Poll: Is 40K serious?

[Lieju]

Just worth noting for anyone who reads this that if you think the designs are uncool, it's not for you. There is some decent backstory and lore, but if you don't like the aesthetics it won't get any better for you.

Different people definitely have different tastes for cool and what looks good, true, it's hugely subjective.

But I don't necessarily dislike the designs.

Something like the huge space armors look horribly uncool and ridiculous to me, but I kinda like the design for it, because of how overly macho ridiculous they look.
But I'm not sure if it's supposed to look cool.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

It depends on the writer, really, or even the faction. Most of the stuff featuring the Orks or Tau is usually on the lighter scale, and of course there is always stuff like Ciaphas Cain which read almost like a FunLight parody of the setting. Of course, then it swings around to stuff dealing with the Imperial Guard, or Chaos and the SMs which can get really, really dark. Some of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels are downright depressing (freaking Only in Death, man. Spooky stuff.), ditto with the Horus Heresy.

I guess it all depends on if you are able to look past the obviously overdone and over the top aesthetics of the setting and get into the meat of it. Its so filled with hyperbole, and deliberate exaggeration and homage that its hard to take seriously sometimes, but at its heart its a very deliberately bleak setting, where everything is bad and only getting worse.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Still, think of the logistics. There are hundreds, if not thousands of Krieg regiments. If they can throw away 10,000 and still win then the regiment must be larger than that. Consider that the planet would still need millions of people in order to run itself. Think of how many people this must be. And they only come from one planet.

Different example : how much does it COSTS to train one Space Marine ? Is it economically acceptable to mantain such relics of ancient chivalry if they die so easily ? WH40k tabletop is a little bit reasonable but video games, Space Hulk branch or this, ummmm, wonderful piece of art that is "Space Marine" movie suggests that Space Marines dies oh so easily.

How about you know, economy like on earth. Planet's don't get food and resources from somewhere else. They make it on those same freaking planets. Besides, so what if the economy is not explained. That's hardly as interesting as plots, schemes, wars, death and destruction etc.

Nope. On our planet's surface no enemy can just appear in the middle of your territory and devastate city or two. Distances can be easily crossed with (i guess) close to 100% chance of success (with the exception of Somalia piracy is practically nonexisten and our weather reports aren't that bad). History proves that countries can't sustain full scale modern war for long. And how about those worlds covered with one big factory complex from pole to pole ? Where does food grows, how siple people live there... No, i guess it isn't just possible to take experience from our good old mother Earth and say "it's exactly like this but simpler and on huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge scale.

Besides, so what if the economy is not explained. That's hardly as interesting as plots, schemes, wars, death and destruction etc.

Sure. Every time i play game in WH40k setting, read the novel or something i don't care about that sh*t at all. However each time anyone tries to prove that it's a possible, reasonable vision... No. Just no.

[/quote]

One thing you HAVE to keep in mind with WH40k, no joke, is that everything is happening on a scale that is absolutely unimaginable to the individual human being, in both size and descency. The IG field TRILLIONS of soldiers, so losing an entire regiment (some of the bigger planets field a hundred or more) is no huge loss. There are millions of planets in the Imperium, an untold number of citizins. Something like a Forge world, a planet completely covered by factories, is supported by agriworlds (worlds covered entirely by farms) and the many, many hive cities who produce raw materials for them to use. Simply put, you don't grow food on a Forge world. Its a waste of space. Its all imported, probably from the closest agri-world. People live in hab-blocks (think apartments, but much smaller and stacked hundreds of stories high). When it comes to the Administratum (the Imperium's beauraucratic arm) everything is designed for maximum lasting effiency, even (and especially) at the cost of human comfort and life. If some clerk thinks that they'll produce 0.000012% more las cartridges by having 5 people live inside of a 12x12 cube, then by god they will and he'll probably get a medal for it. Thats just how it is.

 

[lion el jhonson]

HERESY!

The actual story behind 40k is pretty deep and basically can be viewed as the danger of continuous war, in 40k the imperium of man(empire of man) is on the verge of collapse after century upon century of warfare, free will is dead in favor of service to the Emperor(the state), the common people are merely tools, it's protector the space marines that are boarder-line psychotics zealots, basically it can draw parallels to what is currently going on in the world.

ha ha ha ha ah ah... oh your serious?
yeah dude stop trying to make 40k seem deep and have some higher moral or political standpoint. While I love it and try to defend it as much as I can, its hard to when they keep fucking up the mythos with every rule book. Yeah dude your fantasy cant be deep and complex when this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-jBnE3LYo4 can sum up the jist of an entire fandom (well some of it anyway) in less than a minute.
I love the fandom but not enough to defend everything in it.

 

[Slayer_2]

I think the idea of walking tin cans is hilarious. The fact is that in real conflict, almost any modern army could easily eliminate an army of those walking hunks of steel. In the future, tech is supposed to be better, not worse. I realize that the ridiculous style is part of the theme, but it prevents me from possibly taking 40k seriously.

 

[Sonicron]

Why would you judge 40k by the standards of the video games based on it? They're fun, but none of them really convey the mood of the universe. Try some of the Black Library novels and make up your mind then.

 

[Thamian]

I can take the mythos seriously, in so much as I won't just dismiss something from it on the basis of where it came from as automatically being devoid of artistic value/merit. Admitedly, I also recognise just how silly (Orks for example) and broadly inconsistent it can be (I'm looking at examples like Ciaphas Cain talking about IG regiments as if they were standardised sizes, while Abnett's IG regiments vary wildly in size and not just due to combat losses, or alternatively the wild inconsistencies in ship sizes and crewing figures) at times.

But hey ho, it works. And some of the books are actually brilliant (Gaunt's Ghosts series with the possible exception of Salvation's Reach, the Cain books, the Eisenhorn and Ravenor books, Grey Knights...) though I'll be honest, all too many of the books aren't. Some are written by idiots (look what happened to the Space Wolf books when the author changed), and others suffer from being written about Space Marines, specifically ones with next to no angle beyond them (the Grey Knights trilogy for example benefits hugely from also being about the Inquisition).

 

[JesterRaiin]

One thing you HAVE to keep in mind with WH40k, no joke, is that everything is happening on a scale that is absolutely unimaginable to the individual human being, in both size and descency.

That's no excuse. Even with "scale that is absolutely unimaginable" factor taken into consideration people are still people and so are their needs. Everyone needs to eat, drink, sleep, defecate and so on. You can't just throw away http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs and replace it with fanatical love for half-rotten carcass, greater good or something... That's what economy is mostly about - i mean, providing, managing and stuff.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

It's a dark parody, think doctor strangelove.

Yes, it's over the top, epic, and ridiculous, but at the same time, it tackles real issues

 

[Jandau]

Depends on the work in question. Some of the WH40k material is undeniably dark and opressing. On the other hand, some of it is downright campy. I hardly take it too seriously when playing Space Marine or reading Ciaphas Cain novels (which are awesome, by the way), but the setting itself can be extremely depressing, especially when you stop and think about how the society probably works.

I suppose if one based his opinions on WH40k from the recent video game adaptations, I can see how it might be considered silly, though...

 

[Dawns Gate]

I find 40k quite comical. It's full of super xenophobia, epic racism, and super weapons. If it is serious the people at citadel/games-workshop are messed up people.

 

[Bravo 21]

about 30 percent of the time I can take it seriously enough, but the resto f the time. I can't take it, or just about anything else seriously.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Absolutely.

The only thing about the universe I find a bit silly at times is the Orks. The accents/lines and names can be rather silly.

Also, I really don't get all the people saying Chaos is goofy. Maybe I just don't get it, but in my opinion 40k is one of the most dark, depressing and BEST Sci-Fi universes ever created.

Oh yeah, as many have said, DO NOT base your idea of the universe off the Video Games. Read the Lexicanum, one of the RIGHT books or just the Codexes.

 

[darthotaku]

you can use it for either. I recently wrote two pieces of fanfiction on it. one was serious "die for duty or live and betray what you stand for" thing and the second was evil space knights using heavy metal music to fight psychotic chicks with rocket launchers.

it really works either way

 

[Ordinaryundone]

One thing you HAVE to keep in mind with WH40k, no joke, is that everything is happening on a scale that is absolutely unimaginable to the individual human being, in both size and descency.

That's no excuse. Even with "scale that is absolutely unimaginable" factor taken into consideration people are still people and so are their needs. Everyone needs to eat, drink, sleep, defecate and so on. You can't just throw away http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs and replace it with fanatical love for half-rotten carcass, greater good or something... That's what economy is mostly about - i mean, providing, managing and stuff.

But thats the thing, in this setting the standard of living for most people in the Imperium is abysmally low. They eat food that is mass produced on a scale McDonald's would be envious of (and is very probably made of people). And the entire culture surrounding the Imperium, the one that everyone grows up believing and following to a tee, states that your own personal welfare and happiness is completely irrelevant and that you should work and sacrifice for the good of the Imperium and the Emperor. That's their social creed, their religion, everything. That doesn't mean that they don't do the same stuff people now do. They have jobs, they have families. There are artists, musicians, criminals, whatever. But its all part of a seething biomass that, frankly, the High Lords of Terra would sacrifice in the blink of an eye for some advantage of humanities enemies. And the people being sacrificed would sigh, say "The Emperor Protects" and go along with it. That's why the Guard has such a great recruitment rate despite being pretty obviously suicide. Its 3 meals, a cot, and a uniform, which is a lot better than what most people can expect.

Think of all those old stories about King Arthur and his knights, or Robin Hood, or any other sort of folkore. We hear all about the heroes, and the soldiers, and the kings and whatnot, but never about the peasants. Why not? I mean, peasants are important. Without them the entire kingdom would fall apart. But by the very nature of being peasants, they are both expendable, easily replaced, and utterly trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Such is the life of your average Imperial citizen. Wake up at 5:00, quick recaf as you run toward the local Administratum office. Oh shit, 5 minutes late because your foot was crushed by a malfunctioning servitor. Too bad, 20 lashes. The Emperor demands. Have to work through lunch because some Munitorium drone didn't carry a decimal and now the Valhallan 203th Tank division has 800,000,000 pairs of socks. 20 more lashes because it was probably your fault somewhere down the line. Go to church. Why aren't you going to church more? Your superiors are noticing these things. Back to work till late on the sock issue. Stop back in church for a confession session, couldn't hurt. It does hurt, priest gives you 20 lashes for breaking your foot on the Emperor's time. Go home, eat dinner (Soylen Viridians, yay!). Kids are sick, but you don't get payed this week because of a planet-wide paper shortage. Go to bed, wake up, do it all again.

Doesn't sound terribly interesting, does it? Needs are met, but it all exists to keep the wars going. And if our unfortunate scribe above happened to die on his way to work the next day, no one would mourn him. He'd be immediately replaced, and the big machine would keep on turning.

 

[dickywebster]

I will admit theres times when im not sure if the books are messing with me or themselves, but otherwise its not that silly, beyond been war on such a scale that it can be supported b the shear number of births and all.

 

[Febel]

Oh yes, and there is some division in opinion regarding the seriousness of things in the 40K universe, just look at the very first reply I got.

I don't seek to condemn 40K for being silly (in my opinion) but rather I am curious as to how many people take it all in straight faced and hold it up as sensible and serious fiction (Hence the poll)

The way I see it the game was originally designed to be unashamedly silly and way over the top in terms of GRIM DARK. Over the years they've expanded on the setting making it more well rounded and slightly more sensical which I think leads to the current situation which is a certain number of people do take it seriously (HOLY SHIT CHAINSAW SWORDS! THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME!) and others who recognize its silliness and like it because or possibly in spite of that (Chainsaw swords? That's fucking ridiculous. And kind of awesome...)

 

[aksel]

Am I the only one who thought he meant the figurines, not the video game?
Also, I never got into 40K, but instead kept painting and playing around with Fantasy.

 

[fates_puppet13]

40k is serious
but its also highly camp in the same way 300 was

oddly enough i like 40k but disliked 300

 

[Del-Toro]

Imperial Guard- these guys are less about taking the piss, and more just straight up showing how much it sucks to be a grunt. We in Britain still have a lot of cultural shame over World War I, and the elitist, out-of-date generals who got hundreds of thousands of our own troops killed through incomeptence. The 'Tommy' is an archetypal figure of the average soldier who is conscripted into the army, given shoddy inadequate equipment, then forced onto the battlefield against hundreds of thousands of enemies. The Imperial Guard are, very simply, the Tommies of WWI presented in a future conflict. They're not meant to be as humourous or ridiculous as the Spess Mareens or the Orks, but they still have that biting element of satire, highlighting the sheer senselessness of war.

At the risk of sounding like a Xenophobic git, I honestly think a lot of the misunderstanding comes from the fact that Americans don't really get British snarky sarcasm or satire.

As a Canadian Guard player (mostly Cadian Shock Troopers, like how Canadian Corps was The Empire's Shock Army in WW1), I can say with some certainty that the satire extends into the gameplay. It's set up so that you have to play like one of those asshole generals rather than one of the good ones. I've done both, sticking to cover, taking advantage of weaknesses, committing only when I know I can win, just basically trying to win without having masses of my troops drop , and I always lose those games. Every time I've abandoned cautious tactical thinking and remembered that I have reserves I've won. You Brits are good at that type of thing.

It's a cultural thing, North Americans do their humour one way and Britain does it's humour another, if you're looking at satire from a different cultural context then you probably aren't going to pick up on it too easily.