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Huh. Thats weird. I would have called it a Medieval World over a Feudal World, personally.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Huh. Thats weird. I would have called it a Medieval World over a Feudal World, personally.

Now that you've pointed this bit I agree with you, but I think for the sake of all understanding each other we should stick to GW's denomination although it is incorrect.

Medieval World sounds like a thematic park.

 Tyran wrote:
Medieval World sounds like a thematic park.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Huh. Thats weird. I would have called it a Medieval World over a Feudal World, personally.

I disagree as the term "Medieval" is associated pretty heavily with the European Middle Ages, in fact, it literally means middle age as in between the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. In contrast, Feudalism is a political/social concept that survived past the European Renaissance, for example in Japan and China where the latter only ditched its feudal society in 1911 with the fall of the Qing dynasty.

By focusing on the societal ideology rather than a specific time period, it means that people don't have to stick to specific cultural ideas and designs.

Yes, but the problem is that the defining characteristic of a feudal world in the fluff evidently is not its socio-political structure, its the tech base instead - and the tech base in 1911 China is vastly different from the tech base of England circa 1200 AD, is it not?

Really, the hypothetical problem you've identified with the usage of the word "medieval" is the actual problem that is currently occurring with the usage of the word "feudal" - GW is using it in reference to the level of technology that existed explicitly within the context of the European Middle Ages, not inclusive of the feudal serfdom of 18th and 19th century Russia, China, Japan, etc.

You're looking too hard at this when it's very simple.

Medieval refers to the European Middle Ages.
Feudal systems were not restricted by geography or specific time periods with fancy names.

My point with regard to Japan and China was that they both retained feudal systems long after the medieval age was finished.

Therefore, medieval is not an accurate term to use when applied to planets with a pre-industrial technology base even if they might have the odd Las-Pike or resident Space Marine Chapter.

In the end both words don't work perfectly when you take modern real world meaning and impose it on the 40K setting. The 40K setting has taken the word and adapted it to mean its own thing within its own setting and context.

In that sense it doesn't matter if they used Medieval, Feudal, Barablongle or whatever term - the word used isn't as important as the connection and meaning behind it within the setting and how readily its picked up on by readers.

Feudal works - it brings some real world understanding with it and then builds upon it to present the concept for the 40K universe

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yes, but the problem is that the defining characteristic of a feudal world in the fluff evidently is not its socio-political structure, its the tech base instead - and the tech base in 1911 China is vastly different from the tech base of England circa 1200 AD, is it not?

Really, the hypothetical problem you've identified with the usage of the word "medieval" is the actual problem that is currently occurring with the usage of the word "feudal" - GW is using it in reference to the level of technology that existed explicitly within the context of the European Middle Ages, not inclusive of the feudal serfdom of 18th and 19th century Russia, China, Japan, etc.

What I think he means is that what since games workshop names more or less categorizes feudal worlds not on society but as a planet with roughly european middle age tier tech, even if it has got a wide range of historical inspiration.

What he suggest is that in regard to this emphasis on a tech level rather than a society, it would be more accurate to name them after said tech level, rather than after a social hierarchy.

chaos0 did I get you right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But GW terminology is often vague or approximate anyway, so well, that's but a minor detail and it leaves you ample space to create your own view of a medieval/feudal/whatever world

The most advanced Feudal Worlds use black powder weapons, which were used up until the very end of the 18th century so just using Middle Age Europe is dumb.
GW also doesn't just base it on technology but the society as well.

A world with multiple kingdoms, a largely agricultural economy, and a population between 10-500 million people, but the various armies are equipped with Las Pikes is still a Feudal World because it ticks more feudalism boxes than non-feudalism boxes.
A world with a central governing power, an industrial-based economy, and a population in the billions but no armies with firearms is not a Feudal World because it doesn't tick enough boxes.

Knight Worlds are a separate category because they mix the feudal ideology with the advanced technology needed to maintain Knight suits and often have large Mechanicus populations. They are the exception to the rule.

You have to remember that some feudal worlds are exploited. Advanced mining operations overseen by the Ad-Mech and they just keep the local population out. Sometimes the population themselves are just used as slave labour.

Another point to mention is that citizens from feudal worlds would make better soldiers than most other planets. They'd be stronger, have better diets, and have survival skills compared to a hive worlder who lives on recycled food. You just train them once they're tithed into the Imperial Guard.

Jarms48 wrote:
You have to remember that some feudal worlds are exploited. Advanced mining operations overseen by the Ad-Mech and they just keep the local population out. Sometimes the population themselves are just used as slave labour.

Another point to mention is that citizens from feudal worlds would make better soldiers than most other planets. They'd be stronger, have better diets, and have survival skills compared to a hive worlder who lives on recycled food. You just train them once they're tithed into the Imperial Guard.

At the same time a Hive worlder is going to know about electronics, machines, robots, mutants and if from an underhive, likely a good amount of violence.

A Feudal worlder might know how to fight with sword and shield in formation; but they won't have a clue about guns; machines; tanks; mutants and that's just the people they are fighting alongside let alone the ones against them.

Plus there are many many worlds where people aren't living in hive cities. The Imperium has everything from worlds that are a paradise to almost literal hellscapes. People from all walks come to the Imperial Guard - some will be healthy and fit; some will be unhealthy; some will come preloaded with survival and fighting skills; some will be pretty raw and even if trained on their own world for the muster, they will be green and totally inexperienced in actual combat.

Many Astartes Chapters also prefer Feral or Feudal worlds to recruit from - probably as they can pretend to be demi gods

True and they likely do want people with a more base/blank slate as that's much much easier to indoctrinate and train up. Plus the process of becoming a Marine extends life so they have more time to play with.

Imperial Guard if anything have a much shorter lifespan so they don't want people so fresh that they can think a servitor is a god or something. They want functional troops that can hit the front lines and do something useful almost as soon as they are mustered into the ships

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yes, but the problem is that the defining characteristic of a feudal world in the fluff evidently is not its socio-political structure, its the tech base instead - and the tech base in 1911 China is vastly different from the tech base of England circa 1200 AD, is it not?

Exactly.

We know that there is some sort of aristocracy on various worlds, and that tithes and tribute are regularly extracted in a decidedly feudal way.

So it's not a political system, it's pure tech.

It's also worth pointing out that China in 1911 wasn't "feudal" it was fragmented. The Empire had been falling apart for a century, and regional warlords held no titles of nobility, nor were they bound by oaths of allegiance. They were strongmen, pure and simple, hence the term "warlord."

 Overread wrote:

At the same time a Hive worlder is going to know about electronics, machines, robots, mutants and if from an underhive, likely a good amount of violence.

Other than mutants and violence, I'd argue most mid and lower hivers won't know much about those. Just whatever relates to their profession. Life in the hives is very similar to the slums of Victorian England. With multi-generational and multi-family dwellings, child labour, high child mortality, malnutrition, etc.

A Feudal worlder might know how to fight with sword and shield in formation; but they won't have a clue about guns; machines; tanks; mutants and that's just the people they are fighting alongside let alone the ones against them.

Doesn't take long to teach people how to use guns, that's why the world shifted to muskets instead of bows. Far easier to train. Tanks again, doesn't take long to train how to defeat one. Just look at the experience of WW1. Soldiers quickly adapted to the new threat and formed tactics to destroy them. Ironically the hardest part is probably teaching a feudal worlder how to read and write. As I would assume their literacy rates would be similar to a Medieval Europe.

"You don't need to read and write Guardsman. You only need to know how to shoot a Lasgun!"

Jarms48 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

At the same time a Hive worlder is going to know about electronics, machines, robots, mutants and if from an underhive, likely a good amount of violence.

Other than mutants and violence, I'd argue most mid and lower hivers won't know much about those. Just whatever relates to their profession. Life in the hives is very similar to the slums of Victorian England. With multi-generational and multi-family dwellings, child labour, high child mortality, malnutrition, etc.

A Feudal worlder might know how to fight with sword and shield in formation; but they won't have a clue about guns; machines; tanks; mutants and that's just the people they are fighting alongside let alone the ones against them.

Doesn't take long to teach people how to use guns, that's why the world shifted to muskets instead of bows. Far easier to train. Tanks again, doesn't take long to train how to defeat one. Just look at the experience of WW1. Soldiers quickly adapted to the new threat and formed tactics to destroy them. Ironically the hardest part is probably teaching a feudal worlder how to read and write. As I would assume their literacy rates would be similar to a Medieval Europe.

I wasn't meaning about operation or understanding theory of how they worked; I was more meaning that culturally speaking someone from a world that doesn't have electronics, tanks, machines, mutants and soforth is going to have a LOT of trouble adapting just because of the alien nature of the world suddenly around them.

People from a developed Imperial world are going to adapt to life on board starships and on other developed worlds and using developed weapons and such much more readily than those from a world with a much lower level of development.



Heck its not even the big things; consider just how to cross a road; how to turn on a light; how not to stick metal things in a plug socket; how to access and use a cogitator. The Feudal World serf has a vast amount they have to learn just to function and that's before you shove a lasgun in their hands.

Also its not that they cannot learn, people are very adaptive and most certainly can learn. It's that they have so much more to learn. It makes them less attractive to muster from compared to a more developed world. If you're going to muster from a feudal world chances are you've got to seed that muster much earlier so that the troops you get are trained in life inside the rest of the developed Imperial universe.

Culture shock aside, standard IG training should be easy enough to ingrain into them, especially their world has a pre-existing warrior culture.

Which again is the strength of the not-at-all-humble Lasgun. If you can work a Crossbow, you can most certainly work a Lasgun, which in certain respects is probably more user friendly. Heck, any one who can effectively shoot a bow from horseback should be able to do the same with a Lasgun?

I think we could also argue someone from a Feudal world is going to be more used to proper equipment maintenance and the overall importance thereof.

Even artillery may not be that much of a stretch, if they have trebuchet and ballista. A Lascannon Tripod, Basilisk and Medusa type stuff all work in almost the same way (line it up, calculate your parabola, let fly)

But hey. They’re still human and as such pretty adaptable. Sure they’d almost certainly find it tough going at first, but one has to assume some accommodation exists for such issues.

Plus training is done mostly en route to combat zone abroad the ships, at least a big part of it, if I remember correctly. And you still get the enhanced physical abilities and endurance of a rough life. To then determine if the administratum decides to put a chapter to make the best or leave it as it is for IG recruitment purposes is another question, that'd be a planet by planet answer, as more than one must quite simply be only reminded about when the time to count tithes arrive.

Though I suppose if your home world still relies on Form Line, Form Square? That’s a military approach you may need to drum out of them first. Unless the IG as a whole has a place for such tactics?

Considering that their uniforms, tanks and tactical doctrines come right out of WW1 which was famous for "just run at the guns like we used to do" kind of tactics. I figure that whilst medieval Shield Walls aren't a thing; they are certainly going to have Napoleonic style all the way to early/late WW1 style battle tactics.

But its messy because whilst they have that; they've also clearly got advanced combined arms and air support which are much more modern warfare tactics.

That depends on the Regiment though.

In the Cain Novels, the Valhallan 597th are a Mechanised Regiment with Chimera transports for each squad. And, when fighting on an Ice World, they’re described as ambush fighters par excellence.

Tanith 1st and Only are of course described primarily as Scouts and Light Infantry.

So yes, some Regiments (not even necessarily tied to specific worlds) will adopt WW1 style tactics. But by no means all.

In fact a regiment levied on a feral world raises more question in how good they'll perform in combined arms evironment with all the tech it implies (fliers, tanks, comms) with other people who may be more used to these. That's quite an overall problem of the guard though.

For reference, here is the canonical view of a feudal world classification:


Here is a feral world:


The distinction is mainly technological, but also includes larger-scale political organisations for feudal worlds (not specifically feudal political structures). The Iatter would probably count iron-age Earth as "feudal".

This is language changing in action here. A word takes on a new meaning.

Nah, its just GW using terminology incorrectly.
It really isn't anything like linguistic drift over time, because its a game setting term assigned by people in the late 1980s.

An Imperium feudal world is going to have anachronistic cultures and technologies that don't match up with our understanding of 'Feudal'. Its never just going to be Charlemagne in space.

 Haighus wrote:
For reference, here is the canonical view of a feudal world classification:


Here is a feral world:


The distinction is mainly technological, but also includes larger-scale political organisations for feudal worlds (not specifically feudal political structures). The Iatter would probably count iron-age Earth as "feudal".

That is honestly useless. No (or few) boomsticks, some international politics doesn't even map well to feudal Europe! (for one thing, political structures and international reach were a degradation compared to what came before the feudal period. Using Europe as a baseline you'd actually expect a 'feral' world to be more sophisticated and interconnected.)

That isn't a classification (even assuming a set technological path that mandates black powder weapons as a given level of achievement), that's whistling in the wind and just picking up a classification stamp at random.

It doesn’t need to map well to history. It is just a name that GW has used to refer to a classification of world that they made up in a fictional background.

 Flinty wrote:
It doesn’t need to map well to history. It is just a name that GW has used to refer to a classification of world that they made up in a fictional background.

Yes. It needs to be consistant in its own in univers logic, and/or to be cool.

It's a fiction, what's more a half sci fi half fantasy bastard. It's meant to be founded over stuff that is either not real or misuse. It is nowhere intended to be historically accurate or a reflection of our world just as fantasy is not supposed to. And its fine as long as it retains consistancy so you can picture it and enjoy it.

Not sure why there's the fixation on Middle Ages Europe when as has been said, Feudal nations existed well into the 19th century.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
It doesn’t need to map well to history. It is just a name that GW has used to refer to a classification of world that they made up in a fictional background.

Yes. It needs to be consistant in its own in univers logic, and/or to be cool.

It's a fiction, what's more a half sci fi half fantasy bastard. It's meant to be founded over stuff that is either not real or misuse. It is nowhere intended to be historically accurate or a reflection of our world just as fantasy is not supposed to. And its fine as long as it retains consistancy so you can picture it and enjoy it.

Not only that but its a single generic term used on a galactic scale. It is going to have exceptions on nearly every world classified as such because its such a sheer vastness that even rare feudal or feral worlds are going to exhibit variations based on local setup, ecology, geology and a billion other things.