The universe of Warhammer 40k is not a very nice place to live. Everyday there are a thousand potential ways you could die and none of them particularly pleasant, but it’s easy to forget that, despite its grimness and its darkness, 40k can also be goofy as hell. Take the Land Raider for instance, an iconic Space Marine tank capable of unleashing devastation as it rolls across the land, raiding, if you will.
What if I told you that the Land Raider and Land Speeder are both actually named after the person who discovered their blueprints, a Tech Priest named, I kid you not, Arkhan Land. So no, not because they raid or speed over the land, but because they are Land’s Raiders and Land’s Speeders. It’s a detail mentioned in the Horus Heresy novel, The Master of Mankind (where Land features as a character), but I’d somehow forgotten it until I was reading the short story collection, The Burden of Loyalty, specifically, Into Exile by Aaron Dembski-Bowden:
“One side of the briefing display is given over to data relating to Arkhan Land, the Arkhan Land. The explorer and scholar responsible for so many expeditions into the ancient Data-Crypts of Mars’s crust and mantle. The man that brought back the beginnings of an anti-grav technology to the nascent Imperium. The man responsible for unearthing and sharing the schematics that lead to the mass production of the raiders and speeders, now seen in their thousands among the legions. Land Raiders, Land Speeders, the war machines are even named for him now.”
Land pops up a few times in the Horus Heresy—an irascible Technoarchaeologist who’s most memorable for his pet Simian (psyber-monkey) which rides around on his shoulder, but I didn’t realise that when this detail emerged it lead to the creation of the popular 40k meme, Jimmy Space, you know, The Emperor’s real name since he created the “Space” Marines.
The funniest part is that a lot of people originally assumed this was a retcon, until it emerged that Arkhan Land was actually named as the founder of the Land Raider in White Dwarf issue 129 in 1990. That’s right, only three years after the creation of Warhammer 40k, this somewhat minor Tech Priest character had already stamped his name on both Space Marine vehicles. It’s hilarious to consider that some of the oldest 40k lore surrounds this goofy-ass naming convention.
Not to say that Warhammer 40k doesn’t also have some silly naming retcons. The Legiones Astartes project (which saw The Emperor make the Space Marines themselves, the ‘Adeptus Astartes’) was later revealed in the Valdor novel to be named after Amar Astarte, a human scientist who worked with The Emperor. Many previously assumed they were named for Astarte, an god of war worshipped in the ancient Mediterranean, which would make sense when you consider The Emperor is from ancient Anatolia. But nope, turns out they’re just named after a person.
I guess it’s not technically a retcon so much as a lack of info and unreliable narration. There’s still so much we don’t know in Warhammer 40k, and I, for one, am glad I don’t have to say Raider Pattern Main Battle Tank whenever I want to refer to a Land Raider. It does make you wonder if there’s anything else yet to be named for someone, though. John Primarch, creator of the Primarchs? Frank Chaos, the original Chaos god?
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