Million worlds is getting old...

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**Bullockist**

What everyone seems to have forgotten here in the tyranid/marines frenzy is orks.
Orks have always held more worlds than the imperium, i do remember reading somewhere that when the imperium gets somewhere the orks have been there first (1st, 2nd ed?). So ergo if there are more inhabitable worlds in scientific theory, the orks hold them! The imperium still has 1 million worlds, the orks have 347 million (or whatvever). I dunno why everyone discounts orks as a force, they have always had more worlds, they are fungas, you kill em and in 10 years they will be back in force, but anyways i digress.
More than a million inhabitable worlds? Orks have em, with no retconn needed

**Augustus**

Bullockist wrote:.. I dunno why everyone discounts orks as a force, they...

Because their tech is based on junkyard wars.

Generally no one takes that seriously.

**KamikazeCanuck**

Bullockist wrote:What everyone seems to have forgotten here in the tyranid/marines frenzy is orks.
Orks have always held more worlds than the imperium, i do remember reading somewhere that when the imperium gets somewhere the orks have been there first (1st, 2nd ed?). So ergo if there are more inhabitable worlds in scientific theory, the orks hold them! The imperium still has 1 million worlds, the orks have 347 million (or whatvever). I dunno why everyone discounts orks as a force, they have always had more worlds, they are fungas, you kill em and in 10 years they will be back in force, but anyways i digress.
More than a million inhabitable worlds? Orks have em, with no retconn needed

It doesn't say Orks have more worlds just that there's more Orks than humans.

**Ascalam**

There's a note in one of the books (main rulebook or ork codex i think) about a probe sent out tens of thousands of years ago that is still transmitting to the IOM, and many of the signals are orkish, well beyond the Imperium's boundaries. I'll try to chase up the quote

The imperium controls a relatively tiny slice of the galaxy, worldswise. They are spread all over the galactic disk, due to the vaguaries of warp travel, but there are millions upon millions more not under imperial control.

We don't really have any data on the numbers of worlds controlled by non-imperial forces, as all the fluff is from an imperial standpoint, and tends to only care about imperial holdings. I'd say it'd be safe to assume that the orks have a lot. How much a lot is is hard to debate without numbers. I'll rummage through my books when i get home to see if we have anything more to go on

**chaos0xomega**

Ascalam wrote:There's a note in one of the books (main rulebook or ork codex i think) about a probe sent out tens of thousands of years ago that is still transmitting to the IOM, and many of the signals are orkish, well beyond the Imperium's boundaries. I'll try to chase up the quote

The imperium controls a relatively tiny slice of the galaxy, worldswise. They are spread all over the galactic disk, due to the vaguaries of warp travel, but there are millions upon millions more not under imperial control.

We don't really have any data on the numbers of worlds controlled by non-imperial forces, as all the fluff is from an imperial standpoint, and tends to only care about imperial holdings. I'd say it'd be safe to assume that the orks have a lot. How much a lot is is hard to debate without numbers. I'll rummage through my books when i get home to see if we have anything more to go on

Its stated in a couple black library novels (not sure about rulebooks) that the Imperium controls roughly 2/3 of the 'known' galaxy. The known galaxy would be largely limited by the range of the Astronomican, which has an area of effect of about 50,000 light years. We don't know if this is a radius or a diameter, just that it 'directs its energy across fifty thousand light years of the galaxy'. The galaxy is 130,000 light years across... so, theres a lot of unaccounted for space.

**Augustus**

Ok cool, unaccounted for space, assuming of course our galaxy is the same as the 40k one.

**Brother Coa**

iproxtaco wrote: READ what he posted.

I READ IT!!!!!!!

it!!!
I am just lazy in posting to all of his claims so I get with overall explanation.

And against all this claims of Humanity's darkest hour I can say only this:

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Ascalam wrote:You don't use the phrase

'This is humanity's darkest hour' casually either. (Pg 123)

Think about it. If we take this to be true:

This current situation is worse that the Horus Heresy, when Terra Itself was invaded and the empire was caving in.

It's worse than the Dark Age of Technology when humanity was scattered, incommunicado, and reduced to barbarism.

The Imperium is barely holding on and being driven back while the xenos fight each other. If any of them had decided that humanity was better prey (or all of them) and united against them it would all be over bar the post-invasion squabbles.

In short humanity is more boned than a mess of Bluegill. That's kind of the point of the Grimdark thing

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You also don't generally label your own chronology 'the time of ending' if you think you're winning (unless you are wiping out all threats totally and expanding rapidly into their territory ).

Humanity knows it's doomed. I can find plenty of quotes to that effect. They just mean to go down fighting anyway, heroically.

Kind of like Theoden in LOTR.

'We cannot beat them, but we will meet them in battle nonetheless..'

Nevertheless, Humanity will prevail in the end. No matte how many brothers and sisters we lost, how many worlds, ships machines of war we lose - we will win in the end.
Simply because Imperium will be pushed to a smaller territory that will be defended as hard as Sol itself. Then they will rebuild their forcess and slowly start to regain what they lost.

**iproxtaco**

Then you didn't respond. You just said "wrong" without explaining why you think he was wrong, which he wasn't, be the way.
It IS humanities darkest hour, they're losing territory and are besieged on all fronts,not able to push back their enemies. If you can't see that then you're missing the entire fething point behind 40k.
Everything is hopeless. The Imperium is doomed, fighting for it's mere survival, they cannot win.

**Brother Coa**

iproxtaco wrote:Then you didn't respond. You just said "wrong" without explaining why you think he was wrong, which he wasn't, be the way.
It IS humanities darkest hour, they're losing territory and are besieged on all fronts,not able to push back their enemies. If you can't see that then you're missing the entire fething point behind 40k.
Everything is hopeless. The Imperium is doomed, fighting for it's mere survival, they cannot win.

I did respond, only to fact that situation is not the same. You can't compare 2000km and 90.000 Light Years.
And my point is they are losing territories now. But with less to defend it will be harder to finish them out as Imperium can mount powerful defense.
And one thing that others write and you didn't read. It's Humanity's darkest hour - now. What about tomorow?

**djphranq**

The Tau should get a bigger presence I think... maybe not 1 million worlds... but more worlds than they have now.

**iproxtaco**

Brother Coa wrote:
iproxtaco wrote:Then you didn't respond. You just said "wrong" without explaining why you think he was wrong, which he wasn't, by the way.
It IS humanities darkest hour, they're losing territory and are besieged on all fronts,not able to push back their enemies. If you can't see that then you're missing the entire fething point behind 40k.
Everything is hopeless. The Imperium is doomed, fighting for it's mere survival, they cannot win.

I did respond, only to fact that situation is not the same. You can't compare 2000km and 90.000 Light Years.
And my point is they are losing territories now. But with less to defend it will be harder to finish them out as Imperium can mount powerful defense.
And one thing that others write and you didn't read. It's Humanity's darkest hour - now. What about tomorow?

You didn't respond. You just said "wrong" without explaining why you think he was wrong, which he wasn't, by the way. He also took the differences in scales into account, that was his first line.
With less territory comes less man power and resources. So now, they won't find it easier to defend, not on the scale of 40k.
It's humanities darkest hour, tomorrow, who knows, but we're talking about what's happening now, not things that could possibly happen in the future.

**nomotog**

Brother Coa wrote:
iproxtaco wrote:Then you didn't respond. You just said "wrong" without explaining why you think he was wrong, which he wasn't, be the way.
It IS humanities darkest hour, they're losing territory and are besieged on all fronts,not able to push back their enemies. If you can't see that then you're missing the entire fething point behind 40k.
Everything is hopeless. The Imperium is doomed, fighting for it's mere survival, they cannot win.

I did respond, only to fact that situation is not the same. You can't compare 2000km and 90.000 Light Years.
And my point is they are losing territories now. But with less to defend it will be harder to finish them out as Imperium can mount powerful defense.
And one thing that others write and you didn't read. It's Humanity's darkest hour - now. What about tomorow?

Well that's part of them back sliding. When they lose something, they can't generally can't get it back in the same state it was before. Nids nom a planet and their is nothing left. (The IoM can't terraform a dead world.) The tau take a forge world, and they bulldoze it. Orks land on a hive world, that hive world will always have orks. The best they can do is stop the losses, but they can't rise again.

**Brother Coa**

Exactly now is the darkest hour, tomorrow maybe they will win?

**iproxtaco**

And the likelihood is so slim there's no real hope. That's the point.

They'd easily be able to revert a Tau world.

**Brother Coa**

I am still not losing hope for victory.

**iproxtaco**

Good for you.

**Ascalam**

Nothing quite like someone who has had their big bowl of Fanatic-o's is there

Feel free to believe you'll win

Good for you. I approve of heroism in the face of complete and utter irrevocable destruction. It's what I liked about Marines in the RT days

You'd be wrong, and the final crushing desolation of realizing how badly wrong you were is all the sweeter for it when the xenos races are picking their collective teeth with your bones

That's assuming that GW would ever move the timeline along, which they wont, so the IOM is in a state of losing, but not gone yet, for ever

**Polvilhovoador**

Ascalam wrote:
100 marines drop onto a chaos infested planet, ass-kicking the entire horde for the loss of Brother Spuddy, who was talking wistfully of home at the time and took a headshot as he reminisced about the girl he left behind before being initiated.

Dull, dull, dull. It's an ego-stroking for rabid fanboys, but it has no drama, no interest. It's too easy. In short it's a lot like watching a badly made cartoon. No-one cares about the marines, as they don't have to work hard to win. No-one gets too invested in the bad guys (my favorite guys in any movie) because they're faceless goons that get mowed down like chaff.

Marines should be heroic.

Hi Dawn of War

**Initiate in Waiting**

Ascalam wrote:tory ).

Humanity knows it's doomed. I can find plenty of quotes to that effect. They just mean to go down fighting anyway, heroically.

Kind of like Theoden in LOTR.

'We cannot beat them, but we will meet them in battle nonetheless..'

But mankind won in LOTR because of hobbits, therefore we need squats to find a ring and destroy it and mankind wins.. right?

**Ascalam**

Works for me

I love squats.

They were my favorite 40k army, back when.

You could use ratling snipers, i suppose

**Pouncey**

Grey Templar wrote:the IoM isn't shrinking. its basically stagnating where it is, for every world lost, another is either rediscovered or retaken but at high cost.

the eternal war is more and more difficult, victories are had at a higher and higher cost. the Imperium stands on the edge of a knife.

Wouldn't that cut their foot open?

Or is it a butter knife or something?

**insaniak**

Brother Coa wrote:
KamikazeCanuck wrote:@Coa It's just a fan theory. Had some ridiculous nerd conversation with someone here back in the day and after much speculation we got like 3.2 million habitable worlds. Although that's just speculation trust me there is definately not hundreds of millions of habitable worlds in 40K, they are rare. That's why we have all these wars over them.

Yes, but your speculations go against NASA findings. Further more, humans in 40k HAD access to Terra-forming equipment, and Emperor onlyu knows how many worlds they colonized before the fall of the Eldar.

There are no 'NASA findings' about how many habiltable worlds there are out there, because so far they haven't actually found any. They've found some anomalies that could be planets, and from there speculated as to how many planets there might be, and how many of them might be in an orbit that could result in them being habitable.

It's a very long leap from there to 'There's millions of habitable planets out there just waiting for us to move in...'

And, again, 40 thousand years in which to take any number of those possibly habitable worlds and reduce them to something not so habitable. Or to terraform the uniinhabitable ones and then subsequently mess them up again.

Augustus wrote:Only 1000 space marines in a Chapter? That's absurd in a universe spanning a million worlds. Each marine would defend 1,000 worlds then? Really? Oh there are many chapters, ok, let take another zero off, 100 worlds per man then...

Keep in mind though that Marines are just the special forces. They're not involved in every engagement.

And while large chunks of the galaxy are at way at any given time, there would be other chunks where nothing much is going on.

**KamikazeCanuck**

That's why these "findings" are a bit silly about there being X number of earth like worlds or X number of alien races. We haven't discovered any earth like worlds yet so the ratio of earths to non-earths remains 1:Infinity until we do.

**Brother Coa**

KamikazeCanuck wrote:That's why these "findings" are a bit silly about there being X number of earth like worlds or X number of alien races. We haven't discovered any earth like worlds yet so the ratio of earths to non-earths remains 1:Infinity until we do.

And that is why we don't say: "There are exactly 3 million Earth's in the galaxy." We say: "We have 200 - 400 billion starts, many of them have planets from witch some may have water, atmosphere and simple life organisms. There are probably millions like them."

**Ascalam**

Some of my best games have been the same. It's what heroes are made of.

I had one grot unit hold out in combat against 5 Chaos Terminators for the whole game one time. They actually took two down, and resolutely refused to flee, even when it was just down to Arnold Squiggenegger and his equally psychotic mate Lug.. (yes, we named them afterwards...)

The rest of the army folded or died in their bootprints, but those grots told the Ruinous powers "YOU SHALL NOT PASS' in squeaky voices and held that objective till the end of the game (contested, i grant you)...

**Initiate in Waiting**

Augustus wrote:I think the million world thing is awesome, it's central to the theme of the Imperium as a massive bureaucracy! The problem is the stupid fluff stories they write and the scale of the elements in it.

...

The EPIC STORY OF ... 10 guys? In a Space Church, Really?

- Edited by insaniak... please don't quote huge multi-screen posts in their entirety. It just clogs up the thread. -
There are an unknown number of SM chapters, correct?
There are around 1000 SM in each Codex Astartes Chapter.
The other chapters have either more than 1000 or they have an unknown number... whioch means that there are more than 1000.
SM are super humans and are said to have the strength and life span of 100 humans or something like that.
Therefore you dont need to worry about there being too few of SM especially when most of them have recruiting worlds.

**Augustus**

Initiate in Waiting wrote:There are an unknown number of SM chapters, correct?

No the (loyal) successor chapters are documented.

There are around 1000 SM in each Codex Astartes Chapter.

There are 1K or less in EVERY Chapter.

The other chapters have either more than 1000 or they have an unknown number... whioch means that there are more than 1000.

No, none of them have more than 1K, that was the point of breaking down the big chapters after the Horus Heresy.

SM are super humans and are said to have the strength and life span of 100 humans or something like that.

I think their average life expectancy is 3 turns. JK, they are rumored to live longer but few do, obviously from the fluff and the game, while the commanders are older the rank and file are all young clones.

Therefore you dont need to worry about there being too few of SM especially when most of them have recruiting worlds.

The numbers problems still apply, I think perhaps you mean one wouldn't have to worry about running out, which is different from an insufficient number to do anything with in the first place.

**KamikazeCanuck**

Augustus you just are replacing his incorrect info with your own incorrect info.

There's about 1000 chapters.

There are chapters over 1,000 but ones that are ones with less too. Overall the average is 1,000

They are not rumoured to live longer, they definately live longer. Some Blood Angels are over 1,000 years old. There are no clones

**insaniak**

Augustus wrote:No, none of them have more than 1K, that was the point of breaking down the big chapters after the Horus Heresy.

On paper, none of them should have more than a thousand (although as has been broken down in discussions elsewhere, that seems to apply specifically to the members of the actual fighting companies... Chapters can wind up with more than a thousand when you add in the various auxiliaries.

Some Chapters do have more than a thousand, though. Space Wolves pay only lip service to the limit, with their 12 remaining Great Companies often including more than a hundred Marines each. And Black Templars ignore the limit completely, with the Codex suggesting that their could be as many as 5 or 6 thousand Black Templars in total.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Augustus wrote:...while the commanders are older the rank and file are all young clones.

I think you're getting Star Wars in your 40K...

Automatically Appended Next Post:
- Incidentally, I have pruned out the OT chatter. If you want to discuss video games, please do so in the Video Games forum. -

**Initiate in Waiting**

Augustus I think that it is correct to say that you have no clue what you are talking about. What the others said is true. Dante is over 1000 years old and the rest of the BA have the ability to live longer because of their genetic twist. And the SW and BT have no intention of listening to formal SM doctrine resulting in obvious differences in the size of their armies. The next time you try and correct someone, I suggest that you first figure out what you are arguing about, otherwise you will be made into a fool. And I have no idea where you are getting this clone stuff?? It's called a gene seed and it has nothing to do with cloning you just sound ignorant to common 40k knowledge.