So the quest is over we fucking won with a intact STC
From the 'he doesn't know what's on it' it sounds like it's meant to be a totally readable STC fragment instead.
Do you mean an entire STC? As in the holy grail of the Mechanicus with everything of the DAoT in it?
I think it's just an STC for a single machine. Perhaps medical, perhaps martial. However, it isn't an STC Library, which would contain numerous sub-functions and countless machine schematics.
[X]Plan Casual
If it's a Standard Template Constructer, then yes. If however it's a Construct, then it's instead the reason that whatever magi are handling the new "Iron Drakes" geneseed tithe aren't going to be looking too closely into the reason why it looks different than the last few sets.
There's a Standard Template Construct the blueprint, a Standard Template Construct the holographic blueprint and production plan that includes how to make the tools to make the tools etc., a Standard Template Construct(er) that makes the design and sometimes makes things directly as well, a Standard Template Construct Library, and useful fragments of all of the above that are all called STCs.
It looks like this is either an electronicly stored blueprint, or an original, all fidly bits included, holographic production plan.
Maybe we are in trueth descendants of the loyalist XV? Also, keep the Blood Ravens away from our Reliquary. At all costs.
I'm just waiting for the other shoe to frop and us finding the Omnicopeia.
OK a lesson on what STC are and can be in the 40th millennium:
- Standard Template Construct Library Prime: This is the original STC the one made when humankind first started spreading during the Dark Age of Technology and it was some form of either AI or VI that held all the knowledge of mankind up to that point and could design and adapt designs to be used for colonizations. It could also replicate itself or make lesser more specialized STCs. The standard name for these in the Machine Cult is the Font of All Knowledge. The Omnicopaeia is the name for a suspected STCLP rumored to be on the Daemon World of Hell's Teeth in the Maelstrom.
- Standard Template Construct Library: This is the first generation copy of the original STC that would be found in various forms in specialized colonization fleets that were into specific types of colonization (be it of specific types of worlds or other specific void locations) and as such are lesser than the original, but still capable of designing and adapting a wide array of technology for specific purposes in their adapted biome. This is what the STC onboard the Death of Integrity was.
- Standard Template Construct Library Printout: This is a printout (partial or full) from an STCL that was used during the colonization of a Segmentum Solar planet. They are usually called Standard Template Construct Library Fragments by the Mechanicum and a few of them still on Mars (in the various dungeons/labyrinths) are the main source of knowledge from which the Adeptus Mechanicus draws their technology to this day.
- Standard Template Construct: This is the second generation copy of the original STC that would be found in various forms on colonized planets and served as a source of developing and adapting various industries for said planet. Most of these got destroyed/lost during the Age of Strife, but one is found every once in a few centuries (and in the case of the Panacea STC gets the planet it is found on immediately dragged into the Warp by Nurgle). When found are usually damaged and in need of decoding to get information our of them. Mechanicus has a small stockpile of them on Mars to supplement their STCL fragments with for the purpose of developing/rediscovering new technologies.
- Standard Template Construct Printout: This a printout (partial or full) from an STC that was used to build up an industry on a planet. It is called an Sandard Template Construct Database by the Mechanicus and is the second most common STC type found by the time of 40K. It is also sometimes found and hoarded by Legion Successor Marines for their own personal use like in the case of the Rift Bombs or the Lionheart Jet Engine (both created by adapting partial STCPs to military purposes) and this causes friction between the Mechanicus and the Legion Successors.
- Standard Template Constructor: This is the third generation copy of the original STC and it delineated into three types: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary. Every Constructor is a full design for a machine.
-- The Primary Constructor is a design that usually thought of as descended from the STCLP or an STCL that for it's purposes isn't different from the STCLP. As such the Primary Standard Template Constructor is a template for a machine or product that is highly adaptable and can be used upon discovery to immediately (within a decade/century of being delivered to Mars) introduce a new standardized piece of technology. This is the type of STC those two Astra Militarum Scouts discovered and why they were elevated into Imperial Nobility.
-- The Secondary Constructor is a design usually thought as descended from an STCL or an STC that for it's purposes isn't different from the STCL. As such the Secondary Standard Template Constructor is a template for a machine or product that requires resources and byproducts of a specific type of biome to be produced. This is the type of STC the other Panacea STC (the one stolen by the Dark Eldar) belonged to.
-- The Tertiary Constructor is a design usually though of as descended from STC or an overly specialized STCL that for it's purposes isn't different from the STC. As such the Tertiary Standard Template Constructor is a template for a machine or product that requires resources and byproducts from a specific planet to be produced. Of course some of the required components may be no different than components found regularly in that planetary biome type across the galaxy, but others are really planet specific. See the Lion Pattern Boltgun or the Baal Predator for this type of STC.
- Standard Template Constructor Printout: This a printout (partial or full) from a Constructor that is used to build a machine and it is at best indistinguishable from a Tertiary Constructor and at worst is even more specific in the components needed to produce from it's blueprints. One of these was found on Mars and led to the development of the Land Speeder.
Edit: How did I miss that error? Fixed now all the same.