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Starting a new terrain project this week and the issue of communications came to mind...

(images yoinked from various galleries on the site, credit to the creators)



From the beginning 40k has paid a lot of attention to the world outside the battlefield with the original Rogue Trader rules including long passages on Imperial governance, warp travel and other aspects of 40k life. And those have only been fleshed out over the years by rule books, novels and other sources.



So we already know quite a bit about communications and records. Planetary communications, by and large, seem around World War II levels, radio and print but not much in the way of TV much less computers. This makes sense given how the Imperium would want strict controls on communication and information. Where computers are available they're going to be locked to a specific location, probably they'll be big heavy Univac style machines that aren't going anywhere. With lots of valves and steam whistles and gauges on them.



Interstellar communications are also fairly well described, they're done by astropaths, telephaths "soul bound" to the Emperor who convey basically spoken messages. Soul binding is an ordeal causing blindness at the very least.

But it also raises other questions. The system seems very haphazard and unreliable, shipping psykers to Terra and back seems a lot, it makes us wonder what people did before the Imperium, and what the rest of the galaxy does.



Starting with the reliability issue, that's easily solved with cybernetics, wiring cameras, teletypes and the like to an Astropath would basically make one a living radio/telex machine. And that's something the Imperium is not shy about. I can imagine rows of astropaths plugged into equipment (which probably also enhances their psychic powers) with images being blasted into their brains and sent, their comrades worlds away receiving the messages and their mechanical hands sketching the image quickly before the next one arrives. Some higher end astropaths would get to walk around and even be trusted advisors, but the lower end are little more than a cog in the equipment.



Which brings me to the issue of soul binding and hauling astropaths all the way to Holy Terra and back. Which given their short lifespans does not seem useful, especially when the Emperor (and/or the astronomican) needs to eat a thousand psykers a day just to keep going.

So how's this, Astropaths really ought to go to Terra for Soul Binding, and we wish they could, but when they can't a high level, trusted, skilled Astropath can do a Soul Binding on another world. Probably a big to-do involving cathedrals, choruses and incense, representatives from the Astropaths, the Clergy, the Adeptus Mechanicus and so on all there. Or when the high level, top ranked ones aren't an option, maybe a mid-ranked one will do something faster and not as good.



So you end up with levels of Astropaths, senior ones who have made the pilgrimage to Terra, bathed in the Emperor's holy light, etc, etc. 1st generation who were trained by them, 2nd generation who were trained by the 1st generation with each generation being less trusted with sensitive information. An Inquisitor or IG officer or Navy Captain may be accompanied by a pure Astropath cleared to send and receive top secret information. Bottom ranked Astropaths, multi generations removed from Terra, they get wires in their head and are hooked up to big science machines.




Is there an alternative? Is there mechanical FTL communication? What did they do before the Emperor?

I'm going to say yes, there is some sort of FTL/subspace radio/tachyon whatever system but since the Age of Strife it is very, very unreliable. Messages may be garbled, may never arrive or may be altered. The Warp after all is not just a storm, it has malicious and sentient daemons who will alter messages for their own ends or just for the LOLs.

The system worked during the Dark Age of Technology, and it kinda, sorta works now for short distances but for anything sensitive or that needs to go to the far corner of the galaxy, you'll want and need an Astropath.

There is similar established fluff for Navigators and ships, ships can make short jumps using instruments but anything long requires a trained Navigator.



So what does everyone else do?

There's established fluff of Chaos ships using psykers and daemons to navigate and communicate. So we can assume Orks, pirates, criminals, etc do the same. A risky gamble but maybe all you have.

Tau? Maybe their tech is reliable enough or their empire small enough it doesn't matter?

Eldar and Necrons have magic of course.



And there's also a work around. Ships can carry messages, physical ones or recorded data then deliver them as they arrive in systems. So a factory may get a short Astropath message "We need 1000 Chimeras" but will wait for a transport ship with the written order, the details the prices etc.



So that's what I have now, next up computers and records and why all the parchment?

The Tau use message drones, and I can see the Impeium doing the same thing. Small packet couriers that do nothing other than jump back and forth between well connected systems using short calculated routes and broadcasting data so they don’t need to coast all the way in to the inner system.Imperial systems often have listening lists quite far out they could be used for resupply of such ships as required.

Regarding Astropaths going to Earth, the imperium has quite a lot of stasis tech still, so I can see them packaging up psykers that are likely to make astropath grade on the black ships. The personal time loss would mean nothing to the Adeptus Astopathica, as long as the supplies continue to flow.

What might make more sense for your “apprenticeship” style approach is the throughput of astropaths required. With a million worlds, and even more ships, cities, stations and outposts, all likely requiring many more than 1 path, the soul binding ritual would likely need to be a conveyer belt faster than the feeding in-tray.

Astropaths also don’t communicate using words, rather symbols and impressions and that. Which can make deciphering the message tricky.

I dont fully agree with the part "Planetary communications, by and large, seem around World War II levels, radio and print but not much in the way of TV much less computers". Is there any proof this doesnt exist? I mean, after all, dataslates seem common enough, if a dataslate can play back pr0n (IIRC this was in a BL book I once skimmed), it is conceivable that video and vox transmissions are quite common. However, due to the vast distances involved, it is indeed likely that sending vox or video across systems is asking too much, but I dont think it'd be inconceivable that a couple worlds within the same system couldnt have some forms of communication, or even broadcasting activity.

As for controlling the media, this already happens plenty enough IRL. I cannot elaborate more than that without getting into politics, but you know state controlled media is a thing even on our planet. Add a level of intentional disinformation, just to muddy the waters a bit, and we have an atmosphere where only state controlled media is "reliable", and everything else might be lies or propaganda sent with sinister agendas that are anti-imperialist in nature, punishable by summary execution..

Why do I think so? Because I cannot get over the fact that in my personal headcanon, "Sons Of Guilliman" is a loved drama show, adored by billions in the ultramar system I could imagine soaps and game shows to be much loved respite from the daily grind for most plebs

I’m not sure anything is especially standardised in terms of planetary communications.

Hive Worlds by their very nature of a social Pyramid will likely have different tech available as you ascend/descend the Hive and its social stratas.

Cain mentions equivalents to TV and Movies, but I don’t think specifies how they’re watched. Could be TVs like we have, could be Pathé news style in cinemas/theatres. But, as a Necromunda model has TV Screens onnastik?



I’d wager Necromunda itself has a TV Network of some kind. It is the opiate of the masses, and a hand dandy propaganda poop pump for any Totalitarian Regime, no?

And as said earlier, availability will vary across the Imperium, and within Imperial Worlds. So not WW2 tech, but possibly post-war “only one hovel on this level has their own set, and we all crammed into their parlour to watch the new Planetary Governor sworn in” type stuff.

I can even see Blade Runner type maaaaaassice screens higher up the Hive, just showing general Imperial Propaganda.

On primitive and other low-tech worlds? Probably down to the Ministorum to spread the good word, and as with varying medieval civilisations that could include morality plays and puppet shows etc.

Good brainstorming. Most sensible writeup, KidKyoto.

I tend to follow the established background as unquestioned canon on such matters as soulbinding of Astropaths all being centralized to Holy Terra and the Emperor Himself. And simply imagine Black Ship logistics all building up to this outcome. But your decentralized (and extra dangerous) apprenticeship proposal would make more sense for this vast setting, and should as such be given fair consideration by everyone, even if one do not end up embracing it.

Very nice thoughts, all!

I'll throw in a historical find earmarked for future DD concept, of interest to propaganda here:



Radiotochkas were very cheap Soviet radios that spread like wildfire under Stalin. Their signals went by wire to avoid foreign or internal subversive wireless interference. They had no on/off button and no controls allowing listeners to change frequency. And they popped up everywhere inside the Soviet Union during the 1930s. They allowed a steady and unbroken stream of propaganda to reach the masses through news broadcasts, ideological lecturing, educational programmes, entertaining dramas, bombastic music, broadcast kangaroo troika court confessions and so on. Goebbels was impressed by Stalin's radiotochkas.

If you add visuals and surveillance, you would have a 1984 telescreen.

I propose that many vox-emitters and public pict-screens in the more advanced parts of the Imperium function like Stalinist radiotochkas and Orwellian telescreens.

The key is centralization. No decentralized networks allowing for independent messages must be tolerated. Burn such deviants, malcontents and heretics at the stake!

Ave Imperator

So, there's a lot to unpack here:
What did worlds do before the imperium? Nothing, that's kind of the point, the great crusade was, in part, to help connect all these isolated worlds via interstallar communication

Shipping astropaths to Terra and back for soul binding is only long and arduous if you're assuming the same psykers that are being shipped off are the ones who get sent back. Think of it more like a series of ships doing a great big circuit of the Imperium - a planet gives their psyker tithe, and sends their telepaths off for soul binding, and they get sufficient astropaths to allow interstellar communication, but the astropaths they get are ones that were soul bound decades before the tithe was taken. It's not "We're giving you a psyker to soul-bind, it'll take 20 years to send him to terra and get him back, and in the meantime we're without a means of communication", it's "We're sending our psyker Tithe off, any who survive the soul binding and become astropaths are added to the pool of astropaths the AAT have available to them. We are also allocated astropaths from that pool, of the ones close enough to reach us in a reasonable timeframe". Also lifespans are not a massive worry when we know that psychic abilities enhance the weilder's physiology (Codex: Assassins 2nd edition) and extend lifespans. Also stasis is a thing. need to deliver a thousand astropaths to the other side of the Imperium? chuck 'em in stasis.

Cybernetic astropaths? I believe Hive Worlds do this. I don't think other worlds do to any great extent because astropaths have been in the Emperor's presence, and are afforded a degree of respect. The Mechanicus, being the Mechanicus, doesn't especially care

Forms of interstellar communication: Astropaths send thoughts, concepts, ideas, feelings. It's telepathy, anything you can think can be sent. Whether it will be received as intended is a different matter

Non-telepathic FTL messaging? Not really a thing, as mentioned above the lack of FTL comms is a big part of why the Age of Strife occured, pockets of humanity becoming isolated. Messenger ships would be a common method (and drones used by the Tau)
Eldar don't really have a need for FTL comms, they have webway gates, they can just literally send a messenger
Necrons defy physics so can do whatever the hell they like
Orks? well, they can more or less do what they like, there must be some telepathic weirdboyz out there, other than that sending ships or a mek with some Orky know-wotz. Orks do pretty much whatever the plot needs them to do anyway

On a planetary level? they have whatever is appropriate to the tech level. Lots of planets have vox networks, some have video broadcasts, some have cyberpunky implants, some have parchment delivered on horseback, 40k's designed as a very adaptable setting so there won't be a one-size-fits-all answer. If I had to guess about why all the quills and parchment, mechanical systems maintained only by an insular priesthood who actively persecute any innovation may not be the best way to store and disseminate information, whereas if you have a skull writing things with a quill and inkm anyone can read that, you aren't beholden to the priesthood for access. Useful for Inquisitors and other secret-having people, or relaying orders to places where there may not be a receiving vox unit

I think the thing with the quills and parchments is partly down to the foolproofness of the medium. Writing (encrypted) text on a leather parchment is impervious to any sort of technical malfunction, and needs no device for access/output. So why not both? Have everything in writing as well as in data. All about redundancy and all that

And we're back!

40k began as the desktop revolution was taking off with the internet and mobile data devices barely a dream. And as a techno-fantasy game paper, books, scrolls and other archaic record keeping have been part of the look from the beginning. I can't remember computers/cognators even showing up in the Imperium until the Ravenor books and then the FFG role playing games.



But how to explain things in universe? If computers and tablets/data slates exist, why are the obvious advantages being overlooked? Why lug around a 50 pound book rather than a digital slate with a thousand books on it?



First off our data networks rely on thousands of sophisticated devices communicating seamlessly with one another. The Imperium of the 41st millennium just may not be able to produce devices reliably enough and in enough numbers. Moreover digital data is subject to corruption, from errors, from sabotage, from device failure, to deliberate alterations from editors and censors.

Records on paper, particularly handwritten ones, are very difficult to forge or tamper with. Even an uneducated eye can pick out when a page has been removed, when a note has been added by a different hand or a different pen.

Of course digital files' corruptibility may in fact be an advantage.

So I would propose that for the Imperium digital records are great for the masses, where with one tap of a button records can be updated to say "We have always been at war with the Tau". The traitorous General Joe's triumphs can be credited to the loyal General Bob with no issue. No need to airbrush photos or recall textbooks as the Soviets did.

(TV is even better for this since, barring video recorders, there's no record, you can say something yesterday, contradict it today and no one can check.)

However they are ultimately suspect. GW stole the 'Butlerian Jihad' idea from Dune, the war between men and machines ending in the commandment "thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind" inherently capping how smart 40k cognators can be. Baron Frank might see the advantages of putting tax records on a cognator, but the thought of it will raise alarms deep in his soul.



So for people who want/need/can afford permanent records pen and paper would be the way to go.

Back in the day in China there would be 2 versions of the newspaper, one for the masses, one for party members. The masses version would talk about record harvests and record production, the party version would talk about the famines and shortages. And the party versions would be numbered and collected at the end of the day. No danger of them being copied or passed around with no one noticing.



Computer databases of course have advantages even the most meticulously curated paper library does not. So they would exist but be carefully secured, checked and maintained. And ruinously expensive. A large library and dozens of menials would be cheaper. And permission to build one would be rare and limited to only government and the most trusted merchant houses.



And the military of course. Never know when you may need to share the latest orbital auspex readings with your Eldar and Squat allies.



Now there are frequent mentions of parchment and vellum. One Black Library book talks about the vast warehouses of parchment needed to fuel Terra's record keeping.

Now these are not oldy timey words for paper, they are leather used for writing. So, other than sounding cooler than paper, why?

The 40k universe's unique threat of the Warp might explain it. Natural materials and handcrafted things might have more resistance to the Warp than mass produced printed books. Warp daemons might have a tougher time twisting the words on parchment (or just causing spontaneous combustion) than paper records.

So we get a hierarchy:

Digital records - cheap, disposable, unreliable, editable
Printed records - permanent, expensive, hard to work with
Shielded digital records - very expensive, limited access
Handwritten parchment records - when you have the time and the money

One more thought on technology, cybernetics



Cybernatics and bionics are among the rare 40k technologies that are common there but far more advanced than the real world. They may be driving around in WWI tanks spewing smoke but somehow it makes more economic sense to lop off a miner's arm and install a drill there.



However they seem limited to physical improvements, and occasionally burning a new skill into someone's brain.

The Adeptus Mechanicus have mental improvements and their own cyberspace/neu sphere but that's hardly common tech.

So in 40k they have the technology to keep digital records but cannot trust them. So they keep and need a parallel system of 19th century paper and parchment records.

A factory worker or student may have a dataslate (black screen, green letters, courier font, in proper 80s style) which gets periodically updated to keep the information "correct" but anyone with means knows to keep their records on paper at at hand.

Good ongoing discussion, folks. Excellent thoughts, Kid Kyoto.

A quick thing to add here from someone who has been into ancient Mesopotamian history all my life, would be that burnt clay is more durable than any vellum or paper.

We have ample records in painstaking bureaucratic detail from ancient Sumeria, Babylonia and Assyria, but an almost total lack of sources from ancient Persia, bar mentions in other peoples' surviving books and a few straggling uses of cuneiform on clay tablets in a time when derivations of the Phoenician alphabet written on parchment or papyrus had taken over. Even compared to the rich surviving literature from ancient Hellas and Rome, the hundreds of thousands of clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia towers over classical literature like a mountain of boring court records and administrative data sprinkled with a few vivid tablets about poetry, the deeds of kings and mythology.

Stone is even more durable than burnt clay.

And as per STC hardcopies, futuristic durable materials would serve the same function.

All this boils down to a suggestion that the Imperium of Man might sport some scattershot efforts at long-term datakeeping in the form of baked clay tablets, stone tablets or futuristic equivalents. Of course this would not be comprehensive nor well-functioning on the whole, given the vast loss of knowledge that occurs in the Imperium, but we should expect such a phenomenon to exist here and there, in rare aristocratic holdings, in the occasional Administratum archives, in Inquisitorial fortresses and mayhap among the Adeptus Mechanicus to some extent. Such record keeping for the ages beyond the lifespan of parchment might be reserved only for certain kinds of information, carefully vetted and censored.

Very good point. Parchment might be good for your walking servitor but then you'll want to micro etch it into adamantium when you get home!

A few years ago a woman from the Library of Congress was telling me how they microfilm newspapers and magazines. I asked why they did that over scanning them. Her answer was properly stored micro film lasts 1000 years and can be read with a magnifying glass, that's the scale they think on.

Geeze. I hope she still has a job. I hope they're still doing the good work of preserving.

Really nice images and discussion!

I was thinking the other day about Ork and human contact. We know that humans contact Orks to sell them stuff and employ them as mercenaries, so there must be some commonality in radio equipment to make that happen.
I'm sure things are also handled through shady brokers and intermediaries, but even they would need some sort of initial contact before stepping aboard a Kill Kroozer!