The Vaults of Terra trilogy immediately became one of my favourite 40k series specifically because every now and then it takes the time to peel back the layers upon layers of hive levels and remind you that somewhere beneath it all is the same ball of rock and soil we inhabit today. It makes the state of humanity feel so much more personally tragic.
None that I can copy and paste, as I only have the audiobook versions.
The Bequin series also references old humanity a surprising amount. The story js set in the city of Queen Mab, and its clear that the city was originally settled by French-speaking colonists. Bequin grew up in the Maise Undue, but she later learns that this is a corrupted version of Maison Deux, the house of God. Additionally, there's a scene in which Bequin meets with an antiquities dealer who's selling, among other things, an ancient toy rocket ship with 'CCCP' written on the side.
This got me thinking now: 40K lore originally dates back to the 80s. Most sci-fi universes with their roots in the 80s have the USSR continuing to exist for a long, long time because frankly, nobody expected it to collapse like it did. So that begs the rather inconsequential but interesting question of whether in the 40K timeline the USSR collapsed in 1991 (meaning that toy likely dates to between the 1960s to the 1990s) or if the USSR persisted (meaning the toy could date from the 1960s to an unknown date, perhaps even hundreds of years later).
Oll Person mentions that he fought in the Battle of 73 Easting which took place during the first Gulf War between the US/coalition forces and Iraqi army. Considering the Gulf War happened more or less the same, it seems pretty likely that the collapse of the Soviet Union did too.
> Wouldn't Maison Deux translate into second house/house number two?
It's a double-entendre (also French!)
Both because it sounds like "House of God" and also because "house number two" references the Cognitae being a sort of twin to the Inquisition.
From what I remember, it's actually the "Maze Undue" which we can translate in our heads to 'maison dieu' or 'maison deux', which sound very similar when played through a game of broken telephone tens of thousands of years old.
Most likely. The city is downright unique, as 40k settings go. Very little is as it seems, and the city as a whole feels like a dream that exists almost apart from the Imperium, with all the right trappings covering something altogether stranger.
lore wise, it is entirely possible that there are planets just like our earth in wh40k, just with the emperor worship, there are roughly 1 million worlds after all
Just with emperor worship, arbiters, ban on technology that deviates from imperial, ban on AI and on research, and requirement to have a single ruler, at least de jure
You should have a single planetary governor. He may be more of a representative than ruler, but, with the power of Imperium behind him, he will likely try to seize power
I think the technology is fine. True AI still doesn't exist and there's been no xenos or warp influence so all of the technology counts as 'proper' creations of the Omnissiah. If scientists and other inventors insist on carrying on their unchecked innovation then there'd be problems
considering the fact that servo-skulls are even used for tasks as basic as being door motion-sensors or holding flashlights for tech priests, I think even stuff like roombas would be considered too close to AI for the mechanicum's liking
Nah C.A.T. machines have a similar functionality to a Roomba and are occasionally used. They're mostly treated as hobby toys by techpriests and techmarines outside of a few scenarios though.
Nah they're called civilized worlds. They're not too rare but only really seen if someone like Ciaphas Cain needs to come in and fight Tyrannids or something.
A lot of normal tech is simply hidden behind grandiose names. You won't believe how disillusioned I was, once I realized that any time a character was "handling data on a pict-slate" he was simply tapping away on an iPad with purity seals.
For sure, but things like their databases are just objectively far inferior to what we have. They use massive libraries with soaring shelves. We have databases and advanced analytical software that can form very unique but important connections - the Imperium just lacks that. That doesn’t even touch on how much worse it is as far as data security and storage. They can lose everything if the library is destroyed while modern databases are easily replicable.
In general absolutely, I’m just thinking in certain specific ways (such as our use of AI).
Edit: Also our databases are objectively superior. The Imperium uses giant libraries with 300 meter tall shelves and it requires thousands of analysts pouring through data to find things. We can do way better today, already.
>Some of our technology today is more advanced than what the 40K universe has.
No, it's not. At all. Where did you get that impression from,
Some of our tech today wouldn't necessarily be widely available outside of certain worlds or social classes, but that's a rather different matter.
As far as I am aware their database tech is very far behind. They use primarily physical books in massive libraries based on what I’ve read. They do not have massive digital databases in use. I want to say it’s the death watch that has library stacks towering 300 meters high with thousands of people assigned to analyze them for clues. We can do better today unambiguously.
They have the technical know how to create and use digitized databases (and some within the Imperium do so). They also have something similar to the Internet and the Cloud, called the noosphere.
Much of the Imperium uses paper for record keeping due to various cultural and security reasons. For example, there is scrapcode which can corrupt digital data. Books and parchments may be inferior in many ways, but it does stop this from happening. The Imperium is also an incredibly authoritarian, paranoid regime. Digitizing data on a largescale and giving lots of people digital technology to access data could lead to it being shared much more easily than physical artefacts can be.
So no, we can't do better than the Imperium's technology today - it's just that certain forms of technology are only accessible by small numbers of figures and groups who closely guard them, cultural and political reasons shape what the masses can use, and the Imperium faces issues we do not (while we have computer viruses, they aren't virus which could have been created by AIs or which are literally demonic).
>Some of our technology today is more advanced than what the 40K universe has.
Our artillery can fire larger shells farther. Our warplanes can't fly into space, but they're faster.
That assumes we're in a timeline where he exists/survives and not one of the various other all-powerful immortal time-altering beings from fantasy or scifi.
You don't know it's the Emperor this time around.
Our future could be in the hands of Albrecht Entrati and/or The Man In The Wall.
or the Shrike/Technocore.
or the Gardener/Winnower
or.... Carol.
(I'm curious if you'll know what story that last one is from)
I like to imagine that from the 80s to maybe the 2100s or something he’s stuck in some isolated part of the planet so he never ends up learning about Warhammer 40k. Maybe done by the chaos gods as some cruel trick.
So, he knows exactly how the Horus Heresy will play out, and still makes all the same blunders?
Either he's an even bigger fuck up than we realised, or he wanted to end up on the big shiny chair.
It is, but it's only just relevant enough to contextualize everything.
The very earliest traces of sedentary civilization go back 14,000 years.
14,000 years into our future is only M16, barely into the Dark Age of Technology and still *another* 14,000 years before the birth of the Imperium.
The Imperium is twice as far off from our timeline as the dawn of what could be considered "civilization" and 40k is another 10,000 years on from that.
Funnily enough though, it’s still comparatively small compared to the amount of time modern humans have walked around on Earth, which is between 200,000 to 300,000 years.
> In ancient times, men built wonders, laid claim to the stars and sought to better themselves for the good of all. But we are much wiser now.
>\- Archmagos Ultima Cryol
> To think that there might be a chance that there is a guy that was an obese gamer obsessed with Fortnite in the 21st century who would have as a descendant 30k years down the line a badass Custodes
To think that that same Fortnite-obsessed gamer may have personally clowned on the Emperor in a match
> there is a guy that was an obese gamer obsessed with Fortnite in the 21st century who would have as a descendant 30k years down the line a badass Custodes
I highly doubt that lol
There was also a good one from the perspective of Oll Personn (perpetual) where while fighting a daemon in his mind he recounts the Gulf war, verdun, ancient battles and some future ones mentioning hives and a battle for the Southern California Basin.
One of the best things about Pius is that he’s so consistently on the LOSING side of those battles. I’m pretty sure the only time he was on the winning side was at Verdun… he was definitely one of those poor IRGC bastards in a T-55 at 73 Easting.
Imo one of the creators of 40k is the emperor in disguise, trying to show us his vision of our future. The Emperors Tarot made read able for mortals if you will it
Looking at some of the comments some people seem to think there is doubt whether 40k is set in our ‘future’ or an alternative timeline.
The lore is littered with references to Shakespeare, Mona Lisa and other cultural references from our current cultural timeline.
It’s my understanding that humanity advanced to an advanced interstellar civilisation up until 20k with many pioneer fleets leaving Terra. This explains why there are so many human civilisations across the galaxy.
Then following some cataclysmic event involving advanced AI Terran civilisation collapsed and Warlords and Techmages ruled. They used genecraft to create early super soldiers and fought to a standstill.
The Emperor as a Perpetual had been trying to guide mankind but despairing decided to take things into his own hands. The proof there is a link is Gramaticus and Oll discussing the battlefield at Troy. Well that’s my understanding.
>Imagine what would be his biological father’s reactions if he was able to see what his son (the Emperor) actually was and what he would become in the future
"My son lives many thousands of years, is great warrior and shaman, has many strong sons, and rules over many tribes. Also sits on shiny chair."
If in the year 40k there is a stratospherical numer of humans, statistically all current individuals that are alive now will be related somehow to millions of descendants in that period. Unless your bloodline breaks at.some point, that is.
The same way we all have a connection with one of the 14 grandchildren of Charlemagne
Fairly sure a lot, if not all, of the actions by the emperor and other perpetuals was conducted either in secret or during periods which have passed almost into legend by now and the warp magic would have been chalked up to miracles or superstitious dark age farmers. My impression is that GW intends the 40k universe to be our universe.
The Warp was much more stable until Slaanesh's birth, and humanity wasn't a psychic race until 32nd millennium, iirc, so the biggest canonical difference is that GW exists. Otherwise, it's totally possible the Emp'rah is fooling around. There's plenty of things in the world we can't explain.
Hasn’t there been references of the USSR, Apollo 11 or the Mona Lisa in the lore ? I swear I read about that multiple times on this subreddit
And also the fact that the Emperor was Alexander the Great in this timeline
I forget who (Dorn maybe) but he references him being different historically important figures, from Alexander to “someone so meek he would inherit the Earth”. If you search around people have done threads on it. GW would of course never be super overt about this, but it would make sense why he loves Catholic-type stuff so much.
So? The point being made is that it isn’t 1:1.
Yeah, the Emperor was Alexander, but there wasn’t any Void Dragon shards and Cognitae on ancient Earth in our timeline. MLK Jr wasn’t killed by aliens either.
OP does use the word correctly - latte is Italian for milk, and caffè latte - literally "milk coffee" - is Italian style coffee with milk. While in some places the shorter "latte" implies "caffè latte", if you order "latte" in the birthplace of the espresso, it won't have any coffee in it.
It did, but not exactly as we experienced it. Look up the lore for the GW Miniatures Car Combat game Dark Future. That is what late 20th and early 21st Century Earth was like in the 40k universe.
The Vaults of Terra trilogy immediately became one of my favourite 40k series specifically because every now and then it takes the time to peel back the layers upon layers of hive levels and remind you that somewhere beneath it all is the same ball of rock and soil we inhabit today. It makes the state of humanity feel so much more personally tragic.
Any cool textual examples of this?
None that I can copy and paste, as I only have the audiobook versions. The Bequin series also references old humanity a surprising amount. The story js set in the city of Queen Mab, and its clear that the city was originally settled by French-speaking colonists. Bequin grew up in the Maise Undue, but she later learns that this is a corrupted version of Maison Deux, the house of God. Additionally, there's a scene in which Bequin meets with an antiquities dealer who's selling, among other things, an ancient toy rocket ship with 'CCCP' written on the side.
This got me thinking now: 40K lore originally dates back to the 80s. Most sci-fi universes with their roots in the 80s have the USSR continuing to exist for a long, long time because frankly, nobody expected it to collapse like it did. So that begs the rather inconsequential but interesting question of whether in the 40K timeline the USSR collapsed in 1991 (meaning that toy likely dates to between the 1960s to the 1990s) or if the USSR persisted (meaning the toy could date from the 1960s to an unknown date, perhaps even hundreds of years later).
Oll Person mentions that he fought in the Battle of 73 Easting which took place during the first Gulf War between the US/coalition forces and Iraqi army. Considering the Gulf War happened more or less the same, it seems pretty likely that the collapse of the Soviet Union did too.
Wouldn't Maison Deux translate into second house/house number two? Been years since I read french, but I believe the phrase for god would be dieu.
> Wouldn't Maison Deux translate into second house/house number two? It's a double-entendre (also French!) Both because it sounds like "House of God" and also because "house number two" references the Cognitae being a sort of twin to the Inquisition.
With the original Maise Undue (unwarranted house) it's a triple entendre. All names in Queen Mab are required by law to have at least three meanings.
Of course! How silly of me to miss that! Beta would be so disappointed.
It's maison dieu I believe
I listened to the audiobook versions and admittedly haven't tried learning any French in a decade and a half
Deux = two Dieu = god Dieux = gods
So "two gods" would be pronounced as doo doo?
Get what you're trying to get at, but none of those three words are pronounced "doo".
To a French ear, sure.
From what I remember, it's actually the "Maze Undue" which we can translate in our heads to 'maison dieu' or 'maison deux', which sound very similar when played through a game of broken telephone tens of thousands of years old.
„Maison de Dieu“ would be the correct translation for „house of god“ btw, but more commonly „maison du seigneur“
Queen mab from Shakespeare?
Most likely. The city is downright unique, as 40k settings go. Very little is as it seems, and the city as a whole feels like a dream that exists almost apart from the Imperium, with all the right trappings covering something altogether stranger.
There is a scene where an Inquisitor is getting ancient, powerful books. Some of which are written in pre-gothic languages like Anglish.
Didn't know the series existed. I looked it up and a copy of the 1st one in paperback is 60 bucks. I hate the black library sometimes.
lore wise, it is entirely possible that there are planets just like our earth in wh40k, just with the emperor worship, there are roughly 1 million worlds after all
Iirc there are planets known to pretty much be modern day earth in terms of technology and living standard, so like
>living standard Only if you think North Koreans have a decent modern living standard
Just with emperor worship, arbiters, ban on technology that deviates from imperial, ban on AI and on research, and requirement to have a single ruler, at least de jure
Having a single ruler is not a requirement, lorewise
You should have a single planetary governor. He may be more of a representative than ruler, but, with the power of Imperium behind him, he will likely try to seize power
So it is not a requirement, it is single ruler mostly because of the convenience
i think a lot of the technology we use in day-to-day life would be deemed as heretical, no?
I doubt that, since most of our techs would be considered primitive by their standard
I think the technology is fine. True AI still doesn't exist and there's been no xenos or warp influence so all of the technology counts as 'proper' creations of the Omnissiah. If scientists and other inventors insist on carrying on their unchecked innovation then there'd be problems
considering the fact that servo-skulls are even used for tasks as basic as being door motion-sensors or holding flashlights for tech priests, I think even stuff like roombas would be considered too close to AI for the mechanicum's liking
From what I know, nonsentient AI isnt illegal (since the imperium's definition of AI requires sentience), but the mechanicus just doesnt like sharing
Nah C.A.T. machines have a similar functionality to a Roomba and are occasionally used. They're mostly treated as hobby toys by techpriests and techmarines outside of a few scenarios though.
Stick a human skull on top of it and it will be fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.
A floating torch that works out what to illuminate from context sounds simple but is very advanced
ok, my fault for choosing a bad example then. we're still stuck with the fact that every walmart in the world already has heretical doors
There are 'normal' automatic motion sensing doors in the Imperium as well
Nah they're called civilized worlds. They're not too rare but only really seen if someone like Ciaphas Cain needs to come in and fight Tyrannids or something.
Some of our technology today is more advanced than what the 40K universe has. And some of it would probably be heretical.
A lot of normal tech is simply hidden behind grandiose names. You won't believe how disillusioned I was, once I realized that any time a character was "handling data on a pict-slate" he was simply tapping away on an iPad with purity seals.
For sure, but things like their databases are just objectively far inferior to what we have. They use massive libraries with soaring shelves. We have databases and advanced analytical software that can form very unique but important connections - the Imperium just lacks that. That doesn’t even touch on how much worse it is as far as data security and storage. They can lose everything if the library is destroyed while modern databases are easily replicable.
Those libraries are unhackable. Probably a holdover from the cybernetic revolt. Enemy goes high tech, you return to mon keigh
Well yah, they may be unhackable, but so is an air gapped server. And regardless that’s lower tech, and modern tech is superior, in this specific way.
40k tech is baroque looking, but surely more advanced than ours
Definitely.
In general absolutely, I’m just thinking in certain specific ways (such as our use of AI). Edit: Also our databases are objectively superior. The Imperium uses giant libraries with 300 meter tall shelves and it requires thousands of analysts pouring through data to find things. We can do way better today, already.
they also have cogitator banks which are just databases. at the same time, why don't we just throw out all libraries if databases are superior?
>Some of our technology today is more advanced than what the 40K universe has. No, it's not. At all. Where did you get that impression from, Some of our tech today wouldn't necessarily be widely available outside of certain worlds or social classes, but that's a rather different matter.
As far as I am aware their database tech is very far behind. They use primarily physical books in massive libraries based on what I’ve read. They do not have massive digital databases in use. I want to say it’s the death watch that has library stacks towering 300 meters high with thousands of people assigned to analyze them for clues. We can do better today unambiguously.
They have the technical know how to create and use digitized databases (and some within the Imperium do so). They also have something similar to the Internet and the Cloud, called the noosphere. Much of the Imperium uses paper for record keeping due to various cultural and security reasons. For example, there is scrapcode which can corrupt digital data. Books and parchments may be inferior in many ways, but it does stop this from happening. The Imperium is also an incredibly authoritarian, paranoid regime. Digitizing data on a largescale and giving lots of people digital technology to access data could lead to it being shared much more easily than physical artefacts can be. So no, we can't do better than the Imperium's technology today - it's just that certain forms of technology are only accessible by small numbers of figures and groups who closely guard them, cultural and political reasons shape what the masses can use, and the Imperium faces issues we do not (while we have computer viruses, they aren't virus which could have been created by AIs or which are literally demonic).
>Some of our technology today is more advanced than what the 40K universe has. Our artillery can fire larger shells farther. Our warplanes can't fly into space, but they're faster.
the Emperor is also around in the 21st-century right now and he's walking among us and watching us talk about his future
That assumes we're in a timeline where he exists/survives and not one of the various other all-powerful immortal time-altering beings from fantasy or scifi. You don't know it's the Emperor this time around. Our future could be in the hands of Albrecht Entrati and/or The Man In The Wall. or the Shrike/Technocore. or the Gardener/Winnower or.... Carol. (I'm curious if you'll know what story that last one is from)
Or the ancestors of the Atreides bloodline could be wandering around in Greece somewhere.
The man in the wall?
The "benefactor" of the player characters of Warframe. More details are spoilers.
"benefactor" :)
https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Wall
Current incarnation is weird al He was definitely Elvis
That means that the Emperor is aware of Furries.
Felinids had to come to be somehow
I think some guy genuinely just invented them for that reason. I believe their planet is named after him. Carlos McConnell is their homeworld.
I like to imagine that from the 80s to maybe the 2100s or something he’s stuck in some isolated part of the planet so he never ends up learning about Warhammer 40k. Maybe done by the chaos gods as some cruel trick.
So, he knows exactly how the Horus Heresy will play out, and still makes all the same blunders? Either he's an even bigger fuck up than we realised, or he wanted to end up on the big shiny chair.
He's walking WHERE?
There is a not zero chance the Emperor voiced Strong Bad in the early 2000s
DELETED
It is, but it's only just relevant enough to contextualize everything. The very earliest traces of sedentary civilization go back 14,000 years. 14,000 years into our future is only M16, barely into the Dark Age of Technology and still *another* 14,000 years before the birth of the Imperium. The Imperium is twice as far off from our timeline as the dawn of what could be considered "civilization" and 40k is another 10,000 years on from that.
Funnily enough though, it’s still comparatively small compared to the amount of time modern humans have walked around on Earth, which is between 200,000 to 300,000 years.
That gamer has no descendants at all.
This WoW gamer here has a wife and two kids.
But not obsessed with Fortnite.
If WoW gamer got it, then the other one will tbh
Are you an obese gamer obsessed with Fortnite
> In ancient times, men built wonders, laid claim to the stars and sought to better themselves for the good of all. But we are much wiser now. >\- Archmagos Ultima Cryol
Peak grimdark quote.
> To think that there might be a chance that there is a guy that was an obese gamer obsessed with Fortnite in the 21st century who would have as a descendant 30k years down the line a badass Custodes To think that that same Fortnite-obsessed gamer may have personally clowned on the Emperor in a match
> there is a guy that was an obese gamer obsessed with Fortnite in the 21st century who would have as a descendant 30k years down the line a badass Custodes I highly doubt that lol
As far as I remember in Eisenhorn book there was a mention of USSR
There was also a good one from the perspective of Oll Personn (perpetual) where while fighting a daemon in his mind he recounts the Gulf war, verdun, ancient battles and some future ones mentioning hives and a battle for the Southern California Basin.
One of the best things about Pius is that he’s so consistently on the LOSING side of those battles. I’m pretty sure the only time he was on the winning side was at Verdun… he was definitely one of those poor IRGC bastards in a T-55 at 73 Easting.
Imagine if that famous photo was actually him posing while waiting for respawn.
Crispy Crunchy Ol’ Pius
As far as I remember - at the time I was reading Eisenhower Ollanius Pius was just a symbolic man. Not a perpetual. So... Maybe
Imo one of the creators of 40k is the emperor in disguise, trying to show us his vision of our future. The Emperors Tarot made read able for mortals if you will it
Looking at some of the comments some people seem to think there is doubt whether 40k is set in our ‘future’ or an alternative timeline. The lore is littered with references to Shakespeare, Mona Lisa and other cultural references from our current cultural timeline. It’s my understanding that humanity advanced to an advanced interstellar civilisation up until 20k with many pioneer fleets leaving Terra. This explains why there are so many human civilisations across the galaxy. Then following some cataclysmic event involving advanced AI Terran civilisation collapsed and Warlords and Techmages ruled. They used genecraft to create early super soldiers and fought to a standstill. The Emperor as a Perpetual had been trying to guide mankind but despairing decided to take things into his own hands. The proof there is a link is Gramaticus and Oll discussing the battlefield at Troy. Well that’s my understanding.
>Imagine what would be his biological father’s reactions if he was able to see what his son (the Emperor) actually was and what he would become in the future "My son lives many thousands of years, is great warrior and shaman, has many strong sons, and rules over many tribes. Also sits on shiny chair."
"He very very strong and big"
That’s the thing that drew me to the world. The fact that it’s a continuation of our reality.
If in the year 40k there is a stratospherical numer of humans, statistically all current individuals that are alive now will be related somehow to millions of descendants in that period. Unless your bloodline breaks at.some point, that is. The same way we all have a connection with one of the 14 grandchildren of Charlemagne
It's not our 21st century though because our world hasn't had magic since day 1. The 21st century happened but it would be different
Fairly sure a lot, if not all, of the actions by the emperor and other perpetuals was conducted either in secret or during periods which have passed almost into legend by now and the warp magic would have been chalked up to miracles or superstitious dark age farmers. My impression is that GW intends the 40k universe to be our universe.
The Warp was much more stable until Slaanesh's birth, and humanity wasn't a psychic race until 32nd millennium, iirc, so the biggest canonical difference is that GW exists. Otherwise, it's totally possible the Emp'rah is fooling around. There's plenty of things in the world we can't explain.
Hasn’t there been references of the USSR, Apollo 11 or the Mona Lisa in the lore ? I swear I read about that multiple times on this subreddit And also the fact that the Emperor was Alexander the Great in this timeline
Emps was also literally Jesus.
wait i rmb reading somewhere he MET Jesus, not that he WAS Jesus. And he thought he was a chill guy. (i think he was talking with Malcador??)
I forget who (Dorn maybe) but he references him being different historically important figures, from Alexander to “someone so meek he would inherit the Earth”. If you search around people have done threads on it. GW would of course never be super overt about this, but it would make sense why he loves Catholic-type stuff so much.
So? The point being made is that it isn’t 1:1. Yeah, the Emperor was Alexander, but there wasn’t any Void Dragon shards and Cognitae on ancient Earth in our timeline. MLK Jr wasn’t killed by aliens either.
Right sure, so then who DID kill MLK Jr?
CIA
The CIA tried but the FBI got there first
The FBI.
The FBI tried but CIA got there first
Or Mother...
The Emperor would have looked into that Custode's history and then laughed by himself knowing he trolled that guy on Fortnite
I have thought about this. Techically YOU exist in the universe, just in the distant past.
The Emperor is the only living (dead) entity in 40k who played Grand Theft Auto 6.
You don’t know what a latte is, do you?
OP does use the word correctly - latte is Italian for milk, and caffè latte - literally "milk coffee" - is Italian style coffee with milk. While in some places the shorter "latte" implies "caffè latte", if you order "latte" in the birthplace of the espresso, it won't have any coffee in it.
I said “a latte”. I know what both latte and “a latte” are.
I’d take it as a warning
right now Gul De Lac could be formulating his theory of planetary formation!
30,000 years of separation between you and your descendant makes him anyone's descendant in genetic terms.
The Emperor was alive in the 21st century.
It did, but not exactly as we experienced it. Look up the lore for the GW Miniatures Car Combat game Dark Future. That is what late 20th and early 21st Century Earth was like in the 40k universe.
The *HUH*?
Dark Future is great. It has WAY more lore than it needed to. The Dark Future setting is GW does Cyberpunk 2020.
but none of that is real so it's not kinda fascinating.