Karak Norn Clansman wrote:
Others have responded to the Dune similarities, so I wish to highlight a particular issue in the original post:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Whereas if you cut out Space Marines, Chaos and all the alien factions you wouldn’t have much work with. Honestly, DND is way more of an inspiration.

That leaves you with the Adeptus Mechanicus, Ministorum, Arbites, Titanicus, Sororitas, Administratum, Astra Telepathica, Navis Nobilite, Officio Assassinorum, the Inquisition, Astra Militarum, Imperial Navy and Schola Progenia, to go along with a vast galaxy of dysfunctional local cultures that are all interesting because they are broken in different ways, living under alien suns and on strange worlds and void habitats, with mutations, interstellar shipping and a monstrous decline of technology and living standards. Including Necromunda.

40k is at its heart not about power armour. It is about the decline of empires, of corpse-like stagnation, ossifying regression, rampant corruption, loss of knowledge and of an endless reign of terror and fanaticism in the darkest of futures. 40k draws upon the most depraved aspects of human history to glorious effect: It is bonkers, it is a comedy wrapped in a tragedy, it began life as a satire and oft serve as its own parody.

Check out Matthew Farrer's excellent Enforcer omnibus: There is neither Adeptus Astartes, aliens nor Chaos in sight (only hinted at in passing reference and shown, not told, in connection to Warp travel and astrotelepathy). It's all Imperium. All human. All intrigue and infighting. And it's rich, bizarre and utterly fantastic, akin to a John Blanche artwork.

Forget the power fantasy for a while, and immerse yourself in the sheer ludicrous insanity of the Imperium. There is more than enough to work with creatively even without Chaos, Space Marines and aliens: Case in point on the forum. See also Kid Kyoto's excellent writings here.

Space Marines are basically the marketable space knight crowd puller which allows GW to explore other aspects of the setting even when they don't yield much revenue. They are interesting in and of themselves, but only up to a point. There is so much else on offer in 40k as a setting.

Ps. The Emperor is a virile manly stallion. Otherwise he wouldn't be a human ruler of humanity. See Sensei. Ds.

mrFickle wrote:
If we just look at the original Dune series of books here are the obvious ones for me:

The navigators that are required to use their psychic (prescient or otherwise) skills to manoeuvre safely through extra dimensional space for long distance space flights. Also flight through the warp and the idea that without navigators you can’t accurately predict where you will re enter real space. I think for me the idea of navigation is the biggest rip off from dune.

The setting, a vast galaxy of planets ruled by humans in a rather fudal style with a central seat of power, literally and emperor of emperors (padisha emperor is a more exhausted title than emperor not unlike god emperor) trying desperately to maintain power over a disparate empire where each planet is ruled over by a planetary elite that can be as kind or cruel as they see fit to a rather down trodden population.

Violence is seen as the only real way to maintain control of the galaxy. There is the spice in dune and I think GW would have gone too far if they had their own.

If you look at the art work from the film compared to early 40K artwork

Both stories have a historical setting where some kind of AI did something very bad to humans so AI is outlawed

Religion is used to control people via a central religious organisation that seeks to control the empire themselves

All tech comes from one place (mechanicum and Ixians)

In dune the idea of stagnation and how it will be the end of humans of a big thing and we have similar scenario in 40K

123ply wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Karak Norn Clansman wrote:
Others have responded to the Dune similarities, so I wish to highlight a particular issue in the original post:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Whereas if you cut out Space Marines, Chaos and all the alien factions you wouldn’t have much work with. Honestly, DND is way more of an inspiration.

That leaves you with the Adeptus Mechanicus, Ministorum, Arbites, Titanicus, Sororitas, Administratum, Astra Telepathica, Navis Nobilite, Officio Assassinorum, the Inquisition, Astra Militarum, Imperial Navy and Schola Progenia, to go along with a vast galaxy of dysfunctional local cultures that are all interesting because they are broken in different ways, living under alien suns and on strange worlds and void habitats, with mutations, interstellar shipping and a monstrous decline of technology and living standards. Including Necromunda.

40k is at its heart not about power armour. It is about the decline of empires, of corpse-like stagnation, ossifying regression, rampant corruption, loss of knowledge and of an endless reign of terror and fanaticism in the darkest of futures. 40k draws upon the most depraved aspects of human history to glorious effect: It is bonkers, it is a comedy wrapped in a tragedy, it began life as a satire and oft serve as its own parody.

Check out Matthew Farrer's excellent Enforcer omnibus: There is neither Adeptus Astartes, aliens nor Chaos in sight (only hinted at in passing reference and shown, not told, in connection to Warp travel and astrotelepathy). It's all Imperium. All human. All intrigue and infighting. And it's rich, bizarre and utterly fantastic, akin to a John Blanche artwork.

Forget the power fantasy for a while, and immerse yourself in the sheer ludicrous insanity of the Imperium. There is more than enough to work with creatively even without Chaos, Space Marines and aliens: Case in point on the forum. See also Kid Kyoto's excellent writings here.

Space Marines are basically the marketable space knight crowd puller which allows GW to explore other aspects of the setting even when they don't yield much revenue. They are interesting in and of themselves, but only up to a point. There is so much else on offer in 40k as a setting.

Ps. The Emperor is a virile manly stallion. Otherwise he wouldn't be a human ruler of humanity. See Sensei. Ds.

By being the marketable faction and being half of sales isn’t a small matter. I did not get into 40k because I read about the men of iron putting humanity into a regressive state or I thought the initial blurb was mind blowing. In fact it was only really a few years into the hobby that I understood what the Lore was about. It’s got far more to do with the ascetics of the models, the game and frankly if you’d had a similar sized store doing wargames with say Star Wars back in the 90s I would certainly have started that instead.

In fact, it’s exactly why for a few years I stopped collecting 40k and shifted to Lord of the Rings because that was when the films came out and were so iconic and amazing. Despite no grimdark. I wasn’t that fascinated by the lore that I wanted to collect an army. The one Imperial army, Sisters of Battle, that I wanted to collect at the time I didn’t because I was waiting for them to get their plastic models and that was entirely down to the look of the army. I only got back into 40k because of Tyranid and Tau releases.

If in an alternate universe you had, I dunno, a more Age of Sigmar style, WoW take on 40k I am not convinced that this would have dampened my enthusiasm for the Hobby. Especially not back when I was 10. Essentially they were the only horse in the race and once you’re brought into the hobby with your friends it carries on from that. So I am really not sold that grimdark Dune-lite is at the heart of what makes 40k. That’s really just window dressing.

And I didnt get into 40k because of space marines. They had nothing at all to do with why I got into 40k. Just because it's the only selling point to you doesnt mean it's one at all to somebody else