Girls Go Slash/Boys Go Bang
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the 9,000-year period between 15,000 and 24,000 CE known as the ‘Dark Age
of Technology’ is only briefly sketched out within official source material and,
indeed, according to the canon the exact details of what transpired during this
period has been either forgotten or censored from official Imperial accounts.
Consequently, fans wanting to write a story within this timeframe not only have
large vistas of time in which to situate it, but also very little in the way of
canonical constraints.6 There are also few canonical constraints for fan-authors
exploring the far—and, again, often officially unexplored—reaches of the
W40K universe. Indeed, it is completely possible for a W40K fan-author to
invent their own planetary system and fit it into the overarching canon. As
‘Richard’ explained:
. . . what I will say about the Warhammer 40K background is
that it is practically designed for fanfiction because it’s so
enormous and broad in scope you can put in anything from a
medieval background to a highly-sophisticated science-fiction
culture, you’ve got the soaring gothic architecture, you’ve got
the rat-infested sewers. You’ve got everything that you could
possibly want; every science-fiction and fantasy trope you
could imagine you can find in the 40Kverse.7
W40K fan-authors also use their work to both develop the stories of various
armies that have been mentioned but are largely ignored within the official
sources, and to explore the exploits of their own, invented armies. Indeed, one of
the defining characteristics of W40K fanfiction in comparison with fanfiction in
other genres is its almost complete eschewing of canonically established
characters and storylines. Rather than continuing the narrative found within their
favourite Black Library novel or writing another story featuring an established
character, W40K fan-authors are much more likely to invent a whole new set of
characters or to create a whole history about an army/race that was only
mentioned in passing in an official source published several decades previously
(c/ Jenkins, 1992:165-8 on ‘refocalization’). ‘Paul’, described how he had
written several stories about the ‘Rainbow Warriors’, a Space Marine chapter
that was covered in one page of the first edition of the W40K rulebook from
1987. Similarly, several authors on the Black Library forum have collaborated to
flesh out the history of the Silver Skulls, another Space Marine chapter that has
received little attention in official sources. As ‘Paul’ explained,
A new chapter gives me much more freedom. . . I’m not
going to be ‘overruled’ by Black Library releasing a Rainbow
Warriors novel any time soon I don’t think ;-) Also by making
it my own I’m essentially allowed to throw out/change
whatever I feel like without having to put [in] disclaimers
Indeed, even where fan-authors explore the build-up and/or aftermath of
incidents outlined within canonical sources, they invariably do so by placing