This is a story about toys.
The 8th edition of Warhammer 40k is coming out next week and it has people like me pulling out their old rule books, painting their models and brushing up on their fluff in preparation.
For anyone who is not familiar with Warhammer 40,000, it is a tabletop miniature wargame created in 1987 and set in the year 41,999 (aka, “The Grim Darkness of the Far Future”). There are more than a dozen individual armies that people can collect and paint, at great expense, all for the purpose of waging tiny battles on their kitchen table until their spouse announces it’s dinner time. The game is costly in terms of both time and money, the rules are about as complex as bankruptcy law, and the games take around 4 hours if you need to crack open the instructions every turn like I do.
Why would anyone play such a game? Because the shameless brilliance of Warhammer 40k (owned by Games Workshop) is that it has looted every corner of the sci-fi and fantasy genres, given them a coat of copyright retardant paint and amalgamated them into coherent universe.
Warhammer 40k contains the following, in space: orks, elves, Nazis, Commies, giant mecha robots, zombies, witchcraft, archaeology, religion, every flavor of military fiction, THE SPANISH INQUISITION, undead cyborgs, space pirates, mutants, Zerg/Aliens/BUGS!!!, psychics, demons, pirates, lizard people who secretly orchestrate everything, chaos, comedy, and never ending war on a galactic scale. It is a future where the feudal-fascist Imperium of Man spans more than a million worlds, all of buckling under the ever present threat of chaos cults, space locusts, barbarians and killer robots.
Every possible story can be told in this setting (well, “Call the Midwife 40k” would be tough). The 40k canvas spans 40,000 years and a million worlds, everything an imaginative 14 year old could want. And I am nothing if not an imaginative 14 year old at heart.
Warhammer 40k has a more serious resonance with me however. Its picture of the universe as a never ending war between factions fundamentally unable to exist together was originally written as parody by the Games Workshop staff, but our real world is edging perilously close to this Grim Darkness. There is a parallel between the crumbling Imperium of Man and the Western democracies. In the fluff of 40k, the Imperium was a galaxy spanning power, uniting all of humanity under a common banner. Now, beset by external threats and internal stagnation, the Imperium keeps its people united through theocracy, xenophobia and brute force. Even factions who should be able to work together against common threats, like humans and spaces elves, screw each other over if an advantage can be found. The walls have been built, the witches are being hunted, and the Gulags are almost full. The bell tolls midnight.
We aren’t there yet. In the long run, humans have always been resourceful and managed to survive. I know that God-Emperor Donald promised to take care of everything, but I have an inkling he might have just been giving us a sales pitch. Americans will need to work together, make compromises and not retreat into mindless revanchism if we want to avoid a future which promises “Only War”. The only xenocide I want my children committing should be on the kitchen table, before dinner.
I understand if you disagree with me. It may seem naïve to be comparing our current state of affairs to a game with chainsaw wielding orks and interstellar battle-nuns. Just remember that this game represents our collective unconscious. How much has been written about Star Wars as a lens for our culture and times? Warhammer 40k is a grimmer, darker Star Wars, as written by David Simon and H.P. Lovecraft. Sadly, I think it may be the more realistic (if not unavoidable) portrait of us.
Still disagree with me? Prepare for exterminatus.
P.S., I changed my mind about “Call the Midwife 40k”. This may end up as an episode of my “Pop Culture What-If Machine” podcast.
