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To make this easier on everyone, allow me to give you a visual aid . . .

MEDIEVAL


RENAISSANCE


EARLY MODERN


MODERN


Let's not debate overmuch about what the categories mean, please.

It always seems kind of WW1 to me, but that might just be the Grimdark. It's certainly a very broad universe, with a lot of different fighting styles.

Yeah, IG can be World War I at times and Napoleonic at others. But Rogue Traders seem straight out of the Renaissance. The Inquisition is blatantly medieval. That's why I want to see what most people would identify it with generally speaking.

I went with Medieval. Modern has too many intellectuals, too good of communication, and far too much progress.

lol good pics, have to go with Renaissance when just basing it on the warfare involved, 40k and Renaissance both mix of close combat and fire arms diff being Renaissance fire arms more unreliably, both diff however usually(not always) the armies from both wind up finishing each other in close combat

I also went with Renaissance but, if I could be more specific, I would say Renaissance people imagining what the Middle Ages were like.

I voted for none. 40k is mostly modern, with the religious stringency of the Medieval era, the paranoia and politics of the Renaissance, and the chaos of the Age of Revolution (early modern). This differs widely from race to race and from section of the galaxy to section of the galaxy, not to mention the time period of the 41st Millennium.

Well, I suppose I meant Imperium and I was looking for a general opinion. How does that stack up against your objections?

Can we at least agree that Blackadder would fit in?

I guess it shows all of them a little bit but i don't think the Renaissance because that seems like a reforming time of new ideas to me and it seems more civilized, i picked Medeval because of the inquisition which basically hasn't changed at all since then and because of a space marine being so similar to a knight. Theres also a general warrior code among guard and you could say they all seek some form of honor. You could also think of the 40k as one giant crusade.

I'm thinking Dark Ages but with World War 2 tragedy multiplied by 50 trillion.
Reasons:1:humans believing that religon is in every aspect of their lives.
2:deaths every where,people fighting for scraps while armies trudge over the land.
Great pics by the way Manchu! Iv've also heard 'bout your upcoming wedding.
God-damn-ulations!

Thank you, goddammit!

To be honest I think 40k could happen if we just went into a dark age after 100 years from now.

Think about it could happen ya know.

Yes.

I think that 40k is mostly dark age. The closest we could get to it is probably the decline of the Roman Empire (roughly 100AD) and all the invading barbarian hordes.

None of the above. In my mind 40k is most like the period of the Roman empire. The Imperium is obviously the Roman empire, huge, expanding and contracting, difficult travel and communication. Eldar represent older empires like the Greeks or Egyptians who had great knowledge but were declining. Orks represent barbarian tribes. Tyranids could be the Huns or Mongols, i.e. strange and vicious beings coming from beyond the known world. Not real sure about chaos though, maybe those crazy cults like Christianity that deny the divinity of the emperor. That's how I've always thought of the 40k universe.

But that doesn't really measure up to the culture, either material or abstract, of the Imperium--excepting UM, of course.

Manchu wrote:To make this easier on everyone, allow me to give you a visual aid . . .

MEDIEVAL


RENAISSANCE


EARLY MODERN


MODERN


Let's not debate overmuch about what the categories mean, please.

for black adder
Joke aside I think that 40k can't really be represented only by medieval.It has things like DKOK they are modern in style.Vostroya's regiments are early modern in style.

Well, material culture none of these fit, it's the future.
Otherwise, the Imperium is completely like the Roman empire, lead by an Emperor, consisting of a huge number of planets with different sub-cultures, with a huge and mostly expendable army. A convoluted system of both religion and government. Then, of course you have the simple fact that so much of the Imperium's vocabulary is straight-up Latin (administratum, codex, Imperium, etc.).

Manchu wrote:

Can we at least agree that Blackadder would fit in?

Fit in? He ' ll make a perfect imperial citizen....

The period would be a mix of:
- WW1 army organization + renaissance politics + medieval enlightenment in religion + modern times buerocrats + having worlds ranging
from stone-age to space flight.

The variety of the Imperium makes it impossible to fix it to ONE period of history.

My best bet would be pre-WW1 ( start of 1900 ).
Strong faith in your leaders / country + upcoming weapons of megadeath + still fighting in CC with sabres and cavalry....

@DruidODurham

You're not quite understanding, it seems, so perhaps more visual aides are necessary.

Compare this



to this



or this



and this



Understand what I mean by "material culture"?

Pretty much thats completely true. We can't tell which one it is because every single orginaization of the Imperium differs. Like the Space marines who each have their different orginazation. if we were talking about cultures i could probaly tell you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wow i posted 1 second after you LOL.

So which culture do you pick? or--if I am misinterpreting what you have said--which imperial organization matches with which time period?

Why try to shoehorn it in? Obviously Imperial background material is an amalgamation of all of the above. Costume-wise it's a combination of late-Renaissance/early Modern Age leather/breeches/frogging/cloaks and late Industrial Revolution-era organization with WW1-era body armor/weaponry/colonialization.

None of those pics fit, or rather all of them do.

Pretty much all of them I can't really pick. But I did say medevil because at the time i thought of space marines and the inqusition.

Golden fething Throne. Sourclams, your name is entirely appropriate. I'm not looking for a one-to-one correspondence that translates into a rule. I know 40k takes from all sorts of stuff. I'm asking which one the dakkaites think GW draws the most heavily upon.

.....

And again, that's completely dependent on whatever real-world faction the fictional 40k depiction is based upon.

What period do Mordians draw most heavily upon?

The dress uniform of the U.S. Marine Corps, mebbe?

Catachans?

60s era 'Nam grunts

Cadians?

WW1&2 American and British G.I.s

Krieg?

SS?

It's like asking what color best encompasses the rainbow. It's not one without all of them, just as whatever period best encompasses the Imperium simply depends on how many Kriegsmen you have versus Mordians.

Sorry to de-rail the fun train.

There you go. I wonder what kept you from posting that useful reply from the first?

Also, notice how you answer seems to be "modern"?

Seems to me like the age of impearlism (that is if not the whole roman thing). Imperium being great britan I guess. Tau being America. Tyranids might be disease that was rampant due to the terrible conditions created by industrialization. Chaos being the traitors and corruption the empire. Well, as for the other stuff... Religion was huge during that time, and there were inquisition stuff. They burned "heretics" all the time.

Also: (excuse my terrible spelling)
Cadians look like modern day marines
catachans look like the stereotype vietnam fighters
Death Corps of Kreg look like WWI germans with their gas masks
Necrons look like they may have possibly been based off... don't quote me on this... but just maybe they could have been based of skeletons. Shocking, i know.

fludit wrote:Tyranids might be disease that was rampant due to the terrible conditions created by industrialization.

That's quite an interesting idea.

I say medieval, more specifically, Fall of Rome/Dark Ages Europe.

The Imperium of Man is a rotten, decaying organization (400s AD Rome, anyone?) with a regression in technological understanding and technology taking on a mystic quality (loss of classical knowledge and understanding in the Dark Ages). At the same time, there are other organizations like the Tau Empire that are on the up and up at this time (Like China or the Middle East. As Europe collapsed, these societies thrived).

Medieval societies refused any kind of progressive thought or deviation out of fear of the unknown. The Imperium lines up with that rather nicely. Medieval societies used war machines that were invented by Romans and Greeks, but without the plans and detailed instructions, the understanding to build such machines was lost.

The Imperium is clinging to its territory, but planets slowly fall off one by one and are lost to an ebb of attrition. Beset on all sides by invaders and hard pressed to hold its own, etc. Western Roman Empire had the same problems.