Incline Warhammer 40,000 Lore Thread

[Louis_Cypher]

What percentage of the galaxy is under Ork control by comparison with the Imperium?

It has been stated the Orks outnumber Mankind, and would swap the Imperium away if they were ever united.

They would also do it in style. Witness "Orkira":

 

[Heroic Liberator]

What percentage of the galaxy is under Ork control by comparison with the Imperium?

It has been stated the Orks outnumber Mankind, and would swap the Imperium away if they were ever united.

They would also do it in style.

Indeed.

 

[lightbane]

Most of the modern lore looks for me, a layman, like jumping the shark. Deadly serious jumping.

You're not wrong. Modern codex books seem to have become a parody of the setting itself, while HH books is a competition of whose writer can outdo the other at breaking the setting and the rules of common sense every time.

 

[BrotherFrank]

I reject most lore advances past 3rd edition for my own sanity.

Different people have different breaking points for how much suspension of disbelief they can have for a setting before it completely collapses on itself. For Louis it's the geopolitics that don't mesh with the "fascist" kill all xenos demeanor that the Iom has become flanderised into.
For me it's eldar making up with dark eldar as if it was no big deal (who cares if you've been raping my family and turning them into drugs or living screaming flesh chairs for generations), primaris marines (0 real impact in lore, exist purely for obvious commercial reasons and any actual interesting plotline that could come from the tensions between OG marines and the new kids on the block is completely ignored) and a billion retcons that on their own wouldn't bother me but put them all together and it's like wtf are you vandalizing your own setting?

In a totally unrelated note, i'm developping a fondness for Marines Malevolent. Why? Well for starters so many people flanderizing them as the biggest dousches around to the point even GW gets in on it is making me like them as a sort of plucky underdog.
But to me they are a callback to RT marines and a nice antidote to space marines becoming "nice guys" as a default rather then exception. I like my heroic space marines don't get me wrong, fond of Blood Angels as the OG cool guy chapter (before salamanders became fleshed into the poster marines for niceness), but when 90% of them are like that it's no longer special.

I fully expect marines malevolent at some point to get killed off in a horrible and humiliating way and millions of plebbit 40k fans will cheer and dance when it happens. Bonus points if they fall to chaos even though a consistent part of the mm lore is they are 100% loyal and never found guilty of any heretical behavior whatsoever despite the many attempts to investigate them, which in itself is impressive.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

I reject most lore advances past 3rd edition for my own sanity.

Different people have different breaking points for how much suspension of disbelief they can have for a setting before it completely collapses on itself. For Louis it's the geopolitics that don't mesh with the "fascist" kill all xenos demeanor that the Iom has become flanderised into.
For me it's eldar making up with dark eldar as if it was no big deal (who cares if you've been raping my family and turning them into drugs or living screaming flesh chairs for generations), primaris marines (0 real impact in lore, exist purely for obvious commercial reasons and any actual interesting plotline that could come from the tensions between OG marines and the new kids on the block is completely ignored) and a billion retcons that on their own wouldn't bother me but put them all together and it's like wtf are you vandalizing your own setting?

In a totally unrelated note, i'm developping a fondness for Marines Malevolent. Why? Well for starters so many people flanderizing them as the biggest dousches around to the point even GW gets in on it is making me like them as a sort of plucky underdog.
But to me they are a callback to RT marines and a nice antidote to space marines becoming "nice guys" as a default rather then exception. I like my heroic space marines don't get me wrong, fond of Blood Angels as the OG cool guy chapter (before salamanders became fleshed into the poster marines for niceness), but when 90% of them are like that it's no longer special.

I fully expect marines malevolent at some point to get killed off in a horrible and humiliating way and millions of plebbit 40k fans will cheer and dance when it happens. Bonus points if they fall to chaos even though a consistent part of the mm lore is they are 100% loyal and never found guilty of any heretical behavior whatsoever despite the many attempts to investigate them, which in itself is impressive.

Rick Priestley said in this interview:

“To me the background to 40K was always intended to be ironic,” he said.


“The fact that the Space Marines were lauded as heroes within Games Workshop always amused me, because they’re brutal, but they’re also completely self-deceiving. The whole idea of the Emperor is that you don’t know whether he’s alive or dead. The whole Imperium might be running on superstition. There’s no guarantee that the Emperor is anything other than a corpse with a residual mental ability to direct spacecraft.


“It’s got some parallels with religious beliefs and principles, and I think a lot of that got missed and overwritten.”

Most of the modern lore looks for me, a layman, like jumping the shark. Deadly serious jumping.

You're not wrong. Modern codex books seem to have become a parody of the setting itself, while HH books is a competition of whose writer can outdo the other at breaking the setting and the rules of common sense every time.

Original Warhammer had this Pat Millis and Michael Moorcock sensitivity. Over-the-top, even edgy mixed with sense or irony, but intelligent, not self-subverting kind. It's probably too hard stylistic for mass consumer.

Ech...

 

[lightbane]

For me it's eldar making up with dark eldar as if it was no big deal (who cares if you've been raping my family and turning them into drugs or living screaming flesh chairs for generations),

Oh yes, the new faction around the Eldar God of Death... I don't understand what is that faction trying to accomplish. Kill themselves to hope it kills Slaani faster?

rimaris marines (0 real impact in lore, exist purely for obvious commercial reasons and any actual interesting plotline that could come from the tensions between OG marines and the new kids on the block is completely ignored)

At that point I dropped the lore as I couldn't stop laughing. Just like that meme video of GW, after Space Marines inside Space Marines, they come... The Space Marines 2.0!!

In a totally unrelated note, i'm developping a fondness for Marines Malevolent. Why? Well for starters so many people flanderizing them as the biggest dousches around to the point even GW gets in on it is making me like them as a sort of plucky underdog.
But to me they are a callback to RT marines and a nice antidote to space marines becoming "nice guys" as a default rather then exception. I like my heroic space marines don't get me wrong, fond of Blood Angels as the OG cool guy chapter (before salamanders became fleshed into the poster marines for niceness), but when 90% of them are like that it's no longer special.

Meh, I like the Exorcists better, they're Grey Knights but more sensible. The Lamenters are the OG nice marines IMO.

Rick Priestley said in this interview:

"Disregard the fact the Emprah is real when sudden warp storms that aid the Imperium happen. Or everything about the Living Saints. The Emprah is a corpse and also an atheist that wants to be worshipped as a god for... Reasons". I liked the OG idea tha tthe Emprah wanted to do good but was blinded by his love of Horus, rather than the schizo that he's become now.

Ciaphas Cain's interpretation of the setting is one of the best.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Rick Priestley said in this interview:

"Disregard the fact the Emprah is real when sudden warp storms that aid the Imperium happen. Or everything about the Living Saints. The Emprah is a corpse and also an atheist that wants to be worshipped as a god for... Reasons". I liked the OG idea tha tthe Emprah wanted to do good but was blinded by his love of Horus, rather than the schizo that he's become now.

Ciaphas Cain's interpretation of the setting is one of the best.

I think Priestleyspeaks about even older variant of Warhammer world, more rooted in Crowley'an Chaos Magick, punk, underground etc.

 

[BrotherFrank]

Rick Priestly interview is interesting, he is one of the major OGs when it comes to either warhammer settings so him feeling disconnected from the direction GW went says it all.

"Priestley left Games Workshop in 2010, almost three decades after the release of the original Warhammer. He said he’d grown increasingly disillusioned with the direction the company was taking.


“I was the head of the creative department, and they weren’t doing anything creative any more,” he said."

Meh, I like the Exorcists better, they're Grey Knights but more sensible. The Lamenters are the OG nice marines IMO.

That's fair, though keep in mind I started with 2nd edition so whilst Lamenters did exist, they were not that fleshed out yet. Same was true with most chapters really as it was still encouraged to play your own custom chapter rather then follow an existing one. Only blood angels, dark angels, ultras and space wolves (kinda, they had a blurb about being the emperors executioners and were starting to become space vikings, the whole furry wolf wolf wolf obession only came later) had any real lore to them.

Lamenters first big lore intro if memory serves me right, was the Fall of Malvolion short story, which depicted them as the late desperate reinforcements for a planet getting om nommed by one of the major hive fleets (leviathan?). Lamenters all get killed (100-200 sm deep striking right in middle of trillions of nids...) and mc shoots himself once he realises all hope is lost since this was a story to hype up the incoming tyranid codex but the fact the lamenters appeared at all in what was a clearly unwinnable situation and heroically sacrificed themselves in a futile effort to save doomed imperial forces seemed to set the trend for the rest of their lore from then on.

And yeah exorcists are cool.

Oh yes, the new faction around the Eldar God of Death... I don't understand what is that faction trying to accomplish. Kill themselves to hope it kills Slaani faster?

Confused on it myself tbh. Thought it was kill themselves to reincarnate as a god to 1v1 slaneesh.
But then Eldrad did something and nascent god got awakened prematurely and now Ynnead faction is some grand alliance of all the various space elves working in peace and harmony to....?

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Rick Priestly interview is interesting, he is one of the major OGs when it comes to either warhammer settings so him feeling disconnected from the direction GW went says it all.

"Priestley left Games Workshop in 2010, almost three decades after the release of the original Warhammer. He said he’d grown increasingly disillusioned with the direction the company was taking.


“I was the head of the creative department, and they weren’t doing anything creative any more,” he said."

And that was 2010. It's even more clear after Roboute Guilliman ascension. Some fanboy really want their robust Ultramarines led by a manly Aryan-like leader. And without glimpse of irony.

 

[Caim]

As for bad lore, I still dread the day when GW decides "Fuck this shit, 40k Sarah Kerrigan" and we get the Queen of Nids.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Queen of Nids

Starcraf isn't popular as it was, in fact, Starcraft is quite dead. So don't worry.

And that make me thinks - What is the biggest dread for Warhammer lore? What dumb modern obsession wait for getting into Games Workshop?

 

[Caim]

Queen of Nids

Starcraf isn't popular as it was, in fact, Starcraft is quite dead. So don't worry.

And that make me thinks - What is the biggest dread for Warhammer lore? What dumb modern obsession wait for getting into Games Workshop?

Either female space marines or the Emperor leaving his quantum state and either fully dying or waking back up.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Queen of Nids

Starcraf isn't popular as it was, in fact, Starcraft is quite dead. So don't worry.

And that make me thinks - What is the biggest dread for Warhammer lore? What dumb modern obsession wait for getting into Games Workshop?

Either female space marines or the Emperor leaving his quantum state and either fully dying or waking back up.

Strange. After Down of War III premiere I was continent that Male Space Marines Became Trend. But no, thanks God. Still, last Codex for Sisters of Battle and Sister themself are painfully ugly and art have low quality, Core Book also. Even Dark Heresy Second Edition had better drawings.

 

[lightbane]

Rick Priestly interview is interesting, he is one of the major OGs when it comes to either warhammer settings so him feeling disconnected from the direction GW went says it all.

"Priestley left Games Workshop in 2010, almost three decades after the release of the original Warhammer. He said he’d grown increasingly disillusioned with the direction the company was taking.


“I was the head of the creative department, and they weren’t doing anything creative any more,” he said."

And that was 2010. It's even more clear after Roboute Guilliman ascension. Some fanboy really want their robust Ultramarines led by a manly Aryan-like leader. And without glimpse of irony.

This is not as shocking as it could be as the Blood Angels have been Space Vampire Aryans for ages. I remember some wokes at Something Awful ree-ing upon talking about them, hilarious and sad.

However, remember that GW doesn't support nazism, really!

 

[Beastro]

I guess part of the inspiration of the Emperor is the Mule from the Foundation series.

He also seems to be based on the legend of the "King of the World" that was going around in some esoteric circles. Rene Guenon even wrote a small book about him. The Emperor's palace is in the Himalayan Mountains, exaclty like Agartha, the realm of the King of the World, seems to be according to the legend.

I think the one true positive aspect of this setting is that they knew what to steal.

Not just that but a semi-decent effort to combine all of that cream of the crop together that it rises about the shit which stitches it together.

You can get pieces of it elsewhere, but nothing comes close to merging it all together like 40K.

I know some folks also feel the Necron backstory was more bleak and cosmic in it's original C'tan-dominated form, and think giving them agency has gone a bit too far with Dynasties. Some middle ground returning the C'tan to a position of cosmic horror that rivals Chaos might be better.

The Necron's origins piss me off. Of all the juvenile stuff in the setting it's pretty damn high up there.

Their short, cancer ridden lives wouldn't exist. Either life would have evolved to cope with the levels of radiation on their world or it wouldn't of and they'd have never come into being.

 

[lightbane]

The Necron's origins piss me off. Of all the juvenile stuff in the setting it's pretty damn high up there.

Their short, cancer ridden lives wouldn't exist. Either life would have evolved to cope with the levels of radiation on their world or it wouldn't of and they'd have never come into being.

It could be that Chaos was involved somehow to keep them suffering and feast on their negative emotions. Or perhaps the radiation was somewhat magical. Compared to other stuff from the setting, this is nothing compared to say how no-one ever considered banding together to form a super-virus to wipe out the 'Nids, as they threaten everyone including the Loldar, and you literally CANNOT ally with them: I remember a meme somewhere stating that even the IG would ally with Chaos Demons first to kill the space bugs, and how no army would ally with the Nids themselves.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I prefer hard science explainations where possible, so perhaps the Necrontyr's star simply had variable stellar output over time.

Their prehistoric ancestors evolved when the planet was richer in life, perhaps more of a savannah. Then in prehistory, their star grew increasingly harsh in it's radiation output, especially in UV portion of the spectrum. Their richer ancestors shielded themselves from skin cancers, while peasants or slaves toiled in the sun building their colossal mortuary necropolises.

Their society grew increasingly obsessed with medical science, suspended animation, tomb building, the preservation of the bodies of the dead, longevity technologies, the surgical replacement of organs, and radiation weapons. They were already open to 'trans-necronism' when their sub-light sleeper ships met the C'Tan, and they were offered the living metal forms.

Now hating the Old Ones, and all their living creations, they swore to pull down all their works and rule the galaxy eternally.

 

[Caim]

The Necron's origins piss me off. Of all the juvenile stuff in the setting it's pretty damn high up there.

Their short, cancer ridden lives wouldn't exist. Either life would have evolved to cope with the levels of radiation on their world or it wouldn't of and they'd have never come into being.

It could be that Chaos was involved somehow to keep them suffering and feast on their negative emotions. Or perhaps the radiation was somewhat magical. Compared to other stuff from the setting, this is nothing compared to say how no-one ever considered banding together to form a super-virus to wipe out the 'Nids, as they threaten everyone including the Loldar, and you literally CANNOT ally with them: I remember a meme somewhere stating that even the IG would ally with Chaos Demons first to kill the space bugs, and how no army would ally with the Nids themselves.

Dropping hyper-necrosis on the Tyranids would be tricky because A: you first need to make such a virus, B: require the local Nids to absorb it without them OMNOMNOMing too much, C: rely on the Nids to not catch onto the fact they ate something spicy and overcome it while combing through the biomatter they harvested to find useful stuff and D: you require all the nids to get into contact with one another.

The alternative would be to somehow target the Hive Mind itself, but that raises the issues of A: the only ones capable of doing that are the Emperor (who's busy being a vegetable) or another god that does not have humanity's best interests at heart, B: the resulting feedback of giving the Hive Mind brainfreeze might be even more catastrophic than the Nid themselves, C: such an event would likely have catastrophic friendly fire on all Imperial psykers, if not the Materium itself, and D: such a thing would be able to kill Chaos and that would just start to create plot holes.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Rick Priestly interview is interesting, he is one of the major OGs when it comes to either warhammer settings so him feeling disconnected from the direction GW went says it all.

"Priestley left Games Workshop in 2010, almost three decades after the release of the original Warhammer. He said he’d grown increasingly disillusioned with the direction the company was taking.


“I was the head of the creative department, and they weren’t doing anything creative any more,” he said."

And that was 2010. It's even more clear after Roboute Guilliman ascension. Some fanboy really want their robust Ultramarines led by a manly Aryan-like leader. And without glimpse of irony.

This is not as shocking as it could be as the Blood Angels have been Space Vampire Aryans for ages. I remember some wokes at Something Awful ree-ing upon talking about them, hilarious and sad.

However, remember that GW doesn't support nazism, really!

Corporations support everything that give them power - Nazis, Lenin, Satan, LGBT...wait a minute! It's all sounds like complete Warhammer stetting!

I prefer hard science explainations where possible, so perhaps the Necrontyr's star simply had variable stellar output over time.

Their prehistoric ancestors evolved when the planet was richer in life, perhaps more of a savannah. Then in prehistory, their star grew increasingly harsh in it's radiation output, especially in UV portion of the spectrum. Their richer ancestors shielded themselves from skin cancers, while peasants or slaves toiled in the sun building their colossal mortuary necropolises.

Their society grew increasingly obsessed with medical science, suspended animation, tomb building, the preservation of the bodies of the dead, longevity technologies, the surgical replacement of organs, and radiation weapons. They were already open to 'trans-necronism' when their sub-light sleeper ships met the C'Tan, and they were offered the living metal forms.

Now hating the Old Ones, and all their living creations, they swore to pull down all their works and rule the galaxy eternally.

What? Necrons hate C'tan now?!

 

[Storyfag]

What? Necrons hate C'tan now?!

Yes, GW changed things a few years ago, and now Necrons hate the C'tan for trapping them in their necrodermis bodies.

 

[Caim]

What? Necrons hate C'tan now?!

They tore their gods asunder and locked them inside Pokeballs to use against their enemies.

It's kinda obvious what their opinion on the C'tan is.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

What? Necrons hate C'tan now?!

Yes, GW changed things a few years ago, and now Necrons hate the C'tan for trapping them in their necrodermis bodies.

What? Necrons hate C'tan now?!

They tore their gods asunder and locked them inside Pokeballs to use against their enemies.

It's kinda obvious what their opinion on the C'tan is.

Matt Ward or even newer unholy creation?

 

[Caim]

What? Necrons hate C'tan now?!

Yes, GW changed things a few years ago, and now Necrons hate the C'tan for trapping them in their necrodermis bodies.

What? Necrons hate C'tan now?!

They tore their gods asunder and locked them inside Pokeballs to use against their enemies.

It's kinda obvious what their opinion on the C'tan is.

Matt Ward or even newer unholy creation?

You really must've been out of the loop for a while, haven't you? Yeah, this more or less the case since the rework back in 5e.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

What? Necrons hate C'tan now?!

Yes, GW changed things a few years ago, and now Necrons hate the C'tan for trapping them in their necrodermis bodies.

What? Necrons hate C'tan now?!

They tore their gods asunder and locked them inside Pokeballs to use against their enemies.

It's kinda obvious what their opinion on the C'tan is.

Matt Ward or even newer unholy creation?

You really must've been out of the loop for a while, haven't you? Yeah, this more or less the case since the rework back in 5e.

Just I said somewhere - I'm a layman. By a long time I read translated things, mostly Warhammer Fantasy. I shortly lost interest with annulation of WF and return with Total War. Getting into 40k is a recent thing for me, when I discovered Unification Mod to Soulstorm.

 

[Caim]

Just I said somewhere - I'm a layman. By a long time I read translated things, mostly Warhammer Fantasy. I shortly lost interest with annulation of WF and return with Total War. Getting into 40k is a recent thing for me, when I discovered Unification Mod to Soulstorm.

Ah, that explains it. Dawn of War takes place around the 4th Edition era; the Vespid and chunky Stealth Suits (who used to look like slightly bulkier Fire Warriors) used by the Tau (who are now called the T'au because they didn't let GW copyright a letter) were introduced in that era. In this time the Necrons still were a bunch of implacable Terminators (not those guys) who lacked all personality, before 5th Edition rolled around and they were turned into a bunch of space Egyptians with characters like the guy who can sorta see the future but sneakily sets up things so that the outcome is as he predicts, the massive kleptomaniac who steals entire regiments of Imperial Guardsmen for his collection and feuds with the previous guy, and the guy with space Egyptian Alzheimer's who needs his bodyguard to clean up after him and keep the royal court in check.