Humanity currently finds itself awash in data, generating over 300 exabytes daily through a mesh of connected devices, digital platforms, and increasingly autonomous systems. While this may seem extraordinary, it is but a prelude to the data-saturated absurdity imagined in the Warhammer 40,000 universe – a setting where information is sacred, dangerous, and often utterly incomprehensible.
This paper examines the intersection of information science and speculative fiction, tracing a theoretical trajectory from our contemporary data culture to the baroque, ritualistic data practices of the 41st millennium. In the Imperium of Man, information is no longer managed through transparent systems but is mediated by techno-clerics, guarded in vaults, and accessed via incantation. Data is not only fragmented and esoteric – it is venerated. Voidships traverse reality by interpreting psychic visions, and routine machine diagnostics may require liturgical chants and a sacrificial offering of sacred oil.
By drawing comparisons between today’s trends in data proliferation, storage, and automation with the narrative extremes of Warhammer 40K, this study offers a satirical yet serious critique of our evolving relationship with information. It explores how technological overreach, loss of epistemic stewardship, and cultural entanglement with machines could lead to a future where data becomes mythologised and operational knowledge is replaced by dogma.
Ultimately, this interdisciplinary analysis uses the fictional framework of Warhammer 40K as a lens through which to question the sustainability of our current data practices – and to ask, with only slight exaggeration, whether our most advanced technologies might one day require a hymn book and a flame-retardant cassock.
Author bio
Dimitrios Chatzinas has dedicated 30 years to Warhammer 40k hobby through collecting, reading, painting, and playing, continually expanding their knowledge even outside gameplay. He possesses an MSc in Records Management and Digital Preservation from Dundee University and works as a Records Manager for the Scottish Government.
