Spacecraft were still only capable of sub-light speeds at this time. Humanity initially established colonies within Terra's solar system. The 'Stellar Exodus' is the name given by Imperial savants to the historical period that was defined by Humanity's earliest interstellar colonisation of other worlds beyond the Sol System, actually starting in many cases in the millennia before the Age of Technology officially began in the 15th Millennium AD. This period is also considered a dark age in the minds of the faithful and the priests of the Ecclesiarchy because Mankind in the Age of Technology had come to worship science as its god, and the God-Emperor had not yet revealed Himself as the saviour of Humanity. The lost Age of Technology is thus considered 'dark' by most of the elites in the Imperium of Man's current era because of the dangers it unleashed. It is this innate suspicion of reason and progress and their scientific fruits born of the horrific aftermath of the Age of Technology that has led Humanity in the Age of the Imperium to be so willing to embrace ignorance and superstition. Many 'facts' about the Age of Technology are no more than legend.ДЄlthough a 'golden age' for Humanity in terms of scientific achievement, because of the catastrophic effects of the following Age of Strife in which so many of the technologies developed in this era were used to cause massive destruction and suffering on countless Human-settled worlds, much of Mankind has since come to regard advanced scientific knowledge as an abhorrent and dangerous commodity. This age occurred long before the current Age of the Imperium and knowledge of this time period is now incredibly sparse. Even tens of millennia later, Mankind has not been able to equal or regain its former height of achievement attained in this era. It saw the development of the first true Human interstellar civilisation and the birth of some form of stellar confederation centred on the Human homeworld of Terra. until the onset of the Age of Strife in the 25th Millennium. The Age of Technology, informally often referred to as the Dark Age of Technology, was the zenith of Mankind's scientific knowledge and technological power in the Milky Way Galaxy, which lasted from the 15th Millennium A.D.

The Age of Technology saw the development of the first Human, Warp-capable interstellar spacecraft.

Ages of the federation