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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.

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.

Dunno.

Pretty sure none of the 40k writers have become absolute sex cases.

Yet.

Don’t even need to go that far.

40k is rooted in Britain’s late 20th Century industrial decline.

I’ve got dim memories of it from my childhood, and many areas have since been redeveloped and somewhat gentrified (especially in London).

The minds behind 40k would’ve grown up in the waning years of Britain’s industry, likely seeing dockyards, shipyards, steelyards etc all slowly rotting away, both as industries and buildings.

For example? I work in Canary Wharf. Well. Docklands. I’m just over the footbridge from Canary Wharf.

This is what it looks like today.
And this is what it looked like in the 1970’s.





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It was decayed. Defunct. Unloved. Just the carcass of former imperial majesty and industry slowly rotting away. The wealth it once brought long gone.

It’s now a gleaming metropolis. I’ve always considered it to be like Delta City from Robocop. Hell, I’d not long started working in that area when the Robocop remake landed. I strongly recall wandering to my coach stop. I crossed in front of Canary Wharf Tube Station, my eyes fell upon the massive video advertising board. Playing on it was a trailer/advert for Robocop. I came very close to having to pinch myself.

That to me is 40k. It’s the decline of Empire. Those who broke their backs to spin goods into profits forgotten about and left to rot. Hell, the area around Canary Wharf, Tower Hamlets, is to this day one of the most deprived areas in Europe, let alone the U.K., whilst Canary Wharf itself is (well, perhaps soon ‘was’) the Financial heart of Europe, the foundation for a new British Economy. It’s literally The Sump surrounding The Spire.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the true inspiration behind 40k.

It’s typically how the fruits of Empire are distributed.

Those that were on the right side at the right time do well. Everyone else, not so much. Soon as a particular ration of industry has played its part, those in charge couldn’t give a fig.


Also, I’m Scottish. Like Kirk who simply works in Space, I only work in Lahndahn Tahn!

Nonsense.

You can a well hard fighter, maybe even a warrior. But you’ll still fail when you come up against a Soldier.

Soldiers have training, skills and most importantly, discipline.

A squad of, erm, squaddies, works because they’re trained to work together. Some will give covering fire as their brothers in arms advance, only to return the favour.

I don’t care how hard a given person is, or how hard they think they are. When they’re faced with disciplined and trained soldiers, they’re dead meat.

A fighter thinks only of themself and their own personal glory. A trained squad sees beyond that. That’s the whole point.

And we see it again and again and again throughout history. The Phalanx. Napoleonic square and line. The first bayonet charge.

It’s all about who is the best trained and the best disciplined. They’re the poor sods that bleed and die, but achieve victory.

That’s why the Astra Militarum can knack Traitor Legionaires. That’s why the Space Marine Legions in turn were largely undefeatable. That’s why the shattered Legions clung on, and became forced to be reckoned with in time.

Example. I’m 17 stone, 6’2” and built like a brick outhouse. But I’ve no combat training. At all. Put me in a cage fight with someone far smaller, but with even a modicum of combat training, and I’ll just give up.

Why? Because of my sheer size, something I’ve never worked on, I tend to get left the hell alone. I look scary, but really I’m about as hard as mashed potato. Anyone who knows what they’re doing, or is just really, really pissed off can easily flatten me.

Training. Discipline. That’s what counts.

Yep. 2000AD again.

Cloning absolutely does exist in 40k. As does genetic manipulation and other forms of procreation.

Houses Goliath and Escher are of particular note here.

However, it's not a universal process. Some planets may do on a regular basis. Others simply don't have the tech. Others yet may simply lack the inclination.

OP may wish to look into the goals of, well, every Emperor, ever.

GIven they're Emperors. Or Empresses. Of Empires. Aggressively expanded Empires covering as much of the world as they could get away with. Because that's what Empires are.