20k vs 30k

The "Dark Age" of Technology human empire at its height, with its legions of Iron Men and perfectly working uncorrupted STC's, faces off against the Pre-Heresy Imperium at its height, with the Emperor and his Primarchs and space marines.

Who wins?

Not remotely close, dark age humanity

fpbp

A unified dark age of technology empire would be very different from what actually was though. They weren't a unified empire in the same way that the pre-heresy imperium was. So the Emperor and his imperium should be able to win, but only if they managed to take down some of the smaller groups first and get their hands on some uncorrupted STCs to enhance their armies before they tackled larger groups.

Not even remotely close, the emperor mary sue bullshit would find a way as the fanboys wanked off.

The Emperor would fix it, you say? You mean the one that failed to accomplish nearly everything he set out to do? The one that couldn't simply DO what he'd wanted and had to settle for building armies, making alliances, forging flawed gene-warriors from flawed Primarchs all to conquer and reclaim an Empire he couldn't have simply taken himself. Fuck, he failed to even comprehend basic fucking human instincts when it came to idolizing and worshiping what is considered greater.

You wanna put your money on one that sits amid the ruins of their vision. A vision that they CANONICALLY, UNARGUABLY could NOT bring about. No matter how much some in the fanbase may try to wank him, that's called a failure in my book.

So they were more like nations that took off to space and had their own individual territories?

Yes, be it multi-system empires or single planets, the Dark Age humans were not united in a real way.

However, if they were to unite, or had a significant portion unite, then they could fend off the Pre-Heresy Imperium at its height with their superior technology (and more importantly, ability to quickly reproduce said technology). However, if the war dragged on, then the Impreium would learn the secretes of their tech too, as the Ore-Heresy tech priests were not against actually trying new things.

You realize that the Emprah was around during the DAoT and thus both sides have him on their side?

Yea, but in the DAoT he didn't do shit (a there was much rejoicing)

>They weren't a unified empire in the same way that the pre-heresy imperium was.
Lol. I thought they're united

Squats win.

STCs alone would hint at their fractured structure. You take one or many, gather a few like-minded people and fuck off to wherever, safe in the knowledge that you can build whatever any of you could need for whatever kind of situation arises.

>taking the nu-emprah as your canon vision of him
You are your own problem

The fuck is 'nu-emprah' about utterly failing to accomplish his vision. Is their some old version of 40k where he isn't a failed wreck and the Imperium is everything he ever imagined it would be?

Even the current Imperium is much better than the shit humans were before it

Everyone, including the Emperor, makes mistakes. There is one version where he is a tragic, imperfect father to humanity who loved horus so much it allowed him to throne him for eternity. Then there is the nu-emprah which is present in the HH books past the first couple, and I won't elaborate any more on that abomination. Not holding the former up as this paragon of writing or anything but it is a miles better take and story for him than what BL has crafted with their daddy issues character assassination.

Except for that whole thing about how DAoT humans functionally conquered the entire galaxy except for the Eldar crone worlds. And everybody and his brother had STCs to do make whatever they wanted.

Also, much like how the real-world "dark ages" are the result of a revisionist history movement in the Renaissance, the "dark" age of technology is an Imperial construct. It was a pretty boss time to be alive.

PERPETUALS PERPETUALS PERPETUAL PERPERTUAL PERPETUAL PERPETUAL PERPETUAL PERTUAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL PEWRPREURELRALRARWT

Weren't DAoT-era humans supposed to be demigods? That is, Emperor-tier and above? As a measure of how far the race had fallen from it's height by the era of the Great Crusade, the Emperor's primarch project would be no more than some kid's high school science lab assignment in the DAoT-era.

I hope GW/Black Library never fleshes out that era, and instead just leaves us tantalizing hints and suggestions of an unimaginable age.

I like to think they were simply surpassed by everything they'd managed to initially develop. In my headcanon, they'd managed to build machines that could build better machines and it snowballed from there, to the point that not even they fully or even partly understood the wonders that surrounded them and simply made use of them. And then it all fell apart.