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I played 40k around 3rd edition, but I don't play anymore. From what I've seen, Warhammer 30k, focusing on the Horus Heresy, is a thing now. Does it bug anyone else that the 40k canon involves 10,000 years in which basically nothing changed? It never really occurred to me until now how strange that is. Doesn't it rob 40k of any sense of urgency and dynamism?

It used to be that CSM got poor equipment because in the heresy the tech wasn't as good and they never got the care packages that loyalists got afterwards. Either that or the CSM equipment was dangerous prototype equipment which was more powerful than later Imperial designs but came with an early version of todays 'gets hot' rule.

Then GW/FW decided they wanted to do loyalists in 30k so now there are assault cannons and dreadnaught variants out the wazoo because apparently loyal marines won't sell in either setting unless we lavish them with attention.

i thought the idea was that is was 10,000 years of bad decision and mistakes.

So things did change, just in the negative sense?

... decay.

swarmofseals wrote:
I played 40k around 3rd edition, but I don't play anymore. From what I've seen, Warhammer 30k, focusing on the Horus Heresy, is a thing now. Does it bug anyone else that the 40k canon involves 10,000 years in which basically nothing changed? It never really occurred to me until now how strange that is. Doesn't it rob 40k of any sense of urgency and dynamism?

Well quite a bits happened actually. You've had the rise of the Ecchlisarchy, the reappearance of the Necrons, the appearance of the Tyranids in the Galaxy, and all sorts of other enternicine civil wars within the Imperium of Man. Things like the Beheading, The Astropath Wars, and the Nova Interegnum.

There's a whole section on what happened between 30k and 40k in one of the fluff books that come with the big BRB.

 General Kroll wrote:


Well quite a bits happened actually. You've had the rise of the Ecchlisarchy, the reappearance of the Necrons, the appearance of the Tyranids in the Galaxy, and all sorts of other enternicine civil wars within the Imperium of Man. Things like the Beheading, The Astropath Wars, and the Nova Interegnum.

There's a whole section on what happened between 30k and 40k in one of the fluff books that come with the big BRB.

Right, but did any of these events really substantively change anything? My impression is that there have been plenty of wars and plenty of new threats have appeared but overall it's the same story for the most part. The same could be said of the old WHFB -- there were plenty of chaos invasions or orc waaghs or skaven invasions or vampire incursions and what not but for the most part the story was pretty static until the End Times. There it was at least somewhat more believable given that the timescale was so much smaller.

I guess that while I have no problem suspending my disbelief for a god-emperor that feeds on psykers or a whole army of super warriors, I have a lot harder time believing that so little has shifted in 10,000 years. When the Imperium or whatever it's called in 40k has beaten back a bajillion chaos invasions and alien incursions and survived purging whole stars systems of their own populace, etc. etc. for ten thousand years, why should we take any particular threat seriously?

What Primarchs that were still alive left, new races have emerged and become problems for the IoM, Chaos has grown. The 10k years was a long buildup and 40k is the climax, everything right now sits on the edge of a knife

Do any of the wars these days change much? Nope
They all happen in iny little corners that dont matter much to anyone unless you live there.
You only have to not take a threat seriously once. They only have to succeed once.
Orks had the Imperium on its knees once. But we beatem. We should never worry about the Ork again.

Most people in the Imperium never leave their world. Of those that leave their world, many never leave their subsector or sector. Sectors are islands of Imperial civilization with swathes of wilderness space in between. If a world or sector falls to invasion or rebellion, most will never hear of it nor care about it. The Imperium can also wipe or seal records of its defeats in order to preserve its image of invincibility and to avoid the dangerous idea that it is possible to defeat the Imperium and get away with it.

In the Fall of Orpheus by Forge World, the Orpheus Sector gets gutted by the Necrons. The Imperium retreats, dissolves the Orpheus Sector, seals its history and records, and reclassifies that area as wilderness space. If enough time should pass, or you have insufficient security clearance, you might be told that that space had always been wilderness space.

swarmofseals wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:


Well quite a bits happened actually. You've had the rise of the Ecchlisarchy, the reappearance of the Necrons, the appearance of the Tyranids in the Galaxy, and all sorts of other enternicine civil wars within the Imperium of Man. Things like the Beheading, The Astropath Wars, and the Nova Interegnum.

There's a whole section on what happened between 30k and 40k in one of the fluff books that come with the big BRB.

Right, but did any of these events really substantively change anything? My impression is that there have been plenty of wars and plenty of new threats have appeared but overall it's the same story for the most part. The same could be said of the old WHFB -- there were plenty of chaos invasions or orc waaghs or skaven invasions or vampire incursions and what not but for the most part the story was pretty static until the End Times. There it was at least somewhat more believable given that the timescale was so much smaller.

I guess that while I have no problem suspending my disbelief for a god-emperor that feeds on psykers or a whole army of super warriors, I have a lot harder time believing that so little has shifted in 10,000 years. When the Imperium or whatever it's called in 40k has beaten back a bajillion chaos invasions and alien incursions and survived purging whole stars systems of their own populace, etc. etc. for ten thousand years, why should we take any particular threat seriously?

Well I'd argue the rise of the ecchlisiarchy has very much changed things within the Imperium. Things would be very different in the grim dark without them.

The Necrons, The Nids? Again, things would be very very different without them.

As for the other conflicts I listed, they were basically to demonstrate that we don't have a period of empty history. Simply because there are no tectonic shifts in the nature of galactic society within that time, it doesn't mean stuff hasn't been happening. Besides which, several fleets of organic bio organisms that are devouring everything in site is something I'd call a tectonic shift, as is the rise of a race that were hitherto technologically backwards (The Tau) not to mention the re appearance of the Necrons.

There have been at least two galaxy-wide civil wars (Nova Terra Interregnum and Reign Of Blood), both of which fundamentally changed how the Imperium was run, and the war of the Beast, which also resulted in new permenant organisations.

 General Kroll wrote:

swarmofseals wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:


Well quite a bits happened actually. You've had the rise of the Ecchlisarchy, the reappearance of the Necrons, the appearance of the Tyranids in the Galaxy, and all sorts of other enternicine civil wars within the Imperium of Man. Things like the Beheading, The Astropath Wars, and the Nova Interegnum.

There's a whole section on what happened between 30k and 40k in one of the fluff books that come with the big BRB.

Right, but did any of these events really substantively change anything? My impression is that there have been plenty of wars and plenty of new threats have appeared but overall it's the same story for the most part. The same could be said of the old WHFB -- there were plenty of chaos invasions or orc waaghs or skaven invasions or vampire incursions and what not but for the most part the story was pretty static until the End Times. There it was at least somewhat more believable given that the timescale was so much smaller.

I guess that while I have no problem suspending my disbelief for a god-emperor that feeds on psykers or a whole army of super warriors, I have a lot harder time believing that so little has shifted in 10,000 years. When the Imperium or whatever it's called in 40k has beaten back a bajillion chaos invasions and alien incursions and survived purging whole stars systems of their own populace, etc. etc. for ten thousand years, why should we take any particular threat seriously?

Well I'd argue the rise of the ecchlisiarchy has very much changed things within the Imperium. Things would be very different in the grim dark without them.

The Necrons, The Nids? Again, things would be very very different without them.

As for the other conflicts I listed, they were basically to demonstrate that we don't have a period of empty history. Simply because there are no tectonic shifts in the nature of galactic society within that time, it doesn't mean stuff hasn't been happening. Besides which, several fleets of organic bio organisms that are devouring everything in site is something I'd call a tectonic shift, as is the rise of a race that were hitherto technologically backwards (The Tau) not to mention the re appearance of the Necrons.

@OP: Essentially this.

The other thing you have to remember is that if we had galaxy-changing events like the Horus Heresy all the time, then the 40K universe would be so polluted with these universe-changing events that they lose all their significance and meaning. Plus I think it's a crime against all the existing lore as well as the creative freedom that the 40K universe allows us to say that "Nothing Happened".