Warhammer 40K's canon : Truth & Facts

For all your discussion of canon policies, evidentiary standards, and other meta-debate issues.

Discussion is to remain cordial at all times.
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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Nov 10, 2011 3:39 am

I've moved this to the "Rules of Evidence" forum because it's not a Versus debate, it's about what is and isn't canon for WH40K.
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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Nov 26, 2011 6:23 pm

OK. I thought this section was merely for rules of debate on ST and SW.

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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by Mike DiCenso » Mon Nov 28, 2011 8:26 am

As far as I'm aware of, the Evidence forum isn't strictly for SW vs ST canon discussions. It's just been largely till now all that was discussed here.
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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Dec 14, 2011 2:27 pm

Combat Carl, staff member from 21.December.2004 @ the Sabertooth forums wrote: concerning the role of Magnus and the Battle of Prospero:
The Story and Art of the Horus Heresy CCG is done by Games Workshop itself, done by the very people who are in charge of shaping the entire IP of Warhammer 40,000.
Alan Merrett - principle writer of the story - is in charge of IP development. His position is above that of anyone at the studio. He guides and shapes all facets of the IP to make sure the relic doesn't make space puppy squats, as well as dictating what we can and cannot do, and overall guiding the history and information about the world.
John Blanche - principle concept artists for Warhammer 40,000 has done all the concepts for the things we move forward on. In fact it is his art that portrays Magnus. He works closely with Alan and the studio to guide the look and feel of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
Clearly an internal hierarchy. Of course! We know they have to have one, otherwise it would be absolute anarchy. But the words are very clear: there are guidelines to follow. You cannot draw anything without any consequence. Of course, again. But that so flies in the face of Thorpe's claims.

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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by Lucky » Thu Dec 15, 2011 2:12 pm

Combat Carl, staff member from 21.December.2004 @ the Sabertooth forums wrote: concerning the role of Magnus and the Battle of Prospero:
The Story and Art of the Horus Heresy CCG is done by Games Workshop itself, done by the very people who are in charge of shaping the entire IP of Warhammer 40,000.
Alan Merrett - principle writer of the story - is in charge of IP development. His position is above that of anyone at the studio. He guides and shapes all facets of the IP to make sure the relic doesn't make space puppy squats, as well as dictating what we can and cannot do, and overall guiding the history and information about the world.
John Blanche - principle concept artists for Warhammer 40,000 has done all the concepts for the things we move forward on. In fact it is his art that portrays Magnus. He works closely with Alan and the studio to guide the look and feel of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Clearly an internal hierarchy. Of course! We know they have to have one, otherwise it would be absolute anarchy. But the words are very clear: there are guidelines to follow. You cannot draw anything without any consequence. Of course, again. But that so flies in the face of Thorpe's claims.
Who or what is relic?

What would be bad about space puppy squats?

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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by User1663 » Wed May 02, 2012 3:39 am

Not exactly on topic, but is there anywhere else you're allowed to go besides here? I speak honestly when I say no offence intended, but a great many of your threads appear to be you babbling to yourself with somebody else wandering along to agree with you.

On topic, 40k canon is indeed a confused mess, and GW actively sets out to make their fanbase miserable, thus hastening their demise as a company. News at 8.

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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed May 02, 2012 5:23 pm

the atom wrote:Not exactly on topic, but is there anywhere else you're allowed to go besides here? I speak honestly when I say no offence intended, but a great many of your threads appear to be you babbling to yourself with somebody else wandering along to agree with you.
I'm senile.
On topic, 40k canon is indeed a confused mess, and GW actively sets out to make their fanbase miserable, thus hastening their demise as a company. News at 8.
I don't see their company ever failing. They know how to make money, contrary to their opponents who thought they could best them : Rackham, for example, had set themselves to beat GW... yeah, whatever.

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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Sep 30, 2012 9:17 pm

Apparently taken from the Games Workshop boards:
I'll just chip in here with what Marc tends to say, paraphrasing from memory ...

The games of Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer are abstract versions of the 'real' world created in order to allow people to play balanced games with toy soldiers for fun or competition. The fiction in our novels and magazines, colourful text added to rulebooks and codexes, are as close to the 'real' worlds as possible with the obvious taint of the narrator's viewpoint.

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Not going to help determine how reliable the information is, considering the setting and how the chaos/imperial propaganda is on 5000% OVERDRIVE!!

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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by Lucky » Mon Oct 01, 2012 6:05 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Apparently taken from the Games Workshop boards:
I'll just chip in here with what Marc tends to say, paraphrasing from memory ...

The games of Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer are abstract versions of the 'real' world created in order to allow people to play balanced games with toy soldiers for fun or competition. The fiction in our novels and magazines, colourful text added to rulebooks and codexes, are as close to the 'real' worlds as possible with the obvious taint of the narrator's viewpoint.

Tech Priest Ragnar
Not going to help determine how reliable the information is, considering the setting and how the chaos/imperial propaganda is on 5000% OVERDRIVE!!
Still doesn't this say "rulebook and codexe fluff > everything else 40K"? I mean, this seems like the most clearly written quote explaining 40K canon.

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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:20 am

Lucky wrote:
Not going to help determine how reliable the information is, considering the setting and how the chaos/imperial propaganda is on 5000% OVERDRIVE!!
Still doesn't this say "rulebook and codexe fluff > everything else 40K"? I mean, this seems like the most clearly written quote explaining 40K canon.
We have other quotes and I got no date for that one. I can't even find the original post.
Besides, there's what they say, and what they actually do.
We see with the way they manage sources that there's clearly a hierarchy.
Funnily enough, some 40K used to follow some fanon canon policy which was quite detailed, as seen from some old 2004 post at SBC for example.
Things have quite been fleshed out since that day.

Here's a more complete version (although I don't post Kresh's entire post):
Kresh, Mar 14, 2004 wrote:
kargas[]. 3/11/2004 19:41 (3/14/2004 18:43)
What represents the "reality" (I use the word advisedly) of the 40k universe most accurately ?

The game statistics, or the background, i.e. the novels, the general "fluff" etc.

My thoughts would be the background and fluff, with a canonical scale with the Gamesdeveloper and prominent authors at the top, and inferno short stories and the ilk at the bottom(rough idea)

I mean, how can a bunch of statistics and rules really do more than give us a rough idea of how things would pan out in the various conflicts ? And where are is the detail and colour in a bunch of numbers ?


Thoughts ?
Then this reply today:
I'll just chip in here with what Marc tends to say, paraphrasing from memory ...

The games of Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer are abstract versions of the 'real' world created in order to allow people to play balanced games with toy soldiers for fun or competition. The fiction in our novels and magazines, colourful text added to rulebooks and codexes, are as close to the 'real' worlds as possible with the obvious taint of the narrator's viewpoint.

Tech Priest Ragnar

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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:31 am

On another note, the Soul Drinkers contradiction is interesting to read; we can see that in universe reasons transpire more or less into the validity of some tales, as imperial codices are supposedly almost like what they'd be inside the universe of Warhammer 40000.

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Re: More on Warhammer 40,000's canon

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Oct 20, 2012 12:40 am

Back in October 2004, at least the local consensus at SBC regarding canon seems to have been this one:

Deathbringer, Oct 25, 2004 wrote:
Lord Khorak wrote:
This is pointless then. You have no material. None. Nothing. You have based everything entirely upon conclusions drawn from tabletop army lists and specifications that are proveably inaccurate bunk. The Leman Russ couldn't even move if we believed the specifications, certainly not as quick as they do, we all had a big laugh about that. The armour values they state, would not allow any Leman Russ in any of the novels to survive any of the hits they take either. Or Predators.

But hey, you go with just your rulebooks. It's like reading The Puffin Book Of Something and thinking you know anything about the subject, but you take that and be happy. Dozens of 300-400 page softbacks and a truly monsterous amount of short stories. Fuck 'em. You got the rulebooks. Twenty years of 40k history. No worries. Rulebooks. Got ya. I'm gonna fuck right off now, because I need to go read up the rulebooks for the new wave of the future. I'm obviously out of my depth, I've only gone and been buying all these damn novels and stuck with it all right from Rogue Trader. Shit!

Uh, Khorak, seriously, we set this stuff down a long time ago in the days of 40k vs. Starcraft and found the canon hierarchy to be:

1Fluff from Rulebooks & WD
2Novels by Games Devs
3Novels by other people that matter.

If that has changed since then, well nobody sent me the damn memo.

That said, you might have better luck pointing out that there is a direct self-contradiction since Lightnings and Marauders are supposed to be able to come down from orbit, do their thing, and go back up, and the numbers listed in those stats are *nothing like escape velocity*, so something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and there is more evidence for things coming in and out of orbit. I suppose I ought to do some homework and get sources on this.

Edit: The first place to show paydirt, actually, is the very same Imperial Armour book the numbers came from, where they describe the way the Navy uses Lightnings and Marauders. They're based on orbiting spaceships or rapidly established forward air bases. That's all I have handy from the codecii. Getting things from the Games-Dev novels & short stories will take a bit more time.
Oh and the codecii... :|

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Re: Warhammer 40K's canon : Truth & Facts

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Aug 06, 2015 12:34 am

It's been a while. Now 7th Edition, new enemies, old ones revamped editions ago, things move on.

In the most recent cursory readings I had about the new fluff was a mention of bastions the size of planets, owned by the Imperium.
Now that sounds like they jumped the shark. It reminds me of Starcraft II's Terrans suddenly pulling an insane industrial feat out of nowhere and exploiting the core of a planet while having artificial structures surrounding it and also plunging deep into it, while maintaining the planet's crust open.
Back to 40K, we understand that this universe spans a large amount of millennia. Things were pretty impressive back during the Great Crusade and pretty much what is observed in 40000 as of "now" is an Imperium on a decrepit slope, desperately craving STC.
There were many debates about the industrial might of the Imperium over the ages, but literally adding to the might of the IoM the ability, at some point and over an unspecified amount of time, to build artificial planets, is just over the top.
It made me think about the simple principle of duplicates, i.e., if one piece of information is never backed up beyond the one initial mention, it's quite very fragile on its own terms. Even more if it seems to largely clash with conclusions one can logically reach based on all known fluff.
Now, the method isn't perfect either, because some elements are bound to be mentionned once. With the rather fluidic way the W40K canon is understood, it's also hard to set things in stone for debates.
However, when dealing with general information that is ought to be found again in other sources, yet turns out to be wholly absent or quite contradicted in principle, one has to make a choice about whether to keep the troublesome information or ditch it.
Ensues flaming deabtes.

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