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yes they do get insprated a lot (nids- alien-movies) but im pretty sure they actually did invent the "green Ork"

The original Dreadknight (a conversion I have wanted to do since I saw the model)

There are many references to some works of H.P Lovecraft, for an example the City of Pillars.
And I remember the name Horus from somewhere but I can't for the life of me remember where... the bible maybe? Or something like that.

Horus was an Egyptian deity.

Ascalam wrote:Horus was an Egyptian deity.

Oh right, thank you, if that was a reply to my post.

You're welcome

has anyone mentioned this yet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_Chaos

This is one of the reasons that when GW rips into someone for "IP" issues, they forget where they came from. Once upon a time, GW was friggin FUN. They revamped stuff all the time, and nothing was out of bounds. Heck, they even had articles in White Ads to tell you how to make stuff, aluding and even discussing the subject they were talking about. " We are a big fan of this movie, old andy here came up with this, that and the other thing..." "Here are the plans..." then they would have some plans in there how to make some home mad stuff.

Your examples are laughable in the sense that this is common knowledge.

most marines are some sort of Greek/Roman style, the blood angels being more statuesque, vs the ultramarines
Dark Angels owe their name and primarc's nameh to a poet, Lionel Johnson, who wrote a poem called The Dark Angel (about being a closeted gay man)
White Scars are Mongolians, Space Wolves are Vikings...
I liked when they did this because it let you relive movies you loved and even expand on them.
I never liked any of GW's fluff anyways (Fantasy has turned from 40k parallel to WoW in miniature form-or so it looks)
Eldar are based, oddly enough, on pagans, (look at the name for the craftworlds) some of the older models have more tell tale signs.
Its really interesting to see where they come from

-Loki- wrote:It's pretty widely known they 'borrow' themes from other franchises.

Tyranids are their version of HR Gigers Alien concept. Necrons are obviosly influenced by Terminator (and even have a nice little rule called 'We'll Be Back'). Tau are heavily themed around anime. It's allo part of the charm of GW's universe.

How dare you suggest that any part of GW IP is not 100% original... I am certain you will be hearing from GW lawyers...


As soon as they are done with Chapter House that is....


/end sarcasm

The debate about GW "ripping off" this or that design has certainly been around as long as I can remember. Going back to the original Space Hulk people were drawing the obvious Alien/Aliens parallel. I seem to recall rumblings of legal issues about it at one point but don't quote me on that.

The fact is sci-fi and fantasy are filled with borrowed ideas. The rare case these days is an idea that can be considered truly original. Almost everything is inspired by something else, it just varies how obvious that inspiration is in the finished design.

On the Dread Knight thing, I see more influence from anime that anything else. As soon as I saw it I thought "that's a land mate from Appleseed"... this is a similar design from Bubblegum Crisis but I'm sure you'll see my point.

I think people are making a bigger deal out of this the more seriously GW take themselves. Back in the day, GW was laughing along with everyone when they made a Margaret Thatcher model (Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka) or lizardmen characters named Hoertzalotl... I just discovered that in the Battlefleet Gothic Rulebook, the Tyrant class cruiser is made by Hyus N'dai....

There are a lot of things GW have taken from other sources, but they're more an homage to the original than out-an-out theft.

About the only thing I can think of - and I'm sketchy on the details so someone'll have to confirm it - are the concepts of the Emperor and the Navigators being taken directly from Dune. Beyond that, and at least by now, things have developed and moved on that what was once a straight rip is now nothing like it's original source material.

TBH I don't see GW or anyone else drawing inspiration from cool books and movies as a bad thing, it's part of what gets a lot of us into the hobby in the first place.

How many (me included) have chosen Necrons because of images from the Terminator franchise, or got into D&D after reading books like LotR?

It's how a company builds on and develops from their original concept that really matters to me.

HBMC, rather than Dune, the inspiration for the Emperor seems to be more likely to be King Huon from the Moorcock Hawkmoon series. A ancient being sustained within a golden globe guarded by hi s elite mantis guard - sound familiar.

There is an awful lot more taken from Moorcock's work as most obviously the concepts of Law and Chaos - themselves probably themselves taken up from some of Poul Andersons work.

However, do not forget back in the day (pre issue 100) White Dwarf was more likely to be three quarters full of articles for other companies games rather than GW product. At the dawn of roleplaying everyone "borrowed" from everyone else and not an IP lawyer in sight.

GW had license to use a lot of stuff back then.
They made the models for a lot of ranges, like 2000AD.
So, at the time, there was no problem grabbing bits of them for their own use.
It's gotten a bit out of hand since, and lawyers have been brought in.

BlackGorth wrote:On the Dread Knight thing, I see more influence from anime that anything else. As soon as I saw it I thought "that's a land mate from Appleseed"... this is a similar design from Bubblegum Crisis but I'm sure you'll see my point.

Other than the 'tiny arms control big arms' I don't see a ton of similarity. The Landmates are power armor that gets around a lot of problems with power armor. Unlike the Dreadknight, they're a protective enclosure for the pilot.

At the risk of getting too far off-topic...

You're absolutely right about the landmate being enclosed while the DK isn't. The suit I showed from BC is open with a power armoured pilot though, it just makes the wearer stronger and able to carry bigger guns (and look cool doing it).

It's the control method with the mech's movements being slaved to the wearer that instantly made me think of landmates.

Then again, as Ssgt Carl pointed out Ripley's loader from Aliens has that too & pretty sure that one's older.

No argument from me though, just interesting where we see the different influences

Ouze wrote:Someone inevitably points out how Games Workshop totally ripped off Blizzard...

HA!

That someone would need to double check their facts and who's listed on the Past & Present design teams of both companies....they'll probably be quite surprised!

It is no bad thing to be inspired by someone else's work, its really a complement.

I have always thought the Tau was based around the Covenant from the Halo series with some anime elements, but thats just me.

Tau release: October 2001
Halo Release: November 2001

...
Definitely just you.

It's interesting that some people miss classic sci-fi references. For instance, while a lot of people are familiar with the (to a certain extent terrible) movie, Heinlein's Starship Troopers was actually the origin of the idea of a power armored Space Marine. It's only the fact that he used a different name for them (Mobile Infantry) that makes it so GW isn't completely ripping them off, but many of the same elements are there (jump packs, powerful weaponry, servo-actuated mechanical battle suits that respond to minute motions or thoughts by the wearer, etc). GW might be well known, but even their most iconic and profitable factions are not exactly original.

Probably the best example of crazy influence is the evolution of the Tyrannids and the Zerg. The old Tyranid models are actually very distinctive from the ones we see now. The reason for this is that Blizzard took a nod from Games Workshop when creating the Zerg in Starcraft (bear in mind however that the galactic space bug thing itself came from Aliens and old 50s Scifi movies) and went the extra mile. While you can say that the Zerg are inspired by the Tyranids in many respects, they were actually very well developed and quite different visually from the Tyranids of the day.

Then Starcraft took off like a rocket, and things got interesting. The look for a lot of Starcraft units was sleek and alien, and Games Workshop slowly began incorporating that look into their miniature lines. Thus we had the change in Tyranid Warriors, as well as the more organic, flowing serpentine and clawed look of other new releases. The success of a product that had taken a nod from GW lead GW itself to take advantage of the success of that image to make their own products more appealing. Arguing that one stole from the other is kind of silly, since Tyranids are themselves inspired by older souces, and both sides have benefited from the relationship, using the idea of 'space bugs' created on both sides to improve the image overall.

Orks of course are always an interesting topic as well, which isn't worth going into beyond pointing out that the defining characteristics of GW Orks are that they are bright green and are British Football hooligans, while Tolkien inspired orcs tend to be swarthy (can look a little green, but tend to be darker in coloration) and can often be portrayed as barbarians. (Its worth noting that the Orcs and Uruks in Lord of the Rings were actually more technically advanced than their enemies.)

A lot of GWs stuff is a nod to other sources - stuff that's clearly original is hard to come by. Does that mean its bad? No, but at the same time shouting 'GW thought of it first!' is often as much a flawed argument.

Copy/pasting my response from the 'other' thread...

Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" and its concept of 'Space Marines' was predated by the "Lensman" series by Edward Elmer Smith(With the "Galactic Marines" appearing in 1937) and even he was beaten to the punch by Bob Olsen who wrote two short stories called "Captain Brink of the Space Marine"(1932) and "The Space Marines and the Slavers" (1936).

If you're going to say that Heinlein "defined the concept" of soldiers in power armor with guns though, it's a far more accurate statement. Furthermore, it's also worth noting that the Mobile Infantry that Heinlein described wore what would be considered 'battle suits' and not 'powered armor'.


Adding to that copy/paste response here you go:
To say that Space Marines are a "rip off" of Heinlein's Mobile Infantry is being disingenuous. If Space Marines hauled around Y racks mounted on their backpacks that seeded an area with mininukes, and their backpacks were in fact jetpacks, and the weapons were actually fixed within the suit...
Then you'd have a far more valid case to say that GW's Space Marines are clearly and irrefutably based upon the Mobile Infantry.

As it stands, Space Marines are kinda/sorta based off the ideas that Heinlein set forth (the idea of drop podding forces whose role is to sever the enemy's command structure and cause as much havoc as possible being the primary one that they follow) with more differences than likenesses.

There's the argument to be made based off the cover art that they're very similar, but that's an artist's impression of a "Starship Trooper" and not necessarily what Heinlein described.

Wow Kan, I can't begin to even count the number of words you put into my mouth there. I know that you feel that being able to repost what you had from the other thread makes it easy, but please refrain from that sort of hyperbole and accusations. It's not welcome when you're having a more rational discussion.

I never said that GW 'ripped off' anyone. Their sources are definitely inspired by many older stories, as are many other things in human history. Lensman does not mention powered armor in anywhere near the detail that Starship Troopers does - this is understandable, as the Lensman series touches on a great deal of other high technology scifi concepts. They're described more as 'armored space suits', which is a pretty generic and understandable concept when you consider how scifi worked back then. The Lensman series works on a fairly grand scale in a lot of ways as well - the attention to detail that Heinlein gives to the idea of mobile infantry and powered armor use makes him one of the very strong influences upon that sort of science fiction view.

Trasvi wrote:Tau release: October 2001
Halo Release: November 2001

...
Definitely just you.

Hammerheads look like wraiths.

Ghosts = piranha.

Coalition of aliens.

Vespids are drones.

Kroot equals jackals.

Aun'va floats around on a grav throne like a prophet from Halo 2.

Faith in spiritual leaders with absolute authority.

Honour guard equipment looks like that of the covenant honour equipment.

I am wrong but perhaps you could forgive my assumption based on what is listed above.

Its then coincidence but in a good few instances they are strikingly similar.

RuneGrey wrote:Wow Kan, I can't begin to even count the number of words you put into my mouth there.

I'd suggest you notice the fact that I didn't "quote" you before making my reply.

I know that you feel that being able to repost what you had from the other thread makes it easy,

What is the "it" you're referring to, and how is "it" made easier by reposting something?

but please refrain from that sort of hyperbole and accusations.

What hyperbole? What "accusation"? I'm fairly certain I didn't quote anyone and I didn't mention any names when I made my post. I made a general statement.

It's not welcome when you're having a more rational discussion.

Nor is misinterpreting someone's statement as being some kind of "dig" at you, then going off on a tangent and accusing them of hyperbole.

Once again though, I always find the comparison of the MI's suits within Starship Troopers to Astartes Power Armour in 40k interesting--and downright fallacious, most of the time.

Everything about the description of the MI's suits rings true for it being what amounts to a form of a battlesuit/combat exoskeleton, of which power armor is considered a subcategory.
TL;DR version:
Battlesuits are not necessarily Power Armor, but Power Armor is a Battlesuit.

Yarrickshad wrote:
Hammerheads look like wraiths.
Ghosts = piranha.
Coalition of aliens.
Vespids are drones.
Kroot equals jackals.
Aun'va floats around on a grav throne like a prophet from Halo 2.
Faith in spiritual leaders with absolute authority.
Honour guard equipment looks like that of the covenant honour equipment.
I am wrong but perhaps you could forgive my assumption based on what is listed above.
Its likely coincidence but in a good few instances they are strikingly similar.

Whilst you can put together parallels between the two universes, its definitely a case of simultaneous development based on existing archetypes.

The prophet and Aun'va are clearly based on Earth religion (quite closely Pope John Paul II and his popemobile) - so much that Aun'va gets called 'the space pope' where I play
Hammerheads look a lot more like Hammerheads if you ask me Piranhas are quite a bit different to Ghosts - a piranha is a 2 person convertible, the ghost is more of a bike. Hover tanks aren't exactly a new idea anyway, neither is curvy alien technology.
Both fit the description of Scary dogmatic alients... along with a hundred other examples in that link.

Actually, everyone should read through the commonalities 40k has with everything else to help decide what is 'unique' about the 40k universe.

I have always thought that Space Marines look like Star Wars stormtroopers with big shoulders guards and a backpack.

o0o0 wrote:
Blood angels - now i could be wrong here but i never thought they had fangs of any kind and were more angels that drank blood and not vampires. Maybe it snuck in for the twilight movie franchise. Guess we won't know that one till a special character by the name of edward comes in to prove it.

Dude, they carry around chalices of blood. You thought those were just for kicks?

Also yeah they draw influences from other places. Just like about everything else that has ever been written...like ever.

Mr. Self Destruct wrote:Elves were put in high fantasy by Tolkien, so they rip off of him.
Dark Eldar being the polar opposites of the Eldar is basically like the Romulans and Vulcans, so they ripped off Star Trek.
Genestealers are Xenomorphs with human heads.
Something about Space Marines being Terrans, blah blah blah...

This idea's really been beaten to death.

Alfar (elf), Svartalfar (dark elf), Dvergar (dwarf), etc. are all from Northern Germanic and Scandanavian mythology dating 1000+ years ago. Tolkein was a professor who specialized in Medieval English Literature; when he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, he borrowed purposefully and heavily from these sources. Even the coccept of Smaug having a weak spot on his breast is borrowed from the Ring of the Nibelung by Wagner, which, in turn, borrowed from the Volsunga Saga of Norse mythology.

Also, it's hard to say that Tolken put elves into high fantasy when "high fantasy" didn't exist before Tolkein. Prior to Tolkein and C. S. Lewis, there were incredibly few authors that wrote in a style that we would recognize today as high fantasy. Some of what Poe did might be called fantasy, I guess, but far from "high fantasy." Howard pre-dated Tolkein and Lewis, but nothing he did would be called high fantasy. Same for Lovecraft.


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MrMerlin wrote:yes they do get insprated a lot (nids- alien-movies) but im pretty sure they actually did invent the "green Ork"

I seem to recall Orcs being green in Dungeons and Dragons about 1978 when I first started playing.