i haven't heard a thing about them are they just tranquil fields and fields of graves with only the elements to tend for them?

ThenDoctor said:

Depends. Most have a small population of caretakers. Ultimately variable like so many other elements within 40K. If the world is meant for the rich, then you can bet your ocular organs that there will be significant edifices regaling and symbolizing the greatness of those interred.

-=Brother Praetus=-

If the world is meant for the rich, then you can bet your ocular organs that there will be significant edifices regaling and symbolizing the greatness of those interred.

If it isn't, there won't be anyone going there - stellar travel is expensive and the fate of most imperial citizens on normal worlds is either a pretty normal burial or the recycling vats on some hive world.

i figured that the guard would be buried at a cemetery planet just like we let our own soldiers have their own cemetery.

I don't think so, assuming we're talking rank-and-file troopers here. Space Ships are among the most important and limited reserves the Guard (or more precisely, the Navy) has - would you really spend any of these supply capacities moving dead bodies around?

probably not navy but maybe merchant ships are chartered to cater around warzones to take the emperors fallen to a more peaceful resting ground than the cold earth they died on im sure that in cleanup operations they must do something a little better than turning them into protein mush...hopefully

I believe a lot of them are the results of massive conflicts on the planet itself, once the guards have buried the enemy under wave after wave of men and the planet is effectively ruined.

Or smaller moons of a system thats undergone the previous type of conflict... a lot of 40k seems to be entirely focussed on 1 world per system

ThenDoctor said:

Nah. Maybe for distinguished officers or Commissars whose remains can still be recovered. But normally the fate of dead Guardsmen is either to be put in a mass grave, cremation or having their remains turned into protein slurry.

Although according to the Eisenhorn books, Cadians do bury dead troopers on their homeworld, if they died defending Cadia from an incursion from the Eye of Terror. However their bodies are exhumed to make room for new ones as soon as the headstone becomes illegible through erosion (they figure that if the name of the dead soldier can't even be read any longer, then it is up to the Emperor to keep his or her memory alive or something like that).

It wouldn't surprise me if many cemetary worlds actually start as the scenes of massive, ancient, legendary battles where the soldiers of that planet are laid to rest.

Then in later battles where entire regiments are wiped out in particularly heroic actions they have the honor of being shipped to the cematary world to rest in peice (rather than being recycled locally like most guardsmen).

I imagen stacked gothic tombs filled with bones and skulls all sorted.
Smaller tombs, space bought by rich families to bury their dead, tombs where families have buried their member for thousands of years.
Black robed adepts stalking around tending to said graves and lowely graverobbers searching and exploring those tombs for precious artifacts, precious metals (gold teeth anyone?) and old cybernetics to use or sell.

Cifer said:

There have been a few references to cemetery worlds serving the general populace of an entire sub-sector in the fluff here and there. In those cases, though, I believe they also serve as the primary processing centers for corpse starch and the like.

-=Brother Praetus=-

There are probably planets once classified as Cemetary worlds that are a bit more on the vibrant edge now. Sure it may have been the site of a grand surface battle with massive guard casualties that was commemorated by Drusus himself, but it also could be a rather functional world with a decent tithe of <fill in the blank>. The Planetary Governor has to constantly have the conversation with the Administratum of:

"well, yes there were over 3 million casualties amongst the Angevin crusaders logged on my world, but we actually outproduce several ag-worlds in the sub-sector in terms of export of food stuffs...."

~three million you say? The crusade eh? Quite a prestigious little memorial world you have there~...*gazes out of a window absent mindedly*

"...but we use over 80% of the farmable landmass and produce quite a high amount of goods. If we could just be reclassified it could improve our trading options subsantially and our tithe could be increased by as much as 17% in the next cycle."

~...I'm sorry? reclassified? what could a cemetary world provide other than a few nice plots of land for the honored and privaledged? Highly irregular. Now I would like to get back to the audit of your tithe last cycle. It is unsettlingly high for a cemetary memorial world don't you think?....yes here we are...~

*a blood vessel bursts in the Planetary Governor's head*

I think people are confusing Shrine Worlds with Cemetary Worlds. A Cemetary World is devoted to large crypts of the Noblity and their retainers. Dead guardmen are recylcled into corpse strach rations, or buried in mass graves. A world with the sacred burial sites of the fallen would be a Shrine World. Of course there would need to be some sort of Saint who died or was buried there. The deaths of millions of guardsmen isn't something that would cause an entire world to change category. Not that this doesn't mean there might not be a city sized memorial/crypt for the honored dead who reclaimed/saved the world.

Yes i suppose as much i just usually don't like giving the nobles the satisfaction of an entire world to have all their own i like letting the guardsman have a peaceful rest oh well, and yes i know the black robed adepts and the grave robbers and guardsman guarding the tombs or maybe servitors...who know i just wanted to know if anyone had stats or tythes or even planetary layouts of the planets themselves.

probably not navy but maybe merchant ships are chartered to cater around warzones to take the emperors fallen to a more peaceful resting ground than the cold earth they died on im sure that in cleanup operations they must do something a little better than turning them into protein mush...hopefully

Well, you've basically got two options there:

-Charter available merchant ships to move corpses around and hope that the supply chains will sort themselves out. The Emperor will provide.

-Charter available merchant ships to move troops and materiel around and bury the dead where they fall.

Guess which one most generals will prefer.

In all of Abnetts work, I was under the impression that many guardsman were given honorable graves, dependent on rank or circumstance.

Yeah thats how i usually go for my DH adventure making since Dan Abnett is honestly the best author ive ever read from and he really gives a good WH40K feel to the universe i guess it doesnt matter ill make the world as i see fit and this time guardsman get a good nights rest other than being turned into protein slurry.

Ira said:

Thanks to the beauty of 40k... all things are indeed possible and there is no right/wrong answer

Artaxerxes said:

and there inlyes the problem because sometimes you just want a set precedent dont you? oh well i chaulk it up to the warp lol

Ira said:

They might well do... but consider that soldiers are shipped all over the galaxy in many cases, and for a standard Munitorum transport, that's a journey likely to take years... all to send dead men back to their homeworld (which in all likelihood they were never going to see again anyway - a great many Guardsmen never return to their homeworlds alive or dead). Frankly, it's a waste of a good ship when you can simply inter them on the world they died upon.

To be honest, I imagine most cemetery worlds start out that way - worlds upon which so much blood was shed and so many died that it makes sense for them to serve as a memorial to the fallen... and then those with wealth and power start buying space to house their family's city-sized mausoleum.

maybe not mausoleums but at least grave sites, i dont see why everyone wants them to be city sized lol

ThenDoctor said:

If you're rich enough to afford to be able to ship your dead relatives to another planet, then you're rich enough to provide a lot more than a hole in the ground and a slab of granite with their name on. If you've got the money and power to do it, then there is no sane reason why you wouldn't build something vast and grand to put those dead relatives in when they arrive at their destination...

true but it really depends on the attitudes of the adepts and clerics that would eventually run the planet if they would allow an entire "city" of the dead to be made im sure a simple sized mausoleum would do with the occasional addon

ThenDoctor said:

Hive cities are never really planned... they tend to start off as normal cities that just grow and grow until they're several hundreds of miles tall.

This is little different in concept: A large structure honouring the dead of an extremely wealthy noble dynasty won't start off vast... but it'll grow, a new set of expansions every generation. Give it a few centuries, a few millennia, and you'll end up with cities of the dead littering these cemetary worlds. It's how the Imperium works.

It is, afterall, a planet-sized graveyard we're talking about. Even cities don't take up that much room on a planet's surface.

I suppose but they also might remain like Cadia's graveyards, pastures until the name on the tombstone cant be read anymore then the body is exummed to make more room