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The Emperor is a carbon copy of Leto Atreides II, 40k Navigators are rip offs of Dune navigators, and so on. Am I missing anything else? What else?

You folks don't know what you are messing out on if any of you have not read Dune.

The Emperor is clearly a carbon copy of Leto Atreides II. If the title of the book below, "God Emperor of Dune" is not a give away, I don't know what is. Leto Atreides II sacrificed his humanity to put the human race on the Golden Path, basically oppress humanity so much and make humanity evolve so that humanity will spread out and not be oppressed again. He sacrificed everything. His life, his legacy, everything. He knew humanity would hate him, but he thought it was worth it.

https://www.amazon.com/God-Emperor-Dune-Chronicles-Book/dp/0441294677

https://www.amazon.com/God-Emperor-Dune-Chronicles-Book/dp/0441294677

This is gonna be a fun one.

Literature inspires other literature news at 11! Snark aside this isn't an uncommon practice in a lot of things. They are good books though would recommend!

Well it's slightly different but yeah, I think a majority of people know this hobby was heavily inspired, if not ripped, from a lot of 80's sci-fi and horror

Who cares if it did, star wars had some inspiration from Dune as well. Many things in life simply are derivative, music is another standout example.

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Well it's slightly different but yeah, I think a majority of people know this hobby was heavily inspired, if not ripped, from a lot of 80's sci-fi and horror

Mostly Dune and Starship troopers. Especially Dune.

Dune, Starship Troopers, Lord of the Rings, Rambo, Xenomorphs from Aliens, Robotech and I am sure there are a billion more. Fun fact the Warcraft series from Blizzard was supposed to be a Warhammer Fantasy game.

this is new? I'm pretty sure that all of the cool things from almost every scifi of the 60's-80's can be found in 40k. Dune, 2112, 2001, Aliens, Terminator, etc... I guess the more overt references may be missed if you're only familiar with 3rd ed lore to current.


As much as these threads are entertaining, it's always interesting on how they devolve.

The only similarities were that they both had access to a massive store of historical knowledge, being the emperors of a galaxy-spanning empire, and being considered a god.

Nope, not at all. Leto had no sons that he created to be super umber mensch within a few decades time and then led them on a crusade for several centuries across the entire galaxy. He used soldiers that already existed and were already trained to a high level and made sure they remained the dominant power they already were by the time he took power. Leto was not literally the guiding light of the navigators, he just provided the navigators their drugs.

Their durations as living emperors were considerably different, with the 40K God-Emperor being only a couple centuries before being put on a relatively uncommunicative life support vs Leto's 3500 year reign.

The God-Emperor of 40K NEVER wanted to be known as a god, while Leto sought it out and embraced it.

The super-soldiers of Leto were not engineered directly, but bred and hammered to their level.

While they were both taken down by their own creations, Abaddon was a direct child, while Siona was a many generations-removed niece.

Leto pushed for a revolution by being oppressive, while the 40K GE was oppressive to hide Chaos.

Even how they GOT their stores of knowledge are incredibly different.

So, they are not carbon copies of each other. The 40K GE aren't even 50000th distorted copy of a copy. Too many other influences were pushed in to the 40K GE to consider him a copy in little but name.

 Charistoph wrote:
The only similarities were that they both had access to a massive store of historical knowledge, being the emperors of a galaxy-spanning empire, and being considered a god.

Nope, not at all. Leto had no sons that he created to be super umber mensch within a few decades time and then led them on a crusade for several centuries across the entire galaxy. He used soldiers that already existed and were already trained to a high level and made sure they remained the dominant power they already were by the time he took power. Leto was not literally the guiding light of the navigators, he just provided the navigators their drugs.

Their durations as living emperors were considerably different, with the 40K God-Emperor being only a couple centuries before being put on a relatively uncommunicative life support vs Leto's 3500 year reign.

The God-Emperor of 40K NEVER wanted to be known as a god, while Leto sought it out and embraced it.

The super-soldiers of Leto were not engineered directly, but bred and hammered to their level.

While they were both taken down by their own creations, Abaddon was a direct child, while Siona was a many generations-removed niece.

Leto pushed for a revolution by being oppressive, while the 40K GE was oppressive to hide Chaos.

Even how they GOT their stores of knowledge are incredibly different.

So, they are not carbon copies of each other. The 40K GE aren't even 50000th distorted copy of a copy. Too many other influences were pushed in to the 40K GE to consider him a copy in little but name.

The Crusade Imperium was a good place to live, especially Ultramar.

Also ripped off asimov's foundation, The Alien movies, the terminator movies, the hellraiser movies....

"The Imperial Sardaukar are soldier-fanatics loyal to the Padishah Emperors of House Corrino, who have ruled the Known Universe (the Imperium) for over 10,000 years at the time of the events of the first novel in the series, Dune. The key to House Corrino's hold on the Imperial throne, the Sardaukar troops are the foremost soldiers in the universe and are feared by all. They are secretly trained on the inhospitable Imperial Prison Planet of Salusa Secundus: the harsh conditions there ensure that only the strongest and most "ferocious" men survive."

The original space marines from rouge trader were reconditioned criminals so that fits as well.

Brother, if you're upset that 40k has ripped off other fantasy ideas, we need to sit down and have a chat.

meleti wrote:
Brother, if you're upset that 40k has ripped off other fantasy ideas, we need to sit down and have a chat.

I am not. I dig the two franchises.

Hmm, what's in the 40k melting pot....
Off the top of my head:

Dune
Starship Troopers (the book)
Aliens
2000 A.D.
Judge Dredd
Terminator
some StarCraft once some of the tyranids were redesigned in 3rd/4th
Brit pop culture & punk
Silent Running - every time I see my 2e+ dreadnoughts (wich is often) I can't fail to see weaponized versions of Huey, Louie & Dewey....
Rambo - who do you think Sly Marbo is?
WWI
WWII

 rhinosaur wrote:
"The Imperial Sardaukar are soldier-fanatics loyal to the Padishah Emperors of House Corrino, who have ruled the Known Universe (the Imperium) for over 10,000 years at the time of the events of the first novel in the series, Dune. The key to House Corrino's hold on the Imperial throne, the Sardaukar troops are the foremost soldiers in the universe and are feared by all. They are secretly trained on the inhospitable Imperial Prison Planet of Salusa Secundus: the harsh conditions there ensure that only the strongest and most "ferocious" men survive."

The original space marines from rouge trader were reconditioned criminals so that fits as well.

I love the campy logic to that. "People put in inhospitable circumstances become superior warriors." I guess we better watch out that Australia doesn't conscript all those refugees they've been dumping on that island with the high mortality rate. The only ones who could stop them would be the Somali legion of doom.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I love the campy logic to that. "People put in inhospitable circumstances become superior warriors." I guess we better watch out that Australia doesn't conscript all those refugees they've been dumping on that island with the high mortality rate. The only ones who could stop them would be the Somali legion of doom.

Agreed, I see this trope pushed far too often in fiction. I think the saying goes "War doesn't determine who is right, only who is left."

Put 100 men on a prison planet and have them kill each other until 10 are left won't get you the best warriors. It will give you the best survivors. There is a difference.

A prison style environment produces people who fight to keep themselves alive. Good soldiers fight to keep their countey alive.

That's probably why Israel as the words best, if far from biggest, military.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
A prison style environment produces people who fight to keep themselves alive. Good soldiers fight to keep their countey alive.

That's probably why Israel as the words best, if far from biggest, military.

'Best' is a relative term. Ireland has one of the 'best' special forces in the world and we're 'non-aligned' and are exclusively peacekeepers.

Anyway, I think what this thread has thrown up is that there's very little original under the sun. Warhammer was influenced by Tolkien, which was influenced by Old English and Norse. Harry Potter was influenced by all those boarding school mysteries popular in the 50s and 60s. Event Horizon is exactly how I'd imagine first contact with the Warp to go, but whether it was definitely inspired by 40k, I don't know.

I don't think anybody could argue that this game of toy soldiers we all like so much is a mosh mash of various other texts and ideas.

rhinosaur wrote:The original space marines from rouge trader were reconditioned criminals so that fits as well.

It's worth remembering that particular bit of fluff only lasted about 6 months before getting retconned to the surgically-and-genetically-altered-child-soldier-warrior-monk version we've had since.

Techpriestsupport wrote:A prison style environment produces people who fight to keep themselves alive. Good soldiers fight to keep their countey alive.

It made sense for the Sardaukar, though, since they were terror-troops rather than what we'd think of as proper professional soldiers. It'd be like if all Astartes were Night Lords. If you don't care about collateral damage (because you have plenty more worlds to exploit) and just want to terrify everyone into compliance, then no problem. Try to use them against an enemy that cannot be cowed into submission (i.e. the Fremen), on a planet whose population and infrastructure you cannot afford to just blindly destroy (because it's the sole source of the substance your empire needs to exist) and it all falls apart.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
A prison style environment produces people who fight to keep themselves alive. Good soldiers fight to keep their countey alive.

That's probably why Israel as the words best, if far from biggest, military.

A prison style enviroment would teach you how to survive in a prison style enviroment, not a lot of those skills would necessarily transfer to a high tech military enviroment and its a hell of a push to claim Israel as the worlds 'best' military.

 ingtaer wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
A prison style environment produces people who fight to keep themselves alive. Good soldiers fight to keep their countey alive.

That's probably why Israel as the words best, if far from biggest, military.

A prison style enviroment would teach you how to survive in a prison style enviroment, not a lot of those skills would necessarily transfer to a high tech military enviroment and its a hell of a push to claim Israel as the worlds 'best' military.

And the Emperor was meant to be based on Leto Atreides II. They want to save humanity, are God Emperors, immortal, and so on. One difference being is that Leto Atreides II is much less arrogant.

http://asimov.wikia.com/wiki/Scientism


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ingtaer wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
A prison style environment produces people who fight to keep themselves alive. Good soldiers fight to keep their countey alive.

That's probably why Israel as the words best, if far from biggest, military.

A prison style enviroment would teach you how to survive in a prison style enviroment, not a lot of those skills would necessarily transfer to a high tech military enviroment and its a hell of a push to claim Israel as the worlds 'best' military.

I am comfortable with my assertion.

Just you wait until you get around to reading fantasy and discover that JRR Tolkien ripped off the Norse! Then everyone ripped off Tolkien!





but yeah a lot of writing, esp in fiction, inspires each other. You get some BIG stories that inspire a whole swathe, such as Lord of the Rings; whilst others have more minor impacts. And yes 40K is born of the 80s and comes with everything you'd expect. We've got terminators and Cenobites and heck the original Tyranid Hormagaunts were Alien Aliens with an extra pair of lance-like arms.
DnD is lifted right out of Lord of the Rings and yet builds on it with a class style system that nearly every PC RPG game has copy-catted .

The strongest influence is 2000AD, and Judge Dredd in particular.

Interestingly, both are broadly similar satires, with similar roots in post-industrial decline in Britain.

Compare Mega-City One to an Imperial Hive. Same principle, one just on a larger scale. Both are brutal, fascistic regimes, presented (satirically) as the only way to maintain order.

I’ve read an awful, awful lot of Dredd, and a good bit of 2000AD (thank you, Hachette!). And you do start to see Warhammer 40,000 influence stuff in 2000AD and Judge Dredd. This is most pronounced in Dan Abnett’s ‘Insurrection” series.

And that is of course pretty normal. The fact that one author did it first doesn’t mean everyone that follows is a copying hack. Without The Vampyre, A Tale (by John William Polidori), we wouldn’t have Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Without Bram Stoker’s Dracula, we wouldn’t have, well, I’m sure you can see where I’m going.

It’s no different to movies or music. Yet barring Oasis being a low rent Beatles tribute act, it’s not often worried about. There are periods of greater innovation, sure. If you look at the wide era between the birth of Punk up to Britpop, you get a real hodgepodge of interconnecting sounds and styles. That happens to be my favourite period for music, so the one I’m best placed to use as an example. And it’s fairly often that the ‘first’ band may be the most influential, but aren’t in fact all that good (hello, Sex Pistols). But that they were first, and inspired many others to start their own band?

Proper Nerd Note? The Sex Pistols weren’t in fact the first Punk Band Of Note in the U.K. that’d be The Damned (Who were also much, much better!)

Being inspired by the actions and art of others is a human trait. I don’t get why people get so sniffy about it.

I think those who get really annoyed are the copycatting is excessive to the point where its just a few name changes and its the identical same story/idea. Of course if you boil enough stories down to their barest components many can appear "the same". But this is when the comparisons are everywhere. Ergo its far closer to just blatant plagiarism than inspiration

Of course there can be a grey area there, many say that Eragon is just Starwars in fantasyland, for example.

Certainly once you read into any genre you can very quickly see some common inspirational works and if you really read into them you can see patterns shifting and changing over time. Eg one modern pattern that has emerged is the deeper understanding of Ork lore and of establishing orks are more than just a mindless force of wild raiding nature. Giving them a voice, making them characters with motivations, feelings and such. A far cry from the older days when the ork was basically your boogyman character on a national scale. A faction to be hated, feared and easily warred against without question.


In films we've seen it too; post WW2 it was Nazis; then it was Russians, then we had Zombies

When something is a cheap cash-in, sure, I get it.

But to use OP’s examples?

The God-Emperor of mankind basically just shares a title with Leto Atredies II. One is a gestalt entity made up of ancient Shamans, psychically potent but all spazzed up on his throne. The other is a weirdo that covered himself in fish.

The Guild Navigators are horrifically mutated, addicted to Spice, and fold space to get peeps from A-B. Navigator Houses are a specific, cultivated breed of mutant with a third eye that guy ships Through Actual Hell. They are otherwise full humanoid.

Again, they’re pretty much just sharing a job title.

The inspiration is clear. But they’re otherwise really quite different, and certainly nowhere near a ‘rip off’.

Men of Iron / Butlerian Jihad? Common tropes, with the origin ultimately going back to The Industrial Revolution. Machines were taking jobs away. Luddites formed to smash the machines. We got the word saboteur from French workers throwing their wooden shoes, or Sabatons, into the workings of machines to knacker them. Both are examples of man’s uneasy relationship with his ever advancing technology. It’s a reflection of the fear of us developing it too fast, Cold War paranoia, and concerns about how we’ll handle mass unemployment.

So Frank Herbert wrote about it. But he didn’t invent it. It’s a concern which originates waaaay before he first put pen to paper.

Heck, we even see the idea further developing in the (not unfairly) maligned Terminator 3, which accounts for The Internet. John Connor says that because of that advent, Skynet is all but undefeatable. It’s everywhere. It has places to hide that the original films didn’t know about.

Fear of the machine, and man losing control isn’t an invention of Frank Herbert. He just imagined a bit further out.

The idea of a "god emperor" didn't start with dune. For centuries the Japanese believed their emperor was literally descended from god. He was likey the first God emperor.

The romans routinely deified emperor's after they died. Caligula tried to jump the gun and declare himself a living God. His non necron praetorians quickly demonstrated his mortality to him.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
A prison style environment produces people who fight to keep themselves alive. Good soldiers fight to keep their countey alive.

That's probably why Israel as the words best, if far from biggest, military.

Except the Sardaukar (prison trained soldiers) in Dune are thoroughly and completely trounced by the Fremen (nomadic tribesmen).

As it was said in Sharpe: "All that flogging a man does is teach him how to turn his back." Getting your soldiers from prisons is much the same thing.

Lets face it, the Sardaukar prison planet is likely more than just a large lockup; nor even a prison as we might understand it today.

Also don't forget that the Fremen had the advantage of fighting on home ground; of the wyrding modules (sound weapons) and of riding huge worms that, for all intents and purposes, were invulnerable to most traditional weaponry.

Also note that the great houses conducted war with "rules" of engagement which limited what they could and couldn't do. The Fremen were not limited by such rules and codes of conduct. I believe they cracked the shield with nuclear weapons (which were denied to the great houses, hence why the Barron had to use "archaic" artillery). So the Sardaukar might be ultimate warriors, but they were also hindered by their own fearsome reputation and the enemies they fought. The Fremen were not cowled by the might and fear of them, nor by any rules of war; they were a wild force and thus did have the upper hand.


Having a demi-god fight for them also helped as did weight of numbers.