Why only the Milky Way?

[Kastor Krieg]

Is there an in-universe reason for why all of the events and influences are almost always limited to our galaxy and only this galaxy? 

I understand the meta reason of literally unfathomable size of the universe and limitations of what and how you can write. But in-universe everything seems so... small? The greatest reality rending event is just a tiny tear across one tiny galaxy.

Of course, Canis Major "next door" is 25 thousand light years and Draco II is about 70 thousand ly away. But we have in-universe FTL travel!

So what is in the Great Void? What do Carcharodons know about it? Is it just void whales and pot plants?

Where did Tyranids actually come from and where they were going to, when they got attracted by Pharos? I read something to the effect of "they were going to skip Milky Way 'cause not enough organic matter, but since Pharos became a beacon they couldn't resist".

Are the Chaos Gods and Emperor's influence limited to the Milky Way only. If Chaos Gods are universal and Emps is local, how come he can actually face them?

 

And what about the Necron gods, the C'tan, who seem to really have outgrown this puny swirl of ours? Do they know something?

[Azekai]

Does it improve things if the stage of 40k is 3 galaxies instead? Or a hundred? There are already as many battlefields and warzones as you could wish for, as well as enough empty space for you to create your own. Simply upping the size of the setting seems pointless when it is effectively already unimaginably vast.
 

I understand the meta reason of literally unfathomable size of the universe and limitations of what and how you can write. But in-universe everything seems so... small? The greatest reality rending event is just a tiny tear across one tiny galaxy.

The phrase 'tiny galaxy' seems like an oxymoron.

[USNCenturion]

Time is a flat circle and everything exists in the eye of a giant named Macumber.

 

Seriously though I think the limitations are to prevent heads from hurting too much at the thought of the interstellar. Back in the early 90s this galaxy was big enough for the stories.

[ThePenitentOne]

"Time is a spiral

  Space is a curve

  I know you get dizzy

  But try not to lose your nerve"

 

 - Rush (Neil Peart)

 

Seriously though, I believe that Tyranids come from outside the galaxy. I further believe that Imperial Xeno Biologist hypothesize that they stripped their own galaxy, and possibly others on their way to the Milky Way. So we may not have details on other galaxies, but some fluff does acknowledge that they exist.

 

I wonder what lore the new Tyranid dex will bring.

[Grotsmasha]

"Time is a spiral

  Space is a curve

  I know you get dizzy

  But try not to lose your nerve"

 

 - Rush (Neil Peart)

 

Seriously though, I believe that Tyranids come from outside the galaxy. I further believe that Imperial Xeno Biologist hypothesize that they stripped their own galaxy, and possibly others on their way to the Milky Way. So we may not have details on other galaxies, but some fluff does acknowledge that they exist.

 

I wonder what lore the new Tyranid dex will bring.

 

IIRC, the Lore on the Tyranids is that they were created by the Old Ones when several Galaxies on from ours, they discovered an enemy they couldn't defeat. Unfortunately the Tyranids were too effective, turned on their creators and are working their way backwards along the Old Ones path. 

[Ryltar Thamior]

There are reportedly an *awful lot* of Orks out there beyond the galaxy ... in some directions, anyway. 

I also suspect that the Warp being what it is, the further one gets from inhabited space, the more ... generally empty it is (as there's less psychic occurrence to actually influence it - less emotional turmoil, etc.); which has implications for attempting extra-galactic FTL travel. No currents and such - and the Astronomican would be so weak as to be almost useless. We know the latter to be true given the manner in which the Halo Zone is talked about - although I suppose that you could say that the brightness of the Astronomican is sufficient that the 'Nids etc. can see a general glow and be heading for Terra from extragalactic space [Pharos inducement notwithstanding]

Twenty five thousand light years is an awful long time/space to attempt to cross with seriously sketchy Astronomican coverage and operating a long *long* way from any potential refit and resupply options. 

Now, on the other hand, small clusters of worlds above the galactic plane and relatively removed from the rest of the galaxy are perfectly viable. 

 

[Noserenda]

 

IIRC, the Lore on the Tyranids is that they were created by the Old Ones when several Galaxies on from ours, they discovered an enemy they couldn't defeat. Unfortunately the Tyranids were too effective, turned on their creators and are working their way backwards along the Old Ones path. 

 

Where did that come from? Afaik Tyranid origins have always been a bit mysterious other than being extra galactic?

 

Im not sure what adding more galaxies really adds though, there is still a mysterious edge and loads of stuff in the middle, its just bigger and really awkward to draw maps of :D 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Why? Because the story is primarily about the struggle of mankind and the xenos and chaos forces are just there to support that story.

 

Mankind apparently never left the milkyway or at least not in any meaningful way, so the emperor never really had a reason to to leave the milkyway during the crusade, and now he's stuck on a golden toilet.

[Doctor Perils]

I think making the galaxy a "closed space" mostly is also a way of upping the stakes - we're fighting over this finite number of inhabitable planets and moons, if we destroy these, there's nowhere to run to

[Sword Brother Adelard]

There are reportedly an *awful lot* of Orks out there beyond the galaxy ... in some directions, anyway. 

 

I also suspect that the Warp being what it is, the further one gets from inhabited space, the more ... generally empty it is (as there's less psychic occurrence to actually influence it - less emotional turmoil, etc.); which has implications for attempting extra-galactic FTL travel. No currents and such - and the Astronomican would be so weak as to be almost useless. We know the latter to be true given the manner in which the Halo Zone is talked about - although I suppose that you could say that the brightness of the Astronomican is sufficient that the 'Nids etc. can see a general glow and be heading for Terra from extragalactic space [Pharos inducement notwithstanding]

 

Twenty five thousand light years is an awful long time/space to attempt to cross with seriously sketchy Astronomican coverage and operating a long *long* way from any potential refit and resupply options. 

 

Now, on the other hand, small clusters of worlds above the galactic plane and relatively removed from the rest of the galaxy are perfectly viable. 

 

 

 

This was also my understanding of the warp outside of inhabited space, there's no way to navigate, and there are no currents to ride. I think ADB refers to it in the Night Lords Trilogy when they go back to Saguelsa, which is pretty near the edge. This doesn't affect races who regularly cross the inter-galactic void, such as the Necrons or Tyranids, as they don't use the warp.

[GreenScorpion]

To be honest it is mostly related with the fact that humans haven't had the time or willpower to go beyond their galaxy of origin, as warp travel would be difficult, if not impossible and reaching the edge of the astronomican was trouble enough in most fluff, with people going mad as they got close to the edge of the void.
Tyranids have supposedly been travelling for eons, way longer than mankind exists on 40k, so it is natural that they have been able to travel longer distances, but they were doing such travels in stasis, as being awake for that long would consume many resources.

For humans it would like require the usage of some sort of cryogenic sleep for the ship's crews and the time to travel would be just too long to have any meaning in the 40k setting.

[Closet Skeleton]

 

 

IIRC, the Lore on the Tyranids is that they were created by the Old Ones when several Galaxies on from ours, they discovered an enemy they couldn't defeat. Unfortunately the Tyranids were too effective, turned on their creators and are working their way backwards along the Old Ones path. 

 

Where did that come from? Afaik Tyranid origins have always been a bit mysterious other than being extra galactic?

 

Im not sure what adding more galaxies really adds though, there is still a mysterious edge and loads of stuff in the middle, its just bigger and really awkward to draw maps of

 

There's no official lore on the Tyranids being created by anyone or of the Old Ones ever leaving this galaxy. The Tyranids spread out from their original galaxy in multiple directions, took over multipe galaxies and spread out from them, so the Tyranids near our galaxy are a potentially a tiny irrelevant fraction of the Tyranids.

[MARK0SIAN]

I had always wondered about whether the chaos powers were tied to just our Galaxy or if they were more universal. The way I rationalised it in my head was that the Chaos powers are inextricably linked to the species that created them and as those species were limited to the Milky Way then so too must the chaos powers be. That’s not to say the warp doesn’t exist elsewhere or other warp powers don’t exist but that they too would be similarly bound to the species that created them.

 

From a story telling point of view, the Galaxy is easily big enough to contain all the events and storylines that the setting could ever need. Plus, having the setting bordered by this great unknown area outside the Galaxy is a great literary/storytelling device in itself. It allows them to do things like the extra-galactic tyranids or silent king storylines and also solves the problem of the Galaxy possibly being a too big an area for a setting because it makes it seem tiny compared to the vastness of what surrounds it.

[Subtleknife]

I was always under the impression from old lore that ftl travel was not possible far from the milky way due to a psychic darkness/lack of astronomican.Furthermore, look at the troops under the command of Solar Macharius, they crumbled in fear at the prospect of exploring without the emperors light and refused to follow him. Edited January 18, 2021 by Subtleknife

[Xenith]

Generally, because the setting is focussed on the strife of the Imperium of Man, and as far as we know, that only extended as far as the Milky Way. 

[battle captain corpus]

....there's also the fact that the Astronomicon can only light so far...after that? That be where monsters lie!

 

BCC

[JeffJedi]

A galaxy is small enough to easily understand and care about. A million worlds of the Imperium under attack. Send help from Imperial Guard and Space Marines. Star Wars and Star Trek all tend to stick to one Galaxy.

 

A planet a Trillion Light Years away? I think they'd be on their own.

[Tyriks]

For travel between galaxies to be feasible in any meaningful amount of time they'd have to be able to cross the milky way much faster and more reliably which would make this a very different setting. But the space between Milky Way and Andromeda is something like 25 times the size of the Milky Way so even if warp travel was the same it'd be something like 20 years or more in the warp to get there.

[Marshal Rohr]

The distance to the closest galaxy is 1/4 the distance of the Milky Way (closest galaxy is 25K Light years, Milky Way is ~100K light years across) It’s not a matter of distance it’s a matter of ability. No ships in 40K can travel at the speed of light, and the Astronomican doesn’t even reach to the edges of the Milky Way. Besides the Imperium is a million worlds, and the Milky Way has like millions and millions of stars, each potentially having planetary bodies. There is no reason to add millions and millions of more planets with nothing happening.

 

 

Edit: the 40K universe is ‘small’ because of the limitations of the miniatures company managing the IP to flesh it out in models and races. It’s not ‘small’ because it’s actually small.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Marshal Rohr

[Indefragable]

I think making the galaxy a "closed space" mostly is also a way of upping the stakes - we're fighting over this finite number of inhabitable planets and moons, if we destroy these, there's nowhere to run to

 

^This.

 

Also, I think the closest real-world analogy would be the ancient Polynesian cultures, but magnified to literally astronomical scales. You know how big the Pacific Ocean is? Answer: REALLY FREAKIN' BIG. Imagine crossing that in canoes*. Now magnify everything about that thought process only you have to bring the air to breath with you as well. And that's what it would be like trying to go from one galaxy to the next. The only craft even feasible to make the attempt would be an Eldar Craftworld, and even then it would be a stretch.

 

...really puts the Tyranid threat in perspective

 

I imagine that the Tyranid invasion is only 1/2 its true size, maybe even only a 1/3 of what it was when it left its previous galaxy since it cannibalized its own biomass to make the journey. 

 

 

*historically it was more sophisticated then that, but for the sake of this convo I'm making a point

Edited January 18, 2021 by Indefragable

[Tyriks]

The distance to the closest galaxy is 1/4 the distance of the Milky Way (closest galaxy is 25K Light years, Milky Way is ~100K light years across) It’s not a matter of distance it’s a matter of ability. No ships in 40K can travel at the speed of light, and the Astronomican doesn’t even reach to the edges of the Milky Way. Besides the Imperium is a million worlds, and the Milky Way has like millions and millions of stars, each potentially having planetary bodies. There is no reason to add millions and millions of more planets with nothing happening.

Edit: the 40K universe is ‘small’ because of the limitations of the miniatures company managing the IP to flesh it out in models and races. It’s not ‘small’ because it’s actually small.

You are correct, I was only looking at spiral galaxies.

[Jukkiz]

could be because of familiarity of our solar system and making more, how to say... "closer" for you or others to imagine and thereforce more acceptable in our minds.

[Halandaar]

Lots of good points above so I'm going to present a slightly different take; I kind of get why people might be tempted to look beyond the Milky Way, because I think the galaxy is probably made to feel artificially small by the relatively small amount of known races, factions and even flora and fauna.

 

The Milky Way is thousands of millions of stars surrounded by a near incomprehensible number of worlds and moons, each with its own possibility of independent organic life, yet you could pretty much summarise 40k as "humans Vs bad humans Vs green humans vs tall humans Vs fishy humans Vs robo humans Vs demon humans Vs nightmare-cthulu-monsters".

 

The Aspects of Eldar mythology? Weirdly a bunch of creatures from Earth. The most prominent example of alien fauna in the 40k range? Literally just big wolves.

 

Worst of all, the same humans and bad humans keep cropping up all over the place as if a 50-thousand light year journey is actually just a quick boost down the M4. Fenris might as well be Bristol for how far from Terra it feels. All this serves to make what should be a massive setting with infinite possibilities feel uncomfortably small, so I can understand to an extent why people might be tempted to look to other galaxies.

[roryokane]

I was always under the impression from old lore that ftl travel was not possible far from the milky way due to a psychic darkness/lack of astronomican.Furthermore, look at the troops under the command of Solar Macharius, they crumbled in fear at the prospect of exploring without the emperors light and refused to follow him.

To be fair that's because it's meant to be a literal parallel of Alexander the Great's troops mutinying against him and refusing to go any further when they got to India.

[Marshal Rohr]

Lots of good points above so I'm going to present a slightly different take; I kind of get why people might be tempted to look beyond the Milky Way, because I think the galaxy is probably made to feel artificially small by the relatively small amount of known races, factions and even flora and fauna.

 

The Milky Way is thousands of millions of stars surrounded by a near incomprehensible number of worlds and moons, each with its own possibility of independent organic life, yet you could pretty much summarise 40k as "humans Vs bad humans Vs green humans vs tall humans Vs fishy humans Vs robo humans Vs demon humans Vs nightmare-cthulu-monsters".

 

The Aspects of Eldar mythology? Weirdly a bunch of creatures from Earth. The most prominent example of alien fauna in the 40k range? Literally just big wolves.

 

Worst of all, the same humans and bad humans keep cropping up all over the place as if a 50-thousand light year journey is actually just a quick boost down the M4. Fenris might as well be Bristol for how far from Terra it feels. All this serves to make what should be a massive setting with infinite possibilities feel uncomfortably small, so I can understand to an extent why people might be tempted to look to other galaxies.

It stands to reason if bipedal mammals worked on earth any other Goldilocks zone planet has a chance of evolving something similar.