Re: [NetEpic ML] Re: On Imperial armies and original fluff

From: Joshua W Raup <deaconblue3_at_...>
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 14:05:51 -0400

The Imperium is a retrogressive culture. There are examples in our own
world for similar analogies. The Age of Strife pushed the technological,
and social level of the Imperium back several thousand years. Many
technologiess were lost, or destroyed in this time. and some have yet to
be rediscovered. STC is the biggest, and that secret has not yet been
recovered. The process and mechanics of it have been lost. Add in the
isolation caused by the warp storms, and you have a wide variety of
retrogression through out human space. Ranging from primitive bararism
to fairly advanced hive planets. There was no consistency in the
retrogression, but all suffered it to some degree. Add in that the main
scientific research centers, Earth and Mars, endured several centuries of
unending civil war, you get an even more retrogressive cultural basis.
Think about it this way. If our world was plunged into an all out
nuclear war, what would the effective technological level of the world
be? Sure, we'd still have microwave ovens, and HDTV's, but with out the
means to power them, or an actual use for them, would they be maintained
in working order, awaiting the day? I doubt it. Would the knowledge
about them have the same importance it does now? Or would it fall by the
wayside, shifting the emphasis on to more practical things?
        another factor here is the presumption that those who have the
knowledge, and the capacity to understand it, shared it, and shared it
with people who also had the capacity to understand it. In the case of
the AM, I see it as rote learning. No real understanding (religious
mumbo-jumbo aside), just a habitual routine. And, I believe, the
majority of the population on Am worlds are not actually sentient beings,
but mindless servitors. The tech priests are the minority rulers. And
there is no guarantee that they have a real capacity to understand what
they do, and innovate on it.
        that said, I do see the Imperium as advancing technologically, albeit at
a very slow pace. More in spurts than in a smooth curve. there are
periods of rapid development and innovation, followed by realtive flat
lines on the chart. In the Heresy era, rapid developments in armament
occurred (six variants of power armor, new super heavies), and there are
spurts after it (refinement of psyker training, the ordinatus), etc.
What we don't see, mostly because it has no game effects, are the social,
and economic advances. We have no basis for looking at the non-military
aspects of teh society really, except for the hive cities, which have a
dynamic all their own.
        Also keep in mind that the Imperium has long periods of wastefulness.
It used to be, in the dark old days, that after an encounter with Chaos,
any IG units involved would be terminated, to prevent the spread of the
knowledge of Chaos. Same would apply to planetary populations. Marines
were considered too valuable to waste in this manner, so they just got
mind-wiped. think about how much got wasted out of hand by this policy
alone. How many geniuses of the AM were lost to combat, heresy, or
ignorance? Too many intangibles here to effective decide one way or
another IMO.

Josh R
Minister for General Mayhem
"Don't let the bastards grind you down." Gen. Joseph Stilwell
Received on Fri May 26 2000 - 18:05:51 UTC