Standard Template Construct (STC)
A Standard Template Construct (STC) system was an advanced, artificially intelligent computer database created during the Dark Age of Technology said to have contained the sum total of human scientific and technological knowledge.
The STC was invented when human interstellar civilisation was at its technological peak. Introduced during the Dark Age of Technology before the onset of the Age of Strife, an STC allowed workers to build anything from a Lasgun to a fortified bunker or the fearsome interstellar warships now used by the Imperial Navy. STC systems possessed the ability not just to store information but also to produce new designs to meet changing circumstances.
Examples of STC technology still in use are the Rhino Armoured Personnel Carrier, the Land Raider and the Baneblade. Imperial forces (especially those of the Adeptus Mechanicus) will go to any length to recover a lost or stolen STC, even if it means the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Imperial citizens. It is said that even the flimsiest rumors of an STC system will spark cross-galaxy journeys, titanic fleet search operations, and the spending of untold lives and treasure.
An STC system was possessed by every group of human interstellar colonists before the Age of Strife, allowing them to build all of the equipment necessary for survival on an untamed colony planet. During the Age of Strife the systems fell into disuse, were damaged or destroyed, and so became increasingly rare, until they were lost entirely.
In the Age of the Imperium, after so many thousands of Terran years, it is unlikely that any have survived. What technological knowledge remains from the Dark Age of Technology survives only in the form of STC hard-copies that have been preserved and copied over thousands of standard years by the Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, who believe that STCs are the most holy of artefacts, gifts to Mankind from the Machine God.
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