Poll: Is 40K serious?

[DevilWithaHalo]

Here's the real appreciation from 40k... if you're playing guitar and you want to play loud. You turn your amp up to 10. Then you want to go one step further, so you turn it up to 11. Just for the shere joy of turning something up to 11. The 40k universe has always been, and will always be 11.

Look at god of war. Do people really get a kick out of slaughtering innocent civilians running from the bad guys for a few extra red or green globes? Why yes, yes they do. Do they enjoy the completely over the top visceral disembowlment of your bad guys as creative finishers? Indeed.

You go make a game where you fight with a few frail wizards and knights in armor swinging swords around. Could it be fun? Sure. OR... you could play where evil guys literally rip their sorcery from a realm filled with the physical manifestations of peoples deepest emotional desires while super powered walking tanks of men wield diamond tipped chainsaws carving through a population who's only crime was they valiently fought against people who sacrificed their souls to a god that treats entire civilizations like a monkey treats its fecese.

It's a universe that has something for everyone. A race that literaly grows stronger the more it fights. A race that will gladly sacrifice a billion innocent lives to save just 1 of theirs. An organization that is so anal if a single person commits to the darker powers the planet and all those that reside on it will be utterly annihilated. Stories involving the pathetic futility of fighting against one's very nature and the consequences beyond their control.

Take what you want from it, be it seriousness or comedy; and just turn it up a notch. Like discussions of all the rediculous things you could do with the money you win from the lottery; go nuts, nothing is stopping you.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

Nope. It may be filled with misery, but that doesn't make it anymore more believable or realistic than a teenage emo who thinks his parents don't love him enough.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Setting with every planet, city complex, space station or vessel bearing name stolen from some Black Metal band ? Without any plausible economy ? With heavily armored knights dying as easily as light infantrymen ? Serious ? No. By all gods, no !

Yeah, its not serious. However, economy does happen in the universe. The only problem is how ass backwards it is.

There is the Administratum, which is made up of the pencil pushers of the Imperium. It is a giant organization that runs horribly, sometimes orders take years to get from place to place. Leads to planets getting forgotten during rounding errors.

There are different planets that suit different needs. Forgeworlds are giant factory planets chosen specifically for exploitation of their resources.

Interplanetary shipping is seen, but it is very limited due to the dangers of the Warp for travel. Because of this, most systems are self sufficient. A hive world will have several dedicated agri-worlds to feed its population, while the agri-worlds are usually only populated with workers and not locals, meaning that they have less consumption needs. Forgeworlds supply the various materials needed to build and maintain the infrastructure of a system.

When cross sector trade is required, the Imperium makes use of Rogue Traders, independent starships that truck goods across the Warp.

It isn't a very plausible system, but it is there.

 

[Versuvius]

Still, think of the logistics. There are hundreds, if not thousands of Krieg regiments. If they can throw away 10,000 and still win then the regiment must be larger than that. Consider that the planet would still need millions of people in order to run itself. Think of how many people this must be. And they only come from one planet.

Different example : how much does it COSTS to train one Space Marine ? Is it economically acceptable to mantain such relics of ancient chivalry if they die so easily ? WH40k tabletop is a little bit reasonable but video games, Space Hulk branch or this, ummmm, wonderful piece of art that is "Space Marine" movie suggests that Space Marines dies oh so easily.

How about you know, economy like on earth. Planet's don't get food and resources from somewhere else. They make it on those same freaking planets. Besides, so what if the economy is not explained. That's hardly as interesting as plots, schemes, wars, death and destruction etc.

Nope. On our planet's surface no enemy can just appear in the middle of your territory and devastate city or two. Distances can be easily crossed with (i guess) close to 100% chance of success (with the exception of Somalia piracy is practically nonexisten and our weather reports aren't that bad). History proves that countries can't sustain full scale modern war for long. And how about those worlds covered with one big factory complex from pole to pole ? Where does food grows, how siple people live there... No, i guess it isn't just possible to take experience from our good old mother Earth and say "it's exactly like this but simpler and on huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge scale.

Besides, so what if the economy is not explained. That's hardly as interesting as plots, schemes, wars, death and destruction etc.

Sure. Every time i play game in WH40k setting, read the novel or something i don't care about that sh*t at all. However each time anyone tries to prove that it's a possible, reasonable vision... No. Just no. [/quote]

Economically viable doesnt matter when you have a billion planets to plunder for resources, use to house your breeding machines or turn into giant farms. Stars doing nothing but sitting there and ripe for the harvesting of fuel (They harvest the ionised hydrogen for fuel cells, dont ask how, its future tech, deal with that bit). Underlay to all this is jobs of the average people on planets, shopkeeps and suppliers on the planet who buy from off planet for a universal currency. Like with the Euro but bigger (and not failing). I'm not trying to convince you the economy is exactly like the one on earth, but give it a bit of handwave it does work on the surface. A free market exists, with layers of taxes for various people up the chain. 30,000 years of this going on. Anyway. Argument time over, red dwarf time begin.

http://www.darkreign40k.com/drjoomla/index.php/background/general-background/674-the-imperial-economy this too.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Setting with every planet, city complex, space station or vessel bearing name stolen from some Black Metal band ? Without any plausible economy ? With heavily armored knights dying as easily as light infantrymen ? Serious ? No. By all gods, no !

The fuck? Economy is based on forge worlds processing materials stripped from mine worlds, food is produced by dedicated agri-worlds and hosing space is provided by planets turned into vast tower blocks. Economy exists, it's just on a grand scale. Do your research, or shut up.

Let me qualify this by saying I have been a massive 40k fan for 11 years now. I have a sizeable Alpha Legion army and an in progress World Eaters army. Yesterday the stuff I ordered to finish my Goliath gang for Necromunda came in the mail. I love 40k.

But he's right about a lot of the logistics making no sense. You just have to turn off that part of your brain and accept it. For instance, the Death Korps of Krieg. They willingly sacrifice entire regiments as long as they win. They come from one planet. They can not sustain these tactics for long. But you just have to put that thought out of your mind and go with it.

Actually Krieg can sustain these actions. They are all clones. The Vitae Womb birthing technique that they use pretty much allows for Krieg women to give birth to several biologically identical children at a time. They are sub humans, who reproduce at a swift rate.

 

[Puddleknock]

Is 40k serious? In a word...no. In a few more words....of course its not, look at it.

The whole thing is over the top and that is by design. Long may the mayhem continue.

 

[ShakyFt Slasher]

Hello there escapist!

I've been curious lately as to how many people who are familiar with the Warhammer 40K universe can take it seriously and get into the setting and so forth. I've found it immensely goofy and over the top for the longest time and my recent purchase of Dawn of War 2 + expansions did not help matters in the slightest. (Tubby bloke encouraging to drink puss coupled with 'Noise Marines' shooting purple rays and making lots of loud noises is not scary or depressing to me)

Oh and for those of you who have yet to be introduced to the Warhammer 40K universe this ought to be a good start:

I am curious as to whether you thought out what you posted or not. Not to seem rude, as I mean that in an honest way. Do we (people who enjoy an over the top game series for a hobby/entertainment) take the game SERIOUSLY? No. No one takes Warhammer 40k seriously. No one SHOULD take it seriously. It's a GAME. Do you take Call of Duty or Halo 'seriously'? If you do, you should probably review your world values. There are plenty of serious things going on in the world, games don't need to be on the list of things taken 'seriously' (In the way that you mean. I am not talking about the whole 'Games are Art' thing and what not. That's serious, but not THIS kind of serious)

Now, what Warhammer does do, and what people should take it as, is over the top fun. Call of Duty and Battlefield profess to being realistic (At least, Battlefield does openly) but they are not realistic at all. Why? Because people don't want realistic shooters. It's just not as fun, anyone who regularly plays shooters knows that. Occasionally realism is fun for a change, but generally you do not want to always play a realistic shooter. Warhammer is just upfront and honest about what it delivers - hilarious, over the top hyper-violent gore soaked FUN.

I do not want to get on a shooter and shoot terrorists. That is boring. I want to get on a shooter and watch entire planets burn, shoot orcs that spew out gallons of blood from paper-scratches, and generally see things that can only happen otherwise in imagination-land.


Essentially, my advice is to anyone who can't "get" Warhammer, to isolate the thing you are having trouble with - say, ask yourself "Why are Space Marines so lulzy big with rediculous armor?". Now take that question, and rephrase it this way - "Wouldn't it be funny if. . .There were super-serious-sam-Space-Marines that wore half a tank worth of armor into battle modelled after Roman-Catholic monk-orders (Who are generally, historically non-violent)?

Or, "Why do orcs sound so stupid?", rephrase too "Wouldn't it be funny if there was an entire race of greenskinned orks who had the WORST British accent imaginable?"

If your answer to any of those questions is 'no', then you either have no sense of humor or Warhammer just isn't for you, so ignore it.

/rantoff

This is a great point and I agree 100%. It's kind of like the Gears of War series. The setting is extremely dark and horrible but one liners abound in the single player and if you have played the Gears 3 MP you know how ridiculously silly that can get.

 

[Lieju]

Just worth noting for anyone who reads this that if you think the designs are uncool, it's not for you. There is some decent backstory and lore, but if you don't like the aesthetics it won't get any better for you.

Different people definitely have different tastes for cool and what looks good, true, it's hugely subjective.

But I don't necessarily dislike the designs.

Something like the huge space armors look horribly uncool and ridiculous to me, but I kinda like the design for it, because of how overly macho ridiculous they look.
But I'm not sure if it's supposed to look cool.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

It depends on the writer, really, or even the faction. Most of the stuff featuring the Orks or Tau is usually on the lighter scale, and of course there is always stuff like Ciaphas Cain which read almost like a FunLight parody of the setting. Of course, then it swings around to stuff dealing with the Imperial Guard, or Chaos and the SMs which can get really, really dark. Some of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels are downright depressing (freaking Only in Death, man. Spooky stuff.), ditto with the Horus Heresy.

I guess it all depends on if you are able to look past the obviously overdone and over the top aesthetics of the setting and get into the meat of it. Its so filled with hyperbole, and deliberate exaggeration and homage that its hard to take seriously sometimes, but at its heart its a very deliberately bleak setting, where everything is bad and only getting worse.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Still, think of the logistics. There are hundreds, if not thousands of Krieg regiments. If they can throw away 10,000 and still win then the regiment must be larger than that. Consider that the planet would still need millions of people in order to run itself. Think of how many people this must be. And they only come from one planet.

Different example : how much does it COSTS to train one Space Marine ? Is it economically acceptable to mantain such relics of ancient chivalry if they die so easily ? WH40k tabletop is a little bit reasonable but video games, Space Hulk branch or this, ummmm, wonderful piece of art that is "Space Marine" movie suggests that Space Marines dies oh so easily.

How about you know, economy like on earth. Planet's don't get food and resources from somewhere else. They make it on those same freaking planets. Besides, so what if the economy is not explained. That's hardly as interesting as plots, schemes, wars, death and destruction etc.

Nope. On our planet's surface no enemy can just appear in the middle of your territory and devastate city or two. Distances can be easily crossed with (i guess) close to 100% chance of success (with the exception of Somalia piracy is practically nonexisten and our weather reports aren't that bad). History proves that countries can't sustain full scale modern war for long. And how about those worlds covered with one big factory complex from pole to pole ? Where does food grows, how siple people live there... No, i guess it isn't just possible to take experience from our good old mother Earth and say "it's exactly like this but simpler and on huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge scale.

Besides, so what if the economy is not explained. That's hardly as interesting as plots, schemes, wars, death and destruction etc.

Sure. Every time i play game in WH40k setting, read the novel or something i don't care about that sh*t at all. However each time anyone tries to prove that it's a possible, reasonable vision... No. Just no.

[/quote]

One thing you HAVE to keep in mind with WH40k, no joke, is that everything is happening on a scale that is absolutely unimaginable to the individual human being, in both size and descency. The IG field TRILLIONS of soldiers, so losing an entire regiment (some of the bigger planets field a hundred or more) is no huge loss. There are millions of planets in the Imperium, an untold number of citizins. Something like a Forge world, a planet completely covered by factories, is supported by agriworlds (worlds covered entirely by farms) and the many, many hive cities who produce raw materials for them to use. Simply put, you don't grow food on a Forge world. Its a waste of space. Its all imported, probably from the closest agri-world. People live in hab-blocks (think apartments, but much smaller and stacked hundreds of stories high). When it comes to the Administratum (the Imperium's beauraucratic arm) everything is designed for maximum lasting effiency, even (and especially) at the cost of human comfort and life. If some clerk thinks that they'll produce 0.000012% more las cartridges by having 5 people live inside of a 12x12 cube, then by god they will and he'll probably get a medal for it. Thats just how it is.

 

[lion el jhonson]

HERESY!

The actual story behind 40k is pretty deep and basically can be viewed as the danger of continuous war, in 40k the imperium of man(empire of man) is on the verge of collapse after century upon century of warfare, free will is dead in favor of service to the Emperor(the state), the common people are merely tools, it's protector the space marines that are boarder-line psychotics zealots, basically it can draw parallels to what is currently going on in the world.

ha ha ha ha ah ah... oh your serious?
yeah dude stop trying to make 40k seem deep and have some higher moral or political standpoint. While I love it and try to defend it as much as I can, its hard to when they keep fucking up the mythos with every rule book. Yeah dude your fantasy cant be deep and complex when this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-jBnE3LYo4 can sum up the jist of an entire fandom (well some of it anyway) in less than a minute.
I love the fandom but not enough to defend everything in it.

 

[Slayer_2]

I think the idea of walking tin cans is hilarious. The fact is that in real conflict, almost any modern army could easily eliminate an army of those walking hunks of steel. In the future, tech is supposed to be better, not worse. I realize that the ridiculous style is part of the theme, but it prevents me from possibly taking 40k seriously.

 

[Sonicron]

Why would you judge 40k by the standards of the video games based on it? They're fun, but none of them really convey the mood of the universe. Try some of the Black Library novels and make up your mind then.

 

[Thamian]

I can take the mythos seriously, in so much as I won't just dismiss something from it on the basis of where it came from as automatically being devoid of artistic value/merit. Admitedly, I also recognise just how silly (Orks for example) and broadly inconsistent it can be (I'm looking at examples like Ciaphas Cain talking about IG regiments as if they were standardised sizes, while Abnett's IG regiments vary wildly in size and not just due to combat losses, or alternatively the wild inconsistencies in ship sizes and crewing figures) at times.

But hey ho, it works. And some of the books are actually brilliant (Gaunt's Ghosts series with the possible exception of Salvation's Reach, the Cain books, the Eisenhorn and Ravenor books, Grey Knights...) though I'll be honest, all too many of the books aren't. Some are written by idiots (look what happened to the Space Wolf books when the author changed), and others suffer from being written about Space Marines, specifically ones with next to no angle beyond them (the Grey Knights trilogy for example benefits hugely from also being about the Inquisition).

 

[JesterRaiin]

One thing you HAVE to keep in mind with WH40k, no joke, is that everything is happening on a scale that is absolutely unimaginable to the individual human being, in both size and descency.

That's no excuse. Even with "scale that is absolutely unimaginable" factor taken into consideration people are still people and so are their needs. Everyone needs to eat, drink, sleep, defecate and so on. You can't just throw away http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs and replace it with fanatical love for half-rotten carcass, greater good or something... That's what economy is mostly about - i mean, providing, managing and stuff.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

It's a dark parody, think doctor strangelove.

Yes, it's over the top, epic, and ridiculous, but at the same time, it tackles real issues

 

[Jandau]

Depends on the work in question. Some of the WH40k material is undeniably dark and opressing. On the other hand, some of it is downright campy. I hardly take it too seriously when playing Space Marine or reading Ciaphas Cain novels (which are awesome, by the way), but the setting itself can be extremely depressing, especially when you stop and think about how the society probably works.

I suppose if one based his opinions on WH40k from the recent video game adaptations, I can see how it might be considered silly, though...