Apparently Event Horizon set the tone for Warhammer 40k and the evidence cannot be dismissed. The 1997 film starring Lawrence Fishburne and Sam Neil went on to become a fad among the tabletop gaming community. And Warhammer later followed the same path.
But you cannot help but notice the continuity the plot of Warhammer offers Event Horizon. Coincidence and very unusually fit right into the puzzle.
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
Blending some very critical themes of God, AI, and capitalism, Paul Anderson’s Event Horizon sets a bleak narrative with space and time at the heart of the story. A ship called Event Horizon resurfaces after several years of absentia. An investigative team is sent to examine the mysterious event and what they unravel is a grisly tale of horror and massacre.
To put the events in perspective, Sam Neil who plays the designer explains how the traveling mechanism of the ship uses black holes to travel the farthest reaches of the space. What they did not see coming is the path that leads through a figurative hell. The ship crew finds themselves in a ghastly space that has them under some kind of murderous spell forcing them to commit some of the most gruesome acts. Their bodies are discovered in the most horrid state describable. But worst is yet to come.
Come to think of it, the said hellish experience is similar to the one in Warhammer 40k experienced during the Warp travel. The place of Chaos in Event Horizon bears an uncanny resemblance to the world of Daemons and Chaos Gods called Warp. The nightmarish dimension is the path to achieve traveling speed that is faster than the light. Although there seems to be an advancement in 40k since they have figured means to keep the hell at bay so that it does not harm the members of the crew. They describe the technology as Gellar Field.
If this force field fails, it is the travelers who will be subject to similar atrocities as what happened in Event Horizon. Demonic invasion, hallucinations, evil possession, and insanity to name a few! If such horror causes irreversible damage to the vessel and the crew or demonic incursion occurs, the ship just floats in space or Warp like a husk. Furthermore when such ship collides with celestial bodies like asteroids or space stations they are addressed as Space Hulk.
According to the theory, Event Horizon was the first Space Hulk to be created after its destruction in the Warp. It is evident that that was the first attempt at using wormholes for space travel and unbeknownst of the horrors that lie ahead the crew simply chose to enter the warp without any defense. As a result they were unable to avoid the ghoulish fate. But the Warhammer 40k crew learned from the experience and created a strong defense mechanism to neutralize the Daemons and Chaos Gods.
Now Event Horizon may be a modest and practical outlook in comparison to 40k, but the timeline of occurrence and the nature of events occurring in both stories hardly seems like a coincidence.
If you watch 40k ahead of Event Horizon, it will help define an outlook that makes this theory believable. If you have already watched these films, try to do a re-run with this idea in mind and you might end up having a whole new perspective than what you had earlier. The parallels only make it a much more enjoyable watch than it already was.
