Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

40k is not grimdark... it's about hope and as another poster said, victory.

Humanity has endured long into the future against the threats of not only the xenos, the witch, the heretic and the foul taint of chaos.

Even though worlds are lost, victories are abound for mankind.


It used to be darker and with the timeline, they are hinting at very dark times but there are too many stories of victory against all odds in so many of the new codex and even insane stuff that makes no sense in some marine books.

Brother Coa wrote:Actually that grimmdark? Well...

A) Everywhere you look you have a war. Over planet, system, segmentum, race, god, everything....

Corporal_Reznov wrote:War is not everywhere and even then it is mostly small time rebellions or pirate attacks.

B) Even if you live on some back-water world - you will be caught in it in some time of your life.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:The 40k galaxy is a lot like the wild west in how secure it is for normal people. But thats how life is like there, its normal for them.

C) Humanity want's to purge galaxy of aliens, aliens wants to purge the galaxy of Humans - and other aliens.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Actually, Humanity wants to purge all chaos united humanity along with all the aliens. Aliens want to purge the entire human race from the galaxy and then purge each other.

D) Even when you fighting evil and wining - you are feeding evil just to do more bad things in the galaxy.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:True but that doesn't mean you should just give up.

G) There is no high tech, no internet, no freedom of speech, no personal transportations ( cars ), no free newspaper, not even your own thought ( Inquisition see all, then Chaos, then C'tan, then everyone else )

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Wrong. It depends on the planet in question but they do have high tech stuff. Civilians can own cars or trucks etc if they can afford it and if their world has them. Their is a type of tv network as shown in the Shira Calpurnia books as well as porn movies in data slates that are shown to exist in the Ciaphas Cain books. The Imperium even have nursery rhymes that true to the Imperium are quite morbid and humorous such as 'The tracks of the Land Raider crush the heretic' or 'Promethium, our happy heretic burning friend'.

Their is no freedom in 40k, not even under the Tau. The Tau will put you into re-education centers for speaking against the "Greater Good"

D) The day you join in the army is the day you will probably finish your life - or soon enough.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Ciaphas Cain books show otherwise.

The only nongrimdark thing is that you have a LOT of chicks ( after all, there are untold trillions of Humans out there... ). And you can have a lot of fun and a lot of children, anyway why not? In the end they will all end up in meat grinder or be slaves to some sick pointy ear guy.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:The Imperium actually is quite egalitarian when it comes to gender issues or gender equality. They honestly don't care if you are gay, lesbian or heterosexual. So be anything you want just remember to praise the Emperor.

Hope this answer your question...

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Here's my answer

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:Actually that grimmdark? Well...

A) Everywhere you look you have a war. Over planet, system, segmentum, race, god, everything....

Corporal_Reznov wrote:War is not everywhere and even then it is mostly small time rebellions or pirate attacks.

B) Even if you live on some back-water world - you will be caught in it in some time of your life.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:The 40k galaxy is a lot like the wild west in how secure it is for normal people. But thats how life is like there, its normal for them.

C) Humanity want's to purge galaxy of aliens, aliens wants to purge the galaxy of Humans - and other aliens.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Actually, Humanity wants to purge all chaos united humanity along with all the aliens. Aliens want to purge the entire human race from the galaxy and then purge each other.

D) Even when you fighting evil and wining - you are feeding evil just to do more bad things in the galaxy.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:True but that doesn't mean you should just give up.

G) There is no high tech, no internet, no freedom of speech, no personal transportations ( cars ), no free newspaper, not even your own thought ( Inquisition see all, then Chaos, then C'tan, then everyone else )

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Wrong. It depends on the planet in question but they do have high tech stuff. Civilians can own cars or trucks etc if they can afford it and if their world has them. Their is a type of tv network as shown in the Shira Calpurnia books as well as porn movies in data slates that are shown to exist in the Ciaphas Cain books. The Imperium even have nursery rhymes that true to the Imperium are quite morbid and humorous such as 'The tracks of the Land Raider crush the heretic' or 'Promethium, our happy heretic burning friend'.

Their is no freedom in 40k, not even under the Tau. The Tau will put you into re-education centers for speaking against the "Greater Good"

D) The day you join in the army is the day you will probably finish your life - or soon enough.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Ciaphas Cain books show otherwise.

The only nongrimdark thing is that you have a LOT of chicks ( after all, there are untold trillions of Humans out there... ). And you can have a lot of fun and a lot of children, anyway why not? In the end they will all end up in meat grinder or be slaves to some sick pointy ear guy.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:The Imperium actually is quite egalitarian when it comes to gender issues or gender equality. They honestly don't care if you are gay, lesbian or heterosexual. So be anything you want just remember to praise the Emperor.

Hope this answer your question...

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Here's my answer

In the end it's still: "In the grim darkness of the far future...THERE IS ONLY WAR!!!"

Brother Coa wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
It's significantly rarer than war on modern Earth, taking the sheer scale of things into account. A country with 6% of the land on Earth and 4% of the population is currently involved in three wars (which also involve forces from other NATO countries, though I don't feel like looking up the total population of all relevant countries and whatnot), and maintains a military presence in countless other countries. Almost every Imperial world goes untouched for generations, centuries, or millennia, and only the smallest fraction of worlds is actively engaged in a conflict at any given time.

Which back me to my other question, why then those 70% of Imperial worlds that are in peace ( to say ) don't send Regiments of Guard to help stabilize the frontiers of the Imperium?

They do, more or less. Unless they're too far away from anything to get there before they die of old age/the problem's been resolved for years already. There generally aren't constant warzones that go without reinforcements for long enough to bring them in from far away, unless there are more pressing matters to attend to in the area, or the reinforcements run into trouble in the warp. It's kind of like a game of whack-a-mole played on a board the size of a football field, with perhaps two or three players. Something pops up, whoever's closest smashes it down again, and someone on the other side of the field doesn't bother heading for it.

The Imperium largely ignores aliens that aren't deemed an existential threat to humanity, and certainly doesn't bother with non-sentient xenos, even aggressive, hazardous ones (aside from enterprising merchants trying to find a use for them). The Ordo Xenos keeps tabs on them, but military expeditions out of Imperial space to deal with Xenos are limited to those that pose a perceived threat, while ones that don't are just added to a "to do" list and largely forgotten.

That's true, but still attack are not stooping - they are increasing. And their strategy of largely forgotten is not good strategy at all, in years they can grow into serious threat ( like the Tau ) and then Imperium will just have one more enemy to fight.

The Tau are no more a threat to the Imperium than, say, Luxembourg is to the US. Well, less than that, since Luxembourg has almost .2% of the population of that of the US, while the Tau come in at around or less than .001% the population of that of the Imperium.

It's debatable whether the ruinous powers meaningfully benefit from the scale of conflict in the Milky Way. It depends on whether the warp is still considered to be as universal and dimension-spanning as it used to be, in which case they're being fed from every galaxy, in every dimension, so whatever happens in the Milky Way is just a drop in an ocean for them.

We don't know that, we only know about our galaxy and that's it. But the fact remains, when you fight Chaos Gods you are actually giving them power. Someone wrote on this forum long ago that: "When you kill someone in rage, you are feeding Khorne. When you thinking about tricking your enemies or simply flank them - You are feeding Tzeentch."

No one but ostensibly the Emperor fights the Chaos gods though, they fight those rare lesser servants dragged into the Materium by warp maddened cultists.

And I can't imagine the traffic in city of 32.000.000.000 people. I live inj city with 2.500.000 people and still I have to wait 45 minute to cross the bridge...

In a city like that, there are trains or some analogue thereof. The upper class would have (flying) personal transports, and on a lower density world personal ground transports would be common.

For speech is true, also it is forbidden to tell "I like Tau" or "Inquisition can suck my..." - you know what I mean...

The Inquisition largely doesn't care about foolish statements, since they're much too busy hunting actual threats. The local cops might beat or kill you, but there are plenty of places on Earth where the same is true. The Inquisition even goes so far as to ignore the 40k equivalent of goths, who imitate the cultists they see in "vid dramas", since they're just idiots who dress funny and chant meaningless gibberish, as opposed to actual cultists who dress like everyone else and chant gibberish that makes one's ears bleed and one's stomach seize up, before summoning a daemon that eats everyone.

What about Outsider, story said that everybody hear a thought in their heads when he is around.

The outsider is imprisoned in a dyson sphere.

And Chaos daemons whispering in your ear when you are sleeping.

Unless you're a psyker or have otherwise marked yourself, a daemon, at least one in the warp, cannot do anything to you. A manifested daemon would be more likely to just eat you.

And Inquisitors that can read minds on a city level? It's not true that they hear nothing, especially Chaos Gods whose realm is build from Human emotions... And I have read about the Inquisitors hear what people say while having dinner, and they live some few kilometers away...

There are Inquisitors, like Ravenor, who can read minds at a great distance. He doesn't try to monitor populations thusly because of the sheer amount of junk data involved (basically the same reason why the NSA's attempt to monitor every electronic message in or out of the US is such an abject failure: the sheer amount of junk data means looking for anything threatening is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, only the haystack is the size of several football fields).

That's from a single novel, referring only to the warzone it described, and is contradicted by every single other novel regarding the Guard.

A.....no.... It's just common knowledge when you start life in the Guard - you finish it in the Guard. Never hear about great number of Guardsman in pension, or that they serve the army and then go home. I can swear that 90% of people who enlist in the Guard never return, and when I see enemies they face - my fact is not far from truth ( I was not referring to "15 hour", I was referring to IG in general ).

You're sentenced to death the moment you're born, at least as it stands now. In the Guard, it's not necessarily much of a reduction, especially if the individual in question came from the toxic environment of a hive, and depending on their skill and luck they may end up living much longer, as a high ranking officer would receive the best medical treatments available to extend their lives and thus usefulness to the Imperium; even a lowly grunt would get better medical care than the average citizen.

And you didn't say anything about lot's of women in the galaxy

They'd be no more abundant than in the average non-chinese-or-indian city, and any increase in population brings with it a greater number of males one is competing against. Also what im2randomghgh said, the population in is in the quadrillions (in excess of 10 quadrillion on hiveworlds alone, as a low range estimate of an average of 200 billion per hiveworld (there are some 32 thousand odd hiveworlds in the Imperium).

Is this grimdark?

No, you're right. It was to the tune of Wheels on the bus.
*sings*

The tracks on the landraider crush the heretic,
crush the heretic,
crush the heretic.
The tracks on the landraider crush the heretic,
all through the hive.

The turret on the landraider goes crack crack crack,
crack crack crack,
crack crack crack,
The turret on the landraider goes crack crack crack,
all through the hive.

The Commissar on the landraider goes FOR THE EMPEROR!
FOR THE EMPEROR!
FOR THE EMPEROR!
The Commissar on the landraider goes FOR THE EMPEROR!
all through the hive.

@Sir Pseudonymous

After you saying all this, Warhammer 40000 don't look that GrimDark at all...

Then why it is?

No one but ostensibly the Emperor fights the Chaos gods though, they fight those rare lesser servants dragged into the Materium by warp maddened cultists.

Not just ostensibly. Codex: Chaos Daemons outright states that the Emperor is the only reason Chaos hasn't taken over humanity and the only force powerful enough to hold Chaos back as it is right now.

Unless you're a psyker or have otherwise marked yourself, a daemon, at least one in the warp, cannot do anything to you. A manifested daemon would be more likely to just eat you.

That depends on the nature of the daemon and the nature of the warp around the location. In some location the veil between warp and realspace is thin enough that certain daemons can in fact manipulate reality somewhat. It's just that it's hard for them to do so.


As far as women in the Imperium? The Imperium doesn't care about gender. Pick up the gun and shoot, or be shot.