How the Imperium of Man Compares to Other Empires in History

[Brother Casman]

Hey all, I stumbled across this on twitter, but recently the FLG Chapter Tactics podcast had a special guest on to talk about the Imperium and how it compares (and contrasts) with real ancient empires:

Chapter Tactics #194 (runtime ~1hr 40min).

 

The discussion covers how tributary empires function and a bit on how they're structured, it also goes over the difference between warriors and soldiers, and whether the Imperium will survive (in Bret's opinion), alongside a number of different questions; all of it compared and contrasted with the Imperium as portrayed by GW. I found the whole discussion to be fascinating and a bit surprising, as it turns out that the Imperium is a bit more realistic than I originally thought, though it is definitely rooted in the fantastical. I think that those of us with a passing interest in history would probably enjoy the podcast.

 

Dr. Bret Devereaux is an ancient historian specializing in the intersection of the economy and the military of the Roman Republic; he's also a fan of the 40k setting, and he regularly blogs about warfare and pop culture over at A Collection of Unmitigated Pendantry (if you're interested). I've found his blog posts to be very good reads, with lots of things to think about, even if it's not 40k related.

[Closet Skeleton]

Haven't had time to listen to it yet, but my opinion has long been that the Imperium is probably the most realistic and in depth Galactic civilisation in SF, if only because of how messy and non-straight forwards it is.

[WARMASTER_]

Thanks for this should be very interesting

[Slave to Darkness]

Comparisons to real world has had threads shut down before. Careful what you say guys. 

[RandyB]

Two key differences:

1. The Imperium of Man is fictional; historic empires are not.
2. Authorial control means that the Imperium of Man does not have to abide by the same dynamic forces as historic empires.

Therefore, any similarities between the Imperium of Man and historic empires is verisimilitude at best. There is no predictive value in applying the course of historic empires as a template to the future of the Imperium of Man.

 

TL;DR - real world history does not bind GW as regards the future and fate of the Imperium of Man.

[N1SB]

1st, this was a great listen, thank you Brother Casman.  I played this in the background while playing a computer game.

 

2nd, the above is a really good point about not trying to force fit these historical data points into some trend line to explain the Imperium, thanks for the reminder Brother Randy B.  I actually almost made that mistake just listening to it because it was so tempting.  Because rather than despite being a historian, the guest of honour in this podcast actually resists that temptation.

 

But here's why I think any number of members here would enjoy listening to this (there were some audio issues, but worth bearing it because):

 

• What makes an empire an empire, the Imperium the Imperium?  It was not an academic checklist of characteristics to classify something as an empire, but what needs to go into this big thing not just to keep it going, just to keep the damn thing in 1 piece even if it's just in name by lip service
   
• What makes a Space Marine a Space Marine?  It's the whole soldier vs. warrior line of thought.  If I had to paraphrase what this historian says, a Guardsman is a soldier, war is just what he DOES; a Space Marine is a warrior, war is what he IS.  If you take the war away, the Guardsman actually gets to live a happy life doing something...anything else, but for a Space Marine his life kinda stops like you amputated his whole soul from his body

 

Very thought provoking stuff because it's not so much the history, but the philosophy of it all.  I think the rest of the panel did make the mistake RandyB described, they tried to map this historian's points to aspects of 30k and 40k.  But I think it's not about trying to link those things, it's about re-colouring everything I thought I knew about the Imperium.

 

Y'know, in Siege of Terra: Saturnine the great Remembrancer Sindermann mused that perhaps the Emperor saw the universe like a history book...except that he's reading it backwards.  After listening to the podcast, I have a greater appreciation of His perspective.  This will be in the back of my mind for a long time.  And lots of pointers to things I should look up for my next Marine (maybe Sororitas) project.

Edited February 21, 2021 by N1SB

[Jings]

This might be a bit off topic but I popped a ritalin and saw "40K compared to history" and thought I'd type up some thoughts I've been having on a similar vein. 

 

 

I've actually been considering doing a deep dive into the Imperium's constitutional nature, particularly in regard to the political and judicial arrangements and the methods through which disputes are resolved when they occur between separate Imperial institutions that have either explicit or, due to their nature, implicit limitless authority. 

 

The Emperor's Gift is a pretty interesting case study of this happening. There's a conflict between the Inquisition and the Space Wolves over the fate of soldiers who fought daemons on Armageddon. The Inquisition wants to sterilize or kill the soldiers in order to suppress the knowledge of daemons spreading. The Wolves are more of the opinion that the soldiers did their duty and should be free to continue doing so. 

 

So you have the Inquisition, the Imperium's secret police with nigh-unlimited legal authority and act on behalf of the Emperor himself on the one hand, and the Space Wolves, an ancient and revered quasi-independent hyper-elite monastic warrior organization with a basically unblemished history of competence and loyalty on the other. Who can they go to over a dispute? Neither of these organizations are accountable to anyone except perhaps themselves and are effectively sovereign in and of themselves, under the larger umbrella of the Imperium, and the Imperium out of necessity operates in such a way that avoids such oversight by allowing these various departments and institutions huge degrees of independence with seemingly little to no judicial infrastructure in place to adjudicate over disputes as they arise. 

 

So how can they resolve their issues? Well, there are two options, really. Informal arbitration or war. In Emperor's Gift, they are brought to their senses in time to not outright annihilate each other, but not before they take chunks out of each other. But what's framed as a war can really be boiled down to an interdepartmental scuffle. The decentralized nature of the Imperium coupled by its utter lack of judicial oversight over such disputes essentially force parties to either fight, or use other more underhanded methods such as political manipulation or assassinations in order to deal with any conflicts outwith the usual chain of command. 

 

Of course, this approach does work in a lot of scenarios. The Inquisition effectively act as crude judiciary to the departments and institutions it has oversight over, and while the Inquisition purports to act with unlimited authority, in practice there are several institutions throughout the Imperium that are able to resist their authority or contest it outright. Astartes chapters, particularly the older and more revered chapters, have shown to be resistant to the authority of the Inquisition, as has the Adeptus Mechanicus due to its status as a pseudo-independent fiefdom within the Imperium. The Adeptus Custodes can fairly be described as being able to contest the authority of the Inquisition due to their nature as the guardians of the Emperor himself.

 

The Officio Assassinorum too have demonstrated multiple times that they can and will act outside of the authority of the Inquisition, as their role is to eliminate threats to the Imperium, within and without, and there are few internal threats greater than that of a turned Inquisitor. If you had the pull for an audience and can effectively make your case that this individual is a threat to the Imperium, you can have that individual murdered by the State. Of course the reality of the Imperium is that any such disputes would likely be resolved with violence long before any petitions for assassination would be read by someone able to do anything about it, but in a sense the Officio Assassinorum were the highest form of judicial recourse available prior to the return of the Primarch which is quite an interesting arrangement. 

 

Speaking of Guilliman... This is getting long in the teeth and so far the constitutional implications of his return haven't been explored in a great amount of depth outside of him now acting as regent and de facto head of state for the Imperium. 

 

Basically a long way to say that yeah, the Imperium is great to look at through historical, political and legal lenses. There's been so many sources of inspirations drawn from to craft this fictional frankenstate that you can look at it in almost any angle, with a bit of squinting, you can see the hows and whys of how it kind of works in its context. 

Edited February 20, 2021 by Jings

[Jared the Chaos Psyker92]

Tbh, nothing humanity has done will ever reach the scale of the Imperium's stupidity, blowing up entire worlds left and right, sending trillions to die each day to feed a magical golden throne, all we have is relative measurements on scale. Now, historical undertones are there, but to say how we would compare would be if humanity itself in real life took such a sharp turn after our technological progress. 

[Slave to Darkness]

Tbh, nothing humanity has done will ever reach the scale of the Imperium's stupidity, blowing up entire worlds left and right, 

Give us time, we need to be able to get to the other planets before we can blow them up.