I originally pitched this game to my group as
Blackadder in Space; not the standard grimdark violence opera that seems to categorise most of the 40k universe, but something more along the lines of a British comedy series like Red Dwarf. At least, seems to categorise the 40K universe nowadays - certainly back at its birth, in the
old Rogue Trader era, it was written with enormous lashings of dark satire and comic humour - see
here.
Of course, the best way to do something funny is to play it reasonably straight, and let comedy emerge from the situation. This has worked well in play, but it's also lent a somewhat more epic, political tone to events - somewhere between
Game of Thrones and
Red Dwarf, a dynastic adventure dramedy. I think this is probably the sweet spot for Rogue Trader: Apocalypse play; somewhere between light-hearted and grimdark, epic and comic.
Media that directly inspires design & playBlackadder
Red Dwarf
The Ciaphas Cain novels
Game of Thrones
Farscape
Mara of the Acoma
The Borgias
Rome
The Eisenhorn novels
Into the Maw... on RPG.net