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 Psienesis wrote:


You don't have the luxury of time to sit back at the Chapter Forge and tinker with weapons designs, Marine.

We have the Salamanders and Iron Hands representatives on the phone, and they wanna talk to you. Care to answer?

Sure.

"What the hell have you guys been doing for ten thousand years? Oh, can't improve on the pattern? It's at the virtual peak of it's design potential? Got it. Hold please."

All hail the machine god!

 Psienesis wrote:
Sure.

"What the hell have you guys been doing for ten thousand years? Oh, can't improve on the pattern? It's at the virtual peak of it's design potential? Got it. Hold please."

EXALTED!

 Tigramans wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Sure.

"What the hell have you guys been doing for ten thousand years? Oh, can't improve on the pattern? It's at the virtual peak of it's design potential? Got it. Hold please."

EXALTED!

Second that.

A major reason why the Imperium lacks technological advancement is that the technology from the STC already represents the absolute peak of human knowledge. It is virtually impossible to create anything more advanced than what you could get from an STC, so it is more rewarding to search for lost STCs than it is to invent new, inferior stuff.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
It is virtually impossible to create anything more advanced than what you could get from an STC, so it is more rewarding to search for lost STCs than it is to invent new, inferior stuff.

Not if you can't find it.

But it's much easier to search for STCs than it is to design *anything* new, because *anything* new you build is going to involve using the items that currently exist to fabricate it.

When that happens, you dump who-know-how-many lines of the free-roaming AI scrapcode that infests just about every system in the Imperium due to the war with the Men of Iron and then the daemonic code-hacks released during the Horus Heresy.

So while working on a new design for a lasgun, your first prototype ends up incinerating half a Hive before tearing a hole in reality and opening an unbound Warp Gate in the middle of your Forge.

Best to stick with the tried-and-true.

Plus it's one minute to midnight in the imperium. Finding a non warp FTL drive or a lasgun that can one shot a gargantuan creature might make a difference. But real incremental science won't pay off in time to save humans from all the monsters coming up from the darkness.

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
I don't buy into the whole lost knowledge thing. In my opinion, Imperium tehnology is advancing. It should be better than it was during the Great Crusade. Nothing drastic in the last 10,000 years, because Imperial society doesn't push for new advancement. But on an overall scale, it should be adapting and changing as the situations and needs calls for. The knowledge and technology a Space Marine Chapter holds, I think should be at the apex of martial prowess compared to the technology other military branches have. Strictly martial power though. They definitely won't beat other organizations on certain topics though. Like for instance, science and industry. That seat would go to the Priesthood of Mars.

Read up on the Dark Ages we had here on Earth. 40k is the exact same- a broken existence, still based upon a time where knowledge was greater (The pre-Christian Roman Empire). The Empire was split in half, and is now beset by enemies, including its old half.

If that doesn't bother you, consider this- the half of the Empire that is the Imperium isn't Rome, it's Byzantium. Chaos is Rome, various bandits the Orks. Islam might be the Necrons. Actually, I just thought of this comparison now.... maybe I should post a thread on it.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
I don't buy into the whole lost knowledge thing. In my opinion, Imperium tehnology is advancing. It should be better than it was during the Great Crusade. Nothing drastic in the last 10,000 years, because Imperial society doesn't push for new advancement. But on an overall scale, it should be adapting and changing as the situations and needs calls for. The knowledge and technology a Space Marine Chapter holds, I think should be at the apex of martial prowess compared to the technology other military branches have. Strictly martial power though. They definitely won't beat other organizations on certain topics though. Like for instance, science and industry. That seat would go to the Priesthood of Mars.

Read up on the Dark Ages we had here on Earth. 40k is the exact same- a broken existence, still based upon a time where knowledge was greater (The pre-Christian Roman Empire). The Empire was split in half, and is now beset by enemies, including its old half.

If that doesn't bother you, consider this- the half of the Empire that is the Imperium isn't Rome, it's Byzantium. Chaos is Rome, various bandits the Orks. Islam might be the Necrons. Actually, I just thought of this comparison now.... maybe I should post a thread on it.

This more shows a complete ignorance of history, as there was no such thing as the "Dark Ages" which is largely a meme created by society with absolutely no knowledge of the Medieval Era. You could possibly describe the time immediately after the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, but human history never "slowed down" or came to a complete stop like in 40k. Chemistry, Metallurgy, Physics, etc all continued marching on after the Roman Empire. There is a reason why historians of the period disdain the use of the term "Dark Ages" and instead just describe the 5th-9/10th centuries as the Early Middle Ages/ Medieval Period.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
I don't buy into the whole lost knowledge thing. In my opinion, Imperium tehnology is advancing. It should be better than it was during the Great Crusade. Nothing drastic in the last 10,000 years, because Imperial society doesn't push for new advancement. But on an overall scale, it should be adapting and changing as the situations and needs calls for. The knowledge and technology a Space Marine Chapter holds, I think should be at the apex of martial prowess compared to the technology other military branches have. Strictly martial power though. They definitely won't beat other organizations on certain topics though. Like for instance, science and industry. That seat would go to the Priesthood of Mars.

Read up on the Dark Ages we had here on Earth. 40k is the exact same- a broken existence, still based upon a time where knowledge was greater (The pre-Christian Roman Empire). The Empire was split in half, and is now beset by enemies, including its old half.

If that doesn't bother you, consider this- the half of the Empire that is the Imperium isn't Rome, it's Byzantium. Chaos is Rome, various bandits the Orks. Islam might be the Necrons. Actually, I just thought of this comparison now.... maybe I should post a thread on it.

This more shows a complete ignorance of history, as there was no such thing as the "Dark Ages" which is largely a meme created by society with absolutely no knowledge of the Medieval Era. You could possibly describe the time immediately after the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, but human history never "slowed down" or came to a complete stop like in 40k. Chemistry, Metallurgy, Physics, etc all continued marching on after the Roman Empire. There is a reason why historians of the period disdain the use of the term "Dark Ages" and instead just describe the 5th-9/10th centuries as the Early Middle Ages/ Medieval Period.

In one word? Concrete.

The technology largely ceased to exist until the 18th century. On the other hand, we have no idea just how much we lost when Alexandria burned and early Christians torched ancient writings with a passion met only by ISIS. We can't know exactly what we lost there... but we know we lost concrete... and I've yet to hear a pro-Christian explanation for why that's not their fault.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
I don't buy into the whole lost knowledge thing. In my opinion, Imperium tehnology is advancing. It should be better than it was during the Great Crusade. Nothing drastic in the last 10,000 years, because Imperial society doesn't push for new advancement. But on an overall scale, it should be adapting and changing as the situations and needs calls for. The knowledge and technology a Space Marine Chapter holds, I think should be at the apex of martial prowess compared to the technology other military branches have. Strictly martial power though. They definitely won't beat other organizations on certain topics though. Like for instance, science and industry. That seat would go to the Priesthood of Mars.

Read up on the Dark Ages we had here on Earth. 40k is the exact same- a broken existence, still based upon a time where knowledge was greater (The pre-Christian Roman Empire). The Empire was split in half, and is now beset by enemies, including its old half.

If that doesn't bother you, consider this- the half of the Empire that is the Imperium isn't Rome, it's Byzantium. Chaos is Rome, various bandits the Orks. Islam might be the Necrons. Actually, I just thought of this comparison now.... maybe I should post a thread on it.

This more shows a complete ignorance of history, as there was no such thing as the "Dark Ages" which is largely a meme created by society with absolutely no knowledge of the Medieval Era. You could possibly describe the time immediately after the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, but human history never "slowed down" or came to a complete stop like in 40k. Chemistry, Metallurgy, Physics, etc all continued marching on after the Roman Empire. There is a reason why historians of the period disdain the use of the term "Dark Ages" and instead just describe the 5th-9/10th centuries as the Early Middle Ages/ Medieval Period.

In one word? Concrete.

The technology largely ceased to exist until the 18th century. On the other hand, we have no idea just how much we lost when Alexandria burned and early Christians torched ancient writings with a passion met only by ISIS. We can't know exactly what we lost there... but we know we lost concrete... and I've yet to hear a pro-Christian explanation for why that's not their fault.

And yet Medieval Europe designed the best melee armor to ever grace the earth until the modern age. Simply losing the ability to construct concrete does not suddenly plunge one into the "dark ages". Although we do have to thank the loss of calculus for a couple hundred years to damned monks.

The same ancient Christians who preserved all the knowledge of the west in fortified monasteries and founded all the great universities of Europe which led to the blossoming of rationalism in the 14th and 15th century? I don't see ISIS doing much of that. Nice try, troll.

However, in 40K, this is a *true* Dark Age, as all of the repositories of human knowledge were *FETHED*, good and truly in the bung-hole *FETHED* with a rusty chainsaw during the War of the Iron Men. The most-advanced electronic warfare systems were unleashed on both sides of the conflict and humanity was driven to the brink of extinction. Its cities and planets were burned, its libraries destroyed, its sages slain, and the entire species back-slid several thousand years, in some cases descending into techno-barbarism (like on Earth, for example).

And then, as the Mechanicus was *just* barely piecing it back together, here comes the Heresy to *DOUBLE FETH* it with rusty chainsaws *and* tentacles, releasing sentient Code-Daemons into all of the systems (that is, the entire planet of Mars) which will actively seek you out and destroy your mind. Or detonate a nuclear device if you plug the wrong toaster in.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Their technology is imperfectly being preserved by the Adeptus Mechanicus. The same guys who can somehow manage to lose the ability to manufacture a type of cannon in widespread use because one world is lost.

They get "new" equipment from the AdMech as well but the Marines can make guns, swords and most likely spare parts.

They have Tech marines and a "Master of the Forge", who are all ad-mech trained to build, maintain and re-order space marine tech.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
The same guys who can somehow manage to lose the ability to manufacture a type of cannon in widespread use because one world is lost.

Which is weird because Mars should have known how to make it. Mars is supposed to essentially receive blueprints of all designs after all.

The damn technophiles won't give up their porn stash

For those who don't buy into lost tech, look at the American B-2 bomber. We literally cannot produce more at this point without a lot of re-research and re-training, even though we built them in the past.

 troa wrote:
For those who don't buy into lost tech, look at the American B-2 bomber. We literally cannot produce more at this point without a lot of re-research and re-training, even though we built them in the past.

And that's within the last century. add a few thousand years of religious insanity, and things go awry.

 Selym wrote:

 troa wrote:
For those who don't buy into lost tech, look at the American B-2 bomber. We literally cannot produce more at this point without a lot of re-research and re-training, even though we built them in the past.

And that's within the last century. add a few thousand years of religious insanity, and things go awry.

few? its about 10.000 years form HH

What? Why can't they build any B2s? As far as I know they're still being worked on and upgraded.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
What? Why can't they build any B2s? As far as I know they're still being worked on and upgraded.

But the project started in the 1970s - the engineers that did the basic work are retired or possibly dead by now. Many of the workers that built them are retired too. They were built at one - extensively refitted - factory. Refitting the planes with new electronics etc is possible, but building new ones would require significant investments.

Yes, but the engineers notes still exist, the designs still exist. The knowledge doesn't need rediscovering.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Yes, but the engineers notes still exist, the designs still exist. The knowledge doesn't need rediscovering.

It kinda does, they keep everything in massive datastacks an libraries the size of city blocks.
There's so much data, they don't even know to look for it. And god help them if they need to access a specific file.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's like trying to find information in the internet, but without a search engine.

I meant for the B-2, not for the AdMech. I know how bad the AdMech have it. :p

OK then, following on from the B-2 metaphor, we are no longer capable of building spacecraft reaching the moon. We have records from satellites that we can't read for lack of equipment. Sure, we can design these things again, but it's still a similar situation to the Admech.

Back on topic, most get equipment from forge worlds, or create their own on a limited scale. No Chapter is self sufficient (thanks, Gulliman). They tend to reappropriate stuff, but whether thats a sign of desperation, or a misguided sense of duty, is debatable.

Actually, it's not Guilleman's fault - that was part of the original arrangement between Empy and the Admech.

 Silverthorne wrote:
The same ancient Christians who preserved all the knowledge of the west in fortified monasteries and founded all the great universities of Europe which led to the blossoming of rationalism in the 14th and 15th century? I don't see ISIS doing much of that. Nice try, troll.

Actually the nations of the middle east preserved as much if not more of the "ancient" knowledge than the Christians.............

There is a good argument that due to its reliance on slavery, the Roman Empire was very bad at actually inventing things - especially technology - most things the Romans had they acquired from other cultures and then did a splendid job of using them - bit like the Japanese.

That is the cool part about being an Empire.

See something cool being done by someone else? Conquer them, and take it for yourselves.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

The Mechanicum has its own factions and power groupings and not all knowledge is shared.

Every design is supposed to be sent to Mars. It defies credibility for Mars to not know about the Vanquisher cannon. For it to be lost with the fall of Forgeworld Tigrus requires Tigrus to have refused to share the secret with Mars and pretty much openly defy the leadership of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Which should have been a huge deal.

Sometimes the design is not all it takes. Even in our advanced modern society there are a number of things made only 50-70 years ago that we cannot reproduce despite having the design and in some cases functioning examples.

The difference is that today, if it made economic sense, we could invest enough to relearn how to produce those things, or make something better. The only thing that keeps us from doing it is a lack of economic viability. In many cases the IoM does not have the resources to find out how an obscure design works, or does not have the time, or there always seem to be more pressing things, like feeding people and repairing more important systems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Yes, but the engineers notes still exist, the designs still exist. The knowledge doesn't need rediscovering.

But what about when the engineers die and a new generation of engineers start working. Sometimes the notes are insufficient.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
It seems the mechanicum cannot invent new stuff anymore, magos are all cybernetic creatures but some simple Tanks are too difficult too make.

It seems they can only make copies from tech they find in the STC (Standard Template Construct) devices.

cost is an issue. Not in money but in resources. An elite magos is worth enhancing and preserving with the rarest cybernetic enhancment. A tank is a tank, it serves a purpose. At the point where a particular type of tank takes twice as many resources as another perhaps less ideal tank most armies will push for the simpler model because a tank is a tank, and they need a lot of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
I don't buy into the whole lost knowledge thing. In my opinion, Imperium tehnology is advancing. It should be better than it was during the Great Crusade. Nothing drastic in the last 10,000 years, because Imperial society doesn't push for new advancement. But on an overall scale, it should be adapting and changing as the situations and needs calls for. The knowledge and technology a Space Marine Chapter holds, I think should be at the apex of martial prowess compared to the technology other military branches have. Strictly martial power though. They definitely won't beat other organizations on certain topics though. Like for instance, science and industry. That seat would go to the Priesthood of Mars.

It is hard to contemplate when we live in a society where technology is advancing and where we are wealthy enough to do as we please. but there was a time when Engineering ground to a halt.

In 537 AD the Hagia Sofia was built. It was built in 5 years. Its dome was the largest in the world. It was the largest enclosed space on earth. It was the largest building on earth.
In 558 AD the dome collapsed in an earthquake and was rebuilt.

In 1296 Florence started construction of it's cathedral
In 1418 the cathedral minus the done was completed but the architects at the time did not know how to build a dome that large. It must have been depressing to admit that the greatest engineers of their age could not build something smaller than something the Romans had built 950 years ago, but that was the case. Worse they only needed to take a horse down to Rome to see the Pantheon, another dome larger than the one they needed. (The pantheon's dome is made of concrete and has an iris-Lacks a keystone)
In 1420 they started working on a dome
In 1423 they discovered the plan would not work and started again
In 1436 they finally finished the dome on a building smaller than the Hagia sofia.

In 1575 the Selimiye Mosque was built, it took 6 years to complete and was the first dome larger than the Hagia Sofia. The Hagia Sofia was still a larger enclosed space and a larger building, but it would not hold these titles for long.

That we only need look 500 years ago to find an occurrence of our own backward engineering. 1000 years of darkness, not locally, but worldwide. For 1000 years the Hagia sofia stood as a relic in Constantinople. The largest building in the WORLD. Nothing in western europe matched it. Nothing in the muslim world matched it. Nothing in China came close. Nothing in India matched it.


And how did this happen. The Romans were great engineers. They kept good notes, they left hundreds of similar buildings all over a vast portion of the world to be investigated. The war that toppled their empire was not so great. The Roman empire didnt even really fall. The western half collapsed, but the eastern half ruled over Constantinople for another 1000 years yet they could never match their earlier achievements.

Looking at 40k, the HH involved greater destruction than anything that Rome could have imagined. The level of technology in 30k was far ahead of where the IoM is in 40k. The level of economic prosperity in 30k was far ahead of where the IoM is in 40k. On earth it took roughly 1000 years for mankind to recover from the fall of Rome. It should not be too difficult to imagine an empire like the IoM taking more than 10,000 years to recover from the HH.

 Exergy wrote:

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

The Mechanicum has its own factions and power groupings and not all knowledge is shared.

Every design is supposed to be sent to Mars. It defies credibility for Mars to not know about the Vanquisher cannon. For it to be lost with the fall of Forgeworld Tigrus requires Tigrus to have refused to share the secret with Mars and pretty much openly defy the leadership of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Which should have been a huge deal.

Sometimes the design is not all it takes. Even in our advanced modern society there are a number of things made only 50-70 years ago that we cannot reproduce despite having the design and in some cases functioning examples.

The difference is that today, if it made economic sense, we could invest enough to relearn how to produce those things, or make something better. The only thing that keeps us from doing it is a lack of economic viability. In many cases the IoM does not have the resources to find out how an obscure design works, or does not have the time, or there always seem to be more pressing things, like feeding people and repairing more important systems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Yes, but the engineers notes still exist, the designs still exist. The knowledge doesn't need rediscovering.

But what about when the engineers die and a new generation of engineers start working. Sometimes the notes are insufficient.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
It seems the mechanicum cannot invent new stuff anymore, magos are all cybernetic creatures but some simple Tanks are too difficult too make.

It seems they can only make copies from tech they find in the STC (Standard Template Construct) devices.

cost is an issue. Not in money but in resources. An elite magos is worth enhancing and preserving with the rarest cybernetic enhancment. A tank is a tank, it serves a purpose. At the point where a particular type of tank takes twice as many resources as another perhaps less ideal tank most armies will push for the simpler model because a tank is a tank, and they need a lot of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LumenPraebeo wrote:
I don't buy into the whole lost knowledge thing. In my opinion, Imperium tehnology is advancing. It should be better than it was during the Great Crusade. Nothing drastic in the last 10,000 years, because Imperial society doesn't push for new advancement. But on an overall scale, it should be adapting and changing as the situations and needs calls for. The knowledge and technology a Space Marine Chapter holds, I think should be at the apex of martial prowess compared to the technology other military branches have. Strictly martial power though. They definitely won't beat other organizations on certain topics though. Like for instance, science and industry. That seat would go to the Priesthood of Mars.

It is hard to contemplate when we live in a society where technology is advancing and where we are wealthy enough to do as we please. but there was a time when Engineering ground to a halt.

In 537 AD the Hagia Sofia was built. It was built in 5 years. Its dome was the largest in the world. It was the largest enclosed space on earth. It was the largest building on earth.
In 558 AD the dome collapsed in an earthquake and was rebuilt.

In 1296 Florence started construction of it's cathedral
In 1418 the cathedral minus the done was completed but the architects at the time did not know how to build a dome that large. It must have been depressing to admit that the greatest engineers of their age could not build something smaller than something the Romans had built 950 years ago, but that was the case. Worse they only needed to take a horse down to Rome to see the Pantheon, another dome larger than the one they needed. (The pantheon's dome is made of concrete and has an iris-Lacks a keystone)
In 1420 they started working on a dome
In 1423 they discovered the plan would not work and started again
In 1436 they finally finished the dome on a building smaller than the Hagia sofia.

In 1575 the Selimiye Mosque was built, it took 6 years to complete and was the first dome larger than the Hagia Sofia. The Hagia Sofia was still a larger enclosed space and a larger building, but it would not hold these titles for long.

That we only need look 500 years ago to find an occurrence of our own backward engineering. 1000 years of darkness, not locally, but worldwide. For 1000 years the Hagia sofia stood as a relic in Constantinople. The largest building in the WORLD. Nothing in western europe matched it. Nothing in the muslim world matched it. Nothing in China came close. Nothing in India matched it.


And how did this happen. The Romans were great engineers. They kept good notes, they left hundreds of similar buildings all over a vast portion of the world to be investigated. The war that toppled their empire was not so great. The Roman empire didnt even really fall. The western half collapsed, but the eastern half ruled over Constantinople for another 1000 years yet they could never match their earlier achievements.

Looking at 40k, the HH involved greater destruction than anything that Rome could have imagined. The level of technology in 30k was far ahead of where the IoM is in 40k. The level of economic prosperity in 30k was far ahead of where the IoM is in 40k. On earth it took roughly 1000 years for mankind to recover from the fall of Rome. It should not be too difficult to imagine an empire like the IoM taking more than 10,000 years to recover from the HH.

But the imperium is besieged on all sides by the remnants of the HE, xenos and other unimaginable things constantly for 10000 years the roman empire would have had times of relative peace. Not only that the vast majority of the imperium population is decimated in huge battles or worked almost constantly for their entire lived without much personal time to spend on thinking off ways to improve pieces of tech also if they did somehow manage to change or improve some tech they will most likely be dragged off by the mechanicus never to be seen again

 Furyou Miko wrote:
What? Why can't they build any B2s? As far as I know they're still being worked on and upgraded.

You know you're a Warsie when you see somebody mentioning the B2 plane, and immediately confuse it with the droid, and are left wondering why people are discussing the subject of making a battle droid.