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I always found that the most interesting part of the fluff was the part explaining how race organise theyr society (much like the small text in the ork codex explaining that teeth are the ork currency). Do any of you could refernce books that are more based on the social aspect of 40k (for any race), rather than the military one.



thanks

The Eldar Path books might suit you, and Cain has quite a lot of sociological implications (although Cain is, as always, a somewhat delinquent take on the setting).

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The Eldar Path books might suit you, and Cain has quite a lot of sociological implications (although Cain is, as always, a somewhat delinquent take on the setting).

Though it is fair to warn you that with regards to the Eldar Path books it doesn't make a lot of sense that a dying race somehow has a post-scarcity utopian economy.

The Imperials have basically rooted out everything human about society, love friendship loyalty to anything but the state, they even mention how over time they've made the SM more asexual. Conversly the Chaos forces seem to personify human emotion but mostly the negative. The Imperials deal with death by inventing a fasle heaven, wile the forces of chaos just make themselves numb to the whole idea of death.

... or a real heaven. The Warp works in mysterious ways.

 streetsamurai wrote:
I always found that the most interesting part of the fluff was the part explaining how race organise theyr society (much like the small text in the ork codex explaining that teeth are the ork currency). Do any of you could refernce books that are more based on the social aspect of 40k (for any race), rather than the military one.

thanks

There's good stuff in the Gorkamorka Uvver Book re Orks as a follow up to the Codex. Some of it is debatable re current canon due to it being released at the time of 2nd Ed (I think) and of course, some of it is irrelevant to mainline 40k given the setting but it does give a lot of background type stuff, and covers the fungal growth aspect of Ork development very well indeed.

There is also a fantastic story well worth reading in the very old Epic Titan Legions book Codex Titanicus (from which a small excerpt is given in the current Ork Codex) that shows the effects of the construction of Gargants and how Orks on a world band together to form a Waaagh. I liked it so much that I'm naming my army characters after the various protagonists.

Ironclad Warlord wrote:
The Imperials have basically rooted out everything human about society, love friendship loyalty to anything but the state,

This isn't true at all.

The Imperium couldn't care less about how you live your life as long as you follow these rules.

1) Worship the Emperor and obey his proxies

2) Pay the tithe


The Imperium is a brutal regime, but they aren't a micromanaging one either.

This isn't an Orwellian society with everything under surveillance. There is room for diversity at the planetary level.

Imperial planets run the full gambit of government structures. Each has a Governor to oversee Imperial law, but the official requirements of the position don't extend beyond the Tithe and maintaining a PDF. the Governor can have more power at his discretion.

He could run a brutal dictatorship, or he could be totally hands off and let the locals govern themselves under a democracy as long as they pay the tithe and worship the Emperor.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Governor#.Uw2H7oU2eEE

This shows that governors have immense leeway in how the actual day to day affairs of the planet are run.

Plenty of Imperial planets wouldn't be so bad from our point of view. Some could be positive utopias.

Although in theory the Imperium does not care so long as tithes are met and basics of Emperor worship are adhered to, in practice there may be a deliberate (or not) selection effect simply from the scale of tithes imposed.

The Imperium might be imposing tithes that worlds can only meet regularly if they adopt more authoritarian or brutal methods of government, that is not beholden to the will of the local people. Thus the Imperium may not directly mandate dictatorships or hereditary rule, but over time, the ability of popular democratic or representative republican governments to meet tithes over generations may be less, resulting in their gradual replacement in favor of more reliable governments. For example, the RPG Dark Heresy even had an NPC antagonist who was an Imperial governor that cared for his people. Only problem was the Imperium demanded tithes that could only be met through massive new resource exploitation that would have devastated the environment and the people's standard of living, so the Imperial governor chose to side with his people. Presumably if he were to be defeated, a new governor would be installed, one who would be more willing to oppress the people to meet the tithe demand.

For some of these planets that are not directly at war, the Imperium may be an abstract concept, even more so if it is a lower tech world with poor understanding of the galaxy and technology. For these worlds, the Imperium may have little meaning or presence in the everyday lives of the planetary population except as an almost religious ideal to pay lip service to, and as the occasional recipient of tithes. For worlds that are prosperous or under heavy tithe obligations, a feeling of resentment may build if it seems all their hard work is just being appropriated by arrogant people from the sky that show up every so often.

Think about how you might feel for example if your world was humming along, and the people show up to take their tithe of resources and manpower. Suddenly your world is plunged into economic depression and hardship, and a large segment of a generation might be effectively wiped out as they are taken, never to return. Large numbers of families will never see their loved ones again and the material goods of life may be in short supply after these people whom you've never seen before, who don't understand your culture, who may look very different and speak very strangely, just take the fruits of your labor. And for what? For some distant war at a place you've never heard of nor care about, or just simply as the claimed due of a distant institution that has certainly never intervened personally at your level.

Think further about what if the tithing was less frequent. The tithing might just be a legend and not something ever experienced in your generation, in any living, or perhaps even recorded memory. Imagine how you would feel if someone you don't know about suddenly shows up claiming they are your absentee landlord and want their payment. Perhaps some cultures preserve their memories of the tithing time as a legendary period of sorrow, disaster, or famine as they deal with the results afterwards.

So if such worlds had governments that actually had popular representation, somehow held accountable to the population, or otherwise cared for the people, it is quite reasonable to think they might at some point decide their interests would be better served by retaining the fruits of their labor. Then if they are crushed by Imperial retribution, they would be replaced by a new Imperial sponsored government that cared more about the tithe. Again over many generations of such gradual selection, the number of feudal, oligarchic, dictatorial governments might rise while more representational regimes might diminish, resulting in an Imperium where such popular rule is more the exception than the rule.

Titanicus By Dan Abnett has snippets of common living in a hive world before it is invaded. Good book and might give you some ideas.

This isn't an Orwellian society with everything under surveillance.

Have you read anything by George Orwell? In 1984 not everyone was under surveillance, not the prols at the bottom, and not the inner party members at the top. Its the same in the Imperium, you live on some copper age world or in the sewer of some hive no one cares what you believe, if your an Astarte or a member of the Inquisition your allowed a certain amount of Heresy, I imagine though if your a skilled worker in an Imperial munitions factory you guard what you say quite well.

Oh and considering that in one book they mentioned that children read books showing heretics being burned and no one says "this is f@cking weird reading material for kindergarteners". I imagine that if one of the kids didn't go along with it they and their whole family would have been the people they use as fuel for making the life eater virus.

Ironclad Warlord wrote:

This isn't an Orwellian society with everything under surveillance.

Have you read anything by George Orwell?

It was merely an exaggeration to make a point.

The Imperium isn't actively doing much of what people might imagine a draconian police state might do. To the vast majority of its citizens, the Imperium is a far off all powerful authority with little actual impact on their lives. Imperial Governors are the ones running the day to day affairs, and how that is run is dependent on the Governor's whim.

As I said in the previous post, the Governor's whim influenced by the hanging threat of removal if he fails to meet whatever the tithe is set at. If the tithe is set at a punishing level, the Governor is going to have to squeeze the populace to preserve his own position. And since the Imperium is pressed militarily and is described as in a perpetual state of war (or supporting other warzones), then it is hard to imagine the tithe to be set at anything other than punishing levels.

Grey Templar is right.

Also, Imperium is huge. Like HUGE. There are thousands of worlds with very, very different cultural societes and political backgrounds. Even with Imperium in the leading positions worlds are different. Just believe in Emperor, be obedient citizen (no, heresy mumbo jumbo, no revolution) and after that - it depends on local goverment/ ruler/ society.

Good example is ride through Sabbat World with Abnett and Gaunt's Ghosts.

Iracundus wrote:
As I said in the previous post, the Governor's whim influenced by the hanging threat of removal if he fails to meet whatever the tithe is set at. If the tithe is set at a punishing level, the Governor is going to have to squeeze the populace to preserve his own position. And since the Imperium is pressed militarily and is described as in a perpetual state of war (or supporting other warzones), then it is hard to imagine the tithe to be set at anything other than punishing levels.

The Tithe is set at whatever level the planet can sustainably provide. It also is tweaked to what the planet can provide. Planet X might provide large quantities of food, while Planet Y provides valuable minerals, and Planet Z provided Imperial Guard regiments.

The Imperium wants that tithe coming in indefinitely. They have a vested interest in making sure it doesn't cripple the planet.

These are the various tithe levels. We don't have any numbers for them, but as you can see they have differing levels for different amounts of production.

Aptus Non
Solutio Tertius
Solutio Prima
Solutio Extremis
Decuma Particular
Exactis Tertius
Exactis Prima
Exactis Particular
Exactis Extremis
Experima


The Imperium is brutally practical and looks at long things in the long term. They will never tax a planet into the dust because it would squander the long term benefits.

Grey Templar is right.

Even with Imperium in the leading positions worlds are different. Just believe in Emperor, be obedient citizen (no, heresy mumbo jumbo, no revolution)

But the Imperium also has such a broad definition of heresy, in some of the material heresy is just saying that an Inquisitors course of action is wrong, or pointing out a truth about the enemy that is seen as dangerous, or being the only human to escape the dark elder, yea this is North Korea, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan in space fighting a perpetual war with blood god worshipers and aliens who see humans for food.

Ironclad Warlord wrote:

Grey Templar is right.

Even with Imperium in the leading positions worlds are different. Just believe in Emperor, be obedient citizen (no, heresy mumbo jumbo, no revolution)

But the Imperium also has such a broad definition of heresy, in some of the material heresy is just saying that an Inquisitors course of action is wrong, or pointing out a truth about the enemy that is seen as dangerous, or being the only human to escape the dark elder, yea this is North Korea, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan in space fighting a perpetual war with blood god worshipers and aliens who see humans for food.

In turth, comparisons are always weak and limping (and for the Emperor's sake what has NK, Third Reich and Imperial Japan common in matter of social structures? Come on, this is more complex). When we are talking about thousands of worlds, you can use such comparison to one, two, few worlds, but problem is vastness of the IoM. Some worlds will be like North Korea, some like USSR, some USA, some Holy Roman Empire in 18th century... There is always goverment (ruling class) control and obedience to Imperial Truth, but thats all.

what has NK, Third Reich and Imperial Japan

The toleration of dissent similar to North Korea and eugenic obsession similar to 3rd Reich or Imperial Japan.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
As I said in the previous post, the Governor's whim influenced by the hanging threat of removal if he fails to meet whatever the tithe is set at. If the tithe is set at a punishing level, the Governor is going to have to squeeze the populace to preserve his own position. And since the Imperium is pressed militarily and is described as in a perpetual state of war (or supporting other warzones), then it is hard to imagine the tithe to be set at anything other than punishing levels.

The Tithe is set at whatever level the planet can sustainably provide. It also is tweaked to what the planet can provide. Planet X might provide large quantities of food, while Planet Y provides valuable minerals, and Planet Z provided Imperial Guard regiments.

The Imperium wants that tithe coming in indefinitely. They have a vested interest in making sure it doesn't cripple the planet.

These are the various tithe levels. We don't have any numbers for them, but as you can see they have differing levels for different amounts of production.

Aptus Non
Solutio Tertius
Solutio Prima
Solutio Extremis
Decuma Particular
Exactis Tertius
Exactis Prima
Exactis Particular
Exactis Extremis
Experima


The Imperium is brutally practical and looks at long things in the long term. They will never tax a planet into the dust because it would squander the long term benefits.

You still fail to be getting the point. Sure tithes are tweaked to the planet, but tweaked to the maximum each planet can provide. A highly productive hive world will have a correspondingly higher tithe, and a marginal agri-world lower, but the burden on the populace may be similar, though the absolute amount of the tithe will be different. Do you get that? If a planet can provide 1,000,000 widgets it may be taxed 900,000 widgets. Another planet that can provide 1,000 melons might be taxed 900 melons. The absolute amount is different, as represented by the tithe grades, but the 90% of the production is still being taxed. Sure there might be some slight variation so there isn't literally exactly identical burden for every single planet, but the overall effect is similar (i.e. nose to the grindstone).

The Imperium squeezes each planet close to the limit of what each planet can provide whether that be in manpower, manufactured goods, or in agricultural products. Where planets have no general resources or only a select specific item of interest, that is when the Exactis Particular segment above is used. If for whatever reason a planet should improve its general standard of living or quality of life, the Imperium would probably raise its tithe duties correspondingly instead of letting the population (as a whole) live luxurious or comfortably. Even the occasional resort planets can be viewed as an example of this as their services and catering to the pampered nobles or Administratum officials can be seen as their tithe, with the rest of the population living as a servant underclass.

And you are wrong about never overtaxing a planet. They do exactly that due to a variety of reasons, whether collection of back tithes, administrative errors, or simple assessment that the planet can provide more. I already gave an example from Dark Heresy of exactly such a situation, where revolt was triggered by demands that would have devastated the planet. The planet Typha-IV from Tactica Aeronautica is described as suffering full ecological collapse to the point of being rendered lifeless within a century from the effects of rapid industrialization and pollution from extensive extraction of resources to pay the tithe. So there is canonical evidence disproving your assertion. The Imperium can and has taxed planets to the point of collapse before.

The Imperium is sociologically very different from modern society. There is a large underclass of laborers or peasants, a tiny virtually non-existent middle class (mostly either craftsmen providing luxury goods for the upper class and some merchants with wealth but lower in status than the upper class), and then the upper class which is usually portrayed as some form of nobility. A consumer society is not shown to be existing. The nobles might have some conspicuous consumption, some craftsmen or merchants might live comfortably on either trade or crumbs from the nobles, but the rest of the population lives a largely subsistence existence.

Good book and might give you some ideas.

I haven't read it. Is hivelife bleak or almost livable? In all the novels I've read life is unbearable, full of violence, crime, police brutality, oppressive religion, and acid rain that literally is acid and will melt your skin.

So it's like living in LA or Detroit then?

No more like Victorian England in space.

Life on a hive world depends on how high up you are.

The richer you are, the higher up the spire you live, the cleaner your air and the better your food.

Workers would live closer to the surface (which can still be kilometres above the GROUND level.)

Ironclad Warlord wrote:

what has NK, Third Reich and Imperial Japan

The toleration of dissent similar to North Korea and eugenic obsession similar to 3rd Reich or Imperial Japan.

Yeah, you just made "sociological material" topic into half of world. Racial predisposition judgment and eradication of dissent is typical for sooooo many states and societes in last century, its pretty much meaningless comparison.

Based on the descriptions of Hive worlds from various sources of Fluff, I find it close to impossible that the Imperium could possibly have survived as long as it has. If you look at our own planet, we've been industrialised for what? Under 2 centuries? And for a good portion of that, huge portions of the populations lived in much less industrialised countries than the most advanced. In that small amount of time we have used up nearly all of our natural resources, if no change is made to the way we consume and fail to conserve, we won't have enough to sustain our population and it will drop significantly.

In 40k, the imperium and Mechanicum have must vaster production scales and use far more intensive mining processes. The only way that they could sustain this system of colonising a planet, then choking it's atmosphere with pollution, burning through all of it's natural resources, would be if they were a purely nomadic race like the Tyranids or Orks.

It's stated that Agri-worlds are used to feed surrounding systems, this is also unfeasible, as it's a huge waste of energy resources to ship food from one world to another, rather than just maintaining a population size that can feed itself on one world. With the amount of miliary spending and use of resources that the Imperium is forced to use, this process would be even more inefficient and unsustainable. Outside of Ultramar, I would genuinely be shocked if it was remotely within the realms of possibility to maintain such an Empire.

Lack of innovation would also contribute to it's death. Without new technology evolving with the populations, the methods to keep a society functional would quickly be outdated and would gradually fail to meet the needs of a growing population.

In short, as with most things in 40k, it's not worth imagining how things would function for real because quite simply...they wouldn't.

 KorPhaeron77 wrote:

It's stated that Agri-worlds are used to feed surrounding systems, this is also unfeasible, as it's a huge waste of energy resources to ship food from one world to another, rather than just maintaining a population size that can feed itself on one world. With the amount of miliary spending and use of resources that the Imperium is forced to use, this process would be even more inefficient and unsustainable. Outside of Ultramar, I would genuinely be shocked if it was remotely within the realms of possibility to maintain such an Empire.

Maybe the Land Crawler and Grox are just THAT damn good at producing food.