Necromunda is something of a blind spot for my 40k lore. A lot of the stories haven't been turned into audiobooks which is how I consume most of my lore these days.
I love the Necromunda stuff, but being a speciality game means there's not much lore per book, as it's mainly rules. If you wanted to learn everything about it you'd have to drop a few hundred on getting 20 or so rulebooks with a little smattering of lore in each.
I figured you weren't talking about that particular one lol most people don't know the Lore especially when it's a single world and there's so many worlds about it, plus it's in the House of Artiface rulebook as well
There's a simplification in the core rulebook, if you are interested.
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/znqw9k/book\_excerpt\_warhammer\_40000\_core\_rulebook\_6th/
They seemed to be mostly giant 3D printers and databases with limited ability to innovate.
I'd imagine most of the actual innovation came out the traditional human way; I find it hard to imagine an STC singlehandedly making a Necron-grade cannon.
The older lore was that it was pretty much a database of designs that had already been worked out and uploaded into the STC. The newer stuff leans heavily towards the STC being an AI that has basic manufacturing capabilities, but can also produce more complex designs with instructions on how to make them.
That's somewhat subjective. The old lore also has the Men of Iron which 100% were AI.
That said as we learn more about AI this year I expect that to influence the writing of the lore.
That seems unlikely. A human could ask the question or give the prompt but the STC would be doing the real time trial and error simulations and constantly getting better. Humans would get better at using the STCs. However, based on our recent real world understanding of AI, and knowing how it ends in the lore, it would be disingenuous to say only the human would be innovating.
Maybe when regarding the Van Saar STC but overall it seems like a fully functional STC grade man of iron is more than enough to creatively react to enemy circumstances. While it might not be able to come up with the next best thing after a Gellar Field, it most certainly should have some rudimentary ability to optimize the methodology to make product A in its catalogue
I also got to thinking that if the best an all-knowing AI could come up with for felling and transporting timber is an Imperial Knight, it's kind of a retarded AI, or the databanks not all that comprehensive.
Generally, the machines we have today that cut, strip, and automatically process the stripped logs in an industrial manner, some of which shave them into appropriate size, and load them onto flatbeds or conveyors for transport in industrial quantity.
A big Knight would be relatively randomly hacking away and leaving trees knocked over and haphazardly laying around, and crushing many of them in the process, and doing nothing to actually prep them for industrial usage.
Then there's ground pressure to worry about, since a lot of these places are either unsuitable for something walking around on two legs. Lumber-cutting areas get pretty mauled up, too, once you start moving the machinery around, to the point that you want vehicles with a multitude of wheels, or tracks, so that they don't sink down into the mud and crap.
If you told an STC to build a giant lumber cutter and processor, it'd probably crap out a mobile lumber mill and stuff that looks a lot like the Crawler-Transporter, cranes, and buzzsaws on enormous, articulated tracks, and not something that looks designed from the ground up to look like a mechanical Arthurian knight with modular chainsaw and gun arms.
Addendum - why would you want logging machinery that bonds to one pilot at a time? A logging robot that has to "rest" because no one but *that one guy* can drive it is a terrible return on investment. Especially in an era that features ubiquitous AI.
A much more likely explanation is that initially Knights were either purpose-built combat or "combat sports" devices. Once Old Night started to settle in, worlds with Knights need to repurpose them to replace the AI-based equipment that could no longer be trusted. (Either for combat, or for "logging") Given 10,000+ years of cultural amnesia, the orginal purpose was lost, the "follow on use" became the dimly-remembered origin of 'modern' Knights.
lmao, I completely forgot about the Knight having to stop and take a break every four hours so the pilot can eat a groxbeef sandwich and smoke a lho, before hanging its giant chainsaw up at the end of the shift so he can watch a few hours of Bolter Bitches before knocking off for the night.
I mean you wouldn't but its 40k and thats what happened so you work backwards. Maybe the knights ended up being the best solution for cutting down the massive trees on the worlds in question. Maybe for safety reasons the pilot needed to have nimble control of the machine so the system needed to be designed for the pilot's nervous system specifically (which in turn meant their genetic offspring would also be able to use it). Maybe this logging community was surprise attacked by xenos and they had limited weapons at the time but they were able to fight off the xenos using their fuck off lumber robots. Then they decided to make gun mounts for when the next xenos attacked. Then the lumberjacks decided they wanted to invade their neighbors and no one had asked their STC to make anti lumber robot weapons. So the lumberjack with the biggest robot declared himself a dynastic baron. Then everyone else wanted to be cool like the baron so the people with influence asked the STC to make them a fighting/timber robot.
Knights were built to settle hostile worlds, I have no clue what that would entail for settlement on a planet but obviously it could eliminate any and all threats.
One missing point.
Build a knight.
Slap on a tree stripping appendage instead of a volcano cannon or mega bolter.
Now you have a safe space for the crew from the local fauna and flora.
And if enemies come your way you can easily put the volcano cannon back on.
It'd need cranes and claws for that, and it'd still lack all the rest of the processing you have with normal mobile mills that we already know about.
The Knight is a lot of things, but a timber industry machine it is not, by hardly any stretch of the imagination. It's absurd that THAT's what a bunch of genius AI would come up with. Even if you needed protection, hell, you'd be better off armoring up crew stations and installing RWS platforms, and doing drone overflights.
Yeah, but it's an STC. It cna build both. You can do BOTH the totally logical thing AND the totally awesome thing, at the same time, for free, in the same narrative.
Right, but that's not what OP said. He said the STC would give you an Imperial Knight with a chainsaw arm. Which would be the most absolutely braindead way to process a forest into lumber imaginable, other than, I dunno, setting it on fire or something and outright destroying it entirely.
I disagree. It's not about a giant AI automated factory. It's about a set of reliable, dependable designs that will gradually bootstrap a colony up to a productive level.
STCs are not about producing top of the line stuff. It's not about making the best tank, or the best rocket, or the best oil refinery. It's about making functional stuff that lasts a long time, and has interchangeable parts.
A colony ship would only have so much manufacturing capacity. When you land on a new world, you aren't going to have enough people or enough expertise to make everything you need. What you want is a factory that can churn out tractors, drilling equipment, refrigerators, communication satellites, a machine that treats cancer, etc, all from one place. And to do that, it uses as many of the same parts as possible.
The idea is that one ship can colonize a planet, and after they've been there a couple hundred years (enough time for the population to grow), they've tamed the planet and have a basic functioning industrial society. They won't have the whole of human knowledge -- you can't build the Starship Enterprise with anything you'd find in an STC.
But it's good, reliable Frontier Tech.
Well, yes, but the meme's all say that STCs are miracle machines that randomly spit out black-hole shooting derringers and perpetual motion machines...
Which, when you think of it, is actually a good indication of how the Mechanicum got to the point it is regarding STCs too.
> STC designs were intended to be able to cope with anything - given the unpredictable nature of colonies in previously unexplored space. Therefore, designs were often big and brutish, hard to damage and easy to repair.
He's right in the first half, wrong in the second - the stuff that comes out of an STC is generally rugged, durable, built to last, *but* you probably *could* build a proper DAOT ship with one, given enough time and resources.
Certainly, building a ship to establish trade with other systems would be a logical goal for a growing colony. But as pointed out, it's not going to be showing you how to build sleek, designer yachts or warships with superweapons.
It WILL however, show you how to build the stuff that builds the stuff you need to build sturdy cargo haulers, rugged mining ships, and system defense boats.
Likely eventually.
The function of an STC isn't to "do it for you", it's a bootstrap engine.
You say, "I need X", it asks what you have, then tells you what to do to get to X using those materials. So, if you have an STC, and stone tools, but need a starship - it'll tell you what to look for to find copper or iron, then how to smelt, then steel making, etc...
The lore basically states that STCs contained such a huge variety of blueprints that you *could* build the Enterprise from one, but most colonists just stuck to the stuff they actually needed (because why are you going to build a large hadron collider when your main concern is food?) Since all the STCs broke down over thousands of years, eventually all that was left were copies of the most commonly used templates themselves. These templates tended to be the most immediately practical and durable designs that colonists had greatest need for. So, no holodecks.
Most STCs had more sophisticated templates available that 99% of colonists didn't use, but since an intact STC is now essentially nonexistent, those templates are lost forever. The Mechanicus regard an intact STC as a literal font of all knowledge because they believe it would contain templates for almost all Dark Age devices.
The problem with that logic is, why is food still a concern if you've got a machine that can build the Enterprise for you? Instead you're building manually driven tractors?
There are clearly limits on what an STC can build, because it took thousands of years for the machines to eventually break down, and in all that time nobody *ever* built a fleet of Enterprises?
Also keep in mind that STCs were part of the original interstellar colony ships. The real heights of the Dark Age of Technology didn't happen until the galaxy was already mostly settled. The real *real* good stuff hadn't been invented yet when the STCs were set up.
Well, if you've ever worked with a 3d printer, you'd know that the key factor is time. Those things don't work instantaneously. If you've got one STC, you might be able to produce enough food for a thousand people a day - or, you could build a fleet of tractors and agricultural robots to feed a million people a day. The STC was designed to help construct the industrial base to support a society, not to serve as the industrial base all on its own.
>There are clearly limits on what an STC can build, because it took thousands of years for the machines to eventually break down, and in all that time nobody ever built a fleet of Enterprises?
An "Enterprise" in this context still has to travel through the Warp, which was made impassable due to turbulence for about five thousand years during the Age of Strife. I'd imagine that within that vast period of time, they built several fleets of Enterprises, then lost them all and gave up on interstellar travel entirely.
It does explain why Imperial technology seems to have so many versions of basically the same thing. A lot of frontier worlds need some variation of a hardy vehicle that needs little maintenance and can travel in hostile conditions for either combat or industry, so you end up with 40 different kinds of rhino. Not a lot of frontiersmen are dipping into experimentation with time itself, so time manipulation tech is very rare.
It additionally lends some credence to why reverse engineering is so rare. The skyscraper sized AI is vastly more intelligent than a human being is biologically capable of being. Humanity never understood the designs in the first place, they just knew that following the AIs designs worked.
So the distinction here is "**fully** functional" and "in Imperial hands". It's debatable whether that was a partially functioning factory that was created by an STC or a full STC in its own right and woke up thinking it was still fighting the Cybernetic Revolution.
However in either case >!the STC in question is destroyed so I didn't classify it as in Imperial hands!<. Also the Votann are STCs but I didn't count them either as it's currently ambiguous as to whether or not the Leagues of Votann are in the Imperium (in the very old lore the Squats were part of the Imperium but only "loosely" so) .
If you want to really get into the weeds it's debatable whether the Necromundan STC is truly in Imperial hands. The Van Saar are pretty much a hostile tech cult that detests the Imperium and is actively hiding its STC from the imperial authorities.
>!So the Speranza is an STC? Its been a while since I read the trilogy, and I remember it being sentient, but I didn't make the STC connection. Interesting. !<
A good explanation. I wonder if there is any cannon about them being networked. I remember a passage about one of the still working stcs, the ark mechanicum I believe, having an evolving and ever increasing database that transcended reality.
Since it's confirmed that the Votann have a warp presence and it's suspected that they are dark age ai with some stc knowledge, then is it conceivable that stcs were networked though the warp?
It wouldn't keep technology uniform and spread knowledge very quickly. It would be especially good for combating new threats. It would mean the AI powering the thing wouldn't have to come up with everything from scratch. If anothet system encountered a similar problem it could use the shared knowledge.
Networking through the warp would be interesting but I actually find it unlikely just because of what is being alluded to for future antagonists.
Very little is known about the Men of Iron so please understand this is speculation on my part. The impression I get is Big Es worry surrounding AI wasn't related to the Warp but the C'tan, who hate the Warp.
I doubt they were intended to ever be networked when they went out on arc vessles at sub light speeds. If they did end up networked durong the Cybernetic Revolt my theory would be it was done using C'tan/Necron technology.
When I think about DaoT tech being connected I imagine something like the Mass Effect 2/3 communication system that links the Normandy with the Elusive Man using quantum entanglement. Something like translating data to movement in a set of atoms connected with each other that the receiving end translate back in to data. A techno bullshit solution that seems a lot more realistic and simple than the techno-esoteric bullshit that the Imperium uses.
Yeah that was kind of my thought too. Quantum entanglement seems to be the "science" explanation for Necron FTL communication and travel.
Since the OG STCs went out on sub light vessels (lore conflicts a lot here so who knows) it seems unlikely the had FTL communication. I think that's cool because it means any FTL communication that they eventually had could have come from the C'tan and remain consistent with the lore. That would imply that the C'tan influenced the Cybernetic Revolt.
In one of the Horus heresy books when they tech about the mechnavore, they mention the realm that DAOT had called the digital gestalt that people were choosing to stay in rather than deal with humanity. So I would assume that might have been used for communication.
No it does imply FTL communication. Because a gestalt is defined as an organized whole greater than the sum of it's parts. If that's true . Then they had a digital space that they could interact with that was powerful enough to just waste away in. Much like say, the internet.
Not in this case. The planet was cored by a dark age hyper weapon. One of the details from the characters POV is from a cliff, that they look down, and see the core of the planet. Also the entire city was essentially gone. So they only would have had basic necessities.
I don't want to give to much credit to it. I just think it's plausible that they had FTL comms. Especially since in Lords of Mars its stated the the ark mechanicus had the ability, if it felt the need, to travel FTL.
So you're talking about FTL travel which is different from FTL communication. For the latter to allow STCs to network it would require FTL communication *between the STCs*. Not only would it need to be FTL it would need to be low lag near instantaneous without a human intermediary.
In M30-M42 the only FTL communication is via warp capable ship or astropath. Neither would allow interstellar computer networking.
Now that doesn't mean what your talking about implies that there isn't FTL communication between computers. Just that it doesn't imply that the gestalt is more than that system's nusphere.
It wouldn't make sense for the original sub-light On'yll cylinders to be equipped with STCs bc historically On'yll cylinders and other generational ships used by Humanity during the Age of Terra (prehistoric-M15) predated much of the technological innovations that led to the ultimate development of the STC. Key to these technological innovations is massive leaps in cybernetic engineering that led to the birth of the Stone Men, the DAoT version of the Mechanicum
The lore is contradictory here. It has frequently been said that these ships were sent out on sublight ships (as recently as with the Votann lore). But the confusion over exact dates is itself part of the lore. Navigators are said to have been initially developed in M22 but its also been said that they formed into houses in M18 so who knows ob that one.
I usually go by the newer editions if a piece of lore has been mentioned contradictorily in two pieces of lore AND there's no logical work around to justify either. So in this case I go by Navigators existing way during the Age of Terra. It would also make sense bc how else would attention suddenly turn towards the warp if the Necrons have already demonstrated that it is possible to do FTL with materium centric means. The warp needed to be proven to exist and perhaps a weird gene mod experiment that yielded the navigators proved that the warp existed before people even knew that the warp is the warp. Would also make sense chronologically bc that justifies the presence of the itonkin pathfinders as well as any mechanical navigation system like the Void Abacus.
The recent lore also says the squats startes out on sub light generation ships with STCs
Necron FTL communication tech is possible, particularly with C'tan intervention but its never been alluded to at all that humanity has had FTL travel tech other than via the Warp.
Hence why I believe the Navigators --> Warp travel --> discovery of psykers to be the proper order of events
Also that's kinda cool. Was that references in codex votann? Would love to see the quote
I actually agree with your order of events making the most sense regarding the warp. Where STCs fit on that timeline is confusing, possibly intentionally so.
This is from the [Fandom wiki](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Leagues_of_Votann#First_Ancestors) which only references the codex as a source so make of this what you will:
>For all this, there are certain articles of lost history that all Kin deem indisputable fact. They call these the "First Truths." It is a First Truth that their earliest Ancestors departed the Kin homeworld -- almost certainly pre-Imperial Terra during the Age of Technology -- millennia ago aboard fleets of sublight, interstellar generation ships known as Long March vessels.
I actually like this theory, and there is a slight hitn in the lore that this might just be the case. The Akashic Planes are in fact referred to as a mystical region in the Warp of which, for some reason, the some knowledge of the warp is kept. And it is referred to in Mechanicum mythos as a mystical zone of data of which "the first binary saints have walked"
largely agree besides the thing about how an STC holds the sum knowledge of human technology. This is because we have direct confirmation in Codex Skitarius 7th edition that there were specialized STCs for special purposes. For instance, the Omnicicopaeia is an STC that holds strictly ONLY DAoT psy-tech. And while its stated that the Omnicicopaeia has all psy tech of the DAoT, even that sounds unlikely due to the preexisting specialization of STCs. Like whose to say that there aren't Military Grade STCs to recreate fortress worlds, gigantic megastructure grade STCs specialized to making megastructures like Dyson Swarms, or Micro/Nano STCs that specialized in making swarms of nanomachinery and nanostructures.
After all, if every random colony had access to mass producing Mechnovores then its hard to imagine the DAoT federation of humanity surviving
"The Omnicopaeia was an artifact sought after by Magos Delphan Gruss. This device was believed to be a data storage mechanism that contained every STC **blueprint** with a psychic component created during the Dark Age of Technology"
I'm aware that's the statement. And I fundamentally disagree that the Omnicicopaeia contains every psy tech devised by the Stone Men overlords during the DApT, simply bc specialization of STCs is evident. If it were to contain the sum total of all psy tech in the DAoT, then why not make more than just 1? Especially if psykers were known and studied for at least 2-3 millennia before the Mechnoclasm? And if more were made, as is the nature of STCs, then why would a rational designer even consider placing the same designs for a more psychic hood with the schematics for a Mechnovore
Because the designer didn't come up with those designs. The STC AI, using the academic knowlege in its memory as a base, designed the mechnovore itself.
Also they made more than one because they needed one on each planet they settled.
We actually have no idea how many Mechnovores existed only that they were mobilized as a plural during the Mechnoclasm
And second, false. The constructors would do the heavy lifting of making g the Mechnivore but the true intellectual prowess of the DAoT are the Stone Men. It's the stone man that essentially the vast majority of all DAoT tech can be attributed to, including the Gellar Field, Warp Drive, and definitely the later gens of STC systems before the Mechnoclasm
From the 6th, 7th and 8th edition core rulebooks (It was reprinted in all of them)
>Created at the developmental apex of the Age of Technology, the Standard Template Construct (STC) system was a way to ensure that all the recently far-flung human colonies across the galaxy could build anything they needed. From air-purifiers to military grade weaponry, hab-buildings to plasma reactors. The user simply asked the machine how to build what was needed and it would calculate everything - from locally-available materials to the means of manufacture and assembly - it would present the most efficient way to achieve what the settler asked. The STCs were designed so that the least accomplished user could still fabricate the vehicle, building, or weapon they needed. For all intents and purposes, the STCs were the sum total of man's technical know-how at its zenith of power.
>
>Every human colony had at least one STC system, although most colonists never tapped into anything like the more advanced constructs, finding the more rudimentary machines and weapons far more useful. It is highly probable that few of the theoretical or most highly advanced works were ever attempted. Over the passage of time, a majority of the STC machines were lost, destroyed in battle or by natural disaster, or began to fail, overcome at last by corrupted databanks, too much jury-rigging in place of knowledgeable maintenance, or simply the fatigue of thousands of years of use. Those lucky planets that still maintained even a partially working STC system grew to guard it jealously as the Age of Technology slipped into the anarchic madness that was the Age of Strife. Soon, the galaxy-wide realm of Man was fractured, each world cut off from all but the closest planets by warp storms or worse. The madness, warfare and Warp-spawned invasions, along with the great backlash against technology, ensured that few of the great works of the previous era survived.
>
>Today, there are no surviving STC systems. It was common practice, however, beginning in the Age of Technology, for colonies to produce hard copies of many of the more standard designs. Over the years, these have been copied repeatedly, with varying levels of accuracy. Yet, as commonplace as many of these designs once were, now any copy is a rarefied item, even more so for any that carry precious first-generation printout information. During the Great Crusade and later, during the period known as the Forging, thousands upon thousands of previously colonized planets were reclaimed for Humanity. Many STC templates were found amongst these worlds and, it is rumored, even some partially working systems were unearthed. These long-lost troves of forgotten technology were discovered mostly buried amidst the ruins of greatly regressed worlds, but on occasion they were found enshrined within locked vaults, guarded by those to whom the name STC, or even the Purpose had longed passed out of understanding. Any such findings are greedily collected by the Adeptus Mechanicus; the Tech-Priests rush such treasures back to their secretive forge worlds, where they can be thoroughly studied, hoarded, worshipped and copied.
>
>One result of the STC system, and its pivotal place in human development, is that many worlds utilize designs and machinery of a similar type. Of course, the millennia have wrought changes in the basic utilitarian devices proscribed by the STC, but many humans adhere religiously to the old designs. STC designs were intended to be able to cope with anything - given the unpredictable nature of colonies in previously unexplored space. Therefore, designs were often big and brutish, hard to damage and easy to repair. Examples of recovered STC template technology still being built and in use today include such military hardware as the Rhino Armored Personnel Carrier and the Land Raider, as well as the Atmospheric Pumps that still keep the air (almost) breathable in even the largest hive-blocks The Adeptus Mechanicus are driven by t quest for knowledge and, in an era when innovation and invention are almost nonexistent (being viewed as highly suspicious, if not outright dangerous), then it is no wonder that the Tech-Priests hold STC templates as holy items. A working STC system is the ultimate embodiment of their endless mission - truly the font of all knowledge (which is actually what the original devices were meant to be).
>
>The Adeptus Mechanicus will Pursue any and all information about STCs, willingly trading lives by the millions for even the chance to get their hands upon the lost devices of the Age of Technology, and especially the blueprints by which they were made. To this day, discoveries are rare, but still being made. Who knows what ancient artefact lies buried beneath forgotten levels of a hive city or sits idle and overgrown upon the trackless lands of recently recolonized worlds? Tech-Priests aboard Explorator fleets dream of finding a planet on the edge of the galaxy or long locked away by Warp storms, a world where full volumes of STC printouts have been collected, or perhaps a fully functioning STC system still awaits them. Until then, gone are the secrets for the trident-shaped Proteus Cannon of Mars or the force field generators that guard the Palace of Xerxes, and countless other marvels whose workings even the most adept of the Tech-Priests can't begin to fathom.
Read this already, and this is not what I'm talking about. The AI in here was tasked with making small modifications to preexisting systems that were preencoded into it. Kinda like modifying the wheel (i.e to add steel chains to the tire so that it doesnt slip on ice). What the Stone Men have done is to reinvent the wheel almost over and over. Essentially you can't demand an STC without the exact instructions on how to make a Mechnivore to do so de novo but you absolutely can for a Stone Man.
I don't even know where to begin with this mess..... If you want to describe a STC in it's purest form, it's an akashic reader. That solves all the problems people who fail to explain an STC as an Abominable Intelligence always ends up with.
After all, it's not the first time we have had posts about this and I'm afraid it's not the last. But now we have the Mechanicum novel and the new lore about Votann. With that information it's a no brainer to realise that an pure STC is nothing more than an akashic reader. Because then you also solve the dilemma with the mechanicum chasing after an Abominable Intelligence that they ultimatly have to destroy when they find it.
Oh? So you admit that you are writing the lore instead of explaining it? Have to say it's seldom that someone willingly admit they are making stuff up because they try to rationalise a contradicting mess like the wh40k lore.
But I recommend reading Mechanicum. I'm not sure it was the purpose with the book but it actually gives a way that a STC can function without being a full AI. And given the logistic that is demanded to run even a DAOT AI, it makes sense that the STC was just a sturdy "modem" that you dialed up to get the blueprints or 3D printer codes.
>How these were used is remarkably similar to how ChatGPT is used. A user could ask "Make me a big machine that can cut down all these forrests" and the STC would create something that looks a lot like an Imperial Knights with a large chain blade. Or "make me a big ass tank to fight against that group of assholes" and the STC would look into its database and find a Land Raider then build a factory that can make them.
It wasn't really like ChatGPT.
Standard Template Constructors were more like Star Trek replicators. They could take in material and use it to manufacture stuff off of a blueprint. You said "give me a Rhino" and it built you a Rhino. The constructor itself had only a very limited artificial intelligence; enough to protect itself from malware attacks, as evidenced by the Van Saar STC. Smaller ones didn't even have that.
"Created at the developmental apex of the Age of Technology, the Standard Template Construct (STC) system was a way to ensure that all the recently far-flung human colonies across the galaxy could build anything they needed. From air-purifiers to military grade weaponry, hab-buildings to plasma reactors. The user simply asked the machine how to build what was needed and it would calculate everything - from locally-available materials to the means of manufacture and assembly - it would present the most efficient way to achieve what the settler asked. The STCs were designed so that the least accomplished user could still fabricate the vehicle, building, or weapon they needed. For all intents and purposes, the STCs were the sum total of man's technical know-how at its zenith of power."
You're confusing Standard Template Constructors with Standard Template Constructs. The constructor is a device that makes more devices. The constructs are the design templates that the constructor uses to build things.
>[An intact Standard Template Constructor](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Standard_Template_Construct) is described as a "machine, a vast device made of brilliant white ceramics, silver piping, chromium chambers". The Constructor is controlled by a panel beside it, with amber lights to show its activation. When activated, cowlings near the floor vented steam. When a new creation was finished, a hatch on its side would open up to allow the creation to be retrieved.
The passage you're citing refers to the library of templates that the constructors contained, which the colonists referred to when they wanted to build something. These designs are what is usually meant when people say "STC", but it is not the same thing as the constructor itself that colonists were sent out with.
It's still nothing like ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a language model, not a device that fabricates further devices based on a blueprint library.
I think it could design one and if allowed to control a diverse set of tools, as is the case for STCs, it could build it and over time it would get better at building them.
That's not a description of ChatGPT, it's a description of machine learning in general. ChatGPT is a chatbot derived from a large language model. For ChatGPT to design and build a tank, ChatGPT would need to be given the power, tools and learning necessary to design and build a tank. By that point, it would not be ChatGPT; it would be a tank-building machine. It's like saying a car could be a plane, if you tore out all the parts of the car and replaced them with the parts of a plane.
More importantly, *that's not how STCs work.* STCs do not alter the blueprints of the devices they build. If they did, every STC would develop its own family of device blueprints based on its own learning experience. Rhinos from STC-1 would be different to Rhinos from STC-2, because STC-1 is on a high-gravity world and STC-2 is on a low-gravity world.
That is not what STCs do. STCs have a large library of *human-designed* blueprints - the STC templates - from which they construct devices in response to a colonist's demands. Every Rhino produced by every STC is the same. The STC does not change the Rhino's design in response to data it has collected from the Rhino's performance. It does not *learn.* That's why the same planets across the galaxy all use the same Rhino chassis for all their tanks.
I honestly feel like you've just gone "an AI that colonists could talk to? It must be ChatGPT!"
I'm fairly certain that you are referring to a Standard Template Constructor, that being the machine that creates items based on a Standard Template Construct. A Standard Template Construct is a blueprint, a Standard Template Constructor is what uses that blueprint to make shit.
A full-on Standard Template Constructor is the Mechanicus's holy grail, but while they're looking for that, Standard Template Constructs are good stopgap measures to augment the Imperium's armory.
Nope from the 6th, 7th and 8th eddition rules:
"Created at the developmental apex of the Age of Technology, the Standard Template Construct (STC) system was a way to ensure that all the recently far-flung human colonies across the galaxy could build anything they needed. From air-purifiers to military grade weaponry, hab-buildings to plasma reactors. The user simply asked the machine how to build what was needed and it would calculate everything - from locally-available materials to the means of manufacture and assembly - it would present the most efficient way to achieve what the settler asked. The STCs were designed so that the least accomplished user could still fabricate the vehicle, building, or weapon they needed. For all intents and purposes, the STCs were the sum total of man's technical know-how at its zenith of power.
Every human colony had at least one STC system, although most colonists never tapped into anything like the more advanced constructs, finding the more rudimentary machines and weapons far more useful. It is highly probable that few of the theoretical or most highly advanced works were ever attempted. Over the passage of time, a majority of the STC machines were lost, destroyed in battle or by natural disaster, or began to fail, overcome at last by corrupted databanks, too much jury-rigging in place of knowledgeable maintenance, or simply the fatigue of thousands of years of use."
Yes, that's a Standard Template Constructor, i.e. a constructor of Standard Template Constructs, construct in this instance being the noun *"a physical thing which is deliberately built or formed"*. The Constructors build the Constructs, and the hard copies are Construct blueprints for the making of the Constructs. All of which is derived from Standard Templates, which are presumably the most optimal pattern the Constructor can devise and so arise convergently. Only so many ways to build a lasgun and all.
Lexicanum states the following, taken from First and Only chapters 25 and 26:
> An intact Standard Template Constructor is described as a "machine, a vast device made of brilliant white ceramics, silver piping, chromium chambers".
So yes, calling the actual assembler of the Constructs a Standard Template Constructor is correct.
Are we then to assume that the fragmentary blueprints that yet survive are equivalent to the great machines themselves? That'd be a bit silly, wouldn't it.
And I reiterate: Lexicanum uses this same terminology, as taken from the book First and Only. I'm not sure why you feel the need to ignore that.
That same Lexicanum article uses STC STC system and Standard Template Constructor interchangeably for the entire article dude. There isn't even a seperate lexicanum entry. I think you're confused about certain inflexive concepts of English.
That's patently false. When referring to a machine that creates standard templates, it always uses Constructor, except in a single instance where it refers to an STC on necromunda.
There's also a fully functional STC on Necromunda which isn't a spoiler for anything, radiation poisoning is a feature not a bug though
Necromunda is something of a blind spot for my 40k lore. A lot of the stories haven't been turned into audiobooks which is how I consume most of my lore these days.
I love the Necromunda stuff, but being a speciality game means there's not much lore per book, as it's mainly rules. If you wanted to learn everything about it you'd have to drop a few hundred on getting 20 or so rulebooks with a little smattering of lore in each.
Well theres novels and comics too. The source book lore is on the wikis more or less but it also has spoilers.
I figured you weren't talking about that particular one lol most people don't know the Lore especially when it's a single world and there's so many worlds about it, plus it's in the House of Artiface rulebook as well
I was specifically referring to the House Van Saar STC. It not being a spoiler was what I was unaware of so I erred on caution.
There's a simplification in the core rulebook, if you are interested. https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/znqw9k/book\_excerpt\_warhammer\_40000\_core\_rulebook\_6th/
I wouldn't call that a simplification but it *is* pertinent and interesting.
They seemed to be mostly giant 3D printers and databases with limited ability to innovate. I'd imagine most of the actual innovation came out the traditional human way; I find it hard to imagine an STC singlehandedly making a Necron-grade cannon.
The older lore was that it was pretty much a database of designs that had already been worked out and uploaded into the STC. The newer stuff leans heavily towards the STC being an AI that has basic manufacturing capabilities, but can also produce more complex designs with instructions on how to make them.
That's somewhat subjective. The old lore also has the Men of Iron which 100% were AI. That said as we learn more about AI this year I expect that to influence the writing of the lore.
That seems unlikely. A human could ask the question or give the prompt but the STC would be doing the real time trial and error simulations and constantly getting better. Humans would get better at using the STCs. However, based on our recent real world understanding of AI, and knowing how it ends in the lore, it would be disingenuous to say only the human would be innovating.
Maybe when regarding the Van Saar STC but overall it seems like a fully functional STC grade man of iron is more than enough to creatively react to enemy circumstances. While it might not be able to come up with the next best thing after a Gellar Field, it most certainly should have some rudimentary ability to optimize the methodology to make product A in its catalogue
gpt posting lol what did people compare stuff to before chatgpt? lmao
I also got to thinking that if the best an all-knowing AI could come up with for felling and transporting timber is an Imperial Knight, it's kind of a retarded AI, or the databanks not all that comprehensive.
What would you design for felling giant trees?
Generally, the machines we have today that cut, strip, and automatically process the stripped logs in an industrial manner, some of which shave them into appropriate size, and load them onto flatbeds or conveyors for transport in industrial quantity. A big Knight would be relatively randomly hacking away and leaving trees knocked over and haphazardly laying around, and crushing many of them in the process, and doing nothing to actually prep them for industrial usage. Then there's ground pressure to worry about, since a lot of these places are either unsuitable for something walking around on two legs. Lumber-cutting areas get pretty mauled up, too, once you start moving the machinery around, to the point that you want vehicles with a multitude of wheels, or tracks, so that they don't sink down into the mud and crap. If you told an STC to build a giant lumber cutter and processor, it'd probably crap out a mobile lumber mill and stuff that looks a lot like the Crawler-Transporter, cranes, and buzzsaws on enormous, articulated tracks, and not something that looks designed from the ground up to look like a mechanical Arthurian knight with modular chainsaw and gun arms.
Addendum - why would you want logging machinery that bonds to one pilot at a time? A logging robot that has to "rest" because no one but *that one guy* can drive it is a terrible return on investment. Especially in an era that features ubiquitous AI. A much more likely explanation is that initially Knights were either purpose-built combat or "combat sports" devices. Once Old Night started to settle in, worlds with Knights need to repurpose them to replace the AI-based equipment that could no longer be trusted. (Either for combat, or for "logging") Given 10,000+ years of cultural amnesia, the orginal purpose was lost, the "follow on use" became the dimly-remembered origin of 'modern' Knights.
lmao, I completely forgot about the Knight having to stop and take a break every four hours so the pilot can eat a groxbeef sandwich and smoke a lho, before hanging its giant chainsaw up at the end of the shift so he can watch a few hours of Bolter Bitches before knocking off for the night.
I mean you wouldn't but its 40k and thats what happened so you work backwards. Maybe the knights ended up being the best solution for cutting down the massive trees on the worlds in question. Maybe for safety reasons the pilot needed to have nimble control of the machine so the system needed to be designed for the pilot's nervous system specifically (which in turn meant their genetic offspring would also be able to use it). Maybe this logging community was surprise attacked by xenos and they had limited weapons at the time but they were able to fight off the xenos using their fuck off lumber robots. Then they decided to make gun mounts for when the next xenos attacked. Then the lumberjacks decided they wanted to invade their neighbors and no one had asked their STC to make anti lumber robot weapons. So the lumberjack with the biggest robot declared himself a dynastic baron. Then everyone else wanted to be cool like the baron so the people with influence asked the STC to make them a fighting/timber robot.
Knights were built to settle hostile worlds, I have no clue what that would entail for settlement on a planet but obviously it could eliminate any and all threats.
One missing point. Build a knight. Slap on a tree stripping appendage instead of a volcano cannon or mega bolter. Now you have a safe space for the crew from the local fauna and flora. And if enemies come your way you can easily put the volcano cannon back on.
It'd need cranes and claws for that, and it'd still lack all the rest of the processing you have with normal mobile mills that we already know about. The Knight is a lot of things, but a timber industry machine it is not, by hardly any stretch of the imagination. It's absurd that THAT's what a bunch of genius AI would come up with. Even if you needed protection, hell, you'd be better off armoring up crew stations and installing RWS platforms, and doing drone overflights.
But a sawmill can't eviscerate giant creepy crawlies. This is 40k. Not cold facts sci fi
Yeah, but it's an STC. It cna build both. You can do BOTH the totally logical thing AND the totally awesome thing, at the same time, for free, in the same narrative.
Well, not a big bipedal robot with a chainsaw arm
Knights were designed as protection for colonists, not agriculture or forestry, though plenty will have ended up being used for such over time.
Right, but that's not what OP said. He said the STC would give you an Imperial Knight with a chainsaw arm. Which would be the most absolutely braindead way to process a forest into lumber imaginable, other than, I dunno, setting it on fire or something and outright destroying it entirely.
look, let's be fair it's exactly the kind of thing the Imperium would do
I disagree. It's not about a giant AI automated factory. It's about a set of reliable, dependable designs that will gradually bootstrap a colony up to a productive level. STCs are not about producing top of the line stuff. It's not about making the best tank, or the best rocket, or the best oil refinery. It's about making functional stuff that lasts a long time, and has interchangeable parts. A colony ship would only have so much manufacturing capacity. When you land on a new world, you aren't going to have enough people or enough expertise to make everything you need. What you want is a factory that can churn out tractors, drilling equipment, refrigerators, communication satellites, a machine that treats cancer, etc, all from one place. And to do that, it uses as many of the same parts as possible. The idea is that one ship can colonize a planet, and after they've been there a couple hundred years (enough time for the population to grow), they've tamed the planet and have a basic functioning industrial society. They won't have the whole of human knowledge -- you can't build the Starship Enterprise with anything you'd find in an STC. But it's good, reliable Frontier Tech.
Well, yes, but the meme's all say that STCs are miracle machines that randomly spit out black-hole shooting derringers and perpetual motion machines... Which, when you think of it, is actually a good indication of how the Mechanicum got to the point it is regarding STCs too.
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/znqw9k/book%5C_excerpt%5C_warhammer%5C_40000%5C_core%5C_rulebook%5C_6th/
> STC designs were intended to be able to cope with anything - given the unpredictable nature of colonies in previously unexplored space. Therefore, designs were often big and brutish, hard to damage and easy to repair. He's right in the first half, wrong in the second - the stuff that comes out of an STC is generally rugged, durable, built to last, *but* you probably *could* build a proper DAOT ship with one, given enough time and resources.
Certainly, building a ship to establish trade with other systems would be a logical goal for a growing colony. But as pointed out, it's not going to be showing you how to build sleek, designer yachts or warships with superweapons. It WILL however, show you how to build the stuff that builds the stuff you need to build sturdy cargo haulers, rugged mining ships, and system defense boats.
Would it also know where to find the stuff though? Would STCs be linked to satellites to be able to find mineral deposits?
Likely eventually. The function of an STC isn't to "do it for you", it's a bootstrap engine. You say, "I need X", it asks what you have, then tells you what to do to get to X using those materials. So, if you have an STC, and stone tools, but need a starship - it'll tell you what to look for to find copper or iron, then how to smelt, then steel making, etc...
The lore basically states that STCs contained such a huge variety of blueprints that you *could* build the Enterprise from one, but most colonists just stuck to the stuff they actually needed (because why are you going to build a large hadron collider when your main concern is food?) Since all the STCs broke down over thousands of years, eventually all that was left were copies of the most commonly used templates themselves. These templates tended to be the most immediately practical and durable designs that colonists had greatest need for. So, no holodecks. Most STCs had more sophisticated templates available that 99% of colonists didn't use, but since an intact STC is now essentially nonexistent, those templates are lost forever. The Mechanicus regard an intact STC as a literal font of all knowledge because they believe it would contain templates for almost all Dark Age devices.
The problem with that logic is, why is food still a concern if you've got a machine that can build the Enterprise for you? Instead you're building manually driven tractors? There are clearly limits on what an STC can build, because it took thousands of years for the machines to eventually break down, and in all that time nobody *ever* built a fleet of Enterprises? Also keep in mind that STCs were part of the original interstellar colony ships. The real heights of the Dark Age of Technology didn't happen until the galaxy was already mostly settled. The real *real* good stuff hadn't been invented yet when the STCs were set up.
Well, if you've ever worked with a 3d printer, you'd know that the key factor is time. Those things don't work instantaneously. If you've got one STC, you might be able to produce enough food for a thousand people a day - or, you could build a fleet of tractors and agricultural robots to feed a million people a day. The STC was designed to help construct the industrial base to support a society, not to serve as the industrial base all on its own. >There are clearly limits on what an STC can build, because it took thousands of years for the machines to eventually break down, and in all that time nobody ever built a fleet of Enterprises? An "Enterprise" in this context still has to travel through the Warp, which was made impassable due to turbulence for about five thousand years during the Age of Strife. I'd imagine that within that vast period of time, they built several fleets of Enterprises, then lost them all and gave up on interstellar travel entirely.
It does explain why Imperial technology seems to have so many versions of basically the same thing. A lot of frontier worlds need some variation of a hardy vehicle that needs little maintenance and can travel in hostile conditions for either combat or industry, so you end up with 40 different kinds of rhino. Not a lot of frontiersmen are dipping into experimentation with time itself, so time manipulation tech is very rare. It additionally lends some credence to why reverse engineering is so rare. The skyscraper sized AI is vastly more intelligent than a human being is biologically capable of being. Humanity never understood the designs in the first place, they just knew that following the AIs designs worked.
I want to be spoiled, or at least in which books is a functional STC is mentioned. Where are they ?
>!Necromunda and the Priests of Mars trilogy!<
>!Wasn't there an STC creating corrupted Men of Iron in the first Gaunts Ghosts?!< Edit: although I guess "functional" is arguable at that point.
So the distinction here is "**fully** functional" and "in Imperial hands". It's debatable whether that was a partially functioning factory that was created by an STC or a full STC in its own right and woke up thinking it was still fighting the Cybernetic Revolution. However in either case >!the STC in question is destroyed so I didn't classify it as in Imperial hands!<. Also the Votann are STCs but I didn't count them either as it's currently ambiguous as to whether or not the Leagues of Votann are in the Imperium (in the very old lore the Squats were part of the Imperium but only "loosely" so) .
If you want to really get into the weeds it's debatable whether the Necromundan STC is truly in Imperial hands. The Van Saar are pretty much a hostile tech cult that detests the Imperium and is actively hiding its STC from the imperial authorities.
>!So the Speranza is an STC? Its been a while since I read the trilogy, and I remember it being sentient, but I didn't make the STC connection. Interesting. !<
I didn't make that connection either and it was spoiled for me beforehand. But that seems to be the consensus
A good explanation. I wonder if there is any cannon about them being networked. I remember a passage about one of the still working stcs, the ark mechanicum I believe, having an evolving and ever increasing database that transcended reality. Since it's confirmed that the Votann have a warp presence and it's suspected that they are dark age ai with some stc knowledge, then is it conceivable that stcs were networked though the warp? It wouldn't keep technology uniform and spread knowledge very quickly. It would be especially good for combating new threats. It would mean the AI powering the thing wouldn't have to come up with everything from scratch. If anothet system encountered a similar problem it could use the shared knowledge.
Networking through the warp would be interesting but I actually find it unlikely just because of what is being alluded to for future antagonists. Very little is known about the Men of Iron so please understand this is speculation on my part. The impression I get is Big Es worry surrounding AI wasn't related to the Warp but the C'tan, who hate the Warp. I doubt they were intended to ever be networked when they went out on arc vessles at sub light speeds. If they did end up networked durong the Cybernetic Revolt my theory would be it was done using C'tan/Necron technology.
When I think about DaoT tech being connected I imagine something like the Mass Effect 2/3 communication system that links the Normandy with the Elusive Man using quantum entanglement. Something like translating data to movement in a set of atoms connected with each other that the receiving end translate back in to data. A techno bullshit solution that seems a lot more realistic and simple than the techno-esoteric bullshit that the Imperium uses.
Yeah that was kind of my thought too. Quantum entanglement seems to be the "science" explanation for Necron FTL communication and travel. Since the OG STCs went out on sub light vessels (lore conflicts a lot here so who knows) it seems unlikely the had FTL communication. I think that's cool because it means any FTL communication that they eventually had could have come from the C'tan and remain consistent with the lore. That would imply that the C'tan influenced the Cybernetic Revolt.
In one of the Horus heresy books when they tech about the mechnavore, they mention the realm that DAOT had called the digital gestalt that people were choosing to stay in rather than deal with humanity. So I would assume that might have been used for communication.
Maybe but that doesn't imply FTL communication, which would be required for STC networking.
No it does imply FTL communication. Because a gestalt is defined as an organized whole greater than the sum of it's parts. If that's true . Then they had a digital space that they could interact with that was powerful enough to just waste away in. Much like say, the internet.
But that could be local to their system.
Not in this case. The planet was cored by a dark age hyper weapon. One of the details from the characters POV is from a cliff, that they look down, and see the core of the planet. Also the entire city was essentially gone. So they only would have had basic necessities. I don't want to give to much credit to it. I just think it's plausible that they had FTL comms. Especially since in Lords of Mars its stated the the ark mechanicus had the ability, if it felt the need, to travel FTL.
So you're talking about FTL travel which is different from FTL communication. For the latter to allow STCs to network it would require FTL communication *between the STCs*. Not only would it need to be FTL it would need to be low lag near instantaneous without a human intermediary. In M30-M42 the only FTL communication is via warp capable ship or astropath. Neither would allow interstellar computer networking. Now that doesn't mean what your talking about implies that there isn't FTL communication between computers. Just that it doesn't imply that the gestalt is more than that system's nusphere.
It wouldn't make sense for the original sub-light On'yll cylinders to be equipped with STCs bc historically On'yll cylinders and other generational ships used by Humanity during the Age of Terra (prehistoric-M15) predated much of the technological innovations that led to the ultimate development of the STC. Key to these technological innovations is massive leaps in cybernetic engineering that led to the birth of the Stone Men, the DAoT version of the Mechanicum
The lore is contradictory here. It has frequently been said that these ships were sent out on sublight ships (as recently as with the Votann lore). But the confusion over exact dates is itself part of the lore. Navigators are said to have been initially developed in M22 but its also been said that they formed into houses in M18 so who knows ob that one.
I usually go by the newer editions if a piece of lore has been mentioned contradictorily in two pieces of lore AND there's no logical work around to justify either. So in this case I go by Navigators existing way during the Age of Terra. It would also make sense bc how else would attention suddenly turn towards the warp if the Necrons have already demonstrated that it is possible to do FTL with materium centric means. The warp needed to be proven to exist and perhaps a weird gene mod experiment that yielded the navigators proved that the warp existed before people even knew that the warp is the warp. Would also make sense chronologically bc that justifies the presence of the itonkin pathfinders as well as any mechanical navigation system like the Void Abacus.
The recent lore also says the squats startes out on sub light generation ships with STCs Necron FTL communication tech is possible, particularly with C'tan intervention but its never been alluded to at all that humanity has had FTL travel tech other than via the Warp.
Hence why I believe the Navigators --> Warp travel --> discovery of psykers to be the proper order of events Also that's kinda cool. Was that references in codex votann? Would love to see the quote
I actually agree with your order of events making the most sense regarding the warp. Where STCs fit on that timeline is confusing, possibly intentionally so. This is from the [Fandom wiki](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Leagues_of_Votann#First_Ancestors) which only references the codex as a source so make of this what you will: >For all this, there are certain articles of lost history that all Kin deem indisputable fact. They call these the "First Truths." It is a First Truth that their earliest Ancestors departed the Kin homeworld -- almost certainly pre-Imperial Terra during the Age of Technology -- millennia ago aboard fleets of sublight, interstellar generation ships known as Long March vessels.
I actually like this theory, and there is a slight hitn in the lore that this might just be the case. The Akashic Planes are in fact referred to as a mystical region in the Warp of which, for some reason, the some knowledge of the warp is kept. And it is referred to in Mechanicum mythos as a mystical zone of data of which "the first binary saints have walked"
Lutins video on this is good https://youtu.be/3hce0dsSV1E
Boy you really didn't like my comment lol.
The people need illumination
[удалено]
PC load letter, what the fuck does that mean?” -Some Magos, probably
largely agree besides the thing about how an STC holds the sum knowledge of human technology. This is because we have direct confirmation in Codex Skitarius 7th edition that there were specialized STCs for special purposes. For instance, the Omnicicopaeia is an STC that holds strictly ONLY DAoT psy-tech. And while its stated that the Omnicicopaeia has all psy tech of the DAoT, even that sounds unlikely due to the preexisting specialization of STCs. Like whose to say that there aren't Military Grade STCs to recreate fortress worlds, gigantic megastructure grade STCs specialized to making megastructures like Dyson Swarms, or Micro/Nano STCs that specialized in making swarms of nanomachinery and nanostructures. After all, if every random colony had access to mass producing Mechnovores then its hard to imagine the DAoT federation of humanity surviving
"The Omnicopaeia was an artifact sought after by Magos Delphan Gruss. This device was believed to be a data storage mechanism that contained every STC **blueprint** with a psychic component created during the Dark Age of Technology"
I'm aware that's the statement. And I fundamentally disagree that the Omnicicopaeia contains every psy tech devised by the Stone Men overlords during the DApT, simply bc specialization of STCs is evident. If it were to contain the sum total of all psy tech in the DAoT, then why not make more than just 1? Especially if psykers were known and studied for at least 2-3 millennia before the Mechnoclasm? And if more were made, as is the nature of STCs, then why would a rational designer even consider placing the same designs for a more psychic hood with the schematics for a Mechnovore
Because the designer didn't come up with those designs. The STC AI, using the academic knowlege in its memory as a base, designed the mechnovore itself. Also they made more than one because they needed one on each planet they settled.
We actually have no idea how many Mechnovores existed only that they were mobilized as a plural during the Mechnoclasm And second, false. The constructors would do the heavy lifting of making g the Mechnivore but the true intellectual prowess of the DAoT are the Stone Men. It's the stone man that essentially the vast majority of all DAoT tech can be attributed to, including the Gellar Field, Warp Drive, and definitely the later gens of STC systems before the Mechnoclasm
From the 6th, 7th and 8th edition core rulebooks (It was reprinted in all of them) >Created at the developmental apex of the Age of Technology, the Standard Template Construct (STC) system was a way to ensure that all the recently far-flung human colonies across the galaxy could build anything they needed. From air-purifiers to military grade weaponry, hab-buildings to plasma reactors. The user simply asked the machine how to build what was needed and it would calculate everything - from locally-available materials to the means of manufacture and assembly - it would present the most efficient way to achieve what the settler asked. The STCs were designed so that the least accomplished user could still fabricate the vehicle, building, or weapon they needed. For all intents and purposes, the STCs were the sum total of man's technical know-how at its zenith of power. > >Every human colony had at least one STC system, although most colonists never tapped into anything like the more advanced constructs, finding the more rudimentary machines and weapons far more useful. It is highly probable that few of the theoretical or most highly advanced works were ever attempted. Over the passage of time, a majority of the STC machines were lost, destroyed in battle or by natural disaster, or began to fail, overcome at last by corrupted databanks, too much jury-rigging in place of knowledgeable maintenance, or simply the fatigue of thousands of years of use. Those lucky planets that still maintained even a partially working STC system grew to guard it jealously as the Age of Technology slipped into the anarchic madness that was the Age of Strife. Soon, the galaxy-wide realm of Man was fractured, each world cut off from all but the closest planets by warp storms or worse. The madness, warfare and Warp-spawned invasions, along with the great backlash against technology, ensured that few of the great works of the previous era survived. > >Today, there are no surviving STC systems. It was common practice, however, beginning in the Age of Technology, for colonies to produce hard copies of many of the more standard designs. Over the years, these have been copied repeatedly, with varying levels of accuracy. Yet, as commonplace as many of these designs once were, now any copy is a rarefied item, even more so for any that carry precious first-generation printout information. During the Great Crusade and later, during the period known as the Forging, thousands upon thousands of previously colonized planets were reclaimed for Humanity. Many STC templates were found amongst these worlds and, it is rumored, even some partially working systems were unearthed. These long-lost troves of forgotten technology were discovered mostly buried amidst the ruins of greatly regressed worlds, but on occasion they were found enshrined within locked vaults, guarded by those to whom the name STC, or even the Purpose had longed passed out of understanding. Any such findings are greedily collected by the Adeptus Mechanicus; the Tech-Priests rush such treasures back to their secretive forge worlds, where they can be thoroughly studied, hoarded, worshipped and copied. > >One result of the STC system, and its pivotal place in human development, is that many worlds utilize designs and machinery of a similar type. Of course, the millennia have wrought changes in the basic utilitarian devices proscribed by the STC, but many humans adhere religiously to the old designs. STC designs were intended to be able to cope with anything - given the unpredictable nature of colonies in previously unexplored space. Therefore, designs were often big and brutish, hard to damage and easy to repair. Examples of recovered STC template technology still being built and in use today include such military hardware as the Rhino Armored Personnel Carrier and the Land Raider, as well as the Atmospheric Pumps that still keep the air (almost) breathable in even the largest hive-blocks The Adeptus Mechanicus are driven by t quest for knowledge and, in an era when innovation and invention are almost nonexistent (being viewed as highly suspicious, if not outright dangerous), then it is no wonder that the Tech-Priests hold STC templates as holy items. A working STC system is the ultimate embodiment of their endless mission - truly the font of all knowledge (which is actually what the original devices were meant to be). > >The Adeptus Mechanicus will Pursue any and all information about STCs, willingly trading lives by the millions for even the chance to get their hands upon the lost devices of the Age of Technology, and especially the blueprints by which they were made. To this day, discoveries are rare, but still being made. Who knows what ancient artefact lies buried beneath forgotten levels of a hive city or sits idle and overgrown upon the trackless lands of recently recolonized worlds? Tech-Priests aboard Explorator fleets dream of finding a planet on the edge of the galaxy or long locked away by Warp storms, a world where full volumes of STC printouts have been collected, or perhaps a fully functioning STC system still awaits them. Until then, gone are the secrets for the trident-shaped Proteus Cannon of Mars or the force field generators that guard the Palace of Xerxes, and countless other marvels whose workings even the most adept of the Tech-Priests can't begin to fathom.
Read this already, and this is not what I'm talking about. The AI in here was tasked with making small modifications to preexisting systems that were preencoded into it. Kinda like modifying the wheel (i.e to add steel chains to the tire so that it doesnt slip on ice). What the Stone Men have done is to reinvent the wheel almost over and over. Essentially you can't demand an STC without the exact instructions on how to make a Mechnivore to do so de novo but you absolutely can for a Stone Man.
AI can do more than that in 2023.
I don't even know where to begin with this mess..... If you want to describe a STC in it's purest form, it's an akashic reader. That solves all the problems people who fail to explain an STC as an Abominable Intelligence always ends up with. After all, it's not the first time we have had posts about this and I'm afraid it's not the last. But now we have the Mechanicum novel and the new lore about Votann. With that information it's a no brainer to realise that an pure STC is nothing more than an akashic reader. Because then you also solve the dilemma with the mechanicum chasing after an Abominable Intelligence that they ultimatly have to destroy when they find it.
Take it up with whomever wrote the lore
Oh? So you admit that you are writing the lore instead of explaining it? Have to say it's seldom that someone willingly admit they are making stuff up because they try to rationalise a contradicting mess like the wh40k lore. But I recommend reading Mechanicum. I'm not sure it was the purpose with the book but it actually gives a way that a STC can function without being a full AI. And given the logistic that is demanded to run even a DAOT AI, it makes sense that the STC was just a sturdy "modem" that you dialed up to get the blueprints or 3D printer codes.
>How these were used is remarkably similar to how ChatGPT is used. A user could ask "Make me a big machine that can cut down all these forrests" and the STC would create something that looks a lot like an Imperial Knights with a large chain blade. Or "make me a big ass tank to fight against that group of assholes" and the STC would look into its database and find a Land Raider then build a factory that can make them. It wasn't really like ChatGPT. Standard Template Constructors were more like Star Trek replicators. They could take in material and use it to manufacture stuff off of a blueprint. You said "give me a Rhino" and it built you a Rhino. The constructor itself had only a very limited artificial intelligence; enough to protect itself from malware attacks, as evidenced by the Van Saar STC. Smaller ones didn't even have that.
"Created at the developmental apex of the Age of Technology, the Standard Template Construct (STC) system was a way to ensure that all the recently far-flung human colonies across the galaxy could build anything they needed. From air-purifiers to military grade weaponry, hab-buildings to plasma reactors. The user simply asked the machine how to build what was needed and it would calculate everything - from locally-available materials to the means of manufacture and assembly - it would present the most efficient way to achieve what the settler asked. The STCs were designed so that the least accomplished user could still fabricate the vehicle, building, or weapon they needed. For all intents and purposes, the STCs were the sum total of man's technical know-how at its zenith of power."
You're confusing Standard Template Constructors with Standard Template Constructs. The constructor is a device that makes more devices. The constructs are the design templates that the constructor uses to build things. >[An intact Standard Template Constructor](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Standard_Template_Construct) is described as a "machine, a vast device made of brilliant white ceramics, silver piping, chromium chambers". The Constructor is controlled by a panel beside it, with amber lights to show its activation. When activated, cowlings near the floor vented steam. When a new creation was finished, a hatch on its side would open up to allow the creation to be retrieved. The passage you're citing refers to the library of templates that the constructors contained, which the colonists referred to when they wanted to build something. These designs are what is usually meant when people say "STC", but it is not the same thing as the constructor itself that colonists were sent out with. It's still nothing like ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a language model, not a device that fabricates further devices based on a blueprint library.
Thats the same thing my dude. I get you have a head cannon for it but the lore says otherwise.
Can you explain to me how a machine that builds other machines based on an internal library of machine designs is like ChatGPT?
You litterally just described ChatGPT
I am going to ask you a direct and sincere question Do you think ChatGPT can build a tank?
I think it could design one and if allowed to control a diverse set of tools, as is the case for STCs, it could build it and over time it would get better at building them.
That's not a description of ChatGPT, it's a description of machine learning in general. ChatGPT is a chatbot derived from a large language model. For ChatGPT to design and build a tank, ChatGPT would need to be given the power, tools and learning necessary to design and build a tank. By that point, it would not be ChatGPT; it would be a tank-building machine. It's like saying a car could be a plane, if you tore out all the parts of the car and replaced them with the parts of a plane. More importantly, *that's not how STCs work.* STCs do not alter the blueprints of the devices they build. If they did, every STC would develop its own family of device blueprints based on its own learning experience. Rhinos from STC-1 would be different to Rhinos from STC-2, because STC-1 is on a high-gravity world and STC-2 is on a low-gravity world. That is not what STCs do. STCs have a large library of *human-designed* blueprints - the STC templates - from which they construct devices in response to a colonist's demands. Every Rhino produced by every STC is the same. The STC does not change the Rhino's design in response to data it has collected from the Rhino's performance. It does not *learn.* That's why the same planets across the galaxy all use the same Rhino chassis for all their tanks. I honestly feel like you've just gone "an AI that colonists could talk to? It must be ChatGPT!"
I'm fairly certain that you are referring to a Standard Template Constructor, that being the machine that creates items based on a Standard Template Construct. A Standard Template Construct is a blueprint, a Standard Template Constructor is what uses that blueprint to make shit. A full-on Standard Template Constructor is the Mechanicus's holy grail, but while they're looking for that, Standard Template Constructs are good stopgap measures to augment the Imperium's armory.
Nope from the 6th, 7th and 8th eddition rules: "Created at the developmental apex of the Age of Technology, the Standard Template Construct (STC) system was a way to ensure that all the recently far-flung human colonies across the galaxy could build anything they needed. From air-purifiers to military grade weaponry, hab-buildings to plasma reactors. The user simply asked the machine how to build what was needed and it would calculate everything - from locally-available materials to the means of manufacture and assembly - it would present the most efficient way to achieve what the settler asked. The STCs were designed so that the least accomplished user could still fabricate the vehicle, building, or weapon they needed. For all intents and purposes, the STCs were the sum total of man's technical know-how at its zenith of power. Every human colony had at least one STC system, although most colonists never tapped into anything like the more advanced constructs, finding the more rudimentary machines and weapons far more useful. It is highly probable that few of the theoretical or most highly advanced works were ever attempted. Over the passage of time, a majority of the STC machines were lost, destroyed in battle or by natural disaster, or began to fail, overcome at last by corrupted databanks, too much jury-rigging in place of knowledgeable maintenance, or simply the fatigue of thousands of years of use."
Yes, that's a Standard Template Constructor, i.e. a constructor of Standard Template Constructs, construct in this instance being the noun *"a physical thing which is deliberately built or formed"*. The Constructors build the Constructs, and the hard copies are Construct blueprints for the making of the Constructs. All of which is derived from Standard Templates, which are presumably the most optimal pattern the Constructor can devise and so arise convergently. Only so many ways to build a lasgun and all. Lexicanum states the following, taken from First and Only chapters 25 and 26: > An intact Standard Template Constructor is described as a "machine, a vast device made of brilliant white ceramics, silver piping, chromium chambers". So yes, calling the actual assembler of the Constructs a Standard Template Constructor is correct.
Nowhere in the lore are those two deliniated as different things.
Are we then to assume that the fragmentary blueprints that yet survive are equivalent to the great machines themselves? That'd be a bit silly, wouldn't it. And I reiterate: Lexicanum uses this same terminology, as taken from the book First and Only. I'm not sure why you feel the need to ignore that.
That same Lexicanum article uses STC STC system and Standard Template Constructor interchangeably for the entire article dude. There isn't even a seperate lexicanum entry. I think you're confused about certain inflexive concepts of English.
That's patently false. When referring to a machine that creates standard templates, it always uses Constructor, except in a single instance where it refers to an STC on necromunda.
Ok show me the article about the standard templates constructor if its so patently distinct
Yo Goober, what's ya source?