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As the header says, I am looking for advice on what to read. Problem is, I am not so much interested in the epic historical stuff, that is at the core of most 40k novels, but at getting a somewhat clearer idea of how an average citizen of a generic Imperial hive world would go about his everyday life between being subjugated by the Eclesiarcgy and being torn apart and eaten by some horribly alien monstrosity. What ambitions would they have, who would be the peers they relate to and want to impress, where they get their grocery from, how is their housing, what do they do in their time off, that stuff.
Now I highly doubt, that there is anything in the Black Library, that really centers around such boring details, but maybe anyone remembers reading a cool novel or story, or even a sidebar or article in some White Dwarf or codex, that at least touches some of that stuff?

Abnett's inquisition trilogy has some insight into the life of Imperial citizens. Also Chris Wright's Vaults of Terra series can be helpful. Necromunda books offer a look into the life of the hivers.

One of the story-lines in Titanicus is about a husband & wife who have recently moved to the planet, and the Shira Calpurnia & Eisenhorn series both have background info.

Ciaphas Cain novels often have civilians going about their day to day lives - often on backwater planets rather than warzones and given that he enjoys an active social life and often writes abot it - its not that uncommon.

Otherwise endorse what the others have said. Its not infrequent that a 40k story starts with a few normal people who then have very bad things happen to them.

 AuntHerbert wrote:
As the header says, I am looking for advice on what to read. Problem is, I am not so much interested in the epic historical stuff, that is at the core of most 40k novels, but at getting a somewhat clearer idea of how an average citizen of a generic Imperial hive world would go about his everyday life between being subjugated by the Eclesiarcgy and being torn apart and eaten by some horribly alien monstrosity. What ambitions would they have, who would be the peers they relate to and want to impress, where they get their grocery from, how is their housing, what do they do in their time off, that stuff.
Now I highly doubt, that there is anything in the Black Library, that really centers around such boring details, but maybe anyone remembers reading a cool novel or story, or even a sidebar or article in some White Dwarf or codex, that at least touches some of that stuff?

I can't recall a whole lot being written about that explicitily, GW tends not to dwell too much on that directly beyond "life sucks and then you die", there's some stuff going back to Rogue Trader (where it's a bit tongue in cheek, like being sent to camps for late library books), but in general mostly it seems to be somewhat vague blurbs that resemble some of the most extreme stereotypes of former Soviet life or workers barracks in the early industrial revolution and modern developing states, where basically everything is provided and assigned but is of the absolute minimal nature required to sustain life (and hence why so many end up in underworld societies in 40k). Hab workers and civilians usually get left out of most of the stories and descriptions, even among major urban conflicts.

There's a few neat scenes at the start of "Fifteen Hours" detailing the life of a farming community on an agri world

The normal people in the X of Mars books describe being essentially kidnapped by "recruiters" in a bar despite being employed already in the local industry. One of them was an overseer until he got uppity with the Mechanicus in charge of the victims/indentured workers/happy new employees of the Machine God.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 AuntHerbert wrote:
As the header says, I am looking for advice on what to read. Problem is, I am not so much interested in the epic historical stuff, that is at the core of most 40k novels, but at getting a somewhat clearer idea of how an average citizen of a generic Imperial hive world would go about his everyday life between being subjugated by the Eclesiarcgy and being torn apart and eaten by some horribly alien monstrosity. What ambitions would they have, who would be the peers they relate to and want to impress, where they get their grocery from, how is their housing, what do they do in their time off, that stuff.
Now I highly doubt, that there is anything in the Black Library, that really centers around such boring details, but maybe anyone remembers reading a cool novel or story, or even a sidebar or article in some White Dwarf or codex, that at least touches some of that stuff?

I can't recall a whole lot being written about that explicitily, GW tends not to dwell too much on that directly beyond "life sucks and then you die", there's some stuff going back to Rogue Trader (where it's a bit tongue in cheek, like being sent to camps for late library books), but in general mostly it seems to be somewhat vague blurbs that resemble some of the most extreme stereotypes of former Soviet life or workers barracks in the early industrial revolution and modern developing states, where basically everything is provided and assigned but is of the absolute minimal nature required to sustain life (and hence why so many end up in underworld societies in 40k). Hab workers and civilians usually get left out of most of the stories and descriptions, even among major urban conflicts.

Although obviously details vary from world to world, a few general themes seem to persist in what GW shows of Imperial society. There tends to be a lot of class stratification, and division into houses or family groupings. Social mobility is next to non-existent outside of a few special organizations like the Inquisition. For the average person they are going to be stuck in the role they were born in, and they work at that for their entire lives in return for housing and food.

GW does take the grimdarkness to derp levels though, sometimes describing such ridiculousness as workers being literally chained to their machines or desks for their entire lives and sleeping only 4 hours a day and subsisting off only gruel. This creates questions of where does the human waste go? Chaining someone creates sores where the manacles keep rubbing against skin. Sleep deprivation, high stress, and poor nutrition makes women miscarry and be unable to carry a pregnancy to term, so it is incompatible with maintaining a population. In other words, some of the extremes described by GW are not compatible with biology and staying alive long enough to reproduce and maintain the high population levels described.

beast_gts wrote:
One of the story-lines in Titanicus is about a husband & wife who have recently moved to the planet, and the Shira Calpurnia & Eisenhorn series both have background info.

I second the Enforcer (calpurnia) series.
A crime drama featuring no daemons, aliens or on going war means you get a good look at a 'normal' (ish!) world.

Any Dark Heresy sourcebooks can be good, too.

Any of the Necromunda books would give you an idea what its like to live on the bottom of the social structure of a Hive City. With enough general info on what the middle and upper ranks also get up too as well.

It can give you a good idea of the vast social disparity between the groups.

GW does take the grimdarkness to derp levels though, sometimes describing such ridiculousness as workers being literally chained to their machines or desks for their entire lives and sleeping only 4 hours a day and subsisting off only gruel. This creates questions of where does the human waste go? Chaining someone creates sores where the manacles keep rubbing against skin. Sleep deprivation, high stress, and poor nutrition makes women miscarry and be unable to carry a pregnancy to term, so it is incompatible with maintaining a population. In other words, some of the extremes described by GW are not compatible with biology and staying alive long enough to reproduce and maintain the high population levels described.

I think some of the Grimdark "derp" can have a few controlling factors to consider:

1) When its somewhat hyperbole on the part of the narrators voice and also when its only a casual glance over such systems.

2) Medical advances. Sores might be eased by salves applied at a specific hour each day. Not worth of note to mention (just as you'd not mention the automatic application of grease to a gear in a machine); but present as part of the daily maintenance of the living part of the production machine.

3) Short term life spans. The Imperium has a glut of population in general. It has no problem with work ethics being abused because they've basically got too many people as it is. That's why their armed forces work on the principles of choking enemy machine guns with bodies. The Imperium, for all its wars, has a vast population of lower classes; they almost have too many to know what to do with.


That's partly why its so easy for cults to form on worlds - genestealers and chaos can easily get a foot in when you are liberating people chained to a toilet all day whilst working endlessly. Given only a few hours rest before being sent back to work.

 Overread wrote:
Any of the Necromunda books would give you an idea what its like to live on the bottom of the social structure of a Hive City. With enough general info on what the middle and upper ranks also get up too as well.

It can give you a good idea of the vast social disparity between the groups.

GW does take the grimdarkness to derp levels though, sometimes describing such ridiculousness as workers being literally chained to their machines or desks for their entire lives and sleeping only 4 hours a day and subsisting off only gruel. This creates questions of where does the human waste go? Chaining someone creates sores where the manacles keep rubbing against skin. Sleep deprivation, high stress, and poor nutrition makes women miscarry and be unable to carry a pregnancy to term, so it is incompatible with maintaining a population. In other words, some of the extremes described by GW are not compatible with biology and staying alive long enough to reproduce and maintain the high population levels described.

I think some of the Grimdark "derp" can have a few controlling factors to consider:

1) When its somewhat hyperbole on the part of the narrators voice and also when its only a casual glance over such systems.

2) Medical advances. Sores might be eased by salves applied at a specific hour each day. Not worth of note to mention (just as you'd not mention the automatic application of grease to a gear in a machine); but present as part of the daily maintenance of the living part of the production machine.

3) Short term life spans. The Imperium has a glut of population in general. It has no problem with work ethics being abused because they've basically got too many people as it is. That's why their armed forces work on the principles of choking enemy machine guns with bodies. The Imperium, for all its wars, has a vast population of lower classes; they almost have too many to know what to do with.


That's partly why its so easy for cults to form on worlds - genestealers and chaos can easily get a foot in when you are liberating people chained to a toilet all day whilst working endlessly. Given only a few hours rest before being sent back to work.

There is brutal and there is being brutal to the point that is incompatible with productivity, reproduction, or life. Starving women under extreme stress miscarry and cannot maintain a pregnancy. You wouldn't have any birth rate like that. Starving sleep deprived workers maybe riddled with parasites from impaired immune systems and malnutrition have diminished productivity. As for the masses of scribes and other forms of literate workers, they need some time to learn and become literate. Mistreat them like that and it is likely they will die quickly before they have made up their cost of training. It is not a matter of caring about worker welfare but low productivity means difficulty meeting the Imperium's tithe demands. So the ruling class has to deliver a minimum standard of living sufficient enough to ensure productivity to meet the tithe requirements in order to ensure the survival of the ruling class.

The Imperium is not a nice place, but GW takes things to an extreme that violates human biology, and we know that the average baseline human in 40K is still effectively more or less the human of today.

Humans chained to their machines sounds like a penal system or such. Ergo they aren't expected to reproduce. They would purely be used for their mechanical use of performing a repetitive factory style function.

Much like how servitors don't need to reproduce; they are purely made for their job.


Just because one segment or even one world isn't producing people isn't a problem. The Imperium can just ship more in.



Some of the madness of the setting is accepting that the Imperium does suffer production shortfalls compared to what they could achieve because of their insanity and their low treatment toward their lower classes. It is jointly part of what makes the Imperium work as it does, but also holds it back. The Imperium has these hold-backs because otherwise it would likely unite and wipe out the other races.

It's the same as how ork Waaarghs self-implode rather than keep going on and on. Chaos Crusades often do the same thing whilst Eldar lack the numbers and reproduction rate. Tau are still far to small to worry about though in theory and given enough time and shielding they could be one of the few factions that can unite at the large scale and remain functional and sane whilst also driving their technology forward.

Thing is, 40k doesn’t shy away from body horror.

The Imperium has no problem force-feeding you directly through a hole in your stomach so you don’t need to waste time eating. It would have no qualms about installing a tube into the other end to collect “compost”. Starting to doze off? Have a little injection of frenzon to perk you up.

And babies don’t need to be made the old-fashioned way when you can simply remove the necessary components from people, mix it up in a dish, and grow the next generation in a pod. 40k has no lines to cross... there are no lines.

Also remember that 40k humans are not the same as us - Necromunda tells us that underhive dwellers can see better than us in the dark and survive exposure to chemicals that would kill us, yet would go blind and/or mad if exposed to an actual sky with an actual sun.

beast_gts wrote:
Also remember that 40k humans are not the same as us - Necromunda tells us that underhive dwellers can see better than us in the dark and survive exposure to chemicals that would kill us, yet would go blind and/or mad if exposed to an actual sky with an actual sun.

There's at least 3 different strains of evolved humanity in 40k so it's reasonable to think that they're fairly common.

Considering the genetic variability we see on Earth alone; when you look at the Imperium with thousands upon thousands of worlds; some very isolated and some hubs of trade. It's reasonable to assume that there'd be a potentially huge variety of minor mutations and differences in the human populations across the Imperium.

Of course if you're too far mutated from the norm you might be exterminated so that is going to curtail some of the evolutionary avenues.

pm713 wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
Also remember that 40k humans are not the same as us - Necromunda tells us that underhive dwellers can see better than us in the dark and survive exposure to chemicals that would kill us, yet would go blind and/or mad if exposed to an actual sky with an actual sun.

There's at least 3 different strains of evolved humanity in 40k so it's reasonable to think that they're fairly common.

Yep, and in Misbegotten (from Sons of the Emperor: An Anthology), Horus faces off against a

I think is varies too much from planet to planet for it to be a constant.

Some hives seem to work like India's Case system, on steroids. Some seem to be hell holes of survival at the whim of the governor, others seem pretty much like any first world country on contemporary earth. As there are descriptions of actual feudal worlds with serfs, jungle/death worlds with savages , ice worlds with Viking style raids, 1800's ish style firearms and knights with lances to hives with super high tech aerocars and everything between caves and 2000AD Megacity 1 you can pretty much make up whatever you want and it'll be consistent with canon.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Thing is, 40k doesn’t shy away from body horror.

The Imperium has no problem force-feeding you directly through a hole in your stomach so you don’t need to waste time eating. It would have no qualms about installing a tube into the other end to collect “compost”. Starting to doze off? Have a little injection of frenzon to perk you up.

And babies don’t need to be made the old-fashioned way when you can simply remove the necessary components from people, mix it up in a dish, and grow the next generation in a pod. 40k has no lines to cross... there are no lines.

There is that tension between dialing the body-horror up to eleven and keeping the narration plausible enough to keep it from plummeting right through the pulp level and becoming just stupid and unintentionally funny.
Sure, there are in theory other ways to make babies, but, well, women's bodies are quite economical at the task, and families are a quite efficient way to raise and educate children. Imagining a society, where those assumed other ways become plausibly the more economic choice is actually quite hard... unless you avoid filling out literally all and any of the blanks. And then there is the question, of how are those babies raised to become adults, with at least a somehow relatable psychological structure. George Orwell experimented with such stories, but in a way "Brave new world" has a strangeness, that even exceeds the eternal war of the 40th millenium.

One general problem with horror is, we scare, because we care. If the concept of "humanity" becomes too alien for us to even understand the basic motivations of those supposed "humans", all the pain and suffering in the setting loses a lot of its emotional impact. No matter how good of an author you are, you won't fill your readers with sadness about a Tyranid eggchamber being destroyed. But if you raise the body horror in the human society to a level, that barely distinguishes itself from a biomechanical brood cell, you left the reader's ability to feel empathy almost as far behind.

For a situation to feel horrible, you need a contrast of an idyllic "normalcy", a plausible place of innocence, that has the potential to be tainted. There is a reason, why for example Stephen King and other grand masters of horror so famously well describe small-town settings If the starting level is already completely alien, who cares?

The normal humans of 40K reproduce the old fashioned way. We know this because the exceptions such as the use of Vitae Wombs on Krieg are described as exceptions, and are themselves viewed as abhorrent by the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Sure there may be various increasingly convoluted mechanical, surgical, or chemical ways of keeping someone going in spite of inhuman conditions that should kill them, but that is an ever increasing investment of resources into what is supposedly an expendable peon, far more than the value of whatever labor is going to be extracted out of this peon. The ruling class would be effectively losing money on each person like this because what you end up with is an incapacitated person on life support rather than a worker. One cannot have the situation of a noble class living in indulgent luxury, ignoring the masses slaving away beneath them, and also a noble class that is investing so much effort into basically sadistic torment of an expendable at basically a loss to the noble.

Even all the genetic variation in humanity in 40K doesn't really remove them too far from the human baseline. Too far gets people classified as mutants or outright killed. Stable mutation lines get classed as abhuman not human.

The Imperium is inefficient and ignorant, but there is also a threshold beyond which it goes beyond being dark to being stupid because what is described becomes internally inconsistent even within the boundaries and precedents of the 40K universe. The Imperium needs to still achieve a minimum level of production and efficiency to produce the vast numbers it is described as producing to meet the needs of all the war zones. That means the workers cannot be starved or whipped to death before they have had a chance to produce anything.

Remember each world is unique. Some are like paradise and so far into the interior that they have no concept of the wars or chaos.

Others are huge factories; the whole world purely acting to process resources that are shipped in and to ship out weapons, munitions, war engines etc....

The world where you get chained to your workstation for life isn't the same world where you slave for 12 hours a day in the chem-labs of Necromunda; which isn't the same as an agri-world where the majority produce food etc...



This allows for some of the insanity to spill over the top. Because its only one world or one sector that is spilling over; other saner/less insane regions perhaps then hold it up. Even within the insanity its not that the whole world's population is chained to the machine.
Just like the whole of the Imperium isn't in the Imperial guard.

Even the so called paradise worlds are only nice for the ruling class or those rich vacationing there for R&R. Think of the stereotypical image of a resort in some developing country where the poor locals fetch towels and mix drinks for the visitors, and live a subsistence existence while the tourists have a little mini paradise to relax in. Scale that up to planet size and that is what those paradise planets are like.

I'll second that Titancius offers a measured, poignant window into the lives of Imperial citizens. Dan Abnett may have just been going for juxtaposition with the Titans, but its one of the few BL books that effectively looks at everyday people.

Have finished reading several BL novels. Both Eisenhorn: Xenos and Yarrick: Imperial Creed imply there is a small middle class, at least in a planet's capital cities. There are also mention of bars and restaurants catering to different social strata. So some small parts of the 40k universe are not totally crapsack, at least in a major city on a prosperous agri or garden world. It is probably much like western medieval Europe in the High Middle Ages (12th-13th century). The 1% (Clergy and nobles), 9% mercantile interests that cater to the 1% and skilled crafters of luxury items ~10%, maybe ~10% lower class businesses (the shops/bars next to the slum districts) ~30% poor but not totally fethed, ~40% crapsack. Presumably the more privileged 50% outside of the nobility have some fears of running afoul of the Administratum or Ecclesiarchy and thus falling into the crapsack strata.

Also, in the Sabbat Worlds anthology, there is mention of real chicken eggs. Our viewpoint character (a surgeon for the Tanith 1st & Only) for that scene silently marvels that her hostess is so skilled at making do that despite breakfast being powdered eggs it smells and tastes like they are fresh. That also tells us that the doctor had a decent enough life before getting drafted that she'd know what real chicken eggs taste like.

The only thing I have to add is the Dark Heresy rpg books, preferably the first edition though that’s out of print today. Some great stuff about everyday living in the Imperium there. Especially the stuff about pilgrimages.

A lot of the recommendations so far are very good. I would second any of Dan Abnett's books, his latest Magos comes to mind right away with a lot of vignettes about civilian life, but you'd want to have read the Eisenhorn books first.

Outside of 40k I'd recommend reading about life in totalitarian societies. Nothing to Envy, a book about life in North Korea is a good start.

If you don't mind a personal plug I did an article, geeze almost 10 years ago, on just this subject.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Civilian_Life_in_Warhammer_40,000_AD




Automatically Appended Next Post:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I'll second that Titancius offers a measured, poignant window into the lives of Imperial citizens. Dan Abnett may have just been going for juxtaposition with the Titans, but its one of the few BL books that effectively looks at everyday people.

One character I remember from that was a toy maker making wind up tin titans who thinks who'll make a killing with the new war.

Good pick!

That was a pretty good read, Kid Kyoto. The honored servants strata is something writers need to keep in mind, as the 1% need trustworthy guards. Can't hire the lowest of the low since they'll probably yell "eat the rich!" and kill their new employer. Sure they'll be killed shortly there after, but they get some payback. So even on the worst worlds, as long as there is a 1%, there will be a small level of trusted servants who get good food, some time off, and can raise a family. They'd be the guards, personal doctors, factors, mentats, etcetera. (The various inquisition-centered novels I've read have a number of trusted retainers who have served the Noble House of <Whatever> for 12 generations.)

On that theme Recently finished (and enjoyed alot) Rites of Passage by Mike Brooks

Although quite a bit is high society Navigator House machinations there are also good bits of the rest of the their home world world like dodgy clubs and a minor Administratum functionary and his husband plus plenty of loyal retainers - you also get this in the Andy Clark Knight Household novels

The elderly Navigator Matriarch main character is great.

 Mr Morden wrote:
On that theme Recently finished (and enjoyed alot) Rites of Passage by Mike Brooks

Although quite a bit is high society Navigator House machinations there are also good bits of the rest of the their home world world like dodgy clubs and a minor Administratum functionary and his husband plus plenty of loyal retainers - you also get this in the Andy Clark Knight Household novels

The elderly Navigator Matriarch main character is great.

Seconded. This is the first book that comes to mind for me. As has been mentioned, the Calpurnia stories are also good for a "street level" view of things even though the titular character is a relatively big fish in her personal pond.

The great thing about the 40k universe is that there are so many planets that you can let you imagination run wild. I think there a few consistent factors:

Worship the emperor and bow to the will of the council of terra
Pay your tithes in resources and soldiers
STCs; there must be consistency in technology as invention is heresy
Feudalism and hereditary ruling classes: I’ve not seen examples of democracy.
Xenos are evil

But even these constants exist to different extremes. For some people worshiping the emperor amounts to lip service, for some it’s poverty and living under the fear of the church’s jack boot.

In the old Necromunda stories at the bottom of the hive were mutants and sub life, then a bit further up the chaotic gangs all the way up to a savage group of ruling families at the top. And everything in between. If you live in a hive of trillions you might not even believe in life outside the hive and some people will live on a world that acts as a transport hub and get to explore many worlds. And there are many examples of people
Living within the imperium but outside it’s laws, until they get caught.