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SO I have a Girlfriend and whenever I try to explain 30k to her I make it sound boring. You're challenge (if you choose to accept it) is to explain the 30k universe from the point of the primarchs creation. This isn't a rule, just a suggestion, but try to keep it succinct. She has a very small attention span I'd appreciate it if you could give special reference to Sanguinius and Ferrus Manus (my two primarchs)

So there's this big dude, the Emperor, and he made 20 sons, because he's a chauvinist. But Chaos (the bad guys... well, relatively bad) stole them and scattered them around the galaxy. So Big E made Space Marines, genetically modified super soldiers, to go find them all and conquer the galaxy in the name of humanity.

He found them after some time, but then Horus, his greatest son, fell to Chaos. After some more time, half of his kids had fallen to Chaos, and there was a big ol' war.

And that's pretty much it.

Well, 30K is pretty boring...

Doing it succinctly and yet keeping specific Primarchs in the spotlight is kind of a tall order, the narrative hops around a lot and many of them weren't doing anything for most of it.

But the short answer to that all is that there was a period after the Fall of the Eldar where Warp-based travel and communication became nigh-impossible and most of the human colonies got cut off. The Emperor emerged in this period to unite Earth, and when the Warp calmed down set off to reconquer/reunite the human disapora and expand his reach throughout the galaxy. He built twenty Space Marine Legions towards this end but his prototypes (the Primarchs) he'd built to serve as generals got snatched away and scattered throughout the galaxy by the Chaos Gods.

The proper setting of the 30k books/game material is the Horus Heresy; as the Great Crusade continued the Emperor recovered the Primarchs and put them in charge of their Legions, but a combination of internal divisions, personality clashes, general mistrust, and the influence of the Chaos Gods ended up turning half of them against the Emperor and prompting them to rise in rebellion.

The Imperium of 30k is still a dystopian hellhole but it's a very different kind than 40k. In the 41st Milennium everything's gone to hell in a handbasket, the Imperium is splintered into thousands upon thousands of little subfactions plotting and scheming against each other while theoretically serving the same goal (and even the honest ones are frequently set at odds with each other by mistrust/miscommunication), and there are massive Chaos/alien threats constantly battering at the gates. 30k is more centralized/organized, there's in theory a single will moving the Imperium's forces around and there are only a few personalities in charge of everything, and the threats are more subtle since we're watching a dominant Imperium (there are no galaxy-spanning threats, the Orks are localized, the Eldar are busy trying to pick up the pieces of their civilization, the Tau haven't emerged, the Necrons are still sleeping, the Tyranids are still on their way in the intergalactic void, and Chaos is meddling subtly rather than openly) break itself apart.

It's more of a tragedy as opposed to the more straightforward grimdarkness of 40k; we're treated to the Emperor's shining vision and some hope that there might actually be room among the stars for a unified, somewhat peaceful Imperium of Man, but the main cast is laden with very human flaws that set them on course for ruin and we're all back here watching the ship approach the iceberg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MeVxKZBOfM

for the 30k treatment, stop the video around 0:50.

I hate to say it, though if this isn't in her interest range, it won't matter. Whatever you say will make it sound boring.

Cat owners can talk up having cats in whatever way, but I am bored within 3 seconds of them talking.

Edit: If this is in her interest range, get her the Horus Heresy book 1.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MeVxKZBOfM

for the 30k treatment, stop the video around 0:50.

Horus raging gets me every time.

Superhuman god beasts that are only 12 feet tall really don't sound that threatening when there are 20 mile long ships flying around in the numbers of millions that can destroy armies with a single barrage.

There once was a crazy scientist with illusions of grandeur and a poor fashion taste in a diatopian future.
He made an army of super soldiers and crowned himself emperor.

But wait there is more some of these soldiers started listening to the dark gods and rebelled.
This resulted in a civil war dooming the entire galaxy.

The neighbouring races did not like this at all and wanted the villain dead. They failed and this was would rage on for at least10.000 years.
30k is a game about the first part of this war.

On that note, what is in her interest range? Is she in to any history at all? As most of the Legion/factions/races are based on a group from our very own history, this can be a great place to start.

I don't think I can help you. My girlfriend likes hearing stories about 40k history... but she calls them "bedtime stories" and only requests them when it's time to sleep.

You could go for the HBO way.

We nearly check all the boxes.
Long stretched there will be dragons: check (mars).
BOOBS, Random decadent stuff and totally unneeded sex scenes: Check we even have a god born out of space elf sex orgies with boob minions.
Dubious heroes, who secretly just want to rescue the damsel in distress or uphold some vague honour code: Check we have enough of those.
Bombastic battle scenes: Check.
Muscular soble savage guy who shows of some of his mussles: check wulfen, khorne, catachans
Mysterious / dubious ruler for use in flashbacks: Check.
Cliché story line, preferably loosely based on a classic novel: check
Betrayal between heroes: check

Damsel in distress, who surprisingly kicks ass but throws it later all away for a complicated love relationship with the hero: we don't have this just use a random space nun and some artist freedom.

 Rippy wrote:
I hate to say it, though if this isn't in her interest range, it won't matter. Whatever you say will make it sound boring.

Cat owners can talk up having cats in whatever way, but I am bored within 3 seconds of them talking.

Edit: If this is in her interest range, get her the Horus Heresy book 1.

She's interested in the building and painting the model side of things and and is interested in the universe. The problem isn't that she finds 30k/40k boring, it's that I'm awful at telling stories and explaining things She's read lots of books that I reccomend her so I think she would read the Horus Heresy books, the problem is that she likes to read up on the book first to see if its worth starting. In 40k, this is a problem because of the daunting amount of material on the universe there is. That's why I'm trying to get someone to explain it to her, then maybe she'll read it.

It's the story of the Prodigal Father.

So...

There's a supergod called the emperor of mankind and he has 20 demigod children, each of which lead their own army of supersoldiers.
There's these 4 badass gods of Chaos that convince the eldest of the 20 children and 9 of his brothers to fight the other 10.
There's a huge spacewar between these demigods and their armies of supersoldiers.
The bad superdudes get bonus powers from all sorts of daemony gak.

In the beginning there was darkness and the Long Night, but there arose a shining golden light that drove back the darkness. This light was the Emperor, and he brought a golden age of rationalism and enlightenment to the galaxy, igniting a Great Crusade to unite the family of Mankind under his banner. To this end he created 20 angels, super-human beings call the 'Primarchs' to be his generals. But the greatest of the Primarchs rebelled, believing he should rule Mankind instead of serving it. Humanity stands on the knife-edge of apotheosis, or damnation, and the laughter of Dark Gods echoes in its ears...

 Crimson wrote:
Well, 30K is pretty boring...

This.

It was far better when it was just snippets of fluff and hints of what actually happened. Not this metric fethton of novels that describe in intimate detail something that happened (in 40k's own history) longer ago than our own recorded history goes back. 10,000 years is a long time. What were we up to exactly in 7000bc?

We where feeding our alien overlords in 7000 bc.

I think the key question you should be asking yourself is whether she *wants* you to explain it or whether you're just wanting to kind of foist it upon her.

Game of Thrones mixed with Norse Mythology.

I was pretty bored at work once and was texting one of my friends about 40k, we had been playin the game Space Marine which we both agreed was awesome, he asked about why there were evil space marines, so i sent like a 1000 word text explaining the horus heresy, how the emperor embarked on a great crusade to unite planets of the universe into the imperium of man using the superhuman space marines, each legion led by a primarch, but that the powers of chaos tempted some of the primarchs by appealing to some of the base flaws in all humankind, pride, jealousy, violence, for a variety of reasons, their legions followed them to the side of chaos, and they led a devastating civil war, that was massively devastating for both sides; at the end, the forces of chaos were set to win, after horus, the emperors former chosen son but now the warmaster of the rebellion, had struck down sanguinius, just as he was set to destroy the emperor, he lowered his ships shields to 'look' at him, and during this break the emperor teleported onto horus ship and slayed him, when he was mortally wounded. the forces of chaos were broken but the emperor laid in a state of life support. not the best inclusion of sanguinius (it could be said that he led a daring raid on horus ship) but that is my take on the story.

In the distant future, tiny plastic people are alternately sad and mad at each other.

Civil war in space. A is the good guy. B is the bad guy.

 Nazrak wrote:
I think the key question you should be asking yourself is whether she *wants* you to explain it or whether you're just wanting to kind of foist it upon her.

Nope, she's actually into this sort of thing. Everytime we paint she asks me if I'm ready to try and explain it again. Anyway, i wound up letting her read the opening of horus rising. Yanno, the whole "The emperor rules from the golden throne his chosen son horus is warmaster, there is no peace amongst the stars grimdark yadda yadda. She found it interesting, after that I fleshed out istavaan 3 and 5 then just said that the traitors slowly pushed the loyalists back to terra where there was a titanic battle, sanguinius slain and the emperor crippled but ultimatly triumphant. Explained the irony of sanguinius and horus and then told her about each of the chaos gods. She's gonna read them once she finishes the book she's on now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

NightWinds5121 wrote:
I was pretty bored at work once and was texting one of my friends about 40k, we had been playin the game Space Marine which we both agreed was awesome, he asked about why there were evil space marines, so i sent like a 1000 word text explaining the horus heresy, how the emperor embarked on a great crusade to unite planets of the universe into the imperium of man using the superhuman space marines, each legion led by a primarch, but that the powers of chaos tempted some of the primarchs by appealing to some of the base flaws in all humankind, pride, jealousy, violence, for a variety of reasons, their legions followed them to the side of chaos, and they led a devastating civil war, that was massively devastating for both sides; at the end, the forces of chaos were set to win, after horus, the emperors former chosen son but now the warmaster of the rebellion, had struck down sanguinius, just as he was set to destroy the emperor, he lowered his ships shields to 'look' at him, and during this break the emperor teleported onto horus ship and slayed him, when he was mortally wounded. the forces of chaos were broken but the emperor laid in a state of life support. not the best inclusion of sanguinius (it could be said that he led a daring raid on horus ship) but that is my take on the story.

This is definetly the best explanation so far tho

 oldzoggy wrote:
There once was a crazy scientist with illusions of grandeur and a poor fashion taste in a diatopian future.
He made an army of super soldiers and crowned himself emperor.

But wait there is more some of these soldiers started listening to the dark gods and rebelled.
This resulted in a civil war dooming the entire galaxy.

The neighbouring races did not like this at all and wanted the villain dead. They failed and this was would rage on for at least10.000 years.
30k is a game about the first part of this war.

This is perfect

Ruin wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Well, 30K is pretty boring...

This.

It was far better when it was just snippets of fluff and hints of what actually happened. Not this metric fethton of novels that describe in intimate detail something that happened (in 40k's own history) longer ago than our own recorded history goes back. 10,000 years is a long time. What were we up to exactly in 7000bc?

Your opinion is not everyone's. I would be very interested for in depth knowledge of 7000bc. Please stay on topic and help OP out, rather that spout about how you personally don't find it interesting.

You can tell her it’s not a game for people who value their free time. Tell her to prepare to do a lot of standing, waiting, and even sometimes laying down just to get your army completely destroyed by some heretic scum, wait another two hours to get another game in, and repeat just to look at the clock and realize 10 hours just passed.

This is more of a way of life than a hobby. At first, you start to play for some hours and wonder if the game is boring, or if you're the one that's a boring loser instead, but don't blame yourself, blame your parents and plan threaten suicide for attention. But first, leave the house and see the beauty around you on the way to the 7/Eleven before you buy $50 worth of junk food and that cardboard pizza they sell. Then go back home to binge on candy, hentai, and start putting together models and painting until its 3 am and your body is full of shame and sugar as you lean back on your squeaky office chair surrounded by food wrappers, the smell of oily sweat in the air, and paint stains on your sweaty old sweatpants.

You pull out your phone to browse Instagram and see all the beautiful girls you will never get a chance to touch or talk to. You see all the popular people having fun with friends doing all kinds of cool stuff that you always wanted to do but never will. Then you realize you've been living like this for all your teenage and young adult years and now you have to settle with a more boring, mediocre life and will likely never reach your true potential, because you threw away your free time to escape into the world of Warhammer 40k, while you spend hours every day staring at a desk of golden plastic and paints, instead of doing things to improve your health, happiness, relationships, exposure to the world, and overall quality of life. It's too late. You destroyed your body from years of sitting and escaping into the Warhammer 40k world. You'll never be able to have good sex with your back problems, let alone be able to work out and attract women. It's over. You missed your plane, so you go back to your room and spend time with the only friend you have; a make believe Chapter Master, who keeps getting psychically slapped in the face by some Eldar Farseer.

This is your life as you know it. The only happiness you have is escaping into a war game where you can communicate with your little plastic models, or even your opponent briefly, even though he/she likely doesn’t really like you. This will leave the illusion of socializing with people to make you feel better. This is the only time people will ever listen to what you ask them to do, other than when you are mean to your parents or treat GW or Forgeworld customer service people like crap because they're the only people who likely won’t punch you in the face for being a jerk. In the real world nobody sees you as a leader, but with your army in hand, you can lead your plastic and metal toy soldiers to victory as you build “cool” credits at your local hobby store or local GW.

Every time your army gets wiped, you go home and watch more hentai, before building and painting that new model that you think will turn the tide of war for your army. Sometimes you just edge it and go right to building. Your heart is filled with hate that you have for GW and its founders because you constantly complain about how much you still hate the game and because you think it’s still not balanced. You get a thought that maybe you should talk to that girl who lives around the corner whom you see once in a while at the 7/Eleven, when she fills her car up, or think of being friends with some of the very rare good looking guys at GW so you can go pick up chicks together, but instead you hate what you don’t understand, and you make up stupid reasons in your head not to like them. Why? Because you have the ultimate talent the universe desires, you are a 40k-ster.

This is life. This... is Warhammer 40,000... Break up with her, it will be easier from there my friend.

It is not that bad at all. Indeed you can still have all the good things life has to offer. It is all about managing your time and priorities.

I'll just copy paste my answer to "how doyou explain the Horus Heresy to your friends" over in the background section:

I'll answer this one in two ways. First is how I explain the Horus Heresy and the other is how I explain the 40k background.

1: A bunch of years back I had the good fortune of having to explain the HH to a librarian. The library was looking for youth books so me and one other youngster was asked to attend a meeting. The librarian had no knowledge of 40k.
I explained it as a galactic civil war set 30.000years in the future wrought by betrayal and genocide. The main focus lies on 20 commanders of the galactic armies and their relationship. Other factions are included in various books. What really sets it appart from other sci-fi works is that most books have diffrent authors making every story in the setting very unique.

2: I recall having to explain 40k and its history to my girlfriend. What I said was: An galactic empire spanning the milky way in a constant state of war against various oppositions. Every single planet has radically diffrent cultures and are only bound by tax, rule, religion and military. It's a place where endless ammounts of stories can be explored because of the variety of customs the diffrent people live by. Far more then current earths nations you have an seemingly endless ammount of cultural classes between the people, and that's not even taking into account the galactic wide factions, aliens or other dimension.
The history of the setting is that most sci-fi universes, think Terminator, Star Trek, firefly and so on has already happened. Mankind has moved forward 40.000 years and nearly gone extinct on 3 seperate ocassions. The current ruling form is the only one that's proven stable and to keep humanity safe, and it's one foccused only on the defence and survival of the human race as a whole.

This is how you would succinctly and easily describe 30K to your girlfriend.

Step 1:
"Do you like science fiction stories?"

Step 2:
"Do you like science fiction toy soldiers?"

If she answers no to either of these questions, proceed immediately to Step 3.

Step 3:
"Okay, sorry for bugging you."