Imperium of man our future?

Im just making this thread for fun and to get your thoughts on this. For those of you who dont know what the imperium of man is. It is a fictional empire of humanity 40,000 years in the future. The imperium of man has a million worlds under its built. A population of trillions. It has the greatest military the galaxy has ever seen. It is constantly at war with other alien species. There is no fuzzy 'peace' the hippies talk about in warhammer 40k universe. Its every species for itself.

The imperium has exterminated numerous species of aliens. Billions die each year in war.

Why am i bring up a fictional game? Because i had a thought. Is the imperium of man our future? Think about it...if we somehow discovered a way for faster then light travel could we build such a empire? I mean there weapons are only a century or two ahead of us. Its basically conventional weapons on steroids.

wh40k.lexicanum.com...

We are pretty much heading into the dystopian type of government pictured in the warhammer 40k universe.

We already worship our emperor(jesus christ).

And aliens? Will we exterminate and wage war with other species? Will there be countless battlefields on planets 100 times the size of earth?

The crutch of my question is this. Will we have a empire like imperium of man? Will it be just as mighty if we make it off this rock? Will it truly be like warhammer 40k,every species for itself?

Is there already some great war going on in the universe?

Maybe the reason we have not heard from aliens is because they have destroyed each other through war?

Is the imperium of man truly possible? If it is would you want such a empire?

Personally...i would like such a empire...death to xenos!

Maybe thats why the aliens dont want us to reach space? because they know we are to warlike? and such a thing as the imperium is possible?



[edit on 12-8-2010 by Nofoolishness]

reply to post by Nofoolishness


It is interesting to think about. S&F for a topic that should spark interesting debate.

My 2 cents:

Mankind will discover FTL travel. We already have the concepts for it, whether it's a ship-mounted Alcubierre drive, or utilizing man-made wormholes held open with anti-matter, it is going to happen at some point. Perhaps not in 40,000 years, perhaps sooner. Technology is exploding at this point in time.

I also think once we bridge the interstellar gap, we'll discover alien life. Where we'll place in our galaxy I am entirely unsure. Like my thread on this board, I think it's possible we could be one of, if not the most intelligent species in the galaxy. I could be wrong, but mankind has achieved a lot, and truly shows no signs of slowing down.

We are an aggressive species, by nature. If we discover ourselves to truly be advanced in comparison to other alien species, I'm sure we'll pull the same missionary shenanigans we pulled on the Native Americans.

It's fun to think about (perhaps scary, as well), but I don't like to get too in-depth into an area that has so many possibilities spawned from so many unknowns.

All I know is, if there is a more advanced species than us in our galaxy, let them be known to us already so I can go home with one of their most beautiful female (or at least female equivalent) specimens.

Hey, the Imperium of Man are generally bad guys in the Warhammer universe. In fact, pretty much every species is so intent on surviving that they'll commit any atrocities necessary.

I don't see how anyone could hope our future resembles Warhammer 40K. The game's setting was designed to be as bleak and crappy for everyone as possible.

"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war!"

Originally posted by Sink the Bismarck!
Hey, the Imperium of Man are generally bad guys in the Warhammer universe. In fact, pretty much every species is so intent on surviving that they'll commit any atrocities necessary.

I don't see how anyone could hope our future resembles Warhammer 40K. The game's setting was designed to be as bleak and crappy for everyone as possible.

"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war!"

True...but maybe our universe is just as bleak as well? maybe we are just too naive because we have not experianced it yet?

Very interesting thought OP.

I believe you could look at it from a different point of view as well though. The Imperium of man, though it IS comprised of a MILLION worlds, still has many worlds that were colonized and with whom contact has been lost, some for tens of thousands of years, before having brought back to "enlightenment" by the Imperium.

What if, instead of being the ROOT of this imperium, we are presently one of these long-lost colonies? That could explain all the strange, unexplainable artefacts we find around the world...

Just my 0.19 cents-worth to ponder...

Originally posted by Havoc40k
Very interesting thought OP.

I believe you could look at it from a different point of view as well though. The Imperium of man, though it IS comprised of a MILLION worlds, still has many worlds that were colonized and with whom contact has been lost, some for tens of thousands of years, before having brought back to "enlightenment" by the Imperium.

What if, instead of being the ROOT of this imperium, we are presently one of these long-lost colonies? That could explain all the strange, unexplainable artefacts we find around the world...

Just my 0.19 cents-worth to ponder...

wow i never thought of that.....maybe that is the way it is? Maybe we were in a war with another species and lost it? and the reason why we dont have contact with aliens is because we as a species are hiding?

reply to post by Nofoolishness

I was waiting for a thread such as this to come along sooner or later. Now as a 40K fan I find this post both interesting and somewhat amusing at the same time (sorry!).

The 40K universe is all based in past events projected into a future setting. The emperor taking back Terra (earth) is just like the Christian conquest across Eurpoe. The inter species fighting is still happening all around us, except this time the "Xenos" are in Afghanistan or wherever else there is a war. All the Space Marine chapters are based on original famous fighting forces (Romans, Mongolians etc...)

So saying will it be our future is really the wrong way round, if you look at its base roots it really is our past. That said history always repeats its self so you can guarente that the same thing will be happening on 100 or 1000 years. No matter what happens the nature of man will never change, that is a constant. I dont believe we will ever get "enlightened" or see a higher truth as technology just makes is all greedy.

Very interesting subject and for those who are not a 40K fan I can see this thread being subjected to a lot of wise cracks lol.

reply to post by Nofoolishness


An interesting idea, but I think that it's really unlikely. The reason I think this is that with every technology we invent to strengthen our war effort, we also invent a technology to make life better. Mankind has only ever had 3 driving factors behind war: Resources, God, and Xenophobia. So, I would assume that in the future we would have machines that would be able to divine resources from basic elements, similar to alchemy. We could, essentially, manifest food from nothing but the basic elements in the air. Thus, the only other two factors would be god and xenophobia. These are both far more likely to occur. If they did happen and we did win, in the end we would be left with only ourselves which would put us essentially back to where we are right now.

We would have no choice but to fight amongst ourselves at that point and, with our advanced space weaponry, we'd likely destroy ourselves.

I thought it interesting that in another fictional human future -- the one outlined in Isaac Asimov's original Foundation Trilogy, humans populate the entire Milky Way Galaxy 50,000 years into the future -- but there are NO aliens ever mentioned.

...on a side note, the original three books of the Foundation series are great reads (the later ones are "OK"). It chronicles the Fall then re-rise of a galactic empire --- pretty much mirroring the fall of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages (complete with the "Church" being the main authority over the people), then the re-rise of our current western civilization.