User:GIRUNDE

The Aquila, the symbol of the Imperium and personal heraldry of the God-Emperor of Mankind. Failing to show proper reverence to the Aquila is heresy punishable by *BLAM*ing. Note the spiky bits on the claw on the blind head's side.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." -George Santayana.

The Imperium of Man is a HUGE galactic civilization and empire that contains the vast majority of humanity in the tabletop game Warhammer 40K. It is a xenophobic, bigoted, amoral, gargantuan, militaristic, merciless, stratified, theocratic, paranoid, dystopian, totalitarian, oppressive semi-police state and hellishly oligarchical bureaucracy. Think of a hideous Byzantine Empire/Medieval Catholic Church/USSR/Imperial Japan/Nazi Germany/George Orwell's 1984 hybrid spread out across the stars, under constant attack by aliens and subject to a disaster everyday.. Yeah right, it is hilarious that outside of popular perspective, the Imperium of Man can actually be a pretty nice place to live depending on where you actually live. Although, that description does apply to nearly every hive-world. Sure there are shit-holes like Catachan, but because of its size and extreme variety, you also have a higher chance of being born in places that shits all over any modern first world country which are then lead by people better than Gandhi. And really, is it that plausible that atrocities happen constantly in the Imperium? Okay, given its size, it might be, but that doesn't mean that everyone is always doomed. This is hilarious once you figured out that the "Tough, oppressive, xenophobic, racist Empire" is actually more multicultural and diverse then the "Noblebright, neo-communist, Trekkie style" Tau...Que in Weeaboo fanboys raging. Unfortunately being Games Workshop, they decided to ignore this aspect since it is not Metal enough...more about the Imperium's variety can be further explained below... Actually, this guy has a point. Nearly every-single grimdark example in the fluff occurs on hive-worlds. Of which, there are only like thirty-two thousand and something hundreds. Out of over a million worlds, I'll take those odds quite happily. Well, unless you're in the Imperial Guard, then you are slapped with the worst of the grimdark daily. Or the Navy, yeah, being "crew" on any Imperial ship sucks to no end.

The Imperium, despite looking like a merciless and oppressive empire, is in fact a confederation of several powerful organizations and million(s) planets. Each 'normal' planet in the Imperium (of course beside specially classified planets like Forge Worlds, Fortress Worlds, Death Worlds...) has its own laws, Government, culture and social order that can be exactly of differ from one another A LOT. Now just like today's countries some have merciless dictators (North Korea) and some have democracy to an extent where citizens can choose their own planetary governor (USA). To say that the Imperium is like a single superstate is quite false, the Imperium is more of a "Protectorate" system like the Roman Empire, which allowed local governments to exist as Protectorates as long as they venerated the Emperor, or British-Empire-era India where locals were granted Protectorate status as long as they paid taxes and lip service to Britannia, or today's UN (only grimdark of course and with true military power).

Planets are actually quite independent to extent where they can have their own armed forces and even wage their own civil wars. The Imperium only cares when some serious shit happens (like Chaos taint, xeno invasion or when a Planetary Governor decided to declare himself an Emperor), and giving that this is 40k, these kinds of things happen on regular basis. So basically the Imperium really consists of several thousand worlds with all other being member worlds. Of course, declaring independence is HERESY but most Governors don't do this kind of thing because they know what's out there and that the Imperium is the only thing that can protect them, and also because the God-Emperor of Mankind and the system of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica provide a cheap system of FTL and Communication through the horrors of the Warp. So basically, if a Planet declares independence, he loses the right to FTL and that's bad for Hive Worlds that need Agri-Worlds in order to survive. Therefore, their loyalty to the Imperium was never out of an ideological obsession to stamp out HERESY, but simply of mere pragmatism in order to survive in the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium, as Protectorates. Think of the Soviet Union and China allying with the US, despite their ideological antagonism, just to survive the onslaught of Nazi Germany which is worse. This was only in the few thousand years between the Great Crusade and the Dark Millennium (41st). During the Great Crusade, most worlds were extremely loyal to both the Imperium and the Emperor because it rescued them from all sorts of indescribable horrors that had plagued them for the thousands of years of the Long Night (Age of Strife). After the Great Crusade, the Imperium remained (mostly) cohesive as a whole due to both a remaining sense of loyalty to their savior and for mutual survival in the face of a severely fucked up galaxy. After a few thousand years of that, the Imperial Cult had gained sufficient strength that the reasons for remaining loyal to the Imperium and the Emperor shifted from just mutual survival to a shared religion and extreme fanaticism in their belief that the Imperium is holy and to stray from it is the path to damnation (which is, ironically, completely true).

In addition to that, the Imperium is decentralized into powerful sem-autonomous Corporate entities, that pledged allegiance to the Emperor himself rather than the State. The Inquisition (most vicious in stamping out Heresy), the Adeptus Mechanicus (which worships the Emperor as another pagan Machine-god called the Omnissiah) and the Adeptus Astartes (mutants who do not worship the Emperor as a God but as an exemplar of humanity) might just as well declare each other's ideologies as HERESY but each of them are personal Protectorate vassals to the Emperor himself, and need to work together lest Humanity as a whole goes extinct. The Imperium is not a centralized superstate, but more of a Feudal Confederate empire.

To top it all off, to give you an idea of how truly massive this empire is, the most conservative estimates place its population at four quadrillion. Estimates that take into account the huge number of what are essentially cramped apartment-building planets? Now we're talking upwards of TEN quadrillion.

It's not ENTIRELY shitty, though- even if there are 100,000 worlds under attack at any given time (due to xeno invasions, Chaos, or simple rebellion), there are 900,000 worlds that are not. Some lucky planets may have never known war since the Great Crusade. Also, most hive worlds need agri-world crops to feed their population and raw materials from mining worlds to make stuff, which means that enough supply ships make their trip on time without Warp mishaps or raider attacks. Again, this isn't talked about because unless the world in question is about to be attacked by something nasty, it would be a very boring setting for a wargame.

They're apparently the protagonists of the franchise. If it wasn't for that and the indestructible plot armour that it confers to them they would have been owned years ago by Chaos, the Orks, the Tyranids, the Necrons, or themselves. Of course, if they weren't purposely pants-on-head retarded just to create grimdark, all those enemies would have been roflstomped by the Imperium already, so the plot armor works both ways. Furthermore in every fanfiction that is created starring them, their solemn demeanor, zealous nature, and Holy piety are thrown out the window so that they may seem more approachable to the common user of the internet. This is more acceptable for stories featuring the Imperial Guard as Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain shows (though it all depends on the regiment), but not so much for say, the Sisters of Battle, as for the Space Marines ... it all depends on the Chapter.

Almost everything 40K related and homebrewed on this shit awesome website is a sterling example of /tg/ taking creative liberties with what the Imperium stands for. These include, but are not limited to, the Angry Marines, Commissar Raege, Commissar Fuklaw, Pretty Marines, Reasonable Marines.

Truly, anonymous delivers!

(On a smaller note, the title "Imperium of Man" is actually a bit sexist. There are women in the Imperium even if GW doesn't give them models, and shits all over the one exception to that).

Synopsis

The Iron Men are credited with fucking over humanity right in the ass, just like the Old Ones did with the rest of the galaxy's inhabitants

The Imperium consists of millions of habitable worlds and is of such size that the loss of a few dozen planets (along with billions of citizens) is not even worth the paperwork it would take to declare said worlds Perdatus. Under constant threat and attack by a myriad of powerful alien races and traitorous forces, the Imperium is engulfed in a constant galaxy-spanning war. The everyday rule of the Imperium is left to the High Lords of Terra, who basically don't give a fuck about anybody and have no clue what the hell they're doing half of the time.

The figurehead and subject of compulsory religious veneration, the immortal God-Emperor of Mankind was the original founder of the Imperium. Being physically fucked for the past 10,000 years, he sits immobile and connected to the Golden Throne far from the sight of his subjects, witnessed his formerly glorious utopia of science and reason drop 99.9% of its IQ points against his will, and requires the sacrifice of many psykers a day to keep him alive, though this hasn't prevented his body from undergoing decomposition (it has slowed it quite a bit seeing as how he still has some fleshy bits left and isn't a skeleton, but not stopped it) and thus now looks like a mummy without the wrappings. Heresy is the greatest crime one can commit in the Imperium, and the most common as any Imperial official can declare a citizen a heretic according to his own subjective and probably incorrect assertions, the punishment for which is a painful death or torture followed by a painful death. Technology is barely understood and basically mythological, and even the Techpriests are afraid of their machines (this aspect of the Techpriests has been lessened over the years, now they're more like spiritualistic and very dogmatic scientists rather than technowizards.)

This would never happen. Ever. At least, not where anyone could see it.

The Imperium is also one of the biggest entities in the 40k universe, like a fatguy that hogs half the couch for himself and forces the others to sit on the arm rests. Some fa/tg/uys theorize that if the Imperium falls it may take the rest of the galaxy with it, the fact being it holds so much territory it staves off the Tyranids and the Orks before they can nom/loot everyone else's shit. Ex: Dawn of war II, Spess Mahreens nuke the Tyranid fleet before they can nom an Eldar Craftworld.

Basically, it's a complete shithole and is not even remotely close to the Emperor's vision for humanity. Reasons for this include the Imperium's leaders being heartless fuckwads and the highly arguable/controversial necessity of such an uncaring organization for the survival of humanity in a galaxy that wants to kill them in a million painful ways.

That's fucking grimdark, but at least there's Slaanesh to lighten everything u-*BLAM*

+ This article's author has been seized by the local authorities for heresy. Please report all known contacts and co-conspirators to your local Commissar. ++ You may resume reading this article with an approved author. +

So you'd better venerate the motherfucking Emperor.

In any case, Slaanesh would not be very attractive to anyone with any sensibility. His daemonettes are ugly bitches with crab claws and possible vaginal blades and his idea of fun is sniffing a fatal amount of cocaine off the body of a dead hooker. However, /tg/ finds this VERY attractive. The sick fucks they are.

Forces Of The Imperium

• SPESS MUHREENS - The massively enhanced, massively armored supersoldiers who form the elite warriors of the Imperium. All they do is train, sleep, pray, fight, and die; and they love every second of it,unless they are dark angels, emo fags being the brainwashed loyal warrior monks they are. There are only a million of them, but since the Imperium only has about a million planets it kind of evens out (Yeah. Don't look at all the Space Smurfs armies out there). They are no longer human, and remember nothing but an endless service of bloodshed culminating in their own violent deaths. Grimdark. Also, Masters of the STEEL RHEN.

Die horribly or Join the Guard and THEN die horribly

• Imperial Guard - The countless trillions of regular humans who form the vast majority of the Imperium's armed forces. Very similar to a conventional modern military but reverting back to the tactics of Ancient Persia. The Imperial Guard are a bunch of manly farmers and factory workers fighting off unstoppable robots with guns that completely rips their skin off and literally sucks out their souls to be devoured while doing it, huge monstrous aliens who wants to OM NOM NOM everything, chaotic super humans who wants to kill everyone in a number of painful ways and sacrifice their victims' souls while doing it, barbaric aliens who are made for FIGHTEN AND WINNIN', mysterious spehss elves who don't give a shit about anyone else, spehss elves who wants to torture and rape them with the worst form of BDSM, and weeaboo space communists with guns that can blow them away before they can even see them, with little more than a flashlight, reinforced t-shirt, standard-issue chest-hair and BALLS O' STEEL. Most of the Imperial Guardsman are conscripted every now and then from the best Planetary Defence Force troopers in the whole Imperium. Some planets though use different ways to get citizens to join the Imperial Army, others may use prisoners, while some others see the service and death in the name of the Emprah as a matter of honour. Yes, Guardsmen. Their numbers are endless and their tactics don't involve anything further than drowning their enemies with artillery and their corpses involve everything from stabbing to hiding from to sending tanks at to slinging truly staggering quantities of ordinance at anything that looks at them funny, so that on any given day in the Imperium of Man countless millions of Guardsmen are dying painfully but killing even more of the Imperium's many many enemies. However, die or muster out, they will never again see home. Grimdark.

Combat Dentists, the Mechanicum's leading specialists on tooth heresy.

• Adeptus Mechanicus - An organization of Tech-priests that keep the tinpot bigotry conveniently on their side by convincing others that they are the only ones worthwhile of knowing two shits about something long forgotten in the obscure chapters of ancient history called "SCIENCE". They have a monopoly over almost all Imperial technology from giant mecha to cybernetics, and almost everyone else in the Imperium is afraid of their machines. Independent scientists also exist, but only as long as they don't get killed for heresy or stay below the Mechanicus radar. Once these independents get powerful or competent enough to make a difference, they get wiped out or absorbed into Cult Mechanicus, which any logistics specialist would likely find highly efficient (probably because they run logistical science) unlike everything else about the Imperium. Includes Adeptus Titanicus‎, Legio Cybernetica (Insidious Death Robotics, Inc), Centurio Ordinatus (look at name, figure it out), Skitarii (basically Imperial Guard of the Mechanicus), Auxilia Myrmidon (tech-priest war savants, stuff of nightmares), and the Ordo Reductor (siege specialists, infamous for ripping off the Space Marines by making the Thallax).

• Imperial Navy - Job is pretty self-explanatory, they split with the Guard after the Horus Heresy. They are a very large organization, as you would expect from a navy tasked with protecting a million worlds. Their ships range in size from meters-long fighters to kilometres-long battleships which are quite capable of blowing up planets, mostly Imperial ones, which they do at the command of the Inquisition on a regular basis in the fight against HERESY. Because the Imperium is scared shitless by the idea of AIs, the Imperial Navy has to have huge human crews, most of which are "recruited" (i.e. Shanghaied) to die in space having made no difference to anything at all as one of billions of expendable men. Grimdark.

• Adeptus Arbites - Job is to police every world in the Imperium. They're like Judge Dredd but way more Grimdark. They are usually one of the first institutions to be set up on a world and they are equipped to fight a small war, with equipment ranging from power mauls and suppression shields to lasguns to even the Leman Russ. On the ground the Arbites have four units: Patrol Groups, who's job it is to generally make sure no wrong doing is going on in the settlement; Shock Troops who are sent in when there are riots, street wars and other generalized disturbances (they usually shoot on sight if you are anywhere near the problem center); Execution Teams who pursue specific guilty individuals or groups; and Snatch Squads who are charged with capturing a specific individual or group for questioning. The criminals caught by the Arbites usually wind up dead, since there is but one punishment in the Imperium. The Inquisition will often use the Arbites to apprehend certain individuals if they do not wish to be directly involved.

• Inquisition - The Secret Police organization with unlimited power whose job it is to keep the Imperium loyal (the USSR's KGB and the Nazi Schutzstaffel crossed with the real life Catholic Inquisition sums up their history and practices quite well). With jurisdiction over anyone and anything, the Inquisitors and their agents have very few impediments on their endless quest to torture and murder innocent people and the occasional heretic. The Inquisition consists mainly of three branches: the Ordo Hereticus who take care of internal threats such as HERESY, mutants, and traitors, the Ordo Xenos who kill aliens, and the Ordo Malleus who fight Chaos. It is a common misconception that the Inquisition give a fuck about the people they are supposed to protect, but if you think otherwise you have probably been killed for HERESY. Also, nobody expects them. Grimdark.

The Inquisition: not as easy as it looks.

• Sisters of Battle - The Ecclesiarchy's army, the nuns-with-guns or Female Space Marines. Originally, they were an isolated all-female cult on a backwater world, and subsequently became the personal army of Goge Vandire during his fab Age of Apostasy. After that blew over, they came into their current role through some top-notch rules lawyering- after the Age of Apostasy, the Ecclesiarchy was only barred from having men under arms, so the Sisters weren't disbanded. They are trained from birth to be loyal and awesome and incorruptible, etc, etc, etc, but really are just PMSing overrated women with good equipment who would suck an Inquisitor's cock if he told them it was heresy not to. Exploitable*BLAM* They are trained from early age (because they are picked up as orphans) and in the end they become one of the best fighting troops of the Imperium, short only to the Astartes themselves. Their faith is so great that only a single Sister of Battle has ever fallen to Chaos corruption, their faith is so great that even Grey Knights are jealous of it. tg likes to see Sisters in different heretical fantasies, often involving Slaanesh, female Tau and Eldar Farseers. But poor bastards don't know that Sisters are all into celibacy and love only the Emperor (sometimes it's a damn shame). Armed with their trusty Bolters, Meltaguns and Flamers (The Holy Trinity) and faith they go around the galaxy and kick Chaos/Renegades/Xeno ass as much as they can. They are also butchered a LOT in fluff not quite. It's just that the Khornate Knights incident made such a big impression, whilst some of fluff in which the Sisters do well is arguably more obscure. Also, many tg don't love Sisters, maybe because Sisters are basically Female Space Marines, or because they don't like women?. Or because they are influenced by one seriously sick fuck, we may never know answer to this. But we do know that Sisters deserve much more love from everybody, especially GW (which hasn't given them a proper codex in years). Grimdark.

• Grey Knights - Once proud warriors, now Mary Sues. A bunch of super-Space Marines who are apparently invulnerable to the influence of Chaos, as opposed to regular Space Marines who apparently turn to the dark side more often than they fantasize about fist-fucking heretics. They are the military arm of the Ordo Malleus. They have special gear and magic guns and a book built into their special anti-psychic armor that stops psychic powers from affecting them even more. Whenever they fight, a psychic shroud inhibits the psychic powers of whoever they are fighting, and they have Nemesis Force WeaOH CHRIST, I CAN'T GO ON, THIS SHIT IS BANANAS! Ignore Matt Ward's bullshit, stop making shitty references to Zero Punctuation, and finish the damn article! Psychic Psychic Bendy Spoons. and they have Nemesis Force Weapons, usually halberds and things like that. The description of the Grey Knights has now concluded. Grimdark.

• Officio Assassinorum - The coolest (and scariest) men and woman in the Imperium. Whose job it is to kill people. While one would think this would overlap with the duties of every other Imperial organization, it is different because the Assassinorum trains spies and assassins who are supposed to be more subtle. Except they train batshit insane Eversor Assassins. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a paradox. Leaving no survivors to tell the tale is a subtlety all in itself. Grimdark.

• Sisters of Silence - The militant arm of the Astra Telepathica, they are all Blanks and refuse to speak but otherwise are deadly enough to take down any psyker threat and to travel with the likes of Leman Russ and the Custodes, as you can imagine they feature in some pretty badass artwork but sadly have very little work dedicated to them. It is unknown if they survived the end of the Great Crusade but there have been no indications to the contrary. Given that the Inquisition and Culexus Temple exist their role is partly redundant, but may be justified in that by being under the direct authority of the branch that deals with Psykers it allows a faster and more standardized way of handling Psykers, plus neither zealous assault forces or assassins would exactly fit the job description.

Other organizations

• Administratum - The pencil pushers of the Imperium. Bureaucrats who are so devoted to their trade that they treat it like a religion. Basically the government of the Imperium, they regulate the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy, dictate and assess the Tithes all worlds in the Imperium are required to pay to Holy Terra, and administer how those things get used. Their archives are so big and so full that if you search anything in them, you'll die wrapped in endless layers of red tape, if you're not accompanied by an Adept.

• Ecclesiarchy - The Imperial Church which works with the Inquisition to regulate the worship of the Emperor and define what counts as HERESY. Basically priests with flamethrowers and OMGWTFBBQ mega-chainsaws. It also oversees the Sisters of Battle and the Schola Progenium, and works closely with the Ordo Hereticus. Often has a complicated relationship with the other members branches of the Imperium (Space Marines insisting that the Emperor was a human, the Administratum for overall control of the Imperium, the Adeptus Mechanicus worshipping a deity that should be the Emprah or not, etc.). Grimdark.

• Adeptus Astra Telepathica - The organization charged with maintain the Imperium's vast network of psykers, who are necessary for faster than light travel and keeping the Emperor alive on the Golden Throne. Grimdark.

• Adeptus Astronomicon - The organization charged with maintain the light of the Astronomica, the psychic beacon for traveling through the Warp. Probably the most Grimdark, due to how they sacrifice psykers alive to keep the Astronomicon running.

Reasons it sucks to live in the Imperium

Imperial Guard generals are some of the sexiest men alive, and the worst part is that almost all of them are celibate Lies, all lies!...On an unrelated note, this is one of General Castors earlier designs.

• Free thinking will get you killed.
• The High Lords of Terra pretend to be a democracy but are a brutal, manipulative dictatorship (ala 1984's Inner Party or North Korea's real life government; just replace "Big Brother" or "Eternal President Kim Il sung" with "The God-Emperor of Mankind").
• Thinking about nothing is the only way to survive. Unless you think about the steely musculature and long, shimmering hair of the Emperor.
• Thinking about nothing implies you're thinking, and thinking is HERESY.
• If you like or expect ethnic diversity, prepare for disappointment. For most of 40k's existence, Games Workshops seems to overlook the fact that non-white people exist. In practice, nearly all humans in 40k look like they're of European or British descent; while people of, for example, African or Asian descent (who are both more numerous than Caucasians in real-life, the latter includes the world most numerous ethnic group) are rarely portrayed in over thrity years of Warhammer 40k art.
• You are constantly under attack by Orks, Eldar, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, the forces of Chaos, Space Communists, etc.
• If you mutate, you will be at best shunned, at worst killed. Note in many case people can't tell the difference between deformity and mutations.
• Voices in your sleep keep telling you that Chaos is great, at which point an Inquisitor kills you whether you resist the temptations or not.
• Priests keep telling you the Imperium is great and then report you for not attending the entirety of your third mass service of the designated planetary worship day, at which point you are executed by local law enforcement.
• If you aren't in the Navy you are in the Imperial Guard,which means you will either die painfully on the battlefield or be executed by a Commissar for not being loyal enough to die on the battlefield.
• The Imperium is rife with poverty, overcrowding, starvation and crime (and those are the least of people's problems).
• Your planetary governor is incompetent, ruthless, heretical or just very greedy (if you're lucky). Any that aren't are rarer than an Ork that doesn't like WAAAAGH!, and either dead or about to be killed by one or more of the Imperium's enemies (or someone else from the Imperium).
• You can be executed for taking incorrect care of your gun and angering the Machine Spirit.
• Space Marines never get laid...ever. Unless they turn to Chaos, in which case they spend eternity having their souls tortured by Chaos.
• If the Dark Eldar capture you, the rest of your now-short life of will be full of slavery and torture.
• If you happen to be an Inquisitor, you are expected to watch whatever you order. Vomiting is HERESY.
• Technology scares you. Not much of a change, though is it?
• You are poor and uneducated. Isn't a change, either.
• The Tau will eventually progress past the Imperium in size and technology; soon after the Imperium will be absorbed into the Tau Empire (and would that be so bad?) *BLAM* HERESY! Bloody Commissars!
• The Orks will eventually unite and destroy the Imperium.
• The Tyranids will eventually arrive and destroy the Imperium.
• The Necrons will eventually awaken and destroy the Imperium.
• Chaos cannot be defeated and will eventually destroy the Imperium.
• The Eldar will eventually get a new god/glue together all Khaine's pieces/free Isha (somehow, don't ask) and shoot you out of the galaxy.
• Each of the six above, combined. Also, the Dark Eldar will survive and still prey on all of the above.
• If you're not dead in the Guard, dead in the Navy, or dead as a civilian, you're a heretic and alien-sympathizer. Therefore executed.
• But the Star Child coul-*BLAM*

+ We apologize for the heresy in the replacement author. Another author will be found to finish this article +

• Creed now works for Tzeentch. Ignore the Heresy.
• The standard imperial citizen can also be compared to that of medieval peasant/slave, only with less food, water, freedom and money, and with more beatings and torture.

See Also

• How Imperial Life Is Worse Than You Can Imagine
• The Empire, for their slightly less grimdark Warhammer Fantasy counterpart.

Summary

In the grim dark future of the 41st Millennium, there is only bleak, grim, black, hopeless, dismal, barren, gloomy, gray, joyless, dour, dreary, dark, cheerless, glum, oppressive, somber, grim darkness. And the sugar beet/cane is extinct.

What the Imperium would likely look like if the Mechanicus ever decided to get their head out of their collective ass. Except there would be skulls and gothic architecture everywhere.

Ah, much better...

External Link

The history of the Imperium in about a minute and a half.