Poll: Is 40K serious?

[JesterRaiin]

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.

Sorry, can't agreee with that suggestion. It's your WH40k and if you're happy with it then by all means, have fun.

Suggestion, what? Color me confused.

No problem, here you are man :
"Suggestion is the psychological process by which one person guides the thoughts, feelings, or behaviour of another."

My english may be in no better shape than God Emperor's body, but my brain isn't that badly decomposed. I hope.

And most of the Imperium doesn't believe in Chaos or the like, mostly because they've never seen it. (...)

Most Imperial citizens don't know that there is a war going on. Only when the Administratum sends the Tithe officers to their planet to levy every fit man into active service. Much of the Imperium is ignorant of the xenos species out there trying to kill them, and the only time they ever see an alien is when said alien is chopping them to bits.

You are also aware that most of it's core worlds ARE completely unaware of pretty much EVERYTHING trying to destroy it? Most worlds DON'T believe in the Orks or Chaos or even know that such things even exist. It's a big reason as to WHY they are losing!

So you, gentlemen, say that most of Imperial citizens live in seclusion ? They do not know about big picture, war, chaos and stuff ? This means no media, no news, no facts, no history, no information, no propaganda, no visits (or visitations), no connection with Imperium. No tax collectors, no cashflow, no trade, no medical aid, no technologies, no help, no control, no superiors, no feeling of wholeness. This leads to one thing : no need for Imperium.

"Why worry, since they do not care about us and probably just forgot that we still are here ? Moreover : do 'they' really exist ? My grandfather supposedly saw other worlds but you know how he is..."

Why anyone should join this big machine that Imperium is supposed to be if for "most" there is no plausible reason ? They do not rely on Imperium, so they must be self sufficent, right ? They have food, they reproduce, they are able to fulfill their dreams. Religion and/or fear aren't good enough for them to join the cycle, since both need to be stimulated and with lack of connection any form of stimulation is ruled out.

Generation or five of seclusion and bye-bye to Imperial cult. Men live for very short period of time. They change - that's a must for survival - only those who adapt to new situation survive. What they know changes, what they remember fades away, what they believe in is prone to mutations.

Soon they forget about universe they no longer need. And that's good, because in "grim darkness of 40th millenium" there's no place for daisies, ponies and colorful things - which is complete bullsh*t because simple people wage wars exactly because of that - because they want peacefullness.

There goes WH40k's economy, straight into trash bin. Imperium follows. Death by details.

There IS a way for WH40k setting to acquire "possible" status, but it would require some changes to setting. And no, that doesn't mean adding next chapter of uberpowerfull crusaders that fart waves of nuclear radiation.

"Really... Orks ? Living, animated corpses ? There are no such things. It's superstition".

And said God Emperor immediately has you put to death as one of the thousand he needs daily to prolong his life for even considering such a notion.

I don't care. I serve the Greater Good.

Personally, I find the lore to be far more interesting when you consider it to be Doctor Who's contrarian half brother. I might be off base, but I feel like the 2 mythos share a similar audience. (I've been getting that a lot lately, including other stuff like MLP and anime. I just generally get the feeling that people who enjoy said things would also enjoy Doctor Who greatly.)

Interesting. No doubtly Imperial Cult of Machine would be more than simply interested in acquiring Tardis. To jump through time and space, to warn Emperor about certain cretin's betrayal... Sir, you gave me an idea for next "Dark Heresy" campaign.

 

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

Tell me, how is WH40k a sci-fi? Only because it's set into the future? It's about as sci-fi as "Star Wars".

Because the fluff explores the interactions between technology and society's reaction to it. In 40K's case, what happens to a society when not only does it barely emerge from a technological apocalypse, but also how it manages to continue to exist with a severely fragmented technological and scientific base.

On a bit of a tangent, I love how Imperial society so very well mirrors our modern society's general ignorance regarding technology. We may deride those masses for having no idea how a lightbulb works, but keep in mind the common populace today is similarly ignorant.

Ditto on the jab at the modern IT industry exemplified by the lower levels of the AdMech.

Maybe it has some elements of sci-fi (as you point it out, it clearly does, where "Star Wars" does not). Yet the whole concept of demonic possessions and necromancy can hardly be considered sci-fi. What I mean is: as a whole it's just another fantasy, albeit being set into the future and having some, be it intentional or otherwise, sci-fi elements. The only real difference is that they're using plasma guns instead of bows and chainswords instead of regular swords.

I find the whole ordeal of good versus evil extremely ridiculous. The fact that it's set 38k years into the future makes it even more ridiculous.

Doesn't mean it can't be fun though.

WAY TO GO! YOU MISSED ONE OF THE POINTS OF THIS SERIES ENTIRELY! Seriously, it's not good or evil in this setting. Every single faction in this game has done more atrocious things before breakfast than in the entirety of human history up to this point. No side here is good. The closest you can get is "Not QUITE as bad as the other guys vs The other guys".

Oh, so it has a point now?

 

[JesterRaiin]

What I mean is: as a whole it's just another fantasy, albeit being set into the future and having some, be it intentional or otherwise, sci-fi elements.

Good observation. Plenty of "sci-fi" content in reality is "future fantasy" with "sci" element taken out of picture. I guess that even to eyes of common Imperial citizens some of accessories they use at daily basis are considered "magic" especialy with those "praise the Machine God" weirdos around...

 

[Saint of M]

Much of the 40k universe has parallel with real world cultures, The Empire of Man is loosely based off of Europe during the Dark Ages; Ultra Marines are Romans; White Scars are Mongols; Space Wolves are Vikings; Necrons are mummies.

How far the universe would have gone to heck is up to the viewer, but pretty much how Europe lost great wealth in knowledge, art, technology, and architecture, so is the 41 millennium.


The part I can't take seriously is Eldar are suppose to physically unable to store fat on their body, yet their women have c cups or bigger.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Snip

No Genius, being unaware of what is happening off of your planet does not exclude someone from having history. Most Imperial planets operate independently, with only tangential connection to the rest of the Imperium via the Administratum officials on their planet. They can have fully functional economies, governments, histories and forms of media that exist on that planet.

There are still thousands of human planets that are unclaimed. After the Iron Men destroyed most of humanity's spacefaring technology, the Imperium went into a dark age. Entire systems were lost because they had no communication with each other. Imperial technology regressed by thousands of years over paranoia of another AI uprising.

Come the time of the Great Crusade, the Emperor gets his troops together, and starts conquering the stars, reclaiming the lost Imperial worlds. He doesn't get all of them, since the Horus Heresy puts the Crusade to a halt. Meaning that there are still more worlds that haven't been found.


The Imperium isn't needed by most of these planets. Thousands of them are still operating at a feudal level of technology, while others are around 20th century tech. To these worlds, the Imperium is just the name of the state, and the home of the Church. They don't need the Imperium, but the Imperium needs them.

When the Tithe officers roll around demanding troops be levied, they do so by threat of force. If you don't actively volunteer, they declare you traitors and blow your planet up. It's a vicious dictatorship.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

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.

Sorry, can't agreee with that suggestion. It's your WH40k and if you're happy with it then by all means, have fun.

As for me, i can't accept this vision. It may be ok for some mad country hidden behind steel curtain, but not for 40 000 years old empire spanning over distances measured in thousands of lightyears. Half of that Imperium shouldn't neither know about some "crusade" taking place God-Emperor knows where, nor really care. "Really... Orks ? Living, animated corpses ? There are no such things. It's superstition".

Most Imperial citizens don't know that there is a war going on. Only when the Administratum sends the Tithe officers to their planet to levy every fit man into active service. Much of the Imperium is ignorant of the xenos species out there trying to kill them, and the only time they ever see an alien is when said alien is chopping them to bits.

If you are interested in seeing the office job workers of the Imperium, look up the short story "A Good Man" by Sandy Mitchell. It is in the Sabbat Worlds Anthology book, and instead of focusing on the frontline combat, it focuses on the follow up procedures of getting a planet back on track after the war moved on.

You know the Imperium of Man is only like, 12,000 years old, right? The Emperor's been around for a good 50,000 years or so, but the actual Imperium of Man is nowhere near that. In fact, The Imperium used to be a pretty good place until about 8,000 years ago, canonically, and after that it was just gradual misstep after misstep. It's not like they woke up one day and everything was bad (except for the Horus Heresy, the great divide that split the Imperium in half caused by the Emperor's favored son. That kind of set it over the edge.) But there were actually a number of good things that happened, like the Macharian Crusade, which reclaimed thousands of planets and rebuilt much of the imperium, numerous foundings of space marine chapters and research developments.

The thing is, the game takes place in the worst time in the whole galaxy. The "good guys" are cracking under pressure and the bad guys are getting more active. That's what makes it exciting, that's why it's interesting. It's the counter equivalent to the saturday morning cartoons where the good guys always wins and Starscream gets his head blown off (but he'll be back next week anyways). Most of the interest is derived from the "good guys" having to choose between a rock and a hard place to win. Do we try to stop this alien invasion force and risk millions of soldiers that could be put to better use on another planet, or do we wait for the planet to be overrun and just blow it up when everyone's landed? Not to mention that most of the technology was lost but held in rare datastorage schematic devices called STCs which makes invention more of a scavenger's hunt with not enough for everyone.

There is no good, there is no bad, there are just many-colored factions doing what they do best. And that's the appeal to a lot of people. It's what made me interested.

Ummm, I think you might have quoted the wrong person there. Unless you were mocking the name of the short story I mentioned.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Snip

No Genius, being unaware of what is happening off of your planet does not exclude someone from having history. Most Imperial planets operate independently, with only tangential connection to the rest of the Imperium via the Administratum officials on their planet. They can have fully functional economies, governments, histories and forms of media that exist on that planet.

Unfortunately, contrary to New Age's movements teachings, wishing alone is not enough for things to work out or come true. However i can't stop you from doing so. Carry on, carry on...

 

[Craorach]

So...a Gaunt's Ghosts game?

Yes, I wholeheartedly support that idea.

DO WANT GIVE NAOW!

Sorry, had to get that out of my system.

The 40k universe is fascinating and has some really serious ideas and issues that it can address.

Unfortunately, it's also based upon a money machine wargame created by a bunch of geeks in the eighties. Owned by a company who refuses to severely retcon/edit it for modern markets.

Some of it's sillier aspects come from trying to sanitise what would be far from kiddy friendly into concepts that can at least slide under the radar. The prime examples of this, to me, are the Chaos Gods and their follows, specifically Slaanesh. Noise Marine's are his servants.. really... huge, power armoured, religious zealot monks become.. really crazy band members, when they dedicate themselves to a god of lust, pleasure and hedonism? I can think of a couple of far more likely scenario's but somehow I don't think they would make the pages of any game designed to be sold to teenagers.

This is amplified by their desire to break into more mainstream entertainment like video games. I was honestly surprised that we didn't see a love interest of some kind emerge in Space Marine, and the ending shocked me, but the very fact that Titus was such a heroic, likeable, individual goes against most of the lore about Marines. Space Marine's do NOT go out of their way to save Guardsmen, and they certainly don't take orders or even instruction from them.

The fact is, however, that GW needs to be brave enough to let new generation game developers and writers explore and rewrite their lore so it is more of a cohesive and acceptable idea. It's all very game for a tabletop war game to be all doom, gloom and grimdark horror... but once you zoom in and start thinking about individuals, there needs to be more balance.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Snip

No Genius, being unaware of what is happening off of your planet does not exclude someone from having history. Most Imperial planets operate independently, with only tangential connection to the rest of the Imperium via the Administratum officials on their planet. They can have fully functional economies, governments, histories and forms of media that exist on that planet.

Unfortunately, contrary to New Age's movements teachings, wishing alone is not enough for things to work out or come true. However i can't stop you from doing so. Carry on, carry on...

Rather contrarian of you do completely disregard anything people say as them trying to justify their stance, while you make brash statements about a universe that reek of not doing any research.

Where in there did it say I was "wishing" as you decided to put it?

I've got a question for you: if you think that all these responses to your statements are there just so you can sit back smugly and think that we take this too seriously, then why are you making such a concentrated effort to disprove everything? Would not such enthusiasm to defend one's stance also indicate a level of obsession with the universe that would be considered "taking it too seriously?"

 

[JesterRaiin]

Where in there did it say I was "wishing" as you decided to put it?

Because i think it's nothing more than this : wishes for something to be (or become) true. There's a reason why there are universities of economy, and why not everyone can study there, graduate. And it's not because one has to be marked by angels to do so.

I've got a question for you: if you think that all these responses to your statements are there just so you can sit back smugly and think that we take this too seriously, then why are you making such a concentrated effort to disprove everything? Would not such enthusiasm to defend one's stance also indicate a level of obsession with the universe that would be considered "taking it too seriously?"

Naaaaaaaaaaah. I'm watching "Bourne trilogy" on second monitor and switching my focus according to pace.

 

[The Forces of Chaos]

So...a Gaunt's Ghosts game?

Yes, I wholeheartedly support that idea.

This is amplified by their desire to break into more mainstream entertainment like video games. I was honestly surprised that we didn't see a love interest of some kind emerge in Space Marine, and the ending shocked me, but the very fact that Titus was such a heroic, likeable, individual goes against most of the lore about Marines. Space Marine's do NOT go out of their way to save Guardsmen, and they certainly don't take orders or even instruction from them.

You have never read the Salamander series of books i take it? Not all chapters follow a hard approach to the people of the Imperium. Space marines are just as diverse as the many guard regiments as far as tactics and traditions and beliefs.

And Noise marines were formed in a different age, read Fulgrim.

 

[crazypsyko666]

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.

Sorry, can't agreee with that suggestion. It's your WH40k and if you're happy with it then by all means, have fun.

As for me, i can't accept this vision. It may be ok for some mad country hidden behind steel curtain, but not for 40 000 years old empire spanning over distances measured in thousands of lightyears. Half of that Imperium shouldn't neither know about some "crusade" taking place God-Emperor knows where, nor really care. "Really... Orks ? Living, animated corpses ? There are no such things. It's superstition".

Most Imperial citizens don't know that there is a war going on. Only when the Administratum sends the Tithe officers to their planet to levy every fit man into active service. Much of the Imperium is ignorant of the xenos species out there trying to kill them, and the only time they ever see an alien is when said alien is chopping them to bits.

If you are interested in seeing the office job workers of the Imperium, look up the short story "A Good Man" by Sandy Mitchell. It is in the Sabbat Worlds Anthology book, and instead of focusing on the frontline combat, it focuses on the follow up procedures of getting a planet back on track after the war moved on.

You know the Imperium of Man is only like, 12,000 years old, right? The Emperor's been around for a good 50,000 years or so, but the actual Imperium of Man is nowhere near that. In fact, The Imperium used to be a pretty good place until about 8,000 years ago, canonically, and after that it was just gradual misstep after misstep. It's not like they woke up one day and everything was bad (except for the Horus Heresy, the great divide that split the Imperium in half caused by the Emperor's favored son. That kind of set it over the edge.) But there were actually a number of good things that happened, like the Macharian Crusade, which reclaimed thousands of planets and rebuilt much of the imperium, numerous foundings of space marine chapters and research developments.

The thing is, the game takes place in the worst time in the whole galaxy. The "good guys" are cracking under pressure and the bad guys are getting more active. That's what makes it exciting, that's why it's interesting. It's the counter equivalent to the saturday morning cartoons where the good guys always wins and Starscream gets his head blown off (but he'll be back next week anyways). Most of the interest is derived from the "good guys" having to choose between a rock and a hard place to win. Do we try to stop this alien invasion force and risk millions of soldiers that could be put to better use on another planet, or do we wait for the planet to be overrun and just blow it up when everyone's landed? Not to mention that most of the technology was lost but held in rare datastorage schematic devices called STCs which makes invention more of a scavenger's hunt with not enough for everyone.

There is no good, there is no bad, there are just many-colored factions doing what they do best. And that's the appeal to a lot of people. It's what made me interested.

Ummm, I think you might have quoted the wrong person there. Unless you were mocking the name of the short story I mentioned.

I DO have the wrong person. I just Ctrl+F'd his name after seeing him get quoted before. *facepalm*

 

[Klepa]

I don't take it seriously.

That doesn't stop me from enjoying it though. It was a bit of a surprise to me that Yahtzee hates WH40K. To me, it's the same kind of ridiculous crazy awesome as the lightning shuriken gun with tits and fire.

 

[DTWolfwood]

love the setting. But would i take it seriously? no. I've played both the tabletop game and the videogames, fun distractions for the arm-chair general in all of us. But really nothing more.

 

[minkr1]

i think that the question is flawed. it presupposes that it can't be taken seriously. a better one would be 'do you take the 40k universe seriously?'

even then the question is difficult because i do and don't. i'm reading the Horus heresy series at the moment, and i find it to be written with a serious tone. the idea of a crusade based on 'an imperial truth' and the way it deals with religion and faith i find particularly thought provoking. i find the character of Horus even more interesting as he seams to be one of the most powerful beings in the universe who tares an empire apart all because he thinks his daddy doesn't love him.

though, any body who has played the table top game, we tell you it can become unbelievably silly. Having a laugh while playing the game is almost conditioned into the people who play it, just for fun.

 

[kouriichi]

I think of 40k as a Dark Comedy. Its got its serious times and moments, but alot of it is just there for the sake of fun.

Like the orks! Their guns contain no working parts, yet can blow a Spehss Muuuuhreeeeeeeen apart. ((if they can actually hit it))
Or Papa Nurgle <3 With his little bags of clawed puss that can rend armor like butter!

Theres alot of seriousness to it, but alot of it is so over the top you have to take it as a joke.

Like Bubonicus, The Plague world! It has a literal chain of humans going the around the equator who do nothing but dance and sing praise to GrandPapy Nurgle, slowly turning into plague bearers. And when the transformation is complete for a lucky mortal, another one comes to take his place!

 

[MDSnowman]

I wouldn't say I take it seriously, it is just fiction to me after all. However, there are some great stories told in the setting (as much as I love Relic their games are not the best representive of that.... it usually boils down to "Kill Orcs until the real threat, either Chaos, Tyranid, or Necron show up")

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

It's like anything. Some people will like it, some people won't. One can say the Imperium of Man is dumb. What are the reasons why? They are on the verge of becoming a psychic species like the Eldar. But the Emperor of Mankind already seen that the species of the warp grew from the psychic backlash of the Eldar. It birthed a new dark god. To keep his people from harm, The Emperor tried to stem the psychic growth of his people so there wouldn't be more warp entities from materializing.

WH40k is not a pick up and play thing. From one game in 2004, I constantly read and looked up more and more about the Lore. I like it on those respects. Just like if someone's first experience of Star Wars was the Phantom Menace, they'd probably dislike all of star wars too. It's all about how you're brought in.