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I don't think you realize how easy it is to 'lose' technological knowledge.

I have seen at my work several examples were perfectly qualified people can't handle even basic things, so the knowledge is lost, in a way.
Other thing are these old manufacturing processes whose designers are already retired or even dead. After some process or technology becomes a commodity, i.e. it is so well understood, so it stops being really taught or even considered anywhere and the knowledge ends up buried either in published scientific literature (retrievable) or worse case in private company classified research reports which can and will commonly be lost with enough time.

I should add that to my understanding one main reason for having a patent system is exactly to combat this hiding of information in companies archives and people's heads.

Now I would imagine the amount of knowledge loss becomes increasingly more likely with far more complex technologies and inaccessible literature. In our world we have the internet that allows very efficient storage and sharing of knowledge. Compare this situation to IoM where meticulous detailed archives in some random Forge World can be effectively inaccessible unless you are there on the planet.

Other thing is the amount of knowledge available. Some things are so widely studied and published nowadays and amount of published articles tend to grow exponentially that if we would fast forward say 50 years some subjects could become effectively inaccessible for humans - Even nowadays you have to get really creative sometimes to get the number of article search results in only few hundreds, for one single search. You can narrow it down with more specific word choices, but the more specific you get, more likely it is you will miss important articles along the way. So even nowadays sometimes the researcher needs to have extremely meticulous search process and it can still take weeks to conduct comprehensive search. And this is for our current situation with around 100 years of accumulated knowledge but good search engines available. Imagine this in 40k setting with in many cases of thousands of years of accumulated knowledge, which may not be easily searchable like the internet we have now.

Based on above, I can very well imagine that in the 'grim darkness of far future' even being a researcher is a grim occupation

Actually with the recent vigilus campaign, the fact that every move from Chaos is done by abbadon.

You would think that Huron, kharn, angron, fulgrim, etc, etc.
Would probably also do something beyond sitting around.

 ashcroft wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Just no. The Grimdark is not having powerful enemies that the heroic heroes can fight, the grimdark requires the internal rot. The things you describe, progress, hope and competent governance destroy the grimdark.

If the history of 40K has taught us anything it's that any spark of hope or goodness will be snuffed out in future codices or the next edition. Just ask the Tau, or going further back when the arrogance of the Eldar and their contempt for the mon-keigh was re-emphasised to counter the perception of them as noble elven types.

Guilliman's attempt to govern the Imperium is a veneer of hope scraped over a monumental lie. He's probably one of the few loyalist Primarchs who could have had that conversation with the Emperor and not come away feeling profoundly betrayed and wanting to burn the whole thing down. He's a good man and an ideallist - by the standards of the setting - ruling in the name of an Emperor who is arguably more distant and dreadful now that we know what he's thinking than when we didn't. I'd say that's still plenty grimdark.

Nobody with power can be the protagonist for it to still be war hammer. Everyone is one among billions and they will not be missed.

The imperium aren’t the protagonists, the people inside the imperium being ground up as part of its endless struggles are the protagonists. It doesn’t matter if the imperium is doomed, that doesn’t make it grimdark, the imperium isn’t a character.

pelicaniforce wrote:
Nobody with power can be the protagonist for it to still be war hammer. Everyone is one among billions and they will not be missed.

The imperium aren’t the protagonists, the people inside the imperium being ground up as part of its endless struggles are the protagonists. It doesn’t matter if the imperium is doomed, that doesn’t make it grimdark, the imperium isn’t a character.

I disagree. The Imperium is humanity and humanity is the Imperium. The Imperium doing awful crap in order to simply survive is what makes the setting grimdark.

w1zard wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
Nobody with power can be the protagonist for it to still be war hammer. Everyone is one among billions and they will not be missed.

The imperium aren’t the protagonists, the people inside the imperium being ground up as part of its endless struggles are the protagonists. It doesn’t matter if the imperium is doomed, that doesn’t make it grimdark, the imperium isn’t a character.

I disagree. The Imperium is humanity and humanity is the Imperium. The Imperium doing awful crap in order to simply survive is what makes the setting grimdark.

Isn't what the Imperium is doing all the time? I'm not sure the Imperium is any less monstruous then it was before. The man-made mutant soldiers of the Imperium just got a little bit bigger and stronger. They aren't less brainwashed fanatics recruited while they were children from dirt poor population.

pelicaniforce wrote:
Nobody with power can be the protagonist for it to still be war hammer. Everyone is one among billions and they will not be missed.

The imperium aren’t the protagonists, the people inside the imperium being ground up as part of its endless struggles are the protagonists. It doesn’t matter if the imperium is doomed, that doesn’t make it grimdark, the imperium isn’t a character.

How important are characters like Guilliman though? You can't really use Guilliman's successes, his win/loss ratio (so to speak) as a gauge of how well the Imperium is doing. That oversimplifies things, in a way not too dissimilar to how Abaddon became a memetic failure until the fall of Cadia. The big names are useful as POV characters for big events, because they're at a level where they can actually see the big picture and influence what happens, but it doesn't necessarily change what's happening to the grunt on the ground..

Take a look at the five short Vigilus fiction pieces up on Warhammer Community. The Imperium comes out on the losing side in four out of five of those. Whatever good Guilliman is doing for the Imperium as a whole (and I think the extent of that good is debatable) it doesn't change the fact that on the ground it's the same as it has always been, with imperial citizens and soldiers being chewed up by their multitude of enemies and victory - when there is a victory - being won at a high price.

epronovost wrote:
Isn't what the Imperium is doing all the time?

Yes, and they have to do it all the time because that it is what it takes for humanity to survive. Grimdark.

w1zard wrote:

epronovost wrote:
Isn't what the Imperium is doing all the time?

Yes, and they have to do it all the time because that it is what it takes for humanity to survive. Grimdark.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it's what it takes for humanity to continu to dominate the galaxy? After all, its probably that humanity itself could survive the destruction of the Imperium and endure in a capacity or other on some remote world or within the Tau Empire which does have a few human planets under its aegis. Grimdark. People fight for power and for hatred sake not for honor , a brighter tomorrow or for survival.

epronovost wrote:
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it's what it takes for humanity to continu to dominate the galaxy? After all, its probably that humanity itself could survive the destruction of the Imperium and endure in a capacity or other on some remote world or within the Tau Empire which does have a few human planets under its aegis. Grimdark. People fight for power and for hatred sake not for honor , a brighter tomorrow or for survival.

The survival of the Imperium is the survival of humanity. Humanity existing under an alien power is just slavery.

w1zard wrote:

epronovost wrote:
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it's what it takes for humanity to continu to dominate the galaxy? After all, its probably that humanity itself could survive the destruction of the Imperium and endure in a capacity or other on some remote world or within the Tau Empire which does have a few human planets under its aegis. Grimdark. People fight for power and for hatred sake not for honor , a brighter tomorrow or for survival.

The survival of the Imperium is the survival of humanity. Humanity existing under an alien power is just slavery.

Humanity under the boot of the God-Emperor and is scions is slavery too or did you forget that? Plus, xenos have proven that they can be trusted to treat humans with fairness. Human living under the Tau Empire aren't mistreated, or at least not to a degree that would differ much then from those living in the shadow of the Aquila.

epronovost wrote:
Humanity under the boot of the God-Emperor and is scions is slavery too or did you forget that? Plus, xenos have proven that they can be trusted to treat humans with fairness. Human living under the Tau Empire aren't mistreated, or at least not to a degree that would differ much then from those living in the shadow of the Aquila.

It's a fundamental difference of humans being ruled by humans, being shepherded by a literal demigod who was born on our homeworld vs living under the rule of a different species who definitely will not have our best interests in mind.

And you're incredibly naive if you buy into the whole "all races are equal" Tau ideology. Some races are clearly more equal than others (ethereals) under the Tau caste system, and there was is fact that human populations who join the Tau empire suddenly find themselves all going sterile after a generation or two... (Tau ending for original Dawn of War) implying that the Tau intend to either genocide or restrict the population of humanity covertly through genetic manipulation after we become part of the "greater good".

w1zard wrote:

epronovost wrote:
Humanity under the boot of the God-Emperor and is scions is slavery too or did you forget that? Plus, xenos have proven that they can be trusted to treat humans with fairness. Human living under the Tau Empire aren't mistreated, or at least not to a degree that would differ much then from those living in the shadow of the Aquila.

It's a fundamental difference of humans being ruled by humans, being shepherded by a literal demigod who was born on our homeworld vs living under the rule of a different species who definitely will not have our best interests in mind.

And you're incredibly naive if you buy into the whole "all races are equal" Tau ideology. Some races are clearly more equal than others (ethereals) under the Tau caste system, and there was is fact that human populations who join the Tau empire suddenly find themselves all going sterile after a generation or two... (Tau ending for original Dawn of War) implying that the Tau intend to either genocide or restrict the population of humanity covertly through genetic manipulation after we become part of the "greater good".

The cannonity of the whole mass sterilization thing is questionable at best.

They still get into some shady stuff though. Like that whole thing about the Vespids suddenly becoming compliant after they get their translator headsets. That's pretty suspicious.

epronovost wrote:

w1zard wrote:

epronovost wrote:
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it's what it takes for humanity to continu to dominate the galaxy? After all, its probably that humanity itself could survive the destruction of the Imperium and endure in a capacity or other on some remote world or within the Tau Empire which does have a few human planets under its aegis. Grimdark. People fight for power and for hatred sake not for honor , a brighter tomorrow or for survival.

The survival of the Imperium is the survival of humanity. Humanity existing under an alien power is just slavery.

Humanity under the boot of the God-Emperor and is scions is slavery too or did you forget that? Plus, xenos have proven that they can be trusted to treat humans with fairness. Human living under the Tau Empire aren't mistreated, or at least not to a degree that would differ much then from those living in the shadow of the Aquila.

You mean like how the Tau completely exterminate human populations after discovering (to their horror) that humanity is creating a warp god of the Greater Good in human form? The Tau were never good guys, nor meant to be good guys. They were created to show the degeneration of idealism in warhammer and that ultimately no deontological society can survive in 40k and keep its ethical code.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
They still get into some shady stuff though. Like that whole thing about the Vespids suddenly becoming compliant after they get their translator headsets. That's pretty suspicious.

well we dont know for sure that there mind controlling them. the helmets really good just be for commnication. suspicous as hell. yes. denfitive proof of something sinister. no.

Humanity in the 40k universe is pretty awful it seems. but then chaos isnt really a decent alternative. the only good option seems to be being a SM, who's gone rogue. not corrupted by chaos but free of servitude to the emperor.

 Wyzilla wrote:

epronovost wrote:

w1zard wrote:

epronovost wrote:
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it's what it takes for humanity to continu to dominate the galaxy? After all, its probably that humanity itself could survive the destruction of the Imperium and endure in a capacity or other on some remote world or within the Tau Empire which does have a few human planets under its aegis. Grimdark. People fight for power and for hatred sake not for honor , a brighter tomorrow or for survival.

The survival of the Imperium is the survival of humanity. Humanity existing under an alien power is just slavery.

Humanity under the boot of the God-Emperor and is scions is slavery too or did you forget that? Plus, xenos have proven that they can be trusted to treat humans with fairness. Human living under the Tau Empire aren't mistreated, or at least not to a degree that would differ much then from those living in the shadow of the Aquila.

You mean like how the Tau completely exterminate human populations after discovering (to their horror) that humanity is creating a warp god of the Greater Good in human form? The Tau were never good guys, nor meant to be good guys. They were created to show the degeneration of idealism in warhammer and that ultimately no deontological society can survive in 40k and keep its ethical code.

Source? That's pretty rough.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

epronovost wrote:

w1zard wrote:

epronovost wrote:
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it's what it takes for humanity to continu to dominate the galaxy? After all, its probably that humanity itself could survive the destruction of the Imperium and endure in a capacity or other on some remote world or within the Tau Empire which does have a few human planets under its aegis. Grimdark. People fight for power and for hatred sake not for honor , a brighter tomorrow or for survival.

The survival of the Imperium is the survival of humanity. Humanity existing under an alien power is just slavery.

Humanity under the boot of the God-Emperor and is scions is slavery too or did you forget that? Plus, xenos have proven that they can be trusted to treat humans with fairness. Human living under the Tau Empire aren't mistreated, or at least not to a degree that would differ much then from those living in the shadow of the Aquila.

You mean like how the Tau completely exterminate human populations after discovering (to their horror) that humanity is creating a warp god of the Greater Good in human form? The Tau were never good guys, nor meant to be good guys. They were created to show the degeneration of idealism in warhammer and that ultimately no deontological society can survive in 40k and keep its ethical code.

Source? That's pretty rough.

New tau fluff of Fourth Sphere from War of Secrets and hinted at in the codices.

Inquisition doing experiments on unwilling/unaware loyal citizens of the Imperium.

Possible spoiler alert incoming:

And overall that the Inquisition can do literally anything and get away with it, no matter how horrific, genocial or destructive it was.

Also, primarchs. They should have remained only in the lore, not on the tabletop, because once you release one, everybody would demand their own to be released.

AND! Stupid naming. We have the Tauros, Taurox, Kastelan robot, Castellan robot, Castellan knight... And speaking of knights and big, walky machines... There shouldn't have been anything bigger than the regular knight, including titans. Well, maybe the Warhound is acceptable as the absolute biggest, but nothing more! At least on them Imperium's side. Bipedal walking machines are sensible only in small sizes, acting as enhanced mobility platforms/rough terrain vehicles, so Sentinel or Ironstrider (despite looking hideously) are sensible. Anything biger? nah...

chimera0205 wrote:
The cannonity of the whole mass sterilization thing is questionable at best.

All of the dawn of war games are still canon to my knowledge.

Either way, the Tau empire is a ponzi scheme with the ethereals on top and the "Greater Good" is a lie. Farsight learned this the hard way.

Basically ork and eldar background. I mean after the war in heaven and the necrons basically saying "Smell you later" and then the orks and eldar, what? Play with themselves for 60 million years instead of like grabbing every single habitable world in the galaxy, terra included. and one side wiping the other out during 60 million freaking years????

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Basically ork and eldar background. I mean after the war in heaven and the necrons basically saying "Smell you later" and then the orks and eldar, what? Play with themselves for 60 million years instead of like grabbing every single habitable world in the galaxy, terra included. and one side wiping the other out during 60 million freaking years????

To be fair the Eldar did push Orks to their weakest point and started settling everywhere.

I'm reading 'flight of the eisenstein' atm and the description of the life eater bombs was pretty laughable. Glass tubes filled with green liquid? Are you kidding? I half expected nic cage and Sean connery to come and save the day.

epronovost wrote:

w1zard wrote:

I've already answered this question, it is because she was wearing power armor. Something that we all agree increases your strength and speed significantly. You seriously think a battle sister no matter how experienced is going to last long against a grey knight?

Power armor doesn't increase speed, if possible it slows people down, especially considering Sisters don,t have a Black Carapace. Their undercoat is supposed to act like a Black Carapace, but it would be surprising if it worked even better. The lore states that Sisters armor, while offering equivalent protection, don't have all the auxilary system of the Space Marines one specifically for that reason. In the engagement in question, the Canoness is accompanied by Seraphims and the Grey Knight champion by a squad of terminators. About ten Seraphim are killed in the close combat, but so do two or three Grey Knights. Apparently, the entire fight lasted less than two minutes. I would suppose the Grey Knight would have won, but he probably wouldn't have had the luxury to take it easy. Since the Grey Knights were in terminator armors, they were probably a bit slower than in power armor. but probably even stronger. Its also possible the fact that both had power weapons helped the Sister since we don't really know how force fields impact fencing.

BTW, since were talking about stuff we disliked, I really think that killing a Hive Tyrant should be a momentous task that can only be done by tanks, war walkers or an entire squad of heavily armed Space Marine at the very least. The only times I could see a lone Space Marine win against one was if he was armed with something like a thunder hammer, relic blade or power fist and equipped with a powerful force field to just survive long enough to pass under the guard of the giant monster and strike it. A bit of luck or psychic protection against its psychic powers would be necessary.

Read Ragnar Blackmane, Power Armour does increase speed - Ragnar himself notices that it makes him feel lighter the first time he wears it and later notes that it adds speed. What Power Armour doesn’t change is reflexes because it has no bearing on how fast your brain communicates with your muscles and how fast they react.

Harlequin lore kinda makes no sense. They're gonna tell the same story all Eldar already know obsessively for millenia?
Having heard the audio Primogenitor and Clonelord I kinda liked their contrast, a bad acid trip version of Noise Marines, but I think they sound so much better as murder clowns than goofy theater freaks.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Basically ork and eldar background. I mean after the war in heaven and the necrons basically saying "Smell you later" and then the orks and eldar, what? Play with themselves for 60 million years instead of like grabbing every single habitable world in the galaxy, terra included. and one side wiping the other out during 60 million freaking years????

After the necrons "went away" the Krork Empire collapsed because they were no longer fighting a galaxy sized war. They kind of degenerated into the ork race. The eldar wiped them out whenever they came across them but the Eldar were arrogant and thought the orks were little more than animals, so never went on a galaxy-wide killing spree to hunt them all down. Kind of like how we humans wipe out termite colonies whenever they bother us, but don't make it our objective to make them go extinct as a species.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm reading 'flight of the eisenstein' atm and the description of the life eater bombs was pretty laughable. Glass tubes filled with green liquid? Are you kidding? I half expected nic cage and Sean connery to come and save the day.

Oh hell yes, I can totally see Sean Connory as an old inquisitor, and see Nick Cage as a promising young tech-priest who was scooped out of the cult mechanicus by Connery before he became too indoctrinated, but after he learned loads of valuable skills.

w1zard wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Basically ork and eldar background. I mean after the war in heaven and the necrons basically saying "Smell you later" and then the orks and eldar, what? Play with themselves for 60 million years instead of like grabbing every single habitable world in the galaxy, terra included. and one side wiping the other out during 60 million freaking years????

After the necrons "went away" the Krork Empire collapsed because they were no longer fighting a galaxy sized war. They kind of degenerated into the ork race. The eldar wiped them out whenever they came across them but the Eldar were arrogant and thought the orks were little more than animals, so never went on a galaxy-wide killing spree to hunt them all down. Kind of like how we humans wipe out termite colonies whenever they bother us, but don't make it our objective to make them go extinct as a species.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm reading 'flight of the eisenstein' atm and the description of the life eater bombs was pretty laughable. Glass tubes filled with green liquid? Are you kidding? I half expected nic cage and Sean connery to come and save the day.

Oh hell yes, I can totally see Sean Connory as an old inquisitor, and see Nick Cage as a promising young tech-priest who was scooped out of the cult mechanicus by Connery before he became too indoctrinated, but after he learned loads of valuable skills.

Ok so why didn't the eldar settle every planet in the galaxy, earth included?

 Techpriestsupport wrote:


Ok so why didn't the eldar settle every planet in the galaxy, earth included?

Because they reproduce very slowly and live very long. Eldars colonised thousands of worlds and were terraforming new ones all the time. Humans colonised over a million world because in the time for an Eldar to become old enough to reproduce there has been about 10 human generations. Plus, why would they? Has it ever occured to you that Eldars were never interested in colonising and controlling the entire galaxy? Not every civilisation has design of absolute and total world domination.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Harlequin lore kinda makes no sense. They're gonna tell the same story all Eldar already know obsessively for millenia?
Having heard the audio Primogenitor and Clonelord I kinda liked their contrast, a bad acid trip version of Noise Marines, but I think they sound so much better as murder clowns than goofy theater freaks.

There's a big difference between being told a story and bunch of holograms, drugs and creepy clown/priest/soldiers showing it to you.

Wyzilla wrote:They were created to show the degeneration of idealism in warhammer and that ultimately no deontological society can survive in 40k and keep its ethical code.

Actually I think they were created to help GW expand into the Japanese market, where GW were just opening stores and trying to establish a presence at that time, but there we go..