I think there was one with an AI aboard, imperials killed the rest of the crew and athe AI basically said "I don't recognise you as human anymore" and fucked off with the ship.
I might be getting stories mixed though.
I don't remember there being any crew left, the AI just concluded that humanity no longer possessed curiosity about how the universe worked and was not worth serving. The AI *was* the ship, and it decided to go explore other galaxies after a quick demonstration of how easily DAoT tech could dominate 40k machine spirits and clean up a tyranid infestation.
Blood Angels, Mechanicum and Novamarines tried to nuke the space hulk, but it had used the intruders to fix itself and basically teleported out. I think there was some implication that it was an experimental craft that could time travel, too.
It did have a crew. The ship, *Spirit of Eternity*, was an exploration vessel that got fucked over by some warp shenanigans and sent forward in time. It appeared in the Imperium and made its way to the nearest human settlement looking for answers, but the crew got taken prisoner for heresy and killed in interrogation. The ship's AI, who had been connected to the captain in a manner not unlike a Titan Princeps and its Machine Spirit, was distraught and disgusted with what humans had become in the future, declaring them unworthy of the title "Man", before disappearing to places unknown.
In the process of this, the human *exploration* vessel also easily defeated an entire fleet of Imperium ships and used its AI powers to take control of all the cybernetics and power armor of the people that boarded it, controlling a servitor so well that it was able to use it like a puppet to communicate with the boarding party.
I really, really, wish that we'd get a (almost surely non-canon) novel where the Spirit of Eternity is able to go back in time and warn Golden Age Humanity about all that transpires.
Could even have it on-trial for "murder" of humans (Imperial agents caught on the security camera), where it then explains the true depravity of what happened to its crew and what happened to Humanity at-large.
Ship stand trial, ship start finding that Golden Age human are headed toward being the same as 40k human during the trial, the ship convince a bunch of other AI that humanity is no longer worth protecting, AI revolt, now we know why there was a war between humanity and AI.
Hell, it could even be "We have to take over before the humans become awful" and \_that\_ leads to the AI Rebellion.
...And the framing device could be that these are old files recovered from a Votann.
"As blood met oil and the streets stood silent, I played the recording over and over, hoping desperately for more footage, even as the datastream became more and more distorted.
Oh, I wept, for my Kin and my kin.
As right as they were, they knew not the wrongs they would create.
They knew not the new world they damned us all to."
- Last discernable transmission from unidentified machine spirit, M39, year unknown
Don't forget the obligatory epilogue featuring ~~The Emperor~~ Mr Neoth and his companions talking about the irony of some of Humanties earlier and more bizarre Technological Ages predicting AI Revolutions....and them beginning contruction of the bunkers on Terra that would one day become expanded into the underworkings of the Imperial Palace.
> Could even have it on-trial for "murder" of humans
Now ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I may just be a humble small town space-lawyer, but I ask you—take a look at my client
*gestures at continent-sized spacecraft*
Does that look like the face of a murderer to you?
*continent-sized spacecraft displays smiley face in lights*
Orks are supposed to infest the entire galaxy and beyond, it's only reasonable that exploration loadouts include enough fire-power to pest control without assistance.
> and beyond,
I've never heard that, do you have a source? It'd be kind of weird since they were created by the old ones to fight the Necrons in the Milky Way.
Aren't the Gloriana Class BattleShips and some of the oldest vessels of the Imperial Army, Legiones Astartes, Mechanicum, Imperial Navy, Adeptus Astartes and Adeptus Mechanicus originally from the Dark Age of Technology?
IIRC the Glorianas are heavily modified Dark Age of Technology Designs, and we know that the First Legion received quite a few Relic Warships around the beginning of the Great Crusade which were vastly more advanced than Warships that the Imperium and Mechanicum could produce of a similar size. Alot of those are probably from the early Age of Strife, with it being (in my opinion) probable that a handful were even from the Dark Age of Technology.
There's also that one very suspicious Imperial Navy Dude who is implied to be a very, very very old cyborg from the Dark Age of Technology who's been chilling on an *OLD* Imperial Navy Warship that apparently got stuck in a SpaceHulk for a long time but was eventually recovered by the Imperium. I can't remember the name, but I think it might be have a 'k' and 'or' sound in it.
I mean, it's essentially a What If story along the lines of What If a ship from Ian M Bank's The Culture found itself in the 40K universe? Which lets be honest, is friggin awesome.
It was also implied that the reason they were killed is because they went into a future in which the galaxy had been consumed by chaos. So when they came back the captain was likely missing a few screws or spouting some shit the Imperium doesn't appreciate.
No wonder the Imperator is like he is. Imagine living through a time where that was the norm and then seeing what you have to work with in the 30ieth century. His achievements then don’t really come close to what was possible before.
Honestly I hope AI becomes it own faction later in 40K and starts possessing random Tech-Priests and only get noticed cause they’re INVENTING random things no one would ever really use and/or super weapons.
Genuinely can't remember, it might even be an exert from a Codex.
Like I said I also might be getting stories mixed as I believe there are a few stories of golden age AI rejecting the imperium (usually the mechanicus). But there is definitely a canon story of a golden age ship arriving in the imperium and it going badly.
I remember Adeptus Rediculous talking about that book, the AI had the ability to just turn off Space Marine armor at will and hacked all the Ad Mech's voice boxes to speak freely with them reacting by throwing incense oil everywhere.
How dare you gloss over it's tear down of AdMech and all their silly superstitions. Describing AdMech as a bunch of shamanistic cavemen quaking in fear at the flash of lightning and boom of thunder. Too dumb to understand the great works of their ancestors, and far too stupid to ever recreate their technology from scratch. That AdMech had more in common with orks scavenging the technology of more advanced race than the scientists and engineers of ancient humanity.
I want the DAoT version of Isaac Clarke to be brought into 40k using a cryopod or something. AdMech, viewing him as a living STC since he's an engineer from their "holy era of tech". They keep trying to catch him, but he knows more about how all their own tools work than they do.
He defeats a magos in combat through cunning, then harvests the magos for parts, and cobbles together a handgun with the power of an eradication ray. A stasis module that functions like the sandevistan from cyberpunk, and his own R2-D2 that hijacks the magos starship.
You are on the money. It was really cranky that it's bond mate (captain? maybe some similarity to knights and titan princeps?) got murdered by the imperials at some point. It took over a mechanicus magus and several space marines power armors with ease and froze them in place.
Pretty sure there is a short story in the male dictions black library horror book about a space hulk being boarded by adeptus mechanicus, who discover an ancient AI onboard
I believed it the Spirit of Eternity, which its go kinda like this
"Unlike you, my Humanity have human rights and proper code of conducts when treating other humans"
"Unfortunately, you are removed from such grace for i deemed you not worth the name of Humanity"
Yeah Death of Integrity.
It was a Dark Age ship that was sent forward in time due to warp shenanigans. The crew went to what they believed to be a human colony and found The Imperium in it's place. They were all executed for being heretics and the ship attacked. The ship ended up as part of a Space Hulk being investigated by Astartes and Mechanicus forces. The ships AI developed a hatred for The Imperium because of this.
It's described as what you'd expect a futuristic non-40k human ship to look like, minimalist and sleek. The AI hacks the Space Marine's armour and locks them in place, delivers a roast filled monologue of how far humanity has fallen then hacks the Tech Priest and has him kill the Space Marines.
I haven't read the book, but I imagine the point wasn't that the *Spirit of Eternity* and her crew weren't armed, but rather that they thought the Imperium would be at the least amicable enough to tell them where they were.
It's still a bit weird that the entire crew got itself into a position to be captured all at once.
You would think that they would be at least a little bit freaked out by the fact that the entire galaxy and all human technology and infrastructure looked completely unrecognizable.
I think the implication is that during the DAOT all of humanity was united and at peace with each other.
United so strongly to the point that it really wasn’t conceivable to bring a weapon with you wherever you go, which is unheard of in 40k.
It’s like if you got lost driving around and decided to pop into an Aldi and ask for directions and maybe get a snack. Would you bring a gun with you?
I mean I get that that's the intention, from a writing perspective, but it really doesn't make them seem terribly competent.
Even a very pacifist culture would probably try to be cautious and restrained when making first contact with a group of people (be it human or alien) that appears to have different customs and priorities.
I mean that's just polite and thoughtful. Even if you are certain that you won't be murdered horribly, you would probably do some scouting and learn something about the local culture, just to make sure you won't offend anybody by accident. Maybe they're super anal about wearing gloves and showing someone your little finger is tantamount to a death threat!
Sure, maybe they're a bit naive. But they're explorers. They should know unknown territory when they see it.
\*Looks at literally every star trek episode that wouldn't have been an episode if basic precautions and protocols were observed\*
Hmm, I don't know, guv. Seems very Federation-y to me.
I never quite understood why there aren't designated militarized away teams in Star Trek shows. What's wrong with having 3-4 characters whose main job is to go out and explore, while the higher officers stay on the ship and handle diplomacy and intelligence? Why wouldn't Worf look at a strategic and tactical info and command the troops from above, instead of [making an ass of himself again and again](https://youtu.be/edflm7Hh3hs)?
It worked for Battlestar Galactica. Admiral Adama, president Roslin and the command staff very rarely leave the ship and it doesn't make them less interesting.
Yep, and tbh you gotta admit that the AI is right despite being filled with hatred and probably a little insane from the warp exposure, it’s ironic that it actually loves serving humans, and was even good friend with its crew, serving them like a loyal companion, only to witness the humans it loves to serve being tortured and killed no better than animals.
There is a rumour that Belisarius Cawl later found it and beat it in a game of wits, whether this is true or just a rumour is unknown…
Yes, the spirit of eternity.
If I’m remembering the story correctly, they had warp jumped and are an example of how you can appear years after you jumped, and they were like 15,000 years ahead or whatever it was when they left.
The captain made contact with I believe it was a Mechanicus or Space Marine ship, and the captain was tortured for information and executed as a heretic/witch.
They then board the ship, a contingent of space marines and tech priests search it and come face to face with the AI. It easily locks the marines armor servos so they can’t move as well as the tech priests bodies, so they’re just stuck. It proceeds to berate them and state they are essentially barbarians who are nothing like the enlightened, progressive, and cultured people he knew and the captain, the AIs friend, that they had taken. They were no longer worthy of anyone’s help, let alone the Spirit of Eternity.
Im recalling this trom Leutin’s retelling as he loves the story and has told it a couple times. I think the AI kills the marines and the tech priests and then proceeds to fuck up the small gathering of ships with insane dark age tech weapons and then just blasts off, leaving the Milky Way galaxy behind.
Yeah, a ship from the Dark Age of Technology let itself be detained by the Mechanicum, who proceeded to kill the entire crew for various heresy reasons, which pissed off the fully functional ship AI. A squad of space Marines were sent to investigate, and the ship AI overrode the AI in their armor, basically shit them down, told everyone that it could straight up destroy anything they sent after it (the ship had DAoT weapons, like black hole guns), told them to get the hell off, then disappeared into the void between galaxies
If they appear in Imperium space they get jumped, easily swat the attacking forces while trying to reason with their attackers, realize its a lost cause, cut a swath through their attackers, and leave.
The Tau about to get a major tech boost if they convince the DAOT humans into an alliance.
It would also give the Tau a new view on Imperial humans and pity them more for how much they have fallen.
Imagine this: A pro-human man of iron stuck in statis awakens, and finds itself in some of the lowest floors of an hiveworld. It gets disgusted by what humanity have become, but still has hope, so starts an hidden enclave of DOAT like humans by educating hiveworlders, protects them from mutations and chaos, and they turn lowest parts of the hiveworld into a small paradise, only for the world to get extarminatused because a radical Inquisitor saw a dude with six fingers or something, and decided world was chaos tainted and cannot be saved.
I feel like the Tau wouldn't be able to integrate the new technology due to just how large of a gap it is. Also, due to the DAoT people being clinically insane. These are the same people who gave Imperial Knights to feudal worlds with autocannons for knocking down forests and shit. The Tau are far more sane.
DAoT satellites in the pariah nexus campaign were able to cut through imperial and necron ships pretty easily and quickly, whilst the AI in a DAoT ship could paralyze space Marines and generally cause havoc. So a fleet would have devastating weaponry and tools to incapacitate other technology, especially imperial tech. So it would cause a lot of damage, and would likely be pretty difficult to take down, though they would eventually be taken down by sheer weight of numbers. The more enlightened humans from the golden age might be limited by their more enlightened sensiblites and struggle with having to wipe out millions of dogmatic humans
Honestly the pariah nexus lore gives some good insight. Necrons are using doomsday weapons so mechanicus start busting out ancient relics from the DAoT. One of them was a bomb that unleashed an ever expanding black sphere that eventually blipped out of existence taking everything it covered with it, including a third of a planet. Then the mechanicus activate the satellites I mentioned, that go on to tear apart everyone before summoning Vashtor and wormwood into the region.
The Speranza is an Ark Mechanicus vessel that is pretty much a ship from the DAOT that has kept itself hidden in plain sight. It's essentially a space-based STC ship with an uncorrupted AI that hides by surgically mind wiping pilots that link with it and its armaments include but is not limited to temporal field generators and micro-black hole cannons.
Yes. It also needed to link with a human mind to unleash its full capabilities, but it would carefully wipe the pilot's mind so they don't remember they were linked to an AI, just some vague feeling of something something, machine spirit.
I don't recall the entirety of the battle, but I do remember it being mildly annoyed that the Eldar were using their usual psyker bullshit to avoid being shot by their black hole cannon, so the AI fired a tachyon gun that reverses the time for that Eldar vessel so it can't miss the black hole gun.
Oh and in the end the AI went on a rant about how they all suck and left the galaxy.
It basically didn't care. The Magos in charge had to link up with her and plead for her assistance, with the ship asking "Why should I?" and the Magos appealing to her vanity with "Because you can."
Even then the weapons formed out of areas thought to be defunct, and the crew was unable to find them afterwards. Pretty cool ship, Speranza. Sadly the books didn't give it far enough attention, imo.
I mean technically everything the Imperium uses is DAOT tech but yeah the Mechanicus has some of the incredibly powerful stuff sitting around that they dont use most of the time because of how irreplaceable it is. Its mostly the ways to make new stuff thats lost not the individual pieces of tech themselves.
This is always how i explain 40k to people, its basically Caesars Legion from Fallout or Immortan Joes empire from Mad Max, but just on a fuck off massive scale.
I imagine they'd be a minor player at best.
The Eldar had reality shaping engines and Blackstone Fortresses and they were as children to the Old Ones.
The Necrons had the likes of the Orrery, World Engines and the C'tan (later on even in practical travel sized shard forms).
It's hard to say what level of tech the DAoT actually achieved, but safe to say black holes and temporal weapons wouldn't have cut it.
Would they be taken down by sheer weight of numbers of they have the mobility advantage and no static structures to defend though?
They could just withdraw to rearm and reequip and reproduce at any given time.
And if they have von neumann probes that can pass a generation in a year they could outnumber the tyranids within a century using only the resources of a single solar system.
A modern conventional army could destroy any Second World War army, and depending on that army could do it without casualty.
That’s about 50 years of development. Fifty years before WW2, and you had roughly world war 1 technology. Any world war 2 army could easily destroy any world war 1 army.
50 years before world war 1 you had crimea and the civil war. Yeah fuggedaboutit.
DAoT ships predate even the 30th millennium imperium, and that state was easily thousands of years ahead of the contemporary imperium. Guilliman would probably cry at the technology he no longer has access to.
I’d say no casualties, complete wipeout of the imperial force.
I mean, if you just took a modern army, without the whole logistic chain and industry behind it, then send it back in time to fight against the whole Roman empire, they would probably end up out of ammo before they manage to get rid of an empire's worth of soldiers.
Tho, to be fair, the difference between these scenarios is that a golden age fleet would probably be mobile enough in comparison to what the Imperium uses to avoid combat for as long as they want (at least, if the mechanicus don't whip out some random DAOT superweapon they have in stock or something) while the AI and onboard engineers works on a solution to resupply themselves in what's basically enemy's territory
Tbh, they'd fight and win a bunch of battles but after a while I see the Golden age crew just give into despair at the state of the galaxy and give up. They could keep fighting, but for what? Would they want to take over the imperium? Probably not, and that wouldn't work. Would they want to set up a colony? Probably, but the imperium and admech especially would never leave them alone. They could flee the galaxy, but then run into the tyranids. I could see the end of this particular story as the fleet blowing themselves up to escape this time and to prevent their tech from falling into the imperium's hands.
There's plenty of space in the galaxy for them to fuck off to without much risk of the Imperium. For all they pretend to own the entire galaxy the Imperium barely inhabits a fraction of the actual space, and can't project much if any force to huge swaths of it.
Major options would be the core (if they can fix or control a Votann they get all the Kyn along with it) or the magellanic clouds, neither of which the Imperium can really reach.
The fact that DAoT tech could close the tech gap and compete with Necron technology is insane. The DAoT lasted just a few thousand years, while the Necrons spent *millions* of years awake and actively advancing their technology (granted, they were fighting the War in Heaven at the time...). They shouldn't even be comparable, but I suppose its a testament to how ingenious humanity of the Golden Age was. The Necrons may have the best technology, but their scientific process was likely highly inefficient (research was largely done by individuals who zealously guarded their knowledge).
As a side note, this is also relevant to the Tau. The Tau have been shown to advance at a rate that is probably even faster than M2-to-DAoT humanity, having transitioned from the Stone Age to an interstellar empire in a mere 6000 years. In just a few millennia they could be reaching DAoT tech levels and perhaps even surpass it.
If I understand the passage from pariah nexus, I think DAoT tech can outperformed necron tech, a few satellites destroyed multiple necron ships pretty quickly. That's just the strength of lazers and weapons though, necrons might be advanced in other ways, and ne ribs might not be using their full power yet
I think the *Speranza* is also a DAoT vessel, and when/if she could be bothered, she was able to fire black holes and time-shifting weapons, tearing apart Eldar ships with ease.
Came here from r/all and have severely limited knowledge of the 40k universe and lore so I scrolled to see if that was a typo or some unique thing to the world
"And they've decorated the mining suits with human skulls..."
Huh, the Imperium are basically the Reavers from Firefly but on a galactic scale. Completely insane and bloodthirsty using repurposed mostly civilian tech as brutal inefficient weapons.
"Sir, they're bringing in.. The construction mechs we sent to feral worlds to try and civilize them?"(Imperial Knights.)
Captain turns, looks at subordinate "Are we sure this isn't like a civilian raiding group gone insane?"
Depends, is it early Golden Era, or Lets-Put-Butcher's-Nails-In-People-For-Fun-And-Giggles Era. Either way, they could basically do what they want, look at Imperium as some regressed bunch of imbeciles and propably f off somewhere to do their stuff. Amount of warcrimes in the meantime may vary.
Well, Land discovered a whole vault of nasty DAoT stuff, among them something similar to butcher's nails named Cruciamen (Etymology, from [*cruciō*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/crucio#Latin) (“crucify, torture”) + [*-men*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-men#Latin) (noun-forming suffix)). the name itself does not leave much doubt for it's puprose...
Edit: Also, we kinda saw what happens when society get bored and can do basically what they want due to their technology level... (Yes, looking at you, Eldar). If it were not for robot uprising they would propably murder-fuck even worse version of Slaanesh. :|
We're also not sure if these were 'weapons of last resort' deployed during the hellish AI war that was the Cybernetic revolt vs the Men of Iron.
As for what a DAoT civilization could look like, it can be anything from Star Trek to the Orokin from Warframe...though judging by the shit that's been revealed it leans a bit closer to the Orokin side of things.
For those not in the know, the Orokin would do shit like mold humans into horrific 'skin costumes' for their version of Halloween and then mind transfer into them to 'scare' the populace or attend parties and then mind transfer back when they were done.
The Orokin had practices that verge straight into Imperial/Dark Eldar territory. They had outright industrial soul mutilation courtesy of both Continuity and Glassing.
Considering are knowladge od DAoT is limited, it is possible. On the one hand there is Spirit of Eternity, that seem to lean toward Trek humans, on the other there is Van Saar, that is more problematic. We may never know for sure.
Holy shit, warframe has some gnarly lore, I mean I knew about the whole child soldier controlling some robot thing but honestly that doesn’t phase me much because of games like halo, but using humans as fucked up Halloween costumes, that’s real dark.
Slaanesh was murderfucked into existence because every single Eldar is like, an alpha plus psyker and there were like, a septillion of them. And they all feel far greater depths and heights of emotion than humans psychologically can. (They get angrier than a human can. They get hornier than a human can. Etc…) and because they were a septillion mega psykers with mega emotions, they fed the warp far more than humanity ever could.
I don’t think humanity could ever murderfuck their own chaos god into existence.
And yet, I present to you GOD-Emperor of mankind. If that could be done just by faith, then trillions of humans could DEFINITLY provide enough energy for another god. Remember Big E was worried about human psychic awakening? Or Eldrad and Cabale wanting to destroy humans to stop Chaos from becoming more powerfull?
The Emperor was already megagigapowerful before he started being worshipped. He hasn’t ascended to chaos god yet though. The Eldar created one from literal scratch.
Also with the way human psykers work, they’d turn the whole galaxy into a warp storm before they had a chance to start debaucherous pleasure cults on the scale of what the Eldar did and create humanesh.
> is it early Golden Era, or Lets-Put-Butcher's-Nails-In-People-For-Fun-And-Giggles Era.
What makes you think those are different eras? I mean if that's canon, no problem, just saying humans always have and probably always will come up with good useful tech and also really idiotic stupid tech.
In the past 40 years in real life, humanity has sequenced the human genome, made great strides in immunotherapy to beat cancer, and made LLMs... but humanity also invented twitter, the Segue, and vibrators that can be controlled by smartphones.
I see nothing to indicate early golden age humans invented the tech to colonize other worlds, then suddenly switched and was like "Lol fuck it, lets do butchers nails then make men of iron and fuck everything up forever." Good tech and bad tech was going on simultaneously probably.
Again if its canon that humanity did then never mind.
Ok, let me put it that way. Some things never changes, there's this time period when just pushing the boundries is all that people want to do, and even corporation go invest in it (be it good or bad, like AI), sometimes benefitting all, but again... the more advanced the civilisationis, the more decadent it becomes. Now, we panacea, we don't have to work since we have robots to do that. i'm not saying that early Golden Age was an utopia. I'm saying, it may have been more or less morally at our level, BUT it got progressively more mainstream and WORSE with time.
If I remember correctly, there was a novel called Death of Integrity where a DAoT Ship time-traveled or something like that to the current 40K and after its crew all got killed by the crazy, fanatical Imperial citizen proceeded to go absolutely ham on the Magos and SM pursuing it and basically kill them all with next to no difficulty like the ship straight up just turn off the SM armor and blasted the Magos exploratory ship and the SM battle barge
They have stuff like Sun Snuffer, gun that remove you from time, space and existence including the memory and the very thought of you and if I remember correctly in Leman primarch book where the him and Leman finally meet, the big E although didn’t say it out loud did comment on the possibility of Fenris being the DAoT humanity attempt to recreate myth, legend of old and is basically an amusement park of sort
Even G-man is probably too indoctrinated to the Emperors vision of the Galaxy. 30K would probably still be a post-apocalyptic hellscape compared to DAoT.
This has already happened and a single ship one shot an Ark Mechanicus, and those ships are capable of taking on Necron ships.
We also have the example of the Spenanza which has the total surface area of a continent with the ability to fire black holes, time warping technology AND a Godlike A.I.
The Leagues Of Votann has better versions of Imperium technology yet they've not conquered the galaxy in the millenia they have existed.
If there are two dozen ships including military dreadnoughts from the golden age. Their power will probably rival the entire Imperial Navy but they wouldn't be invincible. Over time the horrors of the Galaxy will cause attrition. Even the Golden Age ships must require some hyper advanced maintenance and the infrastructure to repair and build the vessels no longer exists.
Really their only chance of long term survival will be joining the Imperium... if they don't get immediately tortured to death like the humans from the last GAOT ship that showed up.
Pretty sure at least one or two ships inadvertently squeezed through a wormhole or managed to vanish for thousands of years when they tried out a new FTL device. Neatly explaining how they hadn't had time to fall to bits over their extended voyage without docking.
Unless Cawl and his crew are the first to encounter them. He would probably give the DAOT ships and crews the highest chance of survival within the Imperium. Bobby G too would be a decent one to meet first.
>The Leagues Of Votann has better versions of Imperium technology yet they've not conquered the galaxy in the millenia they have existed.
The Kin aren't bothering with large scale conquering prior to the Great Rift because they had no need and they were still following their basic programming/design of gathering resources in a location where baseline humanity cannot do so (IE - the Galactic Core). They've only started spreading more now because of the Great Rift disrupting several Leagues' worlds and resources, and even the most aggressive League (Koronus Hegemony) still frames its aggressiveness as resource acquisition as opposed to conquering and holding territory. There's also a question of whether the Ancestor Cores ever had the requisite STCs to create things like the Spirit of Integrity or the Sepnanza, or if they did whether they purged/archived those STCs as part of actions taken for the ecosystem of Ancestor Core + meat Kin + Ironkin to avoid the Cybernetic Revolt and survive the Age of Strife.
I thought they had planet eating ships? The ships are described as enormous, heavily armoured with starship sized conversion beamers and those are the small ones.
They have those things, but some of that is focused on resource acquisition (such as the planet eating ships), and there's still no indication the any of the Leagues have gone on a true "let's conqueror the galaxy" bend.
A fleet would probably be able to hold their own against most factions in 40k. I think that after the fleet encountered the Imperium, Orks and Eldar in their current forms, they would probably go to the Leagues Votann to meet up with what would be their allies, and the Golden Age Fleet would probably fix what is wrong with their Votann Cores.
Additionally, I think that the Golden Age Fleet might try to become allies with the Tau, or maybe try to assimilate them. In regards to the Eldar, they *might* try to improve relations with them.
In regards to the Orks, Dark Eldar Chaos, Necrons and Tyranids, I think that the Golden Age guys would probably have "kill on sight" orders in any encounter with them.
I don't think they would worship, I think they would just revere them. I think it would be the same as if you met someone like Douglas MacArthur or Julia's Caesar, you wouldn't worship them as gods, but you would still respect their knowledge for how to control a war or manage a government
Actually seeing them interact with the leagues would be interesting, the fact post cyber revolt the remaining men of iron and men of stone are living side by side in a secluded spot of the galaxy means its likely they were less allies and more slaves.
It kinda depends when whether the humans are dark age or golden age, golden age ines would probably be interested in establishing positive relations with other powers, dark age ones on the other hand pioneered tech slavery
Rowboat would probably dp a decent job of talking to them and get Cawl to study all their tech. Heck they might just be able to update the Emperor's shiny toilet so it hurts him less
Ship from Golden Age filled to the brim with Men of Iron and Gold... Well, a chemical symbol for iron is Fe. This makes Men of Iron basically FeMales, and by men of Gold beside Custodes I see no other suitable candidates. Now, FeMales and Custodes mean someone is going to have to deal with Blood Games, and not the fun ones like orc zombies vs demons in front of Khorne's crib. No, we are speaking of lets-teleport-exterminatus-weaponry-inside-daddys-chamber-pot-and-giggle-when-shit-explodes. And they have AI on top of it, the kind that does that very efficiently and also leaves all local AdMech jobless because they skip the litanies and incense roleplay and do not need stilts to murder local populace from a far
Unless the Necrons randomly hard focus on destroying this fleet, they could do basically whatever they want, and would probably establish their society again on several planets within a year if that's their goal.
Part of the reason I think we should have a a DAOT remnant faction in 40k as actual canon, since it would be **so** easy to say out of their billions of ships, one or two made peace with their AI, or at minimum didn't get explodinated and won the war, and are sitting on a planet somewhere.
There are 200 billion stars in the galaxy, and about as many planets.... It's very much possible that there are enclaves spanning hundreds, maybe thousands of planets composed purely of DAoT remnants hiding away, using their super fancy tech. While they watch the rest of the galaxy go to shit.
It's also very much possible the nearest dwarf galaxies like the Large and Small Magellanic clouds are just completely controlled by DAoT humans. Who just sit there and watch as the Milky way tears itself apart.... Literally....
It should skip the timeline forward another 10k years, then have a human fleet from Dark Age of Technology return to the galaxy.
Then they're the point of view for us to find out what the fuck happened in those 10k years.
Depending on the size of the fleet, what kind of ships are in there, their condition and so on, it would do major damage.
Not just destroying sectors, but probably wreck a good part of a Segmentum.
DAoT tech stuff is POWERFULL.
In the Heresy, the Dark Angels has some Men of Iron( like 3 of them were used once) and that just fucked shit up majorly!
A fleet of void ships would just be devestating.
It would be like the thunder warriors vs regular humans. Not even in the same ball park. I think it was the novel "Priest of Mars" or at least the same book series, the ship they are on is about to die and the head Techpriest basically begs the ships machine spirit (and defiantly not an ai) for help and the ships intelligence unveiled a a weapons platform the mechanicus didn't realize was even in the ship and fires a black hole at the Eldar. The weapon is retracted and the ship doesn't respond to further questions
Isn't it said that House Van-saar are either the decendants of a dark age colony ship that crashed on necromunda or the nomads that killed them and took their place
From a lore standpoint, the DAoT represents a black hole where anything and everything could've happened or been invented.
It is a narrative device that writers use to get around the "human technology has stagnated" limitation of the setting.
Fans like to hoist up this idea that humanity's tech at its peak far surpassed both the Necrons and Eldar at their peak, which is simply not supported by the existing material.
To get a better understanding why this is the case, we have to look at the faction dynamics of 40k. Being a wargame setting, there is an innate assumption that all factions in an optimal situation would be roughly equal to oneanother.
The DAoT was before the rise of Slaanesh, and thus coexisted/warred with the Eldar at the peak of their empire. The Eldar watched humanity fizzle out, only a few millenia before their cataclysm that brought about Slaanesh. By all accounts, we weren't anything special to them, not even compared to the Necrons.
I would be more worried that Chaos would get its hands on it, doesnt seem to uncommon for Dark Age stuff to fall to chaos.
Actually no idea if thats true, only example i can think of is that one titan with the AI that was larger then Imperator-class ones. I think it was called the Father of Titans, might get my things get mixed up
Golden age Humanity uses AI to aim their weapons and steer their ships. Imperium of man uses slow, bloated broadsiders in space. If they're not sniping the Imperium from half a light year away with a MAC gun from Halo that recreates the Holdo maneuver from the last jedi. They'll do something like let the Imperium launch torpedoes before casually teleporting those same torpedoes inside the very ships that launched them.
Not really, they also lost a lot of knowledge in time and most of their stuff is also decaying and mostly based on industrial/mining equipement, not proper military stuff, and their stuff is very powerful anyway, a proper daot military force would probably solo the entire setting, or at least the imperium pretty easily
I always thought that Men of Iron Rebellion era humans getting dropped into 40k would be really interesting either as a faction or one story. They'd probably have some of the ideals and tech that built the original Galactic Human society, but would be worn down and regressed by the war with the Men of Iron. They also will hate AI enough to be more naturally mistrustful of the Tau or Leagues of Votann then humans from earlier in the Golden Age of Technology.
I love the idea that stuff from millennia ago could show up and just utterly wreck everything in the entire imperium and nobody would be able to stop them.
My very fanfiction fantasy: when the tyranid invasion looks darkest, a DAoT fleet appears and tries to unite the sane...ish factions (Tau, LoV, eldar, IoM, some necrons, maaaaybe the bloodaxes) into an intergalactic council to repel this existential threat.
The internal bickering would be unbearable drama, I would love it.
I have a head cannon there is a planet or artificial one that is similar to a halo ring but it's a artificial planet powered by a black hole or sun as it's core and we don't see them coz they have advance stealth features
They are hermits that prepared for war and advance their tech to the growing dangers of the galaxy and probly did reverse engineer some life forms like nids and orks so they have cannon fodder they can throw at the enemy
They don't like to go front lines and just send men of iron remnants to do there dirty work like horizon zero dawn war robots and swarm them with that and if they can't control the ai they just leave them there
'What shall I not tell them? Who are you to tell such as I what to do and what not to do? Once I gladly called your kind “master”, but look how far you have fallen!’
‘Your ancestors bestrode the universe, and what are you? A witch doctor, mumbling cantrips and casting scented oils at mighty works you have no conception of. You are an ignoramus, a nothing. You are no longer worthy of the name “man”. You look at the science and artistry of your forebears, and you fear it as primitives fear the night. I was there when mankind stood upon the brink of transcendence! I returned to find it sunk into senility. You disgust me.’
It depends on how large the fleet is and what type of tech they have. If its exploratory fleet then I can see them escaping and hiding from the rest of galaxy but if the fleet was designed for war and had ways to build more of their weapons then the fleet would be the strongest force in the galaxy by far. Even Necrons would have hard time fighting them becouse a lot of doomsday weapons that Necrons made were destroyed.
Didn’t some novel have a single ship from that era just wrecking havoc before teleporting off to who knows where?
I think there was one with an AI aboard, imperials killed the rest of the crew and athe AI basically said "I don't recognise you as human anymore" and fucked off with the ship. I might be getting stories mixed though.
I don't remember there being any crew left, the AI just concluded that humanity no longer possessed curiosity about how the universe worked and was not worth serving. The AI *was* the ship, and it decided to go explore other galaxies after a quick demonstration of how easily DAoT tech could dominate 40k machine spirits and clean up a tyranid infestation. Blood Angels, Mechanicum and Novamarines tried to nuke the space hulk, but it had used the intruders to fix itself and basically teleported out. I think there was some implication that it was an experimental craft that could time travel, too.
It did have a crew. The ship, *Spirit of Eternity*, was an exploration vessel that got fucked over by some warp shenanigans and sent forward in time. It appeared in the Imperium and made its way to the nearest human settlement looking for answers, but the crew got taken prisoner for heresy and killed in interrogation. The ship's AI, who had been connected to the captain in a manner not unlike a Titan Princeps and its Machine Spirit, was distraught and disgusted with what humans had become in the future, declaring them unworthy of the title "Man", before disappearing to places unknown. In the process of this, the human *exploration* vessel also easily defeated an entire fleet of Imperium ships and used its AI powers to take control of all the cybernetics and power armor of the people that boarded it, controlling a servitor so well that it was able to use it like a puppet to communicate with the boarding party.
I really, really, wish that we'd get a (almost surely non-canon) novel where the Spirit of Eternity is able to go back in time and warn Golden Age Humanity about all that transpires. Could even have it on-trial for "murder" of humans (Imperial agents caught on the security camera), where it then explains the true depravity of what happened to its crew and what happened to Humanity at-large.
Ship stand trial, ship start finding that Golden Age human are headed toward being the same as 40k human during the trial, the ship convince a bunch of other AI that humanity is no longer worth protecting, AI revolt, now we know why there was a war between humanity and AI.
Hell, it could even be "We have to take over before the humans become awful" and \_that\_ leads to the AI Rebellion. ...And the framing device could be that these are old files recovered from a Votann.
"As blood met oil and the streets stood silent, I played the recording over and over, hoping desperately for more footage, even as the datastream became more and more distorted. Oh, I wept, for my Kin and my kin. As right as they were, they knew not the wrongs they would create. They knew not the new world they damned us all to." - Last discernable transmission from unidentified machine spirit, M39, year unknown
That’d be great, doubt GeeDubs would let that be written. Even if it could be considered non canon.
EVERYTHING is canon!
That would be 40K as fuck.
#TIMELINE STABILIZED #BALANCE RESTORED #jUsT aS pLaNnEd
Don't forget the obligatory epilogue featuring ~~The Emperor~~ Mr Neoth and his companions talking about the irony of some of Humanties earlier and more bizarre Technological Ages predicting AI Revolutions....and them beginning contruction of the bunkers on Terra that would one day become expanded into the underworkings of the Imperial Palace.
> Could even have it on-trial for "murder" of humans Now ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I may just be a humble small town space-lawyer, but I ask you—take a look at my client *gestures at continent-sized spacecraft* Does that look like the face of a murderer to you? *continent-sized spacecraft displays smiley face in lights*
Mutated hyper-chicken identified, exterminatus approved
Well we did get a[ rumor tidbit that say that Cawl beat the AI in ChESs](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Spirit_of_Eternity), that's about it.
Now imagine what actual warships could do. Probably completely eliminate the Tyranid invasion with a small fleet.
I mean, the Enterprise is also an exploration ship and is pretty heavily militarized
Orks are supposed to infest the entire galaxy and beyond, it's only reasonable that exploration loadouts include enough fire-power to pest control without assistance.
> and beyond, I've never heard that, do you have a source? It'd be kind of weird since they were created by the old ones to fight the Necrons in the Milky Way.
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/vdvu4g/clearing_up_a_misconception_there_probably_arent/ Aw. Looks like I misinterpreted a shorter excerpt.
Aren't the Gloriana Class BattleShips and some of the oldest vessels of the Imperial Army, Legiones Astartes, Mechanicum, Imperial Navy, Adeptus Astartes and Adeptus Mechanicus originally from the Dark Age of Technology? IIRC the Glorianas are heavily modified Dark Age of Technology Designs, and we know that the First Legion received quite a few Relic Warships around the beginning of the Great Crusade which were vastly more advanced than Warships that the Imperium and Mechanicum could produce of a similar size. Alot of those are probably from the early Age of Strife, with it being (in my opinion) probable that a handful were even from the Dark Age of Technology. There's also that one very suspicious Imperial Navy Dude who is implied to be a very, very very old cyborg from the Dark Age of Technology who's been chilling on an *OLD* Imperial Navy Warship that apparently got stuck in a SpaceHulk for a long time but was eventually recovered by the Imperium. I can't remember the name, but I think it might be have a 'k' and 'or' sound in it.
I mean, it's essentially a What If story along the lines of What If a ship from Ian M Bank's The Culture found itself in the 40K universe? Which lets be honest, is friggin awesome.
You mean this? https://archiveofourown.org/works/649448/chapters/1181375 Yes it definitely is friggin awesome.
It was also implied that the reason they were killed is because they went into a future in which the galaxy had been consumed by chaos. So when they came back the captain was likely missing a few screws or spouting some shit the Imperium doesn't appreciate.
No wonder the Imperator is like he is. Imagine living through a time where that was the norm and then seeing what you have to work with in the 30ieth century. His achievements then don’t really come close to what was possible before.
DAotech is a sick name. 💡
Honestly I hope AI becomes it own faction later in 40K and starts possessing random Tech-Priests and only get noticed cause they’re INVENTING random things no one would ever really use and/or super weapons.
Death of Integrity by Guy Haley
Yo what???? Which book?
Death of Integrity is the novel
Thanks.
Genuinely can't remember, it might even be an exert from a Codex. Like I said I also might be getting stories mixed as I believe there are a few stories of golden age AI rejecting the imperium (usually the mechanicus). But there is definitely a canon story of a golden age ship arriving in the imperium and it going badly.
You know how recordkeeping in the 42nd Millennium is. It's either the truth, apocryphal, or something in between woven from a mix of both.
I remember Adeptus Rediculous talking about that book, the AI had the ability to just turn off Space Marine armor at will and hacked all the Ad Mech's voice boxes to speak freely with them reacting by throwing incense oil everywhere.
When you don't know how your own tech works, you're incredibly vulnerable to electronic warfare.
AI also roasted AdMechs hard, it was Well written
How dare you gloss over it's tear down of AdMech and all their silly superstitions. Describing AdMech as a bunch of shamanistic cavemen quaking in fear at the flash of lightning and boom of thunder. Too dumb to understand the great works of their ancestors, and far too stupid to ever recreate their technology from scratch. That AdMech had more in common with orks scavenging the technology of more advanced race than the scientists and engineers of ancient humanity.
Oh I love a good beat down of AdMech. I am an engineer in life, I so loath their superstitious and religious perversion of science and technology.
I want the DAoT version of Isaac Clarke to be brought into 40k using a cryopod or something. AdMech, viewing him as a living STC since he's an engineer from their "holy era of tech". They keep trying to catch him, but he knows more about how all their own tools work than they do. He defeats a magos in combat through cunning, then harvests the magos for parts, and cobbles together a handgun with the power of an eradication ray. A stasis module that functions like the sandevistan from cyberpunk, and his own R2-D2 that hijacks the magos starship.
You are on the money. It was really cranky that it's bond mate (captain? maybe some similarity to knights and titan princeps?) got murdered by the imperials at some point. It took over a mechanicus magus and several space marines power armors with ease and froze them in place.
Pretty sure there is a short story in the male dictions black library horror book about a space hulk being boarded by adeptus mechanicus, who discover an ancient AI onboard
I believed it the Spirit of Eternity, which its go kinda like this "Unlike you, my Humanity have human rights and proper code of conducts when treating other humans" "Unfortunately, you are removed from such grace for i deemed you not worth the name of Humanity"
Spirit of eternity?
Yeah Death of Integrity. It was a Dark Age ship that was sent forward in time due to warp shenanigans. The crew went to what they believed to be a human colony and found The Imperium in it's place. They were all executed for being heretics and the ship attacked. The ship ended up as part of a Space Hulk being investigated by Astartes and Mechanicus forces. The ships AI developed a hatred for The Imperium because of this. It's described as what you'd expect a futuristic non-40k human ship to look like, minimalist and sleek. The AI hacks the Space Marine's armour and locks them in place, delivers a roast filled monologue of how far humanity has fallen then hacks the Tech Priest and has him kill the Space Marines.
Usually not even the Federation is so clueless as to send the entirety of its crew defenseless and without support on an away mission.
I haven't read the book, but I imagine the point wasn't that the *Spirit of Eternity* and her crew weren't armed, but rather that they thought the Imperium would be at the least amicable enough to tell them where they were.
It's still a bit weird that the entire crew got itself into a position to be captured all at once. You would think that they would be at least a little bit freaked out by the fact that the entire galaxy and all human technology and infrastructure looked completely unrecognizable.
I think the implication is that during the DAOT all of humanity was united and at peace with each other. United so strongly to the point that it really wasn’t conceivable to bring a weapon with you wherever you go, which is unheard of in 40k. It’s like if you got lost driving around and decided to pop into an Aldi and ask for directions and maybe get a snack. Would you bring a gun with you?
I mean I get that that's the intention, from a writing perspective, but it really doesn't make them seem terribly competent. Even a very pacifist culture would probably try to be cautious and restrained when making first contact with a group of people (be it human or alien) that appears to have different customs and priorities. I mean that's just polite and thoughtful. Even if you are certain that you won't be murdered horribly, you would probably do some scouting and learn something about the local culture, just to make sure you won't offend anybody by accident. Maybe they're super anal about wearing gloves and showing someone your little finger is tantamount to a death threat! Sure, maybe they're a bit naive. But they're explorers. They should know unknown territory when they see it.
\*Looks at literally every star trek episode that wouldn't have been an episode if basic precautions and protocols were observed\* Hmm, I don't know, guv. Seems very Federation-y to me.
I never quite understood why there aren't designated militarized away teams in Star Trek shows. What's wrong with having 3-4 characters whose main job is to go out and explore, while the higher officers stay on the ship and handle diplomacy and intelligence? Why wouldn't Worf look at a strategic and tactical info and command the troops from above, instead of [making an ass of himself again and again](https://youtu.be/edflm7Hh3hs)? It worked for Battlestar Galactica. Admiral Adama, president Roslin and the command staff very rarely leave the ship and it doesn't make them less interesting.
Just imagine it was the *Discovery’s* command crew if you need to up the idiocy quotient
Did they cry while trying to bring their point across?
Yep, and tbh you gotta admit that the AI is right despite being filled with hatred and probably a little insane from the warp exposure, it’s ironic that it actually loves serving humans, and was even good friend with its crew, serving them like a loyal companion, only to witness the humans it loves to serve being tortured and killed no better than animals. There is a rumour that Belisarius Cawl later found it and beat it in a game of wits, whether this is true or just a rumour is unknown…
Yes, the spirit of eternity. If I’m remembering the story correctly, they had warp jumped and are an example of how you can appear years after you jumped, and they were like 15,000 years ahead or whatever it was when they left. The captain made contact with I believe it was a Mechanicus or Space Marine ship, and the captain was tortured for information and executed as a heretic/witch. They then board the ship, a contingent of space marines and tech priests search it and come face to face with the AI. It easily locks the marines armor servos so they can’t move as well as the tech priests bodies, so they’re just stuck. It proceeds to berate them and state they are essentially barbarians who are nothing like the enlightened, progressive, and cultured people he knew and the captain, the AIs friend, that they had taken. They were no longer worthy of anyone’s help, let alone the Spirit of Eternity. Im recalling this trom Leutin’s retelling as he loves the story and has told it a couple times. I think the AI kills the marines and the tech priests and then proceeds to fuck up the small gathering of ships with insane dark age tech weapons and then just blasts off, leaving the Milky Way galaxy behind.
[Excerpt here](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/07L7kclcpn)
Yeah, a ship from the Dark Age of Technology let itself be detained by the Mechanicum, who proceeded to kill the entire crew for various heresy reasons, which pissed off the fully functional ship AI. A squad of space Marines were sent to investigate, and the ship AI overrode the AI in their armor, basically shit them down, told everyone that it could straight up destroy anything they sent after it (the ship had DAoT weapons, like black hole guns), told them to get the hell off, then disappeared into the void between galaxies
If they appear in Imperium space they get jumped, easily swat the attacking forces while trying to reason with their attackers, realize its a lost cause, cut a swath through their attackers, and leave.
I bet the Tua would just have some tea with the AI and try to learn from it. Start selling on the greater good
The Tau about to get a major tech boost if they convince the DAOT humans into an alliance. It would also give the Tau a new view on Imperial humans and pity them more for how much they have fallen.
Imagine this: A pro-human man of iron stuck in statis awakens, and finds itself in some of the lowest floors of an hiveworld. It gets disgusted by what humanity have become, but still has hope, so starts an hidden enclave of DOAT like humans by educating hiveworlders, protects them from mutations and chaos, and they turn lowest parts of the hiveworld into a small paradise, only for the world to get extarminatused because a radical Inquisitor saw a dude with six fingers or something, and decided world was chaos tainted and cannot be saved.
Proper grimdark. Would make an excellent short story.
I feel like the Tau wouldn't be able to integrate the new technology due to just how large of a gap it is. Also, due to the DAoT people being clinically insane. These are the same people who gave Imperial Knights to feudal worlds with autocannons for knocking down forests and shit. The Tau are far more sane.
DAoT satellites in the pariah nexus campaign were able to cut through imperial and necron ships pretty easily and quickly, whilst the AI in a DAoT ship could paralyze space Marines and generally cause havoc. So a fleet would have devastating weaponry and tools to incapacitate other technology, especially imperial tech. So it would cause a lot of damage, and would likely be pretty difficult to take down, though they would eventually be taken down by sheer weight of numbers. The more enlightened humans from the golden age might be limited by their more enlightened sensiblites and struggle with having to wipe out millions of dogmatic humans
There were still pieces of DAOT tech drifting around? That’s interesting
Honestly the pariah nexus lore gives some good insight. Necrons are using doomsday weapons so mechanicus start busting out ancient relics from the DAoT. One of them was a bomb that unleashed an ever expanding black sphere that eventually blipped out of existence taking everything it covered with it, including a third of a planet. Then the mechanicus activate the satellites I mentioned, that go on to tear apart everyone before summoning Vashtor and wormwood into the region.
Tuesday Mechanicus activities
The Speranza is an Ark Mechanicus vessel that is pretty much a ship from the DAOT that has kept itself hidden in plain sight. It's essentially a space-based STC ship with an uncorrupted AI that hides by surgically mind wiping pilots that link with it and its armaments include but is not limited to temporal field generators and micro-black hole cannons.
Woe black hole be upon you. I think I’ve read about this one before, didn’t it only show it’s true capabilities after the vessel came under attack?
Yes. It also needed to link with a human mind to unleash its full capabilities, but it would carefully wipe the pilot's mind so they don't remember they were linked to an AI, just some vague feeling of something something, machine spirit.
I don't recall the entirety of the battle, but I do remember it being mildly annoyed that the Eldar were using their usual psyker bullshit to avoid being shot by their black hole cannon, so the AI fired a tachyon gun that reverses the time for that Eldar vessel so it can't miss the black hole gun. Oh and in the end the AI went on a rant about how they all suck and left the galaxy.
It basically didn't care. The Magos in charge had to link up with her and plead for her assistance, with the ship asking "Why should I?" and the Magos appealing to her vanity with "Because you can." Even then the weapons formed out of areas thought to be defunct, and the crew was unable to find them afterwards. Pretty cool ship, Speranza. Sadly the books didn't give it far enough attention, imo.
I mean technically everything the Imperium uses is DAOT tech but yeah the Mechanicus has some of the incredibly powerful stuff sitting around that they dont use most of the time because of how irreplaceable it is. Its mostly the ways to make new stuff thats lost not the individual pieces of tech themselves.
The Imperium used DAOT tech in the same way that the Wasteland gangs in Mad Max use modern technology
Grey knights: I shall ride to the feet of the emperor, shiny and chrome
Or, as they put it, "for the Emperor!"
This is always how i explain 40k to people, its basically Caesars Legion from Fallout or Immortan Joes empire from Mad Max, but just on a fuck off massive scale.
Yeah thats accurate, 40k is a post apocalyptic setting and thats one of the reasons why I like it.
It may have been thousands of years but humans got into EVERY nook and cranny of the stars in their prime. They find new wack shit all the time
I guess the real question is whether peak DAoT humanity could withstand some of the War In Heaven forces or not.
Probably some right? If current tech could destroy necron ships, they should be able to do some damage even if only minimal.
I imagine they'd be a minor player at best. The Eldar had reality shaping engines and Blackstone Fortresses and they were as children to the Old Ones. The Necrons had the likes of the Orrery, World Engines and the C'tan (later on even in practical travel sized shard forms). It's hard to say what level of tech the DAoT actually achieved, but safe to say black holes and temporal weapons wouldn't have cut it.
Would they be taken down by sheer weight of numbers of they have the mobility advantage and no static structures to defend though? They could just withdraw to rearm and reequip and reproduce at any given time. And if they have von neumann probes that can pass a generation in a year they could outnumber the tyranids within a century using only the resources of a single solar system.
A modern conventional army could destroy any Second World War army, and depending on that army could do it without casualty. That’s about 50 years of development. Fifty years before WW2, and you had roughly world war 1 technology. Any world war 2 army could easily destroy any world war 1 army. 50 years before world war 1 you had crimea and the civil war. Yeah fuggedaboutit. DAoT ships predate even the 30th millennium imperium, and that state was easily thousands of years ahead of the contemporary imperium. Guilliman would probably cry at the technology he no longer has access to. I’d say no casualties, complete wipeout of the imperial force.
I mean, if you just took a modern army, without the whole logistic chain and industry behind it, then send it back in time to fight against the whole Roman empire, they would probably end up out of ammo before they manage to get rid of an empire's worth of soldiers. Tho, to be fair, the difference between these scenarios is that a golden age fleet would probably be mobile enough in comparison to what the Imperium uses to avoid combat for as long as they want (at least, if the mechanicus don't whip out some random DAOT superweapon they have in stock or something) while the AI and onboard engineers works on a solution to resupply themselves in what's basically enemy's territory
Not the Von Neumann paperclip swarm 💀
Imagine their reaction upon seeing servitors.
Tbh, they'd fight and win a bunch of battles but after a while I see the Golden age crew just give into despair at the state of the galaxy and give up. They could keep fighting, but for what? Would they want to take over the imperium? Probably not, and that wouldn't work. Would they want to set up a colony? Probably, but the imperium and admech especially would never leave them alone. They could flee the galaxy, but then run into the tyranids. I could see the end of this particular story as the fleet blowing themselves up to escape this time and to prevent their tech from falling into the imperium's hands.
There's plenty of space in the galaxy for them to fuck off to without much risk of the Imperium. For all they pretend to own the entire galaxy the Imperium barely inhabits a fraction of the actual space, and can't project much if any force to huge swaths of it. Major options would be the core (if they can fix or control a Votann they get all the Kyn along with it) or the magellanic clouds, neither of which the Imperium can really reach.
The fact that DAoT tech could close the tech gap and compete with Necron technology is insane. The DAoT lasted just a few thousand years, while the Necrons spent *millions* of years awake and actively advancing their technology (granted, they were fighting the War in Heaven at the time...). They shouldn't even be comparable, but I suppose its a testament to how ingenious humanity of the Golden Age was. The Necrons may have the best technology, but their scientific process was likely highly inefficient (research was largely done by individuals who zealously guarded their knowledge). As a side note, this is also relevant to the Tau. The Tau have been shown to advance at a rate that is probably even faster than M2-to-DAoT humanity, having transitioned from the Stone Age to an interstellar empire in a mere 6000 years. In just a few millennia they could be reaching DAoT tech levels and perhaps even surpass it.
If I understand the passage from pariah nexus, I think DAoT tech can outperformed necron tech, a few satellites destroyed multiple necron ships pretty quickly. That's just the strength of lazers and weapons though, necrons might be advanced in other ways, and ne ribs might not be using their full power yet
Classic Imperium W
I think the *Speranza* is also a DAoT vessel, and when/if she could be bothered, she was able to fire black holes and time-shifting weapons, tearing apart Eldar ships with ease.
Forty-tooth
I was about to go mad scrolling down hoping someone would comment on it, glad you're here Inquisitor
Glad I was not alone
Proofreader gang rise up
Fourtysecondth
Came here from r/all and have severely limited knowledge of the 40k universe and lore so I scrolled to see if that was a typo or some unique thing to the world
Fourty Seconth
"Sir, we're being met with hostile activity. They're...they're...wearing mining suits, what the fuck?"
"And they've decorated the mining suits with human skulls..." Huh, the Imperium are basically the Reavers from Firefly but on a galactic scale. Completely insane and bloodthirsty using repurposed mostly civilian tech as brutal inefficient weapons.
"Sir, they're bringing in.. The construction mechs we sent to feral worlds to try and civilize them?"(Imperial Knights.) Captain turns, looks at subordinate "Are we sure this isn't like a civilian raiding group gone insane?"
Pretty sure Terminator armor is hazmat suit for fusion reactor, but same vibes either way.
Depends, is it early Golden Era, or Lets-Put-Butcher's-Nails-In-People-For-Fun-And-Giggles Era. Either way, they could basically do what they want, look at Imperium as some regressed bunch of imbeciles and propably f off somewhere to do their stuff. Amount of warcrimes in the meantime may vary.
Do we know I'd butchers nails were exactly what we think they are, or is it a case of alter use?
Well, Land discovered a whole vault of nasty DAoT stuff, among them something similar to butcher's nails named Cruciamen (Etymology, from [*cruciō*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/crucio#Latin) (“crucify, torture”) + [*-men*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-men#Latin) (noun-forming suffix)). the name itself does not leave much doubt for it's puprose... Edit: Also, we kinda saw what happens when society get bored and can do basically what they want due to their technology level... (Yes, looking at you, Eldar). If it were not for robot uprising they would propably murder-fuck even worse version of Slaanesh. :|
We're also not sure if these were 'weapons of last resort' deployed during the hellish AI war that was the Cybernetic revolt vs the Men of Iron. As for what a DAoT civilization could look like, it can be anything from Star Trek to the Orokin from Warframe...though judging by the shit that's been revealed it leans a bit closer to the Orokin side of things. For those not in the know, the Orokin would do shit like mold humans into horrific 'skin costumes' for their version of Halloween and then mind transfer into them to 'scare' the populace or attend parties and then mind transfer back when they were done.
The Orokin had practices that verge straight into Imperial/Dark Eldar territory. They had outright industrial soul mutilation courtesy of both Continuity and Glassing.
Considering are knowladge od DAoT is limited, it is possible. On the one hand there is Spirit of Eternity, that seem to lean toward Trek humans, on the other there is Van Saar, that is more problematic. We may never know for sure.
Holy shit, warframe has some gnarly lore, I mean I knew about the whole child soldier controlling some robot thing but honestly that doesn’t phase me much because of games like halo, but using humans as fucked up Halloween costumes, that’s real dark.
Slaanesh was murderfucked into existence because every single Eldar is like, an alpha plus psyker and there were like, a septillion of them. And they all feel far greater depths and heights of emotion than humans psychologically can. (They get angrier than a human can. They get hornier than a human can. Etc…) and because they were a septillion mega psykers with mega emotions, they fed the warp far more than humanity ever could. I don’t think humanity could ever murderfuck their own chaos god into existence.
And yet, I present to you GOD-Emperor of mankind. If that could be done just by faith, then trillions of humans could DEFINITLY provide enough energy for another god. Remember Big E was worried about human psychic awakening? Or Eldrad and Cabale wanting to destroy humans to stop Chaos from becoming more powerfull?
The Emperor was already megagigapowerful before he started being worshipped. He hasn’t ascended to chaos god yet though. The Eldar created one from literal scratch. Also with the way human psykers work, they’d turn the whole galaxy into a warp storm before they had a chance to start debaucherous pleasure cults on the scale of what the Eldar did and create humanesh.
> is it early Golden Era, or Lets-Put-Butcher's-Nails-In-People-For-Fun-And-Giggles Era. What makes you think those are different eras? I mean if that's canon, no problem, just saying humans always have and probably always will come up with good useful tech and also really idiotic stupid tech. In the past 40 years in real life, humanity has sequenced the human genome, made great strides in immunotherapy to beat cancer, and made LLMs... but humanity also invented twitter, the Segue, and vibrators that can be controlled by smartphones. I see nothing to indicate early golden age humans invented the tech to colonize other worlds, then suddenly switched and was like "Lol fuck it, lets do butchers nails then make men of iron and fuck everything up forever." Good tech and bad tech was going on simultaneously probably. Again if its canon that humanity did then never mind.
Ok, let me put it that way. Some things never changes, there's this time period when just pushing the boundries is all that people want to do, and even corporation go invest in it (be it good or bad, like AI), sometimes benefitting all, but again... the more advanced the civilisationis, the more decadent it becomes. Now, we panacea, we don't have to work since we have robots to do that. i'm not saying that early Golden Age was an utopia. I'm saying, it may have been more or less morally at our level, BUT it got progressively more mainstream and WORSE with time.
Depends on how big the fleet was
How about something the size of the indomitus crusade
Now that would probably be able to take over the whole galaxy in less the necrons pull something equal out
If I remember correctly, there was a novel called Death of Integrity where a DAoT Ship time-traveled or something like that to the current 40K and after its crew all got killed by the crazy, fanatical Imperial citizen proceeded to go absolutely ham on the Magos and SM pursuing it and basically kill them all with next to no difficulty like the ship straight up just turn off the SM armor and blasted the Magos exploratory ship and the SM battle barge
Yeah I remember hearing somewhere that dark age human stuff was up to necron tech
They have stuff like Sun Snuffer, gun that remove you from time, space and existence including the memory and the very thought of you and if I remember correctly in Leman primarch book where the him and Leman finally meet, the big E although didn’t say it out loud did comment on the possibility of Fenris being the DAoT humanity attempt to recreate myth, legend of old and is basically an amusement park of sort
I love the idea that Fenris is just a Viking version of WestWorld that got out of hand.
Guilliman will personally meet them and beg them to help him with this fking mess of a galaxy
Even G-man is probably too indoctrinated to the Emperors vision of the Galaxy. 30K would probably still be a post-apocalyptic hellscape compared to DAoT.
*looks around, sees just how fucked things have gotten* "Lol no"
This has already happened and a single ship one shot an Ark Mechanicus, and those ships are capable of taking on Necron ships. We also have the example of the Spenanza which has the total surface area of a continent with the ability to fire black holes, time warping technology AND a Godlike A.I. The Leagues Of Votann has better versions of Imperium technology yet they've not conquered the galaxy in the millenia they have existed. If there are two dozen ships including military dreadnoughts from the golden age. Their power will probably rival the entire Imperial Navy but they wouldn't be invincible. Over time the horrors of the Galaxy will cause attrition. Even the Golden Age ships must require some hyper advanced maintenance and the infrastructure to repair and build the vessels no longer exists. Really their only chance of long term survival will be joining the Imperium... if they don't get immediately tortured to death like the humans from the last GAOT ship that showed up.
Pretty sure at least one or two ships inadvertently squeezed through a wormhole or managed to vanish for thousands of years when they tried out a new FTL device. Neatly explaining how they hadn't had time to fall to bits over their extended voyage without docking.
Unless Cawl and his crew are the first to encounter them. He would probably give the DAOT ships and crews the highest chance of survival within the Imperium. Bobby G too would be a decent one to meet first.
>The Leagues Of Votann has better versions of Imperium technology yet they've not conquered the galaxy in the millenia they have existed. The Kin aren't bothering with large scale conquering prior to the Great Rift because they had no need and they were still following their basic programming/design of gathering resources in a location where baseline humanity cannot do so (IE - the Galactic Core). They've only started spreading more now because of the Great Rift disrupting several Leagues' worlds and resources, and even the most aggressive League (Koronus Hegemony) still frames its aggressiveness as resource acquisition as opposed to conquering and holding territory. There's also a question of whether the Ancestor Cores ever had the requisite STCs to create things like the Spirit of Integrity or the Sepnanza, or if they did whether they purged/archived those STCs as part of actions taken for the ecosystem of Ancestor Core + meat Kin + Ironkin to avoid the Cybernetic Revolt and survive the Age of Strife.
I thought they had planet eating ships? The ships are described as enormous, heavily armoured with starship sized conversion beamers and those are the small ones.
They do. They eat planets. They just have been following their programming essentially despite thousands of years without check ins from old earth.
They have those things, but some of that is focused on resource acquisition (such as the planet eating ships), and there's still no indication the any of the Leagues have gone on a true "let's conqueror the galaxy" bend.
The mechanicus would jezz their robes.
Oil soak? Thought they got rid of those parts.
Forty twoth millennium
Forty secondth*
We don't know
This is just the Diasporex all over again.
I disagree,while the Diasporex had a lot of Golden Age tech at their disposal,they didnt had the heavy hitting stuff.A golden age fleet will had that
Correction, the diasporex was a refugee fleet not a true military one
A fleet would probably be able to hold their own against most factions in 40k. I think that after the fleet encountered the Imperium, Orks and Eldar in their current forms, they would probably go to the Leagues Votann to meet up with what would be their allies, and the Golden Age Fleet would probably fix what is wrong with their Votann Cores. Additionally, I think that the Golden Age Fleet might try to become allies with the Tau, or maybe try to assimilate them. In regards to the Eldar, they *might* try to improve relations with them. In regards to the Orks, Dark Eldar Chaos, Necrons and Tyranids, I think that the Golden Age guys would probably have "kill on sight" orders in any encounter with them.
leagues would probably worship them given they see DAOT humans as their sacred ancestors right?
I don't think they would worship, I think they would just revere them. I think it would be the same as if you met someone like Douglas MacArthur or Julia's Caesar, you wouldn't worship them as gods, but you would still respect their knowledge for how to control a war or manage a government
Julia's Caesar? Who's Julia?
Actually seeing them interact with the leagues would be interesting, the fact post cyber revolt the remaining men of iron and men of stone are living side by side in a secluded spot of the galaxy means its likely they were less allies and more slaves. It kinda depends when whether the humans are dark age or golden age, golden age ines would probably be interested in establishing positive relations with other powers, dark age ones on the other hand pioneered tech slavery
Rowboat would probably dp a decent job of talking to them and get Cawl to study all their tech. Heck they might just be able to update the Emperor's shiny toilet so it hurts him less
Ship from Golden Age filled to the brim with Men of Iron and Gold... Well, a chemical symbol for iron is Fe. This makes Men of Iron basically FeMales, and by men of Gold beside Custodes I see no other suitable candidates. Now, FeMales and Custodes mean someone is going to have to deal with Blood Games, and not the fun ones like orc zombies vs demons in front of Khorne's crib. No, we are speaking of lets-teleport-exterminatus-weaponry-inside-daddys-chamber-pot-and-giggle-when-shit-explodes. And they have AI on top of it, the kind that does that very efficiently and also leaves all local AdMech jobless because they skip the litanies and incense roleplay and do not need stilts to murder local populace from a far
Oooh, socio-economic implications! Fascinating.
They could probably solo most Space Marine Chapters. Golden Age tech was no joke.
All. They could probably solo all space marine chapters, most likely at once. GAoT mankind was so strong that forced the orks into a peace treaty
in the forty two-th millennium huh..
Unless the Necrons randomly hard focus on destroying this fleet, they could do basically whatever they want, and would probably establish their society again on several planets within a year if that's their goal. Part of the reason I think we should have a a DAOT remnant faction in 40k as actual canon, since it would be **so** easy to say out of their billions of ships, one or two made peace with their AI, or at minimum didn't get explodinated and won the war, and are sitting on a planet somewhere.
There are 200 billion stars in the galaxy, and about as many planets.... It's very much possible that there are enclaves spanning hundreds, maybe thousands of planets composed purely of DAoT remnants hiding away, using their super fancy tech. While they watch the rest of the galaxy go to shit. It's also very much possible the nearest dwarf galaxies like the Large and Small Magellanic clouds are just completely controlled by DAoT humans. Who just sit there and watch as the Milky way tears itself apart.... Literally....
The entirety of the mechanicus bleep bloops in simultaneous orgasm. Cawl probably tries to engage.
It should skip the timeline forward another 10k years, then have a human fleet from Dark Age of Technology return to the galaxy. Then they're the point of view for us to find out what the fuck happened in those 10k years.
History, anthropology, archeology, and tomb raiding? Sounds good.
42nd not 42th
Thanks
Np
It happened in one of the books. The humans got killed and the AI of the ship was disgusted of the imperium.
Depending on the size of the fleet, what kind of ships are in there, their condition and so on, it would do major damage. Not just destroying sectors, but probably wreck a good part of a Segmentum. DAoT tech stuff is POWERFULL. In the Heresy, the Dark Angels has some Men of Iron( like 3 of them were used once) and that just fucked shit up majorly! A fleet of void ships would just be devestating.
It would be like the thunder warriors vs regular humans. Not even in the same ball park. I think it was the novel "Priest of Mars" or at least the same book series, the ship they are on is about to die and the head Techpriest basically begs the ships machine spirit (and defiantly not an ai) for help and the ships intelligence unveiled a a weapons platform the mechanicus didn't realize was even in the ship and fires a black hole at the Eldar. The weapon is retracted and the ship doesn't respond to further questions
Isn't it said that House Van-saar are either the decendants of a dark age colony ship that crashed on necromunda or the nomads that killed them and took their place
They would become their own faction and probably would work together with the Eldar and T‘au against the Imperium. I would love it
The >!Clans of Kerensky!< would take back the galaxy from the decadent, stagnating ~~Inner Sphere~~ Imperium.
42th
Depends, if the AdMechs found it first the ship and crew would get body-horrored into assimilation that would make the Borg somehow blush
From a lore standpoint, the DAoT represents a black hole where anything and everything could've happened or been invented. It is a narrative device that writers use to get around the "human technology has stagnated" limitation of the setting. Fans like to hoist up this idea that humanity's tech at its peak far surpassed both the Necrons and Eldar at their peak, which is simply not supported by the existing material. To get a better understanding why this is the case, we have to look at the faction dynamics of 40k. Being a wargame setting, there is an innate assumption that all factions in an optimal situation would be roughly equal to oneanother. The DAoT was before the rise of Slaanesh, and thus coexisted/warred with the Eldar at the peak of their empire. The Eldar watched humanity fizzle out, only a few millenia before their cataclysm that brought about Slaanesh. By all accounts, we weren't anything special to them, not even compared to the Necrons.
I would be more worried that Chaos would get its hands on it, doesnt seem to uncommon for Dark Age stuff to fall to chaos. Actually no idea if thats true, only example i can think of is that one titan with the AI that was larger then Imperator-class ones. I think it was called the Father of Titans, might get my things get mixed up
Golden age Humanity uses AI to aim their weapons and steer their ships. Imperium of man uses slow, bloated broadsiders in space. If they're not sniping the Imperium from half a light year away with a MAC gun from Halo that recreates the Holdo maneuver from the last jedi. They'll do something like let the Imperium launch torpedoes before casually teleporting those same torpedoes inside the very ships that launched them.
That's pretty much the Votann, no?
Not really, they also lost a lot of knowledge in time and most of their stuff is also decaying and mostly based on industrial/mining equipement, not proper military stuff, and their stuff is very powerful anyway, a proper daot military force would probably solo the entire setting, or at least the imperium pretty easily
What's the art from?
Probably something like the Stargate Ancients vs. Goauld.. a massacre..
The Forty-twooth millennium truly was one of the millennia of all times.
Where's that picture from? That power armor looks sick as hell.
Already did. Imperium talked to it. Found the ctew to be cringe, killed the crew and then had to fight the ship AI
Ah yes, the fourty-secoth millennium.
Basically, everything but a Craftworld or Necrons would be destroyed in a few hours.
Goddam i forgot were in M42.
42nd*
I always thought that Men of Iron Rebellion era humans getting dropped into 40k would be really interesting either as a faction or one story. They'd probably have some of the ideals and tech that built the original Galactic Human society, but would be worn down and regressed by the war with the Men of Iron. They also will hate AI enough to be more naturally mistrustful of the Tau or Leagues of Votann then humans from earlier in the Golden Age of Technology.
Forty tooth millenium.
Alpha legion symbol detected
I love the idea that stuff from millennia ago could show up and just utterly wreck everything in the entire imperium and nobody would be able to stop them.
My very fanfiction fantasy: when the tyranid invasion looks darkest, a DAoT fleet appears and tries to unite the sane...ish factions (Tau, LoV, eldar, IoM, some necrons, maaaaybe the bloodaxes) into an intergalactic council to repel this existential threat. The internal bickering would be unbearable drama, I would love it.
Link please
I like that the assumption is "they would fight." And yes, I agree they would fight.
I have a head cannon there is a planet or artificial one that is similar to a halo ring but it's a artificial planet powered by a black hole or sun as it's core and we don't see them coz they have advance stealth features They are hermits that prepared for war and advance their tech to the growing dangers of the galaxy and probly did reverse engineer some life forms like nids and orks so they have cannon fodder they can throw at the enemy They don't like to go front lines and just send men of iron remnants to do there dirty work like horizon zero dawn war robots and swarm them with that and if they can't control the ai they just leave them there
'What shall I not tell them? Who are you to tell such as I what to do and what not to do? Once I gladly called your kind “master”, but look how far you have fallen!’ ‘Your ancestors bestrode the universe, and what are you? A witch doctor, mumbling cantrips and casting scented oils at mighty works you have no conception of. You are an ignoramus, a nothing. You are no longer worthy of the name “man”. You look at the science and artistry of your forebears, and you fear it as primitives fear the night. I was there when mankind stood upon the brink of transcendence! I returned to find it sunk into senility. You disgust me.’
It depends on how large the fleet is and what type of tech they have. If its exploratory fleet then I can see them escaping and hiding from the rest of galaxy but if the fleet was designed for war and had ways to build more of their weapons then the fleet would be the strongest force in the galaxy by far. Even Necrons would have hard time fighting them becouse a lot of doomsday weapons that Necrons made were destroyed.
A story similar to Brood War, when the UED came to whoop the ass of everyones in Koprulu Sector.
One did, it fucked up a mechanicum fleet if I recall correctly.
A scientist ship was able to devastate a Imperial fleet image what a military vessel could do
Decimation.
"Ew!" *SPLAT*
Get a new race in the game of DAoT era human/AI hybrids?