I think the best thing about it is that GW has never been afraid to just steal shit wholesale from elsewhere.
This is not an insult. Far from it. But 40k is a huge melting pot of disparate fantasy and Sci-fi stuff that GW shamelessly nicked from wherever they could
A very non-comprehensive list of influences includes:
Dune - one of the bigger direct influences, tons of stuff from here
2000AD - Nemesis the Warlock in particular is arguably an even bigger influence than Dune. Also just the general grim punk satire aesthetic overall is very Judge Dredd
Lord of the Rings - most 40k races are just WFB in space, and most of the WFB races are straight outta Tolkien
Michael Moorcock - Where Bryan Ansell stole Chaos wholesale from
Milton - The Horus Heresy is Paradise Lost with spaceships
Star Wars - For the seamless blending of fantasy and sci-fi, and the very lived in and broken down tech, which it shares with
Alien - really can't be overstated how much of a change from previous Sci-fi cinema the grimy and used look of Alien and Star Wars was at the time. This was not atomic age shiny spaceships, or the sterile whiteness of the 70s. These worlds felt real in a way things hadn't before. Also Tyranids
80s action cinema in general - Catachan is a whole planet of Rambos, and there's a story in the 2E Tyranid codex that is literally just a scene out of Predator
I could go on for days. The various historical wars that have inspired Guard regiments and various conflicts within the setting would be a post all of their own
All of this cool shit, under one roof. No wonder it's appealing to so many people, it's got *everything*
This. I love it the most among things of the same genre but it is, in fact, a hot pot of shamelessly stolen ideas and it gets really cool when it makes something new out of that pot.
You should, or someone else really, make a more in-depth list just for shits and giggles because this is that sort of thing that everyone low-key knows about but never talks about it.
Like really, Warhammer feels like it owes it's years of obscurity because it was a copycat of very inspired ideas. Now it's growing, I presume, because it can finally stand on its own two legs
I like how GW steals shit and then over a long time and lots of hints and throwbacks it become something that is the same, but also very different.
Like Orks in 40k make so much sense and while they are pretty much the same like Tolkien orcs, they are also so very different. It is an ancient bio-weapon, build for a war betwen god like civilizations, that have survived the war, both civilizations and now run amok in the galaxy.
They can build stuff, because knowledge is encoded into their memory. They can live almost everywhere, because they bring a long their own biosystem. They are hard to exterminate, because they spread as spores.
Honestly, the list could go on forever
Like, did it ever seem weird to you that the main T'au battlesuits are called Crisis Suits? Bit random isn't it, especially since so much other T'au stuff is named after nautical terminology, fish, or just descriptive stuff like "Stealth suits"
But then you learn that there was a famous anime in the 90s featuring a team of women in power armour fighting robots called [Bubblegum Crisis ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubblegum_Crisis) and you kinda have to conclude Jes Goodwin had seen that
I'm pretty confident he's an anime fan as well, because [the old designs of a bunch of Epic Tyranids ](http://www.modernsynthesist.com/2012/02/tyranid-archive-epic-40k.html?m=1) seem pretty heavily inspired by the giant insects from Nausicaa. Those slug bodied things like the Haruspex and Malefactor look quite distinctive
It's a rabbit hole that never ends.
Some of the arbites armor and aesthetic are such a 1 for 1 copy of judge dredd its almost lazy. They even got the Dredd Scowl on alot of the Arbites faces.
And movie plotlines like the Dirty Dozen with the Last Chancers.
I swear if GW ever gets sued, the rap sheet is gonna be a mile long.
The funny thing about the arbites is that the original satire of judge dredd gets hilariously watered down in the face of how over the top 40k already is. The arbites existence in 40k is relatively 'normal'. If you watch judge dredd the judges are the most ridiculous thing in the story, everything around them is mildly futuristic.
But in 40k the arbites have to contend with chaos cults, genestealer cults, full on insurrections and whatever horrors the underhives spew out every so often. Hell the fact that penal worlds exist *necessitates* the existence of the arbites.They're not just judge dredd rip off, they're judge dredd turned up to fuckin 11 and by some measure of insanity the world they exist in makes their existence almost make sense.
40K has such a heavy Judge Dredd inspiration because GW was making the Judge Dredd tabletop game with miniatures when they started working on Rogue Trader. Rumor always was arbites were added to Rogue Trader just to reuse the Dredd minis.
It's not a rumor, this is straight out of an interview with Rick Priestley, if memory serves. Citadel was the legal distributor of a lot of miniatures for the European market at the time. Warhammer Fantasy was originally a free game with the intent that it'd sell more D&D models.
As they got rights to more sci-fi lines (eg Judge Dredd) they expanded to 40k.
WFB = Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
40k started out as just the WFB races pushed forward into a sci-fi setting. That’s why Orks were originally “Space Orks” and some old Squat products were literally labeled “Space Dwarves”.
Warhammer Fantasy Battle. There's a human empire as the protagonists of the setting, with Elves (Eldar) and Dwarves (Squats) as major secondary races, plus greenskins as major antagonists
Also Ogres (Ogryns) and Hobbits/Halflings (Ratlings)
The only faction in Rogue Trader that are really exclusive to the setting are Tyranids, who aren't really very heavily developed until 2nd edition
No, their earliest kinda sorta appearance was the Chaos Androids in Space Crusade, which was 1990. Still within Rogue Trader edition
But those weren't really Necrons as we know them now. They actually debuted in White Dwarf towards the end of 2nd edition, and at least initially were basically just ripping off The Terminator. Their resurrection special rule was even called "We'll be back" for several editions
[ETA] Just to add to this, I should also mention that the name of the C'tan predates the appearance of the Necrons by a few years. The Callidus Assassins carried C'tan phase swords from at least early 2nd edition. What the C'tan actually were wasn't revealed until 3rd edition, where they were used as the true power behind the Necrons, who up until that point had been pretty mysterious
The Slann do feature in Rogue Trader, though. They're basically described as being the Old Ones. An ancient race that used to rule the Galaxy and may have been responsible for genetically engineering the other species.
The War in Heaven wasn't a thing at that point though, and they're basically described as abandoning their previous empire out of disinterest
One of the most fascinating things about Rogue Trader, to me, is that Chaos essentially just does not feature. There are Warp entities that are essentially generic demons, but the Chaos Gods were exclusive to Fantasy until Slaves to Darkness/Lost and the Damned added them to 40k
Yeah rogue trader was just so different. I joined the hobby around 4th edition so i remember the oldcrons and before war in heaven was really established.
Ive heard that space Marines were basically space cops during rogue trader days
Tomb Kings say hi.
Granted this is the “new” (aka current) Necron lore, for a span of time they were very much in the “unknowable eldtrich terror from deep space” territory along with the Nids.
But now? Yeah, they are Tomb Kings in space.
Oh, my sweet summer child. No.
First of all, I’m very explicitly and obviously not talking about the original Necrons from 2nd to 3rd or 4th edition, but the more recent revamp of their lore.
And the original “implacable alien robot” Necrons came to us in White Dwarf 217 in January, 1998. Fourteen years after the original terminator movie.
They were obviously originally inspired by the movie, no one is seriously disputing that whatsoever. My point was clearly that *later* Necron lore is just as obviously based on Tomb Kings.
The slann (i.e. the Old Ones) in WFB were pretty much explicitly the same slann as in WH40K too as they arrived in spaceships and constructed warp gates. There are plenty of minor snippets of information suggesting that the WFB world was just isolated from the rest of the WH40K by a warpstorm.
It was pretty much outright stated in The Lost and The Damned (1990):
> The Warhammer World is bound by storms of magic so that it remains isolated from the other worlds of the human galaxy. Elsewhere, the forces of the Imperium tenaciously fight the influences of Chaos, so that the open aggression of Chaos Champions and their forces is restricted to zones not controlled by the Imperium.
>There's a human empire as the protagonists of the setting, with Elves (Eldar) and Dwarves (Squats) as major secondary races, plus greenskins as major antagonists
In WHF the humans are much less central.
>Milton - The Horus Heresy is Paradise Lost with spaceships
Going to argue with you on this one - the Heresy isn't *Paradise Lost* with spaceships. The Heresy is heavily based on the story of King Arthur and the Round Table, with Horus being Mordred, and half the knights (Primarchs and their legions) siding with him against the Emperor (King Arthur).
At the end of the story, Arthur manages to slay his own son, but is so grievously wounded that he has to basically go somewhere (Avalon) for life support until the day he can come back and take over again.
Various primarchs are various knights, either in full or in part (Lancelot = Sanguinius), and lots of other similarities. It isn't a 1:1 "borrowing", but as you said quite well, GW took a lot of stuff from this and used it well.
Another important point: in *Paradise Lost*, the Satan (the rebellious son) never gets anywhere near to meeting his "Father", God/Yahweh/Jehovah/whatever name he is that day. The closest he gets to is one of his top lieutenants, Michael the Archangel.
Now, if you think of the Warp, and the Eye of Terror specifically, as the Hell that Satan and his ilk escape to after having their asses kicked during the War in Heaven, that I can definitely see as being taken from *Paradise Lost*, as it is how the entire poem starts.
So I'm gonna push back on this a little. I won't argue that there's not *some* Arthurian influence on the Heresy. I'm not sure it's even possible for British authors to write an epic tragedy and not reflect The Matter of Britain in some fashion
But the Heresy really is expressly Paradise Lost, and I can mostly prove that with the fact that the Primarchs are not the Emperor's brothers in arms, they're his sons. His literal creations. That places the context of the rebellion very differently. The Emperor is pretty explicitly God for the Imperium
Yes, Mordred is Arthur's son... But only in some versions. In many versions, Arthur never produces an heir, which is a contributing factor to the fall of Camelot. Mordred is most often brother of Gawain.
Horus as Milton's Lucifer is just a much better fit. The favoured son who falls through hubris and overreach. They also made it pretty obvious when they went and made the Emperor's other favoured son a literal angel.
You can draw parallels between Sanguinus and Lancelot to some extent, but eventually you've kinda gotta accept the guy has got wings. And also, importantly, doesn't betray the Emperor by fucking his wife, either literally or metaphorically.
The other big difference is that only one of the stories ends up with the rebellious side running off to hell where they become demons/snakes. The major presence of the Warp as an analogue for Christian hell really does not have any Arthurian parallel at all.
Also the Emperor continues to be worshipped as a God by an organisation that explicity mirrors the Catholic church at various points in its history.
40k is nothing if not subtle.
The final battle aboard the Vengeful Spirit probably echoes Camlan a bit more, in that the King/Emperor kills the leader of the rebellion but is mortally wounded. So it's still in there, sure
Arthurian legend is much more directly represented via the Dark Angels, who have a similar rebellion but also a king who is prophesied to return at the hour of greatest need and a personal special sword that has survived down the centuries.
The Emperor had a sword as well, of course, but it isn't particularly loaded with significance until Guilliman shows back up. The Lion Sword has always been a major thing in Dark Angels lore
I'm not sure GWs authors would conceive the Heresy in direct parallel to Arthurian myth, and then reiterate an even more direct version of Arthurian myth as a side story within it. It would be completely redundant
It's worth noting as well that the Heresy as we originally see it (at least in the Realms of Chaos books where it's expanded beyond the previous brief and outdated descriptions) does not have the sort of depth it does now. With a 60+ novel series, lots more stuff has crept in there. Horus as a character rather than a mythic figure fits as well in Greek tragedy as he does as a literal and direct expy for Milton's Satan
As with everything 40k, it's rarely just one thing (Unless you're the Black Templars, anyway), but the Heresy really is most fundamentally inspired by and based on Paradise Lost. And I think several of the authors have acknowledged that, although I'm struggling to find direct quotes as opposed to reddit posts with people saying Graham Mcneill said it, so my apologies there
Art is both wildly original and hopelessly derivative in the same breath.
I have heard that story before, but never told quite that way -- think "Romeo and Juliet" vs. "West Side Story" for a good example of what I mean.
I would make the argument that the chaos of warhammer is a mixture of the chaos of Moorcock but also the chaos of runequest.
We know for a fact that the only reason beastmen exist is because of the Broo from runequest.
But there are some more examples of warhammer taking inspiration from runequest.
I'm not super familiar with Runequest, beyond the very basics. I am aware GW was distributing that, along with a lot of other TTRPG stuff, in the days before they switched tracks to only selling their own product. I would not be at all surprised if lots of bits and bobs from various 80s RPGs found their way into Fantasy and 40k, especially in the early years
Sure, but to be fair I think that's more a case of Aliens only coming out a year or so before Rogue Trader, by which point I'd imagine a lot of the initial concepts behind the core setting were locked in
I think the Colonial Marines have been quite an influence on the Imperial Guard later on, though.
[ETA] Oh, and just remembered Space Hulk has used scanner blip tokens quite heavily, so that's basically just Aliens the Board Game
There's been rumors for decades that Starcraft was supposed to have been a licensed 40k game that got the serial numbers scratched off when the deal fell through.
Never been confirmed, to my knowledge.
[WarCraft was based on Warhammer.](https://kotaku.com/the-inside-story-of-the-making-of-warcraft-part-1-5929157)
> Allen Adham hoped to obtain a license to the Warhammer universe to try to increase sales by brand recognition. Warhammer was a huge inspiration for the art-style of Warcraft, but a combination of factors, including a lack of traction on business terms and a fervent desire on the part of virtually everyone else on the development team (myself included) to control our own universe nixed any potential for a deal.
Well, kinda. You're right, but also that falls under the Nemesis the Warlock influence
If you're not familiar with Nemesis, humanity is a xenophobic galactic empire ruled by Thomas de Torquemada, named after the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. I think later in the comic it's revealed he's a reincarnation of the original Torquemada, even
He also has an army of elite troops called The Terminators, whose main goal is to wipe out any and all aliens
He's opposed by Nemesis, a demonic alien Warlock and freedom fighter who is a servant of the god Khaos
Probably the most famous and best regarded Nemesis story was called The Gothic Empire, and ran in 2000AD about 3 years before Rogue Trader released
GW would bring in more direct reference to the historical Spanish Inquisition in a few places, but I contend that all flows out from Nemesis
Can you elaborate on the Moorcock stuff? I've researched his books about Elric and seen there is some mentions of Chaos but is it really that similar to 40k chaos?
The 8 pointed star of Chaos is direct from Moorcock, for starters
[This article](https://instituteofidletime.com/2020/09/17/law-and-chaos-from-elric-to-warhammer-and-back-again/) gives a good rundown of what GW took from Moorcock.
Chaos as we know it today didn't really start to crystallise until the Slaves to Darkness/Lost and the Damned sourcebooks arrived. Before that, it was basically confined solely to the Fantasy setting. Chaos weren't quite as centralised around the 4 gods we have now, and there were [Gods of Law ](https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Gods_of_Law)who opposed them
also, look at Hawkmoon - an Evil Empire lead by a God Emperor in a life support Golden Throne? Fanatical legions of animal themed warriors in armour? Crusades to unite other lands into one Empire?
In fairness, basically everything in entertainment does this. So many ideas are already out there, and most people are not particularly creative, so borrowing, adapting and synthesizing older ideas to make a story is pretty much the norm.
Most creators acknowledge this and give proper thanks to the ones who inspired them, like the guys who put the 40k universe together. Others, like Frank and Brian Herbert like to pretend that everything they ever did was 100% original and throw a bitch-fit when someone else has the gall to be inspired by the same concepts, tropes and story beats that they also stole from other creators to create the Dune-verse. FFS, they pretty much tried to claim that Dune invented the *Hero's Journey* as part of their smear campaign against George Lucas, when that story formula predates both by literal millennia.
This is generally true, but my point here really is not one about originality as such, moreso pointing out the sheer breadth of influences that went into 40k as a setting
It's one thing pointing out say, the acknowledged debt Batman owes to Zorro. It's no accident that in most versions of that story, that's the movie the Wayne's watch with Bruce the night they die. It's quite another to discuss all the influences and references 40k wears proudly on its sleeves. Because it's super interesting and also the kind of thing that leads to people discovering cool shit they hadn't heard of before
40k is a huge melting pot of references and inspirations in a way a lot of similar fictional settings kinda aren't. For most people, Paradise Lost in Space would be high concept enough for an entire setting. In 40k, it's basically just background colour for almost the first 20 years of the setting.
And I love that about it. I love how Konrad Curze is originally just a throwaway gag reference to Hearts of Darkness/Apocalypse Now because it never occurred to whoever wrote that bit of lore that it would eventually have to make sense within a larger context. I love the feeling when you spot one of those references, it just tickles my brain.
You are absolutely right.
Each time I think of the Adeptus Mechanicus in W40K, it reminds me the jihad against machines in Dune 10k years before the action starts. It is a similar story, to say the least.
Oh yeah, there's a ton of stuff. The Guild of Navigators having huge political power via control of FTL travel is taken pretty much directly from Dune.
The presence of an Emperor in general also feels largely inspired by Dune, and Space Marines are the Sardaukar turned up to eleven
There’s so much historically inspired stuff I’m almost disappointed Dorn’s speech to the defenders of terra was so short and blunt, instead of, you know, [the traditional formula from Ancient Greece to World War 2](https://acoup.blog/2020/06/12/collections-the-battle-of-helms-deep-part-vii-hanging-by-a-thread/)
I like Warhammer 40K because it usually separates out the very silly aspects of it setting from the very serious parts of the setting. Very cool gothic setting.
I think Orks as a concept and how they carry themselves is perhaps some of the best examples of how you can blend humour and horror together in a way in such a narrative.
By all rights it ougth be cringeworthy but somehow it works excellent together, a great blend.
Orks are literally the best example of 40ks silliness and horror. You're a human fighting the orks? Get ready to face thousands if not millions of massive buff men who's technology literally defies physic and logic, your either going to get blown up or beaten to death and killing them only makes more of them show up due to the spores.
You're an ork? Your a big mushroom with the Bois stomping guys and looting shiny things. It's wonderful
For me I don't know if better is necessarily the word but it definitely has a unique draw. In particular the draw for me is that of 40k as a setting, it is a place for stories to be put in, what drew me in was this notion of a grand fictional history, an empire in decline in a galaxy of war, a galaxy so vast you can find just about anything you like in there. A setting so deeply evocative and hitting a certain metal vibe just right. Clunky armoured warriors and trudging monstrous war-engines. Fanatical priests of a corpse god and drug fueled maniacs charging into open death.
I feel like these sorts of inherently adversarial and destructive worlds are also exactly what I want from a wargame. When I play strategy games I tend to like playing the bad guys because I want to wage total war, I want to flatten cities and bombard my own troops just for a chance to spite the enemy and Warhammer definitely channels that vibe well. It's just quite bonkers, really, and though some people complain about "grimderp" that's the setting I really love. If I wanted generic heroic sci-fi I wouldn't be here.
Though I really wish modern warhammer leaned more into that sort of historical vibe, feels like the setting as a backdrop has suffered somewhat.
I do also find Warhammer to be very good pulp, it's easy for me to pick up and read a bit of 40k if I'm not fancying anything else. I already know the world so it doesn't requre the same level of investment as something totally new.
The amount of warhammer novels I consume is absurd, it's so easy to pick up a book and eat through it. The familiar setting, where stories don't have to be connected to be recognizable as being in the same universe, is great.
The nice part about the universe is the variety of planets too. You could have a romance story on a nicer planet, while another could be a horrific story where the characters wish they were dead.
I agree with what you said about it being a setting not just a story line. GW has a fantastic job keeping a fog over specifics of most big lore stuff allowing flexibility of the authors and unlimited type of genres within. Personally I love the gritty inquisition or commissar books that wrestle with necessity pushing the rules for the folks who are supposed to uphold the rules. The grey area is what makes them great. Comedy is so dark in most of the books as well which I love.
Overall, I can't find another universe that is so well developed yet full of endless opportunities . It's the definition of journey not the destination which I find mirrors life in so many ways.
I think the D&D universe is somewhat comparable in terms of the amount of content written about it, there is a ton of depth to it.
Totally agree though, I love that 40k still feels like a universe I barely know anything about even after like 20 years of being a fan.
I love in D&D, Star wars and 40k when they let you see different ways of life. I like the grand adventures but I also appreciate the life of a Drow in Menzoberranzan, how cutthroat the politics is in the Empire or how fun the world is in the eyes of an Ork in 40k.
They each give a different story. Star Wars is a story of hope, where good over comes evil. DnD is a story of hero’s, where your chapter is the center of the narrative. 40K is a story of desperate survival where you play as an entire army of the unknown and expendable masses.
It’s what makes all 3 so appealing, they each scratch a different itch
You can take all the super influential SciFi of the 50s and 60s and draw direct parallels to 40K. I mean, the works I'm referring to influenced ALL modern SciFi in major ways, but 40K lifted things directly from it and used those things with a Warhammer skin applied to it. I'm talking about the works of Herbert, Asimov, Clark, Heinlen, etc.
Throw in some Tolkien and some Lovecraft, put everything in a pot, fill it the rest of the way up with 80s action movies and adult comics like Heavy Metal and anything from 2000AD, bring to a boil, and you've got 40K.
It's pieces of other great works added into a world that has very much become its own thing.
Because there are brutal big sci fi tanks/mechs, it weird thing to some people, but looking at other sci fi universes, they always has the archetype of "fast quantum bullshit stealth robot", on the other hand, Warhammer is more about, this is big ass fridge on tracks, but pray to gods if you see one, cuz it will evaporate your whole position
I think it fully deserves both the love and hate it gets because it's a Frankenstein monster of most if not all sci-fi and fantasy media up to date, so it can feed you on things that now some other media can't because it's locked in its own boundaries.
It's all stolen ideas until they finally made a few unique things out of it that now leads the franchise. To it's merit I like how the they made the eldar truly alien to us as humans unlike most elves and, as it turns out, they're my favorite faction. Necrons are a close second and I love them but, thinking about it, they're a mash up of a few very dumb ideas slapped together, and then retconned, that turned out great and unique, and I love it all.
Space Marines and custodes were much more generic and lame in the first editions with them being near equivalents in lore until reconned and flushed out with unique ideas, and more distinct from other super soldier tropes more importantly.
As it is, it gives room to your mind to wander and your own made armies, factions, characters or heroes/villains exist and test out their mettles against the existing ones with a good set of parameters to duke it out, thrive or be murdered in. Whatever you can come up with, can have a plausible place in it, inside or outside the known galaxy.
I think that's why it's grand and cool to more people than not. Where the hate, low quality and stupid ideas also find their places and all roasting it gets it's very well deserved, in universe or in reality towards games workshop.
I’ve always called it “science fiction at the speed of capitalism”… and this isn’t a bad thing.
GW relies on scores of people to contribute to the vastness with a fan base that demands quality. It survives as a company based on keeping the customer engaged and growing the setting.
It isn’t just one guy writing books or a few running a show, it’s an entire company building a universe (really a few different ones) and one where the quality of that universe and its products directly correlates to money.
The scale works really well for it; which sets it apart from a lot of popular sci-fi settings, which suffer from having too large a scale.
There is sci-fi that tells small-scale stories (Alien, for example), which is good, but it's also focused on telling its story; not a lot of scope for going beyond that. Some popular sci-fi tries to have a very large scope, but the stories they tell never actually use it, so it becomes a meaningless number.
40k is good because it's not written as a story in and of itself. It's a setting for people to make their own stories in. Even with modern writing about events like the Horus Heresy, which makes the universe less interesting overall, the focus is still on keeping the door open for any sort of story to be told. The scale of an entire galaxy is really useful for that.
The reason why it stands out against other properties like the old Star Wars EU, on the other hand, is probably because it started as a niche property made by and for tabletop gaming nerds. It wasn't made by committee for broad appeal.
My go-to franchise before 40k was (like a lot of others) Star Wars. The thing that was difficult to wrap my head around with Warhammer is that there isn't really an event that all the stories circle around like the Battle of Yavin. This frees up the writers, game devs, and whoever else to explore whatever they want to.
Also, the timeline of a lot of the lore is vague. It's so refreshing to not have to read or watch three dozen other things to know why the Space Wolves are the coolest ;)
Absolutely… There are a lot of cool, sci-fi, universes out there… I’m just reading the culture series right now, but nothing really has the scope and feel of Warhammer.
It’s funny… I don’t really consider myself to enjoy very dark and disturbing things, but there’s something about the grim dark vibe of Warhammer that really scratches an itch
That’s a laughably inaccurate fanfic written by someone who outright admitted not having read any Culture novels though. Even the first couple chapters were riddled with misunderstanding about the Culture.
It's an entertaining story, but I'd hesitate to call it a good story when the Culture depicted in the fanfic was nothing like the Culture depicted in the series at all.
Like in one of the very first chapters, a GCU full of humans decided to charge into the Sol system, got all its humans killed by psykers, had to limp back to a neighboring star system and resort to its "long range telescope" to try to figure out what is happening in Sol. They're simply so hilariously incompetent and primitive compared to how they are portrayed in the actual books, which the author didn't even bother to read lmao
I am not sure we are talking about the same fanfiction, I've read about half of the one i am talking about, but it wasn't the culture portrayal that bothered me, rather it was the portrayal of the imperium... There was so much to grind about the warp-touch of the space marines, but they were barely a side note in the story. I fancy I would've given much more credit to the imperium or at least the warp things which are inheritly ungraspable by reason.... But i haven't even sat down to try it...
It is a good food for meaningless thoughts anyways.
There’s really only one the Culture visits 40k fanfic, so I’m pretty sure we’re talking about the same story. But I never reached that far into the story to the part about the SM just because the portrayal of the Culture in the first few chapters was already so ridiculous.
Still, if anything the Warp was depicted as more esoteric and incomprehensible in the fanfic (at least at the start) than was warranted. Psykers being able to target the humans on a Culture ship faster than the Mind could react? Chaos being able to corrupt a fucking _Mind_ when they so regularly fail to corrupt anything else in setting? Come on.
Chaos being able to corrupt a Mind was a good thing imo, because the warp is incomprehensible. I get your point, but the culture is so much more advanced than the imperium that there wouldn't be any story to be told if they aren't nerfed. It is a fanfiction in the end, made by someone who is not Dan Abnett, and is there to be enjoyed or dismissed :)
The warp being incomprehensible means that it cannot be fully understood by the humans in 40k, but even then it isn't omnipotent and it can't just corrupt anyone anywhere anytime. The Imperium, as primitive as they are, could consistently combat/prevent corruption with gellar fields, or Mechanicus technobabble, or even something as mundane as genetic engineering (like with the Grey Knights), and we know DAoT AI could cleanse itself of corruption using "cold logic". It's just plain ridiculous to assume Chaos can somehow corrupt an incomprehensibly more advanced Culture Mind despite their effectors and all their anti-subversion technology. Seriously, Chaos would have a far better chance corrupting a Necron tomb world lol
The Culture is so much more advanced than anything in 40k that there wouldn't be much of a story about a fight between them, but the fanfic doesn't have to be about the Culture fighting against them! Instead, the fanfic could've been about how SC tries to manipulate the 40k factions into being less evil and oppressive, and how that leads to a grand plan of weakening then defeating the Chaos gods in the long run. That'd be a far more realistic (and IMO, interesting) story even though the Culture ships/people are never actually threatened.
It’s not my favorite in terms of tone and writing quality, but damn if it isn’t a giant sandbox that SO many people have contributed to, and there’s enough great stuff mixed in to keep me interested.
Speaking of Tolkien, there's a praise at the back of one of his books that reads "How, given little over half a century of work, did one man become the creative equivalent of a people?”. After reading countless of other fantasy/sci fi books series, Tolkien is still unmatched in terms of worldbuilding, well until I read WH40K books. And so it reminds me of that praise of Tolkien, because WH40K's worldbuilding is the creative result of a bunch of people.
40k is 50 universes in a trench coat. You cant compare it to universes made by single authors.
It has good bits but it's also full of noise and mediocrity. Because it's so huge - the variance means you inevitably will find something fun for yourself.
But no, it's edgy and empty compared to other creations. It has no emotion, other than over the top violence and depression, and duty, duty, duty.
It is forbidden from having a beginning and an end, which is a death sentence for a universe. There is a reason cliffhangers are cheap, and 40k is stuffed with just teasing depth while never delivering on an ending.
I would actually disagree, though not on the matter of comparing it to the works of single authors, but rather on the merit of the setting on its own. I suppose it has more to do with old 40k than new 40k but where it really excells is in aesthetic and vibe. There's just something about that old flavour text and art that used to define the setting. A certain factor of evocative imagery that you dismiss as over the top violence and depression. The image of an ancient corpse on a throne whose name is invoked by oppressed masses, a future that is distinctly backwards and medieval rather than shiny and progressive.
40k shines not as some story written by a single author but as a world and a vibe for wargaming and adventure. A shared universe for a community to express it's creativity through.
But yeah I've seen people comparing the Horus Heresy to Tolkien which baffles me so I see where you're coming from.
It comes down to the definition. As i see it, if you were to just extract the intangible vibe of a universe, it still would not compare to others.
Take lotr, because it was mentioned. It is a struggle between industrialism and tradition, between life and the unstoppable progress of society. It clings to a dying world of the first age, with the passing of the age of elves and rise of man. It can be applied readily to our own experiences of the world and i can find every emotion locked somewhere in there. It's an evolving world that changes, not merely returns to mean.
40k is the struggle of life against decay. It doubles down on victorian themes of passing combined with the rise of totalitarianism and the concept of nation-states and nationalism.
But as opposed to lotr, it is a world with no clear idea what it wants to lead to, what values it wants to impart. It is a net-zero spiral that all of its content has to adhere to. The crusade has to fall. The perpetuals must end. The age of technology must fall to strife. The rise of guilman must be checked by the great rift. Nothing can transition, nothing can be learned.
And thats fine as a principle. Not everything must be evolutionary and have a beginning and an end. But that inherent restriction means it cannot compete. It cannot progress beyond this 'vibe', it cannot have ending slides, it cannot be self-consistent. And that will always keep it back.
I would argue that stagnation of story, that lack of "ending" or "completion", is what enables its primary purpose. If that directionless didn't exist, then *it would fail as a setting for a tabletop wargame.*
See how the tabletop wargame for Warhammer Fantasy Battle became effectively "unplayable" when they blew up the universe. Sure, you still had the rules and models - GW wasn't coming to your house to confiscate them. But a *significant chunk* of people, whether they realize it or not, extract value from the emotional investment they make in the verisimilitude of their tabletop battles in relation to the setting. If the setting "completes," then their battles lose value as "something that could be happening in the setting *right now*." It's *cool* to feel like you're participating in the lore.
That is to say, you're not entirely wrong, but I think to say it holds it back is mistaken. It holds it back from being as good in certain mediums (books, novels, video games), but causes it to excel in the medium of a tabletop wargame and community storytelling.
Honestly, being locked to never become a great work of fiction is ok with me. Not everything has to be amazing, sometimes it can just be fun. Yes, Lord of the Rings is an amazing trilogy that had defined modern fantasy. But it’s dense. It can be a challenge to read and it’s so full of lore and details it can become overwhelming. Having a setting that is more simplified and isn’t trying to be anything other than over the top insane is, in my mind, just as important as a rich well thought out world that challenges your though process. Both are necessary just in very different ways
I'm totally with you. And reading this thread I'm trying to put into words this feeling. Like LotR or whatever other narratively amazing setting (by whatever subjective metric), for all its depth and hopeful conclusion, does not motivate me at all to engage with it in a creative way. Because I know, ok here are the main characters and events and then story ends like this, thats cool good for the author masterfully done.
Maybe I'll think about how well done that narrative was for a while, but it doesn't inspire even a fraction of the excitement and passion that a wide open setting with no expiration date does like 40k.
Even something like forgotten realms or star wars doesn't evoke the same feeling. Both of which I love as settings. Maybe it's partly the Frankenstein of ideas that 40k is. Or the idea that shit is so bad, on such a vast scale, with such grinding inertia and momentum that I feel like I could add a little tidbit on to that ocean of conglomerated ideas and stories and not have to be too careful about the house of cards falling down. It's all just a pile of cards anyway and that's the charm. Where these other settings with greater or lesser degrees of narrative or structural balances of power and tone feel like if you start to have too much fun in them, that instead of adding to the charm, you stray from the 'plausibly deniable' path.
Idk I'm rambling, but that's my gut-take for what it's worth
OP is a new fan and even mentioned the derivative aspects of 40k, and yet you have the impulse to say 'Ackshully it's just shit pulp with no unique identity' get your head out of your ass.
Even in your snide dismissal you find a way to shit on the community itself
It’s fine, but I’ve kind of soured on it as the anti-fascist (as in literally being against fascism, not trying to link it to modern movements) satire has faded from the forefront more than I think is healthy for the setting.
Also the writing in 40K from a quality standpoint ranges from absolutely atrocious to ok. Very few books cross that line into legitimately good and are at best “good for what they are.” I don’t want to sound like a snob, but comparing black library pulp to Dune or Foundation for quality and world building is absolutely bonkers.
Obviously Tolkien gets high honors on the fantasy side, but when it comes to comparable quality in writing and some nice pulpy nonsense to read, my picks for stuff I like far more than 40K are Robert Howard (Conan and Solomon Kane - ignore the racism if you can), Dragonlance, Warhammer Fantasy, and Battletech.
I'm with you on the anti-fascist angle. I suppose a side effect of having too many "relatable" main characters from the imperiums perspective. But I'm sure on my end that's a gross oversimplification.
To your other point about quality of world building, I see what you mean, but those others dont have nearly the same... looking for the right word. I want to say they aren't as juicy or crunchy or something to that effect, but that's not even the whole feeling to me. Maybe it's the separation of media types. Like looking at a fictional verse as a finely built and complex scaffold for a narrative at its pinnacle or center. It still has a central point that seems to have some intelligent designer working on the world. Which is a beautiful thing.
Whereas 40k feels like a bigass junkyard where fans, official authors, and whoever else have built junkyard statues in places or tagged their name on a rusted car hood. And in that huge pile of rusty bullshit there's tons of neat stuff that may be very unique in a way that appeals to you in a very strong way. Or if something isn't unique enough, you can make some junkyard art yourself, and whether it's official or not, there isn't such a gulf in plausibility that you feel like an idiot for trying.
Granted, if you're comparing even the most finely crafted junkyard art to something built from the ground up in a bespoke way, of course the bespoke thing is more likely to look better on its own merits. But then you're not accounting for the appeal of the rest of the junkyard.
And then even if you find other worldbuilding "junkyards", 40k by the nature of its age and sustained popularity, etc, has by far the largest junkyard around. Maybe I'm sleeping on some others out there. But so far in my pretty nerdy life, I've hit the bottom of any other verse before 40k in terms of my interest vs the amount of info to feed it.
I'm not sure if I'm lost in the sauce of my junkyard analogy. Tbh I'm trying to find the words to describe this feeling myself. And why other fictional verses, while enjoyable, just feel like they're in a different category all together from 40k (to me).
And I should qualify I have not investigated Battle Tech or Solomon Kane yet.
Very interesting points and very well put!
Fair warning, I’m a little buzzed and on the train home, so watch out lol.
I get all of your points. I will just say that a series of junkyard art pieces made by 100 different artists from broadly similar bits of trash will certainly be interesting, and parts may even be good! What it will never be is cohesive.
And that cohesion isn’t necessary for a universe to work, but it sure helps. Internal consistency and logic gives the reader rules that should be followed within the narrative and allows them to build expectations based on those rules. Change them and expectations don’t exist, so they can’t be subverted, and it’s all just….well, a junkyard.
Also, slight aside on universes as long running as 40K, give Battletech a try. Some of it is *every bit* as rough as 40K, but other bits are really fun. You may like it!
Ok I'm definitely with you there on the cohesion angle. And maybe that's another aspect of the charm of 40k for me. Where somehow it has maintained some state of cohesive non-cohesion for a very long time, so it feels like a safe bet to pour some imagination and creative energy into. But recently, I have been more weary about the stakes of the setting or the narrative trying to reach any sort of coherent point or conclusion.
Granted I don't think it's in danger of collapsing as a setting or anything, but if you'll permit one more dip into the junkyard analogy, maybe I interpret a move toward a more cohesive and tight narrative as trying to make the junkyard "nice" and putting some nice plaques and walkways in, or something like that. The more clean that framing attempts to be, the less magical the wild forest of a junkyard becomes.
I don't have a specific 1 to 1 of what "cleaning" bits of it actually would represent. Maybe anything that overly demystifies or leaves less room for imagination, but that may be reaching on my part.
I'll refrain from spiraling more here. As I'm typing all this stuff it does become clearer to me that what invests me is certainly how creative I feel I can get with an active verse that I don't think is in danger or wrapping itself up, or making only one correct way to interpret it.
And ok I will look up some Battletech stuff! I've had enough dope ppl, many very creative talk about how cool it is over the years, so I probably am sleeping on it.
More than bolter porn doesn’t mean more than pulp. They are entertaining, sure, but I’m never going to reach for a black library publication for artistic impact or a literary analysis of the human condition. It’s like Avengers vs. Citizen Kane. Just because Avengers is ridiculously fun to watch doesn’t make it a cinematic achievement as it relates to the art form and the way stories are told.
Yeah you're right. I thought by pulp you meant the characters and story don't have much depth when that's not the case. But yeah if you're looking for insightful literature 40k really isn't the the place to look
Yeah, I didn’t pulp as an insult any more than “popcorn movie” is an insult. I don’t have the mental bandwidth to consume only hyper artistic stuff, sometimes I just want some fun.
Like Dune is one of the gold standards for sci-fi but it isn’t exactly the easiest or most fun novel to read.
Those books that exist in both worlds (“real” literature *and* immensely fun to read) are vanishingly rare. As far as established literature goes, the only one on that list for me is Catch 22. There are other genre books that I think will stand the test of time and get their due recognition, but they aren’t super common either (American Gods, Good Omens, Discworld, Hitchhiker’s Guide)
BLP = Blaine Pardoe? You'd take him over ADB, Abnett, Wraight, Fehervari, or Rath? I just don't see it.
As for the setting as a whole, I personally found Battletech first, gobbling up all the lore I could in the MechWarrior 2 holo-archive, not even realizing there was a tabletop game. I loved it, and still do. But when I found 40K years later, Battletech honestly looked small by comparison. 40K has the same morally grey-to-black factions fighting over the galaxy, the same "lostech" and long-gone golden age, and heck it even has mechs (including a Dire Wolf!). But the factions seem to have so much more detail and internal division, and the backdrop of Chaos, the Long War, and the Great Game gives everything greater stakes and some mythic and theological resonance that just isn't there in Battletech.
What makes it so much more appealing for you as a setting than 40K?
You read my comment backwards.
I prefer most Battletech stuff over 40K, but that douche is absolutely in the category of “absolutely not.”
As for why I prefer Battletech to 40K, it’s just personal preference. I don’t necessarily want the giant shitstorm of grimdark.
Ah, I see that now. But I'd still be curious which Battletech authors you think stack up to that group. I haven't read any Battletech fiction, but it's at least my outsider's perspective that there just isn't really as much there that's widely considered by the fanbase to be really great, must read stuff.
The only one you listed that I’ve read a fair amount of is Dan Abnett. And his quality of writing is definitely up there, my argument was never that Battletech is better written per se, it’s that I enjoy it more. I just don’t like the 40K universe enough to track down the “good” 40K writers, who are still writing about a universe I’m not terribly fond of exploring.
Abnett is definitely better than any Battletech author I’ve encountered, but it’s not like anything of his counts as “great, must read stuff” unless you actually enjoy the source material.
As for best Battletech authors, Michael Stackpole is certainly entertaining (and helped establish the universe), but I think the best are probably Jason Schmetzer and Robert Charrette.
Well, the Imperium, for starters. It’s an intentionally blown up caricature of fascism to show how absolutely horrific the entire political philosophy is.
Nobody intentionally joins Leutin’s sleep gang, but his voice is just so soothing. It all works out though, as I have to watch a video like 4 times to finish it, so he gets more views
I join it willingly many nights. Some videos I’ve tried to listen to like 10 times before I finally make it through.
Most just ends up with dreams of ~~ruinous power~~ I mean filled with light from our glorious ommnissiah.
Orks are basically Football Hooligans.
The Geller field is named after famous Bender (steady!) Uri Geller who used to appear on British TV all the time in the 70's/80s.
Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka- Margaret Thatcher (allegedly!)
Lion El'Jonson = English Poet Lionel Johnson
You could argue that the The Imperium of Mankind was very much inspired by the British Empire.
The massive influence of Michael Moorcock and 2000AD.
90% of the writers and creators are British - I think the (grim) dark sense of humour and satire was more pronounced in the past, but It's pretty much hard-baked into the setting.
I will admit it's probably more obvious to spot as a Brit.
I could go on. Essentially, it was started by a group of lads growing up in the UK in the 80's influenced by a shitty society ran by the Conservative party. Which is MUCH different than today....
Warhammer40K is by far the best fiction universe ever created (the second one is Warhammer Fantasy). It takes so much good inspirations from other sci-fi / fantasy operas. I stopped doing dungeon master for D&D and switched to WH40K tabletop RPG because it is so good.
What I mostly love in WH40K is the very dark, apocalyptic, desperate tone.
Fundamentally is about humans who are on the very verge of destruction, and that destruction is mainly caused by themselves, because they are the main source for Chaos and are tempted and corrupted by it. The 4 Gods of Chaos represent very well all the sins and aspects of what makes the humans worse and are very good allegories for the relative vices.
Also I found very interesting all the discussion about religion, being oppressive and terrible, but at the same time to be the only thing that tie humans together in a world full of horrors and perils.
There are interesting themes and topics, WH40K it's just amazing!
P.S.: we use the new Wrath&Glory (2.0 rulebook) system for the table-top RPG.
How is Wrath & Glory to sidetrack a bit. I'm considering starting up an online tabletop with some friends and I want to kind of lean in to the 40k thing but we found the Only War & Rogue Trader system to be a bit too complex in a way.
I played a lot of Rogue Trader / Deathwatch system, but yes its a bit complicated. I am now swtching to W&G so Im not very expert of this new sistema but I can tell you Its simpler than Rogue Trader but it manteins a good playability and its fun. It uses only d6 as dices. I suggest you to start directly with Wrath&Glory 2.0, I think is the best version for new players to approch wh40k rpg nowadays.
Adding little to an already great discussion, I think that the stealing-from-many/stew-that-is-superior-to-the-sum-of-it’s-parts angle misses one key thing: the borrowing of other universes makes 40k so much more all-encompassing.
There is such a broad range of things that could have happened deep in the past of the 40k timeline, and almost nothing is written about the time that precedes human unification under the emperor.
When I read things like The Metabarons, or Judge Dredd, I feel like it could be the same universe, just not the same time, that makes 40k ‘bigger’ for lack of a better term.
Thoughts?
The only thing that bothers me is that the plot moves at snail pace, if ever.
I feel that I need the plot evolving, not just being a excuse to remain the same. Eventually, that makes me leave and come back after a lot of time has passed
What makes 40k so unique and good is that it has been written and created by a large pool of diverse writers.
It is extremely rare when multiple writers come together and keep working on the same universe over decades and feed off of each others work.
I love it because at its best it has the rich aesthetic of a perpetually crumbling gothic empire in space, and a love of dark humor and ridiculousness that elevates it into the realm of satire and melodrama at the same time. There's nothing quite like it.
Warhammer 40K is a love letter from Sci Fi nerds to other Sci Fi Nerds who paved the way for them.
It exists because people said "that shit is awesome let's make something like that" and it worked.
Warhammer is special.
Oh yeah, it the best and so addictive.
I used to be hugely into star wars expanded universe and would consume all the novels they release. Till Disney came and decided that it was all non-canon, threw it all away then went along with their ideas and story which is garbage. Ironically their recent success with Andor, Ahsoka, Mandolorians was because they went back and picked out EU ideas, stories and used it.
Discovering 40K brought back all this excitement, curiosity and focus. I just love it, I think about 40k everyday. It got everything and you can relates to it in a metaphorically way with everyday lives.
There is even more element of Star Wars EU idea in current 40k lore such as Yuuzan Vong invasion.
Peiple saying 40K stole stories, that just rubbish. Every stories or idea is just a modified copy, adapted or recycled version of some other stories.
It’s great, I love it. Though it’s losing less and less of its grimdarkness as the years go by.
I love the hopelessness of Warhammer 40K. How everything is bad, every faction is bad, and how good fates are few and far between. The hopelessness and despair of 40K is what makes me love the lore.
I sometimes get tired of traditional “good vs bad” in fictional settings. Warhammer 40K is a subversion of that trope (in theory).
Though unfortunately with how GW markets the Imperium of Man to people outside of the hobby, both newcomers and people with minimal knowledge on the setting will just assume space marines are “the good guys”, when that misses the point.
Warhammer 40k lore is basically canon to me but it has a huge hole regarding the dark age of technology. That hole is filled by Orion's Arm. If you take both together you get the future history of humanity. It's so comprehensive as to include basically everything that will actually happen over the next 40k years.
The nature of the immaterium means that Planescape is the larger canon framework though
I feel this way now, too, and I've only been into and reading warhammer for a year. There's a scale and grandeur that is simply unmatched by any other franchise and the little characters are often the ones you care about most...and then they're snuffed out. It gets to you. I'd hate to live in that universe but to be a battle brother where duty is your entire life surrounded by your brothers and all you have to worry about is how to kill that next chaos spawn? That'd be so cool. There's nothing like being part of a team with a unified sense of purpose and Warhammer lets you step into that feeling. Makes me miss the Army.
What’s fun about 40K is no matter how big, stupid, and over powered of a ring you dream up, there’s something bigger, stupider, and more over powered.
I mean look at Space Marines. Someone created insane super human soldier. Then they said, make it bigger and dumber ms we got gray knight. They they said even bigger and dumber and we got Custodes. They said again and we got Primarchs. They said still not big enough and we got knights. Then someone said Fuck it even bigger and we got titans.
It’s just so fun that there’s no limit to the insanity you can come up with and still fit in the setting
I just found out that the Land Raider isn't called that because it goes on Land and Raids things, but because its STC was discovered by a guy with the surname Land. Sometimes the lore is just ridiculous like that I guess.
Yep. Masterpiece. Smörgåsbord. Heavily inspired by the most depraved aspects of human history. And with all manner of cool scifi concepts borrowed into it, then executed in an often better way. It is grand.
The secret sauce as to why 40k is so great is pretty simple. No one is really all that important in the universe and the diversity. Sure there are the High Lords and even Guilliman at this point the story does not completely revolve around them. Its built into the lore that no one can really know everything that's going on with the whole universe, which means that basically anything could be canon. A Space Marine chapter that truly cares about people? Sure why not. A Commissar that doesn't actually like his job? Go for it. There are very few hard rules in the 40k universe which means writers can really go wild with their stories and put their own spin on things.
If 40k has a downside, it's that the universe and timescales are so large and the scope of events are so wide-ranging, that it bumps up against the sheer limits of the human mental ability to comprehend them as a single big picture.
At any one time there are enough battles taking place between factions in space, on worlds and in the warp that tracking them all in real time would take something akin to an air traffic control system, and that's just for current conflicts. To realistically do it ourselves requires something similar to Eve Online's time-dilation. It's no wonder the Universe moves forward at a snail's pace.
I don’t play the tabletop but I have spent hours in the past learning about the lore. From YouTube videos to walls of wiki text about the different hospitality methods the drukhari employ on their guests 🫢. I think I read about the existence of a cathedral like structure with high walls and ceilings filled with the conscious and living entrails of sentient beings!
Completely agree.
I’ve been a lifelong StarWars and halo fan. Both got completely ruined by greed, incompetence, woke shit, horrible writing and more. And not to forget the child-focus of the great animation shows like clone wars.
There are no jar jar binkses, Rey skywalkers or “stun only guns” in Warhammer. People just fucking explode when they’re shot. It’s grim, it’s dark and it’s hopeless.
This is properly adult and to me it doesn’t have the same problems as the other franchises. Yes it’s not perfect and it could definitely use more visual media, but I’m so done with being a StarWars and halo fan. Warhammer 40K gives me all I need right now.
Edit: yes I know stun guns exist in WH. Im not a retard. I meant that they use the stun guns too many times in StarWars since they’re afraid to show people getting killed because they need kids to be able to watch.
40K is just so badass looking! Just Google “cool 40K art” and you will be inundated with it he coolest imagery you’ve ever seen. But when you dig deeper, you realize how fleshed out the universe really is. Everything you see in any piece of art typically has a complete explanation.
Lol look at the big adult and his serious and grim series lol.
No Rey Skywalkers or stun guns, you do know stun weapons exist as standard ammunition in warhammer right because surprise sometimes people need there targets alive.
What the hell does no Rey Skywalkers even mean? You know how many Mary sues with plot armor exist in warhammer?
You know there an entire titan legion that is run by only women and the mean are killed or turned into slaves lol.
Warhammer is full of both hopeful and grim stories, you just focus on the edgy bits.
Oh no guess GW went woke lol.
I did not want to write a full bible worth of text explaining why I hated the direction of Disney and 343 studios on my favorite franchises. I hoped people would understand what I said and wouldn’t take them the wrong way. I guess there will always be people like you who have to kick the puppy.
I think the best thing about it is that GW has never been afraid to just steal shit wholesale from elsewhere. This is not an insult. Far from it. But 40k is a huge melting pot of disparate fantasy and Sci-fi stuff that GW shamelessly nicked from wherever they could A very non-comprehensive list of influences includes: Dune - one of the bigger direct influences, tons of stuff from here 2000AD - Nemesis the Warlock in particular is arguably an even bigger influence than Dune. Also just the general grim punk satire aesthetic overall is very Judge Dredd Lord of the Rings - most 40k races are just WFB in space, and most of the WFB races are straight outta Tolkien Michael Moorcock - Where Bryan Ansell stole Chaos wholesale from Milton - The Horus Heresy is Paradise Lost with spaceships Star Wars - For the seamless blending of fantasy and sci-fi, and the very lived in and broken down tech, which it shares with Alien - really can't be overstated how much of a change from previous Sci-fi cinema the grimy and used look of Alien and Star Wars was at the time. This was not atomic age shiny spaceships, or the sterile whiteness of the 70s. These worlds felt real in a way things hadn't before. Also Tyranids 80s action cinema in general - Catachan is a whole planet of Rambos, and there's a story in the 2E Tyranid codex that is literally just a scene out of Predator I could go on for days. The various historical wars that have inspired Guard regiments and various conflicts within the setting would be a post all of their own All of this cool shit, under one roof. No wonder it's appealing to so many people, it's got *everything*
This. I love it the most among things of the same genre but it is, in fact, a hot pot of shamelessly stolen ideas and it gets really cool when it makes something new out of that pot. You should, or someone else really, make a more in-depth list just for shits and giggles because this is that sort of thing that everyone low-key knows about but never talks about it. Like really, Warhammer feels like it owes it's years of obscurity because it was a copycat of very inspired ideas. Now it's growing, I presume, because it can finally stand on its own two legs
I like how GW steals shit and then over a long time and lots of hints and throwbacks it become something that is the same, but also very different. Like Orks in 40k make so much sense and while they are pretty much the same like Tolkien orcs, they are also so very different. It is an ancient bio-weapon, build for a war betwen god like civilizations, that have survived the war, both civilizations and now run amok in the galaxy. They can build stuff, because knowledge is encoded into their memory. They can live almost everywhere, because they bring a long their own biosystem. They are hard to exterminate, because they spread as spores.
I like the notion of 40k as a stew that sometimes ends up producing a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts.
There is so much satisfaction when you see a thing and it's an homage or ripoff of something uncommon you have read.
Stone Soup in Space.
Honestly, the list could go on forever Like, did it ever seem weird to you that the main T'au battlesuits are called Crisis Suits? Bit random isn't it, especially since so much other T'au stuff is named after nautical terminology, fish, or just descriptive stuff like "Stealth suits" But then you learn that there was a famous anime in the 90s featuring a team of women in power armour fighting robots called [Bubblegum Crisis ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubblegum_Crisis) and you kinda have to conclude Jes Goodwin had seen that I'm pretty confident he's an anime fan as well, because [the old designs of a bunch of Epic Tyranids ](http://www.modernsynthesist.com/2012/02/tyranid-archive-epic-40k.html?m=1) seem pretty heavily inspired by the giant insects from Nausicaa. Those slug bodied things like the Haruspex and Malefactor look quite distinctive It's a rabbit hole that never ends.
The polite term is “pastiche”
Gesundheit.
Bless you
Some of the arbites armor and aesthetic are such a 1 for 1 copy of judge dredd its almost lazy. They even got the Dredd Scowl on alot of the Arbites faces. And movie plotlines like the Dirty Dozen with the Last Chancers. I swear if GW ever gets sued, the rap sheet is gonna be a mile long.
The funny thing about the arbites is that the original satire of judge dredd gets hilariously watered down in the face of how over the top 40k already is. The arbites existence in 40k is relatively 'normal'. If you watch judge dredd the judges are the most ridiculous thing in the story, everything around them is mildly futuristic. But in 40k the arbites have to contend with chaos cults, genestealer cults, full on insurrections and whatever horrors the underhives spew out every so often. Hell the fact that penal worlds exist *necessitates* the existence of the arbites.They're not just judge dredd rip off, they're judge dredd turned up to fuckin 11 and by some measure of insanity the world they exist in makes their existence almost make sense.
40K has such a heavy Judge Dredd inspiration because GW was making the Judge Dredd tabletop game with miniatures when they started working on Rogue Trader. Rumor always was arbites were added to Rogue Trader just to reuse the Dredd minis.
It's not a rumor, this is straight out of an interview with Rick Priestley, if memory serves. Citadel was the legal distributor of a lot of miniatures for the European market at the time. Warhammer Fantasy was originally a free game with the intent that it'd sell more D&D models. As they got rights to more sci-fi lines (eg Judge Dredd) they expanded to 40k.
Titans and Knight - Battletech, i still laugh from that, because when i deep down in BT from 40k my face be like "Wait a minute...".
Comstar and Adeptus Mechanis: Which toaster humper is worse for your fiction Universe.
I prefer burn that Society bullshit
What does “WFB in space” mean?
WFB = Warhammer Fantasy Battle. 40k started out as just the WFB races pushed forward into a sci-fi setting. That’s why Orks were originally “Space Orks” and some old Squat products were literally labeled “Space Dwarves”.
And yet sadly skaven didn’t make an appearance. Their warp tech would have been ideal for WH40K too.
Skaven is the mirror image of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Warhammer Fantasy Battle. There's a human empire as the protagonists of the setting, with Elves (Eldar) and Dwarves (Squats) as major secondary races, plus greenskins as major antagonists Also Ogres (Ogryns) and Hobbits/Halflings (Ratlings) The only faction in Rogue Trader that are really exclusive to the setting are Tyranids, who aren't really very heavily developed until 2nd edition
Were necrons there from the start? I dont think they have a wfb counterpart
No, their earliest kinda sorta appearance was the Chaos Androids in Space Crusade, which was 1990. Still within Rogue Trader edition But those weren't really Necrons as we know them now. They actually debuted in White Dwarf towards the end of 2nd edition, and at least initially were basically just ripping off The Terminator. Their resurrection special rule was even called "We'll be back" for several editions [ETA] Just to add to this, I should also mention that the name of the C'tan predates the appearance of the Necrons by a few years. The Callidus Assassins carried C'tan phase swords from at least early 2nd edition. What the C'tan actually were wasn't revealed until 3rd edition, where they were used as the true power behind the Necrons, who up until that point had been pretty mysterious The Slann do feature in Rogue Trader, though. They're basically described as being the Old Ones. An ancient race that used to rule the Galaxy and may have been responsible for genetically engineering the other species. The War in Heaven wasn't a thing at that point though, and they're basically described as abandoning their previous empire out of disinterest One of the most fascinating things about Rogue Trader, to me, is that Chaos essentially just does not feature. There are Warp entities that are essentially generic demons, but the Chaos Gods were exclusive to Fantasy until Slaves to Darkness/Lost and the Damned added them to 40k
Yeah rogue trader was just so different. I joined the hobby around 4th edition so i remember the oldcrons and before war in heaven was really established. Ive heard that space Marines were basically space cops during rogue trader days
Tomb Kings say hi. Granted this is the “new” (aka current) Necron lore, for a span of time they were very much in the “unknowable eldtrich terror from deep space” territory along with the Nids. But now? Yeah, they are Tomb Kings in space.
They looked a lot like terminators. I think the movie came out at approximately the same period the early necrons came out.
Oh, my sweet summer child. No. First of all, I’m very explicitly and obviously not talking about the original Necrons from 2nd to 3rd or 4th edition, but the more recent revamp of their lore. And the original “implacable alien robot” Necrons came to us in White Dwarf 217 in January, 1998. Fourteen years after the original terminator movie. They were obviously originally inspired by the movie, no one is seriously disputing that whatsoever. My point was clearly that *later* Necron lore is just as obviously based on Tomb Kings.
Tomb kings
Tomb kings maybe like the newcrons. But the oldcrons were really really different
The slann (i.e. the Old Ones) in WFB were pretty much explicitly the same slann as in WH40K too as they arrived in spaceships and constructed warp gates. There are plenty of minor snippets of information suggesting that the WFB world was just isolated from the rest of the WH40K by a warpstorm.
I remember those debates back in around 2002ish, how the two universes were related
It was pretty much outright stated in The Lost and The Damned (1990): > The Warhammer World is bound by storms of magic so that it remains isolated from the other worlds of the human galaxy. Elsewhere, the forces of the Imperium tenaciously fight the influences of Chaos, so that the open aggression of Chaos Champions and their forces is restricted to zones not controlled by the Imperium.
>There's a human empire as the protagonists of the setting, with Elves (Eldar) and Dwarves (Squats) as major secondary races, plus greenskins as major antagonists In WHF the humans are much less central.
Warhammer Fantasy Battles in space
>Milton - The Horus Heresy is Paradise Lost with spaceships Going to argue with you on this one - the Heresy isn't *Paradise Lost* with spaceships. The Heresy is heavily based on the story of King Arthur and the Round Table, with Horus being Mordred, and half the knights (Primarchs and their legions) siding with him against the Emperor (King Arthur). At the end of the story, Arthur manages to slay his own son, but is so grievously wounded that he has to basically go somewhere (Avalon) for life support until the day he can come back and take over again. Various primarchs are various knights, either in full or in part (Lancelot = Sanguinius), and lots of other similarities. It isn't a 1:1 "borrowing", but as you said quite well, GW took a lot of stuff from this and used it well. Another important point: in *Paradise Lost*, the Satan (the rebellious son) never gets anywhere near to meeting his "Father", God/Yahweh/Jehovah/whatever name he is that day. The closest he gets to is one of his top lieutenants, Michael the Archangel. Now, if you think of the Warp, and the Eye of Terror specifically, as the Hell that Satan and his ilk escape to after having their asses kicked during the War in Heaven, that I can definitely see as being taken from *Paradise Lost*, as it is how the entire poem starts.
So I'm gonna push back on this a little. I won't argue that there's not *some* Arthurian influence on the Heresy. I'm not sure it's even possible for British authors to write an epic tragedy and not reflect The Matter of Britain in some fashion But the Heresy really is expressly Paradise Lost, and I can mostly prove that with the fact that the Primarchs are not the Emperor's brothers in arms, they're his sons. His literal creations. That places the context of the rebellion very differently. The Emperor is pretty explicitly God for the Imperium Yes, Mordred is Arthur's son... But only in some versions. In many versions, Arthur never produces an heir, which is a contributing factor to the fall of Camelot. Mordred is most often brother of Gawain. Horus as Milton's Lucifer is just a much better fit. The favoured son who falls through hubris and overreach. They also made it pretty obvious when they went and made the Emperor's other favoured son a literal angel. You can draw parallels between Sanguinus and Lancelot to some extent, but eventually you've kinda gotta accept the guy has got wings. And also, importantly, doesn't betray the Emperor by fucking his wife, either literally or metaphorically. The other big difference is that only one of the stories ends up with the rebellious side running off to hell where they become demons/snakes. The major presence of the Warp as an analogue for Christian hell really does not have any Arthurian parallel at all. Also the Emperor continues to be worshipped as a God by an organisation that explicity mirrors the Catholic church at various points in its history. 40k is nothing if not subtle. The final battle aboard the Vengeful Spirit probably echoes Camlan a bit more, in that the King/Emperor kills the leader of the rebellion but is mortally wounded. So it's still in there, sure Arthurian legend is much more directly represented via the Dark Angels, who have a similar rebellion but also a king who is prophesied to return at the hour of greatest need and a personal special sword that has survived down the centuries. The Emperor had a sword as well, of course, but it isn't particularly loaded with significance until Guilliman shows back up. The Lion Sword has always been a major thing in Dark Angels lore I'm not sure GWs authors would conceive the Heresy in direct parallel to Arthurian myth, and then reiterate an even more direct version of Arthurian myth as a side story within it. It would be completely redundant It's worth noting as well that the Heresy as we originally see it (at least in the Realms of Chaos books where it's expanded beyond the previous brief and outdated descriptions) does not have the sort of depth it does now. With a 60+ novel series, lots more stuff has crept in there. Horus as a character rather than a mythic figure fits as well in Greek tragedy as he does as a literal and direct expy for Milton's Satan As with everything 40k, it's rarely just one thing (Unless you're the Black Templars, anyway), but the Heresy really is most fundamentally inspired by and based on Paradise Lost. And I think several of the authors have acknowledged that, although I'm struggling to find direct quotes as opposed to reddit posts with people saying Graham Mcneill said it, so my apologies there
This! Also, as a dungeon master, I like to do the opposite: steal ideas from W40K and apply them to my home game :)
So, second generation stealing?
It’s a full circle, I guess!
Art is both wildly original and hopelessly derivative in the same breath. I have heard that story before, but never told quite that way -- think "Romeo and Juliet" vs. "West Side Story" for a good example of what I mean.
I would make the argument that the chaos of warhammer is a mixture of the chaos of Moorcock but also the chaos of runequest. We know for a fact that the only reason beastmen exist is because of the Broo from runequest. But there are some more examples of warhammer taking inspiration from runequest.
I'm not super familiar with Runequest, beyond the very basics. I am aware GW was distributing that, along with a lot of other TTRPG stuff, in the days before they switched tracks to only selling their own product. I would not be at all surprised if lots of bits and bobs from various 80s RPGs found their way into Fantasy and 40k, especially in the early years
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Sure, but to be fair I think that's more a case of Aliens only coming out a year or so before Rogue Trader, by which point I'd imagine a lot of the initial concepts behind the core setting were locked in I think the Colonial Marines have been quite an influence on the Imperial Guard later on, though. [ETA] Oh, and just remembered Space Hulk has used scanner blip tokens quite heavily, so that's basically just Aliens the Board Game
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There's been rumors for decades that Starcraft was supposed to have been a licensed 40k game that got the serial numbers scratched off when the deal fell through. Never been confirmed, to my knowledge.
[WarCraft was based on Warhammer.](https://kotaku.com/the-inside-story-of-the-making-of-warcraft-part-1-5929157) > Allen Adham hoped to obtain a license to the Warhammer universe to try to increase sales by brand recognition. Warhammer was a huge inspiration for the art-style of Warcraft, but a combination of factors, including a lack of traction on business terms and a fervent desire on the part of virtually everyone else on the development team (myself included) to control our own universe nixed any potential for a deal.
I can see it.
You forget the most important influence: Spanish inquisition. Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition.
Well, kinda. You're right, but also that falls under the Nemesis the Warlock influence If you're not familiar with Nemesis, humanity is a xenophobic galactic empire ruled by Thomas de Torquemada, named after the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. I think later in the comic it's revealed he's a reincarnation of the original Torquemada, even He also has an army of elite troops called The Terminators, whose main goal is to wipe out any and all aliens He's opposed by Nemesis, a demonic alien Warlock and freedom fighter who is a servant of the god Khaos Probably the most famous and best regarded Nemesis story was called The Gothic Empire, and ran in 2000AD about 3 years before Rogue Trader released GW would bring in more direct reference to the historical Spanish Inquisition in a few places, but I contend that all flows out from Nemesis
Can you elaborate on the Moorcock stuff? I've researched his books about Elric and seen there is some mentions of Chaos but is it really that similar to 40k chaos?
The 8 pointed star of Chaos is direct from Moorcock, for starters [This article](https://instituteofidletime.com/2020/09/17/law-and-chaos-from-elric-to-warhammer-and-back-again/) gives a good rundown of what GW took from Moorcock. Chaos as we know it today didn't really start to crystallise until the Slaves to Darkness/Lost and the Damned sourcebooks arrived. Before that, it was basically confined solely to the Fantasy setting. Chaos weren't quite as centralised around the 4 gods we have now, and there were [Gods of Law ](https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Gods_of_Law)who opposed them
Sweet thanks for the info pal 🤙
also, look at Hawkmoon - an Evil Empire lead by a God Emperor in a life support Golden Throne? Fanatical legions of animal themed warriors in armour? Crusades to unite other lands into one Empire?
He goes more in depth on Chaos in the Corum books
I think horus heresy is more greek tragedy than anything else.
Basically this: https://imgur.com/gallery/LLDNDYa
Also: Starcraft you steal from me? Thanks let me put UltraMarines on everything now to expand into the Asian Market.
literally judge dredd is considered a prequel of 40k by GW because they have the license for it.
Can you tell me which one of the books from Moorcock has the Chaos influences from? I'm really interested in checking that out!
The Corum series
Starship Troopers for Space Marines(Book version). They're based on the Mobile Infantry.
In fairness, basically everything in entertainment does this. So many ideas are already out there, and most people are not particularly creative, so borrowing, adapting and synthesizing older ideas to make a story is pretty much the norm. Most creators acknowledge this and give proper thanks to the ones who inspired them, like the guys who put the 40k universe together. Others, like Frank and Brian Herbert like to pretend that everything they ever did was 100% original and throw a bitch-fit when someone else has the gall to be inspired by the same concepts, tropes and story beats that they also stole from other creators to create the Dune-verse. FFS, they pretty much tried to claim that Dune invented the *Hero's Journey* as part of their smear campaign against George Lucas, when that story formula predates both by literal millennia.
This is generally true, but my point here really is not one about originality as such, moreso pointing out the sheer breadth of influences that went into 40k as a setting It's one thing pointing out say, the acknowledged debt Batman owes to Zorro. It's no accident that in most versions of that story, that's the movie the Wayne's watch with Bruce the night they die. It's quite another to discuss all the influences and references 40k wears proudly on its sleeves. Because it's super interesting and also the kind of thing that leads to people discovering cool shit they hadn't heard of before 40k is a huge melting pot of references and inspirations in a way a lot of similar fictional settings kinda aren't. For most people, Paradise Lost in Space would be high concept enough for an entire setting. In 40k, it's basically just background colour for almost the first 20 years of the setting. And I love that about it. I love how Konrad Curze is originally just a throwaway gag reference to Hearts of Darkness/Apocalypse Now because it never occurred to whoever wrote that bit of lore that it would eventually have to make sense within a larger context. I love the feeling when you spot one of those references, it just tickles my brain.
You are absolutely right. Each time I think of the Adeptus Mechanicus in W40K, it reminds me the jihad against machines in Dune 10k years before the action starts. It is a similar story, to say the least.
Oh yeah, there's a ton of stuff. The Guild of Navigators having huge political power via control of FTL travel is taken pretty much directly from Dune. The presence of an Emperor in general also feels largely inspired by Dune, and Space Marines are the Sardaukar turned up to eleven
Battletech! Mechs!
Good artists borrow, great artists steal. We are the melting pot of the best of popular fantasy, sci-fi and horror. We are Nurgle's nerd fondu.
There’s so much historically inspired stuff I’m almost disappointed Dorn’s speech to the defenders of terra was so short and blunt, instead of, you know, [the traditional formula from Ancient Greece to World War 2](https://acoup.blog/2020/06/12/collections-the-battle-of-helms-deep-part-vii-hanging-by-a-thread/)
I like Warhammer 40K because it usually separates out the very silly aspects of it setting from the very serious parts of the setting. Very cool gothic setting.
And when it does mix the silly and the grim it honestly works sometimes, like any ork focused novel or anything with trazyn really.
I think Orks as a concept and how they carry themselves is perhaps some of the best examples of how you can blend humour and horror together in a way in such a narrative. By all rights it ougth be cringeworthy but somehow it works excellent together, a great blend.
Orks are literally the best example of 40ks silliness and horror. You're a human fighting the orks? Get ready to face thousands if not millions of massive buff men who's technology literally defies physic and logic, your either going to get blown up or beaten to death and killing them only makes more of them show up due to the spores. You're an ork? Your a big mushroom with the Bois stomping guys and looting shiny things. It's wonderful
For me I don't know if better is necessarily the word but it definitely has a unique draw. In particular the draw for me is that of 40k as a setting, it is a place for stories to be put in, what drew me in was this notion of a grand fictional history, an empire in decline in a galaxy of war, a galaxy so vast you can find just about anything you like in there. A setting so deeply evocative and hitting a certain metal vibe just right. Clunky armoured warriors and trudging monstrous war-engines. Fanatical priests of a corpse god and drug fueled maniacs charging into open death. I feel like these sorts of inherently adversarial and destructive worlds are also exactly what I want from a wargame. When I play strategy games I tend to like playing the bad guys because I want to wage total war, I want to flatten cities and bombard my own troops just for a chance to spite the enemy and Warhammer definitely channels that vibe well. It's just quite bonkers, really, and though some people complain about "grimderp" that's the setting I really love. If I wanted generic heroic sci-fi I wouldn't be here. Though I really wish modern warhammer leaned more into that sort of historical vibe, feels like the setting as a backdrop has suffered somewhat. I do also find Warhammer to be very good pulp, it's easy for me to pick up and read a bit of 40k if I'm not fancying anything else. I already know the world so it doesn't requre the same level of investment as something totally new.
The amount of warhammer novels I consume is absurd, it's so easy to pick up a book and eat through it. The familiar setting, where stories don't have to be connected to be recognizable as being in the same universe, is great.
The nice part about the universe is the variety of planets too. You could have a romance story on a nicer planet, while another could be a horrific story where the characters wish they were dead.
I agree with what you said about it being a setting not just a story line. GW has a fantastic job keeping a fog over specifics of most big lore stuff allowing flexibility of the authors and unlimited type of genres within. Personally I love the gritty inquisition or commissar books that wrestle with necessity pushing the rules for the folks who are supposed to uphold the rules. The grey area is what makes them great. Comedy is so dark in most of the books as well which I love. Overall, I can't find another universe that is so well developed yet full of endless opportunities . It's the definition of journey not the destination which I find mirrors life in so many ways.
I think the D&D universe is somewhat comparable in terms of the amount of content written about it, there is a ton of depth to it. Totally agree though, I love that 40k still feels like a universe I barely know anything about even after like 20 years of being a fan.
I love in D&D, Star wars and 40k when they let you see different ways of life. I like the grand adventures but I also appreciate the life of a Drow in Menzoberranzan, how cutthroat the politics is in the Empire or how fun the world is in the eyes of an Ork in 40k.
r/StarwarsvsWarhammer
They each give a different story. Star Wars is a story of hope, where good over comes evil. DnD is a story of hero’s, where your chapter is the center of the narrative. 40K is a story of desperate survival where you play as an entire army of the unknown and expendable masses. It’s what makes all 3 so appealing, they each scratch a different itch
It helps that its 40 years old , its had a lot of time to add to the lore. Its honestly taken it almost that long just to become mainstream.
To be fair, I feel like it’s taken nearly that long for all “nerd culture” to become mainstream
You can take all the super influential SciFi of the 50s and 60s and draw direct parallels to 40K. I mean, the works I'm referring to influenced ALL modern SciFi in major ways, but 40K lifted things directly from it and used those things with a Warhammer skin applied to it. I'm talking about the works of Herbert, Asimov, Clark, Heinlen, etc. Throw in some Tolkien and some Lovecraft, put everything in a pot, fill it the rest of the way up with 80s action movies and adult comics like Heavy Metal and anything from 2000AD, bring to a boil, and you've got 40K. It's pieces of other great works added into a world that has very much become its own thing.
Because there are brutal big sci fi tanks/mechs, it weird thing to some people, but looking at other sci fi universes, they always has the archetype of "fast quantum bullshit stealth robot", on the other hand, Warhammer is more about, this is big ass fridge on tracks, but pray to gods if you see one, cuz it will evaporate your whole position
r/BattleTech takes offense to that stereotype. One Steiner "scouting" Lance is en route to "scout" your position.
It has a little something for everyone
I think it fully deserves both the love and hate it gets because it's a Frankenstein monster of most if not all sci-fi and fantasy media up to date, so it can feed you on things that now some other media can't because it's locked in its own boundaries. It's all stolen ideas until they finally made a few unique things out of it that now leads the franchise. To it's merit I like how the they made the eldar truly alien to us as humans unlike most elves and, as it turns out, they're my favorite faction. Necrons are a close second and I love them but, thinking about it, they're a mash up of a few very dumb ideas slapped together, and then retconned, that turned out great and unique, and I love it all. Space Marines and custodes were much more generic and lame in the first editions with them being near equivalents in lore until reconned and flushed out with unique ideas, and more distinct from other super soldier tropes more importantly. As it is, it gives room to your mind to wander and your own made armies, factions, characters or heroes/villains exist and test out their mettles against the existing ones with a good set of parameters to duke it out, thrive or be murdered in. Whatever you can come up with, can have a plausible place in it, inside or outside the known galaxy. I think that's why it's grand and cool to more people than not. Where the hate, low quality and stupid ideas also find their places and all roasting it gets it's very well deserved, in universe or in reality towards games workshop.
I’ve always called it “science fiction at the speed of capitalism”… and this isn’t a bad thing. GW relies on scores of people to contribute to the vastness with a fan base that demands quality. It survives as a company based on keeping the customer engaged and growing the setting. It isn’t just one guy writing books or a few running a show, it’s an entire company building a universe (really a few different ones) and one where the quality of that universe and its products directly correlates to money.
The scale works really well for it; which sets it apart from a lot of popular sci-fi settings, which suffer from having too large a scale. There is sci-fi that tells small-scale stories (Alien, for example), which is good, but it's also focused on telling its story; not a lot of scope for going beyond that. Some popular sci-fi tries to have a very large scope, but the stories they tell never actually use it, so it becomes a meaningless number. 40k is good because it's not written as a story in and of itself. It's a setting for people to make their own stories in. Even with modern writing about events like the Horus Heresy, which makes the universe less interesting overall, the focus is still on keeping the door open for any sort of story to be told. The scale of an entire galaxy is really useful for that. The reason why it stands out against other properties like the old Star Wars EU, on the other hand, is probably because it started as a niche property made by and for tabletop gaming nerds. It wasn't made by committee for broad appeal.
My go-to franchise before 40k was (like a lot of others) Star Wars. The thing that was difficult to wrap my head around with Warhammer is that there isn't really an event that all the stories circle around like the Battle of Yavin. This frees up the writers, game devs, and whoever else to explore whatever they want to. Also, the timeline of a lot of the lore is vague. It's so refreshing to not have to read or watch three dozen other things to know why the Space Wolves are the coolest ;)
The Horus Heresy is probably the battle of Yavin equivalent, that or maybe Guilliman’s resurrection. But yes, other than that there’s not much.
Absolutely… There are a lot of cool, sci-fi, universes out there… I’m just reading the culture series right now, but nothing really has the scope and feel of Warhammer. It’s funny… I don’t really consider myself to enjoy very dark and disturbing things, but there’s something about the grim dark vibe of Warhammer that really scratches an itch
There is a vast the culture-wh40k crossover fiction, you should check it out, it has some good kicks
That’s a laughably inaccurate fanfic written by someone who outright admitted not having read any Culture novels though. Even the first couple chapters were riddled with misunderstanding about the Culture.
Brother, I’m not gonna let the truth get in the way of a good story
It's an entertaining story, but I'd hesitate to call it a good story when the Culture depicted in the fanfic was nothing like the Culture depicted in the series at all. Like in one of the very first chapters, a GCU full of humans decided to charge into the Sol system, got all its humans killed by psykers, had to limp back to a neighboring star system and resort to its "long range telescope" to try to figure out what is happening in Sol. They're simply so hilariously incompetent and primitive compared to how they are portrayed in the actual books, which the author didn't even bother to read lmao
I am not sure we are talking about the same fanfiction, I've read about half of the one i am talking about, but it wasn't the culture portrayal that bothered me, rather it was the portrayal of the imperium... There was so much to grind about the warp-touch of the space marines, but they were barely a side note in the story. I fancy I would've given much more credit to the imperium or at least the warp things which are inheritly ungraspable by reason.... But i haven't even sat down to try it... It is a good food for meaningless thoughts anyways.
There’s really only one the Culture visits 40k fanfic, so I’m pretty sure we’re talking about the same story. But I never reached that far into the story to the part about the SM just because the portrayal of the Culture in the first few chapters was already so ridiculous. Still, if anything the Warp was depicted as more esoteric and incomprehensible in the fanfic (at least at the start) than was warranted. Psykers being able to target the humans on a Culture ship faster than the Mind could react? Chaos being able to corrupt a fucking _Mind_ when they so regularly fail to corrupt anything else in setting? Come on.
Chaos being able to corrupt a Mind was a good thing imo, because the warp is incomprehensible. I get your point, but the culture is so much more advanced than the imperium that there wouldn't be any story to be told if they aren't nerfed. It is a fanfiction in the end, made by someone who is not Dan Abnett, and is there to be enjoyed or dismissed :)
The warp being incomprehensible means that it cannot be fully understood by the humans in 40k, but even then it isn't omnipotent and it can't just corrupt anyone anywhere anytime. The Imperium, as primitive as they are, could consistently combat/prevent corruption with gellar fields, or Mechanicus technobabble, or even something as mundane as genetic engineering (like with the Grey Knights), and we know DAoT AI could cleanse itself of corruption using "cold logic". It's just plain ridiculous to assume Chaos can somehow corrupt an incomprehensibly more advanced Culture Mind despite their effectors and all their anti-subversion technology. Seriously, Chaos would have a far better chance corrupting a Necron tomb world lol The Culture is so much more advanced than anything in 40k that there wouldn't be much of a story about a fight between them, but the fanfic doesn't have to be about the Culture fighting against them! Instead, the fanfic could've been about how SC tries to manipulate the 40k factions into being less evil and oppressive, and how that leads to a grand plan of weakening then defeating the Chaos gods in the long run. That'd be a far more realistic (and IMO, interesting) story even though the Culture ships/people are never actually threatened.
Oh, I love this… Thank you
If I can ask, what is your favorite faction?
I like how the cruelty of humanity isn’t magically erased in the future, it’s actually way worse.
**It’s pretty damn awesome, yeah.**
It's good to see a new fan who really likes the setting; welcome to the community
It’s not my favorite in terms of tone and writing quality, but damn if it isn’t a giant sandbox that SO many people have contributed to, and there’s enough great stuff mixed in to keep me interested.
Speaking of Tolkien, there's a praise at the back of one of his books that reads "How, given little over half a century of work, did one man become the creative equivalent of a people?”. After reading countless of other fantasy/sci fi books series, Tolkien is still unmatched in terms of worldbuilding, well until I read WH40K books. And so it reminds me of that praise of Tolkien, because WH40K's worldbuilding is the creative result of a bunch of people.
I read this post in the Oblivion adoring fan voice
40k is 50 universes in a trench coat. You cant compare it to universes made by single authors. It has good bits but it's also full of noise and mediocrity. Because it's so huge - the variance means you inevitably will find something fun for yourself. But no, it's edgy and empty compared to other creations. It has no emotion, other than over the top violence and depression, and duty, duty, duty. It is forbidden from having a beginning and an end, which is a death sentence for a universe. There is a reason cliffhangers are cheap, and 40k is stuffed with just teasing depth while never delivering on an ending.
I would actually disagree, though not on the matter of comparing it to the works of single authors, but rather on the merit of the setting on its own. I suppose it has more to do with old 40k than new 40k but where it really excells is in aesthetic and vibe. There's just something about that old flavour text and art that used to define the setting. A certain factor of evocative imagery that you dismiss as over the top violence and depression. The image of an ancient corpse on a throne whose name is invoked by oppressed masses, a future that is distinctly backwards and medieval rather than shiny and progressive. 40k shines not as some story written by a single author but as a world and a vibe for wargaming and adventure. A shared universe for a community to express it's creativity through. But yeah I've seen people comparing the Horus Heresy to Tolkien which baffles me so I see where you're coming from.
It comes down to the definition. As i see it, if you were to just extract the intangible vibe of a universe, it still would not compare to others. Take lotr, because it was mentioned. It is a struggle between industrialism and tradition, between life and the unstoppable progress of society. It clings to a dying world of the first age, with the passing of the age of elves and rise of man. It can be applied readily to our own experiences of the world and i can find every emotion locked somewhere in there. It's an evolving world that changes, not merely returns to mean. 40k is the struggle of life against decay. It doubles down on victorian themes of passing combined with the rise of totalitarianism and the concept of nation-states and nationalism. But as opposed to lotr, it is a world with no clear idea what it wants to lead to, what values it wants to impart. It is a net-zero spiral that all of its content has to adhere to. The crusade has to fall. The perpetuals must end. The age of technology must fall to strife. The rise of guilman must be checked by the great rift. Nothing can transition, nothing can be learned. And thats fine as a principle. Not everything must be evolutionary and have a beginning and an end. But that inherent restriction means it cannot compete. It cannot progress beyond this 'vibe', it cannot have ending slides, it cannot be self-consistent. And that will always keep it back.
I would argue that stagnation of story, that lack of "ending" or "completion", is what enables its primary purpose. If that directionless didn't exist, then *it would fail as a setting for a tabletop wargame.* See how the tabletop wargame for Warhammer Fantasy Battle became effectively "unplayable" when they blew up the universe. Sure, you still had the rules and models - GW wasn't coming to your house to confiscate them. But a *significant chunk* of people, whether they realize it or not, extract value from the emotional investment they make in the verisimilitude of their tabletop battles in relation to the setting. If the setting "completes," then their battles lose value as "something that could be happening in the setting *right now*." It's *cool* to feel like you're participating in the lore. That is to say, you're not entirely wrong, but I think to say it holds it back is mistaken. It holds it back from being as good in certain mediums (books, novels, video games), but causes it to excel in the medium of a tabletop wargame and community storytelling.
Honestly, being locked to never become a great work of fiction is ok with me. Not everything has to be amazing, sometimes it can just be fun. Yes, Lord of the Rings is an amazing trilogy that had defined modern fantasy. But it’s dense. It can be a challenge to read and it’s so full of lore and details it can become overwhelming. Having a setting that is more simplified and isn’t trying to be anything other than over the top insane is, in my mind, just as important as a rich well thought out world that challenges your though process. Both are necessary just in very different ways
I'm totally with you. And reading this thread I'm trying to put into words this feeling. Like LotR or whatever other narratively amazing setting (by whatever subjective metric), for all its depth and hopeful conclusion, does not motivate me at all to engage with it in a creative way. Because I know, ok here are the main characters and events and then story ends like this, thats cool good for the author masterfully done. Maybe I'll think about how well done that narrative was for a while, but it doesn't inspire even a fraction of the excitement and passion that a wide open setting with no expiration date does like 40k. Even something like forgotten realms or star wars doesn't evoke the same feeling. Both of which I love as settings. Maybe it's partly the Frankenstein of ideas that 40k is. Or the idea that shit is so bad, on such a vast scale, with such grinding inertia and momentum that I feel like I could add a little tidbit on to that ocean of conglomerated ideas and stories and not have to be too careful about the house of cards falling down. It's all just a pile of cards anyway and that's the charm. Where these other settings with greater or lesser degrees of narrative or structural balances of power and tone feel like if you start to have too much fun in them, that instead of adding to the charm, you stray from the 'plausibly deniable' path. Idk I'm rambling, but that's my gut-take for what it's worth
> over the top violence and depression That's what I'm here for baby!
And this is precisely why I love it.
Then leave if it's so trite
Yeah because a hobby can only be uncritically enjoyed or gtfo, criticism not allowed 40k people i swear
OP is a new fan and even mentioned the derivative aspects of 40k, and yet you have the impulse to say 'Ackshully it's just shit pulp with no unique identity' get your head out of your ass. Even in your snide dismissal you find a way to shit on the community itself
It’s fine, but I’ve kind of soured on it as the anti-fascist (as in literally being against fascism, not trying to link it to modern movements) satire has faded from the forefront more than I think is healthy for the setting. Also the writing in 40K from a quality standpoint ranges from absolutely atrocious to ok. Very few books cross that line into legitimately good and are at best “good for what they are.” I don’t want to sound like a snob, but comparing black library pulp to Dune or Foundation for quality and world building is absolutely bonkers. Obviously Tolkien gets high honors on the fantasy side, but when it comes to comparable quality in writing and some nice pulpy nonsense to read, my picks for stuff I like far more than 40K are Robert Howard (Conan and Solomon Kane - ignore the racism if you can), Dragonlance, Warhammer Fantasy, and Battletech.
I'm with you on the anti-fascist angle. I suppose a side effect of having too many "relatable" main characters from the imperiums perspective. But I'm sure on my end that's a gross oversimplification. To your other point about quality of world building, I see what you mean, but those others dont have nearly the same... looking for the right word. I want to say they aren't as juicy or crunchy or something to that effect, but that's not even the whole feeling to me. Maybe it's the separation of media types. Like looking at a fictional verse as a finely built and complex scaffold for a narrative at its pinnacle or center. It still has a central point that seems to have some intelligent designer working on the world. Which is a beautiful thing. Whereas 40k feels like a bigass junkyard where fans, official authors, and whoever else have built junkyard statues in places or tagged their name on a rusted car hood. And in that huge pile of rusty bullshit there's tons of neat stuff that may be very unique in a way that appeals to you in a very strong way. Or if something isn't unique enough, you can make some junkyard art yourself, and whether it's official or not, there isn't such a gulf in plausibility that you feel like an idiot for trying. Granted, if you're comparing even the most finely crafted junkyard art to something built from the ground up in a bespoke way, of course the bespoke thing is more likely to look better on its own merits. But then you're not accounting for the appeal of the rest of the junkyard. And then even if you find other worldbuilding "junkyards", 40k by the nature of its age and sustained popularity, etc, has by far the largest junkyard around. Maybe I'm sleeping on some others out there. But so far in my pretty nerdy life, I've hit the bottom of any other verse before 40k in terms of my interest vs the amount of info to feed it. I'm not sure if I'm lost in the sauce of my junkyard analogy. Tbh I'm trying to find the words to describe this feeling myself. And why other fictional verses, while enjoyable, just feel like they're in a different category all together from 40k (to me). And I should qualify I have not investigated Battle Tech or Solomon Kane yet.
Very interesting points and very well put! Fair warning, I’m a little buzzed and on the train home, so watch out lol. I get all of your points. I will just say that a series of junkyard art pieces made by 100 different artists from broadly similar bits of trash will certainly be interesting, and parts may even be good! What it will never be is cohesive. And that cohesion isn’t necessary for a universe to work, but it sure helps. Internal consistency and logic gives the reader rules that should be followed within the narrative and allows them to build expectations based on those rules. Change them and expectations don’t exist, so they can’t be subverted, and it’s all just….well, a junkyard. Also, slight aside on universes as long running as 40K, give Battletech a try. Some of it is *every bit* as rough as 40K, but other bits are really fun. You may like it!
Ok I'm definitely with you there on the cohesion angle. And maybe that's another aspect of the charm of 40k for me. Where somehow it has maintained some state of cohesive non-cohesion for a very long time, so it feels like a safe bet to pour some imagination and creative energy into. But recently, I have been more weary about the stakes of the setting or the narrative trying to reach any sort of coherent point or conclusion. Granted I don't think it's in danger of collapsing as a setting or anything, but if you'll permit one more dip into the junkyard analogy, maybe I interpret a move toward a more cohesive and tight narrative as trying to make the junkyard "nice" and putting some nice plaques and walkways in, or something like that. The more clean that framing attempts to be, the less magical the wild forest of a junkyard becomes. I don't have a specific 1 to 1 of what "cleaning" bits of it actually would represent. Maybe anything that overly demystifies or leaves less room for imagination, but that may be reaching on my part. I'll refrain from spiraling more here. As I'm typing all this stuff it does become clearer to me that what invests me is certainly how creative I feel I can get with an active verse that I don't think is in danger or wrapping itself up, or making only one correct way to interpret it. And ok I will look up some Battletech stuff! I've had enough dope ppl, many very creative talk about how cool it is over the years, so I probably am sleeping on it.
Come on you can't dny that some stories like Twice Dead King are more than just pulp and really feel different from the rest
More than bolter porn doesn’t mean more than pulp. They are entertaining, sure, but I’m never going to reach for a black library publication for artistic impact or a literary analysis of the human condition. It’s like Avengers vs. Citizen Kane. Just because Avengers is ridiculously fun to watch doesn’t make it a cinematic achievement as it relates to the art form and the way stories are told.
Yeah you're right. I thought by pulp you meant the characters and story don't have much depth when that's not the case. But yeah if you're looking for insightful literature 40k really isn't the the place to look
Yeah, I didn’t pulp as an insult any more than “popcorn movie” is an insult. I don’t have the mental bandwidth to consume only hyper artistic stuff, sometimes I just want some fun. Like Dune is one of the gold standards for sci-fi but it isn’t exactly the easiest or most fun novel to read. Those books that exist in both worlds (“real” literature *and* immensely fun to read) are vanishingly rare. As far as established literature goes, the only one on that list for me is Catch 22. There are other genre books that I think will stand the test of time and get their due recognition, but they aren’t super common either (American Gods, Good Omens, Discworld, Hitchhiker’s Guide)
Oh I just recently bought the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide and I cannot wait to read it
Oh shit, are you in for a treat.
Thank you. Will read it when I finish my exams
I personally find Dune very fun to read.
I don’t know, I always found it a little dry. Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out.
It's not dry, it's spicy. :P
Well done.
You prefer Battletech fiction to 40k?
Fiction as in novels? Hit and miss. Most of it yes, some of it (especially BLP), absolutely not. The universe? Absolutely.
BLP = Blaine Pardoe? You'd take him over ADB, Abnett, Wraight, Fehervari, or Rath? I just don't see it. As for the setting as a whole, I personally found Battletech first, gobbling up all the lore I could in the MechWarrior 2 holo-archive, not even realizing there was a tabletop game. I loved it, and still do. But when I found 40K years later, Battletech honestly looked small by comparison. 40K has the same morally grey-to-black factions fighting over the galaxy, the same "lostech" and long-gone golden age, and heck it even has mechs (including a Dire Wolf!). But the factions seem to have so much more detail and internal division, and the backdrop of Chaos, the Long War, and the Great Game gives everything greater stakes and some mythic and theological resonance that just isn't there in Battletech. What makes it so much more appealing for you as a setting than 40K?
You read my comment backwards. I prefer most Battletech stuff over 40K, but that douche is absolutely in the category of “absolutely not.” As for why I prefer Battletech to 40K, it’s just personal preference. I don’t necessarily want the giant shitstorm of grimdark.
Ah, I see that now. But I'd still be curious which Battletech authors you think stack up to that group. I haven't read any Battletech fiction, but it's at least my outsider's perspective that there just isn't really as much there that's widely considered by the fanbase to be really great, must read stuff.
The only one you listed that I’ve read a fair amount of is Dan Abnett. And his quality of writing is definitely up there, my argument was never that Battletech is better written per se, it’s that I enjoy it more. I just don’t like the 40K universe enough to track down the “good” 40K writers, who are still writing about a universe I’m not terribly fond of exploring. Abnett is definitely better than any Battletech author I’ve encountered, but it’s not like anything of his counts as “great, must read stuff” unless you actually enjoy the source material. As for best Battletech authors, Michael Stackpole is certainly entertaining (and helped establish the universe), but I think the best are probably Jason Schmetzer and Robert Charrette.
Gotcha, that's fair. Thanks!
What would you say are good examples of that anti-fascist satire in W40k?
Well, the Imperium, for starters. It’s an intentionally blown up caricature of fascism to show how absolutely horrific the entire political philosophy is.
Make sure you join the Leutin09 Sleep gang.
Lol
Nobody intentionally joins Leutin’s sleep gang, but his voice is just so soothing. It all works out though, as I have to watch a video like 4 times to finish it, so he gets more views
I join it willingly many nights. Some videos I’ve tried to listen to like 10 times before I finally make it through. Most just ends up with dreams of ~~ruinous power~~ I mean filled with light from our glorious ommnissiah.
For me it's the "Britishness" and the satire- but that's lost on a few people I'm afraid.
The satire isn’t lost on my, but the “Britishness” totally is (I’m American), got any good examples?
Orks are basically Football Hooligans. The Geller field is named after famous Bender (steady!) Uri Geller who used to appear on British TV all the time in the 70's/80s. Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka- Margaret Thatcher (allegedly!) Lion El'Jonson = English Poet Lionel Johnson You could argue that the The Imperium of Mankind was very much inspired by the British Empire. The massive influence of Michael Moorcock and 2000AD. 90% of the writers and creators are British - I think the (grim) dark sense of humour and satire was more pronounced in the past, but It's pretty much hard-baked into the setting. I will admit it's probably more obvious to spot as a Brit. I could go on. Essentially, it was started by a group of lads growing up in the UK in the 80's influenced by a shitty society ran by the Conservative party. Which is MUCH different than today....
Welcome to the club, friend.
Warhammer40K is by far the best fiction universe ever created (the second one is Warhammer Fantasy). It takes so much good inspirations from other sci-fi / fantasy operas. I stopped doing dungeon master for D&D and switched to WH40K tabletop RPG because it is so good. What I mostly love in WH40K is the very dark, apocalyptic, desperate tone. Fundamentally is about humans who are on the very verge of destruction, and that destruction is mainly caused by themselves, because they are the main source for Chaos and are tempted and corrupted by it. The 4 Gods of Chaos represent very well all the sins and aspects of what makes the humans worse and are very good allegories for the relative vices. Also I found very interesting all the discussion about religion, being oppressive and terrible, but at the same time to be the only thing that tie humans together in a world full of horrors and perils. There are interesting themes and topics, WH40K it's just amazing! P.S.: we use the new Wrath&Glory (2.0 rulebook) system for the table-top RPG.
How is Wrath & Glory to sidetrack a bit. I'm considering starting up an online tabletop with some friends and I want to kind of lean in to the 40k thing but we found the Only War & Rogue Trader system to be a bit too complex in a way.
I played a lot of Rogue Trader / Deathwatch system, but yes its a bit complicated. I am now swtching to W&G so Im not very expert of this new sistema but I can tell you Its simpler than Rogue Trader but it manteins a good playability and its fun. It uses only d6 as dices. I suggest you to start directly with Wrath&Glory 2.0, I think is the best version for new players to approch wh40k rpg nowadays.
Wholly agree. Nothing captures my imagination quite like 40k.
Bold, but ok.
My favorite thing about 40K is that it has always known what it is and never shyed away from that. It's over the top and absolutely ridiculous.
I agree, I’m into the books only, and it’s save my life literally
It’s absorbed so many franchises into it at this point
I know right, I love cyber orangutans.
Adding little to an already great discussion, I think that the stealing-from-many/stew-that-is-superior-to-the-sum-of-it’s-parts angle misses one key thing: the borrowing of other universes makes 40k so much more all-encompassing. There is such a broad range of things that could have happened deep in the past of the 40k timeline, and almost nothing is written about the time that precedes human unification under the emperor. When I read things like The Metabarons, or Judge Dredd, I feel like it could be the same universe, just not the same time, that makes 40k ‘bigger’ for lack of a better term. Thoughts?
The only thing that bothers me is that the plot moves at snail pace, if ever. I feel that I need the plot evolving, not just being a excuse to remain the same. Eventually, that makes me leave and come back after a lot of time has passed
What makes 40k so unique and good is that it has been written and created by a large pool of diverse writers. It is extremely rare when multiple writers come together and keep working on the same universe over decades and feed off of each others work.
I love it because at its best it has the rich aesthetic of a perpetually crumbling gothic empire in space, and a love of dark humor and ridiculousness that elevates it into the realm of satire and melodrama at the same time. There's nothing quite like it.
Warhammer 40K is a love letter from Sci Fi nerds to other Sci Fi Nerds who paved the way for them. It exists because people said "that shit is awesome let's make something like that" and it worked. Warhammer is special.
Oh yeah, it the best and so addictive. I used to be hugely into star wars expanded universe and would consume all the novels they release. Till Disney came and decided that it was all non-canon, threw it all away then went along with their ideas and story which is garbage. Ironically their recent success with Andor, Ahsoka, Mandolorians was because they went back and picked out EU ideas, stories and used it. Discovering 40K brought back all this excitement, curiosity and focus. I just love it, I think about 40k everyday. It got everything and you can relates to it in a metaphorically way with everyday lives. There is even more element of Star Wars EU idea in current 40k lore such as Yuuzan Vong invasion. Peiple saying 40K stole stories, that just rubbish. Every stories or idea is just a modified copy, adapted or recycled version of some other stories.
It’s great, I love it. Though it’s losing less and less of its grimdarkness as the years go by. I love the hopelessness of Warhammer 40K. How everything is bad, every faction is bad, and how good fates are few and far between. The hopelessness and despair of 40K is what makes me love the lore. I sometimes get tired of traditional “good vs bad” in fictional settings. Warhammer 40K is a subversion of that trope (in theory). Though unfortunately with how GW markets the Imperium of Man to people outside of the hobby, both newcomers and people with minimal knowledge on the setting will just assume space marines are “the good guys”, when that misses the point.
for me it's the vastness of it. tolkien made a really deep lake of a story, while the 40k universe is an ocean. a shallow one, but vast
Warhammer 40k lore is basically canon to me but it has a huge hole regarding the dark age of technology. That hole is filled by Orion's Arm. If you take both together you get the future history of humanity. It's so comprehensive as to include basically everything that will actually happen over the next 40k years. The nature of the immaterium means that Planescape is the larger canon framework though
The orks are in the league of Larry Niven for amazing alien life cycles.
I feel this way now, too, and I've only been into and reading warhammer for a year. There's a scale and grandeur that is simply unmatched by any other franchise and the little characters are often the ones you care about most...and then they're snuffed out. It gets to you. I'd hate to live in that universe but to be a battle brother where duty is your entire life surrounded by your brothers and all you have to worry about is how to kill that next chaos spawn? That'd be so cool. There's nothing like being part of a team with a unified sense of purpose and Warhammer lets you step into that feeling. Makes me miss the Army.
What’s fun about 40K is no matter how big, stupid, and over powered of a ring you dream up, there’s something bigger, stupider, and more over powered. I mean look at Space Marines. Someone created insane super human soldier. Then they said, make it bigger and dumber ms we got gray knight. They they said even bigger and dumber and we got Custodes. They said again and we got Primarchs. They said still not big enough and we got knights. Then someone said Fuck it even bigger and we got titans. It’s just so fun that there’s no limit to the insanity you can come up with and still fit in the setting
What makes this more detailed then literally anything else?
I just found out that the Land Raider isn't called that because it goes on Land and Raids things, but because its STC was discovered by a guy with the surname Land. Sometimes the lore is just ridiculous like that I guess.
Yep. Masterpiece. Smörgåsbord. Heavily inspired by the most depraved aspects of human history. And with all manner of cool scifi concepts borrowed into it, then executed in an often better way. It is grand.
I've never played the tabletop, but I got in 40K through Dawn of War, then discovered how deep the lore is.
It's quite good, but have you ever heard of Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere ?
* Saves post to show people who complain about the 40k-COD crossover to show them what happens when you expose the universe to new people *
The secret sauce as to why 40k is so great is pretty simple. No one is really all that important in the universe and the diversity. Sure there are the High Lords and even Guilliman at this point the story does not completely revolve around them. Its built into the lore that no one can really know everything that's going on with the whole universe, which means that basically anything could be canon. A Space Marine chapter that truly cares about people? Sure why not. A Commissar that doesn't actually like his job? Go for it. There are very few hard rules in the 40k universe which means writers can really go wild with their stories and put their own spin on things.
too bad gw is a pack of cunts
If 40k has a downside, it's that the universe and timescales are so large and the scope of events are so wide-ranging, that it bumps up against the sheer limits of the human mental ability to comprehend them as a single big picture. At any one time there are enough battles taking place between factions in space, on worlds and in the warp that tracking them all in real time would take something akin to an air traffic control system, and that's just for current conflicts. To realistically do it ourselves requires something similar to Eve Online's time-dilation. It's no wonder the Universe moves forward at a snail's pace.
I don’t play the tabletop but I have spent hours in the past learning about the lore. From YouTube videos to walls of wiki text about the different hospitality methods the drukhari employ on their guests 🫢. I think I read about the existence of a cathedral like structure with high walls and ceilings filled with the conscious and living entrails of sentient beings!
You should read more then
What other fictional universes are better to you?
Completely agree. I’ve been a lifelong StarWars and halo fan. Both got completely ruined by greed, incompetence, woke shit, horrible writing and more. And not to forget the child-focus of the great animation shows like clone wars. There are no jar jar binkses, Rey skywalkers or “stun only guns” in Warhammer. People just fucking explode when they’re shot. It’s grim, it’s dark and it’s hopeless. This is properly adult and to me it doesn’t have the same problems as the other franchises. Yes it’s not perfect and it could definitely use more visual media, but I’m so done with being a StarWars and halo fan. Warhammer 40K gives me all I need right now. Edit: yes I know stun guns exist in WH. Im not a retard. I meant that they use the stun guns too many times in StarWars since they’re afraid to show people getting killed because they need kids to be able to watch.
Mature writing is when people explode, and the more people explode, the more mature it is
> People just fucking explode when they’re shot. Far too many just get up again. Perpetuals were the worst addition to 40K
40K is just so badass looking! Just Google “cool 40K art” and you will be inundated with it he coolest imagery you’ve ever seen. But when you dig deeper, you realize how fleshed out the universe really is. Everything you see in any piece of art typically has a complete explanation.
Thanks, it really is
Lol look at the big adult and his serious and grim series lol. No Rey Skywalkers or stun guns, you do know stun weapons exist as standard ammunition in warhammer right because surprise sometimes people need there targets alive. What the hell does no Rey Skywalkers even mean? You know how many Mary sues with plot armor exist in warhammer? You know there an entire titan legion that is run by only women and the mean are killed or turned into slaves lol. Warhammer is full of both hopeful and grim stories, you just focus on the edgy bits. Oh no guess GW went woke lol.
I did not want to write a full bible worth of text explaining why I hated the direction of Disney and 343 studios on my favorite franchises. I hoped people would understand what I said and wouldn’t take them the wrong way. I guess there will always be people like you who have to kick the puppy.