Cooper Hendricks and Colin Keyes
Staff Writers
The UK based company, Games Workshop, well known for its tabletop war-games like Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar, announces that it will be making several different shows set in the Warhammer 40,000 or 40k universe.
However, it’s very likely that most people haven’t heard of Warhammer 40k and there is a reason. 40k is gritty, brutal and dark, or the way the fans describe it, Grimdark. In fact the opening title of any and every piece of 40k media is foreboding and consistent: “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.”
So what is Warhammer 40k and what are these shows going to be about? It’s complicated, too complicated to explain all of it in this article, but here’s the short answer. Some 20,000 years from now in the future, humanity has spread across the stars and built a grand empire. However, for many reasons this empire collapsed, attacked by their robotic servants, alien races who were once considered allies and the demons and armies of the Warp also known as Chaos, or layman’s terms space hell.
Humanity falls and worlds are cut off from each other, unable to speak. The once technologically advanced empire crumbles into individual worlds with thousands of different beliefs and cultures.
On Earth, now called Terra, a figure known only as the Emperor of Man unites the fractured states of Terra under one banner, The Imperium of Man. Which is anti-religion, superstition and prefers the use of logic and reason. The Emperor unifies Terra and then creates these demigod-like humans which are called Primarchs. He creates 20 of these demigod-like humans using advanced gene-tech. However, the forces of Chaos scatter the gestation pods of the Primarchs across the galaxy on a plethora of different worlds, in an attempt to stop the Emperor from raising the Primarchs as the generals of his armies like he wanted to.
To help the Emperor reclaim his “sons,” he creates the Adeptus Astartes or Space Marines made from the primarchs gene-seed and organized into legions. He sets out through the stars on what he calls the Great Crusade and retrieves his sons one by one.
After about 250 years of crusading, the Emperor’s favored primarch son, Horus falls to the forces of Chaos and starts a war to destroy everything that his father’s empire stood for. Horus brings eight of his brothers to his side and they clash against the nine remaining legions and their respective primarchs. This event, known as the Horus Heresy leaves the once proud Imperium in ruins. The Emperor was mortally wounded and interred on a device called the Golden Throne where he remains to the present, kept alive only by the constant sacrifice of people with psychic powers known as psykers. The primarchs who remained, slowly disappeared, leaving the Imperium even lower, sinking into zealotry and superstition, the antithesis of what he wanted. The Emperor is even worshiped as a god.
That brings us to the current story, to the 41st millenium, 10,000 years after the Emperor is put onto the Golden Throne and all of his loyal sons are gone. The Imperium is a cruel place, where your life is only worth your capability in war. Individuality means nothing, losses of life number in the hundreds of thousands every day, and those are considered low numbers. You’re just as likely to be killed by your own side as your enemy if you’re not a devout worshipper of the Emperor.
The TV shows that will come out of this universe are numerous and will cover many different groups and their trials and tribulations through this universe.
The first is Eisenhorn, which is about an inquisitor by the same name. He’s a part of the Ordo Xenos, which is a department of the Imperial Inquisition that hunts aliens. The show will cover the adventures of Gregor Eisenhorn and his posse as they try to stop the enemies of the Imperium.
There will also be some animated series coming out as well covering several different novels that take place in the 40k setting. Most will follow the Imperium of Man as they’re considered the universe’s de facto good guys. Some will follow the traitor legions who fell to chaos and their travels through the warp and fringes of the known galaxy.
Either way, all of these stories should be a blast and allow a whole slew of new people to get involved in the rich lore of Warhammer 40k, in a more palatable and understandable medium.
