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The challenge here is to write something for a non-fan -- that is, someone who has never heard of 40K before -- that conveys the essentials of the setting thoroughly enough they get the gist, quickly enough that they won't get bored, and maturely enough that they won't fall out of their chair laughing and injure themselves. (E.g. "....an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods," what?).

To start things off, here's my (Sororitas-focused) attempt, which actually weighs in at 198 words:

It is the 41st Millennium A.D. Life sucks.
Civilization rose and fell and rose and fell again. Now ignorant trillions eke out a medieval existence with the sputtering remnants of their ancestors' high technology. The immortal God-Emperor of Mankind has been in a coma for the last ten thousand years. In the absence of their autocrat, the bureaucrats of a million worlds grind on blindly, stamping forms as the galaxy burns. Alien invaders, human rebels, and sheer ineptitude doom more planets every day.
To protect against the first two, at least, the Imperium has a range of occasionally cooperating security forces, from psychic Inquisitors and genetically upgraded Space Marines to the expendable grunts of the Imperial Guard.
Unique among these many militaries are the Sisters of Battle, the armored nuns of the Imperial state religion. In a galaxy of aliens, mutants, cyborgs, and steroidal supermen, the Sisters show what sheer faith and courage can achieve. They are also all recruited from orphanages at age 12, and half of them are dead by 29.
There are three kinds of Sisters of Battle: the very young, the very good, and the very, very dead. These stories are about all three.

I originally wrote this as an intro to my Novice Ginevra stories -- the age 12 thing comes from this thread, the age 29 thing comes from my own rather optimistic calculation of attrition rates -- but it's easily customizable for other Imperial factions. Just swap out the last two paragraphs, with, say

The Marines are the superhuman SWAT teams of the Imperium. Recruited from mankind's best specimens, rebuilt from the DNA up in a process only some survive, and armed with everything from chainsaws to laser cannon, they come down from their starships like a hammer on the foe. One Marine can outfight a dozen mortal men -- but in a galaxy on the brink, they're outnumbered a million to one. So they race where they're most needed and pray the rest of the line will hold. Knights in high-tech armor, they're humanity's last hope, even though they're hardly human anymore.

Etc. etc. for everything from the Imperial Knights to the Planetary Defense Forces (poor bastards).

Obvious question: Why write a new intro for 40k, when there's so much already out there? Why not use, say, the famous "For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile...," the 7th edition's "It is a dark and desperate age," or at least the unavoidable "ONLY WAR" tagline? Well, because
(1) my take on the 40k universe is more grim snarkiness than grim darkness,
(2) the standard summaries tend to be too fething long, and
(3) frankly some of them are, uh, too silly. (See "eternity of carnage and slaughter and laughter" above).

The galaxy burns in the fires of war. The genetically engineered tools of humanity and the Old Ones butcher each other as the dark forces of Chaos threaten to plunge the galaxy into darkness. The enemies of the Old Ones and invaders from outside the galaxy slaughter each other by the millions, and are slaughtered in turn, as the galaxy crumbles into nothing but blood and ash. World burn by the thousands, and billions of humans die every day, nothing but dust and figures as the galaxy crumbles.

A small flame burns against the darkness- so small that even the mention of it threatens to extinguish it... but hope will prevail. The Tau will prevail... for if they fail, there will be nothing left- of feeling, of humanity... of life.

They were damned.

Not by chance of fate, but by existence. From the second he was torn from the womb of his mother, he was fated to be destroyed. They all were. No mercy was to be found in this besieged galaxy. Upon the awakening of a sentient mind, the sentence was death- and not the slow demise of age. This existence was not a benevolent. By existence one was fated to be slaughtered by the uncountable aliens that besieged humanity on all fronts from every conceivable dimension and thirsted for nothing more than the obliteration of mankind. The threats were not limited to the innumerable aliens that thirsted for the blood of humanity- but eldritch beings from the incomprehensible unreality to infect and corrupt existence itself.

He looked up at the wall and saw the list of a thousand names. His family’s house since the forging of the Imperium ten millennia ago. A thousand picts of violet eyed men stared back at him, their dates of enlistment and death listed under them. Lieutenants, Sergeants, even Generals stared into his unscarred face of youth with proud leers of service- all compelling him to serve. It wasn’t a choice of course, enlistment was mandatory, but there were… other ways out of service. But no man or woman of Cadia would make such a choice. It was called enlistment because as of yet not a single Cadian had refused to join. Humanity survived by the blood of martyrs, and he would do his meager part to protect his species and Emperor.

He knew he would not survive. Cadians did not retire from the Imperial Guard, and they did not expect to survive service. Every man, woman, and child of Cadia would die with a gun in their fist and a scream of defiance on their tongue. Like his forefathers before him, he left a child to take his place in the house while he marched to inevitable death. Mankind would never die quietly. The Imperium would weather the eternal war, those who besieged the human host would be destroyed- man would not falter. He knew the cost of serving, but he also knew that by his blood he would buy one more day for man to live on.

Like all those before him, he would bleed himself dry.
For the Imperium
For the Emperor
For Mankind

Wrote this up. I'm not proud of it, it's terrible, but it's the best I could do in a short amount of time. An bollocks, I can't edit the alignment of it so I can center it so it looks purty.

The galaxy is now a shadow of its former glory. Worlds once united under the Imperium of Man are beginning to crumble and descend in to chaos. The once-great emperor of mankind now sits entombed and is worshipped as a god. His great empire, split by a traitorous event caused half of his force of genetically enhanced super soldiers (space marines) to follow the dark gods, the Gods of Chaos. That was 10,000 years ago. It is now the year 40,000. Today those loyal to the emperor fight on, questioning anything and everyone that doesn’t support the god-emperor and killing anything not human. Alien incursions, chaotic daemons, and traitors try to destroy what is left of the Imperium of man, but they fight. The loyal Space Marines, the Sisters of Battle and the ever-present Imperial Guard put their lives on the line to prevent the inevitable destruction of humanity.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

Basically, standard fantasy setting in space. Humans, Orks, Elves (well, they're called eldar), alien bees, undead robots and blue gnomes called Tau. They all hate each other, but the really nasty thing is that there's another faction called Chaos who steal everyone else's troops for their own ends and generally want to do whatever the like. Oh, and everyone is evil. Like, everyone.

"Imagine a combination of the Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo universes and then inject a ridiculous amount of graphic violence into it."

(Yes, I know it was Blizzard that ripped off GW)

Dark Fantasy set in space.

Done in 5

If your attention span is so short, this is not for you.

Done in 12.

 SisterSydney wrote:
and maturely enough that they won't fall out of their chair laughing and injure themselves. (E.g. "....an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods," what?).

In all honesty, I would just go with that. It's been on page 1 of every rulebook for a reason and explains everything.

Anyway, I like the 'laughter of thirsting gods' line. I think it really brings home how nihilistic the universe is.

Just the basic facts, keeping away from in-universe terms and so forth:

"As you might have guessed, it's the 41st Millennium. Humanity has formed the Imperium, a massive interplanetary dictatorship, after learning to travel through the Warp. The Warp is an alternate dimension that allows faster-than-light travel but is also inhabited by psychic monsters known as Chaos Daemons. Chaos wants to destroy the galaxy, the Imperium wants to dominate it, and while all this is going on there are numerous alien races with their own agendas. Everyone's always at war with each other, every faction is run by tyrants and warmongers and it's generally not a nice place to visit."

98 words.

Sorry, cannot help it.

Marines space marines astartes more marines grey marines blue marines red marines blood marines wolf marines murder marines chaos marines rainbow warrior marines even more marines. EldarOrkTauDarkEldarImperialGuardNecronsDaemons. Space marines that are so different from every other marines that they have exclusive flyers. sistersofbattle See Horus Heresy spinoff for even more Space Marines!

I gotta go with the original. As a way of introducing someone to the setting and the vibe, it gets the job done, and it gets it done right. It hearkens back to the old Realms of Chaos supplements, it makes a nod to the Chaos of Michael Moorcock, it clearly separates itself from other sci-fi/sci-fantasy settings with its statements regarding technology and progress. Of all the things written for 40K, the "opening scrawl" is one of the best, most concise pieces.

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries, the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and the master of a million worlds by the might of His inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that He may never truly die.

Yet, even in this deathless state, the Emperor continues His eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in His name on countless worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades-in-arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defense forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus of Mars, to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim, dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter to the mocking laughter of thirsting gods.

I'm really happy with the range of responses this prompt has gotten so far, from the Wyzilla's excellent intro to the Cadians*, to Hybrid Son's taking the piss of GW's Astartaphilia, to Koooaei's WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH, to Psienesis's reminder of why the "carnage & slaughter to the mocking laughter" bit has its awesome side.

I highlight Wyzilla's mini-fic because, better than any other offering in the thread (my own included), it addresses one of my problems with "carnage & slaughter & laughter" and much other 40K fluff: that is, the scale of the setting is so huge that you lose sight of actual identifiable characters, like Wyzilla's Cadian. (No, the Emperor doesn't count as a "character" in that passage, he's a godlike power devoid of personality).

Yes, the setting is meant to be dehumanizing -- "whatever happens, you will not be missed" -- but I think it's much easier for a reader (being human) to get if the POV is that of a sympathetic human character looking up at the overwhelming darkness, rather than a POV looking down from 50,000 feet at the insignificant little dots called people.

Which reminds me of the merry-go-round scene from Orson Welles' The Third Man, which I can't find a clip of...but what makes that scene work is Orson Welles talking to the audience stand-in about the insignificant dots.

Also

Animus wrote:

Dark Fantasy set in space.

Done in 5 4

I do this not to be a dick (though I kind of am) but to illustrate two cardinal principles of writing: Everything needs editing, regardless of length or ambition, and no matter how short it is, you can (almost) always make it shorter.


* Wyzilla, it's not "terrible" at all, dude, it just needs editing. D'you know how many times I wrote my little 198 word blip before posting? In your case I think you'd do well to excise a few sentences from the intro paragraph that get a little grandiose/abstract so you can get to the individual POV quicker.

I can't guarantee this is the "mature" version you're looking for. But it's definitely the most accurate and succinct.


"So imagine this.

It’s basically the year 41,000, and humanity controls most of the galaxy and this Imperium ruled by an immortal psychic emperor who is confined to this life support chair. He’s in the life support chair because ten thousand years ago, he build a bunch of super soldiers called Space Marines, and half of them were spoiled brats and rebelled. The rebellious ones got tricked into worshipping some evil gods called Chaos. Chaos lives in this place called the Warp, which is an alternate dimension that allows faster than light travel, but of course it’s all crazy. So the Emperor acts as a beacon that other humans who have developed special psychic powers can follow.

These days, to keep the Space Marines from rebelling and messing up everyone’s stuff, they’re all warrior monks and can’t have more than 1,000 guys in a unit. Except the Space Wolves and Black Templars who try to cheat by having extra guys. Space Wolves are like Space Vikings with long hair and they ride wolves and it’s every bit as stupid as that sounds. Black Templars are like Space Doritos. Crunch all you want, we’ll make more.

There’s also a regular Space Army called the Imperial Guard (or the Astra Militarum but that sounds stupid), but in a universe full of Space Marines, who cares about regular army guys? They have a lot of tanks and artillery though, which is cool. They get moved around by a Space Navy.

The Imperium is a vast a corrupt bureaucratic nightmare and a lot of the time, the left hand isn’t even aware the right hand exists. A galactic Space Church tries to be all Spanish Inquisition on everyone. A bunch of Space Secret Police called The Inquisition (not to be confused with the Space Church; these are different jerks) look for signs of people who worship chaos, or aliens, or something other than the Emperor.

In addition to Chaos, the universe has a bunch of aliens for the Space Marines to kill. Eldar which are Space Elves (there are also evil Space Elves into bondage). Tau which live like Huxley’s Brave New World and drive Space Anime Robots. Orks which are like watching the Mad Max movies, but with cockney accents. Tyranids which are like Starcraft Zerg, even though they came before the Zerg. And Necrons which are Egyptian-themed Space Terminators."

Skulls

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
the Imperium is a vast a corrupt bureaucratic nightmare and a lot of the time, the left hand isn’t even aware the right hand exists....

Love this.

In the year 30,000 humanity is at its Zenith with a massive empire spread throughout the galaxy. Humanity is led by a psychic emperor who is nearly a god and his bretheren the Space Marines, the finest human warriors technology, genetic engeneering and time could produce.

Then it all came crashing down as the dark gods of chaos tempted and corrupted the greatest heros of humanity. They betrayed the emperor and plunged the empire into 10,000 years of war, death, destruction and unimaginable hoplessness and brutality.

The emperor was mortally wounded, but is kept alive by the continual sacrifice of thousands of psychers. He is a psychic beacon that allows travel to the distant stars and the only god humanity can worship.

As the empire collapses from within because of superstition, fear of technological advances and lack of leadership, it is beset by countless foes. The tyranid vanguard has arrived from another galaxy where they devoured all life and consumed all resources, and they have arrived to devour this galaxy like so many they have devoured before. The necrons, robotic warriors of a long dormant technologically superior race are awakening throughout the galaxy. The orks fight and kill for the simple love of brutality and spring up like fungii everywhere. The enigmatic eldar whose empire once ruled the galaxy now cling to survival on a few scattered planet sized spacecraft cunningly manipulating events to suit their purposes while their depraved cousins appear from nowhere to sieze victims to torture. The young Tau have just begun interstellar travel and have wondrous technology, but their numbers are so few that their expansion may be doomed before it starts. Chaos feeds on the turmoil, grows stronger and continues to threaten humanity from within and without.

Though humanity appears doomed, its bravest warriors fight on. Trillions die in constant war, but are continuously replaced. There appears no hope for survival, but they fight on...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mark II

Humanity is doomed!

The orks are everywhere and the only thing they care about is killing and fighting as much as possible. Even when you kill them they come back again.

The tyranids have eaten a whole bunch of galaxies and now they have started arriving in this one and have started trying to eat it. There are way too many of them to stop.

The necrons are robots that can't be killed because they can regenerate their living metal bodies. They are scattered all over the galaxy, have better tech than anyone and though they were dormant they are starting to wake up and be a real problem.

Compared to those forces the other enemy entities aren't as daunting. The Eldar are about to go extinct and irritate everyone with their schemeing and manage to make things very difficult when they manipulate others to fight their wars for them. They have twisted kin called the Dark Eldar who are always trying to capture slaves to torture.

The Tau have great technology, but are a tiny race and would be easy to wipe out if there was time to get around to it.

It would be nice to say that humanity is wonderful, but basically human life has no value. Thousands are sacrificed to keep the emperor alive even though all he is now is a glorified lighthouse. And trillions are fed into the meatgrinder of conflicts throughout the galaxy, their deaths are meaningless. Some forces run around looking for traitors everywhere and they find them everywhere even if there aren't any. Same goes for the people running around telling everyone else to worship the lighthouse.

And then there is Chaos that just likes trying to corrupt everyone and feeds off all the misery, fighting, death and other problems the universe is facing. And it is their fault that the glory days of the human empire are gone forever.

Imperium pew pew.

It is the 41st Millennium, the God Emperor, protector of mankind sits upon his throne, carrion lord of an Empire, The Imperium.

Beset upon all sides by countless foes, its populace ready to meet them in never ending war. From the enigmatic Eldar to the ever thirsty for battle Orks, the Imperium rises to challenge those that would see its demise.

But there are foes that are not so apparent and traitors lurk amongst the Imperium's midst looking to bring down its fall from within.

Who will YOU choose?!

There is only war.

Space Vikings fight Space Egyptians. The Space Vikings drink all the time but they can't get drunk, because they are in the future and are super people. That's all.

Take everything you've heard of and put it space. And now make everything so grimdark that it makes Sin City look like a children's cartoon. That's 40k in a nutshell.

Desperation. Endless war with countless casualties. Horrible deaths of billions every damn day. Corruption and mutation. You're never safe. NEVER. When one threat is dealt with, you wipe the blood and guts of your comrades from your face, rest a day and face another deadly threat. When you deal with it, someone gives in to insanity and stabs your comrade in the back and starts dismembering and eating him laughing histerically. You shoot the mad man in the face.

An ork slaps together scrap metal and accidentally creates a clanking machine that can propell stuff through a parallel dimension. When his band invades your homeplanet and the combat starts he eagerly targets your squad, pulls a trigger and the machine sucks it's inventor inside and shooting him instead of ammo. He arrives amid your ranks a second later - green brute 2 meters high and wide and starts running around screaming, butchering everyone and shooting in random directions. The ork is happy.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
The galaxy burns in the fires of war. The genetically engineered tools of humanity and the Old Ones butcher each other as the dark forces of Chaos threaten to plunge the galaxy into darkness. The enemies of the Old Ones and invaders from outside the galaxy slaughter each other by the millions, and are slaughtered in turn, as the galaxy crumbles into nothing but blood and ash. World burn by the thousands, and billions of humans die every day, nothing but dust and figures as the galaxy crumbles.

A small flame burns against the darkness- so small that even the mention of it threatens to extinguish it... but hope will prevail. The Tau will prevail... for if they fail, there will be nothing left- of feeling, of humanity... of life.

The Tau are the race whose POV is most different from all the others, so they'd definitely need a unique intro. I can't help think of them more like this, though:

In the war-torn darkness of planet T'au, there came a light, bringing hope, peace, and unity: the Ethereals! Now, in the war-torn darkness of a divided galaxy, the Tau Empire blazes forth! To liberate all from ignorance, factionalism, and war -- by persuasion where we can, by force where we must!
Five castes work together like the fingers of a single righteous and harmonious fist!
Water Caste - diplomats lead the way!
Air Caste - our starfleets fill the skies!
Fire Caste - our armies fight for peace!
Earth Caste - building peerless weapons!
Ethereal Caste - commanding mind and spirit!
Together we bring enlightenment and unity to the warring races of the galaxy: Savage Kroot! Insectile Vespids! Barbaric Humans! All are welcome as third- or even second-class citizens in our glorious and prosperous Empire! To cast off millennia of stagnant superstition, racial prejudice, and futile war! To fight beside us as honored auxiliaries in the liberation of the galaxy!
Glorious Third Sphere Expansion, go! Every Tau ship, take off -- for great justice and the Greater Good!

So half shonen fighting anime and half creepy Imperialist Japanese propaganda.

Money Whore

What if everything that could go wrong did?

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Take everything you've heard of and put it space. And now make everything so grimdark that it makes Sin City look like a children's cartoon. That's 40k in a nutshell.

This is a favorite of mine. I once tried to explain to someone who had only had his soft intro to the 40k universe the day before or something what the Sister of Battle were, and it came out as space- nuns.

Also, this one time I tried explaining the entire Horus Heresy to a friend who hadn't even heard of Warhammer 40k. He was just a little confused when I told him that the 20- or -more book -long series I had told him about was the *back story* to the setting for a miniatures game.

Heh. References are tricky. My test audience here is my wife, who's interested in my fanfiction but whose deepest immersion in scifi/fantasy is watching the extended cut of The Lord of the Rings. She doesn't know what Sin City, Warcraft, and Diablo are, and I'd have to tell her Starcraft was that one loudly bleeping space wargame I played back before we had kids. So I could do "Lord of the Rings in space only everything is terrible, even the elves" (to which she'd saw, "aww! I love the elves!"), but that's as much as I could use references for a shortcut.

The Imperium of Man dominates known space, its armed forces are innumerable, and its leader a God-Emperor worshipped on millions of worlds! Genetically engineered super-psychopaths lead crusades to smite the Emperor’s foes, fanatical sisterhoods of violence burn entire worlds with the approval of the mad Imperial Church, while trillions of witless men and women march across hundreds of thousands of warzones, only to die horrible, meaningless deaths.
Arrayed against this formidable galactic Empire stands the forces of Chaos; those who have felt the touch of the otherworld dimension of the Warp. Daemons – the physical manifestations of Man’s nightmares and dark secrets – infect the material realm, while renegade super-psychopaths launch their own black crusades to destroy the Emperor’s kingdom.
As the 41st millennium draws its final breaths, so too does Mankind.

Also:
Necrons, Tyranids, Tau, Elder (and their less known Dark cousins), Grey Knights, and Orks. But you can learn about them later