Chaos - Origins of the Imperium: Mankind spread across the stars far before the rise of the Imperium. Long ago in a forgotten golden age innumerable worlds were settled by Humans, and dozens of different cultures flourished across the great wheel of the galaxy.Within the Imperium this first great expansion by Humanity is now known as the Age of Technology. That age is believed to have begun slowly, as multi-generational colony ships crawled across the void at sub-light speeds. However, as Mankind discovered the secrets of Warp travel around the 15th Millennium A.D., their expansion accelerated rapidly.Whole worlds were terraformed by these first waves of colonists, and their handiwork is still apparent thousands of standard years later. Many of the scientific wonders of that age are unparalleled in present times, and most of the greatest creations made by the ancients are reckoned to have been irretrievably lost during the ensuing Age of Strife.Tech-scholars and autosavants of the Adeptus Mechanicus obsessively seek out traces of technology left from the Dark Age of Technology, as its sophistication far exceeds anything built later. Some few artefacts are found from time to time, objects that have endured down the Terran millennia due to the craftsmanship and forethought of their makers.On occasion a voidship that has lain trapped in the tides of the Warp for aeons is cast out into the material universe and brings with it a treasure house of Dark Age technology for those bold enough to seize it. Whatever the source might be, the adherents of the Cult Mechanicus descend on Dark Age technology -- "archeotech" -- like a pack of jackals. Their explorator fleets comb the stars constantly, and are always alert for the slightest rumour.One discovery that has been key to the rise of the Imperium is Standard Template Construct technology -- the STC system, as it has become known. It appears that the technomancers of the earliest times created a robust, automated factory program and database to support their emerging colony worlds, complex systems that could be adapted to local conditions and use a variety of raw materials.Templates have been found for everything from gigantic plasma reactors to steam-driven traction engines that were created to fulfil the needs of the early Human interstellar colonists. However, most of the templates from the Dark Age of Technology are lost, and as such, even a single STC data template is a treasure beyond compare. Each new discovery is dutifully filed and hidden away in the archives of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Knowledge is power in the Imperium, and in many ways the STC system embodies the highest knowledge Mankind can now achieve.The Dark Age of Technology exists only in myth in present times, and the causes of its ending are poorly understood. Many Human cultures across the galaxy share similar stories of a breakdown of the golden age, of entire regions becoming isolated by raging Warp storms and turning against themselves in crippling wars.Others tell of a time of apotheosis for Mankind, when mutations and psychic powers became increasingly prevalent, and predatory beings from Warpspace used such open conduits to feast on the living. Worshippers of the Ruinous Powers maintain that these times were the triumph of Chaos, when Humanity's first fumbling attempts to rule over the mortal realm were cast down into anarchy by cackling Daemons from the Warp.Whatever the cause, the Dark Age of Technology gave way to the Age of Strife. The patchwork remnants of Human civilisation fought against each other as well as the hordes of aliens now swarming in to sack their worlds. Many Human civilisations were enslaved or completely wiped out; others reverted to barbarism as order crumbled. Only worlds where the rising tide of psykers was rigorously repressed evaded the plummet into nightmare and madness. Old Earth itself became completely isolated by Warp storms for several thousand standard years, collapsing into a state of total anarchy, with savage gangs of techno-barbarians roving the ruins of its ravaged continents.Followers of the Emperor of Mankind claim that He first appeared on Old Earth during the Age of Strife in the late 29th Millennium, and that His true name and origins were obscure even then. The nameless Emperor fought His way to the top of the techno-barbarian tribes and nation-states, conquering them one after another. The Emperor emerged as a saviour, they say, leading armies across Terra in His efforts to re-unify it. The ranks of His armies swelled with eager followers and conquered tribes forced to pledge fealty alike.The Emperor united them all with a vision of Humanity made whole once more, free from slavery and the chains of barbaric ignorance. He foresaw a day when His followers would leave Old Earth and strike out across the heavens to cleanse the scattered worlds of Humanity of both aliens and Daemons.Some speculate that the Emperor must have had some precognitive sense of the approaching emergence of Slaanesh and the effects of that event on the Warp. His psychic acuity is the stuff of legend and undoubtedly it was sensitive enough to sense the coming cataclysm.While Earth remained isolated by Warp storms the Emperor was able to ascend to Mars and there He found the Tech-priests of the Cult Mechanicus still enumerating among the rusting machinery of their predecessors. In perhaps His greatest coup before the creation of the Imperium itself, the Emperor convinced the Tech-priests of Mars that he was the physical embodiment of their deity, the Omnissiah, and so won their fealty in the Treaty of Mars signed in 739.M30.The Emperor's followers like to portray this joining of Terra with the Cult Mechanicus as a joyous occasion, the rejoining of two parts of a whole. Despite their propaganda the link was not an entirely comfortable one and, as would be proven later, a large number of the Tech-priests did not truly accept the Emperor as their living god. Nonetheless, with the Tech-priests' help the Emperor set about His final preparation for the coming crusade across the stars.Fearing that the power of Chaos would eventually corrupt all of Humanity at some point in the future, the Emperor set about creating Mankind's saviours: the primarchs. The primarchs were genetically engineered transhumans with god-like powers, bred for strength and loyalty. The Emperor's intention was to create an entire subspecies of transhumans from the genetic template of the first primarchs. He hoped that His efforts would create a laboratory-bred purity completely immune to the influences of Chaos.Followers of the Emperor maintain that the primarchs were never intended to truly replace Mankind, rather that they were to be shining examples of Humanity free from the taint of corruption, used to lead the Emperor's armies in His reunification of the Human sphere and His revitalisation of Human civilization. However, the Runinous Powers perceived the Emperor's schemes and seized the foetal primarchs before they could reach maturity. Seeing the potential value of the primarchs as weapons against the Emperor, the Ruinous Powers did not deign to destroy them, instead scattering them far and wide across the galaxy. The primarchs then developed independently, beyond the Emperor's reach and guidance, only being rediscovered later as the Great Crusade advanced.Hence the Emperor lost His first battle with Chaos before He even left Old Earth. The Emperor was unable to re-create the primarchs in the time left to Him, and even now the birthpangs of Slaanesh were becoming louder and louder as the dark godling came to full wakefulness. Instead the Emperor evolved a new plan. Using genetic material that had been imprinted from the primarchs into laboratory golems, He reproduced some of their qualities as discrete biological organs.By implanting these organs into young, growing male Human bodies, some of the qualities of the primarchs could be recreated, albeit in a lessened form. In this way the first Space Marines were created, and soon entire Legions of Astartes were created utilising vat-grown genetic material from the primarchs.Loyalists also portray this event as a source of great rejoicing among the Emperor's followers, although the reaction of the Thunder Warrior veterans that had fought for His cause during the Unification Wars being supplanted in this manner can be imagined to be less than effusive. Nonetheless the transhuman Space Marine Legions were destined to become the killing edge of the Emperor's forces for the coming crusade and within the Imperium thereafter.When the Prince of Chaos, Slaanesh, finally burst forth to full waking, his birth-scream shook the galaxy in the early 30th Millennium. Despite its relative proximity to the newly-forming Eye of Terror, Old Earth escaped much of the ruin visited elsewhere. The churning Warp storms surrounding Ancient Terra absorbed most of the psychic shock wave before being shredded apart by it, leaving the Warpspace around the cradle of Humanity quiescent for the first time in thousands of standard years.Now was the moment for the reunification of Mankind, and the Emperor's shining fleets swept outward into the darkness at His command. The Imperium was forged during the centuries that followed in an era of conquest and expansion in the late 30th Millennium known as the Great Crusade.