Do you think that after all that science posted in the last several years ( numbers of stars in the galaxy, the fact that planets are existing around then and that 500 million of them might be in habitable zone of their stars ), the Imperium should still stick to: "And empire of 1 million worlds."
I think that in the next RuleBook GW should present IoM as an empire of several million worlds. The fact is that fluff was established while official science didn't have any statements about other planets that orbit stars. And since the warfare changed and GW added some new fluff to "modernize" it's army's do you think that they sould do the same thing with number of Imperium's planets?
I haven't read the book in a while, but is it "An empire of 1 million worlds" or "an empire of a million words"?
It's a subtle distinction, but "1 million" is a specific number, and "a million", while also technically a specific number, can also be used metaphorically to just mean "A huge number".
I think they should have something like 5 million. They are supposed to be a thinly spread, scattered empire that doesn't actually control most of the space they roam. If they had hundreds of millions, they would be too powerful and all there enemies wouldn't have a chance.
TrollPie wrote:I think they should have something like 5 million. They are supposed to be a thinly spread, scattered empire that doesn't actually control most of the space they roam. If they had hundreds of millions, they would be too powerful and all there enemies wouldn't have a chance.
I agree, but with only 1.000.000 worlds in a galaxy of 500.000.000 habitable worlds are not big force also ( like comparing Tau to them ).
And in fluff they are "the most powerful political organisation in the galaxy".
Jeez, complainers. A million worlds is a lot of worlds. There isn't 500,000,000 habitable worlds in 40K. Habitable worlds are described as rare, precious jewels. There's like 3 million worlds so humans have a good chunk of them.
This post has inaccurate choices. Nowhere is it given that the Imperium has exactly 1 million worlds. It's just a number, as pointed out, that means "a lot".
If anything, tying them down to a specific number of worlds only decreases their appearance of immensity by being exact.
Brother Coa wrote:Do you think that after all that science posted in the last several years ( numbers of stars in the galaxy, the fact that planets are existing around then and that 500 million of them might be in habitable zone of their stars ), the Imperium should still stick to: "And empire of 1 million worlds."
Isn't a million enough?
Besides, 500 million worlds that todays science thinks might be inhabitable doesn't mean 500 million actually inhabitable worlds... or that there will still be anything like that number after 40000 years of unchecked expansion by humans and numerous alien races, several of which are interested just in destruction...
and just because a planet is in the primary Biosphere zone of a star doesn't mean it can support life. its atmosphere could be full of sulfer or it could be completely volcanic(which often goes with a toxic atmosphere)
even if the planet actually has life doesn't mean it can have human life. Bacteria could thrive in a sulfer rich enviroment while we couldn't(or at least wouldn't like smelling like rotten eggs)
No, I think its pretty much shrinking considering how large an area Hive Fleet Leviathan has basically cut off from Imperial access. They may not have been consumed by the fleet, they may still be loyal, but considering that the rest of the Imperium cannot communicate with them or physically reach them, they are lost.
No and here's why every piece of fluff I read if Chaos from the Eye of Terror which is supposed to a long way off from Terra...and yet it seems like if 4-5 planets go, whatever 'bad guy' of the month will be on Terra's back door step. I.E. Cadia, Armaggedon, That one plant with the Warp Storm closing it off, Vogen, etc.etc.
KingmanHighborn wrote:No and here's why every piece of fluff I read if Chaos from the Eye of Terror which is supposed to a long way off from Terra...and yet it seems like if 4-5 planets go, whatever 'bad guy' of the month will be on Terra's back door step. I.E. Cadia, Armaggedon, That one plant with the Warp Storm closing it off, Vogen, etc.etc.
Armageddon is fairly close to Terra so it could reliably be used as a staging area for an invasion, no clue what that one plant with a warp storm closing it off or Vogen is. As for Cadia, the planet basically controls access through the gate. If Cadia falls there is nothing stopping a full scale Chaos invasion from running amok in the Imperiums backfield. Its easier to keep an enemy isolated to one area rather than to face them along a full front.
chaos0xomega wrote:No, I think its pretty much shrinking considering how large an area Hive Fleet Leviathan has basically cut off from Imperial access. They may not have been consumed by the fleet, they may still be loyal, but considering that the rest of the Imperium cannot communicate with them or physically reach them, they are lost.
Thats the way worlds are lost, but how many are lost there 100?
The Imperium still colonizes or as Grey Templar said reconquers and rediscovers. Nowhere it is said that the Imperium is shrinking.
KamikazeCanuck wrote:Jeez, complainers. A million worlds is a lot of worlds. There isn't 500,000,000 habitable worlds in 40K. Habitable worlds are described as rare, precious jewels. There's like 3 million worlds so humans have a good chunk of them.
Source for this?
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Ascalam wrote:Also isn't the imperium supposed to be shrinking, not growing, being beaten back, world by world..
(puts on his plot TDA to bounce the attacks of the IOM fanclub )
No, I remember one sentence from some book, an old guy telling the scared young boy: "Son, it's a big galaxy out there. Hundreds worlds disappear but thousands more prosper and are discovered. This is Terra my boy, nothing interested ever happen here." And for every world Imperium lose they colonize or discover several more, that my understanding of things.
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DarknessEternal wrote:This post has inaccurate choices. Nowhere is it given that the Imperium has exactly 1 million worlds. It's just a number, as pointed out, that means "a lot".
I thought when someone say "million worlds" mean 1.000.000 planets - not millions...
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insaniak wrote:
Isn't a million enough?
Besides, 500 million worlds that todays science thinks might be inhabitable doesn't mean 500 million actually inhabitable worlds... or that there will still be anything like that number after 40000 years of unchecked expansion by humans and numerous alien races, several of which are interested just in destruction...
In a galaxy of 200 - 400.000.000.000 stars that's quite low number of controllable planets.
And you are right but you all are forgetting one thing - pre-Imperium era Humans had wide spread Terrafroming equipment and they Terraform much of this 500 million planets.
They still have it, but only for the use of high nobility and in emergency cases. But that is the same as "they don't have it anymore."
@Coa It's just a fan theory. Had some ridiculous nerd conversation with someone here back in the day and after much speculation we got like 3.2 million habitable worlds. Although that's just speculation trust me there is definately not hundreds of millions of habitable worlds in 40K, they are rare. That's why we have all these wars over them.
chaos0xomega wrote:No, I think its pretty much shrinking considering how large an area Hive Fleet Leviathan has basically cut off from Imperial access. They may not have been consumed by the fleet, they may still be loyal, but considering that the rest of the Imperium cannot communicate with them or physically reach them, they are lost.
Thats the way worlds are lost, but how many are lost there 100?
The Imperium still colonizes or as Grey Templar said reconquers and rediscovers. Nowhere it is said that the Imperium is shrinking.
100 worlds lost to Hive Fleet Leviathan? Are you kidding me? The area encompasses like 1/4 of the known galaxy...
And yes, it does state the Imperium is shrinking, says so in the 5th edition rulebook as someone else has pointed out.
KamikazeCanuck wrote:@Coa It's just a fan theory. Had some ridiculous nerd conversation with someone here back in the day and after much speculation we got like 3.2 million habitable worlds. Although that's just speculation trust me there is definately not hundreds of millions of habitable worlds in 40K, they are rare. That's why we have all these wars over them.
Yes, but your speculations go against NASA findings. Further more, humans in 40k HAD access to Terra-forming equipment, and Emperor onlyu knows how many worlds they colonized before the fall of the Eldar.
The BRB states loads of times that the Imperium is losing, being beaten back and conquered world by world. Some folk from Terra who's most likely been fed truckloads of propaganda isn't a reliable source of information.
chaos0xomega wrote:No, I think its pretty much shrinking considering how large an area Hive Fleet Leviathan has basically cut off from Imperial access. They may not have been consumed by the fleet, they may still be loyal, but considering that the rest of the Imperium cannot communicate with them or physically reach them, they are lost.
Thats the way worlds are lost, but how many are lost there 100?
The Imperium still colonizes or as Grey Templar said reconquers and rediscovers. Nowhere it is said that the Imperium is shrinking.
100 worlds lost to Hive Fleet Leviathan? Are you kidding me? The area encompasses like 1/4 of the known galaxy...
And yes, it does state the Imperium is shrinking, says so in the 5th edition rulebook as someone else has pointed out.
If everything would be true that was written once, we would have a perfect paradox univserse in 40k.
And what does dwindling mean, even it would loose planet after planet, and even if the Imperium has only 1 Million worlds thats stagnation at best, not shrinking.
And without a time frame this sentence says nothing at all. In which time does it dwindle? Since its existence? Impossible because it larger than it was another time. In the last five days? Only the last decade or Millenium? You see the sentence is no prove at all.
Hive Fleet Leviathan encompassing like 1/4 of the known galaxy? Where do you take this impression?
And so far every Tyranid Swarm Fleet threat has been neutralised with no only a fraction of the imperial might.
I think the million world thing is awesome, it's central to the theme of the Imperium as a massive bureaucracy! The problem is the stupid fluff stories they write and the scale of the elements in it.
Only 1000 space marines in a Chapter? That's absurd in a universe spanning a million worlds. Each marine would defend 1,000 worlds then? Really? Oh there are many chapters, ok, let take another zero off, 100 worlds per man then...
Now I know reality != 40k, but just in a generic plausibility sense here are some numbers for consideration:
(There are currently 10 divisions in the US ARMY alone of this size or greater. Not counting the national Guard, Reserves and Marines.)
(In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union had an estimated 194 active tank, motorized rifle and airborne divisions in their army.)
(As of 2001 the DPRK (North Korean) army was composed of approximately 1,003,000 personnel organized into 20 corps consisting of 176 divisions.)
Instead of a real world example the Star Wars universe offers a great parallel in the Grand Army of the republic, which, ironically is fairly similar in concept at least to the space marines, another sci fi army of clones, just like space marines, except...
It was created by the Kaminoan cloners on Kamino. It comprised two hundred thousand growth-accelerated clone trooper units and their war machines at the start of the Clone Wars.
After the initial engagements, over a million more clone units were added to the ranks of the army, followed by numerous additional divisions.
Another example of armies in the millions, which itself seems a bit small given the population size on earth now.
Latest official current world population estimate, for mid-year 2010, is estimated at 6,852,472,823.
It stands to reason that many of the worlds in the Imperium would at least be the same size as the Earth is now, and many more would be much greater. By both current standards and even fictional standards, and indeed by the very 40k fiction, there would have to be millions of armies in the millions from each of the worlds in the fictional Imperium. Space marine chapters would have to be without number.
This is why I don't like any of the current 40k fiction very much, especially concerning Space Marines, and numbers because it's wrong, it doesn't make any sense in scale, and it breaks the old canon. Cover art always depicts Epic battles often with titans, where it is implied there are thousands of participants:
In short, the millions number references aren't dumb, the current fiction efforts (from the last 5 years or so) are. Case in point:
The EPIC STORY OF ... 10 guys? In a Space Church, Really?
chaos0xomega wrote:No, I think its pretty much shrinking considering how large an area Hive Fleet Leviathan has basically cut off from Imperial access. They may not have been consumed by the fleet, they may still be loyal, but considering that the rest of the Imperium cannot communicate with them or physically reach them, they are lost.
Thats the way worlds are lost, but how many are lost there 100?
The Imperium still colonizes or as Grey Templar said reconquers and rediscovers. Nowhere it is said that the Imperium is shrinking.
100 worlds lost to Hive Fleet Leviathan? Are you kidding me? The area encompasses like 1/4 of the known galaxy...
And yes, it does state the Imperium is shrinking, says so in the 5th edition rulebook as someone else has pointed out.
If everything would be true that was written once, we would have a perfect paradox univserse in 40k.
And what does dwindling mean, even it would loose planet after planet, and even if the Imperium has only 1 Million worlds thats stagnation at best, not shrinking.
And without a time frame this sentence says nothing at all. In which time does it dwindle? Since its existence? Impossible because it larger than it was another time. In the last five days? Only the last decade or Millenium? You see the sentence is no prove at all.
Hive Fleet Leviathan encompassing like 1/4 of the known galaxy? Where do you take this impression?
And so far every Tyranid Swarm Fleet threat has been neutralised with no only a fraction of the imperial might.
The statement in the main rulebook is made as the current situation, an 'as of now, today' .
The emperor's light is fading- look at the timeline- The Emperor's life support is breaking down, past repair, and has begun to flicker and dim. This is all recent timeline stuff (the time of ending, or whatever)
'
And what does dwindling mean, even it would loose planet after planet, and even if the Imperium has only 1 Million worlds thats stagnation at best, not shrinking. '
Dwindling means to get smaller. If the IOM loses even one planet that it fails to replace it gets smaller. It loses far more planets than that just from beauracratic incompetence.
Stagnation means that the number of planets remains the same, which it doesn't
The rulebook says that (during the current era- the time of ending or whatever the name is- no rulebook on me: the current era at the end of the timeline) the imperium is growing smaller, the emperor fading and systems being lost one after another, and this isn't proof that the IOM is getting smaller and losing ground? You couldn't get much more definite fluff if you tried
How about you look at the page reference i gave you, and the timeline They should give you the time frame you are after.
The nids don't have a quarter of the galaxy, but their reach is still a pretty good sized wodge of the galactic disk.
I've never taken unreasonable fluff seriously, even if it is fluff. I tend to just make up something for myself and use that as the fluff rather than anything I don't like. For me, I like to think of the Imperium as containing worlds in the untold millions rather than just a handful million worlds. It doesn't make sense for them NOT to have terra-forming equipment when it's crucial to have such equipment at your disposal if you are policing millions of planets, you need outposts that are in between distant planets, and if you can't make it a hospitable planet, you're going to have to at least make it survivable. I just like to think of it as lost technology and costs a lot to replicate. I also like to think of the Imperium as an empire that gains a few worlds in a few battles and loses a few worlds in a few battles, not really expanding, but not really diminishing either.
A fraction of Imperial might? Are you kidding me? Well I suppose technically speaking that is correct, an entire segmentum fleet would be a fraction of the Imperiums naval strength... 1/5 to be precise...
As for that map, check the one in the Tyranid codex, it shows the fleets movement far better. Considering that its stated in text to cover Ultima Segmentum and Segmentum Tempestus and to even have tendrils reaching into Segmentum Solar, and yet the map you have presented only shows it to effect a much smaller portion of the galaxy. Leviathan is much larger than any of the other Hive Fleets thus far, and TWO ENTIRE Segmentum battlefleets (Tempestus and Solar) are being used just to try to hold it at bay, plus dozens of Space Marine chapters.
And if you are unaware, there is a bit of a fluff called the Stark Report, which determined that the Imperium would need to increase recruitment by 500% to defeat Leviathan, which (according the fluff) would require the Imperium to recruit and mobilize every man, woman, and child in Segmentum Solar, Obscurus, and Tempestus.
As for what dwindling means, it only means one thing, getting smaller or reducing (check Oxford/Merriam Webster English dictionaries). Losing one planet without the gain of another is not stagnation, thats shrinking. THE IMPERIUM IS SHRINKING. The sentence doesn't need to give us a time frame, its written in the 'present' time. 999.M41, its happening 'now'. It doesn't matter how long the Imperium is shrinking for, all that matters is that it is in fact shrinking at the end of the 41st Millenium.
I took the liberty of cutting your text short, so as not to needlessly span the forums.
You are comparing real life armies with Space Marines? Space Marines are rare, more rare than Russian Spets Naz. In fact, Spets Naz are to the Russian army more what Imperial Guard veterans are. You simply seem to miss the point, most of the battles, most of the Empires' defense, is entrusted to the Hammer of the Emperor - the Imperial Guard. Space Marines only participate in a small fraction of all the combat involved, usually the truly serious ones. It's the board game that blows it all out of proportion. Space Marines is the second least numerous playable army, but the most commonly played one, which seem to blow some thing out of proportions for some people.
There is no real world equivalent of a Space Marine. The most elite special forces in real life are couch potatoes in comparison.
Each world has millions of soldiers defending them. The Imperial Guard. The guys who actually get things done and keep the human realm safe long enough for the Marines to steal all the glory.
Each world has millions of soldiers defending them. The Imperial Guard. The guys who actually get things done and keep the human realm safe long enough for the Marines to steal all the glory.
Actually, if the IG Codex/Black Library books are to be believed, most worlds only have a few ten thousands of guardsmen defending them, and planetary conquest in general seems to rely on numbers in the tens or hundreds of thousands rather than millions.
Each world has millions of soldiers defending them. The Imperial Guard. The guys who actually get things done and keep the human realm safe long enough for the Marines to steal all the glory.
Actually, if the IG Codex/Black Library books are to be believed, most worlds only have a few ten thousands of guardsmen defending them, and planetary conquest in general seems to rely on numbers in the tens or hundreds of thousands rather than millions.
Which is contradicted by the "billions of regiments" thing in the Guard Codex. That or I'm an idiot and I'm reading it wrong.
I took the liberty of cutting your text short, so as not to needlessly span the forums.
Me too.
Mahtamori wrote:You are comparing real life armies with Space Marines?
No, just their numbers and sizes.
Mahtamori wrote:Space Marines are rare, ...You simply seem to miss the point,...
I get it, I already said 40k != reality, I'm explaining in the fiction, even at "a hundred shall fall for every space marine" that the space marines couldn't defend the Imperium, or even take a single planet with the abysmally small numbers they have, it's silly. Obviously they do though in the stories... It is an idiosyncrasy.
It ads to my point it's not that the 'Imperium has a million (+) worlds' that's bad writing, it's that there are only 1000 marines in a chapter, that's, almost comical!
The numbers are just for perspective, thats why I tried to show a military, a fictitious and a practical population example.
Mahtamori wrote:There is no real world equivalent of a Space Marine. The most elite special forces in real life are couch potatoes in comparison.
Uh right, I'm just showing numbers for scale here. How bout this forget about the real world army numbers, what about the clone wars parallel and the scale of that clone army? See?
Oh and LOL... I'm on the interweb arguing about space marines with nerds. Oh my.
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iproxtaco wrote:Which is contradicted by the "billions of regiments" thing in the Guard Codex. That or I'm an idiot and I'm reading it wrong.
That's my interpretation also, as in the scale of the IG makes sense,, in context of the greater story, and the marines does not.
An imperium beset on all sides, being driven back step by step but refusing to give ground, despite the absolute lack of a chance of victory is a breeding ground for heroism. Heroism is interesting.
An imperium where everything is always better, more-so or shinier than everyone else, and constantly expanding is a breeding ground for xenophobic bullies with pin heads and bigh shoulderpads.. Winning all the time isn't heroism. It's boring.
Consider:
100 marines fought bravely, and died back to back preventing the hordes of chaos from defiling their shrine, the last marine triggering an explosion that takes out the chapel and the invading force that's swarming in - Heroic, damn cool and what i originally got into playing Marines for back in RT.
100 marines drop onto a chaos infested planet, ass-kicking the entire horde for the loss of Brother Spuddy, who was talking wistfully of home at the time and took a headshot as he reminisced about the girl he left behind before being initiated.
Dull, dull, dull. It's an ego-stroking for rabid fanboys, but it has no drama, no interest. It's too easy. In short it's a lot like watching a badly made cartoon. No-one cares about the marines, as they don't have to work hard to win. No-one gets too invested in the bad guys (my favorite guys in any movie) because they're faceless goons that get mowed down like chaff.
An imperium beset on all sides, being driven back step by step but refusing to give ground, despite the absolute lack of a chance of victory is a breeding ground for heroism. Heroism is interesting.
An imperium where everything is always better, more-so or shinier than everyone else, and constantly expanding is a breeding ground for xenophobic bullies with pin heads and bigh shoulderpads.. Winning all the time isn't heroism. It's boring.
Consider:
100 marines fought bravely, and died back to back preventing the hordes of chaos from defiling their shrine, the last marine triggering an explosion that takes out the chapel and the invading force that's swarming in - Heroic, damn cool and what i originally got into playing Marines for back in RT.
100 marines drop onto a chaos infested planet, ass-kicking the entire horde for the loss of Brother Spuddy, who was talking wistfully of home at the time and took a headshot as he reminisced about the girl he left behind before being initiated.
Dull, dull, dull. It's an ego-stroking for rabid fanboys, but it has no drama, no interest. It's too easy. In short it's a lot like watching a badly made cartoon. No-one cares about the marines, as they don't have to work hard to win. No-one gets too invested in the bad guys (my favorite guys in any movie) because they're faceless goons that get mowed down like chaff.
Marines should be heroic.
Or you can take the realistic middle ground, where the Imperium is beset on all sides, but the conflict is at least winnable, and your characters have some depth, and do actually have someone back home that they can fight for.
'from the palaces of Holy Terra the High Lords of the Imperium watch as thier domain crumbles. Armies and fleets fight on with the valour of heroes, calling for reinforcments that do not exist....Imperial citizens pray with the desperation of the damned, beggin their immortal emperor for a salvation they will never see. As the lines of battle grow ever closer to Terra, the light of the emperor fades and darkness swallows all.'
Pg 104
'There is no peace, no respite, no hope of victory... There is only war.'
It's pretty clear that the Empire just surviving another day is considered a victory.
Thinking it winnable is unrealistic, according to the fluff. Its when the BL and Ward get involved that it tends to swing too far the other way, with 10 marines conquering a continent, or a single marine curbstomping some of the most powerful entities in the universe without taking any significant hurt.
Movietheming-wise if it's winnable, and achieved by great sacrifice and tribulation then it makes a good, gripping tale. It would require a lot of losses and desperate acts of heroism to achieve that victory though.
Ok, so if we want the win to come at a great loss for a good, heroic story lets look at the latest offerings:
Grey Knights codex- not one single loss in the entire timeline, IIRC.
Blood Angels - one loss (semmel betrayal) and a couple of setbacks, everything else is wins.
BL- Fall of Damnos- a dinky little assualt force of a couple of dreads and some tactical marines, plus Tigurius (IIRC) carve their way through an entire massive necron army, losing about 4 marines and a dread in the process (on an occasion that's supposed to be a xenos victory in the fluff) and take out several Lords to boot.
I'm not seeing much effort required by the IOM to win.
Some of the xenos codecii have the IOM forces getting stomped, but they usually get more wins than losses even there.
The imperium doesn't take the middle ground. It's got an auto-win button in any battle anywhere but the rulebook fluff, which is pretty definite on the fact that it has no hope of victory overall.
Thinking it winnable is unrealistic, according to the fluff. Its when the BL and Ward get involved that it tends to swing too far the other way, with 10 marines conquering a continent, or a single marine curbstomping some of the most powerful entities in the universe without taking any significant hurt.
Handfuls of Marines... like, 5 , maybe a dozen... have always, in the game's history, been able to conquer entire planets and utterly smash rival armies.
Psienesis wrote:Handfuls of Marines... like, 5 , maybe a dozen... have always, in the game's history, been able to conquer entire planets and utterly smash rival armies.
Only if they play their cards right. It's not a matter of being so strong that you carve a path of death into the enemy, its a matter of striking at the right place and right time with a set goal to tip the scales of battle in your favor, however small it may be. You can plow through rank after rank of enemies, but in the end, all you achieve is reducing enemy numbers. That won't mean anything if your opponent has more arms that can accomplish more tasks than you do within any amount of time. What good does power armor or superior strength give you then?
Actually in the earlier books (RT, 2nd Ed et al, 3rd Ed to a lesser degree, ) the marines wre generally depicted having a famous last stand, not hulksmashing whole armies
Starting at late 3rd edition and gradually slanting more and more heavily as time wore on the Marines have been more and more ubered, fluffwise. It really got to tthe current point with the Black Library's offerings, which are a tad biased..
How, exactly, do you hold a whole planet with a single squad, unless you have some major out of sight other guys/ships to help? If you have them spaced out it means they are fighting alone, with thousands of miles between them and no way to regroup or resupply, and if you have them together the planet's population will always have them encircled, and will have far more ammo than they do.
5-12 guys can and will be pulled down/shot up by several billion (average 6-7 billion/planet assuming Earth equivilent) foes, even if each of them is armed with only a rock. a small rock. Guns jam or empty, and superhuman strength will only take you so far in a mob
An imperium beset on all sides, being driven back step by step but refusing to give ground, despite the absolute lack of a chance of victory is a breeding ground for heroism. Heroism is interesting.
An imperium where everything is always better, more-so or shinier than everyone else, and constantly expanding is a breeding ground for xenophobic bullies with pin heads and bigh shoulderpads.. Winning all the time isn't heroism. It's boring.
Consider:
100 marines fought bravely, and died back to back preventing the hordes of chaos from defiling their shrine, the last marine triggering an explosion that takes out the chapel and the invading force that's swarming in - Heroic, damn cool and what i originally got into playing Marines for back in RT.
100 marines drop onto a chaos infested planet, ass-kicking the entire horde for the loss of Brother Spuddy, who was talking wistfully of home at the time and took a headshot as he reminisced about the girl he left behind before being initiated.
Dull, dull, dull. It's an ego-stroking for rabid fanboys, but it has no drama, no interest. It's too easy. In short it's a lot like watching a badly made cartoon. No-one cares about the marines, as they don't have to work hard to win. No-one gets too invested in the bad guys (my favorite guys in any movie) because they're faceless goons that get mowed down like chaff.
Marines should be heroic.
Or you can take the realistic middle ground, where the Imperium is beset on all sides, but the conflict is at least winnable, and your characters have some depth, and do actually have someone back home that they can fight for.
I know, I was making a counterpoint to the 'grimdark is good and makes for heroes' argument.
"Tech Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus discover failures in the mechanisms of the Golden Throne that are far beyond their ability to repair."
Where does it said that the Golden Throne will fail? My car may have broken windscreen, but that doesn't mean that the entire car will fail.
And it is only said that Light of the Astronomicon is faiding and that they lose contacts with some sectors. But there is nothing to suggest that they are losing war, they regain worlds, destroy some and save some. They are not losing them that fast.
A life support machine is. If your life support machine develops faults you can bet it's a deal more serious than a cracked windscreen.
As to the rest, read my above posts. I quoted directly from the rulebook.
The imperium is diminishing, hemmed in on all sides and losing ground. There is no hope of victory in the war. This is expressly stated on pg 104.
The lords of Terra are watching their empire crumble, with insufficient reinforcements to send - Pg 101
The imperium is very thinly spread across space, and doesn't control the entirety of the space it fills. The worlds are often cut off by alien civilizations, warp storms, spatial drift etc - Pg 103
The light of the Emperor grows dim (astronomicon- if you can't rely on it you can't warp travel, so the outlying human colonies are lost as it dims) and his domain dwindles (gets smaller), planet by planet and system by system.... there is no peace, no respite, no hope of victory..' - pg 104
'The alien menace has intensified without precedent over the last millenium, with more territory lost each year' - Pg 119
At the very best the IOM would be able to hold stable (mere survival is justly hailed as a victory- pg 101), but at present they are not. The Imperium is being beaten back system by system.
Sure, they retake or capture new systems all the time, but they lose more than they gain, or the Imperium would not be diminishing.
Ascalam wrote:Your car isn't preserving your life.
A life support machine is. If your life support machine develops faults you can bet it's a deal more serious than a cracked windscreen.
Still, there is nowhere to read "the fault on the Golden Throne will soon bring the Emperor to his death" or "because of the fault the Golden Throne will fail soon". They only said that one mechanism failed. And that doesn't mean that the Throne will fail also any time soon.
Ascalam wrote:As to the rest, read my above posts. I quoted directly from the rulebook.
The imperium is diminishing, hemmed in on all sides and losing ground. There is no hope of victory in the war. This is expressly stated on pg 104. QFT, still other races are not in the good shape to. Tau are small, Eldar are dying out, Tyranids are dying out ( if their codex is to be believed ), Orks are disorganized and not united. Only Dark Eldar, Chaos and Necrons are in good position, but for how long?
The lords of Terra are watching their empire crumble, with insufficient reinforcements to send - Pg 101 And then we have Imperial Guard codex that said "millions of Regiments". And that is quite the number since most of the planets is under attack. And how many SoB orders are there? Private militias, PDF...
The imperium is very thinly spread across space, and doesn't control the entirety of the space it fills. The worlds are often cut off by alien civilizations, warp storms, spatial drift etc - Pg 103 True, since Warp travel is very unpredictable thing. Still they hold very spread sectors of space and they are able to organize their defenses. ( Armageddon, Cadia, Aurelia )
The light of the Emperor grows dim (astronomicon- if you can't rely on it you can't warp travel, so the outlying human colonies are lost as it dims) and his domain dwindles (gets smaller), planet by planet and system by system.... there is no peace, no respite, no hope of victory..' - pg 104 We still don't have any explanations for this, we must wait and see what 6'th edition will tell us
'The alien menace has intensified without precedent over the last millenium, with more territory lost each year' - Pg 119True, but aliens are not united. They fight among themselves more than they fight Humanity
At the very best the IOM would be able to hold stable (mere survival is justly hailed as a victory- pg 101), but at present they are not. The Imperium is being beaten back system by system.
Sure, they retake or capture new systems all the time, but they lose more than they gain, or the Imperium would not be diminishing.
All is QFT, but see it from the other side to. Kronus, Kaurava, Nimbosa, Cadia, Armageddon and many other planets were regain or defended. And even if that is official material it collides with race codex's. Imperial Guard codex said "millions of Regiments" and yet reinforcements doesn't exist, odd when you have that many troops to spare...
The only explanation I don't get is why is the Astronomicon fading? Is something wrong wit hit or with the Emperor?
And the fact remains, the lesser the territory the easier defense, their situation is now like this because they are spread to thin over to large territory.
You can have millions of regiments and no reinforcements left. If all those regiments are committed, then there is nothing left to reinforce them with.
The astronomican is fading because the golden throne, the mechanism keeping the emperor alive, has mechanical faults, which is undoubtedly causing the Emperor to suffer in some capacity. If you put two and two together, its not hard to figure out, but if you take everything so literally as you have, thats apparently not possible.
As for Tyranids dying out, where the hell does it say that? If anything it says that the Tyranid threat hasn't even hit the Imperium in full force yet.
As for lesser territory = easier defense. Not really. By that logic the Germans should have been able to put up more of a fight against the allies following the Battle of the Bulge, and the Soviets should have been completely unable to take Berlin considering the defense was down to a single city from what was previously an entire continent and large parts of others.
chaos0xomega wrote: As for Tyranids dying out, where the hell does it say that? If anything it says that the Tyranid threat hasn't even hit the Imperium in full force yet.
Tyranid Codex 5'th edition, the secton about Levithian: "The Last and largest of the Hive Fleets." I think that quote the last tell us something...
As for lesser territory = easier defense. Not really. By that logic the Germans should have been able to put up more of a fight against the allies following the Battle of the Bulge, and the Soviets should have been completely unable to take Berlin considering the defense was down to a single city from what was previously an entire continent and large parts of others.
That has nothing to do with current situation. If the Germans had resources liek the Imperium stil lhave they would hold on, maybe even push forward. The Imperium isn't bombed every day, it's people don't face starvation, it has no shortage of troops or manpower, it's factories are still producing machines of war... Nazi Germany situation in 1944-45 and Imeprium situation now is LOT different. As the allies didn' wage war on themselves as aliens do...
chaos0xomega wrote:
As for Tyranids dying out, where the hell does it say that? If anything it says that the Tyranid threat hasn't even hit the Imperium in full force yet.
Tyranid Codex 5'th edition, the secton about Levithian: "The Last and largest of the Hive Fleets." I think that quote the last tell us something...
Last is being used here to describe the most recent. Similar to me saying "The last James Bond film was great." Quantum of Solace was the last James Bond film in the sense that it was most recent, but its not the last James Bond film ever made (considering that Bond 23 is supposedly coming out next year).
That has nothing to do with current situation. If the Germans had resources liek the Imperium stil lhave they would hold on, maybe even push forward. The Imperium isn't bombed every day, it's people don't face starvation, it has no shortage of troops or manpower, it's factories are still producing machines of war...
Nazi Germany situation in 1944-45 and Imeprium situation now is LOT different. As the allies didn' wage war on themselves as aliens do...
Wrong on both counts.
If you take the differences in scale into account, Germany and the IoM are not totally dissimilar. But the Imperium is 'bombed' every day (in the sense that they are at war every day and planets are constantly being invaded and lost), its people do face starvation (read some Black Library fluff once in a while, your average Imperial citizen faces a pretty miserable life, nonstop work and not enough food to go around), it has massive troop/manpower shortages (again, the quote about no reinforcements, and if you go read the bit about the Stark report in the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex, the IoM would have to increase recruiting by 500%, its flat out stated that this would require them to draft every man woman and child in Segmentum Solar, Tempestus, and Obscurus, just to hold the Tyranids back, let alone all the other things that are attacking them). As for factories, go and read some history. Germany was actually producing more war material in 1945 than it was at any point in the war... it actually INCREASED its rate of production as it was getting ripped to pieces.
As for allies waging war on themselves, yes they did, both politically and in the field. Go have a read about some of the actions taken by the rest of the allies against French military forces, particularly its Navy. In fact, Pattons drive south through Germany was motivated by the fact that he wanted to get between Berlin and the Red Army, partially in the hope that he would be able to justify attacking the Soviets and bringing the Germans in as his allies.
chaos0xomega wrote:
As for Tyranids dying out, where the hell does it say that? If anything it says that the Tyranid threat hasn't even hit the Imperium in full force yet.
Tyranid Codex 5'th edition, the secton about Levithian: "The Last and largest of the Hive Fleets." I think that quote the last tell us something...
Last is being used here to describe the most recent. Similar to me saying "The last James Bond film was great." Quantum of Solace was the last James Bond film in the sense that it was most recent, but its not the last James Bond film ever made (considering that Bond 23 is supposedly coming out next year).
No, the last mean the LAST, and the last James Bond movie really was the last until they pronounce the sequel. Untill they say "next major Hivbe Fleet is invading" this one will be considered last. And last is not = latest.
That has nothing to do with current situation. If the Germans had resources liek the Imperium stil lhave they would hold on, maybe even push forward. The Imperium isn't bombed every day, it's people don't face starvation, it has no shortage of troops or manpower, it's factories are still producing machines of war...
Nazi Germany situation in 1944-45 and Imeprium situation now is LOT different. As the allies didn' wage war on themselves as aliens do...
Wrong on both counts.
If you take the differences in scale into account, Germany and the IoM are not totally dissimilar. But the Imperium is 'bombed' every day (in the sense that they are at war every day and planets are constantly being invaded and lost), its people do face starvation (read some Black Library fluff once in a while, your average Imperial citizen faces a pretty miserable life, nonstop work and not enough food to go around), it has massive troop/manpower shortages (again, the quote about no reinforcements, and if you go read the bit about the Stark report in the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex, the IoM would have to increase recruiting by 500%, its flat out stated that this would require them to draft every man woman and child in Segmentum Solar, Tempestus, and Obscurus, just to hold the Tyranids back, let alone all the other things that are attacking them). As for factories, go and read some history. Germany was actually producing more war material in 1945 than it was at any point in the war... it actually INCREASED its rate of production as it was getting ripped to pieces.
As for allies waging war on themselves, yes they did, both politically and in the field. Go have a read about some of the actions taken by the rest of the allies against French military forces, particularly its Navy. In fact, Pattons drive south through Germany was motivated by the fact that he wanted to get between Berlin and the Red Army, partially in the hope that he would be able to justify attacking the Soviets and bringing the Germans in as his allies.
Wrong...You cannot compare them as Imperium is wining some battles and destroying it's enemies, Germans lost every battle in the end ( except Bulge but that was another story )...
And when did Soviets fire on Americans during WWII? Or British on Americans? And some people are starving some not. You can say for our world today that most of the people don't starve and then you have Africa and current situation in Somalia..
And please, don't believe alien propaganda... Impeirum is fine, if not they would lose every battle out here. And they are still winning the major ones. And it isn't true that all Guard Regiments are in war - most of the are guarding something ( like in "Ultramarines" were 100 Imperial Fist guard some monastery and 1 book.... ).
Last can mean latest...
And there is some similarity between Nazi Germany near the end of the War and the IoM currently...
Though there are plenty of differences as well...
chaos0xomega wrote: As for Tyranids dying out, where the hell does it say that? If anything it says that the Tyranid threat hasn't even hit the Imperium in full force yet.
Tyranid Codex 5'th edition, the secton about Levithian: "The Last and largest of the Hive Fleets." I think that quote the last tell us something...
Last is being used here to describe the most recent. Similar to me saying "The last James Bond film was great." Quantum of Solace was the last James Bond film in the sense that it was most recent, but its not the last James Bond film ever made (considering that Bond 23 is supposedly coming out next year).
No, the last mean the LAST, and the last James Bond movie really was the last until they pronounce the sequel. Untill they say "next major Hivbe Fleet is invading" this one will be considered last. And last is not = latest.
Last CAN mean latest, and that's what it means in this situation. Hive Fleet Leviathan is the last and greatest, which means the latest.
That has nothing to do with current situation. If the Germans had resources liek the Imperium stil lhave they would hold on, maybe even push forward. The Imperium isn't bombed every day, it's people don't face starvation, it has no shortage of troops or manpower, it's factories are still producing machines of war... Nazi Germany situation in 1944-45 and Imeprium situation now is LOT different. As the allies didn' wage war on themselves as aliens do...
Wrong on both counts.
If you take the differences in scale into account, Germany and the IoM are not totally dissimilar. But the Imperium is 'bombed' every day (in the sense that they are at war every day and planets are constantly being invaded and lost), its people do face starvation (read some Black Library fluff once in a while, your average Imperial citizen faces a pretty miserable life, nonstop work and not enough food to go around), it has massive troop/manpower shortages (again, the quote about no reinforcements, and if you go read the bit about the Stark report in the 3rd edition Tyranid Codex, the IoM would have to increase recruiting by 500%, its flat out stated that this would require them to draft every man woman and child in Segmentum Solar, Tempestus, and Obscurus, just to hold the Tyranids back, let alone all the other things that are attacking them). As for factories, go and read some history. Germany was actually producing more war material in 1945 than it was at any point in the war... it actually INCREASED its rate of production as it was getting ripped to pieces.
As for allies waging war on themselves, yes they did, both politically and in the field. Go have a read about some of the actions taken by the rest of the allies against French military forces, particularly its Navy. In fact, Pattons drive south through Germany was motivated by the fact that he wanted to get between Berlin and the Red Army, partially in the hope that he would be able to justify attacking the Soviets and bringing the Germans in as his allies.
Wrong...You cannot compare them as Imperium is wining some battles and destroying it's enemies, Germans lost every battle in the end ( except Bulge but that was another story )... And when did Soviets fire on Americans during WWII? Or British on Americans? And some people are starving some not. You can say for our world today that most of the people don't starve and then you have Africa and current situation in Somalia.. And please, don't believe alien propaganda... Impeirum is fine, if not they would lose every battle out here. And they are still winning the major ones. And it isn't true that all Guard Regiments are in war - most of the are guarding something ( like in "Ultramarines" were 100 Imperial Fist guard some monastery and 1 book.... ).
There's nothing to say other than to repeat evertyhing that choas0xomega has already said. READ what he posted.
'This is humanity's darkest hour' casually either. (Pg 123)
Think about it. If we take this to be true:
This current situation is worse that the Horus Heresy, when Terra Itself was invaded and the empire was caving in.
It's worse than the Dark Age of Technology when humanity was scattered, incommunicado, and reduced to barbarism.
The Imperium is barely holding on and being driven back while the xenos fight each other. If any of them had decided that humanity was better prey (or all of them) and united against them it would all be over bar the post-invasion squabbles.
In short humanity is more boned than a mess of Bluegill. That's kind of the point of the Grimdark thing
Automatically Appended Next Post: You also don't generally label your own chronology 'the time of ending' if you think you're winning (unless you are wiping out all threats totally and expanding rapidly into their territory ).
Humanity knows it's doomed. I can find plenty of quotes to that effect. They just mean to go down fighting anyway, heroically.
Kind of like Theoden in LOTR.
'We cannot beat them, but we will meet them in battle nonetheless..'
Automatically Appended Next Post: You also don't generally label your own chronology 'the time of ending' if you think you're winning (unless you are wiping out all threats totally and expanding rapidly into their territory ).
Humanity knows it's doomed. I can find plenty of quotes to that effect. They just mean to go down fighting anyway, heroically.
Kind of like Theoden in LOTR.
'We cannot beat them, but we will meet them in battle nonetheless..'
To be fair, the 'time of ending' could also refer to the fact that the millenium is ending, though I doubt thats what prompted the name...
What everyone seems to have forgotten here in the tyranid/marines frenzy is orks.
Orks have always held more worlds than the imperium, i do remember reading somewhere that when the imperium gets somewhere the orks have been there first (1st, 2nd ed?). So ergo if there are more inhabitable worlds in scientific theory, the orks hold them! The imperium still has 1 million worlds, the orks have 347 million (or whatvever). I dunno why everyone discounts orks as a force, they have always had more worlds, they are fungas, you kill em and in 10 years they will be back in force, but anyways i digress.
More than a million inhabitable worlds? Orks have em, with no retconn needed
Bullockist wrote:What everyone seems to have forgotten here in the tyranid/marines frenzy is orks.
Orks have always held more worlds than the imperium, i do remember reading somewhere that when the imperium gets somewhere the orks have been there first (1st, 2nd ed?). So ergo if there are more inhabitable worlds in scientific theory, the orks hold them! The imperium still has 1 million worlds, the orks have 347 million (or whatvever). I dunno why everyone discounts orks as a force, they have always had more worlds, they are fungas, you kill em and in 10 years they will be back in force, but anyways i digress.
More than a million inhabitable worlds? Orks have em, with no retconn needed
It doesn't say Orks have more worlds just that there's more Orks than humans.
There's a note in one of the books (main rulebook or ork codex i think) about a probe sent out tens of thousands of years ago that is still transmitting to the IOM, and many of the signals are orkish, well beyond the Imperium's boundaries. I'll try to chase up the quote
The imperium controls a relatively tiny slice of the galaxy, worldswise. They are spread all over the galactic disk, due to the vaguaries of warp travel, but there are millions upon millions more not under imperial control.
We don't really have any data on the numbers of worlds controlled by non-imperial forces, as all the fluff is from an imperial standpoint, and tends to only care about imperial holdings. I'd say it'd be safe to assume that the orks have a lot. How much a lot is is hard to debate without numbers. I'll rummage through my books when i get home to see if we have anything more to go on
Ascalam wrote:There's a note in one of the books (main rulebook or ork codex i think) about a probe sent out tens of thousands of years ago that is still transmitting to the IOM, and many of the signals are orkish, well beyond the Imperium's boundaries. I'll try to chase up the quote
The imperium controls a relatively tiny slice of the galaxy, worldswise. They are spread all over the galactic disk, due to the vaguaries of warp travel, but there are millions upon millions more not under imperial control.
We don't really have any data on the numbers of worlds controlled by non-imperial forces, as all the fluff is from an imperial standpoint, and tends to only care about imperial holdings. I'd say it'd be safe to assume that the orks have a lot. How much a lot is is hard to debate without numbers. I'll rummage through my books when i get home to see if we have anything more to go on
Its stated in a couple black library novels (not sure about rulebooks) that the Imperium controls roughly 2/3 of the 'known' galaxy. The known galaxy would be largely limited by the range of the Astronomican, which has an area of effect of about 50,000 light years. We don't know if this is a radius or a diameter, just that it 'directs its energy across fifty thousand light years of the galaxy'. The galaxy is 130,000 light years across... so, theres a lot of unaccounted for space.
I READ IT!!!!!!! it!!!
I am just lazy in posting to all of his claims so I get with overall explanation.
And against all this claims of Humanity's darkest hour I can say only this:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ascalam wrote:You don't use the phrase
'This is humanity's darkest hour' casually either. (Pg 123)
Think about it. If we take this to be true:
This current situation is worse that the Horus Heresy, when Terra Itself was invaded and the empire was caving in.
It's worse than the Dark Age of Technology when humanity was scattered, incommunicado, and reduced to barbarism.
The Imperium is barely holding on and being driven back while the xenos fight each other. If any of them had decided that humanity was better prey (or all of them) and united against them it would all be over bar the post-invasion squabbles.
In short humanity is more boned than a mess of Bluegill. That's kind of the point of the Grimdark thing
Automatically Appended Next Post: You also don't generally label your own chronology 'the time of ending' if you think you're winning (unless you are wiping out all threats totally and expanding rapidly into their territory ).
Humanity knows it's doomed. I can find plenty of quotes to that effect. They just mean to go down fighting anyway, heroically.
Kind of like Theoden in LOTR.
'We cannot beat them, but we will meet them in battle nonetheless..'
Nevertheless, Humanity will prevail in the end. No matte how many brothers and sisters we lost, how many worlds, ships machines of war we lose - we will win in the end.
Simply because Imperium will be pushed to a smaller territory that will be defended as hard as Sol itself. Then they will rebuild their forcess and slowly start to regain what they lost.
Then you didn't respond. You just said "wrong" without explaining why you think he was wrong, which he wasn't, be the way. It IS humanities darkest hour, they're losing territory and are besieged on all fronts,not able to push back their enemies. If you can't see that then you're missing the entire fething point behind 40k. Everything is hopeless. The Imperium is doomed, fighting for it's mere survival, they cannot win.
iproxtaco wrote:Then you didn't respond. You just said "wrong" without explaining why you think he was wrong, which he wasn't, be the way.
It IS humanities darkest hour, they're losing territory and are besieged on all fronts,not able to push back their enemies. If you can't see that then you're missing the entire fething point behind 40k.
Everything is hopeless. The Imperium is doomed, fighting for it's mere survival, they cannot win.
I did respond, only to fact that situation is not the same. You can't compare 2000km and 90.000 Light Years.
And my point is they are losing territories now. But with less to defend it will be harder to finish them out as Imperium can mount powerful defense.
And one thing that others write and you didn't read. It's Humanity's darkest hour - now. What about tomorow?
iproxtaco wrote:Then you didn't respond. You just said "wrong" without explaining why you think he was wrong, which he wasn't, by the way.
It IS humanities darkest hour, they're losing territory and are besieged on all fronts,not able to push back their enemies. If you can't see that then you're missing the entire fething point behind 40k.
Everything is hopeless. The Imperium is doomed, fighting for it's mere survival, they cannot win.
I did respond, only to fact that situation is not the same. You can't compare 2000km and 90.000 Light Years.
And my point is they are losing territories now. But with less to defend it will be harder to finish them out as Imperium can mount powerful defense.
And one thing that others write and you didn't read. It's Humanity's darkest hour - now. What about tomorow?
You didn't respond. You just said "wrong" without explaining why you think he was wrong, which he wasn't, by the way. He also took the differences in scales into account, that was his first line.
With less territory comes less man power and resources. So now, they won't find it easier to defend, not on the scale of 40k.
It's humanities darkest hour, tomorrow, who knows, but we're talking about what's happening now, not things that could possibly happen in the future.
iproxtaco wrote:Then you didn't respond. You just said "wrong" without explaining why you think he was wrong, which he wasn't, be the way.
It IS humanities darkest hour, they're losing territory and are besieged on all fronts,not able to push back their enemies. If you can't see that then you're missing the entire fething point behind 40k.
Everything is hopeless. The Imperium is doomed, fighting for it's mere survival, they cannot win.
I did respond, only to fact that situation is not the same. You can't compare 2000km and 90.000 Light Years.
And my point is they are losing territories now. But with less to defend it will be harder to finish them out as Imperium can mount powerful defense.
And one thing that others write and you didn't read. It's Humanity's darkest hour - now. What about tomorow?
Well that's part of them back sliding. When they lose something, they can't generally can't get it back in the same state it was before. Nids nom a planet and their is nothing left. (The IoM can't terraform a dead world.) The tau take a forge world, and they bulldoze it. Orks land on a hive world, that hive world will always have orks. The best they can do is stop the losses, but they can't rise again.
Nothing quite like someone who has had their big bowl of Fanatic-o's is there
Feel free to believe you'll win Good for you. I approve of heroism in the face of complete and utter irrevocable destruction. It's what I liked about Marines in the RT days
You'd be wrong, and the final crushing desolation of realizing how badly wrong you were is all the sweeter for it when the xenos races are picking their collective teeth with your bones
That's assuming that GW would ever move the timeline along, which they wont, so the IOM is in a state of losing, but not gone yet, for ever
Ascalam wrote:
100 marines drop onto a chaos infested planet, ass-kicking the entire horde for the loss of Brother Spuddy, who was talking wistfully of home at the time and took a headshot as he reminisced about the girl he left behind before being initiated.
Dull, dull, dull. It's an ego-stroking for rabid fanboys, but it has no drama, no interest. It's too easy. In short it's a lot like watching a badly made cartoon. No-one cares about the marines, as they don't have to work hard to win. No-one gets too invested in the bad guys (my favorite guys in any movie) because they're faceless goons that get mowed down like chaff.
Grey Templar wrote:the IoM isn't shrinking. its basically stagnating where it is, for every world lost, another is either rediscovered or retaken but at high cost.
the eternal war is more and more difficult, victories are had at a higher and higher cost. the Imperium stands on the edge of a knife.
KamikazeCanuck wrote:@Coa It's just a fan theory. Had some ridiculous nerd conversation with someone here back in the day and after much speculation we got like 3.2 million habitable worlds. Although that's just speculation trust me there is definately not hundreds of millions of habitable worlds in 40K, they are rare. That's why we have all these wars over them.
Yes, but your speculations go against NASA findings. Further more, humans in 40k HAD access to Terra-forming equipment, and Emperor onlyu knows how many worlds they colonized before the fall of the Eldar.
There are no 'NASA findings' about how many habiltable worlds there are out there, because so far they haven't actually found any. They've found some anomalies that could be planets, and from there speculated as to how many planets there might be, and how many of them might be in an orbit that could result in them being habitable.
It's a very long leap from there to 'There's millions of habitable planets out there just waiting for us to move in...'
And, again, 40 thousand years in which to take any number of those possibly habitable worlds and reduce them to something not so habitable. Or to terraform the uniinhabitable ones and then subsequently mess them up again.
Augustus wrote:Only 1000 space marines in a Chapter? That's absurd in a universe spanning a million worlds. Each marine would defend 1,000 worlds then? Really? Oh there are many chapters, ok, let take another zero off, 100 worlds per man then...
Keep in mind though that Marines are just the special forces. They're not involved in every engagement.
And while large chunks of the galaxy are at way at any given time, there would be other chunks where nothing much is going on.
That's why these "findings" are a bit silly about there being X number of earth like worlds or X number of alien races. We haven't discovered any earth like worlds yet so the ratio of earths to non-earths remains 1:Infinity until we do.
KamikazeCanuck wrote:That's why these "findings" are a bit silly about there being X number of earth like worlds or X number of alien races. We haven't discovered any earth like worlds yet so the ratio of earths to non-earths remains 1:Infinity until we do.
And that is why we don't say: "There are exactly 3 million Earth's in the galaxy." We say: "We have 200 - 400 billion starts, many of them have planets from witch some may have water, atmosphere and simple life organisms. There are probably millions like them."
Some of my best games have been the same. It's what heroes are made of.
I had one grot unit hold out in combat against 5 Chaos Terminators for the whole game one time. They actually took two down, and resolutely refused to flee, even when it was just down to Arnold Squiggenegger and his equally psychotic mate Lug.. (yes, we named them afterwards...)
The rest of the army folded or died in their bootprints, but those grots told the Ruinous powers "YOU SHALL NOT PASS' in squeaky voices and held that objective till the end of the game (contested, i grant you)...
Augustus wrote:I think the million world thing is awesome, it's central to the theme of the Imperium as a massive bureaucracy! The problem is the stupid fluff stories they write and the scale of the elements in it.
...
The EPIC STORY OF ... 10 guys? In a Space Church, Really?
- Edited by insaniak... please don't quote huge multi-screen posts in their entirety. It just clogs up the thread. - There are an unknown number of SM chapters, correct? There are around 1000 SM in each Codex Astartes Chapter. The other chapters have either more than 1000 or they have an unknown number... whioch means that there are more than 1000. SM are super humans and are said to have the strength and life span of 100 humans or something like that. Therefore you dont need to worry about there being too few of SM especially when most of them have recruiting worlds.
Initiate in Waiting wrote:There are an unknown number of SM chapters, correct?
No the (loyal) successor chapters are documented.
There are around 1000 SM in each Codex Astartes Chapter.
There are 1K or less in EVERY Chapter.
The other chapters have either more than 1000 or they have an unknown number... whioch means that there are more than 1000.
No, none of them have more than 1K, that was the point of breaking down the big chapters after the Horus Heresy.
SM are super humans and are said to have the strength and life span of 100 humans or something like that.
I think their average life expectancy is 3 turns. JK, they are rumored to live longer but few do, obviously from the fluff and the game, while the commanders are older the rank and file are all young clones.
Therefore you dont need to worry about there being too few of SM especially when most of them have recruiting worlds.
The numbers problems still apply, I think perhaps you mean one wouldn't have to worry about running out, which is different from an insufficient number to do anything with in the first place.
Augustus wrote:No, none of them have more than 1K, that was the point of breaking down the big chapters after the Horus Heresy.
On paper, none of them should have more than a thousand (although as has been broken down in discussions elsewhere, that seems to apply specifically to the members of the actual fighting companies... Chapters can wind up with more than a thousand when you add in the various auxiliaries.
Some Chapters do have more than a thousand, though. Space Wolves pay only lip service to the limit, with their 12 remaining Great Companies often including more than a hundred Marines each. And Black Templars ignore the limit completely, with the Codex suggesting that their could be as many as 5 or 6 thousand Black Templars in total.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Augustus wrote:...while the commanders are older the rank and file are all young clones.
I think you're getting Star Wars in your 40K...
Automatically Appended Next Post: - Incidentally, I have pruned out the OT chatter. If you want to discuss video games, please do so in the Video Games forum. -
Augustus I think that it is correct to say that you have no clue what you are talking about. What the others said is true. Dante is over 1000 years old and the rest of the BA have the ability to live longer because of their genetic twist. And the SW and BT have no intention of listening to formal SM doctrine resulting in obvious differences in the size of their armies. The next time you try and correct someone, I suggest that you first figure out what you are arguing about, otherwise you will be made into a fool. And I have no idea where you are getting this clone stuff?? It's called a gene seed and it has nothing to do with cloning you just sound ignorant to common 40k knowledge.
Initiate in Waiting wrote:Augustus I think that it is correct to say that you have no clue what you are talking about. What the others said is true. Dante is over 1000 years old and the rest of the BA have the ability to live longer because of their genetic twist. And the SW and BT have no intention of listening to formal SM doctrine resulting in obvious differences in the size of their armies. The next time you try and correct someone, I suggest that you first figure out what you are arguing about, otherwise you will be made into a fool. And I have no idea where you are getting this clone stuff?? It's called a gene seed and it has nothing to do with cloning you just sound ignorant to common 40k knowledge.
There is, however, no need to be rude about it. We're talking about the background for a game of science fantasy toy soldiers.
Brother Coa wrote:Do you think that after all that science posted in the last several years ( numbers of stars in the galaxy, the fact that planets are existing around then and that 500 million of them might be in habitable zone of their stars ), the Imperium should still stick to: "And empire of 1 million worlds."
I think that in the next RuleBook GW should present IoM as an empire of several million worlds. The fact is that fluff was established while official science didn't have any statements about other planets that orbit stars. And since the warfare changed and GW added some new fluff to "modernize" it's army's do you think that they sould do the same thing with number of Imperium's planets?
What do you mean should? More likely than not, it already does. The problem is that outside of the High Lords of Terra, noone really has any idea on the vastness of the Imperium-- they could have fifty million worlds and yet most people still think they have only a million.
Hell, just read Rogue Trader-- even the passageways between planets aren't well known in many places..
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it!!!
