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In converstion about the HH, it came up about whether or not the 30k universe is as dark as the 40k back drop. I am of the opinion the grim dark hadn't kicked in yet prior to the HH. I may be wrong, but I picture the great crusade was about spreading the Imperial light and glory. Yes, there was indeed bloodshed against non compliant worlds and xenos, but overall I get the vision of grand architecture and military hardware in all its glory, not the doom and gloom of the 40k setting. Am I off base? What is your opinion on the back drop setting or air?

I dont see the Heresy era as less violent, grim and oppressive than the 40th millenium.

I’m on book 3 of the HH right now and been a fan of the fiction for over 2 decades. I get the distinct impression that the Empire was still an oppressive regime even before the start of the HH. Asking the wrong sort of questions could get you into trouble. However there was still a grey area of tolerance. Post HH is certainly more ‘Grimdark’ the reason being. Before the HH humanity had a mission. We were expanding the Empire and winning. The big E was alive and the Primarchs were all unquestionable heroes. The leaders of man were as capable of diplomacy as they were with the sword. Post HH the Empire has stagnated. Humanity’s spirit has been broken, Reason has been replaced with religious dogma which has led to the distortion of truth. The heroes seem to turn on the population as easily as the enemy.

Cheers Vim

I don't think you can really have grimdark without the all-encompassing stifling and repressive theocracy that the Imperium has become since the Corpse-Emperor was put on his throne. To me that's always been the darkest part of the fiction.

The Grimdarkness of the far future is like trying to get a stolen, foreign driving licence replaced through the French licensing authority’s. It is a truly bleak

The Great Crusade was a time of hope, optimism and progress, when the enemies of mankind were, one by one, being crushed by the Legions of the Astartes. Thousands of new worlds were being discovered, the greatest heroes of all time walked among the men and women of the newly-forged Imperium and the Emperor himself led the charge into a new era of enlightenment and prosperity when the fighting will end and the building of a galactic empire will truly begin.

The current era of 40K is a time without hope of anything, no progress, no bright future, no end game. At best, humanity can hope to stave off the darkness of their own personal armageddon for a few years more. Enemies gather on every side, becoming stronger as the Imperium gets weaker. The Primarchs are gone, the God-Emperor is dead on his throne and, one by one, worlds fall dark.

So, yeah, I'd say it's a bit more grim and dark in the 40Ks than the '30s....

Considering that the sentence following the grimdark one in the intro is usually something like "The Imperium of man is beset on all sides", I'd say that 40K is much more grimdark...as was said earlier, humanity is just holding off the darkness right now.

There are way more threats to the imperium in modern 40k as opposed to 30k. Back then the only true threat to man was himself. Now it seems that the xeno shall scour our legacy from the stars.

The 30k universe was no less grimdark than it is now in the 41st.

The only difference is that there was a sort of light at the end of the tunnel, and mankind was winning.

Back then IOM was on the offensive, and even thre largest threat seems less threatening when you are on the offensive.

Still pretty grimdark. It's just that life was better for humans. The Emperor and the Primarchs were not nice men, and the attitude towards alien cultures seemed to be automatic mistrust and hate (witness the Megarachnids in Horus Rising - as far as I can tell they were restricted to one world, had no spaceports, etc, yet the Imperium still decides to go down and start slaughtering them and then whines when the war they started goes against them). Same goes for human cultures, the Imperium's attitude is "join us or die." Just because humans were on the rise didn't stop them doing evil things.

I think the darkness and grimness of the 30k universe was less apparent than it is in 40k. In 30k, it was the shadow that was hidden under a veil of hope; a kind of forced ignorance of the inherent darkness that came with what the Imperium was all about. The Horus Heresy ripped away that veil and ushered in a much more obvious and blatantly dark, grim, and depressive state of existence. One that was kind of simmering below the surface. So, in a way, I think the grimdark has always been there. Before the Heresy, the thoughts of expansion, prosperity, and hope repressed that grimdark image. Those thoughts, as well as those that helped to propagate them, are gone. Therefore, the grimdark is much more apparent and pervasive in the 41st millenium.

I aged with this sentiment "In 30k, it was the shadow that was hidden under a veil of hope;" Thnx Darth Bob. Is there really any hope in the 40k because it really just seems mind boggling depressing go read the stories. I have almost all (90+%) of the black library books and I use to look forward to hints of things like the star child and illuminati. But now its just one lost planet after another. Is there no hope for mankind?

The HH era was kind of a golden age with the emoeror uniting humanity and on the verge of some momentus discovery (which he was working on after he made horus warmaster) so no it wasn't very grim dark.

There were still plenty of resistance to the Emperor's "my way or die" approach to governance.

The "momentous discovery" was mapping the Webway and stabilizing the gate under Terra.

Have to agree with Sword, my vision of the 30k Universe had the Imperium in all its grandeur. Kind of like Rome when she was first marching out and conquering territories. Not the cesspool of humanity it became towards the fall and then the Dark Ages.

< taken by the void dragon >