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Warhammer 40,000/Tropes/I to P: Difference between revisions
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* [[Julius Beethoven Da Vinci]]: The Emperor is likely to have been Alexander the Great (his flagship is called the Bucephalus), among numerous other historical figures (or at least [[Magnificent Bastard|stole their stories to ease his transition to power]]).
* [[Just Eat Him]]: What the Tyranids do.
* [[Just Plane Wrong]]: As it's prone to doing, ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' takes this [[Up to Eleven]]; depending on the source, those stumpy Imperial fighters with leading edges a scale foot thick and bombers that look like the bastard offspring of a B-17 and an Abrams are ''single step to orbit spaceships'' which are just as at home fighting in the vacuum of space as they are in atmosphere. Even [http://
** Most are modeled to resemble WWII propeller fighters but with jets instead of propellers, yet they supposedly can achieve speeds in excess of Mach 2. Take the Imperial Navy's air fighters. Real world aerodynamics would conspire to prevent this (though ridiculously tough 40K materials in turn would conspire to prevent real life aerodynamics); though enough brute force can make anything fly, it has rather greater trouble making anything ''turn'' (you don't put the engine in the front in supersonic fighters, because it moves the Center of Weight fore of the center of pressure, and would make the fighter so stable in supersonic flight that no amount of control force would allow it to maneuver). Let's not even get started on the Orks, Chaos and Dark Eldar aircraft, this entry would reach monstrous proportions (well, more monstrous then it already has). The only aircraft that could maybe fly, and that's a very big maybe, are the Eldar and Tau. And that excludes [http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Tau/TAU-AIRCRAFT/TAU-ORCA-DROPSHIP.html that Tau dropship that looks like gussied-up cinderblock], obviously.
*** The Ork planes don't fly because they make sense, they fly because the Ork themselves think they can fly, in the same manner their trukks run faster when painted red.
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** It's probably worth remembering that the Imperials, Eldar and Tau have anti-gravity technology, and the last two make extensive use of it. It's probably safe to say that this technology negates the need for aerodynamic structures somehow.
*** Eldar and Tau are not so big offenders. And while the Imperials use anti-gravity technology the fluff for the last three editions clearly states that it's used only} on the Land Speeder. Besides no amount of anti-gravity will prevent air-resistance, and the problem with Imperial aircraft is that they are not streamlined enough to reach their Mach 2+ maximum velocities given in fluff.
**** It's ''explicitly, primarily'' used on the Land Speeder...
** Valkyrie can hover, but doesn't look like it either has takeoff engines placed for VTOL (like the nose thruster on Thunderhawk) or its big engines could bend vector thrust this much (like a convertoplane). Antigravity? But if you look into details, there are also questions like "why the multilaser would be limited to powerpack, if there's clearly enough of power on board to recharge?" and so on.
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* [[Kick the Dog]]: Everyone, to everything, all the time.
* [[Kill'Em All]]: This one was a no-brainer.
* [[Killer Rabbit]]: The Catachan Barking Toad, a large, [http://uk.games-workshop.com/download/popup.htm?/warhammer40000/creature-feature/images/toad-big.jpg sad-looking amphibian] sometimes dubbed the [[Memetic Mutation|"Ronery Toad"]]. If attacked, hurt or even surprised, it [[Taking You with Me|explodes into a cloud of obscenely virulent toxins]], killing absolutely everything
* [[Kill It with Fire]]: ''Imperial government policy'' towards ''everything.'' The Salamanders chapter of Space Marines and the Witch Hunters specialize in fire based weapons. The Sororitas are also [[Burn the Witch|very fond]] of flame-based weaponry. On the Eldar side, the Fire Dragons kill tanks with fire, specifically with fusion guns and firepikes.
* [[Killed Off for Real]]: GW's [[Old Shame]], the Squats.
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** The [[Asskicking Equals Authority|commanders]] of many armies are wicked fast in combat, orders of magnitude tougher than basic infantry, and often capable of wiping out entire ''squads'' of enemy troops single-handed in melee.
** A fair number of armies' units in the first place. Space Marines in particular are consistently noted as being more agile than anyone would expect given their bulkiness and mass.
* [[Lightning Gun]]: Laser-ionization type (of course). One of the old (30k era) designs. Has [[Charged Attack]]. And then there are Lightning Cannons sized for a tank (of course).
* [[Limited Wardrobe]]: If the artwork and models are anything to go by, every single female Death Cult Assassin in the Imperium (and [[Amazon Brigade|we've yet to see a male one]]) wears the same slashed-up bodyglove, the same skull-decorated corset, and the same [[Combat Stilettos|high-heeled boots]], and is armed with either the same katana or the same pair of daggers. And nine times out of ten, they'll be wearing the same gimp hood and have the same bionic eye, to boot.
* [[Living Labyrinth]]
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* [[Low Culture, High Tech]]: Orks and Humans, due to the various scavenged and Lost Tech.
* [[Luck Manipulation Mechanic]]: In the ''[[Warhammer 40000]] Trading Card Game'', numbers are printed on the cards, so a 'random' number is generated by revealing the top card of your deck. Naturally, this opens up plenty of combo opportunities with abilities that let you know (or even choose) what that next card will be.
== M ==
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*** In Second Edition, rather than simply firing twice per round, the Cyclone came pre-loaded with twelve krak missiles, and the Terminator carrying it could launch any number he wanted at a time: meaning, if he wanted, he could trigger all twelve at once for a truly Macross-y rain of death. However, the Cyclone was also prone to potentially disastrous<ref>(and hilarious)</ref> misfires if the Terminator carrying it was hit.
* [[Mad Oracle]]: Precognition is a fairly well-known power of psykers, but carries with it [[The Dark Side]]. Aside from the Eldar, [[The Dark Side]] seems to win more often than not with would-be prophets.
* [[Mad Scientist]]: A great many Imperial tech-priests fall into this, though arguably ''all'' tech-priests are insane [[Cargo Cult|by]] [[Machine Worship|modern]] [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul|standards]] - and those of them who "go too far" and wind up branded Hereteks and hunted down tend to be far crazier. Non-Imperial examples include Fabius Bile, Dark Eldar Haemonculi, and Ork Painboyz and Mekboyz (also known, appropriately enough, as Mad Doks and Mekaniaks respectively).
* [[Made a Slave]]: All sorts of people. Orks enslave, Dark Eldar enslave, Chaos forces enslave: even Imperial Space Marines have slaves to do work that a Space Marine is not needed for (though the Marines' slaves are generally failed Marine candidates who somehow survived washing out, and are often [[Happiness in Slavery|more than happy to help]], since they're ''still'' in a better position than the vast majority of Imperial citizens).
** Imperial propaganda paints humans who join the Tau Empire as this, while the Tau propaganda paints them as becoming freed from the miserable existence of the Imperium. The actual result is likely somewhere in between, though which side it leans more toward varies on a case-by-case basis.
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* [[Made of Plasticine]]
* [[Magic Is a Monster Magnet]]: Psykers risk having their brains eaten every time they use their [[Psychic Powers]].
**
* [[Magic Knight]]: Space Marine Librarians, Chaos Sorcerers, Eldar Warlocks, some militant psyker orders training with force weapons... the Grey Knights are a whole ''army'' of these.
* [[Magic Misfire]]: Perils of the Warp.
* [[Magitek]]: Mostly the Eldar and the Necrons, though Imperial <ref>wards, Psyocculum, force weapons, psycannons, Null rods, Animus speculum... and there's a whole order of Techsorcists who study how machines interact with Warp - both sorting out effects of corruption and more arcane and creative sides</ref> and Chaos gear <ref>possessed weapons and vehicles, mostly</ref> crosses into this sometimes.
* [[The Magnificent]]: Kharn the Betrayer, Abaddon the Despoiler, and Scyrak the Slaughterer, among others.
* [[Man-Eating Plant]]: Crop up all the time on [[Death World
* [[Man in the Machine]]: Space Marine Dreadnoughts, Ork Deff Dredz and Killa Kanz.
* [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]]: 40k loves this one, given how blurry the line between magic and technology tends to be.
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* [[A Mech by Any Other Name]]: Dreadnoughts, Wraithlords, Gargants, Titans, Crisis Suits, etc.
* [[Medieval Stasis]]: Most of the races in the 41st millennium have been in a state of technological stagnation for thousands of years. Also literal on many worlds.
** The Imperium bans any
** The Eldar are in a decline, with all their efforts focused on keeping their immortal race alive.
** The Necrons are a machine race that are basically mindless outside of their Lords, and have been asleep for the past 65 million years.
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* [[Mutant Draft Board]]: The Adeptus Astra Telepathica, responsible for human psykers.
* [[My Country, Right or Wrong]]: The Imperial Guard sometimes gets this treatment, especially when they're the antagonists.
* [[My Significance Sense Is Tingling]]: Psykers can sometimes feel the psychic backlash of mass deaths or other strange events in the Warp. They can also detect the warp shadow of an oncoming Tyranid hive fleet... often by going insane and dying.
* [[Mystical Plague]]: Nurgle mages get these kinds of spells.
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** Also names like Decapitator or the Red Terror.
** Dark Eldar get in on this, too. Lelith Hesperax, Urien Rakarth, and Asdrubael Vect, Supreme Lord of the Kabal of the Black Heart are all about as nice as they sound.
* [[Nanomachines]]: Autosanguinator implants (traditional) have blood filled with injury-repairing machines. Core Gel (widely used where it's needed, but still contested by some tech-priests) temporarily provides universal interface via application to skin. Bioforging (unequivocally heretical, as it causes genetic damage) grows subdermal armour, increases general toughness and
* [[Necessarily Evil]]: Imperial servants in general, and Inquisitors in particular, knowingly and willingly do horrible things to innocent people on a regular basis because the consequences for ''not'' doing so could be catastrophic for humanity as a whole.
* [[Neglectful Precursors]]: Strangely enough, inverted as it's more like neglectful ''moderners''. Back in the golden age of technology, people were smart enough to create standard template constructs (STCs). Anyone who had one could build anything from a house to a tank if the situation required, regardless of ability or technology. Ten thousand years later, these same items created millennia ago are still in use, but the massive galaxy-spanning Imperium appears to be having trouble finding the things.
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*** Or gift said systems to the blueprints' finders.
* [[New Technology Is Evil]]: A cornerstone of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
** Ask any two Magi and you'll get at least two answers, though. It ranges from They all believe in the existing rituals of construction and maintenance, most believe in reverse engineering, enough believe in "respectful improvement" that new weapons do emerge, and they sometimes fight each other over whether xenos tech can be studied and recreated in a "purified" form or is just a blasphemy against the Machine-God.
* [[Nice Hat]]: Commissars', though [[Bad Boss|the wearers aren't.]]
* [[Nietzsche Wannabe]]: And they're the unbelievably and naively ''optimistic'' in this setting. Be honest and ask yourself what's worse: a cold and uncaring universe, or a universe actively out to get you?
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* [[Officer and a Gentleman]]: The Imperial ideal. True to real life, many are also corrupt, incompetent, treasonous, or all-around bastards.
* [[Offscreen Villain Dark Matter]]: Ten thousand years of continuous war, and the Traitor Marines are ''still'' in bolter shells. This has been made somewhat less ridiculous in recent fluff, with mention of Chaos forge worlds, and a change in focus towards Renegade (recently-corrupted) Marines to distract from the question of how the original Traitor Legions even still ''exist''. And since they do reside in the Eye of Terror, where "physics" is even more of a joke than elsewhere, they have ''literal'' [[Offscreen Villain Dark Matter]].
* [[The Ogre]]: Ogryns of the Imperial Guard, armed with automatic shotguns designed to be equally useful as giant clubs (they will use any weapons like this, Ripper Guns are built to withstand such treatment).
** Feral World Ogryns, from the abhuman rules in ''White Dwarf'', don't even get the shotguns.
* [[Oh Crap]]: The general logical conclusion from infantry squads taking a leadership test in the tabletop. While some examples are psychic powers messing with them, it's otherwise watching the rest of their squad get killed horribly and/or in quick succession and reasonably figuring that they'll be next.
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*** Horus killing Sanguinius for refusing to join him before the final fight with the Emperor.
** [[Promotion to Parent]]: Roboute Guilliman essentially promoted himself after the Emperor's death/ascension/interment.
** [[Rage Against the Mentor]]: Alpharius, against Roboute Guilliman, although Alpharius admitted nothing more than a pragmatic indifferance to his brother's boasting. Other examples include Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the [[Imperial Fists]], masters of
*** Perhaps the biggest example of this trope is that of Horus and Abaddon. Abaddon looked up to Horus, and his loyalty (before and during the Heresy) was greater than any other...except for when Horus eventually loses the siege of Terra and Abaddon starts having second thoughts. Cue taking immediate command of all chaos forces and retreating back to the Eye of Terror, thus coining the phrase "Horus was weak, Horus was a fool". Such was his hatred of Horus's weakness, Abaddon renamed the Sons of Horus legion to the Black Legion and, upon hearing about even the potential to clone Horus, launched an all out attack to destroy the project. Not that Abaddon has done much better than Horus... [[Failure Is the Only Option|13 Black crusades later and not an awful lot has changed...]]
* [[People Jars]]: How you get a new [[Super Soldier|Space Marine]] Chapter, amongst other things.
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* [[Plot Armor]]: All races to an extent but some tend to have more than others. The most extreme example of this trope are the Tau, which earns them a certain degree of hate from the fan base.
* [[Plucky Comic Relief]]: You know you're on the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|extreme end on the cynical side of the scale]] when this role is filled by the [[Blood Knight|rampaging, murderous hordes of Orks]], whose idea of a good time is to indiscriminately kill anything, including each other, and introducing people's internal organs to daylight.
* [[The Political Officer]]: Commissars.
* [[Politically Incorrect Hero]]: Subversion in that the Imperium is only considered heroic in comparison to the other factions in the galaxy.
* [[Politically-Incorrect Villain]]: Considering the trope listed above, it's more like Politically Incorrect ''Everyone''.
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** Slaanesh is literally the god of [[Power Perversion Potential]]. If you're a servant of Slaanesh who ''doesn't'' use the god's Gifts in this way, you're doing it wrong.
* [[Powered Armour|Power Armour]]: Ubiquitous.
** Imperial: Varies from what-it-says-on-the-tin man-sized suits of armour that can carry themselves and protect against conventional small arms, to the ridiculous terminator armour (or tactical dreadnought armour) that's
** Chaos: As above, corrupted by the forces of [[Spikes of Villainy|spiky Chaos]] and pulsating with daemonic energies, screaming faces and trophy racks of skulls . Also, might involve horns and tentacles.
** Eldar: Advanced body-suits made out of living plastic covered in gems, can change shape according to the will of the user and frequently come with psychically activated helmet-mounted nasties. Generally doesn't enhance strength but can come with integrated weapons. Can also come equipped with holographic generators, which let them dance around while the enemy think they're somewhere else, which while being utter genius, is useless against someone blasting you with a tank (In theory).
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