CARMENES: The Importance of Being Complete

Eight years, more than 70 new planets and almost 140 refereed publications after CARMENES' start of operations at Calar Alto and an introductory plenary talk at CS19 in Uppsala, it is time to look back and, why not, forward. CARMENES has not only discovered many planets around bright nearby M dwarfs, including many transiting or in their habitable zone, but has also characterized in unprecedent detail their stellar hosts (activity, astrophysical parameters, element abundances, multiplicity) and has even studied their atmospheres. As a result, CARMENES and its almost-volume-limited target sample, in concurrence with Gaia, TESS, XMM-Newton and many others, has become one of the most successful facilities to investigate the immediate solar neighbourhood (d < 20 pc). The contribution will summarise the most relevant CARMENES results, its near- and mid-term future, and its impact on the science topics of "Cool Stars as Stellar Systems" in general and the completeness of the solar neighbourhood in particular.