40K - Should I .... or not? Where to start?

There has been progress, albeit slow. Think like, a society like ours might take 100 years to have any major advancements, the Emperium takes 1000 years. The Emperium is very regulated when it comes to tech of any sort, and any major development must go through Mars, the Capital of the Mechanicus. Mars must allow it and send a message back too the creator that they can use it. Now this takes forever to do, first the machine must come to mars, which can take an eternity due too the extreme distances. Then Mars must test it, and this also takes forever. If the machine is declared heretical, the creator must be eliminated for heresy. If the Machine gets approved the message must first return to the inventor, but the inventor is long since dead and nobody wishes to continue the works, if the planet has fallen to the enemy or the ship gets attacked there is nobody left to retrieve the approval and the machine is lost forever.

There is plenty of planets that create their own tech without the approval of the Mechanicus, but they have to stay hidden.

 

Okay, I'll reply properly to this tomorrow, however for starters if you're interested in getting a taste for the lore and the different factions check out these podcasts. They're by The Independent Characters podcast, and they take time out every now and again to focus on a particular faction, get in "experts" on those factions and really go into detail on the lore. I love these podcasts and have listened to them all multiple times:

http://theindependentcharacters.com/blog/?s=show+of+force&x=0&y=0

 

This has been an entertaining thread...

Watching Aginor try to sort through the flailing, railing, madness that is the 40K fluff ...or make any sense of its technobabble has been priceless.

...carry on, carry on.

 

The Elder society became super decadent and most Elder only wanted the next great sensation. Their lives were perfect and without strife, to avoid getting bored to death they had to indulge in more and more depraved acts of pleasure. When an entire species of highly psychic humanoids keep doing the same thing, something is going to happen. Over the course of thousands of years of endless pleasure, Slaanesh was born and devoured most of the Elder gods except Isha, who was saved/kidnapped by Nurgle, Khaine was saved by Khorne but was fractured and cegorach who foresaw the coming of Slaanesh, and used the other gods as meatshields meanwhile he booked it.

When Slaanesh was born he/she/it created a warpstorm in the heart of the Elder empire that killed most of their race, this warpstorm was later known as the eye of terror. You know those doomsday prebber's? Yeah, they were the only ones of their race that survived the fall of the Elder and they did by hiding on plant sized spaceships.

This had a positive affect though, on humanity. The Eye of terror allowed the warp to expand and allow for warp travel again, and that is when the Emperor revealed himself to humanity and began the great crusade.

The Emperor was born in about 2.000 B.C. And he helped humanity in the shadows until he revealed himself. At some point the world is plunched into nuclear war and basically becomes Fallout/Mad Max and he unifies earth and begins conquering the universe. Something happens and travel suddenly becomes impossible between the worlds and humans across the universe start evolving psychic powers.

Big E was heavely crippled by his son, Horus in the year 31.000, and sits upon the golden throne, which is also the device that allows for warptravel across the emperium. He can't speak, or do anything really, he's little more than a corpse. If the Emperor should die, all intersteller travel in the emperium would fail, and the emperium would crumble. The High lords of Terra, the current rulers of the emperium dictates that the Emperor is a omnipotent golden god that watches over all, and all who speak against it is a heretic that must be purged.

Here are some illustrations of what he looks like:

 

I second @pendrake on this one, and I definately feel for you @Aginor . The 40K universe is pretty big, especially when you pull in the epicness of the beginning of the imperium in the 30K time period, it gets out of hand really quick.

I haven't played 40K for a while now, I think the last time was 4th or 5th edition with the Battle for Maccrage set (Space Marines vs Tyrannids), so there definately have been changes since then, especially with 8th edition now being out.

As far as the fluff goes, this I have been reading about for a long time. If you want a good (though highly irreverent) summary check out id4chan; they got a ton of good information in their summary that calls out GW (and others) for their craziness but also does a good job describing some of the key points of the universe. My opinion of course.

Warhammer 40K summary.

Edit: Forgot to add the universe's motto: "In the grim darkness of the future, there is only war"

 

That is true. There is a huge amount of depth to the universe, that is part of what makes it so interesting.

 

Yeah, it's kinda poorly written, but not as stupid as you think. There exist about 300 trillion humans in 40k and about 0,1% of the human population is born with psychic powers to some degree. Most psykers can't control their powers and are put on ice or executed when their powers are revealed, and only very few becomes something more than food for the golden throne.