Brighthammer 40K

[Oslecamo]

There are millions of Imperium civilians who live reasonably happy lives and die peacefully, there's just always a chance that something bad will happen and no real hope for their decendants.

No there isn't. If one of the other factions doesn't do something horrible to you, the inquisition and ecleseriarchy will hapily make your life miserable, because pain and punishment are considered good, and thus everybody is put to work untill they fall or are turned into servitors. Read the codexes. It's all there.

The Tau are more like medieval Islam than Communists. Sure you can have a chance at a better life if you join them, but they're not exactly keen on letting other species just keep on living their way of life in peace.

They are leting. They offer trade pacts, and if you acept them you acept them, otherwise they move on and let you to rot in your fanatical ignorance created by your superiors. The imperium is the one who shoots first and asks questions later when meeting other species (if they ask questions at all).

The Tau Empire is expansionist, the Imperium isn't. That may just be because of the Imperium's resources though.

Now you're just showing that you've read nothing but fanfiction. Where do you think the emperium gained all those planets? The lottery? Great crusade much? Rogue traders?

Tyranids are the real good guys of 40k. They're just following their biological imperitive while wiping out the more evil races at the same time.

Ah, so if that's your definition of good, then yes, the imperium is composed of saints (KILL KILL KILL) and the Tau are the biggest bastards evar(alliances? peace treaties? Fair commerce? HERESY!).

lobablob:Read the codexes. All my arguments come from there. You just choose to claim that your sources override everything, and that the codexes fluff is completely meaningless.

So no, by your standards, my arguments are quite rational.

[chiasaur11]

Why in the name of the Emperor and all his resplendent petticoats would anyone look at a concept like this and think "you know, what this needs is to be taken more seriously"?

This is the internet, is why.

[Renegade Paladin]

Sparkling?

SPARKLING?!

HEY ANGRY MARINES, THERE'S A TWIVAMP PRETTY MARINE HERE!

*din approaches*

ALWAYS ANGRY! ALL THE TIME!

SEMPER IRATUS!

[Johel]

No there isn't. If one of the other factions doesn't do something horrible to you, the inquisition and ecleseriarchy will hapily make your life miserable, because pain and punishment are considered good, and thus everybody is put to work untill they fall or are turned into servitors. Read the codexes. It's all there.

Since most of the imperial citizens are gathered in the hive worlds, yes, life is miserable and unfair for something like 90% of the people in the Imperium. While the elites are relatively sheltered from the material privations, they are still persecuted for their believes/thoughts/actions/lackofzeal/excessofzeal/existance...

However, the official fluff also say that the Imperium is too vast to make a stereotype of your average "Imperial World". Primitive worlds are likely unaffected by the religious fanatism/obscurantism of the Imperium, since even their governors don't mess with the local population beside what's strictly necessary (purging psykers, recruiting for the IG, settling mining...) outposts). The Gaunt serie describes several civilized worlds where the daily life is more or less like it is in most IRL developed nations. These planets aren't always perfect democracies but still treat their citizens fairly well in the way of human rights.

Of course, things change when a planet is the target of an alien invasion, a local rebellion, chaos heresy or simply the next destination of a inquisitor...which is the case of 99% of the planets depicted in stories, if only because WH40K is about conflicts and Bunnyland doesn't make as much a good setting for this as RapeUrMindland does.

Ah, so if that's your definition of good, then yes, the imperium is composed of saints (KILL KILL KILL) and the Tau are the biggest bastards evar(alliances? peace treaties? Fair commerce? HERESY!).
[B]

Since he was speaking of Tyranids, I'll say they aren't evil so much as uncaring : a wolf isn't evil because he eat a deer. It isn't even evil if its pack eat ALL the deers of the forest. It's just nature's most basic rule :
"Thou shall eat...and be eaten"
The nids don't cause suffering for their own pleasure (though some bugs might find pleasure in eating your gutts while you're still alive...but that's not your suffering that makes it taste good !!), like chaos adepts or dark eldars.
They just hunt their next meal. No hard feeling. While it's not "good" (nobody is "good" in WH40K, or at least nobody is "good" for long, as you have to become nasty, bitter and paranoid as soon as your planet establishes contact with the rest of the galaxy), it's certainly not "evil". Some of the bugs are depicted as nasty, vicious or bloodthirsty but hey !! This is war, after all : "kill or be killed" (and in 40K, it's more "kill and be killed"

I don't know enough the Tau to judge them.
From the introduction fluff, they indeed look like a bunch of communist paladins with japanese mechs and a stunning naivety.
Some rumors speak of a subtle not-nice side...but like nearly everything in WH40K, it's difficult to tell what's true and what's propaganda from the Imperium, which itself has several versions of the same truth, each of them treating the others as heresies...

[hamishspence]

I'm wondering- what proportion of world are hive worlds, or almost? I got the impression they were rare.

And what proportion of the Imperial population live like that?

The densely packed populations might make up for it- but 90% of citizens?

[Cubey]

Peace Children

Some of the best-looking things to come out of the Human/Eldar alliance besides spacecraft are Half-Eldar or 'Peace Children'. Lynn Mínwen, the daughter of Drazhar and Celestian Miriya, is a particularly famous idol singer (while her mom is the lead guitar in the Sisters of Rock band "Emperor's Goatee"). Her music is so inspiring that it has ended wars throughout the galaxy. Her chief nemesis is Nfol, the vile spawn of the Wytch Taldeer and LIVII.

Interesting reference there.

[lobablob]

lobablob:Read the codexes. All my arguments come from there. You just choose to claim that your sources override everything, and that the codexes fluff is completely meaningless.

So no, by your standards, my arguments are quite rational.

The people who argue against you reference codexes, but you make many arguments with no reference and don't respond when people offer strong sources that contradict your own arguments. This is behaviour is frustrating enough even if it weren't for the fact that you then come here and accuse everyone else of being deluded.

For example, you have made the claim that Imperial Titans are useless and can be one shotted by lasguns. Your source? The Guardsmen Uplifting Primer, a book of propaganda to improve guardsmen's morale . Its strange that you would take something you know to be propaganda as true, but disregard things from the same book that insult the Tau? It would seem that you are deliberately filtering the fluff in order to make the Tau look good. Going to that length to make fictional people look cool is why I call your behaviour irrational.

In the WH40k fluff thread, you talk about the Imperium being completely stagnant technologically and talk about how the Imperium has used the same tanks for the past 10000 years. In response to this Trixie listed several new designs created during the past 10000 of WH40k and you ignored this and moved on to different arguments, which does seem to be your general pattern of behaviour.

Also, I'm sorry for bringing this argument into here, but Oslecamo saying everyone else was delusional seemed to me to be going too far and I couldn't help but respond. I won't respond to anymore arguments on this point in this thread and will move back to the fluff thread if Oslecamo feels like responding.

[Johel]

I'm wondering- what proportion of world are hive worlds, or almost? I got the impression they were rare.

And what proportion of the Imperial population live like that?

The densely packed populations might make up for it- but 90% of citizens?

Interesting. Let's try to find out.

A single Hive World means billions of people, up to 500 billions (!!!) but let's take a low figure of 50 billions per hiveworld which, considering Earth's current population, isn't that impressive : we have about 8 billions humans and we aren't exactly living in cities several kilometers high. Slums exist but they still aren't even close to what the lower levels of a hive are. Also, Hive Worlds typically import most of their water and food. We are far from doing the same.

Types of worlds, with their maximum individual population
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Class_%28planet%29

• Agri-World : 1 millions
• Civilised World : 10 billions
• Dead World : ... 0 ?
• Death World : 15 millions
• Feudal World : 500 millions
• Hive World : 500 billions
• Research Station : 0.5 million
• Forge World : ??? (mars, the biggest, is 20 billions)
• Feral World : 5 millions

By the 5th edition, there are "38.256 hive worlds" in the Imperium.
Let's consider that this number is probably shifting up and down a bit but not much, since because of their industrial power and population, hiveworlds are the best defended worlds after the forgeworlds. So, let's take 38.000.
That's 1.900.000 billions humans living on Hive Worlds (low figure)

The Imperium of Man is describe as having "1 million worlds". Again, that number is shifting but we can safely assume there are 1 million inhabited planets, some with large hives, some with mere scientific outposts. We know for a fact that Hive Worlds make up 3,8% of the total. That means 1.900.000 billions of people live in less than 4% of the Imperium. (low figure)

Civilized worlds are numerous and well-populated. The rest of the worlds don't even matter : it takes 20 feudal worlds to equal a single civilized world in population. Yet, it would take about 190.000 densely populated Civilized Worlds to equal the population of the Hive Worlds. That number of civilized worlds doesn't seem unreasonable and might even be higher.

Forge Worlds are rare, barely a few hundreds. They are jewels of technology, under the iron hand of the Mechanicus and would remain cut from the rest of the Imperium if it wasn't for their tribute. We can safely assume that, even with 1.000 Forge Worlds, their population wouldn't go beyond 1.000 billions.

The remaining worlds accounts for nearly nothing.

Number of worlds
1.000.000

• Hive Worlds : 38.000 (4%)
• Civilized Worlds : 190.000 or more (19% or more)
• Forge Worlds : 1.000 (less than 1%)
• Other Worlds : 771.000 or less (77% or less)

Total population (by type of world)
3.800.000 billions

• Hive Worlds : 1.900.000 billions (49% or less)
• Civilized Worlds : 1.900.000 billions or more (49% or more)
• Forge Worlds : 1.000 billions (...nearly nothing)
• Other Worlds : between 1 billion and 385 billions (...irrelevant)

EDIT : so, yes, I was a bit off with the "90% in Hive Worlds"...

[hamishspence]

Still, we don't know how bad civilized worlds are.

They might hold nearly half the galactic population (using your ballpark figure)- but it may depend on the writer as to whether they are hive-world-like in misery, or more like the civilized worlds of the Ultramar, or somewhere between the two.

[Johel]

Still, we don't know how bad civilized worlds are.

They might hold nearly half the galactic population (using your ballpark figure)- but it may depend on the writer as to whether they are hive-world-like in misery, or more like the civilized worlds of the Ultramar, or somewhere between the two.

And that's the beauty of the thing : we don't know

Each of the hundred of thousands of civilized worlds is potentially as diversified as our current Earth is :

• Some parts house high-tech industries, labs and administration, with clean, old, yet well-maintained and carefully built cities where a good chunk of the population has access to all the modern comfort.
• Others parts house heavy industries and large, unclean, hastly built slums, with modern comfort known but only available for the richest people who can afford to build/buy their own little eden in hell.
• What remains is just backward micro societies with weak connexions to the rest of the world because said rest need raw material from there.

And we haven't even touched the subject of politics, believes and such.

Given the oppressive nature of the Imperium, most worlds WILL be totalitarian dictatorships, with a few elites ruling unopposed in peace time...and the Imperial Guard HQ ruling unopposed in war time. 99% of the Hive Worlds ARE like that, simply because it's impossible to feed, clad and take care correctly of everybody when every resource has been recycled a good million times and you have to use spaceships to import your food.

But there are worlds where the Imperial Credo isn't enforced by zealous maniacs with a thing for fire, where governors aren't corrupted inbred bastards, where existence isn't a crime and where local politics matter more for the common man than the "Holy Destiny of Mankind". Damn, they can even be civilized worlds where more than one "nation" exist, both worshipping the Emperor, both paying tribute in men and resource, but each with its own set of believes, each view supported by a specific branch of the Ministrorum. So, yeah, religious civil wars where both sides die in the name of the same god, just because minor details look important... nothing new.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I clicked on this thread expecting to read about someone having Brightslapped the whole Warhammer 40kverse.

...I wasn't disappointed.

[JonathonWilder]

So the mass sterilization, indoctrination and mind-control via Ethereals is peachy for you? See, I find large scale domestication like that pretty abhorrent. I'm not saying the Imperium are any better, but the Tau most certainly are not good.

Compared to every other race/group/faction they are the closest thing to good guys, especially with their believe in the Greater Good and that by working together they can become great. Also they, unlike any other group, give you the option of peacefully joining them while the Empire kills you your a xenos and kills you if your human, the Eldar are manipulative and enclosed, the Dark Eldar are sadists and masochists that will kill you who will eat your soul, the Inquisitional forces with brand you a heretic or are worse then many heretics, the space marines have no other life then war and killing... yah the Tau could be called the good guys.

Also it is only suspected indoctrination (which it could be argued the Empire does to a larger extent then anyway) and mind control by outsiders who see it as impossible for any one group to be so united under one ideal.

On the mass sterilization where do you get this?

[Eldan]

Dude, you can't do necromancy in Brighthammer. Far too dark.

[JonathonWilder]

Dude, you can't do necromancy in Brighthammer. Far too dark.

Necromancy? What do you mean? Oh I see... sighs stupid search engine.

[Carry2]

Interesting. Let's try to find out...

I remember having a long debate on this subject a while back, and while the official figures on this point aren't terribly clear, I basically reckoned that either (A) hive worlds actually feature truly palatial living space, which is hard to reconcile with official descriptions, or (B) have minimum populations in the trillions. Which probably would put 90% of the imperium's population on hive worlds.

This also makes it unlikely that anything except luxury foods could really be imported. All food and water would have to be produced locally using chemosynthesis or vats culture. (And on really dense hives, you apparently run into major problems with heat dissipation, to the point where places like Holy Terra might not be habitable at all without some really out-there future tech.)

So the mass sterilization, indoctrination and mind-control via Ethereals is peachy for you? See, I find large scale domestication like that pretty abhorrent. I'm not saying the Imperium are any better, but the Tau most certainly are not good.

Logically speaking, the moral opposite of the Tau would wind up behaving exactly like the Tau*. To whit:

"I've found that Wonderella's fluid morality protects her from the normal 'mirror universe' inversion most heroes face. It's a phenomenon I like to call 'Personality pH 7'."
"The opposite of neutral is still neutral!"

...Though, as with the regular 40K universe, they're still gonna stand out relative to the competition.

* Hey look! Mont'ka and Kauyon!
.

[Carry2]

Anyway. The point I was making was that that Tau would probably, by the standards of, say, the Star Trek universe, be considered a pretty rough player on the block, but by the standards of the 40K setting, they're practically knights in shining armour. Which is something they got a good deal of flack over. (Despite the fanbase's seeming indifference to Ultramar's similar idiosyncracies, I actually incline to the view that the Tau are a relatively realistic and relatable culture ripe with narrative potential, and it's the rest of the setting that's a bunch of stilted and incoherent caricatures.)

However, the official fluff also say that the Imperium is too vast to make a stereotype of your average "Imperial World". Primitive worlds are likely unaffected by the religious fanatism/obscurantism of the Imperium, since even their governors don't mess with the local population beside what's strictly necessary (purging psykers, recruiting for the IG, settling, mining outposts). The Gaunt serie describes several civilized worlds where the daily life is more or less like it is in most IRL developed nations. These planets aren't always perfect democracies but still treat their citizens fairly well in the way of human rights.

Technically, you can point at outlying primitive or nominally-subjugated worlds and say "these places aren't so terrible", but one can counter that's not for lack of trying on the Imperium's part. These places are okay to live in because the Imperium hasn't had the opportunity to really bring them within the fold- their resources or admin capacity are simply stretched too thin at the moment. These places are, so to speak, beyond The Pale- Imperial in name only. If worlds like that happened to sit nextdoor to a Tau sept, they can, would and do switch allegiance in a heartbeat, and probably be better off for it.

It's the Hive and Forge worlds that represent the Ecclesiarchy and AdMech's ambitions and philosophy at their most realised, and those systems are no fun to grow up in. Likewise, while the latter are capable of mild degrees of technical innovation, between pervasive paranoia and aversion to mass production, those new ideas aren't widely circulated. The overall trend is stagnation and decay.


Which, now that I think of it, raises an interesting question about the Tau within BH40K. The original Tau are only a threat because, despite their small numbers and territory, they have sane economic and administrative practices and rapidly advancing technological expertise. Wouldn't the bizarro-equivalent be technologically retrograde and culturally hidebound? In other words, no threat to anyone? :P

[Nerd-o-rama]

Wouldn't the bizarro-equivalent be technologically retrograde and culturally hidebound? In other words, no threat to anyone? :P

You mean the Imperium?

[lord_khaine]

You mean the Imperium?

Well, they are also mostly a threat due to weight of numbers.

[Scowling Dragon]

I also really like the fact that Brighthammer world is ultimately much more powerful the the Warhammer world.

Though Warhammerians are much more tough, Brighthammers are much more organized and friendly and cooperative.

[Metahuman1]

Huh, I could maybe get into this. I've always avoided 40K cause Grimdark is just not my thing (And to be honest I don't enjoy painting miniatures.), but with this? I could maybe do something.

[Eldan]

I don't know. I miss the days when the Grimdark was more explicitely parody and no one took it seriously.

[Metahuman1]

I just don't tend to like Grimdark in general, even as parody.

[t209]

About Tau's Mass Sterilization, it came from Warhammer 40k: Dark Crusade. But it stated that it was done on rebellious Human population and invading Lucas Alexander's forces (non-canon since Blood Ravens won).
And some of you were right, there are imperial worlds which aren't crapholes. One of the hiveworld was actually well run and administered by a benevolent governor who decided to revolt when Imperium raises the tithe. I would bring up Ultramar but the whole system was ran by a Mary Sue chapter (They still practiced Eugenics though but heaven when you compare it to other worlds).

[hamishspence]

About Tau's Mass Sterilization, it came from Warhammer 40k: Dark Crusade. But it stated that it was done on rebellious Human population and invading Lucas Alexander's forces (non-canon since Blood Ravens won).

Other sources have continued to reference it as a Tau policy for dealing with overpopulation- the Deathwatch rulebook, for example.

[JonathonWilder]

Other sources have continued to reference it as a Tau policy for dealing with overpopulation- the Deathwatch rulebook, for example.

Yet even if it is in Deathwatch, a roleplaying source for one, the book is also focused on a human xenos hating group... thus I feel should not be seen as anything more then hateful and untrusting biases and rumors.

My thoughts are that a codex source is needed, preferably Tau codex for it to be canon and true.

[Tengu_temp]

The funny thing is, the mass sterilization event in Dawn of War was described purely from the perspective of an Imperial official. Read: it was most likely 100% propaganda, with no grounds in reality. Different writers and the fanbase like to hold on to it and other similar later faction elements because they cannot stand the idea of a WH40K race that's not 100% grimdark and dark and grim.

[Mordar]

I don't know. I miss the days when the Grimdark was more explicitely parody and no one took it seriously.

I thought of it more as a spice to be applied in specific circumstances. Suddenly Grimdark became Chipotle (the pepper, not the McDonald's spinoff chain)...used far too often are far too many things because it was hip.

I blame Vampire the Masquerade. Or Punisher and Wolverine. Or something.

- M

[Carry2]

While the specific 'mass sterilisation' source attribution might be questionable, it wouldn't astonish me if it were true. The Tau are on record as having had a couple of Kurtzian commanders going off the rails, a nascent eugenics policy applied to their own pre-existing caste system, and a 'shoot-first-and-shoot-more-later' policy when it comes to really intractable enemies like the Orks and 'Nids.

It wouldn't especially surprise me if the Ethereal Council considered sterilisation a 'humane solution' to dealing with really stubborn adversaries, at least on isolated occasions. However, we also know that plenty of former imperial guardsmen left Gue'Vesa descendants, so it can hardly be the default policy.

But yeah, I'd love to see an expanded sourcebook dealing with this topic. I find the Tau are interesting precisely because their current and future development is somewhat ambiguous, rather than locked in stasis, and there's an inherent tension between their idealism and pragmatism, and the best and worst aspects of utilitarianism as a moral philosophy. Stranger things have happened.

[Eldan]

I thought of it more as a spice to be applied in specific circumstances. Suddenly Grimdark became Chipotle (the pepper, not the McDonald's spinoff chain)...used far too often are far too many things because it was hip.

I blame Vampire the Masquerade. Or Punisher and Wolverine. Or something.

- M

Maybe, maybe. But 40k did lose its sense of humour at some point.

[lord_khaine]

Maybe, maybe. But 40k did lose its sense of humour at some point.

Yeah, now that you mention it, it is kinda absent.

But where did they drop it? the last time i saw it was in the old orc codex.