Think "Late 80's Technology". Few cogitators had a GUI interface, only the extremely rich had cell phones (and they were huge and bulky) the Internet was for universities to share datasets (and incredibly slow and expensive), mainframes were huge...etc. etc. etc.

Remember, this game was written and developed in the late 80's and they actually went into quite a bit of detail on how technology worked.

As for how to explain the "Dark Age of Technology" in a way youngsters understand, imagine yourself to be 80 years old. Maybe, if you're lucky or just determined, you know how to log on to the "hard drive" and get on "your" Internet and send an email. If you even bother with a computer, you don't understand it, how it works or what you can actually do with it. When it breaks (i.e. when you break it...say the "coffee cup holder") you curse at it, like it had a mind of its own and had a personal grudge against you (the Machine Spirit is angry). Forget cell phones. Too many fancy buttons. I'll use the rotary dial if it's all the same to you! If you're a Brit, think back to when you only had 3 government TV channels, BBC1,2 and 3. Most people didn't even have a TV.

Many planets (i.e. Timbuk 7, Somalia Core, Veetnaam Prime and all the planets of Bumfuk Egyptae Sector) don't even have that. They've only got the shiny things the Rogue Trader brought to trade for their glowing rocks and no infrastructure. I.E. they probably have plenty of weapons, basic communications devices, some pots and pans and not much else.

"Ok, you've got a personal vox. Awesome. Make a Tech Use roll"

"Three successes!"

"Doesn't work"

"Why not??!??"

"Are you a Tech Priest?"

"No."

"Then you're S.O.L. Make an Intelligence check"

"Two successes..."

"You realize it only works on certain planets and works best in Hives or other big cities. But you have no idea why that would be."

I hope that helps.

Before I make the claim that Rick Priestley is a genius the likes of Jules Verne, I'll say that in the original Rogue Trader Mind Impulse Units functioned startlingly like modern Bluetooth devices.

Remember now, they didn't have Bluetooth or WiFi back when WH40k:RT was written. It was still "Science Fiction"

For example, MIU's have to be "mated" to the device they control and there's some sort of authentication/encryption process between the two, much like Bluetooth setups. They're both relatively short range and interlink the two devices.

It's startling how much the function is the same. However the big difference is how they actually work. Bluetooth of course, is radio technology. MIU's originally were powered by psychic impulse. Every human (except nulls and pariahs) has (or had) in 40k a spark of latent psychic ability.

If you want me to expound on the implications of this, I'd be glad to, but I'll spare those who don't want to read an unnecessary essay and ask:

In your game, do you favor the "Bluetooth" approach, or the "Psychic Impulse" approach and if the latter, how do you explain/justify other techno-"mysteries". Personally, I favor the Bluetooth explanation as it seems more sensible when trying to quantify certain things in game mechanics terms that are fuzzy in the rules, like: How many ServoSkulls can I control at once? Can I control someone else's Cherub? (Originally, you couldn't because it's "psychically bonded" to the owner...but with technology... as with all other devices controlled by MIU.)

I'll shut up now...

oh please dont this is incredibly interesting i take a much more user friendly veiw on tech, if its a vox its a phone and it usualy works as long as you realise to push the button as for MIU's they are for tech priests only or for the ungodly wealthy and they are to hook up to machines with a certain code in them IE for me you cant take over a cherub unless you have jacked its code much like a password from a computer.

In my games the Adeptus Mechanicus are the descendents of Mircosoft's colony on Mars. Even in the grimdarkness of the future they have a monopoly.

This isn't my take on it. I don't see how you could get more high tech than what you descrive in this game. 80s tech? Wow.

My take is more akin to 40s-60s tech. A Voxcaster is merely a radio, and thus works perfectly on even primitive planets, if not why would the Imperal Guard use them?

There is no such thing as a phone except perhaps for "calling" functions in certaim offices, no phone book. Even Nobles routinely use human messengers, and only use voxes for special urgent messages that cann't wait, such as the House being under attack.

There is no concept of internet, and machines and computers are only linked so far that they need to be in order to make a certain device (a spaceship for instance) work. Libraries of knowledge contains as much parchment and paper as they do data-slates and computers, and many lack technoogical storage at all.

The tanks of the Imperial Guards are inspired by the Sherman tanks of WW2 and their postwar use, mixed with technology taken from the Korea war.

Even the high-tech gadgets in the Dh book are large and bulky compared to modern technology, rebreathers looks like old-style gas masks, photo-visors are either like the blind guy from Star Trek or large lenses sticking out the eyes.

Data slates are portable floppy-disk readers (some able to read only a single disk), and not some kind of laptop.

There are more advanced tech in the Imperium, but those are either rare or "the exception that confirms the rule." magnoculars Laser equipment, and some items from the IH.

I like to emphase the huge differences in technological level that can exist in the same spot. For example, the imperial planet Belladonna Prime, where my latest campaign is taking place at the moment. The usual form of long distance communication is a form of holographic recorder that lets you recod a message up to two minutes long, including a facial (or full figure on the luxury ones) monochrome and blurry and static image of yourself. Imagine something like Leia's holographic message to Obi-Wan (episode IV, for you who thinks there are more than three SW-films), but in green monochrome. This message is recorded on a cylinder shaped memo-crystal and transported by pneumatic tubes to the reciever whose code you punched in. There is a "poste restante" system in place for the few people who does not have the luxury of such a contraption in their homes. And this tech is available in "phoneboots" all over the city. Likewise there are kilometerlong four stories high trains that connects the cities over the planet, soaring high over the broken landscape on gracious magnetic monorails. These are geniously constructed and lovingly maintained, and they run on coal, loaded by manual labour.

What technology is available does not, in my interpretation of the world, neccessarily follow a standard progression. Since the breakdown of science most manufacturers just reproduce what few techs they have the STCs for. So what technology is available is dependent on what your planet can produce, or what other planets that lie along comfortable traderoutes from your can produce. There will be very strange and wonderful mixxings of techlevels, from medieval to the strangely sci-fi, often in the same item.

Yeah, I like to take a more 1950's approach to the everyday tech, but with the odd and wonderous super high tech item. Voxes are just broadcasters or single channel walkie talkies. Large cogitors are the giant vacuum tube and lightbulb affairs. Keyboards look like turn of the century cash registers and nobody has ever heard of a graphic user interface. But along side of that you have anti-gravity cars, plasma guns, and cyborgian terminators.

I think the juxtaposition of tech and achaic is probably my favorite part of the whole universe.