Kael said:

Or you could call Underworld a massive rip-off that got them sued by WW! It was too close on too many counts to not have been partly ripped off WoD. Sadly, WW were the underdog, and didn't stand a chance.

I don't think 40k is inspiring much yet, though. Gothic themes are common in film. Elite infantry fighting aliens is hardly new, either. Marines are 'first in last out' troops, so the name was a natural fit... and possibly ripped right off 'Aliens' which was I think out just before RT was.

40k is such an enormous melting pot of both classic sci-fi and second-hand fantasy themes (inspired by 'vanilla' Warhammer) that it's kind of impossible to attribute much -if anything- to 40k. For 40k to be genuinely inspiring media, we'd need to see some *uniquely 40k* things being stolen: An undying old dude on life support propping the place up, and suchlike. Maybe massive shoulderpads!

Siranui said:

Space cathedral warships.

Alex

ak-73 said:

The name Space Marines, which is now a byword for a genre of video game characters.

It's difficult to say in many cases as sci fi is almost invariably drawing from the previous works.

However, what 40K brings in many cases, is actual artwork. It's easy to say that Dune has a gothic feel to it, but what that looked like in sci-fi wasn't really explored. Now things like Chronicals of Riddick seems very familar. Power armour was described in Start Ship troopers, but the pictures didn't really tell the story. Now we see Terran Marines in Star Craft, Gears of War etc, all reminiscent of Space Marines.

I've seen a lot of, maybe not all that popular, stuff that's made me think that's totally GW.

Face Eater said:

Space marines are super hold concept, they are in any extend a direct extension of Marines Corps mixted with space technologies.

As mentioned before there are many books in the 60-70 talking about exo squeletton, super humans and "powered" mobile armors.

- Forever War

- Starship Troopers book

- Starwars "Storm trooper armors"

- Aliens, the Space marines and the Exo-lifter

- battletech, elementals

- Ender's Game (Modified humans)

- Star Trek (Khan's revenge) augmented humans...

- Captain America

- etc.

Giant starship with gothic looks? --> Dr. Who, Albator, Japanime, any protestant / Englican churchs

40k Is based on 16th-17th century Europe with giant wood ships, spanish inquisition, etc.

crisaron said:

Ehhhh... They're not really a direct extension of the modern day Marines Corps, especially not THE Marines Corps of the USA.

Certainly not the ones we're playing with either, as I pointed out on the previous page. Since GW originates in the UK, they're related to the Royal Marines, if any group at all. Especially since they're a Commando force, whereas the USMC are just regular infantry for the most part.

Stormast said:

Somehow I can't imagine Starcraft with cover mechanics.

crisaron said:

And nobody expects them!

klaymen_sk said:

Me neither, but who knows? Maybe it would have been crazier?

What is interesting about the relationship between Wh40k and StarCraft - did anyone remember the look of the original Tyranids? And how their design changed after StarCraft got released?

Sometimes, inspiration works both ways.

Face Eater said:

Massive gothic spacecraft...? That's been done before, too! Given the 50ish years of sci-fi that pre-dated 40k there's not much that hasn't been done before, given vague terms. It's got to be very specific in order to be original.

'Marine' in common parlance is a rapid reaction elite strike force. Colonial Marines from Aliens came before 40k, and the phrase had been used in sci-fi years before GW got a hold of it. They were just stealing the idea. And there's no massive difference between the Royal Marines and the USMC anyway. It would be jumping the gun to say that GW based the Astartes on the RM.

Power armour has been around as a concept for a *long* time., but perhaps we can lay the 'huge shoulderpads and a trenchcoat' look at the doors of GW...

As to Starcraft... wasn't it originally designed to be a 40k game? Can't remember where I heard that.... but in which case, it was indeed inspired by 40k. I could be wrong.

Siranui said:

If I recall, that applied to the original Warcraft game being supposed to run with the Warhammer Fantasy license. Of course it's entirely possible that Blizzard Entertainment then developed StarCraft as a deliberate semi-copy to replicate what had worked so well with the other game. The company philosophy has, as far as I remember, always been something along the lines of "copy and improve", taking inspiration from other successful ideas and adding their own take to it. The best of both worlds, so to say.

The developers at Blizzard (headquartered in Irvine CA) took a little excursion to the LA Battle Bunker (Westminster CA) when they were working on Starcraft and dropped alot of money on plastic genestealer/tyranid model kits, then went back to the office and tried to find how many different ways they could put the kits together. Fact.

As for your Proto-Astartes: Marines of the Galactic Patrol, Lensman series, E.E. "Doc" Smith. This started EVERYTHING! (1930's-50's)

Starship Troopers did have the Mobile Infantry (power armour troops) but other than using drop-pods, the 40K feel is fairly lacking from the book. The abbomination of a movie based (very) loosely on this book of course went for cheesy 40K ripoffs. "Commissar Dougie Hauser" battles the tyranid menace because it interrupted prom-season. *pukes*

The Battletech reference is wrong though. 40K predates the release of Elemental battlesuits.

Of note: The Adeptus Arbites were developed by GW to replace the original Judges in the 40K universe when GW lost the Judge Dredd license. My original Space Marine strike force routinely deployed with Psy Judge Anderson!

I'd love to be able to come up of a single decent example of something that was directly 40k inspired, where 40k was the certain origin of the idea. I'm still coming up blank. I guess that anything close enough to be directly attributed is close enough to get GW's lawyers sent in!

Siranui said:

It's actually more that anything close enough to be inspired by 40K can be traced back to what 40K stole the idea from.

Siranui said:

Easy: Bolt Thrower.

Alex

Good one, but bolt thrower's first album wasn't anything to do with Warhammer and was kinda just typical of the genre. I don't think that the influence crept in until after GW had picked up the 'phone to them and offered to do stuff, making it more of a spin-off than anything else. It's not really 'wider popular culture' when you're advertised in WD and GW did your cover art, after all!

Brainclaw have a pretty cool track called 'Abaddon', but as GW stole that name too, and the lyrics aren't specific, it would be impossible to tie to them either.

Natch: There's nothing on wiki about 'in popular culture' for either WHFB or 40k. Foiled again!

Siranui said:

I think what no has mentioned that Space Marines weren't originally put in for Marines in Space they are Knights in space as befitting the whole Warhammer Fantasy in Space (The Imperium being the Empire). If you already have Space Ships it's a matter of seconds for someone to think Space Sailors... Space Mariners... Space Marines! Historic Marines have been around for Hundreds (if not thousands of years if you include translations).

And yes, it's almost impossible to say that something's based on 40K rather than the stuff 40k itself was taken from. You can keep doing that and there's only a handful (of mostly really quite old) original works. But 40K did put a lot of things together and put it in peoples faces.

And yes, I maintain that It's most likely to be Space Gothic artwork is the most influencial part unless anyone can link some examples to contradict it. It's easy to say it wasn't but without examples.

What about chainswords, where were they written down first?

Face Eater said:

Or chain bayonets. Compare the original umbra pattern bolter with chain bayonet:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4119/4860442442_f990ec9909.jpg

with the assault rifle with chain bayonet from Gears of War:-

http://orbitalvector.com/Misc.%20Weapons/Enhanced%20Cutting%20Weapons/chainsaw%20bayonet%20gears%20of%20war.jpg

Good call, although I do recall an 80s Dragon article that had stats for a chainsword. Hmmm.... a quick look at wiki tells me that Abslom Daak (A doctor who protagonist) used such a weapon in comics prior to 40k, too. Goddam it!!

Pretty sure Dreadnoughts must have been done prior to 40k too, although I'd be interested to know if I was right.

Space travel being somehow traversing a hostile psychic realm and requiring a special psychic navigator might actually be original. Obviously Navigators from Dune were ripped off by GW, but in that setting they folded space instantly, rather than travelled through a warp. But then again: I read sci-fi, rather than Sci-Fantasy, so woulda missed it.

This is now officially torturing me.

Siranui said:

Dune Navigators are psychics, mutants, and the only way to travel through space quickly. They and the Bene Gesserit are both psychic, just in different ways.

Leto II, Pauls son, even breeds untouchables into the Atreides bloodline.

dreadnought are a nod to the anime "patlabor"

ItsUncertainWho said:

That was what I was saying; that Navigators are ripped from Dune, but whereas in Dune folding space is instant and doesn't traverse anything, FLT in 40k requires time and travel through another realm that is more akin to hell than any 'hyperspace' of other settings. Had that been done before?

Siranui said:

Not to my knowledge. Event Horizon riffs on the same concept, but post dates 40k.

Face Eater said:

Well, in the first version the Space Marines were criminals and scum pressed into service. Much more like the StarCraft version of the marines, that interestingly enough was made in 98, much later than Rogue Trader in 82? 85? Can't remember

rayze said:

The original Patloabor series didn't start till 1988, where as dreadnoughts pre-dated 40K its self as they were in the 40k for runner which i can't remember the name of now.

Obviously giant robots themselves had been around for a decade at least with Mobile Suit Gundam being 1978 and all but that's a different scale. But still, mortally wounded soldiers in armoured suits, not sure how that pans out.

Darth Smeg said:

Yes, someone had mentioned that to me, although the earliest stuff I'd had was Rogue Trader and already they were pretty knighty. But I guess it is mostly trying to put a more grim dark spin on the Knight idea. One that got a blurred when they introduced the Grey Knights and the Black Templars.