Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 provides a fantastic on-ramp into the deep world of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise. Originally created nearly 40 years ago, Warhammer 40,000 is the flagship franchise for British games company Games Workshop. Although Warhammer 40,000 is a miniatures war game first and foremost, it's ed by a deep universe of stories and lore built up through rulebooks, novels, video games, and comics. One unique aspect to Warhammer 40,000 is that there's no true starting place for jumping into the world of the game - every novel, every video game, and every rulebook is intended to be an entry point into the franchise.
While Space Marine 2 is a sequel to a 2011 video game, it's also a fine entry point for those either jumping into Warhammer 40,000 for the first time or interested in learning more about the franchise. However, if Space Marine 2 is your first dive into the world of Warhammer 40,000, there may be some nuances you're missing about the world of the game. Below are some great lore facts you need to know as you play through the world of Warhammer 40,000.
1 Warhammer 40,000 Is Technically A Spinoff
Warhammer 40,000 Isn't The First Warhammer Game, Just The Most Popular
Warhammer 40,000 isn't Games Workshop's first Warhammer game. It's a spinoff of Warhammer Fantasy, a fantasy-themed miniatures game featuring traditional armies like elves, orcs, and humans. Many aspects of Warhammer Fantasy crossed into Warhammer 40,000 - the elves and orcs both have factions within Warhammer 40,000, as do the forces of Chaos that plague humanity. Dwarves also originally appeared in Warhammer 40,000 as Squats, but they eventually "disappeared" and were revealed to have been eaten by the Tyranids.
Games Workshop still maintains a fantasy line of games, although Warhammer Fantasy was eventually replaced by Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, which is set in a different realm and features the forces of order battling back against the forces of chaos. However, Warhammer Fantasy lives on through Total War: Warhammer 3 and the Warhammer: The Old World miniatures game.
2 Space Marines Have Two Hearts
Space Marines Have Extra Organs To Help Them Fight
Space Marines are the top defenders of humanity in the world of Warhammer 40,000, but they're also significantly more than humans. When a person is chosen to become a Space Marine, they're subjected to extreme genetic manipulation and surgery. Those that survive are implanted with 19 additional organs, including a second heart. That heart helps Space Marines survive grievous wounds and s the Space Marine's larger-than-normal body and weight.
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In addition to a second heart, Space Marines also have specialized organs that allow them to better interface with their Power Armor. Every Space Marine also carries a gene-seed, an organ that can be harvested from their body and used to cultivate the organs needed to create more Space Marines. As such, one of the responsibilities of a Space Marine is to ensure that their fallen brethren have their gene-seeds harvested so that their Space Marine line can live on.
3 The Imperium Of Man Are Not The Good Guys
There Are No Good Guys In Warhammer 40,000
One very important fact to about Warhammer 40,000 is that none of the factions are "good." Each faction has some kind of fatal flaw, representing the nihilism and grimdarkness of the setting. While Space Marines are often the protagonists of various Warhammer 40K stories, they are representative of the extremist and xenophobic philosophies of the Imperium of Man. Space Marines aren't the heroes of Warhammer 40K, they are the psychopathic shock troops for a corrupt and stagnant empire that sees its own citizens as fodder. A Space Marine chapter will complete their mission at any cost, even wiping out entire planets at the hint of supposed heresy.
The Imperium of Man as a whole is a hypocritical, contradictory faction. Psykers and other mutants are seen as a criminal offense, but the Emperor of Man was a psyker and psykers as a whole are critical to the Imperium's day-to-day functionality. And while humanity is seen as the pinnacle of perfection, most of the Imperium's most powerful forces are genetically manipulated in some way, becoming transhuman as a result.
4 The Emperor of Mankind Is An Undead Revenant
The Emperor of Mankind Is Neither Alive Nor Undead, And Requires A Thousand Souls A Day
The Imperium of Man is led by the Emperor, a supremely powerful, immortal being whose origins date back to humanity's ancient past. The Emperor created the Space Marines and tasked them with a great crusade to reunite various human colonies scattered throughout the galaxy. However, in the 30th millennium, half of the Emperor's Space Marine chapters turned traitor. This led to a galactic civil war called the Horus Heresy, named after the leader of the traitors. Horus was ultimately defeated, but the Emperor of Mankind was mortally wounded.
To save the Emperor's life, he was placed inside the Golden Throne, a massive supercomputer created via alien technology. The Emperor has sat inside the Golden Throne for the last 10,000 years, neither alive nor dead. The Emperor's psychic presence powers the Astronomicon, a psychic beacon that serves as a guiding point for warp travel, but his life is maintained only by the sacrifice of 1,000 psykers per day.
5 Chaos Is The Manifestation Of Raw Emotion Inside The Warp
The Chaos Gods Are Just Emotions Taken Form
One of the primary forces that opposes the Imperium of Man are Warhammer 40K's Chaos Gods. Chaos is seen as a corrupting element that manifests as mutations, which is one of the reasons why Space Marines are so determined to stamp out "heresy" at any turn. However, the Chaos Gods aren't evil entities per se, they're the manifestation of raw emotions created by the collective psychic energy of all sentient beings. In that way, the war against Chaos is unwinnable, because as long as there are emotions, there will be Chaos in the universe.
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While the Chaos Gods are likely unkillable, they can be contained in various ways. One way is by preventing their worship, as the Chaos Gods are powered in part by active devotion and prayer. When a Chaos cultist is killed, their soul actually is consumed by the Chaos Gods, granting them more power. That's one of the reasons why the Space Marines are so devoted to rooting out heresy throughout the Imperium.
6 Mars Is Home To An Imprisoned Space God
An Imprisoned C'tan Shard Is Supposedly Locked Away On Mars
Mars is home to the Adeptus Mechanicus, the scientific and technological arm of the Imperium of Mankind. The Adeptus Mechanicus worship the Machine God, who many assume to be the Emperor of Mankind, but worship of the Machine God predates the official rise of the Emperor, and some believe that it is actually a separate entity that resides somewhere on Mars.
One leading candidate for the Omnissiah is a piece of the Void Dragon, a shard of the fallen space gods known as the C'tan. Long before the rise of humanity, the C'tan were laid low and imprisoned by 40K's Necron faction, with their divine essences shattered and used as batteries for their ancient weapons. Some believe that one of these C'tan Shards wound up on Mars, where it was imprisoned by the Emperor of Mankind (before he was known as the Emperor). The C'tan's power led to the rise of the Adeptus Mechanicus, adding another piece to the Emperor's grand plan for mankind.
7 The Thousand Sons Are Living Dust Storms Trapped In Armor
The Thousand Sons Are Among The Most Tragic Stories In Warhammer 40,000
As mentioned earlier, the Horus Heresy saw half of the Space Marines turn traitor and the forces of Chaos. While the traitorous Space Marines were defeated at the end of the Horus Heresy, they weren't wiped out entirely. Many Chaos Space Marines remain in the present day, including some original chapters that participated in the Horus Heresy. One such chapter is the Thousand Sons, a group of psyker Space Marines that practiced arcane sorceries. The leader of the Thousand Sons, Magnus, tried to warn the Emperor about Horus's betrayal during the early days of the conflict, but he inadvertently created a warp tear in Earth that required the Emperor's undivided attention to keep closed.
Magnus would eventually fall under Chaos's sway himself, an example of one of the many tragedies that befell the Thousand Sons. Another tragedy - when one of their leading attempted to stop a mutation that affected all of its with a ritual, he transformed the entire Chaos Space Marine chapter into living dust clouds trapped within their own armor. Keep that in mind as the Thousand Sons appear in Space Marine 2.
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9 AI Is Known As Abominable Intelligence In Warhammer 40K
There Are No Robots In The Imperium Of Man
AI is all the rage these days, but the Imperium of Man looks at artificial intelligence a bit differently. AI is known as "abominable intelligence" and is strictly forbidden across the Imperium. While robots were common during the so-called "Dark Age of Technology" during mankind's ancient past, the robots rebelled and were banned as a result. While there are a few examples of AI still existing during 40K's modern era, AI is considered one of the greatest crimes in the Imperium.
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The lack of AI is the reason why servitors are so common across the Imperium. These cyborgs are humans forcibly outfitted with machine parts to help with hard labor, but lack any real free will. Ironically, the Adeptus Mechanicus also believes in "machine spirits," which are separate from AI but rather represent the souls of machinery that require constant supplication to keep machines working.
10 The Tyranids Have Already Infiltrated Humanity
Nefarious Genestealer Cults Are On Countless Planets
The Tyranids are the main antagonists of Space Marine 2, a strange alien species with the ability to adapt to any threat and exists only to consume. While Space Marine 2 demonstrates some of the many ways that the Tyranids can conquer a planet through sheer overwhelming numbers, they have another tool in their arsenal that's even deadlier - the Genestealer Cults.
On their surface, Genestealer Cults appear to be average heretics who worship an alien god. In reality, the Genestealers are sent by Tyranids to infiltrate a world and initiate a hostile takeover of the planet. Genestealers disrupt and sabotage a planet, aiming to cripple its defenses and ultimately conquer it from within. When a Genestealer Cult is successful, they signal for a Tyranid Hive Fleet to come to the planet and consume everything, including loyal of their cult.
