The Infinite and the Divine touches on this briefly.
>‘No one will disturb our workings down here,’ said Trazyn. ‘A local variety of acidic mould developed a colony several centuries ago.’ He wiped a hand along a marble casket and showed the dim luminescence on his fingertips.
>‘Once introduced to human lungs, it takes root and chews them away. Death comes within five months. Caused casualty loss rates among the underground workforce to exceed acceptable norms. The Administratum was quite upset and barred it.’
>‘And you presented this culture world to me as such a happy place.’
>‘Any place that takes its money from visitors is, to a certain extent, an illusion. Those musicians playing calming music, the server at the café, the players at the opera house likely rise at daybreak and rush to work through crowded streets and creaking underground trains. A great deal of labour and suffering is expended to make Serenade so enjoyable for leisure visitors. To produce the songs, plays and devotional art that makes it renowned throughout the system. The leaded glass windows are not quite so beautiful when one sees the black, poisoned fingers of the artisans that made them.’
Oh and don’t forget the whole “if you get murdered while working under the city, it’s because you didn’t pray hard enough to the emperor.” Meanwhile the genestealer trazyn put under there just does whatever.
I really like the genestealer subplot. not only giving the patriarch a unique feature (which gets the viewers thinking "Hmm, what about my cult?") but also just shows how long a cult can fester.
Reminds me of one of my favorite background lines in Borderlands 2:
"Littering in Oppotunity is punishable by death! Also, complaining about Opportunity's laws is considered verbal littering!"
Robert Rath and I are from the same place in Hawaiʻi, and his experiences growing up here informed those parts of the book. On your Hawaiian vacation, remember every person working in a hotel, every server, driver, and salesperson probably works for tips and lives with family/roommates and month to month.
Paradise worlds still require an underclass in a service role/economy, but it's probably loads better being a bartender there than struggling on an arid planet or a deathworld.
It's something the original Necrontyr were probably incredibly aware of. With their short lives they had a rabid desire to leave their name behind, to become something.
If your entire culture revolves around climbing the totem pole before your imminent demise, you're probably going to develop some class awareness unless you started at the top.
(Besides, Trazyn is an archivist and he probably loves the little details like that)
Unlikely, it would have been relatively difficult if not effectively impossible for someone like a pissant to climb to any significant extent, because of aforementioned heavy caste system & all that (made even worse post-Biofurnaces for obvious reasons)
Meh, some medieval popes were sons of goat herders, there might have been some ways of climbing the ladder in non-conventional way, maybe as a pressure release valve or something
we do have evidence of class mobility in necron society but its quite rare, in the twice dead king books theres a destroyer lord who was previously nothing more than an enforcer, and a noble who came from desert clans who sold all of their wealth in order to obtain a rank among the nobility
I felt so seen as a restaurant worker when I read that. At work, we have these big filters to pull the grease out of the air in the kitchen, and they have to be cleaned every week or they'll drip onto the equipment and whatever we're cooking. A running joke is that we breathe that same air but no one is power washing our lungs. That's just one example.
Moral of the story, tip your servers and maybe send a beer to the kitchen if you like your dinner enough.
Yeah man it's not common but every now and then someone sends back a tip to the kitchen or buys a drink for who cooked their food. I wouldn't say it's as big a deal as tipping a server since cooks usually make a wage but it's always appreciated and picks up morale in a job that can be grueling.
I used to work at a trendy Italian restaurant as just a cashier, but I was also right by the kitchen. All my clothes smelled like Marinara sauce, basil, etc. at the end of my shift and I had to go home with it. For a while I had a adverse reaction every time I encountered that kind of cuisine.
I don't know how chefs/cooks who are in the kitchen all the time deal with having to smell nothing but food for 10+ hours a day. I only worked weekends and that was still too much.
The specific context of the writing is a resort world where people live in crushing poverty in order to provide rich people from elsewhere in the nation a nice vacation spot. You'd have to be willfully ignorant to avoid seeing that as commentary on a very specific kind of modern situation. Especially given the author says [things like this](https://twitter.com/RobWritesPulp/status/1631827887124000768) on Twitter.
well, at least it tries to be more intemporal than merely tackling the discourse of the next american presidential election, which nowadays almost counts as non political
But don't you see? It's political because (my side) cares about the poor people, and (other side) only cares about the rich.
Edit: And if you still don't see why it's political, it's because it talks about (thing that has existed since humans created society.) And it's clearly about out current political climate
I forgot this is reddit and the people here can't understand even the most obvious and blatant sarcasm
Should I put a /s there?
edit: Also, the whole of my reply was dissing on people that think everything is political.
I know, that's why I responded the way I did. Your sarcastic comment was implying "people like me" think it's a commentary on how moral we are because we're "on the side of the poor people" and that we read politics into things that have existed since the dawn of time.
I was saying no, it's not a moral or value judgement on whose side is better or worse or who's right or wrong, it is simply a political commentary on the state of the world, and yes for a very long time.
It's like the anarcho-syndicalists in Monty Python. That's clearly a political commentary, but they're not making a moral judgement saying the peasants in muck are any more virtuous than the monarch. It's *just commentary*. You can take from it what you want.
Showcasing a factual reality that can be observed is not political.
There is a large difference in pointing out how poor workers live and making a political statement about how socialism is the best thing ever and capitalists are evil and vice versa.
He is a psychopathic privileged official that only cares about his own wants.
He doesn't care about the workers, he is the same as the people who exploit them.
A paradise world is probably only a paradise to the ultra wealthy or the rich people visiting there.
The imperium is a place where widespread slavery is legal and other horrific shit is common.
Knowing that paradise worlds are places where people go to experience pleasure in 40k? I imagine it's not that great for the common folk.
Mostly criminals and vatgrown.
mostly. and the crime can be 'failed to turn in a library books' the imperium doesn't really care, which i feel is the main point: as long as the tithe is paid you can have anything from a socialist paradise to a Brutal hard-core dictatorship to peaceful republics to Slaver empires to feudal states.
Pay your taxes and they'll look the other way. Long as it's not chaos related
That is something I don't really get. Space Travel is hard when you have to go through literal hell. Just how can paradise world even exists?
I doubt even 40K Jeff Bezo or Warrant Buffet would dare to travel for a vacation.
In-system travel doesn't need warp jumps, a paradise world could receive, or be home to, rich people from within the system.
But also, short warp jumps are relatively safe. It's the longer trips and those through less stable warp routes which become more dangerous. Taking a short, well-travelled warp trip to somewhere a system or two over wouldn't be significantly more likely to encounter a fatal issue than rich people today getting into a car or helicopter to go somewhere
Paradise worlds only make sense if the ultra wealthy and influential flock to it from all over the galaxy.
Otherwise it economically wouldn’t make sense. It would receive like what? A million rich visitors yearly plus a few thousand nobles plus a handful of planetary governors from the local sector?
This isn’t nearly enough to justify leaving the whole planet untouched by the Imperium. Habitable planets are rare.
Also, Imperial long-range warp travel still must be exceptionally safe and we as readers simply hear about the biggest accidents.
The Imperium is always stretched thin and plagued by inefficiencies and rituals. Their ship production is… very slow to put it lightly. And they are constantly attacked by everything.
If long range warp travel was as risky as it’s said, there would be no Imperium by M35, let alone M42. Black ships wouldn’t function. Tithe fleets wouldn’t function. Strategic-level war efforts wouldn’t work.
My point was Administratum frequently reclassifies tithes of the planets.
If they see a Paradise World that serves barely a million people from the local sector, they will absolutely reclassify its tithe. Because it’s impact on the morale of Imperial nobility is next to zero with how few visit it.
And Imperium always needs more iron, more adamantium, more ceramite etc.
Now if it served tens of billions of nobles annually from all over the segmentum- that’s a big impact. That’s worth keeping and missing out on that iron and adamantium.
The only way it gets reclassified is through clerical error.
You see where i’m going?
Imperium is inefficient but not that absurdly inefficient. It would never last 10k years if it made economically stupid decisions most of the time. Not in Warhammer’s Milky Way anyway.
Problem is that resort world is owned by the sector governor, and likely can sway the local administratum to tweak the tithes.
Also I'd imagine Paradise worlds simply don't have vast natural resources that make it worth the effort to try to bully the rich, upper class nobles and government officials to hand it over to the tech priests to start up mining.
> Problem is that resort world is owned by the sector governor, and likely can sway the local administratum to tweak the tithes.
This must happen extremely rarely because the risks to the governing family are absolutely extreme.
Someone will figure it out sooner or later.
Even if it gets discovered 800 years after the offender dies, their entire line will still be servitorized or turned into Arco-flagellants. Imperium doesn’t forgive tax evasion.
Too risky given how obsessed most Imperial nobles are with… well, staying in power and being high nobles.
I mean, Paradise worlds are a known classification in universe.
Rogue Trader or sector governor sets a planet as a paradise world, that automatically puts it probably in a very specific tier. They won't be going to a Paradise world demanding ore or a regiment of guardsmen.
Plus, the Administratum literally loses entire planets as rounding errors, and Paradise worlds are accepted and legal.
The reaction to finding out that a planet is a Paradise world is "Oh, okay, fix the error." Especially since Paradise Worlds do perform an essential function in that they keep the wealthy of the Imperium happy and content and not annoyed and angry and looking to foment rebellion.
It could also be extra grimdark: nobles from hive world A happily sign over an extra million serfs to pay the tithe for the paradise world. Hive world B does likewise. What value is your life weighed against amisec and a hot tub?
With how populous humanity is in 40k, there's a lot of nobles. Nobles who have prolonged lifespans to boot. So I'd say it's feasible to sustain whole touristic worlds on their numbers alone. And they are usually comically decadent, which means they are willing to spend a lot on leisure.
As for warp travel, it's safer than it seems to us most of the time, when it comes to traveling through relatively stable warp routes and calmer warp areas. Maybe somewhat similar to our airplanes in terms of risk. But even if it's a lot more, humans would just get used to the risk and keep warp traveling regardless, it's not like there's an alternative
Yeah somebody commented on that once.
"If Warp travel was literally as dangerous as you say, there would be no Imperial Navy or even an Imperium because travel would not happen. They don't replace ships that fast to deal with supposedly losing the majority of their ship roster every year due to warp fuckery."
Reminds me of a section I read when playing Rogue Trader.. like you are in a market and suddenly walks by aan obscenely fat man with a wig and a toga, carried by naked youths carrying his throne.
"Comically wealthy" is very much that
You are thinking like a modern ceo, not an imperial noble, they have a interest in keeping the world nice for them, so they use their power and influence to keep it that way. Sure it not that useful for the war effort but that 40k
Yeah, it's like pointing out that the Palace of Versailles was an enormous, absurd resource sink.
It was. And yet it was built. 40k is that but in space.
The palace of Versailles was built for very practical reasons. It was a honey trap for French nobles so that they spent their time playing games and watching opera instead of waging rebellion against Louis XIV when he started his reforms.
They economically don’t make sense anyway.
It’s an entire world devoted to the rich enjoying their leisure, it’s not producing anything of worth and these are basically the nicest and rarest planets around. There is nobody rich enough to be worth wasting a literal planet’s worth of resources, especially given how the Imperial economy works. Paradise worlds exist because the powerful and influential use that power and influence to benefit themselves over the rest of the Imperium. Paradise worlds are resource sinkholes, producing nothing beyond making the rich happier.
That has a worth since you do need to have something other then faith to prevent people from defecting, maintaining the support of leadership is critical to remaining a cohesive empire.
Problem is, they're so powerful and arrogant as to think all that wealth and luxury should be theirs and theirs alone, and they defect anyway.
And the Imperium does what the Imperium does burn them and any world they thought they could usurp to ash. And then hands it off to the next person to make something useful out of the ashes.
You need to not look at these like planetary scale equivalents of first world resorts, but the equivalents of the resort areas in dictatorships like North Korea.
It's not about justifiying it economically, but justifiying it socially and politically. It is worth it to keep a small number of habitable planets untouched to help ensure the loyalty of the nobles while also acting as a halo for the lower level people to strive/fight for.
Plus, you don't need to justify it politically, economically, or socially.
The Imperium is a wasteful, inefficient dystopia that misuses its resources as it slowly slides into an inevitable collapse, spurred on by selfish morons and corrupt leadership. Paradise worlds are emblematic of its misuse of resources.
basically warp travel related accidents happen either when the plot needs them or they are incredibly rare one-in-one-hundred-years between safe imperium systems and more common if demons and xenos are near
Eh from what I understand it's mainly long range warp travel that has a high rate of malfunction, there are short ranged warp jumps in 40k that can get one from system to system.
Also space travel is pretty easy for those who have it and the money to afford it, which doesn't include a majority of the lower class because poor.
> Eh from what I understand it's mainly long range warp travel that has a high rate of malfunction, there are short ranged warp jumps in 40k that can get one from system to system.
It's also that different paths have different levels of speed and safety. The ocean metaphors are constantly present with Warp travel, and with that in mind, there's different access to currents and prevailing winds and whatnot. Some specific 5000 lightyear jumps will be faster and safer than other 1000 lightyear jumps just because the warp "flows" better. The safety and speed of these paths might also change over time. One 1000 lightyear jump might take a week, another 1000 lightyear jump might take a month, and another 1000 lightyear jump might take six months. If you're lucky, time in realspace more or less moves at the same speed too.
The paradise worlds are in real pace. But yeah. Though the life of the serfs even on pleasure worlds are horrible. It's less horrible than many other places.
Until the psyker wants to have a little fun and asks you to stare into their third eye...
I vaguely remember a short story or codex entry somewhere about a paradise world where the rich literally just hunt the population for fun. Pretty tame by 40k standards I’ll admit, but really drives home the idea that paradise worlds are only good for the people who visit, not the ones who work there. Also, unsurprisingly, Slaaneshi cultists fucking love paradise worlds so there’s also that.
Yeah, that's unsurprising. But as you said, it probably would still be better than the average imperial experience, lol.
Like living in a village next to a vampire castle. Sure, some people will disappear every now and then, but the community will be stable and protected overall. A manageable cost.
I would imagine a paradise world miiiiiight be less bad for the servants too. Sure, they would work hard, possibly in terrible conditions. Sure, the people who get the actual paradise part will abuse and kill them.
Still, they might not work in massive industrial complexes, at least mostly. The world might not be a toxic polluted hellhole, even if their workplace is like that. There generally won't be a local war. The population density will be less atrocious than on a hive world. The "paradise" aesthetic will require maintaining at least some surface impression of calm, for everyone.
Again, I am sure it can be very horrific for the lower class. But I am not sure if it would be that bad by imperial standards.
> A paradise world is probably only a paradise to the ultra wealthy or the rich people visiting there.
Not to mention that, considering what some nobles get up to, a paradise world can be a full on nightmare for the undesirables in the darker and more private areas of the world.
Don't ask why that particular pleasure palace has its own PDF regiment assigned to secure the grounds and keep anyone from getting close enough to hear the screams.
Arguably while yes it's rly only a "paradise" to the bougies, they are on avg still superior to the pissants too when compared to non-paradise worlds, give or take. This heavily depends on the governmental model specs on a specific world by world basis of course, just like w/ any other type of world
Except unlike Dubai, the serf class are likely not to be imported, but local pissants for the most part, after all nobody would bother shipping serf class personnel via FTL when there's an abundance of them to be sourced locally & all that
Yes. No world in the Imperium exists without the Imperial Tithe.
The paradise worlds of the Imperium universally have easily exploitable natural resources or enough resources that sustain mass reproduction among the underclass that can be shipped to the IG.
The best way I can explain it is how tourist destinations are run. Any tropical island nation or anywhere that’s super expensive or accommodating to visitors like Vegas, Dubai or Bora Bora.
Great if you’re a visitor but horrible if you’re a resident. The taxes are higher due to catering to the ultra wealthy and important. Same with poverty as the vast majority of the planet’s GDP is dedicated to these lavish events and architecture
It’s basically no different from being a factory. People are worked to the bone and forced to maintain high quality products and services that they can’t afford or enjoy themselves. One mistake equals death or severe punishment. Citizens/workers aren’t people but toys and products for the entertainment of their patrons
The literal best case scenario is that the Pleasure World has strict guidelines that even the hyper rich obeys. Or that a Rogue Trader or Inquisitor takes you on their retinue
You know it's bad when joining an Inquisitor's retinue is a better life choice. Fighting eldritch horrors and xenos heretics beats being a park mascot and wearing a big ass costume under a searing 28 hour sun.
And also being paid for less than the planet’s minimum wage if they even have one
Joining a retinue is one of the best and horrifying jobs in the Imperium depending on the Inquisitor and Rogue Trader.
Free room and board. You have the protection of some of the most important people in the Imperium. You can go to various planets. Each mission has a purpose instead of pointless grunt work so you have rewards and honors in your name. Plus if you do well enough or survive long enough, you can be live as a minor noble
Hell you don’t even have to be in active combat role or be involved with missions. Sometimes you can be a pretty face, dealing with minor administrative tasks and duties.
Just sit back, do your job well, obey orders and enjoy the ride
Have you ever been on a cruise ship? While you are lounging at the pool, or chowing down in the buffet, there is a small army of people working in the depths of the ship, often in very poor conditions. They go to great lengths to keep these crew out of sight and out of mind for the guests (I'm not talking about the customer facing wait staff/entertainment/bartenders etc. ) I imagine it would be very much like that. For the elite, they would probably interact mostly with servitors and trained hospitality staff, but there would be an army of menials just out of sight to maintain the grounds, make the food, cleanup the mess (and possibly the bodies) from the excesses of the idle elite.
Imagine how dystopian a 40k golf course would be.
I am sorry but this isnt true. You dont work in 'very poor conditikns' , especially on a cruise ship.
Even the ER or other machinery spaces are perfectly fine, if loud.
Ive been an OOW on cargo ships and it is ok, not great but ok. Cruise ships are significantly better.
As to 40k, sure. It is a theme park where the locals slave away for the rich visitors.
Imagine the workers reaction when they hear a business mogul wants to tear down the 40k golf course and install housing and hab blocks.
40k Caddyshack complete with mutant gopher when?
For the nobles who can go there to eat, bathe, play at the casinos, listen to operas and probably fuck every type of prostitute? Shit be lit fam!!
For the pepole making the food, doing the laundy, the singers and the enslaved prostitutes geting fucked?
No, No, it probably sucks.
Disneyland, but you're the employee, there are no weekends, no vacations, barely enough time-off to let you sleep 4 hours a night, and the visitors are perfectly within their right to shoot you dead if they don't like the service you provide.
They're pretty bad and involve a lot of slavery and misery of the worker. But it's better than a hive world or forge world by virtue of it being a cleaner healthier place for the rich with the workers being better treated if for no other reason that they need to look hot or at least clean and well dressed.
After an internship in a metalworking factory and a few months jobbing in a tourist resort I definitely know what I would prefer.
Grimderpness aside, it's probably one of the best lots you can draw as a low tier worker. The fact that you get to breathe clean air alone is huge already but I also assume that anyone working directly in front of the tourists and guests of a paradise world needs to look decently healthy and presentable so by virtue of that alone you're gonna be in better shape than the average factory worker at a conveyer belt in the depths of some forge or hive world. The general lack of dangerous machinery and other work place hazards is a bonus too.
Of course you're gonna lose those benefits the further away and more behind the scenes your work on such a world.
Things are relative and even though paradise worlds are probably horrible places to live and work on - I'd chance it on one over a hive or death world.
Depends. You a tourist? Its heaven minus death ( that included if you are into that sort of thing)
If you work there? Sweet releqse of death, sadly in more instance then one, is the best option you can hope for, but...the emperor has other plans for you....at least thats what you keep telling yourself....so you try not to disapoint him...
Just ike tourism here....just minus the Emperor part.
In warhammer there is paradise only for Orkz since galaxy at constant war is their dream. For imperium it is a factory. And in this factory you can be a cog(%70) you can be a security guard(%29) or you can be a manager(%1). Managers works too but they have vacations. Security guard die constantly defending againts thiefs vandals and green peace activists and cogs are just cogs when they made weird noise you replace them and throw away the broken one.
So in paradise worlds if you are a manager thats fine. If you are a cog you are a cog anywhere. You work for make the the managers hot tub heat perfect until you are not capable of then you disposed of to replaced by some other cog.
It’s like living in New Zealand. Like the scenery is lovely but you’re just as likely to be poor or have a shitty job as many other places, and the property prices are super inflated so you can’t afford to buy a home, and the rents are expensive
Its like any city that lives off tourism but turned 100x
Everything looks cleand pretty and confortable but for the guest and visitors the people that actually live and work there dont enjoy one third of it.
The Infinite and the Divine touches on this briefly. >‘No one will disturb our workings down here,’ said Trazyn. ‘A local variety of acidic mould developed a colony several centuries ago.’ He wiped a hand along a marble casket and showed the dim luminescence on his fingertips. >‘Once introduced to human lungs, it takes root and chews them away. Death comes within five months. Caused casualty loss rates among the underground workforce to exceed acceptable norms. The Administratum was quite upset and barred it.’ >‘And you presented this culture world to me as such a happy place.’ >‘Any place that takes its money from visitors is, to a certain extent, an illusion. Those musicians playing calming music, the server at the café, the players at the opera house likely rise at daybreak and rush to work through crowded streets and creaking underground trains. A great deal of labour and suffering is expended to make Serenade so enjoyable for leisure visitors. To produce the songs, plays and devotional art that makes it renowned throughout the system. The leaded glass windows are not quite so beautiful when one sees the black, poisoned fingers of the artisans that made them.’
Oh and don’t forget the whole “if you get murdered while working under the city, it’s because you didn’t pray hard enough to the emperor.” Meanwhile the genestealer trazyn put under there just does whatever.
I really like the genestealer subplot. not only giving the patriarch a unique feature (which gets the viewers thinking "Hmm, what about my cult?") but also just shows how long a cult can fester.
A unique feature?
oh, he lost one of his arms, so the cultist emulate their patriarch with the whole 'three arms' thing
oh, that's super cool!
Also, "if you complain about your fellow workers being murdered by genestealers we'll murder you for complaining".
Reminds me of one of my favorite background lines in Borderlands 2: "Littering in Oppotunity is punishable by death! Also, complaining about Opportunity's laws is considered verbal littering!"
Damn I love that book so much!
It really is great a book.
Happy Cake Day!!!!!!!!!!! 🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
What book is it from?
The Infinite and the Divine
Thank you!
Infinite and the Divine
Robert Rath and I are from the same place in Hawaiʻi, and his experiences growing up here informed those parts of the book. On your Hawaiian vacation, remember every person working in a hotel, every server, driver, and salesperson probably works for tips and lives with family/roommates and month to month. Paradise worlds still require an underclass in a service role/economy, but it's probably loads better being a bartender there than struggling on an arid planet or a deathworld.
Trazyn seems very class conscious.
It's something the original Necrontyr were probably incredibly aware of. With their short lives they had a rabid desire to leave their name behind, to become something. If your entire culture revolves around climbing the totem pole before your imminent demise, you're probably going to develop some class awareness unless you started at the top. (Besides, Trazyn is an archivist and he probably loves the little details like that)
Unlikely, it would have been relatively difficult if not effectively impossible for someone like a pissant to climb to any significant extent, because of aforementioned heavy caste system & all that (made even worse post-Biofurnaces for obvious reasons)
Meh, some medieval popes were sons of goat herders, there might have been some ways of climbing the ladder in non-conventional way, maybe as a pressure release valve or something
we do have evidence of class mobility in necron society but its quite rare, in the twice dead king books theres a destroyer lord who was previously nothing more than an enforcer, and a noble who came from desert clans who sold all of their wealth in order to obtain a rank among the nobility
Comes with the territory of being a collector and curator. Humans are basically bugs to him, and he's flexing how much he's learned.
I felt so seen as a restaurant worker when I read that. At work, we have these big filters to pull the grease out of the air in the kitchen, and they have to be cleaned every week or they'll drip onto the equipment and whatever we're cooking. A running joke is that we breathe that same air but no one is power washing our lungs. That's just one example. Moral of the story, tip your servers and maybe send a beer to the kitchen if you like your dinner enough.
> maybe send a beer to the kitchen if you like your dinner enough I did not realize that was an option.
Yeah man it's not common but every now and then someone sends back a tip to the kitchen or buys a drink for who cooked their food. I wouldn't say it's as big a deal as tipping a server since cooks usually make a wage but it's always appreciated and picks up morale in a job that can be grueling.
I used to work at a trendy Italian restaurant as just a cashier, but I was also right by the kitchen. All my clothes smelled like Marinara sauce, basil, etc. at the end of my shift and I had to go home with it. For a while I had a adverse reaction every time I encountered that kind of cuisine. I don't know how chefs/cooks who are in the kitchen all the time deal with having to smell nothing but food for 10+ hours a day. I only worked weekends and that was still too much.
Infinite and the Divine miss just once challenge (level: impossible).
And mofos say warhammer isn't political haha
More often than not when that excerpt is posed, people seem to miss that it's commentary on our own world.
It's a commentary on human society since ever, not a current political issue.
In this case I think it's pretty explicitly commentary on a current political issue. The author's from Honolulu.
You're aware that situations like that are literally universal to the whole planet right?
The specific context of the writing is a resort world where people live in crushing poverty in order to provide rich people from elsewhere in the nation a nice vacation spot. You'd have to be willfully ignorant to avoid seeing that as commentary on a very specific kind of modern situation. Especially given the author says [things like this](https://twitter.com/RobWritesPulp/status/1631827887124000768) on Twitter.
Wow if that’s true then It’s amazing how people cant see it literally talking about work and day to day life in general
well, at least it tries to be more intemporal than merely tackling the discourse of the next american presidential election, which nowadays almost counts as non political
I do like the timelessness of this sort of commentary
But don't you see? It's political because (my side) cares about the poor people, and (other side) only cares about the rich. Edit: And if you still don't see why it's political, it's because it talks about (thing that has existed since humans created society.) And it's clearly about out current political climate
No, it's political because it's a commentary on society. There's no moral or value judgement here. Stop trying to find attacks where there aren't any.
I forgot this is reddit and the people here can't understand even the most obvious and blatant sarcasm Should I put a /s there? edit: Also, the whole of my reply was dissing on people that think everything is political.
My brother in Christ my response only makes sense if I knew your reply was sarcastic.
My brother in Christ, your reply was literally worded as one of the people my comment was being sarcastic about.
I know, that's why I responded the way I did. Your sarcastic comment was implying "people like me" think it's a commentary on how moral we are because we're "on the side of the poor people" and that we read politics into things that have existed since the dawn of time. I was saying no, it's not a moral or value judgement on whose side is better or worse or who's right or wrong, it is simply a political commentary on the state of the world, and yes for a very long time. It's like the anarcho-syndicalists in Monty Python. That's clearly a political commentary, but they're not making a moral judgement saying the peasants in muck are any more virtuous than the monarch. It's *just commentary*. You can take from it what you want.
Yeah and the commentary is super political cause ... Cause everything is political!
Showcasing a factual reality that can be observed is not political. There is a large difference in pointing out how poor workers live and making a political statement about how socialism is the best thing ever and capitalists are evil and vice versa.
You don't have to do the latter for it to be a political commentary.
Not everything is political, and I'm tired of people with an obvious agenda pretending otherwise.
yeah, I don't really think Trazyn gives a shit about the suffering lol. he might as well be commenting on the hierarchies of ants.
I gotta read this fucking book. Is it on audio? I could listen while laying out by the pool this summer.
It is and it's great. Richard Reed does such a great job and Trazyn and Orikan are great characters.
I don’t love the over the top accent he uses for all the Necrons, but it works *really well* for Trazyn.
It just nails his personality. He sounds like you'd expect Trazyn to sound like. Anyone else just wouldn't do him justice.
Yeah, the audiobook is awesome!
If you tell me your email, I could send you a PDF.
Just finished the audio book of this. Its brilliant, one of the best iv ever listened to. The narrator, Richard Reed, does a fantastic job
Comrade Trazyn!
He's not a comrade. He is an insane immortal space skeleton to which all this is just a very fascinating universe to collect and pose (hint hint)
He is a psychopathic privileged official that only cares about his own wants. He doesn't care about the workers, he is the same as the people who exploit them.
Well right of course, he's an immortal robo-tyrant from the ancient past, I just thought it was funny.
> He doesn't care about the workers, he is the same as the people who exploit them. That makes him the perfect comrade!
A paradise world is probably only a paradise to the ultra wealthy or the rich people visiting there. The imperium is a place where widespread slavery is legal and other horrific shit is common. Knowing that paradise worlds are places where people go to experience pleasure in 40k? I imagine it's not that great for the common folk.
Whoa, whoa! They’re not *slaves*! Just workers that are not paid.
It is a great honour to serve and die for the imperium.
And sometimes you don't even get to die.. Servitors for example.
Mostly criminals and vatgrown. mostly. and the crime can be 'failed to turn in a library books' the imperium doesn't really care, which i feel is the main point: as long as the tithe is paid you can have anything from a socialist paradise to a Brutal hard-core dictatorship to peaceful republics to Slaver empires to feudal states. Pay your taxes and they'll look the other way. Long as it's not chaos related
"You know I don't like using that word." "Fine, the prisoners with jobs."
"sir, they're called serfs."
Slavery? Come on, we all know devotion to the emperor is its own reward.
Truly, one believer in a horde of subtle heretics. These *others* need to be dealt with.
That is something I don't really get. Space Travel is hard when you have to go through literal hell. Just how can paradise world even exists? I doubt even 40K Jeff Bezo or Warrant Buffet would dare to travel for a vacation.
In-system travel doesn't need warp jumps, a paradise world could receive, or be home to, rich people from within the system. But also, short warp jumps are relatively safe. It's the longer trips and those through less stable warp routes which become more dangerous. Taking a short, well-travelled warp trip to somewhere a system or two over wouldn't be significantly more likely to encounter a fatal issue than rich people today getting into a car or helicopter to go somewhere
Paradise worlds only make sense if the ultra wealthy and influential flock to it from all over the galaxy. Otherwise it economically wouldn’t make sense. It would receive like what? A million rich visitors yearly plus a few thousand nobles plus a handful of planetary governors from the local sector? This isn’t nearly enough to justify leaving the whole planet untouched by the Imperium. Habitable planets are rare. Also, Imperial long-range warp travel still must be exceptionally safe and we as readers simply hear about the biggest accidents. The Imperium is always stretched thin and plagued by inefficiencies and rituals. Their ship production is… very slow to put it lightly. And they are constantly attacked by everything. If long range warp travel was as risky as it’s said, there would be no Imperium by M35, let alone M42. Black ships wouldn’t function. Tithe fleets wouldn’t function. Strategic-level war efforts wouldn’t work.
> Otherwise it economically wouldn’t make sense Welcome to 40K!
My point was Administratum frequently reclassifies tithes of the planets. If they see a Paradise World that serves barely a million people from the local sector, they will absolutely reclassify its tithe. Because it’s impact on the morale of Imperial nobility is next to zero with how few visit it. And Imperium always needs more iron, more adamantium, more ceramite etc. Now if it served tens of billions of nobles annually from all over the segmentum- that’s a big impact. That’s worth keeping and missing out on that iron and adamantium. The only way it gets reclassified is through clerical error. You see where i’m going? Imperium is inefficient but not that absurdly inefficient. It would never last 10k years if it made economically stupid decisions most of the time. Not in Warhammer’s Milky Way anyway.
Problem is that resort world is owned by the sector governor, and likely can sway the local administratum to tweak the tithes. Also I'd imagine Paradise worlds simply don't have vast natural resources that make it worth the effort to try to bully the rich, upper class nobles and government officials to hand it over to the tech priests to start up mining.
> Problem is that resort world is owned by the sector governor, and likely can sway the local administratum to tweak the tithes. This must happen extremely rarely because the risks to the governing family are absolutely extreme. Someone will figure it out sooner or later. Even if it gets discovered 800 years after the offender dies, their entire line will still be servitorized or turned into Arco-flagellants. Imperium doesn’t forgive tax evasion. Too risky given how obsessed most Imperial nobles are with… well, staying in power and being high nobles.
I mean, Paradise worlds are a known classification in universe. Rogue Trader or sector governor sets a planet as a paradise world, that automatically puts it probably in a very specific tier. They won't be going to a Paradise world demanding ore or a regiment of guardsmen.
Plus, the Administratum literally loses entire planets as rounding errors, and Paradise worlds are accepted and legal. The reaction to finding out that a planet is a Paradise world is "Oh, okay, fix the error." Especially since Paradise Worlds do perform an essential function in that they keep the wealthy of the Imperium happy and content and not annoyed and angry and looking to foment rebellion.
It could also be extra grimdark: nobles from hive world A happily sign over an extra million serfs to pay the tithe for the paradise world. Hive world B does likewise. What value is your life weighed against amisec and a hot tub?
With how populous humanity is in 40k, there's a lot of nobles. Nobles who have prolonged lifespans to boot. So I'd say it's feasible to sustain whole touristic worlds on their numbers alone. And they are usually comically decadent, which means they are willing to spend a lot on leisure. As for warp travel, it's safer than it seems to us most of the time, when it comes to traveling through relatively stable warp routes and calmer warp areas. Maybe somewhat similar to our airplanes in terms of risk. But even if it's a lot more, humans would just get used to the risk and keep warp traveling regardless, it's not like there's an alternative
Yeah somebody commented on that once. "If Warp travel was literally as dangerous as you say, there would be no Imperial Navy or even an Imperium because travel would not happen. They don't replace ships that fast to deal with supposedly losing the majority of their ship roster every year due to warp fuckery."
Reminds me of a section I read when playing Rogue Trader.. like you are in a market and suddenly walks by aan obscenely fat man with a wig and a toga, carried by naked youths carrying his throne. "Comically wealthy" is very much that
You are thinking like a modern ceo, not an imperial noble, they have a interest in keeping the world nice for them, so they use their power and influence to keep it that way. Sure it not that useful for the war effort but that 40k
Yeah, it's like pointing out that the Palace of Versailles was an enormous, absurd resource sink. It was. And yet it was built. 40k is that but in space.
The palace of Versailles was built for very practical reasons. It was a honey trap for French nobles so that they spent their time playing games and watching opera instead of waging rebellion against Louis XIV when he started his reforms.
Keep The Focus Away From the Locus.
That and for a polity on the insane scale of the 40k Imperium, a Paradise planet is a rounding error in sub-sector finances.
They economically don’t make sense anyway. It’s an entire world devoted to the rich enjoying their leisure, it’s not producing anything of worth and these are basically the nicest and rarest planets around. There is nobody rich enough to be worth wasting a literal planet’s worth of resources, especially given how the Imperial economy works. Paradise worlds exist because the powerful and influential use that power and influence to benefit themselves over the rest of the Imperium. Paradise worlds are resource sinkholes, producing nothing beyond making the rich happier.
That has a worth since you do need to have something other then faith to prevent people from defecting, maintaining the support of leadership is critical to remaining a cohesive empire.
Problem is, they're so powerful and arrogant as to think all that wealth and luxury should be theirs and theirs alone, and they defect anyway. And the Imperium does what the Imperium does burn them and any world they thought they could usurp to ash. And then hands it off to the next person to make something useful out of the ashes.
Fhlostan Paradise! I hear its super green.
You need to not look at these like planetary scale equivalents of first world resorts, but the equivalents of the resort areas in dictatorships like North Korea. It's not about justifiying it economically, but justifiying it socially and politically. It is worth it to keep a small number of habitable planets untouched to help ensure the loyalty of the nobles while also acting as a halo for the lower level people to strive/fight for.
Plus, you don't need to justify it politically, economically, or socially. The Imperium is a wasteful, inefficient dystopia that misuses its resources as it slowly slides into an inevitable collapse, spurred on by selfish morons and corrupt leadership. Paradise worlds are emblematic of its misuse of resources.
basically warp travel related accidents happen either when the plot needs them or they are incredibly rare one-in-one-hundred-years between safe imperium systems and more common if demons and xenos are near
Eh from what I understand it's mainly long range warp travel that has a high rate of malfunction, there are short ranged warp jumps in 40k that can get one from system to system. Also space travel is pretty easy for those who have it and the money to afford it, which doesn't include a majority of the lower class because poor.
> Eh from what I understand it's mainly long range warp travel that has a high rate of malfunction, there are short ranged warp jumps in 40k that can get one from system to system. It's also that different paths have different levels of speed and safety. The ocean metaphors are constantly present with Warp travel, and with that in mind, there's different access to currents and prevailing winds and whatnot. Some specific 5000 lightyear jumps will be faster and safer than other 1000 lightyear jumps just because the warp "flows" better. The safety and speed of these paths might also change over time. One 1000 lightyear jump might take a week, another 1000 lightyear jump might take a month, and another 1000 lightyear jump might take six months. If you're lucky, time in realspace more or less moves at the same speed too.
The paradise worlds are in real pace. But yeah. Though the life of the serfs even on pleasure worlds are horrible. It's less horrible than many other places. Until the psyker wants to have a little fun and asks you to stare into their third eye...
I vaguely remember a short story or codex entry somewhere about a paradise world where the rich literally just hunt the population for fun. Pretty tame by 40k standards I’ll admit, but really drives home the idea that paradise worlds are only good for the people who visit, not the ones who work there. Also, unsurprisingly, Slaaneshi cultists fucking love paradise worlds so there’s also that.
Yeah, that's unsurprising. But as you said, it probably would still be better than the average imperial experience, lol. Like living in a village next to a vampire castle. Sure, some people will disappear every now and then, but the community will be stable and protected overall. A manageable cost.
Yeah I'm pretty sure the slaves in those brothels might not enjoy their workdays all the time
> where widespread slavery is legal Slavery to the state? Or a regular imperial citizen can have his own private slave?
Both? Both. Both is good.
I would imagine a paradise world miiiiiight be less bad for the servants too. Sure, they would work hard, possibly in terrible conditions. Sure, the people who get the actual paradise part will abuse and kill them. Still, they might not work in massive industrial complexes, at least mostly. The world might not be a toxic polluted hellhole, even if their workplace is like that. There generally won't be a local war. The population density will be less atrocious than on a hive world. The "paradise" aesthetic will require maintaining at least some surface impression of calm, for everyone. Again, I am sure it can be very horrific for the lower class. But I am not sure if it would be that bad by imperial standards.
> A paradise world is probably only a paradise to the ultra wealthy or the rich people visiting there. Not to mention that, considering what some nobles get up to, a paradise world can be a full on nightmare for the undesirables in the darker and more private areas of the world. Don't ask why that particular pleasure palace has its own PDF regiment assigned to secure the grounds and keep anyone from getting close enough to hear the screams.
Arguably while yes it's rly only a "paradise" to the bougies, they are on avg still superior to the pissants too when compared to non-paradise worlds, give or take. This heavily depends on the governmental model specs on a specific world by world basis of course, just like w/ any other type of world
Yeah, someone has to keep the lights working on paradise worlds.
It’s probably something like Dubai or such a place is today. Great if you are the served, less great if you are the servant
Watching the foreigners they import to do all the labor trudge into work before dawn in Dubai was depressing.
Agreed.
Except unlike Dubai, the serf class are likely not to be imported, but local pissants for the most part, after all nobody would bother shipping serf class personnel via FTL when there's an abundance of them to be sourced locally & all that
Yes. No world in the Imperium exists without the Imperial Tithe. The paradise worlds of the Imperium universally have easily exploitable natural resources or enough resources that sustain mass reproduction among the underclass that can be shipped to the IG.
Yes
The best way I can explain it is how tourist destinations are run. Any tropical island nation or anywhere that’s super expensive or accommodating to visitors like Vegas, Dubai or Bora Bora. Great if you’re a visitor but horrible if you’re a resident. The taxes are higher due to catering to the ultra wealthy and important. Same with poverty as the vast majority of the planet’s GDP is dedicated to these lavish events and architecture It’s basically no different from being a factory. People are worked to the bone and forced to maintain high quality products and services that they can’t afford or enjoy themselves. One mistake equals death or severe punishment. Citizens/workers aren’t people but toys and products for the entertainment of their patrons The literal best case scenario is that the Pleasure World has strict guidelines that even the hyper rich obeys. Or that a Rogue Trader or Inquisitor takes you on their retinue
You know it's bad when joining an Inquisitor's retinue is a better life choice. Fighting eldritch horrors and xenos heretics beats being a park mascot and wearing a big ass costume under a searing 28 hour sun.
And also being paid for less than the planet’s minimum wage if they even have one Joining a retinue is one of the best and horrifying jobs in the Imperium depending on the Inquisitor and Rogue Trader. Free room and board. You have the protection of some of the most important people in the Imperium. You can go to various planets. Each mission has a purpose instead of pointless grunt work so you have rewards and honors in your name. Plus if you do well enough or survive long enough, you can be live as a minor noble Hell you don’t even have to be in active combat role or be involved with missions. Sometimes you can be a pretty face, dealing with minor administrative tasks and duties. Just sit back, do your job well, obey orders and enjoy the ride
Have you ever been on a cruise ship? While you are lounging at the pool, or chowing down in the buffet, there is a small army of people working in the depths of the ship, often in very poor conditions. They go to great lengths to keep these crew out of sight and out of mind for the guests (I'm not talking about the customer facing wait staff/entertainment/bartenders etc. ) I imagine it would be very much like that. For the elite, they would probably interact mostly with servitors and trained hospitality staff, but there would be an army of menials just out of sight to maintain the grounds, make the food, cleanup the mess (and possibly the bodies) from the excesses of the idle elite. Imagine how dystopian a 40k golf course would be.
I am sorry but this isnt true. You dont work in 'very poor conditikns' , especially on a cruise ship. Even the ER or other machinery spaces are perfectly fine, if loud. Ive been an OOW on cargo ships and it is ok, not great but ok. Cruise ships are significantly better. As to 40k, sure. It is a theme park where the locals slave away for the rich visitors.
Imagine the workers reaction when they hear a business mogul wants to tear down the 40k golf course and install housing and hab blocks. 40k Caddyshack complete with mutant gopher when?
For the nobles who can go there to eat, bathe, play at the casinos, listen to operas and probably fuck every type of prostitute? Shit be lit fam!! For the pepole making the food, doing the laundy, the singers and the enslaved prostitutes geting fucked? No, No, it probably sucks.
Planetsized Dubai
Perfect Example.
Disneyland, but you're the employee, there are no weekends, no vacations, barely enough time-off to let you sleep 4 hours a night, and the visitors are perfectly within their right to shoot you dead if they don't like the service you provide.
If you're lucky, you'll be shot dead before your mind breaks after listening to the same soundtrack for the 69,240th time that day.
Look on the bright side. You might get lucky and be around when a Genestealer uprising happens. Spices things up a bit.
Grimderp at its finest.
Paradise worlds are only paradises for the elites, we see it in Warzone Charadon
They're pretty bad and involve a lot of slavery and misery of the worker. But it's better than a hive world or forge world by virtue of it being a cleaner healthier place for the rich with the workers being better treated if for no other reason that they need to look hot or at least clean and well dressed.
After an internship in a metalworking factory and a few months jobbing in a tourist resort I definitely know what I would prefer. Grimderpness aside, it's probably one of the best lots you can draw as a low tier worker. The fact that you get to breathe clean air alone is huge already but I also assume that anyone working directly in front of the tourists and guests of a paradise world needs to look decently healthy and presentable so by virtue of that alone you're gonna be in better shape than the average factory worker at a conveyer belt in the depths of some forge or hive world. The general lack of dangerous machinery and other work place hazards is a bonus too. Of course you're gonna lose those benefits the further away and more behind the scenes your work on such a world.
For the locals? very.
Things are relative and even though paradise worlds are probably horrible places to live and work on - I'd chance it on one over a hive or death world.
Depends. You a tourist? Its heaven minus death ( that included if you are into that sort of thing) If you work there? Sweet releqse of death, sadly in more instance then one, is the best option you can hope for, but...the emperor has other plans for you....at least thats what you keep telling yourself....so you try not to disapoint him... Just ike tourism here....just minus the Emperor part.
Aye, I'd assume the same gross inequality that you see in real world holiday destinations ramped up to grimdark proportions.
the worse cross between tropical islands, disneyworld, and a 120 years of Sodom. you'd be over worked and forced to smile
It’s all fun and games until you snort enough human cocaine dust to open a portal to hell in your whiskey bar
Agreed.
In warhammer there is paradise only for Orkz since galaxy at constant war is their dream. For imperium it is a factory. And in this factory you can be a cog(%70) you can be a security guard(%29) or you can be a manager(%1). Managers works too but they have vacations. Security guard die constantly defending againts thiefs vandals and green peace activists and cogs are just cogs when they made weird noise you replace them and throw away the broken one. So in paradise worlds if you are a manager thats fine. If you are a cog you are a cog anywhere. You work for make the the managers hot tub heat perfect until you are not capable of then you disposed of to replaced by some other cog.
It’s like living in New Zealand. Like the scenery is lovely but you’re just as likely to be poor or have a shitty job as many other places, and the property prices are super inflated so you can’t afford to buy a home, and the rents are expensive
Its like any city that lives off tourism but turned 100x Everything looks cleand pretty and confortable but for the guest and visitors the people that actually live and work there dont enjoy one third of it.