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 Psienesis wrote:
Humanity would have been devoured by aliens. Whether that would be Necrons, Dark Eldar, or Tyranid, it would have been inevitable.

A scattering of human mini-Empires lacks the industrial output required to combat a threat like the Waaagh! that came to Armageddon, or even one of the Hive Fleets.

Yes, the worlds of 40K are incredibly terrible places to live, and they are also the absolute best that can be done, given the circumstances.

Yeah exactly, the resources that get poured into the big scraps like that... well, a disparate collection of disjointed humans would have lasted 2 minutes in the face of the likes of the Tyranids or the Orks, the Imperium constantly plug away and drive them back.

Plus, something like PDFs or the IG might have existed, but nothing like the Space Marines would have been around either.

 Psienesis wrote:
Humanity would have been devoured by aliens. Whether that would be Necrons, Dark Eldar, or Tyranid, it would have been inevitable.

A scattering of human mini-Empires lacks the industrial output required to combat a threat like the Waaagh! that came to Armageddon, or even one of the Hive Fleets.

Yes, the worlds of 40K are incredibly terrible places to live, and they are also the absolute best that can be done, given the circumstances.

You see I don't really find that to be true. If you make things constantly crappier than it takes its toll on the human body, spirit and mind. Lacking proper rest turns you into a zombie practically and that'll come back to bite people working in factories when they can't put out as much as normal. Besides if you enjoy your life you'll fight all the harder to protect it. If not then you'll just be hoping for death. I suppose it works when you have innumerable guardsmen but they might not care as much for the imperium as more heavily indoctrinated guys.

You guys mentioned tech and psykers having a big leash on them and that's huge. There's a reason why the imperium is losing ground all the time. Its enemies may be strong but if anything it's been 10,000 years of stagnation. Plus they went from owning most of the galaxy to losing quite a bit of it. Oh and not to mention inquisitors help ruin things. If anything of all of its enemies the imperium of man is its biggest enemy. They make one of their scratches into a fatal wound. It's ridiculous.

You know normally for people under the same conditions there would've been a ton of regime changes and the imperium would've fallen and been re-made into something else multiple times by now. It's not always a bad thing and sometimes it's good for society as a whole. Worse forms of government tend to fall and if you ask me the imperium has been long over-due for a change.

Well, there was that Age of Twin Empires as well as the Age of Apostacy and The Beheading. They wouldn't count as total regime changes though. Both the Age of Apostacy and The Beheading did show that it was possible for things to be even worse (I'm not sure how good/bad the Age of Twin Empires was, but it's rather interesting that one half the Imperium had Cypher as one of its rulers during that time )