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Or is 40K strictly set in the Milky Way? Obviously the Tyranids are from another galaxy, but I mean more like factions from the Milky Way going and interacting with other galaxies, maybe even travelling to them.

I don't think its mentioned. Theoretically things lost in the warp could have emerged in another galaxy, but they don't tend to come back to report.

It's mentioned that Mechanicus probes sent out of the galaxy report back Irk chatter, hinted that the've expanded to New galaxies.

The fluff of Lord Solar Macharius, the greatest Imperial Guard commander in the history of the Imperium, mentions that his crusade came to a halt when he wished to push on beyond the galactic edge and into intergalactic space. Even though his armies had never suffered defeat, Macharius could not get them to overcome their fear of the psychic darkness beyond the edge, and he was forced to turn back. So that at least is one reason the Imperium hasn't ventured out there.

i'm pretty sure that tau are from a different galaxy

 hey801 wrote:
i'm pretty sure that tau are from a different galaxy

No. They are from a small cluster of worlds near Ultramar in the galactic south.

Tyranids are from a different galaxy.

Orks are out there and apparently most other galaxies are eaten by the 'Nids

Its unclear, 40k fluff is always in flex. However, Orks are the most likely due to age and how they travel. They well could be elsewhere. The Nids have eaten or ran from one form dozens of galaxies, we are unsure.

2x210 wrote:
Orks are out there and apparently most other galaxies are eaten by the 'Nids

What if we're the last one left...

The sole galaxy question is really just a fluff buffer for dealing with too many crazy question. For example, does the warp exist beyond the galaxy? If so, are other races fighting it? Does the aether affect the entire universe? Can someone use the warp to travel to another galaxy? Etc.

But wait, it gets worse, if we are adding multiple galaxies we have to create fluff history for those galaxies, which is complicated enough with the milky way.

Essentially, like star wars, star trek, and other great sci-fi the writers need to limit the scope of their adventure they are creating lest the truly unimaginable size of the universe overwhelms the story.

tgjensen wrote:
The fluff of Lord Solar Macharius, the greatest Imperial Guard commander in the history of the Imperium, mentions that his crusade came to a halt when he wished to push on beyond the galactic edge and into intergalactic space. Even though his armies had never suffered defeat, Macharius could not get them to overcome their fear of the psychic darkness beyond the edge, and he was forced to turn back. So that at least is one reason the Imperium hasn't ventured out there.

Ha. That's pretty badass.

"Sir, we've reached the edge of the galaxy. Shall we knock the crusade on the head?"

"No, damn it! Keep going! There's more bastards to fight in the next galaxy over!

 Hunterindarkness wrote:
Its unclear, 40k fluff is always in flex. However, Orks are the most likely due to age and how they travel. They well could be elsewhere. The Nids have eaten or ran from one form dozens of galaxies, we are unsure.

Oh? How do Orks travel that's different from other races? Something to do with their group psychic thing?

 DrownedRat117 wrote:

2x210 wrote:
Orks are out there and apparently most other galaxies are eaten by the 'Nids

What if we're the last one left...

Unlikely, because we're not on the edge of the universe. We have other galaxies surrounding us, and it's unlikely that the 'Nids would eat the surrounding galaxies and inexplicably save us for last. I'd imagine that they just go for the nearest galaxy once they're finished with the one they were in.

 buddha wrote:
The sole galaxy question is really just a fluff buffer for dealing with too many crazy question. For example, does the warp exist beyond the galaxy? If so, are other races fighting it? Does the aether affect the entire universe? Can someone use the warp to travel to another galaxy? Etc.

But wait, it gets worse, if we are adding multiple galaxies we have to create fluff history for those galaxies, which is complicated enough with the milky way.

Essentially, like star wars, star trek, and other great sci-fi the writers need to limit the scope of their adventure they are creating lest the truly unimaginable size of the universe overwhelms the story.

I don't think that acknowledging other galaxies would automatically bloat the fluff too much. They wouldn't need a ton of detail written about them, they could just be alluded to. To use the Elder Scrolls games as an example, lands beyond Tamriel are only lightly referenced in the lore. We don't really get any substantial information on them beyond a few scattered, undetailed accounts.

Even if the warp did extend outside the galaxy, the distance between them would take thousands of years even at warp.

That is what limits most sci-fi setting to one galaxy



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Troike wrote:



Oh? How do Orks travel that's different from other races? Something to do with their group psychic thing?

.

Honestly, no one really knows. They use the warp, but do so in ways Humans can not and seem not to have the same limits. Also Orks, in one form or another have been kicking around 60 million years. They have to time to go elsewhere.

Except there is no time in the Warp. Time is a feature of a material universe, it doesn't exist in places where physics don't apply. Millions of years may pass in the space outside of the Warp, but to you, you feel like it's been a few weeks, maybe months. Eventually, you just lose track of the artificial days.

There is time in the warp, but its not fixed. However the Geller field keeps the warp out of the ship..so you Do indeed feel the passage of time. It may be 1 day to 12 days of real time, of 12 days to one day of real time. But you do feel it.

There are other galaxies, and they have other beings as well as humans (in limited quanitities) out there. Some of these beings are actually a threat to the Imperium of Man, so the Imperium actually has some probes, spies, rogue traders, etc operating beyond the galactic borders. The Carcharodons are a good example of this. They're a Space Marine chapter founded specifically to keep a watch outside of the galactic border, and it's implied they recruit most of their human stock from human settlements they come across out there (or at least, speculated in-universe to be the case, if I recall correctly). Of course, in general, the IoM itself can't really seriously expand beyond the border because it exceeds the range of the astronomicon and warp travel becomes extremely hazardous at that point. The more interesting question to me is how far the warp itself (and, as a sub topic to that, the chaos gods) extends.

As the Warp is a parallel dimension it will indeed extend beyond the Milky Way Galaxy. All parallel dimensions must, but nature of being parallel, be touching each other at all points.

Well it might well be parallel, however it might also be vast difference. After all before the war in heaven, the warp was a very different place. same is true per eldar fall.

Time is onely relative to where you are. Time is not physics it is a FACT. There is always time ALWAYS time just becaue the timein the warp is differet from everywhete else. doesnt mean there isnt time.

I imagine the only way to link spaces across the galaxies in this sci-fi realm would be 'natural bridges' like wormholes or things like the Gate that links the galactic NW with the galactic SE. I can't remember of the top of my head how long it takes to travel that gate, but I want to say it is near-instant.

If that is true, similar gates between Galaxies could allow effecient enough travel to have it accomlished in a manner that would be seen as viable to even humans.

A galaxy is the largest visibly contiguous structure in the universe, and even then the gap between stars is huge. 40k seems to assume a pretty large number of life sustaining or easily terraformed worlds, so a large fraction of the hundreds of billions of planets are open for adventure and war. And heck, even barely habitable worlds are made use of, and many of the utterly lifeless worlds are tomb worlds anyway.

Not to mention 40k plays fast and loose with the laws of biology so minor xenos can spring out of worlds that should not be livable. All this means that one galaxy is plenty big. Heck, compared to a human a single planet is an unfathomably massive object.

Once you get beyond galactic scale you find that two dimensional maps, already having trouble representing planets, systems, and galaxies, are pretty much unfeasible. Direction becomes arcane, the speeds required to travel between galaxies in the relatively short times that most 40k factions can manage would make ships able to zip across our own galaxy in mere days.

And compared to a galaxy a cluster or supercluster has far, far more empty space. You may get a very, very, very occasional asteroid, star, rogue planet, or star system but to put things in perspective, intergalactic large celestial bodies are so rare you could go from one end of the universe to the other and never get anywhere near a single one.

Multiple galaxy settings can work, but it's hard to grasp, opens a lot of questions (like why just this cluster/supercluster? If they can routinely go between galaxies the next cluster over would be easy enough), our galaxy is already mind shatteringly massive, and then you would have to flesh out the other galaxies.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
It's mentioned that Mechanicus probes sent out of the galaxy report back Irk chatter, hinted that the've expanded to New galaxies.

Not at all. All those probes indicate is that there are Orks out in the inter-galactic void. There's a big difference between there being Orks beyond the halo stars and there being Orks in another galaxy altogether.

 DrownedRat117 wrote:

2x210 wrote:
Orks are out there and apparently most other galaxies are eaten by the 'Nids

What if we're the last one left...

I went to a lecture at York University by a renowned cosmologist, and he said they reckon that there are at least a trillion planets, and 100 billion habitable, Earth-like planets in the Milky Way alone.

The sheer scale of the cosmos is truly baffling, it sends me a little nuts just trying to comprehend it.

But I digress, GW obviously know little about cosmology as well because their fluff is so fethed up when they start getting up to the big numbers, but the point is, the Universe is so mind melting large, its literally impossible for the nids to have eaten "other galaxies" considering ours alone would take even 20 sextillion Tyranids a while to eat it.

If you really think about it, the "splinters" only show up in their tens of billions. There can't actually be that many tyranids really, unless the size of a tyranid fleets is truly miniscule, and that doesnt really make any sense either.

 Kain wrote:
Once you get beyond galactic scale you find that two dimensional maps, already having trouble representing planets, systems, and galaxies, are pretty much unfeasible. Direction becomes arcane, the speeds required to travel between galaxies in the relatively short times that most 40k factions can manage would make ships able to zip across our own galaxy in mere days.

And compared to a galaxy a cluster or supercluster has far, far more empty space. You may get a very, very, very occasional asteroid, star, rogue planet, or star system but to put things in perspective, intergalactic large celestial bodies are so rare you could go from one end of the universe to the other and never get anywhere near a single one.

True, true, but the setting is rife with mystical, unbelievable bullgak already. Personally I wouldn't find a one-off case some random individual or group getting communications from or even somehow being transported to another galaxy too hard to believe.

 Kain wrote:
Multiple galaxy settings can work, but it's hard to grasp, opens a lot of questions (like why just this cluster/supercluster? If they can routinely go between galaxies the next cluster over would be easy enough), our galaxy is already mind shatteringly massive, and then you would have to flesh out the other galaxies.

To use the Elder Scrolls as an example again, alluding to other "lands" doesn't necessarily invalidate the main setting. They can be very lightly referenced and not hurt the lore.

We largely don't care about delving into the other places unless the guys we already know are going there or are being affected by the other place. As long as another galaxy didn't become an important plot point and just stayed as a small, mildly interesting footnote, I doubt too many people would be asking "why just the Milky Way?"

Xyptc wrote:

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
It's mentioned that Mechanicus probes sent out of the galaxy report back Irk chatter, hinted that the've expanded to New galaxies.

Not at all. All those probes indicate is that there are Orks out in the inter-galactic void. There's a big difference between there being Orks beyond the halo stars and there being Orks in another galaxy altogether.

But as Hunterindarkness said, they've been around for a bloody long time. It's not entirely impossible to fathom that some Orks eventually made it to another galaxy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mattyrm wrote:

 DrownedRat117 wrote:

2x210 wrote:
Orks are out there and apparently most other galaxies are eaten by the 'Nids

What if we're the last one left...

I went to a lecture at York University by a renowned cosmologist, and he said they reckon that there are at least a trillion planets, and 100 billion habitable, Earth-like planets in the Milky Way alone.

The sheer scale of the cosmos is truly baffling, it sends me a little nuts just trying to comprehend it.

But I digress, GW obviously know little about cosmology as well because their fluff is so fethed up when they start getting up to the big numbers, but the point is, the Universe is so mind melting large, its literally impossible for the nids to have eaten "other galaxies" considering ours alone would take even 20 sextillion Tyranids a while to eat it.

If you really think about it, the "splinters" only show up in their tens of billions. There can't actually be that many tyranids really, unless the size of a tyranid fleets is truly miniscule, and that doesnt really make any sense either.

Yes, Tyranids eating galaxies sounds a little silly when you put it like that. Though you could take the view that there are enough 'Nids out there to do so, which would probably be the most grimdark thing in the setting, come to think of it.

Also, you have to suspend your disbelief a little for these sorts of things anyway. Basic conservation of energy ruins the 'Nid's whole schtick, but a race of space bugs dying off because they couldn't build a sustainable way of life is less interesting than a race of marauding space bugs that successfully eat planets.

A lot of people have misunderstood the Ork comment. The Mechanicus Probes have been sent across all of our galaxy, and wherever they go Orks are observed. It's not a different galaxy.

Nothing in 40k outside of the Milky Way has ever been mentioned, except the Tyranids are from another galaxy and in 3rd edition fluff the C'tan Outsider left the Galaxy at one point (but as of 5th Edition he's listed as a C'tan shard again, so that's more or less a dead storyline).

 mattyrm wrote:

 DrownedRat117 wrote:

2x210 wrote:
Orks are out there and apparently most other galaxies are eaten by the 'Nids

What if we're the last one left...

I went to a lecture at York University by a renowned cosmologist, and he said they reckon that there are at least a trillion planets, and 100 billion habitable, Earth-like planets in the Milky Way alone.

The sheer scale of the cosmos is truly baffling, it sends me a little nuts just trying to comprehend it.

But I digress, GW obviously know little about cosmology as well because their fluff is so fethed up when they start getting up to the big numbers, but the point is, the Universe is so mind melting large, its literally impossible for the nids to have eaten "other galaxies" considering ours alone would take even 20 sextillion Tyranids a while to eat it.

If you really think about it, the "splinters" only show up in their tens of billions. There can't actually be that many tyranids really, unless the size of a tyranid fleets is truly miniscule, and that doesnt really make any sense either.

Billions in a little splinter fleet, big hive fleets outnumber the stars and planets themselves, and even those are apparently absolutely puny compared to the full weight of the entire species, and the Tyranids appear to be a very ancient species, perhaps older than the Necrons themselves, billions of years old even. They have had time.

 Kain wrote:
Billions in a little splinter fleet, big hive fleets outnumber the stars and planets themselves, and even those are apparently absolutely puny compared to the full weight of the entire species, and the Tyranids appear to be a very ancient species, perhaps older than the Necrons themselves, billions of years old even. They have had time.

See this is what I'm on about, the fluff doesn't make any sense, you can tell that they don't employ any scientists.

Outnumber the planets?

There are around three trillion planets in our galaxy alone, and there are an estimated 500 billion Galaxies.

If the nids were that big, they would never be able to sustain themselves, also bear in mind the distances, they would have to eat each other before they arrived anywhere near another galaxy, because the closest one to us is 25.6 trillion miles away.

As I said, I don't know why IIt kinda winds me up, but I like movies where the characters don't do ridiculously dumb gak, and GWs awful numbers annoys me as well!

I mean, I like my ridiculous fiction to be at least somewhat believable ridiculous fiction!

Heres another statistic for you, why do they never go past the billions? They always say "billions of guardsmen" and "billions of tyranids" when current fluff stated that hives contain around 300 billion human beings, and there are a million inhabited worlds, so what.. tens of thousands of hives?

Ergo, there are what.. Trillions? Quadrillions? of human beings?

It baffles me.. but the point is, nids cant eat entire galaxies!

Im pretty sure anyway...

 mattyrm wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Billions in a little splinter fleet, big hive fleets outnumber the stars and planets themselves, and even those are apparently absolutely puny compared to the full weight of the entire species, and the Tyranids appear to be a very ancient species, perhaps older than the Necrons themselves, billions of years old even. They have had time.

See this is what I'm on about, the fluff doesn't make any sense, you can tell that they don't employ any scientists.

Outnumber the planets?

There are around three trillion planets in our galaxy alone, and there are an estimated 500 billion Galaxies.

If the nids were that big, they would never be able to sustain themselves, also bear in mind the distances, they would have to eat each other before they arrived anywhere near another galaxy, because the closest one to us is 25.6 trillion miles away.

As I said, I don't know why IIt kinda winds me up, but I like movies where the characters don't do ridiculously dumb gak, and GWs awful numbers annoys me as well!

I mean, I like my ridiculous fiction to be at least somewhat believable ridiculous fiction!

Heres another statistic for you, why do they never go past the billions? They always say "billions of guardsmen" and "billions of tyranids" when current fluff stated that hives contain around 300 billion human beings, and there are a million inhabited worlds, so what.. tens of thousands of hives?

Ergo, there are what.. Trillions? Quadrillions? of human beings?

It baffles me.. but the point is, nids cant eat entire galaxies!

Im pretty sure anyway...

This is a setting where the collection of everyone's anger has formed into a giant armored man in the middle of dreamland who craps out hordes of angry red demon people who murder people in the real world with sharpened sticks and are still seen as a legitimate threat in a universe with guns.

Physics need not apply.

 Kain wrote:

This is a setting where the collection of everyone's anger has formed into a giant armored man in the middle of dreamland who craps out hordes of angry red demon people who murder people in the real world with sharpened sticks and are still seen as a legitimate threat in a universe with guns.

Physics need not apply.

So much this...

 Traejun wrote:

 Kain wrote:

This is a setting where the collection of everyone's anger has formed into a giant armored man in the middle of dreamland who craps out hordes of angry red demon people who murder people in the real world with sharpened sticks and are still seen as a legitimate threat in a universe with guns.

Physics need not apply.

So much this...

Heretic! *BLAM* stay outta my head!

The tau could travel too a different galaxy if they wanted too.