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Do you think that after all that science posted in the last several years ( numbers of stars in the galaxy, the fact that planets are existing around then and that 500 million of them might be in habitable zone of their stars ), the Imperium should still stick to: "And empire of 1 million worlds."
I think that in the next RuleBook GW should present IoM as an empire of several million worlds. The fact is that fluff was established while official science didn't have any statements about other planets that orbit stars. And since the warfare changed and GW added some new fluff to "modernize" it's army's do you think that they sould do the same thing with number of Imperium's planets?

I haven't read the book in a while, but is it "An empire of 1 million worlds" or "an empire of a million words"?

It's a subtle distinction, but "1 million" is a specific number, and "a million", while also technically a specific number, can also be used metaphorically to just mean "A huge number".

I think they should have something like 5 million. They are supposed to be a thinly spread, scattered empire that doesn't actually control most of the space they roam. If they had hundreds of millions, they would be too powerful and all there enemies wouldn't have a chance.

TrollPie wrote:I think they should have something like 5 million. They are supposed to be a thinly spread, scattered empire that doesn't actually control most of the space they roam. If they had hundreds of millions, they would be too powerful and all there enemies wouldn't have a chance.

I agree, but with only 1.000.000 worlds in a galaxy of 500.000.000 habitable worlds are not big force also ( like comparing Tau to them ).
And in fluff they are "the most powerful political organisation in the galaxy".

Jeez, complainers. A million worlds is a lot of worlds. There isn't 500,000,000 habitable worlds in 40K. Habitable worlds are described as rare, precious jewels. There's like 3 million worlds so humans have a good chunk of them.

yeah, most of the star systems in the galaxy will be lucky to even have a planet of any kind in orbit, let alone one with life.

the loose vicinity of 1 million(give or take a few hundred at any one time) is a decent size for the IoM.

I don't care for science. The entire setting is fantasy... I'm really quite ambivalent on the issue.

This post has inaccurate choices. Nowhere is it given that the Imperium has exactly 1 million worlds. It's just a number, as pointed out, that means "a lot".

If anything, tying them down to a specific number of worlds only decreases their appearance of immensity by being exact.

An option related to Tau? And it sounds Trolly towards both parties? Oh please sign me up!

Brother Coa wrote:Do you think that after all that science posted in the last several years ( numbers of stars in the galaxy, the fact that planets are existing around then and that 500 million of them might be in habitable zone of their stars ), the Imperium should still stick to: "And empire of 1 million worlds."

Isn't a million enough?

Besides, 500 million worlds that todays science thinks might be inhabitable doesn't mean 500 million actually inhabitable worlds... or that there will still be anything like that number after 40000 years of unchecked expansion by humans and numerous alien races, several of which are interested just in destruction...

and just because a planet is in the primary Biosphere zone of a star doesn't mean it can support life. its atmosphere could be full of sulfer or it could be completely volcanic(which often goes with a toxic atmosphere)

even if the planet actually has life doesn't mean it can have human life. Bacteria could thrive in a sulfer rich enviroment while we couldn't(or at least wouldn't like smelling like rotten eggs)

Pretty much been said, its an empire of a million worlds (sometimes seen as millions of worlds).

As for the science side of things, its 500 million worlds in the inhabitable zone, not 500 million inhabitable worlds.

I thought the phrase was metaphorical.

Also isn't the imperium supposed to be shrinking, not growing, being beaten back, world by world..

(puts on his plot TDA to bounce the attacks of the IOM fanclub )

the IoM isn't shrinking. its basically stagnating where it is, for every world lost, another is either rediscovered or retaken but at high cost.

the eternal war is more and more difficult, victories are had at a higher and higher cost. the Imperium stands on the edge of a knife.

No, I think its pretty much shrinking considering how large an area Hive Fleet Leviathan has basically cut off from Imperial access. They may not have been consumed by the fleet, they may still be loyal, but considering that the rest of the Imperium cannot communicate with them or physically reach them, they are lost.

No and here's why every piece of fluff I read if Chaos from the Eye of Terror which is supposed to a long way off from Terra...and yet it seems like if 4-5 planets go, whatever 'bad guy' of the month will be on Terra's back door step. I.E. Cadia, Armaggedon, That one plant with the Warp Storm closing it off, Vogen, etc.etc.

KingmanHighborn wrote:No and here's why every piece of fluff I read if Chaos from the Eye of Terror which is supposed to a long way off from Terra...and yet it seems like if 4-5 planets go, whatever 'bad guy' of the month will be on Terra's back door step. I.E. Cadia, Armaggedon, That one plant with the Warp Storm closing it off, Vogen, etc.etc.

Armageddon is fairly close to Terra so it could reliably be used as a staging area for an invasion, no clue what that one plant with a warp storm closing it off or Vogen is. As for Cadia, the planet basically controls access through the gate. If Cadia falls there is nothing stopping a full scale Chaos invasion from running amok in the Imperiums backfield. Its easier to keep an enemy isolated to one area rather than to face them along a full front.

chaos0xomega wrote:No, I think its pretty much shrinking considering how large an area Hive Fleet Leviathan has basically cut off from Imperial access. They may not have been consumed by the fleet, they may still be loyal, but considering that the rest of the Imperium cannot communicate with them or physically reach them, they are lost.

Thats the way worlds are lost, but how many are lost there 100?

The Imperium still colonizes or as Grey Templar said reconquers and rediscovers. Nowhere it is said that the Imperium is shrinking.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Jeez, complainers. A million worlds is a lot of worlds. There isn't 500,000,000 habitable worlds in 40K. Habitable worlds are described as rare, precious jewels. There's like 3 million worlds so humans have a good chunk of them.

Source for this?


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Ascalam wrote:Also isn't the imperium supposed to be shrinking, not growing, being beaten back, world by world..

(puts on his plot TDA to bounce the attacks of the IOM fanclub )

No, I remember one sentence from some book, an old guy telling the scared young boy: "Son, it's a big galaxy out there. Hundreds worlds disappear but thousands more prosper and are discovered. This is Terra my boy, nothing interested ever happen here." And for every world Imperium lose they colonize or discover several more, that my understanding of things.


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DarknessEternal wrote:This post has inaccurate choices. Nowhere is it given that the Imperium has exactly 1 million worlds. It's just a number, as pointed out, that means "a lot".

I thought when someone say "million worlds" mean 1.000.000 planets - not millions...


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insaniak wrote:
Isn't a million enough?

Besides, 500 million worlds that todays science thinks might be inhabitable doesn't mean 500 million actually inhabitable worlds... or that there will still be anything like that number after 40000 years of unchecked expansion by humans and numerous alien races, several of which are interested just in destruction...

In a galaxy of 200 - 400.000.000.000 stars that's quite low number of controllable planets.

And you are right but you all are forgetting one thing - pre-Imperium era Humans had wide spread Terrafroming equipment and they Terraform much of this 500 million planets.
They still have it, but only for the use of high nobility and in emergency cases. But that is the same as "they don't have it anymore."

Pg 104 main rule book:

"yet the light of the Emperor grows dim and his domain dwindles, planet by planet and system by system"

It's shrinking.

@Coa It's just a fan theory. Had some ridiculous nerd conversation with someone here back in the day and after much speculation we got like 3.2 million habitable worlds. Although that's just speculation trust me there is definately not hundreds of millions of habitable worlds in 40K, they are rare. That's why we have all these wars over them.

Dark Scipio wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:No, I think its pretty much shrinking considering how large an area Hive Fleet Leviathan has basically cut off from Imperial access. They may not have been consumed by the fleet, they may still be loyal, but considering that the rest of the Imperium cannot communicate with them or physically reach them, they are lost.

Thats the way worlds are lost, but how many are lost there 100?

The Imperium still colonizes or as Grey Templar said reconquers and rediscovers. Nowhere it is said that the Imperium is shrinking.

100 worlds lost to Hive Fleet Leviathan? Are you kidding me? The area encompasses like 1/4 of the known galaxy...

And yes, it does state the Imperium is shrinking, says so in the 5th edition rulebook as someone else has pointed out.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:@Coa It's just a fan theory. Had some ridiculous nerd conversation with someone here back in the day and after much speculation we got like 3.2 million habitable worlds. Although that's just speculation trust me there is definately not hundreds of millions of habitable worlds in 40K, they are rare. That's why we have all these wars over them.

Yes, but your speculations go against NASA findings. Further more, humans in 40k HAD access to Terra-forming equipment, and Emperor onlyu knows how many worlds they colonized before the fall of the Eldar.

The BRB states loads of times that the Imperium is losing, being beaten back and conquered world by world. Some folk from Terra who's most likely been fed truckloads of propaganda isn't a reliable source of information.

chaos0xomega wrote:

Dark Scipio wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:No, I think its pretty much shrinking considering how large an area Hive Fleet Leviathan has basically cut off from Imperial access. They may not have been consumed by the fleet, they may still be loyal, but considering that the rest of the Imperium cannot communicate with them or physically reach them, they are lost.

Thats the way worlds are lost, but how many are lost there 100?

The Imperium still colonizes or as Grey Templar said reconquers and rediscovers. Nowhere it is said that the Imperium is shrinking.

100 worlds lost to Hive Fleet Leviathan? Are you kidding me? The area encompasses like 1/4 of the known galaxy...

And yes, it does state the Imperium is shrinking, says so in the 5th edition rulebook as someone else has pointed out.

If everything would be true that was written once, we would have a perfect paradox univserse in 40k.

And what does dwindling mean, even it would loose planet after planet, and even if the Imperium has only 1 Million worlds thats stagnation at best, not shrinking.

And without a time frame this sentence says nothing at all. In which time does it dwindle? Since its existence? Impossible because it larger than it was another time. In the last five days? Only the last decade or Millenium? You see the sentence is no prove at all.



Hive Fleet Leviathan encompassing like 1/4 of the known galaxy? Where do you take this impression?



And so far every Tyranid Swarm Fleet threat has been neutralised with no only a fraction of the imperial might.

I think the million world thing is awesome, it's central to the theme of the Imperium as a massive bureaucracy! The problem is the stupid fluff stories they write and the scale of the elements in it.

Only 1000 space marines in a Chapter? That's absurd in a universe spanning a million worlds. Each marine would defend 1,000 worlds then? Really? Oh there are many chapters, ok, let take another zero off, 100 worlds per man then...

Now I know reality != 40k, but just in a generic plausibility sense here are some numbers for consideration:

DIVISION:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantry_division
A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 15,000 soldiers.

(There are currently 10 divisions in the US ARMY alone of this size or greater. Not counting the national Guard, Reserves and Marines.)

(In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union had an estimated 194 active tank, motorized rifle and airborne divisions in their army.)

(As of 2001 the DPRK (North Korean) army was composed of approximately 1,003,000 personnel organized into 20 corps consisting of 176 divisions.)


Instead of a real world example the Star Wars universe offers a great parallel in the Grand Army of the republic, which, ironically is fairly similar in concept at least to the space marines, another sci fi army of clones, just like space marines, except...

THE CLONE WARS:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Grand_Army_of_the_Republic

It was created by the Kaminoan cloners on Kamino. It comprised two hundred thousand growth-accelerated clone trooper units and their war machines at the start of the Clone Wars.

After the initial engagements, over a million more clone units were added to the ranks of the army, followed by numerous additional divisions.

Another example of armies in the millions, which itself seems a bit small given the population size on earth now.



WORLD POPULATION
http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata/a/worldpopulation.htm

Latest official current world population estimate, for mid-year 2010, is estimated at 6,852,472,823.

It stands to reason that many of the worlds in the Imperium would at least be the same size as the Earth is now, and many more would be much greater. By both current standards and even fictional standards, and indeed by the very 40k fiction, there would have to be millions of armies in the millions from each of the worlds in the fictional Imperium. Space marine chapters would have to be without number.

This is why I don't like any of the current 40k fiction very much, especially concerning Space Marines, and numbers because it's wrong, it doesn't make any sense in scale, and it breaks the old canon. Cover art always depicts Epic battles often with titans, where it is implied there are thousands of participants:






In short, the millions number references aren't dumb, the current fiction efforts (from the last 5 years or so) are. Case in point:



The EPIC STORY OF ... 10 guys? In a Space Church, Really?

Dark Scipio wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

Dark Scipio wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:No, I think its pretty much shrinking considering how large an area Hive Fleet Leviathan has basically cut off from Imperial access. They may not have been consumed by the fleet, they may still be loyal, but considering that the rest of the Imperium cannot communicate with them or physically reach them, they are lost.

Thats the way worlds are lost, but how many are lost there 100?

The Imperium still colonizes or as Grey Templar said reconquers and rediscovers. Nowhere it is said that the Imperium is shrinking.

100 worlds lost to Hive Fleet Leviathan? Are you kidding me? The area encompasses like 1/4 of the known galaxy...

And yes, it does state the Imperium is shrinking, says so in the 5th edition rulebook as someone else has pointed out.

If everything would be true that was written once, we would have a perfect paradox univserse in 40k.

And what does dwindling mean, even it would loose planet after planet, and even if the Imperium has only 1 Million worlds thats stagnation at best, not shrinking.





And without a time frame this sentence says nothing at all. In which time does it dwindle? Since its existence? Impossible because it larger than it was another time. In the last five days? Only the last decade or Millenium? You see the sentence is no prove at all.



Hive Fleet Leviathan encompassing like 1/4 of the known galaxy? Where do you take this impression?



And so far every Tyranid Swarm Fleet threat has been neutralised with no only a fraction of the imperial might.

The statement in the main rulebook is made as the current situation, an 'as of now, today' .

The emperor's light is fading- look at the timeline- The Emperor's life support is breaking down, past repair, and has begun to flicker and dim. This is all recent timeline stuff (the time of ending, or whatever)

'
And what does dwindling mean, even it would loose planet after planet, and even if the Imperium has only 1 Million worlds thats stagnation at best, not shrinking. '

Dwindling means to get smaller. If the IOM loses even one planet that it fails to replace it gets smaller. It loses far more planets than that just from beauracratic incompetence.

Stagnation means that the number of planets remains the same, which it doesn't

The rulebook says that (during the current era- the time of ending or whatever the name is- no rulebook on me: the current era at the end of the timeline) the imperium is growing smaller, the emperor fading and systems being lost one after another, and this isn't proof that the IOM is getting smaller and losing ground? You couldn't get much more definite fluff if you tried

How about you look at the page reference i gave you, and the timeline They should give you the time frame you are after.


The nids don't have a quarter of the galaxy, but their reach is still a pretty good sized wodge of the galactic disk.

I've never taken unreasonable fluff seriously, even if it is fluff. I tend to just make up something for myself and use that as the fluff rather than anything I don't like. For me, I like to think of the Imperium as containing worlds in the untold millions rather than just a handful million worlds. It doesn't make sense for them NOT to have terra-forming equipment when it's crucial to have such equipment at your disposal if you are policing millions of planets, you need outposts that are in between distant planets, and if you can't make it a hospitable planet, you're going to have to at least make it survivable. I just like to think of it as lost technology and costs a lot to replicate. I also like to think of the Imperium as an empire that gains a few worlds in a few battles and loses a few worlds in a few battles, not really expanding, but not really diminishing either.

A million is a handful now? Go ahead and count to a million. Go on, I'll wait. I think you'll see it's quite a bit.