Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Good-day!

I am curious, where can one go to get a full and extensive map of the 40k universe. I have seen some maps of Terra and the general neighboring planets. But anyone know a good map that shows most of the lovely planets?


Regards.

It's the Milky Way galaxy, so you can get all kinds of maps of it from NASA and other space industry sources.

There is no GW or BL publication that lists every planet owned by any faction. After all, the Imperium claims a million worlds alone, and we are provided only a general idea of the density of worlds the Orks hold.

Oh thanks.


...You mentioned worlds controlled by orks. Are they bigger than we know? I had thought that they lived around Armageddon?


Thanks.

Orks are the most-populated race native to the galaxy (the Tyranids are extra-galactic so don't count). They've been around as long as the Necrons and the Eldar (60+ million years) and, unlike those two races, never went to sleep or had a culture-ending cataclysmic event.

In the spoiler tags is a map of Ork territory in the galaxy Ive linked before:


There are a *lot* of Ork worlds!

 Psienesis wrote:
It's the Milky Way galaxy, so you can get all kinds of maps of it from NASA and other space industry sources.

There is no GW or BL publication that lists every planet owned by any faction. After all, the Imperium claims a million worlds alone, and we are provided only a general idea of the density of worlds the Orks hold.

GW and the BL claim a million worlds, the FFG games (Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader a think) claimed a billion. It doesn't help the Imperium either that they're constantly losing and discovering new planets.

FFG departs from previously-established "canon" in a number of ways, and is as bad as GW at balancing their game (possibly worse, as they should know better), so I don't particularly cotton to their statements.

It's been "an Imperium of a million worlds" for damn near 30 years now so, to me, that has the weight of history supporting its claim.

I always thought "Imperium of a million worlds" was a metaphor for the fact that they have a LOT of planets.

I'm pretty sure the "million worlds" thing is metaphor.

There are over 300 billion stars in our galaxy. If we try and apply a bit of *logic* along with current estimates (haha) to this, then there could be around 8.8 billion earth type habitable planets. (estimates from November of 2013).

If the Imperium is only on a million of those then that means Man is covering around 1% of the easily habitable galaxy which leaves a HUGE amount of territory available to every other race. So, personally, I think the "million worlds" part is more akin to saying, "there are so many we aren't sure how many there are". Which fits in with how the Imperium is run.

You have to remember that Mankind is not capable of just flying to any old star they want to and check out what planets are available. The planets the Imperium claims are those which lie within easy reach of a stable, navigable Warp Route. In between two star-systems that the Imperium claims as their own might be 500 LY of space that is home to a Xeno empire (or Orks, or Necrons or anything else) that, for whatever reason, has never spread outside of that area (maybe they lack Warp-drives) and that Mankind has never encountered because of that. Further, as there are no stable Warp Routes into or out of that area, it is highly unlikely that Mankind will *ever* encounter these Xenos.

The Imperium is not contiguous human worlds from Holy Terra out to the furthest rim of the galaxy. Every Imperium-held world is like a tiny island on a vast ocean of darkness, linked to the Imperium only by whatever Warp Routes exist, and only for as long as those routes exist.

Wow. That is a lot of worlds and planets. lol. Thank you!

 Wyzilla wrote:

GW and the BL claim a million worlds, the FFG games (Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader a think) claimed a billion.

What? They really did that? FFG fluff murder has reached new levels!

clively wrote:
I'm pretty sure the "million worlds" thing is metaphor.

There are over 300 billion stars in our galaxy. If we try and apply a bit of *logic* along with current estimates (haha) to this, then there could be around 8.8 billion earth type habitable planets. (estimates from November of 2013).

If the Imperium is only on a million of those then that means Man is covering around 1% of the easily habitable galaxy which leaves a HUGE amount of territory available to every other race. So, personally, I think the "million worlds" part is more akin to saying, "there are so many we aren't sure how many there are". Which fits in with how the Imperium is run.

There will be around 8.8 billion earth type planets in the habitable zone of their star(still only a estimate)

You then have to eliminate the massive chunk of planets that will have toxic atmospheres, unstable surfaces, orbit a star that exudes toxic radiation, occupied by hostile alien species, occupied by humans who are NOT part of the Imperium, undiscovered planets, systems inaccessible by Warp travel, planets which were deemed undesirable for human settlement due to low resources or other minor problems, etc...

That cuts the 8.8 billion down substantially.

The Imperium of Man doesn't rule all humanity, just the largest chunk of it. There will be thousands and thousands of other independent human governments as yet undiscovered by the Imperium.

The Imperium is the largest unified political organization in the Galaxy. Doesn't mean they have most of the galaxy, just a majority compared to the other players. But when the planet distribution goes something like the following thats not hard.

10% Imperial, 30% orks(not unified), 1% Tau, 1% Eldar, and the rest divided between an unknown number of Necron Tomb Worlds and innumerable smaller factions will less than one thousandth of 1% of all planets.

With this, the Imperium is a truly colossal entity. 10% of the galaxy unified under one absolute ruler. Nothing else comes even close. The Necrons and Orks are bigger, but not unified.

Where exactly did it state a billion worlds? Because in fact in the Deathwatch rulebook you have this line:

The Imperium of Man is spread across roughly two thirds of the galaxy and consists of more than a million inhabited worlds. Although a huge number of planets, this is nothing when compared to the hundreds of billions of star systems in the galaxy. The Imperium is therefore spread extremely thin across a vast volume of space.
Deathwath Core Rules, page 291

as well as no mention of more than 'millions' of worlds in any of the later books.

Furthermore, if you go back to 2008, you find this little line in the Dark Heresy core rules:

The Imperium is vast, and amongst its billions of inhabited worlds there are countless forge worlds, factories, craftsmen, artificers, and blacksmiths turning out weapons and armor.
Dark Heresy Core Rules (2008 printing), page 127

The 2008 printing, by Black Industries, which FFG had nothing to do with. So whatever line FFG happened to have copied from the first book, it's fair to say that it was GW and BI's gaff first.

Edit: Just checked, that line is copied word for word in FFG's Dark Heresy printing and the Rogue Trader core rules. And yet in the Imperium of mankind section, it very clearly explained that out of billions of worlds out there, the Imperium has a million+. FFG is guilty of copy-pasting, but it was GW who made the error in the first place.

I also think the 'million worlds' is a metaphor. It is not like the Imperial bureaucracy would be capable of counting exactly how many planets there were 'in the Imperium'. I can imagine it is even possible for a Imperial world to be simply forgotten or something like that due to a stupid bureaucratic error.

Not only is it possible, its happened many times.

The Landraider Redeemer was invented to bring a rebellious world back into the fold that was 8000 years behind on its Tithe.