Rogue Trade rpg Into the Storm The Explorer's Handbook pg 118 wrote:
ENTROPIC ACCELERATOR

These unremarkable-looking weapons consist of a simple
hollow barrel with a rectangular stock, revealing no sign of
their true age or origin. They are assumed to be of human
origin, if only because the weapon conforms to standard
human physiology. Also known as Dustmaker or Heat Death,
these weapons are known for the horrific effects they cause.
When used, each emits a slight humming sound, belying the
impossible effect it is having on its target.

Victims struck by the invisible beams find their metabolisms shutting down
as chemical reactions fail or flow too quickly, causing organ
shutdown and higher cerebral functions to collapse. Complex
molecules such as plastics or fabrics begin to deteriorate, and
the entire target deforms as the component substances of
flesh, bone, and metals become a horrific, melded mass.

While
the weapon seems to require no actual ammunition, perhaps
drawing on the raw spatial tension between the Materium
and the Immaterium to fuel its baleful energies, it does require
time between uses to properly recharge.

Rogue Trade rpg Into the Storm Explorer's Handbook pg 119 wrote:
Quill Blaster

Unlike most other solid projectile weapons, this archeotech
device fires thin needles of liquefied metal. It can operate with
almost any raw material; the user simply feeds metallic chunks
or pellets into a large hopper at the rear of the gun, and its
internal batteries melt them into an ammunition reservoir.

When discharged, the weapon accelerates a thin beam along
the barrel, firing short lances of super-hot, super-sharp metal
in bursts of 4-6 spines.

Rogue Trade rpg Into the Storm Explorer's Handbook pg 119 wrote:
Lightning Cannon

These weapons are believed to be of ancient human design,
discovered in the deep data vaults of the Lathe Forge worlds
in the Calixis Sector. Though not as powerful as many other
devices, they are suitably impressive, especially to native
populaces or xenos barbarians. Made of ceramics and glass,
when triggered a micro-beam of ionizing energies is focused
on the target to create a large electrostatic charge differential
between the target and the gun’s spiked barrel tip.

The longer
the trigger is held , the larger the charge created. When the
trigger is released, a powerful bolt of lightning leaps from the
gun to the target, accompanied by a huge thunderclap.

Add +2 Damage and +2 Pen for a every Half Action spent
aiming the weapon before it was fired (to a maximum of +4
Damage and +4 Pen). Note: this still grants the aiming bonus
as well.

Rogue Trade rpg Into the Storm Explorer's Handbook pg 118 wrote:
ASSAULT GAUNTLETS

Worn as an oversized glove (and often used in pairs), this weapon
is covered with rows of discharge tubes across the back of the
hand. Each tube can fire a solid metal bolt, pre-loaded before
combat, to be used as the wearer closes with his enemy. Once
in melee, the gauntlet’s heavy armour plating can be used as a
weapon in its own right. This weapon may be used in melee as a
one-handed melee weapon, dealing 1d10 I damage.

Rogue Trade rpg Into the Storm Explorer's Handbook pg 124 wrote:
MACRO-HAMMER

These puissant archeotech weapons are
thought to date back to the Dark Ages of
Technology. However, thus far they have
only been discovered on a long-lost citycache
hidden amongst the ruins of the warworld
of Zayth.

The Disciples of Thule seized the majority
of the weapons, though a few have found their hands into
other members of the Machine Cult in the Koronus Expanse.
Glowing with circuit-runes, the ancient tech-relic mounts a
suitably large hammer head covered with nano-sized warp
portals which burst open on contact.The impact of the portals
creates intense, localised warp disruptions, causing microexplosions
which devastate the enemy.

Like many human
designs, its visage is intended to intimidate and cower all who
would stand before the righteous might of the Imperium and
the Machine God. This weapon requires two hands to use.

Rogue Trade rpg Into the Storm The Explorer's Handbook pg 126 wrote:FORCE WEAPONS

Tech-Priest Explorator teams sifting through the archeotech
ruins of Naduesh have unearthed numerous caches of
dazzling and disturbing devices, including many whose
nature and purpose is still a mystery. Given the number
of possibly valuable items still to be comprehended it is
understandable that the finely made but otherwise ordinary looking
swords, axes, and melee weapons were simply put
aside. It was not until visiting adept-psykers of the Ordo
Xenos realised the true measure of these weapons that
intensive searches began for more.

Further studies seem to
indicate these are ancient devices, possibly stemming from
the Dark Age of Technology, but the foul taint of xenos
construction cannot be ruled out. It was impossible to keep
the discovery secret for long, and these weapons have become
a highly-valuable commodity throughout the Expanse, and
some raiders attack any vessel that carries them, simply to
steal them away.

For many a psyker-warrior, possessing a
Naduesh blade is the mark of true power in both body and
mind. For those wishing a more subtle visage, a simple rod
or staff can channel their power to devastating effect, as
well as focus their abilities to greater levels.

Rogue Trade rpg Into the Storm Explorer's Handbook pg 126 wrote:
NADUESH FORCE AXE

Favoured by the more robust and physical psykers, Force
Axes offer tremendous sheer power but little in the way of
finesse or subtlety. For those that use them, these weapons
aptly indicate their mode of attack, and often their lifestyle
as well.


NADUESH FORCE STAFF

Longer-length force weapons typically take the form of a staff,
and they can be used as a weapon in regular combat. Some
are fashioned to appear as a simple walking staff, only giving
away their real function as psychic powers are channelled
through them. Force Staffs also act as a Psy-Focus (see the
ROGUE TRADER Core Rulebook, page 146).


NADUESH FORCE SWORD

On the surface, force swords look just like any regular sword,
albeit of unusual coloration. It is only upon closer inspection
that the tiny but elaborate runes appear, giving away their
arcane nature. Most psykers are not skilled fighters, but for
those who are, a force sword is the perfect weapon as it allows
them to fully use both their psychic as well as martial abilities.

Rogue Trader rpg Lure of the Expanse pg 58 onwards wrote:From patchy Administratum records compared against the incomplete data
of the clans—kept for the most part locked in cogitators deep
within the land-ships—it seems that Zayth was once a green
and verdant world, settled millennia ago during mankind’s great
expansion across the stars. Over time, however, the shifting
tides of the warp and the waning strength of humanities’ grasp
on the galaxy meant Zayth was cut off and forgotten.

Alone, its inhabitants turned inwards, and what had once
been a single unified colony of man became a distrustful world
of suspicious city-states and secretive nations. Still in control of
powerful dark age technology—city-levelling macrocannons,
virulent bio-agents and mighty land-ships the size of hives—
the city-states and nations created the thousand-year treaty that
restricted conflict to remote regions and far out to sea. It was
a treaty that lasted less than a decade.

There are no solid
records of what began the Big War, but its effects are
plain to see for anyone visiting Zayth. Everything
was laid to ruin as armies swarmed across the
land, bombs dropped from the sky, and the
mighty land-ships strode across the earth like merciless gods
of war.

At first, there must have been some kind of plan for
victory, some strategy to defeat the enemy and restore the peace.
However, as the war escalated, all seemed forgotten in years of
fire, blood, and death.

Ash and Death

Zayth is a wasteland pocked with craters and divided by vast
dry ocean basins, long since boiled away by radiation and
nuclear fire. Even the world’s mountains have been shattered
and smashed by titanic exchanges of firepower until they are
little more than lines of jagged foothills crisscrossing dust choked
plains.

*Snip*

Beyond these broken memories of the world that once
was, the only other major landmarks on Zayth are the Great
Craters. Caused by the first bombs dropped in the Big War,
these craters are kilometres across and sometimes hundreds of
metres deep. So potent were the bombs that made them that
the land-ships still avoid crossing them, for fear of radiation
hard enough to slice though their shields and fry their hulls.


The Great Craters also act as a guide to those crossing the
wastelands, their greenish glow visible for thousands of
kilometres in all directions. In fact, they can even be seen
from orbit as eerie glowing dots of light powerful enough to
pierce the thick toxic atmosphere.

is Zolran—fabled capital of Zayth and first colony of man.

Stories tell of the city surviving the first bombs of the Big
War—sheltered beneath a powerful shield dome. As the war
dragged on, however, and more and more of the world was
laid to waste Zolran found itself alone, its inhabitants unable
to escape the dome that protected them from the land-ships
and the world’s worsening climate.

From a distance, a land-ship looks not
unlike an Imperial hive, its ringed hull tapering toward a point
hundreds of metres above its vast base. Closer in, a multitude
of protrusions become visible—gun decks, sensorium banks
and dust glider hangers covering its hull like a thousand tiny
wounds. At its base, behind a billowing cloud of ash and dust,
legs, tracks and suspensor arrays can be glimpsed, holding the
mighty structure aloft.

There is nothing in the Imperial arsenal
that completely compares to a land-ship, and more than one
traveller from the Imperium has commented that it is as if a light
cruiser had landed and sprouted legs—certainly a land-ship’s
firepower is comparable to many battlefleet ships of the line.

Beneath the tacticians are the Gun-Masters, those men and
women specially trained to operate the weapon systems of the
land-ships, be they conversion-beam batteries, macro-cannon
turrets, or squadrons of missile-laden dust gliders.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
It should be pointed out that massive void shields protecting hives and military bases are reasonably common. They're not everywhere, certainly, but they do pop up quite often. Necropolis took place in a hive that had such a shield that came down to its curtain wall, and the Siege of Vraks had a void shield over the citadel.

Deathwatch Core Rulebook pg 88 wrote:
Although many of the weapons carried by Space Marines are
wonders of technology beyond the dreams of normal men, there
are some machines that are so exceptional that only a Techmarine
may attend them. One of the most unusual of these is the conversion
beamer, a rare weapon that works by converting matter to energy
in a beam that becomes stronger the further it extends and the
more matter is converted. It is only by the constant ministrations of
a Techmarine that such a weapon can be utilised—should anyone
else attempt to use the weapon, its war spirit might become greatly
angered and turn its ire upon the wielder instead.

Deathwatch Core Rulebook pg 152 wrote:
Astartes Converson beamer

A small number of these rare and deadly archeotech devices
circulate through the hands of senior Techmarines. By using
the energy stored in atomic bonds, a conversion beamer can
annihilate creatures, vehicles, or nearly anything its beam
reaches, provided it is given time to build to critical mass.

When fired, a conversion beamer expels a stream of neutronbombarded
particles, beginning an atomic chain reaction
that converts matter to energy in a blazing beam that hurtles
towards the target. As the escalating reaction travels, more
and more air molecules are converted into a deadly blast that
finally consumes the target in an explosive release of energy.

Conversion beamers are more powerful at long ranges as
they can absorb more matter into the blast’s strength before it
hits.

At distances of up to 15 metres, it does 1d10+9 Damage
and has a Penetration of 2. Over that distance and up to Short
Range, it does 3d10+9 Damage with a Penetration of 8 and
gains the Felling Quality. Against targets further than Short
Range it does 6d10+12 Damage with a Penetration of 14
and possesses the Felling and Blast(2) Qualities.

Dark Heresy rpg Core Rulebook pg 128 wrote:

Graviton Gun


The Graviton Gun fires a stream of particles that disrupt the
localised gravimetric field around the target area, increasing
the apparent mass of the enemy and slowing if not pinning
them outright to the ground. While the enemy is normally
not harmed greatly, they are incapacitated until the effects
wear off.


As it is not a lethal device, the Graviton Gun is
useful for when someone must be captured alive rather than
dead. They are exceedingly rare relics from the Dark Age of
Technology, and each is a sacred device jealously guarded by
the Adeptus Mechanicus—who very rarely allow one outside
of their armouries.

Everything caught in the gun’s blast area is violently pressed
to the floor and must take a Very Hard (–30) Strength Test
or be knocked down. Being thrown to a solid surface from
a standing position and forced to the ground in this way is
enough to inflict 1d5 I (Primitive) Damage—treat this as
effecting the Body location—although what the character or
object is thrown against and how far they fall may well make
this effect far worse.

Additionally, anyone attempting to move or perform
physical actions within the blast radius for 2d5 Rounds
afterwards must first pass an Opposed Strength Test versus
Strength 60 (Unnatural (×2)) each Round—see page 368 for
more details on this kind of Test).

At the GM’s discretion, the flux may shatter brittle objects,
collapse loose flooring, rupture containment vessels, damage
vehicles and machinery, plus wreak any other chaos deemed
appropriate.

Rogue Trader rpg Core Rulebook pg 120 wrote:
Laspistol (Archeotech)

Sometimes known as lasrods and
gelt guns, these ancient designs
pack much greater range and
power.

It can be fired like a pistol, though many also can
mount folding stocks and longer barrels allow the weapon
to be braced two handed for a more accurate shot. It is also
more efficient than most las weapons, getting more shots per
charge. Rare and arcane, few outside of Rogue Traders or
collectors would ever know of—let alone possess—one, but
many regard these weapons as statements of rank and status
in the Expanse

Deathwatch rpg Core Rulebook pg 152 wrote:
Vortex Grenade

This dreaded example of lost technology tears
open the very fabric of reality, creating a rift
into the warp. Needless to say, the results of
such a desperate action are highly unpredictable
and almost as likely to backfire on he who used it. For all
the nightmarish stories of daemons crawling through the
breach, and vortexes that still re-appear like phantoms on old
battlefields, there is no better way to ensure a threat is utterly
destroyed than to see it sucked into the immaterium.

The secrets of vortex grenades are jealously guarded by
the Adeptus Mechanicus, and some question whether Forge
Worlds capable of their manufacture still exist. Certainly, their
supply in the Adeptus Astartes seems ever-dwindling, and it is
a dire threat indeed that warrants their precious and perilous
expenditure. Like stasis grenades, a single grenade may only be
allotted at the Watch Captain’s option.

The vortex grenade has a radius of 3 metres. Anyone within
this area can spend his Reaction to attempt to Dodge out of it
before the rift fully forms (see Dodging Area Effects on page
238).

Those who fail, along with everything else in the area, are
dragged into the warp, never to be seen again. Each Round, the
capricious vortex winks in and out of existence. It has a 50%
chance of closing permanently when this happens. Otherwise,
it reappears 2d10 metres in a random direction from its last
manifestation—see the Scatter Diagram on page 248.

Deathwatch rpg Core rulebook pg 151 wrote:
AstaRtes stasis gRenade

Stasis fields are used throughout the Imperium
to hold time at bay, essentially trapping whatever
is inside them in a single moment. Uses run from
mundane food storage to the preservation of the
Ultramarine’s Primarch. A stasis grenade is simply an impact triggered
version of the same technology, most commonly
used to temporarily neutralize a threat.

To call a stasis grenade rare and dangerous is a grave
understatement. One may occasionally be distributed along
with the general Requisition Points for a Mission if the Watch
Captain deems necessary, but a stasis grenade may never be
Requisitioned through the usual means.

The grenade generates a stasis field with a radius of two
metres; it lasts for 1d5 rounds (which the GM should roll and
reveal only when it expires). Everything inside this bubble is
cut off from the normal flow of time. Anyone and anything
inside the affected area does (and perceives) nothing until the
field dissipates. Characters outside the stasis field can see the
frozen moment but cannot interact with it in any way.

Rogue Trader rpg Core Rulebook pg 206 wrote:
Ancient Life Sustainer

This life sustainer uses extensive conduits and purifiers to do a
thorough job of cleaning the air and water through methods
lost to the Mechanicus.

The Air is Sweet: Increase Morale permanently by 2, reduce
all losses to Crew Population due to non-combat sources by

1. This can be used as a ship’s Life Sustainer.

Rogue Trader rpg Core Rulebook pg 206 wrote:
Modified Drive

The STC standard drive for this vessel is much older than
anything ever seen before. Mechanicus sources believe it is
unknown archaeotech.†

Overcharged: The strange and exotic nature of the materials
used in the drive’s containment domes allows for a hotter
plasma ‘burn,’ while taking up less space. This adds +1 to the
ship’s Speed, decreases the space the drive takes up by 4, and
is of extreme interest to agents of the Mechanicus.

†Rather than listing the different versions of each plasma drive with the
Archeotech’s benefits, it is described once. If this Archeotech is installed
on a ship, apply its benefits to a standard plasma drive.

Rogue Trader rpg Core rulebook pg 207 wrote:
Bridge of Antiquity

This bridge is interlaced with ancient cogitator circuitry and
hololithic technology, granting the Captain and bridge crew
unparalleled control over their vessel.†

Eyes Everywhere: Add +10 to all Command Tests or social
Skill Tests any character makes while on the bridge.
Hololithic Display Tank: Increase the ship’s Manoeuvrability
by +5.

†This can be used as a ship’s bridge.

Rogue Trader rpg Core rulebook pg 207 wrote:
Auto-stabilised Logis-targeter

More than simply an auger array, the Logis-Targeter uses nearheretical
cogitator circuitry from the Dark Age of Technology
to ensure extremely accurate weaponry.†

External: This Component does not require hull space.
Although it is external, it can only be destroyed or damaged
by a Critical Hit.

Image of the Void: Increase the ship’s Detection by +5.

Targeting Matrix: All Ballistic Skill Tests to fire the ship’s

weapons gain +5.

†This can be used as a ship’s Auger Array.

Rogue Trader rpg Core rulebook pg 207 wrote:
Teleportarium

These relics from the Dark Age of Technology are highly
sought after, able to send individuals instantaneously through
the immaterium to appear on a ship or planet many thousands
of kilometres away.

Surprise Strike: Characters may make Hit and Run Attacks
without a piloting test, as they travel directly to the heart of
the enemy vessel. When using the teleportarium to perform
such an attack, the attacker receives +20 to his Command
Test. (The teleportarium may be used in any number of other
ways, such as guaranteeing escape from sticky situations on a
nearby planet, at the GM’s discretion.)

Deatwatch rpg Rites of Battle pg 137 wrote:
ATOMIZER CANNON

The atomizer cannon is a relic from the Dark Age of
Technology. One of the more horrifi c weapons of war fi elded
by the Deathwatch Space Marines of the Jericho Reach, they
resemble bulky multi-meltas with a heavily shielded backmounted
power unit. The weapon fires a blast of heavily
irradiated particles that effectively melts living creatures,
blowing their individual cells apart and boiling them alive
from the inside.

Atomizer cannons have even been known
to set fire to metals and ceramite momentarily before utterly
disintegrating them. Only a handful of these frightening
weapons exist among the Deathwatch, and their use against
humans is heavily proscribed. Many chapters refuse to use
them at all, claiming the technology used is deeply heretical
and objecting on moral grounds.

Along with their more obvious effects, atomizer cannons
also irradiate everything in their blast area—this is reflected
in the Toxic Special Quality as listed in the weapon’s profile.

DeathWatch Rpg Core Rulebook pg 310 wrote:
Kill-ships: The Doom of Worlds

Deathwatch Kill-ships are automated drone-vessels,
guided by the most advanced of war-spirits, which
are used in the most extreme of circumstances to enact
Exterminatus upon a world that has been lost to the
Imperium. They are equipped with the most valuable
of cloaking devices, often unique examples of long lost
knowledge dating back to the Dark Age of Technology.
The mission of a Kill-ship is to enter a system entirely
undetected, to slip silently past whatever sentinels the
invaders may have put in place at its edges, and to
approach the target world unseen.

Travelling on silent
running, the Kill-ship enters orbit, delivers its lethal
payload, and then slingshots itself away using the
planet’s own gravity. Even as the Kill-ship departs,
the apocalypse is descending upon the doomed world,
the final act of vengeance and denial enacted in its
wake.

Dark Heresy rpf The Inquisitor's Handbook pg 133 wrote:
Rad-Cleanser
Class: Exotic (Rad-Cleanser)

Rad-cleansers are potent weapons said to be relics of the longpast
Dark Age of Technology, and they are certainly powerful
and terrible enough in effect to justify that mythic claim.
Victims caught in the rad-cleanser’s blast suffer an agonising
death as their tissues are blown apart on a cellular level and
they are boiled alive from within. Even metals may combust
in the powerful blast created by a rad-cleanser. These horrific
weapons are extremely difficult to manufacture and heavily
proscribed by the Cult Mechanicus

They are however not as
rare amongst the Magos retinues of the Calixis Sector as they
are elsewhere, pointing to some Archmagos or facility in the
sector that possesses the baleful secret of their construction.

The “toxic” effect listed on this weapon’s profile actually
represents massive radioactive contamination, and should be treated
accordingly. Rad-cleansers must be reloaded by refuelling their
bulky reactor-core units, which cannot be done during combat

Dark Heresy rpg The Inquisitor's Handbook pg 132 wrote:
Graviton Gun
Class: Exotic (Graviton Gun)

An extremely rare device, the so-called graviton gun is
a little understood relic unlikely to have been originally
designed as a weapon at all. When fired at a target area,
the energy field generated by the gun creates a sudden and
powerful gravitational flux. Whilst unlikely to do more
than knock living creatures violently to the floor, the effect
can be extremely damaging to the internal mechanisms and
moving parts of vehicles, and can be particularly lethal to
skimmers and other devices with their own grav-engines
quickly destabilised and overloaded by the flux-field.

Everything caught in the gun’s blast area is violently pressed
to the floor and must take a Very Hard (–30) Strength Test or be
knocked down. Being thrown to a solid surface from a standing
position and forced to the ground in this way is enough to inflict
1d5 I (Primitive) Damage—treat this as effecting the Body
location—although what the character or object is thrown against
and how far they fall may well make this effect far worse.

Additionally, anyone attempting to move or perform
physical actions within the blast radius for 2d5 Rounds
afterwards must first pass an Opposed Strength Test versus
Strength 60 (Unnatural (×2)) each Round—see More Than
Human on page 226 for more details on this kind of Test).

At the GMs discretion, the flux may shatter brittle
objects, collapse loose flooring, rupture containment
vessels, damage vehicles and machinery, plus wreak any
other chaos deemed appropriate.

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:
Great and interesting thread, great job Corporal_Reznov

This post was created by Entropy Judge wrote:I'm assuming an Ark Mechanicus's main weapon is DAoT-derived, if not DAoT/archaeotech itself:

Priests of Mars 250-251 wrote:"Kotov’s fragile consciousness plunged deeper and deeper, the gossamer-thin lifeline held by Magos Blaylock a tremulous thread in a firestorm of golden light. He saw systems flicker past his floodstream that were as alien to him as anything the most secretive xenotech might dream of in his fevered nightmares, and technological echoes of machines that surely predated the Imperium itself. Power generation that could harness the galactic background radiation to propel ships beyond lightspeed, weapon-tech that could crack open planets and event horizon machines that had the power to drag entire star systems into their light- and time-swallowing embrace.

All this and more dwelled here, ancient data, forgotten lore and locked vaults where the secrets of the ancients had been hidden. In this one, fleeting glance, Kotov realised he had been a fool to drag this proud starship into the howling emptiness of space in search of hidden secrets.

The Speranza was the greatest secret of all, and in its heart it held the truth of all things, the key to unlocking all that the Mechanicus had ever dreamed. Yet that knowledge was sealed behind impenetrable barriers, bound in the heart of the mighty vessel for good reason. The knowledge of the Men of Gold and their ancient ancestors was encoded in its very bones, enmeshed within every diamond helix of its structure.

Priests of Mars 255-256 wrote:"Looping targeting arrays for weapons he had never imagined the Speranza possessing and others that he did not understand flashed up before the astrogation and engineering hubs. Azuramagelli and Saiixek backed away from their stations, confused and not a little frightened by this unknown power rising up around them. Stark against the red of the main display, the image of an alien starship resolved itself. It was smooth and graceful, its hull like a tapered gemstone and topped with a vast sail that billowed in the gravitational tempests. Its image flickered and danced as though attempting to conceal itself like a teasing courtesan, but whatever matrices were at work in the heart of the Speranza saw through its glamours with ease.

...

The flanks of the Speranza shuddered as a weapon system built into its superstructure ground upwards on heavy duty rails. A vast gun tube rose from the angled planes of the Ark Mechanicus like the great menhir of some tribal place of worship being lifted into place. Power readouts, the likes of which had rarely been seen in the Imperium since before the wars of Unity, bloomed within the weapon and a pair of circling tori described twisting arcs around the tapered end of the unveiled barrel. Elements of the technology that had gone into their construction would have been familiar to some of the more esoteric branches of black hole research and relativistic temporal arcana, but their assembled complexity would have baffled even the Fabricator General on Mars.

Pulsing streams of purple-hued anti-matter and graviton pumps combined in unknowable ways in the heart of a reactor that drew its power from the dark matter that lurked in the spaces between the stars. It was a gun designed to crack open the stately leviathans of ancient void war, a starship killer that delivered the ultimate coup de grace. Without any command authority from the bridge of the Speranza, the weapon unleashed a silent pulse that covered the distance to the Starblade at the speed of light. But even that wasn’t fast enough to catch a ship as nimble as one built by the bonesingers of Biel-Tan and guided by the prescient sight of a farseer. The pulse of dark energy coalesced a hundred kilometres off the vessel’s stern and a miniature black hole exploded into life, dragging in everything within its reach with howling force.

Stellar matter, light and gravity were crushed as they were drawn in and destroyed, and even the Starblade’s speed and manoeuvrability weren’t enough to save it completely as the secondary effect of the weapon’s deadly energies brushed over its solar sail. Chrono-weaponry shifted its target a nanosecond into the past, by which time the subatomic reactions within every molecule had shifted microscopically and forced identical neutrons into the same quantum space. Such a state of being was untenable on a fundamental level, and the resultant release of energy was catastrophic for the vast majority of objects hit by such a weapon.

Though on the periphery of the streaming waves of chronometric energy, the Starblade’s solar mast detonated as though its internal structure had been threaded with explosive charges. The sail tore free of the ship, ghost images of its previous existence flickering as the psycho-conductive wraithbone screamed in its death throes. Blue flame geysered from the topside of the eldar vessel and the craft lurched away from the force of the blast. Its previously distorted and fragmentary outline became solid, and the circling captains of the Kotov Fleet wasted no time in loosing salvo after salvo of torpedoes at the newly revealed warship."

The Horus Heresy book 1 Betrayal pg 230 wrote:

The Horus Heresy book 1 Betrayal pg 240 wrote:

 Amaya wrote:
That pistol makes a Hotshot Lasgun look like a child's toy.

Would be interesting if the DAoT was fleshed out more to give us a clearer idea of how advanced humanity was at its peak.

Rogue Trader rph Edge of the Abyss pg 30-31 wrote:
Naduesh, the lone habitable planet in a small, empty star system, is a feral world in the Heathen Stars region used as a victualling and resupply port for passing voidships. It is an arid world of broad, dusty plains and simmering deserts. The world’s topography is curiously uniform, and is dominated not by majestic mountain ranges or vast, rolling seas, but by man-made edifices. The crumbling remains of ancient hive cities thousands of kilometres across span the entire planet, and fully two-thirds of the land lies in the shadow of their shattered domes. The whole planet is a single landmass punctuated here and there by deep, broad, freshwater lakes.

The flora and fauna of the planet seem somehow more alive, more vibrant than that on other worlds. Indeed, the entire place has a vague and unsettlingly artifi cial feel to it, as if the planet wasn’t formed from the primordial mass of the universe but built by some unseen hand. Everything seems built to please the senses, an idealized expression of stone or wind or beasts.

Among the ghostly, echoing hives and oddly perfect creatures dwells a debased race of tall, lanky humans who call themselves the Nadueshi. A primitive tribal people, they eke out a living among the bones of their ancestors as nomadic herdsmen. They live a simple life on the plains, possessing no technology more advanced than a spear or harness and driving their placid herbivorous beasts from camp to camp, never staying in one place too long and rarely, if ever, entering the ruined hives. While certainly feral, the Nadueshi are not so debased as to lack language or culture.

They frequently trade with the pirates and Rogue Traders who come to the surface for water and victuals, and there are wild and varied reports as to the hospitality and folkways of these curious people. There are a few common threads spun throughout the wild rumours of cannibalism and human sacrifice that surround the Nadueshi, however. They speak a lilting, strangely cadenced language in which some listeners detect High Gothic words and structures.

Their oral histories carry no record of their obviously advanced forbearers, and there is a complacency in their ignorance of these ancestors that suggests a distinct lack of interest in the subject. Those who have explored the abandoned cities report they are covered by massive, powerfully constructed domes towering three kilometres high, built of reinforced plascrete and parchment-thin glass that is harder than diamond.The shattered domes are supported by rusted buttresses a kilometre high mounted in armoured bulwarks forty metres thick. The buildings are square-shouldered, unlovely things more suited to a military base than a soaring metropolis, and indeed they all have a martial, fortress-like air about them.

The few who have braved the deadly, crumbling underhives report even greater discoveries—huge arcane arrays of machinery, vast banks of slumbering cogitator arrays, underground caverns a kilometre long that look for all the world like barracks, armouries, marshalling yards and immense gun emplacements mounted with macrocannons large enough to hull a battleship in high orbit. Some say the underhives go on forever, that they burrow straight to the heart of Naduesh, that every metre is packed with complex machinery, and that Naduesh isn’t even a planet at all.

continuation of the above quote wrote:
A SAFE HAVEN

For centuries now pirates, renegades, and Rogue Traders alike have been stopping here to resupply while crossing the spinward regions of the Expanse and the Heathen Stars. A number of favourable factors have made Naduesh a premier victualling world. The system is relatively isolated and free of major navigation hazards. The warp surrounding the system is eerily calm, with unusually stable currents and few reported storms or lost ships. This makes the planet easy to get to, and there are numerous sheltered anchorages scattered around the system in which to hide or effect repairs.

While the great ruins of the Nadueshi’s ancestors are striking and draw their share of treasure seekers and curious tech-priests, they are not the only thing the planet has to offer. Indeed it possesses quite possibly the most precious of commodities for passing voidships: clean, fresh water. Naduesh’s broad, deep lakes provide a near endless supply of uncontaminated water, a fact that has been taken advantage of by generations of voidmen.

Along with the water, there is also much in the way of provender to be had. Nearly every fruit, nut, or root that grows on Naduesh is edible, and vast herds of wild herbivorous beasts a million strong wander the plains and make for excellent eating. Some voidmen have witnessed this bounty and stated that it’s almost as if everything about the planet was designed with the comfort and convenience of men in mind.

There is also a brisk trade here among the native Nadueshi and the “Sky Men” as they call the visiting voidmen. Voidships bring slaves, high-tech weapons, ammunition, tools and trinkets to trade for conscripts, women, foodstuffs and ancient Nadueshi artefacts.

The Nadueshi also produce and trade ornate metal jewellery, and a small but fervent market for their tribal finery has sprung up among the neighbouring systems. There is great money-making potential here for a keen Rogue Trader. The ancient, abandoned hives are doubtless still full of archeotech artefacts, and most of the labyrinthine underhives remain uncharted and unexploited. The native herbivores are hardy and would make an excellent trade commodity, especially with nearby systems such as Zayth (which has little ability to raise its own foodstuffs).

There are also millions of heathen souls on Naduesh who need to be brought into the fold and shown the righteous light and power of the God-Emperor. These are but a few of the opportunities to be found on Naduesh, and it would be an unimaginative Rogue Trader indeed who couldn’t make at least a small fortune exploiting the planet and its natural resources.

Rogue Trader rpg Edge of the Abyss pg 30-31 wrote:
-From the Journals of Mallachai Stern, 128.807.M41

I recently received a intriguing communication from a fellow missionary operating on Naduesh. He describes it as a world covered with vast empty ruins-crumbling domed hives many kilometres across-and peopled by a degenerate race of men. During his time, he has wandered among the vast ruined cities. What he claims to have found is quite astonishing.He writes that the cities themselves are a sort of facade, a massive mock-up like a grand craftsman’s model. Some buildings are mere soundly built and thickly reinforced shells, never designed for human habitation. Instead, they house endless collections of huge, slumbering machinery of unknown purpose. Other structures contain either powerful auger arrays or retractable weapons batteries which he states dwarf those on Imperial battleships. During the few days he had, he found that some of the machines were still powered, but how and to what end they were unable to ascertain. They also gained access to a series of underground tunnels and compart ments, possibly extending across the entire city, or even further. Sadly, they were unable to fully map the tunnel systems due to their apparent size.

My colleague claimed he felt like Naduesh is not a planet at all, but a construct like the Mechanicus would build. He offers no definitive answers as to its purpose, but states that the whole place put him in mind of some kind of defensive emplacement or fortress. While I would usually write such stories off as nonsense or the rambling tales of simple voidmen, the source compels me to believe otherwise. I have known my colleague for years, and know him to be a level-headed, contemplative individual. And yet, the very idea is absurd.

Rogue Trader rpg Edge of the Abyss pg 30-31 wrote:
RUMOURS AND LIES

There are as many rumours about Naduesh, its history, and its strange people as there are voidmen to tell them. Here are just a few of the more common tales told in shipyards and public houses throughout the Expanse.

• Members of the Magos Biologis have reported that the beasts and plants of Naduesh posses uncommonly pure genetic codes. They seem to exhibit few of the mutations or genetic dead-ends typically brought about by natural selection.

• In the initial survey of Naduesh after its discovery, the survey team leader reported a strange anomaly in the planet’s rotation. It is almost perfectly circular around its star, and it’s axis of rotation seems very close to completely perpendicular with the plane of its solar system.

• A Rogue Trader named Keiran Haan claims to have possibly caught a glimpse of the planet’s history in the Nadueshi capital of Marajur. During a tour of the city, she became separated from her guide and found herself in what she took to be a chapel. Three of the walls were decorated with frescoes of people resembling the Nadueshi performing various tasks. The fourth wall was dominated by huge mural of four humans—one carrying the equipment of a scientist or researcher, another armed and armoured as a warrior, the third bearing tools as if a labourer or engineer, and the last wearing fi nery evocative of a noble or government functionary. They were standing around a large globe that resembled Naduesh itself. Once reunited with her native guide, he could not, or would not, elaborate on the meaning of the murals.

• Rumours in Footfall’s taverns say that every so often, a vessel approaching Naduesh is challenged by vox-hails in an unknown language. If the ship responds, they sometimes hear a brief squeal of code, then nothing but static. This is dismissed as impossible by those who have visited the planet—the natives are too primitive for vox technology.

• The Nadueshi have a legend that speaks of an unnamed horror attacking their ancestors from the stars, only to be swallowed by a god that dwells deep within the planet and speaks through the very stones themselves.

• Some claim that the entire planet was constructed as a trap and laid in the system for some unknown stellar foe. If so, has the trap has been sprung—perhaps its prey is held deep within the planet—or is it still armed and waiting?

Cassius had studied the topography of Styxia Prime whilst travelling through the warp on the way to the system. It had three major landmasses, the largest of which was Downland, covering nearly twenty-eight million square kilometres. Many thousands of years ago, sometime during theDark Age of Technology, the first human settlers had come to this world and re-ordered the planet to their liking. Mountains had been levelled, seas filled in and rivers diverted to create a land of pastures and gentle uplands. At the heart of Downland were four artificial volcanoes, delved into the earth to bring forth nutrient-rich expulsions that were conveyed by land and water to the mega-farms.

The hills around these volcanoes had been seeded with fast-growing trees to provide hard timber, and it was from this dense wood that many of Styxia Prime's buildings were constructed, with only the largest and most important edifices, such as the starport and governor's palace, being supplemented with ferrocrete panels and ornamented with sandstone blocks quarried from the coastal cliffs.
Plains Fall was located to the east of the continent; its name derived from the thousands of square kilometres of flat fields that surrounded the city. "

Pg.40 Catechism of Hate

"More than once she fell, losing her step as she crested one of the dunes, tumbling, then scrambling after the container when it rolled away, afraid it might split open. But it remained intact; the metal pod was crafted using lost techniques from the Dark Age of Technology, and would have survived a fall from orbit unharmed."

Pg.7 Hammer and Anvil

"The Great Machines of Old Earth were wondrous engines of creation whose power dwarfed that of any myth or legend. They shaped entire worlds, they drank the hearts of stars and brought light into the dark places of the universe."

Pg.7 Priests of Mars

I think Daemon World actually leads credence to the stone men being transhumans. Arguleon Veq is apparently mind fused with the AI (A loyal and obedient one at that) of Slaughtersong.

A handful of days had passed since the Multus Sanguis had picked the Word Bearers up from the surface of Torvendis. The old ship had made best speed out into orbit but the Slaughtersong's exact position had been hard to pin down and it was further out than the sensor readings had suggested. Strange interference made navigation all but impossible - the visual reading of the Slaughter-song's white glow had been the most accurate indication of where it was and it had taken frustrating days to reach it, as if the ship had known they were coming and had tried to hide from them. But slowly, the Multus had closed in, and now the Word Bearers had reached their target.

The green indicator on the auspex scanner meant the air within the Slaughtersong was breathable. Captain Amakyre removed his helmet and let the smell of the place come to him - mechanical, metallic, clean and old. Very, very old.

The Slaughtersong was not old in the way that the Multus was old. It was bright and clean, with lumostrips picking out the polished chrome surfaces, every curved wall smooth and unblemished. The floor was of bright silver mesh and the walls of mirror-bright metal. Every spacecraft Amakyre had ever set foot on had been rebuilt a hundred times, with massive imposing architecture and a patina of grime. The Slaughtersong was so old, it looked new.

Pg.447 Daemon World

The bridge of the Slaughtersong was a shining armoured sphere several hundred metres across, in which hovered circular platforms lit brightly from within. Instrumentation appeared as ghostly lines of light in the air, traced out by hidden holoprojec-tors, and scanners fed through to broad flat screens that hung everywhere and followed at a command.

The Slaughtersong seemed composed of silver and light.
...
Kron waved a hand and a dozen screens clustered around him, each showing one of the approaches to the bridge. There were many - every passage on the ship led here eventually.

Pg.458 Daemon World

From deep within the ship, a bolt of silvery light shot from the armoury doors straight into Veq's hand. The Word Bearer in front of him had barely begun to raise his bolt gun but already Veq's mind had snapped into the cold, heightened cast of battle. The man who had been called Kron by some, and Karnulon by others, was now content to think of himself by his first and greatest name -Arguleon Veq.

The silver sword, sent by the Slaughtersong at Veq's unspoken order, was warm and buzzing in his fingers.

It was as if the intervening millennia had never happened. Veq and the Slaughtersong, so attuned to one another that Veq had hardly to think before his commands were answered, had one more fight to win.
...
(this sword may or may not be DAoT)
Amakyre dodged backwards and let himself fall from the platform rather than face Veq's blade, honed from the heart of a star and white-hot to all but Veq himself.

Pg.470 Daemon World

Phaedos, backed against the railing around a corner, jumped out as Veq approached in the hope of ambushing his foe. Veq caught Phaedos's chainsword on his own sword and locked the blade between the teeth of the chainblade, twisting it out of Phaedos's grasp. Phaedos let go and rolled beneath Veq's guard, blasting a volley of bolt pistol shells up into Veq's body. Veq twisted and felt the air turn searing hot as the bolts shot past his torso, close enough to singe his robes.

'Armour,' said Veq, and plates of armour shot through the air from the depths of the Slaughtersong to slam around his body. Much of Veq's old panoply had fallen into the hands of prophets and tyrants down on Torvendis, but the Slaughtersong had kept the starheart sword and the armour of the deep safe in its armoury.

The armour had been carved from the bony exoskeletal plates of the giant sea creatures that scoured Torvendis's ocean bed. Ribbed, roughened plates of bone and cartilage thudded into his upper body and arms, as mail of meteoric iron, like silk carried on a wind, flowed through the air and wrapped itself around his abdomen and throat. Hardened spines sprouted down his back and gauntlets of ensorcelled sharkskin slid onto his fingers.

Phaedos caught his falling chainsword, but his next stab was turned aside by a greave of solid, iron-hard bone that had not been there a second ago.

Pg.490 Daemon World

The hold of the Slaughtersong held a flight of fighter craft, huge chromed raptors with delta-swept wings and bundles of particle projectors jutting from the fuselage. There were seventy of these craft lined up neady in the hold, lit by the stark floodlights high up on the ceiling waidng to be launched at the will of the ship's master just as they had waited since they had flown against the Last.

Pg.500 Daemon World

'Slaughtersong'. Give me fighter command!' yelled Veq as he dropped off the ship he was standing on, bolter rounds shattering the cockpit behind him.

Of course, my lord, replied the ancient ship in a metallic voice directly into Veq's inner ear, and sud-

denly the cockpit instrumentation lit up on seventy ships.

They had nearly got him. A split-second either way and they could have got him in the head, or knocked him off his feet with a shot to the body. He was old, and slow, and these were a pair of Traitor Marines who had fought for so long that they acted as one. The scout was a better shot but the Space Marine was more reckless, and together they could have killed him.

Arguleon Veq was the greatest champion the Maelstrom had ever known, and he had not got there without knowing not to underestimate the enemy. He raised a hand and a fighter craft suddenly juddered into motion, blue-flamed thrusters flaring as it rose into the air revealing the Space Marine sheltering beneath. Veq brought his hand down and the craft fell, smashing into the floor of the hangar and scattering metal fragments as the Marine rolled frantically out of the way. Veq swept a hand sideways and another fighter slammed into the first, rupturing its fuel tank and sending a plume of flame washing through the air.
...
His anger welled up inside him and he willed a dozen fighter craft into the air, wheeled them around the hangar, and dropped them in a rain of falling metal, smashing craft all around and triggering a spectacular chain of explosions. He slammed more fighters into the burning wreckage, sending flaming craft scudding along the metal floor. Floodlights were shattered by flying shrapnel. A wave of hot air filled Veq's nostrils with the overpowering smell of fuel and flame.

Pgs.502+505 Daemon World

The machine-spirit of the Slaughtersong was, perhaps, even older than the rest of the ship. Veq had found the ship towards the beginning of his career in the Maelstrom and even then he knew it was something special. That is was a relic of the Dark Age of Technology there was little doubt, and the machine-spirit was the strongest evidence. The core was like an arena ringed by towering grey-black memory stacks as tall as buildings, each with a faint ripple of light playing across the surface. The wide circular arena of dark glassy stone was full of wispy lights, forming complex shapes and swirling patterns that broke up and reformed at the speed of the Slaughtersong s thoughts. The ship was all but sentient, a companion as much as a vessel, a counsellor and sounding board as well as a weapon.

The Word Bearer had chosen this place because he thought he could hold the Slaughtersong hostage, threatening Veq with a battle in the heart of the vessel's mind. It was clever. It was the only thing that would give him a chance. The memory stacks contained more information on Veq's life than Veq could remember himself. There would be no pyrotechnics here.

Pg.511 Daemon World

...(the Multus is a Strike Cruiser IIRC)
There was a piercing shriek from the sensor station as the shuttle's scanners picked up a massive power spike. Amakyre could see the cause right away. It was a searing bright streak tearing across the viewscreen.

A weapon had emerged from the side of the Slaughtersong's hull, immense and shining, from which was leaping a solid beam of blue-white light.

'Status on the Multusl' yelled Amakyre at the slave in the sensor pit but the slave was already dead, brain fried by the massive feedback from the sensors. If the Slaughtersong had been firing on them, they would already be dead. As far as Amakyre knew there was only one other target in orbit around Torvendis.


The Multus Sanguis.

The searing beam cut off. In its place, a silent explosion of multicoloured flame bloomed against the darkness. Ruptured plasma generators sent blue tongues of flame out into space. The ancient, insane machine-spirit detonated in an orange flare of dying madness. Torpedoes exploded in cherry-red bursts.

Veq! Heretic! Traitor!' yelled Amakyre.

By the time the shutde's sensors had recovered, there was nothing at the Multus's location save a cloud of cooling debris.

Pg.530 Daemon World

He charged, kicking off against the hulls of ships nearby, flipping through the air to avoid the bolts the scout sent speeding
towards him. He reached the fighter under which the burning Space Marine was trying to hide, vaulted on top of it, rolled across
the top of the hull and swung down behind it, star-heart sword slashing downwards as he fell.

The starheart blade had no respect for even the most ancient of power armour. The Space Marine never even had time to register
Veq's presence before the sword had passed down the centre of his helmet and through the armour's collar, splitdng the chestplate
and abdomen and carving through the groin. Cleanly bisected, the awful sdnk of entrails rolled out as the Space Marine's body fell
in two in a welter of blood.


A flash of pain burst against Veq's free arm. His reactions had got his body out of the way but the scout's shot had still winged
him, burying itself in the chitin on his armour and bursting deep inside. The muscle was bruised and Veq felt the bone crack.
Stupid, slow old man.

Slaughtersong

Spoiler!
This page contains spoilers for: Daemon World (Novel)

The Slaughtersong is an ancient ship that orbited the planet Torvendis in the Maelstrom.

History

This craft is believed to be ancient and dates as far back as the Dark Age of Technology making it a machine constructed by Mankind. The greatest evidence that indicated it a relic of that time is its guiding intelligence and its sophisticated capabilities. Despite this being the case, Amakyre held doubts on this claim and whether it was genuinely the case. Its design is that of a craft made it appear as if it is composed of silver and light. Eventually, through unknown means, it came to orbit the Daemon World of Torvendis where it eventually was claimed by Arguleon Veq. Its presence above this world led it to becoming a legendary ship that was part of the world's immense complex star divinations conducted by Torvendis's sages. Legends would speak of it as his legendary steed and it took the form of a bright silver star that was high in the sky above the planet. The primitive tribes of the planet would have different accounts on the appearance of the Slaughtersong with some saying it was either a steed that was jet black or deathly white that was faster than light and spat fire from its eyes. Its body consisted of a skin or scales or feathers that was said to turn aside thunderbolts.1

A detachment of Word Bearers would board the ship and battle with the still living Arguleon Veq.1

Background

Its design consisted of both an inner and outer hull with it being filled with maintenance tunnels along its accessways that can lead to the external sensor arrays along with weapon emplacements. These passage ways could lead to any point on the ship though required any travellers to keep their sense of direction. Auspex scanners indicated that the air within the Slaughtersong was breathable despite centuries of being abandoned. In fact, despite its immense age, the craft was remarkably in a good condition with it being both bright and clean that marked it different from Imperial ships that were normally rebuilt in their long existence. It had polished chrome surfaces with lumostrips along with every curved wall smooth as well as unblemished. The floor was bright silver mesh with the walls made of mirror-bright metal. The Slaughtersong's corridors and doorways are circular with blank readout screens located everywhere that were all evenly and harshly lit by lumostrips running along the ceilings.1

This craft's bridge was a shining armoured sphere several hundred meters across with several circular hovering platforms that were brightly lit from within. The instruments appeared as ghostly lines of light in the air that were traced out by hidden holoprojectors with scanner readouts being shown on broad flat screens that hung everywhere and followed at command. From them, dozens of scenes could be displayed and were picked out by the Slaughtersongs sensory arrays that were transmitted onto the flat screens that hovered in the centre of the bridge.1

The Slaughtersong seemingly responded at verbal commands allowing its controller to activate it and its armoury. Such actions allowed the pilot to summon weapons straight from the armoury that flew with a power of their own that was directed by the ship. Similarly, at command, armour could be sent from the armoury by the starship where it equipped itself to the vessel's master. In fact, the ship's Machine Spirit is able to commune with its master and spoke in a metallic voice in the ears of its controller. The Slaughtersong is all but sentient making it as much as a companion as a starship which allowed it to serve as a counsellor for it's master. The core is an arena ringed by towering grey-black memory stacks that are as tall as buildings with each holding a faint ripple of light playing across their surface. This wide circular dark glossy stone arena was full of wispy lights that formed complex shapes with swirling patterns which broke up as well as reformed at the speed of the ship's thoughts.1

In the holds of the ship was a vast space that was capable of holding at least a flight of fighter craft. Similar to the armoury, the ship's master is able to command the Slaughtersong at gaining control over the seventy fighters. Weapons emerged from the hull itself and fired solid beams blue-white light at targets.1

Deathwatch rpg The Achilus Assault pg 115 wrote:
AMENOPHIS IV

The fourth world of the Amenophis system has been
blockaded by the Tau for some time, for its native human
inhabitants have been declared beyond redemption by the
Greater Good and all contact with them has been forbidden.
Furthermore, the Tau fear that should the human population
of Amenophis IV discover the existence of the Imperium it
may attempt to join the wars of the Greyhell Front. The Tau
believe (quite wrongly) that should the Imperium discover the
human society on the world, it will welcome its lost kin into
the fold and utilise their strength against the Tau.

The population of Amenophis IV have been declared
beyond the Greater Good because they are entirely under
the control of some form of machine intelligence, which
they worship as a creator-deity. The people of Amenophis
IV long ago discovered a fragment of lost Standard Template
Construct technology and having utilised its knowledge to
build an advanced meta-cogitation array, immediately fell
under its control. Upon achieving sentience, the machine,
called simply ‘the Array’ by its subjects, immediately set
about systematically and jealously purging all knowledge of
the Emperor, Terra, the Imperium and the Imperial Creed.

The people of Amenophis IV came to believe that they were
the sole examples of their species, indeed of intelligent life, in
the universe and that the Array was their beneficent creator.
When the Tau came to Amenophis IV, their very existence
challenged the world view propagated for so long by the
Array. The machine ordered its subjects to repel the Tau using
weaponry resurrected from long before the Age of Imperium,
and having done so removed all memories of the aliens’
existence from its subjects’ minds.

The armies of Amenophis
IV proved the equal of the Tau forces sent to oppose them, and
a stalemate has since developed. Elements within the Earth
Caste would very much like to recover and examine some
of the weaponry utilised by the Array’s forces, while other,
more cautious voices call for no contact to be attempted at all.
One faction within the Fire Caste has voiced the belief that
the Array and all its followers should be destroyed by heavy
planetary bombardment before it develops the capability to
launch warships into space and challenge the Tau Empire’s
control of the region.

Black Crusade The Tome of Blood pg 94-95 wrote:
The Dark Age of Technology saw the rise of thousands of
worlds filled with splendour and wonder under the auspices of
Mankind. Under the curse of technological advancement man
stretched forth his dominion of the galaxy and lost the most vital
of spiritual connections. Most of these planets were destroyed
with the coming of Old Night and the division of darkness and
horror that descended with it, falling to powers and influences
man had not even begun to understand, neglected in the pellmell
dash towards technological mastery.

The planet Serenis was one such paradise. Knowing
unparalleled peace and achievement, it was a fertile world
where Mankind’s technical mastery and his eternal search
for beauty and symmetry had combined to create an ideal
landscape that brought technology, nature, and humanity
together in one harmonious accord. Under the guidance of a
benign global ruling body, civilisation soared to new heights
and achievements never before imagined. Warfare was relegated
to sport. No longer did men march out against one another
and unleash indiscriminate violence upon their world. Instead,
district champions fought for honour and glory for their regions
in vast arenas with global audiences, their violence harnessed
and codified into the greater planetary enlightenment.

Ivory towers and ornate palaces reached into skies so
blue they defied description. Generations of rulers, teachers,
and pioneers were commemorated in graceful marble statues
whose stoic eyes gazed serenely out over a bustling world
moving ever-forward to a glowing and hopeful tomorrow.

These leaders presided over centuries of peace and abundance,
making unprecedented advancements in the mechanical and
biological arts. At the time of the Sundering, Serenis was an
exemplar of the hope and promise of the Mankind foolishly
laid upon the altar of technology.

Black Crusade core rulebook pg332-333 wrote:
KURSE

A baleful, guttering ember of a world, Kurse lurks like a canker
within the Screaming Vortex as a common port-of-call to many
warbands and Chaos pirates. Untold ages ago, Kurse was once
a thriving civilised world, rich in machines and lore from the
Dark Age of Technology. Ultimately, the world was embroiled
in a firestorm of savage war, where unspeakable weapons were
unleashed in search of a final victory. Thus, the world as it was
had been cast down, its great cities and centres of learning
smashed to rubble, its advanced civilisation reduced to brutality.

Ongoing toxic chemical reactions have created seas of
simmering fire, and the remaining continents are marred by
massive irradiated pits, many of which extend down to expose
the planet’s molten core. The majority of Kurse’s environment
is completely uninhabitable, with only a few regions spared
the ravages of cataclysm. The planetary population is mostly
composed of mutants and cannibals, surviving on the
remnants of their former glory, carefully hidden away before
the planet’s ugly fate or unearthed from the rubble afterwards.

A ring of asteroids in near orbit have been fitted to sustain
life by the Dark Magi of Forge Castir, and a number of these
habitats serve as crude gladiatorial pits where mutants and other
survivors from Kurse are pitted against one another for bloody
sport.

Kurse’s true value to the denizens of the Screaming Vortex
is as a breeding ground for warriors and mutants to fill the
holds of Chaos pirate vessels or to serve in the armies of
aspiring Champions of Chaos. Occasionally, some warbands
make their way to Kurse in order to plunder lost archeotech
or ancient data-vaults from the ruins on the planet’s surface.

Black Crusade The Tome of Blood pg 94-95 wrote:
The Sundering

The Dark Age of Technology ended in a detonation of
violence and bloodshed that human eyes had never before
witnessed. Star-spanning empires were riven asunder, entire
systems disappeared as the Warp boiled across the known
universe, dividing Mankind into terrified, isolated pockets
of resistance in the night. Some planets, however, were
condemned to a far more dire fate, as these isolated megastorms
swallowed them entirely and transported them, in the
blink of an eye, to a universe of nightmare and horror.

It was just such a tendril of the Empyrean that snaked
out across the void to engulf Serenis, yanking the planet
and its moons out of their own reality and depositing them
in a realm of madness. A terrified and confused populace
tried desperately to make sense of their new situation. Stars
familiar for millennia had disappeared from their skies.
Communication with the far-flung outposts of empire had
fallen silent without warning. Any ships attempting to leave
the planet disappeared into the soupy, swirling chaos of their
new sky, never to be heard from again.

The men and women of Serenis would be commended
for the strength of their faith and convictions in a just
universe. But in the dominion that had claimed them,
there was nothing but mocking silence. For months after
the Sundering, civilisation continued to move forward as
all of the powers of science and technology were bent to
understanding the incomprehensible. It was only slowly
that the reality of their situation dawned upon the poor
lost souls of the benighted planet, and the empty hollow of
hopeless despair descended upon them.

At first the denizens of the planet assured each other that
what had occurred must have some natural explanation.
Some hitherto unknown phenomenon, not understood
but understandable, had wrenched from them their skies
and galaxy. All that was required to re-establish sanity and
the galaxy they knew was for enough data to be collected
and collated. Trust was placed with the scientists and
researchers, who bent their every fibre to understanding
the Sundering and discovering a way to reverse it.

But with the loss of their sky and their sun came the slow
death and decay of their world. Crops failed and weather
patterns were disrupted, wreaking havoc on transportation and
communication, and the global civilisation began to shatter
beneath the repeated hammer blows against reason and sanity.
Fear rose up to consume their hope, and with this unreasoning
dread came the very human need to assign blame and exact
punishment. As cultures fragmented, blaming each disparate
faction for this or that imagined atrocity, tensions rose, and
animal fury swept through each enclave and isolated region
As resources became harder and harder to procure, charges of
hoarding, corruption, and graft became commonplace.

And with the first outbreaks of widespread disease and famine, the
inevitable accusations of enemy action swiftly followed suit.

Stockpiles of ancient weapons were breached, and soon
all of the glorious wonders of the Dark Age of Technology
were unleashed upon the already tortured world. Test beds
for the most destructive powers Mankind had harnessed
devastated the planet. Waves of engineered plagues swept
the surface of the planet, decimating the biospheres and
scouring the planet. Dreaded atomics were detonated in
every configuration known to the ancient weaponsmiths,
from the refined airbursts that destroyed the technology
of entire regions to the brutal efficiency of megaton fusion
bombs capable of levelling entire city-states.

The furious
power unleashed cracked the very mantle of the planet, the
crustal plates collapsing into growing lakes of blood red fire
that swallowed cities whole. Battle raged overhead, as well, as
each faction attempted to wrest control of the planet’s moons
from their rivals. A particularly savage spread of anti-matter
warheads shattered all of the moons in one massive, excessive
strike, leaving nothing but a belt of charred and blasted rock
orbiting a planet howling for its own blood.

Serenis, had her leaders remained true, had her people
hewed to reason and logic, had been in an ideal position to
survive the vagaries of the terrible storm. With the technology
and ingenuity that had established them as one of the more
advanced and accomplished worlds, their civilisation may well
have survived even the madness of the Immaterium. Instead,
however, they surrendered to Mankind’s basest instincts,
and only bloody insanity was their reward. The most brutal,
powerful factions rising from the ashes clamped down upon
the dwindling resources with an iron control.

Institutional
trophy taking was initiated, with millions of skulls culled from
the battlefields and devastated cities across the planet, housed
in enormous ossuaries dedicated to the glory of victory. The
world, engulfed in the Warpstorm, hurtled through space and
time, the fury of the great ocean of the Empyrean battering
the wounded planet. Burning in an inferno of hatred and
violence, the passion of her inhabitants called through the
Immaterium, and were answered

The Age of Kurse

The smouldering cinder that had been the paradise world of
Serenis hurtled through a howling rift in reality, crashing into
the Screaming Vortex, a blasted and shattered shadow of its
former glory. Time and space are elastic in the Sea of Souls,
and as such there is no way even the most gifted sorcerer can
ever know how long the tortured world had fallen through
the ruination of the Warp. The desiccated corpse world that
had once been Serenis came to rest amongst the Gloaming
Worlds in ages now lost to man, as if it had ever drifted their
amongst the others. It was now known as Kurse.

The planet bears no resemblance to its former self. A
massive hole, like a single baleful eye, reveals the guttering
magma core through an enormous crater, vast cracks in the
crust of the planet reaching out in glowing tendrils half
way across the world. From orbit, the planet has a mottled
appearance, ochres and mouldering greens brushed through
the dominant reds of the desert wastes. Lakes of fire reach
across the blasted landscape, remnants of ancient super
weapons whose flames have yet to die out despite the death
of the civilisation that spawned them.

Isolated regions of
jungle crouch with a strange fecundity amidst the ruination,
their dark shadows home to all manner of twisted and
vicious creatures, the glorious descendants of the menageries
and personal collections of some of the most gifted genetic
artisans in the history of the galaxy.

Across vast swaths of the planet, appearing as mere desert
flats from orbit, can be found entire plains covered with the
bones of the dead. For miles in every direction, often marking
the sites of ancient cities, lie carpets of skulls, staring up
at the Screaming Vortex in silent horror and recrimination.

These are the sites of the ancient ossuaries, broken open in
the final cataclysm of violence and destruction that marked
the planet’s final fall from grace. The sound of the planet’s
haunted winds blowing dismally through the eyeholes of
millions of skulls has been known to cause even the strongest
Heretic to seek the comfort of insanity.

In low-lying regions, pockets of hundreds of bio-chemical
weapons lay untouched for millennia, ragged and tattered fog
banks lethal to even the most protected adventurer. It is these
clouds, churning and boiling in their cauldron valleys, that
have replaced the ancient beauty of Serenis. The gases and
fumes comprise every shade of every colour of the rainbow
visible to the human eye and thousands more besides. These
colours constantly shift and swirl into each other, inviting any
who look upon them to enter and taste of their mystery. Local
tribes hold contests of battle and combat near such valleys,
and those losers unlucky enough to survive their failure are
often thrown into the fog, never to be seen again.

But even amidst the rampant mutating jungles, the churning
lakes of flame, and the sluggish fogbanks of bio-chem death,
the ruins of Serenis That Was can still be seen. Thrusting up
through the red dust deserts are the cadavers of ancient statues,
their once serene features worn away by time and the desert
winds, their once wise eyes now hollow pits of empty despair.
The shells of delicate towers and intricate palaces can still be
seen in majestic isolation, covered in the rampant, lustrous
greenery or sitting in the shadows of deep valleys, poisoned
for obscuring all details.

In some areas, especially nearer to the
Great Eye, stand mute testaments to the works of the ancients:
roadways laid down in millennia past stretch for unbroken
miles, their foundations supporting them over lakes of burning
fury that have eaten away all else, while others reach across
gaping chasms, the lands upon which they once travelled
having tumbled down into the burning maw aeons ago.

Roadkill Zombie wrote:
Snip

Roadkill Zombie wrote:
I don't think you understand. The Squats developed this technology during the Dark Age of Technology. The Squats have more Dark Age of Technology stuff than anyone else does. They used their knowledge of technology to survive during that age. It was during that age that the warp storms separated them.

"With Earth and other sources of technology denied to them, the Squats had to develop their own alternative technologies using local materials and sources of energy. As they invented and re-invented machines to keep them alive, the Squats acquired considerable expertise

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Roadkill Zombie wrote:
I don't think you understand. The Squats developed this technology during the Dark Age of Technology. The Squats have more Dark Age of Technology stuff than anyone else does. They used their knowledge of technology to survive during that age. It was during that age that the warp storms separated them.

Your own quote says this:

"With Earth and other sources of technology denied to them, the Squats had to develop their own alternative technologies using local materials and sources of energy. As they invented and re-invented machines to keep them alive, the Squats acquired considerable expertise

Roadkill Zombie wrote:

Well, lets get a little more into this idea you have of what is and is not Dark Age of Technology worthy tech.

Dark Age of Technology stuff wasn't invented by the Adeptus Mechanicus.

It was developed by the humans of earth as they moved out to colonize other planets. That is exactly what the Squats were. Colonists of the galactic core. All of the technology they took with them was from the DAOT because it was then that they colonized the galactic core. They are known for keeping all of that technology active and not developing a religion around it and basically losing all of their knowledge like the Adeptus Mechanicus did.

The technology that the Squats invented IS DAOT stuff. Even the stuff they had to invent themselves, because they invented it during the same time period. There is no difference between the two.

Roadkill Zombie wrote:

Do you have the red book from the origional Rogue Trader game? I don't own it anymore but it will explain it better for you. What is available in Ork and Squat Warlords isn't as detailed as the red book.

No, they had to develop their own tech because they relied heavily on imports from earth for new colonies. When the earth was temporarily cut off from the galactic core they had to use their DAOT tech and expand upon it. Some of their tech was lost due to wars with Chaos, and with Orks. But everything they have is DAOT stuff.

Roadkill Zombie wrote:
Wow, ok. look. The ONLY technology the Squats had to draw on was what they brought with them when they went into space, which is without doubt DAOT gear. Along comes some warp storms and isolates them. What do they have for technology I wonder?...hmm...lets think about it...oh that's right. DAOT gear.

While they are getting attacked by Orks and Chaos during the DAOT what do they use to defend themselves? Mining equipment that they developed from the only technology they had available...DAOT gear.

When the Imperium finds them again after the great crusade they are astonished to find that the Squats had preserved ALL of their equipment and gear and science from the DAOT.

How is it that you can't understand that EVERYTHING the Squats have is either DAOT stuff or modified DAOT stuff? Especially since anything they invented was done during the DAOT, and the only science they had to guide them was DAOT stuff?

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Roadkill Zombie wrote:
Wow, ok. look. The ONLY technology the Squats had to draw on was what they brought with them when they went into space, which is without doubt DAOT gear. Along comes some warp storms and isolates them. What do they have for technology I wonder?...hmm...lets think about it...oh that's right. DAOT gear.

While they are getting attacked by Orks and Chaos during the DAOT what do they use to defend themselves? Mining equipment that they developed from the only technology they had available...DAOT gear.

When the Imperium finds them again after the great crusade they are astonished to find that the Squats had preserved ALL of their equipment and gear and science from the DAOT.

none of which you've posted but simply say Squat this and that. My problem is that part where they say they develop their own tech after they got cut off. Cause it puts doubt if what they have can actually be from DAoT era and is truly instead something they created locally from scraps of DAoT gak and modified even more to the point, it may not even be DAoT tech anymore or it ain't anywhere near the level of DAoT tech but looks like it.

How is it that you can't understand that EVERYTHING the Squats have is either DAOT stuff or modified DAOT stuff? Especially since anything they invented was done during the DAOT, and the only science they had to guide them was DAOT stuff?

I was talking about the neo plasma which is from your quote a Squat invention and thus not DAoT tech. I'm going for tech that can truly and without doubt stated to be something that DAoT humanity had and developed.

For example, a DAoT tech modified by Chaos is pretty much exempted from this thread by me cause they could have added all sorts of things that the device didn't have before. The only exemption is if the changes are just for decoration.

Roadkill Zombie wrote:

And that is why I mentioned the Adeptus Mechanicus earlier. You seem to have this opinion that if a piece of equipment from the DAOT has never changed, that qualifies it as DAOT tech. That is what the Adeptus Mechanicus do. They never change any of it. But Squats are innovative. Survival on the worlds they mined required them to be. Yet you seem to think that anything they made isn't DAOT tech because it doesn't resemble anything from the DAOT that they may have started with.

You are wrong on that account. Changing it with science and engineering still means it is DAOT tech. Changing it with the powers of Chaos isn't because now it is adding magic.

The DAOT tech of the Squats changed all through the DAOT. And it also changed after the DAOT. But the foundation for it all is still DAOT tech. And what they learned their exceptional engineering skills on is DAOT tech.

That is the only tech they had available. Just because someone decided to tinker with it doesn't make it any less than DAOT tech. If it did, the Rhino would not be DAOT tech. It has been tinkered with forever, yet it is still STC technology and STC tech is DAOT tech.

And if you do an internet search for Squats, you will see that no other place in the galaxy has as much STC technology as the Squat homeworlds do. No one. Not even the Adeptus Mechanicus.

15th to 18th Millennia—The Dark Age of Technology

Mankind begins to colonise the stars using sub-light spacecraft. At first only nearby systems can be
reached and the colonies must survive as independent states since they are separated from Earth by up
to ten generations of travel

Rogue Trader rpg Into the Storm pg 157 wrote:Cold Quarters

While the ship has regular quarters for its crew, this ship also
has ranks of cyro-stasis tubes filling its deep chambers. Here
the captain stores ‘surplus’ crew...until they are needed. This
component does include regular crew quarters, in addition to
the cryo-stasis tubes.

Manpower Reserves: Once per game session, the ship’s
captain may choose to reduce one source of Crew Population
loss to zero.

Rogue Trader rpg Hostile Acquisitions pg 73 wrote:Suspension Chambers

Hated by crewmembers and medicae alike, these induced
sleep chambers allow a vessel to place a substantial portion of
its crew into suspended animation. This can be used to stretch
out the ship’s stores for an extended time. There are, however,
countless tales of voidfarers trapped in these chambers for
centuries after some tragedy befell their vessels. Unlike the
cryo-stasis tubes of the so-called “cold quarters,” induced
sleep chambers take much longer to activate and deactivate,
and are designed to be used with large masses of crew at a
time. Therefore, they are not useful for replenishing small
instances of crew loss.

Slumbering Crew: When active, the vessel’s Crew
Population is decreased by 50 and its Morale is decreased by
5. When the device is deactivated, Crew Population recovers
the full 50 points, but Morale does not recover. It takes a full
day’s work to awaken all the crew.

Stretch the Rations: When in use, a ship may double
the time it may remain in the void without suffering Crew
Population or Morale Loss.

Psienesis wrote:Actually, because the Squats were Dwarves In Space, they invented, out of whole-cloth or based on DAoT devices, all sorts of stuff. This is why the AdMech didn't like them, as they view invention as a sin.

While their devices might be descended from the DAoT, it had diverged considerably, and might not even be utilizing the same technologies as the original model, and so ends up just being a poor, debased copy.

Since we can't categorically state what was or was not left over from the DAoT, with regards to Squat-tech (without an excerpt or image from a book that states as much), I'd discount Squat gear as being definitively DAoT.

jareddm wrote:I think the definition of archeotech does not necessarily imply DAoT. Obviously if the term is used during the HH or Great Crusade era, then yes, it's obviously from the DAoT. However, by M41, archeotech can be defined as any really old tech. Heresy-era or even Age of Apostasy era tech that was all developed by the ancient adeptus mechanicus is still thousands of years old and would certainly be considered archeotech, yet it has no ties to the DAoT.

Psienesis wrote:Heresy-era tech is still in wide circulation in the Imperium (as much as tech is in wide circulation... most worlds are at a slightly-fictionalized 20th/21st century level, with a spaceship arriving once a century, the average Imperial World doesn't see a lot of sci-fi stuff, with the exception of lasguns, maybe). Most of the ships flying around that are "cutting edge" might be several thousand years old. Power Armor worn by Space Marines may have housed a dozen or more previous Marines, and is handed down as relics through the Chapter. A servo-skull is built from the mortal remains of some Imperial servant, honoring them in death as a token to reward their service in life, and may be handed down from Adept to Adept, Tech-Priest to Tech-Priest, across millennia.

I'd posit that the "newest" an archaeotech device could be is Heresy-era, though the majority pre-date that time to a significant degree.

Dark Heresy The Lathe Worlds pg 70 wrote:
ARCHEOTECH

Mankind reached its technological zenith during the Dark Age
of Technology. Masters of all things mechanical, there was
nothing humans could not solve with the knowledge of science
and logical thinking. As the millennia wore on, this knowledge
began to slip away. The greatest advances were lost to the ages
through war, carelessness, natural disasters, and other causes,
and passed into the realm of what is now called archeotech.
Every now and again a piece of archeotech is found, enough
that these ancient wonders might be given life again, and their
machine-spirits restored to a fraction of their former glory.