Could We Not Have Just Left Them Alone? : A Postcolonial Reading of Horus Rising

Abstract: This essay is the result of a study on the science fiction novel Horus Rising, by Dan Abnett, which is set in the universe of the Warhammer 40 000 franchise. In the novel, the human Imperium is engaged in a colonizing project of massive proportions: the conquest of a galaxy. Due to the nature of the Imperium’s colonial endeavour, the analysis is based mainly on a postcolonial perspective. The aim of the essay is to show how the Imperium uses colonial discourse to justify conquest. My claim is that they violate the diversity and needs of the human race and that the human need of religion is used to resist the conquest. To do this, the justifications and the resistance of the conquest will be investigated, as well as the nature of the human race, i.e. what it means to be human in the novel.