have some serious political clout and burn you with meltaguns for defiling sacred knowledge

See the incident where IG trooper got awarded an entire planet to govern for discovering bits of old STC printout making a butter knife, because the STC are that valuable. Yeah, sure, just grab a brand new, locally tailored STC, as said by someone who never once in their life read anything 40K

Few issues here.

I wouldn’t call the BFG Rulebook “obscure fifth grade” canon. Indeed it’s first grade, being the first volume to detail and explore Imperial ship classes.

Whilst you’re not obliged to like any given background, simply saying “I don’t like it so everyone should dismiss it” is…..well it’s a poor show. Canon is canon, whether we like it or not.

On the STC? Sorry to say you’re simply wrong. What the Imperium lacks isn’t STCs. It’s a Complete STC Database. STC is kind of a catch all term.

A fragment might be a partially corrupted file or blueprint, with a coffee stain right on the most critical point of the design. If might be a complete file or blueprint, which hints at a shared lineage to existent equipment, but where the Bits In The Middle are missing.

All Imperial standard issue equipment is derived from STC blueprints or files.

 Irbis wrote:

Except, if you bothered to read any setting lore at all, you'd knew Imperium doesn't have STCs. That's like the whole point and reason for technological regress. So, comically wrong here. What Imperium has is some tiny, damaged bits of STC patched together with random guesses and make-dos, made for very different planets and resources, that they try to somehow make work on all other worlds, because they don't have anything better. You want to make a minuscule, insignificant change in said holy scraps of data from the glorious past, even seemingly plug and play one, like BT replacing lascannon turret on Land Raider with assault cannon one, probably inspired by Razorback turret swaps? Prepare for Admech to debate said change for centuries, then in the end declared you a wicked heretic unless you have some serious political clout and burn you with meltaguns for defiling sacred knowledge

See the incident where IG trooper got awarded an entire planet to govern for discovering bits of old STC printout making a butter knife, because the STC are that valuable. Yeah, sure, just grab a brand new, locally tailored STC, as said by someone who never once in their life read anything 40K

Lol. Says guy who proves with his word he has no frigging clue about 40k fluff

Imperium lacks COMPLETE STC database. Doesn't mean it has nothing available. If Imperium had no STC's whatsoever they couldn't produce anything. Rhino's comes out of STC for emperor's sake...No STC's, no rhino's, no chimera's, no lasguns.¨No nothing. Imperium technology is based on STC's.

And yes what imperium has got is just small pieces and scraps. Whole complete STC database would be sooooooo much better. No need for rhino's(which wasn't even military vehicle only). Imperium would have lot better transport available. Why waste time building lasguns for your troops when you would have ability to produce way better weapons in mass quantities? But...complete STC is what Imperium lacks. Doesn't mean that the scraps they have don't work though...

Next time read the fluff kid before you start trying to act up.

It’s probably worth having a brief chat about what a STC Database is, and does.

It’s essentially a repository of all mankind’s collective knowledge to the date it was made, and whatever the planet or system it was based in discovered since.

What it isn’t is a simple repository of knowledge and library of existing blueprints. It was a problem solving device. If you needed something doing, you input that task, and told it what materials you had to work with. It would then draw on its databanks and accumulated information and that.

Now, some would churn out a blueprint, something its owner could then toddle off and produce using only locally available resources. Others, presumably later generations would take care of the production. Think somewhere between a 3D Printer and Star Trek replicator, capable of coming up with its own designs.

What the Imperium relies on are remaining blueprints and plans and that. Some are 100% complete, such as the Rhino chassis, Lasguns (seemingly various patterns) and yes, the combat knife that gained its finders Planetary Governership.

Should The Imperium find an intact, working STC Database? You’re potentially looking at curtains for their foes. Because once you’ve got one, presumably the first order of the day is….getting it to provide plans and copy data for further STC Databases.

So….what happened to this ubiquitous, Don’t Leave Earth Without Them, type of device?

In short it’s not especially clear. Some will have broken down. I suspect this is true of the most complex and advanced iterations. See, with such a wonder device catering to your industrial and technological requirements, actual human knowledge in those fields would quickly atrophy. So if it malfunctioned or your Space Dog ate the keyboard, that’s you completely stuffed as you’ve nothing like the necessary knowledge to repair or replace parts.

Others were said to be destroyed during the war against the Men of Iron. I suspect both sides took part in that, in attempts to deny each other a sufficient enough technological base to continue the fight, or smashed up after mankind’s eventual victory, to avoid it ever happening again.

Some do still exist. Van Saar have one on Necromunda, and the Kin have their Votann, STC’s which became self aware and STC’s not yet turned Votann. But they’re not sharing. There are also hints that some, possibly all Ark Mechanicus have STC’s buried within them.

a million soldiers every four years would not only be doable, but probably doable without any massive changes to our current standards of living.

One thing about earth is that outside of a few pockets of extreme poverty, the median person on earth lives a far better life than the median person on most imperial worlds. Moving to the fully industrialized nations, and the standard of living is incredibly high. so we could produce the equipment without really affecting our lifestyles all that much.