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How do!

Nice open topic this one, inspired by a comment on another thread, where the PDF of feudal worlds came up. And this for me is a topic where my opening guff is purely speculation. Please don’t take any of what follows as gospel. It’s just intended as some talking points to get the ball rolling.

But it got me thinking. Even in an empire as vast as The Imperium, surely a Feudal World is at the very least an under exploited resource? In the grand scheme of things, and compared to other Imperial Worlds, its natural resources may well be more abundant. Certainly not as depleted as Industrial or Hive Worlds.

An argument could be made that particularly for Astartes Chapters, they make useful recruitment worlds, the natives being used to greater hardship and use of initiative than many other types of worlds. But surely not on the same level as a Deathworld?

I for one just don’t understand why a Feudal World (not bagsied by a Chapter) isn’t simply transformed into an Agri-World or Industrial World?

Remember, just some talking points to provide some vague focus. Now it’s your turn.

For thread clarity.

Are you considering both feral and feudal worlds (as implied by your text) or strictly feudal worlds?

There is a distinction.

I think more Feudal Worlds, as they’re that odd point between primitive and advanced, being not quite one or the other.

Possibly not worth the investment. Remember that a feral world was able to build a Lunar Class Cruiser - if they can do that as-is, is there any point 'upgrading' them?

The local nobility likely finds a primitive world easier to control. A cheap autogun or lasgun is basically an invincible divine weapon in such world and they control all the guns.

The IoM meanwhile simply doesn't care. It isn't known for investing in planets unless said planets are in some advantageus strategic position that warrants the investment. And most worlds aren't in such position.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think more Feudal Worlds, as they’re that odd point between primitive and advanced, being not quite one or the other.

Gotcha.

It is an odd one, as in our own example we passed through "feudal" (in the 40k planet classification sense, not the strict sense of feudalism) in a timeframe >1000 years but I'd say less than ten thousand. That would suggest most Imperial feudal worlds should have advanced to civilised by the time of 40k without outside influence (esp. as the Ad Mech doesn't usually care about "primitive" tech development).

Having said that, feudal worlds are rare, some feral worlds would have become feudal, and local planetary conditions and external pressures may prevent development.

In addition, feudal worlds rarely seem to also be worlds with significant mineral resources to extract, as these tend to get rapidly developed as mining worlds and generally have an industrial technology base. I am sure they do sometimes get converted into agri worlds though- the Imperium tends to exhaust existing agri worlds then build new ones.

To be honest, most feudal worlds are probably backwaters with little value beyond military tithes of manpower, that are part of the Imperium more symbolically than meaningfully.

It's entirely possible that a feudal world is short on one or more crucial resources that would allow an industrial society to spring up. Like coal and/or oil. Unless you can convince the Admech to cough up a bunch of fusion reactors or solar arrays, you're kind of screwed for energy supply needed to industrialize.

Because in the end 40k has got a strong fantasy vibe and what best way to make it manifest than having literal middle age in your sci fi!

Other than the fact it's cool, lorewise, I'd agree with the idea that these are worlds that wouldn't be profitable to actual exploit for one reason or another.

Hypothesis: could a few of them be kept as such by the Imperium to make hardy soldiers? At least I imagine you could fancy it and make a personnal story around it and still be lore-friendly.

Finally, I'd like to highlights the Imperial Knights on certain feudal world. The knights' pilots are the ruling class. Since feudal mindset and excessive conservatism are engrained into their mind, they will therefore tend to keep progress as minimal as possible on their world. See the example of Alaric for example.

However these are only some feudal wrolds so this is not enough to explain the phenomenon at large, I agree.

The Imperium isn't in the business of maximising potential or uplifting worlds, it needs the bare minimum results to sustain itself mostly because it's so decrepit it can't do anything else.

A Feudal world exists because it's enough to provide a tithe of some sort and exists as yet another example of mankind's dominance of the galaxy.

Personally the Imperium is to decentralized of an entity to directly govern every single world within its domain which is why in most cases planetary governors are given free reign to rule their world as they see fit as long as they meet their tithe quotas and remain loyal (most planetary governors being from the world they govern would generally keep things the way they always have been).

On top of that there is the logistical side of it (which we all know the Imperium is THE BEST at logistics!!!). Say there is a isolated feudal world and it's discovered that the world is rich in a valuable mineral but also has a relatively low population with technology unsuitable to harvest the resource, in order to extract that mineral in any significant quantities the Imperium would need to mobilize and supply significant manpower, vehicles, equipment, technology, training, ships, navigators, time and money just to begin harvesting all of which would probably take decades at least as well as setting up the infrastructure to support all of this new industry. And the pay off would have to be absolutely MASSIVE to justify that, never mind the forces needed to protect those assets in route to and from this isolated world as well as protecting the harvest.

And that's all assuming some clerk in The Administratum doesn't accidently hit a 2 instead of a 3 and sends all of those resources into the middle of a warzone instead of the intended planet!

beast_gts wrote:
Remember that a feral world was able to build a Lunar Class Cruiser - if they can do that as-is, is there any point 'upgrading' them?

Can I have more info on this?

-Guardsman- wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
Remember that a feral world was able to build a Lunar Class Cruiser - if they can do that as-is, is there any point 'upgrading' them?

Can I have more info on this?

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Lord_Daros

From the Battlefleet Gothic lore. The feral worlders merely mined materials, the ship was actually built in orbit, presumably by a more typical shipyard under Ad Mech supervision.

I imagine feudal worlds are kinda like Goa'uld worlds in the Stargate SG1 show.

Poor and primitive people using primitive tools to mine minerals for their far more technologically advanced overlords.

Oh man that's exactly what it is.

Another point, just as there are worlds not worth investing resources in to uplift; don't forget that a lot of the Imperium runs on local politics and resources. So it might well be that some feudal worlds are simply nestled within the territory of a regional governor who simply hasn't got the finances to uplift the world.

If the planet isn't strategically or minerally important to the central powers, then regional ruling powers are left to their own devices.

Heck there might even be political reasons that they'd snub/ignore/otherwise not want to invest in the world. It could even be something insanely ancient, some old feud between two worlds and the winning one has simply kept the status going for generations



The interesting part is feudal worlds themselves not causing their own uplift. Of course when you consider how technology is viewed and taught this can explain much of how new, different, not authorised inventions could be suppressed to keep a feudal world from developing naturally on its own. Missing key resources, influence from outside powers (do you really want to consider that world on the fringe inhabited by poor famers; could one day rise in power to rival your own world's dominance of a local system - best just keep them "caged" in a feudal era)

Another potential reason that a world stays at the feudal level for a while is that it’s on the waiting list for development. As vast as it is, the Imperium is not going to be able to do everything that is needed right away.

Even worlds with strategically important materials on it would be stacked up for later exploitation when existing supplies become a bit more scarce. So you plant a simple colony, put some infrastructure in orbit to stake the claim and deter raiders, and otherwise leave the colony to it. If they get on well, great and development happens naturally and maybe the resources are a bit easier to get to in due course with minimal external assistance. If things go badly, then back to the dark ages until Sector Command can get around to sending relief ships.

Another alternative is the good old warp storm gambit. A planet gets cut off from outside assistance for centuries or millennia and it regresses, rather like Caliban.

 Tyran wrote:
The local nobility likely finds a primitive world easier to control. A cheap autogun or lasgun is basically an invincible divine weapon in such world and they control all the guns.

This. Knight worlds are the perfect example. Their rulers like to LARP as medieval kings and the Imperium's bureaucracy doesn't care as long as the tithes are paid.

Heck this is a setting so vast with certain power groups having such insane wealth that some of the more, tame, regions might even just flat out have "LARPING" Worlds. Or rather holiday worlds where the rich can go relax whilst being a king for a few years (not forgetting regeneration programs means some of the ruling cast will live for centuries, so what's 5-10 years running around being king and having fun when you're young).


Heck in Necromunda some of the ruling cast dress up in super-power-armour and go fight in the underhive for sport; and the Underhive, whilst not fully medieval in tech, is vastly behind the upper spires in tech

Yeah, so while it has some sci-fi applications, I always thought this was a blatant crossover kind of thing, encouraging WHFB players to dip their toes into 40k.

The 2nd ed codexes are full of crossover units. It was one of the cool things about the GW game universe before it went full-on Gordon Gekko.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
The local nobility likely finds a primitive world easier to control. A cheap autogun or lasgun is basically an invincible divine weapon in such world and they control all the guns.

This. Knight worlds are the perfect example. Their rulers like to LARP as medieval kings and the Imperium's bureaucracy doesn't care as long as the tithes are paid.

That's basically how I pictured most feudal worlds working. The imperium finds their favorite sympathetic party when bringing the planet into compliance and gives them a modest supply of tech that they can then use to maintain their authority. The imperium gets a politically stable planet, and the puppet they chose gets to be in charge.

I imagine that some feudal worlds probably have some minimal amount of advanced tech here and there. For instance, a single space elevator or landing facility so that imperial ships can scoop up some fresh air/water while they're in the neighborhood, or maybe some remote (even orbital) defenses or communication stations. The main factor (other than messy paperwork) that a feudal world remains a feudal world is probably just that no one has decided it's worth investing in yet. The imperium is big, and supplies are stretched thin. You could probably get a ton of resources if you sent some bulk haulers full of equipment to a given feudal world, but you might get even more resources sending that same equipment to a different planet or asteroid belt or whatever.

Defense is probably a consideration too. You don't want to invest in a bunch of mining equipment or whatever if you're just going to leave the equipment and supplies vulnerable to raiding xenos and heretics. So then you have to add the cost of sufficient defenses to the cost of the equipment. "Optimizing the output of feudal worlds is probably on everyone's to-do list; it's just never quite high enough on the list to actually get around to.

In a galaxy this big, there's going to be exceptions to everything, but...

I would expect that feudal worlds are those where the 'resources' the Imperium wants to exploit can be exploited without further development AND further development would also have a cost that the Imperium doesn't want to pay. That sounds vague, so let me give some examples:

A world where the resource is tithed soldiers, but one where increasing the tech level increases the odds of a rebellious society, or contamination from off-world travel (either cultural contamination or even actual mutations from advanced industry).

A world where the resource is mineralogical, but where creation of a modern, space-faring economy creates the possibility of a economic competition for those resources (if the natives can't sell offworld, there is no resistance to selling to the Imperial traders).

A world where the resource is simply a stable planet near a stable warp access point. The Imperium may conduct all their business in orbit and not need to worry about liasing with local planetary traffic at all.

Something just struck me, but I think how technology works in the Imperium could be a cause of this, mostly in cases of regression.

If you haven't got or no longer have got mechanics representative, who have taken care of all equipment and jealously kept all knowledge of it as a secret, whenever they get killed or moved away, then the world hasn't got anyone anymore actually trained at building or maintaining most technology. In that case, it must start all over again and gradually rebuild it through reason and science. Which takes time. Much time.

On worlds with techpriest complements, then the worlders are not free to do whatever they pleases I think, the local mechanics representative will "steer", or more likely watch over there potential technological progress and if someone finally finds out a super duper windmill but it's brand new and not an stc he might have the governor to make a drive by and ruin the windmill because it's tech heresy.

Finally, their are the issues with the machine spirits. If you assume that they are a very important part of the lore (I like it so I do), remember for instance that the Manticore is explicitly said to be capricious because of it's machine spirit.
In this case, if we leave the realm of logic to simply follow along the lore as written, it is possible that even with the mechanical knowledge to do so some technology is unusable without the mechanics rites. Considering how many of these buggers there are and how beliefs work in the setting that could be part amof the obstacles keeping a low tech world low tech.

Any thoughts on this?

Another thought. The thread title uses the word “persist”.

Passage of time needs to be considered as well. Taking a snapshot in time and there will be feudal worlds. Move on a few hundred years and there will still be feudal worlds, but they may be entirely different worlds.

Feudal worlds often also provide guardsmen for the Imperial Guard. Sure, the world might not have more than feudal levels of technology, but a few hours of training can teach an ignorant savage how to operate a lasgun.

So they'd still be useful for the same reason a chapter would find them useful. Hardy people used to combat conditions.


But even considering there being no incentive to keep them at a feudal level, they might persist due to any number of factors.

1) Regression as mentioned above. Perhaps a feudal world was once a vital source of materials, but the mines ran dry hundreds of years ago and the infrastructure collapsed. The remaining population regressed without steady outside support beyond the single starport where the Imperial Governor lives and whose sole function is now to occasionally raise a guard regiment from the populace, who largely squabble among themselves in petty kingdoms who are subserviant to the governor who they view as some sort of High King who rules in the name of the "God Emperor".

2) Perhaps the world is only primitive now, but there are ongoing(if slow) efforts to colonize the place. But of course its a process that takes centuries so the planet is still largely feudal with pockets of higher tech areas.

3) Perhaps the star it orbits around has a particularly strong EM field which causes interference with advanced technology. Landing shuttles and operating tech is still possible underground or at night when the surface is facing away from the sun, but for the bulk of the populace they are forced to live analog lives on the surface.

They excist to make 40k even ritcher. It is also something funny with the dark dystopian humor that some one somewhere decided that the industrial evolution was to god for that plannet.

Perhaps they are conserned for the bloom in pollution and carbon emissions. Come 200 years of industrial evolution and you get ekstreme weather not suite for much, less alone crops. (Not unlike the way the earth is heading.)

Don't industrialise and you have a rich agriculturall world.

Why do we seem to be assuming that feudal worlds are primitive? Feudalism is a socio-political construct, not a technological one. Its entirely possible (and in fact represented in some sources of fluff) that the feudal serfs are toiling in the fields and forges using the same tools and technology that their counterparts on hive and forgeworlds do. What differs is the structure of the social and political system that they serve under.

I for one, have never understood "feudal world" to automatically mean "a planet with the technology and development of Europe between the 9th and 15th century AD". Instead I've always understood it as "a world in which the local social and political systems are patterned after that of real world feudal structures, such that the masses are bound in serfdom to a manorial system ruled by an elite local nobility, and the political power structure is divided and governed by oath, fiefdom, and vassalage in a complex and interrelated web which governs resource allocation and taxation".

chaos0xomega wrote:
"the masses are bound in serfdom to a manorial system ruled by an elite local nobility, and the political power structure is divided and governed by oath, fiefdom, and vassalage in a complex and interrelated web which governs resource allocation and taxation".

That describes the social structure of a lot of worlds in the Imperium, including many industrialized or hive worlds like Necromunda. Just because they work in a factory instead of a field doesn't make them any less serfs.

I actually agree with you, but for the Imperium's world classification and taxation purposes they have defined the label "feudal world" to mean something specifically lower tech and pre-industrial. It's a textual short hand for the reader to at a glance understand what kind of stereotype to apply to the world. It's not even as detailed as for example Traveller's UWP codes.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Why do we seem to be assuming that feudal worlds are primitive? Feudalism is a socio-political construct, not a technological one. Its entirely possible (and in fact represented in some sources of fluff) that the feudal serfs are toiling in the fields and forges using the same tools and technology that their counterparts on hive and forgeworlds do. What differs is the structure of the social and political system that they serve under.

I for one, have never understood "feudal world" to automatically mean "a planet with the technology and development of Europe between the 9th and 15th century AD". Instead I've always understood it as "a world in which the local social and political systems are patterned after that of real world feudal structures, such that the masses are bound in serfdom to a manorial system ruled by an elite local nobility, and the political power structure is divided and governed by oath, fiefdom, and vassalage in a complex and interrelated web which governs resource allocation and taxation".

It’s the 40K definition of a low tech but not feral world, basically arrested at a pre-industrial technology base.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Why do we seem to be assuming that feudal worlds are primitive? Feudalism is a socio-political construct, not a technological one.

The Imperium defines feudal worlds based on technology base rather than social structure. Broadly speaking, a feudal world has a technology base that is around the level of black powder (either a bit before or a bit after).

There are worlds with a feudal socio-political structure that are more technologically advanced that the Imperium does not classify as a "feudal" world. To the Imperium, a feudal world is a world with technology between a feral world and a civilised world.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Why do we seem to be assuming that feudal worlds are primitive? Feudalism is a socio-political construct, not a technological one. Its entirely possible (and in fact represented in some sources of fluff) that the feudal serfs are toiling in the fields and forges using the same tools and technology that their counterparts on hive and forgeworlds do. What differs is the structure of the social and political system that they serve under.

I for one, have never understood "feudal world" to automatically mean "a planet with the technology and development of Europe between the 9th and 15th century AD". Instead I've always understood it as "a world in which the local social and political systems are patterned after that of real world feudal structures, such that the masses are bound in serfdom to a manorial system ruled by an elite local nobility, and the political power structure is divided and governed by oath, fiefdom, and vassalage in a complex and interrelated web which governs resource allocation and taxation".

You are technically correct. However, I don't think GW is using the term in the technically correct way. They're using in a way which the average person might use the word feudal, to describe the technology level of an area. It's not the 'correct' way to use the word, at least for now. As language changes the word feudal will almost certainly gain this as a secondary meaning and you'll have to distinguish between Feudal technology and Feudal social structure.

Feudal worlds in the context of 40k lore has always appeared to have meant worlds at a medieval-ish level of technology, and usually an accompanying feudal social structure. https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Feudal_World

Are there worlds with feudal governments/societies and modern technological levels in the Imperium? Definitely, but they're not classified as Feudal worlds by the Imperium.

This is language changing in action here. A word takes on a new meaning.