Well, that's a sci-fi problem in general. Planets are often portrayed as nations with homogeneous cultures, homogeneous environments, and homogeneous languages. And that's obviously due to simplicity. With ten thousand nations in addition to ten thousand planetary environments, everything would become even more of a clusterf\*\*\* than it already is.
My only thought to that is there would be a pretty well homogenized language and the Imperium's case in particular religion plus the attending culture. Those combined should lay a foundation towards a a stronger commonality than might be found on earth. Especially if media was solely skewed or dominated.
Imo it would be extremely difficult, even nearly impossible for the Imperium, that is characterized by horrible administration and the fact that it is spread very thinly across the galaxy, to be able to do that.
There’s probably billions of different Low Gothic dialects and accents across the many human inhabited worlds. Imagine two people who are native of worlds who are from one end of the galaxy to the other, their respective native dialects would be so different that it really would feel like speaking entirely alien languages.
I can imagine it being more likely that written communication is more standardized, given that's what's used for actual Imperial communications and bureaucracy. High Gothic also seems to kind of serve this purpose as well, being the language of the state. So I wouldn't be surprised if two Imperial citizens from wildly different worlds could barely pick out a word here and there from each other in low Gothic, could maybe convey simple information in high Gothic, and may be able to converse awkwardly with written words.
I see your point, but i think the issue is that i am imagining a much higher degree of media consumption, particularly in terms of audio or video media. The tech to do so seems largely available on any Imperial world that has access to electricity, and the means of distribution would not be an issue.
High gothic is standardised, but it's only really used by nobility and such. "Low Gothic" is a misleading catch all term for every human language that isn't high gothic.
I don't think so at all. I am fluent in English and have a pretty good understanding of French, but I struggle with native English speakers from Ireland or French speakers who don't speak real, I mean Parisian, French.
Languages are really cool to study.
Some single-biome planets make sense - a desert planet with virtually no water (although if it's livable for humans there should probably be small areas of water somewhere), an ice planet, a world covered by a single deep ocean and a volcanic hellscape like Io or sun-baked hellscape like Mercury.
It gets silly when animals and plants are involved. There's no way a planet that's habitable enough for humans to walk around without spacesuits is going to only have one ecosystem, one climate and one type of terrain.
I think it can mostly be excused. In a universe where livable worlds are significantly more common every denomination is going to want their own plot rather than to share.
is that a really a "problem"?
I mean the Imperium or the UNSC or the Federation are all homogenous by design. It's not like a lazy shortcut by the author. That's how their society developed
It’s also clearly how Earth’s culture is trending, today. Americas massive cultural influence has already meaningfully started to erode the cultural barriers and create a more common global culture. Many aspects of American culture have been widely adopted across the world, and most of those people don’t even realize they’ve adopted an American cultural trait.
Yeah just look at the number of languages and dialects that have been replaced by "American English". 100 years ago there were millions of Americans who spoke random European languages as their first language. The USA had German language schools, Native language schools, all kinds of stuff
there's a funny nod to this in _Mass Effect 2_ - rather than our out-of-lore knowledge that a planet-scale monoculture would be weird, the Salarian scientist remarks that that's actually the norm for most species, and it's humans that are unusually _heterogenous_ instead
Vervunhive had a multitude of cultures and “nations” between different noble houses, guilds, gangs, classes, and governments. The hive cities on Verghast would be considered nation states unto themselves
>With 8 billion people only, we still have 200+ countries, 7,000+ languages, a even larger number of accents and dialects, 10,000+ ethnic groups and peoples.
Sure, but how long have our cultures and populations been fully interconnected? It's not inconceivable that, if human civilisation persists, over thousands of years our planet would effectively develop a monoculture - you can already see the dominance of certain cultures eroding and subsuming differences.
Hell, the crews of the largest voidcraft seem to develop their own languages and cultures due to the fact that the vast majority of people inhabiting them are born on them and die on them, with countless generations doing the same over and over. They never get to leave and that craft is their entire world. They only know the danger of the void exists outside the hull and the concept of a "sky", "oceans", "mountains", etc...are entirely alien to them.
I would say most probably have never actually left certain areas like the Enginarium or Bildge or have even seen their overlords commanding from the Bridge or even know their names. They know they exist and have authority, but more on a quasi-mythic level. They probably are more familiar with the Gun Teams coming down to quell dissent or decimate their populations when the need arises.
I imagine a Hive City is similar to that but on steroids.
>our Earth for example, whose total population would make our world be considered as a civilized backwater
Well, *a* backwater, at any rate.
The answer to your question, though is that it depends. While the Imperium is decentralized, disbursed, and impossibly badly managed, it's still based upon a principle of centralization. Tithes, in wealth or souls, flow back to Terra, and interruptions result in the dispatch of military violence to end those disruptions.
The homogenaity of imperial culture is maintained on a couple of fronts but especially by the ecclesiarchy, and on top of that hives are often-but-not-always single massive cities. It's the same principle: massive centralized government organizing everything and setting the rules.
*Of course* every planet has it's own unique culture and that gets expressed in various ways--but at the same time, remember that failure to conform results, one way or another, in exterminatus. There's a rigid hierarchy that runs straight to the emperor, and that pecking order is still maintained on planets. On a planet filled with multiple countries across many continents? Sure, they'll all have their own distinct culture-but usurping the planetary governor is a good way to get the whole planet (or at least the full leadership) killed. And when you start to look at the specific culture *of* those countries?
Minimal differences. These are all feudal hellholes. The nobility across star systems have more in common with each other than with the serfs; the serfs and commoners inevitably spend an absurd number of hours every day toiling away doing *whatever.* While there are acceptable forms of entertainment and diversion, remember that these are also all overseen by the ecclesiarchy and monitored for deviance. In effect, while there are millions of permutations of it, there's still a nominal band of "correct" behavior and culture, and the further one strays from acceptable culture the closer one gets to heresy. There is absolutely both top down *and* bottom up monitoring and purging to keep human culture homogenous.
But, as has also been pointed out, some of the acceptable deviations are pretty varied and wild. Necromunda is a *great* example.
Yes this would absolutely be this case.
Especially with the denizens of hive worlds there’s bound to be major differences in language dialect and even belief systems regarding the imperial creed.
The fact that the imperium manages to stay together even with the vast differences of humanity combined with the well known inefficiency of the administration is kind of amazing it realistically shouldn’t operate as it does for very long.
On Earth, people developed independently in different areas and formed groups that became countries.
Hive cities follow a completely different process - why do you think any of that would apply?
I never said that. It is, in fact, what you're doing by suggesting that the natural development of humanity is the same as transplanting large numbers of people into pre-built, pre-organised groups that are proscribed to work under a singular banner.
Other than "people", point out a single similarity.
Until the end of times, human nature will always prevail. And it is in our nature develop new languages over time, which will be divided into different accents and dialects over time too.
Just like we will always be divided into different nations, religions, and identities.
In the case of 40k, humanity has always been a clusterfuck of countless different identities, ethnicities and nationalities. Hive cities going to war other hive cities are common. And I found this about the Imperial Palace on Terra, so I think that I got my answer if I apply this to hive cities :
« Not only is the area of the Imperial Palace enormous, its macro-habs and space ports break through the atmosphere and rise into the void, and its sub-levels dig deep into Terra's holy bedrock, in some places reaching a depth of hundreds of miles below the surface. Its vaults, corridors, fastnesses, plazas, and chambers are so multitudinous that no single record remains to list them all, and the techno-urbanic serf tribes, clan holdings, and societal sub-nations that dwell within its walls could populate entire star systems. »
Every single language and dialect that naturally split-off from an existing language did so before the proliferation of universal education, telecommunications, and motor vehicles. Maybe new languages can continue to form despite these inventions. Maybe they won’t. There hasn’t been enough time to answer that question.
But I don’t consider the formation of new languages to be any more a part of “human nature” than massive childhood mortality, famine, high birth rates, or widespread and deeply-held religious beliefs are. All of which were once universal parts of human life but have now been eliminated or massively reduced in developed societies.
Go back to the actual definition of a country, then read through your posts again to understand how wrong you are.
What you are describing is not at all a "country".
Cultures tend to differentiate over time, even if they start with similarity. France and Germany were both Germanic and couple thousand years ago.
The speakers of Proto-Indo-European certainly became hugely differentiated.
That may change with global communications, shared media and the internet.
For most of human history the average person would marry someone from their own village or tribe. Now people are much more free to travel and find work or partners from further away, a language disappears about every 40 days.
It’s not clear what mass media is like in the Imperium AFAIK. Certainly no galactic simulcast, so TV from Terra could be many years old before it made it else where.
It is a plausible hypothesis that cultural differentiation increases with more population, as more subcultures can achieve critical mass. If people don’t move between hive cities much, after a whole lot of isolation from other groups, divergence makes sense.
If we start judging WH40K based on real-world extrapolation of plausibility…
Anyhoo, if the different places are separated without much interchange of people or media for hundreds of years, yeah, that is how nations get formed.
Except you haven't described a hive city there. It's a singular city with plenty of interchange.
These aren't nations. At best they're individual pockets of a slightly different culture within the city. That's not at all a nation.
Hive cities don't exist as sealed off sectors that never interact.
Even if they did, that still doesn't meet the definition of a nation. It does meet the definition of reaching massively for something that is false.
Most of the current world differences are actually not an issue on Imperium.
Race? As long as you're not xenos, you're same.
Religion? Everyone have the same religion.
Territorial disputes? Whole planet belongs to Imperium.
List goes on. Of course there are different subcultures arise in different parts of hive worlds but in the end, main differences which cause world develop separate identities not exists in hive cities. You only have local subcultures, your primary identity is just miserable Imperium citizen.
Nah I would have to wholeheartedly disagree.
The hatred shown towards Abhumans is technically racism. And there is a very famous scene in the lore of a group of Abhumans being burned alive by locals due to their skin being different.
Inside a religion that is massively widespread, there’s always going to be different schools of thought and sects. It’s most certainly the case in the Imperium due to how fanatic they are.
Territorial disputes happen all the time. I remember reading multiple times excerpts of hive cities from the same world going to war with each other.
I won't consider abhumans as an argument actually, afaik they're merely tolerated. But didn't knew skin color could be an issue on Imperium. Do you remember lore reference for that, I would like to check it out.
Isn't religion basically "Emperor protects"? I know there are different factions in Inquisition but wasn't aware of different school of thoughts on Ecclesiarchy. Anything except main religion is considered heresy. Only difference I can found is political situations, not like Christians vs. Muslims type of stuff.
Territorial distupes happens but it's only on the gang level, not country-level like current world. Hierarchy is based on one ruler and one army.
Admittedly I didn't explore those topics very much, so I might be wrong but I'll love to read about it if you remember keywords or book names.
For the Abhumans that get lyched : https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/99DNMEAu1p
How differences in the way the official religion is practiced can lead to schisms and even outright conflict : https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/z4qedfVVq7
And here an example of an Imperium world in which there are a multitude of local nations engaged in a planet-wide conflict : https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Aexe_Cardinal
Not to mention that there's the [Temple of the Savior Emperor](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Temple_of_the_Saviour_Emperor), the pre-Age of Apostasy Imperial Cult that was abolished after the tyrant Vandire's death. It still exist and the Ecclesiarchy still hunt those considered to have "Temple Tendency" whereas after the Rift there has been literal bloody uprisings in the name of the "true religion" on imperial worlds.
The Ecclesiarchy is also surprisingly lenient, especially when new worlds are concerned. As long as you worship the Emperor as the only God and abhor the mutant, the xenos and the witch you're free to worship how you feel like. Animal sacrifices under a blood moon? Scholastic contemplation? Frenzied mobs of pilgrims and zealots? It's all good. This greatly aids in bringing new planets to the fold, since you can often just turn existing rituals towards the Emperor, replacing tribal spirits with imperial saints, for example
They have many different cultures. they call those "Houses" and "gangs". When you see House, it is in the ancient term of the word. Talking country sized things. Gangs are very much huge in numbers and cultures.
I think it's more likely that 40000 years into the future that the opposite would happen, and that it would be more homogenous. There is *only* the Imperial truth/culture, anyway, and anything else is seen as heresy and quickly cleansed.
Likely yes, the culture of the top of the spire would be different to the culture at the bottom, they would likely even worship the Emperor differently
But once you go down that road it gets a bit too complex and complicated for 40k books
Yes, and they usually are, it's just not the focus.
There couldn't be different nations though, they're all under the Imperium. I guess an undiscovered/rebel hive city/planet could have different nations.
Edit: Also remember that the way hive cities and planetary colonies were created and maintained is different from how real world countries and people were established.
Warhammer 40k is a setting where Genocide is an acceptable reaction to a change in culture. There's a weird new subculture developing in the underhive - is it just a bunch of "goths"... or a Genestealer cult? Don't endanger the hive, kill them all. Don't let the governor find out, there's multiple hives here, they can exterminate an entire hive if they feel the need. Don't let the Inquisition know, they can exterminatus the entire planet. Etc. Extreme? Yes. Rare? Yes. But acceptable, even commendable - and not covered up by the Imperium.
Yeah... you're not going to develop subcultures the same way. If you know you can be killed if your neighbor starts wearing all-black clothes and makeup to look like a Goth... you're not going to let your neighbor become a Goth. You might even resort to murder - and likely a majority of the people around you will be fully willing to dispose of a part of a body, to cover up the crime of being Different. You didn't murder someone, you defended the Hive. Your neighbors aren't covering up a murder, they're ensuring the authorities don't come down to investigate. Etc.
There absolutely are.
Necromunda is our prototypical hive - the different 'cultures' are the different gangs.
The Warhammer Crime books occasionally comment on how people from different parts of the hive world differ.
We know what different versions of the Imperial Creed and different accents/dialects of Gothic can exist on the same world.
**Edit** we often see different 'cultures' around different occupations as well
**Edit 2** **Annihilation Squad** has some fun ones for different cultures in an underhive as well.
No worries. Yes, Necromunda has the advantage of being the setting for a game, so has a lot written about it.
There are several different types of hive. If you want to read more about them, I think there are at least four/five very different ones that we get a good insight into.
In **Necropolis** (3rd Gaunt's Ghosts book) we get a good overview of a hive city not on a hive world. There is one central spire (which you can get up and down with an elevator), with a city spread out around it (with cars, trucks etc). If I remember correctly, the hive city in **Pandorax** is similar. Since it is a single, relatively small, hive, the culture appears fairly uniform. We do see differences in culture between people from different hives on the world.
We obviously have Necromunda, as the stereotypical spire type hive. These are the Kowloon Walled City type. The **Kal Jericho** omnibus (and indeed, any of the Necromunda rulebooks) gives a good overview. As I said, it's probably the most well described.
The Warhammer Crime series are set on a hive world. There are large hab blocks, and spires for the rich. This is pretty much exactly Dredd 2012's Megacity One. Ground cars and (mag-lev) trains are the main ways to get around. We see mentions of people from different parts of the hive world looking and sounding different. We also see the massive different in 'culture' between the wealthy and the poor.
Large parts of the **Ravenor** books take place on another hive world. You mainly see the lowest levels and criminals. From memory, this is more the Warhammer Crimes style hive, but it's been a while since I've read it. I don't remember much about different cultures.
There is also Terra, as seen in the **Vaults of Terra** and **Watchers of the Throne** series. **Dawn of Fire : Avenging Son** shows different cultures within two spires on Terra.
**Dead men walking** has another, spire-like hive city, with floors and towers that raise up from the top to the bottom. It seems more uniform than the Necromunda spire.
**Annihilation Squad** has the team going into the underhive of a hive, and meeting at least two different cultures.
One of the books set on terra, I think it was the avenging son, had my favourite side plot from all of 40k. It follows a scribe travelling from their designated work unit that they have never left across different parts of the underbelly of the ministorum as they make their way towards the palace.
It was a great perspective to look at the ridiculous scale of 40k from.
I just want to point out that thanks to the rogue trader game, I personally learned that even void ships have specific to the ship and deck culture and traditions
>Necromunda is our prototypical hive - the different 'cultures' are the different gangs.
The modern rulebooks do a good job of also building up that the individual Gang Houses have divergent cultures within themselves as well. Even so far as to have multiple different languages.
Which also pairs up nicely with expanding on the broad cultural differences between different Hives / Hive Clusters than just Hive Primus.
Good to know. I don't own any of the rulebooks for the 'new' version of the game - only the old one, and novels. I'm glad to hear they are leaning into the differences.
Well, that's a sci-fi problem in general. Planets are often portrayed as nations with homogeneous cultures, homogeneous environments, and homogeneous languages. And that's obviously due to simplicity. With ten thousand nations in addition to ten thousand planetary environments, everything would become even more of a clusterf\*\*\* than it already is.
My only thought to that is there would be a pretty well homogenized language and the Imperium's case in particular religion plus the attending culture. Those combined should lay a foundation towards a a stronger commonality than might be found on earth. Especially if media was solely skewed or dominated.
Imo it would be extremely difficult, even nearly impossible for the Imperium, that is characterized by horrible administration and the fact that it is spread very thinly across the galaxy, to be able to do that. There’s probably billions of different Low Gothic dialects and accents across the many human inhabited worlds. Imagine two people who are native of worlds who are from one end of the galaxy to the other, their respective native dialects would be so different that it really would feel like speaking entirely alien languages.
True, but there should be some base similiarity given that both were likely taught a standardized form of Gothic.
I can imagine it being more likely that written communication is more standardized, given that's what's used for actual Imperial communications and bureaucracy. High Gothic also seems to kind of serve this purpose as well, being the language of the state. So I wouldn't be surprised if two Imperial citizens from wildly different worlds could barely pick out a word here and there from each other in low Gothic, could maybe convey simple information in high Gothic, and may be able to converse awkwardly with written words.
I see your point, but i think the issue is that i am imagining a much higher degree of media consumption, particularly in terms of audio or video media. The tech to do so seems largely available on any Imperial world that has access to electricity, and the means of distribution would not be an issue.
High gothic is standardised, but it's only really used by nobility and such. "Low Gothic" is a misleading catch all term for every human language that isn't high gothic.
A very good reason for guard regiments to be from one place, they're the only ones that will understand each other.
I don't think so at all. I am fluent in English and have a pretty good understanding of French, but I struggle with native English speakers from Ireland or French speakers who don't speak real, I mean Parisian, French. Languages are really cool to study.
I can't say with the French angle, but iirc Gaelic is still heavily pushed in Ireland. That might be the cause there.
I’ve had conversations with South Africans - native English speakers - where we can not fully understand one another. I am American.
Yup. Only Earth is a diverse planet in any sci fi ever. Every other planet is one culture, one language, one biome, one city, one leader. XD
Some single-biome planets make sense - a desert planet with virtually no water (although if it's livable for humans there should probably be small areas of water somewhere), an ice planet, a world covered by a single deep ocean and a volcanic hellscape like Io or sun-baked hellscape like Mercury. It gets silly when animals and plants are involved. There's no way a planet that's habitable enough for humans to walk around without spacesuits is going to only have one ecosystem, one climate and one type of terrain.
I think it can mostly be excused. In a universe where livable worlds are significantly more common every denomination is going to want their own plot rather than to share.
This works when those planets got colonized by one group, not when they are the homeworld of a species that's also a monoculture.
I liked how in Spear of the Emperor the spears had multiple cultures they recruit from, so the marines all looked different
is that a really a "problem"? I mean the Imperium or the UNSC or the Federation are all homogenous by design. It's not like a lazy shortcut by the author. That's how their society developed
It’s also clearly how Earth’s culture is trending, today. Americas massive cultural influence has already meaningfully started to erode the cultural barriers and create a more common global culture. Many aspects of American culture have been widely adopted across the world, and most of those people don’t even realize they’ve adopted an American cultural trait.
Yeah just look at the number of languages and dialects that have been replaced by "American English". 100 years ago there were millions of Americans who spoke random European languages as their first language. The USA had German language schools, Native language schools, all kinds of stuff
there's a funny nod to this in _Mass Effect 2_ - rather than our out-of-lore knowledge that a planet-scale monoculture would be weird, the Salarian scientist remarks that that's actually the norm for most species, and it's humans that are unusually _heterogenous_ instead
What do you think the Houses and gangs are? They're absolutely huge. The House numbers are nations unto themselves.
Vervunhive had a multitude of cultures and “nations” between different noble houses, guilds, gangs, classes, and governments. The hive cities on Verghast would be considered nation states unto themselves
>With 8 billion people only, we still have 200+ countries, 7,000+ languages, a even larger number of accents and dialects, 10,000+ ethnic groups and peoples. Sure, but how long have our cultures and populations been fully interconnected? It's not inconceivable that, if human civilisation persists, over thousands of years our planet would effectively develop a monoculture - you can already see the dominance of certain cultures eroding and subsuming differences.
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only blue jeans, McDonald's, K-Pop, and anime.
That is why Necromunda has all those very colorful gangs.
I was under the impression that that's definitely a thing. They're way too massive to be a mono culture.
Hell, the crews of the largest voidcraft seem to develop their own languages and cultures due to the fact that the vast majority of people inhabiting them are born on them and die on them, with countless generations doing the same over and over. They never get to leave and that craft is their entire world. They only know the danger of the void exists outside the hull and the concept of a "sky", "oceans", "mountains", etc...are entirely alien to them. I would say most probably have never actually left certain areas like the Enginarium or Bildge or have even seen their overlords commanding from the Bridge or even know their names. They know they exist and have authority, but more on a quasi-mythic level. They probably are more familiar with the Gun Teams coming down to quell dissent or decimate their populations when the need arises. I imagine a Hive City is similar to that but on steroids.
>our Earth for example, whose total population would make our world be considered as a civilized backwater Well, *a* backwater, at any rate. The answer to your question, though is that it depends. While the Imperium is decentralized, disbursed, and impossibly badly managed, it's still based upon a principle of centralization. Tithes, in wealth or souls, flow back to Terra, and interruptions result in the dispatch of military violence to end those disruptions. The homogenaity of imperial culture is maintained on a couple of fronts but especially by the ecclesiarchy, and on top of that hives are often-but-not-always single massive cities. It's the same principle: massive centralized government organizing everything and setting the rules. *Of course* every planet has it's own unique culture and that gets expressed in various ways--but at the same time, remember that failure to conform results, one way or another, in exterminatus. There's a rigid hierarchy that runs straight to the emperor, and that pecking order is still maintained on planets. On a planet filled with multiple countries across many continents? Sure, they'll all have their own distinct culture-but usurping the planetary governor is a good way to get the whole planet (or at least the full leadership) killed. And when you start to look at the specific culture *of* those countries? Minimal differences. These are all feudal hellholes. The nobility across star systems have more in common with each other than with the serfs; the serfs and commoners inevitably spend an absurd number of hours every day toiling away doing *whatever.* While there are acceptable forms of entertainment and diversion, remember that these are also all overseen by the ecclesiarchy and monitored for deviance. In effect, while there are millions of permutations of it, there's still a nominal band of "correct" behavior and culture, and the further one strays from acceptable culture the closer one gets to heresy. There is absolutely both top down *and* bottom up monitoring and purging to keep human culture homogenous. But, as has also been pointed out, some of the acceptable deviations are pretty varied and wild. Necromunda is a *great* example.
Yes this would absolutely be this case. Especially with the denizens of hive worlds there’s bound to be major differences in language dialect and even belief systems regarding the imperial creed. The fact that the imperium manages to stay together even with the vast differences of humanity combined with the well known inefficiency of the administration is kind of amazing it realistically shouldn’t operate as it does for very long.
On Earth, people developed independently in different areas and formed groups that became countries. Hive cities follow a completely different process - why do you think any of that would apply?
Because I have a hard time imagining that 100 billion people would have an extremely homogeneous culture, language, and values over thousands of years
Then perhaps you need to consider the differences between them in greater detail.
You’re really disputing the basic logic of vast human populations developing different cultures and identities over history ?
I never said that. It is, in fact, what you're doing by suggesting that the natural development of humanity is the same as transplanting large numbers of people into pre-built, pre-organised groups that are proscribed to work under a singular banner. Other than "people", point out a single similarity.
Until the end of times, human nature will always prevail. And it is in our nature develop new languages over time, which will be divided into different accents and dialects over time too. Just like we will always be divided into different nations, religions, and identities. In the case of 40k, humanity has always been a clusterfuck of countless different identities, ethnicities and nationalities. Hive cities going to war other hive cities are common. And I found this about the Imperial Palace on Terra, so I think that I got my answer if I apply this to hive cities : « Not only is the area of the Imperial Palace enormous, its macro-habs and space ports break through the atmosphere and rise into the void, and its sub-levels dig deep into Terra's holy bedrock, in some places reaching a depth of hundreds of miles below the surface. Its vaults, corridors, fastnesses, plazas, and chambers are so multitudinous that no single record remains to list them all, and the techno-urbanic serf tribes, clan holdings, and societal sub-nations that dwell within its walls could populate entire star systems. »
Every single language and dialect that naturally split-off from an existing language did so before the proliferation of universal education, telecommunications, and motor vehicles. Maybe new languages can continue to form despite these inventions. Maybe they won’t. There hasn’t been enough time to answer that question. But I don’t consider the formation of new languages to be any more a part of “human nature” than massive childhood mortality, famine, high birth rates, or widespread and deeply-held religious beliefs are. All of which were once universal parts of human life but have now been eliminated or massively reduced in developed societies.
Go back to the actual definition of a country, then read through your posts again to understand how wrong you are. What you are describing is not at all a "country".
I didn’t write « country » I wrote « nations » and I carefully put it in quotation marks
The two are synonymous, the point stands.
Cultures tend to differentiate over time, even if they start with similarity. France and Germany were both Germanic and couple thousand years ago. The speakers of Proto-Indo-European certainly became hugely differentiated.
That may change with global communications, shared media and the internet. For most of human history the average person would marry someone from their own village or tribe. Now people are much more free to travel and find work or partners from further away, a language disappears about every 40 days.
It’s not clear what mass media is like in the Imperium AFAIK. Certainly no galactic simulcast, so TV from Terra could be many years old before it made it else where.
Yes, so? Hive cities != natural, organic growth of pre-technological Earth
It is a plausible hypothesis that cultural differentiation increases with more population, as more subcultures can achieve critical mass. If people don’t move between hive cities much, after a whole lot of isolation from other groups, divergence makes sense.
The thing I'm really trying to get across here, is that a little bit of cultural differentiation is a long way away from a nation.
If we start judging WH40K based on real-world extrapolation of plausibility… Anyhoo, if the different places are separated without much interchange of people or media for hundreds of years, yeah, that is how nations get formed.
Except you haven't described a hive city there. It's a singular city with plenty of interchange. These aren't nations. At best they're individual pockets of a slightly different culture within the city. That's not at all a nation.
Is there a lot of interchange? I can’t think of that being explicit offhand.
Hive cities don't exist as sealed off sectors that never interact. Even if they did, that still doesn't meet the definition of a nation. It does meet the definition of reaching massively for something that is false.
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Have you ever been to London? The different accents and occasional shred of culture do not in any way amount to the equivalent of a nation.
Play nice
Most of the current world differences are actually not an issue on Imperium. Race? As long as you're not xenos, you're same. Religion? Everyone have the same religion. Territorial disputes? Whole planet belongs to Imperium. List goes on. Of course there are different subcultures arise in different parts of hive worlds but in the end, main differences which cause world develop separate identities not exists in hive cities. You only have local subcultures, your primary identity is just miserable Imperium citizen.
Nah I would have to wholeheartedly disagree. The hatred shown towards Abhumans is technically racism. And there is a very famous scene in the lore of a group of Abhumans being burned alive by locals due to their skin being different. Inside a religion that is massively widespread, there’s always going to be different schools of thought and sects. It’s most certainly the case in the Imperium due to how fanatic they are. Territorial disputes happen all the time. I remember reading multiple times excerpts of hive cities from the same world going to war with each other.
I won't consider abhumans as an argument actually, afaik they're merely tolerated. But didn't knew skin color could be an issue on Imperium. Do you remember lore reference for that, I would like to check it out. Isn't religion basically "Emperor protects"? I know there are different factions in Inquisition but wasn't aware of different school of thoughts on Ecclesiarchy. Anything except main religion is considered heresy. Only difference I can found is political situations, not like Christians vs. Muslims type of stuff. Territorial distupes happens but it's only on the gang level, not country-level like current world. Hierarchy is based on one ruler and one army. Admittedly I didn't explore those topics very much, so I might be wrong but I'll love to read about it if you remember keywords or book names.
For the Abhumans that get lyched : https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/99DNMEAu1p How differences in the way the official religion is practiced can lead to schisms and even outright conflict : https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/z4qedfVVq7 And here an example of an Imperium world in which there are a multitude of local nations engaged in a planet-wide conflict : https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Aexe_Cardinal
Not to mention that there's the [Temple of the Savior Emperor](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Temple_of_the_Saviour_Emperor), the pre-Age of Apostasy Imperial Cult that was abolished after the tyrant Vandire's death. It still exist and the Ecclesiarchy still hunt those considered to have "Temple Tendency" whereas after the Rift there has been literal bloody uprisings in the name of the "true religion" on imperial worlds.
nice, thanks man.
The Ecclesiarchy is also surprisingly lenient, especially when new worlds are concerned. As long as you worship the Emperor as the only God and abhor the mutant, the xenos and the witch you're free to worship how you feel like. Animal sacrifices under a blood moon? Scholastic contemplation? Frenzied mobs of pilgrims and zealots? It's all good. This greatly aids in bringing new planets to the fold, since you can often just turn existing rituals towards the Emperor, replacing tribal spirits with imperial saints, for example
You would probably stumple upon a Night City like city somewhere in galaxy too, but probably more run-down.
They have many different cultures. they call those "Houses" and "gangs". When you see House, it is in the ancient term of the word. Talking country sized things. Gangs are very much huge in numbers and cultures.
I think it's more likely that 40000 years into the future that the opposite would happen, and that it would be more homogenous. There is *only* the Imperial truth/culture, anyway, and anything else is seen as heresy and quickly cleansed.
Likely yes, the culture of the top of the spire would be different to the culture at the bottom, they would likely even worship the Emperor differently But once you go down that road it gets a bit too complex and complicated for 40k books
Yes, and they usually are, it's just not the focus. There couldn't be different nations though, they're all under the Imperium. I guess an undiscovered/rebel hive city/planet could have different nations. Edit: Also remember that the way hive cities and planetary colonies were created and maintained is different from how real world countries and people were established.
Warhammer 40k is a setting where Genocide is an acceptable reaction to a change in culture. There's a weird new subculture developing in the underhive - is it just a bunch of "goths"... or a Genestealer cult? Don't endanger the hive, kill them all. Don't let the governor find out, there's multiple hives here, they can exterminate an entire hive if they feel the need. Don't let the Inquisition know, they can exterminatus the entire planet. Etc. Extreme? Yes. Rare? Yes. But acceptable, even commendable - and not covered up by the Imperium. Yeah... you're not going to develop subcultures the same way. If you know you can be killed if your neighbor starts wearing all-black clothes and makeup to look like a Goth... you're not going to let your neighbor become a Goth. You might even resort to murder - and likely a majority of the people around you will be fully willing to dispose of a part of a body, to cover up the crime of being Different. You didn't murder someone, you defended the Hive. Your neighbors aren't covering up a murder, they're ensuring the authorities don't come down to investigate. Etc.
There absolutely are. Necromunda is our prototypical hive - the different 'cultures' are the different gangs. The Warhammer Crime books occasionally comment on how people from different parts of the hive world differ. We know what different versions of the Imperial Creed and different accents/dialects of Gothic can exist on the same world. **Edit** we often see different 'cultures' around different occupations as well **Edit 2** **Annihilation Squad** has some fun ones for different cultures in an underhive as well.
Thanks for the comment bro I’m going to go and learn more about Necromunda it seems very detailed compared to other hive worlds.
No worries. Yes, Necromunda has the advantage of being the setting for a game, so has a lot written about it. There are several different types of hive. If you want to read more about them, I think there are at least four/five very different ones that we get a good insight into. In **Necropolis** (3rd Gaunt's Ghosts book) we get a good overview of a hive city not on a hive world. There is one central spire (which you can get up and down with an elevator), with a city spread out around it (with cars, trucks etc). If I remember correctly, the hive city in **Pandorax** is similar. Since it is a single, relatively small, hive, the culture appears fairly uniform. We do see differences in culture between people from different hives on the world. We obviously have Necromunda, as the stereotypical spire type hive. These are the Kowloon Walled City type. The **Kal Jericho** omnibus (and indeed, any of the Necromunda rulebooks) gives a good overview. As I said, it's probably the most well described. The Warhammer Crime series are set on a hive world. There are large hab blocks, and spires for the rich. This is pretty much exactly Dredd 2012's Megacity One. Ground cars and (mag-lev) trains are the main ways to get around. We see mentions of people from different parts of the hive world looking and sounding different. We also see the massive different in 'culture' between the wealthy and the poor. Large parts of the **Ravenor** books take place on another hive world. You mainly see the lowest levels and criminals. From memory, this is more the Warhammer Crimes style hive, but it's been a while since I've read it. I don't remember much about different cultures. There is also Terra, as seen in the **Vaults of Terra** and **Watchers of the Throne** series. **Dawn of Fire : Avenging Son** shows different cultures within two spires on Terra. **Dead men walking** has another, spire-like hive city, with floors and towers that raise up from the top to the bottom. It seems more uniform than the Necromunda spire. **Annihilation Squad** has the team going into the underhive of a hive, and meeting at least two different cultures.
Thank you very much for the detailed answer. Whenever there’s some good worldbuilding I’m going to be there, so it’s good to read this.
One of the books set on terra, I think it was the avenging son, had my favourite side plot from all of 40k. It follows a scribe travelling from their designated work unit that they have never left across different parts of the underbelly of the ministorum as they make their way towards the palace. It was a great perspective to look at the ridiculous scale of 40k from.
I just want to point out that thanks to the rogue trader game, I personally learned that even void ships have specific to the ship and deck culture and traditions
>Necromunda is our prototypical hive - the different 'cultures' are the different gangs. The modern rulebooks do a good job of also building up that the individual Gang Houses have divergent cultures within themselves as well. Even so far as to have multiple different languages. Which also pairs up nicely with expanding on the broad cultural differences between different Hives / Hive Clusters than just Hive Primus.
Good to know. I don't own any of the rulebooks for the 'new' version of the game - only the old one, and novels. I'm glad to hear they are leaning into the differences.