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[NullForceOmega]

Again, you cannot call the origin point of the fad 'generic' as it clearly establishes the brand/genre/whatever, Star Trek is not generic, the umpteen million things that ape it are.  LotR is not generic, very nearly every single fantasy written since is.

Use terminology correctly.

There are a great many things you can call Star Trek, and some of them are extremely unflattering, but you cannot call it 'generic' because that word doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

[spazyak]

Okay, you are right in that. My bad there.

[Loud Whispers]

40k is literally the most generic sci-fi setting ever.

*Generic gothic sci-fi. 40k is one of those things where when you're literally everything you're nothing, but if you could pick anything that was definitively 40k-esque it would be slapping skulls, spikes and spires on top of ancient technology

[Loud Whispers]

I just realized there's a precedence for who flame wars would fall under, and it's most likely indeed Tzeentch

When the Eldar Empire were at their peak and the humans entering the dark age of technology, both species had essentially conquered disease, the Eldar were so superior no one could possibly challenge them in warfare and the humans used the men of iron to fight for them (thus spilling no blood). With both species full of hope and ambition, no blood spilt and disease near-perished, Tzeentch was top don and Khorne and Nurgle waning, up until Slaanesh is born

Non-human species still have blood.

Yeah obviously, Khorne didn't stop existing - my point is that the moment the humans stopped using Men of Iron and had to bleed for themselves, Khorne becomes the most powerful god in the immaterium. Who knows what strategies the various xenos used, what we do know is that humanity's overarching specialty is attrition warfare and is in the 40k universe the prime source of blood for the blood god and skulls for the skulls throne. If they were able to keep the men of iron under control and on the frontlines, then Slaanesh and Tzeentch would be the biggest rivals

[Tack]

Robots slicing each other up, or like, motile plant people stabbing each other is just fine.

KHORNE CARES NOT FROM WHERE THE SAP FLOWS.

BLOOD-AMBER FOR THE AMBER CROWN

[nenjin]

Gothic antiquity, magic and fascism are the three things that I think define 40k in the sci-fi genre.

[miauw62]

Yeah, while wh40k isn't that original, it has an over-the-top gothic style that makes it instantly recognisable.

[KingofstarrySkies]

(That's why it's easily the best one)
It's got nearly anything you could want. Aliens with a japanese feel that in general want to help you? Tau! Space Elves? Eldar! Space Rapists? Dark Eldar!

[nenjin]

Swords and heavy plate in space. Done.

[Tack]

no dwarvs.
too sad.

[KingofstarrySkies]

SHORT HUmANS

[My Name is Immaterial]

no dwarvs.
too sad.

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Squat

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I know I shouldn't get drawn on this... but... can't... resist

Seriously, a couple of points just so you can have an informed dance-off based on the real reasons that Squats are no longer available. Be warned, it is going to be hard reading for people that like the Squat background.

First of all, Squats were *not* dropped because they were not selling well. There were then, and are now, plenty of other figure ranges that sell in the sort of % quantities that the Squats pulled down, especially when you look across all of the ranges produced by GW rather than just those for 40K.

No, the reason that the Squats were dropped was because the creatives in the Studio (people like me, Rick, Andy C, Gav etc) felt that we had failed to do the Dwarf 'archetype' justice in its 40K incarnation. From the name of the race (Squats - what *were* we thinking?!?!) through to the short bikers motif, we had managed to turn what was a proud and noble race in Warhammer and the other literary forms where the archetype exists, into a joke race in 40K. We only fully realized what we had done when we were working on the 2nd edition of 40K. Try as we might, we just couldn't work up much enthusiasm for the Squats. The mistake we made then (deeply regretted since) was to leave them in the background and the 'get you by' army list book that appeared. With hindsight, we should have dropped the Squats back then, and saved ourselves a lot of grief later on.

Anyway, the Squats made it into 2nd edition, and since we were doing army books for each of the races, we started to try and figure out what to do with them. Unfortunately we just couldn't figure out a way to update them and get them to work that we felt was good enough. The 'art' of working on an army as a designer is to find the thing that you think is cool and exciting about an army, and work it up into a strong theme. This 'muse' didn't strike any of us, and so, rather than bring out a second-rate product simply re-hashing the old background, we kept doing other army books instead, with stuff we did feel inspired by.

Now, while this was all going on for 40K, we were actually doing some rather good stuff for the Squats in Epic. On this scale there was a natural tendency to focus on the big 'hand-made' war machines the Squat artisans produced, and this created an army with a feel that was very different to the biker hordes in 40K. However, this tended to reinforce the problems we saw in the Squat background rather than alleviate them, underlining what we *should* have done with the Squats in 40K.

In the end (and it took years to really get to the roots of the problem) this led to a realisation that we were going to have to drop the Squats in their 'Squat' form from the 40K background. There was little point having a major race that we weren't willing to make an army book for, and their inclusion in the background meant that people kept asking us when we'd do a Squat Codex. Instead we decided that we'd write the Squats out of the background by saying that their Homworlds had been devoured by a Tyranid Hivefleet. This would give us the option in the future to return to making a race based on the Squat archetype for 40K. This race was given the name of Demiurg, and a certain amount of preliminary work was done to get a 'feel' for what the race would be like. At present the only hint of the Demiurg in 40K is the Demiurg spaceship for BFG. However, we do have this race 'in our back pocket' as a possible new race for 40K, or an interesting character model in Inquisitor, or whatever. So far the Demiurg have lost out to other projects, and it may be that their time never actually comes, as they will have to win through on their merits, not simply because we once made some Squat models in the past. At present, I have to say that it is more likely that they *don't* make the cut than do, as there is a certain prejudice these days to simply taking races from Warhammer and cross them over to 40K like we did in the early days, so it may be that the Squats/Demiurg end up remaining a footnote in the history of the 40K galaxy. Only time will tell...

I'll finish off by saying that whatever we decide to do 'officially', there is nothing stopping players with Squat armies from using them, either in Epic or 40k for that matter. There is no GW 'rule' against using old Citadel Miniatures, as long as you use them with existing army lists and in a way that won't cause confusion for other players. I recommend taking a positive stand by saying "Have you seen these cool old models? They're called the Squats and GW used to make them back in the late eighties/early nineties. I love 'em, so I count them as Imperial Guard and use them with the current rules..." Put like this I can't imagine that anyone would stop you from using your army.

Best regards,

Jervis Johnson
Head Fanatic

In between studying for finals, I've been slowly working on an army list. When it's finished, can I run it by y'all?

[TempAcc]

In regards to 40k and where it took its shit from, the only thing that I'm 100% sure 40K took heavy inspiration from was a comic named Nemesis the Warlock, which came out around the same time or a bit before the first editions of 40K.

Now, for a quick example of the similarities:

1-Humanity is ruled by a theocracy led by a god king type guy, check.

2-Humanity hates alien guts so hard it actively exterminates any aliens it comes across, check.

3-Humanity's finest warriors are these religiously fervorous groups of power armored super warriors, check.

4-A nearly all powerful inquisition-type organization watches over humanity, check.

5-Humanity's greatest enemy is referred to as a demon/warlock thing that happens to use psychic powers/magic, check.

6-Humans are not the good guys, and pretty much nobody else seems to fit that role, check.

7-God king guy eventualy becomes an extra-physical actualy godlike being, check.

The art style is also rather similar to 40k's earlier uglier, grittier art style, specially regarding anything chaos related. Also, apparently the main guy for nemesis the warlock actualy worked with GW for a while, at least as an artist, though I'm not sure of that.

[LordBaal]

On the other side of the scale I'm pretty sure Fading Suns takes heavily from 40K. Hell it could even be happening on the 40K universe on a isolated sector on the age of strife or something.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The single greatest derivation of 40k is, surprise surprise, Dune. As the only form of sci-fi at the time that was anything other than classic optimistic sci-fi (cyberpunk was still a bit nascent, you see that coming in with 3rd ed. and later), this was a necessity in order to lay the foundation of Grimdark.

Though it should be noted that even Dune, for all the horrible shit that happens, still follows the classic sci-fi formula in the end. In fact, all the bad shit that Leto II did to humanity was literally and verifiably necessary in order to place humanity on the Golden Path and survive, down to the very last murder. In that sense, Dune is not about the grimdark failings of human nature at all, but only precognitive certainty.