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Dune has Lasguns.
Warhammer 40,000 has Lasguns.
Dune has an Imperium of Man,
Warhammer 40,000 has an Imperium of man.



What other things in Warhammer 40,000 took influence from the Dune books? Yeah, random question I know, but just curious (I've only read the original Dune, none of the others)

Navigators

Burrowing monsters that eat people.

They stole that from Kevin Bacon though...

Duine heavily influenced 40K, but it was mainly the Dino De Laurentiis fiom version though. Gwe heavily copied the gothic style of 40K from it.

Herbert's Dune is a lot less gothic in style, much of what imagery we see from the books and orginal art is sleeker. I think the gothic visuals better fitted the vision frankly.

GalacticDefender wrote: Dune has Lasguns.
Warhammer 40,000 has Lasguns.
Dune has an Imperium of Man,
Warhammer 40,000 has an Imperium of man.



What other things in Warhammer 40,000 took influence from the Dune books? Yeah, random question I know, but just curious (I've only read the original Dune, none of the others)

A coworker of mine and I were just discussing this... yesterday. Small world I guess!

As already mentioned the Navigators are fairly close to a straight rip, and I can imagine some similarities between God Emperor Leto II's death (the Scattering) and what would happen if the 40k Emperor died, both are larger then life and long lived rulers ushering in "golden ages" of suffering, though Leto's Golden Path was a 3,500 year+ plan to create a universe that could defeat him without him seeing it coming (and thus hopefully be able to survive anything else that may come up), a far cry from the 40k Emperor clinging to life, and whereas the 40k Emperor's death may create the Star Child, Leto II's death ushered in a return of an otherwise dead-race with little shards of mini-Emperor going forth and burrowing and such.

Both contain examples of rulers using shades of gray, again the idea of a ruler's hands "doing both good and evil" is more clearly explained, and planned/intended as opposed to the grimdark "this is what we do" aspect of the Inquisition, not to say that the darker aspects of 40ks Imperium couldn't also be part of some grand plan, the "wheels within wheels and plans within plans" nature of Dune's storylines don't quite play out in the generalized aspect of 40k's current "maintain the status quo" baseline, but the fluff contain some great interwoven plots like the Necron/Orks/Eldar/Old Ones, the Eldar War in the Heavens and what part the Necrons/C'Tan planned, who sided with who and how the factual (as presented in current fluff) events get remembered in Eldar myths.

Honestly I would like more Dune influences, thematically so. Catholicism is alive and well in Muad'dib's time, as noticed by references to the Orange Catholic Bible, and the Jewish faith is still present thousand's of years later as well. Dune focuses so much on moving away from Gods, character wise. Characters going out of there way to not become Gods, understand the pain in doing so, questioning what it is to be worshiped, accepting God-head for certain plans, whereas in 40k it's sort of just a given, heroes come, heroes go, heroes turn sides, life goes on. Religion is awkward at best in 40k. One millenium the Emperor is preaching science and such, then he's in a throne and being worshiped.

See quotes like: "As with so many other religions, Muad'Dib's Golden Elixir of Life degenerated into external wizardry. Its mystical signs became mere symbols for deeper psychological processes, and those processes, of course, ran wild. What they needed was a living god, and they didn't have one, a situation which Muad'Dib's son has corrected" and "All humans make mistakes, and all leaders are but human" (made by the inhuman God Emperor)

Dune investigates the way a ruler, a hero, can capture and catapult a civilization, setting off the universe into war. I would love if 40k had more of that inner awareness cast into it. So much of 40k is just given as matter of fact. More influences from well done scifi, anti-Goto if you will, would do wonders. Self reflection, the kind of aspects that seem to be capturing readers during the Horus Hersey Series may show steps in the right direction.

And of course there's the fact that Dune doesn't have sentient aliens (as such) and mainly focuses on humanity itself, struggling for survival or overcoming stagnation, and based on 10k years of status quo maybe the 40k Imperium could re-invent itself from the ashes of its own complacency.

I guess despite the fact the thread was about the similarities all I was left with was a desire to look for all of the differences, so I do apologize for getting off topic in that regard =(

A couple things:

Dune is set far, far, FAR into the future.

Dune experience a war against AI and certain technoligies in their past.

Dune is ruled by a God-Emperor.

It's almost to the point that 40k is simply Dune 20,000 years later.

First of all I'd like to say thank you Galactic Defender I love seeing all my fellow Dune fans. (you'd be surprised but you don't actually see that many people that are fans of Dune, even though it's the Lord of the Rings of Sci-Fi)

Anyway on to topic. I agree with what all of you said especially you Amaya. I actually used that idea for my IG army. Its based entirely on the Dune universe I actually have Fremen sayings written on the barrels of my Leman Russ's, and the backstory to my IG is that they believe the Emperor is Muad'Dib reborn.

One more similarity, the Navigators guild could be likened to the Adeptus Mechanicus in that they maintain all the Navigators and their ships.

I haave noticed the similaritys between Dune and 40k, The lasguns are one thing, as well as ornothopters which are mention. GW built the game from a lot of different sci fi and fictional ideas. And its very sad that the number of dune fans and readers is declining. It is the greatest piece of sci fi in the world. Alas most people i know just read the first one and stop

Dune is in Space.

40k is in Space.



Oh yeah, and this: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/249238.page

Their are some influeneces of dune on 40k.
but the lasguns are completly different, In Dune they are good while in 40k they are terrible. In Dune if they are fired at shield there is a large explosion.

OMG? 40k uses Sci Fi Tropes that have been about since forever?

UNPOSSIBLE!

40k doesn't have Spice though!

I like me some Dune, though I can't claim I'm a HUGE fan. I'd been wondering how to spice my Marine chapter with Dune references, since most Sci Fi guys would give me points for that.

M.

Yer but laser weaponry wasn't an original idea by Frank Herbert, or humans having empires, or politacal struggles and subterfuge.

Warhammer 40k, like all science fiction, takes insparation/borrows/steals from other creators, science, history and the world at large.

I need to start reading it seems!

The IoM never had anything called a Butlerian Jihad, but has the exact same attitude towards and prohibitions against intelligent machines, direct genetic engineering, and cloning.
Navigators are pulled directly from Dune minus the Spice.

In older fluff, the IoM borrowed organizations pretty directly from Dune, but they've changed now.
The Emperor borrows a lot from Paul and Leto Atriedes, but is definitely not a copy. (And some things clearly don't come from Dune, for example there's a Moorcock story with an immortal emperor kept alive by the power of the Golden Throne)

BluntmanDC wrote:Yer but laser weaponry wasn't an original idea by Frank Herbert, or humans having empires, or politacal struggles and subterfuge.

The specific term 'lasgun' came from Dune, though.

Never heard of Dune.


are we sure 40k didn't come first? it's been around for a good 30 years.


you wouldn't belive how many people see my 40k figures and say that they copied Starcraft when it was the other way around

I was thinking that the other night when I pulled out the old Dune DVD... Some interesting parallels...

But yes, they are both filled with sci-fi tropes that not too many sci-fi movies, games, etc. can avoid.

Grey Templar wrote:Never heard of Dune.


are we sure 40k didn't come first? it's been around for a good 30 years.


you wouldn't belive how many people see my 40k figures and say that they copied Starcraft when it was the other way around

Published in 1965, often imitated never duplicated

THE SPICE MUST FLOW!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcgft-iiZ_s

Tactical Nuclear Panda wrote:I haave noticed the similaritys between Dune and 40k, The lasguns are one thing, as well as ornothopters which are mention. GW built the game from a lot of different sci fi and fictional ideas. And its very sad that the number of dune fans and readers is declining. It is the greatest piece of sci fi in the world. Alas most people i know just read the first one and stop

Yeah but Dune didn't invent ornithopters. I recall seeing a rather hilarious video (early 1900's?) of an ornithopter completely failing. Ornithopters were pretty much the origional idea behind powered flight, until people thought "Hmm, this doesn't work all that well."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grey Templar wrote:Never heard of Dune.


are we sure 40k didn't come first? it's been around for a good 30 years.


you wouldn't belive how many people see my 40k figures and say that they copied Starcraft when it was the other way around

Lol, just lol. Seriously, dude?

Oooh ooh I got one

SPESS SHIPS!!!!

Grey Templar wrote:Never heard of Dune.


are we sure 40k didn't come first? it's been around for a good 30 years.


you wouldn't belive how many people see my 40k figures and say that they copied Starcraft when it was the other way around

But yeah, 40k is pretty much all taken from other worlds. Nids in particular.

As for the starcraft thing:
GW back in Ye Olde Dayes when people still used Cassette Tapes, were going to make a game. They hired some nobodies called Blizzard to make it, then pulled out.

Rather than lose their work, they just made a new game.

While it seems that 40k had lots of little influences Dune never seemed to be a major one to me.
The lasguns in 40k are nothing like the ones in dune.
The dune imperium is more of a byzantine empire, the 40k one is more medieval/western europe. Space marines arent sardaukar. Fremen arent imperial guard (though they look a bit like tallarn)
Navigators in dune are mutated by the spice to be inhuman and can read the pathways of the future (and sound more like tzeentch daemons actually), while the human navigators are mutants who have lost their eyesight.
There is no way that david lynch's dune was a big influence on 40k. the original 40k is more like a Michael Moorcock book.

A galactic Empire ruled by an Emperor who has an elite group of super soldiers recruited from a deathworld, that travels space using a psychic person known as a Navigator.

Yeah, no similarity between 40k and Dune. None whatsoever.

The similarities are there.
Exact point for point rips no, more spiritual successors.

I always saw it as a mash up largely of the theames of the british 80's sci-fi zietgiest, (and the british taste for dystopian rather than frontier-based sci fi in general), so a big hunk of Dune, Nemisis the Warlock, (and on one level other 200ad from the time, aided no doubt by the existing GW model rangeof the time which could be swiftly adapted by customers with the existing models when Rogue Trader came out, judges= arbites, paranoia stuff to penal legionaires etc, etc, its what I did!), also the Beserker novels, Starship Troopers, 1984, -okay now I'm feeling old.

Definitely more heavly related to Starship troopers:

Space marines in Fluff are almost exactly mobile infantry(a single squad is supposed to be able to take over an entire planet, and have the requisite "power Armor" along with the Drop-pods, etc)

Then You have the Nids; Arach- or tyra- does not matter, they are both "bugs" with specialized "brain-bug" castes

Finally you have some parallels between the Eldar and the Skinnies

O.K. people the bar has been Set; Per Sircar's Corollary, You have 3 days.

I think the gothic visual aspect of 40k is pure dune, i think john blanche and other artists have tapped into this directly or undirectly, when dune started to become popular in the home vid world and , though when i started with 40k it was more judge dredd (aka crystal crypt by phillip k dick aka arbites) than dune, now it incorporates every aspect of main streme sci fi you could want, this is its major apeal , cadians and nids aka starship troopers for the verhoven fans ! (nod wink )jk tau for the anime manga fanboys, necromunda for the cyberpunks, adaptus mechanicus , for the steampunks catachans for the 80's predator fans ? (not many) and orks and eldar for the lord of the rings homage. and the universe is big enough for any interpretaion for the modders and creatives, to add your own take.

FaarisShazad wrote:

Nice contribution.