I wasn't talking about resolution so much as I have no idea what is going on. I'll caveat by saying I may not be the intended audience but some additional exposition would be useful for me
its actually a very old and very rich fantasy world. Been around Pen & Paper gaming since the 80s (at least, maybe longer).
Always intrigued me however you have to suspend disbelief and just accept things because most of the world is based upon “things being cool“. Many, many things in the Warhammer 40k world make no sense, for example a chain sword makes zero sense. You can’t hit something with a spinning blade & cut it, the blade would bounce off. You have to accept Marines use various powered sword and guns with equal effectiveness nether is better or worse. You have to accept even though there are plasma and laser weapons people still use bullets and axes because reasons (main reason is because it’s cool).
Cliff notes and I will miss a lot:
warhammer 40k is set 40,000 years in the future
10s of thousands of years were lost to “warp storms”
warp is essentially chaos, lack of any normal reality and infested with evil
There has been 40,000 years of conflict technology is present but some of it is now irreplaceable. The knowledge and skills have been lost. This equipment is maintained by tech priests who have technical ability but also possess supernatural abilities to fix stuff thru prayer. Faith & technology work together in WH40k *notice how on video #1 the Marine is blessing his weapon with incense*
The marines shown are no longer Human, they are part of the Emperors genetic code and have been heavily modified to be massive beasts able to endure insane levels of pain and punishmen.
there are several warring factions some have their own splinter groups. Main entities are:
Orks refer to any other fantasy setting to get an idea but they are taken to the extreme, they only exist to fight, they need to fight or they essentially starve, you cannot reason with them
Eldar, basically Elves but again taken to the extreme. Elder are an old race who have pretty much done everything. Their lack of having new stuff to do has made some of them very deviant. This deviance has doomed their race.
Necrons are vampires or litches from other fantasy setting. Again taken to the extreme, they gave up their mortality to become immortal. Now they want to feed on the living.
Tyranids are amped up beasties from Aliens.
Choas, these are dudes who have been enticed by evil. Many get mutated by the warp and have claws or tentacles or whatever.
There are more but those are the chief actors.
The world is about slowing the warp (evil) however to do so makes one act more evil. Normal thing in Warhammer is setting a planet on fire to purge the corrupted. Billions of innocents can die in the fire to prevent a small chaos infestation and that’s a victory
thing I find interesting is thinking about what’s going on, great example is the God Emperor. He sits on his massive golden throne keeping the warp at bay with his massive psychic powers. He currently requires thousands and maybe tens of thousands of other psyichers sacrificed to him daily to keep his energy. He was mortally wounded 20,000(?) years ago by a Brother who was more like a clone. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t move, he doesn’t interact with anything. I like to think is the Emperor alive or is it an elaborate ruse to keep certain people in power or is this part of some demonic plan.
If the Emperor was healthy would he approve of whats going on?
Any day now the Emperor will be back to guide mankind to victory!
Ive had a couple jobs with long train commutes, I’ve spent many hours combing thru this stuff because one answer leads to another question here is some good brief reading material if you have the time or energy.
**One important note is ultra powerful computing isn’t used or trusted because it can be infected by the warp an go nuts like any sci-fi movie. That’s why you see a lot of Cyborg type guys. Human memories are wiped but there being a “soul” in the machine keeps it from going nuts. Also Starships require enormous crews because many things aren’t automated.