Imperium Technological Decline?

[Katharon]

There is something that has always bothered me since 5th edition in regards to some of the talk about the decline or rise of archeotech/technology within the Imperium of Man. The point about plasma weaponry being hard to produce, specifically the likes of the Leman Russ Executioner. How is it that the Imperium can mass-produce things like the Leman Russ Eradicator which uses a miniaturized version of the Imperial Navy nova cannon, but can't maintain what must be the far simpler plasma cannon of the Executioner?

Any thoughts? Other bits of tech you wonder about? Give it your best shot.

[Sizzly]

Speed of plot?

[YorkNecromancer]

It's only weird if you assume that scientific discoveries and knowledge are never lost. Which is something you only assume if you don't study history.

Take the disease scurvy for example. The cure was discovered through random chance by sailors who travelled from Europe to the newly-discovered Americas, only to be lost for 400 years. It was then rediscovered by someone else entirely, and the knowledge used by the British to make their navy the most powerful in the world. Historians later uncovered the original cure-finders and their tale, uncovering the possibility that had the cure not been lost, world history would have been very different - there would have been a distinct possibility that the British Navy would have lost at Waterloo.

Source: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scurvy-Surgeon-Mariner-Gentleman-Greatest/dp/1840243570/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1388337547&sr=8-2&keywords=scurvy A great read, BTW.

So, how is it the Imperium can mass-produce things like the Leman Russ Eradicator which uses a miniaturized version of the Imperial Navy nova cannon, but can't maintain what must be the far simpler plasma cannon of the Executioner?

Because the Imperium is really, really ****ing big, and it's actually rather naive to assume a perfect flow of information from past to present, especially considering it doesn't happen in the real world, which is considerably smaller.

[Nabterayl]

In my opinion it boils down to the fact that the simpler device is only simpler if you really understand them both. There is a guy in my office who is probably one of the top one percent of lawyers in the world at what he does. He's also an older gentleman, who barely understands how to use e-mail. Now, the mental horsepower required to start, address, compose, and send an e-mail is quite a bit less than the mental horsepower required to do the kind of law this guy does, at the level at which he does it. But he doesn't understand e-mail, which makes it a magic technology to him, and he's gotten it into his head that hey, he's an old guy, he's never going to understand e-mail, so he doesn't try - even though he probably is more than intelligent enough to do so.

Imperial technology works the same way. Mechanicus magi are (or at least some of them are) really quite smart, but they have gotten things into their heads that prevent them from doing things that they are more than smart enough to figure out, even as they figure out problems that to an outside observer seem much more complicated.

[YorkNecromancer]

Imperial technology works the same way. Mechanicus magi are (or at least some of them are) really quite smart, but they have gotten things into their heads that prevent them from doing things that they are more than smart enough to figure out, even as they figure out problems that to an outside observer seem much more complicated.

Well, especially considering that technical innovation/actual science is considered heresy, and can get you killed. If something stops working and you don't know how to fix it, you aren't allowed to work it out, you just have to wait until the STC plans show up again...

[Nabterayl]

Well, especially considering that technical innovation/actual science is considered heresy, and can get you killed. If something stops working and you don't know how to fix it, you aren't allowed to work it out, you just have to wait until the STC plans show up again...
I don't think that's quite true. We have examples of magi "working it out," but within what they consider the established limits. As long as you can convince yourself and others that you aren't inventing new technology but interpreting the existing STC, you can work it out. And of course the fact that working-it-out-and-calling-it-that is considered heresy is actually proof that enough magi do it for the Mechanicus to be concerned.

But even within Mechanicus orthodoxy, I think there's probably a lot more problem-solving and critical thinking going on than some people give them credit for. Yes, the need to filter everything through the lens of interpreting existing (often incomplete and/or corrupted) STC data will give you blinders, but on the other hand, a person who really believes in his or her scripture can truly believe that there is an awful lot of data in there - oftentimes much, much more than a non-believer would see. I don't know if anybody else in this thread is actively religious, but I am, and I get a hell of a lot more out of my Bible than my highly educated, religiously and philosophically literate non-Christian friends do, despite the fact that we are working from the same body of data. Whether I'm making those implications up or have the perspective to interpret that data in a deeper way depends largely upon your point of view. I imagine the same is true of the Mechanicus and their STC archives. A magos who truly believes that these are, essentially, holy texts can probably "interpret" them in ways that we would say are totally made up.

[Ssyrie]

I don't think that's quite true. We have examples of magi "working it out," but within what they consider the established limits. As long as you can convince yourself and others that you aren't inventing new technology but interpreting the existing STC, you can work it out. And of course the fact that working-it-out-and-calling-it-that is considered heresy is actually proof that enough magi do it for the Mechanicus to be concerned.

But even within Mechanicus orthodoxy, I think there's probably a lot more problem-solving and critical thinking going on than some people give them credit for. Yes, the need to filter everything through the lens of interpreting existing (often incomplete and/or corrupted) STC data will give you blinders, but on the other hand, a person who really believes in his or her scripture can truly believe that there is an awful lot of data in there - oftentimes much, much more than a non-believer would see. I don't know if anybody else in this thread is actively religious, but I am, and I get a hell of a lot more out of my Bible than my highly educated, religiously and philosophically literate non-Christian friends do, despite the fact that we are working from the same body of data. Whether I'm making those implications up or have the perspective to interpret that data in a deeper way depends largely upon your point of view. I imagine the same is true of the Mechanicus and their STC archives. A magos who truly believes that these are, essentially, holy texts can probably "interpret" them in ways that we would say are totally made up.

Except they don't. We're talking about an organization that believes that installing a light switch involves sacred oils and special prayers before it will work. All the Mechanium believes in are the STC's. Anything outside of that is heresy. If all copies of an STC were lost, they would have no way of making whatever it was again. That's why the Imperium will throw entire armies at the rumor of a lost STC. It's the only way they can 'invent' new things.

[bfmusashi]

The Ad Mech does make new things occasionally and accepts them after a ridiculously long review period. They don't like it and it's viewed as kind of foolish since better stuff is probably under planet 389-Delta's northern mountain range. They know progress destroyed humanity and view it cautiously to the point stapling a dozen bolt guns onto a Land Raider (a defacing of an STC) had to go through committee. They also deal in crazy technology well beyond modern understanding so, cut them some slack. :)

[Psychosplodge]

there would have been a distinct possibility that the British Navy would have lost at Waterloo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Waterloo).


I do hope you're not a history teacher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trafalgar)...

:D

The Admech produces things parrot style.
They don't understand it, but they have a working production line.
If their plasma line fails and no one can apply the correct percussive maintenance or swap the right faulty part its an issue.
If the micro nova cannon line is still working...
Even assuming there were equal numbers of production facilities across the galaxy at one time, breakdowns, accidents, orks, etc will all effect the availability.
plus all the stc and heresy issues as well.


Real life example of lost knowledge. Concrete. The Romans had it. then it was lost for hundreds of years.

[Haighus]

The Ad Mech can innovate, within constraints as previously mentioned. If nothing else, in many a Magi's book, there is nothing wrong with combining several different STC designs to make a working piece of equipment. Nothing is changed from the sacred design of the STC, but new technology can be produced from different combinations. Several of the Imperial vehicles were brought into use this way (mostly by SM techmarines admittedly, but they were later approved by the wider Ad Mech).
Also, just because the Ad Mech praises the light switch and rubs it in holy oils before they inserts it into the wall fitting, doesn't mean they don't know how it works scientifically. They believe it makes it less likely to fail, and in the case of machine spirits, this presumably has some empirical effect, especially on the more complex, animal-like machine spirits such as in the Land Raider.
Not to mention in 40k, Gods can have a real, tangible effect on everyday life, so it is kind of worth it even if it may save one guardsmen in a million when his gun doesn't fail due to the correct ritual being observed ;)

On another note, presumably there is a much more radical, secret organisation within the Ad Mech that works closely with the Grey Knights and Inquisition to provide much more specialised and heretical xenos tech and the like to produce Psilencers and so on.

[Mr Mystery]

It's also a labyrinthian hierarchy.

Plasma is likely kept to the big wigs. So whilst a Forgeworld might be capable of producing Plasma weaponry, it's only those in the upper echelons that really know what they're doing.

Think a tech based Scientology.

[Katharon]

What I mean in regards to the Executioner Plasma Cannon and the Eradicator is that, it should be far more difficult to produce a cannon that fires shells that carry a containment device for a sub-atomic (and according to Codex lore) unstable warhead than what is effectively just a rail gun putting out plasma flow.

[Nabterayl]

What I mean in regards to the Executioner Plasma Cannon and the Eradicator is that, it should be far more difficult to produce a cannon that fires shells that carry a containment device for a sub-atomic (and according to Codex lore) unstable warhead than what is effectively just a rail gun putting out plasma flow.
If you're inventing both from scratch, maybe that would be true. But you're not. Both have already been invented and produced, and then the manufacturing base for and the principles underlying both of them decayed, forgotten or distorted piecemeal, and that's where we start from. If the Eradicator cannon's manufacturing base is 70% understood and its underlying principles 65% understood, while the Executioner cannon's manufacturing base is 35% understood and its underlying principles 15% understood, then the Eradicator could well be a more common and more reliable weapon notwithstanding the fact that it is, objectively, a more complicated technology to invent, produce, and maintain.

[Houghten]

I'm not actually convinced the Eradiator nova cannon is a miniature version of the Naval nova cannon in the first place. The Mars-pattern nova cannon fires really really big conventional explosives (other patterns fire anything from plasma charges to implosion warheads, but I don't see atomics mentioned anywhere), whereas as you've previously mentioned the Eradicator fires a sub-atomic charge.

Know what it does look like a miniature version of? The Hellhammer cannon. And it's clearly intended to be one, with the whole Ignores Cover thing it's got going on, and the Hellhammer is also described as using atomic charges, but what I don't get (fluffwise) is why it's so weak. The Hellhammer cannon is stronger and AP-ier than a Baneblade cannon, albeit with a shorter range and smaller blast. The Eradicator nova cannon is also shorter-ranged than a battle cannon, but is weaker and less AP-y. It has a clear game purpose - clearing light troops off cover, rather than being better at Demolisher cannonning than a Demolisher cannon - but I'm left wondering why they bothered drawing the Hellhammer parallels.

[steelmage99]

- but I'm left wondering why they bothered drawing the Hellhammer parallels.

Because the GW Design Studio has an almost dogmatic almost STC-like tradition for doing so (just like the AdMech)? :)

[euansmith]

"...there would have been a distinct possibility that the British Navy would have lost at Waterloo."


I presume you mean Trafalgar. The British Navy would have found itself at a distinct disadvantage fighting the French at Waterloo :)

I certainly agree with YorkNecromancer on the information issue. The size of the Imperium is not made very clear. The fluff mentions billions of people and millions of stars, but this is rather small for a "Galactic Empire". Even if they only controlled 1% of the systems in the Milky Way, the Imperium would contain 3 billion stars. If the population only averaged 1 billion souls per star system (a very low level of settlement), there would be around 3 quintillion (3,000,000,000,000,000,000) humans.

With such a vast population spread over such an immense volume of space, it would be possible for pretty much any technological level to exist somewhere in the Imperium. From feral worlds living in the Stone Age to technocracies sporting person android servants and anti-gravity cocktail shakers. Hi-tech civilizations would be likely to use their technology to leverage political power, limiting access to their technological marvels. This would exacerbate the tendency for information to become lost to large parts of the Imperium. Maybe the Leman Russ Executioners are manufactured and maintained by citizens of one of these hi-tech enclaves.

[Katharon]

I presume you mean Trafalgar. The British Navy would have found itself at a distinct disadvantage fighting the French at Waterloo :) And then wouldn't that have been a sight -- Marshal Ney's cavalry charging headlong -- into the side of a ship and hacking at it with their sabers! :P




With such a vast population spread over such an immense volume of space, it would be possible for pretty much any technological level to exist somewhere in the Imperium. From feral worlds living in the Stone Age to technocracies sporting person android servants and anti-gravity cocktail shakers. Hi-tech civilizations would be likely to use their technology to leverage political power, limiting access to their technological marvels.

That is pretty much word-for-word the actual fluff for the Imperium...but it still doesn't excuse the fact that Mars itself should be just fine at producing the stuff -- and I assume that they do.

[euansmith]

And then wouldn't that have been a sight -- Marshal Ney's cavalry charging headlong -- into the side of a ship and hacking at it with their sabers! :P


You know when they say, "You couldn't make this stuff up"?

Well, as every, history is always more bizarre and amazing than fiction :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_the_Dutch_fleet_at_Den_Helder

As for the 40k Fluff, I really think that GW's writers massively underestimate the scale of the Galaxy :)

[Nabterayl]

That is pretty much word-for-word the actual fluff for the Imperium...but it still doesn't excuse the fact that Mars itself should be just fine at producing the stuff -- and I assume that they do.
Well yeah, they do. It seems pretty clear that Mars itself can make everything in the Imperial arsenal (or at least knows how to make it, whether or not they have the physical plant on-planet for every single piece of tech). But it's also clear that Mars doesn't disseminate its knowledge to just anybody. The goal of the Adeptus Mechanicus, after all, is not to equip the Omnissiah's armies. The goal of the Adeptus Mechanicus is to know stuff, in a creepy Scientology sort of prove-you're-worthy-of-this-knowledge-because-you-can't-handle-the-truth sort of way.

The central feature of the Cult Mechanicus is the Quest for Knowledge. In the context of their religion, knowledge isn't a commodity to be disseminated - it's a treasure to be earned. So Mars isn't even trying to disseminate its knowledge to every magos it can. Yes, they grant STC blueprints to vassal forge worlds (for a price), and yes, they teach (some people), but "Do our damndest to sure every magos knows everything we have to teach him or her, even if the size of our organization makes that impossible" isn't even on their to-do list.

[bfmusashi]

Mars is a complicated place. You can lose production facilities to clerical error, booby-traps, Heresy era killbots, and lesser internal schisms.