Standard Template Construct
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In the fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe, a Standard Template Construct (STC) system allowed the very efficient creation of technological designs. Introduced before the Age of Strife, an STC allowed workers to build anything from a sock to a tank to a dwelling. Examples of STC technology still in use are the Rhino Armoured Personnel Carrier and the Land Raider. Imperial forces (especially those of the Adeptus Mechanicus) will go to any length to recover an STC, even if it means the death of thousands of Imperial citizens.
The STC libraries were said to contain the sum total of all human knowledge, but as the technological level needed by the majority of the population was simple, most STC systems were for producing relatively simple equipment such as threshing machines and airplanes, not warp energy taps or holo fields. Very few examples of schematics for more advanced devices have been found.
The STC systems themselves worked by giving full blueprints for a device or vehicle according to the given needs of the user. This resulted in some extremely sturdy, functional designs such as the Rhino APC and the Lasgun, both found throughout the Imperium.
Since no confirmed reports of a fully functional STC have been made since the Dark Age of Technology, the true nature of the STC remains unknown.
A Standard Template Constructor was found by Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt in the novel First and Only (Abnett, 2000). The full abilities of the device were never fully made clear, but it is known that the device could make standard template constructs, rather than designs. In this case, it made the legendary "Men of Iron"; robotic soldiery that are heretical in the Imperium, but it is possible that the Constructor also held and/or could create other STCs. However, the device had been tainted by Chaos and the robots it produced were misshapen monstrosities that attacked humans on sight. To prevent the use of these robots, Gaunt destroyed the device. In the same book it makes reference to a group of scouts who find an STC for a type of dagger, that many soldiers were then equipped with. The scouts were rewarded greatly, given at least a planet each.
Also, in the novel Dark Adeptus (Counter, 2006), a team of Grey Knights Space Marines reconnoitering a long overrun Imperial Forge World encounter an Imperial Titan allegedly made using an STC; the majority of Imperial Titans are not made in this fashion and are inferior to the STC Titan.
[edit] References
- Abnett, Dan (2000). First and Only. Nottingham: Black Library. ISBN 1-84416-164-1.
- Counter, Ben (2006). Dark Adeptus. Nottingham: Black Library. ISBN 1-84416-242-7.
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