Warhammer 40k

[New Fag]

If I stop voting blue I can become a demigod super solider in power armor with space magic?

Or a Chaos Spawn...

Or many other things in between...

 

[MS Paint Gigachad]

If I stop voting blue I can become a demigod super solider in power armor with space magic?

There's roughly a thousand chapters of a thousand marines each, over a population of billions or trillions. So I'd think the following scenario is more likely:

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Honestly, modern Warhammer 40k is closer to the old 2000 AD comics that they copied from than they were in the past.

Stories like Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, and Rouge Trooper are about good people working in bad systems. Dredd is an incorruptible enforcer of an oppressive regime. Johnny Alpha is a mutant forced to do bounty hunting for a society that is bigoted towards mutants. Rogue was betrayed by a traitor general, abandoned in a war of attrition. These men survive because of the system they live in and (especially in Dredd’s case) know that changing the system invites chaos but they also know that their society needs to change.

But society never truly changes. Not only because they need to keep the grimdark for future story tension, but because changing the status quo is something most writers for these things fear.

Roboute Guilliman is Warhammer’s good guy in a bad system. He can see the corruption and the brutality of the Imperium but can’t fix it. All of the institutions are afraid to lose their power and oppose reform even at the request of the son of their god. An irony that it’s the post-human, genetically designed commander of super-soldiers is more in touch with his humanity than the human leaders of the Imperium.

Roboute Guilliman isn't a good guy in a bad system; he IS the system. Now that he's awake, he can literally just declare someone he doesn't like a heretic, and say that his ''divine father'' has spoken to him and wants them dead. Literally the only reason the Inquisition hasn't yet been liquified and replaced with Guilliman fanboys is because Rowboat just finds it more convenient to tolerate them and use their skills now and then.

Sure, there's people plotting against him, but any ending with them that doesn't end with their heads mounted on spikes outside of the Imperial Palace is going to feel rather forced. Esepcially since he can just as easily tell the Custodes to collect their heads, and the Custodes can pretty much annihilate anyone who's not a Primarch or a Daemon Prince. Maybe with Lion'El Johnson returning, there could be a rivalry that might develop, but as it stands, Guilliman can pretty much order the all the Space Marine chapters to sing ''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' and they'd have no recourse but to say yes.

 

[Male Idiot]

I'm not super sure about that. Unless they did a big nerf, the Inquisition has a large holdings over a lot of the regular Imperium, and supposedly have divine mandate too.

Now I think if it came down to it, Guilliman could purge them, but it would propably be as devastating as the Vandire rebellion at least, and you don't want that with Abaddon biting at one ankle and nids at the other.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I'm not super sure about that. Unless they did a big nerf, the Inquisition has a large holdings over a lot of the regular Imperium, and supposedly have divine mandate too.

Now I think if it came down to it, Guilliman could purge them, but it would propably be as devastating as the Vandire rebellion at least, and you don't want that with Abaddon biting at one ankle and nids at the other.

Half the Imperium's issues are caused by corruption and the other half from zealots. Guilliman can trust the latter to believe him 100% and the ones being corrupt being smart enough to not fuck around with him since he will realize their bullshit.

 

[Male Idiot]

Half the Imperium's issues are caused by corruption and the other half from zealots. Guilliman can trust the latter to believe him 100% and the ones being corrupt being smart enough to not fuck around with him since he will realize their bullshit.

I know, that was aimed at Lord Imperator. I recall poor RG just seeing zealota and going "They are more headache to be herded, just let them do their thing, at least they'll kill a few traitors."

 

[SandyCat]

Am I just being retarded or is there a lot of filler in some of the books?

I was reading one of the short stories about the legion of the damned, can't remember the exact one but it was about a bunch of edgy traitor marines who wanted to burn a imperial library down because they're buttfrustrated over the Imperium tossing them into increasingly brutal battles.

The flamey warp bois come in to save the day but it felt like almost half the short story was about a random librarian (regular human, not the space marine librarians) searching for a book that was "calling out" to him. The mysterious book plot point went nowhere, it was a lot of time spent on "oh gee I sure hope I can get to that book. Oh no it got burned up now I'll never know about its secret knowledge™"

 

[Happy Little War Painter]

In a game last night I had an artillery crew inside my transport, and it turns out my transport has a towing hook I could put their cannon on. Nothing important but was the absolute highlight of the game for me.

 

[Male Idiot]

Who let an At-Te shag a Chimera?

 

[Happy Little War Painter]

Who let an At-Te shag a Chimera?

The wonderful team at Makers Cult, and my 3D printer who birthed it from the resin primordial ooze.

 

[Male Idiot]

When Palpatine and the Emperor conspire to make a Krieg Klone army....

 

[Inquisitor_BadAss]

I’m becoming rather impatient waiting on legion imperialis. I can’t decide if I want to make a titan legion or traitor word bearers in hopes that GW will eventually introduce daemons into the game.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

When Palpatine and the Emperor conspire to make a Krieg Klone army....

Who's to say that Palpatine wasn't a past incarnation of the Emperor?

Am I just being retarded or is there a lot of filler in some of the books?

Most of 40K media is them pretty much running the hamster-wheel just to keep padding a story that sticks to a status quo. Dramatic changes aren't taken lightly. And even when they happen, like Cadia being destroyed or Lion'El Johnson returning, they really don't know what to do with it other than make a few story changes with it.

This isn't Star Wars Legends where there's dramatic changes within several novels, where the New Republic gets its ass whooped by Thrawn, then Thrawn dies, then the Republic loses the galactic capital of Coruscant to the Imperial Remnant and the Reborn Palpatine, then the Reborn Palpatine dies and the Republic retakes the capital and holds it for a little over a decade before losing it again to the Yuuzhan Vong. Only for the good guys to retake it again and defeat the Vong, then Han Solo's son turns evil in the midst of a second galactic civil war and has to be put down. Then Luke and his Jedi pals have to deal with Tarkin's old girlfriend becoming the new Alliance leader, while also going off with some Sith to kill the Dark Side equivalent of a Chaos god.

The biggest change you'll see in 40K stories is incremental. I highly doubt they have to stones to say, develop a rivalry between Rowboat and the Lion, and have that split the Imperium apart. More likely, the two would just work together and purge the more "retrograde" aspects of the Imperium that they don't like.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Who's to say that Palpatine wasn't a past incarnation of the Emperor?


Most of 40K media is them pretty much running the mouse-wheel just to keep padding a story that sticks to a status quo. Dramatic changes aren't taken lightly. And even when they happen, like Cadia being destroyed or Lion'El Johnson returning, they really don't know what to do with it other than make a few story changes with it.

This isn't Star Wars Legends where there's dramatic changes within several novels, where the New Republic gets its ass whooped by Thrawn, then Thrawn dies, then the Republic loses the galactic capital of Coruscant to the Imperial Remnant and the Reborn Palpatine, then the Reborn Palpatine dies and the Republic retakes the capital and holds it for a little over a decade before losing it again to the Yuuzhan Vong. Only for the good guys to retake it again and defeat the Vong, then Han Solo's son turns evil in the midst of a second galactic civil war and has to be put down. Then Luke and his Jedi pals have to deal with Tarkin's old girlfriend becoming the new Alliance leader, while also going off with some Sith to kill the Dark Side equivalent of a Chaos god.

The biggest change you'll see in 40K stories is incremental. I highly doubt they have to stones to say, develop a rivalry between Rowboat and the Lion, and have that split the Imperium apart. More likely, the two would just work together and purge the more "retrograde" aspects of the Imperium that they don't like.

40k stories work best when they are self contained in their own sector/planet bubble so their effects can be as colossal as the author wants, the moments they are about something that can affect the wider Imperium (and it's not some main series) then you know exactly how it will end. At best you'll have some elements that might be saved for later, like the non corrupted Fulgrim clone.

Back to the original question, depends on the author. Sometimes the subplots are more flavour for the setting, sometimes it's just filling the mandatory 250 pages.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

@wtfNeedSignUp The thing is, you can only write so many stories of local sector/planet stuff before the audience starts asking what the big boys are planning, and so, they'll eventually have to write stories about what Rowboat, Failbaddon, and the Lion are doing, and it's going to involve entire sectors/tons of Space Marine chapters. But of course, they can't upset the status quo because you still need to write local sector/planet stories down the line, and if you upset the status quo too much, they'll have to change those. So the Imperium has to remain a dystopia so that local sector/planet stories can still have a lot of tension, you can't have Rowboat fix the system entirely so that it runs more efficiently while causing less harm to its subjects, (which is what he would realistically do) otherwise the people who tune in for stories about how much the Imperium sucks will start protesting and stop buying books.

This means that the greater-scope stories just end up being a big fart in the wind. Like that one time when the Blood Angels had to fight Tyranids; we all know how it's going to end, with the latter becoming glorified shotgun fodder. Even if the Blood Angels and their chapters suffered horrible losses, the losses won't be permanent and they'll build themselves back up soon enough. Cadia being sacrificed wound up being a big wet fart-it's just another IG world; there's tons of those. They don't have the stones to sacrifice the homeworld of a major chapter or faction that people still play. So at most, you'll get the Emperor's butt-rags chapter getting the shit kicked out of them while the real marines are still tooling around the galaxy kicking ass as always. They won't have the stones to say, have a Tyranid Hive Fleet or Ork horde reduce Fenris to rubble. Or have a Chaos force actually succeed in depopulating Macragge.

If SW Legends was a roller coaster where you have to hang on for dear life, 40K's novels read more like a decent ride through the highway; you might see something new, but the ride is stable and you know how it will end.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The thing is, you can only write so many stories of local sector/planet stuff before the audience starts asking what the big boys are planning, and so, they'll eventually have to write stories about what Rowboat, Failbaddon, and the Lion are doing, and it's going to involve entire sectors/tons of Space Marine chapters. But of course, they can't upset the status quo because you still need to write local sector/planet stories down the line, and if you upset the status quo too much, they'll have to change those. So the Imperium has to remain a dystopia so that local sector/planet stories can still have a lot of tension, you can't have Rowboat fix the system entirely so that it runs more efficiently while causing less harm to its subjects, (which is what he would realistically do) otherwise the people who tune in for stories about how much the Imperium sucks will start protesting and stop buying books

I think that as long as you don't tease the reader in some long lasting effect then it can still work. If your characters ar good, people will care what happens to them. Though I will be lying to not being burnt out on 40k once most mysteries and pasts came into light and everything feels too much like it's filling a pattern.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I think that as long as you don't tease the reader in some long lasting effect then it can still work. If your characters ar good, people will care what happens to them.

Again, that means you'll have to keep things on a local level, which eventually will make the audience ask what the big boys are up to. If you don't tease the reader with long-lasting effects, then keeping up with the series makes no sense, since each story just becomes its own self-contained thing, with the status quo never changing, which eventually gets boring.

Though I will be lying to not being burnt out on 40k once most mysteries and pasts came into light and everything feels too much like it's filling a pattern.

That's the same thing that happened to Halo's Forerunners after 343 Industries took over. What was once left as a mystery of a past race that might have been humanity on steroids was just revealed as a human-like species that were just full of themselves.

Sometimes, less is more, and leaving some things up to the reader's mind works better than exploring every bit of a mystery that no one wanted to solve.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Again, that means you'll have to keep things on a local level, which eventually will make the audience ask what the big boys are up to. If you don't tease the reader with long-lasting effects, then keeping up with the series makes no sense, since each story just becomes its own self-contained thing, with the status quo never changing, which eventually gets boring.

The thing is though that those events don't really happen in 40K. The galaxy is a massive battlefield and every battle is just a numbers game that only the high lords have any sense of how bad the Imperium's position is in. Even if Abaddon or Guilliman would participate in battles, they'll teleport out before dying because they are too smart and important to let themselves be killed. Even if Guilliman makes big changes, the changes will take centuries to actually happen.

Part of the point of splitting the legions was to prevent the kind of insanity that happened in the Horus Heresy where entire legions walked into the meat grinder, there are no longer galaxy changing events because the scale is always capped.

The hopelessness and indifference is part of the charm of the series. The Imperium won't fall in a big epic battle, but a slow decline. But there is still sense in the individuals fighting for a single more moment.

That's the same thing that happened to Halo's Forerunners after 343 Industries took over. What was once left as a mystery of a past race that might have been humanity on steroids was just revealed as a human-like species that were just full of themselves.

Sometimes, less is more, and leaving some things up to the reader's mind works better than exploring every bit of a mystery that no one wanted to solve.

Sadly Horus Heresy sold too well for that. Though not going to lie, I'm looking forward for the Scouring.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

The thing is though that those events don't really happen in 40K. The galaxy is a massive battlefield and every battle is just a numbers game that only the high lords have any sense of how bad the Imperium's position is in. Even if Abaddon or Guilliman would participate in battles, they'll teleport out before dying because they are too smart and important to let themselves be killed. Even if Guilliman makes big changes, the changes will take centuries to actually happen.

But the thing is, logically, someone like Guilliman or the Lion would FIX the Imperium so that it wouldn't be such a tire fire dystopia to live in. They'd address the fact that the suffering caused by the Imperium's way of life is a boon to the plans of Chaos, the Tyranid Genestealer cults, and other enemies of man, and they'd address that and pass reforms to make life in the Imperium better, especially since in their view, the Imperium is supposed to be a boon to mankind, not a cross on its back. But the storytellers can't afford that, because one of their core views is that the Imperium has to be a shithole because the dystopia is a core part of the story.

Part of the point of splitting the legions was to prevent the kind of insanity that happened in the Horus Heresy where entire legions walked into the meat grinder, there are no longer galaxy changing events because the scale is always capped.

But, as the Emperor in TTSD pointed out, it turned mankind's bulwark into a thin picket fence that any decent-sized force can punch through. By the time you hear of entire chapters getting annihilated, it's too late.

The hopelessness and indifference is part of the charm of the series. The Imperium won't fall in a big epic battle, but a slow decline. But there is still sense in the individuals fighting for a single more moment.

But the thing is, with how things are going now, that decline should've been halted and reversed. Especially with not one, but two Primarchs running around to fix things, and the Imperium showing technological/scientific innovation with the Primaris Marines. If they abandon that and go back to a declining Imperium, it would just be bullshit.

Sadly Horus Heresy sold too well for that. Though not going to lie, I'm looking forward for the Scouring.

Same thing goes for the Forerunner Trilogy. I've got no problems with Greg Bear, and his Forerunner books are good sci-fi works on their own when taken out of the context of Halo, but his trilogy just de-mystified the Forerunners. Remember how people reacted to George Lucas introducing the midichlorians and how it "de-mystified" the Force? The Horus Heresy books and the Forerunner Trilogy did the same to the Horus Heresy and the Forerunner race.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

But the thing is, logically, someone like Guilliman or the Lion would FIX the Imperium so that it wouldn't be such a tire fire dystopia to live in. They'd address the fact that the suffering caused by the Imperium's way of life is a boon to the plans of Chaos, the Tyranid Genestealer cults, and other enemies of man, and they'd address that and pass reforms to make life in the Imperium better, especially since in their view, the Imperium is supposed to be a boon to mankind, not a cross on its back. But the storytellers can't afford that, because one of their core views is that the Imperium has to be a shithole because the dystopia is a core part of the story.

There is no fixing the Imperium though. Guilliman can at best get some better bureaucrats and leaders, but even that is incredibly limited. He doesn't have the time to world to world, or even sector to sector and make sure able people are in charge. The Imperium's issues is layers upon layers of bureaucracy, heavy taxes and fracturing lines of communication and technology. Two people, great as they are, can do very little to it.

But, as the Emperor in TTSD pointed out, it turned mankind's bulwark into a thin picket fence that any decent-sized force can punch through. By the time you hear of entire chapters getting annihilated, it's too late.

The joke was funny, but it's pretty retarded. The imperium can very well join multiple forces of Astartes to one big mission. It can't afford another Huron Blackheart to fuck everything up, and its main backbones are human troops with the Astartes either delaying issues of nipping them in the bud, amassing them in siege warfare like the Iron Warriors did is a huge waste.

But the thing is, with how things are going now, that decline should've been halted and reversed. Especially with not one, but two Primarchs running around to fix things, and the Imperium showing technological/scientific innovation with the Primaris Marines. If they abandon that and go back to a declining Imperium, it would just be bullshit.

The new books are more optimistic from what I heard, but in the end the improvement will also be tiny and completely dependent on either Primarchs still living.