Imperium (Warhammer 40,000)
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This WFB or WH40K-related article describes an aspect of the series in a primarily in-universe style. Please help rewrite it to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective. (October 2009) |
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| Form of government | Dictatorship (Theocratic Oligarchy) |
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| Official language | Low/ Imperial Gothic, High Gothic, Lingua Technis |
| Capital | Holy Terra (Earth) |
| Head of state | The God-Emperor of Mankind |
| Established | 30,000 A.D. |
| Governing body | High Lords of Terra |
| Population | Unknown but vast, likely quadrillions |
| Military forces | |
| Primary | |
| Imperial Guard The Holy Fleet (Imperial Navy) |
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| Other | |
| Adeptus Custodes Inquisition |
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The Imperium of Man (Latin: Imperium Hominis) is a fictional galactic empire of over a million planets that contains the vast majority of humans in the forty-first millennium, set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe created by Games Workshop. In the fiction, the Imperium is depicted as a loose confederation, nominally consisting of all human-inhabited worlds in explored space and united through a common imposed religious conviction, extreme xenophobia and militarism, brutal despotic rule and threat of massive disciplinary force. The founder of the Imperium, an enigmatic and mysterious persona known only as the 'Emperor of Mankind' is in theory the supreme ruler of this galaxy-spanning empire - in practice a supreme council known as the High Lords based on Terra (Earth in the 41st millennium A.D.) has ruled for ten millennia under his name.
Due to the nature of communication in the fiction (telepathic contact at superluminal speed between gifted individuals via an alternate dimension) and the numerically and spatially vast size of the Imperium, the High Lords cannot maintain any sort of detailed control of individual planets, or even star systems. Instead, such control is maintained by a series of planetary overlords known as "Imperial Commanders" or "Planetary Governors" who typically gain their positions by familial succession in the manner of feudal governments, though some planets are known to elect their own governors when the old one dies or abdicates the position. Similarly, most Governors are depicted as being sole dictators to their populace, though some are depicted as being bound by a constitution, parliament, or other democratic instrument.
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[edit] The Imperium in the 41st millennium
In the 41st millennium,[1] the Imperium is nominally ruled by the "most beneficent Emperor of Mankind". However, since his ascension to the Golden Throne following his confrontation with Warmaster Horus, the duties of actually ruling the Imperium are carried out by the Senatorum Imperialis, the twelve High Lords of Terra. Those include the Fabricator General of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Master of the Administratum, the Eccleisiarch of the Ministorum, an Inquistorial Representative, the Grand Provost Marshall of the Arbites, the Paternoval Envoy of the Navigator Houses (Navis Nobilitae), the Master of the Astronomicon, the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum and the Master of the Astra Telepathicus. A further three seats are varyingly filled by the leaders of seven other Imperial organizations.
The immense number of worlds under current imperial control display a huge variety of conditions and ecosystems. Many worlds are huge, polluted,and very urban ecumenopoleis, housing the vast bulk of humanity, that are completely reliant on external support to sustain their huge populations. Forge worlds housing continent spanning factories sating the inexhaustible demand for arms and war machinery exist in every sector of the galaxy. Fortress worlds, like those of the Cadian System act as bases and staging areas for the Imperium's military forces. Many worlds’ surfaces have been completely given over to the production of crops and agriculture in order to feed humanity's teeming trillions, while other planets have been completely strip mined for raw materials.
Other worlds cut off from normal interstellar traffic through war, warp storms or other means have been isolated from most of humanity for decades or even centuries, the general populace ignorant of the Imperium's existence, their technology base slowly deteriorating until their society resembles that of pre-technological Earth. Feudal civilizations develop, with visiting Imperial Administration officials or cartographers being considered gods by the primitive locals, due to the decade even century gap between their visits.
The challenges for any human government controlling a galaxy 100,000 light years across has led to the development of an extremely brutal totalitarian theocracy. The sheer size of the Imperium means no meaningful existence can be applied to the majority of humans, prime Imperial concern is the survival of the species' tenuous hold on the majority of habitable planets in the galaxy, so individual freedom and liberty are of no concern as the Imperium constantly wages war against the numerous alien enemies humanity has made during its aggressive colonization of the stars over the last 40 millennia. Life is seen as cheap and plentiful, so the existence of the Imperium is largely concerned with the vast numbers of troops and material they have at their disposal. As the Imperium's Vindicare Temple motto puts it, "Exitus acta probat" - the outcome justifies the deed: the Imperium's self-preservation, as a collective entity, is its only concern.
Despite the overall dystopian theme of the Imperium, humanity enjoys a high technology base, a brutalized and battle-ready society of trillions, the largest military force the galaxy has ever witnessed, and a xenophobic stubbornness that has allowed the Imperium to stand for over 10,000 years
[edit] The Emperor of Mankind
The Emperor was born in the form of an ordinary man on Earth in the region known as Anatolia, roughly in 8,000BC. Possessing incredible intellect, psychic power and physical strength, he is regarded as god-like, easily the most powerful human (and perhaps being) the galaxy has ever seen. The Emperor is depicted as having finally revealed himself in full in the 29th millennium to pull humanity from a dark age, teaching them how to harness technology and travel the stars again, while creating the Space Marines with his own genetic material.
His vision and power first united the tribes of a barbarious Earth, before launching a galaxy-wide campaign that lasted 2,000 years to unite a fractured and often barbarious humanity into an empire ruled under what is depicted as his benevolent dictatorship. When his most favored son, Horus, turned traitor, the Emperor fought him in single combat and, though he killed Horus, was himself mortally wounded and has been bonded to the Golden Throne which sustains his life. Ever since then, the Emperor has sat immobile within the Golden Throne for ten thousand years. His shattered body can no longer support life and remains intact only in thought, itself sustained only by the direct sacrifice of countless millions fed into the arcane machinary of the Golden Throne.
By the time of the Warhammer 40,000 universe's 'current' setting in the late 41st millennium, the Emperor's original goals, intentions and lifetime have long passed into legend, and he is worshipped as a god by the vast majority of humanity (despite his strong aetheism and belief in science expressed during his lifetime). The Emperor's considerable mind and psychic presence is considered to have all but divorced itself from his body, instead fighting an endless battle with the daemons of Chaos in the psychic realm of 'the Warp', while protecting humanity through visions, miraculous intervention and a form of divination known as the 'Imperial Tarot'. The Golden Throne also serves to harness his psychic power to project a constant psychic signal known as the 'Astronomician' across the galaxy, which enables human ships to be able to navigate through the dangerous alternate dimension of the Warp for faster than light travel.
[edit] Sensei
In some early literature for Warhammer 40,000 there was mention made of humans called Sensei that showed great physical power, psychic ability, morality, and all the other makings of great champions who could lead humanity to victory against Chaos. The source of their power was supposed to have come from being a direct descendent of the Emperor. There has been no mention of the Sensei in new books from the series for some time.
[edit] The Adeptus Terra
The Adeptus Terra, the great heart of Earth, is the central governing organization of the Imperium. It is an enormous and bureaucratic organization whose scriptoria, continent-sized archives and pilgrimage sites occupy nearly all of the hiveworld of Terra that is not taken up by the Sanctum Imperialis, the Emperor's vast throne room, which itself takes up the better part of the northern hemisphere. The Adeptus Terra seems to be largely synonymous with its largest component organization, the Administratum. The Adeptus Terra is so immense, and operates so slowly, that whole departments of it still service agencies which no longer exist and worlds dead for thousands of years.
[edit] The Administratum
The Adeptus Terra's main bureaucratic body and largest division is the Adeptus Administratum. This organization's purpose is the administration of the Imperium at all levels, its tasks including the assessment of planetary tithes: the goods, war materials and Guard regiments each Imperial world is regularly required to provide for the Imperium. It is a vast organization involving the efforts of countless billions of adepts, who for the most part are hereditary slave workers, bureaucratic officials and petty scribes. The estimate that ten billion adepts are involved in the mere administration of the Imperial Palace gives some idea of the Administratum's massive size. Of all the organizations of the Imperium, the Administratum is considered the least prestigious, but its highest ranking members are among the most powerful men in the Imperium. The Administratum is based in the Imperial Palace on Terra but its adepts are found throughout the Imperium.
[edit] The Ecclesiarchy
The Adeptus Ministorum, or Ecclesiarchy, is ruled by the Ecclesiarch, and is the official church of the Imperium, preaching the Cult of the Emperor which maintains that the Emperor is Humanity's saviour and god. Responible for maintaining moral, securing allegiance, encouraging devotion, and ensuring spiritual purity among the populace of the Imperium, it sends missionaries and warrior priestesses throughout the galaxy to enforce their fanatical devotion to their beliefs.
[edit] The Departmento Munitorum
The Departmento Munitorum is the central command of the Imperial war machine, organizing the logistics of planetary 'tithes', troop movements and troop deployment. The Departmento is one of the many departments of the Administratum, but is far more decentralized than the other divisions of the Adeptus Terra, establishing a presence on any world with a significant tithe-grade. Distress calls from an invaded world are processed by the Munitorum, and will be passed up the ladder of system-subsector-sector-Segmentum-Imperium HQ until a division with enough reach can raise the armies needed from neighboring systems and respond. Thus, the harder a foe strikes at the Imperium the greater the retribution will be.
Due to the vast distances of space, combined with the internal bureaucracy of the Departmento Munitorum, decision making tends to be very slow, and calls for help may not be acted on for years or even centuries. It is not uncommon for war fleets to arrive at warzones to discover that the war they were dispatched to fight is long since over.
[edit] The Adeptus Mechanicus
Known as the Tech-Priests of Mars, the Adeptus Mechanicus is based on the ancient factory world of Mars, and are a quasi-independent organisation and an empire unto themselves (they control all forge-worlds and manufactoring bases in the Imperium), with their own armed forces and institutional culture. These 'engineers' and 'technicians' of the Imperium create most of the Imperium's more advanced machinery and weaponry, among other things, despite the fact that their understanding of the technology they use is limited at best - most of their procedure is based on ritual and religious dogma rather than genuine engineering or mechanical skill (though there are exceptions). Their extremely conservative beliefs regarding the advancement of human technology coupled with their stranglehold on the Imperium's manufacturing capabilities and knowledge has ensured that humanity's technological advancement has mostly stagnated and even degraded for over 10,000 years.
The Collegia Titanica (sometimes simply known as the Titan Legions) is an organisation within the Adeptus Mechanicus specifically mentioned as being charged with building and maintaining the greatest war machines of the Imperium - the Titans. These massive mechanical walkers, most millennia old, are used in the vast apocalyptic conflicts that are commonplace in the fiction's lore. Titans are usually supported by the Adeptus Mechanicus' own Skitarii (or Tech-Guard), who are the mainline military arm of the Adeptus Mechanicus (roughly equivalent to cyborg Imperial Guard Legions).
[edit] The Inquisition
Independent of the rest of the Adeptus Terra are the Orders of the Emperor's Inquisition. Its jurisdiction is all-encompassing, its agents responsible for uncovering and dealing with any potential threat to the Imperium, often using the most extreme measures imaginable.
Each Inquisitor bears a seal that grants him the right to command any citizen or resource within the Imperium to the end of carrying out his duties, from individuals or single vessels, all the way up to entire Imperial Guard regiments or Imperial Navy fleets in times of dire danger.
| “ | I carry with me an Inquisitorial seal. It is a small, unassuming object contained in a neat box of Pluvian Obsidian. It is a modest thing. Relatively plain, adorned with a single motif and simple motto. Yet with this little object I can sign the death warrant of an entire world and consign a billion souls to oblivion. | ” |
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—Inquisitor Thraviam Flast of the Ordo Malleus (Chambers et al., 2003) |
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Alternately, the Inquisitorial seal may be carried in the form of an electronic tattoo, or electoo, generally implanted in the Inquisitor's right palm, as Amberley Vail's was in For the Emperor.
[edit] Officio Assassinorum
An inconspicuous, highly secretive, but vital part of the Imperial machinery of war, the Officio Assassinorum trains and deploys assassins all over the galaxy, to seek out and exterminate dangerous individuals. Each assassin is the product of lifelong training at one of the Assassinorum Temples, each Temple specializing in a particular facet of the art of death-dealing, each incredibly effective at their vocation. So highly skilled are these individuals that it is taken that the dispatch of a single assassin by the Officio will mean certain death to whomever (or whatever) the target may be.
[edit] The Imperial Commanders
In addition to the Adeptus Terra and the militaries, the High Lords also command the Segmentum Commanders, who each oversee one of the five galactic regions known as the Segmentae Majoris: Segmentum Solar, Segmentum Pacificus, Segmentum Obscurus, Segmentum Tempestus and Ultima Segmentum. Each Segmentum Commander oversees his sector Commanders, who in turn oversee subsector Commanders, who oversee Imperial Commanders, also known as planetary governors. The higher ranks in this system are usually combined with a basic planetary governorship as well as interplanetary duties. This system is the means by which the Imperium maintains control of the separate planets that make it up.
[edit] Forces of the Imperium
In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, the Imperium represents Mankind's only hope for survival in a grim, merciless future set in the forty-first millennium. The Imperium is surrounded by alien species, and is also under continual attack by the forces of Chaos and by extragalactic species such as the Tyranids.
The Imperium's defense forces consist of the:
- Imperial Guard
- The Holy Fleet (Imperial Navy)
- Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines)
- Adeptus Custodes (Emperor's personal bodyguard and guardians of the continent-spanning Imperial Palace on Terra)
- Adeptus Arbites (the police force of the Imperium)
- Adepta Sororitas (female warriors belonging to the Ecclesiarchy)
- The Inquisition
- Adeptus Titanicus (the Titan Legions; giant doom robots created by the Adeptus Mechanicus)
- Adeptus Mechanicus (the engineering obsessed lords of Mars that oversee the Imperium's technology)
- Officio Assassinorium (the Imperial Assassins)
- Various other specialized organizations
In addition, every populated world in the Imperium is required to possess its own government military forces for the planet's own defence. Individual Planetary Defence Forces vary widely from planet to planet, even more so than Imperial Guard regiments, because they adhere far more to the culture and traditions of their homeworld. Some are of the lowest quality, whilst others are better trained and equipped than most regiments in the Imperial Guard (such as the PDF of Cadia). The Imperium has many other organizations than just those listed here that are highly specialized. These groups are rarely seen or heard of except in background and when they are mentioned they are presented as forces to be reckoned with.
[edit] Background to the Imperium in other Science Fiction
The dystopian Imperium has been compared with other fictional empires. Its rigid social system is somewhat similar to the strictly feudal Empire found in Frank Herbert's Dune. It also closely resembles Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire in the Foundation series, with millions of star systems only loosely connected with the governing center, where technology is becoming a myth rather than a science, with extreme persecution of those questioning the morality or validity of the endless conflicts and divine rule of the Emperor.
A number of institutions and policies of the Imperium reflect the influence of seminal British SF comic 2000 AD; the "Arbitrators" of the Adeptus Arbites, as heavily armed law enforcers, have a similar role to the Judges in Judge Dredd (and indeed resemble them in some artwork), whilst the nature of the Imperium as a theocratic, human-centered society, revering Earth and despising aliens and those who traffic with them and kept in line by a secretive and paranoid Inquisition, is highly reminiscent of the empire of Termight (or "Mighty Terra") in Nemesis the Warlock. Games Workshop and 2000 AD have, in fact, had a long association, with 2000 AD writers John Wagner, Alan Grant, Gordon Rennie and especially Dan Abnett writing fiction for Games Workshop and the Black Library over the years.
[edit] Notes
- ^ In Games Workshop published materials, the Imperium denotes years by the notation <year of millennium>.M<millennium>. For example, the year 40,999 would be 999.M41, while 41,002 would be 002.M42; however, 41,000 would be 000.M41, since the millennium starts on 001.M##.
- The Emperor of Mankind of Warhammer 40,000 universe resembles the King-Emperor Huon of Granbretan and the life-sustaining Throne Globe in Michael Moorcock's Dorian Hawkmoon [1] novels.
[edit] References
- Warhammer 40,000. Glen Burnie, MD: Games Workshop, 2004.
- Chambers, Andy, Haines, Pete, and Hoare, Andy (2003). Warhammer 40,000 Codex: Imperial Guard, 4th Edition, Nottingham: Games Workshop. ISBN 1-84154-410-8.
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