Warhammer 40K's story, how is it even remotely appealing?

[Wafflemarine]

Like many here have said it has so many parts to it you can ask 20 Warhammer fans why they like it and get 20 different answers. Me I like the stories of really just average things that pop up in them. After reading so much about planets blowing up or wars that span systems its fun to read about the mundane lives of people living in the lore.

 

[smartalec]

It's campy grimdark nonsense. To me, it somehow manages to give off the same vibe as Doctor Who. Put simply, it's really, really British.

Not Doctor Who; but perhaps Judge Dredd, or Blake's Seven.

 

[ccggenius12]

It's campy grimdark nonsense. To me, it somehow manages to give off the same vibe as Doctor Who. Put simply, it's really, really British.

Not Doctor Who; but perhaps Judge Dredd, or Blake's Seven.

I mean that both really demand that you suspend your sense of disbelief. If you don't accept the premise, you're gonna have a bad time. I'm not directly familiar with Judge Dredd, but I suppose I'll have to track the comics down at some point, I've heard nothing but good things.

 

[Starke]

It's campy grimdark nonsense. To me, it somehow manages to give off the same vibe as Doctor Who. Put simply, it's really, really British.

Not Doctor Who; but perhaps Judge Dredd, or Blake's Seven.

I mean that both really demand that you suspend your sense of disbelief. If you don't accept the premise, you're gonna have a bad time. I'm not directly familiar with Judge Dredd, but I suppose I'll have to track the comics down at some point, I've heard nothing but good things.

Dredd mostly pulls from the same vein of British culture that 40k does. It's defined by a lot of subversive sophistication under a coat of hyperviolence and cynicism that's remarkably similar to Warhammer. As I recall it seeps into a lot of 2000AD's SciFi, but it's been a long time since I looked at any of that in detail.

I never really got into Blake's Seven, but what I remember seeing was actually pretty bleak. It's been on my "to dig up and watch" list for... over a decade now.

 

[Bravo 21]

I recently started getting into he story of 40k, and one of the main reasons that I enjoy it is the attitude towards technology. Car not working properly? You've offended it, beg its forgiveness, and it will start.
Some of the books are also quite good.

 

[an annoyed writer]

I found the Warhammer universe fairly impenetrable to be honest, and this is from someone who could iron out crap like a basic timeline of the Clone Wars (for a secret internal project. Shhh!). I like how Yahtzee put it: Warhammer nerds are the nerds to nerds as are nerds to normal people. We just don't get it. And honestly? I'm okay with that. Just don't expect me to enjoy it, or get your WH40K jokes.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Dredd mostly pulls from the same vein of British culture that 40k does. It's defined by a lot of subversive sophistication under a coat of hyperviolence and cynicism that's remarkably similar to Warhammer. As I recall it seeps into a lot of 2000AD's SciFi, but it's been a long time since I looked at any of that in detail.

I never really got into Blake's Seven, but what I remember seeing was actually pretty bleak. It's been on my "to dig up and watch" list for... over a decade now.

Yeah, if you read a lot of the old 70's & 80's 2000AD comics (and other 70's and 80's sci fi) you can see it influenced 40K quite heavily. Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Strontium dogs, ABC warriors, Bad Company, Anderon Psi Division, Torquemada. It was the 80's so the dystopian future theme was quite prevalent.
The influence has lessened over the years but to me Rogue Trader felt a lot like a 2000AD mash up, the Imperium being a Mega city one style oppressive autocracy on a galactic scale. A lot of the time when people say Warhammer did X first I have to roll my eyes a bit and mutter about kids these days not knowing about the things that came before.

 

[cynik]

I still remember how I read a bit about this confusing w40k lore, just for laughs researched those over the top primarch legends etc. I had some fun that day, but little did I know that within three months I would become a w40k fanatic myself. That initial shock after reading Horus Rising by Dan Abnett - priceless. It wasn't funny no more, it was astonishing.

Now, years later I got a bit better and from a distance I see that there are in fact two warhammers 40k. One being the popular franchise, the visual style, simplistic storylines, god awful games like Space Marine, big business overall. I don't really like that one, stupid one dimensional characters, no story at all, it's almost like an unintended satire.

Second is being hidden underneath all that, often unbeknownst to tabletop players as well. All the lore, all the historic timeline of events, stories, characters. Suprisingly well written concept of roughly realistic concept of human evolution through millenias. But even then one needs to know that there are crappy books from the early days and there are next gen books from outstanding authors.

It is a real pain in the ass to get into w40k lore, much confusion where to start (10.000 years of storyline total).

It doesn't seem to realise that for all the grimdark-doom-death to have any weight you need to have something to contrast it with.

The contrast in the universe is done diffrently: the early glorious days of hoper and victory in 30th millenium and the grim and dark outcome of loss in 40th millenium. And it does work once you get into it, but it would require to start from Horus Heresy era (30k) to get that vibe, that humanity is finally going to achieve something great, everyone is nice and awesome and glorious victories are provided in the package. I simultanousely read books from both periods and I find it entertaining how everything has an extremly diffrent outcome in the future.

 

[J Tyran]

Dredd mostly pulls from the same vein of British culture that 40k does. It's defined by a lot of subversive sophistication under a coat of hyperviolence and cynicism that's remarkably similar to Warhammer. As I recall it seeps into a lot of 2000AD's SciFi, but it's been a long time since I looked at any of that in detail.

I never really got into Blake's Seven, but what I remember seeing was actually pretty bleak. It's been on my "to dig up and watch" list for... over a decade now.

Yeah, if you read a lot of the old 70's & 80's 2000AD comics (and other 70's and 80's sci fi) you can see it influenced 40K quite heavily. Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Strontium dogs, ABC warriors, Bad Company, Anderon Psi Division, Torquemada. It was the 80's so the dystopian future theme was quite prevalent.
The influence has lessened over the years but to me Rogue Trader felt a lot like a 2000AD mash up, the Imperium being a Mega city one style oppressive autocracy on a galactic scale. A lot of the time when people say Warhammer did X first I have to roll my eyes a bit and mutter about kids these days not knowing about the things that came before.

40k has a substantial amount of R. A. Heinlein and Battletech thrown in for good measure.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

40k has a substantial amount of R. A. Heinlein and Battletech thrown in for good measure.

Indeed it did, I probably should have mentioned 50's and 60's sci-fi as well.

 

[J Tyran]

40k has a substantial amount of R. A. Heinlein and Battletech thrown in for good measure.

Indeed it did, I probably should have mentioned 50's and 60's sci-fi as well.

There isn't much it doesn't pull from, Dune is another massive influence on 40k.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

There isn't much it doesn't pull from, Dune is another massive influence on 40k.

Yes, quite right.

 

[Johnny Impact]

I find it entertaining because it *is* so stupidly over-the-top and hopeless. They turned the Dark dial up to 11, then turned it so hard they snapped it off. 40k is its own best parody. It reads like an emo kid's diary, only with proper grammar and spelling. I always chuckle and feel like I should be munching popcorn as I read about it. As far as gameplay goes I generally prefer WarmaHordes, but for sheer darkity dark absurdist crapsack world-building, 40k wins.

A door into Hell that's light-years wide? Ha, why not?

A quintillions-strong flood of giant psychic insects drifting between galaxies with the genetic imperative to eat/assimilate all other life in the universe down to the smallest bacterium -- with every likelihood they will one day succeed? Ha, why not?

Guns that rapid-fire poisoned lightning shuriken? Ha, why not?

An entire race of beings who literally live on the agony and terror of others and who spend most of the time left over after attaching all the spiky bits to their armor making the rest of the universe's life suffer unimaginably horrible torture? Ha, why not?

Ignorance to the point where prayers are considered at least as important as physical maintenance in keeping human technology running? Ha, why not?

 

[Li Mu]

Lets face it, given human nature it's probably a more likely future scenario than Star Trek.

This seems to be a pretty fair assumption on how the world will be by then (assuming we haven't blown it up)

Terra is a hive world; stripped long ago of all forms of resources; its soil is utterly barren and its atmosphere is a fog of pollution. Massive, labyrinthine edifices of state sprawl across the vast majority of the surface. Its oceans have long ago boiled away. Many mountain ranges have been leveled, perhaps all of them except the Himalayas, which seemingly remain all but untouched due to the laboratories said to be underneath and the chambers of the Astronomican that course throughout the whole mountain range.

If you've ever lived in Germany or Russia and had to deal with their bureaucracy you should find this familiar.

Billions of Administratum officials on Terra and throughout the galaxy are constantly carrying out population censuses, working out tithes, recording and archiving information, and the million other things that are necessary for the running of the Imperium. Such is its immense size and complex bureaucracy that whole Administratum departments have been lost and forgotten. So dogmatically bureaucratic, whole departments of adepts continue to diligently but purposelessly carry out the role their department was founded for, even after the department has become long obsolete.

If the economy gets any worse, this might come true.

The Adeptus Arbites are responsible for maintaining order and vigilance within the Outer Palace, especially outside official buildings which are often thronged with the queue lines of those seeking employment within the Administratum. Shock troops quickly put down the vicious queue riots that occasionally erupt.

 

[Treaos Serrare]

you need to pick a good book series set in the universe to get a good taste of it, i see that Eisenhorn was already recommended Dan Abbnet is a good choice for WH40K stuff his Gaunt's Ghosts series is a personal favorite

 

[Da Orky Man]

I recently started getting into he story of 40k, and one of the main reasons that I enjoy it is the attitude towards technology. Car not working properly? You've offended it, beg its forgiveness, and it will start.
Some of the books are also quite good.

One of the Adeptus Mechanicus prayers:

Toll the Great Bell once,
Pull the Lever forward to engage the Piston and Pump.
Toll the Great Bell twice,
With push of Button fire the Engine and spark Turbine into life.
Toll the Great Bell thrice,
Sing praise to the God of all Machines.

Basically, how to start a car.