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Basically what scifi influenced the creators of 40k when it got started?

Alien series: giant gothic starships, A basic structure of the Tyranid race, a basic version of Rogue Traders.

Dune: A god-emperor, Navigators, Space Marines (Sadukar), Distrust of Machines (butlerian jihad), psykers/sensitives (the various Bene orders, including Bene Gesserit).

Starship Troopers (book, not movie): Power armoured soldiers taking on the galaxy.

I always figured the Necrons might have had their style based on "The Terminator" even though fluffwise they're supposedly more a mirror of Fantasy Tomb Kings.

Almost all of chaos and it's iconography (main khorne and slannesh though), eldar are pulled almost word for word from Michael Moorecock's works. They didnt even change the names beyond moving one or two letters around.

I think it was just a way to take fantasy races (from WH Fantasy) and plunk them into space, in 80's punk style

@Phyrekzhogos - Necrons = metallic robot skeletons. Rawr!

@Evil Inc - Not to nitpick, but it's Moorcock. Elric of Melnibone was epic, and perhaps the only more depressing story than the fall of Humanity in 40k, lol.

LOL, my bad. I'm a horrible speller. I liked Hawkmoon and granbretan story even more than Elric, but of course, Elric was far bigger storywise.
GW used to actually make a series of models based on his books and just renamed the elves to make high elf models. I've spoken with him and he isnt even half aware of who makes his stuff anymore. Fans try to keep him abreast but with his failing health...I'm assuming he is still around. Its been a while since I visited his forums and talked with him and the other fans.

 Talys wrote:
I think it was just a way to take fantasy races (from WH Fantasy) and plunk them into space, in 80's punk style

Well yeah, but it's more fun to pretend that it wasn't. And besides aren't some of 40k's races totally divorced from a number of contemporary science fiction? I've never heard of anything remotely like the Orks from around that time.

Genestealers are straight from Alien. The rest of Nids is influenced by stuff like Starship Troopers, but it's less of a rip off. A lot of chaos/warp comes from contemporary western religions mixed with Lovecraft.

I think saying GS are "straight from alien" is doing them a disservice.

Sure, the whole Tyranid concept draws heavily from that universe, but Stealers predate the Nid race as we know it, and had quite a sophisticated background of their own before they got absorbed into the wider faction.

But they did get a better deal than Zoats.

 EVIL INC wrote:
I liked Hawkmoon and granbretan story even more than Elric, but of course, Elric was far bigger storywise.

Ahhh how did I forget about Hawkmoon He was probably the least messed up of the Moorcock Champions.

One thing that I always kind of liked about 40k was that it was a dystopic human future before dystopia was cool. I mean, it's certainly not original, but the Imperium of Man is a pretty messed up place. It's also neat how the heroes of the 40k universe (on the Imperium side, anyhow) are clearly heroes, yet do not really do anything to significantly improve either society or the lot of the everyday citizen.

When you contrast that with Dune or Starship Troopers, the heroes really want to make the world a better place (at least in a broad sense). In 40k, mostly, the heroes just want to save humans from being eaten or corrupted

Dune and Lord of the Rings all the way. The Imperium is heavily ripped from Dune (down to the Emperor), while the Eldar are literal complete rips from the Eldar of Lord of the Rings- down to the name even.

Oh right im not sure which way the inspiration goes but

Event horizon shares quite a bit with le warp.

Its also a cool fethin movie

And post-dates 40K by well over a decade, so not likely an influence.

 Azreal13 wrote:
And post-dates 40K by well over a decade, so not likely an influence.

But do you think 40k influenced IT!"??! DUN DUN DUNNNN

Nope.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Nope.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Oh. Okay.

To give a slightly fuller answer, while it easy to draw comparisons between EH and 40K, the truth is probably closer to the fact that they both share a common inspiration, rather than either has any connection to the other.

The "parallel dimension that resembles the mythical Hell but is in fact a real thing" trope really isn't all that uncommon, and a lot of the imagery can probably be traced back to medieval and Renaissance art, the likes of Dante's Inferno et al.

Many of the original minds at GW were very well educated, and hence a lot of the lineage has its roots in the Classics and historic events.

40k also drew a little on Judge Dredd (at least in the early days - hive cities are just an exponential increase on a citi-blok and the arbites are pretty much "judges".)

40k also has similarities to "Foundation" by Asimov.
A star-spanning empire ruled from one planet, covered by a city (coruscant has nothing on this world).

40k is a straight ripoff from various 2000ad comic books. Practicaly everything from early 40k can be found there mostly in Nemesis the Warlock including facist one liners, emperor of the gothic space empire launching a space crusade against aliens with terminators divided into chapters. Main enemy is khaos daemon etc. Most of the design are in Rogue Trooper, ABC Warriors or Judge Dredd, I completed a space marine armor once looking at multiple pictures heh. Or look at sisters, the look at one of the ABC warriors ( Deadlock? Im not sure tbh dont remember)

GW never ripped Dune or Heinlein or Moorcock they ripped off guys who ripped off guys who ripped off those. There are bits from Dune like navigators or from Moorcock like Nurgle appearance but not much. Some giant ripoffs came later like Terminator or anime but the core is 2000AD, to look for classic sources is reaching.

Plumbumbarum wrote:

GW never ripped Dune or Heinlein or Moorcock they ripped off guys who ripped off guys who ripped off those.
.

Such as?

Given GW's historical relations with Moorcock's IP, plus Rick Priestley's interests, age etc when he would have been working on the game (he had a concept of the game before he worked for GW, IIRC, and when the decision was made to take Warhammer into space, this concept was dusted off and fleshed out) it is very difficult to see how he wouldn't have drawn inspiration from the big names directly.

Either way, if you rip an idea off first or third hand, it's functionally irrelevant, but you seem aware of some authors and sources I'm not, so I'd be interested to add some names to my reading list.

Necrons seem like they were inspired even more by the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica than by the Terminator series starring Ahhnold.

The Orcs and Goblins, and by extension, the Greenskins, can track their ancestry to the British Hooligans, masked under the thin veil of the savagery and warmongering of Tolkein's Orcs.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

GW never ripped Dune or Heinlein or Moorcock they ripped off guys who ripped off guys who ripped off those.
.

Such as?

Given GW's historical relations with Moorcock's IP, plus Rick Priestley's interests, age etc when he would have been working on the game (he had a concept of the game before he worked for GW, IIRC, and when the decision was made to take Warhammer into space, this concept was dusted off and fleshed out) it is very difficult to see how he wouldn't have drawn inspiration from the big names directly.

Either way, if you rip an idea off first or third hand, it's functionally irrelevant, but you seem aware of some authors and sources I'm not, so I'd be interested to add some names to my reading list.

I think it is a difference whether you take something first or third hand, it did matter here for sure. The difference is someone did all the work with general themes (like Pat Mills here) and all you have to do is to twist a bit then add almost unchanged bits from here or there to make it appear richer and well, less ripped off. Some of those are really funny btw like imperator being a psycho Jesus Christ Conan in space but it's only twisting, not building up on someone's ideas.

You wont have much to read (except 2000AD comic books but I find it hard to believe you haven't yet) because I meant games like AD&D or comics like those mentioned in my earlier post. Everybody seemed to be ripping off bits from Moorcock at the time for their games or fantasy though afair, they still do as there's still a lot of Moorcock in the Witcher for example. You can read Poulson if you want to find the fountain of inspiration where Moorcock feasted heh.

Anyway here'a the interview that basicaly answers the OP question, though I think Rick, as much as I like him, is being modest when it comes to 2000AD and how a lot of it 'rubbed off' heh.

http://talesfromthemaelstrom.blogspot.com/2011/09/rick-priestley-interview.html?m=1

On a sidenote, Im not really bashing GW here, they re really good at ripping off others and most of the time they make things cooler and grimdarker, I like 40k as an, erm 'amalgamate' of sf popculture with Lovecraftish tone and a healty dose of absurd. But truth be told it's a one giant mix and match ripoff, Im not even sure if inspiration is a word to use here.