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This is not about the inspiration that the founders of GW used to create the 40k universe. This is to ask for an in-universe explanation. Why does the general aesthetic from at least the time of the Great Crusade up to the 42nd millennium look like it's from the High Middle Ages? Why do the Imperial Cult clergy look like Roman Catholic clergy? It's like the Emperor looked through a history book, pointed to the chapter on the Middle Ages, and said 'I like that, let's make everything look like that.' You would think that with everything that has happened over the millennia that most things would look totally different. Again, this is about reasons within the 40k universe, not why the GW team made it like that.

That's actually a good question. It's kinda weird especially if you think about the emperor's goals for humanity, if I remember correctly he was kinda anti-religion, and including the fact that time wasn't particularly the pinnacle of human advancement, its really weird he'd pick that. But hey, I might be wrong.

The Emperors ideals became perverted into religion and doctrine through a combination of ignorance and the manipulation of the power-hungry.

Flip it around for a moment: Why did the High Middle Ages and Roman Catholic clergy look that way? Baroque and overdecorated Renaissance churchbuilding and clerical outfits existed because the Catholic Church was an immense multinational entity levying vast amounts of taxes across the entirety of Europe that didn't need to raise its own army to defend itself all the time. The building of big shiny edifices in the name of glorifying God was possible because of an incredibly unequal allocation of resources to a vast institution that didn't really have anything better to do with its time.

Fast-forward to the 41st Millennium: The Imperium is an incredibly vast feudal state because hazardous and unreliable travel/communication makes it impossible to govern directly, planetary/sector governors have the resources of a planet at their disposal and very little oversight (as long as they suppress unauthorized worship and send their dues on up the chain, they're pretty much left alone). The vast overdecorated cathedral-spaceships and such exist because they live in a hopelessly choked economic infrastructure that can't efficiently devote its resources to useful things, so individual members of the aristocracy are left with discretionary control over huge amounts of resources to play around with, and they end up showing off and trying to outdo each other.

I think it's convergent evolution; the 41st Millennium doesn't look like the High Middle Ages because someone deliberately set out to make it looks like that, it looks like that because it's a similar kind of society where individual leaders have the resources and the authority to just overdecorate everything to death and nobody's got the time or the energy to stop them.

Sometimes architects look at older styles and think "this was cool, let's try that again!" In the 19th century there were both a gothic revival and a byzantine revival. Because of that, there are plenty of gothic buildings that don't actually date back to the middle ages. The most obvious examples would be those in the USA like St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The best explanation would be that there were revivals like that from time to time to keep the style "alive." Sometimes all it takes is one influential architect taking inspiration from some ancient gothic building to get the style back in fashion. And that guy liked putting skulls everywhere, too.

The baroque over-decoration of everything may also be a result of age.

Assuming a planet isn't attacked by anything, the major civic buildings might be easily a few thousand years old without being of great significance on the grand scheme of things.

If a palace, courthouse or cathedral got blinged up 'a bit' every few decades - not unreasonable - after a few centuries it's going to be a lurid monstrosity by modern standards.....so to 'stand out', a new building needs to be the same.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
It's like the Emperor looked through a history book, pointed to the chapter on the Middle Ages, and said 'I like that, let's make everything look like that.'

Well that probably has something to do with it originally. He likely saw what he liked and told others and because he was Emperor of a vast and growing Imperium, it was all done as he said. Because even before he fell and was encased in the Golden Throne his status was near god-like to his people. Sure he was against religion and being made into a religious leader himself; however he clearly guided the designs and appearance of the Imperium.


Now fastforward to the 41st millennium and a few things happen:

1) Humanity has adopted the Emperor as a religious figurehead. Even if it was against his wishes it is part of the grim future that has unfolded.

2) Humanity has abandoned technological advances. Not just because they reached a peek, but because they've religious orders not to change designs and science and research are heavily controlled and restricted. You're not even allowed to put a difference scope on your rifle without risking death from your commissar or a passing leader of the Adpticus Mechanicus. This locks not just technological advance, but all designs at a rough point in time during the Imperiums history. They can't re-design things so the gothic style remains. Where they are permitted to invent new ideas or designs its only ever as an evolution of the original concept. So things get more gothic and more extreme.

3) Technology, designs and the Emperor are all religious in nature. Thus they build flying fortress battleships which are floating cathedrals of worship to both the Emperor and the Machine God. With a fundamental lack of understanding of much of the underlaying technology they are not free to change designs and with vast scientific ignorance there's ample reason to believe that certain religious designs work because they are designed that way. Even if vaulted halls and statues and such actually have no effect.


So yes at some stage someone important said "I like that" during the height of power when it could be rolled out en-mass. Then things got stuck that way for a few thousand years and inventing new ideas is frowned upon so there's less and less "desire" to change things.

STLs? If a forgeworld makes everything from patterns loaded into the factores, why doesn't building work happen the same way? That would explain why all established Imperial planet looks alike.

Why the Gothic look? The people running the building works were probably Mechanicus of some form, or run with one involved. They are Gothic to the core. Let one of them loose on a set of building plans, and you're got vaulted arches and buttresses added onto everything.

I think Anomander's take is the one I like the most. It's not a deliberate feature, but rather convergent evolution.

I am getting some slight tooth-aches from an architectural point of view from people throwing renaissance/gothic building and baroque together.

The renaissance/gothic style came about from rediscovering geometrical principals and new inventions in stonecraft. The many columns and high arches are the most practical way to build stone buildings as tall as possible: the many breakthroughs and windows reduced the weight of the stonewalls, so they would not collapse under their own weight. Geometry and architectual principles allowed to maximize the numbers of such windows without endangering the static stability of the building.
Combined with advances in making and assembling large and colorful glass panels and mosaiques, the intended impression of "gothic" cathedrals was to create huge rooms filled with colorfull lights.

Baroque on the other hand was a very conventionalist and depressive style, mostly as a reaction to the extensive wars and plagues that had ravaged Europe. The name "Baroque" is italian for a cheap white pearl, and Baroque tries to imitate wealth rather than actually displaying it. There is a lot of gold visible, but it is only a very thin layer, applied to cheap plaster, to make it look like actually valuable material was used. Baroque themes in literature and art are a lot about ever-present death and decay and the vanity of all beauty and even life itself.

An in-game explanation for reverting to a gothic architectural style could maybe possibly be either a loss of skill to use steel, concrete and glass in building (as the logical architectural successor to the gothic attempt to build tall and with lots of windows are the steel-and-glass skyscraper of the industrial revolution and modernity until today), or more likely, a cultural disdain for concrete, steel and glass for representative buildings, most likely as a reaction to the end of the age of technology.
Steel and concrete and glass are obviously still used out of practical and military necessity, but they are no longer seen as representing a bright future. If you revert to building your cathedrals out of stone, you will end up reverting to gothic style. Not out of a cultural desire, just because gothic cathedrals maxxed out how tall you can build with pure stone.
How that makes sense for designing space-ships, I got no explanation.

Baroque influences make more sense culturally, the prevailing sense of living in a declining society after a catastrophe that can't be undone has stark parallels between the post-heresy Empire of Man and post-plague Europe.


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Maybe this has something to do with that "men of gold, men of stone, men of steel" riddle about the age of technology.
If you prioritize stone over steel, but still want to go as tall as possible, you end up with gothic architecture

And because the poster child of the setting is a space monk.

Some interesting ideas here. I do like the idea of architectural STL's. Especially for a state under such pressure as the Imperium, I don't think much effort could be put into creating new architectural forms, so just copying something that came before makes sense, with the style being a mixture of the Emperor's preferences and other influences.

I will add another piece of thought, though. The Emperor wanted to build a non-theistic state built on science and humanistic logic, so why not have his creations reflect his beliefs? To turn people towards a more staid, logical way of life, it to me makes sense that he would have built structures that reflect pure pragmatism and rationality, and not to cover everything in cherubs, gold, and rich mosaics. Also, there's the issue of his centerpiece warriors taking on ridiculous legionary names (just using the numbers would have made more sense) and power armor designs, and the Emperor himself parading himself around like a demigod with his ornate armor. It would have made far more sense to have adopted something more like a more militaristic Star Trek-like style (minus the aliens of course) so as to make a strong statement about making a sharp break with the decadent, superstitious and chaotic (in more than one way) past.

IMHO I think the Emperor wanted to recapture an an age thats had strong binds of honour and nobility. A sense of being more than the one and as a whole. Driving to one goal as a nation/Imperium. So you would need a stamp of unity that would combine the different cultures of man. One that they can easily recognise, and feel part of the whole. Which means that the stamp must mean something other than a oppressive boot.
The Emperor knew fine rightly that the gothic overtones spoke of a time before also of whorship. But he tried to change its meaning into something that uttering failed

The imperium is vast with millions of worlds. the mechanicus and its devotion to the STCs is probably why there is so much repetition n design but look at how things were during and just prior to the great crusade. prospero looked nothing like the gothic designs found on earth. neither did the fang or caliban.

many of the ships used during the great crusade were thousands of years old and predated the emperors enlightenment. so their designs were already a common theme.

 Themanwiththeplan wrote:
IMHO I think the Emperor wanted to recapture an an age thats had strong binds of honour and nobility. A sense of being more than the one and as a whole. Driving to one goal as a nation/Imperium. So you would need a stamp of unity that would combine the different cultures of man. One that they can easily recognise, and feel part of the whole. Which means that the stamp must mean something other than a oppressive boot.
The Emperor knew fine rightly that the gothic overtones spoke of a time before also of whorship. But he tried to change its meaning into something that uttering failed

Or the big E was starting to go bananas long before the Heresay and rando ancient stuff he remembered as interesting sort of leaked into humanitys collective thinking due to his space wizardyness

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I think Anomander's take is the one I like the most. It's not a deliberate feature, but rather convergent evolution.

Yea me too, his explanation sounds a lot more sensible than imitation of a time so insanely long ago that no imperial citizen could even have an inkling of what things looked like then.

@aphyon - Very true. There was a very wide range of human culture designed tech, vessels and weapons that could be found no where else but from their home worlds. Which for most, were pressed into the services of the Imperial war machine. The conquering of the throne system is a very good example of this. Though not all were conscripted as they were.
Most, I would assume, would be modifed or upgraded. Since they're the victors spoils. Which may just mean a big ass aquila stamped on the side, or a complete overhaul so as to make future battle damage easier to repair. But there a more than a few that where welcomed as is. The Phalanx is a good example of this.
Also the ad mech is a very good point. But I feel that it more to to with the golden age where the human empire shared out it's tech quite broadly. Then with it's fracturing. Some retained the knowledge better than most. It is well known that the mechanicum would raid earth for old tech hidden under the feet of an unknowing warlord/clan. So that they share a similarity in tech is not unheard of. Both empires just picked he bones of the old.

If you look at the Imperium pre-heresy it's quite practical with very minimal gothic motifs.

You see as the Imperial Cult rises, things start to get silly, as someone else said, most likely due to the Imperiums well known inefficiency of material usage.

The fashion under the Imperial Cult, was complete rejection of anything prior to the Great Crusade or Unification of Terra. Thus as mentioned elsewhere, fashion simply rejected utilitarian styles as a sign of the hated bygone ages. This initially would start with religious structures which, as AuntHerbert stated, would go back to masonry. Of which the imperial cult would like to go as high as possible due to 'Emperor in the heavens' and reuse of ancient terran angelic motifs. Over time as the Imperial Cult spreads further into the imperial heirarchy and eventually into the military, the military fashions would adopt these motifs, even to the point of being impractical.

Aka you'd see a timeline something like this

1. Imperial Cult rises and is officially allowed to exist post-heresy
2. Imperial Cult rejects practical utilitarian aesthetics as they are the result of a society that failed mankind in the past
3. Imperial Cult religious buildings naturally adopt Gothic structures due to practicality of using stone for large buildings
4. The Imperial Cult penetrates all aspects of society including the miliatry
5. The Imperial Truth eventually dies out, it's place taken in Imperial Culture by the Imperial Cult
5. Imperial Cult fashions become almost universal
6. As the worship of machine spirit rises, intermingling of the Cult Mechanicus with the Imperial Cult creates the idea that the Emperor 'is' the physical manifestation of the Omnissiah. Because of this buildings/vehicles/spaceships start to become places of worship, both because of the Imperial Cult placing importance of the tools used for the Emperors Vision, but also the Cult Mechanicus' belief surrounding worship of both the individual machine spirits and the Omnissiah. Eventually these things 'actually' become places of worship and adopt the gothic motifs fully.

 Flinty wrote:
And because the poster child of the setting is a space monk.

For a value of monk that includes 'special forces soldier,' 'knight,' and 'berserker' and started out as 'brainwiped sociopathic criminals strung out on chems'

If it came as a result of the Imperial Cult why are the Custodes so Gothic?

 Llamahead wrote:
If it came as a result of the Imperial Cult why are the Custodes so Gothic?

Good question. They started out as spearmen with pointy helmets (similar to eldar), leather pants, and nothing else.
The current iteration of Custodes looks and feels nothing like their origin point.

I'd say Custodes were certainly more greco-roman imperial (with hints of Eldar) than gothic anyway.

Admittedly gothic does like to imitate such things.

Even then, the Emperors/Terran/Pre-horus fashion seems to of been very Imperial and Gothic anyway. But you'll notice, most buildings outside of palaces.... are still practical.

No fortress monasteries, no spaceships that look like someone dropped a cathedral on them etc. Even post heresy you see many spaceship still retaining 'practical' appearances for some time.

Seeing the Custodes are a praetorian guard of sorts, it's natural they would have 'fancier' equipment alongside their rulers personal style. You still see it in Royal/Palace/Republican guards to this day.

It's because of the Ecclesiarchy, their the ones responsible for the shrine worlds, the places of worship etc, and they set the aesthetics for the rest.

Imperium designs are plain, practical, look at fortifications that lack any styles, aegis stuff, old imperial bunkers.

Now the plain stuff has skulls all over it at least or it's full Ecclesiarchy style.


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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Flip it around for a moment: Why did the High Middle Ages and Roman Catholic clergy look that way? Baroque and overdecorated Renaissance churchbuilding and clerical outfits existed because the Catholic Church was an immense multinational entity levying vast amounts of taxes across the entirety of Europe that didn't need to raise its own army to defend itself all the time. The building of big shiny edifices in the name of glorifying God was possible because of an incredibly unequal allocation of resources to a vast institution that didn't really have anything better to do with its time.

Wow +1 for your personal nonsense interjected into a fictional topic.
I'm noticing a lot of anti religious hatred here and I'm calling people out on it. Keep religion and politics out of 40k, and if you're going to talk about history you should bother to learn it.. It was a 'renaissance' for a reason .

Google it: "The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art"

Who maintained education? Studied science? Art? Literature... The Church.

Seriously we are a multicultural community online of all beliefs and ethnicity, it's just rididiclious reading your fan fiction.

Wow +1 for your personal nonsense interjected into a fictional topic.
I'm noticing a lot of anti religious hatred here and I'm calling people out on it. Keep religion and politics out of 40k, and if you're going to talk about history you should bother to learn it.. It was a 'renaissance' for a reason .

Google it: "The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art"

Who maintained education? Studied science? Art? Literature... The Church.

Seriously we are a multicultural community online of all beliefs and ethnicity, it's just rididiclious reading your fan fiction

Glad you said it, because I was thinking it. I don't think anyone wants political or religion from real life in 40k...if your wanting to have a point of view on 40k stuff then that is totally fine.


The Emperor was fundamentally flawed in his atheist point of view anyway, he assumed that if there was no religion that the chaos gods would die, which is totally false. Khorne gets power from blood being spilled, anger and war...those would all still exist. Khorne doesn't want to be worshipped anyway! He doesn't care what you believe, so long as blood is spilled and people are angry Khorne will live on. The idea of being atheist in 40k is stupid and here is why, it offers no protection at all from the warp at all without having everyone in the galaxy forget chaos exists and stop having emotions. Relgion has power in 40k look at the sisters of battle and the Living Saints..even the Tau got saved by something they created in the warp. So in my opinion the Emperor was wrong and the cult is actually one of the things saving humanity.

Seems y'all forgot that the Emperor sent billions of remembrancers to decorate the hell out of everything just before the heresy.
All the statues, paintings, mosaics, poems and stuff were multiplied a million times over during that time period.
Theres a reason Fulgrim got stuck in a painting.

 Ginsu33 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Flip it around for a moment: Why did the High Middle Ages and Roman Catholic clergy look that way? Baroque and overdecorated Renaissance churchbuilding and clerical outfits existed because the Catholic Church was an immense multinational entity levying vast amounts of taxes across the entirety of Europe that didn't need to raise its own army to defend itself all the time. The building of big shiny edifices in the name of glorifying God was possible because of an incredibly unequal allocation of resources to a vast institution that didn't really have anything better to do with its time.

Wow +1 for your personal nonsense interjected into a fictional topic.
I'm noticing a lot of anti religious hatred here and I'm calling people out on it. Keep religion and politics out of 40k, and if you're going to talk about history you should bother to learn it.. It was a 'renaissance' for a reason[...]

Sooooooo as a Christian with a love of history... Anomander's kinda right, and it certainly isn't "anti-religious hatred."

The Catholic church was a massive, rich, politically-influential organization that caused more than a little friction with kings and emperors and, ultimately, fractured as a result of its decadence and extra-biblical practices. They were the most powerful organization of their time and essentially untouchable.

However, while cathedrals were possible because of the wealth of the church, it wasn't just because they didn't have anything better to do with their time. Cathedrals (and most early churches) are built with an emphasis on the vertical, to draw the eye upwards. As architectural innovations like the flying buttress were created and perfected, it became possible to have very, very tall buildings with limited internal supports. Domes are another self-supporting structure, which is why you tend to see them in many eastern religious buildings, for a similar purpose. 40k purposefully evokes the worship of a higher power, which in many religions means literally looking up - heaven is upwards, ascension is upwards, your deity (or Emperor) is upwards.

So why religious buildings in the first place? Well, not just because they didn't need their own army and so had cash to burn - plenty of other entities had vast amounts of wealth, too. Communities rallied around their churches and especially cathedrals; it was the medieval equivalent of having your own major-league sports team. They were the center of worship and community. They were a source of pride. They were where relics were stored, where you would be baptized, where you would grow up and get married, where your funeral service would be held. They were the community center. They were the center of life. So yes, they tended to be rich, because people poured a lot of resources into them (typically willingly) to ensure they were well-appointed, God-honoring, and a fitting place to celebrate every important event in your life, your child's life, and so on - for centuries upon centuries.

So, given that GW has aped the Catholic church and its massive influence on medieval Europe for their game, it's logical that similar design philosophies would carry over as well. Given that worship of the Emperor is vital to the continued existence of the imperium, it makes sense that more and more buildings are built to evoke the same sense of wonder, to draw the eye upward and remind everyone that the God-Emperor loves and watches over all.

(Another fun fact - relics, such as the bones of saints, were so important and venerated that they went on tours to raise money.)

 Ginsu33 wrote:
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 AnomanderRake wrote:
Flip it around for a moment: Why did the High Middle Ages and Roman Catholic clergy look that way? Baroque and overdecorated Renaissance churchbuilding and clerical outfits existed because the Catholic Church was an immense multinational entity levying vast amounts of taxes across the entirety of Europe that didn't need to raise its own army to defend itself all the time. The building of big shiny edifices in the name of glorifying God was possible because of an incredibly unequal allocation of resources to a vast institution that didn't really have anything better to do with its time.

Wow +1 for your personal nonsense interjected into a fictional topic.
I'm noticing a lot of anti religious hatred here and I'm calling people out on it. Keep religion and politics out of 40k, and if you're going to talk about history you should bother to learn it.. It was a 'renaissance' for a reason .

Google it: "The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art"

Who maintained education? Studied science? Art? Literature... The Church.

Seriously we are a multicultural community online of all beliefs and ethnicity, it's just rididiclious reading your fan fiction.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. The Catholic Church preserved a lot of knowledge through the Dark Ages and maintained diplomatic relationships through a lot of Europe that did a lot of good. That doesn't mean it didn't also concentrate a huge amount of wealth in the hands of people with nothing better to do with it than overdecorate things.

I'm not here to spout off anti-religious hatred.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

The two aren't mutually exclusive. The Catholic Church preserved a lot of knowledge through the Dark Ages and maintained diplomatic relationships through a lot of Europe that did a lot of good. That doesn't mean it didn't also concentrate a huge amount of wealth in the hands of people with nothing better to do with it than overdecorate things.

I'm not here to spout off anti-religious hatred.

At least, the decorating thing kept a lot of artists in business.
In the early middle ages, common people were way too poor to even think of getting their own portrait or statue and nobles put a lot of their money into castles and armies. If you were a painter or sculptor in the year 1000, the church was basically your only client.

 Ginsu33 wrote:

Wow +1 for your personal nonsense interjected into a fictional topic.
I'm noticing a lot of anti religious hatred here and I'm calling people out on it. Keep religion and politics out of 40k, and if you're going to talk about history you should bother to learn it.. It was a 'renaissance' for a reason .

Google it: "The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art"

Who maintained education? Studied science? Art? Literature... The Church.

Seriously we are a multicultural community online of all beliefs and ethnicity, it's just rididiclious reading your fan fiction.

The Renaissance scholars heavily relied on Muslim and Byzantine sources who were the only people still openly studying both classical Latin and Greek works. The Catholic church technically had many documents but didn't really study anything to anywhere near the same level and was quite critical of that part of history. The Ottoman conquests led to migrations of Greek scholars to the Italian cities which helped kicked off the Renaissance.

In 40k the Ecclesiarchy and Imperial cult is heavily based on both the Roman Emperor god cult and the Catholic church, both of which were massive national and multinational entities that pretty much ruled and administered a vast swath of the known world (aka the imperium of man ruling most of the 'known galaxy'). Excessive economic resources with no other legitimate outlet is a well known driver of the building of large scale religious buildings in the western world and I doubt it's any different in 40k.

This discussion in effect is comparing the 'religion' and architecture in 40k to real life, you can't escape the representation of religion in 40k as much as it may rustle your feathers to discuss it.

I think there's also a case of things being like High Gothic. It's not Latin (it's mostly Spanglish, with less of the Chinese/Korean/Japanese influence that is more common in low gothic has), it's just presented as Latin because that's the closest example we have - a dead language used for formal and religious purposes.

The rest of the trappings are probably similar. A lot can happen in 38,000 years and there have been many dark ages - but to give you an idea of what the Imperium looks like to someone from the Imperium, drawing back on the medieval dark ages gives you the same feel. Dark ages for us is all ancient cathedrals and mad monks, for a planet in the 41st millenium is might be round portholes and a lot of magenta support struts.

However that just seems wierd to us, and maybe even a little too futuristic (something ten thousand years in our future is in the far distant past of the Imperium, after all) - so you go for a style that gives the right impression.