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Normal as being, not a hive, death, artefact, feral, ghost, dead or daemon world.

Probably with a severe class system with the super rich and the super poor. Some undeveloped areas, some cities that have an upper zone of vast wealth and a lower zone of abused poverty. Maybe a few small small forests. A few such worlds are seen in the books, though i can't remember any names from the top of my head. A common one would probably be something like Sepheris Secundus from Scourge the Heretic

Probably much like Earth, though more heavily populated urban centres and high intensity farmland, and large industrial areas.

A fair few spaceports, Imperial Shrines/etc, Ad Mech temples, and all the other bits of Imperial government.

I imagine something akin to a more mild and effective USSR.

yeah i always just sorta think of it as U.S.S.R. lite style place with heavy populated areas and the occasional cathedral the size of a small town just to mix it up a bit

Hummmmm.

I thought a normal Imperial planet was mostly hives surrounded by slums decaying from over exposure to the toxic environment created by the massive toxic, (grim/dark), pollution.

The exceptions were the planets that were to hostile to hold more than small populations or recently settled worlds that hadnt grown yet.

I always assumed the average Imperial world was an excessively boring Agri world. With all the hive worlds, forge worlds and fortress worlds with trillions of mouths to feed there has to be an even larger number of planets that do nothing but grow food.

I always imagined them as unending fields of corn, wheat or soybeans. Entire continents that have been leveled to make farming easier. Fields so massive that you could walk for weeks in any direction and not find any signs of human habitation.

The planet probably has one "Hive City", which exports the billions of tons foodstuffs. The locals like to think of it as a hive city, but with a population that pales in comparison even the smallest hive.

The oppressive levels of boredom cause the planets youths to volunteer for the Imperial Guard in droves. The handful of veterans that make it through there enlistment retire on their home planets or any of a thousand planets that are almost identical.

USSR lite? Mild and effective?

THAT'S NOT GRIMDARK. THAT'S NOT GRIMDARK AT ALL.

Life in the 40k universe is like if the Nazis captured the whole Soviet Union, and put it in a death camp, but even though he's in a death camp Stalin is still exterminating people 24/7, and you actually want Hitler to come save you but he's a vegetable, and the death camp is surrounded by green meat-eating gorillas and Zerg and they keep coming in through the walls, and Satan beat up Hitler so that he could summon Demon Nazis to torture the gak out of you, and you don't have any eyes or limbs, just cords and skulls, and no one has any hair and everyone is screaming and the Ku Klux Klan's flying dead babies keep stealing your food rations, which are also dead babies. And there is only war. And Hope itself wants to disintegrate you.

I was playing Assassin's Creed II for the first time today and Renaissance Florence just made me think of the Imperium of Man... throw in some archaic technology, the odd aquila, apocalyptic preacher and repressive PDF and you pretty much have the idea, no?

Oh, and an impossibly large Governor's Palace and Arbites armoury.

There are some "paradise" worlds or worlds that could be considered, for all intensive purposes, like second Earths.

Almost all of the planets under Ultramarine's jurisdiction are like ancient Athens (minus democracy). The citizens obviously labour for the good of the Imperium but there is a high emphasis on the arts, architecture, oratory.

It is also said that Baal, home of the Blood Angels, has a high emphasis on art.


Cadia, which is probably the model of the "perfect" Imperial world (when it isn't being raided by Chaos) is not primarily urban. It has many small Kasr, like fortress cities, but these do not get overly congested because they would be harder to defend. Most of the rest of the planet is oceans, large plains, and forests.

Gudrun, a planet from the Eisenhorn books, had a few hive cities, but most of the rest of the planet was heavily forested. It also boasted many sprawling private villas.

I would say like the Imperial system world in the player of games novel by Ian m banks. Okay I wouldnt say they would have 3 different genders just the system set up of wanting to conquer other planets. Haivng a strict religion .

Kind of like 'The Fifth Element' without as many cute alien chicks.

so you mean like star wars? hovering cars flying all over the place?

I always imagined most Imperial planets to consist of vast miles of unbroken grass, occasionally peppered with two small woods in close proximity, and a hill.
The odd imperial building would be present, but this would be a major feature in any area, rather than a common occurance.

I don't think it is so easy to nail down what a "typical" imperial world is. It seems like the sector and planetary governors are given large amoun ts of leeway in how to set things up and let things run under them. So long as they meet their tax requirements, the imperium doesn't care much what they do.

Consequently you have a lot of variety. Some are going to allow and encourage high levels of technology and you will see Technical paradises, totalitarian utopias, fanatical religious sectors where everyone is brainwashed into the imperial cult from birth, oppressive big brother-esque sci-fi dictatorships, and even some free market republics, each governor trying to achieve his own ideal of what society can and should be.

Others are going to see their worlds as things to be used. Prison worlds where the basic unit of society is not the family, but the press gang. Mine worlds where 99% of the population never sees the sun, are pressed into labor at age 5, and die of black lung before they reach 30. Factory hells where the populace is lobotomized at birth--little better than servitors--and only the aristocracy has free will.

Some governors seem to take a hands off approach, rarely interfering with the societies under their care, except to collect taxes. There you will see societies at every level of development: from bronze age to early space flight. The most advanced of them only suspect the existence of other life forms in the galaxy, having only vague and unreliable reports of UFOs and abductions in the night, as the black ships collect their due. Only at the highest levels of government is the truth known, and great effort goes into covering up the disappearances of entire populations to as they are pressed into the guard.

Some worlds have been settled for over 20,000 years, since the dark age of technology. Over such a great period of time, and with near total isolation, societies and cultures have been able to evolve to a degree that has never been observed ion modern day earth. If you think asian, european, and african cultures are unique, imagine what changes have occurred in the imperium. There are millions of languages, cultures, and customs. Likely there are governments and economic models we have not yet invented. Empires within the Empire.

All of this is tied together by the Imperium of Man. Like I said in the beginning, I doubt there is such thing as a "typical" imperial world. Their cultures, customes, architecture, and governments are more numerous and varied than anything we have witnessed on earth.

I envision a kind of cross between dark and medieval times and Judge Dredd. But true, agri-worlds would be in the vast majority - vast factory-farms tended by lumbering harvester machines, whole continents of soy or wheat grown by serfs and peasants. That being said, each planetary govenor or pontifex mundi is gonna have their own ideas on how to run things. The common threads that bind the Imperium together are the ever-present spectre of war and a fanatical, militant church.