Welcome to the Grim Dark

IMPERIUM OF MAN

"It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."

The people of the Imperium live in a place where daemons are real, mutation is frequent and death is a constant companion. To be alive in the late 41st Millennium is to know that the universe is a terrifying and hostile place. It is a place where you are but one amongst countless trillions and, no matter how heroic your death, you will not be missed.

A truly vast domain, the Imperium is spread amongst the many stars of the galaxy. Its territories encompass untold millions of stars and countless more human lives. In its name, terrible wars are fought and desperate sacrifices made, yet even this river of carnage and blood is a small price to pay, for the Imperium is the guardian of Humanity. Were it to pass into nothingness, so too would the human race, destroyed by enemies uncountable, to the braying laughter of the Dark Gods.

The Imperium is the largest and currently most powerful political entity in the galaxy, consisting of at least 1,000,000 human-settled worlds dispersed across most of the Milky Way Galaxy. Consequently, an Imperial planet might be separated from its closest neighbour by hundreds or even thousands of light years.

As a stellar empire, the size of the Imperium cannot be measured in terms of contiguous territory, but only in the number of planetary systems under its control. However, most humans in the galaxy have little day-to-day contact with the government of the Imperium unless they serve in one of its Adepta or run afoul of its various protectors, such as the Inquisition or the Adeptus Arbites.

In the present Imperium, science and human progress have essentially been halted in service to the need to simply maintain the crumbling status quo. It is not for nothing that many Imperial savants consider the current age the "Time of Ending" for Mankind.

Several alien species and dark forces -- Chaos, the Tyranids, the Aeldari, the Drukhari, the Orks, the T'au, and the undying Necrons -- now challenge the supremacy of the Imperium and humanity's predominant place in the galaxy.

From within its own creaking and increasingly stagnant and repressive edifice, the Imperium is threatened more insidiously by rebellion, mutation, dangerous psykers and subversive Chaos Cults.

However, despite its myriad problems, without the admittedly authoritarian and often harsh protection of the Imperium, Mankind as a whole would have fallen prey to the countless perils that threaten it. Without the Imperium of Man and Mankind's faith in the Emperor who guides it, the human race would have become extinct long ago.

Ultimately what holds the Imperium together is the bravery of countless trillion men and women of the Astra Militarum and the legendary Space Marines. The Space Marines or Adeptus Astartes are foremost amongst the defenders of humanity, the greatest of the Emperor of Mankind's warriors.

The Ages of Mankind

Ancient History

Age of Terra

The Golden / Dark Age of Technology

The Age of Strife

The Unification Wars

Great Crusade

Horus Heresey [Great Scouring]

The Imperium Of Man