Here's my guess:

Eldar - Indian mythology

Tau - Japanese sci-fi anime (Gundam etc.), hindu societal structure

Necrons - Terminator franchise

Tyranids - Alien franchise

Orks - Tolkien's orcs

Horus Heresy - Alexander's campaign and ensuing wars of the Diadochi

Nurgle - zombies

Khorne - Christian teachings about hell and daemons

Tzeentch - Egyptian/Mesopotamian mythology

Slaanesh - porn and opulence, debauchery

grey knights - monastic order during the crusades (like knights templar but we already have them inspiring the black templars)

sisters of battle - nuns

Eldar: Tolkein High Elves. In Space.

Ork: English Soccer Hooligans and Tolkein Orcs. In Space.

Stunts: Dwarves. In Space.

Horus Heresy: Biblical Tale of The Fall of Lucifer. In Space.

God-Emperor of Mankind: Jesus. In Space. With a job-title taken from a Frank Herbert novel.

All of the Chaos Gods: Michael Moorcock's various Chaos Gods from all of his Eternal Champion books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Champion)

Grey Knights: The legends of the Knights-Templar... and their heresies. In Space.

Sisters of Battle: Renegade Nuns on Wheels
(http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=3094) In Space.

Tau: Gundam Anime. In Space.

Necrons: Terminator. In Space.

Tyranid: Aliens. Still In Space.

Space Marine - Starship Troopers

Tau also have a bit of Taoism, Confucianism., as well as a dash of Buddhism. Their tactics are also almost singularly modeled after Sun Tzu, and firewarriors look a bit like imperialist Japanese soldiers.

... just like the people of Japan, who created the manga/anime that the Tau are based on. The Tau are, basically, Orientalist depictions in 40K, like the Neimoidians of the Star Wars prequels, just not quite as overtly racist.

Eh, if they actually delved into the Tau more I'm guessing they'd be EXTREMELY racist. My impression is that those who join them are essentially fodder.

Sir Arun wrote:sisters of battle - nuns

That sounds a bit ... short, and is not really reflecting what they do.
SoB are pretty similar to what you listed for the Grey Knights and Black Templars - "monastic order during the crusades" - with the only difference to the SM versions being that they've thrown out the supersoldier bits in favour of an (even) stronger focus on religion, and that they are of the opposite gender. A notable influence here was Jeanne d'Arc; you will notice that the Fleur-de-Lis is very prominent on all Sororitas designs, and in fact the origin of the Sisterhood was a small temple on the Agriworld of San Leor (Orleans?).


I agree with Co'tor Shas' assessment of the Tau, by the way. But is it really "racist" if those qualities are or were not actually regarded as negative in the culture this army is imitating? I have to say, the Tau strike me as a rather positive society, and calling them racist feels similar to calling the Imperium "racist" because of how it depicts what is essentially medieval Europe. In Space.

Well the Tau caste system is very much based on the Hindu caste system: outwardly its an ideal about everyone working together for the common good of society, but in introspection you have all kinds of hatred between the castes, with one considering themselves higher than the other.

Ethereal caste = Brahmins
Fire Caste = kshatriyas (warriors)
Water Caste = vaishya (merchants, diplomats)
Earth Caste = shudra (farmers)

With obviously the Earth caste doing all the "dirty work", while the Fire Caste's only "dirty work" is killing the enemy on the battlefield. Ethereals are also considered the learned, the enlightened, almost holy individuals who brought wisdom to the Tau and liberated them from the darkness of barbarity.

Those are also five separate sub-species within the Tau biosphere. A member of the Air Caste, for example, cannot physically do the tasks the Earth Caste does, they are not physically strong enough, and not biologically capable of becoming strong enough.

Fire - Earth - Air - Water...What does that sound like to you?

The Tau castes are inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender.

... except for pre-dating that series by ten or fifteen years.

I'd call the SoB a mashup of nuns and crusade-era knights, neatly tied together by Jeanne d'Arc. Though I'd also say that there's some Spanish Inquisition in there, what with the fixation on the purifying effects of flame, and applying flames to dirty heretics and witches.

As for the Necrons, Ancient Egypt was always a presence in there, but it's really become more prominent, recently.

Space Marines, of course, depends entirely on the Chapter. We've got our Roman-esque Ultras, and I've heard the Imperial Fists referred to as Prussian. You get the idea.

 Psienesis wrote:
Eldar: Tolkein High Elves. In Space.

Ork: English Soccer Hooligans and Tolkein Orcs. In Space.

Stunts: Dwarves. In Space.

Horus Heresy: Biblical Tale of The Fall of Lucifer. In Space.

God-Emperor of Mankind: Jesus. In Space. With a job-title taken from a Frank Herbert novel.

All of the Chaos Gods: Michael Moorcock's various Chaos Gods from all of his Eternal Champion books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Champion)

Grey Knights: The legends of the Knights-Templar... and their heresies. In Space.

Sisters of Battle: Renegade Nuns on Wheels
(http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=3094) In Space.

Tau: Gundam Anime. In Space.

Necrons: Terminator. In Space.

Tyranid: Aliens. Still In Space.

Total win. But the empy is more god from the first testament. Exalted

 Sir Arun wrote:
Well the Tau caste system is very much based on the Hindu caste system: outwardly its an ideal about everyone working together for the common good of society, but in introspection you have all kinds of hatred between the castes, with one considering themselves higher than the other.

Ethereal caste = Brahmins
Fire Caste = kshatriyas (warriors)
Water Caste = vaishya (merchants, diplomats)
Earth Caste = shudra (farmers)

With obviously the Earth caste doing all the "dirty work", while the Fire Caste's only "dirty work" is killing the enemy on the battlefield. Ethereals are also considered the learned, the enlightened, almost holy individuals who brought wisdom to the Tau and liberated them from the darkness of barbarity.

It is also very much Chinese in terms of the elements. Earth, Air, Fire, Metal, and Water are analogous to the primary elements which help determine a person and are combined with the more traditional zodiacal symbols, such as a Metal Horse (and just by chance there are 5 Tau castes which helps dictate the person). This then correlates to a Yin/Yang ideology of the Greater Good vs Farsight Enclaves or the Greater Good vs the Mon'tau.

I'll also note that the caste system in and of itself is not unique to India, it is just that it still underlines decisions in India to this day. Having lived and spent a lot of time in England, the caste system still exists there, it is just pretty muted.

Some Eldar symbols and names are also inspired by Neo-Paganism:

For example:
Samhain = Samhain (pronounced S-ow-ain)
Biel-Tan = Beltane

Tau inspired by Confucianism, Taoism and maybe some Chan Buddhism too...

Imperial Guard inspired by Russian WW2 tactics..e.g Commissars. Catachan Vietnam.

Look, Eldar have names, bits and pieces of lore, runes etc from all over Europe. Indian would be my last bet, I'd start with the Celts and work my way towards the Nile. You don't need neo-paganism when the original works well enough.

Avatar is an Indian concept. But youre right in that the Eldar have allthings and everything exotic in them. The Goddess Isha for example is obviously Ishtar from Babylonian mythology, aspect warriors and their rituals are highly reminiscent of the japanese samurai. The laughing god Cegorach sounds a lot like a name taken from the Celtic pantheon.

I don't think Isha is Ishtar... in name, maybe, but as their Goddess of Life and Healing is... very much out of line with what Ishtar was to Babylon. I think it may just be a bit of a "name inspired by" thing, kind of how Nurgle is inspired by Nergal, from the Necronomicon... even though Nergal is not a god of disease, or anything at all related to the Chaos God.

Which is fine. I mean, really, there's only so many phonetics you can string together to make sounds, and even fewer that will sound good in a theme, so why not make use of cool-sounding names that someone has come up with previously. Look at how often "John" gets imported into various languages.

I don't know, some of these are generic enough fantasy tropes that I don't think there's a lot of sense in drawing lines so far back. While I'm not very familiar with Indian mythology I don't see much in them that's not more likely plucked from easier sources. It may be that those sources eventually lead back there, but I'll still go for Tolkien's Elves and various European mythologies as the direct influences.

I also think that 'Nurgle: Zombies' is a bit thin. I don't imagine that he was originally concepted as a zombie-themed god; I think the core idea of a plague god more likely goes back to the Four Horsemen (not necessarily as a direct and intentional reference, but its existence as a well-known concept is probably what makes the 'plague personified' idea an obvious one). And I don't really think his visual design takes many cues from zombies; zombies are corpses, and often rotting, but there doesn't tend to be a visual emphasis on disease.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Here's my guess:
Eldar - Indian mythology

Actually, most of the Eldar mythos was developed by (I think) Jervis Johnson after a holiday in Egypt. Fairly sure it was Jervis, it was definitely Egypt. I think that ties into the look more than anything though.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Necrons - Terminator franchise

Partly that for the look, but they seem to me to have been a direct counter-part to undead, rather obviously. So the inspiration was actually all over the place already.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Tyranids - Alien franchise

Genestealers definitely were. The whole thing about implanting their DNA through the mouth (they used to have a kind of depositor in their tongue and "kiss" their victims).

 Sir Arun wrote:
Orks - Tolkien's orcs

No way. The way they talk, the fact that their original supplement was called "Ere we go!"... Unquestionably modelled on British football hooligans. They are light years from Tolkien's orcs.

Eldar- various of the eldren "space elves" from various Michael moorecock's books
pretty much all of the chaos gods and forces, the chaos from Michael moorecocks books again as with the elder with only slight name variations
Look at the older catalogues and you'll notice that they actually even used to sell eternal champion models. they pulled a LOT from his books. to be honest, read through some of his books anyway, they are good reads and you'll ind a lot of ways he influenced fantasy as well. One of the old GW novelcovers actually is a scene from a hwkmoon book featuring Baron Malaidious.
arbites-judge Dredd.

Starcraft.

*ducks*

Bit of a weird guess but...

Chaos - Lovecraft

read a few of the moorecock novels. try the hawkmoon trilogy and elric. You will see khorne and slannesh. I can see lovecraft for nurgle and tzeentch. Like I said, those are good reads in their own right and you will see fantasy and 40k in a whole new light.

I remember reading that Warhammer 40k started as a spin-off of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, so maybe it is there where you should look. That is actually the reason why there used to be space dwarf (squats). Then they dissapeared. A Games Workshop worker gave an interview and said that they were simply not able to find a suitable role for the race without making them look like "Fantasy Dwarfs in Space". This aside here my thoughts:

Eldar and Dark Eldar: General fantasy elves. Quick but not thought. Good at magic (psikers) and good craftsmans (DE tech).

Orks: they are not just Tolkien orks. They are much toughter and comical. I like the hooligan idea.

Tyranids: Obviously Alien-Zerg. The generic alien biomachinery all-devouring threat.

Space Marines & Chaos counterparts: A mixture of supersoldier with a bit of starship trooper and angels. hence the whole fallen angel thing with chaos.

Necrons: Obviously Terminator, now with a lot of Fantasy Tomb Kings taste.

Imperial Guard: Select any more or les modern army (Include WWI and WWII) and a apply science-fiction filter.

The Tau castes aren't based on Hindu castes. Each Tau caste has it's equal standing in the Empire and work together for "The Greater Good".

No race or faction is entirely just one culture lifted as is from history. GW has taken and blended and adapted (to vary degrees of success) parts from all over the world and from different historical time periods.

For example:

The Eldar thematically draw from multiple sources. Of these, Japan is one of them. Direct evidence of aesthetc borrowings include: the symbol of Iyanden includes a shrine gate design directly analogous to Japanese Shinto shrines. The back banners Jes Goodwin was fond of including in Eldar design (and which was present in many 2nd ed. models) matched the back banners worn by Japanese samurai and soldiers during the Japanese Warring States period and are even named as sashimono banners in Jes Goodwin's sketches and notes.

However, the Eldar also have influences from Greek,Celtic, even Egyptian sources. The Corinthian design of Eldar helms, particularly Dire Avenger ones, for example is clear Greek influence. Eldar Craftworld names of Biel-tan and Saim-han are direct copies of the real world Celtic festivals/holidays. The false chin beards on certain Eldar helms such as the Dire Avenger Exarch borrows from the Egyptians (see Egyptian funeral masks), and the Ulthwe design is based off the historical Egyptian Eye of Horus. The chiseled Eldar runes are based off Egyptian hieroglyphs while the more fluid Eldar runes look like those that might be written with a brush, and are either a reference to Egyptian Demotic or Asian brush writing. The Yin/Yang symbols on Eldar transfer sheets or Eldar Titans and Wraithknights is a take on the Chinese concept of Yin and Yang. The seals on the Wraith constructs is referred to by Jes Goodwin in his sketches as tugra, which is a Turk/Ottoman thing. Overlying all of this is the theme of Tolkien elves.

Thematically each of these cultures served as epitome of alien, inscrutable menace to one of the component influences on the Imperium. The Imperium is, obviously, part Roman, part-medieval and part-Victorian. Romans were simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by the Greeks and Egyptians, medieval western Europeans by the Byzantines and the Victorians by the Chinese. Fu Manchu, the quintessential "Yellow Peril" villain is pretty much how the Imperium pictures Eldar Farseers.

Orks as football hooligans is not even remotely ambiguous to anyone who grew up in Britain in the late Eighties when orks were created proper. The language, the look, phrases used. The first book was actually called "Ere We Go!". Now once you got into the orks, there were mire influences that came in -Snake Bites, Goffs, etc, all had their unique influences. But nothing and no-one formed more of a base for the orks than British football hooligans. They're a direct parody.

 Medium of Death wrote:
The Tau castes aren't based on Hindu castes. Each Tau caste has it's equal standing in the Empire and work together for "The Greater Good".

This is true, there are no 'untouchable' castes in Tau society, where in the Tau would tell only 5 Tau out of 50 that they could get on a rescue boat and then leave the other 45 to die, even though the boat can carry 100 Tau and isn't making another stop outside of returning to the main landing zone for rescue and retrieval efforts. Yet this still happens in India today due to the caste system.

Iracundus wrote:
Thematically each of these cultures served as epitome of alien, inscrutable menace to one of the component influences on the Imperium. The Imperium is, obviously, part Roman, part-medieval and part-Victorian. Romans were simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by the Greeks and Egyptians, medieval western Europeans by the Byzantines and the Victorians by the Chinese. Fu Manchu, the quintessential "Yellow Peril" villain is pretty much how the Imperium pictures Eldar Farseers.

For the Imperium, you've missed out Catholicism. The Imperium is essentially Catholic Space Nazis. You've got the old fellah on a holy seat, a religious centre, many catholic trappings, rituals, saints, an inquistion. Even the restrictions on scientific curiosity are thematically close to what is a popular perception of the historical church. Then from the Nazis, you've got ideals of purity, fear of the Other and of corruption within, autocracy, militant culture... Yes, Roman elements are in there but I think in many cases they come via Nazism which emulated Roman imagery a great deal.

Nazism and catholicism are the biggest influences on the IoM, imo. Note, I mean no offence to any real world people. I'm just talking about influences of ieas and imagery, not talking about whät anyone is actually like.

knas ser wrote:


Nazism and catholicism are the biggest influences on the IoM, imo..

I dunno, I'd put Rome above Nazism. We've got an Emperor, Legions (or used to) and Latin everywhere. There's probably other things too, but they escape me at present.

Eldar are a mix of Celtic, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, a bit of Japanese and Byzantine cultures with Melniborneans from the fantasy Elric books thrown in too.

Tau are based off western mechs that are based on the Japanese designs, with some of RIFTS (can't remember the race) thrown in too. Some of the designs in the Anime Metal Armour Dragonar look like a Firewarrior.

 Troike wrote:

knas ser wrote:


Nazism and catholicism are the biggest influences on the IoM, imo..

I dunno, I'd put Rome above Nazism. We've got an Emperor, Legions (or used to) and Latin everywhere. There's probably other things too, but they escape me at present.

Lots of it do seems semi-roman, but the Inquisition are some sort of weird amalgam of the Spanish Inquisition and Space-Nazis.

Totalitarianism, not Nazism. Nazism is particular to a specific period of time and a specific national identity.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Troike wrote:

knas ser wrote:


Nazism and catholicism are the biggest influences on the IoM, imo..

I dunno, I'd put Rome above Nazism. We've got an Emperor, Legions (or used to) and Latin everywhere. There's probably other things too, but they escape me at present.

Lots of it do seems semi-roman, but the Inquisition are some sort of weird amalgam of the Spanish Inquisition and Space-Nazis.

There are eagles, but then every militaristic culture seems to use those. And there's the odd Roman term such as Legion (though the legions came later on in WH40K lore, it was Chapters for quite a long time) and it's called an Empire. But Empire / Emperor is not exclusive to Romans. But really I don't see a lot more than that. The architecture and style of the Empire has only occasional Classical elements. Stylistically, the IoM is Baroque more than anything. The ships, the cathedrals, most of it. Now Baroque is Italian (originally) but it is not Roman. In the sense that the IoM is roman, it is far more Holy Roman Empire than it is Roman Empire. And when people talk about "the Roman Empire" they mean the latter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
Totalitarianism, not Nazism. Nazism is particular to a specific period of time and a specific national identity.

No, I know the difference. I said Nazism because I was specifically referring to Nazism. I'm not trying to describe the IoM in terms of political freedoms, but in terms of the influences that went into the background. From Nazism, it draws on core beliefs of racial purity (do not suffer the mutant to live, purge the alien, etc.) and imagery - all those pictures of Space Marines lined up where the artist has consciously copied the Nuremberg Rally of 1993, the Nazis drew on a lot of Roman imagery such as the eagles, the "Thousand Year Rule", and more. "Totalitarianism" can cover anything up to and including Mao's China.

Obviously there are many distinct elements that the IoM draws on (Kafka's bureaucracies could be an influence), but when I say Nazi beliefs and imagery feed into it as one of the larger influences, I do mean them specifically.

Though perhaps we should move away from that. It's not a pleasant subject and the last thing I want to do is create the impression that I think the writers are Nazis smuggling in propaganda (because obviously I don't). I'm just saying it's a very clear influence.

 Psienesis wrote:
Totalitarianism, not Nazism. Nazism is particular to a specific period of time and a specific national identity.

I know, I just like to think of the emperor as space-hitler.
In reality, I mostly say that because Nazi Germany and the IOM both are religiously racist (as in really devoted, not actual religion), excessively nationalist, and imperialistic. There is also a lot of comparison with the uniforms, and being horrible people.

Racial purity, as we would view in in the modern era, pre-dates Nazism by a good six hundred years. Antisemitism did not start (or end) with Hitler. There's also the fact that the mutant and the alien aren't human. There's nothing in the Imperium stopping someone from Planet A from breeding from someone from Planet B (apart from travel difficulties) so long as Planet B is also human.

all those pictures of Space Marines lined up where the artist has consciously copied the Nuremberg Rally of 1993

o.0

You mean the rally of 1936?

You know who else stood in huge ranks of soldiers to hear political speeches? The Roman Legions. American soldiers of the Civil War. American soldiers right now, today. Gathering elements of a military together for parade, d&c, awards, speeches, memorials, unit honors, etc etc etc is not a uniquely Nazi practice... and ten thousand people in uniform are all going to look basically like that. We even still carry unit colors.

Yes, Totalitarianism is a rather broad label. You know what's interesting? Totalitarian states are almost indistinguishable from one another, regardless of the political path they take to get there. Far Left, Far Right, doesn't matter. In practice, there's not much of a difference between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union.

 Psienesis wrote:
Racial purity, as we would view in in the modern era, pre-dates Nazism by a good six hundred years. Antisemitism did not start (or end) with Hitler. There's also the fact that the mutant and the alien aren't human. There's nothing in the Imperium stopping someone from Planet A from breeding from someone from Planet B (apart from travel difficulties) so long as Planet B is also human.

Not sure what you're trying to argue but if it's that I was incorrect to use Nazism rather than Totalitarianism, the above does not help your case. It is quite possible to have totalitarianism without an overt (or even an implicit) racial agenda. Nazism however had it as a core belief. Nor did anything I say depend on racism being exclusive to Nazism and I would rather hope that you don't think me stupid enough to believe that it is. I said that the IoM was partly inspired by Nazism. You attempted to correct me and say I meant Totalitarianism. I said I didn't (and I really ought to know what I meant being the one who said it) and now you appear to be arguing that elements I identified didn't come from Nazism but came from elsewhere. I don't see evidence of that. Of course Nazism didn't create every element of itself out of whole cloth. However, there a strong collections and themes it gathers together which make it a thing in and of itself due to the way elements are combined. And we see those same combinations echoed in the IoM both in terms of the practices of the IoM and in the artwork and style it is portrayed with. And given that Nazism is a recent example that has left many scars on us as a culture, I think it reasonable to say when you see many elements of it mirrored or parodied in a modern work, that it is an influence.

 Psienesis wrote:

all those pictures of Space Marines lined up where the artist has consciously copied the Nuremberg Rally of 1993

o.0

You mean the rally of 1936?

No. I mean 1933. I made a typo, obviously. There were a series of Nazi rallies at Nuremberg over a number of years. 1933 is one of the iconic ones that are imprinted in many people's mental images of Nazism. The other most iconic one would be 1934:



Now you've got me posting pictures of Nazi rallies and I said I wanted to move on from this, but the influence is obvious to me. I do not know why you keep trying to correct what I say telling me I mean one thing when I have quite deliberately said another.

 Psienesis wrote:
You know who else stood in huge ranks of soldiers to hear political speeches? The Roman Legions. American soldiers of the Civil War. American soldiers right now, today. Gathering elements of a military together for parade, d&c, awards, speeches, memorials, unit honors, etc etc etc is not a uniquely Nazi practice... and ten thousand people in uniform are all going to look basically like that. We even still carry unit colors.

Ah, sarcasm - most sophisticated of debating techniques. (That was sarcasm, btw. ). Yes, certainly, American soldiers stood in lines and listened to speeches. Now open your rule book at pg. 178 in the background section on the Empire and tell me if they look like American Soldiers to you? Or something else. I was actually hoping to find you an early picture of Space Marines all lined up in a shot like the Nuremberg Rally (1933) but I don't recall which book it is in and I can't find it online with a quick search. It's one of the older ones. At any rate, obviously other soldiers stand in line. As I pointed out earlier, there's a large collection of elements that are common to Nazism and they are all echoed in the IoM. It's an issue of combination and the fact that, for people of my age and those who developed the original WH40K setting, Nazism is THE big parallel. There's no way that the creators of this put it all together and didn't realise how much it echoed that, weren't influenced by that. None of them are that dumb. I genuinely don't understand why you are getting so dogmatic here in refusing to countenance it. Even if you genuinely don't see it, even after having multiple parallels pointed out, you're going beyond saying that you're not convinced and trying to argue that it actually isn't.

 Psienesis wrote:
Yes, Totalitarianism is a rather broad label. You know what's interesting? Totalitarian states are almost indistinguishable from one another, regardless of the political path they take to get there. Far Left, Far Right, doesn't matter. In practice, there's not much of a difference between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union.

That's utterly absurd. Mao's china is identical to Nazi Germany is identical to late Saddam era Iraq is identical to Zimbabwe is identical to Qatar? Even aside from a long list of practical and meaningful differences, the context of the discussion - which I was explicit about - was influence on the development of the IoM background and imagery. Do you look at those lines of Space Marines or the Imperial Palace and think: "Hmmm - Zimbabwe with a dash of Chairman Mao"? Really? They're all the same in this context? No. But you can look at it and see a lot of imagery and elements that make you think of Nazism. I said Nazism originally. You tried to correct me to Totalitarianism. I pointed out that no, I meant Nazism, and you're still at it trying to tell me I meant Totalitarianism. I do not. Eugenics, purging of the "impure", large rallies of motionless, disciplined soldiers stretching into the distance. If I'd meant to say something that encompassed Gadaffi's militias or Zimbabwean riot police putting down a protest, that's what I'd have said. Why do you try to argue "Totalitarians states are almost indistinguishable from one another"? That's an incredibly ignorant and superficial thing to say.

Why do you object to my saying Nazi ideology and imagery is an influence on IoM. It's not whether you can find some of the same stuff elsewhere. It's when you find the same combinations and acknowledge that this is by very far the most present image of these elements in modern collective culture.


EDIT: Just to add another influence which came in later on in the development of the background: The Imperial Guard are obviously very influenced by Russian troops in First and Second World War. Both in the "throw bodies at them" philosophy and the tanks, uniforms and elements such as commissars. Another clear influence, though one that was added some time after the original Rogue Trader-era.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
Starcraft.

*ducks*

I was hoping id get through this without a starcraft comment... grrrrr!
You know some people actually credit starcraft for influencing 40k, not the other way around! "Damn those pesky kids!"

Poly Ranger wrote:

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
Starcraft.

*ducks*

I was hoping id get through this without a starcraft comment... grrrrr!
You know some people actually credit starcraft for influencing 40k, not the other way around! "Damn those pesky kids!"

Ignoring that both are inspired by Heinlein.

knas ser wrote:


Not sure what you're trying to argue but if it's that I was incorrect to use Nazism rather than Totalitarianism..

*snip*

Well, in the first part, you're responding to something that wasn't directed at you but, secondly...

When I see the pics of the Legions in the gathering, no, I don't think Nuremburg, I don't think Nazis. I think Roman Legions. It's probably the laurels on some of the Legion's flags, and the fact that it's called "the Imperium".

And, yes, if you want to talk scales, there is very little difference between the Totalitarian states of Germany and the Soviet Union, excepting that Stalin was a whole lot better at killing a fethload of (his own) people, and Chairman Mao was arguably better at it than Stalin! What the Nazis had going for them was being the best-dressed of 20th century Totalitarian regimes, and having been involved in a relatively short war with most of the rest of the Western world. Also, a lot of post-war media has created a mythology around WW2, hence its enduring nature in the psyche of people now nearly seventy years after its end.

... and, yes, Totalitarian regimes have some sort of "outsider" as a threat to the safety and security of the state/people to focus attention on. This was as true in Orwell's 1984 as it was in Mao's China. Or Hussein's Iraq. I am trying to think of a totalitarian regime that did not have some sort of "outsider" scapegoat-element, but not coming up with one.

Many 40k races are based on the WHFB races.

Orks-Orcs and Goblins
Eldar-High Elves
Dark Eldar-Dark Elves
Exodites-Wood Elves
Necrons-Tomb Kings
Chaos Space Marines-Warriors of Chaos
Deamons-Deamons

And there is probably a lot more.
Of course most 40k factions have diverged quite a lot from their fantasy counterparts since the beginning of 40k.
Besides WHFB there are of course lots of other influences. Some, such as the Space Wolves are very obvious, others are more subtle.
The Imperium is basically a hideous Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire/Medieval Catholic Church/USSR/Nazi Germany/George Orwell's 1984 and 'whatever nasty dystopian stuff you can imagine' hybrid

Ugh... I don't like threads like these. I feel sullied by them somehow. I think that when people try and compare good works of art to it's inspiration it often comes off negatively.

Also, knowing that there are people who have religious beliefs and people who do not, this forum in particular seems to have a lot of people who adamantly hate religion. I'll never understand it and it just ... well it hurts my soul on some level so I just try not to address it. 40k being compared to it just irks me.



However, now that my little diatribe has ended I would like to stress my displeasure about the way Grey Knights have been referenced so far.

The first few posts seemed to liken them to Templars or Warrior Monks and Holy Orders. While this is all subjective and people can think whatever they want... I would like to point out that this is also the basis for the Space Marines. I read in one of the earlier posts that someone likened the Space Marines to the roman legions... that struck a Nerv. Mostly because they are kind of right... well, they are now anyway.

I've played 40k for a long time and I can generally say that I like most of it. I like some of the newer stuff a lot less, but that's natural right? squeezing extra pieces into a finished puzzle tends to make things look a little off. Anyway. The Space Marines have their roots (genetically augmented human experiments in power suits of armor) in various sci-fi works from a number of authors. Heinlein is a common example. But what made the Space Marines unique - or at least not just GW shadows of Starship Troopers, was that rather than them being your typical jarhead-in-space with larger than life sci-fi guns, they were basically monastic warrior monks. The older Core Rule Books were better at illustrating that, and the Dark Angels are probably the paragon of that behavior in today's 40k. But really, that's how they all used to be portrayed. This is why they have fortress monastaries, and chaplains. They are a brotherhood of monks, utterly devoted to the "cult of the Emperor".

Anyway... I digress. the point is, they are basically what everyone seems to associate with the Grey Knights.

Before Matt Ward has is kinky way with them, the GK were cool. Now they are so... dense with emo-self-contradiction that they are basically just a wild caricature of the Inquisition as if all of the 40k universe were 15th century Spain.

Grey Knights are, more specifically, modeled after the real-world Knights-Templar... as well as the legends, myths, stories and outright lies that were told about them.

The Grey Knights are holy warriors charged with the destruction of the daemonic... and they will use the vilest of sorceries and the blackest of magics to ensure that is done.

Just a small but important detail. 40k doesn't resort to proven historical fact as much as it does to myth, ill-informed speculation, propaganda, self-image and historical distortion, and the factions reflect this.

 Psienesis wrote:

knas ser wrote:


Not sure what you're trying to argue but if it's that I was incorrect to use Nazism rather than Totalitarianism..

*snip*

Well, in the first part, you're responding to something that wasn't directed at you but, secondly...

I was the one that raised Nazism as an influence. You didn't quote anyone in your reply and just said Totalitarianism, not Nazis. It seemed you were replying to me and correcting me. My apologies for confusion then, I hope at least you can see why I thought you were talking to me.

Yes, totalitarian regimes usually have an Other to focus discontent on. But there's something particularly reminiscent of Nazism with the Imperium's do it suffer a mutant to live, eugenics to create a superior race, a lot of the imagery that the Nazis shared with the Roman Empire. You may personally not have had that reaction when you saw it (and note the terminology if Legions came much later on in the fluff), but I still do nit see your string objections. Not only is Nazism the closest of the Totalitarian regimes you might draw on for inspiration, but it is also the most iconic to Western minds of my generation which I share with the original creators. The parallels of what they were writing would be unmissable to the writers. And it remains absurd to characterise all totalitarian regimes as the same. You cannot look at the Imperium and say: 'oh, looks like they drew on Gadaffi's Lybia or Cambodia in the nineteen-seventies'. You can look and be very much reminded of 'Nazism'. Again, I do not understand why you are so set against this being an influence when there are such striking parallels of both style and practice.


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 En Excelsis wrote:
Ugh... I don't like threads like these. I feel sullied by them somehow. I think that when people try and compare good works of art to it's inspiration it often comes off negatively.

Also, knowing that there are people who have religious beliefs and people who do not, this forum in particular seems to have a lot of people who adamantly hate religion. I'll never understand it and it just ... well it hurts my soul on some level so I just try not to address it. 40k being compared to it just irks me.

Just to emphasize, although I do think Catholicism was drawn on quite heavily for the IoM, I am in no way being critical of Catholics. One of my best friends is Catholic and his beliefs are a big part of what drives him to be such a positive and supportive guy. WH40K looks at everything through the darkest possible glass. Hey - they even turned football hooligans into everyone's most loveable race!

 Psienesis wrote:
The Grey Knights are holy warriors charged with the destruction of the daemonic... and they will use the vilest of sorceries and the blackest of magics to ensure that is done.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. See, this is post Matt Ward fluff. Pre-Matt Ward fluff meant that the Grey Knights were the purest of the Imperium, the most clean and the most badass of all, but also the fewest in number of all the Imperium's militant forces. For example in the old fluff they flat out refused to ally themselves with Radical Inquisitors, and only Puritan Inquisitors could work with them.

Post Mat Ward fluff has made them into the wet dream of any radical inquisitor, having bound daemon heads cackling in their feast hall, alien weapons and all sorts of other xeno trinkets amidst their collection, killing sisters of battle or anyone who "witness" what they do and they have basically devolved into social Pariahs who have their own agenda with the extermination of Chaos rather than being the most stalwart agents of the Imperium.

In fact, they have gained so much separation from the body of the Inquisition that post Ward fluff almost makes them out to be a Space Marine chapter in its own right.

 Sir Arun wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The Grey Knights are holy warriors charged with the destruction of the daemonic... and they will use the vilest of sorceries and the blackest of magics to ensure that is done.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. See, this is post Matt Ward fluff.

But it's still the current fluff, so he is technically correct.

well we were talking about the origins and influences of the different races. I.e. Mid 1980s to most of the late 2000s ~25 years of background. Thats why the whole tomb kings in spess was also not really associated with Necrons up until recently when GW shoved that imagery down our throats, earlier the only connection they have were the pyramidal structures on necron tomb worlds, and the whole tomb-undead thing.

 Sir Arun wrote:
well we were talking about the origins and influences of the different races. I.e. Mid 1980s to most of the late 2000s ~25 years of background.

You didn't make any such stipulation in your OP. And, really, it seems needlessly limiting to impose such a restriction. Some people might like newer fluff over older fluff.

By all means, discuss the pre-Ward GKs and their influences, but nobody is wrong for discussing the post-Ward GKs. They're just more up to date in that they are discussing the current canonical version on the GK.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Thats why the whole tomb kings in spess was also not really associated with Necrons up until recently when GW shoved that imagery down our throats, earlier the only connection they have were the pyramidal structures on necron tomb worlds, and the whole tomb-undead thing.

A natural consquence of giving them some personality, I guess. A theme that was always present in them got expanded upon.

I just want to get in here and back up Knas Ser's assertion that Nazi imagery and themes (along with Catholic ones) were an influence on the IoM. It's true. What he says about how the Nazis pulled together a lot of things (fear of the other, racial and ideological purity, rampant militarism) and made the resulting product their own is spot-on. Yes, other totalitarian regimes have killed more people, or feared the other just as much, and so on... but the Nazis were the first to do it all at once, and to do it with such iconic style. I'm not trying to say the Nazis were good or anything, because they weren't. Everybody sane can agree on that. But their style of totalitarianism had a flavor all its own, and that flavor is present in the IoM.

And yes, the Roman themes are there, too. Its hard to use Anglicized Latin in all your governmental names and not evoke some kind of Roman feeling. The IoM has a very strong Late Roman Empire vibe going... its a big mess that has overstretched itself militarily and is being taxed by all the enemies it has. Its teetering on the verge of collapse. It's grimdark.

But GW didn't stop with Roman themes. They layered the Nazis on top (kill the mutant, purge the unclean) and then slathered everything in a wet, runny garnish of Catholocism (the Ecclesiarchy and the power that it holds over everyone, no matter how highly-placed they may be... oh, and burn the heretic). The result is a faction that can only be considered the good guys because everyone else in the setting (prior to the Tau) is so much worse.

And that's what GW was going for.

I know its fashionable on the internet to call 'Nazi' anytime somebody doesn't like something else, or says something somebody disagrees with, but Knas Ser isn't being fashionable. He called Nazis because, in 40K, there are Nazis. Not generic 'totalitarians'. Nazis.

Specifically, Catholic Space Nazis who work for Roman sounding governmental departments.

The Necrons have more of a Lovecraftian background with omnipotent beings being bigger and more powerful than the human mind. A close resemblence to C'thulu and the such.

The Big E is botha Jesus and First Testament God allegory.

Imperial Guard have the most diverse inspiration with armies of the world, mainly Soviet era Red Army.

The Grey Knights are definately Spanish Inquisition along with other similar elements.

Space Marines are Starship Troopers, though the concept of a space marine was coined in the 1930s sci fi novels. Which is why its ridiculous for GW to sue anyone for using the name space marine.

The big E is also part King Arthur, Part St George, and part EVERY OTHER EPIC hero archetype since the year dot.

squidhills wrote:
I just want to get in here and back up Knas Ser's assertion that Nazi imagery and themes (along with Catholic ones) were an influence on the IoM. It's true. What he says about how the Nazis pulled together a lot of things (fear of the other, racial and ideological purity, rampant militarism) and made the resulting product their own is spot-on. Yes, other totalitarian regimes have killed more people, or feared the other just as much, and so on... but the Nazis were the first to do it all at once, and to do it with such iconic style. I'm not trying to say the Nazis were good or anything, because they weren't. Everybody sane can agree on that. But their style of totalitarianism had a flavor all its own, and that flavor is present in the IoM.

And yes, the Roman themes are there, too. Its hard to use Anglicized Latin in all your governmental names and not evoke some kind of Roman feeling. The IoM has a very strong Late Roman Empire vibe going... its a big mess that has overstretched itself militarily and is being taxed by all the enemies it has. Its teetering on the verge of collapse. It's grimdark.

But GW didn't stop with Roman themes. They layered the Nazis on top (kill the mutant, purge the unclean) and then slathered everything in a wet, runny garnish of Catholocism (the Ecclesiarchy and the power that it holds over everyone, no matter how highly-placed they may be... oh, and burn the heretic). The result is a faction that can only be considered the good guys because everyone else in the setting (prior to the Tau) is so much worse.

And that's what GW was going for.

I know its fashionable on the internet to call 'Nazi' anytime somebody doesn't like something else, or says something somebody disagrees with, but Knas Ser isn't being fashionable. He called Nazis because, in 40K, there are Nazis. Not generic 'totalitarians'. Nazis.

Specifically, Catholic Space Nazis who work for Roman sounding governmental departments.

Thanks for that. I was starting to wonder if I just had Nazis on the brain (which would be more than a little worrying). And spot on about the Roman flavour.

Another influence... It wasn't very emphasized in the early fluff but the insane bureaucracy of the Administratum draws on Brazil (which was released in 1985), a dash of Kafka and similar works, I think.

Two cents on Chaos and on Imperium/SM
Chaos gods remind me of the four knights from the book of Revelations:
War: Khorne
Pestilence: Nurgle
less obvious
Death: Tzeench (in tarots, death card means change, after all)
Famine: Slaanesh (a bit stretchy, but: in famine there's hunger... And slaanesh goes well with appetites)

Imperium to me is globally like the roman empire (provinces/planets, guard/decuriae/centuriae, marines/legions... Ok this worksbetter pre-heresy)

Space marines vary:
- Ultramarines keep with the roman empire
- Space wolves are viking/norse
- White scars/mongolian
- Dark angels/monastic orders
well, et cetera

Grey Knights are a little perplexing to me...
When I "left" they were the elite of the elite, standing over sm as marines stood above humans... Now they are stated as having more access to advanced tech, resources andvehicles than "other chapters"... but in fact have the same/less than other sm, descending from the"angelic army"status to a "sorcerous templar enclave"

 BattleCapIronblood wrote:
The Big E is botha Jesus and First Testament God allegory.

The WH40K setting was created in 1987 in the North of England... I think any absolutist autocratic figure in fiction created under such circumstances, we have to also inspect for traces of Thatcher. /jk


(for Americans and others, let me just remark that when Thatcher died recently, the song "Hooray the Witch is Dead" came within a whisper of being the British number one sold track that month).


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 Kerrathyr wrote:
Grey Knights are a little perplexing to me...
When I "left" they were the elite of the elite, standing over sm as marines stood above humans... Now they are stated as having more access to advanced tech, resources andvehicles than "other chapters"... but in fact have the same/less than other sm, descending from the"angelic army"status to a "sorcerous templar enclave"

You must be the same as me - an older player now returning. I too am confused by the Grey Knights. They used to be terminator-clad marines who were all powerful psykers and specialised in demon killing. Now I don't know what they are, but I'm hearing the dread curse "Matt Ward" uttered in connection with them...

 Kerrathyr wrote:
Two cents on Chaos and on Imperium/SM
Chaos gods remind me of the four knights from the book of Revelations:
War: Khorne
Pestilence: Nurgle
less obvious
Death: Tzeench (in tarots, death card means change, after all)
Famine: Slaanesh (a bit stretchy, but: in famine there's hunger... And slaanesh goes well with appetites)
"

Those are how I associate them as well, and it isn't a hard stretch when you look at Tzeentch and Slaanesh.

Death is a transformative process to many world religions, the reference you note, and so forth.

Slaanesh as Famine is more pronounced than that even. For what does Slaanesh do, makes you numb to sensation or experience a famine of sensation so acute that you must constantly seek to 1-up it. A hunger for more and more that can never be satiated.

This in and of itself is not revolutionary. The Bible is the single most referenced and referred to piece of literature on the planet (with studies showing it is referenced, referred to, or serves as inspiration to more works of literature than all other literature combined). As such a 'Jesus' and 'Devil' metaphor are inescapable in literature.

Chaos is said to be the power that will result in the apocalypse, so the fact there are four and they do obviously represent facets of the Four Horsemen vs the Emporer is not surprising really and it isn't revolutionary (not saying it's bad or plageristic by any means, more stating that such parallels are inescapable).

squidhills wrote:
I just want to get in here and back up Knas Ser's assertion that Nazi imagery and themes (along with Catholic ones) were an influence on the IoM. It's true. What he says about how the Nazis pulled together a lot of things (fear of the other, racial and ideological purity, rampant militarism) and made the resulting product their own is spot-on. Yes, other totalitarian regimes have killed more people, or feared the other just as much, and so on... but the Nazis were the first to do it all at once, and to do it with such iconic style. I'm not trying to say the Nazis were good or anything, because they weren't. Everybody sane can agree on that. But their style of totalitarianism had a flavor all its own, and that flavor is present in the IoM.

And yes, the Roman themes are there, too. Its hard to use Anglicized Latin in all your governmental names and not evoke some kind of Roman feeling. The IoM has a very strong Late Roman Empire vibe going... its a big mess that has overstretched itself militarily and is being taxed by all the enemies it has. Its teetering on the verge of collapse. It's grimdark.

But GW didn't stop with Roman themes. They layered the Nazis on top (kill the mutant, purge the unclean) and then slathered everything in a wet, runny garnish of Catholocism (the Ecclesiarchy and the power that it holds over everyone, no matter how highly-placed they may be... oh, and burn the heretic). The result is a faction that can only be considered the good guys because everyone else in the setting (prior to the Tau) is so much worse.

And that's what GW was going for.

I know its fashionable on the internet to call 'Nazi' anytime somebody doesn't like something else, or says something somebody disagrees with, but Knas Ser isn't being fashionable. He called Nazis because, in 40K, there are Nazis. Not generic 'totalitarians'. Nazis.

Specifically, Catholic Space Nazis who work for Roman sounding governmental departments.

Find me evidence that the Inquisition is a specifically-Nazi-inspired element and not just every "secret police" organization ever, such as the KGB/KDB, FSB, EK, Statsi, Agentes in Rebus, Frumentarii, etc.

 Psienesis wrote:


Find me evidence that the Inquisition is a specifically-Nazi-inspired element and not just every "secret police" organization ever, such as the KGB/KDB, FSB, EK, Statsi, Agentes in Rebus, Frumentarii, etc.

OK, how's this: The Imperium kills people for having the wrong DNA.

Find me a totalitarian regime that did that that wasn't the Nazis.

Plenty of totalitarian regimes killed people, for political reasons. The Soviets killed 'counter-revolutionaries', Mao killed intellectuals, the army, his own supporters... actually, he wasn't picky about his targets, and the Khmer Rogue killed anyone with an education.

The Nazis were the ones who said: "You know who we should be killing? Jews. Because they are different. Oh, and Gypsies and Slavs. And anyone else who does not adhere to a predetermined genetic template." They didn't do it because those people had ideas that were dangerous to the Nazis, they didn't kill them because those people were a military threat to the Nazis. They did it because those people had different DNA. And that was sufficient crime in the eyes of the Nazis.

Just like how being a mutant is sufficient crime in the eyes of the Imperium.

Now please, stop pretending the Nazi overtones aren't there. I know you dig the IoM. Lots of us do. But recognizing that the IoM is inspired by a horrible evil group is not the same thing as liking that horrible evil group. You can hate the Nazis and still like the IoM. Pretending that the Nazi overtones aren't there is like pretending the IoM are the good guys in the setting, when they are really just the least-evil guys (and now that Tau are on the scene, that's not necessarily true anymore...maybe).

OK, how's this: The Imperium kills people for having the wrong DNA.

Find me a totalitarian regime that did that that wasn't the Nazis.

The Istanbul Pogrom (1950s)
Ne Win's purges in Burma (1962)
Idi Amin's purge of ethnic Asian/Indian population in Uganda (1970s)
The anti-Sikh Riots of 1984 (Delhi, India)
Saddam Hussein's purge of the Khurdish people (1980s/1990s)
The Serb-Croat War (1990s) whereby Serbian forces forcibly expelled Croats and non-Serbs, either by murder or forced deportation.
The LTTE of Sri Lanka ordered the removal of all Muslim people from the northern provinces (some 65,000 people). Those who did not leave were killed. (October 1990)
The Rwandan Genocide of 1994.

The Nazis were the ones who said: "You know who we should be killing? Jews. Because they are different. Oh, and Gypsies and Slavs. And anyone else who does not adhere to a predetermined genetic template." They didn't do it because those people had ideas that were dangerous to the Nazis, they didn't kill them because those people were a military threat to the Nazis. They did it because those people had different DNA. And that was sufficient crime in the eyes of the Nazis.

So did Stalin.

Now please, stop pretending the Nazi overtones aren't there. I know you dig the IoM. Lots of us do. But recognizing that the IoM is inspired by a horrible evil group is not the same thing as liking that horrible evil group. You can hate the Nazis and still like the IoM. Pretending that the Nazi overtones aren't there is like pretending the IoM are the good guys in the setting, when they are really just the least-evil guys (and now that Tau are on the scene, that's not necessarily true anymore...maybe).

You are very much off-base in why you think I'm arguing this.

 Psienesis wrote:

squidhills wrote:
I just want to get in here and back up Knas Ser's assertion that Nazi imagery and themes (along with Catholic ones) were an influence on the IoM. It's true. What he says about how the Nazis pulled together a lot of things (fear of the other, racial and ideological purity, rampant militarism) and made the resulting product their own is spot-on. Yes, other totalitarian regimes have killed more people, or feared the other just as much, and so on... but the Nazis were the first to do it all at once, and to do it with such iconic style. I'm not trying to say the Nazis were good or anything, because they weren't. Everybody sane can agree on that. But their style of totalitarianism had a flavor all its own, and that flavor is present in the IoM.

And yes, the Roman themes are there, too. Its hard to use Anglicized Latin in all your governmental names and not evoke some kind of Roman feeling. The IoM has a very strong Late Roman Empire vibe going... its a big mess that has overstretched itself militarily and is being taxed by all the enemies it has. Its teetering on the verge of collapse. It's grimdark.

But GW didn't stop with Roman themes. They layered the Nazis on top (kill the mutant, purge the unclean) and then slathered everything in a wet, runny garnish of Catholocism (the Ecclesiarchy and the power that it holds over everyone, no matter how highly-placed they may be... oh, and burn the heretic). The result is a faction that can only be considered the good guys because everyone else in the setting (prior to the Tau) is so much worse.

And that's what GW was going for.

I know its fashionable on the internet to call 'Nazi' anytime somebody doesn't like something else, or says something somebody disagrees with, but Knas Ser isn't being fashionable. He called Nazis because, in 40K, there are Nazis. Not generic 'totalitarians'. Nazis.

Specifically, Catholic Space Nazis who work for Roman sounding governmental departments.

Find me evidence that the Inquisition is a specifically-Nazi-inspired element and not just every "secret police" organization ever, such as the KGB/KDB, FSB, EK, Statsi, Agentes in Rebus, Frumentarii, etc.

No. Because I think the obvious influence for the Inquisition is, well, the Inquisition. Yes, perhaps a dash of Gestapo because they're larger, more secretive, etc. But clearly the Inquisition derive from the Spanish Inquisition of popular imagination. You keep taking this position of demanding proof that element X in the IoM is exclusive to Nazism. Well, that's not going to happen because there is no single element that is unique to a specific real world group (except perhaps their name). Even if they had Swastikas in the artwork, you might still say: "prove it's not derived from the similar Buddhist symbol or the almost identical one in Hinduism or Jainism". Sure, in isolation it could be. But the point I've twice made is that when you get combinations of elements, groups of elements, it starts to look like inspiration. And clearly I'm not the only one that notices this. And really, for British people born in the late 1960s / early 1970s, which do you think is going to be the most likely source of secret police inspiration - the Nazis, or as you suggest, the Agentes in Rebus and the Frumentarii?

You seem really determined not merely to not see what others notice, but to outright prove that Nazi imagery and ideas were not an influence. You've skipped over a number of my points so I'll repeat - there is no way that anyone in Britain at that time, would create all these parallels without being aware of the similarities. It's just not possible for the artists and writers to have not noticed that the work they were creating was so very similar in many ways to something so very significant that affected so many in Europe so recently. You can talk about the Frumentarii as much as you like, but there are specific combinations of elements that constitute Nazism and many of them are present in the IoM together. If 90% of the posters here were to create a setting with secret police in it, racial purity, militaristic society, imperial imagery, autocratic rule under a powerful figurehead, would they more likely be influenced by the Nazis for their development of that, or the Frumentarii? (Who were secret agents in Ancient Rome for the 90% of posters here wondering who they Hell they are).

Why are you so determined to reject Nazism as an influence on the IoM when there are so many striking parallels to it and in the same combinations?

No. Because I think the obvious influence for the Inquisition is, well, the Inquisition. Yes, perhaps a dash of Gestapo because they're larger, more secretive, etc. But clearly the Inquisition derive from the Spanish Inquisition of popular imagination. You keep taking this position of demanding proof that element X in the IoM is exclusive to Nazism. Well, that's not going to happen because there is no single element that is unique to a specific real world group (except perhaps their name).

Then maybe people should stop making the specific claim rather than the general claim. Stop saying "Nazis" when "Totalitarian societies" is what is meant.

Yes, the Holy Ordos of the Emperor's Inquisition is obviously based on the Spanish Inquisition (there is even an Inquisitor Torquemada in 40K.... just as there was IRL). What is not obvious about them is a specific link/inspiration/element tying them specifically to the Gestapo.

And the reason I keep doing this is to point out that 40K has a much richer tapestry of influences rather than the tired Nazi tropes... which have, in the main, been misattributed. The Iron Cross? People like to claim it's a Nazi thing... it's not. Predates the Nazis by decades. The Commissars? Not Nazi at all, those are Soviet. Secret police and purges? Not restricted to Nazis (as I pointed out in my previous post).

Yeah, the Nazis were bad. Guess what? Human beings are bad. Evil is not constrained to a German political party of the early 20th century.

The Imperium is far from Nazis. Its more of a totalitarianist background with strong emphasis on nationality and militarism.

 Psienesis wrote:

OK, how's this: The Imperium kills people for having the wrong DNA.

Find me a totalitarian regime that did that that wasn't the Nazis.

The Istanbul Pogrom (1950s)
Ne Win's purges in Burma (1962)
Idi Amin's purge of ethnic Asian/Indian population in Uganda (1970s)
The anti-Sikh Riots of 1984 (Delhi, India)
Saddam Hussein's purge of the Khurdish people (1980s/1990s)
The Serb-Croat War (1990s) whereby Serbian forces forcibly expelled Croats and non-Serbs, either by murder or forced deportation.
The LTTE of Sri Lanka ordered the removal of all Muslim people from the northern provinces (some 65,000 people). Those who did not leave were killed. (October 1990)
The Rwandan Genocide of 1994.

Actually, whilst squidhills may have overreached very slightly in saying no other regime has done this (not sure), they're not too far out and most of your examples are not comparable. In nearly all of the cases above, the racial divisions are actually aligned with political and territorial allegiances. Sadam's pursuit of the Kurds was not motivated by beliefs in keeping racial purity, but because the Khurdish people occupied valuable land and acted as a political block that was opposed to him. Ditto most of the other instances on your list. The Jewish people of Germany were the most unjustly picked victims - they were German. As German as any non-Jewish neighbour in most cases. And then suddenly there were knocks on the door, questions about ancestry before marriage. I don't think any of the instances you list above have had comparable sustained programs of racial persecution. I'm not familiar with the Istanbul item you list, but I know many of the others do not fit this at all. I'm fairly familiar with the (ongoing) situation in Serbia. It's a case of populations in specific areas being ruled by other areas and it falls out along ethnic lines. It is a great tragedy and I do not want what I'm writing here to in any way imply it is not; but it is primarily territorial, not about racial purity. You list the Rwandan Genocide. Again, these are separate groups, separate political entities and socially divided. There's nothing comparable to what was done to the Jews in Germany when people fully integrated into society of many generations, suddenly found themselves victims of a drive for racial "purity".

Squidhills may have overreached slightly in saying it was actually unique to Nazism (it does occur elsewhere and anti-Semitism has sadly been around a long time), but you have overreached far more in your attempts to disprove any connection to Nazism. The purges of mutants et al, emphasis on racial purity, a belief in creation of genetically superior humans is by far more closely parallelled by Nazism, than anything else.

 Psienesis wrote:

Now please, stop pretending the Nazi overtones aren't there. I know you dig the IoM. Lots of us do. But recognizing that the IoM is inspired by a horrible evil group is not the same thing as liking that horrible evil group. You can hate the Nazis and still like the IoM. Pretending that the Nazi overtones aren't there is like pretending the IoM are the good guys in the setting, when they are really just the least-evil guys (and now that Tau are on the scene, that's not necessarily true anymore...maybe).

You are very much off-base in why you think I'm arguing this.

Actually, to be honest, I was also thinking it was some kind of fan-thing for the IoM and an objection to it being likened to the Nazi ideals. The IoM is a horrible, horrible place not at all to be lauded, so I see no reason to reject the obvious influence. But if this is not the reason you are so determined to reject Nazism as an influence, then what is?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:

No. Because I think the obvious influence for the Inquisition is, well, the Inquisition. Yes, perhaps a dash of Gestapo because they're larger, more secretive, etc. But clearly the Inquisition derive from the Spanish Inquisition of popular imagination. You keep taking this position of demanding proof that element X in the IoM is exclusive to Nazism. Well, that's not going to happen because there is no single element that is unique to a specific real world group (except perhaps their name).

Then maybe people should stop making the specific claim rather than the general claim. Stop saying "Nazis" when "Totalitarian societies" is what is meant.

I think it's pretty clear that I actually do know the difference between Nazism and the more general Totalitarianism and I have been very explicit in stating that I mean the former. The above is a strawman. I never raised the Inquisition as something drawn from Nazism. All the things I listed were elsewhere. You then demanded to know how the Inquisition was derived from Nazism without me raising it as such, and so I replied quite openly that I didn't think it was, that it was drawn from the Spanish Inquisition. Now you try to turn that into an argument that if it wasn't from Nazism then I should stop talking about Nazism? Strawman to say that my argument at all depended on the Inquisition. You raised it. I said it didn't apply to my argument. You now say my argument is invalid because. Silly.

Why are you stuck on this? Why do you keep telling me I mean one thing when I have said very clearly multiple times, I mean another. Do I really come across as someone who knows so little of politics and history that you know better what I'm talking about than I do? I don't believe so. So why keep doing it?

 Psienesis wrote:

Yes, the Holy Ordos of the Emperor's Inquisition is obviously based on the Spanish Inquisition (there is even an Inquisitor Torquemada in 40K.... just as there was IRL). What is not obvious about them is a specific link/inspiration/element tying them specifically to the Gestapo

I'm pretty sure most of us are aware that Torquemada was the most infamous member of the Spanish Inquisition, thanks! No-one raised the Inquisition as derived from the Nazis except for you who has apparently done so purely so you can knock it down and say we're wrong because it's not true. You know how much knocking down your own arguments diminishes mine? 'Not at all', is the answer.

 Psienesis wrote:
And the reason I keep doing this is to point out that 40K has a much richer tapestry of influences rather than the tired Nazi tropes... which have, in the main, been misattributed. The Iron Cross? People like to claim it's a Nazi thing... it's not. Predates the Nazis by decades. The Commissars? Not Nazi at all, those are Soviet. Secret police and purges? Not restricted to Nazis (as I pointed out in my previous post).

No-one ever said that the Imperium was derived only from Nazism and was a perfect, slavish allegory. That's just another strawman from you. If you're actually reading my posts, you'll be aware that I've personally listed a number of other elements. But just because you have a personal a priori desire for the IoM to not have drawn influences from Nazism, that does not make it so. I don't see why you feel it diminishes the IoM to concede that significant elements of it are drawn from Nazism, but they stand out a mile to others of us.

 Psienesis wrote:
Yeah, the Nazis were bad. Guess what? Human beings are bad. Evil is not constrained to a German political party of the early 20th century.

And now we have a trilogy of strawmen. No-one said or implied the above, either.


I'm going to summarise what I think has happened here. I said I saw Nazi ideology and imagery as a significant influence in the IoM. You assumed I was an ignorant person and decided to correct me by pointing out your superior knowledge and understanding and saying actually, it's totalitarianism, not Nazism. It turned out that I actually did mean Nazism and backed it up with numerous stylistic influences and elements that whilst they exist elsewhere, the combination of them is Nazism and that these same combinations are present through the IoM. You couldn't let it go and you're now on a crusade to prove that Nazism wasn't an influence. This is how I read your increasingly strident insistence that it wasn't, despite numerous parallels and it being by far THE most present example of all these things in the minds of all Europeans of my generation. Really, suggesting they might have more likely drawn on the Frumentarii than some other group... It's bordering on preposterous.

I mean you clearly think you're smarter than the people you are talking with if you're posting things like "people think the commissars are not Nazi, but Soviet". I'd bet a fair bit that pretty much everyone reading this thread knew that. I certainly have never thought they come from Nazi Germany. They're Soviet, obviously. This is the problem. You haven't read what I wrote. You've seen me say "Nazi" and you've gone in your head: "oh, here are some young ignorant fools that think Commisars are Nazi. I'll correct them.". Well we're not. I don't think anyone here is. We said Nazi because we meant Nazi and none of us said that every element (including Commisars) was from Nazism. And if you'd just said, "also some Soviet influence - the Commisars", everyone would have nodded in agreement. But instead you're fixed on saying: Not Nazi! Not Nazi!


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 Swastakowey wrote:
The Imperium is far from Nazis. Its more of a totalitarianist background with strong emphasis on nationality and militarism.

It's very odd to say something is less like X and more like Y, when X is a subset of Y. That's like saying my pet is less like an Irish Wolfhound and more like a dog. Especially when you then go on to say: "more like a dog with these two traits that Irish Wolfhounds are well-known for".

In addition to the traits in your list, btw, we can also add from the IoM the following: a near-deified leader, inspections for racial purity, imperialistic imagery, propaganda about thousand-year reigns, stylistic parallels by the artists. And the creation of a super-race. In fact, you know what's an almost specific way of saying Totalitarianism with all those things? Nazism.

You're again responding to a broad topic that my original point was not directed at. If you scroll back up in the thread, you will note that I was responding, directly, to the statement that the Inquisition was, specifically, Nazi-influenced.

No-one raised the Inquisition as derived from the Nazis except for you who has apparently done so purely so you can knock it down and say we're wrong because it's not true. You know how much knocking down your own arguments diminishes mine? '

This is flat-out false, as it was this statement that I was originally responding to. Go back and read page 2.

knas ser wrote:
They're Soviet, obviously.

An btw has much more of Nazi/ColdWar propaganda than of real thing.

 Psienesis wrote:
You're again responding to a broad topic that my original point was not directed at. If you scroll back up in the thread, you will note that I was responding, directly, to the statement that the Inquisition was, specifically, Nazi-influenced.

No-one raised the Inquisition as derived from the Nazis except for you who has apparently done so purely so you can knock it down and say we're wrong because it's not true. You know how much knocking down your own arguments diminishes mine? '

This is flat-out false, as it was this statement that I was originally responding to. Go back and read page 2.

Which comment? The one someone made about them being "a weird amalgam of Spanish Inquisition and Space-Nazis"? They probably added the part about "Space-Nazis" because of the whole purge the mutant and the alien. Again - the racial purity aspect. Seems not an unsupportable statement to say they're Spanish Inquisition with a bit of Nazi.

You might want to start quoting the people you're replying to if they're further up the thread. Because this is the second time you have followed one of my posts with your own reply but later turn out to be replying to someone much earlier on. Quotes help things remain clear.


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chyron wrote:

knas ser wrote:
They're Soviet, obviously.

An btw has much more of Nazi/ColdWar propaganda than of real thing.

True. I did phrase something somewhere as being the popular image of something, but it gets lost in the shuffle. Yeah - a lot of the influences, particularly the commisars, are influences based on what people think something was like, rather than how they actually were. You're absolutely correct.

That's what I was responding to.

Racial Purity is not uniquely Nazi. We had Racial Purity-proponents and proto-eugenics groups in 19th century America, both before and after the Civil War.

 Psienesis wrote:
That's what I was responding to.

Racial Purity is not uniquely Nazi. We had Racial Purity-proponents and proto-eugenics groups in 19th century America, both before and after the Civil War.

Yes. Very well aware of that. Had them in Britain also. George Bernard Shaw was a proponent of eugenics. But yet again, you slice out one specific element and base an entire argument on the fact that the element sometimes occurs elsewhere. When you should know full well because it's been said many times, that it is the specific combination of elements that resonates. If I said I was eating a chocolate sponge cake you might suddenly seize on the eggs in the recipe and say: "but look, eggs are also used in other cakes. You actually mean to say you're eating a cake". To which I respond "No, it also has chocolate in it". Followed by a post from you saying: "But a boston cream pie has chocolate in it. You mean you're eating a cake".

These proto-eugenics groups in 19th Century America. Were they government enforced, did secret police knock on people's doors in the middle of the night and drag legal citizens away for having the wrong DNA? Did they march under an imperial eagle? Were they part of an autocratic government under an idealized leader figure? Do we see photos of thousands of them standing in perfect ranks in military uniform as one united nation? Are you, essentially, trying to take one ingredient from the cake yet again, and insist that I can't be talking about a specific type of cake despite so many of the ingredients aligning into that combination? No-one is saying that Nazism is the only influence. Or even that necessarily it must be the strongest influence. But your dogmatic refusal to countenance the strong parallels and the synchronicity of them all coming together, is becoming absurd.

 Psienesis wrote:
That's what I was responding to.

Racial Purity is not uniquely Nazi. We had Racial Purity-proponents and proto-eugenics groups in 19th century America, both before and after the Civil War.

It's still fun to call them nazis.
Why are you arguing about this anyway? It's like those people who think socialism is the same as communism, kind of annoying and ignorant, but not very important in the long run.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
That's what I was responding to.

Racial Purity is not uniquely Nazi. We had Racial Purity-proponents and proto-eugenics groups in 19th century America, both before and after the Civil War.

It's still fun to call them nazis.
Why are you arguing about this anyway? It's like those people who think socialism is the same as communism, kind of annoying and ignorant, but not very important in the long run.

Excuse me, but I'm pretty well aware of the differences between Communism and Socialism. I've given plenty of reasons why I'm specifically talking about Nazis. I don't know why some people are insisting I must not know what I'm talking about and am just confused. If I'd meant Totalitarianism, I'd have said that in the beginning.

I'll be so bold and say that the IoM in its gothic, grimdark state could have NEVER been created by any pre-1930s science fiction writer at all, as the Nazis as such (or any of the major totalitarian regimes) hadn't yet then come into power.

http://web.archive.org/web/20071125132841/http://ca.geocities.com/crazy40kguy/namesandhomages.html

 Sir Arun wrote:
I'll be so bold and say that the IoM in its gothic, grimdark state could have NEVER been created by any pre-1930s science fiction writer at all, as the Nazis as such (or any of the major totalitarian regimes) hadn't yet then come into power.

That's not true, the communist overthrow in Russia occurred during the First World War, and it was a bloody affair from the very beginning. It is a staple of communist governments to use a 'secret' police to force support of the state. Stalin was in office as early as 1922, and he makes Hitler look like a choir boy in terms of the scale of his atrocities. Hell, the Allies assumed we were going to end up in a shooting matching with the Russians following the collapse of the Nazis.

Even before the communist party came to power in Russia people were talking about them as being pretty villainous and rotten. A 'grimdark' state is exactly what people thought the communists would bring about, even then. Then what happened? They did just that (Stalin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Min all came to power through pogroms, purge the alien, hate the other guy ideology).


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On the flip side, contemporary American authors tended to have a pretty 'grim dark' view of the Puritans and the sort of government they established.

The Scarlet Letter, for example.

knas ser wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
That's what I was responding to.

Racial Purity is not uniquely Nazi. We had Racial Purity-proponents and proto-eugenics groups in 19th century America, both before and after the Civil War.

It's still fun to call them nazis.
Why are you arguing about this anyway? It's like those people who think socialism is the same as communism, kind of annoying and ignorant, but not very important in the long run.

Excuse me, but I'm pretty well aware of the differences between Communism and Socialism. I've given plenty of reasons why I'm specifically talking about Nazis. I don't know why some people are insisting I must not know what I'm talking about and am just confused. If I'd meant Totalitarianism, I'd have said that in the beginning.

I'm not saying that, what I'm saying that this argument is kind of silly. I was comparing arguing the differences between communism and socialism to someone who refuses to understand it, i.e. not worth your time, and not important. It is easy to compare them to nazis because of the many similarities. Nazis may be the thing that GW first based the fluff off of, maybe not, but, and let me make myself perfectly clear, IT DOESN'T MATTER!

Didn't read all of this, because I agree with Co'tor Shas the argument is silly. To me the influences for the IOM that stick out to me more(for I like them more) are the Roman empire and the middle ages. The IOM has space traveling cathedrals I mean that just awesome.

I wouldn't consider the IOM Space Nazis as much as they are Stalinist Space Soviets with some Nazi elements thrown in. This grows all the more apparent with the Imperial Guard. They certainly have Nazi elements, but I'd put them more as Stalinist Soviets than Nazis.

Not to mention nearly every 'Nazi overtone' is just the same as a Stalinist Soviet, considering there was few differences between Stalin's Russia and Nazi Germany save the body count.

Also, race-based genocide is not at all exclusive to the Nazis and is far older than their short-lived empire.

 Psienesis wrote:


You are very much off-base in why you think I'm arguing this.

So,if I may ask, why are you arguing this?

And on a related note: I was never trying to imply that the Nazis were the only group to ever practice ethnic violence. But they did make it a primary focus of their government, which is hard to say about anybody else. Yes, Stalin and Mao killed more people, but you wouldn't say that mass exterminations of ethnic groups was a primary focus of their regimes. Yes, they targeted other ethnic groups, but they were a secondary target compared to the political enemy of the moment (which changed on a weekly basis in the case of Mao). The Nazis targeted Jews first and foremost, and killed political opponents as well, but the political murders were secondary (in scope and scale) to the ethnic murders.

Lots of people have been horrible to other people throughout history, and there has been ethnic cleansing and genocide before and since the Nazis, but the Nazis did it all in a way that is (thankfully) unique to them.

Which brings me to my next point, Knas Ser... your cake analogy for this whole debate sums up the whole situation so succinctly. I wish I had your creativity about this sort of thing.

To me the basis of the Imperium of Man comes from gathering the harshest elements & facets from various forms of human society (totalitarianism, 'police state', oppresively imposed religion, fear of technological advances and many others), stuck together and then expanded to cover a million worlds. What this does is create the wonderfully horrific impression that whilst the life of its inhabitants is horrible, the Imperium truly needs every one of those horrible facets or it would crumble into dust. Think of it as each of those facets being a pillar which shares a part of the burden of the Imperium's weight - if just one of those pillars disappears, the whole lot falls down.

There's no one direct inspiration for the Imperium, in the same way there is no one direct inspiration for the Imperial Guard (no, they're not Space Soviets - Valhalla is ONE planet famous for it's unique means of waging war that resembles the stereotypical view of the Soviet Army during 1939-1945*) - they all draw from different elements from our global history.

*The Tallarn don't wage war in a manner that resembles anything like the 'Red Army', nor do the Mordians, Praetorians, Tanith or Elysians. Cadians, Catachans & the Death Korps of Krieg have their own individual ways of waging war, as do the Steel Legion and the Savlar Chem Dogs and the Jumael 'Lucky Aces'. I could go on and list plenty of different regiments that exist in the background and none of them will fight in a manner that is anything like the Soviets. This is because they're all inspired by different wars & campaigns from history - for example the Mordian Iron Guard are a composite of French & Prussian forces from the Franco-Prussian War, while the Death Korps of Krieg is based upon the major armies of the Western Front (France. Britain, Germany, Belgium) during the middle of the Great War.

Iracundus wrote:
No race or faction is entirely just one culture lifted as is from history. GW has taken and blended and adapted (to vary degrees of success) parts from all over the world and from different historical time periods.

For example:

The Eldar thematically draw from multiple sources. Of these, Japan is one of them. Direct evidence of aesthetc borrowings include: the symbol of Iyanden includes a shrine gate design directly analogous to Japanese Shinto shrines. The back banners Jes Goodwin was fond of including in Eldar design (and which was present in many 2nd ed. models) matched the back banners worn by Japanese samurai and soldiers during the Japanese Warring States period and are even named as sashimono banners in Jes Goodwin's sketches and notes.

However, the Eldar also have influences from Greek,Celtic, even Egyptian sources. The Corinthian design of Eldar helms, particularly Dire Avenger ones, for example is clear Greek influence. Eldar Craftworld names of Biel-tan and Saim-han are direct copies of the real world Celtic festivals/holidays. The false chin beards on certain Eldar helms such as the Dire Avenger Exarch borrows from the Egyptians (see Egyptian funeral masks), and the Ulthwe design is based off the historical Egyptian Eye of Horus. The chiseled Eldar runes are based off Egyptian hieroglyphs while the more fluid Eldar runes look like those that might be written with a brush, and are either a reference to Egyptian Demotic or Asian brush writing. The Yin/Yang symbols on Eldar transfer sheets or Eldar Titans and Wraithknights is a take on the Chinese concept of Yin and Yang. The seals on the Wraith constructs is referred to by Jes Goodwin in his sketches as tugra, which is a Turk/Ottoman thing. Overlying all of this is the theme of Tolkien elves.

Thematically each of these cultures served as epitome of alien, inscrutable menace to one of the component influences on the Imperium. The Imperium is, obviously, part Roman, part-medieval and part-Victorian. Romans were simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by the Greeks and Egyptians, medieval western Europeans by the Byzantines and the Victorians by the Chinese. Fu Manchu, the quintessential "Yellow Peril" villain is pretty much how the Imperium pictures Eldar Farseers.

The most "original" part of 40k lore is on the Eldar, they have dozens of influencies from all "ancient" history. Pretty nice if you see the empire as the "Medieval Era", post Great Rome, and the Eldar are the "things even more ancient than that". Tau will eventually rise to that point...

Isnt the whole Necrontyr making a pact with the star vampires background also original? And same about the Tyranid fluff?

 Sir Arun wrote:
Isnt the whole Necrontyr making a pact with the star vampires background also original? And same about the Tyranid fluff?

Well, to me tyranids look like a mix between starship troopers and aliens...
As for the necrontyr+c'tan=necrons... errr.... "equation", they somehow (maybe the egyptian-like structure?) reminds me of stargate's goau'ld... Admittedly, idk which came first... Then again, necrons could totally be a mix of undead and egyptian culture, couldn't they?

 Kerrathyr wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
Isnt the whole Necrontyr making a pact with the star vampires background also original? And same about the Tyranid fluff?

Well, to me tyranids look like a mix between starship troopers and aliens...
As for the necrontyr+c'tan=necrons... errr.... "equation", they somehow (maybe the egyptian-like structure?) reminds me of stargate's goau'ld... Admittedly, idk which came first... Then again, necrons could totally be a mix of undead and egyptian culture, couldn't they?

Genestealers were originally their own independent race and clearly derived from Aliens. Then later on it was fleshed out with Patriarch Genestealers, magi, et al. and you got Genestealer armies. And then at some point someone at GW had a light bulb moment and connected Tyranids and Genestealers together and suddenly Genestealers were an advance force that was sent ahead of the Hive to prepare the way.

I miss the old Geanstealer cults with their looted PDF weapons...

Anyway on topic someone mentioned the Great Crusade/Heresy as Alexander the Great and the wars of the Diadochi. I think this is actually represented pretty much blow for blow by Lord Commander Solar Macharius campaign right down to reaching the halo zone, turning back and then dying of fever.

So,if I may ask, why are you arguing this?

As other people pointed out, the Imperium is far less Nazi and far more Soviet. The Inquisition, specifically, is really not Nazi-specific at all, and is far more just general "secret police", whether that's KGB or Orwell's Ministry of Love/Ministry of Truth.

I'd much rather draw a parallel to the far older institutions that were essentially 'secret police', like Fouché's men during Revolutionary/Imperial France. Spies & informants and groups of individuals who crack down on any outspoken opponents of the regime/traitors go way back to the dawn of civilisation - it's not something specifically to do with the Nazi party or Stalinist Russia.

I would assert that there's far more to do with classical & medieval socities in the Imperium than more modern influences. Do not forget the various influences - High & Low Gothic*, the very 'gothic' nature of architecture & visual appearance of Imperial structures & vehicles. The Space Marines ape Greco-Romano & Medieval influences and there are various classical influences thrown in - such as laurel wreaths appearing (for example on the Emperor's Champion), depictions of Solar Macharius have him wearing golden/bronze armour blatantly inspired by armour from the ancient world (someone's already mentioned the potential Alexander the Great link) and probably more influences than I could possibly list.

Personally I'd put the Imperium down as more inspired by Classical/'Dark Age'/Medieval/Early Modern Europe than Modern Europe. Don't forget that 40k & Fantasy were essentially devised (well a lot was ripped from other things) by English chaps who have a great love of history. You're more likely to find influences crossing the span of man's history than just modern history. This is why the Imperial Guard has regiments ranging in influences from across the span of history, not just standard sci-fi 'modern'-esque troops.

*Essentially akin to Norman-French & Middle-English - Norman-French spoken by the aristocracy (descended from the Norman conquerors) & Middle-English spoken by the common man.

Sure. I think I'd mentioned them in a previous post up-thread, so didn't feel the need to repeat it, but, yeah, basically that. There's a rich (?) history of human beings being terrible to one another in creatively sadistic ways, so 40K does not need to draw on the regime du jour as inspiration, when it can be informed by all sorts of other sources.

As we've seen in other areas, going as far back as RT, the GW people are fairly well-read. There's plenty of opportunity for them to have drawn ideas from things other than Hitler.

Dark Eldar are Fairies and Elves.

Not the kind you're thinking of, the tinkerbells and Tolkiens, but the old, archaic elves.
The vicious evil bastards that thought nothing of taking an eye if it amused them, or kidnapping a child because it was entertaining at the time. The cool elves, basically. They just scream Grimmdark to me (heheheh, geddit).

Also, the Iom Vs Daemons/chaos spess mehrens seems very Order Vs Anarchy to me, the rigid, 'safe' imperium against the totally unlawful and unruled warp.

 Sir Arun wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The Grey Knights are holy warriors charged with the destruction of the daemonic... and they will use the vilest of sorceries and the blackest of magics to ensure that is done.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. See, this is post Matt Ward fluff. Pre-Matt Ward fluff meant that the Grey Knights were the purest of the Imperium, the most clean and the most badass of all, but also the fewest in number of all the Imperium's militant forces. For example in the old fluff they flat out refused to ally themselves with Radical Inquisitors, and only Puritan Inquisitors could work with them.

Post Mat Ward fluff has made them into the wet dream of any radical inquisitor, having bound daemon heads cackling in their feast hall, alien weapons and all sorts of other xeno trinkets amidst their collection, killing sisters of battle or anyone who "witness" what they do and they have basically devolved into social Pariahs who have their own agenda with the extermination of Chaos rather than being the most stalwart agents of the Imperium.

In fact, they have gained so much separation from the body of the Inquisition that post Ward fluff almost makes them out to be a Space Marine chapter in its own right.

In early fluff the Grey Knights army list included Ordo Malleus Daemonhunters who could use captured Daemon Weapons (to the extent of actually summoning the bound daemon to fight on their behalf) and any allied non-Grey Knights troops were assumed to be executed after the battle. They get on fine with "radical" Inquisitors if need be.

Going to the root of things, I once heard a radio interview with one of the founders of GW. The claim from was that the Orcs are, as has been mentioned, English football hooligans. Dwarves are hard-drinking mining types from "oop north" and Elves are wine bar-frequenting soft southern jessies. There's been layers added on top, but right at the bottom of it, that's the basis of Warhammer, and by extension, 40k.

Also, consider the level of "grimdark" required to make a race of hideous monsters, each stronger and tougher than a man, who live for warfare and will slaughter you for sport without a moment's hesitation the comic relief.

 Psienesis wrote:


As other people pointed out, the Imperium is far less Nazi and far more Soviet. The Inquisition, specifically, is really not Nazi-specific at all, and is far more just general "secret police", whether that's KGB or Orwell's Ministry of Love/Ministry of Truth.

Actually, the Inquisition is less Soviet or generic secret police, and far more... the Inquisition, as in: the Catholic Church's department of torture and general douchebaggery. As for the Imperial Guard, the only Soviet influences there are the Valhallans and the Commissars, with the Commissars being slightly less Soviet than the Valhallans... Everything about the Valhallans is WWII-era Soviet Red Army (the way they look, the way they fight, and their lone SC) but, while the Commissars have a definite Soviet name, and serve pretty much the same purpose on the battlefield that the Party Commissars did in the Red Army, GW decided to give them a distinctly late 19-early 20th century Germanic or Prussian look. Seriously, every Commissar model in the IG codex looks like it should be named "von" something...

The 2 headed Aquila is taken from the Rostov eagle i think too. Also the imperial guard itself is got many influences (many many many) but the heavy use of artillery both small and large is based on soviet era fighting. But each regiment has flavours from all over the place.

Same thing goes for marines from what i can tell.

 Swastakowey wrote:
but the heavy use of artillery both small and large is based on soviet era fighting.

Not the Western Front of the Great War by any chance? Prior to the Battle of Loos, during a six-day bombardment, over 2.1 million shells were fired. Prior to the Somme 1.5 million shells were fired off by the Royal Artillery, with another 250,000 fired during 1st July - the first day of the offensive. Apparently the bombardment was so massive it was heard 300 miles away in London, 'pon Hampstead Heath. As another example, the rather famous bombardment prior to the start of Operation Lightfoot & the Second Battle of El Alamein, where 882 guns fired off 520,000+ shells in the space of less than 6 hours. Those are perhaps amongst the largest artillery bombardments seen in modern times. Massed artillery was not a 'Soviet' thing.

 Sparks_Havelock wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
but the heavy use of artillery both small and large is based on soviet era fighting.

Not the Western Front of the Great War by any chance? Prior to the Battle of Loos, during a six-day bombardment, over 2.1 million shells were fired. Prior to the Somme 1.5 million shells were fired off by the Royal Artillery, with another 250,000 fired during 1st July - the first day of the offensive. Apparently the bombardment was so massive it was heard 300 miles away in London, 'pon Hampstead Heath. As another example, the rather famous bombardment prior to the start of Operation Lightfoot & the Second Battle of El Alamein, where 882 guns fired off 520,000+ shells in the space of less than 6 hours. Those are perhaps amongst the largest artillery bombardments seen in modern times. Massed artillery was not a 'Soviet' thing.

Very true but stalin loved artillery. He had a huge huge amount of faith in it. But if you read my post i said that there are many many sources of which the guard draw from, i was merely stating one of them. But you miss out the mechanized artillery which is famously seen in huge soviet military parades etc. I know its not a soviet only thing but still they are the popular choices.


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https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=soviet+military+parade&rlz=1C1CHWA_enNZ531NZ531&espv=210&es_sm=93&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=K4udUrfrFKWViQelx4HACg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=978#es_sm=93&espv=210&q=soviet+military+artillery+parade&spell=1&tbm=isch&facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=xTrltwlXv1OXiM%3A%3BLn2jQ3wCTee92M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcbsnews1.cbsistatic.com%252Fhub%252Fi%252Fr%252F2013%252F07%252F26%252F213528b3-1c4e-11e3-9918-005056850598%252Fthumbnail%252F620x350%252FAP323804907237.jpg%253Fhash%253Dca19dfb5549d0280b78ae45b83b8fe99%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.cbsnews.com%252Fnews%252Fnorth-korea-military-parades-through-pyongyang%252F%3B620%3B350

Sorry for the long link but its images of soviet parades etc that scream Imperial guard but for me its notably the mechanized artillery.

Its also something they where renowned for. So instead of assuming i said only soviets used massed artillery see it as where i think they drew their inspiration from.

Well, IMO IG reminds every army which has huuuuuge amount of sources - of weapons and bodies....but yeah, we have commisariat which is simply soviet NKVD. And commisars are politruks. In space.

ORC = Oxford Rugby Club

Dark Eldar: Hellraiser/Cenobites

IG is pretty much whatever you want them to be, really.

 Daba wrote:
ORC = Oxford Rugby Club

Tolkein named them Orcs.

 Swastakowey wrote:
But if you read my post

I did and;

 Swastakowey wrote:
I was merely stating one of them.

...that was what I responded to, your assertion that the basis for Guards use of artillery comes from Stalinist-era Red Army forces, which is indeed a potential source of inspiration but not a defining one - I'd agree on the aspect of self-propelled guns but not towed artillery pieces. I pointed out several quick examples of heavy use of artillery, which involved both small and large calibres, in Western Europe, two of which predated Stalinist Russia. The grim nature of the Great War, the clash of new technology & means of killing people colliding fist first on to the 'traditional' ways of fighting battles, the way fighting in many places degenerated into a near-static war of attrition over trenchlines and fortifications, the massive use of artillery by both sides, the introduction of slow, heavily armed fighting vehicles to the battlefield, the last true 'Huzzah!' of cavalry forces (except for a few latter instances, such as the Poles using their lances effectively against Wehrmacht infantry in 1939). It all adds up to inspiration for many elements of the Guard but like so many things GW have created, it's an amalgamation of various sources - I'm not saying there aren't any Soviet Russia influences (as I've mentioned in previous posts, you've got the Valhallan's as the absolute blatant example), just that there are many sources of inspiration for every piece or part of the Imperium & Imperial Guard.

As for the Aquila, whilst the double-headed eagle was used by Imperial Russia, the Austrian Empire & also by the city of Köln (Cologne), and are possible sources of inspiration, in my opinion it's much more likely to come from the latter days of the Byzantime Empire. Originally they retained the single-headed 'Roman' eagle but later on there was a transition to a double-headed version, and this fits in with the Imperium to me, with pre-Heresy being akin to the Roman Empire* & post-Heresy being more like the Byzantine Empire - powerful but eventually in decay and pressed on all sides. Just my mad, crazy opinion of course

Other possible sources of inspiration may be from the Holy Roman Empire which used a double-headed eagle, and a bit more far-fetched, several Indian kingdoms used the double-headed eagle from memory.

*The God-Emperor is often depicted with either the Aquila, single-headed eagles or both on his armour.

What is the background of 40k races inspired by?

Beer + History majors on the design team.

 Psienesis wrote:

So,if I may ask, why are you arguing this?

As other people pointed out, the Imperium is far less Nazi and far more Soviet. The Inquisition, specifically, is really not Nazi-specific at all, and is far more just general "secret police", whether that's KGB or Orwell's Ministry of Love/Ministry of Truth.

That is nonsense. The Imperium has little in common with the SU. The Imperium during the Great Crusade did (atheist and striving towards a 'better future' for mankind) but the Imperium in the 41st millenium has more in common with the Nazi's: "Fear The Alien. Hate The Alien. Kill The Alien." Just subsitute alien for Jew. Of course, the Imperium is not just based on either the Nazi's or the Soviets, it has lots and lots of influences both from history and fiction. It would be far better to trace the influences in each Imperial institution seperately rather than in the Imperium as a whole.

 Daba wrote:
ORC = Oxford Rugby Club

Of course, Rugby was always the upper crust gentleman's game. Soccer is the game of the unwashed masses. So other than the fact it's not spelled the same it's stretching (and I played soccer for years, so I'm not prejudiced against it).

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Imperium has little in common with the SU. The Imperium during the Great Crusade did (atheist and striving towards a 'better future' for mankind) but the Imperium in the 41st millenium has more in common with the Nazi's: "Fear The Alien. Hate The Alien. Kill The Alien." Just subsitute alien for Jew..

...and that's not true either. In 40k it is 'the Xenos','the Witch' and 'the Heretic'. It's based on/inspired by the 'witch-craze' of c15-c17 Europe when the combination of the availability of the printing press & subsequent publication of Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of (the) Witches) poured essentially hot oil onto the burning flame of religious turmoil that gripped Europe. It got to the point of being ridiculous where you could be burnt at the stake for something so minor as being left-handed*. Whole communities would turn on each other, quick to inform on their neighbours if something 'bad' happened to them (such as ill cattle, crops not growing particularly well). It was a horrific time in Europe, so many people killed by the Catholic church in their search for 'heretics' and 'witches' - sickening in fact.

*Information that worried three of the chaps in my history class (me being one of them) when we were informed of this by our tutor - all three of us were left-handed.

 Psienesis wrote:
Eldar: Tolkein High Elves. In Space.

Ork: English Soccer Hooligans and Tolkein Orcs. In Space.

Stunts: Dwarves. In Space.

Horus Heresy: Biblical Tale of The Fall of Lucifer. In Space.

God-Emperor of Mankind: Jesus. In Space. With a job-title taken from a Frank Herbert novel.

All of the Chaos Gods: Michael Moorcock's various Chaos Gods from all of his Eternal Champion books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Champion)

Grey Knights: The legends of the Knights-Templar... and their heresies. In Space.

Sisters of Battle: Renegade Nuns on Wheels
(http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=3094) In Space.

Tau: Gundam Anime. In Space.

Necrons: Terminator. In Space.

Tyranid: Aliens. Still In Space.

Also Orks were a mix of world war I Germany really early on.

I'd have personally said more 80s tropes (bikers, punks, football hooligans) meets with a bit of c5 'Germanic barbarian' tribes;

squidhills wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:


As other people pointed out, the Imperium is far less Nazi and far more Soviet. The Inquisition, specifically, is really not Nazi-specific at all, and is far more just general "secret police", whether that's KGB or Orwell's Ministry of Love/Ministry of Truth.

Actually, the Inquisition is less Soviet or generic secret police, and far more... the Inquisition, as in: the Catholic Church's department of torture and general douchebaggery. As for the Imperial Guard, the only Soviet influences there are the Valhallans and the Commissars, with the Commissars being slightly less Soviet than the Valhallans... Everything about the Valhallans is WWII-era Soviet Red Army (the way they look, the way they fight, and their lone SC) but, while the Commissars have a definite Soviet name, and serve pretty much the same purpose on the battlefield that the Party Commissars did in the Red Army, GW decided to give them a distinctly late 19-early 20th century Germanic or Prussian look. Seriously, every Commissar model in the IG codex looks like it should be named "von" something...

Actually, the idea of Commissars as party thugs who executed you for retreating is not really what soviet political officers were about at all.

Yes, they were authorized to perform executions in certain situations, but they didn't follow regiments of conscripts around shooting people who didn't run, screaming, into the waiting machine guns of the fascists. They were there to boost morale and were often popular with their men, as many of them were quite good at boosting morale in a positive manner.

Stalin's victims in general (outside of the Holodomor famines) were purged for political reasons. The Imperium kills in the name of religious dogma and racial purity. They really don't have a whole lot in common other than the cartoonishly-portrayed russian IG regiments.

The Imperium and Inquisition are very much the pop history version of medieval and renaissance Europe in space. Similarities to modern dictators are more coincidental than anything, I think. I mean, really, the Imperium doesn't have any political purges or death camps or any sort of modern totalitarian apparatus. It's all inquisitors and daemons and "you know too much, you must burn!" None of that really screams "Hitler" or "Stalin" or anyone modern.

Actually commissars aren't only there for execution. The commissars are there to boost moral, to inspire them to glory! They don't all lead through terror. Many do, but so are there many that lead through heroism or some combination of the two. They stand at the front out of cover shooting the enemy waving his sword. The trigger happy commissars aren't uncommon to find later on dead with wounds that look like that of a stray lasgun.... how odd...

The eldar always struck me as being analogous to any kind of elves in other works of fantasy. They're elegant, artistic, elitist, while also splintered and scattered. Tolkein's elves are like that, same with D&D, and various others. But eldar get special treatment, 'cause they're elves... IN SPACE!

And as we know well, putting anything in space automatically makes it more awesome.

The Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition, I believe, are similarly analogous to the Spanish Inquisition in the Dark Ages. They look tirelessly for any signs of opposition to their religion, and viciously exterminate any they find, often in horrificly violent ways. They even both refer(red) to it as "heresy".

Chaos is lifted straight out of Michael Moorecock's eternal champions books. They use the same iconography, symbols, personalities and only slight change in spellings.
The same goes for the elder which are also pulled from the same source, same imagery, same everything (aloof space elves) with only the slight name spelling difference of going from eldren to elder.

Those who have ben around since the beginning of GW will know that they don't even try to hde or deny this. Many of the models and such even started out as eternal champion models that were later renamed. Look at the high elves and melnibonians as an example of this.

 Sparks_Havelock wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
The Imperium has little in common with the SU. The Imperium during the Great Crusade did (atheist and striving towards a 'better future' for mankind) but the Imperium in the 41st millenium has more in common with the Nazi's: "Fear The Alien. Hate The Alien. Kill The Alien." Just subsitute alien for Jew..

...and that's not true either. In 40k it is 'the Xenos','the Witch' and 'the Heretic'. It's based on/inspired by the 'witch-craze' of c15-c17 Europe when the combination of the availability of the printing press & subsequent publication of Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of (the) Witches) poured essentially hot oil onto the burning flame of religious turmoil that gripped Europe. It got to the point of being ridiculous where you could be burnt at the stake for something so minor as being left-handed*. Whole communities would turn on each other, quick to inform on their neighbours if something 'bad' happened to them (such as ill cattle, crops not growing particularly well). It was a horrific time in Europe, so many people killed by the Catholic church in their search for 'heretics' and 'witches' - sickening in fact.

*Information that worried three of the chaps in my history class (me being one of them) when we were informed of this by our tutor - all three of us were left-handed.

The Imperium is based on many things from both history and fiction. The nazis are certainly among them. The soviets too, but too a much lesser extent.
Soviet influence can mainly be seen in the IG: Commisars, penal batallions and massed artillery anyone? Not to mention the massive armoured onslaughts...

But you can sleep easily, the scale and severity. of the 'witch craze' is often overstated. The importance of the Malleus Maleficarum especially. In fact, the Maleficarum was already declared as 'false' by the Catholic Church in 1490, and Inquisitors were warned not to believe it, which is quite logical, as the Maleficarum is really a ridiculous book, I couldn't bring myself to read more than a few chapters from it. It's banishment nicely shows us that medieval people were not always as stupid and superstitious as we are sometimes led to believe.
And left-handedness was as common in the Middle Ages as it is now. It was looked upon unfavourably, and left-handed people were often forced to use their right hand instead, but it was nowhere near enough to get you burnt at stake.
The death penalty was not something that was issued lightly in the Middle Ages, and only reserved for severe crimes and those that were actually 'proven' to be in league with the devil.
While there were undoubtely many innocent women (those in league with the devil are almost always women, for women are weak of will and devious by nature, as the Maleficarum tells us ) burned during the 'witch craze' the whole matter is subject to a lot of sensationalism. The total death toll of witch persecution in Europe during the period is estimated at about 60.000.

So you should not really be worried being left handed. According to the Maleficarum, you should worry about witches trying to steal your penis instead.

edit: should you want to read the infamous Malleus Maleficarum yourself, here be the link: http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/downloads/MalleusAcrobat.pdf

Necrons- I like the old fluff. Turning them in to Tomb Kings in SPACEeee! sux. I prefered the mindless horror they represented previosly. Unstoppable phalanxes of the robo-undead, mindless and destructive was cool. Now...just Tomb Kings in space

Eldar- Celtic stuff with a heay dash of chinese mysticism.

Orks- Football hooligans. American football AND European Futbol. Seriously, the Raiders fan club, you gotta get "jumped" in like a frign street gang.

Space Marines- Knights in space. Add in a spalsh of special forces, vampires, werewolves, Romans etc.

I.G.- Anything WW2, but IN SPACE!!!!!

As far as IoM and the Nazi stuff, Im gonna have to say there certainly an influence. But id say thats because they were the first totalitarian regime with incredible propaganda. I mean, Hugo Boss designed thier uniforms. Leni Riefenstahl's movies are a shot for shot hand book for modern movie cool. Im glad there all dead, and thier ideas are now relegated to fools and sociopaths. But they really knew how to look like bad mo' fo's.

 Red Marine wrote:

Im glad there all dead, and thier ideas are now relegated to fools and sociopaths. But they really knew how to look like bad mo' fo's.

There's a reason they were voted the 'Best Dressed Corpses on the Eastern Front' for three consecutive years!

I hate these threads, although this one is slightly better because half the people arnt shouting AMERICA after every army name. What i'm annoyed about is how "IG must be China or Russia due to X awful reason". Please don't belive everything you hear from western TV and don't judge if you have never been to X county,.just because you once read a history book does not count.

Anyway my veiw on the Tau os that their a "pan asain" army, i see their fluff as more islamic than anything with a desert world that was in war which united by a profit caste (Muhammed and Abu Bakr), their caste system is Hindu and the culture/politics is slightly Chinese (art of war, equelness etc) mech design is anime based and the script to me is a little korean! TDLR: Asian not just one country.

Humanity is a mix of all past cultures, when you look at a regiment and think "hey! This is like..." your most likely right, but may i add to my first point that the imperium can't be "communist" because its racist, xenophobic, blatently unequal and religous, nothing at all like China or Russia, so before you say "oh their like this place" please do some reserch because we can all get away by saying places like "rome or nazi germany" but some places still exist and your being just as xenophobic as the imperium saying this. POI commisars are Russian in nature but all armies used them in WW1 including the British army. The most Russian thing about them is the same and hats, the closest thing to communist China in the whole 40k setting is the dakkajet...a old copy of a Mig...which was Russian anyway and the Taus (sort of) only eldar and tau have real blatent Chinese culture in them (ying and yang, art of war etc).

Sorry to rant but the other side needed to be defended from an early post.

 tau tse tung wrote:
POI commisars are Russian in nature but all armies used them in WW1 including the British army.

Can you provide a source for this?