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Does anyone else think that they would be fine in the 40k universe? I find the idea of a nihilistic universe where heroes and legends are those who are able to save but 1 million of a planet that used to be 6 billion strong; where vast numbers of vicious xenos are seeking to prey upon us; where people on my side may destroy me in the hopes to save more, comforting? It's an odd feeling I admit, but it's incredibly satisfying to me. Does anyone else feel the same way?

I think if I was the Emperor, then I'd be fine...aside from that...I play IG and I know just how frail I'd be there so...no...not really...Although I love the story and universe!

Living in the tau empire seems fine, but otherwise nah.
or maybe a craftworld, cept for lyanden that would suck. (tyrranid ate half their ship)

Erm, no thanks. To paraphrase a piece in IA10 about Administratum Rectification Pogroms:

You have your sons, daughters and wives taken because a planet, lightyears away, neglected to implement a proper recruitment drive/building program/etc. And the penance for such an action was for the administratum to take all sons and daughters of the current generation and draft them into the IG and all men and women not of a fighting age sent to penal colonies. Anyone left (those too young or old) are subject to Arbites morality purges and Eccelsiarch re-education drives.

I dunno .. working on an agri planet harvesting grox seems to be relatively peaceful, although there is always the risk that you get Dark Eldar come to abduct you, or Tyranids come to eat you, or Tau try to brainwash you, or Emperors Children come to ... well the less said about that the better.

Pilau Rice wrote:... or Emperors Children come to ... well the less said about that the better.

Quite. I'd assume probing would be involved and lots of leather.

Most Imperial planets are not nice places, but the problem is that when I die my soul is in danger from being torn apart by the daemons, alternately my soul belongs to Emperor, either way I would rather live in Star Wars universe or Star Trek.

I think I'd rather be a space marine that here. At least there is a purpose - war!

I think in the future as relgion dies out and we need meaning there will be more war.

I can see that.

Think about being a Guardsman. How bad is it, really? They have their duty, their purpose. They can see, understand, and combat the threats to them and their entire race. The uncertainties in their life, save one (expiration date) are all mundane.

Truly a time in which ignorance of the reality of the universe would be a boon.

I'd be happy to be an Ork in the Kult of Speed. Race about on bikes, blasting shootas and kicking squigs to the curb. Need some cash just bash anohter ork on the head and way we go.

Fun for all.

Being that most of the imperium's population is housed on the hive worlds most people lives suck hardcore. However, even on the hives there are some ways to eek out a proper living so maybe it wouldn't be all bad...until your face was melted off by chaos...

Living in the 40k 'verse? I guess it depends. I'd have nothing against belonging to Imperial Nobility there, or maybe being a Rogue Trader. Those people can do almost whatever they want and live for hundreds of years.

The slightly disturbing thing is that I'd probably fit in best as an ork. Probably a Deathskull or maybe a Bad Moon, both have a love for dakka . Simple lifestyle, no complicated bureaucracy, it's incredibly hard to die (Did my head just get cut off? Oh well, sew it back onto the stump!), no economic worries, safety in numbers, grot servants...it's sounding like a better deal all the time. Only real trouble is when the 'nids or the SM come knocking. And probably best of all, you lack the intellectual capacity to realize just how grimdark the universe is. Just a big spacey place full of gitz to krump

Depends on the world...you might get lucky and end up on some obscure civilized world or agri-world light years away from the front lines, and live your whole life without being dragged into a war (I don't necessarily fancy those odds myself though).

I wouldn't mind living on an eldar craftworld or being a space marine.

NEVER EVER EVER.

But if i had to i would be somthing like a pirate with my own ship and crew.

Go around the galaxy stealing, drinking, seducing some smoking hot eldar farseer

I believe I'm coming to the age that they actively recruit for the Imperial Guard. So no I would rather not live in the 40K universe. If I was I would pray to the God-Emperor that I am born on Ultramar.

Of course, even on Ultramar, as a young male you would be pushed towards military service, so chances are decent that you'd end up eating a bullet for the Emperor eventually in any case.

Go around the galaxy stealing, drinking, seducing some smoking hot eldar farseer

Never gonna happen, mate. Eldar don't see humans as people, they see them as slightly intelligent animals.

The comparison would be Kirk going about the galaxy with the Enterprise, but instead of making it with the hot green chick, he ends up boinking her dog.

Psienesis wrote:

Go around the galaxy stealing, drinking, seducing some smoking hot eldar farseer

Never gonna happen, mate. Eldar don't see humans as people, they see them as slightly intelligent animals.

The comparison would be Kirk going about the galaxy with the Enterprise, but instead of making it with the hot green chick, he ends up boinking her dog.

Err... no... There is fluff out there about half-human half-eldar bastard children. Its older fluff, but it should still be valid.

Surtur wrote:Does anyone else think that they would be fine in the 40k universe? I find the idea of a nihilistic universe where heroes and legends are those who are able to save but 1 million of a planet that used to be 6 billion strong; where vast numbers of vicious xenos are seeking to prey upon us; where people on my side may destroy me in the hopes to save more, comforting? It's an odd feeling I admit, but it's incredibly satisfying to me. Does anyone else feel the same way?

Don't kid yourself. You only think its 'comforting' because it sounds cool and you're only looking at it from the romantic point of view of warfare. Dig into some black library books and read what its like for an average human civilian living on a hive world and you'll be singing a different tune.

I suppose I could do it if, like someone previously mentioned, I was nobility. Other than that, life would suck hardcore.

Or be a lord general, like Sturnn, Vance Stubbs, or Castor. Those guys were epic, and really hard to kill for T3 humies.

Look my Psychic powers have finally appearerd ... oh crap!

Seriously being a human Psyker would be phenomenally bad. If you can't control the power or it manifests in a freaky way you will be killed for being dangerous or an agent of chaos, if you can you might get sent to be fed to the emperor, be unluckly sired by a genestealer hybrid and becoming a Magus or your sould will be consumed by various daemons waiting in the warp.

If you somehow survive all of that you might end up as an Astropath and have to endure an agonising Soul Binding which will probably leave you blind or insane. Otherwise it's off to the front line anyway where you still risk being possesed, shot by a over-reactive commissar or the usual war risks.

Oh and the Inquisitors are always watching, waiting for you to slip up

Juniperius wrote:Living in the tau empire seems fine, but otherwise nah.
or maybe a craftworld, cept for lyanden that would suck. (tyrranid ate half their ship)

Actually, i wouldnt mind Iyanden. First off, imperial cities are filled with death, disease, and other terrible things. Think detroit but 10 times worse. Since the eldar are so old, they know how foolish and young the humans are, and have already beaten many things such as disease and even death.
I said earlier that i wouldnt mind iyanden because its better than most of the other imperial worlds. The war is just... Better. as well as the fact that you never really die.

Truth be told, we are looking at this from the observation point of the wars that are occuring in the galaxy and specifically the soldiers in them. But this is because the fluff is designed to big up the war part (because nobody really wants to hear about citizen x on planet y picking up some protein wafers on his way home from work).

But I'm guessing, for the most part, the average imperial citizen lives his entire life without even worrying about war, maybe the propaganda is there, and they realise things are dying to protect his way of life etc etc, but otherwise life goes on as normal.



As for me, I'd be quite happy as a rogue trader/employed by one, I know it's a risky business, but I really want to honk that SoB's boob and adventure!

Leigen_Zero wrote:Truth be told, we are looking at this from the observation point of the wars that are occuring in the galaxy and specifically the soldiers in them. But this is because the fluff is designed to big up the war part (because nobody really wants to hear about citizen x on planet y picking up some protein wafers on his way home from work).

But I'm guessing, for the most part, the average imperial citizen lives his entire life without even worrying about war, maybe the propaganda is there, and they realise things are dying to protect his way of life etc etc, but otherwise life goes on as normal.



As for me, I'd be quite happy as a rogue trader/employed by one, I know it's a risky business, but I really want to honk that SoB's boob and adventure!

It came across me while reading ravenor that everywhere in the imperium sucks. Theyll all smog filled cities dark poor and gloomy.

How bad can it be? Get onboard with Slaneesh, join a pleasure cult, attain demonhood, have some fun for all eternity. Job done.

scarletsquig wrote:How bad can it be? Get onboard with Slaneesh, join a pleasure cult, attain demonhood, have some fun for all eternity. Job done.

Slaneesh is the god of pleasure... And pain. Have fun cutting yourself every day to obtain demonhood.
On the other hand, join tzeetch and sitt back and watch your demon magic do it for you.

Jollydevil wrote:

Leigen_Zero wrote:Truth be told, we are looking at this from the observation point of the wars that are occuring in the galaxy and specifically the soldiers in them. But this is because the fluff is designed to big up the war part (because nobody really wants to hear about citizen x on planet y picking up some protein wafers on his way home from work).

But I'm guessing, for the most part, the average imperial citizen lives his entire life without even worrying about war, maybe the propaganda is there, and they realise things are dying to protect his way of life etc etc, but otherwise life goes on as normal.



As for me, I'd be quite happy as a rogue trader/employed by one, I know it's a risky business, but I really want to honk that SoB's boob and adventure!

It came across me while reading ravenor that everywhere in the imperium sucks. Theyll all smog filled cities dark poor and gloomy.

But the point of the fluff is to create such an image. I mean the author's could hardly conjure up the same grim dark atmosphere of fear and violence if everything looked like 1950s American Suburbia (complete with a dad in flannel shirt smoking a pipe & reading the sunday paper on the porch while a freckled ginger kid mows his beautifully cultivated lawn to earn money to buy baseball cards & a set of x-ray glasses out of the back of his new comic book).

Considering the size of the galaxy, it's perfectly possible that not all worlds look like 'mad max goes to new york'.

All I'm saying is that there are places where things aren't too crappy for the population, but since they don't really fit with the image that the writers are trying to conjure up, they kind of get ignored.

Plus there are all those shrine worlds, paradise worlds and pleasure worlds which are specifically terraformed to be brilliant gems of resplendent magnificence, but only for those wealthy enough to buy/rent a place there. I mean I'm quite sure that the 40K equivalents of Steve Jobs & BIll Gates aren't eating carb sticks and soylent green in a bedsit on Hades Hive...

Really life in many guard units isn't as bad as we think. I mean, lets face facts, death comes pretty quick for a lot of those guys. I know a bolter round would hollow out a torso in no time at all. I think dying like that would be way better than dying slowly from chemical poisoning on some industrial hell hole. But then I am already in the military so maybe that scews my opinion a little.