Mutation is the norm and being normal is not. But what does that mean in a social context? Do the mutants represent a massive, suppressed underclass that is hated and feared by the relative minority of the Imperium's normal population, by the Lords of Terra and the Inquisitors, by the Space Marines and the Emperor himself? If the stuff that drives the Imperium is built and shipped by mutants, then the purpose of hunting down and murdering those mutants who fight back is an attempt to keep the apartheid system of the Imperium in place, and the normalish people at the top in power, despite the changing genetics of the populace (psykers) and the outward changes that come upon the populace as a direct result of their exposure to the universe. The Inquisition is a terror squad meant to keep the huge mutant population in its place working as unseen slaves, and if they do rise up, to be brutally punished by the powers at large.

Or am I way off base?

If you consider to psykers to be mutants, then the Emperor is one. All the Space Marines are genetically altered and therefore mutants too.

Not that pskers and space marines are mutants per se, but that they are different from a normal human in terms of abilities and capabilities. If a space marine had four arms and his face was constantly melting off, he'd probably catch a bolt round to the dome.

Mutants are physically deformed, and serve as a scapegoat to keep the power dynamic of fear working to keep the population in check, despite the fact that those same mutants provide needed labor for cheap.

Jork said:

And he will, once he leaves the Eye of Terror, hehe.

Jork said:

It means that most imperial citizens don't know what mutant really means and use it to mean someone who is mutated by the warp.

Graspar said:

Or just looks funny enough that the viewer assumes he was mutated by the warp and must therefore be evil.

Socially mutants are scapegoats.

Throughout history, people have always blamed certain ethnic or religious groups for all their problems, and then have prosecuted them with extreme predujice. This is done to basically hide the real cause of the problems, until said time that they can be fixed, and give the populus at large an convientant target for their pent up angst.

The best known of course is the Jews and the Nazi's, and historically the Jews have quite often been the brunt of said prosecution (the middle ages and the Spanish Inquisition being other times) but other examples would be communists during McCarthy America, Catholics and/or Protestants during the Reformation, Muslims after 9/11, Americans in the Middle East, "Witches" in New England, Gypsies in just about any time or place, and the list goes on.

In this case Mutants are that outlet. Most mutations are rather benign, but that doesn't mean that the Imperium hasn't made them into a living example of everything that is bad. While the Imperium tries its best to hide Demons and Xenos, its very hard for them to hide Mutations, so they use that as a common example of why the Imperium needs to be so stricts Sort of a "Mutants are living examples of why we need to be so harsh, and there things out there even worse. Mutants will lead to this worse stuff, so turn in a mutant today" type of thing.

You know play up the whole "A mutant will suck your babies face off and eat your liver with come chianti" type stuff if done right can really drive a point home, regardless if its true or not (just because a woman has three breasts doesn't mean she's going to eat babies). You play up the worst cases of mutants, downplay the benign stuff, and instant living proof of evil trying to destroy humanity.

X-men did this really well, and like I said you can see it in Nazi propaganda with the Jews quite often.

But on top of it all, a repressive dictatorships are well known for ignoring things as well, if it suits their purpose. Hitler was about as far from the perfect Aryan as you can imagine, as was most of the actual high staff. The Imperium prosecutes Psychics (and possibly rightly so) and yet employes them, and in fact their "God" is the most powerful psycher in the universe. Marines, lauded as super-soldiers, and geneticly altered and purposely made different from humanity, purposely given mutations. The list goes on and on. Things are bad, unless we say otherwise, then just turn a blind eye. Of course, since most common people have never seen a Space Marine, and are rather poorly educated, concepts like genetic engineering are lost on them, as is the fact that technically their mutants, but they're taught otherwise, and they just accept it.

DocIII said:

That's pretty much my whole point.

Xathess Wolfe said:

This is the kind of subtext I think ought to be better explored, if not in the games, then maybe in the novels. Take a chance to really escape the paradigm that's been established and to get deeper into the fluff and what it's saying just under the surface. In my opinion, this would lead to more wild grim dark, as well as increased complexity for the setting if a body chose to explore it.

As far i saw it, most humans are well humans by the 4 types DH core book, with a maybe 0-30%( depening on planet) being abhumans deformed humans, who have no rights so is regarded as free/cheap labour aka. slaves sometimes, with deformaties ranging in severness, sometimes bordering real mutants that are touched by warp instead of just massive amounts of chemicals/ radiation/mal nutrision.

wonder if some evil nobles actually exposed factory dregs chemicals and the like to make the abhumans and get cheap labour, of simple greed.

Jork said:

You do that and I'll do space marines kill **** with 30' diaklaves and we shall see which sells the most.

Sorry, sorry, can't help it. Dan Abbnett can just about do both, at times.

Letrii said:

Space Marines are engineered, not mutants. They were born 'normal', but by the grace of the Emperor have been elevated beyond human norms. They are not warp touched.

While mutants are not the 'norm', they are not as uncommon as the Inquisition would like everyone to beleive.

Mutation is the norm and being normal is not.

I've never gotten the idea that mutants for a majority of the Imperium's population from any of the fluff. Mutants generally form a small minority of the population on most worlds with notable exceptions (like Tranch). Abhumans and intentionally altered humans (Space Marines, Mechanicus operatives, O.Ass. agents, etc.) are not seen as mutants since they lack the 'Chaos factor' in their deviance. Redeptionists may feel differently.

HappyDaze said:

I always saw Abhumans as being border-line to be honest. Tolerated but it wouldn't take much to push the Imperium over the edge and burn them all down. They're definatly already second or third class citizens, and it wouldn't take much of a propaganda effort to simply say that anything not "normal" is touched by chaos or the alien and burn it all down.

Redeptionists hate humanity, so they really hate Adbumans would be my guess.

I'm not sure that the Imperium as a whole would be that quick to turn on the recognized abhuman subspecies. It would probably require a massive sea change in Imperial society - they've been around since the end of the Heresy, and breed true, unlike the 'mutants' people are warned against. Plus, Ogryns are just too useful as guard units and heavy labor. And ratlings are more or less just small people, and not particularly offensive to Imperial sensibilities. I imagine actual medical-condition dwarfs and other 'little people' would tend to draw more flak. The others would tend to be very well suited for life on their original homeworlds, and save money on the equipment or time it would take to adapt new populations to take advantage of the world (which makes the Adminstratum happy).

Of course, that's not to say they wouldn't have trouble if they randomly popped-up on some world that's never seen them before - but you can say the same about voiders or, really, anybody who doesn't fit an insular planet's human norms.

Locally it may seem that mutants form the majority of a population (calixis sector has a few examples), but imperium-wide they are a minority.

Space Marines are not mutants, they are genetically altered.

Psykers are though.

Ikkaan said:

Genetic alteration is controled mutation.

In DH there are basicly 3 types of mutants. "Natural" mutants being those who are mutated by the by chemical/viral/environmental exposure (abhumans). "Technical" mutants being those who have been intentionaly altered through retroviruses and/or altered organs (space marines). "Warp" mutants being those who have been altered by exposure to the warp. Of these only the Warp are realy feared, but its often hard to tell which is which, so to most people a mutant is a mutant (the only good mutant is a dead mutant).

Alteration vs. mutations is a seperate semantic issue, and not really connected to the question at hand.

Psykers, navigators, and other non-mutant mutants are going to be left aside below, as they are all special cases:

As for the rest, the imperium distinguishes between abhuman and mutant. The line is one of convenience, appearance, and standardization more than scientific. Basically, if you have a world of humans, or a large group of humans on a world, with the same adaptation, and it's not too far from the normal human template, they get grouped as "abhuman" and are allowed to live, though with fewer rights than the full humans if they are a minority on their world or leave that world. Abhumans are common enough, but overall form a small minority imperium wide.

True mutants are those people that have "adapted" so far from the human genome that they are regarded as too far gone to be reclaimed, or that are not a part of evolution but are just a common "mutant" in the conventional sense. Big eyes won't get you shot (unless we're talking lemur scale or something), but a few small tentacles under your arms will. These kinds of "true" mutants are present in numbers on most hive worlds or colonies with environmental problems, but even in Sepherus Secundus they are a tiny minority.

When a scapegoat for anything going wrong is needed or desired though, you can bet it's the mutants, then the abhumans that get blamed (especially if the mutants are too dangerous to purge). Abhumans have few rights on worlds that aren't dominated by them (in which case they are generally just "unusual humans", rather than abhumans, at least on paper), and you can probably lynch one or more at will without reprecussions unless the abhuman belonged to someone, in which case it's probably on par with destruction of property.

The result is that abhumans are "barely tolerated" on most worlds out of neccessity and practicality, rather than out of any egalitarian attitude. While mutants are shot on sight, at least officially. Neither are terribly common, and certainly are not the standard in the Imperium.

I think the thread starter was referring to there being no such thing as "normal".

That we are all alien to each other, etc, etc.

Just how tolerated a mutant is would depend on the local power structure. This would range from second class citizens to shot on sight.

A nifty thing to remember though is that a small percentage of the population can be ALOT of mutants.

If a hive world has 1,000,000,000,000 people on it and a paltry 2% were mutants that means there are 20,000,000,000 of them.

All those zeros are way cooler than saying 1 trillion and 20 billion

Well, Ogryns, Ratlings, Squats, and so many of their kind are recognized "Abhumans", which are different from both Xenos and Mutant. Most people think of them as "mutant-like", but in the collective intelligence of the Imperium they "aren't really mutants". Indeed, Ogryns are valued for their loyalty to the Imperium (though not in any terms of praise - they're considered "too stupid to rebel"), and the Squats had their own empire that was the ally of the Imperium of Man until the Tyranid ate them.

Space Marines aren't considered mutants because the Emperor says they're not mutants. Never mind what the Emperor did or did not actually say, that's what people know to be true. Space Marines were created literally to share the face of the Emperor (Space Marine body modification includes techniques that make them similar to, if not identical to, the Emperor's own appearance, albeit considerably more buff). They've been made more "Emperor-like", and therefore are not mutants at all (indeed, from the Imperial Cult's perspective, all of the Imperium of Man are mutants because they're not like the Emperor, who is the very image of what Man is supposed to be - every note of deviation is mutation).

Psychers, Navigators, Astropaths, and the like are in a unique position of being important. They aren't classed as mutants, but this isn't because they aren't mutants - again, they're called Psychers and not Mutants, and therefore the average person puts them into different mental categories. Even those bright or educated enough to know the similarity see them differently, though only just.

Many "normal humans" aren't normal at all, by our standards. One of the truly great Assassins can pull crap we wouldn't dream of doing. There has, in fact, been some evolution over the centuries (the same process made the Ogryns, Ratlins, et al), but they don't see it as odd or out-of-place. Someone who's superhumanly smart or fast or tough is just blessed. Indeed, the average person has traits that make them visibly "not us" (that is to say, not people from 2009). Eyes with naturally-chrome irises, blue hair, tiger-stripe skin shades, etc., all occur in different areas, and are considered "human" simply because that's the range of standard deviation in the 40th millenium.

This leaves the people with three arms who vomit devouring worms. These are the people who simply don't have "Emperor-like" silhouettes, who can do things that one cannot wrap their minds around a "human-like thing" doing. These are the people who are recognizably mutants. They include many things that have never been touched by the Warp (living in the more polluted areas of a hive city can cause Corruption and mutation - this is said in so many words at some place in the rules). Anybody who looks "marked" is a mutant. It's entirely possible that a "normal dude" would appear like a mutant in another world. Imagine a tall, slender, white-skinned and bone-haired Void Born in an Imperial world.

And yes, it is entirely possible for an ordinary person with no Corruption to be considered a mutant, just like on some worlds a Tech Priest will be considered a blasphemer and put to the stake (not many worlds, at least not the ones still in contact with the rest of the Imperium).

Jork said:

The only real means to survival in the 40k universe up to a point is to make yourself 'very useful' and from there you might get lucky missing out on being burnt for "not being pious enough" the next time the SoB's or Redemptionists go on some kind of anti-heretic, hot flush rampage of menstrual proportions in your neighbourhood. And that's just for the normal people....

The only way to ensure your survival as a mutant is to make yourself indispensible, like cousin Cletus the navigator, but you'll never be brother Cletus the navigator. The same goes with any other kind of Psyker that is not immediately useful, then they're in pragmatic fashion, disposed of as an example to others. For the other kind of mutation, be they inbreeding, chemicals or contact with the warp, they're just not very useful and pragmatically accorded the same due lack of care and concern. Just to top it all off you'll also have them living in squalor and deprived of any assistance, so you get hundreds of generations over thousands of years that have fairly much just leaned their place in the greater scheme of the imperium as nothing more than little engines puttering away in the dark, doing the bad jobs no one else wants until they fall down and no one really cares. Of course, being kept in those conditions for so long, the resentment from being there once they learn that no everyone lives like that is literally generations of compound interest rebellion all seething forward at once as well as all the other 'social deviancies' boiling away in the background over time, (like crime) which come from impoverished backgrounds fighting over scraps of whatever they need to get by on a daily basis.

In our more enlightened, educated and civilised society we live in we'd probably cut them a break and give them benefits, a housing commission home and sheltered workshops. People would make documentaries and provided the where not too ugly and looked like a combination of pandas and ewoks (and not a bipedal skin-graft mixed in with garden slug appearance), possibly consider integrating them to society at large.

40k is the exact antithesis of that society.

People are kept ignorant and bigotted along the state sanctioned lines. If they even decide to harbour some feelings of compassion and respect, they're neighbours will tell on them for being mutant huggers and they'll get burnt in the local park tied up to the slippery dip or telegraph pole. So fear to some degree on a personal level keeps the status quo. There really is no point trying to fight a system and society that arse-backwards (compared to us) and that large, you'll die horribly.

Its a very interesting question Jork and typical of the sort of fundamental question that will occur from anyone actually trying to roleplay in 40k/DH, especially when DH offers very little to any detail about these core social issues.

Since there is no cogent 'official' stance, we're into personal interpretations.

So, over the years (of roleplaying 40k using other systems) i've developed a 'genetic classification' for humans, which i'll breifly go over here.

Human - basic human genome, as measured against the coreworld standard. Skin-tone and body morphology within 'normal (i.e. Terran)' tolerances.

Peri-human - aberrant human genome, as measured against the coreworld standard. Skin-tone and body morphology within 'aberrrant' tolerances; either archaic variants (such as dwarfish / gigantism, or genetic damage such as impaired ability or genetic disease). Also includes stable environment-derived genome variation such as bizarre skin colour (grey, blue, red), unusual appearance (excess hair, baldness), or exaggerated morphology (longer legs, or fingers, short torso, huge ears of noes, etc.).

Abhuman - stable abhuman genome recognised by Imperial Authority. Typically severe environmental effect on genome of entire populations. Debate rages concerning abhuman status as human or sub-species. Squats (now remnant within the Imperium after loss of the Homeworlds), Ogryns, Ratlings, Beastmen.

Adeptus Astartes after full implantation are also considered abhuman, but have a separate status without Imperial society.

Mutant (gene filth) - severely damaged genome, typically from birth, or from infancy. Mutation derived from known pollution source. Such mutant populations are typically tolerated, even supported as an underclass.

Mutant (psykers) - altered genetics, typically from birth, giving psychic ability. Classified as Navigators (actually without Imperial authority and goverened by their own society), Astropaths, and Sanctioned Psykers. Psykers not within Imperial control under these three classifications are considered a primary threat, to be brought before the Schola Psykanan for sanctioning or disposal.

Mutant (Warped) - altered by exposure to the Warp. Such mutant abominations are to be killed on sight.

The relative social status typical of each species varies as follows.

Human - Imperial Noble, Noble, Freeman, Indentured, Slave, Outlaw

Peri-Human - Imperial Noble, Noble, Freeman, Indentured, Slave, Outlaw

Abhuman - Noble, Freeman, Indentured, Slave, Outlaw (Astartes are outside Imperial hierarchy)

Mutant (genefilth) - Freeman, Indentured, Slave, Outlaw

Mutant (psyker) - Indentured, Slave, Outlaw (Navigators are outside Imperial heirarchy but are similar in status to Imperial Noble)

Mutant (Warped) - Outlaw (kill on sight)

Luddite said:

Navigators actually fall into both the above-quoted categories - because the Navigator gene is recessive, Navigators are generally inbred and thus demonstrate numerous genetic mutations beyond the 'Warp Eye'.

Hmm Luddite, you may also wish to add more non-appearant deviagtions to Humans, After all there's more to say 'evolution' (or de-evolution) then simply physical changes, such as:

Variations of eye sight: Did Humans develop the need to see in lower/higher light conditions, or even at all, gaining another form of 'sight'? (Low-light vision, heightened sound awareness, darkvision, colour-blindess, new spectrum sight, etc. This could make a fully human appearaing character, albiet with a non-physical 'deviation' as Imperial authorities might put it.

Changes in cerebral functions: Did the inhabitants develop a new part of the brain as yet untapped by others, (due to say a planets gas or plant-life makeup) It doesn't even have to be psycher related. Perhaps the Humans from planet 3324-P are just better at remembering things and can recite an entire library at will. Or Humans from 445-GIU are all amidextrous but are all near-sighted due to thier use of constant detailed work.

Resitances: Did the Humans from Cold World develop a comfotable level of tolerance from the frigid conditions (yet can't stand the heat.) Same goes for the desert world. All without any physical changes of course. Was the radiation level from say Rad-world slightly higher then normal on a planet, giving rise to Humans who didn't mutate, but just now can stand the 'heat' of microwaves better then any others..but now have to have such levels of raiation to survive.

Limb funtionality: Humans adapt in ways unforseen. Perhaps a typical loking human set of colonists had to develop flexible limbs and joints to adapt to an all forest world. They look completely Human, but now have the uncanny ability to move thier limbs in a 330 degree (not 360 of course) range of motion. Now of course thier equipment has to be modified, but again they look completely Human and can't be distinguished normally.

Pressure changes: The oblivious fact we all take for granted is that Humans only live in an atmosphere that gives us 5ft per square innch of pressure. What happens to a Human that might live on a world or moon of a gas giant that has less or more pressure? (not gravity). Would the Human develop internal sacs of air to compensate, have less/more bone density?? (all non-cosmetic because it's internal.) I'm not entirely sure how suchchanges would effect them in a typical earth-like pressure. (would they suddenly swell/deflate, lol.) But I could assume that they'd be able to do some different things with water swimming, or even climbing etc.

Altitude changes: Oxygen only comes in varying degrees. Did the inhabitants of planet Alpine devbelop greater breathing capacity due to the lower oxygen rate or higher altitude of thier homeworld? If so it could let them perform for hours/days ahead of a 'standard' Human. "You never get tired? Why am I out of breath and you aren't?

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Anyways hope that gets you into he mindset, that WH40K is missing some of the more...intriging and less obvious changes that could occur in a species that has been seperated for over 30,000 years. It's more then the obvious oh physcial; abnormality-so-not-Human idea. Especially since they Humans are only the way they are because we developed only on a single planet. Personally I'd like to see how the Imperium 'classifies' Humans that are in most ways better at something on the inside then a simple 'mutation' or physical change.

Actually, I always took it as a core "unrealism" of the setting that all the worlds were so abnormally terrestrial. I mean, our planet is an aberration - not for bearing life (that could happen in any number of planetary structures), but because it's so freaking heavy. The iron core on our planet is, technically, "alien". Most planets that support life will be considerably larger, considerably less dense, and have a whole diversity of characteristics that, when they feature in sci-fi and science fantasy settings, would be considered "slipstream".

This is just one of the ways that our basic ideas of "how things work" don't hold true in the setting. Fundamentally, you can't approach Dark Heresy or the 40K universe through the lens of modern science. Most planets that humans live on are like earth, despite the fact that they should be rare as honest piety. Humans are evolving at a bizarrely slow and a bizarrely even rate across the galaxy. It's just the way things work.