Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-25618639-20150220210346/@comment-6078851-20150225192402

if plasma weaponry in titans predate the age of strife, which we know they do, then they also predate the imperium (we're both wrong on account of the imperium creating or reverse engineering such tech since the imperium didn't exist then :P) since they would be from the previous galactic empire, so it would've been around the time when relations with the eldar were less strained. i think that's when plasma and anti-grav tech were reverse engineered from eldar tech (but as i'm recalling from a source i can't remember, i could be mistakenly recalling).

the mechanicum don't know how complex things work because they don't allow learning beyond the limits they set, even amongst themselves, and so they don't actually attempt to work something out, because that's 'heretical'. but everyone has the capability to learn. look at our own history: the church considered science somewhat heretical, but once their prohibition was cast off there was an explosion of new scientific pursuits. if isolated worlds/systems rebell, and succeed, against the mechanicum/ecclesiarchy (post-emps) then they have the opportunity to pursue any science they want.

when i say isolated worlds/systems i'm refering to those parts of the imperium on the fringes which would be an exceptionally long journey without the astronomican, places which would be considered prohibitively expensive just to get there. for sure, single worlds would probably lack the resources for any significant tech and would probably revert to barbarism, but there would be systems close enough to each other for non-astronomican travel to be viable. and if they had overthrown the resident mechanicum they would have access to any tech they had there, giving themselves a technological foundation for defense, inter-stellar travel/trade, and research.

as for education. i'm talking about the worlds which would attempt to rebell after the fact of emps' death. given that there are continually worlds attempting rebellion even with emps still on the throne, there would be an increase (maybe not substantially given the volume of worlds) after his death, and i doubt emps' death is something that could be kept quiet from the masses :)  but such worlds on the fringes that succeed in rebelling would surely have denounced emps' godhood, since he'd be dead, and would set up there own education systems. as we have seen religous dogma stifles curiosity and learning, but once those shackles have been removed people learn.

and the interex did have stc's, but they also had advanced alien tech, and apparently were able to combat chaos far more effectiively than the imperium :)

as mentioned before though, this scenario is all hypothetical and really we just have to wait for about a year and half before we start to find out :)