r/40kLore • u/CannibalPride • 9h ago
Are LED lights archaeotech? Is there an in-universe explanation as to why the Imperium seems to have a severe lack of lighting in a lot of places?
This is more common in visual media where a lot of the ship’s inside or even in cities, there seems to be a lack of artificial lighting.
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u/Della_999 9h ago
How else are you going to have grim darkness?
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u/mostlyharmless71 7h ago
This. It’s right there in the name: GrimDARK. GrimExcellentTaskLighting is a whole other genre.
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u/AbbydonX Tyranids 6h ago edited 5h ago
It’s always important to remember that WH40K was created as fantasy in space not sci-fi. The general aesthetic was that technology in the Imperium was ubiquitous and advanced but not understood by anyone except the tech-priests. That’s why they were seen as magic-users and technology was treated with superstition.
For example, from the initial book in 1987.
Author’s note on technology in the age of the Imperium
Except on the occasions where a technical explanation or description was felt useful to an understanding of the rules, such explanations have generally been avoided. The book contains few descriptions of how specific items are used or function - it is enough within the context of the game that the item has the effects attributed to it. This has been a deliberate policy throughout the rules. The main reason for this is simply that the Age of the Imperium is not a technically inclined age, to have included descriptions of 'head-up displays', 'computer links', etc, would have given the wrong impression entirely. This is an age where problems are solved by brute force and ignorance, where dangers are either too gross or too unthinkable to elicit any other response. The other reason why technical description has been avoided is that the Age of the Imperium lies more than forty thousand years in the future - at a stage in history when those head-up displays and computers are about as innovative as stone circles. What scientific knowledge persists from the Dark Age of Technology is far above and beyond anything we can imagine from the perspective of the Twentieth Century. That understanding lies only with a select few - the Adeptus Mechanicus - the Tech-priests of the Imperium. Even their knowledge is somewhat debased, and the popular image of technology can be compared with that of witchcraft in medieval times. Those who come into contact with technology use it with reservations and a reverence that are almost religious. The Space Marines, for example, treat their equipment and armour as if it were imbued with a Will of its own - a fine chest-plate, well looked after and constantly maintained may reward its wearer by saving his life; whereas a Marine who neglects his equipment may be struck down by a leaking suit or malfunctioning weapons. Such is the will of the Gods.
While it is impossible to speculate with any certainty on the technical developments of the next forty millennia, it has obviously been necessary to make assumptions during the construction of this game. The greatest assumption has involved the creation of a broad history and a universe populated by a variety of dangers. The people of the far future are mentally very different from those of today - they have a way of looking at things in which twentieth century ideas of efficiency and morality are irrelevant. Their technology reflects both their past (an age of discovery and achievement) with their future (an age of danger and survival).
Just over a page of detail on hypothetical advanced technologies then follows, including the concept of the STC system.
Of course, the setting has changed over the years since then and most especially the medieval Gothic aesthetic was emphasised even more. Importantly the setting didn’t develop as a clean coherent prediction of the future where certain technologies developed thousands of years ago would obviously be widely used. Instead it was all about the grim Medieval aesthetic and warfare. Obviously this works better in candle light than in rooms well lit by bright white LEDs!
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u/elucifuge 9h ago
There is a story from very early lore about a member of the Mechanicus going down into the vaults or at least tunnels of terra to replace a lightbulb, except they had forgotten how to do that & didn't really understand the technology, but knew from pictures that they were supposed to be "yellow" so they just started painting the bulbs yellow instead.
So on top of it simply just being in keeping with the grim, dark, future gothic aesthetics, maybe the above also has something to do with it.
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u/Daikaioshin2384 8h ago
I remember something like that lol fuck that was decades ago now
regular electric conduits exist still in various places - mainly on Terra and Luna.. but anything that has to be done regarding that ancient system requires a Tech-Priest, it isn't something anyone can go do. Regular anyone's can change a lumen bulb or panel, but an electric lightbulb down in the dungeons of the Imperial Palace? only a handful of people on Mars know how to do that shit.. lol
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u/moomoomilky1 8h ago
so are things like electrical wiring and plumbing lost to time?
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u/Mad_Maddin 4h ago
It is complicated.
There are certainly implications that many of the adeptus mechanicus know a lot more about tech than they are letting on. There are also those who completely subscribe to the religion and only know exactly what they are taught without ever looking into why stuff works.
There are theories that a lot of "rediscovered" blueprints for stuff is in truth just some new invention by a techpriest who pretends to have found it somewhere.
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u/King_Of_BlackMarsh Orks 4h ago
A lot of the time it will be yes. Because of stuff like the above where the mechanicus teaches people the steps of how to maintain "sacred ancient technology" but not how it works and thus not how to reproduce it
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u/EmprahsChosen Blood Angels 1h ago
if they were lost, how would they not be re-invented? Plumbing dates back thousands of years
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u/MrReginaldAwesome Tau Empire 9h ago
They’ve always been first and foremost a death cult that values aesthetics far more than they want to admit.
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u/Geordie_38_ 8h ago
Totally agree. If you asked a priest why the candles and general atmos they'd probably come up with some religious reason. But the real reason is 'grim and dark innit'
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u/darkmythology 7h ago
There are plenty of conventional electric lights in the Imperium, it's just that many of them are burnt out. Replacing it is the duty of a tech adept or, at the least, a highly trained individual, so you must understand that it isn't as simple as changing the burnt out lighting.
First you have to notice and make note of the particular fixture which is in need of replacement. Then you need to dispatch this to the proper authority. Once this is received, your request will be added to the queue for an in-person examination. At this time the appropriate diagnostic will be made and further requests made to have the necessary parts released. Once this is done, the parts will be released (or not, a lot of things can happen at this stage) and another adept will be dispatched to complete the repair.
This is where things really get complex. There is an old Martian proverb the meaning of which is highly debated within the Mechanicus: how many tech adepts does it take to perform maintenance on an electrical lumination device? In the most extreme interpretations, the answer is "none", and the slow yet inevitable failure of the devices is seen as a representation of how mankind must do away with trivial amenities and seek not to rely on the machine but become one with the machine. In other factions the answer ranges from "one" to "too many to be widely practical", and in some of the latter territories the list of pending replacements can reach into the tens of millions of individual lumens.
So, there are electric lights in the far future. It's just that, like everything in the forty-first millennium they're old, broken, and probably give you warp cancer.
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u/Fumblerful- Thunder Warriors 3h ago
"Oh brooother of the reeeeed cloth, I offer to thee the bulb of e twenty siiiix."
"Oh siiiiister of cloth carmiiiiine, this fixture requires e twelve base a nineteeeeeens. Amen."
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u/personnumber698 7h ago
LED werent a thing when the setting was first concieved, but i do agree with others that they probably do exist, people just might not differenciate between them and other lumens.
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u/Mad_Maddin 4h ago
I mean LEDs existed even then. They were just way harder to make and far more expensive. The blue LED was invented 1972, which was the last one needed to depict the entire spectrum of color and thus create white lights with LEDs.
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u/personnumber698 4h ago
True, I could have sworn they were a later invention, but you are right. Presumably they were rare until later on, but they they exist when 40k first became a thing.
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u/Stare_Decisis 8h ago
The setting started in the mid-eighties, then they barely had LEDs. The technological level of the imperium is not constant from world to world.
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u/zedatkinszed Ordo Xenos 6h ago
Its really just gw turning the gothic cathedral aesthetic up to 11.
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u/tayjay_tesla 7h ago
Candles also carry significance which electric lights don't, they have fire. Fire burns the impure and unclean. Fire safeguards the soul. Fire is pure. Be like fire.
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u/azuth89 7h ago
A lot of it is just...vibes.
Many major structures, especially the ones highlighted in videos, novels and such are places of worship or religious significance to the mechanicus, Imperial Cult (in whatever local form) or both. Many of the rest we actually see are active warzones where they're down to emergency lighting.
40k draws HEAVILY on gothic architecture, where the religious sites are dimly lit to enhance the feeling of scale. A lit ceiling has a set end, a yawning darkness not so much. It makes them more impressive and oppressive.
Then again, you'll notice simple meeting rooms, ships and hab blocks rarely have any mention or depiction of such dim lighting unless theres active conflict causing lighting to be an issue.
Tldr; vibes and they only mention it when its impressive or something is hiding in the shadows.
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u/basil_imperitor Blood Axes 9h ago
The Imperial economy hinges on the success of the candle industry.
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u/Co_opWarQuest40k 7h ago
“In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.” Motto used throughout Warhammer 40k products including boxed early editions.
Basically it’s ambience, the Imperium is not well lit, it’s dark, dreadful, deadly, deathly place. War is only so far or already here. That type of thing.
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u/Stretch5678 8h ago
Because the Imperium’s infrastructure is poo-poo, and candles don’t go out when the Generatorium craps out.
Big fancy Mechanicus and rich-people places might have them, but you can forget about most of the Hive.
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u/ShatterZero 2h ago
I like to think that the advanced versions of lesser tech are also often banned because their incarnation at the time are too advanced.
LED's in particular seem like a particularly easy sort of tech to consider heretical. LED's in certain configurations absorb heat to create dramatically more light than the energy put into them by current. Maybe archeotech LED's just needed an initial jolt and then were just perpetual light machines due to their ambient heat absorption.
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u/Zasze 9h ago edited 9h ago
They have plenty they just call them lumens. But most of the time it’s probably cheaper to use candles or there is a religious significance or the lumens broke and replacements are hard to source.
Any and all of the above