Guest Article by James Dyson delving deep into the Maelstrom of 40k Lore and backstory. Its a good read, enjoy.
Strange Aeons: Understanding the theme
of the 41st Millennium
With the imminent release of the next edition of
Warhammer 80,000 set to grace the tables of gamers in the next few weeks, it
seems an appropriate time to take a step back and cast a contemplative eye over
this most unique of sci fi settings. In this short article, I wanted to briefly
discuss some of the literary and cultural influences of the 40k universe, and
to understand what it is that can be said to really define the setting as we
know it. To be sure, to offer an exhaustive analysis of all aspects of
Warhammer 40,000 could take up an entire book; after all, we’re speaking here
of an IP that’s been shaped by many different creatives and has existed in one
form or another for nigh on 30-odd years. Indeed, there’d be a very strong
argument to say that nothing can truly be said to ‘define’ Warhammer 40,000;
it’s a wild collection of themes, aesthetic styles and ideas jammed into one
insane, sprawling pastiche. It’s the heavy metal, post punk and glam rock music
waves of the 80’s mixed with the cyberpunk sci-fi films of the 1990s, it’s
Hieronymus Bosch meets Dune, it’s a
universe that can claim inspiration from sources as vast and diverse as Gothic
and Baroque architecture to mecha anime (lookin’ at you, Tau) and the history
of the Roman Empire, all filtered through a distinctly British sense of ironic
humour. Nevertheless, one major unifying thread has been the idea of ‘grimdarkness’,
a theme that’s been raised to such a status now that it’s become an adjective, a
noun and a moderately popular internet meme.
The question is then what constitutes the idea, and what influences we
can find behind it.
As an overarching heading, I’m going to argue that
what defines the idea of grimdark isn’t necessarily Warhammer 40,000’s emphasis
on conflict, but rather the subtler and more disturbing notion of man’s
insignificance in an essentially indifferent universe. If we take a trip back
in time and look at the know-legendary Warhammer
40,000: Rogue Trader[1],
we can see that this has been a theme from the very start. Released in 1987,
this source and rulebook represented the first iteration of the 40k universe,
and though the setting subsequently received numerous additions and revisions
to its lore, much of the core structure would remain consistent. It’s as early
as Rogue Trader that we get the first
iteration of its famous opener, which captured its bleak themes in two short
paragraphs;
"For more
than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of
Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods and the master of a
million worlds by the will of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass
writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is Carrion
Lord of the Imperium to whom a thousand souls are sacrificed each day, and for
whom blood is drunk and flesh is eaten. Human blood and human flesh- the stuff
which the Imperium is made.
To be a man in
such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live the cruellest
and most bloody regime imaginable. This is the tale of these times. It is a
universe that you can live today if you dare- for this is a dark and terrible
era where you will find little comfort of hope. If you want to take part in the
adventure then prepare yourself now. Forget the power of technology, science
and common humanity. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for
there is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter
and the laughter of thirsting gods.
But the
universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed...."
It’s interesting to trace the number of different
inspirations and angles that this tone initially emerged from. One useful place
to start is by noting that the creators of Warhammer 40k always saw it as being
an offshoot of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, not only in terms of its game
mechanics but more importantly in its overall tone. Indeed, in the Rogue Trader
book itself it’s boldly stated that 40k wasn’t ‘just a science fiction game,
although it’s set in the future … we call it a fantasy game set in the far
future … a sort of science fantasy.’ What’s significant about this, however,
was that it was fantasy of a sort that was the diametric opposite of
conventional[2]
genre fare. Warhammer, both in its straight and futuristic guises, was part of
the subgenre of ‘dark fantasy’, a reaction against the more mainstream
conventions laid down by ‘swords and sorcery’ fiction (associated with the
likes of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the
Barbarian series) as well as the titanic presences of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.
Tolkien’s work. In all such works one often commonplace thread was that they
created universes that were essentially ordered, knowable and benign, with the
most obvious illustration of this being that the concepts of good and evil were
frequency depicted as cosmic forces with some sort of objective existence. Arguably, this stemmed from (amongst other
things) a tendency for the early founders of such fiction to use historical
myths (such as Norse mythology and the Arthurian tales) as their inspiration,
where man’s relationship to the natural world was seen as one of unity rather
than alienation and where the protagonists of such tales were heavily idealised.
Dark fantasy, however, presented a startlingly
different perspective in its approach. In place of clear-cut black-and-white
morality came only shades of grey, with no benevolent, omnipotent arbitrator to
decide right from wrong. Both the characters and the worlds they inhabited
became dirtier, more dysfunctional, even downright terrible. If Tolkienesque
fiction (generally speaking) took its inspiration from a largely symbolic, even
nostalgic, view of history, focusing on the legends of old, then dark fantasy
looked at the crueller, actually existing side of the past and humanity. This
was the world of plagues, of famines and blighted crops, where people lived
short, difficult lives in a world that they little understood and which showed
them little mercy. Again, we see these themes as early as Rogue Trader; as it put it, in the world of the 40k universe there
exists an;
‘almost medieval attitude amongst the human
societies. Fear, superstition, self-sacrifice and common acceptance of death
are all strongly featured. Technology is present, but it is not central to the
way people think. Most common folk see technology as witchcraft- so do the
technicians!’
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‘It was everywhere
– a gelatin – a slime – yet it had shapes, a thousand shapes of horror
beyond all memory. There were eyes – and a blemish. It was the pit – the
maelstrom – the ultimate abomination.’ – H.P. Lovecraft, The Unnameable.
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But I think it does a disservice to both the writer
himself and the 40k setting to only consider this angle. For what marked out
Lovecraft as one of the seminal horror authors of the Twentieth Century wasn’t
necessarily the monsters of his stories themselves (creative though they were)
but his pioneering of the concept of ‘cosmic horror’. More of an ethos than a
well-worked out philosophy, it might be roughly said that cosmic horror was a
sentiment of seeing horror in vastness; the idea of things in this universe being
so large, so immeasurable and incomprehensible that our limited human existence
is absolutely meaningless by comparison. On one level, this was a sentiment
expressed by Lovecraft’s fictional characters (most notably Cthulhu) and finds
a parallel in the 40k setting with the Chaos Gods and the C’tan, terrible
beings of such power and infinitude that the entirety of mankind is but cattle
to them. But at the same time it’s really an attitude to our existence in the
world itself. Lovecraft was writing at a time when astronomy and geology were
coming into their own (both of which he studied during his teenage years), revealing
the full scope of the cosmos in terms of its age and size, and many of his
stories express this sense of despair and realising the insignificance of our
brief existence by comparison. And it’s this sort of feeling that only
something like Warhammer 40,000 can properly capture, presenting us with a
galaxy entirely separated from our own both by cycles of eons and by a
magnitude which we can scarce imagine, yet without the sort of up-beat
positivity that a lot of more mainstream sci fi usually engenders. If things
like Star Wars and Star Trek offer space operas offering
high adventure, then Warhammer 40,000
offers us a universe where we are but small blips beset on all sides.
Hopefully, then, in this essay I’ve managed to flesh out what it is about the grimdark universe that makes it so, well, grimdark. In essence a major part of it comes down to contrast. On the one hand, it uses its dark fantasy legacy to present a bleaker but more realistic picture of humanity, showing not how it ought to be but how it often is; ignorant, fearful and desperate. At the same time, it underlines this fact, and adds to its tragedy, by placing it alongside a picture of the universe that stresses its vastness and, ultimately, its cruel meaninglessness.