i'm just speculating wildly, but...just how far did they go? nanotech, cybernetics, eugenics, planetary engineering....were they able to put people into new bodies, cheat death, and/or combine the warp with normal technology?

Mhm, well a very good question. If you see, what Technologies are known, I thing of Iron Man, so all most every thing is possible. But remember, many of this great Advances are lost, since the Age of Strife and surely the Horus Heresy. Also in the last ten thousands years, many more is going lost. For this reason, take what you want, there are no restrictions, but not all technologies are in use now anymore, some of course are very dangerous to use.

The easy answer to your question is yes to all you listed and more.

Fully half or more of the technological achievements of man were lost or outlawed during the Age of Strife that followed the Dark Age of Technology. It would be akin to us reverting back to per-industrial revolution tech and saying we can use some of what we have developed but the rest must be scrapped and we can't develop any more new tech.

For the purpose of setting flavor I wouldn't include nanotech ... sure it would almost certainly have been developed, but any surviving nanotechnology seems inappropriate for the setting. (at least in the ways we commonly view it)

But, really, thirty thousand years from now there won't have been much humanity couldn't and didn't do with technology.

Jack of Tears said:

That's funny I remember an acolyte of certain famous inquisitor who hailed from a mechanicus world that specialized in minor nano-tech. I believe some of it was built into his hands. Any way many of the cybernetics, especially the cranial units, are described as having partial nano-bits.

Of course if you're referring to "magic" nano technology in which something comes from nothing than yeah there is none. Which would make sense since that amount of rapid reconfiguration using micro machines is quite impossible. For example giving a bunch of nanobots the task of demolishing a brick would take hundreds of years to complete. It's much simpler to use a large machine, or just a hammer.

However what WH40k gets right is that nanomachines would be very good at delicate, if a bit slow work.

As for technology of Dark Age, I would look at the Foundation series but from the reverse with gadgets getting bigger and bigger until they disappear from knowledge. Just take the Imperium's best tech and make it way smaller and more efficient. Plasma weapons that don't overheat due to proper material design, hand held databases, etc...

If you want to relate it to this sector, it's mentioned that a world was found in the initial crusade that had humanity bonded to machines. It was of course destroyed by the righteous servants of the Emperor, but could it have been one of the last remnants of ancient humanity? A world where humanity had become one with technology, transcending death, the warp, and time? What would the mechanicus due to find the wrest its location from the Inquisition? Might there be survivors? Interesting indeed.

Truly I don't believe the Imperium has computing tech below the modern era, it's just way less user friendly. The type of user friendly that has you drill a hole in your head to use the calculator.

Dark age of technology stuff isn't always better then what's in the 40k universe now.

Things like the plasma gun being the lasgun of the time, warlord titans being the equivilent of the Leman Russ. Take everything awesome and rare and make it totally commenplace, your average middle class person liveing in the same of more luxury then Rogue traders.

The sky is the limit. If you can imagine it, they probably had at least a prototype of it during Dark Age of Technology. And then some...

For the purpose of setting flavor I wouldn't include nanotech ... sure it would almost certainly have been developed, but any surviving nanotechnology seems inappropriate for the setting. (at least in the ways we commonly view it)

The Blessed Machine Oil pretty much reeks of nanites.

.... and its not the only thing to do so. Sprayed on Synskin? Nanites. Space Marine implanted organs? Nanites. Imperial Titan MIU links? Nanites.

Hell, most of imperial bionic technology only makes sense if and when it would use nanotechnology both for actual implantation process and day-to-day maintenance.

i've just been doing some reading and considering just how far technology went in the 40k universe. I just finished re-reading 'chasm city' by alistair renyolds, and had picked up a copy of Eclipse Phase by catalyst games. so my head was sorta heading in the direction of transhumanist technology. And there are some examples of impressive technological developments in the 40k universe indeed. The space marines for one. Then along the line I considered my old standby of Fabius Bile - if anyone would be into transgenics, it'd be him.

But what if Bile wasn't alone his his quest to perfect the human form? what if his contribution to heresy was to teach others (human as well as space marine) how to use genetic manipulation to improve themselves? sure - using the power of the warp is part of it...but I could see 'lesser' tomes and scrolls about his experiments being scattered far and wide by what would amount to a loosely aligned cult dedicated to the idea of perfection/transhumanism.

just a thought anyways. not even sure if I'll further develop it.

Technology we know they have/had:

* Cloning (now forbidden)
* Replacement Limbs/Organs (Transplant, Cloning, Cybernetic)
* Teleportation
* Artificial Intelligence (now forbidden)
* Robots (now forbidden)
* Terraforming (now all but forgotten/lost)

Well just about everything you see in Star Trek, save "normal" FTL travel.

Robots are forbidden?

Did GW phase out the war 'bots from the Rogue Trader/Adeptus Titanicus era?

The ones which were controlled in maniple units by a Tech Priest or a Tech Marine and were prone to malfunctions...

(Gawd I'm showing my age!)

LordMunchkin said:

Agreed. The most sophisticated computers in the 41st Millennium are, IMO, equivalent to trying to operate an extremely powerful supercomputer without any intermediate user interface or programming languages, where to interact with the computer effectively you need to be able to understand binary (and preferably be able to speak it fluently) and have a USB port in your skull (though, to be fair, some Forge Worlds let their Techpriests wirelessly connect to the cogitators).

Strip out all the conveniences of modern computing; the operating systems, the user interfaces, the programming languages, etc... after that, it's all about raw processing power, obscure and arcane rituals, and invasive surgery.

Rictus said:

Rictus said:

Someone shoved a veiled Dune/Bulterian Jihad reference into one page of obscurely worded fluff in the 3rd ed core rules and everyone went nuts with it.

Cifer said:

The Autosanguine Talent (RT edition) works via nanites