"Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating."
- — Technographer Adar Millez
Archeotech is the term in Low Gothic used throughout the Imperium of Man to refer to formerly lost advanced Human scientific knowledge and technology from the Dark Age of Technology, the Age of Strife or even the Imperium's own Golden Age during the Great Crusade that can be recovered in the present time.
The Adeptus Mechanicus is particularly interested in the recovery of such ancient technology and considers all devices created from recovered Standard Template Construct (STC) databases to be a form of archeotech. However, some archeotech can also be considered forbidden, such as any device that could be considered to possess machine sapience.
True artificial general intelligence is strictly forbidden within the Imperium because of an ancient rebellion of machine intelligences known as the Men of Iron at the end of the Age of Technology that nearly destroyed the lost star-spanning Human civilisation of that long-ago era.
The holy grail of archeotech would be the discovery of a full STC database containing the schematics of all the advanced technologies that were once considered to be required to found a new human colony at the height of the Age of Technology.
Archeotech is often recovered in frontier regions of the galaxy like the Koronus Expanse, regions of space like the Jericho Reach that were once parts of the Imperium but have been cut off for millennia or in the depths of Hive Worlds like Necromunda that Mankind has inhabited since before the Age of the Imperium began.
Archeotech Examples[]
- Viewer - A portable hand-held device which allows the operator to view different locations. The perspective seen on the screen can be moved to view the scene from any point, even if it lies behind closed doors or solid walls.
- Cutting Beam - A bulky device which focuses a high-powered, directed-energy beam capable of cutting through the densest of building materials. It is effectively useless as a weapon, due to its weight and the concentration required to achieve any results.
- Lifter - A device which can manipulate gravity in a localised area, allowing the operator to slowly float up to the highest reaches or gently drop down from a great height.
- Holo Projector - This device projects a startlingly realistic holographic mirror image of the operator a short distance away to draw fire from enemies.
- Shadowsource Drive - This ancient device has the power to blot out the sun on any world where it is deployed.
- Icarus Skyrule Engine - An advanced variant of Icarus Pattern Lascannon weaponry often used for anti-aircraft operations.
- Teleportation Hub - A teleporter with multiple teleportation pads capable of teleporting several individuals at once.
- Hyper-deceleration Field - This priceless and ancient archeotech marvel slows the velocity of incoming fire to a fraction of its former rate, rendering those within its protective field all but impervious to ranged attacks.
Videos[]
Sources[]
- Warhammer 40,000 Core Rulebook (5th Edition)
- Dark Heresy: Core Rulebook (RPG)
- Dark Heresy: The Lathe Worlds (RPG), pg. 69
- Necromunda: Outlander's Rulebook (Specialty Game), pg. 56
- White Dwarf Weekly 68 (May 2015)