Hive World
The Imperium's pet name for its Arcologies, cities on the scale of mountains. Once a world gets one, it ends up building more until it is more-or-less covered in hives, and we call the resultant mass of metal and humanity a Hive World. If you're not in one of the towers at the top, they're generally very shitty places to live, what with the gang-infested wretched hives of scum and villainy, starvation and hobos due to lack of resources, and forcible conscription for the Imperial Guard, and the occasional mutant tribes in the Underhive sewers, and such. The only reason the Imperium keeps them around is because they make great recruiting grounds for the Guard and the Adeptus Astartes. Yes, you read that right. A Hive World is on par with Feral and Death Worlds for recruiting Space Marines.
You know that intro blurb? "To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable." Yeah, that's life on a Hive World. Grimdark to the max.
The moral of the story is that organized urban planning initiatives should NOT be taken lightly.
See Also
- Armageddon, a Hive World and site of three wars.
- Cthonia, a Hive World and homeworld of the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus (subjected to Exterminatus after the Horus Heresy).
- Necromunda, a Hive World and the setting of the tactical skirmish game of the same name.
- Nostramo, a Hive World that served as the homeworld of the Night Lords (subjected to Exterminatus by Konrad Curze).
- Terra, the Hive World to end all Hive Worlds, as humanity was born there.
- Forge World, another sort of world, dominated by manufacturing and research rather than residential construction.