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Death Worlds, Forge Worlds, Feudal Worlds, Savage Worlds, Hive Worlds, Paradise Worlds..etc..etc..etc...

But has there ever been a world written up to look like our own ?

I just find the concept amusing - a 21st Century world where people are living and going about their business like they do in ours.....


......but with the knowledge that out in the depths of space - Orks, Tyranids, and what have you dwell.

Some alterations would have to be made of course.

We may democratically elect our leaders....but they are undoubtedly subject to the will of the Planetary Governor.

We'd all worship the Emperor of Mankind, but we also know the Ecclesiarchy is willing to co-opt indigenous sentiments about religion so long as it ends with "and we worship the Emperor."

We would still have to Tithe/Tribute Resources and sometimes people for the Imperial Guard.

AdMech would of course be running all our technology - and we'd technically be behind in terms of the tech curve in comparison to a place like Ultramar...


But other than that - we could still be our generally self-absorbed, social media crazed, consumers (Slaanesh would probably be targeting us like crazy), until you know.. Hive Fleet Cthulhu shows up and the Drop Pods start falling.


What do you folks think? Could there be a world like ours out there in the depths of Space - perhaps a quiet backwater planet?

In the grimdark future of the 41st millenium there is only North Korea.

According to certain bits of fluff in Dark Heresy, and I think possibly some fluff in the main game, democracy is strongly discouraged within the Imperium. In some places, new democracies and Republics will outright be crushed as rebellion and heresy. Representative governments are viewed as inefficient and dangerous, because when you need to grease the Imperial war machine with the blood of the masses, you can't afford to let the masses take a vote on it. Most representative governments are probably very old, since the Imperium seems to grant more leeway if something is an ingrained tradition. They probably have few parties, and a really entrenched power structure. Parties would have to be approved by the Imperium, after all.

There are some worlds classified as "Imperial" or "Civilized" worlds that doubtlessly have comparable tech level to ours, and comparable standards of living. You're not going to see the same political and religious diversity though, unless it's a planet that's been lost to the Imperium. The big gold eagle would put the hammer down on that crap.

The planet Pavonis in Nightbringer by Graham McNeil had something similar to a congress and political parties, but it was still lead by a planetary governor. It's been awhile since I've read it, so the memories are fuzzy, but I do remember something along those lines.

In the Tales of Heresy Book, there is a short story about the Dark Angels coming into a contact with a world that sounds a lot like ours. They have several power blocs with no clear discernible leader of the world and a world council that sounds a lot like the UN. They have tech like fighter jets and it essentially sounded a lot like 21st century earth. With no planetary ruler, the DA don't know how to go about broaching first contact.

*Spoiler alert* It doesn't go well and they kill a lot of people.

One of the planets in the Gaunt's Ghosts series, one I refer to as "Planet WW1", is noted as having several different sovereign nation-states on it, though it has an entrenched nobility within each nation that rule their respective areas. There is not a mentioned Planetary Governor, that I recall, instead the nobles traditionally appointed one of their own to serve in that function for a term of years.

I think a few things would happen

1: people be in shock about aliens.
2: we attack as they try to throw out all our history for slavery.
3 people become slaved and turn into chaos.
4: like everything else, they make it law to teach your kids certian things and slowly corrupt them
5: the kids said people of the past who fought against it where savage and become tiths to the empire.

What if we are a planet in the 40k universe? Placed on this dirt-ball 10+ thousand years ago and have been lucky enough not to be invaded by any xenos race and somehow shrouded from the warp energies (thus preventing psykers and deamons from showing up).

What if one day the Emperor shows up and is like "Sorry, brah, I forgot about you guys. You have to be part of the Imperium now"

Easy answer : Welcome to the U. A . E . , we have iPod's and thousand dollar call girls ---- and theocracy .

The only awkward part is the , " Like our own " .

No idea what that could possibly refer to....... Denmark or Japan maybe ?

Democracy for example ; Americans who describe the U.S. as democratic are in the same class as Russians who describe Lenin as egalitarian.

If Lenin was egalitarian , and if the U.S. is democratic ........well.........err ........it's a waste of breath to say more.

"Like our own" seems to indicate something special or peculiar , and the only particularly special or peculiar things I see in these cases are Ipod's and air conditioning.

statisticly a majority of humanity proably does NOT live in a democracy

Unfortunately our planet makes too much sense for the 40k universe. Several are put forth in the 30k fluff, but are always destroyed by the "heroes" of the Imperium for being evil, when half the countries on our planet barely touch the horrible things in the Imperium.

A planet like ours could exist, but since it is not grimdark enough it is going to be destroyed a few minutes after being introduced in the story. For in the grim darkness of the far future, there can be only grimdark.

Why would democracy have any part in this sort of planet? All that would be necessary is a UN-like alliance of nations that rules the world, and reports to the Adeptus Terra. I mean, they could run rigged elections, but that seems largely unnecessary when you consider the sheer power of Imperial propaganda.

while I'm sure the IoM has their PREFERED mode of governance, I suspect the over all inclination is "let em do what they want, we'll sort it out if it becomes a problem"

As long as your tithes to the Imperium are being paid and your people aren't worshiping some heretical deity the Imperium doesn't give a rats rear end about how you go about running your world.

A world like ours would never conform. They would be belligerent and resist, and then get put down, sadly.

TheCustomLime wrote:As long as your tithes to the Imperium are being paid and your people aren't worshiping some heretical deity the Imperium doesn't give a rats rear end about how you go about running your world.

This. Imperium is actually quite liberal when you think about it.

GrapeApe wrote:Death Worlds, Forge Worlds, Feudal Worlds, Savage Worlds, Hive Worlds, Paradise Worlds..etc..etc..etc...

But has there ever been a world written up to look like our own ?

Civilised World.

40k is sort of Asimov story as seen from the bad guys in an alternative universe that is even shittier. This makes it a great setting.

There might be those who predicted the fall of civilisation and fled into deep space before it all happened. Their only hope is to remain outside the reach of the IoM until it finally has decayed to the point that it is no longer capable of void travel. Any contact before that has been described in the fluff numerous times and does not end well. All contact after the total disintegration of the IoM will not make it into the game since the time line will never stretch that far.

So if these worlds do exist we will never see them.



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The interesting part about the heresy storyline is that these worlds would actually be better off if Horus would have won making him the failed saviour of men.

I always took it as a given that there are worlds "like" ours in the Imperium. Why wouldnt there be?

Civilised Worlds are pretty much a catch all for the middle of the road between the feudal/feral and the hive/forge.

Why wouldnt there be?

Because our lv of technological understanding is way above the lv of understanding of almost everyone in the IoM. There is no way a " middle in the road planet" would be able to design build their own nuclear reactors, computers and crops.


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And that is even excluded our beliefs and human rights system.

GrapeApe wrote:
where people are living and going about their business like they do in ours.....

thats most of them isnt?

If doing " their business" is pooping then yes.
If it is making photo's of actual food with cellphones and posting them on the internet then no.

 oldzoggy wrote:
If doing " their business" is pooping then yes.
If it is making photo's of actual food with cellphones and posting them on the internet then no.

Selfie with the Golden Throne anyone?

That's the part that amuses me the most - our current era trivializes everything with Social media.

Twitter, Facebook, Instragram, Vine etc. etc. etc. have reshaped the way we think and interact with things in ways that would probably be seen as rather alien to even humans in the 40K verse.....

 oldzoggy wrote:
Why wouldnt there be?

Because our lv of technological understanding is way above the lv of understanding of almost everyone in the IoM. There is no way a " middle in the road planet" would be able to design build their own nuclear reactors, computers and crops.


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And that is even excluded our beliefs and human rights system.

ok first of all most people on earth don't know gak about how something really WORKS. here's some raw materials. I don't mean chips and a motherboard I mean RAW materials, gold silicone etc. build a computer. you proably can't. you rely on a handful of experts who can put those things together to keep you supplied with your toys.

as for our beliefs and human rights system........ what one is this you're talking about? the USA? or saudi Arabia. both are on earth. fact of the matter is 21st century humans make the IoM look positivly ENLIGHTENED. by all accounts the Imperium's cool so long as you worship the Emperor. what form it takes varies a fair bit and they're cool with it... meanwhile people have stabbed one another in Vancouver Canada, over weather or not chairs should be permitted in a temple

 TheCustomLime wrote:
As long as your tithes to the Imperium are being paid and your people aren't worshiping some heretical deity the Imperium doesn't give a rats rear end about how you go about running your world.

Hit the nail right on the head.


The Planetary Governor isn't there to necessarily rule, though many do since they are already the head of state on their world anyway. The PG's main job is to ensure that tithes are being met, oversees planetary defense, and makes sure that the planet in question doesn't revolt against the Imperium or sink into religious heresy.


We only hear about the grimdark crap, warzones, and shithole planets. As the experience with the Tau proved, the least little bit of injected noblebright will cause neckbeards and edgelords to go into DTs. So, we don't get to see more of the mix that the Imperium really is in 40k.