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English Assassin wrote:The loyalist and traitor Astartes long pre-date the Jedi/Sith thing, which wasn't detailed until Dark Horse's 'Tales of the Jedi' series in the mid-1990s. Milton's Paradise Lost (and, by extension, the Biblical war in heaven/fall) are their most obvious source.

Actually, SW IV came out in 1977, before WH40k IIRC?

While Star Wars does predate 40K by a significant span, I'm not sure the Jedi/Sith split directly contributed to 40K in any meaningful way.

English Assassin wrote:

Begel Dverl wrote:Chaos comes from certain religions like in Zoroastrianism, the "devil" is named Angra Mainyu, a similarly named Bloodthirster rampages around the Warp. Karanak is like Cerberus, Hell's guard dog. The four gods remind me of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse. In fact, I remember reading about Buddhism in a book. It talked about the FOUR truths that help you along the EIGHTFOLD path.

The Emperor, as a divinely-appointed ruler also owes something to the Persian ruler cults (and the Roman ones derived from them) and to the Zoroastrian figure of Mithras. The Thousand Sons' background and names also borrow heavily from ancient Persia and Zoroastrianism - another transliteration for Angra Mainyu is Ahriman. The four horsemen, however, don't really work as analogues for the gods of Chaos, since, though war and pestilence respectively would fit Khorne and Nurgle, famine and death don't suit either Slannesh or Tzeentch.

GamzaTheChaos wrote:IMO the Horus heresy was pieced together from the Bible.

God has all his children. lucifer being one of his greatest angels falls to self pride and turns about about 2/3 of the angels against God and a war in heaven starts. devil loses God forges a new earth age.

Almost none of which is actually in the Bible... the fall of Lucifer is primarily a literary invention; the tragic, rebellious archetype on which Horus is based was primarily Milton's creation.

Oh, and the eight-pointed star of Chaos is another borrowing from Moorcock. The Adeptus Mechanicus owes quite a bit to Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, in which, in a post-apocalyptic world, monks faithfully copy blueprints and machines without understanding them, whilst their cybernetic look derives from (very fashionable back in the 80s) cyberpunk, most obviously William Gibson, and (again) from the Cybermen.

Some very good, erudite points here. Agree with you on Lucifer and Milton. Moorcok is an author often forgotten now whose influence on early GW was massive and clear.

Not sure what you mean by a Persian ruler-cult though? Persians from Achaemenids up to the Islamic conquest were Zoroastrians. Zoroastrians do not believe in that sort of divinity for mortals. They have a range of divine and angelic beings. Persian rulers had no divine nomenclature, they were referred to as shahanshah i eran you aneran (king of kings of Iran and non-Iran). The closest they get to divinity is when you see them in a carving clutching a Zoroastrian winged ring (sometimes referred to as a corymbos) which is the symbol of divine favour, i.e. they are Ahura Mazda's representatives on Earth. The Emperor is closer to a god in himself, he subscribes to no superior authority and has no divine favour. He is presumably closer to an Egyptian pharoah, transformed in his 'death' into a god, such as osiris?

TheAngrySquig wrote:

English Assassin wrote:The loyalist and traitor Astartes long pre-date the Jedi/Sith thing, which wasn't detailed until Dark Horse's 'Tales of the Jedi' series in the mid-1990s. Milton's Paradise Lost (and, by extension, the Biblical war in heaven/fall) are their most obvious source.

Actually, SW IV came out in 1977, before WH40k IIRC?

Would you care to count how many times the Sith are mentioned in Star Wars IV - VI?

Isengard wrote:Not sure what you mean by a Persian ruler-cult though?

Slip of the brain; as you anticipated, I meant Egyptian. The Emperor does, however, fit quite well into Persian/Zoroastrian myth's order/chaos dichotomy, but in the role of Mithras or Ahuramazda, rather than the 'great king, king of kings'. Actually, despite the parallels to the pharaohs, the comparison with Osiris (and all of Frazer's other living/dying gods) was one I had quite forgotten about.

Imperial Guard = World War I massacres and Human resolve in great Earth Wars.
Sisters of Battle = Nuns, but with both firepower, zeal and faith.
Imperium of Man = mix of Roman and Byzantine Empires.
Emperor of Mankind = mix of all religion gods and saviors + famous Earth scientist.
In addition to all of that every Primarch draws some characteristics from 1 Earth culture or tradition, Guard and Space Marines to.
Orks and Eldar ( both Dark and ordinary ) are fantasy based races ( ORcs and Elves ).
Tyrtanids are mix of Xenomorphs and Bugs from SST.
Necrons are based upon Terminator with some Egyptian styling.
Chaos is based on Hell and evil.
Tau are based on Eastern cultures ( Japansese to be precise ).

In short, I have never see so many mix of everything ( from cultures to sci-fi seettings ) in some sci-fi world.

Sorry for thread necro, I googled 40k inspirations and this came out. So, Bible, Dune, History, Milton as inspiration for 40K, please... I just have to post here.

40K is just a massive ripoff of 2000AD comics, they just took ABC Warriors, Rogue Trooper amd most importantly Nemesis the Warlock, bits of Judge Dredd
and mixed it all up. You can ofc trace the inspiration to Bible or whatever you choose but that's far to deep and I doubt this is what happened. I'm quite positive you could find any design in 40k somewhere closer in time to GW writing 40K than mythology or even some classic SF books.

Few examples, top of my had

Facist and xenophopic medieval-esque human empire launching a crusade against aliens - Nemesis the Warlock
Facist and Xenophobic medieval-esque human empire fighting Chaos Deamons - Nemesis the Warlock was a Khaos Deamon himself and the archenemy of Thermight Empire
Chapters of the Empire finest troops in facist and xenophopic medieval-esque human empire - Nemesis the Warlock (no, not Dune), like berserkers becoming Space Wolves. They all had banners btw
Skulls everywhere - Rogue Trooper (and I read somewhere how GW reaserched medieval times and found the skul significant and the symbol etc, yeah)
Drop Pods - Rogue trooper (sure its Heinlein but look at the visualisation in Rogue Trooper and tell me which one was that)
Bolter and the styling of 40th milenium guns - Judge Dredd lawgiver (the early one)
The first Eldar helmet designs - Torquemada Terminators from Nemesis the Warlock, there was hardly a bit from there GW didn't use somewhere
The whole rulebook styling with medieval ornaments etc - Nemesis the Warlock, even the cosmos map styling can be found there
Even the the style of drawing monumental buildings and the strage WH fantasy cities seems to come from there, again it was somewhere else earlier probably but I doubt GW digged so deep.

The whole Imperium of Men is not any less blatant ripof than Necrons are Terminator blatant ripoff. GW are game designers not SF visionaires, they just took what was cool at the moment, twisted a bit and now arogantly claim to have invented anything. You can say they did a research for names and a few backstories, also added single elements from other sources like warpspace navigators but that's minor compared to how much was initialy just taken from 2000ad and changed only as much as was needed to not be called on that.

So, I doubt Imperium of Men is a mix of Roman and Byzantines Empire, noone there reasearched that deep and it's just twisted Thermight, even the "blessed is the mind too small for doubt" type quotes originate from Torquemadas "be pure! be vigilant! behave!". The Roman flavor came with trying to differentiate the chapters like Ultramarines but that's it. Emperor Torquemada had his elite terminators btw.

Will post pics if I find them.

Moorcock btw called them the "worst rippofs of all time". That he ripped off Poulson over and over is another topic though.

In my opinion the only saving grace here is the twisting, like Thermight Empire which was evil in the comic made the saviour of the galaxy still being the facist theocracy with chaos made evil etc. Also the made it into a game with solid ideas about troop organisation etc and bettered some of the original ideas but all this still makes my cringe when I hear that the most important is the fluff here. No it's a game with a solid but unoriginal fluff to back it up.

Considering 40k began in the 80s, it's no surprise how much Judge Dredd/2000AD influence there is. I don't think that's terribly well hidden; I don't know how you can mention all that without mentioning that the Adeptus Arbites are almost carbon copies of the Judges! It's no secret that 40k just took influences from any and all fiction and science fiction they found cool at the time of writing, then threw them into one big melting pot of cool grimdark ideas. That's kind of why so many of us love it. Where else can I read about/play a game that combines all my favorite sci-fi into one semi-cohesive setting?

Plumbumbarum wrote:Sorry for thread necro, I googled 40k inspirations and this came out.

Rather than apologize, just don't do it.