If 40k Were REALLY Grimdark...

[Emiscary]

They'd let humanity go extinct.

Yes, that's it.

Look, I'm a fan of Games Workshop in a general sense. They're supremely huge nerds who put alot of thought into their work, and I like a not small portion of their background story and their sprawling empire of merchandise (mild sexism notwithstanding >.>). But that being said, I much prefer Warhammer Fantasy to it's sci-fi upstart sibling for the plain and simple reason that it's less gritty for grit's own sake. Is it a day in Fantasia? No, but then again...

I don't think I've read *ONE* single piece of Warhammer 40k literature that didn't bang on about how mankind was gonna die out any day now. Not a one. And yet decade after decade what happens? There's more people in greater variety with more power. Seriously, the number of armies that are a subsect of The Imperium of Man has only gone up over time. If the herd was being thinned you'd think the opposite, no?

And don't tell me:

"BUT PEOPLE ARE ESSENTIAL TO 40K! WAH!"

Bullshit they are. There are enough species with varying flavour & history with enough power between them to keep the self sustaining clusterfuck of firearms that is the 40k universe spinning. And if you *INSIST* on having homo sapiens in the damned thing after the fact- mutants. Simple as that. When regular men die out, the next evolutionary step sets in. Plus then all the Chaos wankers can have a big circle jerk to celebrate their prescience.

 

[Hal10k]

I've always assumed that the setting was more about everything being aggressively stupid and overscaled, with grimdarkness merely being used as a setting ideal for conveying the themes of aggressive stupidity and overscaleditude. Humans by far are the most stupid and overscaled, so wiping them out obviously isn't the way to go.

 

[Emiscary]

I've always assumed that the setting was more about everything being aggressively stupid and overscaled, with grimdarkness merely being used as a setting ideal for conveying the themes of aggressive stupidity and overscaleditude. Humans by far are the most stupid and overscaled, so wiping them out obviously isn't the way to go.

Also this. It's alot easier to wrap your head around/give a shit about a setting composed of one (admittedly upscale) world that's somewhat normal as opposed to a big faceless galaxy of hopeless pricks governed by troll physics.

(Side note: lol)

 

[Jynthor]

For me the Imperium IS 40K. So, no thanks. I'd like it to stay like this.

Captcha: Sun Tzu says. So you better listen. *cough*

 

[ultramarine486]

In the grim darkness of the 41st Millenium there is only... the status quo.

Seriously the 40K grim dark universe is never going to change in any meaningful way. The last time a race died out it was the squats and Games Workshop never heard the end of it from the Squat players. No race is ever going to die, No faction will ever reign supreme (fluff wise), and nothing will ever change because if they do people won't be able to play the armies they want.

Also Grim dark is more of a flavor to the series then an actual tenant written in stone. Look at varying books/literature/games, how grim dark the universe is tends to change wildly from one author/game/faction to another. Orks are a good example as on one hand they're wacky fight loving ax crazy morons, on the other hand you look at them from Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) and they're blood thirsty monsters who enslave, kill, and murder their way across entire planets. Both are Orks with varying amounts of grim dark added.

Not to mention if we're talking about extinction I'm pretty sure the Eldar are at the front of the line.

 

[Emiscary]

In the grim darkness of the 41st Millenium there is only... the status quo.

Seriously the 40K grim dark universe is never going to change in any meaningful way. The last time a race died out it was the squats and Games Workshop never heard the end of it from the Squat players. No race is ever going to die, No faction will ever reign supreme (fluff wise), and nothing will ever change because if they do people won't be able to play the armies they want.

Also Grim dark is more of a flavor to the series then an actual tenant written in stone. Look at varying books/literature/games, how grim dark the universe is tends to change wildly from one author/game/faction to another. Orks are a good example as on one hand they're wacky fight loving ax crazy morons, on the other hand you look at them from Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) and they're blood thirsty monsters who enslave, kill, and murder their way across entire planets. Both are Orks with varying amounts of grim dark added.

Not to mention if we're talking about extinction I'm pretty sure the Eldar are at the front of the line.

Untrue. The Dark Eldar are supposed to be thriving.

 

[ultramarine486]

Untrue. The Dark Eldar are supposed to be thriving.

Yes, but they still haven't figured out a way around that whole 'knife in back' issue.

 

[TimeLord]

Suffering is more Grimdark than death.

Living on an oppressive, over populated hive world. Surviving on a murderous, lethal death world. Getting eaten by 'Nids, tortured by Dark Eldar, corrupted by Chaos, flayed alive by Necrons, hacked apart by mindless Orks, Exterminatus'd by your own race, murdered, slaughtered, accused of heresy and worse still you mean absolutely nothing in the universe of trillions dying every day for the Emperor who you believe is a holy god despite him teaching his original sons that he was not.

Vs death.

I'd choose death personally. Seems like the less Grimdark option.

 

[Emiscary]

Untrue. The Dark Eldar are supposed to be thriving.

Yes, but they still haven't figured out a way around that whole 'knife in back' issue.

According to their most recent codex, it's kind of a non issue. Seeing as how they live in a pocket dimension they have absolute sovereignty over and their technology (near instantaneous cloning, hyper advanced medicine, etc.) basically invalidates the negative consequences of their being massive pricks. Also they hate everyone else more than they hate each other, which has universally proven to be an effective means of uniting people.

 

[Iwata]

The Imperium is central to 40K. The whole theme is the collapse of the Imperium from enemies abroad and domestic. Not to mention that humanity and the Emperor are central to the fight against Chaos.

So, no. It's a bad idea. I'm thankful it'll never happen.

Also they hate everyone else more than they hate each other, which has universally proven to be an effective means of uniting people.

And this is debatable. Asdrubael Vect let the Imperium invade Commoragh itself only to get rid of a few political adversaries. So, yeah...

 

[Emiscary]

Suffering is more Grimdark than death.

Living on an oppressive, over populated hive world. Surviving on a murderous, lethal death world. Getting eaten by 'Nids, tortured by Dark Eldar, corrupted by Chaos, flayed alive by Necrons, hacked apart by mindless Orks, Exterminatus'd by your own race, murdered, slaughtered, accused of heresy and worse still you mean absolutely nothing in the universe of trillions dying every day for the Emperor who you believe is a holy god despite him teaching his original sons that he was not.

Vs death.

I'd choose death personally. Seems like the less Grimdark option.

Suffering is only worse than death on an individual level. Death on the grandest scale there is (IE: extinction) is the most tragic concept a species can ponder. It's the ultimate failure. And for us (being human beings) the notion of humanity going extinct -being ground into paste like so much meat by better species- is about as grim as it gets.

 

[RedRockRun]

Extinction is an easy way out. The Imperium of Man is twisted and nightmarish in so many senses, yet they think they're angels. What could be more grim than that?

 

[Emiscary]

Extinction is an easy way out. The Imperium of Man is twisted and nightmarish in so many senses, yet they think they're angels. What could be more grim than that?

No, maintaining the status quo now and forever is the easy way out. From a writing POV anyway.