The Imperium of Man is... really strange. I think it's one of the things which makes it so powerful and appealing. You have this bizarrely futuristic, medieval universe where theology and genetics are all mixed up together. One of the aspects which has always appealed to me the most in this bizarre landscape of oddities is the population carrying on their business. There's an aspect of body horror and existential fear to Imperial citizens, with augmetic tools of their profession sometimes grafted right onto their bodies, but I think that the humanity of these everyday folk is really quite charming. One of the silliest things about an overwhelmingly silly era of 40k lore is the ludicrous assertion that the Imperium's million worlds are ALLLLLLL at war. One of the things I always found so appealing about the Imperium in past years was that most Imperial citizens live reasonably peaceful lives: the Imperium, for all of its thousands of wars, is proportionally much more peaceful than our turbulent modern world. This meant that there were always people going about their peculiar everyday lives, worried less about the xenos and more about job security or being liked or being able to go on holiday this year.
These two characters are among my favourite for exemplifying the bizarre diversity and strangeness of the Imperial citizenry. The models are both Inquisitorial acolytes, neither are combatants, so I like to imagine them as people in everyday life. I don't think either is a servitor despite their augmentations: the chap with the unwinding scrolls has a robe and accouterments rather too ornate for the Imperium's lobotomized slave class. Instead, I see both men as some kind of ancillary Administratum functionary.
The more heavyset man I think of as an archivist: the augmetic speak grille allows him to replay audio files on request, and the great rolls of parchment are for printing out dataslates when necessary. I imagine that he spends the majority of his time cataloging, tagging, and filing data. That it might be pointless data never occurs to this bloke: all data is important as far as he's concerned. When a colleague comes to him with a request for a file to be recalled and printed, he thoroughly examines their ID and makes a record even if he knows them well. He does this not to be a bore but because the data of how and when the data was accessed is in itself no less vital than the records themselves. Maybe, if we take the model's original purpose into account, that's why he ended up with an Inquisitor: someone was making very suspicious requests which, when he reported them, helped the Inquisitor to crack open a monstrous heretical plot.
The other character I see as a notary. His augmetics were offered to him to heighten an already formidable accuracy and attention to detail which made him stand out from the other Administratum clerks in his division. A fastidious man, he accepted the upgrades. In meetings of senior Imperial personnel, the notary stands in the corner, his hands a blur as he takes down in cyphered shorthand, not just the words spoken but the relative positions, body language, and tone of the speakers. When not in meetings, he faithfully translates an exacting report of the events without bias or prejudice. Outside of his working hours, the notary spends most evenings in a small but clean and well-ordered hab. He enjoys reading histories and books of science.
And that's the great thing about the stranger characters in 40k, whether they be models of art pieces - you can well imagine history and personality for them!
No comments:
Post a Comment