A Brief History of Man

The lead up to the Age of Strife
This history of Manking became interesting with the Dark Age of Technology. This is the name given to the period of human history that began in the 15th Millennium and ended in the 25th Millennium, during which huge advances occurred in human science and technology. The Dark Age of Technology saw the development of the specialized psychic mutants known as Navigators and the earliest use of the Warp for space travel by human beings, with the greatest extent of interstellar space exploration and colonisation across the galaxy taking place during this period after the development of the Warp-Drive that allowed faster-than-light space travel. Other notable developments include the development of the Standard Template Construct (STC) system and the artificially-intelligent Men of Iron, powerful combat robots.

The Age of Technology ended in inter-human war and anarchy, in an era known as the Age of Strife, as massive Warp storms cut off interstellar travel and communications across the whole of the human-settled galaxy. The STC systems lapsed into disuse or decayed.

One of the reasons humanity was so successful at conquering a large part of the galaxy was the development of the artificially intelligent humanoid constructs now only known as the Men of Iron. These powerful and fully autonomous labour and combat robots won many wars for humanity, but for some reason turned against their masters at the end of the Dark Age of Technology. The war was eventually won by humanity, but at a great cost. The damage was catastrophic and had shattered much of humanity's power. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of mankind's misfortunes.

Towards the end of the Age of Technology psykers first appeared among humanity. While persecuted on many backwards, regressive human worlds as witches, in enlightened and progressive societies these psykers were at first protected and accepted. The intolerance of psykers would seem prescient, as many human worlds fell to the dominance of daemons and other Warp creatures using possessed psykers as gateways into the physical world. Only worlds which had rigorously suppressed psykers survived.


The Age of Strife
The Age of Strife followed the Age of Technology, as human civilisation collapsed in widespread insanity, daemonic possession, anarchy and inter-human civil war. Terrible weapons of the golden age of technology were unleashed, devastating many human colonies and turning once-verdant worlds such as Baal Secundus into irradiated desert planets. Many isolated and vulnerable human-colonized worlds also became prey to hostile alien races, such as the Orks.

In a relatively short span of time, the once galaxy-spanning human civilization was brought to its knees, and was forced to endure nearly five millennia of anarchy, terror, war, genocide and slavery. Other than tales of great suffering.

Earth and the rest of the settled worlds of the Solar System were surrounded by terrible Warp storms, isolating the human homeworld for several thousand years from the rest of the galaxy. Control of the Solar System shifted constantly between the worlds of Earth and Mars during the first half of the Age of Strife. By the 28th Millennium almost all traces of civilization on Earth were long gone; instead, techno-barbarians battled one another over the scraps of the ancient human civilization.

For several thousand years the worlds suffered, isolated, lead by brutal dictators. Mutations and daemons of the warp infiltrated and corrupted. Psykers raw and be-knowing to the truth of their power opened the gates. The nearing birth of Slaanesh the god of pleasure and pain wrecked havoc shifting emotions and motivations that was blamed on the barbarians.

Eventually, in the 30th Millennium an immensely powerful human leader and psyker known only as the Emperor of Mankind divined that the final birth of the new Chaos God Slaanesh was nearing, as well as the effect this birth would have on the turmoil afflicting the galaxy and he began to accelerate his preparations for this history-changing event. From the beginning of the Age of Strife the Emperor had no longer been content with guiding humanity from the shadows under a myriad of different historical identities, some of them quite well-known even in the 41st Millennium. The Emperor had come to believe that If his species was to survive, he would have to take charge himself, openly and without subterfuge. Thus the Imperium was born.

Legacies of these times
The Age of Strife had a tremendous impact on human civilization. Humanity barely survived the period, and most of the knowledge of the previous golden era was lost, much of it irrevocably; in particular, the loss of the STC system is seen as a serious setback for the advancement of the Imperium.

Humanity as a whole became more superstitious and distrustful because of the horrors perpetrated during the Age of Strife, something which the Imperial government goes to great lengths to encourage. In particular, the Imperium's people distrust mutants, aliens and psykers;